Girls’ Dormitory

Orrie Hitt

First published in 1958.

ISBN: 978-1-936456-13-0

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

CHAPTER 1

There wasn't any party for Peggy on her last night at home. She hadn't wanted one. A girl, she felt, didn't laugh and act gay when down inside, way deep, there were burning tears.

"We should have bad a big blow out," Otis Markey decided. "We should have torn the corks off a dozen bottles."

Peggy glanced at her father. He was a big man, red-faced and powerful, and when he spoke he pushed his head forward as though he were getting ready to ram it into a solid wall.

"A dozen bottles," he repeated. "Or two dozen." He slapped his right fist into his left hand and made a loud noise. "When my favorite and only daughter goes off to college she ought to go in style."

"I like it better this way," she said.

"Just a quiet evening with Frank?"

"Frank is all right."

Her father frowned and rubbed the side of his face.

"Well, you'll arrive at the college in style," he said. "That red Thunderbird ought to do the trick."

The car had been her third Thunderbird in less than two years.

"I'm not taking the car," Peggy told her father. "I've decided to go by bus."

"But why?"

She had thought it over very carefully but when she tried to put it into words she didn't quite know how to begin.

"Cooper Community College is sort of down-to-earth place," she said. "When I was up there for registration I saw plenty of old Fords and Plymouths but nothing fancy. If I drove up in a Thunderbird they'd think I just bought the place."

Otis Markey lifted a glass and took a long drink of the scotch.

"Is that bad?" he wanted to know. "Is it a sin to be rich?"

"You don't know how it was in high school," she said, "but I do. I had a lot of friends until you gave me that first car and then they all disappeared."

"Frank didn't."

"No," she admitted. "Frank didn't."

"You could do worse than marrying Frank," her father said. "A lot worse. The end of the school season he'll be out of Churchill State for good and I'd take him in the construction business with me."

Peggy sighed and looked out of the window toward the darkness of the driveway.

"We've been all over that before," she said. "I don't know whether or not I love Frank enough to marry him, but I do want to study something worthwhile."

"You call studying about social problems something worthwhile?"

"Yes. Yes, I do."

Her father shrugged and refilled his glass with scotch. "You don't have to study anything," her father told her. "When I die you'll be crawling in money—insurance, everything. And the business can go on without me. I've organized it that way."

"Yes, Father, I know. You've told me a million times, already. But nothing is going to happen to you."

"I'm fifty-eight." He looked at her and chuckled. "You came along late in life."

"Yes. You were almost forty."

Her father nodded. "Yes. Isn't it hell? Your mother and I had been married for ten years with nothing happening, and then you were there. We decided that you'd be the only one, that there would never be another, but—"

He stopped talking and returned to the scotch. He always drank heavily whenever he spoke of her mother and Peggy was pretty sure she knew what he was thinking about. She had been almost six when the other baby had been born—born dead—and her mother had died while giving the little boy a chance to live. Frequently, like now, she thought she remembered her mother and at other times she wasn't sure whether she did or not. All she knew was that her mother's dying had taught her that marriage could mean more than loving; sometimes it could mean death for the woman.

"Frank's late," her father said.

"Frank's always late."

"Too bad he doesn't want to be a doctor like his father. Doctors make good money, more than I'd pay a budding engineer. I'll bet Doc Taylor knocks down close to fifty grand a year. Maybe it's not as much as I make—me and my high school education—but you couldn't spit at it, either."

Suddenly, she wished that Frank would hurry up and come. Being alone with her father when he was drinking a lot always made her nervous. He would sit for hours and talk about how he had built the Otis Construction Company from nothing and how he was now the richest man in Warren County. He was proud of his accomplishment and he had a right to be proud but he usually managed to spoil everything with his drinking and his women. He liked his liquor much too much and he liked his women much too young. She hoped to escape both of these things by going away to college.

"Let's have a party," her father was saying. "Frank'll be here before too long and I'll round up some dames and a few other guys. We'll rip up the place."

"No, Dad."

He poured some more scotch into his glass. "Why not?"

"I don't know. I just don't like so much drinking all the time."

"I can afford it."

"I know you can. It isn't that."

"Is that why you're going off to school? Because of my drinking?"

"I didn't say that."

"Or because I have a few girls up here now and then?"

She knew, or she could guess, about what went on in the master bedroom. She was nineteen and she was old enough to know that some men couldn't live without a woman. But some of the girls were so young, hardly more than her own age, and she had found the situation slightly revolting. Even one of the girls from her own graduating class, a pretty farm girl, had gone with her father to the big bedroom at the top of the stairs.

"No," she lied.

Otis Markey emptied his glass of scotch.

"You're a funny one," he said, reaching again for the bottle. "Most any other girl as beautiful as you are would have half a dozen boys hanging around."

"Would they?"

"And you only have Frank."

"Yes," she admitted. "I only have Frank."

Her father refilled the glass.

"Frank is all right," he said. "Frank is okay." He placed the bottle in the liquor cabinet and closed the door. "But he's only one. And it's got me worried."

"Worried?"

His reply was slow.

"You know why," he said. "We've never talked about it directly but we've talked around it enough so that you know what I mean."

He turned and walked toward the open stairs, still carrying the glass of scotch. He moved lightly for a big man, almost as gracefully as a dancer.

"Are you going out?" Peggy asked him.

"For a little while," he said, starting up the stairs. "As soon as I get dressed. I can't stand this wake we're holding."

"A little while" to her father meant anything from an hour to all night. In the morning there would be dirty glasses all over the living room, bottles upset and sometimes, if they hadn't been able to make it up to one of the bedrooms, Otis Markey and some woman, more than likely only half dressed, would be sleeping on one of the davenports.

It was from this, she told herself, that she wished to escape. And, in a sense, from herself.

She turned, facing one of the huge mirrors in the room, and looked at herself. Beautiful? Yes, she had been told that she was beautiful, that she had a sensual shape. And she supposed it was so. Her hair was white-blonde, shoulder length and it was naturally curly. She could get up in the morning, toss her head a couple of times and her hair would tumble down in long, silken waves. Her gray eyes went well with her blondeness and her lips were full and red and inclined to pout. When she smiled, as she did now, her teeth were firm and white, almost perfect. Frank said that her smile and her body reminded him of some movie actress, one of those French imports, but she didn't know about that. She guessed she had a good body, but as she stood back, looking at herself in the mirror, it was difficult to tell. She wore a sack dress, a blue thing that contrasted sharply with her blonde hair, and it hid all of her curves. Her father, when he was drunk, said sack dresses were made for pregnant women or for women who wanted to look pregnant.

A car came up the driveway and she swung away from the mirror, wondering if she would ever get that way, wondering, a little desperately, if she would die the way her mother had died.

She waited for Frank, knowing what he would expect her to do on their last night together; knowing, too, that she would refuse him as she had always refused him.

He came in without knocking.

"Hi," he said.

He was a big man, over six feet, and he weighed over two hundred pounds.

"Hello," she said.

His brown eyes glanced around the room as he reached for a cigarette.

"Your dad around?"

"He's upstairs."

"Going out?"

"Yes."

Frank lit the cigarette and watched the smoke curl toward the ceiling.

"You should have had a party," Frank said. "Your father wanted it."

"Well, I didn't."

Frank crossed to the liquor cabinet and opened it. He removed a bottle of rye and poured a long drink into a tall glass.

"I wish there was a chance of changing your mind," Frank said. He looked at her steadily. "Is there?"

"No."

"All packed?"

"I sent everything to the railroad station this morning."

Peggy's father came down the stairs, nodded to them and left the house. A few moments later she heard the Caddy motor racing as he drove toward the main highway.

"I don't get it," Frank said. "You could go to Churchill State or any of the best colleges and yet you pick a lousy little school that nobody ever heard of."

"I heard of it," she reminded him.

Frank finished his drink and placed the glass on top of the liquor cabinet. He came toward her, walking slowly and heavily.

"You drive me nuts," he said. "And you know it." She didn't want him to kiss her but she knew that he would. He always kissed her. That was all he wanted to do when they were alone. Kiss—and the other. That was what made her tremble inside. Kissing was one thing, not really bad and not really good, but to go beyond that was frightening to her.

He kissed her, kissed her hard. She tried to respond to him but she couldn't. He drove his lips in against her mouth his tongue hot and searching, but all she did was lean against him.

"You're cold," he said finally. "Cold. Why is that?"

"I—I don't know."

"You'd think that was the first time I ever kissed you."

"I'm sorry."

He returned to the liquor cabinet and poured another drink.

"Want one, Peggy?"

"No."

He paused. "How come you never drink?"

"I just don't care for it."

The liquor made a noise as it splashed into the glass.

"I guess you've seen too much of it around here."

"I guess so."

He glanced up. "Or with me?"

"No, not with you. You don't drink too much. And there's nothing wrong with it."

"Then why don't you?"

"I don't know. I just don't."

When she had been sixteen, before the Thunderbird and the aloofness of the kids at school—or had this aloofness been her imagination playing tricks on her?—she had gone on a hay ride. The boy who had been with her, a senior who had later gotten into trouble with some girl, had encouraged her to drink a lot of beer and then he had tried to do something terrible to her. She had fought him off, screaming, and he had run into the woods, swearing at her as he ran. She never drank anything after that.

"A little shot would relax you," Frank said. "It really would."

"No, thanks."

He shrugged and let out a long breath.

"I've asked you a dozen times before," he said, "but I'll ask you again to marry me. Why don't you, Peggy?"

"You know why."

"You're not sure of yourself?"

"I'm not sure of anything. I wish I was."

"We wouldn't have anything to worry about. I've got enough money from my educational insurance to see us through the next year and your father has offered me a good job with his company. We wouldn't be like a lot of couples who get married while the husband is still in college and have to live on nothing. You might not have everything you have now but you wouldn't suffer. And if we needed any money my father would come across with some. He told me he would."

She felt like screaming. Why didn't Frank understand?

Why didn't anybody understand? Thinking about marriage was not disturbing until she thought of what would happen on the wedding night and what she would have to do, and then it was horrible. Horrible. She couldn't look at Frank or any other man and think of him that way and not feel ill. Something was lacking inside of her, something beautiful—at least people said it was beautiful—and desirable. Sometime, somehow, she would find it. That was the reason that she wanted to go away to school, a small school—to find what was missing and to find herself.

"You want to go out?" Frank was asking.

"Not tonight."

"You're leaving early?"

"On the seven o'clock bus."

"Why don't you let me drive you?"

"I'd rather go by myself."

He drank and they talked and nothing that they said meant anything at all. It was the same as before, always the same. He wanted to marry her and she didn't want to marry him. He wanted to kiss her and she didn't want to kiss him. But she let him kiss her and it wasn't until he began to paw her that she resisted.

"No, Frank," she said.

"Please!"

She tried to twist away from him. "No, Frank. No. Let's be sensible."

He pressed her tightly against him and one of his hands moved up and down her back, lingering at the spot where her bra cut into her flesh.

"Who wants to be sensible?" he demanded. "Besides, the way you've been acting isn't sense."

"Don't, Frank."

He kissed her mouth, her face, her neck and he would have kissed her lower if she had let him.

"I won't see you for a long time, Peggy. You know that. A long, long time."

"We can write."

"Write? What's the good of writing? You can't get any charge out of reading a letter."

"Frank—"

"Hell, I mean it." His tone was almost brutal. "Either you're kidding yourself or I'm being kidded and somebody is getting taken in."

"Frank—"

"You're no baby. You're almost nineteen and you know what it's all about. A guy goes with a girl and if he's a normal guy he looks for a little more than just a kiss or —well, you know. A guy wants the real thing from a girl, the real thing. And a girl, if she's normal, she wants him to have it."

Normal! How many times had she heard that from Frank, from her father? And how many times had she asked herself, blindly and helplessly, the same thing? Not once but a thousand times this question had pounded at her brain, numbing her body, making her cold all over.

When she looked at a man she saw nothing but ugliness. But when Peggy looked at a girl, a girl fresh and I young, she saw all of the beauty in the world. She knew that it wasn't right, not right at all, but there wasn't anything she could do about the way she felt. Perhaps after she got away from home, away from those she knew, she would find herself. Perhaps.

"Don't," she whispered as he tried to put his hand inside her dress. "Don't, Frank!"

"You let me once."

"That was a mistake." She had wanted to that night, wanted to prove something to herself, and then she had become afraid. "Don't, Frank. Don't."

"There's nothing wrong with you that a man wouldn't cure," Frank told her huskily. "And there's nothing wrong with you that I can't fix."

"Frank—"

"I ought to rip the dress off you, that's what I ought to do. I ought to strip you naked and then I ought to—"

"Frank!"

She kicked him in the shins. He grunted and she slipped out of his arms.

"Oh, Frank!"

She started running for the stairs. Why had Frank ruined everything? Why did men always seem to ruin everything? Why couldn't men be like women, soft and gentle, bringing to love a meaning that was deeper and finer than any physical act?

She ran, sobbing, up the stairs. He called after her, begging her to stop, but she paid no attention to him. He was like her father, like all men. He drank and wanted sex, drank more and wanted more sex. It was crazy, crazy, crazy. There was something more in life than that, something better.

She plunged into her room and flung herself on the bed, still crying. She wondered if he would follow her and hoped that he would not. Maybe she was being foolish, childish, but she couldn't bear the thought of him touching her—that way.

Moments later she heard the front door slam and she knew that he had gone.

She continued to cry.

Yes, there was something wrong with her, something terribly wrong.

She wondered, her face buried in the pillow, just what it was.

CHAPTER 2

Jerry Dixon yawned and sat up on the edge of the bed, rubbing his eyes and wishing that he could go back to sleep. "Hell," he said.

Sleepily, he glanced at the clock. It was only a little past five, just a few minutes, and he didn't have to start work until eight. Nobody would bother him if he laid down again and even if he slept past eight o'clock Mrs. Reid wouldn't raise a fuss with him. He grinned, thinking about it. He had such a lousy job that nobody else would want it and Mrs. Reid was well aware of that. What Mrs. Reid didn't know was that he liked his job. During the school year there were twenty-two girls in the house and some of them got lonely. Plenty lonely. Some of them got so lonely there was only one thing they could think of to do to pass the time.

Jerry reached for his shirt. In a place like Mrs. Reid's a guy made his rounds early in the morning before anybody else was up. He grinned again. Sometimes he changed beds faster than a chambermaid working at triple speed.

He buttoned the shirt across his broad chest and thought about Mrs. Thelma Reid. She wasn't too old, under forty, and she was rather nice looking in a sharp, refined sort of way. Maybe sometime if he got the chance—but, no, he wouldn't do that. Why should he knock himself out on an old hag like that when he could have something young? Anyway, she probably never thought about anything except collecting rents from the girls, and of her husband who had died and left her without any insurance.

"Not a dime," she often said. "Not a dime. It was a good thing for me when they started this community college or I'd have been out on the street."

Jerry had been with her two years, ever since he had come out of the army.

"You'll like it," she had told him. "You do the heavy work around the place and keep the yard cleaned up and I'll give you your board and room and forty a week."

It wasn't much, of course, but when he added it all together, the room and the board and the forty dollars, it was more than he would have made in a factory. He wasn't trained to do anything, except in the use of missies, and civilization didn't pay off on that, not a cent to a twenty-two-year-old guy who didn't know right from left.

Of course, he had graduated from high school but that didn't mean much. Everybody graduated from high school these days. He could run a typewriter but didn't want to run a typewriter. He could keep a simple set of books, if they were real simple, but he didn't want to keep books for anybody. He didn't, as a matter of fact, know what he wanted to do. And Mrs. Reid's was a good place for him to be, a wonderful place to remain stupid and have fun.

Down along the river, where he had been born and raised, he had been known as Studs. But up here on the hill, where the girls were more discreet in their language, he had lost the name and he was glad of it. Maybe it fit and maybe it didn't but it was a heck of a thing to have people shout at you along the street.

He had been seventeen when his mother and father were burned to death in a tarpaper shack. The only reason he had escaped the same fate was because he had been out on the river fishing for pike. There had been no other relatives, no aunts or uncles, no brothers or sisters, and during his last year in high school he had lived in a tiny room in the slums, cooking his own meals over a sterno stove and working nights in the stinking fur factory, sometimes until midnight and sometimes until three or four, never getting enough sleep, never getting enough to eat, never getting enough of anything—except Ellen.

Ellen had been good and soft and sweet and he guessed he had loved her. She had been a child of the river front, too, a beautiful child with wide blue eyes and soft blonde hair and a lovely, lovely body. She was sixteen when he met her, a little wild and looking for the love away from home that she had not been able to find there. On their third night together he had taken her to his room and he made love to her. He was the first. She had come to him every night after that, loving him, and when he went into the army she had cried. Four months later, when he learned that she had died as the result of an attempted abortion, it became his turn to cry. Her death had taken something from him, left him empty. No one since, and nothing that he had done, had completely filled that hollow spot. He supposed it was one of the reasons he lived on at Mrs. Reid's, that he didn't give a damn, that he went from day to day as though tomorrow would never come.

He worked his way into his pants and sat down on the bed and put on his shoes. He had to forget about Ellen. She was dead and nothing could change that.

He left his cellar room, just off the furnace, and climbed the stairs to the kitchen. He was glad that it wasn't cold or he'd have to start shoveling coal into that furnace. And that furnace used up coal fast. It went through coal the way the sun cut through a cake of ice.

The kitchen was big and far from modern, with a high ceiling and yellow walls and wooden cabinets all over the place. Beyond the kitchen was the dining room where some of the girls ate. Not all of the girls ate at the house; a few of them took their meals in restaurants and diners downtown. But the girls who wanted to live reasonably, who had to cut corners, ate at the house. Mrs. Reid, who had had a maid before her husband's death, wasn't much of a cook. She bought a lot of canned and frozen stuff and she managed to throw something together.

"I make good coffee," she frequently bragged. "The best in Youngsville."

Jerry looked for coffee and found none. He hadn't expected to find any. Mrs. Reid cleaned up everything before she went to bed, which was seldom before one or two in the morning. He wished that she went to bed earlier, or that she watched television, or that she went out, or that she did anything except run all over the house. A guy couldn't skip around the bases during the early evening in the Reid house; if he tried that he'd get thrown out almost before he left home.

He walked through the house, down the long, high hall to the stairs. At one time the stairs had creaked but he had fixed them and he didn't have to worry about that any more. Mrs. Reid slept in the rear of the house, over the kitchen, and she always kept her door closed.

He climbed the stairs and paused at the second floor landing. There were twelve rooms on this floor, not including Mrs. Reid's, and none of them were occupied yet. The ten girls who had arrived early were already assigned to rooms on the third floor. He had carried up all of the luggage and knew where each girl was located. That, of course, was important. There would be the devil to pay and nothing to pay him with if he got into the wrong room.

Jerry grinned and started up the stairs again. He knew where he was going. She would be waiting for him, just as she had waited for him during the past year, and now he could start making some money again. Real money. And boy, he could use it. The dame over on the West Side, a girl whose family had dough, was costing him a fortune. But she was worth it. Marrying her, love or not, was the only chance he had of getting any place at all.

He reached the third floor and walked down the hall, moving slowly. Mrs. Reid had been there when he had brought up the girl's things and they hadn't had a chance to talk, but he wasn't worried. Girls like Helen never changed. Once they started working their way through college on the flat of their back they graduated on the flat of their back. He smiled as he considered the situation. A girl with Helen Lee's talents should get a degree in sex, a degree that said she knew as much about sex as there was to know.

When he reached room thirty-three, he entered without knocking, closing the door behind him and throwing the bolt. Not many girls prowled around the house at five in the morning but a guy could never be sure. Once he had been caught in bed with a girl, by another student, but he had solved that problem and taken the second girl to bed, too. There was, however, no sense in pressing his luck; a locked door was safer than an unlocked door.

Except for two windows instead of one and the big double bed pushed up against one wall, room thirty-three was the same as the other rooms—blonde birch dresser, red rug on the floor and a chair that could break a person's back in one brief sitting.

He walked to the side of the bed and stood looking down.

Even in the dim light he could see her red hair, long and flowing around her face. One of her arms was outstretched, palm upward, and the sheet was low enough so that he could see that she was sleeping in the raw.

"Hey," he said, bending close. "For Pete's sake, wake up."

The girl stirred.

"You aren't asleep," Jerry said, "Stop trying to make it romantic. It doesn't become you, baby. It just doesn't."

Helen yawned and opened her eyes.

"You'd spoil anything," she said. "You're the world's worst."

"What's there to spoil?" Jerry wanted to know.

The girl sat up, careless about the way the sheet fell down around her middle.

"Nothing," Helen Lee said. "You saw to that."

Jerry sat down on the bed and reached for cigarettes. He lit two and put one between her lips. She inhaled and watched him through the smoke.

"I didn't teach you anything that you didn't already know," Jerry reminded her. "It was you who asked me, not me who asked you. Just remember that."

"Let's not fight," she said.

"All right."

She took one of his hands and kissed the back of it.

"What kind of a summer did you have?" she asked him.

"Lousy."

"Miss me?"

"Sure. And the dough," he admitted frankly. He filled his lungs with smoke. "The guys have been asking for you, lots of them. You can keep busy every weekend and every night that you can get free."

"That's good."

"I'll get you the same room on Kennedy Street and you can use that."

"Fine."

He tried not to look at her, but he couldn't help himself. She was anybody's woman for a price. But she was his for nothing.

"You have a good summer?" he wanted to know.

"So-so. I worked in Sullivan County."

"That should be a hot spot."

"It was in some ways but I would have done better in Atlantic City. Up there you've got every dame in the country chasing men and during the week the loose wives are all around. But it was okay. I could have done worse, but I sure could have done better."

Jerry stubbed out the cigarette in an ash tray, did the same with hers, and then lay down beside her.

"I don't like the idea of you having this double room," he said. "It's the only one in the house and you had to draw it."

Helen nodded. "I told the old bat I didn't want it but she said I was the oldest one here and that she might get in some young kid who needed company." She laughed. "Can you imagine me playing nursemaid to some silly dame who doesn't know what it's all about?"

Jerry laughed. "I can imagine it, but it doesn't fit. Besides, I just don't like this double room business," he said, kissing her lightly on the mouth. "I won't be able to come up here after you get a friend. It's going to be pretty inconvenient."

"I know where you sleep," she said softly.

"Or we can go out to the garage."

"I don't like the garage. It reminds me of that awful old man."

The garage reminded Jerry of the old man, too. He had met the guy in an uptown bar and the old guy had been so drunk he hadn't been able to get up the stairs to the room on Kennedy Street. Mrs. Reid had been away for the night, visiting a sister, so they had used the garage in back of the rooming house. The old man had been too drunk to get what he was paying for and just slept on the cot until noon the next day. But he had paid fifty dollars for all the trouble he had caused.

"I'm no old man," Jerry told her, feeling her mouth, wet and hungry, beneath his lips. "And I can prove it."

She put her arms around his shoulders and pulled him down to her.

"Prove it," she whispered.

And he did.

Later that morning, at breakfast in the kitchen—he never ate with the girls—Mrs. Reid told him what he was to do that day.

"Wash the car," she said.

"Sure."

"And dry it off after you do. I don't want a lot of spots on it."

"Okay."

"At one you go down and meet the bus. There're two girls coming in on it."

"Who are they?"

"Patty Cain. You remember Patty from last year?"

"Yes."

Patty was a serious-minded student who wore thick glasses, still showed the effects of braces on her teeth, and who had the shape of a wet shirt hanging on a washline.

"The other girl is Peggy Markey."

"A new one?"

"A new one. I might put her in with Helen."

Jerry drank his coffee and watched Mrs. Reid move around the kitchen. She had a young shape for a woman almost forty, and he liked to watch the movements of her breasts under the house dress when she bent over the table to pour herself a cup of coffee.

"You can do the lawn after that," she said. "I think it's the last time you'll have to mow it this year."

"I hope so."

The lawn was thick and rambling and there were a lot of rocks. He had wanted to take out the rocks and haul them away but she had said that the rocks kept the moisture in the ground. Keeping the rocks meant a lot of extra work for him. He had to get down on his knees to trim around them, and if he didn't do a neat job she complained.

She sat down at the table, pouring cream into her coffee, and he studied her face. It was a youthful face, as young as the students she boarded, and there was something sweet about her chin and mouth and hazel eyes. He could look into her eyes, the way he was doing now, and think of her as somebody young and fresh and very much alive.

"I got some paint for room ten," she said, reaching for a package of cigarettes. "Blue. For the walls. The ceiling is all right but the walls, where that girl taped up those Presley pictures, are a mess. As soon as you get done with the yard you can get to that."

"I'm a freak," Jerry said. "I was born with only two hands."

Thelma Reid laughed and when she laughed she looked even younger.

"Tomorrow then," she said. "Start it tomorrow."

"Yeah."

She finished her coffee and left the kitchen. He sat there for a long time after she had gone, smoking and thinking. She was a strange one all right, real strange. Sometimes she seemed warm and soft and at other times she seemed hard and cold.

Almost like Helen Lee.

CHAPTER 3

Helen Lee dressed slowly. She never ate any breakfast and consequently there was no hurry. She could take her time, unpack and then lie around doing nothing. Lie around and think. Think about what a stinking world she had been brought up in.

She was twenty years old and the people who knew her said she was as wild as a hawk. Well, maybe she was. There were few things she hadn't done and even fewer she hadn't thought about doing.

Her attitude was simple. The world gave you nothing; you had to take it by the horns and grab whatever meat there was for yourself. And you could never stop. If you did that, you were done, finished.

Helen had been born in the carnival, the daughter of Mable Lee, girlie dancer, and a magician in the side show.

"Art was a magician all right," her mother had often said. "He disappeared as soon as I got in the family way."

"For good?"

"For keeps."

Helen had been brought up in the carnival, smelling the popcorn, listening to the music and learning at a very young age about all the hates and loves that were a part of the city of tents. At ten she had seen her first man—with her mother—and at fifteen she had ceased to be a virgin. At seventeen, in an effort to remain in high school and graduate, she had gone with a man the first time for money. And she had been doing the same thing for money ever since.

She sighed and stepped into her panties, her legs long and naked and straight.

Men.

She hated them.

She hated the touch of their lips and everything they did to her. She disliked everything about them except their money. She endured them only because of that, or because they could, like Jerry, do things to help her. But some day, however, she would make it pay off. Some day she would make all of this studying and sex pay off in a big way.

She wouldn't be like her mother. She would never be like that. All her mother had was her body, and the attractiveness of that was fast leaving her. A girl couldn't count on beauty, and she couldn't count on brains. A girl had to count on money.

Money.

Helen wanted oceans of it, to swim in it, to drown in it. She wanted Cadillacs and furs and the finest clothes made. She wanted a French maid, and she wanted a home so big that she had to use a telephone to be heard from one end of it to the other.

She put on a sack dress, one of those things that so many people didn't like but which she did. It was red, red as her hair, and the belt was down below her knees. It didn't show off her bustline or her hips but that wasn't very important. The men who bought her paid for what was underneath. Sometimes she wondered if they were aware of what really was underneath—the hate and the loathing.

"You love me, honey?" they would ask. And she would lie.

"Yes, I love you."

"Just for now?"

"What more do you want?"

Some of them wanted to go steady with her—going steady meant giving it away for nothing—and some of them, the married ones mostly, wanted to set her up in an apartment.

She accepted none of their offers. She was a free agent and she was indebted only to Jerry. Jerry established contacts for her, received a percentage of her earnings and treated her squarely. But she hated him, too. She hated him because of that one thing he took from her. She hated him because he was a man and, like all men, he used a woman for his pleasure.

Her lips formed an oval as she applied lipstick. Sometimes she wondered why she continued to let Jerry have her, to pay him money. She didn't need him. Youngsville was an open town—the police never bothered anybody except couples who went to the city park—and she could make as much working in one of the houses weekends as she could fooling around this way. There were three houses of prostitution in the city, maybe another one, and only one of these had a five-dollar top. The boys from the college went to this one to get their kicks, but they stayed away from the other two which charged fifteen and up. The woman had told her that she could get twenty and twenty-five, she was that young and that pretty. But she had thought about it before and she thought about it again now. But finally, she rejected the idea. She guessed she was safer this way. A house could be raided—somebody running for office might want to make a big splash —and her room on Kennedy Street was safe. Jerry watched the house when she was up there with a man and she knew that she didn't have to worry when Jerry was around. He was big and powerful, unafraid, and he could handle anybody, even a cop. One night one of her customers had tried to hurt her, get her to do something that she didn't want to do, and Jerry had busted into the room and wracked the guy up good. She had felt closer to him that night, closer than she had ever felt to any man, but in the morning it had been gone, a horrible memory that she wanted to forget.

She unpacked, using only two drawers in the dresser and feeling more cheerful than she had felt in a long time. The thought of having another girl in with her was stimulating. Last year, secretly, she had wanted this room, wanted it desperately, and now she had it. A girl sharing the room with her would serve several purposes. It would keep Jerry from bothering her so much, she wouldn't be so lonely—and Thelma Reid might leave her alone. Of the three she was more concerned about Thelma Reid. There was something haunting about Thelma's hazel eyes, a veiled challenge that she didn't quite know how to meet. Nor did she understand why Thelma came into her room always wearing a negligee that dipped open, revealing much of her body. And Thelma asked her the strangest questions. Did she have a light? Hell, there were matches all over the place. Had the water been hot enough? All Thelma had to do was turn on a faucet to get her answer to that one. Questions, lots of questions, silly questions. They didn't make sense and yet Helen felt there was something behind them, something deep and mysterious.

Helen finished unpacking, lit a cigarette and walked to one of the windows. Down below Jerry was in the driveway washing the car. He was stripped down to the waist, bare and brown, and when he made giant sweeps with the sponge she could see his muscles ripple.

She smiled as she watched him.

She wasn't afraid of Jerry.

She could handle Jerry. If he couldn't come to her room she could go to his now and then, just to please him and keep him happy, and if she couldn't visit him there they could use the room on Kennedy Street. Jerry hated making love in the room on Kennedy Street. He said it made him feel like one of the paying customers and that upset him. She smiled again, thinking about it.

But suddenly, she remembered something. One night they had been there for hours, countless hours, and for a while she had thought she was reaching the summit, that she was crossing an unseen bridge into a new and exciting world. But it had ended for her the way it always ended. She had been hurt and disgusted and after he had gone she had laid upon the bed and cried. She had cried for her mother and for herself and for all of the things that she did not feel. She had cried because men were violent and awful, because her body was cold, because none of the beauty that should be there ever came to her.

She turned away from the window, feeling helpless and lost. Why was she that way? Why wasn't she like other girls, girls who joked about men, girls who said that a man's body was the path to the wonders of living? Why did she have to be different? Why, why, why?

But Helen was not stupid.

She knew why.

And it scared her.

The thought of another girl sharing her room, of undressing before her, scared her, but it was something that she had to face, something that she must, ultimately, conquer. Life was a series of battles, from within and from without, and she had to struggle constantly against her own desires. At school she watched the girls, the pretty girls, and she wondered if they were as pretty as they seemed, if they were as gentle and as soft as they looked. Nights she had lain on her bed, thinking of the girl in the next room, the girls on either side, wondering what they were doing, picturing in her own mind the beauty which they had. The experiences had left her shaken and disturbed, creating a self-hate which she had passed on to the men who had bought her body.

"You're frigid," some of them had told her.

She was.

"You're wonderful," they told her later.

She had learned how to fake love, to moan when she was supposed to moan, to cry when she was supposed to cry, to cling to a man, twisting and turning, when she was expected to cling to him as if he were the only thing in the world. Yes, she had learned all of these things and she had learned them well. She had studied men the way a student studies a textbook. She could pass her exam. She could pass it any hour of the day or night.

But she did not know herself. And that was the hell of it. She knew so little about herself that she couldn't ask one question and get a straight answer.

Create a problem and solve it, people said; get yourself in a mess and then dig out of it. And that, in a sense, was what was happening to her. The problem would be the other girl, whoever she might be, her nearness, her body, and she would win her battle by ignoring her own desires and frustrations. By the end of the school year, by the time she graduated, she would know that she was a woman, all woman, that there was no twilight strain in her blood. After that she would go ahead according to her plan. She would get a job in a large corporation as a secretary and she would be efficient. She would keep herself beautiful at all times and she would aim for a man who had money, lots of money. When she found him, married or single, she would put her hooks into him, drive them in deep, and she would never let him go. Marriage would not be important. If he gave her what she wanted—money, money, money—that was all that mattered. She would give him her body in exchange for cash. Even if she could not lick this thing churning within her —her coldness and her crazy desire for her own kind—she would be able to give him his money's worth.

She looked up as the door opened and Thelma Reid came in. Thelma, Helen was glad to note, was fully dressed.

"I was wondering if you were comfortable," Thelma said.

"Yes. Very."

"Anything you need?"

"No, nothing."

"Did you have a nice summer?"

"Oh, yes. Fine."

Thelma Reid smiled. "I'm putting another girl in with you," she said. "She'll be here shortly after lunch."

"All right."

"I hope you two get along."

"I'm sure we will."

"She was here in August and she seemed very nice. She wanted a room by herself but she's new this year and I thought she ought to have somebody who could help her."

"That's a good idea."

"I think so, too."

Thelma said that it was hot and she unbuttoned the two top buttons on her dress. She always said it was hot, whether it really was or not, and if she was wearing a dress she always unbuttoned the top of it. Helen could see Thelma's pink bra and the dark cleavage between her breasts. She tried not to notice but she felt something stirring within her and she continued to look.

"Well, I'll start lunch," Thelma said, blowing a loose strand of hair away from her face. "Is there anything special that you want?"

"No, thanks."

"Just yell if there is."

"I will."

Thelma went out and Helen stared at the closed door. She could still smell Thelma's perfume and it smelled good, rich and fine. She took a deep breath, drinking in the odor, and hunted for another cigarette.

She noticed then that her hands were shaking.

CHAPTER 4

Cooper community college was like hundreds of other community colleges all over the country. The buildings were old, part of an estate which had been donated to the county, and the enrollment was low. There were no dormitories on the grounds, just classrooms, and all of the kids lived away from the campus. About ninety percent of the students were locals from the county, traveling every day from their homes by train or bus or driving old cars that made lots of noise. Most of the girls and boys were from poor families and unable to afford the tuition at more expensive schools. A lot of them held odd jobs, working weekends and nights to help support themselves.

Peggy liked the school. The instructors were friendly, classmates equally friendly and her board and room at Mrs. Reid's was more than satisfactory. For the first time in her life she was out from under the shadow of her father and it was a glorious feeling. She didn't have to listen to the kids saying how rich she was and hating her for it, and she didn't have to worry about Frank pawing her every chance he got. She could laugh and be herself and make friends on the basis of her own personality. And she made several friends and, of course, she considered Helen Lee her best one. That was only natural. Helen had been helpful and understanding during her initial, temporary loneliness and she knew her way around the college.

"Bus is the best way to get out there," Helen said. "You can catch it on the corner and get off at the main gate. But walking is cheaper. You take thirty cents a day, both ways, and it adds up."

So they walked.

Peggy knew very little about Helen Lee. The girl never talked about her parents and she was very quiet in the room. Helen was taking a business course, the final year, and she seemed to be very studious.

"I'm going to be the best damned secretary in seven states," Helen often said. "The executive who gets me will have a real whiz on his hands."

Peggy was tempted to tell her, in confidence, that her father could use a good girl in his office but she soon decided against that. At the dormitory she was known as a chic dresser from an average family and it was better to let things remain that way. If anybody knew she had ten thousand dollars in her checking account they would either be after her for her money or they would stay away from her as though she had the plague. She wanted neither to happen.

Her father wrote once a week, short letters that told her nothing. One week he was going up to Canada to see about a job and the next week he had sent somebody else. She suspected, though for no particular reason, that he had found another woman and that he didn't want to leave her. She answered her father's letters, telling him that she liked the school, and promising to send along some pictures as soon as she took some.

Frank wrote once, a long, rambling letter with kiss marks on the bottom. He hadn't realized what he had been doing that night at the house and would she please forgive him? It was only a little over three hundred miles from Churchill to Cooper and if she said everything was all right he would drive down some weekend and see her. She tore up his letter, deliberately destroying the address, and she never heard from him again.

Several boys at Cooper tried to date her, nice boys, but she laughed and put them off. A lot of the girls couldn't understand her.

"I'd go out with anything that wore pants," Marie Thatcher said.

Marie was an ugly looking thing who wore strange looking glasses and walked with a waddle. She boarded at Mrs. Reid's and she ate twice as much as anybody else, favoring potatoes and meat and gobbling down all the dessert she could get her hands on.

"She's a pig," Helen observed.

Peggy refused to comment about Marie, other than to say she felt sorry for her, but she knew Helen expressed the view of most of the girls.

"And that Cathy Barnes," Helen said. "Have you noticed how she dresses?"

Cathy was the fashion-girl type, petite and with a slightly under-developed body, who dressed in black—black sweaters, black skirts, black dresses, black everything. She was crazy about the boys, wild over them, and she would throw her homework aside to go on a date for a coke. It was all a boy had to buy Cathy. For a coke and a smile he could have what he wanted.

Most of the girls at Mrs. Reid's, however, were sincere about what they were trying to do. Nearly all of them were on strict budgets and a few of them had extra jobs in the soda fountains or the stores around the city. One of these girls was Evelyn Carter, who worked in the five and ten every chance she got, saved every dime that she could, and prayed that the dean wouldn't kick her out of Cooper.

"The baby isn't due until May," she said, "and if it holds off the way the first one does sometimes I could get through my exams."

The officials at the college thought Evelyn was married but all of the girls at Mrs. Reid's knew that she wasn't. She had met an artist during the summer at the lake resort where she worked, and she hadn't found out until it was too late that he was married and had two children.

"If it wasn't for his religion he would divorce his wife," Evelyn stated firmly. "I know he would."

"Sure," Helen agreed. "And if it wasn't because he'd bleed he'd cut his throat."

That made Evelyn cry and she ran out of the room.

"Damn men," Helen said later. "They get a girl that way and then they leave her. They ought to be shot."

"Yes. Or something else."

One afternoon when Helen and Peggy left the school it was snowing, but the snow quickly changed to rain and in a matter of moments they were both soaking wet.

"Let's get a cab," Peggy suggested.

"Where?"

"Well, there ought to be one along. If we wait on one of these corners—"

"You don't know this town," Helen said, kicking along through the gathering slush. "As soon as it storms all of the cabs gather downtown around the bus station and the railroad station. They get the commuters as they come in and they pick up a few fast bucks."

The college was located in the northern part of the city, near the city limits. In fact, some of the land extended into the county and this was where the school officials said any new buildings would be constructed.

"I hate to get soppy wet," Peggy said. "It's a good way to catch a cold."

Helen shivered and nodded her agreement.

"The thing to do is take a hot shower," Helen said. "As soon as we get to the house."

"If there's any hot water."

The hot water was always running out at Mrs. Reid's. It was a constant race to see who could wash their stockings and underthings first, before the water started running cold.

"Jerry says Mrs. Reid doesn't have a big enough boiler," Helen said. "He says that she ought to have a great big one run by automatic gas and not one of those pot stove things that she has."

Peggy had met Jerry several times. She hadn't thought very much about him but at the moment she guessed that she didn't like him. He was big and strong and whenever he looked at her she felt as though she were being mentally undressed. Some of the other girls said the same thing, but a few of them, those like Evelyn, said he could be wonderful, just wonderful. And Peggy knew what was meant by that.

It was growing dark when they reached Mrs. Reid's and the rain was coming down harder than ever. Their wet shoes made funny sounds as they crossed the front porch and Helen opened the door. Inside it was warm, almost hot, and Peggy could smell the steam from the radiators.

There was no one in the large living room; few, if any, of the girls had yet arrived from school, and those who worked in the stores never got in until around seven or later.

"We're in luck," Helen exclaimed as they started up the stairs. "There'll be hot water all over the place."

But there wasn't. The water was barely warm and when Helen returned to their room from the bathroom, wrapped in a red robe, she made an unkind and vulgar remark about Jerry Dixon.

"The lazy bum," Helen said. "I bet he's been goofing off all afternoon."

"The walk was shoveled when we came in." Peggy didn't know why she was defending Jerry; he meant nothing to her. "Maybe he was so busy outside that he forgot to take care of the pot stove."

"Maybe."

Peggy began to undress, pulling the wet dress up over her head. Helen watched her silently for a moment.

"I didn't take my shower," Helen said as Peggy hung the dress near the radiator. "I thought you wanted to take one, too, but the only way we'll both get one is to take it together."

Peggy paused and fingered her wet slip. She realized, suddenly, that she had never seen Helen completely naked, nor had she ever entirely undressed in front of Helen. They had seen each other in panties and bras but in nothing less. She suddenly knew that, as far as she was concerned, the avoidance of such a thing had been deliberate. She had never exposed herself to anyone, not even to another girl or to a doctor, and nights when she had gotten ready for bed—and she was always first in bed—she had put on her shortie nightie before unhooking her bra or slipping out of her panties. And after she was in bed, she had turned her face to the wall, not watching as Helen moved around the room, dropping her clothes all over the place. Later, when they were in bed together, she always pressed against the wall, wondering about the almost naked body beside her, her mouth dry and her hands trembling. Sometimes she dreamed of a gentle girl loving her, of soft flesh beneath her fingers, and when she awoke she felt disturbed and restless. She knew that the edge of the pit to which her mind walked was wrong, very wrong, but she had no control over it.

"I won't bother taking a shower," Peggy heard herself saying. "You go ahead."

"You're shaking."

"Am I?"

"Yes. You must be cold."

She was cold. Her underwear was soaked and cold to her flesh.

"I'm all right."

"You would feel better if you took a shower."

Peggy looked at the girl in the red robe, knowing that the rich and creamy flesh was ripe and flowing underneath.

But to refuse was to run. And to run was to admit that inside she was weak, that inside she was different from the other girls she knew.

"I—okay."

She was not weak. She was not different. She was a girl growing up, a girl finding herself. She had nothing to fear, nothing. She was the same as other girls, just the same. All she had to do was prove it to herself and then she would be free of this ghastly fear.

"I'll wait for you in the bathroom," Helen said. "But hurry. Somebody on the second floor may get into the act and we won't have any hot water at all."

"I'll hurry."

The door closed behind Helen and Peggy stripped out of her slip, panties and bra. She got a gray robe from the closet, and shrugged into it. Some of the other girls ran up and down the halls stark naked but she would never do that; there was something indecent about it.

She found Helen waiting for her in the bathroom at the end of the hall. She had already removed her robe and was standing in the shower.

"Don't waste any time," Helen said. "Somebody else is using the hot water; I can hear it running in the pipe."

Peggy, trying not to be frightened, fumbled with the belt and took a deep breath. Not looking at Helen, not daring to, she slid out of the robe and placed it over the back of a straight wooden chair. If only she didn't feel a guilt that she shouldn't feel. If only…

She stepped into the shower.

The shower was small and their bodies touched as Helen drew the curtain closed.

"The water isn't very hot," Helen said.

It wasn't. The water was lukewarm, almost cool, and as Peggy felt the needle spray find her she shuddered and reached for the golden body that was so warm and so close.

"I—I didn't mean to." She heard herself whispering.

But she had meant to. The turmoil that raged now, the thing that clawed within her, made the tears come burning into her eyes.

The water stopped running.

"It's all right," Helen said, her voice husky. "It's perfectly all right."

"I—I touched you."

"I know." There was a short silence. "I wanted you to."

"Did—did you?"

"Yes." There was another silence, broken only by the drip of the water. "The same way that I want to touch you. The same way I have wanted to touch you for days and days."

Peggy was aware of Helen leaving the shower, of stepping from it herself, of hearing the lock being snapped shut on the door. Suddenly, her whole body shaking, she was filled with a horrible shame—and a mounting sense of excitement.

Maybe it was wrong not to stop, but she didn't.

And maybe it was wrong to feel this way, but she did.

She let out a little cry as soft hands came to her, wet little hands that needed love.

"Helen," she whispered. "Oh, Helen!"

Helen did not speak.

Outside, the fury of the storm lashed against the window.

CHAPTER 5

Jerry found the driving very rough and rugged from the West End. The snow was piled high, pushed up into the middle of the streets by the plows, and the flakes were still coming down so fast that the tracks were quickly filled.

At the corner of Vine and Fogarty the rear wheels on the car began to spin and the engine coughed and died. Jerry started to sweat and push down on the starter. All he had to do was get Mrs. Reid's car stuck in the snow, or burn out the clutch, and he could start looking for another happy home. He wouldn't be so worried if she knew that he had taken the car but she didn't. She was visiting her sister; and he had had to get out to the West End and see that dame. So he had taken the car and he had gone to the West End and he had found the dame. She had been angry because one of the checks he had given to some guy in a bar had bounced and the guy in the bar had called her home, talked to her father and raised all kinds of hell. On the way back Jerry had made the check good with the fellow at the bar but he guessed he was all tangled up with the dame. Strangely enough, he didn't much care. She was just a dame, prettier than some and not as pretty as others, and she had cost him a bundle of dough. He had been a sucker to think anything would come of it. A jerk. He was old enough to know that you couldn't phoney your way into the country club set—you either belonged or you just didn't, and he didn't. In fact he was so far away from the country club that he couldn't have seen it on a clear day with a telescope.

When he reached the corner of Prince Street he pulled the car over to the curb, and stopped. Helen was at the Kennedy Street room waiting for him. He ought to go down there, but there really wasn't any sense to it. The night before, Friday, it had been snowing some and he had managed only to get three customers lined up for her. The weather was getting worse, and everything would be tied up. He would need a snow shovel and a plow to get anybody down to the room on Kennedy Street.

He cursed and swung right on Prince Street. A guy couldn't get ahead. He just couldn't. A guy got a dame lined up, with everything just right, and then it snowed like crazy. The loss of a weekend meant about fifty bucks. And fifty bucks added to the forty bucks he received from Mrs. Reid made ninety bucks. Take away the fifty and what did he have left? He cursed again. He had enough left to live like a slob. And he didn't want to live like a slob. He wanted to be somebody, to be able to do something. And a guy had to have money for that. If he had anything less, he was a nobody, nothing else.

Prince Street was worse than the other streets and he had to drive slowly. At the corner of Elm and Prince he had to slam on the brakes and he almost slid into a truck. After the truck pulled out of the way he drove on, cursing, his hands and legs shaking. He would be glad to get the car in the garage.

When he arrived at Mrs. Reid's he found the driveway blocked by a snow drift. He slowed, put the car in low and then slammed ahead. He hit the snow, bounced over, and crawled up into the driveway. Half way to the garage the car quit, its rear wheels spinning in the snow and slush. He tried rocking the car back and forth but it didn't do any good. Finally he shut off the motor and got out. He would have to shovel the damn thing free.

He had nearly completed shoveling the car loose when he saw a figure coming up the walk through the snow. It was the blonde who roomed with Helen, the blonde who made his legs ache when he saw her.

"Hi," he said.

She paused, blinking her eyes against the snow and looking at him.

"Oh, hello," she said. "I didn't see you there. Trouble?"

"A little."

"You ought to have chains."

"I ought to have the car in the garage."

She walked past him toward the house, and even in the storm he could smell her perfume. He decided that she wore her best perfume in the house; it wasn't any two-bucks-an-ounce stuff.

He thought of asking her not to say anything to Mrs. Reid about the car being out but decided against it; he knew that the quickest way to get a girl to tell everything she knew was to ask her to keep a secret.

He carried the shovel back to the garage, kicking at the snow with his feet and wishing that she hadn't seen him. He had hoped to get the car put away without anybody seeing him. He could explain the tracks in the driveway if Mrs. Reid should become curious. He could always tell her that the light company truck, or some other truck, had driven in to turn around.

He returned to the car and, after starting it, drove it into the garage. He closed the doors, hoping that the snow would continue long enough to hide the tracks, and entered the house.

Down in his room he took off his jacket, hung it on a wire hanger, took off his shoes and lay down on the bed.

But he couldn't sleep.

That blonde bothered him.

And she bothered him in more ways than one.

To begin with, he could no longer visit Helen in her room. The two girls were always together, always, and whenever he suggested that Helen come down to the cellar he got an evasive answer. That really didn't bother him too much—there was still Evelyn and she was pretty good, and there was the room on Kennedy Street, even though he hated that room for some reason and seldom bothered Helen there. Until now there had also been the girl out at the West End, but now that was shot and he could forget about her. Some one of these nights, working the uptown bars, he would meet a girl with plenty of money and he would play it smart. He wouldn't put on an act and pretend to be a big shot; he would be himself, nothing big and nothing small, just a guy on the make.

He wondered, vaguely, what Helen would do with her weekend in the room on Kennedy Street. There were a lot of bars in the area but some of the college kids went to them and she would have to be careful about how she worked. If it got around the campus that she was selling herself they would throw her out faster than last year's exam papers.

Well, he thought, the hell with her. The storm had ruined everything. Everything. All the two of them could do was lie around and wait for the storm to blow itself out.

He turned over on his side, wishing that he could go to sleep. But sleep, at the moment, was the furthest thing from his mind. He was thinking about that blonde on the third floor, the way she walked, the way she smiled, the fullness her body gave to those sack dresses she wore. A girl like that ought to have company on a cold, stormy night. She really should.

He thought about her, and his legs started to ache. All he had to do was look at her or think about her and they ached. He guessed she was as poor as the others, but there was something about her that he liked. She was the kind of a girl who could ride around in a Caddy or a Ford and look like a million bucks, always. She had class, real class.

Jerry rolled over on his back and stared up at the ceiling. If he wanted, he could go up to Evelyn's room and Evelyn would let him in. She had told him that she was staying in for the weekend and that if Mrs. Reid wasn't around he didn't have to wait. Knock three times, she had said. Knock three times—and find yourself in heaven.

He grinned and reached for a cigarette. Evelyn wasn't the only one in the dorm he could have; there were others, two or three that he could think of immediately. But the others were away for the weekend, this time there was just Evelyn. He could have her any time. It wasn't even interesting.

He smoked and continued thinking about the blonde. He couldn't just go up there and barge in on her. She wasn't that type and he could tell that she wasn't. A guy, to get next to her, would have to be very clever, plan carefully and take his time. But she would be worth it; worth it a dozen times over.

He got off the bed and quickly left the room. There was one way to do it, one way to make her ask him up there. Of course, getting into her room might not mean anything at first, but he didn't have anything else to do right now and it might be fun.

In back of the furnace he studied the cluster of steam pipes. He was familiar with the heating system since he had flushed out the lines the spring previously. The ones on the right led to the first floor, the ones in the middle to the second floor and the ones on the left to the third floor. He selected a pipe on the left, next to the last one, and turned the shutoff valve all the way closed. He stepped back, wiped his hands on a rag and smiled. He would freeze her out.

He climbed the stairs to the kitchen and walked to the refrigerator. Whenever Mrs. Reid was away the residents shifted for themselves, making sandwiches, cooking eggs, boiling coffee all over the place.

He selected two eggs, found a frying pan and almost burned the bottom out of the pan before he remembered to put butter in. He also burned the eggs, scorched the toast and made the worst cup of coffee he had ever tasted. If it wasn't snowing so hard he'd have gone down to the corner diner and had a burger or something decent. But the weather was bad, he had turned the heat off upstairs and all he had to do was to sit and wait for something.

He had some more coffee, a couple of cigarettes, and then, she was there, shivering as if she had just come in from the snow.

"It's freezing in my room," Peggy said. "Freezing! Did you know it?"

"Why, no, I didn't know it," he lied, getting up from the table. "It must be the radiator."

"It's cold," she said. "Like ice."

He nodded and looked at her. She was wearing a clinging red robe, as though she had been getting ready for bed or a shower. She had some shape, the best he had ever seen—better than that French actress people yelled about—and his hands were anxious to touch her. He didn't want to hurt her; Jerry just wanted to touch her, and learn if her lips were as soft and wet as they looked.

"It's probably in the radiator or the line," he told her. "You get an air bubble in the line or the radiator and it cuts off all the heat. The only thing you have to do is bleed the radiator or the line."

He knew she didn't understand what he was saying.

"Well—would you?" she asked.

"Oh, sure. I'll check the cellar first and then I'll be right with you. I'll have to look at the radiator in your room."

She said nothing and he opened the door to the cellar stairs and walked down. Once he was in the cellar and behind the furnace, he opened the valve again. It would take several minutes for the heat to creep up to the third floor and if he was in her room when it started to come it would make him look good.

He found her waiting for him in the kitchen.

"I did what I could down there," he said. "Now we'll go up to your room."

She walked ahead of him and he followed. It wasn't so bad until they got on the stairs. Then his head began to pound at the base of his neck and over his eyes. That girl had a pair of liquid hips and they moved like jelly in a bowl. He couldn't stop watching them or aching to run his hands over them.

Her room was icy cold.

"Like a barn," he said.

He crossed to the radiator and fooled with the valve, opening it and closing it. She stood in the middle of the room and watched him, her arms crossed over her breasts, hugging herself for warmth.

"Do you think you can fix it?" she asked him.

He left the valve closed and got to his feet.

"I think so," he said. "But it'll take a few minutes before I know for sure." He nodded toward the bed. "Why don't you wrap one of the blankets around you until it gets warm in here?"

He could tell from the expression in her eyes that she hadn't thought of doing that.

"I've got a coat in the closet," she said. "That might be better."

He moved to the closet and opened the door. "Which side?" He knew which side.

"The left one."

There were three coats on the left side, one way back.

"The one in front," she said. "The gray one."

"Okay."

He reached way back, feeling the last coat, and he knew what it was. Persian Lamb. The girl out at the West End had had one just like that and she had said it had cost a bundle of dough.

"Here," he said,. carrying the gray coat over to her. "Put this on."

He held the coat for her and she got into it. He kept thinking about that Persian Lamb. He had never seen her wearing it around the place and he doubted if anybody, including Helen, knew that she had it. A girl at a community college. A cheap way of getting an education if there ever was one, had no business owning a Persian Lamb coat. There were only two ways a girl could get such a coat. Either she had money enough to buy one, plenty of extra money, or somebody gave it to her. And nobody gave a girl a Persian Lamb for nothing. Nobody.

"You ought to have a drink," he said as she buttoned the coat. "A good stiff drink would warm you up."

"I don't drink." Her teeth were almost chattering. "I never drink."

He offered her a cigarette but she shook her head.

"A lot of people don't drink," he said. "But when they get cold, the way you are, a little doesn't hurt any. A doctor would tell you the same thing."

"You sound like my father."

"Is he a doctor?"

"No," she said. "He isn't a doctor." Then, as she shivered, "Why don't you look at that radiator again?" He walked over and touched it.

"It's still cold," he said. He turned to her. "You better let me get you that drink."

"No, thanks."

She was stubborn and there was no use arguing with her. Some of the girls drank and some of them didn't. The ones a guy didn't give a damn about would drink like crazy and go to bed. The ones a guy wanted usually put up a hell of a fight to stay away from the sheets.

"You might better go downstairs and wait," Jerry told her. "You stay here much longer and you're apt to get pneumonia."

"Do you think so?" She was worried now.

"I know so. That's how people get it."

"But what about you?"

"Getting the heat up here is part of my job." He laughed and walked over to her, pushing her toward the door. "And keeping you healthy is another part of it."

She didn't resist.

"You're really rather nice," she said, twisting her head and smiling up at him briefly.

He caught her shoulder and swung her all the way around.

"I didn't think you had noticed me," he said.

"Well, I've seen you lots of times."

"But you never spoke to me," he reminded her. "Not unless you had to."

A flush crept up into her face.

"I know," she admitted. "I—I'm sorry."

He let go of her and she started down the hall. He stepped out into the corridor and watched her go. She was all right, he thought; plenty all right.

Back inside the room he locked the door, turned on the heat and then went to work. He didn't know exactly what he was looking for but he searched through everything she had, everything. The closet was first—the coat was Persian Lamb, that was for sure—and the two drawers she used in the dresser next. He made sure he put all of the things back the way he had found them, her bras in one corner and her panties and garter belts in another. She had lots of underwear, piles of it, and everything looked expensive. But he found nothing of interest—until he got to a black pocketbook he had never seen her carry. There were four things in the pocketbook—a compact, lipstick, something that only a woman would carry and a bank book. He opened the bank book and whistled. As of two months before she had a balance of ten thousand dollars in the First National Bank of Warren County. He whistled again, returned the pocketbook to its hiding place at the bottom of one of the drawers, and walked over to the radiator. The radiator was now hot and throwing off a lot of heat.

Before leaving the room he checked the closet again, noted there were several pipes at one end of it and grinned with satisfaction. He found Peggy downstairs in the living room. She glanced up as he entered.

"Did you get it fixed?"

"I got it fixed," he said, walking over to where she stood by one of the windows. "It'll be warm in there in a few minutes."

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it," he said slowly but he gave the rest of it to her sharp and fast. "I had to go into that closet again for some of the pipes, and I found a coat that a lot of girls would be interested in."

She said nothing and he lit a cigarette, staring at her through the smoke.

"A Persian Lamb," he said. "It must have cost a lot."

She didn't look at him directly.

"It isn't mine," she said. "It belongs to a friend."

"Nice loan."

"Well, it is."

"Why don't you wear it?"

"Because I don't want to."

"I guess the other girls might be jealous," he said.

"They might."

He had made his point and now he planted the barb. "I'll forget about the coat," he said, "if you'll forget about Mrs. Reid's car being stuck in the driveway." She was silent for a moment.

"All right," she said. She wasn't smiling. "That's fair enough."

She walked past him, smelling good, and over toward the stairs. At the bottom she swung around.

"There was a phone call for Mrs. Reid," she said. "It was her sister. She wants Mrs. Reid to call her."

"But she went to her sister's," Jerry said, startled.

Peggy started up the stairs.

"Not today, she didn't," she said. "Her sister hasn't even heard from her."

After the girl was gone he walked out to the kitchen and lit the gas under the coffee.

Funny about Mrs. Reid. Very funny.

And there was something funny about Peggy Markey, too.

He poured the coffee and sat down at the table, but he didn't touch the cup. His mind was moving like a rocket through space.

Ten thousand dollars was a lot of money. And Peggy Markey was a lot of girl.

One way or another, no matter what he had to do, he was going to have some of both.

CHAPTER 6

The room on Kennedy Street was not as nice as the room at Mrs. Reid's, but it could have been worse. There was a ragged gray carpet on the floor, an old fashioned four-poster bed against one wall, a dresser which Helen never used and a chair, in which she was now sitting, that made noises every time she moved. But the room was pretty warm.

She got up now and moved to the window. It was dark outside and snowing hard, and she felt the draft coming in around the sill and flicking against her legs. Helen had not seen snow until she was eighteen and there was still something fascinating and terrible about it for her. She liked to watch the way the flakes hit against the window and then slid down to form miniature houses and people and all sorts of odd designs and shapes. But the snow was terrible, too. It ruined the weekend for her, killed business deader than last year's taxes, and there wasn't much she could do about it. There wasn't, in fact, anything she could do about it. There were several bars nearby but a lot of the boys from the college went slumming in them, and she had to be careful. As long as she didn't sell herself to the fellows in the school, she was all right; as soon as she started doing that she might as well pack up and leave. There would be nothing then, nothing. And now there was little enough for her.

She smiled and turned away from the window. Little enough? She was wrong. There was a lot. There was Peggy.

She wished now that she had stayed at Mrs. Reid's for the weekend, that she hadn't told Peggy and several of the other girls that she was visiting friends out of town. She could just imagine what it would be like in that comfortable room, on that double bed, the door locked, Peggy warm in her arms and love running wildly through the night. It would be good, good, good, and when morning came, the light gray and dim against the windows, they would love again and again.

That first afternoon in the shower, wild and wonderful, would never be repeated, could never be equaled. Again after again, she had tried to surpass the glory of that moment, a moment of pleadings and cries and sobs, a moment of ecstasy, and she had failed each time. Maybe that was because the mystery was gone now, the wonders known fully and deeply. Never again would she experience that searching frenzy and the final climax of its goal, the sweeping terror and happiness and wonderful joy of finally giving to another all that love could ever give.

Helen crossed the room and found cigarettes on top of the dresser. Still thinking about Peggy, she lit a cigarette and saw her hand trembling. What could she have done? She had fought against it, fought savagely and hard, and she had lost.

And Helen was not ashamed. She was a victim of circumstance, a toy of her own desire. She could no more stop what she felt than she could stop being trapped in a room on Kennedy Street during a raging snow storm. All of these things were part of her, shaping her life like pieces of a puzzle fallen into place. Good or bad, she had to live as she knew herself. Escape—if there were ever escape—was a long way off.

Where had it started? How had it begun? Perhaps during that frightful instant when she had first seen her mother and that man together, when she had been too young to realize fully what the man was doing to her mother. Or when she herself had experienced, at an age too young, the knowledge of a man and of what he could do to woman. There had been hate then, and loathing, and whenever she thought of it, remembering, the hate was still there, the loathing more intense. Yes, it might have started then, burning far into her mind and her body. And maybe that was why she sold her body to live. She was always in complete control as she watched every man writhe and ache with the agony of the passion that she had created in him. But however it had begun, now she was caught up in the net, struggling against an overpowering force she could not control. And, frankly, she wanted no control. She wanted to live every tender second of it, to enjoy every frantic minute of this love that went far beyond the bounds of reason. She wanted to know that soft and glorious body again and again, to please it and please it, to bring to it the love for which it yearned.

She let out her breath as she heard someone moving along the hall. It would not be Jerry. He disliked this room; the night before he had said that if the storm continued they might as well forget about the weekend. The men with the cash would be with their wives or girl friends, taking what they could get and liking it—well, not liking it, maybe, but making the best of a bad situation. Some wives, she knew, were worse than nothing and some girl friends just wouldn't do anything.

Somebody began knocking on her door.

"Helen?"

It was Adam Frank, the owner of the rooming house.

Frank was in his forties, an ex-pool hall operator, and he always smelled heavily of shaving lotion. The first few weeks that she had rented the room the year before she had used the name of Polly Decker, but one night she had gotten drunk with a customer—A hundred bucks, baby if you live it up with me and do what I want you to do— and she had passed out. Afterward she had discovered that Frank had come into the room, gone through her things and found out who she really was.

"Helen?"

"Just a second."

She opened her pocketbook, took out a ten, and walked to the door.

"I guess you want the rent," she said, opening the door. He accepted the ten, folded it once and shoved it into his pocket.

"Thanks, Helen." He was short, shorter than she was, and he grinned up at her. "Business bad?"

"Terrible."

He found a toothpick, poked at his teeth—they were false but he wouldn't admit it—and then threw the thing aside.

"You're not alone," he said. "Less than half of my rooms are rented."

She didn't care whether he had rented any of them. "That's tough," she said.

Frank nodded. "It is when you have to pay taxes and buy oil for heat. You have to snatch up every buck you can—in any way that you can.''

"Well, you've got my ten."

He grinned. "I wish everybody paid ten for two days."

"And still rent the room out the rest of the week?"

"That's right. But, as I say, things have changed since last year. Some of the factories have shut down and work on the river is quiet. A lot of the kind of people I used to get have drifted away. A year ago I was turning them away and this year, right now, I'd take in a guy with a broken leg, even if I had to cook for the bastard."

Helen wanted to close the door and be rid of him, but he had pushed into the room, standing there and looking up at her.

"I don't really want to do it," he said.

"Do what?"

"What I have to do."

"And?"

"You do all right, don't you?"

"You know what I do."

"And that Jerry, that guy who hangs around, he does all right, too."

"Nobody's getting rich."

"But richer than I'm getting."

"I doubt it."

Frank stared across the room at the snow coming steadily against the window.

"I want a piece of your cake," he said slowly. "Just a little of the frosting."

Helen knew what he meant. She had expected it before, feared it, and now he was closing in on her.

"Damn you," she said heatedly.

He laughed at her.

"What did you expect?"

"See here, Frank—"

"What can your kind ever expect?"

He was right, of course. She was nothing, a nobody, and she could expect nothing.

"You leave me alone," she said.

"I'm not going to touch you."

She was surprised.

"You aren't?"

"No. I don't want you. What would I want you for? I've got two other girls in this rooming house that work out their rent and that's enough to keep me busy. Hell, I'm forty—you know that? A guy in his forties don't have the same capacity any more."

The steam pipes banged a couple of times and she could hear the storm, the snow now mixed with sleet, rattling against the window.

"What do you want, Frank?"

His reply was simple and direct.

"Twenty-five percent of what you take in."

"No."

He shrugged.

"Suit yourself. I run a risk having you here, you know that?"

"You get five dollars a night."

"Big deal."

"What do I have left?" she demanded. "There's this room and Jerry and then I do have some expenses."

He sneered. "Sure, sure. But twenty-five percent," he repeated. "Either that or I write to the school and tell them what you are."

"You wouldn't!"

"I told you things are rough, didn't I?"

"But—"

"How much do you get? Twenty bucks?" She felt sick and miserable.

"Not always, no."

"Why not?"

"I don't know."

"If you ever get less than twenty that Jerry is underselling you." Frankly, smiling a little, he appraised her. "You've got a good body. Big breasts. Nice hips. A guy ought to pay twenty or more for that kind of fun."

She wished for Jerry. He could tell her what to do. But Jerry was probably with that Evelyn or some other girl.

"Don't do this to me," she heard herself begging.

"You've done it to yourself."

Once again, he was right.

"You don't have to get upset or anything. All you have to do is what I want and everything between us will be fine. You have your men up here, many as you want, give me my cut and nothing will be said. Do it differently, or hold out on me, and I'll drag your name through all of the slime in Youngsville."

She had no choice. To refuse him was to destroy everything that she had worked for, to ruin herself completely.

"All right," she said weakly.

"That's more like it." He held out his hand. "My cut from last night, baby."

"I don't get it all. Jerry gets some of it."

"You start at the top with me and work down," Frank said.

"And I get what's left?"

"That's right."

"Damn you!"

"Sure. Damn me. What do I care what you think or what you say? Just give me my money."

"There was only three."

"Three or one or a dozen—twenty-five percent baby." Without arguing with him more she took fifteen dollars from her pocketbook and gave it to him.

"Thanks," he said.

"Don't mention it."

He walked to the door.

"It's a good arrangement," he said. "The more you make the more I make. What could be sweeter?"

She watched the door close behind him, listened to his footsteps retreating along the hall. Wearily, Helen sat down on the edge of the bed. Leaning forward, her hands over her face, she began to cry. She hated him, hated him. She hated all men. Ah men. None of them were any good.

The bar was small, a little place off Kennedy Street on Drake. The room smelled of stale beer and sweating bodies and it was filled with the heavy laughter of men and the shriller laughter of women.

Helen sat near the end of the bar, drinking rye and ginger and feeling sorry for herself. That Frank was a bastard, he really was. And that Jerry was, too. All men were bastards. The only men who were any good were the men who paid.

She lifted her glass and tasted her drink.

Someday a man would really pay.

Someday some man would pay with everything he had.

"Hello, honey."

She glanced at the man standing next to her and then looked away. He was big, smelled of the river front, and was drinking beer. On the other side of him a woman with rumpled brown hair attempted to light a cigarette.

"Damn!" the woman said.

The man struck a match and held it.

"You're drunk, Belle," he said. "Whyn't you take off?"

The woman's eyes hardened.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you, you woman-chasing bastard," she said and pushed the match aside. "You think she'll pay any attention to you?" She nodded toward Helen.

"Shut up."

"I won't shut up."

"You'll shut up or I'll slap you silly."

The man on Helen's right finished his drink and slid away from the bar. She started to move down to the next stool but she wasn't quite quick enough. A young man in a gray topcoat, smelling of pipe smoke, sat down beside her.

"Hello," he said.

She recognized him from the college but she couldn't remember his name. In one of her classes, he sat far back in the room and never said very much. "Hello," she said.

He grinned, seeming pleased that she had spoken to him.

"You come in here much?" he wanted to know. The man on her left was pushing up against her. She sighed and moved away from him. "Not often," she said.

The young man surveyed the interior of the bar.

"It's a dump," he observed.

"Yes."

"They say you can find anything in here."

"I guess you could."

The bartender came over and the young man ordered a beer. He asked Helen if she wanted a drink but she shook her head, smiling, and said she would accept a rain check.

"Good idea," the young man said. "I'm just about broke anyway."

They drank in silence. The woman down the bar was still trying to get her cigarette lighted and the man was now calling her names.

"I'm Harry."

Helen remembered. Harry Martin. She had heard that he was considered brilliant by most of the college instructors and that he worked part time for a mortician.

"I'm Helen."

"I know."

"Miserable storm."

"Worse than that," Harry said.

"I think it cost me my job."

"How is that?"

Harry ordered another beer, neglected to ask her if she wanted a drink—which she would have accepted this time —and put his elbows on the bar.

"Funny how things work out," he said. "I work for this undertaker, Snelling, and we went down to New York to pick up a body today. Usually I don't go out of town with him but with the weather so bad he wanted somebody to drive. So we picked up the body and on the way back we stopped at this gas station for gas. I didn't get out, he did, and I didn't know that some guy was there hitching a ride. Afterward I found out that Snelling had told the guy he could ride in back with the body—there's only two seats in front of the hearse—but he didn't mention anything to me. Well, we left the gas station and started up the road and pretty soon this guy in back knocks on the glass and wants to know if he can smoke. It was silly, I guess, but I didn't know what to think. As far as I knew there was just a body back there, nobody alive. It sure shook me up. It shook me up so good that I drove the hearse right off the road, into a drift, and jumped the hell out. It took an hour for us to get out of the snow and Snelling wouldn't talk to me all the way back. I—well, what's so funny?"

Helen was laughing so hard she could hardly stop.

"It's a scream," she said. "You driving a hearse and thinking that a body had come back to life."

"Wasn't much else to think. Oh, it's silly now, when I think about it, but at the time—say, you've got hazel eyes."

"Have I?"

"Never saw a redhead have hazel eyes before. It's a good combination."

"Thank you."

"Have a drink now?"

"All right."

"What are you drinking?"

"Beer is okay."

"Thinking about my wallet, huh?"

"All of us have to think about money, don't we?"

"I sure should now. Snelling's going to let me go. I can feel it."

They had a drink, talked about school, made general chitchat, and she found herself moving closer to him, away from the man on her left. When she felt their legs touch, she became determined that she wouldn't move closer.

"How come you're down here?" he wanted to know.

"I was visiting somebody."

"Oh. Well, I'm glad. I've seen you in school, lots of times, but I've never had a chance to talk to you before." He put his beer down and looked at her. "You're nice," he said. "I've wanted to tell you that."

Helen felt funny sitting there beside him. She felt more strange than she had ever felt with a man before. There was something about him—the smell of the pipe, the way he looked at her?—that pushed inside and made her feel warm and decent. Yes, decent. Not because he changed anything that she felt for Peggy, anything that they shared together, but decent because he wasn't buying her. He wasn't like Jerry, he was totally different and somehow clean.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

"Running into you was a break."

"Was it?"

"I'd like to see you again."

She said nothing.

"Could I?"

"Well—"

The man on the left gave her a shove and she landed hard up against Harry.

"You'd drink with him," the man said, his breath hot on her neck. "But you wouldn't drink with me. What's the big idea, you little snip?"

She stumbled, grabbed Harry, and almost fell down.

"Leave her alone," the brown haired woman said. "She ain't your kind, Tad."

"Shut up."

Harry, whose beer had been knocked over by Helen's arm, moved away from the bar.

"What's going on?" he demanded.

"None of your business," the big man on Helen's left said sourly. "Why don't you take a course in college about how to keep your nose out of things that ain't none of your business?"

"Look out, Helen," Harry said, pushing Helen aside. "This fellow burns me."

"I'll burn you," the big man said, swinging away from the bar. "I'll burn you good."

The fight didn't amount to much. It was bloody and terrible while it lasted but Harry was no match for the big river man. Blood came from a cut over Harry's eye and from his mouth. He tried to hit back but the assault had been so violent and sudden that his blows had no effect.

"Kill him!" the brown-haired woman was screaming. Kill the bastard!"

Others in the bar were yelling the same thing.

"Kill him!"

"Pound him into the floor, Tad!"

"Smash him, Tad! Smash him!"

And Tad smashed Harry. He drove him along the bar, up against the wall and then he kneed Harry in the stomach. Harry fell forward, his eyes glassy, retching.

The brown haired woman laughed gleefully.

Still hearing the laughter of the woman and the shouts of the men in the bar Helen turned and, half-crying, fled to the door. There was nothing that she could do, nothing. And somehow she had caused it all. Outside, she walked through the storm, crying harder now and bitterly. Harry was a nice young man, a good, sweet kid. And he had gotten himself badly beaten because of someone like her.

When she entered the rooming house on Kennedy Street a few minutes later, the tears had stopped. Her face was set in dull, hard lines, and her eyes were dry and cold.

Somebody was waiting for her near her room.

It was Thelma Reid.

"I hoped you wouldn't be much longer," Mrs. Reid said. "It's as cold as the devil in this hall."

Helen unlocked her door without saying a word. "Come in," she finally said. Her voice was toneless. Mrs. Reid came into the room.

"You know what I want, Helen?" Mrs. Reid inquired softly.

"Yes," Helen murmured.

And she did.

CHAPTER 7

Everybody was talking about parents' night. It was an important event at college, one of those things that came once a year and lasted all weekend.

"We're all one happy family," the dean said. "Let's get to know everybody better and in that way get to understand everybody better."

"Bull," one of the girls said.

"They meet my old man and that'll be the end of me," another girl decided. "He hasn't been sober in the last fifteen years and he wouldn't lay off just to make a decent impression."

Nobody except the dean and some of the instructors wanted parents' night. For the students it would be a dull, depressing series of cocktail parties without liquor, dry lectures, and a speech by the dean about the objectives and lofty ideals of Cooper Community College.

"I'll have to get a new girdle," Evelyn Carter said. "If my mother and father get an idea that I'm pregnant they'll cut off my money."

"I'd think anybody would know," Cathy Barnes said. "You bulge."

"Not much."

"I think you do and I've heard other people say so, too."

"What other people?"

"Marie Thatcher, for one."

Evelyn snorted. "She'd better be careful or she'll be next."

"Oh, she's careful. She knows what time of the month it's all right and everything. She's got books that she reads all the time."

"About sex?"

"Not her homework. She wouldn't be getting 'D's' in everything if she worked half as hard on her studies."

" 'D's'? She doesn't get a 'D' in English."

"No, not English. English she works out with Mr. Walton in bed."

A lot of the girls got good marks in English. Walton, who was in his forties, was hell on the sheets and any girl who couldn't pass one way could pass another.

"He's a slob," Helen said. "He just drools."

Peggy had noticed Walton's glances, too. One day he had kept her after class and the entire time he talked to her he had been staring down inside of her dress. But he wasn't the only one who stared; a lot of the boys did. They stared, liked what they saw, and asked her for dates. But she refused them, refused all of them. She was too happy living with Helen to care about boys. The more she heard boys discussed around the house the less she thought of them. They were all alike, all after one thing. The only one who seemed different was that Harry Martin, the fellow who was chasing after Helen, and even he was probably like the others.

"Your folks coming in for parents' night?" Helen asked.

"My mother is dead."

"Oh, that's right. But what about your father?"

Peggy had thought about it. Her father would arrive in the Caddy, spend money like a fool, maybe make a pass at some of the girls, and turn everything into a mess.

"No," Peggy said. "I didn't let him know."

"You don't have to. The school does that."

"They do?"

"Sure. They send out cards from the office. They have some kind of a machine that just runs them off like crazy."

"Oh, no!"

"Why, what's the matter? Don't you want your father to come?"

"No."

"Well, it's too late. They've already sent the cards out." Helen laughed. "You should be like me. Neither I nor anybody else knows where my mother is."

"You don't?"

"No. She's a stripper in a carnival."

"You never told me that."

"Not this time of the year, of course. This time of the year the carnivals come off the road and stay in winter quarters. Winter quarters! That's a joke. Winter quarters for my mother means that she works out in some cellar club for a few bucks and what she can make on pushing drinks between dances."

"Honestly?"

"Honestly. Don't be ashamed for knowing me. It isn't my fault, and denying it won't change anything. Besides, I don't think there's anything dirty about her shows. I have an idea she keeps things clean."

"Clean?"

"You know what I mean. No skin show, not in the cellars or the night clubs where she works. In the carney it's different. In the carney every girl has to strip all the way down to nothing."

Peggy couldn't imagine any girl or woman doing such a thing.

"That's horrible," she said. "How can she do such a thing?"

"How can she do it? Well, to begin with, she was brought up in it. She was showing them her fanny when she was still in her teens and she's been doing it ever since. I used to blame her, too, but I don't any more. It's all she's ever known."

"And your father?"

"He was a magician. He made himself disappear."

"How do you manage to stay in school?"

"I work summers."

"Where?"

"In the Catskills."

"Waiting on tables?"

"Sort of."

"You must make out pretty well," Peggy said. "Guess you have to work hard and save every penny you get your hands on."

"I do."

Peggy suddenly felt sorry for Helen. She had so much, so very much, and Helen had so very little. Helen had her love, all of her love, but that wasn't enough. A girl had to have money, money for clothes and tuition and just plain living.

"There's something I ought to tell you," Peggy said.

"Yes?"

"I have some money if you ever need it."

They were in their room, undressed except for bras and panties, and Helen was sitting on the bed. She looked up, smiling, and her eyes flowed over the lines of Peggy's lush body.

"Thanks. I don't need it right now, but I might have to ask you later."

"All right."

"You heard about Thelma raising the rent?"

All of the other girls called her Mrs. Reid, but lately Peggy had noticed that Helen was using the woman's first name.

"No, I didn't. I didn't hear about her raising the rent."

"Another seven a week."

"That's a lot."

"It is for some of the girls. And not only that, she's really going to pack them in here. Jerry says she's going to have steam pipes run up to the attic and she's going to open that up for more space. Sixteen other girls, he says. Can you imagine? What does she want to do, retire at a young age?"

"She's not so young," Peggy said.

"Well, she's not old. She isn't forty yet, not by a long shot, and they say life just starts when you get to be forty. I wonder if it does?"

"I don't know."

The look in Helen's eyes was soft and warm.

"Life has started for us already," Helen said, reaching in back to unsnap her bra. "I can't imagine what living would be like if we weren't rooming together."

"Neither can I."

"But we've got to be careful. I forget and keep holding your hand in the hall. I shouldn't do that. It's all right for some girls to do it but with us it seems important."

"What would they say if they ever found out?"

Helen shrugged. "I don't know. Kick us out of school, maybe. Or laugh at us. That would be the worst, laughing at us. People, the ones who think they're normal, just don't understand."

Peggy looked down at the figure of the girl on the bed, the half-naked body which she knew so well. Helen was lovely, lovely, simply beyond the wonders of anything she had ever dreamed.

"You have to feel sorry for them," Peggy said. "You see the girls and the boys, making fools out of themselves—like Evelyn and her getting pregnant—and you feel sorry for them. Or I do, anyway. I ask myself what they find that is good and I know that it can't be much—not the way we have it."

"No," Helen agreed.

"That's why I want to help you if I can. That's what we're for, what we mean to each other."

"Yes."

"What I have is yours and what you have is mine. Isn't that the way you think of it?"

Helen yawned and stretched.

"I think of it all the time like that." Her breasts were alive and tilted. "You know I do."

Peggy felt an overpowering urge to be honest, to let Helen know that she really could do things for her. That would be only right, only fair. She avoided the word "love" when she thought of their relationship, but she recognized that it held as much, or more, than that. Love was the term usually used by boys and girls, but their feelings for each other had gone far beyond that. This was a pinnacle, this was madness, delightful and wonderful, madness which filled her with a new and enduring beauty. A madness which permitted her to know the true glory of her own body, to experience to the fullest the richness of living.

"I haven't told you about my father," Peggy said.

Helen yawned and lay down on the bed.

"No, you haven't."

"He's very rich."

"I knew that he must be."

"Why?"

"I saw that coat in the closet, the one that you never wear. It's Persian Lamb. Why don't you wear it?"

"I didn't even mean to bring it with me."

"It's nice."

"Yes, I suppose it is. Do you want it?"

Helen sat up quickly.

"Want it?" she demanded. "Are you out of your mind?"

"No. I have another one."

"Just like it?"

"Just like it. It's home."

Helen got to her feet and moved around the room. "He must be rich," she said.

"He is."

"He a doctor or something?"

"No, he's a contractor."

"There's good money in that."

"There has been for him."

"And your mother is dead?"

"Yes."

"How old is he?"

"In his late fifties."

"That isn't very old."

"Well, he has young ideas."

"Does he? How young?"

"As young as the law allows."

Helen laughed and came toward her.

"He sounds interesting. I'd like to meet him."

"You probably will."

"Do you think he'll come to this parents' thing?"

Peggy nodded. "He never turned down an invitation yet."

It was late in the afternoon, shortly before dinner, and they seldom made love at that time. But this afternoon, it was different. Today, Peggy felt very close to Helen, awfully close. She could talk to Helen and Helen, without lengthy explanation, understood.

"I'll help you if I can," she said to Helen. "I want to help you. I want to give you the coat and I want to give you money and I want to do anything else that I can do for you."

Helen was very near now, her naked arms moving out slowly and coming around Peggy. Her arms were thin and strong, delicately molded, and as she gathered Peggy to her Peggy could feel the warmth of soft, smooth skin.

"I love you," Helen said.

It was so good to hear, so good to know. She was choked up and dry inside.

"And I love you. I want to make you happy."

"You have made me happy."

"In ways other than—this."

"That's up to you. But this is the best. This is more than anything else."

They sank to the bed, still holding each other.

"Do you think so?" Peggy cried, trembling.

There was always that fear, always that doubt.

"I know so. No man could be this much for either of us."

"Not so beautiful, no."

"Man destroys. He can't build."

"I know that."

"But we have to be careful. We ought to date some, both of us. The other girls do. The only one who doesn't is Patty Cain and nobody would have anything to do with her."

"I heard that Jerry goes up to her room."

"Jerry never looks at a girl's face. He'd go to any room that wasn't locked."

"Would he?"

"He's a typical animal—terrible and awful and savage."

"How do you know?"

"I know, that's all." Helen said, reaching behind Peggy. "Oh, my darling, come here."

And then Peggy was being kissed, kissed the way she wanted to be kissed. She closed her mind and her body to everything, everything except the mounting excitement within her.

"I love you," she sobbed.

The response was not one of words.

Love was a thing of silence.

Later they dressed. Helen put on a black dress and Peggy slipped into a yellow thing that clung to every line of her body. She never wore the dress to school, because it was too low in front, but it was all right around the house. Lots of the girls, even with Jerry present, dressed in robes and things a lot more revealing.

"Must run," Helen said.

Sometimes Helen seemed to be in a terrific hurry. "It isn't time for dinner yet."

"I know. But I have to stop in and see Thelma on the way down."

"Oh."

Helen had been visiting Thelma a lot lately.

"She's lonely," Helen said, going to the door. "She keeps talking about her husband all the time, like she can't get over his being dead. You feel sorry for somebody like that."

"Yes."

Helen opened the door and paused.

"It doesn't do any harm to be nice to her," she said. "After all, she's a woman, too."

Then Helen was gone and Peggy was alone, very much alone. At moments like this, terrible moments that washed over her after a wave of loving, she was shaken and breathless and hated herself.

What they did was wrong.

Wrong.

But theirs was a love of beauty, a thing to treasure, a warm and gentle understanding that went deep, very deep. It was not like the love of a man, dirty and soiled. Woman's body was the castle of love and from woman's body came all that was good and decent in life. Their love, was fine and right, a love that had to be, a love that would not and could not be denied.

And yet, it was wrong.

People said it was wrong.

And afterward, like now, when she was alone, even she felt that it was wrong.

She reached for a cigarette, put it down, wished for the first time in her life that she had a drink. A drink might help. A drink might make things clearer. One of the girls on the third floor, a loose-hipped blonde, said you had to drink or you couldn't think. Maybe that was so. The blonde got good marks, had fun, and seemed to enjoy life. Perhaps, in moderation, that was the way.

"Moderately," one of the instructors often said. "Everything must be taken in moderation. Sleep. Work. Play. To overdo anything is to destroy the fun of the doing."

She found the cigarette again and this time she lit it. Her hands were trembling violently as she trembled inside. Moderately. The instructor didn't know what he was talking about. Love was the one thing that you didn't take moderately. Love was wild and wonderful and you took as much of love as you could get, grasping it to you as you held a precious gem, living only for the instant when love came to you, hot and burning, living only for that second when all other things were swept aside.

Moderately.

That was a joke.

Love was not moderate. Love was all the way or it was nothing at all. Love was a meeting of the minds, as well as the meeting of bodies, and love was a glorious thing beyond all other things.

Yes, she loved Helen.

She imagined that Helen was a great deal as her mother had been—sweet, gentle, kind. There was none of the brutality of man surrounding Helen, no pain and fear to their love. There was just a violent storm of need and desire, a storm that filled her with wonder and awe, a storm that sprang up from the day or night and fell like some blessed rain on parched ground.

Yes, she loved Helen.

She loved her with all her heart and soul and body. She could never leave Helen, never part from her. She was in the net, caught up in it, and she could not escape. She had come to Cooper Community College to find herself and she had lost herself. She had lost herself in the greatest trap of all, the trap of needing something, wanting it, but not knowing exactly what. But it was not a man; that much she knew. It was not Frank Taylor or any of the other men she had met. It was not any of the things that she had ever known before. Rather it was this, this unbelievable ecstasy that filled her with joy—and fear.

If they were ever caught—God, it would be terrible! They would be thrown out of the college, laughed at, their lives perhaps destroyed. Helen was right. They must be careful about how they acted. They should both date boys once in a while and act like the other girls acted. That way, there would be no suspicions or curious thoughts, no chance of being discovered. They would be safe and the world around them would not know.

She wondered whom she would date. Jerry Dixon? He was big and strong and ruthless but there was something curiously attractive about him.

"Men want one thing," Evelyn Carter had said more than once. "And the only thing different about Jerry is that he don't know when to stop."

No, it wouldn't be Jerry. She could imagine how it would be with Jerry, his arms long and powerful, forcing her to bend to his will.

No, not Jerry.

Never a man like Jerry.

She walked to the window and stood there smoking, looking out at the white snow piled high on the ground beneath. But perhaps a man like Jerry was the kind of a man she needed. If she went out with him, no one would ever suspect her. She smiled, thinking about what the girls might say about her. "Peggy is getting hers."

"Getting hers? She can't miss—not with Jerry."

"She better hope that she doesn't miss."

She turned away from the window, very excited. This would be a challenge, a real challenge. And she could laugh at him when she refused him, laugh at him and hate him. The others would talk about her but she would be secure and no one would ever guess about Helen.

Someone was knocking on the door and she came slowly away from the window. That was the thing to do, the only thing to do. Once she went out with Jerry she would be established as a man's woman.

Peggy opened the door and Thelma Reid stood there, smiling at her.

"I was looking for Helen," Mrs. Reid said.

"She just went down to your room."

"Oh, did she?" Mrs. Reid smiled. "She's such a sweet thing, isn't she?"

"She's nice."

"You two get along well?"

"Very well."

"I hope you won't mind too much when I split you up."

"Split us up?" A dull ache raced along Peggy's head. "Split us up?"

Mrs. Reid nodded. "The college is starting some new classes, night courses and things like that, and they wanted to know if I could take in any more girls. At first I said I couldn't but then I thought of the attic and there's no reason why I can't use that for a dorm." Mrs. Reid smiled again. "Ten girls can go up there and ten girls means more money for me."

"But—"

"All of the other girls have single rooms, by themselves, and it doesn't seem right to be charging both you and Helen the same amount for this room. And I can't adjust the rates or the other girls might get angry. Since you're the newest, I thought I'd move you up into the dorm and let Helen have this room. It's only fair. She had it last year and she's the oldest."

"I see," Peggy said weakly.

"You won't mind. You'll meet some nice girls and I think you'll like the dorm."

The ache across Peggy's head became worse, driving into her eyes and nearly blinding her.

"Well—"

"Four of the girls will be new and five of them are already in the college. The five have been staying at a place on the North Side but the woman got sick and she's closing down her house. I feel sorry for the woman but it does work out well for me. I can use the extra money."

"Of course," Peggy mumbled.

"A person has to look ahead. Next year we'll be getting taxed for the new central high school—craziest thing I ever heard of—and then a dollar won't be worth fifty cents. That's the way I look at it, anyway."

There was nothing to say and Peggy said nothing.

"You'll like the dorm," Mrs. Reid repeated. "When I went to college I was in a dorm and I found it was fun. You live very close together and you get to know each other better."

"Well—"

"As I say, I didn't want to make you move but it couldn't be helped. It wouldn't be fair to the other girls."

Mrs. Reid talked on and on but Peggy didn't listen to her. This was terrible, just terrible. She was being torn away from Helen and their precious moments together would be ended. Unless—She smiled.

"Thank you for telling me," Peggy said.

She had money, plenty of money, and they could always go to a hotel. No one could stop them. Nothing could stop them. They would not be cheated, now or ever.

"That's a nice dress you have on," Mrs. Reid was saying.

"Do you like it?"

"Very much. Only it is a little low in front, don't you think?"

"Maybe."

"You have such nice breasts I can't blame you for not wanting to hide them. But if you wear that to school I'm afraid they'll tell you about it."

"I never wear it to -school."

"Just around here?"

"Just around here."

"That's all right, then. Here we are just one big happy family."

Peggy wondered how Mrs. Reid could be so blind about the things that Jerry Dixon did. He spent more time in some of the rooms upstairs than he spent in his own room in the cellar.

"I just thought I'd tell you," Mrs. Reid said.

"All right."

"I hope you're not angry."

"No, I'm not angry."

Peggy noticed that Mrs. Reid was inspecting the top of her dress very closely.

"I'm glad you're not. I didn't want you to be."

"Well, I'm not."

"It'll be cheaper in the attic, too. Some of the other girls on the floors may want to move up there and save money. They'll have first chance."

"When will it be ready?"

"As soon as I can get Jerry off of his lazy rear and get him working at it."

"That may take some doing."

Thelma Reid laughed.

"I sneak up on him slowly," Mrs. Reid explained. "I use the power of suggestion. I give him a choice of doing the impossible or doing what I want him to do and he always picks what I want him to do. You have to be clever with men."

"I guess you do."

"And careful. They're like dynamite with a short fuse."

"And lit," Peggy said.

Mrs. Reid moved out into the hall.

"I guess Helen will be looking for me."

"I guess she will."

"Don't be too upset about the dorm. You'll enjoy it there."

"I hope so."

Mrs. Reid started down the hall and Peggy closed the door. She turned, leaned up against the door and tears filled her eyes. Everything was going wrong. Everything. And things had been so good, so good.

Sobbing, she fled to the bed.

CHAPTER 8

The attic was a mess. At one time, years before, somebody had done it over with unpainted plasterboard, but then it had become a nest for all of the junk in the neighborhood. There were trunks, some empty, some full, broken window shades, reed blinds for the porch, fishing poles that were so old they broke at the slightest touch, old coats and shoes and umbrellas that flew apart when they were opened.

"Holy hell," Jerry said in disgust.

It was an awful job, a miserable job. He was almost sorry that he hadn't waterproofed the walls in the cellar instead of playing around in the attic. Thelma had said he could do one or the other and he had made his choice. He sighed and kicked an old wash rack out of the way. The choice had been a poor one but now he was stuck with it.

Besides, this wasn't as hard as waterproofing the cellar walls would have been. The man at the hardware store said you really had to work when you did a job like that.

"Wear your arm out," the man had said.

Jerry wasn't afraid of wearing his arm out but for forty bucks a week Mrs. Reid was entitled to just so much. He smiled as he remembered how she looked at breakfast that morning, so soft and nice and young. In fact, the more he saw of her the better she looked. And when she came up to the attic in the afternoons to help out, she almost drove him crazy. She bent over the trunks to look through them, and she was all woman, every swollen inch of her. A couple of times, with the bottle close, he had thought of asking her if she wanted a drink but he had put it off, saving the liquor for somebody who was better. Marie Thatcher was better. Marie would do anything for a drink or for a man.

"You big hunk of man, you," Marie would tell him. "You drive me out of my mind."

"You were crazy before I started."

"Well, it's natural, isn't it?"

"As natural as sleep."

"You're better than the boys from school."

"Am I?"

"You're older. You're more experienced. You don't fumble and I hate a man who fumbles."

"Who fumbles?"

"You'd be surprised. The ones you think are men lots of times turn out to be boys, little boys who really think that it's dirty."

"Isn't it?"

"Not in the least, not if you like somebody. You don't have to be in love or anything like that. It doesn't have to be serious."

Jerry was glad to know that it didn't have to be serious. He didn't want to get serious with anybody. Not that he could get serious about Marie. Nobody could. She was ugly-looking and walked with a funny gait, but she did give freely and wildly of her body. Now, if she was only that blonde, that Peggy, things would be entirely different. That Peggy could send a guy, she really could. Now that she was beginning to smile at him when they met he found himself seeking her out, almost acting like a little boy who was grateful for any favors that came his way.

"Damn," he said. "Women."

A man couldn't live with them and he couldn't live without them. They said it was a man's world but the women held the whip, that was for sure. Any guy, himself included, would go through hell for something like that girl. She had ten grand, but even if she had been a picket fence with half her spokes knocked out, he would still have been interested.

"Good morning," she would say.

"Hi."

"Nice morning."

"Fine."

"It must keep you busy with the heat and the snow and the attic and everything."

"It does."

Friendly, that's what she was. Friendly and just begging him to pick up the cue. And what did he do? He started to ask her for a date, lost his nerve—these were the only times in his life that he had lost his nerve—and later sought comfort in the contents of a bottle. She could be had. She was asking for it. Only he was stupid, real stupid and he didn't know up from down.

He kicked a box out of the way, a box with some old magazines in it. The sides split open and the magazines slid out all over the floor. He looked down and whistled. Thelma Reid's husband must have been quite a man. Beneath the household and homemaking magazines there was a bunch of girlie books. He picked one up and leafed through it. Hot, real hot. Shapes in there like that blonde on the third floor, shapes that would strain your eyes after one brief look.

He threw the magazine aside and went to get the bottle hidden in another trunk. Well, maybe Reid had to get his kicks that way. A lot of guys did. That's why they could sell those magazines like crazy.

He found the bottle, uncorked it and lifted it to his mouth. The liquor stung his throat but it tasted good going down and warmed his stomach.

He closed the trunk and sat down on the lid, thinking. He had to do something, and he had to do it fast. Forty bucks a week. Seventy bucks a week. Peanuts.

He had another drink.

What was the matter with that Helen Lee any more? You'd have thought she had reformed or something. She hated that place on Kennedy Street and weekends he had a real rough time getting her to go down there.

"I don't want to," she'd said. "I'd rather starve."

"Don't worry. You either do or you'll starve."

"Maybe."

"No maybes about it. You will."

"Let me worry about that."

He had sneered at her. "Don't tell me that you're going to get a job in the five and ten and make as much all day Saturday as you can make in fifteen minutes —if you keep your mind on your work."

"Shut up!"

"Not me. I don't shut up. You shut up. We started this together and we're finishing it together."

"But that Frank—"

"What about him?"

"I didn't tell you. He's taking twenty-five percent of everything I make."

"Who says?"

"He says. Either that or he goes to the college and tells them what I am. I—Jerry, I'm afraid."

"The bastard!"

"He meant it. He honestly did. And what do I have left after I give him that much and then your part?"

"I earn mine."

"I know you do."

"What I do to Frank I won't charge you for. What I do to Frank is on the house."

"Jerry—"

"I'll fix him. I’ll fix that louse. I'll make him wish that he had left you alone."

"Jerry, I wish you wouldn't!"

"Rest easy. I will."

And he would.

Still sitting on the trunk he had another drink. That night he would go down to Kennedy Street and take care of Frank. He would take care of Frank good. He lifted the bottle to his lips again. He would make that little slob squeal like a torn cat under his foot. He would catch one of Frank's arms, twist it, and then he would push him down the stairs. Maybe Frank would get hurt and maybe he wouldn't. Jerry didn't care. The last couple of weeks he had lost a lot of money and he didn't intend to go on losing it. He would find another room someplace else and set Helen up in that. She had to go back to work. Her excuses were as lame as a duck with a busted foot.

"I don't want to any more, Jerry."

That was a lot of bull.

"What about me?" he had asked.

"Or with you. I don't want to do that either."

"You will if I say."

"If you say. But you'll be sorry."

He had said and he had been sorry. She had come down to his room in the cellar and it had been a waste of time. She had been as lifeless as a corpse on the way to the grave.

"For five bucks I'd want change," he had said.

She had laughed at him.

"Now I know what you are," he had said.

"What am I?"

"The other kind, baby. You're the other kind."

"What makes you so sure?"

"There's one way to tell."

"How do you tell?"

"The way I just tried."

She had laughed at him a second time.

"Maybe I hate you," she had said.

That was a possibility.

He finished the bottle, wished there was more, threw it in a pile of junk and got up from the trunk. He had to get to work. Mrs. Reid would be coming up pretty soon and she would yell at him if he didn't have something done.

She started complaining as soon as she got to the top of the stairs.

"You never do anything unless I'm right here to watch you," she said.

Jerry shrugged and indicated the magazines on the floor.

"I started in where your husband left off," he said. "Looking at the pretty pictures."

Silently, she examined a couple of the magazines.

"I never knew they were here," she said. "Can you imagine that?"

Jerry surveyed the junk in the attic and shrugged again.

"You could hide a car up here," he said. "And that's just a little old box."

She threw the magazines aside.

"You do a pretty good job of hiding up here," she said. She walked over to the trash pile and kicked at the empty bottle. "Yours?"

"It was, but you can have it."

"Fresh."

He looked at her. She wasn't mad. In fact, she was smiling a little.

"You're welcome," he said.

She was wearing shorts and a halter, the shorts red and the halter yellow, and he hadn't seen her wandering around in the house in that outfit before. Oh, in the summer he had, when it had been hot, but now it was winter and most of the time she wore dresses or a suit or something warm.

"You'll freeze to death," he said.

"It's not cold up here."

It wasn't. The roof and the sidewalls had been insulated at the time the plasterboard had been put on and the heat that came up the open stairway from the third story was sufficient. Maybe it wasn't as comfortable as some of the rooms but it wasn't cold and girls would be able to live there, all right.

"I'm having a truck come in the morning," she said, "to take the stuff away. Just carry all of this junk down to the back yard, pile it by the garage and leave it there. Tomorrow you can start painting."

He had been afraid of that.

"It's got to be painted?"

"Of course, it's got to be painted. You can't just put people in a place with bare walls. I wouldn't like it and neither would you."

"You should see my room in the cellar."

"Never mind. This is something else."

It was hard work, dirty work, carrying the rubbish downstairs and outside. Half of the things, like the reed blinds, fell apart When he picked them up.

"You ought to set fire to the place," Jerry told her. "Before I go through all of the motions."

"Don't joke about fires," she said. "Roger and I got burned out of one place when we were first married, and it was terrible."

"Nothing left?"

"Nothing."

"Don't let it bother you," he said. "What you've got here is no bargain."

She saved a couple of old clocks, glasses and pitchers that she said could be sold at auction and a sewing machine that wouldn't run.

"Treasures," Jerry observed sarcastically.

"A few dollars here and a few dollars there makes the world go round, Jerry."

"I didn't think you had noticed."

"I noticed."

"Not with my pay, you haven't."

She was seated on top of a trunk, cross-legged, and those legs weren't bad. They were smooth and brown and shapely.

"You get what you earn," she said.

"And I earn what I get."

"You might get more."

He looked at her.

"I could use some more."

The last loads were the worst. He stumbled on the stairs once and almost fell. He cursed, went on down and out to the back of the house.

Evelyn Carter was downstairs waiting for him when he came in.

"I've got to see you," she said.

"Not now. The witch is riding her broom."

"But it's important."

"Later."

Her eyes were anxious. "When?"

"Same time, same station."

"Jerry—"

"Later. Just leave your door unlocked, same as usual." Up in the attic he found Thelma Reid standing in the middle of the floor, looking around.

"Not bad," she said.

"We accomplished a lot."

"So I did."

The late afternoon light was coming in through one of the dormer windows and fell in around her. Yes, she had good legs. And a high bust. Hadn't her halter slid just a little and wasn't the cleft a lot deeper than he had ever seen it before? She must have realized the same thing because she adjusted the halter, sort of embarrassed, and the whole thing was spoiled.

"Anything else?" he wanted to know.

"You can start painting tomorrow. I got a roller for you and flat white. The job ought to go fast."

"I mean for today."

"You ought to look at the pot stove," she said. "The girls will be wanting hot water."

“That damned pot stove. Why don't you have one of those automatic gas things put in?"

"They cost money."

"So does coal."

"But I've already got the pot stove."

He shut up. What was the use? There had been that man out from the power company the year before, figuring out for her what she would save on gas in the long run, and she had turned the deal down. All she wanted was money coming in and nothing going out.

"One coat of paint ought to do it up here," she said. "It'll brighten things up a lot."

With six windows, the attic was pretty bright anyway.

"Sure."

"I'm getting the cots from one of those outlet places."

"Oh?"

"Not in town. You can't buy anything in town. They take your teeth for what you buy here in Youngsville."

"You're lucky. I don't have enough money to get out of town."

"Now you're griping."

"A little."

"Forty a week isn't bad."

"Or good."

"You get your board and room."

"Some room."

They kept it up, talking back and forth, and he continued to complain. She didn't mind because he had been complaining about one thing or another ever since he had come to work for her. She expected it and he had the idea that she rather enjoyed his suffering. He was one male that she could dominate.

They started down the stairs. She was in front of him and he noticed her perfume for the first time. It wasn't expensive perfume but smooth and the mood of it seemed to fit her—a little wild, a little tame and a whole lot mysterious. He wished that he could figure her out. One minute, like up in the attic, she had acted as though she might be ready for anything that he wanted to do, and the next second he knew that she would have screamed if he had touched her. She wasn't as pretty as some as the other girls and not as young as any of them, but he couldn't be around something like that for two years and not have a couple of thoughts about what he was looking at.

She halted at the bottom of the stairs, blocking his way.

"Just a second," she said.

"What's the matter?"

"Something you shouldn't see."

"More work?"

Thelma Reid laughed.

"A girl."

"What girl?"

"I don't know what girl. She was running toward the bathroom without anything on."

"And you made me miss it."

"She's gone now."

"Fine thing."

He followed her out of the stairway, along the hall and down the next flight of stairs. He could hear girls laughing and a radio playing. When they reached the second floor she turned and faced him.

"If you hadn't drunk so much up in the attic I'd ask you down to my room for one," she said.

This was the first time she had ever suggested such a thing.

"I didn't know you drank."

"There's a lot of things you don't know."

"There must be."

"And I know a lot of things that you don't think I know."

He didn't like that. "Go on."

"I've heard you coming upstairs early in the mornings. I know what you do."

"Check the heat."

"Hardly. I'm not that stupid. You wouldn't get out of bed at five o'clock to check the heat if the furnace was out and there was ice hanging from the ceiling."

She was right about that.

"I won't make so much noise the next time." So she wasn't stupid.

"I'll use my magic carpet."

"It's not very funny, Jerry."

"Nothing's funny around here except maybe one thing. My forty bucks a week is the funniest thing I ever heard of."

"Back to that again?"

"Back to that."

Her halter had slid down a little and she adjusted it again.

"You want to quit?"

"I didn't say so."

"For thirty a week I could get somebody who would stay in the cellar where they belong."

"Why don't you?"

"Because I like you."

"Is that a fact?"

"Have I ever told you so before?"

"No."

"Maybe I won't tell you so again," she said, going down the hall. "Maybe I'll change my mind."

He watched her go, watched her until the door at the end of the hall had closed behind her. How did you figure a dame like that? He scratched his head and started down the stairs. You didn't try to figure a dame, that's what you didn't do. They were all nuts. All of them except maybe one and he didn't know about the blonde. Sometime he would find out about her. Sometime, given half a chance, he really would. And he would find out about Thelma Reid, too. The two of them ought to be fun. What one didn't know the other would.

And what neither of them knew he would be more than glad to teach them.

The wind was cold, very cold. It blew up Kennedy Street, played around his ankles and made a whistling sound as it sucked around the corner. A cab, stuck in a snowdrift, rocked back and forth, its tires hissing as the driver raced the motor. As Jerry went past the cab the driver motioned for him to give a push but he had no time for that. He had to settle this business with Frank for once and for all and he had to settle it fast.

He turned in at the rooming house.

The lower hall was cold. Frank had all the radiators shut off in the halls and he only sent a minimum of heat up to the rooms. His customers, Frank said, were either drunk or sleeping with somebody else so why did they need the heat?

Jerry continued through the hall. He turned right at the end and pushed open a closed door without knocking.

Frank was seated on the edge of the bed, dressed in shorts and looking at a magazine.

"You ever see one of these nudist books?" Frank wanted to know, turning the magazines around so Jerry could see it. "The guys and the dames in there don't have a thing on. And only fifty cents. Hell, I've been wastin' my money on that other trash."

With his left hand Jerry reached down and snatched the magazine from Frank's hands and threw it on the floor. With his other hand he cuffed Frank alongside the face.

"You stinking crumb," Jerry said. "I ought to kill you." Frank blinked his eyes rapidly and rubbed the side of his face.

"You got no call to do that," he said. Jerry slapped Frank again. Frank's head bounced and he tried to cover his face with his arms.

"What's with you and the girl?" Jerry demanded.

"What girl?"

"You know what girl. Helen."

Frank slid along the bed and stood up. Jerry was raging inside but he knew he had to handle Frank carefully. Frank could cause trouble, big trouble. Frank, he decided, had to be ruled by fear.

"I'm takin' nothin' from you," Frank mumbled.

"I asked you a question. You going to answer me?"

Frank fumbled on the dresser for a cigarette and then threw the empty pack aside.

"You got to see my point," Frank said. Both sides of his face were red. "You got to understand. Business is slow, stinking, and if I don't pay my bills I'm out on the street."

"What bills?"

"The mortgage, for one thing."

"Who'd give you a mortgage on this dump?"

"Well, they did. Five years ago and it's got five years to run. The bank, the one on Crawford Street, they're the ones who gave it to me. And there's other bills, plenty of bills. You get a place like this, renting out rooms, and you think it's all gravy. But it isn't."

"You ought to be married to Thelma Reid. You two would get along fine."

"Who's she?"

"Never mind. Tell me about this business with Helen."

"She's been comin' here goin' on two years."

"That's right."

"I never bothered her none."

"But now you're making up for lost time."

"I know what she did and I know what you did. You found the guys and she took them up to the room. I didn't mind that none. I got my ten bucks every week and that was pretty good for two nights. Then I got to thinking."

"You think too much."

"I got to thinking that she's using my place, so I'm runnin' a risk in a way and why shouldn't I get a little bit more?"

"Your little bit is a whole lot."

"Twenty-five percent."

"Too much."

"How much isn't too much?"

"Ten bucks. For two nights."

"But I'm runnin' a risk," Frank protested. "Can you imagine what would happen to me if the cops came in here and caught up with her?"

"They'd give you a lecture."

"They'd fine me."

"All right. They'd fine you. If it ever comes to that I'll pay your fine."

"But what have I got left?"

"The same as you've got now—nothing."

Frank hitched up his shorts and shook his head.

"I don't like it," he said. "It's got to be more."

Jerry leaned forward, his voice savage.

"I'm telling you it won't be more:"

"What's she to you?"

"Nothing."

"Then what do you care?"

"Only that she don't want to work this way, that's what I care. She don't work and I don't make any money. Get me? I had a good thing going and you had to go and mess it up. That's why I came down here. One of us is out in left field chasing nothing. And it isn't me. It's you, Frank. You and your hungry little fists. You don't know when to take what you can get and be satisfied."

"I told you why."

"You told me, yes, but I don't swallow it. How much do you get for that room if we don't use it?"

"Nothing," Frank admitted.

"All right. Take your pick. Ten bucks or nothing."

Jerry felt like slamming Frank in the mouth, driving him into the wall. It was tough to get a room for a girl like Helen, very tough. Most places, even the hotels, were afraid to take a chance. Of course, she could always go to one of the better houses where the college kids didn't go, but that would leave him with an empty pocket and he didn't want that.

"You know any other kids?" Frank Was asking.

"What?"

"Kids like this Helen?"

"Maybe. Why?"

"I was thinking, if you could get a couple more of them lined up we could both do some real business."

"I doubt it," Jerry said. "College girls aren't usually that kind."

"They like their sex. She isn't the only one who comes here with a guy."

"That may be, but that's different. Helen isn't typical of college girls."

"They like their sex," Frank maintained stubbornly.

"Sure they do."

"I read where less than ten percent of them come out of those places as virgins."

"I doubt that."

"Well, I don't."

Jerry shrugged. "Suit yourself. We're getting away from what we were talking about."

"Twenty-five percent."

"Nuts."

"Or I write a letter to the school about her."

Jerry hit Frank then, hit him hard, driving him half the length of the room. Frank hit the wall, bounced off it, and Jerry gave it to him again.

"I should kill you," Jerry said.

It wasn't any fight. Frank couldn't do a thing. Blood dripped from his nose and he started to slobber. Jerry grabbed him by the skin on his bare chest, twisted it painfully, and held Frank straight up.

"You want more?"

"Cut it out!"

"I'll cut it out when you see things my way. I'll cut it. out when you get off of Helen's back."

"Cripes—"

Jerry hit Frank again and again with the open palm of his hand, and Frank's head snapped back and forth.

"You listening to me?" he shouted. "You listening to me, you no-good bum?"

Frank tried to nod his head.

"Cut it out!"

"I told you when I'd cut it out."

"Ten per cent."

"Not a dime."

Jerry had stopped hitting Frank but he still held the smaller man so that it hurt. Frank was breathing heavily, gasping, and blood was all over his chin.

"You can't blame me for trying."

"Not a bit."

"It was there and I saw it and I wanted some. You can't blame a guy for that."

"No."

"Let me go."

"No."

"You know what I mean. Money."

"Sure."

"The other I don't care about."

"At your age you shouldn't."

Frank twisted but he couldn't get loose. With one shaking hand he wiped at the blood on his chin.

"Twenty-five bucks for the room," he said.

"Nothing else."

"Ten."

"Twenty-five."

Jerry thought about it. Twenty-five was a lot but it wasn't bad. Somebody else might want more.

"All right." He let Frank go. "Twenty-five. And you leave the girl alone."

"I told you I don't care about her none."

"Be sure you don't."

Jerry turned and walked to the door. Now that it was over, now that it was settled, he felt tired. He didn't like hitting a man smaller than himself. But it wouldn't have made any difference. Big or little, he could take care of himself.

"You want more," he said, opening the door, "and you know how to get it. Just open up your fat mouth when you should keep it shut."

He walked out, leaving the door open, casually glancing at the nudist magazine which lay open on the floor. Frank was right; they didn't have a thing on.

Outside it was colder than before, the wind sharper. The cab had gotten out of the snow but now a truck was stuck. Slowly, wondering vaguely about what the driver would do, Jerry walked north.

The door was unlocked and opened to his touch. It was dark in the room, very warm, and he could smell the odor of underthings drying over the radiator.

"You came," she said.

He closed the door.

"Yeah."

"I thought you wouldn't."

"Well, I said I would."

He crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. She was close, very close, but he didn't touch her.

"I'm scared, Jerry," she whispered.

"About what?"

"The baby."

"It's a little late for that, isn't it?"

"Don't be rude."

"I'm not being. I just said."

She reached out and put her hand on one of his arms.

"Jerry?"

"What?"

"Will you help me?"

Her hand was soft and warm.

"How?"

Her fingers closed, opened and then closed tightly on his arm. "I want to get rid of the baby," she said. "I want you to help me find a doctor or somebody who'll do it for me."

"Don't be a fool."

"I'm not being a fool. I've thought it all out. What can I do for the baby if it's born? What can I tell it when it grows up?"

"I don't know," Jerry said.

"It would be better the other way. The world is bad enough for those who have a chance but when there isn't any chance, when there is nothing at all, it's even worse."

She started to cry and he didn't know what to do with her. A girl's tears always bothered him. Either they were foolish or tragic. Evelyn's tears weren't foolish.

"I'll do what I can," he said finally.

"Oh, Jerry!"

"But I can't promise anything. I don't know anybody like that."

"Maybe you can find somebody."

"Maybe."

Her hand moved up to his face, following the line of his chin.

"You're sweet," she said.

He thought of Ellen, how she had died, and he shuddered.

"I'm a bastard," he said. "Or I wouldn't promise."

She lifted herself toward him, her lips hungry and filled with fire. She found his mouth, kissed him, and he could taste the salt of her tears.

"Don't let me down," she begged.

"I won't."

But he didn't know whether he would or not.

CHAPTER 9

Helen crept down the stairs, her bare feet moving soundlessly over the covered steps. At the second floor she turned left and walked down the hall to the door at the end. She opened the door and entered, closing the door after her.

"I'm awake," Thelma Reid said from the bed.

"I thought you would be."

"Is Peggy asleep?"

"Yes."

"What if she gets up?"

"She never does."

Thelma laughed. "Not unless you wake her up, is that it?"

"Shut up."

Thelma stirred on the bed and the springs squeaked. "She was out with Jerry tonight."

"I know."

"Aren't you jealous?"

"Shut up."

"And you were out with Harry Martin. That makes me jealous."

"Does it?"

"You know it does."

Helen sighed deeply, dreading the arguments they always had, and dreading the final, pleading moment which always came.

"Going with a boy is all right," Helen said. "When you go with a boy nobody gets curious."

"I suppose so. Not even about you and that Peggy."

Helen's eyes had become accustomed to the darkness of the room and now she could see Thelma sitting up on the bed. As usual, Thelma was wearing nothing.

"We've been over all that before," Helen said.

"And you deny it?"

"I deny it. There isn't a thing between Peggy and me."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"I told you. If you thought such a thing why did you put her in with me?"

"Because I knew what would happen," Thelma said wisely. "And once it's happened it goes right on happening. Someone in your room with you could do what I couldn't do. Now I'm profiting from the arrangement. Of course, if I had known about you and Jerry and those awful things you were doing on weekends I wouldn't have gone to all the trouble."

The whole thing had been blackmail from the start. No love, not the way there was love with Peggy, just blackmail. Love me, Thelma would say. And she would love her. What else could she do? Thelma, in her own particular way, was as bad as Frank. She thought only of herself. But, really, wasn't that true of everybody? Everybody thought of himself or herself first. And that's what she should be doing. Being a slave was no good. Living the way she was living was no good. She had to do something about it.

"I want to talk to you," Thelma said.

"All right. Go on."

"You're very pretty."

"Am I? You've told me that before."

"And—competent."

"I don't like that."

"I didn't think you would. Are you as nice with Peggy?"

"Shut up."

"Or Jerry?"

"Just you shut up!"

"You don't have to lie to me," Thelma said. "I'm older than you are and you can talk to me."

"I don't want to talk to you—not about that."

Thelma lit a cigarette and the glow from the match washed over her face.

"You're a lot like I am," she said. "Bisexual, I think they call it."

Helen had read about people like that but she didn't believe it was the case with her. She was in love with Peggy, very much in love. Naturally, the money helped—Peggy was quite rich—but it went further than that. Far down inside of her, it was something good and wonderful, and every moment that she cheated on this love she felt terrible pain.

"I'm not like you," Helen said.

"You are or you wouldn't be here."

"You forced me into it, don't forget that."

"Did I?" Thelma inquired softly. "Or would you have come to me anyway?"

"No."

"I think you would have."

"Don't be too sure."

Thelma filled her lungs with the smoke. "It doesn't matter," she said. "Things are the way they are and that's all that matters."

Things, for Helen, were hell. Weekends she had to go down to that awful room on Kennedy Street and during the week, for some stolen moments, she came to Thelma. And these moments she hated the most. Thelma looked down on her as though she were some kind of an animal and all Thelma cared about was her own personal satisfaction. No, she would never have come to Thelma voluntarily. She was living in a weird way, a terrible way, and she was sick of it. Thelma was worse than Jerry, far worse. But she could not escape. All doors were closed to her.

"You're a fool," Thelma was saying.

"I am or I wouldn't be here."

"No, not that. You would be here anyway, fool or not. Maybe not this week or next, but one night you would have come to me. You need me, Helen."

"I don't need you."

"But you do. Don't you understand? I've seen so much more than you, know so much more. You need somebody like me. If you would only be honest with yourself you would see that you need me more than I need you." Thelma laughed and stretched her white arms. "I have always managed to find somebody. Have you? Have you ever managed to find anything except this horrible way that you live?"

Helen was on the verge of tears. "Don't," she said.

"Why do you cry if it is not so?"

"Because you're so rotten."

"I don't want to fight with you."

"Then why do you?"

"Because I want you to be honest with me and you are not honest. You lie with every breath. I ask you about Jerry, about this thing that he does for you, and you say that it isn't your fault, that he got you into it. I don't believe that. I think you got him into it. I think you were like that when you came here. I always have thought so."

"What if I am?" she challenged.

"Then you're nothing but a whore," Thelma flung at her.

"Yours?"

"Now who's being rotten?"

"You make me."

"Do you say the same things to Peggy?"

If she had a knife she would stab Thelma. Something had to be done, something had to be done before she went out of her mind and lost all control.

"You leave Peggy out of this."

"You lie to me about her, too."

Helen, blinking away the tears, said nothing.

"You say she means nothing to you but I know better."

Peggy was the one thing in Helen's life that was decent, the one thing that she had to protect. To destroy this was to destroy all, to dirty this was to dirty all. Together they had found real beauty, had given meaning to life. If this was taken from her there would be nothing left.

"She doesn't," Helen insisted stubbornly.

Thelma stretched again.

"We shouldn't fight," Thelma said.

"No."

"And you shouldn't lie."

"I'm not lying."

"I'm sure you are but that isn't important. What is important is that you are here and you are mine." Thelma moved around on the bed and her voice softened. "Come to me," she said softly. "Come to me and forget that we have argued."

And Helen could not refuse.

Except for a radio playing softly, the third floor was quiet. That would be Evelyn Carter listening to a late disc jockey show. Evelyn hardly every slept any more. She cried a lot and listened to the radio and when they played something soft and sentimental she lost herself in a lake of self-pity. It was fairly common knowledge that Evelyn no longer wanted the baby, that she was trying to find some means to get rid of it, and it was equally common knowledge that her life would be at stake if she made the attempt.

Helen walked along the hall, past the door where the radio was playing, and somehow, when she thought about it, Evelyn's plight didn't seem to be so bad at all. Have the baby, that was the answer. Have the baby, father or not and bring it up. Or have it adopted. Evelyn, she decided, was lucky. Evelyn could solve her problem. And she, Helen, could not solve hers. Her own problem was beyond all solution.

She hated Thelma Reid.

And she loved Peggy Markey.

But she was caught, caught, and she could not free herself. She was caught between Jerry and Thelma and they were both closing in, ready to destroy her for then-own gains.

Love me, Thelma Reid said, or the school board will know.

Love the men for money, Jerry said, or everybody will know what you are.

A lesbian.

And a prostitute.

She could hardly be considered less.

And she wanted so much, so very, very much. She wanted a nice car and fine clothes and lots of money. She wanted all of the things she had never had, all of the things she had dreamed about, and now she was in danger of losing all. Peggy would hate her if she ever found out. She would despise her. That Helen could not stand. Peggy was more than love. Peggy was her chance at tomorrow.

"You mustn't tell anybody," Peggy had confided, "but my father is rich, awfully rich."

"Why hide it?"

"Because it might make a difference."

"Not to me it doesn't."

"No, not to you. But to some of the others, it could."

"Is that important?"

"Everything is important."

Peggy had changed a lot lately. She went out with Jerry once or twice a week and later, lying on the bed, she would laugh about the way that Jerry had tried to make love to her.

"He's got one thing on his mind," Peggy would say.

"I told you that."

"Only it doesn't do him any good."

"You ought to hear the other girls talk. They think it does."

"I don't care what they think."

"They say Peggy Markey is getting hers regularly."

"Do they?"

"You know they do."

"Well, when they're saying that they're not talking about us."

"No, that's true."

"And they say the same about you and that Harry Martin. Didn't you know that?"

"Yes, I knew it."

Helen smiled now, walking along the hall, thinking about Harry Martin. Harry was so honest that he wouldn't look at a girl if the top button of her dress were undone. He had been brought up to believe that woman was sacred and nothing or no one could change that belief.

"I love you," Harry had said more than once.

"You're crazy. You don't mean it."

"But I do mean it."

She felt sorry for him. He was a nice boy but she could not return his love. She would never be able to do that. He was, after all, a man.

They were all the same, she told herself. All men were the same. They were like two stores with different fronts, but inside, the merchandise offered was the same.

Love was the property of woman.

Love belonged to woman.

It was as simple as that.

The room was dark, the shades drawn on the windows. The faint odor of perfume lingered in the heat, perfume that belonged to Peggy.

Quietly, Helen walked toward the bed.

"Is that you, Helen?"

Helen stopped, stiffening.

"Yes. Are you awake?"

"For a half hour or more. Where were you?" Helen thought rapidly.

"I couldn't sleep and I went into the bathroom to read."

"Oh? What did you read?"

"Nothing. Just the paper."

"There isn't anything much in the paper."

"No."

"Aren't you coming to bed?" Peggy wanted to know.

"I am now."

"I've got your side all warm for you."

"That's sweet," Helen said. "Awfully sweet."

There was a whisper of sound from the bed and she knew that Peggy had moved over against the wall. Slipping off her robe, Helen crossed over to the bed and climbed between the sheets.

"It's unusual for you to be awake," Helen said, faking a yawn. She wasn't tired at all; with the things that were going on in her head and body she couldn't be tired. "You most generally sleep all night long."

"I know, but I got a call from my father tonight while you were out with Harry. I forgot to tell you about it."

"And?"

"He's coming on for parents' night."

"That's next Saturday."

"Yes."

"What's wrong with that? Didn't you expect him?"

"I've expected him, all right. I'm just been worried about what might happen after he gets here."

"Worried?"

"There's one thing I haven't told you about him. He's sort of crazy over young girls."

"He is?"

"All through high school I was worried that he would insult some of my classmates by making a pass."

"An old man's folly?"

"Something like that."

"Well, you can't blame him. If a man has nobody he might as well look for someone young."

"I suppose so."

"And some of the girls like older men better than younger ones. The older ones aren't after the same thing."

"That's not my father."

"It isn't?"

"No. He likes to drink and he likes to make love."

"I see."

Peggy was silent for a moment.

"You could help me with him," she said.

"How?"

"He'll want somebody to go to parents' night with him."

"What about you?"

"Once he sees the girls around here he'll want to take somebody else, too."

"I see."

"You haven't got anybody coming and I wouldn't dare trust him with one of the other girls. He'd make a fool out of me. But if you would go with him it would solve everything."

Helen laughed.

"You trust me?"

"That way, yes."

"And the way you don't trust me?"

"With Harry Martin, sometimes. He seems awfully serious."

"He is. But I could say the same thing about you and Jerry."

"Yes, I guess you could."

"Does Jerry ever tell you that he loves you?"

"Not with words, no, but the way he acts. I think so, anyway."

"He's not worth it, honey."

"No man is worth it."

"Not even your father?"

"For a young girl, my father least of all,"

"Is he that old? That way?"

"I don't think so."

"He must be quite a man."

"I guess he is."

They lay there saying nothing, their bodies close together. So Peggy's father had a young mind and he wanted fun. That was interesting. He was also very rich and that, too, was interesting.

"Peggy?"

"Yes?"

"I'd be glad to help you with him.”

"Thank you."

She would. She would dress her best, act her best and she would drive him crazy. He wanted something young. Well, she was young. And maybe he wanted it forever. Well, she was available. If she married money now she wouldn't have to bother finishing college, wouldn't have to live like an animal, wouldn't have to chase a rainbow that never, for her, appeared in the sky. And if she got Peggy's father she would also have Peggy. Not only Peggy but all of the things she had ever yearned for.

"I'll do it," she said contentedly.

"Thank you."

Helen closed her eyes, relaxing, and her fingers found the soft, warm skin beside her. She would do it. One way or another, she would do it.

"I love you," Helen murmured.

"And I love you."

"Kiss me."

Peggy kissed her.

"I love you," Helen said again.

The body beside her moved closer.

"Show me," Peggy pleaded.

She did.

CHAPTER 10

The wind that came down the lake was sharp and filled with the threat of snow. Overhead the sky was gray and threatening and beyond the towering pine trees that encircled the frozen surface of the lake the clouds were dark and low.

"I don't know why I let you talk me into it," Peggy complained. "We've been out here less than fifteen minutes and already I'm half frozen."

Jerry laughed and looked up from his task of trying to chop a hole through the ice.

"Move around a little bit," he advised. "Take a walk and flap your arms around."

"That might help."

"It will. Only don't go near the shore. There are spring holes in a lot of spots and the ice in those places isn't thick enough to walk on."

She shivered and turned her back to the wind.

"You won't catch any fish anyway," she said. "Bet you won't."

"Bet I will."

"What happened to the old saying that 'a wind from the South blows the bait in the fish's mouth?'"

"I never heard it before."

"Then you aren't much of a fisherman. Every fisherman knows that old saying."

He whacked away at the ice with the axe and the chips flew.

"I thought you never went ice fishing before."

"I didn't, but my father did lots of times. And I heard him say that it should be a warm day, that the water should be running in the holes."

Jerry broke through the ice and struck water. A shower of slush filled the air.

"It's a lot of stuff," Jerry said. "I've caught fish out here when you could hardly stand the cold."

"Then you ought to do pretty good," she said. "I can't stand it now."

"I told you, take a walk."

Silently she watched him while he unwrapped the line and set the tip-up. The tip-up wasn't a fancy thing, not like the ones her father used, complete with reel and all the rest of the junk. The tip-up was made from a shingle, tapered on both ends and with a hole drilled through the middle. The line was fastened to one end, the other end painted red, and a long stick went through the hole in the center. Whenever a fish bit the tip-up would stand straight up.

"Lousy bait," Jerry said. "Too small and no life."

He had bought the bait down the road, not far from the highway, and the little man with the dirty hands had charged him a dollar a dozen.

"Who could have life in this weather?" she wanted to know.

"Take that walk," Jerry said. "As soon as I get the tip-ups in you'll keep warm by helping me tend to them."

It was her turn to laugh.

"I'll believe it when I see it," she said.

He was on his knees setting the tip-up, but now he turned his head and looked up at her.

"I believe what I see," he said.

"What's that?"

"You're pretty in red."

"Am I?"

"Don't tease me. You know you are."

Peggy liked to tease him. He thought he was so hot with the other girls and she had him right where she wanted him. Tamed. If she didn't have him just where she wanted she wouldn't have come out to the lake country with him.

"I think I will walk around," she said, shivering.

"But stay away from the shore. This is a spring-fed lake and you can be in-over your head before you know it."

"All right."

She started away from him, walking fast and moving her arms. The wind was bitterly cold against her face but she didn't mind that. If only her legs and thighs would get warm she would feel better.

She hadn't been surprised when he asked her to go fishing with him. But then, it was getting so that she wasn't surprised at anything Jerry thought or did. She had found him totally unpredictable—gentle and thoughtful at times, harsh and brutal at other times.

"I don't get it," Jerry would say to her. "You go out with me, knowing what I am, and you expect me to treat you like you're the only woman on earth."

"Of course, I do."

"Well, you've got the wrong guy, baby. I take what I want.

"Don't try it."

"Some night I will and I'll make it stick."

"I'll have something to say about that."

"Will you?"

"Yes."

And she had a lot to say about it. Nights when he had taken her to the movies or for a ride in Mrs. Reid's car—she now let him use her car two nights a week—and he had tried to make love to her, holding her tight, his hands rough and insistent, she had laughed at him. She had known that her laughter would hurt more than a slap, more than anything else she could have done.

"You're not pure, baby."

"I am with you."

"Which means that you can be had?"

"Which means that you never will."

"Like hell."

"Yes. Like hell."

She walked over the surface of the lake, paying little attention to where she was going, thinking, remembering. The girls at Mrs. Reid's thought she was Jerry's girl—well, wasn't she?—and that she was getting from Jerry, or giving to Jerry, all of the things that he had given or received from the other girls.

"Be careful," Evelyn Carter had said to her. "You know how I am."

"I know how you are."

"I thought it was love, too. But I found that it doesn't have to be love, that love doesn't always have anything to do with it. All it has to be is one little mistake."

"I won't make it."

"Don't be too sure. I thought I was sure. You never can be."

She hadn't made the mistake and she never would. She was in complete control of Jerry. Every way that he had tried, every way he had sought to get her, she had fooled him. If she hadn't been sure of that, of herself, she wouldn't have come out to the lake with him.

She turned now and looked back at him. He was busy cutting another hole in the ice, and the ice was flying in all directions. Strong, she thought. Powerful. A violent young man with violent ideas.

She smiled and resumed her walking. No one, she was sure, suspected the depth of her association with Helen. Well, maybe Mrs. Reid did. Mrs. Reid looked at her rather oddly at times. But that would change as soon as she moved up to the dormitory. There would be no chance for doubt or speculation then. Perhaps, although less convenient, it would actually be better for them that way. She could rent a place for them downtown, a room or an apartment, and they could go there every opportunity they got.

She was close to the shore now, walking rapidly, still swinging her arms. Jerry didn't know what he was talking about. With the weather this cold there couldn't be any open spots and if there were she would see them.

She was worried about Helen, very worried. At times Helen seemed terribly concerned about something but she had been unable to find out what it was. At first she thought that Helen was tiring of her, that their love was dying, but this had not been so. Helen was as devoted as ever, perhaps more so. But the thing that was bothering her was always there, always haunting her.

"Is it money?"

"Nothing's the matter."

"There is. I can tell."

"I love you," Helen would say, avoiding the issue. "I love you."

And she would.

Most weekends Helen went away and these days and nights were lonely for Peggy. These were the nights when she would have welcomed Jerry's presence but he was never around. Sometimes, when her imagination ran riot, she would think of the two of them together but that, of course, was, silly. Helen went to visit friends and it was difficult to tell what Jerry did. Sometimes, on Monday morning, he looked as though he had been drinking heavily.

"I have to get away from this place once in a while," Jerry often said. "You put a guy in a house with a lot of crazy dames and it's enough to drive him crazy, too."

She didn't know whether she liked Jerry or not. When she was near him and his hands were on her, trying to move under her dress, she hated him. But later, when she was alone, when the night was close and black around her, she wasn't quite sure. There was something about him that was brutally fascinating, .something magnetic and powerful that she did not understand.

"One of these nights you'll let me," he said.

"No, I won't."

"We'll see."

She had thought about it, thought about it a lot. No man had ever touched her, no man had ever known her. When she thought of Helen's love she could compare it with nothing. This was all she had ever known, all that she had ever had. The book said it was wrong, society said it was wrong. But was it? Was it wrong to love and to feel love? Was there any kind of love, no matter what kind it was, which could be totally wrong?

"It is right," Helen would say. "It is right and beautiful. It is us."

Peggy's body told her that this was so, but her mind did not. Only during the luxury of an embrace, the wildness of a kiss, was her mind convinced. After that, after the searching flame of love had died, she was always ashamed at her vivid response, ashamed that her need had been so great. Wrong, her mind would scream; wrong. Right, her body would reply; right and beautiful.

Which was the truth?

She did not know.

And there was only one way to find out. Just one.

She was equally ashamed and shocked at that thought. To find a man, any man, and to let him possess her for the sake of an experiment was more horrible than the crime itself—if what she had done was indeed a crime. To do this to herself, or to do it to a man—to Jerry—would be the greatest crime of all.

Jerry was shouting something to her but she continued walking along the shore and paid no attention to him. She had nothing to fear. The ice was thick, so thick that a horse wouldn't break through it.

And then, suddenly, without warning, her instant, muffled scream ringing in her own ears, she was going down through the frozen shell over one of the natural springs, going down into the icy waters of the lake.

Catch the edge of the ice, she thought desperately; catch it! But it was too late for that. She was already under, all the way under, the coldness of the water numbing her entire body.

Don't lose your head, she thought; keep calm.

She wanted to cry.

Her woolen clothes, now completely soaked with water, made it impossible for her to swim. With a strangled moan she threshed with her feet, trying to touch bottom, trying to find something. She moaned again. There was nothing, nothing.

She was drowning. She knew that. Unless something happened and happened right away she would die there. Die!

She in an instant saw her life as it had been, and as it should have been. There was nothing to be proud of, nothing to be happy about. And now she was dying, dying.

She held her breath, lungs aching, her hands over her head, reaching up hopefully. The ice. Find the ice!

She couldn't.

Something touched her hand, moving, coming down, finding her hair. It was Jerry's hand, big and powerful, his thick fingers taking a firm grip on her hair.

"Damn you," he was saying as he pulled her up out of the hole. "I told you to stay away from the shore."

"Jerry—"

"Shut up and help yourself onto the ice. What do you think I am, anyway?"

She smiled up at him, briefly.

"I think you're wonderful," she said huskily.

And she meant it. In that instant she meant it more than she had ever meant anything in her life before.

"Dumb women," Jerry said when she was on the ice, standing there and shivering. "Show me something dumber than a woman, will you?"

She tried to keep her teeth still but she couldn't.

"You can't," she said. "Not dumber than this woman."

His right arm was soaked all the way to the shoulder but he didn't seem to notice it.

"We've got to get you dry," he said. That was the one thing she wanted more than anything else.

"There's a heater in the car."

He shook his head. "You'd have pneumonia before that thing did any good." He turned and looked down the lake. "There's a cabin over there, back of the trees. If I remember correctly there was a big fireplace inside and plenty of wood."

"You've been there?"

"A few times."

"With friends?"

"With a girl from the West End."

She didn't know why but she wanted to hurt him.

"Was she nice?"

He swung around and a hint of anger crept into his eyes.

"She thought she was," he said.

"And you didn't?"

He kicked a lump of snow aside.

"You ask a lot of questions."

"Well?"

"There are a couple of things I can tell you about that cabin. The key is hidden under the front porch and there aren't any sheets or blankets in the place."

"You would know about that, wouldn't you?"

"Naturally."

"Naturally. What else?"

"That's what I like about us," he said. "We fight like hell."

The wind came down the lake, blowing harder, and her teeth started to chatter again. "I'm cold," she said tightly.

"Well, you're the one who's waiting, not me." They started down the lake, walking rapidly.

"I thought you were going to drown," he said once.

"So did I."

When they reached the woods he glanced back. "Wouldn't you know it?" he said. "I get a bite and I can't even take care of the tip-up." She wondered if he really cared.

In a few minutes Jerry had a fire going and she began to feel the warmth of the flames against her hands and face.

"The clothes won't dry on you," Jerry said. "I'll have to find a rope and we'll have to hang them in front of the fire."

She took off her coat and handed it to him. "Not just that," he said. "Everything."

"What?"

He grinned and poked at the fire.

"Well, not everything. Just about.”

"You can put on my coat if you're so damned modest."

"Of course, I'm modest."

He shrugged and unbuttoned his coat. "You wouldn't be the first girl I saw in bra and panties," he said.

"Or nothing."

"That's right. Or nothing."

She didn't want to undress but she knew that she had no choice. Even with the heat from the fire her body was cold.

"I'll wait in the kitchen," Jerry said. "You hustle out of those things so we can get them dry and get out of here." He paused in the doorway. "I always heard that if you wanted to go fishing you should leave the women home. I think I heard right."

She smiled, waited until he had gone, and then began to undress. Yes, he was rough in some ways but he was gentle, too. He was, she decided, a strange man, a very strange man.

She remembered some of the things the other girls said about Jerry and she wondered if they were the truth.

"The best," Evelyn Carter had proclaimed. "Once you have Jerry you never want another man."

"Or need another man," somebody else had added.

Peggy took off everything, down to bra and panties, and then she stood in front of the fire. Lord, but the heat felt good! She turned slowly around to let the fire dry her.

"You ready?"

She picked up Jerry's coat and put it on. "I'm ready."

He came in from the kitchen, carrying two glasses and a piece of rope.

"Our lives are complete," he said. "A clothesline and a couple of shots of good brandy."

"I don't drink," she said, feeling almost naked in his short coat. The coat came down to her hips, barely covering them, and below that her legs were naked and straight. "You know I don't drink."

He held out one of the glasses.

"It isn't a question of drinking," he said. "It's a question of getting you warm. The fire helps on the outside and this does the job on the inside."

"No."

"You think I want to get you drunk and take advantage of you?"

"Maybe."

"One drink wouldn't make you drunk."

"No, but it can make you feel funny if you aren't used to drinking."

"Don't be silly. A doctor would tell you the same thing. There is rye out there and I could have given you that but brandy is better. And if I wanted to take advantage of you I wouldn't have to use any booze to help me. We're out here in the country, all alone, and you wouldn't have a chance if that was what I had in mind."

"That would be rape," Peggy said.

"It would be your word against mine."

"Would it?"

"You came here with me," he said, still holding the glass. "A lot of people know that you did. Weren't they kidding you at breakfast about going fishing with me?"

"Well, yes."

"All right, there you are. What more do you need?"

A chill swept through her and she began to shake.

"Get my clothes dry," she said.

"After you take the drink."

"No."

He threw the rope on the floor.

"Don't be so silly and stubborn," Jerry said. "I never saw a dame with such crazy notions. You stand there half-frozen and you don't want to do anything about it."

Another chill seized her and this time it went down into her stomach, lying there like a ball of ice. She held up her hands and they were shaking. Maybe he was right. Maybe she did need something.

"Okay," she said.

"That's better." He seemed relieved. "Old Doc Jerry will get you fixed up yet." Her eyes met his, steadily.

"I hope you don't mean that the way it sounds."

"I don't."

She accepted the glass and lifted it to her mouth. Her hands were still shaking and some of the liquid spilled down her chin.

"I guess I do need it," she said.

"I guess you do."

The brandy had a funny taste and it burned her throat. She could feel the warmth of it going down to her stomach, chasing out the cold. The brandy had an almost instant effect; the glow seemed to spread through her blood.

"Boy, that's strong!" she exclaimed.

"You need it strong."

The top button on the coat had come open and she closed that again. But Jerry was not watching her. He was busy stringing up the line and hanging up her clothes.

"It shouldn't take too long," he said.

"How long?"

"Maybe an hour."

"Or more?"

"Or more."

He pulled the davenport over and they sat down. The movement made the coat pull up and nearly all of her thighs were exposed. She crossed her legs but that forced the coat up higher, and she uncrossed them.

"We fight a lot," he said, lighting a cigarette.

"Yes, we do."

"I wonder why that is? I never fight with girls much."

"Maybe most of them do what you want them to do. Maybe that's why."

"Maybe."

The fire was hot and steam began to rise from her wet clothes. She was aware that he was staring at her bare legs, especially at the spot where the coat parted at the bottom, and she began to feel uncomfortable.

"You had a close call," he said.

"Yes."

"For a few minutes I thought you were all through with this life."

"So did I," she agreed, trembling a little as she remembered.

"You cold?"

"No."

"Still scared?"

"Something like that."

He stood up and moved toward the kitchen. "You need another drink, that's what you need."

"No."

But she didn't protest beyond that. She was too tired and it didn't seem very important, anyway. It was warm in the cabin, she was safe, and what more did she want?

That was a laugh. There was plenty that she wanted. She wanted to be normal—the one thing that had gone through her mind when she had been there under that ice —and she didn't know what to do. She just didn't know.

"Here."

She took the drink. "Luck," Jerry said, sitting down. She lifted her glass, the way people were supposed to lift glasses.

"Luck. But I don't really need it. I've had my share for one day."

The brandy tasted better this time, didn't burn so much, and when she had finished drinking it she thought her face must be flushed. She was warm all over, burning up, and her mouth was dry.

"You hot?" he wanted to know.

"Plenty."

"You'd better unbutton the coat."

She would not unbutton the coat. To unbutton the coat was to have hardly anything on. And she was alone with him, alone in this cabin. The brandy had done something to her, changed her, and if she wasn't careful…

"All right," she said.

Slowly, breathing heavily, she unbuttoned the coat, letting it hang loose about her body.

"Better?" he inquired.

"Yes."

"You're very pretty."

"Let's not start that."

"But you are."

"Jerry—"

"You're very pretty and I hate to see you the way you have been."

"How is that?"

"Running away from something."

She laughed at him.

"What makes you say that?"

"I don't know. I just feel it. You lead me so far, let me almost kiss you, and then slam the door. It's almost as though you get some sort of a kick out of it. Why?"

"Am I that way?"

"You know you are. You go out with me, knowing what they say I am, and yet you aren't that kind at all."

She looked up at him for a long time. She was conscious of the coat being opened, of her body almost exposed. But she did not care and she was not ashamed. There was something hidden here, something different, something that she had to find.

"Would you want me to be that way?" she asked him.

His reply was nearly lost in the sounds from the fire.

"No." His voice was soft.

"I'll bet not."

"I wouldn't," he insisted, leaning close to her. His eyes were serious, his lips barely moving. "There are enough of the other kind and not enough like you. I mean that, Peggy. You've done something to me that no girl has ever done before."

"What's that?"

"Made me act like a human being. Made me see what a fool I've been. Made me see all of the things that I never saw before."

"It's the brandy," she said.

She knew that he was going to kiss her, that his lips were going to come down on her mouth, but she did nothing to prevent it.

"You're right," he told her. "The strongest brandy in the world. You."

And then his lips were there, burning hotly on her mouth, his hands on her shoulders, the force of the kiss pushing her head back against the cushion.

"No!" she cried.

"You want me to."

"No!"

His lips lifted from her mouth.

"I won't if you don't want me to," he said.

She didn't know. She couldn't think. Everything was mixed up, frightening, the whole world closing in on her. Helen, she thought; Helen, Helen, Helen. And, quickly she thought: no, not Helen, never, never Helen, not ever again. Helen was her own kind, a girl, and that was not right. This with Jerry might not be right but it could not be so wrong; nothing, nothing, could be so wrong.

"I love you," Jerry whispered. "I love you very much."

Peggy was silent.

"I love you," he said again.

After that she did not talk. After that she became a woman.

Later, on the way back to town, he held her close with one hand and drove Mrs. Reid's car with the other.

"I love you," he said.

She believed him.

"I love you, too," she said.

And Peggy believed that, too.

CHAPTER 11

Jerry finished putting up the last cot and then sat down, looking around the attic. It didn't look bad, not half bad. There were twelve cots in the room, all alike, and Mrs. Reid had put some fancy curtains at the windows. The paint had dried good and hard, a flat surface without any gloss, and the pink lights overhead added to the warmth of the atmosphere.

Like an army barracks, Jerry thought; like an army barracks with women in it.

Someone was coming up the stairs, high heels making a lot of noise on the bare wood. He sat still, wondering who it was, watching the entrance. Sometimes that Cathy Barnes came up there, looking around and talking, careless about the way her dresses fit and the way she moved her body. He guessed she was a little provoked with him because he hadn't done anything about it or even tried to. He sighed, hoping that it wasn't Cathy. She was as loose as a lone apple in a barrel and as anxious as a wild she-dog in spring.

"You're cute," she had told him more than once.

"Am I?"

"All men are cute."

He sighed again, still watching the entrance. A girl like Cathy was poison. She hated college and she was looking for a man to keep her. A guy could get into plenty of trouble with that type of dame. Plenty of trouble.

But it wasn't Cathy or any of the other girls.

It was Mrs. Reid.

"All done?" she wanted to know.

"Done."

"You can work when you feel like it," she said. "You can really make things fly."

She came forward, walking slowly. She was wearing a robe that wasn't closed all the way in the front. It was caught together with a button, low over her full breasts, and beneath that it was open. He could see her legs, long and a little full, and he could see the hint of light blue panties.

"You ought to pay extra for me working over the weekend," he said.

She nodded and smiled at him. "I ought to but I won't."

"Of course, you won't. I know better than that. I broke my back just for the hell of it."

She came close to him, turned quickly and let the hem of the robe ride up.

"There's only one way you'll ever break your back," she said.

Jerry fumbled for a cigarette, found one and lit it. Curiously, he watched her through the smoke. "You've been hitting the bottle," he said.

"One or two," she admitted.

"Or a dozen."

She swung, facing him, and the robe opened again. He didn't know what to make of her. She had been flaunting herself before him lately as badly as that Cathy Barnes. And she had been drinking quite a lot, too. Something, he guessed, had happened to her; something that he didn't know about.

"Things are good," she said.

"That's fine."

"I feel great."

"That makes one of us."

She surveyed the job which he had done on the attic. "Not bad," she said. "Not bad at all. You can do good work when you put your mind to it."

"Sure."

She wet her lips with her tongue and the tip of it was very red.

"You never worked over a weekend before," she said. "What happened? You run out of money?"

"I saw the light."

"I don't believe it. You'd be the last one to see it."

"Well, have it your way."

He hadn't gone down to the room on Kennedy Street and he hadn't worked any of the bars for Helen. He didn't know whether Helen had gone down there or not and he didn't care. A man had to stop somewhere. And he had stopped. Like a train hitting a red light, he had stopped. From now on, everything was going to be straight, everything was going to be on the level. He had the world at his feet and he wasn't going to let it get away from him.

"You can help some of the girls move their things up here," Thelma Reid said. "As soon as they get in from school."

"All right."

"Cathy Barnes comes up here."

"So I understand."

"Marie Thatcher, too."

"Okay."

"And Peggy Markey."

"Sure."

Thelma Reid sat down on the bed opposite but she closed the robe and he couldn't see much of her legs. "You've got it bad for Peggy, haven't you?"

"What makes you say that?"

"I just know. I can tell. Every time you borrow the car she's going somewhere with you. Not only that, but I don't hear you coming up the stairs any more. And you don't drink much. It's almost as though you'd reformed."

"Maybe I have."

"She's a nice girl."

"I think so."

"Too nice for you."

"Why not let her decide that?"

"Because she's not capable of deciding. A girl gets blinded by a man and she can't see for sour grapes."

He had felt it before, that she was leading up to something with him, and now he saw it coming straight at him, right off the top.

"Go ahead," he said.

"I know about your weekends," she said.

"What weekends?"

"Those with you and Helen."

He didn't know what to say.

"You're a pimp, Jerry," she said. "Nothing but a stinking pimp."

He had never thought of himself as one before, but he knew that she spoke the truth. "You followed me?"

"I followed Helen. And I saw you. It's a rotten business, Jerry. A rotten business."

She did not lie; it was. Now when he looked back at it he felt sick about what he had done.

"It's over with," he said. "It is for me, anyway."

She shook her head. "What you've done is never over. That always stays with you."

"A guy can change."

"Not enough for a girl like Peggy. Not nearly enough."

"What are you saying?"

"Leave her alone, Jerry. Leave her alone."

He started to sweat. He had been afraid of something like this, but he thought it would come from that guy Frank, not from Mrs. Reid.

"And if I don't?"

"I'll tell her what you are."

"Why?"

"Why? Because she lives in my house and because I am responsible for her. What do you think her people would say if they knew a thing like this was going on?"

"She's only got a father."

"Or her father?"

"Other guys have made mistakes," Jerry said. "Plenty of them."

"But yours wasn't a mistake," she reminded him. "Yours was deliberate. You took a sweet young thing and sold her body for what you could get for it. Do you call that a mistake? Would Peggy call it a mistake?"

He knew what Peggy would call it. Peggy would call it by its proper name.

"What do you want from me?"

"I told you. Leave her alone."

He could do that. It would be hell, but he could. Later on, when he had a chance to think things out, he would do something about it. Maybe if he told her the truth it would be best. And maybe it wouldn't. He didn't know.

"You're a bitch," he said savagely. "A meddling bitch."

"I have to think of my girls.”

"That's a crook."

She stood up, her eyes bright and filled with something strange, her lips parted wide as she smiled down at him. She was standing close to him now, very close.

"I could be good to you," she said softly.

"Then shut up."

"Not that way. Another way." She hesitated and bent over him. The robe opened at the top, and part of her body was exposed. "I could be awfully good to you."

"Don't make me laugh."

"Well, I could. There are things in life that a woman can find and that she can have, but they aren't always enough. Sometimes she has to have more."

He didn't want to hit her, didn't want to anger her, but he didn't want her either. There was only one woman that he wanted, only one woman he would ever want again.

"Jerry—"

"Damn you!"

He struck her, not too hard but hard enough to drive her away from him. She stumbled and fell on the cot, and the robe gaped wide open.

"Take another drink," he said, getting up. "Take another drink and drown yourself."

She looked up at him from where she lay on the cot.

"You slob!" she cried.

He laughed and started down the stairs.

She was just another bum.

Peggy had all of her things packed.

"You'd think I was moving ten miles instead of just upstairs," she laughed.

"Well, it makes things easier," Jerry answered.

They were alone in the room. Helen had a late class and Peggy had come back without her.

"There's one thing that doesn't go up there," she said.

"What's that?"

"That cardboard carton."

He looked at the box. It was wrapped securely with heavy twine and addressed to Miss Peggy Markey at her home in Warren County.

"The coat," she explained. "The Persian Lamb."

"Why don't you wear it?"

"None of the other girls wear coats like that."

"And you want to be like the rest of them?"

"Yes. Wouldn't you?"

"You could give it to your father this weekend when he comes out for parents' night."

"And have him forget it somewhere? This is much simpler and safer."

Jerry put the box aside.

"I'm going downtown after a while," he said. "I can mail it for you then."

"Thanks."

"Haven't you forgotten something?" she wanted to know.

"I'll come back for the rest of it."

"No, not that. Something else."

He knew what she expected, but he said, "What?"

She came to him.

"This," she said.

She reached up, pulled his head down and kissed him on the mouth. He stood there, still holding the suitcases, feeling the pressure of her lips.

"I haven't changed," she said. "It meant something to me, Jerry."

"Did it?"

"You know it did."

He wanted to hold her in his arms so much. But he knew that he shouldn't.

"I'm no good for you," he said.

Her eyes were wide and honest. "Don't say that!"

"It's true. I'm no good for anybody."

"Jerry—"

"I'd better get these things up to the attic."

When he came back from taking up the first load Peggy did not speak to him. He knew that he had hurt her and in a way he was glad. If he hurt her, she would leave him alone. And if she left him alone there would be no reason for Thelma Reid to tell her the truth about him. And the truth would hurt more than anything else, far more than anything that he might do to her.

"I'll mail your package," he said, coming down the last time.

"Don't bother."

"It's no bother."

"Jerry."

It pained him to look at her. "There's nothing to say," he told her. "And we both know it."

She was crying when he left her.

Part way down the hall a door opened and somebody called to him. It was Evelyn Carter.

"I've got to see you," she said.

"Not now."

"Now."

Still carrying the box, he entered her room and closed the door behind him.

"What did you find out?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"You didn't ask?"

"I didn't ask."

Tears rushed to Evelyn's eyes and her chin trembled. "I was counting on you," she said. He put the box on a chair and rubbed the back of his neck.

"Maybe you were but you don't see it the same way I do. You could die doing a thing like that."

"If I die it's my business."

"No, it isn't. It's the business of the guy who does the job and it's my business if I find somebody to help you. And if anything happened to you we all could get in lots of trouble."

"Are you that scared?"

"I am when it comes to something like this."

She was wearing a knit wool suit and he could tell that she was pregnant. Anybody could tell. He had read some where that an abortion was dangerous after the third month and she was much further along than that. Probably the fourth or the fifth.

"You're in a lot of trouble anyway," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I said. I can blame you for this baby as well as I can blame anybody else."

"Don't try to kid me."

"I'm not kidding you. I could say that you raped me and you would go to jail."

"Nobody would believe you," Jerry said, but the palms of his hands were clammy with sweat. "You don't have a chance with a story like that."

"Don't I?"

"No."

"I think you're wrong. A lot of the girls here know that you've been coming up to my room—not just this year, but last year too. I could say that I came back to Youngsville last summer and that, it happened then. You'd have no way of proving that you didn't."

"And how would you prove that I did?"

"I don't have to prove anything. I just have to accuse you. And even if it didn't stick you would be ruined. You know that, don't you, Jerry? It would ruin you."

He saw it all very clearly. She was desperate and she would do anything, anything at all.

"Why don't you have the baby?" he asked, trying another approach. "A lot of single girls who get caught go through with the thing. Some of them bring them up and some of them put them out for adoption. The kid has a right to live, Evelyn."

"Don't hand me that."

"I'm not handing you anything. I'm saying what's the truth. These things leave scars, mental scars, and they aren't always erased."

"What do you think having a baby without a father would do?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure. All I know is what I have read."

"The Kinsey report said that a lot of girls, even married ones, have abortions."

"You won't be living with a report," Jerry said. "You'll be living with yourself."

"Let me worry about that."

"Why should I?"

"You just find somebody to help me. I can't. I can't go to the places that you could go or ask the people you could ask. If I could, I would. But I can't. You have to help me, Jerry. You have to!"

He talked with her more and tried to reason with her, but it was impossible. She had made up her mind and there was no way to sway her. Either he make the arrangements for her or she would go to the police. If she had to be disgraced, she would drag him down with her. He had his fun and now he would pay for it.

"What about the money?" he asked.

"You put up the money."

"Hey, now!"

"You put up the money and I'll pay you back."

"Three hundred bucks," Jerry said. "It'll take that kind of money to turn the trick."

"I don't care."

"Well, I do. I haven't got three hundred bucks."

"Get it.”

"How?"

"That's up to you. You've been pretty clever sneaking around this rooming house; maybe you can be just as clever at something else."

He hadn't been clever. He had been stupid. He had believed that everybody walked around with their eyes closed and that certainly wasn't so. Mrs. Reid was a good example, and Evelyn was another. A man played both ends against the middle and the first thing he knew he found himself trapped in the middle.

"I'll do what I can," he said after a while.

"Right away."

"Right away."

"The sooner the better."

He picked up the box and walked to the door. "I feel sorry for you," he said. "You don't know what you're doing. You just don't know."

"I know," she disagreed. "And so do you."

Jerry drove downtown, the box on the seat beside him. He didn't have a dime, not a dime, and now there was this thing with Evelyn. It was enough to chase a guy into the nearest bar.

He turned the car south on Warren and drove in the direction of Kennedy Street. Frank would know. If any body knew, Frank would know.

Frank, smelling of whiskey and dirty clothes, was sweeping out the front hall.

"I've got a boy to do this," he explained, as though the work were beneath him. "But I pay him on Sunday and he don't show for two days. All he does is drink and hell it up."

Jerry leaned against the faded green wall and stared at the dirt on the floor.

"I'm looking for a woman," Jerry said.

"You've got a woman."

"Not the kind I’m looking for."

"Yeah?"

"Or a doctor."

"I get it. One of those things?"

"One of those things.”

"Cost you a few bucks to find out."

"It'll cost me nothing," Jerry said.

"Why not?"

Jerry balled up his right fist.

"This is why not."

The woman lived on Grand Avenue, near one of the coat factories. She had an apartment and she did her work there.

"She's good," Frank said. "Some of the girls from the houses go there. I know of one who's been there three times."

"How much?"

"Two-fifty or three hundred. It depends."

"Thanks."

"You're not welcome."

Back in the car he kept driving downtown. Now and then he glanced at the box beside him.

Three hundred bucks. He had to have it. Three hundred bucks or everything would be pretty much finished for him.

When he reached Forbes Street he parked in front of a hock shop.

There was no other way. None. And he couldn't be any worse off, no matter what happened.

He ripped open the box and took out the fur. The coat must be worth at least three hundred.

Someday he would get it back for her, he told himself.

Someday.

CHAPTER 12

Helen was shocked; it was the first time that death had ever been close to her, the first time that death had struck somebody she knew.

"I don't believe it," she said.

"It's true," Cathy Barnes said. "The police were here and they talked to Mrs. Reid. They also talked to some of the girls. I was one of them."

"What did you say?"

"Just that I knew her and that I knew she was pregnant. They wanted to know when she had left the house, who had gone with her, but nobody could be sure. She left for classes yesterday morning but she never did show up at the college. She was alone and I guess I was the last one to see her alive—the last one that they know anything about. She was on the corner, waiting for the bus, and she didn't even speak when I went past her."

"Did she look funny?"

"What do you mean, funny? How should she look? She was just standing there, staring up the street, and she didn't look at me."

"Poor Evelyn," Helen said. "What a miserable way to die."

Cathy, who had been standing in the doorway, turned and started down the hall.

"It's taught me a lesson," Cathy said. "The next man who fools around with me will have to put what he's going to do in writing. I can just imagine myself getting that way and doing the same thing. Hell, I don't want to die."

Helen closed the door and walked toward the bed. Her knees were weak. That was a man for you. A man didn't care about the woman. All a man wanted was his own pleasure. The woman suffered and, in a situation like this, the woman died.

A truck driver had found Evelyn's body near the river, lying in a snow bank. She had died as the result of an attempted abortion.

"If only she had gone sooner," Marie Thatcher said. "It's not so dangerous until after the third month. Painful, maybe, but she'd still be alive. Waiting that long was almost murder."

Helen shrugged and tried to relax. She couldn't worry about Evelyn; worrying would do Evelyn no good and, besides, she had her own problems. A lot of them.

Peggy was now living in the upstairs room and she rarely saw Peggy except going to or from school. A change had come over Peggy, a vast change which Helen did not understand.

"Are we going to get a place downtown?" she had asked Peggy.

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don't think we should."

"But—"

"I don't want to. I just don't want to."

Now that she was living alone in the room Helen was lonely, terribly lonely. The nights were worse than the days but the days were pretty bad, too. Afternoons, when they had come in from school, there had been love and now there was no love. There was just that terrible ache, that constant yearning—and the room at the end of the hall on the second floor.

She guessed that she hated Thelma Reid. She didn't want to hate any girl, but she couldn't help hating Thelma. She was a toy for her, a plaything of desire, and Thelma dominated her constantly.

"You're mine," Thelma would say. "All mine."

"No!"

"But you are. Try to change it."

She had thought of trying to change it but there was no way. Thelma knew too much about her. She would have to pay the price for having been a fool, pay it until she could leave the rooming house and make her way elsewhere.

Jerry no longer presented any difficulty—except in one way. She had gone down to the house on Kennedy Street the previous weekend, unwilling but afraid not to go, and he had not shown up. Later, when she had seen him, he said that he was giving the business up, that he didn't want to continue. Helen didn't know how she would live without the money from the men. She had very little money in the bank and no way of getting any more. Of course, she could always go right on by herself and work only the better sections of the town. If she did that she would have more than she had ever had. And the other possibility she had for money was Peggy. That she could count on. Peggy would give it to her—one way or another.

Helen was still in love with Peggy, and Peggy had drifted away from her. Peggy had been seeing Jerry a lot and perhaps it had been more than just a game. Jerry could be rather persuasive when he wanted to be; he knew how to please a woman. He wasn't like Harry Martin who was a stupid fool. Harry thought every girl was as sacred as his mother and he treated her that way. Harry, whether he knew it or not, had a good job being an undertaker's helper. He was as dead as they came.

Money, money, money—Helen had to have money. Tuition would soon be due again, there would be books to buy and rent to pay. Well, she could forget about the rent. She paid her rent every night in the end room on the second floor. But there were clothes and lots of other things. Yes, she had to have money. And when she got what she needed right now she would still want more. She always wanted more. Never had there been enough money for her and there never would be enough, unless—She smiled and lay back on the bed, closing her eyes. She was not utterly stupid. Someday she would manage to have what she wanted. Someday, somehow, she would be rich. She would have all of the things she had ever dreamed about, and then things would be all right. The only thing she had to find was a wealthy man. And she knew of one. Just one. But one was all she needed.

When she awoke there was someone in her room, moving around in the half-light. She sat up, rubbed her eyes and yawned.

"What the hell do you want?" she asked.

The figure straightened and she recognized Jerry.

"I've got to talk to you," he said.

"You shouldn't be here."

"I know that, but what can I do when I never see you any more?"

"Write me a letter," she replied. "And mail it under a rock."

He came over and sat down on the edge of the bed. "You're not so tough," he said. "You just talk that way."

"You'd be surprised."

"Nothing would surprise me any more."

"If it ever would have." She yawned again and stretched. "Why did you have to see me?"

"About this weekend."

"What about this weekend?"

"I got a place uptown, a nice place, and we can work from there."

"I thought you were all done with that business."

"I was. But not now."

"Need the money?"

"Both of us do."

"That's no lie," she said. "I've got twenty bucks to my name."

"That's more than I’ve got."

"But you get forty a week. And I get nothing. There's a difference between the two."

"Not much."

She thought about it, briefly. Uptown would be a lot better. She wouldn't have to put up with Frank's stares and there would be a lot more money. She had heard that some of the girls got as much as fifty dollars for an hour or even less.

"Not this weekend," she said.

"Why not?"

"Peggy's father is coming on for parents' night and I'm supposed to stick with the old guy."

"You won't make any money that way."

"Maybe not, but I promised."

And she might make a bundle. Peggy had said that her father was crazy about young kids and she would drive him real crazy. She would wear her blue dress, the one that showed off all her curves, and if he got any ideas they might be able to work a deal. Peggy wouldn't have to know.

"What goes with you and Peggy?" she heard herself saying.

"I don't get you."

"You know. She hasn't been the same since she started going around with you."

"What girl is?"

"Don't try to be funny."

"I'm not being funny. There's nothing with us, not a thing. She's just a nice kid."

"If she still is."

"Shut up. What's she got to do with this?"

"Nothing. I was just wondering."

"Well, don't wonder. Keep your garbage in your own back yard."

He got up from the bed and moved toward the door.

"I'll think about next weekend," she said.

“Don't think about it. Put on your girdle and look like a duchess. The carriage trade wants what they pay for?"

"Did anybody ever pay for what they didn't get?"

"Did anybody ever get what they didn't pay for?"

She looked at him for a long time.

"You did," she said.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it. The pleasure was all yours."

He went out and closed the door.

Helen didn't want to go with Harry but being with him was better than staying in that house and feeling sorry for herself, or going to the room on the second floor. Every second she spent in that room she thought of Peggy, wild and wonderful Peggy. But what did she have? A woman for whom she was a slave, and that was all.

The bar was small and barely crowded and he couldn't afford anything but beer.

"I wrote home and told my folks about you," Harry said, pushing the plate of free pretzels toward her. "I wish I'd had a picture to send."

"You don't want a picture of me, Harry."

"Why not?"

"Because you don't."

"You're pretty."

"There are lots of pretty girls," she said. "And there are lots of girls prettier than I am."

"I don't know any."

"Then you haven't been around very much."

The waiter brought two more beers and Harry picked up a fistful of pretzels.

"I don't understand you," Harry said. "You're always running yourself down."

"Maybe because I know my true value."

Harry shook his head. "You're like my mother," he said. "In many ways you're just like her."

"No mother was ever like me."

"You don't know what I mean. You're sort of good and nice and—well, kind. That's what I mean. My mother is that way, only she tries not to show it. She tries to put on a false front, a hard front that hides what she really feels. But she doesn't fool anybody. I can look into her eyes and tell just what she's thinking. And I can do the same with you."

"What am I thinking about, Harry?"

"Me."

He was wrong, of course. She was thinking about Thelma Reid. Thelma would be looking all over for her and when she didn't find her Thelma would go into her room and drink. Helen shuddered, recalling how Thelma could act when she was drunk. She was bad enough sober but when the woman had been drinking she was impossible.

"Go on," Helen said with a small sigh.

"And us. You're thinking about us."

"A little," she lied.

"You think this doesn't mean anything, that it can't last. But you're wrong."

"Am I?"

Harry finished his beer and waved toward the waiter.

"I think a lot of you, Helen. I don't know why I can't say it unless I have a couple of beers in me, but I can't. I see you at the school and I want to tell you and I think about you later and I want to call you on the phone." He laughed and reached for her hand. "I guess you could say I've got it bad."

Helen let him take her hand. There was no harm in that, and he always seemed to enjoy it. He would hold it gently, turning it over and over, and if he drank enough beer he would pretend to read her fortune. The whole thing was crazy and silly but it was part of a cheap night together and she guessed she could endure it. At least Harry was clean and honest and that was more than she could say for Jerry or for any man.

"Had a good week," he said. "Four bodies."

If somebody didn't die his week was shot. He worked by the hour and the more bodies they got the more money he made. There was something gruesome about having to wait for somebody to die before a man could make a buck.

"Three men and a girl," he said. "One of them you knew."

"Evelyn Carter?"

"Yes. They're waiting for her folks to come from Buffalo. A brother got here late this afternoon but he couldn't do anything. All he did was just stand around and look like somebody had robbed him."

"They did. Of his sister."

"He said she wasn't that kind of a girl, that she had never been that kind of a girl. I heard him talking to the police and he wouldn't even believe them."

"It is hard to believe. Just the other day she was around the place and now she's gone. Gives you the creeps."

The waiter brought more beer and Harry drank his quickly.

"She had no business doing it," he said. "A woman who gets pregnant should have the baby."

"Without the father?"

"With or without. A baby, no matter what the reason, has a right to live."

She withdrew her hand and looked at him. Sometimes she liked to hurt him, hurt him terribly, and she didn't understand why. She could make him almost cry sometimes and that always made her feel good. It was as though she owned him, as though she were his master. And right now, she was angry.

"You make me sick," she said. "You're so damned pious, all of you men. You get a girl pregnant and then you say awful things about her because she tried to help herself."

"You don't have to go and get sore."

"I'm not sore. I'm just telling you. What if you got me that way and walked off and left me? What would I do?"

"I wouldn't get you that way," Harry replied seriously.

"Sure—if you didn't get the chance."

"You know better than that," he protested. "I think too much of you for that."

"Every man says the same thing before it happens. Every man makes a big speech about how he loves the girl. And maybe he does, when he says it. But when the thing's done and she's in trouble he runs like a thief in a graveyard at midnight."

His fingers tightened on her hand.

"Helen—"

"Let's not fight."

"I don't want to fight. I just want you to know that it isn't like that with me."

"Or with us," she corrected him.

Misery filled his eyes, a misery that made her feel instantly superior to him.

"Or with us," he said.

She laughed at him.

"You would if you could," she said. "And you know it."

"We've both been drinking a lot of beer, Helen, let's not—"

"Don't lie to me, Harry."

"The only reason you haven't asked me to go to bed is because you haven't got the guts."

His eyes found her face and lingered there.

"The only reason I haven't asked you," he said slowly, "is because it isn't right."

She tried to laugh at him but she couldn't quite make it. He was so moral that it was fantastic. One in a thousand, she thought; Harry Martin was one in a thousand. If there was such a thing, then he was the kind of a man a girl could depend on. Or could she? Hadn't Evelyn Carter thought the same thing about somebody? And now. Evelyn was dead and her baby was dead and the man was still as free as a bird in the sky. No, you couldn't trust any of them, not one. They gave you the business and then they gave you the gate. A girl dealing with a man fell in the same class as a gambler playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun—no matter when or how you pulled the trigger you blew your brains out.

"Let's talk about something else," she said. "Let's not be morbid."

"Love isn't morbid."

"It is if you die for it."

They drank a lot of beer after that, talking about school and the weather and parents' night. Harry's folks had planned to come in for it but his mother caught a bad cold and they had canceled the trip.

"You got anybody coming?" he wanted to know.

"No."

"Nobody at all?"

"Nobody at all."

Helen didn't know where either her mother or father was and she didn't give a damn. She had come this far alone and she would go the rest of the distance by herself, too.

"Another beer, Helen?"

"No, thanks."

"You don't care much for beer, do you?"

"It fills me up."

"Me, too."

On the way to the house, holding her by the left arm, he stopped once on the darkened street and turned her toward him.

"I love you," he said simply.

"You're drunk, Harry."

"No, I'm not. I'm in love with you."

Other men had told her that, men who had paid for the favors of her body. And those of her own sex had told her the same thing, Peggy and other girls whom she had pleased, even Thelma Reid.

"You're sweet," she said softly.

"Can I kiss you?"

"If you want."

Holding her close, he kissed her, his mouth hesitant and slightly trembling as it closed over her lips. "I'll never hurt you," he said.

"Promise?"

"I promise."

Somehow she felt sure that he wouldn't. In that second, Helen felt a strange urge to make him happy, to make him happy in the only way that she knew how. But she knew something else: he wasn't that kind. He was different from any man she had met before.

"Good night," she told him when they reached the house.

He made no effort to kiss her again.

"Good night."

She stood watching him as he walked down the street and out of sight.

Thelma was waiting for her at the top of the stairs.

"Where have you been?" Thelma demanded.

"Out."

"I know that. But where? I've been half out of my mind looking for you."

"You're not half out of your mind," Helen said. "You're out of it all the way."

But she did not protest as Thelma led her to the room at the end of the hall.

Everything had a price. And this was hers.

CHAPTER 13

Peggy's father arrived early in the afternoon of parents' day. He was driving the big Caddy and Peggy could tell that he had made more than one stop along the way.

"Damndest roads I've ever seen," he said. "Ice up to your hips."

"Terrible," another parent said. "I skidded on a turn and had to get a wrecker to pull me out of the ditch."

"What kind of car are you driving?"

"Ford."

"No wonder. These Caddys really hold the road."

They were in the living room which the girls were using for the purpose of greeting relatives and parents. Some had already arrived and left for the college. But there was no hurry. Open house would last until eight in the evening and then the dean would formally welcome the group. Everybody predicted that the punch would be terrible, the sandwiches stale, and that no one would have a good time.

"I drove by that school you go to," Otis Markey said to his daughter. "It looks like a prison without a fence."

"Well, it isn't."

"They ought to have some nice buildings. Big buildings.

"They're growing."

"I don't see how it could be any other way. The place couldn't be much smaller."

She had known that her father would ridicule the school. Everything had to be big with Otis Markey. Houses had to be big, cars had to be big, and money had to be big. Nothing small made any sense to him.

"Frank wanted to come," he said. "He came to the house four times and insisted on driving up with me, but I told him that I better not."

"I'm glad you didn't."

"I told him you were having your fling and that you'd get over it soon. He's waiting it out for you."

Frank, she decided, could keep right on waiting. She had found the man she had wanted. But she had lost him. What was the matter with her? What was wrong with Jerry? She was pretty, as pretty as any of the other girls, but now he wouldn't have anything to do with her. Maybe the old belief that said not to let a man have his way was right, after all. But she knew she would do the same thing again if she had the choice. That moment in the cabin had been one of beauty; it had awakened in her the woman that had been there sleeping all these years. She could look at Helen and not desire her. She could look at Helen and want her only as a friend. She felt sorry for her because she was that way, and felt sorry for herself because she had been a part of it.

"I asked you in my letter not to drive the Caddy," Peggy said. "But I should have known you would do it anyway."

"What's wrong with the Caddy?"

"You've seen the other people here. They don't have very much."

"You think I'm rubbing it in?"

"A little."

Otis Markey stared intently at a girl in a tight-fitting red dress.

"You have to get used to money," he said. "You have to realize that money is power and that people respect power." He looked around the room. "My God, isn't there a drink in the place?" he demanded.

"Not here."

He looked disgusted. "Let's get out of here and get some liquor," he said. "I'm as dry as dust after that trip."

"I see you're still drinking as much as ever."

"I drink because I can afford it. And also for the hell of it."

Peggy recalled the brandy at the cabin. She couldn't understand how anybody could drink and still think straight.

"There's a girl going with us," she said. "We have to wait for her."

"Oh?"

"Helen Lee. Her parents aren't here and I promised we'd take her along."

Other parents were now arriving and the living room began to fill with people. Thelma Reid introduced herself to everybody. She laughed a lot and kept shouting for Jerry to bring in more chairs from the dining room.

"Who's Jerry?" Otis Markey asked.

"He works here."

"Well, he keeps looking at you all the time."

"Does he?"

"Yes. And you keep looking at him. What goes on with you two?"

"Nothing."

"There better not be. Frank is a good boy."

Peggy felt suddenly angry.

"Don't I have a right to love anybody except Frank Taylor?"

"Of course, you have the right—if he's in our class."

"What class is that?"

"Money."

"You didn't always have money."

"But I do now. And that's what counts. When you're poor you marry poor, but when you're rich you have to marry rich."

"Nothing like being a snob."

"Or being practical."

Mrs. Reid came over to them and Peggy's father asked how his daughter was getting along. Mrs. Reid said she was doing fine, just fine. Peggy, feeling left out of things, watched Jerry bring in chairs from the dining room. He did look at her but he didn't smile. She wished that he would smile at her so that she would feel wanted again. Not the way he had wanted her out at the lake. Peggy ached to be wanted for herself alone.

Suddenly, almost every head turned. Helen was coming down the open stairs. She was wearing a tight blue dress cut very low in front, caught with a tiny bow between her two high breasts. Her movements were like those of a cat walking over hot coals. Somebody let their breath out in a rush. Peggy looked to see who it was. It was her father.

"Hi," Helen said to Peggy. "Your dad get here yet?"

"Yes."

She made the introductions but she wasn't quite sure of what she said. She hadn't wanted Helen to dress in so revealing and sexually attractive a way. A skirt and a blouse would have been better.

"Driest place this side of prohibition," her father was saying. "Would you care for a drink, Miss Lee?"

"Call me Helen."

"Well—Helen?"

"I wouldn't mind," Helen said. "But I forgot my coat I'll have to get it."

Helen made the same sort of exit from the room as her entrance. Her hips were trim and rounded, and her legs were long and straight.

"She's a looker," Otis Markey said.

"Dad!"

"Can I help it if she looks like that?"

"She's a nice girl."

"I didn't say she wasn't."

"Well, see that you don't act like you think she isn't."

They drove uptown to a bar on South Adams Street, an expensive place with deep-cushioned seats and enough waiters to man a fair-sized sea-going ship.

"You pay for the atmosphere," Otis Markey said. He grinned, and he wasn't looking at the tablecloth. "But when don't you pay for the atmosphere?"

"You don't pay for it at Cooper Community College," Helen said.

"That's because there isn't any."

She laughed. "You're right."

The waiter, who had been ignored, stood patiently by, waiting.

"It isn't so bad," Peggy said. "They teach you what you're supposed to know and that's what you're supposed to go to college to get.

"Hell," her father said. He glanced up at the waiter. "Who's first?" he asked.

"I'll take a stinger," Helen said.

Peggy's father nodded his approval.

"Sounds good to me. And you, Peggy?"

"Ginger ale."

"She doesn't drink," Otis Markey said. "Can you imagine me having a daughter who doesn't drink?"

"I know she doesn't drink," Helen said. "She never would."

"Silly. A few never hurt anybody."

"That's what I say."

Things got off to a bad start and they stayed that way. Helen and Peggy's father drank stingers, kept on saying that they ought to go out to the college if they were ever going to go, and Helen's dress continued to get lower and lower in front. She pulled the dress up a couple of times, but whenever she laughed it slid down again. She finally left it where it was. Peggy began to wish that her father had never come, and that she hadn't invited Helen to go with them.

"You and Peggy room together?" Otis Markey wanted to know.

"We used to, yes."

"I'll bet it was fun."

Helen's eyes and voice were filled with meaning when she replied, "It was fun."

"We should be getting out to the college."

"If you want to."

"I don't want to," Otis Markey said. "What do I care about going out to that stinking little college? It's you girls I'm thinking of. You're supposed to be there, aren't you?"

"There's no rule about it," Helen said.

The waiter hovered over the table and Peggy refused another ginger ale. How much could a person drink, anyway? She had ordered a glass for every round of stingers, and felt almost bloated. She wondered where her father and Helen could possibly put so much liquor.

"Let's go, Dad," Peggy said. She tried a laugh and the result was a little weak. "I want you to show up sober."

"I'm sober," her father said belligerently.

"Of course, you are."

"And so is Helen. She's plenty sober. This girl friend of yours can drink with the best. She still holds her own like a lady."

Helen smiled.

"Old sponge, they call me," she said.

"I'll bet."

"Old sponge with the hollow legs."

Otis Markey lifted the tablecloth and looked under the table.

"They're the nicest hollow legs I ever saw," he said. "And believe me, I've seen a lot of hollow legs."

"A man like you wouldn't be likely to miss a woman's legs."

"Hardly."

"Or anything else."

"There are a couple of things I'm not missing, you can bet your bottom dollar on that." He grinned at her.

Helen laughed. "You're a card," she said. "A real card."

Peggy was disgusted with both of them. Her father was making all the familiar pitches, and Helen was catching every one.

"Another stinger?"

"Another stinger."

"You like to get stung?"

"I don't mind getting stung."

"By the right man, huh?"

"You read my mind, Mr. Markey."

"I thought you were going to call me Otis."

"Otis."

"I sting like a hornet, I do."

"Dad!" Peggy said.

He glanced at her and then away. "You're a puritan," he said. "You always were a puritan. You must have gotten it from your mother."

"I'm not sorry if I did."

"She was the purest woman I ever knew. And what did it get her? Young and dead, that's what." Otis Markey thumped on the table. "Hey, waiter! Buzz around here and sting us again."

When her father went to the men's room eventually Peggy took the opportunity to talk to Helen.

"Leave him alone," she said.

"What?"

"I said, leave him alone."

Helen had opened her compact and was fixing her lipstick.

"Who's bothering who?" she demanded, biting down on a tissue. "I didn't start anything."

"Maybe you didn't, but I told you what he's like. That was why I wanted you to come with us. I didn't expect this."

Helen shrugged.

"So what?"

"I don't like it, that's all."

"He's having fun."

"He's always having fun."

Helen inspected her lips again in the mirror.

"Besides," she said, "he's a nice guy. I don't think you appreciate him."

"But I do."

"You don't show it."

"Because I don't drink?"

"That and other things. You're old enough to know that a man has to horse around a little bit or he doesn't feel like a man."

"He's my father."

"Does that make him any different?"

"Well—"

"Look," Helen said, leaning across the table. "He likes me and I like him. You want us to hate each other?"

"No, but—"

"You stay out of it, then. Just leave us alone."

But Peggy was determined.

"You don't know my father," she said. "A smile and a few drinks means more to him than just that smile and a few drinks.

"It does to a lot of men."

Peggy was confused. "Don't you care?"

"Frankly, no."

"But—"

"But nothing. You keep out of this."

"I don't have to."

"Yes, you do."

"Why?"

Helen smiled and leaned forward slightly. "You were my lover," she said quietly. "Don't forget that. Your father wouldn't think you were so pure if he knew about the hours we spent making love."

Peggy could hardly speak.

"You wouldn't!" she gasped.

"Why wouldn't I? I have everything to gain and nothing to lose."

Caught, Peggy thought; caught in the web she had helped build. She felt angry and amazed, but completely helpless. She wondered, vaguely, if Helen was one of those bisexuals she had read about. She didn't know, and she didn't care. She just wished that she could take back and destroy that one part of her life she had so innocently given.

"I'll never forgive you," Peggy whispered viciously. "Never!"

Helen laughed.

When Otis Markey returned to the table he started telling jokes, and many of them were coarse and vulgar. Peggy didn't so much as smile, but Helen laughed at every one he told. She no longer cared about the ever-lowering front of her dress, and when she spilled some of her drink she let him wipe it away with the edge of a napkin.

"Let's go back to the college," Peggy said. "I'd like you to meet the dean."

"To hell with the dean," her father said and waved for another round of stingers. "A dean in a joint like that couldn't hold down a study hall in a regular college."

"You know it," Helen agreed.

"Well, you go there," Peggy reminded Helen.

"Not through choice."

Peggy had another ginger ale but she couldn't keep up with them. Her father's forehead glistened with perspiration, and Helen's eyes were very bright.

"Let's go somewhere interesting," Helen suggested.

Peggy's father was all for it.

"Where?"

"I don't know. Any place."

"Not out to the college?"

"No. That's for stiffs."

"You get my vote."

Peggy tried to convince them to go out to the school but her efforts met with no success.

"I'll send them a check," her father said. "I'll send them a big fat check and tell them I couldn't find the place, it was so small."

"Dad!"

Her father stood up. "You coming with us?"

"Maybe she doesn't want to," Helen said, getting to her feet. Her face was darkly flushed and she was slightly unsteady.

"It's up to you," Otis Markey said.

"You coming, Peggy?"

"No."

"How will you get back to the house?"

"Don't worry about me. I know where it is."

"You don't have to be nasty about it."

"I can't help that."

After they had gone Peggy remained sitting at the table for a long time. She felt like crying. The very thing for which she had left home had followed her. And what she had done with her own life made the entire situation worse. Did every girl go through the same growing up period? Did every girl experience a twilight love which, even with its share of ugliness, was tinged with a certain indescribable beauty? Some did, she guessed. Many of those were able enough to change in time and become a woman like every other, but others, she knew, remained loving their own sex for the rest of their lives. She was one of the lucky ones.

"Drink, Miss?"

"I don't know."

"You can't just sit here. The boss doesn't like it."

"What do you drink with brandy?"

"Soda, mostly."

"Then bring me a brandy and soda."

When the waiter brought the drink she offered to pay for it but he refused.

"The gentleman left an extra ten. He said to give you anything you wanted."

Money, she thought; money was one of the few things that meant very much to her father. Women and drink were the other things. And he had to have more than his share of all three. He had to have them in huge quantities, and have them constantly. He was like a vulture hunting a desert sky. Anything he saw he took. Anything.

Peggy was on her third drink when she decided to call Jerry. She had to have somebody to talk to, somebody to confide in.

"Hello. Reid's."

The voice belonged to Thelma Reid.

"Could I speak to Jerry?"

"Who is this?"

"Peggy. Peggy Markey."

There was a slight pause.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Jerry isn't here."

"Oh."

She hung up and returned to the table. That had been a foolish thing to do, a very foolish thing. Jerry didn't care about her any more. She had given herself to Jerry at the lake and as soon as that was done she had lost him, lost him forever. But she still did not regret their love-making.

She had found the woman in herself that day, and for this she was grateful. Someday she would find a man, a man like Jerry, and she would love him the way a woman was supposed to love a man. Oh, someday…

Peggy came back to Mrs. Reid's shortly after dark. The living room was empty, and when she walked through to the kitchen she found no one in there, either.

She opened the cellar door.

"Jerry!"

Silence greeted her. "Jerry!"

She heard somebody moving around down in the cellar.

"What?"

"Jerry, it's Peggy."

She thought she heard him swear but she couldn't be sure.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. "You're supposed to be at the college."

"My father wouldn't go."

Jerry flipped on a switch and light flooded the cellar. He was at the bottom of the stairs, looking up.

"You're crying," he said gently.

She nodded.

"Is it because of me?"

"Partly."

"Where is your father?"

"He's with Helen Lee."

"That's not so good."

"It was terrible."

He started up the stairs and stopped.

"You can come down," he said.

"What about Mrs. Reid?"

"She went to the college to tell them what a wonderful place she runs."

"Are you sure?"

"That's what she said."

She knew she shouldn't go down there, but she also knew something else. She desperately needed somebody close and understanding.

"All right," she said, going down the steps. "But you're going to hate me."

"I won't hate you," Jerry assured her. "I'll love you."

And he did, wonderfully and violently, there in that little room near the furnace.

"I'm jealous," she said later.

"Of whom?"

"The others."

"Don't be. It was never like this."

"Never?"

"Nor this."

Once more he loved her, completely, fully and magnificently.

Afterward, when she went up to the attic, she hardly noticed the two girls lying in. one bed, wrapped in each other's arms. She felt only something like pity for them. They didn't know what it was all about. They just didn't.

She smiled secretly.

But she did.

CHAPTER 14

The cops were after him and Jerry knew it. He had taken a drink in Mrs. Lopez' apartment and his fingerprints had been found on the glass. The cops were running the owner of the fingerprints down; the paper said they were.

"I didn't know the man," Mrs. Lopez was quoted as saying. "He came to the house, first alone and then with the girl, but he didn't give his name. I don't think they were married and he gave the impression that he was just trying to help her. He gave me the money—three hundred dollars—and left. I didn't ever see him again after that.”

Mrs. Lopez had been caught. She had dropped her pocketbook near Evelyn's body and it had been traced.

"I didn't want to do it," Mrs. Lopez insisted. "It was a bad thing and I knew it was a bad thing. But she cried a lot and said I just had to help her. I tried. But I didn't know she was that far gone, or I never would have touched her, so help me. She started to bleed, and I couldn't stop it. And she died. She wasn't very strong. She was just a kid and I feel worse than anybody about what happened."

Of course, Mrs. Lopez was guilty and she would get a prison sentence; that was a foregone conclusion. The Grand Jury had been swift to indict her and now she was awaiting trial.

"We want the man," one of the police told the newspaper. "We want to talk to him because he might be able to tell us a lot that we don't know. And the man is as guilty as Mrs. Lopez. He took the girl to that apartment and she died."

Jerry couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, couldn't think. He didn't even want to drink. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw Evelyn as she had been that day, tiny and afraid, her eyes big and round, the hand on his arm shaking as they walked up the steps of the apartment house together.

"Jerry," she had suddenly said, "thank you for helping me and forgive me for forcing you. There wasn't any other way or I wouldn't have done it."

"It's okay, Evelyn. Okay."

"Pray for me, Jerry," she had said.

"I will."

He had gone into the apartment, paid the woman, had a drink and left. The next thing he knew about Evelyn was when he found out that her body had been found. Mrs. Lopez had been picked up almost immediately. She had remembered the unwashed glass and the fact that his fingerprints must still be on it.

"We'll catch him," the police promised.

And they would.

His fingerprints were on file with the army in Washington and it was only a matter of time before the authorities knew, before they came for him and took him away.

What would they do to him?

He didn't know. Few people, if any, would believe his almost incredible story about having been blackmailed into helping Evelyn. Now that he looked back on it, now that he thought of it, he hardly believed it himself. He had been a fool, an utter fool, and before very long he would have to pay for his stupidity.

"You do hardly anything any more," Mrs. Reid complained. "You don't even sweep out the cellar."

"I swept it out."

"When?"

"Three or four days ago."

"You're supposed to do it every day."

She was on his back all the time. There were a million and one things lined up for him to do, so many things that sometimes he felt like slapping her. And her drinking didn't help matters any. She wasn't so bad when she was sober but drunk she was almost impossible.

"You didn't make your bed."

"I didn't get a chance."

"What chance? Five minutes? Every bed in this house has to be made every morning. The girls make theirs and you have to make yours."

"Okay, okay."

"Well, see that you do from now on."

And the nights were worse than the days. Whenever he could borrow the Chrysler, he saw Peggy. They met downtown on one of the street corners, and they just rode around, talking. Sometimes they did more than just talk, but not often. He felt too guilty every time he touched her.

"You're lovely," he would say.

"And you're lovely, too."

"Am I?"

"Yes."

"You never used to think so."

"That was before all this. That was before I knew what love could be."

Peggy's father had stayed on in Youngsville and was seeing Helen almost every night. Peggy said little about it at first, except that she didn't approve. But on Wednesday night, riding along the river front with Jerry, she had much more to say about it.

"My father has flipped his lid," she said.

"How come?"

"He picked me up at the school and drove me down to his hotel. He practically told me that he was going to ask Helen to marry him."

Jerry nearly ran the car off the road.

"He must be nuts!"

"He is. She's nobody for him."

"Not at all."

"I know Helen. We used to talk to each other a lot. Her one ambition is to marry somebody with money and get all the things she wants."

"And your father's got money."

Peggy nodded. "He's very rich, Jerry."

"That lets me out."

Her glance was concerned. "Why?"

"With you. I couldn't buy dollar bills if they were selling for a nickel each."

She moved close to him.

"Don't let it worry you," she said. "It doesn't bother me at all."

"It does me."

"I don't know why. People often marry someone with more money than they have. It doesn't mean anything."

"I make forty a week." He laughed. "Plus room and board."

"But you don't always have to work for forty a week."

"No? What else could I do?"

"There are other things, lots of things. My father never got past high school and look what he's done for himself."

"And look what's he's doing to himself with Helen."

Peggy was silent for a moment and the wheels of the car splashed on through the slush and loose snow. "I wish I knew what to do," she said.

"Try talking with Helen."

"I did, as soon as I got in from school. But she wouldn't listen to me. She said my father was old enough to know what he wanted and that it wasn't any of my business."

Jerry felt tired and old. There was nothing he could do about the affair, either. He knew what Helen was, but to tell would mean to strip his own past bare. And he didn't want to do that. He loved Peggy too much. He didn't want to hurt her.

"I'll think of something," Jerry said. "I don't know what, but there must be something."

"I hope so."

"Trust me."

She crept closer to him.

"I trust you," she whispered. "If you park the car I'll show you how much."

A mile up the road he took the car off the highway and into a place that the snowplows had used for turning around.

"I love you," he said.

"And I love you."

Jerry knew he shouldn't make love to her but she was there with him and she was beautiful, and he couldn't stop. This moment was for them, wild and glorious, and if there was nothing after this, it could be good enough to last.

His room was hot, not as hot as usual, but hot enough. He supposed the fire was down or something, but he made no move to investigate. There were too many important things on his mind, too many things that had to be solved and solved quickly.

Overhead he could hear Mrs. Reid walking back and forth in the kitchen, running water in the sink occasionally and slamming the refrigerator door. The footsteps came across the kitchen floor and paused at the top of the stairs. One of the hinges squeaked as she opened the door.

"Jerry?"

"Yeah?"

"It's cold up here. What about the fire?"

"I'll fix it."

"You'd better."

He got up and took a look. There was nothing wrong with the fire. If she had some storm windows put on the place she wouldn't have any troubles.

"Jerry?"

"What?"

"The hot water, too. It's very low."

"It's always very low."

She started down the stairs.

"You're in a friendly mood," she said.

He wished that she would go to bed or something. He didn't want to bother with her.

"Must be the money I get," he said sourly. "It makes me so happy I don't know what I'm doing."

He waited at the bottom of the stairs while she came down. She was wearing a robe as she usually did at night, and the slit was wide and revealing. Sometimes, when she had been drinking, he thought she wanted him to make love to her. But when she was sober, he was sure that she didn't.

"You put the car away?" she wanted to know.

"I put the car away."

"Where are the keys?"

"Where I always leave them. On the dining room table."

"I know," she said, coming all the way down. "I was in the car. It smells of perfume."

"Shaving lotion," he corrected her.

"No. Perfume. And only one girl in the house wears that kind. Peggy Markey."

She was always butting into his life, damn her. He felt his anger begin to rise.

"So?"

"I told you to leave her alone."

"Why?"

"That's my business. You don't think I want another Evelyn Carter thing happening here, do you? The police took up a lot of my time and asked all sorts of questions. I don't want to go through that again."

Thelma Reid had not been drinking.

"She wanted a lift," Jerry said. "I gave her a lift."

"Where?"

"Downtown."

She reached in the pocket of her robe for a cigarette and then lit it.

"I've got bad news for you," she said.

"Such as?"

"Letting you go."

"Go on."

"Forty a week is quite a lot of money."

"My heart bleeds for you."

"And I've got the feeling that you'd rather be doing something else."

"You're right."

She smiled. "No hard feelings?"

"No hard feelings."

She filled her lungs with smoke and let it drift slowly from her nostrils.

"It won't be right away," she said. "I'll give you a chance to get another job."

"Thanks."

"You haven't been paying attention to a lot of things for the last few days."

"No, I guess not."

"Any reason?"

There was plenty of reason.

"Not one," he said.

"But I won't put up with you fooling around," she said. "If you're going to get paid you're going to work."

"All right."

"In the morning you scrub the floor in the girls' dorm."

"Okay."

"But only if all of the girls are out."

"Sure."

"And stay away from the rooms."

"Okay."

She slid her hands down over the robe, flattening it out over her thighs.

"You want a drink?"

"No."

"On the wagon?"

"You could say so."

"Why?"

"Poverty."

She said something about him not being worth any more than forty a week and started up the stairs. He stood there watching her. He just couldn't figure her out. She was a strange one, all right.

He waited for quite a while and when he heard no sounds from the first floor he walked upstairs and sat down in the living room, waiting in the dark. Maybe this was foolish, but he had to start somewhere.

The dark bothered him. First he saw Evelyn's face and then he saw Peggy's face. One was filled with pain and hate and the other was filled with love. Two women, he thought, and both of them very much a part of his life. One was dead, buried someplace in upper New York State, and the other was still alive. What a lousy mess.

The front door opened and two girls came into the hall. They did not see Jerry sitting in the" dark.

"Wasn't he a doll?" the one demanded. "A living doll!"

"Breathless."

"Do you suppose he really works for an undertaker?"

"That's what he said."

"It must be horrible, seeing all of those dead bodies and everything."

"He saw Evelyn what's-her-name."

"He did!"

"He said she was pretty, awfully pretty. But I didn't think so. I thought she looked like any other girl."

"Only she was pregnant."

"Yes, she was pregnant."

The girls walked up the stairs, still talking. Jerry fumbled for a cigarette, found none and yawned. It was hard to guess when Helen would get in. Maybe midnight, maybe morning. Or maybe not at all. But he would wait. He would wait as long as he had to.

She came in about eleven-thirty. He could tell it was Helen because something got in her way and he heard her curse.

"Damn house," she said.

"Helen?" he said in the dark.

She paused at the foot of the stairs.

"Now my evening is ruined," she said.

"Not as much as it's going to be."

She came away from the stairs and moved toward him through the shadows.

"I suppose you're waiting for yours," she said.

"Sit down."

"I don't want to sit down."

"Sit down!"

She sat down. Now that his eyes had become accustomed to the darkness he could see her quite clearly.

"There's a couple of things I want to get straight," Jerry said.

"I'm listening."

"Are you going to marry Otis Markey?"

"He hasn't asked me yet. But he will.”

"How do you know?"

"A girl can tell."

"A girl like you can tell a lot of things."

She started to get up but he grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her back down to the davenport.

"I don't have to take that from you, Jerry."

"You have to take plenty from me," Jerry said. "Plenty. And don't forget it."

"Take your hands off of me."

"Not until I get finished talking to you. Not until you tell me a couple of things."

"You've been talking to Peggy."

"Never mind whom I've been talking to. Why are you thinking of marrying him?"

"I didn't say I was."

"But you are."

"Of course."

"Why?"

She laughed. "Maybe I'm in love with him."

"Or his money."

"That's not fair, Jerry. A girl can really fall in love, you know.”

"Not your kind of girl," Jerry said. "Your kind never does. All you go for is the fast buck, the easy dollar."

Her voice was savage. "Leave me alone!"

"I won't. What do you think he would say if he knew what you were? If he knew you were nothing but a prostitute?"

"The same thing Peggy would say if she knew you were a pimp."

It was like a slap across the face. He wanted to help Peggy any way he could, and he wanted Helen to do the right thing. But he wanted Peggy to keep thinking that he was a good guy, too, and that began to look impossible.

"You're a bitch," Jerry said.

Helen laughed again and pulled her shoulder free.

"And you're a fool," she said. "You can't scare me and you know it."

"It's not the right thing to do," he said, stubbornly.

"Not the right thing to do? What do you know about what's right and what isn't right? You don't know a single thing. You've lived like an animal half your life and you think everybody else wants to do the same thing. Well, you're wrong. I don't. I hated that room on Kennedy Street and hated you and everything I had to do. Just give me the chance to get out and I'll take it in a hurry. Just one chance. That's all I need, Jerry. And I've got it."

"Everybody has a conscience."

"You don't. Why should I?"

There was nothing he could do. He knew talking to her all night wouldn't get him anywhere. She had the heart of a snake and the mind of a beast.

"There's one thing about it," Jerry said. "You won't be selling yourself for twenty bucks."

"Shut up."

"It'll be top dollar this time, baby."

"You just shut up!" she flared at him. "Who are you to talk? You're just a lousy pimp without a girl. You don't care about me. You don't care about anything. And there's something else you ought to know, Jerry, something that you ought to know for sure."

"All right."

"The last day Evelyn was here—do you remember that?"

Something tightened inside of him.

"Yeah, I remember."

"That was one of the days you used Mrs. Reid's car."

"So what?"

"So I was down the street, on the corner, and I saw you go by. You weren't alone. Evelyn was with you."

The thing inside of him became tighter. He felt almost as though he were being strangled.

"You can't prove that," he said.

"I don't have to prove it. All I have to do is tell that to the cops." She hesitated to make it hurt more. "The cops are looking for the guy who was with her. I've got an idea that you were that guy."

"What if I was? I didn't kill her."

"You took her there."

That was true. He was trapped.

"You took her there and she died. I know you weren't the guy who got her that way—or were you?—but that doesn't make any difference. She was violating the law when she went there and you were violating the law when you helped her. You could get a long time in jail for that, Jerry. A long, long time."

Jerry was sweating. No matter where he turned this girl had him fenced in.

"Forget it," he said.

"Now you're being sensible."

But he wasn't forgetting it.

"You win," he said. "For this time."

Helen stood up and walked toward the stairs.

"I'll always win," she said. "Every time."

He sat there, listening to the sounds of her shoes on the stairs. She was a slut, a no-good slut, and he couldn't do a thing about it. She would marry Otis Markey and get his money. He could imagine what Peggy's life would be like after that.

Down in the cellar he sat on the bed and put his head in his hands. There was no point to lying down because he wouldn't be able to sleep. He doubted very much if he would ever be able to sleep again; this thing had become a nightmare.

He was in love with Peggy Markey.

And he was no good.

Those were the two things that mattered, the things that were important. At the beginning, he had wanted some of her money but she had given him something far better than that. She had given him a love that was fragile and tender, a love that went far beyond anything he had ever known before.

He felt sick as he recalled stealing Peggy's coat and pawning it, all to help Evelyn on her way to death. But all of these things had happened and he could not change them. Nothing could change them.

He rocked back and forth, wanting to cry, unable to cry. He wished he had a drink, a full bottle, but there wasn't an ounce in the room. And he had less than five dollars in his pocket. Well, the hell with it.

He left the house and walked down to the nearest bar.

CHAPTER 15

Helen took a cab from the rooming house to Otis Markey's hotel. Jerry had offered to drive her over in Mrs. Reid's car, but she didn't want to have anything to do with him. If she never saw him again, that would be fine, just fine.

"I fired him," Thelma had told her. "I gave him the boot."

"That's good."

"He doesn't earn his keep any more. All he does is loaf around."

She told the cab driver to take the long way to the hotel and to drive slowly. She needed time to think.

"You marry this Otis Markey," Thelma had said, "and neither one of us will ever have to worry again."

Marrying Otis Markey was all right with Helen. Marriage to Otis meant money, lots of money, money to buy the things she wanted, all the things that she had always longed for. Peggy did not worry her. She would be easy to keep in line. In fact, living in the same house with Peggy, living close to her, might be fun. The only bad feature in the whole thing was Thelma. She was tired of working and wanted somebody to keep her. And she thought that she had found a way.

"You send me a few hundred every month," she had said, "and I won't bother you. But you miss one payment for one month, and he'll know just who and what you are."

"That isn't fair!"

"Why isn't it fair? You're marrying him for his money, aren't you? Does that make you any better than I am? Does it? You want the soft life. Well, so do I. We both can have it. We both can have what we want. You'll get yours and I'll get mine. Baby, it's a cheap price to pay for a fortune.”

And it was.

Otis had told her enough about himself so that she knew he was very rich. A few hundred one way or another would never be missed. She could keep Thelma quiet and herself happy. And in her own special way, she would even be good to Otis. A lot of women who got married had kids to support. Keeping another woman could hardly be much more expensive than that. Anyway, whether it was or not, the end result justified the means—when the end was money.

"Going to snow." The driver interrupted her thoughts.

"Is it?"

The driver nodded. "I can tell by the place where my leg was busted. Every time there's a change in the weather, it—"

She did not listen to him. What did she care about the driver and his leg? What did she care if it snowed? Hell, getting right down to it, what did she care for anything? She was going to Otis Markey, to his hotel room, and she knew what would happen after she got there. She could feel it, feel it more than she had ever felt anything else in her life before.

"Marry me," he would plead.

She would laugh at him, let him kiss her, say nothing. And then she would take him to bed. She had taken him to bed before and made him happy. She would do the same again. Then, in that brief moment when he was completely her slave, she would tell him. "I'll marry you," she would say.

Yes, she would marry him and live happily ever after on his money. He would be away a lot of the time—he said he traveled a great deal—and then she could seek out the one kind of love that made her feel like a woman. Peggy? Well, perhaps Peggy. Peggy, when she was home on vacations, could hardly refuse her. And when Peggy was not around, then somebody else. There was always somebody else. Always.

"Getting colder," the driver said.

He was a nuisance.

The driver swung the cab East off Wilson Road and headed down Carlton Drive. The slush splashed and banged under the fenders and a couple of kids on the sidewalk got soaked with it.

"Damn you!" one of the kids yelled.

"That's what I like about this town," the driver said. "Everybody damns somebody else."

Two blocks after the theater he pulled up and stopped in front of the hotel.

"A buck," he said.

She gave him two. She could afford it. Helen was on her way to a big bundle of cash.

She took the elevator to the fourth floor. It was hot and crowded in the elevator, and some woman kept telling her dog to lie down and shut up.

"Four!"

She got off and walked down the hall to room four-ten. Without knocking she opened the door and walked in.

"Hi," Jerry Dixon said.

She stood very still, her lips parted.

"Come in," Otis Markey said. "And close the door, Helen."

Otis sat on the bed, both hands curled around a drink.

Jerry was standing by the window and smoking. He watched her. Weakly, as though she were walking in her sleep, she entered the room and pushed the door shut.

"What are you doing here?" she managed.

Jerry grinned. "Not the same thing you are."

Otis got up from the bed, finished his drink, and carried the glass over to the dresser.

"This young man has been talking to me," Otis said quietly. "I'd rather not believe some of the things he has said."

Helen took a deep breath and tried to smile. This was unexpected, but she would make Jerry pay for it. She would make him pay for it a long, long time. All she had to do was pick up the phone, call the police, and he was in trouble.

"Don't believe him," she said. "He was born lying."

Otis looked from Jerry to Helen.

"He seemed to know what he was talking about."

"A good liar always does."

Jerry shrugged and shook his head when Otis Markey offered him a drink.

"We can settle this very easily," Jerry said. "We can get in a car, the three of us, and we can ride down to Frank's place on Kennedy Street. We'll go in, find Frank and you can ask him, Mr. Markey, if he ever saw this girl before. He'll tell you. He'll tell you that she used one of his rooms every weekend to entertain the men that I picked up for her."

"You picked up?"

"Yes, me." Jerry was not avoiding the issue. "I was her pimp."

Otis Markey poured a long drink and his hand shook.

"You say you love my daughter?"

"Very much. That's why I'm here."

"I can't say I think much of her choice," Otis Markey said.

"Maybe not."

"I doubt if she feels the same way about you."

"I doubt if she will—after this."

It became very quiet in the room. Otis Markey lifted the glass, then put it down and scratched his head.

"I thought a lot of you," he said to Helen.

Helen didn't know what to say.

"You were a little bit like somebody I remember from a long time ago. I don't know why. But what this young man has told me about you means that you're just the opposite."

Outwardly she tried to. remain calm but inwardly she was raging. Of all the rotten, stinking luck in the world, this was the worst. Why couldn't Jerry have kept quiet? Didn't he know that if he was tied in with Evelyn Carter's death he would go to jail?

"He's lying," she said, trying to bluff her way through. "He wanted to marry me himself and I wouldn't do it. I suppose this is his way of getting back at me."

"That's a laugh," Jerry said.

"Oh, it is, is it?"

"Sure, it is. I wouldn't marry you if you paid me. What man in his right mind would?"

Helen started to say something, but Otis Markey waved for silence.

"I've got something at stake here," he said. "I don't want to believe what I hear but I can't very well just ignore it. Seems to me that the best thing to do is go down to that place and see that man. It ought to satisfy all of us, one way or another."

Helen wanted to scream and curse. She couldn't go down there, she just couldn't. Frank would do anything to hurt her, anything. She might as well end it here, in this room, as anywhere else.

"I won't be pushed around this way," she said.

Otis Markey stared at her. "I'm not trying to push you around. All I want is the truth and I'm entitled to that."

"Then you believe him?"

"I'd rather not."

"Why don't you believe me? Why don't you believe me when I say it's a lie?" Her voice rose and she fought to control it. "Why don't you?"

Neither man said anything. The silence pulled in around her, swelling. She felt as though the world was being torn away from her, as though her whole life were being wrecked.

"I can't go down there," she sobbed.

Otis Markey was gentle with her. "Why not?"

"I—can't."

It was over. She knew it was over. She had known one exciting glimpse of the future and now it was swept aside. She started to laugh, bitterly, brokenly. It was so funny, so funny. She had been so near.

"I'll pay you back," she said to Jerry, starting for the phone. "I'll pay you back good."

"Who are you calling?"

"The police. About you and Evelyn Carter."

"They already know," Jerry said. "I called them just before you got here." He started for the door. "They're expecting me and I'd better not keep them waiting."

Otis Markey poured another drink.

"I've never seen the like of it," he said. "Never. I should have stayed in Warren County."

At that moment, Helen wished that he had.

Peggy was ashamed to see her father, ashamed of all of the things that she had been, of all of the things she had done.

"That Helen really blew her stack," her father said. "She told me a lot of things about you and that Mrs. Reid and—well, I just don't want to believe them, that's all."

"I don't know about Mrs. Reid."

"I'm not interested in Mrs. Reid. I'm interested in you."

They were in his room at the hotel and it was late at night. He had been drinking heavily but he showed no signs of it. His face wasn't red the way it usually became and when he spoke his voice didn't boom.

"I don't know what to say," Peggy said.

"You can talk to me. I'm your father."

"Can I?"

"Why can't you?"

"I don't know," she replied. "I just don't know." Otis Markey started to fix another drink and then put the bottle down.

"This won't solve anything," he said.

"No."

"I used to think that it did but it doesn't. You get something like this in your hair and liquor won't budge it."

She felt small and weak and she would have given almost anything to have been anywhere but in this room with him. They had been talking about things that were a part of life, almost all of life, and she was not used to that. Before he had seemed so far away, so distant, and now he was close to her, closer than he had ever been before.

"I didn't mean to," she said.

"I know you didn't."

"It just happened, that's all."

"That's reasonable. This isn't the first time such a thing has happened when a lot of girls live together. And it won't be the last, either."

"It's the last for me," she said. "The first and last."

"I'm glad to hear you say that. But we don't have to talk about it any more. All we have to do is forget. I'll get you another car to show you how I feel."

"I don't want another car."

"You're a funny one. What do you want?"

"I'm not sure."

He looked at her closely.

"Not that Jerry, I hope."

"I don't know."

"He's as low as they come. He was selling this girl and getting money from her. And he took the other girl to her death."

"You said she threatened him."

"If you believe that."

"Don't you?"

"I don't know what to believe," her father said. "He claims he pawned your coat but there's no way of proving that until the pawn shop opens in the morning."

"A lot of people make mistakes," Peggy said.

"Yes, and he made a bundle of them."

"So did I."

"So did you."

"And you."

"Me?"

"Yes, you," Peggy said. "You know that and so do I. We've never been close, not the way a father and daughter should be. You've made too much money, drunk too much, and bothered with too many young girls."

"I guess you're right."

"But talking about it doesn't do any good."

"No. The thing to do is see where we have been wrong and try to right things. I'm willing if you are. I'm willing to do anything that I have to do to help both of us."

"So am I."

"Now you're talking like your mother."

"Is that good?"

"Very good."

"Was my mother pretty?"

"Like you."

"I'll take a drink," she said suddenly.

He was surprised. "I didn't know you drank."

"Not much, but I need one now."

"So do I."

They drank together in silence. For the first time with her father, she felt good, solid, and secure.

* * *

The police were firm but friendly with Jerry. The Sergeant, a middle aged man, was especially kind.

"I've got a son your age," he said. "He could get into trouble, too."

"Well, I sure did."

"But you made things better by coming in here. You lay it on the line for us and we appreciate it."

"There was nothing else to do."

"You could have run."

"Where?"

The Sergeant frowned. "Anywhere. A lot of them try it."

"And you bring them back."

He nodded. "We bring them back."

The assistant district attorney, who had been listening, wanted to go through the whole thing again.

"Where did you meet the girl?"

"What girl?"

"Helen Lee."

"At the house. At Mrs. Reid's."

"Did she approach you or did you approach her?"

"It was sort of a meeting of the minds."

"But you provided her with a room to carry on her affairs?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

"It doesn't matter."

"No, I suppose it doesn't. We can't do anything about that part of it, anyway. The only thing we can do is turn her over to a social service agency and see if they can't straighten her out. She seems to want to badly enough. She was crying a lot when she told us about her association with Mrs. Reid. I think she was afraid of the woman."

"She might turn out to be somebody," Jerry said.

The assistant district attorney nodded and toyed with a huge cigar.

"Mrs. Reid will have to find another way to make a living," he said. "The college won't stand for having any girls staying with a woman like that."

Jerry yawned and stayed silent. It had been a long night, a very long night. The gray of dawn was just beginning to crowd in through the windows.

"The main thing is this Carter death. You say she forced you to help her?"

"Yes."

"Well, we can't prove that she didn't."

"No,"

"If she did, and a jury believed your story, we wouldn't have much of a case. The fact that you paid for the operation doesn't mean that you helped to kill her. Mrs. Lopez is responsible for that. Frankly, Mr. Dixon, we can't prove that your motives were anything but well-meaning."

"If misguided," the Sergeant said.

"Yes. Misguided and well-meaning." The assistant district" attorney held a match to the cigar. "The thing is the coat. You had no right to pawn that."

"No," Jerry said.

"If Miss Markey wanted to put you into a jam she could do it very easily."

"I know."

The assistant district attorney smoked contentedly on his cigar and attempted to blow a couple of smoke rings toward the ceiling.

"You say you are in love with Miss Markey?"

"Yes."

"You've gone a rather roundabout way of showing it."

"I guess I have," Jerry agreed.

The smoke rings were a flop and the assistant district attorney gave up the idea.

"I had quite a talk with her."

"I didn't know she was here."

The lawyer nodded.

"She came down a couple of hours ago. I was talking to her while you were with the Sergeant. She says she doesn't want to press any charges about the coat."

"I see."

"She's a nice girl, Mr. Dixon. A very nice girl."

"Yes, she is."

"Don't let what Helen Lee said change your opinion."

"I won't."

The assistant district attorney removed the cigar from his mouth and nodded toward the door.

"You're free to go," he said. "You won't even have to appear against Mrs. Lopez. She has signed a full confession and that will hold up in court."

"Thanks."

Jerry left the room, walked down the short hall and on outside. The early morning air was cold and the sky was filled with the threat of snow. A big car stood at the curb, its engine running.

He had ruined everything, everything. He had found the one girl he could love and he had lost her. The fact that she had been something else, something that he did not fully understand, did not bother him. A girl could make a mistake and so could a man. Life was a little bit like a ball game where you could strike out more easily than you could hit a homerun.

He approached the car, walking slowly.

"Jerry!"

It was Peggy. He walked up to the car, leaned against it, and looked in through the open window.

"Hello," he said.

Her eyes were filled with everything that he wanted to see.

"I love you," she said simply.

"After everything?"

"After everything."

She pushed the door open and the heat from inside of the car rushed out at him.

"My father is waiting for us," she said.

"For what?"

"To talk to you about a job. And not at forty a week."

He slid in beside her.

"How much?" he wanted to know.

"Enough for a couple to live on. Enough for them to get started on."

He closed the car door. "That's good," he said.

"Harry was here," she said. "Harry Martin. He wants to help Helen. Do you think he can?"

"I don't know."

She came to him, her head tilted back and her eyes bright.

"I don't know either," she said. "There's just one thing that I do know." Her lips were wet and red. "I want you to kiss me," she said. "Kiss me hard."

Jerry did.

THE END

AFTERWORD

A new revolution was underway at the start of the 1940s in America—a paperback revolution that would change the way publishers would produce and distribute books and how people would purchase and read them.

In 1939 a new publishing company—Pocket Books—stormed onto the scene with the publication of its first paperbound book. These books were cheaply produced and sold in numbers never before seen, in large part due to a bold and innovative distribution model that soon after made Pocket Books available in drugstores, newsstands, bus and train stations, and cigar shops. The American public could not get enough of them, and before long the publishing industry began to take notice of Pocket Book’s astonishing success.

Traditional publishers, salivating at the opportunity to cash in on the phenomenal success of the new paperback revolution, soon launched their own paperback ventures. Pocket Books was joined by Avon in 1941, Popular Library in 1942, and Dell in 1943. The popular genres reflected the tastes of Americans during World War II—mysteries, thrillers, and “hardboiled detective” stories were all the rage.

World War II proved to be a boon to the emerging paperback industry. During the war, a landmark agreement was reached with the government in which paperbound books would be produced at a very low price for distribution to service men and women overseas. These books were often passed from one soldier or sailor to another, being read and re-read over and over again until they literally fell apart. Their stories of home helped ease the servicemen’s loneliness and homesickness, and they could be easily carried in uniform pockets and read anywhere—in fox holes, barracks, transport planes, etc. Of course, once the war was over millions of veterans returned home with an insatiable appetite for reading. They were hooked, and their passion for reading these books helped launch a period of unprecedented growth in the paperback industry.

In the early 1950s new subgenres emerged—science fiction, lesbian fiction, juvenile delinquent and “sleaze”, for instance—that would tantalize readers with gritty, realistic and lurid stories never seen before. Publishers had come to realize that sex sells. In a competitive frenzy for readers, they tossed away their staid and straightforward cover images for alluring covers that frequently featured a sexy woman in some form of undress, along with a suggestive tag line that promised stories of sex and violence within the covers. Before long, books with sensational covers had completely taken over the paperback racks and cash registers. To this day, the cover art of these vintage paperback books are just as sought after as the books themselves were sixty years ago.

With the birth of the lesbian-themed pulp novel, women who loved women would finally see themselves—their experiences and their lives—represented within the pages of a book. They finally had a literature they could call their own. Of course, that’s not what the publishers of the day intended—these books were written primarily for men… indeed shamelessly packaged and published to titillate the male reading public.

Many of the books were written by men using female pseudonyms and were illustrated by cover artists who never read the content between the covers. However, a good percentage (primarily titles from Fawcett’s Gold Medal Books imprint) were written by women, most of whom were lesbians themselves. For lesbians across the country, especially those living isolated lives in small towns, these books provided a sense of community they never knew existed… a connection to women who experienced the same longings, feelings and fears as they did—the powerful knowledge that they were not alone.

We are excited to make these wonderful paperback stories available in ebook format to new generations of readers. We present them in their original form with very little modification so as to preserve the tone and atmosphere of the time period. In fact, much of the language—the slang, the colloquialisms, the lingo, even the spellings of some words—appear as they were written fifty or sixty years ago. The stories themselves reflect the time period in which they were written, reflecting the censorship, sensibilities and biases of the 1950s and early 1960s. Still, these lesbian pulp novels are a treasure in our collective literary history and we hope you will enjoy this nostalgic journey back in time.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

AFTERWORD