But years ago.”
Professional dignity slipped away. No longer self-contained and superior, the doctor became a diffident boy. He had found the picture in an advertisement in an old magazine given to him by a patient who had wanted him to read a story he had written. “The girl looked like you, and then I remembered that you told me you’d put yourself through college working as a model.”
“That’s ten years ago. I was a sophomore and missed an ancient history class to pose for that picture.”
He returned the picture to his wallet carefully while his eyes were fixed upon her. The scrutiny was almost contact. Elaine became nervous, left the couch, sought protection in deeper shadow. There was the smell of challenge in the room, in the scent of flowers, in the hot wind. Ralph’s body was long and spare, his head narrow. Fiery red hot sparks shot from his green-tinted eyes. Not daring to let him see that she recognized mood and masculinity, Elaine bustled about the room in the need to avoid contact of eye or hand. She talked in a nervous, flutey voice about the years when she had worked as a model, rushed from class to photographer’s studio, from studio to date. Her days and nights had been too crowded, she had studied when she came in after theater and dancing, had got along with three or four hours of sleep. Excitement had carried her along, she had lived in a whirl of fascinating activity. Ralph saw her as she must have been before her marriage, a gay and popular girl, teasing and enchanting the many men who had surely been in love with her.
“But you wouldn’t have liked me then. I was too frivolous.” Recollection of frivolity brought out a stream of laughter, “I’m sure you were much more serious when you were at college.”
“Too serious.” There had never been a moment in his life when Ralph had doubted his dedication to the profession of his foster-father. Above all in his life he had wanted to prove himself to the generous pair who had treated him as their own son.
At last she settled down again, hands folded primly in her lap. Ralph chose the far end of the couch. In the dim room they sat like sedate children waiting to be sent out onto the floor of the dancing school. Presently Ralph moved closer and reached for Elaine’s hand. The kiss caught them both off balance.
For months she had been thinking about this man, but not in this way, not physically. He had been her confessor, the vessel into which she had poured her fears for her husband; certainly not the instrument of relief or revenge. Surprise made her vulnerable. She clung to Ralph, accepted and returned the kiss. But only for a few instinctive seconds. With a shudder, recognizing weakness, she pulled away, pushed at his chest, made movements of rejection.
“Oh, no, please. Please not . . .”
He became fiercer, murmured that he loved her, that he had tried to forget about her, that no woman had ever moved him so deeply and completely. Elaine seemed not to have heard. Both trembled and shrank into themselves. They heard wheels on the dead-end street, became paralyzed at the thought of having to face her husband calmly. The car turned and drove down the hill. Elaine rose and once again sought protection in the shadows. Ralph followed. Overhead a plane buzzed. They listened like people waiting for a bomb to destroy them. She threw back her head and stroked her neck in a way that Ralph found unbearably seductive.
Having once rejected him, Elaine did not expect to be seized again. The second shock swept away all defenses. She grew limp, pressed her breasts against his body, arched backward, supple and ready. Ralph carried her to the couch. “Not here, not in this room,” she whispered as though it were the place rather than the act that would betray her husband. Her mind had cleared, she knew precisely what she was doing and loathed herself, but she had been so long deprived that she had no more will to resist. Her body felt remote from mind and heart as Ralph lifted and carried her to her own room and there, upon her own bed, took her. They made love in silence with no words of passion, no moans of rapture. Her lover was ardent and experienced, but Elaine felt less delight than the cessation of throbbing need.
Poor Fletcher, she thought.
Afterward she lay still, neither fully released nor repentant, but only arid and indifferent. Ralph came alive to the situation and groaned, “What are we going to do now?” All Elaine could say was, “Hurry, hurry. Please get dressed and go quickly.”
HELPLESS IN THE padded chair, his jaw weighted with clamps, pipes, and tubes, Fletcher became the most captive of audiences. Not even the consolation of revery was permitted. Dr. Gentian indulged in the conversational flux that is the occupational disease of dentists and barbers. Although Fletcher had become accustomed to muteness he found these sessions particularly irritating because the doctor could not restrain his admiration for Fletcher’s wife. In the most jocular way he reminded the poor man of his tremendous luck in having won the devotion of a delightful girl.
“So much younger, too. You must have something on the ball to keep her so faithful. At your age and with your trouble.” The dentist touched his own Adam’s apple.
Medical authority gave Dr. Gentian special privilege. He did not feel restrained in speaking of the laryngectomy and its physical and psychological effects. He always had tidbits of unpleasant information. While he drilled and hammered he gave dull, repetitious lectures studded with technical phrases. From this he went on to another painful subject. One of his patients had been sued by his wife for half a million dollars. The drama had been covered by the morning and evening papers but the dentist, having looked into the protagonists’ mouths, had extra tidbits about their teeth and their passions. He knew better than any reporter why Mr. X had failed to hold the affections of his wife. “Not that you’re anything like him,” Dr. Gentian shouted over the whirring of the drill, “a big good-looking man like you. He’s a runt, a regular Mr. Five-by-Five who goes in for these tall, bleached dolls. She’s nothing, if you ask me, but a run-of-the-mill gold-digger while your wife’s true blue, all wool and a yard wide. And a million dollars’ worth of sex appeal.”
Held prisoner in the padded chair, Fletcher thought of the chocolate-colored blotch on Elaine’s flowered silk dress. He saw her startled eyes, the shocked and graceless movement as she backed away. A groan escaped.
“Am I hurting you?”
The patient, bereft of larynx and encumbered by a mouthful of instruments, could give no more answer than another strangled moan.
A moment of rest was permitted. Then Dr. Gentian went on with his drilling and his story: “And one fine day when he was out on business his wife packed her things, priceless jewelry and four minks, and left him flat.”
Elaine had not allowed her husband to buy her a mink coat. She had handsome wool wraps of various colors, satins and brocades for evening and an ermine-lined velvet cloak for cold nights. He saw her wearing it in New York, a young woman who had left a brutal, demanding, and impotent husband to enjoy freedom. A new vision rose. Somewhere beyond the dentist’s drill and cabinets he saw his house deserted, too bright and glaring without his wife’s gentle shadow. The house was Elaine; she had selected and furnished it, fixed its proportions, determined its colors, arranged its routines, filled it with her past, the looks and ornaments that had belonged to her family.
At once Fletcher felt that he must leap from the dentist’s chair, desert the barber, jump into the car and speed to her side. He did not. Dr. Gentian was allowed to finish, to spend galling moments in trivial talk, to consult his book and arrange another appointment. Again prisoner in the barber’s chair, Fletcher listened to political and scandalous gossip, heard praise of women, boasts of male prowess. He allowed the manicurist to pick at his cuticle and thought of his wife speeding in a taxi toward the airport. At long last he was free to pick up his car.
Cindy was to have waited at the parking lot. It was absurd to have expected her to be on time.
