by Joan Ellis
"You mean they're Lesbians," Phyl said, as calmly as she could manage. What was Della after, the way she was lying there flaunting that body of hers?
"But of course," Della laughed. "What else?" She lifted one leg and inspected it. "Will it take me long to get my figure back, Phyl?"
"Not if you exercise," Phyl said, taken aback by the first name bit. Involuntarily, her eyes followed the length of those tanned legs.
"Phyl, I have an awful pain," Della whispered, and leaned forward urgently.
"Where?" Phyl was on her feet.
"Here," Della said earnestly, reaching for Phyl's hand and laying it on one full breast. "I have a pain to be touched!"
"Now Della—" Phyl tried to brush it off, her face hot.
"Phyl, don't leave me this way," she implored, her hand gripping Phyl's wrist. "I've behaved, haven't I? All these months coming to you, I've been good—because I looked so horrible and it didn't seem right, with the baby and all. But now it's different." Her other hand slid about Phyl's waist. "My legs are good, aren't they, even now? And these breasts—they're full and white and panting to be loved." Impulsively, she pulled one slender shoulder strap away so that the fullness of her plunged forward. Her eyes glowed with triumph as she caught Phyl's involuntary start as she saw that warm whiteness teasing her.
"Della, this is absurd," Phyl said hoarsely, unable to move her eyes away. She'd never seen a woman with breasts more lushly designed, more tempting.
"You'd like to love me!" Della whispered with soaring excitement. "I know what you'd like to do, Phyl. Lock the door—make sure nobody comes in."
"Della, behave yourself!" Phyl mumbled, struggling weakly to release the wrist Della still held.
"Look at me!" Della insisted, wrenching away the other shoulder strap, mesmerizing Phyl with those super-abundant breasts whose potential she so well knew. "Phyl, you aren't made of ice! Love me!"
Della plunged herself against Phyl, rubbing herself against the softness of Phyl's blouse, sensing the desire aroused by the suddenness of her attack. She slid her fingers between the buttons of Phyl's blouse, while the other hand pulled Phyl's face to hers. Della's mouth parted in readiness, her eyes shut.
"Stop this nonsense," Phyl's voice shot forth with a horrified peremptoriness.
"Phyl, you aren't playing games with me," Della taunted. "I knew you, right from the first day. What's the matter with me? Don't you find me attractive?"
Phyl edged away from the bed in shock. She had never expected this from Della. Her senses reeled with the nearness of that passionate body, the scent of Della's perfume. For her Della was suddenly sex incarnate—somebody to be relished for an hour and forgotten about—but she knew that once she tasted those breasts, that hotly excited mouth, she'd be a prisoner until Della was bored with her. She had tangled with tins kind of woman before.
"Della, this is a hospital," she said with all the calmness she could muster. "You're a patient here!"
"Did you know I once played the nympho bit?" Della laughed with faint hysteria. "I chased around anything male, always looking for more—and then I found out the truth. It was women I wanted. A woman like you, Phyl!" The top of her baby dolls slid about her waist, her breasts bared with a wantonness reminiscent of old paintings Phyl half-remembered from the museums.
Neither of them heard the door softly open, were aware of the startled face of the nurse poised there.
"Della, I want you to stop this absurdity!" Phyl said wildly, and suddenly found herself backed into a chair.
"You'd die if I stopped," Della said, depositing herself on Phyl's lap, grinding her full round buttocks into Phyl, drawing Phyl's hands to her breasts.
And then with shattering clarity Phyl heard the door to Della Cole's room slam shut, and she knew that somebody in Cosmopolitan Hospital had seen Dr. Phyl Talbert with the half-nude body of a patient in her arms.
"Oh, no. No!" Phyl's eyes darkened with agony while a montage of catastrophe shot through her mind. What had she done now?
"I told you to lock the door," Della sulked momentarily, and then she shifted herself around so that the incredible breasts were brushing against Phyl's half-opened blouse, and her mouth came bruisingly down upon Phyl's.
"That's the end of the line!" Phyl used brute strength to free herself from Della Cole. From now on, any time she came into the woman's room, she'd come with a nurse in attendance. If there were another time, her mind taunted. Who had been in that doorway, watching just now? Would this be reported? Would she be thrown out of Cosmopolitan? She would die of shame, Phyl told herself miserably —she couldn't stand up before the world stripped that way. And Eve! What would Eve do if she found out?
Phyl strode from Della Cole's room without a backward look. Why had that woman ever come to her as a patient? With all the obstetricians in New York, why did she have to choose her?
CHAPTER 13
Eve fought to conceal a smile as she pretended to be thoroughly busy at her desk.
"Eve, I'm going to run out of excuses for coming here to the office soon," Doug grinned persuasively. "What have you got against surgeons, anyway? I'll bet that roommate of yours has poisoned your mind."
"I'm busy, that's all," Eve said with an attempt at briskness, but she couldn't help feeling flattered at Dr. Doug Johnston's persistent attentions all week. Everybody around here liked and admired him.
"I'm not giving up," he warned, a warm glint in his eyes. "I'm a persistent cuss."
"You'd better be persistent somewhere else. You're wasting your time here." He was nice, though, Eve admitted. It would be pleasant to have a friend like Doug. Only men never let it remain at friendship. Twice during those four hateful years she'd met men whom she had thought could be friends—but they were both what Marian called "horizontal friends." They had bed-track minds.
Eve forced her mind back to the card file she was straightening out on her desk. At first she paid little attention to the pair of nurses who came to check in the record files off on one side of the room. And then she stiffened to attention as she heard one nurse mention Phyl's name.
"Gloria says it was wild," the nurse went on. "There was Dr. Talbert backing up and this babe, with her clothes half-torn off her, was pushing her into a chair. Maybe it was rape," the nurse giggled, "but I'll bet Talbert liked it. Those cold impersonal gals are almost always hiding something queer."
Eve sat there, shaken, her emotions in turmoil. A hundred tiny pieces suddenly fitted into place. The way Phyl had personally picked up Della Cole the night she'd gone into labor, her anxiety about her mental state—all the little bits that had meant nothing before assumed mammoth proportions now. With a sudden burst of movement Eve hurried from behind her desk and out into the corridor. Doug Johnston was about twenty feet away, talking with a colleague. Eve hung there, waiting to catch his eye.
She lifted her head provocatively, her mouth parted, her eyes calling him to her.
"Excuse me." She read his lips as he broke off the conversation with the other doctor and hurried over to her.
"About that dinner invitation," she said softly as he came close, "was it for tonight or tomorrow?"
"Tonight," Doug grinned, glancing about cautiously before he squeezed her arm. "I won't take a chance on your changing your mind. Pick you up at seven—okay?"
"Fine," she agreed with gay defiance. "I'm still living downtown." He'd probably been told about Phyl's moving into another apartment with her, Eve decided—hospital gossip traveled fast.
"Where?" he asked, his eyes warm with interest as they surveyed her.
Eve gave him the address, hoping Phyl would be there when Doug came. Doug would ring the doorbell, and she'd calmly tell Phyl, "Oh, by the way, I'm going out for dinner tonight. You don't mind, do you?" Being a doctor had many advantages, she thought with painful anger. Phyl and Della Cole! She felt sick inside, visualizing the two of them together. At that moment she wanted to hurt Phyl physically. She wanted to slap and scratch and tear at her hair.
How could Phyl do this to her, after all the things they'd promised each other? This was all it had meant—that she could play games with a patient, right in the hospital!
* * *
Eve went on home alone, as Phyl and she had arranged for her to do unless Phyl called to say she was free. She climbed up out of the subway into the early summer air and wished she were dead. Again, everything was tumbling upon her head, but this time she wouldn't curl up in a corner and do nothing. She would show Phyl!
Mechanically she went about the business of shopping for dinner. She'd fix dinner for Phyl, and Phyl could sit and eat it alone, thinking of her out with Doug Johnston. What had she said that other time about Doug? She'd wanted to bash his face in because of the way he looked at Eve! This time she would have reason.
Inside the apartment she fought an instinct to rush outdoors again. She hated that other woman! She felt so insecure again, not knowing where she was any more. Did this mean Phyl was tiring of her? Would Phyl hedge now about their moving uptown together? Would Phyl gradually ease herself away until there was nothing between them any more, except accidental meetings around the hospital? Oh, no, she couldn't stand that, Eve thought frenziedly. But she had to make Phyl understand she wouldn't share her. She'd make her jealous, in the way she'd best understand—with Dr. Doug Johnston.
The phone rang noisily in the dead silence of the apartment.
"Hello," she said with an undercurrent of reproach.
"Have you started dinner yet, honey?" Phyl's voice came to her apologetically.
"Not yet." She waited, knowing what was coming.
"I have an emergency re-section to do. We'll be going into surgery in twenty or thirty minutes. Darling, it'll probably be ten or eleven before I get down."
"I won't bother with dinner then," Eve said quietly. Was it a patient, or was she spending more time in that private room of Della Cole's? Didn't she know they'd been seen? Did she have no idea of hospital gossip?
"I'll call you when I'm ready to leave," Phyl said, and hung up.
Eve went slowly about the business of dressing for her date with Doug. She wanted to look as well as she had that first night she'd seen him—better, if possible. But her mind kept darting back to Phyl. Was it a patient going into surgery, she asked herself? Or was it Della Cole who claimed Phyl's time—for solely personal reasons? She stepped out of the tub, climbing into the red robe that Phyl had bought her to match her own. She had to find out if Phyl was lying to her!
Her fingers trembled as she dialed the hospital number, asked for the delivery floor.
"Hello," she said, fighting the urgency that crept into her voice. "This is Dr. Talbert's office. Has she gone into surgery yet?"
"One moment," the voice at the other end said pleasantly and Eve waited. "Hello, Dr. Talbert is in surgery," the voice verified. "Shall we have her check with her office when she's out?"
"No, I'll follow through with Dr. Porter," Eve lied nervously. "Please don't bother Dr. Talbert with this call." Phyl would guess in a minute if anything were said. She didn't want that, either. But tonight Phyl would call and the phone wouldn't answer, because Eve Slater would be out on a date with Dr. Doug Johnston.
CHAPTER 14
Eve was dressed and waiting fifteen minutes before Doug was scheduled to pick her up. Her mind kept chasing back to that scene in the office, with the two nurses gossiping. Didn't Phyl know they'd been seen? She tortured herself with morbid pursuit of what she'd overheard. When had it happened? Today? Yesterday? No, it had to be earlier in the week, Eve rationalized—Della Cole had probably been discharged from the hospital yesterday morning. That was the usual length for routine hospitalizations. Had Phyl been at her apartment, now that she was home?
She wouldn't think about Phyl and that woman now, Eve ordered herself. She'd be gay and charming for Doug Johnston—she'd have a wonderful evening. With a spurt of energy, she printed her name on a scrap of paper, hurried out to the door to insert it in the empty space where the tenant's name should have been. Back inside the apartment she glanced nervously about for indications of Phyl's presence.
She noticed a pair of scuffs and bent rapidly to retrieve them and toss them into a closet. They were men's scuffs—far too big to be Eve's. A medical journal lay across the coffee table and Eve shoved it into a drawer. Everything was clear now, she told herself with relief, just as the door bell buzzed.
'Hello," she greeted him breathlessly, holding the door for him to enter. "Did you mind the climb?"
“Not for you." He inspected her approvingly in the fresh, crisp cotton she wore. It was a yellow print—Phyl's favorite color on her. "Besides, doctors are inured to callouses. They talk about how many miles the average housewife walks a day. I’ll bet any self-respecting doctor beats that record.”
"Would you like a drink?" she asked, eager to be the good hostess, even for a moment. "Soda, I mean, or lemonade," she added laughingly.
"Let's not keep that dinner waiting," he chuckled. “All ready?"
“I am now." She reached for a purse and gloves with an impish tilt of the head.
“Come along." He slid an arm through hers and propelled her to the door.
"Where are we going?" Eve asked when they were downstairs and walking down the block to Doug's car.
“A perfect dinner outdoors. Very select clientele. You and I." He regarded her with fond warmth.
“Oh?" Eve slowed down, her face suspicious. “Your apartment, Dr. Johnston?"
“Now don't get that look," he cautioned. "You're not the type to suspect the worst of every male—it's out of character."
"I've been married," she said with a trace of bitterness.
"Every man isn't necessarily a louse," he said softly. "It's all highly proper—I won't try to make you, Evie. It's just that we have this terrific apartment with a garden, and my roommate is out for the evening and this is the day the cleaning woman comes in—"
"And you want me to see how beautifully she cleans?" Eve laughed.
"And cooks," Doug added. "Her name's Georgia. I called her up when you said you'd go out with me. She said she'd stay and fix dinner and serve it. In our own private garden. Aren't you impressed?"
"Definitely," Eve agreed, but she wasn't forgetting about after dinner, when this cleaning woman was done with serving and washing up the dishes. She would leave early, she decided.
Doug talked casually about this and that as they drove the short distance from her place to his. He was nice, Eve realized, somehow surprised. It was comfortable to be with him—so far.
"One thing I appreciate about New York are the terrific restaurants. I love good food." He looked down at his waistline. "My wife's going to have to keep a sharp watch on me." He grinned and pulled the car up at the curb.
"Are you married?" Eve asked, startled.
"Not yet." His eyes rested on Eve, and she remembered the usual pitch where the man makes the unattached girl think he's matrimonially inclined. This time, the joke was on the doctor... the girl wasn't interested.
"With good restaurants all around and a cleaning woman who cooks, what do you need with a wife?"
"There are advantages," he retaliated, and Eve grew warm beneath his gaze.
"You'll have to come up for dinner some night when I move in with Phyl," Eve said self-consciously as he opened the car door and headed around to her side.
"I heard you were moving in with the lady doctor," Doug commented when he was at her door. "I'd never take you two for friends."
"We've known each other so long," Eve said, uncomfortable with the lies.
"Let's see what you think of our bachelor quarters," Doug said, helping her out of the car. "We're pretty smug about it."
Georgia opened the door for them with a warm smile of welcome, that said she hoped this was a steady girl and the young doctor would marry her and settle down. Amid much jocular conversation Georgia had them seated out in the garden and bustled about getting dinner out onto the table.
"
How do you like New York?" Eve asked, at a lull in the conversation. She was tense beneath the frankly admiring attention of Doug and Georgia. She was here under such false pretenses. His knee accidentally brushed hers under the table, and Eve felt an odd sense of excitement.
"It's great—for a while. I'm hoping to get into practice out of the city, though. Some small town where I'll have a chance to live, to really know my patients. I guess I'm basically a small-town guy. With luck I may be able to take over a practice back home. My mother's probably lighting candles every night!" he laughed indulgently.
"You love your mother, don't you?" Eve asked with a stab of envy. She wished she could have loved her mother—to have somebody that would always be there, no matter what mistakes she made.
"Without my mother I never would have made it through medical school. She was ready for retirement, but she stayed on, working in the library, so she could help me with that extra money. She's one of the best."
"How did you ever find a place like this?" Eve suddenly swerved the conversation to lighter tracks. Something of Doug Johnston's unexpected seriousness, an honesty in him, upset her. He wasn't just another guy making a pitch, she realized with shock. He was sincerely interested in Eve Slater—and oddly enough she didn't want to hurt this man. After Joe, she'd hated them all, but this was different.
Eve listened to Doug's story about how they'd found the apartment, about his friendship with Pete, the problem of Pete's kid sister and medical school. She was content to sit and listen because her mind and her body were in turmoil. What was the matter with her? Why did she want Doug to touch her, even the casual brushing of knees and hands. She was through with that sort of thing! She had Phyl to love her, to satisfy her as no man ever could! What was wrong with her now?
"I'll only be a moment." Doug interrupted her introspection. "I have to check with the musicians."
Eve sat staring into the soft early twilight, thinking how remote this was from everything she knew. What a wonderful quietness here, and a fragrance of things growing about them. From inside Eve heard the first faint sounds of music drifting out, and then Georgia was moving her abundant body out into the garden to serve them coffee.
