In The Shadows

by Joan Ellis

"Eight of them," he assured her, and suddenly it was as though the flame had been mysteriously extinguished. "My dowry, you might call it. I'm always one step ahead of my paycheck, but they're worth it. Want to see?"

  "Of course." Elaine felt oddly guilty. Had she been ridiculously mistaken about Paul? Could she be so edgy as to have imagined that man-on-the-make look in him?

  "Then let's go!" He gestured mockingly towards the stairs and she walked towards them with her swift eager strides, wishing she didn't feel so terribly aware of Paul's body uncomfortably close to hers. Next time she wouldn't let herself in for something like this. This crazy feeling of suffocation that being alone with a man always thrust upon her. Because there wasn't a man living whom she sincerely trusted. Every rotten one of them with the single-track mind!

  "You're a strange babe," Paul's voice was a husky whisper, and then his arm was about her waist as they started up the stairs.

  "Oh, for God's sake!" Elaine said harshly. "Is that all you ever have on your mind?"

  "Know something better?" he challenged, locking his hands behind her, his face close to hers, his male body sickening her with its insistence.

  "I was right. This is strictly the corny old etching routine!" she lashed out scathingly. "I gave you credit for more intelligence!"

  "Now really, Elaine," he shook his head mockingly, "isn't it rather late for you to be playing the wide-eyed virgin bit?"

  "That's not what we have under discussion." Fury rocked her, yet she was determined to be in command of the situation.

  "Let's have a little less discussion and more action," he turned on the amorous, little-boy brand of charm.

  "I came up here to see some paintings. I honestly thought you were serious." She managed to put distance between them now—only a few inches, but she could breathe again.

  "Then it's the way I thought—the way people talk about. You only play when it does some good for that almighty career of yours. Rick Stacy, for instance?"

  "Why don't you leave me alone, Paul?" Her eyes met his with cold antagonism. "I thought I'd made it clear enough that I'm not interested!"

  "One of these days you're going to make a slip, duchess, and when you do it's going to be a colossal blunder!" He moved aside to let her pass.

  "Don't worry. I won't ask you to pick up the pieces!"

  Without a backward glance Elaine strode across the living room and to the door, impatient to be out in the clean night air again. What a horrible, nightmarish evening this had been! What would tomorrow be like, her tortured brain demanded? Right now she was at the point where every small obstacle to peace of mind assumed gigantic proportions. She tried to rationalize to herself, but it was useless. Eric back in her life again, unlocking all those secret doors—Terry bringing out traits within her that made her cringe with shame—an idiot like Paul Hennessy making that stupid play. They all seemed, at first glance, to be isolated occurrences, yet in her present state Elaine could only believe that some relentless pattern was forming to choke off her tenuous hold on life, to make tomorrow completely, impossibly unlivable...

  CHAPTER 3

  Elaine was faintly conscious of a dull ache in the back of her head as she rode up in the elevator. She'd have to take something to make her sleep, she decided tiredly—something to knock her out so as not to think for a good eight hours. "Elaine?"

  Elaine swerved sharply at the sound of the familiar voice. "Terry, what are you doing here?" She gazed in astonishment at Terry's small figure leaning against the door that led to the stairs.

  "You didn't phone or call or anything," she complained. "I got worried."

  "Honey, I'm sorry." Remorse surged through Elaine, as she extended a hand to the other girl. "It was so hectic, meeting Eric and his wife—you know."

  "You might have called me, Elaine," Terry said sweetly, but annoyance shone through her eyes. "I couldn't imagine what happened."

  "Come on in," Elaine said with false gaiety. "I'll tell you all about it while we have a snack."

  "Nobody saw me waiting out there," Terry murmured, her eyes watching Elaine. "I didn't want you to be embarrassed if some of the neighbors got the picture."

  "It's none of their business," Elaine replied with more sharpness than she intended. Terry's putting their relationship that way somehow made everything slightly gutterish, like the crude, bold pairs you encountered here and there in the Village. The real butch girls who shouted their Lesbianism to the world. Half of them, she thought contemptuously, were doing nothing more than kicking up their heels, thumbing their noses at anybody who bothered to look, searching for new censored thrills. It was cheap, rotten, degenerate, when it was like that. Not what she and Alex had shared in Paris—nor what she'd found at last with Terry. Yet somehow, something about Terry disturbed her. Her frankness, that was it, Elaine tried to convince herself—Elaine had lived so tightly locked within herself she expected to spend the rest of her life in whispers. But the other night, that Stephie, and tonight, Terry crouching in the hallway like that.

  "It felt funny, being locked out of your apartment." Terry moved over to rest her head on Elaine's shoulder. "Kind of lost."

  "I'll have a key made up for you tomorrow," Elaine promised, while something inside grew alarmed at the idea of losing this last vestige of a separate life.

  "It was silly of me to worry about you, wasn't it?" Terry's voice was huskily sweet. "I mean, I knew you had this date with your brother and his wife. But I started to imagining the craziest things, like car smash-ups or some freak accident like that man who was killed when an air-conditioner tumbled out of a window and fell on him."

  "You shouldn't have worried, dear." All her insane suspicions had been groundless, Elaine acknowledged with stabs of guilt. Terry had been home waiting, and then she'd come running over here. All the time Elaine wandered about alone, went through that wrestling act with Paul, Terry had been here!

  "You must have been having a marvelous time," Terry smiled wistfully, falling back onto Elaine's smart sofa that seemed an oddly wrong background for Terry's fragile, candy-box prettiness. "It's way past two now."

  "I hadn't seen Eric for such a long time," Elaine hedged.

  "Is his wife nice?" Terry snuggled up as Elaine sat down on the sofa beside her.

  "Seems to be." Unaccountably, Elaine couldn't force herself to meet Terry's eyes. "Eric and she are apparently very much in love."

  "You won't be running off to see them all the time, will you, angel?" Terry pouted with kitten-like grace.

  "I doubt that." Some inner compulsion forced the truth from her now. "I wasn't at Eric's all this time."

  "Oh?" Terry straightened cautiously, waiting for the full confession.

  "I left Eric's and went straight to you at the apartment. I didn't think of calling first." She smiled whimsically.

  "Oh, Elaine!" Terry stiffened in anguish. "And I was on my way over here! Darling, did you think awful things about me?"

  "I was—upset. Seeing Eric again brought back memories I'd thought were dead. I was all tied up in knots inside when I left. I ran straight to you."

  "And I let you down. Sweetie, never again, I promise. I'll wait forever if you say you'll call!"

  "It was just one of those stupid mix-ups. Nobody's to blame."

  "You thought I'd gone off with a man," Terry guessed shrewdly, "and you were hurt."

  "I suppose I did imagine all sorts of nonsense," Elaine conceded self-consciously. "I should have known better."

  "Elaine, have you ever been with a man?" Terry asked matter-of-factly, startling her.

  "Terry, you know how I feel," Elaine stammered uncertainly.

  "But didn't you try it, ever?" Terry persisted.

  "Not—all the way." Elaine's face was flooded with color, even at merely talking about herself in the normal woman role.

  "Tell me," Terry commanded, her eyes bright.

  "Once in high school, and again in college I tried to pretend I was like the other girls in my classes. I went ou
t with the same boy several times in a row. I—let him kiss me. The kid who was a high school junior and the one in my last year at college."

  "That's all? Just kisses?" Terry inspected avidly. "Soul kisses?"

  "That's right. And the usual hand routine," Elaine compelled herself to be honest because she knew this was important to Terry. "It made me feel sick inside." She shivered disgustedly, not wanting to remember. "I'd known all along it'd be that way but I had to convince myself. After that—incident in college, I knew the truth and made up my mind I'd have to live with it."

  "You ought to go the full road with a man, darling," Terry whispered intensely. "Then you'd really know how much better it is our way."

  "I couldn't!" Elaine's eyes flew wide in astonishment.

  "Just once, Elaine—because after that you can thumb your nose at every man in the world. The whole rotten selfish lot of them!" Watching her, Elaine remembered the stories Terry had told her about her brutish husband. Poor sweet kid, she'd had a rough deal.

  "After I left your place, I had a run-in with Paul Hennessy," Elaine began slowly.

  "Does he live in our neighborhood?" Elaine noted Terry's insistence on calling the apartment "theirs".

  "Apparently." Some inner protective instinct warned her not to confide the whole incident. "He invited me up to see his paintings." They both chuckled for a moment. "Darling, why don't we go to the theatre and somewhere special for dinner Saturday night? We owe ourselves a treat. Like that?"

  Terry glowed with pleasure now. "You're sweet, Elaine. I'd die without you."

  "Let's eat instead," Elaine managed a smile. "Hungry?”

  "I'm always hungry," Terry giggled. "Soon I'll have to start watching my figure."

  "You're perfect," Elaine insisted, sitting into a chair at the small dinette table. "Exquisite of face and form, as the poets would say."

  "You know what I'd like?" Terry brushed her lips against Elaine's cheek, her mouth close to her ear as she spoke. "I'd like to have some photographs of us."

  "That's easy to arrange," Elaine laughed. "Now what about those sandwiches?"

  "I don't mean straight photographs, silly." Terry's sulky little giggle was warmly teasing. "I mean us, together, like later, on the bed. I'd like to have them to look at the nights you're not over at the apartment."

  "That's impossible!" Elaine protested, slightly shocked. "I mean, what if somebody saw them? And who'd take them?"

  "Nobody'd see them, ever," Terry promised, her hands circling Elaine now, pressing her full young breasts against Elaine. "And Stephie would take them for us. He's really a terrific photographer."

  "But we couldn't let him!" Elaine's eyes dilated in horror.

  "Darling, it wouldn't mean a thing to him." Terry's eyes were serenely candid. "You know he's queer. And he's done that sort of thing before, lots of times. It'd be like having another girl shooting the pictures."

  "No!" Elaine was thoroughly shaken up at the suggestion.

  "Silly, why not?" Terry teased. "I'd adore to have them—it'd be like pictures of our honeymoon. And with you running off to your brother's house now that he's right here in town, and to meetings—I'll be alone so much."

  "I won't be running off to Eric's," Elaine told her with more sharpness than she'd intended. "His being in town won't have anything to do with us." She wouldn't let it, she told herself defiantly. Their lives were totally separate—she was divorced from family life. Eric's presence could do nothing to cut in on this new existence she'd arranged for herself.

  "Then why won't you let Stephie take some pictures of us?" Her voice was a low wistful whisper. "Like that, making love. Please."

  "Honey, I just couldn't," Elaine protested desperately. The idea was startlingly repugnant to her. Where did Terry dig up these weird notions? "To let others see us that way?"

  "Only Stephie," Terry persisted. "And you don't have to mind him. He understands."

  "Darling, I promise you’ll see me just as much as before." Elaine smiled determinedly. "Last night was one of those tilings that won't happen again ever."

  Terry's eyes glittered brightly. A danger signal Elaine recognized. All hurt feelings charging to the fore now.

  "You think I'm disgusting because I want you to pose with me like that! You think it's degrading!"

  "I didn't say that!" She knew Terry would turn melodramatic, now when she was so completely exhausted. "You make up these things in your mind, sweetie."

  "If you didn't think so, you wouldn't fight me the way you're doing." Tears welled up in the wistful eyes now, and Elaine churned with guilt. But to have evidence like nude pictures lying around! It was too dangerous, too personally repugnant. And to know that Stephie could hold this over them whenever he liked!

  Terry's eyes fastened on Elaine's, and subconsciously Elaine was aware of the subtle change as the other girl sensed the insecurity charging through her.

  "Oh, Elaine, you're an old prude," she purred. "Now what could possibly be wrong about letting Stephie do one roll of plain colored film? For me, darling?" She nestled close to Elaine now, using that persuasive yielding body to break down the increasingly-shaky resistance she could feel in her awkward tenseness.

  "Darling, you know I'd like to do anything to make you happy," Elaine protested, torn both ways. Yet everything within her rebelled at this latest whim.

  "Then let Stephie take the pictures. You won't be sorry." Terry's hands crept about her, while she planted soft moist kisses about her throat, at the slender opening of her blouse. One leg lay across Elaine's taut body, making poignant promises.

  "We'll talk about it later," Elaine murmured huskily, her quickened breathing striking triumph in Terry. Right now she was conscious only of the insistent demands of her body, screaming for relief. "Let's go into the bedroom now." Her arms tightened convulsively about Terry's slight form.

  "All right, sweetie." Terry half-closed her eyes, brimming over with satisfaction now. "I want you so bad!"

  * * *

  Elaine woke with a start, the crazy kaleidoscopic events of the night before hitting her with stunning force. She'd promised herself, first of all, to keep her life with Terry away from this apartment. Now her eyes dwelt on the warm impression of Terry's body on the sheet. She could hear her singing away inside the bathroom. Terry chafed over the dual apartment set-up, Elaine realized. She was young, impulsive, Elaine forgave her determinedly. It was up to her to be prudent for both of them.

  She tossed the sheet away from her slender, lithe body, inspecting it with troubled wariness. Had she given herself away last night with Paul? It was hysterically funny, she chuckled with inward bitterness, how Paul could think he wanted this man-woman body of hers.

  "Elaine?" Terry's pert face poked itself out from the bathroom door.

  "I'm awake." Elaine forced a smile.

  "I'll fix breakfast for us," Terry decided happily. "We have time, darling."

  "You'll be late," Elaine said ineffectually.

  "Twenty minutes or so," Terry shrugged this aside casually. "But you’ll be on time. If I'm late once, they can't complain."

  Terry trooped off to the kitchen, while Elaine hurried into shower and dress, her mind grappling with the problem of Paul Hennessy. Last night she'd forgotten about the prospect of running into him constantly at the office. After that encounter, seeing Paul could be awkward. She compelled herself to regard the matter from the practical viewpoint now. Only one way to cope with it. She walked over to the telephone, reached for the directory. She hoped he had a fisted phone number.

  "Darling, would you like waffles?" Terry interrupted, obviously enjoying this spurt of domesticity.

  "If you feel like making them." Elaine smiled gently. Terry was sweet, so good to her. She must remember how much this girl meant to her—how she made fife bearable when Elaine had reached the point where it didn't seem worth the effort to exist. Nevertheless, she waited until Terry was completely absorbed in breakfast preparations before she returned to the ph
one project. She'd been only partially truthful with Terry last night, the girl didn't know Elaine had gone to his apartment with him.

  With a sigh of relief, Elaine pinned down Paul's phone number. She dialed, surging with self-consciousness, yet knowing this had to be done. Their being in competition for the Truly Yours account was only part of it. She couldn't work in the office if there were constant nastiness every time Paul and she met, which could be a dozen times a day. She couldn't live under that kind of tension.

  "Hello," Paul's voice came to her, shaking her back into reality.

  "Hi," Elaine said with remarkable coolness, considering the pounding within. "I figured if you were still asleep, it was time somebody woke you up."

  "I was awake, Elaine." She could feel the wary curiosity chasing through him.

  "Dear, about last night—let's bury the hatchet, shall we?"

  "Sure," he said, after a moment's silence. Weighing the situation, realizing this was the "civilized" approach for the two of them, she thought grimly. "But I really have those paintings," he came back with a chuckle.

  "Some night when I'm feeling amorous, maybe I'll ask you to show them to me," she laughed lightly.

  "Don't take too long," he kidded. "I'm a popular guy. You may have a long waiting list ahead."

  "I'll keep that in mind. See you at the office." She was pleased at the casual note, yet the old apprehension nagged at her that Paul might be suspicious. Which was ridiculous. She tried to laugh this off— Paul thought she was an opportunist where sex was concerned, a nymphomaniac who confined her activities to men who could be useful career-wise. Which meant he could be potentially dangerous since he resented her using sex as a weapon with Rick Stacy, in the battle for Truly Yours. To date though, she commanded herself to be fair, he'd never shown any genuinely predatory emotions over the fight for the account. They joked, made dramatic threats, all in the typical advertising jargon that meant absolutely nothing. It was Elaine who constantly let her nerves throw her into unreasoning fits of alarm. She'd have to stop this! Live for each day as it came along. That was fight enough for someone like her.