"Come in, Child. Let's have a look at you. Take off your sweater and turn around." She stood back while Penny did a turn. "I can't believe it. You look so grown-up."
Cynthia flicked on a stereo. Disco music flooded the room. Then she led Penny to some cushions where they sat down side by side.
"Just to clear the air, Child, let me say it up front. Lots of changes over the past three years. I'm gay. Fiona and I are lovers, and we both play around a little, too." Penny nodded. "I guess you figured that. I'm not trying to lay a trip on you. Just want you to know where I stand. Don't worry—I won't make a play for you. Ever make it with a chick?" Penny shook her head. "Not a bad experience even if it doesn't turn you on. You ought to try it once at least. Not with me necessarily—I mean just to get a taste." She paused. "Well, now that we've gotten through that, let me open up some wine. Or would you rather blow some weed?"
Penny said wine would be OK. She waited on the cushions while Cynthia went to the kitchen to get their drinks. She could hardly believe the way Cynthia had changed. She'd been this very snooty upper-class blonde, silly and manipulative, full of inanities and guile. Now she was completely different, a tough, direct young woman who seemed to know exactly who she was.
"Really got to my parents," she said handing Penny a glass. "I brought Fiona home last Christmas, and that really freaked them out. My mother took one look, then took to her bed. My brother Tom—remember him? That asshole finally ordered us out of the house. Couple of weeks later I get this typed letter from daddy on his law firm stationery the essence of which was that unless I went to some shrink in Philly and started cleaning up my act I wasn't going to get another cent from him. Fiona said 'screw it,' so now I'm kind of broke. Waitressing at the Trattoria around the corner, taking dance class to stay in shape, and working a gay hot line four nights a week."
She clinked her glass against Penny's, then took a sip.
"The hot line's a gas. People call in with their troubles —VD, cystitis, lover gone, coming out. You name it—they call in about it, and old Cindy just sits there advising them in this real calm telephone voice I've got. Someone tried to make a date with me the other night. Said I sounded just like Daisy Buchanan out of Gatsby. You know, like my voice was 'filled with money' or something. If only the poor dear knew—"
Penny nodded through all of this, increasingly amazed. Cynthia was hard, cynical, but authentic, too, not the flighty girl she remembered from Maine.
"So, Child, what brings you down here? Out with it now. Don't beat around the bush."
"I've been living with Jared since September."
"Yeah—so I read. I always figured he did it, you know, even though you said you saw someone else. He had as good a reason as any of the rest of us, I suppose."
It was a strange comment, and Penny wondered what she meant. Already, she could see, Cynthia wanted to talk. All she had to do to draw her out was to keep her on the subject of Suzie and their mutual escapades in Maine.
"Why do you say that?"
"You mean 'good reason'?" She grinned. "Well—why not? You're old enough to take it. After all the shit you've been through you're entitled to know it all. The fact is, child, your sister was a rotten bitch. She didn't have any friends either, not real ones. I was supposed to be her 'best friend,' but now that I look back on it I realize I hated her guts. She was a seducer, old Suze. Sucked us in, made us fall in love with her, and then when she had us in her spell, made us feel like worms. She didn't want lovers. Didn't even want friends. What she wanted was slaves, and slaves was what she got." She stood up and began to pace the little living room, taking long strides, her boots clumping on the floor.
"I was in love with her. Adored her—I really did. First from a distance, then up close. I went in with my eyes open, because I knew where all her relationships finally led, but I didn't care, I just wanted to get my hands on that beautiful slinky body of hers. Started out kind of funny at Sarah Lawrence. We roomed together, you know. We'd swap clothes and stuff: shirts, shorts and jeans. We were the same size exactly, though she had all those luscious curves. So I started wearing her stuff, asking if I could borrow this and that, and, for reasons that escaped me then, I found wearing them turned me on. I wasn't sure why at first. I was denying my tendencies I guess. But then, I remember, when she'd go out on a date, as soon as she was gone I'd start looking through her drawers. I'd try on her panties and her bras—the few she had because she didn't like underwear very much. You know she used to go off campus to buy cigarettes wearing a trenchcoat with absolutely nothing underneath? I thought she was amazing. I'd never known anyone like that. Anyway just wearing her stuff made me feel good.
"She slept raw, too, like she was a goddess or something. In the mornings I'd wait in bed, waiting for her to jump up. That's what she did. She'd open her eyes, and then suddenly when she was ready she'd leap out of bed, and there she'd be, this beauty, stark naked, and she'd do these little exercises like touching her toes, and stretching backwards, and she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
"One night, after she quit college and was working for Jamie, that photographer—he was weird, I can tell you, very bi and into all sorts of scenes—one night she calls me at the dorm. 'Want to make it with this stud?' she asks. 'The three of us together, a sandwich. All right?' Remember how she used to talk? Every line ended with a question—'all right?' 'OK?' So I thought, gee, this could be my chance, I'll play along and get my hands on her, too. So I took the train into town, and we end up with this very aggressive guy, this six foot six basketball player type. The three of us are in this huge bed she had at that little apartment she rented on Sixty-Sixth, and this guy's in the middle, and he's really turned on to us both. First he sticks it in her, then in me, then he goes down on her while I squirm around under him and suck him off. So we're trying all these positions, giggling away, and he gets off a few times like gangbusters, and Suze and I are eyeing each other every once in a while as if to say like isn't this really cool. But eventually he gets tired, sits back and says he wants to watch us play. This is what I've been waiting for. I smile coyly, and Suze says 'Why not?', and so we start off, and suddenly I'm getting what I want. It's all a great big joke as far as the two of them are concerned, but for me it's the whole point of the evening, the consummation of a year's worth of fantasies and dreams."
She finished off her glass of wine, then sat down, pulled out a joint, lit it and inhaled deeply. She offered it to Penny, who shook her head.
"I liked it. God, how I liked it. I mean I really got off on it, and of course I tried like hell to stay cool so I wouldn't let on and scare old Suzie off. But she picked up on me right away. The next morning she was watching me, studying me, and then she touched my cheek and smiled like she'd finally figured me out. That was her thing, you see—to find the other person's weakness, then exploit it any way she could. She didn't say anything, but it was clear enough. She kissed me goodbye, and every time we saw each other after that she'd touch me or kiss me or embrace me, and show me that same little smile that said 'I know what you like now, and maybe I'll give you more of it if you're good.' One night I came into the city, and it was too late to go back to the dorm. So we shared her bed, just the two of us. She lay real close to me, and I touched her, and she said: 'It's OK, Cin, make love to me if you want. It doesn't do all that much for me, but if it turns you on—go ahead.' Of course she had me then. She knew just how to do that, just which levers to pull. I'd work on her, do everything I could think of to get her going, and she'd just lie there with that big fat smirk on her face, saying 'It's OK, Cin—keep trying. I'm getting a little warm I guess. Try this. Try that. A little more of this, a little less of that—OK?' And so there I was working my tail off trying to get a fire going in that sleek cool body of hers. It was hard work, I tell you. And that's how I ended up her slave."
Cynthia inhaled again, then she shook her head.
"She was the princess, you see, the goddess who was doing me this big favor b
y letting me make love to her imperial self. I always had to do all the work. That was the game—that I had to try and turn her on. Never the other way around. Never mind about me. A kiss on the lips was about the best I ever got, and maybe a few pats and caresses and that was just about it. Well, after that she made me suffer all sorts of little ways. Made me go out with her on double dates, try out this guy for her, try out that guy, tell her what he liked so she'd know how to handle him, give her all the clues so she could get control. She made me run all sorts of little errands, too, like picking up her shoes and her dry cleaning, fixing her breakfast, giving her massages and backrubs, combing out her hair. Not exactly torture, but she'd make it as humiliating as she could. And sometimes she was really mean. I'd kiss her and then she'd push me away. 'Not now, Cin,' she'd say. 'I'm not in the mood right now.' Or 'Can't you keep your big fat paws off me, Cin? Like I know you got the hots for me, but like I'm really into guys, all right?' Sometimes I'd just plain beg. 'Please, Suze,' I'd say, 'let me kiss you, let me go down on you.' And then if I was real humble and begged her a lot, or did a special favor for her, she'd say 'OK—you got fifteen minutes. I got a date so make it fast—OK?' She knew I adored her. I must have told her so a thousand times. And then that summer came, and she needed me to help corral those guys. 'I want to fuck them all,' she told me. 'Every last one of them. Every one of those jerks. Together we'll do it; together we'll fuck them all.' So that's what we did that summer. That was our summer project. To fuck every one of them like she said. Every single solitary one. First her, then me; or first me, then her. She'd tell me: 'Your job, Cin, is to keep bringing them in. I don't want to run out. This is an assembly-line operation. If I'm busy with one, you keep the next one warm, all right?' Then she'd say: 'If you're a good little piece of ass, Cin, I'll let you have a little piece of me, OK?' God, she was unbelievable. That sister of yours was the end. She had me coming and going that summer every which way, and half the time I was in a daze, running errands for her, sucking around after her, taking out her trash, anything to keep her attention, anything to get a few minutes with her alone. We did this topless act around the pool. We went out and fucked on sailboats. We humped on that awful waterbed of hers. One night during a party at the yacht club we did it with a couple of guys in the men's locker room on the floor. She made me sleep with all these guys, most of whom I loathed. I didn't like sex with men by then, though I still knew how to put on an act. About half a dozen times we did threesomes in the poolhouse, and twice there were four of us together, and we kept switching off, and I never even knew their blessed names. I'd moan or something, then I'd feel her little hand on my thigh. 'Keep the faith, Cin,' she'd whisper. 'Keep the faith, OK?' So I kept the faith—"
Cynthia had been staring down while she told Penny all of this, as if it were so shameful she didn't want to show her eyes. She looked up finally.
"Surprised, huh? Surprised to hear what she was really like? But then you must have known some of this. You were watching us, weren't you? That's what I read."
"I was watching," Penny said, "but I had no idea. I never figured out the relationship quite like that."
"Relationship? I wish there'd been a relationship." Cynthia shook her head. "It was so empty. I don't know why she acted that way. Sometimes I had the idea she was playing some sort of game, like she had a plan, or was trying to prove something or other—like there was really something she was up to, something she was trying to do. But I never knew what it was, and I was so freaked out I didn't even care."
"What about the guys?"
"Worse! You should have heard some of the stuff she said to them. It's a wonder someone didn't—" She paused. "But then someone did. Probably one of them."
"One of her lovers?"
"Must have been. Who else? I told you—I always thought it was Jared, not only because he was there that night, holding the shears and everything, but because he was . . . I don't know how to say it exactly—"
"What?"
"Well, I thought he was sort of crude. Don't get me wrong. I also thought he was gorgeous. But he wasn't one of those Ivy League creeps. He wasn't phony, well-mannered; he wasn't a boy. You could tell by looking at him he wasn't the sort to take a lot of shit. So I just figured she went too far with him, and instead of taking it like the others he got really mad, and it was what she deserved anyway, like she was asking for it, maybe even trying to bring it on."
"Funny—Jared said something like that the other day." She paused. "Do you really think it's true?"
"I don't know. She was up to something, I'm sure of that. It was as if she was deliberately walking a tightrope, trying to provoke something, I don't know exactly what. Maybe she just wanted to be beaten up. She was sick enough. I often thought she got what she wanted, like she could maybe get off on that, death being the ultimate trip, as they say." She paused. "On the other hand Suze was life-embracing. She was funny, split. She let herself go, and she held herself back at the same time. You never really got to know her. There was this side she kept to herself."
They sat in silence, Penny sipping until her glass was empty, Cynthia smoking her joint down until it was barely a quarter-inch long.
"Tough, isn't it?"
"What?"
"Oh, you know—life. I remember seeing your picture in the papers. You were plastered all over everywhere those days, and you looked so injured. I felt real sorry for you then."
"I survived."
"Yeah—you did."
"I still get recognized sometimes."
"Sure. I read that stuff in Denver's column. What a shit he is. But it's funny, every so often, every six months or so I'm with some people and someone mentions the case. It sort of runs like an undercurrent, like Patty Hearst or Wylie-Hoffert or Valerie Percy, the one they never solved."
"Do you tell people you knew her?"
"Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Tell me, Child—I asked you this before—what brings you down here? Anything I can do?"
Penny looked at her. "You'll probably laugh."
"Why don't you try me and see?"
Suddenly she felt a great warmth for Cynthia, didn't feel nervous about appearing foolish anymore. "I want to find out what happened. You said it yourself a minute ago—it was probably one of those guys. Jared's got this whole scenario figured out, but he doesn't care about it anymore. He says I'm hung up and wasting my time, and I should just forget it and try to live with it and go on."
"Well, he may be right about that. Anyway, the police—"
"They never did a thing. I knew that but I didn't care because I thought my father had people investigating all this time. I just found out he didn't. He always thought it was Jared, and now he's furious because Jared's with me, and he's afraid his precious Chapman stock might go down." She shook her head. "When Jared and I got together again, I was so naive—I thought it was all over and we really could go on. But instead it just got worse. There's this undercurrent like you said. A girl at my office talks about it behind my back. Jared got fired from a play on account of Denver's column. I just can't stand it, being looked at like we're freaks, and meantime there's this guilty someone just walking around out there. It's like we're suffering all the time, and the only way out from under it is to find out what happened, which is probably just a hopeless task."
Cynthia was looking at her with compassion. Penny felt she understood.
"OK, Child," she said very softly, "tell me exactly what you're trying to do."
"Get together a list, the names of all those guys. I can't remember much about them now. I called you because I thought you might."
"Yeah." Cynthia shook her head. "I should, shouldn't I? I had intimate relations with most of them, I guess. But the truth is I was so grossed out by them I didn't even know their names half the time. As far as I was concerned they were just a sickening mass of hairy legs."
They talked a little more, Cynthia promised to come up with some names, and then Penny said it was time for her to leave. She was standi
ng out on the corner of Bank and Bleecker about to hail a cab when she heard someone calling, looked up and saw Cynthia, head sticking out of her window, motioning for her to wait.
"Hey, don't go yet," she yelled. "I'm coming down."
Penny waited on the front stoop of the tenement. A minute later Cynthia appeared.
"Funny," she said, "I was just taking off my boots when I thought of something. Suzie kept a diary. Did you know about that?"
"No—"
"Well, it was something. Really lurid. More of a sex diary than anything else. She never let me look at it, but occasionally she read me little bits. It was a record of all her lovers and what she thought of them—really devastating stuff. She had all these crazy notes on the sizes of their cocks, the stupid things they said and did in bed. We used to lie on the waterbed giggling while she read. Then she'd laugh that horsey laugh of hers and tell me there was stuff about me in there, too. I begged her to let me read it, which, of course, was just what she wanted me to do. Then she'd snap the book shut and stick it under her ass where, she'd inform me, I wasn't to go nosing around.
"It was so sick. She said she wanted a record of all her 'transgressions.' Said she was going to publish it someday, when she was middle-aged and all her summer lovers were leading boring respectable lives. Told me how much she loathed Bar Harbor, and what a pleasure it would be to blow the place apart. 'Won't be able to get enough dynamite for that,' she told me, 'but this'll do it, right?' Then she'd pat the diary and stick it back under her ass."
"What happened to it?"
"Don't know. I thought it might have turned up after she was killed, and, to tell you the truth, I was a little worried since there was stuff about me in there, and I didn't particularly want our affair aired at Jared's trial. Maybe your parents found it and burned it up. It wasn't exactly the sort of treasure you'd save as a memento of a long lost loved daughter, you know."
"They didn't burn it. They never touched her things."
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