Girls' Dormitory

by Orrie Hitt

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 somethin
g 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 t
he 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.