"I wanted to hurt you," Toni admitted. "The only way I knew how."
Corinne nodded. "You have hurt me very much," she said. "But I will forgive you. Sometime." She glanced finally at Michele. "Now, go and leave us alone," she said to Toni. "If you will not finish the job, then I must do so."
Toni bowed from the waist and smiled stiffly. "Your wish," she said, "is mine."
Michele watched the girl turn and stride briskly toward the hall door of the apartment. She understood very little of the scene she had just witnessed. She knew only that she had been tossed back and forth like a piece of third rate goods. And a hot flush of anger began to well up in her as Corinne came toward her smiling.
"My dear," Corinne said, "I must apologize to you for Toni's behavior. I do not understand her. She has always been so good before."
"It was my fault as much as it was hers," Michele said belligerently, not caring how the woman might respond. "We were both upset and..."
"Ah, yes," Corinne said. "Consolation. An admirable basis for sex, I have always thought." She fluttered her fingers in midair. "So ... so beneficial."
Michele sensed the cruelty and the disappointment blended in the woman's tone. Yet she knew that the woman was not really thinking about her. At the moment she didn't care. All she wanted was to put on her clothes and get out of this place fast. She wanted no part of Corinne. Nor of the sick life she led. She turned her back on the woman and stooped to retrieve her clothes from the floor.
She felt Corinne's hand on her hip. She stood up suddenly and moved away from her.
"Michele, do not hate me," the woman said, her voice low and full of pain. "I have lost someone today whom I love very much. It is not easy."
The woman's words caught Michele up short. No, it wasn't easy to lose someone you love. Yet today at least, it seemed to be a universal happening. For an instant she felt a pang of sympathy, almost of guilt. She waited for Corinne to go on.
"I found Toni when she was only a child," Corinne said. "Fourteen. And I brought her to live with me. I have not been sorry. Oh, she is much younger than me and she had not always been enough. I have known others, many others. But I have never loved the others. I have adored Toni. And until today Toni has been good to me. She has been faithful." The woman's eyes clouded with tears. "You are the only woman she has known, except for me." She reached out to touch Michele. "I could love you for that alone."
"Love me?" Michele echoed. "I should think you would hate me." She stared at Corinne incredulously.
"You are still a child, my dear," Corinne said sadly. "In time you will come to understand what it means to love as I have loved Toni."
Michele felt herself flushing all over and she knew that the woman could not help but see her discomfort. It was the second time Corinne had accused her of being a child. Michele felt her anger beginning to abate. And in its place rose a stronger need, a need to prove herself to the woman for the sake of her own self-respect. She would show Corinne who was a child! And she would make her forget Toni, too.
But before she could say anything, Corinne stepped toward her and rested one hand lightly on Michele's arm. "I will ask nothing else from you," she said. "But you must belong only to me. You must belong only to me for as long as I want you to."
Michele met the woman's gaze levelly. "And if I don't?"
"You will," Corinne smiled. "You will have no time for anyone else. I will give you everything, Michele. Everything. But you must belong to me alone."
Michele stood looking down at the woman, hearing in her head the echo of the words she had said to Leda. Not the same as Corinne's but with the same meaning. And she felt almost as though she were tying a noose around her neck as she nodded silently in agreement.
"That is good," Corinne said. "You will not be sorry. I promise you that." She took the clothing from Michele's hand and tossed it onto a chair. "You will not need this," she smiled. "We have things to discuss."
CHAPTER 15
It occurred to Michele sometime during the afternoon to wonder what Corinne had in mind for her future. Yet, holding the woman close in her arms, feeling the fragrant warmth of her so near, Michele did not waste much time in idle thought. For the woman awakened in her a passion, a strength of desire that Michele had never dreamed herself capable of. And she responded to the woman eagerly, feeling truly wanted and needed for the first time in her life.
Still, as darkness began to fall, Michele lay with the woman in her arms and found that her thoughts had returned to Leda. Perhaps their love life had been less exciting. Perhaps Leda was still too young to thrill her in the way that Corinne did. But with Leda there had been another dimension. A caring, a feeling that went beyond sex.
She glanced down at Corinne's face, shadowy in sleep. What did she feel for this woman, beyond the physical response? After all, she hardly knew Corinne. And what she had seen of the woman's personality had not struck her as particularly pleasing. Surely there must be more to the woman than the side she had revealed. Toni was far too attractive and too sensitive, as Michele had discovered, to be intrigued by morbidity.
Corinne sighed and turned over. Michele pressed her lips gently to the white shoulder. She had to admit that she found the woman attractive physically, whether she cared for her personality or not. The soft, well-tended skin, the perfumed fragrance of her hair, the voluptuous breasts still firm and young looking.
She touched her fingertips to the woman's chin and turned the lovely face to hers. Not a wrinkle, not a spare ounce, the chin firm.
But any way she looked at it... it still wasn't Leda.
Michele felt as though her heart were sinking right into her stomach. After the mess she had made with Leda this morning the girl probably wouldn't want to speak to her again. And Michele didn't blame her.
She moved Corinne's weight off her shoulder and got off the couch carefully, so as not to disturb the woman. She looked around for her clothes.
Maybe if she got home before Leda got there, the girl would never know that she had gone out today. She knew it sounded like a hell of a way to conduct a relationship. If only they could go back and start all over from the beginning. She sighed. At any rate, she was going to try. Do everything she could to set things right with Leda before she got too involved with Corinne to back out.
Slowly Michele pulled on her clothes and sat down on the floor to put on her sneakers. She felt like a ragamuffin in this elegant apartment. She didn't belong here at all, really. She had no business coming here in the first place. She belonged with Leda. In a cold water flat, if necessary. In a tent. What the hell difference would it make, so long as they were together?
She heard the woman stir and knew that she was being watched. She did not look up, but concentrated her attention on the shoelace. Her hands were trembling and she felt the first signs of a headache behind her eyes.
"You are not very flattering," Corinne's deep voice came at her gently.
Michele flushed. No matter what she did, it seemed that Corinne always spoke to her as though she were a child. She wanted to sit up and yell at the woman that she knew what she was doing and that she didn't need to be scolded like a naughty three year old.
Instead she went on with the shoelace. When it was tied, she stood up with her back to Corinne. "I have to leave."
"Oh, really." She laughed then, the same musical laugh that had first attracted Michele to her.
Michele stiffened. She had expected anything from Corinne but a laugh. She felt a prickle of irritation across her shoulders. She turned slightly toward the woman. "What's so funny?"
"It is personal," Corinne said. "I am not laughing at you, but at myself. There was a time, Michele, when I could not even get rid of the women I did not want. And today, two whom I want very much have walked away from me. Do you not think that is funny?"
Michele tried to laugh. But she didn't have it in her to be amused by Corinne's personal tragedies at the moment. She had one of her own that seemed devastating e
nough.
"Why don't you laugh?" Corinne insisted. "Perhaps it is because you have not known me long enough. There are many people who would be glad to see this."
Michele turned to face her squarely now. She saw that the woman's eyes were brimming with tears, though she managed to keep a faint smile on her lips. Yet to Michele it seemed that the woman had aged thirty years in the past few moments. The lovely face she had admired only moments ago had sunk now into a puffy mask of misery and self-pity. And Michele felt shaken by the transformation she was witnessing.
"Why do you stay?" Corinne asked pathetically. "You have said that you must leave. I will not keep you."
Michele swallowed hard. "I... I didn't mean to upset you," she said limply, unable to find appropriate words, yet feeling that she must say something. "I..."
"You what, Michele? You come here and make love to me like an angel and then you go away? And you think I will not be upset. Do you think I have no feelings? Do you think I am not human like you?"
"I didn't mean that," Michele said with irritation. She felt the tendrils of Corinne's fatal attraction beginning to wind out to pull her in. No wonder Toni had been so docile. The girl had never had a chance.
"What did you mean?" Corinne demanded.
Michele sighed. "I don't know anymore," she said. "I was going back to the girl I walked out on this morning."
"Why, Michele?"
Michele closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Because I'm still in love with her," she murmured.
She heard Corinne move off the couch. Then she felt the woman standing close in front of her. Corinne's hand touched her arm lightly.
"I do not ask you to love me," Corinne murmured. "That will come in time, I hope. But I do not ask it of you. I want you to stay with me, Michele. I need you. I cannot live without someone to love."
Michele felt her senses beginning to reel. She belonged to Leda. She would always belong to Leda. Yet Corinne's misery reached out now to touch her, filling her with the need to comfort, the need to help. She recognized the feeling for what it was and. tried to fight back. She pulled out of Corinne's grasp and stepped away from her.
"I can't," she said almost desperately.
"You don't want to," Corinne said. "Perhaps I would feel the same in your position. You are still young. There is nothing here for you." She lowered her eyelids and when she spoke again her voice was barely audible. "Except love," she said. "I could love you, Michele..."
Michele felt herself trembling all over. She was hearing from Corinne the words she had longed to hear from Leda. Words that promised forever. Words that said, I am yours, Michele. I will belong to you. And she did not remember Toni. She did not remember the stories Leda had told her. She wasn't even thinking.
She was remembering only the words Corinne had spoken. I could love you...
She let her arms fall limp at her sides. "If I stay," she said, "will you..."
"I will do everything for you, Michele," Corinne murmured. "I will give you everything. Only stay with me. For always. I need you, Michele."
The balm of Corinne's magic words spread soothingly over the damaged ego that Leda had left her with. She wanted to be needed like that. Completely. She wanted a woman to do everything for her. She knew in her heart it was what she had always wanted.
She took a step forward and Corinne nearly fell into her arms. Gently she stroked the bowed head, touched the soft, silver hair with her lips.
It was beginning to feel like the story of her life. Every time she got near Corinne, they wound up back on the couch. It occurred to Michele that she had never gotten as far as the bedroom with its huge round bed. And she wondered if it would always be like this. A few words, a few kisses. The breathless rise of desire. A moment's ecstasy before sleep.
Yet, as Corinne gave of herself, Michele forgot everything else in the heady excitement of the moment. She liked being aggressive with Corinne, liked making love to the woman even when Corinne made no motion to return her caresses. The sweet essence of the woman floated around her like a cloud. She closed her eyes and went to the woman eagerly.
Corinne sighed contentedly. "You are better every time," she murmured. "There has never been anyone like you. Never."
Completely relaxed now and completely enthralled, Michele did not try to conceal her pleasure. She grinned happily and kissed the woman on the forehead.
"It is dark already," Corinne said. "I did not realize that it is so late. You must be hungry, poor child."
Michele grinned again. She was beginning to feel like less of a child every moment. "To tell you the truth," she said, "I hadn't thought about it."
Corinne smiled, her features once more serene and happy. "You are naughty," she said. "But I like that. Come, put on your shirt and I will fix us some dinner."
Michele sat on the edge of the couch watching the woman dress. She had hardly bothered to look at the woman's body, she realized now with a shock. Yet now that she was observing her naked, she felt more content than ever with the prize that she had won. Won? Well, whatever the case. The woman was hers now and she intended to keep it that way. No wonder Corinne had been able to have any girl in the Village she wanted. She could have had anyone anywhere.
Buttoning her wrinkled shirt, Michele stood up and followed Corinne out to the kitchen. She stopped just inside the door and leaned an elbow against the cupboard. "This kitchen is almost as big as the apartment I had," she said.
Corinne laughed. "I took the apartment for that reason," she said. "I love to cook when there is lots of room."
Contented, Michele leaned there, watching as the woman went through the motions of making a salad and iced tea. She had hardly expected Corinne to be the domestic type. Yet she could not deny that the prospect pleased her. Corinne was everything that she had wanted in her woman. Everything. Yet even as she thought this, Michele could not quiet the part of her that still yearned for Leda.
Deliberately she forced her thoughts away from the girl and to the situation at hand. She had promised herself that she would learn to be firm. To make a decision and then stick by it, no matter what happened. She had decided to remain with Corinne. Whether her reasons were sound or not, she would have to abide by the choice she had made.
She helped Corinne carry the plates into the diningroom and set them on the small table. Then she waited for Corinne to be seated first.
"It is too late tonight," Corinne said, "but in the morning we will find you a place to live."
Michele felt the fork slipping from her fingers and gripped it tighter. She hadn't known what kind of dinner chatter she might expect from Corinne. But certainly she had been unprepared for these words. "Oh?" she said.
"Yes," Corinne said evenly. "For tonight you will stay with me. But I have decided that I must not make the same mistake with you that I have made with Toni. It is not good for one to see too much of one's lover. That way, there can be no mystery. And without mystery, love soon dies." She smiled. "You will like me better," she said, "in the evening when I am beautiful than in the morning when I have just waked up."
"That's not true," Michele blurted. "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."
"It is sweet of you to say so, my dear. But I know better than you what I am speaking of. I do not wish to lose you, Michele. You will like me better as a mistress."
Michele felt a hard lump of desperation rise to choke her. Somehow she felt that she couldn't win with anyone anymore. She had expected that she would move in here with Corinne and that they would live together as she had wanted to live with Leda. But, watching the expression on Corinne's face, she knew that she would play the game Corinne's way or not at all, as Toni had done. As many others had probably done too. Yet there could be no backing out now. She had come too far.
She decided to make a last feeble attempt. "I don't have the money for an apartment," she said. "I lost my job."
"Oh, silly child," Corinne laughed. "There is plenty for both of us. I will find y
ou a place to live. And buy you new clothes. Money is good for nothing if you do not spend it. And every night, you will come and visit me like a lover. We will have fun, Michele. You will see."
Some hell of a mistress, Michele thought. Supporting me. Well, she could always take the money as a loan and pay it back after she got herself a new job.
But she knew that she would not.
"What will you do all day?" she asked casually.
"I have my work," Corinne said seriously. "You must not forget that, Michele. There is only money for us to spend so long as I do not forget that I have a career."
Michele sighed. The further she got into this thing, the more it began to sound like the same business she had encountered with Leda. Nevertheless, she had no room to complain. She had walked into it of her own free will.
And maybe it wouldn't be so bad, after all. Maybe with the free time she would gain by not having to work, she would be able to get something written. Do something with herself for a change. Maybe amount to something herself. And then Leda would know the mistake she had made by not having faith. She would send Leda copies of everything that got into print. And then...
She cut the fantasy off sharply and pushed the plate away from her, the salad barely touched.
"Is something wrong?" Corinne asked.
"Nothing at all," Michele said. And for the first time in years, she believed that it was so.
Jealous And The Free, The Page 11
