She felt Corinne's hand on her thigh.
"Both of us," the woman whispered. "I want you, too."
Michele helped Corinne undress her. The woman's fingers trailed across her back, along the sides of her breasts. She rolled onto her back and pulled Corinne on top of her.'
For a moment she tried hard to resist the need surging up in her. She felt the woman's body moving against her own, her mouth trailing a path of flame across her belly.
And then she surrendered herself to her need, to the blinding necessity to possess the woman. Immediately and brutally. She pulled Corinne up beside her on the couch.
Her lips mashed bruisingly against Corinne's. Her fingers sought a breast and pinched it hard. She wanted to hurt, to bruise. To leave the woman with a memory of her that she would never forget.
But at the last, she touched her tenderly, kissing her, kissing her...
Afterward she lay beside the woman, staring into the darkness, feeling neither sorrow nor joy. She felt ashamed and sick. And tired. Just plain tired. She could not bear the sight nor the feel nor the weight of her own body. The body she had pledged to Leda forever and which had been turned into a tool for someone else's pleasure.
She understood now that she had never really been anything to Corinne. That no one ever had, except perhaps Toni. And she hated the woman for using her. And hated herself more for having been used. She had lost the woman, she knew. Lost her without ever really having had her at all. She had been another of Corinne's whims, a toy. And now that she had served her purpose, she would be thrown back on the pile.
Dejected, defeated, Michele managed to drag herself through the dregs of Corinne's interest in her. For three days and three nights they played, they laughed, they drank, they made love. And for three days and three nights, Michele tried to tell herself that everything would be all right. Yet for all their noise and their laughter, they could not kill the truth.
On the evening of the fourth day, Toni opened the door to Michele's ring.
"Oh," Michele said.
Toni laughed. "Is that the best you can do?"
Michele shrugged. "I guess I expected you," she said frankly. She started to take a step forward.
Toni put out her arm to block the door. "Uh uh," she said.
Michele looked at her for a long minute. "I'd like to see Corinne," she said at last.
"She's asleep. She asked me to tell you goodbye."
Michele sighed. "Well, I guess that's it," she said tiredly.
"That's it," Toni said. "I told you a long time ago that nobody could move into my bed." She smiled. "But don't feel too badly. You lasted longer than most."
Michele didn't even bother to argue, but simply turned away and rang for the elevator. She heard Toni close the door behind her. She felt the sting of tears behind her eyes and shut them tight for a moment to get control of herself.
Out on the street she stood still for a long time, fighting down the rise of panic threatening to overwhelm her. When she had composed herself enough to know what she wanted to do, she turned and hurried along Bleecker Street.
She turned in at the nearest bar.
By the time she got back to her own apartment, Michele was feeling no pain. She undressed on the way to the bedroom, leaving a trail of clothing behind her. Almost before she hit the pillow, she was asleep.
But like all the good things she had wanted, even the sleep had to come to an end. It was already afternoon when she sat up and blinked her eyes. She had a head on her she wished belonged to someone else and her mouth felt like the bottom of a sewer. She got off the bed and started for the john.
Aspirin and coffee and cigarettes. She'd had hangovers enough by this time to take them with a smile.
More aspirin.
More coffee.
More cigarettes.
Nothing she could do would quiet the pounding in her head. She wandered restlessly through the apartment, looking for a place for herself. But she could not find a moment's peace. She picked up paper and pencil and put them down again. She tried to read. She switched on the radio and switched it off.
Nothing...
She had had everything. Everything...
As darkness came on, Michele realized that she would go stark raving mad if she didn't get the hell out of there. She didn't want to be alone with herself. Didn't want to think. Didn't want to feel. Didn't even want anymore to live. Everything she had ever wanted was gone. Everything. She was alone. Without money. Without friends. Without love...
If Leda had only loved her...
Leda...
Michele grabbed her jacket and slammed out of the apartment.
CHAPTER 19
Michele sobered up with a shock the afternoon the landlady stopped her in the hall and asked for the rent.
For several moments Michele simply stared at the woman as though she thought she had lost her mind. Then she put her off with an excuse and went off upstairs to her apartment.
From jacket pockets and the drawer by the bed, Michele scrounged out every cent she could find. She counted it. She counted it again. But no matter how she rearranged the few singles and loose change, the total came out the same. Fifteen dollars and twenty cents. And one last, beautiful hangover.
She felt too numb to be surprised or worried. Corinne had been picking up the tab for everything for so long that Michele had allowed herself to forget that this day might come. Yet here she was, with a closet full of gorgeous clothes she had hardly even worn, an apartment she couldn't afford to pay for, and no place to run.
She threw herself down on the bed, but the tears would not come. She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, trying to make sense out of this thing that had happened to her. Where had she gone wrong?
She let her thoughts drift back over the past two months searching for an answer to the riddle of her life and failure.
The mess she had made with Corinne seemed to her simple enough to understand. And she was not ready to assume the blame for the way things had turned out between them. From what she had learned of Corinne, she realized that no one else would have fared any better. Corinne would never be satisfied with anyone for long, not even with Toni. Afraid of growing old, afraid of losing her attractiveness, Corinne had to prove to herself constantly that she could have any lover she wanted. With an insecurity as deep as hers, it only made sense that she demanded so much and gave so little in return. For Michele realized, as Corinne never had, that dollar bills were a poor substitute for love.
Yet, what about Leda? Leda had offered her love and she had been unable to be happy with her either.
It felt strange to Michele, thinking about Leda now. She had done everything possible to keep the girl from her thoughts during the past weeks. For each time she considered the girl she could remember clearly only the last time they had seen each other. And the memory had been a bitter one. And again and again, Michele had told herself that, if Leda had been kind to her then and asked her to return, she would not have gone through this business with Corinne.
Now she understood that it was all a lie.
She could never rely on anyone to tell her how to live or to do the living for her. She knew that now. Corinne had tried, in every way she possibly could. And Michele had responded by feeling trapped, suffocated. She hated Corinne's possessiveness, her jealousy, even while she understood them. Had suffered them herself with Leda.
It had been simple enough to understand that Corinne's behavior grew out of her own sense of inadequacy.
It hadn't been quite as easy to apply the conclusion to herself. Yet she could deny it no longer. And she understood finally what Leda had meant. Until she learned to respect herself, she would neither receive nor deserve the respect of others.
And there was no time like the present to begin.
With no one to help her now but herself, Michele considered the gravity of her position. She had barely enough money on which to eat until she got a job. Certainly not enough to keep the apart
ment. She could find an inexpensive room on the upper West Side. And get a job in the neighborhood, close enough to save carfare. Waiting tables, she'd get one meal a day on the job. With a little scrimping, she ought to be able to make out.
The first thing she needed was a place to live.
Michele got up and washed and dressed carefully in the nicest suit she had. And heels. She rolled a pair of slacks into a neat bundle and stuffed them into her purse. The little money she had she crammed into a pocket. Then, without so much as a glance behind her, she slammed out of the apartment.
An hour later, she stood in a dingy room on West Seventy Eighth Street. Not much to look at. No sheets on the stained mattress. No rug on the floor. A community john at the end of the hall and enough cockroaches for everybody. But it was only eight dollars a week.
And, for the moment, it was home.
She tried hard not to notice the smell of dust and soot and sweaty bodies that seemed to have been painted into the walls. It was a far cry from Corinne's place. From the apartment of her own she had just left. She smiled. It was even a step down from the cold water flat on First Street. But in a way she liked the idea. If she could work her way up from rock bottom, she would have proved herself... at least to herself. And if she could do that, perhaps in time she could even convince Leda.
Maybe the girl would still give her a chance.
Maybe.
She wasn't ready yet to think about that, Michele realized. She had a long way to go before she could face the girl and say: "I'm all better now."
And now that she had a place to live, the next thing on the schedule was to find a job.
The job proved to be a little more difficult than the room. It took her two days to find a job close enough to walk to. And another two to get used to the idea of being back at work. Gradually her life began to take on a semblance of order, of purpose. She got to work on time, worked hard. The tips were good. And at the end of two weeks, she found that she had a little left over after she had paid the rent and bought a week's supply of food.
Saturday night is the loneliest night…
Michele kept humming it over and over to herself as she walked toward the shabby brownstone that housed her shabby littil room. No matter how busy she kept herself all week, she always seemed to wind up on Saturday night with a good case of the doldrums. She could always go to a bar... She dismissed the idea almost as fast as it came to her. There wasn't a woman anywhere in the world she wanted, except Leda. And she didn't need a beer muddled brain for anything. Besides, she didn't want to take the chance of running into Corinne. Or even Leda herself. Yet.
As she climbed the stairs to her room, Michele realized that she was becoming rapidly depressed. She didn't want to sit in the smelly little room and listen to the neighbors fighting and the plumbing dripping. She wanted to talk to someone. Anyone. She hadn't spoken to anyone for almost three weeks except for the men who ate lunch in the diner where she worked.
Maybe, if she called Paul...
She had thought about him often during the past weeks. About the words he had said to her at their last meeting. She had had to admit that he had been right. That he had seen her problem and tried to help her before it was too late. It had galled her to realize that if she had listened to him, all this would not have happened. But she could no longer be angry with him. If she wanted to be angry with anyone, it would have to be with herself.
Still, they had not parted on very good terms. She could not be sure that Paul would want to see her again, after the way she had behaved. Why should he, after all?
She decided it would at least be worth a try.
Paul wasted no time talking on the phone. They made arrangements to meet on a bench inside the entrance to Central Park. And within a half hour, Michele was watching him make his way toward her along the walk.
Paul sat down beside her and took both her hands in his. "I thought we'd lost you for good. How are you, Michele?"
Michele felt herself trembling with anticipation. She didn't even bother to answer the question. "How's Leda?"
Paul drew back an inch and peered at her curiously. "Leda's fine," he said. "We don't see much of her these days, she's so busy going to school and working. But as far as I can tell..."
"Has she been… seeing anyone?" Michele interrupted. "I mean..." She frowned self-consciously.
Paul laughed. "I know what you mean. No, she hasn't."
Michele withdrew her hands from Paul's grip and leaned back against the bench. A profound feeling of relief flooded through her. She knew it didn't necessarily mean that Leda was still waiting for her after all this time. But at least she felt that she might still have a chance. If she could only bring to the girl proof of her new approach to life...
"What have you been doing with yourself?" Paul asked.
Michele sighed. "That's a long story," she said. "And not a very interesting one." She paused and took out a cigarette. "You were right, you know. It lasted a whole month."
She had expected him to smile with satisfaction. Instead he merely nodded. "It's an old story," he said. "And the ending is always the same." He brought out a slim silver lighter and held it to her cigarette.
"In a way, I'm not sorry," Michele said. She took a deep drag and let the smoke out slowly between her teeth. "I've learned a lot in the past couple of months.”
"Oh?"
"Hmm," she murmured. "Something to do with the old philosophy of live and let live, I guess you'd say. At any rate, I'm beginning to make sense out of the troubles I had with Leda."
Paul stood up suddenly and held out his hand. "Let's walk."
She got up beside him and they strolled out of the Park, walking uptown under the trees.
"I've worked out a few things for myself," he said after a while. "I'm not living with Jonny anymore."
"Oh?"
"You know, after I gave you hell that evening, I did a lot of thinking. About a lot of things. I realized I couldn't very well blame you for not wanting to listen to me, when my own life was so completely fouled up. Funny, I'd been spouting the wisdom of experience for years and, on a practical level, I hadn't done a damned thing about it myself." He was silent for a moment. "That's all changed now."
Michele watched his profile in the light of a street lamp. "You don't look very happy about it," she said.
He looked down at her and smiled. "I'm not happy," he said. "I know it's hopeless with Jonny. I just haven't found anything to take his place."
As they walked together beside the park, Michele felt herself warming to Paul, liking him, wanting to help and comfort. Yet she knew there was nothing either of them could do for the other except listen sympathetically. But even that would help a little to stifle the loneliness.
They saw each other often in the days that followed. For supper, for coffee, sometimes just for a stroll in the park. Paul told her of Leda and at each mention of the girl's name, Michele felt the yearning for Leda growing more intense within her. More than anything, she wanted just to see the girl, to look at her.
Yet what did she have to offer now that was any different from before? What could she show to Leda to indicate that she had changed? A crummy job, an even crummier room. A lot of lousy memories and an ache in her heart for a girl she didn't deserve.
On Saturday after work, Michele rented a typewriter and bought herself a ream of bond paper and a pack of cigarettes.
She had emptied a pack of cigarettes and started on the butts by the time the story was done. She felt a flush of triumph suffusing her. Carefully she picked up the stack of neatly typed sheets and straightened their edges against the table top. It was only twenty pages worth of prose. Not much, maybe, for someone else. But to Michele it seemed like a monumental achievement. It was the first story she had ever completed. And it was a good one. She knew it. Something she could take pride in having written.
Still, she knew better than to allow herself to depend on one story to solve all her problems. Never again would
she permit herself to become blinded to the fact that she must keep herself involved, busy with many things. She had let herself forget it once, in her relationship with Corinne. And the result had been something that she had no desire to repeat.
So she dropped the manuscript into the mailbox on her way to work Monday morning with very little concern for its fate. Already she had started on a second. And when she had finished that, there would be a third.
September came and with it, a relief from the stifling heat afflicting the city. Through the cool evenings she worked steadily, feeding into the mails half a dozen manuscripts. Her days were busy with her job and with Paul.
Yet never for an instant could she close her mind to her need for Leda. At night she could not sleep, and at work, she was plagued by a constant restlessness. She began to lose weight and her fingers trembled when she lit a cigarette. A nagging frustration tortured her body.
Still she waited.
And finally one Tuesday morning her patience and her work were rewarded.
Her hands shook as she tore open the envelope and extracted the check.
It was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen in her life. Fifty dollars. Fifty dollars!
As she folded the check and slipped it into her purse, Michele knew that the time had come. She was ready now to face Leda. Not because of the money. It wasn't all that great.
Jealous And The Free, The Page 14
