She watched Carla's face settle into grim lines of challenge. She was rising to the bait easier than Sonya had expected.
"So he's balling her, is he? I thought so," Carla said with a shrug. "What's that got to do with me?"
"Excuse my dirty Freudian mind," Sonya began, "but I always had a theory about this. Here it is. You were attracted to Ginny, whom you knew Leo was screwing. You started screwing Leo, thinking to yourself, 'Mmmm, that cocks been inside of Ginny, where I'd like to be.' It turned you on, didn't it, to know that Leo was a kind of sexual bridge between you and her?"
Carla shook her head fiercely, as though to clear it. "Wow, that's pretty deep, isn't it?"
"No," Sonya laughed. "It's very simple. Why do you think the other woman in a triangle is often the wife's best friend? Sometimes the wife knows about it and gets a secret pleasure out of the idea. People are funny."
"Why are you trying to match me up with this new chick?" Carla asked. "What's in it for you?"
"Fun. I want to be in the middle. You know – lucky Pierre? We could have a threesome some night. Want to."
Carla turned, smiling. "Yes, I do."
"I'll arrange it."
CHAPTER NINE
Brenda sat stiffly at her desk in the office, her back like a ramrod, reluctant to touch the back of her chair. Her knees were pressed primly together and her eyes lowered demurely to the work that lay in front of her. It was coffee break time, but she did not join in the relaxed banter around her.
A shadow fell across her desk and she sensed a presence beside her. She pretended not to notice as the man moved to a chair and sat down, wafting a scent of shaving soap in her direction.
No longer able to avoid it, Brenda looked up at the grinning square face of Nick Eubanks, president of Eubanks Contractors whose offices were across the hall from her own. They shared the same coffee caterer, but it was well-known that Nick came over to drink in the sights of pretty girls more than anything else. His father ran the family firm and had kept a bevy of old hens for the office staff, cranky women who had been working for him for some thirty years. There wasn't a woman under fifty in the entire place, and Nick never missed an opportunity to escape to greener pastures. He had a weight-lifter's build and wore his hair short in a two-inch crew cut that made his face look even squarer than it was.
"Honey, you must be anti-social or something," he said, grinning and leaning forward to rest his elbows on her desk. His muscular legs sat open, exposing a fat bulge at the crotch and hairy calves below his cuffs. His eyes were bright and expectant, sparkling with interest as she drew back and stiffened her spine even more.
"I'm not much of a coffee drinker," she said coldly. Her total lack of interest only encouraged him, she saw.
"You'd like something stronger, eh? Well, I can't blame you, but working hours, you know… Of course that doesn't go for later. How about having a drink with me after work?"
"No, I have other plans, thanks." If he would only go away!
But he hitched the chair up closer and lowered his voice.
"You know, I've been studying you. You're a fascinating girl, you know that? And do you know why? Because you're so prim and ladylike and touch-me-not. That always makes a man wonder what the other girl is."
She turned slowly and seemed to acknowledge his presence for the first time.
"What do you mean, the other girl?" she said tonelessly.
"The split personality, kid. You know, Jekyll and Hyde, only they were guys." He paused, trying to say what he meant. "Did you see that movie, The Three Faces of Eve? Man, that was great. You're like the chick in the movie – a good girl at work and a bad girl at night, huh? So how's about a little drink along about sunset?"
Her heart froze for a moment. It was true. Something had happened to her in these past weeks. Everyone in the office thought she was a prim, puritanical virgin, she knew. They didn't like her; they called her a wet blanket and a square. Their eyes told her even if they lowered their voices when she walked by. She had become Miss Goody Two Shoes in the office. But when she got home, a change came over her. In the apartment I'm Ginny, but here I'm Brenda.
She looked at the square, grinning face of Nick Eubanks. He knew her secret… he was the enemy now. She hated him!
Her eyes narrowed into cruel slits.
"I don't want to have a drink with you, and I don't want to go to bed with you either. Leave me alone!"
His confident grin remained set for a moment, then slowly vanished into a recalcitrant line.
"Well… I guess I get the picture," he said. "You must like to ride sidesaddle."
For a moment she didn't understand. Then her face flamed as comprehension flooded her. Tonight she was going to see Sonya again, and she was bringing another girl, the brunette named Carla who had been with Leo that night in the cafe.
Eubanks winked sardonically at her and walked away, stopping and leaning over the desk of a cuddly redhead across the room. He said something in her ear and she laughed loudly, clapping her hand over her mouth and glancing slyly at Brenda.
He told her! Fear washed over her. He would spread it all around, and it wasn't true. Or was it? It wasn't true of one girl, but it was of the other. Not of Brenda, but of Ginny. Her mouth went dry and a dull buzzing sensation made her feel light-headed. She began to perspire and grew conscious of her thudding heartbeats; they were slow and thick, so intense that she felt nauseated. She looked at the clock. Only three-fifteen! She had to get out of here and back to the apartment. Back to the Village and her true self.
At five she literally ran out of the office, forcing herself into a crowded elevator and hurrying off before it came to a full stop. The heat was intense as she stepped out the door of the building. It was June, and a hot one. Everyone was complaining about how quickly summer had come. Her birthday had passed Gemini, the twins… twins… twins. She rushed into the subway and pushed rudely past the crowds, ignoring the curses that she evoked. The train she took was an old one, unairconditioned; with gouged-out wicker seats. She stood mashed into the packed bodies, hanging from a strap as the hot, sooty air blew into the open windows and struck her face. It was like standing in the path of a sandblast; she felt the tiny particles of soot embed themselves in her perspiring skin. A bath… she must have a bath and wash the dirt off. Just the way she did that first day in the apartment. A hot bath, so hot it hurt; that searing torture that she remembered so well. It would cleanse her… cleanse her… cleanse her. The words kept time to the clacking subway wheels as the train hurled through the tunnel.
She got off at Eighth Avenue and Fourteenth Street. As soon as she emerged onto the sidewalk her panic receded. The neighborhood swept her into its downtown casualness. Hippies caroused by, one of them strumming a guitar. There was no one with an attache case or a business suit. She could be herself down here, released from the steel cage of primness. She hurried down the street until she reached her building and stood looking up at it, panting.
She stripped off her clothes as soon as she was in the apartment. She was about to run a bath, then turned on the shower full blast and stepped under its needle-like spray. No bath this time! What did she need a bath for? For punishment? But now there was no reason to punish herself; she was home, and she was Ginny again. How could she punish Brenda if there were no Brenda?
She was swaddled in a terrycloth robe when the knock came at the door. Sonya! She ran to answer it, flinging it open with lewd eagerness as she thought of the voluptuous orgy of femaleness that Sonya had promised her.