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“No,” her mother said. She passed twenty dollars to the doctor and turned to the door.

“You will do what the doctor tells you,” she called back over her shoulder. “You will be nice to the doctor.”

Then she was gone.

“Come,” the doctor said. “The table is no place for this. We can use the bed.”

He led her numbly across the room and made her lie down on the mattress. The sheets were grimy and she lay there shivering. The doctor disrobed methodically and joined her on the bed. His breath was vile as his face came close to hers.

“Don’t be frightened,” he said softly. “You’re a whore and your mother is a pimp, but there’s no call to be frightened.”

Afterwards the pain came. The doctor didn’t have an anesthetic and the pain tore her apart. He put a dirty sock in her mouth so that she would have something to bite on and he tied her legs to the legs of the table. When it was over she went back to her home and collapsed into her bed and slept.

She was sick for two weeks.

But she didn’t have the baby.

Chapter Ten

The next morning was a living hell. The house was empty when Carla awoke a few minutes after ten, and it was past noon before Lizzie arrived. In the interim, for two deadly hours, Carla had her breakfast and took her shower and answered the phone half a dozen times. Each time it was Danny, driving her out of her mind with protestations of love.

She didn’t want to talk to him, not in the least. She especially wanted to avoid him after the experience of the previous night. A love affair with a stranger was not her style, that was sure. The memory of the man in the hotel room — his clumsy pawing and bad breath — was enough to discourage her from anything of that nature. The memory of the hotel room episode linked itself in her mind with the memory of the grease-room floor, and this link only served to intensify her loathing for Danny Rand.

The first time he called, she was taken by surprise. She stammered at first, then told him not to call again and rang off. His next call consisted of the same phrases on his part, but this time she didn’t bother to speak to him. He kept on calling and she continued to hang up the phone in disgust.

Worse, however, was an effect she noticed. The power and force of Danny Rand’s personality was present, and she could feel his voice drawing her and stimulating the animalism in her. It was ridiculous, she told herself forcefully. It was absurd, and Danny was certainly a man she didn’t want.

And yet there was no denying the fact that he attracted her, drew her to him with a crude and strangely powerful quality that rivalled Charles. For a moment she tried to imagine a lover who would combine Charles Butler’s suavity and skill with her raw brutality and devotion of Danny. It was an interesting picture.

When Lizzie arrived, Carla was so glad to see her that she almost took the girl in her arms. She didn’t even think of scolding her for being late. Rather, she was so relieved at no longer being alone in the large house that she started talking to Lizzie immediately.

“Did you have a pleasant evening?” she asked.

“Yes,” Lizzie replied, smiling.

“I’ll bet you had a date.”

Lizzie smiled again without answering. Carla guessed that the girl had quite definitely been with a man, and that she’d enjoyed the venture a good deal more than Carla had enjoyed the scene in the Pearl Street hotel. But then it was easy to see that Lizzie usually enjoyed what she did. Carla envied her — so at ease all the time, so sure of herself. She wouldn’t be the one to get caught up in such a hopeless mess.

“Lizzie,” she said, “there’s a man trying to reach me on the phone. He’s been annoying me all morning long, and he’ll probably call again this afternoon. If he does, just tell him I’m out and you don’t know when I’ll be back. Don’t tell him anything else. If he makes a pest of himself, just hang up on him.”

The girl nodded.

“He’s just a nuisance,” Carla added. “I don’t even know him.” As she spoke, she wondered why she was bothering to explain all this to the girl. After all, Lizzie was just a servant and had no concern in her private life. But Carla had an idea that the girl knew a lot more of the situation than she was letting on. Well, it would be all right so long as she kept her mouth shut. And Lizzie didn’t appear to be a blabbermouth. On the contrary, she was the most tight-lipped and inscrutable person Carla had ever met.

But the phone didn’t ring for the next half-hour. Carla went to her room and dressed, wanting to look as perfect as possible for Charles. She had decided to drop in on him without calling, intending to force the issue to a head. Now would be the time to hit him with an ultimatum. After a night without her it should be easier to make demands upon him. She would get him to marry her as soon as Ronald’s case was over, then get her divorce and marry Charles and never have to worry about secrecy again.

She dressed automatically, donning brassiere and panties before she suddenly changed her mind and stripped naked once again. She ran her hands luxuriously over her body, stroking the smooth skin and whispering compliments to herself. No, bra and panties weren’t really necessary today. Instead she put on a tight jersey dress that hugged every swell and indentation of her body. She looked at herself in the mirror, stunned at first by the vivid color of the dress. It was a bright scarlet, and Carla hadn’t worn it since she bought it over a year ago. She didn’t realize that it was so bright.

She also hadn’t realized what a difference it made to wear the dress with nothing on underneath it. When she was in high school she had often enjoyed wearing tight sweaters without a bra and watching the reactions of the boys. But this was different: what a sweater did for the top half of her body, the jersey dress did for the entire body. Carla looked more naked than a nudist. Although the dress covered her from her neck almost to her ankles, it made her look delightfully obscene.

But she couldn’t go out of the house looking like that, no matter how much she wanted to show herself off to Charles. Fortunately she got an assist from nature. It began to rain, and a shapeless raincoat quickly camouflaged the dress. While it forced her to put up the top of the MG, it made matters infinitely easier. Then the rain miraculously stopped by the time she reached the Tiffany, so she was able to leave the raincoat in the car and walk into the lobby in full glory.

The imperturbable doorman didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow.

Charles, on the contrary, raised both eyebrows. “Good Lord,” he exclaimed. “Carla, you’re magnificent!”

She grinned. “I’m glad you approve.”

“Approve? God, you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!” He ushered her into the apartment, closing the door behind her. Carla walked to the sofa and sat down, tucking her long legs beneath her. She stretched like a kitten, enjoying the way her breasts pressed against the front of the jersey dress, and pulled a cigarette from her purse. Charles held the light for her and she drew deeply on the cigarette, not speaking until she had filled her lungs with smoke and blown a thin column of smoke at the ceiling.

“If I’m that pretty,” she said carefully, “why won’t you marry me?”

Charles sat down and shook his head. “Are you going to start that again?”

“Why not?”

“What’s the matter, Carla? Aren’t you satisfied with things as they are?”

“No, I’m not.”

He lit a cigarette of his own and extinguished the match with a flick of his wrist. “Why not? Things are good the way they are. You’re married to Ronald and you have the security of the Macon name. We meet every afternoon and we have the pleasure which we give each other. Our lovemaking is a beautiful and rhythmic thing. What more do you want.”