not to unburden himself. "And what would you do for excitement, daughter of Phillip?"
"Don't be funny," she said mildly, her face stiffening, contradicting the tone. "He's not like that. Things don't use him, he uses things."
"Like you."
"Don't misunderstand," she said sharply. "Don't draw some convenient portrait about how Phillip's plundered and ruined me. It's not that way. It's never really been that way."
She started suddenly, surprisingly, to cry. Harry felt furious desire for her. Then the feeling changed to sympathy and curiosity.
"I want Phillip. I've always wanted Phillip, since I was a little girl.
To be near him, to listen to him, to love him…"
"Well, you have him," Harry said coldly.
"He's not enough now." She was revealing herself now, telling him what he knew, but had never admitted.
"How did you get into this?"
She tried to respond on his terms. Yes, he wanted form, contours, as much as Phillip. She spoke quietly and sincerely. "Like father, like daughter, you know, that sort of thing. We just naturally like the same things."
"Phillip?"
"Phillip loves me."
"Then why has he let you get involved in everything. Pushing that jewelry can be dangerous, little girl."
"I made him let me. I fought for it. Years ago, when other little girls were discovering the birds and bees, I discovered that my daddy was a jewel thief. Do you know what? I loved the idea … I loved it."
Harry watched her intently as she added, "I overheard a conversation."
"That must have been an interesting scene, when he found out,"
Harry said, looking away from her intent face.
"I didn't tell him until years later, as a matter of fact," she explained pensively.
"But weren't you at school when all this was going on?"
"Yes, I had to go to school," she said softly. "Schools I hated, filled with people who bored me unforgivably." She paused a second, and continued, "When I didn't see Phillip, nothing seemed right."
"Were you with him much?"
"No, not very much then. During vacations I would be left here with the servants. Sometimes he would be here, and those were wonderful times. He would read to me, or explain paintings, talk to me about traveling together when I grew up. Then he would be gone, as quickly as he'd arrived, and I was alone again.
"I started to work myself, on the magazine, that career girl's nightmare, instead of running away or going to schools forever … to be near Phillip I guess. Anyway, he couldn't shake me, so he decided to use me."
Harry watched the side of her face as she spoke. He waited, waited for the rest that she would have to tell him tonight. Waited for the secret he could sense was burning inside her.
"It's really worked out rather well, wouldn't you say … as smooth as a perfect…" Her face became suddenly tense, but somehow beautiful.
She wanted him to take her in his arms, to comfort the rest of the terrible story out of her. He waited still beside her, and Carol realized that it was more important for her to tell the story than for Harry to hear it. Also she knew that his objectivity, his distance enabled her to go on.
She had revealed her secret to no one but Phillip, who was a part of her, and the dirty little man in the tenement shop. Harry was outside all this, she knew.
"You see," her voice was tight as taut rubber again, "it's not that Phillip has perverted me, has made me into some kind of slave. He's made my life possible. Without him, I wouldn't have wanted to live."
Then her voice lost its emotion and became flat, like a bored instructor giving a familiar lecture.
"When I was thirteen, I had diphtheria. The doctors, as usual, didn't know if I could live. But Phillip knew, because Phillip cared. Mother was dead then, and he sat vigil at my bed. He didn't," her words cracked and parted, "he didn't touch me then."
Harry watched the marble shoulders. The pain on her face was reaching him, deeply, from some place far back before his childhood.
He felt the heavy beating of his heart, and knew that in a sense Carol had more courage than he — and that he could not speak now. She continued.
"One of the capital results of diphtheria is often a loss of hair. Well, I was a democratic child, so I lost my hair. All of it, do you understand? I was not a beautiful sight for Phillip to read to and caress, me lying there white and smooth and silent as an egg. Of course, I didn't realize then. The fever raged and I knew nothing. The doctors, however, were afraid the hair would never grow back. But as you can see," — again the pebbles were behind her words — "as you can see, it did. But not all of it." She started to cry again. "Not all of it. Not the most important part. Not the woman's enchanted forest. Do you understand? Am I clear, or shall I spell it out for you? Not my pubic hairs. My cunt stayed white and smooth, like my belly."
Why wouldn't he move? She felt an agony of isolation. Why wouldn't he touch her and say it was all right, and that she was still a woman and beautiful? Because he didn't think so; because he thought now that she was something of a freak, some ugly little assistant that Phillip the magician dragged around the world with him.
"Phillip didn't care," she accused. "Phillip still thought I was wonderful." It was the wail of a frightened child, not the cool Carol, of cool Femme. "He could have me as if I were seven years old. And a father never wants his daughter to grow up, to grow older. That part of me remained a child, except inside. And once he was inside, Phillip didn't care if I was his daughter or son or the gas heater. I'm the same inside, Harry, maybe hotter to compensate for the lie of my cunt. But I'm the same as any woman." Her sobs relaxed her and finally silenced her. She rested her head on the white leather seat and closed her eyes.
She was the Sleeping Beauty for Harry. He looked pensively at her, afraid to awaken her, not sure that the long sleep wasn't the best part of her life. But he was puzzled and still confused.
"Baby." He finally caressed her arm. "Baby, I don't understand. I had you, remember? I had you, and it didn't matter. I didn't notice.
You're bugging yourself and your cunt didn't look any different to me…"
"That wasn't my cunt you felt. Those weren't my soft comforting pussy hairs you rested on. That was my little masquerade, my twentieth century costume."
She turned fully and held his eyes. "It was a wig, a blond patch of hair, the kind vain men wear on their heads. It's a great thing, looks like a dead mouse when you hold it in your hand, but like sweet bristling hair on the cunt."
She pounded the shoulder that would not hold her head. "It's particularly good for lovers. They can take it to bed with them, drape it over a rare chunk of meat or a milk bottle and have a ball. You see,"
she shouted into the quiet dark night, "Phillip is the only man who would have me. Phillip saves my life every time he fucks me."
Harry reached out to hold her close, to transfuse her fear into his body. He felt so empty, like a god sent to wander on the earth and hear these stories, these hidden nightmares.
"Carol, baby." He let her cling to his chest. "Carol, why are you torturing yourself? We can make it both ways; we can have a ball."
We! He spoke of them as two things that equaled one. "Baby, we can fuck and pretend you're Little Orphan Annie, all naked and beautiful and untouched. Or you can put it on, or hold it in your hand, or stick it over your mouth. Baby there's a thousand ways to make it, and we can find a way. There's always a way. Phillip should have taught you that.
It'll be crazy. I can have a little girl or have you hot and hairy."
She sobbed, hearing the words she'd waited so long for, hearing them echo around them in the still night. She was already hot between her thighs from hearing that he wanted her. She wanted to leave the car and stretch out in the black night and let him fuck her into nothing. She was out of the nightmare, entering the dream.