“What’s that?” Zelda was puzzled.
“Take your pill.”
“What pill?”
“Your birth control pill!”
“Golly! Thanks for reminding me. I always forget.”
“That’s probably why you sent yourself the telegram.”
“What telegram?”
“Never mind. Just take the pill.” If she says “What pill?” again, Regina thought, I’m going to scream!
But Zelda downed the pill with a gulp of martini without further comment.
“So Transcendental Meditation,” Regina continued, “didn’t help you with your memory problem.”
“Not really. You see, I was supposed to chant this mantra to myself for twenty minutes every morning and twenty minutes every night. I was supposed to empty my mind and meditate while I was doing it. But it didn’t work.”
“Why not?”
“When I emptied my mind, instead of meditating, I’d fall asleep.”
“I can see how that would be sort of self-defeating.”
“Then it got worse,” Zelda continued. “I’d sit down to meditate and I wouldn’t be able for the life of me to remember my mantra.”
“What did you do?” Regina asked.
“I went back to Sister Faith. She was very patient. I had to go back several times. And each time she’d give me the mantra again.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
“The afternoon of the day she was murdered. A few hours before. That’s what I told the police, and that’s the truth.”
“And she repeated your mantra for you?”
“Yes.”
“And you remembered it?”
“No.” Zelda hung her head. “I forgot it before I even got home.”
“And I don’t suppose you remember it now?” Regina asked with a sigh.
“No. But I’m working hard to bring it back. You see, after Sister Faith’s death, I went to this man who’s a memory expert. He’s got this perfectly marvelous system for remembering things. It’s based on giving yourself rewards. You see, whenever I do remember something, I immediately reward myself. Subconsciously, the remembering gets tied in with the reward and that makes it easier to remember the next time. Oh!” Zelda was momentarily crestfallen. “I forgot!”
“What did you forget now?” Regina inquired patiently.
“My reward for taking the pill. Oh, dear! If I don’t reward myself immediately, it will screw up the whole system. Golly! This is embarrassing.”
“Embarrassing?”
“Well, I really shouldn’t wait to reward myself, but I don’t want to shock you.”
“I don't shock,” Regina assured her. “Go ahead and have your reward.”
“Well, if you’re sure you don’t mind . . .” Zelda’s voice trailed off as she went into the bedroom. Regina hesitated a few seconds, and then followed her.
Zelda had taken off her hot pants and sweater. Her slender, childlike body was stretched out naked on the bed. As Regina entered, she was just reaching into the drawer of the night table beside the bed to take out a small electric vibrator. She plugged it into a wall-socket and applied the throbbing instrument to her small, round, tightly-packed derriere.
A blush of pink appeared and darkened as the vibrator moved over the cheeks. Sharp little breasts heaving, Zelda traced the cleft bisecting her bottom. Then she probed deeper and her body bucked, thin legs kicking, as the vibrator touched her sensitive anus.
“The theory is,” Zelda panted to Regina, “that immediate sensual satisfaction will set up a subliminal memory pattern so that next time I’ll want to take the pill so I can have the reward.” She writhed ecstatically, touching the vibrator first to one long, quivering nipple, and then to the other. “I can imagine what you must be thinking of me,” she gasped. “I’m really sorry. But if I wait too long after taking the pill it’s no good.”
“Don’t apologize,” Regina told her. ‘Tm really completely detached. Just think of me as a clinical observer.
Plainly, Zelda was not now thinking of Regina at all. Aroused beyond thought, she turned over violently and pulled herself up on the pillows so that she was in a sitting position. She ran the vibrator over her flat belly, probing the navel, throwing back her head, eyes wild and unfocused, laughing mindlessly at the erotically tickling sensation this produced.
The vibrator moved down to the light brown triangle of curls at the base of her stomach. The triangular mound jumped rhythmically in response to the vibrations. Zelda reached further down to the juncture of the V formed by her thin thighs. Her clitoris, red, erect, straining, twanged into view. Its first contact with the vibrator elicited a prolonged moan, half a soft scream, from Zelda’s lips. The vibrator burrowed deeper and Zelda bounced frantically on the bed.
Suddenly her body arched and remained taut, the vibrator buried, all but lost to view. She stayed that way for a long, wailing moment. Then she collapsed with a heartfelt sigh of satisfaction. She lay limp now, momentarily exhausted, the vibrator, still buzzing, held loosely at her side.
Before Regina judged the girl had recovered enough to resume questioning her, there was another interruption. A man’s voice sounded from the living-room. “You forgot again!” he yelled accusingly. “I hear that goddam vibrator! I know what you’re doing! You forgot we had a date, didn’t you? And now you’ll be too tired!” He sounded very annoyed.
“Oh, gosh!” Zelda exclaimed. “I did forget! We had a date and it just went out of my mind.”
“Who is he?” Regina inquired. “How did he get in?”
“He’s my boy friend. My lover. I gave him a key.”
“What’s his name?”
“I can never remember,” Zelda confessed.
“Well, I guess you have a lot of men in your life.”
“No. He’s the only one right now. It’s just that I’m terrible on names.”
“Since you’ve already had your allotment of sex for the evening,” the man called sarcastically, “I’ll wait out here. When you’re through, we can play gin rummy or something.”
There was something about the voice that was very familiar to Regina. She tried, but she couldn’t place it. The fleeting sense of familiarity left her mind when Zelda spoke again.
“He’s really mad,” she said. “He’s a Libra, so he doesn’t release his anger easily, but I can tell. Actually, I suppose we’re not really suited to each other,” she mused. “I’m an Aries.”
“You’re an Aries?” Regina was suddenly all attention.
“That’s right. See.” Zelda pointed.
Regina followed her finger. It was aimed at a birth certificate hanging on the wall. The document said that Zelda Quinn had been born on April 8th. She was indeed an Aries!
“I keep it hanging there so I don’t forget my birthday,” Zelda explained.
Regina wasn’t listening. She was off following her own train of logic. She remembered that the Maharishi Unguentinanina had told her that “AHHH LOO-OO- OO” could not have been Faith Venable’s mantra because it would be unthinkable to give that mantra to an Aries. Faith Venable had been an Aries, like Zelda, and because of that, and because she had been the Maharishi’s pupil, she certainly would never have given “AHHH LOO-OO-OO” as a mantra to one of her disciples born under the sign. Which meant that whatever Zelda’s mantra was, it wasn’t “AHHHH LOO-OO-OO!” And that in turn meant that Zelda was not the murderess! Scratch one more suspect!
“I’ll be going now,” Regina told the girl. “You have a date and I have things to do. Don’t bother,” she added as Zelda started to get to her feet. “I can find my own way out.”
“Tell him I’ll be out in a minute,” Zelda called as Regina exited the bedroom.
But when Regina found herself facing the man waiting in the living-room, she was speechless. There was a good reason why his voice had sounded familiar before. Zelda Quinn’s “lover” was Lieutenant Raoul Rodriguez of the Homicide Division!