The buzzer rang and the couple backed through the doorway to the inner hall, smiling and preening as they went. When they finally turned around, Penny moved just fast enough to get her foot in the door before it closed. She waited until they’d gone up the stairs and were out of sight, and then she quickly scampered through the door and up the stairs herself.
She went up two flights, and then she was standing outside her apartment door and wondering what she was going to do next. The door was locked and she didn’t have so much as a hairpin with which to try to open it. What could she do? Where could she go? To whom could she turn?
It was then that Penny thought of Scarlett Amber. She was the only neighbor with whom Penny had slightly more than a nodding acquaintance. Her apartment was around on the other side of the building U on the same floor as Penny’s. Now the poor, darling, circumstantially victimized girl decided she had no choice but to go to Scarlett Amber for help.
She started down the hallway, but she hadn’t gone far before she heard voices coming up the stairwell in front of her. She recognized the voices as belonging to her next door neighbors, the Comstocks. If there was one couple she didn’t want to meet in her present half-dressed condition, it was them. Mr. Comstock was a censor by profession. (No relation to the Anthony Comstock, but his bearing of the same name had influenced Mr. Comstock in his choice of profession.) And Mrs. Comstock, nee Carrie Nation Hays, was president of the local chapter of SINA, an organization dedicated to keeping dogs, cats and other animals from indecent public exposure by clothing them so that their private parts might be adequately covered. Yes, these were not the people for Penny to encounter in her present state.
She glanced about frenziedly, spotted an alcove in which to hide, and crouched down in the shadows it provided with her back to the hallway. In this position, without having planned it, Penny found her chin resting on a windowsill. The window was open and she found herself staring straight into the windows of Scarlett Amber’s apartment, which were also wide open against the summer heat. She had a clear view of both the bedroom and living room, with the wall in between. It was like looking at one of those cutaway stage sets of a Broadway play.
In the bedroom, an infant lay on the big double bed with pillows propped around it to keep it from falling off. The crib beside the bed was empty. In the living room, Penny could see Scarlett Amber dressed in a sexy negligee and her husband, Rhett, wearing only pajama pants.
Rhett was stretched out on the sofa. Scarlett was directly above him with a long, sharp instrument of some sort in her hand. Even from this distance Penny could see that its tip was red-hot.
“No!” he was shouting, his voice filled with fear. “I can’t stand pain! Now get away from me, you perverted—”
“It has to be done,” Scarlett Amber insisted, her green eyes glowing. “That boil on your neck has to be lanced before it spreads. Or is it a plague on your body you’d rather have?” Her voice had just the trace of a York-ville-Irish lilt.
“No!” He placed both his hands over the back of his neck and braced his feet on the couch to push backwards and away from her.
“If I don’t lance it now, you’ll have it forever, Amber,” she told him, pronouncing his last name with a sneer of contempt.
“No!” he shouted again. And this time his arm shot out and he knocked the probe from her hand so violently that it went flying out the open window.
“Now see what you’ve gone and done!” Her eyes shot fire; her bosom heaved proudly. “Well, all right. It’s done with you now, I am!” She wheeled around and marched through the bedroom door, slamming it behind her.
Rhett followed, his muscular torso bulging, as light on his feet as an Indian. He tried the doorknob. It was locked. “Scarlett,” he demanded, “open this door!”
“It’s alone you’ll sleep this night and all that follow,” she answered. She was lying on the bed now, one knee raised so that the negligee fell away to reveal a shapely thigh, her breasts still heaving, her eyes still bright.
“Scarlett! Open this door! I’m your husband! Madame, I’ll not let you keep me from your bedroom. I’ll not let you deny me a husband’s rights, Madame! If you don’t open this door this instant, I’ll kick it down!” he huffed and he puffed, a little out of breath from emotional exertion and frustrated lust.
“Kick and be damned!”
“Very well!” Rhett stood back and delivered a mighty kick to the locked bedroom door. “OWEE!” He fell to the floor, cluthcing his foot like a wounded bird between his two hands. “OH! OH! OH!”
“What’s the matter?” Scarlett called.
“I think I’ve broken my toe,” he sobbed.
She opened the door and came out to him. “Oh, dear, she wrung her hands. “What are we going to do now?”
“You’d best get me to a hospital,” he groaned.
“But what will I do about the baby? Where will I leave her?”
It was at this point that Penny left the alcove. She had been going to ask Scarlett to help her, but now the sweet-natured girl had forgotten all about that and was hurrying to help Scarlett in her time of need. Thus, eager with altruism, she knocked loudly on the door to Scarlett’s apartment.
Scarlett opened it immediately. Before she could say anything, Penny was blurting out her offer of help. But how did you know—?” Scarlett began. “And what are you doing dressed like -?”
“There’s no time for questions,” Rhett insisted, writhing on the floor. “This toe hurts something fierce. Leave her with the baby and get me to a doctor!”
“But what will I do about Humphrey?” Scarlett wailed. His boat got in tonight and he’s due here any time now.”
“Who’s Humphrey?” Penny asked.
He’s my brother. He just came over from the auld sod. He’s never been in this country before. I don’t know what to do about him. Whatever will he think if his own sister isn’t here to greet him?”
“I’ll explain everything to him,” Penny said soothingly. “And I’ll look after the baby, too. You just go on along. ’
“Oh, I don’t know! Rhett, do you think it will be all right?”
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” Rhett groaned.
“You’re right. I’m not going to worry about it now,” Scarlett agreed. “I’ll think of it all tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day.” She helped her husband to his feet and supported him as he hobbled out the door.
“Shall I put the baby in the crib?” Penny called out after her.
“No. She’ll wake up and start crying if you try to move her. Just leave Bonnie where she is on the bed and she’ll be all right.”
And then they were gone. Penny was alone, except for the sleeping baby. It was at this moment, alone and safe at last, that the events of the evening caught up with the darling girl. It was now that she became aware of nerves stretched to the breaking point, of a head pounding with the effects of all the excitement, of a lush young body aquiver with all that had occurred. She went into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet to look for something to calm her nerves.
She found a bottle with a label that said it contained tranquilizers. Just as she reached for it, her foot skidded on the bathmat on which she was standing and she glanced down in regaining her balance. Her hand continued to grope, however, and her fingers closed over an identical bottle right next to the one she’d been seeking. This ones’ label identified the contents as laxatives!
Unaware of her error, Penny dumped two of the capsules into the palm of her hand, replaced the bottle, poured a glass of water, and washed them down. Then she returned to the bedroom. She browsed through Scarlet Amber’s bureau drawers in search of pajamas or a nightie.
She settled on a frilly baby doll set. She stripped off her bikini and donned the baby dolls. She started for the bed, and then stopped to consider the infant sleeping in the middle of it.