CHAPTER 8

Opening the door to her own apartment, Elaine was flooded with relief that she could abandon the pretense of nonchalance. Her face flamed, remembering Eric and Kathy in the bedroom, with only the door and paper-thin walls separating her from that frank lovemaking. It was no use denying the truth any longer. She loved Kathy as she'd loved no one ever before. And there was no one more remotely removed from her. She sighed, sinking into a chair, visualizing Kathy's lovely face, the elfin body that every fiber of her being ached to hold. And she had to pretend! To pretend to offer friendship when her heart spilled over with love, her body trembled to possess.

The phone pierced the quiet with an ugly discordance. Still sitting there in the semi-darkness, Elaine reached for it.

"Hello."

"I thought you might be here when I got in," Terry's voice came sulkily over the wire. "You said you might," she reminded.

"I was terribly tired," Elaine began, and then the disturbing memory of Paul returned with jarring shock. Terry was supposed to be meeting him at eight. "How was your evening?" She didn't know why she asked that.

"Boring," Terry lied. "I came home early—I've been here almost an hour. I phoned and phoned, but you didn't answer." Obviously, she was waiting for some explanation.

"I went over to Eric's," Elaine told her, wondering subconsciously where Terry had spent the evening. At Maria's again, with Stephie and his friends? It struck her with an astonished sharpness that she didn't honestly care. The thing with Terry was at an end, for Elaine. Kathy had reduced it to ashes.

"Have fun?" The question was light, yet the undertone unmistakably malicious. This crazy streak in Terry, Elaine reminded herself with nagging alarm. Somebody at the office had been complaining about Terry being insolent, she recalled overhearing somewhere in the corridors. She'd meant to warn Terry, only it'd slipped her mind somehow. "You hit it off so well with your sister-in-law," Terry murmured with phoney admiration.

"Eric and Kathy are very much in love," Elaine said with all the calmness she could manage. "I'm awfully happy for them."

"Elaine," Terry’s voice was huskily appealing now, "you aren't angry about my going out with Paul Hennessy, are you?"

"Of course not." Irritation crept into her voice, without her meaning to permit that. Why must Terry keep up this childish pretense that she was out with Paul?

Paul was all right, she told herself desperately, visualizing him sprawled across the floor as she'd left him. But Elaine knew she'd spend a sleepless night, worrying about him. Taunting herself, too, over the precarious situation with Kathy. While Terry rattled on, Elaine's mind pondered over what to do about her feelings for her sister-in-law. Should she stop seeing Eric and Kathy altogether, make up excuses each time they asked her over? Or should she put herself through exquisite torture, seeing Kathy, wanting her, and pretending to be merely the affectionate sister-in-law? How long could she keep up such a pretense? Suddenly, she was aware that Terry was saying something about coming over to the apartment. "Sweetie, I'm absolutely exhausted," she said with credible sincerity. "I'll see you at the office tomorrow."

"Suppose we could go to a foreign film after dinner?" Terry was reluctant to let go. "There's a terrific one you haven't seen." Terry knew Elaine's enjoyment in foreign movies, so she'd hopped on this bandwagon as proof of how much they meant to each other, another tie. "Please," she coaxed.

"All right," Elaine agreed wearily, willing to promise anything now to escape that other presence. "We'll talk about it at dinner."

* * *

Going up in the elevator to Fleet and Comstock, Elaine fought an overpowering attack of jitters. How did she know Paul wasn't injured by that blow on the head? He'd struck the desk so sharply! She'd been upset and frightened and so she'd run. Perhaps she should have phoned for an ambulance. Perhaps it wasn't a drunken stupor, but a coma!

Walking from the elevator, through the reception room into the floor of cubicles, Elaine was punctured with self-consciousness. So sure that everyone was looking at her oddly, talking behind her back in whispers. Had Paul been found in her office this morning? Had he recovered consciousness and talked? What happened here, her mind demanded bitterly? What was she walking into now?

She opened the door to her own office, and leaned against it with a sigh of relief. Her eyes moved involuntarily to the spot where Paul's body had sprawled. There was no sign in the office now of last night's struggle. She sought a glance in the make-up mirror she kept in her desk drawer. The nasty bruises were thoroughly masked—nobody could see. Her clothes concealed the other bruises. She sat down at the desk, determined to behave as though this were merely any other morning.

"Yes?" she said calmly at the light knock on her door about five minutes later.

"Hi," Mr. Comstock's attractive young secretary poised in the door with a smile. "Mr. Comstock would like to see you as soon as you're free."

"Be right there," Elaine smiled back, fighting panic. Something had happened here! She could read it in the discreet curiosity Comstock's smartly-groomed secretary was taking such pains to conceal.

Elaine gave the girl a two minutes' head start, utilizing the time to compose herself. Then, a fixed smile on her face, she moved from behind her desk, out the door, and down the short corridor to Comstock's office, ostensibly the poised young career woman she'd always been.

"Hello, my dear," Comstock glanced up with that professionally charming smile he always wore.

"Good-morning, Cliff," Elaine said leisurely, going to the chair beside his desk with the polite smile of inquiry that betrayed nothing. "Something new on Truly Yours?" She hoped that none of her anxiety showed through, that the faint, nervous twitching below her eye would go unnoticed.

"Elaine, I don't want you to be needlessly upset," Comstock shuffled the papers on his desk. "We had some unpleasantness here this morning. Quite early.”

"Oh?" Then Paul had been nasty!

"We all know how keen the competition was for the Truly Yours assignment. I mean between you and Paul." He hesitated briefly, then plunged ahead. "A cleaning woman found him out cold in your office. Now don't be disturbed, my dear," he said hastily as her eyes widened in fear, "He'd been drinking, probably invaded your office on the chance of destroying whatever work you'd set up on the account. He fell and knocked his head on a corner of the desk. The cleaning woman was alarmed and called for the night elevator operator."

"Was he badly hurt?" The words came out in a harsh whisper.

"Just paralyzed drunk." Cliff Comstock's face tightened. "I always figured him for being emotionally unstable. Seeing you land the assignment sent him off half-cocked. Naturally, the night operator reported the incident. When I questioned him, he was surly and insulting. I fired him on the spot."

"I'm sorry it turned out this way," Elaine stammered. "I know Paul's terribly ambitious—"

"Good riddance," he interrupted brusquely. "I called you in to tell you so that you'd have the full picture. I'd like you to check through your files to make sure nothing's been disturbed. I don't want Hennessy chasing off to another agency with a similar campaign."

"I'm sure there's nothing disturbed," Elaine reassured him. All her sketches and notes on Truly Yours were in her apartment. At the beginning of a new campaign she liked to work out the roughspots in privacy. "But I gather Rick Stacy gave Paul a fairly clear idea of our approach."

"Paul was bluffing," he said comfortably, "Probably hoping to start you talking. I checked with Rick."

"Fine," Elaine smiled faintly, knowing this little conference was at an end. But what about Paul? Was he writing "finis" to their little episode?

Elaine and Terry followed their familiar afternoon routine. Terry left the office, went into the drugstore for coffee, waiting for Elaine to join her. Then, together, they took a cab to Terry's apartment.

"You're not very talkative," Terry ventured cautiously, as she opened the door and moved inside-"Worried about Paul Hennessy ruining your plans for Truly Yours?"

"Is it all over the agency?" Elaine asked, her eyes dark with pain.

"All kinds of rumors," Terry admitted, "all ending up with Paul being kicked out on his rear end for getting loaded and messing up your office." Terry tossed off her jacket, headed for the kitchenette to start dinner. "Did he chase you around the desk first?"

"Yes," Elaine conceded wearily, too tired to lie about it. And what was the use?

"He stood me up last night. You knew that, didn't you?" Terry swerved about to face her, the sulky eyes accusing. "But you let me go on talking last night anyhow".

"I was tired, Terry," she said patiently.

"You didn't care that I was stood up!" Anger hardened the sweetly silky voice now. "You didn't care because you had a chance to go over to your precious brother's and sit there and fawn over his darling wife!"

"Terry, shut up!"

"I won't! Nothing's been the same since they came into town!" Terry's voice rose hysterically. "You took one look at that phoney little slut and that was it!"

"Terry, stop that!" Elaine ordered, fury seizing hold of her now.

"Why?" Terry thrust her small face beneath Elaine's tauntingly. "You can't stand anybody saying anything against your little darling? What does your brother think about it? That's what I'd like to know."

"You don't know what you're talking about." Elaine walked away to the window, fighting for control.

"I know you're crazy about that girl!" Terry stormed. "You're trying to get rid of me, for her. You think I'll just let you walk out on me—but I won't." Defiance shone from her. "You try to leave me, Elaine, I’ll fix it so everybody knows why. Those pictures Stephie took of us—how would you like to have them passed around the agency? How would you like Eric to see them, and that darling wife of his?"

"You wouldn't dare!" Elaine froze.

"Oh, wouldn't I? Try me! Just try me!"

"It wouldn't look so good for you, either," Elaine struggled to be rational. "You can't hurt me without hurting yourself."

"I don't care about me!" Suddenly, the fury broke and tears rolled unchecked down her cheeks, with dirty smudges of mascara marring the perfect make-up. "But I won't have her taking you away from me. I won't let her."

"Terry, please," Elaine began, a shamed compassion taking hold of her now.

"Don't touch me," Terry complained petulantly, and one hand rose to strike Elaine across the face.

"Stop that!" Elaine ordered, grappling for Terry's hands that were raining blows in her direction.

"I won't," Terry screamed, and her nails left a bloody scratch down Elaine's forearm.

The two girls tangled frenziedly, falling back against the divan, the room noisy with their labored breathing. And then, it was over. Terry was clinging to Elaine, sobbing out her apology, begging to be forgiven.

"It's all right, honey, it's all right," Elaine reiterated, her mind in upheaval, her body taut with the shock of Terry's attack.

"You hate me." Terry sat up on the divan, leaning on one hand. "You don't like it when people act like this. You like everything quiet and respectable."

"I don't hate you," Elaine said with a manufactured smile. "Why do you dream up such things?"

"You don't love me." Terry touched her softly on one thigh. "You're just trying to figure out a way to get rid of me without making a scene."

"That's absurd," Elaine protested, every nerve in her body screaming for release. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the clean memory of Kathy. Wanting Kathy. Knowing she couldn't have her.

"Prove it," Terry insisted huskily, sliding one leg towards hers. "Darling, show me you're not angry with me." Her arms crept about Elaine now, and she pressed her supple young body close to hers, daring her to refuse.

Kathy was inaccessible, an inner voice taunted Elaine maliciously. Kathy would turn sick if she knew how Elaine longed for her, how Elaine wanted to possess that elfin body of hers! But she had to have something, someone. "Sweet little Terry," she murmured softly, shutting the other girl out of her mind, praying to forget with Terry. "Darling, I love you!"

Terry came to her with tiny moans of satisfaction, her hands and her legs and her mouth working with expert determination to build Elaine to a fever pitch, to a surging clamorous climax that enveloped them as one, making everything else another world, this the real one.

"Don't ever leave me," Terry muttered, sinking her small teeth into Elaine's shoulder with satisfaction. "Don't ever leave me!"