69 Barrow Street (10 page)

“My name is Stella James,” she said slowly. “Could I come inside for a minute?”

Ralph’s fingers closed around the shot glass. He tried to remember how many drinks he had had so far but couldn’t. Then he tried to remember how many drinks he had poured down his throat since he stopped bothering with beer chasers.

He couldn’t remember that either.

He stared into the liquor. A face swam on top of the liquor. The face had short dark brown hair and no make-up. The face was not smiling. The face was also very beautiful.

The face looked familiar. It was, of course, the face of Susan Rivers. And a very lovely face it was.

He drained the glass and set it down gently on the top of the bar. The face was gone.

The liquor hadn’t burned his throat on the way down. That was one of the good things about a drinking bout—after a few drinks the bilge didn’t taste vile anymore. As a matter of fact it didn’t have any taste whatsoever. It just worked its way down his throat and into his stomach, and the alcohol seeped into his stomach and nothing seemed to matter as much as it did when he was sober.

There was, he reflected, very little point in being sober. When you were sober you could see things quite clearly, much too clearly for your own good. And there was very little point in seeing things clearly. No point, actually. No point at all, not when your name was Ralph Lambert and you lived with a bitch named Stella and loved a lesbian named Susan Rivers. No point at all.

The bartender, whose name happened to be Charlie, came over and looked at Ralph with a puzzled expression on his flat face.

“Ya wanna nudder?” Charlie demanded.

“Ah,” Ralph said. “Hello, Charlie.”

“Hello.”

“You don’t mind if I call you Charlie, do you?”

“It’s my name.”

“Some people might mind.”

“Live a little,” Charlie suggested. “Call me anything you damn please.”

“In that case I’ll have another.”

“Another double?”

Ralph nodded drunkenly.

“You drink like a goddamn fish,” Charlie said.

“That’s nothing. I swim like an alcoholic.”

“Huh?”

“I drink like a fish and swim like a drunk.”

“Oh,” said Charlie. “I get it. Better it should be the other way around.”

Ralph nodded.

“You do this often? Not that it’s any of my business. I just wondered.”

“Only when I fall in love with a lesbian.”

“Huh?”

“A lesbian,” Ralph explained, waving one hand at no one in particular. “I fell in love with a lesbian.”

“That’s a female fairy?”

“Precisely.”

“Jeez,” Charlie said. “And you’re really in love with the broad?”

“Precisely.”

“Ain’t it a bitch. What are you gonna do?”

“I’m going to have another drink.”

“That sounds like a wise move,” Charlie said. “I mean what the hell else can you do?”

“Precisely.”

“Jeez,” Charlie repeated. “A lesbian.”

Ralph nodded.

“She good-looking?”

“She’s the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“You getting anything?”

“Not a thing.”

Charlie poured a double shot of the bar whiskey and pushed it across to Ralph. “Live a little,” he said. “This one’s on the house. This don’t happen every day.”

Ralph gulped the drink. “I should hope not,” he said. “It would kill me.”

Susan sat alone in her room. Stella had just left, a haunting smile on her lips and a provocative swing to her hips as she walked out of the room.

Susan was afraid again.

She stood up and began pacing the floor, up and down, back and forth. Her breath came in quick, short gasps. She walked from the living room to the bathroom to the kitchen, looking vaguely for something but unsure what it was that she was looking for.

Fear.

It seemed as though she was going to live her entire life immersed in a sea of fear. There was no getting away from it. There was nothing she could do, no way out that was open to her.

She had been afraid of Stella from the first time they met on the stoop. That was bad enough, but with the passage of time her fear had begun to fade away. Even Ralph’s descriptions of Stella, his explanation of the type of woman she was—even this had not truly shaken her.

But one conversation with Stella James had her shaking. She could hardly think straight anymore.

The funny thing was that Stella hadn’t actually
done
anything. She simply came in and sat down and started an extremely innocent conversation about how she had seen Susan from time to time and how she wanted to meet her. That was all.

It was what went unsaid that set the girl on edge. Stella made it obvious that she was ready and willing to play, that she was more than game for a hot little dose of lesbian love. She didn’t have to say anything to get her point across. It was obvious in every act, every word, every gesture and every glance.

No, it was more than that. It would be bad enough if she was merely offering herself. Then Susan would still have the prerogative of refusing the offer, and while that would be difficult it would be her choice, her right to choose between sex and solitude. But instead Stella was saying
I’m going to have you and you can’t stop me
.

And this was very frightening. More than frightening.

Terrifying.

Because she didn’t want sex with Stella. Well, she had to admit to herself that this wasn’t entirely true. In one way, a purely physical way, she wanted sex with Stella desperately. She had been alone for too long and her body was beginning to crave a woman’s hands on it, her mouth to hunger for a woman’s lips pressing against them. But this was a physical hunger and nothing more.

Both intellectually and emotionally she wanted only to be left alone. While the idea of a woman making love to her was less repelling by far than that of a man doing the same things, she knew that it was necessary for her to live a celibate life for the time being, if only so that she could get her bearings and determine precisely what course she was going to follow in the future. This was a hard thing to do, but it was a vital thing also.

Ralph was good for her. He was never on the make, never hungry or grasping. And he was always there, always ready to talk or to listen to her, always sharing a part of himself with her. There was absolutely nothing she wouldn’t be willing to tell him, no secret she wouldn’t reveal to him. He seemed to understand virtually everything, or at least to accept whatever he didn’t understand.

She wasn’t afraid of Ralph. And because she could be with him and open herself up to him she was beginning to relax, beginning to calm down a little inside. She could even feel that her life was becoming somehow healthier and more meaningful.

And then Stella had to walk into her life.

Well, right now there was nothing she could do. She had to wait for things to straighten themselves out in whatever fashion they chose. Tomorrow she could tell Ralph what had happened. Tomorrow everything would be easier because she would have someone to confide in.

Why, Ralph was almost like a psychotherapist for her! He made her feel so much better. Now, if only Stella would leave her alone…

Resolutely she shook her head and walked to the side of her bed. She slipped out of the blue kimono and crawled into bed. She lay on her back for a long time, her eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.

She couldn’t stop thinking of Stella.

And, inevitably, her own hands began their gentle course, stroking her breasts and then her stomach, moving downward to her very private and secret place. She touched herself and thought of Stella as she had done before, stroking herself and whispering to herself, thinking of strange and obscene delights.

Just as she had done before.

Only this time she was ashamed of herself.

Ralph floated home.

That wasn’t exactly how it happened, but that’s how it seemed at the time. He bid Charlie a cheerful goodbye and floated out of the bar. Then he floated into the taxi that Charlie had insisted upon calling for home. Then the taxi floated around for a while until it came to rest in front of 69 Barrow Street. He paid the driver, tipped him two dollars, and floated up the walk to the stoop.

The driver, who hadn’t had a two-dollar tip since V-J day, stared long and thoughtfully after Ralph. Then, shaking his head and smiling gently to himself, he started the cab up again and drove off.

Ralph had an enormous amount of difficulty fitting the key into the lock. He managed it, however, and when the door opened he felt enormously proud of himself. Then he floated down the hallway to his apartment and played games again, trying to get the other key in the lock.

He managed that also and opened the door, feeling more proud of himself than ever. He floated into the room.

Stella was in the bedroom. Surprisingly enough she was alone.

“Hello,” he said. “Do you mind if I call you Charlie?”

She just looked at him.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. “Oh,” he said. “I thought you were a bartender.”

He stood up again and got undressed and ready for bed. Then he sat down again on the edge of the bed and smiled drunkenly at Stella.

Stella said: “I’m going to sleep with your girlfriend.”

He shook his head. He figured he must be hearing things, so he waited for her to go on.

“I went up to see her tonight,” Stella said. “We had a pleasant chat. She’s quite lovely.”

“No,” he said. He wanted to say more but he couldn’t remember just what it was that he wanted to say.

“Yes, Ralph. What’s the matter?”

“Don’t.”

“Why not?” Her smile taunted him.

“Just don’t.”

“But you’ll have to tell me why not. I can’t just accept things on your say-so.”

“Because she doesn’t want you.”

“Are you sure?”

He stared at her.

“Don’t be too sure,” Stella was saying. “Don’t be too certain about anything.”

“Leave her alone.”

“Why?”

He was silent.

“Are you in love with her, Ralph?”

He turned away from her.

“Are you?”

He didn’t answer.

“Tell me, Ralph.”

“Yes,” he said, finally. “I’m in love with her.”

“In that case,” Stella said, “I’ll be sure to let you watch.” And she began to laugh hysterically.

He turned to her again. Something flared in him all at once and he couldn’t hold back the hate and fury that had been building within him. He grabbed her by one arm and hauled her out of bed, sinking one fist into her stomach.

She folded up like an accordion. Then she began to laugh again through clenched teeth.

“Damn you!” he exploded. He hit her again and again, ringing blows with his open hand that landed on her face and breasts.

But he couldn’t still her laughter.

Then, at last, he made love to her. Making love is perhaps the wrong term; what he made was hate. He took her with fury burning through his bloodstream, forcing her back down on the bed and pummeling her with his fists, then taking her cruelly and viciously, hurting her as much as he possibly could.

As soon as he had finished with her he rolled away from her and his head swam. He closed his eyes.

Then, mercifully, the liquor and sex combined and he was unconscious.

H
E WOKE UP SLOWLY,
weakly. First, with his eyes still clenched shut and his frame motionless, consciousness began to return to Ralph. For a long moment he remained in one position without moving his eyelids at all.

When he finally opened his eyes the light hurt them and he shut them again quickly. He tried to yawn and stretch and his muscles ached dully in the process. He breathed heavily and turned over onto his back.

He felt like hell.

He opened his eyes a second time and this time they stayed open. Haltingly he pulled himself to his feet. A wave of dizziness almost knocked him to the floor and he had to clutch the side of the bed for support. He sat down again on the side of the bed with his feet on the floor and stared blindly at the wall.

His mouth was parched, his throat bone-dry. There was a sick, queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach that was spreading quietly throughout his system. His head felt too large and bulky for his neck to support it. His arms, when he reached for his shoes, didn’t seem to work as well as they had in the past.

He stood up again. The dizziness slugged him in the teeth again but this time he was able to master it and stay on his feet. By the elaborate process of putting one foot in front of the other he managed to reach the bathroom and step under the shower.

The shower helped. It didn’t do the trick single-handed, of course, and when he finally finished his turn under first the hot spray and then the cold spray and stepped out of the tub again, he felt a good deal better but a long ways from human. The dizziness was still present in a smaller dose and his thirst was unchanged.

He drank glass after glass of cold water, not even pausing to count them. He filled the plastic glass and poured it down his throat again and again in a heroic attempt to fill his stomach with water. Then he took his toothbrush and removed the fuzzy woolen sweaters that seemed to be shrouding his teeth.

He looked in the mirror and shuddered. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. There was a gash on his cheek where he had evidently managed to cut himself during the night. And his face, in one way or another, had aged a good ten years in the one night. The lines in his forehead and around his nose and mouth had deepened perceptibly. He wondered how much of this was a temporary effect of drunkenness and how much was a permanent change.

Back in the bedroom he dressed slowly and methodically, wondering but not caring where Stella had gone, wondering but not caring how he himself would spend the day, wondering about a great many things but caring about very little of anything. He put on a blue sport shirt and a pair of khaki pants, tied his tennis shoes too tight and had to re-tie them, and at last walked out of the bedroom, out of the apartment, down the hallway and out of the building into the cool air of the morning.