An Idol for Others (26 page)

“I might. It changes the way I look at you.” He moved to her until their bodies were lightly touching here and there. “I love you, Clarry. You’re more exciting than ever.”

She glanced down at his growing sex. “We can’t. I haven’t put that thing back in.”

“So much the better. If you’re pregnant already, I can’t make you pregnant again. I’m going to do it for real for the first time.”

“Oh, no, you’re not.” Her eyes turned hard with defiance. “Seeing your cock standing up so grandly infuriates me. Don’t you realize what you’ve done to me?”

He laughed and took her hand and put it on his sex and moved it back and forth. “Feel it. It can batter down walls of rubber. If it were yours, I’d gladly have your babies.”

“I’m in no mood for phallic worship. I want to get dressed.”

“No, you don’t.” He flung his arms around her and pulled her to him and took her mouth with his. He felt her breath quicken. He moved insinuatingly against her resistant body. He loved to feel her giving in to him. He drew back and took her hand and pulled her across the room to the bed and threw off the cover. “I’ve wanted to fuck you for years with nothing in the way. No obstructions. Just you.”

She jerked her hand away and started back toward her dressing table. “You can run around naked all your life if you so choose. I’m going to get dressed.”

“Oh, no. I’ve always wanted to rape someone.” He made a rush for her and grabbed and dragged her back to the bed. They were both laughing, but there was a spark of real struggle in it, and her laughter was dangerous. He threw her down and flung himself on top of her.

She looked up into slanting eyes and the impish smile, and her heart raced. She felt him sliding into her and filling her, and sounds of delight and pleasure were wrung from her. She felt all of herself opening to him. She couldn’t control her body’s surrender. All the more reason why she must cling to detachment and common sense when there were important decisions to make.

“Oh, Clarry. Feel that. We’re joined. We’re one. I know it’s all imagination, but it seems so different when you don’t have anything there. It’s like having you for the first time.” After all these years, incredibly, it
was
the first time in a real sense, more tremendous with his wife than it could have been with Fay or Debby or little what’s-her-name.

“You do feel more inside me than usual.” She pulled him to her with her arms and legs, clinging to him. She didn’t know if other men could be so thrilling and still felt no inclination to find out.

“God, my cock feels so good there. It seems unfair for you not to know what it’s like.”

“You don’t know what it’s like having a beautiful cock inside you. I wouldn’t trade places for anything.” She wondered why she hadn’t gone mad with jealousy and desire while he was away. Knowing how highly sexed he was, and how irresistible, she knew he was bound to have had bedmates. He was hers again now. She flung her arms out on the bed and let him move freely on her. “Show me how long it is, dearest,” she requested.

They both giggled as he drew slowly back from her and slid into her again. Her body was shaken by sobbing laughter when the demonstration was completed. “That still makes me come. You’re so good to me, dearest. Have you always made your girls come as often as I do?”

“My girls, indeed. You won’t let me have any.”

“No, it’s horribly selfish of me not to want anybody else to have this much fun.”

“Isn’t it better without the rubber wall?”

“If you say so, dearest. I’m not sure there’re degrees of bliss. I adore it, with or without the gadget.”

They were late for dinner but were forgiven. Everybody indulged the Makins. When he got home the next evening, he found a note from her. She had used a pad from the office.

Memo to:  Walter Makin

From:    Clara Ditto

Re:     Child

The doctor wants me to have an overnight checkup, so I’m going to a hospital. I’ll call in the morning. The Lunts are delighted to have you as an extra man. See you tomorrow. You’re my dearest love.

Mrs. Ditto

He smiled and dropped the paper into the wastebasket. Typical. She would scratch his eyes out if he absented himself so casually without even telling her where he was.

He wandered around the much-photographed room looking at the things in it. It was filled with odd or beautiful objects that he had picked up in the first heady flush of having money to spend–fans, boxes, statuettes, porcelain birds and animals, candlesticks. The walls were crowded with pictures and mirrors and the posters of his shows. The furniture was eclectic, including draped tables and a big Louis XV settee of doubtful authenticity. The marble fireplace worked. He liked the place, but it wasn’t big enough for a baby. There was only this room and the bedroom and a sort of passage they had turned into a dining room. When they gave a dinner party, Clara ordered the food from a restaurant near Washington Square.

He wondered how soon they could afford to move. They still had four years to go before she got her first millions. Everything depended on the theater. A baby couldn’t take up much room the first year. They could keep him in the dining room. After that, the theater should be well established, and they would know where they stood. And by then there might be a baby brother on the way. Now that it had happened at last, he wanted more than one–two boys and a girl would be a nice mixture–and he wanted the sort of place he had been dreaming of before he lost all their money. Servants. A first-class cook, so they could give the kind of small grand dinner parties he liked to go to. The children would be beautifully brought up by what the Washburns called a nanny. The children. Clara was going to have a baby. He beamed at the room as he went to the bedroom to dress for dinner.

She called when he was beginning to wake up the next morning. She sounded brisk and chipper. “I’m just waiting to see the doctor, and then I’ll be home. Do you have to go out?”

“Not till 12:30.”

“Oh, I’ll be there long before that.”

He heard her key in the lock as he was finishing his breakfast coffee. She dropped a small overnight bag by the door and sang out. “Here I am,” and swept majestically to the middle of the room, pulling off her gloves. It was an electrifying entrance, and he watched it with appreciation. If she were capable of reproducing it on a stage, he could make her a star. She wore one of her big swooping hats and a smart suit. He saw her falter slightly, and she moved more slowly to him as he rose to greet her. She sagged into a chair but immediately straightened and pulled off her hat with a flourish and looked up at him as if she expected to be given a prize.

“Well, it’s all taken care of,” she announced.

“What is?”

“Why, my condition, as they say.”

“Everything’s all right? You’re definitely having a baby?” He sat opposite her and reached across the table for her hand.

She ignored him. Her mouth opened to emit a bark of derision. “Don’t be silly, dearest. I couldn’t possibly.”

“I don’t understand.” He didn’t want to understand. His stomach was beginning to know with protest. “It was a false alarm? Tell me about it. Where were you last night?”

“I told you. In a divine little private hospital near Beekman Place. There was nothing to it. Once I was sure, we arranged it all in no time.”

“Please, Clarry–” He had trouble with his voice. He closed his eyes and bowed his head and felt all the excitement and anticipation wither away and die in him. He lifted his head and forced himself to look at her. “Am I following you correctly? You’ve done something to it? A–an abortion?”

“Technically, I suppose. When you do it so early, I’m not even sure that’s the right term for it. It really wasn’t much more than an elaborate douche. I feel a bit pulled about, but the doctor says I’ll be as good as new in a couple of days, practically virginal.”

He looked at her and knew for the first time that he could hate her. He wanted to spring at her and beat her. He was restrained by the fact that she obviously wasn’t well. “You had no right to–” His voice was flat and expressionless. “You’re my wife. I’m your husband. You can’t make decisions on your own that affect both of us.”

“Exactly. We didn’t plan on having children yet. It was an accident. If it had happened after day before yesterday …” She looked into his eyes and made a purring sound. “I let you have your way then, didn’t I?” She knew she was playing with dynamite, but she would not give in to his silly sentimentality about babies. She had an obligation to him to keep him from being distracted from his main goal. She leaned toward him, and her manner softened. “I know you did your best to act pleased about the little accident, but you didn’t fool me. You said yourself it would mean moving and finding somebody to take care of it and all the rest of it. We haven’t time for that now. I can’t be laid up just when you need me most. We still have plenty of time for a family later.”

He stared at her as sterility seemed to become the condition of their lives. The creature they had made with love was gone. It took time for it to sink in. She had murdered love. Did she think she was so important to him that she could replace one of a man’s most basic urges? Why had they got married? “I don’t understand it.” He forced words from the depths of outrage and desolation. “How did you arrange it? It’s illegal. You let some doctor pull your body about, as you put it. I could have him put in jail. He must know that. How did you get him to do it?”

“Now, dearest, don’t be melodramatic. It happens all the time. Naturally, reputable doctors have to be careful. Daddy was able to say the right word–”

His eyes suddenly blazed at her. “Your father?” he demanded. “He let you do this without speaking to me?” He sprang up, and his chair toppled with a thud. “Goddamn it, Clarry, how long is this going to go on? When are we going to do things for each other, with each other? Why is it always conflict? What are we always struggling for?”

She lifted her chin imperiously, and her eyes blazed back at him. “Plenty, and you know it. I’m not Mrs. Mouse, and you wouldn’t want me if I were. What would you be if you hadn’t found me? Darling David would still be looking after you. You’d be an arty faggot director without the guts to walk down the street with a boyfriend, let alone found a theater. Why are you so desperate to have children? Are you still trying to prove you’re a he-man?”

“I don’t need you to prove that,” he shouted, giving vent at last to his rage and bereavement. “I’ve got a child. I just thought it would be nice to have one with you.”

Silence left the words echoing around the room. Walter was breathing heavily. They stared at each other while Clara rose slowly. Her lips quivered and set firmly, and a smile lurked in their corners. Just when she feared she had overplayed her game, he delivered himself into her hands. “In that case, why all the fuss? I can understand a man wanting to produce evidence of his procreative powers–after all, he can’t know what it’s like to have a child. If you’ve done it, that should take care of your primitive little urges.” She picked up her hat and gloves and flipped them about in her hands. “Are you the father of Fay Kennicutt’s little boy?” She looked at him calmly with the lurking smile.

There was another silence. He had recovered his control, but he wasn’t sorry he had said it. The only thing he was sorry about was that she didn’t appear to be hurt by it. “You can think anything you like,” he said, trying to goad her further.

“It always struck me that little Gerald belonged in the Funny Coincidence Department Born nine months after the Kennicutts agreed to put money in
The Forest.
I must arrange to see him sometime. I’m sure I’ll be mad about Gerald.” She approached him with a slight unsteadiness in her walk. There was no tenderness in his eyes, but she didn’t flinch from them. She preferred his anger now to his soft, reproachful side. “Why don’t you admit you’re glad I did it? We’ve got to keep the decks cleared for action. You know that as well as I do.”

How could he get at her, short of walking out and never coming back? “Maybe you’re right, Clara,” he said coldly. “Maybe the decks need clearing. I’ll start with your father. If he thinks he can make my decisions for me, I’d better set him straight.”

Her laughter rang with steel. “Hooray,” she crowed. “Clear him out. You’re the one who’s wanted to be chummy with my family. I admit they’re useful. If we’re going to be chums, why not make the most of them? Daddy always knows exactly what to do, especially when it comes to getting around the law.”

Walter turned abruptly and looked at the ornate Empire clock on the mantelpiece. “I’ll go right away. I want to hear from his own lips what he was thinking. I’ll take care of you later.”

Clara laughed again. “It’s about time you took charge. While you’re at it, why not clear out David too?”

He swung back to her. “What’s David got to do with it?”

“You say you want us to do things together,” her voice rang out, defying him. “How can we if David’s always there to hold your hand? Conflict! For years I’ve accepted and even tried to love a man who’s in love with my husband. Don’t you suppose that might cause a little conflict?”

“Don’t be stupid, Clara. We got that straight right at the start. He’s not in love with me and never has been.”

“No, and he’s never been to bed with a boy either. It’s all just a joke. He’s certainly not interested in the most important thing that’s happening in the American theater. All he cares about is being with you. It’s getting to be a public scandal, but you’d let everything go rather than lose David.”

“I’ve had enough of this, Clara.” His fists were once more ready to strike. “You said yourself we shouldn’t pay any attention to that newspaper crap.”

“I’ve told you, I’ve tried to love him. It isn’t easy. You expect me to sit at home and have babies while David takes over your whole professional life. Well, I won’t have it. He’s not good enough for you. Everything I’ve done has always been for you. Everything
is
you. You’re the biggest force the theater has had since God know when. It could be a little bit for us if you’d let it be. We don’t need David anymore, and he agrees. I’d be begging you to give me babies if you’d recognize your own importance and take charge and not let him drag you down.”