CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Pat knocked discreetly on the door. She had stayed at Bickki's an hour longer than necessary, to be sure to give Karen and her customer enough time. Besides, Bickki had been bending her ear over losing Lennie who she'd gotten together with not long ago. The girl had broken a date and then neglected to come back to keep another one that night Lennie was a bore. So, in fact, was Bickki.
'Come in!' Karen was surprised to discover that she wasn't at all nervous. If this is what she had to do to go home, she was ready to do it.
'Oh,' Pat said, seeing Karen sitting in the chair, fully dressed and made up. 'I wanted to make sure you were alone.' She threw herself on the bed. 'How was it?'
'Fine. I didn't go through with it,' Karen answered calmly. 'I want to talk to you, Pat.'
'You didn't go through with it!' Pat rolled off the bed and looked at Karen.
'It's not important, now.'
Pat looked somewhere between angry and hysterical. 'You promised! You gave me your…'
Karen looked at her erstwhile lover in stilled fascination. She wondered how she had ever thought Pat sensitive and beautiful. It was like looking at a portrait of sickness. She found neither beauty nor sensitivity in the intense face which glared at her, wavering between hate and self-pity. 'Pat,' she said as gently as she could, 'I'm going back to Allen. I'm going home.'
The next hour was only the beginning of an ordeal, the sort Karen hoped she would never have to go through again. Pat tried a burst of anger that numbed Karen's ears with its volume and fury. When that didn't work, Pat cried. Karen took the anger, the tears, the verbal brutality which followed them, and she also managed to withstand the final tantrum which came in the form of Pat on her knees, trying to make love to the girl, then begging for another chance. The arguments seemed endless, and lasted long into the night.
'I can make you happy, you'll…' Pat tried to kiss Karen's compressed lips.
Karen turned her head slightly, taking the kiss on her cheek. She waited patiently until Pat was finally quiet. Then she tried to explain how she felt. 'It won't work. It never could. I'm going where I belong.'
'What do you want from me? Congratulations? Am I supposed to wish you luck and Godspeed and all that?' Pat gave up. She refused to look at the girl. She thought of Paula, the young poetess who had made it very plain that she would give anything to be in Karen's place. So would Lorna. She didn't need Karen. She didn't need anyone.
'I don't need anything from you, except your word that you won't try to see me again. It would only make matters worse for all of us.' Karen suspected that Pat wasn't as heartbroken as she wanted Karen to believe she was. That made it easier. She had packed earlier. Now she lifted her two suitcases and walked to the door. She wanted to say goodbye, but decided against it. The set of Pat's back demanded a more dramatic farewell.
Unfortunately, for Pat, Karen couldn't think of one.
Karen found herself walking along the beach front just as the day was beginning to peep through the curtain of clouds that hung over the water. The sky lightened as she walked. Karen thought back to the evening on which she had made her first trip down the beach front to the coffeehouse, the night she had first seen Pat. It was a lifetime ago, yet the ocean was the same combination of serenity and turbulence it had been then, a liquid garden at the edge of the cliff.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The house was as drab as it ever looked, even with the cleansing rays of the first hint of morning sun washing over its shabby pastel walls. She dropped her suitcases by the front door and felt in her pockets for her key. It was in the same pocket she had always kept it in. She unlocked the door carefully, not wanting to disturb Allen yet. She knew how much he needed his sleep. She vowed to herself to attempt to make things easier for him. There was no reason why she could not take a job somewhere. They would talk it over and work something out, together this time.
The living room was only moderately disorderly. But the kitchen, Karen saw, was a complete disaster area. She was glad. Now if Al wanted to kick her out, she could show him concrete evidence of his need for her. She was home, and this time she was staying there.
Karen heard a muffled yawn. She tiptoed to the bedroom door. Her eyes filled as she watched her young husband begin the familiar long process of grunts and groans which always proceeded his morning awakening. She stood very still, knowing his eyes would open at any second and he would see her immediately. She admitted her nervousness, now that there were only moments left, no time in which to run. She was through with running. If he didn't want her… she would worry about that as it happened…
Allen had been dreaming of something warm and soft, something womanly and remote. A feeling of strangeness had forced him to come awake before he managed to get to the object. He opened his eyes reluctantly, closed them, then opened them again immediately. At first he wondered if he could still be dreaming. It fit in so perfectly. 'Karen?'
'Hello, Al,' she whispered, her eyes very wide.
They looked at each other for a long moment. Karen wanted to tell him she was home for good, if he'd have her. But the words wouldn't come. She didn't even know how to begin.
Allen wanted to ask if she had returned to him for good. But he couldn't. It was too wonderful, just having her there. He didn't dare risk hearing that she had only come for something she had left behind. He tried to think of some way of asking without scaring her off.
Karen wondered fearfully how long this sweet agony was going to last. She knew that if she had-to choose between leaving for good or spending the rest of her life locked in this silent tableau, she would never move. Oh, Al! she thought fiercely, if only Pat's ESP worked! If only you could read my mind and know how much I love you, how sorry I am…
The drawn-out moment passed with Allen's smile. 'Did you lock the door?' he asked softly.
'Yes,' she whispered.
'Good.' Allen held out his arms.
Karen collapsed into them gratefully.
'You've changed,' Karen said happily, not letting her husband out of her arms.
'So have you.' Allen kissed his wife deeply. Her body was so soft and sweet against his. 'I'm glad,' he added finally, aroused by the sensation of his wife's beckoning body pressing aggressively against his.
'So am I,' Karen said. She rubbed her cheek against his. 'If some old seeds and a dinky apple tree can make it, so can we.' She sighed happily against his shoulder.
'Nut,' Allen laughed, not trying to break her bubble, whatever it was.
'For a while,' she agreed, reaching again for her husband. Later there would be time to look at their problems, but not now. Now all she wanted to do was have him against her. They had their entire lives in which to talk and plan and, yes, make love. 'But not anymore…'
Their lips met again just as the noisy alarm clock Karen had always hated started its usual irritating morning attack.
For the very first time, Al reached out with one groping hand and turned the screaming clock off without jumping up at its shrill demand. Then he turned back to his wife's hungry, waiting lips.
The moment Karen had feared the most was at hand. She didn't know how she would react to making love with a man again. But Al's massaging hands on her breasts felt no different than Pat's strong fingers. She hated herself for thinking about Pat at a time like this, but it actually helped her to relax and accept Allen's advance to the inevitable plunge into her body. Pulsing against her inner-thighs was the stiff tube of flesh she dreaded. Whether she could accept that was a question she knew would be answered in a very short time.
'I love you,' Al whispered in her ear. Then his hot mouth moved down her neck and shoulders, licking a path
