This page copyright © 2009 Olympia Press.
GROWING PAINS
Jonathan felt the warm crush of her against his chest and the wet hunger of her mouth. He was a professor but he was also a man and very human. For a long moment, he stood rigid—and then he returned her kiss. Her arms clung about his neck. There were tiny noises in her throat which her lips translated into a terrible young hunger, greedy, insatiable, pleading, begging. There was no sophistication in her kiss, only need.
He thought of the restricted life the girl students lived, dating this boy or that, kissing them good night on the dormitory steps and then going to their lonely beds.
They were old enough for love...
THE MORNING BELL was ringing in the tower of College Hall.
It tolled out over the lacy, spring-pale leaves of elm ranked in tidy rows across the Hanning campus from College Hall to the Mansion. The Mansion was a great Victorian house that had been broken up into efficiency apartments for the junior members of the faculty—a crazy complex of cupolas and ornamental scrollwork, set in a lawn full of iron deer, marble bird baths and statues of naked cupids and nymphs in white stone.
Throughout the school year the Mansion was inhabited by Hanning College instructors and assistant professors. In spring and summer its roofs and the surrounding trees were filled with starlings. It was April now, and the starlings had arrived the previous night in a great fluttering black cloud to stay the season. This morning they crackled like a thousand garden rakes rattling in the branches.
The bell roused Jonathan Summers, assistant professor of Zoology. He made a move to thrust his long body out of bed and shut the window against the noise of the starlings.
But another body was in his way, its long, golden limbs tangled with his. He could not move without waking her.
Jonathan glanced down at her, at the black eyelashes that spread like inky ribs of tiny fans against the gold of her cheeks. Her hair was pale, almost icy blond. Her firm breasts rounded against him. Her toe tickled his ankle.
She was Carol Coulter, his graduate-student teaching assistant. She was his right hand, secretary, lab helper, wardrobe manager—his constant, beautiful companion as well. But the eyes of Hanning College saw no further. The betting around the campus was three to one that the pair were not lovers. They were both considered too shy for such intimacies.
Morning light filtered in through the monks'-cloth drapes and made the room glow. There were two big amber brandy snifters on the bedside table. The rim of one was edged carmine with lipstick. On the record-player turntable, Tea For Two waited to romanticize an other evening. A pink camellia, brown-curling at the edges, lay forgotten on the window sill.
Carol's long lashes lifted. Her golden arm lazily extended and fell, hot, across his chest.
She said, “I should go back to my place now.”
Her apartment was at the end of the hall on the ground floor of the Mansion.
She made no move to leave, and Jonathan did nothing to restrain her. He knew she had said it only as a waking-up noise.
He said, in the same fashion, “Those damn starlings.”
“They're horrid. Noisy dark birds. Like Moira.”
He sighed. “Let's not talk about—”
“Anything important?” Carol said, fully awake now. “You mean, if we don't talk about it, it will go away? Not Moira Dunleavy, darling. She won't go away. But all right, let's talk about me.”
He smiled.
Her lashes raised, and long gray eyes looked up at him.
She said, “My dress last night, for instance.”
“Pretty.”
“But what color? You don't even remember the color.”
He could not remember. “I was looking at you.”
She sighed, and snuggled, still sleep-warm, closer to him. “That was clever of me, Jonathan. I made you say something nice about me by using properly feminine, roundabout methods. Not what you would expect from a girl scientist. Well, it's good practice for dealing with Moira.”
“Moira, Moira, Moira!” he said irritably...
Moira Dunleavy was the wife of Jonathan's superior —and as such, the real boss of the department. She had her husband wrapped around one finger, the Dean around another, and she had fingers to spare for Jonathan. Moira's fingers were tipped with blood-red nails that, according to Carol, cut like razor blades.
Some months ago, Moira had said to Jonathan, “You should sleep with that blond girl, your assistant. For you health's sake. That's what graduate assistants are for. What's her name? The girl.”
Jonathan, annoyed, had answered, “Drosophila mel-anogaster,” which was the genus of the fruit fly he used in his genetic mutation experiments. Moira, of course, had known Carol's name. But she had not reacted with anger, as Jonathan had expected. Moira never did as he expected.
Instead, Moira had laughed and said, “You're quite a wit, Jonathan. But do give up sleeping with fruit flies.”
The affair with Carol had been budding. But out of resentment for Moira's tasteless urging, Jonathan had delayed making any pass until one night here in the apartment. There had been wine. Tea for Two had been spinning out of the record player. They had danced. He had looked at the bed. “I suppose we had better get in,” he had said. “I suppose so,” Carol had answered...
Now, Carol's lips pressed against his shoulder. They lay together, waking leisurely—two long, lean figures. Carol had always been too tall for most men, so she appreciated Jonathan's even greater height. Most of her length was in her lovely legs, which tapered from trim hips that were the envy of other women. But no matter how lovely her long legs were, they raised her to an altitude that made miserable dancing with men of ordinary stature. She had always tried to shrink down so her chin was below her partner's ear, and had habitually walked with a slouch. Now she could stand straight and kiss Jonathan's throat without much maneuvering.
More important, Carol told herself—and in her cool-headed moments she even believed it—was the chance to work for her doctorate under such a man as Jonathan Summers, the resident genius of Hanning College. His powers of concentration were so great that to get his attention, she sometimes had to force her hand between his eyes and the microscope. He had sudden nights of intuition—sometimes wild, always daring—that sped his mind into the very structure of the chromosomes which, by radiation and chemical means, he was transforming, bending, torturing. His mind would five within the cell, among the chromosomes.
So the affair was convenient in many ways. Carol the girl-scientist saw it as a completely logical and satisfactory complement to their daily routine. Carol the woman, however, was not always clad in a spotless white laboratory smock, or handling delicate slices of tissue in gleaming forceps with impeccable sureness, or efficiently monitoring Jonathan's classes, or sleeping with him because it was sensible, convenient, good for the nerves, and conducive to unity and cooperation within the department. Carol the woman, in fact, was a largely unexplored person—one to whom Carol had closed her eyes, at whom she had sniffed disdainfully, and whom she had dismissed as an emotional female worth no one's serious consideration.
Still, Carol the woman was stirring, as warm and sultry spring came sneaking in the window, under the monk's-cloth drapes. The feel of it was noised by the foolish twitter of a songbird, happy to find the air suddenly quiet, empty of the clatter of the starlings.
Carol's mouth felt dry. She teased the pink tip of her tongue over her lips, to make them moist and bright. She felt her arm rise and fall as he breathed, felt the prickle of his chest hairs. She felt, too, the heaviness of his cupped hand on her hip.
The hand ordered that she be precisely there. She felt—Carol the woman felt—that his hand held the fulcrum of her being, that Jonathan held her point of balance, her widest part, a weighted part. And it seemed to her that his hand was a lever, prying at her heart.
A warm glow was spreading inside her, rising toward his hand. Her lips were dry again, and her breathing quickened. She frowned, not altogether pleased that her womanly self was taking over. She had done quite well without this emotional femaleness. She accurately guessed that this womanly Carol wanted more than pleasant affection or healthy sex or a convenient affair or a nice man to dance with. This Carol wanted love.
She glanced up at him, wondering.
Jonathan was a man with a great deal on his mind. He was a scientist whose business was learning as much as he could about ontogeny, the development of organisms from the unicellular stage to full maturity. To pay for his laboratory rights, he had to teach. To teach, he had to placate the various big wheels of the faculty. To placate the faculty he had to prove himself as a scientist.
Jonathan had done all that, and done it too well. He had become for Harming College a luminary to be cherished, someone to be protected hand and foot, as though he were a captive, a prize of war, a valued prisoner not to be yielded to any other academic army—especially that of the State University, where he should rightly be, working with Dr. Gelhorn, the leading authority in Jonathan's highly specialized field.
That was why, as spring glowed in the window, as Carol's hip warmed in his hand, as her little touches and movements became gestures of love, Jonathan was afraid.
He had controlled his complex life all winter, maintained an even balance between productive work and necessary teaching, between a minimum of academic politicking and this affair with Carol.
He liked and respected Carol, enjoyed her, appreciated her efforts on his behalf.
But now he glanced at her, and their eyes met, and it was not the same. Her gray eyes darted away, as though not wanting his inspection. She looked down, saw that her breast was revealed, the nipple glossy and pink, like a spring bud. She shifted her arm to hide it.
Her every action, her slightest touch, was suddenly very feminine, the exact opposite of what was expected of the strict—they called her cold—Miss Carol Coulter, his efficient graduate assistant. The warm spring, seeping in the window, seemed to collect and gather force in her body, which exuded it in hot waves of feeling and desire. Jonathan's immediate impulse was to cradle her in his arms, kiss her gently and make slow, sensitive love to her.
But any man, before diving off a cliff, will feel a twitch of sanity. Jonathan had already experienced several such twitches, partly products of his shyness and his reluctance to act emotionally, partly of Carol's own cool reserve. This morning he sensed that her reservations had dissolved in the perfumed spring air. That left only him to fend off the burgeoning, compelling impulse.
He said, “Carol, do you want a cigarette?”
He got out of bed before she could answer.
Carol was left naked and exposed. She curled over on her stomach, hid her face in the pillow.
He found the cigarettes in the clutter on the bedside table, amid books and papers, Carol's white bra and her handbag, a heaped-up ash tray and a pipe. He offered her the pack, pushing it at the tiny corner of a gray eye that showed out of the pillow.
“No,” she said.
Her voice was sharp, as though she rejected more than the cigarette.
He lit a smoke for himself, turning away to avoid looking at her. His glance fell on the two brandy snifters. A tiny pool of liquor remained at the bottom of each. He tilted his head back and drank the few drops in one glass. As he lowered the glass, he remembered that last night he had teased Carol, saying that girl's breasts should at least fit a pair of brandy snifters, but that hers were only large enough for champagne glasses. She had retorted that the snifters, which even his long hands could not circle, were made for Moira, whose breasts would fill them easily. He should invite Moira over for a fitting, she had added bitterly...
“Oh, hell. Give me a cigarette,” Carol said, her voice muffled by the pillow where she still hid her face. He lit one and handed it to her. She tucked it into the corner of her mouth, and managed to smoke it without freeing too much of her face from the concealment of the pillow. Her right leg moved, and a toe hooked the sheet and tugged at it. The sheet and covers were tumbled off the far side of the bed. Her pale-gold body was slightly twisted, which narrowed her waist and gave her rounded hips a surprising width. She tugged futilely at the sheet, trying to cover herself, then gave it up. A thin spear of smoke lanced out of her mouth.
Jonathan said, “Carol, I was thinking—”
A gray eye stabbed up at him. “About me?”
“No, I was thinking—”
“So was I,” she said. “I was thinking that I would like you to be thinking about me.” She did not look at him as she spoke. For her, this was bluntly personal talk.
And for Jonathan, too. He was looking away. “I was trying not to think about you,” he said. “About Dr. Gelhorn—”
“Of course, Gelhorn. You should go to Gelhorn, at State.” Her voice was flat and-cold. “Your work fits his —like jigsaw-puzzle pieces. He is a genius and so are you. Here at Harming, you will become a vegetable.”
He picked up the other brandy snifter, the one with the carmine smear on the rim. He raised it to his mouth and sucked out the last of the brandy.
She said, “I saw Gelhorn's letter. He needs you. Henry Dunleavy is the sweetest man in the world, but he can't help you. It's that simple, Jonathan. You must go. But Moira Dunleavy will hold on to you as long as she still has breath in her body. And venom and poison and greed and lust and nastiness.”
“Moira isn't that bad,” he said.
Carol laughed hollowly. “Stick to the ontogeny of frogs, Dr. Summers. Leave women to me. Even me—” She paused. The cigarette disappeared into the cave of pillows that she had gathered about her head. Smoke suddenly billowed out. “Even me, Jonathan,” she repeated. “I'm not as nice as you dunk.”
He was looking at her body. A pink toe was moving, rubbing into the high arch of the other long, slim foot. He only half-heard what she said. The word “nice” echoed in his head. He transposed it to mean nice flesh.
She said, “You men are so innocent. You think Moira's tea party this evening will be a tea like—well, tea like in sissy. But a faculty tea is a jungle, a bear pit. At Moira's parties the Christians go to the lions. The action will resemble that of cats and dogs in a drain pipe. She's sharpening her nails right now—”
He interrupted her: “Did you inject those frog eggs?”
Carol paused. She dragged on her cigarette. “Yes.”
“Then I will work on the eggs. You will monitor the quiz in Zoology 101.”
Carol pushed herself up, reached out to flick ashes into the dish on the night table. She held her arm across her breasts.
Not meeting his eyes, she said, “Why don't we ever talk about you and me?”
He turned away, stared at the sun-glowing drapes. He said, “When we're together like this—heated? Wouldn't it be better—”
“On a windy street corner in January,” she agreed. “So we could keep cool heads.” Carol hugged her knees up to her face.
His eyes strayed to the beautiful curve her thighs made, the knees pulled together, her arms hugging them, and her chin resting on the knee caps.
He pulled his gaze from the golden thighs. He glanced at her fine-spun blond hair.
Abruptly he asked. “Why does hair taste gritty?”
Carol smiled. She knew the grasshopper workings of his restless mind, knew that he might suddenly discover an industrial use for the particular grittiness of human hair. But, remorseless, she brought the conversation back to herself.
“I washed it yesterday.”
He came over to her. He took a strand of her hair, and bit it, working his teeth from side to side. “You can hear it,” he said.
“And you are breathing in my ear. That's exciting.”
“Breathing in your ear?”
“Get closer. You'll see.”
He leaned closer, breathed in her ear. Carol gave a long sigh. Her hand rose and her fingers slid along the line of his jaw, bringing his mouth against her ear. He crouched on the edge of the bed. They touched only at jaw-in-fingertips and breath-to-ear. His breath came stronger, and her fingers tightened on his jaw. He looked down at her rosebud nipples, saw them swell and point. Her fingertips sent a tingling current sliding down his neck and into his shoulders.
She, whispered, “Didn't you know I have sexy ears?”
“I thought it was your throat.” He stroked the long line of her throat, down to the little hollow where her pulse throbbed.
Playful now, she said, “It's my ears. Like the starter on a car. You step on it and whoom! She's off. I mean, I'm off.”
“Don't you have to turn on the ignition?” That's the throat.”
“And where's the gas pedal?” he asked. “I won't tell you.” She laughed. He drew away from her. “You mean, I haven't found it already?”
“Not even near it.”
“But sometimes it's like down to the floorboards.”
She shook her head. “Professor, when it gets down to the floorboards, you are going to feel as if you stepped into a cement mixer.”
Her face was turned away. She glanced back, gave him a long gray slash of eyes, and a smile. Her face, usually so cool and reserved, softened, became warm.
“Jon, you're so boyish. Here you are thirty, and I'm twenty-four, and I feel ten years older than you. Don't grow up. I like you this way. At least, I know you this way.”
Then her arms circled him until her fingertips touched, like a ballet dancer's, making a hoop around his body. The hoop came gently against his back as she let herself fall. Her hands touched only at his back. He followed the gentle touch, down, down. She looked up at him from the pillow.
“How big do they make champagne glasses?” she whispered. “Too small to fit you.”
“Sweet!” She kissed his forehead. “But last night you said I was made for champagne glasses.”
“I meant shape. They curve gradually and come to a point like yours.”
Dubious, she said, “Champagne glasses are kind of shallow.”
“Then I'll find some brandy snifters that are a little smaller.”
Her tongue point slipped silkily between his lips, then retreated. She squirmed, to put her breasts firmly against his chest...
IN HIS OWN house on the campus, Professor Henry Dunleavy was also wakened by the morning bell. He glanced at the window, at the drapes bright with sunshine. He sniffed the air, the warm, blossomed scent of the new season. He climbed out of bed; smiling. Spring! Winter had hung around too damned long.
He and Moira slept in separate bedrooms. Moira had said Freud recommended it, that it was psychologically healthier to sleep apart. Henry Dunleavy had rebelled, until Moira decorated her big bedroom in such a feminine fashion that sleeping in it was like wearing a woman's nightie. So Henry had fixed up this room with amber-colored drapes, bookshelves, and prints of champion dogs and horses. Henry liked animals.
He went into his bathroom, showered and shaved, and came out rubbing his jaw. He was a big bear of a man in his early forties, with handsome graying hair and a gentle smile. He had big square hands—farmer's hands, he called them. When he was young, Henry had wanted to be a farmer. His family had sniffed at such a plebeian notion and had sent him to Harvard. There the study of Zoology was as near as he could get to feeling the earth and its teeming, struggling life. At his family's insistence, he had taken a graduate degree, and then another, until suddenly he found himself a full professor of Zoology—a good teacher, a mediocre scientist, a loving husband, and an obedient escort for an attractive wife. He contentedly tended the lawn and garden, but Moira would not let him have a dog. He had only the animal prints on his bedroom walls. At least they did not shed hair, he told Moira, when she complained that they were bad art.
Still, it was a beautiful day, and Henry hummed happily as he dressed. He and Jonathan would work on a batch of injected frog eggs today. Rather, he and Carol would assist Jonathan. Dunleavy had no illusions about being of the same intellectual stature as his younger assistant. Henry assumed most of the teaching burden, partly because he liked lecturing—there was something of the frustrated actor in him—and partly to let Jonathan get on with his research work.
“Moira?” he called, as he waited outside his wife's closed bedroom door.
“Come in, darling.”
That meant her hair was out of curlers, her make-up on, and her morning smile organized. Freud said a woman should not let her husband see her in dishabille. And Freud said that the man too had to be dressed. Henry knotted his necktie as he walked into Moira's room.
His wife was sitting before her dressing table, which was seven feet long. Above it hung a mirror of the same length—in which were reflected not only Moira, but at least a hundred bottles, jars, flasks, tubes, viles, baskets, sacks, and capsules of canned beauty.
Her enormous eyes turned toward him. They were called violet, but sometimes purple or black would be a more accurate description of their color. The eyes arched across her high, pale forehead, which was framed by glossy, ink-black hair, hair so heavy that it seemed to pull back her head, making a lovely curve of her throat.
She wore a black negligee splotched with huge, harsh-colored roses. It was tied at the waist. Having no buttons, it gaped to show that her bra, of black lace, contained lovely white breasts.
She tapped the tiny timepiece on her wrist. The watch was a dainty thing surrounded by diamonds. “The morning bell was on time for a change,” she said.
She had bought the watch in Switzerland, during a visit to her old finishing school. It was expensive. But the reason it ran correctly was because it was hers. Moira's possessions always functioned perfectly.
“It sounded like spring singing,” Dunleavy said. “The bell, I mean.” He fumbled in his pocket for his pipe. Then he remembered that Moira did not like pipes. He took a cigarette from a pack on the end of the dressing table. He watched her pick up a small black brush and carefully preen her eyelashes with it. That was done for his benefit, he knew. Her eyelashes were already blacked. By painting them again in his presence, she was indicating a desire for intimacy.
“So spring sings.” she said. “I cannot endure such trite rhyming, Henry. Make spring do something else.”
“It blossoms.”
“Worse. An unforgivable cliché. Spring blossoms. You know, I wonder if I don't really hate flowers?”
“Envy?”
“Perhaps,” she said. “When you are twenty-nine, and flowers come fresh each spring—”
He knew she was not twenty-nine. But he went along with the fiction, and so did all men. Moira looked any age she wished to call herself. Now she swung around to him, her gown pulling open to show her smooth white throat and the rising white mounds of her ripe bosom. “Well, Henry,” she said, “Would you rather kiss me, or some damn flower?”
He smiled. “Your lipstick—it will get all smeared—”
“I have more.”