Three

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• Bad Love   Seventeen

  HE REMAINED HOLED-UP, AS HE HAD SAID HE WOULD, but it was more of an ordeal than he expected. He could hardly bear it.His body was young and hard, it needed to be used. He would pace the room for hours on end… to the window, back to the couch, and around again… like a tiger in a cage. As he paced, memories would come Hooding in, torturing him. Pangs of remorse would stab at him, cause him to pause in his tracks and stare vacantly into space. He could not get Helen out of his thoughts… her kindness and selflessness, her love and devotion to him. He realized too late that it had been she he loved-she, the good, the warm, the simple. She was dead… vanished like a puff of air, leaving no trace behind. He could not believe it. lie had seen her poor twisted body, her purple face, and yet he could not accept the finality of it.And to think that he himself had planned to kill her, for this (he would draw the envelope from

• Bad Love   Sixteen

  HE TOSSED THE ENVELOPE ON THE KITCHEN TABLE, said, “There it is,” then sat down heavily on a wooden chair. She grabbed the envelope, opened it. She became hushed, her hands trembled, a wild, almost insane, light shone in her eyes. Then she passed the envelope back to him, suggested he return it to his jacket pocket. “Why!” he asked.“Don’t you think we ought to be leaving town? What if she calls the police?”“You know she wouldn’t!” he retorted angrily; and again a feeling of repulsion swept him. He had an urge to get to his feet, walk out the door and leave her forever. But he staved where he was, for his body would not rise from the chair. He told her all that had transpired between Helen and himself as they had parted; except that he omitted the hand-kissing incident, which had so strangely moved him. He thought she would not understand it; unlike himself, she would jeer at it and

• Bad Love   Fifteen

  WITH HIS THUMB ON THE AD he moved the paper over so Helen could read it.$5000 cash, lovely ranch-type home, 4 bedrooms, etcetera… he knew it by heart, for he had been staring at it for hours, staring and thinking. Thinking of Fran’s leaving for California in a day or two, of himself being left behind; of the chance let pass for a new life which might include a business of his own and respectability; and of Helen as she cared for him while he was ill, as she held his hand when he led her about on the purposeless shopping tours. Then the wrestling with his conscience as he had recalled the awful dream. The doubt, the uncertainty, the inner conflict. And at last the decision, final and irrevocable.“What do you think?” he asked softly.She shook her head, puzzled, frowning slightly. “I don’t know. We’ll have to drive out and see it, won’t we?”“No need to. I did that yest

• Bad Love   Fourteen

  THE FEVER DID NOT SWEEP ON HIM SUDDENLY. For several days he had been bothered with headaches and nausea.He had spent that afternoon with Fran, and when he returned home he lay down on the couch to rest while Helen prepared supper. “I may doze off,” he told her. “Wake me if I do.”When she woke him he told her he wasn’t hungry yet, to let him sleep a while longer. At ten he awoke with a start and tried to sit up. His stomach felt quivery, his head throbbed, every muscle in his body ached. Helen was seated beside the couch, watching him, her face drawn with anxiety. He asked her to help him get up, for he could not straighten his hack. She led him to the bed, helped him undress.“It’s cold in here,” he muttered, “get me some covers.”She covered him, tucked him in, yet he continued to shiver.“I’ve called the doctor,” she said. “He should b

• Bad Love   Thirteen

  WHEN JOE RETURNED THAT AFTERNOON it came as a bit of a shock to find Helen in bed.“It’s nothing, darling… nothing at all,” she assured him.Rut he knew that she was ill when he came close to her and looked down at the small wan face, the eyes circled with gray-tinged skin, and the lips trembling perceptibly even as they tried to form a smile.“I was walking in the sun, and… well… I suppose I should have had some protection for my head.” She told him that she had fainted, but insisted she was feeling much better now.“The sun wasn’t that hot this afternoon,” he said. “You’re run down, Helen. You haven’t been yourself lately.” He realized, as he uttered them that his words were true.He stayed with her till six, sitting beside the bed, holding her hand, chatting with her, thinking.“It’s because of us,” he told Fran later. “We

• Bad Love   Twelve

  SO FRANCES DID AT LAST SUCCEED IN GETTING JOE TO SLEEP WITH HER, occasionally at any rate. One afternoon about a week later they were having breakfast together when she made a rather startling suggestion.She set down her fork and stared at him in silence, then suddenly announced that she was tired of it all. “Of what?” he asked. “All… all of it.”“The Club?”“That too. The long hours… working nights, sleeping days. And the worthless bums ogling me, and knowing what’s on their minds, it’s… well it’s wearing me clown! Worse than that, it’s beginning to show. This morning I happened to see myself in the mirror… caught myself unawares, I guess.”“'You look okay to me.”“Joe, I can’t go on sharing you with her.He knew as she said it that she had been building up to this. Knew that, being the sort