An Emergence of Green (24 page)

Her first? Did she mean…She was too orgasmic, she couldn’t mean…Val asked, “May I have this?”

“Yes, if you want it.”

“I want it. Sign it.”

Carolyn took the drawing to the desk, signed it with a pencil, handed it to her. Val looked at the signature: CARRIE in tiny letters in the lower corner.

Carolyn said, “I’ll give you this in exchange for the sketch pad I borrowed. I found six drawings of me in it.”

“I didn’t realize you took…that’s the pad with…”

She looked at Carolyn, remembering, heat flowing through her body. Carolyn held her gaze. Desire, thick and sweet and heavy, hung between them.

“You asked me once to humor you,” Carolyn said huskily. “Now do that for me.”

***

Val pushed off the wall at the deep end of the pool, glided to the bottom and somersaulted. Arms extended, she floated to the surface, cool currents sluicing deliciously against her bare breasts, her thighs. Drawing breath deeply into her, she submerged again, twisting, turning, stroking her breasts and thighs, intoxicated by the sensuality of her body.

She surfaced at the shallow end close to Carolyn, who clung to the wall gently flutter-kicking currents up around her own nude body. Val sidestroked over to her, reveling in her litheness; water was the one place where she never felt awkward. She flung her hair out of her eyes and said in exhilaration, “I love you Carrie; don’t ever be afraid that I love you.”

“Nothing about you frightens me; not anymore.”

The voice was quiet. Cool hands slid over Val’s shoulders, caressing, smoothing the water off. Carolyn said, “I think this may be my favorite place on you.” Her lips were soft and warm, kissing across Val’s shoulders; the cool hands slid down over her back. “I love your strength. I’ve always loved watching you walk, swim…do the most ordinary things.”

Carolyn took her hands, entwined their fingers. “I love your hands. I love watching you fix things…when you work with your hands…”

She drew Carolyn to her, held her, needing her substantiality; she felt a giving way within herself, a dismantling.

Carolyn said, “I remember seeing great statues of women in a park when I was small…and loving them.” Her hands, featherlight, caressed down Val’s hips; her lips brushed Val’s throat. “I think I loved women even before that. I think I’ve always wanted to be loved by a woman, a woman like you. I can’t imagine making love with a woman more beautiful than you.”

She could not reply; she was helpless from these inconceivable words.

Carolyn’s body was sinuous against her, Carolyn’s warm lips moved down her, to her breasts. Val shuddered as a nipple, cold and rock-hard from the water currents, was taken and warmly savored.

Carolyn took the other nipple into her, the soft tongue slowly stroking, and Val gripped the edge of the pool. Carolyn touched between her legs; Val’s body tensed to rigidity as a fingertip began its own slow strokes.

Groaning from her sensations, Val seized Carolyn’s hips, pulling them into her. Carolyn’s arms slid around her, Carolyn’s mouth was under hers. Dimly aware of the growing turbulence in the water around them, she pressed Carolyn fully up into her in rising ecstasy, rotating the rich flesh clasped in her hands, her tongue pulsing in the softness of Carolyn’s mouth as if it were the satin between her legs. The first spasms shook her; “Carrie,” she moaned, and was engulfed in orgasm.

Naked, they lay inches apart on towels spread over the grass. “God, I want you,” Carolyn said.

“I tried,” Val reminded her. “You stopped me.”

“I want this.” Carolyn touched a corner of Val’s lips, traced over them. “But not wet hair.”

“Let me wrap it in a towel, Carrie,” she whispered, aching to love the woman so tantalizingly close to her.

“I want to feel your hair; I want everything. It should dry fast in the sun.”

Val ran her fingers impatiently through the crown of her hair. “Soon.”

Carolyn said, “I bought
Summer Sunrise.
”

“Susan told me. After you left last night. I was surprised. You’re becoming a woman of wonderful impulses,” she teased.

“Paul didn’t even fuss very much. I think he’s learned to roll with the punches. Except for the one that’s coming,” she added, her eyes suddenly remote.

Val regretted the change of mood, the deflection of Carolyn’s thoughts from her. But she asked, “What’ll you say to him?” Surely nothing about their own relationship…

Carolyn said somberly, “Only that I want a separation.”

Val realized that her hatred of Paul Blake had extinguished without a wisp of smoke. Her one concern was Carolyn’s pain. “When will you tell him? Have you decided?”

Carolyn’s face was grave. “I haven’t thought any of this through, Val. My instinct is to tell him now. If I wait he’ll misread it to mean the trouble between us is healing. He loves me so much. If I delay, if I think about it…”

Dwelling on this now would cause Carolyn’s resolve to begin weakening immediately. Better to speak as if she assumed Carolyn would carry through her intention. “I understand why you won’t move in with Neal and me. But you need a place—”

“I’ll find one, it won’t take long. I can afford decent rent. I have a good job; I’m entitled to part of our savings…”

Carolyn looked away. “Know something? I’ve never been alone. I lived with Mother and then I married Paul.” Her eyes met Val’s again; they were lighted with eagerness. She said cautiously, as if in guilt that she had allowed herself such anticipation, “Maybe I’ll hate it.”

“You might—but it’ll be good for you,” Val assured her emphatically. “Everyone should be alone for a time in their lives.” She grinned. “Just don’t like it too much. I can visit once in a while, can’t I?”

Carolyn’s smile was quick and flirtatious; her gaze drifted down Val’s body. “Once in a while. I’ll have a rule in my new place. Certain visitors must leave their clothes at the door.”

Val laughed. “A terrific rule.” She was enjoying Carolyn’s growing boldness.

They lay quietly, looking at each other. Val felt weak with her want, a sensation containing none of the helplessness she had known in the pool, and purely pleasurable.

Carolyn’s eyes were heavy-lidded. “Your hair’s dry enough,” she whispered. “Let’s go in.”

The painting in the guest room cast its warm colors over the room.

“Until I take it with me,” Carolyn said huskily, “it stays in here.”

“I love it being in here. I love you having it.” Val turned to her. Carolyn raised a hand for silence, her head cocked to listen. After a moment Val asked, “What did you hear?”

“I don’t know. A metallic sound. From the garage, I think.” “I’ll check.”

“No, it’s just a cat, I’m sure. They jump onto the garage roof all the time,” she breathed as Val took her into her arms. “The neighborhood is full of…She closed her eyes. “Val,” she whispered.

Val lifted her onto the bed. Her body poised over her, she gently kissed her face and explored the exquisite breasts, the tender body arching in her slow savoring hands. A hand cradling Carolyn’s head, she brought Carolyn’s mouth to hers and lowered her body onto her. Carolyn moaned, and seized her. Carolyn arched again to the quickening strokes of Val’s tongue in her, as Val’s hand cupped and caressed in sweet soft damp. Carolyn moaned her want; Carolyn’s arms released her. Blood pounded in Val’s ears as she moved down, between the soft open thighs.

They had gone almost three miles on the Golden State Freeway when the engine of Jerry’s Chrysler coughed and stalled. Paul braced himself as traffic behind them braked and screeched and Jerry jabbed at the emergency flasher and drifted the car perilously over one lane and onto the shoulder.

“Shit,” Jerry spat. “The goddamn thing just out of the shop, new generator—goddammit! Wish we’d of taken your car like you offered.”

Wryly remembering when he had wanted Carolyn to take her car instead of Val Hunter’s, Paul shrugged. “Happen to anybody, Jerry. Maybe it’s something simple.”

They examined the engine connections, found no obvious problem. “Goddammit, shit. Sorry Brother, always swear my head off when I’m mad.”

“Relax.” Paul gripped his shoulder. “There’s a call box right behind us.

An auto-service truck arrived an hour later on that Sunday afternoon. The burly young driver buried his head under the hood of Jerry’s car and emerged to announce, “Carburetor.”

“Shit,” Jerry said. “Goddammit.” He kicked at a tire in rhythmic fury.

“Know a place you can tow it?” Paul grinned at the young driver, who was chewing gum and gazing indifferently at Jerry.

“Yup. Get it fixed up for you today.” He jerked a thumb at Jerry’s car. “Only take a minute to hook her up.”

With the Raider game blasting in the cab of the truck, they rode down Western Avenue in Hollywood, Jerry’s Chrysler rattling behind them. Jerry peered out at peeling billboards, dilapidated buildings. “Shit, this don’t look too good.”

“You want a mechanic on Sunday,” the driver said imperturbably, you take what you can get.” He turned into an ARCO station.

A few minutes later a tall, gaunt man, the name Lamont stitched on the breast pocket of his coveralls, toweled grease from his hands and stated, “Need to take the carburetor apart, see what’s choking that baby. Cost you a hundred-forty.”

“Holy Jesus shit,” Jerry sputtered.

“No checks. Cash or credit card. Up to you—take it someplace else. Ten bucks a day storage till you get it out of here.”

Jerry glared at him, turned to Paul. Paul shrugged. Jerry’s shoulders sagged. “How long will it take?”

“Be ready after five.” He waved at the neon words blinking under the ARCO sign. “We’re open twenty-four hours.”

To circumvent further profanity, Paul said hurriedly to the mechanic, “You have a loaner we could have? To rent?” he added. “Nope, last one’s gone.”

“Shit,” Jerry said. “There goes the goddamn Raider game.”

The mechanic was filling out a form attached to a clipboard. He touched a foot to Jerry’s car, to the license frame which read North Hollywood Chrysler-Plymouth. “You guys from the Valley?”

“Burbank, close by Glendale,” Paul answered, looking around for a pay phone. He would call Carolyn.

“Let me check with Mike; he’s the morning man. Lives out that way. He’ll drop you if he’s going straight home.”

“No big deal, Jerry,” Paul said soothingly as Jerry pulled his Raider ticket from his shirt pocket and waved it in disgust. “We’ll get out to another game.”
Fat chance
, he thought. “Maybe see a better team than Denver.”

“I wanted to see Elway,” Jerry said mournfully, accepting the clip-board from the mechanic and signing the paperwork. “Brother, you mind running me back in here to pick up the car? I hate to ask.”

Mentally, Paul cursed. “Sure, Jerry.”

“You’re a hell of a guy, Brother. Damn good neighbor.” Jerry crumpled his Raider ticket and threw it into a trash receptacle.

Sitting in the high cab of Mike’s pickup, Paul glimpsed Val Hunter’s battered tan Volkswagen as soon as the truck turned onto his street. His chest constricted; the pain was swift and crushing.

Jerry said, “Come on in, Brother. We’ll have some beers and watch Dallas on the tube.”

“Don’t think so, Jerry.” His temples throbbed, his chest hurt. He nodded thanks to Mike and dispiritedly walked down the driveway and let himself into the garage. He would take his car, go for a drive.

No, goddammit. He slammed a fist on the roof of his Buick. Why should he go anywhere? It was his house, his wife, that Amazon bitch wasn’t driving him away from his own house and his own wife. But he walked around the car several times in frustration and indecision, then bent down to finger a chip on the door of Carolyn’s Sunbird. He straightened. He would stay outside—assuming they were inside—and work on the pool, maybe go for a swim. He went out through the side door of the garage into the yard.

He heard a sound from the slightly raised window of the guest room. He had never heard such a sound before, yet he knew with a prickling sensation along his scalp that it was Carolyn’s voice. The sill was at eye level, only two steps away.

For an instant he thought Carolyn was being attacked, and in that moment he rose onto the balls of his feet from the force of the adrenaline rushing through him. Then he saw that Carolyn’s arms were locked in fierce embrace around the massive nude body of Val Hunter, that Carolyn’s mouth was fastened to hers, that Val Hunter’s hand was within Carolyn’s legs.

Hair stirred on the back of his neck; his head swam with vertigo.

Carolyn made the same sound, a moan from deep in her throat; and her arms released Val Hunter. Val Hunter moved down her body. Carolyn’s thighs rose to imprison Val Hunter’s face between them; then her body arched as if struck by an electrical charge.

He steadied himself with a shaking hand against the side of the house, and looked around, his eyes momentarily dazzled by sunlight glancing off the blue water in the pool. He walked a few steps away, conscious of the ground yielding slightly under his feet, remembering that he had watered the grass only this morning. He stared at towels on the grass above the pool decking, imprinted by two bodies which had lain close together; and clothing in careless disarray on a chaise—jeans and a T-shirt, Carolyn’s new silk shirt, her new pants; and beside the steps at the shallow end, panties and bras.