Butterflies in Heat (57 page)

"Don't be ridiculous, I must see you." Leonora's determination was reflected by her grim-jawed look. Though perspiring, Dinah had an odor both sweet and aromatic.

Unfulfilled desire knotted Leonora's stomach, even when touching the girl in this condition.

Trembling, Dinah turned over. Her face was bruised. Her tears blurred the vision of her large dark eyes, which were bloodshot and blinking. She lifted her head from the pillow.

Leonora gently ran her fingers across Dinah's face. "Who would do such a thing?"

"That goddamn Ned!" Dinah said, talking with apologetic slowness. "The son of a bitch beat me up for leaving him for you."

Leonora looked at Dinah with infinite reproachfulness, then softened her glare. She released the girl.

"I wasn't his
real
girl friend," Dinah protested. "He used me ... against my wishes."

"Of course it
Wc;lS
against your wishes," Leonora replied quickly, her back stiffening. The first awful reality that Dinah was a liar flashed through her brain. "I've been close to you. I know what your real feelings are."

Dinah's hand reached out for hers. This one action warmed Leonora. The girl's flashing eyes closed as Leonora tightened her grip. "How did he get in here?" Leonora asked.

"Ralph brought him here," Dinah said. ·Picked him up cruising. Ned came to my room after Ralph had gone to sleep. Held me and beat my face against the bed."

"Why didn't you scream for help?" Leonora asked. The icy white of the room was drenching her. She wanted to scream herself.

"I did," Dinah said weakly, "but he turned the music up loud."

"I remember that," Leonora said, softly cupping Dinah's breasts. "I was going to send Anne up to complain to you." Her fingers gently caressed the flesh.

"Ned was just using Ralph," Dinah confessed. "Got Ralph to agree to let him drive up to the mainland to pick up the commodore's sister. Lola was with him."

The word, Lola, was like a wasp sting to Leonora. Now she saw it clearly. A betrayal. Ralph was to blame. Controlling her emotions, she reached down and smoothed the wrinkled covers of Dinah's bed. Then she bit down on her lip. "The cocksucker." She was shocked at her use of the word. Normally, she didn't use vulgarity and loathed its use in other people. But this time it just tumbled out.

"Ned works for Lola," Dinah said.

"This is incredible." Leonora turned to Anne. "Your husband's going to pay for this."

"All of a sudden he's my husband," Anne protested. "Ralph's no husband to me. You got me to marry him, remember?"

Leonora resented Anne all the more. Everyone was turning against her. Then she felt Dinah squeezing her hand again. No, there was one loyal person in the snakepit. "Get the commodore's attorney on the phone. I've been doublecrossed." She raised her hand, "This time Ralph Douglas has gone too far!"

Leonora was alone. Gales of rain pounded the house in fury. But upstairs her bedroom seemed far removed from the storm, a safe haven.

She lay quietly, listening to the lashing rain. In spite of the violence outside, it was a moment of peace from the storm raging inside her during this all too brief summer. The rain pounded against the house, the wind rattling the shutters of her bedroom window.

Where is Ralph?

She sat up rigidly in bed at the sound of a crash outside.

"Ralph," she called out, expecting him to appear.

A loud rap sounded on the door and Ralph was inside her room. "May I come in?"

"Don't ask when you're already in my room." Her words fell like the sharp blade of a guillotine. "Of course, you can come in. I sent for you, didn't I?"

"Yes," he said, walking deeper into the dark chamber. "You're
always
sending for me."

"You get paid, don't you?" She studied his face as if it held a profound secret.

"Indeed I do," he said, "and quite well. You're very generous." She detected an edge of sarcasm from him, which angered her.

The room pulsed with vibrations of impending violence. "One must buy people's loyalty," she sighed. "It's the only way." Her words struck him like bullets and he winced. "Open that curtain, just slightly," she commanded. "I want to see the storm."

He parted the velvet draperies, as lightning tore the sky. The white flash revealed Leonora's nude body sprawled on mauve sheets. "Do you want me to get you a robe?" he asked flatly.

"No," she replied, smiling. "When a body is as perfectly preserved as mine—at my age—one doesn't mind showing it off." She was deliberately making everything she said weighted with meaning. Soon she would be ready to spring the trap. "I know I'm not black, but men and women of all ages have found me attractive."

"So do I." Ralph lied. "I hope you don't think I am attracted only to blacks."

"I was beginning to wonder." Leonora's eyes were like hard blue diamonds.

"I notice you're not exactly immune to the charms of blacks yourself." His eyes focused swiftly on her, searching her out. "Dinah seems to be sticking around for a repeat performance."

His mention of Dinah brought a swift change in Leonora. Her face softened.

"That child, such a lovely innocent one." Her face glowed with anticipation. "Yes, she wants me." Reaching for her robe, Leonora got out of bed, grandly pacing like a high priestess, her simple, Grecian, white-satin gown cascading to the floor. "The whole world desires me," she announced.

"Understandably so." He glanced at her mirrored image.

Turning on the light, she stared into Ralph's eyes. He was trying to flatter her, she knew. She also was aware that he was offended by the nude female body. Perhaps, she thought, that's why she always appeared naked before him.
It
was a quirk in her own behavior she couldn't fully understand. Was she a missionary trying to convert him? Did she think that by looking at her he would come to see women as desirable sex objects? She resented him for not finding her body attractive, always turning in disgust at the sight of her nudity. Or worse, not seeming to notice her at all. She glared at him.

"Let me outline what you've done to me," she rasped. "You picked up that creature, Ned, who just happens to be Lola's consort." She paused to let her words sink in. "You allowed this Ned to come into Sacre-Coeur, let him talk you into going to meet the commodore's sister on the mainland." Looking at her many images in the mirrored room, Leonora yelled, "All part of a plot by Lola!" She shuddered at the sudden chill in the room. "That hideous beast accompanied Ned, for your information." A vision of what she must look like to the startled Ralph raced through her mind. With her face enraged, her eyes like knives cutting into his flesh, he must be frightened out of his mind. Leonora was delighted at the thought. "Amelia Le Blanc never made it to Tortuga; she was taken right into the office of the commodore's attorney." Leonora dabbed at her perspiring face with a tissue. "Amelia and Lola reached a settlement before I got a chance to talk to the commodore's sister." She took a deep breath, glaring at Ralph. "My one last chance to prevent having Lola as a partner has vanished, because of your stupidity." Her shoulders tightened. She moved toward him menacingly, and he took an involuntary step backward. "What is even worse, my dear Ralph, is that Ned used to be Dinah's boy friend." She glanced at Ralph, expecting him to speak. "In the middle of the night, he sneaked out of your bed, slipped upstairs to Dinah's room, and beat her within an inch of her life."

"I can't believe that," Ralph stammered, turning from her.

"I don't have to prove anything to you," she said contemptuously. For one brief moment, her hatred subsided. A tender feeling came over her.
A
memory. Maybe it was the distortion caused by the tropical storm. But Ralph's face became that of his father, the man she had loved long ago. She waited to reach out and caress that face. Then she remembered it was not her lost lover she was looking at, but his dreadful son. Ralph had never been her friend. The only reason she'd put up with him was because he was his father's son. But his father had betrayed her. Now the son had followed in his footsteps. She
must
remember that. "I don't have to tell you the complete case I have against you," she said, regaining her voice. "You're fired! As of this moment."

A stricken look crossed his face, a vein stood out in his left temple. Then he slammed his fist on a table. "You can't fire me."

"I not only can, I just did." She turned her back on him.

All color left Ralph's face. Silence filled the room, but it was more deafening than an avalanche and even blotted out the storm. His tone became conciliatory. "You're just upset. You don't know what you're saying."

"I have never been more certain of anything in my life. Her hand grasped a heavy mirror on her dressing table, as a slight tremor of fear made her think she might need
it
as a weapon. She turned to face him. "You've sponged off me long enough," she spat the words at him contemptuously.

"Sponged?" Ralph's hands became balled fists. "I've catered to your insane whims, endured your outrageous behavior ... any money you ever paid me, I more than earned."

"You know I don't like to talk about money." She began to move away from him. "I'm more interested in the spirit than I am the cash register."

"I've seen you count the take,· he charged. "You're very interested ."

"Not really,· she said, retreating even more. She felt it was a dangerous risk being alone on this particular day with him. "I don't need the money, but I must keep it from the hands of those it would destroy."

"By that, I assume you mean me." Ralph froze in his steps.

"Exactly." Leonora staggered, holding onto a chair for support. Invisible destructive currents were about to sweep the room. She had to brace herself for them.

"You destroyed me in a thousand other ways," he said. "You played on my weaknesses. You bought—yes, bought—my friendship.
If
you hadn't entered my life, I could have become a great playwright.· He was shouting.

"You were always a mediocre writer,· she said with a hiss. "I was always the artiste in this household." Her face hardened like plaster.

"Don't make me laugh," he said bitingly. "You're a third-rate designer. Your clothes are theatrical crap! Most people who have had successful careers had to bust their balls. Yours was handed to you on a platter. You bought your way with Norton Huttnar's money."

The words, flung like a curse, flashed before her. "That's a damnable lie, and you know it.· She clenched her hands. She wanted to strike him across the face. "Just yesterday I was on the front page of a New York newspaper."

"Do you know why?" he challenged her. "Because you're a caricature. In your old age I would have thought you'd learned some dignity. You're more a fool than ever." His face loomed threateningly into hers, specks of saliva splattering her as he talked.

She backed away again. "You miserable loser. How dare you attack me!" Her hand, holding the mirror, began to quiver. "You groveling little fairy."

"Don't use that outdated term with me, you broken down old dyke."

Once again, she raised her hand to slap him. But she feared physical retaliation. She was taking far too many chances on
September 13. "No one has called me that loathsome word
ever
."
A memory of Albury flashed before her.

"Not to your face maybe," Ralph said. "But behind your back." He looked poised for the kill. "No one's told you the truth in years, either. Not until today."

"You don't even know what truth is." She pushed back her hair, the soothing gesture giving her renewed spirit. "All these years I've tried to elevate you, give you some philosophy to live by." Suddenly she felt exposed before him, in spite of her robe. The feeling made her uncomfortable. She put down the mirror and clutched the satin robe to her body. "But you're still the crude, coarse boy I always knew you were.·

"You don't have a philosophy of life to pass on to anybody," he said, his eyes darkening violently. "You make pretty speeches that always get out of hand—fruity, opulent speeches. But you're just posing and prancing."

"I speak from the conviction of my heart, you liar." Her anger exploded on him.