Naked Came the Stranger (8 page)

"Honey," he said, "we have talked enough."

"But do you really believe that you'll be damned in hell for this,
for what you're trying to do?"

Turnbull studied her for a long moment. Was she joking, crazy?
What then? " 'There is neither judgment nor judge' – Rabbi
Elisha." With that he thrust Gillian back onto the bed and made a
flying leap with the clear intent of pinning her down to stay. But
she swerved to one side and the holy man, stiff with lust, came down
standard-first on the bedpost. For a full two minutes he did not
rise; he lay there, crumpled up, hissing incoherently.

"Rabbi Turnbull, are you all right?"

"Never mind me," he hissed. "Think of Rabbi Elisha." Gillian was
solicitous. The poor man was in obvious pain and she searched for
ways to comfort him. "Would you like a massage?" she asked. The mere
suggestion caused Turnbull to swoon into a comatose state. A half
hour passed before his moribund powers were restored.

And no sooner had feeling returned to the affected parts than he
once again reached out for Gillian.

"Your clothes," he gasped. "Take off your clothes."

She laughed, pulled away, teased. That crazy
shiksa,
she
wants me to work. In this condition, she wants me to work. He managed
to rip off her dress. The sight of her long, faintly tanned legs
below black net panties set off new explosions of lust in his belly.
Avoiding the bedpost, he pounced again. Gillian tried to kick loose,
but he had her pinned this time and was covering her mouth with wet
kisses. Then, holding her fast, he began working his way down. He
traced her navel with his tongue and reached for her smooth, high,
arched buttocks when the phone on the night table began ringing.

"Don't answer it," he whispered.

"Why are you whispering?" she said.

The phone kept ringing, insisting, a noisy witness to an act
rendered suddenly ludicrous.

"Forget about it," the rabbi said. "Forget about that fucking
phone."

"
Ra
bbi!" The shock in her voice caused him to loosen his
hold. "I can't forget it, it's probably William. If I don't answer,
he'll be suspicious."

Turnbull groaned, relaxed. She rolled away from him and picked up
the phone.

"Hello. Yes, everything's fine. Why?"

"William?" the rabbi whispered.

No, she indicated. Turnbull clapped his hand over his eyes,
groaned aloud. Gillian continued to chat aimlessly for fifteen
minutes despite his imploring hand signals. It seemed to be the
smallest talk possible. From time to time he reached out to touch
her, but she brushed him away. By the end of the call, he was doubled
over on the bed again, muttering incoherently. As the thought of
strangling her with the phone cord came to him, Gillian calmly hung
up.

"Why didn't you hang up right away?" he asked.

"Am I answering to you already, rabbi?"

"Joshua," he said, "call me Joshua."

"Well, Joshua, that happened to be Mario Vella."

"The gangster fellow?"

"The same," she said. "I don't understand why he calls me, but
sometimes he says he just wants to talk. And I don't think it would
be particularly wise to hang up on him."

"But Mrs. Blake, Gillian, when a man and a woman are in
bed…."

"…The world doesn't end," she finished it.

Turnbull looked at her for a moment. She was kneeling opposite him
on the bed. He unhooked her brassiere, and this time Gillian offered
no resistance. He removed it and bit softly at her breasts. They
waved at him, pennants in the wind of lust, and he bit deeply into
the acid of her dugs. Then he pulled off the black net panties
– there was a cellophane sound as they were peeled past her
thighs. They stuck at her knees. What he had hoped (and prayed, even)
would be a smooth operation was spoiled as he had to fumble about her
knees and she arched to let him finish slipping them off. Turnbull
rose from the bed and then, clad only in his beard, rejoined her. He
watched with the patience of the sages as Gillian removed the
earrings and the bracelet.

Turnbull delayed it, made it last, stared at the naked woman
waiting on the sheets for him. Then, as if making an elaborate bow,
he took hold of her and pressed hard against her slightly parted
legs. He sewed her body with a thread of bites and kisses, dwelling
on the tight high pack of her working hips and patching them with
little pink squares. Finally he rose up over her, shadowed her with
the majesty of his manhood, noticed that her legs were still
closed.

"Not yet, Joshua," she said. "Not yet. Kiss my knees first."

"Your knees?"

"My knees."

"Would you prefer the caps or the hollows?"

"Just kiss them, Joshua."

One nut-girl in this town, he thought, one lovely
shiksa
nut-girl and I had to pick her. Turnbull bent uncomplaining to his
new labors. Gillian's knees were well fleshed and dimpled and
certainly not unattractive, if one happened to be a kneeman. For ten
long minutes he improvised on the knee theme – it wasn't his
specialty, but he was always flexible in such matters – and he
was rewarded by the sounds of irregular breathing and little growls.
He felt her knees starting to part and he rose, but she stiff-armed
him neatly.

"More," she cried out.

Oy, oy, oy. Trying to preserve his patience, the rabbi returned to
the knees. The growls deepened. It sounded to Turnbull almost
animal-like and, in some uncanny way, as though the noise was coming
from behind him. A moment later, in horror, he realized it was coming
from behind him. It was Rolf. The dog. The dog who had somehow
escaped from the garage, from the lawn mower, and now he stood in the
bedroom doorway growling at what must have been an incomprehensible
sight.

During the instant of recognition, Turnbull, buttocks exposed,
knelt frozen in terror. And that one instant was all he had. Rolf
leaped. Turnbull felt a searing pain flash through his right hip.
Then a clamped set of needles dug into his rump and held fast.
Gillian at first felt the rabbi had been transported into a state of
exultation that beggared her past experience, and it was only his
wild bellowing that made her realize there was an intruder. She
crawled around Turnbull, pulled Rolf by an ear and smacked him.

"Naughty dog!" she said, slapping him repeatedly. The beating did
no more than cause Rolf to seek an even tighter grip on Turnbull's
rump. Finally, tugging at both ears, Gillian managed to pry him from
his prey. It must be said to the dog's credit that he did not loosen
his grip. It was simply that a portion of the rabbi came free with
the dog. Turnbull collapsed on his stomach, moaning, holding his
wounds.

"Naughty, naughty dog," Gillian continued. "Now drop that."

Rolf refused to discard his small prize, and Gillian led him to
the garage and once again locked him in. Turnbull had not moved.

"I'll get rabies," he moaned.

"Rolf's had all the shots," she assured him. "And it's not all
that terrible. William's been after me to throw out this bedspread
for an awfully long time."

She found bandages in the bathroom medicine chest, returned and
patched Turnbull up.

"You mustn't worry about Rolf," she said again. "He may seem a
little testy, but he's certainly not insane. There, that should be
better. Well, what did you have in mind next?"

Gillian was sitting cross-legged on the bed before him. The view
was too much, even for a newly wounded man. He reached out for one of
those magnificent legs, then the other, and he propped himself up on
them. Her thighs, he noticed, were springy and firm, the haunches of
a lioness. He embraced her in a clumsy bear hug, pushed her heavily
down on the bed. He was through with the game playing. He grabbed at
her moving thighs and kneaded her swift buttocks. He bit her neck,
then her shoulders and pressed himself down on her. Her lips were
open in a small smile. Her eyes were closed. The sweat of her body
made him weak with desire. Her legs were parted in a wide welcoming
arc. The moment had come. Turnbull mounted over the throbbing,
waiting woman.

The doorbell rang.

"My God, what's that? What now?"

"Oh, drat," she said. "It must be the girls from the bridge club.
I wasn't expecting them until nine."

"Bridge club?"

"I just joined last week," she said. "They meet Wednesday
nights."

"Don't answer the door," he pleaded. "Tell them you weren't
home."

"The lights are on," she said. "The car is in the driveway. My,
wasn't it fortunate you didn't park your car in the driveway. We can
be thankful for that."

The bell rang again and Turnbull rolled off.

"Mrs. Blake," he said, "if you knew you were going to have
company, why this?"

"It might have worked out," she said. "You'll have to admit,
Joshua, you did fumble a bit."

Another ring.

"Joshua, you really have to leave."

"How am I going to get out of here?"

Gillian quickly charted the escape route. Down the stairs, into
the den, through the plate glass windows, onto the patio and out the
driveway. She would entertain the ladies in the dining room while he
made his escape. Even as she was explaining his retreat, Gillian
straightened the bedclothes with quick precise movements. Then she
climbed into a long, modest frock and, without once looking back at
her aspirant lover, left the room.

Turnbull, eyes glazed, sat on the bed until the door clicked shut.
Then, still in a weakened condition, he managed to pull himself
together. He scrambled into his clothes and, carrying the
bloodstained bedspread under his arm, managed to creep out the back
way. Despite a narrow escape from a swimming pool waiting for him in
the night, the rabbi managed to find the driveway, then the road,
then his car. Seated painfully in the safety of his automobile, the
rabbi began to consider the entire evening. Was it possible? Was it
possible a woman could plan something like that? The invitation, the
ferocious dog, the bridge club, even the moans – was it
possible that this had been staged for his benefit? Yes, he decided,
it was possible.

The following week, Gillian received two phone calls from the
rabbi. She was noncommittal, evasive. The next four phone calls she
was politely unavailable. The following week – and by this time
he heard rumors that Gillian Blake had been seen at a drive-in
hamburger stand with Mario Vella, a common gangster – Rabbi
Turnbull began sending her presents. The gifts were returned,
unopened, to his office beside the Temple.

The more she rejected him, the more he craved her. For just the
chance to kiss her knees. He decided that even the dog, Rolf, was not
too bad, quite probably a very effective watchdog.

And then he began to hate her.

Love and hate, mingled as they often are in the same current,
coursed through his veins and pounded at his temples. Turnbull could
not control the demons. And when Gillian began to hang up the phone
at the first sound of his voice, he knew the demons would claim
him.

He snapped at the members of the ladies' auxiliary. At Temple
meetings he seemed distracted and morose, then engaged some of the
most important donors in senseless argument. He arrived drunk at
Friday night service. Saturday he was seen at a roadhouse with a
notorious woman. Acquaintances sought him out to talk to him, but he
would have none of it.

In a way, a strange way, Turnbull became more popular in the
community than he had ever been. Scandal is a community service and a
free entertainment at that; witnesses generally feel obliged to pay
admission with sympathy. Turnbull scorned their sympathy, slapped his
wife, shouted at his children and, just before the scheduled
appearance of Jonah and the Wails, disappeared for three days.

Cooler heads in the Temple said that this was all for the better,
and no police report was issued. Rabbi Lerman, Turnbull's
inarticulate assistant, was given specific instructions to get the
services over with as quickly as possible.

The services that Friday night were expectably well attended.
Reporters and photographers fattened the congregation considerably,
and the first half of the proceedings went smoothly. Jonah and the
Wails, four grave young men dressed neatly in Mod black, made a
fairly conservative entrance if one could overlook the blond wigs.
They wore wide leather ties with leaping sperm whales spraying toward
the knots. They made their music with two electric guitars, a
tambourine and a whale's jawbone that was banged against a single
kettle drum. The second half of the service began with the Torah
removed from the holy ark and Jonah leading the group in song -

It was an instantaneous success, and some in the audience saw a
twinge of irony in the fact that Rabbi Joshua Turnbull could not be
there to savor his most hard-fought victory. The second song,
"Kneelin' and Feelin' and Prayin' and Sayin'," was launched in
splendid fashion, with flash bulbs providing punctuation, when the
spectre appeared.

Rabbi Turnbull, mantled in a potato sack, his eyes red and wild,
marched upon Jonah and the Wails, commanded them to stop. They did.
Turnbull mounted the lectern and, foaming with rage, denounced Jonah
as a false prophet. He turned to his horrified board of directors and
accused them of the sin of the biblical Jonah, ignoring the will of
God.

"We are in mortal peril!" he shouted.

Turnbull, holding onto the lectern like a forecastle, felled three
Temple vice presidents and was holding his own with a fourth when the
police arrived.

"Philistines," he cried, "I'll take the jawbone from this ass and
lay your thousand low."