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One spring afternoon, Jennifer was alone in the room she shared with Anne. She was changing her clothes, getting ready for a trip into town, when Anne came in quietly. Jennifer whirled around quickly and grabbed for her robe.

“I didn't expect you,” she said, almost stammering with embarrassment.

“Don't let me bother you,” said Anne. “I just came up for a book.”

“If I'd known you were coming, I'd have used the bathroom but I—”

“For Heaven's sake, Jennifer,” said Anne in good-natured exasperation, “it's not the end of the world. We're both girls, you know.”

Jennifer turned away in confusion and as she did so she tripped over the edge of her robe, almost falling, and dropping the robe altogether.

“Be careful!” cried Anne, running to her. Anne's hands were on Jennifer's waist. “Did you hurt yourself?”

Jennifer could not move. “No,” she said. “I'm all right.”

Anne did not take her hands away. “You scared me,” she said softly.

Still Jennifer did not move, but kept her back turned as Anne's hands caressed her soft skin.

“Such beautiful, lovely skin,” whispered Anne into Jennifer's ear. Suddenly her hands tightened hard enough to make Jennifer gasp.

“Stop it,” said Jennifer. “You mustn't.”

Anne's hands were gentle again, the fingers trailing softly. She heard Anne's breathing go ragged and felt Anne begin to tremble. But Jennifer stood as still as stone and without knowing how she knew, she knew that Anne was making a terrible, terrible effort to keep her hands light and soft.

“You're so beautiful,” said Anne, and began to sob. “So lithe and perfectly made and beautiful.”

And then Jennifer turned around. She moved away slowly from Anne's hands and went to lie down on her bed.

Anne went on her knees next to the bed, her face wet with tears.

“Oh, yes, my darling,” she said. “Yes, you are.”

She kissed Jennifer on the mouth, a long kiss, and when she raised her head, Jennifer was looking straight into her eyes.

“For Heaven's sake, Anne,” she said coldly. “Don't be so sloppy.”

Anne rocked away from her as if she had been struck and Jennifer stood up slowly. She walked over and picked up her robe, but she did not put it on. She stood in front of Anne, nude.

“Now, I'll have to bathe again,” she said and walked into the bathroom, her robe trailing from her hand.

All the while she was in the tub, she could hear Anne crying. She walked back into the room, still drying herself, and watched Anne looking at her. She dressed slowly and carefully.

“I'll be gone for a while,” she said when she was clothed. “Wait right here. Don't go down to dinner without me.”

Anne waited. Not only that day, but every day after that whenever Jennifer felt like telling her to wait. She waited for the rare occasions when Jennifer allowed herself to be touched and she let her wretchedness show whenever Jennifer sat naked in front of the dressing table and said, “Brush my hair, will you, Anne?” She lavished gifts on Jennifer and dropped all her other friends, and whenever Jennifer snapped her fingers, there was Anne, waiting to do as she was told. Once in a great while, Anne rebelled.

“I don't need you!” she shouted. “There are plenty of others who'd love to be in your place.”

“Really?” asked Jennifer, raising her eyebrows. “Others? Right here at school?”

“Right here at school,” said Anne.

“Hm-m. I wonder if Miss Fenwick knows about that. Do you imagine so, Anne?”

“Don't threaten me,” said Anne angrily. “You wouldn't dare go to her with anything like that.”

“Maybe,” said Jennifer. “Maybe I would and maybe I wouldn't. I'm not like you and you know it. Go ahead and get yourself someone else. Boston is full of young men who, I'm sure, will find me just as attractive as you ever did.”

Anne snorted. “I know your kind,” she said. “You'd never have anything to do with a man now. You put too high a value on your virginity to give it away for less than a wedding band.”

“Darling, don't be naïve,” said Jennifer with a little laugh. “I've been doing a lot of reading since I found out about you. All kinds of reading. A man is the easiest creature in the world to fool. I'm not worried about my virginity or the lack of it.”

“What do you mean, ‘lack of it'?” demanded Anne furiously. “Have you already been with a man?” She grabbed Jennifer's shoulder and shook her. “Have you?”

“Take your hands off me, Anne,” said Jennifer coldly. “You have no need to be concerned about my affairs. You said yourself that you could find plenty of others to take my place. Well, go ahead.”

“Oh, God,” cried Anne, “I didn't mean it, darling. Please forgive me. I didn't mean it. Tell me it isn't true about your being with men.”

Jennifer pushed Anne's arms away.

“Not yet, it isn't true. Not yet. But don't annoy me, Anne, or I might just have to go out to discover if I've been missing anything.”

Anne Harvey and Jennifer Burbank were “best friends” all the rest of the school year and during the next summer. Jennifer dated frequently, but she had answers for every one of Anne's miserable questions.

“I have to,” she told Anne. “What would my parents think if I never went out with men?”

“I can't stand it!”

“Oh, don't be so sloppy,” said Jennifer impatiently. “You bore me when you go all weepy like this. I go out with men because I have to. I'm afraid you'll just have to take my word for it, Anne.”

When Jennifer denied intimate knowledge of men, Anne found it easy to believe. Not only because she wanted to, but because Jennifer's very appearance lent truth to her words. Anyone would have believed her. There was nothing of the voluptuary in Jennifer's appearance, none of those obvious points that men look for. She did not have the big breasts, the swinging hips, or the rich mouth that most men think adds up to a “good piece.”

Like most frigid women, Jennifer needed men. It was not, on her part, lust but hatred that motivated her actions. To her, the sex act was not an act of shared communion; she shared nothing and only used men. When they were finished, she pushed them off with disgust. Not disgust with herself, but with them. She had her first man the summer she was seventeen. He was a Portuguese fisherman nearly forty years old with hard hands and a dark, sharp face. She met him on the beach every night for a week.

After that there was a long series of college boys in the back seats of cars or at a motel. She never went with the same one twice, and after she had had a man she never spoke to him again. He ceased to exist.

Even the college boys who had stroked her breasts and thighs, even they sometimes doubted, seeing her, that they had really succeeded. It was not that her manner was shy and virginal, she had too much style for that; it was that she looked unapproachable, like a girl one would hesitate even to kiss. She held her head high, her features were fine and revealed not a hint of coarseness; she had small breasts and hips. The boys who had known her in the back seats of their cars had a difficult time believing this was the same girl. This was Jennifer Burbank. The other was a brazen, shameless, coarse creature. The young men could see no connection between these two people, so utterly different one from the other.

It was Jennifer's father who introduced her to Ted Carter. He had singled Ted out at the law school, he spotted him as one of the promising young men. Ted came to tea and Jennifer watched him, clinically observant. She saw how respectful he was to her parents, but she saw even more than that. Watching him, she became aware that Ted was the kind of man who would grovel and toady to gain the success he wanted. Jennifer smiled behind her teacup and said to herself, Well, Ted-boy, if that's what you want, that's what you are going to get. The thought of how much Ted would have to pay for his success gave her infinitely more satisfaction than any man ever had or ever would.

Their wedding was announced a few weeks later. And on the first night of their honeymoon she tried out on Ted all the sadistic tricks she had used on Anne. She teased, she withheld herself from him, and only after she had exhausted him and reduced him to begging did she yield; and then it was as if she were conferring on him a priceless gift. Ted never doubted that she was a virgin. Nor did he suspect that within a few days after the return from a honeymoon in the West Indies she began to be unfaithful to him. It was impossible for Ted to be suspicious of the daughter of Mr. Burbank. Jennifer had correctly judged him; he had married a law firm, she was only a means. He would take anything, would permit nothing to stop him short of his goal.

“Let me get into bed before you open the windows, darling,” said Jennifer. “These Peyton Place winters are colder than anyone would ever believe.”

“I'm not going to open them yet,” said Ted Carter. “I don't want you to catch cold.”

“But it's late, darling. And you said you wanted to go skiing tomorrow.”

Ted got into bed next to her. “Tomorrow I want to go skiing. Not tonight,” he said.

“Sometimes I think that you're insatiable,” said Jennifer, laughing at him.

“Open your mouth a little,” he said.

“No.”

“I'll make you.”

“I don't like to be kissed wet.”

“You'll learn.”

“You'll have to teach me.”

Every time Ted made love to his wife, he had to seduce her first, and while this excited him at times beyond endurance so that he climaxed before he could enter her, he often wondered, the next day, if Jennifer would ever welcome him freely so that he could feel as if she wanted his body as badly as he wanted hers. Sometimes, when he was not with Jennifer, he remembered the way Selena Cross had opened her arms to him and the way her mouth had been as eager as his.

But when he was with Jennifer, he could think of no one but her. A few times, he had taken her by force, tearing her clothes off, slapping her until she lay still on the bed, naked and helpless under his eyes and hands. Afterward, he was overcome with shame and wept as he begged her forgiveness. But in some dark corner of his mind, he realized that the times when Jennifer goaded him into violence were the times she enjoyed the most. It was a silent, unspoken contest between them, with Ted determined to win her with gentleness and Jennifer equally as determined to turn him into a savage animal. She never hated him so much as when he begged forgiveness.

She came to his bed in nightgowns that covered her completely, and it took his most gentle efforts before she let him undress her. She seemed to be terrified of showing herself and sometimes her body quivered like a frightened bird when he uncovered her breasts to caress her.

“No!” she cried, as he opened the buttons on her gown. “Oh, no, don't. Turn off the light, darling. Don't.”

“Yes, I will,” he said against her throat.

“Teach me,” said Jennifer. “Make me open my mouth, if you can. Maybe I won't let you.”

“Come here.”

She moved away from him and began to redo the buttons on her nightgown.

“No,” she said. “I'm not going to let you.”

He pulled her to him roughly.

“Be sweet,” he pleaded. “Please, be sweet.”

She laughed up into his face and taunted him. “Listen to my big brave man begging for favors. Sit up, Fido, Mamma give you liver.”

Ted jumped out of bed and yanked the blankets off her.

“You little bitch,” he said harshly, his hands trembling. “You little bitch.”

He grabbed her nightgown at the neckline and tore it from her body and his hands left angry, red marks against her white skin.

“You love it,” he said into her mouth, bruising her lips as he bit into them. “You love it and you know it.”

And then it was Jennifer who was insatiable. Her body heaved and her eyes glittered.

“Hit me,” she cried. “Hit me.”

“You're goddamned right I'll hit you,” said Ted. “I'd like to kill you.”

He used his belt on her until her back and buttocks and thighs were covered with welts and when he finally took her, her lips were red with blood from his shoulder and she fainted.

“Dear God, what have I done,” cried Ted.

He began to weep. “I'll never do it again, darling. Never. My God, I'm no better than an animal. I'll never do it again. Please. Please forgive me.”

Ted slept at last, the sleep of exhaustion, and for a long time Jennifer lay awake in the dark, smiling. She touched the welts on her thighs, running her fingers over them hard so that the pain burned all through her and her teeth gleamed white in the dark room. She moved so that her back scraped against the sheet, hurting her, and her nipples grew rigid and she felt the tightening of excitement between her legs.

“Again,” she whispered into Ted's ear. “Again.”

But Ted did not awaken. He stirred in his sleep and his hand found her breast and covered it gently. And finally, Jennifer, too, slept.

In the narrow bed in the storage room, Roberta bit her lips to try to stop her trembling. She was stiff with horror and with the effort she was making to keep herself silent.

I knew it, she thought. I knew something was wrong with that girl. She's crazy, that's what she is, making Ted do a thing like that. Ted was never that kind of boy. He was good and clean. Oh, dear God, what am I to do?

She waited another half hour and then she let herself out of the storage room and crept back to her own bed, but it did not comfort her. She could not stop trembling.

She's crazy. Jennifer is crazy. She's making Ted crazy. Oh, dear God, help me. I've got to do something.

But when the sun rose on another gray, threatening day, she had had no answer to her prayer.

I'
M GOING TO REMEMBER
every single thing that happens, thought Allison MacKenzie, as the train pulled away from the Peyton Place railroad station. Everything has to stay very sharp and clear this time, so that when I'm old I'll be able to remember every little detail. Too many things happen, and when they do people always say, “I'll never forget,” but they do, and then the image blurs with time and finally they don't remember very much about anything. I suppose that's why some people keep journals and diaries. They do it so they can never forget what happened to them. But I'll remember everything without writing it down. When I'm very old, I'll remember how it was the day I left Peyton Place to go to New York to sign a contract for my first book.