The Insiders (8 page)

In the end, though, as they both knew she would, she agreed to meet him right after the location shots she was doing that afternoon.

"Just give me enough time to take my makeup off and change," she warned him. She remembered he didn't like her to wear makeup when she was with him and they weren't going out anywhere in particular.

After he'd hung up, David wondered again why he had called her. Sheer instinct, sheer—what? Was it weakness? He had sworn, both to her and to himself, that he was through with her. But he wasn't—that was the hell of it. He still needed her—that much was true. Contrasted with Gloria or any of the other women he'd been seeing recently, Eve was all woman. Loving and giving, soft and yielding. And not asking for his soul in return for a fuck. Gloria was a ballbreaker and too damned possessive. Let her see that he could still have Eve. It was something that
he
needed to find out, too.

Thinking about Eve and seeing her again tonight gave him an erection. Gloria was a tease, and Eve wasn't. In bed, Eve gave all of herself—she was warm and wild and wonderful, and she'd made him think it was all for him, that she'd never been this way with anyone else. That was why seeing her in bed with that grinning, fatuous-faced playboy had been such a shock.

He'd been thinking about that, too, having second thoughts. Frowning, David walked over to the small stove his kitchenette boasted and poured himself his fourth cup of coffee for the morning. Now that he knew Gloria better, he wouldn't put it past her to have engineered the whole thing, just to get him in the sack with her. And perhaps Eve's stammering, almost incoherent attempts to explain and excuse had been genuine, and it had been a misunderstanding after all.

"I love you, David," she had wept. "Doesn't that mean anything to you, anything at all? Do you think I'd be crawling to you now, without pride, if I were really as cheap and as easy to make as you think?"

He hadn't listened. At that point he hadn't wanted to listen, much less have to look at her again. Later, through the window of Gloria's room, he had watched Eve drive away with the man she'd been in bed with, and had been certain then that she'd been lying to him. She was hke any other predatory, lying cunt, he'd thought then. Pretending to be something special so she could trap him into marriage; playing around on the side.

And now—he wasn't certain at all. Except of the fact that he wanted her. God, how he still wanted her! Eve, naked, in bed with him. Beads of perspiration standing out on her skin like the drops of water in that damned photograph. Crying out to him as she made it, calling his name, telling him she loved him. She made him feel good, and their loving never left a bad taste in his mouth —the kind of feeling he had after screwing Gloria. Well, the hell with Gloria. Tonight he'd have Eve. Again. And again, and again.

There was nothing David derived more enjoyment from than making love—except, perhaps, preparing a brief that he knew was perfect and without any flaws or loopholes. He often considered that in many ways it was a good thing his parents had brought him up to believe that the
mind
should control the emotions, not the other way around. The emotions were there, yes, but to be practical was much more important.

He had been taught from his youth, during all those early years of being his parents' only child, their
son,
to be strong and in control of himself; that emotions were there, yes, but to control them and to be practical was much more important. A man is rational; he can control the physical side of himself and those dangerous emotions that could carry him away. He was taught to be dispassionate rather than passionate, to think rather than react blindly and unreasoningly.

Ambition, too, was one of the legacies that his parents had left him. That, and a sense of responsibility toward the younger children who had come along so suddenly and surprisingly in his parents' middle age. He often thought that it was as if they had somehow known, had expected what might happen. Dying together—just as they had done everything else together. Somehow, David was never able to picture his parents singly; his memory captured them always as a unit, standing or sitting close together.

David had been in Iris teens when he discovered the deep and passionate sexuality of his own nature. Even then, he had had the appealing good looks that always had and always would attract women to him. David was only a sophomore in high school when he let Dee, a waitress at the hamburger stand the crowd frequented, seduce him. The other guys were constantly ribbing

Dee, trying to make out with her, even taking bets on who would get in her pants first. She'd kid back and forth with the others, but David started to find that her eyes strayed to him, watching him, wondering about him.

Dee was the first woman to discover and to encourage the deep and passionate sensuality that lay beneath his quiet and unemotional exterior and polite manners. Dee was not too much older than he was; she had dropped out of high school early and had a child to support. But she knew what she was doing in bed, all right, even if she'd made mistakes with her life all the way around.

David never talked about Dee to any of the other guys, and she knew this and was grateful. Grateful enough to let their relationship continue even when she discovered he was dating other girls. David filled all her needs, and she in turn provided him with the abandoned, uninhibited kind of lovema
ki
ng he was beginning to crave—the kind the other girls couldn't or wouldn't give him. He kept seeing Dee steadily until he went away to college, and in the meantime, without any fuss or locker-room talk, he had also seduced most of the prettier and sexier girls in school.

By the time he'd finished collecting his degrees and started working at the profession he'd chosen, he'd discovered how easy it was to control women while avoiding all commitment. He could not settle down with one woman because he felt he needed them all. He
enjoyed
women—needed their bodies and their dependence with an insatiable kind of lust that he sometimes despised in himself. One side of him was sober, conservative, and responsible—he was the kind of young and ambitious man that people instinctively expected to make good. But the darker, hidden side of him was a passionate rakehell of a fellow who could not live without women—symbols, to him, of the satisfaction of his desire for their bodies.

Someday, David knew, he would marry. Because it was expected of him and because it would help him form and mold the facade he expected to present to the world. But the woman he would marry would be carefully picked with his head and not with his loins. A suitable wife—
suitable
was the key word. Well-bred and intelligent, but not too intelligent. Not too astute or worldly-wise. Because there would always be other women—this he'd already realized and accepted.

Fighting the usual city traffic on his way to the office, David found himself thinking again about Eve. In a way, he was almost glad that something had happened to make him furious at her. He had been infatuated with Eve soon after he'd met her and gone to bed with her, and suddenly, his carefully thought out plans hadn't seemed to be important any longer.

He remembered how they had come together with a kind of joyful abandon that was completely uncalculated and had taken them both by surprise. Eve was an unexpected person, and she had made him feel that he was the only man who had ever penetrated the brittle shell of knowledgeable sophistication she presented to the rest of the world. She was as sensual and as uninhibited in bed as he was, yet there was a kind of tenderness in her, a sort of small-town friendliness and openness that he was unused to in women. In spite of the fact that she was obviously not inexperienced, and had been a model, there was even a kind of purity about her—or so he had thought. Without her "face" on, with her hair pulled back, and wearing jeans and an old shirt, she was like the girl next door he hadn't had time for—a happy, understanding companion who sensed his moods and feelings with some uncanny sixth sense. But at the smart cocktail parties to which he'd sometimes taken her, Eve could transform herself into a regal beauty he was proud to be with. Of all the women he had known, she could best change herself to fit his moods, his needs.

Although he had told her casually in the beginning that he was far from ready to settle down or make commitments yet, he had begun to think of her as "his"— even, after he saw the way she loved and understood Lisa, to wonder how she would be as a mother. That was why he had not reacted at all when he'd found out suddenly but unmistakably that she was interested in him.

When Gloria had had Howard Hansen ask him to that weekend house party (an invitation extended only to people Howard liked and trusted), he'd responded by telling Howard he'd already made plans to see his girl that weekend. Howard, as affable as ever, had insisted that he bring Eve along.

Goddam, David thought suddenly, slamming to a stop as a light changed just as he got up to it, why
had
he taken Eve? The practical side of his nature took over then, and he found himself rationalizing, telling himself it had happened for the best. He'd been getting too involved, in too deep. Now he'd take Eve back on
his
terms, and those terms didn't include marriage. He'd make her understand that After all, he'd watched another guy screwing her. Whether it had been her fault or not, how did she expect him to forget?

But there were other things he couldn't forget, either. He remembered that she'd told him once that her sexiness wasn't real, it was part of a facade she'd erected for herself; but God, in bed (or out of it, for that matter) she'd prove herself a liar over and over, in the most wonderful ways imaginable.

Yes, he thought. That was the way he wanted Eve. In bed. As a mistress, not as a wife. He wondered if he could make her understand that things would be different. Although while he'd been seeing Eve he hadn't wanted any other woman, he intended not to lose any chances this go around. No possessiveness, he'd tell her. Let's play it by ear and see what happens. She'd go along with it. Sixth sense, ESP—whatever it was—he knew she'd go along with anything he wanted.

He wanted Eve. When he picked her up in the parking lot behind the studio, he felt he couldn't wait any longer. Just having her sitting beside him in the car again, smelling her perfume and feeling her warmth, made him want to groan with desire. And he could tell she didn't want to wait, either. They knew each other so well—they wanted each other so badly, why wait for all the preliminaries that didn't mean a damn thing?

He started to drive aimlessly, feeling the pressure of her fingers—first over his, and then along his thigh. Her apartment was out of the question; Marti would be there, and quite possibly Stella. They were in no mood for other people tonight. His apartment was all the way across town, far too far away.

In the end, they drove to a motel on Lombard Street, the first they came across. He registered, and as soon as they were in the room, he took her, with her dress pushed up over her thighs. No preliminaries—the only words short, brutal, seeking, describing. What he felt, what he was doing with her, what she wanted.

At the moment of his coming he said, "Good God, you bitch! You witch-woman, Eve!"

And she, only: "I love you David, I love you!"

They were back together
, but nothing was quite the same as it had been, except their lust for each other.

Eve felt that their coming together again was such a tender, tentative thing, their new relationship so fragile, that she went around scared all the time—torn between the wonder and the bliss of having David back again and the horrible tearing pain that might be lurking in the background to destroy and engulf her all over again. She wouldn't lose him again! She had to try to pretend that it didn't matter, that things were still the same between them,
exactly
the same, when they were not.

David wanted her—but he wanted other women, too. ("Let's try, Eve, but no jealousy, no commitments this time, huh, baby?") He didn't call her every day, and there were nights when she called him and heard his telephone ring and ring and she knew he was with someone else. And then jealousy would tear at her and she would want to kill him, to hurt him just as much as he was hurting her.

She continued to see Peter, to date other men she really didn't give a damn about, just to prove to David that she, too, could play games, that men desired her. She told herself that she would be a whore and flaunt it in his face, and then she would despise herself for letting him do this to her. But David was her drug, and she was hopelessly addicted to him. All he had to do was call her, tell her he wanted to see her,
wanted
her, and she was happy again—unreasoningly, unquestioningly so.

She would lie in David's arms while he made love to her, and think desperately that she couldn't live without this. In bed, at least, they communicated without words. Like a ritualistic ballet, the movements of which only the two of them knew, they would shift from one position to another, from mountaintop to valley and back to mountain peak of passion again, their hands and mouths and bodies touching everywhere, their movements fluid and beautiful, making whatever it was they shared beautiful and right, too.

At such times, Eve thought that
this
, at least, would never end. She could sense that David craved her body as much as she craved his. And yet for her, at least, it was not just the way he made love, it was
him,
David himself. She loved him; there was nothing she could do about it except hope that he wouldn't hurt her too badly someday.

They made each other jealous, they quarreled, and then they made up in bed.

"David—oh, God, what's happening to us?" she asked him once, despairingly.

"I don't know. Maybe we're trying to find whatever it is we really want," he told her, and she had to be content with that.