Four Men & A Lady Page 12

  He positioned himself where he felt her heat, placed her hands on his shoulders, his on the pool edge behind. Rocking forward with his body, he sought entry, pushing slowly upward and meeting resistance.

  She was a virgin. His pulse pounded madly through his veins. He screeched to a stop. "Heidi?"

  "You're beautiful, Ben. So hard. So smooth. So big." Her mouth moved to his, devoured his, her hands moved to his rump. She urged him on with her heels then gently nipped his lip. "And if you stop again, I'm going to kill you."

  She was giving him her virginity and his heart had never been so full.

  "Please, Ben? Hurry?" Her fingers dug into the backs of his thighs.

  Impatient virgin wench. He still couldn't believe this was happening. Why was this gorgeously passionate woman a virgin? "I'm not going to hurry your first time, sweetheart.

  "Hold onto the edge of the pool. Wrap your legs around my waist. That's it," he coaxed as she followed his instructions. He really liked a woman who followed his instructions.

  And then it was time to get serious. He looked into her eyes and asked the question he had to ask, the answer to which might possibly kill him. "Heidi? Are you sure?"

  She answered him with a low moaning kiss, tenderly using her tongue to stroke and beg him to take her. So he took her. Slowly. Entering her tight, oh, so tight, body.

  She gasped into his mouth. He stopped and she whimpered, urging him forward with fingers and heels and very strong thighs.

  "Heidi, baby. Wait." It was going to be all over with if she didn't. "I don't want to hurt you."

  She held his face, kissed his eyelids, his cheekbone, the beginning of his scar before meeting his eyes. "The hurt can't be helped. But you'll make it all better. I know you will."

  She was beautiful. Stunningly beautiful. Her eyes were trusting and honest, her smile giving and warm. And she was offering him what she'd never offered another man.

  Why? Later. Later. Now was the time to take her slow and easy, to move only at her command, to soothe the pain she suffered, to see to her pleasure. His mouth descended to hers, his tongue seeking entrance with the same gentle force he applied beneath the water's surface.

  His stroke deepened, the pressure from her body eased and he was fully enveloped. He stopped to find his control, stopped for Heidi to find comfort. But her eager cries gave him license to move. He increased the rhythm of his strokes, gritting his teeth at her insistence that he move faster, that he fill her deeper.

  She was wild around him and the water splashed and her fingers dug into his skin as her spasms took hold. He swallowed her cries and poured his own into her mouth, following her down into ecstasy.

  Long minutes later, normal breathing returned. Water cooled overheated skin until Heidi shivered. Ben pulled his body from hers and held her close to warm her. She shuddered again and gooseflesh pebbled her skin.

  "Let's get you out of the water."

  She nodded. Her teeth chattered. "I'm freezing,but I'm so incredibly warm."

  He smiled, then kissed the tip of her nose. "Amazing how that happens, isn't it?"

  "Oh, Ben. I never knew." Tears glistened in her eyes. "I never knew."

  He hadn't known, either.

  Chapter Nine

  Sophomore year

  BEN IDLED HIS STINGRAY at the comer of Cherry and Elm. Heidi lived three houses down on the left. He could see her place, which meant, if she was looking, she could see his car. Because of that, he hesitated to turn.

  She was going to kill him for coming here. Nobody came here. She'd warned all of them—him and Quentin and Randy and Jack—never to come to her house.

  But she hadn't been in school today. And she'd missed practice. The Joker never missed practice. She might be late to school, or be out the entire day, but she always showed up at practice.

  The afternoons she walked into the band hall when she hadn't been to a single class all day, Mr. Philips never said a word. Other teachers called it skipping, but the band director knew what Ben knew about where Heidi came from. And that she only stayed at home, well, when she didn't have a choice.

  Being in school was a lot easier for her than staying at home. And playing in the band was pretty much what she lived for.

  Ben worried some on those days when he didn't see her in the morning, locking her bike at the bicycle racks. It was like he'd gotten used to starting his day that way.

  But he didn't worry a lot because he knew he'd see her later at practice, when she came in all full of herself and everything. He worried about that, too, sometimes. But he figured it was just her way.

  He sighed, knowing he couldn't sit here at the corner forever. Maybe he should've let Quentin do this. Quentin's VW bug would fit into this neighborhood a little better than Ben's 'Vette. The frowns he'd caught since he'd passed over the river made him feel like a specimen or something.

  He stayed in low gear to make a slow muffled crawl up the block. He didn't really want to park in the street but his car would bottom out if he hit one of the craters in the Malones' shell-and-gravel driveway. And since the driveway was about ninety-five percent cratered, well, the street would have to do.

  Besides, with the ratty old station wagon parked half in the driveway, half in the yard and the refrigerator laying on its side next to black garbage bags bulging with aluminum beer cans, there really wasn't room to park. At least the trash was neat. Probably because of Heidi.

  He got out of the car, and found himself matching the steely-eyed glare of the gawking grade-school boy hanging out on the sidewalk next door. "How loud can you whistle?"

  The response was shrill and piercing.

  Good enough. "Five bucks if you keep an eye on the car."

  The boy sauntered over, his hands shoved in pockets of loud red-patterned jams, a skinny rattail hanging long down his back. "Ten, and I'll think about it."

  "Seven or I drive outta here."

  The boy rolled his eyes, held out his hand. "Seven. In advance."

  Ben dug into the pocket of his jeans. "Two in advance. The other five if you're still here when I get back."

  The boy grumbled, but snatched the two offered bills. He took up sentry duty on the sidewalk in front of Heidi's house, then circled the ' Vette.

  Ben walked over green weeds and brown grass to the concrete slab porch. He knew Heidi's room was actually the attic. He'd been here once—before she'd threatened him within an inch of his life if he ever came back.

  He hadn't been upstairs, but he'd seen her through the front dormer window that was open now with a box fan blowing on high. The window up there made it look like the house had two stories. When it really didn't.

  He glanced up again as he got closer to the front door. He didn't see her but he knew she was there. He heard the sax, low and mournful, so he knew she was okay. That came as a bigger relief than he'd ever have thought.

  He looked back once at the scruffy kid, then turned around and knocked before he changed his mind. Mrs. Malone was slow to open the door. She wore jeans. And her blouse was light green and trimmed down the front with green boa feathers. The TV was loud and her shirt was tangled and Ben didn't want to know what he'd interrupted.

  Her eyes were droopy; she smelled like beer. It wasn't like she was drunk so much as it was like she was never sober. From what he'd picked up on when Heidi'd actually mentioned her mother, he figured that was pretty much how it was.

  He knew Heidi's mom worked in a bar. When she worked. "Uh, hi. Is Heidi here?"

  "In her room." Mrs. Malone jerked a thumb toward the hallway and the attic's pull-down staircase, but she didn't invite him in. She narrowed her eyes until the makeup on her lashes looked like spider legs sticking out at him. "You one of them fancy school boys she knows? You comin' down to the river to have a piece of cheap fun?"

  "Uh, no, ma'am." Ben fidgeted from one foot to the other. He really didn't like this. He really should've made Quentin come.

  "'Cause if you are..." Mrs. Malone went on as if
he'd never opened his mouth. "I gotta tell you that you're sniffin' 'round the wrong kitty cat. My girl knows what she's worth. She's had men offer. And no one's having her 'til I say so."

  Anger, fierce and burning, ripped through his stomach. What kind of mother did Heidi have? "She wasn't at school. Or at band practice. I just wanted to make sure she was okay."

  Mrs. Malone pushed back a bunch of messy brown hair. Her fingernails were painted bright red. Most of the polish was chipped. "She's been blowing on that damned ol' horn most all of the day, most all of her life if the truth be known. And I tell you what—" She shook a finger at him. "I got a real good ear and I don't know why you rich Johnson boys think she's not good enough, making her practice day after day when I need her here to take care of things. Just look at this place. It's turning into a real pigsty."

  No. It wasn't.

  It was worse.

  "Could I go up and see her now?"

  "Upstairs?" she asked like he was out of his mind. "Just the two of you? Hey, Earl. You think my baby girl will be safe with this here Johnson boy?"

  Ben heard deep male grumbling and the squeak of sofa springs. This had been such a bad idea. "Maybe you could just ask Heidi to come down?"

  Mrs. Malone gave Ben a full head-to-toe once-over. She pulled the edges of her feathers tighter together. Then she lifted her chin. "No. You go on up. Heidi won't be wanting nothin' from the likes of you."

  Taking a deep breath, Ben stepped through the door. Mrs. Malone went to close it and stopped.

  "Unless..." she began.

  Ben waited, watched her eyes widen as she caught sight of his car. When she turned back, her face was softer somehow, her eyes brighter. Shrewd. "What did you say your name was?"

  "It's Ben. Ben Tannen."

  "Well, Ben." She wrapped one arm around his shoulder. "You go right on up. Stay as long as you need to."

  He didn't know which was worse, the cigarettes or the old perfume. Added to the beer she'd been drinking, the smell made him think of old shoes.

  "Thanks." He hoped he wouldn't have to stay long at all.

  He hurried down the short hallway, heard Heidi's mother working to rouse the sleeping Earl to, "come see what's sitting out in front of the house."

  Great. Just great. He should've paid the kid the ten bucks he'd wanted. And all in advance.

  A bare bulb hung in the hallway just behind the attic staircase. The pull-down stairs weren't made for the regular climbing they got judging by the loose braces. Ben wondered if ol' Earl had a screwdriver on him, then decided not to ask.

  The attic was bigger than he'd thought it would be. And Heidi had only fixed up a part of it for her room. She'd papered the ceiling with posters attached between rafters, posters of jazz greats, A few Ben recognized, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, and others he didn't have a clue.

  She'd also hung a bright tie-dyed sheet across the end of the area she'd partitioned off as her own. The walls had black tar paper covering what insulation was stuffed between the wall studs. She'd given the room a sixties look by splattering bright neon paint from floor to ceiling.

  She sat on the edge of her bed, which was really just a mattress and box spring stacked on the floor. She had one bare leg tucked up under her, the other foot flat on the ground while she played. It looked like she wasn't wearing anything but a huge University of Texas football jersey.

  He knew she wasn't happy to see him, though she didn't say a word. She didn't have to. The way she was looking at him over the sax with those big angry eyes was enough.

  Ben wasn't sure what to do next so he raised his hand in a lame wave and hunkered down to listen.

  Heidi closed her eyes and went on to finish the song. It was a sad sound, but she knew how to make the sax sound that way. He wondered if she played what she felt, knew what she did when the notes grew sharp and furious.

  The weirdest thing, though, was how he felt watching her. He watched her all the time in practice and in competition, but this was different. He didn't know if it was the music or Heidi, but, man, his heart was pounding in his throat.

  Boy, this wasn't turning out the way he'd thought. He'd only come here to make sure she was okay. But here in her room with her clothes and her posters and all of her things, she looked like an ordinary girl instead of The Joker.

  The Joker didn't make him this nervous, or make his palms sweat when he looked at her legs. He wanted to say something to her, but he didn't know what to say. And he wanted to tell her a lot of things, but he didn't know where to start.

  Her hair had grown out since last year, but it still looked like scarecrow straw. She still never wore makeup, though he didn't know why she would. She had the cleanest skin, the biggest, brownest eyes.

  He wondered suddenly if her scrubbed plain face and hayseed hair had anything to do with her mother...and the men. She could never be ugly, even if she tried. Which she did. And now he knew why.

  Damn. He felt his hackles rise and his heart was pounding so hard his face had to be lobster-red. How could she live like this?

  Yeah, her room was neat, the floor had a big braided rag rug in the middle. Her clothes were

  folded and stacked inside two vegetable crates, and hung on hangers hooked over a wire stretched catty-corner from the edge of the window to the opposite wall.

  Yeah, she had her posters and her privacy and her music. But how could that ever be enough? How could that make up for what he'd seen, oh, cripes, and what he'd heard downstairs? Man, she had to get outta here.

  She finished the song, laid the sax across her lap. And then she just looked at him with so much disappointment on her face.

  "Your mom said you've been playing that thing all day. Actually," he went on, getting to his feet and walking over to peer out the window, "she said you've been playing all your life." He faced Heidi where she sat on her bed against the opposite wall. "I didn't know you'd been playing that long."

  Her gaze fell to the horn in her lap. She touched the keys. "My grandfather played sax. I didn't know him, but my dad used to tell me stories. He'd spin these really old records, ya know? The ones that're all hollow and scratchy sounding? Like the band had been playing inside a tin can?

  "Anyway." She gave a quick shake of her head. "I was pretty little, like about four or five. But I remember him talking. His voice was really smooth. And mellow. He'd say, 'Listen here. Now. Right now. Hear that tone? That's your grandpapa. He's playing right there alongside Stan Getz.'

  "What did I know about jazz? I just liked the music. It was a great backup for my daddy's voice." She shrugged, reached for the case and methodically stored the sax. "This belonged to my grandfather. It was the last one he played," she said and snapped the case's latch.

  Oh, boy. Ben couldn't even find his voice to answer. In those few words Heidi had said more about her life than she'd told him in two years. He wanted to know more about her grandfather. He wanted to ask what had happened to her dad. Had he died? Did he leave?

  And, if so, why hadn't he taken Heidi with him, away from this life, this place, this disgustingly depressing existence.

  "So you have been playing a long time," was all he could finally get out.

  "Longer than you've been beating those drums."

  He would've laughed if she'd been kidding, but she was serious as a heart attack. And that really cheesed him off. He'd been stupid for not sending Quentin, stupider for worrying in the first place. Why the hell was he even here?

  Bottom line, Ben thought, heading back toward the staircase, Heidi didn't need him. Hadn't ever, wouldn't ever need him. This was just a waste of time and energy. His, Heidi's, and ol' Earl's down there on the couch.

  "What're you doing here, Ben?"

  Keep walking. Keep walking. He felt her gaze follow him and he stopped. "You weren't at practice. I just came by to make sure you were okay."

  "And now that you've seen my life, you can rest assured that I'm never okay."

  It was the whisper that got to hi
m. He'd've been okay if she'd shouted or acted out like The Joker did when she was pissed. But soft and small and injured he couldn't deal with. He rubbed a hand over his forehead.

  "I'll stay. For a while. If you want me to." He didn't know what else to do.

  "No need." She hopped up from the mattress, tugged the jersey down to midthigh. The attitude thing again. "I'm fine. Ill be at practice tomorrow. The lovely Mrs. Malone never locks me up here for more than a day at a time."

  Ben spun. Blood rushed to his head. "What? She locks you up here?"

  "C'mon, Ben. It's no big deal." Heidi reached for a pair of cutoffs and casually pulled them on beneath her jersey. "It's not like she cuts off my head or anything."

  Not a big deal? His ears were burning and his eyes were on fire and she was dressing in front of him and this wasn't a big deal? "What about your hair? She cut that off?"

  Heidi fluffed at the bleached-out mess. "No, I do this myself."

  "Why?"

  "Why do you think?" she asked, her hand slowly coming down from her head, her eyes bright and her voice like a gunshot.

  "Because you can't afford a stylist?" A mocking word she'd thrown in his face regarding his own precision cut. He didn't want to yell, but he was yelling. He didn't want to care, but he cared.

  "Because I can't afford not to."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" But he knew. Deep in his sick gut, he'd always known.

  "Figure it out, Ben. You're a smart boy. Or you were until you pulled this stupid stunt. There was a reason 1 didn't want you to come here. Now you've seen it. Now you can go."

  "Heidi—"

  She put up a hand, stopping him. "Ben, listen. This isn't Friday The Thirteenth, it's my life. And I deal with it, okay? You don't have to."

  "This shouldn't be anybody's life."

  "Why? Because you're a Tannen and you say so? Because it's unfair? Because it makes you uncomfortable? Why?" Hands in fists at her hips, she leaned toward him and pleaded. "Why can't things just be the way they are because they are?"