The Hot Beat, page 3
She looked out the window at the scattered lights along the boulevard. Colin leaned his head back against the soft, plushy upholstery and turned his eyes in the same direction. The car glided smoothly along, leaving Wilshire and beginning to climb into the low hills. The headlights played on a huge Chamber of Commerce sign at the side of the road:
FASTEST GROWING CITY IN THE WORLD.
FOUR AND A HALF MILLION PEOPLE NOW.
EIGHT MILLION BY NINETEEN SEVENTY.
Colin snorted contemptuously. “So what?” he asked rhetorically.
“I don’t understand,” Terry said, looking at him.
“That sign,” he explained. “It gets me. Around here every damned thing gets interpreted in terms of figures. Eight million by nineteen seventy, the sign says. That’s no promise, Terry. It’s a downright threat. Another four million small lives grubbing for pennies. Everybody’s values are all wrong in this city. In this entire country, for that matter. The beauty of existence is being crushed out by sheer numbers.”
Terry tried to look interested. “You feel things too deeply,” she said.
“I know,” he said eagerly. “Don’t you think I know? That’s what makes it so tough.”
She regretted instantly having displayed such warmth and understanding. He interpreted it as a signal for him to plant another kiss on her mouth.
Again the thick lips pressed hers. Again the groping hand went into action, only this time it snaked round her body until it could grasp her breast tightly. She was wearing a low-cut dress, and his sweaty fingertips pressed deeply, seeking the little stiff point of the nipple. At the same time his other hand rested briefly on her stockinged knee, then began to crawl upward, past the rim of the stocking, past the garter, to the soft satiny flesh of her thigh. Terry stood it as long as she could. Jack thought he was stimulating her by putting his hand between her legs, by groping for her breasts, but all she felt was sharp revulsion. She controlled her reaction, toning it down: all she did was slide her lips away from his and tactfully remove his hand from her bosom. The other hand wanted to remain in place; she slid it out from under her panties and pulled her dress back down over her knees.
Colin smiled faintly. She wondered if he thought she was simply going out of her way to make the chase more exciting, more of an erotic steeplechase. She looked out of the window again and noticed the direction in which they were going.
“Aren’t you taking me home, Jack?” she asked evenly. It was hard to tell from her tone whether that was what she wanted.
He continued to smile. “Not right away, Terry,” he said quietly. “Do you mind?”
“No,” she said cautiously. “No, of course not. It’s just that I’m—well, rather tired. I don’t really think I’d be very good company.”
He laughed lightly. “I can’t imagine you being anything else, darling.”
The car was pulling into the driveway that led to Colin’s big, Norman-style house. Colin moved to kiss her again, as if to give her a tantalizing sample of the delights that were in store for her. This time, he twisted full around to face her, and both his hands went for her breasts, gripping them tight, cupping them in sweaty fingers, seeking to slip beneath the bra and touch the tender nipple.
She turned her head away and drew his eager hands from her bosom.
“Not now, Jack. Please,” she murmured.
The car came to a halt in front of the house and the chauffeur hopped out to open the door for them. For a moment nobody moved. Her breasts still tingled painfully where he had grabbed her. After an instant Colin stepped out of the car and extended his hand politely, to help her out. She hesitated for a moment, afraid to spoil whatever chances she might already have built up for herself, yet unable to take the step that ought to clinch her position.
“I’d rather not come in with you now, Jack,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
He stiffened perceptibly, bit his lower lip. “Just as you wish, Terry,” he said with dignity. He turned to the chauffeur who was standing by, “Aki, take Miss Stafford home.”
He put his head inside the car, giving her a good look at the hurt expression on his face. “My man will see you safely home,” he said.
“Thank you, Jack,” she said. She wanted to say something else that would smooth over the abrupt denial in her decision but she couldn’t think of anything.
“Good night, Terry,” Colin said.
“Good night,” she replied.
As the car swung down the drive again, she could see him slowly climbing the stairs, his head hung low. She knew he would play the part of the unhappy lover through as long as there was a chance that she was still looking.
She listened to the smooth hum of the wheels on the wet road. Had she bungled it, she asked herself. What else could she have done? It was one thing to make up one’s mind that it was worth abandoning a few principles to gain an end but quite another to go through with it, especially with a man like Colin who not only left her cold but repelled her. Well, he might even look upon her behavior tonight as something that added zest to the affair. But if he did and called her again, then what? Could she get him to land her a screen test before she had definitely to show her hand? Thinking about it left her tired and sad. She closed her eyes and tried to put it out of her mind. When she looked out again, they were driving down darkened, almost deserted Hollywood Boulevard. A few late stragglers turned to look at the slinky limousine as it rolled by. Terry drew back in the corner, indifferent to the effect of the splendor in which she rode. The chauffeur pulled up in front of the apartment house in which she lived and opened the door for her.
“Good night, Miss,” he said as she got out.
“Good night,” she said mechanically.
5
She found her key and opened the hall door. Then she slowly climbed the flight of stairs and let herself into the one-room apartment. Her thoughts had depressed her until she seemed to feel a pain that was physical. She dropped her wrap on the divan that served as a couch and bed in one and walked over to a table on which stood a picture of a clean-cut, blond boy who seemed to look right back at her with a pair of gay, smiling eyes. She picked the picture up and looked long at it.
“If we could only have worked out our lives the way we should have,” she said softly, “I could have done without all this gladly.”
She took the picture with her and lay down on the divan. She held it up and continued to study the lively, smiling features. A sensation of deep pity for the boy in the picture, for herself, for the petty desire for fame as a substitute for the things she had really wanted, brought slow tears to her eyes. Holding the picture close to her, she closed her eyes, waiting for sleep to take her, and remembering.…
How long ago had it been? Six months? A year? A year and a half? The time just seemed to blur, now that it was all over. But she could remember the beginning so clearly. She had gone out for dinner with—what was his name?—Mike somebody. Mike Jurgens, a bit player, a nobody who had appeared in three or four B-grade movies and who was giving her a big line about how much he could help her career.
They had eaten, and they had gone then to the Lafayette for dancing. A new band was there, a sensational outfit that was rising fast and getting plenty of praise—Bob McKay and his orchestra. A bunch of high-stepping youngsters who had risen right out of nowhere to conquer the big time in L.A.
Terry didn’t know much about them, except that they were the current sensation. But before the evening was over, she knew a lot more.
They came in and took a table. The orchestra was hitting it up strong, practically at fever pitch in the frenzy of its excitement. At the head of the orchestra stood Bob McKay, young, blond, almost unlawfully handsome. His face was flushed and glossy with sweat, but his eyes were bright and gay and his fingers danced over the keys of the clarinet, weaving a wild, excited tune that climbed toward the stratosphere. Terry watched in amazement. She had never seen so much sheer dynamic energy locked up in one person before. Up there on the platform, Bob McKay seemed to be revealing his naked soul, flinging his inmost self out in torrid music.
She sat transfixed, not even noticing when her escort asked her what she wanted to drink. And then the number ended. It ended abruptly, as though cut short by a cleaver. Terry didn’t know it yet, but that was a trademark of the Bob McKay group. The abrupt ending catapulted everyone into a silence of tremendous intensity—a silence to be broken in a few moments by the start of a new number.
She stared at the bandleader.
The bandleader stared back. His eyes swung round to meet hers as though drawn by magnetism, and for a long moment they gazed at each other. Terry began to tremble under the intense stare. But it broke, finally, as a waiter approached the bandstand with a tall drink for the leader. Gratefully, McKay took it from him, gulped it down eagerly, smiled at Terry, and turned around to swing into the next number.
And the next, and the next, and the next.…
And then it was ten o’clock, and the band was taking its break. Terry sipped her drink thoughtfully. Beside her, Mike Jurgens was scowling angrily. She had hardly said a word to him since they walked in. She had had eyes only for the bandleader, Bob McKay.
Suddenly McKay appeared at their table. He was red-faced and he was clutching a drink.
“Hello,” he said. “Mind if I join you nice people for a minute?”
“Not at all,” Terry said eagerly, forestalling a grouchy protest from Jurgens.
McKay slipped into the empty seat. “Whew! I really need this drink,” he muttered. “I bet I lose ten pounds a night up there.”
“You really give everything you have, don’t you?” Terry asked quietly.
McKay shrugged. “What other way is there?”
He finished his drink and signaled, and almost as though by magic a waiter glided up with another. McKay took it, laughing. “Little agreement I have with the management,” he explained. “I take part of my pay in free booze every night. Keeps me going.” He leaned forward, his face close to Terry’s, while Jurgens glowered in displeasure. McKay said, “You’re so lovely you must be in pictures. What have you been in?”
Terry grinned. “Nothing, yet,” she admitted. “In fact, I’m still trying to get my first screen test.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Wish I was. But this town is full of starry-eyed hopefuls.”
“I’ll be damned,” McKay mused. “Well, let me tell you right here and now—if you don’t make the big time, and make it really big, I’m no judge of talent. You’ve got it, you know? You just seem to radiate warmth and beauty and—and magnetism—” He laughed. “I guess I’ve had a little too much to drink. You’re a complete stranger and I’m going on and on about you. I don’t even know your name, after all.”
“It’s Terry. Terry Stafford.”
“I’m Bob McKay.”
“Yes, of course, I know,” she said.
“And I’m Mike Jurgens,” Jurgens said coldly. “Just as long as we’re so chummy, I might as well introduce myself, too. I’m Miss Stafford’s escort for this evening.”
“Hello,” McKay said without interest.
“Mike’s in the movies,” Terry said. “He’s been in Dark Victory, and Terror at Midnight, and—oh, lots of films, I guess.”
“Must have missed them,” McKay said. He finished his drink and scrambled to his feet. “Well, time to get back to the old grind. Nice to meet you, Miss Stafford. Terry. And you, Jurgens. Come hear us again some time.”
McKay returned to the bandstand and within a few moments was leading his orchestra in another round of frenzied melody. Terry and Jurgens danced for a while, but Terry kept turning around to watch the leader of the band, and after the third dance Jurgens said abruptly, “Let’s leave, Terry.”
“Not yet.”
“I want to. There’s a jazz club on La Cienega I want to take you to tonight.”
“I like it fine here,” she said crisply.
Jurgens glared at her. “I feel like I’ve got competition here.”
“Maybe you do.”
“Well, I don’t like that arrangement. I want to leave.”
“If you do, you’ll leave without me,” she snapped.
“That suits me just fine,” he snapped back. He opened his billfold and took out a five-dollar bill.
“Here,” he told her. “Take a taxi home. Goodnight, Terry.”
“Mike—”
But he had already stalked out. Terry looked after him in embarrassment and anger. Then, with sudden rage, she seized the five-dollar bill and tore it into tiny fragments. Then she found an empty table down front, near the band, and settled down to listen to Bob McKay.
Evidently he thought that Jurgens had gone to the rest room. But half an hour went by, an hour, seventy minutes, and still Terry sat alone. During a break in the music McKay leaned down from the bandstand and whispered, “What happened to Romeo?”
“He got fed up and left.”
“What the heck for?”
“He gets jealous easy,” Terry said.
“So he stranded you?”
“He gave me money to take a cab home.”
“Damn nice of him,” McKay said fiercely.
“But I tore the money up. Guess I walk home.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m through here in another hour, and I’ll take you. Is that okay?”
“Don’t inconvenience yourself for me, Mr. McKay.”
“It’s no trouble at all. Matter of fact, it’s a sheer delight. And the name is Bob.”
She waited, and the minutes crawled by, and then finally it was closing time, and the band was coming off the stand, and people were leaving. Terry sat alone in the darkened dance hall for a few minutes, and then McKay appeared, looking wornout and drained of vitality. He was wobbling a little, and there was a drink in his hand. He finished it off and smiled at Terry.
“Let’s go,” he said. “The chariot awaits without, milady.”
He had a foreign sports car, low and streamlined. As they got in, Terry said anxiously, “Do you think you’re all right for driving, Bob? I mean—”
“You think I’m too looped to drive? Let me tell you, baby, it takes five times as much alcohol as I’ve had tonight to interfere with my coordination.”
And he was right—he drove recklessly but with good control. On the way home, they talked. She told him of her so far unsuccessful attempt to crash the movies, and he spoke of his—highly successful—orchestral career. It had started in college, and he had just skyrocketed on to fame with mostly the same group. At twenty-eight, he was on top of the world, making a hundred thousand a year and worshipped by everyone.
And yet he was worried. The strain of such intense music-making was taking its toll on him. To keep going, he needed drinks. But they took their toll, too. He was tired practically all the time, now. His temper frayed easily. Sometimes he muffed notes from sheer fatigue. But, he told himself, he was going to fix things soon. He was going to take a month’s vacation in Bermuda or some place tranquil like that, and when he came back he’d have all his old stamina once again.
They reached her house and he kissed her goodnight, chastely, and she went in. That night she was unable to sleep for sheer excitement.
It was love, she was sure.
How about him? Was he just amusing himself by driving her home, or was he as interested in her as she was in him?
It turned out that he was. Terry went back to the Lafayette the next night—alone—and McKay came down from the bandstand to take a couple of dances with her while his men got along without him. They went home again together that night. This time she invited him in, and they had a couple of drinks, and they kissed long and passionately, though they went no further.
And then the next night—
It was in the early hours of the morning. They had curled up comfortably on Terry’s couch, listening to some old jazz records of hers, and suddenly McKay turned to her, his lips going to hers, his hand tenderly stealing up her body to caress the full swelling mounds of her breasts, and she felt something ripening within her body, something wanting to be taken, and she clung tightly to him. And he peeled away her clothing without a word, she making no attempt to stop him, because she knew that this was what she really wanted, this above all else in the universe.
And when she was naked, he knelt before her, gently kissing the pink tips of her breasts, and she felt the nipples growing stiff and hard, thrusting upward, and she felt a tension in her breasts that only the touch of his hand could relieve. He stroked her body as though she were a princess. And then he was picking her up, sliding one hand lovingly round her shoulders and the other underneath her, and he carried her into the bedroom.
She lay on the bed, watching him undress, eyeing his lean muscular body with pleasure, wondering what it would be like, to have him do away in a moment the virginity she had had so long. She hoped it would not hurt. He was naked, now, smiling, coming toward her, settling down on the bed, caressing her, and she felt his weight on her, but oddly she did not mind the burden.
She spoke only once:
“Be gentle with me, Bob. This is—my first time—my first time ever—”
He was gentle, and there was no pain as their bodies joined, only warmth and the overflowing sensation of fulfillment as he guided her through the motions, until she needed no more guidance, until the shattering wonderful climax. He spent the night with her. She did not feel shame for her action. This was love, she told herself.
The real thing.
All the next day her body tingled from the memory of his caress, and she could not wait until night. But finally night came, and they made love, and slept well into the day, and she cooked for him and then it was time for him to report to the Lafayette for warmups.
That was the way it went, as weeks stretched into months. Her body came to be almost an extension of his; when they came together in bed, it was almost always perfect. There was the understanding that they would marry, “one of these days”—no rush about it, so long as they loved each other.
