“Positive.”
She pressed her lips to his throat and kissed him, a long, soothing kiss that had no passion to it but an infinite amount of love.
“If you want me,” she said, “I want you.”
He took her face in his hands and kissed her all over it — her eyes, her nose, her ears, her lips and her chin, little sexless kisses all over her face. She smiled up at him.
“I want to stay here tonight,” he said.
“All right.”
“Aren’t you… afraid of me?”
“What do you mean?”
“If I’m here all night, there’s no telling what I might do.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course, Ralph. I don’t think I could ever be afraid of you.”
He kissed her. Then they snuggled up close again and she reached up and turned out the light. It was still quite early and they lay together for hours, whispering and touching each other, kissing like schoolchildren and talking about what they would do and where they would live when they were married.
They were both fully relaxed. Neither had to do anything to prove that they were in love, and they rested together as two people can rest only after lovemaking that is completely satisfactory to both parties, lovemaking that is a part of love.
And, hours later, they fell asleep. They slept all night in one position with their bodies close together and their arms around each other.
The wind made noises outside the window. Once, in the middle of the night, the wind managed to blow up a storm with thunder and lightning. The rain poured down for almost an hour and the lightning ignited the sky and the thunder cracked and rumbled.
They never noticed it. They were in love and they were asleep, asleep with each other, and the rain and the thunder and the lightning might just as well never have happened.
Ralph woke up first. The first thing he was aware of, even before he remembered where he was and who he was and that it was morning, was the woman he held in his arms. He tried to get out of bed without waking her, but as soon as he made the first movement her eyes came open and she smiled at him.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Good morning.”
“Did I ever tell you I’m in love with you?”
“Dozens of times.”
“Honest?”
“Sure enough.”
“Well,” she said, sleepily, “I was telling the absolute truth.”
“Good thing you were.”
“Mmmmmmm.”
He smiled to himself and kissed her eyes shut. “Go back to sleep,” he told her. “I’ll be back in a little while.”
“Where are you going?”
“Out.”
“That’s a hell of an answer.”
“You want a better answer?”
“Mmmmmmm.”
“I’m going to the bank,” he said. “I’ve got about a hundred bucks in an account in my name and I want to draw it out.”
“What for?”
“For us to get married on.”
She thought for a minute. “You know,” she said, “I couldn’t possibly think of a better use for the money. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t possibly think of a better reason for you to sneak out of bed and leave me alone.”
“It’s a good reason.”
“A hell of a good reason,” she said. “But hurry back.”
He kissed her and pulled himself out of bed.
He dressed but his clothes were dirty and he stopped downstairs to change them. He made as little noise as possible inside his own apartment in an effort to avoid waking Stella. He changed quickly into a white sport shirt and a pair of cord slacks and left the apartment as quietly as he had entered it.
But he woke Stella.
Stella didn’t move until Ralph was gone from the apartment. She didn’t want to see him any more than he wanted to see her, as it happened. But the moment the door closed and he was gone, she clambered out of bed and put on her clothes, the same polka dot shorts-and-halter set she had been wearing the day before.
She washed and brushed her teeth in a hurry, but didn’t bother about breakfast. There was something she had to do, something that had to be done in a hurry. There was no way to tell how much time she had left.
She put her hand on the back of her head and cursed softly to herself. Susan Rivers swung a mean lamp — there was no question about it. Her head still ached and there was a lump where the blow had landed. She cursed again and sat down for a moment on the couch, thinking.
There was something she had to do. It had to be done and it had to be done in a hurry. Part of her knew that it was something she shouldn’t do, something she should go back to bed and forget about.
But she couldn’t.
No, she had to go through with it. No matter how it turned out, no matter what happened to her, she couldn’t get the notion out of her head. Last night she had tried desperately to take out all of her aggressions on Maria, but all she succeeded in doing was reducing the poor little thing to a mass of quivering, aching flesh. Her own hungers remained unabated; her own lusts stayed just as strong as they had been to begin with.
And so she had to do the Thing. It was a Thing with a capital T by now, because it had grown to assume rather immense proportions in her mind.
The Thing had to be done.
She slipped a pair of sandals onto her feet and walked to the door of the apartment. She opened the door, looked around, walked through it and closed the door behind her. The hallway was empty, the building happily quiet. She walked to the stairway and began mounting the stairs, anxious to do the Thing.
The Thing was very simple.
She was going to rape and murder Susan Rivers.
Susan was still dozing when the knock came on her door. If she had been fully awake things might have been different. Then she would have thought clearly, and if she’d thought clearly she would possibly have refused to open the door. At least she would have asked first who it was.
But, as it happened, she was not fully awake. And it didn’t even enter her mind that the person knocking at the door could be Stella James. For that matter, she didn’t even stop to think that the person knocking at her door could be anyone else in the world but Ralph.
And she wanted to see Ralph.
She pushed the covers back and slipped out of bed. Because she assumed that it was Ralph at the door she didn’t even take the trouble to slip into a robe. Ralph was used to seeing her naked, and certainly there was no point in dressing up now for him.
She padded across the floor to the door. Some reflex made her hesitate for the briefest second with her hand on the doorknob, but the reflex wasn’t enough to keep her from opening the door for Ralph.
Except, of course, that it wasn’t Ralph at the door. Not at all.
It was a woman — a tall blonde dressed in a polka dot halter, polka dot shorts, and a pair of sandals.
It was, naturally, Stella James.
Susan didn’t entirely believe her eyes for a second. But, automatically, she took a quick step backwards.
And this was fortunate; because if she hadn’t done this Stella’s hands would have encircled her neck. As it was Stella lunged forward with her hands outstretched and missed and Susan managed to jump back again and out of the way.
But Stella was inside the door now. And the insane light in the woman’s eyes made Susan want to shriek her lungs out for help.
Now she was awake. Now she was wide awake, wide awake and thoroughly terrified and moving away from Stella into the kitchenette, just trying to get away, trying to put as much distance between the two of them as possible.
She wanted to scream. Oh, God how she wanted to scream. But how did you go about screaming early in the morning? Her mouth opened wide but no sounds came out of it. She tried desperately to launch a scream but only a strangled sob tore forth from her throat.