She got to her feet. “I don’t get it, Craig. Say what you mean.”
“I’ll do better than that. I’ll show you.”
She stood in her tracks while he walked across the room to a table. He opened a drawer and drew forth an envelope. Then he crossed the room again and presented the envelope to her with a flourish.
“Here you are,” he said. “See for yourself.”
She opened the envelope and nearly fell to the floor. As it was she took two steps backward and sat down again on the couch, her mouth open and her eyes wide.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Look them over. Some of them are works of art, girl.”
They were pictures. A dozen pictures, all told, and not one of them printable. And in each picture a young girl was plainly visible.
The girl was April North.
“How did you—”
“Take the pictures?” He grinned. “It was easy enough, my dear. Long ago I realized the advantage of candid photography. I’ve taken the trouble to install a camera or two in the walls of my bedroom. The expense was considerable, but I think you’ll agree the results justify it. All that was required was to snap a remote control unit at the proper moment. I’ve taken dozens of pictures of you, April. These are the choicest items in the lot. They are nice, wouldn’t you say?”
They were magnificent. A shot of her and Craig, she lying on her back, Craig between her white thighs. A shot of herself leaning face-down over the bed, feet on the floor, with Craig standing behind her.
A shot that showed only her face, catching her in an act which Craig had assured her was “perfectly natural,” and which now made her want to vomit.
Another shot.
And more.
And, finally, a picture that had been taken the night before, in the garden. A picture of two female bodies intertwined on a terrycloth-covered chaise. One was the body of April North.
“Yes,” he said, indicating the picture, “that one was rather a surprise. I was wandering in the garden and came upon you two, you and the redoubtable Margo. You were too excited to take notice of me, I’m afraid. So I scurried off for my camera and rendered the moment immortal. You know, you’ve rather a nerve to criticize me. You were having quite a time with Margo, girl.”
“I was drunk.”
“But hardly too drunk to enjoy yourself. Don’t moralize in my direction, April. On the one hand you try to call yourself a free spirit, a sinless wonder. And on the other hand you castigate me for a lack of fidelity to you. A rather illogical position, wouldn’t you say?”
She said nothing. He grinned again, pointing to the pictures. “And now you want to leave me, to flee to your family and five the good life again. Fortunately, you cannot do this. I’ve protected you from that, April.”
“How?”
“With those pictures,” he said. “Those art studies. Do you think your parents will welcome you when they’ve seen them?”
“They won’t see them.”
“But they will, dear.”
She snatched the photographs, shredded them viciously. She tore each one in half and tore the halves in half while he watched her with a gleam in his eye.
“An empty gesture, April.”
“Craig—”
He spread his hands, palms raised. “Your parents will see the photographs,” he said. “It’s out of my hands, really. This afternoon it occurred to me that you ought to bid your mother and father good-bye and move in with me on a permanent basis. To further that aim I sent a set of prints to your parents. I doubt that they’ll receive you with open arms.”
“You—”
“Mailed the pictures,” he supplied. “That’s exactly what I did. While I dropped dear Sweet Sue at her home in Xenia, I mailed the photographs. Your parents should receive them in the morning mail.”
“I’ll get them first.”
“By staying home from school, April?”
“If I have to.”
He sighed. “Not even that way,” he said. “You see, I made up two sets of prints. I mailed one to your mother at your house. I dispatched the other to your father, the droll druggist, at his place of business. I don’t think you’ll be able to cut off both letters, dear April. Will you?”
She closed her eyes and thought that she was going to die. Everything, her future, her life, was wrecked, irreparably smashed, she knew. The pictures would kill whatever chance she might have had for happiness. There was no going back now, no living in her fathers house, no life in Antrim.
It was over.
Over and done with.
Everything had seemed so simple before. Just get rid of Craig, go home, relax. Start living like a decent girl again, and in time everything would be all right.
Yes, she thought. That was the way she had worked out her plans. But the future was not going to play itself out that way. A good decent future would have been nice, but a dozen filthy pictures showing April North having sex would make all that quite impossible.
“Damn you,” she said.
He laughed.
“Damn you to hell. I hate you, Craig. I’d love to kill you. I’d like to cut your throat and watch you bleed.”
“Do you hate me that much?”
“God, how I hate you.” She turned from him, unable to look at him now. “You’ve ruined everything,” she told him. “I had a chance until you sent those pictures out I had a chance. I could have carved out a decent life for myself.”
“You’d have died of boredom.”
“I’d have been clean.”
“Clean and dull. April, you’ve come a long way in a short time. You were beginning to learn what being a woman meant. Not a kitchen drudge like your mother — a real woman.”
“I’d rather be a decent human being.”
“You can’t now, can you?”
She drew a breath. “No,” she said, “I guess not I guess you fixed everything, Craig.”
He smiled at her. “You can move in here, you know.”
“What!”
“You can move in with me,” he repeated. “You can’t go home, obviously. It’s out of my hands and into the hands of the United States Post Office, and their hands are too strong for us to tamper with. But you can move into my house and share my bed and five the sort of life you’ve tasted recently. A good life, April. A wild free life that doesn’t take a human being and turn him into a robot.”
“With sex and parties?”
“With sex and parties,” he said. “And don’t try to make a saint out of yourself, child. You happen to like sex and parties. You happen to like everything about them. Don’t deny it. You’ve loved everything I’ve given you and I’ve given you plenty. If you’ve got a brain in your feathery little head you’ll move in here and like it. And sleep with anyone who asks you and have yourself a ball before you’re dead.”
Their eyes met, and she stared at him and let him stare at her.
Then he dropped his eyes.
“No,” she said.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
And her certainty must have showed because after a moment he simply shrugged and nodded his head. He told her she was making a mistake, and she said that she was not, that her greatest mistake had been Craig Jeffers.
“Then you’re going?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Can I give you a lift?”
“I’ll walk.”
“It’s a long walk, April. And it’s starting to rain outside. You’ll get wet.”
“I don’t care.”
“I see. Where are you going, April?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe New York. But it doesn’t really matter, Craig. Nothing matters.”
She started to the door. He moved to open it for her but she brushed him aside and opened it herself. He was right, rain had started and the night was gloomy. Soon she would get soaked.