Still, Brenda couldn’t bear the hurt expression on Ling-Foi’s face now. It was obvious that if she didn’t come up with an explanation quickly, her loved one was going to think the worst. And the only explanation her confused mind could come up with was the truth.
“I was at a session with my analyst,” she told Ling-Foi.
“Your analyst? You never told me you were in treatment.”
“Well, I am. I guess I didn’t want to tell you. I don’t like to talk about it.”
“What’s wrong? Is it that you’re ashamed of being a Lesbian and want to change?” Ling-Foi guessed.
“Maybe. I’m not sure.” Brenda felt herself bristling and tried to repress the emotion. “I told you. I’d really rather not discuss it.”
“As you wish, of course. I am your most obedient servant and shall be guided by your wishes.” Ling-Foi rose in the bed and bowed her head.
“Now, there’s no reason to be sarcastic,” Brenda flared.
But I’m not. After such pleasure as you have given me, the last thing I wish to do is displease you,” Ling-Foi said soothingly. Then, as an afterthought—“Is this analyst of yours in the neighborhood?"
“In this building.”
“In this building? Wait one moment! You aren’t by any chance being treated by Dr. Mavis Golden, are you?”
“I am. Do you know her?”
“Do I know her?” Ling-Foi burst out in a hearty, most un-Oriental laugh. “Do I ever!” Her laughter continued and grew louder.
“I don’t see anything so damn funny!”
“Oh, but you will, baby, you will. Just as soon as I get‘ breath enough to talk, you will.”
“You, re out of character,” Brenda said icily.
“Ain’t I just, though? But at the moment, I couldn’t care less. This is just too much. So you think Mavis Golden is gonna cure you of being a dyke, huh? Well, my naive lover-girl, you have another thing coming!”
“What do you mean? Why shouldn’t she be able to help me?”
“Because she’s just as much of a dyke as you are, that’s why!”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Brenda protested. “She’s a married woman.”
“Hell, that doesn’t mean anything. You’ve been around long enough to know that.”
“Even so, how could you know anything like that about her?” Brenda asked indignantly.
“How could I know? Oh, that’s rich! Because she was my lover for six months! That’s how I know. She spent more time up here than she did in her office last summer. I tell you, we had a real hot and heavy affair. While it lasted, it was the greatest!”
“Why did you end it?”
“Her husband had been in Europe for the summer. When he came home, the good doctor kissed me off.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me about it?” Brenda asked hotly.
“Did you tell me about all your past affairs?” Ling-Foi shrugged. “It was really none of your business.”
“Was she— Was she good? In bed, I mean,” Brenda asked jealously.
“Uh-huh!” Ling-Foi purred. “Mavis had a way with her, all right. Real great technique. She really knows how to satisfy a girl when she makes love to her.”
“Then she was better than me!” Brenda said accusingly.
Ling-Foi only smiled.
“Well, was she? Was she a more satisfactory lover than I am to you?”
Ling-Foi’s smile widened and she looked straight into Brenda’s eyes. The look said that she wasn’t going to lie about it.
“Then to hell with both of you!” Brenda sprang to her feet in a rage and slammed out of the apartment.
The rage continued as she stood in the hall opposite the elevator. She was so angry that she forgot to push the button, but she stood and waited stupidly for it anyway. Her lips were drawn back over her teeth, her fists clenched, her whole body shaking with fury.
It filled her mind as she remembered her sessions with Dr. Golden, recalled her confessions to Dr. Golden about the Chinese girl in this very building with whom she was having an affair, recollected the cool, noncommittal way the doctor had sat there taking notes. Yes, and there was all that sympathy and understanding the doctor had manifested toward the problem of being a Lesbian. The witch! And all the time she was really a Lesbian herself! All the time she’d known that the girl Brenda was so in love with was one of her very own cast-offs! How she must have been laughing at her!
That thought detonated the rage inside Brenda’s brain. She jabbed savagely at the elevator button. When it reached her floor, she got into the car and stood a moment, shaking all over with her desire to revenge herself against Dr. Golden for having made such a fool out of her. Finally her outstretched finger reached for the bank of buttons. It hovered there for a moment between “L” and “S”. Then it jabbed murderously . . .
CHAPTER 10
Raw Bait for the Rapist
“. .. I’M AFRAID of myself! Me, Vance Thurmond, who isn’t afraid of another thing in this world. They gave me a Bronze Star in Vietnam, you know. I killed thirteen Reds, three of them in hand-to-hand combat, the rest with my carbine. Only then they made a mistake. They sent me back home. Six months later I was in jail . . . What for? Assault and rape. I couldn’t stop myself. Even after they caught me, I wasn’t sorry. I enjoyed it so much it was almost worth going to jail for. Especially since they went real easy on me because of my army record . . . When they paroled me, they sent me to a clinic and that’s where I met Dr. Golden here. That was about three months ago. I don’t want to knock her, but I don’t know how much good she’s doing me. I still get this overwhelming impulse to attack women, to hurt them and then take them by force. Maybe this group therapy business will help. I hope so. I’m only twenty-three years old and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life hopping in and out of prison . . .”
Vance Thurmond Liked the rain. He walked from Dr. Golden’s building over to Riverside Drive and sat down on a bench to watch the storm gathering force as it blew in over the river. He turned up the collar of his leather jacket against the wind and snorted a challenge aloud, a guntlet flung in the teeth of nature.
Braving the storm, he stayed there for a long while, well over an hour, a square-cut figure of a young man with shoulders thrown back in a military posture and craggy, rough-hewn face, unshaven, raised arrogantly against the elements. No hat covered the stubbly crew-cut of his black hair, and from time to time he had to shake his head to clear his eyes—metallic, blue-gray, staring—of the raindrops. All the time he stayed there, unaware that he was doing it, the fist of one hand thumped a solid, metronome-like beat against the palm of the other.
This movement, like his enjoyment of the storm, played around the periphery of Vance’s consciousness and didn’t intrude on the thoughts which gripped him. His mind was fixed on Lisa and the dream she’d related to the group that night. The only physical sensation which did infiltrate his awareness to a marked extent was the feeling of tightness in his groin, where his imaginings were making him strain against the tightness of the crotch of his pants. The aching bulge was like a weapon waiting to be unholstered and used to beat Lisa into submission.
Lisa . . . Vance pictured her. That long red hair, worn in a ponytail, tossed about like a mantle to advertise her lust, a mantle to tempt men! And those teasing green eyes with the taunt they flung at a man, daring him to throw her down to the floor,right then and there and make love to her! And that body, with the large breasts always bouncing so brazenly, the long legs always crossed and jiggling as if in the throes of some orgiastic thrill, that lush behind bouncing and those hot hips swaying, signaling the message to any man: “Here I am! Come and get me! If you’ve got the nerve!” Lisa . . . .