Wireman

CHAPTER 17

JACK DESHANE sat in a gold brocade chair across from Eileen. He was dressed in dark blue slacks and a sweater, but Eileen only wore a thin lacy lilac gown that came to her ankles. Jack squirmed a little in the chair and fought the impulse to move to the sofa near her. He sloshed the Scotch around in his glass and watched the ice cubes swirl. He was almost sober. Hung over and beginning another bender, but so far he was not mindlessly drunk.

“I’m going to stop drinking,” he announced, and realized he was speaking louder than he had meant to. He licked his lips and looked away from Eileen.

“I thought you would, Jack. Just as soon as you…” She let the sentence trail off to keep from reminding him of Willie. But it did not matter. He had never stopped thinking of Willie.

“I mean it, though. I’m stopping. Yesterday I almost had a wreck because I drove under the influence. What a joke that is, a cop who almost got busted for D.W.I. I can’t keep doing things like that.”

“Come sit beside me Jack.” Eileen patted the cushion beside her hopefully.

He shook his head. “Not yet. In a little while, Eileen. I just want to talk.”

She settled back comfortably and crossed her legs, her eyes staying on Jack’s face. When he put the unfinished drink down on the table beside him, she relaxed even more. “Do you like this apartment?” she asked.

Jack stared through the wall of windows into the sparkling city night beyond. “It’s too rich for me,” he said softly. “I’m used to worn carpets and big kitchens where too many owners have painted the cabinets too many times.”

“This is too modern? Too high up?”

“Too rich,” he repeated, but no hint of reproof was in the observation.

“You wouldn’t like to stay here with me for a while, shut out all that down there?” She gestured with one hand to the city sprawled below them.

“Are you making an offer?”

“I think we could call it that. ” Eileen smiled.

“What about your clientele? Wouldn’t they miss you?”

“They know other women to go to. I don’t live by a schedule. I live the way it pleases me most.” She saw his attention had strayed once again to the city nightlights.

“Jack? I want you to stay. I want to help.”

He turned to gaze at her. “Thanks for the offer, but…” His voice faltered.

“It’s too rich, right?”

“You know what I want, Eileen. I want you, living with you, marrying you if you’d let me, but my dreams could never include this lavish apartment or a bird’s nest view of Houston. It’s a little more down to earth. A little more common. I’ve never seen myself as a kept man.” His sad smile revealed more than his words. “What would the department say?”

“You’re incredibly old-fashioned, Jack, an incurable romantic. I used to be a romantic too,” Eileen said softly.

“What changed you?”

Eileen looked down at the cushion beside her. “I won’t lie and say it was the school of hard knocks. It wasn’t. In high school I became one of Jean Barret’s top models for two years. I had a respectable portfolio. If I’d gone to the Ford Agency in New York or tried for L.A., I might have been another Cheryl Tiegs.” She laughed suddenly at her immodesty and crossed her legs.

“Why didn’t you?” Jack realized that Eileen had always shied away from talking about her past. He wished he were a bit more sober.

“My roots here were too deep, I guess. I’ve asked myself why I didn’t try for it. All it would have taken was a plane ticket to either coast, my credits and pictures tucked under my arm. Maybe there’s something too stubbornly Texas about me. I couldn’t leave home. Then I realized that if I didn’t leave, modeling was a dead-end career for me. Once you turn down too many offers, they stop calling, and you can’t stagnate. You either move onward and upward or you quit.”

“What about…?” Jack wished he could take back the words as soon as he said them.

“Prostitution? How did I get into it? It was a natural. I could still trade off what nature had given to me, my looks. It was convenient. Can you understand that, Jack? I wouldn’t have to leave Houston and make my way in the fierce competitive atmosphere of the modeling worlds of New York or Los Angeles. Maybe part of it was fear that I’d fail, that I wouldn’t be the best, the most desired. Staying here, doing what I do now, I knew I’d be in demand. Oh there’s competition, but not as much as you might think. Most of the really beautiful, talented women take those offers and wind up as models or handing out their expensive favors in Washington or Paris. My competition in Houston is… negligible.”

Without thinking, Jack picked up the glass of Scotch and sipped it. Then he realized what he was doing and put it down again.

“When I was twenty,” Eileen continued carefully, “an older man came to me. He had a lot of money and a reputation to uphold. He was kind and generous. He paid for things and he didn’t ask for much in return. I didn’t love him, but I cared for him, I really did. When he… he died, he sent someone else to take his place. And from there…” She shrugged.

“This is hard for you to tell me isn’t it?”

“Telling you makes it sound like a gutless thing to do and that’s not the way it was. In most ways it was what I wanted. Security, privacy, a peaceful existence… even respect.”

“You’ve never been in love with anyone? You’ve never wanted a family, children?” On the word children Jack winced, and Eileen saw the scar on his cheek twitch and begin to redden.

“I haven’t thought much about a family,” she replied honestly. “And you’re right, I’ve never been in love. I don’t know if now—after all this time—I would know what love is.”

Jack moved from the chair to her side on the sofa. He put an arm around her shoulder and drew her near.

Love. Children. Family. Did anyone know what it all meant until it was lost? Maybe Eileen was right not to take chances on being hurt.

Jack felt a vast, limitless space opening up deep inside. He felt himself falling into it, floundering through the black, cold space, and he clasped Eileen tightly, desperately.

She stroked the hair at his temples and kissed him.

He lifted her from the sofa, and carried her into the bedroom. He set her on the soft mattress and slipped the shimmering lilac gown from her flawless shoulders. His hands slid down her arms pulling the slip straps, then he cupped her breasts. His kisses followed her pulsing throat down to the center of her breasts, then he took both hardened nipples into his mouth in turn, alternately kissing them, drawing them out against his tongue.

Eileen moaned, her head thrown back, her eyes closed. Jack nudged the gown over her hips and she lifted herself to let it slide free. She lay back on the lavender satin comforter, her long auburn hair spread around her small porcelain face.

She lay still, her breath shallow as he undressed. He stared down at her loveliness, the shadow at the hollow of her throat, the rising mounds of her breasts, the clean sculptured line of her body that dipped and rolled over her abdomen, the dark tangle of hair between her thighs.

He gently lowered himself to the bed and pressed her legs apart. He moved against her, felt her thighs giving, opening for him, felt her hands circling to his hips, gripping him closer, deeper. She cried out as he lunged and he knew only a driving wildness that was drowning out all his grief. Nothing existed beyond her warmth, her acceptance, her flesh arching against his flesh in tempestuous rhythm. He took her hips in his hands, braced himself against the bed, drew her up to him. Her legs entwined around his back, and together they erased memory and sorrow, release over-riding everything else.

Finally they lay spent. Jack opened his eyes and licked her delicate ear. He heard the tiny whispers of her breathing rushing past, telling him without words that it was all right now, he was not alone in the world.

He looked down at her. The hair around her face was damp, and she gazed back with misty green eyes. He rested his head on her shoulder and felt her fingers stroking his face.

“I can’t stay here. God, I wish I could,” Jack said sadly.

“You’ll come back. You’ll stay tonight and you’ll come back.”

“One day you’ll go with me. You’ll want to stay with me.”

Eileen smiled at the thought. “And develop a fondness for big kitchens with painted cabinets?”

“Maybe.” Jack sounded hopeful.

“Maybe you’re right. I never argue with old-fashioned men.” Eileen squeezed Jack tightly. They rolled toward each other and kissed.

“You can have a dishwasher. That’s as modern as I’ll go,” he declared, smiling at her.

“I’ll feel deprived.”

“You’ll get used to it, and I’ll make up for it in other ways.”

She laughed and tickled him in the ribs. “That’s a tempting offer, kind sir. I’ll think about it.” Eileen kissed him softly on the lips. “I surely will give it some thought.”