The Spiked Heel

They went to a place called Skippy’s, and Griff was surprised to find it packed to the eyeballs, in spite of the rain. Their waiter took them to a table too close to the bandstand, but there was nothing else available, and they realized all the places along Central Avenue would probably be just as crowded. There was a good deal of noise in Skippy’s, and a good deal of smoke, and when the band started playing, they could barely hear each other speak. They fled to the dance floor. The floor was jampacked. Cara felt good in his arms, but it was almost impossible to dance, and he felt hot and awkward and clumsy. She was pressed tight against him, her body molded against his. He could feel the mounds of her breasts through the thin dress she was wearing, and below that the firmness of her stomach. He realized abruptly that no one on the floor was really dancing. It was a sort of vertical fornication exhibition, and the thought embarrassed him and he sensed Cara’s embarrassment at the same moment. It was as if they had been stripped naked and thrown against each other. Her body against his did not excite him; his embarrassment squashed any excitement he might have ordinarily felt, making him feel like a degenerate in a crowded subway car. He wondered if Cara thought he was enjoying this, and he wanted to say something about it, but he figured any mention of it would only aggravate the situation. For a brief moment, there was an open spot on the dance floor. He moved into it, and Cara pulled her body from his gently, and then the spot closed in upon them, shoving her against him with rude forcefulness, exaggerating their nakedness.

“We’d better sit down,” he said.

She nodded and smiled tremulously, but there was something of accusation in the smile. They fought their way back to the table, and he grasped for his drink anxiously.

The trumpet player blasted away at his back.

“It’s pretty crowded,” he shouted.

“Yes,” she said. She seemed to want to adjust her clothes, like a prostitute after a brief tussle in bed with a stranger.

“I had no idea—” he started, but a trombone behind him ended the sentence for him in a throaty growl which seemed never to finish. He waited until the piano chorus, and then he said, “This is a good night to get pleasantly looped, don’t you think?”

“It might not be a bad idea,” she said, and then she sighed a curiously forlorn sigh.

They began drinking in earnest. There was a feverishness about the way they drank. It was as if they both realized this evening was going to be a bust, and they had to do something about it, and damned fast. They had to dull their senses, they had to weave a fantasy which did not exist, they had to become a part of something they had both expected and which somehow had not materialized. They drank quickly, hardly tasting what they drank, drinking because they wanted to get as high as possible as soon as possible. And perhaps because they drank so determinedly, their drunkenness was a long time coming, and even when it came, it produced a forced gaiety which was as strained as their earlier sobriety had been. The liquor put a high flush on Cara’s face, and it darkened the brownness of her eyes, giving her a somewhat feral expression which she had not worn at the start of the evening.

“What’s the use?” she said to him thickly.

“What’s what use?” he answered.

“What’s the use?” she repeated, leaning over the table toward him. “You get a pattern, and then you got a pattern.”

“You talking about shoes?” he asked, trying to keep her in focus.

“People,” she said. “I’m talking about people.”

“What about people?”

“You’re a doll,” she said. “Mmmm, you’re a doll,” and there was something savage in her face now. Her lips were skinned back over her teeth, and her eyes held his unwaveringly. “Dance with me, doll,” she said.

He looked at the animal expression on her face, and he told himself he was imagining the look. It was harsh and cold and in some way he could not make out it was curiously related to the expression he had noticed the first time he met her.

“Come,” she said, “dance.” The word escaped her lips like a hiss. “Dance with me. Dance with me.”