The Spiked Heel

She had been honestly dismayed by the crowded dance floor that night. Up to now, her body had been her sounding board, but in the new scheme of things, she tried to divorce herself from her body completely, and the crowded dance floor was a slap in the face to her plans. She had pulled away from him hastily, embarrassed by her mixed emotions, more embarrassed when she’d seen his embarrassment. Nor was the evening what she had expected. She was trying to fall in love, really in love, and she was discovering how difficult it was to fabricate emotion. They began drinking, and as she drank she became increasingly aware of the futility of the evening, of the futility of her determination, of the futility of her whole life. And as the alcohol spread to her blood, she suddenly wanted Griff to desire her as other men had desired her, knowing her body was winning out over her mind, but not caring very much any more, hating her body, and hating herself. They danced again, and she could tell he wanted her, and she was pleased with his response until the revulsion came over her again, revulsion at his embarrassment and at her own weakness. She had pulled away from him guiltily, again wondering where it would all end for Cara Knowles, puzzled by the dark road she traveled.

The night had been a dismal failure.

When he left her, she could not sleep. She told herself she had not given him an honest chance, and she decided to try again with him, if only he would ask her out again. So she’d been pleased when he turned up at the Guild Week party, even though he’d seemed very interested in the blonde on McQuade’s arm. When Griff took the blonde home, Cara had been strangely hurt, hurt perhaps for the first time in her life. She began drinking. It was easy to drink at the Guild Week party. There was a man there, and she drifted toward him and was not surprised when he took her home that night.

Jefferson McQuade was bigger but no more frighteningly animalistic than other men she had known. The only frightening thing about McQuade was the inner knowledge of what would eventually happen with him, and the knowledge of what would follow that. She had found a strange contentment in the rut of Julien Kahn, Inc. She did not know if she wanted to leave that rut. But she knew what would happen with McQuade, she was very familiar with the pattern of her life, too familiar with it.

She sat by the window of her bedroom that evening in a half slip and brassiere, reluctant to get into her dress. The heat mushroomed against her window like the recussion blast of an atomic bomb. She breathed with her mouth open, trying to suck in a semblance of air from the hot breath that fumed back at her.

It was no use. Heat and Cara Knowles would never be on more than nodding terms.

She rose abruptly and went into the bathroom. She washed her face and patted it dry, and then she touched a dab of cologne to her elbows and the backs of her ear lobes, and the hollow of her throat where the beauty spot crouched minutely.

From the bathroom, she called, “Time, anyone?”

“Seven forty-five,” her father answered.

“Thank you,” she chimed.

She left the bathroom, went back into her bedroom, and took a white cotton frock from its hanger. She didn’t know what McQuade had in mind for that evening, but she would definitely turn thumbs down on dancing. She carried the frock back to the bathroom, running into Dr. Knowles in the hallway.

“Oops!” the doctor said, turning, and she hastily held up the frock to cover the jutting cones of her brassiere, smiling at his embarrassment, immensely pleased. He was such a little boy, her father.

She put the dress on, and then smoothed it over her hips, wondering if she should wear a belt with it. The small patent leather, perhaps. No, the hell with it. She took the bobbies from her hair and then brushed it out, noticing the effect of its blue-black coloration against the whiteness of the dress. The dress had a yoke neck, and the brown beauty spot showed in the hollow of her throat. Beneath that, her breasts rose, straining against the high uplift of her brassiere, firm white mounds crowding the thin shadowed line between them.

She took her lipstick tube from her purse and then touched her brush to the crimson tip, moving the brush to her lips, carrying it a little beyond the edges of her lip line to increase the size of her mouth. She put the lipstick away and touched her lashes with mascara lightly. She took a last appraising look in the mirror and then went back into the bedroom, barefoot. From her top dresser drawer, she took a pair of nylon peds, slipping into them quickly. She found the Julien Kahn white linen pumps in her shoe bag, put them on, took another look at herself in the full-length mirror behind her closet door, sucked in her breath, and then went to sit by the window, waiting for McQuade.