Goodbye, Janette (41 page)

“And I really let you shave my pussy.” She laughed, getting out of bed and walking to him. She took a cigarette from his pack, lit it and gave it to him. “That was the best fuck we ever had. We should smoke that fantasy grass more often.”

He dragged on the cigarette and then finally smiled. “It could get ridiculous,” he said. “I’d look awfully funny with a shaven head.”

“Can’t you come up with any better fantasies than that?” She smiled.

He smiled slowly and went back to the bed. “I sure as hell can,” he said. He looked at her. “I have the feeling that you’ve had it with the Greek islands.”

She nodded.

He picked up the telephone and dialed the bridge. “Forget about Hydra,” he told the captain. “Set course for Saint-Tropez.” He put down the telephone and looked at her. “How’s that for a fantasy?”

She laughed. “Now you’re really getting into it.”

“I thought you would like it,” he smiled. “We’ll be there in three days. Janette’s having her annual big bash Sunday night. We’ll surprise the hell out of her and just walk in.”

***

It was nearly three o’clock in the morning and the party was going into high gear. Lauren’s head felt as if it were bursting with the noise. She could handle the grass and the coke but the champagne that Patrick had plied her with from the moment they arrived had put her away. She kept telling him that she couldn’t handle it, but he had just laughed and kept refilling her glass. Now her head was spinning and she was beginning to feel nauseated. She began to search for him in the crowd. She wanted to go back to the yacht and sleep.

August was party month in Saint-Tropez and Janette had gone all out for this one. Catered by Félix of L’Escale, the giant buffet table set under the eaves on the terrace was bursting with all kinds of food. Magnificent roasts of beef and lamb, platters piled high with lobster and shrimp, baskets of
crudités
decorated all the tables. Before dinner had been served a half dozen waiters had circulated through the crowd, each with a bowl of caviar piled mountain high on a tray. There were candles on each table, and overhead under the eaves and around the garden, hanging from the branches of the trees, Chinese lanterns flickered. Los Paraguayanos played flamenco before and during dinner, and afterward two rock groups blasted the night for dancing.

The center of the large living room had been cleared for dancing and was impossible to cross because of the crowd. Slowly she made her way around the edge of the room to the corner where Janette had remained for most of the evening. It was a vantage point where she could see almost everything that was happening.

Janette was flushed and smiling as she spoke to the group of people surrounding her. She didn’t have to be told the party was a success. She knew that the moment the fogies from Monte Carlo began to arrive in their long gowns and smokings. That crowd wouldn’t have undertaken the two-hour drive if they didn’t feel the party was important. Not only that, Jack Nysberg, the official photographer for French
Vogue
, was there shooting pictures, and that was like the official stamp of approval.

Lauren touched her arm to attract her attention. Janette turned to her. “
Oui, chérie?
”

“Have you seen Patrick?” Lauren asked.

Janette glanced around the room. “No, I haven’t. Maybe he’s gone out on the terrace. Do you want me to send someone to find him?”

“No,” Lauren said. “You have enough to do. I’ll find him.”

“Okay.” Janette smiled and turned back to her coterie as Lauren made her way out to the terrace.

There were people still sitting at the tables, eating, when Lauren came out. A quick glance told her that Patrick wasn’t there. Screams of laughter from the pool attracted her attention and she went out into the garden.

As she passed through the small cluster of trees that separated the pool from the house, she could see several couples on the grass obviously making it and either oblivious or not caring who saw them. She came out at the near end of the pool.

There seemed to be about twenty naked men and women splashing around in the water; another twenty-odd people stood at the sides watching them and screaming in laughter at their antics. Patrick wasn’t with them. There was another crowd at the far end of the pool and she walked toward them.

Patrick was there, standing in a group of about nine people. He was holding a bottle of champagne in his hand and a glass in the other. She came up behind him and touched his arm.

He turned to her and smiled. “I was waiting for you to come,” he said thickly. He held the champagne glass toward her. “Have a drink and watch the show.”

She shook her head. “I’ve had enough to drink. I think maybe you have too.”

“Don’t be a party pooper,” he said, pushing her in front of him. “Then just watch.”

At first she thought it was just three naked girls rolling over each other on the ground, but then she realized there was someone else. Maybe it was because he was so black that he blended into the semidarkness that she didn’t see him immediately. Or because the naked girls were all over him almost hiding him.

“How did he get here?” She turned to Patrick angrily.

“I sent for him,” Patrick said. “Even niggers are entitled to have a little fun.”

She started to move away from him but he held her fast. “Look at that,” he said laughing. One of the girls was lowering herself on Noah. “A hundred pounds she can’t take him. He’s too big for her,” he shouted.

“You’re on,” one of the men said.

Patrick looked down at her. “How’s that for a fantasy? Wouldn’t you like to join them?”

“I want to go back to the boat,” she said, pulling herself free angrily. “I don’t feel well.”

He stared at her. “The car and chauffeur are out there. You can go if you want to but I’m staying. I’m having the first good time I’ve had in a month.”

She half ran back to the house, blinking back her tears. She would have to go through it to get to the parking area out in front. But when she got into the house, the body heat and the noise hit her and she felt the nausea rising in her. She knew that she could never make it to the car if she had to go through the crowd. She ran up the staircase into the room she had occupied last year and through it into the bathroom.

Kneeling on the floor, her hands supporting her by holding the rim of the toilet, her body was wracked by spasm after spasm as she vomited into the bowl. It seemed as if she were throwing up everything that she had eaten in the last week. Finally, it was over and she sank back, exhausted, to her haunches.

For a moment she rested until she felt strong enough to get up. She made her way to the sink and stared at herself in the mirror. She looked terrible, her makeup running, her face pale with sweat. She turned on the cold water and taking a washcloth began to clean her face. Afterward she held the washcloth to the back of her neck and rinsed her mouth to get rid of the awful taste.

Wearily she opened her bag and began to repair her makeup. But it was slow going. She still felt weak and exhausted. It had to be all the champagne she had drunk. She had never been this sick before. It even seemed to be an effort to put on her lipstick.

Even when she had finished with the makeup and started from the bathroom, she felt as if she had no strength, her body still trembling. She went into the bedroom and stood there a moment looking down at the bed. A few minutes’ rest and she was bound to feel better.

She sat on the edge of the bed and kicked off her shoes, then stretched out. She was right—she was beginning to feel better already. Gratefully she closed her eyes. Gradually the trembling ceased. Much better, she thought. Then she was asleep.

She awoke to the sound of voices in the next room. It took a moment for her to remember where she was. It was still dark in the room but there was a faint hint of the coming daylight at the windows. Slowly she got out of bed and went into the bathroom. She washed her face again with cold water and looked in the mirror. The color had returned to her face. It was just as well she had fallen asleep. She had needed the rest.

She opened her purse. What she needed now was an upper to get her moving. Then she remembered that she had left her pillbox on the boat and had given the coke to Patrick to carry. She heard the voices in the room next door again. Janette was still awake. She could get some from her.

She went into the bedroom and stepped into her shoes. She opened the door and stepped out into the hall. The house seemed strangely silent. She went to the railing and looked down. Through the archway she could see into the living room. It was still a shambles but no one was there.

Again the sound of voices came from Janette’s room. She went to it and knocked softly. The voices continued as if they hadn’t heard her. Tentatively she opened the door slightly and looked through. One whole wall of Janette’s bedroom was completely mirrored and from where she stood she could see the whole room reflected in it. A numbingly cold wave ran through her, freezing her into momentary paralysis.

Three naked figures were framed in the mirror as if on a giant screen. Patrick, on his knees before the African, was masturbating himself violently while with the other hand he held Noah’s phallus in his mouth. He writhed in pain as Stéphane, lashing his back with a riding crop, her face contorted with a strange hatred, snarled, “
Plus dur!
Scum! Pig!
Suce plus fort!
”

For a moment she felt as if she would faint, then her anger brought an unsuspected strength from somewhere inside her. Slowly she closed the door and leaned against it, fighting to regain her self-control. Suddenly she understood many things. The welts on his back the day after they were married. Why he always wanted her in the dominant position whenever they were making love. Why he refused to part with the African. It all came together now. She had been a fool not to see it before.

Then the hurt came up in her and her eyes began to fill with tears. She moved toward the staircase and went slowly down the steps and toward the front door.

It opened just as she reached it and Janette came in through the door. She stopped and stared at Lauren in surprise. “I just came back from breakfast at La Gorille,” she said. “I was told that you went back to the boat early.”

Suddenly Lauren felt ashamed. Her eyes dropped. “No,” she said.

“Then where were you?” Janette asked.

“I fell asleep in my old room,” she said, still looking at the floor.

“Oh,” Janette exclaimed.

Lauren raised her eyes. “Did you know that Patrick is up in your room with the nigger and your girlfriend?”

Janette’s eyes never wavered as she lied. “No.” But she did know, because she had arranged it. She started for the staircase. “I’ll throw them out.”

Lauren stopped her. “Don’t bother,” she said dully. “It won’t change anything.”

“Then what do you want me to do?” Janette asked.

“Take me to the boat,” Lauren said. “I’m going to pack and go home.”

Silently they went to the car and got into it. It was almost daylight as they turned out of the driveway onto the narrow road leading to the village.

Lauren looked at her sister. Janette’s eyes were squinting against the sun as she watched the road. “Why didn’t you tell me he was like that?” she asked.

“He promised me he was going to change,” Janette answered without taking her eyes from the road. “After all, he did go back to work.”

Lauren began to cry, the hurt rising even more in her. “You still should have told me. I feel like an idiot. Everybody had to know but me. I bet they all think I’m the jerk of all time.”

“They’re all jealous of you,” Janette said. “There isn’t one of them that wouldn’t exchange places with you, even right now.”

“I don’t understand it,” Lauren cried softly.

“When you get older you will,” Janette said. She glanced at Lauren. “Things like this happen all the time. Men are strange animals, they act in strange ways, but eventually they straighten out.”

“He won’t,” Lauren said with conviction. “He’s not only kinky, he’s a closet queer. They never get over that.”

“Half the women in Europe wouldn’t be married if they objected to that,” Janette said. She glanced at Lauren again. “Patrick’s father and grandfather were noted pedes in their day. Their wives knew it and accepted it. It didn’t keep them from making a successful marriage and raising a family.”

Lauren had stopped crying and stared at the road in silence.

“Perhaps Patrick didn’t hate his father as much as he hated his father in himself. At least, he tried to break the pattern.” Janette slowed the car to allow a farm truck loaded with just-picked corn to turn onto the road in front of them, then crawled slowly along the road behind it. “You waited a year to get married. Do you think you’re being fair to yourself deciding to destroy it so quickly?”

“Then you think I should stay married to him?” Lauren asked directly.

Janette hesitated a moment, then glanced at her sister. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because it could be a good marriage. Patrick’s family is one of the best in Britain, the title has spanned four generations. And when his mother dies, Patrick will be one of the richest young men in the world.”

“If it’s really that good, why didn’t you marry him? He asked you first.”

Janette glanced at her quickly then back at the road. She answered in a low voice. “Because I couldn’t give him what the marriage would eventually require to be successful. Heirs. I had an accident when I was a young girl and I can’t have any children.”

Impulsively, Lauren touched her sister’s hand. “I didn’t know, Janette. I’m sorry.”

“
C’est la vie.
” Janette shrugged, then glanced across the car. “But you’re all right. You have choices. You can make it work if you want to.

Lauren met her gaze. “Maybe you’ll think I’m naive. Or stupid. Or both. But the money and the title never meant anything at all to me. They still don’t.” She was silent for a moment as the car entered the narrow streets of the village leading to the port. “I guess I’m more American than I thought. I can’t play the games that you Europeans play. To me, a marriage without love is no marriage at all.”