Chapter 15 of Campus Nymph by Greg Caldwell

1962 GENRE: Vintage Sleaze | Promiscuous Wife

... PROMISCUOUS WIFE

Boiling passions and naked carnal desire on a college campus ... Night after night, beautiful, passionate Gay tossed sleeplessly on her lonely bed, wondering what had gone wrong with her marriage. Where was the ardent lover who just couldn't keep his hands and lips from her voluptuous body less than a year before, when they were first married? Why was Roger always "too busy"—or "too tired"? When she learned that Roger was involved in a torrid romance with one of his students, Gay decided that what was sauce for the gander was gravy for the goose ...

With provocative abandon she turned to Karl, the virile young college athlete who was never too busy or too tired.

... And Martin York, an accomplished connoisseur of the techniques of love ... Until one day she found herself caught up in a web of seething sin from which there was no escape, and learned what it really meant to be a …

… CHEATING HUSBAND ...

Read the entire book as an EPUB eBook that can be downloaded from the Fox Library.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Sometime in the night Gay got up and had a bath. Sitting in the hot tub, she thought how many times she had done this in her short married life. Marriage was very hard on her physically.

If she ever married again, she thought, deliberately working it out, she would be very very careful to know the man first, to know his roughness and his gentleness, his many sides, his furies and his quietness. She would know him before she loved him, and love him thoroughly before she married him. A man found it too easy to show one side to a woman, the side he wanted her to see.

It came as no surprise to her when she decided to leave Roger and get a divorce. It was as inevitable as the sun rising in the morning. They could not live together anymore. She could not endure his touch, now that their minds no longer met.

She went to bed and slept peacefully. She awakened about noon. Roger did not come home for lunch. She got up slowly, because her body still ached and hurt.

As she drank coffee and ate a sandwich, she began a list. She scribbled it down on a grocery pad. The list was all the things she must do before she left Roger.

And she made another list, a shorter one, of the things to do after she left him. It included getting a divorce.

That afternoon she began doing the things on her list. She got out her suitcases and began packing. She threw away many items, including the exotic lingerie Roger had bought for her. If he wanted more items for Doris, he could buy them. These would go in the trash can. In her apartment in New York, Gay would wear what she chose, and it would probably be woolen pajamas in winter and cotton nightgowns in summer.

She left her paints unpacked because she planned to finish the painting of Doris and take it with her.

Doris should bring $300 or $400, Gay figured. She could use the money while she was getting started in New York.

She stopped at five to begin supper. Roger came in while she was in the kitchen.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

She looked in vain for any sympathy in his face. No, he only hoped she felt well enough to cater to his needs, to get his meals, do his laundry, keep the house running in smooth order.

"Fine," she said.

"That's good." He went back to the bedroom. He came out again at once.

"What's going on here?" He came back into the kitchen. "Are you leaving again?"

"Yes. For good this time. I'm going to New York.

I'll get a divorce, of course."

He sat down slowly in a kitchen chair, staring at her. "But we've made up—haven't we? What will the Dean say?"

Once she would have laughed. "I couldn't care less," she said, indifferently. She nodded to the list on the table. "I made a list of things I plan to do. I think I can finish by Sunday noon, and get the noon train to New York."

He picked up the list, as though this was something rational that even he could understand. "Finish painting of D.," he read. "What's that?"

"The painting of Doris that I'm doing. Take a look at it," she invited.

She followed him to the painting studio. He stared at the painting, aghast.

"You can't paint her like that. She isn't like that at all. She looks—looks—"

"Looks like she enjoyed the session tremendously?"

Gay mocked. "Naturally. Quite a sexy little nymph, she is."

He shuddered visibly. He stared, fascinated. "I can't believe—" he muttered. "She seems so—innocent."

"Not any more. I thought she made a fine subject for a nude painting, so this is it."

"I'll buy it! You can't sell that and let just anybody see it—"

"If you have $500 you can buy it," she said coldly.

"Otherwise—no. And don't think about destroying it.

I can paint a dozen more just like it. She is firmly in my mind's eyes."

He turned his back, muttered again, "I can't believe she is really like that!"

Gay went back to the kitchen, satisfied. Doris had been foiled at last. It was too late for Gay to save her marriage, but at least Doris would not be the second wife of Roger Whitmer. He would look around for someone fresh and unspoiled and—ladylike, of course.

That was a great satisfaction.

Roger followed her to the kitchen and sat down again. He looked rather forlorn. All his plans were falling down about him.

"But if you leave," he finally began, showing his sole concern, "if you leave the Dean will think—that is, he'll blame me. About Doris."

"Not if Doris leaves also. Maybe he'll let you stay on—give you a third chance," said Gay, moving between the kitchen and dining room as she set the table for dinner. Three evenings from now she would be in her mother's apartment in New York, away from Roger, away from this town, away from all these strange people whom she did not understand. She would be back where she belonged, with people she loved and understood.

He rubbed his head. "I think I'll leave anyway. Start over somewhere else," he said slowly. "I don't like it here anymore anyway. And people stare at me. Like the Sweetmans. She won't even speak to me."

Gay leaned over the table and added something to the list. "Call Mrs. Sweetman and say goodbye.

He watched her write. "You don't have to rub it in," he said mournfully.

"No, I'm not. She was kind to me and I wanted to thank her."

"You've made up your mind? I can't change it?

Don't you want to try again?"

She shivered. "No, never again, Roger. We're through. I shouldn't have bothered to come back from New York. But at least this winds it up, clean and trim."

"Well," he said, thinking it over some more, "I don't suppose you would ever have settled down and been a good faculty wife. You aren't the type."

"No, I don't believe I am," she agreed serenely.

"I'm an artist."

"That's right. I shouldn't have expected you to settle down. We should never have married."

"Occasionally, Roger, you show flashes of insight I wouldn't have expected of you," said Gay with unconcealed sarcasm. "You know, what you should have done was to have an affair with me. You would have gotten me out of your system that way. By the time you got back to the college you would have recovered and married Doris. All serene—until her deeply sexual nature started acting up and scaring you!"

She could not refrain from the last dig. He winced.

"She—surprised me," he said. "I didn't think she was—that painting. Is that the way she really is?"

"I have a flare for people, as some artists do," said Gay. "I think she is that way."

"Hum—well—I guess you're right. I'll leave, and start over somewhere else. Then Doris can feel free to stay here and teach."

She started to say that Doris would not be happy here without him, then closed her mouth firmly. Let Doris work out her own future.

During dinner they discussed details, like temporary alimony until Gay was getting settled. "I don't want it for more than a few months, just enough to tide me over to get a job and an apartment."

"You 're very generous," he said, relieved. "I'll pay for the divorce, of course."

She would get a job, get settled, then take a few days off to go to Alabama for a divorce. "I'll see a lawyer in New York. He can advise me what to do. I'll let you hear soon. Are you going to stay in town this summer?"

"I believe I will, until the divorce is granted and everything is settled. That way I can go ahead and write my paper. I started looking things up in the library, and I hate things to be unsettled. I can't work that way," he said, rather reproachfully.

"Well, I hope the divorce doesn't stand in the way of the successful ending of your paper," she said.

"Completion, that's the word we use," he said. "We say completion of research," She bit her tongue to keep from flaring up at him.

Well, no more of this soon. In a day and a half she would be gone. On the train, on her way.

She spent the evening painting. Roger came back a couple times uneasily to watch her work, but he didn't stay long. She hated being watched as she worked.

Doris' rich body took form, the creams were very satisfactory for the flesh tones. She worked away until midnight. When she went to bed, Roger was asleep.

The next morning she finished the painting, and set it in the kitchen to dry. Then she cleared the painting studio of all her old stuff, burned some old canvases, saved some sketches, cleaned all her brushes, packed the easels, scraped paint off the palette and packed it.

She called Mrs. Sweetman and told her she was leaving, going back to New York and her painting.

"I should beg you to stay and try again," said the nice old lady. "But I'm not going to, my dear. New York is where you belong. I just know you're going to be a famous artist. And you're too good for Whitmer!

I said that all along to Mr. Sweetman."

Gay blinked back tears at such fierce partiality.

"You're very kind," she choked. "I wish I could thank you—"

"You can! Send me a painting sometime. Oh, I'll make Mr. Sweetman pay for it! You tell me how much."

"Oh, dear. I'll send you one for free."

"No, no, you can't build a career like that! We'll pay you for it."

"What would you like?" Gay grinned a little at thought of her recent nudes. "I know—a nice landscape.

Or some buildings in New York. Some colorful houses."

"That would be lovely, my dear!"

They talked a little longer, and the elderly woman wished her well with such hearty good feeling that Gay felt comforted. She thought of what Martin York had said about Mrs. Sweetman, how much alike Gay and Mrs. Sweetman were psychologically. Maybe that was why they had gotten along so well.

While Roger was gone that afternoon, Gay called Martin and told him she was leaving.

"I'm not surprised," said Martin. "But damn it all, I'll miss you. Faculty doings will be duller than ever without your redhead to look at."

It was oddly difficult to tell him goodbye, and when she thought of it there were many people in town whom she would miss. She told him that, and he understood.

"Darling, you're essentially a nice woman, under that Bohemian surface," he told her. "You may be an artist, but you're a good woman. And Roger may be a respectable professor, but he's not a good man. That is what went wrong."

She sighed. "Well, come to New York and psychoanalyze me sometime," she invited. "I'll be staying at mother's for a while." She gave him the address. "But don't expect me to carry on an affair with you. I'm over that sickness. I'm going to settle down and paint."

"How sad for me," said Martin. "But I understand, darling. Best of all good things to you!"

She finished packing that evening, and the next morning was ready to go. She had a couple hours to spare until train time, so she cleaned the house and got dinner for Roger. She was amused at herself for doing so. She must be a nice woman, she thought, feeling so virtuous.

Roger took her to the train, and kissed her goodbye.

Kissing him back, she felt sorrow for all that had been, all that might have been, if only they had been different.

"I'm sorry, Roger," she said. "I wish it could have worked out."

"You just weren't right for me, Gay," he said, standing back. He got off the train, waved as the porter closed the doors.

She turned from him in relief and sank back in the soft chair.

"Over," she said aloud. "Over. Done. Finished. The end."

What an intense relief she felt, such an overwhelming relief that tears came to her eyes and had to be forced back. She sat limply for a long time, staring out at the changing landscape without seeing it. Over and over in her mind, she lived the past year. Their courtship in Rome, their joy, their delight in each other, then the homecoming to the college town. Doris had come into the picture at once, though Gay had not realized it at the time.

If she had realized it sooner, could she have averted disaster? No, she thought. Even without Doris, something would have gone wrong. She and Roger were too unlike, basically opposing personalities.

Wearily her mind went over a treadmill of memories.

Over and over, she tried to see what had happened, what had gone wrong, what might have happened.

But it's over, she thought. She was going home to New York. The nightmare of sordid affairs, furious jealousy, bewilderment at Roger's strange behavior;

hurt and fury at the physical and mental torture she had undergone at his hands and at the hands of Karl Lucas—She grimaced. That horrible boy. She would never, never get involved with a boy again.

She leaned her head back and tried to sleep. She had not slept much last night, thinking of what she had yet to do. Had she done everything? She had checked off the list, one item after the other.

She'd phoned her mother that she was coming, and told her what train. But her mother might not be able to meet her. She would take a taxi to the apartment.

Then—settle down in the small bedroom, unpack her belongings, look for a job. Her mother had been sure that Don would want to hire her. That might turn out well.

She would settle down to her painting and her job.

She would go ahead on nudes, but she would hire models. Keep it professional, she thought, grimacing again.

She began to see the landscape they were passing.

The mountains of Pennsylvania, looming high and green, and sometimes beside the train a wide stream, rocky, with rushing white water. A landscape for Mrs. Sweetman, thought Gay, and smiled.

Her mind was turning into professional channels already. It wouldn't be hard to forget the past. Work would make her forget—work and her old friends in the Village, her mother and her mother's friends. She would be busy, and being busy was being happy. She would forget all this past year, except for an occasional memory that would not be all bad.

She slept fairly well on the train in the roomette she had been able to obtain. Whenever she woke, the clack-clack-clack of the wheels sounded soothing and promising. The future was ahead, the past behind. Begin again, Gay. Begin, again, and be happy.

The train pulled in the station at New York on schedule. She began to gather up her suitcases. Someone came to the door and tapped.

"Yes, yes, I'm ready," she said, and turned around.

"Gay, darling," said Elinor Ryan, and held out her arms.

"Oh—mother!" Gay flung herself into her arms and hugged her mother fiercely. "It's good—good to see you—good to be back—"

"We thought we had better meet the train. All your suitcases," said her mother, finally letting her go a little. "Let me look at you, sweet. Goodness, you need fattening up."

"That's what you said when I was here a few days ago," Gay, laughing unsteadily, turned back to her suitcases. "I haven't changed so much in a week."

"Let me take that," said a deep voice, reaching for the case.

She started, looked up into remembered dark eyes, a tanned face, a smile that was as familiar as her heartbeat.

"Pete," she said faintly. "Hello, Gay," he said. "I thought I'd come and make sure I saw you this trip."

Elinor Ryan looked guilty. "He has a car," she said. "And you have all those cases."

Pete Shafner looked the same, yet different. Older, mature, quiet. Kind, Gay remembered. Kind and sweet.

A wonderful guy. An artist. One who would know what she was trying to do. Who liked her paintings. Who worked for Don. If she worked for Don, she would see a lot of Pete.

They gathered up the suitcases, and left the train.

It was a long walk out to the car. Gay felt her heart beating fast as she walked beside Pete. Her mother kept up a breathless chatter, as though she didn't want Gay to start thinking.

"Don is absolutely delighted that you're here. He wanted to come over this evening and have you sign your life away in a contract to paint for him. I said absolutely not, this is our evening, you can't come. But he's coming anyway, and we're going out for dinner.

An adorable place where they serve old-fashioned chicken—I love it—you'll love it—"

"I know I will, mother. Anything you say. Of course." Gay scarcely knew what she was saying.

Pete was silent, looking down at her now and then as though to be sure she was really there. Did he remember—was he remembering all those nights, so long ago, those nights in his place in the Village? The nights of dancing, of making love, of talking, being together, loving and living as one?

Behind her was the past. Ahead of her dazzled eyes, corning out into the sunshine of the New York street, ahead was the future. The future, and it was so bright she scarcely dared to look at it. But there it was.

Her heart beat faster and faster, she laughed at something her mother said, turned to Pete and looked up at him. He smiled down at her.

"Hello, Gay," he said again.

"Hello, there," she said.

It was hello to the future.

END

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