PATRICIA
a
short story by
NICOLAS TRAVERS
Patricia is a pretty girl in a rather disorganised sort of way. She has a small, snub nose, sprinkled with freckles, set in a small cherub face, and her eyes are sleepy and golden-green, like the eyes of a cat. She should wear glasses, because her eyesight is poor, but she makes do with contact lenses, because she knows that her eyes are very pretty. She has been told that they are bedroom eyes, and the thought makes her giggle. She brushes her hair every morning and night, so that it gleams pale gold, and wears it in braids; she eschews makeup, though she likes to smell nice, to have a fresh scent of flowers about her.
She is also fond of long flowing dresses, very light and airy, because she is a very modern young woman, and it is California, and 1969, and flowers are powers with which to reckon. But she makes sure that the dresses are always cut quite close around her shoulders, and slashed quite high up the sides, because she knows that she has a lithe young body, with breasts that curve upwards in their demand, and long slim legs that give her a tigress air, and she takes pleasure from the lust that smoulders in men’s eyes when she passes.
She is a girl, and she is growing into a woman. But she is not sure that it a transition that she welcomes. She has a man, a boy fresh back from the ‘Nam, and he is both a challenge and a comfort to her. Challenge, because sometimes Kyle wakes screaming in the night, and he cannot, or will not, talk about the memories that sap at his mind. But he is also a comfort, when they lie close together in the warm Californian nights, because his arms are strong, and a refuge, and Patricia can escape into them from demons of her own, from a mother screeching disapproval and a father too close to a bottle.
Yet escape is also another word for running away, and Patricia and Kyle have both begun running. Life is superficially good to them: they have a small apartment in a reasonable part of Burbank, just off North Catalina, but life is also starting to demand a great deal more of them. Patricia works in a bank: she does not earn much, but she is secure. However Kyle, who also works in an office, clerking for the county, is drinking too much for his own good, and has been warned. Veterans are privileged, but privileges can be abused too far.
She has begun to wake at night and worry. Kyle talks of marriage, but his drinking is growing increasingly desperate, and she is not sure that he is husband material. She has missed a period, despite religiously taking her pill, and she is not sure that either of them are mature enough to be parents. She does not want to grow up, settle down, condemn herself to a life of drudgery. She is young, and men’s eyes smoulder when she passes. It makes her feel good, to be so desired.
She is also an astute girl, with sharp ears, and she has heard women at the bank talk of clinics, places where girls can solve their problems. She has asked a question or two, naturally in the most discreet manner, and has been given pointers. But she also knows that the quality and ticketing of medical expertise are most directly related. Back street clinics carry increased risk as their costs decline, whilst quality medical care can come very pricey indeed. She is caught on the horns of a dilemma, and the horns are sharpening with each passing day. She can see no way out, no escape.
A chance conversation, during her lunch hour one day, solves her problem. Two colleagues are gossiping, and she has no part in it, because she is seated in a corner, quietly reading a magazine. But her ears are alert. They are talking of pick-up girls, women who stand at intersections along Wilshire Boulevard, or close to the entrances to smart Hollywood hotels, with hopeful looks in their eyes. The women are scandalised, because such girls can earn several times as much in an hour as a good bank clerk can earn in a day.
Patricia ponders the thought as she taps away at her typewriter and files bank documentation. She pictures herself striking poses that maintain her self-respect whilst hinting at a possibility of availability, but is unsure how best to combine these two elusive qualities. It is not that she has ever had trouble in finding men for herself, she has only had to stand alone at parties and men have homed in on her with desire in their eyes. But standing available, and standing in demand, may prove different facets of one coin, and Patricia realises that she has no idea of what coin to demand.
She completes her work, and decides to take a break. She will go to the comfort room and practise in front of the mirrors, and perhaps the mirrors will enlighten her. So she preens herself in reflection, even though she is wholly bankable in a prim long-sleeved blouse and very proper skirt, and pouts, just a little, at the pretty girl pouting at her, because she admires Bardot, and has recently seen ‘Barbarella’ for about the fifth time, and she judges that all in all she is rather nice looking, but she knows that looking nice may still not bait a sufficient hook.
A door opens behind her, and she starts. It is another girl, of about her own age, a girl of Hispanic background called Roxana, a new recruit to the branch.
Roxana looks her up and down, and giggles. Patricia is not prepared for this, and bridles, drawing herself up to her full five foot nine in teenage dignity.
The two girls stare at each other.
“Are you practising for a church picnic?” Roxana’s voice has a tart edge to it.
“Huh?” Patricia’s eyes snap. She makes her voice fierce, for she does not care to be mocked.
“Don’t take on so.” The latin girl laughs. “You just looked as though you wanted to stand on the corner of Hollywood and Vine.”
“I’m going to a party.” Patricia throws her words out with a flounce. “I wondered how to make the best of myself with the dress I’ve got.”
Her companion shrugs – she is plainly not convinced – and disappears behind a closet door. Patricia prepares to return to her desk. But now she has a feeling of triumph within her. She is plainly sending out the right signals. Now she must find the right target.
The evening is warm, a velvet warmth that surrounds and clings. Patricia is back at her apartment, preparing an evening meal. She is no cook, but she does try to do her best with hamburger patties, some rice and a can of corn, because she wants to be a good woman. Kyle comes up the stairs, and thrusts at the door, and she can tell from the noise he makes that he has already lowered at least one beer, and very possibly several.
She calls a cheery greeting, but he merely grunts acknowledgement, and it is a bad sign. Patricia moves her pan from the stove and takes a resolute breath. She will put her arms around him, and then feed him, she will care for him, and she will tell him about missing her period some other time.
Kyle smells of drink as she enfolds him, and he has a grim look in his dark eyes, a look that he brings when he has been with other veterans, and they have revived old memories and reopened past wounds. He stands unmoving, not responding to her embrace: he is lost somewhere within himself, and Patricia knows that she cannot join him.
She smells burning, and rushes back to her stove. Her pan of rice has boiled off all its water. But she rescues sufficient for them both, and sets food out on two plates. They eat in a strained silence. Kyle masticates mechanically. He is fighting his war again, and encompassing untold and unimaginable horrors. His friends are dying again in his mind, and he is dying slowly with them.
He finishes his food, and slumps into an armchair facing the television. The show is some stupid comedy, and he does not laugh – he probably does not even see the flickering image or hear the canned applause. Patricia watches him, and wants to weep. Someone has destroyed this boy before he can grow into a man.
His torment is pervasive, and she feels a wave of despair start to well in her. Then she shakes her head. This is madness: she is a person in her own right, she will not be dragged down by his depression. But she knows that she must get out of the apartment, that she must escape.
She tidies away the remnants of their meal, and glances at herself in a mirror. A small cherub faces stares back at her with sad eyes. But she can also see her shoulders, and the way her breasts thrust up under the cotton of her dress, despite the fact that she is wearing no bra, and she reaches a decision. She will go out, and take on the world, and the devil can take the hindmost.
Wilshire Boulevard is a busy channel of moving traffic, with occasional pedestrians strolling the night air. Patricia walks purposively, keeping well away from the edge of the sidewalk. She has no intention of being hustled into the back of some foraging limo, nor of providing some prowling patrol car with a cheap laugh. She is a serious girl, with a serious intent. She will find herself what she needs, albeit she knows not quite how. She counts on fortune smiling, but she will go home empty-handed rather than sacrifice her pride.
She is deep in reverie, half way lost to the world, when she realises that she has a companion. A man is walking beside her, matching his pace to her pace. She shoots him a quick sidelong glance, but he has no malice about him. He is a man, paunchy and middleaged, a man old enough to be her father, walking the night air. Yet there is something about him, an expectation, that she knows very well. It is a longing, a yearning, a loneliness within him, that he wishes to slake. He is filled with desire, but he is uncertain. She walks on, without change to her pace. This man must declare his intent.
After a few moments he speaks. He is making small talk, asking whether she minds him walking with her. Patricia shakes her head non-commitally. He tells her that he is in LA for a convention, something to do with hardware, and he is lonely. It is a catchphrase, a key, a signal. This is a man who desires her body. She pretends to be cool, though her heart has begun to beat a little faster. This is a wholly new path to seduction, and she realises suddenly that she is wholly in command. She can accede, and make this man grovel at her feet. Or she can refuse, and return home wholly untainted.
Now his words pour faster. He is pleading, though his words disguise it. He is desperate, though he will not admit it. He wants her to come with him to his hotel room, and he will pay her cab fare home. His words are plainly a cloak for purchase, and he waits, because he is waiting for her to ante up his bidding. But Patricia shrugs. This is a first time, and she will not be grasping. This is a learning curve, and – if she can keep her head, and control the situation – she will not have to overcome these hurdles again.
The hotel room is neutral: a bed, a toilet and shower unit behind a closed door, some anonymous pastel pictures. Patricia follows the man into the room and stands waiting. There is a first time for everything, and this is a first time. She feels somehow distanced from herself, as though she is floating ethereally, looking down on the woman that is her. She is being bought, and she is suddenly merchandise, and merchandise is a thing quite inanimate. The man circles around her, like a wolf inspecting its prey, and he is talking to her, sweet-talking her, telling her how beautiful he considers her, and all the while his lust is building, because he knows that he has bought a pretty young girl, who may well be an amateur at selling herself, and he is unsure. His lust is growing, and burning within him, and he wishes for some matching desire, but it is not forthcoming. He moves closer - he has discarded his jacket - and puts his arms around her, and stares into her eyes, and Patricia is still waiting.
Then he kisses her, and his kisses are gentle, but demanding, as a lustful man’s kisses might be, and she parts her lips, because this plainly part of the deal. He presses his hands against her breasts, and his fingers are questing, because he knows now for sure what hitherto he had only hoped – that she is wearing no bra, and then, suddenly, he is lifting her dress over her head, and pushing down on her panties, and struggling with his own shirt and slacks and shoes, until they are both standing naked, facing each other. And then, for a moment, they are both still, because this is a pause, a prelude, to the real meaning.
The man starts to speak. But then he falls back into silence, because he can see that she is a beauty, and he cannot encompass his good fortune. He stretches out a tentative hand, and cups it under her breast, and then matches his action with his other hand. Patricia feels her body begin to warm, because he is rubbing his thumbs gently over her nipples, and it is a feeling that she knows will start her burning. She leans forward to kiss him, and he looks surprised, as if kisses formed no part of his expectations, and then they are together on the hotel room bed, and he is pushing his knee between her legs, and raising himself above her, and she can feel him penetrate her and drive into her, and his movement is a jerking rhythm of desperation, until he falls on her in his exhaustion, and he is finished. She waits, because she expects more, but he rolls away, with his back to her, and she suddenly realises that he has purged his lust. Something has died within him, and their compact is ended.
He gets to his feet, and tells her he will take a shower, and then she can shower in her turn. Patricia sits on the edge of the bed, and she is thinking. It has not been a bad encounter, all things considered: it has taken very little time, perhaps twenty-five minutes from start to end. Now she understands why girls stand on street corners, and the envy that other women feel. She looks around, and sees a picture of a woman in a small leather frame on the man’s beside table, and picture of a girl of perhaps her own age. The woman is plain, in middle-aged plainness. But the girl is young, with the sweetness of a schoolgirl.
The man comes out of his shower, drying himself with a towel, and she nods at the pictures. He tells he that it is indeed his wife, and as he speaks he avoid her eyes, plainly not wishing to link propriety with misdeed. He has a dog look, a shiny damp spaniel look of marriage hanging over him.
“And the girl?” Patricia speaks tentatively, because she is feeling her way.
The man’s eyes meet her own. “She’s my daughter. You’re just like her.” He hesitates, and for a moment his spaniel look is gone, and his soul is speaking out through his eyes, and he is burning with lust again. Patricia senses that she has served as a proxy, and she is suddenly filled with revulsion.
He fumbles with his billfold, but she has not finished with him. “She’s nearly as old as I am.” Her words are both statement and challenge.
The man holds money out to her, and she can see from the look in his eyes that he knows she has measured his secret. She takes his bills without counting them, and dresses quickly. She is in a sick place, and she must flee. The man mumbles something about her taking a shower, but she feels an overwhelming need to escape.
Afterwards, when she is safely out of the hotel, she inspects her takings. She discover that she is richer by five twenty dollar bills, and she realises that she has travelled a million miles in experience. Suddenly she realises that she need fear hardship no more. She is a pretty girl, and she will profit from the lust that smoulders in men’s eyes when she passes. She is a pretty girl, and she will command men through their secrets. For she has a battle to fight, and she has bills to pay, and her struggle will be eased by their desires.