A Kiss Before Loving Page 4

  Pimping? Why kid himself? From time to time some of the male tourists he ran into would furtively ask his advice about picking up a professional. Invariably, Shell gave good advice, even though the man was most often married. Occasionally, the girls offered him a cut. Wasn’t that pimping? Just because he didn’t stand on a corner whispering to passing men didn’t mean he wasn’t pimping.

  And what came next, when you’d gone this far? Tout, gigolo, pimp. What was preventing that final step, out-and-out thief?

  He emerged from the gardens onto the Quai des Tuileries and turned left, passing the endless bookstalls along the quayside with their mélange of second-hand books, old prints, decorative maps — and pornography. Some of the stall owners nodded or called to him.

  Shell got a fifty per cent kickback from these peddlers of filth in print. It could mount up. A smirking, half-ashamed American tourist would spend fantastic amounts for the privilege of reading four-letter words, or looking at completely nude photographs. The French had some strange ideas pertaining to dirty books. They were strict about such material written in French, but couldn’t care less what you published in English or some other foreign language.

  Shell grunted his self-contempt. Where had it all started? He let his mind go back …

  • • •

  It had probably started before his birth, with Marian Gelbert and George Halliday. Marian Gelbert had edited the college yearbook, had starred in the senior class production of As You Like It and was president of the Thespian Society and the Glee Club. Marian Gelbert, of whom they had said so many flattering things in the graduation book. Hollywood? New York? London? Paris? Where was the talented Marian Gelbert going to go after graduation?

  She didn’t go anywhere.

  She stayed in New Elba, Ohio, and married George Halliday who never quite got over his good luck. It was always a source of amazement to the plodding George that as pretty and gifted a girl as Marian could ever have chosen him when all the world should have been beating a path to her door.

  He had never admitted the drawbacks of being married to her. He had never complained when, upon returning home, tired from a twelve-hour day at his hardware supplies emporium, he was confronted with the fact that the evening was to be spent listening to Marian giving readings to the Shakespeare Club. When informed that his garage was to be converted into a workshop for the Handicrafts Association, complete with pottery wheels and looms, he had merely nodded acquiescence.

  Nor had he interfered with her grandiose plans upon the birth of Shelley. Secretly, he would have liked to name the boy Charles or James, feeling that an offbeat nickname was a handicap in the world of small boys. But Shelley it was and, during the months when she had been carrying the baby, Marian made a point of reading aloud the poetry of the British Romantic Period at least two hours a day on the off chance that there might be something to the theory that you could influence an unborn child. For nine months it had been Shelley, Keats and Byron and a multitude of lesser lights such as Leigh Hunt and Thomas Moore. George Halliday had got poetry thrown at him until he finally knew long stanzas by heart without having made the least effort to recall them.

  And, secretly, he was relieved that by the time the boy was old enough to read, Marian had switched her ambitions toward art. Painting was far enough out, he figured, but at least it wasn’t as bad as having a poet in the family.

  Marian Halliday took her task seriously. Little Shelley learned to sketch before he learned to write. Crayons became his toy, in spite of any desires he might have had in other directions. He had water colors and even oils with which to daub at an age when other kids were brandishing cap pistols.

  Four years of art in high school — and, of course, he led the class. Miss Thompson, the art teacher, admitted that Shelley Halliday was the most talented lad she had ever taught. A Leonardo da Vinci in embryo, she’d said.

  Four more years of art at Antioch, and although his instructors there had not quite the same ecstatic opinions of his abilities that had Miss Thompson, that could, at least partly, be laid to professional pique. As his mother pointed out, art, after you have gone beyond the elementary principles, can hardly be taught. Each artist can only paint in his own style and each new developing creator of beauty on canvas must find his own milieu.

  College over, Shelley Halliday had spent some eight months getting together enough canvases to hold a one-man show in a Cincinnati gallery. It was a triumph. The expense of the opening, at which Marian Halliday insisted champagne be served in abundance and the hors d’oeuvres catered by the swankest restaurant in town, set George Halliday back plenty but the paintings sold beyond expectation. After all expenses, and the forty per cent commission deducted by the gallery owner, Shell even had a slight profit. Most of the sales, admittedly, went to relatives and friends, although two were taken by the New Elba High School to be displayed in the foyer. Before the show was over, half his offerings had been purchased, and Shell Halliday had some excellent art reviews to go into his scrapbook. The Cincinnati papers had been more than kind.

  Marian Halliday began her campaign to send Shell to Paris for a year of extended study. At first she had dreams of accompanying him, but there George Halliday put his foot down. His business was moderately prosperous but it most certainly wasn’t up to supporting two people in Paris. Besides, Marian Halliday might be in her forties now but she was still the most beautifully desirable thing that had ever happened in the life of George Halliday and he wasn’t about to give her up.

  The boy? Well, they’d find some way of giving him his year of extensive study in Paris, but he’d be on his own.

  They had planned it in detail one night in the parlor, the four of them, Marian, George, Shell and Connie. And it was decided that the only thing which made sense was for Shell to keep going. The prospect of entering into George Halliday’s business after all these years of study was ridiculous. This was no time to hesitate. Marian explained that that had been her own mistake — although at this point she cast a loving glance at her stolid husband — because she, too, had been talented and who knew how far she might have gone had she stuck it out and gone to Hollywood or New York?

  Yes, Connie had been present, too. Constance Lockwood, the childhood sweetheart, the girl who lived three doors down the street. Connie Lockwood, blond of hair, long of leg. A trifle on the plumpish side, in her early twenties, but on Connie and at this age, it wasn’t amiss. A somewhat plumpish version of Debbie Reynolds, Shell had thought.

  Even Connie had agreed, since even she had the dream. A painter, a real painter who had studied in Paris. One day, Shell would be the greatest painter in the Middle West. Who knew? Perhaps in all America. When you looked at the tripe the others were selling for fabulous prices, how could Shell miss?

  After the family conference, Shell and Connie had driven off in the four-year-old Buick of George’s and had continued the discussion from their own viewpoint.

  They sat in the back seat and there was preliminary necking which had become so patterned over the years they’d gone steady together as to be almost routine.

  And then they’d talked a bit further — about whether or not they should have dates with others during the year of separation. And they’d both been noble and decided to be modern and not ridiculous and of course they’d have other dates. But once again, of course, it wouldn’t be allowed to become serious.

  In spite of the fact that the night was moonless there was sufficient light to give Connie’s blond beauty an all but ethereal quality. Shell felt a stirring within him that he’d learned to suppress when alone with her.

  It wasn’t that he was completely inexperienced with women. Not after four years away at school. He’d had short affairs and he’d had a few experiences with the pros and semi-pros that abound in the vicinity of a campus. But Connie was for keeps, and you didn’t soil your own nest.

  But now?

  He kissed her again and fondled one youthful breast in his hand. That much was pe
rmissible. They’d worked it out years ago — just what was allowed and what wasn’t. Never in words, but there was an unspoken rule.

  She wore a sweater. While he pressed home his kiss, forcing her lips gently apart with his tongue, he pulled the sweater free from her skirt and slipped his hand beneath. This was dangerously near the forbidden point, but she stirred without protest.

  At twenty-two, Connie Lockwood needed a brassiere only for purposes of modesty, not support. Tonight, she wore none. Her breast was warm and responsive to his fingers. And now he was past the line of permission.

  There seemed to be an explosion. Something happened to time. There was an interval which Shell Halliday could never remember afterward, which he would have given a great deal to have remembered in later months of loneliness.

  Connie’s skirt was now up to her thighs, gathered into her lap. Her long legs gleamed shockingly white in the little light provided him.

  He was stroking the pinkness of her inner thighs, muttering into her open, hot mouth, and he could feel himself throbbing with need.

  She moaned and evidently heard the sound of belt buckle and zipper, because she suddenly sat more upright and drew in her breath in fear. But still her skirt remained drawn up in her lap, and still her legs gleamed white.

  When she spoke, her voice was remarkably even considering the pressure they’d both allowed themselves to build up.

  “Darling,” she said, avoiding looking at him, avoiding seeing what was there. “Darling, if you must do this, all right. I can’t deny you tonight. I know it’s partly my fault but — you stir me as much as I do you.”

  He muttered something incomprehensible and pressed closer to her. His maleness was obvious.

  She said, her voice dogged, “But, darling, if you do, I think … perhaps … you’ll be sorry forever. Something will have gone out of our love if you take me now.”

  He tried to bring his thoughts back to reality.

  “Look, Connie, that’s ridiculous. We’ve been practically engaged since you were a freshman in high school. Nothing can end it now. And … I’m going away.”

  “I know,” she said simply. “If you feel you must, then you may. But … darling …”

  “You don’t want to, do you?” he said bluntly.

  “Darling, I would rather our … first time not be in the back of a car, like a pair of furtive adolescents.”

  “We could go to a motel.”

  She said, very softly, “Then it would be less adolescent, perhaps, but I feel I would still be — we would still be — degrading ourselves. And, Shell, after all these years, I would like to have the white I wear as a bride mean what it’s supposed to mean. A symbol of — don’t laugh at me — purity.”

  The peak of his passion had ebbed away. He realized she was being slightly corny and dramatic, but …

  Shell Halliday adjusted his clothes. “Okay, honey. You win.”

  She buried her head in her hands for a moment. “I’m … I’m not sure I’m glad that I did,” she said. He helped her smooth her skirt down.

  • • •

  He was crossing the Seine on the Pont du Carrousel.

  Yes, Connie. That had been a great part of it. He couldn’t go back and face Connie. It would have been bad enough with his mother. George Halliday would have been fine. He probably would have preferred that Shell live in New Elba and work in the store, finally to inherit it. Yes, that would have been his father’s position.

  But his mother? And especially Connie?

  When he had arrived in Paris, he spent the first week in looking about and in investigating the various masters who taught advanced art. There had been four or five at that time whom Shell considered worth working under.

  It had taken a week to get located. The master under whom he wanted to study and a small studio apartment in which to live. All very Parisian and in the tradition of young foreign art students come to the City of Light to pursue their work at the font of the world’s art center.

  It had taken him a week to get located and a month to find out he was no artist. He’d already made the discovery before the French master had apologetically taken him aside and told Shelley Halliday that he could no longer take his money. His conscience wouldn’t allow it.

  There had been another teacher for a time, one whose conscience wasn’t quite so strong, but Shell had been kidding himself. He was pouring money down a drain. He knew enough about art to know good work and talent when he saw it, and he wasn’t seeing it on his own canvas.

  In fact, he even wondered how he’d been able to delude himself back in Ohio.

  So it took him a month to find out he was no artist, and never would be, and it took him the rest of the year to figure out how he was going to explain the fact back home. How was he going to spend the rest of his life walking the streets of New Elba, listening to the whispers?

  There goes Shell Halliday. Used to set himself up as an artist — even went to Paris. Wasted thousands of dollars of old George Halliday’s money. Can’t draw a line. Had to come crawling home and take a job in his father’s store.

  He continued to walk down Rue des Saints-Pères and turned left on Saint Germain. He passed the Deux Magots where he’d provoked the meeting with Sissy and Mike Brett-James the evening before and considered, momentarily, having an apéritif. But no, he still had the remnants of a hangover. He walked on toward his hotel and continued his thoughts.

  He had never figured out how to break the news to family and friends. He cut out his studies and slipped into Left Bank expatriate society. Students, drunks, would-be artists, models, pretty and otherwise, homosexuals, nymphomaniacs, poets, writers, sculptors, musicians, refugees, titled and otherwise, and just plain, garden-variety international bums.

  It was easy enough, particularly that first year when he still had his father’s money, and the little studio apartment soon became a hangout for the set he moved in.

  Aside from sketching vicious little caricatures of the people of the Latin Quarter, both resident and tourist, he forgot about work at all. It was easy to do, particularly while the money lasted.

  He wrote dutifully to his parents and to Connie and, at first, his letters were moderately honest. He avoided mentioning his supposed studies. But that wouldn’t do, they wanted details of his life. So he began stretching a point here and there, mentioning name artists he met and associated with, pretending to discuss the painting he was currently working upon, dropping a hint that he was progressing continually.

  And, finally, he got to the point where he mentioned participating in a show at this gallery or that. Occasionally he’d mention selling a painting.

  At the end of the year, he came up with his answer. He wasn’t going home. At the time he was living with a Polish model, a dark, excitable girl still in her late teens. She was a volcano in bed.

  He wrote George Halliday, explaining that he’d have to continue his studies, that a year wasn’t long enough, that he still had a lot to learn. The letter hadn’t been easy to write. It helped that he’d just come off a three-day binge and sexual spree with the Polish girl. A splitting headache can go far toward stilling a conscience.

  To Shell’s shock, George Halliday wrote back that further support was impossible. The current recession had hit town and the Halliday store was feeling the fall in employment. He could send a few hundred dollars, enough to bring Shell home, but that was all. Shell would have to return and start selling his paintings, or open a gallery or art school, or whatever it was that artists did to make a living. George Halliday was sorry, and Marian greatly upset, but financial facts were facts and they just couldn’t afford to keep Shell abroad.

  There was a check for four hundred dollars. Shell cashed it and went back to the model and another binge.

  When his rent was up, he moved from his studio to a single room in a Left Bank hotel. And a few weeks later he moved from there to a cheaper hotel and began investigating the facts of life as they pertain to those on a shoestring bud
get in Paris.

  There were various angles. For instance, you could get the gasoline coupons that were issued to the foreigner by the government. They gave a considerable discount from the usual dollar a gallon price, and they could be sold easily on the black market. It was far from a living but it helped out each month. And he signed up as a student at the Sorbonne and got a student pass which enabled him to get discounts on the metro and other transportation, gave him free or cheap entry to much entertainment, and allowed him to eat at government-subsidized student restaurants for a pittance.

  And he began free loading on those who had formerly free-loaded on him, although that didn’t last long. The Left Bank crowd in which he moved were past masters in avoiding a touch.

  Early in the game he discovered that for the usual tourist, especially Americans, there was an aura around the Bohemian, the Latin Quarter poet, painter, or whatever. Prosperous businessmen and their wives from Far Cry, Nebraska were hot to meet a “real Bohemian” and willing, even anxious, to pick up the tab for the privilege.

  So Shell had bought a beret to wear, and made a practice of donning his most aged and paint-bespattered clothing, taking a sketch pad and hanging about the internationally known sidewalk cafés. At first it had merely been a matter of free meals and drinks, but in no time at all he found he could parlay that up to getting kickbacks from less popular restaurants and night spots to which he’d steer his wide-eyed tourists.

  And still he wrote home his letters of success, describing the parties he attended — or gave — describing the internationally famous with whom he supposedly associated.

  Shell had now reached Monsieur Le Prince, turned up it and then right again on Rue Casimir DeLavigne. He was just around the corner from Robert’s and probably could have gone in and buttered up the headwaiter into a free lunch, but he didn’t feel hungry.

  Shell Halliday entered the Lycée Hotel and approached the tiny reception desk. Cyril Hobbs came out of the private apartment he and his shrill wife maintained on the ground floor.