pulling her down next to him. “Tell me about yourself. You’re such a
stranger. All I know about you is the way you look—and slap.”
She told him where she was from, where she was going to school, what she
was studying. “And that’s about the story of my life,” she finished.
“What about you?”
“Taking my Master’s at State. Psychology—just like you. I’ll finish next
June.”
“Then what?”
“I’m not sure. I hope to get my doctorate.”
Peggy laughed. “And I thought you were a simple farm boy!”
“Well, I am. I come here summers to help out Aunt Lelia.”
Peggy covertly studied the lad next to her. He was slouched against the
tree, chewing on a blade of grass. His brown eyes roamed the green and
gold fields, resting occasionally on Peggy. She found him easy to talk
to—much more interested in listening, apparently, than in impressing her
with his own words. He seemed so relaxed in her company that it made her
feel relaxed, too. They began to walk again, after a while, drinking in
the beauty of the day.
Suddenly Kirby said, “Hey, you must be starving!” He looked at his
watch. “Let’s drive to town and feed our faces.”
The day wore on—pleasantly, soothingly.
* * * * *
Peggy got back to camp a few minutes before the evening meal.
She hurried to the lounge, looking for Beth.
“Hi. How did it go?” Beth asked as Peggy walked in.
She sat down next to the nurse. “As you said, he’s nice. One of the
nicest fellows I’ve ever dated.”
Beth nodded, a glimmer of a smile in her eyes.
“That reminds me,” she said. “Ted telephoned today.”
“What did he have to say?”
“I don’t know. Mike talked to him. Sorry you missed his call?”
“Are you kidding?” Her thoughts reverted to Kirby. “You know, you were
right, Beth. I do have to get out and meet people.”
“There’s mess call,” Beth said, rising as the notes of the bugle reached
them. “Let’s go in and eat.”
At the table, remembering Ted’s phone call, Peggy wondered if he were
contemplating another visit. If so, maybe he had mentioned it to Mike.
She glanced around, hoping to catch Mike’s eye. But the redhead was not
at her regular seat. Night off probably, Peggy thought.
She did not run into Mike until the following evening in the lounge. But
just as she approached the girl, the telephone rang.
Mike jumped from her chair. “I’ll get it!” She bounded to the wall box.
Seconds later, a doleful look on her face, she held out the receiver.
“For you, Peg.”
“I’d have called sooner,” she heard Kirby say, “but I never know when I
can get you during the day. Peggy, I can’t wait to see you again.”
Peggy did not answer. What should she do? Encourage him? After all, her
heart lay elsewhere.
“When will it be, Peggy?”
She hesitated. Then, feeling like a traitor, she said, “My next day off.
I’ll call you.”
After the kids had been put to sleep in the cabin, Peggy rushed down to
the Pillbox. She found Beth in her room, making coffee.
“I was expecting you,” Beth said.
“Oh, Beth—I’ve gone and done it. I promised Kirby I would see him
again.”
“That’s what I want you to do.”
“But—honestly, Beth, I feel as if I’m cheating on you. Are you sure you
won’t mind?”
“Of course not. Kirby is worth knowing.”
Peggy kissed the nurse on the cheek. “You’re an angel,” she said. “Why
are you so good to me?”
“I like to see you happy.”
Is that what love is, Peggy wondered—the unselfish desire to see a loved
one happy? If so, and if she desired as much for Beth, why had she
accepted another date with a man? Despite Beth’s denials, Peggy was sure
the nurse was inwardly bitter about it.
But if it were not love she felt for Beth, Peggy asked herself, what was
it?
Hell, that’s silly, she thought. I love Beth. No question about it. If I
didn’t, I wouldn’t be risking everything to lie in her arms.
“Problems?” Beth asked, noting Peggy’s expression.
“Tell me the truth, Beth. The honest truth. Doesn’t it bother you to
know I’m going out with somebody else?”
Beth sank into a chair. “To be honest, certainly it does. But it’s the
right thing for you to do.” Beth’s lids masked her eyes.
Peggy sank to her knees before the chair, looked into Beth’s face.
I do love her, Peggy assured herself. I love everything about her. She
ran a fingertip across Beth’s thigh.
“Beth,” she said. “Does a person always know when he—or she—is in love?”
Beth’s eyes fluttered open. “Not necessarily. Why?”
“No reason,” Peggy murmured, closing in on the nurse.
* * * * *
During that next date with Kirby, while riding back from town, Peggy
asked the troublesome question. What is love? He admitted that he could
not answer, and looked at her strangely.
That was the only uncomfortable moment of the day. He did not make a
pass at her. But they laughed and joked and talked of many things—and
Kirby revealed what to Peggy were astonishing depths of profundity,
refreshing attitudes. Peggy’s respect for him had grown enormously by
the time he returned her to camp, just after nine o’clock.
Before leaving the car, Peggy raised the question of love once again.
“Do you think enjoying sex with someone means that you love the person?
I don’t mean just raw passion. I mean something—” she thought of her
days and nights with Beth—“something good and—well, beautiful.”
“Not necessarily,” Kirby said. “Sometimes a thing is beautiful because
we want it to be.”
“You mean it’s all in the mind?” Peggy was echoing Beth’s words.
“You could say that. Of course, very often a person uses sex as a
substitute.”
“A substitute for what?”
“A lot of things—love, affection, the need to be needed. People
sometimes try to find these things through sex.”
Kirby had cut his lights. Peggy stared through the windshield at the
rising moon.
“Will you be able to get to your cabin without a flashlight?” he asked.
“Oh, sure. I could find it with my eyes shut.”
She waited, out of politeness. She expected him to try and kiss her good
night.
But he made no move.
“So long, Kirby,” she said. “Thanks for a wonderful day.” With that, she
stepped from the car. She picked her way across the parking lot, found
the path to the hill.
At the turn-off to the Pillbox, however, she saw ahead of her the
familiar figure in white.
“I thought you’d be along soon,” Beth said. She took the girl’s arm, led
her toward the infirmary. “Have a nice time?”
“Very.”
“I’m glad. What kept you so late?”
“We were talking,” Peggy said. Rather reluctantly, she followed the
nurse into her room.
“Sit down,” Beth said. “I could hardly wait until you got back. Thank
heaven, we have the whole night ahead of us.” Beth kicked off her shoes.
“Would you like something, dear? Tea?”
“Not right now.”
“I have a bottle of Scotch, you know.” Beth slipped off her stockings,
stepped out of her uniform. “But I don’t think we should drink in camp,
do you?” Beth loosened her bra.
Peggy forced her eyes away, glanced at her watch. “I think I’d better
go, Beth. It’s getting late, and—”
“But you’re on leave until morning!” Beth sat down on the bed. “Aren’t
you happy to be here with me?”
Peggy could not understand her mixed emotions. She forced herself to
smile. “Of course I’m happy.” She walked to the bed, let her hand drop
to the soft brown hair.
“Let’s lie in bed and talk a while,” Beth said eagerly.
“All right.” Peggy began undressing. What had come over her, anyway? Had
being with Kirby affected her? Had his words given her doubts? Standing
in her filmy underthings, she hesitated. At the moment she wished that
she could escape.
“Let me,” Beth said. Deftly she loosened Peggy’s bra.
Peggy could not help the tremor that passed through her body, as she
felt her heavy breasts touched.
Now Beth’s hands were on her hips, rolling down the silky half-slip.
Peggy turned her nakedness toward the nurse. “Beth, usually you accept
me only under protest. You try to argue me out of it. Why are you
different tonight? You’re eager. You lead the way—”
“Darling, I’m afraid I’ve changed. You’ve made me need you. Oh, I fought
it, and I told you to fight it—but it was a losing battle, I guess.
Peggy, you’re so lovely. You’re so fresh and clean and thrilling—” She
held out her hands. “Come to bed with me.”
They embraced, warm nakedness against warm nakedness.
“Yes,” Peggy choked out. “Let’s go to bed.”
But even as her hands roamed the treasures of Beth’s body, as they
passed over curves and swells and plumbed secret depths, a part of Peggy
was elsewhere.
Oh, she heard Beth crooning, she could feel the heat and sense the
passion alive in the nurse; yet it was as though Peggy were an onlooker,
a nonparticipant in the emotions she had aroused.
She had learned the intimate nerves of Beth—the places where a touch
makes a woman squirm and moan and cry out for more. And diligently, if
automatically, Peggy tried to please—kissing, teasing, probing,
rocketing the nurse into space, higher, higher still, until with a cry
of ecstasy, Beth reached the ultimate heavens.
Peggy held Beth in her arms. She could feel the beat of the woman’s
heart. She kissed the soft, sweet-smelling hair. Beth sighed, inched
closer to Peggy.
At last Peggy noted Beth’s even breathing and hoped the nurse would fall
asleep. Peggy closed her own eyes.
Then her lids shot open. There was a hand on her breast. She covered it
with her own, stopping its slow caress.
“What’s wrong?” Beth asked.
“I’m just tired.”
Beth burrowed closer still. “You’re never too tired for this.”
“Beth, I—”
“Here’s something that will wake you up.”
Peggy shuddered as the nurse’s hands passed over her.
“You like this?”
“No—yes ... Beth, please!”
“Please what? This?”
“No.”
“How about this?”
“You’re torturing me,” Peggy moaned.
Beth laughed. “And you like it.”
Peggy squirmed under her touch.
“Don’t you like it, Peggy?”
Dumbly, the girl nodded.
“You like this...?”
Peggy’s blood began to boil.
“And this...?”
Her thighs quivered.
“I know everything you like. You like—”
Peggy gasped.
“Enough?”
“Yes.”
“Sure?” Her hands continued to move.
Peggy’s head was getting light.
“Do you want more?”
Peggy convulsed.
“Here?”
“Oh!”
Beth was relentless.
The room began to spin; the room and the bed and Peggy and Beth. Peggy
clutched the nurse, held on for dear life as she soared on the wings of
blissful agony. And then everything exploded into a hundred thousand
pieces ... whirled like a celestial kaleidoscope ... and slowly fell
back into place.
Peggy rested her head on Beth’s breast, struggled to catch her breath.
Beth’s hands stroked her soothingly.
As she drifted off to sleep, words seeped into Peggy’s brain. _It’s all
in your mind ... sex is a substitute ... something is beautiful because
you want it to be...._
* * * * *
Several evenings later, Peggy sat by herself on a wooden bench on the
lodge porch. Beyond the circle of the ceiling lamp, black night
stretched bleakly; no moon, no stars. Kirby had been over a couple of
times to walk with her when she had had time off. But this night Peggy
wanted to be alone. She had thinking to do.
What she had to blame herself for, she realized, was not so much that
she had fallen in love with another woman, had for better or worse
slipped into a degraded way of life. After all, that concerned only Beth
and herself. And maybe there were excuses for it.
But there was no excuse for having neglected to ferret out the twisted
degenerate who had coerced Beth in the bathhouse—who perhaps had doped
Peggy and certainly had ravished her. A person capable of such behavior
was capable of anything, it seemed to Peggy. Such a person could violate
other counselors, even the children. That person had to be identified,
ejected from the camp.
Peggy did not blame Beth for refusing to name the person. She knew that
in retaliation, the unknown one could expose Beth, destroy her and
perhaps others. More important, the reputation of the camp would be
ruined. What parent would ever send a daughter there?
Nevertheless, Peggy resolved to concentrate thereafter on running down
the menace. After that, she would figure out some way of dealing with
it. Peggy frowned. Once again, in her mind, she ran over the
possibilities.
Lilian? Hardly likely. She was too unabashed about showing her own body,
too frankly curious concerning the other girl’s bodies, as Peggy could
testify. It seemed to her that a lesbian would disguise such interest,
would be on her guard about it, although it was perfectly natural among
girls at a camp.
What about Dorothy and little Ruth? As the summer had worn on, these two
had been seen more and more in each other’s company. They took their
days off and their nights off together. They thought nothing of being
seen walking with arms about each other’s waists. Occasionally they even
shared the same cot. Then there was Dorothy’s constant talk about men.
That could be disguise, of course....
And speaking of disguises, what of the masquerade? Dorothy had come
dressed as a man. The children had been delighted. Dorothy had been
obliged to dance with each of the senior girls—but after the dancing,
she had gone strolling with Ruth.
Peggy sighed. She had seen many such crushes among girls, at camp, at
school. They did not necessarily mean a thing.
But Mike—she was another matter. Peggy lit a cigarette and thought
carefully. Mike had that husky voice, the kind difficult to overhear if
she had been the girl in the bathhouse. Peggy made up her mind to resume
her former camaraderie with Mike, get her talking, try to find out
where—
Peggy heard footsteps.
Speak of the devil!
Mike was walking up the stairs, dressed in yellow skirt and blouse,
low-heeled sandals, earrings. Peggy was amazed at the transfiguration
the outfit made in the girl. The yellow certainly did things for Mike’s
bronze tan. She looked amazingly girlish and pretty.
“Hi, stranger,” Peggy said with a smile. “Big occasion?”
“I guess you could call it that,” Mike said uneasily. “Day off. See you,
Peg.” And she rushed in, bound for the lounge.
Peggy scowled. Mike had been disappearing from camp quite a lot, lately.
Where did she go? And with whom? She never spoke of her adventures. Why
the secret life?
Peggy checked her watch. Close to ten. Restless, she rose and started
for the lakeside. She could not resist the moonbeams glowing across the
water.
She went only as far as the gate. There she stood long minutes, watching
the ripples leave the spotlight and move to shore. Then she turned and
began the trek up the hill to her bunk.
Camp was so different at night, she thought. So quiet—serene, actually.
Peggy dragged her feet, hating the idea of crawling into bed, wishing
she could spend all night wandering the dark, peaceful hills.
In the distance an owl hooted. Peggy shook off a mischievous impulse to
answer him. Branches rustled as she hit a bush. Then she heard leaves
somewhere nearby. A squirrel, she thought. Or maybe a chipmunk. She
swept her light up the path.
She stopped sharply, startled by a figure flashing just ahead of the
light beam then disappearing into the trees.
Peggy ran to the spot where the figure had dashed across the path. Were
the kids up to something?
Cautiously, Peggy left the path, pushed her way among the trees. Brush
crackled. She scanned the foliage with her light but saw nothing.
Then ahead of her a twig snapped. She heard an unladylike curse and
scrunching leaves.
Peggy moved stealthily, circling the area with her flashlight. She saw
nothing but rocks and tree trunks and fallen leaves and twigs and—
She held her light steady, focused about twenty feet in front of her on
a crouching form.
Peggy moved closer.
The girl, rubbing her ankle, looked up.
Alice Hart!
Peggy hurried to her. The girl’s eyes, wide with fear, stared up at
Peggy. There was a bruise on Alice’s cheekbone. Her disheveled hair hung
to her shoulders. Peggy could make out a deep scratch on her neck. She
clutched a torn bathrobe about her.
“Leave me alone,” she said, as Peggy approached.
“What happened, Alice?”
“Nothing.” The girl moved her leg and winced at the pain. “I fell down,”
she said.
“Before that—what were you doing?”
The girl would not answer. Peggy reached out to help Alice get up.
“Don’t touch me!” she cried in abject terror.
Peggy stepped back. She stared at the youngster hunched there on the
damp earth. “Come on, Alice. You’ve got to get out of here.” She reached
out once more, put her hand on the girl’s arm.
At her touch, Alice let out a bloodcurdling scream. Peggy jumped back,
alarmed.
“Alice,” Peggy whispered, as though to compensate for the girl’s noise,
“you’ll wake up the whole camp.”
Peggy looked around for a limb to serve as a cane. She found one hanging
from a low branch, suspended by only a few fibers. She broke it off with
a resounding crack.
Returning to Alice, whose eyes followed her every move, Peggy held out
the limb.
“Here,” Peggy said softly. “This will help you walk.”
The girl’s eyes moved to the branch.
“Come on,” Peggy told her.
“No,” the girl said in a frozen tone, her eyes riveted on the stick in
Peggy’s hand. “Leave me alone. Leave me alone ... leave me alone ...
leave me alone ...” she repeated, voice shrilling into a hysterical
singsong. Then with a last wild shriek she tore her eyes from the limb,
buried her head in her hands and began sobbing uncontrollably.
Peggy swung the branch to her shoulder, and moved one step toward the
girl.
“What’s going on here?” a voice boomed behind them.
Peggy whirled to face Pam, taking the blinding beam of a flashlight full
in her face.
FOURTEEN
Peggy blinked and turned away. When she opened her eyes, all was black
with white and gold and red flecks swimming in front of her. She blinked
harder.
“What’s going on?” Pam repeated.
Peggy stuttered out what she knew of the story. While she was talking,
Mike came rushing through the shadows behind her sister. She caught the
last of Peggy’s explanation.
Pam turned to Alice.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“I got nothing to tell,” the girl said bitterly.
Pam did not insist.
“Come on, then. Let’s get you to your cabin.”
“Her foot is hurt,” Peggy cautioned. “I think she fell.”
Pam cast Peggy a furtive look. “Mike, help Alice up. See if she can
walk.”
Mike braced the girl, managed to get her to her feet. As Alice threw an
arm around Mike, her robe fell open.
Peggy’s jaw dropped. Pam said, “Christ!” The front of the girl’s pajamas
had been ripped open, exposing her tender, maturing breasts. There was a
scratch near one pink nipple, similar to the one Peggy had noticed on
her neck.
Hastily Alice gathered her robe about her, her eyes darting to each of
the three counselors.
Pam growled, “Mike, get her to Beth right away. Peggy and I are going to
see Miss Duncan. Peggy, here, has a lot of explaining to do.”
“But—”
“Save it,” Pam said to Peggy.
“Pam, are you accusing her—”
“I’m not accusing anyone, Mike. I merely said that she had some
explaining to do.”
“My God, she explained everything to you. And you know what Duncan will
do.”
“It’s my job, Mike.”
“You’re acting too hastily.”
“Mike, I’ve caught her in action before. At one of the sleepouts, she
had that Susie kid in the hay with her all night.”
“But she’ll be fired on the spot. You—”
The meaning of it all hit Peggy with an impact that left her speechless
and thoughtless. Peggy was being accused of whatever horror had befallen
Alice.
The rest of the conversation drifted to her through the fog clogging her
brain—and left her even more incapable of thinking when Mike’s final
words came through:
“But I know she had nothing to do with it,” the redhead was saying.
“I’ll swear to it. She—” Mike faltered for only an instant—“she was with
me.”
* * * * *
_She was with me ... she was with me ... with me ... me...._ For hours
Peggy lay awake, trying to reconstruct everything that had happened from
the moment Mike had walked up the lodge steps.
Peggy rolled to her side. She jammed her fists into the pillow, damp
with perspiration. She remembered that when Mike had burst out of the
bushes, she had been wearing jeans and sweatshirt. The fancy clothes had
been gone.
Pam had finally been convinced, had promised not to report the incident
to Miss Duncan for a time—provided Beth would approve. And provided Mike
was able to do some profitable detective work in the next couple of
days.
Peggy was no longer under suspicion. Or at least, no longer being
accused.
But why—why had Mike lied?
Peggy sat up, her knees clutched to her chest. Was Mike guilty; had she
committed the offense, then used Peggy as an alibi? But why? If Mike had
remained silent, Peggy would have been dismissed immediately and the
case probably forgotten.
Peggy thought hard once more.
A chilling thought suddenly touched her, making her stomach churn. Of
course! Common sense at last had made her realize there was one other
person who might molest a camper. Members gathered in her mind: Beth and
Susie, Beth and the other girls....
If Beth would fondle an ailing ten-year-old in broad daylight, what
would she do to a well-developed fourteen-year-old in the dark of night?
Peggy thrashed on her bed.
She could not wait for morning to come.
* * * * *
Beth stubbed out a cigarette.
“For God’s sake, Peggy, will you listen to me? I had nothing to do with
it.”
Peggy was relentless. “What happened last night after she got here?”
Beth took another cigarette from the pack on the desk. “I looked her
over, mercurochromed the scratches, and put her to bed in the next
room.”
Peggy remembered her one night as a patient, and shuddered.
“Was she doped up? Did you crawl into bed with her?”
The cigarette stopped halfway to the nurse’s mouth. “Don’t be
ridiculous.”
Peggy searched Beth’s soft face for signs of guilt, found none. It is
the same soft face, with the same gentle mouth, the same compassionate
expression.
“Now calm yourself, Peggy,” she was saying. “I’m not angry with you for
accusing me. I know you’re strung up.”
“Thanks,” growled Peggy. She would have loved to believe the nurse
innocent, but other images were forming in Peggy’s thoughts—girls in the
Pillbox, girls clustering around the nurse as she walked through the
camp grounds, girls rushing to hold her hand or give her a bouquet of
wild flowers....
“Alice will speak, maybe, after she gets over her fear. What did you do,
Beth—threaten to kill her if she ever opens her mouth?”
“If she speaks, it may bring tragedy to many of us,” Beth said. “But I
hope she does—I hope she does—”
Peggy turned on her heel, marched out of the Pillbox.
What bothered her now was that she was involved with this woman,
involved with the whole debauched pattern that numbered Alice as its
latest victim.
Peggy walked along slowly. Could she ever break out of it?
There had to be a way. A way to escape this sickness, or at least find
out if she could.
Chin firmly lifted, Peggy went to the lodge and called Kirby.
“Can you meet me tonight? After taps?”
“Any time, any place. You know that.”
* * * * *
Kirby picked her up at the gate.
“Take me to some nice, lonely spot. A quiet one.”
“Sure. I suppose those noisy kids can get on your nerves after a while.”
He swung the car around. Twenty minutes later he turned into a remote
dirt lane.
He switched off the ignition, adjusted the seat, and laid his head back,
gazing at the stars.
Peggy moved, so that her soft thigh brushed his hard one. Her head was
nearly touching his shoulder.
He got the message.
“I’ve been waiting for that, Peggy. After the time you slapped me, I
resolved never to make advances—not unless you let me know you wanted
them.” He sighed. “It’s been difficult. You’re more than beautiful,
Peggy. You’re entrancing, enchanting—” And his arm went around her.
She waited, knowing he was going to kiss her. She wanted him to. When
his lips pressed hers, her own lips parted, accepting his kiss,
returning it.
The kiss persisted as his hand tightened on her shoulder, as his arm
drew her closer.
Peggy’s hand crawled around his neck, her fingers tangled in his hair.
Still the kiss did not break.
She twisted in the seat, touching his lean body.
They broke away, then. Peggy was facing him, her legs curled under her.
Neither of them spoke.
She rested her head on his shoulder, and could hear the thud of his
heart under his thin shirt.
“Kirby,” she said, “you think sex is beautiful when two people are in
love, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And if they’re not in love—if they don’t feel anything for each other?”
He thought a moment. “I don’t know, Peggy. I’ve never made love to a
girl that I didn’t feel something for.”
She raised her head. “Never?”