He had his date--with an emancipated female, and she didn't let him
forget it during the whole meal. The restaurant she picked was
expensive, but about as romantic as a bus depot. She ordered beer
instead of a cocktail, toyed wordlessly with a $5.00 steak, and argued
over the check.
Only as they were preparing to leave did she betray a sign of
femininity. A platinum blonde, two tables away, had been eying Murt.
Suddenly, she lurched to her feet without a word to her escort,
staggered over to the pathologist, slurred, "You're what I've b'n
lookin' for all m'life," and planted a wet alcoholic kiss on his mouth
before he could defend himself.
Her escort peeled her away with sad-eyed apologies. There was no
jealousy or anger in his face, only a deep hurt. "She--she isn't well, I
think," he said. "You know, this new--whatever it is that's going
around."
Murt wiped off the lipstick and looked at Phyllis, expecting to find at
best sardonic amusement, but she seemed pale and annoyed.
"I'm sorry I brought you here," she said.
"Think nothing of it," Murt told her. "You heard the man. This is what's
going around. Do you think I'll catch it?"
Phyllis wasn't amused. She did let him ride the taxi to her apartment,
but bade him a terse goodby at the door.
Except for the incident of the blonde and Phyl's reaction, the evening
had been a bust. Murt wondered how he had ever visualized her as a
warm-blooded, responsive female. He smiled at the evening of torment she
had once given him.
She was entirely frigid or else so leery of men that she might as well
have been one herself.