Get a Load of This

by James Hadley Chase

She moved restlessly. Lacey. She saw him as he was the previous night. Tall, very clean-looking in his white evening clothes. He was good to look at. Any woman would have thought so. His lean face, his full lips, and the jeering, cynical look he had in his eyes.

He had joined the boat at Bahama. As soon as he came on board the women began to talk about him. He was that kind of a man.

She pressed her fingers to her aching head. God! She must have been tight, as tight as she had been crazy—that must have been very, very tight. She wanted to go to sleep again, but she began remembering, and as the memory of the previous night built up in her mind, sleep retreated.

Oh yes, he had been awfully nice. It was by the sheerest coincidence that he happened to be going ashore as she stepped on the gang-plank. She had planned to see Havana with a Mr. and Mrs. Skinner. They were nice people, elderly, kindly and safe—nice people.

Lacey had jeered at them. He had shaken his head at her, behind their backs, as they prepared to take her away on a stately little drive along the brightly lit Havana waterfront. Then he had stepped forward. It was all done so smoothly. She couldn’t remember what he had said, but it must have been horribly smooth and just right, because the Skinners went away, smiling. They even looked back and waved, leaving her alone with him. Oh yes, she had to admit that it was all very neat and clever. He had taken her into the heart of Havana. He seemed to know all the unexpected places. He didn’t take her to the show places, but to all the exciting little cafes and houses, as if he owned the place.

He talked. She began gathering the top of the sheet unconsciously into a tight, long rope. Yes, he had talked. At first, he said amusing things. He did what very few people could do, he made her laugh. Then later, in the evening, after they had a few drinks, he began to flatter her. It wasn’t eye-talk stuff. It was shockingly personal, and it made her go hot, but because of the velvety strength of the drinks he had given her she didn’t go away from him as she ought to have done. So it went on until she suddenly realized that she was getting dangerously light-headed. She stopped drinking, but she couldn’t stop him talking. He said, in a charming way, the most outrageous things. She felt herself being drawn to him entirely against her will. It was as if something inside her was going out to him, leaving her weak and without resistance.

She remembered wondering when he would touch her. She knew, beyond any doubt, that he would touch her. Why else did he continue to stare at her with such intentness?

He seemed in no hurry. That was because he was so confident. Even in small things he was always confident. Small things, as lighting a cigarette, walking through a crowded room, or ordering a meal.

She remembered thinking that in an hour, or less, he was going to possess her. He would take her as confidently as he took everything. She was going to do absolutely nothing about it. She knew that before he started. Absolutely nothing, because she had no resistance. She felt almost as if she were asleep, dreaming that this was happening to her.

There—he had touched her. He had reached out and put his hand firmly on hers. She was quite sure that he would reach out his hand in the same way, steadily and confidently, to pat the head of a snarling dog.