The Port Harris railroad station was as Jane Kent remembered it. As she stepped from the train onto the wooden platform a glow of familiarity touched at all her senses, subtracting years and taking her back a half-decade to that period when she called the small Midwestern town, home.
Janie played with the memories-the happiness and sadness of them-only a brief few seconds. Then she turned around, paused, and walked into the station house.
There was a hesitation in Janie's manner, a kind of indecision in her step and the accompanying rhythm of large breasts, gliding hips, and strong, vitality-packed legs once she stepped inside the station house. But this passed quickly when she saw the little, old man behind the bars of a cashier's window. She walked directly toward him.
"Good-evening," she said through the bars.
"Evenin' yourself, miss. What can I do for you," the man said.
"I have to go out of town a few miles-I'm going to the Willow Acres Farm-and the train's late and--. "
"Hey there, you must be little Janie Kent, eh," the old man said, leaning forward and peering over the rims of his glasses.
"Why, yes, I am," she answered, a bit surprised.
"Thought so. I know most everybody comes into this town. So, you're goin' back to your old uncle's farm, eh."
"Yes. But just for a little while."
The man raised his eyebrows and nodded. Then he said, "Yeah, it's a sad thing about your uncle, all right. Passing away the way he did, so unexpected and everything. But then, we've all got to go and--. "
"I have to be at the house by nine," Janie said. "Is there a cab?"
"Sure. Old Tom Hanson's still running his hack. Don't rightly know where he is at the moment. Must be on a run, but if you kind of watch for him out front he'll be glad to run you out to Willow Acres."
"Thank you." Janie started to turn away from the window.
"Goin' out to see about your uncle's will, eh, Janie?" the old man said, leaning forward again.
Janie hesitated, then she said, "Yes, about that and some other things."
"You're a lucky girl," the man said, smiling. "Your old uncle was really loaded." He paused and chuckled. "Eccentric, they say, but eccentric with money, if you know what I mean."
Janie nodded, then quickly turned and walked across the room in the direction of the door that fronted the town's main street. As she moved, her blonde hair, cut short and with tiny curls bouncing at her ears, caught a glow from the overhead lights making her seem taller than her five and a half feet and adding exciting shades of light and dark to her exceptional figure. Her breasts moved in an undulation fashion, and although they seemed restricted by undergarments, there was a freedom and a sway to them that could not be denied. Or subdued. Or ignored. A teenaged paperboy could not ignore them for his eyes glued to her and followed her until she disappeared through the front door of the station house.
Janie looked up and down the small street. There was little activity; a few cars, the somberness of stores that were three hours deserted and closed, a gathering of boys on a corner, a few people moving-only the minute activity of a small town that was readying itself for the routine of mid-evening.
After looking around the area, Janie, somewhat impatiently, walked to the corner. Her high heels clicked on the sidewalk. And the sound and the area again nudged memories to her consciousness, making her remember the past, again subtracting five years from the twenty-two that she was to that time at seventeen years of age when she chose to leave her uncle-guardian's home and board a train for the mysteries of college in a far-away city. Janie looked around. The stores were the same. The dullness of the hour seemed the same too. And even the youth on the corner and the way the street lights fuzzed a halo seemed the same. Port Harris hadn't changed, she decided. It couldn't. Not the town or the townspeople. Only she had changed. For a moment she didn't know if she was glad or sad because of the changes.
Headlights turned the corner, catching Janie in their spotlight, framing her and outlining the conservativeness of the summer suit she wore, the suit that was buttoned high as if to divert attention from her breasts and the rest of her body that was sensual-looking and lovely.
Janie Kent recognized the old taxi cab and its driver at once. She raised her hand and hailed it. The cab came to a quick, but uncertain, stop in front of her. She twisted the door handle and quickly moved inside.
The driver, Tom, who Janie guessed to be nearly seventy, turned his head and said, "Where to, miss."
"Willow Acres," she answered. The driver nodded, shifted gears and jerked the cab forward.
Janie settled into the cushions of the seat. Tom Hanson did not recognize her. She was glad. She didn't like talking of the past, of Port Harris, her deceased uncle-she didn't want to talk or do anything other than those legal things that had to be done so she could return to the big city and the serious work that awaited her there.
"Guess you're goin' out to Willow Acres on business, eh?" the cabbie asked without turning his head.
"Yes."
"What kind of business, miss?" he asked bluntly. "I-I have to meet some people there," she answered.
"Oh, sure. About old Amos Kent's will I suppose." He paused and when Janie did not answer, he said, "If Dave Chalmers is one of those people you have to see, he's already there. Passed him on the road about an hour ago."
"Dave Chalmers?" Janie asked.
"Yeah. The lawyer."
"Oh."
"Dave's a fine, young man. Everybody in town-likes him a lot. He's pretty serious for being such a young fella and everything, and it's surprisin' as all get out how everybody's took to him, him comin' from the city and startin' practice here and everything, but I guess that's the way it goes."
He left the sentence off on a tone that hinted for Janie to pick up the conversation. She did not. He turned and glanced at her. Then he returned his eyes to the road that turned from Port Harris' main intersections and threaded through the outskirts of town toward the country road that would lead to Willow Acres.
Janie looked out the window. A few of the houses had changed and there were some new ones. But most of the area was as it had always been, old fashioned, substantial, lived-in and paid-for, the shelter of children and their parents and, in most instances, the grandparents. Port Harris, it seemed to Janie Kent, had resisted modernization. It remained a town of people and the lumber and shipping industries that supported them.
The cab bumped to a stop at the last stop street before an open road to the country section was reached. Janie jolted with the cab, then settled back into the cushions again.
"Sorry about that," the cabbie said. "After all these years I still can't get used to the new stop sign the highway department put up."
"How long has it been there," she asked.
"Ummm, around about five years, I'd say."
Janie smiled. The stop sign must have been erected about the same time that she had left Port Harris. Fleetingly, she thought of the years that had passed, the college education, her career as a sociologist-a serious one-and now her return to the place of her youth.
The farms and fields were only passing dark squares of the night as Janie looked out the window. But soon a structure came into view that moved her to a new memory, one of young sensuality and thrill and expectation.
"Do any of the Prescotts still live there?" Janie asked the cabbie.
"Only Jack," he replied. "Everybody else is gone. But Jack Prescott hangs on like a rich mother-in-law."
Jack Prescott. A tingle of sensation coursed through Janie's body as she recalled what it was like to be fourteen years old and kissed by a neighbor boy. Then she remembered what it was like to be fifteen and touched by that same neighbor boy. But when her mind dwelled on the memory of Jack Prescott's hot kisses on her bare breasts, Janie rejected the memories, tossed them out of her mind like some nasty rag sent to the rubbish heap.
"Jack Prescott is quite the young man around town these days," the driver offered.
"Really?" Jane said, working hard at disinterest.
"Yip."
"He's-married, I suppose," she said.
"Was. Ain't now. He and the little girl got divorced a few years ago. She went to the city-Jack stayed on the old farm."
"That's all he does?" Janie asked. "Just lives on the Prescott Farm."
"Heck no," the driver exclaimed. "Jack's a breeder of some of the country's best horses. He's real experimental with 'em too, I understand. Heck, he even went to college for it."
"How interesting," Janie said.
"Yip. Only twenty-five and he's just about the best catch for the young ladies around here," the old man continued. "Rich. Handsome. Smart as a beaver. And he knows how to live-least that's what I hear-the way it seems, too, by the looks of some of the city girls I see leaving his place after a week-end."
Janie did not answer. And she tried hard to dismiss Jack Prescott from her mind, too. She wanted only to hurry to her dead uncle's farm, meet the lawyer who awaited her, finish her business, then return to the city and her post as a sociologist from which she had taken a few days' leave.
Janie tried to keep her mind a blank for the rest of the trip to Willow Acres. She did quite well, too. But she could not resist the feeling of excitement that swamped her when her uncle's residence came into view. It was high, three stories with a number of towers at the top. It was painted gray, but in the darkness of the night it seemed a mysterious dwelling, one of detective stories and murder and vice. Janie smiled to herself. Yes, a mystery house, that was what her former home now was. And she was the niece of the deceased arriving for the reading of the will. Ah, that was it, thought Janie amusedly. All the elements of a mystery. But a storm was needed.
"Feels like rain," the cabbie said. "Can always tell by the way my corns hurt."
Janie was startled for a second. Then she smiled. And then she remembered how one of her college professors had once said that coincidence sometimes seems to be made up of facts and the qualities of a plot.
The cab slowed, turned, then speeded again as it headed up the winding road that led from the main road to the house. The road was narrow. It was lined on both sides by huge, weeping willow trees. And by the time they had traveled half the distance of the road, there was the distant sound of thunder.
"There-what did I tell ya," said the cabbie, very pleased with himself.
Janie smiled again. Well, there's the mystery house and now we have the storm, she thought. All that's needed are the distant relatives waiting to greet me.
"Looks like a lot of people are already here," the cab driver said, halting his car behind a row of five other cars, all long, sleek and expensive looking.
Janie didn't know whether to laugh or to become concerned with coincidence and how it seemed suddenly to be dictating scenes of her life.
"Do you have any bags, miss?" the driver asked.
"No. Only this overnight case."
"Won't be staying long, eh," he asked.
"Not long at all."
The driver got out of the car and opened the rear door for Janie She already had a bill in her hand. She gave it to him, received his thanks, waited as he pulled the cab away, then turned and walked up the long path to the front of the house.
Janie reflected on the number of times as a child and young girl she had hurried up this same path of her uncle's house. And as she thought of it, she knew a moment's sadness for the passing of Amos Kent who had taken her and raised her when, at the age of five, her parents were killed in an airplane crash. Genuine sadness was hard to come by for Janie Kent, however. She had learned to steel herself against it. Still, she now wished that she had seen a little more of her uncle during the past five years. But one could not undo the past, Janie thought, giving her head a little toss to flit the sadness away.
At the front door, Janie paused and looked to both sides. Then she faced the door and lifted the giant, iron knocker. She brought it into contact with the door three times, feeling a little silly for the act of knocking at a door she had once burst through upon her will.
A new light flicked on in the foyer, adding to those in two other rooms that were already burning. And then there was a sound at the door, and then it was open.
Janie was a little overwhelmed by the man who greeted her. He seemed about thirty, was very tall-a good head taller than herself-and he appeared to be strongly built. His hair was very black. The short cut of it added to his muscular appearance. His eyes were dark, too, brown and very severe looking, much as if they saw within and beyond everyone upon whom they lighted. And he was of a swarthy complexion that made Janie think of the outdoors and man's activities there.
"You're Jane Kent," the man said directly, looking straight into her eyes.
"Yes. I'm-I'm sorry I'm late."
"I'm David Chalmers, your uncle's attorney," he said, opening the door fully. "And it's all right about being late. I've had experience with the Port Harris train myself."
Janie smiled. She continued smiling as she entered the foyer and David Chalmers closed the door behind her. But when he turned and she saw that his eyes swept her body in an intimate, kind of appraising way, her smile faded. She didn't feel exactly undressed by his eyes. It was more as if he were exposing parts of her, singularly and at his will; a breast here, a thigh, her navel, perhaps, then a shoulder, and on and on. His look made her feel a surge of anger, yet it was an anger wherein its origin was confused.
"The others are waiting in the library," David Chalmers said. "But, if you don't mind, I'd like to talk to you alone for a few minutes."
"Of course," she replied. Then added, "The others? I didn't expect anyone else to be here."
"It was your uncle's request," David said. "I suppose they're each concerned with the will-each anxious to see if they're included-but, I can assure you that their presence is just a matter of carrying out Amos Kent's wishes."
"Who are they?" she asked.
"A few distant relatives, none of whom you know, I believe."
A crash of thunder made Janie turn to the window. Then there was a flash of lightning. She turned to David Chalmers and smiled.
"Oh, you like storms, eh?" he said, smiling and revealing large, white teeth in an even row.
"Not at all," she answered.
"But you smiled at the thunder and lightning."
"Yes. You see, I've been playing a game with myself. I've been pretending that I'm here tonight for the reading of a will-you know, at a mysterious house with all the greedy relatives present . .
"Yes," he said, frowning a bit. "It is a little like that, isn't it?"
"Everything but the devoted butler," she said.
David Chalmers laughed, then said, "Come along, let's talk for a few minutes."
He extended his hand in the direction of a small study that was located just to the left of the foyer. Janie moved toward it. David started to follow, then brought her to a halt.
"Oh, say, is that you're only bag?" he asked.
"Yes."
"But...."
"I won't be staying long, Mr. Chalmers," she said.
He looked surprised, but made no comment. He merely lifted the small bag from her hand and placed it on the floor next to an old-fashioned grandfather's clock. Then he nodded in the direction of the study.
The room seemed bare to Janie. She looked around. Although nothing within the room had been changed, it still seemed different. Then she noticed that the top of her uncle's desk was clean, and she knew that this was what had been changed.
Always, her uncle had had a mountain of papers and books on top of his desk. Now they were gone, just as he was gone. She felt another rumble of sadness at her breast.
"Why don't you take this big chair?" David Chalmers suggested.
Janie nodded, then sat down as David walked behind the desk and assumed the swivel chair that was there. It creaked. It always had. It was a good sound, one that took her back to many conferences that she had enjoyed with her uncle during his lifetime. And now she was to begin one that involved his death. The sadness she had felt increased.
David Chalmers clasped his hands in front of him. He held them together in a strong clasp, at the same time looking intently at all of Janie's body, running them over her shoulders and breasts and waist and legs, then more interestedly there as Janie, for some unconscious reason, crossed them and revealed her knee and several inches of nylon above it.
David unclasped his hands and leaned back. Again, the chair squeaked. Then he said, "I presume you know that your uncle's will takes into consideration that you are his nearest-and dearest, too, I guess-relative."
Janie nodded, then uncrossed her legs and leaned further back in the chair. The new position did not escape David Chalmers' darting eyes. Now they centered directly at her breasts. She tried not to breathe too deeply.
"Did you know that your uncle had been ailing for quite some time?" David asked.
"I guessed it," she answered. "We did write each other, but not often. And I was in Europe on a grant. And when Uncle Amos did write his letters were long, rambling things about his philosophies on life."
"Oh, you know about those, eh."
"I was raised on them. Or, I should say, a different one every month or so."
"You're a sociologist, right."
"Yes. I work for the King Foundation."
"Doing what?"
"Investigating trends of poverty, tracing family case histories of the constantly poor."
"Oh."
The way David said it made Janie think that he didn't hold much lot with sociologists. So, somewhat defensive, she asked, "How long have you been Uncle's attorney?"
"About four years," he replied. "I was practicing in the city, then decided that small town life appealed to me more. So, I moved here, and shortly afterwards your uncle got in touch with me, retained me, and I've been representing his interests ever since."
"I wonder why he would ever do that," she said, almost to herself. "Henry Quill was always his attorney."
"Mr. Quill retired. It was he who recommended me to your uncle."
"Oh, I see," she said.
David leaned forward again. He smiled, then said, "If you're thinking that I'm the greedy lawyer in your make-believe mystery plot, Miss Kent, you're wrong."
"Oh, I'm not thinking that," she answered quickly.
"Good," David said, the smile still playing at the corners of his mouth. Then his smile faded and he said, "You're a very serious young lady, aren't you, Miss Kent?"
"I hope so," she said.
"Why?"
She hesitated, then said, "Because life is serious, I think. It should be taken seriously."
"And you take your work seriously, too, I presume?"
"Very."
"Your uncle was pretty serious about some things, too, Miss Kent. Were you aware of that?"
"Uncle was serious about something different every day," she said. "I haven't kept up with his latest fads-and that's exactly what they were."
David scowled, then said, "You didn't take your uncle very seriously, is that right, Miss Kent?"
"That's absolutely correct."
"Did you consider the fortune he amassed on his own a fad-a hobby, too?"
"In a way," she said.
David Chalmers leaned back. He laced his hands together behind his head and looked straight at Janie. Then he said, "You'll find that Amos was very serious about his will and the prerequisites it contains. It's a very odd will, Miss Kent. But I warn you now, don't tamper with it, don't try to have it invalidated because of what it asks of you. It would never work. Not in this county where it would have to be reviewed in court."
"Prerequisites," Janie repeated. Then said, "What it requires of me?"
"Yes."
"But I don't have much time," she blurted. "I have to get back to the city-to my work--. "
"Your uncle's will pretty well establishes the work that's lined up for you, at least for the next several months, so don't worry too much about leaving Port Harris."
"But I have to-right away-as soon as possible."
"You'd better hear the contents of the will first," David said, straightening, then pushing up from his chair. "Come along, it has to be read in the presence of the others."
Janie felt angry and unhappy all at the same time. She couldn't understand this mixture of feelings. And she felt that something bad was about to happen to her, something that would disrupt the stability of her life in the city, something that would cause her unrest and frustration, something that might even reveal a side of herself that she would rather not see. But she stood up and preceded David Chalmers out of the room.
CHAPTER TWO
When Janie Kent entered the large library at the west end of the house, she stopped with a jolt. Four people were present in the room. Three of them she did not know. But the fourth she knew very well. It was Jack Prescott, the love of her teen years.
"Come along," David Chalmers said, stopping at her side. "Perhaps you already know the other guests."
Janie did not answer. She stared straight ahead at Jack Prescott, who, upon Janie's entrance, rose from the chair where he had been sitting. His eyes bore into her. She looked away, then quickly gave her attention to the others who were present. There were two women and another man. The man was very distinguished looking and appeared to be in his early sixties. He was straight and lean and there was a twinkle in his eyes as he looked at Janie. One of the women was young, perhaps only a few years older than Janie. Janie looked at her and just as quickly forgot her, for she was plain, thin, and without any qualities that seemed worthy of recognition. But the other woman was one who could not help but be remembered. She was in her mid-thirties, Janie guessed, and she had one of the most exquisite bodies Janie had ever seen. Her breasts were cone-shaped and partially in view because of the extremely low-cut cocktail dress she wore. She was very dark of hair and eyes, but her complexion was like cream. Her mouth was wide and vividly red. It seemed to play with smiling a lot. Janie found herself fascinated with the woman, so fascinated, in fact, that for a few moments she forgot the bore Jack Prescott's eyes drilled at her body.
"Well, I guess all of you know that this is Jane Kent," David Chalmers said to the others. He lightly touched at Janie's elbow and urged her forward.
They stopped right in front of Jack Prescott.
"Hello, sweetheart," Jack said, smiling at Janie.
"Hello, Jack," she answered, hoping her voice did not reveal the many thoughts his presence had created.
"And this is Mona Andrews," David said, nodding in the direction of the dark woman. "She's a distant cousin of your uncle's, therefore, a distant cousin of yours, too."
"How-do-you-do," Janie said, nodding.
"And how are you, precious little Janie," Mona said, taking a step forward and reaching out for both of Janie's hands, which were offered and taken and squeezed.
"You were a very little girl when I last saw you,"
Mona went on.
"I don't remember," Janie confessed, pulling her hands away from the woman.
"Of course you don't, precious. You were a baby. A mere baby."
"And this is Adam Longfellow," David said, indicating the distinguished looking man. "Adam is an old, old friend of your late uncle's. He's been abroad most of these recent years, however."
"My dear," the man said in clipped, precise tones.
Janie felt compelled to offer her hand. She did. Adam Longfellow took it. He, too, squeezed her fingers and Janie had the impression that he, like Mona Andrews, was trying to convey some mood of courage or encouragement. Or, perhaps sympathy.
"And, last, but certainly not least-and I do apologize for this out-of-order introduction of mine-this is Tracey Steel, one of your uncle's former secretaries," David said, reaching his hand out to present the plain, mousy blonde woman.
Janie acknowledged the introduction. So did Tracey, but in a shy, silent manner. Janie looked into the girl's eyes and saw that they watered, much as if she carried some constant, secret grief.
"Janie, you had better come over here and review old times with me," Jack Prescott said, walking up to her and circling his arm around her waist.
Janie looked at him. His hair was as blonde and crew-cut as ever. And his body still seemed ready to leap. She remembered that body, the way it had several times moved upon her. She shivered. Her nipples hardened. Then she moved out of the contact of Jack Prescott's arm.
"I'd really like to get this finished," she said to David Chalmers.
He grinned. "Sure you would. So, let's get to the solemn proceedings of the will's disclosure." He paused, and his grin widened, then he added, "Not so solemn, perhaps, but the wishes of the deceased nevertheless."
Jack Prescott slipped his hand under Janie's elbow, then directed her toward a couch. It seemed odd that she should be led like a stranger in her own home, but she permitted it. The others took chairs on either side of the couch. And David Chalmers, using the back of a chair as a kind of podium, stood facing them.
"First, there are a few things I should explain," David said. "Until the will is read, I have been designated by the court as administrator of Amos Kent's estate. That's why I've been the one who requested your appearance here tonight. Also, I shall continue to serve as co-administrator until all the requirements of the will have been completed."
David paused, cleared his throat, then looked directly and meaningfully at Janie. She could not hold his stare for some reason. She lowered her eyes to the pattern of the carpeting. Then she felt the nudge of Jack's knee against her thigh and she looked up at David again. But he was already looking at the group and beginning to speak again.
"I want to say something else, too," David continued. "I've had the pleasure of knowing Amos Kent very well these past few years. And, it was a pleasure. As you know, many people have considered him eccentric, and perhaps he was in some ways, but I knew him as an honest, imaginative and creative man whose curiosity about life and people was never dimmed. I believe that we will find the contents of his will reflecting this same curiosity about people. And, I hope we can appreciate it."
David paused, then stooped and withdrew several folders of legal-sized paper from his briefcase which rested on the floor next to the chair. He leafed through them for a few minutes.
"Are you ready to become a rich young woman?" Jack asked Janie, pressing his leg against hers again.
"I doubt that I'll ever be that," she said.
"You're wrong, baby," Jack said. "The old man was loaded. I mean really!"
Janie glanced at him, thinking that he had changed, that there was something quite different about Jack Prescott. She didn't know what it was, but she was very sure that she didn't like it.
"By the way," Jack continued whispering. "How come you never wrote me after leaving town?"
She flushed. "You know why."
"I don't, I don't," he said in a way that made her know he remembered very well.
"Well, let's just say that I've been busy," she said.
"Me too. So, what have you been busy with?" Jack asked.
"Many things, none of which concern you in the least," she said snippily. She moved her leg away from the press Jack imposed upon it and looked at David Chalmers.
"I'll start with reading the assets of the estate," David said. He leafed through some sheets and began reading, listing assets in property, stocks and bonds, savings accounts, checking accounts, insurance policies and other investments. He listed the few liabilities against the estate, too.
Janie listened to it all in awe-struck fashion. She had had no idea that her uncle was so wealthy, no idea at all, for he had always lived simply with no show of his wealth. And as her mind calculated his wealth-could not help but calculate it in terms of herself-a new rumble of excitement coursed through her body. It was an excitement of her work and what money could do for it, of the poverty-stricken and the sociological studies that needed to be made in that area and of the advantage of money for those studies. And for a few moments, Janie wondered what she would really do if her uncle's money was meant for disbursement to herself.
"So, all of this makes Amos Kent's estate very ample," David said.
"Ample," exploded Mona, the dark-haired beauty. "It makes him a hell of a lot more than that."
David nodded.
"It makes the old boy a millionaire if my calculations are correct," said the distinguished-looking Adam Longfellow.
"Yes," David Chalmers agreed. "And I might add that Amos made it all himself. He asked nothing of anyone. All he needed was the courage and foresight that was rightfully his. He used it very well, I would say."
"Very," chimed in Jack Prescott, again pressing Janie's thigh, at the same time trying to snuggle his arm to a position of intimacy against her right breast.
"Could we go on, please," Janie said to David.
"Of course." He looked at her coldly, then said, "And now we go to the bequests." David flipped over a sheet of paper, then began to read from it:
"To each of you present at this reading, with the exception of my niece, Jane Kent, I leave the sum of five thousand dollars. The reasons for the bequests are my own. Some of you will be surprised, others, I'm sure, will feel cheated, but let it be enough for me to say that I leave you this sum as a token of esteem and for services either already rendered to me, or services that are still to be rendered."
David paused.
Janie wondered what it meant. How could services still be rendered one after death?
"So, go forth and enjoy the five thousand in any way you see fit," David said, reading from the will again. "But enjoy it, I charge you, for pleasure is a sensation to be pursued in the most diligent manner."
Pleasure, thought Janie Kent. Indeed, it seemed that her poor uncle had been suffering mentally these past years. Pleasure! Leaving all that money for pleasure when there was so much that was needed in the world, so much that was needed by the sick and homeless and the poor. Pleasure!! Poor uncle. And the poor, poor society that he had denied.
"Now we come to you, Miss Kent," David Chalmers said, holding a new paper in front of him and looking over its edge into her eyes.
She nodded. A new silence filled the room. It was one of dramatic anticipation.
"To my niece, Jane Kent," David read, "I leave the remainder of my estate, all stocks and bonds, property, savings and checking accounts, everything, to be used or disposed of as she sees fit, and for the purpose of her own desires, provided that she fulfills the conditions precedent to this bequest within the period of ninety days, otherwise, the aforesaid not being complied with, the total of my estate shall be divided equally among those who are here present, with the exception of my niece who shall receive the amount of one hundred dollars, and this alone."
Janie felt embarrassed. She didn't know why, but she had the same feeling she knew as a little girl when she did something wrong, or didn't do something that she was supposed to do. It was a strange feeling, and with it there threaded through her mind and body a sensation of doom, of great, great trouble.
"The conditions that Amos set forth in his will are confidential," David said, moving his eyes to each of the others. "They are intended for Jane Kent alone-for her and for myself as her co-administrator of the estate, but I believe that you should and can know this, that the conditions Amos has set forth for Miss Kent are some of the results of the conclusions he has made about people after years of study. I don't know whether they will benefit mankind or not, but I do know that they must be complied with before this estate can be settled and before Miss Kent receives the considerable bounty that is hers."
Janie turned her head away when David looked at her this time. And for some reason, perhaps because she did not want to feel so alone, she did not reject the new pressure of Jack Prescott's arm against the side of her breast. When she did not, he pressed a little harder. Janie even encouraged it by leaning harder against him.
"Now, if the rest of you will excuse us, I have the remainder of the will to discuss with Miss Kent."
Adam Longfellow was the first to push up from his chair. Tracey Steel and Mona Andrews rose at the same time. And finally, after Adam Longfellow cast a severe look in Jack Prescott's direction, he too gave up his cuddlesome position next to Janie.
Each of them bid Janie and David good-night. Each of them wished her well on the unknown project that faced her. And Jack, at the door in the foyer, added something other than good wishes.
"I want to show you my farm while you're here, Janie," he told her.
"I'd-I'd like that, if I have time," she said.
"Good. When can I see you?"
"I don't know."
"Where are you staying?"
"At the motel."
"Great, Janie. I'll call you. We have an awful lot to catch up on, if you remember."
She did. It caused new embarrassment as she remembered the circumstances of their last time together.
Quickly, Janie was alone with David Chalmers.
"We can finish in the living room," he said. "But first, can I fix you a drink? And forgive me for sounding as if the house is mine. It's not-it's yours, but I've been used to using it as a kind of headquarters."
"Of course," she said.
"What about the drink?"
"A light one may do me just fine," she said.
He grinned. "Good judgment, but I think you had better have a strong one, if I may suggest it."
She looked at him strangely, but he only laughed and headed across the room to a portable bar as Janie seated herself upon the couch.
David was still smiling when he returned with two tall highballs on a tray. He placed them on the coffee table that fronted the couch. Then he hesitated a moment, and finally settled in a chair across from Janie.
They each sipped from their drinks. When they had finished and replaced the glasses on the table, David said, "I'm afraid your uncle has set down some rather difficult conditions precedent to his will. I don't think you're going to like them, but let me remind you that there's nearly two million dollars waiting for you."
"I'm aware of it," she said. "It's a lot of money. A lot can be done with it."
"Almost anything can be done with it," David said. He reached to the floor and withdrew some new papers and envelopes from his briefcase. He rested them on his lap, then took more of his drink.
Janie drank from her glass, too. She looked closely at David Chalmers, trying to make up her mind whether or not she liked him. He was different from anyone she had ever met.
"So, are you ready?" he asked.
"Ready," she said, trying to match the light tone of his words.
"I mean really ready-for the big one?"
"Ready for the big one," she repeated.
"All right. All the information is in these papers, one of the envelopes, I haven't seen, it's for you confidentially and it concerns the project your uncle lined up for you." He handed an envelope to Janie.
"Don't read it now," he cautioned. "It won't have meaning until you hear the rest of the assignment."
She nodded.
"You, Janie Kent, are charged with investigating the sex habits of the people of this town."
She didn't gasp aloud, but she did raise her hand to her mouth in a gesture of shock. And when she spoke her throat felt dry and clogged.
"The-the sex habits-of-of the people of Port Harris?"
"Yes," David said. "You know, a kind of minor Kinsey Report. You know all about Kinsey, I'm sure."
"Yes, of course, but why-why would Uncle Amos want this-require it of me?"
David leaned back. "There's a lot involved, Janie-by the way, I'll be working with you a bit, I might as well call you Janie and you call me David, don't you think?"
"Certainly."
"Well, your uncle these last few years grew very interested in the sex habits of people. He felt-and if I remember my psychology books correctly, there are quite a few good authorities to agree with him-that people are pretty much what their sex life makes them. He spent an entire year on a report of his own-a report of the sex habits of the people of this town, a report for which he must have made considerable research."
"Then why in the world does he want me to make such a report. He has one-good heavens, one should be enough."
"Amos was rather amused by sociologists and psychologists, liked to show them up or match them as often as possible. So, when you've completed your report, he wants you to compare it to his own. It doesn't have to agree with him. He merely wants you to see, as he states it, how close an observant person can be to sociological reports."
"He must have gone crazy," she exclaimed.
"Maybe," David agreed. "But two million dollars can hardly be called crazy."
"And I don't get it if I don't comply with this stupid request."
"Right."
She sighed, picked up her glass, finished the drink, replaced the glass on the table, leaned forward, then said, "I think you should know, Mr. Chal-David-that I'm not the least bit interested in this money for myself. I am interested in what I can do with it. The good things that it can produce."
"You're very noble," David said. Janie was sure he didn't mean it.
David handed Janie two large manila envelopes. "One of these contains some instructions, the other is your uncle's sex habit report. You're not to read the report until you've completed your own study."
She looked at the labels on the envelopes. David took one from her. I'd had better keep it," he said. "I wouldn't want any cheating you know."
He said, smiling, "I'll be at my office when you're ready for it. Oh, yes, you're charged with living continuously in Port Harris during your study."
"I can't go back to the city?" she exclaimed.
"No, not even for a day. It's all in your instructions."
"But my job-my work--. "
"You'll hardly need it when you get two million dollars," he said, a note of sarcasm in his tone.
"I'll always need my work," she said. "And my uncle's money can be a means to more of it for me-really great work."
"Well then, you'd better get on with the Port Harris Sex Query." David raised his glass and finished the drink in a swallow. Then he stood up.
Janie did too.
"Oh, yes," David Chalmers said. "You are to reside in this house."
"But I don't want to."
"It's required," David said. "And you had better arrange to have your things sent here, since you can't go back to the city to get them."
"I will," she said.
"Say, I just had a thought," he said. "This will business isn't interrupting anything like a romance, is it?"
"No."
"Good."
"Why?" she asked.
He looked thoughtful, glanced over all her body, then said, "I don't know."
They talked a few minutes more. Then David said, "I'll drive you to the motel. You are staying there for the night, aren't you?"
"If it doesn't violate the conditions of the will," she replied.
"I'll let you get away with it this one time," he said, smiling.
David locked the front door after they left the house. Then he handed Janie the keys. And then he saw her to his car and headed in the direction of the town's only motel.
Janie was quiet during the trip. But she could not quiet her vital awareness of the presence of David Chalmers. It was a strange feeling, one she had not known for a very long time. She wondered why it had come back to her now.
CHAPTER THREE
Janie leaned against the door of her motel room for a few moments after she bid Dave Chalmers good-bye. For some reason, she was suddenly swamped with tiredness. She knew that the pressure of the envelope that she carried had caused it. She was very tired. She wished that she was in the city and within the security of her job and the people with whom she was familiar. Everything else seemed ominous. Scary. Threatening.
When she pushed away from the door, she switched on the lamp at the side of her bed and dropped the manila envelope in the middle of the bedspread. She looked at it as if it were an enemy. Then she thought how silly that was, that actually the envelope with its conditions was the way to wealth and the leisure she needed for her work.
Very deliberately, Janie sat down on the edge of the bed. She picked up the envelope. She opened the sealed top and withdrew several typed pages that were stapled together. Then she breathed deeply and started to read.
Amos Kent had been quite thorough. He was candid, too. In terms that left no doubt as to their meaning he laid down the rules that were necessary for the acquisition of his estate. Janie was to conduct a survey of the sexual habits of the people of
Port Harris. She was to investigate these habits, see them at work, even become a willing pawn to them. Somewhat humorously, Amos Kent wrote that Janie need not inquire of the sexuality of all the people of the town. A representative group would be enough. He had made a study with a representative group and he was extremely interested that Janie should see that her report, written as a sociologist, compared rather favorably to his own, a report that was written by a layman. There were a few things that Amos did insist upon, however. Janie should be certain to include the sex habits of the poorer class of Port Harris, of the upper class, and of the few people he had listed on the next page.
Janie almost held her breath as she turned the page. Then she gasped for the names included there were those of the very people she had met that night, with the single exception of David Chalmers. There it was in unbelievable distinction; Adam Longfellow, Tracey Steel, Mona Andrews, and Jack Prescott. The reason for this selection was made very clear by Amos Kent. He had made a more detailed analysis of the sex habits of these people-he had had them present as witnesses at the will's reading for Janie to see them at first hand. And, this had been the reason for his bequest of money to each of them for "services still to be rendered."
Janie dropped the envelope and the papers back on the bed. She wondered why her uncle had not included David Chalmers on the list. Then she rationalized that this was probably because Jack Prescott was represented. Jack Prescott. Her first love, long absent, and now returned to her. And returned to her while she had the very definite charge of learning something about his sex life, learning about it first-hand, if need be. It was too ridiculous. Utterly mad! She wouldn't do it-couldn't do it! But then Janie thought of the money that awaited her and how it could be used for the work of her life, how it could enrich the poor and help the needy, and she knew that she could not do other than comply with the terms of her uncle's will.
With a sigh, she stretched full length on her bed. She felt tight and restricted and heavy with worry-worries that were caused by her kinsman who was surely mad before his death. Janie pushed up to the edge of the bed again. Then she rose to her feet. She unzipped her skirt, wiggled out of it, then discharged her blouse and jacket, half-slip, stockings, shoes and bra from her body.
She stretched on her toes. There was a rumble of sexuality that raced through her body. She knew its cause. The will and the promiscuity that it encouraged, the satisfaction that she could find under the guise of sociological research. That was it. It was disturbing. She didn't like it a bit. But she could not deny the feeling.
Janie plopped back on the bed. She twisted from her back to her stomach. She burrowed her cheek into the pillow and wiggled her body a little deeper into the bed. Heat cascaded over her. She recognized it. She knew that it was made up of sexual desire and she cursed herself for its presence in her body. And then she felt the longing at her thighs and she deliberately snuggled them deeper, raised her hips then snuggled again. She did it again and again, much as if she were in a position of dominance over an unseen lover. But she stopped the action suddenly, stopped it when she felt the swell of herself that told of pending explosion. Then she curled on her side. She drew her knees up high to her heavy breasts much as if she sought to contain the feeling, keep it a prisoner within her body. But she could not imprison her mind. It raced. She wondered about what lay ahead. She made up schemes of things that cast her in a sexual role with many people. And then she thought of the one she already knew. Jack Prescott. And then she dismissed him from her mind and considered the image of the lawyer, David Chalmers. She wondered why her uncle had not included him on the list. She even felt a little regret that he was not one of her subjects for sexual investigation. And then, because she had no precedent with which to consider Dave Chalmers, her mind turned again to the one she knew.
Jack Prescott was still handsome, Janie decided. And he was still very definitely interested in her. But, Jack was interested in all women. He was without morals. He lived for the pleasure of the flesh alone.
Jane turned her face to the other side. like turning the other cheek, she decided. And that's what she would be doing if she had anything to do with Jack Prescott, she thought. Turning the other cheek in order to receive new humiliation and hurt. But Jack was one of the subjects for her investigation. Her uncle had included him on the list. He, as much as the others, would have to be sexually investigated.
With a sharp twist, Janie rolled to her back. She was horror stricken with herself. Here she was thinking of sex and her participation in it with any number of people, and she was thinking of it boldly as if it were just a matter of course. What had happened to her? Had money changed her already? In the city and on her job she was conservative and aloof, keeping herself free of sexual or love involvements. But now!
Janie again rolled to her side and raised her knees a little higher. Their tops touched her breast-ends and the contact made the nipples harden in immediate reaction. There was a stir at her thighs again and it carried all the way up her body to her breasts. Even her naked shoulders flushed pink in reaction. Janie lowered her right hand and touched at her stomach. The skin was hot. She lowered it and touched at her thighs. Greater heat greeted her touch. And then she brought her hand away and stuffed it beneath her hip much as if she sought to keep it from temptation. Her breathing increased. She reacted much as if she were already involved in sex with one of her subjects and Janie wondered if she was perhaps using the sex query as an excuse to let her own emotions run wild. It was possible, she admitted. She had lived an almost frigid life for the last several years. And why had she done that, she asked herself, then immediately answered with the name, Jack Prescott.
Once again, Janie rolled to her back. The light glowed on her naked body and Janie, looking at her feet, saw the rise and fall of her breasts. It made her think of other parts of her body, of her hips and the way they had once risen and fallen to the rhythm that Jack Prescott had created within her.
It had been a very long time ago. She had been seventeen. She remembered it all very clearly.
* * *
"Come on, Janie, let's head for the beach," Jack Prescott had said, pulling his motorbike to a halt where she stood in the doorway of her house.
"I've got homework," she said, hedging, because Jack still frightened her a little.
"Homework! Nuts, you're graduating. They never flunk seniors."
"They might start," she said, smiling.
"Ah, come on. Bring your swimsuit. The water should be great."
"Well--. "
"Come on. Please," he urged.
"Well, all right. But just for an hour or so. I have to get back home."
"Hurry," Jack said.
She looked at him with a quick sweep of her eyes. He seemed taut and hard and there was an urgency to his manner that Janie had not seen before. His crew-cut bristled with perspiration. His tee-shirt strained against his hard chest, and his tight jeans quivered along the legs as if he were trembling.
As she clung to his back on the rear of his motorbike, Janie noticed that she, too, had experienced some change within her body. She felt excited and anxious. They were the qualities she had known all during the past few weeks. Graduation, the final dances, and preparation for college in the fall, had caused Janie to feel a constant excitement. And Jack Prescott had caused it too. His kisses as they parked in his car stirred her greatly, made her want to know more and more of him.
The beach was deserted when Jack brought his motorbike to a halt at the edge of the giant lake. The sun was setting. It was a red ball of fire and as Janie looked at it she thought how much it represented her feelings, the heat that burned for expression.
Jack parked the bike above the beach within a wooded circle. Then he took towels and their swim-suits from the saddlebag. He handed Janie hers.
"Beat you into the water," he said.
She smiled into his eyes. Jack grabbed the bottom of his tee-shirt and whipped it over his head. The quick exposure of his bare chest with its hard, strong lines made Janie feel a pinch of desire at her stomach.
"Now it's your turn," Jack said, looking at the thin schoolgirl blouse Janie wore.
"Jack! You're terrible," she laughed. "Maybe," he replied.
He bent and pulled off his socks and loafers. Janie, pretending to be as bold as he was, did the same. When she straightened, she even raised her hand to the top button of her blouse. But there it stayed, unmoving, frozen by sudden embarrassment.
"Go ahead," Jack encouraged. "What are you? Chicken."
"I guess so," she laughed. "But I'll still beat you into the water." She grabbed her suit and towel and disappeared with them behind a clump of bushes.
When Janie had stripped all of her clothing from her young body, she stood very quietly behind the bushes. She enjoyed the feeling of nakedness and the knowledge that it was close to Jack as she was undressing-undressing without the benefit of concealment. She felt her breasts bloat outward and she was amazed at the size they had attained. And at the largeness of her nipples-never had they been so strained and hard and outreaching. A tremble ignited at her thighs. She closed her legs more tightly as if to contain the feeling that took her. But it was impossible. She heard movement just outside the bushes and she knew that it was Jack in the motion of undressing. Then, she could not resist the impulse to peek through the bushes and watch. She nearly gasped when she saw that he was already naked and pulling his tight trunks over his ankles. She was shocked by the strength of him. It was her first such experience and it frightened her a little. But not enough to make her give up her view of the naked Jack until he had pulled his trunks high to the waist and secured them there. Only then did she turn from the opening in the bushes and attend to the business of donning her own swimsuit.
"Took you long enough," Jack said when she stepped out of the bushes. "Took you so darn long I didn't take advantage of you by dashing into the water."
"Good of you," she told him.
Holding hands, they walked to the shoreline. Then they stepped into the water. It was cold, but it did nothing to subdue the heat in Janie's body. She even looked at the water, wondering if it would bubble from the heat she had brought to it.
When they were waist high in the water, Janie felt a chill. It was different than any she had ever experienced. It was like a thrust from within her body, one that kicked outward, urging her closer to Jack Prescott.
Jack raised his hands over his head. Janie looked at the ripple of his muscles as they responded to the action. Again, she felt a gasp from within her body.
"Ready-set-go," Jack said. He dived forward into the water.
Janie waited a second, then duplicated his dive. The slice of the water as she moved beneath it tickled at her breasts and loins, at all of her as she opened her eyes and followed the flash of Jack's body through the water. It was a delicious feeling and Janie was sorry when she had to break the surface of the water to gasp for breath.
They played in the water for an hour; kidding, swimming a bit, doing the child things in the water that they had not outgrown. There were a few sensually tense moments for Janie. Several times Jack dived between her outstretched legs. There was the contact of his body with hers as he passed between the parentheses she made of her legs. That was exciting. So exciting that Janie felt some sensation grow within her as if it would burst. And it compelled her to find an excuse to continue the game. She urged Jack again and again between her legs. Each time, he seemed to rise a little higher, causing a greater, harder contact with her body. And once his head bumped against her before slicing the water. That had been almost unbearably exciting for Janie. She knew the contact had been deliberate, and she had responded with deliberateness of her own. For a moment, she closed her legs around his head, pinching tightly at his ears for a moment before releasing him.
Soon, Janie took a turn at submarining her body between Jack's legs. That was exciting for her, too. Often, she felt the contact of his thighs at either side of her as she glided through the water. And several times she had risen a bit and struck higher on him. It fascinated her. It thrilled her. It filled her with the greatest curiosity about love and the sex that expressed it.
While they played, Jack's hands sought and found delightful parts of her body. He touched her breasts and squeezed them. Their legs wound around each other's and they felt the intimacy of thighs and wiggling toes. And Janie's hips rose and fell to the water and her buttocks jutted backwards upon occasion to come into contact with the hunger of Jack's open legs. Several times they kissed, but this action was subdued in the presence of these greater thrills of bodily contact.
Finally, they left the water. The sun had fallen deeper behind the earth and gray shadows began to descend upon the beach and the area. The beach remained deserted. They were alone, the only beings in the world, it seemed to Janie.
Jack laid their two towels side by side on the sand. Janie reclined on one, he on the other. They stretched on their backs and were very quiet. Janie could feel Jack's breathing next to her. She was sure that he was aware of hers, too. But she looked into the sky and tried not to think of these sexual things that tempted her.
"It's nice here," Jack said.
"Yes," she agreed.
"You're nice," he added.
"Thank you," she said.
"Too nice, sometimes," Jack said.
"How can anyone be too nice?"
"Easy. They can be so nice that they keep themselves and other people from doing the things they want to do."
"Is that the way I am?"
"Yes."
"I'm sorry, Jack."
He turned on his side and looked into her face. "You don't have to be that way."
"No, I don't."
"Then don't be," he said softly.
With a boldness that shocked her, she turned on her side and smiled into his face. Then she hooked her fingers behind his head, pressed it forward and brought her lips crashing against his mouth. She opened her mouth at once. Her tongue darted deeply into his mouth, spinning and whirling, nipping and doing crazy things that caused him to moan and thrust his body close to hers as he wrapped her in his arms.
When their kiss ended, as if by some union of thought, they both uttered a little cry, pulled back, 'then tore at their swimming togs, jerking them from their bodies until they were nude and facing each other.
Jack planted new kisses upon her. He kissed her eyes and throat and her neck and breasts. He lingered there, tongue-playing with her nipples until they bloated to a cracking point. Then he kissed lower, and lower still until once again he found himself clutched between her thighs in a position that duplicated the play they had known in the water. But this time Jack issued new kisses and Janie cried out in response to them.
"Oh, Jack!! Darling!"
Janie felt a tiny growth begin within her. It grew and grew and grew and she knew that it would soon burst. But she didn't want it to. It couldn't! Not yet! Not without the thrill of her own lips upon the body of her young love. She gave a mighty twist and then faced his flesh. She kissed him rapturously.
They lavished attention upon each other's body. They were articulate in their giving. But at the end, for Jane, there was disappointment. She felt the growth of sensation reach its boundaries and stretch beyond toward the thrill of completion. It was then that she wanted to delay, to pull back and know her love in a normal manner. And she did pull back; gurgling, crying out her need for Jack's closeness while she tried to shift her body and urge Jack above her.
He wouldn't have it. He groaned his refusal, then locked his fingers into her hair and returned her to the love she had left uncompleted. She complied, but with less enthusiasm for she felt cheated and wanting, sensed that she was not to know love's first thrill of love together. Jack knew it. Mightily. And for Janie, as she wrung him to his finish, there was a certain satisfaction for what she had caused him, even as she was left without that which had been so close-that which the beginning of their love-making had promised.
Janie raised from him immediately. There was a sputtering, a kind of disgust for what had been done. And then there was embarrassment. But from Jack, there were words. Words by the dozen.
"Oh, baby, that was great. You're the greatest," he cried. "To think that you'd do that for me-and, baby, I'm sorry there wasn't anything in it for you, but there will be-next time-I promise. Next time there'll be something for you, next time there'll be us, together, the regular way."
It was not so. There had been a next time. And still another time, too. But each time at that moment when Jack should have responded to her cries to know him fully, he had refused, had locked his fingers tighter in her hair and forced her to the end of their singular love.
And then Janie went away. Marked, scarred, she was sure, because of the abnormality of her love with Jack Prescott.
* * *
Janie twisted on her bed, thinking, and now she was back, now she was faced with the new embarrassment of investigating Jack Prescott as a subject of a sexual treatise. It was almost too much to imagine.
She pushed upright, then swung her bare legs over the side of the bed. Her body showed response to the memories upon which she had dwelled. Her breasts were bloated, her nipples hard, and her stomach undulating. Janie looked at the manila envelope, looked at it as if it were some awful evil. For a moment, she considered abandoning the project, but then she thought of the money, all of it that she could use as she wanted. And she thought of the poor among whom she had worked and she knew that she would do anything to help them. Anything at all. Even submit herself to the prostitute role her uncle had set for her. Fleetingly, she thought of cheating. Why not make up a report that would satisfy the will of her uncle and the scrutiny of David Chalmers. Why not? But even as she thought of it, she knew that she could not and would not do it. It was impossible. Something of herself-perhaps something she had received as a young girl from her uncle-demanded honesty. She could not do other than an honest report of the sex habits of her neighbors and friends.
Janie stood up. Her body still felt tense. There was expectancy there, too. She wondered if perhaps she was meant to wallow in the promiscuity that was ahead. She wondered. Then she turned and headed for the shower.
CHAPTER FOUR
Janie Kent was three days settled in her old home when she finally devised the scheme for the survey of the sex life of the people of her community. She had wrestled with interview sheets, those standard forms of the poll people who investigated everything including the popularity of television shows, and she had considered methods of control and procedure and the many complexities of the problem. Finally, she decided upon a method. She would interview people herself and hope that they would be honest with her. It was the method used by Kinsey and other successful investigators of society's sex habits. She hoped it would be an adequate method for her. It presented some problems. Talk about sex was always disturbing and it often created reactions in people, making the conversation have an aphrodisiac effect upon both the interviewer and the interviewed. But, she would have to take her chances.
It was late afternoon when Janie glanced over the forms she had developed, stuffed them into a briefcase, then checked the addresses of the people she was charged with interviewing. Janie decided to call upon Mona Andrews first. It would be best for her to start with a woman, Janie decided. It would make her at ease and give her confidence.
Then she wondered how embarrassing it might be to discuss such things with a woman she barely knew.
Janie was in the foyer and about to leave the house when the telephone rang. She paused, wondering whether to let it ring now that she was finally ready to start on the project. But when the phone continued ringing, she could not deny it. She turned and hurried to the study at the side of the foyer.
"Hey, I was afraid you weren't home," Dave Chalmers said when she picked up the phone and offered a salutation.
"I was just leaving."
"I called to see if everything was all right. The house, your uncle's cars-everything."
"Things are just fine," she said. "I got settled as soon as my bags arrived.
"Good. I'm glad you're settled, Janie."
It seemed odd that Dave Chalmers should call, Janie thought. But, she was glad to hear from him. It was as if he was a friend already, one upon whom she could depend.
"Listen, I had an idea," Dave said.
"I'm ready for any of them," she answered.
"Good. How about driving out to your uncle's lodge with me tomorrow. You haven't been there yet and you should see it. We can stop along the way and have lunch."
"I don't know, Dave,"-he said quickly, sensing some disinclination to be with the lawyer while she was involved in the survey.
"Please," Dave said. He sounded as if he really wanted to be with her.
"I have a lot of work to do."
"It'll wait for you," he said.
"Well, all right," she answered. "Is late afternoon all right? It'll give me a chance to get something done in the earlier part of the day.
"Fine. I'll pick you up about four." He paused, then said, "There are quite a few things I want to talk over with you. Okay?"
"Of course."
Janie said good-bye and replaced the phone on the desk. She stayed by the desk a moment, then turned and hurried from the house.
Mona Andrews lived at the opposite end of town. Janie knew the area well. She drove directly to it.
Mona's house was a large colonial. The lawn was well kept, and the long, sleek automobile in the driveway gave evidence of the woman's presence.
Janie breathed deeply, lifted her briefcase, departed her car, and walked up the long front walk of the house.
Mona Andrews answered the door almost before the three-toned chime ceased its ringing.
"Well, Jane, darling, it's good to see you," the woman exclaimed, opening the door wide.
"If you have a little time I'd like to talk to you," Janie explained.
"All the time in the world for you, precious."
Janie entered the house. Mona was more radiant than Janie believed it possible for a woman in her middle-thirties. She wore lounging pajamas. The top of them was low cut, so low that there was a V-shaped slice of flesh from her neck to her navel. The material appeared to be satin and it did exciting things to Mona's body as she moved.
"You have a briefcase with you," Mona observed. "I just hope that doesn't mean you're selling insurance."
"Hardly," Janie replied.
Mona ushered Janie into the living room. She placed her arm around Janie's waist and acted in a genuinely friendly manner.
When they were seated on a couch, Janie, somewhat shyly, asked, "Do you know why I'm here, Mona?"
"To pay me a call, I hope."
"Yes, that, of course," she said. "But there's something else, too."
"Pray tell, what is the mystery," Mona said, smiling.
"I want to interview you. In fact, I have to. It's required of me by my uncle's will."
"Well, I'm a willing subject, I think. Go ahead. Shoot."
"I want to ask you some questions about your sex life."
"My sex life! Good heavens!"
"I'd appreciate it," Janie said. "You see, Uncle Amos set down certain conditions to his fortune. I want to comply with them. I can't tell you what they all are, but interviewing you and some others about your sex habits is part of it. So, may I? Will you cooperate?"
Mona leaned back and laughed. Janie could not help notice the ripple of the material at her breasts as she laughed. It was a very fetching sight, but one that made Janie wonder why she should suddenly be interested in the body of another woman.
"Is it really that funny?" Janie asked when Mona continued laughing.
"It's funny that I should be picked to be interviewed, darling," Mona said. "Frankly, you couldn't find a better subject. There's nothing I'd rather do than talk about sex-that is, talking is the second best thing to do. Sex, itself, is number one."
"Good," Janie said, delighted. She opened her briefcase and withdrew a notebook from it.
"I have some questions to ask," Jane said rather absently as she leafed through the book.
"Well, while you arrange them, darling, I'll make us a drink."
"That would be fine," Janie said.
Mona rose from the couch and crossed the room to where a small portable bar rested in a corner. Janie watched the woman as she moved. Again, she was stricken with Mona's grace and beauty. Again, she could not help but feel reaction for the shimmering lines of Mona's pajamas as they crinkled against her body. Janie wondered about Mona, and for the first time knew some real enthusiasm for the interview she was about to conduct. It would be interesting, she was sure, to discover the secrets of Mona Andrews' sex life.
Mona returned with drinks. She placed them on a table near the couch, then handed Janie one.
"Thank you," she said.
"Oh, you're quite welcome," Mona replied.
Each of the women sipped from their drinks for a few moments, then Janie returned hers to the tray on the table and turned to her notes. After glancing at them, she looked at Mona.
"Some of these questions will be quite personal," Janie explained. "But there is no other way to conduct these interviews. None at all. I've thought of everything."
"Everything?" Mona questioned.
"Yes."
"That covers a lot of ground."
"As much as I could think of," Janie said.
"Well, sweetie, maybe I can add to your knowledge. Go ahead and shoot with the questions," Mona told her.
"All right," Janie said. "I'm using a standard method of psychological testing, that is, I'm going to ask the questions quickly and I'd like you to respond to them as spontaneously as possible. And please remember that what you tell me will be confidential, so you don't have to worry about the honesty of your answers."
"I never worry about being honest about sex,"
Mona said, an amused expression playing at the comers of her mouth. "Good."
Mona finished her drink in a long swallow, then dismissed the glass to the table. Then she leaned back in a corner of the couch and smiled at Janie.
"All right, here we go," Jane said.
"Shoot."
"Are you married?"
"Divorced."
"Why?"
"Because my husband was a sexual failure," Mona said quickly.
Janie blinked because of the quick and honest answer. Then she went on.
"Did you have premarital relations before you were married?"
"Of course," Mona said casually.
"Was premarital sex satisfactory for you?"
"A hell of a lot more satisfactory than after we got married."
Janie looked up from her notes. "Why is that?" She added the question because of her own curiosity.
"I don't really know," Mona said. "Perhaps it was the excitement of doing something that is considered wrong by most people. You know, the thrill of breaking society's laws, and all that jazz."
"I suppose it would be that way," Janie said. She glanced at her notes, flipped over a page, then said, "Did you have premarital relations with any man other than the man you married?"
"Oh, heavens, yes."
"How many?"
"Dozens, darling, dozens. I don't really remember how many lovers I have had."
"Oh," Janie said. She spent a few moments reviewing her notes, then asked, "And while you were married, did you ever commit adultery?"
"Oh, my, yes," Mona answered. "Many times."
"Why?" Janie asked.
"For satisfaction," Mona replied. "I wasn't receiving that from my husband, so I went elsewhere."
"Did you feel guilty about it."
"Not a bit."
"Not ever."
"Never."
"Did your husband ever find out."
"Yes. He was furious."
"And did it stop you from having extra-marital affairs?" Janie asked.
"Only for a day or so, then I started again. You see, precious girl, I began to feel things that I had never before felt and I became quite hooked upon it. I couldn't do without it-absolutely couldn't, darling."
"I see," Janie said. She paused and readjusted her position for greater comfort, then, looking directly at Mona and sounding less like a sociologist than like a curious young girl, she said, "Was it really that pleasant-that exciting for you?"
Mona leaned forward and peered into Janie's eyes. "Don't you know?"
Janie didn't answer at once. When she did, she was flustered and tried to laugh off the question, saying, "Well, it's getting difficult to tell the interviewer from the interviewee, isn't it?"
"You didn't answer my question," Mona said.
"No, I didn't," Janie said.
"I'll ask it again. Don't you know about the excitement of love."
"No," she admitted.
"You poor darling," Mona said. She looked very sad, almost on the verge of tears.
"Well, let's get on with the questions," Janie said. She again looked at her notes. Then she said, "Did you love any of the men with whom you made love?"
"But, of course, precious," Mona exclaimed. "I loved them all."
"All of them?"
"Yes. At the time that I was making love to them, that is."
"Would you have married any of them?"
"Any one of them, darling, had they asked me. But the men were lovers, real, genuine lovers, therefore they did not wish to be bound to any one lady. So, they were merely my lovers, never my husbands."
"I see," Janie said. She fussed with her notes, trying to collect her own thoughts, for she was shaken. She was not sure of the reason, but she guessed that she was dismayed by the candidness of the interview with Mona Andrews. And she sensed that it caused an awakening of some emotions of her own. Fleetingly, she thought of Jack Prescott and her love adventures with him. Then she dismissed them and the image of David Chalmers formed. She wondered about him. And, she felt a certain excitement for the thought.
"Having trouble finding the next group of questions?" Mona asked.
"A little." She paused, then said, "Here we are. Mona, with your husband or with any of your lovers, did you ever practice-well, sexual acts other than those that are considered 'normal'? "
"What's normal, darling?" Mona laughed.
"You know what I mean, I'm sure."
"Of course I do."
"Well?" Janie encouraged.
"Of course I have, darling," Mona answered. "As I see it, it is impossible for a woman or a man not to practice some deviations. That is, if they are adequate lovers."
"You mean that you consider deviations a necessity to love?"
"Of course. You see, in some societies a kiss could be considered a deviation.' In other societies something else might be considered abnormal. And in our western society we have some codes that have been established by prudes and idiots. Yes, deviations are important, but only so long as they do not impose unpleasantness upon one of the partners. Anything of sex must be of mutual consent, as I see it."
"That sounds very intelligent," Jane said.
"I think so, too," Mona replied, smiling.
There were some more questions. There were more answers from Mona, too, all candid, all laced with wisdom, all honestly delivered.
And soon the interview was ended.
"Now that that's over with," Mona said, "how about another drink?"
"An excellent idea," Janie agreed.
Mona made new drinks. She delivered them. The two of them drank and talked of casual things, and when the drinks were finished, Janie made the signs of getting ready to leave. It was then that Mona stopped her.
"Don't leave yet, darling," she said.
"I really must."
"But there's one question you haven't asked me?"
"What's that?" Janie inquired curiously.
"You haven't asked me if I like girls-if I have ever had anything to do with girls."
Now, Janie was truly shocked. Lesbianism was something that she hadn't considered. It seemed remote from the purpose of her survey, so remote that she reprimanded herself for a moment for being a careless investigator.
"Well, are you going to ask it?" Mona said.
"No," Janie replied. "I think I know the answer."
"But, if you're not sure-just in case there is some doubt--. "
Mona stopped talking abruptly. Then she reached one hand out, gently laced her fingers behind Janie's neck and urged her forward.
For a moment, Janie did not realize that she was being kissed by a woman. The lips seemed the same, the darting tongue was like that of any hungry lover. The only difference was in the perfume scent of Mona's mouth. Only this reminded Janie that she was receiving her first hot, woman's kiss.
"Oh, you are so sweet," Mona whimpered into Janie's ear after ending their kiss. "So, so sweet."
Janie leaned back on the couch. She kept her eyes closed. It was as if she wished to black out the reality of the act. But, she could not black out the effect of Mona's kiss. Janie admitted to herself that she had liked it. And she also liked the feeling that was brought to her when Mona's hand sneaked inside her blouse and touched her breast.
"Oh you're soft, so soft," Mona said.
"Don't. You-you shouldn't," Janie said.
"Why not, darling?"
"Because it's wrong?"
"Who says so?" Mona asked, beginning to knead Janie's breast.
"I-I don't know."
Janie almost stopped breathing from the thrill of Mona's fingers playing with her breasts and nipples. And she allowed the play to continue as she leaned back on the couch with her eyes closed. But when Mona brought her other hand into play at the bottom of Janie's skirt, the young girl brushed both of Mona's hands away and quickly jumped to her feet.
"I-I can't," she said to Mona.
Mona straightened. "I'm very sorry. But remember, I did say both partners have to be in accord."
"And I'm not," Janie said.
"I know, darling. And-it's quite all right. I do understand."
Janie straightened her clothing, feeling very self-conscious for the kiss and touches she had allowed. But Mona made no new move to initiate love-making and soon Janie was in command of her poise once again.
"It's-been interesting, Mona," Janie said. "Yes, it has. A little disappointing for me, but perhaps you'll have a change of heart some day."
"Perhaps."
"And if you do, darling, don't forget I'll be right here waiting for you any time you care to call."
"I-won't-forget."
"Good."
Mona walked with Janie to the foyer. They bid each other good-bye. Janie hurried to her car. And on the way home, she wondered what had happened to her, what had possessed her to allow the sexual advances of a lesbian. It seemed a note worth marking, for, perhaps, it was an indication of the other changes that might come to her life before the sex query was completed.
CHAPTER FIVE
From noon on, the clock proved of great interest to Janie Kent. Dave Chalmers was to pick her up at three. For reasons unknown to herself, she was anxious to see him, to be with him and learn more about the handsome young lawyer.
During the morning Janie had worked on revisions of her questions for the sex survey. She worked hard at it, hoping to devise some system of questioning that would not involve herself. It was difficult, at times nearly impossible, for changes had taken place in Janie Kent. And they all concerned sex and her work on the subject. Her experience with Mona Andrews had shaken her badly, proved to her that she was vulnerable to the sensations of love. And, because it was so, she knew fear for those interviews that still awaited her attention, those she was charged by the will to investigate.
Janie looked at the clock often during the afternoon. When at last it reached two, she gave up her work in the study and retired to her upstairs bedroom to prepare for her ride to the lodge with David Chalmers.
Janie undressed slowly in front of the full-length mirror on the vanity. She looked at her body curiously, wondering if the changes that were taking place were merely mental, or also physical. Then she wondered if she was destined to know sexual response-to know it as Mona Andrews had described it; a thrilling, physically shattering event that churned everything within her in a delightful turmoil.
When she breathed deeply, Janie noticed that her breasts seemed fuller than usual. She raised her right hand and touched each breast. They seemed hard and full. And the touch she made was cause for her nipples to immediately grow. She touched them too. Janie dropped her hand and hurried to take her shower.
The shower didn't calm her very much. There was the business of soaping her body with a large sponge, and it seemed that every part of her that she touched ignited excitement. Janie both cursed it and loved it. Finally, feeling somewhat depraved at this new interest in her body, she turned the shower handle to 'cold,' stood beneath the harsh spray for a full minute, then left the shower cubicle.
Toweling her body offered more stimulation. Janie tried to ignore it, but could not. She finished as quickly as possible.
She chose simple clothes for her journey to the lodge; a white blouse, a short skirt, sandals through which her red painted toes stuck out like daggers, only this and nothing more. Janie couldn't explain to herself the reason she decided against underclothes. She found herself rationalizing the hot weather as the reason, but she knew it was something more, something deeper. She decided against investigating it further.
Downstairs, she settled in the study and waited for Dave Chalmers to arrive. She kept visualizing him and wondering about his life, about his girls-and if he loved any of them. Then she wondered about herself, especially about her interest in sex that seemed to trespass over the lines of mere professional interest. Well, after all, she told herself, she was twenty-two. It wasn't at all surprising that she should think in terms of sex and fulfillment. Her experience had been limited to Jack Prescott alone. And he had been perverted and disinterested in her own fulfillment. And now--. Now she was charged with learning more of Jack and the others, charged with the sexual information of many people. Janie thought of her uncle's will and once again wondered why he had omitted David Chalmers from the list of subjects for her investigation.
Soon, the door chimes sounded. Janie moved to the door to greet David Chalmers.
"Hi," he said. "Ready?"
"Ready," she answered. "It looks like a lovely day. I haven't been outside once today."
"Then the ride will be good for you."
When they were in the car and moving through the town to the road that would lead to the lake and the lodge that dominated it, Dave looked at Janie, smiled, then asked, "How's the sex survey going?"
"Fairly well. But please don't call it that," she said. "Why not?"
"Because it sounds crude."
"Sorry," he said, his smile widening. "I just never considered sex crude. Guess your uncle didn't, either."
"Perhaps not," she said.
Janie turned and looked out the window. Dave submitted to her wish for quiet. But after fifteen minutes, he turned to her and said, "I'm anxious for you to see the lodge."
"I'm anxious to see it, too. Uncle Amos didn't have it when I was living here."
"I know," Dave said. "But I want you to see it for another reason."
"Oh. And what's the reason?"
"Well, it seems to me that it would be an excellent setting for an underprivileged children's camp once you get your money and start spending it on good works."
"Oh, really." She paused. Then she said, "Maybe I'm just going to squander my uncle's fortune. Didn't that ever occur to you?"
"No, because I know it couldn't happen," he said. "You're not the type."
"What type am I, David?"
He grinned at her then turned back to the road. "Well, you're pretty serious for such a young girl. Too serious, for my money."
"Oh, sorry," she said poutingly.
"But you could get over that. But, there's a part of you that's pretty sincere, I think. And, since an underprivileged children's group is one of my interests, I kind of hoped you might like to invest in it, too."
"Perhaps I will. If I get my Uncle's money." He glanced at her and frowned. "Is there any doubt?"
"There's a lot of doubt that I can complete this stupid thing. There's some doubt that I even want to attempt it."
"Why?" he asked.
"Because it seems rather senseless."
"Two million dollars is hardly senseless."
"No, but the means to it can be senseless. Really, I'm sure Uncle Amos was demented."
"Or as shrewd as a man can be."
"He was that, all right." Janie was silent for a few moments, then she asked, "How long have you been interested in underprivileged children, David?"
"Ever since I was one of them," he laughed. "Were you really?"
"Yes. I have that rather dubious distinction."
"How exciting."
He looked at her. His face clouded. "It's not exciting at all. And that brings up a point that most of you sociologists miss. There's nothing exciting or cute about kids who are hungry and not able to live as other kids do. There's nothing the least bit good about it."
"But it's exciting when one child raises above it and succeeds. A child like you were, David, one who rose to become a lawyer, a respected member of the community, all--. "
"There's nothing good about that either," he interrupted. "Kids shouldn't have to struggle to become anything. They should just have the opportunity. That's one reason I'm anxious for you to see the lodge. Maybe you'll be interested in a project of mine. Oh, I don't mean that the lodge could be turned into one of these two-week camps for kids from the slums and all that. I mean maybe you could do something really worthwhile with it. Establish a permanent school for delinquents-they're the ones, incidentally, that I've been working with. They need a chance more than they need punishment."
"What have you been doing with them?" she asked interestedly.
"Taking them from the courts. When a judge sees fit to give me a chance with them instead of sentencing them to jail, I take them under my wing for awhile. You know, expose them to fishing and hunting-all that stuff."
"Why, that's wonderful, David." Janie felt a glow of happiness. She was surprised too. David Chalmers hardly seemed like the friend of underprivileged delinquents.
They remained silent for the rest of the trip, each with their individual thoughts. Janie, looking out the window, was thrilled by the early summer countryside. She remembered some of it from her childhood. But it seemed greener and wider and happier than she remembered it. She wondered if the presence of David Chalmers had anything to do with it.
"We're almost there," David said when he turned onto a rutted, dirt road. "The road looks unused."
"Just about," he said. "And when it rains, it's impassable unless you walk."
The car jolted and twisted and wound its way around the road until at last they stopped at the rear of a large log house. David parked at the rear.
"I had no idea that this place existed," Janie said, staring out the window.
"Come on, I'll show you the rest of it. After all, it's going to be yours."
David left the car, walked behind it, opened the door on Janie's side, then held it as she alighted. Then, together, they walked toward the front.
A hill swooped downward from the front of the house and at its foot there was a huge lake. The water rippled against the shore and as Janie looked to the west and the sun that was beginning to lower, she was nudged by some long-ago memory. The long white dock was well cared for and at its end, two sailboats bobbed merrily to the rhythm of the water. The grass on the hill was very green. A few wild flowers grew there. And the scent of all the area filled Janie with the kind of happiness that a child knows when starting summer vacation.
"It's beautiful-just beautiful," she said softly.
"Yes, it is," David agreed. "Your uncle had good taste. He bought the place just three years ago and, unfortunately, never had a chance to spend much time here. I don't know what he intended to do with it."
"Uncle wasn't much for fishing and that sort of thing," Janie said.
"No, he wasn't," David answered. Then added, "Come on, I'll show you the inside."
He touched at Janie's elbow. It sent a little electric shock through her. She found it thoroughly enjoyable.
David took some keys from his sports jacket pocket and unlocked the door. He held it open as Janie entered the house.
"Oh, it's heavenly," she exclaimed.
"Dusty, too," David laughed. "I haven't had a chance to hire anyone to clean the place since your uncle died."
Janie turned to him. "You were very close to my uncle, weren't you? I mean, even in the short time that you worked for him, you were close to himhe liked you."
"I think so," he smiled. "Amos Kent was the kind of man that I admire. Oh, he was odd, as we damn well know by the conditions of his will, but he was a good man and I admired him. Everything he acquired in life, he acquired on his own, without cheating, just straight, hard work."
"Yes, he was that," Janie said reflectively. "Uncle was never a cheat."
"He used to talk about you quite a bit," David said, glancing at her again.
"Really?"
"He admired you, but thought that you were a little cold and restrictive-that you didn't know enough about people to become a sociologist."
"Oh, did he," she said rather angrily.
"Yes." David smiled at her, at the same time moving his eyes over her body. Then he said, "Come on, there's an upstairs, too. And more rooms down here."
He led her through a small library, a study, a dining room, the kitchen and pantry, and up the back steps to the second floor where there were five bedrooms and as many baths.
"This is hardly roughing it in the country, is it?" Janie said.
"Hardly," David agreed.
"It's not large enough for a large number of children-especially delinquents who need space to exercise their hostility," Janie said, thinking of the camp David had suggested.
"I know," he agreed. "But your uncle also bought some hundred acres in this area. It's all shore-line property and a lot of cabins could be built along the lake."
"You really have been giving this some thought, haven't you?"
"A great deal," he said.
"Could I see the lake closer."
"Of course."
They walked down the stairs, then out of the lodge at the back entrance. Janie preceded David down the steep steps of the hill and out on the dock.
"Why in the world did Uncle Amos have two sailboats? Even one, for that matter. He didn't sail."
"They're mine," David replied. "He let me keep them here and use the place whenever I wanted. I'll get them moved as soon as you take over."
"That's not necessary."
"Why?" he asked, looking at her seriously.
"Well-I don't have any use for a lodge. You know, I have my job in the city-that-and--. "
"You're still thinking of returning to your job," he said. "With two million dollars you're thinking of that."
Janie was surprised by the anger that took over his tone. But she answered calmly, saying, "Of course. I just can't leave it undone."
"No, I suppose not," he said, turning from her.
David's change of mood had been quick. It made Janie feel selfish or some way other than she wished to feel. And it made her a little unhappy, too.
"Could I see more of the lake?" she asked. "Not unless you can walk on it," he answered. She smiled. "I was thinking of the sailboat, David."
"Oh. Sure. If you want to."
"I do."
David chose the smaller sailboat. He walked to where the bow bobbed a few feet from the dock. Then, still looking at it, he stripped off his jacket and dropped it on the dock. His tie followed, then he undid the top several buttons of his shirt.
Janie watched as he bent and fussed with the moorings of the small boat. She was surprised at the strength of his body, the bulge of his muscles, the quickness of his movements, not a one of which seemed to be wasted. Then she reflected that many men, men like David, confined to business and the constant wearing of business suits, never had a chance for the true expression of their strength. Then she thought that was probably why David Chalmers liked the lake and sailing and the outdoors, that here, in activity, he was able to give expression to many things within him.
"Climb aboard," David said.
He reached out his hand and held hers as she climbed into the small boat.
"Where do I sit?" she asked.
"Right here by the rudder. With me."
He indicated a space that seemed barely large enough to hold both of them. But she settled herself on a cushion that he had arranged, then waited as he cast off the line and jumped aboard.
David settled next to Janie very quickly. He did some things with the sails that she did not understand, and soon they were nosing into the setting sun, slicing through the water in a graceful, almost sensual way.
Janie noticed other sensualities, too, as they sailed. David, sitting next to her, held his body tightly against her. Janie was very aware of this, of this and every movement he made for all of them brought him into close contact with her own body. Several times his arm bumped against her breast. It excited her. She wondered if the contact made him know that she was without underclothing to restrict her body. His thigh pressed against hers, too. She wondered if he liked the feeling of this togetherness. Then she reflected upon her own feelings of close contact with David Chalmers. She admitted that she liked it, but then she decided that it was just another symptom of the things that she had been experiencing lately, that it was caused by the sex query she was conducting and that it was this, more than the man himself, that excited her emotions. And then she decided to stop thinking about it.
"David?" she asked softly. "Yes."
"Why did you give up practice in the city and move to Port Harris?"
"Because I wanted to, for one thing," he answered.
"Just that? You could make a lot more money in a larger community."
"Correction," he said. "I was making a lot more money in the city."
"Then why did you leave?"
"Because I like to live my life the way I want to, not the way other people want me to live it," he explained. "In the city, practicing law involves a lot of things I don't like."
"like what?" she asked.
"Oh, being nice to clients I hated. Having cocktails and dinner with people I couldn't stand. And, representing the interests of people in whom I didn't believe. And there were other things; the grind, the pressure, the constant drive for success and money-so damn many things that I didn't like. I began seeing myself as an old man doing the same things, then I began to see that someday I'd be like the rest of the people if I didn't get out. So, I got out."
"And now you're happy, eh?" she asked.
"Quite happy," he answered.
"You're happy when you're sailing. like now. Aren't you?"
"Yes."
"I can tell," she said. "How?"
"By your eyes. They've changed."
He cocked his head and smiled at her, then said, "Maybe that's because I'm with you. Did you ever think about that?"
"No. And I won't."
"Why?"
"Because I don't want anything to disturb the good happy feeling that I have right now."
"I'll try not to disturb it for you," David said.
He circled his arm around her back in order to adjust the rudder. Then he kept it there. And soon, Janie responded to the warmth of his closeness. She snuggled her head into his shoulder.
The lake was a crazy-quilt of colors from the dusk and the way the sun played with it when David steered the boat into a small cove. The lake was suddenly more placid. It was darker. And a new outdoor fragrance teased at Janie's senses. She raised her head and looked around.
"Where are we?" she asked.
"It's a little cove. Not big enough to be a harbor, but we can call it that. Do you want to get out and stretch?"
"That sounds good," she said.
David nosed the boat toward the shore. When they were about fifty yards from the beach, he dropped the anchor.
"We can get off here," he said, standing up and stretching. "Here?"
"Right," he answered with a laugh.
He grinned at her, then pulled off his loafers and socks and quickly jumped over the side of the boat. The water was waist high. He stood in it a moment, then, seeing that it was deeper than he had anticipated, he unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it on the deck of the boat.
Janie, looking at him, was more impressed than ever with the strength of his body.
"Come on. Jump," David said, holding his arms up for her.
"Don't let me drown," she laughed, rising.
"That would be murder," he said.
Janie posed at the edge of the deck for a moment, looked down at David, then leaped over the side and into his arms. The whole thing was quite unnecessary, she knew very well. She could have eased over the side. Neither of them had thought of that.
Janie made a considerable splash in the water and, teasingly, David let her sink beneath the surface a bit, soaking her skirt to the waist and splashing the blouse until Janie felt the rounded outline of her breasts pushing against the thin, wet material.
"You rat. I'm soaked," she exclaimed, pretending to be angry.
"Yes, you are," he said casually.
David carried her to shore. As they moved, Janie was very aware of David's grip upon her body. She felt quite helpless. She liked the feeling. It was good to be helpless and in a strong man's arms. And the closeness of their bodies had an effect upon her, too. Her breasts rubbed against him and the nipples grew hard. Janie knew that they were vividly outlined against her blouse. She wondered if David would notice them when he put her on her feet.
When they reached the beach, David continued holding Janie for a moment. Then he turned and faced the lake, and gently lowered her to her feet. She stepped away from him and looked out at the setting sun.
"Cold?" he asked.
"A little," she said.
"I should have brought my jacket for you."
"That's all right. I'll be just fine."
Janie turned and looked at him. She saw that he was staring at her breasts. The look he gave her made them feel as if they were swelling, rising out to touch him. Then David's eyes traveled to her hips and the way the material clung there. David's eyes took in all of this new outline, too. Then he looked out on the lake.
"It's lovely here," she said.
"I thought you'd like it."
"I do."
"I'm glad."
"Why are you glad, David?" she asked, turning and looking into his eyes.
"Because I like to share things with people."
"All people?" she asted. "No. A very few, in fact."
Janie investigated the beach, picking up stones and shells and admiring them before dropping them back to the sand. All the time, David remained on the shore, watching her. And then she moved to him and stopped in front of him.
"I guess we'd better get back," she said.
"All right."
"I hate to go."
"So do I"
"But we must," she said.
"Yes. This time we must. But first-
She raised her head quickly to see the reason for his interruption. Then she knew it, knew it very well as he cupped her chin with his long fingers and raised her mouth to his.
She shivered against his body as he kissed her. She was surprised that his kiss was so gentle. But then it ceased being that and turned hard and fierce when she cuddled her breasts hard against his chest, burrowing as hard and deep as she could, for she could not help it.
David's tongue explored her mouth. His hands explored her back and buttocks and then one of them sneaked in front to cup at one large breast. She felt the jam of his entire body. It seemed like a spring ready to unleash. And she wished that it would-at her.
Suddenly, David released her. Their kiss ended. Almost roughly, but with the signs of regret evident, he pushed her away.
"Come on, we'd better get back," he said. "Yes," she agreed weakly.
They sailed home slowly. David's arm held her close. And Janie nestled to his strength, feeling a happiness that she had never before known, a happiness that seemed to place the thrill of sex and the security of love in very close proximity.
CHAPTER SIX
It was extremely difficult for Janie Kent to get herself moving the day following her visit to the lodge with David. She was filled with thoughts of him, with admiration for him, too. He consumed her every thought. Again and again she remembered the sweetness of his kisses and the hardness of his body. Sometimes she wondered why he had not made love to her. He could have, she admitted. In fact, she almost demanded it herself. But David Chalmers had remained aloof from that involvement. Janie liked to think that it was a superior quality of his character that had caused this. But sometimes she worried that it was something else.
Finally, Janie dressed, gathered together the materials for her next interview, and made ready to depart for the residence of Adam Longfellow, the sixty-ish friend of her uncle, the older man of the group whose sexuality she was to discover.
Janie, as she left the house and entered her car, was filled with mixed feelings. On the one side, there was the job she was doing that she loathed. On the other, more affirmative side, there was the fortune that awaited her and the use she could make of the money. This seemed doubly important since her visit to the lodge. Now, she had a new incentive. She wanted to help bring David
Chalmers' dream of a camp for delinquent children to realization. And she could, too, she told herself, if only she completed the requirements of the will, if only she could make herself see the sex query to a successful conclusion.
Janie had decided upon calling Adam Longfellow before she called on him in person. He had been overjoyed.
"Righto," he had exclaimed. "Come anytime, my dear. I'll be delighted to see you whenever you get here."
"Will this afternoon be all right?" she had asked.
"Of course, of course," Adam had answered. "I have some house guests, but that won't disturb us a bit. It might even help your work."
This had sounded strange to Janie. But she dismissed it from her mind, asked Adam for directions to his country home, then hung up the phone and made ready for her visit to the distinguished looking man.
Adam Longfellow lived quite a distance outside of Port Harris. Janie drove there slowly, feeling considerable apprehension for this first interview with a man. True, Adam was an older man, a man of her own uncle's age, but still he was a man and that made it doubly difficult to talk about sex. But she could not turn back, did not even think of it. There was much at stake-Janie did not intend to squander the future because of self-consciousness.
Three cars were parked in the circular driveway of Adam Longfellow's hone. They were all luxury models. Janie guessed that they belonged to the guests he had mentioned.
Adam was even more delighted to see Janie than he had been to hear from her on the phone.
"My dear, my dear, you are ravishing today," he said happily when he greeted her in the foyer of his home. "You are a jewel and I'm delighted that you called on me."
"It's mostly business," Janie explained.
"Any reason, my dear," he said. "Any reason at all is a good one if it brings you to my humble dwelling."
"Humble?" Janie laughed, looking around at the lavish furniture.
"In your presence, even a castle would be humble, my dear," he said grandly.
"Oh, my," she laughed. "You are really overwhelming, Mr. Longfellow."
"Adam, please," he said quickly. "You must call me Adam and I'll call you Janie, if I may."
"You may," she said.
"But come-hurry-I have some guests for you to meet."
He gripped her arm and led her into an adjoining room. Janie couldn't find a proper definition for the room, but she decided that it resembled a game room. There were many animal heads on the wall. Swords were crossed at several places and there was an array of paintings of fencers and ballet dancers. It seemed a strange combination to Janie.
But she was impressed with the bear and tiger skin rugs that abounded on the floor.
Two men and two women looked her way when Adam ushered her into the room. The men were middle aged; one was dark, the other fair, and this seemed to be the only distinguishing characteristics of the two. The women were similar, too. One with dark hair, the other a blonde. Both were very attractive. Both wore daring clothes with low necklines and short skirts. They appeared to be in their thirties.
"These are my friends-members of my little Friday Afternoon Club," Adam said as he urged Janie forward.
He introduced her to each of them. The women: Claudia, the blonde, Myra, the dark-haired woman. The men: Ralph and Harold. It seemed odd to Janie that Adam did not provide last names for he seemed a stickler for manners, but she dismissed the thought and accepted Adam's suggestion of a cocktail.
Janie took a seat on a couch next to Ralph and facing Myra and Harold. Adam, at the bar, mixed drinks.
"Are you going to be joining our club?" Harold, the dark-haired man asked.
"No. I'm sorry, I didn't know this was a meeting or I wouldn't have come today," Janie said.
"Oh, but we're glad you did," said Ralph.
"Indeed we are," added Myra. Claudia nodded knowingly.
The manner of Adam's guests confused Janie. For one thing, she wondered how she would find the opportunity to talk to Adam alone. Such a personal thing as a sexual case history could not be discussed in a group. And, Friday afternoon hardly seemed like a conventional time for a club meeting, Janie decided. Besides, why had Adam Longfellow not mentioned it on the phone or suggested a different time.
"Here we are," Adam said, returning to the group with a silver tray of cocktails.
When the cocktail glasses were distributed, Adam settled himself next to Janie on the couch.
"Now, I suppose you're curious about this club of ours," he said.
"A little," she answered. "I really didn't mean to interrupt anything."
"Not at all, my dear," Adam said. "If anything, you've added to our little gathering. At least, I hope this will prove to be true."
"Cheers," said Harold, lifting his glass.
"Cheers," chorused the others.
Janie sipped her drink, then decided that it was one of the strangest, or strongest, Martinis she had ever had. But she took a good swallow of the drink, felt its heat plunk in her stomach, then took some more of it.
"Now, about our club," said Adam Longfellow. "Let me explain." He paused, finished his drink, replaced the glass on the tray, then turned to Janie as if he were ready for a long conversation.
"You see, my dear," Adam continued. "My friends here and I are of the opinion that there is not enough thinking and experimentation with thinking in the world. We feel that most people are just motivated by codes and customs without really considering why they do certain things. We also feel that this is particularly true of sexual matters."
Adam paused dramatically, obviously waiting to see how she would react to his statement.
She reacted with buzzing thoughts. How strange it was, she thought, that Adam Longfellow and the others should be discussing the very subject upon which she was conducting a survey.
"I have to admit that many of my ideas are not original," Adam said. "Your uncle and I were very dear friends and from conversations with him I developed the idea of this little club, or seminar that we hold weekly."
"Uncle was in this club?" Janie asked.
"No. Poor fellow. He died before we were organized. But, in a way, he is our founder. As you know, he was fanatically interested in people and their motivations and their sex life."
"Yes, I know," she answered.
"So, we formed a club for this purpose-for the purpose of investigating all sorts of sexual experiences," Adam went on. "Now what do you think of that?"
Janie waited a moment before replying. But then she said, "I'm sure Uncle Amos would have approved of such an organization. As a matter-of-fact, I'm interested in it too."
"Really?" exclaimed Myra.
"Oh, wonderful," cried Claudia.
"Bully for you," agreed Harold.
"Oh, you are indeed a charming one," said Adam Longfellow.
"Tell me about your club," Janie said, feeling for the first time that her drink had been stronger than she had expected. "It might even help me with my own work."
"Little Janie here is a sociologist," explained Adam to the others.
"A sociologist!" Claudia exclaimed, saying it as if it were a dirty word.
"Yes," Janie said, turning toward her.
"Well, we do a variety of things," explained
Adam. "We read, we experiment, and we involve ourselves in rather deep-very intellectual, if I say so myself-discussions involving sex and people's reactions to it. As an example, we've recently been discussing the use of certain drugs for full sexual realization, and we meant to experiment with this topic today."
Janie gulped. It seemed almost too good to be true. She was to be the witness of people's sexual drives as induced by drugs. It would add a lot to her report. She was delighted. For a moment, that is.
"And of course, to fully understand all that drugs can do, we have to partake of them," Adam said, looking meaningfully at Janie. "Oh, I see."
"They're quite harmless," Adam went on. "Quite. That is, if they are taken in seclusion, such as here, and not allowed to show their effects to the world outside."
"It sounds mysterious," Janie said.
"Life is mysterious, my dear," Adam told her.
"I presume so," said Janie.
"You mean you don't know that?" Claudia exclaimed.
Janie looked at her, but did not answer.
"So, will you experiment with us?" Adam asked Janie very suddenly.
"Why-I-don't know," she replied.
"It will give you great knowledge," Harold said, coaxing a bit.
"And it's in the name of science," Ralph added.
"And I guarantee that you will find it thoroughly enjoyable," Adam said, almost purring.
"Well, I guess I'm game," Janie replied.
There were words of approval from all of them.
Janie had no sooner agreed, than she began to doubt the wisdom of her decision, for, she realized that it wasn't really a decision of her own that she had made. It was more as if her decision had been willed by the others.
"You're just wonderful, my dear," Adam said. "But before we begin our experimentation, let me fix you another drink."
"Was there something in that one besides liquor?" Janie asked.
Adam looked sheepish. "Yes, my dear. I confess to spiking your drink with a dot of an aphrodisiac."
"An aphrodisiac!! "
"Yes, my dear. You know, to help lower the barriers for the experiments we are about to conduct."
Janie felt angry, but for some reason she could not express it. She reasoned that this was due to the effects of the dope she had been given. In a flash, she thought of David Chalmers and wondered what he would say if he knew of her presence-and her possible participation-in the club's sexual experiments. Then she dismissed it from her mind. It was too much to consider at the time.
"Will you be putting an aphrodisiac in this new drink, too?" Janie asked Adam.
"Not if you don't want me to," he said.
Janie hesitated. She wondered about the effects the dope would have on her. She wondered about herself, too, thought again that she might be using the sex survey as a deliberate excuse for her to participate in as much sex as she could, and all under the disguise of scientific inquiry.
"Well, what do you say, my dear?" Adam asked, rising from the couch.
"Yes, go ahead," she said. "Dot my drink with your aphrodisiac and we'll see if it really works or not."
"Bully," exclaimed Adam.
"Jolly," Harold breathed, almost to himself.
"Good girl," said Myra.
"Very, very good girl," added Claudia.
Adam made new drinks. He served them. Immediately, Janie tasted hers. It was more bitter than the first, but it was not unpleasant. She took a generous swallow, then became intent upon her feelings, wondering if the effects of the stuff would show at once. It did not, or at least not in any way that she could immediately determine.
Adam, holding his glass in his hand and sipping from it from time to time, took a position in the middle of the room and facing the group, striking the pose of a master of ceremonies or the leader of a teaching group.
It became very quiet. Adam looked at each of them. Then he cleared his throat and made ready to speak. Claudia looked at him and knew a stab of real admiration, for Adam Longfellow was in his sixties, yet was hard of build and handsome of features. He was lean and hard. Very hard. Jane wondered why she kept thinking of him in these terms. Then she gave her strict attention to the somber tone of his voice as he began his little speech.
"Friends," Adam began, moving his eyes to each of them. "As we have already discussed, we are going to experiment today with the effects of drugs on sex and the love life of an individual. First, for the benefit of Miss Kent-Janie-let me explain that our purpose is not that of prurient interests.
Rather, we, as ordinary citizens, seek to enhance our knowledge of the world and its people, and we are willing to use ourselves for this knowledge. There is nothing evil in what we do. None of us consider our acts immoral or against society, although society-stupid and ruled most often by idiots-has made laws against these things that we do experiment with here."
Adam paused. Janie concentrated on the others. There seemed to be nothing especially odd about any of them. Then she took another swallow of her drink and concentrated on her own feelings. She felt warm, but not especially sexual. She did feel a kind of lazy willingness for anything that might happen to her, however. But it was not an aggressive feeling, not one that would make her hurry to seduce the nearest man-or woman-as she had always thought aphrodisiacs would do. Rather, she just seemed terribly willing and very, very curious about the people in the room and about Adam Longfellow, the club's leader.
"May I ask a question?" Janie asked, suddenly speaking out without realizing that she was going to.
"Of course," Adam said.
"I realize that everything that goes on here is confidential," she said, moving to the edge of the couch a bit. "But, does anyone object if I make these activities the subject of a scientific report?"
"I don't object," Adam said. "And I'm sure our other members won't."
"Not at all," said Myra.
"I love to be the subject of reports-sex reports," said Claudia.
"No objections," said Harold.
"And none from me, either," said Ralph.
"Good," said Adam. "You may use our material as you will, my dear."
"Thank you," Janie said. She settled more comfortably into the couch.
"Today," Adam continued, "we are going to consider the effects-we hope, the advantages-of certain drugs on the sexual responses of our members. Most of us are already aware of the advantages of certain drugs. Speaking for myself, and for the benefit of Janie here who hasn't had previous knowledge of our meetings, let me say that I personally have used drugs for a number of years, and that because of them I enjoy life even more fully than a man twenty years my junior."
Janie looked at him and believed it. Then she wondered why colleges didn't investigate these very matters that Adam was discussing. She took a new swallow of her drink. Heat swamped her and she noticed a definite pulsation at her thighs. There was a tremble at her breast ends, too. She ran her tongue over her lips a little nervously. Her body became more taut and anxious, as if she wished Adam would hurry with his talk and get on with the experiments.
"So, now, to continue," Adam said, "let me say-again for Janie's benefit-that no one is ever made to participate in our sexual experiments. Everyone comes to these meetings willingly and participates, if they do, in the same manner. So, no one is being hurt by what we do here. No one will ever be hurt, I might add, by the greater knowledge of sex and how it motivates the lives of us all."
Adam's words sounded vaguely familiar to Janie. She had an idea. Then she expressed it.
"I have another question," Janie said.
"Of course, my dear," Adam replied.
"Is Mona Andrews a member of this group?"
Adam smiled. "Yes, she is, my dear. Unfortunately, Mona could not attend this afternoon's session."
Janie smiled too, thinking that it was like a cult, that all the members believed the same thing. Adam's words about the non-use of force were the same that Mona had used.
"Harold, did you secure the drug and bring it with you today?" Adam asked.
"Yes, I did," Harold replied formally.
"Excellent," Adam said. "Now, if you'll distribute it among those who want it."
Harold rose, then took a small vial from his inside pocket. It was filled with small, yellow pills. He extended the vial toward Myra who nodded and held out her hand, palm upward. Harold freed a pill from the vial and dropped it in her hand. Then he went to the next, did the same, and through all the group until at last he faced Janie.
She hesitated. Harold looked into her eyes.
"Will this have any adverse effect with that drug I've already taken?" she asked.
"None at all," said Harold.
"How soon will the effects wear off?" she asked.
"Our experience estimates about an hour-not more than two," Harold replied.
"And there are no lingering effects?"
"None, I assure you."
Janie hesitated. Harold looked at her, then brought the vial toward him as if to replace it in his jacket pocket.
"I'll try it," Janie said.
"Good girl," Harold breathed.
"Bully for you, Janie," Adam said from where he stood.
Janie took the pill, examined it, then looked at the others. When Harold had reseated himself, Adam nodded to the group. Janie watched as the others tossed the pills into their mouths, then washed them down with their drinks. Still, she hesitated. Then she turned toward Adam.
"Do you have another question, my dear?"
"Yes. Is this L.S.D.? "
"No, it is not," he said. "It is a special drug that comes from the Middle-East. It is rather rare and has had absolutely no affiliations with the college set."
"Thank you," Janie said. Adam nodded.
Janie hefted the pill in her hand, looked at it once more, decided that it looked like nothing more than a yellow aspirin, then lifted it, placed it on her tongue, took a swallow of her cocktail, then sent the pill and all scurrying to her stomach. She expected an immediate reaction. There was none. She looked at Adam Longfellow with a note of inquiry in her eyes.
"Allow me to explain something about this particular drug," Adam said. "The effects of it will work differently on each individual, depending upon their own characteristics. For some it might have an immediate reaction. For others, the effects will be delayed. And perhaps, for some, there is no reaction at all. If anything, the drug can be called a 'personalized' drug, for it attunes itself to the individual, to that person's needs and desires and inhibitions." He paused and looked around, then added, "Now, if you'll excuse me a moment, I'll arrange for some music while we meditate upon our feelings."
Adam turned and moved across the room to a hi fi set that was placed against the wall. He carefully looked through several dozen records, then placed a group of them on the spindle. He flicked on the switch, then stood watching the turning disc as music began to issue through the room.
Janie guessed that Adam's set must have had at least six speakers for the music seemed to come from every area of the room. She glanced at the others. There were no visible effects of the drug in any of them. And there were none in herself, either, she decided. But there was a vagueness present that she sensed would soon become something else.
Adam turned and returned to the group. He smiled at all of them. Then he said, "Does anyone have any wish to express their feelings at this time?"
There was silence for several long seconds. Then Janie noticed that Myra had tensed. The girl's mouth was open and her tongue whisked at her lips, as if they were dry and she sought to keep them moist.
"Anyone?" Adam asked again, his voice softer and more luring this time.
"I-I want to do something," Myra said, rising. "Certainly," Adam said.
Myra moved to the front of the group. Adam stepped a few paces backwards. Myra looked at each of them for what seemed like a very long time and Janie noticed that there was now an extreme quivering to her body. There was a kind of glaze to the dark woman's eyes, too. They seemed a little remote, as if they dwelled on other things in other places. But she stared straight ahead, looking at all of them and none of them in particular. Then she raised her right hand to the side of her dress. She unzipped it. It made a clicking noise as it descended, and it filled the room. With a shrug, Myra brought the straps of her gown below her shoulders. Then she gave a quick twist of her entire body and the dress fell to her feet. She stepped out of the pile of material and looked at the group again.
And Janie looked at her. Myra was dressed in only a strapless bra and brief, bikini panties. She also wore high-heeled shoes. She was without stockings. Janie tried to consider Myra's body in an objective manner, but she found that it was a nearly impossible task. The woman's body was exceptional, and Janie kept observing it and thinking of it in terms of her own; wondering if Myra's breasts were the size of her own, if their stomachs had the same flatness, if they compared favorably with each other although many years were between them. She became intent upon her concentration. And she became anxious for Myra's next move, too.
After Myra made another sweep of the group, she unhooked her bra and dismissed it from her body. Her breasts, large and cone-shaped, tumbled forth. The nipples were round and hard looking. They had a reddish-brown tint to them. Janie began to wonder what it would be like to kiss those breasts, and even as she thought of it she knew that she was beginning to feel the effects of the drug she had taken, otherwise, she would never possess such a thought.
Myra smiled at each of those present. She did it individually, as if she were trying to make a secret communication with each of them. And then she tucked her hands into the sides of her panties, stretched them away from her body, then bent, lowering the panties until she was able to step out of them.
When Myra rose, Janie nearly gasped aloud. She was struck by the beauty of the woman's body, made even lovelier, it seemed, by the presence of the high-heeled shoes on bare feet and at the very end of her total nudity.
Myra turned toward Adam, and Janie was distracted from her intent observance of the flesh.
"Adam?" Myra said softly.
"Yes?" he replied, just as softly.
"Do you have any caviar?"
"Oh, yes," he said, smiling.
"May I have some?"
"Of course. May I ask why?"
"Certainly. I want the caviar to love my body," Myra said.
Adam nodded and moved to the bar. In a moment, he returned with a deep bowl, heaped to the top with the glistening black-silver caviar.
He handed it to Myra.
"Thank you," she said.
Myra took the bowl, then placed it on the floor at her feet. She looked at it for a moment, then scooped a handful of the stuff with her right hand. She stretched it out in front of her as if presenting it for examination by the group. Then she turned her hand, jerked it back quickly and smashed the caviar against her right breast.
"Ohhhhh," she breathed, her eyes rolling upward as if she had already been sent to a high place of feeling.
Then, very slowly, Myra smeared the caviar around her body, circling it again and again around her one breast, grinding it in, then bringing the remains of it to her flat stomach where she smeared it again. All the time her eyes rolled, sometimes showing only their whites. And she began to utter little sounds of pleasure.
Janie felt perspiration dot her body. She felt excited. The pulsation at her loins had increased, both in frequency and intensity. And her breasts felt ready to burst. She wondered what would happen to her by the time Myra finished with the expression of her sexual desires.
Myra stooped and with both hands scooped out huge heaps of caviar. Again, she extended both hands. Then she smashed the caviar of one hand against her untouched breast while she continued to hold her other hand away from her body. She ground the substance viciously into her breast, rubbing it hard, then, suddenly, going gentle and merely daubing it upon her nipple, doing it as if she were a child seeking to make a mysterious castle from some cumbersome substance. Then she kneaded breast and caviar together, squeezing herself hard, reacting to that motion, too, by new sounds and a greater rolling of her eyes and heaving of her chest as she struggled with the deep, exerting breaths that raked her.
Janie did utter a little cry when Myra smashed the other handful of caviar against her thighs. Then she held her breath as Myra ground the caviar into her body.
"Umnimmmmm," Myra moaned. "Ahhhhh," she exalted. And finally she screamed out an eerie "EEEEEEEEE!" as the results of all her endeavors reached a peak and exploded her emotions.
Myra slumped with a new cry to the floor. She gurgled her happiness for the benefit she had given herself, for the self-love the drug had helped her express in the audience of her peers.
Janie slumped back as if she had herself experienced the same thrill that had tortured Myra's body.
Silence reigned in the room. And it continued until Myra finally rose, glanced around, then slowly departed the presence of the others, leaving the room with a slow step that spoke volumes about the physical exhaustion she knew.
Adam stepped forward. His voice was different, was deeper and more entranced when he spoke.
"Are there others of you who wish to step forward at this time?" he asked dreamily.
No one responded. Janie felt a certain urge to stand up, speak out, cry for some inspiration of her own. But she did not. She remained quiet, watching Adam and the others.
"Well, if there is no one else at this moment," Adam said, "I wish to express all that I feel-and I wish to express it privately, if you don't mind."
Janie looked around. The men nodded their heads approvingly. Claudia just stared straight ahead.
Janie wasn't sure what was going to happen as Adam moved toward the couch, but she knew that it was she he wanted. And, she was correct.
Adam stopped in front of her, smiled, extended his hand for hers, and said, "My dear, if you will, please."
As if she were motivated by forces other than her own, Janie reached out her hand and clasped Adam's. He pulled her to her feet, then, still holding her hand, led her across the room and out the door. They moved across the foyer and into the room at the far end. It resembled a living room, but Janie was not sure. She paid little attention to it. She was much too intent upon her feelings and the presence of the distinguished Adam Longfellow.
When they were in the room and had moved across it to a leather couch, Adam released Janie's hand. He looked into her eyes. Then he said, "Do you know why you're here with me?"
"Yes," she answered.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because you want to make love to me," she replied, saying it very simply, very matter-of-factly, without emotion or alarm.
"That's correct, my dear," Adam said.
He reached a hand out and fingered at the curls around her ears. Then he touched her eyes and nose and chin with the tips of his fingers. Then he lowered his hands and whisked them against the indentation her nipples made against the material of her dress.
Janie raised her head and looked into Adam's eyes as he touched at her body. She continued looking at him when he stopped, then moved his fingers to the zipper at the side of her dress. She heard its clicking sound as a far-away noise, one that was remote from the act itself. And she continued standing very erect when Adam pulled the dress away from her body and bared her to the waist.
"Oh, my dear, you are exquisite," he said, breathing the words slowly as he stared at the rise and fall of her breast.
Janie felt his hands at her breasts. She felt their moisture and their anxiety as they quivered over her tingling love-mounds and played at the ends. She felt all this, yet felt no true response for the attractive man's attentions. She wondered why, wondered if the unresponsiveness that she had known with Jack Prescott still plagued her. She deemed to find out if this was true. She raised her mouth upward, half-open and awaiting Adam Longfellow's kiss.
He gasped when he kissed her and his hands squeezed her breasts hard. And he thrust his hips forward until they burrowed against her thighs. She was close to him, very close, so close that she felt his strength and drive and the lust that he held for her body. And she felt his tongue roaming her mouth like a hurried traveler. It sought and found the special, secret, pleasure spots of her mouth.
And all the time he caressed the flesh of her breasts.
Janie-gave her mouth and tongue and the closeness of her body to Adam with a vigor that seemed immense, yet her mind wandered elsewhere than upon the passion that they created. She thought of David Chalmers, of Jack Prescott, of the people of her sex query and of her late uncle, Amos Kent. But especially she thought of David and the warmth and security she had known with him as she burrowed close to him in the tight quarters of a sailboat's cockpit.
"My dear, my precious dear," Adam breathed, pulling his mouth from hers and clamping his lips to her neck.
His hands worked to her back, tucked within the lowered dress, then gently tugged it downward.
Janie's dress had reached her hips, exposing all of her upper body from her navel upward, before she stopped him.
"Don't Adam," she whispered.
"But I want to love you, my dear," he whispered into the flesh of her neck.
"I know you do," she said. "But I don't want you to."
His mouth stopped moving upon her neck. He drew back. He looked into her eyes. Then he said, "But I thought you wanted me to make love to you."
"I thought I wanted you to, too," she said. "But now I don't."
"But the drug--. "
"It doesn't work on me, Adam," she said, wondering if this was really true. "It must not, for I don't want you to love me-to do anything, but to let me go. Now. Please."
Adam looked crushed. He stepped away from her a pace. He looked at her heaving breasts and Janie knew that he saw them as passion-filled symbols of excitement. It was true, too, but for some reason, she could not endure another moment of Adam Longfellow, of him or anyone. She wanted to be free of them all, to hurry, leave the house, hide if necessary, do anything that was necessary to depart the depravity and the confusion she had witnessed.
Adam frowned, furrowing deep lines of concern in his forehead. But he nodded and said, "Of course, my dear. As you wish."
"Thank you," Janie said.
Embarrassed suddenly, she turned her back to Adam and readjusted her dress, covering her nakedness. Then she moved toward the foyer.
Silently, Adam accompanied her as she gathered together her things and left the house.
Janie sat in the car for a few minutes before pulling away. She didn't know what had happened to her, but she knew that it had something to do with David Chalmers, the memory of him, the hope of him. She didn't understand it; she didn't even want to investigate her feelings about him. But she was glad that something of him had intervened to keep her from the love-making that Adam Longfellow had been ready to offer.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Janie had spent the entire day in the underprivileged section of Port Harris. She had interviewed many people, both men and women, and in some instances, young girls and boys. She had secured a lot of data for her report. It seemed that poor people were willing to talk about their sex life with few inhibitions. She was glad. She had feared this part of her work, but it had gone well.
It was nearly dark when Janie stopped at a cheap restaurant for a cup of coffee and to check over the information she had secured. Sipping her coffee, she decided on one more call, and she decided that she would make it in the very worst part of the bad section of town. It seemed the honest way to secure a true cross-section of opinions and attitudes.
Janie put her notes back in her briefcase and let her mind wander. She remembered Adam Longfellow and his friends and her rejection of his advances. She wondered how it had been possible for her, for she had been filled with drugs, enough, surely, to push her toward Adam, or any man, for a sexual interlude. But she had resisted. She had not given herself. And she was sure that in some way it was because of David Chalmers and the affection for him that she found growing within herself. He had called her several times, but he had made no offer of a date or any arrangements for an opportunity to be with her. He encouraged her to finish her work, said he was available if she needed him for anything, and that was all. Perhaps she was being optimistic, she cautioned herself. Perhaps David Chalmers had a dozen women who intrigued him more than one sociologist. Perhaps.
Janie finished her coffee. She paid for it, picked up her briefcase, then left the restaurant. It was dark, and Janie almost decided against this last interview. But then she saw that she was only two blocks from the section she wanted and she decided to walk to it, leaving her car parked by the restaurant.
The streets were dirty and Uttered and Janie wondered why this was always one of the symbols of poverty. There were many answers that she had already learned from textbooks, but none of them seemed adequate for her. Was it a show of hostility for society? she wondered. Was it perhaps a way to snub one's nose at authority, in this instance, city authority? Was it carelessness? Laziness? What? Janie shook her head and walked on, hoping that she would find a willing subject at the first house where she would stop.
Janie chose an old frame structure, dilapidated, the gray paint on the framework chipping off, the stairs broken and dangerous.
She maneuvered her way up the broken steps, stepped carefully across the front porch, then reached through a broken screen door to gently tap on the other door. In a moment she heard footsteps. And then the door was opened.
A young man faced Janie. He smiled. He was of medium height and dark, of some foreign extraction she guessed. His eyes were candid. They stared at the bulge her breasts made against her thin blouse.
"Well, hello," he said, slurring the words in a lurid way as his eyes busied themselves over the rest of her body.
"Hello," Janie said. "I'm Jane Kent and I'm conducting interviews about a subject that I have an obligation to report. I wonder if I might come in and talk to the lady of the house-or, if she's not available, the man of the house."
The man's eyes turned suspicious looking. "Are you from the health department?"
"Oh, no," she said.
"Welfare department, maybe?" he asked.
"No, not the welfare department either," she said, smiling. "I don't represent any city department-only myself. But I am a sociologist."
"If you're not from the city, what do you want with us then?" the man asked.
"I want to interview you."
"About what?"
Janie hesitated, then said, "About your habits-about your sex habits."
First, the man looked startled, then he grinned. "You're kiddin', " he said.
"No, I'm not," she said.
"But the old lady ain't home."
"I can interview you if you'll let me," she said.
His eyes went up and down her body. "I'll let you, okay, but let's make it snappy, eh?" Janie nodded.
The man opened the door wide, then stood aside. Janie entered the house. It was a mess, a frightful mess. Dirty dishes of several days duration were piled on the table and in the sink and on the floor. There was a baby crib piled high with dirty clothes.
"Sit down," the man said, motioning to a couch that had broken springs sticking out.
Janie moved to the couch. She suddenly realized that the man was alone in the house. On the porch, she had heard a baby cry, but now she heard the sound again and Janie realized that it came from next door. She was alone with the man. She felt a little frightened. The man brought a stool over to Janie's feet, then lowered to it, perching himself at her feet like a child in front of his teacher. His eyes continued to be busy bees over her body, touching at her breasts and waist and hips, and at her legs.
"Okay, go ahead, ask me something about sex," the man said, grinning. "I'll answer anything you ask me."
"Well, I have a set of questions here," Janie said. She reached to where she had placed her briefcase on the floor next to the couch. As she reached and extracted the papers that she wanted, she became aware of the top parts of her breasts exposing themselves above her blouse. The man was aware of it too. He peered at the opening in her blouse intently.
"All right, here we are," Janie said, trying to be casual.
The man laughed.
She looked at him, then turned away for his eyes were wicked and teasing and looked directly at her.
Janie stared at the questions in her notebook. She knew them well, but she stared at them as an excuse not to look directly at the man.
"How old are you?" Janie asked.
"Twenty-six," he replied.
"Married?"
"Yeah."
"How long?"
"Six or seven years, I think."
"All right," she said, glancing at him. "And where do you work."
"I don't."
"Oh."
"I'm on welfare-you know what welfare is, heh."
"Yes."
"Ask me something else-something better," he said, leaning back on the stool and hooking one bent leg with his hands while he continued to stare at Janie.
"Yes, I will," she said. "Do you have any children?"
"Six."
"Oh, my, how nice," she offered.
"It ain't nice at all. It's always a mistake, and my old-lady is always careless-careless like hell, she is."
"Well, yes, I see."
"Come on, ask me about that sex stuff you said you were going to."
"I'm getting to that," Janie explained. Then she asked, "Did you have relations with your wife before you were married?"
He looked puzzled, then said, "Naw, it's always been the same, she's got her relations, I got mine."
"I mean, did you have sexual relations with your wife before you were married."
"Oh, yeah, lots of times. We lived together for a couple of years. You know, trying it out." He laughed hard.
Something in the way the man laughed warned Janie that she had better hurry and have the interview ended. Suddenly she felt terribly frightened. She wanted to be out of the house and away from the man. It was dark outside; there were no lights inside; there was only the man perched on the stool at her feet.
"Well, thank you for the information," Janie said.
"That will do fine. And-and thank you." He scowled. Then he struck his hand out and clapped it on Janie's knee. "Naw, that ain't all.
You said you wanted to ask me some questions-that was nothing-now ask 'em, goddamn it, or don't you think I'm good enough to give you the smart answers that you want. I'm good enough, I tell ya. I sure as hell am."
"Of-of course you are," Janie said.
"Then ask some goddamn questions."
Janie's mind whirled with indecision. If she asked more questions, the man might interpret it as seductive behavior, and if she didn't ask some, he might become angrier, more hostile, even do her bodily harm. She couldn't think of the right thing to do and, she doubted that in a situation such as this, anything would be right.
"Ask the questions," the man said again.
"Just give me a moment to collect my thoughts," she said.
"Sure, sure, go right ahead. Collect all you want. And in the meantime, I'll get us a glass of wine."
"No-please--. "
"You'll like it," he said. "I promise you."
Janie was completely flustered. She wanted to run and leave the house, but she was afraid to. And she was afraid to stay. She looked around the room as if seeking some avenue of escape. There were many, but the man, only a few paces away in the open kitchen, kept looking at Janie. She was sure that he would leap at her if she made a move.
In a moment, the man returned with two tall glasses of very red wine.
"Here, you'll like this. I made it myself," he said.
Janie accepted the glass. It was now so dark that she could only make out the dark form of the man. But his eyes seemed to burn through the darkness. Then he came closer and reassumed the stool as his seat.
"Go ahead-drink," he commanded.
Janie raised the glass to her lips and took a tiny bit of the wine.
"Naw, not like that," the man said. "Drink it down-fast-take a big swallow."
Janie took some more of the wine. This time she took enough to notice the burn it caused at her throat. It was very sour and bitter.
"Good, hey?" the man said
"Yes. It's-very good," Janie said.
The man laughed, then he raised his glass and downed the entire contents of the glass.
"Wine is good for the blood," the man commented. He dropped the glass on the floor next to his stool.
"Yes, I've heard that too," Janie said, hoping that she sounded calm and conversationally inclined.
"And blood is good for a man-good blood in a man makes him love a woman good." He paused, then laughed very hard, saying through the laughter, "Hey, that should be one of your questions, hey?"
"It's-interesting," Janie said. She paused, then placed the glass on the floor beside the couch. "And now I really have to go."
Janie started to rise from the couch, but the man's hand shot out and pushed hard against her thighs, forcing her to sit again.
"You ain't goin' no place, lady," he growled. "Not yet."
"But I must leave. I'm late now."
"I won't keep you long," he said.
Janie started to protest again, but words would not form in her throat. And then it was too late for words. The man's hand lashed out again, this time catching Janie's blouse in a hard grip. The man twisted the material into a knot, then jerked her hard toward him, pulling her off the couch, making her fall in a position that stretched her on the floor, her head in his lap.
"Please-, " she cried.
"Shut up."
"But--. "
"I said to shut up!"
Janie tried to raise from her prone position, but the man's hand gripped her tighter and pushed hard against her breasts, forcing her back to his lap.
"You just be quiet, bitch," the man hissed. "Don't act so uppity up with me. I know you snotty bitches, all right. Coming down into this part of town-pretending to be askin' questions-all that crap-heh, there's only one thing any of you snotty bitches ever come down here for and that's this." He dropped his free hand to himself and made an obscene gesture.
Janie, breathing hard, turned her head away from the man.
"Look at me, goddamn it," he shouted.
Janie turned and looked up into his face. Then she arched, tensed all her body, hoping that this sign of her resistance would be enough to make the man free her. It was not. He held her tighter. He laughed again. Then, with his free hand, he reached for the hem of Janie's skirt. He gripped it and jerked it high, so high that it bunched around her waist and exposed her naked thighs and hips and legs.
"Ah, what a bitch," the man exclaimed, looking down at the white of her flesh. "Well, one thing I'll say for you bitches, you know where to come to get it."
Janie started to plead again, but she stopped abruptly. The man's hand was at her thighs, pressing, pushing, jamming, wrestling to make a lodging. And then they succeeded, did so because Janie knew that it was hopeless to resist. He touched her, then touched again, jamming his hand hard this time.
Janie turned her head away. Then she felt the grip at her blouse slacken, even as the other contact the man made with her increased in intensity.
For a moment, she thought she was about to be set free. But it was not so. The man pushed off from his stool, forced her to her back upon the floor, then became a dark shadow hovering over her. He brought his other hand away from her. He bunched her skirt higher around her waist and set her feet in the position he desired. Then he lurched and jammed himself to her.
Janie felt his body with hers and felt absolutely no sensation from it. The man groaned and lurched and shot himself to her again and again, and she had no doubt that in his neighborhood he was considered a superior lover. But it meant nothing to her. She was without response for the stranger's mighty effort upon her body.
"Come along," he groaned. "Goddamn it, come along with me-move-move-move, you bitch, move-move-move!"
Janie could not. And did not. And in a few minutes it was over as the man made a final lurching motion, groaned a curse, collapsed upon her, stayed there a moment, then rolled off her body as he mumbled new curses, all of them directed to her and her unresponsiveness to him.
Janie scrambled to her feet. She smoothed her skirt down. She felt hurt and raw and dirty. But when the man moved, she turned, picked up her briefcase, and quickly dashed from the house, from the man, from the neighborhood and the corruption of it.
Safely home in her house, Janie wondered again about the wisdom of continuing the final stages of her survey. It had already cost her heavily: It would no doubt continue to take its toll of her feelings until it was completed. But complete it she would, no matter what the cost.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was early and the sharp ring of the telephone jarred Janie from her sleep. She reached for the phone at the side of her bed, missed it and sent it clanging to the floor. Quickly, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and retrieved the phone. She put the receiver to her ear.
"Hello, hello," Janie said sleepily.
"Hello yourself," a voice said. "What the hell's going on there-a party?"
"No, of course not," she said. "Who is this?"
"Your old beau, Jack Prescott."
Janie was shocked from her sleepiness. As if telephones had tv viewers or eyes, she pulled the end of her shortie nightie back down over her hips and thighs from her waist where it had become bunched.
"Well, aren't you going to say that you love me and that you're glad I called?" Jack said.
"No, I don't love you, and no, I'm not glad that you called. Not at this hour anyway."
"Well, listen, Janie, I just got in from a wild party and I'm at loose ends, so how about me coming over? It's been a long time since we've been together and you've been busy every time I've called, so how about it?"
After switching on the bed lamp, Janie glanced at the clock on the vanity. It was three o'clock, an incredible hour for anything, yet she sensed the opportunity to be over and done with the sex survey by interviewing Jack Prescott. Only that day she had tried to contact Tracey Steel and found that the young woman had left for the west coast earlier in the week. Janie was thus excused from this interview. Only Jack Prescott remained.
"Come on, Janie," Jack urged. "Be a sport."
"Well, it's awfully early, Jack," she said.
"Well, let's put it this way. I need you, baby. Really need you. I'm so drunk I'm liable to crack up driving to your place."
"Then don't drive," Janie said.
"I will-and I'll smash up, too, if you don't promise to see me at once."
"All right," she said. "But be careful, Jack. Please be careful."
He laughed cheerfully and said, "Careful is my middle name, sweetie."
"Well, if you do come over," Janie said, "I wam you that I have some very personal questions to ask you."
"Great," Jack said. "The more personal the better."
"Then I'll wait up for you," she said.
"And I'll be right over. Don't change-don't fuss-stay as you are and old lover boy Jack will be at your doorstep."
With that he hung up. So did Janie. She smiled, then she looked down at her bare legs as they rested beneath her and she considered the shortie nightie that she wore, wondered how Jack would really react were she to greet him in this skimpy attire.
Janie crawled out of bed. She switched on another light. Then she moved to her vanity and sat down on the chair before the mirror. She looked at herself and saw the sleep that was in her eyes. There was something else there, too, something that had not been there before she arrived in Port Harris. It was fear. Her experience with the stranger in the poorest section of town had left her shaken and with a desire for nothing but getting the survey over with as quickly as possible. For a few minutes, Janie thought of the ease of her life before she returned to Port Harris. It had been easy. There were no emotional involvements, no Jack Prescotts to interview, no strangers who assaulted her savagely. And, there had been no Dave Chalmers to snuggle to while a sailboat sliced through the night, either, she reminded herself.
Janie picked up a brush and began brushing vigorously at her hair. The harsh strokes seemed to make it more golden looking as it shined beneath the lights. As she moved the brush, Janie could not keep from noticing the movement of her breasts. They, too, seemed vigorous. Their nipples dotted spots in her nightie. They were hard and alert and as Janie observed them she wondered if some dream had awakened them from sleep.
Finished with her brushing, Janie stood up. She walked to her closet and moved coat hangers, trying to decide what to wear at this incredibly early hour. She decided upon a skirt and sweater and had taken them from the closet when the phone rang again. She dropped the clothes on the bed, wondering why it was that a telephone's ring always sounded louder and more ominous at night.
But there was nothing ominous in this caller, Janie thought happily when she heard David Chalmers' deep voice.
"Everything all right there?" Dave asked quickly.
"Why, yes, of course."
"Oh." He sounded relieved. "Say, I am sorry for calling at this hour, Janie, but I passed your place on the way home a few minutes ago and saw that your light was on. I just wondered if everything was all right with you."
"Everything's fine," she said. She paused, wondering whether or not to tell Dave the reason that she was up, that Jack Prescott was about to pay her a call. She decided against it.
"I was at a meeting in the city and just got back," Dave said, obviously explaining the reason for his own early morning activities.
"Quite a meeting, I'd say," Janie said kiddingly.
"It was," he answered. "The state bar association has gotten interested in a number of projects, most of them mine, so I had to stay late."
"That's wonderful for you, Dave," Janie said enthusiastically.
"Yeah, I guess it is," he said. "Well-hey, when are you going to be through with this stupid survey?"
"Soon. Maybe the next day or so," she said.
"Oh, that's great, Janie, just great," he said. "Then, all we do is compare reports, you submit yours to mine, we check it out and the estate is yours without any claims upon it."
"I can hardly believe that it's about to end."
"That's the way it is with hard work," he said. "You struggle with it so long that when it's gone you kind of miss it."
"I won't miss this work," Janie said emphatically.
"Bad as all that, eh?" he asked. , "Even worse."
"Well, when it's over maybe you'll agree to celebrate one night."
"I'd love it, Dave."
"So would I," he said. "By the way, what are your plans? I haven't heard you mention returning to the city lately."
"The reason you haven't heard it, is because I haven't talked about it," she laughed.
"Good reason. What about it though? Are you going back?"
"I haven't made up my mind yet, Dave." She paused, wishing that she could tell him now that she would be staying on in Port Harris. But she could not. In truth, her plans were still uncertain. She wanted to avoid making premature plans.
"Well, guess I'll let you go," Dave said. "What the dickens, this is a terrible hour to have called you."
"I'm glad you did."
"No kidding?"
"Honest," she said softly.
"And truly, you know, like the Girl Scout pledge."
"Honest and truly," she laughed. "Hey, you didn't say why you were up at this hour," Dave said suddenly. "I couldn't sleep."
"Not sick are you."
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Very sure, David."
"Well, I'll let you go then. Good-night."
"Good-night, Dave," she said.
There was a pause. For a moment Janie thought he was going to speak again, then, when he did not, she wanted to say something more herself, keep him on the line a little longer. But she did not. And neither did Dave. They both clicked the receivers back to their hooks.
Janie sighed and sat on the edge of the bed again. She thought how thoughtful it was that Dave had called. She drew her feet up to the edge of the bed and hugged her legs together with her arms. She cuddled her cheek against her knees. She thought of David Chalmers. And then she was jarred from her thoughts by a heavy banging on the door.
Janie leaped from the bed. She had had no idea that Jack Prescott would arrive so quickly. Or, had she dreamed longer than she thought, she wondered.
The banging on the door grew louder and Janie was certain that the noise would wake up the entire area. She hurried to the clothes she had placed on the bed, but then Jack's heavy pounding sounded again and Janie moaned and rushed to the closet. She grabbed a short negligee from one of the hangers, then hurried downstairs.
Jack was still banging on the door when she opened it and let him in.
"What did you do, go back to sleep?" he asked, grinning.
"And what did you do, decide to wake up all of Port Harris?" she asked, a bit angrily.
He stumbled into the foyer. He grinned wider and ran his eyes over her body, not stopping them until they had traveled the length of her and rested at the end at her legs which were bare considerably above the knees, only slightly covered by the short negligee.
"You really are drunk, aren't you, Jack?" she said.
"Quite, my dear, as they say in the old country. Quite, quite, quite."
"Come on," Janie laughed. "I'll make you some coffee."
"like hell you will," he roared. "You'll make me a drink or I'll tear the house down. What the devil, it took me all night to get this buzz on and I'm not about to give it up now."
"All right, a drink," Janie said, "but only one I've got some work to do with you."
He grinned evilly and looked at her breasts, then said, "You had better believe it, baby."
"Come on. Stop being a clown."
Janie led Jack into the living room. When he was settled in a big, leather chair, she moved to the small bar in the corner of the room and mixed him a highball. She hesitated, then decided on one for herself, too. She carried them both back to Jack.
"Thanks, baby," he said, taking the drink from her. Then he patted his lap and said, "Come on, sit down. We've got a lot of good times to review."
"We've got some reviewing to do, all right, " she said, "but it's not about old times."
"Oh."
"It's about a report I'm doing. And you're going to help me."
"I'd like to help you, baby." He stared at her breasts.
Janie looked at him a moment, then decided that a little distance was in order. She moved to a chair immediately across from his.
"Besides," Jack said, "I know all about your old report, don't forget about that. I know you old sexologists, all right, all right."
"I'm hardly that," Janie said.
"Oh, ho, don't try to fool me," Jack said.
He took a long swallow of his highball. Janie took a considerable amount of hers, too. Then she carefully looked at Jack. She decided that contrary to her first impression upon seeing him again, he had changed quite a lot. His brow was more furrowed with lines and he was thinner than she remembered him. And there was a nervous twitch to his hands that found him constantly tapping the fingers against the chair or moving them, sometimes patting at his thigh, doing other things, but keeping them in motion all the time.
"What are you looking at?" Jack asked quite suddenly.
"You," she said.
"And are you remembering how things were between us, Janie."
"No," she said simply.
"Ah, ah, that's not nice," he said, shaking his finger at her. "You're supposed to be remembering every time we ever spent together."
"Why?" she asked.
"Because the books all say that's the way it is when old lovers get together again."
"But we haven't gotten together again, Jack," Janie said. "Nor are we going to."
"Want to bet on it?" he asked.
"No, but I know that it's true," she said.
Jack took the last of his drink. Janie finished hers too. Then she thought about hurrying and asking the questions she wanted and getting Jack
Prescott away from her home. But something delayed her, cautioned her, told her to be careful, so she decided upon another approach.
"So, you're raising horses now, Jack," she said. "Tell me about it. Is it a good business?"
"It's terrific," he said slurringly.
"That's grand. It must be interesting."
"It is. Especially when we mate them."
"Oh."
"Don't 'oh' like that."
"Why not?" she laughed.
"Because I don't like it," he said, his voice suddenly going nasty and hard.
"Tell me about the horses," Janie said, seeking to distract him enough to give him time to sober up.
"Well, it's a very exciting thing to do," he said. "Mate them, that is. You know what, Janie."
"No, Jack. What?"
"The only reason I got in the business is so that I can see those goddamn horses do it."
"Jack!"
"What the hell, don't act shocked. This should be old stuff to sexologists like you, Janie."
"Well, it's not and I don't want to hear about it," she said crisply.
"What do you want to hear about, Janie?"
She suddenly felt very silly. Here she had rejected the discussion of horses and their mating process even as she waited to ask Jack intimate questions about his own sex life. It seemed ridiculous.
"Would you like to hear about how much I've missed you, Janie?" Jack said very seriously.
"No, I wouldn't," she said, "because I know it would be just a lie."
"You know what I miss, Janie?" Jack went on as if he hadn't heard her rejection. He leaned his head back in the chair and closed his eyes, then said, "I miss the way you used to do it with me, Janie. God how I miss that."
Janie flushed. She glanced at the floor and flushed some more as images of the scenes she had once played with Jack Prescott came flooding back to her.
"I really miss that, Janie."
She looked at him. His eyes were open now and staring hotly at her.
"Let's not talk about those times, Jack," Janie said. "I was pretty young then-so were you. But they're past. Let's let them stay that way."
"I don't intend that those times will only be a memory, Janie," he said. His voice had lowered and there seemed to be a tremble to it.
"Jack-please--. "
Quick as lightning, without a sign of drunkenness, Jack pushed up from his chair and stepped quickly to Janie. She looked up at him. What she saw in his eyes frightened her. It was made up of the same stuff that she had seen when she was seventeen years old and moved at his will upon his body.
"Come 'er, Janie," Jack said. "No."
"Get up, Janie, goddamn it, or I'll get you up."
"Jack, I didn't invite you over here for this. I know it, and you know it too."
"I don't know a damn thing except that I'm going to have you. And now. Right now!"
Janie remembered the stranger and how he had forcefully taken her. She knew that Jack was capable of the same thing, perhaps even worse things. And, despite the seriousness of the moment, she could not keep from thinking that sex and lust really passed over the lines of social and class distinction; economically, educationally, in every way.
"Stand up, Janie," Jack demanded, his voice was now very hard and determined.
Janie remained sitting tightly where she was. But not for long. Jack's hand shot out and gripped her by the hair, then he jerked her to her feet.
"Get up, get up, goddamn it, get up when, I tell you to," he hissed in her face.
"Jack-you're hurting me," she said, keeping her voice calm and her words even.
"You'll get hurt more," he said. He twisted her hair a little harder in his fingers. Her neck strained, bloating the cords blue. But she held her ground. She did not shrink from him or throw her body against him as he might desire.
"We're going to be like we once were, Janie," he said.
"No, we're not, Jack," she replied, staring straight into his eyes. "We are."
She started to speak, then stopped when Jack bent her head far backwards, causing her to arch deeply, so deeply that she would have fallen to the floor were it not for Jack's grip upon her hair.
Slowly, very carefully, as he held her bent with one hand, Jack brought his other hand into play upon her body. He grasped her negligee and nightie at the bodice, then with a mighty jerk, tore it from her body, laying it open as if it were the halves of a melon. Her body came into his view. He breathed harshly as he looked at her flesh, as he saw her large breasts heaving, their nipple heads nodding, her stomach taut and undulating, her navel winking-as he saw all of her as she lay arched and presented to him.
"You always complained," Jack said, breathing hard. "You complained so goddamn much because you didn't like my methods. Well, now I'm going to do as you always wanted-and I'm going to do it until you scream out for more and more and more."
Janie winced and closed her eyes. And then there was that feeling of falling through air as Jack released her and she fell on her back upon the floor.
Janie started to turn to her side and huddle her body together as protection against Jack's lust. It was impossible. He was upon her at once, tearing at the remainder of her clothing until she was nude and stretched on her back facing him.
"All right, Janie," he said, the words sputtering out through his exerted breathing. "All right, now we'll do it your way. Just the way the goddamn squares do it-almost the way the horses do it, too, goddamn it."
Janie locked her legs together when Jack lunged. But he was strong and motivated by a demon-lust. He fought himself within her legs, paused, made an adjustment of his clothing, then he lunged forward, pinning Janie to the floor by the weight of his body and holding her hands over her head with one strong hand. And then he was fighting, lashing, arching, withdrawing, fighting closer and closer and closer in a mad whirl of his body, pressing all of his weight against her, hurting her, hurting her everywhere he sought to deliver himself of his passion's congestion.
Janie looked into his eyes for a few moments, hating him, remembering how she once would have welcomed this taking of her, this 'normal' way of making love. But now she only hated him. And she hated herself a little, too, for she was still without response, without the ability to know a reaction to the wildest kind of love-making. First it had been the stranger who had proved it. Now Jack Prescott reproved it. And Janie felt nothing. Nothing at all. Just a desire for Jack to hurry and complete his singular satisfaction.
"Oh, Jane! Janie!! " he suddenly cried.
He moved faster, then faster still and soon so fast that his body seemed to be in a single motion of pumping to and from Janie.
She felt the grind of him, the harsh impact, only this and nothing more.
Jack started to blubber at the very end. Janie looked at him and thought how silly he was, how a man such as David Chalmers would never blubber, not over a woman or over anything.
When Jack Prescott rolled from Janie's body, freeing her at last, she looked at him and thought what a pitiful sight he was. He still blubbered, but now he had added some insane chant about horses and his own sexual inadequacies.
Janie straightened her clothes and resumed her seat. She waited patiently until Jack had cried himself out. Then she walked him to the door and shut it behind him. And then she turned and returned to her bedroom, glad that the survey was completed, sad for all that it had taken from her, and sadder still that she now had doubts about her own adequacy.
Janie was a long time falling asleep. When at last it did come, it was fitful and dream-filled.
CHAPTER NINE
The sun had already dipped beneath the earth by the time Janie Kent finished compiling her report on the sex life of certain subjects of the city of Port Harris. She was surprised that she had learned so much about the people. And the data she had secured seemed quite enough to help her make her mark in sociological circles. This was a bonus-she had merely wanted to complete the requirements of her uncle's will. But the array of material she had obtained tempted her to greater work. But, she didn't know. Not yet.
Janie fastened the last of many sheets together, locked them securely in a folder, then laid the package on the top of her desk. She looked at it and sighed. Then she looked at the telephone and thought of David Chalmers. She wondered what he would think of her work, wondered if he would question the thoroughness of her information and inquire how it was possible for her to learn so much without actual experience with the subjects. She hoped he wouldn't ask that. But, if he did, she would tell him. Then she wondered why she thought so continually of the young and idealistic lawyer. She recognized that it was very-likely that she was in love with him. She recognized it, then dismissed it from her mind, being disinclined to consider such a thing at that time.
Again, Janie looked at the telephone and considered calling David, telling him that the survey was completed, that her work was done. But she did not. Instead, she tiredly pushed up from the desk and walked around the room. She moved around the room as if she were uncertain of her surroundings, uncertain, even, of her next move. To quiet the tired restlessness that she felt, she moved to the couch. She sat down. Then she lounged lengthwise on the couch.
She had been disturbed all through the day. Everything bothered her. She could not adjust her mind to plans for the future. She could do nothing but work on her report, and, now that it was done, lie on the couch and think.
Some of her thoughts were horrible. She remembered Jack Prescott and noted what he had become, how he had become a near-madman when at last he had taken her. Then she remembered the stranger in the broken-down house. He had taken her hard, too, masterfully, she supposed it could be called, but still, with him, with Jack, with all of them, there had been nothing in the act for herself. She thought of herself as a freak for a few moments, then sent that thought scampering as she realized how preposterous it was. Sexual inadequacy was certainly nothing new among women, she told herself. Still, it didn't help. She wished that she were different. Then she wondered if she ever would be different, if she would learn how to respond to love and lover.
Janie pushed up from the couch. She walked over to the desk and again looked down at the folder that contained her report. She thought how odd it was that she had learned so much and still knew so little about herself and her own responses. It seemed a shame. A terrible shame.
Suddenly, Janie felt horribly tired. So tired that she could hardly stand. She recognized the feelings as one of let-down after the activity of her work. Now there was nothing. And she was tired. So tired.
Janie walked to the window and looked out at the large expanse of land at the front of the house. She saw only a wide, dark square, for it had grown dark. The day had passed quickly; she hoped the night would move as fast. Once more, Janie looked at the phone. And once more she rejected the idea of calling David Chalmers. She turned and walked to the rear of the house.
In the small study at the rear of the house, Janie did not turn on a light. She stood in darkness looking out the rear window, thinking of nothing in particular, just staring, feeling her tiredness, the indecision about her future, feeling all these things and wishing that she did not.
Janie was still standing by the window when the door chimes sounded. She did not move at first. They sounded again. She turned. Again the chimes sounded their three-toned signal. Now, Janie moved toward the front of the house and to the door in the foyer.
Dave Chalmers grinned as she opened the door.
"Dave," Janie cried, "I didn't know it was you."
"Naturally not," he said. "How could you?"
"That's right," she laughed. "Come on in."
"I'll do that, young lady," he answered.
When the door was closed behind Dave Chalmers, Janie became aware of her dress. Embarrassedly aware of it, for she wore only a short negligee and slippers. Earlier, when she was midway through the compilation of her report, she had gone upstairs and changed. She had forgotten about it. Now she was embarrassed.
"Is this as far as I get? The foyer?" Dave asked.
"Of course not," she answered. "Here, let me take your briefcase."
"I can manage it," he said. "I'm not quite that old."
"Of course not."
"You said that," Dave reminded her. "Yes, I did. Come on, sit down." They walked into the living room together and sat down.
"A drink?" Janie asked. "No thanks," he told her.
"Dave, I have something to tell you," she said, a note of excitement in her tone now that he was with her.
"Let me guess," he said. "You've finished the report."
"Right."
"Good."
"I'm so happy that it's over with," she said.
"I am too," he replied. "As a matter-of-fact, I brought your uncle's report-you know, the envelope you asked me to keep for you."
"Oh."
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"I don't know. It just seems so-so kind of final all at once. Everything over with-the end, you know."
"They call that let-down," he told her.
"I know. I've been feeling it all evening long."
"So, now you're already to return to the city and the big job that waits for you there, eh?" Dave asked.
"I haven't made any plans, Dave. I've just finished the report. I don't even know if it's satisfactory or not."
"It is."
"How can you be sure?" she asked.
"Because I'm the judge and I'm sure it'll be satisfactory."
"I hope so. But if it's not, well, there's nothing I can do about it. I'm through with this thing. Absolutely through. I don't want to have another thing to do with it, not even if it means not getting Uncle Amos' money. I couldn't stand another day of this ridiculous thing."
"Ridiculous?"
"Yes. That's exactly what it is."
"Then there was nothing to learn from it, right?"
She did not answer immediately. She thought of the things she did learn, especially those things about herself. She tried to weigh the new knowledge with the knowledge she had before beginning the report. And she decided that it was still ridiculous, the whim of a man who was no doubt losing his mind.
"Well?" Dave asked.
"Well, there was a little to learn," Janie said. "But not enough to make this work important."
"I'm sorry to hear that," he said.
"I'm sorry it's that way, too," she answered.
Dave leaned forward a bit, then settled back in the couch again. He glanced at her, then looked away. Then he glanced at the floor, looking very much like a shy boy about to make a speech.
"You're sure you don't want a drink?" she asked again.
He glanced at her and grinned. "Maybe that would be a good idea. I think I could use one."
Janie stood up, then said, "Bad day, eh?"
"One that found me wrestling with many problems, none of them legal, either."
"Sounds bad," she said.
"It is," he answered. "Very bad."
Janie smiled and moved away from him and to the portable bar. She was horribly aware of her body as she glided across the room. She was aware of her skimpy attire, aware, too, that her bare legs flashed as she moved, that the bottom of the negligee was high and revealed much of her thighs. And, she was aware of the heaviness of her breasts, of the way they swayed to a double-beat rhythm with her hips as she moved. She was sure that Dave would think she had dressed this way deliberately. She was sure that he would consider her bold. But, it seemed silly to go upstairs and change, especially silly in that she had answered the door this way, had already sat and talked with him while in a half-dressed state. So, she made drinks, a tall one for Dave, a smaller one for herself. Then she carried them back to the couch.
Janie bent over and placed the drinks on the cocktail table. Again, she was aware of the heaviness of her breasts and of the way they became partly exposed when she leaned over. She glanced at Dave and saw that his eyes glued to her breasts, that they hungered there as if he could devour them. It gave her a good feeling to see that. She wondered about it for a few moments, thinking that she enjoyed Dave's eyes on her body while she detested the looks other men gave her.
Janie sat down next to Dave again.
He picked up a glass, handed it to her, then took his own.
"To the end of this damn thing," he said, tilting the glass in her direction. "Amen to that," she replied. They each took some of their drink. Their eyes met over the rims of their glasses and their eyes smiled a bit, much as if they conveyed a conversation of their own.
When Dave finished another swallow of his drink, he replaced the glass on the table, then leaned down and unzipped his briefcase. From it, he took a thick manila envelope. He tossed it on the table.
"There's Amos's report. It's yours."
She looked at it, then turned to Dave and nodded.
"Well, aren't you going to open it?"
"Not unless you insist upon it."
"I won't insist upon that," he said definitely. "Not now at least."
The way he said it made Janie turn and look into his face. He was smiling.
"What are you going to insist upon, Dave?" she asked softly.
"Many things," he answered. "For a starter-this--. "
Before Janie knew what was happening, he had wrapped her in his arms and jerked her close to his body. He held her tightly, yet gently. And his lips upon hers were gentle, too. Terribly gentle. So gentle that Janie wanted more of them, more of them and wanted the hard plunge of his tongue too.
She moaned and parted her lips. Dave's tongue responded to the entrance she made for it. And then she brought her own into play, spinning it against Dave's, drawing upon his, relaxing, giving of her own, then taking his again, on and on and on, forever it seemed, without breathing, without thoughts, with nothing but the dramatic sensations they created in each other. And the sensations grew and grew and grew and became confused with other feelings-the feeling of Dave's hands upon her breasts, one hand busy there, the other at the small of her back, circling, massaging, endlessly circling until it lowered and clutched desperately at her buttocks.
"Oh, Dave," Janie cried into his mouth. "Dave, Dave, Dave."
"Sweet, Janie," he whispered into her mouth. Then he drew back, carefully opened the top of her negligee, exposed her breasts, lifted them in his hands, then bent to taste of her sweetness.
Janie felt herself fill with emotion and she was sure that she was spinning as if in a dream. She stretched lengthwise on the couch, but the dizziness continued. And then she spun harder when Dave opened the remaining enclosure of her negligee, slipped it from her body, then bent to kiss harder at her breasts and ribs, at her hips in turn, each side, first one then the other, endlessly kissing, tonguing her flesh, moving up and down, then down, down, down, very low, so low that new sensation swamped her and made her cry out a little wail of delight.
Dave raised and looked into her face. He smiled.
She smiled back. Then she opened her arms wide and Dave brought a kiss to her mouth again as she clung tightly to his neck, burying his head to her mouth, to her breasts, to her stomach finally, and then lower, burying him to every part of herself that she could cause.
She caused a great deal. As he explored her body with his mouth and tongue, she began to whimper and her body responded to that sound, it seemed, for it began to rise and fall, almost in tune with the sounds that issued from her throat.
Again, Dave drew back. Again he smiled at her. But this time she did not return his smile. She could not. Her feelings were much too tense, much too explosive and threatening to allow for smiles. Dave saw it too. He pushed away from where she lay on the couch. He stood very tall at her side, looking down at her and showing not a sign of self-consciousness as he quickly undressed.
Janie's eyes flicked closed and open, causing her to see mere patches of his action, only brief flutters of his clothes being removed and the flesh they exposed for her view.
And finally, she saw his nudity. He was very strong, very lithe and agile, very much ready to send her spinning with his love.
Dave was careful, gentle, very tender as he moved to a position of domination over Janie's body. And she found that he was much more patient than she for her hands shot outward, clawed and scratched at his waist as she tried to hurry his taking of her. But Dave was not to be hurried. He acted like a man who had waited all his life for this moment and now that it had arrived intended to know it fully, every moment and movement of it. He did, too. He touched her breasts again, sent them to a crazy quivering with his fingers that kneaded, then played with the long, hard nipples. And Janie's body shuddered horribly, convulsively, when Dave trailed his fingers from her breasts downward over her body to her thighs. He moved them with the sureness of a surgeon; with the delicacy of a musician; with the ability of an old-country craftsman.
Janie cried out when Dave gently massaged at her inner thighs. She heard her own cry in her ears and it seemed that it came from another, that it issued from one who had long known the responsiveness to a lover. Janie couldn't believe that it had come from her own throat, yet, all the familiarity of her own voice was there. But the words were different. For the first time they formed a mumbled confession of love. It was answered by Dave's naked body leaning over her, adjusting her to him, and finally his plunge that sent her searing with sensation as their bodies locked together and Dave once more hovered his mouth over hers.
They moved expertly and slowly together. They kissed as they moved, also expertly, also gently, gently until their bodies speeded, then their mouths locked tighter and their tongues played together in a miniature duplication of the act of love they were performing.
Suddenly, when they had reached a high speed of movement, Janie's body stiffened, she arched, she cried out, she pressed her legs more tightly around Dave and it seemed that they sought to crush the life from him. But they did not. They instead encouraged a final speed of his giving, a greater love-lashing from his body.
"Yes, yes, yes," Janie cried. "Oh, yes, oh, yes, my David." He whispered a hushed word of love, then made his final surge.
Janie hoisted her body high and clung to him. It was as if they were one, as if two parts had been reduced to a single unit of motion and love and thrill.
And finally, Janie was sent beyond the reality of Dave's hard body. She was sent to the stars and beyond them, to the heavens and beyond that place, too, was sent on, higher and higher and higher until at last she flared like a bursting rocket in the sky.
Janie collapsed and fell into a deep slumber. Dave lay close to her body, stroking her hair, whispering the sounds and words of his love for her. And then they slept. But only for awhile, for Dave Chalmers, for he awoke, looked at his love, then gently left her side.
He stood for a long time looking down at her. Then he smiled, dressed, and gently stole out of the room and the house, leaving Janie to her deep slumber, to her dreams, to the restfulness of her body that had, at long last, been realized in love.
CHAPTER TEN
When Janie awoke on the couch in the living room she did it with a lazy stretch of her arms over her head, a smile, and the feeling that she was still involved in a dream. Her wakefulness was short-lived. She closed her eyes and immediately fell into a new, deep slumber. She slept the sleep of a fully achieved, contented woman for the first time in her life. She slept it in this mood because of the love of Dave Chalmers, the love that was unseen, but deep enough for Janie to sense, and the physical love that he expressed upon and within her body.
An hour later, Janie awoke again. Again, she stretched lazily, smiled, then twisted on her side to wrap her arms around her love. Only emptiness greeted her outstretched arms. Her eyes widened. Her forehead puckered a frown. She looked concerned and anxious and very fearful. She sat up on the couch, looking around, seeing that it was still dark, that she was still nude, and that Dave was gone. She brought her feet to the floor. She shivered slightly and wrapped her arms around her body, feeling her breasts, lazy and snuggling because of the love they had known, against her forearms. It was a good feeling, one that made her think of Dave and his kisses and his strength.
Janie stood up. She walked to the desk and switched on the light. And then a note caught her eyes. It was pinned high on the desk calendar. She smiled. She knew it was from Dave. She picked it up and happily read the words he had written: Darling:
Sleep tight, my love. Don't move. I'll be right back. With surprises and love and all kinds of plans.
I love you.
Dave.
Janie smiled and read the note twice more before gently placing it in the middle of her desk. She turned around, then turned again, this time doing it in a little dance step that expressed the greatest happiness. Then she went to the desk, leaned over it and read Dave's note again. And again. And still once more. And then she noticed the sealed envelope of her uncle. She picked it up. She considered opening it, then decided against it. She replaced it on the desk. Then she read Dave Chalmers' note still another time.
Skippingly, Janie returned to the couch, to that place where she had known love. She sat down. The cushions were warm and she wondered if it was that way because of her body alone or if there was still some of Dave's heat present there. She hoped so. She fervently hoped that there would always be some of David Chalmers in everything she did, every place she went, every thought she would ever have.
Janie stretched full length on the couch again.
Happy for her nudity, happy that she could lie there, unafraid, happy as a woman because she had at last been fulfilled as a woman. She moved her cheek to that place where Dave's head had last rested. She snuggled it close. She breathed deeply, hoping to catch some of the scent of her love. And she did, she was sure that she did, for there was a hefty, man-odor that she had never noticed before. She cuddled to it. She loved it. Dearly.
Janie had closed her eyes again and was on the threshold of new, happy sleep when the knock at the door rallied her to full wakefulness. The knock sounded again. Then again. Happily, Janie jumped from the couch. She looked down at her negligee where it rested on the floor. Then she decided against it, decided that she would go to David as he had so recently known her-nude and anxious and thankful for his love.
Naked, Janie ran out of the room, into the foyer, and to the door. The tap at the door sounded again just as she opened it. She threw open the door. And then she jumped back, horror-stricken, stunned beyond belief.
"Well, baby, you're all ready for me, I see," said Jack Prescott and Janie took a step backward.
Jack started to move inside the house at the same moment that Janie lunged for the door, attempting to close it. She pressed hard, throwing all of her weight against the door, but it was to no avail against the strength of Prescott.
"Stop that, you little bitch," he said.
"Jack. Jack-get out of here. Please," Janie begged.
"Not just yet," he said, grinning. "I've been watching this place from time to time since the other night. I figured since your lawyer boy friend just left a bit ago you'd be all rested up and ready for me."
Janie took another step backward, at the same time crossing her arms clumsily in front of her in an effort to hide her naked body.
Jack looked at her and laughed.
Janie looked more closely at him and saw that he had obviously been drinking. Also, that he must have had little sleep the last several nights for his eyes were bloodshot, he was unshaven, and his clothes were crumpled and soiled as if he had been sleeping in them.
"Jack-get out of here. Get out right now or I'll-I'll--. "
"You'll what?" he asked nastily. "Call your boy friend? The police? Scream? Just what in the hell can you do to stop me?"
Janie moved backwards again. Slowly, she moved, a step at a time as Jack moved toward her. Soon, her back struck the wall and she could go no further.
Jack stopped within inches of her crossed arms. He looked at her, grinned wickedly, then laughed.
Janie knew that it was useless to plead with Jack Prescott. She knew that something had happened to derange him, to make him lust-crazed with herself as the subject of that lust.
"You know what, Janie?" Jack said.
She did not answer.
"Do you know why I'm here, Janie," he said, reaching out and gripping her right wrist.
Still, Janie made no remark.
"Well, I'll tell you why I'm here," he said softly. "I'm here because things didn't go the way I wanted them to go when I was here last. I just can't stand it, Janie, when a girl doesn't get a kick out of me. And, baby, you didn't get any kick. Now you're going to."
He squeezed harder on her wrist and forced it downward and away from her naked breasts. Janie resisted strongly, but finally she stood before him, her hands at her side, her naked body straight and facing him.
"That's better," Jack said, his eyes roaming her body. "And now, to start again."
Janie tried to dodge his outstretched hands, but could not. He grabbed her hard, forced one hand behind her back, then thrust her body to him. She could feel his crazed strength, could smell his liquor breath. She turned her head far to the side, avoiding, as best she could, the attempt he made to kiss her.
"Bitch," he spit at her. "Goddamn bitch."
Jack quickly shifted his position. He brought both hands to her neck and dug his thumbs into the hollows of her collar bone. He exerted pressure. Janie sagged, then sank a bit lower in front of him. He pressured harder, and Janie could not help but fall on her knees before him.
Jack held her in this position for what seemed an eternity to Janie. But then he shifted his position, brought one hand away from her collar bone as he tightened the other. Janie couldn't understand why he was holding her with only one hand. But in a moment she knew. With his free hand, he fumbled at his clothing until he had achieved the exposure that he wanted. Then he brought the other hand back to her collar bone and pressured with both hands, harder than ever.
"Bitch-you're going my way," Prescott mumbled.
Janie shut her eyes tight. She wanted to black out that which she faced, black out everything of Jack Prescott. But soon she felt the tangle of fingers in her hair and the pressure from them that bent her forward to his desire.
"Now, bitch. Now, goddamn it, just like it used to be. Now," Prescott choked, saying the words in a kind of crazy chant that seemed to roll from his throat by some awful, evil means.
Janie resisted the pressure Jack forced upon her. She twisted her head far to the side and away from him, straining with all her might, ready, if necessary, to die before she would do his bidding. And then he jerked her forward mightily and she felt the result of the lurch he made of his body. And then there was darkness and sound and her name being called. It was a blur, a terrible blur that she could not shake. But then, at last, as if by magic, there was the sound of David Chalmers' voice calling to her and her own answering him in a half-sob, half-scream cry for help. And then there was a shattering sound and Dave's voice closer to her. It became confused then, confused and mixed with shouts and yells and hard knocking, sometimes ripping sounds. There was a clicking sound, too, as if teeth had been shattered. And there was a thud. And then a dragging sound.
Janie raised from where she had crumbled upon the floor.
First, she saw the lopsided effect of the broken door. Then she saw two figures by the door. One was David Chalmers, the other was that of the broken body of Jack Prescott. His face was bloody, his nose was shattered, only jagged edges showed where teeth had once been. And he was prone on the floor and Dave was dragging him to that broken door. And then Dave lifted him, righted him on his feet for a second, let him sway there a moment longer, then pushed him hard, sending him sprawling through the door, across the porch, and down the steps in an unconscious heap.
Then David turned to Janie. Then she started to sob. She sobbed and cried and sobbed some more. For awhile it seemed that she would never stop.
But she had the comfort of Dave's arms around her as she cried herself dry, as she finished with the last unhappiness of her life.
An hour later Dave and Janie sat in the living room. Their fingers were locked, they sat close together on the couch. Janie had finished with her crying, then had explained as best she could the reason Jack Prescott had returned to her house. Dave, somber for a few minutes, soon showed by his tone and manner that he understood-that he understood because that part of her life was finished.
"But why did you leave here in the first place?" Janie asked, cuddling closer to Dave. "I had to go home."
"At a time like that, you had to go home?"
"Sure I did."
"But why?" she asked.
"To pack," he said.
"Pack?"
"Yes. My bags."
She straightened and looked at him curiously. "You're going away?"
"Of course I am." He paused. Then he said, smiling brightly, "And so are you, if you'll have me. I had to go home and pack my bags so we could leave right away and wake up some sleepy justice of the peace."
Janie almost started to cry again. But she checked it. Dave helped her check the tears by a long, hard kiss. But when it ended, he glanced to the desk, then said, "Hey, hold everything, we forgot something."
"Now just what did we forget this time?" she laughed.
"Your uncle's report. The envelope. Don't you want to read it?"
"Not especially," she said. "I just want that crazy part of our lives over with."
"It can't be, darling," he said. "Not until you open the envelope."
Dave pushed up from the couch and walked over to the desk. He picked up the envelope and looked at it. Then he looked at Janie. Then he walked over to her and extended the envelope to her.
She took it slowly, carefully, as if it were evil. Then she opened it.
There was a thick bundle of papers which Janie quickly determined was the report that her uncle had requested that she compare to her own. And there was a note. She picked it up, then raised her eyes to Dave.
"Read it," he said.
"I don't know if I want to or not," she said. "You have to," he said.
Janie paused, then read the note through. And then she smiled brightly and jumped up and into Dave's arms. He looked at her curiously, but did not speak.
"Listen to this, darling," she said. Then she read the entire note: "My dear niece:
The enclosed report will be favorable to your own, I'm sure, but this is not really important. I had another reason for my wish for you to conduct such a sex survey. You see, my dear, Janie, I firmly believe that there is only one, true sexual responsiveness in the world, and that is the responsiveness that is inspired by true love alone. I trust that by now you have found this to be true. Believe me, it is worth anything you might have suffered in order to learn this great wisdom.
There's another thing I want to explain, Janie. I'm sure the absence of Dave Chalmer's name on the list of subjects for your investigation fairly shouted for attention. Well, I had a reason for leaving Dave off the list. My reason-I'm sure that you would find the opportunity to investigate his life more thoroughly than those of any of the other subjects. I'm sure, too, that you were inspired to do this all on your own. So, dear Janie-and Dave-have a good life. Love each other always.
With love, Your Uncle Amos." Slowly, Janie lowered the note. She looked at
