Madeline Nash shook her shoulder-length, platinum-blond hair and glanced around the room at the twenty or so women she was supervising. Mostly young girls, but there was a sprinkling of older women, too. The telephone company wasn't choosy about its business office employees, only its operators at the dial exchange, blocks away in another part of town.
A hot June sun trickled through the blinds on the room's west side. The clock over the street exit read a quarter till five, which should have made her happy, because she'd be going home within a few minutes to a husband named Shelby and a four-year-old daughter named Tracie. Instead, Madeline felt miserable. Tracie would be there all right, in the care of a housekeeper, but not Shelby. Shel, a captain in the National Guard when he wasn't managing an oil company's bulk plant, had driven away the night before for two weeks' summer encampment. He wouldn't be home until the twenty-third.
Madeline wondered what in God's great name she'd do to pass the two weeks. Visit her mother? Hardly. She couldn't leave a $12,000-a-year job for two weeks simply because she was lonely. But she didn't bowl or do Red Cross work. Nor did she teach summer rec classes how to swim or sew their own clothes. It seemed she'd be doomed to watching television.
The five-minute buzzer sounded. For the convenience of those who had to make up car pools with cross-town employees, the telephone company permitted the girls to leave at five minutes until the hour. Madeline watched the score of file clerks, secretaries and stenographers cover their machines, gather up their handbags, and bolt for the door. The room cleared in less than a minute, reminding Madeline of a classroom full of children emptying for the weekend. But the women who worked for AT&T weren't children, and she wasn't their schoolmarm. She was twenty-eight years old and looked a few years younger, as She' himself was fond of telling her.
When the last one had left, Madeline straightened up and locked her desk, then went to find the building custodian to tell him she was leaving. Whatever happened after she clocked out was the custodian's responsibility. With maintenance equipment stored in adjacent rooms and wings, even the business office never really closed its doors.
The parking lot had emptied when she stepped across the chain and began searching through her purse for the keys to her year-old Sedan DeVille. The black-and-gold Cad's colors corresponded to her husband's school colors, Shel had laughingly explained when he brought the car home. On her salary and his, the car was a necessity, not an extravagance.
"Hello, Madeline," someone remarked from behind her. "How was the day?"
She whirled to find a young man of about twenty-one surveying her in a mock-serious way which annoyed and, yes, frightened her. The young man had black hair, a strong face and strangely piercing eyes. He wore clothing-jeans and a pullover-which had once been serviceable but were now becoming ragged. The boots on his feet were the type popular with motorcyclists, although there was no bike near at hand. The apparition, if apparition he was, had sprung up out of the ground.
"Do I know you?" Madeline asked, and kept the question polite, but with a proper edge of peremptoriness.
The boy smiled. His teeth, at least, were perfect. "No, but you will. I'm Greg. You've never heard of me, but you've waited a long time for me."
Madeline, to her utter dismay, dropped her car keys. She was obliged to scratch through the dust and the gravel to pick them up. When she raised to look at him again, he'd come a step nearer, still smiling. Madeline took an involuntary step backwards.
"I-I don't understand," she stammered, because he was even bigger up close and was no boy at all. Huge bundles of muscle rippled underneath the pullover. Legs which stuffed the jeans-particularly their crotch-to the bursting point awed her. Shelby, a fit thirty-year-old, kept himself in shape with tennis, golf and boating, but Shel would always be Shel. She loved and respected him, but he didn't affect her in any overpowering physical way like this-this ....
"You will," Greg assured her, licking his lips. Except for this one indication of nervousness, his manner was confident. Alarmingly confident.
Madeline tried to reassert command of the situation by rattling the keys and planting her feet more solidly on the ground. "I'm sorry," she began. "I'm certain I've never seen you-" The words vanished in a gasp, because he stepped close and crushed her in his arms. To her, it seemed as though she were being crushed. For him, there was probably strength in abeyance. Madeline tried to suck in enough breath to scream, and discovered that she couldn't. He held her too closely. Then he covered her mouth with his, and for a second, she forgot her fear. The lips Greg pressed to hers were hard and fiercely demanding. They tasted of alcohol but not enough so to indicate intoxication.
He made the kiss last as long as he wished, and stopped it when he wanted to, gazing at her in some amused fashion, as though he understood the joke, and in time, so would she. "I'll call you," he promised, looking down on her. Turning, he glided away catlike to vanish behind the shrubbery which bordered the parking lot on two sides.
Madeline, savoring the kiss and disgusted with herself, wiped her mouth and stared at the place where he'd been. I'll call you. Call her? Why should he call her? Who was he and what did he have in mind? She looked around and saw no one, no one who could have helped, no one who had even noticed. In the center of the city and with fifty thousand people all around, she'd been-mugged wasn't the word for it. She'd been victimized by as bold a masher as a woman would ever want to forget.
So she would forget him. Angrily, she forced the key into the Cadillac's door and turned. When she was safely inside, Madeline could even smile about the incident, albeit with misgivings. If one brief impulse was to flag down the first police car and report the incident, pride and a measure of prudence made her ignore it.
She checked her appearance in the car's rear-view mirror and decided that the pallor was only her imagination. Patting her hair back into place, she cranked the Cad and pointed it out the lot's one exit. The heat outside and her own state of excitement made the stale air inside seem staler. Madeline switched on the air conditioning and turned it up high. At the first light, she clawed inside her handbag for a cigarette. Lighting it with the dash lighter, she inhaled the menthol smoke in short, flustered puffs.
Before she reached home, the possibility of a kidnapping occurred. Not for a large sum, of course, but a modest one. She and Shel weren't wealthy, heaven knew, just prosperous. But the $40,000 ranch-style house baked under a late-afternoon sun in its usual, quiet way. There was no one running about, nor were there police or sheriffs cars parked out front. Madeline breathed a prayer of thanks, braked the Cad outside the garage and got out, dashing inside without her purse.
If the housekeeper noticed her agitation, she said nothing. But then Leana Braynham made a point, most of the time, of saying nothing. When Madeline burst in, Leana was emptying ashtrays in the living room, a chore she would have finished earlier in the day, except that every ashtray in the house was full from a Saturday night party.
"Where's Tracie?" Madeline demanded, almost grabbing her by the arm.
The gray-haired Leana raised her eyes skyward. "If she isn't in her playroom, she's in the kitchen where I told her not to go, because the cookies aren't cool enough to eat yet. If she isn't there, she's probably-"
"Have any strange men knocked on the door today? Think, Leana! It may be important!"
The housekeeper sighed and ticked them off on her fingers. "There was a vacuum-cleaner salesman. I got rid of him because the new Hoover isn't even broken in yet. And a solicitor for the city directory. I think. He gave no identification, but he was well dressed. He left a questionnaire. It's on the stereo. And a man who asked about Mr. Nash. I said he was away and the fellow promised to come back."
Madeline's heart lurched. She hoped her alarm didn't show. "What did he look like? How was he dressed?"
"About Mr. Nash's height. Blond, well-dressed. Oh, he said they were classmates in college." Leana cocked her head. "Is anything wrong, Mrs. Nash? The last time I saw you this way, Tracie had swallowed two buttons from her playsuit. If there's anything I can-"
"Everything's fine, Leana, I've just had a rotten day." Madeline put a smile on her face and patted the housekeeper's arm, hurrying past her to find Tracie. The four-year-old she discovered in the kitchen, stuffing herself with fresh oatmeal cookies. Madeline yanked one out of her hand, rapped her once on the backside, and fastened a stern eye on two apprehensive ones. "Tracie, listen to mother!" she commanded. "Did you go outside to play today?"
The toddler nodded. "But I didn't cross the street, Mommy, honest. I stayed in the yard. Susan came over and we-"
"Did you see any strange men? Did anyone try to approach you or say anything to you?"
Tracie shook her golden-blond head. "I didn't see anyone."
Madeline hugged the child and told her she could have one more cookie. "But only one. Save room for your roast." Leana, she saw, had put on the roast like she'd been ordered. Madeline went back to the living room to see the woman off. She and Tracie would enjoy a quiet meal together, then go out to a movie, a Walt Disney animal picture that, hopefully, would take her mind off Greg whoever-he-was.
The telephone was ringing when she and Tracie returned at half-past nine. Madeline marched the four-year-old to the kitchen and poured her a glass of milk before snatching the extension off the wall. "Hello?"
"It's me, Madeline," a calm male voice said. "Greg. Remember? I said I'd call."
She glanced over her shoulder at Tracie. "Listen to me, buster, and listen well. I've never seen you before in my life, but I know your kind. If you don't stop bothering me, I'm going to drive to the police station and make enough trouble to last-"
"You listen, honey. You and I have a lot to talk about. We can't do it over the phone. Why don't you come around and see what's on my mind?" Greg chuckled, an easy, confident chuckle. "I know you're free tonight and for a lot of nights to come. I know."
Madeline's heart lurched. From the corner of her eye, she saw a concerned look on Trade's face, and lowered her voice. "You're out of your mind. I have no intentions of leaving this house again tonight. In fact, I'm hanging up the phone right now."
"Before I give you my address? Don't do it, doll. You can find me at the Riverview Mobile Home Park. The one in back with the lights still on and the chopper out front. I'll be waiting." The phone clicked dead.
"Hello? Hello?" Madeline realized how silly she sounded, and replaced the phone on its wall hook.
"Who was that, Mommy?"
"Just a man, darling. Don't worry about him. He won't call anymore. Now it's time for bed. Finish your milk and let Mommy help you change."
"Is Daddy coming home tonight?"
Madeline tried not to be cross with her daughter. Rather than explain it all over again, she shook her head. "No. Up with you."
Long after the house was dark and Trade's room silent, Madeline lay staring up at the ceiling, prey to a hundred fears, a thousand questions. No matter how risky it was, she longed to go to Riverview and find out what this was all about. The fascination with Greg appalled her. She'd never been morbidly curious before. Usually she did the safe thing, the thing her head told her to do. Her head told her to forget about Greg, before matters got out of hand.
She tossed until ten-thirty, finally acknowledging the real reason for her tossing. Shel hadn't touched her Saturday night, the night of the party. At one in the morning and with Guard camp just twenty-three hours away, he'd been too weary. Nor had he made love to her Friday night. Their schedule was three times a week, but the schedule had gotten trampled this past week. Madeline groaned. Her poor body craved physical release, while her middle-class morality decreed strict continence for the next two weeks. A quandary.
She wondered what her friends would do under the circumstances. Unfortunately, there was no one else in their circle of acquaintances who owed two long weeks each summer to the National Guard. Most of the women Madeline knew had their husbands home every night, except for an occasional fling with the boys, a one-night venting of masculine steam.
But there was Yvonne. Yvonne Crenshaw. Yvonne's husband was a traveling salesman, and she had affairs the way other women had beauty appointments. Yvonne's escapades usually occurred with professional wolf types, not with other women's husbands, and were therefore items for bridge-club tittering rather than malicious, damaging gossip. The point was, Yvonne, a statuesque redhead, knew how to handle herself. Yvonne would not have wiped Greg's kiss away, nor would she have spent an hour agonizing over a simple decision. Yvonne would have gone straight to Riverview, even at the peril of her life, and solved the mystery.
Madeline rolled out of bed, turned on a lamp and went to her closet. She threw on the same clothes she'd taken off, gathered her purse and car keys, and started for the front door. The front door was far enough from Trade's room to guarantee that she wouldn't be detected. Outside on the steps, however, Madeline hesitated. The warmth of an impulse was yielding to the chill of reason. She went back and found the .357 Magnum Shelby kept in a dresser drawer on his side of the room. After checking to make sure it was loaded, she dropped the weapon into her handbag and started out again. This time she reached the car. Before her nerve failed, she cranked and drove it away. Her watch read a quarter to eleven.
The Riverview Mobile Home Park was a relatively new development on the west side of town, in the heights overlooking Meriden's downtown district. As Madeline steered the Cad through the entrance, she was struck by the number of out-of-state license plates. Every other family here, at least, seemed to have arrived just last month or the month before. Navy dependents? Possibly. The Naval Air Station was fifteen miles away to the northeast.
She drove slowly through until she spotted a mobile home in the rear with all or most of its lights blazing and a motorcycle out front. The bike's appearance more so than its mere presence gave Madeline pause. The front end was raked and its rear end high, a back rest extending fully six feet from the ground. With her motor still running, she-eyed the evil-looking hog and almost drove on. Whoever Greg was, he could have nothing she needed. But she forced herself to park, to turn off the ignition and lights and to get out. Madeline realized in consternation that she was trembling, but whether in fear or anticipation, she wasn't sure.
When she'd regained command of herself, she went up the steps and knocked softly, softly.
"It's open," someone said.
She turned the knob and went inside, blinking at the brightness. A strange assortment of smells pricked her nostrils. She recognized two of them as incense and marijuana, from Shelby's brief flirtation with the latter two summers before. The trailer's living room was spacious and attractive, although a bit cluttered. Greg, dressed in the same tight pants but wearing only an open vest otherwise, smiled at her from a straight-backed chair tilted at a rakish angle in front of a color television set. The set wasn't running.
"I figured you'd come," he nodded. "You're late, but you're here."
"Only to satisfy my curiosity," she declared, folding her arms without having closed the door. "Who are you and what do you want?"
Greg's eyes strayed from her face to her breasts and thighs and back to her face. Then he noticed her handbag, the way it sagged. His smile broadened. "The gun, doll. Give me the gun. You don't need it. And close the door. Someone might happen along. We want everything to be nice and private, don't we? I mean, we have a reputation and a standing in the community to protect, haven't we?"
Stunned, she did everything he asked: closing the door and latching it, reaching inside her handbag for the Magnum, handing it across meekly. Greg got up to take the gun from her hand and lay it atop the television set.
"You can pick it up on your way out," he said, as though that might be hours from now. Or days.
"You still haven't answered my question," she reminded him, dizzy from his easy mastery of her, the be-damned glint to eyes which seemed to probe the depths of her. "I want an answer or the gun back."
He laughed. "I told you. I'm Greg. What do I want? I want you. Afterwards, there's more, but mainly it's you." He let his gaze rove slowly from her head to her toes, with stops at points of special interest. There was a lazy insolence to his scrutiny which excited and repelled her more than directness would have. "Take it off," he said, and the command was so casual he might have been asking for a light.
Madeline's jaws sagged. She stared at him. "Whaat?"
"You heard me. Take it off. I want to see ... if we can groove. Go on."
She stamped her foot. "I won't take anything off for you. You're the most uncouth, the most outrageous boy I think I've ever seen."
Anger, for an instant, glinted in Greg's black eyes. He willed it away. Still smiling, he came toward her, huge thighs straining inside the tight pants. If she'd had any thought of running, the possibility vanished when he reached her, encircled her waist with powerful arms, and embraced her, almost breaking her in half.
Madeline opened her mouth to protest. He shut off the protest with a kiss which ground her lips against her teeth, bringing tears to her eyes and, judging from the salty taste, a little blood. But she forgot the pain in the sheer excitement, the intoxicating touch and feel of him. Greg kissed her with authority, with determination, with sturdy disregard for what she thought of him. Her belly flattened against him, her soft thighs melted into his lean ones, and her breasts turned to sharp-pointed cones of desire.
Greg bruised his way across her lips and back again. Then he dove inside, darting in a tongue before she had time to keep it out. His hands had moved higher behind her back and now began to knead the soft flesh underneath her blouse. In time with the kneading, he sucked her tongue and, the tender flesh inside her lips.
The sucking made Madeline shudder and moan deep in her throat. She wasn't kissing him back so much as adjusting to each new thing he did, each fresh touch and squeeze. When he bit her lower lip, she tasted more blood and wasn't dismayed by it. Involuntarily, because she no longer had any control over them, her arms went around Greg's thick neck and caressed, lightly stroking.
Abruptly, as though he sensed her imminent surrender and wanted to watch it from a distance, Greg broke the embrace and pushed her away. "Now take it off," he ordered, his voice no longer casual. He stood back to watch.
Madeline saw her handbag on the trailer floor where she'd dropped it. She picked it up and set it on a cocktail table. Then, without having to think about it, because thought now seemed superfluous, she began to undress for a man she loathed, a man who set her skin to crawling and her spine to tingling. Fingers flying, she unbuttoned her blouse, took it off and lay it beside the handbag.
"Not so fast," he said. "Do it slow. I'm an audience, remember. An audience likes to be entertained. So entertain me."
In slow motion, she unhooked her bra, drew it away and put it with the blouse. The trailer's air conditioning made her shiver when she bent to unzip her skirt. She saw him smile, and took longer than necessary to work the catch. When the garment fell at her feet, Greg's smile had turned to a frozen grin. The grin made her feel better. He was human after all.
"Nice tits," he drawled, dashing this new impression of him. "You're built long and lean, doll. That's the best way."
Madeline, dressed only in a pair of white-silk panties, closed her eyes. "If you call me doll one more time, I'll scream. My name is Madeline. That's what you called me this afternoon."
Greg chuckled. "Madeline it is. Now I remember. Okay, Madeline, the panties."
She peeled them down her thighs, over her hips and down her legs, lifting each leg carefully. When she straightened, Madeline found herself gazing at the front of Greg's tight jeans. The very pronounced bulge there was now a much larger bulge. He was obliged to tug twice for comfort's sake before approaching her again.
"You're darker down there," he said. "A pity. I dig platinum hair. If you had it over your music box, baby, I'd eat you into a crying fit."
Madeline's face crimsoned. It wasn't only that she was stark naked in the trailer of a man whose last name she didn't even know. It was that and more. This boy-man with the swaggering air of confidence was addressing her in the most sexual of terms when all he'd done up until now was kiss her. And she was loving it. She was eagerly anticipating his next move. Shel, a hundred miles away in his officers' quarters, had never seemed so remote. "I never cry," she demurred. "I don't think you or anyone else can make me cry."
Greg laughed. "I don't want to make you cry, Madeline, baby. I just want to make you." In a couple of lithe shrugs, he came out of the vest and tossed it somewhere behind him.
Madeline's eyes widened. Greg's upper pectorals were mammoth pads of flesh larger than her breasts-and she was a 38C. The boy had muscles in places where Shel didn't even have places. He read her thoughts and made them swell even larger. But his hands were busy with belt buckle and clasp. Strong brown fingers tugged and pulled until the pants fell away, revealing his shorts. Poking through the latter, just a hint of pink foreskin showing, was an incredibly large phallus.
She looked away, and not merely out of modesty. If he tried to put it in her and she couldn't take it, only Christ knew where the evening might end. An ambulance ride was a possibility. For her, not him.
Greg struggled with the pants until he got them down his muscular thighs. Then he rolled them over his knees and stepped out of them, standing erect to smile at her. "Get ready, honey. It's unveiling time." He unsnapped the shorts and let them fall to his feet, watching her face for proof that she was impressed.
Madeline drew in her breath. One hand fluttered to her mouth. "I can't-you're-you're hugel You're the biggest man I've ever seen! If you think I can-"
"You can," he assured her, flintiness replacing the good humor. "You will." He came near to cover her breasts with his palms, each glove-sized hand amazing her with its size and strength. His penis stretched halfway up her belly. "Touch me," he encouraged. "I'll stretch your box but not your hand."
Shyly, she reached out to grasp him. The thumb and index finger of her right hand would barely describe it. Greg had never been circumcised, which gave him even more to scare women with. "Huge," she whispered, quivering. "If I didn't see it-"
"Oh, I'm real enough all right," he declared, squeezing her nipples. "Real as life."
Madeline experienced a new flush of shame at where she was and what she was about to do. This was adultery. There was no other word for it. Shel was the trusting husband, she the cheating wife. Once at a party, when she'd been too drunk to know what she was doing, she'd let a man she barely knew take her into a bedroom, undress her and proceed almost to the point of penetration. Luckily for her, someone had come along in the hall and frightened away her seducer's erection. Then she'd been intoxicated. Tonight she wasn't. And no one was likely to come along.
Greg looked hard at her, at the unhappiness on her face. "Hey, what's this?" he said sharply, taking her between his hands. "You're not turning off on me, are you?"
Tears welled in her eyes. She tried to make them go away by blinking. "I-I don't even know you. Your last name or anything. And you-we ...." Madeline gulped.
Greg forced her head back and burned her lips with a kiss. One hand held her at the waist, the other from behind. Bending her over backwards, he forced open her mouth and began to tongue her palate in long, even strokes, moving from right to left and back again. His prick bumped on her naked flanks until the pressure of the embrace held it still.
Madeline, her nostrils constricting from the intensity of her response, felt as though she were smothering. She fought to catch her breath and to keep him in her mouth at the same time. The sensations were so powerful, resistance so futile, that she wanted them to never end. Only in never-ending waves of pleasure could she drown out the shrill voice of her conscience.
Greg removed the hand from her waist and began to fondle her breasts. He tweaked their points until the nipples were rubbery tips of swollen flesh. Then he rolled them skillfully between thumb and forefinger in time with his tonguing, even seizing the flesh of her backside in his free hand and squeezing.
Madeline began to shake, and not even Greg's strong arms could hold her still. Her buttocks quivered and her cunt trickled moisture. She began to perspire in rivulets; the trailer's air conditioning was unable to cool her down. When she thought she'd explode from tension, he took his hands off her breasts and brought one up between her legs, caressing the velvety softness he found there. She had to stand farther apart to allow him to reach her.
Fingers which reassured her with their sureness, their knowledge of a woman's pleasure-giving parts, inched past her labia and into the vestibule. Leaving a thumb outside, Greg applied rhythmic pressure to the area surrounding her clitoris, first with one finger, then two, maintaining all the while a steady tongue contact with the rough projections of her palate.
Madeline closed her eyes and gave herself up to inspired lovemaking. The last time Shel made love to her this way....In truth, she couldn't recall the last time Shel came at her with so much determination, so much gusto. Usually his style was leisurely and a bit detached, as though he were doing most of it from memory. The automatic quality of their joining lately had begun to trouble her. Madeline jerked and climaxed for the first time in her life with a man other than her husband. The orgasm swept her up and away to a brand new world, a world where the rules were different, perhaps nonexistent.
When the spasms ended, her knees buckled without warning, tumbling them both to the carpeted floor. She fell on her back. Greg, laughing, broke his fall with his hands and ended up on top of her. "Open for old Greg!" he commanded, going to his knees and aiming his prick at the tangle of ash blond hair between her legs.
Madeline stared at his cock in mingled fear and longing. He'd stretch her for sure, tear her maybe. She'd be sore and aching come morning. Shuddering, she closed her eyes and spread her thighs. "Go ahead ... if you think you can," she whispered.
Greg, smiling, inched forward until his legs were inside hers. Using his fingers to insert just the tip of his prick, he lowered himself over her until their chests and torsos met, supporting his weight on outstretched palms. "Hold on, baby!" he gritted. "This may take a minute."
Madeline felt a familiar tingle at her genitals as the cockhead slid through the out-puckered labia. But the tingle was stronger this time than ever before because the invading head was bigger, much bigger. When the pressure became greater and her capacity to accept ran out, she yelped. "Stop! You're-you're hurting me!"
Greg paused, but he clearly had no intention of stopping. After a minute, he continued, managing to stuff his prick halfway inside before Madeline again cried out and grabbed his arm.
"You're tearing me in half!" she wailed.
He laughed. "That man of yours-he must be hung with paper mache."
"You bastard!" she spat up at him. "Don't ever say anything like that to me again! Do you hear? I still love him and I'll never love you!"
Greg frowned and muttered what, for him, was probably an apology. "I meant, he has what the average guy has, and that's not a lot. No offense, lady."
Madeline, satisfied, closed her eyes, finding no inanity in the fact that he could be halfway inside her and still call her lady. She was a lady, and not even a strange prick could make her otherwise. The strange prick, meanwhile, was creeping ever farther up her cunt, evoking agony as much as ecstasy. She held her tongue between her teeth and silently prayed.
"Almost there!" Greg grunted a minute later.
"Hang on-lady!"
When he plumbed bottom a few seconds later, she almost bit her tongue in two. He was entirely inside her now; she could feel the cool skin of his ball sac touching her outer lips. But he hadn't broken anything. For that Madeline supposed she should be grateful. "Thank God," she sighed, going limp. "Thank God."
"Thank God for big pricks and guys who know how to use them," he said in her ear. "How am I doing, lady?" He made a couple of rapid thrusts, then waited for her reaction.
"Ahhh!" she bleated, thrashing white legs over his tanned ones. The sensation of a larger-than-average penis occupying the sensitive slit between her legs was the most voluptuous she'd ever experienced. She wanted more of it, more of it and more still.
"That nice, huh? Okay, babe, let's get the show on the road." Greg wriggled until his legs were outside hers, making for an even tighter fit but also guaranteeing that he wouldn't enter too far. Anchoring himself on his elbows in such a way that his hands reached her breasts, he began to move. Rather than an in-and-out stabbing which would have brought a scream to her lips, he kept his motions side-to-side and around-and-around-a traditional screw. But Greg added something else. With strong, sinewy fingers, he massaged her breasts in time with his thrusting-a crazy combination that slowly, inexorably, drove her out of her mind.
After a space of time-it might have been minutes, it might have been an hour or more-Madeline climaxed. The orgasm dinned in her brain until she felt nothing else, wanted nothing else. Afterwards, she relaxed and let the vapors clear from her head. Greg, on the other hand, never let up, maintaining an awesome pounding which soon reawakened her. This time she wrapped her legs around his waist, locked her hands in his hair and stayed with him lunge for lunge. Together, they brought her to another climax, this one more intense than the others. And still he wasn't finished. In fact, he seemed only to have found the pace, because twice more he made her come, until both of them were so drenched in perspiration that carpet lint plastered her buttocks like fur.
"Greg, stop, please stop!" Madeline begged.
"If-you-say-so!" he gasped, and propelled himself forward one last time, ejaculating in three huge bursts. When he crawled out, he bent a look of wry appreciation her way. "You're okay, lady. You took it all. I tip my hat to you."
While they dressed, her uneasiness returned. She still knew little or nothing about him, especially how he'd come to know about her and what, if anything, he expected from this relationship. "You're new in Meriden, aren't you?" she said, pretending to be busy with the buttons of her blouse. "I mean, I know I've never seen you before, and yet-"
Greg shook his head. "I'm not new. I'll tell you more when you're ready. Right now I'm going to fix us a brace of drinks." He winked and zipped the tight pants over his shrinking cock. "Don't go away."
While he rattled ice cubes and a shaker in the adjoining kitchen, Madeline made a decision. She slipped out the door, got in her car and cranked it, driving away fast before he could come after her. A light rain was falling now, which helped. Her watch read half-past twelve. She'd spent an hour and a half with a man who wasn't fit to clean her floors. Her sensibilities reeled. Her body, on the other hand, had no complaints. No complaints whatever.
She told herself that her curiosity was satisfied. Madeline had proved something to Madeline. She'd never see Greg again, no matter how much he cajoled, threatened or promised.
TWO
Tuesday dawned bright and clear. Madeline overslept, having gone to bed in a state of pronounced sexual fatigue, but she managed to reach her office before the personnel director, her nominal superior, reached his. Most of her girls had already arrived and were hard at work. Madeline cleared her desk and her conscience within fifteen minutes after clocking in.
If she thought about Greg at all, it was only to wonder if he really existed. Had she really gone to meet him, and had they actually done all the things she remembered? Both of the encounters, the one in the parking lot and at the trailer, had a vague, dreamlike quality in the light of a new day. Madeline found that she couldn't even recall his face very well. Features which had been sharp and clear in her mind now were blurry and indistinct.
But she was sure he existed. Her body's state of calm satiety told her so. She could smile this morning and not feel lonely. She could even dash off a postcard to Shel and tell him things were fine, handing the card to one of the mail boys passing through. Shel would call her tonight, however, card or no card. She was worried about what she would say to him.
Mr. Brodie, the personnel director whose private office adjoined her not-so-private one, came in at five minutes past ten. Jack Brodie, a spreading middle-ager in frantic pursuit of his declining virility, was reportedly having an office affair with one of Madeline's girls, a filist named Gloria who also doubled as Brodie's secretary. With opportunities for a tryst so rare, the two, according to gossip, consummated their love in his office three times a week.
Madeline nodded a good morning to him, even though she found him less attractive-brown, thinning hair, level eyes, a strong chin-than Gloria obviously did. "I've started the weekly report, Mr. Brodie," she told him, referring to the report they were obliged to mail each week to the regional office, which was fascinated with such trivia as hours missed, employees unaccounted for and so forth. "It should be finished by tomorrow noon."
Brodie nodded, smiling and patting her on the shoulder. "Still after my job, I see." The personnel director glanced across the main room at the girl rumor had wed him to. "Send Miss Gabetree into my office, please. I have a letter or two to dictate."
"Yes, Mr. Brodie." Madeline kept her expression blank. With the aid of a console of buttons mounted on her desk, she paged Gloria and told her where she was wanted-and why. "He said right away," she added, and watched the dark-haired girl disappear into an office which was soundproofed and snoop resistant, if anyone had dared.
Assignation or not, the day would have been like all others if Gloria hadn't burst from Brodie's office thirty minutes later with a face glazed with horror. Gloria wasn't missing any of her clothes, only her poise. "Quick, somebody, call an ambulance!" she gasped. "I think Mr. Brodie's having a heart attach!"
Madeline, fearing a faulty diagnosis and an angry-and humiliated-Jack Brodie, got up to see for herself. She found a half-dressed personnel manager lying on the floor of his office, a hand over his chest, his eyes open but unseeing, his breath coming in noisy rasps. She grabbed his telephone and the company's latest directory, and dialed for Meriden's only ambulance service. "Please send an ambulance with a respirator!" she said. "And hurry!"
"It's all my fault!" Gloria moaned, having come in behind her. "We were-we were about to ...." The girl gulped.
"Shut up," Madeline advised. "Everyone out there knows. Let's make sure the town doesn't know." She went to close the door. "Here, help me get his clothes back on."
Brodie wore just his shorts and undershirt, socks and shoes. Together, they managed to get his pants back on, his shirt buttoned and the tie knotted. By the time Madeline finished tying the four-in-hand, an ambulance, its siren wailing, was coming up the street. She threw open the door, ordered Gloria out and went .to show the attendants in.
Her chief emotion, upon watching the ambulance door close, was relief. She hated crises of any kind, but especially those involving physical injury or death. Oh, she felt sorry enough for Brodie. The girl, too. If he survived, they wouldn't dare look at one another again. The affair, if that's what it was, was over. "Get to work," she ordered the roomful of buzzing women. "Mr. Brodie's going to be all right, so get back to work."
To get her mind off the tragedy, she continued working on the weekly report.
Jack Brodie died at two-thirty in the afternoon. The news was so unexpected that Madeline didn't believe it when she first heard. She listened as the mail runner repeated his story, and realized it was true. Brodie was gone and the local office was minus a personnel director. As chief supervisor of the business office, she, Madeline Nash, was a possible successor. Even in the midst of mourning, she could wonder and hope. For a woman, a salary jump from $12,000 to $16,000 wasn't a monthly occurrence. Shel would be proud. But she couldn't tell him just yet. Not yet.
She finished the day in an office which had turned grimly quiet. Because the circumstance seemed to demand it, she allowed her girls to go an hour early. But she herself stayed behind to make two telephone calls-one to Brodie's widow to ask about funeral arrangements, and to promise flowers, the other to AT&T's regional office, to inform the people there what had happened. She even asked permission to close the local office on the day of the funeral. Permission was granted.
On her way to the parking lot, she remembered Greg, and worried. Surely he wouldn't bother her again, not on this bleak day. To her relief, he was nowhere around, except in her psyche. The relief was laced with disappointment because Greg had been the only man to pay her any serious attention lately. The attention had been flattering enough to ameliorate most if not all the guilt.
A new crisis waited her at home. Trade's friend, Susan, had come over again. While Leana Braynham was busy in the kitchen, the pair had redecorated the playroom, smearing mismatched paint on all the walls, even managing to extract a pin from a door hinge. Madeline, surveying the damage, clapped a hand to her head and went in search of Tracie. Suspending her disapproval of corporal punishment, she wore out her hand on the four-year-old. Then she went next door to speak to Susan's parents. The Petrellas, after inspecting the playroom, agreed to pay one-third of the cost of repainting.
Madeline, making her peace with Tracie, tried to compensate for the punishment by preparing the child's favorite dish, banana pudding. She reflected, as she put the dishes in the washer and sent Tracie off to watch television, that she probably wasn't the world's best mother.
The phone's cheery ring at a quarter past six was the day's first welcome sound. Madeline, confident that Shel could bring her in out of the rain, ran to pick it up. "Hello?"
"It's me, beautiful," a voice drawled. "General Patton."
She laughed. "The name is familiar. But I can't place the voice. Don't tell me direct distance dialing has finally come to Camp Swampy."
"Yep. The exchange was installed a couple of weeks ago. The food's horrible, but the phone service is terrific. How was the day?"
Madeline hesitated, wanting to tell him the kind of day she'd really had, realizing he wouldn't want to listen. Camp Grosvenor was a hardship run in itself-ten thousand out-of-shape men with families battling the heat, the mosquitoes and one another for two weeks in the name of combat readiness. The only combat readiness the Guard was good for was riot duty. "You don't want to hear it."
"Oh, but I do. The only thing that happens down here is indigestion. I've gone through all my antacid tablets already. How's Tracie?"
Madeline made a sound of exasperation. "Fine, since I locked the paint away. Remember the washable latex you left in the hot water closet? Tracie and Susan found it. They pried off the lids with a spoon, made some brushes and did a lovely job on the playroom. Your daughter, darling, is watching television on her feet." She heard Shelby laugh.
"How about yourself? Are you filling the empty hours, or do you pine for old Shel?"
She smiled tightly at the wall. "I have my little ways, Captain. Someday when you're strong enough, I'll tell you about them."
"I'll bet you do. I'd like to sink my teeth into some of them now. The roast beef we had for dinner wasn't fit for a kennel. Some of us are talking about sneaking off the base for a real feed. And we're officers, baby, not enlisted men. Imagine how those poor devils are eating."
Madeline frowned and bit her lip. Shelby, away from her for three nights, with two nights abstinence before that; was talking about sinking his teeth into food, not into her. She felt outraged. "Is that all the officers want to sneak off base for?" She listened for a lewd chuckle, and heard one.
"Now, hon, boys will be boys. We're playing soldier, you know, and soldiers like to be where the action is. This soldier excepted, of course."
"You're not fooling me, Shelby Nash. I know your wall's plastered with pin-ups. If not pin-ups, then telephone numbers from last summer, and the summer before that. Well, enjoy yourself. Things are popping here, too, believe it or not." Madeline held her breath. Shel's pause, in her opinion, was pregnant with curiosity, not suspicion.
"Oh? You'll explain that one to me, I suppose. Popping in what way?"
"Our personnel director died of a heart attack today, darling. He was-oh, I can't tell you what he was doing, only that we had to put the pants back on him before the ambulance arrived." She heard Shelby chortle.
"Wow. Things do start humming when I leave town. Brodie? Is that the one? Jack Brodie? I'm sorry for the guy. You'll send some flowers, I hope. I hate to be mercenary, but won't that, um, give you a leg up? I mean, you've been a supervisor for two years and you must know Brodie's job as well as he did."
Better, Madeline almost said. "Let's not count our promotions before they hatch, Captain. Keep the foregoing under your hat."
"Rog on that. What else is new? Did you leave anything out?"
Madeline started. She forced a laugh. "What makes you think I'm leaving anything out, silly boy?"
"Just a hunch. You know me-a hunch a minute, most of them wrong. Tell me nothing's gone kaput and I'll hang up."
"Everything's fine, darling. Try to enjoy yourself-without sneaking off base." She heard the connection click dead, and slowly hung up the phone. The encounter with Greg now began to assume more serious proportions. Already the interloper had succeeded in coming between her and Shel. Would he try again? She hoped not.
At half-past ten, as she prepared for bed, the phone rang again. Madeline went taut, deciding to ignore it. She stood outside Tracie's door so the child wouldn't come out and answer the phone herself. After a minute, the ringing stopped. Relieved, Madeline tiptoed away to change into a nightgown and brush her hair. As she slid under the covers, however, the phone beside her bed gave another, more urgent ring. She couldn't risk waking Tracie, so she picked it up. "Hello?"
"What's keeping you, lady?" a familiar voice drawled. "I've been waiting all evening."
Madeline was thrilled and horrified, in about the same measure. "I-I won't be coming. You'll have to stop calling. If you don't, I'll have the number changed. I only came the first time out of curiosity. Please, leave me alone." She braced for a sardonic, unfeeling chuckle, and heard one.
"If you aren't here within half an hour, lady, I'll be there. I'm awfully good with locks. Good with my mouth, too. Know what I mean?"
Madeline, aghast, pictured a motorcycle slicing up the lawn, driven by a drunken Greg who was noisily regaling the neighborhood with an account of the night before. "I'll ... be there."
"That's good, lady. Oh, by the way, before I forget, congratulations on the new promotion. The one you'll get by the end of the week."
She wondered, while hanging up the phone, how he could possibly know so much about her. It was almost as if ... Madeline's mouth tightened. Almost as if someone in her own office were leaking information to him.
This time she entered without knocking, because she'd been ordered, not invited, to show. She found Greg, a drink in his hand, an intent, brooding look on his face, sitting on the living-room couch. He was clean-shaven and better dressed tonight, in green bellbottom slacks and a yellow body shirt. Madeline wore slacks herself, so the two had at least this one thing in common.
"I'm here," she said defiantly, glaring at him. But she did close the door without being asked.
Greg smiled. "You're here, lady. I'm happy for both of us." He held the glass out to her. "Drink? It's a double. I can make sours, too."
She shook her head. "I want you to tell me who's feeding you the things you know about me. And what all this is building up to. I've had enough. When I have enough of something, I quit it."
He put the drink aside and stood up. "You say what you mean, lady. That's one thing I like about you. One of the things." In two strides, talking all the while, he reached her, lifted her off the floor and embraced her hard enough to squeeze out all the breath. Then he put her down, planted his lips on hers and scorched them with a kiss. More passion came through than on the previous night. She seemed to have grown on him, or perhaps the alcohol had broadened his expectations.
Madeline, gasping, tasted the whiskey and the violence in him. She began to struggle a bit, but he was far too strong for her. Finally she went limp, already mastered in body if not in spirit. As he turned her head from side to side, now tipping it back, now bringing it forward, she began to kiss him back. Their ragged breathing, hers and Greg's, drowned out the trailer's air conditioning.
The pressure of his hands on her shoulders told her when to part her lips. He slipped in a powerful tongue and began raking it slowly across the roof of her mouth, trapping her tongue between his tongue and her palate. In swipe after gentle swipe, he awoke the nerve endings in her mouth and the ones in her breasts. The nipples engorged and so did her clitoris. Madeline couldn't recall having ever been aroused so quickly and so completely before.
Her quivering transmitted itself to Greg, and he took his mouth away to look at her. "I want to fuck, lady," he said solemnly. "Do you want to fuck?"
She nodded in wordless agreement, too choked up to say it.
"Then tell me. Tell old Greg you want to fuck him." He waited. Madeline licked her lips. "I ... want to fuck you."
Greg's sun-brown face creased into a grin. "I thought you'd never ask, lady. I thought you'd never ask."
She hated him then, for making her crawl. He seemed to feel she was no better than one of his cycle chicks, due no more courtesy than a pick-up. Madeline glanced down at the rug where he'd had her the first time. "But not here. Not like this. Damn you, I'm not a whore! Don't try to treat me like one."
Greg laughed. Swinging her off the floor, he tucked her over his shoulder and started toward a bedroom, shuffling through the carpet like a man conserving his strength for a terrific contest. After sliding two doors and disengaging her feet from a coat hook, he deposited his burden on a Hollywood-style bed. "Okay, lady, you're here. Tonight you get the AAA treatment."
Before she had time to wonder what he meant, Greg kicked off his shoes and climbed into bed with her. Stretching out alongside, he propped himself on one elbow and began rolling her cling-knit pullover away from her breasts. The bra he unhooked and tossed across the headboard. Tweaking her nipples a few times, he lowered his mouth over one, compressing his lips until the nipple was trapped in a snug caress.
Madeline went rigid from the excitement of a hard mouth busily nursing at her eager tit. Greg's hand closed over the other one while he kissed. He tried to drive the nipple back into the areola with the flat of his thumb. The twin contacts made her writhe in involuntary appreciation. When they were first dating, Shel had capitalized on her enthusiastic response to breast stimulation. Greg was capitalizing now. He had her where he wanted her.
"Do that!" she whimpered. "Don't stop doing that for me!"
Greg, after a few minutes, moved to the other breast, exchanging a hand for a mouth. He brought his tongue into play and made the nipples erect until they strained out a good inch from the areolas. Then he drank them in until his mouth was full of tit, using his tongue to dredge the sensitive nipples against the rough projections of his palate.
Madeline, near a climax, grabbed at him, wanting to be out of the slacks, wanting to show him how ready she was. "The rest of me!" she groaned. "Kiss the rest of me! Don't leave out anything!"
Greg rolled away and got to his knees, searching for the slacks' waistband. He found the catch, worked the zipper and began peeling the stretchy fabric down her hips, pausing when he reached her thighs to pat her cunt mound. He whistled softly. "Now we know what turns you on, lady. Know what I'd want if I were you? I'd want to get my box eaten. Yes, ma'am. Then I'd really be ready for a screwing. But since I'm not you ...." Greg continued removing the stretch pants from her twitching legs. He got them over her ankles and off her feet, sent them flying over the headboard.
Madeline wanted very much to have her cunt eaten, but she didn't want to beg. Shel did this for her only with great reluctance and only after she'd teased and dared him to it.
"Well?" Greg prodded, glancing at her. "Don't be bashful, lady. I'm a big boy." He ran a hand up her leg and across her thighs, lingering where white skin disappeared underneath black panties, lightly stroking Madeline shuddered and closed her eyes. "Eat me. Please eat me."
Lifting her off the bed, he rolled the panties down her legs and sent them flying after the stretch pants. "That's another thing I like about you, lady. You always say please and thank you." Climbing across her legs, he knelt between them and pushed until she lay against the headboard and he had room in which to work. Then he bent her lower limbs at the knee and hooked them one by one over his shoulder, exposing her pussy to view.
Madeline, staring up at the light, felt horribly exposed, frightfully vulnerable. "The light!" she gasped. "Turn out the light!"
Greg laughed, already grasping her thighs one in either hand, as though to gauge their size and feel. "Not a chance, ma'am. I like to see what I'm eating." These were to be the last words he'd utter for the next twenty minutes, because he parted her cunt lips with a finger, removed the finger and replaced it with his tongue.
"Oh, God!" Madeline groaned, when the sensations reached her brain.
Greg placed his palms underneath her buttocks and squeezed in time with his licking. Swirling a tongue twice through her slit, he found her clitoris the second time and began to suck. In a few minutes, he brought her to a state of whimpering helplessness. When she teetered on the brink of orgasm, he left off tonguing her clit and began nibbling the delicate folds of skin below, taking care that his teeth didn't cause pain rather than pleasure. Madeline shrieked out her climax for the entire trailer park to hear. The spasms dinned on her brain for more than a minute, finally subsiding to tremors which reverberated through her perspiring body. And still Greg ate. She realized that he took some strange satisfaction in the act, possibly because it rendered his partners susceptible to whatever else he proposed, including ....
Madeline cringed inside. He might ask-no, demand-that she suck him. If he did, she'd have to refuse, no matter what he threatened. Only once had she ever blown Shelby. He'd ejaculated in her mouth without warning her, and she'd gotten violently ill. Just being reminded of the experience was enough to spoil her day.
Right now Greg had re-aroused her and was fast bringing her to another orgasm. This one he made more intense by withdrawing a palm from her left buttock and applying its index finger to an area immediately above her clit. She climaxed thunderously and then raised her head to look at him, expecting that he'd tired of the sport and was ready to take her the regular way. But Greg showed no indication of fatigue. Far from it. In fact, he lapped up her juice as fast as she could produce it. When he succeeded in arousing her a third time, Madeline seized him by the hair and tugged. "Inside me!" she urged. "I want you inside me!"
Greg took his mouth away from her cunt and blinked up at her, licking his lips. "Okay, lady, we'll do it your way."
He was much too agreeable tonight, which should have warned her. Rather than worry, she watched as he made his clothes fly, baring broad chest, narrow hips and powerful legs for her. When he unsnapped his shorts, Madeline held her breath, fearing he wouldn't be as large as she remembered, praying he would be. She released the breath when his prick popped free.
Greg chuckled at the expression on her face. "Second thoughts, lady? Put 'em aside. I'm gonna put Henry in you if it kills him." He got back on the bed, went to his knees and prepared to make entrance.
Madeline shrank in spite of herself when the bottle-dimensioned head pressed through her outer cunt lips. But either he'd stretched her sufficiently the night before or he wasn't as big as he appeared, because she took the head and half the shaft with ease. Only when he grunted, planted his knees more firmly, and thrust ahead with less concern for her did she experience discomfort.
"Wider!" he snarled. "If you don't want me to hurt you, open wider!"
She opened as far as she could and he managed to penetrate her to the hilt. Their pubic hair merged and their bellies slapped. Greg paused a few seconds for control, then began to move-short, rapid thrusts designed to regain the ground lost when he stopped to undress. Madeline felt her toes curl from the filling she was getting. When Shelby lunged at her, there was always a little room left. When Greg commenced a stroke, she could be sure the end of his cock would come up short against her cervix.
"Good pussy," Greg announced, staring down at her. "Great pussy. A great cock for a great pussy. Do you think my cock's great, lady?"
Madeline, because the object in question was stuffed tightly up the most sensitive area of her body, allowed, without shame, that she did.
"The best cock you've ever had?" he pursued, propping himself on elbows the better to catch his breath.
She nodded. "Yes. The best. But I still love him," she added, in belated loyalty to Shel. "My husband, I mean. He may not be dynamite in bed, but he's mine."
Greg laughed, although there was a ferocious cast to the laugh. "I'll make you forget him. Lady, I'll fuck you so well you'll never be the same again. I'll spoil you rotten, then I'll spoil you some more." He dropped a sweaty chest on hers and gave an especially vigorous lunge that made her shudder from head to toe.
Madeline wrapped her legs around his waist and arched her back so that she could better receive him. "Yes!" she encouraged. "Give me a good fucking!"
Greg gave her a good fucking. He pinned her to the covers with his outrageous prick and for almost half an hour battered away to both their hearts' contents. She came three times and then she stopped counting. The number wasn't important; prolonging the experience was. Greg seemed master at the art of control. Finally, however, he groaned out a warning and collapsed on her, emptying himself in four savage bursts. He rolled off her a temporarily beaten man, too winded to even get up for a cigarette. "Box-under-the-bed!" he panted, flopping onto his back. "Get-it. Gotta-have-a-smoke!"
Madeline, puzzled, hung her head over the edge of the bed and looked underneath. She saw a box all right-a large shoe box-but she couldn't understand why anyone would want to keep their cigarettes there. Unless....She clawed the box out, raked off the lid and confirmed a suspicion. Greg was a pothead. Inside the box were holders, papers and enough grass to last an occasional user a month-and a heavy user a week. Wondering, she took out a joint which was already rolled, passed it to Greg and found her own lighter to help him light it. He puffed for a few seconds in silence, then glanced at her.
She shook her head. "Pot's not my thing. I beg off."
He shrugged. "I wouldn't make you."
"How much....?"
Greg glared at her. "Ask me no questions, lady, and I'll tell you no lies. What I smoke and how much is my own business."
To mollify him, Madeline got up and found her special brand of low-tarmenthols, lying back down to light it and smoke with him. They seemed to have nothing more to say to one another, however. She had the feeling that it would always be that way between them.
When Greg's head lolled back, his eyes closed and his breathing deepened, she took the joint from between his fingers, snubbed it out and got up to dress. She left the trailer five minutes later without having disturbed him, but more troubled than ever.
THREE
When Madeline arrived for work on Wednesday, she found a recorded message for her from AT&T's regional office. The message had been relayed from the dial complex some blocks away and, through an advanced technical process that she didn't even profess to understand, timed to coincide with her usual clock-in. As she sat down, the blinking light on her desk phone was the first thing to catch her eye. Madeline picked up the phone, identified herself and sleepily inquired if she could be of service.
"Mrs. Nash, this is Sid Rector of the regional office. To save time, this message has been recorded for you. We've authorized you to take over the duties of the local personnel director in Meriden, until such time as a permanent replacement can be named. Your salary will be adjusted for the additional responsibilities. You are also entitled to use the personnel director's office and staff. Thank you for your cooperation."
"Thank you," Madeline murmured, although a click told her Sid Rector couldn't hear. There was only one question. Who would supervise the girls while she was filling in for the now-departed Mr. Brodie? She decided that she was entitled to name a temporary successor, and selected an older woman named Joyce. Joyce moved from her cashier's window to Madeline's desk, and Madeline emptied the latter's drawers of personal items that she'd take with her to the new desk.
By mid-afternoon, she was settled in her new quarters. Jack Brodie's pipe, tobacco and desk lighter, his watch, signet ring and heart pills, all the accoutrements of the previous occupant's tenure, she stuffed into a heavy manila envelope, addressed it to his widow, and dispatched one of the mail runners to deliver it. Before five o'clock, she'd even gotten into some of Brodie's paperwork, and was beginning to realize just what the job entailed. More pay, yes, but also more forms to scan. Her eyes ached before the five-minute buzzer sounded.
As she climbed into her car, Madeline found a note taped to the steering wheel. The neat script was a command but also a warning, all in rough verse. She read:
Two of a kind, That's you and me. One has to be flighty, The other has to be free. One will come running, as soon as she's called. Can't ever admit that she loves to be balled!
Tonight at ten. (Does the pretty lady like her new suite?)
She crumpled the note in her hand and glanced about, red-faced. Greg wasn't content with having her visit him once a night. He wanted to leave cute notes that someone else might see and read. Damn him! She emphatically would not report tonight at ten. He could take his eight-inch cock and plunge it up some other poor soul.
Madeline cooled down before reaching home. The note was still in her hand, tucked under one finger. At a traffic light, she smoothed it out and read again. The part in parentheses fascinated her most: Does the pretty lady like her new suite? Greg couldn't have known she was moving into Brodie's office unless someone told him. He had a spy under her very nose, and she, Madeline, didn't know who the miscreant was. Infuriating!
The light had changed, so she tore the note to bits and threw them out the window. When she turned into her driveway, she was still steaming, but now her rage had a cold, determined quality. She'd pinpoint Greg's source, try to find out what his goal was and let him think he could reach it. She'd beat him at his own game. And of course she'd go to meet him tonight. Tonight and tomorrow night, and the night after that.
"You remind me of the cat who swallowed the cream," Mrs. Braynham remarked upon seeing the smile on her employer's face.
Madeline laughed, closing and locking the door, kicking off her shoes and dropping her handbag in the nearest chair. "Let's just say I know where the cream is stored," she amended. "And just between you and me, I think I can have my fill. Enough said?"
Mrs. Braynham looked mystified.
"Mommy, you said I could stay up tonight and watch telebishion," Tracie reminded at nine.
"I've changed my mind," Madeline said, thinking swiftly. "You didn't eat all of your spinach tonight." She saw the four-year-old's outrage, and added, "Tell you what Mommy will do. If you'll go to bed early, I'll tell Leana to take you to the park tomorrow. Susan, too. Maybe the two of you can find something to paint."
"You'll forget!" Tracie accused.
Madeline put her hands on her hips in Mommy's-had-enough fashion. "I think I've had just about enough of you, young lady! If you aren't in bed in fifteen minutes, I'll tell Leana to keep you indoors tomorrow. Is that understood?" She watched Tracie nod a crestfallen head, and felt guilty about having to break a promise. She slipped an arm around the child's shoulders and turned her toward the kitchen. "You see, honey, Mommy has to run out for a while. She'll be back before you've missed her. Now how does a bowl of ice cream sound?"
The guilt lasted until she parked and started up the steps of Greg's trailer. She heard loud rock music from inside, but the music stopped abruptly when she came through the door. Greg, dressed tonight in bathrobe and slippers, smiled and looked at his watch.
"You're punctual, lady," he said with an approving leer. "It's ten sharp."
"And you're a lousy poet!" Madeline snapped. "Don't ever leave notes around for other people to see!"
He sank lower on the couch and crooked a finger at her. "C'mere. I got a story to tell you. You're gonna love every minute of it."
She went, thinking that he was about to tell her everything-who he was, how he'd come to know about her, what, if anything, he expected from the relationship. But she sat down at the other end of the sofa. "I'm listening."
Greg, eyeing the expanse of sofa between them, shrugged and fumbled in a pocket of the robe for a pack of cigarettes. Ordinary cigarettes. He shook one out and offered the pack to her. She refused and he lit up alone. "After you left this morning-I think it was morning, I'm not sure-I had a dream. I dreamed we went away together and found a new life for ourselves, just you and me. Wild, eh?" He grinned.
"A nightmare, you mean," Madeline corrected. "I'd never go away with you. I have a husband and a child. Remember? Besides, we only have one thing in common, and that's not enough to maintain a relationship."
Greg, smiling in the cryptic way he had, expelled a huge cloud of smoke. "But it's something to think about. So think about it. Only that's not what my story is about. Sitting here waiting for you, watching the door and wondering if you'd show, I got to remembering what made me this way-a full-time stud. It's kind of funny in a way-and kind of sad.
Like to hear it?"
Madeline nodded, because she wanted to keep him talking. As yet, she had only a suspicion to go on. She needed more, much more.
Greg took a deep drag on the cigarette, fixed his gaze on the opposite wall, and sighed. "Up until I was eighteen, I was as normal as any other kid. Went to school regular, fooled around with pep pills, got in a few skirts. And then one day a Caddy like yours pulled up alongside my old 1956 Ford, can you believe it?-and a pretty lady not much older than you leaned out and asked me to check her radiator. She said it was overheating and I probably knew a lot about cars and so forth. Not suspecting a thing, I raised the hood and looked. Couldn't find a thing wrong and dropped the hood. Went around to tell her she might have a bad thermostat or a faulty circuit. Know what she did?"
"She asked you to get in the car with her," Madeline guessed. With Greg's good looks and early maturation, the next part of the story wasn't hard to imagine.
He nodded. "Right. She wore a tight sweater and shorts so brief I could almost see her snatch. She smiled at me and asked if I'd ever driven a Caddy before. Of course I hadn't. My folks were poor as hell. I said no and she asked me if I'd like to drive hers. What was I to say? Drop dead, lady? I got behind the wheel and she told me where to drive. By now I was beginning to get the picture. I even had a half hard-on, but she couldn't see it because-"
"Because you were sitting down."
"Yeah. Now don't interrupt. We drove out on the fairway of a golf course, parked under the trees and shut off the ignition. Then she gave this kid the best fucking he's ever had. Oh, I knew the score, or thought I did. I knew about tits and earlobes and clits. Stuff like that. I just hadn't put it all together. That day I put it all together." Greg shivered, and if the shiver was faked, Madeline couldn't tell it. "Did I ever."
"You say she gave you a-a fucking." For Madeline, the four-letter-word in normal conversation required real effort. "Didn't you give her anything?"
Greg threw back his head and laughed. "That's just it-I don't know. I've been wondering ever since. It was almost all her show. First she leaned across the car and kissed me on the lips. She'd been drinking, but she wasn't drunk. I kissed her back, and for a few minutes we really steamed up that Caddy's glass. I had to stop and restart the car so we'd have the air conditioning. When I looked at her again, she'd come out of the sweater and was sitting there in a snow-white bra with fancy catches on the side. I'd never even seen one that didn't hook in the back. While I watched, the bra popped off and her boobs swung out. My eyes nearly bugged. To me she seemed huge. I know now that she must have been only about a 38C, but to a eighteen-year-old kid, a 38C is something out of a daydream."
"Thanks," Madeline said drily, beginning to get excited in spite of herself. "I needed that."
"She told me to dig in, and I dug in. While we kissed, I played with those tits until my pants were about to burst. The nipples got bigger and she started to moan low in her throat. When I put my tongue in her mouth, she really went wild, practically climbing all over me. I came in my shorts, but it didn't matter. I was so horny in those days, nothing could keep me from getting it up again. By the time I got in her shorts, I was as hard as ever."
And still are, Madeline almost said, biting off the words in time.
"I pushed her down on the seat and tried to pull the shorts off her hips. They were so tight she had to help me. Together we got them down her legs, where we left them for the moment. Then I rolled her panties down and got the shock of my life. She was dripping, positively dripping. I mean, it was running down my fingers. I was flabbergasted. All the girls I knew had to be frenched into a fit before they'd even start to moisten. And here-"
"And here your friend was almost drowning in it. I can understand your bewilderment. You were only seventeen."
Greg gave her an annoyed look. "It's a great story, if you'll only stop spoiling it. I put a finger up her snatch and it got lost. I added two more, and still there was room. But I finally hit the right spot. She let out a whoop and told me to keep it up. Only those aren't the words she used. She used gutter words, words she'd picked up from her husband, I guess, but was afraid to use around him. Some women are prudish that way."
Madeline judged, from the sidelong glance he gave her, that Greg included her in this latter group. She didn't know whether to be pleased or affronted.
"While I fingerfucked her, I sucked on those big boobs like a baby. She really had me going on all eight now. I was flat out and running. After a minute, she began to screech and kick like a wild woman. She said she was coming, and Christ, I believed her. I could barely stay with her, much less hold her. In another minute, she raised her head, smiled and said I was going to be all right, that I was not to worry-there was lots more to come. Before I could even open my mouth, she unbuckled my pants, unzipped me and took me out. Just like that. Like we were honest-to-God lovers or something. When I remember the time and effort it took to make a chick my age touch my cock ...." Greg shook his head.
Madeline, reflecting on her own growing-up, recalled that she'd been sixteen before she'd touch a boy's penis, and then only through his pants.
"She saw how big I was and told me I must have been sent from heaven or Masters and Johnson, seeming to find this very funny. I wasn't old enough to know what she meant by Masters and Johnson, but I know now. Then she took me in both her hands and squeezed. My hard-on got rock-hard in a hurry. I wanted to put it in her right away, but she told me not to hurry-we had plenty of time. We kissed some more and she frenched me better than anyone else ever has." Greg stabbed the cigarette in Madeline's direction. "Even you."
She said nothing, although she was beginning to resent Greg's nameless seducer.
"After we came out of our clothes, she went completely bananas. If there was any part of me she didn't kiss, I don't know what it was. My peter? She took Henry in her mouth and actually sucked him. Not long enough to make me come, of course. She was too smart. She wanted me where I'd do the most good. Know what I mean?"
Madeline indicated with a nod that she knew what he meant.
"I fingerfucked her some more and she began to squirm and twist like a hooked salmon. I got excited too, because I knew I was gonna have her this time. All the preliminaries, all the build-up-it was fun, but nothing like actually shooting the meat to her. I mean, she was a real high-class dame, even if she did go out looking for cock. She wouldn't tell me her name, but I got the idea her old man was a lawyer. A corporation lawyer. There was some legal junk on the dash and a letter from a foundation. She wore a diamond watch and a diamond pendant that she never took off, even after I crammed the prick in her."
"Back seat or front?" Madeline inquired, to needle him.
"Front," Greg recalled. "It was a public golf course, remember. We were far off the eighth green in a little grove of trees, but we couldn't parade around outside in our birthday suits. When she was ready, she got on her back and gave me a target I couldn't miss. I forget what she said, but it was something like, 'Show me what you can do, honey!' " Greg released another cloud of cigarette smoke. "I guess I showed her. Yessir."
Madeline scoffed. "At the age of Hard ly."
Scowling, Greg ground out his cigarette and turned so that he was staring at her legs and thighs, particularly her thighs. "Lady, when I say I showed her, I showed her. I put cock in her that she'd never even heard about before. Oh, she'd been around all right. Someone-maybe a lot of someones-had reamed her out good and proper. She was deep and she was wide. I had room to roam."
"Did you?"
Greg's expression turned dreamy. "I did. It's been five years, but I can still see us there on the Caddy's big front seat. This babe with the million-dollar body and me-a stiff who'd never handled a piece of silver in his life. I was like a kid in a candy shop. Yeah, I roamed and then some. I put my peter up the hottest pussy I'd ever been in and I kept it there until she asked me to stop. More than an hour, I discovered later. She wrapped those gorgeous legs around my waist, dug her nails into my shoulders, and held on to me like a bronco rider. I didn't dare take off my shirt in front of my father for a week; she clawed me bloody."
Madeline experienced an involuntary shiver of pleasure as she pictured the scene. Young boy, older woman-the combination was laughed about and ridiculed. Severely censured, too, when exposed. The revelation explained Greg's fascination with her. She was just six years older, but she was nonetheless an older woman. To her, she was "the woman in the Cadillac," faceless and formless as far as her own identity went. Madeline felt relieved and outraged, too. She wasn't a desirable woman in her own right, merely the shadow of a woman who'd come before her. "But the experience ruined you for girls your own age."
Greg wagged his head in a show of sorrow. "You said it, lady. I couldn't look at young stuff any more-underdeveloped tits, tight boxes. Hell, no. I wanted the ripe ones. And I couldn't have them. Oh, they'd eyeball me all right, when their men's heads were turned. They'd look and I knew what they were thinking. But I was too young. I needed bread. Lots of it. A fancy set of wheels, a closet full of threads. You know the bit. The next two years were the saddest of my life. The lady in the Cad-I never saw her again. Looked for months, never even got a glimpse. When my pop died, I hit the road. Bought the hog out front and set out to see the country." He shuddered. "I could tell you things ...."
"I'm sure you could."
"And now I've found you. You're my kind of chick, Madeline, baby. We groove together. It's true, isn't it?" Chin thrust out, he challenged her with a look.
She parried the question with one of her own. "How did you find me? Who put you up to it? Someone who knows me must have sent you after me. Tell me before I-"
"Nobody sent me after you!" he snapped, red-faced. "Nobody tells me what to do or when to do it! I'm my own man, baby, and don't you forget it!"
Madeline heard an edge to his voice that she didn't like. She decided not to press him. Reaching into her handbag for cigarettes, she took out one and lit it. When she closed her eyes for the first puff, she felt a hand on her knee. As wary, alert silence, Madeline waited.
"I thought my little story might get you in the mood," he remarked, fingers playing lightly along smooth skin. "But you don't seem very stirred."
She enveloped them both in a cloud of menthol smoke. "I was interested, believe me. I felt that something unusual in your growing up ... made you the way you are." Madeline glanced sideways at the part of the bathrobe covering Greg's midriff. She saw an unmistakable prominence, a swelling which was becoming more noticeable by the second.
He chuckled. "The way I am, lady, is horny as an old Texas bull. I'm horny in the morning, I'm horny in the afternoon, I'm horny at night. If you take me at all, you'll have to take me horny."
Taking her night's fate in her hand, Madeline reached out and fondled him through the bathrobe. "I like you horny, Greg, sweet," she told him. "Last night I thought I hated you, but now ...."
In one lightning motion, he pushed her flat on the couch, pinning her underneath him. "Lady, you're about to get yourself screwed through the ceiling. I like pussy any time, but I think I like-yours best." He fastened his mouth on hers and kissed so hard she felt his teeth through both their lips.
Whether from having heard his story or simply because they weren't strangers any longer, Madeline responded in a way that amazed her. She kissed him back as hard as he was kissing her. When he brushed her lips with his tongue, she parted them at once, going limp under him at the fiery contact. In swipe after swipe, he explored the roof and the underside of her tongue. He drew back after a minute, however, and she understood that he wanted her to kiss him the way he was kissing her. Sliding her own tongue inside his mouth, she tongued and sucked him until the breath whistled from his nostrils.
He changed positions on top of her and she felt a hard shaft poking through the bathrobe. Reaching between them to raise her skirt, he lay back down so that their covered genitals met-hers encased in panties, his deadened by the chenille of the bathrobe. When he thrust a few times, the muted sensations excited both of them, but not to the point of jumping up to complete the union. Tonight, both of them realized, was to be a more leisurely session than previous nights.
In first her mouth and then his they played, until whose tongue was whose no longer mattered. Madeline felt the growing moistness between her legs long before he left her mouth to trail burning kisses down her neck and throat. Greg chuckled upon discovering how wispy-thin her bra was, how easy her blouse buttons popped open.
"I got a feeling about you, lady," he confided in her ear, already burrowing under the bra to squeeze and knead the sponginess there. "I got a feeling you want to be screwed through the ceiling."
"I want to be-to be fucked, not talked to death!" Madeline said fiercely, and was astonished at herself.
Greg, as if she'd given him an invitation to violence, pulled the blouse from her skirt, yanked it out from under her, and hurled it away. But when he grabbed the bra and tried to rip it off, she seized his arm.
"I have to go home, you fool! What will Tracie think if she sees me half-naked?"
Scowling, he worked the bra's catch, removed it from her shoulders, and sent it flying after the blouse. "She'll think her mommy's been up to what mommies have to be up to, to be mommies. Don't act the prig with me, lady. I'm still in charge." He took a breast in each huge hand and mauled it so roughly the tears came to her eyes.
"P-please!" she beseeched. "I want you as much as you want me. Just-just don't be so rough."
Greg smiled, showing all his even, white teeth. "That's better. Okay, tell me how I'm doing." He relaxed his hold on her tits until he held them by only a thumb and a forefinger-the thumb over the nipples, the index finger jabbed into an area above the areola. Deftly, he worked the two in a circular motion.
Madeline squirmed in fervent appreciation. "Yes," she sighed, closing her eyes and imagining that this was Shel doing these things for her.
"Uh-uh," Greg chided, nudging her. "I want the eyes open. That way I know you're seeing just me. I'm peculiar about some things, lady. I want you to see me and I want you to think about me. Nothing but me. Here's why." He stood away from her, jerked the bathrobe's drawstring, and shrugged out of the garment. Underneath he wore not a stitch. "How about it, lady?" he smirked, striking a cheesecake pose for her. "You're looking at the best, so forget the rest. Over and out."
Madeline, gazing at a huge, throbbing hard-on, doubted that she'd ever heard a more boastful claim-or seen better evidence to back it up. Greg tonight had truly outdone himself. On Shel, such an erection would have looked grotesque. On Greg, it looked almost commonplace. "Why don't you call me when you're through growing?" she joked, to please him.
Greg grinned. "I'll never be bigger, baby. Better, maybe, but not bigger. This is all I'll ever have. It's enough, huh?"
"More than enough."
"Well, enough of me. Let's work on you awhile. Hoist the legs, please." He knelt on the couch edge, lowered her skirt zipper, and pulled it over her hips while her legs were in the air. When he hooked his thumbs in the waistband of her panties, Greg whistled. "You didn't wet yourself, did you, lady?" He rolled the flimsy things off her perspiring thighs.
She pretended to kick at him. "Why don't you look underneath? It's your trailer."
"Thanks. I will." He grabbed her around the waist and lifted, peering at the dry spot where she'd been. "Hot damn, lady, you're house-broken. Let's see what else you're into." He dumped her on the couch and fell on top of her, arms, legs and mouth all working at once.
Madeline groaned, yelped and bleated. She writhed, twitched and shuddered. Between Greg's teeth on her breasts and his finger on her clit, his knee jammed between her thighs and his elbow in her armpit, she wasn't sure if she could hold on to her sanity. Only once, when he'd come home from Guard camp three years before, had Shel loved her so recklessly. Nowadays sex to Shelby Nash was a chore.
"If you're not ready now, one of us will have to be stuck under a cold shower!" Greg panted, raising his head to look at her.
"I'm ready!" she sobbed. "Take me now! Put if in, you beautiful hunk of meat!"
"Lady, you won't have to ask me twice," he declared, and worked himself between her legs. Balancing himself on his knees, finding the way this time without having to use his hands, he made a steaming entrance which brought her halfway off the couch, fearing that she'd be rammed through and through. But the discomfort passed after a few seconds, leaving her with a deliciously stuffed feeling.
Greg grabbed her shoulders and forced her back down. "You're not going anywhere, sweetheart. You and I have a fuck to finish. We're gonna do it right or not at all."
"You're talking too much again," she complained, wriggling to get more of him inside her. "You used to be all prick. Now you're all gab." Madeline closed her eyes and braced for a jackhammer lunge that might bring an agonized scream to her lips.
"All gab? Lady, you're on thin ice. Mighty thin ice." Greg went rigid as he gathered his strength. He slammed into her once and she shrieked into his shoulder. Laughing, he gave her every inch he had, rising to bury himself in her quivering cunt, lowering to haul himself out again. There was no rhythm to his thrusting, only brute strength.
"Sorry-I-said-that!" she gasped. "Don't hurt-me-please!"
"Oh, I'm gonna hurt you all right. I'm gonna hurt you for trying to play cutesy with me. Fucking's serious business with me, lady. Don't ever forget it." He paused to lift each one of her legs in turn and crook it over his shoulder. Then he began to burn his prick in and out of her in a pile driving motion that thudded against her cervix with each vigorous stroke.
Madeline cursed him and urged him on, all in the same breath. She began to move with him, because there was no moving at all except where that spike of flesh would have her go. When she pounded out her first climax on his bare back, Greg never even noticed. He was too busy speeding her on to another one. Twice more he delivered her there before erupting inside her and collapsing on her belly.
They rolled onto the floor together and ended up on the rug in front of the stereo.
FOUR
Jack Brodie's funeral was scheduled for two in the afternoon on Thursday at Forest Lawn Cemetery. Madeline cleared the office at ten, assuming that all or most of her employees would want to attend, even Gloria, Brodie's girlfriend. Madeline wondered if Mrs. Brodie knew about Gloria. If so, the two might be mourning a few feet apart, and for basically the same reason, except that Gloria had lost less.
At the funeral, however, she saw all the office people except Gloria. The latter's absence puzzled her. Were she in Gloria's shoes, she'd certainly want to pay her final respects to a man who'd risked his marriage for her, who, in almost a literal sense, had given his life for her. But Madeline decided that it was none of her business, and put her mind on the minister's words. At a quarter till three, Jack Brodie was laid to rest in the Brodie family plot. Wreaths were laid and noses blown. The funeral was over.
Driving back into town, Madeline recalled that she'd left her compact in the office washroom. She drove by to retrieve it. As she turned the Sedan De Ville into the company lot, another car attracted her notice: Gloria Gabetree's three-year-old Charger. Madeline pictured a weeping Gloria slumped over a covered IBM Selectric, and almost pointed her car back out the exit. Curiosity overcame sympathy. She parked to get out and start inside.
She entered quietly and saw no one. The big outer office was empty. Gloria had probably left her car in the lot and driven away with someone else. But Madeline noticed that the door to her own office was standing open. She distinctly remembered locking it. On stealthy feet, she crossed the outer office and peeked inside. She saw Gloria, a brown paper-wrapped package under her arm, going through the personnel files, files which, now that she was no longer secretary to the personnel director, were none of her business.
"Gloria!" Madeline said sharply. "What on earth are you doing?"
The girl spun to stare at her in horror, her free hand going to her mouth. "Mrs. Nash!" she gulped, and her dark tan disappeared into pastiness.
Madeline felt that the reaction rather overstressed the offense, so she softened her tone. "I didn't mean to make it sound like a crime, but the files aren't open to you anymore. And I did give the office staff the rest of the day off. Why weren't you at the funeral?"
The brown paper parcel slipped from Gloria's arm. She snatched it up almost before it hit the floor, hugging it more tightly this time. There was a frightened-no, a trapped-look in her eyes. "I-I didn't think I'd be welcome. His wife and I-we met once on the street and she slapped my face in front of a dozen people. I'll never forget it or forgive her for it."
Madeline itched to know what was inside the package, but she had no right to ask. She could ask, Gloria could refuse, and the two might end up scuffling on the office carpet, on this, Jack Brodie's burial day. "Is there information in the files that you need?" she asked, forcing a pleasant expression, a brisk tone.
Gloria nodded, the fear leaving her eyes and the tightness around her mouth relaxing into a smile. "I'm applying for a new job and I needed the same references I used for this one. I couldn't remember one, so I had the custodian ... I'm sorry if I've upset you. I would have asked before you dismissed us, but you were so busy. You won't complain, will you?"
Madeline hesitated. The explanation was plausible, even if she smelled a lie. Two lies. The custodian hadn't let Gloria inside the office; she'd let herself in with a key Jack Brodie had given her. And she hadn't been after information from her own personnel file; she'd been after someone else's. But whose, and for what purpose? Reluctantly, Madeline shook her head. "No, I won't complain. But if you're applying for another job, I want to see your resignation on my desk tomorrow before five. Friday at the latest. Now you'll have to leave."
Gloria bowed her head. "Thank you, Madeline. You've always been kind to me. I'm glad you're getting Jack's job, even if...." With a frozen smile on her face, the girl started out, almost breaking into a run when she reached the door.
As she hurried past, Madeline noticed something. Something which disturbed her. There were a couple of strange-looking marks on Gloria's arm. Her tan almost concealed them, but not quite. The marks....Madeline had seen pictures of the marks on the arms of heroin addicts. The similarity was striking. She opened her mouth to call the girl back, but the words died in her throat. If Gloria was leaving AT&T, she'd soon be someone else's problem. The package under her arm was probably a month or two months' supply, stashed in the hollow space behind a file drawer because her apartment was too dangerous or too open to ransacking. Madeline's skin crawled. Had Jack Brodie known? There seemed to be more than one skeleton in the dead man's closet.
She went to a window and watched as Gloria got into her car and drove out fast. The sound of screaming tires penetrated even the glass and the soundproofed walls. Gloria's car vanished the way Madeline hoped the girl herself would vanish.
Rather than waste the rest of the afternoon, she sent the Cad speeding across town and parked it in the driveway of Yvonne Crenshaw, who, if she wasn't her best friend, wasn't Yvonne Crenshaw. Madeline found the redhead on the patio in the back, skin aglisten with tanning butter, wide-set green eyes concealed behind dark glasses.
"Darling!" Yvonne exclaimed, nearly shredding a two-piece bikini in her haste to get up. "What have you been doing with yourself lately? It's been almost a week." She took off the shades and kissed the ar rival on the cheek, even patted her on the backside.
Madeline smiled and enjoyed the attention. A display of affection she would have been uncomfortable about with another woman seemed natural with Yvonne. Yvonne was so unabashedly physical that her husband probably traveled for his own good. "The usual. I get up in the morning and I go to bed late at night."
Yvonne laughed. "I bet you do. Let me fix you a drink. Your tongue is lolling almost to your chin. A Marguerita or maybe a Tom Collins?"
"A Marguerita, please. And plenty of ice." Madeline watched her friend's ample curves disappear into the split-level, blond-brick house, and reflected that some women had it all, including a zest for living. It was hard to believe that Yvonne had once been an AT&T public relations girl, at approximately the same salary she, Madeline, made. Yvonne's husband, Larry, had made her quit when they thought she was pregnant. She hadn't been pregnant and she hadn't come back to work, although she was technically on stand-by recall if and when the public relations department needed an experienced girl.
The redhead walked out three minutes later carrying a tray with a pair of Margueritas and extra ice. She surrendered one to Madeline, smiling at the latter's expression. "Spill it," she advised, sinking down into an adjacent chaise lounge.
Madeline took a sip of the drink and tilted her head back to let its cooling sweetness trickle down her parched throat. She raised to look at her friend. "Spill what?"
"You've had a scare, a fright or a shock. It's writ ten all over your face. Tell Aunt Evie and then you'll feel better."
Madeline passed a hand across her brow. The brow was hot, the hand clammy. "No jokes, please. I'm just two hours out of a funeral."
"Good heavens, no. Jack Brodie. Remember? The personnel director? Nice-looking, reserved?"
Yvonne clapped a hand to her head. "Madeline, Madeline, whatever has come over me. I knew about poor Mr. Brodie. I read it in the paper and someone even called to tell me. I sent a card yesterday. I intended to go to the funeral today, only I forgot. How could I be so callous? Of course I remember Mr. Brodie. In his own quiet way, he swung. Do I have first-hand experience? No. But I-"
"Did he ever." Madeline told her friend about Gloria and her experience an hour before, leaving out nothing. "I think she was using my office to stash that awful stuff. My office. Can you imagine? I might have been blamed. I might even have done time. Can you see me in a prison exercise yard? I hope not."
Yvonne listened in fascinated silence, then volunteered a theory: "They were pushing the junk, she and Mr. Brodie. Pushing it and dividing the profits. Most pushers are also users, you know. Maybe it wasn't a heart attack at all. Maybe he was an OD. Did he drive a big car?"
Madeline, recalling that Jack Brodie drove a four-year-old Buick, shook her head. "I don't think so. There was an autopsy. The report said congestive heart failure. Satisfied?"
"If there was no blood test, and there probably wasn't, he could have blown out his own ticker with too much H." Yvonne smiled apologetically. "Don't mind me, honey. It's been a dull day."
"Let's talk about you," Madeline countered, closing her eyes against the sun. "What have you been into lately?"
Yvonne chuckled. "What have I been into? I think you mean that another way, darling. I think you mean, who's been into Aunt Evie since last you saw her? All right, I'll tell you. This morning, the letter carrier. Yesterday, the meter man. To my sorrow do I confess it, but I seem to have turned a bit promiscuous."
Madeline, because she was used to feeling envious at these revelations, almost blurted out her own conquest. Prudence made her hold her tongue. "Start with the letter carrier," she smiled. "We may have the same one."
Yvonne's face turned pensive. She took a long swallow of the Marguerita and rolled it on her tongue for a few seconds. "He had size but little control. Know what I mean? And he was so grateful I think he would have kissed my hand if I'd asked him to. He even told me he loved me, that he'd leave his wife for me. You can bet I got the poor slob out of there in a hurry."
"And the meter man?"
Yvonne dropped one lid in a droll wink. "The meter man. Honey, let me tell you he's well named. He had meat to spare. He sent me to the moon and kept me there for almost an hour. But do you know something? He insulted me so horribly I'll never look at him again. Never."
Madeline got a stronger hold on her drink and leaned forward. "Tell me, tell me!"
"I asked him to eat me a little and he refused, the haughty bastard. Said he wasn't a scummy muffdiver, that it would ruin his teeth. I wanted to box his ears. A man who won't eat has no imagination. If he has no imagination, you'll soon get tired of him. Am I talking too fast for you?"
Madeline laughed, admiring her friend's savoir faire even if she herself was uneasy with it. For an hour more, she enjoyed Yvonne's outrageous views and rapid-fire chatter. Then she excused herself. "Remember the three-year-old I had? Now she's a four-year-old. I have to run."
"Come back again when you have more to tell me," Yvonne retorted.
Madeline drove away smarting.
If she'd sought out Greg with reluctance on previous nights, she sought him out eagerly tonight. Yvonne's talk had made her reckless. But she found Greg lying on the living-room couch when she came up the steps. He raised his head to see who it was, then let it fall back down again, as though he really didn't care.
"You," he grunted. "Light me a joint and make tracks. I'm out of it tonight."
Madeline's eyes widened. "You're what"?
"I told you. There are times when a guy can't, and this is one of those times. Believe me, I don't like admitting it. I'd rather be kicked in the teeth than admit it. But it's true. Last night you drained me dry. So bug off, lady." Greg's eye lids dropped.
She stepped near and trailed her fingers through his hair, watching for a telltale facial quiver that would prove he had as much interest in her as ever. Greg's stubbly cheeks betrayed not a flicker. Madeline checked his brow for fever, and discovered him cool. She checked the nearest ashtray for brown joint butts and found, to her horror, six. Poor Greg had almost smoked himself into a trance. She took him by the shoulder and shook. "The last time you ate or drank-when was it?"
He gazed blearily at her, then looked at his watch. "Six, eight hours ago," he said in wonder. "Yeah. Six hours. No, eight. Hell, I can't remember."
"You're lucky I came over," Madeline told him. "Don't try to get up. Just wait here." She wheeled to go into the kitchen, intending to make him a plate of sandwiches and pour him a glass of milk. She'd put her hand on the refrigerator door when she heard his feet hit the floor. In four bounds, he reached her and peeled her hand off the door.
"I can rustle my own grub, lady!" he growled, and the old authority was back in his voice. "Go sit down and you can have some, too."
Puzzled and a little hurt, she went to sit down. Greg fetched cheese, salami, ham and milk. And a loaf of bread from a breadbox on top of the electric range. For thirty minutes, he and she went through sandwiches like termites through wood. She pushed her plate away first and looked at him. "Can you ... on a full stomach?"
Greg wiped his mouth and grinned at her. "Yours or mine?" He got up to come around the table and she jumped up to evade him.
"Let's clear the table first." Madeline managed to hold him off long enough to gather up the dirty dishes and carry them to the sink. When she turned around, he took her roughly in his arms and almost bent her double, crushing hungry lips on hers. He tasted of salami, but then so did she. Neither could complain. Greg broke the kiss and propelled her backwards until she came up hard against the sink. Then he made her feel the eager swell of a familiar object-a giant-sized prick ready to do battle.
"See what you've done, lady?" he chuckled. "You should have let well enough alone. "Now I'm so horny you won't get out of here intact."
"Who wants to?" she quipped, trying not to wince at contact with the sink. Running a hand down between them, she fondled him through the fabric of his stretch pants. "It is you, isn't it? I mean, you wouldn't play tricks on a trusting girl, would you? I saw an ad once for a-"
"You saw a piece of worthless sucker bait!" Greg exclaimed. "A friend of mine with an average-length pecker bought one of those and tried it. Know what happened? The Eiffel Tower, as the brochure called it, stuck in the broad's twat. Took a gynecologist twenty minutes to get it out. My friend got ripped for the bill and most of his fuckin' pride. Ain't that a scream, lady?"
Madeline, despite the hour and the circumstances, enjoyed the best laugh she'd had in months. "It is," she agreed. "And I'm glad you don't need one. Just don't smoke any more of that horrible pot. The things they say about it are true. When I came in, you were acting like a husband."
"Lady, don't try to tell me what I can smoke!" he warned, and ended the conversation with another bruising kiss, mauling her spine on the sink edge. He forced her lips apart and began tonguing the roof of her mouth in long, clean strokes, covering everything within reach. His hands on her shoulders became fleshy clamps of living steel.
Madeline forgot her discomfort in the ecstasy of that kiss. She slipped her arms around Greg's neck and hung there in mute adoration. His hand moved from her shoulders to her breasts and spread, fanlike, to cover them. Her nipples engorged at once when strong thumbs pressed down on them. He began to squeeze them in time with his tongue and she began to moan in appreciation. The folds of her cunt flowered like rose petals, puckering outward in response to the twin stimulation up above. She felt the moisture start to trickle silently from her. If only Yvonne could see me now, she thought. She'd be proud. Or envious. Or something.
Greg's big prick bumped on her belly, reminding her of the business at hand. The business couldn't proceed here, against the kitchen sink's sharp edge. But she couldn't muster the strength to push him away. He was a great deal bigger and a great deal stronger. He held her in an all-powerful, all-knowing embrace. She couldn't break it, no matter how much she wanted to. And she really didn't want to.
He thrust a knee between her thighs and maneuvered it until she felt it against her clitoral area. With his hands on her breasts, his knee in her crotch and his tongue in her mouth, he fanned the embers until they burst into full flame. Madeline shuddered and climaxed with her whole body, the spasms beginning in her genitals and crackling instantly to her brain, trailing off after a minute.
Greg continued to french her, although with less vigor, as though he realized he had to rebuild her ardor. His hands went inside her blouse and manipulated until the bra was down around her waist and her breasts were accessible. Bending both, he seized them between thumb and forefinger and began to knead.
Madeline made harsh sounds into his mouth at the way he was making her feel, but she didn't try to tear away. Her spine was about to break and her breasts felt as though they were being pulled out by the roots, but she stayed where she was, jammed between an unyielding kitchen sink and an equally unyielding Greg. The minutes mounted into fifteen. Sexual excitement took new hold in her brain. She climaxed again, drenching her panties, her skirt, and probably Greg's knee.
Now he took his mouth away and smiled at her. "You're ripe and ready, whoever you are. What was the name again? I didn't catch it."
"Made-line!" she gasped, and wasn't even angry with him.
"Well, Madeline, baby, do you think you can make it to a bedroom? Or shall we finish right here?" Talking all the while, he'd removed his knee and replaced it with a finger. Burrowing under her skirt, yanking down her panties, he applied the point of his finger to the shaft of her clitoris, moving it back and forth in an easy rhythm.
"Right here!" she pleaded, writhing in response to the jacking. "Take me right here!"
"Whatever the pretty lady wants, the pretty lady gets." Greg worked the panties off her thighs and down her legs, where they dropped to her feet. Madeline stepped out of them. She waited for him to release her and start on his own clothing, but all he did was lower his fly and take out his prick. Grabbing her under the armpits, hoisting her high on the sink edge, he positioned his knees between hers and supported her entirely with one arm, using the other to guide the head of his cock between the oozing lips of her cunt. With a few expert wriggles, he was inside her.
"Oooh!" Madeline squealed, because the sensations in this position were more powerful than when he had her on her back. "Don't-drop-me!" she beseeched. "I'll-I'll tear in half!"
Greg laughed and held her higher in the air. By curling his back, he was able to reach her breasts with his mouth. Taking each nipple between his teeth, he sucked and nibbled them to turgid points of desire. Then he tried to tongue them into their respective areolas, succeeding only in making them erect more. When they were tight enough to suit him, he drank in each one and used his tongue to dredge it across the roof of his mouth.
Madeline threw back her head and sobbed out her heartfelt gratitude. Impaled on the end of a hot spike of flesh, her tits being kissed to the bursting point, she felt like a gigantic orgasm just waiting to happen. Greg continued to kiss, and finally she did happen, exploding in shrieks, pants and sighs, starved lungs demanding almost more air than she could supply.
When the tremors passed, he eased her back down until all or most of his prick was stuffed into her quivering hole. "Okay, lady, that was number three. Stay tuned for number four, the specialty of the house." In smooth, controlled thrusts, he began to lunge at her, to get more of himself inside her and promptly yank himself out again. Because she was being supported partly on his straining thighs, he had to pause at intervals to catch his breath.
Madeline helped by tucking her legs around his waist and locking them at the ankle. Also by hugging him tightly around the neck and throat. At one point, too tightly. Greg's breath began to come in raspy pants. She relaxed her hold on his neck and grasped him by the shoulders instead.
"Saved-my-life-lady!"
She wasn't certain she cared about his life; there were too many missing pieces. Why hadn't he wanted her inside his refrigerator? She didn't know, but she resolved to find out ... eventually. Right now she cared only about the ramming she was getting, the masterful fucking by a master fucker. Greg certainly knew his trade, if fucking could be called a trade. Trade? How did he earn his livelihood?
"Hold your head back!" he commanded. "Farther!"
Madeline threw her head back because he'd told her to, and because at a moment like this she'd do almost anything he asked of her.
"Now arch your back!" Greg chuckled. "I won't hurt you, lady. I just want you to feel the meat better." He thrust more vigorously than before, until her cries of ecstasy were strangled sounds in her throat. "Pretty nice, huh? I figured you'd like it."
Madeline had an excellent view now of the hot and cold fixtures, but she didn't see them. Her eyes were tightly shut, the better to concentrate on the wonderful sensations emanating from her cunt and spreading throughout her entire body. The sensations became stronger ... stronger still, exploding finally into the most electrifying climax of her life. She came with every nerve ending in her body, almost blacking out from the overload on her nervous system. But she didn't lose consciousness. She stayed aware of everything-her own scream, which, because her voice box couldn't function well with her head thrown back, was only a gurgle, Greg's excited admonitions to do this or that-a perfectionist, Greg, never satisfied with any particular fuck-and the gobs of hot come thudding at regular intervals into her pussy.
The buzzing in her ears subsided to a murmur. She fell silent and so did Greg. But still they clung to one another, he tottering on his spent legs but still holding her up, she straightening her head and spine with difficulty, because all or most of her strength was gone.
"Lady," he croaked, blinking up at her. "I think that was the fuck of my life. I ain't snowin' ya. To think I almost told ya to scram. When I put you down, I want you to kick me. Hard."
Madeline, aware that she'd soaked every stitch she wore, smiled down at him. Right now she felt closer to this grimy freak, this boy-man of a thousand fucks, than to her own lawfully wed husband. Shel, in fact, had never seemed so far away. "I'm tempted to tell you the same thing, only I won't. You're conceited enough as it is. Put me down, please."
He put her down and she began straightening her clothes. Greg, tucking his cock back inside his pants, muttered something about a cold shower. But he insisted on accompanying her to the door and seeing her off. She was obliged to leave without having had a look inside his refrigerator. The failure was to trouble her for the rest of the night.
FIVE
On Friday Madeline found Gloria Gabetree's letter of resignation under her office door. Also, a letter postmarked the fourteenth from AT&T's regional office's employment division. Madeline, tingling over the latter, opened Gloria's letter first. The letter was curt "and quite formal, its contents stating merely:
Dear Mrs. Nash:
I've decided to leave South Central Bell to seek other employment. I've enjoyed my brief association with AT&T and hope that my resignation will not be taken as accusation of unfair treatment.
Sincerely, Gloria Gabetree Madeline filed the letter away in the Former Employees file, and opened the letter from the regional office. The crisp white letterhead pleased her no less than the message:
Dear Mrs. Nash:
In line with our policy of rapid promotion for employees who deserve it, we are making permanent your temporary assignment to the duties of personnel director for the Meriden office. We also authorize you to name a suitable replacement for your former position as supervisor of the business office. Please notify us by registered mail as soon as you have made your selection.
If this office can assist you in any way with your new responsibilities, don't hesitate to call on us.
Congratulations again on your promotion.
Cordially, William Winter Director, Employment Division
Madeline read this letter three times, then tucked it away in her handbag. Shel would want to see it. He'd be so proud. Maybe a little uneasy, too, because now she made just $4,000-a-year less than he did, and with two years in which to overtake him. The only thing wrong with sexual equality was that few men really believed in it.
She gazed around at an office which was truly her own now, and not a dead man's. She'd bring drapes from home for the windows, a coffee-maker to replace Jack Brodie's disguised liquor cabinet. The files themselves ... Madeline's eyes narrowed. Gloria had used the bank of steel filing cabinets to hide her H. There might be more of the stuff in there. If she didn't find and turn it over to the proper authorities, Gloria might be tempted to burglarize the office, embarrassing its new occupant no end.
Ignoring a deskful of applications from prospective employees, Madeline got up and spent the next hour searching the hollow spaces underneath file drawers and behind the cabinets themselves. She turned up nothing except a handful of cobwebs and two dead roaches. Relieved, she decided that Gloria had taken all her heroin with her. She was rid of horse and rider both.
She settled down to her first full day as personnel director.
In mid-afternoon, the building's air conditioning broke down, necessitating opening all doors and windows. When repair crews finished at half-past four, Madeline was wilted and so was everyone else. She drove home in a state of nervous tension, so k-eyed up from the heat, the humidity, and the paperwork that one spark, one cross word, would set her off. Tracie, by throwing a doll under the car's wheels as she drove up, provided it. Madeline braked hard, bumped her chin on the steering wheel, still heard a sickening crunch which sounded uncomfortably like a human skull. She put the car out of gear, tumbled out and raced after the child.
"Mommy, don't!" Tracie shrieked, catching a frightened glimpse of the expression on her mother's face.
"Mommy has to!" Madeline panted, discovering that her legs weren't nearly as speedy as a four-year-old's. But she caught Tracie fumbling with the latch on the patio gate, snatched her off the ground and spanked until her hand and Trade's bottom were both numb. "Don't ever scare Mommy like that again, young lady! Do you hear me?"
Tracie, too stunned for tears, nodded her head in vigorous understanding. "But Leana didn't take me to the park!" she complained, her lips trembling. "You said she would and she didn't. You promised."
Madeline, regretting this public resort to corporal punishment, sighed and counted to ten. "Leana is a housekeeper, darling. If she didn't take you to the park like we agreed, it's because I forgot to tell her or she was too busy." Madeline remembered that she had been so rushed getting off that she'd had time to only point out the stew meat Leana was to put on for dinner. "I'm sorry," she said, and pushed Tracie through the gate ahead of her. "I'll take you myself tomorrow. We'll make sandwiches and turn it into a real outing. How's that?"
"You'll forget again," the four-year-old accused. "You go out every night and I never get to go out at all."
"Mommy goes out so she won't miss Daddy so much," Madeline said, and put, she hoped, just the right amount of lightness on the words. "She won't forget this time."
Tracie stopped and looked up at her. "How many days?"
"How many?" Madeline, ashamed, realized that she wasn't counting the days this time like she once had. Swiftly, she totaled them up in her head. "Daddy will be home in exactly eight days. Now run and wash up for dinner."
When Shelby called at six, Madeline had finished the dishes and was preparing to wash and style her hair. In irritation rather than gladness, she went to pick up the phone. "Hello?"
"It's me, baby. More or less. I've dropped ten pounds this week and taken up chewing tobacco. You won't recognize the floors after I get back."
"You'll drop the habit, as of one week from tomorrow!" she snapped, finding the allusion to her varnished wood floors not at all funny. She heard Shelby yelp, and wasn't amused by that, either.
"Is anything wrong at that end, Mrs. Nash?"
"Only your daughter, Captain. She's beginning to try my patience. Tracie needs a male hand on her reins, and the sooner she gets one the better."
"Oh? What's she done this time?"
Madeline told him, and wasn't surprised to hear sympathy rather than condemnation. Shelby had always catered to Trade's whims. "But I've been promoted permanently to personnel director, so the day wasn't an entire wash-out," she added.
"Son-of-a-gun! They didn't waste any time, did they? So now you're gunning for chief breadwinner of the Nash family. I'm scared, baby, I'm really scared. Have a care for my pride, will you?"
Madeline smiled grimly. Shelby might pretend nonchalance, but he probably was upset that she was now so near him in earning power. Beat a man at the money-making game, and you broke his balls. "If I pay off the mortgage in four years, will you take me to Europe for a month?"
"Pay off the mortgage, sweetheart, and I'll take you to Europe for keeps. In four years, I'll resign my commission and spend the two weeks the way I can't spend them now."
She cocked her head, still smiling. This was the first indication that poor, over-the-hill Shelby was getting hard up. "Oh? And what way is that?"
"You know."
"I'm afraid I don't. You'll have to tell me. Go on, dear. This isn't a party line." She heard Shelby snort from his end.
"Well, this certainly is. There could be two thousand guys listening in, and we'd never know. Okay, I'll tell you: it's long and hard and I have no place to put it. No place, that is, a normal guy would want to put it. Do you read me, ma'am?"
"Why don't you put it in your hand, dear?" Madeline said sweetly, and then held the phone away from her ear so she wouldn't hear the profanity.
"I should have known I'd get no understanding from your end. You powder your nose and go to bed as usual. A regular Garbo. I think I'll have you checked when I get back, to see if your glands are still secreting."
Oh, they're secreting all right. Yes, indeed. "What else is new down there? Or do all the men mope around and feel sorry for themselves?"
"Some of them do something. They slip off base in laundry trucks, garbage trucks and any other way they can. And some of them bring their dollies back.
The camp commander issued an order this morning banning all women from the base. First time he's ever had to do it."
Madeline yawned into the phone. "Anything else? Sex is such a bore over a long-distance line. I want to do my hair, and you're keeping me from it." She heard Shelby groan his displeasure.
"You want to torture a guy, that's what you want. There's more, but I don't think you'd care to hear it."
"Try me," she invited, curious.
"We had an accident on the artillery range this afternoon. You'll be reading about it tomorrow. One of the 155's blew up. Cut a second lieutenant and a private to bloody shreds. We found enough to fill an empty shell case. General Carson said there'd be an investigation. He means white-wash, of course. Aren't you glad I'm in construction? The only thing that can happen in our battalion is somebody gets his foot run over."
Madeline was sorry she'd heard about the artillery accident. And she was glad that Shel headed a construction company. He might get hurt, but he wasn't likely to get killed. She still loved him desperately. She couldn't imagine life without Shelby. "Trade's been asking about you," she said, to change the subject. "She's watching television right now. Shall I put her on?"
"Please. Everyone up there seems to be down on her. Let her hear a friendly word for a change."
Madeline fetched the four-year-old and let her ramble to her father for almost two minutes. Then she took the phone back and reminded Shelby how much the call was costing. "And we're not exactly rich. Not yet, anyway. I'll write as soon as you hang up. The longest, most torrid letter you've ever burned." She heard Shelby cackle.
"I won't burn it, baby. No way. I'll read it over the camp PA. Anonymously, of course, deleting the names of the innocent. Okay, I'm hanging up. But think about me tonight, will you? After you've turned out the lights and slid between those fresh, cool sheets we dream about down here. Goodnight, sweetheart."
The phone clicked and Madeline hung it up. She was going to finish her hair and then she was going to meet Greg. Severe guilt pangs racked her for a minute, pangs more powerful than any she'd experienced before. As soon as they went away, she went to pour her shampoo.
At a quarter till ten, she found Greg watching television in a room noticeably free of marijuana vapors. His eyes were clearer tonight than she'd ever seen them. Madeline wondered in awe just what he might be capable of if he'd really give himself a chance. There was both intelligence and strength of character in Greg's moody face. But mostly there was immediate interest at sight of her-flattering, smoldering interest. The attraction, she was sorry to see, was almost solely physical. But he did get up to close the door and take her by the hand.
On impulse, Madeline told him what she'd been thinking-that with a little perseverance, he might be anything he chose. "Even a doctor or a lawyer. You can't live this way all your life."
Greg, his hand tightening on hers, threw back his head and laughed. "I am a doctor, lady. Or. Feel good. Don't I make you feel better than anyone else ever has before?"
"Yes," she admitted, because it was true. "Only ... only I worry about us. I worry about you. You've never told me what you do for a living, or even if you have a last name. Do you hold a job during the day?"
His mouth tightened. Eyes which had been brimming with warmth suddenly turned cold and unfeeling. "Lady, listen to me," he said hoarsely, letting go of her hand. "Listen well. When we started, the rules were mine, the game was mine. You're one of the players, but you're not the chief player. If you don't want to play, you're free to go. In the meantime, no questions."
Madeline, alarmed at the prospect of being rejected, went to him and took his face in her hands. "Why? Are you ashamed of how you earn your money? Are you breaking the law? Greg, tell me! II think I'm falling in love with you!"
"Bah!" he snorted. "You're so inexperienced, so cloistered, you don't even know your own body, much less your mind. You're in love with a prick, lady. My prick. You like the way I get to you without a lot of bullshit. You like the risk you're taking, the excitement. Most of all, you like the eight inches I got between my legs. You've never even dreamed about eight inches before. Now you get 'em each and every night like clockwork. For you, it's a good deal. For me, it's a good deal. Let's leave it right there, huh?"
She stared at him, appalled, realizing he meant every word. "Greg, have you ever been in love? Ever?"
He removed her hands from his face and let them slide down his chest and stomach, past his belt to a swelling protuberance in his trousers. When he had her hands positioned where he wanted them, Greg grinned and held them there. "Does that answer your question, lady? If it doesn't, I'll have to put a cock in your mouth to shut it off."
Madeline reddened. Not even in her most wanton thoughts had she imagined herself with Greg's penis in her mouth. "Do you think you're big enough?" she retorted, to conceal her fascination. She felt a harder prominence under her fingers, and tried to take them away.
Greg looked thoughtful. But rather than pursue the subject, he held her fingers on his prick with one hand and lightly stroked her hair with the other. He leaned forward to sniff, and his eyes glinted with amusement. "Fresh shampoo, lady? Yeah. Just for me. Old Greg must be something special to this little lady. He must be a prick-and-a-half. How about it? Aren't I the prick of the century?"
She smiled and nodded, knowing he wanted to be flattered, too. But it was probably fact. Greg had as much claim as any other man. Maybe more. "But I have so little basis for comparison," she reminded him, squeezing the object in dispute.
He chuckled, although the chuckle was more nearly a sneer. "I forgot. Yours was the most virginal pussy I've ever been in. Still is, for that matter. If there's a tighter box around, I'll eat it."
"Is that a promise?" she challenged, looking up at him.
"Consider it one," he flung back, and hugged her to him in a spine-crunching embrace. Forcing her cried out. Rather than make him more considerate, the protest seemed only to arouse him. He seized her around the waist and brought her jam up against him. While they kissed, he swung her from side to side, his straining prick describing an arc of fire on her quivering belly.
Madeline felt herself start to moisten even before he wormed a tongue past her lips. When he began to nibble the undersides of her lips, she moaned and sagged in his arms. The points of her breasts erected to rubbery peaks. With a minimum of effort and in the briefest possible time, he'd reached her again. She was his now; she'd do whatever he wanted her to do, and the way he wanted her to do it.
As soon as her legs steadied, his hands left her hips and moved to her breasts. Through the thin fabric of her blouse and bra, he fondled them in time with his sucking, tweaking the nipples until they were almost as hard as his prick. When he reached farther with his tongue and began raking it across the roof of her mouth, Madeline stood on tiptoe and slipped her arms around his neck.
She closed her eyes and let herself be driven to slow insanity. What he did for a living seemed less important now than what he was doing for a loving-her loving. Greg was doing all the right things in the right ways. Most importantly, he was taking his time. She needed a leisurely fucking tonight, to dispel the horrors of a tension-filled day.
He stopped and raised her skirt to her waist. By flexing his knees, he was able to bring his prick into snug contact with her clitoral area. When he resumed frenching her, the sensations were twice as acute. Even before he opened her blouse and bared her breasts, Madeline felt an orgasm coming. As soon as he covered her naked boobs with his perspiring palms, she climaxed, the tremors racing to her brain and to her toes at the same wonderful instant. They lasted less than a minute, but they prepared her nervous system for the ecstasy to come.
Greg continued to tongue the farthest recesses of her mouth, his hands kneading the firm flesh of her breasts. The prick in his pants had lost none of its girth or length. If anything, he had a stronger erection than ever. Madeline, gathering herself for a new response, had to marvel at his control. This young man had had to start fucking early and well to learn control this steady. She was receiving the benefit tonight of a strenuous-and thorough-education. What other women had taught him he was teaching her.
She kicked off a shoe and used the foot to stroke his calf and ankle, determined to prove that she could be imaginative, too. Greg growled low in his throat and frenched her with new vigor, almost driving his prick through the lace of her panties. When he paused and jabbed his thumbs into their waistband, however, Madeline stopped him, shaking her head.
"No, not like that. Not like last time. I want to be taken in a bed."
He grinned. "Then I'll take you in a bed. What the pretty lady wants, she gets." Bending at the waist, he slung her over his shoulder and carried her into a bedroom they'd never used before. The covers looked fresh and probably were. Greg dumped her and stood up to undress, paying her no mind while he shed trousers and pullover, undershirt and shorts, socks and shoes.
Madeline, still fully clothed, lost herself in the unveiling. Even after four nights, she could still experience a tingle of apprehension-relish, too-at lying in a strange bedroom watching a strange man undress to have carnal knowledge of her. In less than a week, she'd progressed-or regressed, depending on how one looked at it-from faithful wife to shameless strumpet. But she didn't feel like a strumpet. She still felt like a wife, only now she was Greg's wife.
When he was Completely nude, his erection standing at half-mast, he glanced at her and saw that she was still dressed. "Hey, lady, you're not trying to pull my strings, are you?" he said with characteristic sharpness. "When I turn my back, you're supposed to come out of the threads. Dig?" Hands on his hips, as close to dignity as a naked man with a hard-on can be, he glared at her.
She wanted to laugh with him over the hilarity of their situation, only she was afraid he'd think she was laughing at him. Greg in a fit of rage could tear her limb from limb. Madeline held out her arms to him, instead. "You do it. I love to feel your hands on me. Just don't tear anything."
"You love-" Scowling, he marched up to the bed, grabbed her by the feet and yanked. With scant regard for her clothing or her dignity, he threw away the remaining shoe and tugged the skirt off her hips without bothering to unzip it. Madeline heard a seam part, but she didn't say anything. Even when he trampled her half-slip under his feet, she wasn't concerned. Only after he ripped her panties in two places did she push him away arid start on the blouse's buttons herself.
"You'll send me away in rags, you beast!" she complained. "Let me."
Greg, his breath coming in raspy pants, crawled into bed beside her. When she drew the bra away, he reached out for her, sinking sharp teeth into her left breast. Madeline yowled and slapped him so hard that her palm went numb and stayed that way for five minutes. Holding his cheek, he rolled away, staring at her as though seeing her for the first time. "Wow, you really mean it, don't you? You want to fuck but you don't want any marks to show for it."
"No marks," she said firmly. "I have a husband, remember? What would he think if he saw me all bruised and scarred? I'd have more bruises and scars, you can bet on that. Besides, I'm not a masochist. Never have been. I don't enjoy pain of any kind. So if you're thinking what I think you're thinking, forget it. I don't play that game." Madeline saw a strange expression on Greg's face, and held her breath. If he was about to reveal the real Greg ....
"You say you don't enjoy pain," he mused, rubbing his flaming cheek. "Maybe what you meant is, you don't enjoy taking it. Maybe you enjoy dishing it out."
Madeline went still and stayed that way, although her eyes were wide and staring. She watched as Greg stepped down off the bed and, his hard-on no less prominent, walked to the closet. He rummaged inside for a minute, then came out with a small whip. She shrank in dismay. "Greg! You're not serious! I couldn't."
He tossed the whip at her. "Pick it up."
"No!"
"If you don't pick it up, I will," he threatened, advancing on her. "I'll tie you to the bed and whip you until the blood runs out of the lashes. Then I'll whip you some more. Better pick it up, lady."
Madeline snatched up the scourge a split second before his hand closed on it. She held it aloft, out of his reach, and waited, heart thudding, while he lay down beside her again, only this time on his stomach. The rounded cheeks of his buttocks were where his prick had been.
"Okay, lady," he instructed, having to mumble the words into the pillow, "whip my ass until you can't whip it anymore. Got that?"
She raised the whip to do it, but her hand faltered. "I-I can't. You'll beat me half to death if I do."
"I won't lay a hand on you," Greg insisted. "Do it. I'll give you ten seconds."
Madeline counted the seconds off in her head until they numbered eight, then closed her eyes and brought the whip down sharply on bare skin. The lashes rang out with stark clarity in the still room. Greg's grunt, to her ears, was a groan. She froze.
"Lay it on, goddamn it! If you don't, I will beat you! Lady, that's a promise!"
She cocked her arm and struck with all her strength. This time the lashes raised welts across Greg's tender buttocks, angry red welts which wouldn't go away. Madeline set her teeth and swung again, staring at a spot on the wall so she wouldn't see the damage she was doing. She swung until Greg's breath was a sob in his throat and her arm was too tired to continue. When she looked and saw what she'd done to him, she nearly fainted. His buttocks were crimson on both cheeks, crisscrossed with stripes. She dropped the whip and started to cry. "It's-it's sick! I can't do it anymore! Don't try to make me, because I won't!"
Greg turned over with difficulty and looked at her. "I believe you, lady. That's not my bag, either. Christ, but you've got an arm. Only take a peek at Henry. See what you've done for him?"
Madeline looked, and was amazed. Greg had probably the erection of his life. The head of his prick was purple with congested blood. Veins along the shaft and base stood out so far she was surprised they hadn't burst. Gently, she ran a hand along the top and back along the underside. Greg shuddered.
"Get on top of me!" he begged. "Quick, before I go soft!"
She touched the lips of her sex, and discovered that they were brimming with moisture. The civilized part of her had abhorred the whipping; the animal part had loved it. Madeline almost wished she hadn't uncovered this side of herself. Moving carefully, so she wouldn't hurt him anymore, she rolled near and sat up. Supporting herself on his chest, knotting her fingers in the tangle of hair, she raised one leg and slid it across his torso. When Greg's big prick bumped her pubic bone, Madeline's courage almost failed her. "Help me-please!" she gasped.
While she scrambled on top of him, he held her aloft with a hand on her midriff. The other he used to part her cunt lips for his prick's entry. Working together, she supplying most of the movement, they managed to get him inside her, so far inside her that Madeline winced, hastily falling back on her haunches before he tore something.
Greg chuckled. "That's it, lady. This time you're the driver. Drive us up the wall, huh?"
She was astonished at the freedom of movement she had in this position. Occasionally she and Shel made love in a straight-backed chair, she in his lap, but that was different. For some reason, Shelby loathed a position in which he was on his back, she sitting up astride him. They'd only tried it once, shortly after they were married. Madeline couldn't even remember how it had turned out. This occasion was vastly different. Greg seemed to both want and need her atop him. Keeping up a running patter, he covered her breasts with his hands and massaged them to lusty engorgement.
"Look at it this way, doll. I'm the horse and you're the rider. Ride me into the ground! Show me what you can do! Christ, don't be bashful! It's too late for that! About five nights too late!"
She knew he was right, so she set out to make them both come. Bringing her legs closer about his for a snugger, more stimulating hold, she began to move, leaning backwards to grind her clitoral shaft against Greg's shaft. The contact was doubly exhilarating in that she could control both the degree of friction and the speed of excitation. After a few minutes, she felt herself near a thunderous orgasm. But Greg urged her to back off.
"If I get my rocks too soon, baby, I'm no good to you!" he warned.
Slowing so that he could regain control, she kept her thrusts small, inching toward her own release without speeding his. The release began deep inside her cunt and gradually spread out to the lips and clitoris. Face contorted from the sensations she was feeling, Madeline realized that she was gripping Greg's big cock with muscles she'd never even used before.
"Leave off, lady!" he implored, slapping her sides and shoulders. "I know you got 'em, just don't use 'em now, huh? Wait for when we're both ready!"
Pausing to catch her breath, she resumed circular motions on the cock inside her only when she was sure he could stand them. This time she moved more vigorously, hoping to make them arrive at the same thrilling instant. Slamming down on him, rising to slam again, Madeline had no time to wonder how absurd she looked. She was too busy with her first, good, woman-above screw.
Her third climax of the evening commenced with a spasmodic, involuntary jerking of her pelvis as his orgasm and hers made her genital region come alive as though it had a will and mind of its own. Madeline opened her mouth to gulp more air, and still felt like she was suffocating. The muscles Greg had noticed were pounding ecstasy signals on her brain almost faster than she could receive them. She came with every ounce of energy she had, every gram. When the roller coaster stopped and the room ended its swaying, she found herself slumped on Greg's perspiring chest, too spent to even raise her head. It was several minutes before she could say a word. "The salve-where do you keep it?" When he didn't reply, Madeline forced her head up and gazed at him. "Greg?"
He was sound asleep. She waited a few minutes more to be sure, then got down off him. Her heart began beating fast again, but for a different reason.
Now she had a chance to peek inside his refrigerator without his knowing. She intended to.
She dressed and tiptoed from the bedroom with the one shoe in her hand. Retrieving its mate from the living room, she put it on and went into the kitchen. Then she opened the refrigerator, however, she found nothing sinister. Just the usual perishable stuff and a few chocolate bars. But there was a large, covered casserole dish in the bottom of the refrigerator. The casserole dish was empty.
SIX
"Tonight, lady, I teach you how to suck," he declared on Saturday night.
Madeline, her head resting on the shoulder of Greg's bathrobe, made a sound in her throat conveying her contempt, derision and utter disinterest in the activity just mentioned. But she felt a stirring of curiosity, nonetheless. With someone other than Shel, she might not feel so disgusted, so-so dirty.
They lay on the couch of his trailer's living room, a television set in front of them. The evening was young-only half-past eight. But Tracie, after a day in the park, was spending the night with a friend, allowing Madeline an early-and safe-exit. There was a lot of night in front of them.
Greg chuckled. "I figured you'd rear up a little. So we'll look at this together."
Madeline turned to see what he was talking about. Greg held in his hands a hard-bound book with gold lettering and a matching slip cover. She stared hard. The title ... The title baffled her until she realized it was in German. German or Danish. Madeline reached for the book, curious to see what foreign porn consisted of.
Greg held the volume tantalizingly out of reach. "Uh-uh," he laughed. "You're not a big girl yet. This one's for mature adults only."
Outraged, she began to scuffle with him, finally climbing over his chest and face in her determination to reach Libidis Sexualis. With the book in her hand, she lay on top of Greg to scan its pages.
"I said we'd look at it together, lady!" he protested. "How can I enjoy it if I'm down here and you're up there?"
She let him up and they removed the slip cover together. The book, upon close inspection, was beautifully bound and printed. The type was clear and easy to read. But mainly it was a picture book. And what pictures. Madeline flipped to the middle and thought she'd burn her fingers. In the very center of Libidis Sexualis, in glorious living color, was a young blonde and a handsome young man. The girl was on her knees in front of the man, her mouth over all or almost all of his penis. The young man's hands were knotted in her hair. On his face was an expression of intense pleasure that needed no explanation. "Why, he's choking her!" Madeline breathed, horrified and fascinated, too. "How can men justify that in the name of love?" She slapped the book shut and tried to hurl it across the room.
"You're all wet, lady!" Greg exclaimed, snatching back Libidis Sexualis in time. "He's only making sure she finishes what she started. The way you're going to finish me if and when I can get you started." Dig?" He grinned in the infuriating way he had.
Madeline shuddered. "First you stretch me horribly down there," she made a gesture at her vagina, "now you talk of stretching me where-no! I won't! Don't even suggest it again, because I won't!" She put her hands over her ears.
He peeled the hands away and pressed a kiss where one had been. "You will," he insisted. "I'll give you time to get used to it, then I'll tell you what to do. Meanwhile," he tapped the book, "why not pick up a few pointers? I mean, if you've never given head before, you've got a lot to learn. Like, everything."
"You're crazy!" she told him, and refused to even glance at the black-and-white and color photos of men and women kissing one another's sexual organs, doing all kinds of unspeakable things with their hands and mouths. "You want to humiliate me!" she accused. "You want to make me grovel at your feet! Well, I won't. I won't be part of any master-slave relationship, and don't think you can talk me into it!"
Greg sighed and slipped the book back inside its dust cover. "I don't know anything about a master-slave relationship," he sulked, putting the book away. "I just want to get blown. Now and then a guy has to have a little head, and this is one of those times."
"Head!" Madeline grimaced. The term to her had an odious sound to it.
He smiled pityingly at her. "Wow. You take the cake, lady. You can beat my ass into ribbons, but you can't take a good, honest cock into your pretty mouth. What's with you? No, don't tell me. I can guess. Your old man made you do it once and you nearly threw up. Am I right?"
"Don't talk to me!" she snapped, furious with him and his powers of intuition.
Greg shrugged and got up. "I'll fetch us something to drink. Don't run off."
After an hour of watching a television movie and sipping fair-quality tonics, the idea of sucking a man's penis wasn't nearly as incredible as it sounded. In fact, Madeline felt ashamed for having thrown such a tantrum. Fellatio was old-hat these days. She should know that, and did. Only ....
She reached out during a station break and tapped him on the arm. "How does it start?"
He stared at her. "Watch it. I don't carry nausea tablets."
Madeline colored. "I'm willing to try anything once-even that."
Greg's lip curled. "You're half-pickled and an amateur. I'd sooner put my meat in a sausage machine. No, lady, I'll sit this one out."
She hiccupped and dropped her head in his lap. "I guess that's how it starts," she giggled. "Say when." With no real awareness of what she was doing, or why, Madeline began fondling Greg's big prick through the usual tight, double-knit slacks.
He pushed her away, swearing. "Not like that! Not in our clothes. Let's find a bed. Anything worth eating is worth eating in comfort. If you're sober when we shuck down, sweetheart, that's too fuckin' bad." Almost dragging her off the couch, he slung her over his shoulder and marched off to the nearest bedroom.
Madeline, watching the carpet streak past her startled eyes, wasn't completely sober when he heaved her onto the bed, just sober enough to feel panic at what she'd let herself in for. What if he got his penis stuck in her throat? What if he strangled her? A thousand horrifying possibilities flashed through her mind. Rather than lie there and let him see her terror, she began to undress with him, matching him button for button. When Greg looked at her, she looked at him, too. They were both stark naked. He laughed, she laughed, and most of the tension vanished.
He pointed a doubtful finger at her dark-blond bush. "Do I hafta?" But he was smiling when he asked.
She nodded. "Dinner for two-or no dinner at all."
He climbed into bed licking his lips. "That's sixty-nine talk, lady. Let's see if you can." Huge cock swinging, he lay down beside her and crooked a finger. "Before I get wrapped up in the eats, show me you're not bluffing." When she hesitated, he raised a head and glared at her. "Well?"
Madeline, shaking from the fear and excitement she felt, sat up and stared at the knob of Greg's cock. She wondered if her mouth was big enough to take it. She wondered if he'd showered well. She wondered ....
Bending, she closed her eyes and touched just her lips to the organ's bulging shaft. The skin was warm and quite smooth. There was a faint male muskiness about the foreskin, but the predominant odor was soap. Reassured, she trailed soft kisses around the head.
Greg sighed, quivering underneath her. "That's nice, babe. You're doing fine. Just don't let up. I'll tell you when to stop."
Madeline, now that she realized nothing ghastly was going to happen to her, opened her eyes to see what she was doing. Up close, Greg's penis didn't seem nearly so large. In fact, when she opened her mouth, she discovered that she could fit it over the head without stretching. As soon as she did so, however, he began to growl low in his chest-a sure sign of acute sexual arousal. Hastily, she went back to simple lip kissing.
"You're gonna have to get between my legs, lady," he informed her in a voice taut with excitement. "Otherwise, you could lose your balance and bite me. I might tear your pretty head off before I can stop myself."
The suggestion was both an order and a threat, so she crawled between his thighs and crossed her legs, Greg having to raise his to allow it. Now when she leaned forward, she was directly over the waving head of a big prick. Supporting herself with palms on his belly, Madeline parted her lips and gulped in as much of the organ as possible. Greg's whoop was a catalyst to her own arousal.
"Give me a good hot suck, and I'll eat your pussy raw!" he promised.
The prospect was attractive, but hardly less so than her present undertaking. Closing her eyes for concentration, she tightened her lips and applied cautious suction. When nothing happened, she began to move her mouth up and down in a coitus-simulating action. Greg's breathing became a raspy pant somewhere ahead of her. His hands had come to her hair and now gripped her disheveled tresses in huge fists.
"When I tell you to stop, lady, stop right then!" he croaked. "Not five seconds later, but right then! If you don't, you won't get eaten."
Madeline heard the words, but she was too busy with lips and teeth and tongue to worry about them. In some instinctive fashion, she slowed her bobbing motion to the minimum necessary to maintain Greg's interest and her own. For half an hour she kept him dangling on the brink of orgasm. Then she speeded up her jacking until her face was a blur on the congested stalk of flesh. Somehow she knew when he was near a climax.
"Stop now!" he commanded, yanking her by the hair off his swollen cock.
She raised to look at him. Greg's face was flushed and puffy. In thirty minutes, she'd reduced him to abject helplessness. Madeline was impressed. She saw that he wanted her to stretch out beside him so that he could reach her cunt with his mouth. She lay down and waited, too k-eyed up to feel apprehension over how they finished or when. Swinging his legs around so that his feet were where his head had been, Greg grabbed her legs and forced them apart. He buried his face between them, using his hands and lips to find the way to her cunt. When he positioned his mouth over her labia and sucked hard, fiery tongue roving over every sensitive structure within reach, she knew the evening had been worth it.
"As you were, lady!" he warned, taking a split-second to do it.
She wriggled and twisted until his cock was again a tongue's length away. In genuine relish this time, because she was being eaten, too, Madeline gobbled him up and resumed the same kind of up-and-down movement that he'd seemed to find so stimulating.
The trailer's air conditioning strained to cool their fevered bodies as they worked. Greg, an artist, brought his teeth into play, taking the slippery labia between them and nibbling until the tender flesh engorged with blood. Then he applied his tongue like a tiny prick, lashing it back and forth over her clit a few times.
Madeline tried to duplicate his actions, and found that she couldn't. Not only was the terrain different, her tongue simply wasn't up to the dexterities essential for performing them. But she was able to nibble gently at the foreskin of Greg's big penis, also to swirl her tongue around the head and crown, back and forth, and down underneath, where he appeared to be less sensitive. Greg showed his appreciation by licking more vigorously upon her, by butting her thighs apart and almost thrusting his head inside her.
Her climax began with a tingling along the clitoral shaft which spread to the head, finally to the entire genital area. Madeline needed to free her mouth to gulp more air, but Greg's prick was in too far. Between the constriction in her nostrils and the gagging sensation in her throat, she came close, perilously close, to choking. Drawing back before the blackness came for her, she managed to breathe from one corner of her mouth while maintaining penile contact with the other. Then she was able to enjoy the orgasm.
And what an orgasm. Her toes curled and her legs thrashed. Her hips churned so that Greg had trouble holding her. Madeline heard his exclamations of surprise, then she heard nothing except a rushing in her ears. The spasms took hold of her and ravaged her trembling body for more than a minute, leaving her spent and weak.
To her astonishment, the prick in her mouth began to throb and swell. Before she could tear her mouth away, molten drops of hot come spattered the roof and back of her mouth. Rather than strangle, Madeline swallowed them, every one, finding the alkaline bitterness no less unpleasant than cough syrup or quinine. She stopped swallowing when the ejaculation stopped. Then she raised to stare at Greg and found him staring at her.
"Wow. Lady, you give great head. Terrific head." He groped for the words. "I can't tell you how it felt, I can only tell you I'll be back."
Madeline slumped to the covers, shivering. Her heart was still pounding and her pulse was still racing. Oral sex was too exciting for frequent practice, and he knew it. Bodies weren't built to handle such an overload. "Get me a drink. Please get me a drink. With plenty of ice."
"Sure thing. I hope you don't mind if I have one, too." Greg, the solemnity on his face contrasting with his nakedness, rolled down off the bed and started for the kitchen. He returned in less than a minute with two hastily mixed Manhattans. Pillows under their head, they lay on the bed to drink them.
Madeline said nothing while she drank, because she had nothing to say. She and Greg seemed to communicate on every level except the verbal. But he appeared curious about something. He opened his mouth twice before the words finally came out.
"Your old man-you can eat me, but not him. How come?"
Staring into her glass, she lifted her shoulders and let them fall. "I don't know. Maybe because he made me do that for him once when I wasn't ready to. Maybe because he's not as aggressive as you are. Maybe ... maybe because he's my husband. Sometimes I think I hate him, and not just for that. He was interesting once, like you. Now he's dull. Or maybe it's me."
Greg nodded, although he probably had no idea what she was talking about. "Marriage can be a nasty scene. I almost tried it once. The chick backed out, not me. I've been thanking her ever since."
Madeline smiled. "By making every woman you can get your hands on?"
He grinned, a cocksure Adonis with unkempt hair, a limp prick and a drink in his hand. "That's part of it, sure. Maybe the best part. If I can't fuck, lady, I'm a stinking bastard. I can't be lived with. Keep me fucking and you keep me happy."
Madeline thought the observation rather crude but honest.
"Tell me frankly," Greg pursued. "How much meat does he have?"
She stared at him, puzzled and a little affronted. "How much meat?"
"Inches. How many inches?"
She hesitated, rolling the drink on her tongue, wanting to please Greg, yet be fair to Shel, too. "Six, I think. The truth is ...."
"Yeah?"
"The truth is, I'm not sure. We ... usually make love in the dark. It's hard to tell in the dark.
He has enough, believe me, if he'd just use it more often."
Greg cracked up on his side of the bed, laughing and slapping his thigh. "In the dark! That's wild! No wonder you don't enjoy eating him! If you can't see it, how in blazes can you enjoy it?"
Madeline felt her face burn. It was bad enough that she was cheating on Shel. To run him down for having a smallish penis and for preferring to make love in the dark was unfair. Grossly unfair. "I said he has enough. Maybe he has seven inches."
Greg smiled. "That means you're not sure again. You're trying to build the guy up when he doesn't deserve it. Nice try, doll."
"What does it matter?" she retorted. "Eight, seven,, six or five. He's there and we're here. You have me and he doesn't. Isn't that enough?"
Greg turned on one elbow to scowl at her. "Nothing's ever enough for this mother, lady. Nothing. Don't ever forget it. I got needs I ain't even told you about you. I suspect you have, too. We're going places, you and me. The Rockies, maybe the Coast."
Madeline experienced a familiar tingle of apprehension. But like the other times, she ignored this one, too. "I told you-I'm not leaving Shel for you or any other man. I still love him. He's not perfect, he's not a stud, but he's mine. But I guess you don't understand that." She raised the glass to her lips, hoping that the question was settled once and for all.
Greg snaked out a hand to snatch it out of her fingers. "Don't try to screw me, lady!" he warned. "I'll do the screwing. The hog outside-is that what's got you squirming? I'll get rid of it. The bike goes tomorrow. Then we'll talk some more. How about it?"
Madeline shook her head. "No. There's nothing to talk about."
He shoved the Manhattan back into her hand. "Then I'll fuck some sense into you!" he snarled, and finished his own drink in a single gulp, tossing the glass, ice cubes and all, onto the rug.
Madeline thought his behavior juvenile, but before she could open her mouth to say it, Greg pushed her flat and knocked the Manhattan flying. He ground his lips into hers without even a sorry-about-that, effectively stopping all protest. Pinning her arms to the bed, he lashed his tongue from side to side against her lips until she parted them for him. Then he commenced a furious, determined play on the roof of her mouth.
From some inner reservoir, she summoned the stamina to respond, for the second time that night, to a man who seemed to own limitless amounts of it. At first she lay passively accepting his attentions, enjoying them without being greatly stirred by them. But then he began sucking the underside of her tongue, and she could stay passive no longer. Slipping her arms around his neck and locking them, Madeline began kissing him back, feeling her labia moisten from the new stimulation. After a minute, the points of her breasts rose to press their way into the tangle of hair on his chest. If it gave him any satisfaction, he'd gotten her ready again in the sheerest of times.
He removed his tongue and drew back grinning to look at her. "Well, don't we beat all? You and me, we make a fuckin' duo, don't we, lady?"
She acknowledged it the way she acknowledged almost everything he asked of her, and because it was true. But that wasn't enough to make her want to go away with him. Lying there with his breath hot upon her, his prick stiffening on her leg, Madeline had an idea. Without considering the consequences, she blurted it out. "Maybe what you need is ... someone else," she said, gazing earnestly up at him. "Someone your own age. You must know girls who ...."
He looked strangely at her. "You don't mean it!"
"I do mean it," she insisted.
The pouty, dangerous expression returned to his face. "You want out. You're tired of my peter and want to find yourself another one. Go on, admit it!"
Madeline felt the hardness of his cock swelling against her thigh, and shook her head. "No. I'm not tired of your-your peter. You're almost more than I can handle, that's all. I'm not jealous. I wouldn't mind sharing the load." She smiled, hoping he understood. "That doesn't sit well with you, I see. I'm sorry. Just forget I brought it up." A flicker in Greg's eyes puzzled her. He bowed his head over her breasts as though he were thinking. When he raised the head, after having given her nipples a quick swirl with his tongue, he was smiling again.
"Lady, you've just given me an idea. I wanna thank you. From the bottom of old Greg's heart does he thank you." He swooped down on her breasts again, this time taking each nipple between his teeth and biting it gently before sucking it into his mouth.
Mystified, she wondered what idea she'd given him could please him so much. There wasn't time to figure it out. He was using the flat of his tongue to dredge her nipples across the roof of his mouth, and the sensations were making her squirm and toss. She responded by blotting out all thought processes, reserving her brain for receiving stimuli. When his fingers wandered between her legs and trapped her clitoris between them, Madeline knew she'd be fucked soon and fucked well. Greg was on the mark with both his caresses and his timing. He was beginning to know her uncannily well.
He rose on hands and knees to take her just as she opened her mouth to tell him. Without words having been exchanged, he aimed his big cock at the slit designed for it and rammed it home in a single lunge. She wrapped her legs around his waist and he began to fuck her-great, powerful thrusts that made her cunt quiver.
She'd swallowed most of his sperm, so he had control to spare. He screwed her in the most accurate sense of the word, then paused to catch his breath. Grasping her by the shoulders, he slammed into her next like a human pile driver. He seemed to know when she was near a climax, because he stopped abruptly and held himself in check, letting her do the rest.
Madeline, poised on the brink of orgasm, worked her pelvis in a manner she couldn't recall having ever done before. The muscles she was only beginning to know about responded automatically. Like a hidden siphon pump, they proceeded to pump her partner dry, wringing gush after gush from the exploding top of his penis. Greg cursed and he sang; he whistled and he groaned. He gave all the indications of a man who'd been carted off to paradise with his enthusiastic consent.
Through the fury of her own finish, she was aware of his: the giant cock coming at her again and again, the heaving buttocks, the clammy perspiration of his belly slapping hers. They went limp at the same miraculous moment, having squeezed every shiver, every ounce of pleasure, from the act of sexual congress. Greg wriggled out of her and flopped onto his back to rest.
"If you want liquid refreshments, lady, you'll have to get your own!" he panted.
Madeline, still flushed from the depth of her response, still tingling from an orgasm to top all orgasms, needed a drink less than she needed reassuring arms around her. Greg seemed utterly incapable of an emotional commitment. His one, serious shortcoming had never hurt her more than now. To him, she was a love machine first and last, oiled to function when and how he wanted her to function.
She felt like a spider's helpless victim.
SEVEN
For Madeline, the traumatic shocks in her life had been mercifully few and far between. She could recall only three: one, when at the age of three, she'd run into her parents' bedroom late one night and found them 'fighting'; two, when a girl she detested had won a coveted part in an eighth-grade play; and three, when a boy she'd adored in high school turned out to be the town's most celebrated fairy.
On Monday night, she received a fourth. As she steered the Cad into Greg's mobile home park at five minutes past ten, she discovered a white Chrysler hardtop parked in front of his trailer. In consternation, she drove on. The only white Chrysler Madeline knew about belonged to Yvonne Crenshaw. But Yvonne didn't know about Greg, and even if she did, Yvonne wouldn't dare move in on her. Or would she?
Madeline circled around and drove past again, this time checking the Chrysler's license plate. Her temperature went up and her restraint went down.
There could be no doubt about it-Yvonne had learned about Greg, or Greg had learned about Yvonne. Regardless of who had learned about whom, she, Madeline, had been cut out. For her the dance was over. She might as well go home to a lonely bed.
She'd started that way at better than the legal limit when temptation came calling. Madeline slowed to hear its dulcet tones: Why not walk in on them? Why not let Yvonne know you can swing, too? Why not give Greg a piece of your mind in front of his newest conquest? Why not?
Why not, indeed? She turned the car around and drove back fast, parking behind the Chrysler with little or no effort at stealth. Judging from the lights and the shrill of a woman's laugh, none was needed. Madeline marched up the trailer steps and stormed in without knocking. If the pair she found insideGreg lounging on the couch, Yvonne, wearing a knock-out pantsuit, in front of him-were surprised to see her, they concealed it well.
"Madeline!" Yvonne called gently, raising a welcoming hand. "We've been expecting you! You didn't think we could start without you, did you, darling?"
"Hiya, babe!" Greg greeted. He winked and grinned at the new arrival. "Here's that friend you've been urging me to get. I understand she's a friend of yours, too. Makes it kinda handy for all of us, huh?"
Madeline, stunned, looked at first one, then the other. "I-I don't understand!" she stammered. "You know one another, you're expecting me-"
"We've just been introduced," Yvonne interrupted. "I dropped by because I was dared to-and you know how I am about a dare." She smiled wryly. "Honey, you don't have any cause to be upset. He seems to be just what you need. And let me congratulate you for keeping him hidden. I would never have guessed."
"But he isn't-he isn't mine!" Madeline said quickly. "You're welcome to him. I'll even leave you alone to get to know one another."
Greg threw his head back in a guffaw. He laughed until the tears came to his eyes, until he was in danger of falling off the couch. Then he wiped his eyes and glanced at Yvonne. "She still doesn't understand. We'll have to explain it to her slow."
"Explain what to me!" Madeline, angry with both of them, stamped her foot. "Tell me what the joke is, if there is a joke!"
Yvonne, a little smile on her tanned face, strolled toward her friend, her voice falling to an intimate range. "Madeline, honey, how would it be if you and Greg and I ... finish it for yourself."
Madeline was aghast. "It would be impossible! That's the most-the most obscene thing I've ever heard! I'm disappointed in you, Evie. I don't have the words."
Yvonne dropped a lash in the droll manner which was her trademark. "Neither do I, dear, neither do I. Aunt Evie's hurt over the way you're snubbing her. She's quite broken up inside." Yvonne reached the younger woman and placed a hand on her arm. "You don't want me to be broken up inside, do you, honey?"
Madeline quivered as the conflict took hold of her. She admired Yvonne's free-swinging ways, even if she wasn't sure she respected them. But when those ways involved her personally in a menage a trois with a man neither of them loved....Madeline gulped. "No, but-"
"And you did suggest that Greg find himself a friend, didn't you?"
"I didn't plan-I didn't think it would turn out this way." Madeline buried her face in her hands so she wouldn't see Yvonne's beaming face and Greg's grinning one. "If you want me to, I'll-I'll stay. I won't enjoy it, I know, but I'll stay."
"What a splendid example of courage!" Yvonne exclaimed, glancing over her shoulder at Greg. "I think you'll be amazed, dear, at how much you do enjoy it."
Greg jumped up to hurry from the room. "I'll get everything ready, ladies," he promised.
Madeline waited until he was out of earshot before whispering her frantic second thoughts. "Evie, have you lost your mind? We can't go through with this! What are you doing here? How did you learn about Greg?"
Yvonne held out her arms in her best here-I-am-so-love-me fashion. "I was hoping you could tell me. About an hour ago I get this telephone call. A guy who calls himself Greg and says he's a close friend of yours asks if I'd like to join the two of you for a drink. I told him I'd love to, and hurried right over. But when I get here, he's about ten years younger than I expected, a drug freak if I ever saw one, and you're nowhere in sight. Aunt Evie has to think on her feet for a few minutes and also fight off the best pair of arms since Jack Dempsey. Just when I'm beginning to lose the battle-I'm human, aren't I? You show up. Then I know everything's all right. I haven't been gaffed after all." Yvonne smiled brightly. "So what's the problem? Let's stay and enjoy the party."
Madeline stared at her, realizing she didn't have the words. She didn't have the words to tell her friend what Greg was really like-the charming exterior which masked a ruthless nature, the absolute silence as to personal background and source of income. She didn't have the words to describe their mutual peril. Greg owned knives-she'd seen two of them. And probably a gun. "Let's go!" she urged, her voice cracking. "Let's get out of here! You can go first. I'll think of something to tell him."
Yvonne looked arch. 'I'll bet you will. Like, 'She's gone now, Greg, darling. Now I've got you all to myself.' No, dear, if you stay, I stay. I deserve something for being routed out of an evening with a friend of my own. After you're finished with him, I'll enjoy what's left."
"There won't be anything left," Madeline insisted, but she knew her words lacked conviction. By definition, a stud was a stud.
Yvonne smiled and patted her shoulder. "We're all God's children. If I know anything about young men, he'll be just as, shall we say, functional with me as with you. Maybe more so, since I-excuse me, dear-know the territory better than you do."
Madeline, smarting at the comparison, lost the last of her qualms in a wave of pride. Know the territory better? Evie, damn her, would be eating her own words before the night was over. "Then stay!" she snapped. "But don't say I didn't warn you!" She heard Greg coming, and experienced mingled relief and panic. Now the decision was out of their hands.
"Okay, ladies, let's go into the master bedroom," he said, gazing from one to the other with hands on his hips. "I have a bucket of ice and enough scotch to melt it. And enough grass to send us all to Glory." He smiled in the quick, cryptic way he had, smacking a fist into a palm. "Yessir, it's going to be quite a session. Shall we get things rolling without any more lip action?"
The women looked at one another, then followed as he led them through the kitchen and along a corridor to the master bedroom at the trailer's far end. Just as he'd promised, there was a bucket of ice, three sparkling clean tumblers and a fifth of Ballantine's scotch. And on a table beside the bed, a plastic bag full of marijuana and paraphernalia for smoking it.
Madeline took the room's only chair; Greg and Evie sat on the bed. Greg poured scotch on the rocks and passed it around until everyone had his own. Madeline estimated that they'd consumed six ounces apiece when Greg hiccupped and put the rest of the bottle down.
"Now let me explain the rules," he said, glancing from one to the other. "We all start together. We all, if possible, finish together. We use the same bed. The girls touch me, not one another. I hate lezzin', even when it's done in fun. At all times, you will stay alert and aware of what's going on. Go to sleep and you're disqualified. Everything clear so far?" Chin thrust out, he defied them to offer objections.
The women, their eyes wide, shook their heads. They had none, although Madeline had hoped to be able to leave the room while Greg was busy with Yvonne. As long as the other two were occupied, she could give the trailer a thorough search, satisfying the doubts she still had about Greg. But he seemed to have anticipated that, too.
He stood up to put down his glass. Then he raised his pullover and tugged it over his head, tossing it across the room. When Yvonne saw the broad expanse of tanned chest, she sighed. The sigh turned into a moan when Greg dropped his trousers and unsnapped his shorts. Madeline, stifling her own exclamation, saw why: Greg was ready and able to perform right now. As ready, in fact, as he'd ever be. He grinned at the respect on their faces.
"Come, ladies, it's only a little hard-on," he joked, sitting down on the bed edge. "What will you do when the," he chuckled, "plot thickens?" Greg snapped his fingers, suddenly serious. "Up with the two of you and show a little interest. I want to see both of you as bare as a baby's bottom before I can count to a hundred." Lips moving silently, he began to count.
Madeline saw the challenge in Evie's eyes, and stood up. She kept her gaze on the floor while she undressed, but she could hear the whirring of zippers and the rustle of cloth a few feet away. When she was stark naked, her things piled on the chair back, Madeline glanced at Evie. The latter was nude, too, and watching her. Both had trim, lovely figures, but Yvonne's tan was unbroken from her brow to her toes. With her statuesque build, she was by far the more impressive-unless a man happened to prefer platinum.
Greg looked from one to the other, and licked his lips, betraying anticipation or perhaps nervousness. "The Garden of Eden plus one," he smiled, patting the covers on either side of him. "Climb aboard, la-dies. If there isn't room, why, we'll make room."
Yvonne climbed onto the bed where she was supposed to, but Madeline went around to the other side and got in by degrees, sitting down first, then bringing her legs up one by one. The comparison with a bed of hot coals was only half ludicrous. She was genuinely frightened. Only heaven knew where she might go from here. From three-way sex to ... to what? The horizon narrowed after tonight. If Shelby could see her, he'd reach for more than his antacids. He'd reach for their lawyer's number.
Greg lay down on the bed and Evie stretched out beside him. Madeline, to keep from being ridiculed, did so, too, after hesitating as long as she could. The bed was queen-sized, but everyone's arms touched just the same. If the mood was strangely icy, Yvonne's hysterical laugh broke it.
"This-this is like a wake!" she choked. "The only question is, who's the corpse?"
"Speak for yourself," Madeline quipped, and the laughter redoubled.
Greg smacked them both across the belly with the backs of his hands. "Ladies, to the middle of us, below and to the center, you will see the reason for our being here. I want you both to touch him. But be gentle. If one of you pulls and the other also pulls, Greg, as likely as not, will become enraged. When he's enraged, Greg can break things. Pretty, unmendable things. Together, now."
Yvonne got on one elbow to trail her fingers through the tangle of hair around his prick's base. Slowly, tantalizingly, she ran one finger up the shaft, pausing at the top to grasp the head between thumb and forefinger. Madeline, also supporting herself on an elbow, was able to do no more than circle the base with two fingers and squeeze. Greg's giant-sized erection became a gianter-sized erection.
Madeline noticed Evie's out-flared nostrils, and realized that the redhead was becoming excited. She was beginning to tingle, too, although the arousal was too superficial as yet to manifest itself in her breasts or genitals. After a minute, she and Yvonne changed holds, she grasping Greg's big prick around the crown, Evie seizing him around the base. Its owner began to growl low in his throat.
An indication that the experiment might be a memorable one came when Greg reached up to fondle the breasts of both women. Evie sat up to enable him to reach her better, and Madeline followed suit. The women began to breathe in hasty pants as soon as he tweaked their nipples to engorgement, switching easily from one to the other. But then Greg came up to turn his back on Madeline and slip his arms around Yvonne.
"She's a guest," he explained to the former.
Madeline struggled to master her jealousy, and succeeded. In fascination, she watched as Greg burned hot kisses across Evie's neck and throat, taking a circuitous route to her mouth. Upon reaching Yvonne's lips, he found them pliant and parted. His tongue disappeared inside, and judging from the way a vein in her throat began to race, commenced a furious play. Madeline, having no trouble imagining what Evie was feeling, felt herself go hot with sexual need. The lips and folds of her cunt began to trickle slippery lubricant. Her nipples stood out stiffly from the areolas. She was a body crying out to be kissed and handled the way Evie was being kissed and handled.
Greg, as though to torment the woman behind him, put his hands on Evie's tits and massaged them in time with his kissing. When they were hard enough for his satisfaction, he let a hand rove down between them until he crossed her belly. Wandering on, he reached her clitoris and with a few deft swipes, made Yvonne shake and twitch. The redhead's arms went around her lover's neck and stayed there.
Gently but firmly, Greg stopped fingering her and removed the arms from around his neck. Patting Evie a fond and reluctant farewell, he turned over and beckoned to Madeline. "You're next, sweetheart," he chuckled. "Our guest isn't going anywhere."
Madeline, to blot out Evie's presence, closed her eyes when Greg reached out for her. The feel of his lips was reassuring-she strained to taste another woman on them, and couldn't. In the same sequence, and with roughly the same amount of time devoted to them, he repeated his caresses with Madeline-squeezing and kneading her breasts to further engorgement, finding her clitoris and stroking it until the moisture flowed and her state of readiness equaled Evie's.
"I feel neglected!" the redhead wailed. "Don't forget about me!"
As if he had forgotten about her, Greg sat up in the middle of the bed, fists clenched. "Christ Almighty!" he groaned. "I left out one of the rules-keep your traps shut, both of you! I can't fuck and argue, too!"
The rule made sense to Madeline, who felt that he'd take her first, simply because he'd learned control with her. Yvonne, a new partner, might make him respond too fast. To her acute chagrin, Greg turned his back on her, getting on hands and knees to tug Evie's thighs and buttocks where he wanted them. The tears welled to Madeline's eyes. She blinked them away and consoled herself with the knowledge that she'd had him first. She'd also have him last. Evie, a greedy girl, would be sandwiched in between.
Madeline's excitement reached a crescendo when her friend arched a supple back to receive Greg's big organ. Never in her wildest imagining had she realized that sex could be so electrifying. This wasn't a stag movie with hired performers, poor lighting and exaggerated facial expressions. This was real life. The moans and sighs were for real. So was the tightness around Greg's mouth and Evie's. Yvonne accepted Greg's huge prick with no difficulty, meeting him lunge for lunge.
In a few seconds, they were closely joined, and even if Madeline could still feel envious, she had to admire the sight. So dark were their tans, it was difficult to tell where Greg blended into Evie, and vice versa. Only their hair provided contrast-and what a vivid contrast. Greg's black mane tossed above Yvonne's flaming tresses as they struggled to find the best angle of attack. When she drew her legs up slightly and tucked them behind his knees, he found it. In smooth, well-timed thrusts, he began to stab at her. Evie gurgled something low in her throat, threw back her head, and rode with him to wherever they were bound.
Just when Madeline thought he'd bring her to rapid climax, withdraw and fulfill the rest of his night's obligation, Greg paused and commenced a slow, round-and-round screwing which could only have been intended to prolong Evie's pleasure and his own. Madeline experienced blind rage which ended with a resolve: as soon as she could get away without being missed, she'd scour the trailer until she found whatever it was Greg didn't want her to see.
Frenching her while he fucked, Greg had reduced Evie to a quivering wreck when he suddenly wrenched himself out, grinning. He patted her on the flank. "I'll get back to you, honey. Let me warm up your friend before she gets bored and wanders off."
Madeline went rigid, hesitant now that the time had actually come, to allow entrance to a sexual organ still slippery from the secretions of another woman's vagina. But Greg lowered himself over her the same, masterful way, and she responded by raising her legs and parting her thighs. Whether from her own state of excitement or the added lubricant, Greg's prick slid in with absolutely no trouble, although he gasped, as though having to adjust to a snugger fit after having become accustomed to a looser one.
"Tight!" he muttered between clenched teeth. "Almost-forgot!"
Madeline wrapped her legs around his waist and locked them, determined to make him forget, if only for a few minutes, the woman a few inches away-their interested audience. Supporting himself on elbows and knees, Greg pried her lips apart with his tongue and frenched her while he delivered a jackhammer pounding to her pussy. But after a few minutes, when his control began to wane, he added something else. Holding his prick high against her clitoris, he moved it in small circles while bowing his back to reach her breasts. Taking a nipple between his teeth, he gnawed and sucked it until she was on the brink of orgasm.
When Madeline felt him start to leave her, she tried to keep him inside. She wasn't strong enough to. Greg took away the prick she needed for a satisfying climax, and turned once more to give it to Evie. "You bastard!" Madeline sobbed, forgetting to keep up the charade of coolness.
Greg laughed, got on his knees, and buried himself inside Yvonne again. Within a minute, their breath was noisily in common. This time Greg fucked in earnest. He gave the redhead every inch he had, and the inches barely filled her. His grunts commingled with her sharp, animal cries until they filled the room to the eaves. He seemed intent on bringing her to climax, even at the risk of losing his almost awesome control.
This time Madeline didn't watch. She even put her hands over her ears so she wouldn't hear the sounds of their passion. But she couldn't keep the bed from shaking. Nor could her nostrils seal out the pungent odors. "The smells and the hyper-charged atmosphere kept her at a sustained state of readiness, prick or no prick. When Evie began to come, Madeline sensed it, 'though she couldn't see or hear the proof. The bed's trembling became more pronounced, the air more taut with electricity.
She took her hands off her ears and turned in time to see Evie, her eyes tightly shut, her mouth wide and gaping, claw bloody trails through the tender skin of Greg's back. In filthy gutter words which sounded strange on Yvonne's lips, the redhead urged her partner to, "Put it in me, lover! Hurt me! Fuck my pussy until it runs down your beautiful cock!" Madeline's skin began to crawl as she viewed her friend's frantic finish. Evie, whatever her other qualities, was one gorgeous animal.
Greg, seemingly oblivious of the punishment his back and shoulders were taking, stayed at his task until the spasms no longer racked the woman underneath him. His prick a dizzying blur, massive buttocks churning, he stopped only when she stopped. When he withdrew, he still had a formidable hard-on. His face frozen in a mask of ecstasy, he staggered across the bed to kneel between Madeline's legs.
"Saved-the-best-for-you!" he rasped, almost falling on top of her.
Madeline, even when she realized the strain he was obviously under, could feel no sympathy for him. But she rolled onto her back to receive him again. To receive him for the last time, she promised herself. Man-sharing wasn't her bag, she knew it now. Wasn't her bag....She closed her eyes and made her spine give her torso more support, savoring the hot prick sliding inside her cunt even as she despised the prick's owner.
Greg had saved his best for her. Shoving her forward until her head bumped the headboard, he balanced himself on his knees and seized her around the waist. With his prick as a pivot, he swung her in a semi-circle, maintaining close contact with her clitoris. But the agony on his face told her what the effort was costing. Greg needed to come, before the ache in his groin bent him double.
If Madeline's excitement had begun to ebb, this new stimulation brought her back to a state of eager arousal. Her nipples swelled to form twin cones of crying need, rivaling the tension in her clitoris. Greg released her waist and began to fuck her in short, ragged strokes. His control appeared to have left him. Now he seemed concerned with bringing her off before he lost the means to do it.
For Madeline, the climax began with a twitching, a spasmodic clutching of her cunt around the cylindrical object inside it. Perspiration rolled off Greg's face. A look of panic, of terror even, came over him. He tried to thrust hard, to reassert mastery of the situation, and succeeded only in helping her cunt muscles grip him more tightly. He yelled, but she proceeded to milk him of every drop he had. When he slumped onto her breasts, Greg was a drained, whipped man. His penis rapidly shriveled to a state of flaccidness, falling out of the receptacle which, on this one occasion, had been too much for him.
Madeline pushed him away because the tremors were beginning to leave her body and because she didn't need him anymore. When her eyes would focus properly, she glanced across his heaving body at a wide-eyed Evie. Madeline smiled at her friend. "Well? What do you think? Is he or isn't he?"
"He is!" the redhead declared. "He's the best cocksman in seven, maybe eight, states. I'll never forgive you for trying to hide him." Yvonne raised on one arm to stroke the sweaty chest of a silent Greg.
"What did you say your last name was, dear?"
"I didn't," he muttered, more in Madeline's direction than Evie's. "And I won't. I'm a private kind of guy, ladies." He blinked from one to the other, sensing their disapproval. "Okay, it's Gabetree. Capital G-a-b-e-t-r-e-e. No more questions, huh? I got a battery to charge." He snapped a finger at Evie. "The bag on the table-pass it here. We'll smoke our troubles away."
Madeline started, concealing it poorly. So this was Gloria's younger brother. There was, now that she stared covertly at Greg's profile, a strong facial resemblance. Now she had to search the trailer. She had to know why he was living like this-like an outcast-and why he'd waited so long to reveal his last name. When he rolled a joint and pressed it into her hand, she took it, even allowing him to light it for her. But whereas Greg and Evie really smoked theirs-finished one and started on another-she merely pretended to. As soon as the others were staring serenely up at the ceiling, adrift on a cloud of their own making, Madeline got out of bed and began to dress, explaining that she had to go to the bathroom.
In the bathroom, she checked her appearance and saw the fright on her face. She tried to make it go away, but it wouldn't go away. Only after sitting down on the toilet seat and lighting an ordinary cigarette was she able to bring order to her jumbled thoughts. She asked herself where she would hide a heroin stash if there were others around who might find it. The refrigerator was a good idea, but not if you happened to have guests who liked to snack. The dirty clothes hamper?
Madeline jumped up and opened cabinets until she found it-a wicker-type hamper with a pearl-tone top. Reaching down inside, she at first encountered nothing. Then her delving hand passed across a paper-wrapped object-actually a bundle of similarly wrapped objects. Heart thudding against her chest, she drew it out, dropping it again as soon as she saw what it was. Only once before had she seen a parcel wrapped like this-under Gloria Gabetree's shaking arm.
Madeline went back to sit down and finish her cigarette, trying to decide what to do. She couldn't see Greg again, of course. How could one feel attracted to a pusher, no matter what the dimensions of his cock or the sincerity of his smile? But neither could she snatch Evie out of his arms and hustle her from the trailer. She dared give Greg no indication that she'd stumbled onto his secret. In fact, she couldn't tell Evie anything. Her friend kept her composure about as well as she kept a secret. Yvonne might go running to the police. Eventually she'd have to be told, but not now. Not when she was enjoying such an after-glow.
Feeling small and quite alone, Madeline went back to join the others. She even lit another joint, to dispel suspicion. This time she smoked it. All of it. When she and Evie left, they left separately, Greg accompanying them to the door one at a time. She had no chance to warn the other woman. Madeline saw, from the reluctant way Greg let go of Evie's arm, that he wanted to see more of her.
Madeline drove away with a crushing weight around her heart.
EIGHT
For Madeline, the next two days passed in a kind of suspended vacuum. She was sure she went to the office-no one complained and the regional office didn't call. She knew she came home in the afternoons-Tracie met her at the door, or Leana. At home or in the office, she did what she had to do without thinking about it. Without caring, because her only reason for caring had been taken away from her.
She tossed through a restless Tuesday night and came to realize how much her body had come to depend on him. She was still hooked on Greg Gabetree the way his customers were hooked on junk. But she'd spurned him, and that was that. He belonged to Evie now, or Evie to him. Who belonged to whom probably didn't matter. The two seemed to have an affinity for one another.
Wednesday was better. Madeline immersed herself in work and was able to drown her anguish without resorting to a bottle. When she slipped between the covers Wednesday night, she was even able to worry about the chance Evie was taking, rather than fret over having been bested by her. Yvonne would undoubtedly tire of Greg before he tired of her. The process of extrication could be a fiery one.
At one in the morning she woke to find herself in a cold sweat. Unless it was from having gone to bed in a state of nervous tension, she could think of no reason for it. Lying there in the darkness, staring up at a ceiling she couldn't see, Madeline recalled snatches of the dream she'd been having. Gloria Gabetree, her stash under her arm, a bittersweet smile on her face, had gone marching off into a sea of snakes. The serpents had ceased their writhing long enough to make a way for her. But then they'd closed about the unfortunate girl, swallowing her up forever. Gloria had passed out of sight.
Madeline, unable to go to sleep again, wondered about the significance of the dream. She wasn't afraid of snakes; her biology project in high school had been the collection and sketching of nonpoisonous, garden-variety snakes. She'd had to catch them herself, her two brothers disavowing any part of the project. To their amazement but not her own, she'd graded A in the undertaking.
At two she turned on a lamp and began dialing Shelby's number at camp. Midway through the seven digits, she realized how hysterical she'd sound and how annoyed and/or amused Shel would be, and hung up. She took two sleeping pills instead, got up for a glass of water, and turned out the light again at two-fifteen.
On her way to work Thursday morning, five minutes late, Madeline switched on the car radio and heard the end of a news dispatch:
"...discovered by the building superintendent when she didn't come to the door this morning. The time of death has not been established. An autopsy has been scheduled for later today. In other late-breaking news ...."
She wondered who had died and why she should feel such a clutching sensation at her heart. Rather than ask someone who might have heard all the dispatch, she went immediately into her office upon arriving, intending to turn on at ten a portable radio she carried in her handbag. But ten o'clock found her hard at work on the weekly report, which she hadn't as yet delegated to her successor. The nine o'clock news item was forgotten.
When she returned from lunch at twelve-thirty, the afternoon edition of the Meriden Tribune was out. Madeline picked up a copy from the rack at the door, and flipped through it on her way to the washroom. As she went through the door, a small headline halfway down the front page brought her up short:
LOCAL WOMAN FOUND DEAD
A young local woman was found dead in her apartment at eight this morning. The victim is identified as Gloria Gabetree, 25, a receptionist for Fidelity National Life & Casualty Company. The cause of death has not been established, and an autopsy was scheduled for this afternoon.
The body was discovered by the building superintendent, Frank Niles, when Miss Gabetree failed to come to the door after having complained last night about the plumbing.
Madeline finished the day in numb, methodical fashion. But she was very, very interested in the results of the autopsy. An overdose of sleeping pills or death from natural causes, and Greg was safe. Otherwise....Otherwise she'd have to go to the police and tell them what she knew, which was plenty. Murdering one's sister wasn't excusable.
On the five o'clock news, she heard it. Idling the Cad quietly in the company parking lot, she listened:
"In a follow-up to an earlier news item, a coroner's jury has ruled that Gloria Gabetree, found dead in her apartment this morning, died from a heroin overdose. According to Coroner Branch Sullivan, Miss Gabetree was an addict of approximately two years' standing. Sullivan expressed surprise that she had been able to conceal her addiction from friends and acquaintances while also holding a job, and said that all information in the case had been turned over to police. Anyone having additional information is urged to contact the proper authorities at once."
Madeline bowed her head and wept. Suddenly everything was clear. Everything. She knew now why Greg Gabetree had approached her and how he'd known so much about her. Gloria, as Jack Brodie's secretary, had had unrestricted access to the personnel files. For free junk and to keep her brother placated, she'd set up two conquests for Greg, providing enough office gossip to make them go. Pictures, too, as likely as not. Greg had selected Madeline because Shel would be out of town for two weeks, Evie because her reputation was well-known and because she and Madeline were good friends. It all added up.
Madeline dried her eyes and put the car in motion. She had to find Evie, and fast. Separated and with a panicky Greg at large, their lives might be in danger. Together, they'd be safe. As she drove toward the nearest phone, Madeline thought about Tracie. If Greg felt he was being sought by the police, he might try to snatch the child and use her for a hostage. But Leana was with her. Leana would stay until ....
Madeline spotted a pay phone and risked a collision to reach it before a pedestrian could. Fumbling in her purse for the right coins, she had to hold her hand steady before she could put them in. Yvonne was such a long time reaching the phone, Madeline almost despaired. But finally she heard her friend's lazy hello. "Evie, listen to me!" Madeline blurted. "I have something to tell you that I can't say over the line. Please stay where you are. And don't let anyone else inside the house!"
"If it's about Greg-" Yvonne began.
"It is." Madeline hung up and raced back to her car.
Yvonne was as near to hysteria as her normally placid nature would permit. She twisted her hands into a nervous knot and gulped twice, the tremors passing from her throat to her cheeks. "I can't believe it! Darling, how could you set me up like this? How could you?"
Madeline flushed. "I didn't set you up, silly. I was set up, too. We've both been taken. The question is, what do we do now?"
"But you knew about the junk and didn't tell me! I'm surprised and ashamed of you!"
Madeline, realizing the extent of her own neglect, hung her head. "I'm ashamed of me, too. And yes, I knew. I found it and was afraid to tell you. My pride ... I didn't want to admit that I could be so stupid. If you've seen Greg again-"
"I have!" Yvonne snapped. "You know I have. He's the-well, he's probably the best prick either of us will ever meet. He called me Tuesday night. Last night he didn't have to call. But Larry's coming home tonight. I couldn't have gone, even if I wanted to. And I wanted to."
"Then you've been stupid, too. But it's not too late. There is something we can do."
Yvonne's eyes widened. "You mean go to the police? Turn him in as a pusher? Darling, if they think he gave the stuff to Gloria, they'll charge him with murder! Don't you think he feels badly enough? Honey, Greg isn't a murderer. He's no Boy Scout, either, but neither is he a murderer. Heroin is funny. The strength can vary from batch to batch." Yvonne threw up her hands. "Tell me what to do. I'll do what you think we should do."
Madeline looked at the redhead, and was unable to blot out an image etched into her brain-Evie, stark nude and supine underneath a plunging Greg Gabetree. Evie, she supposed, had the same image burned into her brain, only the woman underneath was herself. The two would always share the shame, if shame there was. "I-I don't know what to do," she confessed. "I'm only shooting off my mouth. If Greg feels guilty, then-"
"Of course he feels guilty! He'll have to live with this for the rest of his life! Isn't that punishment enough?" Yvonne smiled, as though she'd assuaged her own guilt by consigning Greg to a life of penance. "I'll fix you a drink. I'll fix us both a drink. Then we'll make a rational decision." With a pat on the arm, she rushed out of the room.
Madeline was still staring at her feet when the cold drink was pressed into her hand. No matter what Evie told her, common sense and her own intuition told her to go to the police. She should tell them everything she knew and let them think whatever they wished. They'd guarantee her anonymity, or were supposed to.
"Give it up," Yvonne urged, sinking back down in a chair which was still warm. "Nothing can bring poor Gloria back, not even Greg's head on a blotter."
Madeline gazed into the drink and bit her lips. "What if they don't charge him with murder? What if they only charge him with possession? How do we live with ourselves?"
Yvonne, her eyes bright and hard, lifted her shoulders. "The way we always have. It's murder or nothing, sweetheart. By now, he's gotten rid of the rest of the stuff. As soon as he heard about his sister ...." The redhead made a flushing motion with her free hand. "Whoosh. Down the toilet. Doesn't it figure?"
Madeline nodded. "So we'd be putting him away for the rest of his life. And we might have to testify. It's-it's a little frightening. He might expose us to save himself. What would our husbands say?"
Yvonne grimaced. "I don't know what Larry would say, but I do know what he'd do. He'd fasten those strong fingers of his around this neck of mine, and squeeze. He'd do life, but how would that help Aunt Evie?"
Madeline had to laugh in spite of herself. She pulled deeply on the sour, rolled the drink on her tongue for a minute, then swallowed it. "You've almost convinced me. Almost. I still see Gloria the way she looked when she walked out of my office. Brave. Defiant, but brave. She must have had an idea ... I wish there were something we could do for her. This is it."
Yvonne's lip curled and her green eyes blazed scorn. "Aren't you forgetting something, dear? Gloria sold us. She sold our names and other personal data to her scheming brother for his rotten junk. That makes her a-a-" Yvonne groped for the word.
Madeline, smiling bleakly, supplied it. "A female pimp?"
"A female pimp! A procuress. What do we owe her? Nothing!"
"But she was a human being, Evie!" Madeline protested. "A woman, like us. She had her needs. She must have loved, and been loved. Maybe Greg hooked her on-"
"Rubbish! No one's ever hooked on heroin by a younger person. Gloria developed the habit, Greg began to supply her and got interested in the profit part. You saw how he was, didn't you? Just a boy who wanted to be left alone. Greg was paranoid only if you crossed him. He took it as a reflection on his masculinity, which he was probably doubtful about, never having had a strong father figure to model himself on." Yvonne leaned forward, a triumphant look on her face. "That's why he was so good, darling. Sex, to Greg, was masculinity. Sex was his whole reason for living. Leave the boy in peace. He's heartbroken now, you can be sure of that."
Madeline wasn't sure of anything, much less Evie's pseudo-romantic psychology. She could have Greg figured all right ... or all wrong. In any event, she, Madeline, was weary of arguing. She finished the sour and put the glass down. "Have it your way. I won't go to the police. But I don't like it."
Yvonne reached to squeeze her on the arm. "In a week, we'll have forgotten about this. We'll send flowers for Gloria and pray for her soul."
Madeline excused herself, explaining that she had to run home and finish the dinner Leana should have started.
As she neared the house, she realized something was wrong. Leana wasn't out on the lawn wringing her hands, but then Tracie wasn't outside, either. On clear days, the four-year-old practically lived outdoors. Madeline parked and hurried inside. The cooking smells coming from the kitchen reassured her. The grim look on Leana's face, on the other hand, didn't. Nor was Tracie anywhere in sight. Madeline pantomimed the questions she couldn't ask.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Nash," the housekeeper choked, breaking into tears. "Someone took her."
"Someone took Tracie? Leana, haven't I told you-" Madeline heard the shriek that was her own voice, and stopped to get a grip on herself. "Tell me what happened. Just tell me what happened."
A fork fell out of Leana's hand. Neither woman noticed it. "I was in the dining room polishing the silver you want ready for when Mr.-"
"Leana, if you don't tell me what happened, you're fired!" Madeline threatened, her fists clenched.
"Tracie was on the patio-I took her a cool drink-and then she wasn't. She must have gone through the gate to wait for you out front. Then I heard a car outside. I thought it was yours, so I didn't go to check. I did get-a glimpse when the driver drove away, because-"
"How long? Leana, how long ago was it?" Madeline seized the housekeeper's arm. "Do you mean to tell me you let the child be kidnapped and did nothing at all to save her?"
Leana began to sniff. "I heard tires screaming, and I knew you never did that. I ran to a window in time to see a green sedan vanish around the corner."
Madeline stared at her. "A green sedan? Was Tracie inside? Did you see her?"
The housekeeper's throat muscles twitched in time with her quavering. "It-it happened so fast. Please, Mrs. Nash, try to understand. I haven't called the police, realizing you'd want to hear it first. I wasn't even sure that you hadn't driven by and picked her up yourself."
Madeline's head was beginning to reel. The worst of the day's happenings was happening to her. Tracie, poor child, was being punished for her sins. Greg? Of course. When she stayed too long in his bathroom, he'd become suspicious. Now he probably felt she knew too much. With Gloria dead, Greg was running. By using Tracie as a hostage, he hoped to keep her mother quiet long enough to flee the state. "How long ago? How many minutes?"
Leana, her composure returning, looked at her watch. "Twenty-two. No, twenty-three. If we stay by the phone, maybe they'll call and tell us what they want. If it's money ... I'm sure it's money. Where are you going?"
Madeline had whirled and run back the way she'd come. She had no intentions of sitting by the phone, biting her nails and waiting for a call that might never come. Each passing minute was greater risk for Tracie. If Greg released her hundreds or thousands of miles away, Tracie might never be heard from again.
"You're going to the police?"
"Yes!" Madeline flung back.
"This is Lieutenant Hadl, ma'am," the desk sergeant explained. "He'll take your story and handle the investigation. I can put out an APB on the basis of your description, but Lieutenant Hadl will want to know the details."
Madeline nodded, licking dry lips. Lieutenant Hadl was detective-hard, from his bony knuckles to his frosty blue eyes. But he owned a blond cowlick which reminded her of Shel's. She felt she could talk to him.
"Let's go back to a conference room, shall we?" Hadl suggested.
Madeline followed him into one of the police station's three conference rooms, where briefings, lawyer/client conferrals, and probably late-night interrogations were carried out. She sat down in a straight-backed chair and went inside her handbag for a cigarette while Hadl closed the door and pulled up another chair for himself. The detective took out a ballpoint pen and a small notebook, hitched his chair nearer a well-scarred table, and looked at her.
"Please start at the beginning. The child's name and a description. Your name, too, and your husband's."
Madeline took a deep breath, trying to gather her thoughts so that she could supply enough information to get Tracie back without compromising herself. "Tracie Nash. She's four years old, blond and has blue eyes. I'm Madeline Nash. My husband's name is Shelby. Right now he's at Camp Grosvenor for summer Guard training."
Hadl recorded the information. "And you say your housekeeper saw Tracie get into a green sedan?"
Madeline hesitated, flushing. "She didn't actually see her. But Leana's positive that the car was green, that Tracie was inside, and that a man drove away with her at six minutes past five.
The detective reached for the telephone at the other end of the table, thrusting it at Madeline. "Then Tracie may be with a neighbor. I want you to call everyone you know and find out. I'll be next door in the ready room."
Embarrassed at not having done this already, Madeline dialed the Petrellas and everyone else who lived on their block. No one had seen Tracie. She hung up the phone and went to fetch Hadl, telling him as much. The two sat down again, and the questions continued.
"I heard you tell Sergeant Daniels that you suspect a young man named Greg Gabetree. Why? Has he been giving you trouble?"
Madeline, because she could think of no other way to do it, blurted her bombshell without more delay. "Greg Gabetree, Lieutenant, is the brother of Gloria Gabetree, the girl who was found dead this morning. She died of a heroin overdose, the coroner's jury said. Well, Greg is a-a pusher. I think he gave Gloria the-the junk she killed herself with. He's afraid I know too much and thinks I'll keep quiet if he has Tracie. But I won't. Don't you see?" Having said all this in a single breath, she sucked oxygen into her starved lungs and covered her face with her hands. But she heard Hadl's pen topple from his hand. When she looked at him again, the boredom had left Hadl's face.
"You're a very brave woman, Mrs. Nash," the detective remarked, and there was wonder in his voice. "Not many people would have done what you're doing." He picked up the pen again and began writing rapidly. "How did you come to know that Greg Gabetree is a pusher?"
"Actually I don't," Madeline amended. She told of finding the brown paper-wrapped objects in Greg's laundry hamper, and how she'd seen an identically wrapped object underneath Gloria Gabetree's arm. "I'm reasoning from the evidence, and there may not be enough-"
"I think there is," Hadl said, and excused himself again. He hurried toward the radio dispatcher's room this time, and Madeline supposed he was going to order a new APB. After less than a minute, he came flying back, armed with more questions. He sat down to record her answers. "You say the laundry hamper is located in Greg Gabetree's mobile home. How did you come to be there?"
Madeline went scarlet. "I-I was there by invitation. As-as a guest."
Hadl's brows shot up almost to his hairline. "A guest? You were a friend of Gabetree's?"
"A friend of a friend," she lied, wondering if Evie's name wouldn't be dragged into this after all. "I was invited there for a drink. I knew her and I was lonely at the time, so I went." Madeline tensed, hoping the lie would go unchallenged.
"May I have her name?" Hadl pursued.
She shook her head. "Her husband's coming home tonight. I promised-"
The detective looked disappointed. "Then there was three of you present at all times?"
Madeline nodded. "Yes. At all times."
"Your friend-is she a junkie? To your knowledge?"
Evie a junkie? The idea was only slightly less preposterous than sitting in a station house at six o'clock on a hot June evening, answering questions from a slit-eyed man who seemed able to pierce her very thoughts. "No, definitely not. I mean-" Madeline blushed. "She has no needle marks. That's proof enough, isn't it?"
"Needle marks are only one sign of heroin addiction. Okay, we'll assume your friend isn't a junkie. We'll even let her remain anonymous. But you'll have to give us more to go on. Approximately how much horse did Gabetree seem to have in the clothes hamper? Have you any idea?"
Madeline had to think. When she'd hefted Greg's cache of sweet dreams, she'd been too distraught to make any estimate as to its size. "I would say a pound. Less than a pound but not much less."
Hadl whistled. "Probably laced with sugar, but even so ... what's the address? He's dumped it by now, if he's as scared as you make out, but we'll send a car with a warrant to make sure."
She told him, then reminded him of her reason for being there. "Tracie-do you think he'll hurt her? Tell me the truth!"
The detective's eyes slid away. "A hostage is not a hostage unless she's alive and well. If Gabetree only wants to buy a little time, he'll probably release her unharmed sometime tomorrow. We'll do our best to find her. We want Gabetree for questioning, of course, even if we can't charge him. But we'll consider Trade's life first."
Madeline took heart. She glanced around at the few, hard-bottomed chairs. Comfortable seating seemed to be at a premium in police stations. "Can I wait here ... until there's word?"
"No, ma'am. You'll have to do your waiting at home. Right now that's the best place for you." Hadl snapped his fingers. "One last question. Did Gabetree ever mention where he might go if he were to leave town?"
She recalled that he had. "The Coast. Or the Rockies."
NINE
After two sandwiches and a cup of coffee-hot and black-Madeline began her phone-side vigil. She'd decided to wait a few hours before calling Shelby, in the hope that a miracle might happen. Leana, without being asked, had elected to stay late, although the two women scarcely spoke to one another.
The housekeeper went home at ten, expressing once more her own regret. Madeline wanted to scream at her, but she knew screaming would do no good. After Leana left, the loneliness became a burial crypt pressing in on her from all sides. To hang onto her sanity, she watched television until eleven, when she realized it was too late to call Shel. She'd only interrupt his sleep and assure him of getting no more.
At one, she dialed the police station and was told, after having trouble finding anyone who knew anything at all about the case, that there'd been no change. When the connection broke, Madeline cursed Detective Lieutenant Hadl, who was undoubtedly home in bed.
She went to bed, too, but was unable to sleep.
At seven the next morning, she dragged herself from under the covers and went to make a breakfast of poached eggs, toast and coffee, forcing it down because she knew she needed it. Going to work was unthinkable, of course. She'd call in sick at nine and have one of the girls take over for her. But first she had to tell Shel, before he heard it over the camp radio or read it in the morning paper.
Reveille and breakfast were an hour old at Camp Grosvenor, but she was still several minutes reaching Shelby. Only after a colonel connected her with the base paging service did Madeline hear her husband's reassuring hello. "Shel, Trade's missing," she told him, because she knew no other way to break it. She heard a sharp intake of breath.
"Missing? Have you checked around the neighborhood? You know how she-"
"Shel, she's been kidnapped! There's an APB out right now. The press just hasn't picked it up yet." Madeline tried, and failed, to keep the hysteria out of her voice.
"Kidnapped? By who? How much do they want? Christ, what's going on up there?"
Madeline heard the panic in Shelby's voice, and realized that she'd put it there. "Shel, try to be calm!" she begged. "I've nearly gone out of my mind. There's no need for both of us to-"
"Answer me!"
"They-they don't want money. They only want me to-to keep quiet about something I know. But I've already gone to the police."
"You've what?"
Madeline's lip began to tremble. Nausea rose in her throat and nearly made her lose the poached eggs. "There's only one of them, Shel. A kid. He just wants to buy a little time. At least ... that's what we think."
"What you think? That means you really don't know! Some crazy goddamn thrill-seeking kid snatched your daughter, and you're playing with theories! When did all this happen? Or do you have any idea?"
"Shel, please. Not over the phone. It happened at five-thirty yesterday afternoon. I-I was away at the time and Leana was polishing silverware."
"Five-thirty yesterday? Five-thirty! And you waited this long to tell me? Now I know you've flipped out! I'm coming home as soon as I can get emergency, leave!"
"No, Shel, no!" Madeline cried. "The police are doing all they can, believe me." She wished she could be sure of it herself. "Please stay. You can't accomplish anything yourself. It's out of our hands. Don't you see?" She held her breath, and heard Shelby grunt in apparent agreement.
"I guess you're right. I'm sorry I blew off at you, baby. But I still wish you'd told me soon after it happened. You say it's a kid and he just wants to keep you quiet for a while? I don't get it. What could you know that could scare him into a kidnapping?"
Madeline chose her words with great care. "He's a heroin pusher, Shel. I found out by accident. I wasn't going to turn him in until he took Tracie. Then I had to."
"A pusher? Honey, you don't know any pushers! How did you-"
"I said by accident. It's too long a story to tell over the phone. It's connected with Mr. Brodie and my promotion." Madeline expelled a sigh which was almost a sob. "It's-it's connected with everything. I'm only beginning to understand all the implications."
"I think I'd better get that emergency leave. You've got my curiosity up."
"Shel, I'm ordering you to stay," Madeline said with a wife's firmness. "Your annual obligation isn't over until tomorrow. I don't want you home before then. Is that clear, Captain?"
"It's clear. But I feel like a lousy excuse for a father. You'll keep in touch, won't you?"
Madeline promised to, and added, "Turn on your radio."
She hung up and switched on a radio herself, dialing an FM station's eight o'clock news. Tracie's kidnapping was a lead item:
"In the morning's headlines, a twenty-two-year-old man is being sought in the disappearance of a four-year-old girl and also in connection with the death of his sister. Authorities say Greg Gabetree is wanted for questioning in the drug overdose death of his sister, Gloria Gabetree, twenty-five, and is believed to have the child in his custody as a means of assuring that her mother won't talk to police. The mother, Mrs. Madeline Nash, has already told police everything she knows about the incident.
"Greg Gabetree, meanwhile, is the object of a statewide search. Roadblocks throughout the area failed to turn him up during the night, possibly because the child is no longer with him. Tracie Nash is described as blond and blue-eyed, wearing a red, blue and green play outfit. Greg Gabetree is said to be about six feet tall and weighing about one hundred and ninety pounds, black-haired and black-eyed. Anyone seeing persons matching either of these descriptions is urged to contact authorities at once. In other headlines ....
Madeline, conquering an urge to scream, switched the radio off and dialed the police station. After identifying herself to the desk sergeant, she asked for Lieutenant Hadl.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but he isn't in yet."
"When can I expect him?"
"You can try again at nine, ma'am."
She slammed the phone down hard. Before trying again at nine, she called the office and told one of the girls that she wouldn't be in, and why. When she tried once more to reach Hadl, the police switchboard connected her with the detective division right away. Hadl himself picked up the phone. Madeline again identified herself and asked if there was anything new.
"Unfortunately, no. But we're still trying, ma'am."
"You're still trying?" She realized how she sounded, and made herself lower her voice before continuing. "If I haven't heard by nightfall, do I have to assume...?"
"You don't have to assume anything, ma'am. Just keep hoping. The sheriffs department and all available units of the state police are trying to find Tracie. They're good men. But we're all human. In a state with three million people, locating a little girl isn't easy."
Madeline felt panic clutch at her again. "But what if she isn't here in the state anymore?" She thought Hadl's reply was hesitant.
"Before noon, I'll have to make a decision about that. If we feel Gabetree may have crossed a state line, we'll ask the FBI for a fugitive warrant. And we'll ask state police in adjoining states to keep an eye out. It's too soon to give up. Try to get your mind on something else."
Madeline thanked him, although she couldn't imagine why, and hung up. She wondered why Leana was so late reporting for work, and then remembered that she'd given the housekeeper the day off. She was home herself, so there was nothing for Leana to do. With Tracie gone, there was no one to make lunch for, no one to pick up after, no one to chase out of doors for being underfoot.
She fled an empty, silent house and drove off to nowhere in particular, finding herself half an hour later in front of Greg's trailer. Through sheer force of habit, she'd ended up here. Shuddering, Madeline killed the car's ignition and got out. It was too much to hope that Tracie might be here, bound and gagged in a back bedroom. But if the detectives were too incompetent to find a green sedan with their road blocks, maybe they were too incompetent to find a four-year-old. Noting the spot where Greg's motorcycle had been, she went up the steps.
The lock on the front door had been forced. When she stepped inside, Madeline recoiled. The living room was a mess. Pillow cushions, magazines and ashtrays lay everywhere. Chair and couch backs had been slit in someone's methodical search for heroin.
Search warrant or not, Hadl's men had definitely come and gone.
She made a quick inspection of the other rooms, even looking under beds and inside closets, and found the same kind of chaos. Before the memories overcame her, she stumbled out the trailer's rear door and climbed back into her car. The door wasn't even locked. , Upon arriving home, she spied Yvonne Crenshaw's car in her driveway. Evie, because she was Evie, had a key to the house's rear door. Madeline went inside and found her friend nursing an uncharacteristic cup of coffee. Yvonne looked strangely harried.
"I'm sorry," she muttered, scanning Madeline's face. "About Tracie, I mean, not Greg."
"Don't ever mention Greg to me again!" Madeline flared, barely able to resist slapping the redhead across the face.
Yvonne's eyes widened. "Darling!"
"Don't darling me!" Madeline snapped. "Greg's a bastard. I hope they shoot him."
"You don't mean it!"
"I do mean it! I have absolutely no patience with cold-blooded animals who use little children. I'd kill him myself if I could."
Yvonne jumped up to help the younger woman to a chair. "You are upset, aren't you. Sit down and I'll bring you some coffee. I'll tell you about a feeling I have."
Madeline waited for the coffee before trusting herself to speak again. "What kind of feeling?"
"Greg won't hurt Tracie. As soon as he's safely away from the road blocks, he'll let her come home."
Madeline experienced real alarm at this. "At her age? We'll never see her again."
"Nonsense. You'll see her by sundown. I'm sure of it."
Madeline stared at her friend. There was uneasiness on Evie's face, but it probably wasn't for Tracie. "Tell me what you're really concerned about."
Yvonne leaned forward, coloring. "How much did you tell them?"
Madeline smiled, although she felt no mirth and even less pity for Evie's fun-loving ways. "About you? Everything."
The redhead gasped. "No! If my name's mentioned, Larry will tear me into little pieces!"
"I told them you were Greg's girlfriend, but I didn't give them your name. Nothing could drag it out of me. Satisfied?"
Yvonne fanned herself in exaggerated relief. "Whew! That's a load off Aunt Evie's shoulders. Yes, I'm satisfied. You're a trooper, honey. But what will you tell Shelby? Won't he ask questions?"
Madeline stopped smiling because the subject was nothing to smile about. Shel would have questions, yes. Tough questions. Like, why did she tumble out of bed in the middle of the night to have a drink with her best friend and her best friend's lover finding out things she wasn't supposed to find out? She might even break under the questioning, although she hoped to convince Shel that his absence was to blame. If she could also produce a live and unmarked Tracie, why, she would have nothing to worry about. "I'll tell him as much of the truth as he can stand to hear."
Yvonne applauded. "Bully for you. Strike a blow for equality, darling. But don't get struck back if you can avoid it." She finished her coffee and put the cup down. "I have to run now. Larry's lunch to fix. He thinks I'm at the supermarket haggling over a cut of beef. Aren't men wonderful?" With a pat on the shoulder, Yvonne started out. "Keep the chin up, lamb chop. Trade's coming home."
Madeline wished she could be sure. She waited until she heard Evie's car turn over, then got up to trade the coffee cup for a gin bottle.
The grim vigil continued throughout the remainder of the morning and into the afternoon. No one from the police station called, nor did Shelby. When the room began to weave a bit, Madeline put the gin bottle away and warmed a frozen pizza, calling it lunch. A news bulletin at one offered scarcely more sustenance:
"The search for suspected kidnapper Greg Gabetree has expanded to include all surrounding states. Gabetree, wanted for questioning in the drug overdose death of his sister one day ago, is missing from his trailer home and is thought to be on his way to California, with or without his four-year-old hostage, Tracie Nash. However, authorities do not rule out the possibility that Gabetree hasn't left the area, that instead he's gone into hiding.
Madeline kicked at a table leg in lieu of screaming. No one with any brains seriously thought that Greg was "still in the area." He was a frightened, panicky boy, and frightened, panicky boys always ran. Given a little luck, he was halfway to the Coast by now. So why couldn't he release Tracie and give her mother back her sanity?
She talked to Lieutenant Hadl again at half-past one. Hadl was soothing, but also evasive. This time he held out less hope, fewer assurances that law enforcement people would find Tracie alive and unharmed. But he promised to do all that was within his power. Madeline kept her opinion of the promise to herself.
At two the telephone rang while she was cleaning the tile work in the basement bathroom. She ran to the nearest extension and picked it up. "Hello?"
"It's me, lady," a familiar voice drawled. "How are things at your end?"
Madeline, stunned, lost her voice for almost five seconds. She recovered it. "You! After what you've done, you have the gall to call here and ask me that?"
"Lady, if you're put out with me, I can understand it. I was in a tight, and guys in a tight do some pretty crazy things."
"Where is she, you monster? Don't you know police in six states are looking for you?" Madeline waited, anxiously, for an answer to her first question.
"I know. Tracie? I put her on a bus an hour ago. Told one of the through passengers I was her father and asked him to look out for her. I think he believed me. You should have her back by nightfall."
Madeline closed her eyes and sent a silent prayer of thanks winging heavenward. "Sent her home from where? How do I know you're telling the truth?" She heard Greg Gabetree's wry laugh, and knew he wasn't about to be so careless so soon.
"Uh-uh, lady. I didn't think you'd go running to Johnny Law, but you did. If I tell you where I am, you'll squeal again. Then where would old Greg be? I can't chance it. Oh, I'm telling the truth all right. The kid's coming home, and there's not a mark on her."
Madeline moistened her lips, wanting to flail out at him for terrifying her, having no means of doing it. She decided to try to keep him talking. Electronic equipment at the dial exchange might remember a call originating from out of town and lasting several minutes. "Greg, listen to me. I-I want you to give yourself up." The sound which came through the telephone earpiece was either a snort, a sob, or a laugh. She couldn't decide which.
"Not a chance. My idiot sis overdosed herself and they'll want to hang it on me. They'll say I gave it to her. Hooked her on it. Christ, it was the other way around! Glo tried to get me started on H, but I wouldn't bite. Okay, so I hustled a little horse. It was mainly to give her a break. On her salary, how could she afford junk? I was never a full-time pusher, I swear to God."
"I believe you, Greg," Madeline said, although she really didn't know who or what to believe. She did know that Greg's fears were justified. If Meriden detectives got their hands on him, they'd get a confession by one means or another. Greg was a strong young man, but strong young men could be broken. "So you'll spend the rest of your life running? That's such a waste."
"Don't worry about me, lady. I can take care of myself. Didn't I give you the-"
"Yes, you gave me the proof," she said hastily, and hoped Hadl's men hadn't tapped her line.
"Your friend Evie. Does she still ... ?"
"I'm sure she thinks about you every time she turns on the radio. I do. Greg, I wish there were something I could do to help you. You need help. Do you have a lawyer?" She thought she heard him sigh.
"No lawyer. I've only sixty-two dollars to my name. If you want to donate, send it to the ACLU. And don't try to have this call traced. I'm in a pay booth and I'm hanging up as of now. Goodbye, lady."
"Greg? Greg?" Madeline realized she was talking into a dead phone, and hung up. But she quickly picked it up again and dialed the local exchange, asking for an engineer in charge of long-distance lines. "I want a complete listing of all calls originating from out of town, lasting for more than four minutes but less than five, occurring within the past seven minutes, and connected person-to-person," she told him. "How soon can you give it to me?"
The engineer whistled. "I'll need everyone in the building and a lot of luck. Who are you, and what is it for?"
She told him, eliciting his cooperation and a pledge to call back as soon as the list was compiled. Madeline sat by the phone and waited, familiar enough with AT&T's formidable technical systems to feel confident. In ten minutes, the engineer called back.
"There were only two calls fitting all your criteria, Mrs. Nash. One was placed from Miami, the other from Dallas. Have we been of help?"
"You have," she assured him, because she knew which was Greg's. Miami was too far away for a bus ride ending at sundown. She thanked the engineer, broke the connection, then relayed her find to Lieutenant Hadl. The latter was silent for a very long time while he digested the information. Whether he was impressed, embarrassed or simply annoyed, Madeline was unable to say.
"I'll notify the state police," he said finally. "They'll pull Tracie off the bus as soon as it crosses the state line-if she's on it."
"Of course she's on it! He said she was on it!"
"I hope you're right, ma'am.'
"Will I have to come to the station again?"
"Not unless there are ... problems."
"Thank you, lieutenant, for all you've done." She hung up, more put off by his professional caution than by the brusque manner.
When the sun was a burnished glow in the west reflecting through a hall mirror, someone rang the bell at the front door. Madeline spent a frantic minute in front of a compact-some of the ravages of the past twenty-four hours were concealable under make-up, most weren't-then went to answer it. She found two uniformed state troopers, and in front of them, her face smeared with ice cream and only God knew what else, a very tired four-year-old. "Tracie!" Madeline, too relieved for tears, dropped to her knees and held out her arms. Tracie, who probably understood little or nothing of what had been going on, ran into them.
"She seems to be in fine shape, ma'am," one of the troopers said. He was younger and less square-jawed than his partner.
"Just tired," agreed the other, who seemed to be in charge. "We relayed her across the state so you'd have her back before dark."
Madeline blinked up at them from around Trade's trembling shoulder. "How can I-oh, you'll have to give me your names, both of you."
She took their names for the sake of civility, thanked them again, and bundled Tracie inside for a bath and a meal. "You'll never know how glad Mommy is to have you back," she confided, and hugged her all the way to the tub. "Just tell me one thing. Did that horrible man try to touch you? Did he hurt you in any way?"
Tracie shook her head, or tried to. "He didn't hurt me. But he talked crazy. He told me-"
"He was crazy, darling. Just try to forget everything he told you. It's all over now."
