Delectable Diane Baylor, the luscious blonde, loves her husband, Ken. To prove it she keeps the home fires burning ... waiting for him. And Ken, a teacher, rushes from school to learn a few lessons about love. Lessons he. is only too willing to teach in turn to every available lovely who winds her wanton way before him. Tessa, the black-haired gypsy librarian ... who entertains Ken in her book-lined apartment to the strains of hi-fi music. Tessa who is perfectly willing to play three-way games when physics professor, Dave Frazer, offers to apply a few new theories. Diane, not to be outdone, proves that two can play the same game as $he rehearses with the brutal animal, Cory, in a secluded motel room. Then the beautiful little virgin, Patti, so very willing to be taught everything by Ken ... in the classroom ... in the nurse's office ... in lover's lane. Anywhere at all. Until the flashbulbs pop and flood the campus with genuine action pictures that mark her as the toy of shame and drag Ken before the school officials for a screaming, raging climax that only Diane can rectify.. . .
CHAPTER ONE
It was nine o'clock of an abnormally warm April night. Wisconsin had been gifted with a swift thaw in the early part of April. The days that had followed were rainless and clear and the spring heat had swiftly built up. So that tonight, as remarkable evidence, the living room windows were ajar and the pane in the front door was open to full width.
Nobody was knocking it. Used to severe weather almost into June, Wisconsinites instead gave thanks for small blessings. And talk about your spring fever.. .
It was especially prevalent in the modest three-bedroom bungalow, number 1147 on Jason Drive. A cozily snug structure set back from the street, it sported a spacious and well manicured lawn. A love nest occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Ken Baylor, 32 and 30 respectively, and their two children Carol and Randy, five and three, it was located in what was commonly thought of as one of Glendon Falls' most respectable neighborhoods. A neighborhood seemingly reserved for "comers" among the city's citizenry.
The children were already asleep, and Diane Baylor, alone at the moment, expecting her husband home within the hour, was busy with certain conniving arrangements. Strictly legal arrangements, but conniving just the same.
Emerging from the bath, luxuriously toweling herself dry as she arched and swiveled her body in obvious self-delight, she hummed a monotonous off-key tune. Her mind, all the while, rushed ahead of her preparations, her thoughts determined and very purposeful indeed.
Naked, actually enjoying her nudity, she set the bathroom to rights wiped the steaming mirror, toweled the tub to glistening dryness. Her soiled clothing went down the clothes chute, she wiped up spatters on the floor.
Diane Baylor was a textbook wife. Her house was always immaculate, despite her interminable round of outside activities. No visitor had ever caught her with beds unmade or dishes undone.
The bathroom tidied, Diane Baylor ran down the hall in playful nakedness and entered her bedroom.
Drawing the blinds, she turned on the lamps then wheeled to face the double paneled mirror doors that fronted their clothes closets. And there, full-length, in living color, reflected from three angles at once, was the ravishing Diane Baylor, the toast of Hollywood, Cannes and New York. The goddess of the age.
She smirked sarcastically, then forced a smile while she examined her body from all directions. By moving the doors she could almost imagine she was in one of the downtown women's shops. Wouldn't Mr. Quillan at The Bon Ton flip over a customer in a creation like this?
It was a game Diane, at her age, should have outgrown by now. She enjoyed it however, would abandon it only when she'd turned into a disgusting, flabby hulk when it would be a painful rather than a pleasurable rite. After all, she mused, a woman's beauty is all she's got. When that's gone who's gonna come knocking at your bedroom door?
It was fun to imagine herself a famous movie star, chanteuse, or some other fabulous public figure, to get a subtly wicked charge out of posing and parading before her mirrors like this.
Now she grimaced. It was time to come down to earth. She ran her hands along her waist, angry at the way they caught small folds of fat there, perturbed at her very whiteness, the way the veins seemed so startlingly blue. Get thee to thy calorie counter. Importune thy sun lamp.
All those luncheons, that blasted kick-off banquet the other night. Why can't I ever learn to shake off the nose bag in time? You're getting fat, baby. Big fat.
But in actuality it was only so much nit-picking. Diane Baylor at thirty was still a gorgeous specimen of voluptuous, swinging womanhood. Standing now as she was, the dim light of her boudoir lamps giving her body enchanting shadows, she was an exquisite, pulse-accelerating female.
Her middle was trim and flat, her legs long and lean. Only small inroads of flabbiness in an unnoticable place, only a mere ripple of flesh at her hip bones. The small excess blended excitingly into her pert, ebullient buttocks, gave them a pulsing, hoyden life of their own. Especially now as she turned, waggled them playfully at her reflection, wrinkling her nose in gamin annoyance.
Diane Baylor was a lovely woman. She was, from all outward appearances, almost as much woman physically as any man could want. She did have failings, but these were concerned with character, not sexual allure. Now she faced the mirror full face again, shook her hair into tomboy disarray and let her eyes turn sultry. Then she let her hands form pedestals for each lush, bursting breast. She even went so far as to tease the nipples with her fingers in the way that drove poor Ken right out of his head. Her mouth became a willful, pagan slash.
Then she caught herself. Hey, she challenged, aren't you putting on your act too soon? This's supposed to be for Ken, remember? Get moving, he'll be home from that faculty meeting any minute now. You wouldn't want him to catch you like this, would you? Or would you?
Quickly she turned away from the mirrors and went to her dresser where her perfumes stood in formidable array. Purposely choosing one of her heavier scents, a musky, arousing perfume Ken particularly liked, she began applying it to her throat and behind her ears. Finally, as daring clincher in case the bull should shy at the last gate she touched the inflaming fragrance to the pouty under swell of each breast, even streaked it sparingly in the glistening valley.
Now the woman went to her dresser drawer and removed a very frilly, very seductive negligee and nightgown. Pale, wispy pink, the garments complimented her fair blondeness perfectly, made her look like a soft, furry little bunny. Innocent, desirable, cuddly.
Wow, Diane mused, taking a last look at herself in the mirror. If I was a man, honey, I'd rape you on the spot.
Now she returned to the bathroom where the light was brighter. She spend the next five minutes redoing her lips and eyes, dusting her face lightly with powder.
Now Diane Baylor went to the kitchen, labored tto build an incendiary pitcher of martinis, her mind busily envisioning the mad, way-out passion the cocktails, would trigger for Ken. And since she'd gone so far as to become instigator, temptress and wanton all in one-how could any of it backfire?
Her husband had definitely been restless lately, make no mistake about that. She could always tell when one of his dissatisfied spells was a building. He hibernated, hid in his work, retreated behind his books, barely said ten words in an evening. Lines of communication all but broke down between them. They might as well have been total strangers, living together, but not really knowing each other, sharing no part of their lives with each other.
She tried to be more receptive to his loving advances, but somehow Ken immediately sensed when she was merely shamming, surrendering not because she wanted to, but because she wanted to please Ken. This was worse than if they hadn't tried at all.
Yet Diane didn't think of herself as a basically cold woman. It was just that ... well ... they'd been married for eight years now, and shouldn't Ken, by now, be getting tired of her? After all, love was the same thing over and over. Sometimes, when those special fires never got ignited within her, his lovemaking was so tedious that she could have screamed.
Also, something Ken rarely took into consideration, she was tired many of those nights. Just plain dead. After all, she was president of the Glendon Falls League of Woman Voters, she was president of St. Claudia's Guild at Church, she was active in Community Concerts. All those things took time. And what with Carol and Randy to chase around ... with their small, restrictive social life ... Then there was Faculty Wives, P.T.A., she'd volunteered as Kindergarten assistant one afternoon a week. Why couldn't Ken see that those things were important too?
Just as important as...
But tonight was going to be different, she resolved, purposely pouring herself a martini and beginning to drink it determinedly. When she was tipsy she could bring authentic passion to the love act. She firmly intended to make this one a night to remember.
And tomorrow Ken would be his happy-go-lucky, whistling self again. He'd be cracking his stupid riddles a mile a minute.
And that-she sighed deeply, feeling the gin go to work on her with eager-beaver glee was what wives are for. To keep their daddies happy. And if that's what daddies liked ... She smiled. I'll give him all I got.
She came into the living room and looked at the clock on the mantel of their colonial-style fireplace. Ten minutes. She giggled. And, Geronimo! The poor sap'll never know what hit him. She drew the drapes, closed the door. Now she arranged herself in a seductive pose on the davenport, sipped her drink, studied her tiny feet, twinkling and pretty in silver bedroom slippers.
After all, she reflected, she was looking out after her own interests. It was a matter of investment in her own future. God knows when Ken'll get the itch to roam. He certainly has opportunity enough. What with all those man hungry old maids at the high school. And from what she heard about teen-age girls nowadays, Ken wasn't safe there either.
She'd heard Melissa Cortland, in one of her vulgar moods, comment once: "The best way to keep your man from wandering is to keep him happy. And, honey, you know there's only one good way, one person qualified to take care of that. Don't let some other floozie beat you out of that chore. Or she'll beat you out of something else besides."
Diane caught herself angrily. There you go again, she charged, putting everything on such a practical, cut and dried basis. Can't you, just for once, do this because you actually want to? Because you actually desire Ken? Do you have to act like a mercenary tramp?
Ken, darling. What a pig in a poke you bought.
But at that moment her angry self-appraisal was interrupted as she heard Ken drive in. Quickly she rose, filled her glass anew, filled one for Ken and set them in a neat line on the cocktail table. Then? propping the pillows behind her back, arranging her legs before her, opening the negligee to the waist so that nothing was concealed through her sheer nightie, she sat back to wait.
"Well," Ken's voice caught, surprise and adoration dominant in it, as he came in through the back door, and entered the living room, "what have we here?"
She opened her arms to him and felt love flower as he came to her side, knelt before her, kissed her. "Welcome home, baby," she said, thinking at the same time, This is how I should always be. I should always feel like this. I should be all excited from wanting and preparing for him.
They kissed again. Now Ken sat back on his haunches, his hands lightly sliding on her legs, his eyes wide with wonder. "Hey, Diane? What's up? What's happening?"
She grinned mischievously. "Nothin yet, Ken. But later, maybe. I can think of a couple things."
"You're lovely," he said. "You don't know how happy you make me when you're like this. But how come?"
"Yours not to reason why," she put a fragrant finger to his lips. "Party night, that's all. Do you like parties?"
"I'm wild about them. Especially with you. Especially this kind of party."
She smiled sultrily. "And how do you know it's going to be that sort of party?"
"This is how I know." Swiftly he was opening the tie of her negligee, he was caressing her breasts, holding them for his trembling lips, alternately as he nibbled them through the silky, gossamer nightgown.
Diane fingered his ears playfully, an attention she knew Ken loved, holding his face to her bosom, recognizing the wild, happy pressure growing for her. Oh, this is going to be one of the good ones, she thought.
Finally, as his lips wet the nylon, she pushed him away. "I made you a drink, dear. You could at least do me the courtesy of...
"Drink," she said with mock severity. "like a good boy. How was the faculty meeting?"
"Meeting, schmeeting. Who cares? The same old jazz. The child oriented curriculum. The child oriented toilet."
"Ken," she wheeled, "you're being vulgar. Don't spoil the mood."
"Sorry." The burning resentment faded slowly. "I didn't mean to. You shouldn't have brought the meeting up. You know how I get every time I think of that dastardly Prather."
"Ke-en. Now stop it. I'm sorry now too."
Ken drained half his martini in one swallow. He arranged himself on the floor beside his wife and made himself comfortable, still looking at her with bright anticipation in his eyes. Now, to supplement his visual adoration, he brought up his free hand to slide in slow circles on Diane's waist. The sensuality of nylon sliding on nylon, nylon sliding on silky flesh sending tremors through him.
"How come, baby?" he said in a choked, lost voice. "You usually act like this's something nasty or something."
"Don't spoil things, Ken. Let's just say today was a nice day and I got spring fever. That I got to missing you." She shivered. "Oooh, Ken, that feels so nice. I love you when you're gentle like this, not impatient..
"I can't exactly say I'm averse to you. either." He rose to refill his glass and give Diane a splash. Then he came to her, rearranged her, sat beside her, took her into his arms. They kissed again. The martini and her burgeoning need made Diane feel very evil all at once. As evidence, she let her tongue snake at Ken's lips. She became aggressor, pushing him back on the davenport, her lips drilling, her small mouth all but submerged at his larger one, an insatiable fever possessing her.
"Baby, baby...." he breathed, his voice passion charged. "I love you, I love you. Especially when you're like this. Mmmmm. I can't get enough of you."
For long minutes the passionate kissing and flood of endearments went on, the need in each of them irrevocably growing to becoming a grinding, cauterizing thing. At first they stopped often to sip the cocktails, but as their urgency rose, threatened to break them, they had less and less time for drinking.
Now they were both trembling uncontrollably. Diane experienced an excitement made all the more glorious for her initiation of and self-sacrifice to this. Ken's hands were everywhere. The negligee was thrown aside, the nightgown had been pulled up around her waist, its bodice geehawed so that Ken's lips could find the raspberries of her breasts.
Diane thrashed and clutched him, whimpering, "Turn out the lights, Ken. Get undressed. Please. Don't torture me like this."
But he, in a primitive trance, ignored her. Instead he further arranged her on the davenport, flat on her back. He leaned over her, his lips attending her in one place, his hands ministering in another, until Diane was demanding nonstop, her breasts heaving from her frantic panting, her lips spewing prolonged wails of delight.
She froze as Ken's lips went to her breast, began to trace tickly, maddening circles there. "Ken, Ken," she chanted. "You're wonderful. You're driving me crazy. Please, in the bedroom. Undress and take care of me."
"Not yet, not yet," he pleaded. "Let me enjoy you a little longer. It's so seldom I get you like this...."
A searing thunderbolt whipped her spine, left her totally helpless, delirious to have the worshipful love-making go on and on. Forever and ever ij Ken wanted. Her head thrashed on the cushions. "Enjoy them, damn you," she seethed. "Enjoy, enjoy..."
His lips moved faster, his hands became bolder, more inquisitive. She felt his fingers touch her. She brought her hands up and twisted them in his hair. Frenzied, she wanted her nightie off in the worst way. "Please, please," she begged, "take off this rag. Before I rip it off myself. Oh, darling, take me to bed."
But he was stubborn. "No, Diane. Not yet, not yet."
She fell back, surrendered to the sensations that invaded her, dripped like molten lead. The things his fingers were doing now! The way his lips were nipping her, the way his hands swirled and pressed!
Suddenly Diane could stand no more. Beside herself with frenzy, the alcohol delivering her to new heights of rapture, she fought Ken away and struggled from the davenport. She teetered in the middle of the room, wrenched the nightie over her head. "If you won't help...."
Now the libertine fires raged more savagely. Wanting to make good her vow to make this a night to remember, she backed away from Ken as he was coming toward her on his knees. Arching her body in a wanton pose, she fell against the rough fireplace. Her hands bracketing her bosom, her fingers flicking her hard nipples, she watched the exhibition take effect on Ken.
He stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes wide and glazed. "You witch," he rasped, "you teasing witch. You do want me, don't you? Hell, this is going to be our wedding night all over." He reached for his martini, drained it in a single swallow and poured the remaining mixture into his glass. This went down too. "Might as well go out in a blaze of glory."
He was approaching her again. "Let me, Diane," he grated. "Let me do that for you."
When he reached her, still on his knees, Diane smiled dreamily. She leaned forward and unloaded her breasts into his waiting hands. He straightened, stretched his neck, insane longing in his eyes. And Diane couldn't resist him. Her knees felt rubbery! She leaned and fed her burning, pained nipples to his waiting lips each in turn. Gasped hollowly at the magnificent fire ignited in each.
Until finally, unable to stand a single second more of that, she broke from Ken, wheeled, went to turn out the lamps. "Hurry, Ken," her voice called from the blackness, going away, "in the bedroom. I can't wait any more."
The man floundered up from the floor and kicked off his shoes. He tore at his buttons as he ran. Diane was on the already opened bed. A triumphant giggle escaped her.
"No!" she protested as Ken moved to kiss her breasts again. "There isn't time. I only want one thing. I ... want ... you. Now, nowl"
He chuckled in the darkness, touched his knee to hers. Diane wanted to scream from the anticipation. He was taking so long, so long ... Her hands brazenly went in search of him, closed and tore.
"I want you," she moaned. "I want you...."
Again he chuckled, moved his body.
"Oh!" she cried.
"Hold me," he sighed. "like that. Just lie still, hold me. Damn, I can't describe how good you are. You're just marvelous, that's all."
"Love me, love me. I've been waiting for this all night."
And momentarily Diane was frozen by the impact of her words. That's the truth, she realized. For once, for the first time in such a long, long time ... I actually desire my husband. I want him so bad I'll go out of my head if he doesn't start soon. Her hands clawed his back.
"Please, darling," she choked. "Don't just lay there. Love me. Give, give . .
Her exhortations were effective for now he was launching her into a dark infinity of sensation. "Oh, oh ... Ken, you sweet lover."
Diane caught herself, couldn't decide whether to laugh or shriek at his onslaught. He was so right, so right. Who, she goaded herself, was supposed to get the benefit of all this? Who was I worried about getting spring fever, acquiring a roving eye?
She forgot her acid questions then, in juggernaut search of infinity.
CHAPTER TWO
Holcomb High School was, so far as high schools go, not much of a plant. It was a two-towered, three-storied, rambling structure capable of housing roughly 2000 pupils. A building badly in need of renovation (condemnation was a better word), poorly lighted and ventilated, it presented a quaint stone exterior to the outside world, a dingy, cracked plaster interior to its inmates.
But there was a commendable difference between it and so many of its counterparts up and down the Eagle River Valley (be they spanking new or equally decrepit) in that it was not a hotbed of juvenile delinquency. Glendon Falls, population 33,000, was a city blessed with an intelligent and alert police force. Its parents were, for the most part, conscientious about the way they brought their kids up. The faculty at Holcomb was made up of experienced, battle-scarred veterans who knew how to deal with troublemakers from the start, how to nip pranks before they became full scale incidents.
Which is not to say that Holcomb High didn't have its hard core dissidents or that it had no troublemakers at all. This was 1963 after all. Holcomb High was of the world, it existed in no Utopian never-never land.
It was one of these fledgling renegades with whom Ken Baylor was concerned this gloomy Tuesday afternoon the balmy spring-like weather having departed just this A.M. at 10:21 sharp a senior class boy named Vic Richardi. His concern was, of necessity, cursory. It wasn't the first, nor would it be the last time Richardi had caused a ruckus during one of Baylor's classes.
There was another thing, much more important, lurking in the back of his mind. A thing that he'd been forced to put off, to give full attention to when there was enough time to explore its full ramifications. A little number called Diane Baylor.
Tuesday A.M. was Ken Baylor's full morning. He was scheduled for English and social studies classes straight through, with no break except for passing of classes. And those three minute periods were hardly conducive to logical thought, to puzzling out the incredible thing that had happened between him and his wife last night.
Vic Richardi was not really a jailbait type. He was simply stated, a product of an over-indulgent home. Pampered, willful, possessed of too much spending money, he'd never been forced to conform. His father ran one of the city's largest used car lots. Vic had been victim of a slipshod, too fast upbringing. The worst thing that would ever happen to Vic was that he'd one day wind up one of the fast cars his father constantly put at his disposal and wrap it around a convenient telephone post. And that would be the end of that.
But until then Vic Richardi was still in the daytime custody of the Holcomb faculty. He was still obliged to do as they told him, not as he wished. Which was what the flare-up in English III-B had pivoted upon this morning. Baylor had been conducting a test on latter day English poets. He had looked up at the wrong time and caught Vic Richardi cockily copying answers from Patti Conte's test paper. Of course when Baylor called him on it, Richardi contemptuously denied it.
Not about to be bluffed out, Ken had taken both papers and compared them. Patti was wrong on three identical items with Richardi, right on thirteen others. It definitely wasn't mere coincidence, and then and there Baylor had confiscated Richardi's test paper, ejecting him from the room when he'd begun to mouth off.
From whence he'd gone to the office and been given five hours detention. Principal Prather, in his frightened-quail deference to the Richardi influence in Glendon Falls, gave mealy-mouthed permission for Vic to' take a second crack at the test a week hence.
The sum effect was to grant Vic a reprieve from death. The detention at least, would keep him out of his high-speed car for those five hours anyway. The test, of course, would be a total loss. Richardi had never been known as a student. He wasn't about to start now. Had it been left to Ken Baylor he'd have flunked the boy outright. As it was, Mr. Prather's decision only undercut him, caused him to lose face in the eyes of his pupils.
Now, sitting in his empty classroom supposedly checking the tests, he had Patti Conte's paper before him. He was reminded of her agitation. The second-hand involvement had shaken her, and she'd done poorly on the rest of the quiz. But would Patti be allowed to retake the test? Hardly.
He recalled the panic and consternation that had spread over that fragile face, the way she'd borrowed guilt herself. He envisioned the disturbing way she'd looked at him afterward, her eyes dark and wide, her breathing too fast, causing her prematurely ripe breasts to seemingly swell and collapse beneath her tight sweater. A sight not at all hard to take, considering the dusky brunette's other devastating charms-her lovely, pouty lips, her sensitive, round eyes, the latent sexuality in her carriage and temptress walk.
Abruptly, cursing himself for his addled (and slightly licentious) thoughts, Baylor turned away from the tests and feathered his high-powered musings. Pulling out a desk drawer, he propped his feet on it and sat back in his chair. Clasping his hands behind his head, staring out the window, he trotted out the most disturbing considerations of all.
A wracking tremor went through him. Diane. What in hell had got into her last night?
He couldn't remember when she'd last thrown herself into the love act with such passionate abandon. That was certainly something for Diane. Her lack of bedroom ardor had been a choking bone of contention between them for years now. Mostly she approached the love side of marriage with a barely disguised sense of duty. It was a chore, a debt she owed her husband that she would obediently pay, no matter how meaningless and repugnant it might be to her.
It was a bitter blow for Ken Baylor that, perhaps a year or so after their wedding day, the spontaneous, wild spark of passion had gone out of their marriage. A blow to his male ego, a reflection on his very sensitivity. For Baylor was not a repulsive man by any stretch of the imagination. At 32 he was still holding his weight in check, his hair and teeth were original equipment, he stood five-ten, had a nice smile, an open, agreeable even handsome face.
Indeed, during his six years of teaching there'd been more than one occasion when he might easily have drifted into an affair with any number of females on the different faculties he'd served upon. Also there'd been different women among Diane's club friends who'd gone out of their way to let him know that if he'd just make the first move ... This, not to mention the dozens of school girls who'd developed adolescent crushes on him, without bothering to conceal the fact from him.
All of which Ken had studiously avoided. He wasn't interested in extra-marital intrigues; he'd courted and won Diane and was deeply in love with her. To cheat on her would have been sacrilege of the worst sort. He was happy with his wife and children. He wanted nothing to upset the smooth course of his life.
But here was where things rankled. Often when he thought of the sure chances for dalliance he'd passed up, he became seriously disturbed. His male ego smarting at the latest demonstration of indifference from Diane, he wondered why he remained so loyal and continent. If she really didn't want him, what was the harm in playing the field? For all he knew she'd be pleased to know that someone else was taking care of something that was basically unpleasant for her.
Ken Baylor was the kind of man who desperately needed to confer and receive love. Thus he'd been so happy during the first years of their marriage. It had seemed he and Diane had lived in a paradise, gorging themselves on open, uninhibited lovemaking, reaffirming their love in countless ways otherwise. He'd foolishly believed that the rapture of those days would go on forever.
At any rate, longer than two years.
Another disappointment: Ken had come to his wife, at 24, incredible as it may sound, a virgin. They had traded their virginity to each other. It had been a thing with him. If he expected virginity from the woman he married, then was he no less duty-bound to bring his own. And during fraternity-college days, there had been temptations aplenty. But somehow, with hardheaded resoluteness, he'd resisted.
There'd been initial reward, as he and Diane had discovered the joys of physical love together, both of them groping, adjusting, testing, doing their level best to please their mate, honoring the other's dignity and modesty. At first Diane had been timid, uncertain, somewhat prudish. But in time, exercising restraint and patience, he had, little by little indoctrinated her into the real freedom of love, had led her into acceptance of purely carnal joy and sharing.
Reliving those days in reverie now, Baylor felt a clutching pang of sadness. He felt that a very important something had gone out of his life. It seemed they'd both been sleep walking through their marriage since Carol had been born, merely going through the motions.
Their idyllic relationship had changed, seemingly, overnight. Diane had become overly involved with bringing up the baby. Then when Randy had been conceived that had been the absolute end. During that pregnancy Diane had openly declared her distaste for the love act, had twitted him, asked if he wasn't ever going to get tired of her.
He hadn't approached her after that, for four weeks.
He attempted excusing Diane, his love still as strong as ever, blaming her indifference on the fact that she was up to her ears in raising the children. Once they were out of diapers she'd be her old self again.
But he'd deluded himself. As the years passed and she regained none of her former warmth and avidity, he'd become somewhat resigned. Still he'd felt somehow cheated, as if marriage's bright promise had never been fully realized.
Then when Diane had entered the clubwoman stage, the bitterness had mounted. He'd even turned somewhat brutal in his lovemaking.
He'd sold out his masculinity, he'd resisted temptation upon temptation, he'd been so sickeningly faithful, for this?
Eight years of a sterile, sham marriage. Ken Baylor bristled now, adjusting his position in his chair. Damn, how emasculated can some men get?
Needless to say there'd been thoughts of other women. Why not, when there'd been so many instances when attractive females had all but thrown themselves at him? Countless times he cursed himself for a hick boob. He found himself wondering what love might be like with a woman other than Diane. What tricks could they teach him, to what different stratas of sensation could they transport him?
Though, God knows, few women could be better than Diane was last night. Not and have their love partner alive when dawn showed its ugly face again.
But, on the other hand, how many times during their marriage had Diane let herself go like that? And last night's relapse (he couldn't account for her actions any other way) most-likely wouldn't occur again.
Would he have to wait another five years?
The most baffling thing about the whole episode was the fact that Ken had admittedly grown restless these past few months. He had been looking at other women with more than passing interest. Sex fantasies about this female faculty member and that, about some of Diane's club-women friends had become overly prevalent.
And then Diane had come along with last night's magnificent display of wanton love. What was a man supposed to think?
He attributed the sudden burst of sexuality to the lovely weather yesterday, to spring fever. That and the fact that Diane had deliberately and uncharacteristically drunk herself into a state last night. That kind of love he could do without. How was a guy supposed to feel about his wife getting herself drunk before she could respond to his romantic overtures?
Damn, damn, he raged, straightening, digging his knuckles into his closed eyes, but I'm all mixed up. Where's all this leading? Where will it eventually end?
Now, jarringly, Baylor's galling introspections were interrupted, as the bell announcing the close of the two o'clock classes rang loudly. Slowly, feeling for the moment like an old, old man, Baylor rose and went into the hall for his three minute stint of monitor duty.
A quartet of sophomore boys were hot-footing it down the hall when he stepped out. One look in his direction and they smirkingly slowed to a stiff walk. A few seconds later the hall was swarming with students. And for the hundredth time during the past month or so, Ken found himself wondering what ever happened to the old fashioned school girls? Did they all have to grow up so fast, affect the manner of experienced street walkers?
Still, he was forced to admit grudgingly, some of them were very beautifully put out. They stirred him more than they should have.
Now he saw the new library assistant. Miss Tessa Vareese, approaching, her high heels clacking on the tiled floor. As usual she was faultlessly dressed, her clothing immaculate, chic, and somehow too tight, daringly showing off all her very exciting physical attributes. She was perhaps 23, a black-haired creature with understated coiffure cropped close to her small, finely chiseled head. It was a shame she wasn't prettier. Her mouth was much too large, her chin too thin A strange composite of features that made her eyes and forehead look somewhat massive.
Yet it was a provoking, interesting face, glowing with an almost gypsy mystery and darkness. Ken was sure she'd be a fascinating person to know better. She was almost upon him. He could see the bounce and flow of her sharp, high breasts better. He wondered if, should he be interested ... would she...?
"Good afternoon, Ken," she smiled breezily, coming abreast. Then referring to the weather change: "Where have all the flowers went?"
Now she was clattering past. Baylor's eyes were on strings, involuntarily watching the grinding battle going on inside that tight little skirt.
"Quite a dish, huh?" a voice jerked him back to propriety.
Ken laughed as he turned to face the school hound, Dave Frazer. Physics and chemistry. A ruddy-faced, bulky man, slightly over six feet tall, handsome in a rakish, supremely confident way, Frazer could have a woman almost as easily as snapping his fingers. "Girls," Ken said. "Is that all you think of. Dave?"
"Sure," Frazer chuckled heartily. "What do you think about, boys?"
"I think about my wife."
"Brother, you are in a bad way, aren't you?"
"I'm not complaining."
"You're lying," Frazer said matter-of-factly.
"No," Ken said. "Not this time."
"Well, that's a first then. You been walking around like a zombie the past few weeks. I can tell a man who's hurting. Just the same way I can tell a woman. And that Tessa Vareese is really clawing the walls."
"Come off it, Dave. She's just a kid. Some of the old maids in this funny farm, maybe, but not Tessa. She's only twenty-four. She's being taken care of."
"Is she? Since when's age got a damned thing to do with the price of things? That girl's got the yen, I tell you."
"So? Why haven't you scored?"
"That's a good question. Lord knows I've tried. But she gives me the brush. She doesn't dig real virile types I guess. Goes for the arty, limp-wristed jerks. She gave me a freeze to chill beer by. And speaking of beer...."
"Who was?"
"How about you and me going out one of these nights? Getting tanked up good? I know some girls...."
"I gathered as much."
"I took Rose Linton out last night. You know, the art teacher. Talk about great love scenes ... She's got a friend who isn't fussy. How about that?"
"No, thanks, pal. I'm a married man, remember?"
"Don't let a technicality like that hold you back. like I said, the doll won't care." Now the tardy bell rang, and Frazer started across the hall. "Back to the animals" he grumbled. "Man," he' harked back to his favorite subject, "I'll bet that Vareese witch puts out a real mean one. What I wouldn't give to get her pretty pink panties off. See you."
Baylor turned back into his empty room for his second free period. Sitting at his desk again, trying to concentrate on test papers, Dave Frazer's parting remark haunted him.
Until, strangely enough, even after Diane's definitive going over last night, he found himself thinking along identical lines. He wouldn't mind getting under that tight, pencil-slim skirt himself.
CHAPTER THREE
The next few days passed without incident. A curious stalemate was in force between Ken and Diana at home; there was the usual thought-blitzing flurry of activity at school. The night after the passionate typhoon between him and his wife he'd pressed for an encore. But Diana had shrugged him off, sent him a withering smile, said, "Really, Ken, I thought I took care of you for awhile. You're being greedy. Don't you know that's better for waiting?"
The old bitterness had been instantly rekindled.
"Damn," he snapped, "you act like it was some kind of reward you're handing out." He mocked her: " 'You've been such a good little boy lately, Kenny, I think I'll give you some tonight.' "
"Now stop," Diane had shot back, her eyes narrowing to hateful slits. "You know I don't like that kind of talk."
"Damn," he'd persisted, "What is wrong with you? I don't understand you at all. You treat me like some kind of stranger for months on end, and then for once in your life you really let loose. And that's the end all of a sudden." His voice softened. "You were so wonderful, darling. Can you blame me for wanting more of you? We were just like honeymooners again. Please, Diane...."
"I don't understand myself either, Ken. I've tried, but I can't. But I do know that's something I just can't bring up on command." She'd twisted away. "And also I know I don't enjoy post-mortems. Love is something you do, not talk about. If you could understand how you rile a woman when you men start to talking, talk-mg.. .
She'd got up from the davenport then, leaving Ken to his choking frustration while she got ready for bed.
Ken had sat watching TV for fifteen minutes more. He'd gone to their silent bedroom, undressed in the dark. He hadn't spoken to her or kissed her good night.
Neither had he slept very well.
Often, during those puzzling days, driven by remembrance of Diane's wanton relapse, he harked back to Dave Frazer's offer to fix him up with a "date". He found his mind invaded by thoughts of Tessa Vareese, even of Patti Conte. It was as if the wild session with his wife had reminded him of something long forgotten, had piqued his curiosity as to what varieties of emotion and sensation other women might be able to confer.
He watched Miss Vareese sway past his door with more intense concentration, his eyes all but mentally undressing her; he leaped upon every possible chance to draw out their brief, insolent conversations.
Damn you, Dave, he blamed. You started all this. You and your eternal love chatter.
There had been much salacious conjecture among the men on the Holcomb faculty about the nicely endowed newcomer. Many besides Dave Frazer had made a pitch and gotten nowhere. She dated, she was charming company. But as far as getting inside that apartment of hers, getting more than the warm, friendly handshake ... Yet they were all certain she was walking a tightrope. That one of these days someone would get to her. And that would be the last anyone would ever see of the unfortunate devil. All that would be found afterward would be charred cinders.
Which was all so much chin-rattle so far as Ken Baylor was concerned. The guys were making entirely too much of her caged sexuality, out of her bedroom inspired body out of her supposed inapproachability Tessa Vareese just wasn't that beautiful or that aloof a woman.
Again he wondered: If I were to become interested, do you suppose Tessa would become interested, too?
Where all others had failed, had come away skunked.. . .
Man the eternal optimist. And dreamer.
On Friday of that week, at four-fifteen, as he went into the school library to put reserves on a whole list of texts for a new history unit kicking off on Monday, he received partial, if inconclusive answer to his speculations. Miss Milly Bronson, the venerable and withered library head not being available, it fell on Tessa Vareese to attend him.
She was especially attractive that afternoon dressed in a white chiffon blouse, a cute vest and hip-cinching skirt, her shoes black kid, witchy, sharp-toed things. The late afternoon sun made her lips glisten, gave her eyes an especially provocative luminance.
"This book," she said, "Winston's History of The American West ... I'm not sure just which you mean. There are different editions, you know. Maybe you'd better come back in the stacks and check, for yourself." Prettily she lifted the gate to beckon him behind the long counter.
Baylor couldn't help but notice the perfume she wore. It was potent, inflaming stuff. He stood behind her as she stretched for a clutch of books; he saw the way her blouse all but split at the pressure of her taut, bursting breasts. Immediately uncontrollable things happened to him. He was seized by the most maddening impulse to snake his hand around her, to clamp both of those beautiful globes, to roll and squeeze them.
He fought the desire as he forced his eyes away. Still he was shaken. That perfume, that luscious body, the way we're all alone back here. Give me strength.
He attributed his feeling to the fact that it'd been a long week, that he was tired. When people get to the end of a day they're not responsible for the fantasies that hit them, that seem so real, so unquestionably possible.
"Here, Ken," she said softly, her eyes round, so liquid, a strange wistfulness in them, "look these over. I know some of the teachers here get sore if their kids don't get the exact book."
He barely glanced at the three volumes. "Put them all out. The course of study is pretty general. Any of them'll give them what they need."
How could he concentrate on musty books at a time like this? For wasn't it true that Tessa stood too close, her body half turned, almost as if inviting him to reach under her arms, cup and press those ripe melons? That her soft, electrifying touch lingered too long on his hand as she took the books back?
But if this were true, she was giving Baylor no chance to pursue his heady daydream any further. She wheeled and started out of the gloomy stacks. Putting the books under the counter, she smiled as she averted her gaze suddenly for no good reason. "That's the only question I have. I'll get the rest of these out later. They'll be ready on Monday."
"Well," he stammered, not wanting to leave, "I guess that's all. You run a mighty efficient library here, ma'am."
She was perkily confident again. "We aim to please." She shot an overly noisy student at one of the tables a warning glance. "Oh, by the way, have you checked the schedule for the music tournament yet? We're on together in the string section."
Baylor's heart leaped. "No kidding? How come the library staff gets rung in on a thing like that?"
"The library staff doesn't. But I do. I'm only here a year, remember? We peons have no rights at all."
"That's a tough break."
"It's not so bad. Strings I like. Even butchered strings like we'll hear tomorrow. You like music?"
"Yeah. But I don't know an awful lot about it."
"Stick with me," she mimed roguishly, "I'll teach you all I know."
"I'll do that little thing." And feeling like he'd been granted a reprieve of sorts, Ken sent a last smile back to Tessa. "See you," he called back.
He wondered why his pulse rate was up so alarmingly.
The music competition drew on ten neighboring schools from the Eagle River Valley, bringing in a large flow of students, casual observers and solicitous parents. It was just another of the many extra duties the harried American schoolteacher gets saddled with. After all, some one had to be on hand to keep order, to give directions, to marshal contestants. And so: Ken Baylor and Tessa Vareese.
The semi-finalists were on in the afternoon, the finalists were to gather at eight o'clock in the evening. The long leisurely day in which Baylor was going to talk to Tessa at length, get to know her better, never quite materialized. It seemed that one or the other, was constantly on the run, corralling lost contestants, carrying messages, directing equally lost judges and parents.
It wasn't until the evening competitions that things finally calmed down enough for them to really talk. Then, standing outside the classroom-converted-into-recital-hall, talking in muffled earnestness, Ken found that Tess did know a lot about music. About literature and the theater as well, the latter especially gratifying, as they were Ken's favorite topics of conversation.
He found time slipping away too quickly, wished that the competitions would last much, much longer. He dreaded the time when he'd be forced to say good night to Tessa. Then, almost before he knew how it had come about, he found himself blurting: "This's all so interesting, Tessa. I do enjoy talking to you. I wonder ... you won't think me forward I hope ... would you care to stop some place afterward? For a sandwich? Maybe couple of drinks?" He cloaked his invitation in humor "You are old enough to drink, aren't you?"
"Flatterer," she grinned kittenishly. "It's my favorite pastime." Her glance became teasing. "But I don't know whether I'd better. You are a married man, after all. If anyone saw us..."
"A drink," he said, an edge forming on his voice, "I didn't say anything about seducing you."
"My, you certainly don't mince words, do you?"
"Well, I just don't want you getting any wrong ideas."
Now that the words were out, Ken Baylor was more than a little abashed. Damn, who's this asking a woman other than my wife out? What'n hell's getting into you?
Yet he sensed a subtle bit of challenge. Wouldn't it be a laugh if she accepted? If something happened? Wouldn't I have one up on those other guys? Fear clutched him. But she won't accept. She can't.
But couldn't she? "All right, Ken," she replied gravely. "I've enjoyed this very much also. You're really a very interesting person. I'll be glad to join you. If you find a nice quiet place somewhere. Out of the way, where nobody'll know us."
"Yeah," Ken said weakly, the steam suddenly taken out of him, fear of scandal suddenly ignited within him. "I know a place about four miles out. Tony's Hideaway it's called." There was no backing out now.
"Sounds perfect. Maybe we could even dance a little. I haven't danced in ages. You like to dance, don't you?"
"Yeah," he gulped again. "I like dancing fine."
At first their conversation was strained, uneven. Huddled in a murky booth in the nethermost region of Tony's Hideaway, they sipped their drinks (Ken took Scotch, Tessa chose a Manhattan) with almost frenzied determination. Waiting impatiently for alcohol to free them from these initial inhibitions.
It was ten o'clock of a very noisy Saturday night, and there was some small comfort in the fact that the party crowd at Tony's, jammed into the subterranean gloom as they were, weren't about to notice anything or anybody. Gradually they both calmed down, laughed and joked more freely. A second drink consumed, a feeling of long established rapport and camaraderie growing between them, Ken felt no qualms at all about reaching across the table to take Tessa's soft hand, stroking it lightly.
The talk kept coming; delightful, revealing, filling them with an incredible ease. Tessa switched to whiskey and sour on the third round, her laughter very charming now.
Suddenly she rose, stood at the end of their table. "You said you'd dance with me, Ken," she said, "I've been waiting for you to ask. But since you aren't getting around to it...."
"Sorry," he said, rising quickly, feeling a quick stab of joy in his heart. She was such a sweet, playful thing. Kiddish almost. Yellow Bird was flooding the crowded room. He gathered Tessa into his arms, finding nothing at all strange in the way she pressed her body close, fitted against his. Her hand came up behind his head to pressure his neck; her silky cheek was pressed to his.
"Mmmmmm," was all she said.
She danced beautifully, following him with light, perfect grace, anticipating his every movement. He didn't like to admit it but she followed him even better than Diane; she made him look better than he actually was.
They danced wordlessly. Ken letting his enjoyment of her dancing flow out into his hands, manifest itself in the way he drew her body even closer to his own. Until they were plastered together, moving as one, her body tight to his.
This was an intimacy she didn't seem to mind at all. If a woman was going to dance with a man, her unstated philosophy was clairvoyantly made known, what an utter waste not to dance close. Her hand tightened on his neck, he could feel her fast breathing in his ear.
All too soon Yellow Bird was over. And, as if they'd been this intimate for years, they clung to each other in the log-jam of dancers, waiting for the next tune. "I hope this's a slow one," Tessa breathed.
It was. When Sunny Gets Blue. As the close, pulse-quickening dancing went on, Ken was almost amused at how easily things were happening. In reality it was more shock and dismay than amusement. And when he held her even closer he was speared by further astonishment as he felt Tessa twist her breasts into him.
That couldn't be. Now he was imagining things.
"Oh, Ken," she sighed happily. "I'm glad you asked me out tonight. I'm having a ball. A gold-plated ball."
They danced four more dances, had one more drink.
It was midnight when they left Tony's Hideaway.
Tessa lived in a neighborhood completely alien to Ken Baylor. Killing the engine and dousing the lights he knew he was safe here. Nobody would recognize his car. Turning toward the smiling, relaxed woman, he wondered whether, on the strength of what had transpired at the night club, he dared try to kiss her. Or was this, as all her other suitors had said, warm handshake time?
"You'll come up, won't you, Ken?" she asked abruptly her voice husky, sleepy. "I'll give you one for the road."
He scarcely dared believe his ears. "You're sure that'll be all right? What about your roommate?"
"There is no roommate." She caught his hand.
"C'mon."
Her apartment was on the second floor. Gallantly Ken took her key, opened her door for her.
She went before him, made no move whatsoever to turn on any lights. With an indolent kick she closed the door. Then she sighed as she slid herself into his arms. "Kiss me, Ken," she said sultrily, her breathing very fast now. "Kiss me. like I've wanted you to kiss me all night long."
CHAPTER FOUR
Baylor's heart leaped, to lodge high in his throat. Convulsively his hands tightened on her back, stilled her devilish body. Hell, he raged, this can't be happening. Not just like this..."Tessa..." he breathed hoarsely, "you mean..."
"Please, please, Ken." And her lips came coursing along his face, trembling, searching for his in the darkness.
Then his mouth went on a search of its own, closed on hers. Someone was banging a garbage can cover with a stick somewhere in the back of his brain.
Her lips were scorching the vampire scent she wore maddened him, sent him spiraling down into a violent vortex of supercharged lust. There was no more time for pondering, no time to try to tidy the tinder-stick confusion in his brain. He wanted only to hold her like this, to feel her tremble against him, to kiss and later if...
Her tongue swept forth, flickered along his lips, and Tessa's body went crazy against his. When his hands slid down her silken back, clutched her buttocks, pulling her even more tightly to him, she moaned deep in her throat.
Finally, Ken's hands became less punishing, they ceased clutching, began to caress, to slide the silk of her slip and skirt against the tight bound prominences of her bottom.
Tessa's lips were buried in his throat now, sliding, nipping, leaving a trail of fire on his flesh. "Oh, Oh, oh..." she intoned steadily. "Oh, Ken..."
Now the staccato breathing, the animal cries died abruptly, and the woman was determinedly wresting herself from him. "No," he pleaded, "stay..." But she wasn't listening. He felt alone, deserted, as she swept away.
Then he squinted against the muted, yet painful light, looked over to see Tessa, her body rigid, her eyes still, standing ten feet away, her hand balancing on the lamp switch.
"Damn" her voice broke, "I didn't mean for things to happen like that. I wanted to wait, Ken, honestly I did. But when you were near Eke that ... I just couldn't."
He started toward her, his intent plain. "No," she warned him away. "Don't, Ken. You came up here for a nightcap, remember?" She touched her hair, whirled away, turned toward the tiny kitchen. "You want Scotch again?"
"Yes," he breathed. "So long's you're turning things off all of a sudden. I really don't need another drink."
"That's what you think. And who said I was turning things off?" Then she was gone, he heard the tinkle of ice in glasses, the sound of bottles being opened.
It gave him time to survey the small efficiency apartment, which was all that her place was. A living room, bedroom, kitchen, and somewhere he was sure a miniature bath. It was the usual, modern, furnished apartment, sporting the usual feminine touches. But there was one place where Tessa had transformed the lackluster surroundings, making them uniquely hers in the banks of bookcases, lining half of one wall, jammed solid, overflowing with books, magazines, paperbacks, pamphlets, prints. In one corner stood an elaborate, portable stereo rig with records in piles beside it, others scattered carelessly on the carpet. There were, Baylor assessed, at least 1500 albums there, most of them classical, the rest show music.
"My God," he called. "You been pilfering the library? And all these records?"
"My only vice," she called, appearing suddenly, a squat, liquor-dark glass in each hand. "I bought 'em, every one. I've always had a thing about books. Seems I can't get enough of them. The same with the records."
She went to the small folding table before the davenport, to deposit the two glasses. Then she advanced on the record player. "What would you like? I'm a nut on the impressionists. Debussy, Richard Strauss, Delius. And I'm nuts about Prokofief and Elgar. Anything there ring a bell?"
Ken chose to be facetious. "How about Peter and the Wolf?"
"You nut. I'll play you some real Prokofief, though. Ever heard his Romeo and Juliet Suite? That'll have you crying in your beer. Now where'd I put that record?"
Moments later the plaintive, eerie strains of the Prokofief filled the small room. And though Ken wasn't familiar with the selection, he liked it immediately. The music seemed fitting background to the very unreality of the situation at hand.
"Sit down," Tessa said, patting the davenport beside her. "Here, where you're handy. Wow, talk about things getting off to a flying start."
"You really expect me to just sit here and drink, listen to music? After what we just...."
She laughed. "No, not really. You'll revert to type in a sec, I'm sure. And if you don't...." Her eyes gleamed with demoniac mischief.
Ken sucked at his drink avidly, gasped slightly. "Holy cow! What'd you put in there? That's straight Scotch."
"So?" she said archly. "What'd you expect? Milk and graham crackers?"
"You weren't kidding when you said one for the road."
"Maybe I hoped you wouldn't go. Tomorrow's Sunday. I'm always so lonesome on Sundays. Mornings especially."
"Quit it, Tessa. I'm a married man. You know that."
She took a hefty drag at her drink. "Damn, isn't that just my luck. Of all the guys I have to fall for, it has to be some jerk of a married man."
"Knock that off, Tessa. Don't be sarcastic. Not after that thing we just had..."
Her voice softened, her face crumpled into something tired and defenseless. "Who's being sarcastic?" she said. "You think this was just coincidence? You think I haul every man I meet up here?"
"No, but...."
"Skip it. If you have to have pictures drawn for you..."
A debilitating shudder careened down Baylor's spine. He could hardly believe his ears. Tessa? She'd planned this? She'd wanted him? The glass came up again. He drank greedily.
And more to regain his equilibrium than anything else he changed the subject, sought safer, more mundane stamping grounds. "How come you don't have a roomie? I'd think you'd go stir crazy alone like this. What about expenses? If anyone knows teachers' pay is pitiful, I do."
"Maybe I don't want any magpie roommate. Some empty-headed Jane who hasn't got sense enough to be quiet when I'm trying to read, who hasn't got sense enough to shut her face when I'm listening to some music"
"Oh. Sorry."
"I didn't mean you, Ken. I want you to talk. Lord knows, I want to talk. But there are times when I get so sick of the stupidity that surrounds me. I feel like I'm going to drown in a sea of stupidity. like it's caving in my eyes, suffocating me."
She paused, looked at her glass intently. "I honestly think we'd have something to say to each other. And..." she sighed. "There are other ways of communication."
She was trembling; Ken felt that through the davenport cushions. He drained his glass and went to her. He had but to put his arm around her and she collapsed against him just as a phalanx of glittering sound from the hi-fi shattered and crumpled around them.
Their lips were sealed together once more, Tessa's body was yearning toward his. Their arms locked and strained, each unable to get close enough to the other. The kiss was exquisite and tempestuous at the same time, again routing reason, denying reality. All that existed now was this tactile involvement, its promise and expectation.
Once more Tessa's lips, painted a luminous pink, closed hungrily on his, her tongue sought his. Her eyes were closed, and opening his, Baylor saw the iridescent whitish-blue eye liner close up, he saw the blackness of her lashes. And thought how lovely, how unconventional this face was.
Beauty has countless manifestations.
Again his throat pained him, and he strained to get even closer to the woman, wanting to pray that he'd never wake up from this wonderful dream. He didn't want to go back to the world, he didn't want to go back to a passionless marriage once more. Not yet anyway.
Not until he'd had this woman. Completely and transfiguringly. That was going to happen, he knew. That had to happen.
In a spate of passion he let his hand slide inside the modest d'colletage of her gown, tossed the lace of her elegant slip aside, went in search of her bosom. Tessa interfered not at all, instead adjusting her position the better to abet him.
Then the pulsing, bursting canoid, straining the nylon cup, was in his hand; he felt the hard tip burning a hole in the center of his palm. His fingers tightened, slid on the silky fabric, fought for new hold.
"Oh, Ken," she sighed, breaking the kiss. "Yon can. I want you to. Anything, anything you want..
She sucked in her breath hissingly as she fell back against the cushion. "Yes, yes." Her hands dragged his head down, her lips and avenging tongue were waiting, poised. They charged with almost carnivorous fervor. Kissing, darting, nipping...
Until neither of them could stand any more. Until Ken's hands fought to get inside the jam-packed brassiere, to touch the actual golden flesh of her breasts. In a rage of desire, she flung herself away, fought her way to her feet.
"Please, Ken, undress me. Right here. I don't want any of these damn clothes getting in the way. Do you want to? Or should I.. . ? "
Baylor lurched forward, caught her and held her. "I want to." This was something Diane never allowed, deeming it nasty and immodest when he suggested it.
Something he'd always wanted to do.
"Hurry, then, Ken. I can't wait. I don't want to wait."
He rose, stood behind her, ran the zippers on the dress' back and waist, undid two small snaps. Then the dark blue jersey gown was falling away, forming a charming puddle at her feet. His hand encircled her silky ankles, lifted each foot. The dress was thrown aside.
Tessa's slip was lovely, a black, paneled thing, transparent and not transparent, giving a maddening view of her legs through the silk. For long moments he stood before her, his hands stroking and fleeing over her.
Until Tessa could stand no more. "Please, Ken." She squirmed. "Take my slip off."
Reverently, slowly, he did so. His pulse racketed insanely as he saw how proudly she stood in her black satin girdle, her sheer, bewitching stockings, as he saw how her proud, sharp breasts crammed and stretched the evil brassiere. The bra held them high, making them look like overly pointed cones the separation, the symmetry of each breathtaking.
His eyes rolled and he felt his mouth go dry. He couldn't adore enough, he was torn between a dozen different desires at once. To stare, to caress, to kiss, to strike brutally. This was the most incredible, baffling of moods.
Caught in his fevered Inst as he was he did a totally different, totally unpredictable thing. Catching her around the waist, he flung her down onto the davenport. And there, dazzled confusion rendering her helpless, Tessa went limp, allowed him to stroke and kiss her silk clad body to his heart's content.
And when the terrible shudders began to go through her, so great was her delight in this strange homage, she said, "Turn out the lights, baby, turn them out."
But Baylor didn't comply immediately. Lost in a lustful trance the proportions of which he'd never known before. And he knelt before her, his eyes glitteringly staring, his hands restless, caressing, stroking, circling and squeezing.
Tessa's breath came in great, hissing gasps as her black, shimmering middle distended and fell. The heels of her black pumps dug into the davenport's upholstery.
"The lights, darling," she moaned. "Please..."
Then, and only then, did Ken stagger up, an expression of insane bewilderment etched on his face. Then did he extinguish the lights. He didn't know what had come over him. All he knew was that he'd been denied this passion, this wicked license for too long. Something that had been hidden within him all his life was now being released for the first time.
And growling, snapping, tearing rendering him totally helpless before the devilish fury prowling closer and closer, foretelling savagery and fanaticism.
In the darkness his hands went crazy again, slid on her legs, cupped and roiled and pressured her tantalizing breasts. His lips closed on the nylon, nibbled and teased her nipples through the stiff material, driving Tessa wild as they circled and slid, tickled and tortured.
Docilely Tessa surrendered to him, the sensation of his gentle teeth, his lips on her flesh indescribably beautiful. As his lips adored, his fingers opened her garter clasps. The lips retreated; he delicately peeled down her hosiery, rubbed and kissed her bare legs.
Now, done with his slavish adoration, he began to undress her item by item. First the restricting, stiff girdle, then the brassiere. And finally her wispy panties.
When she was naked, totally adrift in his weird fantasy, too long denied the true liberties of love, influenced by too much Scotch, he attacked her again, kissing and nipping her almost everywhere.
Until Tessa was panting without stop, a gibberish of love words pouring from her lips. Her hands twisted and trembled in his hair; button by button she undid his clothing. Now her words became glutinous, lust charged.
"Ken, darling. Please. Don't do that any more. I can't stand more. Oh, stop, now. Take me to bed. Do what you should to me. Anything you want."
Still he was loath to desert those stone hard nipples, he wanted to continue kissing them, he wanted to sharpen and adversely blunt them. While his hands all the while explored and hounded other areas of her body.
Tessa was beside herself with desire. Her words made little sense now. She said his name over and over again, she used the gutter word for the ultimate thing she wanted from him. She begged, pleaded, sobbed and choked.
And above all enjoyed this madman as she hadn't enjoyed a man in a long, long, time.
Finally he was pulling her to her feet, he was supporting her sagging body as she led him toward the bedroom
"You'll be like this the next time," Baylor prompted her in bed, kneeling by her, planting kisses in the incredibly sensitive small of her back, his hands clutching and rolling her buttocks. "You will, won't you? You'll be wild, you'll want me just as much as you do now?"
"I ... I don't know what you mean."
Of course, what Ken was referring to were the varying tendencies of his wife Diane. It was incredible to him that when he saw Tessa next she would be as passionate as she was now, that she would allow him all these liberties and more, that she would be as avid as she now was.
"You'll want me?" he continued. "You'll really want me? You'll say and do these things again? You'll let me do what I want with you?"
"Of course, baby," she choked, her heart swelling inside her chest at anticipation of the magnificent coup d'etat to come. This was going to be glorious, earth shattering. "I'll never get enough of this. You go to me whenever you want, I'll be ready, I'll be waiting. I'll let you love me, I'll love you until hell won't have us."
She jerked. "Oh! Touch me like that. There. Again. Go ahead, I don't mind." Her arms came around his waist in a murderous embrace. "You lover," she choked, "You lover, you sweet lover."
Again the gutter talk commenced, inflaming Ken beyond sanity. As he moved to her he felt a stinging exultation as she brought up her hands, clawed him.
Her sighs grew, she was seized by a fit of trembling. "Oh, you're good, baby, good, good."
"You angel, you angel," he muttered.
"Ken," she interrupted, "did you ever read Lady Chatterly's Lover?"
"Yes. About a year ago. Why?"
"Do you remember what the gardener called Lady Chatterly...? " She faltered.
He paused. "Yes, I remember."
"Will you say that? Will you call me that?"
"Do you want me to?"
"Yes."
"Will you do the same for me?"
"Yes," Her voice was awed, timid. "I'll use all rlv words if you want. Do you?"
"Yes, use them. I want this to be something special. I'll use them, too. Would you like that?"
"Yes darling, I would." She shuddered again.
The words started then, rose apace with the building sensation that was stunning both of them, became more and more wild, more heathenish.
Helped to release all the long hidden repressions and guilt and shame. They were elemental man and woman, purging themselves of prissy mores in no-holds-barred enjoyment of each other.
The words.
Again and again.
More and more.
Louder and louder.
Then an end to words. The beginning of screams. The choking howls and coughings of deliverance. The definitive description of delight and transport.
Still Ken moved. Sought his own private peace, his body bathed in sweat, his breath feeling like a torch in his throat.
"I'll always be like this," Tessa promised again. "Always. I'll always enjoy you, I'll always be ready, let you do whatever you want to me. I'm yours, I'm yours."
She screamed again.
"I'll be even better," she elaborated. "Give me time, I'll be better. Better and better. I'll leave you more dead than alive. I will, I swear, darling."
Then Tessa was beginning to chant her vile litany of lust again, trotting out all the words of her command. Nothing was sacred. Nothing at all.
A moment later Ken added his words too. They competed with each other to describe their sensations.
And then...
"No, no!" Tessa was screaming, "not yet, not yet! More. Please, m-oo-oo-re..."
Diane awoke when Ken got home shortly after two. "Ken, you're so late," she questioned. "What happened? Where were you?"
"I stopped after the tournament with Dave Frazer. We got to tipping a few and didn't know when to quit. Then we had to have some lunch. We lost track of the time."
"That's all right, dear," she said softly. "You deserve some fun now and then. A night out with the boys'll do you good. You're too much of a homebody anyway. How was your day? Pretty dull I'll bet."
"Yeah," Ken replied. "A drag. Dull, real dull."
CHAPTER FIVE
Sunday seemed a million years long. Ken Baylor moved in a slow torpor, lost in an inner labyrinth from which no one, at least not that day, was about to dislodge him. Dutifully he attended church with Diane and the kids, but had his life depended upon it, he couldn't have repeated a single thing that Reverend Pearson had said that morning.
It was a trance made up of part hangover, part conscience pangs, the latter definitely being the greater curse. Above all Ken was grateful that Diane expected no explanations for his withdrawn mood. She simply took his bloodiness as after-effects of his drinking bout Saturday night. She knew he was no drinker; if he had to hoot and howl until almost dawn that was his concern. And let him suffer. It would teach him a good lesson.
But if Diane had been able to see inside his brain, see the things he was thinking, see the wild, exciting pictures unreeling nonstop in there...
The most monstrous thing about the wild interlude with Tessa, Ken concluded baffledly that Sunday afternoon as he sat before the TV staring unseeingly at a beginning-of-the-season baseball game, was the total unreality of everything. Even now he had to force himself to revive the vignettes of what they'd done together, he had to prod himself to believe. Not so fast, he marveled Things couldn't have happened so fast. One day all but strangers, the next bedmates, engaged in the most fantastic love games. This just can't be!
But this had happened. He gritted inwardly, thinking of the teeth marks he'd discovered in his shoulder as he'd showered and shaved this morning. Nasty little souvenirs that he'd quickly covered would have to be careful about for the next few days. They were dark blue, unmistakable, irrefutable testimony to the libertine sin-tornado that had buffeted and torn them last night.
God, he marveled. What a love cat!
Why, he queried, after all these other guys have tried, why me? Could such a thing be? Had Tessa been waiting for me to make a move? Or was last night merely lucky circumstances? Had we both caught each other at an opportune time, when our resistance was down, when the mood was just right?
That had to be the answer. His ego badly deflated by the way his marriage had gone lately, he couldn't make himself believe that any woman would actually be attracted to him, that she'd lust for him above all other men.
A damn fool streak of luck, that was all. like the dog-eared phrase he'd heard so often: The right time, the right place ... and any woman'll cooperate.
That's what had happened last night. The right time, the right place.
like a dog worrying a particularly troublesome bone, Ken let his mind delve and dig, going back deeper into his reverie, starting at the beginning of last night's debauch and going over every single rememberable detail. As if, by faltering at some place along the line he'd prove to himself that he had been dreaming.
Until he got to the part where he'd undressed Tessa, where he'd turned out the lights and paid that crazy, sick homage to her body, to her innermost femininity. Drunk, dead drunk, he tried alibying, there was no other explanation. Hell, how could I have got like that? How could I have crawled, been glad, almost delirious to crawl? How could I have kissed her legs, her feet, like that? That was a fetishist's trick.
The realization stunned him. Hell, what has Diane done to me? Have I gone that far astray?
Or was there something else again? Was his only a natural outburst, a purgation of long dammed-up sensuality? All part and parcel of the fact that Diane had been cheating him of his sexual birthright all these years? That she'd taken the abandon and passionate recklessness out of their marriage and lovemaking, that she'd castrated him, all but made a trained, fluffy, cute little lap dog out of him? Had last night been a pathetic outpouring of gratitude at the finding of a woman who was sensual and passionate because she wanted to be, and not because of any feeling of duty? Not giving herself as reward and gift, not making love for ulterior motive?
Hadn't he, caught up in the love trance as he was, actually wanted to worship her? As incarnation of the total woman he'd yearned for all these years?
He shook his head slowly, caught himself as Diane entered the room, began going through the Sunday newspaper. Talk about squirrel cage candidates!
Now he recalled the end of the love session with Tessa, the way she'd turned so frankly vulgar, the way she'd wallowed in the references to Lady Chatterly's Lover, the way she'd urged him to join her in the sick, ugly litany. His awe was immense as he discarded rationalization, put blame squarely where blame belonged. Lord, didn't I enjoy saying all those things, calling her those names? Didn't that make the final outcome all the better?
Granted, Tessa was a strange one indeed. A woman possessed of eccentric, pseudo-intellectual attitudes towards love. And yet, in their end result, hadn't they been supremely effective? Could censure be in any way attached to them?
And if Tessa had curled his hair with her frank, open seduction, with her vocal paeans to excess, had he been any the less weird when he'd knelt before her to pay his aberrated homage to her?
He stirred in his chair, looked guardedly at Diane. Carol and Randy were rolling on the floor in Carol's room. It seemed so incredible to Ken. Surrounded by this workaday normality ... and thinking these dark, subterranean thoughts. Weird, absolutely weird. Momentarily he caught himself trembling.
Diane looked up, saw his twisted expression. "Ken? What is it? What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he said, averting his eyes. "I just don't feel so hot."
"Hmph," she sniffed. "You've got only yourself to blame." Immediately she returned to her paper.
Ken knew he was only kidding himself when he tried firming up his resolve never to see Tessa again. Who did he think he was, Superman? One session like that wouldn't do him. Nor would two and three and four. Guilty as he was at his infidelity to Diane, plagued with the rottenest sort of thoughts toward himself, he knew that if Tessa were willing one of these days soon, he'd move heaven and earth to accommodate her. Just sitting here now, thinking like this...
What was the harm, actually? What Diane didn't know wouldn't hurt her. As he'd mused previously, this would be a perfect out for both of them. He'd get what he wanted, and she'd be relieved of an unpleasant wifely duty. Both Tessa and he were practical and realistic. They knew what they were getting into, they wouldn't let their affair get messy. He remembered how Tessa had made that clear the other night, as they'd talked, that this was a pressure valve thing with her. There was some fleeting mention of affection. But mostly expediency. When she needed a man.. .
There'd been other men before, there'd be other men after. But for now, so long as Ken treated her right, he'd be the only one. Whenever either of them was possessed by a bad case of frustration, he or she knew where to go to have their need assuaged.
And wasn't that enough?
This was enough, so far as Ken Baylor was concerned. His mind was made up. Rotten and cheating and disloyal he might be. But unloved? It would never happen.
He was embarking on a totally new, totally exciting and encompassing voyage. His life would never be the same from this day forth.
He got up from the chair slowly, clicked off the TV.
"Ken? Where are you going?"
"I'm feeling so dopey I thought I'd take a walk."
"Fine, darling. You go ahead. You'll feel better."
Baylor walked for over an hour, covered a lot of ground. For good reason: He had lots and lots to think about.
Several important and relevant things happened to Ken Baylor during the next week, which were to have definite bearing on his future.
First, on Tuesday afternoon late, as Baylor sat in his classroom checking papers, fighting the strong urge to go to the library to see Tessa (so far he hadn't worked up the courage,) Dave Frazer burst in He carefully closed the door behind him, checking to see that they were alone.
"Listen, pal," he said secretively. "I'm desperate. You remember I told you about Linton the other day? I wasn't just kidding you about that girl friend. She exists. Guess who? Peggy Dolan, in home ec. You know the one. Hell, if I'd have known she was looking I'd never have hooked up with Rose."
Ken looked up, smiled pityingly. All I need now, he thought, is another woman to take care of. "No," he said firmly.
"Listen, will you, Ken? Let me finish, dammit! Now here's what I'm thinking. Rose wants to fix her girl friend up." He winked. "I want to fix her girl friend up." Now if we can get something going, maybe we could eventually lose our compasses, do a little switching. You wouldn't mind a little bit of grab bag would you? Turn out the lights at Rose's place some night, and anything goes. Rose in the original variety kid. And while you were zipping her down, I Could be promoting with Peggy. Does that sound so awful?"
"Boy," Ken said gravely, "you do live on a very elemental plane, don't you?"
"Don't discourage me. Somebody's gotta train these young, underprivileged dolls. You're a teacher. Where's your sense of duty?"
"Dave, you slay me. When I think that you're what the world's come to, I have strong doubts about the future."
"Oh, can that," Dave said gruffly. "You know damned well that if you just weren't so chicken, you'd be in there with both hands. Honest, this'd be great. You ever play swaps? We get boozed up, turn out the lights, strip our babes down, and..."
"Spare me the details."
"Please, Ken, reconsider. I've got it set up for Thursday night. Rose suggested you as a prime choice. Among others. So I'm giving you first crack. How about that? Be a sport...."
"No, Dave," Ken said humorously but firmly. "I'm a steady married man. I got all I can take care of at home."
"That's a lie if I ever heard one. C'mon, Ken. You only live once."
"I'm sorry, Dave, but no. Find someone else. But check back Friday, will you? I'd like to know how this grab bag thing of yours turns out."
Grumblingly, muttering dire thoughts about some people being only half alive, Dave Frazer strode out of the room.
The second incident took place on Wednesday morning during Baylor's second hour English class. Again it involved the spoiled Vic Richardi. Again it was a disciplinary matter.
Ken had noticed the expensive 35 mm camera hanging around Richardi's neck as he'd entered class that morning. But taking it as another instance of the boy's insufferable show-off ways, he hadn't given it any further consideration. Until, as the period passed the halfway mark, and a study session was in progress, Ken couldn't help but notice a flurry of restless activity in Vic's corner of the room.
Looking up, he saw some of the boys smirking toward Vic. Immediately he caught the game. Vic had the camera up to his eyes, was focusing on the enticing Georgia Kirst, panning down especially to catch the way her skirt was high on her legs, the way her legs were jigging as she attempted concentration.
Ken heard the snick of the shutter, pretending not to. He kept his eyes focused on his grade book, wanting to give Richardi just a little more rope.
The clicks went on as the boy shot practically every kid in class. It was when Dixie Carter, one of the school tramps, reared back in her chair, crossed her legs in a mock cheese-cake pose, brought her breasts to full, bursting blossom and pulled her skirt as high as she dared to accommodate the cocky photographer, that Baylor intervened.
"Vic," he said evenly, "I think that's enough of that foolishness. Bring that camera up here. This's supposed to be a study period, isn't it?"
"I'm not doing anything wrong," the boy whined, trying to build up bluster.
"You aren't studying. Bring it up." The whole class was tuned in now, the majority of them exulting in Vic's comeuppance, waiting to see how he'd attempt wheedling his way out of this scrape. "The rest of you get back to work. Vic..."
The offending lad must have sensed the class' feeling toward him, must have realized he was headed for a humiliating defeat again. The sudden prescience triggered rebellion. For once he wasn't going to cave in. No stinking, mealy-mouthed teacher was going to scare him.
"I'll put it away," he said. "You might wreck it. This's an expensive camera. Cost over two hundred bucks." Then in sarcastic dig he added: "You wouldn't know how to handle high-priced equipment like this."
A nervous titter escaped the class.
Ken Baylor saw red. It was bad enough that he had to tolerate this punk kid's presence in class, put up with his weasely, sneaky stunts. But to take a snotty insult like this ... Despite his better judgment he let his voice rise. "Vic, I'm not going to tell you again. Bring that camera up to my desk. Right now!"
Richardi squirmed, slunk in his seat. Yet the perverse bravado remained; he wasn't going to chicken out this time. "And suppose, teacher," he said shakily, "I tell you I'm not going to? That I won't bring this camera up to your desk?" The last was in nasal mimicry. "You can't make me bring it up there. It's mine, and no two-bit schoolteacher's going to fool with it."
Ken was out of his seat instantly. His face frozen into a pale mask of rage, he strode down the aisle toward Richardi. His knuckles were white, his fingers were curved into trembling talons.
"You better not touch me," Vic made a last ditch attempt at arrogance, "there are laws about that. I'm not giving you this camera."
"I-don't-want-your-camera," Ken chewed the words out. "Not now. I just want you out of this classroom once and for ail. And you're going out, if I have to throw you out."
The boy twisted and fought, tried to get away. But Ken's strength was too much for him. Digging his hand into Vic's shoulder, he wrenched him from his seat. The boy took a swing at him, the effort throwing him off balance, bringing the swinging camera against one corner of the desk with a dull thud.
Ken intercepted the blow easily. He caught Vic's wrist, twisted it viciously, jammed it up behind his back, and exerted painful pressure. Vic screamed, almost folded in agony.
"Out," Ken gritted. "Right now. You're never coming back into this class again."
"You broke my camera," Vic squealed. "You broke it. I'll get my dad after you. He's got lawyers who'll...."
"Shut up! He's got lawyers who'll tell him he's got no case at all. Especially when his precious, baby son took a swing at his teacher."
"I'll get you for this, damn you!" the boy threatened. "I'll get even, just you wait and see." Some of the boys were laughing at the way Vic's voice shattered. This drove him to even greater frenzy.
"I'm gonna get you, Baylor," he shrieked once more. "You'll be sorry you ever touched me. You'll be sorry you ever saw me. I'll get you if it's the last thing I ever do. I'll fix you good."
The whole class was laughing as Ken unceremoniously flung him out of the room. Then they were in the hall together, heading toward Mr. Prather's office. Baylor really put pressure on Richardi's arm now.
Ken's wrath unmistakable, the weak-spined principal withered before it. For once he forgot the Richardi influence in Glendon Falls. It was out-and-out insubordination; he had no alternative but to suspend Vic for a week. Before Baylor left the office he'd got Prather's word that the boy would be transferred to another class when and if he was reinstated.
The third episode, a brief, but devastatingly significant thing, occurred that same night, after school, as Ken, drained from the emotional storm of the morning, finally went to the library to find Tessa Vareese. It seemed appropriate he should share the day's happenings with her.
The library was all but deserted. As usual Miss Bronson was out, leaving Miss Vareese in charge. It seemed his heart jammed and swelled inside his rib cage as he saw her standing behind the counter, it seemed her eyes turned into large, burning coals. Suddenly he wanted very badly to touch her, to reaffirm their chaotic relationship.
She'd heard about the Richardi incident. She was, of course, totally sympathetic, assuring him he'd done the right thing. But the words were hollow; they weren't what either of them wanted to say at all.
"Come behind the counter," Tessa whispered. "Back in the stacks."
He followed her.
There, in a gloomy corner hidden from anyone else in the library, she turned to him, her eyes frantic, her head tilted, her lips half parted. Shudderingly, their bodies grinding together, they kissed, seemingly without stop.
Then Tessa was moving back, holding her face to his. Her breath rapid and loud in his ear. "Why didn't you call me? Why didn't you come to see me?" she gasped. "I've been practically going crazy thinking about you, wondering ... But I just couldn't. Believe it or not, I was scared."
"You silly," she purred, pushing her lips into his throat. "You adorable silly. You've got nothing to be afraid of, nothing at all."
They kissed again, suddenly unable to get enough of each other. "Ken," she husked when they broke now, "when can I see you again? Soon, make it soon. I want to have you near, I want to talk to you so badly." Her body twisted convulsively. "As well as other things. Tonight. Come over tonight."
"I can't. That's out of the question."
"Tomorrow then. Anytime. I'll be waiting for you."
"I'll try. I'll let you know tomorrow afternoon. I ... I think so." His voice caught. "I want to so terribly."
Then they were kissing again. It was Ken who reluctantly drew her from the stacks. They did have to be careful after all. Little pitchers...
As mentioned before: very relevant things these.
CHAPTER SIX
Ken was chairman of an assorted group of Glendon Fall's teachers who had been assigned the after hours task of revising the English curriculum for the entire school system. They had been meeting for three months now and, with the end of the school year looming they were pressed to finish their report by June 10.
Under the guise of meeting with his committee (Diane paid the scan test possible attention to his professional entanglements) he managed to get away on Thursday night. Now the lights in Tessa's apartment were muted. The high-fi equipment was electrifying the room with the haunting atonals of Richard Strauss' Don Juan. With Tessa's lovely, compliant body in his arms, Ken impatiently held off, contenting himself with mere kisses and caresses, desultory talk while his mind vigorously leaped ahead of itself. To the time when...
Tessa was radiant that night, her joy at having him with her setting her eyes afire, giving her complexion a healthy, vibrant glow. She hummed at snatches of the tone poem, her voice husky and provocative. That she also was anticipating the evening was evident in the fact that she wore an opaque set of lounging pajamas, orange red, made of a buffed silky material, a loose fitting ensemble beneath which (Ken had already checked) she wore absolutely nothing.
This was that kind of evening.
His heart felt overlarge, he felt proudly triumphant knowing that there was a woman so blatantly anxious for him, a woman who was open about her desires, about her need for him. Just thinking about her made him want to yell with joy; made him dizzy.
The music crescendo, became haunting and passionate, throwing raw gasoline on the open hearth of their raging lust. They kissed again and again, Ken unable to keep his hands under control, Tessa making no move to stop him when he stroked her in lazy, inflaming circles, when he slid the silk against her smooth, supple legs, when he cupped her breasts, the need maddening in his palm.
The exciting, pulse maddening kisses, Tessa's lips again inviting his to play, made Ken's body ache with desire. He wanted her. Desperately maddeningly. But he wanted to wait, to let this sweet, tearing pain mount. Until he should find the pain well nigh unbearable.
And then, when they were all but screaming with need, they would see about assuaging pain. In a way only a man and a woman can eradicate that sweet pain.
"Were you shocked the other night?" Tessa said. "At some of the things I did ... and said?"
"Maybe I should ask you the same thing."
"No," she sighed, letting her lips flaccidly chew on his throat. "I wasn't shocked. I liked that. That all added to the final effect. And, after all, that's what really counts."
With preening confidence Ken let his hand fall, catch her right breast, let his fingers gather the nipple, tweak and roll it into a hard button, the feeling of silk and turgid flesh especially dazzling. "I suppose you're right. I was afraid you'd think I was some kind of a weirdo or something. I didn't want that."
There are infinite varieties to lovemaking. A person should never commit himself to any set pattern. He or she should do whatever variation appeals at the moment. I liked you; you made me feel like a queen when you adored me like that. Incidentally, don't be surprised at some of the things I might do. Maybe tonight, some other night. Depending on my mood. You see, I practice what I preach."
"You devil," he husked, "you gorgeous devil."
"Mmmmm." she fell back even more limply, "don't stop, lover. That feels so good. Baby ... gentle, gentle . .
In essence, Ken described his own feelings about his strange reactions that first night, of course drawing in the fact that he had been mostly grateful because she was the woman his own wife wasn't. "I promise I won't get carried away like that again."
"Don't stop on my account. like I said, I loved you. You can do that any time you want. That's the trouble with our society. Everything that's a little different's considered immoral or perverted. Hell, between lovers there should be the widest possible latitude, they should welcome any show of love whatsoever, they should adjust, take things for what they are, a symbol of what they themselves are doing to their love partner. That's like a sort of back-handed compliment. I was tremendously proud when you loved me like that. 'I did that to him.' I kept telling myself, 'I'm making him react like that.' "
"You sound like some sort of an authority. And at your tender years."
She smiled wanly. "I'm no authority, really. Though I have read an awful lot of books on the subject. Also, I know my own reactions, my own philosophy."
"And what is that?"
"Than anything that contributes to the total effect of the love act is normal and proper and..." She shivered, put his hand over his, guided it on her breast. ". . . so wonderful. I draw no lines whatsoever, I love to make love for love's sake alone. For total sensation."
"When those beautiful lights start flashing, when I feel like someone's threading me on a hemp rope, then I'm out of things. I'm away from this grubby world, I'm living, really living. I'm outside of myself, irresponsible, I owe nobody anything. That's like being dead, transported to a new world. And yet you're alive, you're enjoying every glorious second."
She paused, sipped at her martini. "So do your damndest with me, baby. Love me any way you want, left-handed, right-handed, from behind, upside down, that's all the same to me."
"You talk a mighty inflaming line of stuff."
She poked her tongue into his ear. "I do more than talk, darling."
"I know," he shuddered. "Damn, do I know!"
"Aren't you almost done with that drink?"
"Pretty soon. Don't rush me, I'm enjoying this too much. It's not every day I can talk to a woman as frankly as this." He sighed, kissed her again. "It's not every day I run onto a woman like you, period."
"Flattery'll get you anywhere with me." She pulled up. "Ooops, there goes Don Juan. What would you like to hear now?"
"Something that takes a long, long time."
"How about Mahler? I'll put him on, set the machine on automatic. We'll be fixed for hours."
She refilled their glasses before sitting down again. "Miss me?" she said, snuggling close, holding his glass to his lips until he'd sucked down almost half of the liquid. "Primer," she giggled.
For long moments they kissed and embraced, as if they'd been separated for a long, long time. "T wish you'd take those damned clothes off, baby," she said.
"In time. There are a few other things we have to discuss yet."
"like what?"
"I've been wondering about all that high powered talk. The Lady Chatterly bit. What was that all about?"
She was not the least embarrassed. "That should be obvious by now after all I've said. Tell me, did that have any detrimental effects?"
"Hardly."
"And you enjoyed saying those things, too, didn't you? That was like something inside you, too long locked up and forbidden was let out. And you felt better afterward didn't you? That made the sum total of your lovemaking that much more earth shaking, n'est-ce pas?"
Ken studied the question a long time before he decided she was right. Everything she'd said was 100 per cent true. "You should develop your doctor's thesis on that premise. Damn, you make me feel like such a babe in the woods."
"Stick with me, honey. I've got lots more where that came from." A great tremor went through her. her eyes glazed briefly. She sat up, drained the rest of her drink. "I can't wait much longer, Ken," she sighed. "You've kept me waiting too long already."
She struggled up on her knees and began pulling at his necktie. "Here if you won't get started yourself." He tried to fight her away, but she was a clinging, laughing leech. "No, darling. Let me. Let me undress you."
Intrigued by the idea of having a woman undress him, Ken surrendered to the attention. Lying back against the cushions, he got the biggest charge out of seeing Tessa kneeling before him, removing his shoes, his socks, peeling his trousers down his legs. Now his suit jacket, his shirt.
Finally, his under-shorts and tee shirt.
Until he was totally naked, vulnerable and exposed before her.
Her eyes darkly feral, a strange, twisted smile on her lips, Tessa still knelt before him, her gaze bold. Then she was crowding him she was pushing her bosom against him, she was kissing his shoulder. Until at last, wracked with tremors, she let her head slide to the planes of his hard chest. He jerked as her lips closed on each hard extrusion in turn.
Gravely, moved by a hurricane of desire and awe, Ken let his hands go the buttons of her pajama top to undo them one by one. Then the garment was open, his hands inside it each supporting one magnificent, melony breast a ministration that turned the woman even wilder. She righted herself, shrugged the jacket off to pose before him in her exquisite nakedness, wearing only the pajama bottoms.
Immediately she delivered herself to his hands again. Dropped her head to his chest again. And, as the fanaticism mounted, the Mahler swelling and thundering, she began to sigh chokingly, she let her hands go wild on his legs and back. Finally, her eyes rolling in her head, she pressed her lips against him.
It was the first time a woman had ever done this for him. and he was appalled, uncertain of what to do or say.
"No, Tessa," he moaned, the sensation something to drive him out of his mind. A burning, too-intense pain, intermixed with sweet, sighing joy. "You shouldn't. You don't have to..."
She paused, her face curved in a wanton smile, her eyes curiously dreamy. "Remember what I said? When the spirit moves you ... why not? I indulged you the other night. This's your turn to indulge me."
Her expression turned almost contemptuous. "Now lie back. Enjoy yourself. Let me enjoy you."
Caught between two maddening fires, Baylor didn't know what to do. But finally he let his senses rule, he let Tessa have her way. Submitting, he let her take her will with him.
"In the bedroom," she seethed. "Hurry." She teetered before him. "Come here first. Take off the bottoms for me."
Wanting to pursue this insane moment a few steps further Ken took his time with the disrobing. He knelt before her, slid the garment down her legs, helped her step out of the clinging folds.
She broke away. "Hurry darling," she panted. "I can't wait. I want you."
They were in the darkened bedroom, the orchestra crashing like an angry sea outside their door. She withheld herself from him until.. .
"Say them, Ken. Use the words. All the words."
Beside himself with an aboriginal need, he said the words. He choked and spat them, let them tumble over each other in their haste to be re-articulated, to be reborn.
"That's a good boy," she hissed. She sighed in throaty rapture.
Then she was describing her sensations, she extorted detailed description of how he had enjoyed her recent attentions to him.
Now the words broke from both their throats. They struggled for further verbal Everests to climb.
And then they were on the mountain top...
It was eleven o'clock, and Diane Baylor was in bed, for some unaccountable reason unable to sleep. Again it was a balmy spring night. The bedroom window was open and she could hear the automobiles thrumming past on Sixteenth Avenue. Restlessly she moved on the bed, tried to get comfortable. She wished Ken would get home. She was a creature of habit; she didn't really sleep soundly until he was beside her. This wasn't physical attraction, of that she was sure. Just that she liked the security of having him next to her, warm and strong and protective.
Or was this physical? she pondered, sensing an unfamiliar restlessness. Heaven knows I've been thinking about him all evening long. And now, just a minute ago, didn't I wake from a half doze, almost as if he was here, as if he'd been touching me. The way he does?
Diane, she chided in giddy surprise, what's getting to you?
But try as she might, she couldn't shake the troublesome reveries. She couldn't help going back to Monday night almost two weeks ago, when she and Ken had made such thrilling love. Every intimate, exotic detail was unearthed, embroidered upon.
Until she realized with almost bombshell shock: I wanted him. Tonight I want him, I want to see if he can be as good again. Without the drinking, without the crass motives. Ken, darling, hurry home from your stuffy old meeting. Hurry, hurry.
It was a very surprised (appalled and panicked are even better words) Ken Baylor who quietly crawled into bed beside his wife not more than thirty minutes later. Who found her waiting, totally naked. Who found her giggling thickly, her hands all over him. Kissing him with eager kisses.
And even though he'd just been royally loved, the novelty of his wife making the overtures twice within two weeks took unmistakable toll, generated superficial revival.
She tore at his pajamas, her breath quavery and rapid. She sighed hoarsely when he touched her breasts. She dragged his head down herself. All without saying a word.
Ken certainly did not want this love bout. But he knew he had to produce. Lest Diane get wise in one big hurry.
So he fought valiantly. Saw Diane through. And still could not reach his own deliverance. He attacked her more viciously.
Tomorrow, Diane thought, I'll hate myself for this. But tonight, he's wonderful, I don't care. This's like I'm discovering my husband all over again. Darling, you're grand, grand. Don't ever stop. I won't mind.
He almost didn't. But at long, long last-
CHAPTER SEVEN
Another week of tangled, directionless agony had passed, a week in which Ken had visited Tessa's apartment one more time. This was an after school adventure, carried out in broad daylight, proof positive of the reckless state he now moved in. That he'd expose himself like this...
Beyond this major upheaval in his life was the sec-andary one taking place in his own home the incredible rejuvenation which had come about with Diane. Time and time again he thought about Thursday night, the harrowing paces she'd put him through. Again the maddening question had boomed and echoed in his mind: What'n hell's happening to my wife?
Then, on Saturday night, after a social evening with the Barkleys during which Ken had drunk one beer too many, had let his thoughts of Tessa and their wild love-making get him worked up, he'd been given the same cold shoulder from Diane. Coming home, wanting to do more than reminisce on things sexual, he'd made what he thought were inflaming overtures only to be snidely rebuffed.
"What are you trying to prove, Ken?" she'd mocked. "Do you want to wear me out?"
That had killed that. How could she be so damned changeable?
So. Diane and Tessa. Two opposing natures and spirits, one carnal, one indifferent and quixotic. And how was a man supposed to reconcile himself to such a situation? How was he supposed to adjust when both vixens had descended on him with bombshell suddenness?
Thus the days dragged by, the practical details of making his living a crushing bore, his mind constantly alive with more devastating considerations and daydreams. And April drifted into May, the days grew longer and warmer, spring became fulfillment of a promise. Of course, the workaday world at Holcomb High became even more hectic, the school year's close looming closer and closer.
Vic Richardi had been removed from Baylor's class and inflicted upon the long-suffering Cora Hayward, a thirty year veteran capable of handling the snotty-likes of the Richardi boy. There had been no more threats, nor ground swell rumors of threats upon his person by Vic. Which was just what Ken expected. Vic was just making so much noise that day, venting his frustration, fighting to maintain his class image as "big trouble" in the only way left him.
The fact of the matter was that Ken hadn't even seen Richardi face-on since their flare up. He'd had vague impressions of the boy skulking in the halls, observing him from afar, but it might well have been only his imagination. There was nothing he could really put his finger upon.
But if Ken Baylor had thought he'd had his full quota of emotional crises for the school year, he was decidedly mistaken. The biggest storm was yet to strike. It was one which was to shake his life to its deepest roots.
Patti Conte was having trouble. It was a sudden, tin-explainable thing, and Ken, concerned about the ingenuous child, even as wound up as he was with Tessa and Diane, couldn't help noticing her serious backsliding.
Her marks plummeted, she constantly forgot to turn assignments in, she was listless and inattentive in class. This was an extreme turnabout, for Patti had always been a topnotch student, alert and sensitive, a responsive touchstone to whom he could turn when class discussions bogged down.
He doubted that he could or would flunk her even if the breakdown continued. But by the same token he could not rightly give her the A that should have been hers. If things went on as they were now, continued through the whole of May, she'd undoubtedly end up with a C. He couldn't help but wonder whether the decline had been noted by her other instructors also.
Often during those days of evaluation, as he wondered what to do about Patti, he covertly studied her in class, tried to see beneath that impassive, lovely face. On more than one occasion she became aware of his observation, and she flushed, became very agitated, her eyes fluttering like frightened birds.
Other times, when she didn't know he was watching her he was able to dawdle longer in his vigil, to assess her lovely features and precocious physical development. At times like this, becoming strangely aroused, he caught his thoughts turning to matters more volatile than Patti's failing grades. And though he cursed himself for a hound, he still couldn't help sensing, savoring even, openly prurient thoughts about her.
She was so beautiful, so excitingly voluptuous, teetering on the brink of full scale womanhood, existing in almost the best of both worlds. She was a virgin of that he was positive. She dated often, but each of her schoolboy swains was swiftly discarded as if they'd been tested and found wanting. He couldn't remember her ever going with the same boy more than two or three weeks at a time. There was always a new, goggling, tongue-tied lump dogging her steps in the hallways.
Which infuriated Baylor to an unreasonable pitch. It seemed so wrong, so wasteful for a creature so lovely as Patti to be prey to these bumbling, pimple-faced clods.
Try as he might he couldn't erase from his mind the image of Patti in a parked car with someone as witless, as useless as Vic Richardi, kissing him, letting him clumsily paw her.
And when he really wanted to torture himself he took his fantasy one step further, envisioned Patti letting Vic or any of the other trash she ran with undress her to kiss and fondle her nakedness.
It was enough to make Ken break out in a cold sweat.
Breaking from these trances he realized that his interest in Patti was more than objective, more than a pedagogical one. But here again he justified his sick projections. For, actually, didn't he feel the same way about so many other of the lovely girls in his classes? Didn't Kitty Elliott and Marcia O'Hara and Dede Blackwood and Rita Chavales all inspire the same kind of feverish speculation?
Why couldn't it be, he maundered in wistful foolishness, that these young people were fair game for the more experienced adults? Why couldn't our society accept this as proper and wise behavior? The older men could teach the girls, the older women could teach the boys. Train and season them, return them to their peers eventually, experienced and proficient in this the most important knowledge of life. Why did they have to bumble their way through it, take five, ten years to achieve sexual harmony, to break down inbred puritanical inhibition? The worst thing about it was that some of them never achieved a compatible love relationship, they never knew the glory of sublime physical release.
And, his hands always trembled at this point of his premise, why couldn't Patti Conte be assigned to my tutelage? Couldn't I teach her about love? Couldn't I train her in the arts of physical joy and response? Lucky the lad who'd get her after I was through with her.
It was only upon breaking from these aberrated daydreams that Ken Baylor felt totally and sickeningly disgusted with himself Of all the rotten ideas he'd ever had...
Yes. It was hard to consider Patti Conte objectively.
But something had to be done. And since none of her other teachers seemed to be taking any steps, it was obviously his move. It would be a tragedy to let the whole semester's work go down the drain.
Tuesday morning he stopped her after class. "I wonder. Patti," he said, "if I might see you after school tonight. There are some things I think we ought to discuss."
That wild, disturbed expression etched her features. She was unable to look at him squarely. "Golly, Mr. Baylor, can't it wait? I've got tennis tonight, I'm in a tournament. I won't be done until four-thirty or so."
"That's perfectly all right. I have some things to take care of so I'll be staying late. I'll be here, waiting."
"All right, Mr. Baylor. I won't forget."
A spring rain was threatening at four-thirty, and the day had suddenly become foreboding. Engrossed in his checking, Baylor didn't notice the encroaching gloom until almost four-thirty. He was on the verge of rising to turn on the light when he heard his door rattle and looked up to see Patti letting herself in, a wan smile on her face.
Holcomb High was situated in a beautifully landscaped, forested area of Glendon Falls. Looking out his window Ken could see the rolling grounds, the tennis courts and football field in the distance as well as the brooding green of the lawn contrasted against the slate sky beyond the creek. Even in the midst of the threatening weather it was a lovely view.
For some perverse reason he rebelled against turning on the lights. Their interview would be so much more intimate if they sat in the gathering murkiness. Perhaps he could get through to Patti more effectively.
"Ah, Patti," he said, "right on time." He rose and walked to the back of the room where he sat at a student's desk, indicating that Patti sit across from him. Seated where they were they couldn't be observed through the glass-paneled door. "You don't mind sitting in the dark, do you? I think we can talk better this way."
"No, not at all, Mr. Baylor. We can look out better. It's so pretty outside this time of year. It's going to rain. You can smell it in the air."
"How did the tennis go?"
"I won," she said simply, no elation in her voice.
"You don't sound very happy about it."
She shrugged. "It's all right, I guess."
Ken looked at her more closely. It's even worse than I thought, he mused. Tonight she looked even more the ingenue. She'd showered after her game. Her hair was damp at the edges, her make-up was washed away, revealing her natural, unblemished beauty. Despite himself Ken felt the insane yearning rise in him, all but choke him. What must that silky skin be like to touch? he asked himself.
She wore a white cotton blouse, a figure-complimenting garment in which her breasts were piquant and high. In the shadowed room, when she turned just so, he could see the subtle outline of her nipples against the crisp material. Her skirt was a simple, full thing, black, with pink roses scattered helter-skelter on it. Her feet were in tennis shoes.
She released a ponderous sigh as she stared out the window at the verdant landscape, her face in partial silhouette, her lips slightly parted.
"What is it, Patti?"
She smiled embarrassedly. "Nothing, really. I was just thinking how lucky we are to have our school located in such a lovely area. Those trees, the grass . . .the creek down there. It just gets me. Makes me want to go walking barefoot down there. You ever walk barefoot in wet grass?"
"I suppose I have. When I was a boy."
"You should do that now, too. I do once in a while. When my mother's not around." It seemed a deep bitterness invaded her tone.
"Your mother doesn't approve?"
"My mother doesn't approve of many things." She quickly changed the subject. "Tell me, Mr. Baylor, have you ever taken time to walk down by that creek? It goes on for miles. It's the most beautiful thing. Some Saturdays, after school even, I follow it out of town."
She smiled sleepily, sighed again. "It sort of irons out things for me. For a while anyway."
Baylor was surprised. It was uncanny, almost as if the child had been reading his mind. Her appreciation of the view and all. There weren't many teen-agers nowadays who had time for such things. And if they did, they weren't telling anybody about it. Rock. TV, the latest movie, the latest beer bash that was their world. He sensed a fragile clutch at his heart. He remembered one time as a high-school junior, when he'd...
He let it drop. It was time to start. "I think, Patti," he said gently, "that you have a good idea why I asked you to come in tonight, don't you?"
There was a strange defiance in her eyes. "Yes, I suppose I do. It's my school work, isn't it? I haven't been doing so hot lately."
His smile was kind. "No Patti," he echoed, "you haven't been doing so hot lately. I thought maybe you'd like to talk about it."
"What is there to say? I just don't care any more. I'm going to graduate, aren't I?"
"Yes, I presume so. Even a flock of D's won't stop you now."
"So, what's the sweat?" She looked away. "I can get a nice cozy job in a dime store some place, wait until I meet a nice guy. Get married, have a flock of kids." Her voice was despair clogged. "Who needs Shakespeare to scrub floors?"
Ken was drawn even closer, shifted in his chair. "You know you don't believe a word of it, Patti. Tell me, what's gone wrong? Something at home? One of your boy friends?"
"Skip it. I've just lost interest. Let it go at that."
"But, Patti," he said exasperatedly,. "you can't just quit like that. I've always pegged you as college material, I've foreseen great things for you. The way you write and express yourself..."
Her voice became choked. "Forget it, I said. It just can't be, that's all. It can't."
"But why? If there's a financial problem, well, you know there are scholarships. . .I'd recommend you personally."
Slowly she turned, her eyes almost malevolent, glittering in the dusky mask of her face. And now she spilled what was truly bothering her. "So? Do scholarships pay for everything? For room and board? For transportation, for incidental fees? Wouldn't your parents be expected to bear some of those expenses?"
"Yes, that's true, but...."
"But nothing. My parents won't pay for a darned thing. They don't want me to go to college. That stupid father of mine doesn't believe in it. All these years they let me count on it." Her voice broke. "And now all of a sudden they change their mind."
"Patti, don't talk like that. You know you don't mean it. Your Father..."
"My father is a piggy slob," she interrupted. " 'No money, no money', he keeps telling me. 'College is so much foolishness for a girl.' But there's money for the constant boozing he and Mom do. There's money to act like a drunken prince with those leech friends of his."
"Patti, Patti," Ken broke in, "you can't really believe all these things you're saying. Surely your parents..."
"It wasn't so bad," she seethed, her voice blurring as she valiantly fought back hateful tears. "All these years of waiting, being ignored, being treated like a stick of furniture. With Mom and Dad gone night after night. I was just a convenient, built-in sitter. I could bring up Danny for them. At least I had something to look forward to, there was a glimmer of hope that I'd break loose one day, make a fresh start on my own..."
Her shoulders slumped and momentarily Baylor panicked, thinking she'd burst into tears now. "Do you know that they even kept me out of school until I was six?" she continued. "So I could help around the house that much longer?"
But no, her bitterness was beyond tears. She straightened, jutting out her chin. "So now I can go on living at home. I can become a shopgirl slave, I can give my earnings to the old man so he can swill down more rotgut wine and beer and whiskey..." She laughed coldly. "For that I should kill myself in school?"
"I'll ... I'll go to them. I'll talk to them, try to show them the mistake they're making...."
"Save your breath. They won't listen. They won't listen to anybody. They think I'm crazy. My books, my poetry, the way I like to listen to classical music on the radio. Then when I get into one of my moods..."
Her eyes glazed and she looked at Ken with a twisted anguish. "Did you ever," she said in a foggy voice. "Just once, go out into the woods in the fall? See the trees on fire, all red and yellow and orange, the trunks showing through like black pillars? And did you think about the way they were making their last noise just before dying? Did you ever feel so sad and blue that you wanted to die along with them? And yet you wanted to scream at the way they were so beautiful?"
Kenyon felt a chilling shudder wrack him. Dear God, he thought, how long? How long has it been since I've remembered? The way I was when I was a high schooler? The morbid moods I used to get into? I thought I was the only one. And now ... this girl ... Patti.. .
He was struck by the strongest impulse to catch her in his arms, to hold her close, to rock her until their tremblings fused, became one, evened out to a single life pulse.
But he did nothing. Only turned to her and said, "And then, in November, when the fields are sere, when the trees are bare, and they stand there outlined against the gray sky, looking for all the world like they're pleading and begging, their limbs tangled and grotesque . .
Patti's eyes went wide, her mouth parted. "You know," she breathed in awe, "you really know. You understand what I ... You don't think I'm crazy. Oh, Mr. Baylor, I can talk to you. I knew there was a reason I loved your classes the most of all ... That ... the way you just described it ... that's exactly the way I feel. It's an awful sadness, it makes you feel cold and dead inside. And yet you don't want anybody to intrude. It's ghoulish, I know, but you want to enjoy your sadness. Isn't that right? Isn't that the way you feel?"
"Yes, Patti. That's the way I feel" And his heart heeled over hard, half in sympathy for this mixed-up, pitiful kid, half in sympathy for himself. "So you see, you're not alone." His voice became husky. "Not alone at all...."
And eerie whistling began in his brain. He felt as if he were suddenly freezing, as if his pulse were going to bang a hole in the side of his head. The yearning ... incredible, overpowering...
Suddenly, caught up in a reason-demolishing panic, proudly disdainful of consequences or risk, he was reaching for Patti, he was roughly pulling the pliant body toward him. Then, with the frightened girl half in his arms, half balanced on the chair, he was pushing her back awkwardly to lower his lips to hers.
And what happened! Just as in all his fantasies. Patti was rigid for the briefest moment, her body thin and graceful in his grasp her lips warm and dry. Then she went limp as she surrendered completely to the masterful, impulsive kissing. Her lips blossomed and pressured, answered him in surging passion.
Now the thundering stopped in his brain, and reason slowly flooded back. Little by little he released his hold on her, his lips twice returning to reaffirm the insane reality of what he'd done. Then he was setting her upright, his eyes darting to the door to see if, by any chance, anyone was peering in.
"I'm sorry, Pattie," he said, his words ringing in the hollow vault of his brain. "I shouldn't have done that. I know I shouldn't. But all at once that seemed..." His voice trailed off.
"That seemed the right thing to do," she finished for him, her face pale, her eyes wide. "The only thing to do."
They sat for long minutes in haunting silence, staring out the window, neither of them looking at the other.
"That just happened," Ken said stupidly. "I didn't mean to do that. I just did."
"That's all right," she murmured, suddenly affecting a worldly sophistication. "Don't blame yourself. Don't blame anybody." She seemed somehow much wiser than he at that moment.
"Patti," he said huskily, recalling the original purpose of this interview which all seemed so unimportant now, like something that happened years ago "we've got to talk again. But some other time. When we...."
"I know," she breathed. "I want to talk, too. About all kinds of things."
She rose, brushed out her skirt. She looked up at him, her eyes opaque with an undisguised yearning. Then, in a tiny voice: "Won't you, Mr. Baylor...? Please, kiss me again?"
His stomach constricted, his body was awash with tremors as he took her in his arms. She trembled uncontrollably as he kissed her a second time, made no protest whatsoever when his left hand rose, cupped her breast, moved gently. A moment later her hand covered his, held his hand immobile on the quaking mound.
They broke this kiss. "I want you," she wavered, "and I don't want you. I'm so mixed up."
Her lips were poised again. A third kiss then, tingling, maddening. Her own hand lifted his onto her breast. Then, suddenly, Patti tore from his grasp, went running from the room.
She left a disastrously stunned Ken Baylor in her wake.
God, Ken, he castigated himself ruthlessly. You silly jerk, what do you think you're doing? Don't you know where a thing like this can lead? Isn't it bad enough you're horsing around with Tessa Vareese, that you're climbing out on a limb, sawing it of after you? And now this? Hanky-panky with an eighteen year old kid? What in God's name are you thinking about?
It was six o'clock, the school was entirely deserted, before Baylor finally broke from his baffling trance and rose to leave. He glanced about uncomprehendingly, as if he didn't realize just where he was.
He felt like he'd been away from the world for a decade.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was mid-afternoon at 1147 Jason drive. Wednesday, May 8. Diane Baylor, sitting in her living room with a cup of tea balanced on the arm of her chair, was mired down in the deepest, most confusing of thoughts. For the hundredth time in the last few weeks she sought to puzzle out the strange change that was coming over her. And something else besides.
Something like the unmistakable change that had come over Ken, her husband, also.
Something was brewing. And she didn't like the smell of it at all.
It had the strong odor of infidelity.
And yet ... Impossible. Absolutely impossible. Not my Ken...
She almost laughed at the idea. It just couldn't be. She was acting like a fool. like a silly, rattle-brained female who hadn't anything better to do with her time than envision fantastic escapades her plodding husband was having with his secretary, with the waitress who served him his lunch, with almost any loose female who walked God's green earth.-
And ... Stop that! This instant!
Of more concern was the fitful restlessness she felt mounting within her. II Ken was home this afternoon at this moment, she thought. The children are napping And even if they weren't, I wouldn't let that stop me. I'd send them out to play, I'd coax dear Kenny into the bedroom. And then...
She felt a liquid torridness deep in her body, her legs ached all at once. Diane, she chided, feeling an evil lack of real chagrin, what's getting into you anyway? You're acting like a lust-up tramp. You're too young for menopause.
And if that's so, then what in creation kind of change-of-life is this anyway?
This was incredible. That she'd actually sit here like this, in broad daylight, with the sun streaming in the windows, and think about things like s.he and Ken in bed. Think about the way his hands felt on her, the way his lips could tie her up in knots.
Diane ... stop now. Do you hear? This is insane.
Insane this might be. But a real manifestation nevertheless. And between her reveries she sipped her tea. determinedly, fought to shut out the pictures, to understand what was happening to her.
Could such a thing be? That for five years she'd had only superficial interest in the love act, and that now, all of a sudden, at thirty, she'd be so helpless before the love drive, reborn so to speak? Granted, she'd read such articles. The essence of her gleanings was that at thirty the female sex urge increases, reaches a peak at thirty-five. But she'd laughed the information off, never believed that could happen to her.
And yet ... wasn't that true? Wasn't her evil craving at this moment proof positive?
Also, if that was so, why the relapses in between? When she couldn't stand to have Ken touch her? How could you explain that?
Maybe this was just the beginning, maybe she was building to something. like mighty, powerful waves, with giant peaks and valleys between. Perhaps in time the peaks would diminish, the valleys became shallower. Until the sea was all smooth, a continuing force. Until there would be no lapses of shame and regret in between love events. Only anticipation of the next.
And wasn't there something to be said for the intrinsic therapeutic value of the male-female love act? The other night, after Ken had finally finished, hadn't she felt so totally satisfied and complete? Hadn't she slept like a baby the rest of the night? And the next day, hadn't she been happy as a lark, hadn't she just sailed through things?
As much as she hated to admit that, it was true. Both times, lately the act had left her feeling happy and refreshed. The guilt pangs had had little chance to disturb her. And now, this afternoon. If she wasn't changing, how could she explain this away?
Perhaps there was much to be said for the love act as recreation rather than chore. Couldn't that justifiably be entered into joyfully and wantonly? With just a dash of mischievous playfulness to give extra zest? Couldn't there be love without a grinding sense of duty and conscience? Couldn't the act be brought off for the act's sake alone?
And ... Hadn't she had fun the last two times? When she'd turned basic and animal, had let Ken know how much she was enjoying him? Had received bonus of sensation in the bargain.
Honey, honey, she teased now. You've been missing the boat. For a long, long time now. For too long. But watch out, Kenny-love. Your days are numbered.
The rattle of her empty teacup on the saucer, the way her hands were shaking, brought her out of her wicked torpor. And an entirely different train of thought came in from a different direction.
The 3:13. On time this afternoon.
The way Ken had been so distracted when he'd come home late from school last night. The fact that he'd stayed late one night last week. That wasn't his style. He was too efficient a teacher to make himself stay after.
Last night had been the corker. She hadn't been able to get two words out of him all evening.
She considered the rash of late evenings during the past three weeks. That wasn't like Ken either. Usually he was more than content to stay home and stagnate. Especially that committee meeting last week, when he came home so dragged out. Suspicion flared with an arc-light flame.
Could this be? Ken had taken so long. So delightfully long. Could that have been the explanation? Could he have been with a woman all evening? Ken wasn't exactly noted for being slow fuse.
He wouldn't dare, she raged. He wouldn't dare humiliate me like that. To use me like that, second in line.
Abruptly her anger was dissipated. Her thoughts rumbled like so much dry sand as Carol came out of her room and said, "Mommy, I can't sleep. Can I get up now?"
"Yes, baby," she said, rising from the chair to straighten Carol's clothes. At the same time she felt dizzy, too suddenly returned to reality.
What's getting into you? To think things like that? Weren't the love fancies bad enough? Do you have to dishonor Ken also?
And yet there was too strong an indication that something was afoot. A woman has to be practical. His comings and goings from now on would bear watching. Very close watching.
She took Carol's hand somewhat roughly and led her toward the bathroom.
It was four o'clock of that same afternoon. And at Holcomb High Baylor had a visitor in the person of Dave Frazer. And because it had been one of those days, rough and confused, complicated by the turmoil of thoughts in the background, Ken was glad to see his raunchy friend. He anticipated the interlude of levity.
Only today, levity was not foremost in Dave Frazer's mind. He was doing a little investigating. Things had been happening around Holcomb High that he wanted to be in on. "How's it by you and Tessa?" he said, coming out with it, hitting Ken between the eyes with the confrontation.
Ken was badly winged, but not downed. He let his smile freeze only briefly, then bluffed like mad. "Tessa? Oh the same. We've got a wild, passionate thing going. We get together morning noon and night. We've got a place fixed up in the library. Way on top of the stacks, where nobody can see us. Drop up sometime, why don't you?"
"Come off that, buddy. You don't fool me one bit. C'mon, give me the truth. I got eyes, I see you and Tessa with your heads together in the library all the time. What cooks? You two got a little thing going? You can tell me; you know your secret's safe with me."
"Just as safe as announcing it over the P.A. system at nine in the morning."
"You know me better than that, Ken. I just want the straight scoop. Give, buddy. Something must be cooking."
"like I say," Ken grinned, confident now that he was on top of the situation, "we're in the library, whaling away three times a day. We're trying to break a record set by some guy in France. Look that up in the almanac."
Frazer was persistent if he was anything. "How about dibs on that? I could use a little of her brand. I know she's a good one. Ummgh! I can feel that in my bones every time I see her shake that cute little rear of hers down the hall. Don't be stingy with her. Fix her up with me, will you? I'm sure that little chick won't turn down a seasoned veteran of the bed-sheet wars like me."
"Why don't you check with Tessa herself? Maybe she can squeeze you into her crowded schedule."
"That has all the earmarks of a dirty crack."
"Besides, what happened to Rose and Peggy? You want a corner on all the stuff in town? I thought you had a thing going with them."
"I did. But that ran full course. After all, once you've had 'em, what're the odds in hanging around? Love 'em and leave 'em, that's my motto."
"You should have a coat of arms made up."
"I already have." Dave sat on the edge of Ken's desk. "Now listen. Are you going to give me a straight answer or not?"
"I already did. Sorry, chum, I'm a married man. Just because I talk to Miss Vareese in the library doesn't mean we're doing after hours research together. I talked to Miss Bronson yesterday. She's sixty if she's a day. I suppose I'm tumbling that, too."
"Okay, okay," Frazer paused at the door. "So I've been told. You ain't got a thing going with Tessa. That gives me clear road. I'll talk her into a jump if it takes me all summer."
"Rots of fuck."
Frazer departed talking to himself, not knowing any more when he left than when he'd come.
While behind, in his room, Baylor breathed a deep sigh of relief. Things were getting stickier all the time. If Dave had noticed him and Tessa in the library, then others must have noticed also. He'd have to cool things drastically, really watch his step from here on in.
Next thing he knew, Diane would be getting ideas, too.
Baylor stayed in his room late every afternoon the remainder of that week. Somehow hoping, entertaining the wildest of dreams. Praying that Patti would come back. That they could take up where they'd left off, that they could probe and understand the awesome miracle that had come to pass in their lives. Actually that was what he'd been doing the afternoon Dave Frazer barged in: Sitting on pins and needles, hoping against hope ... Patti...
But Wednesday and Thursday afternoons had passed. And nothing had happened. Patti hadn't appeared in class on Wednesday; a check in the office indicated her absent. On Thursday she'd been back. They'd barely dared to look at each other. Patti had made no response whatsoever during class discussion.
And now, on Friday afternoon, Baylor again sat in the empty, echoing building, his heart beating in dull, disappointed pulse. He fought to concentrate on the paper work before him but found it impossible. Countless times he looked up at his window when someone whisked by, his mind cringing before the intense desire to see Patti's frightened face framed in the glass. But always it was a lagging student or instructor, one of the hurrying custodians.
It was four-fifty. And on Friday night any school building in the land clears quickly. Teachers are hurrying off for the weekend, pupils are frantic to kick the school dust off their heels. Even the usually immovable janitors make like the Twentieth Century Limited on Fridays.
Now the building was. completely deserted. Five o'clock. There was no chance that Patti would come now. Still Ken couldn't make himself push up from his desk, leave the building. Still he kept hoping. Just a jew minutes more...
He turned in his chair to look at the gloomy day outside. Seemingly, in perfect complement to his mood, it had been a miserably gloomy week. Only Wednesday had been nice. Again he studied the lawns and trees he and Patti had found so beautiful the other afternoon. Today they were just lawns and trees, nothing more. He sighed heavily.
Suddenly he froze in his chair, he felt goose bumps tumble down his spine, pepper his arms and legs. He'd heard the soft snick behind him; he was positive he was now no longer alone in the classroom! Slowly, ever so slowly he turned in his chair.
His breathing stopped. It seemed all at once that someone had pierced his heart with a long sharp needle. For an instant his vision blurred, he actually wanted to sob with joy.
Patti Conte stood just inside the door, her face strained, a frightened, confused expression in her eyes.
"I was waiting in the girls' restroom," she said haltingly. "I wanted to be sure there was no one else in the building. I knew you were in your room. I came by at four-forty-five. I saw you sitting in here."
"Patti," he groaned, went toward her. He closed the door firmly. Then he was pulling her toward the back of the room, he was crowding her, still standing, into a corner where nobody could possibly see them.
CHAPTER NINE
There was no hesitance, no fumbling, groping or mawkish word. She trembled in his arms, she raised her head, timidly yet proudly offering her lips.
His pulse hammering in his temples like a timpani choir, he made a ritual of bringing his own mouth to hers, he touched that fevered flesh tenderly and reverently. Then, by increasing grams of pressure, he pressed his lips harder and harder. Until a thunderbolt of passion cleaved him from head to toe. And he kissed her viciously, brutally, driving his mouth to hers.
He was trembling uncontrollably.
And Patti was shaking like she'd suddenly been chilled to the marrow of her bones.
Still the kiss went on. The whistling was back in Ken's ears, it seemed he was falling into a black pit. Damn, he raged inwardly. This can't be happening! Things like this just don't happen! They don't!
Yet he sensed dizzy triumph. This was happening. There was no doubt about that. God, was this happening!
Now he was broken by the sweet joy as Patti pulled her head away and dropped into the sheltering cover of his ams, her cheek against the hard bulwark of his chest. "I couldn't breathe, Mr. Baylor," she said apologetically.
"Sorry, sorry. I forgot, lost control of things for a minute I guess."
"It's all right. I didn't mind. I wanted that. You're all I've been able to think about for days. I've been walking around in some kind of a trance. My Mom really thinks I've flipped now, that I'm really spooky."
She stopped talking, looked up at him earnestly, her eyes moist, growing opalescent in the gloom. "Is this wrong? Is this so terribly wrong? For me to want you to kiss me? For a school kid to want to kiss her teacher?"
"Wrong?" he smiled. "Who can say what's wrong? This's happened to us, Patti. And what are we going to do? Can we turn this off like water from a faucet?" He held her closer, dipped his head, slid his lips in her tangled curls. "I've been going crazy remembering. I've been waiting every night since, hoping...."
"I wanted to come, really I did. But I didn't have the nerve. I was afraid ... this ... would happen again. Then I was afraid you wouldn't...." She laughed nervously. "Oh, I'm really mixed up, let me tell you."
"That's all right, Patti. You're here, we're together that's all that matters."
It seemed to Ken Baylor that he was floating in, supported upon, a gauzy cloud of cotton an insulating wall that shut him off from reality, that imperiously denied the existence of a world outside themselves. He was with Patti, she was with him! They were kissing and embracing. Beyond that, what else mattered? What else at all?
As if to reassure himself, Ken took Patti's chin and lifted it. Tenderly, as if afraid to sunder the bittersweet mood, he kissed her again, working his lips softly against hers, flattening them, easing away the self-conscious stiffness. Until they became lush, compliant. Until they were answering his avidly.
It seemed an hour passed while they involved themselves in that sweet, searching kiss.
While within Baylor, and Patti Conte also presumably, a savage demon of desire went sorting through his entrails, tangling and knotting and pincering them. The sensation was maddening, approaching the realm of actual pain.
Ken sighed deeply, actually forced Patti's body away from his. "Here," he husked, "let's take off that coat." Returning to mundane matters, he took off the white rain coat, threw it over a chair. Patti was dressed in a plain beige jersey dress, a demure, teenage thing, buttoned and pleated down the front, a copper belt around her small, elegant waist. She wore no stockings; her feet were shoved into dark brown flats, relatively new, the toes in a squared off point.
Ken now saw how flushed her face was, the disheveled state of her dark hair. In one corner of her mouth a smear of lipstick betrayed the passion so recently shared, as did her enchanting breasts, rising and falling so rapidly.
"Don't," she protested. "Don't look at me like that. I'm all messed up. I wanted to be pretty for you...."
"You are pretty for me," he breathed. "Here, sit down. No, right here." He indicated the row of library chairs along the back wall. "We've got so many things to get straightened out."
"Yes," she whispered. "I guess we have."
Still, despite his resolve, he couldn't keep his hands off Patti. AH he knew was that he wanted her close, he wanted to touch her every second they had together. To this effect he drew their chairs together, put his arm around her and pulled her head down to his shoulder.
She sighed quakingly, trembled, then relaxed, seemingly content to surrender herself to his will. "What happened to us?" she said in a small, wondering voice. "I can't understand this at all. I've tried and tried, but nothing helps. One minute we were talking, you were listening to me rattle on about my mood foolishness. And the next...."
"I don't know," Ken replied. "All I know is that you were wonderful. That I haven't been able to think about anything else since. We're crazy, T know. We should break this off immediately, this can only lead to bad trouble. But I don't want to. I want this to go on, I'm willing to take almost any risk to go on."
Her hand shook in his and she turned, looked soulfully at him "Oh, Mr. Baylor ... I. . . "
"Not Mr. Baylor. Not when we're together ... like this. Ken. Please, Patti."
"Ken. That sounds so strange. It's going to take some getting used to."
"Try. Only don't call me Mr. Baylor."
"Yes ... Ken."
He kissed her then, holding her tiny face with both hands rocking and cradling her as his lips touched and pressed and teased. Until Patti was shaking like a leaf.
"This is crazy, crazy," she quavered. "I just don't understand..."
"Maybe you just needed someone. Someone who could hear you out, who could...."
"Who could what?"
"I don't know." He laughed briefly. "I just don't know what I'm trying to say. Words just don't seem adequate somehow."
"No, Mr. Bay ... Ken. They don't."
"Your parents. Have they changed their attitude any, since ... Have you even mentioned college to them?"
"No. That's like talking to a stone wall. I've given up trying. They only make me see red. Then I say things I shouldn't, and Dad slaps my face and..."
The conversation drifted off. Seemingly nothing they said caught fire that afternoon. Several times Ken tried to lead Pattie to talk about her mystic feelings about nature and music. Once he got her started on her love of Dylan Thomas's poetry and prose, especially his "Child's Christmas in Wales," but that fizzled out also.
Other more powerful forces were at large within each of them. Forces which had nothing whatsoever to do with puny conversation.
". . . I spent five dollars of my baby-sitting money," Patti was saying, "and bought the record of Dylan Thomas reading his story along with some of his poems on the other side. It's magnificent; he has such a booming, hypnotic voice. Sometimes, in class, when you're reading something to us, you remind me of him."
"Thank you, Patti. What a nice compliment."
"Of course my parents thought I was nuts. 'Pay five bucks for a record with only some guy talking on it, no music...'" Patti mimicked. "Talk about slobs."
"You shouldn't judge them so harshly, Patti," Ken defended. "After all, they haven't had all the advantages you have. They can't help it if...." But his plea was no good; his heart wasn't really in it. Precious time was speeding by. And soon Patti would have to leave, he'd have to hurry home to his insensitive, busy-busy wife. And disastrous as he knew the next segment would be, he nevertheless desired her with a hectic frenzy.
The mystic wonder of the moment was strong within him again. He seemed disjointed from time and circumstance. He didn't want this moment to end, he didn't want to talk to Patti about such petty things as her parents, her school problems. There was only one thing he wanted to talk about.
And when he considered that he was appalled, dragged almost to the gates of reality and reason. This was an incredible thing he was speculating! For a grown, supposedly mature man to lust after one of his students, to actually formulate a stratagem whereby he'd seduce and physically possess that innocent body...
I'm mad, he charged, absolutely mad.
Yet this was a virulent, rampaging madness, mounting, becoming more unbearable every moment he held Patti in his arms, fueled to blast-furnace intensity with each new kiss.
Until finally all talk died. And they were clinging to each other with shaking, restless arms as if both infected by the same unhinging contagion. There was no doubt about what was in their minds. They must have this release; this seemed the only solution to their problems.
The room seemed darker now; the light filtering in from the hallway was watery and gray. A dash of rain against the banks of outer windows served to rouse Ken from his indecisive mood. He sucked in his breath audibly.
"Ken...." she said, the name sounding alien even to him, "what is it? Why don't you say something?"
He gathered the soft, flexible body into his arms, buried his lips in the deep of her throat. "Oh, Patti," he gritted, his voice phlegmy. "I can't talk. If I do I'll say things I shouldn't. I'll rave like a madman."
Again that same worldly-wise mantle seemed to fall over Patti. It was as if she actually sensed what he wanted to tell her, was determined to coax the declaration from him. "What kind of things, Ken? Tell me. I won't be offended. I want to share . . .whatever . .
He kissed her hungrily, his mouth pecking at hers, moving to her nose, her eyes, her ears. The carnal impatience became even stronger; the elemental, chaotic wildness grew in him. The wildness that could only be expressed in one way. "Patti, Patti," he groaned.
"Please," she begged softly. "Tell me. What do you want to say?"
His lips closed on hers, nourished there while his hand, the fever finally becoming overpowering, slid on her legs, then rose to her breast. His fingers formed velvet tongs, gathered and clustered around the nipple of her left breast. A long, low sigh escaped Patti; the rosette immediately became rigid beneath her clothing.
"Tell me," she demanded, her body stiffening, her tone all but deranged.
"I want you, angel," he choked. "I'm wrong, I'll admit, but I can't help that. I want you so terribly. Do
.now what that means? That's a polite way of saying...."
Her voice was shadowy. "Yes, Ken. I know what that means. I'm not an absolute kid. I've read lots of books. I know what you want...."
"Patti...."
Her hand closed, flattened his hand, fashioned a cup for her bosom. "I want you, too. I'm scared to death, but I do." Her voice snagged. "I do, I do."
His stomach tumbled like wet clothing in a dryer. "Patti ... are you saying.... ? "
She disengaged herself from his hands and stood before him, staring out the windows. She swayed slightly, was silent momentarily. Then, her words resigned, cold: "Where, Ken? Here? On those chairs? On the floor? Just tell me."
Ken was transfixed, he sat as if turned to stone. Then, regaining his senses, he jumped up to embrace the child in a jarring bear hug. "My darling," he rasped. "My darling..."
She smiled a sad, wise smile. "Where, Ken? I can't stay too much longer...."
That would be blasphemy, to consummate this love here in this barren classroom. On something as uninviting as a row of chairs. Then he remembered. The place wasn't adequate by any means, but was better than ... this.
"Would you mind terribly ... Patti ... if we went to the nurse's room? There are beds there."
Patti's face was expressionless as she faced him. "No, not at all, Ken. Anything you say. That'll be fine."
Then she melted into his arms, trembled in huge, wracking shudders, hung heavily on him as he led her from the room. Their footsteps echoed hauntingly in the empty, tiled corridor.
They set out down the hall, neither of them saying a word, toward the nurse's room.
The room was open as a matter of mandatory school policy in case of emergency. It was a clean, antiseptic cubicle, modern as far as any room in the school might be considered modern, separated into two sections an anteroom with two cots on each wall, another cot inside the nurse's office proper. It was here that Ken, wanting to have two closed doors between them and the world, took Patti.
They were horribly awkward and self-conscious at first, some of their ardor having burnt out during their purposeful passage down the corridor. Ken and Patti perched on the edge of the crisp, white-sheeted bed, their arms about each other, kissing wildly, trying to revive passion. Beyond this was the fact that Patti's terror had by now ganged up on her and she was twitching uncontrollably.
This reaction mixture of fear-and desire-gave Ken pause, filled him with deadening guilt. I shouldn't, I shouldn't, he railed at himself.
But immediately came answering refrain: I must, I must. I can't turn back now. I want her too badly. I'll die if I don't have her.
And then, as if deliberately setting out to bury conscience, he was pushing her back, he was lifting her feet, placing her on the bed, simultaneously removing her shoes, dropping them to the floor.
Until she was full length, her arms loose at her sides, her face turned away, staring at the wall. Still reluctant and frightened as she might have been-her goose-fleshed arms and legs, the way her bosom heaved, her deep quick breathing, too loud in the silent room, served to betray her innate need.
There was no turning back for either of them.
He went to her, lay beside her, his lips seeking hers, drilling and pressuring her frenziedly, his hands sliding on her. Until they reached the promontory of her breast, roiled without stop.
Patti came alive to his touch. Her kiss was grinding and impatient, her breath hissed from her nose, a small whimper formed in her throat.
A magnificent guilt-annihilating storm was building within both of them.
Yet he felt uncertain. So much time had passed since he'd initiated Diane into the glories of love that he wasn't quite sure just how to proceed with an innocent like Patti. He wanted the experience to be a supreme delight to her; he didn't want to hurt or frighten her. Especially he didn't want to disgust her.
He compared her to Tessa Vareese, found no basis for comparison whatsoever. Tessa had gone fifty-fifty with him. Maybe even sixty-forty. With Patti this was all his show. He had to mastermind things from inception to finish. And yet, he chafed, he didn't want to fool with finesse. He wanted Patti so badly. He wanted to hurry, hurry to get this first one out of the way.
There was time enough for wooing and delicacy later.
His mind rebelled. Later? How was he sure there'd be a later? Maybe this would be the one and only.
So he forced himself to hold back, he forced himself to be gentle, to lead Patti from plateau to plateau of sensation. All leading to the apex of sensation. Her first time...
Briefly he was angered at his impatience. Jerk, he challenged, who was so hot on training these immature girls, who was going to teach them what love and love-making should really be? Who wanted Patti assigned to him?
And now, you're just crazy enough to ruin the whole bit. Relax, make this last. And last.
But Patti brought him back to the immediacy of their situation. Practical female to the end. "My dress, Ken. Let me take that off so that it won't get all wrinkled up. My mother will wonder..."
"Let me," he said. "I'll help. Here now, you just lie still. There. Relax, now..."
His voice was soothing, and Patti sighed as she fell back, allowing him to undo the buttons down the front of her dress. Then the belt. Now she adjusted easily, sat up, let him pull the dress over her head. In a reflexive show of modesty she stopped him when he started to raise her slip. Then, realizing she was committed, that this had to be, she dropped her hands and let him work the white nylon garment off. She lay still, one arm over her eyes, as the slip came away as she was revealed in just her brassiere and panties, a matching white ensemble, with a dark blue stitched "Friday" embossed on each garment.
For long moments Ken sat staring at her, seeing the spray of goose bumps on her flesh, seeing the darkened nibs of her nipples through the sheer nylon. Then finally he drew away from her felt embarrassment as he disrobed completely before her, knowing full well that she was watching him through slitted eyes.
He felt a surge of pity hit him as her muffled words tumbled out. "Is that..." she referred to the effect she'd had on him, ". . . the way this is?"
"Yes, baby," he said gravely, fighting back a smile.
"Come over here, Ken. By me."
She protested when he tried to undo her brassiere. "Ken, couldn't we ... just leave that? I mean ... my pants ... they have to ... But my bra ... I..."
He was gentle, but firm. "This'll be better with the bra off. With both of us ... naked. Please, baby. Relax. I won't hurt you."
Docilely she yielded, let him turn her so he could get at the snaps. Then the filmy band was being slid down her arms, the erect, crinkled, brown nipples were exposed to the dim light. Ken sat over her, staring at them, watching the way her breasts heaved in growing excitement. Seconds later her hands drifted up to cover them. But Ken, dissatisfied, pried the hands away. A sharp, seething sigh broke from her as he bent, ministered to her breasts with his lips. Her body lurched and twisted on the sheets.
His lips went crazy on her as he resisted her attempts to replace her hands. And in a moment, a long, whining sigh filling the air, she went limp, quit fighting. Learning fast, she let herself enjoy his gentle attentions.
She made a last show of modesty as he began rolling the panties down, but that was only token resistance. Then his hands were streaking down her legs, following the nylon garment to twist that off her feet.
And now, all need for shyness gone, she was driving her naked body at his, her arms were around him, her hands were sliding feverishly on his back. Small puffs of breath broke from her throat. "Ken, Ken..." she cried.
She permitted him to labor at her breasts a little longer, her body becoming a frenzied, tortured thing, her low cries of delight a nonstop chant. He kissed and compressed the nipples with his lips, he let his hands hold and mold her breasts to better advantage, let his jingers twirl her nipples, hold them captive for his lips. Until the poor innocent was beside herself with supercharged emotions the like of which she'd never known before.
She was lovely, Ken had to admit, more lovely than he'd dared dream. Her breasts, taut and firm, vibrant in their fresh youthfulness, were a vision of beauty. Her waist trim and smooth, with just a trace of baby fat above her hips, was charming, her legs were perfection, working a peculiar magic upon him.
"Ooo, oooh," Patti moaned in long drawn out sighs, "I never thought you would be like this. I never knew there were feelings like this. Oh, Ken, I'm so afraid. And yet not afraid. I don't know what to think."
"There's nothing to be afraid of. I'll be good to you, I won't hurt you. I swear..."
"You promise. I've heard the girls talking. They say this hurts awful the first time."
A fireball welled inside Ken at Patti's admission of her virginity. This child, this woman, wants to give me. . . she's willing to suffer this pain for me ... It made the miracle of this love all the greater, humbling him. He felt like shouting his triumph from all the rooftops in the city. Patti, you angel.. .
"Ken..." she started.
"Yes, what?"
"You'll have to ... soon. I don't think I can stand this any more. I feel all crazy. like I want to bite and scratch and break things. Besides, we haven't much more time."
Still Ken couldn't hurry. Attending her breasts anew, his hands continuing to slide all over her; he couldn't get enough of that pristine, mint-fresh loveliness.
"Please, Ken," she whimpered. "I feel so funny."
Her hands came around his waist. "Go ahead, Ken. Please, oh, please..."
A further strange quirk was exhibited as he complied with her request.
"Hurt me, Ken. Oh, hurt me. I want you to hurt, hurt something awful. So I can remember always...."
This was a waving flag to a raging bull. He was beyond control now, all sensitivities routed. His lust was magnified a thousand fold as he saw Patti bite her lips, as he saw the way her face squeezed up in agony, as he heard her muffled squeals of pain.
"Oooh!" she groaned. Her arms tightened and she cried out again. Only now pleasure and delight dominated her tones, agony was sent packing.
Ken was dazzled at the variety of his sensations. Humbleness, pride, exultation. And a hearty helping of awe as well as out-and-out ecstasy. He was almost in pain. And yet ... such exquisite pain. A pain he wanted to last forever.
Patti said no more. But her soft, thick sighs, the whimpers that broke from her, were indication enough of the heights of rapture she was experiencing.
Then Patti's body froze, her head lolled on the pillow, her mouth gaped. She exhaled a long, rasping cry.
"I love you, Ken," she said, all the sincerity of her young heart behind the words. "I do, I really do."
And puzzled, not knowing actually what he felt, Ken forced himself to repeat her declaration. "I love you, Patti. Love you, love you..."
While he continued,, the savage, sweet pain ballooning and pressuring, backing up until .he felt he would choke from the glorious ecstasy. Strangely enough he wanted to use the terminology Tessa had taught him.
But he did not dare. Not with this baby.
"Ken?" she wondered at his continuing activity. "What?"
"I'm almost there," he muttered, a field of glare-silver forming behind his eyelids.
"Oh," was all she said. And in her innocence, her passion achieved, sated now, she went limp, did not know enough to help him.
And then...
He was there.
The whistling again. Turning to the thunder of a thousand kettle drums, the shimmering vibrato of as many violins intermixed, climbing over, conquering the booming cacophony.
Ken groaned, went still.
"Darling," she realized then, "I should have ... I shouldn't have let you do that alone. I didn't know."
"It's all right, angel, perfectly all right. Any "better and I'd be dead."
She kissed him. "Next time you'll have to tell me. I want to be good for you. I love you so much."
Ken wanted desperately to talk, to make plans for that elusive next time. But Patti was frightened. It was almost seven o'clock. She was going to have some tall explaining to do as it was. And so was Ken Baylor.
Lingeringly they began to dress. Lastly they put the room back in exactly the same order they'd found it.
The rain had stopped. As they furtively came out of the building, Ken offered to give her a lift. Patti refused. "I'll walk. It'll fit in with my story about getting into one of my moods, walking in the rain."
Then she was running away from him, disappearing into the gloom.
Ken actually stopped at Barney's Bar on the way home, swiftly downing two martinis to reinforce his alibi for being so tardy.
He feigned a thick tongue. "I'm sorry, Diane. Dave and I stopped, lost track of the time. You know how it is sometimes. It's 'Thank God It's Friday' day. You can understand that, can't you?"
"You could've at least called."
"I tell you we lost track of the time. Got to playing some pool and stuff. And before you know it it was seven o'clock. Drop it, will you? You act like I do it every night."
"You're doing it a lot more than you used to."
Despite the swift creeping intoxication infecting him, Ken Baylor couldn't help but notice the probing, dark suspicion in his wife's eyes. If he hadn't known better he'd have sworn she was wise to something.
"How about something to eat?" he bluffed, deliberately staggering as he went to the bathroom to wash.
CHAPTER TEN
If the days at school were bad-Pattie Conte's presence in class, the fact that she was even abroad in that concrete labyrinth-the nights were even worse. Sitting home those evenings with Diane close at hand, feigning interest in a TV program, fighting to concentrate on a magazine or book, his mind all the while blazing with thoughts of Patti, was harrowing torture. It was impossible to act natural, to conduct a barely coherent conversation with Diane.
Get hold of yourself, he warned repeatedly, act like something besides a sleepwalker. You want Diane to tumble, you want to ruin everything?
He might as well have warned the wall. Remembrance of Patti, the crushing sense of victory intermixed with the most galling shame and remorse-was with him every placid, uninvolved moment. As well as the whiplashing desire, the feverish impatience to be with Patti again, consequences, propriety, sanity be damned!
So long as he was busy with the wrap-up school activities he was fairly all right. But just leave gaps of unoccupied time, even tiny ones, and Patti would invade his brain; her voice, her face, her cries, the things she'd said Friday in the nurse's room would churn and tumble in his head. Until he was crazy to see her, be with her again.
He hadn't seen Tessa Vareese in over a week. And, bluntly put, he couldn't have cared less. He'd pointedly avoided the library, he'd taken routes through the halls which would preclude his bumping into her. Once, seeing her heading toward his classroom one late afternoon, he'd backtracked and ducked into the men's lounge.
The truth was that the interlude with Patti had turned him against the unprincipled wanton. The thing with Patti was meaningful, tremendously moving, realization of sick, but nevertheless all powerful daydreams; he didn't want it to end. Where the thing with Tessa, he now realized, was nothing more than a passion circus. A meeting of bodies, and nothing more. Remembering the things he'd let Tessa do the last time they'd met, he wondered what depravities they would've eventually experimented with had the affair continued.
But now, he decided, that was over. He'd never go back to Tessa. He wouldn't have to say anything; just staying away should be sufficient. Tessa was an intelligent girl, she didn't need more of a hint. The episode was definitely a thing of the past.
Besides, there was Diane to consider. She was his wife, she had borne his children, he did have appearances to maintain. And, once the lunatic thing with Patti had run the course, he'd again be able to step back into the rut his life had previously been. Glad for all he knew to do so.
He recalled one night (was it Sunday? It seemed a lifetime had passed since) when, agitated by memory of Patti, he'd made romantic overtures toward Diane. To which overtures she'd surprisingly responded, showing warmth, eagerness even. Certainly that hadn't been a dutiful surrender. But somehow, the love act barely underway, they had both sensed the sham, and in confusion had allowed the real meaning to slip away. like two machines they'd seen the thing through, simulated ardor and shattering release. That had been, awful.
Afterward Diane had cried. Nothing he'd said had comforted her. On Monday, in the clear light of day, he'd pondered the sobbing breakdown. Certainly something was troubling Diane. He should get to the bottom of it. If only ... If only there weren't Patti.
There would be time. Later. Much later. They had the whole summer before them. When Patti would be gone, supposedly out of his life for good.
The thought made him want to scream with frustration.
So May marched gaily on. As the end of the school year drew near Ken Baylor's desperation grew greater. Armageddon loomed.
During that third week in May spring moved in with a vengeance. For days on end the temperature hit the eighties and the countryside was a riot of color. It was a difficult time for students and teachers alike. Discipline inasmuch as the teachers also were smitten with spring fever was almost impossible to maintain.
And Ken Baylor was in a raging fever of need.
Thus it was that on Wednesday, May 15, Baylor asked Patti Conte to stop by after school. It was, of necessity, a short interview. But a very detailed one, during which he and Patti discussed an escape they'd make that night, ironed out all contingent alibis, precautions and plans.
Both parties left the school building that night in a highly agitated frame of mind.
Diane once more deluded into thinking he was at a curriculum revision meeting, Ken picked up Patti about four blocks from her home as she slowly walked toward the city limits. By using a circuitous route, keeping to back streets, they were able to get out of town without being observed.
Ken found a deserted country lane about seven miles out of Glendon Falls. Pulling into a concealing copse of trees and bushes, Ken killed the Chev's engine and instantly extinguished the lights. Then, a tortured gasp breaking from him product of joy, relief and pain combined he was at Patti, he was holding her in aching embrace.
"Baby, baby," he groaned, his lips locking on hers mercilessly, forgetting gentleness for the moment, so great was his joy. "Oh, God, if you only knew how much I've missed you, how much I've longed to hold you like this."
"Yes, Ken, yes," she answered, her lips peeking greedily at his face, "me, too. I've felt awful, like I'd go crazy if I couldn't see you again."
They kissed and kissed, as if they couldn't get enough of each other, a reckless, selfish, headlong frenzy possessing them; they turned into animals, reason and logic banished. All they knew was that they wanted to touch, to kiss and hold like children when they first experience love, unable to express that love in any other way than physical, finding words puny and meaningless.
This was compulsion that fed on itself, grew stronger for the nourishment, turned snarling and famished on its very benefactors.
And soon, all too soon, they were both shuddering without stop, their breaths were whistling in their throats, their words made no sense at all, conversely made all the sense in the world.
There was no reticence tonight, no fear of the unknown so far as Patti was concerned. She knew why she was here, she knew what to expect before they parted, she was delirious to enjoy him.
Outside the car a soft breeze soughed in the trees, the star shine illuminated the waving, rippling grasses. Far off in the distance the sound of a semi on a main highway, shifting gears as it went up a hill, carried to them. Somewhere there must have been a displaced lilac bush. Its sweet, suffocating fragrance carried into the car, served as totally superfluous aphrodisiac.
Patti stroked his face with her soft, warm hands, shook suddenly, her breath issuing in a plaintive sigh. "Ken ... it's so lovely. Can ... we.. . ? "
"Yes," he said, struck with awe at the sensuality within this innocent half child, half woman. "We can. We will. In a moment. We'll go outside. I brought a blanket. You won't mind, will you?"
Her eyes glittered, her voice caught. "Mind? No, darling. Why should I mind?"
"Some girls might think this cheap."
"I'm not some girls, Ken." She burrowed her forehead into the hollow beneath his chin. "Anything, dear. Just so long as I'm with you. I don't care where or how. I'm happy wherever you are."
"Patti, my precious angel."
And their mouths closed again, consumed, devoured. Tentatively Ken brought his tongue to her lips, touched them. A tremor rocked her, her arms tightened around his neck. And her tongue flicked forth in pagan answer. The kiss seemed to last forever.
They began to perspire in the car, the balmy weather, their rising ardor contributing to their discomfort "Please, Ken," Patti said finally. "Let's go outside."
They pushed out on Patti's side, hand in hand, not wanting to break their tactile contact for even a second. Ken pulled the picnic blanket, permanent fixture in the car, from the back seat.
They went a distance from the car, Ken's heart jamming up in his throat at the happiness he felt to be holding this small little girl in his arms, to know that he was leading her to...
They found a hollow in the shadows of the aromatic lilac bush. A place where the grass was high, where, once the blanket was spread and they were lying down, they seemed to be in a safe, hidden trench. The crickets' monotonous chirping came more loudly now.
But Ken and Pattie were hardly concerned with such petty things as crickets and lilacs. They contributed to the rampaging desire both felt, they enhanced an already tragically romantic background, but consciously they didn't matter at all.
Only one thing mattered. A thing that burned and etched itself into their minds, a thing which turned their limbs molten, that caused them to ache and burn with a libertine fever.
Ken threw himself against Patti, crowded her body to him while his arms enfolded her torso, crammed her to painful contact with his chest. His lips were searching, impatient, brutal, careening over her face, down her neck to the very bastions of her breasts. Kissing and nipping, they came to the first swell of those voluptuous peaks, an attention which set Patti to sighing.
"Take my clothes off, Ken," she choked. "Please. I want you just like you were the other day. I want to be like that for you again." Her voice broke. "Ken, dearest, I'm getting that funny, crazy feeling again. Please, please...."
It gave him such a proud, supreme feeling to work her skirt over her legs, to have her make no move to stop him, to slide his hands on her. He kissed her without stop, his hands rolling and gliding on that silky skin, the exultation growing as Patti helplessly shifted her body, dug her heels into the blanket. He wanted to chuckle his delight as, with each passing moment, her breath came faster, more hissingly tortured.
Then the submission paled, and Ken wanted more. Much more. Carefully he moved away from her and began to undress her. It took a long time, for as each garment came away Ken was drawn to kiss, to stroke, to merely admire.
Until she was naked before him, her body stretched proudly before him, all modesty gone tonight. In the watery light her flesh was muted ivory, her lips and eyes, her dark hair contrasted with evil effect. Her nipples were dark, distended, seemingly begging him to come adore them.
This was irresistible invitation, and Ken was wild to bend, to kiss at those bursting tips. But first.. .
He rose, no trace of embarrassment present now, and stripped before Patti's wide, staring gaze. And when his last garment fell away, again revealed him, an involuntary, wistful sigh broke from her lips. He knelt, sat in a crouch, staring at her for a long time, his fingers caressing her legs.
Then he was down on the blanket beside her, that breeze only moderately cool on his back. He was kissing her. Patti's arms went crazy, pressured her body against him, while a low, keening whisper came from her.
Ken let his lips zigzag down her bosom until they reached the foothills of her breasts. Then they began a slow, maddening climb. And as his lips made contact, as Patti hissed her pleasure, wound her fingers in his hair, he thought how lucky he was to have this love, to have all the time in the world to pursue her. He knew he wasn't going to get his fill of these breasts, of these nut-hard nipples for a long time.
In variation he gathered her melon-like breasts in his hands, rolling them in clockwise, then counter-clockwise spirals. His fingers teased the nipples until they seemed so hard they would pop at any moment.
An attention which Patti was fanatic about.
And finally, working gently, he squeezed the breasts together, he brought the two nipples close, dropped his lips to them, consumed them both at once.
Patti gasped. "Oh dear, Ken," she breathed. "Oh, dear. I never dreamed..
But at long last they could wait no longer. Patti's breath was rasping in her throat, her gasps deep and wavering, as if she were suffocating.
Now was, without a doubt, the time.
"Oooh," she whimpered, her body moving reflexively, "Oooh, Ken. I'd almost forgotten."
He became impatient. "Be careful, darling," she whispered. "Remember I'm new at this..."
He cursed himself for a slob. "I'm sorry, Patti. I just want you so badly. I...."
"That's all right," she said. "I'm all right now. I'm ready."
They started slowly, something ethereal, spiritually beautiful about the time, the place, about the perfect sense of self-sacrifice surrounding them. Teacher and pupil, each learning and each teaching, sharing an awesome mystery, enjoying to the depths of their being.
But then the gentleness faded. An intense savagery was born for both of them. Both of them moved more rapidly.
Faster, faster-
"You're better tonight, darling," Patti said. "Better than last time." Her voice grew thick. "I love you, Ken, oh I love you."
And Ken, sincerely believing the words this time, re-echoed them. "I love you, Patti. So much. I'm wild about you. I'd die if I didn't have you."
"Oh!" she cried bewilderedly. "Something's happening. I think I'm starting. Oh, you feel so strange, so wonderful. Oh, honey, honey . .
He gauged her reactions perfectly, slowed his rhythm, drew her to a silvery thread of ecstasy. And then Ken went in search of his own moment of truth.
Patti, adrift from her own fulfillment, lay inert and drowsy. "Help me, darling," he said softly. "Don't give up so soon."
Almost like a reprimanded child she started. "Oh. I forgot. You were so good I forgot. Yes, Ken, yes.. .
The full, sublime impact of his own deliverance was shadowed somewhat by the final commotion which unexpectedly overtook Patti.
She was almost funny. The way her eyes grew so round, the way her voice faltered. "Ken! I think . . .that can't be ... I think I'm starting again. Oh, please, darling, don't stop."
A fragile cry sliced the dark night. And Patti's education was advanced that much farther. She'd learned another of love's miracles. Ken would have laughed.
Except for one thing. The fact that he was, himself, at that devastating moment, experiencing one of love's miracles himself. A miracle that threatened to turn him inside out, leave him a boneless, will-less husk.
"Patti," he choked. "Patti, baby, take me. I'm here, I'm here."
She helped him. Refused to stop helping until.. .
Then, sighing, they fell into a shuddering, breath rasping heap.
He couldn't help but marvel at her instinctive approach to love. Who, he thought, was teaching who?
"That was marvelous, Ken," she sighed throatily. "I'll never get tired of that ... of you..."
The tension of the past few days, plus the exertions of a minute ago, took their toll. And Ken, without really knowing, drifted into a blissful, perfect sleep. While Patti cuddled to him, stroked his hair without stop.
"I love you, Ken," she intoned fervently into the night. "I love you."
On Thursday afternoon late Ken could put off his confrontation with Tessa Vareese no longer. There were things he had to pick up at the library. Besides, he was being cowardly and he knew it. He couldn't go on running, skulking, the rest of the year. There'd be no scene, he'd be able to keep his head, handle things.
But when he saw the haggard yearning in Tessa's eyes as he entered the semi-deserted library, he wasn't quite so sure of himself. Perhaps this was going to be tougher than he'd thought
"Well, hello, stranger," she said sotto voce, shooting a glance over his shoulder at the few students still studying. "Where've you been keeping yourself? I thought maybe you'd joined the Navy."
"I've been busy, Tessa. You know how that is. End of the year and all."
"Not that busy, baby," she sneered. "You realize it's been ten days since I've seen you? Even talked to you? What's happened, Ken? Have you cooled on me? So soon?"
He tried to be business-like. "Here's a list of some books I'd like Tessa. Perhaps you could have them ready for me by tomorrow."
"I'll get them for you now," she said coldly. "Will you come back in the stacks?"
"There's no hurry," he said, knowing full well what would transpire once they got back into those banks of books.
"I said," she repeated imperiously, "come back in the stacks."
A student looked up. And, wanting to escape a further scene, Ken dutifully followed her behind the counter, into the bowels of the library proper.
He wasn't quite ready for the suddenness of Tessa's attack. She twisted her arms around him, bore him back against a concealing bookcase and kissed him repeatedly. Her lips slid excitingly on his.
"Baby," she pleaded, "don't say we're through. I've missed you so. Please, Ken, I need you. I won't make any messy demands on you. This is a practical thing. I need you, you need me. Well take care of each other. You haven't found someone else, have you?"
"No," he lied. "There's no one else."
"Then why hoard? Come on over tonight." Her voice curdled with longing. "Oh, I'll be so good for you."
Despite his resolve Ken felt himself weakening. No matter what Tessa was, she was still one damned exciting woman. She knew how to work a man. He felt a twinge of lust, imagined just how good Tessa was capable of making things for him. His determination crumbled bit by bit.
"Maybe, Tessa," he stammered. "Tonight. I'll see if I can get away. But if I can't get there tonight, I'll try some other night."
"Some other night?" she wheedled, kissing him again. "Why so vague? Tell me. Friday, Saturday, Monday ... Don't leave me dangling."
"I can't be definite," he said. "You know my situation as well as I do. I'll just have to get out when I can.
"Brother, you have changed. I knew you when you'd break your neck to get one of Tessa's treatments."
"Stop now," he snapped. "You're being vulgar. I told you, I'll be over when I can."
"I guess," she sighed wearily. "I'll have to accept that. But you promise?" Desperation flared in her gaze. "You aren't just stringing me along?"
"I promise." He offered the list again, noticing how his hand was trembling. "Now, about these books."
"I'll have them for you tomorrow morning," she smirked.
She tried to kiss him again but he evaded her. They started up the sun-spotlighted aisle near the windows. Here Tessa, throwing caution to the winds, caught him and dragged him back, kissed him scorchingly. He fought mildly until he was caught in a strange debility and permitted the kiss.
Crazy, crazy ... he raged.
They seemed to hear a small sliver of sound, sensed the presence of an intruder. Guiltily they broke the kiss, stared out toward the study room. But there was nothing, nobody. Only the rows of empty tables.
And Ken bolted, for some strange reason feeling a bone-chilling premonition of dread.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Glendon Falls Library Circle was sponsoring a lecture by Brandon Donnely, one of the Midwest's most illustrious and best selling novelists. It was the intellectual event of the city's sterile season, and for that reason the lecture had been highly touted. Tickets had been pushed mercilessly for weeks.
When Diane had asked Ken if he was interested, he'd begged off, urging her to find one of her culture happy girl friends to stand in for him. Undoubtedly, with school wind-up and all, he'd be too busy, too tired, or both. This Diane had done, even going one step further.
"You look so tired, Ken," she'd chirped upon leaving for the program that Friday night at eight o'clock. "Why don't you finish up your work fast, call Dave Frazer, go out for a few drinks. It'll help relax you. Bring him back with you afterward. I'll make some coffee, some burgers or something."
"What about the kids?" he'd said, jumping on the proposal, not for one second suspicious. A spear of evil excitement had just jammed deep inside him.
"Call Barby from across the road. She's crazy to sit. Go ahead, enjoy yourself."
So caught up was Ken Baylor in his licentious projections that he didn't notice how feverish Diane's lips were when she kissed him good-bye nor how her hands trembled.
She was barely out of the house before Ken was on the phone, anxiously dialing Patti Conte's number. His heart sank as the phone rang ten times and nobody answered.
Dropping the receiver, he was amazed at his own stupidity. What if Patti's parents had answered? What alibi would he be able to summon up? And more important, even if Patti had been home, what could they have done? Diane had the car. Damn, talk about your cretins, he castigated himself.
But the lecher fires were not so easily put out now. And unsettled by thought of Patti, he wondered if Tessa were available. Tonight, for some strange reason, he had to have someone. After all Tessa lived only ten blocks away. He could walk over with no sweat at aH.
He picked up the phone again.
"Sure," Tessa said too gaily, a trifle too much mischief in her tone, "come on over, baby. We'll have a real swinger." A vengeful edge formed on her voice. "Though really I shouldn't let you. I waited up until late for you last night. I nearly died, I needed you so bad. Why didn't you come?"
"I couldn't get out," he said curtly. "We can talk about that later, when I get there. Tonight's okay, though?"
"Okay," she giggled. "Come ahead my lovely one."
Ken put down the receiver puzzledly. The music-had been so loud in the background, Tessa had sounded so coarse. Undoubtedly she was drinking. He shrugged. What's the difference. That'll make her that much more amenable to various innovations. And tonight, for some damned reason, I need innovation. like real bad.
Then the phone was in his hand again. He was calling Barby. The money-hungry baby sitter.
This was really going to be a swingeroo, Baylor marveled as Tessa Vareese admitted him to her apartment dressed in only a sheer black brassiere and panties. A night to end all nights.
And after all, he concluded as Tessa pushed him against the door, poured a torrid, man-eating kiss at him, let her hands slide impatiently up and down his back, wouldn't the change of pace do him good? After Patti's ingenuous lovemaking, wouldn't that be great, to swing with an out-and-out pro again?
He answered the kiss greedily, let his hands catch her silk bound buttocks, rammed her body tight to his.
He took the murky gloom of Tessa's apartment for granted, accepted this as preparation for his coming. The music, Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe, he recognized was overly loud, not like Tessa usually liked music at all. All the lights were extinguished, the room's only illumination provided by a bank of flickering, colored candles on the fireplace mantle. Ken's eyes were not yet accustomed to the gloom.
"You naughty boy," Tessa was leaning, her kisses sloppy, "why did you keep me waiting last night? I had something awfully good for you."
It was then that Ken recognized the taste. Martinis. Undoubtedly Tessa had been stoking up for an hour at least. His sense of evil was piqued even further. She smiled as he thought On with the orgy!
"Ken?" Tessa's voice turned wheedling. "You won't be angry will you?"
"Angry? What about?"
Her eyes slitted, her mouth became a scarlet, teasing slash. "If I have a little surprise for you?"
"Surprise? What kind of surprise?"
Then suddenly, from the deepest shadow, a male guffaw split the darkness. Baylor whirled as though someone had whipped his top string.
Saw Dave Frazer, bulky and large, wearing only his trousers and shirt, his tie and jacket already discarded. A very drunk and staggering Dave Frazer. "Hey, you...." he laughed, his eyes devilishly smug, "did you think you could keep this little thing a secret all your life?"
"Dave," Ken gaped. "What are you doing here?"
"I told you, buddy," the man leered, coming closer, clapping a huge paw on Ken's shoulder, "you weren't going to be able to satisfy a doll like Tessa here all by yourself for long." Frazer's breath would have ignited had he been near one of the candles. "I told you I'd get the little lady's britches off one of these days...."
Tessa's expression changed, became cruel. "That'll do, Dave. You talk like some kind of animal. Cut that out!"
"You din' mind my crude talk a minute ago," he said. "Before the big flame here called up. We had a nice little party going ... I tol' you I din' like the idea."
"Shut up! Before I slap your drunken face."
"Hell," Ken said, his anger turning into a smoldering thing, "I don't mean to break in on anybody's party. If you don't mind, I'll cut out now. Leave you to enjoy yourselves."
"Don't you dare," Tessa smiled temptingly, clutching Ken's arm. "'We can all have a party together." She swayed, caught Dave's shoulder for support. She was loaded. "That is, if you boys don't mind sharing. I'm quite sure there's more than enough to go around."
"This isn't my cup of tea," Ken snapped. "Let big Dave there share. He digs things that way."
"So I hear," Tessa simpered. "That's why I told you to come ahead when you called. Dave's been telling me all about some of his little parties. I kind a thought we could have one of those our ... selves." She tried to kiss Ken, giggling thickly. "C'mon now, honey. Be a sport.
Please?"
"No. I'd best take off, leave you to your own fun and games."
"Please, Ken," her words were more command than request. "At least have a drink with us. Who knows, you might warm to the idea. Dig the bacchanal bit the most." She took three steps back, posed wantonly before both of the men, swayed her hips. Then her long, tapering fingers teasingly rolled down the top of her panties, made them into a modified Bikini.
"By damn man," Frazer blurted. "You sick or something? Can you honestly turn your back on prime stuff like that?"
The truth of the matter was that Baylor, the promise of saturnalia becoming more intriguing by the moment, couldn't check out now. An exotic yearning had exploded inside him. He knew if he went home now he'd have to drink himself silly to calm down certain prowling, snarling inner tigers. Perhaps even lock himself in the bathroom.
"Please, Ken," Tessa returned, flung herself upon him, invited him to caress her again, "one little drink? I think we've got gallons of martinis mixed. Dave brought a bottle of gin; he's a madman when he starts mixing."
Then, reluctantly but not reluctantly, Ken was allowing himself to be drawn into the Grand Guignol of lust, the idea of group sex becoming more interesting by the moment. Until he was determined: This was an experience every growing boy should have at least once in his life.
They collapsed on Tessa's davenport, both Tessa and Dave taking up their glasses, Tessa hurrying to give Ken a martini. There, talking in desultory fashion, Tessa saw that Ken got the cocktail down fast, pressed a second on him. Her eyes were big and round, her expression feral as Ken had never seen her before.
Then she was undoing Ken's necktie, ignoring his token protests, she was coaxing him out of his jacket.
Step number one.
Lying between both men, her semi-naked body an eternal taunt, as wicked a bundle of curves as any man could desire, she was the embodiment of all the wantons and Jezebels the world has ever known.
She knew what she was doing to both men. And also she knew she'd never felt better. A feverish bubbling commenced within her. If she could just get Ken drunk enough. To think for the first time in her life she'd get enough. She'd keep them working in shifts ... she'd keep them working all night. Until.. .
And she smiled blissfully, the thoughts too beautiful, too happy to endure.
The gin burned a fiery trail down Ken's esophagus, lit fires in every side passage, stoked a regular Dante's inferno deep in his body. And he knew that he wasn't going to take off before the main show. That he was going to be there, grabbing with both hands.
And, brother, didn't he feel good now?
Much credit was due to Dave Frazer. Drunk as he was, he knew the score he knew that he was actually the interloper. Ken Baylor's number one with Tessa, he thought. Though God knows what the scrawny creep's got. So what? This won't be the first time I've had scraps. Nor the last.
This was proved moments later when Dave tried to take up where he'd left off at Ken's interruption, tried to clutch and caress Tessa's maddening breasts once more. Gently but firmly, saying nothing, Tessa removed his hands and put them down on the couch cushions.
Frazer didn't take offense. Just wait, sweetie, he mused, until later. When I unveil. Then we'll see who's the main stud around here. And, the gin definitively toppling reason, he indulged himself in a particularly ugly fantasy wherein Tessa was crawling naked before bin, pleading and begging him ... But he was stubborn and contemptuous. Only when she performed a debasing act with him would he relent. He shook as he imagined how that would be.
The martinis kept coming and coming. Tessa held back somewhat, kept an eye on Dave, held his consumption down also. There was nothing worse than a man who was too drunk to love, she mused. But Ken. That was another matter. He had a lot of catching up to do. One more drink and the festivities could begin.
She rose, went to change the records, sublimely conscious of the fact that both men's eyes were drilling into her tumbling, waggling buttocks as she swayed across the room. The knowledge made her simmer more wildly. She gave them extra fillip, exaggerated her walk. Wowee, she thought, but I feel good. Those poor guys. I'll never get enough tonight.
"Hey," Frazer grumped when he heard the initial strains of the Debussy, "why don't you put in something lively? Who wants to hear that draggy stuff? Get some jazz on there, will you?"
"Who turned you on?" Tessa rasped cuttingly. "I happen to like this draggy stuff. And since you don't know anything about music, why don't you just shut up?"
"Cut that out, you two," Ken intervened, feeling delightfully woozy, the desire overpowering now. "Quit your squabbling. This's a party, remember? We don't want to spoil things before we even get started."
Frazer grumbled something unintelligible. Tessa giggled and sighed happily. Kenny's getting with us.
Again they huddled on the davenport, Tessa smiling with joy when Ken's hand crept upon her, began tracing slow circles on the gossamer nylon.
"My turn?" Frazer murmured on the other side.
Lust and liquor drugged as she was, Tessa could see no reason why not. "Help yourself, baby," she purred.
There was, seemingly no resentment between the two men. Each had his own territory, and each stuck circumspectly to that territory. This went on and on. Became an Elysian limbo of sensation for each and every one of them
Frazer began to tell jokes. The loudness of their squealing, gasping laughter was sure indication of the extent of their intoxication, showed the irrevocable way things must go from here on.
Finally, "Knock that off," Tessa protested, falling back between the two men. "We aren't here to tell jokes. C'mon, you guys, when y' gonna join the party? Get undressed."
This seemed like a wonderful idea, and with scant embarrassment at all. Ken and Dave rose, began getting out of their clothes. Moments later they were back on the davenport, making no attempt to conceal themselves, the teasing display making Tessa's eyes bulge, causing her face to distort in a variety of expressions all licentious. Then she stood before them, arched her body, clasped her hands behind her head, brought her breasts to full, provocative thrust. "How about me now, you two? Any volunteers?"
Immediately they were both up, Frazer trying to get at Tessa's panties, Ken beating him out. So, while Ken worked the gauzy garment down her legs, dallied outrageously on the way, Dave was undoing her brassiere, his hands coming around, forming a living bandeau the second the nylon dropped on Tessa's fingertips.
They bore her back toward" the davenport.
Tessa, well polluted now, allowed them to take their way with her, let them play any way they wanted. Until she boldly drew both their heads down to her bosom, guided each to a yearning nipple.
She found diversion of her own as they labored over her, sending her hands on foray of their own. Until she was paganly torturing, an attention which triggered further delirium for the men.
How gorgeous, she raged inwardly, how gorgeous! To have two pairs of lips adoring you, to have two sets of hands, twenty happy fingers ... Damn, damn, I can't stand this.
A moment later her appreciation became very vocal. "Oh, you devils!" she throbbed. "That's good, so good. I feel like a volcano on the verge of erupting. Don't stop. Not for a minute. That's the greatest, the absolute greatest. Oooh, you dirty devils, you magnificent devils."
Then her hands became devils of their own.
Barely two minutes later they were gathered in the bedroom, the sick scene illuminated by a sputtering red bowled candle someone'd had presence of mind enough to bring along. The men beside her, kissing and nipping, caressing and patting, each trying to win the privilege of being first.
But that was a foregone conclusion. And Frazer had sophistication enough to accept the verdict with proper grace. Ken Baylor would, of course, have priority. He shrugged, gave in before the inevitable.
"You, Ken," she hissed. "You first. Oooh, hurry. I need you so bad. I'm actually burning. C'mon, your gorgeous man."
Her eyes were smoky, her arms twitched wildly. "You devils," she breathed lovingly.
Ken felt no shame at all to have Frazer sitting on the edge of the bed, watching with scheming eyes. He sucked in his breath thickly as Tessa's hands found him, sadistically guided him.
Tessa squealed thickly, began using the gutter words immediately, her hands spurring him to action at once. "Go, damn you, gol Show me what kind of lover you are!"
And Ken did. The liquor, the primitive lead-up all contributed to the snowballing passion he felt. This was a lowdown, dirty, payan burning. A pain he wanted never to go away. But still...
Until midway, Dave joined in the trio, began encouraging both of them in matching argot, incited them to more excruciating delight and joy. Tessa, seizing on the moment, offered her breasts totally. Instantly Dave complied, his hands squeezing. He manipulated her unmercifully.
And Tessa screamed, driven out of her mind by the scalding rapture that was building for her. "Love me, damn you! Both of you. Love me, love Tessa. Love her to a charcoal crisp. Love Tessa!"
And the argot creed began again.
Afterward, when Ken had flung his own symbolic cursed to the gloom, the full extent of Tessa's nympho-sexuality was revealed. When Dave was readying himself, she told Ken to blow out all the candles. Here and in the living room also.
Returning, groping through the darkness, he came to the bed, heard the choking gasps and cries of both the love partners. "Dave," she seethed in libertine trance, "You're a good one. A wonder. One Of the best I've ever known." Her voice cracked ridiculously. "Go, go."
Then Ken sensed her hands groping for him in the darkness. Then she was clutching, dragging him on the bed. "I want both of you," she giggled viciously. "Like before. I wanna have two at a time."
Ken couldn't help but know what she meant, what she intended. He'd suffered this attention before. Still he was appalled, drunk as he was. With Dave, both oj us?
Her hands were cruel. He couldn't resist her. Besides the attraction was too fatal. But...
He rebelled a last time. But she cursed, tore at him cruelly. Then she wasn't sadistic any more. She was sweet and kind.
Frazer was almost choking on his laughter. "Damn, this beats all. This sure beats all. Do I get some of that, too?"
"Sure," Tessa laughed. "If you ever get done. If you can take that. Oh, Ken, you baby..."
Then she was incapacitated, struck dumb. Ken and Dave were doing nobly. Very nobly indeed.
The debauch was only beginning.
Outside, huddling in the air, Diana Baylor was trembling nonstop, unable to figure a way out of this mess. The street outside the apartment building was dark, and nobody would see her hunched over behind the steering wheel as the tears of betrayal and vengeful anger streamed down her face.
I shouldn't have come, I shouldn't have come, she wailed. Why did I? Why did I force myself to this final humiliation? But you had to know, didn't you? You had to be sure. Damn you, are you satisfied now?
She clung to the wheel for support. And swiftly, sickeningly, the evening's chain of events reeled through her brain.
The plan to have Ken think she was going to the Donnelly lecture, the way she'd waited down the block, watching for Ken to emerge from the house, hoping against hope that he wouldn't, that her vigil would be fruitless, totally inconclusive. The way she'd followed him when he had come out, the way she'd waited outside the apartment building so long before gathering up courage enough to enter the foyer.
Her heart constricted as she recalled her shock at reading MISS TESSA VAREESE on the building register, recognizing the name instantly, the evil connection all but jumping at her.
And now she bobbed her head savagely what, what? What will I do?
A crazy, desperate fury burned away the fog of Indecision, clawed misery and self-pity out of the way. There was only one thing she wanted now. Revenge, sweet revenge. And she wouldn't get that by bursting into the Vareese apartment, confronting Ken and his trollop. She'd get that by perverting herself, becoming a common tramp.
Her mind seared, reason gone, she thought of a victim. She could always go to a downtown bar, let herself be picked up, take her chances. But no. She remembered a perfect accomplice in this crime of vengeance.
Cory Shelby. He was a natural! Didn't he paw me something awful at the Dennisons' party last month? Didn't he make an unmistakable pitch, all but beg me to set a time and place? Just remembering the incident almost turned Diane's stomach. He was perfect; she'd love to avenge her humiliation with a foul-minded specimen like Shelby.
Now was the time. He could set the place.
Better still she knew Mrs. Shelby was at the lecture. She was one of the women Diane was supposed to go with. Cory was home alone, a perfect pigeon.
Her determination a monstrous thing, her heart hammering insanely, she drove away from the curb to find a streetside telephone booth.
Won't Cory be surprised, she thought, her smile becoming a death's head. Won't I love throwing this m Ken's face when we have our showdown!
CHAPTER TWELVE
Diane Baylor stood within the SQUALID motel room, her back up against the light switch, the sharp toggle digging into her shoulder. She held the pose, seemingly for support, as wave after wave of disbelief swept over her.
Cory Shelby was in the motel manager's office, registering, paying for their room. She fought but could not entirely contain the revulsion she now felt. Some of the things he'd said as they'd driven to this out-of-the-way place, his smug, cocky manner, had sickened Diane, so had the ease with which he'd handled the whole thing, the motel, the leering, all-knowing owner his familiarity with the procedures.
She certainly wasn't the first woman he'd brought to this hole. The thought made her feel cheaper than ever.
Now her legs tensed. She wanted desperately to bolt as she heard Shelby's deep voice humming in low monotone as the sound of his footsteps approached their unit. But she couldn't run now. She was committed. In more ways than one.
And she envisioned Ken in bed with that Vareese tramp, she saw him smiling, kissing her. She saw him undressing her. And then, in the witch's bedroom.. .
The rage was back. I'll get even with you, Ken. I'll show you what wallowing is really like.
"Diane?" Shelby muttered, entering. "Are you here? What's with the lights?" His hand groped for the switch, encountered Diane's soft flesh. "Hey, what're you doing?"
"Don't turn on the lights, Cory," she whispered. "I ... I'd rather you didn't."
He was taking her into his arms, he was rubbing his cheek against hers. He'd come away from home so fast he hadn't had time to shave and his whiskers scraped her face. Now his lips slid upward, sought to kiss her. Diane smelled his breath, decidedly sour.
She flinched, but he didn't notice. His squashy lips closed on hers, his slippery tongue bunted against her teeth. Suddenly Diane wasn't sure she could go through with this.
"Still scared, huh?" he chuckled, breaking the kiss. "Don't be. I won't hurt you. Not so long's you're good to old Cory." He hugged her again. "Relax, baby. Stop shaking, I'm not as bad as all that." His snicker was liquid. "In fact, before we're through tonight, you're going to think I'm something special. Real special."
He was trembling himself. Diane felt her repugnance grow as he pushed his puffy, spongy body against hers. He was so different from Ken, he reminded her of a shapeless, slippery slug.
Dear God, she thought, how did I ever think I could go through with this?
"You could've knocked me over with a broom-straw," he was gloating, his lips sliding on her smooth throat, "when I heard your voice. And when you said you wanted to see me ... wanted me ... Oh, hell I"
"I didn't say that."
"You practically did, didn't you? Diane, if you only knew how long I've wanted this. Some of the dreams I've had about you." He sucked in a soft gurgle. "Ever since that party. Well, I never thought you actually would..."
"I'm here, Cory," she said levelly.
"You are, aren't you? Oh, I can hardly wait. I promise. I'll show you what a good man's like. No lily-livered schoolteacher can take care of a female like you. Hell, honey, we're gonna have some good times together..."
"Please. Don't talk about that. I...."
"One of those, huh? All action, huh? I'll buy that Only you can't blame me for wondering. The icy brush you gave me the last time. And next thing I know you're giving me a ring-a-ling. Did you and Ken have a fight?"
His voice turned weaselly. "Or maybe he's taking his trade some place else? He digs some other doll's brand? Spreading the wealth, sorta?"
"Cory. I said I didn't want to talk. Drop that, will you?"
"Okay, honey. Anything you say. like to keep my dollies happy." He tried to squeeze past her, get at the light switch again. But she blocked him. "Hey, c'mon now. The drapes are pulled. Nobody'll see in."
"Please? Couldn't we just stay in the dark?"
"Nothing doing, baby. I saw that get-up of yours when I picked you up, you looked like a million bucks. I wanna see more of that. I dig women all dolled up, I dig all those silky pretties." He struggled with her. "You don't get off that easy."
"Please, Cory. Don't turn this into something vulgar.
"Vulgar? Just because I want to see your clothes?"
"Cory, stop," she hissed. And then the terror was complete. She didn't want to see this through at all. She didn't want to go to bed with this coarse, ugly slob. She wanted to go home. Where she could think, see things in their proper perspective once more. Certainly there were better ways to settle her problems than this. What, she wailed, got to me?
His hands found her breasts, his fingers gathered at her nipples, clustered and pinched. She tried to push him away. "No, Cory, please. Stop. I've changed my mind. I don't want you. I want to go home. Let me go now. This was a mistake, a terrible mistake."
"What?" he rasped, rage full-blown in his voice. "What are you trying to pull, queenie? I paid six bucks for this room. You ain't just teasing old Cory, then brushing him off. You must think you're dealing with some damned amateur or something. I'm getting you, make no mistake."
"No, please, Cory. Let me go." Her voice broke, she was on the verge of tears. "I'll give you the money."
"You'll give me hell. You'll give me only one thing. That beautiful, lush figure, those boobs, that's what you'll give me."
"I'll scream, Cory. I'll wake the dead. I swear I will. Let me go now...."
He laughed. "You won't scream, kid. Not if I know you. You won't lay your precious reputation on the line. That'd be in the town rag tomorrow. Cry, you make me laugh." He wrestled her into his arms again. "You're here, and we're gonna finish what we came here for."
And now, a rolling peal of thunder sounding in her brain, Diane realized this was so. In her lust for revenge she'd walked into a trap. If she was going to escape, if she was going to buy silence, there was only one way. With her body, with her dubious virtue.
She became weak and dizzy, felt the man pull her away from the wall, fling her toward the center of the tiny room. The lights blazed on, tore at her eyes. Diane stood blinking.
"Stand there, damn you!" he tore. "Do as I say! I'll let you off easy if you cooperate." Now he leaned against the door, his eyes greedily devouring her body, a lecher light, fanatic and aberrated, growing fn his gaze. "Oh, Diane," he hissed. "If you aren't a sight. That pretty white dress, those silky legs, the way your boobs keep going up and down. Damn, if you knew what that does to me."
Now he withdrew a pint bottle of whiskey from his jacket pocket, took a healthy swallow. Advancing on Diane, he offered the bottle to her. She averted her face in distaste. "Take a swig," he ordered. "That'll make things easier for you. Go ahead."
"I don't ... I've never ... raw whiskey..."
"Take a drink," he threatened. When she hesitated, he grabbed her, held her hands behind her, rammed the bottle against her teeth. Fearing a chipped tooth, Diane opened her mouth, let the bottle be jammed in. Then the scalding liquid was filling her mouth, burning and choking her. She swallowed swiftly, disregarding the pain, terrified of choking.
But then she could take no more. As she tore her head away a large splash of whiskey sprayed her skirt. Despite herself she began coughing; tears filled her eyes and ran down her face.
"Got a real bite, ain't that?" he grinned lewdly, enjoying her discomfiture, the sense of power he held over his victim. "That'll make you feel better, make you wild for me in a minute." And upon his own recommendation he took another deep swallow himself.
That was true. Nervous as Diane had been at dinner time she'd picked at her food, had eaten very little. This combined with the nervousness of her vigil outside the house and the actual tailing of Ken to render her perfectly defenseless against the onslaught of the bourbon.
And quickly the liquor cut in, doing deadly work on her nervous system. The first symptom was the fiery scorching in her throat. Then a ball of pain dipped to her stomach, spreading like wildfire from there.
Shelby had regained his observation post. "Pull back your elbows, honey," he slurred. "Make those boobs stand up. Act like you're proud of 'em."
To spare herself further prolongation of this defilement, her head growing heavier by the minute, Diane complied with his sick commands. She pulled back her arms, arched her back, turned and posed for the man while the whiskey continued to sing a wicked song.
"Your skirt now, baby," he smiled. "Lift that. Real slow. Show daddy those pins of yours. Show him your pretty undies." She hesitated, looked toward him, blinked.
But as he stiffened and came toward her, she leaned, slowly began lifting the hem of her skirt.
"That's better," he said. "Slow now, take that slow." In another minute he'd be clenching his hands between his legs. "Ooh, that gets me. Wow, that pretty pink girdle, those pretty pink legs. You got 'em, baby. Have you got 'em! Slow now, slow. That's right. Mmmmm, what a backside on that."
"Please...." she faltered, "don't make me ... any more..."
"Shut up, Diane. You called me, remember? Now gather the skirt all the way round, hold that out of the way. That's right. Now start turning around, bounce at me from every angle."
Dumbly, wanting now only to get this perverted thing out of the way, Diane did as she was told. Won't he get tired of this soon? she wailed.
He did, and amidst a storm of hissing cries, he pushed her toward the bed. Her skirt still around her waist, he sat her down, made her take another drink of the whiskey. She was getting quite dizzy. Then he caressed her legs and finally tipped her back on the bed.
With the lights still glaring brightly, he began to rub and pinch her until at long last, tiring of the sick homage, he began to undress her an act that was made the more humiliating by the sick compliments which issued from his lips with the removal of each and every garment.
Diane dumbly submitted, royally cursing the weakness that had made her seek this vengeance against her husband. Who was being avenged, who was being brutalized ?
Shelby began to shake, his breath was clicking in his throat. Abruptly he was up. The room went dark. In the silence she heard his hurried, harsh breathing, she heard the rustle of his clothing, the click of his belt, the hiss of his zipper. Now today, the naked man was coming to her, gathering her in his arms, purposely pressing himself against her.
"There, honey," he goaded, "ain't that nice? Don't ten me that prissy husband of yours is that nice."
She didn't answer.
He grabbed her breast, squeezed and twisted brutally. Diane gasped sharply. "Answer me when I talk to you, witch! Or I'll twist this thing out by the roots." Diane was quite aware now of what kind of love Cory
Shelby favored. "I'm nice, am I?"
"Yes," she forced brokenly. "You're nice."
"I'm the nicest you've ever had, ain't I."
"You're the nicest."
"That's a good girl," he slurped. "A real good girl."
Sadism was such a dominating part of the man's desires that Diane was quite unprepared for what happened next. For now Shelby dropped his head to her breasts, began to nip the hard rosettes there with growing restlessness as if ashamed to admit the other facet of his character.
But he was helpless before the drive. And seconds later his body was turning on the bed. Diane arched, tried to forestall him. But like a wild animal he turned to her, buried his teeth in her flesh, bore mercilessly. Diane moaned, dropped her hands, surrendered. There would be an incriminating, angry bruise on her tomorrow, of that she was positive.
And when his hands dug at her, she went limp, resigned herself, let him move her, arrange her as he pleased. She felt his breath on her, felt the stubble of his beard scrape. Then she felt something else. Something she'd never felt before. A peppery maddening touch. A sensation that was utterly unhinging, that made her want to scream nonstop.
She wanted with all her heart and soul to shove him away. And yet.. .
She became aware of choking, throbbing sighs coming from somewhere, and was stunned to realize that she was making them. She fought to keep her arms still, possessed as she was by the most lunatic desire to kick the man.
But the worst was yet to come. For now she became conscious of the fact that he was rearranging, his body. He stopped his happy crooning, removed the stinging brand from her. "You now," he said. "We'll do that together."
"No, no," she croaked, her skull feeling like someone was scraping out her brains with a rusty trowel. "I can't, I swear I can't."
"You will!" he spat. And he dropped his head again, bit her. Little by little he increased the pressure, until she knew that if she didn't soon comply with his aberrated wishes, he would surely...
Her hands came up. She took him, guided him. Her stomach reeled, threatened to rebel.
Afterward he made love in conventional fashion, babbling a sick chant of filth throughout. And when they were finished with this, he chucklingly defiled her, called her rotten names, begged her to help him get ready again. "A long night, baby," he giggled. "We'll make a real night of this."
It was after one-thirty when Ken finally returned home to find Diane was still out. He was puzzled, but not overly concerned. He was too drunk for that. He paid the baby sitter, saw her across the street. Obviously, he thought, upon returning, heading for the bedroom, there'll be no coffee and hamburgers tonight.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
IT WAS AN HOUR LATER WHEN DIANE, FINALLY FREED by the maniacal, irresponsible Cory Shelby, arrived home. Fearing a storm of accusations and questionings, she was immeasurably relieved to see that Ken was in a drugged sleep. A jet take-off in their bedroom wouldn't have awakened him.
So, feeling more dead than alive, her brain a smeared, watery canvas on which disgusting words were scribbled, she took her nightgown and went to the bathroom. For the next forty minutes she soaked and scrubbed her abused, aching body, making the bath substitute for an even more necessary, more impossible cleansing.
The memories, she wailed. I'll never be able to scrub them out.
When finally she came to bed, she slept a haunted, nightmarish sleep. In the morning she woke up with a nagging headache, found she ached in every muscle of her body.
"Wow," Ken said at breakfast, "that must've been some wingding you pitched last night, honey. I got home at one and you still weren't home. What time did you get in? Do those lectures usually run that late?"
"I went to a buffet afterward," Diane lied, thinking fast. "At Helene Marshall's. She managed to corner Brandon Donnelly, and the party went on longer than it should have. I got home a little before two. You were sleeping like a log. The way that man drinks..." she improvised. "The wild things he says ... Half of the women in Glendon Falls are still in a state of shock this morning I'll bet."
"And you?" Ken studied her. "No shock?"
"No," she said dispiritedly, averting her eyes. "I'm afraid nothing shocks me very much any more."
There seemed to be some subtle condemnation in her tone, an unsaid perception. Ken discreetly dropped the subject. He noticed, for the first time, what a lovely sunny day it was outside.
"I think I'll get at that lawn today," he said, pushing away from the table. "Maybe dig up those flower beds."
Flaxen-haired Carol, deserting her Saturday morning TV cartoons, came into the dinette at that moment. "Can I push, daddy? Can I push?" she squealed.
Ken Baylor was spooked that week as he'd never been spooked before. Try as he might he couldn't get remembrance of that orgiastic session at Tessa's apartment out of his mind. The dancing, grotesque pictures were painted in the most indelible, vivid oils; they were guaranteed to last for life.
And if the ugly visions weren't bad enough, there was the daily taunt of Patti Conte's presence in his classes, the secret, haunted glances they exchanged. She was definitely sinking; he'd never seen her look so sad and disturbed. Her problems were ganging up on her too. Something was bound to snap soon.
Besides, there was the strange lethargy that had taken Diane the past few days, there was Tessa's domineering nearness. Twice that week on Monday and Wednesday afternoons the libertine librarian had caught him alone in his classroom, had tried to coax him into another rendezvous, had promised him further untasted delights. But he'd been able to put her off.
And then on Thursday night, using the committee dodge again, he escaped the house to pick up Patti and drive to their secret hideaway in the country.
The net of retribution was slowly, irrevocably closing.
They huddled on their blanket, feeling safe and secure in their snug cave of foliage and grass, exulting in the balmy night, in the star-dripping skies. And yet, Ken admitted reluctantly, some of the bloom was off things. His ardor, his eagerness to involve himself in Patti's life was not as strong tonight. He was this hurt him to crystallize a little bit bored with her.
He blamed this on the excesses of the other night at Tessa's. He was going to be a long time recharging after that animalistic wallowing. Give yourself a minute, he temporized. I'll get there in a minute. There'll be the same old mildness. His mind raced ahead. And if that doesn't do the trick he lifted and clutched Patti's breast, felt her tremble I know something else that will.
But Patti had very disturbing news. Information that was to cast further pall over their tryst.
"I can't stand this any more," she gritted, clenching her body to his desperately. "This's like I'm on a treadmill, going nowhere. I'm going to run away, Ken. Just as soon as school's out. Honest I am."
"You're what?" he rasped. "Running away from home? Do you know what you're saying, what you're proposing to do? How do you think that'll solve any thing?"
"I don't care," she persisted. "There's no point in going on with things here. Last night Dad got tanked up, started talking about how they were going to redo the kitchen with the extra money I'd be earning from now on."
"But...." he felt strong affront to his ego, ". . . is that all that enters into your decision? What about us?"
"That's part too, dear," she said, her voice catching, becoming a near-sob. "I don't want this to end, but we're hopeless, we're wrong. We love each other, but where are we headed? You've got your wife, your children. I've got my parasite family. What chance do we have? We're going the wrong way on a one way street."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about us, about how crazy this all is. The odds are against us. We're going to get caught one of these days. And..." she did begin to weep now, ". . . your life will be ruined, your name will be dragged in the mud. I don't care about me; I've got no life to speak of "anyway. No real life I mean..."
He dragged her closer, kissed her again and again. But her lips were cold, unresponsive. "Patti, Patti," he soothed, "running away isn't going to solve anything. You're not equipped to cope with things on your own. Where will you go?"
"Chicago, I suppose. A person can get lost real easy there. I'll get a job somewhere, see if maybe I can get hold of myself. Perhaps I'll find a way to get to one of the universities there."
"Chicago?" he shot. "Are you crazy? That place is a jungle. They eat kids like you alive in that hellhole."
"Does it matter?" The sadness clogged her voice. "Does anything matter? I can't figure this out, Ken, none of this. I'm so confused. I think when I'm with you everything be all right. But then when I am I can't think straight either. Everything goes all haywire inside me. I only want to kiss you and hold you and . .
"And what?" Ken said
She dropped her head. "You know. Ken. Don't make me say that," she whispered. "You don't know how I get sometimes when I'm away from you."
"I think I do. Because I get the same way."
For the moment Patti's desperate, crazy plan was forgotten, other more vital things taking precedence. I'll get back to that later, Ken thought. Afterward I'll talk her out of that.
They stiffened, crouched lower in their grassy hollow as they heard a car rumble down the road. It was instinct mainly; Ken's Chevy was completely concealed behind the stand of bushes. But there was no intruder, the auto rammed past them doing fifty and passed out of sight.
Patti laid in solemn repose, staring at Ken, her eyes seeking his, probing them. There was an eerily tragic expression on that face. She made no effort to stop him as he begun undoing the buttons on her blouse, she was beyond prudery now. Ken had taught her well; there was nothing sinful or ugly about this beautiful sharing. He exalted her to perform this menial task.
She let Ken crouch near her, stare at her nude body as long as he wanted. She didn't shield herself with her hands, she made no concessions to false modesty. II this was what he enjoyed...
But finally, as his eyes lingered too long, as an errant breeze teased her nipples, crinkled and hardened them, she lost control, began to move on the blanket. She reached for Ken.
He was naked now also. They lay side by side. Ken's head was bowed, he was worshipping at the shrine of her breasts. His hands were making spine-tingling spirals on her velvety back.
In new found wantonness, almost as if sensing that this was to be their very last time, Patti let her hands wander also, she played paganly, let him know of her quickening need.
Then, overly impatient, she ministered to herself, using him in a devilish way, guaranteeing that their passion would be complete, totally transfiguring.
She sighed huskily. "Ken, oooh, Ken. You seem to gat better every time."
The stars seemed to glitter more fiercely, their light diamond hard and intense. They shimmered in galactic waves, seemed to dance before Patti's eyes. And she surrendered herself completely to this rampaging, bone-twisting ecstasy, throwing herself to the physical ramifications with all her strength.
Until she couldn't withhold her delight any longer. "Ken, darling, I love you. I love you. You're good, so very good..."
So involved were Ken and Patti in bringing this lovely mystery to full bloom that they didn't see the three figures who were stealthily crawling through the grass toward them. Too late they heard the snapping of a twig.
Then the loud, sneering voice cut the darkness. "Oh, Ken," the voice mimicked, "you're so good, so very good..."
Now a blazing, blinding light exploded in the grove. And they were frozen into immobility.
"I am, stupid," the first voice, more familiar now, crowed, "I am."
The flecks of blue light danced crazily in Ken's eyes, and he realized--A camera and flashbulbs.
Dazed as he and Patti were, they did a very foolish thing: They sat straight up, stared directly at the intruders.
A flashbulb popped again. And still again.
Then Ken recognized the voice. It was Vic Richardi. He now taunted: "You thought I forgot all about you, didn't you, Baylor? Well, I didn't. Not by a long shot. We'll get you now, we'll get you good. You'll be sorry you ever tangled with me."
Ken came up, went after the boys. But they fled, and Ken, in his bare feet, couldn't hope to catch them.
He came back to Patti, a bucket of concrete settled in the depths of his stomach. "Well...." was all he said.
"This's over now," she wailed softly. "This's done, all over."
"What..."he asked stupidly, trying to prod decision, "do we do now? What in the world do we do?"
"Hold me," Patti called in a thin, lost tone. "There's nothing we can do. Except maybe..."
"What?"
"Finish what we started. Please, Ken. This's the last time. I know that. I've felt that way all evening long. Please?"
This seemed the only logical thing to do. And Baylor fell to his knees beside her.
Their lovemaking was miserable, prolonged, a series of fitful stops and starts. But at the end they could say:
They were truthfully finished.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ken Baylor slept a haunted, restless sleep that night, when he managed to sleep at all. Mostly he was awake, staring into the mocking darkness, his mind teeming with countless conjectures. All of them dire, reeking of catastrophe.
But whatever he expected Vic Richardi to do with his damning photographs blackmail looming as the most-likely possibility in Ken's mind he certainly didn't expect him to do what he did.
For the next morning, as he blocked his shoulders, forced himself to enter Holcomb High, he was hardly ready for the humiliation and utter disaster that awaited him.
He couldn't help but notice the change in attitude among the early-bird students as they clustered in the halls. It seemed they'd been alerted to his arrival, that they lined the halls to watch him proceed down the hall. A regular Memorial Day parade.
Their usually friendly, open smiles were traded for sneers, for guarded looks of triumph and shock. A seething silence preceded him, abruptly boiled into muffled remarks, giggles and whistles as he passed. More than once as Ken made his way down the gauntlet of students he saw them duck something behind their backs.
He didn't like the looks of this at all. Something was up. Something bad.
As he reached his own classroom, unlocked his door, saw the nine-by-twelve manila envelope on the floor inside, he realized just how busy Vic Richardi and his cohorts had been last night. Opening the envelope (Upon the outside of which was scrawled a vengeful BAYLOR, YOU RAT!), he froze, swayed, almost fell back as he saw its contents. He knew instantly what the Holcomb High pupils were passing around behind their backs.
There were four glossy eight-by-ten enlargements in the envelope. Seeing the first, which showed him and Patti making love on their blanket, he was staggered, moved to close the door. Then he slumped at his desk, all the steam suddenly gone from him as he spread the remaining photographs before him. Two more depicted his and Patti's shocked surprise as they sat up, staring at the interlopers.
It was a tribute to Richard's photographic skill that all three of the top pictures were clear cut, in sharp focus and correct exposure. No mean feat in the darkness. There'd be no fighting these shots; his and Patti's faces were in precise definition. There was no question as to who was in that farmer's pasture.
Damn, damn ... Ken thought, suddenly feeling like someone was pounding a foot-long spike through his skull. Where do we go from here?
But while the topmost pictures were the more shocking, it was hard to say whether or not the bottom one was the more surprising. That damned Richardi! Ken raged. He didn't miss a single trick did he?
For there, grainy and under-exposed, shot on the run obviously, was a photograph of Ken and Tessa Vareese in the library, kissing back among the stacks, again both faces easily recognizable!
We're all going down together, Ken thought desperately, wanting all of a sudden to cry, scream and bellow his helpless frustration. Patti, Tessa, me. An afterthought hit him. And Diane. The kids, Carol and Randy. All on the same sinking hell ship!
He turned the photos face down, jammed his hands into his eyes. What will I do now? was repeated in idiotic refrain. What will I do now?
A sudden tapping on his window snapped his head upright. And his eyes narrowed, he almost stumbled to his feet, went in pursuit, as he saw Terry Wexler, one of Vic Richardi's bosom buddies, leeringly holding the photo of him and Patti against the glass.
The question of what Ken was going to do was summarily answered. As his room speaker clicked on he heard Principal Prather's voice, crisp and decisive for once: "Mr. Baylor. Please report to my office. Immediately."
That was the hardest thing Ken had ever had to do in his life. To walk down those corridors in full view of the smirking student body, knowing full well what awaited him once he reached the administration offices.
Miss Nichol ushered him into Mr. Prather's office with flushed dispatch. There he found a grim-faced James Prather triumphantly awaiting him. And one other a defiantly erect Tessa Vereese, who sent a hateful glare in his direction.
"Sit down, Baylor," Prather snapped. "I think we have some very disastrous matters to go over." Ken, who saw a matching manila envelope and four overturned photographs on the principal's desk, understood right away. Prather touched the photographs but didn't turn them over. "I'm assuming you've already received your surprise package. Seems that every one in school has. There are a dozen of them floating up and down the hall. That's how many we've confiscated already anyway. Is my assumption correct?"
"Yes, it is," Ken said gravely, sitting down, determined, even as indefensible as his position was, to acquit himself with as much dignity as possible. He'd be damned if he'd crawl before this jelly-spined caricature of a principal. "Someone shoved it under my door."
"Now, I don't know who's responsible for this..
"Vic Richardi," Ken snapped.
Prather's face went strained. "That's beside the point. The point is that we've got a full-fledged scandal on our hands a scandal that's about to blow this school sky-high. Do you even begin to realize the harm you've done to this educational system, to the cause of education as a whole?"
"I'm sure I do. And I'm sorry. I made a mistake, a grievous mistake. For which I'm now ready to take full responsibility."
A sly, half suppressed smile formed in Prather's face. "You seem to be a man of many talents, Mr. Baylor, the least of which, seemingly, is teaching English and social studies." Prather was relishing the interrogation. "You've cut a wide swath here at Holcomb High. Or are these," he fingered the photographs fondly again, "just a few of your ... ah ... conquests?"
Ken turned livid. "I'm in pretty deep now, Prather," he snarled. "It won't hurt if assault and battery is added to my charges. Keep that kind of insinuation up and I'll drive that silly smile of yours down your throat."
The man paled, shifted uneasily. "I hardly think you're in any position to threaten anyone."
"Just try me and see."
"I suppose you're aware that the Conte's know about this incident; their pictures were waiting for them when they arose this morning. They're on their way over here right now." He sucked on the words savoringly. "I imagine they have a few choice words to say to you."
Baylor made no comment.
"May I inquire," Prather sneered, "just bow involved you were with Miss Vareese?"
"You may not," Ken replied levelly. "The actions of the faculty during their off duty hours are not under the jurisdiction of the school and its authorities. What Tessa ... Miss Vareese and I did on our own time is none of your damned business."
"You sound like you've memorized a law book," the principal taunted quietly. He flipped over the shot of Ken and Tessa kissing. "But you seem to forget that this was taken on school premises. You were not confining your ... ah ... extra-curricular activities to your own private sphere."
"It's unfortunate that I had an enemy who'd stoop to anything to get revenge on me for justified discipline. We were in error, we let things get out of hand."
"I should say so."
"I don't like what you're thinking," Tessa flared, borrowing courage from Ken. "It wasn't anything like that at all. Ken and I had a deep friendship ... we got carried away one day. And that's what happened. Just because that sneaking, sniveling Richardi cretin..."
"You are out of order, Miss Vareese!" Prather spat. "You have no way of knowing what I am thinking. It's a guilty mind that attempts to..."
"Can that, Prather!" Baylor snapped, half rising in his chair.
The principal tensed, swallowed the rest of his prissy speech and returned to safe ground. "Anyway ... and needless to say, you are both suspended from teaching duties in this building as of now until such time as the school board can convene and act upon your immediate dismissal. And as for the disgrace you've brought this school...."
He was interrupted by the buzzer in intercom. "Mr. and Mrs. Conte are here," Miss Nichol announced.
"Good. Send them in, please."
He turned to Tessa Vareese. "You are excused from the rest of this interview. I would suggest you clear your desk, clear out of this building ... and this city ... posthaste. You are through. Leave a forwarding address with Miss Nichol ... we'll send you whatever remaining salary is due you."
Tessa rose, glared at Prather, said nothing. At the last she turned on Ken. "You stinking rat," she snarled. "You had to get me involved in your rotten feuds."
Then she was beating a quick retreat from the office.
Mrs. Conte, a washed out blonde of forty or so. her face lined, her clothing frumpy, was in state of near shock. She followed her stumpy, greasy, half bald husband into the office, obviously resigned to having him handle the entire affair.
The man, immediately upon seeing Ken sitting in his chair, recognized him as his daughter's seducer. He wheeled and started for him. "You louse," he choked, "you dirty, rotten louse. With my daughter! My pure little Patti. I'll kill you!"
Instantly Prather was up, and, with Mrs. Conte managed to pull Mr. Conte back. But it was Baylor's simmering belligerence, the intense hatred reflected in his eyes, the fact that he'd risen, ready to do battle with the hypocritical father, that was the main deterrent.
And the cowardly Conte, still spouting threats and obscenities, let himself be pulled into a chair on the opposite side of the room from Ken.
"And that's not bad enough," Mrs. Conte wailed, "but now we find that Patti's gone. Her bed hasn't been slept in all night. Some of her clothes, all her money's gone. She left a note; she's run away!"
"Where is she?" Mr. Conte bellowed, making a lesser show of attacking Ken this time. "What'd you do with her? What kind of shenanigans did you talk her into? Where are you meeting her?"
Ken slumped in his chair, the air squeezed from his lungs all at once. He felt so desperately tired and defeated. So the poor kid's finally gone and done that, he thought. God help her, God give her a break for once in her rotten, mixed up life. Patti, why couldn't things have turned out differently for you?
The self condemnation and remorse was complete. Patti, what have I done to you? You were just a kid, looking for some scrap of kindness from someone. And I took advantage of you. God, Vm supposedly an adult. I should have known better. Forgive me, Patti.
But none of this inner turmoil reached the outside. As he looked at the selfish, shallow man before him, his eyes smoldering with hatred, he thought how he'd love to get his hands on the slimy slob, beat some sense into his imbecilic skull, show him who was really responsible for her fleeing home.
"You did it, you damned hypocrite!" Ken spat. "You made her run away, it wasn't me! With your non-stop boozing and running. You never gave her a chance to be herself. She was just your built-in slave . .
"Mr. Baylor!" Prather tried to intervene.
Ken ignored him. "She wanted to go to college, she wanted to make something of herself," he continued. "She was a talented, beautiful girl. The world would've been her oyster if she'd had her chance. But you wanted to deny her that, too. It'd cut into your drinking time too drastically..."
"Don't you dare talk to me like that, you pervert filth!" Conte roared. "You're the one who took her out into the woods and used her ... God knows where else you...." Conte used a very graphic and coarse term.
"Please," Prather interrupted, stalking from behind his desk, standing between the two men. "This is getting us nowhere. Patti's running away doesn't enter into this at all. The important thing is the fact that one of our instructors got involved with Patti ... had carnal knowledge of her body. And what are we going to do about that?"
"Yes," Mrs. Conte refrained stupidly. "What are you going to do about that?"
"What-we-are-going-to-do-about-it," Prather said, his tone turning testy, "is discharge Mr. Baylor on the spot. We're going to see that he never teaches in another public school anywhere in America."
"Good," Conte gritted. "That's just what he deserves."
Prather became overly conciliatory. "What you axe going to do is more important to us. Needless to say this matter can have terrible repercussions in the city's school system. It can set education back ten years in Glendon Falls. That is, if you intend to prosecute, to take this to court."
"Prosecute," Conte leaped on the word. "That's just what we intend to do. We're gonna have him thrown into jail."
"Now just a minute, Mr. Conte," Prather said. "I think you should be informed of certain things. You realize, don't you, that you wouldn't benefit from this case. There'd only be a jail term for Mr. Baylor, there'd be no punitive charges."
The man's eyes glittered at this, his face fell.
"And furthermore, I'm afraid you'd do your daughter irreparable harm. The publicity would ruin her for life-as well as ruin your own reputation in this city. Certain things are going to be revealed in that trial, personal, perhaps not very nice things about your family relationship. It's also going to be revealed that Patti accompanied Mr. Baylor on these ah ... sin jaunts ... voluntarily. She was not forced. Not to mention the fact that she is eighteen, no longer a minor in a legal sense."
"What are you trying to tell me?" the man said suspiciously. "That I don't get no dough outa this?"
"Not a cent. What I'm trying to tell you, Mr. Conte, is that the school system wishes to avoid all this publicity. This will be bad enough as it is. The state authorities will undoubtedly bring moral charges, even if you don't prosecute. We are going to get rid of Mr. Baylor, he'll be forced to leave Glendon Falls for good. If you will agree not to press charges, you will be doing yourselves, your daughter, as well as the school system, a tremendous favor. We can well do without any extra publicity."
"Maybe we'll do that," Conte grumped, "maybe we won't. I want to talk to my lawyer." He glared at Ken. "But no matter what, he's got to tell us where she's gone to, so we can get the little brat back."
"I'll be damned if I will!" Ken flared. "I wouldn't give you the pleasure of getting your hands on her again. Press charges, see if I care. But I won't tell you."
"The police will find her," Conte said lamely.
"Maybe they will, maybe they won't. At least she's got a fifty-fifty chance."
"Remember this," Prather talked fast, trying to water down the raging blaze, "that if you prosecute, Mr. Conte, and lose the case, the court charges are your burden. Now, can you afford all those legal and court costs?"
It was a totally deflated Mr. Conte who looked up at Prather, fought for words. "And you call this justice? The land of the free? Free for rich men, that's all."
The acrimonious conversation went on for an hour more; all angles were discussed and re-discussed until the Conte's were satisfied, and they agreed not to press charges. But still the meeting didn't end without a last ringing volley of threats and name calling. And the Conte's were finally plodding out of the office.
Five minutes later, after receiving Prather's last ultimatum, Ken followed them. The halls were deserted now, the students in class. A passing monitor sent Baylor a sheepish grin. Obviously Ken's classes had been reassigned to another teacher and his classroom was empty when he reached it.
Ken took his personal effects from his desk, piled them into a small cardboard box. There were many things he had to leave behind, things he'd never have use for again. It was one of the saddest, most depressing moments of his life. It marked bitter and symbolic end to one of the most important segments of his life. It left his life barren and devoid of meaning.
As he paced the ringing halls, heading toward the faculty parking lot, he thought, What have I done? What have I done? What is Diane going to do when I tell her what's happened?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ken Baylor was hardly prepared for the confrontation he received when he got home. Screams and tears and recriminations, a torrent of threats he expected. But this?
Diane was sitting on the davenport in the living room, a dazed expression on her face. She was slowly knotting and unknotting a handkerchief. The children were outdoors playing in the back yard. Diane looked up, forcing a glassy smile as he entered. "Hello, Ken," she said gravely.
And he understood immediately. Bad news travels and by ten-forty-three of a Friday morning it had somehow, already, got this far.
"Aren't you going to ask me what I'm doing home so early?" he asked curtly.
"I know, Ken," she said, blinking back tears.
"How? Who told you?"
Her smile was wise, patient. "Some dear little student of yours called shortly after you left. He seemed to take great glee in describing what you'd done in the most graphic detail."
"And you believed him?"
"Yes, Ken, I'm afraid I did." She looked floorward. "You see, I already knew about Tessa Vareese."
He stood in stunned surprise. "You did? But how?"
"Ken, how stupid do you think I am? I knew something was wrong. I followed you one night, saw you go into her apartment building."
"You knew, all this time?"
"Yes, I knew. But I didn't know anything about this Conte girl. I'd never, in a million years, have dreamed...."
Ken was stunned. He found it hard to find words. "And you just let me go on like that? Knowing what I was doing...."
"Yes, Ken. I tried to understand...." she touched her fingers to her eyes, ". . . I guess I went a little wild myself. I kept hoping you'd get tired of her, come back to me. I kept hoping you'd find out that it was me you really loved."
There were no words to express the boarding house hash of emotions that Baylor felt at that moment. Confusion and wonder and sorrow and a most appalling sense of humility.
"What can I say, Diane? After the hundred kinds of rotten I've been..."
"I wasn't so level headed either, Ken. That first night, when I found out about you and that Vareese woman ... I went out of my head. I wanted to hurt you, get some sort of revenge." She shuddered. "I only managed to hurt myself."
"What do you mean?"
"I went to a motel with a man. I let him do anything he wanted to me."
Ken's heart hammered wildly, he felt his scalp pucker. "You ... did what?"
"It's true, Ken. I spent the better part of that night in a motel room. With Cory Shelby."
"Cory Shelby?" Rage swiftly grew within him. "That pervert hound? My God, what did he make yon do?"
Diane was contrite, her voice small. "There wasn't much he missed, Ken."
And as suddenly the rage was gone. Who in hell, he lashed himself, are you to sit in judgment of anything or anyone? After all, you drove her to that. She should be strong when you were weak?
Wanting to humble himself still further, wanting to make his punishment complete, he went to the box he'd brought in from the car, rifled through it, found the manila envelope containing Vic Richardi's masterpieces. Everyone else in town's seen these, why shouldn't Diane?
"Here," he choked, a strange spat of emotion coming over him, a rebirth of honest affection and respect, "look at these. See what kind of a hound I've been."
"Are you sure, Ken? That ... you really want me to see these pictures? I know what they are. That filthy little boy told me everything."
"The rotten scum! Go ahead, see what you think of me afterward."
Diane took the envelope, opened it, looked at each picture at length, her face becoming strained. Then she stacked them, replaced them in the envelope. Methodically she tore them into pieces, took them to the fireplace and threw them in.
Finally she turned, two thin trickles of tears working their way down her cheeks. She slowly walked toward her husband. Almost as if she were begging him to forgive her, she tucked herself against his chest, took one of his limp arms, put that around her.
"Poor Ken," she said, her voice cracking, "my poor, poor Ken. They crucified you, didn't they? It must have been awful." Her body was wracked with tremors, and involuntarily, wanting to confer comfort, a sharp stab of careening love going through him, his arms were about Diane. He held her, rocked her.
"We've both made mistakes." she said. "I've been selfish, I've locked you out of my life."
"I forgot how to be a husband."
"But I forgot first. I laid the groundwork for the whole disastrous thing."
"No, don't blame yourself. If I hadn't been so weak..."
She looked up, kissed him gently, smiled a wan smile. "Does it matter, really? We're both equally to blame, we've both made terrible mistakes. Does that mean that we're to toss what remains of our lives away, that we're not going to give ourselves a second chance at happiness? I'm willing to try to forget if you are. Maybe in time you'll learn to love me again."
"I do love you," be said, the insane frenzy of his rebirth making his chest swell painfully, making his breath come in great, coughing gasps. "I didn't know that then, but I do now. I've always loved you."
And he realized this was so. The involvement with Tessa had been out-and-out lust, a venting of too long repressed desires, and adventure in depravity. The thing with Patti had been a product of pity, of a desire to experience a forbidden, dangerous love. But had either of them really been love? Had there been real respect, or conferral of trust, any intention of long range involvement? No, only greedy pursuit of thrills and more thrills.
"I love you, Ken, darling," she repeated. "No matter what you've done, no matter what I've done. I'll stand beside you. We'll start over together."
"And if everything blows up in my face? If I have to stand trial? If I'm sent to prison?"
"Ken?" she said in alarm. "Do you really think you might have to?"
"It's hard telling. Law is an involved thing."
"I'll wait, Ken. I will. No matter how long. I want the chance to try again." Her lips trembled beneath his. "With you..."
It would be an adventure, Ken concluded. The greatest adventure of their lives. Working together, day by day, putting pettiness aside, living toward that future when his ugly heritage had been atoned for, their love could grow to become a towering thing.
It was a goal worth working for, a goal to give exalted meaning to their lives.
"How?" Diane stirred in his arms. "Where will we start?"
"That's hard telling. It won't be easy. Not easy at all We'll just have to play it by ear, live from day to day. Until we find out where we stand. We'll have to sell out, leave Glendon Falls." He grazed her forehead with his lips, felt a delirious joy go through him. From this tragedy, this happiness and discovery..."How will you like being married to a truck driver? Or to a shovel jockey?"
"I won't mind at all. I'll love you no matter what you do."
"This is unbelievable. That you'd stick with me. After all the foul things...."
She touched his lips with her finger. "Believe, darling. It's true. I love you, I'll always stand by you."
They kissed. Yearningly, lingeringly, a savage spark ignited within them all at once. A spark that would never go out again.
And for the first time in his life Ken Baylor knew the truest meaning of the word love.