Evelyn married Artemus and gained a precocious son and daughter. But then, Artemus didn't tell her about his sweet, lovable daughter Valerie. And Valerie was lovable. Perhaps too lovable. There was nothing she wouldn't--and didn't--do for her daddy. Daddy was nice; and, besides, there was all his money to consider. To keep it, Evelyn discovered, Valerie would continue to do almost anything with her sweet, soft body and hungry lips. Keith was Artemus' son, but of all the things the boy wanted most, he wanted love from his new stepmother. What could Evelyn do? He was handsome and demanding and strong--and Artemus didn't seem to mind, then. His joy came later...
Chapter 1
The sensation was very like suddenly awakening from a long, involved dream. Evelyn stopped packing to clutch the damp shower towel before it slipped from around her soft body, wondering again why she'd gone through with it--wondering what she'd gotten herself into and why she had obligated herself to fuck a man older than her father without knowing anything more about him than four dreamy days could reveal.
Evelyn gazed out the window, focusing on a sailboat cutting silently through the shallow, warm, green and blue water that lapped at the resort hotel's white sand beach. She watched the boat, but she wasn't really seeing it. She saw only the gnawing fright inside herself growing larger and larger.
She wondered again what it would be like, having a man's hands caressing the smooth skin of her body, sliding down from the soft, white undersides of her breast to sensuously glide to her firm, round thighs. She stared at the sugar-white sands and the sparkling waters of the Florida Keys and shivered.
A feeling of unreality swept over her, and she turned from the window to stare at her door, half expecting to see him standing there like the stranger he was, urging her to hurry and pack so that they could rush to his estate and fuck, now that they were married and it was legal for them to do it.
Evelyn shook her head. That wasn't right. It wouldn't be that way--not with him. Not at his age.
In the large wall mirror she saw her reflection. The towel slipped from her nervous fingers and revealed a stranger's young, firm, full-breasted body. It wasn't her body anymore. It was his. The short, auburn hair seemed to be hers, and yet it wasn't. It was redder, darker than it had been a week ago. The dainty nose was still turned up at the end, but now there was an impish freckle on it that made her look like a little girl. The soft, swollen breasts were hers, too, but they seemed fuller now, more pointed, their slopes tanned from the sun, the pink nipples more protuberant and alive than they'd ever been. Her waist was more pinched and squeezable, the muscles showing the tremor of fine tone. Her hips were more cupping, and their breadth seemed exaggerated by the white triangle her bikini had left after four days of splashing and laughing with him in the clean ocean water.
Evelyn's eyes blurred, remembering how the others had smiled fondly, thinking that she was his daughter. He'd played their game, treating her with disarming familiarity, lavishing gifts on her, hugging her paternally, kissing her forehead good night, making no attempt to collect his reward in her bed. He'd wanted her to be his daughter, and she'd allowed it. She was what he wanted her to be.
Her eyes cleared again, and she gazed at the dark patch of red-brown hair at her cunt. It seemed to move and curl before her as if the strands were alive with feeling--like tendrils of passion reaching out to coil about his cock and pull it to her pussy in a way no daughter's would do. Her labia began bloating before her eyes, puffing outward with acceptance, opening like the petals of a fresh blossom. She inhaled their perfume of readiness and gasped once more.
"Stop it!" she cried to her reflection, whirling away from the mirror.
A faint kind of calmness settled over her, as if the blood were draining from her head, making it light and dizzy. She sat on the edge of the bed. The improbabilities swirled through her mind and made colors, like those underwater around the reefs they'd explored together. She gathered her reasons together and juxtaposed them, trying to find sense where she knew there was none.
There were the obvious motives--his wealth, the nice things he would give her, the position. But those weren't the right motives. She'd married him for another, and it was sex--quiet, simple, and undemanding, the kind Evelyn knew she could rely on from a man of his age.
His knock on the door made her grab at the bedspread for covering. "Are you ready, Evelyn? Woodard is waiting with the car."
"Another fifteen minutes?" she asked, raising her voice. It sounded strange in her ears--too real, after the days of dreaming.
"That's fine, Evelyn. I've called and told Valerie when to expect us. I can't wait for you to meet her. I'll be downstairs."
Evelyn waited. She heard nothing but the hammering in her ears. "All right," she said hollowly to the empty room.
She put her hands to her face. They were shaking. She suddenly didn't want to go through with it, even though it was too late. It was done.
She made herself get up and finish packing. After a moment, she stared out the window again, feeling a peculiar affinity for the building she stood in. The resort was young and fresh and bright. It was tall and slim. It would brace itself against the shrieking winds and the pounding waves when the hurricanes blew and tried to destroy it. The building was an affront to the natural order of things, just as her marriage to Artemus Crenshaw was.
A chill went up her spine and made her shiver. The pictures of Valerie came back to her. He'd shown them proudly, as any father would, but there'd been something strange about them that Evelyn hadn't been able to discern at the time. Now she could see what it was; her thoughts about 'natural' orders had made her conscious of it.
There'd been a shot of Valerie by the pool, dabbling her feet in the water, her slim, sixteen-year-old body clad in triangular patches of bikini that barely covered her, her body as nubile and full as any woman's, her person radiating an aura of strong sensuality through her full lips and high cheeks and wide-spaced eyes. Valerie leaning against the wide trunk of a live oak with branches heavily draped with Spanish moss, her fingers caressing the roundness of its stem, a thin silk dress molding itself to her soft curves and making ripe fruits of her breasts as they thrust forward with youthful verve, one of her eyes drawn up to display the smooth line of thigh and curved firmness of thigh and buttock. Valerie lying on her side in a thin nightie, one hand propping up her head, her sultry eyes burning through the camera lens with Cleopatra's heat. Valerie frozen in the wild, passionate instant of a primitive dance, her raven hair flowing in a glossy shroud about her face and shoulders, her teeth gleaming from behind drawn, slick lips wetted by the tip of an exploring tongue, her firm thighs spread wide, her pelvis tipped up and forward, her nipples and the dark patch of her pubic mound showing through the yellow stretchiness of the body stocking.
The pictures a father carried of his daughter. The pictures Artemus had shown with pride, nearly with reverence.
Evelyn closed her eyes for a long moment and swallowed hard. When she opened them again, the ocean still glittered outside her window, calm and innocent, its surface shaded with the delicate hues of a tropical sunset.
She picked up the suitcase, remembering that Artemus had carried no pictures of his son. He'd barely spoken of Keith, and then only with hard, brusque tones. All she knew of Keith was that he was nineteen, that he was coming home from his first year of college tomorrow, that she, at twenty-one, was to be his mother. His mother and Valerie's. Mother to the girl with lust shrieking with hurricane force through her eyes and lips and breasts and thighs.
Evelyn opened the door and walked down the hall with resolute steps.
"Evelyn, you shouldn't have carried that down," Artemus said chidingly. "That's what I have Woodard for. That's what the hotel has bellboys for."
She didn't look at him. "I'm sorry, Artemus," she said. "I'm used to looking after myself."
His arm went about her shoulder. She felt strange inside its circle, as if it weren't the same arm any more. "You'll have to get used to a different way of life, then," he said gently. I'm rather counting on that anyway, you know."
She got into the back of the Rolls Silver Cloud with him. The car circled the entrance, went over the bridge linking Pelican Key to the Overseas Highway, and headed north.
Woodard sat stiffly in the front seat driving with an air of importance past people with beat-up hats, fish-odored pants and sunburned backs. The Rolls hummed quietly and elegantly by gaudy tourist stands sporting racks of shells and souvenir junk powdered white by the limestone dust. Other resorts slipped by, looking strangely tinseled by the squalid acres of trailer camps surrounding them. The unkempt mess that was the best and the worst of man's contribution to the Keys gave way to the eerie mystery of mangrove swamps as the car sped north toward the lower reaches of the Gold Coast. Red flame glinted from the white wings of a flock of egrets heading back to their roosts. Evelyn watched the birds glide through the sunset and felt a curious sensation go through her, as if her freedom were winging away with them, leaving her caged in the pretty shell of the elegant auto heading north.
She glanced at her husband of two hours from the corner of her eye. She had the sudden feeling she'd been bought--that Artemus had come to the Keys looking for a pretty thing to adorn his estate, had seen her, and had haggled with her in a sophisticated way, with propositions and agreements. Now, he was driving his purchase back to the sedate wealth of DeSoto Inlet to admire and display her, feed and enthrone her, and, undoubtedly, to fuck her whenever he felt the urge.
"Artemus, why did you marry me?" she asked, breaking the long silence inside the car.
He turned his head and smiled at her. It was a handsome smile. The man himself was handsome--sinisterly so. She felt her throat contract and wondered why she hadn't thought of him as pleasingly handsome.
"Are you getting nervous now?" he responded, his voice smooth, still beguiling.
"A little," she admitted. "It happened so fast. I ... went down for a simple vacation, and I ended up married. I still can't believe it. You made it happen so fast."
"I make all my decisions with dispatch," he said bluntly.
"But, why me? I could be your daughter, Artemus."
His chest, full and vigorous for his age, expanded with air. "I might ask you the same question, you know. But that would waste words. We've already discussed our agreements, and we both know why we did it, don't we?"
Evelyn twisted her hands in her lap and looked down at them. "I'm not sure any more. I'm not sure of anything right now."
He laughed softly. "All right, if it must be put into words, I married you because I find you stunningly beautiful. You'll add a touch of elegance to my house, an air of impressive charm to my business and social affairs. In turn, you married me for the wealth and position I can give you. It was a marriage of convenience for both of us."
"No-- I didn't," she objected quickly. "I told you at the resort that I didn't care about the money. I'm not a gold digger."
He smiled again, one corner of his mouth turning up as if in a sneer, showing a cold ruthlessness about him she hadn't seen before.
"Evelyn, why must we make a sham of it? Those are the basics."
"It isn't true, Artemus."
"Then why did you? Surely, it wasn't for my robust youth," he laughed. "That's been gone for some time."
She opened her mouth to tell him. No sound came out. She couldn't do it yet. How could she tell a near stranger that she was afraid of sex? Not of sex itself, but of her response to it.
"I know I haven't given the reasons a woman wants to hear," he said, half in apology, "particularly a woman of your impressionable age. But I'm sure all the other will come later as we get to know and trust one another."
Evelyn wasn't listening. Her mind was swarming with memories of the time when she was fifteen--the first time, when she had done it all with a boy named Jim. He had played over her body with his hands and lips, causing the terrible passion inside her to come to a furious boil. Then he had pierced her bloated tissues with his prick and made her erupt with volcanic fury, turning her into a mindless, writhing, willing blob of nerve endings that demanded more and more. She had gone mad with the lust inside her. She'd allowed him to fuck her virginal cunt until it was raw inside, then demanded that he fuck her ass, her mouth, the tight groove between her tits. Each time, each accomplishment, had increased the need for more, until she was raving. She'd wanted to consume his body. She'd eaten his prick with fury, swallowing his semen while he beat her about her back and head, making her more ravenous than ever. Only when the taste had become salty and metallic and the base of his penis was bloody had she realized the extent of the madness he'd unleashed inside her. She'd stopped gnawing and looked with horror at what she'd done to Jim's prick. The experience had been traumatic, and Evelyn never let it happen again.
Thinking of that time made her pussy throb with annoying excitement. She fought down the tingling and the terrible pressure inside her which might permit the volcano to erupt again. It was a practiced habit. It was the clamping of a lid on boiling water, the capping of a geyser ready to pour a scalding cloud of steam into the air. She pressed her knees tightly together and forced her emotions under rigid control, the way she'd done before the mirror in the resort.
She took a certain pride in it now. She called it propriety, restraint, finesse. She disliked dating men her own age. They only wanted to rut with her and burrow into her soft tits and puffy cunt like farm animals in season.
With Artemus, because of his age, Evelyn was certain it couldn't happen again. He wouldn't have the stamina to wear down her defenses. He was a man of restraint and breeding himself, and he would enjoy a little sex with her in the way she knew she had to have it--lights out, the sheets tickling her skin, romantic nothings being whispered in her ear in the darkness, a feeling of perfumed, slippery mysteriousness enveloping her as she rose easily and sensually to her peak, safely, surely.
The thought had a calming effect on her and removed some of her fear. The marriage would be a fair trade--her beauty for his restaint, her duties as a wife to him in exchange for the material wealth he could give her. That would be the reason for most girls her age. But, with her, it was the sex. Or, rather, the lack of it.
"Why are you smiling?" Artemus asked.
She stopped abruptly. "Was I?"
"Is your real reason for marrying me that amusing?"
"No," she said. "Not at all. Not really."
"You must tell me. I'm intrigued."
She looked at him. "I can't, Artemus. Not yet."
He didn't insist. He looked forward as the car approached the long, congested ride through the megalopolis stretching through Miami to Palm Beach.
The lights were bright along the Dixie Highway, and Evelyn studied him in their glare. His hair was neat and dark, flecked with silver tips that gleamed metallically. The ends of his sideburns shaded to white, but his brows were still dark and impressive. They shadowed penetrating eyes that had a peculiar hardness to them--magnetic, more than steely. Evelyn had felt nervous under his gaze because she could never read the expression in his eyes. She wondered if any human could. They made him seem blocked off to her. Even when he smiled, his eyes didn't change.
They stopped for a light. A mercury-vapor street fight glared harshly through his window, squaring his face, hitting at an angle that showed the lines in his face, making them startlingly deep and rough, as if gouged there by iron chisels, one at a time. The lines were the map of his life, remnants of the battles he'd fought and honed himself on with each victory. His nose came down straight and firm, as if a spike had been driven into his skull and left there to form the line of it.
The car moved forward, and his face went to normal again. But Evelyn was left with a sense of tingling dread of the life ahead of her. The man was mysteriously attractive to her, as fit and robust as a man her own age. She imagined how it would be later tonight, when he crawled atop her and smiled with his mouth only and slid his cock into her body.
A thrill of lust chased up her spine, and she stilled it quickly, thinking that he might not try tonight, either. She didn't know how he would respond sexually. She began to grow edgy. She should have seduced him and found out. She had married him on an assumption, and that hadn't been a wise thing to do.
"What's wrong?" he asked suddenly, interrupting her thoughts.
"Nothing," she said. She looked away from his eyes, trying to keep from thinking about the pictures of his daughter, about the fact that she herself was young enough to be his daughter.
"You'll adjust in time," he said gently, reaching out to pat her hand. "It might be difficult at first, handling Valerie. I've let her get out of hand since her mother was forced to leave. In fact, I've spoiled her rotten, I'm afraid," he smiled.
"What do you mean, she was forced to leave?"
He stiffened slightly. "I thought I'd been over that."
"You said she'd left. There's a difference."
Artemus turned his head back and drew in air again, making a hissing sound. "Valerie's mother was forced to leave by me," he said. "I caught her in an indiscretion."
"Oh--I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry."
"Yes, you did. I'll tell you the rest, because we need an understanding. It was with another woman. I forced her out because I regard Lesbianism as the most odious affront a woman can commit against a man, and I've no intention of tolerating it. Is that clear?"
Evelyn tried to laugh, but the wildness that had slid into his hard eyes made sound impossible for a long moment. "Artemus, surely you don't think that I ... "
"Keith will be no problem to you," he went on, abruptly breaking the heavy silence. "Keith is my problem. Unfortunately, he's trying so hard to impress himself and the rest of the world that I have to watch every move he makes to see that he doesn't ruin me with his first-rate job of bungling everything he touches." Artemus looked directly at his young wife and seemed to dismiss Keith from his mind. "You'll also be responsible for arranging the details and planning for whatever parties or dinners I feel necessary to hold. You'll sit beside me and look poised and confident and as pretty as you can, no matter how boring you find the conversation of my clients. I've wired Mary--that's Woodard's wife--to take orders from you, now, instead of Valerie. She has a woman come in part time to help with the cleaning and laundry. Captain Bates will stay under my jurisdiction. On occasion, I will take clients fishing or to the Bahamas in the boat. The excursions are rather time-consuming and costly, and I have explicit confidence in the captain's judgment and ability; therefore, I want no interference with my orders to him." He glanced at her. "Why do you look so startled?"
"I just ... it sounds odd to think that I'll be doing all those things, Artemus," Evelyn blurted. She had listened to his clipped orders, a little stunned by his brusqueness. The imagery of what lay ahead blossomed threefold in her mind, softening the irritating quality of his speech. She excused him to herself, remembering that he was beyond her romantic age.
"Wasn't that what we agreed?"
"Of course, but ... tonight is our wedding night. We should be talking of other things, shouldn't we?"
He smiled again, slowly. "This seems hardly the time or place for that, does it?"
"I suppose not, Artemus," she smiled back at him, suddenly confident for the first time.
Evelyn's fear of him ceased. He would be as proper as she'd hoped, she felt certain now. A younger, more impulsive man would have been all over her by now, Woodard or not. She continued to look at Artemus feeling a tingling sensation grow inside her until her labia swelled and stretched the nylon fabric of her panties. She felt her pussy grow moist and warm for him. She felt as if she could spread out on the back seat of the Rolls and envelop his cock with her warm tunnel while Woodard drove through the night in silken silence.
The car moved from the lights and traffic to the smooth, dark ribbon of the turnpike. Artemus became a shadowy, silent figure beside her. Daringly, Evelyn let the feelings inside her swell under careful control, until one touch from him would have made her come. She gave fleeting thought to flexing her thighs, bringing pressure against her pussy, and coming silently to take the edge of jitteriness away, but she knew she couldn't keep herself silent enough. His strange lack of any attempt to seduce her during the last four days had made her curiosity grow. She felt more ready than ever. She didn't dare masturbate beside him for fear of giving herself away. He didn't like Lesbians. What would he think of a wife who masturbated, even if it was to keep herself from going wild?
Evelyn's thoughts were interrupted by the car turning off the exit ramp, a long, dark road through pines and palmettos harboring the smell of warm, salt-tanged ocean breeze. They clattered over a bridge across the Intra-coastal Waterway to an island lush with tropical growth and large estates. A guard peered into the car, waved a greeting, and allowed them to go over another bridge where hidden driveways came out to meet the road. The Rolls turned into one of them fronting Indian River and went toward a large house screened off from its neighbors by thick, landscaped growth, neat and trim. Gold lights illuminated a rocky fountain that bubbled quietly. Evelyn stared at the house and grounds with awe.
"It's beautiful!" she whispered softly to herself.
"I thought you'd like it," Artemus said, revealing he was awake. "Come inside, and we'll meet Valerie."
The garden was marble and stucco, wrought iron pieces, hanging potted plants, a firm, squat spaciousness, hard, enduring and elegantly soft at the same time. The scent of gardenias and hibiscus and other flowers she didn't know overwhelmed Evelyn. It was a profusion of perceptions that dizzied her. She was conscious of the plump, severe-looking matron who came from the dining area in a uniform. Then Artemus' smooth voice rose in anger and brought Evelyn back.
"What the hell do you mean, she's not here!" he demanded.
Mary wrung her hands and glanced at Evelyn, smiling weakly. "She left, Sir."
"I told her to be here, damn it!"
"She slip--She left, Mr. Crenshaw--shortly after you called. She didn't say where she was going or when she would be back. She was very upset."
"She's upset, is she?" Artemus fumed. He raised his hand and clenched his fist with anger. "So help me, Mary, one of these days I'm going to stripe her bottom with a belt, I swear it."
"Yes, Sir," Mary said, glancing at Evelyn again with an expression that said he never Would. "It's so nice to meet you, Mrs. Crenshaw. He didn't tell me you would be so pretty and ... and young. I know we'll get along just fine. Please don't hesitate to ask me for help."
"Thank you, Mary." Evelyn smiled, liking the woman immediately and feeling sorry for the awkward position she was in.
"I'm sorry, Evelyn," Artemus said, changing abruptly. "I don't mean to let my anger get away with me like that. I don't know what gets into Valerie that she can show such disrespect. Please forgive me. You'd think her father went out and came back married each week, for all it meant to her."
Evelyn touched his arm. "It's all right. She's probably upset by the suddenness of it after all the years without a mother. We both knew it wouldn't be easy, didn't we?"
His eyes had reverted to their expressionless form. "Of course," Artemus said finally.
"Dinner is ready any time, Mr. Crenshaw. Would you like a cocktail first? Peter is here tonight."
"Good," he said. "We'll be in the drawing room." He turned to go.
"There's one more thing, Sir," Mary added hesitantly. "Mr. Keith called to say he isn't coming until tomorrow night."
Artemus clenched his jaw. The lines on his face deepened. "Bungling idiot," he growled. "What the hell do these goddamn kids think they're trying to do? Tomorrow night's the reception. I don't have time to bother with his dragging in in the middle of it. What's his excuse--or did he bother to give one this time?"
"Something he was working on. He said you'd be pleased with it. A deal with Todd Ackerman, he said."
Artemus fell heavily into a chair, his face stony with quiet rage. "Ackerman," he said, making the name sound dirty. He shook his head slowly. "That kid. All right, Mary, thank you. I'll get the Swede on it tomorrow to stop anything from happening. Remind me."
"Yes, Sir."
When Mary had left, Artemus looked at Evelyn, trying to smile as if nothing were wrong. "They must consider my marriage a boring event, the way they rush home to meet you."
"Did you tell Keith?"
He looked at Evelyn, then averted his gaze. "Ah, here's Peter. Best damn bartender anywhere."
Evelyn nodded and smiled politely. The slim Negro moved with incredible grace. There was a swift exchange of inspection, pleasure, and arousal between he and Evelyn before he was gone. Evelyn felt the hunger stir shamefully inside her again. She wondered fleetingly if Valerie had extended the sweep of her wildness to Peter. The thought made her clench her buttocks tightly and shiver.
There was another reason for her anxiety. She'd grown afraid again. She didn't know how she could possibly handle a girl such as Valerie must be, particularly if there were this kind of resentment from the start. She tried to build an image of Keith. It came out loud and reckless and nearly as his sister, a wheeler-dealer on his father's money, an operator who thought he was smooth.
She felt like an intruder.
"Come on. I'll show you your new house," Artemus said, taking her hand.
They went down hallways, turned corners, peered into bedrooms, looked at the veranda and the pool beyond, walked along a carefully tended garden to the guest houses, then stopped by the dock to see the boat, floating with sensual slap-suck sounds on the still water. There'd been eight bedrooms, not counting the guest houses, a study, a party room, his office, several other small rooms besides the usual complement. The house was a baronial mansion tucked away with others to make the most exclusive neighborhood Evelyn could imagine. Her feet hurt. The sweet drink Peter had made was going to her head. The boat looked like an elegant yacht to her. The night air was heavy and warm and scented with flowers. She threw her arms about him and pressed up tightly. "Oh, hold me, Artemus," she cried. "Tell me it isn't all a dream."
Her lips were soft and full. His were firm, nearly hard. He kissed her demandingly, surprising her. His hands tightened on her hips and pulled her pelvis against his.
Despite her control, her passion began to bubble inside. She felt tipsy, as if on the threshold of something strange. Her lips spread softly and admitted his exploring tongue. She felt her pussy lips swell at the same time as if receiving his prick. A small shiver rippled up her spine and made the back of her head feel chilled.
She gasped while kissing Artemus and felt his fingers dig into the resilient flesh of her buttocks, making her imagine what it would be like with no clothes between them as he pulled her cunt up around his hard cock.
It was frightening and exciting, gentle and urgent all at once. Yet, despite the way her pussy was pressed intimately against his crotch, Evelyn could feel no arousal, no lifting of bloated prick between his thighs threatening to jab into her squirming cunt and drive her wild. She was glad. It was what she'd wanted. She felt safe with him, and she let her passion steam a little higher, melting in his arms, pressing the tingling tips of her breasts against his chest. She thought of going into the boat and fucking him there. She breathed more rapidly, with shallow puffs, and all thoughts of propriety, decorum or restraint seemed no more than hollow resolutions in the face of her mounting passion.
Artemus released her with shocking suddenness, making her cry out. His eyes stared into hers, as if looking into her very depths with calculating intent. Evelyn felt naked and exposed before him, and it frightened her.
"We'll have dinner now," he said evenly, as if nothing had happened. "Perhaps Valerie will see fit to join us." Artemus took her hand and led her back to the house.
Evelyn followed obediently, wanting to shout that she didn't give a damn about Valerie or dinner, that she wanted to go upstairs and fuck his prick limp, getting it over until the next time so that she could stop wondering. There was more than the question of how much or how passionately. Now, there was the question of what made him hot. She was steaming. He seemed totally unaffected. It was maddening--all of it.
She could barely eat. It was wild duck smothered in a rich wine-and-mushroom sauce. Peter served it, moving lithely, his skin gleaming with a gold hue. Their eyes met once more, and Evelyn felt as if she would fly apart, recognizing him instinctively as the kind of man who could do it to her.
"Artemus, I can't eat," she said in a quavering voice.
"The bride's impatience?" He chuckled softly, lifting a glass of wine to his lips. He sipped and watched her until her whole body quivered with sexual fever. "I think we'll get along just fine, Evelyn," he said cryptically, "just fine."
Later, when the others had left them alone, they went upstairs to the master bedrooms. The bedrooms were large and sumptuous, connected by a bathroom. Artemus showed Evelyn hers.
"Why must I sleep in here, Artemus?" she asked. "What good is it in being married if I can't sleep in the same bed with you?"
"My pattern is set, Evelyn," he said, looking down at her, "When I want to see you, you'll come into my room. When I want to be alone to think, to plan, to reflect on the many facets of my business, then you will come in here and leave me alone. There will be times when you'll want to be by yourself. Two people shouldn't live on top of one another. It's neither healthy nor efficient." He kissed her lightly, ending the discussion. "Go in and get ready. I'll be waiting for you."
Her suitcases were already unpacked and the things put away. The satin spread was turned down at the corner of the wide, queen-sized bed revealing the crisp sheets underneath. The walls were decorated with gold scrollwork on light pink. Evelyn's feet sank into the soft, gold carpet. The vanity was wide, with lace filigree around the stool and three mirrors on the counter. The bathroom was really two rooms, side by side, with the door connecting to Artemus' side closed. Hers was big, yet intimate and totally feminine.
Her body vibrant with happiness and desire, Evelyn stripped out of the mini Artemus had bought her and held the swollen mounds of her breasts, squeezing them to try to stop their tingling. The full-length mirrors on the closet doors were flecked with gold and gave her body a soft glow. The red panties of her image were gilded. The sight was terribly sensual to her, and she stripped out of her panties to stare at her gold-flecked pussy.
Her slit shone from the escaping vapors of her seething passion. She fluffed the curled, auburn hairs with her palm, then spread the swollen tissues of her labia to imagine gold dust lining her vagina like the entrance to a rich mineshaft or the surface of a glory hole. She moved back and forth slightly, watching her pussy shimmer in the mirror.
She hesitated, then extended one finger, watching it intently in the mirror as she laid its length inside the swollen, slippery gap and felt her labia engulf it greedily.
"No, don't..." she whispered to herself, pleading.
Her finger pressed harder. It slid sensually upwards until the tip hooked against the throbbing knob of her clit. She snatched her finger away quickly and stood with her thighs apart, wavering on the brink of orgasm, one part of her urging herself over the edge so that she wouldn't explode too fast with Artemus or grow too wild, another part telling her that she didn't have to do it this way any more.
The edge grew thinner, the decision agonizing. She pumped her hips twice as if fucking her image and then groaned aloud. Her hands flew to her tits and squeezed them. Her pussy spasmed, feeding upon its own sensitivity. Her round buttocks became taut, and she shivered with ecstasy, plummeting over the brink of orgasm, shaking until her knees went rubbery.
She staggered toward the bed, her head buzzing. She lay on her back until the last traces of her orgasm had died away. Only then did she release the tight grip on her breasts. Only then was it safe for her to.
She sat up and was glad she'd done it. She knew how much fingering she could stand before going mad, how much stimulation she could take and still be under control. It was the reason she masturbated as often as she did, rather than spreading out under a man's cock.
She hurried into the shower, feeling light and ready for the proper, quiet, romantic mood of her husband. She perfumed her inner thighs and breasts and slipped into the filmy nightgown he'd given her. She noted the satisfying way the yellow silk clung to her breasts and outlined them and made her nipples grow hard. It folded into the hollows of her crotch and cheeks when she walked, caressing her skin like a butterfly's kiss. She smoothed her hands around her waist and the sides of her hips and felt her passion begin boiling again.
She knocked on Artemus' door. It was open. A soft, ruby light spread passion through his room in just the way Evelyn wanted. The light behind her shone through the thin material of her nightie and outlined her body for him. He stood up and came toward her in a dark silk robe, his eyes feasting on the youthful, succulent curves of her breasts and hips.
"You're beautiful, Evelyn," he whispered smoothly. "Everything I expected you would be." He held her closely to him and whispered into her ear, stroking her hair and shoulders and waist with his gentle hand. He cupped the full swells of her ass and breathed heavily.
Evelyn's joy soared, and she clung to him. "Oh, Artemus--it's just the way I wanted it to be between us--romantic and tender and soft. God, darling, love me--hold me, fuck me gently."
He smiled handsomely and guided her to the bed. The sheets were satin and slippery to touch, erotic beyond her wildest dreams. His hands smoothed over Evelyn's body, and he gazed down on her, exploring her breasts and belly, and the satin flesh between her thighs.
Her buttocks quivered with need, and Evelyn knew she was too ready. Everything was so perfect for her that she was losing control again.
Artemus seemed unaware of the turmoil and lust which gripped Evelyn's body. He stripped her nightie from her and removed his robe. His chest was matted with silvering hairs. His arms and back were strong, fit, his hips solid, his thighs firm and muscular under cover of the satin sheet. His face dipped toward her breasts. She felt his warm breath cause bumps of passion on her skin. His lips sucked her nipples into his mouth, and she moaned with passionate joy.
"Darling," she gasped, reaching for him, "let me feel you between my fingers. Let me touch your cock."
He evaded her searching hand and moved his head lower, pulling the sheet from her stomach, past her slippery cleft. It moved as if oiled, and she shuddered up to meet it and his nuzzling lips. He pressured her lips with his and drove his tongue into the slick meat, savoring her flavor. She gasped and reached for his head, pulling him away.
"Not like that, Artemus ... not the first time. I want you in me. I want to feel your prick inside me. Give it--let ..."
She slid her hand down his stomach. Her fingers curled in his pubic hair, touched the root of his stem. It was limp.
She gasped with shock. "Darling, what... " She stared through the red, passionate light at his face. Some of the joy went out of her in her confusion. She held his penis and moved her fingers on it, but nothing happened.
"Turn over, Evelyn," he said softly.
"What's the matter, Artemus? Don't I please you?"
"Turn over," he repeated.
She rolled onto her stomach, willing at that moment to do anything to please him. A thousand thoughts raced through her mind: He was impotent; he'd married a young woman to try to regain his ardor; she wasn't pretty or sexy enough for him; she'd said something, done something; he was simply slow to start; she reminded him of his ex-wife, who had injured him.
"Darling, what do you want me to do?" she asked desperately, looking at him over her shoulder. "I'll do anything, Artemus."
He smiled again--that peculiar smile that was half sneer. "Will you, Evelyn?"
"You know I will!"
His palm smoothed over her cheeks. She watched him play with her ass, testing its firmness and resilience. The heel of his hand pressed into the deep, shadowy groove. She lifted up and back to help him. If it was what he wanted, she would do it. She felt his fingertip circle her anus and drive her to near madness. It punched inside, and she winced with the sudden pain, biting her lower lip to keep from crying out. His finger slid back and forth dryly, but Evelyn couldn't stop herself from coming. She dug her fingernails into the satin-cased pillow and buried her face in it, moaning harshly as her whole bottom vibrated and her anus sucked at his finger. When she was finished, she looked at him, and a new thought came to her. He was queer. He wanted to fuck an ass. His wife's Lesbianism had made him face his own desires. She thought of a whole life of being reamed, and she began to feel desperate.
"Artemus, fuck me," she pleaded, trying to roll back. "Try, darling, try. I have a tight pussy--one as good as an ass." She reached for him again and jacked his penis rapidly, spreading her thighs on either side of him, opening herself completely to his inspection.
He looked down and ran his fingers in and out of her pussy, smearing her juice over her thighs. She writhed for him, trying to excite him, then felt her passion surge upward again. She tried to keep it down. She came slowly while he watched her and smiled. He rose up and straddled her chest, lifting his penis toward her lips.
"Do you suck, too, Evelyn?"
She blanched, avoiding his penis tip. "I ... Artemus, what's wrong?"
"I want to see what else you do. Suck it. Make it hard, and I'll give you a drink. A pretty girl like you should be able to suck cock just fine."
Evelyn watched her husband's face with growing fear and dismay. The romanticism was gone. The sweet murmuring had turned harsh and vulgar. The simple, dutiful act of sealing their marriage was turning into an orgy of baseness. A dark hand clamped around her heart and squeezed, paining her, turning the ruby light from erotic to vulgar, as if she were a whore in a brothel.
"Artemus, this isn't the way..."
"Suck it!" he commanded, lifting the back of her head and pushing his penis between her soft lips.
Evelyn took it in her mouth. She had no choice. Her tongue grooved around Artemus' shaft and stripped up and down. Incredibly, she felt her passion grow again. She closed her eyes and willed her body to be still, afraid that the wildness would overtake her in the way she had struggled so long to keep it from happening.
His penis began to swell in her mouth. She worked at it harder and drew beads of slippery oil from its tip that made her tongue slide easily, sensually. She watched his belly tighten and ripple for a moment as his cock bloomed against the back of her throat. Just as she was reaching around to cup his buttocks and pull him more tightly against her face, he drew back.
"That's pretty good," he said. "You could make me come that way."
"Then let me! Oh, why did you pull away?" she cried.
"I have some toys. I want to watch you use them."
She shook her head in disbelief. "Artemus, no. Please, no. Why are you doing this to me? Why don't you fuck me the regular way and come. I know you can. What are you trying to do to me?"
"You said you would do anything. I want to watch you do anything."
Evelyn stared at him, her eyes going wide. She understood it now. He was testing her, defining her limits. It showed in his eyes. That was why his eyes, were always so cold, so ruthless. He was always testing everything and everybody to see how best to manipulate them for his own ends.
She suddenly remembered little events at the resort--things she'd thought odd but had paid no attention to. The time he ordered a waitress to bring him another fork after pushing his onto the floor. After the third time, she'd gotten angry. He'd left her no tip. The other one had run a fork back seven times, thinking it funnier each time. He'd left her twenty dollars. There were other things. They swam in her mind, but they all pointed the same direction. He was testing her now.
"This wasn't what we agreed on, Artemus," she cried suddenly. "This isn't fair."
He looked at her coldly. "We didn't agree on anything sexual," he said bluntly. "You merely assumed things, and that was an error in your judgment. You've seen my house. You know what I can give you if you cooperate and indulge me." He leaned back, nearly gloating. "Now, let me watch you stroke your pussy until you come."
"No..." she gagged.
"Don't play coy with me. A girl as hot as you are has played with herself before. Haven't you?"
"No! "
He squeezed her breast painfully, twisting the firm cone. "You're lying. I don't like people to lie to me."
She winced and hesitated. It was just possible that he had watched her do it a little while ago. "All right, I have," she cried. "Artemus, you're hurting me. Oh, God..."
"Oh God, what have you gotten yourself into? Is that what you were going to say? The answer is up to you. Everything, if you cooperate with me. You've seen how generous I can be. You haven't seen the ruthless side of me yet. But you may." He grinned in the heavy silence.
"You're sick," she said finally, her voice weak.
"Aren't we all, Evelyn? Even you?"
She averted her eyes, her mind spinning. "I ... I'll have to get used to all this, Artemus," she said, trying to sound reasonable. "It was not what I had expected. I'll learn to do what you want me to, I promise. But it will take a little time. You can't expect me to anticipate one thing and find another without being a bit shocked. I've made agreements with you that have nothing to do with sex. I shall honor them because it is my duty to do so. I think it only fair that you do the same."
"Tickle your pussy," he said. He took her hand and placed it over her spread cunt, moving it up and down.
"If ... if I do this for you, Artemus, will that be all?"
"Not quite. I'm going to fuck you, you know. I've waited four days for it, watching you switch your pretty ass around in front of me, watching you make your tits swell in my face, pressing up close and rubbing me, trying to get me hard--like some kind of teasing Lolita. Come on, fuck it with your fingers. Let me watch you squirm around."
Evelyn stared at him and began. Her hand moved slowly at first. A tingling began to grow. She expected it to blossom and fill her body until she was on the verge of madness. All that was happening to her now was like the first time, except that the madness didn't come. Barely anything came--a certain plateau of sensation, and that was all. She felt totally cheated then. She had neither the softness and finesse she'd been expecting, nor the wildness that he wanted. She realized then that he wasn't the man to bring it rushing from her--not the way Peter would be. Peter would be able to elicit her passion.
Thought of the cat-like strength of the black man's supple body made Evelyn's sensitivity mount. Her fingers moved with more urgency. She began to roll her hips, degrading herself openly before Artemus. He was breathing more deeply. His penis started to thicken and lift. He reached over her head and pulled. Evelyn heard the sound of curtains opening. She tried to look at the wall, and he jerked her head back painfully by her hair. "Don't you dare look," he grated with dire warning.
Fearing him, she didn't. There would be another opportunity. She watched him glance up to the wall and back to her pussy, as if comparing something. His penis sprouted rapidly and throbbed, fully turgid now, the tip stretching and velvety and leaking again. He covered her suddenly, slapping her hand away, lowering his hips to drive his cock deep inside her body. He propped himself on his arms and looked up at the wall instead of at her, rolling his hips, fucking her wantonly, with all the power and vigor she had feared from younger men.
In spite of herself, Evelyn rose swiftly to meet his thrusts. Their bellies slapped together, and her pussy made sucking noises. She tried to lock her arms about his back and pull him down, but he kept staring at the wall and wouldn't budge.
She felt strangely alone, as if a mechanical thing were running its prod in and out of her hole. Had things been different, had Artemus started some other way, his plunging prick would have driven her mad. He might have opened her up completely whether she'd wanted it or not. But the tone was set--expectation and disappointment, agreement and betrayal.
She tried to cool her passion, control it to deny him the pleasure of her coming, but the other things had done their work. It was too late for Evelyn to snuff the flames spreading throughout her succulent body. She pulled on his prick with her vaginal mouth and heard him grunt.
His penis jerked inside her and began squirting out his virile seed, filling her, making her sloppy and slippery inside. She cried out and strained upward, giving in to the primed passion inside her, accepting his cock fully within her cunt, coming and coming despite not wanting it to happen.
She sobbed quietly when it was over.
Artemus pulled the curtain back and got off her, looking down. His manner was brusque, his eyes hard.
"You have failed me," he said coldly.
"I did what you wanted, Artemus!"
"You weren't willing."
"Your sperm is inside me now--look, it's running out of my pussy. You fucked me. You came. What more do you want? I tried--honest, I tried. I'll get better, I swear it."
He looked at her and pulled on his robe. "You might get better," he said. "But you can only get older. Damn--damn!"
He spun away and flipped on the light. It glared harshly in her eyes, making her blink. She lay against the satin sheets with her pussy open and spilling his semen, and she felt utterly naked and confused.
"Get out," he said. "I need to think."
"Artemus, my God!" she wailed. "What did I do wrong?"
"I did it wrong. I expected too much. Now, get out."
She drew her legs together and rose from the bed, slipping hurriedly into her nightgown. She glanced over the bed and saw that the curtains were drawn tightly, giving her no clue as to what was behind them. He stood away from her, watching her closely, impatient for her to be gone. She started to say something, but the look on his face stopped her. She ran toward the connecting bathrooms and burst into her room, sobbing fitfully, certain now that she had made a terrible mistake in marrying him.
Chapter 2
Evelyn tossed in her bed for a long time, feeling sorry for herself. She thought of leaving Artemus before it got worse between them. But she knew running away would solve nothing. There would only be more problems. She was married--legally. There was that. It would have to be annulled. But on what grounds? Surely, she couldn't expect to win out over Artemus in a suit, not with his money and influence.
She would have to stick it out, to try. She stopped crying, ceased wallowing in the luxury of self-pity. If she went back, Paul would still be there, and it was no good between them. She thought of him for a moment, trying to remember the good times between them, but what came to mind was the quarreling. All they had done lately was fight. He wanted more from her sexually than she was willing to give. Their interests were diverging, leaving wider and wider gaps in their conversations. Perhaps it had been rebound from Paul that had persuaded her to marry Artemus--a means of escape.
She turned her head and looked through the sheer curtains. The sky was growing light in the east. The thoughts came dully, ploddingly, through her exhausted mind. She couldn't try to escape again. It hadn't worked with Artemus. She knew it would never work to run away from herself. She would have to call--no--better to write Mr. Ferguson a letter of resignation. It wouldn't give him two weeks notice, but he would understand. She'd gotten married. What could he say? She'd tell Sue and Melanie, invite them down sometime, maybe send them a box of oranges or whatever.
The thoughts seemed distant to Evelyn. She was surprised with their off-handedness. Of course, she would send them something--and she would insist that they come. She was still alive, still part of the world; she wasn't a prisoner in some castle dungeon. Down the street were other people. Over the bridge were drug stores and supermarkets and dress shops and tourists passing through. There were schools with children and young mothers waiting and talking. Artemus' house wasn't a castle with a moat around it. She could learn to adjust and make a good life for herself.
Thought of mothers and children made Evelyn attempt to struggle out of bed. She'd forgotten to take her birth control pill. She fell back with a moan, too tired to do it now. She'd take it later in the morning. Mocking birds woke up and began singing colorfully. The sky brightened rapidly, and she closed her eyes.
She heard tires squawk outside, a door slam, then another somewhere under her bedroom. She knew it was Valerie. She turned over again forcing her mind to think of something else, to drift into silence and let her sleep. Sometime during the morning, she heard Artemus in the other bathroom. She half expected him to come in and apologize or say something. At the same time, she wished he wouldn't, and she drifted off to sleep again, not waking until just after noon.
"Good morning, Mrs. Crenshaw," Mary said warmly. "My, you must have been extra tired."
"I didn't mean to sleep so late." Evelyn stretched languorously. The late morning sun seemed to make the night before a nightmare.
"Oh, think nothing of that. Something happens to people when they come to this climate. They just collapse for about a week. It happens to Mr. Crenshaw's guests all the time. We're used to that around here. Would you like breakfast or lunch?"
"Would bacon and eggs be too much trouble? I'll fix them."
Mary put her hands on her plump hips and spoke reprimandingly. "You'll do no such thing, Mrs. Crenshaw. I won't hear of it. It's no trouble at all, and that's what I'm here for, to wait on you and Mr. Crenshaw. Mrs. Cren--that is, the other Mrs. Crenshaw never came into the kitchen, and that was fine with me."
"Mary--please do a favor for me."
"Of course, Mrs. Crenshaw."
"Please call me Evelyn."
Mary's face changed. "Oh, I couldn't do that. He wouldn't like it. He wants it done properly."
"He needn't know, Mary. Just when we're together. It makes me feel strange."
It was slow in coming, but Mary finally smiled.
"All right, Evelyn. Ill get you some coffee right now."
"I'll come with you. I'm not afraid of kitchens.
It was big and cheery, as spotless and organized as Evelyn had expected Mary would keep it. She sipped her coffee while Mary bustled efficiently about cooking her breakfast. Mary put the serving on a tray and carried it formally into the dining room. She turned to go back, and Evelyn stopped her.
"Please sit and talk to me."
Mary hesitated again. "I'm not supposed.. .
"Is he here?"
"No, ma'am, he left for work early, having to see the Swede."
"Then sit down; he won't know. Tell me who the Swede is."
"Mr. Crenshaw's lawyer. It was about what Mr. Keith did."
"What did he do?"
"Oh, I have no idea. But to listen to Mr. Crenshaw, he's always doing something upsetting." Mary clapped her hand over her mouth. "I shouldn't have said that. I'd better get back into the kitchen where I belong."
"Don't go," Evelyn said. "I have to find out from someone, and Artemus hasn't said a word about Keith, except that he's nearly as old as I am and that he's coming home from college. Really, Mary, I'm begging you. You don't know what a difficult situation I'm in. Everything happened so fast, and I ... I need help from somebody. I promise I won't repeat a word you say."
The two women looked at each other. Mary drew in her breath, fighting some kind of battle inside herself. Her expression was kind and understanding, a bit maternal.
"You've got your hands full for such a young woman," she said finally. She smiled warmly and began to relax in the chair.
Evelyn sighed with relief and felt a certain tension drain from her. "Thanks, Mary," she said softly. She took another sip of coffee and began eating, discovering that she was ravenously hungry. "What was she like?" she asked finally. "His other wife? Am I anything like her?"
"Those are strange questions." Mary hesitated, picking her words. "Valerie takes after her mother very much."
The pictures Artemus had shown her flashed through Evelyn's mind--sultry, lithe, sensual, wild, with raven hair and a cruel, animalistic quality about her.
"I see," Evelyn said. She looked at Mary and could tell the next answer. Mary hadn't liked the other Mrs. Crenshaw. She didn't like Valerie, either. "What is Keith like?"
"A nice young man," Mary said firmly. "He's quiet and good-looking, like his father. He tries awfully hard to please Mr. Crenshaw--I would say too hard. He's always been very pleasant to me and Woody--Woodard, I mean."
"Really?" Evelyn said with surprise. "I had him pictured as someone entirely different." She finished eating and sat back. "I heard Valerie come in late this morning. Does she always do that?"
"'You're a brave woman, Evelyn," she said. "If you can handle that one, then you're a better one than I am."
"Is she up yet?"
"I haven't heard her call for me. That's how I know."
"She has her way with him, doesn't she?"
"Yes."
"Mary, why would he have chosen me? I mean, why not an older woman, one who could be more of a mother figure."
Mary stiffened, and her face lost its warmth. Evelyn knew she'd gone too far without meaning to.
"I couldn't answer that, ma'am."
"Oh, I didn't mean that, Mary. You know what I meant. Look, I know what you're thinking, and I want to be honest with you. I didn't marry him for his money. There was another reason ... "
"I'd better be getting back to my work, Mrs. Crenshaw," Mary said quickly, getting up.
"Mary, please! I ... you must believe that."
"I do. I could tell that last night. He's a handsome man. But it's not my concern, ma'am. There are things I can't talk about."
Evelyn looked at her. Now she was pleading. "All right, Mary. I understand. I'm sorry."
"I'll be glad to go around the house with you, ma'am, whenever you say. Julia is coming later to help me with the reception party, and I'll have to be with her then."
Evelyn was stunned for a moment. "I'd forgotten about that. He said I was supposed to plan it and have you help me."
"It's already been done. He gave me my orders before he left. If there were any questions, he said I was to ... " Mary stopped herself abruptly and held onto the back of the chair.
Evelyn looked away. "I see," she said. She smiled weakly. "Well, it makes sense. Valerie knows more about these things than I do anyway." She glanced through the window and could see a man walking through the yard. "Who is that?"
"That's Captain Bates. I'll have to tell him we won't be needing him tonight after all. Excuse me.
"Never mind, Mary, I'll tell him."
The sun was bright and warm. It felt good to Evelyn, and she shivered away a chilled feeling. She tried not to think about it, but the feeling inside her grew. It told her that her period of reign was over already, that Valerie was still queen. A determination to alter that fact took seed and began to sprout in the warmth of the sun.
Captain Bates stopped when he saw her. He was in his late thirties. His face was craggy and the color of mahogany, completely open and friendly. He was astounded to hear that she was not a guest but his boss's new wife. He hooted and slapped his white duck pants and made a big production of showing her around the boat, reminding Evelyn of an overgrown puppy with his enthusiasm. He talked her ear off about engines and charts and the electronic gadgets, and she let him. It felt good. He made the ship-to-shore squawk, gabbed with some buddies, and talked with bright blue eyes and hushed tones about treasure diving around the Bahamas and the Keys, finally showing her a 1684 piece-of-eight. Evelyn acted properly impressed, warmed by the outgoing friendliness of the man.
By the time Captain Bates left, Evelyn felt like a new woman again. She was sorry to see him go. She walked back up to the house. A plump Negress, shiny black, was waddling around behind a vacuum cleaner. She had a loud voice, a big heart, and many gold teeth on display when she announced that she was Julia come to help with the wedding party.
Evelyn's good spirits were short lived. She looked through the party room and out the glass doors to the pool. The young, prematurely developed girl in the pictures was just climbing out of the water, her bikini triangles glued transluscently to the swelling curves of her breasts and buttocks, her raven hair streaming water down over her back and shoulders. She tipped her head and slid her hands down her hair to wring the water from it and stared straight through the glass at Evelyn.
Their eyes locked for a moment. Evelyn felt her heart begin to pound. Her adversary was in sight, and there was nothing to do now but go out and do battle. Valerie watched her come, her expression changing from curious to taunting. She didn't come halfway forward. Instead, she lay back on a chaise lounge and made Evelyn come to her.
Evelyn stepped under the latticed covering that partially shaded the sun. She put on her best smile and tried to be pleasant.
"Hello, Valerie," she said, stopping in front of the girl.
The dark eyes went up and down her figure, as if seeing what was under the mini, as if to gauge a rival. "Hello, Momsy," she drawled insolently. "Daddy didn't tell me you would look like that. He's gotten to be a dirty old man." She laughed cruelly.
"That's not a very nice way to talk about your father."
"I talk about him any way I like, Momsy. He doesn't give a damn. Why should you?"
"Because I'm his wife now. I would like you to show him respect."
"Jesus, you come on strong, don't you, Momsy."
"Please stop calling me that."
"What should I call you--Mother? Gloria's as old as you are, and I don't call her Mother. I call her Glory-Hole. Should I call you that, too, Momsy? Is that why Daddy married you, because you have a sweet little glory hole for his growling penis to probe?"
Evelyn gritted her teeth, suppressing the urge to slap the cruel sneer from her sensual mouth. But she had started out badly enough.
"Valerie, I don't see why we need to make this any more difficult than it already is. I'll forget you said that, and we can start over. I think it would be fine if you called me Evelyn."
Valerie smiled slowly. "Artemus and Eve," she said. "That's almost like the original pair. I'll be Cain, and Keith can be Able, except that he isn't. My big brother is decidedly unable." She laughed shrilly.
"That's very clever, Valerie," Eveyln said. "You have a way with words, I see."
"I've a way with a lot of things, Momsy, and I don't like interference."
Evelyn sat on the chaise lounge next to hers. "Now you're making more assumptions. Why do you dislike me, Valerie? You don't even know me yet. I wanted to be friends."
The dark eyes flashed mischievously. "Good friends?"
"Yes."
Valerie lifted the triangular patches of her bikini bra off her tits and over her head, dropping the garment to the floor. Her breasts jiggled firmly and pointedly, their slopes smooth, their ends tipped up and spiked with dark nipples that protruded. She wriggled against the backrest and allowed a posed, sultry expression to come over her face. Her fingertips casually rolled one nipple, making it swell.
"How good, Eve?" she asked throatily. She watched Evelyn's eyes stare at the proffered breasts and the stimulated nipple. "You're a cute chick. You must have something sexy going for you, or Daddy wouldn't have bothered. Maybe we could come to an understanding after all--if you wanted to be real good friends."
Evelyn couldn't help but stare and swallow. She tried to look away, but her gaze roamed down over the flat tummy and slim waist and lingered too long over the dark patch of pubes showing through the transluscent whiteness of the bikini bottom. Valerie chuckled low in her throat, making Evelyn grow flustered. She didn't want to feel it, but there was a morbid fascination with the girl's utter sensuality that made her tingle inside. Her mind churned with many responses. She looked away quickly and picked one.
"Not that good, Valerie. You're misjudging me completely. Please get dressed now."
"Why? Does the sight of a naked tit bother you?"
"Because, whether you like it or not, Valerie, I'm your parent now, and I said to."
"There you go--coming on strong again, Momsy. You shouldn't do that. You should take off your dress and join me. It's very comfortable to go around this way. I do it all the time, and I wouldn't dream of stopping now. After all, there's nobody here who would care, except you. Mary and Julia wouldn't say anything. And Peter, when he's here, is very cute, the way he tries not to look. Keith wouldn't know what to do with it if I gave it to him, so what's the danger, unless... "
She let her voice trail off and slowly, sensually, hooked her thumbs into the wet bottoms, pushing them down her hips, lifting up with her hips to roll the white patch over her full buttocks and down her thighs. Her mound appeared slowly, the curls damp and tightly curled from the water, drawn back from the succulent lips of her pussy. It opened and showed pink tissues inside when she moved her thighs and removed the garment completely. She settled back fully and lifted her fine chin to the sun, as cunning and animalistic under the latticework as a striped tiger. She parted her thighs slightly and sighed with contentment.
It was more than a challenge. It was a flaunted battle cry. "I can't believe your father would approve of this," Evelyn said tightly.
Her eyes rounded innocently. "Oh, he doesn't care, either, Momsy. Didn't he show you my pictures? I think it's cute of Daddy to carry my pictures with him. He loved taking them. Has he taken any of you? Does he carry yours with him?" She smiled wickedly.
"All right, Valerie, you're on," she said angrily.
"Those were just the right words, Momsy. I'll get on any time you want to. Or you can get on me, I like it both ways. Come here, Eve, and we can settle all this nasty business right now and be good friends." She lifted her knees slightly and let them fall open. Her pussy tipped up in open invitation for it to be sucked.
The movement was done so gracefully, with just the right touch of sensuality as to prevent it from being downright vulgar. Evelyn was stunned by the zinging tingles that shot through her body and made it hard for her to breathe. She was angry with herself for staring a moment too long again. She whirled and stalked across the lanai into the party room. It took all the control she could muster to keep from running. She passed Mary on the way upstairs. There was a glance between them before the woman looked away. It was full of sympathy--.and a trace of pity.
Evelyn went into her room and let her agitation and frustration vent from inside her. She stamped her foot and shouted. "That little bitch!" in a loud whisper. She stood in front of the gold-flecked mirrors, which had now lost their charm and appeared annoyingly fogged, and said, "I am not a Lesbian," very firmly.
She had never considered the possibility. Yet, she had never been as disturbed or as wickedly thrilled by the sight of a naked woman before. She shook her head to rid herself of the terrible thought, insisting over and over in her mind that it had been Valerie's sensual manner that had caused the tingles, rather than her own weaknesses. The same thing had happened last night. It had been Artemus, not herself, to blame for whatever had gone wrong.
Thinking of last night, she went through the bathrooms into his room. The interior was dim, because the curtains were drawn. Her heartbeat quickened as she went to the bed. She studied the curtains above it for a moment before she saw why they were different from the others in the room and the set right next to them.
The track at the top was sturdily braced. The fabric was punched with metal eyelets at the top and bottom, through which sturdy metal clips passed. There was another track at the bottom of the curtains and a metal tab that locked them closed with a key.
She tried to open them. She tried to pull one curtain from the other, but the overlap was so large, she couldn't see behind them. She thought of ripping them off the wall, but knew the idea was absurd. Artemus would know who did it. Besides, they were Fiberglas, and extremely tough. She tried to push in at them to feel what was behind them, but they strained at the eyelets and wouldn't give enough.
She was so absorbed with solving the mystery of them and so frustrated by the way they were tightly sealed she nearly missed hearing his tread outside the door.
She fled in panic through the bathrooms just as he came in. She stood in the middle of her room, gasping, hoping he hadn't seen her.
"Evelyn."
She whirled and saw him standing there.
"What!" she half shouted.
He smiled oddly, watching the rise and fall of her breasts. "I just wanted to tell You I was home."
"Oh." She smiled nervously and went toward him. "I guess that deserves a greeting." She reached up to kiss him dutifully. Her lips quivered against his, and she felt suddenly weak.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Why--nothing."
"I hear you and Valerie have met."
She stepped back. "Yes, we've met."
His calculating eyes studied her. "She's made you upset," he said. He smiled again. "You shouldn't pay that much attention to what she says. She likes to tease."
"But there's a limit, Artemus."
"What do you mean?"
"I didn't care for what she did. I think you should have a talk with her. I'm liberal minded, but this was too much. Did you--see her?"
"Yes--when I came in. What are you talking about? What's too much?"
"Well, wasn't she undressed?"
"What? Of course not. She was in her bikini, sunning." He looked askance at her. "She said you were rather huffy with her, in fact. I didn't want to mention that so soon, because I know what she's like--pretty nasty when she wants to be."
"Nasty! She was perfectly vile, if you want to know the truth. She insulted me in every way she could think of, challenged me to exert any authority over her, then proceeded to strip out of her bikini suit to see if I would make a play for her. Now, I won't tolerate that, Artemus," she finished, her voice louder than intended, her face red.
His eyes changed. She still couldn't read them, because what she saw there didn't make sense. It wasn't anger or surprise. It appeared to be arousal. She glanced quickly at his crotch and saw the unmistakable bulge of an awakening cock. She looked into his face again, astounded.
"What do you mean, Evelyn?" he questioned sternly. "Valerie wouldn't do a thing like that. What are you trying to accomplish with such slanderous remarks, drive a wedge between us?"
"No, Artemus, of course not..."
He put his hand against her chest, sending her sprawling on her back on the big bed, stunning the breath from her.
"You dare to intimate that my daughter is a Lesbian?" Artemus growled, moving toward her, standing between her legs so that she couldn't close them. Her dress had flown up to reveal the bright green panties over her twat. He looked at them, stretched tightly over her labia, and licked his lips.
"I didn't say that, Artemus," Evelyn cried with confusion.
"Then, what did you mean?"
"I don't know what I meant. I didn't mean anything. I told you what happened, that's all. Ask Mary--she saw it."
"Saw what?"
"Saw Valerie strip in front of me and spread her legs in my face!" she cried.
"Show me," he said, bending forward. "Show me what she did."
Evelyn stared at her husband's crotch and saw that his prick had sprouted alarmingly inside his pants.
"Artemus, what in God's name are you trying to do to me?"
"I'm trying to get you to show me what Valerie did. Tell me. Describe it. How can I question her unless I know?"
"She pulled her bra off and ... oh, what good is all this?"
His hands were on her thighs, pushing the hem of her mini higher, his thumbs indenting her flesh. "Tell me!" Artemus ordered.
"She played with her nipple, challenging me to say or do anything to stop her." Evelyn turned her head aside. "Artemus, stop it!"
He had let his cock fly from his pants. It was stiffly bloated, throbbingly ready. He began pulling at Evelyn's panties, yanking them painfully from her hips and making them line the meat of her cheeks. She kicked in resistance for a moment, then stopped, seeing that it was useless. She stared at him, comprehending that he was going to fuck her, even if he had to rape her. She was afraid that it wasn't the sight of her pantied crotch that had aroused her husband but the mental image of his daughter's nakedness and wanton challenge. As if making an experiment to test the truth of her fears, Evelyn told him the rest of it, embellishing it slightly.
"Then she had the audacity to roll her bikini bottoms off--right in front of me. They're lewdly transparent anyway, and you should forbid her to wear them."
"Go on!" Artemus was breathing heavily, his face flushed, the veins standing out in his neck.
"She ... oh, don't make me, Artemus."
"Tell me, damn it, tell me!"
"She ran her hands over her pussy, Artemus--daring me to stop her, challenging me to touch her. She spread her legs and shoved it up toward my face as if--as if I ... spreading her lips ... oh, Artemus!"
Artemus released his breath and ripped Evelyn's panties from her, falling heavily on top of her. His hips searched until his striving prick shoved roughly into her cunt. He pounded up and down, battering her hips with his. Her dress crumpled between them. The tab on his zipper dug sharply into her thigh. His hands mauled her breasts, and Evelyn could feel his balls slapping at her perineum as he forcefully fucked her.
Evelyn felt total shock, a sense of revulsion and the stirring of desire. She knew he imagined he was battering his prick in and out of his daughter's cunt, that he was visualizing the way her thighs had been spread, her slippery labia opened to his cock, her mocking smirk challenging him to go ahead and take her, his own daughter, like a dirty old man.
It was degrading to her to feel as if she were a non-person, a surrogate daughter. Yet, there was something morbidly exciting about it, too--fascinating, spellbinding. She felt her mind slipping along a dreadful plane. She tried to fight against it, but her body began betraying her. Her pussy lifted up to meet his thrusts. It became slippery and hot inside,, and she could feel her muscles quaking around his cock and pulling him more deeply into her. She accepted him more freely as an image began to form in her mind that made her shiver all over with incredible lust. Her head buzzed. She slipped toward the image until she became it. Then she was Valerie, lying under her father's weight, taking him into her cunt, fucking him with lewd gyrations of her rolling ass and hips.
The experience was frightening and all too real. She was Valerie, and yet she wasn't. She watched the image change and waver and then cried out helplessly as an old memory came unlocked and floated to the surface.
The girl in her mind was herself, but much younger. The man was her own father, the way he used to look before he'd died in an accident. She remembered everything clearly, all at once, old feelings and dreams rushing from the depths of her mind.
She had seen him screwing her mother one Sunday afternoon, long ago. She hadn't understood what they were doing, only that it had excited her somehow. She'd dreamed and fantasized for years after, wanting her father to do that to her, also. When she'd found out what it meant, she'd pushed the memory away.
But now it was back again, and the feelings and desires with it. She gave vent to them because she couldn't stop herself, because Valerie and Artemus had lent strength to her old fantasy by their complicity, and she allowed her father to fuck her in her mind. She slipped from herself to Valerie, and the man changed from her father to Artemus, back and forth, always remaining a daughter, the man above her always being her father, even when reality came back to her and she realized she wasn't this man's daughter. The effect was still there because of the differences in their ages, because of the possibility she could be his daughter.
Her arms went around his neck shamelessly. Her tits compressed against his chest. Her legs dangled over the foot of the bed awkwardly, and she lifted them over his hips, locking her ankles so that her heel dug between his cheeks and pulled his prick more tightly into her.
"Fuck me, Daddy, fuck me!" she cried, making an insane sound.
Artemus heard and jerked and then went fully inside her body to explode violently. His semen squirted thickly toward the back of her cunt, filling her and triggering her own orgasm. Her pussy shook against him and milked his prick. Her head spun as Evelyn gave in to the wildness inside her. Her orgasm was multiple, one following after the other in a seemingly endless chain of explosions that left her limp and gasping for breath.
Her belly was cramped, and it hurt. Her thighs felt stiff. She eased them from around his buttocks and felt her feet touch the floor. A feeling of terrible shame washed over her as the rippling sensations faded and her heartbeat slowed. Artemus pulled away and looked at her, his lips curling back in a sneery smile.
"That was better," he said throatily. "That's what you should have done last night."
She didn't move. Her head was turned aside, and her eyes were squeezed shut with shame. She felt on the verge of her state of madness, knowing that she would respond violently to him if he did anything more--if he touched her clit or began pumping his prick into her again, or if he turned her over and played with her ass the way he'd done last night. She lay perfectly still and made her body go dead before it betrayed her again. Mercifully, he withdrew his penis from her and stood up. He looked down at her.
"That was much better," he repeated. He waited for her to respond. "What's the matter. Don't tell me you didn't like it."
She drew her body away from him. "I want to take a shower," she said.
He shook her. "Say you liked it!"
"It was sickening!" she spat. "I feel dirty all over. I need to wash and feel clean. You made me want ... " She glared at him.
"Want what? More? You blew like a chain of firecrackers--four or five, I counted them.".
Evelyn pushed up from the bed and brushed past Artemus, feeling his sperm run down her thigh. He grabbed her roughly, spinning her around.
"What the hell's the matter with you? I said I liked it! I think we can make it now. You're learning fast. "
She jerked her arm free. "Why don't you just sleep with her and be done with it, Artemus? What do you need me for? Am I supposed to fool your friends? Throw them off guard and make them think you're normal after all? Be a red herring?"
He blanched. The tan went out of his face and his handsomeness slipped away with it. Then his hand shot out and stung the side of her cheek and left a ringing in her ear.
"Get out of here!" he whispered hoarsely. "How dare you!"
"Oh, no. I'm not leaving. We made an agreement, and I'm going to see it through. I'll be so perfect you won't have any possible cause or grounds for getting rid of me. You offered me something. Now I want it. I'll even take you with it. Did you hear, Artemus? Any time you want to fuck me, I'll be here. I'll even dye my hair black, and I'll say, 'Fuck me, Daddy,' until you squirt your load again and again. You've insulted me and degraded me and lied to me, and I want something in return. Not much--just something for my trouble. I'll be fair, even if you won't."
On bold impulse, Evelyn walked up to him, switching her ass back and forth, letting a smile come to her lips in a vamping way. She put her arms around his neck while he stood stiffly in front of her.
"What are you doing?" he grated.
"I'm making up to you, Daddykins," she cooed. "We have a wedding reception in a little while. You don't want to be snarling at your new bride in front of your friends, do you?"
"This won't work, Evelyn."
"Sure it will, Sweetie. All we have to do is make it work. I might even come to enjoy being your new daughter. But you're going to have to do something about that other one, because I can get awfully jealous."
She looked up into his face. She felt drunk with bold power. She watched his eyes narrow slightly and acquire that calculating look again. In spite of herself, she felt herself sobering quickly, and she turned away from him toward the shower before she began shaking again. She knew whatever victory she'd won just now wouldn't last long, because he was infinitely more adept at cunning than she.
She heard him go out her door into the hall. She stripped her dress off and stepped into the shower. The stream pelted her thighs and twat and washed his sperm away. The water was warm, but she began to shiver in it until she forced herself to stop.
Evelyn knew suddenly why she'd become so angry and vindictive. It was more than the insults, more than the frustrations. It was because the memory of her father had been a good one, warm and happy, cherished. There'd been nothing wrong or foul in it. She'd supposed most girls had held the same desire at some point in their lives. Even Freud had said that it was normal.
But they, Valerie and Artemus--they had made it dirty with their sickness, and she would never feel as close to the memory of her father again. The knowledge saddened her, and she wept softly.
Chapter 3
Evelyn felt positively wicked. She stood beside Artemus and smiled cheerily and shook hands and received the guests as if nothing at all had happened. She ah-ed over their presents, found two women and one of the men out of the seven couples who were more than passingly friendly toward her. The others asked where they'd met and wasn't it quick and said, "My, she's lovely, you old rogue."
"Just a bauble I found on the beach at Pelican Inn," Artemus said, making an insulting joke. "Thought I'd bring her home with me. Doesn't she go well with the house?" He turned to Evelyn and grinned. She grinned back. It was a baring of fangs. He put his arm around her. She reached up to give him a quick peck, like any admiring bride, and he evaded it, walking away quickly. "Don't overdo it, Dear," he said.
It startled her. It had given a bad impression, and she could feel it. The women turned cool suddenly, letting their eyes flick up and down her figure in a new appraisal, as if suddenly seeing what her real motive had been for marrying so old a man.
She lifted her chin bravely, trying not to care what the others thought, but she knew the first round of their new battle had gone to Artemus. She was now a gold digging little tramp.
She sighed and watched him across the room, drink in hand, talking in his cool, unshakable way. The others drifted toward him, leaving her to finger their gifts reflectively. She decided not to force herself on them. They didn't mean that much to her, as they were too old to be company for her anyway. Peter came in with his lithe, dancing motion to announce that dinner was ready. He spotted her standing alone, and they exchanged glances once again. She let hers linger on him, and he understood. The thought formed in her mind: Yes, Peter, we probably will. She didn't feel ashamed by it any more.
Everyone moved toward the dining room and the long, elegantly set table. Artemus kept trying to hold them back, looking over his shoulder repeatedly as if expecting something to happen. Then Valerie came waltzing out in a white satin sheath cut above mid-thigh.
Artemus crowed proudly, going over to her and taking her arm. The others ogled her, as did. Evelyn. The raven hair gleamed against the white material. Her body was poured into it. There were no pretenses about underclothes. Her breasts jiggled softly inside the material, and her nipples were plainly visible as bumps of white at the tips. There was no telltale line from panties or pantyhose. Under the sheath was pure Valerie, soft, resilient, curved, voluptuous. She had the figure to do it. The effect was incredibly erotic. She made eyes at all the men and laughed pleasantly with the women. She made Evelyn feel positively tacky by comparison.
Artemus guided her toward the head of the table. Evelyn saw what was going to happen, and she hurried forward.
"Valerie, you're absolutely stunning in that dress," she said, smiling bravely.
Valerie smiled back, supremely confident in the circle of her father's arm. "Why, thank you, Mother," she cooed. "Gee, it's going to be hard to call you Mother--you're so young. Daddy, why did you marry someone so young?" she asked innocently, making herself be childlike despite the obvious fact that she wasn't. She fooled them all, and their heads swiveled toward Evelyn to sample Valerie's truth.
Artemus laughed easily. "Now, that's my business, sweetheart. Here, you come sit beside me, and I'll tell you all about it." He gave an exaggeratedly lecherous wink behind his hand, making them laugh.
Evelyn couldn't reach the seat that was supposed to be hers without running. Valerie sat in it quickly and smiled victoriously at her. The others settled themselves, a big, balding blond man, who was hard of hearing and seemed to have a lot to talk to Artemus about, taking the chair on the other side of him, opposite Valerie. He was Swede, the lawyer.
Evelyn hesitated. She couldn't ask the man to move. She couldn't make a scene with Valerie, either. She went toward one of the couples who had been nice to her earlier.
"Do you mind sitting next to the bride?" she asked the man.
"Of --course not," he stammered, his smile flashing on quickly. He glanced at his wife. "We'd be delighted, wouldn't we, darling."
"Yes, Wendell. Delighted. Well, help her with her chair. Where are your manners?"
Evelyn sat. She was below the middle of the table. A wrinkled, hard-looking woman in a Victorian dress sat across from her. She smiled quickly, fingered the big corsage over her breast, and talked with studied absorption to her neighbor.
"I wonder why there's an extra chair," Evelyn commented to Wendell, trying hard to be accepted by someone.
"Did you forget you have two children, Evelyn?" Artemus questioned from the end of the table. His voice came clearly through the murmur of conversation and stilled it. "I thought I'd mentioned that before now."
The heads swiveled toward her again. "I ... I didn't think he was coming for dinner, Artemus."
"Who the hell knows when he's coming?"
"I'll bet he'd come faster if he knew what his new mother looked like," Valerie said slickly. She giggled behind her hand, and the Swede, sitting across from her, guffawed once. "Listen, everybody," she said, keeping their attention, "I just thought of the funniest thing. My parents are Artemus and Eve. Isn't that funny?" She giggled again, sweetly innocent.
They chuckled. "Clever girl. Pretty little thing."
They looked at Evelyn expectantly.
"And she's pure Cain," Evelyn said, more firmly than she'd meant to.
There was forced laughter. The Victorian across from her scowled and leaned over the table, waggling her head in reprimand.
"Cain was a man, my dear. Don't you know your Bible?"
"Let's hope she didn't mistake Daddy for a woman," Valerie snickered.
Evelyn didn't know what she would have done if Peter and Keith hadn't come in simultaneously, just then, through different doors. Peter carried a platter of carved roast beef, and Keith carried his suitcase.
"Hi, everybody, sorry I'm late," he said breathlessly. "Dad, I gotta talk to you a minute."
Artemus turned slowly. "Of course, Keith. I'll leave my guests and my dinner and indulge your impatience any place you suggest. Will the boat be private enough, or should we crawl into the attic this time?"
Keith's ready smile faded. He put down the suitcase by the wall and moved his hands futilely, glancing with embarrassment around the table.
He was as handsome as his father. Evelyn studied him and decided that Mary had been right. There was softness in his face, a kindness in his eyes that his father had lost long ago. He had sensitive lips, a tall, lithe build, and long fingers, like those of an artist. Evelyn liked him immediately. She felt sorry for the way his enthusiasm had been doused by Artemus' chilled voice.
"No, Dad," he said softly, shuffling his feet. "I didn't mean now. It can wait. I ... I'll go wash up."
"Thank you, son," Artemus said heavily. "I appreciate your consideration." He turned back, dismissing the youth. "That kid," he muttered. He turned to the Swede. "Did you stop everything, Swede?"
"Vat?" he roared, cupping his ear, his bulbous nose quivering. Evelyn saw his squinty eyes peer straight across the table at Valerie's protruding nipples.
By the time Artemus had got it out of him that he'd put the hex on Keith's impending deal with Ackerman, Keith was coming into the room, looking fresh and clean and healthy. His stride was buoyant, his manner pleasing. He took the empty chair, across the table and three down from Evelyn. He looked at her as a single face for the first time and looked again, smiling handsomely. It was a prettier smile than his father's, completely lacking the sneer.
"Say hello to Momsy, Keith," Valerie said nastily.
He looked up, his face puzzled. Evelyn knew instantly that no one had bothered to tell him yet. "What?" he said.
"That's our new Mommy over there. Say hi."
Keith looked at Evelyn, dumfounded. She knew somehow she would have a genuine ally in him.
"Your father and I were married yesterday, Keith," she said easily. "Didn't anyone bother to tell you?"
"No kidding!" he blurted, wiping off a sudden grin. "I mean, no--they didn't. Jesus, I can't believe it."
"Watch your language, Keith, you're not in a college bathroom now," Artemus boomed.
"Yes, Sir, I'm sorry. I just ... nobody said ...
"Mary told you. Why are you putting on such an act."
"No, she didn't."
"You always want to contradict me, don't you?" Artemus growled. "Why is it these kids today don't have any respect for anybody? You called here yesterday, didn't you--to inform us all that you wouldn't be coming home when you were supposed to, as if you had no responsibilities?"
"Yes, but ... "
"Then she must have told you."
"Dad, she didn't!" Keith cried.
Artemus nearly whispered, thus emphasizing the loud protest. "How often must I remind you not to raise your voice to me?"
"I'm sorry, Dad," he half whined, squirming in his chair. "I didn't mean to yell. But she didn't."
"I want to quit arguing about it. The matter's too trivial to occupy the attention of my guests. Now, say hello to Evelyn and take some roast beef. Do you want Peter to stand there holding it for you all night?" Keith moved about with flustered motions, taking a slab of meat from the platter Peter held, discovering his napkin was still on his plate, putting the meat back and doing everything all over again. He said a quick, "Hi," during the middle of it.
"You'll have to treat her with more respect than that, Keith," Artemus said.
"I said hi."
"Say it again, and be polite."
"Hello, Mother, I'm pleased to meet you," he said in a forced voice.
"God, Daddy, that, was priceless!" Valerie laughed.
Evelyn glanced at the pair of them. Artemus was wearing his sneer. She looked back at Keith, and her eyes went soft, trying to tell him that she understood, that it was all right.
"I'm pleased to meet you too, Keith," she said gently. "I'm sorry this is such a shock to you. I'd have thought surely that some member of this sweet family would have told you your father was getting married, even if he didn't think to himself."
The words came out easily. She said them clearly. When she was finished, she glanced at Artemus. He grinned and gave her a slight nod of approval, declining to retort.
The dinner was strained. The guests were not insensitive to the strong undercurrents. Toward the end of it, Artemus began again.
"Tell me why you were delayed, Keith," he said.
Keith looked up, glanced at Evelyn as if for support, then faced his father. "I'd rather talk to you about it in private, Dad," he said.
"This is as private as we're going to get for the next week. I have a full schedule at the office, and I'd like to do some things with my wife. Either, tell me now, or let it cool a week."
Keith licked his lips. "Well ... I had a terrific idea just at the last minute that'll make us a killing, Dad," he said excitedly.
"Oh, boy--I can't wait, to hear it," Artemus mimicked, setting his elbows heavily on the table and looking at his son with a fixed stare.
"I saw a report that had just come into the Economics Department projecting a new upswing in Fiberglas boats, so I called Bill Funk to confirm it. He said our stock would shoot up, but that he was switching from Kabern Glass because their delivery was bad. I heard you mention that Todd Ackerman was trying to get your Kabern stock, so I called him."
"Oh, that's terrific, Keith," Artemus said in a droll voice.
"He offered me twice what it was worth. We can dump it on him and buy more in Funk Boats and come up with a short term gain of ... " He searched in his coat pocket for a paper of figures.
"Absolutely nothing," Artemus growled loudly.
Keith's face fell. "What do you mean? I figured it all out, Dad."
"You haven't figured anything out, boy. You just damn near gave Ackerman control of Kabern Glass. Kabern owns Funk. We make the engines that go into Funk. How the hell many do you think Todd Ackerman would buy from me, huh? Christ, you damn near wiped us out of three companies in one stroke. What the hell's so terrific about that, Brain-boy?"
Keith shriveled into a lump of confusion. "But I checked the stock register, Dad," he wailed. "Ackerman doesn't own any of Kabern Glass."
"He owns forty-eight percent through Acheson Limited and Delmar Plastics, and Funk is his goddamn cousin!" Artemus roared. "Get the picture now, you bungling idiot? You stick to your damn books from now on and let Swede and me take care of the business until you can figure out what the hell you're doing. And even then,--you ask my advice first, understand?"
"I ... Dad, I didn't. ... I thought I was only ... oh,-- shit on it!" Keith cried, throwing his napkin into his plate, knocking his chair over backwards as he sprang up from the table. He glared at his father, and tears of frustration stung his eyes.
"Keith, you sit down and apologize to every person here for that outburst," Artemus commanded.
"I apologize!" he cried over his shoulder. He strode from the room in tearful anger and slammed the door to the front yard.
Evelyn hesitated. She watched Artemus settle back in his chair with a smirking grin on his face. Valerie was looking at him with obvious pride. There was a small, secretive smile playing at her lips. Her breasts rose and thrust with excitement. The others had fallen to studiously eating their dessert. Evelyn stood up quietly.
"Where are you going?" Artemus questioned.
She faced him fully, keeping her voice low and calm. It took nearly all her will. "One of us should go to him, Artemus," she said.
"Sit down. This is your party. He's a big boy now. If he can't take a little rubbing, then let him go sulk."
"But it's his party too, Darling, because he's one of the family. I feel responsible for having upset him. After all, it must have been a terrible shock to him to come home and discover he had a new mother. Since it's my fault, I'll go out and apologize. I'm sure everyone will understand my sense of duty and forgive me.". She smiled sweetly and walked with determination toward the door. She hadn't expected the total silence that followed her.
She shivered in the front yard, ridding herself of a sudden chill. She searched it and went toward the side of the house, calling to him softly.
"Keith? It's Evelyn, Keith, please answer."
She found him sitting in a secluded area of the garden on a cement bench imbedded with colored stones. His hands were between his knees, and he was staring at the dark ground, his shoulders slumped. He glanced up and then back down again.
"I'm not going back in there," he said sullenly.
Evelyn sat beside him. "I don't blame you."
Keith looked at her suspiciously. "I don't know why he sent you after me. He's never given a damn before."
"He didn't send me. I came because I wanted to."
"Look, Evelyn, we might as well get one thing straight from the start. I hate his guts. He's done this to me all my life. This is the last time. I've had it. I'm finished. I'll never try to please him again, because it's hopeless. This is the last time I intend eating his crap. Now, I'm going to hurt him. I'm going to make him eat mine and hurt him so badly he'll finally learn he can't do this to me any more. I'm going to do something that will make him sit up and take notice."
"Oh, Keith--don't take it so seriously. You can't feel that way about your own father."
"The hell I can't. Anyway, it's reciprocated, you know. He started it. He treats me as if I can do nothing right--nothing, no matter how hard I try. I found out at school that wasn't right."
"Of course, it isn't right. That's why you shouldn't ..."
"Valerie, now--she can't do anything wrong," he said bitterly. "You saw her in there, playing up to him and making her slippery comments."
"Yes, I've seen her," Evelyn said, glancing away.
"What do you mean?" he questioned closely.
A spotlight from the house shone down on the garden, lighting the tops of the palms and sprinkling through the intertwined branches of a spreading banyan, giving the garden an intimate, ethereal quality. She could see Keith's face turned toward her and his dark eyes flicking with interest over her features. She felt an odd stirring inside herself, and she reached hesitantly toward him, finally touching his cheek with trembling fingers, feeling an electric shock seem to animate her breasts.
"Keith, don't be this way. Don't be vile and cruel. It doesn't fit you. You wouldn't stand half a chance against him. You aren't the same as he is, and you shouldn't try to be. Maybe I can do something to help you. Maybe things won't be the same any more, now that I'm here. I know I shouldn't be saying this, but ... we need help from each other, Keith."
"What do you mean? You're his wife. Why should you need any help? Help from what?"
Evelyn drew in her breath. "Never mind that," she said weakly.
"They've done it, haven't they? They've started on you, too--already. That's what they did to Mother. They teamed up against her and drove her out. Evelyn, for God's sake, why did you join this sick family? Why did you marry him? You're too young, too pretty to be his wife. Do you love him? Really?"
Evelyn pulled her hand back quickly. "That's not a proper question for you to be asking me, Keith."
"I don't care about proper any more. All I care about is getting even with him for all the years like tonight. And you--I won't stand by and watch them do to you what they did to my Mother."
"Keith, what are you talking about? What is it you think they did to your mother?"
He looked at her, moving his face closer, remembering. "I'm not as stupid as he tries to make me out. I have eyes. I've seen them and heard them."
The words made her pulse beat faster. "Seen--what, Keith?"
"You want me to show you? All right--why not? You're a member of this sick family now, so you might as well be introduced into it properly."
His hands reached out quickly and gripped her shoulders. He pulled her to him, and his lips sought hers and kissed them fully. He was hard at first, insistent and demanding, then frightened and unsure of himself. An exciting air of recklessness pressed from his lips to hers and made her shiver with the shock of it.
Evelyn sensed that he was upset, that he was lashing out in any way possible, and she didn't fight with him. She went limp in his arms and let him kiss her, knowing it meant nothing. She had wanted to comfort him and try to remove the bitterness and anger from him. If kissing her would do that, then she wouldn't stop him, because it would never happen again. She told herself that and attributed the electric sensations jolting through her to the strangeness of the night.
He pushed her away quickly, and his face rumpled with shame. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I didn't mean to do that."
Evelyn breathed deeply a few times, trying to quiet the tingling in her lips. "Then, why did you, Keith?"
"I don't know."
"Yes, you do. Tell me. I'm not angry with you for that."
"Jesus, now I've screwed everything up."
"No, you haven't. I liked it. It was one of the sweetest kisses I've ever had."
"Don't you make fun of me too."
"I'm not, Keith."
They looked at each other intently through the dim light. Something had happened between them, she could feel it. They were too close now. There was suddenly too much attraction between them. The whole night was becoming too crazy and too emotional and dangerous.
"You know what I was thinking in there?" he asked. "The minute I saw you? I thought you were the daughter of one of them. I was sitting there trying to think of witty things to say so that you would want to date me. I felt immediately that I wanted you to be my girl, and then Valerie said ... God, Evelyn, you just can't be my mother! It isn't right that he should have you."
"Keith," she gasped. "You must stop talking this way. It isn't right."
"It would be more right than what's real. You're not like him either. Valerie's like him. You're ... you and I ... " Keith's face changed. His eyes began to dance with inner excitement. "I know what I'm going to do, to him, Evelyn. I've just decided."
"What, Keith?" She backed away from his intensity. "No... oh, no, you can't think that, I won't let you."
"I want to kiss you again, Evelyn," he whispered, his breath warm and sweet and gentle on her face. "I want to do more than kiss you. I want to take you away from him and make you my girl and love you the way you should be loved."
"Keith, I'm your mother," she choked.
"Only my stepmother. You said so. That makes it different. Besides, you're the only clean, fresh, pretty thing about this house, and I couldn't stand by and watch you be trampled into the ground under the heel of their sickness."
"Keith, stop," she gasped. "You don't know what you're saying. You're just upset tonight. Please don't go on with this."
"I know what I'm saying. I know what I want to do. I want to protect you from them. Valerie is crazy, Evelyn. She'll stop at nothing to have her own way, and he'll stop at nothing to give it to her. She tried to get rid of me. She tried to entice me and get me to... "
Evelyn's pulse raced madly. "To what, Keith?" she whispered.
"She was drunk. Maybe she was high, I don't know. She enticed me into her room. She was wearing a nightie. It seemed to grow thinner the longer I was in there. She knew it. She kept showing herself to me, leaning up against me, laughing, fondling me, letting the material slip up over her buttocks and thighs, not caring that I saw her pussy. She writhed on her bed. She began playing with herself, squeezing her breasts, fingering her thighs. She opened herself to me and begged me to finish her off. She spread the lips of her pussy and ... did everything, right before my eyes, trying to get me to fuck her. Me, Evelyn, her own brother! She wanted me to fuck her!"
Evelyn remembered the sight Valerie had presented to her. She felt herself slipping through the darkness again toward that image, feeling inside herself as if the event were taking place once more. It was eerie. It made her tingle all over. Her pussy throbbed. She tried to fight off the feeling that she was Valerie again, the way it had happened earlier, with Artemus.
"Did ... what did ... " Evelyn gasped, feeling her labia swell.
"I didn't do it, Evelyn. I swear I didn't. She began cursing me, ranting on and on about Mother, about how she and Gloria had made Mother do things, about pictures. And then Dad... "
"Oh, Keith," she whimpered. "Keith, we're going to need each other. She tried it with me today!"
"Evelyn, no!" he cried. He swept her into his arms, holding her tightly, making her breasts flatten against his young, hard chest.
She was breathing rapidly. She felt her labia swell and flutter moistly. Her nipples sprouted against his chest and tingled.
"Keith let me go," she gasped. "Stop ...
Evelyn struggled ineffectually. Her hand brushed across his lap. It bumped into the stiff bone of his prick and made her shiver. Wanton, impossible desires swept through her and did battle with the knowledge that this was her stepson holding her and running his hands over her back and up her sides to her breasts.
"Evelyn--Evelyn!" he gasped, cupping the full mound of her breasts with his palm, fingering her flesh, testing its resiliency.
"Keith, you mustn't do this," Evelyn said quietly. "It isn't right."
"Who cares about right, Evelyn? What they're doing isn't right, either. I only know what I feel at this moment, and it is that I want to love you and protect you." His hand worked down her side to her waist along her trembling thigh and up under her skirt.
"Keith, no!" she cried again.
"I have to know, Evelyn. I have to feel you and know. I've got a hard-on for you that came from something besides sex. I know there's something between us, Evelyn, and if your pussy is wet, then I'll know you feel it too."
His fingers slid along her inner thigh and caressed the swollen labia between them. Evelyn shuddered, at the sensual touch. She knew he was feeling the slipperiness of her juice and the dampness of her panties. There was a moment of surrender to his enveloping fingers, when her pelvis rocked up and her thighs parted willingly. A tremulous shiver rocked through her body like a small orgasm and made her gasp heatedly against the side of his cheek. His finger slid along the lubricated nylon and traced the gentle curve of her slit, as if seeking the vent from which her passion would erupt.
"I knew it, Evelyn, I knew it," he gasped. "You're wet for me--so wet and warm and soft. Oh, God."
"It doesn't mean anything, Keith," she said quickly. She clamped her thighs shut around his hand and backed away, making his fingers stop touching her pussy. "I'm wet because of what you told me about Valerie, that's all. It doesn't mean anything. That's why you're hard. It's not from me but from reliving that time with Valerie, because she's so sensual."
"That isn't true, Evelyn," he said. "She doesn't make me hard. My sister disgusts me. You made me hard. If you just touched me now, I'd show you. I'd ..."
"No! Don't say it!" She jumped up, standing away from him in the eerily lighted garden and smoothing her dress, feeling the touch of her own hands bum through it and turn her skin to flame. "God, Keith, this is impossible," she moaned.
He stood also. His hands held her shoulders tenderly, in the kind of touch she had wanted from his father. His breath was warm against the back of her neck, where his lips caressed her lightly, pushing aside the auburn strands to taste her flesh.
"It's not impossible, Evelyn," he whispered. "We can work something out I want you. I know you want me, because I felt it between your legs. Evelyn, stop fighting it--we're meant for each other."
He turned her easily. His arms circled her waist. Their faces came close in the dim light, and he kissed her gently, tenderly. His young muscles flexed with passion and something more. Evelyn yielded to him again for a delicious moment and knew the truth of what he was saying, even while she fought against his embrace in her mind and forced herself to remember that she was married to his father. She tried to break free again, but he held her tightly. His fingers sought the tab of the zipper running down the back of her dress. She feared what would happen if he began moving it down. She could feel the seething desire inside her starting to boil at his touch.
"Keith, you can't do this," she whispered urgently.
"Come to my room, then. Come to one of the guest houses."
She pulled back and looked at his handsome face, made beautiful to her now from the desire in it. She was afraid there was only one way to stop themselves from tumbling over some dreaded precipice. She let her hands go to his buttocks and hold them.
"Evelyn... " he gasped.
"Oh, Keith--move, --Darling, move against me." She pulled his middle tightly to her, cupping his hard shaft in the vee of her thighs and the softness of her belly. She swiveled her hips and dug her fingertips into the cleft between his cheeks. She leaned her cheek heavily into the hollow of his shoulder and gasped heatedly, urging him on.
"Oh, no..." he choked. "Not this ... let me take it out ... lift up your skirt and ... oh God, Evelyn, not like this."
She rolled against him, feeling his throbbing cock trying to strain through the layers of cloth between them and spear into her slippery cunt. She mashed her soft tits against his chest as she felt for his anus with her fingers, slipping her fingers under his belt down the swell of his buttocks.
Waves of guilt washed over Evelyn for what she was doing, but the guilt gradually gave way to the decision that this had to be done. She was barely able to stop her own passion from overflowing the moment Keith gripped her tightly and shuddered against her body with a gagged moan of completion.
She clung to him, half holding him up. He breathed harshly for a moment, and then his arms loosened about her waist. He kept his face hidden from her, and she fondled the back of his neck gently.
"There," she said softly.
"That was a dirty trick," he mumbled.
"But you feel better, don't you?"
"I feel shitty--like a damn kid with no control."
"It was the only way, Keith. It would have been worse the other way, and you know that."
"Did you come too?"
"That doesn't matter."
"Did you want to? I know you did--don't lie."
"All right. I won't lie. You're very attractive to me, Keith. You're soft and good and gentle. You're what I wanted your father to be, but isn't. There, does that make you feel any better?"
"Evelyn, leave him."
"No, Keith,` she said firmly. "He's my husband. I barely know him, but he's my husband. I have duties, responsibilities--I've made promises that I have to keep." She looked at her stepson and grinned. "One of which is to be a mother to you. Do you hear me? A mother, not a lover."
"All that doesn't change what you feel for me." Keith said sulkily.
"My feelings for your father can change. I have to give all this time. It hasn't started too smoothly, I'll admit, but that's all I'll admit. He has a strong personality. He's older than we are put together. His ways are set. I have to learn to adjust to them."
"Later, then--if it doesn't begin to work out for you ... oh, Evelyn, you've got ... "
"No, Keith. I wouldn't promise such a thing. It wouldn't be fair to either of us. You'd always be watching and judging, and I'd always think I had an alternative to keep me from doing my best. Don't you see that?"
He drew in a deep breath. "I don't give up that easily. Wait till Valerie really starts in on you. Then you'll be sorry."
"Sorry? Keith, a moment ago, you wanted me to be your girl. Now you sound as if you're threatening me. Is that the way you want it between us? I offered to help you, remember?"
He turned his head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way, damn it. I just ... all right. All right. But I'll still be here anyway. Remember that, Evelyn. Any time you need someone, I'll be here."
"Thank you, Keith. It's the same with me, too. Now, we'll both forget this ever happened, and we'll be friends. Come on, let's go back in before you get my dress wet and it leaks through your shorts to ... " .
"God, it already has. Oh, hell, I've got to change, They'll know then. I don't want to go back in there anyway."
Evelyn looked down. A dark, stained area gave testimony to his founting passion of a moment before. She saw his discharge shimmering on her dress in a dime-size spot she knew would stain, even when dried.
"They won't know," she said hopefully. "I'll say I spilled some beef juice on myself."
"Valerie will know," Keith said darkly. "Even if she isn't sure, she'll imply it. She's vile that way." Evelyn stiffened and pushed him firmly away. "She hasn't all that much power, Keith. You haven't seen me in action yet. She can't get away with everything, you know. I'll handle her, guests or not. Are you going to change and come back?"
"No."
"Then I'll see you tomorrow." She kissed him quickly and hurried through the garden into the yard, inhaling the fragrance of unknown blossoms made heavy and sensual by the ocean air.
A certain steeliness came over her, a resolve to engage in battle with Valerie as well as Artemus. She wished she could believe the substance of her bravado a moment ago to Keith, because she knew that Valerie's power lay in something not measurable. Her own strength, the backing of Artemus--but there was something more. An aura of fascination, an insidious way of infusing Evelyn's spirit with herself, as if she were a witch who could cast a spell. It had happened twice, already.
The guests were gone. Evelyn stood at the entrance to the party room and saw the forgotten glasses, their sides sweating puddles onto paper napkins as the last of the ice melted. There was the stale, lingering smell of cigarette smoke and the other untidy remnants that made her feel as if a chilling force had come and removed the people from the world and left her alone.
She turned and went toward the stairs. A low murmur came from Artemus' study. She paused a moment, then went toward the door, her mind working over the things she was going to say to him. She would stay out of his way, if that was what he wanted. She would fulfill her obligations and duties, because she had made them. But there would have to be a limit on the amount of abuse and ridicule accorded her in public. There would have to be limits put on Valerie.
"All the wedding guests have left us, Mother," Valerie said.
Evelyn looked up quickly, startled from her thoughts. She saw the girl sitting on one arm of Artemus' leather chair, her hips cocked, her dress rucked up around her smooth hips until her dark pubes were brushing the leather with feathery touches. One arm was around the back of Artemus' neck, and she leaned against him, her soft, vibrant breasts on a level with his head. Her nipples thrust against the satiny material in clear outline. One leg reached toward the floor, the other was lying atop the chair arm, knee bent, calf doubled under. She didn't alter her splayed position when Evelyn came in.
Artemus sat in the chair with a peculiarly wooden expression on his face. His eyes moved and tracked Evelyn as she sat on the couch opposite them and folded her hands in her lap.
"I want to talk to you, Artemus," she said. "In private."
"Mmm, she sounds determined, Daddy," Valerie cooed, curling her fingers in his hair and spreading her thighs insolently wider, pointing her pussy straight at Evelyn. "What do you suppose she and Keith did out there all this time?"
"You were gone over an hour," Artemus rumbled. "You embarrassed my friends, and they left. What could you possibly want to talk to me about?"
"Send her out, Darling, and I'll tell you," Evelyn said coolly.
"Oh, Daddy, I don't want to go. Don't make me go." Valerie lifted her thigh and rolled her buttocks over the arm of the chair until she slid into his lap. She snuggled against him. Her dress was pulled up to the sides of her hips, and her cunt was in plain view, even to Artemus, if he looked down.
Evelyn gasped. The physical intimacy of the two appalled her. It also reminded her of what she had just been doing with Keith. She swallowed hard and watched Artemus put his broad hand atop Valerie's thigh and squeeze gently.
"She doesn't want to go," Artemus grinned. "So, talk. Is it about the party, the seating arrangements? I didn't have anything to do with those."
"You know it isn't that."
"She didn't like the way you treated poor Keith, Daddy. She thinks he's nice, I can tell. See that big spot on her dress? I wonder how she got that. Tell us about how you got that spot, Momsy."
Evelyn looked straight at Artemus, trying her best to avert her gaze from Valerie's tantalizing pussy. The girl seemed to be having trouble getting comfortable on her father's lap, because she kept moving around, rolling her buttocks and flexing her spine in serpentine fashion so that her breasts thrust outward in soft, satin-covered cones. Her smile became unbearably sultry and wanton, and it was all Evelyn could do to keep herself from watching the sensual movements and becoming absorbed in them to the point of fascination.
"Artemus, I refuse to say one word until you send Valerie from this room," Evelyn said, feeling her temper rise along with another emotion, strange in overtones.
"Well? Is it about Keith, Evelyn?"
"Partly, yes."
"Then there's nothing you have to say that I'll listen to. Keith is my responsibility, remember? We've already discussed that. Valerie is the only one who need concern you."
Evelyn glanced at the girl, still rolling her buttocks softly in her father's lap. Her twat seemed to spread more widely. There was a slickness to it now, between her succulent labia. The smile on her face grew bolder, more confident, dominating Evelyn from across the room.
"Artemus, send her out!" Evelyn cried finally, losing her control.
There was a long hesitation from him, a fixing of the expression on his face, as if he'd been seized by a moment of breathlessness. His hand moved jerkily on Valerie's thigh, and then came to her waist, holding it firmly. Evelyn watched and didn't understand.
"If you want to talk about Valerie," he said finally, his voice sluggish and low, "then I'll leave you and go to bed. You don't need to talk to me about her. Talk to her yourself. Get up, Valerie."
The girl didn't take her eyes from Evelyn. She slid forward from his lap smiling with sleepy victory. Her dress slipped up the tanned expanse of her upper thighs and lower abdomen, totally exposing her black-furred cunt and the round hemispheres of her ass. She stood with her naked bottom clearly exposed and slowly pulled the hem of the dress down over it, smoothing the slick material with her hands in exaggerated movements, making her young tits become fully outlined. She breathed deeply and continued to smile.
"Yes, you go to bed, Daddy. You need your rest. Momsy and I will take care of the talking. We'll get it all straightened out."
Artemus sat as he was for a long moment, then rolled out of the chair in a peculiar way, seeming to hide behind Valerie until his back was turned. He moved behind his desk and fiddled with things on the top of it for a moment.
"Artemus, I refuse to be treated this way," Evelyn cried. "I want to talk to you, and I want to do it now--without her insolent presence."
Valerie approached Evelyn with a cat-like, threatening appearance. "There, Daddy, she's done it again. I told you she was nasty with me before. Let her try to lie out of it this time--you heard her."
"Valerie, that's enough," Artemus said gruffly. He looked at Evelyn, half over his shoulder, still facing away from her. "Good night, Evelyn."
"Artemus, how dare you!"
"I told you that Valerie would be your responsibility. I'm going to leave now, and see how well you can discharge that duty." He began walking stiffly from the room, his hips twisted oddly.
Evelyn glanced from him to the smirk on Valerie's face, feeling totally outraged and totally helpless at the same time. The girl turned and went toward the door, stopping her father. She kissed his cheek fondly, the way a daughter would do.
"Good night, Daddy," she cooed. Her lithe body strained upward to reach his height. The dress pulled tightly across the rounded globes of her cheeks, caressing them in satin splendor.
Evelyn's eyes were drawn to them against her will. She saw the beginning of the shadowy cleft between them, the taut line of thigh and calf. Her gaze went lower and clung to the irregular spot on the back of Valerie's skirt, off center, near the hem.
She gasped audibly and felt her mind spin. Her pulse raced, and she knew what horrible, degrading thing had been taking place right before her eyes.
"Oh, my God!" she cried. "My God, I can't believe this is all happening to me!"
The door was closed, and Artemus was gone. Valerie turned around and looked at her, seeing the point of her vision. She looked down behind her and saw the wetness. She smiled lewdly and came toward Evelyn with sinuous movements.
"See, Momsy? I can get my dress spotted too," she cooed.
"You vulgar little bitch!" Evelyn spat, jumping up.
Valerie tipped her head back, shook her glossy hair, and emitted a throaty laugh. "Don't be upset, Momsy. I told you I had my way with things around here--things and people. You want to fight me all the time. Wouldn't it be much easier on us both for you to give in? You suggested that yourself, remember?"
"You tramp," Evelyn whispered.
"I'm not a tramp, Eve," Valerie said, her face changing, becoming halfway serious. "Haven't you ever been sixteen? Or have you forgotten what it was like?"
Evelyn watched Valerie suspiciously as the girl came slowly forward. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"I'm talking about being hot, Eve. All the time. So hot you can't stand it. So hot you want to fuck anybody. Haven't you ever been that way before?"
"No," Evelyn said, --but her hesitation gave her lie away. "Not with my own father, Valerie. That's a sickness."
"Why? Haven't you even dreamed of it with yours? All girls do that at some point in their lives, don't they?" She smiled innocently. "You have to think of Daddy, too. He hasn't had a wife for three years. That's a long time for a man to go without a woman. He works hard. He doesn't play around, I know. It wouldn't be healthy for him to go without sex once in a while, even at his age. And it's harmless--only a little game we play, don't you see? He feels better, and nothing bad is done. Just a little rubbing. Just the feel of his big, stiff prick between my cheeks. It makes me feel good, too. It makes me hot. You came in on us tonight, Eve, and I didn't get to finish. I'm still hot. I'm burning up inside. He's gone, now. Everybody's gone. There're only the two of us. I know what you and Keith did outside. I always know. You didn't get to come either, did you? Then we should help each other, shouldn't we? We could both forget, Eve. We could be good friends, you'll see."
Evelyn watched the slow approach with mounting emotion. She couldn't define the feeling. There was astonishment, disgust, incredulity--but something more. There was fascination with the enveloping presence of Valerie's sultry wantonness, a feeling of unreality so strong that Evelyn was scarcely aware that Valerie had taken her hand and placed it upon the satin slope of one of her firm, invigorating breasts.
The touch against her fingers was the most sensual thing she'd ever felt. They squeezed in gently as if they had volition of their own. The spinning sensation claimed her again. She felt her hips go loose, her buttocks become swollen and tucked under as her pelvis rocked forward and her labia swelled open once more with the unfulfilled desire Keith had raised in her.
The satin dress slid under her fingers at the merest pressure on her wrist where Valerie held it. Her eyes were fixed on the dark, wide-spaced orbs before her. She felt her breath catch in her throat as satin gave way to equally silky skin and the glossiness of pubes. Then her fingers were bathed in warm oil, were caressed by succulent, silky flesh and smooth muscles. She watched in fascination as Valerie's eyes clouded and then grew bright. The sound of her escaping sigh seemed to break the eerie trance she was in.
"Oh, God!" Evelyn nearly screamed, jerking her hand away as if it had been immersed in flames.
Her fingers were soaked with the strong perfume of Valerie's cunt. The girl's dress was hiked to her waist. Her pelvis was tipped forward eagerly, searching for more sensation. Her lips were slack and parted, and hot breath came from between them.
"Oh, my God!" Evelyn cried again, stepping back in horror. "You're a witch--a witch!"
"Oh, don't stop, Eve, don't stop! Don't make me do it by myself; I get so tired of that. Please--do to me what you did to Keith. I won't tell, I swear it, I swear it!"
Evelyn gagged and spun away, running from the room. Her fingers slipped on the door knob, and she wiped them on her dress, looking back in horror. She saw Valerie with her thighs splayed and her fingers busily rubbing up and down her slit. Her face had changed again. The insolent, mocking smile was back. Her head was tipped, and throaty laughter came from it. Her hand blurred, and her buttocks tensed. She cupped her skirt at her waist with her other hand and shuddered, the laughter becoming a gurgling moan of extreme pleasure. Her hips shook back and forth as she fucked her hand and came again and again.
"I'll defeat you, Momsy," she gloated. "You know I will now, because I'm stronger. You'll come crawling to me one day and suck my cunt!"
Evelyn ran from the room in sobbing terror, the challenge ringing in her ears all the way to her room. She saw a woman in her mirror. She looked at her closely, trying to recognize her. The woman looked half mad, and Evelyn turned away from her.
Chapter 4
When morning came, it was better. She'd had time to think and to reason her reaction to Valerie through and to sleep on it. Evelyn sat up in her bed and saw through the window that it was late again. The sun was high in the sky shining down on the boat and the serenity of the blue river. Her thoughts came easily to her, without the hysteria she'd felt last night.
She'd called Valerie a witch, ascribing the girl with power to cast a spell. Evelyn smiled to herself. That sounded ridiculous in the light of day. Valerie couldn't fascinate unless she had Evelyn's cooperation. Which meant that there was something in Evelyn's personality or past that had reacted in the right way to the girl.
Evelyn sighed deeply, refusing to believe that she'd ever had Lesbian tendencies. She knew it had to be something else--another manifestation of her powerful sexual urges, perhaps, the same volcanic passion that had made her go wild the first time.
The idea made sense to her. A heavy weight seemed to lift from her, and her spirits buoyed, because now she felt she had a weapon to fight back with. If she could keep her passion under rigid control, then she could control her reaction to Valerie's sensuality and open challenges in exactly the same way.
She came back from the window, laughing with a shaky sound, and reinforced the thought in her mind. She dressed calmly, planning how she would confront Valerie the next time, standing there in front of her, immune from the girl's attempts to fascinate her again. She would be stern. She would have to exert her maternal authority the moment Valerie tried to display herself again or make any suggestive remark. The girl was a spoiled brat. She would have to be treated like one. There was no other way. Perhaps through force some measure of respect might come.
She reached for the door knob and went down the short hall with a confident stride. She hesitated at the head of the stairs when she heard a feminine voice coming up from one of the rooms below. A worm of fear wriggled through her for a moment, and then she forced herself to go down. It was only Mary, talking on the telephone. The woman looked up and cupped the mouthpiece with her hand.
"Good morning, ma'am," she said. "It's for you."
"For me?"
"It's Captain Bates." Evelyn hesitated, then took the receiver. "Yes?" "Captain Bates, Mrs. Crenshaw," he said in his strong, energetic voice. "The mister always has me check in to see if he'll be using the boat."
"Well, I don't know, Captain," she said hesitantly. "Did you ask Mary?"
"Didn't get a chance to. Anyway, I thought you'd be the one to ask now, instead of her or Valerie. Especially the girl. She's put me on a few times. Not that I mind so much, since I'm getting paid for it, but it makes me feel kind-of stupid to show up when Mr. Crenshaw doesn't want me there."
"Of course, I can't blame you. Just a minute." She turned to Mary. "Did Mr. Crenshaw leave any word with you about the boat, Mary?"
"No, ma'am, but I don't see how ...
"Hi, everybody," Keith said, coming into the room. "What's the big conference?" His eyes smiled as they touched Evelyn's. Then they caressed her body knowingly. Her breasts tingled.
"Do you know if your father intended to use the boat today?" Evelyn asked quickly to disguise the sudden savage pounding of her heart. She was thankful that the boy didn't know how she felt.
"Are you kidding? Now would I--hey, is that the captain?" Keith grinned eagerly. "Let me talk to him a minute, will you?" He fairly grabbed the receiver from her. "Hi, Captain, how's the treasure holding out? Have you left any down there for me?" Keith talked excitedly, laughing often, leaving no doubt that he and Captain Bates were good pals.
"Mrs. Crenshaw," Mary said softly, gesturing for her to step aside with her. "Ma'am, he won't be using, the boat today. He told me he was flying to Tallahassee and wouldn't be back until tomorrow."
Evelyn looked at her as if stunned. "He what?"
"Didn't he tell you?" The old eyes searched her face.
"I ... yes, perhaps he did, and I'd forgotten," Evelyn said quickly, knowing she hadn't fooled Mary. She heard Keith laugh into the phone again and make excited plans. A metallic taste came to her mouth, and she swallowed it down. "Well, he certainly won't be needing the captain, then, will he?"
"I'll get some breakfast for you and Mr. Keith, Mrs. Crenshaw."
"Mary ... remember what I asked you to call me?"
"Yes, ma'am, but I just can't do that. I'm sorry."
Evelyn felt as if her legs were being chopped from under her in a swift series of machete strokes. Now she had lost Mary, too. She stiffened and mustered the small bit of decorum left to her.
"All right, Mary," she said. "You may get our breakfast now."
She watched the woman turn quickly toward the kitchen. She felt like running back upstairs in melodramatic fashion and crying her eyes out. She felt at that instant as if there were no use whatever in continuing to torture herself. Her life here was spiraling downward into the muck of masochistic hopelessness. Only Captain Bates accorded her any authority now, but she knew Artemus would see to that as soon as he returned.
"Evelyn?" Keith said. "What did you find out from Mary--he still has to know."
"We won't be needing him."
"Great! Hey, Captain, let's go," he blurted excitedly into the phone. "All right, I gotta eat something first. I'll be there in an hour."
Keith hung up quickly, his eyes dancing with excitement. Evelyn watched him and envied his powers of bouncing back.
"What was that all about?" she asked.
"The captain says he's got a friend's boat lined up, and he was going up the coast toward Sebastian to do some diving. Some kid found a Spanish coin on the beach again. The captain's convinced there's a wreck offshore there somewhere. He said I could go along and help him."
"That's fine, Keith," she said.
He looked at her oddly. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing."
"You sounded funny just then."
"Did I?"
"You're not sorry, are you--about last night?" She turned away from him quickly. "I said we would forget that, Keith, remember?"
He took hold of her arm. His wrist brushed Evelyn's breast, starting hot flashes through her body, then let go immediately when Mary came in with a serving tray and set their breakfast on the table.
"Count me out for dinner tonight, Mary," he said, smiling at her. "The captain and I are going treasure hunting."
Mary laughed at him good-naturedly. "You two are the biggest dreamers I ever met," she said.
"You can't find it if you don't dream about it, Mary. Who knows--maybe we'll find an old galleon full, of treasure and never have to come back. Would you miss me?" he joked.
"You know I would, you rascal. It'll be lonely enough tonight without you or your father here for dinner." She glanced at Evelyn and went back into the kitchen quickly.
"Huh?" Keith grunted, watching Evelyn sit down. "Dad won't be here?"
"That's what I'm told."
He looked at her. "Just you and Valerie?"
"Not if you hurry back."
"The hell with that," he said, lowering his voice. "Listen, Evelyn, you come with us."
"I ... I shouldn't, Keith."
"Why the hell not? What are you going to do around here all day, play games with Valerie? No, sir. I promised to protect you from her, remember? Who do you know around here?"
"No one."
"Then that settles it. Have you met Captain Bates?"
"Yes, yesterday."
"He's great, isn't he? Kind of dumb, maybe, but a good man. Give me the shirt off his back any time, which is more than Dad would do. Look, there's going to be him and me and a friend of his. We can fish or something while they're diving; go swimming. Bring your suit along."
"Keith, it'll look funny," she said quickly. But she was thinking about the heat of Keith's body pressed against her, the savage thrust of his penis between her thighs.
"No, it won't. The captain wouldn't give a damn. I'll tell him you were left alone here. It's the truth, isn't it? Come on, eat your breakfast so we can get going!"
She smiled happily for the first time that morning. "All right," she said.
* * *
Captain Warner gunned the boat up along the shallow coastal waters and shouted back to them over his shoulder. "Be there in another ten minutes."
Fresh air whipped across the afterdeck through Evelyn's hair and brought a flush to her cheeks. She sat in one of the swivel chairs and listened to Captain Bates' animated conversation.
"Ken says it happens to him every summer about this time. The tourists are gone, and he can't make enough charter fishing to see him through, so he rents out for cruises. That's why his boat's bigger than most fishers. He's got a cruise scheduled for next week over to Bimini, so I talked him into killing time with me looking for treasure. Keith, here, he's enough to drive me crazy on the subject, aren't you, old buddy." He laughed heartily and slapped Keith's knees solidly. "You gotta keep your eye on this boy, Mrs. Crenshaw, or he'll twist your arm off trying to talk you into something. Mine gets sore every summer."
He laughed again, and Keith punched him back. Evelyn closed her eyes against the sun and wind and smiled contentedly. It was just the kind of nonsense fun she'd hoped to have. Even Ken Warner was fun, though he was quieter than Captain Bates. He was close to fifty, with sandy hair and bleached eyebrows and a tough, leathery look to his tanned face. He cut the engines and began heading inshore slightly.
"Sure you don't want to try my idea, Bates?" he asked. "There's the cut."
"Doesn't matter to me, Ken. We aren't gonna find it anyway, but the fun's in the looking. I don't care where we look."
"What's his idea, Captain?" Keith asked.
"He thinks the treasure washes out to sea through the cut and then gets beached. I've heard stories the pirates went up in there to hide out from warships. There's plenty of places--shot through with little islands. But I don't know. Been lots of people looking over the reef here, and they haven't found anything. Maybe he's right. Sure, take her in, Ken, what the hell. I'll get the beers." He chuckled and ducked down into the cabin. They heard him banging around. He came back with four. "How about it, Mrs. Crenshaw--cold beer?"
"I'd love one," she laughed. "But only if you'll call me Evelyn. This formality can be carried too far, you know."
"Hell, Evelyn, I'm not formal. I'm just a dumb Florida cracker with a yen for the water," he grinned, obviously pleased. "You look more like Keith's girl than a missus anyway, so I'll call you whatever you want." He guffawed heartily and spilled beer on her thigh, turning back to talk to Captain Warner.
The water turned from green to indigo as the boat went through the cut and met the flow of fresh water that drained from the coastal areas. Islands with strands of pine and palmetto trees appeared. The boat chugged with a serene sound between them over the still water and then slowed to an idle. Evelyn watched Captain Bates prowl forward along the catwalk and dump the anchor over the side of the bow. The engines stopped, and there seemed to be total silence. Then birds sang from the trees around them, making her seem insulated from the rest of the world.
"Well, who's going in with us?" Captain Warner asked. "Want to try your luck, Evelyn?"
"I've never done anything but snorkel," she said.
"I've got a mask down there."
Captain Bates thumped onto the deck. "I'll get the gear, Pete," he said boisterously. "Look out, treasure, here we come!" He ducked into the cabin again and stripped off his pants and shoes, sporting an orange pair of swimming trunks. The air cylinders clanged as he brought them up. "You gonna dive, Keith?"
"I think I'll just swim around with Evelyn, Captain. I'd hate to get you mad by finding your treasure for you."
"Aaaah!" Bates growled, rumpling Keith's hair. He and Captain Warner strapped the tanks and masks on and went over the side, using a ladder. They hooted at each other a moment, and then left a track of bubbles rippling along the still surface.
"Well?" Keith asked, standing up. "Shall we?"
"Absolutely. But ... well, my suit's in my purse."
"Get into it, then," he grinned. "I'll watch."
"Now, Keith," she said sternly.
"Oh, all right. Lock yourself in the forward cabin, then. I hope you roast. It's like an oven."
Evelyn went into the cabin. She closed the small door and immediately began to sweat. The slap-suck sound of the riding hull was loud. She took her bikini from her purse and began stripping out of her shorts and blouse, rolling her panties away from her buttocks. She felt terribly conscious of the fact that Keith was only a few paces away. A shiver went down her and settled between the lips of her pussy. She put her hand over herself and remembered that the desire he'd built in her last night had never been released. Valerie had contributed to the intensity of it, as well.
She looked at the small doorknob and knew that it would be a very simple matter for her to get her release. One word, and Keith would be inside her, fucking his prick into her depths with tender eagerness.
The memory of his touch swam through her and made her, body tingle. She cupped her wet breasts, and her hands slid over them, making her nipples swell. One word ... and after what she had seen her husband do with his daughter, who would blame her? Could she even blame herself? She opened the door a crack.
"Keith?"
He appeared in the hatchway immediately, his body smooth and tight, his trunks unable to hide the bulge of genitals at his crotch. "What?"
"Keith, don't look. I can't stand it in here--the heat --I don't know how to open the hatch."
"I'll show you."
"No!" she cried. "Just go away, and don't look."
He grinned and backed off. Evelyn stepped out of the sweat box into the relative chill of the covered cockpit. She pumped water out of the faucet and splashed it over her nude body. She had one leg in her bikini bottoms when Keith's figure shadowed the hatchway and he came slowly down the stairs, his eyes bright with admiration.
"Keith, I asked you not to come in," Evelyn gasped, having no way to hide herself. She turned her back and stepped quickly into the bikinis, nearly unable to pull them over her damp flesh. She felt his hands fold around her and cup her full, pointed breasts and hold them gently.
"Evelyn," he whispered. "God, Evelyn, you're beautiful. So full, so ripe, so young for him."
Evelyn's passion bubbled and soared. Keith's touch was driving her mad. She gasped and closed her eyes and leaned against him for a moment, feeling the stiffness inside his trunks press into the damp, naked cleft of her cheeks. The bikinis stayed stuck across her thighs. She felt his hand rove down her belly and cup her mound. His fingers curled tenderly through her auburn pubes and sought the silken slit of her pussy.
"No, Keith, no," she whispered shakily.
"I have to touch you again, Evelyn," he choked. "You did it for me. Now I'll do it for you."
"You can't, Keith--they might come back. Oh God, stop."
His fingertip slid up and down, tickling her clit, nosing into the warm, satiny depths of her pussy. She shivered and pressed back against his stiff prick, feeling that the tip of it was stretched above the waistband of his trunks. Her buttocks tightened about the shaft reflexively, and she felt his answering pressure as he moved against her. His breath quickened, and his fingers tortured her pussy with whetting touches until she knew she was going over the brink. She revolved her buttocks and accepted his finger fully with a ragged moan. Her tits swelled into his cupping hands. She leaned her head back, and her mouth went slack.
"Evelyn--oh, Evelyn," Keith gasped. "This is so childish. Turn around. There--we can lie on the bunk. God, I'm ready to come again! Stop moving."
He turned her around. They looked into each other's eyes. It had been a distant thing before, the way she'd been facing away from him. Now that she could see him and know who he was, her heart pounded, and she felt shame clog her throat.
"Keith, we can't!" she cried.
"We're ready--both of us. It wouldn't last long. Just one ... oh, God."
Keith stripped his trunks down quickly, letting his cock spring free. It pointed toward her belly and shone at the tip. He put her hand on it and worked at the tight bikini bottoms around her thighs, pushing them down, sucking the ends of her breasts into his mouth while he did it, licking the salty taste from them.
Evelyn's head spun with desire. She felt his throbbing prick in her hand, and she couldn't stop herself from squeezing it tightly, as if hanging onto her sanity to try to prevent this from happening. It didn't work. She moaned raggedly and went down onto the bunk under him, spreading her thighs for his hips, lifting- up, cupping his body with hers, yearning to kiss him, straining to feel his penis enter her body and bring her sweet fulfillment.
He slid forward. His prick touched her pussy and entered the slippery portal, sliding readily all the way back, as far as it would reach.
"Keith?" she whispered. "Keith, don't?"
"Evelyn, we're doing it. I'm in you and you're all around me. I love you, Evelyn. I know I do. Give in, Darling, and let it be good. Let it be the way we both know it should be. Oh, your pussy's so soft and warm and beautiful to my cock, Evelyn."
"Oh! Oh!" she cried in a small voice. She felt his lips cover hers and his tongue go into her mouth. She breathed harshly for a moment's more resistance, then sucked eagerly on his tongue. She lifted her hips to him and rolled her buttocks over the rough covering of the bunk, screwing her pussy tightly around his hard driving staff.
"Oh, Evelyn, fuck me," he cried heatedly. "Lift your legs and take my prick all the way into you."
She couldn't stop herself. She spread her thighs wide and wrapped them around his pumping hips, locking her ankles above his buttocks. She rolled her chest under his and made her tits mush out softly and slip sensitively in the fluid of their mingling sweat. His hands explored the sides of her hips and curled under to cup her taut, vibrating buttocks. He dug into her crack with delicate fingers, teasing her anus. She remembered how long they were and shivered uncontrollably at the thought that one of them would run far up into her asshole and make her explode wildly.
"Keith-- Keith!" she choked. "Do it, Darling--make me come! Oh God, make me come hard and then don't stop fucking me!"
"Evelyn!" he gasped. "What ... oh, Jesus, I can't hold it. Damn it, damn it!"
Her hands clamped around his buttocks and pulled his prick fully into her. She hunched up and down and squeezed his shaft with her cunt muscles, milking him wildly.
"Come, Darling, come--squirt me full. I'm there. I'll be with you. Everything's right--just right... oh! Oh, God!"
Her senses seemed to explode in a white, swirling burst. She heard herself growling and squealing, and she clamped her teeth down on his shoulder to still her passion. Her pussy spasmed as the first orgasm banged through her and made his prick a wildly vibrant animal bucking and spewing thickly inside her cunt, filling her with slipperiness and warmth.
She clung tightly to him and felt the next one coming fast. He was glued to her pussy, his prick still jerking violently inside her when it hit, and she nearly doubled up from the intense waves of joy spreading out in big bubbles from under her lid of control. She babbled and moaned and sucked the side of his neck, raking his buttocks with her fingernails in an attempt to get closer to him.
"Oh, Evelyn--Evelyn, I had no idea," he cried. "Darling, you're starved for it." He pumped some more, trying to give her total fulfillment, no matter how many times it took.
"Keith, stop," she gasped finally, trying to hold his buttocks still. "Stop, now."
"Are you finished?"
"No--yes. I don't want to come any more."
"Could you?"
She hugged him tightly, afraid of herself. "Yes!" she admitted.
"Then let me...
"No, you mustn't! Please--oh, please, don't make me. Not now. Not here."
"Again? Tonight? He won't be home. You can come to my room. I can come to yours. Evelyn--oh God, I can't believe how warm and wonderful you are."
At her insistence, Keith pulled his penis out. It was still bloated and thick, and it shone from the mixture of their juices.
"Quick, get dressed," she said, forcing herself upright. She reached for her bikini bottoms and nearly tore them in her haste to get them on and cover the shamefulness of what she'd done. She didn't look at him until he forced her head around gently with his hand.
"Evelyn, what's the matter?"
"We shouldn't have done that. I promised myself we wouldn't. Oh, Keith, I feel rotten now."
"No, Evelyn!" he said urgently, sitting beside her, holding her. "You can't feel that way, I won't let you. I love you. I told you that. I want you to be mine--completely mine. You have too much inside you for him. He doesn't deserve anyone as wonderful as you, not after the way he's been treating you. I don't have to tell you all the things he's done already. They're dirty things, cruel ones. And he's let Valerie do them, too. God, Evelyn, leave him!"
"And do what, Keith?" she asked forcefully. "Marry you?"
"I ... well, I ... well, why not?"
She stood up and looked down at him. "We'd better go swimming, now, or they'll know."
"Evelyn, listen. ... "
But she was hurrying toward the hatchway, needing to get into the water to cool her fever. She felt as if her knees were rubbery, and her hands shook as they held the side of the boat. Thoughts tumbled through her mind, but, before she could straighten them out, Captain Bates burst through the surface of the quiet water like an alien monster, snorting and blowing violently.
He removed his mask and grinned. "Come on in," he shouted. ~
Without hesitating, Evelyn dove over the side. The cool water rushed along her body and sucked the heat from it. She heard Keith splash behind her, and he struggled over with two snorkling masks, grinning as if nothing had happened.
"You forgot yours," he said.
She looked at him, at his handsome smile. She smiled back after a long moment. "Thanks, Keith," she said finally.
"Any time," he answered.
They swam for a long time. Then, without intending to, she found herself alone with Keith again, in shallow water. A small sandy area reached into the river from one of the islands.
"I'm for taking a rest," he puffed, standing up and slipping off his mask. "College got me out of shape, I can see that."
"All right," she said. She glanced back toward the boat. The men were still diving. She stretched out on the warm sand and watched the droplets glisten on her thighs.
"Evelyn, tell me why," Keith said finally, leaning on his elbow beside her.
"Why, what?"
"Why did you marry him?"
"That isn't your business, Keith."
"I think it is now."
She looked across the water. Something about the peacefulness, the coziness of the island, the pleasant physical feeling of tiredness from the swimming made her feel open and want to be honest. There had been too much secrecy and deviousness the past few days.
"All right," she said finally. "I'd promised myself that what happened on the boat wasn't going to happen, and the promise didn't work. I should say that it won't happen again, but I won't believe it myself--not the way things are in that house." She looked at him. "But I don't want it to happen again, Keith."
"I can't promise anything either, Evelyn. But that's because I do want it to happen again. And again. I could make it happen right now. I've never felt so much for a girl in my life as I do for you right now."
"Then I should tell you why I married your father. I did it for sex--not for his money, the way his so-called friends surely suspect, but for sex."
"I can't believe it!" he cried. "From him?"
"Not in the way you think, Keith. I married him because of his age, because I thought his drive would be gone and he would leave me alone."
His brow wrinkled. "You mean so you wouldn't get screwed? Evelyn, that doesn't make sense."
"You saw me in there. You felt me. You thought I was starved. It isn't that at all. I could do it every half hour and stiff act that way. It's the way I'm built. It frightens me. That's... that's why I made you stop. I could feel myself getting out of control."
"But why--I mean, what's wrong with that?"
"I ... I did something once to a boy. I attacked him, I guess. It wasn't good. I've never allowed it to happen again. I don't want it to happen again."
"But it nearly did with me?"
"Yes. You could make me do it. Your father can't. I thought it would be different with him--dutiful and easy. But he ... he didn't turn out that way. Keith, there's something violent and wrong with your father. It has to do with Valerie. He's obsessed with her, and she knows it. She plays on him, and he lets her. It's beginning to frighten me."
"Evelyn, I've given hard thought to what you said in the boat--about our getting married. I didn't mean to hesitate then except that it was such a surprise to me to think in those terms. I've decided I like the idea. I can do it. I've some money and some stocks. When I'm twenty-one, Grandfather's inheritance will ... "
"But what about me, Keith?" she interrupted. "I just told you about myself. What if--what if I get used to lots of sex from you, and then one day when you're not around... no, Keith. No, we mustn't talk about that any more."
"Has that happened yet? Tell me the truth, Evelyn, I can stand it."
"No. But it might."
"I'll understand. I'll still love you. Darling, nothing like that will matter in another twenty years or so anyway, because well have it all then."
She looked at him oddly. "What are you talking about?"
"My father. He'll be dead, the bastard. Then it'll be mine--and yours, all of it. The boat, the house, his stocks and money. Think of it, Evelyn, think of it. You and me! Maybe--maybe if he... "
"Keith!" she barked sharply. "You stop right there!" She looked fearfully at the intense blue of his eyes and knew that his next thought was of death . "I'm not even going to let you say it, do you understand?"
His face changed. "I didn't mean ...
"I said to stop. Like it or not, you're talking about my husband, and I won't listen to such talk, is that clear?"
There was some shouting from the boat. They looked over and saw Captain Bates waving his arm, then gesturing with hand to mouth that it was time to eat. Evelyn waved back, then stood, looking down at him.
"This has gone too far now, Keith," she said. "I'm going to solve things my own way. If I leave your father, it'll be because I couldn't work anything out with him. It won't be to marry you. That might happen later, I don't know. But it won't be the reason I leave him."
"But, Evelyn, it doesn't have to be that way."
"I have to try, Keith," she snapped. "Aren't you man enough to understand that?" She watched his face go sullen. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way. Come on, let's eat. We can talk about it some more." She went to the water and dove in, swimming in easy strokes toward the boat. He came abreast of her, and they swam together.
Chapter 5
Evelyn sat up in bed and looked around the dark room. She could hear the music coming from some place. She listened and felt herself rocking as if she were still on the boat. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was less than two hours since they'd come home.
She remembered the hurried trip back at the sight of a black, boiling squall line moving in. When it had fizzled out, they'd docked and eaten stone crabs at a weathered, homey place overlooking a marina. Then they'd ridden through the night down the Waterway to Desota Inlet, promising each other to do it again sometime because it had been such fun, and then Keith had driven her back to the house. She'd crawled up to bed, delightfully tired and relaxed.
But now the music was going. There was laughter with it. She knew it was Valerie. She tried to ignore the noise and forget her resolution to get Valerie under control, but she couldn't.
Curious, and a bit angry for having been awakened, Evelyn slipped out of bed and put a nightie over her body. She opened her door and heard wild peals of laughter roll up the stairs. She looked at her watch again and saw that she'd misread it. It was two, not twelve. She went out into the hall, hesitating a moment. She urged herself forward, knowing that hesitation and avoidance were not ways to settle the problem between Valerie and herself. She took a deep breath and decided that this would be the night, that the longer it went on the way it had been, the worse things would get.
The sounds came from Artemus' study. For a moment, she had the fear that he was back, that he was in there with her, having a party. Male laughter came through the door, not his. Evelyn went up to it and knocked loudly.
"Valerie," she called.
The door opened, startling her. A boy's head came around the edge. He had dark, curly hair and a wild look in his eye. The stench of burning weeds came wafting out.
"Hey, it's a chick dressed for action, Val," he laughed.
Before she knew what had happened, the boy had pulled her into the room and closed the door. She stood with her mouth agape, staring through the marijuana smoke at Valerie, another girl about her own age, and a man older than the one who had pulled her into the room. They were all sitting on the couch, naked.
"Valerie, what do you think you're doing!" she asked loudly.
The question was meant to be reprimanding, stem, indicative of her parental authority. But it came out rather shaky, because it was obvious what they were doing, because the sight of Valerie's sensual body was still having an effect on her.
"We're having a party, Momsy," Valerie smiled. "It's nice of you to join us. We were just going to start fucking each other, weren't we, Gloria?"
The girl was long-legged and willowy, with small breasts and slender hips. Her hair was long and brown with sunbleached streaks in it, and it was nearly invisible over her pussy. Her features were small and fine, her mouth as round and tight as her small-lipped cunt. Her eyes ran up and down Evelyn's figure, assessing it through the nightie.
"So, this is your new mother, huh?" she said quietly. "You were right, Val, she is nice--very nice."
The boy behind Evelyn held her arm and forced her forward. He was still grinning. "Too nice for you, Gloria. What about it, Val, does she fuck too? I'm getting a hard dick already."
"Let go of me," Evelyn snapped, jerking her arm away. "Valerie, how dare you! Put that joint out and go to your room. Your friends are to leave immediately, is that clear? And I don't ever want to see you doing anything like this again. Come on, move."
Valerie slouched against the cushion and lifted her thigh over the arm, spreading her raven-furred pussy wide. She dabbled in the soft tissues with her finger, making them swell and grow bright pink.
"There you go again, Momsy, coming on strong. Relax. We're going to have some fun. I think you should pull off your nightie and join us. Jack's a marvelous fucker. He'll show you what you're missing being married to Daddy."
The older one on the couch grinned. He was broad and stocky, with short sandy hair and a goatee that was barely visible. Evelyn glanced at him, saw his penis jerk upward lewdly, then blanched. She thought he was a vile creature. She took menacing steps toward Valerie, fully ready to slap her smirking mouth hard. But the curly-headed boy grabbed her again and curled his fingers in the shoulder of her nightie.
"Hold it, Mama," he said. "We're here to make love, not war. I think a little cock will calm you down."
"Don't force her, Dale," Valerie said quickly, grinning again. "Momsy won't need forcing. She's the kind who gets hot just watching. She'll come around on her own in a little while, as soon as she sees how much fun we're going to have. Gloria, come here. Show my mother what she missed out on yesterday when I offered to let her suck my pussy for me."
Gloria slipped off the couch and got to her knees between Valerie's widespread thighs. An incredibly long tongue slipped out of her small mouth and teased the soft inner surfaces of Valerie's thighs. Dale giggled and went to the door to lock it and remove the key. He stood beside Evelyn, his eyes strangely bright.
"Valerie, you stop this instant!" Evelyn cried, watching the slow, sensual advance of Gloria's tongue toward the raven fur.
Valerie cupped the back of the girl's head and lifted her pussy up. "Not on your life, Momsy," she said huskily, leaning farther back, spreading open languorously. She went down sideways until her head was in Jack's lap, her dark hair fanning over his thighs in silky waves. "Mmm, Gloria, stop teasing and lick me in the right place," she moaned. She reached for Jack's penis and pumped it stiff with her slim fingers. She glanced at Evelyn with an impish expression, then pursed her sultry lips. "Watch how fast I can make him come with my mouth, Eve," she said. "And think how fast I could make you come, too."
Her soft lips sucked around the tip of Jack's prick and made him buck his hips upward immediately. He gasped and closed his eyes, forgetting Evelyn was there.
She watched with mounting emotion. She tried to make it be disgust, horror, or any of the other proper emotions. But the slow swelling of her nipples betrayed her. The engorging of her labia and the sudden warmth radiating upward from them through her abdomen made her realize that the disgust was being overridden by desire once again as she watched her stepdaughter's lithe body writhe sensually under Gloria's bold tongue. It was openly licking Valerie's pink tissues, twirling around the distended nub of her clit, and drilling inside her damp vaginal hole. Evelyn shivered once, unable to stop from imagining the sensation her own pussy would feel. She felt herself beginning to slide once more along that dreadful plane. She tore her hungry gaze from Valerie's soft, sucking lips as they teased up and down the prick between them, and in a last effort at control, went to the telephone on Artemus' desk. The moment she picked it up, intending to call the police, Dale jerked it from her hand and backed her against the edge of the desk.
"None of that stuff, Mother," he said, his eyes still wild. "I don't wanna get busted again. You do like Val says, and relax. Look there, my dick wants to give you a quick injection, a tranquilizer. How about it, Mother?"
He grinned and lifted the hem of her nightie to her waist, jerking roughly against her struggling arms until her breasts were bare and a cloud of nylon was around her neck and face. His stiff penis pressed warmly against her belly. She felt it thump with readiness. Her head began to spin. She couldn't believe the utter contempt and insolence of Valerie and her friends for her.
"What are you doing!" she cried. "Don't you know who I am? You let go of me, or I'll have you arrested so fast you won't know what happened! Valerie, your father's going to hear about this."
Valerie lifted her head and said, "Cool it, Dale. I told you she wouldn't need forcing."
"I'm horny, Val," he complained.
"Stick it in Gloria."
"What if she calls cops over here?"
Valerie smiled slickly. "She won't. Daddy would beat the shit out of her for getting me into trouble. You know that, don't you, Eve?"
Evelyn stared at the girl. Enough had happened in the past two days to make her think Artemus might. She hesitated a moment too long, and then Valerie laughed softly, making a victorious sound.
"Let me out of here," Evelyn said in a low voice, pulling her nightie back down.
"Huh-uh, Momsy. You have to watch us all fuck and come. Then you may go--unless you want to change your mind. Gloria, give Momsy a little lick--just a little one, so she can see what it feels like."
Gloria lifted her head from Valerie's pussy. The crotch and surrounding thighs glistened wetly, and Valerie's pelvis kept tilting up and down. Gloria walked over to Evelyn on her knees, smiled up at her, and reached out for her nightie, slipping it up her thighs.
"Get away from me!" Evelyn cried.
"Hold her, Dale," Gloria said.
Strong hands clamped onto Evelyn's upper arms. Dale grinned at her and watched Gloria's mouth ready itself. The nightie slid up, despite all Evelyn could do to keep from lifting. She felt warm breath bathe her twat. She turned her head and half sobbed as the first lap of tongue washed across the lips of her box.
"Do it again, Gloria," Valerie said.
Hands gripped Evelyn's hips. Thumbs pried her labia apart. The long, pointed tongue insinuated itself into her cleft and twirled upward, burning her clit with blazing sensation. The tiny, pursed mouth surrounded her organ and sucked gently, shattering any control that was left inside Evelyn. She felt her vaginal tunnel ripple and disgorge a flow of juice. Gloria licked it up and drilled into her pussy for more. Then she lifted her head back.
"is that enough, Val?"
Evelyn glared at Valerie, at the wanton, vicious expression in her face. She knew her nipples were fully bloated and thrusting against the thin nightie in outline. She knew her vulva was twitching plainly for more stimulation. She knew what would happen if Valerie left the couch and came over and sucked her cunt herself. Defeat was so imminent it frightened her. But, mercifully, Valerie didn't know that. Or, if she did, she wanted to prolong Evelyn's agony until the eventual downfall came at a time more to her choosing.
"That's enough, Gloria. You can come back to me, now." She sat up with a sultry expression. "Better yet, you finish sucking Jack, and I'll eat your pussy. That way, Eve can see how wonderful it's going to be for her when I eat hers."
They shifted positions. Valerie got to her knees and thrust the smooth curves of her ass behind her. Her head dipped into the hairless cunt, and her soft lips engulfed the entire area of vulvular meat. She pulled and licked gently and ran her slim hands up and down Gloria's body. The blonde worked feverishly on her boy friend's cock. Dale watched them and licked his lips, glancing repeatedly at Evelyn's breasts under the thin nightie.
"Hey, Val, what about me?" he asked.
"Jack off," she said.
"Aw, shit. Lemme fuck her! I gotta fuck!"
"Come here, Dale." He went over. "Sit on my butt and jack off so that she can watch. You can look at my ass and pretend you're fucking it."
"Lemme just fuck it, Val."
"I'll give you five dollars."
"Five? Well ... do I get to fuck later?"
"Sure, Dale."
"That's what you said last time. You gotta promise."
She stared at him for a long moment, until his eyes wavered. "I don't gotta do anything you want, me to do, Dale, remember?"
"All right," he said weakly. He mounted Valerie's hips, facing backwards, his balls resting at the top of her deep cleft, his thighs straddling her buttocks. He began fisting his ready cock with a sullen look. He gave Evelyn a lustful stare and then began pumping faster, as if fucking himself into her pussy from a distance.
Evelyn gripped the edge of the desk and watched it all, her eyes shifting from one sight to the next. She felt her passion boiling deep inside her, no matter how she tried to keep it down. It was base; it was animal. It was just the kind of thing she'd tried so hard to avoid by marrying Artemus.
Somehow, the others disgusted her. Jack's closed eyes and writhing hips, Gloria's bloated cheeks and sucking mouth, Dale's juvenile manipulations of his drooling penis. The only sight that refused to obey her command for control was that of Valerie's sensual mouth. It seemed to devour the entirety of Gloria's genitals in torpid sucks and licks that drove her into writhing spasms. The tongue licked from puckered anus to hooded clit, and then her soft mouth would capture her entire crotch and suck.
Evelyn shivered several times as she imagined that mouth on her own organs. She watched the pear-shaped, weaving buttocks, with Dale perched atop them. She could see the meat of Valerie's labia pulled downward between her thighs. The lips were parted and shiny. Evelyn was aware that Valerie wasn't being screwed-- in any way, that when the orgy had spasmed and guieted, her stepdaughter would be unfulfilled. She felt a momentary need to get on her hands and knees behind Valerie and do something to her cheated pussy so that she could come with the others. But the moment she recognized the desire to do that, she knew that it was exactly what Valerie had planned for her to do. It was why Valerie hadn't let Dale fuck her--so that her pussy would be open and available for Evelyn's fingers, her tongue, anything. Evelyn gripped the desk until her fingers were white and held herself there, letting her passion seethe and ripple inside her body with furious force. She decided she would rather sit on Dale's prick than fall prey to Valerie's devious scheme.
Jack moaned suddenly and lifted his hips, running his jumping prick into Gloria's throat He shook and spurted his load into her, making her come. She squeezed her thighs tightly over Valerie's head, -- and her pelvis seemed ready to shudder into pieces. Dale moaned and looked at Evelyn challengingly, then squirted several dollops of semen toward her. Evelyn forced her hands to stay wrapped around the edge of the desk. She closed her eyes and turned her head as if revolted by the spectacle. But she was exerting all her will to keep from grabbing her pussy and masturbating to a shattering climax.
Valerie turned around finally and came toward her. "I'm still hot, Eve," she said softly. "Nobody made me come. I was hoping you would."
"Get away from me, Valerie," Evelyn said levelly. "Tell him to unlock that door."
Valerie smiled somewhat sadly and sighed. "You're a hard one to break, Eve," she said. "Maybe the next time you'll give in and join us. It would be so easy. All our problems would be over, and we could be friends. You think about what you saw tonight. Imagine me sucking your pretty auburn pussy while Gloria twirls that nice long tongue of hers up your asshole. Mmm, I shiver just thinking how good it would feel to you."
"Let me out of here."
"You're not going to tell Daddy, are you?"
"Certainly."
"He won't believe you. I'll make him not believe you. I'll do worse than that. I'll tell him you were sucking pussy like the biggest butch around. You know what he did to Mama for that, don't you? She didn't get one penny from him, either." She smiled evilly. "I saw to that."
"I'm sure you did. The key, Valerie."
"Not until you touch my pussy again. I just loved the way you slid your fingers into my cunt last night. Didn't you like it?"
"Go to hell."
"No key then, Momsy. You'll have to watch us fuck some more. We've only started. We get pretty wild. You won't be able to stop from joining us. Don't you understand--I'm giving you a chance to get away. All you have to, do is touch my pussy again.
Evelyn swallowed hard and drew in her breath. "Give me the key, Valerie," she said, her voice not coming out right.
"I told you the way."
Evelyn gripped the girl's shoulders and shook her back and forth with fury. "You bitch! You little bitch! Give me that key!"
All in one swift motion, Valerie forced Evelyn's hand from her shoulder and placed it squarely over her cunt, spreading her thighs so that the fingers entered her cleft and vagina. She gripped Evelyn's buttocks with her other hand and pressed herself tightly against Evelyn's body, writhing rapidly, her lips against Evelyn's ear, her breasts mashing softly against Evelyn's, their bellies and hips bumping together. Their pussies were separated by the thickness of Evelyn's hand and the thinness of her nightie.
Evelyn heard the sharp intakes of breath next to her ear. She felt the knuckles of her hand press against her clit and lips. She felt the shuddering, climaxing warmth of her stepdaughter against her, and she nearly lost her control and came with Valerie.
In a moment, hot lips sucked at the side of her neck, and the graceful body went slack. She felt moisture all over her hand again, and she felt sick that Valerie had achieved part of her purpose. She pushed the girl away from her, wanting to spit, wiping her soaked finger on her nightie.
"That's the way I like to come, Eve," Valerie said. "Hard and long--against you. Next time, you'll want to come with me, you wait and see." She sucked in her breath, making her tits thrust forward. "Dale, unlock the door."
Evelyn swallowed repeatedly, afraid to move until the door was open. The curly-headed boy unlocked it, holding it open for her. She took quick steps from the room, trying not to run. Gentle laughter followed her, and then the door closed again.
"Oh, my God!" she sobbed, looking back. She hurried up the stairs and closed herself in her room. In the darkness and privacy, she allowed her pussy and breasts to throb and her body to feel once more the touches upon it that lingered in her mind. Valerie's orgasm against her had been a terribly erotic thing, and she couldn't deny it to herself. She pressed the heel of her hand against her cunt and felt the slippery material of her nightie slide all over her burning tissues. She moaned softly and then whirled around in fright at the sound from her door. A dark figure stood just inside.
"Get out of here, damn you!" she cried, certain it was Dale.
"Evelyn--honey, what's the matter? I heard you crying downstairs, and I came up to see if I could help."
"Keith!" she sobbed. "Oh, Keith!" She ran to him and threw her arms around him, letting her emotions go.
He soothed her with his gentle hands and whispered softly. "Honey, what's happened--what's the matter?"
"God, just hold me a minute."
She clung tightly to him. "It was Valerie, wasn't it," he said darkly. "That goddamn party of hers woke me up too. Christ, you can smell the pot all over the house. What did she do, Evelyn, tell me."
"I went down to stop it," she said haltingly. "One of them pulled me in and locked the door. They made me watch. They did--perverted things. She wanted me to do them. With her. Keith, what's wrong with her? What is she trying to do to me?" She pulled her head back and looked up at him, shaking him slightly.
Keith was silent for a long moment. She couldn't see the expression on his face. For some reason, she wanted to.
"Answer me, Keith--what is she trying to do?"
"She's--she's trying to get rid of you, Evelyn. I told you that. Just the way she did with Mother."
"But how?"
"Pictures, Evelyn."
"What? I don't understand."
"Pictures of you--that she can show to Dad."
"My God!" Evelyn gasped. "But how could she do that? There were no cameras."
"I don't know how. She's never told me how she did it last time."
Evelyn released him and sat on the edge of her bed, putting her hands to her face. "God,-- I can't understand any of this, Keith. I feel so small and helpless. I feel I'm some small pawn in a master game of chess, unimportant, and yet not. I don't know who's playing, who's pushing the pieces around, or why. I don't know why Artemus married me, only to be as vindictive and cruel as he's been. I don't know why Valerie wants me out of the way, as you say." She looked up. "And you, Keith--what do you want of me?"
"Evelyn!" he cried, rushing forward, putting his arms around her. "Darling, all I want is you!"
"Oh, I wish I could believe that, Keith," she whispered.
"Will you let me, Evelyn?"
"I didn't say that. I've already told you I can't do that now."
"Then why not?"
"Because I can understand that, Keith. It's a motive that's plain and uncomplicated; it's one I can deal with. But Valerie--your father ... oh, if I only knew why!"
He kissed her lightly, tenderly, calming her. He looked at her through the dimness. "I have to tell you something, Evelyn," he said. "What I said last night--about taking you from him ... that made me sound small and petty. I didn't mean it that way. I did, but I don't any more. I wanted to hurt him. Now, I don't give a damn what he thinks or feels. It's become real, Darling. Do you understand what I mean? I've thought a lot since this afternoon on the boat."
"Keith, don't."
"I have to tell you. I don't know how it could happen this fast, Evelyn, but I love you. I know you would be good for me. I know I could make you happy. I don't care about your problem. I mean, it doesn't frighten me. I would understand. I would be patient and try to help you. Maybe it would go away if you were married to the right man, had you thought of that?"
"Of course, Keith. That's the main reason I married your father."
"But he isn't the right man!"
"And you are?"
"Yes! Let me prove it to you. Now."
She gasped as she felt his hand cover her breast warmly. "Keith, no--don't. Please--not again."
"I want to show you, Evelyn. I want you to let yourself go with me. I want you to know that you can trust me."
"Keith, I couldn't!"
"Please--please!"
He reached through the darkness and kissed Evelyn fully, rimming her lips with his tongue. Evelyn felt her heart pound strongly at his gentle touch. She felt her need soar. She knew she was defenseless to him right now. She had seen too much, felt too much. She had been brought to boiling by his sister, and now he was taking the lid away to permit her passion to escape.
She gasped harshly and opened her mouth to him, letting his tongue inside, moaning in protest and acceptance at the same time. Everything seemed confused, too unreal to matter whether it was right or wrong. She needed her husband, but he wasn't here. And, even if he had been, she knew in her heart that he would have ignored her or been cruel again. Keith was the only one she could turn to, either for understanding-- or for love.
She gave way and let him tip her back to the bed. His tongue probed after hers, and his hands traveled down her silken nightie to her thighs. She moaned again when his hand went between them and slid the hem of the nightie up and touched her flaming pussy. The sound was one of protest, but she opened her thighs for him anyway.
She reached inside his bathrobe and felt his naked chest, hard and lean with youth, so different from his father's, whose chest was knotted underneath with a flabby feeling about the skin. She remembered the first night with Artemus, and her hand slipped inside the robe to Keith's penis. Her fingers wrapped around the stiff, ready stem of his cock. She puffed air through her nose and pulled on his penis. It felt strong and right and normal to her.
"Evelyn--God, Evelyn," he gasped, his hand roaming over her sensitive mound, his fingers curling in her pubes and slipping up and down her cleft.
"I'm frightened, Keith," she whispered.
"Don't be. You're safe with me. Let yourself go, Darling. Do what you did on the boat this afternoon, only do it as much as you want. Come until you can't come any more, until it's all drained out of you."
"I'll hurt you."
"No, you won't."
"I hurt Jimmy. I chewed his prick until it bled. I let him hurt me. Keith, I've never told anyone this. Oh, God, I shouldn't have told you."
"Yes, Darling, yes--oh, I'm glad you did. It's the only way we can make it so it doesn't happen again, don't you understand? You can't hide from it all your life, you've got to face it, work it out with someone who trusts you and loves you."
"Oh, Keith--hold me ... fuck me ... I'm so hot. You don't know what it was like down there. She wanted me to come. I nearly did. She pressed ,up against me and came and came, trying ... Darling, I'm frightened. Stop--get off. No... "
"Shh." he quieted her. "Lift up--there, that's better. Now we can do everything--anything, everything, Evelyn."
Her mind was spinning with sensation. Her whole body was aflame. His gentle touches on her skin made her flesh smolder and burst into tiny fires of sensation. Her thighs thrashed, and her pussy shook under his hand. Her head rolled back and forth, and images of Valerie's lewd, wanton manner came to her.
"Hurry and fuck me, Keith!" she cried.
He mounted her, his prick straining toward her sodden hole. He smelled her perfume and moved forward, slipping his cock into her wet, warm tunnel. She lifted up and gobbled his penis into her body.
"Oh, yes!" she cried. "Yes, yes--I don't care! I don't care!"
"It's right, Evelyn; it's good and right! Come, Darling, don't wait for me. Just come and come."
Her eyes popped open with astonishment. She felt her orgasm whipping through her body already. She clamped her arms around his back and lifted high, feeling his hands go under her buttocks to pull her pussy tightly to him. She shuddered violently, feeling her nipples ready to pop open and fount forth her passion against his chest.
"Keith, I'm coming!" she cried.
"Do it, Darling, do it!"
She choked off a scream and let her thighs turn outward, tipping her pussy at the same time so that the root of his cock was between her lips. She felt his testicles tapping at her perineum, and then a white flash of delirious passion exploded in her mind. She strained against him for a long moment, paralyzed to breath-sucking immobility while his prick rode in and out of her cunt and his chest mashed her tits flat. Her buttocks went taut and then cramped, forcing a squeak from her throat. His hands massaged them, and the intensity of her spasms began to fade.
She made a small circle with her hips, then another, and then her bottom was rolling around his spearing staff until the next one hit her and made her abdomen grow rock hard.
"Oh, come, Darling, come," Keith whispered softly, smoothing his hand over her straining, sweating forehead, burying her face in the hollow of his shoulder.
She gasped and strained and exploded more violently than the first time. She fell back panting heavily and began pushing at his chest.
"Get off, Keith, get off. That's enough. I'm afraid to--oh, get off!"
He pulled her pussy tightly around his prick and didn't budge. "Not yet, Evelyn," he said. "Not until it's all out of you. There, feel that? I'm still in you, still fucking you. I haven't come yet. You don't want to leave me hanging, do you? Darling, we're still fucking, feel us? Come on, lift up again--let your pussy open wide and flood my prick with your slippery cum. Drench me, soak me, make a satiny bed for all the seed I'm going to send swimming in there."
"Oh, God!" Evelyn whimpered. Her buttocks dug into the bed and bounded back up again as she swamped his penis with her fluid meat. She sucked hungrily at his tongue and allowed her womb to swell. His cock twisted And pushed in her vagina, and her muscles accepted him with uncontained avarice, trying to pull him deeper, trying to make him longer.
"That's it, Darling, do it. Oh, you're going to make me come this time. I'll be there with you--all the way, Evelyn, all the way. Honey, lift up--there." His finger searched her deep cleft for her anus, sliding up and down. "God, Darling, you're flooding the bed. It's running along your ass--slippery ... there, feel ... sink down and let it go in--in!"
Evelyn was beside herself with passion. All the old haunts came back to her, frightening her, doing battle with the conscious part of her mind that told her to stop before it was too late. She felt his fingertip sliding along the oiled surface of her perineum and crack, where her pussy had leaked its slippery fluid. It touched her anus, pressed, then slid into her body, expanding the sensitive nerves and muscles and making her leap with breathtaking bounds toward still another orgasm.
She listened to his words, thrilling to the softness of them and the dirtiness of them. But he said them in a way that made them clean and good, not dirty, not vulgar. It wasn't like the other times, with the other rooting men who had tried to make her go mad with delight. This time, it was the way she'd dreamed of. It was soft and satiny. The lights were out, and the sheets whispered against her skin. Yet there was part of it that wasn't the way she'd dreamed. She was reacting too strongly. She had no defenses. She was going over the brink. She imagined how she would be in a moment, babbling, sucking, fucking, taking his cock into every hole and portal of her body, drooling saliva from her lips while her head buzzed with the delirium she'd kept suppressed for so long.
She hesitated. Her asshole quivered around his finger. She tried to pull back from the terrible precipice and couldn't. She felt her whole body trembling as with a malarial attack. She clutched his young, strong back tightly and sobbed into his ear with harsh, ragged bursts of breath.
"Don't let go of me, Keith! Don't let me be hurt! "
"I won't Darling, trust me!"
"Say you love me!"
"I do, Evelyn, I do!"
"Oh, God--I can't ... God, Keith, God!"
She heard him growl. She felt his prick throb furiously inside her cunt as his heavy load squirted deep. Then she was switching underneath him, squeezing him with her arms until she was certain she would crack his ribs. Her legs flew up into the air, and then her heels drummed against his buttocks. Her thighs coiled about his, like pythons ready to crush his bones. Her cunt muscles clamped tightly around his shaft, blocking his flow of sperm into her until they released for the next grinding spasm that would come and claim her. She choked and cried so hard her throat became raw; and tears squeezed from her eyes to dampen her cheeks and hair.
She knew she was hurting him. She couldn't help but be hurting him. Her hips twisted violently at the same time her cunt muscles seized his staff in a crushing grip that prevented it from sliding, as if her pussy were some kind of tender-trap capable of snapping his stem off at the base. Her fingernails dug into his back, and her teeth bit his shoulder, his ear, the side of his cheek.
She began to sob openly, fully contrite for hurting him and yet unable to stop it. Her orgasm drew out and out as if it would never stop. Her clit thrust up against his pubic bone and set her off again. Her muscles began to protest and weaken jerkily until she felt she was flopping beneath him like a beached fish.
At long last, her nerves could take no more, and they stopped their synaptic function and gave her rest. She relaxed in a series of muscular twitches that ran through her arms and legs and made her uncoil from around him. Blood pounded dizzyingly through her temples and made her ears ring. She seemed congested all over her body. Her nipples felt near to popping, her arms seemed leaden and thick, and her fingers throbbed as if she'd been hanging upside down for hours. She panted deeply, sobbing and choking at the same time, her tears soaking into the sheet beneath her cheek.
Keith smoothed his hand over her face and head and kissed her tenderly, whispering softly. "Evelyn--Darling Evelyn. Is it better, now? Did that help? It has to help, because you can't go on that way forever. There's an end to it, Evelyn. Let me make it come."
She turned her head and saw that he was wincing slightly. "I hurt you. I didn't mean to hurt you. I knew it would happen, Keith. Oh, why did you make me do it? I didn't want to hurt you."
"It's all right. Don't worry about it. I could stand pain like that twice a day with no trouble." He smiled at her through the darkness and cupped her face in his hand again, kissing her. "Is that all? Are you trying to tell me it's over? That wasn't much." He chuckled softly. "The way you talked, I was afraid you were going to tear me in half and beat on me with the stumps."
Laughter bubbled up through the sobbing and made her hiccup ludicrously. "If you make me laugh, that'll be all," she said.
"Well, we can't stop now." He pumped his hips against her. His prick made sucking sounds in her cunt as their juices bubbled out.
"Keith, don't," she warned him, her voice firm. "I mean it this time. Don't move. Let it go."
"You won't hurt me."
"It's hard on me, Darling," she laughed. "You weren't that blind, were you? How much of that do you think I could stand?"
"As much as I can give you, and I can give you more.
"Not now. Come on, up. I feel like I'm swimming. God, what's Mary going to think when she changes my sheets?"
"To hell with Mary. To hell with all of them. It's just us now, Evelyn. You and me. I didn't let you down, did I?"
"No, Keith--you didn't."
He rolled away from her. His prick flagged, and his balls were soaked. She got up and went into the bathroom. He heard water running. She came back with a washcloth and a towel and cleaned him off.
"That's real service," he smiled.
"You'd better go, now."
"Not on your life. I'm staying here with you."
"Keith, don't overstep your bounds."
He took her hand and looked at her. "That's funny. Somehow, I got the impression you'd already allowed me to do that, Mother."
She tried to pull her hand back. "That was cruel. Why do you want to make it worse than it already is? "
He pulled her onto the bed against him and held her. "I want to make it better, Darling, don't you understand that by now?"
She smiled in the darkness and cuddled against him thoughtfully. She felt odd--nearly suspended in some strange way. She knew what had happened. She knew she was lying with her husband's son and would be sleeping with him the rest of the night. They would make love again--several times, perhaps, before her husband came home. She knew it, but the impact that should have been there wasn't.
"What has happened to me, Keith?" she questioned softly. "I feet so strange. I feel that I'm dreaming, or that I'm someone else."
"Shh. Don't talk, Evelyn. It's all right. Everything's going to work out beautifully."
She lifted up and looked at him. "What do you mean? What's going to work out?"
"Everything," he said. He kissed her lightly.
"What if he finds out, Keith? What if Valerie tells him?"
"She won't."
"She will! You know she will!"
"I ... I didn't mean that. She would if she knew, of course, but she won't know."
"What if she checks your room? Keith, you'd better go back."
"Come on, now. She won't check it. Besides, we have plenty on her, don't we?"
Evelyn let him force her head back down. She gave in to the soft caressing of his hand. "Yes," she said. "We have plenty on her. Keith, hold me."
"What's the matter?"
"I can't help feeling I'm in the midst of a terribly diabolical plot. Tell me I'm not."
"Not with me, Darling. Not any more."
Evelyn wanted to question him further, but he rolled over suddenly and kissed her fully, running his hands over her body, awakening it again. She moaned in protest and then in acceptance as his ready cock slid into her body once again. She wasn't as wild this time because of the nagging uncertainties in the back of her mind.
Chapter 6
When Evelyn came into the house with Keith, she was laughing and radiant. He smacked her fanny with a wet towel and sprayed sand all over the floor.
"Isn't that a great beach?" he asked. "Kids come here for miles to surf in it."
Evelyn adjusted her wet bikini bottom and made a face of pain. She was about to tease him for her when she saw the light on in Artemus' study. The laughter faded from her lips, and she straightened up, feeling suddenly guilty.
"He's home, Keith," she said softly. "I'll see you later." She went to the door, paused, then smiled grandly. "Darling, I didn't know you were home ready," she said, going over to him.
Artemus looked up from opening his mail. He sat behind the desk and let his eyes roam over her bikini-clad figure. "Why didn't you come with Woodard to get me?" he asked, his voice flat and cold.
"I ... I didn't know he was going, Artemus."
"Where were you?"
"Across the street--swimming. It's a lovely beach."
"What's the matter with the pool?"
"Nothing, Artemus," she said testily. "What conceivable difference could it make to you where I swim while you're away? I didn't think you cared that much about me any more."
He sat back and looked at her levelly. "I care, Evelyn."
She was prepared to retort flippantly, until she saw the expression on his face. She had to look twice to be certain, because it was always difficult to tell with him. But the expression was serious, the comment genuine. It unnerved her.
"How can you say that after the way you've treated me, Artemus?" she asked quietly.
A faint smile played at his lips, a calculating one. Then it was gone. "Were you alone?" he asked finally.
"No, I was with Keith."
"What did you do yesterday?" He cut open an envelope and began reading the letter inside.
"Captain Bates called and invited us to go treasure hunting with him and a friend of his."
Artemus glanced up from the letter. "You and Keith?"
"Yes." She began to feel nervous. "There was nothing else for me to do here alone. You didn't tell me you were leaving. Why shouldn't I have?"
"No reason, Evelyn," he said smoothly. "Why are you so defensive?"
"I'm not!"
He smiled coldly. "You seem, to like Keith very much. It wouldn't be too much, would it?"
She swallowed hard, thinking immediately that Valerie had already told him that Keith had spent the night in her room. "What do you mean by a vicious remark like that?" she demanded.
Artemus shrugged innocently. "It wasn't vicious, Evelyn. It was merely a question. But you needn't answer it."
They looked at each other for a long moment. "I want to shower and change," she said, turning away from him.
He scooted his chair back. "I'll go up with you."
She felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. "All right."
He paused at her door, coming inside finally, "How are you getting along with Valerie? I trust you've resolved the differences I left you with the other night."
She turned on him. "I told you what happened by the pool. She did it again that night. She did it again last night, only last night she had friends."
"Really?"
"They were in your study, Artemus. At two in the morning, they woke me with their noise. I went down to tell her to stop. They were smoking marijuana. They were having a sex orgy. They forced me to watch it, and then ... then she propositioned me again. Artemus, I'm not going to stand for it any longer. Either you clamp down on her, or ... "
"Or what?" he demanded. "I told you that she was your responsibility. Instead of attending to her, you've been keeping time with Keith!"
"Keith's a decent boy! Valerie's a little bitch, and I don't want anything to do with her! You've made it just backwards, Artemus--you have to be the one to attend to Valerie, only ... "
"Only what?" he queried sharply.
"You know what."
He spun her around roughly. "Only what?"
"You're obsessed with fucking her, that's what!" Evelyn cried. "I know what you did the other night--right before my eyes. I saw her rubbing her little ass all over your lap, and I saw the wet spot on her dress. God, I can't take any more of it, Artemus! Why in God's name did you marry me!"
Evelyn's voice was hysterical. She put her hands to her face and sobbed into them harshly. She winced, waiting for the stinging blow that would come again. His hand touched her shoulder gently.
"And what about the spot on your dress, Evelyn? What about the two days you've spent with Keith? Are you going to tell me you haven't been equally fixated with fucking my son? Are you going to tell me you haven't already done it while my back was turned?"
She stared at him and gasped. Her head rang with the pulse of blood through it. "That little bitch!" she cried.
Artemus lifted his chin slightly. The spike of his nose angled straight into her skull, and the hard stare of his eyes followed it. He chuckled with a sneer playing at his lips, and a cold chill went down Evelyn's back.
"I knew it," he said in a low voice.
"You tricked me!" she gasped.
"Yes, Evelyn, I tricked you. It wasn't difficult. You're making progress, but it wasn't difficult enough yet. I haven't seen my daughter today. I don't even know where she is."
"What are you doing to me?" Evelyn whispered hoarsely, backing off from him. "What mad games are you playing, Artemus? Don't you care? Why don't you hit me? Why don't you divorce me? What do I have to do, scream it out loud? Yes, yes, I fucked your son! He stayed in this very bed all last night and brought me to raging climaxes again and again! There! There, damn you! Now, tell me to get out--tell me it's all over! Artemus ... please tell me it's all over," she sobbed. "I can't take any more of this. You're sick--all of you. You've made me sick, and I want out." She sobbed bitterly and let his arm come around her to hold her. She leaned against him and continued to cry, a feeling of exhaustion coming over her.
Artemus led her into the bathroom. He unhooked her bra and rolled her bikini down. He turned on the shower. She looked up at him with tear streaks washing the ocean salt from her cheeks.
"Quit being kind to me," she pleaded. "You're only making it worse."
"Come on. Get in. You'll feel better."
"Artemus, don't you care?"
"We'll talk about it when you're finished," he said firmly, urging her into the stall.
She heard him go through the connecting bathrooms to his room. She let the water beat down on her and hung her head in total confusion. The water swirled down the silvery drain, and she wished she could go with it. She wondered if he'd planned it all--the going away to leave her with Keith, driving her to him with his coldness. She wondered if he'd told Valerie to act the way she had to upset her further, to make her seek solace from Keith so that his own conscience would be assuaged for the desire for his daughter--the desire and the little games of masturbation they played together.
If any of it were true, she could begin to understand him. But it didn't explain Valerie's insistence on Lesbian contact. It didn't explain Artemus' aversion to it or why he forced his former wife to leave. It didn't explain his cruel treatment of Keith, which had gone on for years before he'd married her.
The door of the shower stall rolled open, startling her from her thoughts. Artemus stood outside in his silk robe. The expression on his face was pleasant--nearly paternal.
"Come out now, Evelyn," he said.
She looked at him with disbelief. The sneer was gone from his lips, and his eyes held a certain softness she'd thought him incapable of. She let him take her hand and lead her from the shower. The water rushed down, and droplets fell in silvery tears from the tips of her nipples.
"Artemus, what are you doing?" she asked, her voice small and shaky.
"I've been away, Evelyn," he said smoothly. "What does a man usually want to do when he's been away from his wife--particularly when she's so stunningly pretty, so totally naked and clean?"
"You can't mean it, Artemus--you, just can't. Not after what I've done."
"Come, sit on the bed with me," he said, guiding her.
His spread was pulled down, and the satin sheets were clean and slick. "But I'm all wet. I'll get everything wet."
"It'll dry. It all dries up in time." He turned her head toward him, and she realized that she'd been looking at the curtains over his bed.
"What, Artemus?"
"It doesn't matter." He smiled and ran his hand over her shoulder, down her wet arm, and back up to cup her slippery breast. "I'm going to Miami tomorrow," he said. "I'd invite you to go with me, but it's business, and you'd be bored."
She watched his face carefully, trying to understand what had changed him. "I could go shopping, Artemus. There are other things--Vizcaya, the Seaquarium. I wouldn't be bored."
"I don't know when I'll be through, Evelyn, I'm sorry. Next time, perhaps. It's nice to know that you want to go with me."
"It's nice that you told me this time."
He smiled oddly. "I told you that you were improving--that it would be getting better between us."
"Don't you care what I did, Artemus?" she asked again.
"Only if there's nothing left for me," he smiled, pulling her to him.
He kissed her lips, starting easily, making the intensity grow until his firmness was pressed against her tightly. She hesitated with her confusion a moment and then couldn't stop herself from going soft. His touch was gentle and tender, nothing like the way it had been before. His hand cupped her waist and breast and ran over her thigh, his fingers snarling in the glistening, shower-wet curls over her mound. She felt herself going backwards on the bed. Her skin slipped over the satin sheets, and his fingers separated the lips of her pussy and rubbed up and down, bringing slick moisture to her tissues.
Her arms went about his back, and a small whimper escaped her as he slid from his robe. His lips nuzzled her cheek, the side of her neck, and then wrapped softly around the tips of her breasts. He drew in, sucking her flesh, bringing heat to her body. She nestled in the circle of his arms, feeling how different he was from Keith.
Abruptly, she felt ashamed of what she'd done with Keith. She felt at home, now, and knew that this was where she belonged. A rush of emotion for Artemus swept through her, and she spread her thighs wider for his hand. The doubts and questions that had plagued her moments ago slipped away under the tide of rising passion as his lips kissed and sucked down the wet, clean expanse of her belly.
It was as if he were lapping the dew from her flesh. His tongue licked off the droplets and searched for more. It ran up the silken grooves of her groin and drew her pubes into his mouth, curling the auburn strands, sucking them dry; and moving on for more.
She clutched the back of his head and moaned, arching her back so that her breasts filled his palms. His tongue parted the satiny folds of her vulva, and his lips sucked the damp, tumescent tissues between them.
She rolled her head back and forth with happiness, knowing that he'd forgiven her. It didn't matter any more what he had done with his daughter, as long as he'd forgiven her. It was right, now--it was good. His touch was the way she'd dreamed of it being. She felt his lips part and cover her pussy completely. His tongue burrowed softly into her vagina and savored the molten passion seething inside her. There was a moment of warm oozing, of sliding on a velvet path, when she remembered that his way was the way Valerie had used. There was an instant of fright, a sense of things forbidden and illicit when she imagined that Valerie's soft, sensual mouth was covering her cunt and drawing her passion from her.
She pushed it away, remembering that it was Artemus, not his daughter--he, and not his son. It was her husband, and he was finished with being cruel to her.
"Artemus--oh, Darling, there's plenty left for you!" she cried.
He drew on her cunt with increasing fervor. His hands slid down her body and cupped the resilient globes of her buttocks. His thumb teased over her anus and sent sparks soaring through her. She felt them ignite and bring the volcanic fury inside her to a spewing eruption. She curled her fingers in his hair and pressed his face to her cunt and cried out with happiness.
Spasms of joy rocked through her, one following upon the other until purple dots swam before her eyes. It wasn't the same as it had been with Keith. Just as strong, but not as violent, as if a moderating hand were molding the shape and spread of her orgasm without diminishing its volume or strength. It was good. It was controlled while still being free. It didn't frighten her this time, and she allowed it more room. Her thighs spread willingly, and her pussy lifted up for more. She felt safe with him, and she gave her shuddering body over to his care until she needed rest.
"Darling," she cried, unable to halt the tears of happiness. "Oh, Artemus--why didn't you do it this way the first time? Why did you make me believe you were cruel? Please--please, let me love you now. Come up and put yourself into me and let me fuck you, Darling. Are you hard? Oh, Artemus, you are! So big and strong and--Darling, I love you. I love you!"
Her fingers wrapped around his straining stem, feeling its girth and stiffness. They tangled in his pubes and fondled the virile fullness of his balls. She tried to aim his penis toward her quaking middle, but he kept rising higher along her body until his buttocks settled at the tops of her breasts.
He looked down at her. She watched his face, then stared at the glistening tip, of his prick, pointed right toward her face. The hesitation was nearly too brief to notice, and then she was feeding his cock between her lips, pulling on it, rimming it with her tongue, puffing hot breaths of giving over his pubic mound.
She tasted the saltiness, felt the slipperiness of his seeping discharge, and she sucked hungrily. It didn't matter any more. She would do whatever he wanted--anything. She, felt safe for the first time in her life. She curled her lips over her teeth to be certain and then drew passionately on his cock, her mind pleading for the hot, seminal flow to hurry and be big.
She felt she could hear it coming. It slipped along the coiled tubes and out his vesicle as if on nylon tracks. The cord pulled, and the curtain drew aside, and his semen vaulted along its path in lumps that bumped over her lip and rippled the length of her tongue before jetting from the pulsing tip of his prick.
Her eyes popped wide as she swallowed and readied herself for more. She saw his abdomen strain. She saw his hands reaching forward. She saw his mouth open and his eyes staring hungrily at whatever was behind the curtain.
Pain and betrayal hit her with the force of his next gush of sperm. She struggled with his founting prick, wanting to cry out in outraged protest but unable to utter a sound, for he was gripping the back of her head, stuffing his root into her mouth, gagging off any chance to voice her thoughts.
It was a sham. She saw it clearly, now. He was still using her, still wanting her to be Valerie, still needing whatever was behind that curtain to make his passion come alive. She was still a non-person to him--a mere receptacle for his overflow. Evelyn twisted and strained under him, wanting free, nearly hysterical over the way she'd allowed him to trick her into believing there was love between them now.
When he moved away from her and drew his curtains closed, she felt her stomach heave. She wanted to be sick, but not even that would come.
"Artemus, I want out," she sobbed. "I want out! I can't go on like this! I can't stand your cruelty any longer!"
"Evelyn, Darling!" he said. "What do you mean?"
"I mean I can't stand you!" she cried.
"You mean you want a divorce--already?"
"Yes! I don't want any money. I don't want anything but away from you and your curtain and the sickness that pervades this house."
"What sickness, Evelyn? The kind where a woman fucks her stepson? Divorcing me won't cure that. I'm sorry, Evelyn, but it's out of the question. You're coming along just the way I want to see you do, and I can't start over with someone else."
"I'll leave! You can't stop me!" she cried. "I don't know what you want of me, but you can't make me suffer it any longer. I'm not a toy to be manipulated and tortured according to your whim. I thought--you tricked me into believing there was something growing between us. But you were lying."
"Why do you say that?"
"The curtain--what's behind that curtain?" She made a lunge upward as if to tear the covering from the wall. He slapped her down.
"Don't you ever try to find out what's behind that curtain!" he shouted.
"What will you do? Will you divorce me then? Will you let me go?"
"No! Then you'll never get free! I couldn't afford to let you out of my sight. And, if you think I've been cruel, then you don't know what cruelty is. Don't try to see behind that curtain, Evelyn," he threatened.
They glared at each other for long moments, and then she rolled off the bed and ran into her room. She flung herself on her bed and sobbed bitterly, knowing she had to get free of him, free of Valerie's mesmerizing hold over her, free of her dirty affair with Keith.
All of it swirled in her mind. She couldn't believe it was real. It seemed that some other person had been inhabiting her body the past few days and making her do the things she'd done. Memories surged upward and told her what she'd become. She fought against acceptance until she was exhausted. Not even sleep would make them go away.
When she awoke, the house was dark and silent. She felt hungry, but she didn't want to eat. She kept breathing in short, shallow breaths, and she had a feeling of anticipation, of impending disaster.
She slipped into her robe and went downstairs, moving toward the light in the kitchen. She saw Mary just finishing up.
"Where is everybody, Mary?" she asked.
"My, that was a long sleep. You must be terribly hungry. Everything's put away, but I'll be glad to get you something."
"I don't want to eat," Evelyn nearly screamed. "Why is the house so empty? Where did they go?"
Mary remained unruffled, and Evelyn began to wonder if she were losing her mind. The feeling of dread was overwhelming.
"Why, Mr. Crenshaw had a client call him right after dinner, ma'am," she said calmly. "He drove himself. He didn't tell me where he was going. Mr. Keith--well, he and his father ... we could hear them clear out here. Not the words, you understand, but they were pretty loud. And Miss Valerie--only God would know where she is. It really wouldn't be any trouble, ma'am. You ought to eat something."
Evelyn shook her head. "Not now, Mary, thank you. I'll get something later. If ... if you're finished, you may go."
"Yes, ma'am," Mary said diffidently.
Evelyn went back into the living room. She stood silently, tasting the atmosphere of the big, empty house. The feeling of anticipation wouldn't go away, and she knew why. She went back into the kitchen. Mary was gone. She searched through drawers quietly until she saw a sharp knife.
Taking it quickly, half hiding it in the folds of her robe, she hurried back up the stairs. Her head pounded with the daring of what she was going to do. She crept into Artemus' room and turned on the light. The drawn, locked curtains loomed before her. Her hand began, to sweat and make the handle slippery. The blade glinted in the light and made her remember his threat.
She tried to think rationally and convince herself that he'd been bluffing. He couldn't keep her prisoner. There was no way he could stop her from leaving for looking behind the curtains--not really, not physically. A call to the police ... to her friends in St. Louis ... even to Captain Bates. He couldn't control them all.
She ran forward and made the knife slice through the material. She slashed and ripped, hearing strange noises come from her throat and then she stared at what she'd known all along would be there.
It was Valerie. All of them were of Valerie. The pictures swam before her eyes with their perversity. Evelyn recognized the blond head between Valerie's thighs. The long, pink tongue could be seen embedded in the succulent folds of cunt. There was another--a blow--up of Valerie's sultry, pouting mouth, wrapped tightly around the dusky, gold-hued prick that could only be Peter's. A prick imbedded in her anus while her mouth covered Gloria's cunt in the way Evelyn remembered. A close-up of Valerie's cunt, fingers spreading the lips wide to show clearly the way the rubber penis stretched her orifice. A picture of another woman--one who looked like Valerie but was older, Valerie's mouth glued to her pussy, her mouth full of Gloria's juices.
Evelyn gagged when she saw the ones of Artemus. She looked at the one where he was sitting on Valerie's chest, feeding his cock between her swollen lips in the same posture he'd used on Evelyn.
The other pictures bluffed before her eyes. She didn't even want to look. The knife slipped from her fingers and fell silently onto the thick rug. She turned from the technicolor spectacle before her and walked woodenly toward her room. The sound of laughter came to, her, and she thought it was inside her head--a welling up of madness. But then the sultry, throaty overtones came to her, and she knew it wasn't hers.
She stood in front of her doorway, hesitating. There was one way to end it, one way to make him let her go. She had been defeated anyway, so there was no harm in using the defeat to be free.
Pulling in a deep breath for courage, she opened the door and walked to the end of the stairs. The laughter rippled up in cloying waves again, surrounding her, making her decision less one of will than one of magical enchantment. She felt a little as she had on the first day, when Valerie had been getting out of the pool and Evelyn had recognized her adversary and had gone to do battle. The battle had been lost. Now, it was time for the final surrender.
She went down the stairs, through the big rooms to the hallway. The sound of laughter and talking was plainer. A light shone from under the girl's door. Evelyn didn't knock. There was no need for that. Valerie stopped talking and looked up, surprised at first, then knowing. She slouched back along the bed and smiled in that sultry, victorious way, her eyes running up and down Evelyn's figure, outlined by the robe.
"Gloria, look who's come to see me," she said smoothly. "Hello, Momsy. What's the matter?"
"You know what the matter is, Valerie," she said. She glanced at Gloria. Both girls were in bikinis, ready to swim in the pool. Gloria tossed her hair out of her eyes and smiled.
"Are you going swimming with us, Momsy?" Valerie asked.
Evelyn said nothing. She closed the door behind her and came into the room. She couldn't take her eyes from the alluring figure before her, appearing the way the sticky, sweet honey of an insectivorous plant must appear to the fly circling around it. She saw the trim, firm, smooth lines of her thighs, the tight, white triangle of transluscent material covering the puffy flares of her vaginal lips. She took several shallow breaths and then reached for the belt of her robe, parting the garment, slipping it from her shoulders, standing nude before them.
"You've won, Valerie," she said softly. "Get your camera ready. Take your pictures. You've won."
Valerie's eyes flared brightly with victory. Her thighs squirmed on the bed with anticipation. She chuckled softly, making an erotic, throaty sound. "Come here, Eve," she said. "Tell me why you've given in so soon."
"Just do it, Valerie. Let's get it over with."
"Gloria, she's in a hurry now. I told her she wouldn't be able to resist me, but she fought so hard. Now she's in a hurry to be good friends with me."
"Yes, that's it," Evelyn said. "Good friends, Valerie--close. As a mother and daughter should be."
Valerie cocked her head oddly. "Daddy won't like this, Eve. You know that, don't you? He kicked Mother out without a cent."
"Does he have to know, Valerie?"
She laughed with a wicked sound. "Of course not, Momsy--not unless you tell him." Her brow wrinkled. "But how did you know about the pictures? Did Keith tell you? He has a big mouth. He's a weak, stupid brother who can't fuck me."
"No--I saw them. Do you know where they are?"
"Yes," she laughed. "Isn't that cute of Daddy to keep me so close to him? Poor Daddy. He's really very strong inside. But he has one weakness, and that's me. You've found me impossible to resist, too, haven't you? Gloria, let's get ready. We can't keep Momsy waiting like this. Her pussy juice will start running down her thigh and get all over my bed if we leave her standing here too long."
"Why are you doing this, Valerie?" Evelyn asked. "Before we start, just tell me why?"
Valerie laughed throatily and slipped her halter from her breasts. The firm, tipped cones rose up and bobbed softly. "Why are you, Eve?"
Evelyn watched the white triangle reveal black, glossy pubes, swollen labia, slick, firm inner thighs and rounded buttocks. "So that I will never have to see you again," she said.
"Awww, that isn't a very nice thing to say when you're about to make love to someone. But, you know what? My reason is just the same as yours. Isn't it nice that we can agree on something? It's too bad we couldn't have known each other under different circumstances. We might have gotten along quite well."
"Why don't you want me here? You haven't from the first day."
"It's very simple, Love," Valerie oozed, pulling Evelyn onto the bed. Her arms came around Evelyn's shoulders, and her dark eyes became still brighter. Her breasts pressed into Evelyn's arm, and her hands cupped Evelyn's tits warmly. "I don't want you here for the same reason I didn't want Mother here. I like having Daddy to myself. He needs me, too. He can't stay away from me. Then too, if something should ever happen to poor Daddy while you're his wife, then you'll inherit everything. I couldn't take a thing like that. You're so young--why, you might outlive me, and that wouldn't be fair, because I want it all. Don't you understand?"
"Yes. It's very clear, Valerie."
"Mother was rotten to him, Eve, you don't know. She made him very unhappy. She didn't deserve to have all this--not the way I deserve it. I've made him happy, you see."
"Is that why he married me--because he was happy with you?"
"Oh, you know how it is. He can't go around to his business meetings with me all the time. People would talk, and that wouldn't be good."
Evelyn felt Gloria's hand slide warmly up her thigh. She felt Valerie's move from her suddenly reddened nipple down her abdomen toward her cunt. There was gentle pressure against her to lie back. She choked back a sob of depravity and went down, letting them have her body.
Her mind swam with the horrid truth of what Valerie said. It all fit together. Artemus had told her as much when he'd married her--that she was for show. But she didn't understand why he'd given her over to Valerie--or to Keith. Keith ... God, how she wanted him now. He wasn't stupid and weak, but just the opposite. He was the only sane member of the family.
She stopped feeling guilty for the love she'd felt for Keith and the time they'd spent together. Keith ... perhaps when it was over with Artemus...
"Oh, don't," she whimpered suddenly.
Evelyn arched her back without volition, pressing her open pussy toward the long, pointed tongue licking through her folds and teasing at the entrance to her body. She reached down to push Gloria's head away in sudden revitalization of her spirit. If she wanted Keith, then she couldn't go through with this.
She fell back and let it happen. If she wanted Keith, then she had to go through with this. Artemus would never let her go otherwise.
"Isn't Gloria's tongue lovely, Eve?" Valerie whispered softly. "Doesn't it make you want to lick out with your own? Oh, lick out, Eve, and suck my pussy for me. Make it look good. Strain upward for the camera so that Daddy will know we didn't force you. Here it is--it's all open and ready and waiting for your pretty mouth, Eve. Stretch--reach ... ah, that's a lovely tongue, lovely."
Evelyn heard a small click. She nearly sobbed. The taste of Valerie's juice burst along her buds and filled her senses. She felt herself wanting more--shamelessly wanting it. The tongue and lips at her sex drove her on and sent her over the edge into an area she'd never believed she could enter. She moaned and tossed her hips, trying to imagine that it was Keith's mouth on her pussy. His image wouldn't come. The knowledge stayed with her that the mouth was the small woman's mouth she'd watched the other night.
The tongue drilled into her. It rippled up and down her pussy walls and trembled over her clit. She moaned again and reached for the smooth, satiny hips at her head. She whimpered slightly when she heard Valerie's sigh of pleasure. Evelyn felt her tongue running in and out of her mouth, making her lips sensitive and tingling as it sought more of the illicit slipperiness and the tickling hairs.
She ate ravenously at Valerie's cunt and heard the camera click and click until the sound ceased registering in her mind. Waves of sensation rolled through her body and came to claim her mind. She whimpered shakily and then exploded, allowing herself to go wild, giving vent to all the frustration and tension inside her. Fingers curled in her hair, and then Valerie came, filling her mouth with juice, making her wanton cunt writhe under her lips and tongue.
Evelyn felt a sense of power just then, as if by making her come again, she could somehow dominate the girl. She worked harder, licking all around, rimming her anus, bringing her fingers into play, attempting to subdue the girl and win the battle after all.
She covered Valerie, dominating her. At the same time, Evelyn opened her cunt wide to whatever Gloria would do to it. She felt her hand drawn toward warm thighs, and her fingers slipped into juicy, fragrant meat. Gloria moaned and beat her tongue against Evelyn's clit, and the warmth gripped her fingers tightly with a spasmodic pulse. She gathered herself for a fresh attack against the fascinating witch beneath her and felt another battle be won. Valerie cried out harshly and shuddered, and then Evelyn came again.
The pictures weren't necessary. She knew that the instant she heard his tread outside. The door swung wide: Evelyn knew she should whip her head around and stare with bulging eyes at being discovered. That would have been the normal reaction. Instead, she let the climax teasing at her slip forward and push her over the brink, making her quiver with release. Then she looked around at him.
Artemus said nothing. He simply stared at the display of naked, Lesbian flesh. A certain sadness seemed to come across his face, but it was soon gone. He turned from the doorway, and they could hear him walking heavily down the hall.
Evelyn sighed and untangled herself from the girls. She sat on the edge of the bed feeling drained of all emotion. Valerie's taste was full in her mouth. She wanted to brush her teeth. She waited for the hard realization of actions and discovery to come and hit her, but it wouldn't.
"I'm insensitive," she said aloud. "I feel nothing, and I should. What have I become that I can feel nothing?"
She didn't know if the girls answered. She got off the bed and put her robe on. She didn't look back at them. It was all over, and there was no desire to look back. She went down the hall, still wanting to brush her teeth. It seemed impossible to her that she could think of nothing else at a time like this.
She heard Artemus' voice as she passed his study. She went back and paused in the doorway to look at him. He didn't look very upset--a bit sad, perhaps, as if he'd expected it to happen all along. He glanced up when he saw her watching him, spoke quietly into the telephone, then hung it up.
"Come in, Evelyn," he said.
She walked stiffly toward him. "Will you forgive me this time, Artemus?" she asked. "You said you wouldn't tolerate it, remember?"
He looked into her eyes, and the sadness was still there. "No, Evelyn," he said. "Not for this." He sighed heavily. "Why did you do it?"
"Why did you want me to? I know you did. You pushed me to her. You wanted her to make me do it. You pushed me to Keith. We could have made it, Artemus, if you'd wanted to try. Why didn't you want to try?"
"You shouldn't have done it, Evelyn," he said ruefully. "You were doing so well. It would all have worked, if you'd given it more time."
"What would? That's all you've implied, all along--that there's a reason, a master plan. I begged you to tell me, and you wouldn't. Now, I don't care. All I want is to go."
He sighed again and passed his hand over his face. He closed the heavy door and came back. "Sit down, Evelyn. You might as well know, now that it's all over."
"If it's over, Artemus, then what does it matter?"
He held her face in his hands and looked at her. His eyes seemed softer than she'd ever seen them. The appearance passed quickly, and his voice was cold and hollow.
"I want to tell you because I love you, Evelyn. You can't believe that, I know. Perhaps my love is too alien an emotion to be called love. But I can't have you leave here feeling guilty. The guilt is mine."
"I don't know what you're talking about, Artemus. Right now, I have no guilt. I did what you made it necessary for me to do."
"I'm talking about me. You've seen the pictures. I saw what you did upstairs, and that was why I came down. I knew you had given in, that my plan hadn't worked, and that you would have to leave, now that you know about me. I have ... a sickness, Evelyn. It is for my daughter. I've tried to fight it--to fight her--but I can't."
"And that's why you married me, I know--so that I would replace her in your mind, because I'm young."
"Yes, I suppose that's true. That's part of it. But there was another reason. She destroyed my wife--her own mother. I didn't realize that until it was far too late to make amends. Her motive is my money. Valerie wants it. I try to be strong and cold. That's a bluff. It's overcompensation. It's addressed to everyone around me but the right one. She's an evil child, but I can't send her away. I came to realize that she would leave only by her own will, not mine. I married you so that she would give up hope of inheriting everything, because you're so young. If you had been strong enough to resist her, if you had won the battle I forced you to fight, then she would have given up and left me, and the sickness would have gone with her. We could have been ... but it's too late. I've already called the Swede to draw up papers. An annulment, a technicality of some kind. You won't even have to go to court tomorrow, because Judge Herrick owes me some favors. Just sign the papers when Swede brings them out, and you're free. I'm still going to Miami early. I don't want you to be here when I get back. I'm sorry, Evelyn--sorry I did this to you and involved you in my own weakness. It was selfish, and it didn't work. "
She watched him lift his chin slightly. The heavy brows, the cold eyes, the unbending line of his nose all seemed to belie the real man behind them. His words made her feel strange, as if it were all happening too swiftly now.
"Artemus, I... why can't we put it back together?"
"It's no good," he said firmly. "Not now. We couldn't live with each other or with her after this. I might be able to forgive you, but I can't forgive myself. And you won't forget what you've learned about me. That, and what you did just now. She would always be there between us, somewhere."
Evelyn pressed his hand to her cheek and kissed it suddenly. "Darling, let me try again," she pleaded. "I didn't know before. We can work it out now. God, I don't even understand myself. I couldn't wait to get away from you, and now I want to stay to help you. I can handle her now, I know I can."
"No," he said curtly. "Because I can't. No matter what you do to try to handle her, you can't do more than I'll let you do. I told you, you can't force her to leave. She has to leave on her own. Her and Keith."
"Keith?"
"He's just the same," he said darkly, "Why does he hang around? I've made life as miserable for him as I could, and he's still here. They're a pair of vultures. They can't wait for me to die."
"No, Artemus--that isn't true about Keith...
Evelyn's voice trailed off as she suddenly remembered the trend of his discussion on the beach, the other small comments he'd made. She shook her head as if to clear the fuzziness from it.
"You see?" he said. "He can't hide it, even from you.
"Artemus, I can't believe that about him."
His eyes grew cold again. "Then take him. After tomorrow, you're free. Take him and find out. If you want to do me a favor, get rid of him for me."
She lowered her face into her hands. "God," she whispered. "Why didn't you tell me sooner, Artemus?"
"You would have left the first night." He paused for a long, silent moment. "Go to bed, Evelyn," he said gently. "I still have to get ready for the meeting tomorrow."
She looked up at him. "Is this really good-bye, Artemus?"
"Yes."
She stood and put her head against his chest, feeling small and weak inside and full of sorrow. "I can't believe this week, Artemus. It's been like a dream--disjointed, unreal, nearly a nightmare. My vacation is nearly over. No one back home would believe me if I told them. I suppose I belong there, behind a desk, typing, instead of living in a place like this, surrounded by wealth." She laughed weakly, a small sound. "They just wouldn't believe me, would they?"
He lifted her chin and kissed her lightly, tenderly. "Good night, Evelyn."
She turned quickly to hide her crying and hurried up the stairs for the last time.
Chapter 7
The sky was overcast when she woke up. It had a muddy, yellowish color, as if it were jaundiced and sick. The air was heavy and wet and close. It pressed down on her and made her want to gasp like a beached fish. She got out of bed and saw that the sky's hue had changed the colors of her room. The gold rug was dirty looking, and the pink on the walls, which had been bright and cheery before, now seemed drab.
She sighed heavily, thinking back, wondering if perhaps she'd dreamed it all. As if to convince herself, she went through the connecting bathrooms and looked into Artemus'. It was empty and dim. There was a cloth draped over the wall where the curtains had been. She took leaden steps toward his bed and lifted the cloth. The pictures were still there. She didn't look at them, but dropped the cloth back into place. Somehow, the looking had given her a sense of determination, of sureness that this was the only way it could end.
She began packing. Hope flared in her once or twice and then faded as she realized there was no other way. When she was finished, she put her suitcases near the door and went out into the hall. There was a moment when she didn't want to have to wait for Swede to bring the papers. If it was over, then she wanted to leave as soon as possible and not drag it out.
She sighed and went downstairs, glad, at least, that Valerie might not be up in time to watch her leave the house. She went into the kitchen and saw Mary sitting at the small table there, drinking coffee. Not even she looked happy this morning. A worried frown wrinkled her forehead, and she kept fingering a pair of glasses that were on the table.
"Good morning, Mary," Evelyn said.
The woman jerked around as if being startled out of a trance. "Oh, good morning, Mrs. Crenshaw. You're up early this morning. I'll get your breakfast right away."
Evelyn watched her get up. Her motions were labored, as if there were a great weight on her, too. Evelyn thought it ironic to be called Mrs. Crenshaw. Just as she was ready to leave the room, Mary began talking.
"Isn't it a dreary day today?" she asked, glancing through the window at the sky. "I heard on the radio we're going to have a squall line pass through. Storm warnings are already up for the boaters." She cracked eggs into a pan. "I wish it would hurry up and be over before Mr. Crenshaw gets back."
Evelyn looked at her. "Oh? Why is that, Mary?"
"Woody forgot his glasses. He couldn't find them this morning. I found them out in front.
They must have fallen out of his pocket when he brought in the paper for Mr. Crenshaw."
"Well ... can't he see without them?" Evelyn asked, glancing at the frames on the table.
"Oh, I suppose it's nothing, really," Mary said, forcing levity. "He has his sunglasses. The only reason I was a little worried was because of the squall. Woodard's eyes aren't what they used to be, and you know how much wind and rain these summer storms have in them." She smiled quickly. "I'm just a worry-wart, that's all. Mr. Crenshaw probably won't be coming home until late tonight, and it'll all be over by then."
Evelyn stared through the window at the boat. It rode gently in the dark indigo water, tugging at its lines like a ponderous animal seeking freedom.
"Yes," she said, half to herself. "It'll be all over by then."
"Well, here you are, ma'am--nice and hot and fresh. We get the best eggs from a man Captain Bates sent around. Here, let me put all this on a tray and take it in for you."
"Mary, did Artemus say anything to you this morning?"
"Say anything, ma'am?"
Evelyn looked at her. "Never mind, Mary. I'll take it in. You finish your coffee."
She sat at the table, took two bites, and nearly gagged. The thought of food sickened her. She sipped at her coffee and felt it hit her stomach and make it more jittery. The sky began to darken, rapidly. She got up and went onto the back terrace to watch. Black clouds came boiling out of the west, tumbling through the sky like the flow of a monstrous, seething river. Brilliant flashes of lightning streaked silently through the massive, boulder-like formations. A breath of chill wind rippled the placid surface of the river and came silently across the yard to caress her cheek with its cold, death-like hand. She shivered slightly and watched the awesome display press relentlessly closer.
"We're going to have a blow, Momsy," A voice behind her said. Valerie's tone was cold and slick, like slime. "In a few more minutes, you won't even be able to see the boat. I like it when it storms. I always feel like cuddling up in bed with someone, don't you?"
Evelyn turned slowly. She felt her head and scalp go hot. Her peripheral vision narrowed until the only thing she could see was the sultry, arrogant smile on Valerie's face. She felt her arm moving swiftly through the air as if it were moving by itself. She heard the sound her hand made, she saw the way Valerie's head snapped to one side, but she felt nothing in her hand. There was no pain, no tingling--it was like a club that had been detached from her arm. She swung it again and again, until the cold wind came in a steady, sustained breeze and made the palm fronds outside clatter menacingly.
Valerie dabbed at the corner of her mouth and looked at the spot of blood on her finger. Her eyes burned with an evil light, and the leering smile on her face was wicked.
"I'm going to remember that for a long time, Momsy," she said. "Just the way you'll never forget last night. When I show Daddy what a physical, vicious bitch you really are, then he'll kick you out without even blinking."
"You can save your breath, Valerie. Now, got out of my sight, or I'll scratch your witch's eyes out."
A solid gust of icy wind slammed her in the back. The palms bent far over, shedding their coconuts like huge hailstones that dug into the soft ground. Big drops of water came thumping across the river to batter the grass and hammer coldly against her back. A solid, nearly black curtain of water came behind them, churning the river, into a froth.
"We'd better close up the house, Mrs. Crenshaw," Mary said urgently, half running through the house. "They said on the radio it's spawning tornadoes north of Okeechobee and ... "
A deafening crack and rumble punctuated her words as the sky seemed to explode with fight and noise. The rain hissed down . with a nearly shrill sound that set Evelyn's teeth on edge. She ran through the house to help Mary, watching draperies stand out from the walls and a table lamp blow over and shatter on the floor. Rain sprayed in through the screens under the force of the wind outside and drenched her as she struggled to close a window. Then she was pushed aside, and Keith was closing it for her.
"You're all wet," he grinned, brushing water from himself energetically. "Jesus, that really bounced me out of bed! I'll bet you don't have storms like this up in St. Louis, huh?"
"Hello, Keith," she said quietly.
He looked at her and blinked. "Evelyn, what's the matter?" he asked, the ready smile fading from his face.
"Momsy's leaving, Keith," Valerie oozed, coming up beside him. "Now it's just the two of us again. Won't that be nice? Just you and me and Daddy."
"What?" he blurted, his head swiveling from one to the other of them. His face grew as dark as the world around them. "Why, you dirty goddamn fucking bitch!" he shouted. He raised his arm and made a fist. Valerie looked at it without flinching.
"Well, what are you waiting for, Keith? Hit me--slug me like a man." She laughed throatily. "Or can't you do that, either, darling brother? You can't fuck me or hit me. Now do you know why I don't pay any attention to you?" She tipped her head back and laughed wickedly and walked away to a chair, gloating.
"Evelyn, what happened?" he questioned, gripping her shoulders.
"It doesn't matter, Keith."
"Darling, I still love you. Let me take you away from here."
"You aren't ready to say that, Keith. Nor am I. I have to have time to--to get things straightened out in my mind. I do owe you something, Keith, and I'll be grateful to you for it forever. I think I'm cured. I think I don't have to worry any more after the other night."
"Evelyn--God, Darling, don't torture me with making me remember how wonderful it was and then making me think there'll never be another time!"
The wind and rain pounded against the house, their sound drumming through Evelyn's mind with the indecision. "Keith, wait until it's over, at least," she cried finally. "Don't pressure me now. It's hard enough for me this morning."
"Evelyn, you must. You must!"
"Let go," she said sharply, breaking free of his grip. "God, you're just the way Captain Bates said. Stop twisting my arm. I'm not ready."
"Oh, the hell with Bates. Leave the dumb bastard out of this. All I want is you."
She eyed him sharply. "I thought he was your friend. What do you mean, the hell with him?"
"I don't mean... "
"What he means, Momsy, is that Keith wants what he wants, and nothing else matters. Isn't that right, Keith? Tell her how it was last night at dinner--what you said for Daddy and me just to save yourself from a little pressure, like a squealing rat with his tail caught in a trap."
"Shut up, you bitch!" he yelled violently.
"Go on, tell her, you baby! Tell her how wonderful it was to fuck her all night, the way you told Daddy and me. Describe it again, how it was on the boat. Oh, God, it was priceless, darling brother. You don't know how proud I was of you then. I didn't know you had it in you to fuck like that and make a woman come all those times. Tell her, Keith."
The cackling, evil laughter rang in Evelyn's ears. She stared at him, not believing, then seeing the expression of guilt on his face that confirmed the ultimate betrayal.
"Keith.--You didn't!" she cried. "God--oh, my God! Your poor father. He doesn't deserve you--either one of you!"
"Well, he doesn't deserve anyone like you," Keith said lamely. "Honey, you don't know what it was like when ... "
"You don't deserve me either, damn you!" she cried.
Keith balled his fists and whirled on his sister. "You bitch! You dirty bitch! I'm going to ... "
"Sit down, Keith darling. The storm's nearly over. See, the rain's stopping. You can see the boat again. It's too bad it had to end so soon. I just love storms, don't you?"
Evelyn watched Keith move meekly toward a chair. The room was still but for the diminishing noise outside. After a long time, it stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and rays of sunlight stabbed toward the ground, making it sparkle. The sky had lost its dirty color and was blue and clean again.
Keith looked up, averting his eyes from Evelyn, staring through the front window. "Somebody's coming," he said hollowly.
Evelyn went to the window. She saw the big, balding, hulking figure of Swede struggle out of the car with a briefcase. She went to the door and opened it for him.
"Ah!" he grunted, wiping his feet on the mat. "Dat's vun hell of a storm, ja?" he roared. "Swede, how wonderful!" Valerie cooed. "What brings you here? Daddy isn't home today."
He looked at her. His eyes squinted again, and he wiped his bulbous nose with his hand. Evelyn could tell that he wasn't looking at Valerie in the same way he had the night of the party.
"Ja," he bellowed, assuming everyone else was as deaf as he. "He left my office just before it started. He got plenty vet on the vay to Miami, I bet." He turned to Evelyn. "You know vhy I'm here?"
"Yes. I know."
"Ve go into his study, come."
He lumbered off toward the study, held the door for her, then closed it against Valerie and Keith after another squinting look at them. He shook his head and went to Artemus' desk, opening the briefcase. He took out some papers, pushed through them, and brought out what he wanted. He held them and looked at her. His face was lined and heavy, his head and hands nearly monstrous in size. She hadn't realized what a big-boned, imposing man he was before, until he looked down at her and half whispered with a gravelly voice.
"I don't like dis, Evelyn," he said. "Artemus talked to me a long time. I vish ve had treated you better at the party. I tink I can argue him avay from doing dis if you vant me to try, ja?"
She smiled and touched his arm, taking strength from his dominating form. "No, Swede," she said. "I wish it could be different too, but wishing won't make it so. He's right. It won't work. Not with them still here."
He nodded his head gravely and let out a big sigh. "I don't like it," he said again. He sat heavily in Artemus' chair and started clearing a space on the desk. The phone began to ring. He picked an envelope out of the pile of papers and handed it to her. "He vants you to have dis," he rumbled. There was a knock on the door. "Ja!" he roared, making Evelyn jump.
Mary came in. "Mr. Swede, there's a call for you from your office."
"Tank you, Mary," he said. He pointed at the papers he'd handed Evelyn. "Read and sign," he said curtly. "Everything's taken care of" He picked up the receiver and bellowed into it. "Alfson, ja!"
Evelyn tried to read. The print and the confusing words ran together before her eyes. She flipped the pages and saw the place for her to sign, then went back to the beginning and tried again. She heard Swede grunting into the phone. She looked up and saw that his face was clouded. He glanced at her, and she knew there was something in his eyes, but she couldn't tell what.
"Voodard is all right?" he asked of the caller. "Ja." He sighed with a long, heavy release of air, as if it had been his last. "Vait," he said, turning away from her. "Vat time? Because I vant to know vat time, it's important to me now." He waited for a reply. "All right," he said. He hung up slowly. His eyes squinted, and he passed his hand over his rubbery nose, then surreptitiously brushed at his eyes before looking at her. "Artemus is dead."
Evelyn reeled as if she'd been clubbed. "What! Oh, God!"
"The storm. A truck blew over. Eight cars ran into, it in the rain before ... the details don't matter. Excuse me a moment."
The Swede turned away from her and pulled a big hanky out of his pocket and trumpeted into it. He sat quietly for a long moment, his head bowed and eyes closed, as if asleep. Then he turned back around and looked at her, his grieving finished until later.
"He died after I have taken these papers to court, Evelyn," he said. "But I vill change the time to make you still his wife. Herrick vill do it my vay if I ask, because you haven't signed yet."
God, I don't understand," she said, her voice breaking.
"I explain to you, and then you decide, ja? The papers say you are not his wife at the time he died. Everything goes to Valerie and Keith by his vill. I say, and Herrick vill agree if I ask him, that you are his wife because you haven't signed. Then everything goes to you. You sit here and tink, while I go tell his children." He started to struggle his big body out of the chair.
"Swede, wait--you don't want me to sign, do you?"
"I can't say," he rumbled, shaking his head.
"Please tell me. I ... I don't know what to do. None of us deserves it. I don't want it. I'm sorry he's dead. I mean I do want it, but ... oh, God, I don't know what to do."
"The price is high, Evelyn, I know. Artemus would have vanted you to take it so that dey ... excuse me. I go tell them."
He lumbered out of the room. She sat with her thoughts and emotions swimming inside her, remembering snatches of the past week, the days in the Keys. She thought of Keith--of how he had helped her and betrayed her at the same time. She remembered Valerie's viciousness and of how nightmarish life with her would be now. She looked up when they came into the room, walking as if oh eggshells, both of them, wondering which way she would swing.
"You'd better sign the papers, Momsy," Valerie said finally. "You wouldn't want to have me for a daughter, now, would you? Or maybe you would. After last night, maybe I've changed your mind, huh? Would you like more of that--of me and Gloria? Then you wouldn't have to worry about Keith, because it wouldn't be any good for you to turn around and marry your stepson, would it?"
"Shut up, Valerie," Keith cried. "Evelyn --darling--remember how it was? Remember what you said I did for you? Don't sign, Evelyn. Be our mother. We can be happy together, and nobody will ever know the difference, will they? We can kick her out--send her to school or make her go somewhere. Then it'll be just the two of us--us and all this. We'll keep Mary and Woodard and Captain Bates. She'll throw them all out if you sign. You wouldn't want Captain Bates to be out of a job, would you--a nice guy like him? She hates him. She'll get rid of everybody," he wheedled, his voice going desperate.
"Even you, Keith?" Evelyn asked. "Is that what you're worried about?"
"No, no! I didn't mean that! Evelyn, I didn't mean to tell! They made me tell last night!"
"Keith, shut up," Valerie said. "Let her go. What do you want with her, when you can have me?"
He looked at her. His eyes flicked up and down her body, and he licked nervous lips.
"That's right, Keith. Let her go, and I'll be nice to you. You've always wanted me to be nice to you. I know you have. We'll forget that one time, and I'll make everything up to you. You want me--you've always wanted me. You couldn't stand knowing that Daddy could fuck me and you couldn't. All that'll change, Keith. I swear it will. Just you and me--lonely brother and sister, living together, surrounded by good friends like Gloria and Jack and the others. You don't have to envy them any more, Keith. You don't ever have to go without again. I'll fuck you all you want--any exciting way you can dream up. You know how I love to fuck in kinky ways. You won't ever have to go without again, Keith, I swear it. Come on, let her go. We don't need her."
Keith's fingers trembled. He couldn't take his eyes from Valerie for a long moment. He swallowed hard and looked back at Evelyn.
"Evelyn . . Evelyn ... " he stammered.
"Never mind, Keith," she said quietly. "You've already answered." She picked up the pen and wrote her name above the dashed line. "You've won, Valerie," she said, looking up. "All the way around... You've even won him. I hope you're happy together."
She walked out of the room before Valerie could begin her campaign to ruin Keith, too, and went up the stairs for her suitcases. When she came down, Mary was there. The woman hugged her and cried openly.
"I knew something terrible was going to happen, Evelyn," she sobbed. "Oh, I felt it this morning, didn't I? I told you, didn't I? Oh, poor Woody. Poor Mr. Crenshaw. Oh, Keith--Keith, you poor boy." She waddled over to cry on his shoulder.
Evelyn saw Swede coming out of the study, his papers bundled up again. "I take you somewhere out of here," he said, making a statement of it. The air outside was crisp and fresh and clean. He inhaled deeply and shook, his head. "I don't blame you," he said finally. "I vish it's different, but I don't blame you. Here, you forgot the envelope. Ah, who is coming in such a hurry?"
A car rolled to a fast stop, and Captain Bates got out. He paused when he saw Swede and the suitcases beside Evelyn. His craggy, browned face gleamed in the bright light, making her think of the happy time with him. When he stood before her, there was genuine sorrow in his face.
"I was just on my way over to check on the boat and the lines, Mrs. Crenshaw, when they gave out the names on the radio. I'm sure sorry. I don't know what good a dumb salt like me can do to help, but, if there's anything, you can bet I will."
"Thanks, Captain, I know you will." She watched him stride through the yard, his step long and buoyant.
"Swede, I think I'll wait for Captain Bates," she said. "He's the only human being with real, honest emotions I've seen here. I don't mean you. I mean all the rest of them. I need fresh air. I need a good laugh. I need to do something crazy and fun, such as hunting for treasure. You understand, don't you?"
"Ja," Swede grunted. "It vasn't easy, vhat Artemus did to you. I'm his friend, but I say it to his face, even. He didn't do that right. You take a rest. You've earned it. Vhat's in the envelope vill help. I say goodbye, now. You call me if you need something, ja?"
"Thanks for everything, Swede," she said, reaching up to hug him briefly. She watched him climb into his car and drive away. She looked inside the envelope then, and saw the check for fifty thousand dollars and the note with his writing on it.
I'm sorry, Evelyn, it said. I wish we could try it again. Please don't be home when I get back, because I don't think I could send you away a second time. Love, Artemus.
She wept silently until Captain Bates came around the side of the house and saw her standing there. Then she picked up her suitcases and went toward him, hoping the pain would go away soon.