... wait for any new man to arrive in town, so they can ply their wanton wiles at him, reduce him to a plaything to heal their shameless needs. Such a man is Jim Shelton, they think, as he moves into dignified little Elkhurst. But how wrong can they be? Only Shelton, himself, knew for sure ... as he was past master at torment and ecstasy, degradation and delight. Sandra, his teen-aged neighbor, is the first to know his insatiable torments ... locked inside Shelton's cellar. Penny, the petite blonde, is next to fall to his too-virile spell. Cathy, the dark-eyed beauty, is next, captured at a barbecue ... while her own husband, Alfred, is away in town, entertaining Anna, the very young real woman who puts Cathy's meager talents to shame. Until, finally, Shelton tires of the little games and decides to even up all the books in one fell swoop. It takes him all day and most of the night to prepare for his little orgy. Then it is just Shelton and his guests ... Sandra, Penny, and Cathy, to share delight after delight throughout his night of perverted mixed doubles....
CHAPTER ONE
CATHY EWELL AWOKE WITH A SUBTLE UPON HER PRETTY face. It was Monday morning; Blue Monday, supposedly-but even this fact didn't erase the deep-dimpled smile, as it should have. As it certainly did for thousands of pretty young housewives like herself out in the suburban spendor of Orangewood. Monday morning meant letdown, a sense of depression that grew with the thought of another entire week to face; a week like every other week, to be gotten through somehow-through dirty dishes and diapers and notices of overdrawn accounts from the local bank in Elkhurst.
Another lousy week of boredom.
But Cathy's smile deepened as she rose majestically from her bed, wearing a pink frothy shortie nightgown which barely shook itself down around the tops of her very shapely legs as she got to her feet.
She had had a beautiful dream. A convincing, full color, wide scream type dream, the kind that sticks in your mind for as much as a day or so, giving rise to pleasant or at least interesting thoughts.
Cathy Ewell was having interesting thoughts now.
Pleasant ones.
She stood before her vanity mirror, a modernistic oval piece of glass reflecting a figure that had a sleek, lazy grace to it, like a tawny cat who, when stretching, shows a smooth ripple of muscle underneath its sleek skin Her skin was perfect, tanned to a light toffee already from a couple if pre-season days out on nearby Candy Beach, plus a few in the backyard of her small ranch style home in Orangewood. She preferred the beach. You could take off all your clothes there. Gingerly, she pulled the nightie over her head, revealing that that was exactly what she had done.
She was tanned all over.
She was just a shade above medium height, a brunette whose dark, shiny locks curled about a face that was still youthfully pretty, with wide, dark eyes, thin nose, and well-shaped lips.
Her breasts were not big. The fact was, she wore a padded bra to accentuate them under certain kinds of dresses. But no one, looking at them now, would complain about their size. They were pretty, insouciant breasts, the dark red nipples and spreading aureoles tilting upward like the centers of flowers turning their faces toward the sun. They had nicely defined undercurves and a noticeable amount if cleavage.
Which was quite sufficient, in the breast department.
Her outstandingly good feature was her legs. Cathy knew this as she examined them, running the palms of her hands over firm, curved hips and down as she bent forward to touch her toes. Their trim taper of light springy curves flowed downward in narrowing lines to neat calves, very trim ankles, and well-moulded feet. Her hips were just wide enough to suggest a good development rearward, and straightening herself and turning slightly, she examined the other two points upon which her attraction as a woman depended a great deal.
She had lovely round cheeks. Clearly separated, out-jutting, perfectly smooth and flawless, ample without excess. Cathy practiced dieting to keep them that way. She knew that if she ever started putting on weight, that part of her anatomy would suffer first.
This thought reminded her morning program would be on. Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was just a couple of minutes after nine-time for the Daily Dozen With Dave show. She hurried from the bedroom into the living room to switch on the TV in order to catch it. Working as a substitute teacher, she wasn't always able to catch Dave Lane and his morning exercises, but since there had been no call from the school while she slept, an undisturbed day for herself was guaranteed. And Timmy, her three-year-old son, was staying with his grandparents upstate for the week. Perfect.
The set fizzed and crackled, and finally the handsome physique of Dave Lane came into view on the screen.
Cathy sucked in her breath for an instant. The man on the screen had a physique like a Greek god, and standing there in a pair of skin-tight slacks and striped polo shirt, his beautiful face and eyes looking out at her, she was suddenly very conscious of her nakedness.
Silly, of course. She laughed to herself, the dimples in her cheeks appearing again. Darling Dave couldn't see her, but she almost wished he could. That dream had made her feel womanly, womanly all over, leaving her with a residue of desire which spread throughout her like a vague hazy buzzing in her blood. She wondered briefly if this feeling had anything to do with the pills she was taking. But she had been taking them for half a year now; it was really rather late to be having some freakish kind of reaction.
Still, she certainly felt different today....
Like a different person.
She adjusted the fine tuning knob of the set and sat down in her Early American maplewood evening chair while the smiling physical culturist talked to his
"girls" about some new dietary food product composed of seaweed and lotus leaves.
As he went through his grinning commerical spiel, her mind slipped back into the dream she had been having.
The beach. She was lying alone, sunbathing on the deserted beach, comfortably secure in the knowledge that no one was around to observe her naked limbs. The sun was bright and warm and seemed to soak right down into her bones. She dozed, listening to Bossa nova jazz on her portable transistor radio. Then, from around a bend in the cove there appeared a boat, a small sleek sailing sloop, expensively outfitted and manned by a tall bronzed figure in white pants, shirt, and blue ascot, smoking a heavy briar pipe. He had come upon her unexpectedly, and something in his steady, serene gaze made her completely unconscious of her nudity.
He waved to her, beckoning her to swim out.
And then she was doing it-swimming out to him in the nude, right under his steady, keen-eyed gaze.
He helped her overboard in a very gentlemanly fashion, treating her like a lady at a social tea party. Dripping water onto the brilliantly varnished deck, she felt her skin grow prickly hot as he attentively helped her to dry, fetching a towel from below.
"You looked so charming there on the beach, I felt like Ulysses finding a mermaid," he confessed in cultured accents.
They talked as he showed her around the boat, taking her below finally and mixing drinks for both of them. He was very rich, well-educated, and a famous novelist, thought he didn't have to depend on writing for his money. He admired her beauty vocally, and when he reached out for her she felt herself melt into his arms in a near swoon.
An exquisite feeling. He was so tender, whispering endearing words, stroking her trembling body and Urging her not to be afraid; he had no intention of doing anything she might find distasteful.
They lay together on a sort of bunk bed built into the hull of the boat, talking, he leaning over to kiss her breasts and stroke her body admiringly, she felt a lazy spreading warmth each time he touched her, like slow fire....
He was so beautiful. Like a Greek god.
Like Dave Lane. Her mind returned to the present again as the gymnast began the weight-reducing, figure-moulding exercises.
"All right, ladies-on your feet now! Rub that sleep from your pretty eyes and follow me. How's that middle coming along, by the way? Noticably slimmer? Can you get into that size twleve yet? And those hips-is the girdle still necessary? Another week, perhaps, and you'll be tossing it in the trash can, along with those unnecessary pounds, girls. And now, I'd like to show you a new exercise. Here we go now; follow me: one, two three-"
Cathy began automatically following her instructor, placing her hands on her hips, feet correctly spaced apart, bending her body from the trunk in the indicated directions.
One, two three; one two three Her lovely limbs flowed with each movement in a ripple of smooth-toned muscle, firm pads of feminine flesh. Into another exercise which required touching the toes.
Up, down, up, down She felt her muscles loosening, her circulation livening as she began to throw herself into it, her smallish breasts rolling and swinging as she bent forward almost double, twisted, rose, bent, the muscles of her buttocks tightening into beautifully strained curves and then releasing as she rose.
Up, down, up, down....
Joe Biggs liked his job as a mailman. He had been one for close to fifteen years now, and he still liked it, which is saying a lot for any job.
He especially enjoyed it now, the time of year when you switched to a summer uniform consisting of cotton slacks and short-sleeved shirt, sunglasses and sun helmet. On hot days like this you'd sweat through it before you were half done with your route, but he didn't mind the heat. It was a heck of a lot better than the cold, and at least when you started out in the morning you felt fresh and clean in you new, cool blue uniform. He liked the walking part of it, too. It was good exercise which kept you in trim, and at thirty-nine he had little of the middle-age spread many of his friends were suffering from. They thought he was crazy, turning down inside clerking jobs in the post office when openings came along-jobs which would have meant eventual advancement and transfer up the ladder. But he preferred being a route man and that was that.
Of course he had been angry when they had given him this new route out in Orangewood, the outlying suburb of Elkhurst. At first it had seemed like an insult, after all the years he had put in pounding handy routes in the city proper. He prided himself on being an old timer, a native. His folks went way back to the days when Elkhurst had been a big resort town, when trains came out daily from the city during summer months to deposit rich tourists who came to rent summer homes and enjoy the natural advantages afforded by nearby Candy Beach; sailing and swimming in the ocean, tennis and golfing at the country club.
Elkhurst had changed after the war. Everyone had cars now, for one thing, and they didn't want to come this far out from the city. The commuter train only stopped twice a day now, and the people who used it were ones who didn't mind spending a couple of hours a day going to their jobs in the city and a couple more coming back in the evening. No more tourists. These people who had come to live out here sort of spoiled things, with their cheap new homes in tracts and developments which now took up a lot of land that used to be good for things like pheasant and rabbit hunting.
They were outsiders, really. They did things natives would never consider doing, and their ways weren't Elkhurst ways. City ways, they were.
But once he got used to his new route, he found himself liking it better. In a way, a lot of the newcomers seemed to be over-friendly toward him, and he took this as a sign that they recognized his status as a native of the historic old town and were paying deference to that fact. It was a flattering notion.
And also, he was able to observe them a little closer. Some of the things they did were really strange, and when he talked to his wife about them at night she liked to hear all about them. Of course, Bertha was one of the worst gossips around, but she was also head of several local civic organizations-or least in on them-and when some of the newcomer wives tried to get in she liked to have the dope on what kind of people they were.
Naturally.
But there were a lot of things he didn't tell her, too. Bertha had a big mouth, and that was a fact A lot of times she'd try to guess at the things he didn't tell her, and it was fun watching her squirm when he refused to be pumped. Working this new route had given her a lot of respect for him she'd never bothered to have before. He enjoyed this new status and maintained it by a judicious silence at some of her questions. This infuriated her, of course, but it served her right, the way she used to nag him all the time about getting ahead with the P.O. instead of just staying a common carrier.
He also had come to like a few of the people out in Orangewood, even if they were a little odd. They were quick to offer a drink or a cup of coffee on cold winter days, at least-which was more than could be said for some of the folk in town who had lived there for years and wouldn't give you the sweat off their brow if you were sick and dying in bed.
Take Tom Jenks, for instance, or Constance Werner. Or the Thrashers, with their idiot son who never grew past three-years-old in his head, even though he was almost fully grown. Still, they were all Elkhurstians, and that meant something, by damn.
It was nine-fifteen when Joe Biggs swung up Bailey Ave. and turned up the walk of the first house on the corner, the one belonging to Alfred Ewell.
Joe paused in the middle of the walk to mop his brow with a white handkerchief, already sweating in the early morning sun. He thought about the Ewells. They were a pair now. all right. Young, they were-kids who had got married in college and had a kid too soon. They didn't get along, but they didn't admit it to anybody, either.
She was something. A real pretty coed, she must have been. But dumb. She couldn't even handle a checkbook, as repeated overdrawn notices from the bank in Elkhurst proved. No head for money, which is the first thing a housewife ought to have.
Damned pretty girl, though. And she knew it. Painted up by ten in the morning, even when she wasn't working at her job in the new central school. Wore clothes around the house that must have made a lot of delivermen's mouths water when they came in. Always smiling, too. No matter what you said to her, she had a great big toothpaste-ad smile on her face. Like she was making eyes at you or something.
Maybe she was and maybe she wasn't. It was hard to tell, when a woman was always smiling like that. But Joe had his suspicions. He suspected Alf Ewell had a tough row to hoe, keeping a girl like that satisfied. A girl with looks like that always expected a lot of things from a man, things most couples didn't have till they were in their thirties. And Alf Ewell probably didn't make that much money at his job as a junior accountant with a firm in the city, either.
They were always getting a hell of a lot of second-and third-notice bills from department stores and the like. That was the big tip-off right there.
Joe Biggs went on up the walk to the doorstep of the darkened house, leafing through his bag for the Ewell's mail.
He was about to place it in the box when he happened to glance through the slatted Venetian blinds inside the big picture window.
That made him stop short.
Joe Biggs was not by nature a voyeur. He hated Peeping Toms as much as anyone else, and if anyone suggested that he might be one himself, he would have blown up in that person's face.
But sometimes you saw a lot of interesting things through a picture window carelessly left open. Interesting pictures.
The one he was seeing now made him blink.
He stood there, blinking, and holding his breath, his sweating hand moistly gripping the small sheaf of envelopes addressed to the Ewells.
She was inside, in the living room.
Stark naked.
Not a stitch on her, by God, and doing things with that swell young body of hers that made his throat tighten and his breath come hard.
Amazing things.
He could see everything she had, and she had plenty. He could see now that what she was doing was some kind of exercise routine, in front of the television set. Its gray light flashed over her splendid body, accentuating her mouth-watering curves and hollows in light and shadow as she bent forward, rear staring him in the face, twisting her body this way and that, jiggling and shaking her breasts like a Greek dancer.
Amazing.
Joe Biggs wasn't a voyeur, but nobody but a damn fool wouldn't linger to take a good look at that, either. A good long look.
If she turned and saw him, he'd just quickly tuck the mail into the box and pretend he hadn't seen her.
In the meantime, he began to experience a powerful sensation.
A very physical sensation, the kind of physical sensation his wife could no longer excite in him except on very rare occasions.
That girl is beautiful, he thought.
Lovely.
Pretty as a picture in a picture window.
His mouth felt dry and cracked and his underarms began sweating freely, the sweat rolling down and making large spreading splotches in the newly starched shirt of his uniform.
Now you take a gal like that, you could have a lot of fun with her.
Tons of fun.
If only he were younger, he'd-Hell, he wasn't that old, either. Not too old to cut the mustard, as Tom Jenks would say.
Hell.
God.
A pretty young thing like that, she could show a man a good time in bed.
But he had to stop looking. He had to stop looking and thinking about it, because looking and thinking about it was sheer torture. A thick pane of glass separated them, and a locked door. She was dumb to be doing a thing like that where anyone coming along could see her. Some men, they wouldn't have as much control as he had. Some men, they'd bust the door down or find some way to get in there, and then they'd A car turned the corner of the street. The noise of its engine and tires gave him a start. Quickly he dropped the mail in the box, turned and stepped down off the stone stoop, digging for his handkerchief and mopping his brow with it to hide the redness his round, heavyset face had suddenly acquired.
He walked stiffly down the path to the road, hoping the person in the car hadn't noticed anything. He had barely been able to control himself, standing there. At his age, he'd be a laughing stock if anyone happened to notice.
Without looking back, he went to the next house, a split-level Colonial, relieved to be out of sight behind large box hedges. He stopped to mop his brow and rearrange his uniform.
That Ewell woman was something all right. Shocking. Ought to be a law against that kind of indecent exposure.
Alf Ewell must have a tough row to hoe for himself, and that was a fact.
Penny Worthington got out of her Chevy station wagon, a petite blonde with good breast tucked under a stretched-tight white peasant blouse, and good legs showing under a short billowy print skirt which hiked itself up over shapely white knees as she slid from behind the driver's seat.
She slammed the door shut, walked around the car and up the flagstone walk to her friend's, Cathy Ewell's house, hoping desperately that Cathy wasn't working today. She had big news to deliver.
There hadn't even been time to call, because she had been downtown at the supermarket when she found out about it.
Now, with a buoyant, suspenseful feeling in her breasts, she went up to Cathy's door and rang the bell.
After a minute or two of waiting, Cathy answered, dressed in a loose-fitting house robe.
"Penny! How nice a surprise! Do come in; Al's at work and Timmy's at his grandparents and I'm not even dressed yet. I was watching Dave Lane. What brings you around this early in the morning, dear?"
Penny entered, giving her friend a secretive smile.
"Oh, I was just on my way back from shopping and I thought I'd stop by. Could we have coffee?"
"Of course. In the kitchen. I haven't touched Al's breakfast dishes dear, so don't be shocked. He's suofc a sloppy cook, damn his hide."
Penny sighed. "I know. Husbands are such clumsy creatures, aren't they!"
Cathy grimaced, pulling back a chrome tubular chair for Penny, who sat down in it.
"I wonder if it's just husbands. Oh, God, don't get me going on that though. I married a big stupid jerk and now I have to live with my mistake."
Penny giggled. "My, aren't we being outspoken today!"
Cathy slammed the coffee pot fiercely on a burner of the electric range and turned it on.
"Well it's true," she groaned. "Let's stop kidding ourselves, darling-neither of us got what we wanted, did we?"
Penny paused a minute, and then said, "Brad's a damned clown. You did better, dear. At least you're husband doesn't tell barracks jokes when you invite people over."
"No. But only because he's never been in the army."
"Brad's never grown up and never will. I feel like leaving him after Saturday night, honest to God!"
"Again?"
"For good, this time."
"What about the kids?"
"Yes, his kids. Hell, why didn't they have those pills back when we were in college?"
"They did, but you couldn't get them as easy Oh, hell-I was feeling almost good for a change this morning. Why did you have to remind me of things?"
Penny held her cup up and Cathy poured coffee in
"And what were you feeling so good about, darling?"
"Oh, you know-making plans for the barbecue this weekend. You're coming, aren't you?"
"Of course. Who else have you invited?"
"Everyone. I want to be surrounded by people. That's the only way I can stand things. Only I wish we knew some really interesting people. I get tired of teachers and principals and insurance men."
Penny's original smile returned to her face.
"Get set for a surprise, baby."
Cathy's face perked up. "A surprise? Something to do with the barbecue? Somebody I can invite, maybe?"
Penny nodded slowly, closing her eyes.
"There's a new man in town."
"Who?"
"You'll die. You'll just die."
"Out with it, for God's sake-who?"
"A mutual acquaintance. From Clifton College, dearie. Remember Jim Shelton?"
Cathy sat down with her coffee, frowning deeply. "Shelton, Shelton. The names strikes a bell."
"Think hard."
Cathy's eyes brightened with recognition. "Wait a minute. There was a guy there, a beatnik type who use to spend all his time boozing in bars-"
"You've got it!"
"Him? But what's he doing out here, of all places? He was one of the most downbeat characters on campus, as I remember."
Penny chuckled delightedly. "That he was, that he was. But you should see him now. Big success story."
"No kidding? What's he do for a living?"
"He's a writer."
"A writer! You mean he's really making a living at writing? I always thought of him as a big phony."
"Well, he drives one of those beautiful foreign sports cars, I don't know the name, but it's brand new and cost plenty, you can bet. And he dresses like well, you don't buy those kind of clothes off a plain pipe rack."
"But this is amazing! Is he married?"
"Yes, dear," Penny said wrily. "But then, aren't we all married?"
Cathy nodded. "I see what you mean. He's married, but he gave you looks, huh?"
"What looks! I only talked to him for a brief time, but his eyes seemed to go right through me. Oooh, he made me feel like alike a tramp or something, the way he looked at me. I mean he was nice, very polite and everything, but-well, he's become so smooth, you're not sure what he means when he says certain things. Double entendre, you know. And I could almost feel him undressing me with those eyes."
It was Cathy's turn to giggle. "Watch yourself, hon. You know what they say about dirtying your own back yard."
"You watch yourself, dear. When I mentioned you were living out here, he began asking all kinds of questions about you. It was really odd-as though maybe he had had a crush on you at one time or something."
"That's hard to believe and I think you're making it up.
"Well, just the same-"
"What does he write?"
"Novels, short stories, different things. Under pen names, mostly."
"This is fascinating! What's his wife like?"
"I don't know, she wasn't with him. But I imagine she's horrible. That kind of guy always marries the wrong girl. You know what I mean-the kind who ignores all the girls in school, goes to the Village and latches on to some beatnik type who talks him into a more permanent arrangement."
"You're being catty, but I like it. God, maybe he can relive some of the boredom of this awful place! I bet he knows lots of interesting people, writers, and artists and theatre people."
"No doubt. He mentioned a couple of names very casually-that Negro writer-what's his name?"
"Yes, I know who you mean. We'll have to start boning up, dear I wonder what he's doing out in a dump like this?"
"He says he had to get out of the city in order to write. Likes it here. So quiet, he says."
"He's so right there," Cathy said bitterly, sipping her coffee. "I feel like I'm living in a damned cemetery or something! But this is terrific news. A new man in town, and he's a writer, right out of the Village."
"You've got to invite him, Cathy. To the barbecue."
"How? I hardly knew him in school."
"Find a way."
"Oh, I will, I will!"
"I know you will, dear. Because if you don't, I won't come myself. I'll set up a picket-line, in fact. I'll have you boycotted and blacklisted."
"How vicious you can be, darling."
"How bored we can both be, darling. It's time for little old Orangewood to start swinging."
"And how!"
"I have to go now, they're delivering some things from Leland's."
"Aha! New clothes?"
"Oh, just a few little items. Things to wear for the summer, you know."
"I'll have to go downtown myself today and find a new hostess gown. And Alfred will scream. He'll scream and then he'll be sarcastic. I wish he'd do something about making more money! I hate working!"
Penny got up. scraping her chair back.
"Well, I'll call you later in the day. We can talk about things then."
"Please do."
Cathy saw her friend to the door, and then returned to her easy chair, slumping into it and letting her robe fall open away from her pretty breasts and well-moulded torso.
It was after ten o'clock already, the morning half shot. She felt suddenly fagged, the heat of the day finally baking itself through the walls and roof and invading the interior of the house.
Some stupid quiz show was on the television now. She ignored it. going over in her mind the news Penny had brought with her.
Jim Shelton.
Funny. Funny to think of Jim Shelton as being a success at anything.
Especially as a writer.
She had been a Lit major herself in college, and she remembered him vaguely from a few classes they had sat in together. He wasn't the kind who showed un for classes regularly. She had a hard time even remembering what he looked like physically. Medium height, maybe. What color hair? Sort of blond? Eyes? Hell, she had never noticed him. He didn't go out for campus social acitivites then.
And now he was a successful writer. How ironic.
She closed her eyes, leaning her pretty head back against the back of the chair cushion. Pretty soon she got a picture in her mind of Jim Shelton.
It probably had little to do with the real Jim Shelton, but it would do in the meantime, until she re-established their acquaintance, almost nonexistent as it was.
It would do fine. He was the man, the man in the boat-rich, handsome, full of interesting stories about interesting people.
Fascinating.
Jim Shelton became the man in the boat. Again she swam out to him, dripped water from her naked body onto his boat deck, lay in his arms in a bunk below.
Again he talked to her, caressed her and kissed her and said beautiful things.
Did beautiful things....
Unconsciously, her hand drifted down her lithe body. There it lingered, caressingly, as she leaned back with her eyes closed and thought about Jim Shelton.
Jim Shelton, writer.
Her lovely young fingers froze.
Immediately she felt guilty. This was silly, stupid, a little girl kind of thing to do, a thing she hadn't done in quite a while.
But a thing she was doing now.
She couldn't fight it, the air which surrounded her like a warm blanket, the sweet listless lassitude of her body, the slow rising warmth.
Her fingers began again. Toyingly at first, part of her mind laughing at herself, not believing that she was serious.
Then in a more determined, specific manner.
Her legs outstretched, the robe fallen away, her mouth fell open in slack-jawed passionate facial expression.
For once, she wasn't smiling.
Her face looked almost pained in its rising excitement. A small groan escaped from her throat; her body Stiffened spasmodically.
"Ohhh!"
And then she fell back, relaxed. Stupid, silly thing to do!
But, God, she had enjoyed that! In some ways that was almost nicer than having a man. None of the unpleasantness, none of the crude groping....
Annoyed with her thoughts, she got up suddenly and went to the bathroom to take a shower. There were a lot of things she had to do today.
CHAPTER TWO
Pert, pretty and stilt. seventeen, SANDRA HENDRIX had just finished her first year of college at a small private upstate girl's school.
It had been a crashing bore. The idea of going to a girl's school rather than a coeducational college had been her mother's, just as the idea of moving out to a nowhere place like Orangewood had been her mother's.
Her mother was always having ideas like that. If Dad had been able to afford it, she would have sent her daughter to an exclusive finishing school instead of directly to college, but fortunately Daddy dear didn't make quite that much in his job with a small brokerage firm in the city. Her mother had stretched the financial capacities of her spouse to the limit in order to at least make it appear that he made more than he did, but when the issue of sending Sandra to a finishing school came up, he had put his foot down-for the first time in years.
Still, it had been a boring year, a real drag, going to a school thinly patterned after the New England girl's college model but catering to people like her mother who couldn't afford to send them to a real New England women's college. The rules and regulations they forced on the innocent, fun-loving young future snobs made the place seem more like a nunnery, or a cross between a nunnery and a girl's reformatory, than anything Sandy had picture as being college life. She hated it.
She had done very well in her studies, however, being an exceptionally bright girl anyway, and hoping that good grades would earn her a transfer to another, more decent school where a girl's social life wasn't watched over by a bunch of ancient old virginal harpies.
Anyway, it was something to hope for. She had the summer to hassle it out with her mother in. Dad was no problem. She could get anything she wanted from Dad. But mother-mother was just impossible. With her pretentions of being the Elsa Maxwell of lower suburbia, she was more than impossible.
She was a damned idiot.
A pitiful case.
But at least she was out of the house now, and Sandy considered that a mercy. It gave her a chance to sit out on the back patio in her shorts and halter and sunbath without having to listen to her constant nagging chatter.
A real break. Mother was at a DAR or Civic Women's Club or some idiot-thing-or-other breakfast, in her element.
And Sandy was in hers. Lying back on the reclining lounge chair, her eyes closed behind tortoise-shell sunglasses, she could listen to the sounds coming from the FM stereo inside the house while she occupied herself in the way she liked bast.
Doing nothing.
Daydreaming. Making plans, elaborate plans, and then discarding them and making new ones. She hoped to get some kind of a job for the summer, preferably secretarial work in the city, but she hadn't started on that project yet. Anything to get away from dull, draggish Orangewood. But whatever, she was determined that the summer wouldn't be as boring as the school year had been.
Whatever.
She turned over on the almost-tilted-flat lounge chair, onto her stomach, mindful of the fact that too much sun would do damage to her skin. It was very sensitive to sun, being a smooth, creamy white-the curse of all redheads. It would come along and develop a good tan in time, but she had to be careful at first. Her smooth white limbs could feel the sun already.
She reached behind her back and untied the white halter, letting the ends fall aside. It would be nice, she thought, to take off all her clothes, which consisted of only her white shortie shorts anyway, and let the sun do a good job on her. And, a day ago, she would have, because the house next to them had been empty. But now there was someone in it, so her privacy was compromised.
A very interesting someone, it seemed. A male. Married, no doubt, but she hadn't seen hide nor hair of the wile so tar, and Mother, nosy Mother, had already found out from some source or other that he was a writer, renting the place for the summer to work in. She had glimpsed him once, driving a neat little blue sports car, and what she had seen had given rise to a lot of imaginings.
A pity he was married. Just her luck. There wasn't a boy in the street who could vaguely hold her interest, and then this highly eligible looking older male had to move in right smack next to her.
She liked older men. Boys were mostly all pretty stupid; you could predict everything they would say and do on a date, so that by the time they got around to doing it you were no longer interested. Men, on the other hand-and, damnit, especially married men had a smooth allure all of their own. There had been a-a professor at school who had obviously had eyes for her and didn't mind letting her know it; they had come close to having an affair in their casual after class meetings. Now Sandy wondered why they hadn't. He was about forty, a tweedy, mustached Oxford type professor who, though not especially handsome, had a certain aura about him that was definitely attractive.
But somehow they had never gotten beyond eye games and knees touching under a table over coffee. Maybe he was just happily married, she guessed. Or odd. I. ere were a lot of funny guys teaching in girls' schools, and a lot of them were married. Funny how they could also be attractive to a woman. But you never knew.,.
Thinking such thoughts, she almost dozed off when she heard a car come into the driveway on the other side of the bushes separating her house from the one next door.
A sports car. He was returning from wherever be had gone early that morning. Interesting. She never thought of writers as people who got up early in the morning and did things. But then, she had never met any real writers.
It would be damned interesting to do just that, she decided. And, since there wasn't a thing she had to do today-well, why not?
So thinking, she turned and sat up on the lounge chair in the same motion, forgetting completely that she had untied the strings of her halter.
It promptly fell away from her un-brassiered breasts.
And he was standing on the other side of the hedge, looking over at her!
She gasped, clutching at the halter and covering up quickly, her face flaming.
"Excuse me," he said apologetically in a strong, manly voice. "I didn't mean to be a sneak-peep. I was just getting out of the car with these groceries and happened to be looking your way."
"Oh, it was my fault," she blushed, fumbling to get the strapless halter tied in place over her girlishly fullish breasts. "I just forgot-"
"That you had untied it," he chuckled, finishing it for her. There was no embarrassment in his voice at all. "Well, this is a funny way for neighbors to meet, but won't you come over and have coffee?"
She slid off the lounge chair, still not quite able to look him directly in the eye after such a clumsy blunder, wondering if he might not have misinterpreted it.
"I'd like to, but-"
"Fine," he said with assurance. "The house is a mess because my wife's not here yet, but if you can stand it so can I."
Sandy decided she was being foolish, having misgivings in the face of his unaffected friendliness.
"All right," she smiled. "Here, I'll help you carry the groceries in."
It was a short walk around the hedge, and then she was bending over and leaning into the little sports car to lift his other bag of groceries out. Again, she realized she was in an awkward position, and when she straightened she saw that he had been watching her interestedly.
There were times when she absolutely hated herself for being a pale-skinned redhead. You blushed so easily And this was one of those times.
"Why, you're much younger than you looked from over there." he smiled, his eyes twinkling toward her breasts, which now also felt as though they were blushing. "I thought you might be Mrs. Hendrix."
"I'm her daughter, Sandy," she explained quickly, fighting to control her embarrassment. "Mom's gone for the morning and Dad's at the office." She wondered immediately why she had told him such irrelevant facts.
"My name's Jim Shelton," he said. "I'd shake your hand but they seem to be full of groceries at the moment. Let's get in there and dump these things so we can gab a bit."
They went up the back steps of the two-story Cape Cod, she ahead of him, through the screen door and into the kitchen, where they deposited the groceries on the table.
"Have a seat," he said. "And tell me about yourself while I make coffee. It'll have to be instant, I'm afraid. It takes me hours to make the other. I get very fussy when I'm batching it like this."
Sandy found herself talking to him easily, telling him the basic facts of her existence, of her year in college, while he put water on to boil on the electric range and got a jar of instant coffee and some cups down from the pantry. He was of medium height, with sandy brown hair, a strong-jawed face and keen blue eyes. He moved about gracefully in a pair of expensive-looking handcrafted leather moccasins, summer weight smoke gray slacks, and an all-over print batiste wash and wear short-sleeved sports shirt. Clothes that looked quietly expensive, identifying him as a successful, non beat writer.
She found him extremely handsome. His looks' were part of it, but so was the self-assured way he talked and moved about. He seemed to know exactly what to say to put her at ease when she seemed pressed for a conversational ploy.
Then they were sitting across from each other at the tiny table in the breakfast nook, knees almost touching, sipping black coffee.
He took some cigarettes from his pockets and offered her one from the pack. An odd brand, imported probably.
"Thanks," she said as he lit hers with a small platinum initialled lighter. "Is your wife still in the city?"
"No. As a matter-of-fact, she's out on the West Coast right now and won't be here for nearly a month. Visiting her folks. Her mother's practically an invalid, probably won't last long. I'd have gone with her but I've got tons of script to work on and this gives me a good chance to catch up." He laughed. "You never catch up in the writing game, but its a concept you have to stick to. How old are you?"
"Seventeen," she blurted at the unexpected question. "But I'll be eighteen next month."
"We'll have to have a party," he laughed. "I figured you for at least nineteen. You're a very beautitul girl, Sandra."
Again, she felt herself pinking, looking away from his direct gaze. But her embarrassment was mixed with genuine pleasure over the compliment this time. He said it as though it were simply a plain fact, something to be observed, like the nice day or a pretty flowering bush outside the window. She wriggled a little in her chair and her knee touched his. Daringly, she left it that way. His didn't move, either.
But his eyes did. They dropped down from her face several inches and fastened themselves on the out-thrust swellings under her loosely tied halter.
"You also have extremely beautiful breasts," he said in the same tone of voice. "Do you mind my telling you that?"
"No," she heard herself admit.
"Good. Good for you. It's my theory that when a girl has beautiful breasts she should be told so. I feel very fortunate to have been looking in the right direction when you had your little, ah, accident."
"Thank you," she said, incredulous at her own words. His direct approach to things was one she wasn't exactly accustomed to. "Where do you work?" she said, quickly changing the subject.
He chuckled, his clear eyes moving up to her face again. "I'll show you," he said. "And you'll think I'm crazy when I do. I work down in the cellar."
He got up, scraping back his chair, and she found herself doing the same.
She followed him through the house to the stairs leading down into the cellar, her mind racing through a number of thoughts at full speed. Thoughts about her professor up at Horton, about her ideas and the thoughts she had been having just fifteen minutes ago concerning the business of having affairs with older men.
They were just thoughts, she realized now. Daydreams in which she could act perfectly sophisitcated, cool and capable.
Now, she felt like a giddy seventeen-year-old kid. She was scared as hell Of this man. Underneath his quietly urbane manner there seemed to be a lot of other things, things which she knew nothing about and which therefore scared the hell out of her.
Naturally.
On the one hand, she couldn't really believe that she was doing this, following him around like a little dog waiting to be petted, having her breasts discussed over a cup of coffee, playing knee games under the table with a married man she had known less than an hour. On the other hand, there was the possibility that she was being childishly silly for even thinking he had other ideas, or that her suspicions were actually based on her own ideas, the titillating ones she had been having while sunbathing, which she was now ascribing to this perfectly friendly, neighborly man who was no doubt pretty lonely due to the prolonged abscence of his wife.
It was all very confusing.
Bewildered, she followed him down the steps into the cool air of the spotlessly clean but unfinished cellar. The shades were drawn over the small cellar windows near the ceiling, a dim yellowish light filtering through. There were some boxes and cartons stored at one end, a long low backless couch along one wall, and at the other end a desk and chair had been set up. A typewriter sat atop the desk, with neat piles of manuscript on one side and a ream of dean white paper on the other. Next to the desk, from wall to ceiling, there was a bank of readymade metal book shelving, filled to capacity with books.
"This is it," he smiled. "A little moist and dusty, but it's quiet down here so it's a fine place to work. I'm up right into the wee small hours of the morning sometimes, typing away at that blasted contraption."
"What do you write?" she asked enthusiastically, going up to the bookshelves and examining his collection.
"Mostly hack stuff," he said. "Serious stuff too. but under other names I hack out just about anything they'll pay me to do I've written the Great American Novel five times, but it hasn't been published yet, I'm afraid."
"It will be, I'm sure!"
"Thanks," he said, sidling up next to her and touching her arm. "You're a very nice girl, Sandra. If only you were a little older I'd be tempted...."
His hand rubbed gently over her bare upper arm, causing a delicately delicious sensation which seemed to make the tiny hairs on the nape of her slender neck stand on end. She took a deep breath, feeling giddy.
Frightened.
And very excited about the tumble of thoughts going through her mind.
And his hand Big, strong, yet gentle, the back of it covered with curly golden hairs- "I am older," she said, a tremble coming to her voice
"Yes, you are," he said softly. "Much older than seventeen."
And then he turned her easily around and brought her against him with his strong arms, flattening her ripe young breasts against his hard muscled chest.
She gasped, her knees turning to water.
"I mean-"
But that was all she got out. His lips came down on hers, hard, pressing hers back in a slow firm pressure until she could feel the imprint of her own teeth in them.
His mouth moving.
Forcing hers open....
No! she thought.
But it was a thought, not an action. His tongue moved against her parted lips, tasting her mouth, insinuating itself everywhere, choking her, making her pulse beat, like an express train as he bent her slim body backward, his arm locked around her waist and pulling her stomach, breasts, and legs closer against his hard-muscled male body.
She felt as though she was sinking, going out. She had never been kissed like this.
Never.
And then she felt his other arm go behind her knees as he stooped, lifting her easily from her feet.
She seemed to float over to the couch on air.
A leather couch which creaked slightly as he laid her down on it.
God!
It was happening, happening to her, and she couldn't do a thing about it Didn't want to. Couldn't. Wouldn't. God!
He was so smooth, so knowing, so able to fight down any resistance before she could formulate it in her mind even, stroking her legs and kissing her mouth and throat.
Loosening her halter before she realized what he was doing....
"Yes," he breathed; "yes, that's it, that's what I wanted to see Sandra-those fascinating breasts of yours. Lovely breasts, so young and firm and tender and-and so damned big!"
His hands squeezed and drove her crazy. Her fingers insolently pinched and pulled the nipples up to hard knots of desire, twin rose-pink founts of passion which threatened to burst under his careless manipulation.
She groaned.
"Ohhh!"
She groaned again and again, the groans coming closer and closer together as he did things to her breasts that had never been done to them before, with his hands, with his lips, with his teeth.
"Ahh-uhh-ahh-uhh!"
And then, abruptly, he stopped, taking a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it quickly, grinning and blowing a cloud of smoke down at her passion-contorted face.
"What's the matter, Sandra?"
She stumbled for speech. His hands still rested against her knees, hear the cuff of her shorts, kneading the soft muscle gently, casually.
"You-you-oh, damn, you were killing me! Please-" She couldn't go on. Just his gentle motion was keeping her passion up where he had let it.
He frowned. "Want me to stop?"
She shook her head.
"Good. You're not a virgin, are you?"
She shook her head again. She wasn't, but neither had she experienced anything like this. She had lost her virginity two years ago, and since then had had only four experiences with boys.
Not like this.
"Good," he repeated. "We have lots of time then, relax. We both want to be good this first time, don't we?" There was an insolent grin on his face as he said it.
"The-first time?"
"Of course. This is just a practice run, baby. The first lesson, you might say. You'll be coming over a lot, later on. In the wee small hours, remember?"
His voice had assumed a flat, deliberate tone which shocked her to the core of her seventeen-year-old soul. Her immediate panic showed in her own voice.
"My mother's coming back! Let me go!"
"None of that," he said in clipped tones. He glanced at his watch. "You said she'll be gone all morning. It's now ten-five. That gives us about two hours of sheer pleasure, little girl."
Wide-eyed with shock at the change in him, she tried to raise herself from the couch.
He grabbed both her breasts in his hands and squeezed them so hard she screamed, falling back.
Then he was gentle again. "These are thick walls," he purred. "Be sensible now. I want to give you pleasure, not pain. You're a lovely young girl and I want you. Could anything be simpler than that?"
His hand shot under her shorts and again a wave of sensation swept over her, driving away all thought.
She moaned softly as she felt her shorts being pulled down, then off.
She hadn't worn anything underneath. When he kissed her this time, she put her hand over her mouth and screamed.
With pleasure.
Her hands fell automatically to his hair, gripping it with her fingers. She found her senses reeling, the room spinning, everything going crazy as the first volley of passion burst unexpectedly over her. "Ahh I"
"There now," he said soothingly, lifting his head and stroking her. "You see? Has that ever happened to you before?"
"N-no!" she gasped. It was true.
He chuckled. "And we've just begun, haven't we?"
"Yes!"
"Now you just lie here and don't move while I undress, all right, Sandra?"
"Yes."
"That's a good girl. I won't be long."
She stayed stiff and unmoving, watching him as he got up and casually undressed himself in front of her.
The sight of him sent an ache through her. But he turned and walked to the desk to get something out of a drawer there. Then he turned and came to her, ready now.
She was whining softly before he even hit the couch. And then he was at her, and the touch of him made her explode again like a fourth of July bomb.
"Easy," he breathed, leaning over her. "Lots of time, baby; lots of time."
But the room was already spinning again, the world turning round and round at a dizzying pace, blurring her vision and she heard herself laughing and acting crazy as the first rush of passion rushed through her soul.
Again and again. Faster and faster.
And instead of the fourth of July it became Chinese New Years, with chains of firecrackers exploding all over the place.
Three P.M., Monday.
A hot lazy afternoon in the peaceful suburb of Orangewood. Cathy Ewell had just returned from an hour's session at the hairdresser's in town.
She looked stunning in her crown of dark oily waves, an off-the-shoulder thin-strapped powder blue cotton summer dress encasing her handsome figure. The perpetual smile, the one that brought out the dimples, was on her face as she let herself in the house and went directly to the telephone, cradling it in her lap and dialing rapidly as she relaxed in her easy chair.
Her face was shaped by the smile it had worn for years. It was an exact copy of the smile seen from millions of billboards across the country-big, healthy, milk-fed American.
She had no particular reason to be smiling, since nobody was around to see it, so in a sense it was a wasted smile. But it was a habitual smile, a habit ingrained in the very muscles which helped form the features of her plastically pretty face. And also, it could be said that she was smiling at her thoughts.
She had one-upped her friend Penny in the gossip department. And now she was calling her up to consolidate the gain.
The phone rang seven times before Penny deigned to answer. Cathy almost, but not quite, frowned with impatience on the seventh ring. It was much harder for her to make a frown, even when she was feeling one.
But Penny answered, finally anyway, saving Cathy the effort.
"You'll never guess," Cathy said.
"Guess what?" Penny said, tart humor in her voice.
She knew from Cathy's tone that Cathy had something.
"About our author friend."
"Oh. You've got him coming to the clambake?"
"Not yet. I have to work on it, dear. But I mean you'll never guess about his wife."
"They're getting divorced."
"I don't know about that. I mean its a possibility, but the story he's giving out is that she went to California with their child to visit a sick aunt. Come to think of it. that does sound a little bit suspicious . .
"Mmmm, doesn't it! But who is it he's giving this out to, if I may ask?"
"Gert Hendrix's daughter, darling. She talked to him over the back fence this morning. Pushy little brat, that one. Takes after her mother. That's off the record, dearie. Anyway, I met Gert at the beauty parlor this afternoon, and she had the scoop from her daughter at lunch. Says his wife will be gone for the whole summer maybe."
"Divorce. Definitely a divorce."
"Well, just maybe."
"Oh, come on, Cathy."
"Well, yes; it does sound that way. Anyway, it's interesting, don't you think?"
"Very."
"Mmm That's just what I think."
"What else did Gert have to say about our friend?"
"Oh, you know impressions. A very reserved, intellectual type, according to the daughter. Not that she knows much about what else he's like."
"Well, those college girls are pretty wild, you know."
"She's out of her league there. I think she's only sixteen or so. Anyway, it's going to make for a problem, with the barbecue and all."
"I see what you mean. All couples, so he'd feel like an extra wheel or something."
"Yes. We've got to straighten that out right away."
"What's on your feverish little mind, sweetie?"
"Well ... "
"Out with it!"
"Well I was just thinking, Penny. You knew him better than I did in school. I mean I hardly knew him at all! Couldn't you sort of call him up and, uh, break the ice a little?"
There was a silence on the other end of the wire, during which Cathy waited tensely, tapping her fingers in the maple arm of the easy chair.
"All right," Penny said finally. "I'll do it, by damn! But not today. He might get the wrong idea if I called him up the same day we ran into each other."
Cathy giggled. "The wrong idea?"
"Speak for yourself, Priscilla."
"I was just kidding, darling. I mean, we're being silly, talking like this. It's simply that it would be very nice to have a literary friend over to summer parties, isn't it?"
"Mmm," Penny purred. "Very nice indeedy. I'll call him up first thing tomorrow."
"You're beautiful, darling."
"Of course, a little flirting wouldn't do any harm."
"Watch it."
"You watch it, sweets. I told you he had eyes for you"
"Oh, nonsense," Cathy said smiling. "But if it's true, I wish I had your nerve."
"You don't need nerve, baby. You've got all you need."
Cathy giggled loudly. "I mean it. Some of the things you've done, I just wish I had the courage myself."
It doesn't take courage, kid. It takes a husband like Brad the lush!"
"I'm sick of Al too," Cathy said bitterly. "It would serve him right to see me getting attention from somebody who really is something, by damn!"
"Exactly. A little flirting never harmed the female ego. Or the male."
"Umm, flirting. Like you did that week you spent in New York with that Irish bartender?"
"Well, what of it?"
"Nothing I admire you."
"The next time I leave Brad, why don't you go in with me?"
Cathy groaned. "Oh, I'd love to. But-well, it's not that easy with Al. He believes in muddling through no matter how bad things are."
Penny sighed. "Men. They're all the same and they're all different."
Cathy giggled. "Somebody said once, in the dark all cats look the same."
"That's a lie, sister take it from me I"
"Penny! God, you shock me sometimes."
"Hell. I just hope Mr. Shelton shocks you. You need to be shocked, kiddo. A lot is going on in this world that you don't even suspect."
"I'm not actually naive, darling."
"Oh, I didn't mean that. But there are some things you can't get from reading books. Experiences, I mean."
"Touche."
"Don't be so damn sensitive about it We're best friends, aren't we?"
"You bet, Penny!"
"Well, then no secrets, right? Whatever happens with me this summer, I'll tell you, and vice versa okay?"
"Agreed."
"Swellsies. I've got to buzz off now. You caught me right in the middle of bath time again."
"All right. Call me tomorrow, after you've called you-know-who. I'll be sitting on the phone."
"Watch out it doesn't ring. Sweetie!"
"Penny!"
"Sorry, toots. But since we're in on this together now, I'm letting down my hair. This is the real me speaking."
"You're wild. God, I envy you some ways! But I won't keep you any longer. It's going to be a swinging summer though, isn't it?"
"You bet. 'Bye, baby."
""Bye."
Cathy hung up the phone and stretched her legs out, examining them.
Yes, she thought: if things worked out right, it was going to be a real swinging summer.
CHAPTER THREE
James J. Shelton put the first load in his pipe of the morning.
It was Tuesday morning. The coarse grain of his special blend tobacco, kept fresh and soft by an elaborately contrived humidor, a gift of an English girl he had known, felt good to his fingers as he packed it into the bole of his curved-shank age-yellowed meerschaum.
He did a very neat job of it, taking his time. This was a time of morning he enjoyed immensely-the first break from his work routine, the first good taste of pipe tobacco getting in the pores of his tongue.
It was eleven-thirty. He had been typing away since ten that morning, and already he had ten neatly stacked typewritten manuscript pages to show for his effort. This, the feeling of getting work done, gave him a good feeling, a feeling of inward satisfaction that the work itself did not, in particular. It was a quick thing, a bogus unofficial biography of a celebrity who had recently made the headlines with her bedroom exploits. When it was finished, it would go to his agent in Manhattan, who would send it to the paperback firm waiting for it, who in turn would send a check to the agency for two thousand dollars.
Two thou plus royalties.
Not bad. Not bad at all for ten days work. Add to that a day spent in the newspaper and magazine morgue of the New York Public Library and you still got only eleven days labor, which came to just a shade under two hundred bucks a day.
Nice.
Very nice, in fact. It was hack writing, a crude kind of journalism, but there was fun in doing this assignment. Especially since he happened to know the star personally. Especially since he had been one of her bedroom exploits....
That part wouldn't show up in the book, of course. Nor would a lot of other interesting things he happened to know about her. There was no sense getting the paperback outfit, which paid well and paid fast, into a lot of trouble with libel suits.
That would have been very stupid. But he could add enough hint and innuendo to make the thing interesting without telling the whole picturesque truth, and there would be nothing a sharp Hollywood lawyer could get his teeth into. And it would be free publicity for her, also. Her big movie, the one that had been two years in the making, was scheduled to come out coincidentally with his book. It was no coincidence, really. The publishers knew that timing was half the game in paperback sales. Mona wouldn't know he had written it, either. He always used a pen name on jobs like this.
She might guess, however, if she happened to read it. There would be a few clues, things, details he knew that no one else would.
Hell, when you've spent three weekends in Switerland in a secluded ski cottage with a woman, you get to learn a lot of little details. A pity he couldn't use the really interesting ones, involving some of her intimate male friends and their pet perversions.
Or hers.
But that was part of the game, and he wasn't really that interested in her biography anyway. She was esentially a stupid woman who had only interested him in a very physical manner.
She had one hell of a body, as millions of screen viewers already knew. His ready-made audience. They could have a lot of fun guessing how she used that body if they wanted to; his approach was to present her as a person, a shy young girl victimized by an ambitious mother and a greedy industry. Let them have fun guessing the rest if they wanted to.
He lit his pipe with a kitchen match and smoked it slowly, enjoying the burry caress of the tobacco over his tongue and palate. Seated before his desk in Bermuda shorts, I-shirt and sandals, he felt perfectly comfortable in the cool cellar. It was going to be hot as hell out today. He was very pleased with his choice of a place to work for the summer. It was not the kind of place most writers would choose, which fact suited him fine. He was away from the city literary clique while still avoiding the summer resort artsy-craftsy clique.
His own man. That was the way he liked it. Other people, they tried to rob you of what you were, to find things in you that you weren't, and when these people were involved in the same or in a similar field, they could be hellish to put up with. For them, life was a constant competition. They were so horribly afraid of someone's suddenly scoring with a big success....
But this was suburbia, U.S.A. A perfect place for a writer to hide, to go underground.
None better. He missed his wife and daughter, of course, but not seriously, since he knew they would be joining him in a month or so, and there was always the phone hanging on the wall, and with direct dialing he could be in touch with them in a matter of seconds.
He opened the bottom desk drawer and took out a square black-labelled bottle of Old Jack Daniels. Then a glass, pouring himself about two fingers of the brownish liquid, sniffing it, and sipping some.
Perfect.
From next door, he heard the sound of an electric lawnmower humming steadily. A pleasant sound. Sandra, maybe. A pleasant girl, she.
A lovely girl. Redheads were either lovely or horrible, and she was of the first variety. She had been a find, a piece of good fortune adding to his total pleasure in coming out to this strange place. He had known from the moment he had spied her reclining on that chair that he would have to know that honeyed body.
Naturally. One doesn't allow opportunities like that to slide by. He wondered if she were thinking about him now, puttering about the yard in hopes he'd appear over the hedge to ask her over.
He wouldn't, of course. Much as he'd like to. The secret of writing was self-discipline; there was a certain amount of work to do before you played. And besides, it was best to keep her on tenterhooks for awhile.
He had frightened her, he knew. She'd never met anyone like him, and he'd thrown one hell of a scare at her. The sweet little girl had all kinds of talent in her lithe firm body she had never been aware of; he had simply seen what she wanted and given it to her.
An experience. That was what any woman wanted, basically. Each a little different in kind, but basically the same. He had seen that Sandy had been ready, so he had simply done what was natural. Better he than some clumsy clod who didn't know what he was doing. He wanted her again, but not right away. It would be better with the waiting.
Better for her.
And better for him.
The idea of scoring out in middle-class suburbia had intrigued him. It still did, for that matter-but mostly in a clinical sense. He had expected it to be a housewife instead of a seventeen-year-old near-child. So much the sweeter. She had so much to learn, and he had so much to teach her. When she came tapping at his back door at night, it would be time for the next lesson. Not before.
He put her out of his mind then. Finishing his whiskey, he set the glass aside to take upstairs later and rinse, and inserted a clean sheet of bond into the carriage of his typewriter, resting his fingers lightly on the keys until the thread of thought he had been following returned, then began to type.
Half-way down the page, his telephone rang.
The cellar extension phone was on the wall next to his desk. Annoyed at the interruption, he finished typing the sentence he was in the middle of before he reached for the violently ringing instrument.
"Hello?"
"Hello, Jim Shelton-how are you?" a bubbling female voice answered.
"Why, fine, thank you. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"
The voice giggled. "My, how formal we are this morning! Don't you ever remember speaking to me at the market yesterday? This is Penny Worthington."
"Oh. Yes. Good morning, Penny."
"I hope you won't think this is too forward of me Jim. but I'd like to ask you over for a coffee klatch. It was so amazing, running into you and discovering that we're practically neighbors. And I hear you're temporarily a bachelor-is that right?"
Jim frowned for a second, and then a tight grin formed at the corners of his thin mouth.
"Quite true, Penny. Unfortunately, I'm in the middle of something now. How would three-thirty this afternoon be?-If your husband's not home, that is."
A stunned silence followed his remark.
Then. "Well! I certainly didn't mean to imply-"
He cut in on her with a mellow laugh. "What makes you think I did then? Three-thirty okay?"
"Uh-yes "
"Fine. See you then." And he hung up.
Life in the suburbs was going to be more interesting than he'd thought. His brashness had taken her aback, which was good-she'd said yes before she had time to think.
And if she'd said no, what would the purpose of having anything to do with that silly woman be anyway? None at all, of course.
Whistling dryly around the stem of the meerschaum, he went back to work then.
As he expected, the phone rang again a couple of minutes later. This time he turned the ring volume down until it was almost inaudible and let it go on ringing.
After all, he had work to do.
"Sandra!" her mother's voice cut in over the drone of the electric mower.
"Sandra, what are you doing?"
Which was a very inane question if there ever was one, Sandy thought, flipping the power switch.
Obviously she had been cutting the grass. It didn't take an unusual amount of intelligence to figure that out. It was an unusual thing for her to do, but then she was feeling very unusual today, and the sound of the mower in her ears was a lot pleasanter than the sound of her mother in her ears.
But since there wasn't a sound in the world that could defeat the sound of her mother's voice, she resigned herself to the inevitable and left the mower standing mutely in the middle of the back lawn and followed the trail of its rubber extension cord into the house through the screened kitchen door.
Her mother, a prematurely gray-haired, solidly built women with large, low-slung breasts was puttering around the kitchen sink, the sound of dishes being washed in the automatic dishwasher accompanying her move merits.
"What is it, Mother?" Sandra said. She was dressed as the day before, in white shorts and halter.
"What on earth are you doing out there?" her mother said, turning. At thirty-six, she was already going to flab, despite continuous visits to the beauty parlor and slenderizing salon. Gertrude Hendrix had a penchant for sweets and pastry no diet or beauty salon could successfully cope with.
"God, I was mowing the lawn, couldn't you hear?"
"Don't swear at me, Sandra! I expected you to have much better manners than you've displayed so far since you've been home!"
Sandra said nothing, waiting for the rest of it.
"You know that I always have the Collyer boy come over and do the lawn, anyway. I don't want you getting all burned and sweaty for the ladies this afternoon. Since you have to be around the house, you can at least look presentable for the tea."
"I was going to take a shower afterward I"
"Yes, do-and straighten your room up, too. And stop shouting when you speak to me. Really, you've been acting so strangely today I don't know what's happened to you."
Sandra almost felt like telling her, just to see what her face would do.
But she didn't, of course. She simply turned and left the kitchen, going upstairs to her bedroom.
There, she took off her shorts and halter, tossing them on the floor, and lay down on her mussed bed in the nude.
Near the head of her bed a corner window, open and screened, offered a view of the house next door. She laid her head on her soft foam pillow and looked out at it.
His house, she thought, an uncontrollable tremor passing through her ripe young body.
Jim Shelton's house. She couldn't hear a sound coming from it, but she imagined she could. The faint sound of a typewriter, coming up through the thick walls of the cellar to her ears.
Suddenly she reached out for the Venetian blind cord and lowered the blind, closing the slats, and turning her face away from the window.
She focused her attention on the ceiling next. It was white, perfectly blank.
As her mind had been all morning.
It seemed to her that she had lost her ability to think, or for that matter, to act. Her hands slid clown her nude body, cupping her good breasts tenderly, then down over her smooth torso to her legs, testing their white flesh with her hands.
They still hurt.
She still hurt, all over, a dull-throbbing ache that made her constantly aware of her body.
Aware of what he had done to her body.
The louse. Thinking about it, a sudden surge of emotion, locked up for the last twenty hours or so, swept over her.
That was certainly what he was-a rotten louse. He had used her like a toy. He had taken what he wanted and then told her to scram, the way you would tell a little kid who was making too much noise to scramble-as if he hadn't just spent the last two hours making love to her.
I hate him, she thought. I really and truly and honest-to-God hate that man! He made a fool of me and I hate him!
It was the first thinking about it she had done since it had happened. Immediately afterward, she had felt immeasurably full, full of new sensations and awareness which were so real that conscious thought about them was impossible.
Now, she felt empty.
Achingly empty.
As though something, some basic part of her, had been taken away. It had not been like that when she had lot her virginity. Then, it was like in a dream, a sweet and tender romance, part of a romantic novel or movie.
They had both been virgins. She fifteen, he just turned sixteen. Summer at a resort lake, his parents meeting hers at a dance, and becoming vacation-week friends, dancing and dining together, leaving "the kids" to themselves.
His name was Jerry, Jerry Keller, and he had beautiful dark hair and eyes, an almost girlishly beautiful face and physique, and after one dance they had been madly, stupidly in love. A blushing, tender kind of love, neither of them knowing what to do, how to cope with the powerful urges in their young bodies.
They had danced again, the next night and the night after, and during the day they swam together in the lake and learned to water-ski and went for walks in the beautiful Adirondack Mountain woods.
Both of them afraid to risk so much as a prolonged close-mouthed kiss.
Those days of the two-week vacation had been a painfully pleasure-ridden time when each light accidental touch had sent shivers through her, each blundering caress a tense agony of pleasure.
They both know they would never see each other again. That was probably why it had happened. His parents were from the Midwest; they wouldn't be coming East again. So they became more and more daring in their experiments, she knowing it would not get talked about afterward, he excited by the anticipation of his first real conquest.
A summer romance. Undying love, they would write, they would find some way to see each other again.
Naturally.
On their last day together, it had happened. A long walk in the woods, up a winding, lushly overgrown mountain trail, until it seemed as though they were both lost together and would never find the real world again. They spread a blanket below pines, the dry needles underneath making a soft cushion for them, and ate their sandwiches and drank some wine he had daringly stolen from his parents' cottage.
And then, suddenly, they were in each others' arms and kissing and caressing each other in wildly passionate-if fumbling-embraces.
"Touch my breasts! Go ahead, I want you to touch them!"
Half-embarrassed, he had taken down the top of her strapless bathing suit and discovered their twin rosy-tipped perfection, awkwardly grabbed for them and finally worked up the nerve to kiss them.
She could sense his passion, even through his bathing suit.
But he seemed ashamed of himself, embarrassed. It was finally she who had had to take the initiative, squeezing until he fell back on the blanket, moaning.
She got him undressed, and then herself. It was all so innocent, so natural. They just lay together, naked, holding each other in their arms and breathing heavily, sighing, holding their bodies close together.
Until she couldn't stand that any more, and again had to take the initiative.
It was clumsy, awkward, fumbling. He didn't know what to do, knew less than she did, it seemed, but he struggled to her and she took him and helped him and finally he did succeed.
A quick stab of pain. Not as bad as she had expected. In an instant that was gone and they became lovers.
Then, when that was over, they were both embarrassed, unable to look each other in the eye or speak as they straightened themselves up and dressed and walked back down the trail.
That was the end of that. She never saw him again and they never wrote.
Naturally.
They had both lost their virginity together and that was that. She forgot about him a week after returning home with her parents.
She sighed, thinking about this now, and then thinking about the man next door.
Jim Shelton.
How different that had been with him. How terribly, frighteningly different.
And his insolence. Suggesting she come back, sneak out of her bedroom in the middle of the night and come to him like a cheap tramp to her lover.
Damn it, she wanted to!
But that was the worst part of it. She wanted to be like a tramp, the way he made her feel; he was fascinating, an entirely different kind of man from anything she was used to.
But for that very reason, she hated him.
"Never again!" she moaned to herself. "I won't ever go over there again, never never never!"
But if he called on her? If he saw her in town or somewhere or came over one day and gave her that smile and said hello What then?
She turned over and got up from the bed. She wasn't going to think about that, she decided. She was going to take a nice long cool shower, and then she was going to get dressed in something decent and go to town and see about some kind of a job; and she wasn't going to think about him.
She left her room and walked down the hall to the bathroom, climbed into the tub and drew the curtains shut around her.
The cold water shocked her body; she moderated it to luke warm and began soaping up her sire, stiff body, losing herself in the refreshing sensation it gave her.
Afterward, she felt better. Relaxed, almost cheerful. Back in her bedroom, she raised the Venetian blind again and looked out the window.
"Go to hell, Jim Shelton!" she said, and then laughed at the note of uncertainty in her voice.
"Sandra! Are you talking to me?" her mother's voice called up from below.
"No, mother! I'm dressing!" Sandra shouted back, angry at being overheard.
Then she began to dress.
At three-twenty-seven Jim Shelton yanked the last page from his typewriter and laid it atop the pile at his left, which made it now thirty pages thick. He scraped back his chair, stretched, yawned, and then reached in the bottom drawer for Old Jack again.
A quickie, from the neck.
Nice.
He glanced at his watch again and decided to wait five minutes before picking up the phone and calling Penny Worthington. Never keep an appointment on time with a woman, he thought, smiling to himself.
His rule was a simple one, founded on an understanding of women in general and American women in particular.
Basically, they were all masochists. If they showed any interest in you at all, the way to do was charm them first and then treat them like dirt. They loved it. They ate it up. Not as far as their husbands were concerned but then, American women didn't consider their husbands to be men. Didn't want them to be men, in fact, Imagine having love with a man you lived with!
Perfectly unthinkable!
The business of charming Penny Worthington was something he had skipped over. That is, he had charmed her-for about five minutes while they talked at the supermarket yesterday morning.
But if his instinct was right, that was about par for the course for Penny.
Now was the time to deliver the clincher. She had been sitting on her pretty little behind all day, thinking about it and wondering what the hell was happening. That little behind had no doubt grown pretty warm, being sat on all day while she thought about it. So it was now, as writer folk are wont to say, the pregnant moment.
He found her number quickly in the local directory, picked up the phone and dialed just as quickly. She answered on the second ring. Nice.
"Penny, darling," he purred; "I want to see you but my car's developed a flat. Would you come over here?"
"Really, Jim, I don't think I can do that...."
He laughed. "Of course you can. You want to. It's much nicer here, more private-no chance of anyone barging in on us. We can have a drink and then we can-"
"Look, now!"
"-talk, as I was going to say before you so rudely Interrupted me, my dear. Come on now, don't be squarish on me!"
"Well-"
"I'll expect you in, say. five minutes?"
"Well, I-well all right, Jim, if your tire's flat."
"Good."
Jim went upstairs then, to the living room, where he made a couple of drinks, whiskey sours, quickly at the tiny service bar in the corner of the comfortably furnished room.
He glanced outside the window as he heard a car pull up, a green Chevy station wagon. It pulled in right behind his blue Ferrari.
Pity, he thought. Should have moved it.
He walked toward the door, answering it with a drink in one hand.
"Well, hello, Penny-you made it faster than I thought you would. Here, take this-just made it."
The petite, busty blonde was dressed in a lemon-colored strapless cotton summer frock, one which showed a good deal of good cleavage and billowed out about her out-thrust legs. She wore sandals and no stockings. She entered, taking the drink and removing a pair of dark Hollywood-type sunglasses and staring at him.
"You're a liar, Jim Shelton!" she accused. "There's no flat on that car."
He nodded, chuckling. "You're right; there isn't. But it got you over here, didn't it?"
Her lips compressed with feminine anger, but then her pretty face smiled reluctantly.
"That was a dirty trick."
He put his arm around her trim waist and led her to the couch. They sat down with their drinks, his next to her, his knee touching hers.
"You've gotten a lot prettier since college," he said.
"You've changed a lot too. I don't know if I should have come here now."
He raised his eyebrows. "Really? But I think it's perfect."
"Perfect for who?" she countered tartly.
"Why, for both of us." He put his hand heavily on her knee. "You wanted a good loving," he said, squeezing hard, "and I have the time and inclination to give you one."
Her face paled. "Let go; you're hurting me! I'm a married woman, or didn't you hear?"
"You have an amazing pair of boobs," he said, reaching his hand to the top of her dress. She caught his wrist and tried to pull away, but he pushed her easily back against the couch, his hand full, and squeezed even harder.
"Ooh!"
He took the drink from her hand and sat it on the coffee table. He could feel her panic. She tried to get up, but he caught her by her smooth biceps and forced her back in the couch, pinning her down with his weight
"And now," he said huskily, "let's see if you've learned anything from married life."
His hand shot up under her dress, found soft flesh and squeezed. Her moan was muffled by his mouth, forcing itself down hard to hers. She moaned repeatedly in her throat, little strangled sounds like the gurgling up of a stream of passion from her twisting body. Her skirt hiked up to her hips, plump and tanned and springy, and before the probing kiss was over she was minus one pair of silk panties.
"Guh-God!" she stammered when he finally let up; "you don't have to be so rough!"
He grinned, the black sheer panties dangling from his fingers.
"No, not now, do I?"
"You're too damn sure!" she said, her face an angry red as she sat up on the couch, trying to tuck her ample breasts back into the ripped bodice of the now creased and wrinkled dress. "Give me those; I'm leaving!"
"Why? The fun's just beginning, Penny."
"The hell it is. No man treats me like that! You're nothing but a lowdown slob, Jim Shelton!"
He caught, her by the blonde tassel of hair in back and yanked her head back.
"I'm worse than that, baby-and you love it!" Then he slapped her face, hard, stingingly.
"Oh!"
"Now let's quit the funny business and get upstairs in the bedroom," he said, pulling her up from the couch. She was holding her hand to her face, which retained the angry red imprint of his hand, shaking her head slowly.
He dragged her to her feet and she stumbled after him.
Up the stairs, to the master bedroom.
He swung her by the arm so that she flopped down across the bed, and then he turned his back and began undressing.
"This is rape," she said in a hoarse, passion-tinged voice.
"Technically," he nodded. "But then, you'll have a hard time explaining what you're doing here, won't you?"
"You louse!"
"Take the dress off."
She sat up on the bed and began taking the dress off. He finished undressing and came to her. He sat down beside her and began stroking her huge, widespread breasts.
"That's better," he said. "This is what you came for now, isn't it!" He could see her dark red nipples swell to hard knots of excitement.
She nodded.
"Yes. And you knew it, damn you." He cupped her bare buttock and squeezed, massaging.
"This is going to be good, baby."
Her voice shook a trifle. "I-know."
"I'm going to be the best love you ever had."
"I want you now."
"I can wait till you're ready, Penny. I can do lots of things till you're ready."
"No. Now. I'm ready now, damn you."
"Get down on the floor then."
"What?"
"On the floor. Here, in front of me."
She looked at his face imploringly, saw his expression and slid off the bed.
She knelt down on the bedroom rug. His hands reached out and tangled themselves in her hair, drawing her to him slowly but with force.
"You see," he explained, "I have to be ready, too. if you want me to be really good. And this always makes me ready."
She didn't answer.
She couldn't.
He stroked her hair and looked at her, reaching for a cigarette on the tray on the nightstand, picking up a lighter and lighting it with his free hand.
"That's right, Penny. Just take things easy now, no hurry. Yes, yes-that's fine."
She answered him this time.
"Mmuh!" she said.
Which isn't quite a word, but which can be highly conversational, in a certain way. "Speak to me, baby," he said. "Mm. Mmm MMmm!"
He took several drags on the cigarette, then stubbed it out in the ash tray.
"Okay, baby-that's enough."
"Uhh-ohhm!"
"Why don't you sit here? We can talk that way."
"Yes. Whatever you say, Jim."
She sat down with some difficulty, a sharp groan rising from her lips. But she managed.
"There," he said, reaching around and cupping her breasts in each hand. "Now we can talk." The edge of the bed dipped gently as he spoke. "What did you want to tell me about this morning, Penny?"
"The-party. Cathy's-ohl-throwing a-ahl-party this weekend-ooohh!"
"And I'm invited. That's fine. I'll go."
And then he began working faster and faster.
Conversation became a highly superfluous commod [missing text in original hardcopy pocketbook]
CHAPTER FOUR
Friday. There is something especially nice about Friday, the terminal day of the week. For working folk, which includes just about everybody, Friday is the day of transition from work to play. There are, of course, some people who play at work and some who work at play, which is unfortunate but true, because it means they don't really know how to do either. The modern business world has its peculiar kinds of pressures, and often a man finds himself joking and smiling and giving the glad hand to potential buyers all day, so that when the end of the day comes he hardly has a smile left or a fresh joke to crack.
He is absolutely dragged by the business of playing at work.
Very unfortunate.
Sad.
For then he has to throw himself into Friday and Saturday night pleasures with a vengeance, determined to get the last ounce of enjoyment out of them he can. Drinking, golfing, tennis, drinking-he does these things with a desperate air.
He works at play.
Most fortunate.
But then, as Gautama Buddha once said: "Such is the way of life." Which saying just about covers the scene.
It is doubtful, however, that Gautama ever had a man, or men, like Alfred Ewell in mind when he made this famous utterance. Or the kind of world in which Al Ewell lived. But then, perhaps he did, too. Perhaps....
Al Ewell got off work at the accountancy firm he worked for in the city at four-thirty instead of five o'clock on Friday afternoon. This was a nice little feature of his horrible little job. It gave him an extra half hour in which to booze up in the local bar and cocktail lounge on Fifty-third Street.
The bar was an ad exec's and accountant's and various other white-collar type's oasis. It was utilized during lunch breaks to stow away vodka Collinses and screwdrivers and all beverages of high alcoholic content undetectable on the breath, and it was used during that short period between the end of the work day and the time of catching the train for the agonizing ride back to the suburbs, wife, home and child.
Al Ewell was utilizing it now. He was a tall, well-built, crewcut young man of undistinguished feature he was neither handsome nor ugly, and actually looked just about like everybody else, a fact that had helped considerably in his getting the job with the firm. If he had been really handsome or really ugly, he might have been spared all that.
He might have been spared Cathy, he reflected bitterly, hoisting his frame up to the bar and ordering a gin and tonic because now he didn't have to give a damn how his breath smelled or who the hell smelled it.
That would have been a big leap forward, as the Chinese Communists had a habit of putting it. Or was it a great leap? No difference. Downing his gin and looking out of the corners of his eyes at the others like him crowding the bar on either side of him, he wondered if the world were not somehow a conspiracy of Cathy's. Even the ones around him who were laughing and joking didn't look that happy. If they were, what the hell were they doing in this glorified gin mill in the first place, tossing them down like they were going out of style or something?
Good question.
He tossed his down and ordered another, which came promptly from the white-jacketed barman, who was used to the hurried drinking habits of his customers an never lifted an eye at a particularly amazing instance of cocktail chug-a-lugging.
Half way through the second gin and Al began to think about his wife again. That was the trouble-he couldn't stop thinking about her, much as he would like to. After a certain point he could-but at that point he would be much too wiped-out to catch his train.
There was an idea, too. Cathy was having another party tonight, and he was expected to turn up in good shape for it. She was having a party tonight and she was having a party tomorrow and, by God, she might even have decided to have a party Sunday.
Pretty Cathy love her parties, she did.
Tonight it was supposed to be "just a few friends over, the Jones and the Worthingtons and the Brandt's and maybe another couple, the new one down the block." Tomorrow it was a barbecue with about sixty million people, half of whom he didn't even know. And didn't want to. She had been raving all week about this new man in town, Sheldon or Melton or something like that-supposed to be a hotshot writer from the city, a real social conquest for Cathy. Who loved a social conquest better than anything.
"One more." he said to the venerable old bartender, proffering his empty glass. "For the road." The bartender smiled back and took his glass.
Somebody next to him started talking about the Yankees, and for a moment he forgot Cathy, listening in on the conversation and wondering if he should get involved. He might miss his train if he did. The next one didn't go out till an hour later, and then he would hardly have time to get dressed for the dinner party....
Damn. There it was again. The party, the party, always the party. Cathy wearing the most alluring clothes she could find; Cathy getting pinched on the knee in the kitchen by Joe Brandt, who always pinched someone on the knee when he got high, and lately seemed to favor Cathy. He looking the other way or joking about it: "Save a little for me, Joe baby!" or "Don't-a-squeeze unless-a-you wanna buy, mister!" When actually he didn't give that much of a damn if Joe tore her clothes off and loved the hell out of her right there on the kitchen floor. Only Joe wouldn't. Joe didn't have the guts.
Half-way through the third gin and Al began to wonder what would happen if he didn't show up for the party after all.
It was an interesting notion, and he worked on it a bit. It had happened, of course. Once before he had done that, timed to good night-long binge with one of Cathy's socials.
It had been hell afterward. A real tear-down, swear down hell. All that night and the next morning.
He would have left her then. Except for the kid.
That was the real hell of it-the kid. Timmy heard all their arguments and he suffered from them. Al knew this, which was why he gave up arguing and settled down to mild, cutting sarcasms to Cathy, for which he was paid in like.
But Timmy wasn't home tonight. Timmy was with his grandparents upstate.
Somehow this thought cheered him. With the kid away, he didn't have to worry so much about getting bombed out in the city and missing the whole party.
After all, there was the one tomorrow. With luck and the aid of Bromo Seltzer, he might be able to make that one....
Why not?
"Will that be all sir?" the gray-haired bartender said, looking at Al's empty glass.
Al hated that look of understanding. Suddenly he looned at his watch instead of the bartender when he answered.
"I've got time for one more, Arnie," he said. "Could I have one more, light on the gin, eh?"
"Of course, Mr. Ewell," the bartender said soothing, nodding. There was a look of understanding on his face.
Al hated that look of understanding. Suddenly he hated the whole place, everybody around him, including Arnie.
"No, forget it," he said in a tight voice. "Come to think of it, I've had enough." And he turned away from the bar and walked out, leaving a buck and some silver lying on the bar where he had been standing.
It was hot outside the air-conditioned lounge. Al felt himself sweating through his light blue summer-weight wash-and-wear suit, and reached for the knot of his tie and loosened it, unbuttoning the collar behind.
That was better.
Now to find himself a good place to drink.
That gave him most of Manhattan to choose from. He felt guilty after crossing the first street and drawing up to the plate glass window of the next bar, a seedy looking joint apparently inhabited only by Puerto Ricans. For a moment he stood in front of it, wavering in indecision.
But it was a peculiar kind if guilt feeling.
An almost enjoyable one.
If he went in this bar, that would be it. He would be bugging out. If he turned away from it and caught a passing cab, he could still make his train.
He fingered a cigarette from his shirt pocket, stuck it in his mouth and lit it with a book match. Squinting his eyes, he could see through the plate glass window inside the bar. It wasn't a very busy place at this time of day. There were only a few customers along the bar and several in booths lining the other side of the tap room. One customer in particular, sitting alone near the end of the bar, attracted his attention.
A girl. Pretty, he thought, though it was hard to tell, standing in the bright sunlight. A good figure, good breasts hanging out of the low-cut front of her dress and seemingly aimed at him, a narrow waist and broad hips, spread over the seat of the bar stood. And a nice, white-toothed smile.
She was smiling at him.
She saw him looking at her and she looked back at him, her dark-skinned face lighting up with a smile.
A very beautiful smile. Unconsciously he began comparing it with Cathy's. There was a world of difference in the two smiles. The girl's was a come-on smile, slightly teasing, somewhat challenging, but genuinely erotic. Cathy's smile, from lavender painted lips, was also a come-on smile-but a different kind of come-on altogether. "See me-see how lovely I am!" it said. And that was all. The girl's said: "See me? I am good looking, no? I bet you would like to take me to bed with you. yes?"
Yes, he thought.
And went into the bar, heading straight for the girl.
Cathy was furious behind her frozen smile.
It was a quarter after seven; the guests would be arriving in half an hour; her husband wasn't home and hadn't even bothered to call to tell her he'd be late.
A cold anger chilled her spine like a thin coating of ice. This was unforgivable, absolutely unforgivable. The last straw. If he didn't show....
But she knew already, instinctively, that he wouldn't. They had had another furious argument this morning, before he left for work. It had begun over the breakfast table-she had been decent enough to get up and fix his breakfast even though she had had to work that day, taking over for a teacher who called in sick, which meant that she would get home no earlier than three-thirty in the afternoon, and had all the preparations to make for the dinner party. But he hadn't appreciated that little fact; he had seized upon some stupid little thing, a bill she had misplaced and which was a month overdue and had been sent to a collection agency, and the fight had started.
Hell.
Now, at seven-fifteen, she stood in her living room, biting her nails-a habit which she had developed to a refined degree of late-wearing a deep purple off-the-shoulder hostess gown, her hair beautifully done in ringlets which curled around her pretty face, her mouth coated with pale lavender lipstick, eyes mascaraed and darkened with blue shadow-the picture of fresh, buoyant, youthful loveliness, copied from an advertisement in Vogue.
But furious as sin.
Seething.
He couldn't do this to her, damn him! Leave her holding the bag like this, in front of friends who knew them both. Her chin trembled with anger and she felt her eyes blur momentarily with scalding tears. She was barely able to force them back and save her mascara from running, ruining her careful make-up job.
But she did. Resolutely, she marched to the phone, picked up the receiver and dialed Penny's number.
Penny answered after several rings.
"It's me," Cathy said.
"You don't sound very happy about it. What's up, hon?"
"Al. Al's up, the hell!"
"Oh-oh. You mean he hasn't come home?"
"What'll I do, Penny?" her voice quavering, breaking just a bit on the do.
Penny's voice became immediately soothing. "Take it easy, kid-it's not the end of the world, you know."
"But all these people coming over-it's too late to stop them now."
"Don't. Why bother? You can just say he was held up late in the city, had to work or something."
"But-but what if he comes home-drunk?"
"Huh! Listen, sister; if he's out on a bat in the city, he won't be back before your guests leave."
Cathy sat down heavily in the easy chair, a tight little sob escaping her throat.
"God, how I hate him!" she said in a cold, shaking voice. "I hate him, I hate him. I hate-"
"Hey! Knock it off, baby!"
With an effort, Cathy controlled herself.
"I'm sorry, Penny. You must know how I feel."
"I do."
"Yes, you always do. I swear to God, Penny; if we hadn't become such good friends I never would have been able to endure it this long. Honest."
"That's flattering, babikins-but you've got a lot more guts than you think. Why don't you leave him?"
"I-I want to. But-well, I'm just afraid, I guess. And there's Timmy."
"Yeah. Kids! Who wants them?"
"I certainly didn't. I'm too young! Sometimes I think Al did it on purpose. I think he was drunk that night-"
"Well, that's history, hon. Now you've got to face the present. I suggest you make yourself a drink right off. Have you got any tranquillizers?"
"No, do you?"
"Yes, I've got some Libium, wrangled a prescription from Doc Connors finally."
"Is-that good?"
"The best. One pill and you could walk through the middle of a tornado without flinching."
"Oh, Penny! You know I hate to ask you "You don't have to. I'll bring one right over, baby-think I'll have one myself, just for kicks."
"Uh, what about Brad?"
"He's still looking for his cuff links, you know him. He can come over later in the Volks. You wait there, baby-I'll be right over."
"You're an angel."
"With a dirty face. Sit tight, Cathy."
She hung up, and Cathy followed suit, relaxing for the first time.
She was really glad to have a friend like Penny. A girl who knew what it was all about. It was funny, the way they had become friends lately. Back in college, they had been sort of silent enemies-but that was probably because they were both very good looking girls, which meant natural enemies in the dating competition.
But now, in post-college married life, it seemed they were discovering each other for the first time. Cathy secretly envied her friend for some of the wild things she had done, and she guessed that Penny felt like sort of an older sister to her Only a year older in age, but much older in experience. Even in college, she had been a much more daring girl than Cathy had ever been, Cathy had to admit. Cathy had had her fun, but had always been extremely careful who she dated. Only the most acceptable types-steady, well-groomed fraternity types who played sports and were accepted by everyone.
Like Al.
Now, she realized that that may have been a mistake. It had seemed wild then, some of the fraternity blasts she had gone to. But there were other types she had never gotten to know.
Types like Jim Sheldon.
Literati, campus intellectuals-beatniks. They had seemed sloppy and undesirable then. Socialists, unacceptable people who read poetry to each other and beat on bongos and dressed in any old thing they chose to wear.
She regretted not having circulated more.
But that was past. There was still a chance for her to meet interesting people. Jim Shelton was coming to the outdoor barbecue tomorrow, and she was prepared. She had taken ten books from the local lending library, recent popular novels concerning the beat scene, some books of modern poetry, a couple of things from courses she had taken in college and never bothered reading.
She hadn't read any of them in full, but she had searched out paragraphs here and there and had read the flyleafs, so when she got to talk to Jim tomorrow, she would at least appear as though she had read them. And some of them, some of the sections she had read, were really exciting. There was one, for instance, about dope and addiction that had some of the filthiest writing in it she had ever read.
Really wild. It had never occurred to her before that that kind of writing could be considered acceptable, but the book had gotten good reviews in a lot of acceptable places, so it must be a trend, she figured. But some of the descriptions-God, they were really horribly obscene. And very interesting, of course. Literary.
The door chimes rang and Penny bounced in before Cathy could get up to answer.
"How you feeling, kiddo?"
"Horrible," Cathy groaned, a weepiness in her voice. "I feel like I'm falling to pieces."
"Well put yourself together long enough to take one of these," Penny said, holding out to her a small pink capsule. "It's just what the doctor ordered."
Cathy took it, giggling nervously. "It won't make me too high, will it?"
"High enough," Penny grinned. "But not so you can't control it. Just don't drink any alcohol on top. You can fake it when the others come by drinking lemonade or soda or something like that. Orange juice would be good. Who's to know you don't have a slug of vodka m it?"
"You're a dear."
She got up and went to the kitchen to take the pill. An inner excitement teased at her stomach as she palmed the capsule into her mouth and downed it with some water. This reminded, her of that book she had been reading-the one where the man told all about his experiences with various kinds of dope and things like that.
Of course, this was only a tranquilizer and she had taken mild forms of them before, but Libium was supposed to be really potent, from what she had heard, and it was something new-she looked forward to the feeling of relief and relaxation it would give her.
Penny came into the kitchen and sat down on a chair in the breakfast nook.
Penny looked down at her hands a minute, then said: "Oh, he's very smooth, very intellectural. Smokes a pipe and all that."
"I mean, is he-the flirting type? You know, a writer and all-he must be used to meeting lots of women."
"Well, he's hardly a virgin I guess," Penny replied, a secretive smile on her face. "But I wouldn't expect too much right away. Just play it cool, you know."
"Penny! You sound as though I had plans of seducing him or something!"
"Mmm. And what were you just saying about Al, dear?"
Cathy pinked a little. "Okay. One for you. Penny you haven't been doing anything in that direction, have you?"
Penny looked up with an expression of serene innocence.
"Me? Why, what would make you say a thing like that?"
"I did run into him again.. "What happened?"
"Oh, he threw me in the bed and raped me, that's all."
Cathy burst out laughing. .
"Yes! Of course he did just that! Well," she said, smiling puckishly, "I'll just have to stay away from bedrooms tomorrow, won't I, then?"
"Suit yourself. Just don't say I didn't warn you, that's all."
Acting on impulse, Cathy came over and gave her friend a kiss.
"You're such a sweet, making me feel better like this. That pill's sensational-I feel high as a kite already! I mean, controlled, you know. Nothing's going to bother me this evening, as long as you're around."
Penny gave Cathy a playful little pinch on the behind. "Way to talk, baby! Listen, why don't I call him up and see if he'd like to stop over for a drink?"
Cathy gasped. "Really? Do you think he would?"
"He might-if he's not busy working."
"Let's do it then!" Cathy said excitedly, dancing over to the white extension phone attached to the kitchen wall. "I'll dial, you talk."
"Do you have the number?"
"Oh, that's right-my, I'm feeling giddy! You dial then."
"Okay. And you talk."
"Oh, I don't know-"
"Come on now-Al's jilted you for the evening, remember?"
"All right, I'll do it! I feel like I could do anything tonight! Anything at all!"
"Crazy!" Penny laughed, and began dialing Jim Shelton's number.
The Puerto Rican girl's name was Anna.
Anna, like in the song, a jive Samba with guitars, marimbas, etc. And Anna swung. Anna was a song in herself, with wide dark eyes and jet black hair and a pretty oval face that could look evilly sullen or brilliantly smiling. Her big breasts were tucked loosely inside the white blouse of the skirt-dress she was wearing, and as she danced they tumbled around crazily, the dark spots of the nipples showing through, exciting the hell out of him.
Everything about Anna excited Al Ewell. Her tiny, threadbare apartment was exciting as hell, hot and stuffy as it was even with the windows open and nightsounds coming up from the street four stories below.
He was very drunk. They had been to bars, several bars, some bars he couldn't even remember now. He drank warmish beer from a can, sitting on the motheaten sofa while she danced a wild kind of Samba to the music emanating from a cheap, scratchy phonograph. His jacket was off and his tie gone and his shirt open, sweated through in places. He relaxed against the back of the couch, eyes narrowed alternating in focus between her bouncing breasts, narrow waist, wide hips and unbelievable legs. The skirt flew up, exposing lengths of dark-skinned leg with the muscle tone of a professional dancer. She had a woman's body, but she had told him she was only fifteen.
Amazing.
Unbelievable.
And so much better than getting smashed on martinis in his own kitchen while Cathy's guests tittered and dropped obscene innuendoes all over the place.
He was going to love Anna.
This thought kept dancing through his mind, like her twinkling bare feet on the bare floor. It kept him sober enough to know what he was doing, while being drunk enough not to care.
He was going to love the hell out of Anna, stay with her the whole night if he liked, and there was no hurry or rush to get there.
Except for his body. His body was hurrying along despite the relaxed torpor of his mind. His eyes watched her, watched every moving part of her, and sent the message to his body, and his body sent it back to his brain.
"Come here, Anna," he said as the music of the phonograph died down.
She came. Smiling, she came to him and plumped her wide, curvy self down on his lap.
"You are ready for passion," she laughed.
He laughed with her, setting down the beer can on one arm of the sofa. He kissed her cheek, her lips and then her eyes.
"How would you know that?" he laughed.
"Silly-Anna can feel. This is very nice. Some men, when they are drunk they can do nothing! Pigs I They think because a girl tramps now and then she is trash. But you have respect for Anna, no?"
"Much respect," he said, slurring his words a little. His eyes fastened hungrily at her big breasts, straining the material of the white blouse.
Amazing breasts.
She saw him looking, dipped one hand into her bodice-and out came a breast. Softly tanned and dark rosy nippled, a lovely mound of exciting softness.
"You like?" she smiled.
"I like," he grinned, reaching for it. But suddenly she clasped him behind the head and pulled his face to the huge nipple.
He took it, feeling its liveness against his lips, nip ping at it while he held the incredibly soft flesh in his hand.
"Is good," she sighed. "You are my big baby for tonight."
"Uhhh," he grunted, not stopping.
She was not a tall girl, not more than an inch or two over five feet. He caught her under the legs and around her back and lifted her easily, getting up from the couch.
"Oh!" she squealed, laughing. "You are so strong!" He felt strong.
Very strong. He carried her drunkenly out of the living room, weaving slightly, and into the tiny box-like darkened room that was her bedroom.
In it was a bed that was little more than a cot, a chipped dresser, some female clothing scattered around and a couple of orange crates used to mid cosmetics and such articles. A cracked mirror hung from one wall near the foot of the bed. Because of its tilt, the entire bed came into view as they fell sprawling on it.
She began undressing him immediately. It was good. Her graceful little hands flew over him, undoing his shirt, unzipping his clothes, untying his shoes and pulling off his socks. She tickled the soles of his feet and then kissed them, evoking an unbearable surge of excitement in him. When she slid his trousers down, he helped her by raising his hips. And finally, his shorts.
She giggled, looking at his nakedness.
Then she began to undress herself. He watched, tense with excitement now, throbbing with a pulse he had not known in weeks.
Her body was a symphony in olive-tan. Undressed, she looked more the fifteen-year-old girl she claimed to be. Not from any childish physical inadequacy, but be cause of the unmarred freshness of her skin, the radiant nut-brown health. Here, he thought, in the garbage heap of the city, a little flower grows.
As she bent to remove her sandals, the tight curve of her buttocks wriggled at him.
God.
He was hungry for her now, hungry with an all-consuming appetite. But he didn't stir. He sensed somehow a sort of professional pride in her work that would have made abrupt movements on his part an insult. She was just a common garden variety streetwalker, but in her own way unsullied, not yet the cynical, hardened Eighth Avenue hooker.
She wanted to do everything.
So he waited suspensefully, and finally she came to him. First she just leaned over the bed and trailed her fingers lightly over his body, over his face and shoulders and down his arms, under them, down his torso, down the insides of his legs to the soles of his feet, Delicious.
Then back up again.
Next she did the same thing-using her kisses this time. Flicking and playing across him, untapping wells of delicate passion he never knew existed.
Amazing.
Then she dangled her lovely breasts at his waist, letting the nipples brush gently over his skin.
"Aah!" he groaned. The muscles of his body gathered, grew taut and tense with the desire to grab her and take her. But she had him trapped in a delicately woven spell of sensuality, and he feared making the slightest move lest it be broken. With a great effort, he remained still.
"Very good," she whispered, flicking him with her finger again. "You have the control."
"Not much longer," he gasped.
"No," she smiled sweetly. "Not much longer, amigo."
Suddenly her face plunged at him, to his legs. Then he knew a warm sweet desire. "Aah!"
Slowly, little motions of her dark, dark hair.
His back arched spontaneously from the sagging bed as she brought his passion to the bursting point.
Just before that, she stopped.
He sank back, his mind swimming in a red sea of desire, watching her getting on the bed with him.
A warmer sensation took him.
"We go to the races," she breathed, her own excitement obvious now. "I am the worker, darleeng."
He held on to her by her breasts as she began to work.
Again and again.
Faster and faster.
On and on, controlling him like an expert, bringing things to full head and holding there, locking him with an unbelievable rhythm of near-bursting passion.
Suddenly she tensed and he could tell that her own passion was about to burst the dam of her control.
"Ahhh!" she screamed. "Now!"
They made it over the wire together, a photo finish.
That was his most successful day at the races since he had gotten married.
She fell back, beside him, gasping. Their pounding heartbeats seemed to fill the room, the sound of their breathing winding down at last.
"I am good for you, no?" she whispered at last, stroking his chest gently with her bird-like hand.
"Very good " he breathed, a feeling of immeasurable contentment filling him. "Not that good in a long time, honey. How much do I owe you?"
She tensed. "Do not speak of that!" she hissed, pinching him. Then, in a softer tone: "You will stay the night, no?"
"You bet."
"Good. In the morning we can decide about that. Let us not think of money till then."
That was perfectly fine with him.
He was already thinking about other things. Her hand, for instance. It was doing something, something marvelous to him.
An incredibly, he was responding again.
Amazing.
"We try something new this time," she giggled, and reversed herself on the bed.
Al Ewell didn't believe it, but he was ready again.
Even for that. He reached to touch her neat brown buttocks with his hands....
CHAPTER FIVE
Jim Shelton had let his plans be changed for him, which was an unusual event.
He had been planning on a quick trip into the city, to look up some of the Village folk he knew. The perpetual parties there, though hardly new to him, had their enticements.
Naturally.
The Village always had its enticements, if you knew where to go. Not to the tourist-trap bars, with their phony college kid beat contingents and screaming intellectuals. The real Village people seldom left their pads to go anywhere. New York had become almost completely a tourist town in the last fifteen years, and the Village suffered worst. But there were things a tourist would never get to see-things Jim Shelton took as normal, but which would have shocked the girdles off the visiting Women's Book Club on tour from Pawketsville, Illinois.
The inner circle, you might call it. Sometimes the inner circle was more like a daisy chain, but that was just one thing you might see, if you were an "in" person.
Which is the same as being a "way out" person, for that matter.
Jim had been an "in" and a "way out" person. He had gone through the Village grist mill early in his life. He knew what it had to offer and what it didn't, what to look for and where to go to look for it.
But mainly he hated being static. And even in the Village, you could get involved in a round of things, wild kicks and the like, until they became a way of life. And once certain habits and ideas become a way of life, you become a static person.
Jim had been around the world. Europe, Mexico, South America, Hong Kong. He had seen amazing things. He had studied Zen in the Far East and sampled the grass of Mexico and the women of Lima. There were no women anywhere like the women in Lima.
Absolutely nowhere.
But there was one place he had never been. The suburbs.
It was a new thing, a new kind of bag to get into. And Jim Shelton was always interested in new things.
Of course. He was a writer. And writers are always interested in people, aren't they?
They were indeed. So, when Catherine Ewell called him to invite him over for a drink with some friends, he was naturally interested.
Naturally. He made a shift in plans then, and decided to go to the Ewells instead of the city. Less fun, perhaps, but perhaps in its way, a more interesting evening. After all, as he remembered Cathy from college, she was a strikingly pretty girl. Somewhat blank of expression but-well, you didn't have to look at her face. It would be interesting, at least, to see now she had turned out, with the passing of four years.
Very interesting, as a matter-of-fact.
He dressed very carefully, in olive stretch slacks, a dark green batiste print sports shirt, tan ascot and camel cashmere sports jacket. The dinner might be formal, but since they were just inviting him over for a drink later, there was no need for him to come that way. He fixed himself a quick drink, a dash of bourbon over rocks, lit a cigarette and stepped out on the back porch.
It was a nice night. Peaceful. A cool breeze stirring the air, the bourbon warming his stomach. Fireflies were turning on and off like addicts in the shrubbery. Off and on, on and off. Crazy little bugs, "hosing each other around in the dark-for lewd purposes, no doubt.
Glancing up at the house next door, he saw a lighted window. The blinds were drawn, but not all the way. Through the slits of light he could see someone moving around inside. A suggestion of bare flesh, panties, bra ... Sandra, of course. He felt a sweet stirring of desire for her warm young body. But he controlled it immediately, finishing his drink and going back inside. She hadn't yet come to him again. What on earth was she waiting for?
Maybe tonight....
It was a perfect night for making love. Perfect for loving Sandra. But she had a very strong will. She might not come. That would be a shame, a real pity. It would mean he had miscalculated, lost out on one of the tastiest little girls he had come across in a long time.
Laughing at the strength of his own desire, he turned and went back into the house to get an extra pack of cigarettes before he left for the Ewells'. He hated to smoke a pipe anywhere except in the privacy of his home, while working. Somehow, the thought of Sandra had been so appealing he felt that the trip to Cathy Ewell's house was bound to be disappointing.
Just in case, he left the back door unlatched. He locked the front one, went down to his Ferrari in the street, a small trim car with the top down, got in and started it. He liked the sound of the engine once it was running smoothly. The Ferrari had been on extravagance which had just about wiped out his savings for the year, but after all, money was meant to be enjoyed. He never gave it a thought, nor did his wife.
Driving through the darkened streets, he thought about his wife, pictured her and the kid together and wondered what they were doing now. Then the picture faded from his mind as he spied the number of the Ewell home, a small ranch job with a big yard around it. Lights were blazing inside, and he could hear sounds of music and laughter. Female laughter. He wondered if it was Cathy's. Certainly not Penny's. He knew her laughter well by now.
Cathy's lavender hostess gown was short, cut just above the knee-an acceptable style this summer. It's smooth, shiny material clung closely around her good figure, and, made up the way she was, she looked pixieish, like a very hip college coed-more eighteen or nineteen than twenty-four.
Joe Brandt was old enough to be her father, a florid-faced man with a balding head and a paunch, wearing Bermuda shorts and dress shirt and bow tie under a semiformal cut dinner jacket of a pale plaid color. He was old enough to be her father, but in his mind that simply gave him license to sidle up to Cathy, who was leaning over the formica countertop in her kitchen, making drinks with the electric blender.
He gave her a wink, put his hand on her hip and squeezed.
"Oh!" She turned and saw who it was, and smiled, "Don't do that, Joe."
He did it again, laughing.
"I'll tell your wife on you!"
"Go ahead," be rumbled. "If she had a build like yours, I wouldn't do that, and she knows it. But she's drunk anyway. When you gonna leave Al and run off with me, huh, baby?"
"Stop it now," Cathy scolded. "You'll wrinkle my dress." She was in distress at his crude handling of her, but the smile never left her face.
She was relieved by Penny swooping into the kitchen.
"He's here!-Whoops! Oh; hi, Joe. Still sampling the material?"
Joe Brandt removed his hand, reddening just a little.
"Ha-ha; I'd like to, you know."
"I bet you would," Penny said sourly, shaming him into leaving the kitchen. But not before he had given Penny a playful pinch in the same place She swatted at him as he dodged away, balancing his drink in his hand as he went through the door.
"What a disgusting character," Fenny said when he had left
"He's rich, though," Cathy said.
"Not rich. He just makes more money than anyone else in Orangewood. Which gives him a license to pinch us, I suppose!"
"You sound drunk."
"I am. But you better go greet your guest. The great author is here."
"Oh! I didn't think he'd come this late!"
"Well he's here. I talked to him and got a drink in his hands. Now it's your turn, gal. He's been introduced around already, so you don't have to worry about that, either. You should see Etta Jones drooling all over him, the old bag. Go out there before she eats him alive."
"I'm going, I'm going. But I'm nervous as hell."
"So am I. Everybody's so drunk, there's no telling what will happen."
"Go with me."
"Why-want me to hold your hand or something? He's just a man, Cathy-remember that!"
They went out into the living room together, Cathy with a set smile on her face, Penny weaving slightly. Jim Shelton was sitting alone on an arm chair next to the bookcase, looking through the titles. The others had gone outside for the moment, someone having suggested doing the Bossanova out on the patio. He had demurred, saying he would join them after he met the hostess.
He looked up at Cathy as she approached. His keen eyes swept up and down her figure, and finally rested on her face, smiling as he rose.
"Jim Shelton, Cathy Ewell," Penny chirped, blurring her words a bit. "I'm going out with the others hon: join us there after you two've ruined-I mean renewed-old acquaintances 'n all that there stuff." She spun on her heel and looped out of the room then, not wanting to look into Jim Shelton's eyes.
He took Cathy's hand, bowing slightly.
"You've changed," he said quickly. "A lovely girl has become a beautiful woman."
Cathy pinked, smiling nervously. "Why thank you, Jim Shelton! And you-goodness, I hardly know you now! And I've heard so much about your writing, you must have led an exciting life since college days." Her words tumbled out faster than she wanted them too and she had the feeling that perhaps she might be smiling just a little too much. But the Libium kept her from experiencing the panic that threatened to ruin her carefully contrived poise in the face of this suave, successful man.
So different from the Jim Shelton she had known in college. A beatnik then; a sloppily dressed GI Bill veteran who hung around in bars all the time and drank by himself.
This was somebody else. A stranger, a sophisticated little joke, a knowing facial expression. She soon found herself talking with no difficulty...." I just adore Baldwin, you know, and I'm thinking of joining CORE-Etta Jones is in it already, it's such a worthwhile thing, don't you think? I bet you know a lot of Negroes, don't you?"
"I've met a few," he purred, sitting next to her on the couch now. "Your social conscience is admirable, Catherine "
The perfect gentleman, he seemed to compliment her in every way.
"Oh. and I've been reading tons of things. One really never begins to understand things till one leaves college, don't you think?"
"Life is the only teacher."
"But it's hard sometimes. No one to talk to-no one who understands these things, I mean. Al, my husband-all he cares about is golf and poker and stupid things like that, never reads a book. Will you lend me some of yours?"
"I'd be happy to."
"I read something by a writer named, uh. Barrows, I think it was, that impressed me a good deal. About dope and all that. I mean it was pretty sensational stuff, but good, don't you think?"
"Yes. I've met him several times."
"Have you! God, I'd like to meet somebody like that-someone who's been around and seen things, I mean."
"Well, perhaps some day-"
"Can I get you another drink?"
"No; I have to leave in a few minutes, Cathy dear. But not before I have a dance with you "
Flushed with pleasure, she rose from the couch. He took her hand and together they strolled out to the rear where the others were dancing, to Jackie Gleason records now.
She seemed to melt into his arms. He was so smooth, he made her feel awkward. It was hard to believe that this was Jim Shelton, college beatnik.
Impossible.
They danced, nodding and making little jokes to the other couples as they went around, and then they were off by themselves in a dark secluded corner of the ter race.
He clasped her to him suddenly and kissed her lightly on her unsuspecting mouth. "Oh!"
"I'm sorry," he apologized quickly, easing his grip on her. "I guess I didn't know what I was doing. But the night-and you, so lovely and so close. Well," he laughed. "I guess I've had my limit for tonight of alcohol."
"It's all right," she said, trying not to let her voice shake, but failing in that. "I. uh, sort of felt that way, too. Your wife's away till August, isn't she?"
"Yes. A man gets lonely."
Cathy could feel her heart beating like a triphammer, despite the Libium.
"We'd better join the others," she said tremorously, her composure almost shot now.
"Please say good night to them for me," he said, restraining her "I really have to run."
"I'm sorry."
"So am I."
"Well-"
"But I can expect you tomorrow, then?"
"Oh yes, I meant to tell you about that I'm not certain now whether I can make it. I've been sort of goofing off, getting adjusted to this new environment, and I've sot a Monday deadline on the thing I'm doing. It's unforgivable, I know She tried to stifle her disappointment. "No, no: I understand, Jim Shelton! A writer doesn't have it all easy, does he?"
"God, no. Sometimes it can be downright miserable."
"It must. I mean, to just sit there in front of a typewriter and try to think up things-"
He chuckled wryly, giving her arm a little squeeze. "You're very intuitive. I admire intelligence in a woman more than anything. And if it's at all possible. I'll try to drop by. I'd like to meet your husband."
"Yes," she said dully, "my husband. You'll be disappointed there. But do come if you can."
"Goodnight, Catherine."
"Goodnight ... Jim."
His palm slid over hers and then he was gone, off into the darkness between the shadowy pines at the side of the house.
Cathy felt drunk, absolutely giddy, stumbling back onto the patio.
She hadn't been flattered like this in ages.
An hour later, Jim Shelton was sitting out on the screened-in rear porch of his house, lursing a bottle of bourbon. He had changed to a pair of shorts and sandals and was bare-chested, taking in the cool night breeze.
The night seemed to be alive around him, the breeze a cool woman's caress: against his bare skin. He leaned back in the cane chair, propping his feet against the screen ledge, and took a long pull from the square bottle.
Life in the suburbs, he thought.
Interesting. Just the merest glimpse of it tonight, and he could see just about everything.
Cathy Ewell. Poor little lost little Catherine! So this was how she had turned out!
And it was all so predictable. That was what made it interesting-people behaving in ways that were caricatures of what the textbooks said on the subject. The psychologist, the sociologists-they might as well be writing How-To books for suburban living, then!
Cathy Ewell, bored, married housewife, with everything a girl is supposed to need-the automatic dishwasher, the built-in oven, the patio with the automatic barbecue grill, the color TV, the extra car, the house and the garage to hold all those things and more.
Cathy Ewell should have it made, by all the standards girls of college age set for themselves.
But Cathy Ewell had been gypped. Gypped by those very notions that had enabled her to get those things for herself She had married the boob who looked most likely to be able to get them; it had been an ideal college romance, exchanging pins and holding hands in the halls and quads for one, two years-the boob who looked good, but now was nothing more than just a boob to her. Now she wanted the things she had missed.
Excitement. Titillation.
Not necessarily loving even. The suggestion of that, the neat innuendo, sugar-coated with a lot of intellectual frosting, made palatable by the sweet stink of artsy craftsy pandering.
Poor little Cathy was growing up in reverse. Not like Penny, who had gone the other way, become a real nymph who was ready for anything and required only the slightest push to make her fall over backward. Cathy was as beautiful as a toy doll. But toy dolls, realistic as they make them now, still don't come fully equipped. They're made of plastic and they smile and talk and drink, but that's all. Cathy, for all her beauty, had no more allure than a toy doll. Not yet, anyway. She hadn't discovered a thing about loving yet. She had been too busy reading books about that.
The hell with Cathy Ewell. She could go to the blazes.
She could come crawling for him, if she wanted to.
It would take a necrophiliac to succeed with her. And he had no taste for her, way-out as that idea might be. Still, she was damn good looking, and who knew what could happen in a summer?
A lot of things, maybe.
Or maybe nothing.
He stared through the screen again, out into the alive teeming darkness-and suddenly a motion caught his eyes. Something white, moving among the shrubbery separating the two houses.
Jim Shelton didn't believe in ghosts, but for a moment he had a good start. The porch was dark around him, so he was sure he couldn't be seen. He leaned close to the screen, peering out to see what it was that had caught his attention.
The house was completely dark next door. It was half-past midnight, a time when all good suburban folk-the ones who weren't throwing parties or having people over for cocktails-are fast asleep.
But someone was out there, walking around.
He decided to get up and investigate. He did, setting the bottle of bourbon down, opening and closing the screen door silently and padding down the steps in his sandals.
As he approached the dividing hedge, he saw her. Sandra.
The girl next door, walking around in her back yard in the middle of the night, dressed in something that looked like a cross between a woman's negligee and a child's nightgown. A white, loosely flowing cotton frock that came halfway down her knees, hanging straight down from the tips of her breasts and leaving her arms and part of her chest bare. Her red hair was bunched together in back in a sort of loosely contrived ponytail.
She looked very beautiful in the pale starlight. "Hi there'" he called across the hedge softly. She stopped, turned his way, hesitated, then came over.
"Oh, it's you," she said timidly. "I thought you had gone somewhere for the evening."
"I had. You heard me leave, then, but you didn't hear me return."
"I-I was taking a shower. It's so unbearably hot."
"Come on over on the porch and cool off. I'll make you an iced drink."
"No, I don't think I'd better."
"Are your parents home?"
"No. They've been invited out and won't be back till late."
"Okay," he laughed; "if you don't want to come over here, I'll come over there."
"I guess I can't stop you from doing that."
"No, you can't. You can run into the house and bolt the door, but I bet I find a way in."
She sucked in her breath.
"No, I'll come over there," she said quickly.
She came around the hedge into his yard. She looked breathtaking up close. Her eyes stared shyly downward at the dark grass.
"You're going to seduce me again tonight, aren't you," she said, almost matter-of-factly.
"Of course," he nodded "Frankly, I can't wait. But right now I'm getting a hell of a charge out of just looking at you."
"I hate you."
He laughed. "Right now you do. Naturally. You're a stubborn young redhead. But when I start in, you'll love me, and there won't be any more nonsense about waiting all week to come over."
She didn't say anything, but he could hear her breathing quicken. He took her by the arm and led her to a part of the yard shrouded in darkness by low pines. Her flesh seemed to tremble under his hand as she walked beside him.
"How do you feel?" he said, stroking her arm when they stopped.
"Funny. A little dizzy, like before."
"Good. But relax-I'm not going to rape you. You can walk back if you want to."
She didn't say anything.
"See?" he grinned. "You don't want to." And he pulled her to him quickly and kissed her ripe young mouth.
"Why did you wait so long?" he said hoarsely, stroking her back.
"I-I was afraid!"
"Afraid of what? You aren't afraid now, are you?"
"No."
"Never be afraid of something your body enjoys, Sandy. Your body has an intelligence of its own which shouldn't be denied."
"God, I can't stand up! Please...."
"Lie down then. On the grass here. You're trembling like a leaf, darling."
She seemed to collapse down onto the grass. He stood over her a minute, looking down, and then he joined her.
He touched her breast through the material of the nightie. "Oh!"
"Easy. There, now-that's it; relax."
"I can't. I feel all crazy inside, like burning up."
"You're as wild as an oven."
"I wanted to come over all week."
"Maybe it's better you waited. It's going to be good again tonight. Better than last time, even."
Suddenly she threw her face down in his lap, hugging him and sobbing.
"I love you!" she cried.
He stroked her hair soothingly.
"I know. I love you too."
"But-but how can you say that? You-you're a married man!"
"I love you now. I love you every time I see you. There are all kinds of love, Sandra. You're just beginning to learn that. Once you learn it, you'll never be hurt by loving someone."
"It's too complicate...."
"It's extremely simple," he said, lifting her nightie up over her waist and stroking tender flesh. "As simple as one plus one. As old as Adam. Older. Tonight, you're my sweet little forest nymph, and I'm you're satyr."
She giggled suddenly. "That sounds corny."
"It is," he laughed. "But it made you laugh, so there must be some truth in it. There, now-let's take this thing off, it's just in the way."
She moved for him and he lifted the nightie over her head.
Leaving her perfectly naked.
Beautiful....
"I'm going to make love to you." he said, stroking her naked loveliness, "in different ways."
"Ohhh. God! You can do anything you want, Jim! I'll hate myself tomorrow, but tonight, anything."
"You won't hate yourself. You'll get around to blaming me."
"You know a lot about me, don't you!"
"You're a girl. On the verge of being a woman."
"Oh! God, when you touch me-!" He kicked off his sandals and undid his shorts quickly, sliding them down. He touched her. "Oh!"
He touched her face, her breasts, her softly jutting middle, her knees, calves, face, hair, eyes, ears, mouth, throat He touched every part of her, claiming her entire body with his demands. She fell back on the grass, letting him, letting him do things she would have considered vile in the light of day.
But now they were beautiful.
Exquisite.
She had never imagined that giving yourself to a man so completely could be such a wonderful experience; as her consciousness dissolved in rising waves of supersensuous sensation she began to feel like an animal, all pure and simple and fantastically voluptuous, a creature of pure instinct. His mate, his slave, his plaything His.
He owned her, owned her soul and her body, her will and desire, everything, completely. She began to grovel before him, to thrash in the high uncut grass, making animal sounds deep in her throat as he caused repeated stabs of sensation to course over her being.
"Turn over," he gasped. "Turn over; crawl, damn you!" His voice like a whip, lashing her to obedience.
She turned over on all fours.
She laughed, sobbed with pure pleasure as she felt him clasp her with his strong hands.
And then "OH MY GOD!" she screamed. And then was silent, except for the rasp of her breathing as she moved, he forcing her to move on all fours through the grass. An animal doesn't talk. And now she was an animal. And so was he. A bull let loose in a pasture. She had to do everything she could to keep from crying out, screaming her bestial pleasure in howling female cries to the moon.
Again and again.
Hurting her as he hungrily sought the fulfillment of his lust.
Faster and faster.
Until, unable to take any more, she collapsed forward onto the ground and lay still while he finished, a roar and a pounding like surf in a typhoon filling her ears.
The storm rose, crashed, the wave broke over her Peace.
The calm after the storm, the quiet moment when you realize that you are still alive, more alive than ever in fact, for having been through it; when each cell in your body sings out with throbbing life fulfillment. A chorus of crickets screaming in her ears. She lay that way a long time, in a dream state, half-conscious, unconscious of almost everything except her body, her body the only reality, the center of the shadowy fantasy-world that surrounded her.
Lost in it, she never realized she was alone. He had left her and she was alone, alone and naked, lying on the grass in someone else's back yard. Strange....
So utterly strange and fantastic. Slowly, she got to her knees, raised herself and peered about.
The car was her parents'. They were returning, and if she didn't move quickly they would find her like this and Quickly, she grabbed her nightie, and without putting it on jumped up and raced through the yard, around the hedge and through the screen door of her house, making it to the foot of the stairs just as the car ground to a halt in the driveway and the sound of her mother's voice drifted through the windows to her ears.
She raced up the stairs and into her bedroom, surprised she had so much strength left. There, she collapsed on her bed in a sprawl of limbs.
She was suddenly very drowsy. Sleep was a physical thing, touching her mind-sleep at last, after five nights of not being able to sleep at all, hardly.
But before she closed her eyes she leaned toward the screen of her open window. Below, next door, she could see a light burning in the cellar window.
She put her lips to the screen and kissed it.
"Good night," she whispered, and then fell back on her pillow and promptly entered a deep beautiful pit of darkness.
CHAPTER SIX
SATURDAY WAS FIELD DAY AT THE HAPPY HOME of Alfred and Cathy Ewell.
The first event was a contest in silent hatred. Al had a slight edge in this event.
He was hung-over. Terribly, horribly torn-down, in a manner of speaking.
In a manner of speaking, he wasn't really sober yet when he awoke to the sound of the front door slamming. It sounded to him, lying on the living room couch in his rumpled, sweat-smelling Madison Avenue style suit, like the brass cannon in the "1812 Overture" going off next to his ears.
Just a wee. He promptly turned over on the couch and buried his face against a plump breast-like pillow, trying to imagine it was indeed that-a good set of boobs to sleep with. Like Anna's. Since he did not remember taking the train home or anything, it might as well be Anna's breasts. Much better than facing the truth.
The truth being that he didn't have a cent of his paycheck left. Somehow he knew this without even looking in his wallet. Amazing, how he could know this and not know how he had gotten home.
Truly amazing.
He had been very generous with Anna. He remembered that part. But then, she had been generous him, giving everything. So it had seemed quite natural to give her everything.
Of course.
The brass cannon had been shot off by his wife, Cathy, though. Of that he was sure, without even looking. The smell of her expensive perfume filled the room. She had been up and out of the house when he stumbled through the door late that morning, and now she had returned, and now she was standing there looking at him, hands on hips no doubt.
He could see her just as plain as day. Without looking. There was no need to look then. Think of Anna.
Think of Anna's breasts. Much better. Fall back to sleep that way, maybe.
He didn't: though. His wife's silence was more disturbing than if she had started throwing furniture around. He groaned, turned his head on the pillow, propped one eyelid open, and looked at her.
She was standing there, hands on hips, looking at him.
Nice.
At least she wasn't smiling.
That was something. That was a big damned improvement, in fact. She wanted to start it, obviously. The fight. Well, let her start it. He wasn't going to He was going to go back to sleep and dream about Anna, and the hell with fights. They were too damned noisy. If she wanted to shout, let her. He wasn't about to shout back. Hell, he couldn't even work his tongue loose from the roof of his mouth yet.
But she didn't start, She simply stared back into his one open bloodshot eye with a look of hatred so pure it was almost beautiful. And then she turned away and marched into the kitchen.
Where she promptly began making all kinds of noises. Pots and pans noises, dish rattling noises, scraping chair type noises.
Horrible noises.
Damn.
So he had to get up, that was that. His head felt like a tomahawk had been buried into the back of it; he had to go someplace where he could quietly be sick.
The downstairs John. The one in the finished cellar. It would be relatively quiet and cool there. No pots, no pans. And plenty of bromo in the medicine chest. A good bromo would fix him up, and then he could take it from there.
He rolled off the couch, hit the rug on all fours, and began crawling across the living room floor toward the cellar door, He made it. Proud of himself, he pulled himself erect by reaching up for the knob and hoisting himself up along the wall.
Nice. Only his stomach threatened to spill over any minute. Funny how she was taking this, not saying anything. Not like Cathy at all, at all. But maybe Cathy had changed. Maybe Cathy had become a dear little sweet little devoted little wife who understood her husband and sympathized with how much he hated the lousy world he had to compete in every day.
Sure, maybe.
Like hell.
She was running the vacuum cleaner now.
That was an exquisite form of torture, in the condition he was in, that he hadn't been prepared for. Its high whining scream pierced through his head like a buzz saw grinding against metal.
God!
If only there were some way he could kill her immediately; if only he had the strength....
That was it. Go down in the cellar to be sick and take bromo, and then come back up and kill her. Like pound the damned vacuum cleaner at her or something.
Good plan. He got the door open and began lurching down the stairs, gripping the rail carefully so that he didn't pitch down all ten of them at once. He damn near did, but now he had a cause, which gave him more strength. A man ought to be in good shape when he does his wife in. Maybe he ought to go in training for it, lay off smoking and drinking and everything so that he could bring to the task the full powers of his concentration.
Meantime, he had to puke.
He did, all over the bottom step.
That made him feel immediately better. Much better, in fact His head was still splitting, but he had the satisfaction of seeing all that bile-colored vomit all over Cathy's nice clean steps.
Beautiful.
He opened his mouth to call her down to have a look, but then he remembered his resolution-she would have to start it, not him.
Head banging like a boiler factory, he stumbled on to the tiny cellar bathroom in back of the service bar.
He made it just in time.
That made him feel even better, and he sensed that his wife was standing at the head of the stairs now, looking down and listening to him. He grinned to himself, staring at the ungodly face staring back at him from the mirror front of the medicine cabinet, and then he yanked it open and reached for the bromo.
But it wasn't there.
Impossible. He always kept a good supply stashed here; he remembered replenishing it just a day or two ago. Suddenly furious, he slammed the door shut so hard the mirror cracked in two neat pieces.
That was how he lost the first event.
He screamed.
"Where the hell's my damned bromo, Cathy?"
If the first event could be called a contest in silent hatred, the second one could be called a contest in noisy hatred
"I threw it out, I threw it out!" she screamed back, standing halfway down the stairs. "You pig! Look what you've done to my floor! You go out and get sick, you can go some place else and get well, Alfred Ewell!"
"Don't scream at me! I was only asking you a question! What do you mean, threw it out? Are you crazy?" Goo. baby, have a heart-my head's killing me!"
She began to laugh. It wasn't at all a pleasant kind of laughter, despite the fact that she was smiling. It was a very unpleasant kind of laughter-mocking, hysterical, grating to the ears. He began shouting at her, holding his hands over his ears, and she began shouting back; both of them were shouting at the top of their lungs at the same time. He called her worse and worse names, losing control.
She did too, finally. She came the rest of the way down the stairs, arms extended, ready to scratch his eyes out with her curled talons.
She forgot about the bottom step. It was slippery, and she was wearing leather-soled pumps. She skidded; one foot went flying out in one direction, the other in another-she did a neat, skidding split across the smooth vinyl tile floor; a loud scream filled the room as she went over hard on her seat finally, her legs flying out from under her and her body colliding with his nottoo-steady legs.
It was a perfect strike. He went over, pitching forward and falling across her body, and for the moment they found themselves in an embrace that could have been considered intimate in other circumstances. He had his arm thrust under her, locked around her waist, his face pressed into her round buttock and hip, bared by her short skirt flying upward during the fall.
It was the closest that Al Ewell had been to his pretty wife in weeks.
He'd almost forgotten what a pretty shape she had.
Now he was abruptly reminded of that fact as she groaned, stunned by the fall.
"Oh, God-my head; oh-you've killed me!"
"I'm sorry," he began to say, lifting his head and then he realized what a ridiculous statement that was.
He hadn't killed her. He had simply won a round. Won on a fluke, it was true, but won nevertheless. In the position she was in, she was helpless.
Completely.
It was so utterly hard to think of Cathy as being helpless that he began to have a strange sensation.
One of power. Cathy wasn't good in bed. Beautiful as she was, she was never good; love was something she bestowed as a favor, but never herself got lost with. Her finishes were rare, and never coincided with his. Always she withheld herself; to finish after he was through.
Always. When she had one at all, that is. Al had not had a lot of experience with women before marrying her, and it had only lately occurred to him that there were quite a few women who were not that way in bed.
Like Anna, for instance. Anna, a cheap streetwalker, was more honest than his wife. She got pleasure by giving pleasure, if she happened to like the man she was with. Anna was not as beautiful as his wife in some ways, but she was much more honest in others. She hadn't tried to treat him like an overgrown boy, for one thing.
The way Cathy always did.
Now, he felt a sudden stab of lust, looking at his wife's immaculate behind. Suddenly she was not his wife, but just a woman. And suddenly, he was a man. Hungover, half-shot, drained by a night in bed with a highly capable bedroom artist, he was nevertheless fully a man.
Cathy sensed that.
"Let me up, you drunken fool; you damn near killed me!" she groaned horsely, trying to move from him.
"No."
"A!-have you lost your mind? Let me up!"
"No. he repeated, grasping her tighter.
"I hate you! I don't want you! You stinking, filthy thing-don't try to touch me!"
He cupped her smooth round buttock in his hand and squeezed hard. She screamed.
"Oh!"
"You mean like that?"
"Damn you!"
The smooth white flesh of her leg, lightly tanned, intrigued him now. So perfect-could she really be frigid? He caught the muscle in his hand and squeezed.
"Al! Ok damn you, damn you!"
She couldn't even swear properly, he thought disdainfully She couldn't do anything properly.
But she was going to do one thing. She was at least going to go through the motions.
Whether she liked that or not.
Because he wanted to. All the nights he had wanted her. pressed to her, coming over to her bed, and she turning away from him, pretending to be asleep or sick or just telling him to go away-they all came back to him now.
"I want you, Cathy," he said.
"No."
"Yes. And I'm going to have you. Damn it, don't make me beat the hell out of you. You're my wife and I want you."
"Go find some tramp!"
"I did. I slept with one last night. All night. Now I want you."
"You stink, you stink!"
But he already had her panties in his hand, and, giving them a twist and a yank, they ripped easily away.
She fought; but he was stronger. Determined. Stubbornly strong and unmindful of the scratches she gave him with her nails, the digs and bites and pounding with her fists.
He never felt them.
They wrestled together on the floor of their cellar rumpus-room. They raised a hell of a rumpus But with each movement he gained an advantage, and with each advantage he sought another.
Ripping her skirt free.
Her blouse.
Her padded bra.
Undoing his clothes.
Holding her down.
They weren't talking or screaming any more. Only the loud gasps of their breath as their struggle filled the room.
And finally, backed up into a blind corner, he had her where he wanted her. He took her ruthlessly.
She screamed once, her body jerking spastically. And then she was silent. Unmoving. Again and again. She lay prone, unmoving now. Waiting. Enduring.
Her eyes were open, looking into his. But there was no love in them. Only hatred.
A hatred so pure and simple it was inspiring. It inspired the hell out of him. It was the first time she had seemed real to him in ages.
That was something. That was enough.
He threw himself with fierce determination. And after awhile she closed her eyes and clenched her jaws tight, her face turning a shade or two whiter. A steady, unholy whine began in her throat.
She was getting to the end. It might take a long time, but she would get there, damn it: she'd get there. If it took all afternoon, she'd get there. Damn it, she would....
Bradley Worthington had had his first drink at nine-thirty that morning. It was not officially his first, since his wife Penny didn't know about it.
Or maybe she did, but had simply chose to ignore it. He had needed the drink, after getting stoned at Cathy Ewell's the night before, so he had simply gone to the liquor cabinet while his wife went out in the back yard to separate the kids, who were having a screaming fight on the lawn, got a bottle of bourbon and quickly filled his half-empty cup of black coffee with it.
Then he sat down at the breakfast table, dressed in his black terrycloth robe, and sipped. The bourbon and coffee straightened out his stomach and cleared his head. By the time his wife came back into the house, he could manage a weak grin.
"Hi, baby-kids giving you trouble?" he said thickly, his tongue just becoming loose.
"Brad Jr. was trying to pull the kitten's tail off again and Elly was trying to stop him. God, I'll be glad when they're old enough to settle their own fights!"
"They're just kids," he said, trying to laugh it off. He could see that his wife was furious. She had that tight-lipped expression on her face, the one that meant he had to be careful about what he said.
She was so beautiful. Dressed now in a pair of sky blue shorts and a matching blouse, tied together in front so as to expose both a good deal of midriff and a good deal of cleavage, he looked at both of these good deals and wondered how he had ever married such a cute girl.
Or how she could have such a temper.
He felt very guilty this morning. He had done crazy things last night, and now he felt guilty about them and wanted desperately for her to say something which showed she forgave him.
A word, anything....
But she went on puttering around the kitchen as though nothing had happened, in a kind of armed truce between them-a stalemate which he feared breaking by saying the wrong thing. So he sat in his robe and sipped his coffee-and, getting a pleasant glow which covered up the horrible effects of last night.
And thinking.
It hadn't been his fault, really. It had been Etta Jones. She was the one who had asked him to dance with her out on the patio, and naturally, he had been glad to do that. Etta Jones was a very cute little brunette, and she had a good memory for the days when he played first-string fullback at the small college he had attended. Hell, she remembered things he had already forgotten, for God's sake!
And those days hadn't been that long ago, either. Just a few years, in fact. Hell, he was only twenty-nine now.
Still, it seemed ages ago. Ages since he had made that seventy-five yard run to beat big bad Boston U. and damn near made All-American.
Things had been nice then. No sweat. Everybody had liked him, it seemed there wasn't a thing Brad Worthington could do wrong. They laughed at his iokes and bought him drinks, and the girls-he had gotten all the girls a man could want, and more. How the hell could things have turned out the way they did? It just didn't make sense to him.
The future had looked rosy. Marrying Penny, getting the job with the insurance agency after college, people remembering him.
But they didn't seem to remember him that much now. If he had played for a bigger school, he would have made All-American and....
But he hadn't. He was selling insurance, still just an agent, and not doing so hot at that game, to be honest. The first year with the agency had been a ball; they hadn't asked much of him; they had given him the job of glad-handing, playing golf with important clients and greeting people. But that part of it was gone now; his name didn't seem to be worth as much to the agency, which wasn't such a big one anyway when you thought about it, and they expected him to sell more and kept reminding him that he had to "carry his own weight" in little ways. They still kept him on; they still sent him to Rotarian and Kiwanis luncheons, in town, where he made speeches about how sports was the best thing for kids to keep them out of trouble, and then cracked jokes and shook hands and got stone drunk with the others at smokers afterward.
But somehow he sensed he wasn't making it the way he used to, and this depressed him. And when he got depressed, he drank. And when he drank, Penny left him....
His big-boned face looked puffy and white, contrasted to the dark robe, as he sat nursing his coffee. He wore sunglasses to cover up the redness of his eyes and the puffiness of their lids.
At twenty-nine, Brad Worthington, campus athlete, was going to pot physically. Already he had a paunch, and already the bulge of his arms was not entirely due to big sloping muscles. His face looked somehow young-old, with its blond crew-cut hair and slightly sagging jowls. He smoked too much, drank too much, and took too many bromos.
Bradley Worthington was going slowly to hell with himself and wondering how this could be happening to him.
The truth was, he didn't have a clue.
His wife had a clue. His wife had all the clues. But his wife, much as he wanted her to, couldn't give him any of these clues.
Naturally not. To do that, she would have to admit that she had made a big mistake with her life.
She had married Brad.
She could admit this mistake at times, but not to him. She could admit it to the men she went to see in the city or to a close friend like Cathy Ewell. who was somewhat in the same boat. She couldn't admit it to her husband.
To do that would be admitting it to herself too completely. A marriage made in heaven mustn't be allowed to go to hell publically. There were appearances to keep up. At the most, she could show people that she was an unhappily married woman making the big sacrifice by staying with her stupid unsuccessful boob of a husband. Sacrificing herself for the children. If she kept that picture of herself :n her mind, life could be at times almost tolerable. The times when it wasn't enough-well, then she just had to get out of it. Go to the city, to a friend's, anywhere.
Brad would always come crawling back. He had to. Brad didn't have any place to go in life except to her.
She was the only one who had the clue to his failure.
And he was definitely a failure. A failure as a husband a failure as a breadwinner-a failure at so many things, big things and little things which when added up became one thing alone: he was a failure as a man.
Which was why Etta Jones. When he was with a promiscuous woman like Etta Jones, his nagging sense of failure left him temporarily at least. Etta Jones said the right things, got him feeling loose and young again; he could blow cigar smoke in somebody's face and make them laugh at it; he could dance around a patio with her and cop good feels of her boobs and behind with others watching; he could show his private recipe for making martinis-waving a sealed bottle of vermouth over a tumbler of gin-he could do almost anything.
He could get falling-down drunk, for instance. He could end up in Cathy Ewell's bedroom trying to love Etta Jones. Not just trying, either.
That was where Penny had found him. That was what he had been doing last night before she caught him by the ear and dragged him away.
Brad Worthington had been a bad boy, and he knew it. Now he wondered why his wife wasn't punishing him.
Maybe she wouldn't. Maybe she realized he had simply been drunk and gotten a little out of hand. He felt better now, strengthened by the bourbon. He had his nerve back again.
He stretched, yawning widely and looking at his wife.
"Nice day," he said. "Perfect day for the barbecue, huh, Penny?"
Penny glowered at him.
"Aw, come on," he said, attempting a half-hearted grin, a grin that once had looked boyish but now looked jaded, old and tired and not at all convincing. "Let's be friends today, huh? I'm sorry about last night, kiddo; honest!"
"Are you," Penny said coldly, putting away a dish. "You gonna be sore all day?" he said testily. "You embarrassed me."
"Nobody saw."
"I saw."
"I was drunk, baby. Really pie-eyed."
"You drink too much."
"I know," he said sadly, looking commiserately at the floor. "But I'm going to lay off, I swear it!"
"Don't bother." He looked up. "Huh?"
"I said don't bother. If you're going to get drunk, get good and drunk. I hope you get drunk at the barbecue today."
He couldn't figure this. She sounded so serious....
Deadly serious.
He tried to grab her as she went past him, circling her waist and drawing her down to his lap. But she pushed up again, breaking away from him.
"Don't touch me! Go take a shower; I can still smell you!"
"Aw, baby-!"
"Go get ready for the barbecue. You and Al can get drunk together. Or you can go off in the bushes with Etta Jones. I don't care."
"You don't, huh?"
"Of course not. You do the most amusing things when you get drunk. That was really cute."
"Hell, I'd rather do that to you and you know it. Why, just let me-"
"I'm not interested."
"Since when?"
She was flushed with anger.
"Since wouldn't-you-like-to-know, you second-rate rummy!"
"Don't talk to me like that! Who've you been with this time, Penny?"
"A man. A real man. He raped the hell out of me, and you know what? I loved it! I loved every minute of it and I'm going to see him again and ask him if hell have me, and listen, Bradley Worthington, if he says no then I'm going to get down on my hands and knees and beg him to, and if I have to give him a hundred dollars I'll do that, too, even if I have to take it out of the bank-"
White-faced, her husband stood up and slapped her across the face.
"Don't say that!" he howled like a beast in pain. "Don't talk like that, I can't listen!"
She rocked back against the automatic washer, her face livid with hatred, her mouth quivering and white.
A minute of silence passed between them.
"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely, his eyes dropping first. "I-I didn't mean to hit you Penny." His voice was a whine now.
She began laughing, a dangerous kind of laughter.
"You're funny, Brad. Look at you! Look at the flab! Brad Worthington, football hero-the only person he can beat up on now is his wife!"
"Penny, don't-"
"Go ahead, beat me! Show them you've still got it, still got the old stuff, hero!" She grabbed her shirt front and yanked it open, her big breasts spilling out in a naked tumble.
"See? Wouldn't they make nice punching bags, Brad? Why don't you see if you can knock my boobs off, tough-guy!"
His voice cracked. "Bay-bee! Please-"
"You want to know who he was, mister? You want to know who gave me the best loving I've had in five years? You want to know the name of the guy who made me do things for him I wouldn't think of doing for you?"
A strangled sound came from his throat. He didn't want to hear, didn't want to hear any of this. If only she'd shut up, shut up; the kids outside, listening; the neighbors "His name is Shelton, sweetheart; Jim Shelton!"
"I'll kill him! That rat-I'll rip him apart!" Penny clutched at her stomach, convulsing with laughter.
"You? You couldn't harm a fly! You couldn't stay sober long enough to!"
"That rat, I'll kill him," he kept repeating, numb, staring stupidly toward the window.
She tied her shirt together again.
"I'm going out now. You watch the kids. And be ready for the Ewell's when I get back."
"Where are you going?"
"I don't know. Just out. I've got to get out of this house for awhile."
"Penny baby, don't-"
But she was already gone; he was talking to an empty doorway. He heard her in the garage, then the sound of the Chevvy station wagon starting up and then backing out of the drive with a screech of tires against macadam.
"Penny," he groaned, taking a step forward. Suddenly his legs seemed to melt under him. His knees turned to water and he sank to the floor, clutching his middle.
Jim Shelton.
She had never done this to him before. She had never told aim the name. Somehow he could like to himself before, as long as he didn't know the name.
He could pretend it wasn't true, something she had made up to hurt him, punish him for the way he acted.
Jim Shelton.
The name kept going around and around in his mind, like the music of a merry-go-round. Blazing, burning images tortured his brain as he closed his eyes, bending forward until his forehead touched the cool tile kitchen floor.
Images of Penny, naked, crawling up to him. Doing things with him. Wild, crazy things.
She could be going to him now, in fact. Two hours till the barbecue; she could be going to his house now to carry out her threat, to do those very things he had been thinking of.
He couldn't stand it, couldn't stand the torture. He heard his daughter, crying outside, her whines coming through the open kitchen window, but the sound had no meaning to him.
He had to stop her. He had to get hold of himself, get up and get dressed and stop her from doing that.
Had to.
He could do it. Shelton was a pervert. Hell, he could break a man like that in two in the old days ... The old days.
Why wasn't he doing it then? Why wasn't he getting up and doing it?
He couldn't understand. He wanted to. He could imagine himself doing it, holding the rat by the throat and pounding his cute face to a pulp, smashing those girlish features till his big fist was bloody and the face under it no longer recognizable as a human being.
Slowly, hand-over-hand up the wall, he dragged himself to his feet.
Lurching, he went through the kitchen archway into the dining room.
He made it as far as the whiskey cabinet. There, he jerked open the door and found the bottle of bourbon he had used once already this morning. He grabbed it by the throat, squeezing the life out of it.
But there was no life in it.
He carried it that way to the divan, where he fell heavily down into its soft foam cushions and tilted the bottle up to his mouth.
The fiery amber liquid sloshed into his mouth, down over his chin and robe.
Then he buried his face in the cushion and began sobbing.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Blue Monday. A true blue Monday morning this time. Cathy Ewell had been able to get through the weekend only with the aid of a couple more Libium caps, borrowed from Penny. It had been a horrible weekend. A mess.
She didn't even want to think about it, but it was hard not to. The school hadn't called, which meant she was free. And she didn't want to be free. She wanted more than anything to be occupied. But the school was in summer session now, and only a dire emergency required the services of a substitute teacher. She would be lucky to get anything at all from here on in, so she could no longer count on that form of activity to keep her mind off the utter hopelessness which lurked at every turn in the process of her conscious thinking.
Not to think-that would be the answer to everything. Only even on Libium you couldn't avoid thinking completely, and she had no more of that either. And she was embarrassed to keep asking Penny for some of hers. She knew it was very expensive stuff.
The weekend had gone wrong starting with Friday night. But looking back, Friday night had been heaven compared to what had followed.
Sheer heaven.
Meeting Jim Shelton, talking with him and dancing with him ... It had been a beautiful experience. But then the next morning and her husband A cold anger tightened her solar plexus when she thought about that. A sense of stinging, burning indignation which fed the fires of her hatred.
She had to do something now. He had abused her that way, treated her like a common tramp, forced himself on her when she didn't want to and made her That was the horrible part of it. Against her will, with his swinish athleticism, his exhibitionistic display of the cheap lore he had learned sleeping with some seedy tramp or other in the city, he had made her body fulfill against her wishes. She would never forget that. Never forgive.
She had been ready to kill herself that morning, to go into the bathroom and cut her wrists with a razor blade. If it hadn't been for the barbecue ... The shame of it! She hadn't spoken to her husband once all that agonizing afternoon, and certainly the guests must have noticed. God!
And then, Jim Shelton hadn't even shown up, a fact which further embarrassed her. She hadn't been able to help letting it slip that the famous writer was coming to her cook-out, and then he hadn't come after all. Which was pretty damn well unforgivable, in her estimation. But at least he had phoned. At least he was a gentleman, a man with tact and manners. He had talked with her on the phone for several minutes, expressing the desire to see her again and apologizing for not being able to come that day.
And after that, everything had gone wrong. Naturally.
Al burned the chicken and filled the yard with smoke; Brad Worthington arrived drunk and tried to get in a fight with several male guests; Penny had been unusually silent and unconsoling-but she obviously had her own troubles, poor dear, so Cathy could forgive her for that.
But it had all been awful.
Just terrible.
And when it was over, she hadn't been able to face the thought of spending a minute alone in the house with Al. Evidently he had the same idea, because he took off for upstate after that to get Timmy.
He hadn't come back yet. He had phoned from up there, saying he was taking the day off and would be back with Timmy late tonight. That was a mercy, at least.
She didn't care if he never came back. She had simply told him to do as he liked, and then hung up the phone on him. And he hadn't called back, either.
Good.
Fine.
Maybe he'd wreck the car and be killed-oh no, God! she didn't, she couldn't wish that on little Timmy, but just the same, if it was only Al She broke off that line of thought abruptly, feeling she was losing her grip.
She had to do something today, something decisive-that was all there was to it. There had to be an understanding. Things couldn't go on the way they were.
She decided to call Penny.
Of course.
The conversation was very short: "Can I come over?"
"Please do. I'm feeling that way myself."
"I'll be right over then."
Cathy dressed quickly after that, in a short-skirted beige summer dress and a pair of sandals. She hardly bothered to make up her face for once.
It took her about three minutes to drive over to Penny's split-level ranch home. Penny hadn't been up when she phoned, but Cathy walked right in anyway, the front door being open. Not finding her friend downstairs, she went upstairs to where the bedrooms were.
Penny was still in bed. She was smoking her morning cigarette, a thin sheet wrapped around her naked body, and looked pleased to see Cathy.
"Hi-heard you drive up, but didn't bother to climb out of the sack. I just don't have it today, baby."
"Neither do I," Cathy said, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking a cigarette herself from the pack on the nightstand. She seldom smoked, but now she felt she needed something. Penny reached for a match and lit it for her, sitting up. The sheet fell away from her breasts as she did. Penny didn't bother to cover them up in front of her friend, and their twin white loveliness dangled close to Cathy as she leaned forward to accept the light. For some reason, this embarrassed her and she tried to look away.
"Thanks," she said quickly. "God, this weekend was hell, Penny."
Penny nodded, staring into Cathy's eyes.
"I know, baby. Everything went wrong, didn't it?"
"You don't know the half," Cathy said, puffing nervously and finding her voice difficult to control for once. A great wave of self-pity seemed to be rising up in her, threatening to engulf and drown her.
"You don't know what Al did," she said in a low, quavering voice.
Penny leaned forward, hugging her breasts against her knees. Their ripe circumferences flattened out slightly, the smooth flesh bulging prettily at the sides.
She cocked an eyebrow at her friend. "Al? It's pretty obvious what he did, isn't it? He had a nice little toot for himself Friday night. And was beautifully hungover for the barbecue Saturday. His eyes looked like road maps."
Cathy made a distasteful face.
"Even that I could have stood," she said, her voice quavering, "If he hadn't-" She stopped there.
Penny reached out and stroked her hand.
"Take it easy, babe. I wish I had something to offer you, but I'm all out of Libs. What else did he do, honey?"
"He-I can't talk about it."
"Not even to me?"
"Well-"
"I think you ought to, doll. You're in bad shape the worst I've seen you in. I could give you the name of a good doctor if you want, but he's expensive. And I think you ought to get it off your chest right now, before you crack." She stroked Cathy's arm as she talked, tenderly caressing with her hand.
Cathy's shoulders seemed to slump forward, her body to go limp all at once.
"Do you mind if I lie down with you?"
"Of course not. Here, I'll move over." She made room for Cathy, who stretched out next to her on the bed, her head next to Penny's, putting the back of her hand against her forehead and smoking a while before resuming the conversation.
"He was disgusting. Rotten, awful. I've never been so humiliated as I was when he came home that Saturday morning."
"That bad, huh?"
"Worse. I wasn't home when he came in. He was lying on the living room sofa when I got back from shopping-the room smelled like a cheap gin mill. Or a "house." Both I guess. His suit was a shambles, his tie missing ... Do you know where he had been all night, Penny?"
Penny let the sheet fall from her body as she turned over, propping herself on an elbow to watch Cathy's face as she spoke.
"I can guess," she said.
"He was with a streetwalker. A cheap tramp from the city streets or something like that! All night with her, and getting rotten drunk, while he was at It I"
"Men," Penny said through her teeth.
"And-and he had the nerve to tell me all about it, go into descriptions practically-"
"The louse!"
"And then he-" Here her voice broke completely off into a stifled sob. She held her hand over her mouth, tears coming to her limpid eyes. But Penny took her hand away, took it in hers and kissed the palm.
"There, there. If you don't want to talk about it, don't."
"And then he raped met" Cathy said, spitting the words out. "On the cellar floor. He threw up all over the place and started screaming his head off and when I came down to see what was the matter he-he grabbed me and threw me down, treated me like his tramp or something. It was disgusting, disgusting!"
Her voice broke off into sobs again, and this time Penny put her arms around her and cradled Cathy against her soft body.
"Baby, baby, you're trembling like a leaf! Here, here-don't. Relax, honey; Penny's going to make you feel good."
"I'll never, never again; I swear! If he ever touches me again I'll-I'll kill myself!" Her voice was high-pitched, near hysteria. Penny stroked her and kissed her soothingly.
"Take off your clothes, darling," she said suddenly. "What?"
"Your clothes-take them off, Cathy. I'll help you."
"But-but why?"
"Because you'll feel better. You've had a bad experience. Now take off your clothes and do what I say and you'll feel a lot better-you'll see."
Cathy had no will to resist, and soon found herself accepting the advice. Penny helped her. There was only the dress and the padded bra and panties underneath. They came off easily.
Penny switched on the air-conditioning unit in the window while Cathy lay back on the bed, quite nude now, and soon a cool, artificially created breeze was playing over her body. She closed her eyes and began to relax a little.
Yes, this was better, she thought.
Much better. It was so hot and sticky outside; now she felt deliciously cool, deliriously naked, and completely unself-conscious of her nudity in Penny's similarly unclad presence.
And when Penny began stroking her, touching her lightly over her handsome, supple-limbed body, that seemed so quiet and restful, the quiet drone of the air conditioning.
"We're all alone," Penny said, nuzzling against Cathy's small firm breast. "I dumped the kids at the sitter's today, so we can lie here all morning with no one to disturb us. Isn't this pleasant?"
"Mmm," Cathy nodded, her eyes half-closed.
"Men are horrible," Penny whispered, and then leaned over, her breasts meeting Cathy's, and kissed Cathy tenderly on the lips.
Cathy's eyes popped open suddenly. Not from shock or distaste-she had felt Penny's lips against hers, the warm moist lingering contact of them, and without thinking about it, she had enjoyed the experience.
That was what surprised her-her own enjoyment. "Penny!" she gasped. Penny smiled secretively. "You liked that, didn't you darling?"
"Yes, but-but-"
"But that scared you?"
"Yes, that's it! You really gave me a start."
"You're relaxing, though, feeling good for a change."
"Oh, yes!"
"Then let's try again, baby-as they say in the song: 'Just one more time.' "
"But isn't that what-Lesbians do?"
"Of course. Haven't you ever had an experience like this?"
"No, never. Well, maybe once, in college-but I was just kidding, seeing what that was like."
"I'm not kidding," Penny said, dipping her face to Cathy's suddenly and covering her lips with hers. A long, lingering kiss. Cathy tried to resist at first, her body arching, but then she relaxed.
Found herself enjoying that; the contact of bodies, breasts against breasts, lips to lips, hands brushing over her lush body....
Incredible.
She didn't believe this was happening to her, that Penny was doing these things.
Suddenly that was funny. She found herself giggling.
"Penny, we're acting just like a couple of-"
Penny giggled back. "Go ahead; say it hon! We're a couple of little old Lezzies, Village style, cuddling in bed on a Monday morning! How's that for a break in the suburban routine?"
"You make it sound like-fun!"
"Well isn't it?"
"Yes! This sounds so awful when you read about it, but-but God. at least it's something different!"
"That's the way! Now stop talking and let me show you how to have fun. Just don't think about any thing, hon, and you'll discover there's more than one way."
"All right."
Penny began kissing her in earnest then. Kissing her breasts.
Making her nipples tingle and turn to hard brown nodes of excitement. That was good.
Not like with a man, all tension and clumsy handling.
This was tender, sweet; a slow sweet welling of desire gradually weaving throughout her entire body.
Penny kissed her middle next, while her hands softly stroked Cathy's legs.
Softly, tenderly The fingers reaching ever forward.
"Ohh," Cathy sighed.
A small, delicate, full-lipped mouth trailing tingly kisses across her waist. Kissing her.
This was just a game, at first That was the way things had seemed to Cathy-an interesting little game, a kind of wild, forbidden game. Like a children's game that starts innocently, doctor and nurse: something like that. And develops from that point into something quite different.
Only in this case, it was nurse and nurse.
"Penny!" Cathy gasped suddenly, realizing how excited she had become. "I don't think we ought to go this far!"
But Penny didn't hear her.
Penny couldn't. Not where she was.
"Penny!"
"Mmuh!"
"Penny-oh! Oh! Oh, oh, oh, oh!"
And then she was beyond the point of stopping. God.
Not possible.
But happening! Cathy's hips began to work convulsively, as desire built in undetectably increasing waves.
Higher and higher.
Sweeping over her, drowning conscious thought. And suddenly, she found herself gripping Penny's body.
Holding on for dear life. Soft ripe mounds filled her clenched hands as Penny swung around.
And suddenly she was kissing Penny, returning her caress in kind.
Wild.
So beautiful, so tender and warm and beautiful, not like a man; so beautiful So good.
Time became lost to them then as they explored and experimented, sought all the secrets. Locked in this strange embrace, they let desire loose itself and course over them like a stream being swelled by spring rain.
Larger and larger.
And then the roiled waters poured in a rush that burst the dam of inhibition. Completely.
Their twin muffled groans filled the room at almost the same instant.
Sandra Hendrix had taken great pains about her appearance this Monday morning.
It was her first day of work at a new job. She had gotten the job quickly-unexpectedly, in fact. The phone had rung at nine o'clock that morning; she had answered it, and by the time she had finished talking she had accepted a part-time job for the summer. As simple as that.
It had been a nice surprise. She laughed at herself now. sitting in front of her mirror and adding the finishing touches to her make-up Her mirror told her that she looked very fresh, very charming and efficient the way a secretary should look. Her deep red hair was done in a handsome upsweep that exposed her delicately formed ears and gave her a much more mature look than the careless pony tail she had been using before. Her high-arched brows were accentuated by just the right amount of pencil; the long lashes of her clear gray eyes were darkened with mascara and her lips were a sort of plum-red, a new color she had tried out and found quite complementary to her creamy complexion.
She wore a white print summer dress with thick over-the-shoulder straps and a low bodice. Her cleavage was remarkably visible, giving the innocent-looking summer frock a good dash of spice. It clung to her tightly elsewhere, down to the waist, where it billowed out again into a full skirt.
There was no bra under the bodice. She had put one on and then decided against it.
No sense giving a false impression to her employer the first day of work. Her new employer would appreciate the fact of her braless appearance, and a girl always had to put her best points forward at work, didn't she?
Of course she did. Thus, no bra.
As for panties, she had decided on a pair of white sheer bikini briefs. After all, it was a very warm day. She wanted to look cool and poised and efficient.
She did. She also looked extremely desirable. She wore no stockings on her smooth-shaven legs, and her feet were clad in a pair of new sandals which allowed her white painted toenails to be seen.
Nice. A very nice touch, she decided. The white matched her outfit, and since she had small, nicely turned feet, the sandals gave her an added advantage.
As for jewelry, all she wore was a plain platinum slave-bracelet around one slim wrist. No sense wearing a lot of junk. It simply made you look gaudy. And first impressions were so important....
She laughed again at the little game she was playing with herself. Then she added a dab of perfume behind each ear and one more to the white valley showing above the bodice of her dress, and decided she was ready to go to work.
Perfect.
Very neat, very cool, very lovely. Her employer would no doubt fall in love with her immediately. But it was time to go now. She had promised to be there by ten-thirty. She got up, taking her little white makeup purse and a clipboard with a white lined tablet with her, feeling very much like a working girl already.
Her sandaled feet seemed to fly down the front stairs to the walk; even the oppressively humid heat that had set in didn't dampen her spirits as she made the short walk to work.
It was a very short walk. That was a nice feature of her new job; no buses or trains to sit on for an hour or more.
Beautiful.
She turned up another walk of tinted flagstones, bearing herself erectly, breasts out-thrust, hips swinging with a very womanly action. She was conscious of the fact that her new employer might be waiting for her, watching her approach. So she walked slowly, giving this simple exercise her all. Which, naturally happened to be plenty.
She was right. Her employer was waiting for her. He opened the front door before she even had a chance to press the chimes bell.
"Is it really you?" Jim Shelton said, looking at her with wide-eyed interest.
He was standing in his doorway, dressed in tan Bermuda shorts, a pair of old weather-beaten moccasins, and a white sports shirt, opened three buttons down, exposing the golden-red mat of hair on his chest.
Jim Shelton, her new employer.
She gave him a slow, calculated smile, turning slightly to let him see her full outfit.
"Do I look secretary-like?" she said.
"I won't answer that," he grinned. "But come in off the street before the neighbors see you. I thought you'd used the back door."
"Not on the first day of work," she said, entering. "I have to make a good first impression."
He cleared his throat as he closed the door. "That kind of impression is too good. I was thinking about doing some work today."
"Of course. And you want me to re-type some first drafts of manuscripts while you work, right? Let's get down in the cellar and begin then. I feel very efficient today, Mr. Shelton."
He rubbed his jaw, still staring at her.
"So do I," he grinned. "Extremely efficient, now that you mention it."
She pinked a little under his hard stare. "Do you?" she said in a low, throaty voice.
"Uh-huh. Too efficient, in fact. I can see right away that I'm going to have to make a rule when you work here. I work in the basement, you work up here."
"You don't have much trust in your powers of concentration, do you?"
"None at all, when you're around. Uh, are you good on typing too?"
"Excellent. Try me."
"Man, wouldn't I like to!"
"Are we talking about the same thing?"
"No."
"Well, I'm ready to work then."
"Either way?"
"Either way."
"What is your mother going to say about you taking this kind of job?"
"She'll pretend to be horrified at first. Then she'll think it's very nice, because she gets to invite a famous writer to one of her boring cocktail parties."
"Okay, little lady-you're hired. I'll show you what I want done, and then I don't want to see you for two hours."
"Two hours? What happens then?"
"Break time. That comes with the job."
"Good. I love coffee breaks."
He moved close to her and closed his hand over her round soft hip.
Staring down into her eyes, he said, "You'll love these, Sandra."
"Will I Mr. Shelton?" she said, feeling her knees weaken.
"You know damn well you will." His hand gave her a good squeeze. "We're going to go through every page in the book together, kitten. And add a few."
"I think you must have written the book."
"A few chapters." His hand moved around the curve of her buttock, squeezing that. Then, in a low hoarse voice he said: "Now get set up in there, and I'll try not to think about the beautiful loving I'm going to give you in two hours."
Then he walked away from her Standing there in the living room, she felt the familiar dizzy sensation come over her again.
Such a lovely feeling....
But she collected herself after a minute, and was able to find the desk and the electric typewriter in the next room. She sat down, fiddling with the keys and the touch control, forcing herself to concentrate on these little things until the tingling throb in her stomach subsided.
Then at long last, she was able to think about working.
She had every intention to make good on this job in every way.
They took a shower together afterward, and after that they had tea downstairs in the breakfast nook.
Cathy felt extremely self-conscious all of a sudden.
Naturally She had just been had. She had just spent an hour and ten minutes orbiting around the world with another astronaut-female type.
She had just been loved, in other words, by a woman.
And now, she was confused. Not that she hadn't liked that. She had, a whole lot. She had gotten a great bang out of that, and then another one. Two of the biggest bangs she had had in a long time. Ever, maybe. She had never finished so easily before.
This fact confused her. She wanted to talk about it to Penny now, but she felt self-conscious, a little unreal and giddy. The feeling had set in gradually, since dressing and coming downstairs. Having tea in Penny's kitchen-it was all so normal; how could they have done the things they had done an hour earlier? Even in the shower. Penny stroking her and washing her body with her sweet little, gentle little hands, she had been fairly unabashed. It had been a long, pleasant shower. A wonderful shower. She had felt very clean afterward, the way Penny had soaped her and washed her. Very.
But now, fully dressed and sipping tea and nibbling on a crumpet in the kitchen, she felt self-conscious. She found it hard to look her friend in the eyes.
"Penny-" she began, and then stopped.
Penny was dressed too, now, in a pair of navy colored shorts and tie-in-back halter. She seemed to be very cheerful, whistling to herself as she puttered around the kitchen.
"Penny-" Cathy began again, and stopped there again.
"What is it, baby?" Penny said, sitting down across from her, very comfy.
"I-It just seems hard to believe we-"
"Were in the hay together? That's not hard to believe, kiddo. We were. Take my word for it."
Cathy blushed. "I know we were. Only-"
"Only you never pictured yourself doing that before, huh?"
"Or you." Cathy blushed again.
Penny nodded slowly. "I get it. You're wondering about me all of a sudden, right?"
"Well-yes, to be honest."
"Well, let's be honest then. You're wondering if I'm a full-fl-edged dyke, if I've been one all along."
"I-I guess that's it," Cathy admitted humbly.
"Okay, I'm not. Not full-fl-edged, that is. I've been to bed with girls before, since I was nineteen, in fact, and it's always been a kick. But I like my men, too. In case you don't believe me, ask Mr. Jim Shelton."
Cathy looked up quickly, amazed by this new confession.
"Jim-Shelton? You?"
"Righty-O," Penny nodded, dipping a crumpet In her tea and taking a bite. "Three times already. I'm sorry if I've in-fringed on your territory, baby, but you've been moving much too slow."
"I can't believe-"
"Oh yes you can. I conned you this morning, didn't I? I've been wanting to love you for a long time, hon, but you're slow on the uptake. Now you've had me, and no matter what you might start thinking later, you liked that."
"But Jim-"
"Jim damn near raped the hell out of me that Tuesday I asked him to the barbecue. He took me so roughly I'm not likely to forget that if I live to be a hundred and sixty-nine. He took me, baby-upstairs and downstairs. He made me behave like a trained animal in a traveling circus. I've called him three times in the last two days to get another appointment. No luck so far, but I'll get him again. Jim Shelton likes his women."
Cathy didn't know what to say. Her mouth fell open, closed, fell open again.
Penny laughed at her merrily. "You're just beginning to tip wise, doll face. But you're learning fast, now that you've started. I like you, baby, but def. I like you so much, in tact, that I think I ought to give you a word of advice."
"What-what do you mean?"
"I mean two words: Get loved Fast."
Cathy shook her head. "Why" she whined. "Why do you say a thing like that?"
"Because if you don't, you won't end up being a switch-hitter like me. You'll be something worse. I dug the way you behaved in bed this morning, baby-I dug that the most, as Villagey people would say. And I also learned something. You don't like men, baby. I bet you've never had a kick like this morning's with a man, in fact."
"That's a lie!"
"Maybe. But just for what it's worth, take my advice. Go get loved. Go get yourself a good man who knows what he's doing."
"You mean-"
Penny nodded. "Yeah, like I mean go see Jim Shelton."
Cathy scraped her chair back, getting up suddenly, almost spilling her tea.
Everything seemed crazy all of a sudden, the world, Penny-herself.
Topsy-turvy.
Mad.
"I've got to go," she whispered. "Don't say anything more please, I've got to go home and-and think!"
Penny didn't say anything more. She watched Cathy leave, sipping her tea and shaking her head slowly.
When she was gone, Penny got up to wash the dishes, whistling to herself again. It looked like a very nice day outside. Maybe she'd take the kids down to the beach later, she thought. It might be a kick at that.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cathy Ewell got through the next week-and-a-half somehow.
Actually, she discovered a certain technique for getting through the succession of days without having her basic manic-depressiveness boil over into violence. The technique was not an involved one, but she had some success with it.
She drank.
Only wine, of course. A dry, sweet sherry that she had previously used only as a table wine, but soon discovered a glass or two in the morning could brighten a dull day a bit; one in the afternoon would keep the edge and help you avoid the big let-down, and one in the evening would put you to sleep.
It became a ritual. She began to lean on the decanter of sherry the way she had been leaning on Penny. In a way, it was almost the same kind of thing.
A crutch is a crutch.
She wasn't really angry at Penny, either. Her refusal to see her or even call her on the phone came from another source: self-doubt.
Cathy was just beginning to realize that she had a real problem-she didn't know who she was. The realization, or the beginning of the realization, stemmed directly from her experience with Penny. That day when she had left her friend's house after they had enjoyed the morning in bed together, Cathy had gone home and cried ail afternoon. She felt suddenly afraid of things of people, of herself, of life itself. Nothing seemed sure to her any more. And she knew instinctively that Penny couldn't help her at this point.
Penny simply wanted to be her love.
Cathy went over that morning many times in her imagination, each time more painful and torturous than the last. When she couldn't stand thinking about it any longer, she went to the decanter. For the past four mornings she had been having awful headaches, but a few aspirins and cups of coffee made them bearable. And then, some sherry, of course.
If Al noticed this change in her habits, he said nothing about it. They seldom spoke to each other at all, in fact. He seemed resigned to things as they were; went to work everyday and watched Timmy evenings while she went out to a movie or to a meeting of the bridge club or to a not-too-close friend's house. When she came back, Timmy would be in bed and her husband would be sitting in front of the television watching the late movie. He hardly looked up when she came in.
It was all very maddening.
If Penny's accusation were true But it couldn't be. It just couldn't, couldn't be true that she was basically a Lesbian type. And yet And yet she had gone to the local library and taken out all the books she could find on the subject, and what she had read really frightened her.
Most of them seemed to be talking about her!
The stories, the case histories-they all seemed to be describing in some small way, her own feelings and sometimes even similar experiences, like the one she had had in college with a roommate one semester-an innocent thing, really, but a couple of times they had slept together and sort of held each other playfully, neither of them really taking anything seriously, joking about that afterward. They both went out with boys equally as much.
On the other hand, that morning with Penny had been Had been beautiful. That was the only word for it.
Frighteningly beautiful.
But-it could be that way with a man, too couldn't it? There was a boy she had gone with once, one summer. He had been such a beautiful young man, with golden curly hair and perfect features, that a lot of people had said he was odd, but Cathy hadn't believed that. Not Lonnie McAllister. Lon was a perfect gentleman, and used to take her out to nice little places where they would drink coffee and he would discuss poetry with her. Often his poetry, because he was a creative person and wanted to be a writer some day. They had never made love together, but they had done quite a bit of mild petting and she had been very much in love with him at the time.
That, too, had been beautiful. A time between high school and college, a time of innocence and beauty....
But, God, she had to find out about this thing now. She couldn't go on like this, dulling her sense with wine during the day and taking a sleeping pill or two at night.
She thought about Penny's advice, about the things she said she had done with Jim Shelton. Somehow she couldn't believe them-at least not the way Penny had put it. He just said those things about her and him to shock and disgust her.
There was only one way to find out. Call him on the phone. She had thought of that before; at least once every day since, but she had never been able to work up the nerve.
But now she was at her wit's end. The morning drink hadn't done a thing for her, hadn't dulled the edge of the constant emotional turmoil she had been in for the last ten days. She felt near the verge of collapse. She had to talk to someone ... And that night, he had been so kind, so interested in her....
Quickly, before she changed her mind, she reached for the phone and dialed Jim Shelton's number. Her slender finger shook so much that she almost missed a digit. But at last she heard the dull metallic burr of his phone ringing, and then his voice answering.
It was too late to back out of it now....
Jim Shelton replaced the receiver of his phone, a thoughtful look on his handsome face. In the next room, Sandra, busy working at the electric typewriter, had been able to hear everything he had said in the conversation, which had lasted for nearly half an hour, but this fact didn't bother him to any great extent.
The conversation with Catherine Ewell did.
She was in bad shape, there was no doubt about that. Neurotic, emotionally mixed-up-any way you wanted to put it, Cathy Ewell was bad news.
She had asked if she could some over, but he had put her off, saying he had hired a secretary and it wouldn't be a convenient place to have a confidential talk. Which was true, in essence. Actually, it didn't matter a damn as far as Sandra was concerned. Sandra had become a very hip chick; she knew him almost as thoroughly as he did her by now and she could be trusted never to repeat anything she happened to overhear.
That wasn't the problem, then. The problem was, he had half-promised to drop by that afternoon to see Catherine Ewell.
He didn't know why he had done it at the moment.
He wasn't even sure now. He decided to consult his confidential secretary on the matter. Sandra Hendrix had developed a hell of a lot of feminine intuition in the last couple of weeks.
"Hey, Red!" he called. "Knock off and come in here a minute, huh?"
The sound of the electric stopped, and in a few seeds Sandy was standing in the doorway, dressed in an aqua summer dress and wearing her shell-rimmed reading glasses.
"Not again," she said mockingly. "It isn't even break-time yet. And you haven't done a bit of work today, Mr. Writer!" She tapped her foot sententiously as she talked.
Jim laughed, stretching in his lounging robe. It was true; today he had drawn his first blank in front of the typewriter. It was no doubt due to the party he had gone to in the city last night, but that was beside the point. He eyed Sandra from head to toe, thinking how cute she looked in this school-marmish pose, and how lucky he was to have discovered such a gem living right next door to him. Her typing was perfect. And so was everything else.
He slapped his hand on the couch pillow next to him. "Sit down, honey; I just want to talk to you. I need some advice."
Sandra sat down, an amazed expression coming over her pretty features.
"You need advice from me? Now I know you're about to con me into something, Jim Shelton."
"Nothing you wouldn't want me to, angel-face. But what I really want you to do is tell me about Cathy Ewell. You know her, don't you?"
Sandy made a face. I don't like her. She smiles all the time."
Jim laughed, squeezing her. "That all you don't like about her?"
"She's phony. You know: a social pusher who'd like to run everything. She throws parties all the time and invites people to them she hardly knows. Are you thinking of having an affair with her?"
"Maybe," he grinned.
"Then I'll hate you. I'm supposed to be your affair, till your wife gets back."
"You are, lover. But a man gets curious. Cathy snubbed me in college, really put me down once. Made me feel like hell. I was mixed-up then, didn't know what to do with myself, and she caught my eye. You're right-she's basically a cruel, self-centered person. Vicious."
"And you're going to have an affair with her."
"What makes you think so?"
"I heard you conning her over the phone. What a come-on! How can you live with yourself when you say things like that? 'Catherine darling, you're simply going through a change, an emotional crisis. But it's important that you go through it the right way, open and flower as a person.' God!"
Jim was shaking with laughter. "Well, it was partly true. She's a real fouled-up broad."
"She deserves to be."
"You're pretty vicious yourself at times, kiddo!"
"Not the way she is. I don't think she even knows how to hate decently. Besides, you've shown me what's important and what's not. When I get married, it will be for damn good reasons. He'll have to show me he's at least half as good in bed as you are before he can slip a ring on my little pinkie."
"You'll never turn out like Catherine, don't worry." She looked into his eyes, her face turning serious. "No, Jim; I won't, will I? But I could have."
"Maybe. I doubt it."
"Not now. I-I want to thank you for this-this summer. Jim."
"This summer isn't over."
"But your wife will be back in a week."
"That's true. And I think you'll like her, Sandy. I know she'll like you."
"I hope I will, Jim. But it won't be easy. You don't know how jealous a girl can be."
"We were talking about Cathy Ewell," he said, changing the subject.
"Oh yes," she said, wrinkling her pert nose. "Well, I can't be jealous of that painted-up mannequin of a tramp."
"I wasn't thinking in terms of an affair," he said, lazily stroking her arm.
Her eyes narrowed with interest. "No? What were you thinking of then?"
"I don't think I'll tell you. They're pretty nasty thoughts."
"Hey; I'm not a shrinking violet any more, remember? And it's beginning to sound interesting. Tell me.
He gave her a wide grin, looking into her clear gray eyes.
"Okay," he said finally, giving her arm a squeeze. "Ever been to a circus, baby?"
"A circus?"
"Not the kind you're thinking of, with popcorn and clowns and cotton candy. I mean a human circus."
Sandia drew in her breath slowly, the meaning of his words penetrating her mind.
"I read about something like that once. I think," she said. "In a book about Mexico. But how-no! No, I don't believe it! Not Cathy Ewell!"
Jim grinned complacently. "Want to make a little wager on that, doll-face?"
A look of excitement came into Sandy's eyes. "God!" she said in a low, breathless voice. "I don't believe you could do that. But if you can, I'd like to see it!"
Jim got up then, chucking her under the chin. "I've got a front-row ticket all printed up for you," he said, and then he left the room to go upstairs and dress.
It was the first real excitement Cathy had experienced in over a week.
Jim Shelton was coming to see her!
How silly, she thought now, soaking her handsome body in a tubful of warm, scented water. How silly she had been, not calling him before this!
Perfectly childish.
Two minutes on the phone with him and she had begun to feel like a different person. A somebody.
"It's so good to hear from you, Catherine!" he had said right away. "I've been thinking of phoning you every day, but-well, you know how it is. With both of us being married, I mean. I just felt that you might misinterpret. Writers get such a bad name for that sort of thing, you know...."
And from that point on, her fears vanished. Penny's wild stories about him faded from her mind as his pleasant baritone dripped honey over the wire.
They talked.
For almost an hour, it seemed, they talked about college, about people they had known there; about books and music and painting, the arts. And finally, the conversation had somehow drifted around to her, and she had found herself emptying her soul over the telephone.
It had been a good experience. A much-needed experience.
And now-now he was coming over to see her, in person!
She had dumped Timmy with the sitter an hour ago, needing time to relax in a good warm tub and get herself into the right frame of mind before meeting Jim.
The frame she was in now was fine, no matter how you looked at it.
Very fine.
She got up and ran cold water from the shower head over her smoothly-fleshed body, rinsing away soap and lather and bubbly scented froth, which slid down between her sleek knees and away as the tub drained itself.
Then she stepped out and towelled briskly, rubbing her skin pink to stimulate the circulation and improve the complexion.
There was no sense looking all dragged-out for Jim Shelton She remembered the way he had looked at her that night, and hoped she would look nearly as good today. It would certainly be amusing if he, a famous writer, should find her romantically interesting. A good charge for the old ego. And hers needed charging badly, after all.
Very badly.
He might even want her to meet some of his city friends. From the phone conversation, he knew the situtation between her and her husband-perhaps he might invite her out to dinner in New York, and then they would go down to the Village and meet interesting people, artists and writers and the like....
It would be so much fun, she thought, padding into her bedroom to the low bench in front of her dresser. It would be something new, a change-a chance to meet somebody and get out of this awful house for awhile, away from Al and Timmy and-away from herself.
That was it. In order to find yourself, you had to get away from yourself. Jim had said that, over the phone. He was so wise, so knowing about such things. He understood women. That was what was so beautiful about him as a person. If Penny had done things with him, it was a pretty sure thing that she had been the instigator of it all. Despite her good qualities, Penny was really a little low-class. She had some of the tastes of a common street trollop, when you came right down to it. And of course Jim Shelton was a man, and when she had thrown it at him, he had merely accepted the little windfall. Lonely, his wife away-how could he help but accept?
No, Penny had no breeding. He must have found her very amusing. A little disgusting, no doubt; but very amusing, with her obviously lewd advances and lack of polish. God, you couldn't even discuss a book with that girl!
That was what Jim Shelton needed-a female intellectual companion. No doubt his wife couldn't even give him that, which was why he had other women while she was away. He had his problem, too; a man didn't run unless there was good reason at home, as they say. Really, he ought to get divorced....
Occupied with these thoughts, and with the monumental task of creating a pretty new face over top of a pretty old face, she spent the remainder of the hour in her suburban ranch boudoir, glowing in the pale health of anticipated pleasures of one sort or another, weaving fantasies around her author friend-fantasies which involved herself with him at literary cocktail parties, or attending off-Broadway plays or first-night premieres of art films; dressed in the latest of Fifth Avenue and Paris imported fashions, she cut a glamorous swath through the world of celebrities in the stone jungle a couple of hours away from Orangewood. The remainder of the hour passed very quickly in this manner, among her pots and lotions, perfumes and notions.
When she was done she looked pretty much the picture of her dreams.
Lovely.
She had put on a tight, high-necked charcoal black dress just a shade or two lighter than her beautiful black hair held together at the shoulders by two platinum brooches. It was a Villagey dress, very daring to wear, lor though the neckline was high, running straight across her milk-white throat, its classical Greek styling had the effect of accentuating the twin thrusts of her breasts, aided of course by the padded brassiere underneath With it she wore silk stockings and a pair of expensive wedge-sandals. The skirt of the plain dress was slit at one side half-way up its short length, which added a nice touch of spice. You could hardly move around in it much without showing a good deal of leg and Cathy had a good deal of good leg. She was well aware of this fact; had been when she brought the dress in the city a couple of months ago. It was the first time she had worn it, however.
Now, standing in front of the full-length mirror hung on the back of her bedroom door, she ran her hands over her stockings to make sure the seams were straight, then straightened and surveyed her form in the mirror. Very nice, she thought.
Exquisite, in fact.
It needed just a little touch of color, something subdued but definitely noticable.
She added a tiny imitation ruby earring to one ear. Just one.
That was it. Perfect.
If she were a man, she'd fall head over heels.
She was none too soon in getting dressed. The doorbell was ringing by the time she had straightened her bedroom around She let it ring a few times, making him wait, and then she walked majestically out to the living room to answer it.
"Good afternoon!" he said, stepping back and surveying her when she answered it. "Do I have the right house, ma'am?"
For the first time that day, Cathy's smile felt right, and some of the twinkle returned to her eye.
"You certainly do, Jim Shelton. Come in, please. I'll put the coffee right on."
He came in, following the smoothly moving curve of her buttocks with his eyes.
And, ten minutes later, they were sitting on the couch together, he balancing a cup and saucer on one knee, she leaning forward and stroking her own pretty nyloned knee while she talked, pausing only for his encouraging comments or grunts...." I mean, its so hard to really do anything with yourself. A woman shouldn't get married so young, I guess. I simply feel wasted out here where nothing's happening, you know. Oh, of course there's Timmy-but then pretty soon he'll be in school and-well, you know how it is with Ai and myself. I don't know how long it will last. I suppose I shouldn't tell you all this, but you're so able to really understand people, I just can't seem to help myself-oh. well!"
Jim Shelton wore a very sympathetic look on his face as he listened His arm moved up along the back Of the couch, surreptitiously, and when she sighed and leaned back, it just happened to be there. He didn't move it and she pretended not to notice.
The first step, he thought.
"You're a very lovely girl, Cathy. You look hardly a day older than you did that time I asked you to go out with me in college."
She looked puzzled, and then she laughed.
"Oh-what a memory! I completely forgot about that!"
His voice sounded a trifle hurt. "I was crushed, you know."
"Not really, Jim Shelton!"
"Oh, but I was. To me, you were the prettiest girl on campus. I had a crush on you."
She laughed, rolling her eyes, the dimples of her cheeks deepening as she smiled a very white-toothed smile.
"I guess I was a little curt, wasn't I?"
"Terribly."
"I had no sense in those days. I don't remember what I said to you, but it must have been simply awful!"
"You said: 'Why don't you go comb your hair?'"
"I didn't!"
"Oh, yes, you certainly did. I remember clearly."
"Well," she said, relaxing against his arm, "you did comb your hair, didn't you? Oh, I'm sorry about that but it was so long ago, and I was all involved with somebody else-I really didn't mean to offend you."
"Are you apologizing?" he said, a half-smile on his lips.
"Yes, Jim; I apologize. There-how's that?"
"I don't know," he said, placing the cup and saucer on the coffee table. "Is it sincere?"
"Jim Shelton! You're being horrible now' You really can't hold a stupid old thing like that against me now, can you?"
"I might just accept your apology," he said letting his hand touch her bare upper arm, "providing you seal it with a kiss."
"Jim-"
With his other hand he turned her pretty head gently and gave her a light kiss on the lips, delivered playfully.
But when he took his mouth away, his eyes, staring directly in hers, went dead serious and the playful smile left his lips. His sudden embarrassment at what he had done was obvious to her; his eyes dropped quickly and he started fidgeting.
Immeasurably pleased at the effect she was having on him, she quickly caught his hand in hers and held it.
"I really am sorry now," she said in a low, throaty voice.
"Cathy-"
"What is it, Jim?"
"Nothing. But I think I'd better leave now-"
"Don't be silly! This is the first moment of enjoyment I've had in weeks. I love your company, Jim, and I-I understand."
"Do you?" he said, looking up, a pained expression now on his face. She felt a tense little thrill, looking at him.
"Of course," she nodded. "We all make mistakes, don't we? Especially when it comes to marrying someone."
His eyes swept over her, taking in the fine curvature of her bust, her small waist, neat hips and legs.
"Yes," he said softly, "we certainly do, Cathy!"
There was a moment of awkward silence in which neither of them looked at one another.
Cathy broke it by getting up.
"Let me show you the rest of the house." she said cheerily.
He got up and followed her. The house wasn't big. She showed him through several of the rooms, including the kitchen, and then they were in the bedroom, sitting on the bed together. She had dragged out a copy of their college yearbook and they were leafing through the pages and laughing at the pictures of various students they had both known in those days!
Suddenly his arm was around her waist and he was pressing her to him.
"Jim," she said, husky-voiced.
"God, Cathy," he mumbled. "Cathy-"
The book slid from her lap to the floor. She let him turn her face to his this time, and there was no smile on his when he kissed her fully on the lips.
A tender, softly brushing kiss.
Suddenly he bent forward and clasped his arms around her, burying his head down against the soft jut of her waist.
"Oh, Cathy, Cathy!" he moaned.
She looked at him, a very maternal feeling coming over her. He looked so helpless, resting against her like that-like a child. She began stroking his hair, little eddies of excitement flickering around the place where he was pressing his lips against her dress, groaning soft ly "Jim," she said after several minutes of this, in which neither of them talked. "Jim-" Her voice shook from the great effort to say what she had to say. "Jim. if you want to-If you want me to, really want me to-"
His head turned slightly. "I can't ask you for mat," he said. "I have no right to."
It was too much. She leaned over and kissed him, kissed his hair and stroked his slightly quivering body.
"Please Cathy. I'm afraid-afraid of myself-"
"We could lie down together," she said.
"Yes. Yes; let's-let's lie down together; I have to get a grip on myself, damnit; I'm acting like a kid!"
They lay back on the bed together. He got a cigarette from the pocket of his sports shirt and lit it. They passed it back and forth, sharing it, neither of them talking for awhile. She could feel that tension of his body, the effort to control himself he was going through.
A warm, spreading pleasure seemed to fill her. It would be so little to give him. She really didn't have the desire, but in a way it would be like a sacrifice to his adoration of her. After all, she had this to give, and if he wanted to The cigarette finished, he leaned across her sprawled body to stub it out in the ash tray on the other side of the bed. She felt the weight and warmth of him at her breasts. Closing her eyes, she reached her arms around him and held him to her.
His breathing was heavy, labored, against her breasts. It seemed to her that he was almost about to ay.
"Jim," she said firmly. "Undress me."
"May I?" he breathed. "May I at least see the loveliness of you so that I'll have it in my mind wherever I go? Please?"
"Yes, darling; yes!"
To be in this complete command of the situation was a pleasant surprise to Cathy, especially in the light of what Penny had said.
Such a liar! She'd never speak to that girl again, after this!
He was awkward, almost fumbling, his hands shaking as he tried to find the zipper and undo the clasp of her dress, and finally she had to help him. She got off the bed and he followed her, nuzzling and stroking her as she slid the dress off, kissing her cool flesh, making little sounds of admiration with each new discovery of her perfect body.
She loved every minute. She lay back on the bed, naked now, her bra and panties lying atop the dresser. He stroked and touched her all over, the tips of her breasts, her waist, hips Everywhere.
She unbuttoned his shirt for him. Undid his clothes.
He kicked out of his loafers, and then he was soon as naked as she was. She felt a moment of tenseness that was akin to displeasure, but instead of rushing at her the way she feared, he simply, despite his obvious desire, resumed the stroking, caressing, finally lying next to her and burying his head against the soft jut of her breasts. She held him, rocking him gently.
She closed her eyes and dreamed. He was beautifully built, neither stocky nor slender, but perfectly proportioned.
Like a Greek god.
A statue of Hermes she had once seen. Gently, like the whisper of wind between trees, he moved closer.
Gently, ever so gently....
He seemed hesitant, ashamed of what he was doing. He kissed her on the mouth, on her arched tense throat, on her small out-thrust breasts, while he took her.
Her eyes closed Vaguely repulsive, yet exciting exciting to be this much in control of a man.
This was so easy with him, none of the grasping, clumsy demandingness men usually exhibited. His ultimate concern seemed to be for her, asking her if this was all right repeatedly, if he were hurting her, if this thing or that thing pleased her.
And soon, she was enjoying him.
Really enjoying him.
Not a rushing response, but a slow, lazy sensuality. A slow, rolling rhythm.
Becoming gradually faster....
Suddenly she gasped.
"Oh!"
Another.
"Ohhh."
He was hurting her now, but she could forgive him-this was his deep-seated passionate nature coming to the fore.
Faster and faster.
By degrees he gained the lead, and before she realized it, it was he who was making her do little things, things which surprised her. Touching him there.
"My God!" she exclaimed. "You-you haven't even "No. I don't want to hurt you, darling."
This was unbelievable. She had hardly looked at him when he had gotten into bed.
But now he was holding himself in reserve.
"It's all right," she groaned; "whatever you want, darling! Take me!"
And he did.
He became a storm, a fury. Wild, lashing. Faster and faster.
And then the bed seemed to lift, spin off into space, and stars and galaxies passed before her eyes in bright kaleidoscopic colors.
Faster and faster.
And then there was a surge and a heave and the whole damn universe seemed to fly apart.
Somewhere in the opening void, she heard a scream. Hers, she realized.
And then that was over. The room, the bed drifted back into focus. He was kissing her warmly on the lips.
"Sleep, darling," he said to her, kissing her eyes shut. "Go to sleep now, and I'll be over again tomorrow."
She did exactly that. She never heard him leave the room.
CHAPTER NINE
Jim Shelton had finished the book he was doing, a quick shot at the mystery market which he was fairly certain would sell. He had gotten this idea for a splendid way to commit murder in an atomic laboratory while reading an article on radiation in a scientific journal-what amounted to the perfect crime, in fact and from there he had thought up the central characters, borrowing from life certain types he had met, giving them motives for their behavior, and after that the book had written itself. He had completed the whole thing in just under five days. And Sandy had typed it up neatly and sent it off to the agent, so that was that.
Now he was doing nothing. Relaxing.
Relaxing was an art few people knew how to master. Jim had found the solution to that problem quite simple: you simply lie around and do absolutely nothing. That became boring after awhile, of course. But when you became bored with it, it simply meant you had had enough mental and physical relaxation. Then you simply did something else.
The process was so simple it was almost mystical, like Yoga. He had practiced that once, too, and occasionally reverted to it, drawing within himself for extended periods of time, going through certain exercises that were centuries old, and contemplating they mystic void which was the basis of all things. It worked. The body replenished itself and the mind became serene.
But he also had a thing about the sun. The sun was the first celestial entity to be worshipped as a god by the ancients, and the ancients were nowhere the fools modern people often believed them to be. There was a basis to everything they did, no matter how outlandish it might seem on the surface-and usually that basis had a good grounding in physical or psychological fact.
Take the sun, for instance. The sun was doing its job on him now, stretched out on a blanket in his back yard as he was, wearing a pair of orange bikini trunks. The sun was basically energy, the source of all energy, in fact, for the particular planet he happened to be inhabiting. It made as much sense to worship the sun as it did to worship anything, when you thought about it. And in a sense, that was what he was doing-prostrating himself before the Sun God, receiving its energyrays into his now darkly-tanned body. Some people might call it sunbathing, but then some people had no appreciation for the symbolic aspect of things.
Jim Shelton did. He knew that his decision to take on Cathy Ewell as a mistress was symbolic, for instance. Highly so, because he had no interest whatsoever in her as a person, and in fact found the phony baloney he had to go through with her annoying in the extreme. But it was necessary with her type, if you were going to love them a few times.
He had already loved her a few times. That was a fact accomplished, or as the French would say, a fait accompli. Cathy was learning to speak French, even, as far as that went.
A very nice style of French.
He could end it here, he mused, rolling over onto his back to face the Sun God. He could call it quits, knowing he had had the satisfaction of loving the chick who had put him down at a time when he had sorely needed something like that. She was practically eating out of his hand by now.
But there was one thing more he wanted from her.
One more kick.
Then she could go back to the hell of her neuroses and psychoses and be damned. In spades.
The French had a phrase for it, as always. Menage a trots. Three in a menagerie, translated very roughly into English. Or, you could simply call it an orgy.
That was as good a word as any, when you came right down to it. A fine word. A word also used by the ancients. The ancients worshipped other gods than the sun, for that matter. There was the Goat, the Bull, the Ram-any number of chthonic gods, dark gods, gods of night, gods of the deep recesses of the soul.
Gods ordinary modern-day people feared. But not him. In his travels, he had learned their secrets, and knew that one of the secrets of a successful and contented life is to give all the gods their due. In the jungles of Central America, for instance, he had seen But he wasn't in the Central American jungle now. He was in a different kind of jungle now.
The Suburban jungle. In a way, it was more mysterious and fraught with evils than any natural jungle could be, because it was in effect, an unnatural jungle.
The worst kind of jungle. The animlas who inhabited it had lost contact with their basic selves, were actually misshapen, twisted creatures who fed on their sicknesses of the soul and got through life with the aid of tranquilizers, Nembutol, television, and an occasional trip to the local psychiatrist.
That was where Catherine Ewell was no doubt headed. And she might as well have some good experiences to relate when she hit the psychoanalytic couch.
She'd have them. Experiences that would raise the hair on her quack doctor's chin.
She was ready. Today was the day to call her, her and Penny, and invite the two of them over for a party.
A very intimate kind of party.
There was no sense waiting any longer. Something in him told him it was what he wanted-some deep dark-voiced god, if you wanted to be poetic about it and that was all there was to it. He didn't have to search for reasons. Reasons were always too easy to find, and therefore not trustworthy.
The hell with reasons, then. He would call both of them today, and see if he could get them to come over this evening. They would come. He was sure of that. As sure as he was of most things. They would come; all that remained for him to do was phone them and then set the scene.
He fixed his muscles, stretching, and then he got up to do just that.
Penny Worthington was sitting in her living room, watching a soap opera on the TV, when the phone rang.
She hesitated to answer it. That is, she intended to answer it, but not immediately.
She had a good idea it was Cathy Ewell calling her. This was the time of day, around noon, when she usually called, for one thing. But Cathy hadn't called in quite some time.
Not in almost two weeks.
It was a thing between them, a little game-a war of wills, you might say. The war revolved around who would call who first. Penny realized that Cathy's refusal to call was a sort of declaration of independence, so at first she hadn't minded. A little independence wouldn't harm Cathy a bit, for that matter. She had gotten a pretty big shock that morning in bed together, and then Penny had fired the rest of her ammunition point-blank at her in the kitchen. Perversely, perhaps, but not really to be nasty.
Cathy had simply had it coming. In college, she was always playing the Belle of the Ball, the Queen of the May-whatever you wanted to call it. She had been pretty damn stuck on herself.
Now, her tender little sensibilities had been offended! Well, let her squirm. What she had said to Cathy hadn't been completely untrue, either, though of course she had exaggerated a little. But at least Cathy dear would no longer be able to play the "holier-than-thou" bit any more. Not now.
Not now that she had lezzed it up in bed with her "best" friend.
Whether or not they were still going to remain friends at all was the current issue. Cathy had hated her at the end of that morning, of course, but hate being very akin to love, Penny had figured her to come around.
She actually wanted to talk to Cathy very badly The other women she knew out in this split-level garbage dump were so completely phony you couldn't be open with them at all. They spent all day dishing out the dirt about each other over the telephone wire, and what they didn't know they would invent from the slightest hint you let drop. No; the fact was that she missed Cathy's companionship, missed it a lot.
But she was stubborn too. So she hadn't called Cathy either. Not even when curiosity threatened to consume her-she had come close a couple of times, picking up the phone and beginning to dial Cathy's number, but then catching herself in time and replacing the receiver with a resolute slam.
Now, feminine intuition told her it was Cathy ringing her up. And Penny was deadly curious about what had been happening to her erstwhile friend. Very curious. She wondered if Cathy had done anything about the advice she had given her. She didn't know, because she hadn't seen Jim Shelton in that long, either. But that was another story.
After the seventh ring, Penny got up and went to the phone.
Small miracles happen every day. It wasn't Cathy, bat it was somebody just as interesting-somebody she had never expected to call at all. Penny was really amazed to hear the sound of his voice.
"I don't believe it!" she said, recovering from her first surprised shock. "I'm dreaming!"
"Want me to come over and pinch you, baby?"
"I'm not going to answer that, you heel! Not after the way you put me off the last time I called."
"I was busy, baby."
"Busy with that little tramp next door, I'll bet!"
"Careful now!"
Penny smiled into the phone suddenly. "But the fact is, you did call, you lug. And the fact is, I'd very much like to get pinched right about now. I've been bored as hell!"
"And I'd like to pinch you, you-know-where. But not right now. This evening. Can you make it over here around ten?"
"Sure. But why so late?"
"Well," he drawled, "you might say I'm trying a little experiment. 'Nighttime is the right time,' as the song goes."
Penny's eyes narrowed with interest. "An experiment? Sounds like something from an old B-movie. You're the mad scientist all of a sudden, huh?"
"Mad for your frame, sweetheart."
"Boy, and you used to come on so subtle! But for some reason I have a suspicion I'm not the only guinea pig. Am I right?"
His laugh sounded mellow, giving her chills even over the wire.
"A hundred per cent right. You must have been watching a lot of old movies lately."
"That one's very old. But very rare, too."
"It's part of my private collection, if you know what I mean."
"I just love home movies, Jimmy darling. But who else is being invited to this crazy premiere?"
"A good friend of yours. Catherine Ewell."
Penny's breath stuck in her throat for a minute, her eyes widening. She nervously worked a cigarette out of the pack on the stand and lit it, her hand shaking slightly.
"Are you still there?" he said.
"Yes, I'm still here," she said, blowing a cloud of smoke out in front of her. "Cathy, huh? How'd you make that gig?"
"It wasn't easy."
"God, you scare me! Will she really come?"
"She has before. And she will tonight."
"UNBELIEVABLE."
"You ought to know."
"Oh! You mean she told you about-"
"She's developed into quite a little talker, baby. I hadn't figured you for a switch-hitter."
Penny's face turned pink. "That's funny. I hadn't figured her for one."
He laughed again, loudly this time. "We'll say no more. You'll come then?"
Penny tapped the ashes from her cigarette into the tray.
"I'm not sure I can call her a friend any more," she said. "But I'll be there. I'll be there wearing bells on my toes, Dr. Jekyl-you can count on that."
"I knew I could," he said warmly. "Ten o'clock, then." And he hung up.
Penny sat the receiver gently back in its cradle, still it little stunner! by the whole thing.
What an amazing person! she thought, continuing to smoke.
Absolutely amazing!
Catherine Ewell was sitting in her imitation Early American easy chair, in front of the television set watching the emotionally-charged drama of a TV soap opera unfold torturously in front of her eyes.
She had been watching the same serial for over a year, but lately her interest had considerably increased. The heroine, who had suffered numerous tribulations of an agonizing nature throughout the past year, had now gotten herself involved in a situation that, to Cathy, bore a frightful resemblance to her own, real-life tragedy.
The heroine's husband had taken to drink. Not only to drink, but to other women, which was even worse, of course. It was obvious that this marriage was breaking up, and it was entirely due to the husband's beastliness, his lack of sympathy and understanding for his much-put-upon wife.
In the meantime, a new man had moved to town a handsome young doctor. A frightfully handsome young man, in fact, with black wavy hair, prematurely lightening at the temples, wide moist eyes, so soulful, so understanding....
The heroine had gone to him about her husband's increasing alcoholism. That was several months back. Since then, the doctor and the heroine had become good friends; the husband had disappeared somewhere in the city, and events had naturally taken their course. The doctor was obviously in love with the heroine, and this feeling was obviously not unrequited. To complicate matters, the heroine had a small child, a boy, just old enough to understand that something was "going on."
What exactly was going on was never made explicit on the screen, but Cathy could fill in the parts that were suggested through clever fade-outs or switches of scene.
Cathy had a good insight into these matters now. The drama could be interpreted in two ways. The way she interpreted it now was not the way she would have interpreted it a couple of weeks ago. Before Jim.
B.J. That was a way of measuring time now for her, like B.C. and A.D. So she was well able to supply the suggested material, and had thus become absorbed in the drama.
Of course, life was not exactly the same. But that was simply because they couldn't show those things on television, with children and unintelligent people watching. She could picture the affair the handsome young doctor and the heroine were having, and sometimes the pictures she got made her blush, even though no one was around to see her blush.
She had done everything with Jim Shelton.
Everything conceivable.
Things she had never conceived of doing before, in fact. She had not always liked doing them, but he had a way of persuading her that she couldn't resist. God, if she had known a few years ago the things she knew now-!
But at least, with Him, it was all very secret; no chance of anyone else knowing about it. There was security in that. She loved him, loved him desperately, but she was resigned to the fact by now that she couldn't keep him-it would all be over soon. He had explained to her that he had no intention of leaving his wife.
It was something she both accepted and didn't accept.
A woman could never accept that completely. There was always hope. Jim was always ready, obviously.
Very obviously. He had a sort of satyr complex or something. But, despite her occasional repugnance, which she managed to hide, she gave in to his demands, knowing that that was one possible way in which she might eventually be able to defeat her competitior.
In the meantime, she was learning a lot. Learning just how far you could go. Way out.
She had never thought of herself as a way-out person before, but now she did, and the fact that she had attitude toward her husband had even changed somewhat-now, with her superior knowledge of things, she could tolerate him. He didn't irritate her as much. After all, she had Jim to go to. It was both her pride and her shame. Her pride because she had found an escape, become an "in" person; her shame because deep down she knew that a girl of good stock and breeding didn't do these things without feeling guilty about them. But then, even shame was better than boredom.
Much better, in fact.
Anything was better than boredom, for that matter. But the last scene of the opera ended with a syrupy crescendo on the electric organ, and the soap commercial burst in all its effervescent sweet-toned glory; Lora Lynn's Secret Life was over, at least this episode, for the day.
Dressed in a pair of shorts and her brassiere, Cathy stretched, arms flung wide, then got up and turned off the TV set. After that she padded on her bare feet about the house, picking up Timmy's toys which were scattered all around, it seemed, and then looked out the window to make sure he was still digging in the sand pile out in the back yard.
He was. She wondered if she would have time to read a few pages of the latest Book-of-the-Month Club selection before he started bugging her again and had just picked the thing up when the telephone rang.
It was Jim Shelton.
Naturally.
She had half-expected that when she picked up the receiver. They hadn't seen each other in two days: he'd said he had some important work to get out and would call her when he was finished It was a good thing he had called, too-for some reason she was feeling very sensuous today.
His voice was like a caress to her sensuality.
"Catherine. It seems like a week since we've been together."
"Yes," she sighed. "More than a week. Have you finished your article or whatever it was you were doing, Jim?"
"Just rolled the last sheet of it out of the typewriter. What a relief! And guess what-I'm in a mood to celebrate."
"Fine. When?"
"Tonight. Can you break free?"
"Well, there is a bridge club meeting," she said, smiling to herself. She hadn't the slightest interest in going to a bridge club meeting, for once. But let him guess that.
"Well," he said, "If you can't make it, it'll be a disappointment. I'm having a couple of other people over, too...."
Cathy was definitely interested in this. "Really? Who?"
"No," he chuckled, "I'm not going to tell you. You go on to your bridge club and miss the fun."
"Fun? Sounds wild. Who are these-people?"
"Way-out people, darling. When I said celebrate, I meant it."
"I'll come. When is it?"
"Ten o'clock. But on second thought, maybe you better not. You might be, uh, a little ill at ease....
"How far out do you intend to go?" she said, biting her lips nervously.
"That depends. How far out do you want to go, darling?"
"You're being very mysterious."
"Never can tell who's listening in on the phone. Why don't you just come and see what happens?"
"I was hoping it would be just you and me," Cathy said, sounding disappointed. "How can we, ah, do anything with other people around?"
"Like I said, darling-these are way-out people. Groovy people. And only two of them."
"Well-"
"I want to see you, Cathy-you know that. But this is sort of an, ah, obligation I've been putting off."
"Ten k awfully late, but I suppose...."
"If it's not convenient, forget it, baby. Only my wife is coming back Sunday and-"
"Sunday? God! Already? How time flies!"
"I know. But what can I do? Things will be very difficult-after that, I'm afraid...."
"Jim. Jim-I want to see you too! Will we-have a chance to be alone together awhile? So we can at least talk, I mean...."
"Of course. And-well, if things get too wild for you, you can always leave. We'll have tomorrow night, at least."
Cathy's voice sounded bitter. "Yes, tomorrow night! How frightening! It's like saying I have one day left to live! Oh Jim-"
"Easy, kid. Come tonight then. Please?"
"I will. You knew I would all along, you rat!"
"I just didn't want you to think I was bending your arm, Cathy darling."
"As if you had to. As if you'll ever have to again. You know I'm yours when you want me, Jim."
"But you've never said it before. I couldn't be sure."
"Silly! When are you going to take me into the city to meet your interesting friends?"
"Soon, I hope. It depends. I've got to make things right with Alicia first, when she comes. Allay any suspicions. It may take a month, but then-"
"Do you really love her that much, darling?" Cathy said, her voice quivering. It was almost word-for-word the line the young doctor had delivered to the heroine on the soap opera a few minutes earlier-substituting her for him.
And his answer, surprisingly, was a near paraphrase of the heroine's answer: "I owe her a lot, Cathy. There are things-things I can't tell you yet. But at least we'll see each other tonight then, right?"
"Yes, tonight," she said softly, an immense feeling of self-pity, of sweetly tender despair welling up in her.
"Good-bye, darling."
"Good-bye."
She gave the receiver a kiss, and then hung the phone gently in its cradle.
There were preparations to be made, things to do. Important things. The first important thing was one he had started already, as of yesterday. It involved dieting. No alcoholic beverages, no heavy meals. He had breakfasted this morning on orange juice and dry bran flakes; at noon he had several slices of unbuttered toast and a cup of luke warm tea. But supper was the most important part of the regimen.
He would not have supper until very late round seven-thirty or so. And it would be a very unusual meal, a very curious meal by any standards.
It would consist almost entirely of mushrooms.
Very special mushrooms, these. They were not obtainable in North America at all; he had gone to pains to preserve them, packing their delicate bodies in a special container with dry ice while in the jungles of Central America.
Now, he went down to the basement to get some of them. They were packed in a metal chest, stowed away in a dark corner under the stairs. He unlocked the chest and pulled away a layer of excelsior until he found them. They were slightly shrunken, a bit limp-but still potent. He could tell from the color, the odor. Their basic chemical ingredient had not degenerated.
Good.
He removed enough of them for his personal use, placing them carefully on a clean platter he had brought down to the cellar with him. Then he repacked the excelsior and locked the metal chest up again, dropping the key in his pocket, After that, he went upstairs to the kitchen, set the platter on a countertop, and began fiddling around with pots and pans.
He was doing this when Sandy, dressed in a pair of skin-tight bright red bullfighter's pants and a black sleeveless pullover jersey, entered from the back porch.
He heard the screen door shut but, concentrating on what he was doing, he didn't turn to greet her.
"Hi Red," he said, spreading the mushrooms out on a clean white towel.
"Hi yourself," she chirped, coming up in back of him and slipping her hand under the knit jersey that hung loose over the top of a beat pair of army khakis and rubbing his well-muscled back.
"What are you doing?" she said, squeezing him.
"Cooking something " he answered distractedly.
"Looks like mushrooms. Only I've never seen ones like these. Where'd you get them?"
"Up in the Andes. A priest gave them to me."
"You're kidding me again."
"Nope. Don't bug me, baby-this is a delicate operation."
She let go of him, pulling out a chair from the breakfast nook and sitting down to watch him. He put something in a big pot, sprinkled in bay leaves and a couple of other herbs and spices, and when the water was barely simmering, he dropped the mushrooms in one by one. Finished, he placed the lid on the pot and then turned to her, rubbing his hands together.
"Okay. Now you can talk to me."
"I'm sorry I intruded," she smirked. "I knew men were fussy when they cooked their own meals, but not that fussy!"
He grinned, coming over and giving her a playful pinch on the cheek. "This isn't a meal," he explained. "This is part of a religion you happen to be witnessing."
"Really?"
"Uh-huh." He took up a lecturing stance in front of her. "There are two main kinds of rare exotic mushrooms to be found down there. For thousands of years, they have both been employed in ritual ceremonies. Actually, one is quite common the world over-only most people don't recognize it for what is is, and therefore don't use it. That's commonly called flycap. We'll leave off with the technical terms here.
"Flycap, taken properly, induces hallucinations of the highest order. The user goes through experiences akin to those of the saints during the middle ages. Sublime experiences; visual images of paradise, with singing maidens and coiffers not known on this earth. But only if the subject prepares himself, spiritually, in the proper manner-otherwise, he may visit hell instead of heaven."
"On the other hand," he continued, grinning down at her now, "there's another variety of mushroom, much like the first, but with different chemical properties. That is used in certain ceremonies of another type. Ceremonies involving the bull, the snake-love symbols of numerous kinds. Fertility rites, you see."
"Oh. I think I do begin to see."
"Exactly. The male priests who take them become, in effect, true satyrs."
"You mean they grow hair and hoofs and horns and everything?"
He laughed. "No, not quite. There's no outward physical change, except if you count one very noticeable one. But as far as ability is concerned-"
Sandra swallowed hard. Her eyes hadn't left his face as he talked, and she could see that he was perfectly serious. Deadly serious.
An odor began to emanate from the pot simmering on the stove.
"Phew-they stink!"
"Only for awhile. That's the poison brewing out of them. They taste quite good, as a matter-of-fact, providing you prepare them correctly."
"And you're-going to eat that mess for supper?"
"Yes."
"God" Why?"
"Because tonight is a very special night. Tonight is the night you've been waiting for, sweetheart."
"Tonight," she breathed. She put her arm around the back of his legs and leaned her head against him.
"I-I'm a little afraid, Jim. I didn't think I would be when you talked about it before, but now...."
He nodded, running his hand through her brilliant dark red hair.
"This is crazy," she groaned. "But-sometimes I think you've driven me out of my mind!"
He slipped his hand down into her jersey and began massaging her neck and back, gently, soothingly.
"Perhaps I have," he said gently. "You're not the same girl I saw lose her halter that day, are you Sandra?"
"No."
"You've come a long way. Changed. But I did it because I liked you, something about you. You were still alive, whereas most of these women, they're dead inside. This is an evil place, Sandra. Evil, because the evil's all hidden, under the surface, and everyone pretends not to see it. There's no worse evil than that; none! But you won't turn out the same. You'll escape from this place one day; I know."
Her shoulders were shaking and her voice came out in sobs as she clutched at him, burrowing her head between his strong hands.
"I don't want to leave you-ever!"
He lifted her face and smiled at her.
"Of course you will. I won't stay here after the end of summer, and you'll be going to lots of places to see lots of different things. The world is full of things to experience, Sandra."
She grinned, blinking back the tears in the corners of her wide, lovely eyes.
"I'm okay now," she said. "I guess I was acting like a baby. You're right-a person has to go a little bit crazy to find out just what sanity means."
"Beautiful! If you can say that, you've made the grade, sweetheart!"
"But I'm still afraid."
"Of course you are. That's natural."
"Jim-make love to me!" she said suddenly. "Take me up to your room and make love to me! Then I won't be afraid any more."
He shook his head, stroking her hair again.
"No, not today," he said softly. "I want to very much, but it would interfere. There's a lot I have to do this afternoon, and then I must rest until it's time."
She tried to hide her disappointment, getting up and walking to the window.
"Can I at least help you?" she said after awhile.
"Sure," he grinned. "There are some things I have to set up downstairs-you can help me do that right now, if you want to."
Cheerful again, she came over and gave him a kiss, rubbing her pointed breasts against his chest.
"Okay," she said then, "let's go down to the Devil's Den and get the show on the road."
He put his arm around her waist and they walked to the cellar stairway.
CHAPTER TEN
A I TEN MINUTES AFTER TEN THAT SAME EVENING, Cathy Ewell parked her car a few houses down and around the corner from the home of James Shelton.
She got out and walked the rest of the distance. She was wearing a plain black dress, a pair of dark glasses and a wide-brimmed hat and white high-heeled slippers. She felt quite anonymous. She might have been a call girl, reporting to work. This was the way call girls looked when you saw their pictures in the paper. It added to the excitement for her.
Turning the corner, she saw another car parked in front of Jim's house. A green Chevy station wagon.
At first this fact didn't register in her mind at all, and she walked right up to it before she realized whose car it was-and who was sitting in the front seat of it.
Penny Worthington slid over the front seat and opened the door on Cathy's side.
"Cathy!"
Cathy jumped, starting at the sound of her name spoken on the dark deserted street.
"Penny! What are you doing here."
"Same thing you are, I guess I've been invited to a party."
"But-I don't understand!"
Penny laughed. "What's there to understand, honey? A party's a party, and it looks like we're it. Mind if I join you?"
Cathy's manner became cold and stiff. She couldn't believe Jim would do a thing like this-invite Penny, after knowing about the rift between them. It was weird.
But then, so was Jim Shelton.
"I can't stop you, I suppose," she said as Penny got out of the station wagon. "I hope this isn't Jim's idea of a joke."
"Maybe it is. In that case, the joke's on us. kid so let's at least pretend we're friends, huh? That way, we might set the last laugh on him."
Cathy frowned, saying nothing as they walked together up to the door of the darkened house. She was quite angry-but actually more angry with Jim for playing a trick like this on her than she was with Penny. Obviously Penny hadn't known she was coming, either. Jim's sense of humor was really off-key tonight I It promised to be a very stiff evening, to say the least....
The house seemed dark and deserted, but his car was in the driveway. Cathy pushed the chimes button and the chimes sounded deep within. In a few minutes, they heard someone coming to answer....
But it wasn't Jim Shelton. It was a girl, a beautiful young girl in a virginal white robe, her face made up in such a way that neither of them recognized who she was.
"Come in," she said in a quiet, serene voice, a faint smile on her face. "Mr. Shelton will join you shortly."
Penny and Cathy exchanged surprised glances, and then followed the girl into the house.
It was completely weird.
Even Penny, who was accustomed to a certain amount of weirdness in her now-and-then stabs at adventurous escape from the unholy bonds of her matrimony, was thrown by the whole thing. She found herself gaping at everything in much the way Cathy was, for once.
The house was completely transformed. The blinds were all drawn, and on first entering the living room it had seemed to them as though everything was pitch dark inside.
This, however, proved to be an illusion once they were in and their eyes became accustomed to the change. Actually, there was light-an eerie blue-green glow coming from no discernable source, seeming to emanate from the very walls of the room itself. Somewhat stupefied, they followed the girl's directions and sat themselves down on the sofa, neither of them saying a word for the moment.
The girl herself was weird. Her face was strangely painted, the eyebrows darkened and drawn straight up toward her temples, the pupils strangely luminous in the eerie light, her expression almost frozen, like a zombie's. She seemed at once familiar to both of them, and yet remote from anything they had seen.
She was exquisitely beautiful. The white smock she wore was short, sleeveless, showing her lovely white arms and shoulders, and consisted of some kind of diaphanous material that played in loose folds about her beautifully shaped form, tied with a silken cord across the waist, moving when she moved to show every curve in her exceptionally well-curved body. She wore flat sandals on her feet, and her hair was piled atop her head, held there by a golden metal band encircling its lush, richly curled locks.
The near-transparent material of the smock took on the color of the light, giving her an unearthly look like some nymph or goddess from ancient love come down to revisit earth for an evening. She placed drinks in their hands and then disappeared-almost literally disappeared, for the light was a flickering one instead of a steady glow, like tiny flames dancing through the atmosphere; one minute she was there and the next she was gone.
But it was not only the strange light that created the atmosphere. There was also music-a weird, atonal, polyphonous, intricately rhythmed music, exotic, coming very softly from somewhere-so softly that at first they didn't hear it, but in the silence following the girl's disappearance it seemed to grow stronger and come, like the light, from everywhere, a sensuous physical presence.
"This is really strange!" Penny whispered, once they were alone. She took a quick gulp from the metal chalice the girl had handed her. "I don't know if I like this."
Cathy sipped hers more cautiously, tasting its strange, bittersweet bouquet on the tip of her tongue. "I feel the same way," she said, finding herself whispering also. "Maybe-maybe we should leave, Penny!"
"No, let's wait and see what happens," she answered, touching Cathy's arm reassuringly. She laughed nervously then. "It's only a lot of hocus-pocus, and besides, there's two of us and only one of him."
Cathy giggled in return, rather glad now that she hadn't come here alone. She sipped some more of the wine.
"I wonder what's in this?" she said. "It tastes funny, but nice."
"Jim's a wine connoisseur. Probably something he brought back from his travels."
"Yes; that's it. Say, isn't that girl strange? It seems like I know her from somewhere, but I can't place her!"
"I got the same feeling. God, this is all pretty weird. Listen to that music-have you ever heard anything like it? And that odor-smell it?"
Cathy sniffed, and sure enough, a subtly exotic aroma filled the room-like incense burning.
"Are my eyes playing tricks on me or is that a statue sitting on the mantel?" Cathy said suddenly.
They both got up at the same time, as if drawn by some magnet toward the glowing golden statuette sitting there. At first, it looked to them like one of those bronze idols of Buddha found in antique shops the world over, with a tiny tray of burning incense in front of it, but as they draw nearer, the object seemed to change before their eyes. It's effect was hypnotic; as they stood before it, gazing, they could see that it was some abortive freak of nature-part wolf, part serpent, part human, and in the flickering light it seemed to move, grinning at them....
"God," Cathy breathed.
"I feel so strange," Penny said, her voice sound dead, far-away.
"Let's leave," Cathy said, her own voice seeming to come from somewhere else.
"Yes, we'll do that," Penny mumbled. "Too far-out, we won't stay here, Cathy darling."
"No, we must leave at once," Cathy agreed.
But neither of them moved. They both stood there, gazing at the idol, listening to the strange music, bathed in the aroma of incense. Once in awhile, one of them would giggle softly.
It seemed as though they had been there for hours when Jim Shelton's voice spoke from behind them:
"Good evening. I hope I haven't kept you waiting too long, darling."
They both turned at the same time, each thinking he was speaking to her alone. For the moment, they forgot each other's presence as they stared at the strange vision before them.
It was Jim Shelton-but not the Jim Shelton either of them knew.
He was dressed in a long, loose-flowing robe of a bright red silken material, open at the neck and tied with a golden, tasseled cord at the waist. Over his left breast, woven into the material, was a strange intricate design in glittering metallic gold, and on his feet he wore sandals similar to the one the girl had been wearing, flat, made of wooden soles and rope straps.
But it was not his outfit that amazed them the most. It was his physical appearance.
He was completely bald. His head shaven, his face looked completely different-oriental, almost. Or Indian. Or perhaps neither. It was he, beyond any doubt.
Yet at the same time, not he.
A vague smile played about his lips and his eyes seemed hooded, retreating deep within their sockets and giving off a dull reddish glow as they both gave out an alarmed gasp
"Do not be afraid, my darling," he said, extending both hands toward them beckoningly. Again using the singular instead of the plural in addressing them, his voice deeper, more resonant than they had ever heard it. "It is good that you have come. Now we will go downstairs and enjoy a drink together, the two of us. Will you join me?"
A cold, crawling feeling traveled down Cathy's spine as she felt her feet move toward him, her hand rise and be received into his. Some part of her consciousness was remote from what was happening to her, alarmed even, sending out frantic warning signals. But they were like the tinking of a bell buoy amid the roar of a hurricane. Her mind registered the fact that Penny was taking his other arm, but she seemed powerless to react to this fact.
The three of them moved toward the cellar stairway, m silence, the strange music seeming to pursue them ... Cathy knew a moment of extreme panic and indecision as they stood atop the stairway; her body stiffened as she tried to run away to reverse the direction she was taking.
But a firm hand pressed her arm, and then she was going clown.
Down, down into a deep dark valley into the fading rays of sunset. The illusion was fascinating. The light in the cellar was equally dim, but red this time-a perverse, pervasive blood-red that tinted everything, made ghosts out of objects and people. The music was louder here, and the room seemed infinitely large-an effect created perhaps by the thick drapery that covered all the walls; a strangely luminous material that seemed to have no substance, that changed color before the eyes, now red, now blue, now deep purple, red again-fantastic.
She seemed to come to her sense more once they were down there, however. A long, low reclining bench occupied one end of the room, and they sat on this, he in the middle, his arms circling both their waists.
What-what was in that drink we had upstairs?" Cathy said, finding her voice a trifle thick.
He laughed melodiously, as if she had told some little joke.
"A rare elixir," he said. "Did you find it unpleasant?"
"No," she admitted.
"It was good," Penny said. "But-God, this is so strange! I seem to keep slipping in and out of some kind of trance or something."
"That's quite natural, darling. The secret is not to fight it. Relax, my sweet ... Perhaps you would care now to see some films I brought back from my travels?"
Cathy said nothing, indecision pursuing her again. She didn't like this loss of control at all, but her limbs now seemed leaden, incapable of motion. She relaxed back against the soft cushions, tyring to understand what was happening to her.
Suddenly a beam of light cut through the darkness across the room from behind them. Cathy half-turned and saw once more the mysterious young girl, operating what seemed to be a movie projector this time.
Then she returned her attention to the fore again.
And suddenly, another drink was being placed in her hand, and she was drinking.
And watching.
The first thing that hit her eyes was color. Bright, Incredibly bright color-abstract, dancing patterns which jumped and swayed before her, sparkled and spun in lightning-like flashes and coruscating pinwheels, explosions and slowly weaving lines. She became totally absorbed in it, lost in its bright fascination, forgetting for the moment that it was only a film she was watching.
And then the colors and motion began to separate themselves and slow down and begin to take shape.
Human shape.
Weirdly dressed people in bright, multicolored robes and headdresses, their faces painted fantastically. All of them moving, doing a weird intricate dance to an exotic polyrhythmic beat of many drums and a thin, piercing flute-like melodious sound, almost human and yet not.
The motion, the color, confused her. Strange sensations began to go through her body; hot and cold flashes, sudden feelings of elation and then sudden depression.
She gasped, feeling her own limbs tremble with the urge to get up and dance to the wildly orgiastic music.
But the scene in front of her fascinated her. Something was happening now, the dance changing, becoming slower.
Suddenly there was an explosion of timpani drums, and a woman appeared on the screen.
An incredibly beautiful woman. Her skin was dark, almost red, her face angular, with high flat cheekbones, deep eye sockets holding beautiful eyes of a dark, smoldering look. A rough beauty, like a stone goddess. Her hair was jet black, drawn tight around her well-shaped head into a thick braid in back.
Her body was amazing. Supple-muscled, smooth-limbed, the deep red flesh seeming to glisten and glow with some inner vitality. She was not tall, but she seemed enormous, statuesque, filling the screen.
Her breasts were completely bare.
Beautiful breasts.
Large, firm, widespread, the nut-brown nipples distended and pointing slightly away from each other, the lightness of the valley of cleavage accentuating the beautiful deep red of their flesh. Her torso and middle were softly padded with smooth muscle, and around her sensuously curved hips hung a' brightly woven cloth of intricate design, held by a mere string.
It began to move as her hips swayed slowly to and fro in a sensuously contrived motion. The male dancers dressed in bright colored skirts and bare-chested, began a slow dance, circling around her.
The music picked up tempo. The woman moved faster, the muscles of her marvelous legs straining as she began to contort her body, flinging the strips of cloth covering her nakedness about wildly, faster and faster, to the beat of the exotic music....
It became unbearable. Cathy began writhing on the couch, unable to control her responses any more. She felt an irresistible urge to take off all her clothes, to be completely nude, to have people looking at her that way.
And then a voice from far away seemed to be directing her to do just that: "Yes, remove them, dearest-you'll enjoy it much more that way...."
No! she thought; I won't do that!
But her hands were already tearing at her dress, ripping at hooks and zippers, her body hungry to be naked now. And other hands seemed to be helping her....
With an effort, she tore her eyes away from the screen for a second and saw in the dim light that Penny was doing the same thing.
But she couldn't stop now. Her breasts tumbled free of her bra; hands were helping roll down her stockings-the girl! The girl was kneeling in front of her, helping her to undress. And he-he was nowhere in sight!
God!
Then her eyes returned to the screen. The woman was holding her huge breasts, one in each hand now, kneading them sensuously and grinning at her.
Cathy began doing the same, groaning ecstatically.
The woman on the screen was naked now.
And so was she.
Everything was unreal except the throbs of passion going through her, the hum and pulse of uncontrollable desire for contact, human contact.
The music roared and crashed through her brain.
The drum beats throbbed through her.
She knew she was lost, but she could no longer help herself, didn't care, even.
Whatever would happen would happen. It was as inevitable as fate, as destiny. She was an actress in a play and the play would go on, on and on, maybe forever....
Penny's round white body spilled into her arms in a rush of delicious nakedness. Their breasts pressed together, flattened in a warm, tight embrace that sent chills through both of them.
Chills of sheer pleasure.
Incredible pleasure.
They kissed and embraced, stroked each other familiarly, intimately, their mouths seeking each other's flesh and their hands hungrily grasping and seeking.
It was wild.
Fantastic.
In between caresses, they stole glances at the screen. The movie was still going on, the naked Indian girl down on all fours now, crawling around between the legs of the male dancers who reached down and stroked and pinched and caressed her, making obscene gestures and chanting some hypnotically musical lyrics in a strange language which, completely unfamiliar to her, seemed to say clearly everything she was feeling.
Wild, fantastic things. She was somewhere else, on another planet, millions of light-years away.
An evil, beautiful, beautifully evil place. A place she never wanted to leave.
Penny was doing things to her and she was doing things to Penny, and the girl on the screen was doing things too now, and things were very definitely being done to her.
Wild things. She was being lifted up, thrown about, touched and stroked in the most obscene manner by the now naked, lust-filled ritual dancers.
Touched everywhere.
On the face, eyes, mouth, breasts, legs. Some of them beat her with sticks; others bit at her with their teeth, as though intent on ripping her lovely body to pieces.
Cathy hoped they would.
They were at the base of a huge statue now, an exact replica of the tiny idol upstairs, only gigantic and now she could see parts of the statue that had been hidden from view before.
Interesting parts.
Amazing parts.
The woman was thrown back on a low. flat stone altar directly under the idol, every part of her incredible body being handled by the bizarrely painted priests.
Cathy let out a low groan, identifying with the woman.
With what was happening to her....
A giant of a man, getting up on the altar by her, his glistening body naked, his evil face leering as he leaned to take her.
Cathy screamed.
An abrupt change had occurred. A fantastic change.
She was no longer watching a movie.
She was suddenly alone on the couch, and instead of a screen at the far end of the room, a real beam of light played down on a small rectangular stage, like an altar.
On the stage was Penny. In the same position as the woman in the screen. And with her was ... Him.
Completely naked now, the red robe gone, his body glistening as though rubbed with oil. Penny looked small, completely helpless with him as he prepared to exact the dues of his terrifying lust from her.
Cathy heard her scream once as he began.
Again.
Again and again and again.
She was repulsed, sickened-and yet strangely attracted to the scene, stirred to the depths by it. He was crude, bestial, unrelenting. He turned her this way and that; picked her up and held her aloft over his hips; let her fall backward, head banging against the floor; turned her around and made her crouch like an animal.
On and on.
Cathy stared in a rapture of sensual fascination. She saw that Penny was no longer conscious of what was happening to her. Her eyes were closed and her mouth hung open, slack-lipped, her body became a limp doll, the brutally used implement of his crushing desire.
And suddenly, he stopped and turned his head toward the couch. Toward Cathy.
His arm reached out and he beckoned her to come to him, still clinging to the limp, unconscious body of Penny.
She didn't want to. A dread horror filled her, a sickening repugnance worse than anything she had ever experienced before in her life.
She wouldn't.
But the music His eyes....
She felt her naked limbs stirring, moving of their own accord. Causing her to rise slowly from the couch.
To walk toward that fatal circle of light, the music pulsing sensuously around her, seeming to make her float.
He let Penny go when she stepped onto the stage.
Her small body fell with a heavy thud, as though dead, and he reached out for her, a lewdly evil expression on his face.
Her jaws worked, trying to scream.
Rut no sound came from her throat. She seemed paralyzed, hypnotized by the spell he created with his unblinking gaze.
"Are you ready, darling?" his voice said.
"Yes," she heard herself say; "I'm ready."
He turned his gaze away from her to another direction, and she saw now that the girl was standing next to him, holding a black, coiled object in her hand.
"Whip her first," he commanded.
The girl moved around him now, and the whip uncoiled, dangling evilly from her slim white hand.
Cathy shuddered, folding her arms around her breasts and cringing forward.
The whip sang through the air and came down in a stinging blow over her shoulders, knocking her to her knees. She tried to scream, but couldn't.
The whip cracked again, across her exposed buttocks.
Again and again, the hiss and crack and pain of it spoke to her, cruelly, stingingly, relentlessly.
She fell forward to a prone position, rolled, and the whip sang down over her breasts and legs.
Again and again, until her entire body was one pusling throb of pain.
Beautiful pain.
"More! More!" she heard herself shrieking.
But then she was being lifted to her feet, lifted bodily by his powerful arms.
Lifted completely off the floor and being clasped to him. Her searing flesh felt the scorch of him, forcing the breath out of her.
Incredibly, he was still ready.
A sharp pain made her cry out. And then she felt herself falling backward, dizzyingly, her head striking the floor while his powerful arms held her hips aloft, held her to him.
The world whirled redly around her, the room spinning as the music rose and her body welcomed the powerful attacks of his insatiable desire.
Again and again.
Faster and faster.
She felt herself being consumed by a roaring fire like a burning tree.
She laughed. She screamed hysterically. She cried and laughed and screamed all at once. It was hell and heaven, pain and pleasure, sheer insanity.
And then they were down on the stage, after what seemed hours and hours of unendurable lovemaking and Penny was with them, and the girl too, and it was all mixed up, a crazy tangle of limbs, a trip around the solar system and back.
Wild.
Crazy.
Unbelievable. She was embracing Penny, grasping her white lovely knees and kissing her, while he knelt in back of her, and the girl, her lovely body quite naked now, kneeling over Penny's face while he leaned forward and kissed her.
And then that changed and other, even more undescribable things went on.
Cathy knew she had lost her mind now.
Completely.
She heard herself babbling, saying obscene things, vocally craving for this and that to be done, laughing wildly, sobbing, drooling like an idiot, begging to be whipped again, getting up and using the whip herself. On and on they went.
And then there was just she and Penny, alone in the circle of light falling over the small stage, lying in each other arms and caressing and kissing each other tenderly.
Making love to each other.
At one point, she could see beyond the circle of light. He was sitting on the couch now, with the girl on his lap, both of them facing the stage and watching.
He was incredible.
Amazing.
Inhuman.
Then she lost her senses again as the rush of desire swarmed through her once more, draining the last dregs of passion to a final, wildly moving embrace with Penny that sent her skyrocketing over the moon.
After that, she fell limp, exhausted, to the stage, her body covered with sweat and thin trickles of dried blood from the beating she had received.
Consciousness passed away from her.
She came out of it slowly, a dull, aching light burning through her closed eyelids.
The sun. Her numbed brain couldn't make sense of anything at first-where she was, how she had got there, or even who she was. A dull pain seemed to be the only reality in the world. It was everywhere-her arms, legs, breasts, back and middle. She began to touch herself gingerly.
This caused her to realize suddenly that she was quite naked. Naked, and lying in the front seat of her parked car. She sat up suddenly, her head throbbing painfully.
It was morning.
A peaceful morning in the suburbs; a Saturday morning. She could hear the sound of a power lawnmower buzzing away somewhere down the street.
All she could do at first was gingerly explore her body with her hand. It was bruised here and there, but incredibly, not seriously so. A thin mark of dried blood, a softly swollen ridge of welt-it seemed much too little for the amount of pain she felt.
But as her brain cleared, she realized suddenly that she was sitting naked in her car in the full light of mid-morning.
Everything that happened to her last night came back in a rush. She covered her face with her hands, leaning over the wheel and groaning, feeling she was going to be sick right there.
And suddenly, she heard a crunch of gravel, a footstep She whirled, her head lifting. But it was too late.
Joe Biggs, the mailman, was staring at her, openmouthed through the car window. His eyes looked as though they were going to pop out of his head.
Suddenly his red face cracked into a lewd grin.
"Big night, huh Mrs. Ewell? Uh, maybe I better drive you home-you look in pretty bad shape."
Cathy's mouth worked, but she couldn't answer.
Then he was getting in the driver's side, making her slide over, and starting the car.
He gave her a quick glance first, and she could see from the glint in his eyes that he had no intention of driving her home.
She fell back against the seat, closing her eyes and not caring.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jim Shelton stood waiting while the big silver jetliner gracefully touched down on the runway and made the Inns sweeping taxi up to gate number five.
It seemed ages for all the passengers in the huge plane to be disembarked. Other people pressed around him also eagerly awaiting the first sight of a friend, relative, or loved one, but he was completely unconscious of their existence. His own anticipation consumed him too completely. He stood there, drumming his fingers on the metal railing, wearing a light gray summer weight suit and dark glasses. His head was covered with a white Panama hat, worn low to cover his baldness. He had no desire to attract attention today.
At last he saw them-his wife Alicia and his dark-haired little daughter. They saw him too, and waved.
When at last they reached him, he didn't bother with the customary kisses and greetings, but rushed them through the press of the crowd and out of the air terminal as quickly as possible. He had a big aversion to crowds. The kind of affection he was feeling-a happy, elated emotion-needed privacy for expression. Neither he nor his wife said anything to each other until they were all in the car driving back.
"It seems ages," he said, leaning over and kissing her at a stop light.
"Yes," she nodded, her very dark eyes sparkling. "Much too long. I think. I am glad to be back, Jim."
He gave her a squeeze, chucked his daughter under the chin, and set the car in motion again as the light changed.
It was a long drive back. A long, silent drive. But at last they were turning off the expressway, going through Elkhurst and finally into the peaceful suburb of Orangewood. It was a Sunday afternoon. Nothing seemed to be stirring at all-not even a lawnmower, for a change.
He got his wife's large, heavy suitcase out of the car quickly, and carrying that in one hand and his daughter, already falling asleep, in the other, he followed his wife into the house.
She looked around, making little sounds of approval at its neat condition.
"The baby sleeps," she said, smiling at him. "We should put her in bed right away, yes?"
"Yes," he grinned. "Very definitely so."
He went upstairs and put the child in a crib in her own room while his wife went to investigate the rest of the house. He closed the door quietly, and then tiptoed in to the master bedroom to join his wife.
"Let me look at you," he said.
She smiled, posing with the mirror behind her in a pretty blue dress.
"See?"
He shook his head. "No. With your clothes off."
"Ah, you are not changed then! I was afraid-" But he was over to her, peeling off her dress before she could finish the sentence. "Careful, don't tear-"
He was careful. He didn't tear. But he was also very fast. In no time at all, she was standing naked in front of the mirror. He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked.
She was beautiful in a startling way. Of medium height with an amazing build, womanishly muscular, with amazingly large breasts, widespread, their brown nipples looking away from each other.
Her face was flat, with high cheekbones and dark, smoldering eyes set deep in their sockets.
Her skin was a dark red.
She spoke to him then in the native language of her people, a tongue called Ketchwa:
"You have had many women while I was gone, no?" He nodded. 'Yes."
Her sullen face broke into an extremely white-toothed smile
"That is good. It has made you hungry for me again."
"I'm always hungry for you, beautiful," he said, starting to undress.
She came over to the bed. He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her, pulling her down to him.
But she pushed away, rolling over onto the bed. "No. First you must tell me about these other women. Were they any good?"
"Just one. darling-a child."
"I would like to meet her."
"You will."
"And the others?"
He made a wry face. "They were children too but in a different way. You wouldn't like them."
"Hurry," she whispered. "Come to me, darling! I've been thinking about this all the time I was in the air."
He got out of the rest of his clothes quickly and came to her, taking her in his arms and kissing her marvelous body from head to toe.
Then they lay still, stroking each other. "Do you like this place?" she said after a while.
"No. But it's okay for the summer. I think we should go South then, perhaps to Mexico."
"I would like to go to Lima."
"We'll go to Lima then. I've made enough money to take a year off for some serious writing "
"What will you write about, darling?"
He smiled.
"Perhaps about this place. I don't know."
"About the women?"
"About the women, of course. But also their husbands. Mainly the women, though."
She leaned over, stroking his chest with slow, sensuous strokes.
"How will they turn out?"
He folded his hands behind his head and looked at the ceiling.
"I'm not sure yet. One will get divorced, I think, and go to the city where she will find a job and meet the wrong kind of people and perhaps become a Lesbian. The other will stay married, either until her husband drinks himself to death or falls in front of a truck. In the meantime, she will see how many men she can take to bed with her, and perhaps experiment with taking drugs."
"It sounds very sad. And the third?"
He grinned. "The third will go to Lima with a married couple she meets."
She gave him a hard pinch. "No. The third will not do that and you know it."
"No, I guess not. But she will turn out all right."
"Yes, she will turn out all right. She has met a good lover. That is very important for a young girl." She sighed, moving on the bed, and suddenly she was in his arms and they were kissing again and touching each other with increased fervor.
"What do you want me to do?" he whispered, nuzzling her ear.
"Anything," she hissed. "Everything. We will have a couple of hours before the little one awakens, my darling. It has been a long time...."
"A very long time, baby. But we'll make up for that, won't we?"
There was little need for her to answer that question.
No need at all, in fact.
Their desires answered for them, meeting in an urgent embrace, limbs twining together sinuously.
She touched him, drawing him to her, allowing him to take her.
"There," she said, closing her eyes. "There, there, there, there-"
