IN HER BOOK, ON LOVE AND SEXUALITY, DR. EDRITA FRIED WRITES: 'THE PERSISTENT pursuit of ever-new amours is likened to a sport. An amour is often a psychological rescue operation ... a new conquest may bring change, variety and challenge into a life bogged down by rituals and routines. That was the way it was with Clarence Jones, faithful for fourteen years to an unresponsive wife, who suddenly found himself picking up a hitch-hiking blonde whose tight-fitting jeans and blouse gave him a new uplift of spirits. From then on, Clarence had numerous adventurous sexperiences that convinced him he could find a true love, and he learned that his wife was not the cold-fish bedmate he'd believed her to be-at least, not when her boss was around.
CHAPTER ONE
SHE WAS STANDING BY THE ROADSIDE AND I looked at her as I would look at any other pretty girl. Except this time I looked longer, because this pretty girl was jerking her thumb at passing cars, obviously trying to hitch a ride. I pulled away slowly as the traffic light changed, but the image of the girl still clung to my mind.
She was young, less than twenty, I guessed. I hadn't seen much of her face, only enough to know that it was generally attractive, and her hair was long and black and straight. This in itself was hot enough to make a man look twice, but the rest of her was more than enough.
The yellow blouse she was wearing looked as if it had been cut to her figure, and the outline created by her breasts was enough to freeze a man's eyes to the spot. Further down, a pair of skin-tight blue jeans clung to her hips and thighs, leaving little of her basic construction to the imagination-even to the very minute details, such as the spot where the blue fabric seemed to be forcing itself into her as it disappeared between her thighs. I could feel my prick swelling.
I was still thinking about the girl when I stopped at the next traffic light. Horns honked behind me as the light blinked from red to yellow to green, and I snapped out of one trance and into another.
It was a crazy, impulsive thing to do, but I did it anyway. I was already late for work and should have given the car the gas and roared straight ahead. Instead, I made a quick right turn and circled the block. My heart was hammering in my chest as I approached the spot where I had originally seen the girl, and I was desperately hoping that some rake had not already beat me to the punch.
All the time my cock was getting harder. I was mentally condemning myself for the thing I was about to do. I was a decent, upstanding citizen in the community, and the girl had to be a tramp, else she would not be hitch-hiking. It-was obvious that the sight of her body had driven me to the verge of madness, and this in itself was a bit beyond my understanding. Especially in this modern day, when women are likely to wear less on the streets than they wore in the privacy of their boudoirs. As a matter-of-fact, some of the tight shorts I had seen on women exposed a bit more outlines than complete nudity. At least, in the nude state the finer details were covered with the heavy, bushy mat put there by nature. This could not be said of fabric which was so tight that it actually forced its way a short distance into the outer orifice-just like the jeans on the hitch-hiking girl.
The light caught me again, and I didn't know whether to be thankful or sorry when I saw that the girl was still there. Evidently the passing traffic was filled with decent, upright citizens such as myself.
The light blinked to green, and for a moment I was filled with a mixture of reluctance and fright, being sorely tempted to turn right again. A horn honked behind me, urging me on my way. I silently cursed my own indecision, and then the girl's eyes looked across the street and caught mine. I turned left and stopped. There was little doubt in my mind that half the town would see the girl getting into my car, but in my confused state I would no longer have cared if the president himself stopped and. said, "Good morning, Mr. Jones. Who is that whore you're picking up?"
I leaned over and opened the door. The girl stooped to pick up a small overnight bag at her feet, and her breasts pushed hard and firm against the yellow blouse. She stepped into the car without so much as a word.
Five minutes passed before she looked my way, and I noticed that her eyes were very dark. "How far are you going?" Her voice surprised me. It was not coarse or vulgar. It was very small and sweet and feminine.
"How far do you want to go?" I could not keep my desire for her out of my voice.
Her eyes became wary. "I'm just hitching a ride, mister. I don't make the rules."
"Maybe I made a mistake," I said.
"Did you?"
"You give me the answer," I said.
"All right," she said softly. "I saw you pass the first time. You deliberately turned around and came back. It wasn't chivalry that inspired you to turn around."
"No," I said. "It wasn't."
"Knowing this, I still took the ride," she said. "Does that answer your question?"
"Amply," I said. I was as nervous as a convict on the eve of a big break. It had been fifteen years since I had picked up a girl, and I didn't feel the confidence I had felt at the age of twenty.
I looked the girl over out of the corner of my eye. From the way the nipples of her breasts pressed against the yellow blouse it was obvious that she wore no bra; and although the jeans did not expose nearly so much in a sitting position, I knew that the goods were still there.
Those sharp eyes didn't miss a thing. "Why don't you just pull over and get a good eyeful," she said, her voice ridiculing me. "Than we can continue on our way without the danger of your having a wreck."
I felt cold all over, but I managed a laugh. "You're not even trying to get along."
She shrugged and the tips of her breasts bobbled. "I can't pin you," she said. "Something about you doesn't fit."
"Such as?"
"That clean-cut, manicured look," she answered. "The seventy-dollar suit. You're not the type to do a girl a favor without getting something out of it."
"I thought we'd already settled that," I told her.
"We merely discussed the matter," she said. "I don't remember making any agreement. You see, I once had the misfortune of meeting another nice young man in a seventy-dollar suit. He was very kind, very considerate, very handsome, and most convincing. He wanted to do things for. me."
"I'll bet," I said.
"One of the things he wanted to do for me was to put me in an apartment of my own," she continued, ignoring my comment. "Of course, he slyly slipped in the stipulation that I would have to do my share by entertaining various gentleman callers whom he would send around from time to time."
"Did you agree?"
"If I had, I would be wearing lacy nothings and expensive perfume instead of a pair of jeans and the sweat of the road," she said flatly. The deceiving sweetness was vanishing from her voice, being replaced by bitterness and a cynical attitude. She frowned deeply. "You believe me, don't you?"
"It mades little difference what I believe," I said. "I don't think my opinion of you would influence your actions one way or another."
"I know what you think," she said. "You think that I'm a dirty hippie on her way to orgiastic sit-in."
"And you think I'm a white-slaver," I countered.
"I think you're out for what you can get." She seemed confused. "You just don't fit," she repeated. "I want to think that you're like all the rest. A quick lay in a dirty little motel and you walk out. But even that doesn't fit you."
"Let me ease your worried little mind," I said. "I am an upstanding citizen of the community-a perfectly sane individual who went completely nuts a few moments ago."
She seemed satisfied for the moment. "You were on your way to work when you saw me?" she asked.
"Yes." I glanced at the passing scenery. We had already left the city limits and were heading toward the next town without a definite thought in either of our minds.
"You look like a bank clerk," she said. "Your face is thin and pale, like you don't get out in the sun much."
"And you look as if you spend a lot of time in the sun," I said. I liked her face. It was very tan, and although she wore no lipstick her lips had a definite redness to them. She had turned toward me, shifting her legs as she did so. I could see the jeans sucking in again, held there by two tiny mounds of soft flesh. I wondered if her body was tan all over like her face.
"Are you a bank clerk?" she asked.
"Since you will not settle for less, let me clear the air once and for all," I said. "I am the assistant manager of Gurley's department store. It's a chain outfit. I make a hundred dollars a week, and this seventy-dollar suit I'm wearing was picked up at a sale for thirty-nine-fifty. Even then I couldn't afford it." I paused to let my words sink in.
"Is that all?" she asked.
"What do you mean?"
"Is that all you're going to tell me?"
"The story of my life would bore you," I said. "It bores even me."
"I'm not interested in the story of your life," she told me. "Only in now."
"Okay," I said. "I'm married. Is that what you were digging for?"
"Part of it," she said.
"My wife is the private secretary to a big-shot lawyer downtown," I continued, "and she is a status seeker. Everything we do is beyond our means-but it makes her happy."
"And it doesn't make you happy?"
"Hell no," I said, angry with myself for talking too much to a complete stranger. "The rat race is stifling me."
She smiled. "Now who is talking like a hippie?"
"It's not the same thing," I retorted. "I don't want to live in a dirty lean-to on some California hillside and run half-naked in the sun and wind."
"Oh, I see," she said. "But you do believe in the easy and free-love part, and you haven't got the guts to run away from but a few hours at a time?" She smiled. "You're not getting away with me, you know. It's only a short ride down the highway. There's nothing in it for you."
I scowled. "I was wrong about you. You're no flower child. You're much too cynical."
"I'm not cynical," she said. "I'm realistic."
"Yeah," I said, wanting to strike back at her. "Your clothing convinces me of the fact."
"What is wrong with my clothing?"
"It shows everything you've got to show," I said.
"It does?" She didn't bother to check. She already knew that my statement was fact.
"Why do women wear such clothing?" I asked. "Do they get some obscene kick out of showing off their wares?"
"Maybe they do it because they hate men and want to torture them," she suggested. She laughed shortly. "Doesn't your wife show herself to you?"
"My wife undresses in the closet," I said flatly, and although my words held some truth, they were a bit to the extreme.
"She doesn't wear clothing like mine?"
"She wears everything a woman is supposed to wear," I said acidly. "Everything the market has to offer. "Bras, panties, girdles, slips, stocking, mascara, eye-shadow, hair-spray. You name it, and she utilizes it."
"I refuse to be bound by such conventional trivialities," the girl said.
"That's easy to see," I said, lusting over the twin dots her nipples made against the yellow blouse.
"You keep looking at me with condemnation in your eyes," she said. "Why?"
"Maybe it is because I'm sickened by the thought that a pretty girl like you can throw her life away," I said.
"What's with you?" she asked. "You condemn convention with one breath and uphold it with the next. You hate me for what I obviously am, yet you urge me on my way. That's just like a man. He'll almost rape a girl to get what he wants, and then he'll curse her for being a dirty bitch."
"Nobody is going to rape you," I gritted.
"Ha," she said, and her eyes became devilish as she saw that she was getting to me. "But you'd like to go to bed with me, wouldn't you?"
"Hell, yes," I blurted. "Any man would. But that has nothing to do with my beliefs. I was wrong in picking you up, and I admit it. But it wasn't entirely my fault. Seeing you standing there by the road-you were a reincarnation of all the fleshly sins committed by womankind. Any man who listened to his inner thoughts would have done the same thing I did."
"Make up your mind," she said, unimpressed by my ravings. "Are you going to try to make me or convert me?"
"Neither," I said bluntly. I hated my self for having been like a talkative old woman. My tongue had already put me on far too intimate terms with this strange young girl. Strange that mental intimacy could be so much more embarrassing than physical intimacy. "I am going to take you to your destination and forget I ever saw you."
She laughed in my face and her teeth were very white and even.
"What's so funny?"
"You have a long drive," she said. "My destination is nowhere."
"Then I'll drop you off at the nearest town," I said, amazed to find that my desire for her was threatening to turn to pure hate. She was nothing but a wanton, degenerate bitch, and she had probably slept with a hundred different men.-Still, hating her, and hating the hundred men, I knew I would gladly become number one-hundred-one if the opportunity presented itself.
CHAPTER TWO
THE DIRECTION IN WHICH I WAS HEADED TOOK us straight into the mountains and toward the small town of Rockaway. Rockaway was west and thirty miles from home. I didn't know whether this was good or bad, I guess it depended entirely upon my real intentions about the girl. At the moment I was torn between being a devil and a saint.
The girl was a bit like myself. Something about her didn't fit. She wasn't a hippie or one of the leather-jacket gang, although the tight jeans and the unrestrained lines of her breasts tagged her as something out of the ordinary. As for the hitchhiking-in my part of the country women just didn't thumb passing cars. A hitch-hiking man was looked down upon, and a hitch-hiking woman was nothing more than dirt-not even fit to inhabit a house of prostitution.
I couldn't convince myself. This girl was no tramp. She was clean, and healthy, and desirable. She talked like a bitch at times but her words held the ring of education.
I tried to tell myself that she had to be bad-all bad. In trying to build her up I was only trying to justify the hot desire I had felt for her on sight. What had happened, I suppose, was that the trap door of lust had opened in the deep recesses of my mind and I had fallen to her level of degradation. My thoughts had become those of an animal, and I needed no justification for copulation save that I felt the urge.
"A penny for your thoughts," she said, when the silence began to grate at her.
"You wouldn't care to hear them," I said.
"I might."
I shrugged and the car weaved a bit. "A man could have only one thought when he's with a girl like you," I said. "And you've already stated your position, so it would be useless to discuss it."
"I could change my mind," she said, smiling strangely.
"I'm not sure that I want you to."
"You're lying,"-she said. "Yes, I'm lying."
"I think I might even like to get into bed with you," she said.
"Don't feel obligated," I said, already becoming reluctant again. "Besides, I'd probably hate myself in the morning."
"I've never hated myself the morning after," she said.
"You wouldn't.". I snapped the words off, wanting to hurt her for having toyed with me.
"I actually believe that you think I'm little more than dirt," she said. "I don't go around sleeping with every man who asks me."
"You discuss the idea readily enough," I told her.
"I'm a strong advocate of free love,"-she said, refusing to become angry with me, "and I see no harm in discussing it. Even so, you continue to have a warped impression of me. I believe that love should be free, but only to the extent that there are no restrictions imposed upon either male or female."
"Clarify that remark."
"I don't believe that men and women should run around like animals, taking one another by instinct, without any forethought whatsoever. I believe that a mutual consideration should exist between the involved parties."
I scowled. "By that I suppose you mean that a man should be thoughtful enough to let a woman reach a climax before he finishes with her."
She pouted. "That's not what I mean at all, and you know it!"
"Mutual consideration had nothing to do with my picking you up," I reminded her. "It was instinct."
"Yes," she agreed, "but instinct-will never make me give myself to you. Something more tangible will have to be present."
"It will be," I said, leering at her. "Something very tangible and concrete."
"Something more," she said.
"Love?" I was completely at ease with her now. It was almost as if I had known her intimately all of my life.
"Not necessarily love," she said quickly. "I don't want a love affair with any man, although I think that any two people experience a certain degree of love in the throes of passion."
"You're talking in riddles," I told her. "We don't know one another well enough to speak of love, and animal instinct had been tossed aside. Yet, you've admitted that you might like to sleep with me. To what do you attribute this sudden feeling of warmth?"
"Physical attraction," she said.
"Isn't that animal?"
"Not between people."
"You continue to confuse me," I said. "You say that you're not promiscuous, that you don't sleep with every man who asks you. On the other hand, you say that physical attraction is the main ingredient in a man-woman relationship."
"I've never claimed to be innocent," she said. "I've only stated that I wasn't some cheap tramp who could be had for a short ride. Anyone can have a tramp for the price of two beers."
"But not you?"
"I can't be bought," she said. "I have a very healthy attitude toward sex. To me, it is an undeniable physical need, and I feed it according to my appetite."
"But not with just any man who happens to be present at the time your needs present themselves?" I asked.
"The need is latent. It takes a certain type of man to arouse it," she said. "That is why I did not toy with you for long. I began to feel an attraction toward you."
"Why?"
"Because you didn't try to slip up on me. You were very honest to begin with." Her eyes were warm as she looked at me in all honesty.
"We've examined the subject thoroughly," I said, "like two doctors dissecting a cadaver. What do we do we do now?"
"We stop at the next motel and feed my hot little appetite," she said brazenly.
"Just like that?" I asked. "In the middle of the morning?"
"Call it a late breakfast," she said.
I spotted a motel just as the car rounded a sweeping curve and I hit the gravel of the driveway with a vicious crunch. I felt like a screwball. Many of the occupants of the night before were just checking out, and I was going to check in. I eased the car around to the side of one of the complexes, hoping that the clerk in the office was duly occupied, thereby preventing him from seeing the girl. Already I could feel the shakes coming back.
"Stay put until I come back," I told the girl as I stepped out of the car.
She nodded, already looking a bit guilty.
The weasel-faced clerk squinted his eyes as I signed the register. I didn't sign my real name, but the clerk wouldn't have believed it anyway. Clarence Jones sounded fake although it was real. Mr. and Mrs. Paul Ducat sounded real although it was fake.
The clerk sniffed and rubbed his nose. "Just you and your wife?" he asked suspiciously.
"Yes. She's in the car."
"Then you'll want a single," he said, taking a key off the hook. He craned his neck toward the window as if trying to spot my companion. His suspicious nature irked me. The truth was that half the couples who checked into motels were unmarried. Without such trade they'd all be out of business.
His smile was very sour as he caught my frown. "I have to be careful, you know," he whined. I'm not running a hot-pillow joint here." He sniffed again. "Not many people check in at this time of day."
"We've been traveling all night," I said, forcing a yawn. "I prefer to drive at night when the weather is cool and the traffic is light."
He appeared convinced by my story as he handed me the key. Probably the yawn had turned the trick. "You've got a point there," he said. "That'll be eight dollars." He glanced at his watch. "It's almost ten now, but I'll give you the benefit of the two hours. If you decide to stay over another day and look over our part of the country, the fee will be due again at tomorrow noon."
"We'll be on our way before nightfall," I assured him.
"The room should be made up," he called after me. "I don't think I rented it last night. If it isn't made up, give me a ring and I'll send the maid around. And the room is air conditioned. You won't have any trouble sleeping, no matter how hot it gets up in the day."
"Thanks."
He followed me outside, still trying to catch sight of my companion. "If you need anything else, just holler."
"Thanks again." I flashed a very stern look his way and he reluctantly returned to his office.
I returned to the car. "Did you get the room?"
I nodded, and she picked up her overnight bag and followed me. I was sure glad that the clerk had not followed me around the building. He would have most certainly seen this as another shack job. Me in white shirt, tie, and a reduced seventy-dollar suit, arid the girl in a pair of dusty blue jeans, carrying a two-dollar overnight bag. We went together like a square peg in a round hole.
The girl looked around the room. "How much?" she asked.
"Eight dollars."
"Too much," she said, placing her bag on the bed. "The television set is ten years old, and black and white."
"It's air-conditioned," I said, flipping the switch on the window unit.
"That's something for your money, at least," she said.
She pulled the tail of the yellow blouse out of her jeans and slipped out of it without warning. She wasn't tan all over. The streak of brown formed a triangle as it plunged between her firm, pink-tipped breasts. From that luscious valley, outward and downward, her torso was a milky-white until it disappeared at the waist of her jeans.
She laughed as she noticed me gaping at her. "Did I shock you?"
"Well...."
"You're going to see all of me anyway," she said, flippantly. "Why should I bother to be modest now?"
"No reason."
"Are you ashamed of your body?"
"No," I growled.
"Then why should I be ashamed of mine?" She peeled the jeans below her hips and moved over and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Would you mind pulling at the legs?" she asked. "They're rather hard to get off."
I tugged at the legs while she wiggled around on the edge of the bed, and the jeans slid slowly down her thighs. They were very nice thighs, almost plump but not quite, and they were also milk-white like her torso. Although she did not wear a bra, she wore panties, and I was relieved to discover that she had some sense of modesty. It was a very slight modesty, for she no sooner stepped free of the jeans when she stepped out of the panties and tossed them onto the floor beside the jeans.
I stared at her hard, feeling my eyes jumping in their sockets. The vigorous growth around her pussy glittered darkly against all the white, a lovely contrast without purpose.
"Don't you like me?" she asked.
"Very much," I said.
"I know I look odd," she said, surveying her own body with a critical eye. "Tan arms and face, and the rest of me a sickly white."
"A beautiful white," I murmured.
"I don't really like to bathe in the sun," she said, "But my face and arms just naturally tan in the summer."
"It's strange that you tan so easily when your skin is so pale," I said. "And your hair and eyes are so very dark."
"I guess I'm a mutant," she said, smiling. She picked up the jeans and panties and strolled easily toward the bathroom, her rounded buttocks jiggling enticingly.
I could hear the water running into the tub, and it splashed freely as she began to bathe herself. I thought that the bath was taking an awfully long time, but I attributed this to my impatience. However, as the splashing grew more vigorous, I became concerned. For all I knew she was scrubbing herself raw, trying to impress me with her cleanliness.
I cracked the bathroom door and peered in. "Come on in," she said. "Don't be bashful. You've already seen everything there is to see."
I went in. She was still in the tub, and so were the jeans and panties. She was rubbing them between her hands and sloshing them up and down in the tub. "Are you nuts?" I asked.
She laughed. "I'm only doing my daily laundry," she said. "A girl has to keep fresh and dainty, and I'm traveling light. If I don't wash the jeans every day, I wear dirty clothing the next day."
"You must have a change in the bag," I said.
"Two extra blouses, two changes of panties, a toothbrush, handkerchiefs, and several other small items a girl might need." I thought that she acutally blushed, but under all that tan I could not be sure.
"Yeah," I said, blushing a bit myself.
She stood up suddenly and there was a ring of soap suds around her hips, swooping and conglomerating like a snowcap on her dark pussy moss. She flicked the snowcap away as if irritated by its presence. "Here," she said, "Grab the legs Of the jeans and help me wring them out."
"You're not looking for a lover," I grinned. "You just want somebody along to help you with these damned jeans."
"It's not funny," she said, slapping the wet legs in my hands. "They're hell to get dry."
She twisted one way and I twisted the other until the jeans were knotted up into a damp blue ball. She was still twisting at the point where I thought my wrists would snap. "Harder," she said, gritting her teeth. Either she was exceedingly strong or I was exceedingly weak. Of course, pushing a pencil never did help to build strong wrists.
"Enough," she said, a moment before my arms collapsed. She stepped from the tub and removed the towels from the double rack. Across one rack she hung the jeans, placing the panties on the other. She tried to press the wrinkles from the legs of the jeans, and finally stood back, satisfied with her efforts.
"You're the most beautiful-wash-woman I've ever seen," I said.
"They'll look like they've been ironed after I put them on tomorrow," she said.
"I'll bet they will," I agreed.
"Really," she said. "They'll still be damp and they'll cling to my figure."
"So I noticed today," I said.
She tossed me" a towel. "Dry my back, will you?"
I dried her back. In fact, I got so carried away that I dried every inch of her, clear to the tips of her toes. By the time I had finished, her eyes were alive with flaming passion, and her tits were magnificently tilted. Her skin seemed to tremble beneath my touch. I wasn't exactly cool, calm, and collected myself. I was more like a charging knight riding behind a strong, heavy lance, and rather than guiding the lance, I was letting it pull me toward the waiting victim. My prick was standing like a flagpole.
"You...." she said.
"Clarence Jones," I whispered, guiding my cock toward her crevice, and then fumbling with her joy bump. We clutched at one another, standing there in the bathroom, like two hungry people who were not quite able to wait until the meal was fully prepared.
"Clarence...." she said, her mouth opening almost silently as I pushed slowly into her moist pussy. "Oh ... oh!" she moaned.
She pressed hard at me, trying to obtain something more than I could possibly give her in such an awkward position. I crouched low, trying to achieve a better point of attack without losing contact completely. She lapped at me like a hungry flame, shoving me against the high wash basin. It caught me in the small of my back.
"Aggh," I cried. It was painful as all hell, and I would have broken away if her hands had not had my face pinned against her breasts in an unbreakable grip.
I'd read about people getting killed in their bathrooms, and now I knew exactly how it could happen. "Is ... your name really ... Clarence?" she asked, her hips banging back and forth like those of a belly dancer.
"That's right," I gasped. "Clarence Jones...." I was like a kayoed boxer, out on his feet and fighting by instinct alone. It was senseless as hell to take such a beating, I finally decided, and threw in the towel. She was evidently thinking the same thing, for we broke at the same time and literally ran toward the bed.
It was awkward, getting my clothes off with her trying to help me, but I somehow managed. When we met again it was like two walls of a forest fire meeting at a giant pine tree and sending an enormously hot flame into an already scorched sky.
I probed the depths of her like an earth boring machine, plowing into the bowels of a volcano, and the stinging hotness of her spewed forth to meet me, expanding to let me through, then clasping me very hard as if to push me back, like an unwanted foreign object.
The window unit blew cold air across our naked bodies, and they absorbed the cool moisture as if it were nothing, turning it to steam on contact. I looked into her face and found it to be very calm and intent, except for the hungry, burning expression in the dark eyes. Their surfaces became like two hard, black pearls as she controlled her will, refusing to let her thoughts be shattered into a million senseless pieces. She settled down, working like a wonderfully programmed machine as her hips churned and weaved in timed movements and the punch cards slid into the slot, one by one, like wonderful magic.
"Clarence ... Jones," she said, and she jerked once, very hard, as she sensed that the final card was hitting the slot. The final order from the machine reached me and I reacted as it commanded. It was a whale of an order. We came together. We moaned together, and finally lay quiet in exquisite silence.
We didn't sleep. Who could think of sleep at this time of day? We merely stared at the ceiling together. A few minutes later she went into the bathroom, and this time she took a quick shower. I heard her cut off the water and then she stuck her head around the edge of the door. She was smiling. "Do you want to dry my back again?" she asked.
"Some other time," I said, happily bushed.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE CAME OUT OF THE BATHROOM, STILL stark naked, and opened up the overnight bag. She took out a pair of red panties and stepped into them, pulling them high over her flat stomach. There was no shame in her face for what she had done with me, and oddly enough I felt quite the same way about it.
I tried to analyze the fact that I felt innocent. I was a married man. I should be feeling shame and degradation. I should be remorseful and full of sin. I should be dirtied and disgraced. But I wasn't.
She seemed to understand my thoughts. "Mere calisthenics, wasn't it?" she asked. "Very invigorating and exhilarating. Nothing more."
"A bit more," I said.
"I know," she said, a flicker of passion returning to her eyes as she recalled how it had been. "But you're wondering why you don't feel badly about what happened?"
"Yes," I said. "Maybe it's because I don't love my wife."
"It is just the opposite," she said. "You don't feel badly because you don't love me. If you loved me, and I loved you, it would be cheating and you would feel shame. There is no disgrace in sharing your body, only in sharing your love."
"An odd way to look at it," I said, "but you could be right."
"I know I am," she said, still walking around the room clad only in her panties. Her breasts were firm and high and the small pink tips were very, very pink. Her raven-black hair hung down past her shoulders, and the straight bangs were very low in front, coming almost to her dark brows. "I've made love to a lot of men," she said, "and I've never felt shame. No. Let me correct myself. I've never really made love to any man. I've enjoyed sex with them."
"We're both nutty," I said. "Things like this just don't happen between two people."
"What do you mean?" She dug into the bag and came out with a blue slip-over blouse. The white of her torso disappeared completely as she slipped into the blouse. She still looked odd-very tan face, blue blouse, red panties, and almost ivory legs.
"I'm not meaning to be offensive," I said.
"You can't offend me," she told me. "If something applies to me, I accept it. If it doesn't, I ignore it."
"Okay," I said. "Things like this do happen, but under different circumstances. Some low-life man without an ounce of self-respect picks up a tramp who thinks even less of herself. He takes her for a short ride, buys her a hamburger and a beer. They hole up in a cheap motel for the night, or maybe in the back seat of his car. Later, he puts her out on the side of the road, and the less said about the incident the better. More than likely another crumb will pick her up some time during the day and spend the next night with her. This woman will burn two dozen guys before she works her way across the country."
"The girl's eyes became stormy. "I'm clean," she snapped.
"I thought you weren't going to let it get under your skin," I said, unable to restrain a smile.
"I don't like for anybody in insinuate that I might be dirty or diseased," she said. "I'm particular. I may be called promiscuous by a narrow-minded public, but nobody dares call me dirty."
"That's exactly my point," I said. "You don't fit and neither do I. What makes a girl like you do a thing like this?"
"What makes a man like you do a thing like this?" she retorted. "You're risking your job, your wife, your very future. I'm risking nothing, except a possible pregnancy."
"I did-what any normal man would do if the restrictions of society were lifted from his shoulders," I said. "You were very desirable and I wanted you on sight. I wanted you as I've never wanted any other woman. But-if you had not been exactly as I pictured you in my mind, I would not be here with you now."
She laughed. "In other words, if you had discovered that I was really a dirty tramp, you'd have put me out three hundred yards after you picked me up?"
"Exactly," I said. "And I'd have high-tailed it to my job with a very red face."
"You may not have a job now," she reminded me. "If assistant managers are responsible to managers."
"I'll tell him I was sick."
"And what if he called your wife?"
"She'll cover for me," I said. "She needs my salary to keep up with the other Joneses."
"You'll still have to make up a story to tell her," the girl said.
"I'm not too experienced at covering up," I said, wincing at the thought.
"You've never done anything like this? Not even once?"
"Not since I've been married," I said. "Can you imagine? Fourteen years of walking the straight and narrow and a man suddenly goes haywire at the age of thirty-five."
"That's the way it usually happens," she told me, smiling a bit. "Who knows what monster you have released within yourself?"
"I hardly think that I have released a monster," I said.
"You liked what happened, didn't you?" she asked. "I mean, it was a very refreshing experience?" I nodded.
"Now, you'll begin looking at other girls and wondering how it would be with them. Soon you'll be taking advantage of every available woman, even trying to create new opportunities for yourself. It's a man's nature to be polygamous. And once he's given in to the urge, he is lost."
"No," I said.
"I have corrupted you, Clarence Jones."
I frowned. "You don't know me very well."
"I know you better than you think."
"And I don't know a thing about you," I said, "except that you're very beautiful and very good in bed. I don't even know your name." I laughed at my own words. "I've been to bed with you and I don't even know your name!"
"You didn't ask," she said easily. "The name is Holly Smith."
"Smith and Jones," I said. "An unbelievable combination. And your age?"
"What does age matter?"
"I don't want to be locked up for corrupting a minor."
"I'm almost twenty."
"And you're running loose around the country?" I asked, chastising her. "What's wrong with your parents?"
"I haven't any parents. They were killed in a car wreck when I was twelve. I went to live with my uncle."
"And what does your uncle have to say about your delinquency?"
"He isn't in the position to say much of anything," Holly informed me. "He seduced me when I was fifteen."
I went pale. "You're jesting?"
"No, it's the truth." She was very calm about it. "It happened in the workshop in the back of his garage."
"Wasn't there someone around to help you-to hear your screams?"
"I didn't scream," she said, "and I-wasn't particularly looking for help. I was ashamed to let him remove my clothing, of course, but after he began to fondle me, well, it felt so good that I didn't want him to stop. Actually, I was very green. I didn't know what it was all about. I only knew that what he was doing made me feel better than I had ever felt in my whole life."
"He must be a filthy lecher," I said, angry that such a thing could happen.
"On the contrary," Holly said, "he had been most generous with me. He fed me well, clothed me well, and sponsored me to two years of college. I could have finished, but I decided against it. You know, there's no real freedom in college. One is not even an individual. I couldn't take it any longer. I wanted to be me. I wanted someone to know" I was around."
"Your Uncle...." I said, still sick at the thought of his being the first to take her.
"I don't hold what happened against him," she said. His wife was a very cold woman. He needed someone."
"You mean it happened more than once?" More sickness welled within me.
"Oh yes," she said evenly. "Quite frequently for about a year."
"Surely you realized it was wrong," I said, despising her now for letting such a thing happen.
"Don't condemn me for incest," she said. "I didn't realize the full implications of what was happening. And when the truth finally did dawn on me, I began to refuse his demands. He was most gracious about it."
"I'll bet he was!"
"He did me no great harm," Holly said, actually defending her uncle. "It might as well have been him as some fumbling teen-age boy who was as green on the subject of sex as myself. Who knows? A bad experience with some stupid boy and I might have become frigid. I most certainly wouldn't have wanted that."
"And I suppose, after your uncle, that there were many, many others?"' I felt the bitterness twisting my face.
"Stop right there," Holly said, raising her hand and her voice. "I've already told you that there have been many men. I frankly admit that during my senior year in high school and my two years in college, I busted the double standard into a million pieces. But, wrong or right, you cannot condemn me. I'm not your wife. I'm not even your girl friend. I'm just a girl you took for a ride, and I've paid you amply for that ride and the use of this motel room for twenty-four hours. Where else could you get a good clean piece for eight dollars cash and twenty cents worth of gas?"
"Don't be vulgar."
"It's the truth, isn't it?" Holly was smiling triumphantly, knowing that she had stuckthe knife deep.
"You're making yourself sound like a common whore," I said numbly.
"That's what you're trying to make me, isn't it?"
"Not at all," I said apologetically. "I was merely questioning your motives."
"You were questioning my actions," Holly said flatly. "There is some difference. My actions are fact, so they need not be questioned. My motives-well, I didn't have any."
"You had to have motives."
"No," Holly said. "I did what I did because I felt like doing it. Just like sleeping with you because I felt like it. I wasn't looking for a place to wash my jeans or a bit to eat. I'm not a vagrant. I have money." She reached into her bag and brought out a small roll of bills as proof. "And don't accuse me of selling myself across the country. This money comes legitimately. I worked for it."
"Where did you sleep last night?" I was still angry and suspicious.
"In a motel," she said.
"Alone?"
"Alone," she said. "The room cost me five dollars."
"And where will you sleep tonight?"
"That's none of your business," she said. "Frankly, I don't give a damn where" I sleep."
"You worry me."
"Don't let me," Holly said unconcernedly. "After today you'll never know that I exist, nor I you. Let it be to you what it is to me-a pleasant interlude. And, if you keep trying to reform me, it will cease to be that."
"You intend to walk out of here, and I'll go back to my job?" I asked. "Just like nothing ever happened between us?"
"That is how it should be."
"No, it isn't."
"What do you suggest?" she asked.
"I was thinking that we could get an apartment...?"
Holly mocked my suggestion with laughter. "You can't even keep your wife in the style that she demands," she said. "How are you going to keep another woman on the side?"
"I have a little money put back that she doesn't know about," I said. "I let the golfing and the bowling and the new shot-gun or fishing rod go and put it back a few dollars at a time."
"How much?" asked Holly.
"A thousand dollars," I said.
"How long could you keep me on a thousand dollars?" she asked.
"Three months, maybe."
"And then what happens?"
"I'd get the money somewhere," I told her. "How? By stealing company funds?" She shook her head. "It's no good. It could only lead to bad trouble for both of us. Besides, I've never let a man keep me. I don't know that I'd like it."
"Okay," I said. "It was a lousy idea. I just didn't want it to end like this."
"Afraid you didn't get your eight dollars and twenty cents worth?" she asked, mocking me again.
"Why do you try to cheapen everything?" I snapped.
"One can hardly put adultery on a high plane," Holly said simply. "Forget it, Clarence. What you've suggested could mean emotional involvement. I don't want that with any man."
"I glared at her. "Are you going to parade around all day in your blouse and panties?" I asked, wanting to say something spiteful.
"I don't relish the idea of putting on those wet jeans." She laughed as she looked at me. "You have small room to talk."
It was only then that I realized that I was still in a very nude state. "Sorry," I said.
Holly studied me intently. "You know what you remind me of?"
"What?"
"A boy who had just had his first girl and has gone completely ape over it," she said.
"That's how I feel," I said.
"I believe I can cure that," she said. Her hands reached for her panties and she slid them halfway down her hips.
"Wait," I said.
She looked startled. "You don't want to?"
I shrugged. "I might as well."
Off came the blue blouse and the red panties and she was in the altogether again-brown, and white, and black.
I didn't say anything, but by the time she had Crawled back into bed I was ready for her. Her skin was very warm to my touch and she pressed hard against me as I tried to caress her. Our faces were very close and I suddenly realized that I had never kissed her. When I tried to do so, she turned her face away from me.
"Don't," she said. "Please."
"Why not?" I was stunned.
"A man doesn't kiss a girl like me," she said. "Just like he doesn't kiss a prostitute."
"It isn't the same with you," I said. "Not as far as I'm concerned."
"As long as I don't kiss you, I don't become emotionally involved," she said.
"Do you actually believe that?"
Her lips firmed. "I do."
"Nuts," I said, wanting to kiss her so bad now that I could taste her.
"If you must kiss me," she said, "kiss me somewhere other than my lips."
I kissed her breasts and she arched them toward my face. Afterwards, I still wanted to kiss her mouth. "Your breasts are without emotions?"
"They are strictly a physical part of my anatomy," she said. "Erogenous zones and emotions are not one and the same."
"Both the lips and the breasts are considered erogenous zones by the scholars," I argued. "What is the difference?"
"When you kiss my breasts you take one part of me," Holly said. "When you kiss my lips, I too am taking a part."
"You want to be a machine? Nothing more?"
"Exactly," Holly said, sliding one leg across me and searching me out. "Now, let's don't talk any more."
The first card slid easily into the slot and Holly's machinery reacted accordingly. Click. Click. Click. More cards dropped into the slot in succession. Clickety. Clickety. Clickety. The tempo increased to a prestissimo.
The machine operated as before, smoothly and without malfunction. And then something happened. The punch cards flew all about the room, fluttering before our eyes like confetti. The machine went wild.
Holly stared into my face, wild-eyed and disbelieving. She did not understand her own body. The dark eyes were smoldering, and suddenly her mouth was searching for mine. Her lips trembled as she found me, and her tongue flicked along my lips with a warm sweetness. Our moans mingled as our teeth made contact between bruised lips, and our bodies went stiff as the red light flashed violently and the machine went dead.
Holly was silent for a moment. "I ... I ... didn't mean to kiss you," she said. Emotion stirred in her face and she fought against its presence.
"You felt something," I said happily. "Something more than pure sex."
"I didn't," she said.
"Why deny it?"
"I tell you-it was nothing." She sprang from the bed, angry with herself. Before I could protest, she had jerked the red panties high on her stomach again and was sliding the blue blouse over her head.
"Holly," I said.
"Nuts to you," she said.
She dashed into the bathroom and when she came out again she was wearing the wet jeans. The fabric was as close to her flesh as her skin. She opened the overnight bag and crammed the still damp panties she had washed into it.
"What did I do?" I asked.
"Nothing," she said, and her eyes were slightly wet from threatening tears. "Absolutely nothing." She closed the bag in a vicious manner. "You're trying to make something out of me that I'm not. You're trying to make me over in your own image. Well, Mister Jones, all you were about to do was create another Frankenstein."
"Make sense," I said, trying to reach for her.
She backed away and her mouth trembled as she spoke. "It's no good. From the time you set eyes on me, it was no good. It's like you said. We don't fit. This is a lousy nightmare out of time and place."
"Listen, Holly...." I was struggling into my own clothing.
"I'm a tramp," she hissed. "A no-good tramp. I'd never be any good to you or to any other man. A quick, easy piece of tail. That's all I'll ever be!"
"Stop trying to hurt yourself I" I screamed. "That isn't true."
She laughed bitterly. "Do you know that I spent every weekend with a different boy when I was in college? And do you know that there was only one of them that I never slept with? He had the same ideas about me that you have. He wouldn't accept me for what I was-a sex-loving tramp!"
"You're lying through your teeth!" I protested.
"Do you want me to write down the names of every man I've slept with?" she snapped. "If so, give me three pencils and fifty sheets of paper!"
"For god's-sake," I moaned.
Holly picked up her bag and headed for the door. She paused a moment. "Now, Mr. Jones, you get on back to your wife and your job, and try to save them both. I should be easy to explain, because, as far as you're concerned, I never happened!" She slammed the door behind her.
I put on my shoes with very numb fingers, and I thought that I would never get them tied. I didn't really get them bowed. I just jerked the strings into two hard, angry knots of protest.
CHAPTER FOUR
I LEFT THE KEY TO THE ROOM ON THE nightstand beside the bed. By the time I reached the car and drove back onto the main highway, there was no sign of Holly. She had either walked rapidly around the curve, or else she had been given a quick ride by some other character who had caught sight of her magnificent figure. I looked longingly down the road heading westward then jerked the wheel to my left and turned east.
When I arrived home, the clock showed one. I took a quick shower, put on a fresh shirt, gulped down a sandwich, and took off for work. The way I figured it, I could explain away five hours more easily than I could an entire day.
Mr. Yancey, the manager, stared coldly at me as I came in the front door. I suspected that he had been standing there all morning, watching the streets and hoping to catch a glimpse of me on a goofing-off tour of the town.
He clasped his hands behind him and wiggled his fingers. "Well, Clarence," he cleared his throat, "I see that you made it after all." His long, bony face was resentful. Although the company gave its employees ten days sick leave a year, Mr. Yancey looked upon the time used with a critical eye. As far as he was concerned, it was time to be accumulated, stored, and used for dying. To my knowledge he had never utilized a day of sick leave for himself during his thirty-year tenure with the chain.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Yancey," I said, "but I was a little under the weather this morning."
"I know," he said tersely. "I called your wife. She said you were sick." His prominent nose quivered against his thin face. "You could have at least called, Clarence."
I didn't give further excuses and went directly to the cubby hole which served as my office. My title and my cut-down seventy-dollar suit entitled me to some considerations and I intended to take advantage of them.
I looked through the scattered invoices on my desk, but I saw nothing. I was mentally taking stock of myself. Putting aside my heavily mortgaged twenty-thousand dollar home and my financed late-model car, I was little more than an overpaid stock boy. Even my office was situated next to the stock room, a hastily constructed affair thrown up with a few two-by-fours and some cheap, unfinished sheet rock. Most certainly, the lower-ranked employees called me Mister Jones, but their voices held the same contempt for the term as had Holly Smith's. That is, all except for Miss Marsha Trumbley, who was just coming into my office.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Jones," she said, smiling and putting down another stack of invoices.
"Good afternoon, Miss Trumbley."
Marsha Trumbley had worked for the store for three years. She was a secretary who acted as a liaison between Mr. Yancey's office and my own. Actually, she was not much more than a runner who could type and take shorthand.
Miss Trumbley was exceedingly pretty, tall and willowly, with very blue eyes and a baby-doll mouth. Her complexion was natural peaches and cream. Her platinum hair was pulled high on her head, and I couldn't keep from staring at it every time she came into my office. It had been platinum for the three years I had known her, but I had always had the sneaking suspicion that it was a beauty-parlor job. So far, not the slightest tale-tell sign had confirmed my suspicions.
Miss Trumbley lingered around the office as she always did, straightening my desk and carrying out other small and unnecessary details. I had always suspected that she had an interest in me other than business, but up until today I had never bothered to pursue the tantilizing thought.
Today, I found myself looking at Miss Trumbley with a new interest. She was wearing a lacy white blouse, and looking closely I could see the straps of her slip and bra as they slipped past her creamy neck and across her. shoulders. The blue skirt was a perfect fit, clinging "nicely to her buttocks and thighs. It was a bit revealing, a little strong for the standards set by Mr. Yancey-for he always frowned upon his female employees wearing clothing which emphasized their sex. However, to my knowledge, he had never condemned Miss Trumbley.
"Marsha-eh, Miss Trumbley," I said, clearing my throat in much the same manner as Mr. Yancey.
"Yes, Mr. Jones?" Her face lit up, showing a degree of anticipation.
"Uh," I said, getting cold feet, "we'll discuss the matter later, Miss Trumbley."
She looked disappointed. "Whatever you say, Mr. Jones," Her anticipation disappeared and so did the rest of her.
I flipped through the invoices, but I wasn't seeing stock numbers or descriptions or prices. I was seeing Miss Trumbley as I mentally removed her clothing an article at a time.
I catalogued and priced each article, trying to be accurate. I didn't know Miss Trumbley's salary, but I suspected it was meager. Then, too, Mr. Yancey frowned upon his employees buying goods elsewhere so Miss Trumbley purchased most of her clothing at our own store.
The articles in order, as removed: A four-dollar blouse, a $6.98 blue skirt, black pumps at $9.99, and two nylon stockings at $1.50 per pair. A pair of black bikini panties at 99 cents, white slip at $2.98, garter belt at one dollar, and an economical but durable white bra at $1.50.
Had I forgotten anything?
Miss Trumbley was not in the mental altogether, but I was having a hard time making out the physical details. The bra wasn't padded, so that meant that her breasts were as nice as they looked when concealed. She was wearing no girdle, so this meant that the torso was as represented. The legs, as I had seen them, were excellent from the knees down, so her thighs would be much the same-perfect. All in all Miss Trumbley presented a very nice picture.
I chastised myself for thinking of Miss Trumbley in such terms. And then I thought of Holly's words of warning. "Now you'll begin looking at other girls and wondering how it would be with them. Soon you'll be taking advantage of every available woman, even trying to create new opportunities for yourself."
They were the words of a wanton, but they rang true. I thought that Miss Trumbley was available. If not, I saw the opportunity to make her so. And I wanted her.
Miss Trumbley came into my cubby hole a dozen times that evening, and I stared holes in her every time she appeared. If she noticed my strange behavior, she said nothing. By the end of the day I was on pins and needles, yet I restrained the strong impulse to approach her with a proposition. I could hardly ask her point-blank if she would like to go to bed with me. Miss Trumbley was not another Holly Smith. She would require more than a few hours of my time, eight dollars, and twenty cents worth of gas.
My wife's old Chevrolet pulled into the driveway behind my shiny black sedan. The Chevrolet was for added transportation. The sedan was a status symbol. She gave me an icy stare and I hurried into the house to prevent the neighbors from participating in the coming storm.
Sue tossed her handbag aside and stripped off her short jacket. Her breasts heaved under her blouse as she was almost overcome by her own emotions.
I lit a cigarette to help calm my nerves. "Okay, Sue," I said. "Let's get it over with."
"So you were sick today?" she asked, her brown eyes shooting off sparks.
"That is correct."
"Why. lie to me, Clarence?" Her too-red lips curled with contempt for me. "You left for work before I did this morning."
"So I did," I admitted. "Did it ever occur to you that I might have become ill on my way to work."
"Yes," Sue snapped, "I thought of that. But if that had been the case, you'd have called Mr. Yancey." She shook her head so vigorously that the hairpiece she was wearing almost fell out of her hair. "I covered for you this time, Clarence, but I won't do it again."
"Thanks," I grunted.
"What was it, Clarence?" She paused long enough to take the hairpiece out of her hair and the hair fell unnecessarily around her slender, rather long face. "Was it a woman?"
"Has there ever been another woman?" I countered.
"No," she admitted freely. "At least, not to my knowledge. But you're reaching the dangerous age. You could well go haywire if another woman-a younger woman-gave you so much as a passing glance. That Miss Trumbley at the store, for instance?"
"Miss Trumbley and myself have an employer-employee relationship," I said.
"I've visited your office," Sue reminded me. "I've seen the way she looks at you. A woman knows about these things."
"You're imagining things," I said.
"She's a bitch, Clarence," Sue insisted. "She's just waiting for the opportunity to ruin some good man."
"You have my word, Sue, that nothing exists between Miss Trumbley and myself." Not at the moment, anyway, I thought.
"I suppose it was foolish of me," Sue admitted. "You wouldn't have enough money for her. She'd be the type who would use that body and that pretty face to get money and position."
"Correct," I agreed.
She wasn't through. "Who was it then?" she asked bluntly.
"For God's sake, Sue," I growled. "Fourteen-years we've been married, and I can't account for five hours of my life, and you accuse me of being a philanderer. A marriage is built on faith."
"Ha," Sue sneered. "Our marriage is built on our contempt for one another."
"Only because you make it so," I said.
"Me?" She laughed bitterly. "Don't blame me, Clarence. You've never really loved me."
"I don't undress in the closet," I retorted.
"That has nothing to do with the way we feel toward one another," Sue said hotly. "A woman has the right to modesty."
"You weren't always so modest."
"And you'll never let me forget it, will you, darling?" she said acidly.
My own words left a bitter taste in my mouth, and the memory of how Sue and I had met came flooding back to me.
I met Sue in a small business college-the kind that poor high school graduates go to because they can't afford the real thing. I was so poor, in fact, that it took me four years to finish a two-year course, mainly because I was forced to spend half of every year earning the money to go to school the other half.
Sue was two years my junior and she sat next to me in advanced typing. She was a pretty girl-nothing spectacular, but pretty. Her face was a bit too thin, her mouth a bit too wide, and her lipstick a bit too loud for my tastes. She was hard-eyed and realistic. None of this soft, feminine exuberence issued from her. What I mean is, she just wasn't the sexy type. Regardless, coming in contact every day, we got to know each other pretty well.
We dated a few times, and everything was on the up and up. And then one night we crept up the back stairs of my rooming house and into my room. Getting Sue to agree to go to my room had been easy-almost too easy, so I didn't contemplate too much trouble in getting what I wanted from her.
Sue went through the usual act that women go through before giving themselves to a man for the first time. Don't do this, and don't do that, and what kind of a girl do you think I am? And all the while I was taking her clothes off a stitch at a time, encountering very little physical resistance.
Her body wasn't bad, once she was completely nude and lying on the bed. She was thin of frame, and her breasts flattened to almost nothing against her chest. Actually, the only reason I had any desire for her was for reasons of body chemistry. I was male and she was female.
"I've never done anything like this before," she said, trying to sound frightened.
"It won't hurt," I assured her.
"If it hurts, will you stop?"
"I promise."
"I'm not so sure that I want to go through with it, Clarence."
I was already fondling her, and was past the point of turning back. She was trying to register emotion, but her eyes were as cold and as hard as a balance sheet.
"Please," I said.
"Well...." she said, and her legs swung wide as if on hinges. The conquest was made, I thought, but I had hardly made contact with her and felt warmth before she rolled over on her side.
"Now, what is wrong?" I gasped.
"Don't," she said. "Don't, make me do it."
"Don't tease me," I said. "You knew why we were coming up here."
"I know," she admitted, "but I just can't make myself go through with it."
"Why?"
"It's wrong."
She wasn't very convincing, but I wasn't accomplishing my purpose either. "You've led me too far," I said. "You can't back down." I was bursting inside.
"If I let you, will you marry me?" She slipped the question in.
She had me where she wanted me, and I was very weak and without reasoning, "Hell, yes," I said. "Right now, I'd marry you if you were Jezebel." The promise of marriage was a quick ticket into the moss-covered cavern, and I encountered no further resistance from her. None at all-for she was not a virgin.
Sue put on a good act. She oh'd and ah'd and uh'd. She contorted her features as if the pain were killing her, but her physical responses did not match her facial and verbal reactions. She engulfed me like the whale swallowing Jonah. Her eyes remained hard and expressionless while I pounded against her like a bull butting a stone wall. There was little doubt that she was getting small enjoyment out of the act, and there was even less doubt that she was deliberately prostituting herself for the promise of marriage.
I don't think that Sue ever reached a climax that night, and although I achieved release, it was the extent of my' satisfaction. Sue didn't seem to be frustrated by the fact that she had experienced little save the bruising of her private parts. She was upset, however, when I told her that she wouldn't be able to shower immediately afterward. The entire second floor shared the same bathroom and it would not be wise for her to be found there. The landlady was a sorehead who frowned upon girls visiting the rooms.
"I feel dirty," she said, as she stepped back into the panties with the butterfly on the front.
"You can take a bath when you get back to your room," I said.
She finished dressing, the soiled expression still etched into her face. "Are you going to walk me home, Clarence?" she asked. "Or are you going to push me out the door like a common trollop?"
"You know me better than that," I said. "I respect you, regardless of what we just did."
She smiled. "Then you'll marry me as you promised?"
"I'll marry you," I said, "but not right now. We'll have to wait until we get out of school and find jobs. A marriage is hard enough without starting out on a shoestring." She readily agreed to this.
I continued to see Sue for the remainder of the year and we were intimate periodically. There was little thrill in it for either of us. She was still prostituting herself for a promise, and I was accepting for several reasons. First, I needed a certain amount of sex to keep me happy. Second, I had neither the time nor the money for the other girls-the ones who could really set my blood on fire.
Sue, while being almost frigid in her lovemaking, suited me in almost every other way. She was a penny pincher, and this was a great boon to my usually empty pocketbook. She didn't seem to care for parties or dances. A hamburger and a coke, and perhaps a movie, were sufficient, and there was not too much of this. Giving her credit where credit was due, she never fought me when I wanted to go to bed with her. She merely undressed and climbed into bed, positioning herself like an upside down sawhorse while I had my way with her.
Sue didn't bring up marriage again, and I certainly had no intention of reminding her. It wasn't that I had deliberately lied to her about marriage. However, I did feel that she had made me commit myself in a very unorthodox way, so I didn't feel obligated.
She stunned me out of my world of cold figures and cold sex a few days before we were to graduate. I had no idea that two words could have such an impact upon my life.
"I'm pregnant," she said.
Regardless' of my personal desires, I had been brought up to be a gentleman, and I did the right thing by her. We were married two days after graduation.
I thought that things would be different on our honeymoon. The sex part, I mean. We drove to an economical resort in the mountains, and by the time we arrived Sue was cooler than the mountain air. She submitted to my advances, of course, like an oak board submitting to a rusty nail being hammered through its hard hide. By the end of the fourth day, she was actually fighting me off. I gave the project up as a bad deal and we returned to town.
Our marriage wasn't idyllic, but we were otherwise fortunate. I swung a job in Gurley's, starting as a stock boy, working my way up to my present position. She started her career as a flunky to one of the well-established lawyers in town. His private secretary moved on several years later, and Sue slipped into the position she had left behind.
It was about this time that sex and her body be came a distasteful subject between us. Although I had been extreme in telling Holly Smith that my wife undressed in the closet, my words were not without some foundation. I had not seen my wife's body in its entirety in ten long years.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUE CONTINUED TO BE COOL TOWARD ME AS the evening progressed. I noticed that she kept watching the clock. "What's up?" I asked, speaking my only two words of the last thirty minutes.
"Have you forgotten?" she asked. "The Hansons are coming over to play bridge tonight."
"Oh, hell no," I said. "I refuse to put up with them tonight." It was my turn to be cool.
"I'll make an agreement with you," Sue said. "If you'll be a good boy and treat them decently, I'll stop pouting."
I had no choice, but I'd never cared for the Hansons. They, like my wife, were grubby little social climbers. Norm Hanson was a flunky executive with one of the local furniture plants. His wife, Emma, refused to work, for fear that it might tarnish their social image.
Norm, prematurely balding, and thin-eared and hollow-eyed from running a hard race with his betters, was an unconfessed egotist. He was the type to fiddle while Rome burned. He lived in a budget-straining mansion, traded cars every year, and played golf with a set of clubs he had borrowed from a neighbor who had moved away and forgotten them. And Norm was confident. His pearly-toothed smile of assurance remained on his face although his toes stuck through the holes in both socks.
Emma was fat and overbearing, a loud mouthed, self-made snob. She talked with a manufactured accent, and her fingers were loaded down with rings set with genuine-looking rock-candy stones. Her heavy bosom shook like gelatin when she laughed, and rumor had it that she had slept with every handyman Norm had ever had around the house. All could say was that the handymen had poor taste in women.
I only mention Norm and Emma as examples of the type of people my wife always preferred to rub elbows with. I made it through the evening in spite of Norm's brilliant smile and Emma's knees rubbing mine under the table.
"You weren't very warm tonight," Sue said after they had departed.
"They're your friends. Not mine."
"You should cultivate Norm's friendship," Sue insisted. "A man in his position can help you."
I scoffed at her. "Get off the ladder, Sue. I'm through climbing." I ripped off my shirt and tie.
"Are you content to remain the assistant manager of Gurley's department store all your life?" Sue asked, following me into the bedroom.
I sat down on the edge of the bed and kicked off my shoes. My knees felt sore from where Emma had been rubbing them with her hams. "I think I've been pretty fortunate, considering that I did it all on my own. I didn't have to sell myself out to get where I am. Besides, when I'm dead and gone nobody will know the difference. I'm not looking for a place in history. I'm not even aiming for an editorial in the local paper the day after my funeral."
Sue removed her blouse and put it neatly away, doing the same thing with her skirt. "Sometimes I could leave you, Clarence Jones!"
"You need me," I said. "I don't need you."
I could see the slight bulge of her breasts as they peeped over the edge of her bra and the top of the full-length slip. Not only did her breasts appear large, but her body had become more rounded in general since the first days of our marriage. All in all, she wasn't bad to look at. A man could do worse. And she could look even better than I suspected, if I'd only get the chance to see her in the nude again.
Sue removed no more of her clothing before going into the bathroom to apply her night cream and put on her hair-net. When she returned to the bedroom, she was wearing that damned red-flannel robe she always wore, and I could see her nightgown sticking out from under it.
She stood with her hand on the light switch. "Are you ready?"
"Yeah," I grunted, and she flipped off the light.
I lay there in the darkness, trying not to think, but thinking just the same. The only sound that came from Sue was her soft breathing. I reached over and rested my hand on her breast, and there was no response from her. I worked my hand under the top of her gown. Still no response. I caressed a nipple and it refused to grow hard and firm, remaining Very pliable and rough to the touch.
Sue was still awake, for she sighed regretfully. "Can't you keep your mind off sex for one night, Clarence?"
"Maybe that's the trouble with our marriage," I told her.
"I would think that you could put your mind to other things after fourteen years of marriage," she said, flipping over on her side and turning her back to me. "You're not a teen-ager any longer."
"I'm still a man," I said. "I haven't been castrated by society and big business."
She didn't answer.
"We're stuck with one another, Sue," I said. "Why not make the best of it?"
"I am making the best of it," she retorted. "Now, will you stop talking and go to sleep."
"Maybe if we had a kid," I suggested.
"Why discuss it, Clarence?" she said, shifting even further away from me so as not to make bodily contact at all. "You know I can't have children."
"Yeah," I said numbly. "I forgot." Like hell I had. For fourteen years it had preyed on my mind, this thing of Sue's being barren. I had never really forgiven her for having lied to me about being pregnant. It was almost laughable-bitterly so. I had not seduced her in the beginning. She had seduced me.
Since I had begun to look at Marsha Trumbley in a new light, I waited impatiently for her every visit to my cubbyhole. Many times I detained her under false pretenses, and this gave me the opportunity to get to know her better.
I was afraid that Mr. Yancey was beginning to grow suspicious, for, on several occasions while Miss Trumbley was in my office, he came by and stuck his nose in for a long look. He need not have bothered. As badly as I wanted Miss Trumbley, I had no intention of breeching her across my desk and taking her there.
I wasn't afraid of Mr. Yancey, but he did put me on edge at times. Although he did not have the authority to fire me, he most certainly could put me on the carpet with the district office. It would be hard to buck a man like Mr. Yancey when the chips were down, and I was well aware of the fact. He was a pillar of the church, a man who abhorred gambling and liquor and loose women, In fact, he was known to detest everything that served to make life enjoyable, and the bitterness of his beliefs was such that it pushed through the pious expression on his face, leaving painful and lasting lines of grief.
Yet, for all his self-imposed integrity, I suspected that deep within himself Mr. Yancey possessed the soul of a lecher. On many occasions I had seen him eyeing the pretty, tight-skirted young things who came into the store. At such unguarded moments his eyes lit up with a satanic glint, and his lips became a drooling abomination to his face.
Perhaps, someday, I would be a proto-type of Mr. Yancey. The thought frightened me. The years were slipping by, bringing me closer to the frightful day when I would be standing in Mr. Yancey's shoes. There would be no going back. My sandy hair would be gray, my thin nose would thicken and spread with age, and my long, wiry frame would ooze into my clothes when I put them on in the morning. And my wife-she would become an embittered old hag, living only for her bridge parties and other female trivialities, happy with the thought that sex was no longer a bother to her.
This could not be, I told myself with grim determination. Holly Smith, wanton though she was, had awakened me to the fact that life was passing me by. By giving herself to me, she had shown me the first step to freedom. The way I saw it, Marsha Trumbley was to be the second step.
I was naturally reluctant to approach Miss Trumbley with an outright proposition. Danger lay in still, blue waters, and beauty could be deceiving. Although I was certain that Miss Trumbley had an interest in me, her interest could be only in her mind. Actual physical contact with her could lead to what I had in mind, or it could lead to a bloody catastrophe. There had been cases where a woman had worshiped a man from afar for years, indulging in all types of mental fantasies with him, even to committing orgies. And then, when the man finally made advances toward her, the woman had been known to go to pieces and scream bloody rape.
The wise thing to do was to wait Miss Trumbley out, but time had become too fleeting and precious for this. And Miss Trumbley certainly wasn't going to be so brazen as to ask me out. She obviously wasn't the type; and probably, like myself, she had no concrete idea of what was going on in the other party's mind. Maybe she even, preferred fantasy to the real thing.
Waiting could become a tiresome thing. Why couldn't two people always meet as had Holly Smith and myself? We had looked, we had seen, we had liked, and we had gone directly to bed with one another. Although modern society frowned upon such liberal action, it certainly saved a lot of wear and tear on the nerves.
My mind was made up. My hook was already baited. At the first opportunity, beyond the prying eyes of Mr. Yancey, I would cast out my line. The opportunity came before the week had ended. Mr. Yancey was being called out of town to a district meeting.
"The store is in your hands, Clarence," Mr. Yancey said, making a big thing of it. "I shall be gone for the entire coming week, and I leave with the knowledge that the store is in good hands."
"Thank you," I said.
"And Clarence-try to get out on the floor more, now that I'm going to be away. Some of the employees have a tendency to become slack on the job if they aren't under constant surveillance. You and I know that the customer comes first, but they are sometimes unaware of this principle."
"Of course, Mr. Yancey."
"And Clarence-If you are hampered by matters pertaining to my part of the operation, feel free to call on Miss Trumbley. You will find her to be very capable and willing to be of the utmost assistance in any way that she can be."
"I'm certain of that, sir."
On the same day that Mr. Yancey left town, I asked Miss Trumbley to stay after closing time and look over some orders with me. There was no hesitation on her part, and I locked the door behind the last of the departing employees with trembling hands. I managed to regain my composure before returning to the office where I found Miss Trumbly waiting.
She smiled. "Shall we get on with it, Mr. Jones?" I had the compulsion to grab her then and there, but I restrained myself. "Of course," I said.
Miss Trumbley and myself went though the orders, and any fool could have seen that the task was unnecessary. It was an obvious ruse on my part and I was certain that Miss Trumbley realized the fact. I was rapidly getting cold feet, for I did not know exactly how to make my advance toward her. I decided to wait for some sign from her.
It wasn't a long wait. I was sitting in my chair and Miss Trumbley was standing behind me, peering over my shoulder. She was leaning very low and I felt one of her breasts brushing against the side of my head. The contact of the breast with my ear could have been accidental, but the breast remained there just the same.
I flipped through several more orders, finally accumulating enough nerve to push my ear very firmly against the warm mound of female flesh. Miss Trumbley did not move away. I was further encouraged and I pressed very hard against the breast. Miss Trumbley remained as was, although I was sure the pressure was hurting her-she acted as if my ear were glued to her breast and there was nothing she could do about it.
Moving my head to one side I could feel the point of her bra sticking in my ear. It wasn't padded and the fabric was very soft. I could actually sense the outline within the cup.
"Miss Trumbley...." I said.
"Yes ... Mr. Jones?" She was breathing unevenly and trying very hard to push the breast even further into my ear.
"Now, uh, Miss Trumbley, what do you think about this order?" I was staring at a blank sheet of paper.
Miss Trumbley took a step forward in order to see more clearly. Her breast fell away from my ear, but her pelvis made contact with my elbow in the same instant. "That ... is a blank ... sheet of paper ... Mr. Jones," she said softly.
"Oh, yes," I said. "Sorry."
"It's all right, Mr. Jones."
I eased my elbow back and Miss Trumbley pressed forward with more emphasis. Through my shirt sleeve I could feel the softness of her-and the softness underlying the softness. Applying pressure, I could feel bone beneath the soft softness.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, and I knew that I had injured her.
"Sorry," I gasped.
"It's all right, Mr. Jones." Her words were a bare whisper as she brought her pelvis back into contact with my elbow. I pushed back and she pushed forward. Again and then again. Even an idiot could now be certain in which directions Miss Trumbley's thoughts lay.
I stood up and I was trembling all over. So was Miss Trumbley.
"That last order, Miss Trumbley," I asked, "do you think it is ready to be filled?"
"Most assuredly," she said. Her eyes were very bright as her lips parted sensuously.
"Mr. Yancey reminded me that some of the employees might become lax on the job while he was away," I grinned.
"Have I been satisfactory, Mr. Jones?" she asked.
"You show great promise, Miss Trumbley," I assured her.
Miss Trumbley looked uneasily around her. "One can almost see the office from the street, Mr. Jones," she said.
"What do you suggest?"
Her eyebrows lifted. "The lounge?"
"An excellent suggestion."
I took her by the arm and led her deeper into the building, finally coming to the small area beside the storeroom which served as a lounge for the employees. It was nothing fancy, being composed of two ashtrays, a drink machine, a cookie dispenser, and one small couch. I led her to the couch and we sat down.
My mouth was very dry. "Would you like a drink, Miss Trumbley?"
"No thank you, I'm not thirsty," she replied.
My hand was resting on her knee. It was rounded and smooth beneath the nylons. I hope that you won't think that I'm imposing on you by keeping you late, Miss Trumbley."
"I had no other plans." She smiled through her passion-lit face, and I slid my hand further up the stocking until I touched the hot flesh of her upper thigh.
"Would you get the wrong idea if I removed my stockings, Mr. Jones?" she asked. "Feel free," I said.
She removed the stockings carefully, and her legs were fine and white. "Don't you think that it is hot in here, Mr. Jones?"
"Make yourself as comfortable as you please," I said.
Miss Trumbley removed her skirt and blouse and I helped her become a bit more comfortable by removing her slip. Her breasts bulged nicely over the top of her bra. I had been wrong about the bra. It was very sheer, being almost a sleep bra, and snapping in front. "One of ours?" I asked, admiring the bra and its contents.
"Most assuredly, Mr. Jones." She was so kind as to remove the bra and show me the label. It was obvious that she needed little support, if any at all. The muscles which supported her medium-sized breasts must have been very strong for they lifted the mounds until the pink nipples almost pointed upward into the air. "Did you know that I once had an opportunity to model bras at the Merchandise Mart, Mr. Jones?"
"Do tell," I said.
She blushed. "I turned it down. I just couldn't bear the thought of all those people staring at me."
"That's understandable," I agreed.
Miss Trumbley found several hangers and smoothed her skirt and blouse onto them, hanging them on a nearby rack. She returned to the couch and sat down beside me. The only article of clothing remaining on her person was a pair of very brief bikini panties, made by the manufacturer of the bra. I could see the label and I could also see something else. Her platinum hair was a beauty-parlor job, because she was otherwise elsewhere.
Miss Trumbley took off her panties to give me a closer look at the label. Across the front of them was emblazoned the word "Monday."
Miss Trumbley lay back on the couch without being coaxed to do so, and I began to fumble impatiently with her, trying to keep my balance at the same time. "Don't you think you should remove your clothing, Mr. Jones?" she asked. "They'll get soiled and wrinkled and it might be hard to explain."
"Thank you." The suggestion was ample proof of Miss Trumbley's efficiency. She was always thinking ahead. I removed myself from her and stripped, hanging my clothing neatly beside her own.
When I returned to the couch, I found that Miss Trumbley had positioned herself as accurately as she possibly could in such cramped quaters. "Now, Miss Trumbley," I said, being always the gentleman, "I have no intention of corrupting you. If you still retain your maidenhood, I shall be the last to take it from you."
"Don't worry about that physical detail, Mr. Jones,"-she smiled. "I ruined myself riding a boy's bicycle when I was fourteen."
"I mean, I have no intention of leading you down the primrose path," I said, wanting to further impress her.
"I don't make a habit of this, Mr. Jones," she said, 'Taut I like you."
"And I like you, Miss Trumbley."
Getting to her was awkward, but I somehow managed. We pawed and clutched at one another, each shifting around and searching for a lost object. I finally made contact, and Miss Trumbley's red lips opened in a sigh as I moved forward in one swift movement.
"Oh, Mr. Jones!" She lifted herself to meet me, and we became unglued and rolled onto the floor with a resounding thud.
We lay there for a moment, possessed by shock. Miss Trumbley looked over at me, her platinum hair in complete disarray. "Could I make a suggestion, Mr. Jones?"
"By all means."
"We sell carpets, don't we?"
"An excellent idea," I said, stumbling to my feet. "Remind me to commend you to Mr. Yancey."
"Don't bother, Mr. Jones."
We searched impatiently throughout the dark stockroom, afraid to turn on the lights for fear that a passing policeman might feel obligated to investigate. Miss Trumbley stayed close to me, her hands, in constant contact, making periodic investigations of my anatomy in order to assure herself that I was still capable of carrying out my duties.
Our search was time-consuming and futile, and the floor itself was too hard and dirty to be considered. Miss Trumbley tugged at my arm. "Could I make another suggestion, Mr. Jones?"
"Anything," I whined.
Miss Trumbley took me by the hand and led me back to the couch. I sat down and Miss Trumbley sat down on my lap, a great, long sigh of satisfaction escaping, her lips. My eyes almost popped out of my head from sheer ecstasy.
Neither Miss Trumbley or myself had much to say for the next fifteen or twenty minutes. I wiggled around like I was sitting in hot ashes, and Miss Trumbley squirmed and jumped as if being stabbed with a hot poker. She had been most accurate in saying that my clothes would have become soiled for the chemical reaction was quite violent and prolonged.
Miss Trumbley was much more efficient than I had ever suspected her of being. I regretted the three years in which I had not fully utilized her hidden talents. Actually, I also gave myself a pat on the back, for I was also amazingly competent. One thing did bother me, however. The employees' needs were being grossly neglected by the management. I intended to see to it that they acquired a much larger and softer couch for the lounge.
CHAPTER SIX
"I HOPE THAT I HAVEN'T GIVEN YOU THE wrong impression, Mr. Jones," Miss Trumbley said as we dressed.
"Certainly not," I said.
"You see, I have this steady boy friend," she informed me. "He's a traveling salesman, and we hope to be married someday."
"Far be it from me to come between you and your true love," I said in all sincerity.
"It isn't that I don't enjoy our relationship, Mr. Jones, because I do, even more so than before."
"I understand, Miss Trumbley."
She smiled. "Don't you think you should call me Marsha, now that we've become better acquainted?"
I frowned slightly. "I hope you won't think me stuffy, my dear," I said, "but I think it best that we keep names as they are. People-especially Mr. Yancey-might suspect something if you and I began to address one another as Clarence and Marsha."
"You are so right, Mr. Jones," she said. "I am sure that your foresight will make you manager of this store some day, and I do hope that I will be a part of your staff,"
"Likewise," I said.
Miss Trumbley stepped into her black pumps and straightened the seams of her stockings. She took a comb out of her handbag and re-did her hair. Once again she was the picture of a perfect secretary, with not so much as a wrinkle to show what she had been through. She smiled. "About the thing we did, Mr. Jones?"
"Yes?"
"Let's prevent it from becoming habit-forming. An affair wouldn't be right for either of us."
I nodded my concurrence. "Could I drive you home, Miss Trumbley?"
"Thank you, no, Mr. Jones," she said. "I think it best if I walked." I escorted her to the front of the store and unlocked the door. "Good night, Mr. Jones," she said. "It's been a pleasure working with you tonight."
"Likewise, I'm sure, Miss Trumbley. Goodnight."
I was glad that Miss Trumbley was a levelheaded girl, not liable to coming apart at the seams because a man had made love to her. So many women had the tendency to think that if a man claimed them sexually, they became a complete part of him in the process.
I actually think that both Miss Trumbley and myself were sincere in not wanting our association of that Monday night to become habit-forming, for we resumed our employee-employer relationship on Tuesday morning. We did our best not to look directly into one another's eyes, and the strain of deliberately ignoring one another was beginning to show by the end of the day.
Ten minutes before closing time, Miss Trumbley appeared in my office with a handful of papers. "This report should be sent to the main office today, Mr. Jones."
I glanced through the papers. "This will be very time-consuming."
"Would you like me to stay late, Mr. Jones?" she asked quickly.
I glanced up at her and she was smiling. A spark shot between us. "You're under no obligation to do so, Miss Trumbley," I said.
"I'd like to stay, Mr. Jones," she informed me. "I'd like it very much."
I cleared my throat. "As you prefer, Miss Trumbley."
What we were doing wasn't habit forming, because it was obvious that both Miss Trumbley and myself had obtained previous experience throughout the years without suffering any ill effects. Needless to say, the report did not go in that evening since Miss Trumbley and myself spent the greater part of our evening in the employees' lounge.
To be frank, the exact events of that night are rather vague in my mind. Miss Trumbley and I were carried away by our emotions as we tried a variety of things. About the only thing that remains clear in my mind is that she was wearing bikini panties again-and the day of the week on the front of them was "Tuesday."
I found that there was much work to be done as the week progressed, and I also found that Miss Trumbley was more than willing to stay and do her share. By the time her panties showed Friday, we both felt that we had accomplished much, and deserved a good rest-which was just as well, because Mr. Yancey was due back on Saturday morning.
Sue did not question my staying late for work during the week, and I suspected that she was glad to be rid of me for the few extra hours every day as long as she had knowledge of my whereabouts. I was equally positive that she appreciated the fact that I did not so much as touch her during the entire week. The latter carried over to the middle of the following week, for Miss Trumbley had created aftereffects within my system. This was only natural, since Miss Trumbley was only twenty-three and I was thirty-five. I was like an old horse running in a race with three-year-olds. I was able to keep the pace for only so long, and then it began to show on me. If the race had lasted until Miss Trumbley's panties had shown Sunday, I am afraid that she would have also shown me her heels as she pulled away in the stretch.
By Friday, a week after my last evening with Miss Trumbley, I felt the urge very strongly again. Sue must have spotted it in my face for she was very quick to get into bed and feign sleep.
I lay there beside her, the thwarted urge be coming more strong by the minute. Sue had her back to me and I reached across her to fondle her breasts. For all the reaction I obtained from Sue, I might just as well have been squeezing a grapefruit. She snored a bit louder to emphasize that she was sound asleep.
I got up and smoked a cigarette and drank a cup of warmed-over coffee. Neither helped much because my real craving was for something of another nature.
After returning to bed, I lay very still, searching for sleep. The effort was futile. I found myself thinking of Holly Smith, sitting in the bathtub and washing her jeans, and of Miss Trumbley's cute butt squirming against my stomach on the couch in the employees' lounge. The urge became so strong that it threatened to lift the covers from the bed. Any available woman would have been in danger at the moment. I flung the covers back and jerked Sue's nightgown around her waist in the same instant.
Sue sprang immediately to a sitting position, clutching at the hem of her gown and trying to pull it back around her thighs. I could not see her face, but I knew that it must be filled with consternation and disgust. "What is wrong with you, Clarence?" she hissed.
"I want you," I said bluntly.
"At this time of night?" She continued to tug at the gown, trying to remove my grasping fingers.
"It's only eleven o'clock," I said, pressing her back onto the bed and straddling her with my legs to hold her into position.
"Stop it, Clarence," she protested, straining and squirming beneath me.
I bent low and kissed her, and her mouth was very cold against min. "Damnit," I said, "warm-up."
"You're a pig, Clarence!"
I pried open her legs and slipped between them, and she fought back with every ounce of her strength. "You have no right to treat me this way, Clarence!"
"l have every right," I said, trying to get her panties to slide free of her hips. With all her squirming and protesting, my efforts were useless. She was being aroused, for I could feel the dampness of her, although she refused to admit its presence.
Unable to stand being thwarted any longer, I grasped her panties and snapped the elastic around her thighs, bringing forth the entire crotch in my hand. Before she could so much as utter a sound of further protest I had slammed myself home, sinking deep into the yielding body which so desperately wanted to be unyielding.
Sue gasped once, then lay very still as I had my way with her. She refused to participate in the act any more than was absolutely necessary, and registered complete disgust with her complete silence. She didn't have to put up with me long for I was seeking a quick release, making not the least effort at pleasing her. It was much like sticking a pin in a balloon and as quickly over with.
The raw, thrilling experiences with Holly and Miss Trumbley left me very dissatisfied with what Sue had to offer me. I fell away from her. The burning urge and the physical discomfort were gone, but I was neither satisfied nor spent. Other than the anatomy of a woman, all the other elements had been lacking.
Sue turned her back to me and went to sleep instantly, not even bothering to get up and take care of her personal needs as usual. I suppose it was her way of further showing her resentment for what had happened. I silently cursed myself for even bothering with her.
I began to think more strongly of Holly Smith and of how things had been with her. But Holly could be anywhere, even a thousand miles away. Holly had aroused me, as no woman ever had, but a girl with alley-cat morals wasn't right for a man like me.
Miss Trumbley, however, was still available, and she was nice and clean and not inclined to be promiscuous.
Upon approaching Miss Trumbley again, I found, to my surprise, that she was not as readily available as I had thought. "I am sorry, Mr. Jones," she whispered, as I became so brazen as to present her with an outright proposition in my office, "but it is best that we forget what happened between us."
I paled. "What is this, anyway?"
"Please don't question me, Mr. Jones," she said quickly. "Believe me, it is best that we don't see one another ... intimately again."
"That won't be easy," I said, feeling something like a rooster who had seen his last hen carried away by the farmer.
"I know, Mr. Jones," she said, her eyes reflecting my feelings, "but the circumstances are such that I cannot permit myself to be dictated to by my emotions."
Our conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Mr. Yancey, who paused at the doorway and peered at me through very hard eyes. Miss Trumbley left quickly, a frightened expression flitting across her pretty face, and I returned to my invoices.
"Clarence," Mr. Yancey said stonily. "You are utilizing entirely too much of Miss Trumbley's time. She is primarily my secretary, and I have been considerate enough to let you use her services when I did not need her. However, things are being carried a bit too far." He cleared his throat. "Could it be that your interest in Miss Trumbley is something more than business?"
"You have known me for many years, Mr. Yancay," I said, trying not to let my guilt show. "Do you think me capable of harboring such ideas about Miss Trumbley?" I cleared my own throat. "I am sure that you agree that Miss Trumbley is above reproach," I said, tossing the hot coal back into his lap.
Mr. Yancey almost bobbled the ball as his face reddened slightly. "Uh-I was not referring to Miss Trumbley's character, but to your own, Clarence." He quickly regained his composure. "Miss Trumbley is a very attractive girl, Clarence, and any man could very well be affected by her constant presence."
"I cannot deny that, sir."
Mr. Yancey's eyes became very thoughtful. "I should hate to see Miss Trumbley led astray, Clarence. The truth is-any girl, regardless of how high her morals, can be taken advantage of by the right man." He was very sure of himself again. "Miss Trumbley has been my secretary for three years, and her services have been such that I hold her in esteem. I would feel very badly if some man were to corrupt her. In fact, I should feel inclined to do everything in my power to hurt that man. Do I make myself clear, Clarence?"
"Very clear, sir," I said, "but I assure you that you have no cause to worry about me."
"Perhaps I am overly suspicious, Clarence," Mr. Yancy said, realizing he had pushed a bit too hard. "Please forgive me if I was in error."
"It is already forgotten," I said.
Mr. Yancey's threats did not frighten me, and although I was more cautious, I continued to press Miss Trumbley for another meeting.
"Please, Mr. Jones, I'd like to, but it just isn't possible," she said, appearing actually frightened.
"We don't have to use the store," I said. "We can go to your apartment."
"Oh, no, Mr. Jones," she exclaimed. "My landlady is very strict."
"A motel then?"
"There's something so vulgar about a motel, Mr. Jones," she said, and I thought that she was beginning to weaken. Then, "No, Mr. Jones, I just can't."
"Is it your boy friend?" I asked. "Does he suspect something has happened?"
"Yes, Mr. Jones," she said, quickly snatching the idea. "That's the reason I can't see you any more."
The next day Miss Trumbley tossed a surprise in my lap. When she appeared at work, she was wearing a diamond. "Isn't it beautiful, Mr. Jones?" she gushed, extending her hand. "My boy friend finally asked me to marry him!"
"Congratulations," I said, feeling too numb to take a good look at the diamond.
"Thank you, Mr. Jones."
I had no right to feel as I did about Miss Trumbley's engagement. She had her own life to live, and I had never really been free enough to share any part of that life. I told myself that I should be thankful for the brief interlude I had enjoyed with her. After all, she had given me the best part of herself that any woman has to offer.
I stopped making advances toward Miss Trumbley, although I looked hungrily at her occasionally. I also was beginning to look hungrily at the other female clerks in the store. At one point Mr. Yancey caught me breathing down the neckline of a pretty young thing. Although he said nothing, the fires of hell flashed in his eyes as he walked quickly between us and began talking to the girl. It was obvious that he thought he was saving her from a fate worse than death.
The incident made me take a fresh look at myself. I attributed my intense interest in women to the thing that Holly Smith had so wisely forecast, but I well knew that this was a poor excuse for my actions. I wasn't an emotionally disturbed sex fiend, and I had always considered my interest in women normal.
In my youth, there had been a normal awakening to the female of the species. I'd had my first girl when I was fifteen. The girl was two years older than myself, over-developed and oversexed, with the breasts of a woman ten years older than herself. It had been long ago, but I still recalled it in a very vivid fasion.
The girl and I had romped and played together for years, having lived side by side, and suddenly her growth spurted and nice lumps and curves began to appear at various positions on her body. I knew enough about girls to understand that she was leaving me behind physically, but we continued to romp and play together, although not as much as before. A boy her own age lived on the other side of her and she began to spend more of her time with him. He was not as handsome as I, but the girl had never been very bright. Many times I noticed them sneaking into the wooded area behind our houses, and it seemed that they stayed for long periods of time. Frankly, I did not frequent the woods for it abounded with poison oak and ivy, a sad fact which that young couple quickly realized one summer. The two of them broke out with a heavy rash from head to toe and were quite miserable for an extended period of time.
I was glad when the boy moved away, for the girl began to pay attention to me again, and I admittedly felt more pleasure in romping with her than before. The day that it happened, my mother and father were away. The girl and I were rolling on the grass, and suddenly she was lying directly on top of me, with one part of her pressing very strangely against one part of me.
I was very hot and bothered by the closeness of her, but the pleasurable feeling made up for the discomfort.-Oddly enough, that one part of me began to grow and I became exceedingly conscious of its presence. In fact, my whole being seemed to terminate in its core.
The girl kept squirming against me, putting all her weight on that one spot, and I wanted to die then and there without ever moving again.
The girl was very bright-eyed as she helped me to my feetand led me into the seclusion of the garage". She found an old blanket and placed it on the red dirt floor, sitting down on it and motioning for me to do the same.
I sat there looking at her for along while. "Don't you know what to do, Clarence?" she asked, a bit impatiently.
I didn't want her to know that I was dumb, so I just grinned. She was very forward, having the nerve to fumble with my clothing and show me the embarrassing object of my own coming manhood. I grinned some more and was very red-faced.
She sighed. "For a fifteen-year-old boy, you don't know much, do you, Clarence?"
I shook my head. , "I guess I'll have to show you." She. flipped up her dress and slid her white panties over her now broad-hips. Her legs were much fuller than I remembered them, but my eyes were glued to the dark mass further up. I definitely knew what she had in mind-it was the same thing that she and the boy had been doing in the woods-but I still didn't know the exact procedure. She lay on her back and motioned for me to come closer, which I did. Her hands moved, showing me exactly what to do with what, even helping me considerably. After I started, the rest came naturally. In fact, my mind no longer knew what my body was doing. I was green and inexperienced, but the things I lacked, she had in abundance, and the boy next door had taught her how to use them well. After the first time with her, I thought I should very much like to spend my life doing just that one thing. And I did just that for as long as the girl would allow it.
My luck did not last. A new neighbor moved in beside the girl, and the boy in the household was twenty. I was no competition whatsoever for him, and the girl no longer bothered with me at all. Some months later the girl began to swell mysteriously. Her parents moved away, taking the girl with them. All hope was gone and I was left to provide for myself.
With the experience the girl had given me, I did not find the going as hard as I had anticipated. True, I was rudely awakened to the fact that there were some girls who would and some girls who would not. I did not spend too much time with the girls who would not.
Being truthful about it, I did not think of girls in the terms of love. They were a physical phenomenon, a thing to be enjoyed without becoming too emotionally involved. It always seemed strange to me that girls could not see themselves as being strictly physical.
With time, I actually wearied of chasing girls and concentrated on making something of myself. During the time I was trying to get through business college, I scarcely gave them serious thought, save when the demands of my body presented themselves in a firm and vigorous fashion which could not be ignored.
Usually a willing body could be found, but the task became more and more difficult. Getting the girls into bed was taking more time than I had to spare. This is the main reason that I fell so willingly into the trap which Sue had set for me.
As I have stated before, Sue did not take up a lot of my time, and being my steady girl, she .could, be had at a moment's notice. At that point I did not . think of Sue as a woman, and I most certainly had felt no love for her, not even in the physical sense. She had been a very insignificant part of my life,, nothing more than a means of release.
The hot fires of youth burn themselves out very quickly, and by the time that Sue and I were married, my flame was at a low ebb. Actually, I found myself welcoming the times that she was cold to my advances, and I took no great offense when she had become too prudish "as to-stop undressing in my presence. She had become but another female body, and I was too engrossed in my work to really care.
The years had passed, and although I had grown to despise Sue's ways, along with her friends, I had been moderately content with my state of existence. My job had slowly become my prime concern in life, and Sue had gladly allowed herself to sink into the background.
Actually, I think Sue would have been most content if I had never once kissed her or tried to make love to her. Unconsciously, I had begun to feel the same way, and the occasional sexual participation was only to prove to myself that I was still a man.
Conditions as they then existed might have well, remained the same until the end of my days, had I not pulled up to the traffic light that morning. Holly Smith, standing there in the tight jeans and bulging yellow blouse, had reawakened me. I had become fully adjusted to my environment, but she had injected a foreign matter, infecting me with a terrible plague which knew no bounds.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE GENERAL SITUATION HAD REACHED A NEW low. Every woman who passed me on the street was coming under close scrutiny and I had begun to mentally strip every one who had a half-decent figure. I felt myself to be dangerously sick, and there was little I could do in the way of self-medication. I tried burying myself in my work, but the faint smell of a woman's perfume could arouse me, bringing my thoughts back to all that was erotic.
Adding to my troubles was Mr. Yancey. He was continuously on my back now, the exact reason unknown. My thoughts were obsessed with women, but I was still efficient at my job. Yet, the old guy was out to get me.
I expected little help or comfort from my wife, and I received even less. For most of our married life she had made frequent weekend trips to visit her mother, who lived in Rockaway. Lately, when Sue did not have a party planned with the likes of Norm and Emma, she was away every weekend.
I had never before resented Sue's being away for several days at a time, and I wasn't objecting now. It was only that in my state of mind, being left alone wasn't good for me. It gave me too much time to think about women.
I tried to build up a tolerance against the plague by having some very uncomplimentary thoughts about the female sex. They were really very wretched creatures, relying upon powders and paint and a lot of unnecessary goo in order to make themselves attractive. Their breasts were sagging blobs of protoplasm, supported and molded by two-dollar bits of cloth conceived and designed for the sole purpose of deceiving men.
And the part of them for which men died was really nothing. Situated awkwardly between their thighs and covered with a sweaty dark moss, it was actually the most undainty and distasteful part of their total anatomy. Its, primary purpose was to expel bodily fluid and to occasionally bear the offspring of man.
Even this final crude thought was no help. It only served to make me more lustful for that most uncomplimentary part of the female. I ended up admitting to myself that every Inch of the female body was exceedingly lovely and much to be desired.
Some of my thoughts were Very unreasonable as I determined ways and means with which to relieve the demands of my body. I considered houses of prostitution, and I considered trying to pick girls up off the streets at night. I even considered trying to give Norm's fat wife a break, wondering if the stories about her were really true.
The latter thought was most distasteful of them all. Emma's big sweaty body and those large breasts, unrestrained and flowing all over me, would be hard to take. If any man in town was playing wife-swapping with Norm, the other guy was most certainly getting the short end of the straw.
Friday evening came again and Sue packed her suitcase and left for her mother's without bothering to fix my supper. Which was all right with me, since she wasn't the best cook in the world anyway, r could pick up a hamburger at one of the drive-in diners.
I left the house about dusk and drove around the town. The streets were practically deserted, and what few people were on them looked at me strangely, as if. I had no business being there. I wasn't really prowling, but I did spot a young girl who couldn't have been a day over fifteen. She was pretending to window shop, peering back over her shoulder occasionally to see if she were attracting any male attention. I slowed my tsar to a creep, then pulled to the curb and stopped.
The girl was not much more than a child, but she had done everything possible to make herself appear as a mature woman. Her clothing was made out of stretchy fabric, and her breasts jutted against her thin blouse like two small lemons ready to be squeezed. Her pants were painted onto her tiny buttocks, clinging tightly to her frail legs. She turned and tried to smile seductively at me with a mouth ruined by too much lipstick. I was suddenly sickened by my own thoughts and I pulled quickly away from the curb and drove out of town.
I contemplated life in general, trying to get my thoughts away from women, This was difficult to do, since women seemed just then to be the great driving force in the universe.
I thought of men who spent their entire lives striving for money and power, and I wondered if such efforts were not wasted. And there were also men who wasted their lives on liquor and women. It mattered little really. The town drunk, the town lecher, the money-bags, the power mad politician-they were all on the same level after death-six feet under.
Life was little more than a farce, and sometimes I thought that the Good Lord had invented people as a big joke. The town drunk seemed to realize this fact, and so did the town lecher. There were also occasions when the men in high places realized it, much to their everlasting regret. A most pious minister, who having raised his family after thirty years of a supposedly perfect marriage, might catch the scent of a willing young member of his congregation and leave town with her, never to be heard from again. A wealthy business man, a pillar of the community, who left his family alone weekends to fly to New York, spending his time with a hundred dollar a night call girl. And even such powerful men as presidents having been known to frequent a lady's boudoir. It was during such moments that they, too, came to believe that life was but a cruel farce.
Hunger gnawed at my stomach and I left the highway and swerved into a small diner. The girl who came to wait on me was wearing a mini-skirted white uniform and her legs were long and nice. She was wearing no lipstick and her black hair was pulled high upon her head. She was having a difficult time with the small hat perched there, "Yes sir?" the girl asked.
I stared at her face as she moved closer to the car. I should have recognized the legs, even the face, but it was dark and with her hair pulled up on her head that way, it was most deceiving.
My heart beat a bit faster, then seemed to stop altogether. "Holly?"
Even in the dim light I saw the color leaving her face. "Clarence?"....
"How long have you been back in town?" I asked, wanting to reach out and touch her to see if she were indeed real.
"I never really left," she said in a small voice. She fumbled around with the order pad, looking very nervous. "Could I have your order, Clarence? The management frowns on the girls talking to the patrons."
"A cheeseburger and malt," I said, my hunger suddenly having disappeared.
"I'll be back shortly," she said crisply. .
When Holly returned with the food, I tried to talk with her again. "Please, Clarence," she said. "Not now. I need this job."
"I still have that thousand dollars," I told her.
"We discussed how far that thousand dollars would go," Holly reminded me.
"Can I pick you up when you get off from work?" I asked. "I have to talk to you."
"Be back in two hours," Holly said, and she turned and walked briskly toward an incoming car, the night wind whipping at the tail of the mini-skirt and showing a small part of her firmly rounded buttocks.
I gulped down the cheeseburger and malt, and I noticed that Holly was watching me with thoughtful eyes as I drove away. I wasn't at ail certain that she. would be there when I got back. It was a long two hours, but I was back at the drive-dn at the designated time. I breathed a sigh of relief as I spotted Holly coming out Of the diner. She was wearing a long coat over her uniform and her black hair was still pulled high on her head."
"Where to?" I asked.
"How much time do you have?"
"The rest of my life," I said.
"Anywhere," Holly said.
"Would you go home with me If I were so forward as to ask you?" ,. "What about your wife?"
"She's gone for the weekend;"
"And the neighbors?"
"To hell with the neighbors," I said. "Anyway, they probably won't see us." Holly shrugged.
I drove back to my house, turned rapidly down the driveway leading to the basement and swerved the car into the garage. It only took a few seconds and I was positive that no one had seen us. We climbed the stairs and Holly surveyed the house with a critical eye.
"It's classy," she said.
I didn't care to 'talk about the house. It represented everything that I hated. "What happened that day after you left me at the motel?" I asked.
"Does it matter?" . "To me it does."
Holly smiled. "I got a quick ride," she said. "A traveling slaesman. He was frying to show me his wares before we'd driven a mile. I've never seen such obscenity in a man. I began thinking about some of the things you said, and l began to feel very cheap."
"What happened then?"
"We were caught up in a traffic jam a few miles from the motel, and I grabbed my bag and left the car." She laughed. "You should have seen the expression on his face. He had been very sure of himself."
"I'd have kicked his teeth in," I growled jealously.
"He was a big man," Holly said, smiling. "Much bigger than you."
"I'd still have kicked his teeth in."
"My hero," she said, but she wasn't mocking me.
I ignored her last remark. "Why did you come back?" I asked.
"I don't really know," she said.
"Because of me?" I asked hopefully.
"Perhaps."
"Why didn't you let me know you'd come back?" I asked.
"I didn't know where to contact you," Holly told me. "I only knew that you worked in a large department store."
"There's only three in town," I said. "Did you come to Gurley's?"
She nodded. "Yes, several times, but I didn't ask for you by name. I merely looked around for you. I even went back one evening after the store had closed hoping to catch a glimpse of you. There was a man and a woman inside. A platinum blonde and an old man. They appeared very chummy."
"That would be Mr. Yancey and Miss Trumbley," I said. A small light came on in the back of my mind, but the thin filament burned itself out before I could analyze the dark shadows.
"Who?"
"It doesn't matter," I said.
Holly stripped off the long coat and tossed it aside. Her uniformed body was even more attractive in the bright lights. I moved very close to her. "Would . you mind very much if I kissed you?" I asked, remembering what' had happened the last time and not wanting it to happen again."
Her eyes were dark and shiny. "Try me and see."
I kissed her. and her lips were very warm. I could sense the strong hunger in her as her body came against mine, demanding something more than a single kiss.. Her mouth refused to leave mine for _ a long moment and her lips were trembling as she pulled away.
"Are you becoming emotionally involved?" I. asked huskily.
"That's an unfair question," she said, pouting, then coming into my arms again. I kissed her again. "I'm. afraid that I love you, Clarence Jones," she said softly.
"Is that so bad?"
"For me it is," she said. "Also for you."
"I only know that I want you," I told her sincerely.
"For my sex?" .
"I'd be lying if I said otherwise," I said, being completely honest. "But there is something more to it."
"I know," she said, dropping her eyes. "That's, why I had to come back.".
We were standing in the kitchen and I glanced toward the stove. "Would you like some coffee?" Tasked.
"Do you want coffee?" .
"No," I said.
"Neither do I." She took my hands from around her waist and led me around the house looking for a bedroom. She stopped and peered into the one which ' Sue and I shared.
"Not that one," I said.
She smiled. "Guilt?"
"No," I said. "That room has been an ice box in my life." I steered her back down the hallway and into the guest room.
We undressed together, without any sense of embarrassment. I looked at her and she looked at me, and our faces grew very warm together.
With the exception of her legs being slightly tanned from wearing the mini-skirt at the drive-in, Holly's body appeared much the same as when I had last feasted my eyes upon it. Her torso was still very white, and the nipples of her breasts very pink against the beautiful white mounds. The darkness of her pelvis glistened under the overhead lights, and when she lay back on the bed a narrow line of deep pink showed through.
Holly received me with an almost grateful expression on her face, and I felt the wetness of her almost instantly. She was primed and ready, and this time she was more human than machine. Her body melted with mine, the sensations that each of us were experiencing blending into one.
Holly's eyes never left my face as we went through the act. They were filled with an exquisite wonderment, and she was feeling the femaleness of herself and relishing the fact that she was female.
"I love you," she said.
We moved slowly against one another. Then suddenly her eyes grew very dark and warm, not seeming to focus on any one thing and yet seeing everything at once. The whiteness of her torso moved in a quick, spasmodic blur, and her mouth searched frantically for mine as she headed for the climax.
I could feel her tongue searching for mine, and she suddenly pushed herself up with her heels, actually lifting me into the air with the swift, straining movement. Her face softened beneath the tan and she went limp as the passion flowed from me like sweet wine.
Why do lovers always stare at the ceiling afterward? Why not at a lamp,. or at a wall, or at one another? I looked at Holly. "Do you still think that you're no good for me?" I asked.
"I am a wanton," she said. "A woman without morals."
"I love everything about you just as it is," I said. "I don't care about your past. I don't even care that your uncle stripped you of your maidenhood."
Holly smiled. "I lied to you about that," she said, shifting on her side and facing me. "My uncle didn't really seduce me. It was the boy next door. Of course, I am not denying that my uncle is a lecherous old man and was partially responsible for my early awakening. He was always touching me, always trying to explain the facts of life to me-I think that he did have my eventual seduction in mind. The boy next door robbed him. My uncle knew when it happened and he was most angry about it."
I felt a bit of resentment myself. Holly had not been a virgin, my wife had not been a virgin,' and Miss Trumbley had not been a virgin. Somehow the fact that I had never possessed a virgin gave me a left-out feeling. I had not given it much thought until this moment, but I had wondered at times what it would be like. A bit messy I supposed.
"And what about the other boys you told me about?" I asked. "Were they lies also?"'
"I'm afraid that I made my past more crimson that it was in order to discourage you," Holly admitted. "Although' I am not denying that there have been others. Does it surprise you that I admit it, now that you've told me that you love me?"
"No," I said, "and the fact that there have been others doesn't alter my love for you, although I would have very much liked to have been the first."
Holly's eyes "were very soft and apologetic. "I wish you had been the first and only one, Clarence," she said.
"What really matters is that you love me here and now," I said, trying to be the complete man about it.
"I didn't love the others," she said, trying to give me a bit more consolation. "You are really my first love."
"And you mine." It was a strange thing for a man who had married fourteen years to be saying, but it was the way I felt.
"I really didn't mean to become emotionally involved with you," Holly said wistfully. "I don't really know why I did. Perhaps it was because you aren't like all the rest."
"I had but one thing in mind when I picked you up that morning," I confessed. "And you knew it."
"No, you were different," Holly told me. "You didn't look at me with disgust in your eyes. You looked at me as if you thought me beautiful, as if I meant something more to you than raw sex." She lifted herself on one elbow and stared down into my face. "And instead of trying to convince me that what I was doing was right, you tried to convince me that it was wrong. I think that is when I began to love you. I think that after I had given myself to you, I would have been ashamed to have ever given myself to another man."
"And you don't feel shame now?"
"No, because I love you."
"Not even with the knowledge that you have committed adultery?"
"No, because I love you and I don't believe that your wife does," Holly said simply.
"You don't even know my wife."
"I saw her picture on the dresser of your room," Holly told me. "I know what you've told me about her. And I can see by the very furnishings of this house that she is the type to concentrate more on material things than on her husband., I'll bet that she doesn't even enjoy sex-with you."
"You are right in that respect," I grunted. I lifted myself and sat on the edge of the bed with Holly.
"I think I should like that cup of coffee now," Holly said.
We didn't bother to put on our clothing, for all the blinds in the house were pulled. I put on the coffee and we walked around the house like Adam and Eve while it was perking. As far as I was concerned, this was Paradise.
"I should like to go out into the jungle with you and live like this forever," Holly said. "Unfettered by clothing or Conventions."
I grinned happily. "We could run off to a nudist camp."
Holly frowned slightly. "Even a nudist camp wouldn't be the same. They have restrictions also."
We sat down at the kitchen table and had our coffee, still in the altogether. "Where are you staying?" asked Holly.
"I have a room close to the diner," she said. "It isn't much, but it serves the purpose. A roof over my head and a place to sleep. What more could a girl ask?"
"I'll get you something better," I told her.
She shook her head vigorously.? "I don't want to become a kept woman. I've already told you as much. It would be as if you were paying me for my favors." "Then what do you suggest?"
"That things remain as they are at present," Holly said ... "You won't run off again?"
"No."
"Then let me do something for you," I said. "Why do you insist upon being so stubborn? We're going to continue to see one another, aren't we?"
"Of course," Holly said, "but I think that we should be sure of ourselves before we do anything drastic."
"I'm already sure," I said.
"Sure enough to leave your wife?" Holly asked cautiously, waving her hand around the room for emphasis. "And all this?"
"This means nothing to me," I growled. "Not any more."
"And your wife?"
"Even less," I said strongly. "But getting a divorce from her will be another thing to be faced."
"I don't want to break up your home, Clarence," Holly said solemnly. "I've always looked down upon women who go around breaking up homes."
"My home has been held together with money and will-power," I said. "The slightest weakening of either and it falls into a miserable heap of failure."
"When it falls, Clarence, let me know. I'll be around." She glanced at her watch.
"Do you want me to take you home?" I asked.
"Not just yet."
"Do you want some more coffee?"
"No, thank you."
'Would you consider spending the entire night with me?"
Holly's eyes feigned shock. "Are you trying to give me a bad name?"
"Eventually," I said. "Mrs. Clarence Jones. It's the worst name I can think of at the moment."
Holly smiled. "I think I will take you up on your invitation, Mr. Jones."
This-time we went into the master bedroom. I can truly say that it was the first enjoyable night I had ever spent there.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HOLLY SPENT ALL FRIDAY NIGHT WITH ME and also Saturday night. Each time I managed to conceal her coming and going, waking her early enough in the morning to get her away before the neighbors were up and around. Or, so I hoped.
Sue returned home Sunday evening, and her inquisitive female eye searched automatically for something out of place. It was uncanny how she could spot such things-a blind which has been raised two inched, or a throw rug moved an inch off center. It was inevitable that she should notice that the bed in the guest room had been remade.
"Why did you have to sleep in here, Clarence?" Like a mother scolding a small boy.
I shrugged. Like a small boy.
"Do you have to mess up every room in the house while I'm away?"
I shrugged again.
She went over the house with a fine-toothed comb, actually angry with herself because she could find no incriminating evidence. "I think you've had a woman in this house, Clarence," she said, refusing to give up.
I didn't deny it. "If you don't trust me, stay home," I said.
"You know that mother is getting old, Clarence," she said, defending her trips. "I must be with her as often as possible." She sniffed for effect. "Someday mother will be leaving me."
"You always were soft-hearted," I said sarcastically.
She caught the sarcasm. "You can be so dispicable at times, Clarence Jones!"
At least the comment took her mind off the prying. I was doubly sure that Holly had left nothing behind, but with my luck Sue would have found something anyway.
Sue and I became like two great stone faces at the breakfast table, and we were even stonier at the dinner table, as each of us-nursed our private little hate for the other half. Sue continued the weekly visits to see her mother, and I continued to see Holly while she was away.
Things were good between Holly and myself. She did not resent my wife, and I did not resent the fact that there had been other men in her life before me. The fifteen years' difference in our ages did not seem to matter. We were fully compatible.
I was glad that I had Holly to take my mind off the store. Mr. Yancey Was becoming unbearable, turning the store into a sweat-box for me. Any time now, I expected an official from the district office to-walk through the front door with my pay check in hand. It wasn't that I minded losing the job. It was only that I hated to know that Mr. Yancey would be directly responsible for it.
What really galled me to no end was that Mr., Yancey had no sound reason for wanting me but of the way. He had no favorite nephew to shove into the position, and I was certain that he could not have learned of the week I had spent with Miss Trumbley.. If he had learned of the latter, I was certain that he would, have already secured my dismissal. All he had to do was report the incident.
I tried to think back to when Mr. Yancey's disdain for me had first begun to show itself. Could it have been on the day that I had first met Holly and had stayed away from work? This didn't hold water. He had accepted my explanation of being sick that day, and he knew nothing of my present association with Holly.
Then something rang a bell. I realized suddenly that Mr. Yancey had begun to. hate my guts shortly after he had returned from the district meeting, Could he have actually learned of my week-long affair with Miss Trumbley after all? I had. said nothing, and I was certain that Miss Trumbley would not have been so stupid as to relate the events of that week. Or would she?
The bell rang louder. It was something that Holly had said about going to the store after closing time one evening. She had peered in and had seen an old man and a platinum blonde together, she had said.
"Preposterous," I thought. Mr. Yancey and Miss Trumbley? Heaven forgive me for having such evil thoughts.
Evil thoughts breed evil thoughts. I continued to dwell on the possibility that Miss Trumbley could be Mr. Yancey's mistress. Stranger things had happened. Although the old guy acted like a puritan, requiring that the female clerks wear very concealing clothing, he could also be a lecher in disguise, I recalled again that I had seen him drolling over the pretty girls from afar. But then again, Mr. Yancey was the kind of man who walked away from a dirty joke. And Miss Trumbley-what would she want with a man as old as Mr. Yancey?
I answered my own question, using a comment Sue had made about Miss Trumbley using her pretty face and body for financial gain. Then I set out to prove my point.
Al thought I had nothing to do with the payroll records, I knew of their whereabouts. I had my key to the store, although Mr. Yancey had warned me about using it to gain entrance except in case of emergency. What he had been telling me, in fact, was that I was not to use the key to get into the store after hours. Now I knew why.
One night I waited until late and slipped back into the store, being careful to lock the door behind me. It took me only a few minutes to come up with the payroll records for the past three years. I quickly thumbed through them, looking for only one name Marsha Trumbley.
To say that I was stunned would be to make light of the situation. Present records showed that Marsha Trumbley's salary was well above the standard rate for store employees. I smoked a cigarette and resumed my search. This time I started at the point where Miss Trumbley had been initially employed by Mr. Yancey, himself.
Miss Trumbley has a starting salary of fifty dollars per week. Six; months later she had received the standard five cents raise, placing her salary at fifty-two dollars per week. At the end of her first year-she had received the usual annual raise often cents. Her salary was then fifty-six dollars per week. Two weeks after her first annual raise had taken effect, Miss Trumbley's salary jumped to ninety dollars per week. Thereafter, and up until the present time, the weekly figures bounced nicely between ninety, and one hundred dollars. It appeared without doubt that Miss Trumbley was indeed prostituting herself to the lecherous Mr. Yancey.
;I was not denying that Miss Trumbley was well worth her salary, especially if she was serving Mr. Yancey in the same manner that she had served me during the week he was away. Being no saint myself,, the only point on which I could' condemn Mr. Yancey was that he Was using company funds to pay for his own pleasures.
I thought it strange that Mr. Yancey could get away with paying such wages against store policy, but it didn't take me long to spot exactly how he had accomplished this. Although raises were set by the company's main office, overtime was permitted, but only if personally approved by the store's manager. And Mr. Yancy had personally approved all of Miss Trumbley's overtime, but I doubted that the main office would have concurred that such services were needed had it actually known the true-nature of them.
I returned the incriminating records to the file cabinet, cut out the desk light and started back through the store. I turned on my heels and retreated toward the stock room. Two dark figures were looming before the front door and it suddenly swung open before them. There was no doubt as to the identity of the two persons, for by their outlines I had distinctly made out one male and one female.
Moving silently, I retreated deeper into the store and through the lounge. A stack of uncrated merchandise blocked my path and I slipped behind the boxes. A short time later I could hear the other two people moving around and a light came on in the lounge area. By peering between the cases I could get a good view of Miss Trumbley and Mr. Yancey.
"Would you like a cold drink Marsha, my dear?" Mr. Yancey asked, staring at the coke machine.
"No, thank you, George," Miss Trumbley said. She appeared a bit nervous, and she was wearing much the same clothing as when she had first visited the lounge with me. I recognized the four-dollar blouse and the $6.98 blue skirt.
Mr. Yancey walked over to the coke machine and dropped in a dime. He opened the drink, took a sip, and shook his head. "I get very angry and upset, my dear, every time I think about your being back here with Clarence Jones."
"Please, George, let's don't talk about it anymore," Miss Trumbley said, looking very pale. "lam sorry that it happened, but it wasn't my fault. He kept pressuring me, from the very minute you left. He became so persistent that I could no longer resist his advances."
"The cad-," Mr. Yancey said piously. "Who would have thought it of him? And to think that he was so low as to threaten you with the loss of your job. It was very foolish of you, my dear, to think that he had such authority."
"I know, George," Miss Trumbley said humbly, "though his demands had me so confused that I couldn't think. And even then, I didn't give in willingly. He practically held me while he did it."
Mr. Yancey finished his drink and scowled. "And to think that I would have never known what happened if you had not called me Mister Jones in a spasm. of emotion." Miss Trumbley looked away. "Please, George."
"All right," Mr. Yancey said. "I've forgiven you, my dear;. But mind you, before it's over with, I'll have that scoundrel's job."
Miss Trumbley wasn't completely without a heart. "Don't punish him on my account, George;"...."He corrupted you, my dear, and he must pay the price." Mr. Yancey put his bottle into the crate. "Shall we get on with it, my dear?"
Miss Trumbley nodded her consent.
There was a door to a small broom closet on one side' of'the room, and it had been an accepted fact around the store that no key was available for it, the key having been lost somewhere in the distant past. Mr. Yancey had never bothered to get the lock replaced. The closet, he said, was of no great use anyway, so why go to the expense of having the old lock removed and a new one installed?
However, at this very moment, Mr. Yancey was taking a key from his pocket. He inserted it in the lock and opened the door. He grunted, a bit, then dragged forth a small single mattress and placed it squarely in the center of the lounge area.
This was evidently the signal for Miss Trumbley to start disrobing, for she was already working at the zipper of her skirt. She peeled the skirt over her hips, and I could see that she had come prepared. Underneath she was wearing no petticoat, and her legs were bare of stockings. The ninety-nine cent bikini panties were visible, except that this time she had the day of the week mixed up. Today was Tuesday and the panties plainly stated Thursday in red letters.
Mr. Yancey began to tremble, starting slowly and ending up like a bushel of leaves in a stiff wind. His eyes were hard and bright and his lips were slimy wet with anticipation.
Miss Trumbley removed her blouse and looked toward her employer. "Will you unsnap my bra, please, George?"
Mr. Yancey did as he was asked, letting his hands slide down over her breasts and squeezing them again and again like oranges. Miss Trumbley winced with pain but said nothing.
I could hear Mr. Yancey's harsh breathing as he let his hands slide down across her stomach and creep under the elastic at the waist of her bikini. His hands squeezed at her crotch as if he had a handful of dishrag and was trying to wring it dry. Miss Trumbley sighed and her eyes bulged in their sockets.
The old rascal was still standing behind her, and he began to kiss his way down her back. He sank slowly to his knees, still kissing, and then he began to move the panties slowly down her thighs. His lips followed the panties, kissing the soft flesh they left behind. He even kissed her ankles as she stepped free of them.
It appeared that the old fool was going to eat her alive, for he crawled on all fours until he was facing her-and, starting at the tips of her toes, resumed his kissing, his lips beginning to pop every time they made contact with her skin.
Miss Trumbley stood very still, shuddering only occasionally, with her face becoming very pale with emotion as Mr. Yancey worked his way up. He paused at her pussy and buried his face against it.
Miss Trumbley moaned and jerked her hips once or twice and Mr. Yancey resumed his trip up her pink torso.
Mr. Yancey, still in a crouched position, buried his face between her breasts, and Miss Trumbley pressed them against either side of his balding head,, her lips-parting Sensuously as she did so. The lecherous old soul searched hungrily for her breasts with his mouth, and, finding one, latched onto it like a small babe. Miss Trumbley supported the breast with one hand while Mr. Yancey growled and moaned like a hungry pup.
By the time that Mr. Yancey got around to kissing her mouth. Miss Trumbley's entire body was drenched by his mouth. It was no wonder that the old guy was able to hold onto a woman as beautiful as Miss Trumbley, even putting aside the financial. favors. He had a. way of making love which would put a Roman at an orgy to shame, and he took advantage Of the fact that many women are easily corrupted by totally lewd and obscene maneuvers which some men are prone to practice upon their all-too-willing bodies.
By the expression on her face I suspected that Miss Trumbley had already experienced an orgasm. At one point her eyes had. closed very tightly and her face had drained completely of its color, then flushed deeply. I knew that it was possible for some women to be completely satisfied by a man's caresses, but it was laughable, this thing of Miss Trumbley's being through and Mr.-Yancey's not yet having begun.
By the time the old codger had situated her on the mattress, Miss Trumbley was too exhausted by her own emotions to care what he did with her. I was truly amazed that Mr. Yancey still retained his modesty and self-respect. He removed only his shoes and pants, readying himself to fight a battle which was already over and done-with. I suddenly realized that it had taken him all of thirty minutes to get his field-stripped weapon ready for combat.
Mr. Yancey was down on his knees, the object of manhood protruding from his yellow shorts as he crawled toward the waiting Miss Trumbley. It was during this moment that I chose to step from behind the crates and mock them with my laughter.
Miss Trumbley rolled over on her stomach, burying her face in the mattress like an ostrich burying its head in the sand. Mr. Yancey sprang to his feet and whirled to face me. It was with great satisfaction that I watched his manhood wither and crawl slowly out of sight.
"Jones I" he croaked, tugging at his shirt tail.
"Taking inventory, Mr. Yancey?" I asked, moving toward the center of the room.
"Now, see here, Jones...!" Mr. Yancey pointed a threatening finger at me, sighed as he realized his predicament, and let the arm drop lifelessly beside him. "Clarence," he said solemnly, "you must realize that this is not all it appears to be."
"You can hardly explain away a nude secretary, sir," I said, still grinning.
Mr. Yancey tried to smile, but it came out as a sick frown. "You see, Clarence, Miss Trumbley and myself ... we...." He gave up.
"Good evening, Miss Trumbley," I said, moving closer to her.
Miss Trumbley tried to bury her face even deeper into the mattress. I slapped her across her cute buttocks and they quivered violently beneath the red print my fingers had left behind, "You may as well get up and face the music," I advised. "You can't hide forever."
She rolled over and sat up. Her platinum hair was hanging down over her face. She brushed it aside and peered through. "Hello, Mr. Jones," she said weakly.
I upbraided her. "You had to tell him about us, didn't you?" I asked, surprised at the vicious sound of my own voice.
She stood on wobbly legs and searched for her clothing, finding it, article by article and quickly concealing her nakedness. "I didn't mean to tell him," she said, almost humbly. "I couldn't help myself."
Mr. Yancey put in his two cents worth. "Can you imagine how I felt, Jones?" he asked, trying to toss the hot coal back into my lap. "I was making love to her and she suddenly sighed, 'Oh, Mr. Jones!' "
"Shut-up," I told him. I was still concentrating on Miss Trumbley. "You faked your engagement to get rid of me, didn't you?"
Miss Trumbley nodded. "After Mr. Yancey found out, I had to do something to keep you away from me. I picked the ring up at the dime store."
"And I bit." I scowled. "How could you cheapen yourself by prostituting yourself to this lecherous old fool. He's more than old enough to be your father."
"It's none of your business, Jones," Mr. Yancey put in. "You don't have to tell him-one thing, my dear."
"Why?" I asked, still pressing. Miss Trumbley sighed. "I thought that I needed the money."
I scowled again. "Honey, if you want to sell yourself, do it for real money. With your face and figure you can get a hundred bucks a night."
"I...." Miss Trumbley mumbled.
"It wasn't the money at all, Jones!" Mr. Yancey almost yelled. "She liked me for myself!"
"I feel that it is my duty to get the entire story on this," I said. "Miss Trumbley, I figure that you had been here approximately one year before you began giving your favors to Mr. Yancey. Why did you do it?"
"I was working late one night with him," Miss Trumbley said, evidently thinking that confession cleansed the soul. "He made advances, and when I resisted, he threatened me with the loss of my job. I'm not from here, Mr. Jones, and I couldn't bear the thought of returning. home to tell my parents that I had lost my job. You must understand, Mr. Jones. I had to do it."
"Especially when he offered you money?" I aksed.
She nodded, "And after the first time, it wasn't any problem at all, was it?" I frowned.. "I mean, the way he makes love, it's quite easy for a woman to take, isn't it?"
Miss Trumbley's eyes dropped and shame crept into her face. "I'm so Weak, Mr. Jones."
I turned and faced my tormentor with a stern expression on my face. It was my time to crow and, I was going to enjoy it. "So you plan to get my job, do you, boss man?"
"I meant nothing by it, Clarence," Mr. Yancey said quickly. "I only said it to impress Miss Trumbley. Please forget that I ever' mentioned it."
"You have pushed me unmercifully for the past few weeks, boss man," I said, shoving my snarling face very close to his own.
"A slight oversight, my boy," Mr. Yancey said; his lips growing pale. "I assure you, it won't happen again....."
"I don't know," I said. "I think that I should very much like to be manager of this store;" I really wanted to see him crawl. "Please, Clarence, my boy," Mr. Yancey moaned. "Don't report this, incident to the .district office. I beg you." He suddenly realized that he was without his pants and he snatched them up and stepped quickly into them. "I'll pay you, Clarence. I'll pay you."
"I prefer your job," I said.
The sweat of desperation rolled down his bony cheeks. "I didn't want to do this thing, Clarence," he whined, "tout my wife is such a cold woman-she's always been such a cold woman!"
"You're a farce, Mr. Yancey," I said. "A pious hypocrite."
"You're right, Clarence," he readily admitted. "I'm a farce. I'm a hypocrite. But I beg you to reconsider taking action against me. I'm an old man and I have very few years left. And in two more years I will be able to retire with an ample pension." His face glistened with a mixture of fear and sweat. "Don't ruin me, Clarence, and I'll gladly share Miss Trumbley with you!"
"Pig," I said.
"I'll give her to you completely, Clarence, my boy!"
"Agreed," I said.
Miss Trumbley remained silent, looking at me in the manner of a Geisha girl who had been trained to serve men.
"What do you have to say about the deal we have just made, Miss Trumbley?" I asked.
"I am not in the position to either agree or disagree," Miss Trumbley said, her voice edged with bitterness. "All my life I've been plagued by feelings of insecurity. I must admit that my prime concern at the moment is my job."
"Surely you object to being bartered back and forth like a piece of merchandise," I said.
"I am not in the position to object to anything, Mr. Jones," Miss Trumbley sighed.
"I give you back your job and your freedom, Miss Trumbley," I said, feeling all powerful at the moment.
"Thank you, Mr. Jones," she said softly.
"Now, see here, Jones," Mr. Yancey put in, having regained some of his confidence, and not relishing. the idea that neither of us would have a lien on-Miss Trumbley's succulent body. Tam still .manager of this store."
"Figuratively," I said, giving him a very stern look. "But who is the man behind the scenes from this moment forward, Mr. Yancey?" ,-"You are, Mr., Jones," he gulped.
CHAPTER NINE
HOLLY AND I CONTINUED, TO SEE ONE ANOTHER using my house on the weekends that Sue was away. Holly did not think that she owned hie because of her intimate relationship with me, nor was she pressing me for any definite committments. We were both satisfied with the present arrangement, and it would have probably gone on indefinitely had not Emma Hanson come calling one Friday evening after . Sue had left for, her mother's house. Needless to say. Holly and I were caught .in. something of a predicament by Emma's unheralded arrival.
Holly sat up in bed, startled by the sound of the doorbell. She pulled a sheet across her legs, reminding me something, of an artist's model with her breasts jutting proudly forward and her dark eyes wide and frightened.
"Do you suppose that your wife has. come back?" she, asked.
"Of course not," I said, climbing from, the bed and getting my robe from the closet. " just stay right where you are and I'll get rid of whoever it is." I. closed the door very securely behind me as I 'left' the bedroom.
I became a. bit nervous as I opened the door to Emma Hanson. "Sue isn't home, Emma," I said quickly.
"Oh dear," Emma, said,' putting her hand to her mouth like a coy little girl and smiling behind it; "How could I have forgotten? Sue did tell me yesterday that she was going away for .the weekend."
"That's right."
Emma sighed heavily. "Well, as long as I'm here, Would you mind if I came in and rested for a moment? Would you actually believe that I walked all the way over here, my dear?"
"Ah," I said.
"Yes," she nodded. "My car is in the garage and Norm is out of town on business. I do so despise to ride in cabs. They're so degrading, don't you agree?"
"Please come in, Emma," I said. "I'll be glad to drive you home as soon as I can get dressed."
"There's really no rush, Clarence, darling," Emma gushed, letting her bulk sink deeply into our best chair. The springs screamed out in agony as she shifted. "As long as I'm here, Clarence, would you be so kind as to fix me a very small drink?"
"You know that Norm frowns on your drinking," I reminded her.
"Please don't bring that up, dear boy," Emma said. "Just fix me a drink. It doesn't hurt people to get rid of their inhibitions occasionally, regardless of what my husband may say."
"Okay," I shrugged.
"And please don't rush yourself, Clarence," she said. "I have oodles of time." She fanned herself vigorously with her hands and I noticed that the sweat was oozing from her forehead when I returned with the drink.
"Hot?" I asked.
"It is rather tepid in here," Emma said, taking a quick drink. She looked around the room at the closed blinds and giggled. "I must say that it's quite cozy though."
"Well," I said, "I'll go change now."
"Don't rush, dear boy," she gushed, taking another drink. "Sit and talk with me awhile before we go. You and I have very few opportunities to talk at the bridge table."
I sat, but I was very uncomfortable. "I'm not much at talking," I said.
"So I noticed," Emma agreed, staring very directly at me. "Are you afraid of Sue?"
"I might be." I grinned sickly.
"Maybe you're just the strong, silent type." Emma laughed and leaned forward. Her coarse, heavy breasts bulged from the top of her low-cut dress like two watermelons bleached white in the sun.
"Ah," . I said, clearing my throat, and Emma tried' to blush as she placed one hand across the huge crevice.
Getting rid of Emma took considerably longer than I had anticipated. I carried her drink after drink, growing more cautious with each trip. The gleam in her eye was growing brighter with each drink, and she began to stare at my bare legs where they protruded from the robe. I squirmed restlessly, for I had not a stitch on under the robe, and I think that Emma sensed the fact.
"I'll bet. you were getting ready for your shower when I so thoughtlessly interrupted," she said, kicking off her shoes and making herself more comfortable. "Yes," I lied.
She flipped her hand in the air. "Well, don't mind me, dear boy. Go on about your business."
"The shower can wait."
Emma leaned forward again and let me look down the neck of her dress. "You'll think it wicked of me to tell you," she said, "but do you know that Norm and I sometimes take a shower together?" She giggled."
"Do tell," I said. It was hard to imagine getting into a shower with that enormous hulk of blubber and getting out alive.
"Do you ever take a shower with Sue?" Emma' asked. She had to be completely stoned to be talking in such a manner....v
"No," I said.
Emma shook her head and finished her fifth drink. "It is none of my business, Clarence, but I do suspect that you and Sue don't get along too well."
"We're on speaking terms," I said.
"Mind you, I'm not siding with you," Emma said, emphasizing the face that females had to stick together-most of the time- "but sometimes a man needs something more from a woman than talk."
"Ah," I said.
I'd had my doubts about Emma in the past. I'd never liked the look in her eyes when we partied together. It had always been something more than friendly. And her habit of letting her knees brush against mine under the card table-the knees had always lingered too long for the action to be accidental. If the overtures had come from a younger, more attractive woman I might have become suspicious more quickly, but Emma was the type of woman a man could not really consider from the sexual angle. Anything erotic about her body was amply concealed by layers and layers of fat.
I decided that a woman like Emma would encounter some difficulty in hiring a lover, much less getting one for free. Suddenly I was very sure that the stories about her and the hired help were true. I had to get her out of the house as quickly as possible.
It was too late. I stood up and my robe parted, showing a bit more of my anatomy than I had intended. Emma's jowls trembled uncontrollably. "Dear, dear, boy," she said softly.
"I'll get ready to take you home," I said.
Emma sprang to her feet in a surprise movement, using amazing speed for a woman with her dimensions. She was almost brutal as she shoved me back into my chair. "Please don't be rude to me, Clarence," she said.
"I'm not being rude, Emma, but we shouldn't be here alone like this," I said. "The neighbors might have seen you come in, and they know that my wife is away. You know what they will think."
"Who cares what they think?" Emma snapped. "People have nothing but the worst kind of thoughts anyway. We might as well enjoy ourselves." She waddled across the room like a big duck and put a record on the phonograph, swaying like a dancing elephant as the music began to play. "I am really more woman than you think I am, Clarence," she said sweetly.
"Of course you are," I croaked.
Emma continued to sway. "Because I'm getting old and overweight doesn't mean that I don't have a woman's thoughts and a woman's body," she said. "And I have needs, Clarence, just like any other woman-although Norm doesn't seem to think so."
"This isn't like you," I said, scooting deeper into my chair as she came very close.
"This is the real me, dear boy," she said. "Only when I'm intoxicated with sweet liquors can I be the real me. Watch me, dear boy, just watch me." She swirled on her feet and almost fell flat on her face.
She righted herself and headed back to the phonograph, fumbling around until she came up with the record for which she was searching. When the music started coming at me again it sounded like something out of an Arab's harem. Emma began a slow belly dance, and I must give credit where credit is due. She had the stomach for it.
The entire room shook.
"Salome," she whispered.
Emma hiked up her dress and commenced to roll the stockings down her fleshy, knotted thighs. It was quite useless for her to attempt a strip while moving, and she soon realized it. She stopped moving her feet, letting her bobbing head keep time with the music as she tried to instill desire. Frankly, she was creating about as much desire in me as a hippopotamus walling in the mud would. Unfortunately, Emma didn't know this, and she continued her strip, confident that she was setting my blood on fire.
Her act was both comical and pathetic, and had I not feared hurting her deeply, I would have walked out on her. I stayed because of my sympathy for her, not because I cared to see the body that too many carbohydrates had created.
Emma continued to strain and struggle until she was down to her bra and girdle. Her breasts were so huge that she wore a large maternity type bra with the snaps in front. It was a most sensible idea, since she would have been totally incapable of reaching behind her back.
The bra fell away and her breasts plunged halfway to her navel. The shock was enough to break her neck, but she survived. The breasts swung gently back and forth from the momentum created by the fall, like two huge water bags hanging from the trunk of a large tree. The nipples were very rounded and very red, but on all that flesh they appeared as tiny pink dots.
Emma stared over her double chin at her breasts, admiring them. "Now, tell me I am not a woman, dear boy?"
"You are indeed," I said.
Inspired by the sight of her own body and my misconstrued words, Emma began to jerk at the girdle. The flesh heaved and rolled and fought back, but Emma finally won the ten-minute battle. She was drenched with the sweat of victory.
"I need you, Clarence," she said, and her stomach walked toward me, followed shortly by the remainder of her body.
I cringed in horror as that menacing torso pressed closer. Her belly heaved and shuddered with the passion she felt, and from the navel down it reminded me of a grizzly bear. The lower part of it looked as if someone had tossed a dark, moth-eaten throw rug against it, the rug having glued itself to her person in an unruly fashion.
"Take me, Clarence," she whispered.
"Think of your social standing, Emma," I said. "Think of your reputation."
She closed her eyes. "At this moment, I only know that I am a woman," she said.
"Think about your husband," I said.
"Norm doesn't appreciate me," Emma said almost tearfully. "He married me because of my family-because he thought we had money. My father's estate was in a bad way when he died and I received a very paltry sum. I think that is when Norm stopped loving me." She leaned very close to me, and the heat of that enormous body could be felt all the way through my robe. "Please take me, Clarence!" she screamed.
"I'll take you!"
It was Holly speaking. Having overheard more than she could take, she had leaped from the bed and had dashed into the room in a completely nude state. "I'll take you outside and push you in front of a truck!"
Emma Hanson's eyes grew as big as saucers and her face seemed to breeze in horror. Her lips trembled in silence. I looked at the beautiful Holly, and I looked at the woman who had been so unfortunate as to draw the curse of obesity. I loved the beautiful, youthful Holly, but at the moment my heart was extended to the wounded, mortified Emma Hanson.
The sight of Holly had made Emma stone sober, and she began to retrieve her discarded clothing, taking them into another room. It was all too evident that she had been deeply humiliated by having been forced to compare her physical attributes with those of Holly.
When she returned fully dressed, Emma looked first to Holly and then to me. "I am very sorry that this happened, Clarence," she said, her accent having returned. "But I don't think that an apology is in order, do you, since this young tart is obviously not the maid?"
"No apology is necessary," I said, following her to the door. "And I'll still be glad to take you home, Emma."
"No thank you, Clarence. I prefer to walk." Emma paused for a moment. "I hope that you can be discreet about the awful thing that happened," she said. "I honestly and truly came over to see Sue."
"I know," I said.
"Norm is all I have," she said sadly. "If this ever got back to him, I would surely lose him."
"I am as silent as the sphinx," I assured her.
"Then I shall say nothing to Sue of the girl." Emma sniffed and lifted her nose into the air, having regained most of her composure. Her eyes became a bit icy as she added a comment. "Although I most certainly do not condone the idea of a man's playing behind his wife's back."
"Thank you, Emma," I said, thinking that she had a hide tougher than a rhinoceros.
"Do you think she will tell about me?" Holly asked as I closed the door.
I shrugged. "Who knows what a woman will do?"
"I am a woman," Holly reminded me.
"Would you care to prove it?" I asked, smiling.
"Very much so," Holly said, doing a short belly dance. It was infinitely superior to that produced by Emma Hanson.
We walked into the bedroom together. In a few moments Sue Jones and Emma Hanson ceased to exist. Holly and I were alone in the world.
CHAPTER TEN
I HAD SCORNED EMMA HANSON, SO TO SPEAK, and she had sensed that scorn. Although she had promised me her silence, it was but the rattle of a snake, warning me of what was to come. If I had given it serious tought, I would have known that she would gladly have gone straight to hell to get back at me. It was sheer idiocy to think that she would not betray me, even if it meant baring her own soul.
I do not know whether Emma bared her soul to Sue or not, but she did manage to get the bad news to Sue one way or another during the following week. I must admit that I was amazed by the manner in which Sue absorbed the revelation. She was almost calm when she questioned me.
We were eating the evening meal when she asked simply, "Who is the girl you've been seeing while I'm out of town, Clarence?" Her calmness shocked me more than the fact that she knew.
"Just a girl I met," I answered, seeing no advantage in attempting to lie out of my affair with Holly. "Who told you the good news?"
"A friend," Sue said.
"Are you sure that she is a friend?" I asked. "I didn't even say that it was a woman," Sue told me.
"Was it Emma Hanson?"
"It doesn't matter," Sue said. "The thing that matters is that I do know about you and the girl."
"Yeah." I saw no reason or justification for adding injury to insult as far as Emma Hanson was concerned, so I did not attempt to relate events as they had actually happened. Anyway, Sue would have never believed Emma capable of taking part in such an orgy. She would have thought me to be a desperate, fantastic liar of the most despicable sort.
Although she was very calm, Sue had no intention of letting the matter drop, "This girl," she said. "I take it that she isn't from around here?"
"No," I answered.
She took a bite of food and chewed it in a lasting, thoughtful manner. "How did you meet her, Clarence?"
"You'd never believe it," I said.
Sue finished her coffee and stood up. "All right, Clarence. You don't have to tell me any more about her. The fact that I know there is another woman is sufficient."
"I won't say that I'm sorry, Sue, because I'm not," I said. "But I won't blame you, no matter what you decide to do."
My wife smiled coldly, her eyes the eyes of a viper. "Oh, I'm not going to do anything at all, my love."
"I thought maybe you'd want a divorce," I said. "You'd like that very much, wouldn't you, Clarence?"
"That is the usual procedure when a woman discovers that her husband is cheating on her," I told her.
"Some women try to preserve their marriages in spite of everything," Sue said, her eyes shining triumphantly. "I intend to preserve mine."
"Okay," I grunted. "I have no objection, as long as you think you can take it."
"I can take it, Clarence," she said, "I'll make myself take it."
I felt cold inside.
"Have your little affair," Sue continued. "See this woman all you want to. When you're tired of her, we'll try to put the pieces back together. Until then, it'll be a marriage in name only, but it will still be a marriage."
I wanted to tell her that it had never been any other kind of marriage, but I was sensible enough to know that I was having an easy time of it as far as the scandal with Holly was concerned. Sue couldn't hurt my by not being a wife. My marriage had already hit the freezing point. It mattered little how much further the temperature fell.
I continued to see Holly as before, and Sue never missed a weekend without going to visit her mother. The fact that Sue knew about Holly and myself made it easier. I didn't have to sneak about and hide. Holly and I carried on our relationship in the comfort of my own home, and Sue never once tried to slip back and catch us in the act. She was doing as she had promised. She was accepting the fact that I was being untrue to her and letting it go at that.
Frankly, I could see little change in my relationship with Sue. We lived under the same roof five days and nights a week, and we had the same friends over. The same friends included Norm and Emma. Emma, bless her heart, acted as if nothing had ever happened between us, with the exception that she had ceased to play kneesie with me under the bridge table.
Although Sue was taking everything in stride, I knew that water had to boil at some point under constant heat. It came to a boil exactly three months after Sue had found out about Holly and me.
Sue had left for her mother's on Friday evening, as usual, and Holly and I were alone in the house. "Another glorious weekend is beginning," I shouted.
Holly did not share my enthusiasm. "Yes," she said limply.
I sensed that something was wrong, but I took her in my arms and kissed her anyway. There was a cold reluctance about her. "Something's wrong," I said.
"No," Holly said, looking away. "I just don't feel like making love tonight."
My grin was weak. "Are you tiring of me?"
Her eyes met mine and went very soft. "You know better than that. I could never become tired of you."
"I'm not reprimanding you, Holly," I said. "This means more to me than just sex. You must know that by now."
"I know," Holly said softly. "That's why I can't hurt you."
"Hurt me?" I laughed shortly. "How can you possibly hurt me, except by leaving me?"
"I've let you down," Holly said, almost angrily. "Let me down?"
"Don't you understand, Clarence?" she exclaimed. "I'm pregnant!"
"Pregnant?" The word hit me with the force of a sledge hammer. My knees went weak for a moment, then strengthened as quickly. A happy feeling hit me. "For God's sake," I whispered.
"Are you angry?" Holly asked, a look of dismay on her face.
"Angry?" I took her by the hands and danced around the room. "I'm happy as all hell!" I laughed.
Holly failed to see things my way. "I can't have the child, Clarence!"
"Now, wait a minute." I stopped dancing. "What are you suggesting? That we do away with the child?"
"If you'll give me the money, I'll find a doctor," Holly said. "You told me you had a thousand dollars in the bank that your wife doesn't know about."
"I won't have some alley butcher tearing your insides out," I said harshly. "I want that child, Holly."
"Why?"
"My wife has never been able to have one for me."
"Is that why you don't love her?"
"No," I said.
"All right, Clarence, if you want me to, I'll have your child for you," Holly sighed. "But it means that I'll have to go back to live with my uncle. I'm certain that he'll take me back into the fold."
"No," I said. "I want you and the child, Holly."
Holly shook her head. "You're forgetting that you're married, and your wife won't give you a divorce. My way is the best way."
"Not" I exclaimed. "Give me time. I'll think of something."
I thought. I thought like hell for two weeks, but not an embryo of an idea would form in my mind. That is, no idea except killing my wife, and this was too stupid to even be considered an idea.
I finally broke down and crawled to Sue on my hands and knees, revealing the fact that my mistress was pregnant, and begging Sue for a divorce.
She laughed with glee. "The bitch has made her bed. Now let her lie in it."
"You can have the house, Sue," I whined. "You can have both cars."
"A small exchange for a husband," Sue said.
"I mean nothing to you," I argued.. "A roof over your head, perhaps, and a bit of status which you could just as well do without."
"You forgot one very important thing," Sue reminded me. "Respectability and security. The security I can make for myself now, but I need you for the respectability."
"I'm the one who has committed adultery," I argued. "My actions cast no reflection on your character."
"That is where you're wrong, my dear," Sue said. "The poor divorcee always get a certain number of stones thrown in her direction, regardless of whom is to blame. I won't be humiliated, Clarence. Not one iota. And that is that. I don't care how you do it, but get rid of the girl and get rid of the child!"
I had no weapons with which to fight. My chances were about as good as those of a foot-long fish in a seven-foot pool with a six-foot alligator.
I wasn't thinking of myself or of Sue. I was thinking only of Holly, and I painted a very grim picture in my mind. I had, according to society, sinned grievously by having an affair with a woman who wasn't my wife. And I had added insult to injury by finding the woman involved by the side of the road, thumbing like a common tramp.
I did not know what Holly Smith really was, or how many men there had been in her life. She had, at first, tried to present a very dirty picture of herself, but I highly suspected that she was trying to strike out at the world. If the truth were know, I was almost sure that it would bear out the fact that Holly had been running away from a very unhappy relationship with her uncle on the day that I had found her. I had never pushed her for the entire truth, and I never would, unless she chose to tell me of her own free will. Even then, some things were better left unsaid. A lie can be pushed aside and forgotten about. The truth always remains.
The thing that worried me mostly was that the picture Holly had painted of herself could well come true. If she had to return to her uncle's keep-if she had to have the child on her own-she most certainly would become a tramp in her own right. I had seen such a thing happen to girls who would have led a decent life had they received a little help when they needed it. And Holly undeniably needed help now-more than she ever would. Somehow, some way, I had to provide it.
Several more weeks went by and I was still searching for a solution. Holly's condition began to show a bit as her stomach became gently rounded. "I'm wearing a girdle on the job to conceal my condition," she said, "but it won't serve my purpose forever. My job will be gone the minute the manager discovers that I'm in a motherly way."
"You don't have to work," I said. "I have the money to support you."
"That thousand dollars isn't a cure-all," Holly said wisely. "All it will do is lull us into a false sense of security."
"You're right," I said, "as always."
"It's best that I return to my uncle before I become as big as an elephant," Holly said. "My chances are better that he'll take me back if I go now."
"No," I said.
"There is no other way, darling," Holly said, her black eyes showing the pain and frustration she felt. She bit nervously at her lower Up. "We'll keep putting it off, and I'll be standing right here when I give birth to the child!"
"Give me one more week," I said. "Only one more week."
I didn't know it at the time, but the week was all I was going to need. It was Saturday night when Holly and I had our discussion. The telephone rang on Sunday morning, awakening Holly and myself from a late sleep. I reached out for it.
"Clarence?" The voice was familiar.
"Yes," I mumbled.
The woman laughed. "Don't you recognize me, Clarence?"
"Of course," I said, finally placing the voice as Sue's mother. "How are you?"
"Just fine, Clarence," she said, still laughing. "Why don't you come up with Sue some weekend?"
"Well, the store and everything...." I said. "You know how it is."
"I understand, Clarence," she said. "I suppose Sue had already gone to church?"
A slow paralysis crept through me as I realized that I was onto something big. "Uh, yeah," I lied quickly. "Is there something you want me to tell her?"
"Do you know what that daughter of mine did, Clarence?" she asked. "When she left here Saturday evening, she left her pocketbook sitting right in the middle of the bed."
"She hasn't even missed it," I laughed.
"Well, I thought I'd better call so she wouldn't be worried about losing it."
"She'll sure be red-faced," I said, still forcing laughter.
"Well, you be sure and tell her, Clarence. And come up and see us sometimes."
"I will. I will."
"Bye now."
I slammed the receiver down and leaped high into the air. "We're free!" I shouted to Holly.
"Don't joke with me, Clarence," Holly said seriously.
"The joke is on my wife," I said, cackling with nervous glee. "What is it?"
I sat on the edge of the bed and my knees knocked with nervousness. "She left her mother's house on Saturday evening. That means she should have arrived back here in the same evening."
"Maybe she had a wreck," Holly suggested.
"And maybe that isn't it at all," I said. "Maybe she's been leaving her mother's early every weekend, and maybe some weekends she hasn't been visiting her at all."
"You mean...."
"I mean, darling, if my hunch is correct, my wife has another man in her life," I said.
"You can hardly blame her under the circumstances," Holly said, drawing her legs up and holding them with her hands.
"You fail to get the point," I advised her. "If my wife is seeing another man, she was obviously seeing him long before I met you."
"You're only guessing," Holly said, but a flicker of hope showed in her face.
"I am not guessing," I said. "I am only thinking like a woman would think, and most of the time a woman is right. I was only with you for a few hours on the day that we met,, but my wife sniffed out the fact that I had been with a woman." My laughter was hysterical. "Think of all the hours she has to account for!" I whooped.
"Do you have any idea who the man is?" holly asked. "I mean, if it's true."
"Not the slightest," I said. "I didn't think any man could be interested in her."
"I've seen her picture," Holly said. "She's a very attractive woman."
I glanced at the picture of Sue which always sat on the dresser. "That picture is ten years old," I said.
"I still suspect that she is a very attractive woman," Holly insisted. "She wouldn't have any trouble getting a man to have an affair with her."
"She's a block of ice," I said.
"To you," Holly said. "She may not be with this other man."
"Who could it be?" I muttered.
"You'll have to find out before it will do us any good," Holly told me.
"I'll find out," I said.
I was relieved, but I was also angry as hell. Now I knew why Sue had grown suspicious of me at the very start of my affair with Holly, and why she had even accused me of being chummy with Miss Trumbley before I had become so. She was primarily concerned with easing her own feelings of guilt. And, when she had made certain that I was seeing Holly, she had taken it calmly for the same reason. By my sins she was able to continue her own affair with a clean conscience.
I didn't want to admit it, but I felt jealousy. I suppose that it was only natural after being married to the woman for better than fourteen years. It was man's nature to covet something that belonged to him, even if he didn't love it, even if it-were-without value.
I wasn't jealous for long, for the black hate in my heart pushed it quickly out of sight.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I SAID NOTHING TO SUE ABOUT WHAT I HAD discovered, but I could hardly contain myself as I gloated inwardly and made my plans to trap her.
I contacted an acquaintance of mine. His name was Joe Harpe, and he was an ex-cop who had been kicked off the force for running after women. Joe had tried the private eye bit in one of the state's big cities, and he had almost starved to death. He was back in town as a claims man for an insurance company.
Joe's failure at both of his previous jobs could not be attributed to inefficiency or ignorance, because Joe was really a very smart cookie. His misfortune came because of his weakness for women and the fact that there was no demand for private eyes in such a backward part of the country. I thought that he could do the job I wanted done.
Joe was reluctant when I first approached him, but cop was in his blood and he finally agreed. "Who is the dame?" he asked.
"My wife," I said. I felt no shame. I would have felt no shame if she had been caught in a gang bang on Main Street. All I wanted was rid of her.
"You're kidding," Joe said, his square jaw going pale under the dark beard which he could never quite get shaved away.
"It's true."
Joe shook his head. "I got no respect for married dames who run around on their husbands. I know, I ran around quite a bit, but not with no married dames. Maybe I believe in the double standard a bit too strongly, but a married dame who cheats ain't as good as a common whore. And I mean no offense, Clarence."
I nodded, feigning a bit of remorse. Joe slapped me on the back, hoping to perk me up, and it hurt through and through. He was a big man, weighing better than two hundred, and he was all muscle. "When do you want me to put the tail on your tail?" he asked, "She'll leave the house about six o'clock Friday evening, if all goes according to form," I told him. "She may or may not visit her mother in Rockaway before she meets this unknown boy friend."
"No sweat, pal," Joe said.
"Stay with her, Joe."
"Like glue," he said.
Friday evening came and Sue packed her suitcase as always. Her coolness amazed me. How could a woman going out on a shack-up job conceal her guilt so well?
"I'll see you Sunday night," Sue said calmly. "Have fun with your knocked-up trollop."
I watched Sue back her car out of the driveway and into the street. As she turned and headed for the main highway, I saw Joe Harpe's black sedan appear out of nowhere and fall in behind her. Now it was only a matter of waiting-some more.
I didn't hear from Joe that night, and I was still waiting early Saturday morning. I was beginning to think that I had it all wrong. I was merely suspecting what I wanted to happen to be true, with no firm foundation for my beliefs.
The clock showed one past noon and still no word from Joe. And then I suddenly realized that Sue would not have made contact with her lover on Friday night. . She would have been forced to go to her mother's house in order to get the pocketbook she had left behind the previous week. And most certainly she would have stayed Friday night in order to keep from arousing suspicion.
Still the hours ticked away, and hope was fading with each tick. Holly, who was keeping watch with me, sighed miserably as the hands on the clock pointed directly to seven. "You were wrong, Clarence," she said.
"Don't give up," I said, feeling sick all over.
Holly was almost crying. "It's all over for us, darling."
I glanced at the clock again, feeling the small beads of sweat as they popped out on my forehead. "Stay with the ship, honey," I said. "We're still afloat." But even as I said it, I could hear the boilers blowing up down below.
It was eight o'clock when Joe Harpe appeared with the good bad news. "You were right, pal," he said. "You wife is seeing another guy." He glanced at Holly and grinned. "Something to comfort you in your time of sorrow, huh?"
"Please, Joe," I said.
"Serious with her, huh?"
"Yeah. Now tell me what you discovered."
Joe scowled. "Your wife stayed with her old lady Friday night, just like you said she might. I sat there all night until noon today, but she didn't so much as stick her head out of the house. Finally, I got so damned hungry that I couldn't stand it any longer, so I took a chance and left to get me a couple of sandwiches and a beer. When I got back, her car was still in the driveway. I had another long wait.
"Then about six this evening, she came out, and she was carrying a suitcase. I expected her to turn east and come back here. She fooled me. She hightailed it west, went through town and hit the interstate highway. Then she turned east again, and I decided that she was coming home the quick way. One time I started to pass her and come on in myself, but I held back awhile. It paid off. A few minutes later she left the interstate and turned into a motelthe one with the big bird in lights."
"The Blue Swan," I said.
"That's it," Joe said. "She parked and went directly to a room without bothering to check by the front office. She knocked on the door and somebody let her in."
"You didn't see-who it was?" I asked.
Joe shook his head. "Only that it was a man," he said. "I waited a few minutes to make sure that they were going to stay inside, and then I high-tailed it back here."
"What was the room number, Joe?"
"Three-o-one."
"Thanks, friend."
"You want me to go back with you?" Joe asked. He grinned. "There might be trouble and you could sure use some of my weight. You need a good heavy shoulder to knock a door down."
"I don't want to bust in on them," I said. "I don't want to raise any kind of stink by going to the management."
"I know what you mean, pal," Joe mused. "Look, if you're so set on keeping it quiet, I got a. ring of keys in my car that'll get you in any place except Fort Knox. Used them when I was doing the private-eye bit. You're welcome to them."
"Thanks."
Joe got the keys for me and left. I dressed very quickly. "Do you want me to go along?" Holly asked.
"No," I said. "I'd rather do this alone. Like Joe said, there might be trouble."
"Be very careful," Holly said, looking almost frightened.
"Sure," I said. "And don't worry. It'll all be over in a couple of hours."
The cold tires made a slapping sound as I hit the interstate highway and turned west. My heart slapped along with the tires, and I felt sick now that I knew the truth about Sue. How many years had she deceived me? How long had she made me love in an icebox while she operated a hot-house on the side?
I began to think back and all the evil little blocks of thought began to fall together. Ten hears ago it had happened, for this is when our already cold love had grown colder. This was the time that Sue had grown suddenly modest, when she had begun to undress in the darkness. This was when she had found her lover.
The tires on the car warmed up and stopped slapping. So did my heart, now that I knew the complete truth about Sue. I even knew the name of her lover.
Thirty minutes after Joe had left my doorstep, I was pulling into the parking lot of the Blue Swan Motel. The area was well lighted, not as dark as I had hoped it would be. but enough commotion was going on that I could go about my business unnoticed. I walked directly to room three-o-one, trying to keep the huge key ring partially hidden as I took it out of my pocket.
I tried a couple of keys and my hands began to tremble. This was a new experience for me. What I intended to do was burst into the room and confront my wife and her lover, and let it be done at that. However, trying all those keys was making me extremely nervous and I was beginning to come apart at the seams. By the time I got into the room, I would probably be so distraught as to try to choke the man to death.
Ten minutes and a couple of dozen keys later, I felt the lock turn to my touch. I flung the door wide and stood there like an avenging angel, dropping suddenly out of the heavens to extract my terrible price from the two illicit lovers.
The room was empty.
I had a big let-down, but I calmed myself. The lights were on in the room, and I suspected that I had broken into the wrong suite. I went back to look at the door number again. I was three-o-one, just as Joe has said. I pulled the door partially closed and prowled around outside for a minute to two. My heart jumped as I spotted Sue's old green Chevrolet.
This offered some relief. If this wasn't the room, I at least knew that she was somewhere in the motel. But where?
I stared across the spacious lot and at all the bright lights which surrounded it. On the far end of the court was a fancy restaurant. Colorful neons flashed on and off above a gigantic plate-glass window. I made the long walk to the restaurant and peered in from the outside. I spotted Sue very quickly, as she was almost facing me. The man who accompanied her had his back to me, but I did not need to see his face in order to identify him. His steel-gray hair stood out like a flaming torch. It was obvious that he was treating her to a good meal before bedding her down. Being the man he was, he would do things this way, I returned to the room and closed the door behind me. The Blue Swan was no dump. The room was real fancy-thick red carpet on the floors, silver-plated bathroom fixtures, and several large mirrors in just the right locations. To one with a lewd mind it would appear that they had been so placed in order that a couple could watch themselves in the throes of love if they so chose. I was sure, however, that the management hadn't figured it this way.
I looked around for a place to hide. Directly beside the door leading to the bathroom, I spotted a large closet with sliding doors. I crept into it like a thief coming out of the night. The simple procedure would have been a matter of waiting outside and confronting Sue and her lover as they returned to the room. However, I had the strange urge to know why this friend of Sue's rated more consideration than I did. In a way, I felt that it was my right, I certainly didn't make love so badly that I had driven her from my arms. Or did I?
It wasn't a long wait. Sue and her friend returned shortly. Having just eaten, both were hygenic enough to brush their teeth thoroughly before kissing, but when they did kiss, the rest followed in short order.
I'll admit that I didn't feel exactly right about my being there in the closet for the sole purpose of watching the proceedings. Not only was I going to watch, but I was actually relishing the idea of seeing Sue give herself to her lover. Maybe every man has a perverse streak in him. In any event, it was within my legal rights to see my wife undress, since I had not seen her do so in ten long years. I really deserved one more good look at her body.
Sue undressed slowly, for the benefit of her friend, I suspected. Being an old department store man, I mentally priced each item as she removed it. And I must say that my wife's clothing did not come from Gurley's. She shopped at a rather fashionable store in town, and her clothing budget was considerably higher than Miss Marsha Trumbley's.
The blouse with the pearl buttons came off at $9.95, and then she wiggled her way out of the $17.99 skirt, kicking off her $22.00 pumps as she did so. The stockings were very sheer at $3.98. The white slip she was wearing must have cost eight bucks, but she stepped out of it and kicked it to the side of the room as if it were a common rag.
I became so interested in what the discarded clothing was revealing that I stopped pricing-except for one more item. She was wearing a pair of ninety-nine cent panties, just like those worn by Miss Trumbley. I imagined she was doing this with a sexy motive in mind, for the dark brown of her pelvis showed through the thin white fabric in its entirety. And when she turned to let her friend unsnap her bra, I could see the pink flesh of her buttocks as clearly as if she had nothing on.
My wife, I was surprised to find, had developed quite nicely over the past ten years. Although I was aware of the change, feeling her in the darkness had not been a true way to judge just how drastically she had changed. I was actually sick to think that I had slept with such a tempting body all those years and had not realized it. Not knowing what I was making love to, I had not reaped the full benefits of what it had to offer.
Of all her startling attributes, I found her breasts the most lovely of all. They didn't fall free of the bra and fat against her chest as I had suspected they would.
With her standing up, her breasts showed a beguiling firmness. Their pink tips stared at me like two mocking eyes as they bobbled but slightly on the firm white mounds before becoming minutely still.
Looking at her now, I almost decided that I did not want to let her go, and then I thought of Holly and the coming child. Another thought also influenced me. A block of ice carved into the shape of a beautiful woman was not the same as warm flesh and blood molded in the same manner.
I didn't price the clothing of Sue's friend as he undressed, although they were befitting of a man with his standing in the community. His shirt alone must have cost at least ten dollars-perhaps more.
The steel-haired man was quite handsome, and his body was well-preserved, although his age was somewhere in the vicinity of mid-fifty. I was very critical of him in his entirety. The part of his anatomy which most interested me, and evidently my wife also, was nothing to crow about. I felt that I could compare easily with him, and in not near so lifeless a manner.
So far they had not said a word to one another just a kiss or two and several light caresses. I guessed that they talked to one another enough at the office-for the man was Sue's lawyer boss. Evidently she had paid a whore's price for her pro motion from flunky to private secretary, and was still paying some ten years later.
One thing continued to puzzle me. The lawyer was in his declining years and still unmarried. And my own wife had carried on an affair with him for ten years without the hope of marrying him evidently, for she had refused to give me a divorce. What did she hope to gain?
He spoke, giving me my answer. "Have you seriously considered my latest proposal of marriage, Sue?"
"Yes," she said, "but I can't agree-not now."
"We're not getting any younger," he said.
"We've discussed this, time and time again, Wesley," Sue said.
"I'd like to make a decent woman out of you, my dear,"
"Don't you think I'm decent now?" she asked.
"That's not what I mean, and you know it," Wesley said. "I'd like to give you my name. I'd like to share my position with you."
"And by giving me your name, you make me the very thing that you're trying to keep me from being," Sue told him. "You know what people would think if I divorced Clarence and married you. They'd know for a certainty that we've been having an affair all these years."
"Well?" he said, smiling.
"So we have," Sue admitted ruefully, "but what I do and what people know are two different things. Until you're willing to give up your practice and leave town with me, I prefer that our relationship remain as it now is."
"Do you realize how many years I've put into my local practice?" Wesley asked. "I'd be in my grave before I could rebuild my practice in another town."
"Then, let's not talk about it anymore," Sue said. "Aren't you happy with me as things are?"
"You know I am."
"Then there's no more to be said?"
"No," he answered.
And there wasn't. They didn't turn out the light when they climbed into bed, wanting to see themselves in the mirror, I guressed. I was still feeling slightly guilty for watching, but I cleansed my guilt with the thought that this was really a legal action on my part.
They kissed, almost mechanically at first, and then they became more torrid. Wesley kissed her neck and nibbled her ear, and then he kissed each breast. Sue moaned and began to draw up her legs. And then their hands started to roam over one another's body, with the lawyer straining very hard against her. After a few minutes of this, he flopped on his back, still showing no physical changes from being with a woman. Sue inspected him with some concern in her eyes for his conditon.
While Wesley waited with an almost strickened look on his face, Sue began to manipulate him with one hand-in a manner to which I most certainly was not accustomed-and he began to rise to the occasion.
Both parties were growing impatient with the waiting, and I was shocked to see my wife applying body kisses to his hairy frame. I would have never thought her to be capable of such action, but seeing was believing. The lawyer's eyes were like huge white marbles in their sockets, and that part of him began to grow like a heavily fertilized stalk of corn after a soaking rain. I was fascinated by the abrupt change, but I could no longer compare with what he had to offer.
"Ah," Sue said, opening herself to him and swallowing him with an expression of sweet pain on her face. Her head was turned to one side, facing the closet, and I could see her eyes. They were wild and animal-looking, and they were so hot that the color of them had apparently turned from brown to blue. She kept squeezing the lids of them together, and finally tears of sheer ecstasy crept from the corners of them and trickled down her cheeks.
Wesley didn't show any mercy now that he had opened the case. He was dictating a quick will and my wife was taking it down in shorthand, almost falling behind at times under the rapid fire. Giving him due credit, I must say that Wesley pleaded his case with finesse and vigor. Most normal women would have died under such excruciating circumstances, but Sue absorbed the punishment with a grateful expression on her face.
As Wesley summed up his case with fiery eloquence, none of which I could under stand, Sue moaned as if dying, and her head flopped lifelessly over the edge of the bed.
It was about this time that I stepped from the closet. Sue's eyes opened in disbelief, and although she had no control over her actions, she did show some concern at my appearance. Wesley, however, was very cool under fire. He kept his mind on what he was doing, making a very strong point as he closed the case with a flourish. Sue's mouth opened in silent pain as he shuddered against her, and then she dropped herself from under him and rolled from the bed onto the floor.
She was a general mess, lying there on the floor, staring up at me with the disbelief still etched in her rapidly cooling eyes. There were red spots all over her body from the battering she had taken and the body juices still spilled from her like those of a tramp in an obscene French movie with her legs spread before the camera. She opened her mouth to protest, but nothing came forth. It was more like a fish gasping for air.
"Don't say a word that might be used against you," Wesley said, sitting up now that his strength was coming back." Sue gasped.
A grin pushed its way through the sick expression on my face. It was like grinning through concrete. "You've said enough," I told her.
"Now, see here," Wesley said, his face still filled with arrogant confidence. "Things are not always as they appear to be."
"Obviously not," I said. "One would think that this woman is your wife instead of mine."
Wesley stepped back to review his notes before continuing with the defense. He had a job on his hands. It was almost impossible to put up a defense for someone who had just shot the judge in the courtroom.
"I believe, sir," I said, "that you have been underpaying my wife for the past ten years or so."
Sue rolled over on her stomach and crawled around the floor on all fours, searching for her scattered clothing. She staggered weakly to her feet and began to tug the various articles into position.
"Don't rush," I said.
She looked at me as if she did not recognize me, and there was neither shame nor contempt in her face.
"No, Clarence," Wesley said, "we didn't mean for things to happen this way...."
"You mean that you didn't intend to be caught?" I asked.
"What I mean-Sue is not responsible," he said. "I take full blame for the entire affair. I do not want you to hold it against your wife."
I smiled coldly. "Would you prefer that I get a gun and shoot you between the eyes?" I asked.
Wesley refused to flinch. "That is your perogative," he said. "You are the wronged man."
"And what would be my chances of going free?"
I asked, playing his little game.
"Considering what you've just seen, I'd say they were extremely good," Wesley said conscientiously. "The Unwritten Law, and all that, you know."
"I only want one thing out of either you or my wife," I said. "A divorce."
"Hmm," Wesley said, resting his fingers on his chin. "Weighing the evidence, I'd say your chances are pretty good in that direction also."
"Then you'll take the case?"
"I really don't have much of a choice, do I?" Wesley asked. "You'll want it kept very quiet, of course."
"Of course."
"Frankly, Clarence," he said. "I think it only fair that you give Sue the house."
"And the mortgage," I said. "And the good car," he said. "And the lien," I said.
Wesley nodded. "I am sure that this can be settled in an amiable manner."
"I leave the details to you," I said, "for you outdo me in more fields than one."
"I'll start the paper work first thing Monday morning," Wesley told me, nodding again. "Now if you will," he pointed toward the door, "good night, Clarence."
"Good night."
Hell, I knew we'd made a comedy out of it, although I'm sure that Sue wasn't laughing inside. But I was getting what I wanted, and they had what they wanted. Why make a fouled up mess out of it by becoming emotional?
CHAPTER TWELVE
HOLLY WAS VERY HAPPY WHEN SHE RECEIVED the news, although I think that she was a little sad for Sue's sake. Being a woman, I supposed it was only natural for her.
I made Holly quit her job at the drive-in. The girdle was beginning to get to her, and besides, no future wife of mine was going to hustle hamburgers for a living. I turned the house over to Sue and moved out to a rooming house, and I only saw her one time afterward. This was when I took her the good car and picked up the old green Chevrolet. Sue was preparing to go to Reno the next day to obtain a quick divorce so that I might marry Holly before the baby came.
She was more friendly toward me than she had been in ten years. She actually tried to explain. "I know I must have hurt you very deeply, Clarence," she said. She wasn't wearing any lipstick and her lips were very pale.
"Your hurt must be as deep as mine," I told her.
"It was shameless of me, I know," she admitted, "but I just couldn't seem to help myself. I was still young and he gave me more attention than I'd ever been accustomed to. He was a mature man, perhaps a status symbol to me, and I fell hard for him."
"There is one thing I'd like to know," I said. "Exactly when did it begin?"
"About the time you guessed," she admitted freely, although her eyes would not meet mine. "Do you remember? I'd only been promoted a few days when he took an out-of-town case which necessitated staying overnight. He needed me and I went along."
It had happened so long ago that the incident had Slipped my mind, but I said "yes" anyway.
"We had adjoining rooms in the hotel," Sue continued, "and he invited me over for a drink that night. I never went back to my room. I felt guilty and sick when I returned home, but I tried not to let it show."
I grimaced as I remembered. The guilt had shown in her face, but I had not seen it for what it was. I had only thought that she was tired and sick from the trip. Guilt could only be determined by suspicion, and I had never been suspicious of my wife. She didn't have to tell me more. It was the same old story. After the first time, it was easy, and she had hardened herself to the point that she no longer feared exposure. Keeping a straight face hadbecome a habit.
"He was like a narcotic," Sue droned on. "He made me feel so wonderful, like no man had ever made me feel before. My whole being came alive when I was with him."
"How could you have lived with me all those years?" I asked, trying not to let the bitterness show.
"Respectability," she said. "It should be the prime concern of every woman."
"Did you ever love me?" I had to know the answer to this last question.
"I think I did, at one time."
"And after you became intimate with him?"
A faint, butter smile moved across her lips. "A man never loves two women at the same time, and a woman can never love two men."
There was truth to her answer.
I didn't know it at the time, but I was to later learn that Sue had company on her trip to Reno. Emma Hanson went along. It seems that Emma had lured a half-witted handyman into her bed, and that Norm had come home early from a rained-out golf game. Norm had discovered her half-drunk and naked in bed with the man, and although Norm had been angry, Emma was angrier at being interrupted. Perhaps she had been justified for it was said that the half-wit was on the level with a stud horse. Anyway, Emma had knocked half of Norm's pretty white teeth out with one of his borrowed golf clubs. Need less to say, their relationship was strained to the point that a divorce was inevitable.
I should have been extremely happy, now that almost everything was going my way, but I wasn't. I was a young executive on the way up a ladder with half the rungs broken. I kept seeing myself twenty or thirty years from then, when I'd be a pale-faced, long-headed, bitter old man like Mr. Yancey.
And, speaking of Mr. Yancey, his attitude had changed as of late. He was pushing me again, no longer seeming to fear the knowledge which I possessed about his relationship with Miss Trumbley. Miss Trumbley was also giving me a very superior look every time she had to do business with me. But the thing that really worried me was that a man from the district office had been snooping around the store during the past few weeks. He, like Mr. Yancey, was a thirty-year man and rather advanced in age.
I tried to make myself feel more secure by reminding myself of the hammer I held over the heads of Mr. Yancey and Miss Trumbley. I was, however, ignoring the fact that a certain amount of guilt was carried upon my own shoulders. My locking horns with Mr. Yancey would be similar to two duelists firing empty guns at one another.
I began to worry so much about my position that I decided to slip back to the store one night, intent upon securing more evidence against Mr. Yancey. It was not until I was already inside that I spotted the dim light coming from the lounge.
There was no doubt in my mind about who held the upper hand as I slipped back to the stock room and peered into the lounge from the dark shadows. Mr. Yancey, Miss Trumbley, and the old guy from the main office were in conference.
They had obtained a double mattress from some source and it was pulled out into the middle of the floor. Miss Trumbley was lying on it, very relaxed and very naked. Mr. Yancey and the big shot were down on all fours. One of them was wearing red shorts and the other yellow. Mr. Yancey was starting at one of Miss Trumbley's feet and kissing his way up to her breasts, and the big shot was doing likewise on the other side. Arriving at the respective pink points, the two old codgers would resume their trip downward again, and so on.
Miss Trumbley was almost as unconcerned as if taking a sunbath in the privacy of her apartment, except that she would shiver and giggle every now and . then when one of her admirers came near a touchy spot with his drooling lips.
At one point during the love feast, Miss Trumbley's warming eyes flitted across the room and spotted me in the shadows. She did not so much as make a sound to expose me. Instead, she smiled, and a triumphant expression showed beneath the lewd expression which was beginning to form on her pretty face.
There could no longer be any doubt in my mind as to where I stood. I was low man on the totem pole. Mr. Yancey had the district man sewn up by sharing Miss Trumbley with him, and Miss Trumbley had them both sewn up by sharing herself between them. I had never doubted Miss Trumbley's efficiency before, and I was doubly sure of it now. She would most certainly go places with the company if her body held out long enough.
Needless to say, I handed in my resignation the following day. I could not fight city hall, not when it was stacked with naked women and lecherous old men.
I drew my thousand dollars out of the bank, and Holly loaded our things into the old green Chevrolet. I wasn't feeling too secure, but I was as happy as hell. Holly was also happy, her face showing the flush .of motherhood and her stomach becoming rounded and hard. So rounded in fact that she could no longer wear her beloved jeans. Her body was a far cry from the way it had been that day I had spotted her at the roadside, but I loved her all the more.
The old Chevrolet was already beginning to smoke as we left town and headed toward the interstate highway. Sue had burned the motor up with her weekend rendezvous.
"Where to?" I asked.
"First we get married," Holly said, cuddling up against me and letting her dark eyes become very warm.
"Do hippies get married?" I laughed.
"I told you, I'm not a hippie," Holly said. "Although I might have very well become one if I had not met you. I was heading for California."
"Don't kid me." I said, loving her very much at that moment. "You were on your way to a love-in when I picked you up that day."
"And I found love, didn't I?"
I hit the interstate and turned west, heading toward California. Hell. Hippies had a lot going for them. Especially the love-ins.
