The sun blazed, the heat penetrated through my eyelids and an intense glare invaded my dreams, scorching the vision of fantasy. When I opened my eyes, reality would present itself.
But there seemed to be a warning voice that cried out each time my head throbbed. Don't look, the voice cautioned. There's something awful, it said, something grotesque and tragic!
I was stretched out on the sand, on my back, and the lake was only a few feet away.
Something was pleading with me not to remember how I got there, but already images came into my mind. I remembered . . .
Helen had wheeled around from the dresser to face me. a movement before she had finished applying the last traces of her make-up. Now she was seeking my approval.
Someone who was seeing Helen for the first time might have taken particular notice of her features. Helen had thin, feminine lips. Her face was full and it seemed to wear a smile, even when she was unhappy. She wore stretch pants that fitted her admirably and a loose, frilly blouse that was pushed forward by the thrust of her oversized breasts.
Someone eke might have taken the time to appraise and envy her physical qualities. But not me. Two and a half years of marriage had made me numb to her.
She was loud and boisterous. She was forever putting on some sort of an act around ethers. Even around me, she was seldom herself. Worst of all, she nagged. And when Helen nagged, it was always over some trivial, minute thing. Sometimes she'd go on for hours, not even remembering the thing that had annoyed her to begin with.
At times, I actually hated the woman.
"Well," she demanded, "how do I look?"
"Fine, just fine."
"Too much lipstick?" She searched me with passionless eyes, seeking something to tear into me about. And even while her eyes flashed contempt, her lips were smiling. She couldn't help that. It was a cruel trick that nature had played on her by placing that perpetual smile on her face. "I asked you a question, Phillip. Aren't you listening at all?"
"Your lipstick's fine," I told her.
"What are you thinking about, Phillip? Trying to figure out a way to sneak off with that mistress of yours? What's her name, anyway?"
"You know damn well what her name is!" Her name was Leslie. A year ago, when I'd finally decided that Helen and I simply were not going to have a successful marriage, I started skipping out. Cheating is the word, if you go by the rule book.
At the time, Leslie was the most convenient person to begin an affair with. She lived in a small cabin across the lake. She was single and called herself a painter. However, she made little profit from her artistic ventures, existing mostly on a monthly allowance sent to her by her wealthy grandparents. I made a play for her.
Within a month, we were seeing each other on a regular basis. At first we did it just for thrills, but then we fell in love. Just like that, sad and simple. I told Helen I wanted a divorce. She only laughed in my face. "You'll have to kill me first," I think, were her exact words.
That had been six months before. And for six months I'd pleaded with Helen to be reasonable. But Helen derived pleasure from denying me freedom.
"Is it Linda or Lillian?" Helen asked sarcastically.
"Larry," I said, in a tone of voice almost as cold as her own.
"Larry? Why that's funny, darling! The one thing I love most about you is your sense of humor. And when are you planning to get into Larry's pants, dear?"
"I got into her pants an hour ago," I said. It was the truth, too. "Would you like me to go into detail? I mean, would you care to know how we did it and what it felt like?"
"Spare me the bother."
I left the bedroom and went out to the veranda. The sun was just about to vanish beneath the distant hills. The last rays sparkled on the mirror-like surface of the lake. Across the mile of water, I saw a swirl of dust as a car sped down the winding dirt lane that ended at Leslie's place. She'd probably been into town shopping. When I'd left her, she had mentioned something about having to run into town for a few minutes. Now she was obviously in a rush to get ready for the party that Helen was throwing.
We could expect guests to begin arriving in a matter of minutes. Helen had parties frequently. For the most part, she invited all who lived on the lake plus half a dozen or so of her special guests. Her special guests were invariably men and inevitably one of them would sneak off with her. For months I'd been trying to catch her in the act. And for months I'd failed.
Tonight was going to be different. If Helen wouldn't divorce me, I was determined to find a legal reason for divorcing her. The fact that she was a nag wouldn't be sufficient grounds, especially when she could prove my disloyalty. But if I could prove her infidelity, it ought to be easy, terminating this ill-fated marriage.
"Phillip, come here." She was still in the bedroom.
I might have taken a stand; I might have refused to leave my chair. I might have demanded that she talk to me in a more civil manner, but such an action on my part would only send her into a fit of screeching and swearing. I could do without that So, like an obedient dog, I went into the bedroom.
Helen was sitting on the edge of the bed, smoking a cigarette and flashing false eyelashes as she looked at me.
"Sit down, Phil," she demanded, though there was little severity left in her voice. I knew what game we were going to play now. It was sex-time for Helen. Whenever she called me Phil, she was in the mood. Any other time it was Phillip.
Sex was an impulsive thing with Helen. It could be the very last thing in her mind at one instant, then, two minutes later, she'd be panting with the need of a good loving. There were even times when she'd be in a rage, calling me every filthy name in the book, then quite unexpectedly, she'd fall to the floor and beg. Sex came to her in flashes.
It flashed on and off without warning, like a light bulb loose in its socket. Right now it was on. And it wasn't even flickering. But if I wanted the bulb to go out again, all I had to do was reach up and screw itor unscrew it, as the case may be, though the former seems more pertinent.
"Phil, baby," she gasped, pushing her mouth tightly against mine. "You still have something left for Helen, don't you?"
After my session with Leslie, I doubted that I'd have anything left for Miss America. I told her so. "Skip it, Helen," I said. "I'm not in the mood. Besides, your guests are going to come any time now."
"Phil, you know I love you, don't you? All those things I say-I don't really mean them. Please don't think badly of me, not now." She said all this with her lips planted against mine. When she spoke, it almost tickled. "You're my husband, Phil. You're the only man who ever satisfies me." I wondered how long she would go on with her idiotic lies.
I wasn't the only man who ever satisfied her. In all probability, she would sooner be with some inexperienced teenager. Anyone but me!
But I was a man and would have to do. After all, I had what she wanted. Well, that's only half true. I had what she wanted, but not the way she wanted it. She was trying her level best to do something about that fact.
Her hand made sweeping motions up and down my trouser leg. She petted and panted and waited for her expert caresses to have some effect on me.
"Look," I said after about three or four minutes, "it's no good, Helen."
"Please, Phil. Please, honey." As if there was something I could do about it. If I'd had it in my power, I would have gotten the damn deed over with.
She stood up and began stripping off her clothes. She made no effort to be neat about it. She got out of her stretch slacks so quickly that they turned inside-out. After forcing five buttons through the buttonholes, she flung her blouse aside. It fell limply to the carpet. She reached behind her back and instantly her bra was gone, falling to the floor to join the rest of her garments. Now only her white panties separated her from nudity. She peeled them down her slim legs and stepped out of them.
She turned and gave me a devastating stare, as if she wanted to gasp or something. I'd seen her before. At first, maybe even the first hundred times, her body had impressed me. But by now it was such a stale act, her stripping before me, that I was almost bored.
She stepped over to me and began working on my clothing. If I refused to allow her, she'd put up a hell of a fuss. The best thing for me to do was to demonstrate beyond a doubt that I wasn't capable of healing her heated sickness.
It required about twenty seconds for her to bare my body, from the waist down. Immediately her hands began to fondle. Her fingers teased, worked half way up my thighs, then down again.
"Hurry up, darling," she urged. "We haven't much time."
"What the hell do you expect me to do about it?" I snapped irritably. "You'll only get messed up, anyway," I said, as an afterthought.
"I don't mind, Phil. Please do something-"
"You don't mind?" I snarled, knowing that now I could speak to her harshly without any bitching on her part. She was begging me at the moment. That was about the only time she didn't nag-when she was begging. "You spend half an hour applying makeup and now you don't care if I mess it up."
"I did not spend half an hour," she contradicted, never slowing the rhythm of her fingers on me. "I only spent five minutes." She gasped as she came into contact with me, during a particularly broad circling of her hands. It should have been me gasping, but it wasn't. She was down on the rug now, kneeling toward me. I could feel her lips on my thighs, her tongue leaving a moist trail from my knees upward.
"I think you do have something left for Helen," she gurgled after a minute. I was aware that my physical status was in a period of transition. If a woman is desperate enough, she can find a way to arouse even the most reluctant of men. Helen had found a way! Even though I wanted to resist, my body was going along for the ride.
"Come up here, you witch!" I demanded.
For a while, she seemed too occupied with what she was doing. It was as if she hadn't even heard me. I was about to yank her to her feet, when she looked up into my eyes.
As always, her lips were smiling. But her eyes weren't smiling. They were seething with sensuality.
"Oh, Phil!" She climbed onto the mattress, onto the neatly made bed. As she came alongside me, she applied pressure, forcing me onto my back. She was about to climb aboard. She was about to become the aggressor and conquer me. But I wasn't about to let that happen.
She used all her strength to try to keep me pinned in position. It was hopeless, of course. One push and she was off of me. Within a matter of seconds, the tables had turned and I was on top of her!
Her initial reluctance vanished. She was moaning and her whole body shook with one agonizing sob after another. "Take me, Phil! Oh, God, lover! Please--now!"
I didn't answer. But I did as she wanted. She lowered one hand to help as I lunged. Her other arm wrapped cruelly and tightly about my neck, the fingernails piercing my shoulder.
"Lover, lover-oh, there!" She drooled into my ear.
Her tongue flicked against my earlobe and certain hot words were evident with each breath she exhaled, though I couldn't determine what those words were. They were swallowed in her throat, said for her own satisfaction. I wasn't meant to hear them.
Helen arched her body toward me. Even though she was no longer on top, she was taking the lead away from me. I fought to prevent this by forcing an even more strenuous rhythm of my own. For a number of minutes our bodies were at war with each other, each trying to outdo the other, each fighting to master the other, each trying to outdo the other, each fighting to master the other and not be mastered.
But inevitably, the battle subsided. The war would have to wait. We had reached a truce, a compromise in which we accepted one another's pace and molded into a cadence that was satisfactory to both of us.
We were nearing the ultimate end when there was a pounding at the front door, accompanied by the sound of the door-chimes. At first we ignored them, and our bodies continued to grind.
"Come on," someone was shouting jovially. "You lovebirds better get decent or we'll barge right in!" I recognized the voice. It belonged to Wes Benson, the carefree photographer who lived a quarter of a mile up the road. If anyone really had the guts to barge into the house without an invitation, Wes was the guy to do it.
But neither Helen nor I could stop now. The end was too near.
"Phil, stay with me," Helen whimpered, as if there were some chance that I was going to abort the ride. In reality, I needed to finish this gallop just as much as she did. She was only asking for reassurance of that.
"I will," was all I managed to blurt out, on a fiery breath.
The pounding at the door continued, in fact, grew more emphatic.
"Coming! Just a minute," Helen managed in a sweet voice, choked with passion. She never altered her pace, not for a second.
Then the climax came for both of us. My body was going out of control. I was pulled into a dizzy funnel, spinning downward. Vaguely, I was aware of Helen. We clung tightly and tumbled together.
When we were back to reality, Helen stared up at me, nothing but a menacing gleam in her eyes.
"You bastard!" she hissed. "They probably heard everything! They probably heard every damn second of it."
"You made most of the noise," I pointed out haughtily.
"Like hell I did!" She was up, sliding into her clothes without delay. The pounding was continuing. Wes Benson's voice boomed again, "Come on in there. We hear you. Are you going to let us in or not?" There was amusement in the man's tone. But Helen wasn't amused.
"God damn you, Phil. You should've known better. You go answer. I don't want to see anybody." Already I'd managed to don my undershorts and was getting into my trousers.
"Sure, you're embarrassed now, aren't you? Imagine, being caught in bed with your own husband! If they'd caught you in bed with the delivery boy, you'd be giggling up a storm!"
"Son of a bitch!"
"Ah, the truth hurts, doesn't it, Helen?" I finished with my buckle and began toward the front door.
Helen headed toward the bathroom to fix her makeup. "Get screwed, you dirty . . . " I couldn't hear the last of what she said. It was all muffled once she closed the door.
I opened the front door.
"Hello, buddy," Wes said. "My God, you look a fright."
He walked through the doorway. My eyes scanned the girl who clung to his hand and followed him in. It must have been a new girl friend of his. At least, I'd never seen her before. And I usually managed to meet Wes' girl friends. He tended to date the promiscuous sorts, the kind that seems to be interested in every man but the one they're dating.
"This is Suzy," Wes introduced, walking briskly in the direction of the living room.
"Hi," I said. And the medium-size, firmly built girl of about twenty flashed a smile at me.
The couple sat on the couch. I turned on a lamp, since it had been half an hour since sunset and darkness was rapidly approaching.
"Where's the little woman?" Wes asked.
"Helen's getting ready," I said.
"I'll bet she had some fixing up to do after that tumble you just took! Sounded wild!" At any other time, the man's satiric exuberance might have angered me. But tonight I had other things to do. I couldn't afford to be angry with Wes. After all, he was going to help me.
He didn't know it, though. Not yet.
"Yeah," he continued. "Didn't it sound wild, baby?" The girl, Suzy, blushed hotly. Even her arms turned color. "Hey!" he demanded of the girl, "Answer me!"
"I-I didn't hear anything."
"Lie! How they lie, huh, Phil? This is a babe in the woods, this one." With those words, the girl's flush became even more crimson.
Wes leaned toward me as I stood beside the sofa. He whispered one word, but he whispered it loudly enough so that it could easily be overheard. The word was, "Virgin!", "I am not," the girl shouted, displaying a mild rage. To that, Wes broke into a loud belly-laugh. "Wes, I want to talk to you."
"Sure, Phil. Go ahead." He looked up at me quizzically.
"Not here."
He shrugged his shoulders, then got up and followed me into the den. I offered him a chair. When we were both seated, I said, "How expert are you with that camera of yours?"
"I make a buck now and then."
"I'll get right to the point. Leslie and I want to get married. I guess that's no secret. Everyone around here knows what's going on between us. Right?"
"Word is pretty well out," he agreed.
"I want a divorce," I said bluntly.
"You can have it, darling," he consented.
"Very funny," I said. "You know what I mean. I want you to help me get a divorce from my wife. One picture. Follow her tonight. And wherever she goes, bring me one picture."
"You need a detective, pal. I'm just a photographer."
"You think I haven't tried detectives? Somehow or other, she has a sixth sense about detectives. You, Wes, she'd never suspect."
His humor was gone now. The man had a serious side, after all. "Look, Phil. This thing's between you and Helen. Don't bring me into it, huh? I just wouldn't feel right about it."
"Two hundred bucks make you feel any better?"
"It's not the money, it's just-"
"I know," I interrupted. "It's the principle. Five hundred!"
"I think you're crazy. You could get any amateur to take the shot for fifty."
"Take it or leave it."
He gazed directly at me, resignation showing in his face. "I guess you know what you're doing. I'll take it."
We left the den and went into the living room. We joined Suzy on the sofa, sitting on opposite sides of her. My wife came from the bathroom a couple of minutes later. Her eyes immediately flirted with Wes. She ignored me totally.
It didn't matter.
CHAPTER 2
By eight-thirty, all the guests had arrived. And an hour after that, the scene began to resemble one of Helen's typical get-togethers. Typically wild. Typically lustful. Typically lewd.
What would take place in the next several hours was purely predictable. Bodies would be sprawled on the carpet, on the beds, on the sofa. Into chairs too small to fit two people, two people would fit. Some would bump into each other on the veranda, some would come across each other in the kitchen. It didn't matter with whom they mingled. They all came for pleasure, and none tried to hide their real reason for coming.
It was all out in the open. No one tried to conceal anything.
Except Helen, that is.
As usual, Helen would be sly. She'd try to sneak away with the man of her choice. Somewhere out of sight, perhaps many miles away, she would revel in sexual madness. She would do exactly the same things that were being done in her very own house. But Helen was too smart to be caught at it. She figured.
But this time, I figured too. I sipped from my Manhattan, confident that this was going to be one of the grandest evenings of my entire life.
Leslie sat by my side, her moist hand holding mine while a dozen couples danced body to body only feet from the couch where we were sitting. Among the dancers, I recognized Wes Benson. He was tightly clinging to Suzy.
For several seconds my eyes paid tribute to the form of the girl. Her whole front was mashed against her escort. There was not a pocket of air anywhere to separate their bodies. Suzy was whispering things in Wes' ear. You could tell what things she was whispering because every time her lips would move, her hips would agitate sensuously.
While he danced, Wes held a drink in one hand, occasionally sipping. That I didn't like. After all, he agreed to do a job for me, and I didn't want his picture to be out of focus. If I'd wanted to hire a drunk to snap the all important picture, I sure would've done so. But I was paying half a grand.
And for half a grand I had a right to expect a sober photographer.
I placed my Manhattan on a table beside the sofa and started to rise. It was my third drink-my fourth, maybe-and I wasn't planning on being sober for long myself. You might say I was going to celebrate in advance.
Leslie tugged at my hand as I stood from the couch. "Where you going?"
"I'll get you another drink," I said, noticing that her glass was virtually empty. She smiled toward me approvingly. It was a beautiful smile, a smile made all the more magnificent by the impeccably gleaming teeth.
Blonde hair was combed down in a waterfall over her forehead. She was a doll. And I loved everything about her-everything.
On the way to the bar, I touched Wes lightly on the shoulder. He made several more erotic, dance-imitating movements before he glanced up at me.
"I want to talk to you," I said.
He let out a deep breath that demonstrated his annoyance, and loosened his grip on the panting Suzy.
Her eyes were bleary. "Don't keep him too long," she giggled.
"I'll try not to."
We walked over to a less noisy corner of the living room. "You've got a job to do," I reminded bluntly. "So?"
"Drinking isn't going to help you do a better job, is it?"
"Hey, who you trying to be, anyway? My preacher or my grandma? Don't you think I'm old enough to know how many I can handle?"
"Don't you think five hundred bucks buys better than a stoned photographer?" I countered.
"Look, don't worry, huh? Man, I know you're upset, but I know what I'm doing. You got yourself a real professional. I won't blow it. You've got absolutely nothing to worry about. So just go back and make it with the chick. In no time at all you'll be able to marry her." He looked directly at me, and his eyes were cold sober. Maybe I was getting upset, as he'd put it, over nothing. "Although I don't see why you want to escape one marriage just to get hung up with another," he added. "Man, if I fell into the trap once, then found a way out, I'd sure stay out."
"Thanks for the advice, pal," I quipped, "but Rome didn't fall in a day!" I went over to the bar, leaving him standing with a quizzical expression written all over his face.
"Huh?" I heard him say as I walked away. "What's that supposed to mean?" It wasn't intended to mean anything, of course. I fetched the drink for Leslie and returned to the couch. But she wasn't there. I looked around the room, seeking a splash of bright red -indicative of the crimson dress she wore. But scanning the entire array of dancers, I found nothing. She was bound to be in the bathroom powdering. I sat on the sofa. I waited.
There was a couple on the other edge of the couch. They were entwined and making no attempt to keep their heat a secret. While the man bent over her, his tongue invisible somewhere inside her mouth, she squirmed against him. Her boobs were nowhere to be seen. They were smashed into oblivion, concealed against his chest. Even above the sound of the music that drifted from the stereo, I could hear the woman moaning. Her moans were soft, but by no means complacent. If I were a betting man I would have bet a bundle that those two would be the first to hit the mattress.
I looked away from them. Other couples on the dance floor were anything but cool. Only three feet away, a pair was standing, no longer making any attempt to pretend to be dancing. That twosome wasn't very far from melting to the floor, either.
A shiver went through me all at once. I'd been concentrating on the amorous couples for so long that I'd neglected to keep my wife under surveillance.
It was Wes' job, of course. But it made me feel easier inside if I double checked. I could see Wes, dancing with Suzy. But Helen was nowhere to be seen. My first impulse was one of irritation: I pounded a fist on the back of the sofa. But within a split second, all secondary feelings vanished. The only remaining sensation was panic.
Once more, I looked about the room, searching every corner. Helen was gone. And only moments before, she'd been sensuously dancing with one of her special male guests. He'd been an older man, nearing fifty, in a conservative, gray suit. He'd stood out, since all of the other party guests were far more casually attired.
Scanning the room, I tried to find the fellow. Of course, I didn't figure to locate him. My heart pounded angrily. They'd left. And within minutes they'd be making it, wildly, vulgarly. In the back of my mind, I could hear my wife cackling her triumph, amused by the knowledge that she'd once again thwarted my efforts to prove her infidelity.
Sure enough, the man she'd been with was gone also.
Rage filled my mind. I could even feel my eyes wetting under the force of the fury within me. "Damn!" I swore aloud, making a fist so tight that my knuckles turned pure white.
The girl on the other end of the couch broke off her kiss long enough to turn in my direction, seeking the cause of my utterance. When I just stared blankly back at her, she continued with her love-play.
At first my wrath was without focus. But then I watched Wes dancing in seductive rhythm. It was all his fault. I was half way aware that my mind was somewhat fogged by the drinks I'd downed, but that made Wes no less to blame. And that made my anger no less real.
In fact, I was fighting mad.
For a matter of seconds, I sat alone on my side of the couch. Leslie hadn't returned. What the hell was keeping her, anyway? That added to my irritation.
But that was a mild bother compared to the fact that Helen had gotten away from the party without being noticed.
I rose from the sofa and walked directly to where Wes and Suzy were dancing. I wasn't subtle. I grabbed the man's shoulder and pulled him away from the woman.
"Hey, what gives?"
"I thought you had a job to do!" I rasped harshly.
He didn't answer; he didn't have the chance. He was fighting to keep his balance while I tugged him across the room. We went out to the veranda, stumbling across a half naked couple near the doorway.
"Sorry," I said without sincerity.
And the woman looked up at me through glazed eyes and said nothing. I continued to cling to Wes' shirt, leading him to the farthest corner of the veranda.
"All right," he said. "Here we are. Now what is it?" The anger that edged his words was genuine.
"I ought to knock your teeth out!" I raged. That was a brave thing to say, since Wes is somewhat larger than I am, and probably somewhat stronger.
"Make sense, will you? I got a chick stewing in there. She's cooling off while you stand here and talk nonsense."
The guy was so calm, so casual that I almost took a poke at him right then. Subconsciously, fists formed at my sides.
I was about ready to whack him one. "I don't suppose you know where my wife is!"
"She was in the head, when you dragged me out of there. God only knows where she is now."
"In the head?"
"That's right."
"She can't be. Leslie's in there. What are you talking about?"
"For your information, Phil, Leslie went out for a walk about ten minutes ago. She went with some dame. I ought to charge you extra for the additional information. You're only paying me to snap a photo."
"Who did she go with?" I demanded.
"How should I know? Some dame, I told you. If you don't let me get back in there, your wife's going to slip out on us. I told you before and I'll tell you again, don't worry, Phil. I'll get your damn picture."
All of a sudden I felt like a heel. "Maybe I just jumped to the wrong conclusion about you. I'm sorry."
"Forget it, pal. But if I were you, I'd keep my eye on that little witch you intend to marry."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know about you, but if my girl would rather go walking with another woman than stay with me, I'd sure as hell be suspicious!" He spoke half in jest, half seriously.
"Suspicious of what?"
"Just doesn't seem natural. Does it?" He was leading me along, trying to tease me into further anger. Of course, it wag only a game with him. Besides, I was too relieved to learn that Helen hadn't escaped unnoticed to be angry with him. It was purely ridiculous, anyway, the remarks he'd made about Leslie. If she'd gone for a walk with a woman, there was a reason for it. Leslie was the image of perfection to me. There wasn't one unnatural bone in her body. If there was one thing I could have told Wes with absolute certainty, it was the fact that Leslie, my love, was totally normal.
On the way back inside the house, we stepped over the pair of lovers near the doorway. The man was still half unclothed, still dressed in shorts and undershirt. But the woman was no longer half-exposed. She was fully uncovered. The fellow was straddled across her, taking advantage of her condition, exploring her pale loveliness with questing fingers.
The two took no notice of us as we stepped over them.
Inside, the scene was in the process of transition. No longer was there an abundance of hip-to-hip dancing and body-to-body gyrations. No longer was there breath-to-breath, insinuating whispers.
There was more.
In rapid succession, things were beginning to happen. Fully a third of the women had discarded their blouses and now wore only white brassieres. One was in the process of ridding herself of her bra, also.
Next the clothing from the waist down would begin to go. The closest couple was indicative of what was to come. The girl was quickly working her skirt down her calves, stepping out of it. The fellow whom she leaned against made sure his hands didn't remain idle. They worked. Lord, how they worked!
While one found its way beneath the white, see-through bra, skipping from one orb to the other, the second hand was exploring the unveiled areas where her skirt no longer existed.
Wes left me standing near the doorway and returned to Suzy. She was standing alone near the bar, looking somewhat perplexed. That was because she wasn't getting any of the same treatment that everyone else was getting, all around her.
I scanned the room, seeking Helen.
I found her in one comer. And she wasn't alone! But she wasn't so overheated as many of the women in the room. At least, she didn't appear to be. But with Helen, what was ostensibly on the outside wasn't necessarily on the inside. She wasn't about to provide me with the grounds upon which to secure a divorce.
Dancing sensuously, well, that was all right. Everyone else in the room had been doing it. Everyone the world over was doing it, with everyone's husbands and wives but their own. It was the accepted thing.
But carelessly tossing off a few items of apparel was something altogether different. A judge might view that distastefully.
Consequently, Helen kept all of her clothing intact. Whereas most of her guests had abandoned dancing many minutes before, Helen kept a proper pace with the music.
The words she whispered in the ear of the conservatively dressed man were heard by no one except themselves. Words, she could risk. Besides, whatever I thought those words were, it was still a matter of pure speculation.
Still standing near the door, I felt relief. Tonight was still going to be the grandest night of all. Helen was in for a letdown, poor dear.
Inwardly, my heart still throbbed out an abnormally rapid rhythm. But I smiled to myself, recalling the fear and rage that had beset me when Helen was nowhere to be found. And that older man she was with, where had he gone, anyway? Maybe he'd stepped outside. Maybe into one of the other rooms. Who cared?
The important thing was that they were still there.
With a series of quick glances, I assured myself that Leslie hadn't returned. Then I went over to the bar and poured half a glass full of Canadian Whisky. I downed half of the contents in a single gulp, leaving the rest for a second, oversize shot. I tackled that one several seconds later.
It wasn't going to be long, I knew, before I would begin to become dizzy. I'd been drinking plenty. And I planned on drinking a lot more.
After all, a celebration is a celebration. To Helen, I said to myself, after pouring another drink. To our divorce, I specified between swallows.
"Hi there, lover-boy!" It was a giddy, female voice.
I turned and found a petite figure standing beside me. Her eyes were giggling with the merriment of alcohol. It was Suzy, Wes' girl friend.
"Hello, lover-girl," I responded with equal enthusiasm. "Where's your lover boy?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "He left."
"Left? Wes left?" I began searching the room.
"Just like that," she chuckled. "But it doesn't matter, 'cause there's still you and you're alone, huh?" I didn't answer her question. As a matter-of-fact, I scarcely heard it. I was too astounded by the fact that Helen was no longer in sight. And her companion was gone too. Wes, hopefully, was close on their trail. Well, that ended stage one of the night's suspense. The rest was up to the photographer.
"You are alone?" she repeated.
I was, for the moment. But I was expecting Leslie to return any moment. I certainly didn't want to become involved with some other chick, hot pantsed though she was. She must've been absolutely boiling, after the physical friction that had been going on between her and Wes on the dance floor. Well, I sympathized, but there's was nothing I could do to help her out
I had a date, one very dear to me, one I was going to marry.
"I'm alone for the moment. But I'm waiting for a friend."
"A girl friend? But darling, you are alone right now. Couldn't you pay attention to me? Just until.. . "
"A drink?" I asked.
"Golly, I've only had six million already. Maybe just a teeny bit." I poured her a teeny bit-about a sixth of a glass of whiskey and five-sixths of ginger ale.
"So you're all alone, huh?" I asked casually, a stupid remark intended to keep the conversation from lagging.
"Why don't you dance with me?" She placed her glass on the edge of the bar, in case I was willing to take her up on the offer.
"But no one else is dancing. Wouldn't we look rather peculiar?"
"They're dancing," she stressed, gesturing toward one of only two couples still standing. The other standing couple was making no attempts to follow the beat and sway of the music. They were involved with a rhythm of their own. Almost fully disrobed, they leaned against the wall and enjoyed hot, passionate kisses. But the pair that Suzy had pointed out was actually dancing. They wore nothing at all. For the most part, they stood virtually motionless, but every so often they made a harsh move in this direction or that. It was almost as if . . . I looked again.
They were! I watched for a few short seconds while the two held their lips locked against each other, disguising the torture and passion that was probably written all over their faces. For another split second, I watched them taking each other, then turned my attention back to Suzy.
"You're right," I affirmed. "They are dancing."
"Well?"
Her eyes looked up toward me and seethed. Wes must really have heated her bottom. It would obviously be pure torture for her, if she were unable to get any satisfaction. But would it be to my advantage to assist her? Of course not! I had myself to think about, and Leslie.
"Any other time," I told her. "But I have a prior engagement." Her expression was pleading. She stepped to within inches of me and stared directly into my face. I had no choice but to stare directly into hers, also. I found it a particularly thrilling experience, gazing into those sex-starved, luring eyes. But I wasn't about to let myself be drawn into her trap.
"Maybe you could have two engagements," she proposed. In the sense that she meant the word engagement, I was planning on having two. I'd had the first just before the party began-with Helen, of all people. The second was reserved for Leslie.
Where the hell was she, anyway?
"Couldn't we?" Suzy demanded.
"I'm a one-engagement type," I kidded. Her body quickly lurched the last several inches and came tightly against mine. Her arms went around my shoulders and her lips fastened to mine. Her head moved slightly from side to side, making the kiss more intimate. And her tongue pried my mouth open and ventured boldly inside.
I tried my damnedest not to respond, but a physical being, be he male or female, has certain bodily characteristics. I found it difficult keeping mine in check, particularly in view of the fact that her hips were so active. As her lower body ground against me, I tried very hard to think of other things. Things like war and killing. Things like fishing and hunting. Anything to make me less conscious of what Suzy was trying to do to me.
But these efforts on my part, were only partially successful. Suzy was winning the war and it was killing me. I began to burn inside.
And in one momentous, decisive moment, I gave up the fight and returned the girl's kiss with all the passion I could muster. That's when she began groaning.
"Do you know what I feel like inside?" she gasped.
"I can imagine," I said, and our lips came back together again.
Her murmurs became increasingly sensuous. Her breath was increasingly warm. She was going to melt very soon. And because she couldn't restrain herself any longer from making the final demand, she broke away and hissed, "Let's go do it!"
Well, perhaps this would be a three-engagement night. That's what I was thinking as I led her by the hand to the couch. We found that two couples occupied that piece of furniture and there certainly wasn't room for a third. It was almost senseless to look into the bedrooms, since they were always the first to be occupied. But I led her down the hallway, just the same.
The door was open in the master bedroom, my bedroom. There were four people on the bed, all oblivious to the fact that they were being watched by Suzy and me. We didn't watch long, just long enough to satisfy our fascinations by viewing the primitive sexual movements. We were too concerned with an outlet for our own drives to be interested in someone else's lovemaking. We continued down the hall and found the door to the guest bedroom closed.
The squeals that drifted from under the door were sufficient to assure us that the room was occupied.
We returned to the living room. Suzy clung hotly to my hand, our palms perspiring with desire and alcohol. When I tugged at her hand, after scanning the room for a possible dim corner, she refused to follow. Instead she fell stubbornly to the floor. She pulled me downward, and I let her bring me to the carpet.
"The rug is for losers, lover," she groaned. And it made sense, particularly since there was no other alternative. We weren't the only losers, anyway. Other pairs shared the carpet nearby.
It took us only seconds to become just as divested of clothing as all the others in the room. Without benefit of warm-ups, Suzy flung herself on her back, her arms above her head. I wasted no time mounting her.
Two or three thrusts and we were coupled.
"Love me, baby," growled Suzy. "Love me like I've never had it before!"
I had no idea how she'd never had it before, but I did know how to make this ride as pleasurable and profitable as possible. And it wasn't by taking things slow, either.
We got there by bucking and leaping, by springing and bounding. And as we pranced toward mutual fulfillment, we made sounds that were animalistic.
It was a grand round, one of the best I can remember. It was great, right from the moment of contact up until her last exclamation of "Lord, do it now!" Her voice had shrilled and echoed through the room with that final demand. But nobody noticed, since there were other wails and other screams filling the room at the same time, from all directions.
We retraced our trail of passion, going gradually downward until we hit the bottom and our senses returned.
The room quit spinning and my eyes opened.
Her face was smiling, but it wasn't Suzy's face. That girl still lay beneath me in panting aftermath. But this other face was five feet above me. The face kept beaming down at me, a face sophisticated yet playful. I felt my cheeks reddening.
"Hi, Leslie," I grunted.
"Hello," was all she said.
"Well, where have you been?" I asked stupidly. I was in an awkward position to be casually conversing.
"Watching," she answered.
"I mean before that," I stammered.
"Hey!" shouted the girl underneath me. "If you two want to talk, why don't you let me up?" Come to think of it, that must have been a totally unique situation. I wonder if any other guy has ever tried to carry on a calm dialogue with his fiancee while intimately aboard another woman.
I allowed Suzy to get from under me. She giggled as she got to her feet. "Is this your engagement?" she asked.
"Yes," I said, trying to keep my head as much as possible. "Suzy, meet Leslie. Leslie, Suzy." And that completed the weirdest introduction of my entire, thirty-six-year existence.
The girls smiled at each other shortly. Then Suzy said, "I guess I'll leave you guys alone." And she went to other parts of the house, evidently seeking a mate to join her in a second session. The first round was pretty well breaking up and pairs of people were separating. Perhaps she'd have some luck. Wes might even return in a short while, provided he had little trouble getting the photo.
I looked eye to eye with Leslie, and she seemed somewhat out of focus. The liquor was getting to me. She was still smiling.
"Was that fun?" she asked.
"Marvelous fun," I said. "If you had been around, it never would have happened."
"I don't mind," she replied truthfully. "It was fun watching."
"You're a devil, you know that?"
She offered no verbal response, but her eyes said that she knew exactly what she was.
"What the hell's the idea of leaving me like that? I go to get you a drink and when I get back you're gone. Where'd you go?"
"Just for a walk."
"Alone?"
She stuttered for a moment, then replied in a rapid tongue. "That's right, sweetheart, alone. I just felt a little dizzy from the drinks, so I decided to take a walk. I'm sorry I didn't tell you."
"I thought I saw you leave with some woman," I quizzed, trying to follow up on the information that Wes had supplied me with.
A thoughtful expression crossed Leslie's face. Then she beamed at me, like an angel. "Oh her! That was Pat, a friend of mine. She wasn't here for the party. I asked her to drop off a book I'd lent her. I told her I'd be on this side of the lake. Heavens, I didn't go for a walk with her, darling! I just went as far as her car, then decided to walk on my own. My, my," she teased, "you're not jealous of a woman, are you?"
At least Leslie had solved that mystery for me. I hadn't been suspicious of her, of course. It's just that I wanted some sort of an explanation-something I could tell Wes, if he ever brought up the subject again.
"I'm not jealous," I told her.
That subject out of the way, her attention seemed to switch to my nudity. "One of us ought to do something," she commented. "Either you should get dressed, or I should undress."
"Yes," I agreed. "That way we'd match."
"We could do all kinds of things if we matched," she speculated. "Particularly if we matched your way."
"Then you don't want me to get dressed?"
"If I can just get this snap undone," she said irritably, her fingers fumbling, "I'll show you what I want you to do."
I reached to her side to help her with the snap and zipper of her slacks. She stepped out of them and,, rapidly peeled off her panties. Her blouse and bra followed shortly.
Then we went hand in hand down the hall, ducking into the master bedroom, which was now vacant. I closed the door behind us and shoved a chair against it, to insure that our privacy wouldn't be invaded.
There was no light in the room except which filtered through the shades from outside. But that trickle of lumination was sufficient for me to see her form. She was a lovely creature. Her body was designed just to be possessed. Her globular breasts jutted out without a hint of sagging. Her hips curved, making her silhouette all the more enticing.
She came to me. She clung to me.
Just how much my body could endure within the span of a couple hours, remained a mystery. One thing was sure, though. This third gallop promised to be a glorious romp.
All I had to do was look at the glamorous, exposed body of my beloved Leslie and all power returned to me. She was offering herself to me. And I was equal to the task.
She glanced insinuatingly toward the rumpled bed. "Good idea," I agreed.
CHAPTER 3
WITH OUR LIPS LOCKED, we communicated our passion. Without parting, we sidled up to the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress.
While our kiss continued, my hands weren't idle. They had a very real plan of attack, and they followed that plan to perfection. First, my fingers were upon her breasts, pinching the nipples until they became fiery pinnacles. Second, they fell inches lower and caressed, her silky tummy. To this she moaned pleasurably, realizing the direction of my exploration. Third, I felt along the inner softness of her thighs.
"You've almost found it, Phil," she gurgled.
"I know. Am I getting warm?"
"I don't know about you, but I sure am. Warm. Warmer. Warmer. Hot!" She finished her chant as I finished my search. Next I probed, seeking out all corners of her womanhood.
"Love, baby!" she cooed, having had enough of that. "Give me the real thing!"
Instantly, I pushed her back on the mattress and straddled her. She cut loose with a curdling, high-pitched scream as I drove into her femininity. She cried out again and again with each of my initial strokes.
She could have just lain there, panting and squealing, succumbing to my movement and making no moves of her own.
But she didn't. Her body was all action, vigorous, frolicking, maddening action. Stress was evident on her face as she labored. My lungs burned. My heart throbbed out an intense cadence.
Words flowed from her lips, tender words, gutter words-all in the same sentence. "I feel so bitchy!" she rasped. "Oh, so smooth, so wonderful. Mmmmm, keep it up like that, please, darling!"
The way she churned up toward me, I thought she was going to fly right through the ceiling. Together we pitched from side to side. Somewhere during the ordeal, we rolled over and for a minute or two she was on top of me! But that lasted for only as long as it took me to muster the will power to turn her over again.
When she was back on the bottom, where she belonged, the pace continued. No, it didn't merely continue. It accelerated.
Her words were hard to understand. They came in a continuous flow, from deep within her throat, as if she were gargling all her sex vocabulary, and tiny drops of it were spilling out of her mouth.
The words that overflowed were, "Take, take!" as I scuttled along in furious, stormy passion above her.
And, "Hurry, bastard!" as she returned thrust for thrust all that I was giving her.
And, "God, finish me!" as she wobbled uncontrollably, on the very verge of climax. When she said that, I put my hot body into super-fast motion.
The final race to the tape began. She, struggled against me, swearing profusely now. Her fervor was matched only by the consistency of my drive. I dove deep in one last, momentous thrust, after which all the fire was extinguished inside both of us.
We lay for perhaps ten minutes before either of us spoke. Then it was Leslie who broke the silence, whispering in a voice half-exhausted, half-enthusiastic.
"You're pretty wonderful. I never knew a man could be like you." I must have found her emphasis peculiar, but that was the way she talked sometimes.
"You still love me?" I asked her.
She spent several seconds of silence, considering the question. "You know I do," she said at last. "I've told you before."
"But if you don't keep telling me," I chided, "I might forget."
"I suppose so," was the only answer she afforded me. And, suddenly, the gist of the conversation changed. "There's something on your mind, isn't there?"
"That do you mean?"
"I don't know, Phil. Ever since you saw me tonight, there's been a certain gleam in your eyes. There's something you haven't told me." If there was, in fact, a gleam in my eyes, it was probably due to the amount of alcohol I'd downed. That my beloved could read my mind, was a proposition I wasn't eager to accept. She knew nothing about my scheme for the night. She knew nothing about Wes and the picture he should be snapping at that very moment.
But she deserved to know. After all, it was as important to her as it was to me. Soon we would be free to marry. Soon there would be no obstacle to keep us apart.
I had intended to keep it as a surprise. But I might as well confess, I figured. Maybe it would be cruel to keep her in suspense. First I intended to play a word game with her.
I wasn't about to let. her think she could read my thoughts.
"It's the drinks," I lied.
"No it isn't," she insisted stubbornly, propping herself up on one elbow to get a better look at me. "Come on, tell me!" I did tell her.
Eventually. But first I evaded her questions for more than five minutes. When I finally did throw the truth at her, her reaction was somewhat less enthusiastic than I'd expected. She was probably too stunned, I reasoned, to realize the magnitude of what I'd said.
"But do you think that's the right thing to do?" she asked.
I stammered momentarily, faced with the unexpected question. "Of course it is, Leslie. You know she won't set me free any other way."
There was a long silence, finally broken by Leslie. But her words had nothing to do with what we were just discussing. "Let's go for a walk," she suggested, as if it were a totally new idea, as if no one had ever thought of going for a walk before.
I was puzzled, but I consented. It was hard to understand her lack of jealousy. I'd sure figured on a more spirited reception of my plan.
We walked out of the room, after I pushed aside the chair that had barricaded the doorway. We returned to the front room and found our clothing.
As we dressed, I viewed the amorous couples without enthusiasm. When you're drained, the act of love looks far different than when you're in a state of hot desire. After my three love sessions in the last two hours, I was drained. Completely, utterly, irrevocably drained.
There was little that was sensuous about the mating going on. It all seemed mechanical. I can understand how a frigid person can come to be repulsed by sex. If you don't need it, you're simply not going to like it. In any event, none of the participants were ostensibly repulsed by sex.
Certainly the couple two feet from where I stood wasn't repulsed.
And the shrill shrieks of agony, coming from a dark corner of the room, were those of a woman who wasn't repulsed.
The quaking pair that sprawled on the couch, relishing the grand finale-well, they weren't repulsed, either.
"Ready?" Leslie's voice was soft, sweet.
"Ready as I'll ever be." I didn't particularly want to go for a walk. But I didn't particularly want to hang around and watch the action, either.
"Then let's get out of here. It's positively embarrassing!"
I wouldn't have agreed that sex was embarrassing, but I said nothing. "Let me catch a quick shot," I said and headed for the bar. "You too?"
She shook her head negatively.
I took a quick shot. In fact, I took several. I scanned the room in search of Wes. He wasn't to be found. As I took the final gulp of whiskey, I hoped that he hadn't run into difficulty. I hoped that my celebration wasn't premature.
Arm in arm, Leslie and I strode out into the open air.
"Phil?" she said as we headed along a trail that wove away from the lake, into the woods. "Don't you think you're rushing things a bit?"
I was flabbergasted, to state it mildly. What I was doing, I was doing for her. We'd talked it over a hundred times. Up until this night, she'd responded hopefully whenever the subject of marriage arose. Suddenly she was balking, and it just didn't make sense.
"Rushing!" Because my voice was high-pitched and irritated, I swallowed once before I continued in more normal tones. "Are you backing down? Do you want to be married or not?"
"You know I do. But things aren't so bad the way they are. We can wait . . . "
"Not so bad? You sleep on one side of a lake and I sleep on the other. We can't live together. Isn't that bad enough?"
We were coming to a point where the trail crossed a seldom-used automobile lane. I froze and Leslie came to a halt beside me. I couldn't bring myself to believe what my eyes told me.
There in my wife's station wagon, with the interior light on and nothing to interfere with our vision, a couple was in the throes of copulation. That in itself wasn't startling. And the fact that Helen, my faithful wife, was on the bottom of the entanglement-that wasn't startling, either. The momentous thing, the thing which brought me to a state of rage, was the identity of the man aboard her.
His name was Wes Benson!
I just stood, unable to move, unable to speak. We were on a knoll overlooking the road. Six feet beneath us, the action was going on. Every move was as clear as day through the rear windows of the station wagon.
Why they had the interior light on is a mystery. It wasn't likely that anyone would stumble onto their tryst. Just the same, why advertise? I could explain it from Helen's viewpoint. She was bitch enough to enjoy onlookers. She probably figured that if a voyeur happened along, it was all the better.
There were blankets sprawled in the back of the wagon. Helen was sprawled on them. Wes was sprawled atop Helen. Because the front windows were open, many of Helen's words were audible.
They were base words, words too vulgar to merit repetition.
"Is that your photographer?" Leslie whispered.
"The dirty bastard!" was all I said. For a few seconds, I stood alongside Leslie, watching the toilsome activity. But then I could no longer restrain myself. I tightened my fists and took a first step toward the road.
"Phil!" Leslie pleaded in a harsh whisper. "You can't . . . "
"I'll kill him!" And with that, I began descending the knoll. I reached the tailgate and opened it. Helen fixed her eyes on me. As always, there was a smile on her face.
While the two of us glared at each other, Wes, unaware of the intrusion, continued to demonstrate his energetic masculinity. His surges were stormy. Turbulent, sex-maddened breath came from both of them. Even though Helen looked directly at me, there was little in her expression to indicate she comprehended my presence. All she was conscious of was the things that were happening within her body.
While Wes pranced upon her mercilessly, she galloped upward. Filthy language escaped her mouth, a steady stream of masculine profanity coming from feminine lips. The glaze on my wife's eyes told me that she was getting close to the ultimate conclusion.
I was determined to stop this bout before she reached it. Perhaps that would be of some consolation to me. I reached in to grab Wes, when I was aware of Leslie beside me. She placed a hand upon my arm.
"For God's sake," she shrilled. "Let them finish." What her interest was in their satisfaction was indeterminable. In one instant, I looked at Leslie and marveled at the way they were fixed on Helen's body.
I watched, too. I reasoned with myself. As vengeful as I felt, I had to admit that there are certain things that one man doesn't do to his fellow man, no matter what the circumstances. I could put myself in Wes' position. If I'd been lured by a woman like Helen, how would I feel at the moment? Yeah, just as soon as the guy finished, I'd beat his brains out.
But not to let him finish-well, that wasn't the right thing to do, even to your worst enemy. Which he now was.
Leslie tugged at my hand, and I followed her back to the edge of the woods. We sat on the edge of the knoll and waited. Leslie would have preferred not to wait at all.
"Come back to the house, Phil," she proposed. "You can settle this thing later."
"I'm going to settle it now!" I insisted. "Five hundred bucks, I offer him. And what happens? He lays her! That makes for a pretty expensive screw!"
"Calm down, honey. You're all tense. It doesn't matter. Things are all right. We see each other, don't we?"
"Yeah," I snarled, "you keep saying that. It's all right with you. How come, all of a sudden? I thought you told me you'd do anything to help us down the aisle!"
My head was spinning, with anger, with drunkeness. Her silence annoyed me.
"Do you want to get married or not!"
"I want to, but why cause all this bother?"
I was too furious with her to answer. Instead I flashed my glance in the direction of the lovers below. Helen was going through her final tremors. Wes threw his weight down upon her, using friction to bring about their mutual ecstasy. Two or three zigzags of their pelvises and they clung limply to each other.
There was a sudden lull, now that Helen was no longer wailing her passion.
The night hung hauntingly still.
I could even hear Leslie's soft breathing beside me. And it made me sorry inside, sorry that I'd spoken harshly.
But it did nothing to diminish the anger that I held for Wes. It did nothing to soothe the rage I felt toward Helen. I kept an eye on them, waiting until they parted and dressed.
Wes looked at me sheepishly as he stepped out of the rear of the station wagon. "I guess I blew five bills," he said.
I only sat on the ridge and glared at him.
He came a step closer. "I'm sorry," he voiced. And he sounded halfway sincere. But that was no consolation to me. He could be as sincere as he damn well pleased, but it didn't change the fact that he'd screwed up.
He'd done a hell of a lot of screwing up! "I ought to break your neck!" I rasped. At that moment, Helen was worming her way out of the car.
That perpetual smile was displayed prominently.
"Well, well," said Helen, her eyes moist with laughter, "didn't my husband get his pictures?"
I told her where she should go. And someday she would, if hell had any vacancies.
She waddled up to Wes and put an arm about his shoulders. He pushed the arm away. One thing was clear: Wes wasn't intoxicated with the woman, not after he'd got what he wanted.
"You're a real slut, you know that, Helen?" My voice was twisted with hate. My rage that had centered in Wes' direction was rapidly shifting to Helen.
"I know that, lover. And you're a real jerk. All men are jerks, except in the hay."
"You're a jerk in or out of the hay," I yelled, stepping up to her. Unconsciously my arm made a sweep in the direction of her face, deliberately missing.
She stepped back.
"Oh, quit it, Phil," Leslie demanded, standing up. "Will you cut it out, for God's sake?" But I ignored my loved one and lurched for Helen. My hands grabbed blindly, somehow securing what they sought for.
I began tightening my hold on her neck.
She was murmuring in horror. My grip was too tight for words to escape her mouth. Only sounds came. Cruel sounds. Animal sounds. Pleading sounds.
Even in the alcohol-saturated state I was in, I don't think I would have killed her. As Wes pulled me brutally away from her, I was already voluntarily beginning to loosen the grasp.
"Hey, Phil," protested Wes, uneasily, "don't lose your head, huh, buddy?" He brought me totally to my senses.
For a full minute there was no sound, nothing except my labored breathing, and Helen's, and Wes'. I glared first at Wes, then focused full attention on Helen. Our eyes glued upon each other. Neither of us dared speak. Speech would only serve to interrupt the running commentary that was going on between us, eye to eye. The unspoken exchange of hate was somehow more real than a million words, more violent than the wildest physical brawl. We stood facing each other. We hated. The other two standing nearby couldn't understand what bitterness was being exchanged between husband and wife. They could only watch, they could only wait. Nothing they could do would change our loathing.
Then we looked away and it was over. The hate wasn't over. The hate was real forever. But the threats had been exchanged face to face. And now we resigned from the outward show of rage. Instead we became inwardly determined to get at each other, in any way conceivable.
On guard, Helen, I thought, you'll get yours, baby!
"Well, folks," I put forth, in a mocked effort at changing the mood, "shall we head for home?" With my words there seemed to be a single sigh of relief coming from both Wes and Leslie.
"Are the keys in the car, dear," I queried, striding to the driver's side of the car. Helen forced a throaty grunt, indicating that the keys were in the ignition.
When I opened my door, I had another surprise. Sprawled across the seat was the elderly man in the gray business suit.
The man looked dead, but he was only sleeping. And suddenly it was apparent that he wasn't sleeping comfortably. His eye-lids were shut, but they fluttered. A pale, drunken white was painted on his face. There was no color to his flesh.
He was dreaming uneasily and a few unintelligible words flowed from his lips. All in all, he was a rather pathetic sight.
"What'd you do? Knock him over the head?" I yelled over to my wife, who was going around to the other side of the car.
"Oh, him!" she exclaimed, as if she had completely forgotten. "He passed out."
"You see, buddy," Wes explained, following my wife and opening the front door for her, "that's one reason I couldn't get your photo. The guy fainted cold before I even got here. Now if you'd been smart," he continued, "you would have snapped a shot on your own. Too bad you didn't think of it, huh?"
His voice was very nearly sarcastic, and that irritated me. What right did he have to talk down to me? An impulsive flash of anger came to me. Again I thought of busting the guy in the mouth. I tightened my fist around the edge of the steering wheel.
"I don't need pictures," I bluffed. "I saw it with my own eyes. And I've got a witness, besides!"
"Her? You really don't think a judge would take your word for it-or hers?" Helen put in wickedly.
I leaned over the man on the front seat and slapped his face lightly, trying to bring him around. With an effortless couple of movements, Helen forced the back seat up into position, dissipating the bed that had existed moments before.
Strong woman, Helen.
Carefully she picked up the camera that had been laid in the back. Before she positioned it beside her on the back seat, she dangled it in front of her so I could see. That was intended to raise my fury to further heights.
The man came to. "Aargh, wh-"
"Sit up," I demanded. Slowly, with dizzy movements, he pulled himself into a sitting position. Wes and Helen were in the back seat, the man sitting beside me in the front. Leslie got in on the other edge of the same seat. Somehow it didn't look right, the man beside me, and the woman on the far edge. But nothing seemed to matter, not little things anyway.
My mind was fogged.
Fogged by too many drinks.
Fogged by loathing.
Fogged with thoughts of revenge.
I turned the key and headed the car up the lane, leaving spots of dust in the night, marking where I'd spun from the trysting place.
Some of the guests had already left when we returned, perhaps as many as half of them.
I had a headache, and it didn't diminish as I waited for the remaining couples to clear out. To soothe the throbbing in my skull, I finished off a couple of stringent alcoholic concoctions, and sat glumly on the couch.
There was a final orchestra of animal cries, originating from one of the bedrooms. When that flurry had died away, things became quite calm. The last guests said their good-byes graciously, having been dulled by sex. No longer were any of the remaining guests boisterous. All their wild gymnastics had left them satiated.
They left, even Wes and Leslie.
"It's been a hell of a night," I told my love, as she stood in the doorway.
"Good night," was her only comment. And her eyes had a faraway look. There was something on her mind, something important. Her eyes were misty, and she hardly was aware of me standing beside her. She gave me a short, final kiss and went out to her car. If I hadn't been so damn drunk, I would've interrogated her.
"Phillip, get in here!" my wife was ranting from the living room, as if I were her disobedient child or something.
Like an idiot, I obeyed. Better sometimes to give in than to argue. But there was something sinister in the back of my mind, also. Something that made me want to get as near to her as possible.
Yes, I wanted to be near her. But only to build my rage. I wanted to hate beyond any hate that I'd ever felt. It was almost an insane desire to get even that drove me. My feelings were almost murderous.
"You damn jerk!" she howled as I entered the room. "Look at this . . . " She gestured to the disorderly appearance of the surroundings. "Who the hell's going to clean this?"
"Don't look at me," I snarled. "It was your party."
"My party? You sure enjoyed yourself a hell of a lot, though. Lord, you really must've had yourself a blast with that Les."
"Leslie," I corrected, as a matter of habit
"Les, Les, Les," she chanted childishly. She even stuck her tongue out at me. For a moment I thought the woman had gone berserk.
"I want a divorce!" I shouted in all sincerity.
"I've heard that garbage before! You think I wouldn't love to be rid of you, Phillip? God, I'd give anything to be free again!"
"Then we'll go tomorrow and do whatever's necessary." I spoke through a glimmer of hope. The glimmer lasted for only a second longer.
"I'm sorry, Phillip, but you know I can't do that Whatever would my mother say?" she chided.
"Your mother's dead," I reminded.
She spouted a stream of uncomplimentary words.
"Why, Helen?" I asked, in an ill-fated plea for sanity. "Why not make us both happy?"
"Why should I make you happy, Phillip? I hate you, can't you see that?" Her voice was straight serious. There wasn't a waiver in her tone. "I do hate you so, didn't you know?"
"I knew."
"If you got off the hook with that hot-pantied Les, where would that leave me? You don't make your enemy happy, do you?" Her voice was half heavy with whiskey, but I knew that, in her twisted way, she meant every syllable of what she was saying.
And then a peculiar thing happened. Actually, it wasn't all that peculiar. Peculiar to the human race, maybe. But it was one of the things that happened to Helen with surprising regularity.
She got hot.
Just as it had happened earlier in the evening, when we'd been arguing, it happened again. She skipped across the room in a manner not unlike an insane person and threw her arms about me. In one vulgar word, she told me what she needed.
With the very same vulgar word, I told her what I thought of her.
Before I could break away, she managed to squirm against me, gluing all of her warmth to my midsection. I tore loose and headed for the kitchen.
The way my head was spinning, I figured some black coffee might help. Helen followed me.
"Look, Phil," she pleaded, "I'm sorry about what I said. You know I didn't mean a single word of it. Why, I'd do anything to please you, baby!"
There she was again, her hot body worming its way against mine, causing friction that might be stimulating to most men. But not to me. Not then, anyway. Not after all the vigorous rounds I'd already had.
"Would you really?" I mocked. "You mean you'll really do anything to make me happy? And all I have to do-"
"Yes, darling, anything! But, please, hurry."
"A divorce, Helen, that's what I want. A divorce."
"Yes, Phil. I promise. Take me, oh, take me, please!"
Even after the strenuous evening, I think I could have brought myself to master her. I could have forced myself to take her, to bring myself around. I could have become aroused. There was nothing that I couldn't have done, had she really meant it.
But, of course, she didn't mean it. After the fireworks went off and her body and mind returned to normal, she would laugh at me. And she would relish the knowledge that she had tricked me. Again.
"Sure, love," I said. "I want to take you. How about tomorrow, when we come home from the lawyer's office?"
"I mean it, Phillip. I need it so bad."
"You're a sick woman, Helen," I managed to blurt, just as my brain underwent a spasm of dizziness.
"Don't pass out on me," she gasped. There was no concern for me in her voice; it was all selfish. She figured she'd be able to seduce me, no matter how much she'd have to degrade herself in the process. It wasn't unusual that she should expect it. She always got what she went after.
Except tonight.
"I wouldn't dream of it," I said. "I want you to know that you're resistible."
"For God's sake, Phil, give in. You can't torture me like this!"
Like hell I couldn't. I could torture her that way, and my mind was aware of a number of other, more physical ways, in which I could torture her. That was what I wanted to do most, at the moment. Torture. Hurt. The killer instinct was within me.
"Sorry, slut!"
"That's right, lover. That's what I am. A slut! And you know what else I am?" I didn't respond, but she told me, anyway. She rattled off about a dozen words that testified to her worst personality. "Isn't that right?"
"That's absolutely right, Helen. But you're still not getting any. Not from me, at any rate."
The words she had spoken had made her even hotter. The tide of rage broke. She darted for the kitchen counter and grabbed a knife.
She flashed it toward me threateningly.
"Go to hell," I told her, knowing damn well that she didn't intend to use it. At least, that was my first impression. I had to revise my opinion a moment later, when she made a dash for me, shooting her right hand forward.
I dodged, though clumsily, and the knife blade ate into my forearm, just below the elbow. It was hardly a scratch. But her intentions were terribly clear. She wasn't fooling around.
"I'll kill you," she warned. And I believe she would've like to. But there was no fear in me.
Had I been in a defensive mood, perhaps I wouldn't have been so brave. Had I been less drunk, perhaps I wouldn't have charged at her. But there was only one thing on my mind at that moment. Kill her! Her threat had only enraged me beyond the borders of sanity.
There was more hate in me than there was in her. And my hate wasn't containable.
The knife made several sweeps in my direction, but none made contact. I grabbed her. My hand tugged cruelly at her hair and I brought her to a kneeling position. She gazed up at me, petrified by fear, now aware that my passion was real.
One hand of mine struck the side of her face with an open palm. She grimaced and groaned.
"I didn't mean it, Phil," she pleaded. "Honest I didn't. Please let me go." If this childish pleading was intended to get my sympathy, she was badly mistaken. It only heightened my rage.
The knife fell from her hand and I swept it from the floor. As I did she managed to get to her feet. Before I could stop her, she began running and screaming. I was in pursuit. But my reactions were slow. Helen had had far less to drink than I had. The race had begun, and I forced my legs to work swiftly.
Out of the house, I followed. The night air did little to sober me. I was too far along for that. Down the hill toward the lake, I ran. Not far ahead I could see Helen, looking over her shoulder at me, screaming, maintaining her pace.
The more I ran, the blurrier the surroundings became. It was like running into an endless, dark tunnel. Running, running. Hate was the only thing of substance. It filled my mind.
Somewhere ahead was the lake, and alongside me there were trees, but I knew none of this. There was only an insane dizziness that possessed me. And all reality mingled together and became an abstract mass of tangled lines and contorted forms.
And still I kept running . . .
The sun was without compassion. The more I dreaded opening my eyes, the more it burned through my eyelids, demanding that I face the world.
It was only the last of the events of the previous evening that eluded my memory. It was the last of what happened, though, that promised to be the most terrifying.
I listened to the swishing swirls of water, the minute waves that crawled up on the sand to die. The lake was so near that I could feel the waters reaching for me.
It was time, I knew. Time to stare into the daylight. Time for discovery. Time to look, and time to know.
I looked.
I knew.
And it was hardly a pretty sight. Unless you can call a semi-nude female body, with a knife in the back, pretty. It was Helen's body, face down in the sand. Her limp left arm touched the water's edge. A trickle of red melted into the lake. The wound where the knife rested was one of ten or more. I must really have gone loony, judging by the number of wounds and the way her dress was ripped to rags by the blade.
How pale she was. How grotesque!
I got to my knees and crawled over to her side. I tugged her arm from the water and turned her face up. Her face was twisted and her features withdrawn. And yet one thing particularly impressed me.
The eternal expression hadn't left her lips. Even dead, Helen seemed to be smiling . . .
CHAPTER 4
WHAT WAS DONE WAS done. If one wants to survive in this world, he has to face reality head on. Reality can be sweet or bitter, beautiful or ugly. Now it was ugly.
Staring into Helen's face, I quickly went over all that was now evident. Being a murderer is frowned on by society. They do things to you if they catch you. Jail, sometimes. Sometimes the electric chair.
Sometimes you get away with it. If so, it's because you used youringenuity. I'd already blundered the job. There hadn't been anything cunning about the way I'd ended Helen's life. It wasn't an artistic murder. And it demonstrated no degree of planning.
All that was hardly worth crying over now. Now was the time to make the best of it. The question most intriguing at the present was: What should I do with the body? Bury it? Anchor it to the lake bottom? Dump it into a ditch somewhere? What?
One thing was sure. The longer I stayed there undecided, the greater the risk I was taking. For all I knew, someone might have discovered the body already. At this very minute, the cops might be tearing up the lane toward the house.
But I had to act as if that were not the case. Optimism was the best prescription. Keep calm. Think straight. Act fast.
But all these things were made more difficult by the fact that I was hung over. Never, in all my years of drinking, had my head felt so painfully apart from the rest of my body.
I forced myself to consider. The first thing that occurred to me was that I should just leave the body and run. Maybe throw something over it, making my escape before anyone could discover my deed.
That seemed logical, except for one thing. I couldn't just run away. Not without Leslie. Only once in a man's life does he find someone or something that is truly worth holding onto. Leslie had become the most essential part of my life. For Leslie I would do anything.
After all, it was for Leslie that I'd killed Helen!
I glanced across the lake to the cottage of my beloved. Together we would flee, I thought. Mexico, maybe. Even Canada.
I looked at and studied the surrounding landscape. Where to hide Helen? There were some trash barrels halfway up the hill that led to the house. Yes, I decided. That would do, for now.
Vaguely I was aware of the whispering purr, growing louder and louder. I knew the sound, knew it well. It was a motor, an outboard. I looked toward the lake. Several hundred yards down the shore line was a fishing boat.
It was coming my way!
I gazed at the object only long enough to ascertain that it was proceeding slowly. Two men were in the boat, one in the rear guiding the motor, the other casting shoreward.
There was no longer time to waste. I grabbed Helen's body by both arms and began dragging her. I'd gotten about ten yards when I heard a shout from the boat.
On a lake, sounds travel unmolested. The voice was crystal clear, sounding as if it were only a few feet away.
"Harvey-look there!"
"Hey!" the other man shouted at me. "Hey, you. Halt there!" He turned the motor from a whimper to a roar. The stem of the boat sank six inches deeper into the water as the speed increased.
I dropped Helen's cold arms and began running. I was a third of the way up the hill when the boat reached the area of shore where I'd been moments ealier.
"Stop or I'll shoot!" Even as I ran up the hill, toward the house, I cast my head over my shoulder, checking to see whether the man really had a gun. Probably, I thought, he was only bluffing.
But he wasn't. Like many of the fishermen, he had carried a rifle in his boat. It is common sport around the lake to knock off the turtles that sun themselves along the shore. He was perhaps forty-five yards away, holding a twenty-two.
"You'll get the chair if you do!" I reminded, trying to scare the guy out of any hasty action. While I addressed him, I stopped cold in my tracks. He edged toward me, and consequently I stepped away. I maintained the distance between us. All the while, I looked for an avenue of escape. The line of trees was only five yards to my right. Perhaps I could use that route of evasion.
"We seen what you done, Mac," the other fellow not holding the rifle shouted.
"You saw nothing," I yelled back. "You don't know a thing. You shoot and you'll be in the pen for life. I'll guarantee it!" For an instant the man seemed uncertain, the one with the weapon. It was his response which I watched with keen awareness. When he looked hesitant, I made a dash for the trees. I hadn't taken the first three steps when there was a shot. It shattered against the ground not more than six feet from where I ran. I figured it for a deliberate miss.
I kept my stride in high gear, hoping I'd figured right.
But I hadn't. The man reloaded the rifle in a matter of seconds and fired again, just as I dodged behind the nearest oak. The bullet blazed the edge of that tree, removing a good portion of bark as it passed. It was obvious that he'd aimed to kill. That made him some kind of an idiot, to my way of thinking. I hadn't trespassed on his property. And I hadn't stolen anything that belonged to him. Therefore what right did he have, taking the law into his own hands?
No damn right at all!
But whether or not he had the right was hardly relevant. Whether or not he was shooting at me, that's what was important. And he was shooting!
The third bullet bounded off one of the trash barrels as I left the tree and raced toward the house.
"Stop!" the man with the gun hollered. "I'll kill you sure!" Both of them were in hot pursuit, climbing the hill faster than I could run and still dodge bullets. Lucky the fellow wasn't any sharpshooter. As it was, his fourth shot came within inches of my head. I could almost feel it whiz by. Somehow I managed to make the last remaining yard to the house. I opened the door and slammed it quickly behind me. Even so, I didn't feel any more secure. I couldn't very well stay in the house for long. Outside the men's voices were evident, corning in frequent and excited shouts.
"You get the back door, Harvey! I'll cover up front." The two good citizens reminded me of some immature adults, having been saturated with too many TV westerns.
But no matter how exuberant they were, they weren't about to corner me. Now that I was inside the house, I'd surely be able to find some means of escaping. There were two of them. And there were two doors.
But there were windows, also. They couldn't very well cover all four sides of the house at once. I made my way into the guest bedroom, which was the farthest room from either of the doors. I hurriedly worked the screen from one of the windows, then opened the window itself.
From the front of the house I heard the man shouting it to me. "Better give it up. We've got you trapped." Idiots, I thought. Absolute idiots! And I slid through the window into the open air. I'd gotten about twenty yards toward the adjoining woods when the guy near the rear door spotted me.
"There he goes!" he shouted. Within seconds the other man came around to the side of the house, firing one wild shot at me as I darted into the protective forest.
"You call the cops," the rifle-bearer ordered. And I heard the sound of the back door opening, as the other fellow went into my house to make the phone call. The former kept right on my trail. I heard his footsteps, brisk and heavy, coming into the woods after me. I must have had a lead of fifty yards, a sufficient lead, considering that the trees made evasive moves easy. I zigzagged my way deeper innto the maze of trees and shrubs, and the man was losing ground, judging from the dimiriishing sound of his footsteps.
Out of breath, I found a small area of wild grass, overlapped by bushes. I wedged myself into the tiny clearing, confident that my hiding place was a safe one.
For as long as fifteen minutes I heard the man search for me. He would go far away, then come treacherously close. Once he came within a few feet of me. Had I chosen to, I could have reached out and tripped him. But instead, I let him tire of the search and concede failure. Finally, after another five minutes or so, he did just that.
The crunching of twigs beneath his feet grew softer and softer until they couldn't be heard at all. I waited another six minutes, just to be safe, then began making my way through the woods again.
Sirens broke the silence of the woods. The cops had come!
Just the sound of the sirens was enough to start my heart beating uncontrollably. I ran.
I was nearly oblivious to the branches which tore into my flesh, scratching and stinging. Thorns ate into my forehead, my legs, my hands. But I kept up the pace, not knowing where I was heading. I wasn't a thinking human being. I was just an animal, running away. Being chased by fear. Maybe I was trying to think, but the more I became physically fatigued, the more thought was impossible.
I didn't even know in what direction I was going. It seemed I wasn't going away from the lake. Perhaps I was running parallel to it. At least I could sense the moisture that filled the air, a smell one learns to interpret after living near a lake for a number of years.
Unconsciously, my mind was filled with the thought of Leslie. Instinctively, I wanted to go to her. Leslie was security. I wanted to fall into her arms in a state of physical exhaustion. Of course that was impossible. Leslie's would be among the very first places the cops would look for me.
But I had to see her sooner or later.
Eventually.
In the meantime I ran like a kid scared out of his wits by a shadow in the dark. Long, long after the danger had passed of an immediate capture, long after the wail of sirens had died, I kept running.
My lungs blazed and body ached and fiery-red scratches appeared all over my flesh. But my legs kept moving. Fear was my master.
"Let me help you," she offered. Her voice was soft, compassionate. I looked up at her from where I'd fallen. I knew her. Her name was
Greta Allison, a widow. Her lakefront home was located on a cove about half a mile from my own.
Little was known about Greta Allison, according to local gossip. She attended none of the lake parties; she kept to herself. There were those who insisted that Greta was unfriendly. But from the few casual encounters I'd had with her, I'd found her quite the contrary. Of course, I'd never got to talk with her beyond a fleeting hello or a passing mention of the weather.
She lowered herself to kneel beside me, placing one strong arm around mine and helping me to my knees. "You're all hurt." And she spoke that line in a way that indicated that she could almost feel my pain.
"Just scratches," I managed to gasp between labored breaths.
"Yes, but so many!" She looked me in the eye, and I found her expression rather comforting. She was older than I was by about five or six years. She was in her early forties, but if questioned she would probably claim to be thirty-nine.
"Why don't you come in," she said, "and I'll fix you up."
Now that I'd stumbled and my senseless run had ended, I had a chance to consider my predicament. Until I came up with a better solution, perhaps it wouldn't hurt to go into the house with her. It wouldn't be the safest place in the world, but it would offer some sort of shelter.
In the weak state I was in, I actually leaned against her as I got to my feet. At that moment, this medium-built woman was considerably stronger than I was.
"Whatever happened to you?" I had to come up with a good story fast
But my mind wasn't quite up to the task. "It's a long story," I answered, though not unkindly, and hoped it would suffice.
"You can tell me about it inside." We walked side by side. Rather, she walked, I staggered. While we headed for the house, I couldn't help but get a good look at her. She was about as I'd remembered, a rather tall woman, pretty heavy but not unshapely. Her hair was a dark blonde, natural, without a hint of ever having been dyed. Despite the presence of wrinkles on her face, she was a particularly attractive woman for her years. She walked straight. There was no phony wiggle as she strode. But her walk was anything but masculine. All in all, she was a well-preserved specimen, though her breasts sagged to some extent
When we got into the house, she made sure I was seated comfortably in an old armchair, before leaving the room to fetch some medication. While she was gone, I tried to compose a believable story as to what I'd been running from when she'd found me.
"Let me see those arms," she said, and dabbed away with some saturated cotton when I extended my arms for her. She was an expert. Somewhere during her lifetime, she must have had nursing experience. At first the moisture burned into my skin like the end of a lighted cigarette. But after the first stinging sensation, I could feel myself being soothed. When she was done, the scratches hardly bothered me.
"You're pretty good at that," I said.
"Uh-huh, ought to be. I was an RN for fourteen years." Her eyes flashed at me. Even before she spoke, I knew that her next words would form the inevitable question. "Now, then, tell me what happened to you."
"It's kind of a sad story," I began. "Couple of young hoods stopped me up the road. They started beating me, but before they got very far, I made a break for it. They chased me. It's all kind of fuzzy. Anyway, I ended up here."
"You poor dear!"
"If they hadn't come at me four at a time, maybe I could've handled myself. As it was, I had no choice but to run."
"You don't need to explain that to me! You sound like you're ashamed of running. Even if there was only one, I couldn't blame you for running away. No sense getting killed for nothing."
It was nice that the woman was so understanding. Particularly since the supposed attack had never happened. If the attack actually had taken place, I surely would have run, just as I'd said. I'm not a particularly brave sort when I'm sober.
"That's the way I figured it," I agreed. When she had left the room to put the cotton in the waste basket, I let out a relieved sigh. Evidently she'd swallowed my fable hook, line, and sinker.
She returned and sat on the couch facing me. "Do you want to use the phone?" she asked.
For a moment I looked at her quizzically, wondering what the devil she meant by that.
"To call the police," she added, just as the thought occurred to me.
"Yeah, I guess I'd better," I said. Careless of meDamn careless. If you want someone to believe your lie, you've got to follow it through all the way. "I was just going to ask if you had a phone."
"If s over there in the dining room."
I placed the call, though I really wasn't talking to the cops. The only sound from the other end was the constant hum of the dial tone. Into the receiver I went over the same short fiction that I'd told Greta Allison. I paused dramatically in between sentences, giving the impression (I hoped) that someone was conversing from the other end. At last I hung up, confident that I'd put on a fair act.
"What did they say?" she wanted to know, as I sat in the armchair and looked across the room at her.
"Said they'd have a cop come to my place sometime tomorrow and make out a full report. The girl claimed they can't get anyone out in this area today, unless it's something serious." In reality, of course, they not only could get someone in the area today, but there was, at this very moment, a swarm of cops at my house!
But that was something the woman didn't know.
"That's law enforcement for you," she half shouted. "Something important! What do they call it when a man almost gets killed? Trivial?"
"Well, it wasn't quite as bad as all that," I corrected.
"It could've been," she insisted sympathetically. And her brown eyes ate into mine. For a flickering instant, it seemed that there might be something in those eyes. Something besides just sympathy. Those eyes were almost the same as the eyes had been on Helen last night, when she was begging to be tumbled. After drawing that mental comparison, I pushed the thought from my mind. After all, Greta hadn't done a thing to make me believe she was the least bit interested in anything of that sort. She was being friendly and compassionate.
Nothing more.
"Besides," she continued, "what do they mean, they can't get anyone in the area. I thought I heard sirens earlier. I was in the shower . . . " That was something else that had just occurred to me the moment she had brought up the subject. Surely the woman must've heard the sirens. But she went on to explain how she was getting out of the shower, drying herself, and couldn't be sure. The height of the commotion must have taken place while she had the water running. That was lucky.
But so as not to deny totally that she'd heard anything, I said, "might be. I didn't hear it, but I wasn't at home."
"Probably just my imagination," she conceded, her eyes still fixed to mine. Her expression was driving me crazy. Rather, it wasn't the expression itself that bothered me. It was the fact that I couldn't interpret what she was conveying.
Definitely, conclusively her gaze was telling me something. At least trying to tell me something. But what? Were they filled with kindness? Suspicion? Sex-madness? Lust? Were they passive? Concerned? Pleading? Secretly scorning?
What was it about Greta Allison that was almost obvious, yet evaded my comprehension? If I hadn't been so concerned with my own plight of the moment, I might have been in a better position to understand her feeling.
But my present motives were purely selfish. Hide when possible. Run when necessary. Find Leslie, eventually. Those were my goals. And from now on my destination needed to be determined by logic. My every move must be calculated. I must walk a narrow path a mile above the fires of hell, never slipping. Still staring at Geta, I considered.
Was she my friend?
Was she useless to me, or could she be of some help? I didn't know. Consequently I had to guess. Her eyes told me, at least, that she wasn't hostile.
"I'm going to get the mail," she said. "That's where I was going when we . . . met." The mailboxes along the lake are on the edge of the road. Generally that means a walk of about three hundred yards.
Normally, out of politeness, I would have escorted her. But I didn't feel that was the safest course of action. Besides, I had better ideas.
I planned to take the opportunity to put the time to good use. She went out the front door, smiling a temporary good-bye. I wanted to study the house. If I was cornered, I wanted to know all the rooms, where to , hide, where best to find an avenue of escape.
As soon as she was gone, I began searching. I studied the kitchen, passed through the dining area, down a hall and found a bedroom, obviously the guest room. I continued to the next door, finding it closed. I opened it.
Surprise!
How shall I begin? I guess the walls were the first thing that attracted attention. Needless to say they were decorated. And how! Pictures everywhere. Lewd pictures that showed men and women in every possible position relating to physical love. Where she came across such a collection, I didn't know. But there was one thing that was certain. You couldn't buy shots like those here in the States.
Some of the photos were downright artistic, while others were just plain vulgar. They varied in size, ranging from tiny snapshots to spacious prints, perhaps a foot square. One of the larger ones caught immediate attention. It was a woman sprawled nude and inviting on a carpet. Lust was written in her eyes. There was no man in the photo, just the woman. But from the looks of her, there was a stud not too many feet in the distance, advancing! But most startling of all was the fact that the picture was clearly, unmistakably a shot of Greta Allison!
The others, well, off hand I didn't recognize any of them.
I surveyed the remaining two dozen pictures. They weren't faked, that was for sure. They may have been posed for, but the passion they showed was nonetheless real. If you weren't bright enough to judge that from the physical state of the men in the pictures, then you could surely tell by the seething eyes of the women. It had to be the wildest collection I'd ever seen. But to find it displayed on the walls of a bedroom! Well . . .
The walls weren't the only interesting thing. There was the ceiling, for instance. A good third of it, the area covering the bed, was mirror.
Then there was the bed itself. Upon the ruffled bedclothes were about half a dozen more photos of the same nature as those that adorned the walls.
"Disgusting, isn't it?" The feminine voice broke the silence.
I turned around and met Greta face to face.
CHAPTER 5
Embarrassed wasn't the word for it. I felt rotten, caught in a room where I didn't belong. Looking into someone's depraved fantasy world-a world that was none of my business.
What could I say? I used discretion and said nothing.
"I know exactly what you're thinking," Greta said. "And you're absolutely right. I'm pretty sick, wouldn't you say?"
There was nothing that I could offer, nothing appropriate. After an uncomfortable lapse in the conversation, I forced myself to speak. "I was looking for-"
"For the bathroom?" She finished the sentence for me. But her words were filled with disbelief.
I nodded.
"Well, now. What do you think of-" She gestured to the room around her. "All this?"
I shrugged, at a loss for words.
"Come, now. You must have some opinion."
My opinion was that the woman was on the verge of insanity. And it didn't take a hell of a lot of studious analysis to come to that conclusion. All I had to do was look at her expression, watch her fall to pieces emotionally.
Tears formed in her eyes. She did nothing to hide them.
"My God! Have I really come to this?" She looked about the room, as if seeing it for the first time. Maybe that's exactly what she was doing. Seeing everything for the first time. She attached her gaze to the photographs. But she stared at them with lustless, bewildered eyes. If ever I'd felt pity for a fellow human being, it was at that very moment. A slight and pathetic frown crossed her face as she glanced up at the overhead mirror. Her weeping increased immeasurably. My heart sank. Almost as a matter of habit, I walked over to her, bridging the last few feet that separated us.
Then I put my arm securely about her shoulders, soothing her. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have been in here."
"That's right!" she shouted in a strange way that was emphatic, though not belligerent. She wheeled away from me and went to the bed. She threw herself face down on the bedclothes and ranted. "God! What's happened to me? I'm crazy. I really am!" But she wasn't. Not completely, anyway. Totally crazy people think they're perfectly sane-or so I've been told.
"God!" she continued, wailing and pounding the mattress at the same time. "Why did you come in? Why? Why?"
After several minutes, she seemed to come back to her senses. She sat up on the edge of the bed and looked at me. I still stood in the middle of the room, almost frozen by the impact of the emotional scene that had just taken place.
"They were my husband's," she said, looking toward the pictures on the wall.
"You don't need to explain."
But she went on as if I hadn't interrupted her.
"When he passed on, I went though his belongings. I knew he had these pictures. He even took one of me." She pointed out the large photo on the far wall, one I'd already noticed. "I meant to throw them away, but I was . . . " She stopped, unable to think of the proper word. "Lonely?" I asked.
"Yes, lonely. It's kind of pitiful, don't you think, when a woman has to turn to pictures? They're so cold, you know. So lifeless. I almost scream sometimes. I want to walk down to the shore, right into the lake and drown myself!"
"Why haven't you . . . " I left the sentence unfinished. We both knew what I meant to say. What had kept her from seeking other men during these years?
What had made her stay within these walls, preferring abnormal sex outlets to the real thing?
"I don't know," she answered with a faked smile. "I just haven't. Isn't that ridiculous?"
"Not necessarily. Did you love your husband?"
"Yes. God, yes!"
"It's not so hard to understand," I sympathized. I was about to call her Mrs. Allison. That would've sounded pretty damned ridiculous. So I checked myself just in time. Instead I asked, with a light touch to my voice, "Are we on a first-name basis?"
She smiled. It wasn't a phony smile, either. "Yes, Phil. We're on a first-name basis. You know more about me than anyone else in the world. No sense being formal, is there?"
"No sense at all," I agreed.
"What would you suggest I do?"
"What do you mean?"
"Is it too late for me? Do you think I'm doomed to being an old maid? I guess that's a silly question, but I just now-this minute-realized what I've been doing to my life these last years. All this time I've been lying to myself, living away from reality. I loved Bob. I always will. But life has to go on, doesn't it? I mean, you live day to day in spite of whatever happens. The world doesn't stand still, does it?" I shook my head. The world doesn't stand still. At least it never has.
"Is that what you think I am?" she went on. "An old maid?"
"You don't look like an old maid." The compliment seemed to please her. Her self-analysis seemed solid medicine, also.
"That's not what I meant," she countered. "Although I appreciate your flattery." She was looking at me, her gaze locked to mine. Inadvertently, her eyes fluttered. Maybe it was her subconscious working on her, but she seemed to be flirting with me.
"Will you help me?"
I knew what she meant, instantly. There was no reason for us to spell it out for each other. She wanted bed. I wanted to cooperate.
Simple, huh? Not exactly. You see there was one other minor problem. I couldn't forget about what had happened the night before. I was a wanted man. You don't just kill somebody and forget about it the next day. I had to be on guard. My life, what was left of it, was in danger at any moment. I was running away from the law. And I hadn't gotten very far. I'd have felt a hell of a lot safer across the border. Maybe that's where I would've been had there not been Leslie to think about.
Sex and other frills were dangerous. If I had to run away in a hurry, it would be doubly difficult with my pants down.
Without intending to, I glanced at the wall and happened upon the photo of Greta. Those thighs-how marvelous. An exquisite form. Of course the shot had been taken some years ago, but her body still promised much.
To hell with danger! I'd be as safe in bed as out in the woods.
For the time being, anyway.
And I'll tell you something. Even if I would have been safer out tramping in the forest, do you think I'd leave? Don't kid yourself. I'm only mortal.
There was something about the emotional outburst of this woman that turned me on. The prospect of bringing her out of a dark nightmare into the world of healthy sex turned me on further. Her eyes were practically begging.
That look, that expression that I hadn't been able to interpret earlier-well, I could interpret it now. It was spelled in four, neat letters-L-U-S-T.
"Help me?" she repeated, fearful that I hadn't heard her bold offer. "I'm begging you. Help me! Help me!" She was on the verge of tears again. And I didn't want her to break into a long cry spoiling the mood.
I went to the bed and sat beside her.
The minutes that followed would be tender. They had to be. Greta had been without sex for so long that any rough, unskillful acts on my part might turn her sour. I had to bring her back into the sane world of sex. I could do that only by using every collective bit of my know-how.
We just looked at each other for a full minute.
Then, slowly, we were drawn together as if by some mysterious force. I edged toward her, she toward me. Our lips met.
Following the first seeking kiss, she said, "First time in two years." I could feel her warm breath, like a summer breeze against my cheek. Her lips quivered slightly. A thin sheen of perspiration glistened on her forehead.
Just that kiss had turned her on! I remembered the back seat of the old Dodge, where I'd had my first girl. Kisses used to turn me on that way. But I matured. After the first sex escapades, you get used to things. After a while, it takes more than just a kiss to get you started.
But the knowledge that such trifling physical contact could set her whirling, served to excite me as well. It was as if she were my first girl. To her, after the long drought, it must've been as if I were her first guy.
That was speaking from the standpoint of excitement.
Speaking from another angle, we would act far differently than if we truly were experiencing a first taste of love.
It would be different, for instance, because we wouldn't rush at each other, unable to wait through even five minutes of preliminaries.
It would be different because we knew what it was all about. She would intimately remember all of her other bed-sessions, even if the most recent was two years old. She'd remember-and that would be all the better. Man's first love match is always the most memorable. But subsequent bouts are ultimately more satisfying.
Satisfying. That's what I wanted this tumble to be for Greta. And I was about to do everything in my power. Everything to insure that she'd be satisfied.
Her passion was still evident when I kissed her a second time. This time we didn't separate so soon. Her tongue struggled and found its way between my teeth. Mine responded in sword to sword combat.
Finally we pulled apart. "God, Phil. I hardly remembered what it was like! How I've done without, I'll never know."
"It's only the beginning," I reminded.
"Yes, darling, yes, yes," she chanted, pushing toward me again. "Only the beginning. There's so much more!" And as our lips came together once again, her hand went boldly to my waist. Then below. If she sought to find me aroused, she wasn't disappointed.
If she wanted virility, she was pleased.
If she probed for a sign of rigidity, she stumbled upon it. And she fumbled with it. Fondled it. Played, teased, petted.
Then more intimately.
Underneath my belt! Down!
Wow! Whatever it was that she had forgotten over these years of abstinence wasn't immediately apparent. You might think a babe would get rusty after a time. Not so!
Not comely Greta Allison!
She was smooth as anything, so far as her movements were concerned. And her skin. That was smooth, too. At least if I could believe my fingers which now ventured beneath her blouse and explored beneath the first fringes of her bra.
"Baby-doll! I love what you're doing!"
"You're not doing so bad, yourself," I complimented.
"Too many clothes," she commented.
"Far too many," I agreed. And without another word, we sat apart and worked selfishly at our own apparel. A minute or less later, we were down to the barest of under things.
She studied my form, as if hypnotized by the sight of a real, in-the-flesh man. She must've been drawing a contrast between the masculinity portrayed in the pictures and the real thing. You can only pretend and recreate to a limited extent. It's reality, in the long run, that is far the superior.
"You look . . . " She paused, unable to think of the appropriate thing to say. "Magnificent," is what she finally decided upon.
"You're gorgeous," I responded. And truly, she was. She was almost as well-preserved as the photo on the wall had promised. As I'd noticed earlier, her breasts drooped a trifle, but there was so much else about her that it hardly mattered. Her thighs were firm and shapely as were her hips, what I could see of them through the transparent undies.
She reached toward me to remove, with one practiced motion, my T-shirt She stared at my chest for an abnormally long time, evidently studying the hair that grew there.
"Soon?" she wanted to know.
"As soon as you like," I told her. And, indeed, whenever she was ready to give, I was eager to take. I allowed myself to take a deep breath of appreciation before extending both arms in her direction. Without fumbling at all, I managed to undo the snaps that joined her bra strap together behind her back. Two quick flicks of my wrists and the ends hung loosely.
I wasted no time slipping the white cups off the globes they concealed. As I suspected, the mounds were less than perfect. But they were anything but unattractive. In fact, they sagged somewhat less than I'd imagined. And they boasted protuberant tips, like enormous eyes that seemed to be pleading for attention.
I gave those buds the attention they deserved. With a pair of skillful fingertips on each nipple, I made her squirm on the bed, uncontrollably.
"You'd never guess how good it feels," she groaned, never altering the rhythm of her torso, which moved with increasing gusto.
"I'll bet. I can hardly wait to get to the rest of you."
She smiled, even while she panted. "I can hardly wait, either," she affirmed.
With that invitation out of the way, I reached for the upper ridge of her panties. She raised her buttocks several inches off the bed, supporting herself on her arms, in order to facilitate my task. It took only a few seconds. Then she was nude.
Totally unclad.
And there wasn't anything harsh about her form. It was all soft, pliable stuff. All woman. All feminine, without doubt. My pulse raced within me. My breath could not be checked. I must have sounded very nearly like a teenager about to get his first score.
I wanted to surge right into the main event, bypassing any other preliminaries. She would've loved that. But although she was plenty good and ready, I knew I could make it all the better for her by delaying just a little longer.
Tease a little more. Fondle lightly.
Then what had been willing would be wild beyond belief. And what had been ready to trot would be all set to gallop. That's the way I wanted to take Greta . . . just as hot and furious as I could possibly make her.
My hands abandoned the breast-play. All ten fingers danced around the ridges of the most feminine areas. She moved with my every motion, sought to create friction with my every probe. She arched toward me, then withdrew slightly, only to thrust again. Some of my fingers playfully walked up and down her thighs. But others were mysteriously missing, smothering somewhere in the swamp of womanhood.
"You're so good at that," she praised.
I didn't answer. I merely continued relentlessly. Until I was sure it was time. Until I couldn't bear to wait any longer. I ridded myself of my final item of clothing and shoved her onto her back.
In doing so, we dislodged a photograph which had rested on the edge of the mattress. It fell to the floor. I hardly noticed.
"Ride me, lover," she swore. "Ride me like a hurricane!"
I don't know about a hurricane, but I rode her with sufficient elan to cause things to happen. Like panting and squealing. Like bucking and romping.
She teetered beneath me, all the while balancing herself on some invisible tightrope.
"Love me, Phil. Oh, baby! What you do! God! Go!" I wasn't about to go yet. But a dozen more strokes of the sort that she was forcing me to make . . .
Bingo! Stress was all over her face as we simultaneously went out of our orbits, out of the galaxy, out of our minds!
"Oh, oh, darling!" she cried at that crucial moment. Groaning, grinding, galloping. Countdown! Seven, six, five . . .
"More, more," she begged.
Much more then. Four, three . . .
"Ah! Hang on," she demanded. And I did just that. Hung on when her body went into a flurry of super-movement, movement unparalleled in my memory. She pressed up at me, almost through me, screaming incoherently all the while.
Two, one, zero!
Calm, after several minutes.
Our breathing was nearly normal again when I spoke. "Well, you sure remembered how," I said with a grin.
She snuggled her chin against my shoulder, soaking up the heavenly aftermath, the perfect bliss. Ten minutes passed while we lay side by side, recuperating.
We talked to one another, but it was all small talk. Appreciative talk.
Finally we got from the bed and began dressing. Almost at the same instant, we caught ourselves glancing at the overhead mirror. Whether or not she'd been staring at it during the actual act, I couldn't be sure.
At any rate, she giggled now. "Just so you won't think I'm too nasty," she said, "I want to explain that the mirror wasn't my idea."
"Whose idea was it?"
"My husband's. He thought it added a little spice."
"Probably does, I'd say." As I spoke, I buttoned the front of my shirt. Greta went to the closet and fetched a fresh skirt and blouse. "For a minute there, I didn't think you were going to be normal. You sure fooled me!" I was merely trying to give her confidence. In reality, I still wasn't positively convinced that she wasn't a little depraved.
"You really think so? Oh, you'll never know how much you've done! How can I ever repay you?"
"Consider the debt paid in full please."
"Okay. But I'd rather consider the bill paid in part -if you know what I mean." I knew what she meant. Unfortunately there were other pressing things to consider. Had situations been otherwise, I wouldn've loved to see more of Greta. But when you've just murdered your wife, you can't very well go on living your normal life.
That meant no affair with Greta. That was for the best, anyway, since a steady outsider would only complicate my relationship with Leslie.
Not that a little complication isn't healthy. But a lot of outside dallying can be dangerous to any man-woman arrangement, whether they be married or not.
Later, we sat in the living room and had coffee.
I was just deciding that it was time to leave, when the cops came knocking.
She went to the door. While her back was to me, I stole from the room and headed down the hallway. I waited in the lewdly decorated bedroom, eager to learn how she would handle the situation.
Would she betray me? Or was the bedroom frolic sufficient to win her loyalty? That was the question of the hour. If I had won her loyalty, it'd be safest to remain in her house, at least for the time being-until the cops stopped sniffing around the premises. If she was going to betray me, then I'd better get the hell out fast.
From where I stood, I could just make out what was being said.
Bluntly, rapidly the officer was informing her of the murder. They told her they were looking for me, asked if she knew me.
She said she did know me. Her voice was unsure, against.
"I hardly ever saw him," is what she finally said. "Have you been in the house all morning."
"Except for the time I got the mail."
"Did you lock your doors when you left."
"Well, no. It's only."
"Mind if we look around?"
"I'd rather you wouldn't. I've got some personal things-you know what I mean. I'm sure there's no one in here. I'd certainly know if there was!"
"I'm sorry, lady. I'm afraid it's necessary."
There was a short sequence of scuffling sounds as the officer and his partner came through the door. "You can't!" Greta protested. I wondered whether her concern was for me or for the "personal things" she had mentioned. Maybe it was a combination of both.
She was almost on the verge of screaming. "I won't let you. Not unless you have a search warrant."
"Ma'm," a deep voice explained, almost patiently. It was the voice of the other man. The first had a high, rather annoying edge to his speech. "We don't need a warrant in this case. We have reason to believe that a murder was committed by a man who might be hiding anywhere around here. Even in your own house. It's for your own protection."
"Now just sit there," the one with the higher voice snapped, demonstrating signs of annoyance. "We'll be out of your way in just a few minutes."
"Please!" was her last plea. But after that, she said nothing. They began by checking the kitchen and living room thoroughly. My heart raced a mile a minute.
I had to do something fast
I didn't have time to remove a window screen, like I'd done getting away from the fishermen earlier. That sort of thing was out of the question. Then there was only one other possibility.
Hide!
But that seemed a little ridiculous, too. Consider that there were two cops in the house looking for exactly that-someone hiding.
So where should I bide where they wouldn't find me? Where in the next twenty seconds?
The answer was nowhere, man! Say anything you like about the cops, but they're not exactly idiots when it comes to playing hide-and-seek. Let's face it. At that precise hour and minute of the day, I was a doomed man.
I might just as well have run into the front room with my arms above me, giving myself up. But if there was any remaining chance for survival, even one chance in a billion, I wanted to take it. Footsteps were nearing. One of the cops was coming down the hallway.
I went through the bedroom and into Greta's closet. It would probably be the first place he'd look, but I didn't have time to go anywhere else.
If you play chess, you might relate my stubbornness in not surrendering to the fellow who has to be checkmated, and will never resign.
I heard him search the bathroom, while I got buried in the clothes that hung from the railing. For some reason, he checked through the farthest bedroom first. Maybe that's just police procedure.
I held my breath. Then I heard him coming.
A shrill whistle. That was the sound that announced his arrival. "Hey, Glen! Come in here, quick!"
"I'll be damned!" was what Glen said in his deep voice, evidently staring at the walls.
"Wait till the vice squad gets hold of these!" the other rasped.
There was a series of ripping sounds as several of the photos were torn from the walls.
"Wait a minute," the officer, Glen, objected. "Come on, leave them alone. That's not what we came for."
"Not what we came for?" the one with the high-pitched voice almost shouted. "Hell, it's twice as good as what we came for! I'll bet the DA hasn't seen shots like these since-"
"She said she didn't want us to see her personal things, remember?"
"Yeah, she said that. So what? This is hard-core stuff!"
"It's not hurting anybody, is it? Just hanging there?"
The one without the masculine voice sighed. "Well, hell, Glen. Do you just want to let it go, then?" he asked incredulously.
"That's exactly what I want to do."
The other sighed in annoyance. "I'm just never going to understand you, Glen. Sometimes I think the Lord made folks like you just to bother the hell out of folks like me."
Glen left the room. The other cop came over to the closet to complete the search of the room. He slid the door open, swearing under his breath. He made a half-hearted sweep with his hand across the clothing, then slid the door closed again. Had there been ten men in the closet, I doubt that he would've uncovered them.
Thank God for the photos, was all I could think, and the footsteps that echoed as the man left the room made me all the more grateful.
I heard muffled voices from the front room. The officers were conversing with Greta. As they were leaving, the one with the unpleasant voice spoke loud enough so that I could hear.
"Better clear them out of there," he warned. "Never can tell who might see them. And next time we won't be so nice about it!" Then the front door shut, almost slammed, and there was silence.
I heard her footsteps coming down the hallway.
"Phil?" she called. "Phil, are you still here?"
I vacated the closet and met her as she entered the bedroom. She faced me, hurt on her face. I wondered whether her concern was mostly that she had learned I was a murderer. Or was it the degrading circumstances under which her bedroom of fantasy had been uncovered?
I sat on the edge of the bed. She merely stood above me and looked down at the floor, appearing for all the world like a forlorn kitten.
"I'm sorry it had to happen like this," I said. "It's all my doing, all my fault." Some consolation that was.
"It's not your fault at all," she said. "You didn't pin the pictures on the wall. I did. You didn't turn me into an ugly, unnatural person I did it all myself. So why is it your fault?"
"They never would have come if it hadn't been for me."
"Funny," she said, ignoring my last comment, "for two years I live all to myself. I live in my own secret world. And then I'm discovered, not once, but twice in the same day! How can you figure this life, anyway?" Even though she was speaking with emphasis, trying to be brave, tears were returning to her eyes.
Like water overflowing a dam, the droplets poured from her eyes and tickled in crazy patterns down her cheeks.
She fought against the instinct to cry. And at last she won the battle. Then she lifted her head, and instead of staring at the floor, she looked at me. Directly.
"Is it really true?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Why? I mean, how did it happen?"
In crisp, to-the-point sentences, I told her. I related how I'd been seeking a divorce, and how we'd argued. I told how I'd been drunk and described the chase that followed. I poured out the whole story, right to when I blacked out, running down the slope toward the lake.
The actual killing, of course, was not in my memory. That was due to the huge sums of liquor Id consumed. Perhaps it was all for the best. Who wanted to remember the gory details, anyway?
"Why didn't you turn me in?" I queried.
"Why? I don't know, Phil. I couldn't. There wasn't an instant when I thought I might turn against you. I was praying inside that they wouldn't find you. Oh, I owe you so much!" She took two brisk strides and flung herself at me. Her head buried in my shoulder, and she began crying again.
I helped her around until she was securely seated in my lap. The poor, sick woman, I thought. Sympathy guided all my actions. I stroked her hair.
Somehow, without even knowing how it happened, I was atop her, guiding my hands around her inner thighs.
"Phil!" she begged. "Be good to me!"
CHAPTER 6
I WAS GOOD TO HER.
It began like an exercise in leisure. Passively, methodically, I cultivated her desire. My ringers touched the smooth legs, coming in contact lightly. I traced and retraced imaginary paths along her lower legs.
She wore no stockings. But her skin was just as soft and slippery as if she did. From time to time I intruded up and beyond the hem of her skirt. Those were the times when she seemed about ready to blaze.
Minute after minute I transported her into a wanton. I ignited her most pressing desires. And I was awakened in the process.
Enthusiasm was her name. Eagerness was mine. Together we were named intoxication.
"I could almost love you," she hissed, beginning to return my efforts with well-placed strokes of her own.
"It's only infatuation, my dear," I returned in a joking manner. I hoped she hadn't been serious about loving me. That's all I needed at the time-another emotional entanglement.
Oh, well. No time to think about that. There was more serious business at hand. Or, in her case, there was more serious business in hand.
Her fingers were delightful against my bare skin. With a quick maneuver, I managed my way beneath the single layer of cotton that separated my hand from her natural flesh.
"Yes," she agreed, when my fingers found what they sought, "only infatuation. Oh, ecstasy!"
After that there was relative silence. I say relative to imply that there was no speech. There were other noises. Keen, sharp squeals coming from Greta at appropriate moments. Grunts from me. Acute moans from her. More grunts from me.
Violent tides were about to make themselves known. I could feel the storm raging in her, ready to break through the dikes.
Her belly rose and fell. And with it the skirt which was now hiked up to her abdomen. Her fanny scuttled against the bedspread, digging in for a long stand. Somewhere beneath her blouse, fiery points were heaving with the globes they decorated.
But that was something I wouldn't uncover.
Not this time. This ride was going to be accomplished with a maximum of clothing. I felt my whole body tremble and ache for her. There was no waiting. I pulled her panties off roughly, hurriedly. She was ready too.
She welcomed me into her arms and whispered my name as I descended on her. She helped me with my zipper.
And I took her then.
We were linked. And it was a great feeling, the way she made secret movements with her inner body. I penetrated and she absorbed.
It was just that simple.
Stroke by stroke, our mutual pace quickened. Plunge after plunge, we approached fulfillment. And then we were there. Spasm and spasm from her. Discharge from me.
Wails from her mouth. Sounds like, "Ah!" and, "Ga-aawd!" Other words, too. Dirty words, yet delightful.
Climax! Cure! Remedy! Lightning flashing clear across the horizon, smoke billowing from a dying fire.
Exhaustion next. Rest, pant, recover.
"You were so wonderful," she said several minutes later, while I rested the full weight of my body on top of her.
"Thank you." Having had two totally fulfilling sex-capades in a short while, my thoughts were elsewhere. I carried on a routine sort of conversation with Greta. We talked of pleasant things-beauty, the lake, her new life, whatever she chose to discuss. But all the while I was thinking of other things. Consequently my sentences were purely mechanical. She noticed this.
"You're not listening."
"Sorry, I was just thinking." Personally, I thought the woman was a trifle batty-to think that I'd be giving her my full attention at this hour. Didn't she understand that my life was at stake at that moment? Evidently not.
Or, in any event, she didn't think very much of my predicament. And, of course, I was anything but complacent about the whole thing. After all, it was my skin.
"What were you thinking?" What the hell did she think I'd be thinking? But she covered herself quickly, adding another question. "I mean, I know what you're thinking. But what are you planning to do?"
"I don't know."
"Can I help?"
"I'll let you know." If my voice sounded somewhat less than cordial, there was a reason. I was downright mad at myself for spending the most desperate hours of my life in some widow's bed. The more I thought about it, the crazier it sounded. Satisfying some old girl in hot haste, while half a million cops are out to get you! Does that make a hell of a lot of sense?
Not to me, friends and neighbors! It didn't make sense at all. It was medicine, that's what. I'd taken the lovemaking route because I was afraid. It had temporarily taken my full attention away from the cold truth. But now I was satisfied. I was left drained and rustless. I was forced to think again.
It seemed unreal, somehow, that it really could have happened to me. I'm not a killer! Hell, no! I can hold my temper about as good as the next guy. And just like the next guy, I can't see making a date with the electric chair.
Then what had happened to me? Too many drinks last night? Do I really hold my liquor that poorly? I wondered.
"You don't have to be so sarcastic," Greta admonished. "After all, I'm on your side."
"I know you are, baby." I tapped my open palm on her knee as a sort of apology. We were now lying side by side, staring at the ceiling. Her reflection, seen in the mirror above, was appealing. Maybe it would turn most anyone on.
It had already turned me on. Twice. And, like I said, I was drained. And so, I stared at her form as if it were some art object and not a human body.
It was just something to look at, while I concentrated on more important issues.
What to do now? Did I hang around the widow's house for another day or two, hoping the danger would go away, hoping that they wouldn't come again and find me? Did I run for it? Did I play it really cautious -scout around a little, smell the air?
The latter appealed to me most, since it offered the most variety of courses of action.
Then I thought of something else. The idea seemed like it would be worth trying. Who could help me most at the moment? Greta? Yeah, she was willing, but there wasn't an awful lot she could do. Besides, I didn't think she'd hold up in an emergency. Leslie? No, because she was surely under close watch.
Wes Benson, then? Yes. That was the idea! I was sure that there would be a way for him to help. If nothing else, he could arrange a meeting for Leslie and me.
Wes Benson, I felt certain, owed me a favor. After last night, he owed me a number of favors!
"You're sure it's safe to leave?" Greta questioned me an hour later.
"Of course I'm not sure it's safe. But what is safe?"
"I guess you're right. Please be careful." I opened the back door cautiously, scanning all areas close to the house, gazing down toward the lake and into the neighboring woods. "And come back soon's you can!" she added as I slipped out the door.
I didn't acknowledge. I'd only return to that house if it was the safest thing to do. No matter how badly that babe needed sex, she'd have to make it on her own in the future.
I hadn't bothered to look at the clock, but it must've been between one and one-thirty. It was nearing the hottest part of the day, in any event. The sun was high and had just begun its journey down toward the western horizon.
Almost the minute I stepped into the sunshine, beads of perspiration began to pop out all over my face. The clothes I wore, though light, were uncomfortable. Even the short-sleeved shirt was a nuisance.
If there was going to be a chase, if I was going to have to go through any acrobatics in order to keep my freedom, things were going to get sticky hot. It was plainly one of those days for sitting in front of the television set, watching the ballplayers sweat. A fan made things comfortable. And if you had air-conditioning, like Greta Allison had, then it was all the better.
Like I said, the change in atmosphere was striking. And the first thing I did once the door behind me closed was head for the tree line. That offered protection, and at the same time it offered shade.
Wes lived quite a distance from the widow. As a matter-of-fact, he lived just as far from my house as she did. But on the other side! That complicated things. It meant that I'd have to go into the woods and around my own house to get to Wes'. Either that or go clear around the lake. Neither course of action was as safe as I would've liked. So it was a fifty-fifty decision. Even if I went clear around the lake, I'd have to go past Leslie's. And her place was staked out for sure. In either instance, I'd have to go past a swarm of cops.
I decided to take the shorter route, seeing that it was just too damn hot to take the longer-unless there were some positive reason for doing so.
From time to time, as I headed deep into the woods, as far from the shoreline as possible, I'd stop behind a group of trees to rest and to listen. There were animal sounds, of course. Birds, rabbits. Stray cats, maybe. But the difficult task was making certain that none of the cracklings of branches were of human origin.
Well, I've been around the lake for several years, living off the wealth that Helen had (which wasn't a lot, but sufficient). And I took enough walks through the forest in that time to become accustomed to many of the sounds. But I'm by no means an expert.
I never did learn to differentiate between the footsteps of a squirrel and a chipmunk.
And the difference between the rustling of a rabbit and a blue-coated fuzz was unknown to me. And so, you understand, I wasn't exactly overconfident about my abilities as a woodsman.
I was, say, half a mile into the woods and heading parallel with the lakeshore, when I stopped dead it my tracks.
Something had caught my attention. I listened. Nothing.
For more than two minutes I stood frozen, frying to make out the sound I'd heard. But it wasn't repeated. There was only silence. Merely a chirp or two of birds. And that was strange, too.
Even the birds were strangely silent. Perhaps it was my presence that made them shy to speak. Three minutes passed.
I tiptoed to a tree nearby, an oak large enough to hide my entire form. I leaned against its trunk and strained to listen. Perhaps my caution was overplayed. The sound, a mere rustling, was probably caused by an animal. On the surface, there was nothing unusual about it. But a sixth sense kept me from pushing on. Even as the fourth minute went by, I held my breath down as best I could.
I heard it again! The same rustling sound, coming from the same general direction. It came from perhaps twenty yards away-right behind a cluster of bushes.
Something seemed to move. I had my head poking beyond the edge of the tree, just enough to see the top of the bushes. More movement. Actually all I could see was a brisk to-and-fro motion of the bushes themselves. What was causing the movement was still unknown to me. I watched for another few seconds before deciding on a course of action.
Then I moved noiselessly, away from the tree. After scouting the surroundings carefully, I'd decided that, with care, I could retreat into a grove of trees, circle and emerge on the other side of the bushes. That would give me an opportunity to see whatever had been making the noise.
I made it to the grove of trees. Between two oaks, I rested and listened.
Then a ping! That's exactly the sound. It was as it someone had snapped a tin can with a fingernail. I froze.
Moments later the sound was repeated. I tiptoed around trees until I was in a position to view the back of the bushes.
The first thing I saw, about twenty feet from me, was the barrel of a gun! And it was pointed in my direction!
I didn't get a good look at the rifle. It could've been a twenty-two. It could've been almost anything. All I knew was that my life was in danger. It was too late to retreat.
Consequently, I did the only thing I knew how to do in such instances. The instinctive thing. The thing I'd been taught in the Army. I hit the ground and rolled. Not away, but right into the line of fire. Two seconds was all it took me to collide with the person holding the rifle. I hit about knee-high and the light body tumbled to the dust, under the force of the impact.
It was a boy! He couldn't have been more than fifteen or so. I pinned him to the earth, kicking the rifle out of the way in the process.
"Hey!" he squealed. "Help! Help!" I put my hand securely across his mouth, stifling his outcries.
But it wasn't quite as easy as all that His teeth were strong and youthful. They were sharp, also. They caught hold of the meaty side of my hand and clamped forcefully.
"Damn you! Let go or I'll hit you hard!" And I lifted a threatening fist to show that I meant it.
He finally relaxed his bite. My hand was throbbing painfully by that time.
"I'm going to let loose of you," I said. "But I want you to promise to keep your mouth shut. Okay?" After a few seconds' pause, he nodded that he understood and would obey.
"Who are you?" I asked, after I'd removed my hand from his mouth and was rubbing the edge of my palm, soothing the pain. He hadn't quite broken through the skin. But there were a number of blood-red indentations to prove that he had tried.
"What's it to you?"
"All right," I said, noting that his name wasn't important to me anyway. "Forget it. Just tell me why you were shooting at me."
"I wasn't shooting at ya. You was just in the way. That's all." He gestured in the direction from which
I'd come. I noticed two tin cans which had been placed on the overhanging branch of a tree. So that's what he'd been shooting at.
I looked at the gun which I'd kicked aside. It was only a BB gun. In my panic, I hadn't been able to ascertain what sort of a rifle it had been.
"You live around here?" I asked him.
"So what if I do?"
"Look, I'm not going to hurt you. I live around here myself. I was just curious, that's all. Now if you don't want to talk to me, I'll just go on my merry way."
"Naw. Stick around. You look like an all-right sort of guy." That must've been intended as a supreme compliment, coming from the kid. I acknowledged by nodding my head appreciatively.
Then I said, "You look like an all-right sort, yourself."
"Thanks. You wanna take a few shots?"
Maybe it wasn't the wisest thing to do, sticking around. But if I ran off, the kid might get suspicious of me. Besides, there wasn't too much likelihood of anyone stumbling upon us at the moment.
I risked it. "I'm game," I said.
He ran over and picked up the BB rifle. Then he handed it to me. "You try," he said.
I took two shots in succession, cocking the gun swiftly in between. Both missed. I was somewhat disappointed with myself, since I'm not a bad shot. I even competed in contests while in the Army. And the cans weren't really that far away. Maybe I was just getting rusty.
"Here, let me." The boy took the rifle from my hands and fired two shots, just as rapidly as I had. Both cans fell from the limb, making a pinging sound as they were hit.
It was the same sound I'd heard earlier. The one that had caused me to investigate.
"You're pretty good," I said.
"You want to try again?"
"Well, I better get going," I explained, trying to keep my voice as calm as possible. "Maybe some other time."
"See those?" he asked, ignoring my last remark. He pointed in the direction opposite from the limb we'd shot toward. I looked.
There, tacked to the trunks of three trees, were pages torn from magazines. They weren't too far away and I could SCO them clearly.
They all had women depicted. Evidently they came from fashion magazines.
"You want me to shoot at those?" I asked.
He handed me the gun. "Sure. But you gotta hit um in the boobs or they won't die!"
"Is that so!" I fired two shots, missing the pictures altogether, and almost missing the trees.
"I'll show you something," the kid said, grabbing the gun from me. "See the sight?" I affirmed. How could I not have seen the sight? I wouldn't have been able to aim otherwise.
"It's off-center," he boasted proudly. It was his very own secret and he was letting me in on it. I was honored. He showed me to which side of the V I should aim.
"Now, if you wanna try again, go ahead." I tried again. Two shots.
"You got both boobs!" he exclaimed, running up to the target to check my score.
"Does that mean she's dead?"
"Yeah, man. You killed her clean!" He came back and crouched beside me.
"Say, what do you have against women, anyway?"
"Me? I ain't got nothing 'gainst 'um. They just don't do nothing. That's what I don't like. They don't put out, if you know what I mean."
"I know what you mean. I had the same trouble myself. How old are you, boy?"
He hesitated, then told me truthfully, "Fourteen."
"That's about what I figured. Still looking for your first piece, aren't you?"
"Yeah. It's this girl, see. We sneak off into the woods every once in a while. We get our hands busy like crazy. And just when I was sure she's gonna put out, she backs off, see? She keeps saying it ain't right. Nothing ain't right for her. So she probably does you-know-what all night. Just like you read in them books. Don't you think?"
"Probably," I agreed.
"When did you get your first?" he wanted to know. "How old were you?"
I thought. "I was your age," I said, "maybe a little older. I was going through the same sort of problems you were. I'd get her pants hot like melting butter, then she'd chicken out. But I fixed that.
"We went on a double date with a couple I knew was making it. We were in the back seat. The two up front began kissing like it was going out of style. The movie wasn't very good. So both the girl and I watched the pair up front. While the activities got wilder and wilder, we did a few things on our own. You know what I mean?" He nodded that he knew very well what I meant. I continued. "Well, just as I'd figured, the couple up front let their heat get out of hand. They started making it right in front of us. That got my chick so hot that she not only gave in, she begged. It was wild, I tell you!"
"What was it like?"
"Like? Well, son, that's something you're going to have to find out for yourself."
"Don't you think I been trying?"
"I suppose you have. You're just going to have to try harder, that's all."
"I have been. Really. It's just like I say, no one's putting out!"
"Wait a few years before you begin to worry. I'm not sure you're old enough to handle a woman!"
He shot two short words at me. That told me he was old enough to swear, in any case.
"I can handle a woman, all right. And I been horny as hell!" He looked directly at me. "You don't have a wife or something?"
"If you were my kid, I'd give you a good whipping!" I snarled. "You make it first with some little girl friend. Then you can start flunking about handling a woman twice your size!" The nerve of the kid, I thought. I did have a wife, a dead wife, but that wouldn't interest him any.
Had I had a live one, I wouldn't let her get within a mile of this kid. He was potentially dangerous.
"People are sharing all over," the kid protested. Wise kid, huh? There's a lot to be said for this new generation. It's not shielded and coddled, anyway. "Just thought you might help out some poor kid in distress. But I guess you ain't interested."
"Look, buster. I don't have a wife. And if I did, I'd keep her clear of you. Even if I gave you the go-ahead, you think any mature female is going to look twice at the likes of you? When are you going to start shaving?"
"Okay, so I was just kidding."
"Some things come free," I philosophized. "And some you have to work for."
"I guess I'll have to try harder." All hostility had gone out of the lad. I hoped I'd put him in his place.
"Well, happy shooting." And with that remark, I rose to my feet and began walking away.
"Say, what's your name?" the kid asked.
"Peter Crane," I lied. "What's yours?" I didn't want to use my real name for obvious reasons.
"George. Where you going, anyhow?"
I shrugged my shoulders and trudged off. To an adult the reaction might have been suspicious. But to the kid, the answer was sufficient. Maybe I was speaking his language, the language of double-talk and noncommittal responses.
I became extremely cautious as I neared the area that adjoined my house. I'd come close to the proximity of the yard. This was done intentionally. I wanted to take a peek. It involved a risk. But it bordered on being a necessity.
After all, I did need to know what was going on, if I intended to avoid whatever traps had been laid for me. My pace slowed. I went only a few score of yards at a time.
Then I was within sight of the house.
Positioned squarely in the middle of my driveway was a police car. Another was parked on the side of the road. I'd figured that they'd leave some cops in the area, especially if they figured I was still around. But I wasn't sure they'd still be investigating. It must've been more than three hours since they first arrived on the scene.
There was no one outside the house that I could see. Of course the slope of the hill prevented me from seeing the lakefront. Maybe that was where they all were.
Well, there was nothing I could learn, at least from where I stood. And advancing farther would be foolhardy, to say the least.
So, making as little noise as possible, I went on, retreating several hundred yards into the woods before heading in the direction of Wes' place.
The remainder of the hike was uneventful. As before, I paused now and then, my ears picking up something that merited suspicion. But all turned out to be false alarms.
And about fifteen minutes after leaving the spot where I'd spied on the investigating police vehicles, I arrived at Wes' house.
Rather, I arrived near Wes' house.
Exercising the necessary caution, I kept myself concealed within the protective trees, scanning the area. No cops.
I listened intently, trying to make out any telltale sounds. I heard none. And so, making one final surveillance, I made a dash toward the structure. I stayed as much on tiptoe as was humanly possible. I reached the front door.
I wasn't going to knock. I planned to barge right in. Already a murderer, the proposition of adding another small crime to my epitaph didn't particularly faze me. Perhaps they'd add a little extra zing to the juice when they fried me.
Anyway, I didn't barge right in, because just as I was about to, I heard voices.
They were muffled voices, to be sure, but voices nonetheless.
Apparently they came from a room off to my right. I sneaked toward a window to investigate. All I needed was to find some cop in there! But there wasn't a cop.
I had to peer with much effort in order to distinguish anything at all. The contrast between the sunlight outside and the relative dimness inside, made viewing extremely difficult.
I'm not exactly an idiot. I realized that it would be just as easy for anyone inside to see me as it was difficult for me to see inside. That's why I didn't place my head squarely in the center of the window.
That would have been like signing away my life, had there actually been a cop in the room.
The window had shutters, but they weren't thoroughly closed. Along the hinges, there were cracks which allowed me to peek. Consequently, when my eyes began to adjust, I could see in with reasonable certainty that I wouldn't be spotted.
Like I said before, there was no cop inside.
But there was action.
The game was mating. I was peering into a bedroom. Wes was making it with some girl I'd never seen before. That was par for the course. It was probably some girl he'd never seen until an hour before either, if I knew anything about the photographer.
Well, I didn't want to stand around and take it in.
Particularly in view of the fact that I was standing in the open.
The sounds that came from within the house were still muffled. But at least I could make out that the words were mere fragments of a passionate conversation.
I went back to the front door, found it unlocked, entered.
Because I didn't want to be seen by the girl, when they came out (if they ever did), I decided against remaining in the living room.
The den would serve my purpose admirably.
I found the biggest, most cushiony chair in the room. It was a reclining lounge chair. I lit a cigarette and waited.
Many minutes went by. After a half-hour, I began to become annoyed. But there was nothing to do but wait.
I lit a third cigarette and puffed on it rapidly.
Then there were screams. Tortured, passion-screaming.
Well, at least they were getting somewhere! The wails filled the house, bouncing from the walls, amplified as if in an echo chamber. They were feminine wails, with a few manly grunts to round out the orchestra
It wouldn't be long now.
CHAPTER 7
"WoW, YOU SURE WORK fast!" the girl was saying as she and Wes came from the bedroom.
"Haste makes waste." Well, that's what he said. The swinger that he's supposed to be, you'd certainly expect him to have a better line than that. Maybe his reputation was overplayed.
I couldn't see the girl or Wes. I'd closed the den door, of course. But I'd gotten a good look at this broad through the window. Swinger or no, you had to give Wes credit for one thing. He had good taste.
"Is it true there was a murder?" the girl asked.
"Yeah, so they say. I knew the woman," he boasted. "I was at her party just last night, just before she was done in." He might have added a few more specifics. Like he not only saw her last night, he laid her last night, also. But facts like that are better left unmentioned-particularly if you're talking to another woman.
"What was she like?"
"Friendly, a little loud. Her husband didn't think too much of her, though. He was having this affair with some so-called artist across the lake. Tried like hell to get a divorce, he did. She wouldn't have anything to do with it. I think it made her feel good, just depriving him of something he desperately wanted."
"And him? Did they catch him?"
"Not the last I heard. He's probably a thousand miles away. But the cops don't think so. They were over questioning me earlier. They figure he's going to make a contact with the little Miss Painter across the way. I say he's not that stupid."
That was reassuring. So Wes didn't think I was that stupid. I ought to bust him in the mouth for that crack. Just how stupid did he think I was?
Stupid enough to kill my wife, is what he probably thought.
Well, maybe he was right. Maybe I was stupid.
Stupidity wouldn't make me innocent, though, in the eyes of the law. Insanity would, but I didn't qualify. At least, I never considered the possibility that I might be a little off my rocker. As far as I knew, everyone considered me sane.
No, there were no short cuts for me. I was simply a wanted man. And I was guilty. If they caught me, that would be the end.
Finis!
They caught all murderers, sooner or later, according to the crime shows on TV. Maybe I'd beat the odds. Who knew? I'd been lucky so far.
"When can I see you again?" It was Wes' voice. I'd been worried for a second. It had occurred to me that the two might be spending the afternoon together. You know, a little rest and bingo! One or two more bouts in bed. If that were the case, I'd have to call Wes aside, one way or another.
It would've created a hell of a problem.
But luck stayed with me. The girl was evidently in the doorway, or nearly so. "Any time you want, sugar. Just give me a jingle." There was a crisp sound, a smack. They'd kissed good-bye. "I've really got to get along now, before Peter finds me missing."
"Take care now."
The door opened and shut rapidly. The girl had gone, conniving witch that she was. "Before Peter finds me missing," she'd said-as if she were proud of her deceit. Hell, is that really the way it is today? Everyone skipping out? It seems that every corner I stumble upon of late, someone's itching to put out. Or take in, as the case may be.
Wes and I were alone in the house, and it was time to face each other. He'd no doubt be surprised to see me. I doubted that it would be a pleasant surprise for him, but, as I said before, the guy owed me a favor.
At least, I thought he did.
I walked to the door of the den, pushed it open. He was facing the other way and didn't see me. He was concentrating on something out the window, peeking from behind the curtains. Probably he was watching the girl drive away.
"Hello, Wes," I said.
"Wh-" He froze for one fractional second, then wheeled about in my direction. "What the hell!"
"I said, 'Hello, Wes'. You don't seem terribly glad to see me." He wasn't, judging by the expression on his face.
"I'm surprised." He gulped, then, "I expected you to be a million miles from here."
"Where would that put me?" I asked lightly.
"Well on your way to Mars, I imagine." He came through the door and sat in a chair opposite me. "You're the last person I expected to see. And this is sure the last place I expected to find you."
"I need your help," I said flatly.
He hesitated, then looked away from me. He seemed to be speaking to the wall. "You've got to be kidding."
"I'm not kidding," I said. "I need your help."
"Come off it, Phil!" he raved. "You don't really expect me to stick my neck out! Do you know what you've done, man? Murder. What do you think will happen to me if they find out that I aided you? You've gone out of your head! No! I'll spell it for you. N-O."
I hadn't expected such a vehement refusal. I'd figured the man would be reluctant, and I'd planned on using all the verbal persuasive powers I possess. But he certainly had given an absolute no. If I were going to convince him, I'd better give him a pretty damned good reason.
And I didn't have a damned good reason. I had only a flimsy reason, but I offered it. "This never would've happened, if you had done what you were supposed to."
"Oh, are you going to blame me, now? Did I put the knife in her?"
I shook my head. "I did. But you helped."
"Sorry, pal. I just don't buy that line. Okay, so I took a little roll with her. I wasn't the first. You knew that. That's why you wanted me to catch her in the act. And I would've, if that old slob hadn't fainted away. Get this straight," he continued, emphasizing each syllable. 'You caught me with your wife. Sure. But I was only one of many, and I don't owe you anything. Not one damn thing! Clear?"
"Yeah," I growled back at him. "That's plenty clear. Except for one thing."
"What's that?"
"You know what kind of a woman she was. I don't want to die because of her. You're dealing with my life, Wes. All I'm asking is that you help me. Please!"
Obviously, if I spoke roughly, he would only do the same. My only chance was to employ reverse psychology and hope for the best, "Don't start begging, now. Damn it!"
"I wasn't begging," I assured him. "Just put yourself in my position. I need help. I was stoned last night. I didn't know what I was doing. And I don't want to fry in the electric chair because of it Do you understand?"
"I understand," he replied coldly. "And I sympathize with you, believe me." I didn't believe him. He didn't sound sincere at all. "But I can't help you. I don't want to go to the pen any more than you do. You're asking me to break the law."
You couldn't argue with that. That's exactly what I was asking him to do. But I didn't figure the guy was as lily-white as all that. Breaking laws isn't the thing I'd support, either, but he was talking like helping me out would be the worst of all possible crimes. Really, it was only his own neck he was flunking about. Breaking the law meant nothing to him. The consequences of breaking the law-that's what had him worried.
"I'm only asking you to help save my life," I persisted.
"I'm sorry, but I can't." And his voice had a note of finality in it. "Now, if you'll kindly just leave. I'm going to have to notify the cops after you leave. Something about withholding evidence-you probably know the law better than I do. I'll give you ten minutes to clear the area before I call them. I think that's fair."
I didn't know how fair it was. I supposed it was better than not allowing me any time whatsoever. Nice of him, at least to give me a head start, wouldn't you say?
He had a surprise coming.
"I'll give you ten seconds to change your mind!" I threatened. "You owe me a favor, the way I figure it."
"What are you going to do after ten seconds is up?" He shuddered uncontrollably. Perhaps he was actually afraid of me. At any rate, he got to his feet and stood over me, giving himself a better position of defense in the event I attacked. "Are you going to kill me, too?"
"Once a murderer, always a murderer," I answered. "You've got five seconds . . . "
It was kind of a silly bluff. I didn't carry a weapon. But the way I felt, I was going to jump up and pound him to a pulp at any moment. Certainly, I couldn't let him call the cops. Either Wes was going to help me, or
I was going to do something about Wes. Which would it be?
Time was up. I rose from the chair, and before he could make a move to defend himself, I lunged at him.
He wasn't a small man, but it didn't matter. I was a whole lot madder. That's why my fists flung toward him and collided, one, two, three.
He staggered. He fell.
I kneeled on the floor beside him. He was hurt, but he wasn't unconscious. "Sorry I had to do that," I explained. And though I was still resentful of the fact that he'd refused to aid me, I meant the apology.
I'm not the fighting kind. And I hate the thought of blood. Just the thought of Helen's body, an image which kept flashing across my mind, was enough to make me sick inside. Those bloody, red wounds, the blood-saturated dress . . .
And now Wes on the floor. He was bleeding, too, though only in a small trickle. The crimson line flowed from his nose and washed up against his lips.
"Lord, you strike fast!" he whispered. He'd be all right. Give him a few minutes to recuperate and he'd be practically good as new. And ready to call the fuzz!
"I'm going to have to tie you up," I told him. I tried to keep as much compassion in my voice as was humanly possible. No one liked to be tied. But it was better than being murdered. Maybe he'd appreciate my diplomacy.
"What?"
"Well, I'll have to," I explained. "I'm sure you'll understand. You wouldn't want me to have to kill you. I'd hate to have to do that. After all you've done for me!" I couldn't hide the sneer in my voice.
He said nothing. He was still numb from the series of blows. Dazed, I'd guess you could say.
Anyway, it was no problem tugging him from the carpet and seating him upright in the chair he'd sat in earlier. It was a sturdy piece of furniture. And it would serve the purpose.
"Rope?" He didn't seem to understand me. So I asked again, "Is there any rope around the house?"
He was coming around. Just as I was about to slap his face, in order to gain his full attention, he said, "You don't think I'm going to tell you!"
I showed him a clenched fist, one ready to strike his already marred face. He blinked at the sight of it.
"All right," he conceded. "Have it your way."
I intended to. He told me where there was some rope. But it was in another room. And I couldn't see leaving him, even for a minute.
"Get up!" I demanded. And with maximum effort, he did. I had to assist him by supporting him under the arm. "Come on, let's go." We went toward the kitchen. When we got there, I went to the appropriate drawer and found the rope without difficulty. I went back to the den, almost dragging him as I walked. He wasn't purposely resisting, though it may have seemed that way. The blows on his face had taken their toll.
If he was stunned, it was all the better, the way I figured it. If he struggled, I'd have plenty of trouble tying him down.
"You can't leave me!" he insisted in a foggy voice. I tied the final knot, and checked to see that it was secure. He wasn't going anywhere.
"Be right back," I told him, and left the room. I went into the bedroom that he'd been in when I'd first entered the house. There were still signs of the love bout that had taken place. The bed was messed up, the pillows rumpled. And there was a vague sex-smell in the air.
I went through his dresser drawers until I found a suitable handkerchief. Returning to the den, I placed the cloth in his mouth, while he protested vehemently.
That ought to keep him quiet, I was convinced. His eyes were blazing with contempt when I walked from the room.
It had taken me a full hour to get near Leslie's cottage. I'd gone cautiously, but had encountered nothing particularly noteworthy during my expedition through the woods.
Now the structure was within view. It was a rather small cottage-white-frame with powder-blue-painted woodwork.
Its appearance was totally feminine, as if no man had ever set foot on the premises. But a man had; I knew that for certain.
I had. On a number of occasions I'd been inside, in the single bedroom. Leslie had been there with me, romping over the sheets, exchanging love-talk, tender phrases. She'd go into orbit, and as she did, I'd ask her if she loved me.
She said she did.
Always. And I loved her equally. The visions of lovemaking vanished from my mind. I had to focus all my attention on the task at hand. When the danger went away, when I was free, then I could spend time remembering.
But now . . .
There didn't seem to be any cars parked near the house. I couldn't see the full front of the cottage from my position in the woods. But I could make out the part of the driveway where Leslie always parked. And her car wasn't there.
That wasn't unusual. Leslie often went into town. I'd almost had to make an appointment with her, in the past, to ensure that I'd get to see her.
It wasn't much of a problem, really. I'd go in and wait. And sooner or later she'd be back. Simple?
I thought so. And with little difficulty I made my way through a loosely hinged window on the lake side of the cottage. It was a window I'd gone through twice before, when Leslie had locked herself out. I carefully hinged the window back in place, lest some cop stray past and get suspicious.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, I kept alert. There was always the possibility of being trapped. And, truthfully, I'd taken a huge chance just by coming.
But it was love, man. And if you've never been in love, I can't expect you to understand.
There was an easel in one comer. It was covered with a sheet, designed to keep out the dust. I rose from the bed and walked over to it, removing the sheet. Underneath was something that caught me by surprise.
Leslie is basically a scenery painter. She does some abstract work, also. But I'd never seen a work of hers that depicted people. That's why what I saw came as quite a shock to me.
You couldn't really call it a portrait of a person. But it was a portrait of part of a person, that was for sure. And a female person, at that!
Boobs, man. That's what was on the canvas. In the lower comer, a bellybutton. In the upper half, shoulders. In the middle, boobs. They were painted to the realistic color of flesh. And the centers were rosy red. They looked so real that I almost wanted to reach forward and fondle them. The more I stood and stared at the incredible sight, the more convinced I was that the breasts were moving. The nipples seemed to reach out for me, begging to be caressed. I reached with questing fingertips, and I felt the surface. Of course, I was merely testing the texture of the oil.
In my mind, I envisioned Leslie's ample mounds. Maintaining the image in my mind, I analyzed the pair of boobs on the canvas. The two sets were decidedly different.
That meant that either Leslie had a model pose for her, or she had a hell of a good imagination. The latter seemed more likely. After all, my love was a highly creative person.
Quickly I placed the sheet over the canvas.
There were voices, and the front door was opening. Of all the rotten luck! Leslie had brought someone home with her.
If that wasn't bad enough, the knowledge of who the someone was, set my stomach churning uneasily.
The cops again!
Just how many run-ins with the police I could have and still remain at large-that was the question. But as long as it was within my power, I'd continue to try. I ducked into the same corner that the easel was in, and waited.
"And we think he might try to contact you," one of the cops was saying. It was one of the same two that had searched the widow's place that morning. Not the one with the high, frilly voice. The masculine fellow. "Will you cooperate?"
"Yes, of course."
She said it with conviction. But it was a lie, of course. What else could she say? That she wouldn't cooperate? That would be an unwise move, indeed. Then the cops would scan her every move, even more so than they were apt to do as it was.
"You realize that you'd only be making things worse, if you tried to cover for him?" It was the same cop as before.
"Do you understand?" the partner with the high-pitched voice put in before she had a chance to respond.
"I understand. I said I'd cooperate, didn't I?" She paused, probably to light a cigarette, then continued. "Like I was telling you boys outside, the guy meant nothing to me. I just wanted to get rid of him. But I didn't want to hurt his feelings. He was a nice kind, you know what I mean?"
"Sure. Here's what you do." It was the masculine cop speaking again. "We're going to have a man staked out in the trees, in sight of the front of the house. Keep the shutters closed. If anything turns up-if he gives you a phone call or anything, or if he sneaks in some other way, open the shutters. Got it?"
"Yes. Open the shutters," she affirmed.
"We appreciate your cooperation, miss. Be careful, though. He's bound to be dangerous. The way he killed his wife, so many wounds, well-he must be off his nut." That was news to me. Maybe I could get off with an insanity plea. It was worth thinking about.
While they talked, I'd been reaching from the comer toward the window. With the utmost care, I'd unhinged the loose window. It was mostly a precautionary measure. If the police left, I intended to stay and discuss with Leslie all that needed to be discussed. We'd set a time and a place where we could meet later. Maybe several months later, when things cooled off.
I'd congratulate her on her performance with the fuzz. She should have been an actress instead of a painter. "The guy meant nothing to me," she'd said. That's a pretty hard line to do convincingly, particularly for a girl who claimed to be as much in love with me as Leslie did.
Meant nothing to her, huh? That's why we spent a good half of our hours together planning for the glorious future-the future that we could share if Helen had granted me a divorce.
Now that future was ours. Perhaps it wasn't so perfect as if it had been accomplished through a divorce. But, all in all, it amounted to the same thing.
Bad news next!
I wasn't going to get the chance to see Leslie just then. The more authoritative-sounding cop said, "Better check out the rooms, just to be sure."
Even as he finished the sentence, I was climbing through the window. Hurriedly, I placed the glass back on its proper hinges.
I allowed myself one fleeting glance, assured myself that the window was properly in place.
Then I ran for the woods.
After all that trouble, it seemed a pity that I hadn't got to see Leslie. Of course, I could return immediately if that were the best thing to do. But I figured that wasn't the thing to do at all. Far better to stay clear for a while, letting things settle down a bit Maybe tomorrow. Or later tonight, I thought For now, I just kept pacing through the woods, going no particular direction. Deeper and deeper. Because the farther inward I went, the safer I was. And the more secure I felt inside.
Finally I came to a grassy place where one tree grew against another, forming a rustic chair.
I sat there. To think.
CHAPTER 8
I SPENT HOURS THROWING pebbles at a tree stump. Sounds crazy, but it passed the time.
It grew dark. I closed my eyes and slept. During the night I woke time and again. Each time, I'd strain my ears, seeking any signs of danger. Then I'd drift to sleep again. But even the intermittent sleep was soothing, following the most exhausting day of my life.
It was the second night I'd spent in the open air in as many nights.
Morning came.
The sun hadn't risen yet, but there was a gray haze overhead, testifying that it wouldn't be long in coming. I got reluctantly to my feet and found my back stiff.
It began to feel better after the first half-mile or so.
Actually, I had only a vague idea of where I was. But even that vague idea turned out to be somewhat inaccurate. It came as a small surprise to me, stumbling upon the widow's house.
But, since I was there, I figured I might as well drop in for a visit. Not a purposeless visit, mind you. I was fully aware of the risk I took any time I neared any residence.
Some risks were good risks, though. Some offered a greater gain in return. Here's what I figured:
First of all, I had to do something. I couldn't very well spend the rest of my life tramping from house to house, sleeping in the forest. And the longer I remained at large in the area, the greater my chances of being captured. Therefore I had to make a definite move now.
Okay, so I wanted to return to Leslie's place. Right? Yes, but how much more prudent it would be if I had a definite plan of escape to explain to her.
Escape with Leslie? How? That's what I'd pondered while I'd rested against a tree trunk late the afternoon before. The best plan seemed to me to enlist the help of an outsider. Wes? That I'd already tried. It had come to nothing. I wondered if he'd found his way free from the chair where I'd tied him. If so, the police would be hot on my trail right now, realizing that I was, indeed, still in the immediate area-much as they had probably figured all along.
Well, that was just another problem. The main point at the moment was that I needed to enlist aid. Wes had eliminated himself.
That left only Greta Allison, the widow. And I had no solid reason to believe that she'd be willing to help. I was damn sure of one thing, though. I would use everything in my power to convince her that she should.
How could she help? In a rather simple way. She could drive somewhere along the main highway and park-somewhere that Leslie and I could walk to. That would give us a far better chance than just trying to drive out from somewhere around the lake. Surely they had set up roadblocks all over the place. Also, Greta could assist by finding out precisely what roadblocks there were. And where.
If the odds were a hundred-to-one against a clean getaway, certainly Greta Allison could cut those odds in half. Which still made them pretty discouraging, but improved, anyway.
Theoretically, that was the way it looked.
But, in fact, I knew that convincing Greta Allison was going to take a good bit of manly persuasion.
I looked across the clearing that divided her house from the edge of the wood. I found nothing particularly suspicious.
So I took the chance, and with swift strides, I covered the fifty yards to the back door.
I didn't knock, of course. The door was unlocked. And I stepped inside quietly, just in case there were more cops inside. I didn't know why they'd be visiting her again, after yesterday. But you never could tell.
I stood still and listened. Nothing.
I walked into the kitchen, kept stealthily against a wall and still listened. Again nothing. There was only a vague hint of movement, coming from one of the rooms down the hall. Perhaps Greta was in one of the bedrooms.
Crossing the living room, I continued down the hallway until I pinpointed the sound.
It came from the bedroom which I'd been in the day before. The one where I'd almost met my Waterloo. The one with all the erotic photos on the walls. (Except, if she'd taken the advice of the cop, the pictures would be removed by now.)
It wasn't a particularly unusual sound. Sort of a scuffling-like the heels of shoes scraping against a carpet. And yet, my curiosity somehow aroused, I stopped short of the open door to listen more closely.
The scuffling nose continued.
No. It didn't merely continue. It became strangely more insistent.
Next, for a number of seconds, the sounds faded away. There was silence then. Absolute, unbroken, eerie silence. I listened for a continuance of the rustling.
Then there was harsh breathing. Breathing that was unmistakably lustful. Hard pants.
Erotic hisses that came between teeth.
Visions were going through my mind. I couldn't help but imagine in my own mind what was going on inside the bedroom. Lewd images filled my brain.
The woman, alone.
And the pictures. And only yesterday I'd discovered her secret sin den. And, she'd said, I had delivered her back to normalcy with my masculine lovemaking. She hadn't loved a man in over two years, she'd said. Never since her husband passed on. And what had she done? She'd indulged in her secret fantasy sex-world.
Until I'd come along. Then she'd been so grateful to me. She'd appreciated the way I'd brought her from her state of sickness.
Yeah, she'd been grateful. She'd been appreciative. And she was normal again.
Ha! For a whole day it had lasted, maybe not even that long. As I listened, I couldn't help but feel sorry.
Gasps now. And groans that sounded for all the world like death moans. Throaty gurgles filled the air. And sighs, too.
But wait-
Something else. I strained to hear. For a moment I'd almost thought.. .
Yes, there it was again! She wasn't alone; I was positive of that now. There were two distinctly separate sets of rash breathing. So there were two of them in there.
And then a voice. "Wow!" That was the only word. It wasn't Greta Allison's voice, either. It was a high-pitched voice, almost feminine.
A Lesbian, then? I listened and at the same time tried to recall the voice in my mind, going over and over the single word that had been spoken"Wow!"
No, not a Lesbian, I was convinced. Not a female voice, but a feminine-sounding voice. And it sounded strangely familiar.
I tried to place it, while the gasps from inside the room floated into the hallway. There was a lot of moaning, but nothing overly urgent. The pace sounded almost leisurely. Perhaps things were just now getting under way.
About that womanly voice, whose was it? That cop that had been in the other day? He had a voice like that. I couldn't tell, not from the single word that had been uttered.
"You turn me on!" The same voice again.
It wasn't the cop's voice. Too wavery. And yet I was sure I'd heard it before.
"You like that, honey?" It was Greta speaking that time.
"Yeah. You sure got big boobs!"
Lightning flashed across my mind. Sure, I knew that voice. My blood boiled. It was that smart kid, the one I'd met in the forest yesterday. George, he said his name was.
I was frozen. To think that only yesterday the kid had asked me how to go about getting his first piece! And this-well, this wasn't the advice I'd given him, that was for sure. Hadn't I, as a matter-of-fact, said that no mature woman would give him a second look?
I'd like to amend that statement, just for the record.
Some mature woman was giving him a second look. Except that I wasn't sure just how mature Greta Allison was, mentally.
"All the better to play with," the widow replied, in response to the kid's remark about her big boobs. Actually, her breasts weren't all that great. As a matter-of-fact, of all her assets I'd say that her breasts were the least enticing. They weren't small, but not as firm as they might have been. At one time, they'd probably been more attractive.
But you can't explain that to a kid who's seeing real, live, in-the-flesh boobs for the first time.
Anything looks great the first time around.
I stood motionless. The heated sounds of sex surrounded me.
And it was all very hard to picture. A kid-with a forty-some-year-old woman his first time out. God, if only I could have been so lucky.
That's right, I said lucky. Maybe you'd rather do your first bout with some innocent young thing. Not me. The experienced broad, buddy, that's the gal who'll show you where the action's at!
"Oh, baby, honey. You're the youngest boy . . . youngest man I've had in a quarter of a century!" That was a strange way of putting it, but I'd bet it was true.
"You're the oldest woman I've ever had!" I suppose he didn't mean that as an insult. But it sounded that way to me. To Greta-well, evidently she didn't care.
"You'll like older women," she speculated, gasping between words, hissing between syllables.
The oldest woman he'd ever had, the kid had said cockily. Greta knew she was the first woman he'd ever had. And if she didn't know now, the next few minutes would surely tell the story.
Inexperience always shows. No exceptions; always.
As one who savors all new experiences in life, I knew this was going to be interesting.
I wanted to get a closer look.
I tiptoed down the hallway, far enough so that I could look in from the other side of the door. The bed was easily seen. And the two that were atop it.
Best of all, their position gave them practically no chance at all of seeing me, even if they'd been on the lookout for me. And, of course, they weren't. They were too busy staring at each other to notice who or what went on beyond the bedroom doorway.
To them, that doorway was a thousand miles distant. Or maybe it didn't exist at all.
What was even better about my position, I could see their bodies from another enticing angle just by looking into the mirror that hung on the ceiling over the bed.
The mirror had been put there by the late Mr. Allison, Greta had said. Bless his ever-loving soul. That's what I call a far-sighted man.
Back to the action, which was getting more and more fascinating with every passing second.
The kid wasn't naked, not completely. But Greta was. Not a stitch anywhere on her body. The boy had no socks or shoes on, and his chest was bare. But he still clung to his trousers. And, presumably, he had shorts on under that.
But the zipper was down on the front of his pants, and Greta was doing everything possible to bring him delight. He did the same for her. His hands toyed with her breasts as if they were the only part of her body in existence. The globes jiggled with each assault he made with his bold fingers.
He cupped them. Pinched them. Squeezed them. And once he even pinged one! I mean just that-he snapped his thumb against the nipple as if he were shooting a marble.
"Hey, don't!" And Greta's voice whined with disappointment. Evidently she expected her child-lover to have more common sense than that. Patience, Greta, I thought with some amusement, it's what you've got to expect when you rob the cradle!
"I'm sorry," he said. And he sounded like he meant it. And he damned well should have meant it. It was his first piece. And if he blew this, Lord knew when he'd get a second try.
"There are other parts of me," Greta said coyly.
A flush appeared on the lad's face. More than anything else he wanted to explore new territories. And at the same time, he didn't know exactly what those territories consisted of. And if he made the wrong move, he would no doubt be overcome by embarrassment.
"Yeah," he acknowledged. "I know."
"Well?" she insisted, arching herself several inches from the mattress so that her lower privacies were in plain and obvious view. Not that they hadn't been obvious before, it was just that they were presently more available.
Then the youth extended an awkward hand.
"That's it, honey!" the widow gasped. "Take Greta apart, huh? Please! Oh, please, more, more!" And as she wailed, she surged against the youth's questing hand.
Meanwhile, her hand did not alter its frantic pace, as she whipped the young man into a frenzy of jittering movements with his lower portions. She then helped slide his pants off. And after that, his briefs.
What Greta found wasn't impressive. But it was about what you'd expect from a fourteen-year-old. She didn't seem too disappointed, in any event.
As a matter-of-fact she emitted a throaty, "Ah!" and fondled briskly.
"Ah!" the youth, George, repeated after her. "There ain't nothing you don't know, I'll bet!"
"Nothing, lover-boy. Nothing at all! Oh, keep it up, baby!" George kept it up. And Greta kept it up. And together their petting grew more vigorous. You might i say it grew out of hand. That's literally what happened.
Almost at the same moment, both pulled their fingers away and Greta descended on the boy, greeting his lips with a big and sloppy kiss.
She pushed George onto his back, straddled him.
Unconsciously, the boy dabbed fingers to his lips, where the woman had planted the wet kiss. He didn't care for that kind of affection.
There were other kinds of affections that the kid did like, however.
It showed.
The widow's hand stimulated the lad, making excessive, circular motions with her open palm. The boy was burning up inside, if the provocative expression on his y lips meant anything.
His lips quivered. The woman expertly silenced the quiver, smoothing the lips into thrilling compliance with her own.
"Honey, honey," she called into the lad's face. "You turn me on so bad that I can hardly stand it!" And then there was no more working toward the ultimate union. No more striving and playing toward the final connection.
That union, that connection was already completed. She'd done it, Greta had, with one downward plunge. On target. Perfect! As if she had some secret radar or something.
"Oh," wailed the kid, beside himself for the moment.
"Oh, yes," she said. And then only two sets of continuous labored breathing filled the air. Glancing up to the overhead mirror, I got a good view of the way the woman was riding the boy. Exactly like riding a saddled horse.
Her hair, which had been immaculately in place moments earlier, was now deranged. The kid, even though inexperienced, had learned already that running fingers through her hairdo augmented her excitement. And his in the bargain.
She pinned his arms to the mattress. She was getting hotter, infinitely hotter, second by second.
And the kid glared straight into the women's tortured face, and gasped. Then he shifted his eyes from that face, and he stared at her boobs instead. They jostled and swayed above him. And perhaps he would have wanted to reach out and grab them. But, of course, that was impossible, since Greta held him securely against the mattress.
She seemed to go crazy, mastering the boy in this manner. It seemed as if she were getting even with Man by reversing the roles. After all the times that she'd gone through lovemaking, pinned and helpless, this technique allowed her to gain a certain sordid satisfaction.
And as for the kid, well, he didn't know how good he had it. It's a real struggle the first time, having to discover things for yourself, having to seek and find, explore and uncover. I wished that something like that would've happened to me-have a grown woman go through all the motions.
It saves a hell of a lot of embarrassment, that's for sure!
Again I watched the sleek form of Greta. Riding, always riding. Up, down, teeter-tottering. And in a pace that was never altered.
Somehow it thrilled me to see it happening. And somehow it made me sick inside. It wasn't pretty to see a woman so degraded.
In a way I felt like slapping her face, because she was cheapening herself as a woman. And in another way, I felt sorry for her.
She was scrambling up the final hillside, getting ready to conclude her frantic efforts.
But the youth, being young and inexperienced, couldn't wait for her. I knew it was going to happen. I could tell by the straining expression that encompassed his face, as reflected by the mirror on the ceiling.
It was a race now. But the outcome was already decided. It was like coming to the finish line, with one horse leading by twelve lengths. And young George, he was the horse out in front.
Greta realized what was about to happen, I think, and she slowed her pace. An urgent and strange expression she flashed. It was a look very near that of horror!
And then she wailed at him, words coming from between clenched teeth. "Georgie, honey, please wait!"
The boy said nothing, merely stared into her glazed eyes as his body trembled and shot toward her again and again.
Now she raced in a futile effort to get there while he was still with her. George made the last several thrusts with his berserk body, then lay still. It was over.
For him, it was over. But for Greta, no.
She continued to charge down upon him as if nothing had happened. And the kid winced.
And whined, "Stop, stop, please!" But the woman paid no attention. The kid stared up, a state of shock engulfing him. "I can't!" he pleaded. "There ain't no more! Hey, it's over. It's over!"
"No, Georgie," Greta groaned. "Not over. Not yet, but soon. Soon!" Then she screamed, a sound that was echoed and reechoed from the walls and ceiling, a sound bounding off the floor and filling the hallway where I stood. "Now! Baby, baby. Now!"
Skin smacked against skin. The boy wailed his agony at the terrifying maneuvers, but the woman wailed her glee.
Her culmination came quick as a flash of lightning, and soon it ended. She separated from him at once, rolling over to one edge of the mattress.
George was still angry. "What ya want to go and do that for?" A sort of naive question, that was. But Greta felt she owed him an explanation.
So she tried. "I had to, honey. You finished too fast for me. When you grow older, you'll understand."
They lay quietly for several seconds. George said, "You just about killed me, doing that."
"I'm sorry, but wasn't it worth it?"
"I guess."
"And in a little while," she promised, "if s going to happen all over again!" I was sure she meant it, but I couldn't let that happen. Actually, I guess I could let it happen, but I wasn't about to stand in the hallway through another hour of action. It was interesting to watch, the first time.
But the novelty had worn off.
I took two cautious steps toward the doorway, then abandoned all caution whatsoever. So what if they heard me now? I wanted to be heard.
As I neared the doorway, however, I stopped in my tracks. In my haste to get a good position to view the goings-on, I'd not noticed the walls. I could see only the corner of the room where the bed was, against the closet in the background. Until now.
I had expected the walls to be adorned in the same manner that they had been the day before. I'd fully expected to see those sexy pictures on the wall. But they were gone!
Greta had taken the cop's advice, to take the photos down. Maybe she really intended to play sex straight from now on. If you can call an early-morning romp with a fourteen-year-old kid playing it straight!
Well, I was in the doorway then. And any moment they would see me. I stood, looking collected, leaning on the edge of the door, waiting.
"Hey!" the kid shouted, being the first to see me. Instinctively, he picked up his shirt from the mattress and held it over his private parts.
Just as instinctively, Greta did nothing to conceal her nudity. But her face, indeed her whole body, grew gradually red with surprise and embarrassment.
"I thought you said you wasn't married," the kid said, nervously and out of the corner of his mouth.
Greta didn't reply. Now the kid recognized me. Until that instant, he'd only been aware of a man standing in the doorway. Now he saw that it was me, the very person that he'd had the sex-talk with yesterday in the forest
His lips quivered, but he forced them into a partial smile. He didn't know what to expect of me. Would I charge him? Beat him? Would there be bloodshed?
My wrath, what there was of it, was mostly directed toward Greta. It makes me sick to think of a mature woman putting out for a little boy. The kid? Well, I couldn't blame him. I'd have done the very same thing at his age, had I had the chance. And who wouldn't have? Human nature is human, man is man.
"This your old lady, huh?" Still clutching the shirt to his flesh, the boy tried to make himself sound unafraid. But he failed miserably. His voice broke in mid-sentence, quavered.
Before I could assure him that Greta wasn't my old lady, and that I wouldn't have a babe like her for my wife for a million bucks, Greta broke in to change the subject
In reality, I'd had a wife very similar to Greta, though a hell of a lot worse.
"Phil! I don't know what to say!"
"Why don't you cover yourself up," I told her. "You look disgusting."
"I guess I deserve that."
"Phil!" the kid broke in. "You said his name's Phil. How come you told me your name's Peter? Yesterday you're Peter," he went on, wisely musing with the problem, "and today you ain't. Wonder which one it is."
"Phil's my middle name," I lied casually.
"I ain't so dumb as I look, mister. There's been lots of excitement around lately. Some guy killed his old lady. My ma told me all about it. And you know a strange thing? The fella's name was Phillip!"
"A coincidence," I said nervously.
"I think it ain't no coincidence. What was you doing in the woods anyway, an old guy like you?"
All right, so the kid was suspicious. And the more I lied, the more suspicious he was going to get. Damn, damn, double damn, I thought. Another pain in the rear to worry about. Life began to get more treacherous every hour.
"If I'm a murderer," I said, "don't you think your life's in danger?" Maybe my voice had more malice in it than I'd intended. He shuddered against his will.
Then he demanded, his voice quaking, "What you gonna do?"
I shrugged my shoulders, thinking, the threat evident. The kid was scared, there was no doubting that All you had to do was look into his eyes. They were positively terrified. And his hand, the one that held his shirt in front of him, was trembling noticeably.
What would be my best bet? Suddenly I thought of something. Ever since I'd left the scene of the crime, I'd gotten along mostly by instinct, surviving by close calls and mediocre ideas. But this time I really had a brainstorm!
I was proud of myself.
"Greta, I want you to keep the kid there. And stay naked!"
"No!" the boy screamed, jumping to his feet. "You'll kill me! I won't talk, I swear! I ain't never squealed on no one!"
"And I'm going to see that you don't start now," I stated, stepping toward the lad. He had fled into a comer, but was helplessly trapped. I caught him by one arm. The shirt fell to the floor and he wailed.
"Please, mister. Please! I swear! Cross my heart!"
Crossing of hearts might be okay for some, but I had an infinitely more satisfying way of keeping the kid quiet.
I dragged him toward the bed, and when he refused to cooperate, I picked him up and carried him. He wasn't a particularly large kid. About average size and weight for his age. Therefore, it wasn't too difficult, bringing him to the mattress.
"Get on top of him," I ordered Greta.
"What?"
"Don't argue. Just do it." My voice was severe enough that she acted immediately. She put her full weight on the youth, pinning him to the bed. I came over to her and whispered in her ear.
"Those pictures," I said. "There was one of you." I was referring to the nude shot of Greta that had been displayed on the wall yesterday. She'd said that her husband had taken the picture.
She nodded.
"You said your husband took the shot. Is there a camera around here?" I whispered directly into the center of her ear, leaving no chance of my being overheard. Again she nodded. "Where is it?"
She turned her head and positioned herself in such a way to return my whisper. "There's no film."
I turned back to her, returned in a whisper. "I don't care. Just tell me where the camera is!" While this was going on, the boy struggled with all his might in an effort to free himself. He tried repeatedly to cry out, but his yells were somewhat silenced by the weight of Greta upon his stomach.
"In the other bedroom," Greta said aloud this time. "The dresser, top drawer."
"I'll be right back. Just keep him there!"
"What ya gonna do? You gonna kill me?" the kid wanted to know.
"No," Greta soothed, as I left the room. "No one's going to kill you. It'll be all right, you'll see. I won't let him hurt you!"
I had no trouble locating the camera, and returned in a jiffy. I left the camera in the hallway, however. There was no film in the camera, of course, but I had to make the kid think there was. Also, I had to make him think that I'd taken a convincing shot.
And the picture of a woman straddling him wasn't necessarily a convincing shot If the photo showed only fear on the boy's part, then that wouldn't be enough to bribe him with. We weren't dealing in an actual photo, but the make-believe photo had to show what George wouldn't want anyone else to see.
Consequently, the mood had to change. I went into the bedroom calmly, taking a seat in a comer of the room.
Both Greta and George looked at me peculiarly. And I suppose it was rather unusual, for me just to sit there and gaze back at them.
"All right," I said. "Make love!"
"What do you mean?" Greta asked incredulously.
"To make love?" I said cockily. "Oh, you know what it means. Lay. Romp. Tumble. Do you really not know what it means?" I winked at Greta, hoping she'd get the message, "But we just did!" the kid protested as Greta's hands began to do their work on his body. Greta had gotten the message. I didn't really expect her to make love to him again, while I watched. I merely wanted her to bring the kid to a state that was-well, more suitable to my purposes.
"I don't want to!" the kid insisted. And, indeed, Greta's expert massage was having no apparent effect on him. She glanced over her shoulder toward me, seeking advice. I formed a silent kiss with my lips.
She understood!
Hands had failed. So lips, then. I could count the seconds while Greta tried. Exactly how long it would take was purely academic. That something would happen within a given span of time, was obvious. Women do certain things and men react in certain ways.
Thirty seconds, it took. Forty-five at the most.
Fright had gone out of George's eyes. In place of fear was passion. Oh, he was still afraid and uncertain. But that had gone far to the back of his mind. There were more urgent things to be taken care of. His body moved in convulsive arches. Greta kept at him! She really had him turned on!
Three cheers for her!
I went quickly into the hall and grabbed the camera. I turned it on the bed and shouted, "Smile!" Then I flicked shutter. Once, twice, three times. That ought to be enough to make it convincing.
George wanted to protest. But he was too far gone. He squirmed on the bed as if wading through shallow water. And Greta seemed to be carried away with the things she was doing to him.
It made me utterly, completely, irrevocably sick to my stomach. It got me so angry that I wheeled suddenly away from the scene and stalked out of the room.
Greta might have wanted to go through with it. She was probably blazing inside, but prudence overtook her and less than five minutes later she came to the front room where I was sitting, waiting.
She was fully dressed, though her clothing was somewhat disorganized. George, also dressed now, came immediately after her. They both sat on the couch and faced me. It was as if they had come to pay respects to the dead. They hardly breathed.
"What you gonna do with them pictures?" the youth wanted to know, at last breaking the lengthy silence.
"You know who I am," I said. "And I know what you've been doing. How'd your ma like to sea some real photos of you messing around with the widow here?"
That was the whole essence of the idea. If he wanted to say that he'd seen me here, he'd have to think twice. There weren't really any photographs, but I was gambling that just the fact that he thought there were would be enough to keep his lips sealed.
"Messing around? She didn't even finish the thing!" he objected.
"Do we understand each other?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said. "Did you kill the old lady or is it a frame-up?"
"You've been watching too much television," I said. "This is real life. If you're really wanted by the fuzz, it's because you've really done something."
"It don't figure," he countered. "You just don't seem like you done it." He maintained a nervous smile as he spoke.
"Get out of here," I ordered. "If you know what's good for you, you'll keep to yourself for the next couple days. Stay away from the cops, too!" He headed for the door. And seconds later he was gone.
Whether or not the kid would keep his mouth shut, I couldn't say. From the way he'd reacted, the threat of having his mother know how he'd spent the morning would help to keep him silent.
It was a long gamble, but what else could I have done? Kill him? A fourteen-year-old kid who never did anything against me?
Helen was my enemy. I killed her because of what she was doing to my life. And even then, I had to be stoned to do it.
Actually, I think I'd rather face the electric chair than kill anyone else. Especially a kid.
Greta was still sitting on the sofa, looking not at me, but through me. Tears were filling her eyes.
I shook my head slowly, my mind dizzy with the memories of all that had just happened. The look I gave her was a blend of pity and disgust.
CHAPTER 9
"W HAT'S WRONG WITH ME?"
"You tell me," I snapped, not willing to be drawn into the web of pity she was weaving. Her tears flooded her eyes, then overflowed and ran down her face.
She brushed the drops aside.
"It's hard for me to understand myself, am I really that sick? Yesterday, when you found out about me-about the pictures-I thought everything would be normal from then on. And then today. Well, I just got carried away. Don't look at me that way!" She was evidently annoyed by the cornering glance I'd been giving her.
"Carried away," I repeated after her, shaking my head sadly. "Carried away with a kid who can't shave yet!'
"If you think it's so disgusting, why did you have me get him ready for the picture? It was all right when it served your purpose!"
She had a point there. I had been sickened by the scene. And yet when it had served my advantage to enlist her aid, I'd quickly encouraged more love-play.
"You made the first move," I told her. "After that, it didn't much matter. You'd already committed yourself. So if you wanted to be a slut, I don't see why I shouldn't take advantage."
This quarrelsome attitude of mine was going to get us nowhere. I'd come to her place to ask for help-help so that Leslie and I could make an escape.
Argument was not going to make her see it my way.
"So you think I'm a slut!" she half shouted.
I paused, taking a deep breath. "I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean that. It's just that I feel somehow close to you after yesterday. I hate to see you degrading yourself." That was a lie. I didn't feel close to her at all. She was just as much a stranger to me now as she had been a week ago. "You've got a good body, Greta. Surely you can do better than some kid."
Her mood seemed to be changing. I was winning her over with well-calculated statements. Her facial expression softened. The tears diminished. A partial smile formed on her lips.
"That's a compliment," she said.
"Yes, it was intended to be." What I'd said about her body was true. For a woman over forty, she had great assets.
I really thought she could do better. She could lure a lot of men, and there was no reason for her to be playing around with little boys.
Greta must have realized that. "It's all come about so suddenly," she explained. "After two years, you rally go ape. I think I've got it out of my system now. From now on, it's just going to be a normal amount of sex for me. I'll move into town!" She said that as if the idea had just occurred to her for the first time. And she spoke as if she were making sounds only for herself, as if I weren't present in the room. "I'm going to do it. I've punished myself long enough. And for what?" Then she seemed to become aware of my presence again.
"How does four times a week sound?" she asked.
"Sounds about right," I answered. And just when I thought she had bridged the road back to sanity, she blew up.
I mean she went into a fit of nonsense. She stood up quickly. She walked over to the chair where I sat. "No!" she shouted. "I don't want to be normal! Can't you see that? Georgie, oh, Georgie!" And she clutched her arms about herself, as if actually cradling the youth that had been in her arms a few minutes earlier.
How do you figure it? One minute she sounds normal, the next she flies off her rocker. It just plain scared me. I thought she was going to flip her wig completely.
Then, just as suddenly as she'd gone crazy, she became calm and ostensibly normal.
"I'm sorry. I just don't know what happens to me sometimes." She seated herself on the arm of my chair and looked searchingly into my eyes.
"I'm really sick, huh? Tell me the truth. I'm really nuts?" Tears came again into her eyes, but she fought against them and they were contained.
"You need help," I told her flatly.
"You can help me."
"No. You need professional help, Greta." She ran her fingers through my hair, like a little girl might do while sitting on the lap of her father. In fact, she did leave the arm of the chair and perch herself squarely in my lap.
That made the father-daughter image complete.
"You can help me more than anyone else," she pouted, her mood changing again. "You're the only one who understands me."
That was ridiculous. I didn't understand her one little bit. I told her so. "I'm afraid you're wrong about that, Greta. I don't understand you."
"I was really a bad girl! Do you still love me?" Wow! One surprise after another. What part was she trying to play now? I guess the father image was really what I was to her at the moment.
Instead of denying that I loved her, I nodded my head slowly as she gazed imploringly at me. "You were a bad girl," I agreed. I didn't know how else to talk to her. Whether or not I would've made a good psychiatrist is something I'll never know.
But the best thing I could think to do at the moment was just to act toward her the way she was acting toward me. She was acting a little girl, hence I acted her father.
"You won't scold me any more?" she questioned in a high-toned, tear-choked voice.
"I won't scold you any more," I said.
She asked, "And do you still love me?"
"I never loved you, Greta." My voice was soft, almost soothing. But what I said was the cold truth. Some way or another, I had to bring the woman back to reality. Her fantasy bubble wasn't going to be broken as long as I kept playing games with her.
She sat up straight in my lap. "What did you say?"
"I said I didn't love you. My name's Phil, remember? I just met you yesterday." I told her more of the painful facts, then. I began by telling her what year it was, then I detailed for her what she'd done minutes earlier. And finally I told her to snap out of it.
And she did. Temporarily.
She said, "You're mean, Phil. So terribly, horribly cruel!"
"Why, because I told you the truth."
"Don't you think I knew what the truth was."
"Did you?"
"Yes," she replied somewhat emphatically, getting off my lap and pacing up and down on the carpet before me. She made several needless gestures before she began to speak again.
"You see, Phil, I know far more about myself than you think I do. You think you can sit there and analyze me. You already figured out that I'm a sick person. And you're so very right, lover. I am! I know that I'm a sick chick, as I've been called in the past.
But there's things you don't know, lover. So I'll tell you."
I wasn't really that interested. Maybe she had some sad story to tell. Let her bend someone else's ear. Me? My life was in danger, and I didn't feel like I had a lot of time to waste.
But, through courtesy, I shrugged my shoulders and she continued.
"Have you ever been raped?" she wanted to know. Of course I'd never been raped, not the way she meant. And the question required no answer. I simply stared blankly back at her, waiting for her to say more. "You know what it's like to be raped, don't you, Phil? You read about it every day in the newspaper." Then she shook her head slowly from side to side. It was dramatic, I'll say that. But I was slightly annoyed. What was this all leading up to, anyway?
"No, baby. Oh, no. You don't know what it's like to be raped. You don't even have the slightest idea. But I'll tell you what it's like, Phil. It's like walking home from a high-school dance, when you're only a sophomore. You're walking down a street you've walked hundreds of times. It's a nice neighborhood, and there's no danger. Except on this night there's a blackout-you know-power failure."
She continued to pace, seldom looking at me as she spoke. Obviously she wasn't talking about an experience that had happened to just anybody. She was relating something real, something that had happened to her. Because of this, she gave up the phony way in which she had begun to relate the happening. Now, instead of the impersonal "you" this and "you" that, she forgot and began telling it the way it actually was.
"A man pulled up. Nice fellow. You know, well-shaven and he had on a business suit. Real doll, he was. He asked if I wanted a ride. Normally I would've said no. But, on a whim, I said okay.
"He took me home, parked right in the driveway. My parents were gone. Gone getting drunk downtown, I suppose. For some stupid reason, I asked him in. I knew my folks would have a fit if they caught me, but, well . . . I just asked him in for coffee, that's all. I'll always remember the way he was sitting, in my father's favorite chair, when I brought the coffee in to him. His legs were crossed and there was an expression on his face. God, I don't know how to explain it. It was the kind of expression you'd expect to see on some religious fanatic, about to go crazy. You know, the kind that use the word of God to kill twenty people?"
I nodded that I knew what she meant, but she couldn't have seen me. She was looking in the other direction, standing still, talking, perhaps, to the sofa.
" 'Come here,' he said. I went to him, but for some reason I couldn't help shivering with fright. He saw that I was afraid, and it seemed to make him happy. A smile, oh, he had such a wicked smile! I didn't even get to the chair before he grabbed at me. He caught me by the dress. I tried to pull away, but he was strong, stronger, much stronger than I was!" Greta wept, but her fluency wasn't altered. She continued briskly to pour out all the details, as if the story had always been kept a secret and now, like a flood, broke through a barrier and spilled from her lips.
"When he pulled me to the floor, I could see the knife in his hand. God, it was ugly! Night after night I wake up screaming. Always, in my nightmares, I see that same knife, right above my face. It points down toward me . . . "
Greta paused and caught her breath. She swallowed once, then continued.
"I tried to cry for help, but he put his hand over my mouth. I was all panicky-and I could hardly breathe! Oh, how I fought him when he started doing things to me. I fought him with all my might, honest. You've got to believe that!" I don't know why she felt that I had to believe what she was telling me. In fact, I did believe her, but why it was so important to her that I did is something I'll never know.
"You do believe me, Phil."
"Yes, I believe you."
"But he was strong, like I said. And after a time, well, I just quit fighting, that's all. It was hell in a way. And still it was heavenly. 'What's the use?' I asked myself. And after that I simply gave in. Completely. And then . . . "
There was a delay of about fifteen seconds before she went on. At first I thought she wasn't going to finish, but then her voice shot through the room. It was a voice far-away, and yet it rang out with the reality of true terror.
"My dad came home," she said. She pronounced each word separately, as if each sound represented a separate tragedy.
"The man ran out of the house. And Daddy just stood there, looking at me disgustedly. I ran into his arms.
" 'Oh, Daddy,' I cried. 'It was so horrible!' I threw myself into his arms, but he didn't hold me. He just pushed me away.
"He said, 'You're a slut, Greta! May the Lord punish you!' I told him it wasn't my fault. I pleaded with him to understand. But he said, T saw you, Greta!' He shook his head. And I remember how tears came to his eyes. It was the first time I'd ever seen him cry. 'You didn't even fight him! You didn't even try!' I remember how he kept saying that over and over again."
Now that Greta had got the whole tale out of her system, her crying diminished. Finally the tears quit coming altogether.
Then, as an epilogue, she added, "They caught the man. It turned out that he was an escapee from a mental hospital. After that my father and I just drifted farther and farther apart. A few years later I just left home. And I've only written him about six letters in all these years.
"Sex repulsed me after that. I stayed clear of it.
Then I met Bob and he brought me around to knowing what life was all about. But it was only Bob for a long while. After he died, the fear of sex somehow returned to me. And then you came along. You showed me the way again. And the kid, Georgie, he showed me the way, too. I just couldn't help myself. You understand, don't you?"
I nodded. I understood that Greta Allison was to be pitied.
But I'd extended enough courtesy to Greta. And too much time already. What had to be done next was far more urgent and pressing, far more a matter of life and death.
"Greta, I need your help!" I hoped that the sudden change of subject wouldn't hurt her feelings. Perhaps she expected me to dwell at length on her personal problems. At another time, under other circumstances, I might have done just that.
Today my life was at stake.
"Yes," she said, shaking her head violently from side to side. "You have problems too." And then, after coming over and sitting in my lap again, she added, "What is it you want, Phil?"
"Do you know Leslie, the girl who lives across the lake?"
"Yes, of course. What about her."
"You might as well know, there's something between us."
"So I've heard. Even though I don't get around too much, I manage to keep up on the tastiest tidbits of gossip. It's love, this thing you have between you?"
"Yes." I said the word quickly. It was love between Leslie and me. And I was proud of it, proud to admit it to anyone who asked.
"Why should I help you?" she snapped. I was somewhat surprised by her degree of irritation.
"I didn't say you should," I corrected. "I merely asked if you would."
"You did not! You said you needed my help; that's exactly what you said. You can go to hell! Don't beg me for help." There it was again! A complete change of character in an amazingly short period of time. I wondered how long Greta would keep up this mood-a-minute bit.
Maybe I could beat her at her own game.
"Why don't we go to bed?" I asked, as she was about to say something else, something that undoubtedly wouldn't have been complimentary.
She froze, her mouth half open, the words dying in her throat. "What did you say?"
"Why don't we go to bed?" I repeated.
She adjusted herself, working her fanny more securely into my lap. "Yes, Phil," she gurgled. "Oh, yes, baby! Do you really want to?"
"I said so, didn't I?" I began to work my hands deliberately along her thighs. "There is one condition, though."
"What?" She got from my lap, but only for a second. Then she was down again, facing me this time while her knees straddled to either side of my legs.
"We go to bed. Then you help me. Deal?"
She didn't answer. She fairly leaped from my lap and vanished down the hallway. I was a bit stunned by that action, but after a few moments' thought, I got up and followed the trail she had just blazed.
It led straight to the bedroom.
That wasn't a surprise. But the rapidity with fhich she'd divested herself of her clothing was rather surprising. She was bare as an oak tree in the winter, when all the leaves have left the limbs.
The limbs? Well, her limbs could do well without leaves, anyway: her legs were straight and held in a wide V, her arms rested above her head. It was the classic pose of a wanton.
"Come to me, Phil," she whispered.
A bargain was a bargain. I guessed that this meant she was taking me up on the deal. And it didn't take a hell of a lot of brains to come to that conclusion.
I went to her.
"Take me, honey!" she gasped. "Take me and make me go!"
So I did as she begged. I got most of my clothes out of the way in a jiffy. And without touching, kissing, or even offering a kind word, I began taking her. That, believe me, was the way she wanted it How could I tell? Well, when a babe hisses words and drools into your ear when she isn't even trying tothat's your first clue. And clue number two is when she lets loose with a wail that ricochets from wall to wall while her whole lower body goes into ad-lib contortions.
That's the way it was with Greta. Her heels pounded the mattress. Jungle drums in the sex-jungle! Her eyes flashed up toward the ceiling. They glimpsed the mirror and watched with fascination as my body worked her over.
She was putting out like sex was in season. It was getting to be one of the finest romps I could ever remember. Twist, lurch, listen to her screams.
"God, Phil! Phil! Phil!" That's what she kept saying over and over, but maybe it wasn't my name she meant, as I neared conclusion.
Conclusion for her came twice. Once just after our union was secured. Once as I was just about to spin with her into the nameless oblivion of fulfillment.
For her, twice. For me it never happened.
A knock at the door. A hard, masculine knock. And it was authoritative and demanding. Of all the damn, rotten luck!
Thoughts of sex vanished from my mind. Panic replaced pleasure. I separated from her and stepped into my clothes in abundant haste.
"It might be the cops," I told her. "Go answer the door."
CHAPTER 10
And, INDEED, IT WAS the cops.
Greta got hurriedly into the clothes she'd haphazardly strewn about the room. I positioned myself by the back door, ready to make a getaway, should that become necessary. Greta went to the front door, opened it.
It was the same two policemen who'd been around the day before. I was plainly getting fed up with running into the same pair all the time.
They apologized for bothering her again, then the one with the manly voice got right to the point.
"We have reason to believe he's (meaning me) still in the area. Guy down the road-maybe you know him, Wes Benson-was tied up when he refused to aid the fugitive." I liked the way he referred to me as the fugitive. It sounded real classy. That was both good and bad news at the same time. Good, because I didn't want to see Wes die of starvation while tied to a chair. Bad, because now the heat was really on me-even more so than before.
Wes had no doubt divulged all sorts of things. Like the fact that I was destined to contact Leslie. They had already suspected that. But now they knew for sure.
At the time my life depended largely on how wellor how poorly-the widow answered the questions that were about to be thrown at her.
"Have you seen or heard anything suspicious?" the cop asked.
"No. Nothing." She could have tried to be more convincing. Her tone was suspicious-or, at least, it sounded that way to me. But then, I knew she was lying, so maybe I was interpreting things from a different angle.
"We're going to have to look around again."
Oh, hell, I thought. Here we go again!
With excessive caution, I opened the back door and slipped out. Rather, with what I thought was excessive caution at the time. As it turned out, I had erred.
The very second I opened the door, a gust of wind swept in, rattling windows slightly. Fortune, it seemed, just wasn't on my side any longer.
"The back door," one of the fuzz shouted, nearly at the top of his lungs. I began running.
I made it to the shelter of the woods just as I heard the door open. There was no pause between the time the door slammed shut and the sound of their approaching footsteps.
"I can hear him!" one of the pursuers yelled. "He's over that way!" Then he screamed after me, "Come on out, we want to talk to you!"
That was the strangest thing I'd ever heard. Two cops chasing me, willing to send me to the electric chair if they caught me, and what do they say? "We want to talk to you!"
At the time it seemed like the wildest line I'd ever heard.
Consequently I just kept running. It occurred to me that they hadn't fired any shots in my direction. That was puzzling. But I didn't have a lot of time to think about it at the time. Luckily, I had enough of a lead on them. I used evasive running tactics-the sort of weaving pattern that a halfback might use when feeling his way into the open field.
Because I knew in what direction I was headed at any given moment, whereas they didn't, I managed to expand my lead a few yards at a time. Within minutes I could no longer hear their shouts, and their footsteps ceased to echo from tree to tree.
It was only then that I paused to rest.
And it was then that I wondered why no shots had been fired at me. Perhaps they just didn't feel they had a chance of hitting me. It was a small miracle.
I leaned against a tree trunk to rest. And if for a moment I'd thought the danger had passed, I was in for an unpleasant surprise.
The surprise came in the form of George, the kid who'd just made it with the widow scarcely an hour ago.
"How'd you find me?" I asked, looking at him. He stood ten yards away and pointed a gun at me. At first I was going to laugh at the gesture, thinking it was the BB gun. Not that BB guns don't hurt, but the idea of the kid trying to stop me with such an insignificant weapon was somewhat humorous.
But I didn't laugh.
The rifle he held was a twenty-two!
"I've got ways." he answered. "Now how 'bout you handing over them pictures?"
"I don't have the pictures."
"You know what I mean! The film. Give me the film or I'll kill you now. Just like you done to your old lady!" Evidently I'd really scared him with the threat of showing photos to his mother. If I'd had the shots, I'd have handed them over in one second flat, since the kid looked like he meant business. And being as immature as he was, I shuddered to think of his fingers squeezing just a little too tightly on the trigger. Probably he hadn't had a lot of experience with guns. And I certainly didn't care for the menacing manner in which he gripped the rifle-he might just shoot me by accident.
"Easy there, kid," I cautioned, placing one hand forward and spreading it across his line of fire as if my hand were able to stop the bullet. "I don't have the film."
"Yeah? Where is it?" His voice was filled with disbelief. You couldn't blame him. After threatening him the way I did, it didn't make sense that I'd walk out without the film.
But, in fact, there was no film. And it was my job to convince him of that if I wanted to go on living even a little while longer.
"There never was any film."
"Maybe I ain't had as many women as you have, but I ain't crazy either." That was a rather rhetorical statement, but it didn't help my position any. What I had to do was convince him within the next thirty seconds, if possible. I could vaguely hear footsteps in the distance. And they were coming my way.
The lead I'd had on the cops was diminishing with terrible swiftness. Something had to be done in a big hurry.
"Look, kid. Hear those footsteps."
"Yeah, I hear 'urn."
"It's the cops."
"That's your problem, not mine." He aimed the gun even higher. It now pointed directly at my head.
I shivered in spite of myself. "If they catch me, they get the pictures, too." Since he obviously wasn't going to believe me, I might just as well take advantage of that fact. Maybe he'd be too scared of the cops recovering photos of him to risk letting me get captured.
No such luck.
"I don't care. It's better if the fuzz get the pictures, as far as I see it. They ain't gonna show them around at my house. But you are."
Talking to him was getting nowhere.
I can't remember ever doing anything quite so gutsy in my whole life. I dived for the rifle! And it was pointed squarely between my eyes. Fortunately he was stunned by my action. And his reactions were slow.
He fired, but the shot went above my head, ricocheted off the tree behind me. I grappled with him, but it was a rather short struggle. Once I'd taken the rifle away from him, I pinned his arm behind his back.
"Give me the rest of the bullets!" I demanded. Pained, he managed to extract the ammunition from a pocket and hand it to me. I let go of him and ran.
There were muffled shouts as the officers approached the area where the shot had been fired. But, as before, I had an ample head start.
And what was better, this time I held a gun.
While I ran I tried to think. It was nearly impossible but, bit by bit, I brought the whole problem into focus.
The police were onto me now. There could be no more skipping from house to house, no more hiding in closets, no more tying people up, no more blackmailing kids.
The big move was needed now.
It all centered around Leslie. I threw caution out the window. No matter which course of action I chose, there was grave risk involved. So what if I'd managed to escape capture for more than a day? Where was I now? Right back where I started from, that's where. Right in the forest, running and being chased. And my getaway with Leslie seemed as impossible as it ever had. More so, in fact, since they now had her staked out and were sure I'd go to visit her sooner or later.
But I had one thing on my side. Leslie herself. She'd agreed to help the cops by signaling when I arrived. If the police believed her, it was to my advantage. Leslie, of course, would no more cooperate with the police in my capture than knife her own mother.
But that was something the cops didn't understand.
So, I had to go back to Leslie's house. I had to go back now. And somehow, together, Leslie and I had to master the impossible.
I stumbled out of the woods and onto an unpaved roadway. On the other side, the forest continued. Before crossing, I looked in both directions. I was about to dart across when I heard a distant rumble. I gazed far down the unwinding road. Gradually a truck came into view.
It was a milk truck! And I knew exactly where it was going. Every morning it would make the usual stops. My house. Wes Benson's house. The widow's house. And the house next door. And finally.
Yes, finally, Leslie's cottage!
An idea crossed my mind like a lightning bolt. I jumped out in front of the truck. The brakes squealed. Creaking with age and insufficient lubrication, the vehicle came to a stop.
The driver looked down on me as I came around to the driver's side. I knew him. His name was Mike or Mark or something. He recognized me at once. But instead of widening, his eyes narrowed with the recognition.
Yes, he knew who I was, all right. He knew I was a murderer. And he knew that I was wanted. Probably he'd been told to keep a lookout for me, to report anything unusual.
"Hello," was all he said. And even that single word, though outwardly friendly, was swallowed with fear.
"Hello, Mark," I said cautiously. If that wasn't his name, it was just too bad. There wasn't time for quibbling over details and specifics. "You won't mind getting out, will you? I'm going to have to use your truck for a while."
Mark took one look at me, then one look at my rifle.
And then he said, "Yes, sir! Whatever you say!" And he was down from the truck in a jiffy. I thought of tying the fellow up. But, I thought, the hell with it. It would take him a good fifteen minutes to run back to where he could summon help. By that time I would be out of the area, past the roadblocks, the way I had it figured. I looked him over once again. He was getting on in middle-age, frail, skinny. I reevaluated my estimate. It would take him fully a half hour to get to help, if he continued along the road. Of course, if he stumbled through the woods, he might come across the widow's house. But he didn't know his way around in there and he was as likely as not to get himself good and lost.
Maybe this is all rationalization. Maybe I simply didn't want to tie him up. No one might ever find him. And I'd have two murders on my hands. Had I been truly ruthless, I would have done just that. But down deep inside, I'm a fairly compassionate sort.
I'd let him go and take my chances.
I got up into the driver's seat, laid the twenty-two on the floor to my side. I shoved the truck into gear and threw off clouds of dust as I accelerated. There was so much dust, in fact, that when I looked in the mirror, I could scarcely see the milkman a hundred yards behind.
The idea that formed in my mind, as I drove the nearly three miles to Leslie's house, was this:
I'd leave the truck parked a good distance up the road. I'd sneak up to the cottage, gaining entrance through the unhinged window. I'd explain everything to Leslie. Then we'd sneak out, using the same window, and go to the truck. I'd use whatever make-up would help conceal my identity (Leslie was pretty good at that sort of thing), and with luck, we'd go through the roadblocks without difficulty.
It was a desperate plan. But it was a plan devised by a desperate man. Me, namely.
And what were the chances of succeeding?
One in ten thousand, maybe. But it was better than none in ten thousand. A hell of a lot better!
The road jutted right about a quarter of a mile ahead. From there, it was only a quarter of a mile more to Leslie's. I eased up to the curve, then parked off the road shoulder. As soon as I got out, I began running toward the cottage, using the woods. It would've been sheer folly to use the roadway.
Twice, along the way, I paused to listen for sounds of danger. Normally, I would have paused time and again, and the quarter mile would have taken half an hour to cover. But there wasn't time for such precautions now. The milkman was no doubt making his way toward civilization at this very moment.
I covered the last hasty yards toward the cottage window.
And without making a lot of noise, I worked the glass from the hinges and climbed into the bedroom.
Placing the window back in position, I caught my breath. At that moment I didn't know that I was about to experience the most heart-shattering occurrence in my entire life. . .
CHAPTER ll
As A PRECAUTIONARY MEASURE, I kept the rifle in my hands. It would be just my luck, putting it down at the very instant that the police walked in.
I looked about the bedroom, assuring myself that no one was in the room with me. No one was. It was only a three-room cottage, so if Leslie was home, I had only two more chances of finding her.
Lord! If she wasn't home, what then?
But I heard a voice from the other room. It was Leslie's voice.
"Keep still a minute," she was saying. "Let me!" I couldn't imagine what the words meant. And I had no idea who she was talking to, but I had to find out immediately. And somehow I had to let Leslie know I was there, without being discovered by whomever her guest was.
I tiptoed to the doorway. There was a tiny hallway with two doors adjoining. One led to the kitchen, the other to the front room.
I could hear faint sounds of breathing, then Leslie again. "Just like that!" She emphasized the word, that, as if it meant something like presto or magic. Yeah, that's exactly how I interpreted it-as if she were saying, "Just like magic!"
It was all very strange. But at least I'd located the source of the voice. It came from the front room.
I don't know what was the matter with me. It's hard to know how I could've been so blind. But when a strange, feminine voice said, "I'm going to go!" I felt instantly at ease. The guest was going home, and that was all very well.
Then I took two cautious steps to the doorway and looked into the room.
And that's when my head started swimming. At first I thought No-no it can't be. But it was! And realization flooded my mind all at once.
All the trips into town, needless trips she kept taking. The night of the party, when I'd killed Helen. Where had Leslie gone? Wes had said she'd gone for a walk with a woman. But she'd tried to deny it when I'd questioned her. And what had Wes said that night? He'd told me to watch it. He'd said something about Leslie not being normal. Oh, he'd been half-joking, of course, but he'd been half-serious, too. That was the tragic part of it.
The fact that it was serious.
The fact that it was true! Leslie was a Lesbian!
I remembered, as I stood numb and dazed in the doorway, how Helen had chanted my beloved's name. "Les, Les, Les!" she'd insisted childishly when I'd informed her that the name as Leslie.
Yeah, so many hints I'd had all along. And yet I'd remained blind to all the evidence.
Now I was forced to face the truth the way it really was. Leslie was sprawled on the rug. Another woman was upon her. It was a woman I'd never seen before. And yet I recognized her instantly.
How? By her boobs, that's how. It was just as simple as that! Remember that painting I told you about? The one with the female bust. It was so lifelike that I could have sworn it was real. Well, I was looking at those very same breasts now.
And they belonged to the woman hovering over my love.
My mind kept saying, Leslie, Leslie, don't do this! Not to me! Not to us! And yet I stood frozen, petrified by what I was seeing. Even if I willed myself to move, movement was wholly impossible.
"Oh, Susan," Leslie gasped as the other woman lowered one of those glorious breasts. Leslie reached up and with expert fingers fondled the globe.
Then they came together, Leslie lying flat on her back, Susan mashed full-length on top of her. Their bodies slowly, delicately moved against one another, sliding on slippery droplets of mutual sweat. Neither had on a stitch of clothing! Consequently, there was nothing at all to hinder their bodies as they moved against each other. As if they were buttered, I thought incredulously.
Besides the images of the bodies, besides the vision of the incredible thing that was happening, other thoughts engulfed my mind.
Leslie! The worst of all possible tragedies had befallen her. And yet I still loved her. I loved her no less than ever before! Doesn't that make sense to you? Well, to me it made good sense. I loved her because she was sick and needed me.
And yet there was nothing I could do for her. I was merely a man on the run, trying to keep one step ahead of the law. She needed professional help, probably. But no matter what she needed, I loved her. That's all that seemed important.
Still watching, I had to fight back the tears that threatened to fill my eyes. I couldn't let that happen. Crying wasn't the sort of thing that would help me. And even though I did fight against the tears, several came. I wiped them away, mad at myself for letting them come. Then I focused my attention upon the activity that was going on only ten feet from where I stood.
I wanted to break it up; and yet I couldn't I knew I had to make a getaway with Leslie fast. I knew that it would be only a matter of minutes before the milkman notified the police. But somehow it didn't matter.
It seemed as if my whole world was evaporating before my eyes. Did Leslie really love me? All her talk about marriage-did she really mean any of it? Was I just an affair to her? Just a fling?
I felt like crying out, "Come in and get me, cops! You can take me now!" But I said nothing. Like the rest of my body, my lips were frozen also. In a way, I wanted to lift the rifle that hung by my side. I wanted to take careful aim and blow out the brains of the woman, Susan.
But there was no real hate within me. It was all pity. Pity for Leslie? Sure. But mostly self-pity.
And suddenly I could do nothing except stare blindly at what was happening before me. And while I stared, I continued to battle all the tears that persisted in coming.
Now the pair was scaling up the road to ecstasy. They were no longer positioned the way they had been -Susan on top, Leslie on the bottom. They were still clamped as tightly together as ever. But now they were side-by-side. Still hot. Still squirming. Their lips were glued.
It was awful.
Susan held both of Leslie's hands and clamped them tight to the carpet. It was the traditional position of man and woman. So natural in a way. But so very depraved!
There was abundant friction, but all of it was caused by energetic body movements. Their hands, as I said, were clinging to each other's hands.
From a distance, the couple might have looked very much tike a normal man-woman pair making love. But there was one obvious difference. In the middle of their torsos was an immense pile of boobs. Squashed together as they were, the pile of flesh appeared inhuman.
"I can't take this much longer!" Leslie wailed.
"You won't have to, love. I want to, real soon." And those were the only words exchanged for the time being. They immediately returned to the work at hand. Their bodies pressed, plunged, churned. So expert it looked. So practiced!
Not like man and woman at all. No! There was far more grace. At times their movements were leisurely. And then, the very next instant, they'd prance. And they did this in perfect unison. Spring and buck for an instant, then retire to smooth and careful strokes. It was art, that's what it was. Art like only an artist could create. And, after all, Leslie was an artist.. .
"No more!" cried Susan with authority. "No more, please!" And after that, there was no more. No more of the same, that is. But there was other activity instead. And somehow it seemed infinitely more satisfying to both of them.
It began when they tore apart, an act which, in itself, must have required the utmost of will power. They kneeled about two feet away from each other. But the gap between their bodies closed, like some mysterious magnet was pulling them back together again. They kissed once shortly, then a second, passionate time. Next Susan began caressing the other's body with expert fingertips.
About two minutes of that and Susan's lips traced the paths that her fingers had just blazed. The lips traveled along the belly, down to the ankles, up a little until they journeyed barely above the knees. When Susan reached that sensitive area, Leslie began to hiss involuntarily. And while hot breaths escaped from between her teeth, her thighs quivered.
Susan then straddled the other, kneeling on the carpet with one knee on either side of Leslie's shoulders. That position left the aggressor's body open to mutual homage. Thus, Leslie reciprocated.
No words then. Just grunts, groans and mysterious verbal glorifications. Two bodies pulsated, and swayed from time to time. It was as if an invisible orchestra were sounding out the rhythm for their lovemaking.
Things grew more intense second by second.
It was Leslie who was first to fly into orbit. Her legs went absolutely crazy, waving in the wind, thumping time and again against the rug. And then it was Susan's turn. Her body was one thrashing, lustful animal. And then it faltered, savored the threshold into oblivion. Suddenly she plunged. That brought her to the quivering climax. All at once eight limbs were flying every which way. Gasps filled the room.
It was a mad, mad scene!
And then came the stillness, the quiet aftermath that contrasted so completely with the action preceding. Their arms clutched one another. And gradually they came to a full state of relaxation-of exhaustion.
Sometime during that interval of recovery, Leslie glanced up. Her eyes flickered darkly as she discovered my presence.
"You!" she hissed.
The deceit of hers, the fact that she was a Lesbian, that I could endure. But it was that one single word, "You!" that turned my heart to ice. I shivered noticeably. She spoke the word as if I were something dirty. I'd expected her to cry out in the shame of being discovered. This reaction came as an absolute surprise.
"Yes, it's me," I said.
"What do you want?" Then she toned her voice down somewhat. "Why did you sneak in here like this?"
I shrugged. I wouldn't have, had I had any idea that this is what would be waiting for me once inside the cottage. "I had to see you."
"Well, you saw me. Do you like what you see?"
I shook my head slowly. "No, Leslie, I don't like what I see."
It was then that the other woman, Susan, turned her head to look up at me. She seemed to be in a state of shock.
She noticed the rifle in my hand, and she screamed. Fortunately it as a scream largely swallowed in her throat. "Who is it?" she asked. Her question was directed toward Leslie.
"It's all right. It's someone I know." Was that all she could say about me? I was just someone she knew. Wasn't I someone she loved as well? Apparently not.
"I asked you who he is!" the other persisted. Her womanly hands made fists. Huge amounts of jealousy flashed across her eyes. The effect was downright frightening.
"A friend. That's all."
"No," I interrupted. "It's me, Leslie. I'm more than a friend. Don't you remember?" My voice was weak. My heart fluttered with agony. The tragedy was too much to endure.
She didn't answer me.
But Susan glared into my face, then glanced back toward Leslie. "You," she stammered. "With a man?"
"It was nothing, I tell you. It was nothing at all! He was nothing to me, Susan. You've got to believe me. Please, please!" And with that, Leslie flung herself into Susan's arms.
And she wept.
CHAPTER 12
I COULDN'T BELIEVE WHAT
I was hearing!
She'd said I didn't mean anything to her. What had she been talking about all that time, then? All that time when she'd continually assured me that I meant everything to her?
The way my whole body began to shiver with mental anguish, you'd have thought it was zero degrees in the house.
I finally managed to move. Briskly, I walked up to the pair of embracing women and pulled them apart. They looked at me with eyes that refused to recognize my existence.
"What are you telling me, Leslie?" I asked, my words soaked with sadness.
"I never loved you, Phil. Never." She began crying now. "I said so, I said that I loved you because I was so afraid of losing you."
"If you didn't love me, why were you afraid of losing me?"
"There was never a man in my life, Phil. You believe that, don't you, Susan?" The way she turned her head from one to the other of us, I wasn't sure which of us she intended to explain herself to. "And then he came along." Leslie was addressing Susan now. It was as if I weren't even in the room.
"I never loved him. I swear!"
"Then, why?" the other wanted to know.
"Because he turned me on. But that's all it was, just a fling. I never quit loving you!" Such hurt was going through my brain! Such awful, incomprehensible hurt!
How could Leslie be saying this? And how could she stand there and say it all without tact, so heartlessly?
"Stop, Leslie!" I whined. "Tell her it isn't true. You don't have to be afraid of her. I won't let her hurt you. Just tell her the truth. Please, Leslie. I love you!" And in that blackest minute of my life, I was no longer a man. I was merely a child nearly crying, begging, begging . . .
"Oh, shut up!" Leslie said sharply. And there was no love in her tone. Not even compassion. Not even sympathy.
I was being torn apart inside, and she couldn't even afford me a meager bit of sympathy!
Then Susan turned to Leslie and spoke softly. "Don't let him bother you. I forgive you, baby. I forgive you. Will you promise never to cheat me again?"
"I promise," sobbed my loved one. And with that, she flung herself back into Susan's arms.
"Leslie!" I pleaded. "Tell me why. Why did you want to hurt me like this? Why did you pretend?"
"It was just physical," she explained coldly, talking against Susan's shoulder. "I could never, never love a man!" The last word was said as if it were something vulgar, something dirtier than anything else on the face of the earth.
"But you said you loved me," I persisted dazedly. "You said, you said . . . " For a moment I'd lost all control over myself. And tears flooded and flowed, filling my eyes, pouring down my cheeks. I wasn't a very masculine sight at the moment.
But that didn't matter. Because looking at the pair entwined before me-they didn't make a very feminine sight, either. Leslie pulled herself away from the other woman. Casually, quite calmly, she walked toward the window.
There was a peculiar glaze in her eyes. It was a glaze very similar to the one I'd noticed in the eyes of the widow. Was Leslie going out of her mind, too? I didn't know. But all of a sudden, I realized what she was doing.
She had walked over to the shutters. And she was just about to open them! If she did that, it would be the pre-arranged signal to the cop across the road. I lurched across the room, grabbed her before she could make her move. It wasn't so much that I dreaded being captured. It was just the idea of being betrayed by Leslie in that manner. I couldn't let that happen.
My entire existence as a fugitive had been geared toward Leslie. My only desire to escape, from the very beginning, had been to escape with Leslie. If that was no longer possible, I had no more desire to keep running.
But it seemed strangely important that I allowed myself to be taken on my own.
"Let me go!" she shrieked. "I was just opening-"
"I know what you were doing. You were letting the cops know where I am."
"Is that him?" Susan broke in. "He's the one who killed his wife!" Her voice was filled with sudden terror. And before I could move to stop her, she darted toward the front door and ran outside, screaming.
I could have made a feeble attempt at getting away. But I didn't. Nothing seemed important any more.
I faced Leslie. She didn't speak, but her face was changing.
It was now less hostile than it had been moments before.
I said, "I still love you, Leslie."
"Yes, I know you do. Oh, Phil, why did it have to get so involved? Why couldn't we just have had a fling, and then called it off?"
"Did you want to call it off? Is that why you seemed so cool toward the idea of my getting a divorce?"
"Yes. At first I really thought I needed you. You were the first man I ever got any feeling out of. It was a great, new experience. And at the time I wanted it to go on forever. I never loved you, Phil. That's the truth. You made me say those things. You made me say I wanted to marry you."
Though stunned, I remembered. Perhaps Leslie was right. Perhaps I had led her into saying things she didn't really mean.
"Did you ever feel anything for me? Anything at all?"
"For a while, maybe. But even then, you were always second to Susan."
"I did it for you," I said. "You did what for me? Killed Helen."
"Yes."
She broke into violent, uncontrollable laughter. Her whole body heaved with the force of it. "You silly, silly child!" she said. But when she quit laughing, there was no trace of humor in her eyes.
There was pain though. And then she repeated, "You poor, silly baby!"
"What do you mean?"
"You killed Helen because of me! That must be the laugh of the century." Suddenly her eyes turned wicked. Then she continued, "You didn't even kill Helen. I did!"
Absurd! What the hell was she talking about?
"Did you hear me, Phil? I said I killed your wife." And when I stood, too shocked to utter a single word, she said, "You don't even remember killing her. Do you? No, because you didn't do it. I was down by the lake when you two came running out of the house. She was calling your name. You were chasing her, and you had a knife in your hands. But you passed out on the lake shore. So I took the knife from your hands and killed her. It was simple as that."
"But why?"
"Because I wanted you to go to jail!" Her voice was rapid, she whined out the details. Now she was screaming. "I hated you! Can't you see? I didn't want you any more. And I couldn't break it off because you kept making me say I loved you and wanted to marry you. Oh, Phil, you were just like a leech!"
My head was swimming in a pool of confusion. Of course, I hadn't really remembered the actual murder. But I'd remembered running down the hill in a drunken state, chasing Helen toward the lake. And then I'd waked up the following morning. I'd been there with a knife in hand. And Helen had been cold and dead.
It had all seemed so very obvious.
Until now.
"Where are you going?" I shouted after Leslie, as she went toward the back door. No answer.
Out the door, into the open she ran.
And I followed. As I flew through the back door, the front door opened with a thud. It had evidently been kicked open by the policeman who now shouted, "Stop!"
But I did not stop. I had only one thing in mind as I chased Leslie. Catch her before she got where she was going. And I knew exactly where she was going. We were going through grove after grove of oak trees, heading from the cliff that overlooked the lake.
Desperately, I ran after her. Far behind me, I heard the cop approaching. And then I tripped over a log that had been concealed by a forest of weeds. I hit the ground face-down. My forehead struck the edge of the log and I was momentarily dazed.
The cop caught up with me.
"She's going to kill herself!" I gasped, knowing what I said was the ugly truth.
"Come on," he ordered. "Get up and keep ahead of me.
He pointed a revolver. I staggered to my feet and ran as fast as I could, keeping always in front of the cop. The blow on my head was causing me to become awkward and dizzy. But still I kept my legs moving.
We reached the top of the cliff and halted. There, forty yards distant, Leslie stood, a lone figure looking down upon the rocky shore of the lake. From the top of the cliff to the rocks was a distance of about one hundred feet. Down!
"Don't do it, Leslie!" I called.
"Go away!" was her only answer.
For fifteen minutes, it was a standoff. By that time others had arrived. There were then six cops on the scene, and Susan.
Susan took her turn pleading with Leslie.
"I love you!" she kept shouting out to the woman on the edge of the cliff. But Leslie merely ignored her.
The police tried their best to persuade her to reconsider. But to no avail.
Somewhere in the midst of the ordeal, one of the cops came over and stood directly beside me. It was the cop with the deep voice. Glen, his name was, if I remembered correctly.
"Can you do anything?" I asked him.
"We're trying."
"I didn't kill my wife," I told him, expecting some reaction from him. But all he said was, "I know. Did she do it?" I nodded.
"We didn't know who it was until now. But we knew it wasn't you. Your wife had strands of hair matted underneath her fingernails. It was long, blonde hair!" He paused. "We tried to get you to stop this morning. Don't you remember? We said we wanted to talk to you. But you ran off before we could explain." So that was why they hadn't fired any shots at me as I ran.
One officer was making gradual progress toward the cliff. He took a step at a time, pausing, never making a sudden movement. He reminded me of someone out hunting rabbits.
Then Leslie wheeled around and saw him approaching. At the time he was only fifteen feet away. She didn't hesitate. She turned back toward the lake, looked once at the water and rocks below. And she jumped!
"She's dead," the officer, Glen, told me some minutes later. He put his arm about me in a comforting fashion. "I know just how you feel," he said. But he didn't, couldn't possibly know. How could he understand how totally crushed I was inside?
I managed to push the ugly images from my mind, if only for a few seconds. "What's going to happen to me?" I queried.
He shook his head. "Don't really know. You tied up that photographer, but he might not press charges. And you stole a rifle from a kid. Now I hear you stole a truck. If you're real lucky, though, you might get a suspended sentence."
The cop was right. I did get a suspended sentence.
For a while after that, I stayed around the house, seeing nobody. But sooner or later, I'd have to quit mourning.
There was a knock at my door. I opened it. It was Greta.
"Just thought I'd come over and see how you're getting along," she said.
"Come in," I offered, because it was the polite thing to do. I went over to the bar and fixed us drinks.
We sat and chatted idly, but not for long. At first I'd been unhappy to see the woman. But now I glanced at her skirt, hiked up high on her legs. And I decided that it was definitely time to get back into the swing of things.
"You been seeing a lot of Georgie?" I asked sarcastically.
She shook her head. "He hasn't come around."
"Too bad. I'll bet you're really hot for some action!"
"Oh, darling," she gurgled, coming over and placing herself squarely on my lap. "You know it. I've been thinking about you for so long!"
"Let's keep this impersonal," I said. "You've been thinking about it for so long. You haven't been thinking about me at all. Right?"
"All right," she agreed. "I've been thinking about it. And I want it now!" And so I saw to it that she got what she wanted.
I took her into the bedroom, wasted no time.
Within seconds we were going at it like we'd never get a second chance. But, of course, we did get a second chance. And a third and a fourth chance. All in that very same afternoon. Finally, all activities came to an end.
"I guess I'd better be going," she said, after getting into her clothes.
"Why not spend the night?" I asked. I wasn't really fond of Greta, but she'd proved awfully good at love-making. And it got so damn lonely around the house at nights.
"Phillip!" she said sharply. "That would be absolutely indecent!" And even as she spoke, she began unbuttoning the blouse which she had just donned.
