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A Trace Of Sin ....(94k)    by Eric Bartell

"Did you get two men for tonight Norma."

"Sure did, Claire honey. With an added bonus attraction."

"What kind of attraction?"

"The two boys, Bob and Rod are handsome, and quite well endowed in the loving department."

"So what? I know lots of studs. What's different about these two?"

"They are great in bed, like I told you. But besides knowing how to make a woman climb the walls, these two boys are homos. They like each other like they do woman."

"No kidding. Will they put on an exhibition for us?"

"Baby, they'd like nothing better. But first, they have to satisfy us, then they'll satisfy each other and we can watch."

"Wonderful. I've never seen two males making love. I'm curious, and I'm looking forward to tonight. What time should I be at your place?"

"Oh, about seven o'clock. Time to have a few drinks and we can warm up for the grand finale."

Norma put a hand upon one of her soft, generous breasts as she licked her lips in avid anticipation. Claire embraced her lush bodied friend, getting a strange thrill as their full fleshed woman bodies pressed together in close contact.

That evening she drove up to Norma's place happy in anticipation of the sexual romp to come that evening, yet not sure in her mind what her friend meant about warming up before the two stud-bodied guys arrived. She would enjoy a few drinks, but what did she mean about the warming up?

Well, she'd soon find out. Maybe, Claire assumed as she was about to ring the front door bell, she'd show some erotic pictures or pornographic literature, or even possibly, a stag film or two. She wouldn't mind. She was wanton and enjoyed sex in variations. She couldn't get enough eroticism to satisfy her hot, passionate needs.

Norma answered the door dressed in a silken wrap. Claire could see from the way Norma's generous breasts bobbled through the thin gown that her friend was naked beneath.

For some reason, this excited her. True, she was an amoral girl who took erotic pleasure where she found it, which was strictly her own business insofar as she hurt nobody else but herself. Claire suspected that the strange feeling of warmth she got at the sight of Norma's full-blown near-expo:ure, was lesbian in origin. The only loving she ever received from other girls was when a school girl friend of hers once, when they were in the school bathroom after hours, watched Claire lower her panties, to relieve herself. She saw that her friend was eyeing her exposure and she got a warm feeling in letting her. They were both fourteen at the time. She allowed her friend to fondle her and kiss her at the time, Claire's panties down around her knees. Later, they would undress, and fondle each other, until they would experience orgasm. This continued until they dated boys and their girl-loves died away. Claire had not made love to a girl since then.

She and Norma had a couple of tall, strong drinks and she didn't object when Norma undressed her and when Claire was naked, her friend dropped her only garment and embraced her, both of them hotly naked and aroused. Norma kissed her friend as they pressed their bodies together, each fondling the other's buttocks and thighs.

They were really excited, now, very warmed up as Norma had put it before. She took Claire by the hand and let her into a bedroom where, upon a huge bed, lay the two males they were to make the scene with, Bob and Rod. Both of them were naked, and lay close together, arms about each other, sides touching and cheek to cheek.

Both were very aroused erotically and it was obvious they had been making love.

Norma went to Bob and lay on top of him, her full blown nakedness covering his. Claire went to Rod and pulled him to her for a close, naked kiss. Soon they were into the swing of things and both couples were locked in sexual embrace, side by side where they strained and rutted to release, one couple, then the other.

After they were finished, they changed partners in a wanton travesty of lustful sexuality, where they lasciviously connected with their new sex partners, the two depraved women looking at each other as the boys pounded away.

When they had rooted and grunted their pleasure, they removed from the two women and Norma told the fags that they had done their duty and were free to do what they liked, just as long as they didn't mind an audience. They didn't. In fact, they soon forgot they had one, in each others hard embrace, the difference being, that in their sexual attempts, there was no bodily orifice as they embraced, face-to-face. No female entry as would be normal, just hard hot masculinity probing and jabbing, an act of loving, an image. They loved, uncaring about their audience of two depraved females, wide-eyed and open-lipped at the weird sight. The two queers forgot them. They had only contempt for women, actually-and the feeling was mutual. Their actions were twisted, their loving, abnormal, as the sexual attempts upon the same sex could only be. But they managed to satisfy their twisted lusts. They twisted about and found the bodily and oral receptacles they desired-and used.

They found their pleasures, such as it was, and quite drained by now, parted from each other and slowly dressed, now shamed and chastened, ignoring the smirks on the faces of the two wantons. They dressed and left.

Claire was a one hundred percent Pleasure girl-all the way.

* * *

CHAPTER ONE

I never before had the desire to tom-cat around with other woman. I was married for years and I really dug my wife. She had the body I really loved. Voluptuous, even a bit heavy and plump with a juicy pair of knockers and a full rounded behind. The kind I liked.

What the really look like, I mean-when they're willing and waiting, all yours to love, and you're standing there getting your fill of the wonderful sight before you let your sense of touch take over.

At least, until that time I got acquainted with Claire Conlins.

My names Art Harwood and I'm in the legal business, a mouthpiece, as such. But there was nothing imagine about my practice. I was one of two members of the legal profession who had offices in the back country community of Rocky Bluffs, which is out in the mountains, and roughly halfway from L. A. and from the Golden Gate. I had just marked my thirty-fifth birthday when all this began, and I was uneasy, in the way men are apt to be when they reach the mid-thirties and have little to show for over three decades of living.

Little to show?

Maybe that's not the way to put it. I did have a wife whom I loved, like I mentioned before, or so I believed at the time, and a set of children who brought me pride and pleasure, as well as a father's normal share of headaches. But monetarily, I was next to nowhere-less than five hundred bucks in the bank, a rented house, mortgaged furniture, and a car that was getting on in years. I'd been practicing my profession for nine years, three of them in Rocky Bluffs, and I had yet to land a really good case-the kind a lawyer needs to fatten both his bank account and his reputation.

In Hollywood I'd handled collections for a couple of small finance firms. Since moving to this burg, I'd gotten nothing but crumbs. A wise old operator by the name of Paul Raymond had all the big clients sewed up. He'd lived here since the Year One, and his daddy before him. I had thought, when I'd moved to town, that this fact might work in my favor, on the theory that Raymond must have alienated a lot of clients and potential clients during that length of time, but I soon learned this wasn't so. He'd succeeded for the most part in playing all the ends against the middle. The local residents didn't sue one another very often. There were a lot of contracts and land negotiations in which both parties would go to him and hire him jointly, splitting his fee between them; then he'd work things out so that everyone was happy. As I said, he was a shrewd operator. When lawsuits did arise, they usually involved a local resident who was sued by or suing someone on the outside, and of course the outside party had outside counsel.

I got a certain amount of transient trade, odds and ends from the locals who weren't important, and the business turned down for one reason or another. I just made out, and that was all.

So, in spite of the fact that my wife and I both loved the country, which is as fresh and free and beautiful as a man could find anywhere, and the location was great for the kids. I was just about to pull up stakes and return to the big town. Maybe I could get a job with the City Attorney's office, I thought, or in the law department of some large corporation. I liked being on my own, but I had to think about the future. My age was a sobering one, and I knew each year would become more sobering from that point on.

Maybe now you can appreciate the condition I was in when Claire Conlins came into my office on a quiet afternoon and dropped her plump little case on top of my desk. I'd had nearly nine years of faithfulness to one woman, ten years without conspicuous success in my profession, a gnawing uneasiness afflicting me, and a frustration which was growing larger by the day.

Before I describe the office scene and take you on from there, I should say a few things about this filly. That's right-Mrs. The fact of her marriage was the most important thing about her, for her husband was the wealthiest and most influential person in the community. Old Stanley Conlins owned a good many square miles of prime country, the largest sawmill in the area, and he had his gnarled fingers in half a dozen other pies. He was in his sixties, had been widowed a couple of years back, and just five months ago had taken himself a sojourn in Los Angeles and come back with Claire as his wife, who was little more than one-third his age.

Exactly where or how he had found her remained something of a mystery. No one in the town dared ask questions to his face, so the skimpy explanation which he and Claire offered were all the townspeople had to go on . . . except for a tale being spread around the local taverns by one Norman Salpin, who claimed that on a booze-bush which he'd had on the strip some two or three weeks before Stanley Conlins' trip, he'd seen Claire performing in one of the big city clubs. Performing, in this instance, meant stripping off her clothes in a soft spotlight while she bumped her luscious body to the accompaniment of hard-driving saxophones and the loudest set of drums in town.

At least, this was his story. He wasn't too reliable, so on one knew for sure. But there wasn't a man in Rocky Bluffs who wouldn't have plunked down a couple of bucks, at least, to see what Claire Conlins' body looked like even with pasties on her nipples and tight panties to outline her womanhood. She could have made a big success as a stripper, they all agreed.

Now I've not only told you the most important fact about her, but I've pretty well given away the second most important one as well.

In a word, the woman was luscious.

She was the fanciest fluff to settle in town for as far back as most of the local studs could remember, and there wasn't one who wouldn't have surrendered his hunting license for one night with her. Though I didn't count myself in the stud category exactly, since I had become a pretty well-settled family man, I looked as much as the rest of them whenever she wiggled her tight-clothed behind down Main Street, and I figuratively licked my lips when she wore those snug shiny blouses that stretched from tip to tip of her bosom and shimmied delicately up and down as she walked.

"What in tarnation you suppose old Stan does with all that?" was one of the milder and more quotable comments from the local citizens.

I had thought more than a little about what, I, old firmly-married Art Harwood, would like to do with that, it only I had the chance. Of course I never believed the chance would come my way.

But the chance did.

And, surprisingly enough, I did exactly what I had day-dreamed of doing on the occasions when I'd watched that imagine fluff wiggle past. Exactly.

The experience was so blasted good, as a matter-of-fact, that my life was nearly turned upside down as a result.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go back to the day when she walked into my office.

I was just reading some legal briefs on some two-for-a-nickel matters when my own briefs got a tight grip on my own goodies at the sight of this gorgeous doll.

CHAPTER TWO

At first, the aura of expensive perfume didn't grab me too hard-at first. I skimmed over a letter which Ellen, my part-time girl, had typed up and brought in to me. It was the only letter I had dictated that day and was to a party who had stopped at one of the local motels and taken the battered TV set with them when the checked out. This was about average with

The motel owner, who let Paul Raymond handle all the rest of them. his important business, threw his collection stuff to me because Raymond was too busy to fool with it.

I had sent the motel guest's license number to the motor vehicle department of the issuing state and gotten the party's true name and address, which unsurprisingly turned out to be different from the data recorded on the room registration card. Now I was putting on the squeeze to recover what I called the fair market value of the set-one hundred dollars.

If I made the collection by mail, my fee would be twenty-five bucks; if I had to file suit I would get fifty plus costs.

The owner could have reported the theft to the police, of course, but, since the party lived out of the state, the chances of getting action were slight. Anyway, my client preferred to go for the cash, which the motel guest would most likely choose to pay rather than face the embarrassment of having legal papers served on him in his home town. Another set, just as good, could be purchased for fifty dollars, thereby giving the motel operator twenty-five bucks for his time and trouble, over and above my fee for a mail collection.

This was the kind of piddling stuff I spent my time on.

No wonder I figured I wasn't getting anywhere, hmmmm?

When I put the letter down, my secretary was standing in front of my desk. I glanced at her and squinted. "What's the matter with you?" I asked, for she had a peculiarly excited look.

"Shh," she whispered. "Do you know who's out there, waiting to see you?"

"Can't imagine," I whispered back.

"Mrs. Stanley Conlins."

"Ellen, April Fool's Day was last week." I scribbled my signature at the foot of the letter. "Shoot this out, will you?"

"No. Really. She's there. She says she wants to see you regarding a . . . professional matter." The emphasis which the girl placed on professional was susceptible to more than one interpretation. But, then, that was the customary way in which women of the two, of all ages, reacted to Claire Conlins . . . when they dared show their true feelings.

I put my papers down and stared at her for a moment.

"Well, aren't you going to talk with her?" Ellen asked, still whispering.

The girl was serious, I decided. But the idea of Claire Conlins coming to see me was difficult to buy.

"Yeah," I managed to reply. "I guess so. You'd better send her in."

She scurried out to the outer room, and I stared after her plump figure, clad in a shapeless wool skirt and baggy sweater. Flat shoes and an absence of stockings completed the image. Though only nineteen, she was totally unappealing, at least, as far as I was concerned. But she got a pretty steady play from the studs around town, the reason being that she was known to fall over at the touch of a hand, legs opened, for business.

I had always behaved when I was around her. There just was no point to cheating on my wife for something like this fuddy, teenager.

But for the woman who, a moment later, took Ellen's place in the picture frame of my office doorway, well, that would be a different matter. A different matter indeed.

Even then, of course, I had no expectation of getting to Claire Conlins. I didn't even think about this. The fact that she was calling on me in connection with a professional matter didn't mean I would stand any chance with her in a personal way. My only reaction when I saw her, outside of admiration for her looks, was curiosity as to why the wife of the leading citizen of Rocky Bluffs would be coming to me.

She was dressed in blue stretch pants and a sweater as unlike Ellen's as a sausage skin is unlike a potato sack. Perhaps the simile is a little overdrawn, but you get the idea. As to what was packed into those stretch pants and sweater, I had never seen classier curves in Hollywood or anywhere else. Her hair was the color of crushed strawberries, and just as taste-tempting.

I was standing behind my desk as she hesitated in the doorway for a few moments. She smiled and said, "Hello, Mr. Harwood, I've heard about you."

I smiled back. "Come in and sit down, Mrs. Conlins. Close the door, if you like."

"I'd better," she said.

She deliberately walked to the side of my desk and perched a buttock-a lush delightful buttock-on the edge of the wood. I dropped back in my chair and looked at her.

"You could have returned the compliment," she said, eyes sparkling with private amusement. "I mean, you could have said you've heard about me."

"Well, I . . . "

She fluttered a delicate set of fingers. "Don't bother to make up something nice. I know how the men around here talk. They figure I'm the next thing to a call girl and that I married Stan only for his money."

"Mrs. Conlins. . . "

"Call me Claire, please. And you needn't deny what I said. My feelings don't require that, because both points happen to be true and I'm a girl who faces facts." She bounced to her feet, causing her big jutting breasts to jiggle. She began to search in her handbag, then swore. "Do you happen to have a cigarette?"

"Yes," I said, coming up with a package. "Here you are."

She took one and I lit it for her, after which I did the same for myself. She settled on the edge of my desk again, letting one snug-pantied leg dangle. By directing my vision carefully, I could see every line and swell of her lower body. I was sure she wore nothing beneath those tights.

"What I came to see you about," she said, letting smoke" drift through her dainty nostrils as she looked directly at me, "was to hire you to handle my divorce."

"Divorce?" I was swinging late on every pitch.

"I can't stand that old man any more! Why, it's been five months since I've had a good . . . well, since I've gone to bed with a real male."

I cleared my throat more noisily than I might have.

She laughed. "I guess I've shocked you," she shrugged. "Well, that's how I am. Sorry." She slid off my desk and settled in a chair at the side.

Seated there with her legs crossed, she showed nearly as much as in her previous elevated position. Those pants of hers were the next best thing to nudity. She watched me and waited for my response.

"I'd be glad to handle the case, Mrs. Conlins. I can understand that you'd want me to do that, since Mr. Raymond is your husband's lawyer. Though I was trying to calculate how large a fee might be obtainable, money fought a losing battle for my attention with Claire, her delightful body.

"Please, call me by my first name . . . Art," she scolded gently. "There's no use our being formal."

"No." I smiled. "I guess there isn't."

"Now, getting back to what I said before: I am interested in my husband's money, and I don't care how obvious I am about showing this. Far as I'm concerned, he's an old poop and he deserves to get taken."

"Well, that's . . . uh . . . " I cleared my throat again. "I mean, you're no doubt entitled to alimony as well as costs of suit."

"Ah!" She raised a finger. "That's what I want to talk about next. My problem right now is that I don't have any money. Stan has never given me an allowance. He's bought lots of things for me, of course, but he's never given me access to any cash. That means I can't pay you a retainer, which I understand is customary in divorce cases."

"That's true," I said. "The wife usually advances a fee to her attorney, which he later recovers for her in the settlement or by court order."

She looked at me levelly. "I can't advance you a penny."

"Oh. Well. . . " I didn't want to appear eager, but the fact was that I would willingly take the case without any cash on the table. There was bound to be plenty before I was through, and the publicity I would get would be just the sort I needed in order to cut into Paul Raymond's monopoly of the town's legal matters.

She went on; "That doesn't mean I'm not prepared to offer some form of compensation, however."

This was when I knew I could have her. Her eyes were making clear exactly what sort of compensation she had in mind. A thrill shot through my loins, which was made all the stronger by my recollection of her statement of a few minutes before, namely that she hadn't had "a real male" in five months. If this was true, that meant she hadn't shacked with any of the local studs. Well, that figured. There was hardly anyone who would dare betray Stanley Conlins, I figured.

But now, since she was leaving him anyway, this didn't matter.

Mentally I was jabbing her.

She smiled. "Well? Are you willing?"

"You'll have to give me a minute," I told her. "I've never had just this sort of experience before."

"You mean you're never had a woman offer this kind of payment for getting her a divorce? Why, in LA. that's the regular way. Those lawyers down there collect on their office couches all the time."

"I've heard so," I admitted.

"I could go to one of them, but. . . . " Her eyes took on a sly gleam. "I figured maybe you'd be willing to work a little more diligently for me. I mean," she quickly added, "since this case will kind of make a name for you in town and all."

I had the impression, from the way she was looking at me, that another consideration had loomed larger in her mind. She figured her personal assets would go further with a small-town lawyer like me than with one of the big-city boys who might be used to laying starlets twice a week.

She figured right.

Let me say this in self defense, though. I hadn't really been looking for what Claire offered. I had been uneasy and as frustrated as any long-married and not-too-old male is apt to be, particularly when his career isn't going well, but I hadn't been running around looking. Circumstances wouldn't have developed as they did, except for the fact that Claire was extra-special. The realization that she was available to me made my manhood sit up. Turning her down was as much out of the question as turning inside out.

"Okay," I said. "I guess we can agree."

"We'll come to an agreement," she repeated with a little smile. She stood up.

I cleared my throat again. "Do you . . . that is, want to get the legal action started right away?"

"The sooner the better," she told me and put out her cigarette.

"Then . . . " I stood up.

"Should we lock your door or is that girl of yours smarter than she looks?"

"We'd better lock the door," I replied and headed across the room to lock it.

My legs were quivering at the knees. Well, as I've pointed out, eight years had passed since I'd slipped it to any woman other than my wife, and I'd never had one who was quite the equal to Claire Conlins as far as looks went. So I was aroused.

By the time I had set the lick and turned back to the room, Claire had her sweater off and was about to roll down her tight pants. She was waiting for nothing. I'll tell you. And there wasn't a bit of shyness about her.

Maybe she had been a professional stripper, I thought. And maybe she was the next thing to a call girl, as she had practically admitted. Those factors, if anything, only added to her sexuality.

I stood and stared as her stretch pants went down, baring her intimate female secrets to my ardent gaze. What I saw gave additional credence to the stripper story. During the preceding five months she apparently had stayed in condition to resume her career at the opening of a zipper.

She kicked off her shoes and pulled first one leg free of her pants, then the other, she wore only a bra.

She straightened up and smiled at me. "Well? Don't tell me you're just a quickie man."

"No," I said and got out of my jacket. "Not at a time like this."

As I continued undressing and she stretched to get her bra hooks, she asked, "Am I prettier than your wife, Art?"

"How did you know I was married?" I asked her.

"I figured. A guy your age, a lawyer and all, would have to be. Especially in a town like this."

Her bra cups parted company with her breasts and I sucked breath sharply when I saw them, trembling naked in front of me.

Brownish-pink the buttons were. The bases of her nipples were fairly wide and her breasts were like good-sized oranges, pertly poised. The tips, which had half risen already, were a shade brighter and were, I judged, capable of stark activity when a man treated them the right wav. And, they were pretty thick.

She had just the kind of nipples I liked.

Her bare breasts jiggled prettily, the tips angling upward, as she walked to the couch at the side of the room. This was an imitation leather monstrosity which I had installed more to fill space than for any other purpose, and I honestly had never thought of using the couch in the way I was now about to. But I was darned glad, at that moment, that the large piece of furniture was there.

I worked at the rest of my clothing as she law down on her back. Oh, that's cold," she complained with a little laugh. Her thighs parted and my eyes was trapped by the golden gate of pleasure there.

"You won't be cold for long," I promised huskily.

"I guess not," she said boldly.

She continued to watch me as I removed the rest of my clothes. I didn't have even my socks on when I walked over to her.

"Mmmmm," she said. "Five months is a long old time."

I stood looking at her. feasting my eyes on the lush nudity before me. "Don't tell me Stanley isn't able, at all."

"He responds just enough, after I've worked with him for awhile. But just enough isn't the way I like a man to be. And I don't like having to fuss over an old weenie. Mmmmm . . . " Her voice dipped throatily as she reached for my huge jutting arousal. "Give baby a present, will you?"

Claire placed her hand on it in what was for her, at that moment, the most convenient way. Her fingers were cool and soft and very knowing. Two or three caresses were all I could take before I pushed her hand away.

"That's for kids," I said hoarsely and touched her on the side of each leg. She responded without the slightest hesitation.

I ran my fingertips along her inner legs, grazing lightly, and continued upward over the gentle rise at her middle and across her waist, I placed my palms against each of her up-thrust breast-tips, and moved my hands slightly. The tickling action caused her nipples to rise higher.

I got on my knees on the couch, and braced myself. I gathered one of her breasts in each hand and squeezed. Then I bent forward and tickled her with my lips.

"Oh, Art. Ooh, that's good. Don't stop. Do more. Go at them, lover. They love that."

I went at them but good, my lips working hungrily. Her nipples were thick and high and hard, straining upward. She resumed caressing my intimacy, this time with even greater passion and going from one item to the other.

I was becoming so excited that I knew I would have to press onward to final phase without further delay. She was ready. I could tell when my fingers discovered her.

In fact I wondered, by the time we had reached that level of mutual excitement, whether I stood to gain more on the couch than she did. This was supposed to be payment, of a sort, for my professional services, and yet I wondered if perhaps I wasn't about to do as much for her as she was doing for me.

Five months with the old guy, I thought. The girl is more in need than I am.

She was proving this by moving her body slowly toward me, seeking what I had to offer. I could hold off no longer. I crawled on her urgently.

The sensation I knew as this motion proceeded, was like none I could remember. She was warm and ready and snug the way a woman ought to be. I gloried in the thrill of that moment, remaining still for a long while. I looked at her.

She smiled at me through eyes that had glazed slightly. "Oh, that's wonderful!"

"I've never felt better myself," I admitted in a rush of excited breath.

I started a rhythmic action, but her arms tightened to keep me very close for a while longer. Her eyes were looking intently into mine. "You never have, really?"

"Really," I repeated

"Not even with your wife?"

"Forget my wife."

"Gladly dear." An impudent light flashed in her eyes and she gave a special little tug that sent the keenest thrill knifing through me.

I ran my arms tightly about her and I went to work, she worked against me, twisting as well as moving straight, and everything she did was exactly right. Perhaps this sounds foolish but I felt, for the first time in my life, the way a guy imagine he would feel loving an exotic dancer while she's doing her routine. Somehow or other, no experience I'd had with a woman before ever quite lived up to this expectation. But, then, I'd never loved in the middle of an exotic dance, and this was just about what was happening now. Claire was doing a full-scale dance routine that thrilled me every bit as much as you'd figure when you watched the performance on a stage.

I grabbed hold of her even more tightly, pressed my mouth against her cheek, and let myself go with an ardor which I doubt that I had ever shown before, even with my first sweetheart or during the early months with my wife. Everything was superb. I enjoyed her body passionately, and she was giving me so much that I knew I couldn't keep from hurtling over the finish line much sooner than usual.

I pumped faster and faster, and she stayed right with me, still employing that maddening dance. I started growling. As her heels began to drum, and as fingers dug into my bare buttocks, I lost control completely. She nearly drove me out of my mind. For the first time in my life, I wavered on the brink of unconsciousness as the tremendous pass-on bursts ripped through me. Her orgasm was exploding, too. As fast as I had been, I hadn't lost her, and that made everything perfect.

We clung together. I gasped and listened to her very pleased purring as her fingers niggled the hair at the back of my head.

"Oh, my, that was so good," she murmured at last. "You were perfect, as a male."

I panted as I returned to normal still in that tunnel of erotic delight and I realized I didn't want to lose this delightful piece.

CHAPTER THREE

We quickly dressed after that marvelous bout of illicit loving, and after she was gone I sat for a while at my desk thinking about what had happened and trying to decide what the experience meant.

Of one thing I felt certain: I wasn't in love with her. At least not in the generally accepted sense. But the physical experience I'd had with her involved more than the mere kick of something new and forbidden. Claire had given me a degree of erotic satisfaction I hadn't known during eight years of marriage or before. I had never thought there was much difference between one woman and another, as far as the physical aspect of love was concerned. I'd slipped it into several before getting married and, though each woman was different from every other in subtle ways, the differences hadn't amounted to much. With Claire, this wasn't so. She had both a skill and a degree of passion which I had never experienced up to that time. To think of having this experience only once was out of the question. I had to have her body again and perhaps many times after that. Call me a moral weakling if you want to but her physicality was a marvel.

She was leaving her husband that day, to take a room at the local hotel. She had enough money to see her through a few days, she told me, and in the meantime I was to get in touch with Stanley Conlins and get started on working out a settlement. The complaint would be based on mental cruelty, and it seemed from what she told me, after out session on the couch that a pretty good case could be made out. The law in this state doesn't require much in this regard. I figured Stanley Conlins would prefer to reach a quiet settlement and let her have an uncontested divorce rather than to turn his private life into a public spectacle.

She had signed the necessary papers before she left. As I set up a file and made notes of what she'd reported concerning community property and the various difficulties of her life with her old husband, one part of my mind kept thinking of her as a lover rather than as a client. My thoughts raced ahead to the next time we would do it again.

After I arrived at home that night, the process accelerated. I talked with Ellen, my wife and the kids, and tried to be as normal as usual, but all I could really think about was Claire. She was fast becoming a sexual obsession.

My mind went over and over what had happened in the office, and I berated myself for rushing, for not taking more time to explore her and to enjoy our intimacy more fully. Next time I would do this, I promised. We would have an entire afternoon together and I would love her again and again. I would know every detail of her magnificent body and I would glory in every erotic thrill to be had. That day I had been so stunned by the opportunity she had given me that I hadn't been able to appreciate her fully. Well, everything would be different when I met her again. And there wouldn't be only one more meeting either. Amorously, Claire Conlins and I were perfect for one another-perfectly right. I believed she realized this as well as I did.

After the kids had been put to bed and as the evening grew late, my wife came over to where I was seated on the sofa and settled herself close beside me.

My wife had a pretty face and she was warm by nature. She had put on weight, in a slow but persistent way, during the last few years, so that by now she'd become plump. I had never objected to this. She had bigger breasts than when I'd married her, and. though her breasts had lost some of their youthful firmness, they hadn't fallen to an appreciable degree. Her middle had a pout which was warmly comfortable, and her buttocks were full and round. In her upper legs, she showed a trace of flab, if a man looked critically, but she was no kid any more and I was tolerant. All in all, she still was very attractive to me-or to any normal guy.

On this particular evening, however, as she cuddled close, I felt a vague sense of annoyance. I tried not let it show.

"Coming to bed soon?" she asked. There had never been anything subtle about her. When she was in the mood for a piece, she always let me know, and I had never felt like complaining. But tonight I wasn't.

"I thought I might read for awhile," I said.

"Oh," she put on a little smile. "Well, I could catch up on some magazines, too. They've been piling up."

I lifted the newspaper again and pretended to become engrossed in the sports section. I was actually thinking about Claire, however. She was never far from the forefront of my consciousness.

After scanning the sports, I turned to the editorials, then the local news, and even the financial pages. I was hoping all the time that Joyce would get tired and go to bed alone.

But no. When she needed her sex, she didn't just file the desire for future reference, the way many women do. I had never given her any necessity to do this in the past, and she had no reason to believe that things were changed.

A change had most definitely occurred, however. I couldn't deny this fact to myself. My one experience with Claire that afternoon had exerted a profound effect on my life, though its full impact was yet to be defined.

At about a quarter to twelve, she gave up with her magazines and returned to settle beside me. She looked as appealing as usual that evening, wearing a sleeveless white blouse that fitted snugly enough to show off her big bosoms, and a wide skirt of the type I had always liked because there was no resistance provided. The skirt was the sort that a man could flip upward with ease, and underneath I knew there would be nothing but light panties. She never wore a girdle when at home.

That evening, however, I didn't care to flip her skirt up. I didn't have the desire to take off her panties, either. I wanted only for her to go to bed by herself.

This was exactly what my affectionate wife wasn't about to do. She snuggled close to me, jamming a soft and heavy breast against me. "Come on, let's call it an evening, huh? You're going to be dopey in the morning if you don't. You know how you need your sleep."

Sleep wasn't what she needed. At least, not right then. Now I didn't see how I could sidestep my husbandly responsibility without letting her know something was wrong. This I didn't want to do.

I put the paper down. "Okay. You've convinced me."

She pressed closer,, her eyes playful. "I didn't need to have to do so much convincing. Don't tell me my virile lover is getting old."

I pretended to be angry. "Why you little. . . . " Jumping to my feet, I ran an arm under her bare lees and the other around her back, and lifted her. She wasn't yet to plump for me to manage with ease.

Her excited pleasure was obvious. "Oh, Art! You cave man!"

We used to play like this all the time. Sometimes she would taunt me to the point where I would turn her over my knees and spank her on the panties, or even lower her panties and spank her that way. I didn't want to let the game go to that length tonight, though.

I carried her up to the hallway, past our bids' bedroom and to our own. I set her on her feet beside the bed and bent to turn on a lamp. This cast a soft glow over the room. I closed the door and slid a small bolt lock, to assure privacy from inquisitive children.

When this had been accomplished and I turned to face her, I noted that her expression reflected disappointment. "I think I was right the first time," she stated. "You are getting old."

"Now, wait a minute."

"You are," she insisted. "Putting me on my feet, indeed! Anyone would think you brought me in here for a talk." She was needling me in fun-her eyes showed this-but I was on the verge of losing patience.

"What anyone would think is none of anyone's business," I said, trying to keep up the patter in spite of the way I felt. "You know talking isn't what I have in mind."

"I'm not too sure," she said, pressing against me. "Why don't you show me in a way that doesn't leave any doubt?"

"Come on, punkin," I said, my smile a weak effort "Act your age."

She planted her fists against her hips. "Well, I like that! My age, indeed! Maybe our ages aren't as close as I always thought. You're acting a lot more than four years older."

"Now . . . " I warned.

"The old tiger's lost his teeth!" she teased. "He doesn't have the bite any more. Now he's all growl."

"Oh, am I?" I retorted, my patience almost at the cracking point.

She was hoping to goad me into a playful display of masculine dominance, but I wasn't in a playful mood, and I was somewhat resentful of her too. If my resistance cracked, I wasn't going to be satisfied with just affectionate spanking.

"Poor old pussycat . . . " she crooned as she took a backward step, her eyes sparkling intently at me. She pointed an accusatory finger. "Couldn't hurt a fly."

My right arm shot out and I grasped her. She squealed as I flipped her around so that she fell face down on the bed. She hadn't resisted, and she wouldn't except to the minimum degree required to put spice in the game. My appetite didn't crae spice this evening, though. I wasn't sure at that point what I did crave, and was actually surprised when I found out.

She lay on her belly, purposely not fighting, as I reached and grasped the hem of her flaring print skirt. Up the skirt went, baring her shapely legs which were delicately shaded with pink. The weather hadn't yet brightened sufficiently for her to get started on her customary summer tan.

Further up I pulled her skirt, carrying her lace-trimmed petticoat along, baring the remaining length of her legs and then the plump roundness of her bottom, which had partially escaped from the silken confinement of pale pink pants. The leg elastics pressed against the fullness of her buttocks. The shape of the mound was perfectly revealed.

At earlier times, this sight would really have turned me on. But tonight I didn't desire fulfillment as much as I desired to punish my wife, for goading me into going after her, and merely for being there, I guess, when I wanted only to think of Claire Conlins.

I arranged her dress and petticoat in a trophy fashion at the small of her back, leaving the skimpy pink briefs as her only cover below the waist. Then I bounded onto the bed, my knees planted so that when I sat back on my heels, her legs were securely held against the mattress.

I raised my right hand and swung at her buttocks.

I spanked her alternately from the right and from the left, my arms swinging in great arcs and the palms of my hands striking sharply against the fullness of her buttocks. The buttocks, half sheathed by the clinging silk-like material of her panties, shook and wobbled and quivered as I spanked them over and over.

When I had first begun to spank her, my wife had squealed playfully and even laughed a little, but now she was hurting, begging me to stop. This had no effect except perhaps to make me spank her buttocks harder. I made her lush buttocks do a shimmying exotic dance, and I responded, but I wanted to punish her more before I proceeded to what we both knew the ultimate phase of the drama would be.

I wasn't thinking of her feelings, though she was twisting violently now and trying to evade the stinging blows I delivered. My hands tingled as they spatted sharply again and again on the thin shining fabric of her pants. Pinkness began to rise on the exposed portions of her jiggling buttocks, and I knew that her entire bottom would be almost as pink under her pants, as the panties themselves.

She squealed while I continued. Then she suddenly surprised me by grasping the elastic waistband of her panties at either side and pushing toward her legs, at the same time wriggling to let the panties slide from between her body and the bed. She was exposing her buttocks so that the spanks would sting all the more!

I helped her.

I grasped the top of her pants at the middle, as soon as the narrow elastic had reached the fullness of her pouting buttocks, and I yanked savagely, hauling the pants down her legs and completely off.

I went at her faster and harder now. Slap-slap from right to left and left to right, and the blows following each other in quick succession. Her buttocks resembled volley balls were both in play at the same time, being struck by the players and striking one another. The sound of my hands against her naked and resilient flesh was like an musketry.

She howled and shrieked and beat her fists against the bed, but she didn't hit back at me or really try to free herself from my control.

Finally, when I had vented as much rage as my hands could express, I fell back and onto one hip in a half-sitting position, which gave her the opportunity to get away. But she didn't take advantage of this. What she did was roll onto her back, her skirt and slip twisting more tightly about her waist, and her panties still binding her legs together at the knees. She pulled the front of her blouse with both hands, tearing the light garment open, and she grasped the band at the bottom of her brassiere, yanking forward and up. Her bra slid all the way over her breast, flipping them. They quivered and shook nakedly before me. I stared at the soft spreading rises, with rigid brown nipples at their crests which demanded attention. Then I lunged at her.

Running both arms under her body to pull her tightly against me, I buried my face against the luxuriance of her softly vibrating boobs kissing like mad.

As I made wildly passionate love to her breasts, she got rid of the panties, then attacked my clothing with both hands. In a jiffy, she had me just the way she wanted and, almost before I knew what was happening, I was inside her.

Excited as I was by then, my body bounded to its task with even greater gusto than I had displayed during the afternoon, for I had been a state of partial shock when I had taken Claire. Now I was the complete male, in full possession of my faculties and riding high on the crest of a passion wave.

I pounded out my strange mixture of desire and love and hate and long-stored frustration, venting all I felt in a rugged onslaught that probably hurt my wife.

But, if this was so, the hurt apparently was good. She responded more passionately to me than ever before and, for a while, was almost the equal of Claire in her frenzied concentration.

But not in her skill. This was where the big difference lay.

Realizing this, I became all the wilder. Joyce grunted and tossed, shaking violently. This triggered my own response and I finished with a flurry of frantic motion, a wild spasm of gushing completion as she eagerly accepted my inundation.

I gasped against her neck, clutching her, as she crooned and murmured and told me what a wonderful man I was. I had apparently done for her exactly what she had wanted, perhaps what she had secretly desired and needed for a long time.

I wasn't interested in her praise. But I didn't resent her now, either. I was almost numb, physically and mentally.

The first emotion to invade the numbness and take possession of my mind was a sense of guilt. Perhaps there wasn't cause to feel guilty, or perhaps there was, depending on the way you choose to look at the matter. But this was what I felt. Joyce loved me; she had always been a good wife to me, and for a few minutes I had actually hated her. As a result, I had hurt her. Whether she had enjoyed the hurt or not, I didn't feel I was excused.

I murmured a few words to her-I've forgotten what they were-and, as soon as possible, got up to rid myself of my rumpled clothes. She did the same.

I hopped into bed as she went into the bathroom to do whatever was necessary, and when she returned, I faked sleep so she wouldn't get affectionate.

CHAPTER FOUR

Claire was really under my skin. I was eager to get to her husband's lawyer so I could be of financial service to the love-goddess.

Raymond and I had an acquaintance of sorts. We had met socially once or twide and at a number of civic functions, but I didn't often move in his circle. It's funny, but even in a community as small as Rocky Bluffs there are social strata and though everyone knows everyone else, you mingle only with those on your level.

Most of my contacts with slim, white-haired, eagle-beaked, Paul Raymond had been on the street where I'd grinned a hello and he had nodded with a faint smile. On a couple of occasions I'd been bold enough to pass a fraternal quip, one professional to another, but he had done nothing to encourage the camaraderie. He seemed perfectly willing to keep our relationship as it was, cool and distant.

I had to admit I was looking forward with some relish to the opportunity of serving notice on him that I had been retained by Mrs. Stanley Conlins to prosecute a divorce action against her illustrious husband, who also was Raymond's most valued client.

He had a full-time secretary, of course-an older woman (she was about his own age) who had worked for him many years. She was a spinster and even cooler in manner than the lawyer himself. Her name was Miss Williams.

She ran his office. I identified myself, passed an inane pleasantry, and asked if I might please speak with Paul. She took some time before answering, as if the decision were a weighty one, then allowed as how she guessed that would be all right. I thanked her more enthusiastically than the circumstances called for, and prepared myself for some fun.

"Hello," Raymond said. He could have called me by name, for there was no doubt that Miss Williams had told him who was calling. But he didn't want to extend that degree of recognition.

"Art Harwood, Paul. How are you?"

"How are you, Harwood?" was his answer.

Neither of us answered the other's question. As for his, he had indicated by his tone that he couldn't care less, so I decided not to bore him.

I chuckled. "Well, Paul, it looks as if we're finally going to tangle at last."

"Oh?" Faint interest was all he indicated.

"Yes. You represent Stanley Conlins, don't you?"

"Yes." There was smugness now.

"I've been retained by Mrs. Conlins to prosecute an action for a divorce." I waited, and for a while there was silence. Then Raymond made a sound which was somewhere between a cough clearing of the throat.

He asked, "His wife is leaving him?" There was interest now, though grudging.

"Left is the word, I believe. She was in to see me yesterday."

"That's very surprising news." I had the impression that he wasn't convinced.

"Yes. I was surprised, myself. But she assured me her mind was made up and that nothing I might say would change her."

Raymond remarked with ill-concealed sarcasm. "I'm sure you did everything possible to talk her out of the idea."

"I certainly did. But she said enough was enough and she was moving out."

"Well, I haven't as yet heard from my client, so naturally. . . . "

I broke in; "The reason I called you, Paul, was to suggest that your client might prefer us to get together before the action is filed, so the annoying details can be ironed out. There's no use creating a lot of unnecessary embarrassment for your client or for mine, either."

"I'm sorry, Harwood, but I'm not at liberty to discuss the matter."

"Naturally, I realize you'll want to have a talk with your client beforehand, but I thought we might set up an appointment for later in the day, or whenever it's convenient."

"Mmmmm. Possibly. I'll put a call to Stanley. Will you be at your office for awhile?"

"I'll be waiting to hear from you."

"Very well, Harwood. Good-ye." He hung up.

I smiled to myself as I put the telephone on its cradle. The old snob! This was going to be a rare pleasure, this litigation.

The greatest part of the pleasure in handling Claire's divorce was, of course, the handling of Claire herself. I hadn't forgotten this for a moment. But the fun of contesting with the attorney in a game where I held all the good cards was an added bonus that appealed to me.

I busied myself with bits of work that had accumulated, and it wasn't too long before the callback arrived from Raymond. Now his manner was different. He had unlimbered a bit, and was functioning like the smooth operator he was.

"Yes, Art," he said heartily. "Paul Raymond here. I have an hour open this afternoon if you'd care to drop over. About two thirty?"

"Good! Conlins confirmed what I told you. I suppose."

"Why don't we wait until we get together over here. This situation isn't quite as simple as might appear at first look."

I wondered what he meant by that, but I didn't push the point. "All right. Is your client going to be there?"

"Oh, no. There's no reason for it."

"Well, good enough, .Paul. I'll see you at two thirty then."

"Fine. Good-bye."

I sat for a little while after hanging up the phone and I tried to figure out what the old boy might have up his sleeve. Between them, my fellow barrister and Stanley Conlins were a crafty set, but I couldn't imagine what they might be planning to do.

I thought of phoning Claire and questioning her before I went to see the lawyer, but I discarded that idea. I was concerned with the sort of impression I make on Claire, and uncertainty was not going to be part of the image if I could help it. Anyway, she probably couldn't be of any assistance. What Raymond had in mind was no doubt some technical dodge, or an appeal that I persuade my client to submit to a "cooling off" period. The answer to that would, of course, be no. From what Claire had told me, her five months with Stanley Conlins had been all too cool. And from my stand-point a reconciliation was the last thing in the world I wanted to arrange.

When the time rolled around, I had my hand on the doorknob of Paul Raymond's outer office. I had timed myself precisely, not wanting either to create the impression of eagerness or to keep him waiting. His secretary, Miss Williams, squeezed out a thin smile for me and stepped in Raymond's door, opening it.

The elderly banister had his coat off; the collar of his blue-striped shirt was open and his tie was loose.

He smiled at me, stood up, and reached across the desk. "Hello, Art. Good to see you again." He made it sound as if he really meant it.

"Same here, sir." I sat down in front of his heavy old desk,, the top of which was littered with papers and open case books. I wished I had enough legal business to create that large mess.

He sat back in his swivel chair and game me a long, somewhat whimsical look, his eyes narrowed, "So you've gotten acquainted with Claire Conlins, did you?" He paused and I waited to see what he was leading up to. "Tell me, what you think of her?"

I was a little surprised at his lead-in. I forced a grin and shifted in my chair. "Well! She's a very charming woman."

"You thought so?" He was continuing to watch me closely. I squirmed. "Yes."

He pitched forward to plant a hand firmly against his desk. "She's a tramp! A complete gutter-rolling tramp. Her husband has had a bad time with her and, as far as he's concerned her leaving is good riddance."

I was a little stunned but recovered quickly enough. "Well, we shouldn't have any problems, then, should we?" I forced a smile.

"That depends," he replied. "Exactly what is she after?"

I had thought a good deal about this and I'd reached a firm conclusion regarding what to ask for. But I didn't consider it wise to state my demands in so many words right now. "A fair settlement," was all I said.

He feigned relief. "Well, it that's really the case, there is nothing to worry about. Her husband will pay her costs and her fare back to Hollywood."

I straightened up. "You've got to be joking."

"No. I'm not, Art."

I bristled; "I thought this was going to be a serious discussion. Courtesy prompted me to call you this morning, but if you'd rather have me go ahead and file suit first, I'll be happy to do that." I moved to get up.

He motioned me to remain seated. "Now don't get hot under the collar. I can understand how you feel. She's a client, she has a wealthy husband, and you want to see that she gets what an ordinary woman in her circumstances would be entitled to receive. That's all well and good. But the fact is that you don't know the woman at all."

I remained in my chair, but I said, "I'm not going to sit here and have her insulted."

"It isn't my purpose to insult her, but for your own sake you should be apprised of certain facts. Evidently your client was not entirely frank in her disclosures to you."

"What facts are you talking about?" I sat back again, I was curious now.

"I told you Claire Conlins was a tramp. I meant exactly that. She's had six lovers that Stanley knew about during the five months of their marriage. The first was his foreman at the mill; that happened when he and Claire had been married less than two weeks. He fired the man but he forgave her. About a month later, word reached him that she'd been seeing another man in town. She denied this, but he later found out they had spent several nights in a motel together. By that time, she had also been sexually intimate with a third. Stanley didn't learn of this until later still. The last three men took her all in the same evening in one wild orgy. Stanley walked in on a group sex party at his farm the other day when he was supposed to be staying overnight in Las Vegas.

I cleared my throat and stared at the other man for a few moments.

"He told her to leave quietly," Raymond went on, "and she refused. Instead, she threatened to take him down the line for everything he had. Her next step, apparently was to call on you."

"Your client has evidence of these alleged facts?"

"Two of the men involved in the orgy at his place will testify. They value his friendship a lot more highly than what they got from her. Other people will testify about her previous lewd carrying-on."

"So what you have in mind is a cross-complaint on those grounds, hmmm?"

"No. What I have in mind is a negotiated settlement. Stanley won't drag her through the dirt if she wants is all monetary demands,, except for her costs and a token sum. Then you can file and he won't contest."

"No deal," I said bluntly.

"Take some time to think, Art. Talk to your client, of course. You can even talk to our witnesses if you want to. I realize that's irregular, but in a small town like this. . . . "

I shook my head. "The marriage was December-and-May to begin with. He couldn't satisfy her, and she's a healthy woman with a normal strong appetite. The jury will take that into account."

The old man smiled wisely. "Do you really believe that a jury in this community will find against a man as influential and well liked as Stanley after we've spelled out the details of that orgy she put on his living room."

"I'll ask for a change of venue." This meant to have the trial moved to another locality, on the grounds that my client would not receive fair treatment around the town Stanley owned.

"That won't help," Raymond replied. "Knowing Stanley will only make the jurors decide faster. Even people who don't know him would reach the same conclusion on the strength of the evidence we'll present.

"I'm not so sure."

"You're whistling in the dark."

We looked at one another for several moments, his expression confident, even jaunty, and mine, I fear giving away my doubt.

"Be smart, Art," he said gently. "I know you haven't had things very easy since you've moved here. You're hungry for a good case, just as I would be if the situations were reversed. But this isn't the case that can help you. Believe me." He shrugged. "Of course, you receive a generous fee. There won't be any haggling about that."

I stood up. "Thanks for talking with me," I said and turned to leave. "Hey, now! Hold up a minute." I turned to face him.

His expression was quizzical. "What do you have in mind?"

"That's between my client and myself," I replied.

"I suggested you talk with your client before you make a commitment," he reminded me. "But let me know what you decide, will you?"

"You can get your notice in court."

This angered him and I should have realized that I shouldn't antagonized the man. He could call the shots better than I.

CHAPTER FIVE

I was pretty sore myself and with damn good reason. They were two things that had burned me during my conversation with Raymond. The fact that Claire had apparently held back important information when we had conferred the preceding day. I didn't believe either Raymond or Conlins would make up a story even though they figured I might be bluffed and that, if this didn't work, Conlins could buy his witnesses. Some of what Raymond had told me had to be based on fact.

I was burning also by his attitude which the old lawyer had shown toward Claire. Strangely enough, I blamed him and not her, even while admitting to myself that some of what he'd said was probably true. I desired Claire and this gave me a protective feeling toward her, but at the same time I realized I wasn't entitled to expect any particular standard of behavior on her part except insofar as the lawyer-client relationship was concerned. I didn't love her, after all, and she didn't love me.

If this sounds a little obscure, I can't help it. As nearly as I can express my own feelings, that was the way I felt at the time.

I was angry with my lovely client for not being as truthful as she should have, and I was angry with the old attorney for throwing verbal rocks at my mistress.

With these two angers to gnaw on, I retired to my office lair. The taste became increasingly bitter, however, and at about quarter after four I placed a call to the local hotel.

Yes, Mrs. Conlins was registered, the clerk informed me. Did I wish to speak with her? I told him yes.

He returned to the line a few moments later: "I'm sorry but Mrs. Conlins isn't in her room. Would you care to leave a message?"

I said, "Ask her to call Mr. Harwood," and gave him my number.

After placing the phone, I settled back to knaw some more. Since I was after all, in business to make a buck, and since I was particularly interested in winning Claire's case, for two reasons which I've already covered at length, the gnawing gradually gave way to a more practical form of mental activity. The question was, how would I be able to make something of the shamble of a case which Paul Raymond had left me? By the time she called, I had formed a notion which was sufficiently definite to lead me to discuss the subject with her.

First, however, there was the matter of her lack of honesty. And even before that there was the thrill I received merely from hearing her voice on the phone. She had a sexy way of talking that was like warm honey.

This is how the conversation went:

"There's something for you to report to me," I said and added, "I've had a conference with your husband's attorney. He flipped the coin for me so that I could see the other side, and it wasn't nice."

"What coin? What are you talking about?" Her voice was still sweet and warm, even innocent-sounding. Being angry with her was difficult.

"I'm talking about your marriage, and the episodes in your life with Stanley that you didn't consider important enough to mention yesterday. For example, how about those three men you were naked in bed with at the same time at home the other night? You thought Stanley wasn't going to show up."

"Oh. So you know about them." Her tone was cool all of a sudden, and surprisingly matter-of-fact.

I said, "I should take you across my knee and spank your beautiful behind." What had happened the night before with Joyce was apparently still strong in my mind.

"Just a minute!" she said sharply. "You have no right to tell me how to live."

"Granted. But if I'm going to act as your attorney, I have a right to all the facts that have a bearing on the case."

She was silent.

"Well?"

"I suppose you do," she admitted grudgingly.

"Tell me about those naked men."

"I'd better come over to your office. I wouldn't be surprised if the hotel clerk was listening in on this call."

Excitement stirred within me. I knew what would happen when she came over. I would see that this happened. "All right," I replied, trying to sound casual. How soon?"

"As soon as possible."

"I'll be waiting."

She showed up ten minutes later, which was about the time I usually headed for home. I had already phoned my wife, however, and told her I would be a couple of hours late-urgent business, I had said, and this wasn't exactly baloney.

Claire was wearing a skimpy print dress. The material was light-weight, summery. If she was pushing the season, I didn't mind because she looked gorgeous. At the low-scooped neckline, the tops of her full breasts swells were exposed.

Seating herself on the chair beside my desk, she immediately crossed her legs, apparently oblivious of what happened to her short skirt. She smiled at me ingenuously or wise, depending on the requirements of the moment.

I said, "Tell me about the guys the other night. And as long as you're doing that, you might fill me in on the others, too-the ones who were before them."

"Sounds as if Stan gave his lawyer an earful."

"Didn't you expect him to?"

"I wasn't sure. I thought he might be ashamed. That was why I didn't want to tell it."

"Well, you'd better tell everything, starting right now."

"First, tell me what Raymond had to say, huh? I mean, about what they're willing to do."

"They're willing to do absolutely nothing, as matters stand now. They're threatening to counter-sue, charging promiscuity. Raymond claims they have witnesses to back up the charge."

She didn't flinch and she didn't appear embarrassed in the least. She was certainly a cool cookie when she wanted to be. "He's probably right," she said.

"Let's see how right he is. You tell me about everything that's happened between you and any other men starting from the time of your marriage. Tell me who else knows about the goings-on and whether they'd be likely to talk. Be frank. If you want to get anywhere with this case, you have to give me your complete confidence."

She shrugged. "Okay. I hope you don't shock easily."

"I had my shock already, ,when I talked to Raymond."

She began and I pulled a pad of foolscap over in front of me. I started taking notes.

By the time she had finished her confession, some twenty or twenty-five minutes later, I had a set of notes which, put into print, would have been banned all over and just about everywhere outside the U.S.A. Claire had been most explicit, and I found that Raymond and only scratched the surface of her infidelities. Actually there had been many other men and a few women in her life since she'd been married to Stanley and what she had done with them ran the entire perverted field.

When my pencil finally came to rest, I was shaken. But her mood had grown progressively nonchalant as she rattled off the details of her lascivious adventures. She seemed amoral. Anything in the world was all right, so long as she enjoyed herself and could get home free.

"Well now," she challenged, "does that give you what you need to know?"

I nodded not quite willing to trust my voice yet. Our case was in worse shape than I had feared after having my talk with Raymond.

"How do we stand?"

"We don't," I said. "Not unless we make some moves and make them fast." Listening to her passionate account had excited me, even while I was repelled by the casualness with which she seemed to accept all manner of amatory excesses. Looking at her now, I wanted her more passionately than ever, and I didn't want to wait.

"What should we do?" she asked.

I was seized by a sudden bold impulse-not bold in concept, but in the blunt way I expressed myself: "First we should go over to that couch and . . . "

She wasn't offended at all. I knew she wouldn't be. She smiled and said, "I was hoping you'd suggest that, I've been thinking alone those lines ever since I saw you." Her eyes went to my lower body.

She was as amoral as a woman as I'd ever known, yet she didn't give the impression of being emotionally sick. She seemed to enjoy passionate desire to the fullest. As far as she was concerned, morals might never have been invented.

There was something refreshing about this, and frightening, too. But, right then, desire was my dominate reaction. And that desire was going to be served.

Ellen, my part-time girl, hadn't been in at all today. But even if she had, she would have gone home by then. Or gone wherever she customarily went when she left the office. I had often suspected that she headed for the nearest back seat, judging by the looks and manners of the boys who called for her.

I crossed the outer office and turned the lock on the front door, I also pulled down the shade. When I returned to my private office, Claire had taken off the wisp of a frock she'd been wearing, and now stood before me in a thin half slip and a bra without shoulder straps. The latter garment pushed her pert boobs high and held them there, the half cups barely concealing her big nipples.

I enjoyed this tantalization for only a moment because the bra was the next article to go. Her breasts bubbled forward to hang trembling on her chest-wall high and proudly out-thrusting. Her nipples were soft at the moment.

As I undressed, I watched her. Her half slip came down and she stepped out of them. This left her in tight briefs, with garter belt beneath them, its slender tentacles reaching downward to tug the tops of her shining flesh-tinted hose. I threw off my own clothes as quickly as I could.

She removed everything but her little panties. Dressed this way, her buttocks twisting and sliding under the silken confinement, she strolled to the couch. She lay down on her back. Her big breasts spread only a little when she was in this posture. They were so firm, they retained most of their shape, their peaks tilting upward. These were now beginning to stiffen.

Stripped. I crossed the office to her. Eyes narrow and smoky, lips parted, she watched my growing sexual excitement, so exposed!

I stopped beside her, looked down at all her loveliness, and suddenly got an idea which was inspired by some of the revelations she'd made a few minutes before.

I didn't want an ordinary, run-of-the-bed experience with her this time. I wanted more than that. After all, if she was willing to do what she had admitted doing with those other men, why shouldn't she do that with me as well? I was talking about an act of sex that was different from the norm.

This was something which had never happened in all my years with my wife. Why? Well, I'd been a little ashamed of my desire, to tell the truth, and I hadn't believed Joyce was the sort of woman to ask, quite apart from the fact that she was my wife and the mother of my children. Still, the desire had always been there, tucked in a recess of my mind.

I'd had the experience a couple of times before I was married. First there had been this girl in college-Jayne, her name was.

She was from the country,, some place in Indiana, and Jayne was a virtual lust-box. Not virtuous. No, indeed, she had doubtless lost her virginity when she was twelve or so, and she apparently had been celebrating the lost ever since.

Anyway, we had this date one spring evening-our second date, as I recall-and both of us were primed to go further than the light petting in which we'd indulged the first time. I was primed to open her blouse and liberate her young balloon-like breasts. This was about as much as I hoped for. I felt, from the way she had reacted on our previous date and from her mood when we went out together for the second time, that she was primed for me to do something like this.

We went to a night club a little way out of town, had a couple of drinks,, danced, and then I drove her to a quiet spot. Parking was to occupy the main portion of the evening, as is customary on college dates. But what this parking was destined to be! The experience turned into the most thrilling of my young life.

I began, of course, by kissing her, and this time I started right away with the intense method. Her lips responded easily to the pressure of mine, and proceeded to ravish the sweetness of her mouth. As we did this time and again, and as she began to twist and clutch me tighter, I sent my hands o some explorations.

I discovered the warm satiny smoothness of her legs, all the way from her knees to the tops of the softly flaring columns, rimmed by the slender elastics of her silken pants. I fondled her things for quite a while.

In time I moved one hand to the back of her dress, for she wasn't wearing a blouse that night after all, and opened her zipper. She cooperated to let me slide the dress off her shoulders and down her arms. At this point, I had her dress reduced to a pile of cloth at her middle. Below the rumple were her long bare legs and above the rumple were her bountifully beautiful boobs, with only a thin light brassiere to hold them and to conceal their total loveliness from my eyes.

By that time, she was an excited, panting bundle of lust-my deep kisses had accomplished this-and I was beginning to hope that perhaps I would be able to go further than I had planned. Perhaps-just perhaps, mind you-I would be able to ease her to a horizontal position on the back seat of my car, then remove the silken panties which only my fingertips had touched to that point. With the removal of her panties-that barrier of slight practical value but immense symbolic significance

-there would be nothing to stop me from forging onward to heights of passion which I had scaled only twice before in my life, once with another college girl and once, a year previously, with a girl in my senior class at high school.

But first, before I went for Jayne's silken panties, I wanted to bare her huge boobs, to pop her bra and let them go, so that they would tumble out to my eager hands and nestle there quivering before my ardent gaze and thrilling the sensitivity of my fingertips.

I reached around her.

"Oh, yes!" she said. "Take my playthings. I just go crazy when a boy does that. Why, after a little bit 'a that foolin' around, I'm apt to do most anything at all!"

This thrilled me and I was quick to accede to her request, though I had no idea what she really meant. My thinking was still panty-oriented entirely. That is to say in my state of youth and inexperience I thought that the removal of a girl's underpants, followed by the action which this unveiling suggested, was the ultimate thrill and triumph to which an eager young male could aspire.

She taught me something that night.

With her bare breasts in my hands, my hands squeezed them gently and enjoying her peculiar soft-firm resiliency which a young woman's breasts have in common with nothing else in the world, and with my thumbs at first gliding and then stumbling back and forth over her nipples, as the nipples swelled up and outward to become very thick and very tall and very tantalizing, I felt as if I were about to burst with the sharp sheer pleasure of the moment.

My excitement was made all the greater by her murmuring gasping words as she told me how wonderful I was making her feel. She delivered quite a commentary on the subject, as I recall, forsaking the euphemistic playthings for the more earthy name of the objects which I was squeezing, stroking, rolling, and bouncing gently in my hands. Up to that time I had heard this word only from guys. To think that a sweet young country blossom from the back country knew what men called women's breasts, and that I was now hearing the word spoken for great excitement in itself.

The excitement, however, had yet to begin in earnest.

What started the really king-sized thrills throbbing through me was her frantic demand: "Kiss them! Oh, Art, take them and love them hot!"

I lifted one trembling, full-ballooned globe, and lowered my face to it.

At the moment of contact with her breasts, another contact parred me strong and deep. This thrill emanated from her fumbling hand on my shaft. She wasn't merely browsing, either. She had a definite purpose. I jerked convulsively as she grasped it, but she merely held on tight and performed an act which was wildly exciting.

As she caressed me even more ardently now, my head jerked upright. "Hey, stop that!" I cried like a fool. "I can't stand much more of it! . . . "

"Oh, yes, ,you can," she assured me. "You can stand a lot. Mmmmm, you can even stand when I do this. . . . " She bent her head to my obvious arousal and her lips closed over me.

The steering wheel was not in our way because I had slid well over toward the edge of her seat. Therefore, no obstacle barred her from what she wanted to do. She moved quickly, and I grew wild with pleasure.

The sensation I felt was one of wondrous warmth, a soft caressing, as if with hot velvet. I was set a throb, with thrills hammering at me in a way I would never have thought possible.

I stared at the bare graceful line of her back, at the light brown tumble of her lovely hair. I clenched my fist and threw my head back, my eyes continuing the motion further until I couldn't see.

Till I reached the end of my control. I lost it in a series of erupting spasms of pure thrill.

I released an anguished cry as the unbearable excitement of the release until my throbbing pleasure faded. I straightened up and opened my eyes. I was looking right at her and she was smiling

"Well, angel!" she murmured throatily. "How'd you like that, huh? Did li'l ole Jayne treat you nice?"

"Oh baby," I breathed. "That was it!"

She laughed melodiously, ,but with an edge of tension, too. "I thought you'd like that. Lots of boys seem to." She began to caress me gently. "Now here's somethin' I would like from you. You know what I'm talking about?"

I thought maybe I did. But heck, that wasn't anything a real man ought to do!

And yet, she did it for me. . . .

I stared at her uncertainly, and she appeared to take this as a sign of agreement. "Let me get these old panties off . . . " She began to twist and turn, pressing the shiny pink fabric away from her hips and down her legs. I stared at her as she moved her legs to free the panties from her feet, then tossed the bit of pink over the back seat.

"Now . . . " she said raising her lower body and parting her legs.

I stared at her waiting femininity so close to me.

"I've never. . . . "

"Well, I figured that, silly! You'd never had the other thing done to you, had you?"

"So, why not let this be your night to learn everything, "No. No. I hadn't." hm? Anyway," she added her voice becoming very husky, "I really need it. Oh, Art, yes. I need you bad!"

"But can't we . . . that is, there's a regular way. . . . "

"You couldn't, right now," she said. "And besides, that's against my policy."

"Your policy?"

"Mmmmm. I promised my Daddy I wouldn't do anything bad while I was away at school. He didn't want me to get into the kind of trouble I had at home a coupl'a years ago. That cost him an awful lot to straighten out."

I stared at her.

"Don't dawdle around now," she said panting. "I'm just about to go up in smoke!"

I did what she wanted, subscribing to the principle that turnabout was indeed fair play. And this proved to be pretty good play, too. Surprisingly, I enjoyed myself more than I had thought. When my lips were upon her loins pumped and her thighs clasped about my head, holding me.

The proof of my enjoyment was apparent when she, midway along the road to paradise, made an exploration. When she found how anxious I was, she decided to take me the same way once again, and in this way, we mutually gave each other intense fulfillment.

What brought on this reverie which I relived in an instant as I was standing and looking down at Claire Conlins? Well, I suppose it's only natural that when a person is about to light a cigarette or eat a candy bar his mind automatically recalls fleeting impressions of previous times when he was experienced the same pleasure.

She looked at me. "What's the matter."

"Nothing." I assured her. "Nothing at all. You look so lovely, you give me all kinds of ideas."

"Do I?"

"Not only the way you look, either," I said as I climbed onto the couch, "but also some of the things you said before."

She smiled at me. "All right. What'll we do first?"

"Let's begin by taking off these," I suggested, and took a firm grip on the waist band of her sheer panties. I pulled the elastic down, turning the nylon inside out and peeling the silken fabric away from the body. I drew the panties down her legs and tossed them away.

Then I began to kiss her body.

I kissed her from the tips of her toes to the top of her head, then turned her over and proceeded in the opposite direction. By the time I had reached her toes again, I had left virtually no portion of her anatomy unattended, either with my caressing hands or with my hot lips.

That was when I said, "Sit up, baby," and helped her.

She was very excited by then, nearly as excited as I.

I stood there, my male excitement extended like a flaming spear so close to her face, she reached to me.

As I was receiving the passionate attentions, and deciding through the pink haze which enfolded me that she was every bit as good as Jayne. I thrilled Claire by holding and teasing the pert promontories of her chest and tweaking tips. After while, however, I could tweak no more. All I could do was gasp and groan and hang on.

Then I could no longer do that. I erupted.

I dropped, unable to stand the sensation.

"Are you going to leave me this way?" she asked.

I assured her I wasn't, and sat down beside her on the couch. But I elected no to do for her what I had done for Jayne. Rather, I did for her what Jayne done for me, and again I bent to her body to kiss, but this time, instead of kissing her whole body, I stuck to one intimate part of her.

CHAPTER SIX

After we were both drained of every ounce of erotic emotion and sexuality, she said, "You had an idea. What was it?"

"I mean, about the case." She was a little annoyed. Though she had enjoyed herself a great deal, she was anxious now about the divorce proceedings.

So was I: "We're going to have to do something to keep your husband from bringing suit against you. If he does that makes the charge stick, which he apparently can do, you're going to wind up with little or nothing."

"Really? Is that the law?"

"You're darned right. Husbands have some protection even in this state."

She didn't respond to the vehemence of my last remark. Now she was all business. "What can we do?"

"I have an idea." I hesitated. "This isn't the sort of thing I should suggest to my client, but considering that we're pretty close and that our relationship isn't entirely professional. . . . "

"For heaven's sake! Attend to your conscience later. What are you talking about?"

"Stanley couldn't hurt you if you were in a position to bring a countercharge of infidelity against him and make it stick."

She smiled faintly. "He is an old man."

"You said he was able, though."

"Able, yes, but not very desirous."

"We'll stimulate his interest."

"How do you figure on doing that?"

"With some high-class talent. If he was interested enough to go after you just a few months ago and ask you to marry him, he ought to be interested enough to go after another girl of comparable appeal, now that he doesn't have you any more."

"Where do you intend to find the talent?"

"I was hoping you could help me. You need to dance at a strip joint on Sunset, didn't you?"

"Where did you hear that?"

"The story's been circulating."

"All right. That was where I met Stan. After the show, we had to mingle with the customers. He bought me a couple of drinks and started spouting off about how rich he was. I saw a fat opportunity and I grabbed."

"After which you decided you didn't care for what you had hold of, him."

"That's about right."

"So, do you know a girl who would give us a hand-someone he doesn't know you know?"

She thought briefly. "I know a lot of girls back there, some part-time pros and some not."

"She can be a pro," I said, "as long as your husband isn't aware of that, and as long as she comes to town and meets him the way any girl might do."

"You'll pay her, hmmm?"

That stopped me short. "Yeah, I guess so."

"I told you I was practically broke," she said. "Until you shake some money out of Stan, my life is going to be broker."

"That brings up something else: You're going to have to move back into the house."

"What?" she stiffened.

"You'll have to. In order for our charge to be as strong as his, you two will have to be living together at the time."

"Well, that blows the whistle!" She said. "If I'm living with him, no other broad will stand a chance."

I smiled at this evidence of professional jealousy. Or semi-professional, anyway. "You'll be living with him only as far as external appearances go; you won't have to go him any attention. You'll be too tired, not in the mood, sleepy-make up your own excuses. There can't be any break or even an open refusal, but the two of you won't be having any fun. You can manage that, can't you?"

She shrugged. "Why not? I never had any shakes with him anyway."

"And you can keep him away?"

"I just won't encourage him. He's a man who needs encouragement."

"Then there's no problem."

"There might be," she said. He may not want to take me back."

"You'll have to persuade him."

"Tell him I'm dropping the suit?"

"The divorce isn't actually filed yet," I pointed out. "Tell him you feel the two of you deserve another chance and that you'll try to be a better wife."

"It's liable to choke me to say that."

"Try," I advised.

"Then I prove my sincerity by refusing to make him cozy in the bedroom, hm? I don't think that will work."

"It has to."

"My husband isn't much of a chaser," she said. "I doubt if he ever has been. Even when he was single and in L.A., he didn't try to make me. He proposed that first night, but only after I'd led him around to the point."

"Well, the girl we hire will lead him around to something else, hot panties with no one the wiser."

"And she'll testify afterward?"

"No. That would ruin us. Raymond would start questioning her about what she did for a living and whether she knew you or me. She'll have to long gone by the time of the trial. You'll walk in on them when Stanley is in bed with her, and you'll have to have someone with you. You and your friend will be the ones to testify. You have girl friends here in town, don't you."

"A few."

"All right. Get one of them. She has to be reliable, though, the sort who'll make a credible witness."

"This is going to be tough."

"You shouldn't shrink from that," I commented.

"Now, that wasn't nice."

"Sorry."

She looked at me closely. "In spite of the fact we make love together, you don't think much of me do you?"

"Don't be silly," I said. "I like you a lot."

"As a sex piece, yes. But not as a person."

"Maybe it's only as a client that I don't like you."

"Oh, well, that isn't to bad."

"Can you get in touch with a girl we can hire to make a play for your husband, and right away?"

"I'll give you some names and phone numbers. You go to Hollywood and look them up."

"Me?"

"I want you to make the arrangements."

"But.. . . "

You have charge of the case after all. You know what you want. Anyway, a guy can deal with a broad that way better than another woman can."

"Maybe you're right."

"Then, too, these girls drift around. I'm out of touch, so it's possible there'll have to be some scouting to locate them."

"All right."

"You want me to go back to Stan today, hmmm."

"Right now."

"There isn't any other way."

"None that I can think of." She said an unladylike word. "You'll still be seeing me often," I told her with a smile.

She remained serious as she looked at me closely. "Do you really think you can win this case."

"I think so."

"And get me enough to make the trouble worth while?"

"Get us both enough," I said. She seemed to relax a little. "Then I'll do what you say."

"Good girl."

She opened her purse and took out a little red book. She skimmed through it. "Here. Take this down."

I pulled a note pad in front of me.

"Carolyn Barker." She gave me a phone number and an address. "That's where she was living when I saw her last."

"Another?"

"Fran Peterson." A phone number, but no address, came with this name. "Go on."

"Helene Frost."

She gave me an address and a phone number for Helene.

"I'll drive down there tomorrow and see what luck I have," I said. "You'll let me know?"

"Maybe you'd better call me the next day. I don't want to phone you at Stanley's house."

"It's my house, too," she said with a determined look.

"I won't forget what you have coming," I assured her.

"This had better work, Art."

"I'm as anxious to have this work as you are."

She stared at me for a few seconds and then stood up. As she started for the door, I arose and rounded the side of my desk. I followed her across the outer office to the front door.

"You'll pack your things right away and return to the house, won't you?" I asked.

"If you say so."

"Yes."

"What are you going to tell Raymond?"

"Nothing. As far as he'll know, you've taken the case out of my hands."

"Won't they think, something's funny-if not Stan, then Raymond!"

"I doubt that. They'll probably figure we decided we had a bad case and that the most profitable thing for you to do was go on living with Stanley."

"There's a chance he won't accept me back."

I thought for a moment. "To be on the safe side, you'd better phone me this evening and let me know. You'll have a chance to make a call without him overhearing, won't you?"

"I should be able to."

"Then look me up in the book."

She moved close. "You want to kiss me, Art, for good luck?"

I put my arms about her and drew her extravagantly curved softness against me. My lips found hers.

As our lips clung and played their little game, I thought, peculiarly enough, of my wife and of the manner in which both my personal and professional ethics had slipped since I had become acquainted with this bomb. I didn't enjoy the kiss very much but, then, I'd haw my fill a few minutes ago. In fact, during the last three days I'd had more mattress fun than in any similar period of my life for a very long time.

I would have a respite the next day, I thought, I'd be driving down to see about engaging one of Claire's erstwhile girl friends and that would be strictly for our future or at least that was what I thought. We were up to some crummy scheming, but I hope it would work. I had a lot riding on this one.

CHAPTER SEVEN

I had my work cut out for me, so I was up at the crack of dawn. I had already explained to Joyce, the night before, that I had business in L.A. and that I would be leaving early enough to get there as soon as possible. The drive figured to take well over four hours.

I didn't awaken Joyce, but made my own coffee. By the time I finished dressing, the coffee was done, and I drank this as I ate cold cereal.

I was on the road soon after.

Claire had phoned me the evening before and reported that Stanley had accepted her. Things were chilly at their house, she said, but the old boy had agreed to give her another chance. He must need her. I decided. Or, at least, he figures he does. Wait until he finds out there's nothing doing between the sheets . . . or wherever. Then he'll be a ripe prospect for what Claire and I are going to land him.

My old heap made good time rounding the switchbacks on the twisty road which led from the high elevation of our mountain village to the lower level of the San Joaquin Valley. The drop of nearly a mile in elevation produced a rise of over twenty degrees in temperature. In mid-April the mercury at Rocky Bluffs has been reaching the upper sixties in the middle of the day, but on the floor of the Valley the thermometer was hitting the ninety mark.

As soon as I was on a straight and level road, slicing through the vineyards, orchards and vegetable fields which blanket this lush country-one of the most productive in the land, incidentally-I leaned to my right and rolled down the window on that side of the car. The additional blast of air was warm, but at least it was air and it was in motion. I settled back in the seat for long warm drag ahead.

Once I'd hit the main highway-the "main street of California"-the miles rolled quickly past. There was multi-lane divided freeway for most of the distance to the sprawling metropolis of L.A.

On the Ridge Route, which passed over the hump of the Tehachapi, there was a nearly solid procession of trucks in the far-right lane. I doubt if you could find a road anywhere that's traveled by more trucks than you could find on 99 just north of the big town. . . They're a hazard because every once in a while a brake system will fail on one of those long downgrades. Lots of people have been killed on that stretch of road, though the death rate had been sharply cut by the present freeway which was opened several years ago. Now there are escape ramps at intervals along the way, where trucks can run off on an incline and eventually come to a stop in the sand. The tire tracks on these ramps furnish evidence of how frequently they have been put to use.

Once you surmount the grassy hills-green in the spring because of winter rains, but brown and tinder-dry in the hot season and fall-you drop abruptly into the gigantic maze which is the town itself. A huge sign tells you that the eight-lane-wide, divided field of concrete on which you find yourself speeding at sixty-five miles an hour, surrounded by cars and trucks all going as fast or faster. But where is it taking you? Ah, that's something which, unless you've been driving around Los Angeles continually and have kept tabs on the day-to-day burgeoning of the freeway system, you're apt not to discover until you get there.

This isn't strictly true, either. The fact is that you never get anywhere if you stay on the freeways. They just roll on and on, interconnecting, until finally you are dropped halfway in San Francisco, in the middle of the desert, or south of the border. When you reach the point where the freeway ends, you're apt not to know where you have been at all.

There was an item in the papers a while back about two families from some state in the Midwest, I think -who decided to drive to Southern California, each in their own car, and to maintain visual contact with one another along the way so that they could spend their vacations together when the reached L.A. All went well for a distance of nearly two thousand miles, until they hit the freeway.

They had heard of the traffic congestion which would await them there, and accordingly they had mapped a strategy which they thought would see them through. They would try to keep one another in sight, but in case they were separated, they agreed on certain points where they would meet at certain times. These were marked on duplicate maps of the area, and one map was placed in each car.

Well, they did become separated, of course. But, as things developed, neither family was able to find their way to the selected meeting points at the agreed times, in spite of the fact that they each had a map in front of them. They spent the better part of two days traveling back and forth on the freeways, switching from this one to that one and getting nowhere. They stopped at restaurants and motels along the rights of way, and they asked for directions. But they became quickly confused as soon as the reentered the traffic tide due to a multiplicity of off-ramps, on-ramps, interchanges and conflicting signs. And, of course, it was never possible to turn around; no matter where they were, traffic was moving in only one direction.

Finally each family saw no alternative but to head back home by following the directional signs reading "East." They didn't achieve contact with one another until one carload was halfway home and decided to call the other's home on the chance that their friends had already, returned there. Sure enough, their friends had just arrived.

That was how two families spent their anticipated vacation. And they vowed that once was enough. They would never try that again.

The freeways are fine, but only if you know the system quite well. A newcomer to the area is well advised to stay off them altogether unless he had made a detailed study of his route before he gets on, knows not only the freeway he wants to take but exactly where he will find the on-ramp, knows what surface street he must use to enter it and what direction he must travel at the time; knows where he must change over, if a change over is required, and what freeway lane leads into the change-over; and finally knows which off-ramp will take him off the freeway so that he will be deposited somewhere near his desired destination. If he has memorized all of this, has nerves of steel and sufficient self-confidence to ignore all signs he will encounter along the way, he stands a fair chance of reaching his destination . . . provided none of the on-ramps, off-ramps or interchange lanes he has chosen are closed due to accidents or repairs.

Though I'd lived out of town for three years, I had kept in touch by occasional week-end trips, so I was fairly sure of myself. But even a long-time freeway fighter, as commuters are called here, can find himself in a jam if he suffers a momentary lapse and passes his cross-over or off-ramp. Usually, by the time you do get off, it's all but impossible to find your way back to the point where you should have turned and to pick up your route again.

So I concentrated.

The first freeway to branch off was not one I wanted of course, so I ignored that of course. I also ignored the next freeway exit. Next was the stretch which heads south to the beach cities and intersects the lower state areas and such. I didn't want any of those. Nor did I want the off-ramps or any of the other places marked along the way.

You can't trust in signs altogether. That's where most newcomers go wrong. They assume, for example, that an arrow marked "Santa Monica" will show the way to just that exit. Such an assumption might be justified in New York, let's say or Chicago. But not around this neck of the woods. The arrow marked "Santa Monica" may point to a freeway link which hasn't yet been completed and will drop you in an outlying district, ten or twelve miles from your destination.

Even the directional markers can't be trusted absolutely. The routes marked "West" frequently run more northerly than westerly. Then, too, there's confusion in the minds of many motorists who assume for instance, that you have to go south to reach the naval base from L.A. After all, isn't that down the coast? Well, if you'll study a map closely you'll notice that what you want is actually southeast. Therefore, from many points in the Los Angeles area, you must take routes marked "East" in order to get there. If you take a route marked "South," you're more apt to end up somewhere else. And that's a fate I wouldn't wish on anyone. It's happened again and again with inconvenience.

Another bane of the freeway novice is that the signs which mark major interchanges are not placed far enough up the right of way to permit changing lanes when the freeway is crowded. And do you think any of the motorists in the other lanes will slow their speed by as much as ten miles an hour to let you squeeze in front of them? If you answered with a cynical "no," I can only say "Shame on you. Of course, some motorists will. About one out of fifty."

So there you are. But where are you?

But this is my story, and we'll go back to where I happened to be at a few minutes after noon on that warm and smoggy early spring day. I was still on the main Freeway, but I knew I would have to turn off soon if I didn't want to go on too far.

What I wanted was Movieland-Screenland, the land of make-believe, for that was where Claire Conlins' girl friends supposedly lived.

I had ignored several signs purporting to show the way to that runoff, because I knew darned well they wouldn't take me there, at least, not by the best route. I finally saw the one I wanted and angled south.

This took me into north of Movieland, to be precise where I picked up the main portion of the freeway I wanted. After crossing the freeway, passing the bowl.

I was now in the district I was seeking.

I took the off-ramp I wanted, which is a street that twists past the modern motels and aged apartment houses around, which intersects the shining opulence of the main boulevard. At Sunset, a couple of blocks further south, I turned right and proceeded past drive-ins, sprawling service stations, auto agencies and professional buildings, finally entering a district of motels, night clubs and glorified hot dog stands located in the outskirt territory on an island within the incorporated mass of the greater city, itself. This area is designated on the maps as one thing, but is usually referred to as 'The Strip." As far as I know, the fact that there are a number of strip-tease joints along this stretch of Sunset has nothing to with the designation. Not that kind of peel.

The first girl I was going to call on was Carolyn Barker, whose name was the first Claire had handed me. Might as well by systematic, I decided. Her address was on a street which crossed the main stem. I watched for it, and, when I spotted the sign, took a quick turn.

The apartment house where she lived was only half a block off the boulevard-an excellent location for a prostitute.

I parked a little way down the street, in the first available slot, and walked back. My stomach had been growling, due to the fact, that I'd had nothing to eat since my early breakfast of cold flakes and coffee.

But eating could wait, I decided.

First things first.

If I worked everything out as planned. I'd be eating much better than I ever had before, and I'd have the goodies of the luscious morsel Clair eto much on as a sexy dessert.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I saw a small swimming pool in the protective shadow of the two-story building. And the pool at that hour of the day was in use, which is nothing new, at that.

The pool was in use as most Hollywood pools are used most of the time-that is, as a place to lounge beside rather than as a place in which to swim. The loungers were a pair of the likeliest prospects you might ever hope to see. One was blonde-not golden blonde and not white blonde, either, but with hair which vaguely resembled the color of a medium-dry martini. The other was a redhead-not auburn and not carrot-like, but looking as if the strands had been spun out of a Pacific sunset when a storm was beginning to gather. The blonde wore a bikini which exposed more of her full breasts and her belly than it concealed, and the redhead more a one-piece outfit which was cut extremely low at the back, exposing the starting swells of her swell buttocks.

I looked them over as I passed on the walk, and they returned the compliment. When I was halfway up the stairway, headed for Carolyn Barker's apartment -number 9-I noticed that both girls were following my movements with their eyes.

I stopped at the door with the 9, and thumbed the bell button at the side. I waited. There was no response. I tried the button again.

"She's not at home," a feminine voice said from behind me.

I turned. The redhead with the low back was standing there, her aqua suit showing off her frontal attractions now that she was facing me. The vee top plunged low, showing the inner sides of her full, yet conical breasts. She had herself a beautiful set of knockers and the look in her eyes told me she knew about it.

I smiled, "You know when she might be back?" The lovely shrugged. "Who can tell? You may as well go in and wait."

"Well, I don't think . . . "

"She won't mind. She'd rather have you wait than lose . . . well, she'd rather have you wait." The redheaded broad apparently had a good idea what I was there for, or thought she did, but preferred not to commit herself definitely, on the chance that she might be wrong.

I said, "You're a friend of hers?"

"You might call me that."

"I'll wait if you open the door and let me in." Being an attorney, I was aware of the technicalities on breaking and entering.

"Why not?"

When the redhead moved past me, I stared at the long bare sweep of her back and the-impudent rounds of her buttocks which were not quite covered by her blue-green tight fitting swimsuit. Her legs were straight and clean. Good talent, I decided. I wondered if she was in business too, but decided not to risk the question. Carolyn Barker I was fairly sure of.

The apartment was not the neatest in the world. The ash trays were pretty well loaded; there were glasses standing around, a couple of which had some liquor and some melted ice in them; the furniture was disarranged; and on the carpet beside the couch was a pair of lady's panties, pale pink and silken, twisted into something like a knot.

"Party last night," my lush guide explained laconically. She bent and picked up the undergarment, providing me an excellent opportunity to appreciate her rounded buttocks, carried the panties to a bedroom doorway and gave them a toss. "Make yourself at home," she invited, walked back. She pointed. "The booze is over there."

"Thanks."

As she started out, I asked, "By the way, where do you live?" I thought I ought to know that, in case any question arose later.

"Downstairs," she said. "Number six."

"And your name?"

"Why?"

"In case Carolyn asks me."

"Ivy Kirker."

"Thanks." I grinned again.

She turned and walked out, her hips undulating smoothly. The door shut behind her.

I chose a chair, sat down and pulled out a cigarette. I lit up.

I couldn't wait too long, but I figured I ought to wait for a while, at least, I had confirmed where the Barker girl lived, and this was an accomplishment I didn't want to have go to waste. The others whose names Claire had given me might very well have drifted away so that I would be unable to contact them. A bird in the hand and all that jazz.

The wait proved to be longer than I had thought it might be, though, and my stomach was giving me a fit. There's something about my metabolism that darned near prevents me from skipping meals. Whenever I try to do that, I get lightheaded and the hunger pangs start to grab at me.

Carolyn Barker's kitchen was near at hand, and I presumed she would have some sandwich fillings there, I had no right to take anything, of course, but I was hungry, and the girl and I were going to make a deal, weren't we? From the way her neighbor had talked, there seemed little question Carolyn would prove available for the sort of job I had in mind. So, since we were going to have dealings together and possibly even ride together to Rocky Bluffs that very afternoon, why shouldn't I make use of her kitchen and the food contained therein?

The girl wouldn't mind, I assured myself. Considering what I probably would have to pay her, from what source I did not as yet know, this seemed to be the least she could do to make my waiting more comfortable.

I walked into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and found some sandwich stuff that looked good. I found some bread, also, and set about preparing lunch.

Wouldn't you know that at this precise time Carolyn Barker would return home? Sure you would. She did, I'm here to tell you.

Less expected, perhaps, was the fact that she was not alone: A man was with her.

When I heard both voices outside the front door, I froze, the remaining half of my sandwich poised in mid-air. Was the man a customer? Most likely. What would be his attitude when he found another potential customer-an indirect one, to be sure, though he wouldn't know this-waiting in the apartment? Would he make trouble? Would he take off? If he took off, what would Carolyn's attitude be toward the person who had caused the loss of patronage, namely me?

It's funny how many questions can flash through your mind in the span of a few moments. Even funnier is the fact that, though you don't have time to figure out answers, answers nevertheless assert themselves. Perhaps they are correct, perhaps not, but they furnish a basis for decision and for the action which follows.

Or the inaction.

In my case, inaction seemed to be the wisest course -that is, inaction except to the extent of slipping in back of the kitchen door. The door was the swinging kind which, when fully open as now, remained in that position. There was barely enough room for a fairly slim person to stand in the wedge-shaped nook between the door and the wall. I was slim enough. Just barely.

I took my sandwich with me, but my partly consumed glass of milk remained on the tile drain board beside the sink. With my shoulder blades and one ear pressed against the wall, I tried to keep from breathing hard for the next few moments. And I listened.

From the living room, this was what I heard.

First there was the sound of the outside door opening, footfalls on the carpet, the door closing, and . . .

"Mmmmm. That's funny. Smells like cigarette smoke in here."

"I don't notice it."

"You wouldn't. When you're like this, there's only one thing you can think about."

"I suppose you're not thinking about that, too?"

"Sure I am, Victor. But that doesn't make me unconscious."

"Well, it's not every day that a man and his wife make up. Nowadays it's easier to get divorced."

Man and wife, I thought. This clown was married to her. What a break that I'd had the sense to duck behind the door! But how long could I stay there? What would happen if the guy found me?

"I think I'd better look around," Carolyn said apprehensively. "I still smell that smoke."

I tensed. What if she walked into the kitchen and saw my partly-consumed glass of milk standing on the drain board?

"The devil with the smoke, baby!" her husband exclaimed. "Come here."

"Now, Victor . . . ah . . . oh, my!"

I began to sweat. Not only was I penned up in a space which gave me barely room enough to stand, an intruder in a stranger's apartment, but now I was apparently going to be forced to witness a session of what in Eroue is charmingly known as l'amour and what, among the Anglo-Saxons, would have been referred to as a good old-fashioned piece.

And the fact that Carolyn Barker was married, and currently in the process of reconciling with her husband, upset my plans as far as she was concerned. At least, that was my assumption.

But what I could I do? Walk out now, right past them?

Don't be an idiot.

I was stuck for the time being, unless, of course Carolyn and her husband moved into the bedroom for their business. Then I could get away. But, judging by the way he was now romancing her, as evidenced by the responsive snorts, coos and gurgles she was emitting, they weren't apt to move very far from where they now were. I could visualize her couch getting the punishment of its life in just a few minutes.

She had been concerned about the scent of cigarette smoke, though. If she insisted on breaking away to scout around the apartment, she would surely look behind the door where I was presently cramped, perspiring and breathless.

As you can see, I wasn't used to situations such as the one in which I now found myself. I had never been a midnight creeper, and, until Claire Conlins, I'd never had anything to do with married women. Perhaps my education had been neglected, but those were the facts. So, I was totally unprepared for the exigencies I now faced.

Meanwhile, in the living room, Carolyn's mouth was free and she caught her breath. She was saying, "Victor, sweet, don't tear it!"

"But I gotta have you chick. I want into you like crazy. I can't wait."

"All right! I want you, too. But get your hands away from there sol can take off the dress, will you?"

In spite of the spot I was in, and the possible danger involved, I found myself attempting to visualize exactly what was going on in the next room, just a few steps from where I was stranded.

"Okay, take the blasted dress off," the guy said, "But hurry, will yuh?"

"I'll hurry."

"Hey, I wish you were always like that," the man said. "I never saw a doll who looked so good in her scanties as you do."

"Have you seen many?" she teased. "Lately, I mean?"

"You know I've been true to you, baby. I ain't screwed a single chick since you and I broke up."

She gurgled a laugh. "But how about married ones, hmmm?"

"You witch!"

There was silence for a while, then a muffled sigh from her, as if her lips were too fully occupied to permit any other sound.

She released a long sigh. "Oh, Victor, how you get me so hot!"

"Let's do something about that right away. Like we'll just take off the hammocks covering those luscious knockers. . . "

"Oh, look out you pinched me."

"I'll do worse than that when I get those blasted hooks undone."

"Here. Let me."

A moment's silence followed, then her voice with: "There."

"Wow! Twin torpedoes. Lemme grab 'em!"

"Still like them, do you?"

"Baby, they make me go!"

"Show me, then, the way you used to."

"You mean like this. . . ? "

"Oh, yes. Yes."

"And this."

"Yes, yes. . . "

"And . . . aargh . . . "

"Oh!"

I was now sweating so much I must have looked as if I'd come in from a rainstorm. Maybe the embarrassment of my situation was the main cause, or maybe the close quarters, but there was no doubt the excitement furnished by what was happening in the next room played a part, too.

Worse still, the erotic picture was causing me to sprout down there at a most embarrassing time. I could feel my excitement pushing through my clothes and against the door.

My mind's eye was reporting to me exactly what was happening, even though I'd never seen Carolyn and had no idea what she looked like. Nor did I know how her husband looked. But that was all right.

"Let me lie down," she said urgently.

"I'm putting it in right here," her husband replied, husky-voiced.

"All right."

I heard the couch creak.

Not much longer, I thought. Just a few minutes. Then maybe I would dare creep out of my hiding place and make a dash for the front door. If I stayed where I was indefinitely, one of the persons in the other room would be bound to discover me. So the only thing to do was to seize the most opportune moment, and go.

Carolyn and her husband were about to seize the moment, if what I heard was any indicator, for he was in the process of removing her panties.

"Don't tear them," she was saying. "They're one of my best pairs."

"They're pretty," he admitted. "But I know something that's nicer."

"Such as. . . ? "

"This."

She giggled.

"Hey!" he exclaimed. "You're stranglin' me! Wait until I get my pants off. I can't. . . "

"Then hurry."

"I will. I will."

There was more rustling of clothes, after which the couch groaned even more loudly than before. "Oh, you. . . "

"I wanta kiss you some more first," he said. "Like here. . . "

"Yes!"

". . . and here. . . "

"Oh!"

". . . and here and here. . . "

"More!"

For a while I heard nothing but her heavy breathe, punctuated by a gasp every now and then.

Then she cried, "Kiss me more! You know. Oh, I need that now!"

"Here?"

She giggled. "That tickles."

"Here?"

"Yes! But more."

"Mmmmm."

"Oh . . . yes, Victor lover, oh. . . "

There was relative silence for a little while, and then she cried, "Put it in me."

In moments I heard clear proof of this. The couch was squeaking.

Victor started slow, as all good husbands should, but the tempo increased. This was the time I told myself, now they would be busy.

I swiped at me sweating brow and side-stepped out of the cranny in which I'd been hiding. Moving on the balls of my feet and trying not to make a sound, I edged around the kitchen door and through the open doorway.

Victor and Carolyn were busy, all right. She had her stockings on and that was all. Victor wore only his undershirt and his socks. Her hair was dark, and the silken strands spread out against the green couch. Her eyes were closed, for which I was thankful.

I got passed them without being seen, and made my way to the door. I eased this open. One last look as I stepped over the threshold assured me that neither of the persons on the couch had the slightest notion they had been observed. Involved as they were, someone could have been selling tickets and they wouldn't have known the difference.

The door closed silently and I walked along the outside corridor to the stairs. I took out my handkerchief and used this to mop my face.

At the bottom of the steps, I was about to turn toward the street, when I heard a feminine voice: "You see her?"

"Huh?" I whirled around.

The girl named Ivy Kirker, now wearing tight shorts and a flowered blouse and looking as fetching as she had before, stood in the doorway of Apartment 6. "Did you see Carolyn? I noticed her come home a little while ago."

"Yeah," I managed to reply. "I saw her. Thanks." I started to turn away.

"Was Victor sore?"

"What?"

"Victor-the guy who was with her. Was he sore because she'd invited you up there? She's supposed to take only the guys he sends."

I blinked. "You mean he knows she's a . . . and he's the one who. . . "

"Say, what's the matter with you? You got what you wanted, didn't you?"

"No. That is, not exactly."

"Well, why not? Victor wouldn't have minded. Business is business. And I know good and well Carolyn wouldn't.

"You want'a see me" she asked. "I've got nothing to do for the next coupl'a hours."

"No, thanks," I said and kept going.

The whole house was full of them apparently. But I'd had enough of that place. After hiding out at Carolyn's apartment, I didn't like hanging around. The situation was too embarrassing and dangerous.

I could only hope that one of the other girls whose names Claire had given me would turn out to be available, and as cooperative as Carolyn and Ivy evidently were. Otherwise, I might have to swallow my pride and come back, embarrassed or not.

I made a rush to my car and climbed behind the wheel. Only then was I able to calm down a little.

Well, anyway, I had gotten a lunch, of sorts. This offered some consolation and kept the experience from being a total loss. And I was encouraged on another score, too; Claire certainly knew some hot numbers.

I took out my notebook and studied the next name for which I had an address. That was Helen Frost.

I thought of phoning first, or of calling the other one, Fran Peterson. But I was afraid my voice wouldn't register too well on the phone right then. A little drive would help me, I decided, with the air blowing in my face, even though the ozone was laced with smog.

Helen lived in the hills north of here.

I started up and headed for her pad, hoping I'd find her home-and alone.

CHAPTER NINE

I parked near her place, a small house on the side of a hill and I couldn't drive next to it. I had to park on a winding street some distance below, and follow a steep flight of steps up to where the little house was built.

Flowers were splashed here and there on the hillside, reds and blues and yellows. The place was picturesque rather than lush or sophisticated, and its location was certainly not one which would seem to offer much practical advantage to a play girl.

But you never know. Perhaps the relative seclusion was a benefit. At any rate, this was where Helene lived. And Helene, according to Claire, did play the sex field-in spades.

I mounted the last few steps and, seeing no doorbell button, rapped on the door.

There was no answer.

I rapped again and received another helping of silence. Apparently she wasn't at home, or was too busy right then to answer the door. The question was, should I wait, come back, or forget her in favor of the last girl on my list, Fran Peterson?

My question was answered in an unlikely way. I happened to glance at the mailbox to the left of the door. On the front of it was a card on which the householder's name was distinctly lettered: Mr. and Mrs. Marty N. Klapper.

Quite obviously, Helen didn't live at his place any more.

I turned to start down the concrete stairs, pausing a moment to look around. Situated as it was, the Klapper's bungalow commanded quite a view. A couple of dozen houses and back yards, some with gleaming pools, were spread out below, and further on there was the panorama of the city, half hidden now by the make out but excitingly visible, no doubt, on those few precious days of clear air which people around here treasure.

My gaze swept the side hill and paused to note a man mowing his back yard, a woman in shorts and out-size bonnet weeding her dahlias or whatever, and at another house, on the rear patio beside the pool. . .

No.

I stared in sudden fascination.

Never had I been a Peeping Tom. Whenever I had read or heard of a man accused of such heinous behavior, I had felt nothing but contempt for the scoundrel. String him up! I had always thought. And not by his neck, either! No punishment was too severe.

No doubt I would have felt differently if I had ever been called upon to defend in court a person who was so accused. But I never had, and I had never come close to engaging in such conduct myself. That left me a clear field for hate, and I hated all Peeping Toms fiercely.

I guess, though, I had never really looked at things from a Peeper's viewpoint, so to speak. That is, I had never quite imagined myself in his rubber-soled sneakers.

The experience which I had outside the bungalow, there in the hills, caused me to do just this . . . later, when I had an opportunity to reflect.

Consider: You are walking down a shadowy street late some evening, thinking about nothing more sinister than that afternoon's baseball game in which your favorite pitcher was robbed of a no-hitter by some schlunk who beat out a bunt to first base in the ninth. All of a sudden you're confronted by a rectangle light at the front of one of the houses you are about to pass. You would have paid no attention to this at all except that as you are approaching and happen to glance that way a figure crosses the room in front of the un-shaded window.

Your eyes goggle; you halt in your tracks; your heart begins to beat fast. You have never had such an experience as this before. The woman you have glimpsed is young and lush and beautiful, completely naked, and apparently unaware that she is being observed closely by a man.

A psychologist might well question this particular conclusion, for there are a goodly number of female exhibitionists in the world, some young and very attractive, who delight in luring and intriguing the unwary male, and who get their enjoyment from the thought of making men all upset while they themselves remain safe and secure (so they supposed) from any overt response on the part of them male. Sometimes they calculate wrong. There is no question that many a rape has resulted from just such a deliberate lure on the part of a young and attractive woman. And who can say but that some of the women do not subconsciously desire to be raped, and that this urge does not furnish the secret motivation for this behavior?

But, back to me, the ogler.

The young woman has passed the window now and you see nothing through the glass except the opposite wall of the room. But your mind is still burning the image of the girl who pranced across the lighted 'stage" of her bedroom a few seconds before, naked as sin, her large full succulent breasts thrust upward and lightly bobbing up and down with each step. You saw her trim middle, too, though only from the side, and impudent curve of her impudent buttocks.

You have to see more, and see closer up.

You are an honorable man, not a lawbreaker, and you have always behaved in a civilized fashion. But you have to see more of that young woman.

You look both ways on the street. No one is in sight

-no car or pedestrian. With your heart pounding fast and your throat drying up, you creep stealthily across the front lawn of the house where the unexpected exhibition took place. There is a large tree not far from the lighted window, and you figure on standing up against that, on the side facing the house, so that you will not be observed from the street or from one of the houses next door.

You take your position and you wait.

In a few moments, the girl makes her appearance again. Were you to examine her facial expression closely, you might detect certain signs of excitement-a tip-off that she is not unaware of the display she is putting on-but you are not concerned with that just now. No indeed. For she is facing the window, and standing back far enough to afford you a clear view of her from the top of her head to her knees. There is not a stitch of clothing to hide even a portion of her charms.

Your fervent gaze leaps from the pinnacle of one breast to the rose-nippled crest of the other, and from there to the soft smoothness of her middle where you dally for awhile visually at the small socket of her navel. From there you coast. . .

The sight is an utterly delightful one.

You remain standing beside the tree for some time, while the lovely young woman moves back and forth, this way and that, displaying her charms from every conceivable angle. Finally she slips a nightie over her head and the light pops out.

You walk-perhaps stagger would be more apt-away from that window a changed man. You are like the teen-ager who has just had his first stick of tea, or the Bengal tiger who's eaten his first villager. You are, in a word, hooked.

Though you are frustrated in a sense, you have found a psychological excitement in the experience which was strange and new, totally unlike the pleasure you have known when you were actually with a girl, so to speak. This had. not been better, necessarily. But different. And very exciting in a special way.

You soon become aware of a desire to know the special excitement again. This is where the battle starts -a battle within the mind, in which desire locks horns with conscience. On one side are the impulses of the beast, refined, to be sure, and perverted somewhat by the ways of civilization, and on the other side are the moral restriction of society along with the fear of exposure and punishment.

Perhaps the inhibitors will win and you will resolutely turn your gaze away whenever you pass an un-shaded window in the future. You will even shun burlesque shows, dime arcades, and nudie movies, because you realize that these will only serve to strengthen the base urge which you must resist.

Or perhaps, if you are a person who isn't made of such stern stuff, the battle within your psyche will go the other way. You may give in to the illicit desire ignore the dictates of society as well as the immediate practical risks involved, whole-heartedly embrace a new avocation: window peeping.

Now you will prowl streets and back alley looking for lighted windows, and you will investigate not only the ones which are entirely un-shaded but also those with shades or drapes which have been closed but not quite all the way. An inch-wide strip of light will soon prove more enticing than a wide yellow rectangle, for you will have learned that there are not too many female exhibitionist in the world (and even fewer who are worth looking at) while, on the other hand, there are a good many couples who arrive home too tired or too intoxicated to be careful in the way they close their drapes or pull their shades. And you will be rewarded.

You are now a peeper of the worst sort.

You are an object of scorn on the part of the unenlightened segments of society and of pity by those who have read a book or two on psychology. Your conduct gives rise to feelings of guilt on your own part, tending to make you introversive and less able to make your way among your fellow humans, particularly fellow humans of the female gender.

You are, in a manner of speaking, on moral and psychological skids. Unless you succeed in shaking the habit and rehabilitating yourself, you will doubtless suffer increasing deterioration until. . .

Well, let's not be morbid.

The point I set out to make at the beginning, is that lookers are not born but made, and that they frequently are made by innocent appearing young ladies who leave their blinds up so as to provide a thrill for themselves at the expense of a really innocent male. So who is, in fact, to blame for the ultimate consequences which may befall both the man and the girl?

I leave you with that moral dilemma to ponder about.

Now let's get back to me. I was sanding on the steps in front of the Klapper cottage, as you recall and staring at a sight on the rear patio of a house some distance down the hill. The situation represented a considerable coincidence because what I was observing was exactly the same sort of activity I had observed or heard less than an hour before in the apartment of Carolyn Barker. There was however, one difference. There was however, one difference. Whereas in Carolyn's apartment I had viewed the naked buttocks of her husband and Carolyn's pleasure twisted face, now I was staring at a female buttocks and the anguished face of a man.

I couldn't see much of his face, actually, for the girl's flowing hair tossed back and forth, obscuring his features most of the time. And, anyway, I wasn't, close enough to make out his features in detail. But I had no doubt they were anguished. I had only to observe the way the girl's tawny sleek form was moving to be certain of that.

Putting myself in the man's place, as all Peeping Toms are wont to do, I imagined how anguished I would be if I were with a blonde-haired lovely who was draped as this lovely was, and who was as passionately energetic. I would be going through the most intensely pleasurable anguish which a man could know.

I stood transfixed in fascination.

Now, the question naturally arises as to what effect this experience had upon my life. Did I become a confirmed sex spyer? Did I spend the rest of my life doing battle with an impulse which constantly threatened to overwhelm me and cast me down to degradation?

Neither.

There is a third alternative which offers the only way by which a man may avoid either of the dire extremes I outlined. But the alternative, in order to be effective, must be seized and carried out immediately. The man must turn away from the alluring spectacle before him, proceed quickly to the nearest female to whom he has rightful access, and work out with her all of his base urges in an active way. For does not reality banish fantasy as light banishes shadows?

Since circumstances came to my assistance, I don't claim all the credit personally. But at least I had the strength to flee from the spectacle on the rear patio below.

With a half-muttered comment to myself about the restlessness of the local natives upon warm April afternoon, I hurriedly descended the stone steps, intent upon proceeding to the nearest phone booth as quickly as possible. Perhaps in my haste to contact the third girl on the list which Claire Conlins had given me-the girl named Fran Peterson-I was subconsciously intent upon something other than the arrangement I had come to town to make. I don't know.

But events worked out that way.

Fran answered my call on the third ring. Would she be at home for a little while. I asked. She would indeed. Would she mind if I were to come right over? She would not in the least.

As soon as I had jotted down her address, which was a ten-minute drive from where I happened to be right then. I returned to my car and pointed the grill of the old heap in that direction.

The combined effect of my experience in Carolyn's sex-pad and on the stairs in front of the Klapper residence was such that I was in dire need of the service which Fran Peterson had beneath her pants, and which she obviously presumed I was in the marked to buy for myself. I didn't intend to make personal use of the service, however. At least, I didn't consciously intend to do so.

However, it isn't too often where a guy gets to call his shots. Especially where pussy is concerned-and available.

CHAPTER TEN

My thought were precisely these when I stared at Fran's door in preparation to rapping on it; she lived in an apartment house which was close to the hurly-burly of downtown section. The tall multi-stoned structure was on a side street. Though a carry-over from the city's Golden Age, the building was pretty well kept up. But the unkempt was only brick deep, apparently, for the management wasn't too particular what went on inside. Otherwise, Fran would have insisted on visiting me instead of vice versa.

Nothing illicitly was going to take place between the sin girl and myself, or so I assumed. But the fact that I was anxious to meet her, and I rarely experienced such anxiety over a mere business conference.

My anxiety was such that, by the time I stood in front of the girl's door, my pulse was thumping and tiny dots of sweat speckled my upper forehead. Well, the day was warmer than I was used to at that time of year.

Fran answered my ring.

And she was stacked.

She looked at me, and I gaped at her.

She smiled.

I smiled.

Now I've told you, I believe, that I wasn't very flush financially. I had brought a hundred dollar with me, which had badly depleted my bank account, and I hoped this would be enough to entice a girl back with me to the home town. I realized she would want more money to do the job with Stanley Conlins, and that the amount would probably depend on the length of time required. But I figured a hundred dollars down payment would bring her to town and we could settle the account after we had old Stanley trapped. To achieve the settlement, I presumed I would have to float a small loan at the local bank, or perhaps, by that time, some money would come in from somewhere. Perhaps, even Claire would be able to pry some money out of Stanley before leaving him permanently.

This was the tenuous basis on which I intended to open negotiations with the girl I was going to hire.

As you can see, my financial status allowed no leeway for capricious squandering of funds on matters of personal amusement.

Fran had greeted me in a wrap-around-a filmy creation of delicate pink-and she had nothing on underneath except a pair of frilly panties, same color. I knew this beyond any doubt because the wrap was almost completely transparent. The valley between her deep breasts was clouded by the lace scallop on the edges of the outfit, and her aggressive nipples were partially shielded by a flowery yoke at the peignoir's top. The rest of the gown was like silken glass, revealing her middle and the very slight rise below, which was crowned by her cute navel. This deep little dimple peeped above the rim of her panties and the panties themselves were only slightly less sheer than the gown. Below the wrap's ruffled edge, her really shapely legs were bare.

She was a tempting sight in every respect. Her face was oval in shape, her features pert. She had blue eyes. Her light hair was done in a smooth uncurly style which dramatized her piquant features all the more.

My attention though, was drawn principally to her nipples. They were small pinkish spikes which stood well out and the circles around them also were large and swollen. I wanted nothing in the world so much at that moment as to brush the lacy edges of her peignoir aside, liberate both nipples and lavish my ardent attentions upon them.

She asked, "Who told you about me?"

I said, "Girl named Claire."

"Claire Balensky?"

"I don't know. I've only known her since she's been married. Her married name is Conlins."

"Yeah. That's her. She told me she was marryin' that old jerk. You must be from the place where she went to live-Skinny Dip or whatever it's called."

"Rocky Bluffs," I corrected.

"Whatever," she said, then grinned. "You must know Claire pretty well for her to send you to me. Isn't she still married to that guy?"

"Well, you see. . . " I was staring at her deep breasts again, and this all but prevented me from making my explanation. The tips hadn't softened a bit, but continued to press outward against the sheer pink nylon with its lavish white appliqu�. The cones behind the swollen crests were white and very firm. Maybe this girl had some mileage on her, but she seemed none the worse for the wear.

"Never mind," she told me. "What's the difference? Did she tell you what I charge?"

"No. That's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"I get thirty bucks for a deal like this-I mean, when you come right over. That's a bargain, I want you to know. If I went to your place for the afternoon that would be fifty. And for all night, I sometimes get a hundred. Not only that, but you'd have to buy me drinks and a dinner."

'Well, that's. . . . "

I had been about to tell her I wasn't interested in such a simple service when she quickly unfastened her peignoirs and shipped the filmy garment off her shoulders and away.

"There!" she said proudly. "You want me to undress you? Some of my clients like that."

"You don't understand. I . . . "

What could I say? How could I protest? Her naked boob tips were standing there beckoning me, as were the conical white breasts which backed them up. Her long lovely arms were beckoning me, also. My gave slid down, scooted up again, and nearly got lost. Her panties were a lot less concealing now that there was nothing over them, as sheer as her wrap-around had been.

"Well?" she asked.

"Yes," I said simply.

She held her hand out and wiggled her fingers. "Cash and carry," she said and giggled. "That means, after you hand me the cash, you can carry me to the bed, if you can."

I paid her and she crossed the room to a vase which stood on a mantel. She placed the money inside. I had been staring at her saucy rounded buttocks, which her pink pants did more dramatize than to conceal, and was glad I had made the investment, though now I didn't know how I would get her to come to Rocky Bluffs.

She took off my clothes as she had offered to do, and the experience was a hot one. Her fingers were light and soft and cool, and they worked neatly. She caressed my neck as she removed my tie and loosened my collar. As she opened my shirt, she ran her hands in lazy circles against my chest. She slipped my jacket off and then my shirt, after which her fingers fluttered to rest on the waistband of my trousers.

I had never had a girl take my pants off before.

That wasn't fair, really, because I had removed girls' pants many times. There had been occasions when an enthusiastic female, even my wife, would make with the belt. But I'd never had one carefully lower them on my legs.

When she bent to remove the trousers from my feet her luscious stiff-tipped breasts quivering, I braced myself against her smooth white shoulders. This was nice work.

Even nicer was what happened next.

After she removed my shoes and socks, I mean.

I was left now with only one article of attire, as was she, but she was intent upon removing mine, first.

She placed her hands against my sides and slid them under the waistband of my briefs. She continued to move downward, stretching the waistband against her wrists, and she slid her hands around to the back. She took hold of my buttocks gently and played with them.

This was a new experience, also. I had held the naked buttocks of many girls, but I had never had a girl hold mine. Never in a stand-up pose, at any rate. This was something different.

I let her caress my rear as much as she wanted, and I was aching and extended now with intense desire. I wanted into her so strongly that the presence of my clothing whatever around my body was an annoyance. But I didn't hurry her along. I was happy to have her take her sweet time.

She caressed my buttocks with circular motions then cupped them and squeezed. She jiggled my buttocks gently and giggled. She seemed to be enjoying doing this. Strange a rear end girl, for a switch.

Then slowly, very teasingly, she slipped her hands across the sides of my lips, still under my knitted briefs, and she began to caress me in a way which I heartily recommend to anyone beset by frustration. The sensation was grand.

At long last my shorts were lowered. After she had removed them from my feet, she didn't straighten up right away. She bent her face to me. That was all right, too.

The sensation I next experienced was even grander. Jolts of thrill seemed to rise through me, as if I were a transformer. Only instead of their voltage being reduced, exactly the opposite result occurred. The jolts grew stronger and stronger, pounding into my brain, until I finally had to make her stop. And then I did what she had invited earlier.

I swept her into my arms and carried her through a half-open doorway and to her bed, naked-me.

The removal of her panties was accomplished much more quickly and efficiently than her removal of my briefs. Then there was nothing between us.

I moved to her, touched, and plunged.

The grandest thrill of all rose through me and exploded, to set my entire being aflame with lust. I began with pounding fury.

She either liked that a great deal, or she was a very good actress. I really think she was enjoying herself. From the looks of her, I would have guessed that she hadn't been in the life so long that sex had become merely mechanical. Or maybe I was better than most of her males. I don't know. At any rate, she worked with avid concentration, making happy little sounds and twisting in a way which said she couldn't get enough.

I did my best to give her the extra satisfaction she seemed to crave. I gave her all the pleasure I possibly could and, in the process, had a terrific time myself. The tension which had built up for me, the frustration of my experiences at Carolyn Barker's apartment and on the hillside where Helene had lived, all vanished in the happy haze of the pleasure which was now beating over me.

Fran cried out, and I unleashed the full force of my passionate attack. She bit my shoulder and grasped my buttocks as I pumped away and erupted with a copious release.

I seemed, that afternoon, like a man without limit. I could love her with tremendous bursts of power, then slow up to regain lost ground. She cried out a protest when I did this the first time-a decidedly unprofessional attitude for a play girl to display, and one which gave added credence to my theory about her.

As I lazed for awhile, enjoying the lull between the passion-crests, I twisted my head first to one side, then the other. I nipped at her nipples and found them as crisp as I'd expected.

Then I began again.

Stronger and faster and without letup until she seemed to reach her passion goal. Here again, either she did or she was as convincing an actress as you would ever want to meet. She quivered and shook and clutched me in a suffocating grip. I don't know how I managed to last out the hurricane, but I did.

I forced myself to remain still, twisting my head to tease and tickle her arrogantly up-thrust nipples some more. Her nipples gradually grew soft, even with my kiss still at them.

Slowly I began to move again.

"You stud!" she said.

"Uh," was the only reply I could give her.

"You don't know when to stop," she complained, not moving now.

"You want me to stop?" I demanded, upping my tempo gradually.

"That depends," she told me, now beginning to pick up the beat.

"On what?"

"On whether . . . you can really . . . take me there . . . again."

Yes, she was the genuine sex kitten, all right. She was no phony. "I think I can."

"Okay. Try." I tried.

I tried with my body and with my hands. As I loved her relentlessly, not fast but with steady controlled power, I pinched her neat soft breasts with my fingers and thumbs, stroking the nipples and squeezing those passionate bubs to firm excitement again. Then I swung my head this way and that, teasing them all the more. I kissed them. I bit them lightly.

Then I slipped my hands down her back and around her buttocks. I caressed her with a special skill as I continued the relentless fury of my assault. Those special caresses seemed to do the trick.

Fran, as is true of many girls, was particularly sensitive to what I was doing now. And the horny nature of the caressing was enough to increase her desire quickly.

All the while I continued to minister to her greatest need in the basic, old reliable way. The ministrations became stronger. And faster. And then, all I could do was to keep my hands still as I held her and concentrated my attention and energy on forcing her over the passion precipice.

She went.

And I went with her. She shuddered as my peak raced into her cave.

Blasted off would have been more descriptive way to put what happened to me. Blasted off and into orbit.

I remained in orbit for quite a while as I clutched her tightly, both our bodies bathed in perspiration.

She cried happily. "You did! You did!'

"Sure I did," I said happily.

"Oh, man!" she exclaimed. "I ought to give you your money back."

I hadn't had much experience with joy girls, but Fran certainly struck me as a rare one. I didn't know if this would be likely to help me make the deal I intended to offer her or have the opposite effect. But I would have to find out soon. Time was growing late and I would have to be starting back to Rocky Bluffs.

I climbed off the bed and went to the bathroom. When I got back, I mooched one or her cigarettes form the bedside table.

She looked at me uncertainly as I sat down on the side of the bed and lit the smoke. T want to make you a proposition," I began simply.

"Another one?" she asked.

"This is the one I really came for."

"Oh? Well, go ahead."

I did.

I laid out the whole deal for her point by point, holding back nothing. As I talked my eyes kept moving over her naked body. Though I'd been deeply satisfied just a few moments before, I found I was getting back to the mood.

But this would have to wait until we finished our business discussion.

She listened to the entire story without interrupting once, and I couldn't tell from her face whether she was going to agree to the plan. Then, when I was finished, she gave me her answer, which was a flat refusal. m

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I asked her why not, and tried to get her to change her mind. I couldn't understand her refusal. "I told you," she said. "I said no."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to get mixed up in a mess. I can't afford to. Especially not with a man as well-fixed as this Stanley character. There'd be publicity. My picture might even get in the papers."

"That's ridiculous," I said. "The case won't be written up down here. Anyway, you won't be around long enough to meet any reporters, and you certainly won't have to testify in court. I just want you to play house with the old man once. Claire and her friend will pop in and see the two of you going to town. That will be all there is to the deal, as far as you're concerned. You're home free, and you've made yourself a nice bundle of loot."

"Thanks, but the answer is still the same," she said.

I stared at her. "Even for Claire?" I asked. "You won't do this for her?"

"Why should I do anything for her? When she gets her divorce and comes back here, she'll be a competitor like she was before. We were friends, yeah, but I'm just as well off to have her out of town. Matter of fact, I'm taking care of some of her old clients right now. Once she's back, I'll probably lose them."

"If I were you," I said, "I wouldn't worry. You're every darned bit as good as she is."

"Don't try to butter me up now."

"I mean that."

"You do? Really?"

"I sure do."

"Well!" she smiled. "That's kind of like telling an understudy she's as good as the star. I was just starting out when Claire left the field."

"I figured you were new"

"What's that supposed to mean?" she bristled.

"Just that you're fresher than I expected. And you really seemed to enjoy yourself."

This pleased her. "You could tell, hmmm?"

"Darned right."

I leaned forward her. "Look, how much will you take to do what I asked? Name your price? Set a high figure, and I'll see that you get it."

She thought very briefly. Then: "No. Money's not the point. The deal doesn't sound good. I wouldn't feel right. How you feel about what you do is important. For instance, I won't take on just any stud that calls me.

"You didn't give me an argument," I reminded her. "You sounded okay."

"And you weren't the least bit bashful about the way you treated me."

"Can I help myself if I like to have a good time?"

"We could have more good times at Rocky Bluffs," I suggested.

"Now don't flatter yourself," she said. "I can have good times right here every day. I don't need you for that."

"I guess not."

The outlook was gloomy. I had blown thirty bucks of my down-payment money and I'd run through the list Claire had given me. Moreover, it was late in the day and time for me to be heading home. I had accomplished nothing, and now it didn't look as if I were going to.

I decided to try one last pitch with her. "What if I cut you in on the settlement Claire's going to get? I mean, big. I'm not talking about just a fee now. This would be a nice nest egg. You could throw that in a bank somewhere and wait until it ripens." I knew I had done bad things with a couple of metaphors, but that didn't concern me. All I cared about was getting the idea across.

From the look on her face, I thought I might be succeeding. But she dashed my hopes when she said, "I don't want to get involved."

Still I wouldn't give up yet. I had no one else to turn to. "Look," I said. "How does five thousand dollars sound, in a lump sum as soon as the settlement comes through."

She stared at me. "Gee. I didn't think you meant that much."

"Well?"

"I don't know. I. . . . "

"Think what five thousand will buy, Fran. Or think of the interest it will earn in investments. Compounded, that's better than two hundred and fifty a year in interest. Look what you'll have in ten years at that rate."

"Sounds good."

"On top of that, I'll pay your expenses-room, meals, transportation."

"Who's gonna pay the five grand? Claire."

"Sure. Just as soon as she gets hers."

"And when's that gonna be?"

Soon, if you do your job right. We'll have Claire's husband where we want him, and he'll agree to a settlement in order to avoid scandal."

"And Claire'll get her money right away, before the divorce?"

"Yes. Part, at any rate. I'll see you get yours out of the first lump."

Her eyes narrowed. "I don't trust you or anything, but you and I don't know one another. I do know her and she's not the fastest girl with a buck. What if she doesn't want to follow through? This ain't exactly the kind of claim I could sue on."

"You have my word," I told her. "That's all I can give you, but that's as good as a signed contract."

"Yet you're pulling a fast one on Claire's husband."

"He deserves that. An old man like him had no business marrying a young woman in the first place. That's unnatural."

"That's bull."

"Well, you can trust me when I say you'll get the money. That's on the level."

"I still don't like to get mixed up in this sort of thing."

I leaned forward and spoke to her intently. "You're not getting mixed up in anything. You're just going to make a play for the old guy. When you have him in a compromising position, Claire will walk in. That's all. What happens will serve him right for two-timing his wife."

"She living with him now?"

"Yes."

"Well.. . . "

"Come on, Fran. I'd like to see you get the money. I really would. I could hunt up somebody else, but.. . . "

"Okay."

"That's the girl." Inwardly I heaved a sigh. I had worked harder persuading this girl than I'd worked persuading most juries I had faced.

As for the money I promised her. I realized I might have some trouble getting Claire to agree. But I would worry about that tomorrow. Anyway, I was in a position to make Claire stay in line. Provided she wanted her divorce, that is, and I knew she wanted the divorce more than anything.

"When do you want me to go with you to this place where Claire and her guy live?"

"Right away. I want to leave as soon as we get dressed."

"That's not so good. I've got a date set up for tomorrow, and Pete-he's my agent-might have some others booked, too."

"You'll have to beg off," I said. "Tell your agent you need a little rest. He doesn't have to know what's going on."

"I ought to tell him about the deal. I really should. "He'll want a cut," I said. "And why should you give him one? This is just between us."

"Yeah. I guess you're right."

"Leave everything in my hands, Fran. I'll take care of you."

This brought a smile to her face. "Speaking of that, don't you want to take care of me again right now? Like you did before, I mean?"

My gaze slid around the lovely form, which was completely exposed. A negative answer would have required far more strength than I had at the moment. Anyway, why should I refuse?

"Okay," I said. "That will kind of seal the bargain."

"Come here you stud." Her arms beckoned me.

I bent forward, wrapping my arms about her and starting to kiss her neck and ear.

She murmured, "Say, you know something funny? You didn't tell me your name."

She was right. I hadn't.

I corrected the lapse then and there.

Afterward I resumed kissing her and began to caress her soft ivory skin, my hands tracing patterns about her sweet breasts, then across her middle, and finally where she most wanted me to touch her at that particular time. This evoked sensational and immediate results, for me as well as for her.

I began to take her, and this bout was a long slow one which built to a shattering crescendo at the finish.

We remained still for quite some time afterward and then we showered together, but without play, since I was pretty well played out by then. We got dressed.

She offered to put together some sandwiches before we left the apartment and I accepted, in view of the fact that I was hungry and not anxious to spend any of my dwindling resources on a dinner for two. Anyway, I had offered to pay for her keep in Rocky Bluffs, and that was going to take just about all the funds I had.

Fran was an agreeable girl, certainly not as grasping as you would expect a prostitute to be. But, just the same, money had persuaded her to take the job I was offering.

No matter what you hear to the contrary, money not love, makes the world go round. Money had made it possible for Stanley Conlins to get Claire in the first place, and money was influencing her to divorce him now. Money had made me take the case and bend my professional ethics in order to win. Money was now getting Fran to take part in the scheme.

Love was in there somewhere, but money called the shots.

Perhaps I was becoming cynical in my old age, but I was becoming successful, too. Or, I would be successful if I won the Conlins Divorce case.

I wondered how this would change my life and decided there would be no change except that my career would get an important life. And I would be a darned sight more comfortable.

Strangely, I had given very little thought to my wife -what she would think about the new turn my career was taking, and what effect my experience with Claire and Fran would have on my married life. Of course, Joyce didn't need to know about my extra-marital fiddling around, or so I assumed.

As for my feelings, my affair with Claire would cool off, the way a purely physical relationship was bound to do, and Fran didn't mean anything to me at all. She had been just a momentary convenience.

So I didn't foresee any trouble for myself, once I had the Conlins case won.

But changes had taken place in my attitudes-my sense of values-which I couldn't calculate at that time. Had I been able to do so, and to define the results of those changes, I might have stopped in my tracks and faced around, or at least I think I might have thought twice. But then again, I liked what I was getting in the line of sexual kicks.

CHAPTER TWELVE

It was very late at night when I drove into my home town. I was alone because I dropped Fran off in the next town where she could take a bus the rest of the way. Our entire plan would have been threatened if anyone would have seen the two of us in the car together.

Her instructions were to register at the hotel in town, then call me from a phone booth the next day. In the meantime I would call Claire and we would figure out a way for Fran to meet Stanley Conlins so that the meeting would not arouse any suspicion on his part. Fran would then have to work fast, and the ways and means to accomplish what she wanted would be entirely up to her.

I had a lot of confidence in the girl as far as this went. If anyone could make Stanley, she could. And I had an idea that the old man was pretty ripe for a piece of her by now. Living with Claire, yet not being permitted to get into her, would have made any male ripe and horny. That applied even to a guy as old as Stanley, I felt sure, and Fran was just the girl to do it.

So, when I arrived at home, I wasn't concerned about the progress of Claire's case. My uneasiness was far more personal. I kept thinking about the experiences I'd had with Claire, and also the later ones with Frank. My erotic experiences had broadened considerably in the last few days, and this had pretty well turned my old familiar world upside down.

Specifically, Joyce looked different to me.

That's saying something, too, about a woman to whom you've been married for so many years. But when I walked into the house around midnight, and Joyce appeared sleepily in the living room to greet me, a soft pink robe wrapped around her softer and decidedly plump body, she didn't arouse the feeling of warm response I used to have whenever I happened to see her.

She had scrubbed off her make-up and her hair was disarrayed. She yawned. "I didn't think you'd be so late getting home."

Irritation pricked at my mind. "I didn't, either," I said, "but traffic was bad."

She moved up to me. "Did you take care of what you went for?"

I hadn't told her about the reason for my trip, of course. "Just business," I had said. I was afraid now that she was going to pry. I wasn't sure, in my present mood, whether I could put up with this and keep from sounding off or not.

Deliberately avoiding embracing her, I headed for the kitchen. "Everything went all right. Do we happen to have some coffee?"

"Gee, I unplugged the coffee maker. I imagine the coffee's cold by now." She was following me. "I could make some fresh."

I fought a new thrust of irritation. She knew I'd be tired after driving all that way and that I'd feel like a pickup. Why hadn't she kept the damn coffee warm? But once more I controlled myself. "That's all right," I said. "I'll have something stronger." I opened the cupboard where the liquor was kept and took down a half-full bottle of bourbon.

"This isn't like you," she commented, moving up beside me.

I took down a glass. "What do you mean."

"Drinking at this hour."

"Why shouldn't I?" I asked a trifle sharply, and poured myself a stiff shot. "Want one."

"No, thanks."

I picked up the glass and deliberately walked away from her again, heading for the living room where one dim lamp burned on an end table. All the lights in the front of the house had been out when she heard me drive into the garage. She had turned on this one just before I walked in.

With my back to the room, I stood looking out the picture window at the dark. When her reflection appeared beside mine in the glass, irritation assailed me again. I lifted the glass and took a gulp.

She put her arm about me. "What's the matter, Art?"

"Nothing." I cleared my throat. I wasn't enough of a drinker to be thoroughly accustomed to the feel of straight whiskey.

"Whose case were you working on in L.A.? Anyone I know?" Now the prying began, just as I'd been afraid of.

"New client," I said and took another slug of booze.

When I lowered the glass, I noticed she was looking at me with particular concern. But she didn't say anything then.

"How are the kids?" I asked.

"Same as usual." She was still watching me. "You know, I heard something in town today."

"Yeah?" I looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time since I'd arrived home.

"Viola Kreyse said she was talking to Miss Williams -you know who I mean, the woman who works for the lawyer?"

"Yes, yes," I said irritably. I sloshed the remains of my drink.

"Miss Williams told Viola you'd been retained by the Conlins woman."

"That's off now," I replied quickly. "She has gone back to her husband."

"Oh."

I killed my drink off and coughed. "Well, I'm beat. It's me for the sack."

I could feel my wife's eyes on me as I crossed the living room to the hall.

By the time I had hung up my coat in the bedroom closet, Joyce had arrived and was closing the door. I watched as she slid the lock and I cursed silently to myself.

This was her unsubtle way of letting me know she wanted to be sexed that night. The trouble was that I wasn't up to the challenge, either physically or otherwise.

Oh, from a strictly physical standpoint, I would be capable, I assumed, in spite of my two entrees with Fran that afternoon and in spite of the fact that I was tired from the long drive. But there would have to be a spark. I had no desire to play with Joyce, and, without this urge, love would be a bore at best and, at worst, an impossibility. My body had never failed to respond, but a man is always aware of the fact that failure is possible, and I think most guys carry with them the fear that some time this will happen to them.

I took off my tie and shirt. As I did so, Joyce appeared to by busying herself at the mirror, though I had the feeling she really was watching me.

I took off my shoes, then my trousers. I hung them up.

Joyce, facing me from the opposite side of the bed, slipped off her robe. She wore a pale blue shortie gown which concealed nothing. Even the skimpy panties underneath was transparent.

My mind went back to my first sight of Fran, who had greeted me in almost the same attire. But what a difference! Fran was shapely and young, and her breasts pointed arrogantly out and upward, while my wife was about ten years older, a good deal plumper, and with breasts which, while not unattractive, were not as high not as firm. They were, however, larger and more cuddlesome, and their large aureoles spread like lovely flowers at their crests, the nipples already taut.

I felt a stirring, and this pretty well answered any question I'd had before. Not only did I have the physical capability, but I would experience no problem in proving this.

My psychological attitude hasn't changed, however. The beginning of response had been purely a physical phenomenon. I still didn't want to lay with my wife, regardless of how my body behaved.

I removed my socks and, as she climbed into bed, I faced the other way and let my shorts down. I put on pajamas.

"Art?" her tone was tentative.

"Yes." I walked to snap off the light.

"That Conlins woman-what's she like?"

The room went dark, and now I felt I could answer more easily. On my way around the foot of the bed, I said, "She's a ball of flame. At least, she looks that way. I don't know how much the old man is able to do with her." I raised the window shades.

"Maybe that's the trouble," Joyce said, her voice a trifle husky.

I drew back to covers and climbed into bed, "What."

"Maybe he didn't put it to her enough."

"Maybe," I agreed, wishing she would be quiet and go to sleep.

Instead she turned to face me. "You don't lay me as much as you ought to, either, darling. Sometimes when I'm home alone just thinking, I feel as if I'm about to climb the walls."

Irritation assailed me again. "You never used to complain. I'm not aware that I've cut down."

"I guess not," she said. "Maybe I am just hungrier than I used to be. Maybe there's something about turning thirty-a woman begins to figure life is slipping past, and she wants to grab for all she can get."

A sudden charge of excitement spread through me as she illustrated her remark by a grab, which was literal. Her sense of direction was exactly right, and my pajamas were no barrier. She began to caress my thing.

"Joyce," I said, "I was tired." I managed to keep my voice even.

"I know," she chuckled and moved closer to me. "So I'll make you a little tireder by the time we're through. But you can stand that. You're not old yet." Her teeth closed tightly on the lobe of my ear, and her warm breath invaded the ear itself.

Her insistent caressing, the closeness of her voluptuous body, her voice that was husky with need, the feel of her teeth and warm breath-all of these combined to produce an inevitable result.

But, still, my response was only physical. If anything, my antagonism toward her had evidently increased.

I thought about what had happened between us a couple of night before, and considered giving vent to my feelings that way again. Perhaps she wanted me to do this, I speculated. But, no. I wouldn't. I wasn't brutal, after all. The other night I had lost control. I wouldn't let that happen again. And I certainly wasn't in the mood to give her a play spanking. If I had to, I would put it to her. But I would feed it to her straight and fast and strong and get over the hump fast. I'd give her a quick plunge and finish and then maybe we both could go to sleep.

I grasped the top of covers and flung them the length of the bed, so that they fell completely over the low footboard and onto the rug.

She giggled in happy surprise.

I sat up. "You want something, hummmmm? You say I don't do enough. Okay, I'll make you change your mind."

"Mmmmm!" she began to stroke and fondle me harder, her grip suddenly very strong.

I took hold of her wrist and carried her hand away.

"No more of that."

Reaching under the ruffle of her nightie my curled fingers hooked the elastic rim of her bottoms. My eyes became accustomed to the lack of artificial light by now. The dim glow of moonlight, coming through the windows dramatized the whiteness of her soft lush body. Whiteness through nylon . . . whiteness now being exposed.

She shivered as my fingertips traced paths upon her body, drawing her panties away from her hips and down the legs which some might have called a little pudgy, high up which were very soft and warm and a lot stronger than they looked. I took her panties off.

"Now," I said and hauled her nightie up.

Her full breasts tumbled below the rising hem, the backs of my hands causing them to bobble. They were like puddings when she was on her back like this, with a big spoonful of fruit on their tops.

I tore the nightie off her head and tossed this away. Now she was naked.

I began to move.

Her hands, against my chest, stopped me as I crouched beside her. "No," she breathed excitedly. "I want you this way, too. No clothes. Nothing between us."

She was unbuttoning my pajama top. "And I want to feel your body," she said. "Oh, I like my men like that."

"Your men!" I growled. "Just how many do you have?" I had to admit, by this point, that I was getting into the spirit of the game.

"Plenty," she said. "They're around here all day. There's the milkman. . . " She stripped my pajama jacket down my arms ". . . the grocery boy . . . " She rubbed her palms against my belly ". . . the boy who delivers the paper. He's a little young, but . . . " Her hands slid under the waistband of my pajama pants, then moved back toward her, snapping the fastener open. She caressed all my sexuality, two-handed.

"Not as good as the paper boy?" I asked.

"Better! High school boys certainly have nothing on you! At least physically."

She didn't say any more. But what she did, as her head suddenly bobbed, made me yell.

But not in protest.

Her lips got busy.

This had never happened before-not with her. The fact that this was happening now stunned me at first, then filled me with the greatest, wildest excitement. She wasn't skilled, but she had the desire, and that was what counted. She wasn't doing this for money but because she loved me and wanted me and was, as she had admitted a few minutes ago, eager.

I couldn't take very much. I grasped her shoulders, pressing her away from me, then began to struggle with my pajama pants. Laughing, she wrestled me onto my side of the mattress. She leaned over and drew my pajama pants off my body.

Then, before I could make the move I so wanted to make at that particular moment, she took the initiative herself. She had done this strange intimacy only once before, and that was when we had been to a party and gotten a little loaded. Even then, she hadn't been so boldly aggressive.

Before I could move to adjust myself, she made the effort on my part unnecessary. She found me. She was taking me. I lay passively for the first few moments as her large luscious breasts hung, shaking and quivering in the moonlight. Then I grasped her. I worked violently, matching the rhythm she had set.

The warmth, the action, the plumpness of her soft twisting body all this set me aflame. And if I had been in any condition to make comparisons right then, I would have been forced to admit that my previous experience of that day with Fran had not been as horny.

Funny, you think, that a man should enjoy the woman to whom he'd been married eight years, who had given him two children, who had grown older and plumper before his eyes-that he should enjoy her more than a trim young pro who was fresh and new,, at least, to him, and who was skilled at all the tricks for keeping a man in high spirits?

Maybe.

But I was enjoying her matronly body then.

I was enjoying her so blasted much that I wanted to snap with sheer joy.

I brought my hands to her front and grasped the shaking quivering globes of delight, nipples stiffly pointing. I squeezed them, knocked them together gently, pressed them upward and let them fall free, tickled and brushed their tip-hardened noses, then carried one globe to my eager lips and nibbled the puffed balloon flesh which trembled against my lips and teeth.

She was gasping and sighing, shaking her head from side to side. I was acting as vehemently. Finally I had to release her breasts, grasp her body again, and let out all the stops. I rose to the challenge in a very dynamic way.

And that was all there was.

She reached her peak first, crying out and falling against me, her heavy breasts mashing against my naked chest, her mouth sliding across my face to mine. She quivered and shook as I made my final motions, grasping and groaning as if I were mortally wounded as my forces spouted into her full body.

Then, for long moments, there was only the sound of breathing. Even the bedsprings, were totally silent, for neither of us were moving.

After a bit, I began to caress her hair, her smooth back, the big beach ball buttocks, the full strong legs . . . and she petted my face, and kissed my ear, and talked in husky-throated tones about my wonderful personality. My wife had never been so passionate, and the fires were slow in banking.

Later, as we lay side by side, I told her how much I loved her. And strangely, on this of all nights. I had never told her I loved her without being aware of a little twinge of doubt. Now there was no doubt. I meant that statement as fervently as I had meant it on our wedding night.

I dropped off to sleep with the feeling that all my problems were working themselves out, that nothing lay ahead but happiness, success and comfort.

A good feeling, that. And there's nothing like a rollicking session of love to inspire a sense of well-being in a man.

But things usually looked somewhat different in the morning.

I've found that just as the worries which keep you awake may tend to fade away in the sunlight, so the joys of nighttime lose much of their appeal by day. There's a night world and a day world, and they are not the same. Even love in the daytime is not the same. You're not the same person in many ways.

But perhaps I used the wrong pronoun. This may not be true of you. I can speak only for myself.

When I arrived at the office the next morning my wife and the unexpected erotic joy I'd known with her during the night were banished from my mind. My only interest was Claire Conlins' divorce case. This was the day to make our final arrangements, and to pull off the scheme we'd worked out to wilk Claire's old goat of a husband.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I didn't have too much to occupy myself, but there was some paperwork to take care of. Around a quarter of eleven Claire called. The sound of her voice raised only the sort of response I would have felt toward any valued client whose call I'd been awaiting.

Yesterday I had met Fran and rediscovered my wife in renewed passion. As a result, the flaming passion I had felt for Claire had all but died.

"Well, what happened?" she asked anxiously. "Did you get somebody?"

"Han Peterson," I replied. "She's here in town."

"Oh," her voice dropped.

"What's the matter? I thought you and she were friends."

"After a fashion. She's kind of an upstart."

"Well, you gave me her name."

"Her name was the third one. What was wrong with the others?"

"Carolyn Barker was very busy and I couldn't find Helene Frost."

"Well, we'll have to make do, I guess."

"If you ask me, Stanley ought to go for her."

"So you think she's pretty good."

"She'll do."

"Did she give you a sample?"

I considered quickly. No use complicating matters, I decided. "No. I'm just talking about the way she looks."

"I see." Doubt was evident in her voice. "We have to get together," I said. "Gladly, darling." Her voice had changed quickly. There -was a ring in her voice now. "I mean to plan how to bring Stanley and Fran into contact with one another."

"Is that all you meant?"

Women! I thought. Suddenly, in the last two or three days. I was deluged with more offers than I wanted. If I kept accepting every one, I might reach a point where I wouldn't be able to accept any.

Still, I didn't want to hurt her feelings. Funny to feel that way about such a gorgeous female, but the was the only response I was aware of right then. I said, "That may not be all."

"I'll come right over, darling."

"Where are you calling from?" I asked.

"A booth in town. Stan left the house early this morning, so I saw no reason to stay around."

"How are you two getting along?"

"All right, on the surface."

"Has he been after you?"

"He wanted me last night."

"You handled the issue carefully?"

"Darling, I've been a woman for quite a while."

"Okay."

"You want me to come over there, or should we meet somewhere else?"

"We shouldn't meet here today. You and Stanley are supposed to be reconciled."

"Name the place, then."

"How about the road that takes off from Hillside? Pull into the trees and park at the edge of the first meadow. You know where I mean?"

"I've been there," she replied, and there was the impression of laughter again, this time just below the surface.

I might have asked with whom? Perhaps she wanted me to do this. But I didn't rise to the bait. At that moment I honestly didn't care.

"You can drive there right away, if you want to. I'll leave the office in a few minutes."

"All right, Art. Oh, you'd better bring a blanket." I didn't say anything for a moment.

"Art?"

"I'm still here."

"Bring a blanket. That is, if you have one at the office."

"I'm sorry. I don't."

"And I suppose your car isn't equipped, either. That's the trouble with married men. A bachelor wouldn't think of going out without a blanket and a bottle and a few other sexual essentials."

"Maybe we hadn't better, Claire."

"What's the matter? Are you suffering a sudden attack of morals? It's a little late, if you ask me."

"Not morals. Common sense. If anyone should see us.. . . "

"Nobody uses that road to the bridge at this time of year, and the undergrowth is so thick around that first meadow that a pair of elephants could get lost in there."

"Just the same. . . . "

"Well, that's certainly to you, except that I've been wanting for a couple of nights now."

"You're a wanton," I remarked.

"Maybe so. But I've never been bothered with false pride. I just happen to like men." She hesitated. "Anyway, I thought you might like to collect another installment on your fee. Of course, I won't insist. I don't have to force my favors on anybody. There are plenty of willing studs around."

"Don't you dare fool with any of the men in town," I warned her. "Not until this case is on ice and we've worked out a binding settlement."

"Then you'd better take care of mama. Right now you're all I've got."

"Art? If you don't have a blanket, we can always use your coat. I'm sure you can be a gallant knight."

"I'll see you in a few minutes," I growled and hung up on her.

The witch! The wild sex-mad witch! After yesterday afternoon with Fran twice, and last night with my wife, fun and games of the sort Claire had in mind were exactly what I didn't need. I never had thought I'd find myself in the position of a man who had too much available, particularly of the quality which Claire represented, but there I was.

I didn't feel hot toward Claire as I had felt those first two days. The sharp desire was gone, and I was pretty sure there would be no rekindling of that sort of urge. If I did take her, I would be just going through the motions, I assured myself.

I signed a couple of letters, stacked a pair of files, and told Ellen I would see her after lunch. Then I walked out to my car.

The countryside is beautiful in April, green and fresh from months of snow, followed by the spring rains. The lofty sugar pines, white firs and cedars fill the crisp air with their tang, and the mating calls of jays and woodpeckers punctuate the constant whisper of wind through the branches.

As sense-satisfying as were the surroundings, however, they were no more beautiful or stimulating than was the woman who waited for me there.

She didn't reveal herself right away, and this evidently was to prove what she had said about the seclusiveness of the woods at that location. I found her car easily enough, because I knew it would be there and,, anyway a continental is a little large to hide. But even the car was not visible from the road. I had to look.

As for Claire herself. I tramped through the undergrowth, back and forth, this way and that, and was on the verge of becoming annoyed when suddenly I burst into a little grassy clearing where some trees had been cut years ago and none had grown in their place. From a bank of ferns at one side, I heard a giggle.

I stopped and faced around.

She stood up. "I'm wild doe," she said. "Did you bring your rifle?

"Going after a doe isn't allowed," I said with a smile and walked over to her. She was wearing a wide skirt and plain white blouse which, while concealing the details of her boobs, did nothing at all to disguise the natural fullness and thrust. She had a bright scarf through her hair.

"You can go after this doe all you want to," she said, "assuming that you're a good hunter."

We were very close to one another but we hadn't yet touched. In spite of myself, I was getting the urge to take her. How could a man feel otherwise about such an exciting creature? But we had met to talk business, and this was what I was determined to do.

"Let's sit down on those stumps over there," I suggested. "What we have to work out first is how Fran and Stanley are going to meet."

"All right. If you insist."

She swung her body in a girlish way as she walked in front of me. Even in the loose-fitting skirt, the impudent roundness of her buttocks and the vitality of her hips were evident. She had no stockings on, and flat shoes.

She sat on a log and I took a place beside her. "You have any suggestions?" I asked. "You know what the old boy's habits are."

"I've told you before my husband isn't the sort of man who's on the prowl all the time. Fran will have to wave her nooky in his face."

"She ought to be good at that. But where? That's the question."

"He usually stops in the afternoon for a drink at the Oakside Tavern. But there's always somebody with him. Anyway, everybody in the place would know him. I doubt if he'd make a play for any girl there, even if he had the urge."

"What about his office at the plant?"

"Maybe."

"Fran could apply for a job," I suggested.

She laughed nastily. "What could she do in an office . . . that was legitimate, I mean?"

"She could fake something." But I reconsidered. "No, that's weak."

"What if she dropped around at the house, when I was conveniently away?" she asked. "If we were careful about the timing, Stan wouldn't have to really make a play for her at all. She could just rip her clothes and grab his thing."

"No good. This has to be legitimate in order to stick. If we played things that way, Stan would be howling mad. The frame would be too obvious, and I'll bet he would fight, even considering the publicity."

"Maybe you're right. He's stubborn."

"The idea of having Fran drop in at the house might not be bad, though," I said. "What kind of explanation could she give him?"

"She could be a saleslady."

"We'll have to do better than that."

"Hou about selling herself? A door-to-door hooker."

"Come on. Be serious."

"Well, you're the big brain. What do you say?"

I thought a little longer. "What if she was the girl friend of a guy who had been working at the factory. She came here from . . . oh, Sacramento or some place, intending to meet him. But she found he'd taken off with another girl-skipped the country. She's desolate and deserted, practically broke. She needs comforting. She could bring out the daddy in old Stanley."

"That would take some acting on her part."

"I think she's up to that."

"Well, Stanley knows most of the men who work for him. A story like that would be hard to fake."

"Not necessarily," I told her. "There must be a regular turnover of personnel. You dig in the files and get a name for me-a young man, unmarried, who quit in the last week or so. We'll have Fran say she was engaged to him. Who would know the difference? I'll bet Stanley won't."

"Maybe . . . " she said thoughtfully.

"Then, while the old guy is comforting her, she'll rub against him and make a suggestive remark or two. What'll you bet he goes for it?"

"He might, at that," she said quickly adding, "But only if he thinks I'm going to be away from the house for quite a while."

"So that's what you'll tell him."

"And you think Fran can carry off the act?"

"What does she have to do? Blubber a little and act helpless. She won't even have to cry, really. She can be the brave type, holding back the tears by sheer will power."

"Okay. Sounds all right to me. Except. . . . "

"What's the trouble?"

"Stan will think it's strange if I'm prowling around his office files. I've never taken any interest in the business."

"How about this, then? Give me a key and I'll go over there tonight after the place is closed."

"There's a watchman."

I sighed. "Well, I guess that's out. Boils down to you, Claire. You'll have to get it."

She gave me a crafty look. "There's one other way-the best way, if you ask me."

"What's that?"

"I know this guy who works in the office. He and I . . . well, he tumbled me once. All I'd have to do would be to call him and. . . . "

"No! That's the worst suggestion yet. That was your trouble before, with those other jokers you fooled with. You didn't stop to realize that they'd all be loyal to

Stanley."

"That's not true with this guy," she said. "He didn't talk about us the other time and he wouldn't again. Not only that, but he hates the old man's guts."

"Still, we won't dare tell him about it."

"I'll just tell him what kind of information I want. He'll be able to get it for me. He won't have to know anything else."

"And you're sure he won't tell Stanley?"

Her eyes sparkled. "Not if I'm nice to him."

"That's out."

She stood up and walked back and forth, kicking at a rock half buried in the grass. "I don't see any other way."

"Well, you're not playing beddy-bye with any other man while this case is pending."

"No other man but you, hmmm?" She faced me and smiled boldly.

"Not even me if you don't want to."

"Well! Aren't we independent! I think you must have gotten some of Fran."

"Forget her."

"All right. What about my idea? "I said that was out."

"Then you come up with something. That's the best I can do."

I though the matter over. Perhaps her plan was the one we would have to follow. A guy who worked inside Stanley's office could get us the information, all right. And we were safe so long as he didn't talk. That applied to his relationship with Claire also.

And I didn't care who went and screwed with her, did I?

"Okay," I said. "We'll do things your way."

She said, "Good! I'll give this fellow-Rufe, his name is-a call. He'll be surprised, I'll bet. A deeper excitement came alive in her face. "I doubt if I'll have to force him. As I recall, he was very passionate before."

I stood up. I couldn't keep a tinge of jealousy from coloring my voice as I remarked, "That will solve your problem at the same time, right?"

She moved up to me. "Not exactly. I won't be able to see him until tonight. You wouldn't want to have me suffer until then."

I tried to ignore the implication in her words. I even tried to ignore her nearness and said, "Be mighty careful the way you handle this. If anyone should see you two, together, or even know you were in touch with one another. . . . "

"Don't worry." The out-thrusts peaks of her marvelous breasts touched against me. A tingling sensation stirred the palms of my hands, which were at my sides. My lips moved slightly as I looked down at her pink inviting mouth, so near. I had only to lean a little and. . . .

My arms went around her, pulling her softness tightly to me, and then my mouth went to hers. Aggressively. Her lips were apart, her teeth were apart, her mouth was warmly receptive. I kissed her deeply, tightening my embrace of her and crushing her even more closely to my body.

Her breasts were like balloons which were slightly under-inflated, just pliant enough so that they yielded to the pressure of my body and molded themselves against me. I could tell her nipples were responding even through her blouse and bra and through my clothes.

I was going to give it to her.

Desire and lust became my master. I could no more turn her down than I could stop being a male.

As we continued to kiss, my hands moved downward until they were gripping her plump resilient buttocks. Claire had buttocks which were perfect-the happy medium between my wife's overly large soft ones and Fran's firmer half-globes. Claire's fitted my hands perfectly. They were firm, and yet they responded excitingly to the pressure of my palms. She wore nothing below the waist except her wide loose skirt and a pair of brief nylon panties that didn't restrict my thrill in the least. I could tell she didn't have a slip on, and she wore no foundation garment or anything to hold up stockings.

My lips moved frantically against hers, and she held me around the back as I dropped my hands as far as possible and grasped two fistfuls of her skirt.

Up her skirt went.

We stood there in that clearing in the woods, our bodies pressed together, in full view of anyone who might happen along-though we felt certain no one would appear-and my hands were wrapped around her buttocks, with only her thin silken pants between us. I stroked and squeezed the perfect hemispheres, and Claire stood against me, heightening my excitement.

In moments we were bound to end up on the ground, I figured. There ever, that I didn't want to avoid taking her. Not any more. So everything that happened later, as a result of our being together that day and doing what we did, was my fault. I couldn't evade the responsibility.

Holding her pantied bottom left only two things to be desired: One, the removal of her panties so that I could hold her when that adorable butt was utterly naked; and, two, the further action that such a hold suggested.

I was not long in proceeding with both those steps.

The process was speeded by her anxious hands, which slipped from my back and around between us. She opened my clothing and freed my straining object.

With a happy groan, I moved my hands to the elastic circling her waist, removed it and replaced the area with my hot need.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

As I was removing her panties, I was sort of analyzing the wonderful thrilling act. Taking off a woman's panties is an extra-special enjoyment, I found.

And to do this in the broad daylight, out-of-doors, while both of us were standing face to face, contributed to the special excitement.

I let my hands slide beneath her panties first my fingers extending down and curling around the satiny buttocks. She was caressing my groping excitement all this time, and nipping at my lips with her own. She breathed excitedly and murmured disjoined exclamations of delight which would make no sense at all put down on paper but which were supremely meaningful to me at that particular time.

After caressing her buttocks thoroughly,, with her silken pants stretched outward against the backs of my hands. I turned my hands, upward and twisted them around so that I had hold of the panty elastic again. I pressed the elastic down, and her panties relinquished their grip about her.

Down came the panties.

Away from her wide hips and waist and down her legs. Further. I pressed them as far as I could reach.

This was not far enough for gravity to complete the job of her denuding her, for the panties were brief and snug-fitting though gossamer sheer. The elastic gripped her just above the knees and held on.

I dropped to my knees, took a new hold on her pants and drew them the rest of the way down her legs, kissing that of her womanhood before my face. She lifted one foot out of a flat shoe and I removed the pale pink undergarment from that leg. She lowered her foot, guiding her toes into her shoe again, and we repeated the process with the other leg.

I slipped her panties into the side pocket of my jacket.

As I started to rise to my feet, Claire grasped her wide skirt at either side. The skirt went up revealing her naked womanhood underneath, moist with preparation.

I fondled her and did what I suppose you would have done in similar circumstances. Or perhaps you wouldn't have. But considering how completely beautiful Claire Conlins was, I doubt that many men would have quibbled.

As I pulled her to me and proved the overwhelming sense of adoration, I felt for her at that moment, she moaned a happy little sound.

Though variety lends spice, this particular form of activity didn't offer the satisfaction I needed. Helping her to strip off her blouse and her bra, I renewed my hold around her and bent to her breasts. She squeezed one luscious fruit with her thumb and fingers and offered the pink succulent tip to me. I took it.

She sighed and made little mewing sounds as I kissed her ardently. My hands continued to clutch and knead her buttocks and she maintained a grip around the breast I was loving. She began to move her breast, dragging the swollen nipple along my lips. The pink bud rubbed my lips, popped against my mouth, then leaped away again. She giggled as I went after the tip. She rubbed the point in a circle around my face deliberately staying away from my mouth.

I hopped to her other breast and she cried out as my teeth clamped a bit too hard. I lessened the pressure and relied on my lips. She writhed.

What happened after this developed so swiftly that a lucid description will be difficult. But I'll try.

She let go of the breast she'd been holding, so that the plump globe bobbed free, and ran both arms quickly about my neck. She gave a little leap. I immediately did my part by tightening my grip on her. She camped her arms about me, and there I was starting almost before I knew what was happening.

There are many ways to most everything in the world. This was never one of my favorite ways to do what Claire and I had to do at that particular time, but there was one obvious advantage in the circumstances. Both of us were protected from the damp rocky ground and from the grass which could have shielded any number of snakes and lesser creatures. These would not have contributed in the least to our enjoyment of the occasion.

But Claire, though slim where a woman should be, was plump enough in other places to weigh at least a hundred twenty pounds. And the hold which she was forced to maintain about me restricted the freedom I like to enjoy at such a time. For these reasons, our initial pose simply wouldn't do for long.

"Let's . . . get on the . . . ground," I uttered between gasps, and began to lower her.

"Yes," she said as she dropped to her knees and turned on them. "This way, then. I don't want my back in that grass."

She tipped her loose skirt above her waist.

The sight I beheld as I also got on my knees was one of nature's best. I moved quickly, with Claire arranging herself just right. We managed with no trouble at all. My hands found her lush suspended breasts and I began to work off my passion which, by then, had grown to tremendous proportions.

She worked, also.

She was a girl who knew exactly how to work, just any old way at all. This particular method had never before offered the excitement which I experienced with her that day. She twisted maddeningly as I kept up a steady action, stroking her breasts all the while, squeezing them and pinching their full-to-bursting tips.

The fun was rare and fine. So fine, in fact, that time flew. All tension sped from me in a tremendous burst, and this touched off Claire. We pressed snugly, quaking and shivering, for long ecstatic moments.

Then I moved free.

She turned around, stood up, and brushed her knees off. She smiled. "You were quick today. That must have appealed to you."

"Maybe the lovely scenery helped," I suggested.

She laughed. "Are you going to return my pants or do you like to take souvenirs?"

I was adjusting my clothes. "They're cute, but you can have them back."

I reached into my pocket and was about to bring the panties out when we both heard the sound of a car stopping on the road, perhaps fifty yards from where we stood. I froze.

"Who could that be?" she whispered.

"I don't know, but they've stopped. They'll find our cars sure as hell."

"What'll we do?"

"I'll go out and head them off. You wait here."

Actually no heading off was called for. All I had to do was appear.

The car which had stopped belonged to a young man who had chosen this spot in the woods for the same use Claire and I had finally made of the location. There was a difference though: The young guy and his girl evidently intended to confine their loving to the car. They were kissing passionately and he had opened her blouse when I burst from the undergrowth right next to the car.

His girl was voluptuous, and she had helpfully left her brassiere at home. They guy raised his head, released the exposed big breast he'd been touching, and slid quickly in back of the steering wheel. With a furtive glance at me, the girl ducked down. The car's engine roared into life.

I stood there and laughed to myself as the car shot away.

Not until I had returned to my office did I realize that the panties were still in the side pocket of my jacket. We had gotten into our respective cars and driven off so quickly that neither of us had apparently given a thought to her lack of underwear.

I felt the little puff of nylon when I had settled myself behind the desk and was reaching for a cigarette. I started to draw the panties out, then jammed them down in my pocket again. What if Ellen were to walk in on me?

How was I going to get rid of the pants?

I decided that I actually had no right to get rid of them at all. They were Claire's, and the only thing to do was to return them to her. I would carry them with me until I saw her, which would probably be the next day. My wife never went through my pockets, whereas Ellen had access to every nook and cranny of my office.

I forgot the panties at that point and turned my thoughts to the divorce case. I wondered if Fran had called yet, as I'd instructed her to do. The query, shouted to Ellen through the open doorway between our two rooms, brought a negative reply. No unidentified woman had called since I'd left.

Fran no doubt had realized that I would have to get in touch with Claire first, and she had delayed making the contact for that reason. This was just as well. Now she wouldn't have to call again.

I didn't go home for lunch at one o'clock, as usual, but called Joyce and told her I was waiting for an important business call.

The call arrived while Ellen was out, and this seemed to be good timing, too. Ellen was sometimes inclined to talk to outsiders about what went on at the office. Even though she wouldn't have known who Fran was, there was the possibility she might have said something about a mysterious woman caller and that someone lese might have made something of this.

Now I didn't have to worry.

Everything in fact, seemed to be developing perfectly.

I informed Fran about the plan Claire and I had worked out. After Claire had gained the information we needed, which would probably be that night, I would pass this on to Fran. I asked her to phone me again in the morning and said, if all was well, that she could call on Stanley Conlins that night.

Fran was glad things were going to develop quickly she told me, bceause the fifty dollars expense allowance I had given her wasn't going to last long. Also, she was concerned about the business she was losing back home.

Money and woman! They wormed a combination all right.

During the rest of the day I devoted mvself to other work, though my mind kept shifting to Claire. I wondered what progress she'd made with the guy named Rufe. Had they made a date for that night? Would she get the information we needed?

I thought about her in another way, too, for the experience we had shared that morning had raised new doubts about how I really felt toward Joyce. On top of this, I was troubled by shame and guilt.

Arriving home that afternoon, my first sight of my wife spurred this feeling. A drink helped, and a second one helped a little more. I was able to keep the guilt from showing, I believed.

I played with the kids, watched television after they went to bed, then told Joyce I was going to turn in early. She smiled. I knew she was thinking about last night-how late I had gotten home and how much later the hour was before I had gotten to sleep. She said, "I took a little nap this morning. Otherwise, I would join you."

"That's okay," I said and headed toward the hall. "You want to take this and hang it up?" she asked. I turned to see her holding my jacket, which I had taken off earlier and left on the sofa.

You're entitled to put your own interpretation on what I did then. Blame my reaction on guilt if you want, on edginess, or just being tired. You might even say I had a subconscious desire for Joyce to find out about my infidelity with Claire. Anyway, I practically jumped three feet in the air when I saw her handling my coat.

"Leave that alone!" I demanded and started toward her.

Joyce stared at me in surprise, the jacket lying limply across her lap. "What's the matter? Are you afraid I'll muss it?" Her eyes narrowed, and she smiled playfully. "Or do you have something in here you don't want me to see?" Teasing she held the coat away from me.

Was that a logical idea for her to get, or was there some form of extrasensory perception at work? I don't know. But I guess the expression which crossed my face in the split second I reached her, lent strength to her suspicion. She began to pat the pockets of the coat.

The pocket containing the panties was on top, and Joyce felt the small bulge just as I reached to snatch the coat from her. Her hand started into the pocket as I pulled. There was my wife holding Claire's pink underpants.

A hundred-to-one chance, you say. Yes. I guess you're right. Maybe the odds against Joyce discovering the panties were even greater than that. But discover them she did. And this happened because of me-my jumpiness, guilt, or some dark subconscious urge of which I wasn't aware of.

I stood there as she examined her find, stretching the elastic top of the panties between her hands. She stared at them.

I hadn't taken a good look at the panties myself until that time, but now I noticed that they bore Claire's initials.

Still holding the pants in front of her, she looked at me, her eyes registering both accusation and anger.

I could say, really? How could defend myself?

I walked to the bedroom and went through the motions of throwing some clothes into the suitcase. I hardly felt the floor beneath my feet as I walked down the hall and through the living room.

Claire's panties were still there, of course, on the chair where I had thrown them. I snatched them up and jammed them into the pocket of the other jacket I had put on. Then I walked out of the house.

I had the feeling as all this happened, that I would be able to persuade my wife to take me back . . . some way, some time. So I didn't feel as if I were losing her for good. Still, my leaving the house was a sad occasion.

There were several motels at the edge of town, and I chose one of those. I took the car, because Joyce didn't need it. Our house was within walking distance of the town's small shopping district.

The motel operator knew me, though he had never been one of my clients. I didn't offer any explanation for renting the room and he, of course, didn't ask me. But I knew this would start a lot of talk.

I rented the room for one night only.

After I had undressed and stretched out in bed, I lay for a long time looking at the ceiling and marveling that such a thing as this could happen-that a man's life could so completely come apart in a matter of just an hour or two.

But it had taken a lot longer than two hours to lay the groundwork for what had happened. And the laying of the groundwork had been of my own doing and entirely my own fault.

I cursed, and made myself a promise: I wouldn't touch any woman until my wife took me back. Not only that, I would never touch another woman again.

I was sure then that the deep feeling I had for my wife would help me to keep this moral resolve.

"This isn't what you think," I blubbered. "I can . . . explain about them."

"Can you?"

"Yes . . . I . . . That is . . . " She read the initials.

"C. C," my wife mused aloud. "That wouldn't stand for Claire Conlins, by chance. . . "

"No! Of course not!" My denial had been too vehement. I realized this as soon as the words were offered.

She apparently realized this, also, for the look which crossed her face told me she felt her suspicion had been confirmed. "Viola told me, as soon as she heard from Paul Raymond's secretary that you were representing her. She said I'd better watch out because that witch had a reputation."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, shifting from one foot to the other.

"I'll bet! Well? Do you want your little keepsake?" She threw the silken panties at me.

They struck my chest and I fumbled at them.

Anger now swept over me-anger because I had been made to appear foolish. I grasped the ball of nylon and threw this onto a chair beside me. I swore.

"Don't leave them around for the children to see," she said, and I could tell she was about to break into tears.

I walked over to her. "Please, darling, you've got to understand."

She stood up and twisted away from my grasp, "Don't touch me." Her voice was cold.

I swore again as she stomped toward the hall.

"They don't mean a thing!" I stated. "I found them, that's all."

"Sure, sure . . . " she said, her voice cracking. "I know where you found them and on whom." She turned to face me. "Oh, Art, how could you? And after last night!"

She began to cry, turned quickly, and was down the hall and into the bathroom before I could reach her. The lock snapped.

I stood in front of the door, alternately clenching and unclenching my hands. I didn't know what to say or do. The presence of the panties in my pocket, coupled with the way I had acted, convicted me in Joyce's eyes. There was no way I could change that.

I realized at that moment that the conclusion I had reached the previous night was correct: I did love my wife, I loved her more than anyone or anything else in the world. Claire didn't mean a thing to me, except as a momentary sexual jab. For the sake of such a piece, I had jeopardized-perhaps even destroyed what really mattered.

After standing outside the bathroom door for a while, silently cursing myself for having let this terrible thing happen, I called, "Joyce, please darling. I'm very sorry. I can't tell you how sorry I am."

"That's right," her tearful voice replied from the other side of the panel. "You can't, so please don't try. Just have the decency to pack your things. If you don't I'll pack mine. I can't live with you after what happened last night, and then knowing you were in that Conlins woman's arms today. You probably took her with you yesterday, too."

"I did not!" I replied vehemently. "I went alone." But the realization immediately assailed me that I hadn't returned alone. I had returned with Fran Peterson, and I'd screwed Fran twice that same day.

I was guilty. I was guilty of cheating on my wife several times in the last few days, and with not on but two women. I didn't deserve Joyce. I didn't deserve to save my marriage and my home.

Moreover, Joyce was entirely within her rights in demanding that I leave. I would only make matters worse by refusing and trying to argue. What was there

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

When I went to my office from my lonely bitter night at the motel, I was bitter at the breaks. I snapped at my secretary and growled at a couple of my long-time clients. Felt sorrier and sorrier for myself as the hours passed.

When Claire called, I didn't treat her any better than the others.

She didn't seem to notice my anger at first. She was in too good a mood herself: "Well, everything is set. I got the information we need. When do you want to get together?"

"Right away, I suppose. We may as well meet at the same place as yesterday."

She hesitated. "Hey, what's the matter? You sound as if you just won at daily double and now you can't find the ticket."

"Sorry. Some trouble at home. I'll see you in a few minutes." I moved to hang up the phone.

"I know what you need-a little affection."

"No soap," I replied harshly.

I hung up.

When I arrived at the rendezvous spot we had used the previous day, I didn't weaken, even though Claire looked as sexy and inviting as ever.

She watched me warily as she told me what she had learned from Rufe. He had given her not only the name of a worker who recently had quit and left town, but had supplied a lot of additional data concerning the man. With all that to go on, I figured Fran should have no trouble convincing Stanley.

"I'll pass this on to her today," I said. "Can you arrange to be away from the house this evening?"

"Sure. I'll tell my husband I'm visiting a girl friend and won't be back until late."

"He won't be suspicious?"

"I don't know why he should be. I've done the same thing before."

"You've two-timed him before, also."

"He's convinced I won't do that any more, now that I know he knows about the other times."

"All right. When will you leave?"

"After dinner. Say about eight."

"Good. I'll have Fran get there around eight-thirty. Is Stanley apt to have anything else planned?"

"He doesn't go out much. I'm sure he'll be at home."

"Then Fran will get there at eight-thirty, and you and your friend should show up about an hour later. Nine-thirty. I'll tell Fran."

"All right."

"Whatever you do, be quiet. Don't let Stanley hear you drive up. Walk right in. When you see Fran and him together, put on a convincing act."

"I can act as well as that chippy."

I turned to go. "I guess there's nothing else to discuss, then. You ought to pack some things and move out right afterward. Come into my office in the morning."

"Okay, Art."

As I began to walk away, I noticed that she was still there. I faced her. "Is there anything else?"

I wanted only my family, home," she told me. "You're like a different person today."

"Your marriage isn't the only one that's breaking up," I said. "Mine broke up last night."

"Why? What happened?"

"Yesterday, I forgot to return your panties."

"My wife found them in my coat pocket. They had your initials on them, and Joyce had already heard some talk in town about you hiring me to represent you."

She seemed genuinely concerned. "It's nobody's fault buy my own," I said. "Maybe things will work out." She asked, "What's this going to do to the case."

"Your case? Nothing?"

"But the fact your wife knows we were together. . . . "

"She won't say anything."

"Are you sure."

"Yes."

She relaxed. "You gave me a start for a minute."

"Maybe you're relieved, but I'm not," I said. "My marriage is on the rocks. Last night I moved out."

She smiled. "Welcome to the club."

"I don't happen to feel that flippant about it," I snapped.

"It's kind of a shock at first," she remarked in a rare attempt of 'understanding.' "But marriage is a drag. You'll like your freedom." She moved closer to me. "Now you and I won't have to sneak around, once my divorce is on ice. We make a pretty pair, Y'know?"

"Not any more we don't." I said firmly. "The fact of the matter is that I love my wife."

She looked at me.

"Come and see me tomorrow, provided all goes well." I headed back to my car.

Fran called shortly after I had returned to the office. I asked her to wait on the line while I stopped into the other room and sent Ellen on an errand. Once the young girl was out of the office, I returned to the phone and passed on to Fran the data Claire had supplied me. She jotted down notes as we talked.

'"Go over all that." I told her. "Then figure out how you're going to approach Stanley. This has to be perfect. There'll be no second try."

"I understand. When do you want me to drop in at his house? And where does the old jerk live, anyhow?"

I answered her questions and told her also when

Claire and her girl friend were scheduled to break in. "That means you have an hour," I said. "Think you can pull the deal off in that short a time?"

She laughed. "If Stanley Conlins is a male, I won't have any problem."

"He's a male but he's not a high school boy. You'll have to work."

"That kind of work is my specialty."

"All right. Now, as soon as Claire and the other woman arrives, you get your clothes together and take off. Get right back to the hotel, pack, and grab a bus out of town. Call me tomorrow afternoon and we'll make arrangements for the pay-off."

She hesitated. "Has Claire okayed the five grand yet?"

"She will. I gave you my word, didn't I?"

"I know. But have you told her?"

"Not yet. I'm waiting until the job's done."

"She better come through. Let her know is she don't that I'll be in a spot to make her a lot of trouble." She laughed a little. "That means trouble for you, too, I guess you know that."

"I told you not to worry. Do a good job and the money's yours."

"Okay. Tonight's the night."

"Remember, get out of town right away. And don't talk to anyone."

"I'm not stupid," she told me. "Here's luck," I said.

"That's something I won't need. Nature gave me all I've gotta have to take care of old what's-his-name."

"I hope so."

She laughed deep in her throat. "You ought to know. Or has Claire bounced that memory clear outa your head by now?"

"There's nothing between us," I said firmly.

"Yeah." She obviously didn't believe that.

"Good-bye."

"Bye, Art," she replied gaily.

After hanging up the phone, I sat and stared at it for a minute or so. Would the plan work? Was Fran going to be able to carry off the scheme?

One way you looked at it, the deal seemed mighty chancery. And yet Stanley Conlins was a man, and he had been deprived of sexual necessities from his beautiful wife for quite some time. Fran was an appealing girl, as appealing as Claire, in her way.

It should work, I decided.

And yet I wouldn't rest easy until the thing was over and done with.

Once the arrangements with Claire and Fran were set, my mind turned automatically to a further consideration of my own troubles. Perhaps I should call Joyce, I thought.

No. Not enough time had passed. We had to have a cooling-off period. Let her think about how life was going to be without a husband. When she got used to the reality of her situation, she would be in a more receptive frame of mind. Then I would go and see her. I would admit the truth about Claire and myself and beg her to forgive me. Maybe I would be able to convince her that such a thing would never happen again.

Right then I really intended to live up to this resolution. The mere thought of Claire-or of Fran for that matter-left me cold. I didn't want sex with anyone but my wife.

I wanted only my family.

And I wanted to win the Conlins case. That would be the break-through I needed in order to put my law practice on a paying basis. The fee I would get in the settlement would be a fat one, and this would help also.

Women and money, I thought, coupling not be compared to Claire or Fran in most had done before.

Though Joyce could not be compared to Claire or Fran in most ways, I knew the money was pretty darned important to her, as it was to the others. What I was going to make on the Collins case, plus the prestige that would be involved and the promise of the future business--all this would help me get my wife back.

I felt a little better about my prospects now.

When Ellen returned, I actually gave her a smile.

"Well!" she said. "That's a lot better. It isn't like you to be grumpy, Mr. Harwood."

"Thanks," I said. "Maybe I got up on the wrong side of the bed today. But I'm getting over it."

She looked at me. "Maybe the trouble was that you were alone in bed, huh?"

I squinted. "Where did you hear that?"

"That's all over town," she said. "You and your wife split up, didn't you?"

"I'd rather not talk about that."

She shrugged, causing her loose sweater to slide against her sloppy form. For a young kid, she didn't seem to give a crap for appearance. "I hope you get things patched up," she said. "You're too nice a guy to get hung with that kind of trouble."

I stared. "Thanks, Ellen."

She gave me a quick smile. "I'd better get on that dictations, I suppose."

"Good idea," I smiled back.

I watched her walk into the other room and wondered about the sudden heart-flet compliment she had given me. Could the kid have a crush on a guy my age? I had heard of such things, but I'd never considered the possibility between her and myself. Anyway, she was too easygoing to give a hang about any guy, wasn't she?

The matter gave me something new to think about for a few moments. Then my mind turned back to my work. For the rest of the day, I found myself dwelling more than anything else on what Fran had to do that evening.

Everything-the future of both my professional and personal life-depended on how well that call girl performed her assignment.

Funny, but I didn't think at the moment that I was just as vitally dependent upon Claire and her willingness to kick in with the amount I had promised Fran. This I had taken for granted.

Fran hadn't, however. She had been concerned and maybe she had good reason to be because she knew Claire far better than I did.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The next day, Claire popped into my office bubbling with good humor, saying everything went off as planned. Ellen was not at work today, so we didn't have to worry about being overheard.

"Everything went all right?" I asked. The question was unnecessary, really. Her radiant expression and the single word she'd uttered had told me all I needed to know.

"I have to give that tramp, Fran, a lot of credit. She had Stan on the ropes but good. You never saw such a scene! My friend and I got there at just the right moment."

I beamed. "Then the divorce complaint goes to the clerk of the court today. Your husband will be served by tomorrow. You moved out, I suppose?"

"Did I! I was horrified-shocked beyond words. I certainly couldn't live under the same roof with him another night. She laughed. "No actor could have played the part better."

"I hope you didn't put on too much."

"I doubt if Stan heard most of what I said, anyway. He was crawling around on the floor trying to find his glasses. He had put them on an end table that tipped over when he scrambled off the sofa."

"Sounds like a wild time."

"You should have seen him, skinny, naked and bony. Especially as confused and silly as he was. At best he's a clown, but last night, oh, man!"

"You saw him actually within Fran?" I asked, in order to make sure.

"He couldn't take half of what that broad had to give to give him, and Fran doesn't hold a candle to me, as you no doubt have reason to know. But he was trying. I've got to give him credit."

"Okay. Just remember what you saw, and make sure you and your friend have your stories straight."

"The whole bit's engraved up here." She tapped the side of her head.

"I don't think you'll have to testify. Stanley won't let things go that far. But just in case, I'll want to talk with your witness and you, together."

"What happened to Fran? Did she leave town?"

"I told her to. She should have checked out of the hotel last night."

"I figured she did because I didn't see her around there when I moved in," Claire said. "That dump isn't large enough for the guests not to run into each other."

"She's going to phone me later today, and I'm to make arrangements with her for the pay-off. We should have a property settlement worked out within a week or so, and you should get a large check right after the agreement is signed."

Claire hadn't paid any attention to the last part, probably because she had taken that for granted. One earlier word I'd uttered had struck her mind: "Payoff?" she asked. "What do you mean? I thought she was paid already?"

Something about her voice and the sharp look in her eyes gave me a prickle of anxiety. "I advanced her money for expenses. That's all. Our deal was that she'd wait for the pay-off until you got yours."

Her eyes narrowed. "Maybe you'd better tell me about the deal."

"I intended to tell you today." I paused and took a deep breath. "She's to get five thousand."

"Five thousand dollars?" she shrilled.

"Certainly." I was trying to stay calm.

"Not out of my dough she isn't!"

"That was the deal I made with her. She wouldn't do the job for less. Anyway, her performance was worth it. Without her, you wouldn't stand to get any settlement worth talking about."

Anger flared on her lovely face, hardening the lines and making her look almost ugly. "Why, you stupid, incompetent fool!"

I stood up. "Easy. . . "

"There are a thousand hookers in L.A. who'd have done what she did for fifty bucks plus the fare."

"Maybe and maybe not," I said, my own voice rising. "But I didn't know a thousand hookers. I had three names, and Fran's was the last one on the list. Anyway, you can afford to give her a good cut. You're going to be rolling in money. Leave it to me."

She was furious. "That's just what I'm not going to do. I'll leave nothing to you! As of now, you're not working for me. I'm turning the case over to someone else. I'll get a lawyer in L.A."

As she turned to leave the office, I raced around the desk. Grasping her arm before she reached the door, I whirled her about. She gasped.

"Listen here, you tramp, you're not going to double cross me like that. This is my case. I set the whole thing up and I'm following through. As for Fran, she's going to get what I promised her." I pulled her close to me. "Maybe you don't understand. I'm going to see that you get at least a hundred grand out of that old boy you're married to. What's five thousand to her when you've got a settlement like that about to fall in your lap?"

"Never mind!" she exclaimed. "And get your hands off me." She shook herself free.

We stood toe to toe, staring at one another, our faces flushed, breaths coming hard.

"I don't want you on the case any more," she said evenly, controlling herself only by the strictest effort. "A person can always change lawyers. Send me a bill for consultation and I'll pay you, if it's not unreasonable."

"Consultation?" I fairly croaked. "I built this whole case!"

"Oh, you did! Well, you just go into court and explain that. Sue me for what you think you have coming and tell the judge all about the little frame you worked out. Fran can join you in the suit and explain why she's entitled to her sum. You'll lose your license, mister! On top of that, you and Fran both will find yourselves in jail. Is that what you want?"

She turned and stomped to the door.

"Claire!"

She paid no attention, of course. She didn't need me any more. Suddenly I had become more of a liability than an asset.

In a spot like that, there's only one thing for a man to do. And this is exactly what I did.

I left the office, drove to a tavern just outside of town, and set about the serious business of getting blind stinking drunk.

The crystal ball in which I had read my future of professional success and reconciliation with Joyce-had been snatched off its pedestal by Claire Conlins, flung to the floor, and shattered into a million pieces. Now I had nothing-no wife, no home and no prospects.

I sat in a booth in a corner of the tavern, stared at the wall where a row of decorative coal oil lamps flickered dimly, and I drank. I didn't talk with anyone except the waitress when I reordered, and I didn't notice who came in or went.

All I could do was brood about the condition in which I found myself. I couldn't plan. I couldn't begin to figure a way out. While I had blamed myself earlier for the breakup of my marriage, I was now inclined to put the blame on Claire for everything that had happened. The big boobed witch had ruined my life!

She hadn't really done all that, of course. But when you're low and in your cups, you just naturally look for a scapegoat. She was mine. And she was deserving of plenty of blame merely for jerking her case away from me, if nothing else.

Strangely, perhaps, I didn't think in terms of seeking revenge against her. I wasn't up to that. What was the use? What was the use of anything? What happened later that evening is going to be hard to describe because my faculties weren't at their peak when the events took place. But I'll give you the picture the best I can.

The action started when I looked up from my glass -my fifth or sixth glass, I believe, though I wasn't sure of the count-and someone was standing beside my table peering down at me.

That someone was no one else but my secretary, the plain faced, dowdy Ellen.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

She looked at me and saw how obviously stewed and bitter I was.

"Golly, Mr. Harwood, what're you doing here? And in such condition?"

I sat up very straight and looked her in the eye. "I am not drunk."

"Oh, I know that Mr. Harwood. I'm just surprised to see you in this sort of joint."

"I'm a little surprised myself," I said, fighting back a belch and try-at the same time to maintain my dignity. But I was aware, as a man usually is when he's been drinking, that I really didn't appear dignified at all. I wasn't able to do anything about this.

"What're you surprised at?" she asked.

"Seeing you here," I said. "I didn't think a sweet young girl like you visited places like this."

That made her giggle. "Y'know what you need?" she asked, the proceeded to supply her own answer: "You need cheering up. I got this gang with me-see there, over at that table?-and we're going to a place where there's a swingin' bash goin' on. It's some cabin up in the woods. Why don't you come with us?"

"No, I don't think I'd better. After all, I'm. . . "

"You're a man whose wife doesn't appreciate him, and you're low, and you need some fun. Come on, Mr. Harwood." She leaned closer. "Or can I call you Art?"

I didn't accept her offer right away, though I did, of course, tell her I saw no reason why she shouldn't call me by my first name, as long as we were outside the office. She signaled a couple of friends-strapping guys-to come over from her table, and they started attempting to persuade me.

Apparently I showed enough uncertainty to make them think I really wanted to go, because they sort of lifted me to my feet. Then, to prove them right, we walked out of the place together-the two guys, Ellen, another girl and me.

I wasn't so far gone at this point that I would have accompanied Ellen and her friends to the party if I'd had any inkling of whose party it was or who else was going to be there. Some cabins up in the woods, was all Ellen ha said. That didn't mean anything, for there were a lot of lodges scattered around the countryside. Anyway, I didn't know that the woman who had accompanied Claire Conlins the night before, when she had walked in on her husband and Fran, had a lodge nearby. I didn't even know the woman's name.

I was to learn a lot more about her than her name before the evening was over. And I was to see Claire again, also, under different circumstances than I'd ever seen her before.

The place was low, wide structure located on a densely wooded hillside. Its window splashed radiance against the surrounding trees and over the accumulation of pine needles, demolished cones and bits of bark which carpeted the forest floor. Happy music seeped through the walls and windows to charge the crisp evening air with excitement.

The group with whom I rode to the place-free-and-easy Ellen, her husky boy friend named Marve, a girl called Anne, and a round faced guy with dark hair who went by the name of Blinky-had been celebrating pretty intensively before they invited me to join them. On the way over, Anne and Blinky snuggled on the back seat; as they petted passionately, his hand wandered along her body pushing her skirt halfway to her hip. In front Ellen fondled Marve so amorously that, had I been sober, I probably would have worried about the car going off the twisting road as a result of the driver's obviously split attention. But

I merely went along, hoping that the hilarity which awaited at the party, would blot out or, at least, gloss over, the misery I felt.

The hostess, who met us at the door, was a tall shapely woman in lounging pants and a vee-cut top which exposed the inner halves of her soft, trembling breasts. Her name was Norma. There were perhaps a half a dozen others at the place, all in their twenties and early thirties, whom I had never met before and whose names didn't stick in my memory. Two couples danced in the blaring beat of the hi-fi; liquor was flowing; and there was a kind of desperate merriment in the air-a mood which I welcomed at the time.

With a filled glass gripped in my fist, I began to circulate, mouthing inanities and having them mouthed back, though much of what was said suffered obliteration in the din of music and laughing chatter which was all around.

Perhaps five minutes passed before I saw Claire. She emerged from a hallway, guided by a tall slender man who was youngish but nearly bald. I stopped in the midst of a sentence and stared. She stopped walking and stared also.

Then she laughed. "Well, if it isn't Mister Legal Eagle! I guess you have a right to be here, seeing as haw your advice helped out the cause. We're celebrating my newly-found freedom." She was quite drunk. This was evident to me, even considering my own condition.

Also, I was aware she had said something she shouldn't. So maybe I wasn't too drunk, yet.

I stared at her. "Is this your party?"

She weaved as she moved toward me. Her hair was disarrayed. "You might say I'm kind'a the guest of honor. You know Norma?" She made a sweeping gesture toward the woman in the lounging pants. "She's my witness. We saw the whole thing in ol' Stanley's house, didn't we, baby?"

Norma joined in the laughter, and now most everyone else had gathered around. The hi-fi was still blaring.

"If I were you, I wouldn't talk about that." I was still trying for dignity and still falling short, I was afraid.

"Still giving legal advice?" Claire was right in front of me now. Her lipstick had been smeared and her strapless dress rode low on the shelf of her boobs. "I fired you. Don't you remember? You aren't on my case any more."

She turned with another exaggerated sweep of her arm, facing the crowd. "You know, this guy isn't much in his profession but one thing he can sure do is sex it! Man, he really rams up a storm!"

"You witch!" I snarled and grasped her by the arms.

She laughed as I began to shake her back and forth. I was thinking, I guess, that this might sober her up. I was pretty stewed myself.

The effect of my action was entirely different from that which I'd intended. What happened was that the top of her dress slipped-her escort had apparently not been careful in restoring her zipper-and the whole roomful of people found themselves staring at her perfect and perfectly naked breasts.

Jumping up, and down.

A man beside me let out a yell. A woman gasped. I kept shaking her, hypnotized now by the erotic spectacle of those bouncing boobs.

"Wow, look at that!" Another man yelled. "Shake 'em up! Look a those knockers jump!"

"Hers aren't so good!" a drunken brunette exclaimed. "I could show you a lot better."

"Yeah? Show us."

One thing you didn't do is dare a drunken, well-stacked woman to show off her naked breasts. That is, you shouldn't do this unless you really want to see them. Because if a girl is really well stacked, is drunk enough, and exhibitionist enough, she'll jump at the chance to show what she's got.

Her breasts were larger than Claire's, softer, and they had larger darker aureoles. What was more, her tips were already big and taut. Big and taut were they.

I had let Claire go by this time and she reeled dizzily looking as if she might lose her balance. Her skinny boy friend saved her from this, however. Laughing he threw an arm around her and clamped one hand over a bobbing breast. He used this to help steady her.

The party, by that time, had exploded into an orgy. Anne, the brunette who had arrived with Ellen and me, was losing her blouse to the urging of the others.

Then Ellen was pulling at my arm. "Come here Art," she murmured, her lips moving at my ear. "I want you. I love you, Art. I've always wanted you."

In another couple of minutes I was embracing her on the rug in back of a forest-green sofa. I didn't seem to realize for sure, what was happening. I didn't realize or I simply didn't care. I don't know. All I can say for sure is that I was running a hand over her thighs as she sighed and told me how much she wanted to have me boffing her.

We kissed and her lips were hot. I moved my hand from her leg to the bottom of her sweater. Reaching underneath this, I was richly rewarded, and right away, for she wore no brassiere. I held a warm and full breast in my hand, the nipple digging at my palm.

I squeezed first one of her breasts, then the other, all the while kissing her lips with eagerness. I stopped somewhere along the line for another drink. Make that plural. I don't know how many drinks I had, actually, or how many I fed to Ellen because I'd snatched a bottle off a table beside us and we were taking the booze straight from the bottle.

I remember, after I had gotten her sweater all the way off and had bared her bouncing stiff-nippled breasts, that some of the hootch spilled down her front, tickling along the luscious deep valley of those swelling globes. Gallant soul that I was, I immediately began to mop this up.

With my lips.

She giggled and twisted and opened my pants.

She was just a kid, and a tramp, and not very good looking. But with her breasts bare, she looked a lot better than she ever had before. And, anyway, I wasn't in a critical mood right then.

Peculiarly enough, I didn't give a thought to the guy who had escorted Ellen to the party-Marve what-ever-his-name-was. I don't know what happened to him, though I suppose he ended up in a bedroom with one of the other girls.

Ellen did what she wanted to do with my clothing, and that led to a quick desire on my part to do pretty much the same with hers.

There was a difference, of course, because her clothes didn't work like mine. But if you think that all I had to accomplish was the lifting of her skirt to her middle, you guessed wrong. She did wear panties. Tight ones.

I pulled her pants off her, and then there was no stopping us. Never in my life before had I done this in public. I doubt that she could have said as much. I was amazed at myself, actually, but this didn't stop me. I was drunk and in a real don't-give-a-hang mood. It's surprising what a normally conservative guy will do when he feels like that, and when he's got a willing girl like Ellen on the floor in front of him.

I slipped into her.

Wildly, and without restraint or inhibition.

She responded the same way. At last I knew what all those boy friends of hers liked about her.

Somewhere behind me there was raucous yelling. A lewd exclamation burst from the lips of a girl. I went on. And on. I didn't care. What was the difference? All that mattered to me was laying Ellen and using her to absorb every bit of vicious lust in me.

I heard Claire's voice: "See, there? What'd I tell you? He can really do it, can't he?"

A guy-her boyfriend, I think-answered, "Leave 'em alone and come here, baby. Whataya say we do the same, huh?"

"Sure, honey." She grasped his need.

The party was swinging like no party I'd ever been to before. But, then, I'd never known anyone like Claire. Or her girl friend, Norma. Or Ellen, either. I hadn't really known Ellen, I mean.

When she and I had orgasmed-gloriously and profusely-I raised me head above the top of the sofa and there was Norma, stripped to her earrings and sandals, making like a queen of the Nile. She was doing a naked bobbing, quivering, softly inviting routine. Most of the guests were gathered in a half circle around her, keeping time for her by clapping their hands. But Claire and her boy-friend-of-the-time, who were at the other side of the room just a short distance removed from the crowd, were keeping time another way altogether.

I stared at the spectacle of a man, nude from the waist down, in the wanton act of sexual lust with all the people watching.

I watched also, erotically curious, yet sickened at the spectacle.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The following morning, I was no longer lasciviously curious, but I still felt sickened.

I didn't feel any better by the phone call I received first thing in the morning.

Ellen didn't show up at the office, incidentally, even though this was one of her days to be here. Was she ashamed of the way she'd behaved with me? I suppose so. But in my frame of mind, I didn't give the matter much thought.

The phone call was from Fran.

"You were out of your office yesterday. You weren't trying to give me the run-around, were you?"

I didn't have the patience to calm her or to kid her along. I didn't really want to do this, anyway. She had a legitimate claim-(in a sense)-and I felt nearly as bad about her being crossed up as she did.

On top of everything else, I didn't really care what happened. As I said, I felt awful.

"The whole deal blew up," I told her. "Claire refused to pay what I promised you, and she fire me, besides. Looks like we're both up the creek. I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" she screamed. I didn't know where she was calling from, but I doubted she need a telephone. "I'm getting rooked out of five thousand bucks and all you can say is you're sorry?"

"Yeah," I replied calmly. "I don't have that kind of money myself, so there's no question of me paying you. I did everything I could with Claire, but she wouldn't give. I never thought she'd turn out to be a fink."

"Well, I did! I know that whore remember?" she had quieted down a little, but now there was a steely hardness in her voice which' was even more ominous. "You'd better figure out some way to get that dough for me."

"I can't do a thing, Fran. This isn't the sort of claim you can sue on."

"Well, if you can't do anything, I sure can! And you won't like what I'm going to do. You won't like it any better than Claire."

"Frankly, Fran. I don't care any more."

"Yeah? Well, don't think I'm gonna feel sorry for you. I take care of little Fran first, last and always. I'm a good guy when I can afford to be, but right now I'm out for blood." She hesitated. "If you don't figure out some way to get me that money, and right now, I'll go back there and have a talk with old Conlins."

"Go ahead."

There was silence for a couple of minutes. "You sound as if you don't really care."

"That's right. Talk to Conlins. I can't blame you. You got a dirty deal and, as I said, I'm sorry."

"I'm gonna do it," she warned, though I could tell she didn't want to. "That money means too much. If I have to lose it, somebody's gonna pay in another way that'll hurt."

"I understand."

Her voice became much softer, pleading: "There isn't anything you can do?"

"Not a thing, Fran. We're both out of luck, I'm afraid."

"Okay," she said with reluctant finality. "You were a nice guy, Mr. Harwood. I hate to have to treat you like this, but I'm not gonna sit still and let a cheap tramp like Claire Balensky rook me."

"You're only giving her what she deserves."

"But you don't deserve that kind of a break."

"I think I do, Fran. I deserve to get nailed as much to she does."

The waiting was murder.

A day passed and nothing happened. I didn't see Fran in town, but that didn't mean she hadn't returned as she'd threatened. After all, she wasn't apt to drop in on me, considering the circumstances.

I didn't know if Claire had retained another lawyer and filed for divorce by that time or not. I didn't see or hear from her, either.

Ellen telephoned me early in the afternoon of the first day after the party and mumbled something about not knowing what had happened to her the night before. What had happened to her, of course, was me, and I let her know I took the blame for what had happened. But I told her at the same that this had been mighty good from my standpoint. That seemed to be what she wanted most to hear, and the next morning she showed up bright and early.

She didn't carry out any play for me, though; She evidently knew, as well as I did, that we both would be better off forgetting what had happened last night.

I though a lot about Joyce, but thinking was all I did. I didn't consider calling her. How would I? Now I was not only guilty of having an affair with Claire Conlins, and screwing with Fran and Ellen too, but I had blown my chance to get somewhere as a lawyer in this town, and now I faced possible disbarment and criminal prosecution. Could I ask my wife to take me back, in view of all that?

Every time I heard the outer door of my office open, and every time the phone rang, I expected to find myself talking to a Bar Association investigator or somebody from the District Attorney's office. There was nothing I could do but wait and, in the meantime, take care of what piddling business I had on my desk. No matter how bleak a man's outlook is, he's better off to keep busy. Work provides some relief.

Two days after my phone conversation with Fran, I actually began to think she might not have followed through with her threat. But this just went to show what a simple sap I am at heart.

She had followed through, all right.

She had gone to Conlins and told him everything.

And he, of course, had passed all this along to his attorney, Paul Raymond.

So far, the course of events had been predictable. But at this point the chain of cause-and-effect developed a kink. And this kink, like a sudden kink in a hangman's rope, saved my neck.

Raymond came to see me.

I tried to stay calm as I showed the old attorney to a chair and moved around behind my desk. But I was jumping inside. He had come over to gloat, I thought. I could see that in the twinkle of his eyes. He hadn't been able to pass up the chance to rub my nose in the dirt before turning Fran's story over to the District Attorney or the Bar Association.

But I was wrong.

He smiled. "You know why I'm here, I suppose."

"I have an idea," I admitted, my pulse racing and a fine sweat breaking out along my hair line. I was, I felt sure, face to face with disgrace and ruin.

He sighed and shook his head sadly. "That was certainly a bad day for you when Claire Conlins walked in here."

Was he trying to sympathize? No. He was just building me up for a sharper letdown. He was a sadist!

"I found that out," I managed to say, my voice a little sharper because of the way he was acting. Why the devil couldn't he get this over with?

"I don't blame you for taking her case, of course. You probably saw that as a break." He leaned closer and his eyes became a little brighter-friendlier, I thought, surprising as this seemed. "I have to give you credit, Art. You showed a lot of ingenuity. Except for the fact that you were dealing with a couple of chippies-Claire and Fran Peterson-you would have pulled the deal off, and you would have had Stanley

Conlins and me right where you wanted us." He shook his head. "That might have been bad."

"Okay, okay," I said. "Don't drag this out. You have grounds to file a complain against me. Go ahead and do it. I deserve it."

He sat back and a smile spread slowly over his hard-lined face. Then he put back his head and laughed.

"Son, that isn't why I came to see you," he said. "That isn't the reason at all. As far as the Conlins case goes, I'll have no trouble there. Claire's new lawyer called me this morning and I gave him the story, without mentioning you, of course. I let him believe the frame was cooked up between Claire and Fran. But I told him I didn't want to make trouble for Fran. Nasty publicity and all that. I suggested he and I should get together and work out a sensible solution, fair to all concerned. By the time he'd heard everything I had to say, he was more than agreeable."

I stared. "I don't understand."

"Here's why I came to see you: I'm getting along in years and, as you probably know, I have no someone at all to take over my practice. Not only that, but I don't have the urge to work as hard as I used to. When a man reaches my age, he ought to take life a little easier and enjoy the money he's made. I'd like to do a little traveling, before somebody presses a button and blows up the whole show."

"I can understand that," I said. What I couldn't understand was why he was telling it to me.

He went on: "I had the wrong idea about you, Art. I used to think you were a little slow, a man who did everything by the book, a stickler like most young lawyers are. That's why I didn't approach you before."

"When you've been practicing as long as I have, you learn a few things. The most important is that these are human problems you're dealing with, not phases in law books. And there are human, practical ways to accomplish what you want to do. That takes imagination. All good lawyers know this and they act on this basis. Now I see you understand it, and that casts you in a new light as far a I'm concerned.

"What you tried to do to Stanley Conlins wasn't right, and I won't put up with anything like that when you're working for me. But it did show you have what it takes. And I can see why you stepped over the line in the Conlins case. You've been in a bad spot ever since you hung your shingle in this town. Nobody knows better than I. Well, you don't have to be in that spot any more. Not unless you want to be, that is."

"Paul, I still don't see exactly what you're getting at," I told him. Actually, I thought I did see. But I couldn't believe it.

"What I'm getting at," he said, "is an invitation for you to team up with me. Not a formal partnership, you understand. That would smack too much of collusion and it might invite another attorney to move in here, the way you did. I'll just start referring you some of my business-none of the big stuff, at first, but enough to keep you busy. Then, as time goes on, you'll gradually take over the rest. By then I'll be able to quit and draw a monthly commission on the accounts I've handed you. How does that sound?"

How it sounded was great. And I didn't hesitate to say so.

He beamed. "I thought you'd be interested. Well!" He stood up. "Why don't we go out and have a drink to celebrate?"

I waited a couple of weeks before getting in touch with Joyce. I wanted to be sure my new arrangement with Raymond was going to work out and also that the unsavory part of the Conlins case wasn't going to rise to the surface and involve me.

My fears on both counts proved groundless. Just as Paul Raymond had given me the straight story about our deal, so he had also given me an accurate picture of how the divorce case would develop. There were no complications. Claire apparently realized that with the other side in possession of Fran's story, she had no chance to win.

Joyce had taken the kids and left town to spend some time with her sister in San Francisco. She had dropped me a letter to tell me this, and that fact encouraged me even though the note contained no warmth nor any reference at all to the cause, or possible cure, of our trouble.

I knew the overtures would have to come from me, and that was only right. The important thing was that she ha diet me know where she was, implying that the way was open for me to get in touch with her.

I did this finally.

My first surprise, when I dropped into see her in San Francisco one morning, was that she had taken off some weight. "Eight pounds," she announced proudly, and went on to explain that she had decided she'd been letting herself go in recent years. I assured her this hadn't been the case, but I admired the results of her dieting. Her figure had firmed and she looked a lot trimmer where a woman should be.

My second surprise was the general attitude she displayed toward me. Though she was reserved, her eyes didn't accuse me, and there was no self-righteousness in the way she talked.

I told her all about Claire. Not about Fran, though. And I certainly didn't mention the wild party I'd attended with Ellen. I'm no masochist, or martyr, either.

We discussed, also, my deal with Raymond, and this interested her.

I don't want to bore you with a lot of details, because you surely know where this is leading. My wife loved me, as I loved her. And she was willing to meet me more than halfway.

I would like to think our reconciliation was brought about by love and love alone, but I have a nagging suspicion that the improvement of my economic outlook played a pretty large part. Joyce might have come back to me anyway, but the decision was no doubt made a lot easier by my improved prospects for success as a lawyer.

But I know that I haven't any grounds to for complain.

But first of all, let me state that my wife was not concerned with the betterment of our living conditions. I had no reason or right to say so in the first time. She loved me for myself and she deserved the better life.

Our love grew deeper and the lascivious past with my extramarital and orgiastic flings faded from my life.

I didn't need it.

Joyce lost just enough weight to become a stunning woman. Physically, she was ideal. The flab was gone, but her full, shapely breasts and behind was still with her-and mine.

When we made love, often I might add, it was better than ever. We grew to love each other physically and that was easy. I became more adept, more virile and potent and I welcomed eagerly, her growing passions. Our bodies were available for each others pleasures to use to the fullest in sexual pleasure. We had sex in every available method with complete abandon.

Joyce knew that she was everything a husband could desire.

And she was right.

THE END
A Trace Of Sin ....(94k)    by Eric Bartell




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