Damn, she thought, the biological urge is a dirty trick on the human race! Then her own wicked urges retorted, But so much fun!
Anne's brain recognized Ray as a heel, a glib smoothie who'd stop at nothing to gain his own advantage, not so much because he was bad, but because he was like a small child, interested in his own welfare, his own appetites, totally without conscience, and not too long on gray matter. But her body poohpoohed her sharp intellect; her hot lust told her common sense to shut up, to mind its own business. Her nipples throbbed for his lips, his tongue, her legs ached to scissor his back.
She had been like this, like a bitch in heat, ever since Phil, her husband, had been killed in a plane crash. Stunned, stricken, but worst of all, cut off! Abruptly. Nine years of ecstatic, perfect sex, ready at the flick of an eyelash, then suddenly, nothing. At first she'd simply suffered, but her nerves had grown increasingly ragged. She couldn't eat, she couldn't sleep. Terrified of staring wide-eyed into darkness, hour after sleepless hour, she had tried everything: hot milk, hot wine, one sleeping pill ... two ... three. Finally, haggard and on the thin edge of a complete nervous breakdown, she'd consulted a psychiatrist.
His advice had been simple, blunt.
"Get yourself a man," he'd told her.
"At my age?" she had protested. "Where?"
She was thirty-five, and she'd been a contented wife, out of the running, for fourteen years. All the good men she knew were married. Only those who were much too young were single. Widowers were few and far between; when a matrimonially inclined one hove into view, he was quickly snapped up. She didn't quite trust the one-, two-, or three-time losers. If they were divorced, she concluded, with smug, happily married reasoning, there must be something very wrong, and it could be with the man....
CHAPTER ONE
Jeanne Gallano's anger-bright eyes went to the clock on her kitchen wall. Damn! Only eight minutes since her gaze had swung toward that clock the last time. She tossed her shoulder-length blonde mane in a fury of frustration.
The bland face of the clock, with the slow-moving hands before it, seemed to mock her. She fought a wild impulse to rip it from the wall, to smash it to bits on her just-waxed kitchen floor.
As her straining ears caught a sound at the door, she paused in her restless pacing, her luscious figure as stilled with listening as though she suddenly had turned to marble.
A knock sounded.
Nuts, she thought bitterly. That certainly wasn't Ray. One's own husband doesn't knock, no matter how late it is. He walks right in, gives his wife a pat on the fanny, and asks why the hell supper isn't on the table.
Jeanne went to the door. It was the paper boy, his freckled face polite but closed away, uninterested in grownups.
"Collect?" he asked automatically.
Wordlessly, Jeanne went for her purse, hoping against hope that she had enough cash left to pay the kid.
I can't stand it, she thought, I can't stand his contempt, if I'm a quarter or a dime short.
She just made it, silently handing over the correct amount, then fighting the impulse to slam the door as the boy left.
It's not his fault, she told herself wryly, eyeing the three pennies left in her change purse. It's Ray's. Damn his balls!
Even more upset now, Jeanne went back to her pacing and to her clock watching.
Nervously, she switched on the TV, not caring what station the dial was set for. Anything to drive her thoughts from herself, from her own hot, wanting flesh, her bitter mind.
What came on was a commercial. What's your score as whistle-bait? Naturally, you were whistled clear to hell and back if you used Breeze-Clean, the clover-fresh deodorant. Jeanne just stood, listening. Her mood was desperate enough to try anything ... perfume, soap, you name it ... anything that would impel Ray to fling her to the bed, to practically rape her.
She was going crazy, she needed sex so bad. The restless feeling had been going on all day, beginning when she got up in the morning.
Ray had come in very late last night. Half asleep, Jeanne had barely roused, when he had crawled in beside her, not touching her any more than he had to.
Too considerate to awaken her, or just worn out from a hot session with some strange stuff?
Jeanne was only too well aware that Roy cheated on her, frequently and all too openly. The hardest part about it was that she couldn't bring herself to leave him. She was acutely conscious of the sly glances they both got from friends and acquaintances. Jeanne imagined tongues wagging behind hers and Ray's backs, even behind hands in their presence. Jeering at what a prize dope Jeanne Gallano was, not even to guess what was going on!
"That man of yours must have a powerful lot of stamina," Myra Lotowsy, a close neighbor had said not long ago, her voice sly, mocking.
"He sure has," Jeanne had answered evenly, looking her tormentor straight in the eye, wondering if Myra knew from experience.
But it wasn't easy....
Another housewife was being interviewed now. As she half listened, Jeanne felt as though she were magically growing, as though she had been bewitched to expand into a figure large enough to cast its shadow over the entire area. Spirit of all frustrated, hurt, pushed-aside housewives who still wait for their husband's hands on their breasts, between their thighs, who patiently mend and shop and scour and cook and minister, all for the sake of that occasionally blinding, searingly blissful moment when the great man condescends to take care of his homework for a change!
Jeanne walked to the stove, glared at the prepared food that she just couldn't cook in advance because it might cool completely before Ray showed up, then lose its tastiness in having to be re-warmed. Meat loaf, savory with its chopped onion, chopped green pepper, with all her own ingenious touches, expertly added, a hint of sage, Worcestshire sauce, dry mustard, with milk mixed with spicy catsup to moisten the loaf. There were potatoes in a small pot, cut up, ready to boil, peas with mushrooms, a little square pan of corn bread.
Just as she thought, if only he would call, the phone rang. She flew to lift the transceiver. Her 'hello' was husky.
"Hi, doll!" It was Ray's careless, unrepentant voice. "Say, can supper wait for an hour or so longer? Me and a few of the guys have got a good game of pool going. Maybe take about half an hour more, then I'll cut right out for home. Okay, babe?"
She drew a deep breath, speaking carefully:
"It's after six now, Ray. Twenty after. I'd like to get the stuff on to cook. Can I count on seven?"
He hesitated.
"Oh, you sure can, lover," he said at last, too heartily. "Come to think of it, the old breadbasket is beginning to rattle."
Jeanne made herself laugh.
"I'll put the meat loaf in the oven ten minutes from now. Be sure to come when you said you will. I'll count on it."
Her body felt swollen; she was too conscious of the curve of her own hips. What she really wanted to have ready for her husband's gusty appetite was not a meal, but herself. In the close darkness, in the heavy intimacy of their bedroom, with its always-drawn drapes, she wanted to let her throbbing self fall on the bed, too heavy with need to lift her own dress past all the parts of her body that craved him, that screamed for his knowing caresses. She wanted just to lie there, already feeling intensely, until he came and took her, cooling in the only possible way the terrible fever that raged through every inch of her flesh, through every vein.
She wondered how many women waited as she did, too keenly aware of their own nakedness under their housedresses, waiting for bedtime or sooner, waiting for strength hard enough, sure enough to use every bit of their yearning, responsive strength-weakness.
"Ohhh," Jeanne moaned, as though in actual pain. Her wanting was acute now, not to be denied. It obsessed her, driving all reason from her mind.
She didn't like it. She didn't like being claimed like this by an urge stronger than self, far stronger than pride.
No wonder he gets away with everything, she thought. Why shouldn't he get away with murder, when most of the time she said nothing, when she accepted his extravagance, his neglect, his infidelity, all of his selfish faults as though they were a natural part of woman's lot, as a wife.
He had come right out and admitted that he was gambling right now. Not on the horses this time, but what difference did it make what form the gambling took? Poker, pinochle, pool, the races. Between them, they took a chunk of his wages just about every week.
Women took another chunk. Drinks. The juke box. Incidentals. Maybe even, occasionally, the price of a motel room. Ray had been faithful to his near-virgin bride only as long as it took for the newness to wear off ... and that wasn't long.
He felt strongly that he had been tricked into marriage. In her secret heart, Jeanne went along with this feeling, for she had done the tricking. She had yielded once to his pleadings, mostly because her own mother had not merely sanctioned but had advised 'a trial run ... to make sure that you're mated'.
After that one episode, half pain, half ecstasy, Jeanne had been firmly convinced that she and Ray were mated. It had been wonderful, and it had held promise of far better things to come. Ray had been all for trying it a few more times, but her 'no' remained firm. Because she was the only girl who ever had held out on him after 'sampling his wares', Ray had married her.
"It was the only way back into your pants," he had told her half teasingly, half resentfully, many times.
Ray was inordinately proud of his skill as a stud. His most frequent boast, 'After abroad feels what I've got to give her, I can't get rid of her', reached Jeanne's ears in a roundabout way. She had to admit that he really was good, especially at getting and at keeping women. Even the fact that he was a married man didn't seem to deter them one bit.
It didn't deter Ray, either.
Jeanne's brow darkened. Come to think of it, she hadn't heard a single raucous male laugh, not one loud bantering voice, when she had spoken to Ray over the phone. There hadn't been any sound of a juke box going, of pool balls being clicked against each other, of a glass being thumped on the bar or on a table.
Ray wasn't playing pool. She knew that as well as though she had been there, had seen him. He was with some woman. She was sure of that, too.
Her hand stroked the slight curve of her stomach, in a kind of agonized trance. After not touching his own wife for three nights running, he surely couldn't be spending his strength, his manhood on another woman ... or could he? Not tonight, surely. Not when she needed him so.
Tears of rage burned in her eyes. She loathed him and she craved him, wavering between the two gripping emotions that nearly tore her apart.
Again, her pace grew agitated. How much could a woman-any woman-stand? Wasn't it enough that he spent his money-their money-buying drinks for avid-eyed, lush-mouthed wantons? Wasn't it more than enough that he squandered most of what was left of his check on his lousy stupid gambling? Wouldn't you think he would finally smarten up, when he almost always lost?
Angrily, Jeanne jerked open a small drawer, between that containing the smaller cooking gadgets and the one that held their cutlery (courtesy of trading stamps which Jeanne assiduously collected.)
She glared at the few dollar bills, at the handful of coins the drawer held. Her purse, she knew, after paying the paper boy, was nearly empty. The money was her contribution, but it ought to be hers to spend. It was her piddling unemployment compensation which would have to do until she was called back to work at Bradley's Pretzel and Potato Chip Products Company.
Meanwhile, she could at least enjoy cooking and keeping house, lovingly mopping and waxing floors, shining windows, making every inch of glass and wood glow and sparkle. And, at home with one's own greedy body, the hot greed could build to a fever pitch.
Jeanne closed her eyes against the vision of Ray's hand just leaving another woman's already sated flesh.
Part of her inner being seemed to crouch, egging her on to spring at him in rage, at the first sound of his laggard footsteps. That part of her mind seethed with the angry words she longed to spit in his face.
But another part of her held the fury in check, was wise in the ways of wanting. Careful, it cautioned, lest you be left stewing in your own hot juices. There was only one possible winner here. Jeanne had been through all this before. Over and over and over. It always turned out the same. Ray gave only what he wanted to give, only what would give him maximum satisfaction in return. Not money. Not loyalty. Just lust.
She heard the click of the latch, peered out. Yes, this time it was he.
Trembling, she watched his lanky length stride up the walk, noted the cocky tilt to his cap, to his head. A silent cry wailed through her. Hurry, darling, hurry!
He was whistling a little tune. An old song that very well could be Ray Gallano's theme song:
"I am so often misunderstood ... oh, lady, be good to me...."
CHAPTER TWO
As soon as Ray stepped inside the door, Jeanne flew to him. She pulled his arms about her, pressed her body as close to his as she could get it, lifted her mouth for the kiss that was routine between them.
By the way his mouth just lightly touched the moist, clinging fullness of hers; by the way he quickly lifted his dark, curly head, his face, and tried to laugh, Jeanne knew, with a sinking heart, what was coming.
He had been with a woman. Her instinct hadn't deceived her. After three days and nights of no nookey, he would be more than ready to play, if he hadn't been playing an hour or two already ... in somebody else's play pen.
Ray watched his wife's face twist with disappointment, with rage. He watched, wary, while the sweetly formed, candy-box beauty of her features turned into a white, frozen, almost-ugly mask.
"What the hell's the matter with you?" he blustered. "Cripes, whatta ya want, sugar? You said seven ... so it's only eight minutes to! I'm earlier than I said I would be! Ya want I should get a time clock to punch, in and out?"
She turned away, blinking back her tears.
Damned if she would cry, if she would beg the bastard for what he probably couldn't deliver, anyway. The bitch he was with tonight must really have taken it out of him. Judging by his half-frightened reaction ... as though he feared she might rape him on the spot ... to her hot reception of him, he was drained, but good.
With jerky movements, she lit the oven, using a lit soda-straw as she always did to ignite the oven jets ... she was lucky to have food to cook, let alone a new stove on which to cook it ... shoved the meat loaf in. She forced herself to check the clock, to concentrate on getting the food done all at the same time: forty minutes at three-fifty oven temperature for the meat, then turn up the heat the last fifteen minutes and pop the cornbread in. Turn on the potatoes after the oven had been going a while. The peas and the coffee the last few minutes. Her head ached. Had she remembered to salt the potatoes? She dipped a slim finger in the water and tasted. No sense giving his Royal Highness a chance to change the subject, to use that old dodge, attack is the best form of defense.
Her stiffly turned back was eloquent enough, her icy words were clipped:
"Must have been some pool game. The kind where you don't get the balls in the hole, just pretty damned close to it!"
He got the message, loud and clear. He laughed uneasily.
"What am I supposed to do?" he complained. "After this, I'll ask one of the boys to take Polaroid shots all the time we're playing. Instant proof to keep you from being green-eyed. I said I was playing pool! So you just take it or leave it! Supper almost ready, and if not, why not, with seven on the dot such a big deal? Another thing, if you don't mind, could I eat in peace tonight, just for a big fat change?"
She peeked at the meat loaf which was browning nicely, switched on the gas flame under the potatoes, then turned to face him. Her eyes, as hard as blue steel, raked him up and down. They paused, riveted on a small, telltale spot on his neck.
In two quick steps, her hot breath almost scorched his throat, almost melting the lipstick imprint.
"Hmmm, must be a new one," Jeanne grated sarcastically. "A brunette? That figures, with the one before a redhead, and the two before that blondes. Looks like a raspberry shade."
She scanned the incriminating mark more closely, while he flinched, feeling highly uncomfortable.
"Must be a little higher class than the type of cheap tramp you usually pick," Jeanne went on, mercilessly, grimly enjoying his discomfort. "That red smear looks expensive!"
His pleading look sought to calm her. He backed away, as though it might be possible for her to hurt him, physically. It was almost funny; his big-muscled frame cowering before her petite smallness.
"Honest, baby ... I didn't...." he began lamely.
Before her frozen scorn, his voice faltered, then died away. They stood, each groping for some way out of the impasse until, at last, he found one.
"So okay," he flung at her sullenly. "I was with a broad! You can believe this or not, just as you damned please, but I didn't mean it to go that far. It just sort of got started, then it just sort of kept right on going, and then ... well, then there just was no stopping."
With her mind a red haze, Jeanne's hands worked of their own accord. Automatically, they sliced meat loaf, whipped potatoes, turned them into a bowl, turned on the coffee to perk, and heated the vegetable. They filled a platter, another bowl, cups; they pulled chairs back, poured cream, cut up squares of cornbread.
Silently, Ray sat down and began shoveling in food. Jeanne watched, almost jealously. Her own guts were twisted to the point where she didn't dare try to down a mouthful.
She couldn't stop herself now, couldn't just drop it, let it go. Not tonight.
"Well, it's one way to work up an appetite," she remarked acidly, watching him lavishly butter another square of cornbread and help himself to a scoop of buttery potatoes.
"Lay off," he growled, not looking at her. "How was I supposed to smell from that distance that you were gonna have red-hot drawers tonight?"
"Would it have made any difference?" she flared.
He swung his gaze around to hers, exuding indignation.
"'Course it would!" he said, in an injured tone. "It's my job to take care of you, when I know you need it. You oughtta know that!"
She could see he meant it. The stupid sonofabitch actually was sincere! He would have put off the other girl if he had known that his own wife needed to be serviced. Jeanne choked back a laugh. If she ever started to laugh, she would "have hysterics. How can you love and hate a man so much, both at the same time?
Her loins still tingled and yearned. How would she ever get to sleep beside him tonight, without receiving the relief of his exciting hardness? Tossing and turning, in her restless itchiness, at least she would keep him awake. Maybe after a few sleepless hours, he would summon the strength....
"It isn't just that you give them the love I have a right to ... anyway, I have a legal right to it," she said bitterly. "It's the money they cost you; money we can't afford!"
Immediately, he bristled.
"Not this time!" he denied triumphantly. "This broad is both stacked and loaded-loaded right to the ears. She bought the drinks! Every damned one of them; she paid for everything. Man, the bills in her gold-initialed wallet ... wish mine was one-fourth as well padded!"
"Where does the kind of broad you go for get that kind of loot?" Jeanne jeered. "She must've rolled some slob last night, or call girl prices must be going up."
"Now, you just listen here!" Joe almost shouted, pushing back his empty plate, starting to rise. "Pick on me all you're a mind to, but this babe is tops, I tell you. You let her alone. She's not a tramp! She's head of a big advertising company, has a whopping income, a hell of a lot more than most men drag down. And she didn't have to tell me she's fussy who she flops with! Hell, it was written all over her ... but after all, she's still human, you know."
Jeanne knew. How well she knew the animal magnetism her husband possessed. It wasn't just his looks, his glossy hair with its rich natural wave, his ruddy complexion which boasted his superb health, the sensuality of his full, often-mocking lips, not even his magnificent build which women immediately sensed was not a fooler. Heat glowed from his dark eyes, teased through his smile, radiated from his body. Women melted before the flame that burned into their mesmerized stares.
She didn't say, How come, then, she fell for you? The only mystery now was how did a woman such as Ray described happen to be in a bar such as he frequented, the only kind he ever went into? A doll like that-one who exuded class along with dough-you would expect to find in a swank cocktail bar, a lounge with luxurious decor. Sipping Manhattans or martinis, or maybe Scotch on the rocks. But, hell, even the fat bartender at Mike's could slap a cocktail mix into a glass, sweep up the half a buck he would charge.
Nuts, why strain the brain? Jeanne shrugged. Maybe the broad was slumming. Maybe she was hard enough up to get a little nooky, herself.
Ray eyed the speculative look in his wife's eyes. Having seen that look before, he shifted nervously.
"Now whatta ya thinking about?" he challenged.
"Oh, I was just wondering how she happened to be in Mike's, or in the Blue Note, or in the Big Night, or in whatever dump you happened to be helping support, when you met her."
Ray was quick to notice the way her rage had lessened. He wasn't about to question the reason for the change; he was just glad it had happened. He settled back, more at ease now, ready to beat the subject back and forth, if that's what Jeanne wanted.
At first, he had tried to hide his philanderings, but it hadn't worked. His wife was too smart to buy it.
Now, he took the course of least resistance, not making a point of it, but not exactly lying, either.
What the hell? All she could do was leave him. Actually, he didn't want that. He needed his wife, for a lot of reasons. But he no longer worried much. If she were going to walk out on him, she would have done it long ago.
Inwardly, he preened, smugly. Once any female got a whack at that prize banana of his, they all came back for more....
He knew that Jeanne had more on her mind, that she had to get off. Okay, so let it come. He waited, still half wary. His emotional wife was kind of unpredictable. It paid to be on your toes with her, braced for anything. This time, it wasn't long in coming.
"Well, if you say it didn't cost you anything, she must've furnished the pad," Jeanne said. "Where is her joint, and what's it like?"
"She doesn't have a pad!" Ray said, with dignity. "She lives at a Y.W.. We went to a motel ... and she picked up the tab. I told her before we started out I was low on bread."
"She couldn't have gone too strong for the motel bit, not a dame like that," Jeanne pondered. "The one time we went, I kept my face turned away from everyone around. Surely, she didn't enjoy standing around, still in broad daylight, while you rented a unit, knowing damned well the attendant would know what you wanted it for. Or did she stop at the 'Y' for some luggage ... and give you the dough to pay for the room?"
Ray's eyes grew angry.
"What the hell are you so nosy about, baby? I told you the main part, so knock it off already. Take off for a while till you cool off, if you think that'll help, but just drop it about me and this high-class broad. The subject is closed!"
Jeanne smiled. Something, a titillating something, obviously was bugging her. She even reached out to pat Ray's hand.
"I've got good reasons for asking, honey," she told him. "So you do the calming down and just answer my questions! You don't have to tell me everything. All I need is the general idea."
Now she really had him curious. He eyed her quizzically, waiting.
"Did you like her, Ray?" Jeanne asked. He was outraged.
"What do you mean, for chrissake, did I like her? What kind of a pea-picking question is that for you to ask?"
Jeanne faced him squarely, still smiling, her expression frank, open.
"Was she a good lay?" she asked mildly. "And give me a straight answer, Ray. It's important. And it isn't going to hurt you in any way. I promise."
He scratched his head.
"So help me, chick, you are the most! I'll never be able to figure what makes you tick. Guess that's one of the things that keeps me hot for you ... most of the time. Okay, if you really want to know, she was a hell of a good dig. She acted like it was the last time she ever expected to get it."
Expecting anything, including dirty dishes from the table, flung in his face, he leaned back. She had asked, and he had told her. What the hell next? He could tell that this wasn't all, not by a long shot.
"Is she old ... or young?" Jeanne asked.
With Ray, age didn't count too much ... but for what she had in mind, it might make a difference.
Ray shrugged.
"Hard to tell her age. She's beautiful. Sharp dresser. Knockout figure. Who cares, with a dish like that?"
Jeanne digested what he had said. Probably thirty; not more than thirty-five. That should be fine. Just dandy.
She leaned forward, her eyes bright and eager.
"I'd like to meet her, honey. Honest, I mean it; I really do want to meet her, right here at the house. Ask her to dinner tomorrow night. Please. She must've given you her phone number. Call and ask her right now, before you think about it too much and spoil things. I'll even go in the other room, if you're scared I'll watch what you dial."
He shook his head.
"Oh, no," he said firmly. "That sout! That's too kooky even for your speed, baby. Whatta you plan to do, put arsenic in her gravy ... or in mine?"
"Neither," Jeanne said stubbornly. "I'll be extra nice to her, Ray. I'll even go all out to cook an extra special, really scrumptious meal."
"What're you working up to then?" Ray asked bluntly. "You have to have something in mind, something more than you've come out with, so far. So give; what is it? What kind of a real weirdo deal is simmering back of those Alice-in-Wonderland bangs of yours?"
Jeanne spoke rapidly but coaxingly:
"Don't you see, honey, if I can get her to go along with it, it would solve everything. We wouldn't have to worry all the time about bills, maybe not at all. We...."
"Go along with what?" Ray interrupted, almost shouting.
"With her moving in here," Jeanne said calmly, folding her hands in her lap. "Share the man, share the expense, too. She can have the guest room. If she's going to get her kicks from you-all of which is mine-then let her help shoulder the load. She's welcome to half of the fun, if she goes along with half of the responsibility."
Ray stared, open mouthed.
"No dame would go for that; not even you, after a few days. She'd be scared of a knive in her back the first time she really turned it. Forget it, babe! Of all the nutty ideas you've had, and you've come up with some lulus, this one tops them all. No! N-O. Get it?"
"Try her," Jeanne persisted. "Try me, that's all I ask. If you don't," she added desperately, "I will leave you this time! I can't take any more of your tomcatting from stray puss to stray puss and worrying about, bills on top of all the rest. With two real deals in the house, that should be enough, even for you. No one would have to know. We have a perfect right to rent a room, and with your wife right here, who would even suspect what was going on? One night her, the other night me, or however we work it out. But my mind is made up, Ray. If I can sell her on the idea, it's got to be that way or no way. Make up your mind, kid ... fast."
Any husband knows when he is licked.
"Okay." He shrugged. "So what do I say to her? How do you come up with that kind of a proposition?"
"You dial the number and get her on the line," Jeanne told him. "I'll wait in the hall. You use a nice sweet tone and tell her you've got somebody who wants to talk to her. Then I'll take over while you take off. Okay?"
With one last disgusted look, he went to the phone, keeping his finger poised over the dial, until she docilely went into the hall, just out of sight.
He had the 'Y' operator buzz Ann Piper's room, keeping his tone low, hoping Jeanne wouldn't catch the name, just in case.
Anne's low, sexy voice brought back the thrill of her nearness, less than hours ago. She was an exciting woman. Best of all, she was new!
"Hi!" she said, surprised, immediately recognizing who was on the line. "I didn't expect to hear from you so soon! I'm quite flattered ... I guess!"
He plunged right in:
"Look, Anne, there's somebody here who is real anxious to talk to you. I'd appreciate it if you'd have a few words with her."
He could visualize the wing-like brows being raised.
"With her? Well, well, that sounds interesting! Can't you tell me any more than that?"
"Just talk, that's all," he urged. "You'll find out."
There was a brief, pulsing pause, then Anne's voice again, almost amused:
"Okay, dear, I'll talk. Put whoever it is, on."
Ray motioned to Jeanne. She came right away, but she refused to talk while he stood there. She waved him away, impatiently, gesturing toward the hall, where she had stood. Reluctantly, he went.
Strain though he would, all he could catch was a murmur, an occasional phrase or word: "be pleased,"
"really, my dear,"
"looking forward."
When the murmurs stopped, Ray hurried back.
"You didn't tell her beforehand what you have in mind?" he asked disbelievingly.
Her smug look told him that she had, that she had received the answer she wanted. Fairly walking on air, she began to clear away the dishes. Her cheeks were flushed a deep pink; her eyes glowed like sapphires. Ray caught his breath, looking at her. She was beautiful!
"Yes, I did," she told him, gobbling the last of the peas, stuffing a square of cornbread into her mouth. When she could speak again, she continued:
"She was sort of startled at first, but then she began to like the idea. She said it was 'intriguing', and that I sounded 'very interesting'."
Still bemused, Ray kept watching Jeanne, looking at the smooth way the lines and curves of her body coordinated with every move she made.
What a woman! And now, a permanent lush female house guest at his disposal, along with his red-hot wife. What a setup! Man, oh, man!
Rubbing his hands together, gleefully, Ray liked the idea better and better.
CHAPTER THREE
Ray slipped outside to check the gas in his heap. All the money he had left was eight dollars and a little change. Worry gnawed him about one strictly personal bill too big for him ! to pay; one Jeanne didn't know about. But he would let it go for now. What else? The old saying came to his mind, 'You can't get blood out of a turnip'. Far from comforting him, the maxim made him shudder. You can get blood out of a man! And it's away some folks have of collecting ... when other methods don't work.
Right now, though, he was in a mood to celebrate. With a little encouragement, Jeanne would follow right along.
Back in the house, he stood in the kitchen, listening for sounds to indicate Jeanne's whereabouts. He could hear nothing. Impatient, he stalked into their bedroom. She wasn't there either. Well, where the hell?
"Baby?" he called, on a questioning note.
"Here!" her voice lilted, in quick response.
She was in the guest room. Hell, the damn room was okay for anyone's occupancy. Jeanne never let anything get really mussed, not even when she was working. Besides, ten to one, Anne wouldn't move in that fast!
"What're you doing, doll?" he asked.
She looked up from the tatted edge she was finishing up on a dresser scarf. Her peach-bloom cheeks flushed, as though he had caught her at something wrong.
Ray came a little further into the room. He eyed the bed, on the edge of which his wife's neatly rounded buttocks rested.
"Thought you might like to blast off and lift a few," he said. "Sort of celebrate. Heck, an idea like you got ought to rate some kind of fireworks. And you really look happy, baby."
She did. Her eyes were serene, if still somewhat hot. He fidgeted. He wanted to touch her, but that would mean another kind of celebration ... right now ... and the drinking kind would be out. By the time he was through with the workout Jeanne was in the mood to give him, he really would be pooped. He was getting in the mood, himself ... but later, man, later. Anne had been quite a workout, too.
"Thought we might go over to Mike's for a couple," Ray suggested. "The joint pretty often jumps on a Thursday. If there's nothing doing, we'll still have a few by ourselves, then come home."
He took a chance on laying both hands lightly on her arms.
"And then?" Her eyes both teased and begged.
"Don't worry, honey, I'll help you get to sleep. Results guaranteed every time."
Wildly happy, she flew to get dressed. She slipped into a sleek black jumper of hammered satin that looked like leather, a long-sleeved white satin blouse. A vigorous brushing made her gently waved blonde mane shine.
"You look like a doll, doll," Ray assured her warmly.
She trailed after him into the murky interior of Mike's. The place was almost empty, the bartender practically drowsing. Only three stools were occupied, one by a crew-cut, sandy-haired young man who peered at them through the doubtful illumination.
"Man!" he said admiringly. "You sure do get the gorgeous broads, Ray. Each one is better than the last. I thought that redhead you had was something, but this! Where did you get those goodies?"
Jeanne tried not to hear; not to be hurt. Ray plunked himself down, his profile grim. He ignored the man.
Crew-cut refused to be ignored. He wabbled off his stool, came over to stand beside Jeanne, staggering only slightly.
"Permit me to in'nerduce myself," he said, with exaggerated gravity. "My name's Skeets Bickle, rhymes with pickle. Nice big pickle; juicy, too. And what's your name, my fair...."
He wasn't allowed to finish. Ray was off his stool like a shot. He grabbed Skeets by one arm, roughly swung him around.
"That's my wife!" he grated. "Keep your filthy hands off!"
Skeets, not frightened, bowed low, mockingly.
"They all are, friend. More wives than an Arab chieftain. Prize bigamist of the Yewnited States and all points east and west. Sure, she's your wife, but I'm gonna offer my ... "
"Let's go, Ray," Jeanne begged tightly, gripping her husband's anger-stiffened arm. She knew that, in just about a minute, Skeets would be picking a few of his teeth from the floor. "Let's get a couple of six packs or a pint and some mix and go, now!"
"You're not mad are you, honey?" Ray asked anxiously, shifting the weight of the bourbon and the ginger ale in a brown paper bag under his arm. He put his other arm around Jeanne's waist.
She pressed herself closer to him.
"No," she said forthrightly. "Some other time I might have been, but not tonight."
"Why not tonight?" he queried. "I though you'd be mad as hell, the way he talked about redheads and all that malarkey."
"He wasn't talking malarkey," Jeanne reprimanded him wryly. "Only now I don't care. You're through with all that ... remember' From now on, you've got your own private harem at home, and nothing more! Agreed?"
"Agreed," he said heartily. His eyes teased into her lifted gaze. "Starting tonight."
"Ohhh," she moaned unashamedly, twitching her acutely needing body. "I can hardly wait."
All of a sudden, he felt the same. Very much the same.
"Come on, doll," he said. "Let's make tracks. But remember, we're having a couple of slugs of this, first." He patted the bag. "It'll slow me down."
Jeanne nodded, quickening her pace to match his. With that she would go along!
She pried up the looseners on the ice tray, loosened chunks of ice, while Ray poured a healthy jigger of bourbon into each of two glasses, adding a generous dash of mix.
Jeanne plunked a couple of cubes of ice into each of the drinks, loving to hear the tinkle. Her mouth reached yearningly for his kiss.
As his lips met hers, she tried to give him her tongue, to take his, but he halted the kiss before that could happen.
"Careful, doll," he said huskily. "Let's sit down real nice and quiet and calm down, so when it does happen it'll last long enough to at least make it worth-while starting."
She didn't want to calm down. With Ray, she could go again and again, each orgasm wilder, hotter than the last. She trembled, wanting him so badly that she longed to grab him, to drag him to the bedroom. But she was subject to his slightest whim. She would wait until he was ready. At least the moment was near. She soon would get what she craved.
"To us," she said throatily, stretching forth her glass to click against his. "To we three!" He chuckled, tipping his glass to touch hers. "Seconded!" he said.
She already was whimpering, as they began to take off their clothes. Her hands shook. It was too much cumulative heat, too much waiting. She never had been quite so wild.
"Man, you are hot!" he marveled, watching her. "Here, let me do it, baby ... you'll rip off all your buttons! It'll only take me a minute to shuck off my pants and shorts, after I get you undressed."
She moaned, not caring any more, her head moving wildly, her eyes rolling. Her body went limp as he touched her, as he pulled her jumper up, unbuttoned her blouse, and peeled it from her. She sat on the bed and lifted her buttocks.
"Never mind the slip!" she said thickly. "Just pull off the panties! I can't wait much longer!""
"I want everything off!" he told her roughly. "Just hold still!"
He manipulated her as though she were a rag doll, her arms and legs flopping. The garments landed in a heap on the floor.
"Pick them up later," he said savagely. .
His pants and shorts landed on top of her slip, her bra. A crazy intermingling occurred as their hot flesh came together. She screamed and flung her whole self against him. His weight dented the bed as he flung himself down on it.
Hungrily now, not to be denied, she sought his tongue, rolling hers around his, avidly stroking its roughness. Her arms wound around him, his tightened in response till she gasped for breath. She moved her breasts against the wiry hairs on his chest, rubbing the soft, luscious mounds up and down. She pulled up one ripe breast and offered him a hardening petal-pink nipple.
As his lips enclosed it, his tongue licking at its tip, she pressed her naked belly against his in a round and round, hotly rotating motion.
He sucked at her other nipple like a nursing baby, felt his own flesh quiver with hers as her anguished keening stroked against his alerted, tightened nerves.
"That tastes like more," he murmured huskily into her arching throat.
Taking his time, teasing, feeling her little jerks of ecstatic response, he trailed his lips down the creamy whiteness of her throat, her arms, her waist. He nuzzled into the creases, where her sweetly rounded breasts joined to her chest, and again lingeringly laved the nipples.
"Ready, baby?" he breathed, lifting his mouth to her ear.
In imperative answer, she adjusted her body to his, letting their welding nakedness add to their mutual increasing fever, thigh against thigh, stomach to stomach, hard chest against yielding breast. She lifted her buttocks demandingly now, seeking his hardness.
He rubbed it at the very edge of her throbbingly ready heat, then thrust gently, not quite putting it in.
"Now?" he teased, enjoying her exquisite torture.
"Take me!" she panted. "Oh, Ray, take me!" She flopped on her side, lifting one leg, feeling his joining them together, feeling the first pain-ecstasy of his well-developed technique.
"Good," she choked, turning on her back, dragging him with her, keeping him in position, on top of her. "Oh, Daddy, it's so good!"
Ray always let the woman set the pace, the way, when he danced, he let the music tell him how to move. What better way could there be to perfect unison, blissfully responsive movement?
Tense with approaching sheer bliss, she began a slow lustful movement, lifting in exciting greed, slowly drawing back, varying the pace with sensuous gyrations of her gone-crazy hips. Gasping now, with ecstasy burning her body, she prolonged the impending climax, clutching him to gradually release him, tightening herself to slow his thrusting back, into her throbbing molten-lava moistness. It was a trick that always drove him wild.
She strove to weld every inch of their perspiring flesh together, to take him deeper and deeper. Her legs lifted, wound tightly around his back. His hands gripped her middle, tugged her closer, as he thrust harder, toward completion.
His tempo quickened, grew more urgent. She accelerated her pace to match his, her eyes closed tightly, lost to all the world save the wild bouncing of their joined bodies. She was hair-triggered to go on the split second, but she wanted the big one right with him. Her slight orgasms always began the minute he spread her legs, then increased in intensity as their mating heated.
She felt his urgency increase to a hot demand, to a driving compulsion to thrust, thrust, thrust to a hot, almost shattering windup.
Her nails raked at his back, her feet dug into his flesh, then as they both sighed gustily, her nails loosened, her legs dropped away to his sides. They strained together, letting his warmth fill her, both savoring the last palpitations, then she rolled out from under him, sprawled on her side of the bed.
"Oh, honey," she sighed, "that was the best ever!"
CHAPTER FOUR
Anne's staff of assistants, with whom she was usually what they heartily called 'a real good joe' felt the crack of her whip today.
"I gave you that idea for an out-of-the-ordinary type of sale for that department store, mostly because it's one of our top accounts. Now, for heaven's sake, can't you work it up yourself, or must I do that for you, too?" she snapped when her favorite, most dependable copywriter, to whom she never before had spoken a sharp word, asked her opinion on his half-completed layout.
Dumbfounded, the poor man almost gaped at her, not daring to open his mouth to explain. With a mumbled "Thank you, Miss Piper," he scurried out of her range of vision.
Aghast at herself, but unable to stop fuming, Anne flipped open her cigarette case, then glared at its emptiness. She had been chain smoking, lighting one cigarette from another, all morning.
She knew what was wrong, of course. Doubts gnawed at her like the sharp teeth of a hungry rat. She rose to her feet, glancing balefully around the office.
"In case there're any calls for me, I'll be down in the coffee shop," she said.
No one answered, so she strode out. She could imagine the sigh of relief everyone would give as the door shut behind her, but right now, she was past caring.
Damn, she thought, the biological urge is a dirty trick on the human race! Then her own wicked urges retorted, But so much fun!
Anne's brain recognized Ray as a heel, a glib smoothie who'd stop at nothing to gain his own advantage, not so much because he was bad, but because he was like a small child, interested in his own welfare, his own appetites, totally without conscience, and not too long on gray matter. But her body pooh-poohed her sharp intellect; her hot lust told her common sense to shut up, to mind its own business. Her nipples throbbed for his lips, his tongue, her legs ached to scissor his back.
She'd been like this, like a bitch in heat, ever since Phil, her husband, had been killed in a plane crash. Stunned, stricken, but worst of all, cut off! Abruptly. Nine years of ecstatic, perfect sex, ready at the flick of an eyelash, then suddenly, nothing. At first she'd simply suffered, but her nerves had grown increasingly ragged. She couldn't eat, she couldn't sleep. Terrified of staring wide-eyed into darkness, hour after sleepless hour, she had tried every thing: hot milk, hot wine, one sleeping pill ... two ... three. Finally, haggard and on the thin edge of a complete nervous breakdown, she'd consulted a psychiatrist.
His advice had been simple, blunt.
"Get yourself a man," he'd told her.
"At my age?" she had protested. "Where?"
She was thirty-five, and she'd been a contented wife, out of the running, for fourteen years. All the good men she knew were married. Only those who were much too young were single. Widowers were few and far between; when a matrimonially inclined one hove into view, he was quickly snapped up. She didn't quite trust the one-, two-, or three-time losers. If they were divorced, she concluded, with smug, happily married reasoning, there must be something very wrong, and it could be with the man.
The psychiatrist had smiled. He had leaned back, surveyed her lush, man-starved body, almost amused.
"You're very attractive," he had told her, and his tone had convinced her of his sincerity. "You're loaded with sex appeal. What's wrong with having a young man? You don't have to marry a man just because he takes you to bed. When I was in medical school, I had women up to fifty, attractive, of course, a couple even older. So did my fellow students. We couldn't afford the young broads who might not put out, even after we had spent money we couldn't afford. It wasn't love; our mature bed partners understood that. It was pure sex ... what we wanted ... and needed. So did they."
He had leaned forward then, patted her knee.
"Hasn't any young man made a pass at you since you lost your husband?"
They had. Anne had been working in the office of a manufacturing company then. Several of the young men had remarked openly at how 'hard up' she must be getting, had hinted strongly that, if they could help her, they were very much available.
"I thought they were just kidding," she had told the doctor.
She had pondered for a moment, then smiled.
"Okay," she had said, rising, her attitude purposeful. "I'll try it. I'm ready to try anything. Heaven knows I can't go on this way much longer."
That had been months ago. She had given the nod to one young man after the other, but not one had given her the kind of a thrill session she had had regularly with her husband.
Until last night. Until Ray. Anne's body trembled with need right now, at the mere thought of the real going over he had given her palpitating nakedness, of his sensitivity as to when to slow up, when to pound into her throbbing, ready-to-explode heat.
"Coffee," she ordered, taking a stool at the almost-empty counter. "And give me a pack of smokes."
She liked her coffee strong, hot, and black, No sugar either. After a couple of swallows, she felt better.
The counter girl was buxom, wholesome-looking, cheerful, and young enough to have to show her I.D. card at any bar. Anne smiled wryly at the pang of envy that knifed her.
To hell with stewing about tonight, she made up her mind. After all, what could happen? If it turned out a fiasco, which it almost surely would, what would she have lost? She was sure she would see Ray again, in any case. She had to ... and she knew he really had liked it, too. He would be back for more. Especially since it hadn't cost him a thing but his time and what he had to offer.
Delia, the counter girl, approached her.
"'Ja notice the time, Mrs. Piper?" she asked. "It's after eleven. Pretty soon, the howling mob will be down, and there'll go the real good specials. If you're hungry now and wanna eat, we got crab meat salad, real yummy, macaroni and pork sausage, baked, awful tasty, and chicken biscuit pie, out of this world! When you get down, generally, all we got is the regulars, and you settle for a cheeseburger or a ham on rye."
Anne smiled warmly.
"You're a darling, Delia, to be so concerned about me. All right, I'll have the real yummy crab meat salad with whatever kind of hot bread you have. And more coffee, please."
Early lunchers drifted in as Anne was finishing. Nourished, enormously cheered, she was able to dispense smiles, greetings, right and left.
Back in the office, Anne hied herself over to the desk of the copywriter she had chewed out, what seemed ages ago.
"Let's have a look now, Stan," she said, in a tone that told him, it's all right. Even, I'm sorry.
Luckily, the copy was very good. "Fine. You've carried through on the'touchdown sale' idea in great style." She read on.
"This is terrific, Stan, this for the yard goods department: 'so many yards for a gain'. And this: 'instead of our usual two-dollar price, you get a half-back'. Real sharp. In this football-conscious town, that sale ought to really go over! And we'll be getting it in in plenty of time!"
She left a perked-up young man, once more ready to knock himself out to please her. The way she liked her staff to feel, the way they usually felt.
The afternoon passed smoothly, therefore swiftly. When she glanced at her watch at last, it was after four-thirty. Less than half-hour longer and Ray would be waiting. Anne had left her convertible at home, and had taken a cab this morning.
They would go to meet wifey in that beat-up heap he laughingly called a car.
For the third time in less than two hours, Ray turned down a drink he wanted very much. He licked his lips, watching his would-be booze host hoist and dispose of a double shot, follow it with a small glass of beer which he downed without removing the glass from his lips.
"Whas'sa matter, ya suddenly come down with ulcers or somethin'?" the imbiber boomed. "Never seen you refuse a free one before!"
Ray tried to smile.
"Oh, the wife's having special company for dinner. Told me to show up on time for a change, also cold sober."
"Brother, am I glad I ain't married. Well, I'll be seein' ya, buddy!"
Hurriedly, Ray transacted his business with the bartender. He was running late, but this was pretty cut-and-dried. He had been on this territory so long as a liquor salesman, he could write orders in his sleep.
He had started on his way out, glad it was the next-to-the-last stop, when the owner-bartender stopped him.
"Whadda ya want, Mel?" Ray asked. "I didn't forget nothing, did I?"
"Not for me, you didn't," Mel Cowley told him, leaning over the bar, his voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. "But did you know that a couple of the toughest pug-uglies the syndicate has on its bully-boy list are sniffing, hot on your trail?"
At the word, 'syndicate', Ray started to sweat. Why in the hell had he let himself get hooked to the tune of fifteen hundred bucks? Geez! A grand and a half. And they had told him, not once, but half a dozen times: 'Deliver, boy! Fast!' It might as well be a cool million. If he hocked the gold out of his molars, he couldn't come up with a lousy C-note. Not even to save his life. He shuddered.
"You must owe them a real chunk of moola, either on the cubs or on the nags," Mel guessed. He shrugged, wiped aimlessly at the bar with a damp rag. "Just glad it isn't me."
Ray started for the door again, feeling isolated by his fear, braced for the sound of a harsh voice speaking his name."
"They wanted to know what time you regularly get around here, but I told them, always different times," Mel called after him, with the air of one doing a very great favor.
Which he sure as hell was.
It had been a crazy deal. Too many drinks, way too many, a visit to Hy McLaughlin's road house, with its high-powered crap games, its roulette wheels, and its bookies in the basement. , The last place to which he should have gone.
Ray, bitten by the gambling bug anyway, had rolled the dice for a series of easy wins. Then, suddenly, and steadily, he'd lost ... and kept on losing. Still muttering, "Come on, seven, come on, baby, no snake-eyes; I can't crap out now." He did crap out, with box cars. He couldn't make his point, no matter how seemingly easy. At first, little joes, big joes, easy rake-ins. Then, nothing.
He hadn't even been aware of the staggering amount of his losses, until a barked command reached through the rosy haze that had surrounded him, chilled him to ice-cold reality.
"That's more than enough on the cuff for that stiff!" a harsh voice boomed, meaning Ray. "He's into us already for fifteen C's. He won't have time to come up with any more than that, not fast enough to suit the boss!"
If I ever come out of this, I won't even play penny-ante poker, Ray groaned, to himself.
At the last stop, no one offered to buy him a drink, for which he gave thanks. He doubted his ability to refuse this time. He wanted to get so drunk he wouldn't feel a thing, especially not a bullet. But this evening, for sure, he had to be sober.
He forced joviality, wanting to hurry his last, pot-bellied customer.
"Think six-dozen gin, couple cases of bourbon will do ya ... like last time?" he asked.
"How ya fixed for vodka? Can't be many Russians around here, not judging by your sales of that ... ha-ha ... Need any brandies?"
He glanced at his watch. Almost four-thirty. If the heap kept on running, if he didn't hit too many stop signs, he would be on time to meet Anne.
Anne! His blood heated, remembering. For the first time all day, he felt happy.
The kitchen was hot. Jeanne wiped her moist brow with cleansing tissue, then went to open the windows.
Gosh, I hope she isn't the ulcer type of career woman, or that she's not on a lettuce-leaf and glass-of-skimmed-milk diet, Jeanne worried, eyeing her already set table with pleasure.
She had taken such pains, carefully considering every item of her menu, pouring through her recipe files, changing her mind a dozen times. Roast chicken? No, too common. Pot roast, something Anne might not often get, eating in restaurants? Huh-uh. Barbecued spareribs had won, watercress salad, her own blue cheese dressing, hot sour-cream biscuits. For dessert, finely shredded fresh pineapple, chilled in white wine.
Anne had to be pleased! Only this morning, Jeanne had noticed that the light bill, the gas bill, and the phone bill, all still were unpaid. Worry plagued her, but she made herself stop fretting. Anne would help ... oh, dear, she just had to move in!
Another awful thought prodded Jeanne. Last night, she had asked Ray if he had liked Anne, not if Anne had liked him. But of course, Anne had liked Ray. How could she help it? Women didn't desert Ray. He did the tossing aside, when he had had enough.
Not this time, though, Jeanne resolved. This would be kind of like getting married. Number two wife. And having help getting the bills paid ought to keep Ray interested ... along with what must be Anne's charms.
Carefully, Jeanne folded the only linen napkins she had, and placed them beside each plate. Her best silver, polished this morning, gleamed in the late-afternoon light.
She glanced at the electric wall clock, also courtesy of trading stamps. My, time was flying and she still had to bathe, and decide what to wear.
Had she forgotten anything? Think, she told herself. Once she had bathed and dressed, she wanted to take it cool. It wouldn't do to perspire again, get all mussed. Everything was ready; she was sure of it. The spareribs, their first fast, very hot roasting already accomplished, with thin lemon and onion slices distributed evenly over them, the spicy sauce already cooked, the potatoes sliced and chilling in the frig for crisp roasting. Even the glass dessert dishes had been placed on a refrigerator shelf so the dessert would be icy cold, with hot, strong coffee for contrast.
It's all I'm good for, Jeanne thought, bitterly, just a cook! Then she smiled to herself. And I can screw up a storm, any day in the week and twice on Sunday.
Feeling luxurious and pampered, she treated herself to a gardenia-scented bubble bath.
Still toweling her sweet-smelling nakedness, she scanned her clothes rack, frowning worriedly. There was so little from which to choose. The embroidered blue sheath was too fussy. After all, she still had to serve dinner and at least rinse the dishes ... or they would be a sticky mess in the morning.
Slipping into a sheer pink cotton frock, simple but side-skirted and fetching, over a plain pink slip, Jeanne surveyed herself hastily, fluffed her bright hair, dabbed pink lipstick on her soft, full-lipped mouth. She consulted the dresser clock. A quarter after five. Oh, dear....
A car was turning into their driveway. It had to be Ray. She grew panicky, hurried to the kitchen which was the way they would come in from the garage, reached the screen door, stood behind it, waiting. Her heart pounded, as the slim brunette in chic beige took Ray's hand, getting out of the car.
She's beautiful, Jeanne thought.
Blushing as pink as her dress, she opened the door, smiling a shy welcome, afraid to try to speak.
She would have felt much more at ease if she could have read Anne's mind at that moment.
She's beautiful, Anne thought.
Even without being able to read their minds, Ray would have agreed with them both.
CHAPTER FIVE
Ray cleared his throat, opened his mouth to speak, then cleared his throat again. Anne's amused glance veered from his embarrassment-reddened face to Jeanne's anxious one. She stepped forward.
"Surely, you can guess who I am," she said, her gaze taking in Jeanne's lush little figure like estimating hands outlining every curve. "I'm happy ... and relieved ... to be able to say I'm honestly pleased to meet you."
Jeanne's eyes sparkled.
"Me, too!" she said, frankly admiring Anne's out-thrust bosom, the svelte curves of her hips, her thighs, her calves.
Impulsively, she put her arm around Anne's waist. Anne responded, and holding each other in a light, affectionate embrace, they walked into the warm, good-smelling kitchen.
Ray followed, feeling more than a little bewildered. What the hell was happening, anyway? He rubbed a hand across his perplexed forehead.
"Oh, my spareribs; they're ready to come out!" Jeanne cried, letting go of Anne's hand reluctantly and rushing to the stove.
Anne watched benignly, standing in the middle of the kitchen floor, as Jeanne snatched a potholder from a hook and pulled open the oven door. Carefully, Jeanne lifted the lid of the roaster, giving her watchers a tantalizing whiff of roasted ribs, of spicy sauce.
"Mmmm!" Anne sighed. "Divine, my dear! Imagine, looking like you do and being able to cook, too!"
Jeanne lifted her happy, heat-flushed face. Then she turned to face her husband, disapprovingly.
"For Pete's sake, Ray," she chided, "why don't you show Anne to her room? She might like to see what it looks like. Besides, she might want to take off her jacket and be comfortable, and maybe freshen up."
Ray cast Anne a beseeching, flustered look. Cripes, Jeanne really was rushing things! This 'your room' business was a real good way to scare Anne off in a hurry.
Anne smiled coolly.
"I'd just love to see my room," she said, emphasizing the 'my'.
Ray's mouth dropped open.
"Y-you didn't even bring an overnight bag," he demurred.
Jeanne rose, picking up the roaster full of meat and placing it on the stove top.
"Well, for goodness sake, so what?" she snapped. "I hope I have an extra nightie I could loan Anne ... if she needs one, which I doubt ... and she's more than welcome to use anything of mine she wants to till she gets her own things moved. Go on, Ray, get a move on. I want to get dinner on the table."
Wordlessly, Ray led the way to the guest room.
"Ya sure...?" he began.
Anne ignored him. She went to the closet, surveyed it, then turned to let her eyes sweep the immaculate room. Her gaze lingered on the dresser, noting a glass bud vase holding yellow tea roses that looked freshly-cut. She glanced briefly at the three-quarter bed with its quilted rose spread, its plump snowy pillows. She turned once again to inspect the closet, running her hand over the top of the door.
"It's a trifle small," she said, "but with an over-the-door hanger here and over the door to the room, I should be able to manage nicely."
She took off her jacket, and hung it on a wire hanger. Then she went to the mirror and ran a comb through her dark shining mop.
"Just the kind of mirror I like," she commented, turning to smile at Bay. "Flattering."
Neither he nor she quite knew what he mumbled back. Things were moving much too fast for Ray.
Anne put her comb back in her handbag.
"Let's go," she said briskly. "We mustn't keep Jeanne waiting."
All during dinner, Anne kept complimenting Jeanne on all the little things so few people notice.
"Gosh, where did you get the idea to pickle beets, carrots, and onions all together?" she marveled. "Tastes scrumptious!"
Jeanne flushed, pleased but a little embarrassed.
"Well, I had a pint-sized garden out back, and I wound up with a little of everything. I hate to waste food, so ... "
"I could use your imagination in my business, kid. Don't bother telling me how you happened to make apricot-cherry preserves. I can guess."
Ray ate steadily, sullenly. For all the attention either broad paid him, he might as well be slopping up beer in some dive.
Finally Anne turned his way.
"Why didn't you tell me your wife is such a wonderful little housekeeper?" she demanded indignantly. "Especially such a good cook?"
"I don't talk about eats," Bay growled. "I they suit me, I just shovel 'em in."
"I see." Anne smiled.
Ray set his knife down with a clatter, but he didn't turn the air blue the way he ached to do.
"What time do you want to go to bed?" Jeanne asked, speaking to Anne.
Ray perked up his ears. Now the conversation just might get interesting.
"Well, I am sort of beat. Let's watch TV and gab till say about ten-thirty, then we'll hit the sack. Okay?"
"Fine." Jeanne reached for the coffee carafe on the sideboard behind her. "More coffee, dear?"
"Yeah," Ray said, holding out his cup. Jeanne glared at him.
"I wasn't talking to you, daddy-o. Kindly wait your turn. Company first."
Ray bristled, then subsided, actually pouting.
"I'll make fresh coffee later, to have with our dessert," Jeanne told Anne. "Of course, if you want yours now, I'll be glad to get it, but personally, I like it better later."
"I'll give ya dessert," Ray leered. "A real jone; hot, sweet, and juicy."
"Oh, that reminds me," Jeanne said, giving him a fast, absent smile, then turning back to Anne. "You can sleep with Ray tonight if you like. Last night was mine, so it's only fair."
"Well-I-I," Anne hesitated, "if that's the way you want it."
"I insist," Jeanne said warmly. "He looks kind of beat, I know, but once you get him going, it'll be okay."
"One good one'll do nicely," Anne assured Ray's wife.
Outraged, he stood up.
"Now look here, you two smart-assed babes!" he bellowed. "You can both cut it out right now, acting like I don't count except when the covers are down and the nighties are up! Quit talking like I wasn't nowheres around, ya hear? It's my joystick, damn it, and I'd at least like to be in on the debate where it's gonna land!"
The girls stared at him, silently. Then Anne reached over and patted his hand.
"There, 'there," she soothed. "You're so right. Well, after tonight, it'll be more simple. Like one night Jeanne, the next night me."
"It'll be like I want!" Ray bellowed, still unappeased.
"Well how about the every-other-night deal, then?" Anne persisted.
He thought it over, briefly.
"Oh, I guess it sounds okay," he conceded, his tone still belligerent. "But don't ever forget, I'm pretty important, too."
"Oh, indeed you are!" Anne purred. She turned and lifted a strand of Jeanne's bright hair.
"Isn't he, baby?"
"I'll say!" Jeanne enthused, her tone balm to Ray's injured vanity. "You can't get enough of that wonderful stuff!" She beamed at Anne "Unless he's really worked up, though, it's a good. What sets him off like a firecracker only, thank goodness, slower, is French kissing and giving him plenty of titty."
"That I got," Anne said, surveying her ample front with satisfaction. "And I love having the nipples licked till they're nice and hard."
"Oh, he's the greatest there...." Jeanne began. She looked up, as Ray shoved back his chair and rose.
"What's the matter, honey?" she called after him, as he stalked into the living room.
He swung around, stamped back to the doorway, and glared.
"Oh, I just want to be sure I don't butt in on anything important," he said sarcastically. "Just go ahead and blab your heads off, you pair of wiseacres. I'll watch TV, and when you've got me lined up just how you want me, let me know. Always glad to be of service!"
At close to ten-thirty, Jeanne put a hand over her mouth and yawned delicately. She tried not to look at Ray, sprawled in an easy chair, one leg flung over an arm of it. The sight of his hard-muscled body had her tingling, and she didn't want to be turned on tonight.
Anne's gaze was on him too, her eyes appreciative. Man, this really was going to be cozy. Every other night was a hell of a lot more than she had had it in a long time.
Ray flicked her with a half-mocking, half-teasing glance.
"Ready to talk to me now, doll?" he jibed.
"Who needs talk?" Anne murmured.
"You two go on to bed," Jeanne suggested. "I'll finish putting things away, draw the drapes and ... "
She realized she was talking to herself. Anne and Ray got to their feet, their eyes riveted on each other.
"You heard the lady," Ray told Anne, huskily. "Whatta ya waitin' for, sugar, an engraved invitation? Let's like go!"
Anne stared at the belt fastened low on his slim hips, at the bulge just below as he stood, straddle-legged, his insolent gaze stripping off her clothes.
Not daring to look at Jeanne, Anne followed Ray, as he turned and headed for the guest room.
"How about that?" he smirked, shutting the door firmly. "A cotton-pickin' guest in my own damn house!"
Without another word, he began to undress Anne, enjoying her expression of mingled passion and discomfiture.
"Better than a motel, baby?" he asked.
Her eyes were intense, almost pleading. It was almost like being married, this weird, wonderful sharing. It wasn't like cheap shacking up at all.
She flinched at the sight of her skirt, carelessly pushed aside on the floor, a small kicked-away heap. She would have to wear it tomorrow....
She opened her mouth, half inclined to protest, but Ray's mouth, coming down hard on her just-parted lips, shut off any comment.
The room began to spin, she was dizzy with desire. Faint with her own heat, she sagged against him, pawing blindly at the buttons on his shirt.
"I'll do it," he said gruffly. "Lay down."
As she reached for the light quilt to lift it, he pushed at her hand.
"Don't get underneath nothing but me, baby. Not yet. I'll keep you plenty warm, don't worry."
Aware of the soft fullness of her naked breasts, of the throbbing femininity between her still-close-together thighs, she watched him, heard him swear softly, as he worked his tight jeans past his hardness, shucked out of the rest of his clothes, then stood like a young stallion, ready to service a stable full of mares.
Relishing her wanting stillness, he rode the crest of their mutual desire. Now, who was boss? This was one place, one time, where and when he would run the show!
His deliberately teasing kisses all over each full white mound, then again and again on her round rosy nipples, had her writhing in delicious torment.
"Ohhh," she moaned, and he knew she was feeling it, in anticipation, already.
Her rump was lifting, falling back, lifting, and she was past the point where she could stop.
"Steady, doll," he said thickly. "Take it easy. You'll get it. It's all yours, tonight."
He rubbed himself against her, running his hands along her hips, then placing them under her buttocks. He could feel her twitch, trying to open herself enough to capture him. Once in that wet little furnace, they both knew he wouldn't want out.
Her fierce demand got to him, and he plunged. As he sank himself deep, as he began his avid thrusting, he could hear her monotone like a drunk talking to himself, then the whimpers that told him he had unbearably heated her tightened nerves. When he had taken about all he could stand of her skillful answering movements, she began beating herself upward against him in a faster rhythm, sobbing her half-crazed enjoyment, and they wound up, a panting heap in the middle of the bed.
With a contented grunt, Ray dropped off to sleep almost immediately. Anne lay wide awake for almost an hour, tired though she was.
She couldn't stop thinking of Jeanne. She wondered if Jeanne had heard.
CHAPTER SIX
It was not quite four in the afternoon, but Anne had left the office early, wanting to help Jeanne get ready for a small cocktail party. The thing had to be a success. It meant getting or not getting a couple of juicy contracts that would put Anne's company well over the top for the year.
Could that blasted Ray be counted on? He had no sense of time, no feeling of responsibility. All he had was sex know-how, but, man, he sure had that. He could whip up a smooth martini, Manhattan, or whatever, too; and Anne had asked him to be on hand to make use of his skill ... but would he? Almost every night for the last week, he had been late, and his excuses were pretty lame. Was that sonofabitch back at the cheating bit, even now? If he were ... Anne gritted her teeth and glared at a stop sign that was daring to hold her up.
I'll kill the bastard, if that's what he's pulling, Anne thought, grimly.
Sweet-but-stupid Jeanne might take that crap, but no broad with moxey would buy it, not on Ray's terms. He was making his liquor route on his regular day-to-day basis, but none of his green ever was laid on the line. Where the hell did all of his loot go, if it wasn't for broads and booze?
Jeanne, she knew, she could count on, tonight and any other time. In fact Anne had had to warn her, just before gulping her coffee and leaving this morning, "Now remember, baby, no working yourself into a lather. This is just a martinis-and-snacks deal, not a ten-course banquet!"
Funny how well they got along, Anne mused, threading her way through heavy traffic. Two hot-pantsed broads making do with the same surly, undependable stud ... and the wife never demanding an extra poke which she could very well do, considering her seniority and her legal status!
I ought to hate her, Anne thought, but ... and her guts seemed to melt ... I actually love the nutty little blonde. She shook her head. Damned if she could figure it out.
Pulling into the back driveway, she glanced toward the kitchen door. It was open, despite the real chill in the air, and Jeanne stood there, embarrassment and fear written all over her face. She shrank from a squat, angry man who was waving his short arms like a windmill in a tornado.
"Now what's the trouble?" Anne demanded, barging right in.
She knew, without asking. Another of Ray's bills, what else? A cleaning company truck waited, out on the avenue.
Without waiting for a reply, Anne clicked open her purse.
"How much?" she asked, grimly.
"Six bucks, eighty-two cents," the driver told her, already mullified.
Anne took a five, a one, from her wallet, dumped change from her coin purse into her hand. Wordlessly, she handed the money over.
The driver frowned.
"I ain't got no pennies. Ya got the two cents, miss?"
"I have," Jeanne said quickly, going to her handleless sugar bowl bank. Her 'emergency fund', she called it. Only the emergencies were endless.
"Big deal," Anne snapped acidly, after the driver had left. She followed Jeanne into the house. "The good provider really keeps you rolling in copper, doesn't he?"
Jeanne reddened, but she didn't answer. What the hell was there to say?
"What was that cleaning bill for?" Anne demanded, too angry to let it go.
"For three pairs of slacks and a jacket," Jeanne mumbled, eyes on the floor.
"Yours?" Anne persisted relentlessly.
For seconds Jeanne was silent, then she whirled.
"You know damned well they're Ray's, so quit bugging me! I can't help what he does. I think he's in trouble ... real bad money trouble ... that's why he can't kick in his share, but don't take it out on me!" She was close to angry tears.
Anne's lips tightened. In the four months since she had been with the Gallanos, it had been one past-due bill after the other. Insurance. Installments on furniture and clothing. House payments. Car repair bills. Instead of the situation improving, things had gradually worsened till now Ray was paying nothing. Gas, lights, phone bills, everything came out of Anne's pocket. And she had just about had it.
Holding herself rigid, Jeanne spoke in a muffled voice:
"I'm being called back to work, starting Monday. Then I'll help pay the bills."
"You're being what?" Anne flared. "Who'll get the meals, if you work out? Who'll take care of the house? Or are you thinking of hiring a housekeeper?"
"Why, I'll do the housework evenings and week ends," Jeanne explained reasonably, "the way I've always done it." Seeing Anne's outraged look, she added, "Honest, I don't mind at all. And Ray doesn't, either."
"I'll bet Ray doesn't!" Anne spat contemptuously. "Anything to get out of holding up his end. Well, it won't work, doll, not with me here. If two people, both earning damn good money, can't keep one little broad at home, more than earning her keep, that tears it. If he can't support you, I can!"
They faced each other, both staring, unable to look away.
"Don't you love Ray?" Jeanne faltered, at last.
Anne laughed.
"Love him? Are you serious? Pet, I don't even like him! All he is to me is a male body with a fixture that gets conveniently stiff when I need it. Didn't you know that?"
Before Jeanne could answer, Anne's glance veered wildly to the clock over the stove.
"And by the way, where is that creep? The gang will be here in fifteen minutes to a half hour. He promised he'd help, the lying bastard! Damn him...."
"Oh, shut up!" Jeanne blazed. "In a way, you're as bad as he is. For cripes sake, I can manage fine if he never shows up!" She flung open the refrigerator door. "See ... hors d'oeuvres all ready; cream cheese balls, some rolled in parsley, some in paprika, some in chopped walnuts, and I've got pitted prunes, stuffed with pimento olives and wrapped in ham, all ready to ... "
"You and your food!" Anne screamed. "To hell with the cream cheese balls or any other kind of balls! What they're interested in is drinks!"
"They're all ready, too," Jeanne said coldly. "I can make them better than Ray, if you want to know so much. I've got martinis and Manhattans, a big pitcher of each, already mixed and getting cold. And I've got martini olives too, and cherries for the...."
"Okay, okay," Anne said, calming down, "but I've still got a score to settle with the great lover!"
Jeanne spun off toward her bedroom with a:
"Well, I better get into the new dress I bought," leaving Anne thinking fervently, not a bargain basement mess, I hope, and, oh, please, not a sweet-girl-graduate-pink....
It took less than a minute to make her own quick change by slipping a smart gold-embroidered jacket over her basic black slim-line frock. Then she sat and waited anxiously for her 'fellow wife'.
In less than ten minutes the effervescent blonde was back. Anne stared, then gave a long, low whistle.
"Well!" she exclaimed, letting her gaze drift admiringly down Jeanne's delectable swells, sheathed now in black velvet that clung like a panther's fur. The square-cut neckline, edged with narrow white lace and centered with a small red rose, revealed just enough pushed-together cleavage to more than tantalize. "I'd never believe it! Honey, you look adorably evil! Where the hell did the meek little Hausfrau go?"
Jeanne laughed.
"I'd better pop the prune hors d'oeurves in the oven. Then I'll get the pitchers of martinis and the glasses and stuff all set on the coffee table."
She had barely tied on a flirtatious ruffled organdy apron, when the doorbell rang, and suddenly the little house seemed full of people.
For about an hour, talk and the drinks flowed smoothly. Then Jeanne noticed a couple of the men fidgeting, toying with their drinks, and one of the women tried to conceal a yawn. She caught Anne's distressed look. If the group left now ... when they ought to have to tear themselves away at the last possible moment ... the cocktail party would be a dismal flop.
"How about playing 'Security'?" Jeanne asked, into a conversational gap. She ignored Anne's flabbergasted, but half-hopeful look.
"How do you play it?" a svelte platinum blonde, buyer for a chain of dress shops asked, curiously.
"Well, you know how Peanuts, the comic strip character, has such cute definitions of what he thinks security is? All right, each of us takes turns to tell his definition of security. It can be a real riot."
Most of the guests looked doubtful.
Finally, the chubby balding president of a railroad bowed, half mockingly.
"Supposing you start, my dear?"
""Okay," Jeanne said airily. She struck a pose which more than did justice to what was just under her low-cut neckline. "Security is wearing a size thirty-eight bra in a room where all the other women are prettier than you!"
"And I'll just bet you do!" a lanky financier leered admiringly.
In the hilarity that followed, the ice was broken. Everyone wanted in on the act. Wacky, ribald definitions crackled through the smoky, festive air.
"Security is having a dime packet of Bromo along, in case you wake up, hung over, where there isn't any!"
"Security is wearing a Kotex, especially if you don't need one, when you go out with a man you don't like that well!"
"Security is humming a carefree air, as you walk by a maternity dress shop!"
"Boy, did they ever hate to go," Anne said, over an hour later. "Gad, this room's a mess, but it was worth-while, doll. They loved it, and they sure as hell loved you!" She sat up, wearily. "What's for supper?"
"Oh, I've got a casserole of veal, rice, and tomatoes that just has to be heated," Jeanne said, picking up empty glasses.
All of a sudden, Anne glared at the clock.
"Where is Ray?" she asked ominously. "He couldn't have had an accident, or we would've been notified by this time. I thought this little arrangement of ours was supposed to settle him down. Where do you suppose he is, Jeanne baby?"
Jeanne emptied ash trays into a waste paper basket, wiped them clean with a paper towel.
"He's probably out with some broad," she said miserably. "He's always been like that."
"And you put up with it?" Anne asked, aghast.
"What else can I do?" Jeanne shrugged.
Anne leaped to the phone.
"This!" she yelled.
Furiously, she flipped pages of the directory, found and called one number, then another, and another. Each time she was told that Ray wasn't there, her fury sputtered over the telephone wires.
"You tell him when he does come in, his wife called," she ordered. "And tell him that I'm waiting!"
"I had to' say that," she half apologized to Jeanne, after the last call. "Girl friends, I know, they pay no attention to."
"Hey, lover boy, that last call was for you," the bartender at the Green Door told Ray, wryly. "Man, she like almost tore my ear off. It's your funeral, brother, but if I was you, I'd like head for home!"
The redhead across from Ray made a face.
"Well, looks like you ain't gonna take me home after all, sweet boy," she jibed.
Ray's look darkened.
"If you hadn't kept insisting on one more drink we'd've been out'a here a long time ago and...."
"Yeah, I know," the redhead finished. "Think of all the fun we'd've had."
His angry contempt slid over her like rain off an oiled slicker. Damned lush bitch, he thought, but I bet she'd be a wild roll in the hay.
She leaned forward, her breasts so full they were almost sloppy, ready to pop out of her sleazy blouse.
"The bartender didn't say you were here, snookums."
Her suggestive tone set fire to his blood. Still, he had heard the way Anne shouted, even yards away from the bar phone. Damn, she must have a mad on. And she might get Jeanne started, too. One furious broad was enough to face, but two ... oh, man!
"I gotta go," he said shortly.
He didn't bother to touch the redhead. With this type, you hardly were out of sight before another joe was buying her all the drinks she could use.
It was quiet in the living room, but conflicting emotions jarred the atmosphere like heat lightning. Ray glanced at his watch. Almost ten-thirty, and he was pretty well beat. His yen for the redhead still seethed in his blood, however. Well, he thought wryly, tonight my own wife will have to do.
"Come on, Jeanne," he said. "I wanna hit the sack."
He hadn't even reached the hall, before he noticed that she wasn't behind him.
"What's the delay, baby?" he asked edgily. "Ya want I should carry ya?"
She looked at the floor.
"I ... I can't, Ray. It's ... I'm sick!"
"For chrissake, don'cha keep track'a things like that? Here I am, all worked up about ya.
He kicked at the doorsill, furiously.
Anne had been in the bathroom. She came out now, her warm, sweet-smelling body swathed in a black silk wrap-around robe. With a full-of-promise wink, she crooked a slim finger at Ray.
"Leave her alone," Anne murmured. "I'm in good shape!"
"After that three-times-running workout last night ... nuts. Right now, you couldn't set me off."
"I've got an inspiration," Anne whispered. "You'll enjoy it, lover. I guarantee it."
He looked at her, speculatively.
"Yeah ... like what?"
She pushed at him, impatiently.
"Oh, for Pete's sake, wait and find out! Do you want to or not? Yes or no."
His curiosity ... plus his desire ... got the best of him.
"You're on, doll. I'll be with you in a shake."
When he entered the bedroom, still in his shorts, but carrying the rest of his clothes, Anne had almost finished tugging her large-mirrored makeup table from the far corner near the window, where it had stood to right in front of the bed.
He stared blankly.
"What's the idea, baby? Ya flippin' your wig?"
She smiled smugly.
"Figure it out for yourself, big daddy. This is going to be like watching pornographic movies while you act in them."
He glanced at her buttocks, curving upward as she pushed, at her heavy, falling-forward breasts. Sucking in his breath, he could feel himself rise to the occasion.
"Man, what a star!" he exulted.
"Yeah." Her gaze traveled down his body, lingered where his shorts stuck out as though a hole would be poked right through them. "What a star is right! Two of them!"
He preened, flexing his muscles.
"Funny I never thought of this. I've never seen myself in action. You were so right, doll. I am gonna enjoy this."
He grasped her arm roughly, jerking her against him, pressing her naked body hard to his own.
"The program is about to begin," she mouthed into the wiry hair on his chest, "with the world-famous sexpot Lay-dee Screw well stripping that renowned all-time love champ, Phil-up Poker!"
As she tugged his shorts past his erection, it jerked upward looking almost impossibly large in the dim bluish glimmer of the mirror, lit only by an over-the-bed night light.
"Like I always told you, baby," he bragged, "it's anyways as thick as your wrist, and long as it looks from here, it oughta tickle your tonsils!"
Watching their mirrored nakedness, he positioned her in the center of the bed, his eyes glittering, his breath quickening, seeing his hands push her full white thighs apart in the total female submissiveness that screams at the male, put it in!
There was double sensuality in watching his own buttocks lift, then come down hard in an ageless, always unbelievably delirious rhythm. Then, suddenly, he stopped.
"Let's stand up," he said thickly. "I'd go all the way with you, then start over, but I ain't man enough tonight, damn it, not after last night's three-ring circus."
Keyed up, urgently needing him back inside her, after having her building-up orgasm interrupted, Anne rose blindly to stand, spraddle-legged, while he opened her up and thrust back into her wildly-hot pleasure place. Seeing himself go, man, go, he thrust harder and harder, but she couldn't quite manage to match her tempo to his.
"I won't ... make it ... this way!" she sobbed furiously.
"Gee-zuss!" he breathed, forcing himself to stop again.
"On your hands and knees then ... fast!" he ordered. "Backside in position, legs spread. I'm comin' right back, babe, and nothin' better stop me this time!"
Making sure of his white-hot target, he drove home like a lust-crazed bull, the blaze in his blood heightened by her rising-to-a-scream moan of delight.
Almost consumed by their own spreading heat-waves, blotting out all but throbbing pleasure, they almost forgot their frantic twins in the mirror.
"Ohhh!" Anne moaned, gripping his ear in tightly-clenching teeth, knowing he wouldn't even be aware of the pain. Her middle was molten lava, searing her veins, shaking her flesh with its luscious eruption. Ray's arms around her back tightened like a vise as with a tortured-sounding gasp, he felt his erection throb away, his orgasm boil with hers.
Moments later, the mirrored pair dragged up the sheet, sank exhaustedly to their respective pillows, then into dreamless sleep, without the hot-fleshed, sated pair in bed once more glancing their way.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"What in the sweet living hell is the matter with you, baby?" Anne asked, as a spatula which Jeanne had taken from its hook, clattered to the floor.
"Nothing," Jeanne snapped, keeping her face turned away. "Ye, gods, can't a person even drop something without somebody making a federal case out of it?"
An amused smile quirked the corners of Anne's mouth. Hell, give the poor kid credit. She still had spirit, even though a blind man could tell she was taut as a fiddle string, ready to snap at the lightest touch.
"Turn around," Anne said softly.
When Jeanne ignored her, Anne rose, went to the girl and, putting her hands on the stiff ly resisting shoulders, turned the disturbed blonde so her tear-brightened blue eyes were forced to meet Anne's dark ones.
"Now, let's have it," Anne said. "I want to know what got you into this condition."
It has to be something concerning Ray, she thought, angrily, but she would let Ray's wife spell it out.
Desperately, Jeanne took one more stab at evasiveness.
"What condition? I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh, yes, you do," Anne persisted, pulling Jeanne with her to the living room sofa. Pushing the girl down on it, she said, "Just forget all about dinner for now. The shape you're in, I doubt that you could boil water, anyway. I've been watching you for over a half-hour, ever since I came home. You cut yourself, peeling a carrot. Your hand shook so bad, you could hardly put on a Band-Aid. Then you dropped a glass in the sink and broke it. Then you put a pan on the stove and lit the wrong burner. Just a minute ago, you dropped a spatula. Now I know you're not that clumsy or absent-minded, so what's curdling your guts?"
All of a sudden, the stiffness left Jeanne's body, and she collapsed against Anne, sobbing.
Her fingers caressing the soft pale gold of Jeanne's hair, Anne waited, knowing the flood of words would come. They had to. No one could stand for long the kind of pressure Jeanne obviously was under.
"It's those calls," Jeanne's voice was muffled. "That awful voice asking for Ray, demanding to be told where he is, where we live.
Somehow, whoever it is who's after Ray got our unlisted number, but so far, they haven't been able to find out where he lives or who he works for. But they do know one or two of his stops, and ... oh, Anne, I just know they'll get him!"
She was sobbing hysterically now.
Anne shook her roughly.
"Stop it!" she snapped. "You'll make yourself sick if you carry on like that! Crying won't help, and you know it! For cripes sake, pull yourself together, then tell me what the hell this mysterious voice business is all about. Maybe then we can put our heads together and come up with some kind of sane solution."
Gradually, the jerky sobbing subsided. When only an occasional sniffle broke the silence, Anne tried again.
"Well," she prodded, "let's have all you know of the story."
"It's a gambling debt, I know that much," Jeanne said dully. "It's happened before, but the other times we managed to raise the money. It must involve lots more dough this time, because now they're getting tough." Tears filled her eyes and she blinked hard to stop them. "Oh, Anne, they kill people who can't pay!"
"Then people who can't pay shouldn't get mixed up with trigger-happy killers," Anne said angrily.
When Jeanne made no comeback, Anne asked:
"How did you raise the money those other times?"
"Once we got a loan," Jeanne said. "The last time we hocked everything we owned, everything the pawnshop owners would take, at least. Oh, Anne, they give you so little, and they charge so much interest. All my jewelry went, even my wedding ring ... that's the only thing we ever managed to redeem. Everything else we lost: Ray's watch and cuff links, our Polaroid camera, our good luggage, a dandy pair of binoculars...."
"And he still didn't learn?" Anne asked, her expression stormy. "It hardly seems possible even he could be that stupid!"
Jeanne flushed, but before she could open her mouth, the phone rang and she immediately grew rigid.
"It could be for me," Anne said reasonably. "It could be almost anything."
"No." Jeanne's voice was bleak.
Neither girl moved, and the ringing went on and on.
"Answer it," Anne said, at last. "It's part of their war of nerves. They won't quit. They probably sense that somebody's here."
Jeanne shrank against a corner of the sofa, her eyes wide, terrified.
"I can't," she whispered, as though whoever was calling might hear. "If that raspy voice talks in my ear once more, I'll ... I'll go nuts, Anne. I'll wind up a basket case."
"You're a basket case now," Anne declared grimly. "Okay, then, Miss Timid, I'll answer the damn thing."
She strode to the phone and jerked it from its cradle.
"Hello," she snapped.
There was a pause, during which she heard heavy breathing. A fat slob, I'll bet, she surmised, probably with thick lips and a permanent blue cast to his heavy jowls.
"Oh, a new one," a raspy voice finally said, following the remark with a chuckle. "What the hell has that deadbeat got over there ... a cathouse of his own?"
"Would you mind stating your business?" Anne asked icily, aware that Jeanne had gasped at her daring. "Or else hang-up," she finished, determinedly.
They were in trouble anyway; at least Ray was. Might as well go down fighting.
"Well, well, we have one of those huffy, independent-type bitches, do we?" the raspy voice jeered. "I'll tell you what I want, Miss High-and-Mighty. I want fifteen C's, that's what I want, and what's more, I want it now! Okay, so I told you. Any more smart remarks?"
Anne opened her mouth, but nothing came. Fifteen hundred dollars! Man, that stud got into trouble just the way he screwed, no fooling all the way.
"What's the matter, doll?" her tormenter jeered. "You're so quick with the answers. What happened?"
When Anne still remained silent, her sweating palm tight around the transceiver, the voice turned to a snarl.
"I think our white-livered boy is there, maybe shaking in his boots so bad he can't make it to the phone." Heavy with menace, the next words were separated as though sliced apart with a knife. "Well, you tell him this, chicken. I'll call again, and when I do, I want some answers, one in particular. Like when is he going to settle up. And the answer to that better be tonight. I'm fresh out of patience. Way out!
Got it?"
"Yes," Anne managed, her throat dry. A mirthless laugh followed, then one mocking word: "Fine."
The line went dead, and Anne fumbled the phone back on its cradle.
Just then a car pulled in. They heard a door slam, then footsteps coming up the walk.
"Did you tell Ray about the other calls?" Anne asked hurriedly.
"No," Jeanne whispered, still pale and shaky. "I tried, but I just couldn't."
There was no time for further conversation. The kitchen door slammed, then Ray was poking his head into the living room.
"Well, so there's my women!" he cried, his tone jovial. "Hey, what gives? Two puss' in the house and nothin' cookin'? Come on, gals, let's rattle those pots and pans!"
Anne went to the phone.
"Jeanne isn't feeling well, and I'm tired," she said. "I'll order some food sent in ... on me. What do you want? Fried chicken? Shrimp? Spaghetti?"
"Well, if you're poppin', toots, I'll have a pizza," Ray decided happily. "Sausage, green pepper, mushrooms. We got any cold beer? That's a must with pizza!"
"I'll order that, too," Anne said. She looked at Jeanne. "What do you want, baby?"
Jeanne shrugged, a listless lift of her shoulders.
"I'm not hungry," she mumbled. "There's some soup in the cupboard. That's all I could take. Honest."
"Well ... if you're sure. Okay, then, I'll just get a big pizza and a twelve-pack of brew." She began dialing, while Ray ambled over to put his arms around his wife.
"Gee, sugar, I'm sorry you're under the weather," he crooned. "Look, I won't bother you, baby. Why don't you go and lay down, and I'll prop you up with two or three pillows and bring your soup in to you myself. How's that? I'll round up that little bed table we got when I had my appendix out."
Jeanne threw her arms around him, planting kisses all over his face. He could feel wetness where her cheek touched his.
"Tears?" he asked, really concerned. "Now I know you're goin' to bed." He lifted her in his arms, like a child picking up a toy, and headed for their bedroom. His voice drifted back to where Anne was winding up her order. "Bet'cha got cramps, huh? We'll fix that, candy lamb. Your daddy'll get you snug under the covers, fill a hot water bottle and ... presto! ... the bad old pain'll be gone!"
Well, Anne thought, so he can be nice, even when it doesn't mean a poke. Will wonders never cease?
Ray was polishing off the last wedge of pizza which Anne had declined, and was about to take a pull at his beer, when the phone shrilled into the atmosphere of pleasant conviviality.
"Now what?" Ray said, uneasily, not moving. "You expectin' a call, Anne?"
"It's for you," she said. "You might as well get it."
They stared at each other, and as their lock ed glances burned away pretense, Ray realized that Anne knew the score. And he knew why his wife was flat of her back. Scared sick. He didn't feel too well, himself.
"Maybe they'll hang up," he said hoarsely.
Ann shook her head.
"They won't."
"You get it, Anne ... please," Ray pleaded. His terrified eyes begged her.
"Shall I say you're not home?" she asked, rising, not wanting to take the call, but unable to refuse.
"Jeez, yes. Whatever ya do, don't admit I'm here."
"You can't stall them forever," she said, over the merciless ringing.
He clapped his hands to his ears, shaking his head from side to side, his face anguished. His eyes were shut tight, as though to blot out what he was sure would happen ... only not now ... not yet!
As she picked up the phone, an idea clicked in Anne's mind, like a turned-on light.
"Hel-lo," she said, her voice mellow, sexy.
Just as there had been at the beginning of the last call, there was a pause.
"You the same babe answered the number a while back?" Raspy-voice asked doubtfully.
"Well, yes," she admitted, her tone still syrupy.
"You his wife?" the rasp demanded. "No," she said bluntly. "His broad?"
"No."
"How come you're there, then? How come you're takin' his calls? Where do you fit in?"
"I'm his ... cousin," Anne told the man. She decided to go a little further. "He's done me and my family a lot of favors. It's time I started paying him back."
There was a pregnant pause. She could almost hear the wheels turning in the thug's crafty brain.
"Is he there? I want the truth."
"No." Then, feeling that she had to take the bit in her teeth, that this was a last chance, she added, "Why? Did you want to see him?"
"Ya damn right I do!" the hoodlum blurted. "I better see him. This debt's got to be wiped out tonight, or it's the end of the line for him."
Anne stood very still, her heart thumping. He couldn't make it any plainer than that. Poor Ray. She actually pitied him, now. She shuddered. A cracked skull, or a bullet in a vital spot? A cement overcoat, then nothing. And Jeanne? She made up her mind.
"I'll meet you," she said.
She could almost see his startled expression, the dawn of pleased surprise, the beginning of lust. Maybe the coarse tongue licking the thick lips....
"Ya got any dough, babe?"
Her reply was equally cautious.
"Some," she admitted.
"Like fifteen C's?"
"Look," she countered, "we'll talk it over when I get there. Okay? Where are you?"
"I'll tell you, chick," the voice was definitely dangerous now, "but you pull one smart trick and it's curtains for lover-boy, see? No calling the law, nor telling nobody nothin' ... right? And don't think you can stop us, sugar.
You can't."
She was sure of it. All she wanted now was an out for Ray. She could lay the law down to that kook later. When she was sure he was going to stay alive to follow her orders.
"Right," she said crisply. "On the level, all the way."
With slight reservations, buddy!
"I'm at the Alhambra," the cold voice instructed. "Room 30-A, end of the hall, first floor. Knock twice, count to ten, then knock again, four times. Got it? How soon can you be here?"
Anne glanced down at her dress. A quick change into something more sexy. Eye shadow. Lipstick. She had showered, earlier. Substitute the checkbook in her purse for another, showing a smaller balance. That ought to do it. What a piece of luck, the brainstorm she had had, deciding to keep up two checking accounts.
"An hour," she said, "give or take ten minutes."
He chuckled, jovial again.
"I'll be seein' you, babe."
A sharp click in her ear, and that was it. She was on her way to a no-holds-barred lust session with a lawless animal.
Brushing past Ray, she hardly glanced at him, and he didn't dare open his mouth. The hood had done most of the talking, none of which Ray had heard, and her replies had been monosyllabic, as much as possible. Still, he had heard enough. He knew what she had to do to get him off the hook. In this kind of game, the moves were obvious, elemental. Calculated risks. Cash. Lust. Terror. Murder.
Passing the master bedroom, Anne glanced in. Jeanne's white face seemed flung across the pillow. Long gold-brown lashes brushed her pale cheeks; the delicately sensuous mouth was slightly open. Asleep, she looked so utterly lovely, so desirable, Anne's heart twisted. How could any man hurt her?
I couldn't, Anne thought, wrathfully. Not in any way.
She yanked a dress from the back of her closet. Purchased on a spur-of-the-moment whim, she never had dared wear it; it was too bold. For the assignation tonight, it would be perfect. The strapless bodice consisted of two circles of satin, out-lined in rhinestones, which barely encased Anne's heavy breasts. Like a bra, it left the rest of her upper torso naked. All that held it to her body was two thin bands of satin in back, meeting and fastening with a jewelled clasp. Shuddering, she imagined pudgy hands jerking the thing off.
The skirt was long, sleek, and slit up one side, clear to the hip. Anne hesitated, then chose long black nylon lace hose with elastic tops so she would need no garters. Her underwear consisted of only one panty, sheer enough, brief enough to be blown away by a man's hot breath.
No jewelry, she decided, since everything would have to come off. She lipsticked her mouth vividly, emphasizing its fullness, shadowed her eyelids a come-on green; and mascara'd each lash to a provocative spike.
Finished, she stared at a stranger, a flesh plaything who would nod woodenly, even to outrageous demands.
The door opened before she finished the required number of knocks. Little pig eyes regarded her out of a fat, blue-jowled face, so like the one she had visualized that she shuddered. This was one time when she would just as soon have been wrong.
"Come in," the raspy voice invited.
The bed, already stripped for action, its covers over the foot of it, seemed to fill the room. But why should he bother with finesse? They both knew why she was here, knew what part of the payment would be.
As she slipped out of her short, black velvet cape, the man's pale eyes glittered, and he ran a thick tongue over his flabby lips.
"Nice," he said hoarsely, his gaze gold on her body, especially on the lush thrust of her breasts. "Better than I expected. If all that feels as good as it looks, we just might knock a little off the debt."
He was getting to her. The avid lust in his eyes was like an erection, teasing around her opening vagina. It would be swinish ecstasy, but she would wallow in it, enjoy him with her breasts, her buttocks, the juicy inferno between her willingly spread legs, her entire shuddering body.
He sensed her willingness and smiled, determined to get right down to business, so that would be out of the way. His hairy-backed hands itched to remove those circles of black satin, and his mouth hungered for her breasts.
"How much money did ya bring, babe?" he asked boldly. "I got an idea you're real hot stuff, but you and me both know there ain't no lay worth fifteen C's."
Anne loosened the strings of her black velvet bag, and took out her checkbook.
His look hardened.
"Uh-uh. No paper, baby."
"But I don't have the cash," she begged desperately. "You can cash the check tomorrow, can't you? Believe me, I won't renege or make any trouble ... honest."
She could see his hesitation, and pressed harder.
"What good would it do me to pull a fast one?" Actually, it was a statement that supplied its own answer. No good. A double-cross would be suicide, plus murder.
"If one of my boys chanced a check bungle, I'd ... "
So, now she really knew the score. This was the kingpin, the boss. Had a strong-arm boy or two been around when he made the calls?
"The way things turned out, this was one deal I decided it would pay me to wind up myself," he told her, reading her look.
"Then surely you could make an exception," she cajoled, her glance under lowered lashes, deliberately stroking his body.
He shifted nervously, itching to get started.
"How much green ya got behind that checkbook, baby?"
"Nine hundred," she said, adding hastily, "I could give you seven hundred and fifty of it without hurting too bad ... but enough."
He walked over to the bed and sat on it, regarding her with amused insolence.
"Half, huh?" he said. He focused his gaze below her belt. "Ya think you got seven and a half hundred bucks worth of goodies ... in one sampling?"
She flushed hotly, angry enough now to express an opinion.
"I think you're getting plenty, considering what Ray got for that money ... which was nothing but a screwing, without the kiss," she said coldly. "You've got an A-l racket, Mr. Big, so long as you don't run out of suckers that have to be real dimwits. Your costs are minimal, no merchandise, no hauling expenses, just the upkeep on a cheap dive, plus the price of your goons and bullets. A chump takes a chance on dice that are most likely loaded ... "
Surprisingly, the big ape didn't get angry. He stood up.
"Easy, baby. Save your fire. I guess you're pretty close to right, and I admire your nerve. Nobody else ever had the guts to mouth off to me like that. Okay, a check for seven hundred and fifty, and ... "
She gasped as his eyes raped her. Trembling slightly, she made out the check, and handed it over.
There was no need for discussion now. She walked to the door to turn out the overhead light. He let that go, but he flicked on a bedside lamp. Clearly, he wanted to see as well as feel.
With both of them standing close together, he unhooked the clasp of her skimpy bodice, and the soft mounds tumbled forward. Rubbing himself against her, letting her feel his hardening erection, he sucked greedily at her nipples, chuckling as she jerked involuntarily with titillated pleasure.
"Man, I'll go at this off and on all night," he husked. "You'll get screwed like you never been screwed before, doll."
Roughly now, he pulled at her skirt, jerked it off, and yanked down her panties.
"First lay, straight stuff. On your back, baby."
She positioned herself, obediently spread, braced to take his full weight, but he sprawled beside her.
"Oh, come on, doll," he said. "Can the bashful routine. Get me worked up. Kiss my titties, while ya get a hold of it and play with it nice. Make it feel like it's wanted."
Not liking this part of it, she lowered her head to his hairy chest, licked at his tiny nipples. He pushed her face this way and that, so her tongue stroked wetly along his arms, his belly which was almost as hairy as his chest, along the matted thighs and calves, up and down his whole expectant body. Her hands fondled his maleness, stroking, squeezing gently, and toying with the head.
Then he dragged her down, half across him and enveloped her mouth with his, pulling as though at a nipple. Releasing her mouth, he tongued her lips apart, then thrust his own tongue deep, flicking it from one cheek wall to the other. Knowing it was what he expected, that he would feel cheated if she didn't go all the way in everything he started, she entwined her tongue around his, stroking, teasing.
Gradually, he eased above her and handled her below.
"Mmmm, nice," he said. "Not quite as ready as I'd like to have her, but we'll fix that. Here comes something better than dallying around, gorgeous!"
She lifted herself, expecting immediate, keen pleasure, but the rolls of fat just above his manhood and the shortness made it difficult for her even to feel him. He thrust with quick, enjoying jabs, not getting very far, but that was enough to start sending him into orbit.
"That's it, baby," he urged thickly. "Love me close, keep that good stuff moving, that's it! Ya made it yet, sugar?"
Oh, ye gods, she thought furiously, what in hell would cause me to make it? But obviously, it was important to his pleasure to be convinced that he really was wowing the woman.
She forced herself to pant, to squirm wildly, hoping she could make the fake orgasm convincing.
"Ah," he said, with satisfaction, "my girl got her first blast. Come on, baby, you can go again. Once more for Daddy, then the real big one, together!"
I can't, she moaned inwardly, but she did. Not immediately, that would be too obviously phony. She kept up a regular movement, sucking in her breath, squealing occasionally, then finally, as he cupped her buttocks, she went into a frenzy of upward thrusting, keeping it up, refusing to stop, whimpering:
"Come on ... now ... come with me, Daddy!"
Until at last, he was ignited and she really felt him, jabbing hard, joyously, till he gasped and clutched her, and the small hot flood of his release told her it was over.
She thought he might go to sleep then, at least for a while, but he kept playing with and kissing her breasts, nibbling and rubbing the nipples to keep them hard.
"I really like my screwing, kid," he mumbled thickly, "and with a dish like you ... man! Next time, you get on top. That way, it goes all the way in, and it's even better!"
Within moments, his hands were urging her upward, to straddle him. She positioned herself carefully, avid for release, wanting to get all he had to give. This time she did gasp with pleasure, feeling him all the way. There was a luscious sensation of fullness, of friction that soon would increase, and she worked herself up and down in pure rising enjoyment.
"Man, you are a hot number!" he gasped. "Thought you'd be wore out from popping three times already, but you just go to it, baby! I want you satisfied!"
His zest matched hers, and they built themselves up to a high explosive pitch. She could hear him grunt as he thrust hard. Ashe came, she fell forward, screaming, clutching him, her flesh a blaze of fulfillment.
They lay, embracing, his desire long gone. Too spent to rise from the bed, she cleaned herself with tissues, then fell asleep in his arms.
She awakened to find him climbing on top of her naked body. Immediately, full awareness returned, and she spread her legs to receive him.
Neither said a word. This time, the act was automatic, as though it were routine, expected, a thing he could not leave without doing. Within moments, he was pumping furiously to a gasping completion.
She watched him get up, dress, strap on his shoulder holster, and don his especially tailored jacket.
Once again, she was Anne Piper, advertising wizard. Not a gang moll, not a call girl.
The weird deal was completed; her check and her flesh had wiped Ray's debt off the books.
CHAPTER EIGHT
All day Anne had been restless, edgy. She knew the reason and she knew the remedy, but it seemed that the day would never end. That morning she had taken off the last pad to wind up a six-day period, had taken a douche, and heaved a sigh of anticipation. If Ray had not already left, so help her, she would have dragged him into her bedroom, pulled off both their clothes, and given it to him hot and heavy, a workout he never would forget.
Oh, man, she thought, moaning inwardly, I'm hotter than seven kinds of hades. Mr. Gallano, sir, you'd better be primed tonight!
He hadn't been stepping out lately, so the chances of getting him in a snorting bull mood ought to be pretty fair. Of course he had been sleeping with Jeanne right along, but after six nights of the same thing, Jeanne most likely was cold meat now, and he should be ripe for a change.
Somehow, she held onto herself, managing to present her usual smooth facade to her staff and to her intermittent callers, but it was rough going.
By the time the hands of the clock had dragged themselves around to four-thirty, she had to stop into the Time-Out Lounge next door for a Scotch on the rocks, which helped a little.
"Big night ahead, Miss Piper?" the bartender teased, probably noting her slightly flushed cheeks, and her too-bright eyes.
"One can always hope," she retorted. "Just give me another one for the road and don't be so damned observant!"
It was almost six when Anne parked alongside the house, strode into the kitchen and looked around eagerly, pulling off her gloves.
She didn't ask for Ray, but her expression darkened when she saw nothing, heard nothing to indicate his presence.
"Supper'll be on the table in a jiff," Jeanne said, with what sounded to Anne like forced brightness. "Soon as the noodles are boiled a little more tender. Why don't you just sit down, or do you want to wash up first?"
"I'm ready," Anne said shortly, dropping into a chair.
Her stormy look settled on the two-place setting that told its own story.
"Don't tell me he's starting that again," she said, sick with disappointment, and her appetite gone.
Jeanne knew full well what Anne meant.
"Well ... he has been pretty good lately," she defended, lifting the heavy white enamel kettle of noodles to drain them. "He called and said he had a business appointment, that he would be a-a little late."
"I'll bet!" Anne jeered. "What's a little late mean? If his 'business appointment' is with a Miss Round-Heels, maybe around ten, or if it's with a Madam Hard-to-get, one a.m. or later? Where does he get this stay out when he feels like it crap? After all, the sonofabitch owes me plenty!"
Anne's tone dripped acid. So far, her period having commenced right after that session with Mr. Big, she had had nothing from Ray in return for her shelling out seven hundred and fifty dollars, plus an all-night party. Now, when a small part of his obligation to her could be cancelled but good, the bastard was out, trying to make out with some other puss.
She watched Jeanne lift a pot roast out of the Dutch oven, spoon browned carrots, onions, potatoes beside the meat, and ladle out steaming gravy. Her stomach knotted.
"Too bad you knocked yourself out cooking, pet," she said coldly. "I feel lots more like getting drunk than eating."
"First Ray, now you," Jeanne said. "Oh, well, I can always give the damn stuff to the neighbor's dog. Anyway, I'm hungry!"
Maybe she was, and maybe she was just putting on an act. She chewed doggedly, emptying her plate. Anne sat staring moodily at nothing. Slow rage was burning inside her. The two kinds of heat, anger, and lust combined, were driving her out of her skull. Suddenly, she shoved back her chair.
"Come on, kid," she said. "Climb into something snappy looking and we'll go out on the town. Any number can play in this game, and tonight's the night!"
"You mean fool around with ... other men?" Jeanne asked horrified.
"Oh, get that silly look off your face and get dressed!" Anne snapped. "And, to answer your question, maybe you're going to fool around, but I mean business! If that stud you're stuck with ... not I, thank goodness ... can play the field, so can we, and sister, we're going to!"
As she started to shower, then dress, Jeanne at first looked troubled, then her mood changed abruptly, i
"Gosh, maybe you're right," she said, appraising a long-sleeved black lace blouse, a slim black skirt. "How would this be with a wide gold belt?"
"Sharp, baby, and wear lace stockings. Not that bra, goofy! Wear one of your good ones. Wear that black lace deal that really shows off what you've got!"
Anne, after a narrow-eyed speculation, chose a white blouse with a very low-cut V-neck, showing just enough, leaving just enough to the imagination. A red skirt that clung like the rind of fruit, a black patent leather belt and spike heels completed her I'm-ready-if-you-are costume.
They looked admiringly at each other.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Anne said. "Come on, doll, let's knock 'em dead!"
The first two bars had been duds, smoky, noisy, with nothing male that would rate a second look. Oh, a couple of eager beavers had tried, but Anne had sent them packing.
"I want something that looks good, at least," she muttered under her breath to Jeanne. "Come on, baby, let's cut out. Nothing cooking here."
The joint they were in now was fairly high class. Better yet, it was -lined with stags, with here and there a broad, self-consciously looking at her drink, at the bartender, or at the wall which was -lined with bottled headaches.
As they were entering, Anne deterred Jeanne with a gesture while she hastily, but thoroughly, cased the place. It wouldn't do to choose a pair of bar stools too close to obvious jerks. Once the jerks moved in and you had to give them the brush, the game was over and you might as well leave.
"This way," Anne whispered, heading determinedly for a table at an awkward angle to the bar, where the bartenders couldn't see them.
There were no waitresses, so they would have to get their own drinks.
Once Jeanne had managed a covert glance around, she understood why Anne had chosen this seemingly inconvenient spot. They were adjacent to a couple of lone men who looked Bike just what the thrill prescription called for ... and who also looked conveniently bored.
"I'll take either one," Anne murmured, her glance devouring two pairs of broad shoulders, two sturdy well-built male figures, first one, then the other pleasantly handsome profile.
"What if they're not on the prowl? They look too good not to be taken."
"So what?" Anne shrugged. "I don't want a long-term lease, just a one-night stand. So is Ray taken-double! I can't see where it bothers him any." She opened her purse. "What do you want, sugar? Scotch okay?"
"Fine with me," Jeanne assented. "On the rocks, please. And ... oh ... better get some smokes. I forgot to bring a pack."
Walking over from where they were sitting, it was only natural for Anne to stand next to their targets-for-tonight, while she waited for service. She made sure that the low V of her blouse was plainly visible, stood so every delightful curve was sure to be noticed ... without the display of merchandise being too obvious.
Nothing happened, not this time. Back at the table with the drinks, Anne, undaunted, unobtrusively slipped an ice cube from her glass to a cleansing tissue, open in her lap, then dropped the tissue to the floor, where she! shoved it well under the table.
Once more, she went to the bar. This time, as the man next to her turned his head slightly, then a little more, in obvious appreciation! of the charms on which his glance had lit. She smiled.
"Darn ice melted," she remarked easily.
"Why don't you sit at the bar so you don' have to exert yourself for service?" he asked
"Well-I-I...." She appeared hesitant, eyeing the single stool next to him, then letting her gaze veer to the vacant stool next to the other men. "My girl friend and I are together."
She ignored the several vacant stools, now on the other side of the round bar.
"Oh. Well, maybe my friend here will move over." He turned to face his already clearly interested neighbor. "Would you mind?"
"Delighted," the other man said. "My name's Wade Danby." He stuck out a hand. "Yours?"
"John Sentner. Glad to know you, Wade."
"Likewise, John. Come in here often?" Wade shrugged.
"Oh, occasionally. It's on my way home from the plant."
The girls sat down, demurely tugging at skirts that were too tight to reach past two or three inches above their knees, when they were seated. Still, they had tried, hadn't they, their prim looks said.
With all that tugging, it was impossible not to notice the curvesome knees, the delectable nylon-sheathed inches of white thigh. Both men noticed.
"How about introducing your lady friends?" Wade asked, feeling that the question was expected ... which it was.
"I haven't had the pleasure, either," John said, turning to the girls. "But I'd like to!"
Igniting to the smoky look in John's eyes, Anne thought, so would I.
She told the men her name and Jeanne's, then the two girls sipped delicately but steadily at their drinks.
Pretty soon, Wade suggested that conversation might be a bit easier if one of the girls would like to change places. Motivated by a quick 'go on' look and a faint jerk of Anne's head, Jeanne moved over to the other side of Wade and the rest each moved down one to permit her the seat.
The foursome automatically divided into twosomes, with an occasional remark tossed back and forth between couples, and with the two men taking turns buying the drinks.
As the Scotch kept coming, John's hand grew more and more bold, first reaching under the bar to lightly caress Anne's nearest knee, then edging her skirt up further and further till she looked around nervously at the other imbibers, then admonished him.
"Not here," she objected, in a low tone.
"Where, then?" he asked urgently. "Do you have an apartment?"
"I live with my friend," Anne told him, glancing toward Jeanne. "And another girl shares the apartment, too. We can't possibly go there."
It wouldn't do to take either man home, no matter how angry at Ray she and Jeanne were. Even he never went that far!
"How about a motel?" John asked. "You can get away from your girl friend, can't you?"
Make him beg just a little, her cool mind cautioned. Don't worry, he'll go all out to get in your pants.
"Well-I-I...." Her nervous squirm could be interpreted as reluctance, but it was damned seductive reluctance.
"Please," he said, his hand tightening hard on her thigh, a far more persuasive plea than the one spoken word.
"Let's talk about it when you take me home," Anne said with a smile.
He relaxed, pleased. They both knew that he would drive straight to the nearest motel, but at least Anne wasn't telling him.
When the drink they were working on was almost gone, Anne gave him a close whiff of her Intimate cologne and a soft whisper:
"I'm beat. What do you say we go?"
John laughed.
"I was hoping you'd say that before I had to slop up another. Otherwise, any money I happen to spend on our way home would be like wasted!"
Quickly, Anne got off her stool. Heaven forbid that that should happen, especially after that earlier letdown with Ray.
Anne leaned across Wade to speak to Jeanne.
"We're taking off now, baby. Is that all right? Can you make it home okay?"
Wade jumped to fill the breach.
"I'll be happy to take the lady home!"
Oh, brother, Anne thought, what a roundabout way of saying, 'let's go somewhere where I can poke the living hell out of you'.
They left Jeanne and Wade finishing what Wade said was the last drink, for sure. Anne wasn't too worried. Why should she be? Jeanne was a big girl now.
All the way to the motel, John held Anne close, driving with one hand, and using the other to try to encompass the breast that brushed against his side.
"Man, what a handful!" he breathed. "I can't wait to roll up against those knockers!"
She stayed in the car, in the now heavy darkness, while he paid for a unit. As he walked directly to the designated door, she got out and followed him.
It was one of those homey deals, a couple of pictures on the walls; a seascape, a winter farm scene, and there was a fake fireplace, and a TV. The shower curtains were all swans and fish, against a pale gold background.
"Nice," Anne felt impelled to say. It was his money.
He pulled the drapes at the huge picture windows ... beige twill in a surrealistic design, all variegated squares.
"Yeah." He was pulling at his tie. It was clear he was going to undress, but dammit, did he have to be so nonchalant about it?
Stubbornly, she sat, not on the bed but on a chair, wanting not to be taken for granted, like a wife. Bitterness welled in her throat. It was a hell of a beginning.
"Aren't you going to get undressed, sweet?" he asked mildly, pausing, a sock in one hand. "Or do you usually screw with all your clothes on?"
"Oh, sure...." She smiled brightly, mechanically.
Was she drunker than she had figured, or far too sober?
She pulled off her clothes, not tossing them wildly this way and that, but smoothing them, and hanging them carefully on a chair back.
When they both were naked, he came toward her. He was already at the peak of readiness, which was encouraging. Pretty good-sized, too, she noted with satisfaction. Things were looking up. He ought to do a good job, built as he was.
Smiling, he reached for her breasts, first fondling them, then squeezing harder and harder. She stood it as long as she could, then flinched away from him, furious, and half frightened.
"You're hurting me!" she cried sharply.
"Oh ... sorry," he mumbled foolishly, dropping both hands to his sides.
They stood looking at each other, then he laughed.
"Want to get on the bed?"
She throttled the angry, disgusted urge to retort, No, you stupid bastard. I never miss a chance to get laid on a cold tile floor.
Silently, she climbed on the bed and lay waiting.
The consciousness of her own nakedness and of his, singed her brain, and her blood began to heat, then her center. Once more hot to trot, she reached for him.
Miffed at her protest at his breast-squeezing, he eschewed any more play. He mounted her, and they came together easily.
As she felt him enter, she made a low, appreciative sound, and she thought, Oh, man, it's about time ... let's go, stud, let's give it hell!
The first few thrusts she enjoyed and she worked her body so she would be right in position to best meet his rhythm, matching hers to it for the maximum in sensation. But he gripped her, gasping, and started a fast pistoning action which made it impossible for her to do anything but lie rigid and let her body accept his rapid, jerky thrusts.
She'd kill him. So help her, she would kill that selfish, lunging go-for-broke bastard!
"Oh, no!" she half screamed, trying to push him back, to slow him up. "Slower!"
He was too far gone to stop. In little more than a minute, he was gripping her arms.
"I'm ready, baby!" he gasped.
He held her down, not wanting her to move the wrong way to spoil the fun. Then, suddenly, he was finished.
"Dead soldier," he said, describing himself with humorous satisfaction.
She didn't bother to answer. In bitter silence, she got up, stalked to the bathroom and cleaned herself, winding up with a hot shower to be sure she was refreshed. Then she came out to dress, hardly glancing his way.
Once more seated in the car, he reached over to pat her hand.
"Have to do that again some time," he said jovially. "That was nice!"
Still silent, she glanced at him sideways. The stupid sonofabitch didn't have the faintest realization that she had come out of their fast get-together worse off than before they had started.
When they pulled up to her still-parked car, he turned to her.
"I'll make it a point to stop in here again ... now that I've met you. Well, see you around doll."
She managed a smile and got out. He should live so long.
After Anne and her temporary love-interest had left, Jeanne glanced at her companion, sorry now that she was with him. She regarded the drink that had seemed so delicious moments ago, with an expression of distaste.
"Look," she said, forcing a light tone, "I can get home fine by myself ... and I really should be leaving. I've stayed much too long as it is."
His face, as he turned to her, was open and disarming.
"Don't be silly," he said, patting her hand, not letting his touch linger. "It won't be any trouble at all to drop you off. I've enjoyed your company, young lady. Now the least you can let me do to repay you for a very pleasant evening is allow me to drive you to wherever you happen to live."
When she still hesitated, he laughed.
"Don't worry. I'm not going to ask to go in with you, if that's what you're afraid of. And I'm not about to take you to a hotel or a motel, either."
Jeanne began to feel a little silly. He might begin to think her mind was in the gutter. Gosh, some men must be able to be with a woman for an hour or two without wondering how soon they were going to get to take her temperature, via the vagina.
Still....
"Promise?" she asked, slowly twirling the now-unwanted drink.
"Scouts honor," he intoned, half seriously, half humorously, putting his hand over his heart. "I won't as much as open the car door for you, let alone walk you to yours. Okay?"
Her tight smile widened, then her eyes glowed into his, trusting him, and really liking him again.
"Okay, chum. What can I lose?"
"Come on," he said. "You don't want the rest of that drink, and I know I've had enough, so let's leave them. After all, I have to roll out of the sack pretty early and I suppose you do, too."
As she slid off the stool, her tight skirt hiked up, showing an expanse of naked thigh. She colored slightly, but she didn't really mind. Besides, if he noticed, it didn't seem to phase him. He leaned to pick his briefcase from the floor, then with his hand just grazing her elbow, he guided her to the door.
"Good night!" the closest bartender called after them, and Wade responded with a wave of his hand.
Outside, a wind had risen, blowing leaves and bits of paper. The deserted street, with the windows of every building darkened, with black stretches of space between the few parked cars, looked desolate, forbidding. Shivering, Jeanne instinctively drew closer to her companion.
"It's all right, kid," he said, opening the car door for her, "I'm with you."
As he started the car, and drove smoothly down the street, Jeanne tried to relax, but somehow she couldn't. If only she were home. Her own cozy bedroom seemed ridiculously distant.
Settle down! she chided herself, in a few minutes, you'll be safe in your own bed. Then she suddenly realized that he hadn't even asked where she lived.
"It's not that way!" she cried sharply, sitting up straight. "You go down First for three blocks, then...."
"Relax," he interrupted. "You'll get homewhen I'm ready. We're just going to take a little ride first."
Instantly, she grew panicky.
"No!" she choked. "You promised! Now, take me home! Please!"
When he didn't answer, she stared at his set profile, then tugged wildly at his sleeve. When he pushed her hand away, she lunged for the door, reaching for the handle.
With one swift movement, he yanked her back.
"You crazy, you dumb blonde? We're doing over fifty! You'd kill yourself!"
Desperate, she glanced around. There never was a cop when you wanted one. A lone man strode along the sidewalk, purposefully, his head down against the strong wind. It wouldn't do any good to yell for help.
"You promised," she said again, whimpering.
She huddled in a corner of the seat, sure now of his purpose.
"I promised not to go into the house with you," he said, reasonably. "All right, so I'm not going. I promised I wouldn't as much as open the car door for you. Okay, so I won't open it. What do you mean, I promised? I'm keeping my promises ... and you're sure as hell going to keep yours!"
"M-mine?" she faltered. "I didn't promise anything!"
"Oh, yes, you did!" he snapped. "Any time a couple of bitches come in, do a half strip tease and give guys the big come-on for free drinks and a nice safe thrill, it's a promise as far as I'm concerned. Some jerks might go for a tease with nothing behind it, but not yours truly. You got me good and hard, doll, with the eyefulls of bare skin you gave me and with all the other come-on crap you and that other bitch dished out. Now you can damn well soften me up, any way you want. That's up to you."
Tense, cold sober now and wide awake, she knew they were off the main drags, headed for the suburbs.
"Come on, babe," he coaxed, "let yourself go. I'm a good dig. You're not cherry, and I know I can make you like it. You've got nothing to lose. What's another slice after the loaf is cut?"
He tried to pull her close, but she jerked back, still huddled.
"I'd hate to have to knock you out," he grated, jerking the wheel wrathfully, "but I will, if I have to. You're going to get laid, one way or the other, so just make up your mind to cooperate. It'll be easier for both of us that way."
"I-I'll turn in your license number!" she cried. "I mean it!"
With one swift movement, his hand shot out, slapping her mouth hard.
"Don't threaten me, bitch," he snarled. "One look at you and a cop would laugh in your face. They don't have much sympathy for whores, amateur or pro. Now, you will give me a good ride or I'll knock you silly! Understand?"
Her mouth smarted, and she was afraid to open it now. She braced herself simply to take him, go through the necessary movements, and get it over with.
Never again, she thought bitterly. No more bar prowling for me. That's asking for it.
A part of her mind, the painfully honest part, agreed with this self-righteous rapist, agreed that he did have a point. When you dangle your goodies before a predatory male, of course he drools for a sample, and if he's man enough, tough enough, and hot enough, he'll take it! What else? Like one and one make two....
But-and her lips tightened determinedly-she wouldn't let herself like it. She'd be damned if she would give him that satisfaction!
They were approaching an out-of-the-way picnic spot. Hemmed in by cliffs, rising steeply along each side, a gravel road wound through trees. Long wooden tables flanked by benches, and black looking makeshift stoves, loomed, shadowy, here and there, like a setting for ghostly orgies.
He pulled to an abrupt stop.
"Think you can manage a little real action in the back seat ... and I meant what I said, that I want plenty of movement ... or would you rather have a blanket spread on the ground? I've got a couple in the trunk I can get in a jiff. And don't worry about the cold ... I'll guarantee to keep you warm."
She hated being forced to a choice, but he was waiting, and he wouldn't wait long. Even in the darkness, lit only by a wraithlike sliver of moon, his eyes glittered. It wouldn't take much to impel another blow, maybe harder this time.
"The back seat," she decided.
"That's more like it, toots," he said cheerfully, "though the blanket's more like abed ... gives you more leeway to really pound it home. Still, a back-seat deal ain't bad." He hoisted her up by the buttocks, and gave her a push.
"You first, kid. Off with the skirt. With that buttons-in-the-back crap, you'd better take the blouse off, too. All the way off, and shuck the brassiere. Likewise the panties, and if you're wearing a damn girdle, get rid of it. Cramps my style, and I haven't had a good piece for almost a month, so this better be for real."
"Can I keep my stockings on?" she asked sarcastically.
"Don't get smart, doll," he advised, but mildly. "You got me feeling pretty good now, but I wouldn't press my luck if I were you."
As he talked, he was pulling off his belt, working his trousers down his legs. He left the rest of his clothes on, but just before he climbed over, he opened the fly of his shorts. Coming to take her nearly naked body, he seemed all hard and determined.
The mating male now, near his luscious goal, he reverted to lover, kissing her mouth lingeringly. Carefully, she kept her full lips pliable, and yielding. His mouth traveled to her breasts, gleaming whitely in the dimness, the aureoles topped by round, good-sized nipples, shadowy-looking but tempting. She gasped as he sucked gently, his hands busy all over her soft body, then moving to a position where he could possess her.
"Oh, man, what a lovely dish!" he exulted. "Mmmm, feels nice, just the way I like it! Come on, baby, love me! We haven't got all night."
She eased herself down, feeling the hard curve of the seat hurting her head, but in a car, that had to be expected. Her legs opened, one dangling toward the floor, awkwardly as though it were broken.
He braced himself above her, more comfortable than she, his long legs lifted toward the car roof, but his maleness making a perfect entry, slow, hurting a little, but just right for his pleasurable, satisfied thrusting.
"I can't promise a real long session," he murmured into her ear, "so you better get yours fast. Like it, baby?"
She wouldn't, she just wouldn't like it, but it was rough, holding her heat in check. Her angry mind rejected him, but her body, especially the entire worked-up middle of her body, wanted to let itself go, to be as lustful, as enjoyingly sensuous as he.
"Kee-rist!" he moaned. "You're good, doll! That little clutching movement of yours is driving me nuts. Jeez, I want to hold out; I want this to last!"
She was pliable now; his easy skillful work was rousing her past her powers to resist.
Nuts, she decided wildly, as his movements quickened, driving harder, I may as well let myself go.
Even as her released heat rose, furiously, she realized she was too late. Her hot throbbing had almost pulsed to completion, when he gave a last hard lunge and collapsed, his hands in her hair ... and she was left hanging.
I can't blame him, she thought bitterly, and I won't ask him for more. She was sure he would be able to go again, maybe in a few minutes, that he would be more than willing, but for all her very real agony, that was out.
She waited, suffering, while he stayed in her, still reveling in the gorgeous culminating intensity of sensation. Then he sighed and eased himself out, while she opened and closed, quivering and aching to have him back. She eyed the limpness, still crazily wanting to touch it, to make it stiff again, but she forced her gaze away.
"Well, get dressed, sweet," he said, climbing back behind the wheel, beginning to put his trousers on. "Baby, any time you're in the mood and I'm in hailing distance, I'm more than willing to oblige. You're terrific!"
Numbly, she pulled on her clothes, struggled with the back buttons of her blouse. Strained, silent, she vaulted the seat, settled herself beside him, not touching his body, but no longer against the door.
"Friends again, eh?" he teased. "Told you, you'd like it, sugar. They all do. Especially my wife, but she just had our fourth kid ... which is why I was so damned hard up."
His words glanced off her shut-away mind. Her need for release was so intense, it blanked out thought. She was all throbbing, screaming, tightened nerves. If Ray were home, if he wasn't bushed....
"I'm tired," she said, feigning a yawn, wanting to get there.
"Okay, baby, now what's the address? I'll get you home, pronto!"
Ray stared moodily at the cold amber brew in front of him, his fifth, yet he hadn't even meant to stop and have one. There was beer in the refrigerator at home, he knew, but dammit, he was so fed up with toeing the line, he had to goof off in some way or go off his rocker.
Blast Anne, anyway. For all her hot pants, she was, essentially, a cold bitch. Ray sensed her contempt, but one thing puzzled him. Why had she gone all the way for him on that gambling debt deal? When she hadn't come home that night, Ray knew what she had done to save him. And she had told him about the cash she had handed over, too. But why?
It had been just about a week since he had slept with her. Had her period lasted that long ... usually it was three or four days ... or had she really cooled off that much?
Blazes, he thought viciously, as soon as I get a few months ahead on the car and the house payments, I'll tell her to blow.
She and Jeanne were too buddy-buddy in any case. Anne liked the woman with whom she shared a man, and Jeanne warmly returned the affection. Ray shook his head, bewildered and irked. It just wasn't natural! There was something screwy somewhere.
"What'cha lookin' so cross about, handsome?" a dulcet voice said, close to his ear.
Ray looked up quickly, and a pleased expression brightened his face.
"Hot damn!" he said. "Candy! I ain't seen you in months!"
She slid to the stool beside him, jerking it closer with a swiveling of her hips.
"Ya gonna buy me a drink, lover?"
For answer, Ray motioned the bartender over.
'I Give my blonde friend a gin and tonic, buddy. Two slugs of gin in a tall glass, heavy on the ice."
"You remembered!" she gurgled, turning so one soft breast pressed against his arm. He look teased him. "I remember a few things too, big daddy. C'mon, let's go sit in a booth. This is too pea-pickin' public!"
He was more than willing. Once they were settled with their drinks, she snuggled close. He basked in her implied praise, so soothing to his shattered ego, after all the mute reproach he got at home, lately.
"Where ya been, Candy?" he asked. "What did ya do, get hooked? Cripes, ya just up and disappeared. Cue me in on wha' happened!"
She shrugged.
"Oh, I had a thing going, cigarette girl in a posh nightclub in the suburbs. What's the diff where? I'd rather nobody knew. Anyway, some hood I met set me up in a real swank apartment and everything was just ducky, until I happened to go out once with another joe, and he found out. Just in time, I got the word he Was out to give me some lumps. Maybe even kill me. What a kook!" She sighed. "So here I am, broke and thirsty!"
The thirsty part was sure as hell nothing new. Once she got started, she always drank as though it were going out of style.
"Is that all you are, sugar-babe?" he teased, running his hand between her thighs, from her knees to where the thighs joined. "Just thirsty?"
She crinkled her snub nose, rubbed her moist lips over his face, with her mouth against his, and said:
"You know what else I am, lover." He sure did. Ray studied her pert face. A hot little number, and plenty cute, but without a scruple to her name. A real deal for a now-and-then jump, but get serious? Any guy who let himself go ape over a nympho like Candy had to have rocks in his head.
But right now, in his present mood, for an hour or two ... his blood steamed at the thought of a session with this sex wildcat. That was exactly what he needed.
"How about getting a six-pack, a fifth of gin, and some mix and cutting out for your pad, snooks?" he asked, into her hair. "Where we can be really alone."
She sighed.
"I had to move back over that damn barber where I lived before. Unless I kick in with some of my back rent, he ain't even giving me back the keys."
He sighed and reached for his wallet. That might be why she had warmed up to him so fast ... still, he doubted it. He had been with her before, several times, in fact. A couple of times, she even furnished the drinks. Taking out a twenty, he handed it to her.
"That do it?" he asked.
When she threw her arms around him, he noticed how aimlessly she pawed.
"Pay him and let's get out of here," he said curtly, feeling uneasy. Her eyes were overly-bright, he noticed now, too. Damn, he wanted something for his dough!
She came back, carrying a big mug of beer, and a tall glass filled to the brim with gin and tonic.
"He insisted on treatin' when I gave him the loot!" she gushed. She almost fell against him. "Wanted 'nother anyway!"
"You're drunk!" he flared, really angry now. "You don't need any more, Candy!"
He tried to get her to rise, so they could leave, but she sat rigid.
"No!" she wailed. "Not till I finish my drink!"
Resignedly, he settled back, moodily pulling at his beer. Now that she had her way, Candy grew playful again, running her hot little tongue along his ear lobe.
"Drunk, am I?" she murmured, blowing into his ear. "Bet I can go longer and harder than you can, buster!"
She was really getting to him, the heat that seemed to emanate from her lushly curved body, her leg lifting and twining around his.
When she finished that drink, he was too charged-up to wait. He lifted her, shoved her lightly onto the floor, then got to his own feet and took her arm.
She was staggering slightly now, but she stopped both of them at the bar.
"The gin you promised," she said stubbornly. "An' the six-pack an' some mix."
He shrugged, giving the nod to the bartender. At least she could remember. Maybe she wasn't so rockered, after all.
His hopes lifted higher, as they made it to the sidewalk, into her building which was only around the corner.
"Let's sing," she said brightly, pushing at him with her body. "Let's sing that good ol' song, It's a Sin to Tell a Lie!"
They climbed the steps, bawling the melody in. a ribald manner that seemed uproariously funny to them both.
Weak from drinking, and from laughing and singing both, they almost fell into the room. Candy immediately began struggling out of her clothes, throwing things this way and that. Ray got out of his own clothes, his eyes on her breasts, the profile view as she wrestled her slip over her head, like huge peaches, juicy, pink-tinted, the long nipples a slightly deeper pink.
Naked now, she wavered, then fell back on the bed, not lengthwise, but across it, her hair streaming over one edge, her legs dangling limply over the other.
"Not that way!" he muttered, trying to drag her around. It was like dragging at a big sack of sodden meal.
"Candy!" he yelled fiercely. "Snap out of it!"
Grabbing her hair, he yanked her head up, but her eyes were closed, her mouth open, slack, saliva seeping out of one corner. Grimly, he let her fall, let her sprawl naked, unlovely, actually repulsive, onto the unmade bed.
"Pig!" he grated, more grieved than angry, ready to smash something, anything.
Anne was sitting at the kitchen table, taking the last swallow of a glass of Alka Seltzer, when Ray walked in the door. The icy perfectionist was gone. This woman's skirt was mussed looking, and her blouse had a spot on it, right in front. And there was a look about her that was hard to describe. The only word Ray could come up with was hunger. Careless of whatever might happen next, he sprawled in the nearest chair.
"Jeanne in bed?" he mumbled dully, meeting Anne's famished gaze.
She shook her head. When she answered, her voice broke on its own misery.
"I don't know where she is. We got mad when you didn't come home, and we went out. I left the joint first, with a guy. I don't know...."
A noise outside stopped her, lit her face with wild hope. The sound of metal being slammed. Light footsteps followed, almost a running sound. Then the door was open and Jeanne was there, facing the two of them.
She walked straight to Ray, sat on his lap, and pressed her head to his.
"Let's go to bed, honey."
He got to his feet, almost letting her fall.
"What's the matter? Did the prick you were with leave you hanging?"
His tone was brutal, but she paid no attention, merely throwing her arms about his neck and holding tight.
"How'd you make out, Anne?" he asked acidly. "May as well all compare notes. Was the strange stuff you tried better than you get at the old stall?"
"No," she said honestly. "I feel the same way Jeanne does. I'd like to go to bed with you, too."
She expected a withering retort, but he surprised her. Wrapping one arm around his wife, he held out the other hand to Anne.
"I had a dud too, so we're all in the same boat," he chuckled. "The next move is thd three of us in the same bed. Hell, we can at least try."
They undressed quietly, quickly. Jeanne was ready first. Naked, she climbed into his bed and moved over against the wall, leaving plenty of room.
Anne had grabbed a nightgown from her bureau drawer, but she decided against wearing it. Any kind of playing around tonight was out. This would be plain raw sex, much-needed release for each of them. She stood, naked too, waiting for Ray to step out of his last garment, his shorts.
By the way Jeanne threw herself against him, with an anguished whimper, the minute he hit the bed, Ray knew he would have to take her first. He actually had 'stone aches' from having had to leave Candy, with his powerful urge unsatisfied.
Wordlessly, he pulled her toward his part of the bed, then mounted her body, as her legs lifted to scissor his waist and part of his back. They both gasped as he made his entry, with one forceful push.
She went crazy at once, pressing herself as tight as she could against him, gripping his buttocks hard, then pushing herself up and down with ever-increasing speed, while a low wail began in her throat, rising to an ecstasy tortured scream. He felt her shudder away from him, roll to one side, her whole body limp.
"Now Anne!" she gasped. "Do her!"
He was more than ready, aroused to a white-hot pitch, but a long enough way from exploding, to give Anne a chance. She, too, went right to It, keyed to a swift, blindingly sweet release. He held himself motionless, just keeping it in, while she did all the work, building the hot friction that would trigger a spilling-lava release.
"Let me know when you're going," he said, tightly wound, himself.
"Okay," she gasped, then on a half-sob, "Now ... oh, right now!"
They sprawled together, the three of them, blissfully satisfied, and they were asleep in moments.
No one had thought to set the alarm, but! Jeanne awakened early, sat up in bed, looking at Hay and Anne, still close together, their expressions peaceful.
Jeanne smiled, wide awake, cheerful, and ready to put on the coffee. Maybe now they all could really be friends. Ray, too.
CHAPTER NINE
Everything about the day was slow. Big lazy flakes of the first snow of the season drifting from a chilled, iron-looking sky, Anne's tired thoughts dragging themselves from demand to demand, and the sullen tick of the clock, sounding out the never-ending minutes.
As her buzzer sounded, her hand shot out to grasp the transceiver, eager for whatever voice was calling. Anything to break the bleak monotony of a day when little happened, a day that would merge into an evening Anne didn't want to face.
This evening for sure, she would have to tell Jeanne that she was leaving. It couldn't be put off any longer.
"Mrs. Piper speaking," she said crisply.
The determinedly cheerful voice of a realtor, a woman, answered.
"Oh, Mrs. Piper!" the voice gushed. "How fortunate to find you in. I have finally found what I am sure will be the ideal place for you. A regular little treasure! It won't stay on the market long, so I suggest that you come as soon as you can to see it. It's perfect! A real jewel of a place!"
They all are, Anne thought wryly. She glanced at her watch. Quarter of three. Nuts to waiting till closing time-four-thirty. All day, there had been no spectacular problems to challenge her, to make her feel brisk, vibrant, alive. And she had to have a house. Being with Jeanne, the perfect homemaker, had spoiled her for the "Y", even for an impersonal flat. With a cleaning woman....
An apologetically, impatient sound made Anne realize that her caller was waiting.
"Give me the address, Mrs. Davidson," Anne said. "If you can get away now, so can I. I can meet you as soon as my car can get me to wherever I have to go."
"Fine!" Mrs. Davidson responded, elated. She gave an address, assured Anne that she, too, would set out for the spot immediately.
Alternately pleased and depressed, Anne shrugged into her jacket, pulled on her gloves, and snatched up her handbag.
What's so terrible about just saying right out that I'm leaving, she wondered angrily.
After all, she was under no obligation to continue this offbeat deal ... and now, for sure, she had had it. The last few times with Ray, her increasing antipathy to him had made it impossible for her to really respond. And her feminine vanity had demanded that she pretend.
Stung by any hint that he couldn't fully rouse a woman, Ray would be sure to jeer, 'What's the matter, toots? Ya gettin' too old to make it?'
Anne ground her teeth, detesting the crude oaf. Here lately, he was getting too demanding, too, wanting her kisses all over his body. She shuddered. He showered only once a week. And he was rough, deliberately so, she was sure, as though his subconscious mind was aware of her pretense, as though he were punishing her for putting on an act, when he wanted her to feel, to beg physically and vocally, for more!
The lane down which Anne made her final turn pleased her enormously. Tree branches, bare now except for a few stubbornly clinging, withered leaves, touched, met over the street, forming a bower all the way to the end of the block and beyond it, as far as she could see. The green they would wear in summer, the glorious reds and golds they would boast in the fall, pierced her awareness.
When she pulled up in front of the house and looked at it, the house seemed to reach out to enfold her. Its neat, green-shuttered windows seemed like eyes meeting hers, exchanging a mutual message, love at first sight!
Anne sat waiting. Within moments, Mrs. Donaldson's fire-engine-red coupe, as cheery as her determined smile, pulled up from the opposite direction.
"Well, I see you're home!" she said brightly, leading the way past the hedge ... bridal wreath ... up the flagstoned walk to the door, also a soft green, nice with the white-painted house.
She handed Anne the key.
"Here, you open the door!"
Room after room, Anne's reaction was the same. Despite her wish not to appear too eager, "oohs" and "ahs" of delight escaped her. Everything she ever had longed for in a home was right here. A beautiful pale green bath (she would think of the sea, immersed in pine-scented bubbles). A kitchen, both efficient and homey. A spacious backyard with lilac, rose, and forsythia bushes, plus a couple of beds for flowers, provided an ideal view through the big kitchen windows. Roomy closets, amply supplied with shelves, hooks, and long poles to hold clothing-three of them. And a fireplace! A real one!
There would be details to iron out, but right now, Anne didn't care. She was home. She knew it.
"I'll buy it," she said simply.
"Good," Mrs. Donaldson said. "I'll go over everything thoroughly, make sure all papers, all legal details are in order. Then I'll put through your check for a down payment, and get the deed. The house is in good shape. You can move in any time."
"Aren't you hungry?" Jeanne asked anxiously. "I thought you liked chicken and dumplings." She hesitated, then went on. "You aren't mad because Ray isn't here, are you, Anne?"
Anne's lip curled. She lifted scornful eyes.
"Mad? I'm relieved that I don't have to listen to his stupid jokes and his dull conversation."
She looked at Jeanne, and tried to open her mouth. Now was the time to tell Ray's wife that she was going to move in a week or less, and that nothing would change her mind. She succeeded in getting her lips apart, but the words that came were not quite what she had planned.
"I don't suppose you'd care to go out?" she queried.
Jeanne averted her eyes and spoke shortly, and definitely:
"No."
"They're not all like the jerks we got stuck with," Anne persisted gently.
A flush stained Jeanne's cheeks.
"If you want a drink, let's have it here." She smiled. "I'm kind of in the mood, myself!"
"Okay," Anne agreed blithely. She rose. "What do we have?"
Jeanne stooped to the cabinet and rummaged.
"Almost a fifth of gin. More than we could polish off in one night. There's a carton of lime and lemon and a couple of quarts of charged water. I know there's a couple of trays of ice cubes, and if we want them, I've got lemons. Okay?"
"You really have a way with drinks, pet," Anne said admiringly, a few minutes later. She patted Jeanne's hand. "Actually, you have quite a way with everything!"
"Let's watch 'This is the Week That Was'," Jeanne suggested. "I really dig that program."
As Jeanne went to turn on the TV, and fool around with the indoor antenna, Anne watched her curiously.
"How did you ever happen to marry Ray?" she asked, as Jeanne stood back, satisfied with the picture. "Ye, gods, honey, you're as different as day and night, with everything good in your favor. You're so honest, so straightforward and kind, it's pathetic, while, crooked as-he is, they'll have to use a corkscrew to screw him into his grave. You're refined, well-spoken, bright, and clean, while he's crude, coarse, and ... let's face it ... semi-illiterate."
They sat in easy silence with Anne's opinion a tangible between them, something far more than words. A bridge? A barrier? Yet nothing really disturbed their deep-down compatability. The pink that so easily came to Jeanne's cheeks, stained them now.
"Well, he is good looking," she said defensively. "Gosh, I don't know, Anne. I was young. I was getting that itchy feeling that you can't scratch, all the girls were after him, crazy about him ... oh, nuts, there were a lot of things...." Her voice trailed wistfully.
"Would you do it now?" Anne asked bluntly. "Marry him, I mean?"
"I don't know," Jeanne said candidly. She hesitated, then blurted, "I doubt it."
Anne leaned back, strangely satisfied. Why, she didn't know. Surely this wouldn't make it any easier to tell Ray's wife that she was breaking up this weird threesome. She sipped steadily, then put her empty glass down. She realized, worriedly, that she was drinking more lately. Once she got started, she had the compulsion to keep sipping, to grow impatient if the next drink didn't come right away.
This time the drinks kept right on coming. Jeanne was getting rid of hers in a hurry, too.
"Must be hot in here," Jeanne twinkled, reaching for the glasses. "This stuff seems to be evaporating. More ice, honey?"
By the fourth or fifth drink, neither girl was feeling any pain. Each sprawled at one end of the sofa, watching a movie now, Anne's legs half over Jeanne's lap, the gin, the mix, and a bowl of melting ice cubes within easy reach.
"I ought to go to bed," Anne murmured, but she didn't move. She couldn't force herself to break this quiet spell.
The gin supply dwindled, but they kept drinking till at last, the bottle was empty. Jeanne held it to the light then, eyeing it regretfully.
"No more," she announced, her tone solemn.
Anne rose unsteadily, dreamily. She was quite drunk, but she felt ridiculously happy, as though she could float to her room. Neither she nor Jeanne had thought of Ray since Anne's acid, troubled question earlier that evening.
Now he intruded, a hulking, unwelcome shadow.
"You listen to me and listen good, baby!" Anne said fiercely, gripping the blonde's slim shoulders. "That jerk is out with some other puss again tonight, and you're not going to sleep with him! Understand?"
Jeanne blinked, having trouble focusing her sight. What Anne said seemed reasonable. Very sensible, in fact. Why should Bay go from one bed to the other, each with a woman in it and still find her at home, waiting to spread her legs? Let him sleep by himself for a change. If he had anything left tonight, she sure as hell didn't want it. Some bar slut's leavings! she thought scornfully. No, thanks!
She started to carry her pillow and a light quilt to the living room sofa, but Anne stopped her.
"You'll be right in plain sight, and by yourself. That's inviting a scene. Come on, baby, you can sleep with me. If the bed is big enough to allow room for Ray, you and I sure won't be crowded."
Jeanne swayed, half lost her balance, landed against Anne's bosom, while Anne stood immovable, wanting to keep the feel of the contact. Jeanne's helplessness was like tendrils winding around Anne's strength.
Finally, Anne moved Jeanne slightly, slipped an arm about the girl, gently impelled her toward the guest bedroom. When they finally made it, Anne's light push seated Jeanne on the bed, so Anne could remove the clothes from the blonde's melting wax-like body.
When she had tugged the girdle off, Anne stood looking down at Jeanne's body, all soft looking, sprawled, except for the firm upthrust breasts. She hesitated. A nightgown? Deciding against one, she nudged Jeanne over to the wall side of the bed, pulled up a light comforter, then impatiently tugged at her own garments. Look, she chided herself, observing how she had torn a run in her stocking, wrinkled her skirt, why the all-fired hurry? A few minutes more or less would make very little difference come hangover hour, seven a.m. Nuts, she would think of that now.
As she snuggled under the silk and down, close to Jeanne's warmth, Anne let her lips brush the curve of the smooth cheek, nestled into the pillow.
"Asleep, baby?" she whispered.
Somehow, she hoped not, absurd though it was to want to stay awake now, with the drinks gone, the beautiful evening ended. Dammit, though, she was lonely. Achingly so. And she felt betrayed, as though life were a cruel stepmother and she a wrongfully punished child. To herself, she cried bitterly, I have given so much. I have tried so hard! She had, that was just it, and what had her passion, her lavish giving got her? A marriage suddenly, shatteringly ended in death. Affairs that had bruised, shamed, and betrayed her. In other words, nothing!
She felt ready to weep, ready to cut the veins in her wrists, even her throat when, suddenly, Jeanne stirred.
"Anne?" There was anxiety, urgency, in the sleep-husky question.
Desperately glad for any kind of wanting, any offer of need, of genuine affection, Anne clasped Jeanne to her, felt the slim arms tighten about her, the soft hair brush her chin, tickle her lips.
"I dozed ... and it was a terrible nightmare," Jeanne said into Anne's pulsing throat. "All ice ... and darkness ... and you were gone ... I couldn't find you anywhere!" The hushed voice trembled, then broke. "Oh, Anne! I'm scared!"
Clutching Jeanne fiercely, ardently, Anne wanted to say, no wonder you're frightened. You have a husband, but the very word is empty, the emotion that binds you to him meaningless, fitful as recurring fever. But all she did was murmur reassurance.
Comforted at last, Jeanne kissed Anne full on the lips, and the kiss lasted, burned wilder, hotter, till they both succumbed to what it told them to do-what the kiss demanded that they do.
Jeanne collapsed into whimpering, sensuous surrender in the unquestioning, uncaring darkness, as Anne's kiss left her mouth and began exploring, teasing her breasts, her nipples, the lines of her lifted outstretched arms, her whole quivering body.
The delirium was halted, waiting suspended to hotly increase as Anne paused to taste again of Jeanne's wet, clinging mouth. Then the searing, soaring sensation began again, and there were moans in the dark room, the keening sound of bliss so intense that it assaults, almost hurts the exquisitely tortured flesh.
Their bodies were one, their great soft breasts mashed together, then shuddering with satiation, they separated, but only partly. They lay side by side, but Anne's hand still was over Jeanne's flat, satiny stomach, while Jeanne's hand lay, possessively, along Anne's still slightly perspiring thigh.
Neither knew when Ray came in ... or if he saw or heard what went on. Neither would have cared.
CHAPTER TEN
Even though it had been a far better than usual day, resulting in his pockets full of orders, Ray moped over his beer, moody, and as restlessly uneasy on his bar stool as though his rump were covered with boils.
Where the hell is that redheaded bitch, he thought furiously. He wanted to leave, to show her he was no drooling adolescent she could make jump through her hoops, but he couldn't. She was a real wild ride, better even than he had expected, and he wanted some more of it. Not later, man. Now. Tonight!
So far, he had forced himself not to look at the door, but as the clock hands crept irrevocably toward six, he couldn't help himself. As he turned around, showing his disappointment when another man ambled in, one of his so-called buddies at the far end of the bar spoke up in mock sympathy.
"What'sa matter, boy? Ya expectin' someone?"
Ray flushed darkly.
"Ya got nose trouble?" he growled. "Another crack like that and you might have the real kind, like maybe having it flattened all over your mush!"
His heckler did not get sore. He merely clucked his tongue against his teeth, still in feigned concern.
"Okay, okay, simmer down, buddy. Maybe she'll still show up."
Ray swigged at his beer, not enjoying it. His guts were too curdled with more than one angry emotion. Outside of a good sales day, nothing was going right. Why in hell had he picked this stupid place in which to meet Mitzi, his new flame ... that is, if she hadn't picked up another joe by now? Every man in the place knew what she was, a grade-A nympho who seldom, if ever, had said no to a poke in her life. But, man, what a lay!
His maleness hardened just thinking of any part of the sex act, with her ... those willing white legs spreading, the feeling that the whole world was whirling redly away when that avid heat sucked him in, held him, when that crazy, expert movement began and he went mad with desire, when the universe dwindled to one luscious, all-demanding body....
He looked up dully, sweating. It was quarter past six. She wasn't coming, the rotten little tramp. She had just plain stood him up.
"Want another?" The bartender wore his couldn't-careless air.
Ray bit back a bitter comeback, maybe the classic bit of sarcasm, if it isn't too much trouble. He merely nodded bleakly.
Beer wouldn't help. Nothing alcoholic would. He needed a woman ... a magnificently receptive, totally responsive hunk of breasts and legs, with the wonderful stuff you can't get enough of.
"Why don't you give up, kid, and give your legal shack-up job a break for once?"
This time, Ray just shot his tormenter a black look. The guy was about six-six, with shoulders as wide as twin axe handles. The backs of his hands were like hairy slabs of thick bacon. Tangling with him, you would be sure of only one thing ... that you would get your money's worth out of your hospitalization.
Ray knew the guys all hated him. The great lover, they called him, including to his face. He knew, too, the reason for their hatred; their envy of his easy success with broads. But in trying moments like this, knowing didn't help.
Eyeing them covertly over the brew that wasn't hitting bottom too good, he could feel their malicious glee at his still being alone, at his all-too-apparent chagrin and disappointment at Mitzi's not coming.
By six-thirty, he surveyed the last of his drink, knowing he couldn't manage another beer, not here. Yet, he was loath to go home. Something had happened last night, something that wouldn't quite come clear. He rubbed his eyes, like a pugilist hit hard but trying to stay on his feet. It had been after three a.m. He had been very drunk, stumbling against furniture, cursing under his breath, steadying himself against walls. He fumbled stubbornly at recollection, brought forth a hazy back-flash of himself falling on an ... That was it! Hell, yes, now he remembered! The bed-his and Jeanne's ... the damn bed had been empty!
He struggled for more total recall, but only bits and pieces flashed through the fog that had dimmed his seeing and hearing, that still blocked him from knowing what had happened. Still, the bits and pieces jarred him. Sounds from Anne's room, puzzling sounds ... had they been moans? Of pain, or ... Tight lipped now, he stared at the wall, then he shook his head. No, they hadn't had another man in there. Jeanne wasn't that kind. Anne, maybe, though he even doubted that, but not Jeanne.
"He's crackin' up," the big bruiser observed kindly, and Ray knew he couldn't take any more. Reluctant or not, he would have to head for home.
Over the ache in his head, the unaccustomed one in his heart, another ache made itself felt. His stomach was insisting on solid food. He wondered what Jeanne had for supper.
Holding herself carefully, like a person in a dream, one from which she does not want to awaken, Jeanne folded linen, put sheets, pillow cases, and towels in their respective piles in the linen closet. Methodical as always, she remembered to put the freshest things at the bottoms of the piles so the ones longest there would be used first.
The self-accusations by which she knew she would be plagued, would not make themselves heard over the wild, persistent song that hummed through her being. Finished with her task at last, she rose from her crouching position and went to the window, too absorbed in her strange new joy to turn her mind to other housework still to be done.
Supper was something else. Eating was a thing she could do with Anne, one more perfect togetherness. I'll have to start supper, she thought happily. Now, she would be cooking for Anne. In a way she had been doing that all along, but it hadn't been quite the same. Ray, of habit, always had come first. When her mind went speculatively, from food to food ... pot roast, fried chicken, meat loaf, lamb stew, spareribs ... what Ray would like had most strongly motivated her selection. Now she thought, Anne likes beef stragonoff ... how lucky I happen to have that pint of sour cream ... yes, that's what I'll prepare!
Anne likes ... Anne likes ... it was a litany in her heart, because Anne's unbelievably skillful hands, her wildly exciting mouth still were on Jeanne, possessing her. Forever?
Jeanne's eyes widened, bewildered and resentful, as the dream in which she had tried to encase herself began to crack, to let in the harsh light of day. She felt torn and bruised. Unwillingly, she looked down at the plain gold band on her left ring finger. Mrs. Gallano, her own mind taunted. Missus! Missus! Missus!
Thinking of Ray coming home, and he was just about due to want to, tonight, was like thinking of a stranger. For the first time since her very first date with him, the thought of his mouth on hers repelled her. Ray couldn't take a woman's mouth without thinking of that mouth's counterpart. As soon as a kiss really got started, you could feel him, that rigid masculinity, poking at your flesh, wanting in.
Almost as though Ray's hard demanding hands already were on her, Jeanne shrank against the wall. She shook her head as though saying no, as though trying not to come awake, but she had to. She had to rouse herself to the bitter reality of being Ray's wife. Last night was the dream, the impossibly beautiful dream, but it still was far too real for comfort.
Another hour, Anne thought restlessly. She sat at her desk, then got up again. All day it had been that way. She couldn't sit still for more than five minutes. Her mind felt like a layered thing, the top layer helping her to deal with problems in her usual competent manner, the bottom layer a churning mass of mixed-up emotions, with desire uppermost. Desire for Jeanne.
I'm a Lesbian, she thought, amazed, but not horrified, yet not quite believing what she had to believe. Then she modified her own ... would you call it an accusation? And the brand burned more lightly; it didn't have to burn as deep. I'm heterosexual, Anne decided, and so is Jeanne.
Then she thought, almost gleefully, how nice, how delightfully convenient! Life seemed to expand right in this room, in this very hour, to offer amazing new vistas of experience, of hitherto unguessed ecstasy, companionship, sharing.
Loving Jeanne offered so much. It could offer infinitely more, for Jeanne was made of and for love. One need never be afraid, enmeshed in so gentle a snare, no matter how strong it became, how it steamed and glowed with the heat of demanding lust.
A head poked in the doorway.
"Yes?" Anne dragged herself back to normalcy, sharply. "What is it, Miss West?"
The rest of the copywriter entered the room, reluctantly. All of her staff knew when Miss Piper was 'in one of her moods', and they gave her a wide berth, if they could.
"That new pretzel copy ... have you decided?" the girl wavered.
"I told you, sell them on flavered salt; garlic, celery, onion! It's a new gimmick and it should go over big. So what if they offer objections-ride them down! The biggest drawback, as I understand it, is the huge quantities, and the coarseness of the salt they have to use. I repeat, so what? A difficulty ought to be a challenge!"
"Yes, Miss Piper." Miss West backed away, then hurried into the hall.
Anne sighed, and the bottom layer of her mind boiled up again. What about Ray, in this strange new situation? What about the house, even now being purchased? She put her hands to her head, pacing restlessly to and fro. Over and over, these two questions screamed at her. There were no answers. Not unless Jeanne would agree to leave Ray. But would she?
There was nothing wrong with two women living together. Please, Jeanne, Anne thought longingly. Now that she knew, now that they both knew how it could be for them, together, how could they bear to part?
No one need know, need ever guess what they really felt for each other. A male escort, with normal sex as part of the deal now and then, would be a kick. And it would be wonderful, not caring, not even wondering, fearfully, as most girls do, did he like me? Will he call again? The occasional mixed dates would maintain the illusion that she and Jeanne were just good friends, living together simply because they got along.
The sound of 'so longs', of door opening and closing, penetrated Anne's brooding. Wearily, she went to her clothes rack, donned her wraps, reached for her purse.
She could not visualize the evening, nothing of what it would hold. It was like a strange land, a land she never had seen.
Anne almost closed her eyes as she turned into the alleyway leading to the Gallano garage. If Ray's car should be there ... but it wasn't. The enormity of her relief surprised her. She had been so sure he would be first in the kitchen tonight, after three nights absence, back again with his big paws all over the body that was legally his, but that by every other right, belonged to Anne.
"Hi!" Anne said cheerily, to the back of that golden head, wanting the exquisite face to turn, the full sweet mouth to tremble, knowing it would be kissed.
"Ray called," Jeanne said, without inflection. She picked up a can of spice, shook some into a pot. "He said he'd be a little late, but that he's coming for supper." She turned, her eyes dull. "Do you mind waiting, Anne? This kind of meal is so hard to heat over."
"Well, well! Reservation all made and in order," Anne said sarcastically. "Not what you'd call a steady customer and way behind in his bill, but we can't offend him, can we? Did he put in a special order, or will he take a chance on what we have on the menu?"
When Jeanne remained silent, slowly stirring the contents of the pot, Anne went up to her, and put her arms about the slim figure, contritely.
"You know I don't mind anything that makes it easier for you, baby," she said.
She wanted to go on, to ask Jeanne what she intended to do, if she was going to lay it right on the line with Bay or what, but she decided to bide her time. The house deal still had to go through. Furniture had to be bought. This ... she looked about her disdainfully ... all of this, Ray could have. Oh, Jeanne kept it clean and polished so it looked better than it was, but it was cheap, and getting shoddy after more than ten year's use.
An Early American decor, Anne mused happily, Oh, how my baby will fit in that. Jeanne was such an enchanting paradox, modern in just the right ways, quaint, old-fashioned in just the right ways.
"I hope he gets here when he said he would," Jeanne worried. "I have to put the rice on to cook, but the sour cream can't be added till last."
Anne said nothing. If she spoke, her words would burn like corroding acid, they might hurt. And soon-she hoped-she might even pity Ray.
Hearing his car turn into the drive, then his brisk, heavy step on the walk, she flinched. He was whistling, as usual, but the tune was unfamiliar.
"Hi. babes!" he shouted, slamming the door behind him. He went immediately to Jeanne so he could jerk her head around and almost devour her mouth with his.
It's my night, old boy, Anne thought sourly. He would remember, all right. The schedule might get screwed up, while he was screwing around, but when he got back in the old routine, he knew whose turn it was.
She pretended to be absorbed in the paper, not lifting her head, but he did it for her, tilting her chin with one finger.
"Might as well start warming up now, chick!" he said boldly.
Anne gave him an icy look. You had to hand it to the bastard, at that. Nothing phased him. He had more crust than a baker's loaf. Three nights away from home, with no explanation, three nights of breaking the agreement by which they had each sworn to abide, and here he was, sure of his welcome, not only at the table, but between the legs of whichever female he chose.
I've got news for you, brother, Anne thought viciously. You've already had the last of me you're ever going to get!
As Jeanne started to ladle out the food, Ray rubbed his hands together, gleefully. At least Jeanne could cook, as well as make love like a real veteran. To hell with the redhead. He eyed Anne, obliquely, wishing he could guess her sex mood-know just the way dumb animals know. As he watched, she turned slightly at a sound in the street, and the rich curve of her high breasts hit him so his pulse quickened. He reached for his plate, feeling energized, a man once more. Between his two lush women, feeding his face, with TV, records, maybe cards to enjoy for a few hours, then with a red-hot session in bed to follow; what more could a guy want? Brother, this was real living!
After the first mouthful, he looked up, frowning slightly.
"I thought this was stew! It's that sour cream deal, isn't it? Honey, you know that ain't one of my favorites!"
"Anne likes it." Jeanne's voice, too, was cold.
"Well, I'm real glad Anne does," he drawled. "But you ain't married to Anne, baby. What I say still goes in this house, see, and what I like to eat gets cooked!"
"I can open up a can of stew, if you like," Jeanne offered, in an exaggeratedly syrupy tone. "You're so unpredictable, I can hardly plan meals for you, to be eaten here. Or do you want to leave a motel or gin mill address when you're out so I can have them delivered?"
Bay glared at his wife.
"Boy, are you funny! You're a real comedian, doll. Just tell me when to laugh."
By the way he shoveled in his food, Anne thought, it's a good thing this isn't his favorite. Cripes, if it was, not even the dishes would be safe.
Jeanne dished out a second big helping for him from the pot on the stove, without comment. She was too weary of the subject of food to argue.
"Even what I don't like, I like when you cook it, sweet," Ray quipped later, content after polishing off a second wedge of cherry pie.
He sprawled in the best easy chair, confiscating the paper, scattering sheets as he read. Anne helped Jeanne with the dishes, both silent, both absorbed in thought. When Jeanne wound up by polishing the stove and Anne had set the last gleaming pan back in its place, they went into the living room and sat on the sofa. Ray had turned on one of the perennial westerns. Seeing Jeanne's hand lying limp, so close to her own, Anne ached to clasp it, but she forced her eyes and ears to stay with the gun-loud program.
Ray seemed alien in the room now, too big, too clumsy, and too masculine.
I'm thinking like a real queer, Anne thought, almost in horror. Then, well, why not? she thought belligerently. A Lesbian was what she admittedly was now, for the most part, what she wanted more and more to be.
Next, an hour-long comedy situation had to be sat through and laughed at, politely, now and then. Anne wondered if Jeanne was as totally bored as she.
It's so nice to have a man around the house. Brother, what simple-minded female first said that! (It had to be a female). She knew she was being unfair, too personally opinionated to think in terms of generalities, but right now, she felt at odds with the world. Society and its stupid, high-bound mores, all for the sake of swollen bellies and bawling brats.
She rose, unable just to sit and stew any longer. She dreaded bedtime, yet she couldn't stand much more of the evening either.
"I could use a drink," she said. "Anyone care to join me?"
For a wonder, Ray refused. "I'm too full of cherry pie," he explained. Anne went to the small bar she had purchased. She poured a drink, then turned, still holding the bottle of bourbon. "Jeanne?" she asked.
Jeanne smiled, softly, intimately. Anne's heart quickened, and as their eyes met, she knew. Jeanne hadn't changed since last night's world-shaking discovery. They were alone for seconds, locked in each other's looks.
"Yes, I'll have one," Jeanne said, then.
Forcing her hand to remain steady, Anne poured. Nothing mattered now. Not Ray's almost certain rage at the refusal he would have to take from her tonight. Not the other problems that were sure to rise tomorrow, next week, or next month. She felt wise, sure and strong.
She took Jeanne's drink to her, and they clicked glasses. To us! The words were so plain, they could almost be heard.
At the end of the one-hour program, Ray rose, yawning mightily.
"If you two lushes are ready to close the bar for the night, how about a little shut-eye?" he suggested, good-humoredly.
"Okay, Ray," Jeanne said, but she made no move to get up. The TV still was on, a news program starting. "You go ahead. We'll turn this off shortly."
Ray was beginning to glower. He turned his hot gaze to Anne.
"You coming, doll?"
She spoke volums in one flat word:
"No."
Now, he really was angry. He whirled around to glare at Jeanne.
"All right! If Miss High-and-Mighty ain't having any, how about you? She had her chance, so come on, Jeanne. I don't wanna be awake all night!"
While Anne held her breath, Jeanne stood up.
"No, Ray," she said. "I'm going to sleep with Anne. When you can make up your mind to do what you promised, come home every night from work, maybe I'll change my mind. Now, no!"
With three swift strides, he crossed the room, took Jeanne's wrist in an iron grip.
"Sleep with Anne, hell!" he grated. "What Anne does, I can't help. I ain't married to her, but I got rights with you, sugar. The law says when I want to lay on top of you, I lay there, and do with you what all married couples do. And if I want you naked, you'll be naked and you'll stay naked till I decide you put clothes on! You want a divorce, okay, but tonight you're still my wife, and when I tell you to make love, you make love!"
Jeanne's set face whitened, wavered. Anne took a step forward, but Jeanne shook her head.
"That's right, cookie," Ray jeered. "You tell Miss Career Gal to mind her own goddamn business, and we'll get along just fine." He released her, pointing in the direction of their bedroom. "Get!" he ordered. "It takes you longer to shuck off all your duds than it does me!"
The last, the 'all your duds' part was for Anne's benefit, and she knew it. In frigid silence, she turned off the living room lamps, stalked toward her own bedroom, and took two sleeping pills to make sure she wouldn't hear. Especially if Jeanne should respond.
She was jealous. Miserably so, she admitted. Jealous of a husband making love to his wife ... and it didn't seem strange to feel that way, not any more. Not to her.
Ray waited impatiently for Anne to finish washing and brushing her teeth, knowing he still would have to wait for Jeanne to get through. With only one bathroom for three people, they had had to work out a system. Right from the beginning, wanting so much that she be pleased, Jeanne had insisted that Anne be first. Unwillingly, but fearing Anne's scorn, Ray had yielded to Jeanne, even letting her be second. Generally, it worked out with no sweat. Ray almost always lingered at the TV, watching a last sports program. Tonight, he merely sat sullenly on the edge of the bed waiting.
Jeanne usually was out in a couple of shakes. This time, she purposely took almost as long as Anne. Ray kept shifting his position angrily, impatiently. Well, in a few minutes they all would see who still was top dog around here!
Jeanne was lying quietly in bed, light out, and the sheet up to her chin, when he came back, smelling of soap and of after-shaving lotion.
With one yank, he pulled down the sheet, letting his eyes feast on the perfection of his wife's petite, lusciously rounded figure. Ray thought fleetingly, a little wistfully, of the hot-to-trot redhead who pulled you down to her burning flesh, who couldn't wait to turn on her revved-up motor. Nuts, a woman was a woman and he was ready to do something.
"Come on, baby," he coaxed, pulling her nakedness to his, thrilling as flesh touched flesh. "Ya ain't had it in ya in quite a while. Ya oughtta be sizzling."
He was ready to crawl right on and let her have it, fast and furious, but her white still ness gave him pause. Maybe he had better warm her up ... good.
Sensing what he was about to do, knowing how long it would take, Jeanne hastily tried to respond convincingly, but it was too late. Once he got an idea, he kept it. Resignedly, she knew she would have to submit to the whole routine, the sucking of her nipples, his tongue outlining her breasts, then tracing its rough, usually titillating way down all the curves of her body. If she didn't squeal and twitch and catch her breath believably, he would just go on and on.
"Like it, baby?" It was the inevitable question, with his lifting his lips from her swelling nipple just long enough to speak.
Oh, get on and get on with it, she raged inwardly.
"Love it, lover," she breathed coquettishly.
He seemed hesitant, oddly unsure, but he again bent his head, and she suffered his stroking tongue, marveling at how she still felt nothing. One such touch, a very short time ago, and she was lifted clear off the mattress.
"Feel me, baby," he said. "Feel how you've aroused me!"
Obediently, she shifted her mind to the act and examined him. He was proud of his size, but now it seemed too much, and she thought, crazily, of the joke so loved by the average man: most women would rather be tickled than clubbed to death.
She stroked him, and felt him quiver. As she stroked, she slowly inched her body under his, struggling to get herself into position so he wouldn't be able to hold back any longer.
"Oh, so ya want it, do ya?" he crowed, believing the lies she forced her body to tell. "Just leave it to your daddy; he knows how to get his very own baby worked up!"
Relieved, she felt him position himself, felt the force of his lust pushing her legs wide.
She heard him moan with his terrible need of joining them together. His drive tonight was brutal, aching with need to get closer, closer, to practically get his body clear into hers, as though he would tear her apart in his violent need to possess her completely.
She tried, but he had been with her too often, far too often to accept the pale pretense she offered. His own lust was rising, turning to white-hot flame that raged through his body, that for the moment, consumed his doubts, burned away his fear. He was all man now, all stud, all stiffness, throbbing to feel more, more, more, to be caressed by the closeness of her enfolding, clutching flesh, to be teased into erupting his own small hot river of living lava.
When it was over, while he still panted, still struggled to resume normal breathing, he sensed her recovered coolness, sensed that it had been ruffled, but that it had not been seriously disturbed. With awful clarity, the truth reached him. He had taken her body, but he had not touched her. The weight of the whole afternoon till now fell on his spirit, crushing him. When he tried to completely hold back a stifled sob and couldn't, he felt her light brush against his arm, and he knew she was closer now than when she had been sprawled beneath him, when she had raised her hips, her buttocks to receive him, matching her movements to every movement he made.
"What's wrong, Ray?" she asked anxiously. "Why on earth are you ... crying?" Her throat tightened so with awful dread, she cleared her throat, then tried, and the stiff words came, "You're not in trouble again, are you?"
The slow, painful sobbing stopped, and he was very quiet.
"It's terrible trouble to me to lose my wife," he choked out at last. The silence that followed was the kind that waits to be broken, and she knew she would have to break it.
What can I say, she wondered in anguish. It was harder than she had thought it would be, this drawing away from a man, however unfaithful and unworthy, who nonetheless had shared her life, whose name she had borne for years.
"I've never been your wife, Ray," she said quietly, "not really. I've only been one of your girl friends, not nearly as exciting as the trollops you've spent most of the past ten years with."
He felt pushed about, flung in the air, hurled to earth again by conflicting emotions. First, rage against Anne who must be behind this. Before Anne came, Jeanne had accepted his philandering; it had been part of their marriage, undesirable maybe, but part of it, nonetheless. His fists clenched and unclenched, as he lay in exultant rage, picturing his fists smashing against Anne's cold, lovely face, picturing blood obliterating her features, wiping out her contempt, her smugness.
Then rage against himself shook him. Any time he had wanted to be satisfied sexually, Jeanne had been there. Except for the worse couple of days each month, she never had denied him, and until tonight, her response had been all any man could ask, more than a lot of them ever had in their entire lives. His doubled fist pounded the pillow, and he felt the sharp, frightened intake of Jeanne's breath.
Terror swept him then, and his rage left him. Anne was sure to check out of here, now that things had come to a head. He had for weeks sensed her withdrawal. She was tired of him, and he of her. The only thing that ignited him to take her on, to try to bring her to total whimpering submission, was the challenge of her aloofness. Her body still was sex starved, but her contempt was stronger than her hunger for thrills. He knew he was licked with Anne. He would miss only one thing about her, the help her money had provided.
And Mitzi ... a fierce lawless grief shook him there. In losing Mitzi, so briefly, tempestuously his, in having lost her the way he had, in the spotlight of public humiliation, he had been, like Samson, newly-shorn, unbelievingly aware of a new, a permanent lack of strength. For he saw, with dreadful clarity, that he would never be cocksure again. Some moments can be lived through only once ... and even once could be too much.
Like a terrified child, he turned to Jeanne.
"I didn't get to you, did I, baby?" he asked, his voice full of tears.
The last bit of the new Jeanne backed away, The old one, Ray's wife, was back. She drew his head to her breast.
I can't fail him, she thought miserably, blot ting out the thought of Anne. I'm all he's got. Anne doesn't need me the way he does. She's beautiful, clever, successful, and strong. He's ... she stroked his hair, tenderly ... a mess. At least, without me, he is.
There was only one way to save him, and she would use that way. But first something had to be settled, once and for all.
"Bay...." she whispered, rising on an elbow, her eyes pale looking, eerily seductive in the moonlight that filtered through the only half closed drapes.
He lost himself in that mesmerizing gaze, fascinated.
"What?" he whispered back.
"I was planning to leave you, since even a private harem of two didn't stop your chasing. And I will leave you if you can't make up your mind right now that marriage is for two people, one man, one woman, not a man and a dozen women."
He was right with her. Hell, he wouldn't spit on the hottest sexpot around. Mitzi and her ilk could go scratch. From now on, this gorgeous female, this prize combination of passion and housewifery, was all he wanted, all he ever would want.
"So help me, babe, I'm through chasin'. I mean it," he vowed, raising his right hand. "On the bones of my dear mom, on my hopes of livin' forever, I'll never stray from home base again."
"Oh, Bay!" She was ecstatic. Her body melted against him, fitted itself to his every part till they seemed really one.
"Good, baby?" he asked, over his pounding heartbeat, sure this time of making his own wife his conquest.
She really let herself go, let her heat rise, let it suction him closer, deeper, and her own palpitation began, transmitting her on-coming orgasm to him, thrilling him to his toes.
"Go, baby, go!" he urged, thrusting sensuously, with gradually increasing rhythm.
Her wail of delight was broken off, as her sharp teeth nipped at his ear, his pain becoming part of his binding pleasure. Their bodies rocked with their mounting passion, the moonlight blurred, brightened, filled the room with brilliance. Then, as the final explosion shook them, their eyes cleared, separated darkness from wrath-like light, and sanity was restored.
Exhausted, they drifted asleep, still clasped in each other's arms.
Anne ... Jeanne thought, lost, mournful, on the far edge of dream. I wonder ... if Anne ... heard.
But Anne, mercifully drugged by pills, heard nothing, dreamed nothing at all.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Anne awakened the next morning with the outwardly resigned but inwardly angry impatience of a person too long detained where there was nothing left to do, where everything already had happened. It was like just missing a train in an isolated spot, where you would grow too familiar with every bush, every weed in sight, before another train chugged into the station.
As she came into the kitchen, already wearing her hat and her jacket, and purposefully pulling on her gloves, Jeanne blocked her way and they faced each other, bitter, yet entreating. Jeanne was pale, guilty looking, even a little frightened.
A heat-lightning kind of rage flared in Anne, vivid but not lasting.
"Oh, don't look so scared!" she snapped. "I'm not going to beat you!"
Jeanne held her ground, resolutely. It would have been easy to shove her aside, and Anne toyed fleetingly with the idea. She tried not to really see Jeanne, to look beyond her, as one brushes aside a poignantly pleasant dream to get on with a day that one knows will be anything but pleasant.
"Please, just sit down long enough to have some coffee, Anne," Jeanne said simply. She did not reach for the pot, not yet. She just kept on standing near the doorway, stubborn and vulnerable, both.
Their glances locked and their intense desire, their pain at the barriers in their way, held them as though in a dark spell. Jeanne's hands lifted blindly, beseechingly, and in seconds, they had rushed together, clinging desperately.
As Jeanne's body welded itself to hers, a wild hope rose in Anne. Jeanne must have just endured Ray last night. If that were so, now more than ever, they, she and Jeanne, would be pledged lovers. They would be honestly, no-fooling Lesbian, lustful, woman to wild wanton woman.
Then Jeanne spoke in a small, lost voice, and what she said forced Anne to release her, dropping stiff arms, as though they had become too heavy, backing away, dully.
"I'm sorry, Anne," Jeanne whispered. "I didn't mean to really give myself." She paused, then went on lamely. "It's just that he needed me...."
Anne dropped to a chair at the kitchen table, silently raised a clean empty cup. Jeanne poured. Straightening, sipping the hot coffee, Anne made up her mind. She would not be tossed this way and that by an on-again-off-again love. She couldn't take that kind of punishing uncertainty. What's more, she wouldn't!
"Don't bother me with your marital problems," she said coldly. "It's been fun, Jeanne, I'm sure, for both of us. Let's keep it that way."
She rose. There was one more thing, and that she was determined to do.
"I know you have a birthday coming up in less than a week. You told me quite a while back, and I made a note of it. Right now, there happens to be a terrific sale at the fur salon, where I occasionally do business. Now don't refuse me the pleasure of doing something for you, baby. At least let me have that much. I've already arranged for you to take your pick of their mink stole selection. It's paid for, and if you don't choose, I'll have them send one out anyway."
"You don't have to...." Jeanne began, and she choked back an urge to hysterical laughter. Good gawd, Anne was paying for her, indirectly, the way a man pays for a call girl. She wanted to protest, it's way too much. Nobody-not even a real queen-gets six or eight hundred bucks for once. A hundred, maybe, but ... she shrugged. If Anne wanted it that way, why fight it?
Another thought occurred to her, and she looked up quickly, frightened again.
"What would you like for supper, Anne?" she asked.
She wouldn't put it the way she knew would be a lot more realistic. She couldn't bring herself to ask, are you going to be here? If Anne specified a certain food, she would have to be back to eat it ... wouldn't she?
"Oh...." Anne pondered, then smiled. "Breaded veal chops would be nice."
Happy again, sure at least of one more evening, Jeanne stood to one side and let Anne go. Let her go? Jeanne thought wryly. At that, in a way she had. Even after only one time in those fierce, hungering arms, Jeanne knew the power of her own body against Anne's.
"There was a call for you not five minutes ago, Casanova," the vast-bosomed, unquenchably ribald switchboard at The Topnotch Liquor Wholesale Company told Ray with a smirk. "A dame, natch." Her gray eyes in their network of wrinkles looked amused, mocking. "Called twice already, in fact ... the first time, before I even had the board all open. She sounded real anxious."
Ray glanced at his watch. Almost ten. Who the hell would be calling that early? Not Jeanne; the smart-aleck operator knew his wife's voice. His heart skipped a beat, then raced. Mitzi?
It almost had to be.
He licked dry lips, tried to sound laconic.
"The dame leave a number?"
The gray, pertly-bobbed head shook in negation.
"She said you'd know it." The operator leaned back, took down a couple of cords, then she relented enough to tell him, "Sounded like the one who was calling you regular every day for a week or two, not long back."
An incoming call claimed her attention. So a man got calls from some bitch, not his wife; so what? Eight out of ten of the bastards went that route. It was no skin off her back! She couldn't care less. Still, as she watched Ray hurry out, she shook her head. With the way that one could get into trouble ... like the time just months ago, when he was a basket case with some terrible worry, so much so that his sales fell way off and the top brass was thinking of letting him go ... well, maybe he ought to watch it.
As soon as he could get to an outside pay booth, Ray fished for a dime and began dialing eagerly.
So, he crowed to himself triumphantly, you've still got it, boy. The broads still have to come back for more....
"Mitzi?" he asked, even though he recognized her sultry 'hello'. She always had him call her at Mike's, which was just around the corner from her pad.
"Yeah, it's me." Evidently, she had been sitting at a table near the telephone booth, waiting, knowing damn well he would call.
"Where ya been, handsome? It's been a week, at least, since I've seen you." The throaty voice sounded plaintive. At her coaxing, suggestive tone, his blood began to heat, the hand holding the phone to sweat.
"After what you pulled...." he began angrily, but she broke in.
"Why didn't you stick around a little longer?" She was the aggrieved party now. "I got there soon as I could! The guys said you already left, and that you looked mad."
Now his face was all eagerness. All the depression, the lostness, the fear of the past week or so disappeared like a stain, expertly wiped out. He didn't ask if the readhead wanted to see him. She had to want some of him, or she wouldn't have called. His eyes gleamed with gloating. Now, that bunch of bar creeps would know who still was top stud.
"Look, baby," he said, talking fast. "Ya know I got my stops to take care of, but I'll make it quick as I can. Why'nt you just sit tight, cooky? Only, for Pete's sake, take it easy! Don't get stormy before I even get there."
"I ain't stickin' around here," she said, with offended dignity, as though such a thing was out of the question. "I got a few errands to run. Tell ya what, I'll meet'cha here, oh, say four-thirty or a little after, and we'll have our first one together. Okay?"
Ray's brow puckered, his mind racing. Mitzi would want to drink and dance and horse around for at least a couple of hours. Then, seeing they were like jungle animals, mating ... greedy; no, insatiable ... they would be in the sack for at least another hour or two before the heat even began to die down. Damn! What could he tell his wife? Could he give her the old busy routine, so soon? Then his brow cleared. Why the hell not? After the bill of goods he had sold Jeanne last night, the poor dumb broad was a cinch to believe anything.
If I don't get word soon, I'll have either a caffeine or a nicotine fit, Anne thought savagely, shoving aside the third container of coffee she had had sent up, tamping out a half-smoked cigarette from an almost-empty pack.
For the dozenth time, her hand reached for the phone, then fell at her side. What was taking so long? She had been so emphatic yesterday, instructing the delivery department where she had bought all her furniture, calling the gas, the light, and the phone companies.
Early, she had told them all, stressing the urgency of her demand. And with each request, she had been smoothly assured of prompt service.
Eyes smarting, she glanced again at her watch. With Jeanne's maddening promptness, her efficient zest for getting everything done right away, she was a cinch to be downtown by this time. And stunned though she surely would be by the magnificence of the fur salon with its thickly carpeted floors, its glittering floor-to-ceiling mirrors, it wouldn't take her over an hour to make her selection.
Despite her lavish use of deodorant and cologne, Anne was sweating like an over-worked cleaning woman. She glanced at her desk, loaded with paper work, all of it screaming for attention. Let it wait. There would be tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, when she would be herself again, not a frustrated Lesbian whose scalding blood burned and ached for her love. Anger shook her. From now on, no one, neither male nor female, would really touch her. She would give what she had to, only what she had to, to get what she needed. Nothing, no genuine closeness, was worth this kind of pain.
Now, the important thing was getting away, while Jeanne was out of the house. Coward, she jibed at herself, and her stung mind flung back, all right, so I admit it, I am a coward. Why should I risk an emotional scene that would tear me apart, when it would be so much easier just to avoid it? She hardly knew that she paced the room, glaring at the phone. When its ring broke the stillness, she jumped for it.
It was the lady realtor, her tone reasonable, explaining 'the slight delay'. Had Mrs. Piper been waiting?
"I certainly was waiting!" Anne yelled furiously. Then she blinked away her angry tears. Why waste time on a tirade that would accomplish nothing? "Thanks for calling," she finished angrily, then slammed the phone back into place. Now to go like mad, trying to beat the clock. At least her new house was open, ready for occupancy. She just might make it, still avoiding a last brush with Jeanne.
As she jerked into the driveway, Anne noted with relief that the house had an empty, almost humanly lonely look. The door, when she tried it, was locked. Her hand shook, turning the key. Hurry, hurry, her mind urged. Thank goodness, her bags were packed, all except the few articles she had left on the dresser to throw Jeanne off, in case she glanced into the room. Anne made her own bed and it wasn't Jeanne's day to clean, but you never know. And her hangers all were turned the same way, for easy carrying.
Not stopping to think how ridiculous it was to flee like a thief in the night, when she had every right just to walk out, Anne dragged one suitcase from well back on the closet shelf, lifted another from the floor. No time now to think of how heavy they were. Her arms felt pulled from their sockets, but she forced herself to keep moving. Feverishly, aware of fleeting seconds now, Anne shoved the luggage; into the back seat, rushed back in, hurled herself headlong up the stairs, and grabbed her overnight bag and one armful of clothes. No time to straighten them out after she flung them across her bags, to be too fussy as to whether or not they would get wrinkled. Panting, she paused, painfully sucking in her breath, trying to slow it to its normal rhythm before going back for the last load, just one more armful, her suits, and a couple of coats.
A slight sound startled her, and she looked up, unwillingly. Oh, no, she moaned inwardly. Jeanned stood just inside the opened gate, still holding it. She stared, not at Anne, but at the suitcases, and the clothes on the back seat of Anne's car.
For a small eternity, they both stood where they were, then Jeanne moved forward, smiling a careful, stiff little smile. She spoke in a normal-sounding voice:
"I'm glad I got here before you left, Anne. I'd so much rather we parted like the good friends I hope we still are."
Friends, Anne thought bitterly, resentfully, who the hell wants your lousy friendship? Her chin lifted.
"I just wanted to make it easier for both of us," she said defensively. "I loathe goodbyes."
Jeanne laughed and took Anne's arm, her manner almost gay.
"Let's at least have a drink before you go. Gosh, I'd like to toast your good luck, wherever it is you're going."
"It's kind of early for drinking," Anne said doubtfully, wavering.
"Please," Jeanne coaxed, her hold tightening, conveying its message, I'm not going to let go, not unless you really fight me.
Aware of the danger, yet not able to jerk away, Anne followed Jeanne through the kitchen, into the living room.
"Mind if I get into something a little more comfy, before I fix the drinks?" Jeanne grinned mischievously. "It's hot, trying on mink!" Her glance went to the big pasteboard box she had just set down. "Want to see it?"
Anne shook her head, curtly.
"I don't have much time. Do as you like. I'll start getting glasses and ice."
Reaching for the bourbon, Anne noticed with dismay that there was barely an inch, not even enough for two average-sized drinks. A quick glance into the refrigerator made it clear there was no mix, either. Anne preferred Scotch or bourbon with water, but Jeanne always grimaced and shuddered, trying to drink it that way.
Turning, she faced Jeanne who had quietly come up behind her, who was standing inches away. Anne's breath caught in her throat. Her starved glance trailed up the sweetly rounded calves, the white full thighs, up, up, taking in every delicious inch, past the whittled waist, to the breasts, their nipples out-lined by a skimpily-cut blue halter. Not wanting to, but knowing she had to, to stick to her resolve, Anne backed away.
"No," she moaned, tearing her gaze away from the exposed parts of Jeanne's flesh.
"Just once," Jeanne pleaded. "Oh, Anne, it'll be the last time. Love me just once more!"
Their mutual need was stark, real. This weird, only half-explored love, more fierce for its very newness, blazed hot and compelling between them.
Over her wet cheeks, Jeanne's eyes were bright. Shaken by their brilliance, Anne spoke in a tortured voice.
"I can't!" she cried. "If I have you ... if I so much as touch you ... I won't be able to leave!" She stood very straight, pointing toward the bedroom. "If you want that damn drink, we'll have to go out for it, so get your clothes on ... on the double!"
Jeanne didn't move. She was past caring now, willing to beg.
"Don't move, Anne, please don't move. Why can't you just stay?"
"Why?" Anne blazed, fury coming to her rescue. "So I can watch you go to bed with that ape? So I can stand to one side and see him strut around, ruler of the roost? In a pig's eye! You want him, baby, you can have him, but not me, too!"
"But I'm his wife," Jeanne reasoned patiently. "We're married!"
"You mean you're married!" Anne shot back. "He isn't! He's as free as the most foot-loose bachelor around. I love you, Jeanne, but you're a fool! And I won't stick around and watch that slob take you over the hurdles!"
"He broke down completely last night, and he promised he'll never look at another woman," Jeanne said stubbornly. "That's why I have to stick with him, Anne. I don't really want to, you ought to know that, but this time he means what he said. If I let him down now...." Her voice trailed off as though into dire predictions of all that could happen to Ray without his wife to love him, to bolster his courage.
Anne laughed helplessly.
"I give up," she said. "Look, sweetie, seeing this is our last time together, let's go out, just for an hour or so. We'll make it somewhere close, then I'll take off. After that, do me a favor. Let's just break it off completely, real final. You know, all or nothing, the way it has to be with people like us. Now, hurry and get dressed. I'll wait in the car."
Lesbians, she had heard many times, love more intensely than men love women, or vice versa. Now, she partly believed it.
It was only two-thirty. Even if they stuck around for three or four drinks, they shouldn't bump into Ray. Anne was sure he would never veer away from the cheating bit. If she wanted to prove a point, catch Ray out with some broad. But why bother? She felt heavy, weighted down with hopelessness. Let Jeanne live in her fool's paradise. Anne wouldn't lift a finger to stop it.
"This all right?" Anne looked at Jeanne, little-girlishly adorable in a black wool suit with a flared waist and with a fake white bunny fur collar. Cheap, but flattering.
Jeanne glanced indifferently at the sign:
MIKE'S
"Okay by me," she said. What difference did it make? All she wanted was to bask in Anne's nearness for every precious moment she could manage.
Again, she glanced at the sign. Mikes? Oh, yes, now she remembered. This was the joint she and Bay had gone to the night they were celebrating Jeanne's big idea to ask Bay's new sex-bunny to move in. Jeanne sighed. That night seemed centuries ago.
The place had a cozy air. A man with an apron tied around his enormous stomach was basting something in a roaster he had just removed from an oven at the far end of the bar. Jeanne sniffed. Ham. It smelled good. She eyed the apron, giggling softly. It bore so many different kinds of stain, it was like Joseph's coat of many colors.
"Bourbon and water, light on the ice for me," Anne told the bartender. "Seven and seven for her." They had taken middle-of-the-bar stools. There were men on either side, but not too close. They had the usual morose look of men drinking, with no approachable broad in sight.
That situation didn't last long, however. The girls were just finishing their drinks and Anne was motioning for refills, when the door to the street swung open to admit a voluptuous redhead. Everything about her, from her long bangs swept to one side over green-shadowed, heavily made-up eyes, down to the tips of her ankle-strapped crimson slippers, shrieked sex.
Every one of the half dozen men looked up from their beer or their boilermakers, then couldn't look away.
"Six hard-ons, coming right up!" Anne jeered, sotto voice.
"She's sober now, but two will get you one she doesn't stay that way long," Jeanne whispered back. It would be a sucker bet. Every guy in the place would want to buy a drink for the redhead.
The door opened again, and a crew cut youth stood in the doorway. Jeanne blinked, thinking, he looks sort of familiar. Then she remembered. Skeets Bickle. The intrusive jerk, the one Ray had wanted to paste the last time they were in here.
The young man's eyes brightened, when he saw Jeanne. He started over, then hesitated, glancing from her to the redhead, as though debating which female would be the better bet.
It was close, you could see that, but the redhead won. Without vanity, Jeanne was sure the choice was decided by the obvious roundness of the redhead's heels.
Since the bartender hadn't collected for the redhead's drink, Skeets paid for it, grandly. The redhead favored him with one level look, then she hardened instantly.
"You're drunk!" she spat, turning back to look at the bar mirror, obviously enjoying the reflection of her own full-lipped face.
"I'm not!" he insisted, in real anguish. "I'm sober enough to take damn good care of you!"
Anne and Jeanne exchanged half-amused, half-pitying glances. The kid must be in a bad way.
He was; that became increasingly obvious. The girls had just returned their attention to their drinks, when the redhead gave her unwanted companion such a hard push that he landed on the floor. She rose and stood over him, her features twisted with rage.
"Keep your hands off my tits!" she screamed. "You big baboon! You just think you want a piece of tail! You wouldn't even get started, you booze-soaked slob, and you'd fold like an accordian! Now, get going, buster! I mean it!"
"He doesn't look drunk," Jeanne whispered, as Skeets got to his feet without too much effort.
Anne shrugged.
"The broad seems to know." She eyed the young man, covertly. "His eyes look kind of weird ... too bright and not focusing ... but I wouldn't call him rollered."
With a last black look at the redhead, Skeets straightened and came over to Jeanne and Anne. He ignored Anne, but held out a quarter to Jeanne.
"Care to play a few numbers on the juke box?" he asked. "Whatever you want, only I'm partial to K-7."
With a you-don't-mind-do-you look at Anne, Jeanne jumped up, eagerly. She loved to dance; Anne knew that. How often had she seen the poor kid caper about like mad, clutching a broom or a dust mop as a 'partner', when a lively piece came over the transistor radio she kept on the kitchen table?
"While Jeanne punched K-7, then happily scanned the other selections, Anne's puzzled attention was drawn to a semi-pantomime going on between the redhead and a husky character to her left. The fact that there were hushed whispers to go with the looks and motions kept it from being a total pantomime. First, the burly ape jerked his head toward Jeanne, with a wise smirk. Then the redhead's eyes widened, and she turned and stared at the blonde's back, looking almost frightened. Next, her scared glance swung to the clock which showed twenty of three, and a look of relief replaced the one of fear. Then she leaned very close to the big guy and whispered something, with an air of urgency and pleading. The ape nodded, amiably, and the redhead, all preening sunshine again, went back to her drink and to her fascinated contemplation of her own mirrored image.
So that's how it is, Anne thought grimly. She knew as well as if the redhead had said so that she had a date with Ray, that she had been afraid her brutish-looking acquaintance would mouth off to Ray's wife.
I'd better get her out of here, Anne decided, not wanting the trusting little simpleton hurt, at least not so soon after Ray's fervent promise.
As soon as Jeanne resumed her seat, Anne began briskly gathering up her cigarettes, her lighter, her change, and her gloves.
"I said just a couple," she reminded Jeanne, when the girl made no move to follow suit.
Mr. Bickle supplied Jeanne's reason for not wanting to leave. With the first blare of the juke box, he came close and Jeanne slid off her stool, then into his arms. Frowning, feeling nervous, even apprehensive, Anne watched Skeets draw his partner much too close. But he was a good dancer, very good. She would have to give him that much.
"Bed roses for a blue lady," the juke box crooned smoothly. There was a pause, and then another started, "Mood Indigo," and you couldn't have squeezed a wisp of tissue paper between Jeanne and Mr. Bickle.
All of a sudden the dance stopped, because Jeanne did and there was the smart crack of a hard slap as she swung at Skeets, her face as scarlet as the mark she made on his.
He didn't hit her back, but he struck out in an even deadlier manner.
"For chrissake, are all you bitches saving it for that one stuck-on-himself jerk? What's he got anyhow that the rest of us haven't got ... fifteen goddamn inches?"
Jeanne's stricken eyes watched him glare from her to the redhead, whose mouth now hung open.
Without a word to the trembling-with-fury youth who looked as though he had just begun to rave, Jeanne swung about and strode over to the redhead.
"Do you have a date with my husband?" she asked calmly.
Mutely, leaning backward as though fearing that she might get hit too, the redhead nodded.
Jeanne smiled, a slight upward curve on her lips.
"That's all right with me, kid, but do me a favor, just one little favor that will mean a lot to me, will you?"
After a brief silence, the broad quavered:
"If I can."
"Oh, you can," Jeanne assured her. "Just keep him occupied. Real, real busy for at least a couple of hours, after you meet him." She really smiled now. "And don't tell him you saw me." She turned and looked squarely at the watching men. "And please, don't you tell him, either."
The men grunted assent, and Mitzi smiled back at Jeanne warmly.
"You're on, babe!" she said heartily.
Jeanne turned her radiant face to Anne, who looked equally exalted. She took Anne's outstretched hand, and held it tight.
"Let's go, darling," she murmured. "That couple of hours should give us plenty of time to move my junk to wherever we're going to live!"
But even Anne knew that when Jeanne got completely over Ray, she would find someone else and resume her life with a man-or men.
