Treavor James's obituary said that he passed away at such-and-such an hour on a certain day. It lied, as do most obituaries; Trevor didn't pass away; he resisted death furiously and with great courage, spending his last breath on a spirited rejection of the advances made to him by eternal slumber.
He did not fear death or what awaited him beyond; he had no more reason for believing that after death came horror, anguish and the flames of Hell than for supposing that death was the key to a paradise of music, honey and wine.
His determination not to die was excited by his reluctance to leave behind him his responsibilities as the father of Arwel, four years of age, black-haired, dark-eyed and small of stature. He had no qualms about leaving Gwen widowed at the age of twenty-nine; she could look after herself; she'd managed and domineered him throughout the five years of their marriage, regarding him as a piece of her property, expendable, but only by destruction, not essential to her happiness or material well-being, but nevertheless not to be placed at the disposal of any other person. Trevor was bitterly aware of the fact that Gwen would not grieve at losing him to death, great as had ever been her precautions against his surrendering himself to any other individual or interest than herself.
Arwel, however, would miss his father. Not only would there be the loss he would immediately feel, but there would be a greater privation which would greatly affect the little one's entire life, without his necessarily being aware of it; Trevor's last hours were tormented by his fear that, with his demise, Gwen would turn upon Arwel the full destroying force of her possessiveness. Living, Trevor absorbed more than his share of Gwen's pathological jealousy, thereby sparing his son whom he loved dearly, and whom Gwen loved too much, with a love which was the negation of love, regarding Arwel not as a human entity, but as a mere extension of herself, deriving all beauty, virtue, intelligence and intellect from her; with Trevor's moral support, Arwel might avoid the mesh of misguided love, jealousy and possessiveness which it was Gwen's nature to weave around the things, human and otherwise, which belonged to her; but Trevor knew he was living his last hours, and he was living them in the agony of his impotence to spare his child the suffering which Gwen would unwittingly, and with good intentions, inflict upon him, as she had upon Trevor himself.
Trevor felt no bitterness towards Gwen; she sincerely believed that she'd loved him since their first meeting, whereas she'd really loved the ideal husband she'd been determined to compel him to become, at whatever cost to his self-respect, his ambitions and his contentment.
In dying, Trevor did not fall short of the standard which Gwen had created for him and imposed upon him; by falling victim, and unwillingly, to Death he did not humiliate her as he would have done if she'd lost him to a human rival; and it was even with a sense of relief that she realized that his death had lifted from her shoulders the immense burden of her unremitting and self-imposed task of building a barrier between her husband and all persons or things-likely to alienate his affections from her. It was, however, several months before Gwen admitted even to herself that Trevor's death had released her from prison, and had "cleared the decks" for her entry into a new life, into the excitement of almost complete responsibility for her own happiness; as a wife she had imposed on herself the discipline necessary for her dominance over Trevor; she had been a model housewife and devoted mother, faithful to her home and husband, not because she was fundamentally virtuous, but from a sense of duty. Her duty had irked her.
2.
Gwen scribbled a few hurried figures, made an addition of them, divided by fifty-two, frowned and made a decision; when Merivale arrived she would tell him that she accepted his offer of employment. He was a wholesale dealer in foodstuffs, who'd employed Gwen from the time of her leaving school at the age of fifteen to the time of her marriage with Trevor, who had also worked for him. At the end of his life, Trevor had been one of Merivale's principal buyers, and Merivale wished to help the young widow by re-instating her in his offices, not in her former capacity (she'd previously been a typist) but as a junior buyer for a period of training at the end of which she hoped to be given a position of authority.
She greeted him with a radiant smile; if he was to be her employer, she might as well use her charms upon him from the beginning, as an encouragement to him to hasten her advancement to a position wherein she would enjoy the respect of which she considered herself worthy, a position whose salary would justify her working outside her own home and leaving Arwel in the company and under the influence of others.
Merivale had never seen a lovelier widow;-her predominantly black dress was so smart as to make mourning undistinguishable from a sophisticated cocktail frock. He observed that the bodice was opaque only to just above the nipples of her breasts, the upper part being of fine lace through which her pale shoulders shone dimly.
Leading him into the lounge, she asked:
"What will you have to drink?"
"Have you a dry sherry? Bitter as walnuts?"
"There is at least one thing we have in common," she replied, a hint of provocation in her voice, "I too adore the palest of sherries."
As they drank, they talked of her return to Merivale's, and agreed that it take place on the first of the following month. They parted after Merivale had expressed his delight at her decision to re-enter his employ ...
Before the beginning of the month, Gwen had to put her own house in order; in the interests of economy she sought to engage a young maid who would agree to look after Arwel during the day, in addition to carrying out the light day-to-day tasks of the home; Gwen herself would cook the main meal of the day, the evening meal, and once per week she would have a char-lady to help with the rough work.
The day after Gwen's telephone call to the Cygnet Domestic Agency, she received a visit from a fourteen-years-old girl who introduced herself as Jean Simpson; Gwen was immediately impressed by the refinement of the girl's speech and manner; she was slim, but there was about her a suggestion of physical strength rare in so young a girl.
"I suppose you haven't worked previously, Jean?" Gwen asked.
"No, Madam! I'm still at school, but I have permission to leave as soon as I find a job."
"And what would you expect as a wage?"
"My sister said I'd be lucky if I got more than my bed and board."
Delighted by the girl's lack of guile, Gwen laughed without malice, and gently ruffled the child's short-cropped auburn hair.
"Not so naive, please! You must set upon yourself a higher price than you're worth, and then magnanimously meet half-way the person with whom you're bargaining; how about board and lodging plus five shillings per week?"
The girl's boyish, snub-nosed face lit up joyously as she accepted Gwen's terms; she was thrilled at the thought that she had ceased to be a burden upon the meagre financial resources of her loving sister Edith who, with her husband Peter, had cared for her since her parents' death; Peter and Edith had two children of their own, so that, although they would never admit it, they would be relieved to learn that Jean was no longer wholly dependent on them.
The following Monday Jean took possession of a bedroom in the James's house, and she became, under Gwen's guidance, a sort of Jill-of-all-trades. She enjoyed the work, and was glad she'd resisted Edith's endeavors (and those of her school-mistresses) to persuade her to accept work in an office, where, they felt, her intelligence would be of greater value to her than in domestic service; Jean was convinced that a girl who approached the life domestic with a determination to exceed her duty, in order to satisfy her employer, could find therein a richness and fullness denied to the short-hand-typist and the shop-assistant; and she anticipated with particular joy the imminent addition of Arwel to her responsibilities, and she was impatient for Mrs. James to start going to her office. Jean had been allowed to devote much time and love to the care of Joyce and Tommie, Edith's and Peter's children, who had accepted her as being of an importance equal to that of their mother and father; but with Arwel she was dealing with a child in whose memories she had no share. He might resent her intrusion into his life, and she would have to approach him with infinite patience, volunteering to him only the necessities of life, but ever ready to grant any reasonable (or slightly un-reasonable) request he might do her the honor of making. She sensed his wretchedness, she divined his great love for his father, and she longed to take him in her arms and feel the pressure of his dark little head against her firm breasts.
3.
Before retiring to bed on the eve of Gwen's return to duty at Merivale's, Jean asked her mistress at what hour she wished to be roused the following morning; Gwen put down her knitting, and gently drew the girl onto the settee beside her.
"No, young lady! You may get up whenever you choose, and map out the day's work as best suits you; but there'll be no nonsense about getting up at day-break, lighting fires, and waiting hand-and-foot upon me."
As she spoke, Gwen embarrassed her young house-keeper by fondling, with overt admiration, her youthful bust; when the child opened her mouth to protest her willingness to prepare breakfast and generally help the bread-winner on her morning way, Gwen kissed her fiercely upon the lips, and Jean went up to her room, happy in the knowledge that she was at home, and puzzled by the intensity of Mrs. James's embraces and kiss.
On the morrow, Gwen came downstairs to a well-warmed dining-room whose table was set for the breakfast which her contented little slave was preparing for her.
When Gwen entered Merivale's office, he rose eagerly, and approached her with hands outstretched in greeting. "My dear," he said, " the sight of you is just what I need to lift the clouds from my troubled mind."
She raised a slim, gloved hand to his cheek: "Come now, tell Gwendoline who's been upsetting you so early in the day!"
"A ministering angel....."
He drew nearer to her, intending to plant a fatherly kiss of gratitude upon her cheek; but she, not expecting such a show of affection upon her first day back in the firm, moved her head slightly to the left, so that (as much to his surprise as to hers) their lips met; Gwen, thinking his kiss intentional, and reluctant to offend him by seeming unresponsive to his advances, raised one hand to the back of his head and the other to his shoulder, and volunteered a second kiss; encouraged beyond his hopes, he held her to him, stroking her back with his right hand, downwards, over the buttocks, until his hand was exerting pressure under her bottom, between her thighs.
She thought for a brief moment of Trevor, only a few weeks dead, and she compared him (as a lover) with Merivale and then dismissed him from her thoughts; she was surprised at her own possession, and rejoiced in the fact that Merivale had done in a few minutes what Trevor had failed to do in more than half a decade ... rouse her to awareness of her sex.
A knock on the door sent Merivale quickly back to his desk. Kenneth Goddard entered the office with the slow, polite lack of deference which was typical of him; he was in charge of the buying department, and he'd been instructed to report to the boss's office promptly at nine, to meet his new assistant. He'd deliberately waited until five minutes past nine, in order to avoid spoiling his reputation for unpunctuality.
"Good morning, Mr. Merivale!"
"Good morning, Mr. Goddard! You know Mrs. James?"
Gwen and Goddard exchanged cold greetings; she knew him quite well, and she was familiar with his reticence, but she was aware of something more than mere reserve in his greeting; Goddard was a man undemonstrative, but kindly; he rarely allowed himself to be more cordial than strict politeness demanded, but his greetings were, as Gwen knew, always sincere, so that a sensitive person usually read into his curt salutation more good-will than was conveyed by the average effusive handshake.
However, his "Good Morning, Mrs. James" was distinctly surly. Gwen didn't have long to wait for an explanation.
"Mrs. James," he said, "I'd like to make it plain that, whilst I have no personal feelings about your joining my department, it's entirely Mr. Merivale's idea that you should come to us; I shall do everything possible to render your work agreeable to you, but you have a right to know that you've taken on an out-sized task; you'll be the only woman in the department, apart from the shorthand typists....."
Merivale felt that he ought to intervene; but he was somewhat intimidated by Goddard, not merely on this occasion, but generally-speaking. "Mr. Goddard, don't you agree that we must eventually accept women into positions of authority in industry and commerce....."
"That's not quite the point, Mr. Merivale; I'm all in favor of women being allowed to rise to such positions; but ... well, I've already explained my attitude to you; Mrs. James's being the first woman, in Merivale's, to wield authority seems unfair, in view of the fact that she's been out of the business during five or six years, whilst other girls, who've been steadily gaining experience for a dozen years, are to be expected to remain in the typing-room."
Gwen realized that, whilst Merivale would not withdraw from his agreement regarding her advancement in the firm, it was absolutely necessary that Goddard should not be obliged to take her into his department, or rather that, in the event of her going into the buying department against Goddard's wishes, he should feel that she had not foisted herself upon him, but that she had been reasonably prepared to give way to his misgivings.
"Mr. Goddard." she said. "I quite see your point of view if you'd rather I went to another department....."
Merivale and Goddard both interrupted at once, but it was Merivale who gave way.
"Mrs. James," Goddard said, with more than a hint of friendliness, "Please don't think I have any objection to Mr. Merivale's suggestion; I'm thinking merely of the young men and women of my department, who are quite naturally opposed to the introduction into the hierarchy of 'buying' of an outsider ... "
"Now, let's close the discussion, shall we!" said Merivale, authoritatively; "I think we ought to be able to agree on the following terms; Mrs. James will join your department, Mr. Goddard, as an apprentice, so to say; whether or not she'll remain there will depend upon the impression she makes upon you during a trial period of, say, three months: if she convinces you of her capacities, you'll be perfectly justified in expressing your confidence in her by installing her as a permanent member of your buying staff."
Goddard wasn't satisfied with the arrangement, but he knew at what point Merivale had made up his mind definitely, and that the latter, having convinced himself that his new proposal was a compromise worthy of acceptance by all parties, would not budge an inch further; so, with complete sincerity. Goddard proffered a hand to Gwen, who, smiling charmingly, reciprocated with a delicate squeeze which Goddard found pleasant indeed.
Feeling themselves dismissed from the presence of their diplomatic employer, Gwen and Goddard left the office, she taking his arm coquettishly, and he bestowing upon her a smile which conveyed more than readiness to be at peace with her.
4.
Gwen was feeling pleased with herself as she closed her hand-bag with a snap, having just deposited therein sixteen pounds, her remuneration for her first month of agreeable labor in the interest of Merivale's.
Every day of that month had increased her awareness of how much more there was to learn about the wholesale provisions trade than she had previously thought; young men, ten years her juniors, appeared to have the business at their finger-tips, whilst she, who hoped, within a couple of months, to be placed in charge of one of the half-dozen sub-departments, had to run to Goddard for advice and information every hour of the day. Much as she feigned knowledge of the work, these young men were quick to remark upon her dependence on Goddard; she was conscious of their resentment of the fact (of which they were by no means ignorant) that, in the matter of promotion, she was to be preferred over them. She realized that neither Merivale nor Goddard would relish antagonizing nearly every member of the buying department, and that she could not hope, by her competence alone, to win Goddard's support of her ambitions or to maintain Merivale's interest in her.
Her meditations upon this subject were interrupted by Goddard's arrival in the office.
"Hello, there! Have you no home to go to, Mrs. James?"
She replied, "I have a home, yes, but today is my first pay-day since I, somewhat unwisely, exchanged the freedom of a respected employee for the soul-destroying drudgery of a house-wife; so, my dear Mr. Goddard, I'm going to celebrate; I'm going to have dinner in town, and then I'm going to a show....."
"You can't do much celebrating on your own!"
"Too true, too true! What do you advise,"
This latter remark was made, not as a question, but in a tone which was intended to convey to him the false impression that she regarded her plans for the evening as none of his bloody business.
Was Goddard too obtuse to detect a snub? or did he recognize the veiled invitation in her words?"
Mock-tragically he said, "Ah, if I were twenty years younger, I'd know what to suggest. I'd invite you to have dinner with me, to begin with....."
"Abracadabra! You're twenty years younger. I thank you for your invitation, and I'm happy to accept. Give me five minutes to make my face ... "
She had intended having dinner at the Elite, the type of restaurant for which the word 'smart' is coined; there everything shines, especially the conversation and the laughter, both of which combine loudness with the refined accent. Goddard, however, didn't consult Gwen on the subject of "where-to-eat"; and when she heard him instruct the taxi-driver to take them to the Moravia, she resisted the impulse to suggest that he ought to have asked for her opinion.
Had Goddard asked her whether or not she approved of going to the Moravia, she'd have rewarded his enquiry with no mean negative.
Gwen's only visits to the Moravia had been during her teens, when she had, on several occasions, accompanied some of her male and female colleagues at Merivale's on what they had all regarded as sightseeing visits to "that queer foreign place." At that time Gwen had been too inexperienced in gastronomical matters to appreciate the truly excellent cuisine of that eating-house; and she had been unfavorably impressed by the simplicity of that ill-lit semi-subterranean place. Goddard had learned to love the Moravia in the days when he went there because it suited his purse. In his palmier days he remained faithful to that favorite haunt of his youth, even though he didn't limit himself, as he'd been obliged to do then, to the least expensive items on the menu. At the Moravia you can eat as well and almost as expensively as at the more fashionable places, but the expensive diner gets no better service than the impecunious, broken-down client.
Goddard hoped to share with Mrs. James a meal worthy of the celebration about which she'd spoken before they left the office, but Gwen was shocked by the lack of fuss when they entered. Quietly a waiter greeted Goddard by name, and left him to help Gwen out of her coat; he returned only when Goddard beckoned him. Gwen's escort surprised her somewhat by allowing her to choose her own food; she'd expected him to order without asking for her opinion, which in fact he did for the wines.
After the fish and a bottle of Graves they were old friends, talking gaily and laughing freely.
The ox-kidneys and mushrooms were an excellent foil to the bottle of Vosne-Romanee, after the first glass of which the room wore the rose-tinted, dancing smile which the sun of France bestows upon the grape. As Goddard put down the empty bottle, having filled their glasses for the third or fourth time, Gwen handed her glass to him, and grasped his glass with an unsteady hand.
"To the Moravia!" she cried, raising his glass almost to her lips before he asked:
"Jamesie, aren't you fastidious?"
"Very!"
"And you're going to drink from the glass of a filthy old man!"
For answer, her tongue appeared saucily between her parted teeth, and licked from the rim of the glass the moist curve made by his lower lip; she placed the glass upon her own nether lip so that she felt the pressure of its edge against her gums. Drinking deeply, she turned it through three hundred and sixty degrees, wiping away all his hp-marks. Some of the wine gushed out of her mouth, down her chin; against the whiteness of her throat several tiny streams flowed downwards to disappear below the collar of her dress.
After coffee and cognac they were both in a mood for acclaiming as brilliant the third-rate artists they would see at the Empire ... After an accordion band, a baggy-trousered clown, a couple of tap-dancing girls, a comedian with a white trilby and loud-check suit, and a troupe of performing dogs, Gwen and Goddard took advantage of the interval to repair the damage done to their intoxication by an hour of hilarity. Ignoring the bell for the second half, he ordered another double-whiskey for himself and a Gin and French for her. After another drink each they left the bar. In the deserted, damp-smelling corridor, Gwen swayed against her escort, draped herself around his neck, and stuck her tongue deep into his eager mouth.
His arms tightened about her, and his teeth dug into her fleshy lips until her groans of ecstasy mingled with those of pain. Breathless, he released her, and she wriggled against him like a serpent.
"Let's go on the stage!" she said hoarsely, "We'll strip in front of everybody; Relieve me, Goddard! I must have you ... Now!"
Brutally he hissed:
"When I take you, you'll be sober, and you'll know I'm using you."
He almost dragged her back to their seats in the auditorium.
After the show, as their taxi approached her house, she perceived that Jean had not yet retired for the night.
"Tell him to drive on past the house," she requested. "I'd like to walk a bit, sober up before going in. Join me?"
At the top of the street he dismissed the taxi, and they turned into a lane; it was a time of subdued noises, birds whispering in the trees, the rustling of rabbit-infested bracken, the distant hum of motor traffic. Gwen clung to her man as they walked. They talked about Trevor, Goddard taking satisfaction in saying how disgusting her conduct was in view of her husband's death being so recent, and she protesting. Quite soberly now, that her shocking suggestion outside the bar of the theatre should be attributed to the amount of wine she'd consumed and, in great measure, to the fact that one evening with him had made her the slave of a desire which her late husband had never succeeded in rousing in her. Goddard too had regained his sobriety in the freshness of the evening, and he smiled wryly at the thought of a handsome woman of thirty declaring herself the slave of a fat, whisky-sodden brute of twice her own age.
He led her away from the lane, and into a field, where he lowered her, unresisting, onto the remnants of a hay-stack. Pulling his face to hers, she offered her parted lips to his kiss, and he spat in her mouth. She swallowed his saliva greedily, and shuddered at the coarse touch of his fingers on her clitoris; she bent her knees, opening her thighs to give him better access to her. In the bitter-cold night her skirts were in disarray around her middle, her thighs entirely exposed, and the lower part of her body proper protected only by brief flimsy panties, white, with large flowers delicately traced in black and mauve. But for Goddard she was excessively clad.
"Get all this lot off!" he commanded.
"Be reasonable, darling!" she protested, "You've already got the most interesting part of me between your fingers; leave the rest until we can arrange an indoor session, please!"
Unheeding, he pulled her coat off, and it was with great difficulty that she suppressed the urge to protest at his throwing it into the hedge-bottom. After a moment of resistance to his undoing the buttons of the bodice of her dress, she submitted to his will, lest her struggle incite him to rip her clothing from her. Unmoved by her shivering at the touch of his icy fingers on her throat and shoulders, he opened her frock down to the waist. She seized his head, and kissed his mouth with all her passion; her saliva was sweet upon his tongue, and she hoped that her tickling of his gums behind his teeth would so stir him that he would forget her clothes in his impatience to plunge his penis into her loins. Her kiss put madness into him; he bit her lower hp so ferociously that she tasted her own blood and felt a trickle of it warm on her chin; in agony she rolled over and buried her face in the musty straw, indifferent to the fact that the brittle fodder scratched her cheeks and filled her mouth. Prostrate, she felt a new rush of breathtaking cold as Goddard snatched at the skirt of her dress and lifted it until her arms impeded his movement; she raised her arms to allow her frock and underskirt to pass undamaged over her head. Turning, she clung to him, as much in search of warmth as to express her desire of him.
"Cruel!" she muttered; and his deft fingers manipulated the patent fastener of her girdle.
She lay before him, her legs stretched out straight and tightly together, her head pillowed on her hands, the position of her arms forcing her shoulders backwards so that her brassiere-covered breasts pointed proudly and firmly at the night-sky.
A tremor passed through him as he took off his over-coat. He regarded closely the delicate pattern of flowers on her panties, whose material was so fine that the blooms seemed to be sketched directly upon the pinkness of her belly, whilst the blackness of the hair around her sex-organ devoured those flowers which adorned that part of the garment.
He placed a hand behind the upper reaches of her back, and she raised her shoulders slightly, affording to his hand the freedom of movement necessary for the unfastening of the button which released her breasts from captivity; her brassiere found its way into the dung contained in a nearby hand-barrow, and Goddard peeled off her panties. Naked, she waited and longed for his next move.
His hands were everywhere, rough and cold on her soft epidermis. She thrilled to his lips on the soles of her feet, on her thighs, buttocks, arms and shoulders. Her nipples hardened as his lips and tongue fondled her breasts. He buried his nose and mouth in the hair of her loins, and his kiss upon the inner sides of her thighs rewarded him with the taste of sweat and urine; opening his mouth wide, he bit firmly into moist flesh, and she gritted her teeth to stiffle a scream; her hands, at the back of his head, pressed his face closer against her loins, until his tongue found the aperture of her vagina, plunged in and withdrew, in and out and again and again; Gwen's ecstasy sobbed, and the flow of her lubricating juices increased upon his lips.
"Give it to me. Goddie!, " she moaned, "Oh, God! come!"
In the madness of her desire she writhed and lashed with her feet; he was thrown from her, and her hands sought the fly of his trousers. Impatiently she tugged at the buttons, and soon her hand grasped his penis; her frenzy carrying them off the hay, they lay, he fully clad and she naked, in a patch of noisome mud created by the pissing of horses on soil. She pressed his sex against her thighs, eager to feel its thrust there where his tongue had already been. In the squelching mud her body settled deeper as he threw his whole weight on top of her. His first thrust inside her brought his testicles into sharp contact with the juncture of her thighs and buttocks; his brutality sent a spear of excruciating agony through her lower body, and she felt she had been torn. The scream which rose to her throat emerged as a gasp of dismay and horror.
Suddenly Goddard jumped to his feet, hurriedly re-adjusting his clothing; Gwen reached frantically towards him.
"Quick!" he whispered, "Put on your coat! Run along this hedge! I'll collect everything, and follow you!"
Only then did Gwen hear the conspiratorial whispers of the couple who were crossing the grass verge in the direction of her and Goddard's couch of love. Cold, wet with mud, sweating with frustration, she considered walking up to the intruders, unclothed as she was, and telling them to go Hell; but, instead, she flung herself into her coat and fled, whilst Goddard snatched her dress and underskirt from the hedge-bottom; he found her panties in the mud, and her girdle, shoes and stockings in a tidy pile on the straw. In a corner of the field, he held Gwen's clothes, whilst she wiped some of the mud off her body with the already sodden panties. He even wiped off some mud for her, and was rewarded with a soft passionless kiss. Tears blinded her.
He was willing to go back and search for her brassiere, but she insisted it was unimportant, that nothing was important any more.
Throwing away her panties, she smiled bravely into his eyes, and said:
"Hope you don't mind walking home with a bare-arsed girl!"
Taking a short-cut across some fields, they approached Gwen's house from behind. Downstairs there was still light in one window; Jean's zeal irritated Gwen, who knew herself to be in such a bedraggled condition as would leave even so young and innocent a girl in no doubt as to how she had spent the last hour or so. True enough, Jean was unable to disguise her shock at the sight of Mrs. James, dirty and still bleeding at her lips, and in the company of this man of most displeasing appearance.
Gwen introduced Jean and Goddard, and enquired anxiously about Arwel, suddenly guilty in her realization that, in the excitement of alcohol and the flesh, she hadn't given her child a thought.
Having explained lamely that Goddard was an old friend of her late husband, and that he'd taken her to dinner and a theatre as a means of cheering her up in her loneliness, Gwen asked Jean:
"Do you mind if I share your bed tonight, darling? Mr. Goddard is staying the night, and I doubt whether the guest-bed is sufficiently aired."
This question surprised Jean, who had supposed that, after a rough evening in some ditch or other, Gwen and Mr. Goddard would sleep together; Goddard was also surprised, and pleasantly. He'd accepted Gwen's invitation to spend the night at her house only because it was late and he disliked the idea of walking a mile to the nearest telephone box, where he would have had to wait perhaps half an hour for a taxi to arrive; he was tired, and viewed a few hours of undisturbed sleep with more joy than a night devoted to riding Gwen up and down her bed; furthermore, he was firmly of the opinion that the longer Gwen had to wait for him, the tastier she would be when he eventually had her.
Gwen, however, was congratulating herself on the apparent success of her subterfuge; as soon as Jean was asleep, she would slip along to Goddard's room ...
5.
"I feel bloody ... It's almost day-light ... who's that?"
A pale light combined with the confusion which is the no-man's-land between the certainty of sleep and the clarity of wakefulness to give the furnishings of the room an air of unreality; it was some time before Gwen recognized the room and its other occupant ... Jean, standing a few feet away from the bed, young and slim, wearing only a white vest and short-legged bloomers of the same color. As the girl wriggled her way into an underskirt, Gwen realized what was the missing thing which had troubled the first minute of her awakening; it was Goddard: he and she had fallen asleep in separate rooms, without his giving her what she'd intended having from him before either of them surrendered to slumber. Quickly she closed her eyes, feigning sleep until Jean should be out of the room; and as she heard the girl descending to the ground-floor, she rose from her unhappy couch and ran, bare-foot and clad only in her nightie, to Goddard's room, which she entered silently. In the darkness, she plucked at the shoulder-straps of her gown, and the silk sheath slid over her breasts and hips to form an irregular oval around her feet; her hands fluttered over her body in joyous anticipation of the caresses which Goddard would bestow upon her in a few minutes.
In the bed, she stretched out her arms eagerly; her moment had arrived.
She was alone. Her hand flew to the fight switch, and her eyes confirmed the disappointment which her fevered hands had announced.
She hurried to the bathroom, and within five minutes she was downstairs where, in the sitting-room, she found her guest fully dressed, fresh and seemingly content with his world. She flung herself on him, drawing him close, pleading:
"Upstairs! Quick! It hurts ... here ... agony!"
She pressed his hand into her aching loins at the very moment when Jean entered; the child saw, and withdrew hastily to the kitchen, where Gwen followed her and found her in tears.
"Darling, I'm sorry," said Gwen." Don't cry!"
Jean placed her arms around Gwen's waist, pressing her head into the luxury of the older woman's breasts, sobbing bitterly until Gwen raised the young head and kissed the tears. Jean's hand strayed to the part of Gwen's body which ached.
"You're good," said the girl, "It makes me sad to see you suffer."
6.
Up in his room, Arwel heard the piano-music which rose from the sitting-room. His legs couldn't carry him downstairs quickly enough. Breathless he clung to the frame of the sitting-room door, and with a sob flung his head down onto his chest. Jean ran to him, rejoicing in his obvious need of her.
"Thought it was Trevor," he whispered, "He played piano ... beautiful! You too! Play again, please!"
It was his first non-essential demand upon her, and her heart sang. She held him tight, and kissed him fervently on the mouth.
Turning away from her in momentary disgust, he begged:
"Play Chopin!" He ran his fingers shyly along her bare arm from her wrist to the hem of the short sleeve of her blouse. She shuddered, and told herself that, if a man were to do that to her, he'd obtain complete power over her.
She played a valse by Chopin, and was thrilled by the joy which creased his lips and eyes into a smile of happy recognition.
"Fine, fine, fine ... ! " he exclaimed.
"Arwel," she asked, "How soon would you like me to start giving you piano lessons?"
"Ay, that's it! Piano lessons! If I learn when I'm young, I'll play really well when I'm a man: that's what Dad told me, you know."
He was so excited that he forgot her actual question, and he ran from the room, talking to himself.
"There's a lad who loved his Dad," she said to herself.
7.
Goddard knocked on Merivale's door, and walked in without waiting for an answer.
He handed a letter to his employer.
"I expected this, Mr. Merivale. Simpsons informing us that the Railway Company accept only fifty per cent responsibility for the damage to that consignment of bottled fruits ... "
"Yes, damned bad show! And Simpsons expect us to accept the remainder of the responsibility; was this stuff so badly packed, Mr. Goddard? Wait! This isn't your pigeon surely? What does Booth say about it?"
Goddard disliked being asked what someone else thought about a thing like that.
"He's had this letter, but, before paying Simpsons' claim, he wants to know whether we can't 'pass the buck' to the people from whom we bought the stuff."
"Damn it, man! We can't do that. The goods arrived here in pretty good condition. There, I should think, Noguero's responsibility ends."
"Technically, yes; but we purchased from Noguero at a price which entitles us to first-class packing."
"Agreed! But, if the merchandise traveled from Noguero's warehouse in Lisbon to us here, with almost negligible loss due to breaking, the packing must have been adequate; so we shall write to the goods department of the Railway Company here, and ask them to certify that the goods were so packed as to relieve us of responsibility for damage."
"It's a waste of time, Mr. Merivale. Booth tells me that Sales department were informed by the Railway people that the packing was below the accepted standard; and it was, too."
"I tell you the packing was satisfactory; we've already discussed this subject, Mr. Goddard, and I don't want you adopting this attitude of superiority in these matters. I repeat that crates which prove equal to the sea-journey Lisbon to London are good enough for a fifty mile train journey!"
Goddard didn't much care whose responsibility this sizeable loss was; but he was in the mood for an argument; in particular, he was in the "I told you so" frame of mind. He had come to Merivale's office with the intention of making his employer "eat his words" of a few weeks previously.
On the previous occasion when Merivale and Goddard had discussed this consignment of bottled fruits from Noguero & Figlia, Lisboa, Goddard had advised the re-packing of the goods before their resale; Merivale had insisted that re-packing would be an unnecessary expense, and he had ordered Goddard to hand them over to Sales department in the condition in which they had been received, except that the contents of one crate should be used for replacing odd bottles which were broken in other crates.
Circumstances appeared to be vindicating the attitude which Goddard had originally adopted. Merivale appreciated this fact, and he was nettled by it. He was too small a character to admit his mistake, to be thankful that the Railway Company had agreed to pay for half the breakage, and to meet promptly the other half of his client's claim.
Goddard said, "Mr. Merivale, Simpsons are very good customers; they've made a claim upon us for half the loss on this particular consignment of fruit; they are entitled to an immediate settlement of their claim. We have always found the Railway Company most co-operative in all things, they've agreed to pay half Simpson's claim, although they'd have been fully justified in rejecting the claim outright ... "
"How many times must ... "
"Now, now! No temper!"
"Look here, do you know ... "
"Everything! I know everything. I know that we've no right whatsoever to repudiate the Railway's contention that these goods were flimsily packed, and that such a repudiation will avail us nothing. You gambled, and you lost. The fact that the goods reached us in good condition is a matter of chance ... almost a miracle, considering the low quality of the match-box crates in which they traveled. I said then, and I've been proved right, that we should have gone to the expense either of re-crating the stuff or of strengthening the cases."
Even as he spoke, Goddard knew he was going too far, but he was unable to still his tongue in the face of his employer's obstinate refusal to admit openly his error.
Merivale was furious. His anger was of the type which corrupts; it was un-righteous anger.
"Mr. Goddard," he burst out, "I dislike your manner; I expect a man to recognize his faulty judgment as such, and not to persist in lecturing me merely because I refuse to give way to him when right is on my side."
Mr. Merivale was a lay-preacher of the Methodist chapel, and he had a tendency to address individuals in ordinary conversation as though they were a whole congregation of sheep who had gone astray.
He continued: "I have no room in my organization for a man who denies me the respect to which I am entitled as head of the firm. I'm waiting for your apology, Mr. Goddard."
Goddard turned, and walked to the door, casting over his shoulder the remark: "You'll wait the hell of a long time."
He stopped at the door, his hand on the handle, hearing Merivale splutter, "I will not tolerate foul language in my office. Mr. Goddard, I give you formal notice, one week, of your dismissal from my service."
8.
Goddard viewed his dismissal from Merivale's with mixed feelings, in which regret was predominant. He liked his work, the wielding of a benevolent authority, the making of decisions involving large sums of money and tremendous quantities of goods; he found pleasure in working with his colleagues, whom he regarded as "good lads and lasses," in spite of their respective faults which he was as quick to observe as he was to admit his own shortcomings; he would miss these people, with whom he had almost no social contact. He liked them, generally speaking, but he hadn't the slightest desire to associate with them (except with Gwen) outside the office; and he knew that, when he left
Merivale's, he would lose all contact with them, beyond a nod of the head and a word of greeting on the very rare occasion when he might encounter one of them on the street.
From the financial point of view, Goddard's dismissal from Merivale's was not a heavy blow; his modest capital, his reliable investments and the little property he owned were his guarantee of a regular and adequate income. Nevertheless, he disliked the idea of being obliged to rely upon those sources of income for the necessities of life; his salary at Merivale's had always taken care of essentials, leaving his other income free for the satisfaction of his more extravagant whims.
"Ah, Goddard," he said to himself, as he regained his office, "You're not an old man yet; elderly? Yes! but still capable of work, of work which is remunerative as well as pleasant on its own account."
He was not the type of man to say, at sixty, "I'll retire, take things easy for the closing decade of my fife, travel a little ... "
He had the physical and mental activity of a man half his age; He possessed a surfeit of energy, which he had to utilize at a certain rate. His work at Merivale's had kept his wheels turning at the required speed; he'd have to find another position equally demanding of his mental and physical resources; but it wouldn't be easy. He fully realized that.
Goddard, sitting in his own private office, became increasingly conscious of the need to tell Gwen about the change in his situation; a couple of months had elapsed since the night he had spent under her roof. During that time, Gwen had frequently hinted that she was eager for another similar and more complete experience; but he had shown no enthusiasm for her idea.
On two occasions she had openly requested him to take her somewhere for an evening, adding on each occasion that, whatever arrangements he chose to make, she was at his entire disposal, for the night as well as for the evening. Each time he had given her a plausible reason for his rejecting her suggestion.
Whenever Gwen could find an excuse for going into his office when she knew him to be alone, she greeted him with the type of kiss designed to break down his reserves. Although he was unable to restrain himself from responding by pressing her to him, fondling her and almost biting the flesh off her face, she failed to drive him beyond that.
He advised her not to enter his office so frequently, in case their colleagues should notice and gossip. Her tendency, when they were alone in the privacy of his office, to flaunt her body met with his severe stricture, but she laughed at his fears.
She had the habit of sitting on his desk, hitching her skirts up, so that her legs were exposed in their entirety, and making mock of his fears that someone (his secretary or even Merivale) might enter without giving sufficient notice for her to adopt a proper pose.
He went, one day, as far as to threaten to advise Merivale to dispense with her services, when his secretary did actually enter the office, after the lightest of taps on the door and the briefest of pauses outside, to see Gwen, her foot on a chair, her skirts bunched about her thighs, pretending to make some adjustment to her suspenders.
"Gwen, Gwen, Gwen!" he said, "that girl has obtained just the impression that no one in the outer office ought to have. The typists and most of the buyers and clerks are already convinced that you're destined to promotion to which you're not entitled and for which they've been working for years, whilst you've spent five years completely divorced from commerce. Merivale admits, to you and to me, that he hopes to be able to promote you, even over the heads of men who know this business from A to X; and now my secretary is sure to think you're my mistress, and that any advancement you get in this firm will be my payment to you for the use of your body. I shan't advocate your promotion after this; in fact, if what that girl reports to her friends out there increases the present discontent in the department, I shall revert to my original stand on this question: I shall advise Merivale to dismiss you."
Goddard's resistance to Gwen's efforts at his seduction was by no means due to any lack of desire of her; rather the reverse. It was merely that she placed herself too brazenly at his command, so that he was aware that she was fruit which he, the farmer, could pluck whenever he felt so inclined. He was tremendously sure of himself, feeling that the longer he made her wait for him, the more abjectly she would answer his most cruel and most humiliating demands upon her. He intended to keep her in a state of frustration until he was ready to submit her to every disgusting indignity which his vivid imagination was capable of conceiving.
His impending departure from Merivale's interfered, to some extent, with his plans for her; his uncertainty about what he would do and where he would go, after leaving Merivale's, moved him to the decision to make the best possible use of Gwen during his last week there.
He lifted the internal phone, and dialed "two-nine."
"Mrs. James, will you come in, please, with the file on Dawson Brothers."
When Gwen entered, dutifully carrying the aforementioned file, in which Goddard wasn't even vaguely interested, she asked, "Since when has Gwen reverted to Mrs. James?"
"Well, you know, on the blower ... "
"You're still angry with me, I know, about that ... "
As she spoke, she handed him the dossier on Dawsons.
"No, my dear, I'm not angry about your suspenders, Purely personally, I never was, only in my official capacity as head of the purchasing department of Merivale's. But, as my days are numbered ... I've got the sack."
"Goddie, you're joking!"
She knew he was serious; her exclamation had been automatic, words without thought. Her thoughts were concentrated on the possible reasons for his dismissal, and she had the feeling that she was involved. Goddard and Merivale had had a quarrel about her and her proposed promotion; or else Merivale had heard something about her and Goddard, had decided that one of them must go, and had decided that she could be of more agreeable use to him than Goddard. Or-was it possible?-perhaps she too was dismissed, and Goddard was breaking it to her lightly.
She embraced him, tears on the verge of flooding her eyes.
"Darling, is it my fault, I mean is it ... ? "
"No, no! We, the boss and I, didn't see eye-to-eye about the Noguero-Simpson affair, each of us blamed the other, he got mad and I got madder and he topped things off by sacking me, because I refused to apologize to him and to admit that I was in the wrong, when it's quite obvious that I ain't."
"What will you do?" she asked complacently, relieved to know that her position was still secure.
"I was thinking you and I might go out this evening, and celebrate the termination of my long and faithful service ... "
He was at the pinnacle of his power, observing her reaction to his suggestion. He felt her fingers digging savagely into his shoulders; he noticed the dilation of her nostrils, the trembling of her nether hp, her quivering tongue, the tension of her neck-muscles as her open mouth, in her upturned face, yearned for his kiss.
Instead of kissing her, he seized her by the shoulders, and spun her round, exerting a downward pressure upon her shoulders, until she lost balance, and found herself sprawling across his desk, face downwards. Feeling his hands at the hem of her skirt behind her, she surmised that he intended to take her there and then, and it was her turn to fear that someone might come in and witness some strange goings-on. Her fears were increased by his lifting her skirt and flicking it over her buttocks; his hand stroked her thighs, and his fingers, between her thighs, began to explore inside vily as she wriggled towards the fingers which toyed with her clitoris. Suddenly she dismissed from her mind all thought of any one entering, and finding them in this compromising position. He was going to take her ... at last; he would be on her and in her within a minute; and when he'd had her once, he'd want her again, and whenever he wanted her, he'd have her.
His hand left her loins, and she knew that the moment had arrived. He was satisfied that she was warm enough and moist enough, and he was using his two hands to liberate his penis, before ripping off her panties.
A drop of blood fell onto the Dawson file, from her Up. She had bitten hard into her lip to stifle a scream of agony; she had felt his hands at her panties, and she had heard the music of tearing material, and her butt was bare. She'd waited for his weight upon her back; instead, she had received a blow to the buttocks which had wracked her whole body, stinging not only that part of her which had received the blow, but every inch of her. Unable to realize what had happened, unable to turn, she had remained stomach-downwards on the desk, feeling all the pain creep to one part of her, her naked bottom.
Once again he had denied her that which he'd seemed to promise; she'd never felt lower in her life, and she wondered why he hated her so.
Rough hands turned her and raised her to a standing position.
Slightly dazed, she saw him, smiling wryly, holding lovingly in his hand a foot-rule, of the wooden type, about an inch and a half broad, and very thin and pliable.
Painfully aware of her smarting butt, she took from him the instrument with which he'd inflicted the delightful agony upon her, kissed it, gave it back to him, and resumed her former lying position across his desk, re-presenting her posterior for flagellation.
"You must go now," he said, coldly and distantly. "It's almost time for lunch. This evening, we'll have dinner together, and see a show ... "
Whilst he was speaking, she raised herself from her undignified lying position, and quickly reintroduced some order into her clothing, before interrupting him with an eager, "And afterwards?"
"Whatever you decide."
"What I decide is that, after the theater, we shall go to my house, and, without the pretence of respectability, which robbed me of you the other time, I shall tell Jean that you've come home to share my bed with me, to ride me and then sleep with me; and if Jean doesn't like it, she may go to the devil!"
Taking a firm grip on her shoulders, he began propelling her towards the door.
"To make sure Jean raises no objections," he said, "We'll take her with us, into your room, and when I've reduced you to a quivering, satisfied her to the same treatment."
Gwen's eye-brows knit with horror, and she opened her mouth to speak; her lips curled outwards revealing her teeth like those of an outraged bitch. Before she could articulate her protest at his proposition, he deftly opened the door, and pushed her out of the room.
9.
Goddard's leaving the firm was a nuisance, of course; He was a good man for his job, and there was no one of his capability to replace him, so that Merivale disconsolately foresaw months during which he himself would be constantly obliged to stand at the back of Goddard's successor, advising and admonishing him.
Absorbed in his angry thoughts, Leonard Merivale reached the front door of his house, determined not to enjoy his lunch and to have indigestion afterwards.
The sight of a small suit-case in the hall reminded him of something which had been driven from his mind by the events and the thoughts of the morning, namely that Eileen would be catching the two o'clock train for Tadliham, where her sister Dulcie was approximately in the middle of the ninth months of her third pregnancy in four years.
Dulcie had grown accustomed to having her older sister dancing attendance upon her during the fortnight preceding and the fortnight following the birth of her children.
Eileen had not only got used to performing this well-nigh annual service for Dulcie. She also delighted in it, welcoming the opportunity to spend a month in the country, with her beloved sister and her charming village-school-teacher of a husband, and out of contact with her own husband, with whom life was a frightful bore.
Everything Eileen was she was dutifully, She had every reason for believing that Leonard wouldn't object to her going off for an occasional week with Dulcie, with one of their many cousins or with one of her friends; but it was her wifely duty to stay with her husband, looking after him, giving him companionship, although she knew he didn't seek it of her-helping him with his personal and business problems. So she never spent a night under any roof other than his, unless some duty required it of her; that was why she hoped Charles and Dulcie would retain their convenient fertility for many more years. Since Dulcie was never ill, had never been ill since the usual measles of infancy, her babies were Eileen's only dutiful excuse for spending an occasional month away from Leonard.
Leonard, for his part, had no material reason for deploring his wife's visits to Tadliham. The house was run in her absence with not one jot less of smoothness than when she was in nominal control thereof; indeed, when Eileen was away, the house was run with greater regard for his needs and wishes than when her excessively orderly hand held the reins. Leonard was the servant of Eileen's house, except when she was away; then the house fulfilled its correct function; it became an instrument for his comfort and physical well-being.
Eileen, who had Leonard well and truly under the heel of her slippers, allowed no smoking in the dining-room or the salon, except when there were visitors: one must consider the comfort and habits of visitors even whilst ignoring those of the house's rightful owner-he who earns the wherewithal to maintain the house and entertain guests.
This same Eileen ordered meals for a specific hour, and expressed her disgust at Leonard's rare lapses into unpunctuality by eating at the fixed time, scolding him when be eventually arrived, and leaving him to make the best of cold food, stewed tea, etc.
She controlled his sittings-down and his risings-up, since he had (so she said) the ruffian habit of subjecting furniture to unnecessary wear-and-tear by dropping heavily onto the springs of upholstered pieces and by hacking lumps out of woodwork with the shoes which aggravated (so she said) the clumsiness of his otherwise loutish feet.
What a relief, therefore, for poor Leonard, when his wife reluctantly deserted him for a few weeks, at the call of her sisterly duty!
Leonard contended that Eileen's excessive house-pride, her domineering ways-and her exaggerated orderliness were the effects of her working-class upbringing, and that, had she had the advantage of the education peculiar to the upper middle-classes (of which he claimed to be a member), she might have been quite a reasonable and bearable woman. "But, of course, it's not entirely a question of education," he would add, "our superiority is also in the blood."
The sight of Eileen's suitcase in the hall served to remind Leonard that one of his bachelor months was about to begin; the thought wiped sixty per cent of the frown from his brow, so that he entered the dining-room apparently no more morose than he usually was ...
This particular absence of his spouse was important to Merivale, since he had a project in mind which could be carried out successfully only when his jealous and suspicious Eileen was too far from home to control his comings and goings.
The first move in his plan took the form of a call to Mrs. James, on the internal telephone, just before half-past-five, the hour at which work ceased in the Merivale offices and warehouses.
"Come to my office for a moment before you knock off, will you, Mrs. James? Shan't detain you long."
Soto voce she cursed him; having agreed to spend the evening with Goddard, she was anxious to get away promptly at half-past-five, so that she could brighten herself up at home, see Arwel before he went to bed, and still join Goddard at the Moravia restaurant at seven o'clock.
Nevertheless, eager to please Merivale, who held her fate in his hands, she combed her hair and patched up her make-up, and made her way to his office, where she arrived just as Merivale's secretary was hurrying away by another door. Merivale rose to greet her with: "Come in, my dear! We haven't seen much of each other lately."
He took her hands in his, and she replied: "That's what's been worrying me for some time."
"Well, we'll set about changing things. My liberty is normally very restricted; my wife keeps a very keen eye on me, but she's away now for a few weeks, so I'm a little freer."
He drew her to him, and kissed her fervently. She sighed, and slipped out of his arms and into an armchair, pulling him gently on top of her; the wide-mouthed kiss she bestowed upon his mouth intoxicated the giver even more than the receiver, so that she wriggled and squirmed until he was forced onto the arm of the chair. She slithered downwards onto the rug, and, as he toppled heavily and awkwardly into the chair, she turned round, and raised one of her feet to each arm of the chair, causing her skirts to cascade about her hips; Merivale found himself sitting between her feet, looking downwards along the long columns of her legs which lost their silkiness and beigeness to the smoothness and rosy whiteness of flesh which, in its turn, lost itself in the black glossiness of her underwear.
Raising his right foot, encased in its slender,, shiny shoe, he placed it high between her thighs, the leather sole exerting pressure in the region of her silk-covered copulative organ. Raising herself to a sitting position, she gripped his leg behind the knee, and pulled him out of the chair; the increased pressure of his shoe on her genitals excited her and pained her; she jerked her loins sideways, and threw him off balance; she uttered a cry of agony as the hard leather of the shoe's sole bit into her flesh, making a six-inch weal where dirt discolored blood. Merivale kneeled beside her, and smartly slapped the wound with the palm of his hand before excitedly taking off her panties.
Merivale was but the second man to avail himself of the ultimate delight of Gwen's body. Goddard had amused himself and her by exposing to his hands and eyes the private parts of her, but he'd never achieved the sexual act with her. In that, Leonard Merivale had stolen a march on him. Whilst Goddard was bathing and dressing for his rendezvous with Gwen, she and Merivale were feasting upon one another's flesh.
Afterwards they sprawled before the fire in the office, satisfied with the fusion of their passions which had reached a glorious climax a few minutes previously. They were both limp, in a state of body and mind bordering on coma.
When she eventually collected her senses, she went into the lavatory, where she urinated, washed and titivated herself against her meeting with Goddard. She was pleased with herself. She had really thrilled to Merivale's handling of her, and she was flattered at his having obviously derived great pleasure from her. Quite apart from her carnal satisfaction, she had the joy of believing that her bright future in her lover's firm was now assured; and within a few hours, she'd be in bed with Goddard, giving and taking what she and Merivale had just shared.
On her return to the office, Merivale greeted her with:
"You look as good as new; but we'll have dinner before I start on you again."
"But, Leonard, I'm not free this evening."
"Up to now you've been very free," he replied nastily and added, jabbing his fist into the lower regions of her body, "I've had some tarts in my time, but never one quite so greedy for it. That's how I like 'em ... easy. Break your appointment for this evening! The next month belongs to me; I knew from the first I only had to raise my finger to get you, but I've waited until my wife was away, so that when I did have you, I'd really have you."
She didn't want to break her appointment with Goddard; true, he was no longer of any professional value to her, but she'd developed a lust after him which not even Merivale's highly satisfactory loving could diminish; Merivale had, however, the advantage, in that both her reason and her passion drew her to him; and he turned a deaf ear to her story about school-day friends on a brief visit to town. His unreasonableness was not dictated wholly by his desire to have another session of carnal misconduct with her that same evening, but partly by his determination to demonstrate to her the abjectness of her subjection to him.
Finally she kissed Merivale sensuously and whispered:
"All right, darling! I'll ring my friends; but promise that after we've dined and danced, you'll take me home and be very brutal to me!"
He drew deeply on his cigarette, and blew a cloud of smoke squarely in her face.
She went to her own office to phone, having made the excuse that her childhood friend's telephone number was in her diary, which she'd left on her desk.
Gwen had made the mistake with Merivale which she'd previously made with Goddard. She'd been simultaneously too anxious to please the man, for professional reasons, and too eager to gratify the lusts of her own flesh. In each case, she'd invited her man to humiliate and dominate her, to take her for granted; she had forfeited her bargaining powers before negotiations had begun.
Waiting for Gwen, Merivale pondered the ease with which she'd fallen to him. From the moment of his first suggesting her return to his firm he'd entertained the idea of her serving his animal passions, and he'd suspected she would be amenable to his tacit and subtle proposals for the exchange of her body against certain privileges regarding her status and salary. What puzzled him was that, instead of letting herself be seduced and then demanding her reward, she had taken delight in seducing him in such a way as to deprive her of all rights of claim on him. Merivale was, however, decided that Gwen should have the reward she sought. It would be most convenient, when Eileen's being at home curtailed his freedom during out-of-office hours, to have on hand an attractive and passionate woman, indebted to him and obliged to put her body at his disposal in circumstances which a free mistress would regard as unsatisfactory; he could summon her frequently to his office just at half-past-five in the evening, without rousing anybody's suspicions, have his pleasure of her, and still be at home scarcely later than usual. Even during office hours, he could make her accompany him on inspections of the stock-rooms, where he could submit her to the humility of stripping and prostrating herself on a pile of filthy sacks or in the rancid grease which covered permanently the door of the fine-oils warehouse.
When she returned to his office, having asked the waiter at the Moravia to inform Goddard, on his arrival, that her son was indisposed and required her presence at home, Merival said:
"Your bare-arsed performance on the rug warrants some reward. From next Monday you'll be second-in-charge of cereals."
"So he knows," she thought, "that it's not exclusively my own lust that gave me to him." And she replied:
"Not a very polite way of putting it!"
"Had your thighs parted with less ease, I might have respected you; as it is, you're a delicious ride, and if you like to go on as you've begun, I shall keep my side of the bargain. But you're entitled to no chivalry."
In reply to her request to be allowed to go home and see her son before dinner, he said:
"Makes it too late; we shall have to go out to Leechester for dinner ... a good hour in the car, and I'm hungry ... and you need a good dinner if you're going to give an exciting performance tonight."
"Where will the performance be?"
"Your place. Can't trust my servants. If you can't trust that girl of yours, get rid of her!"
"Can't you get rid of your servants?"
"I could more easily get rid of you."
"I shan't be difficult to get chucked off, Leonard. Whatever my reasons for initially wanting to be your mistress, I'm now in this thing only for my pleasure and yours. When my meat's no longer to your taste, I'll move right out of your private life."
"You'll be thrown out of my private and professional life when I've finished with you."
An excellent dinner, at Maynor's restaurant, on the outskirts of Leechester, was spoiled by the fact that there was no hint of friendship between Gwen and the first lover of her life. The meal was a mere stoking of the fires preceding a night of scorching debauch; Gwen tried to converse about this and that, but Merivale's rudeness discouraged her. He drank copiously to relieve the boredom of spending a sexless hour with a woman he despised; and she followed his example in the hope of washing from the palate of her soul the unpleasant taste left by his humiliation of her. He made obscene remarks to her in the presence of the waiter, who, after a while, began to look at Gwen in such a way as to suggest that it would be his turn when her escort had finished with her; when they eventually left, the waiter bestowed a broad wink upon Gwen, behind Merivale's back, and she was unable to resist the temptation to smile her promise that she would return unescorted.
10.
Jean went to bed immediately after her introduction to Mr. Merivale.
On the morrow, she entered Gwen's room, and surmised that the bed had been occupied by two people who hadn't slept soundly throughout the night. The bed in the guest-room was exactly as it had been the previous evening, when on her way to bed, she'd entered the room to satisfy herself that everything was as it should be. Jean felt that Gwen's neglect to disturb the guest-bed symbolized the latter's intention to acquaint her with the true situation; Gwen was expressing confidence in her, treating her as an adult. Jean rejoiced in her new status and in the certainty that Gwen's new friend had done to Gwen what Goddard had cruelly failed to do.
Jean wondered about this thing which Merivale had done to Gwen in the night; and she told herself that this kind of love must be very agreeable, otherwise people wouldn't be so eager to get their share of it. She knew it was a physical thing ... kissing, caressing, flesh exposed to hungry hands and eyes; and she wondered how old one had to be before this thing acquired the power to delight. She trembled deliciously as she recalled one or two newspaper reports she'd read concerning girls of her own age who had indulged in sexual intercourse; She was curious to know whether she would derive pleasure from lying down with a boy.
Her reverie was disturbed by Arwel's coming into breakfast, brimful of embarrassing questions about the man who'd spent the night under their roof.
11.
Goddard hadn't believed the story about Gwen's son being ill, even before he heard his young colleagues discussing her promotion the following day. He'd suspected Merivale all along of having carnal designs on the young widow, and the news, originating from Merivale's secretary, of Mrs. Merivale's absence from her home, added to the announcement of Gwen's promotion, seemed to suggest that Goddard had been let down the previous evening in favor of one whom Gwen viewed as more useful to her professionally. Physically, however, Goddard still believed himself to be more than the equal of Merivale; and he was determined that Gwen should have, as soon as possible, an opportunity of convincing herself of that fact. He was bitter at her betrayal of him, and thought that if he could but have the bitch once, the pain in his heart and in his testicles would be assuaged.
He called her to his office, and, the moment she entered, he seized her and kissed her ardently. She responded with her usual fervour, writhing and trembling in his arms as though her desires of the flesh had long been frustrated.
"This evening!" he said peremptorily.
Reason told her to break with Goddard without delay, to concentrate on Merivale. But she wanted Goddard desperately; she wanted to have him often, dividing herself between the two. Failing that, she had to have him once; it was her right, it had been promised and withheld for so long.
She kissed him savagely, and felt that she was setting him on fire.
"Lock the door!" she begged, and he obeyed, hoping his secretary would put the truthful interpretation upon this unusual turning of keys, which, in fact she did; her entire frustrated body was pressed against the locked door during the most exciting fifteen minutes of her life. She heard enough in snatches of conversation, grunts, sighs and stifled squeals of agony and ecstasy to convince her that Mrs. James was a very lucky woman. She admired them both, and longed for the occasion to let them know that she'd her her part in their erotic orgy, and that it was as one participating in a holy ritual that she'd listened to their labored breathing and exclamations of joy.
Gwen never had Goddard again, although even after he'd left Merivales she didn't give up hope, and called upon him several times at his home, where she offered to become his abject slave if he would have her again; he merely abused her, threatened to inform Merivale of her misconduct with him in the office, taunted her with the promise that, if he ever found himself in need of money, he'd satisfy her sexual urge for a few pounds.
Her final visit, after eleven o'clock one evening, coincided with Goddard's return home; Gwen was astounded to recognize the girl who entered his apartment with him as Maureen Garside, who worked at Merivale's, and had been Goddard's secretary for some months immediately prior to his leaving.
"So that," thought Gwen, "is why he doesn't need me any more."
The following morning, at the office, Maureen volunteered an explanation of her late-night visit to Goddard's bachelor-rooms.
"I just don't want you to think," she said, "that I stepped in between you and Kenneth; I had nothing to do with him until you and he had broken off ... "
"Broken off?" asked Gwen, feigning surprise.
"I was in my office the day you went through to him; I heard everything, and I admired you both for taking what you wanted ... and to Hell with the consequences!"
". .And how did you come to take my place?"
"Well, when he left, I didn't know whether you and he were ... well, going together steady, so, when I found some things in his drawer ... papers and a cigarette-lighter ... I took them round to his house; I said I'd brought the things myself because I didn't know how often you and he met; I'd forgotten he didn't know I knew about you and him. And it was then he told me that it had been just that once, and that it was finished. Then he asked me if I hadn't been shocked at what I heard, and I said I hadn't; so he told me to take my clothes off; I don't suppose I'd been in the house five minutes when I let my brassiere fall to the floor, and he tore my panties off. He knotted my stockings together, and whipped me. It was wonderful; I stayed all night, and then he wouldn't see me again for a whole week; I was frantic, and went round every day to see him, but he used to come to the window and send me away. Then yesterday, he let me in, did all sorts of things with me; when you saw us, we'd been for a drink. This morning he said that, if I pestered him again before he sent for me, it would be all over between us."
12.
Gwen's evenings with Merivale left Jean and Arwel much to their own devices. These hours were devoted in the main to the playing of the piano, Jean having undertaken to teach her young friend to play the instruments which had been Trevor's great joy. It quickly became evident to Jean that Arwel, a boy of six years only, had a remarkable ear; he could hum, inaccurately, but recognizably, snatches of Chopin, Bach, Beethoven, John Field and even Bartok, which he heard Trevor play many months previously. After a program of opera to which they had listened together, through the medium of the radio, Arwel would surprise Jean by singing, in his queer squeak of a voice, the most dramatic arias from Puccini's "Tosca," Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana," Verdi's "Don Carlos" and Massenet's "Manon," with the fantastic words which spring into the head of a child who has conquered a melody whose text is too complicated for him.
Jean realized that Arwel hands were too small and insufficiently developed to enable him to encompass the serious works which he was eager to perform, but he was patient, remembering that Trevor had said to him, "When you're a little older, I shall teach you to play the piano, but many years will elapse before you'll be able to play the pieces which I play for you now. In the beginning you'll concentrate upon scales and very simple little melodies."
Gwen was astonished at the progress Arwel made in his pianistic studies, and her admiration enveloped as much the teacher as the pupil. "It is truly amazing," she told herself, "that a girl of fifteen years should be able, in so short a time, to make a pianist-however uncertain and inaccurate-of a child of five years."
It was to Gwen a source of great joy to realize that her son had within him that which might give him greatness in the world of the arts. She had little talent for, and inclination towards, any of the arts, but she determined that her son should not lack the opportunity of achieving whatever eminence as an artist his natural talent merited; Jean would give him his elementary musical education, and later he would go to a professional professor of the pianoforte.
"Jean is literally worth her weight in gold."
Arwel had an insatiable appetite for the piano. When he was fatigued by a long period of instruction and practice, he listened to Jean's performance of parts of her steadily increasing repertoire, a repertoire whose increase was due to the masses of sheet-music collected by Trevor and placed at Jean's disposal by Gwen. Much of this music was not only unfamiliar to Jean, but even bizarre; she was on terms of some familiarity with the classical and romantic composers, but Schonberg, Poulenc and Milhaud caused her some puckering of her brows, and, playing their works, she had to rely upon Arwel to assure her that she was not playing the wrong notes, but that the great virtue of those composers was their daring use of unconventional harmonies.
The only thing which rivaled the piano, in Arwel's sphere of interests, was sketching. He and she took turns to draw something which the other had to identify in the shortest possible time; Jean usually won the identifying game, not so much because her intelligence was sharper, but rather because her talent as a sketcher was vastly inferior to his; Jean's cows resembled four-eared dogs; if she aimed to represent a female child, the result bore a strong resemblance to a wind-blown scarecrow. Arwel, on the other hand, had an uncanny knack of suggesting what was in his mind by a few economical strokes of his pencil; whilst, when he felt inclined to dwell upon a subject, he could produce sketches which testified to an exceptionally observant mind. On one occasion he made a sketch of a young lady riding a bicycle, frantically endeavoring to hold down her skirts with which the wind was playing pranks; it seemed to Jean that he had captured with amazing fidelity the embarrassed facial expression and the anxious manual maneuvers of a modest girl who fears that she may be exposing to the passing males more of her nether limbs than propriety permits. It often happened that Jean cycled to and from the shops, when she did the shopping for the James household, and she'd often had trouble with her skirts and a playful breeze, frequently so much that it was impossible to maintain permanent control of the skirts, and she was obliged to give them their freedom, except when she observed a man approaching, when she'd at least give the impression that she was doing everything possible to control the ill-mannered garment. But how often she had ridden past groups of children of Arwel's age and older, her skirts flying wantonly in the breeze, she telling herself that it was hardly worth while risking an accident in order to prevent little boys and girls from seeing what meant nothing to them anyway. "Oh dear!" she exclaimed within herself, as she saw Arwel's drawing, "If all little boys are as mature as this one, what a lot of shocks and pleasure I must have distributed amongst the male infants of Brooksfield!"
The thought of Arwel's precocity had set Jean wondering how long it was going to be before he grasped the meaning of the nocturnal visits paved to his mother. Already he had asked her questions, and she had managed to avoid giving him an answer, but she was reluctant to create between him and herself a barrier of lies and half-truths. One day he would know the truth, and then he would resent her having deceived him. He would also resent Gwen's deception of him, but that was Gwen's affair.
After a few weeks Merivale ceased to come to the house, his wife having returned from her nursing visit to Tadliham; and for a time Gwen went out but little in the evenings. Gwen's spending her evenings with Arwel was a source of joy to Jean, who realized her little sweetheart's need of his mother, a need which she, loving him, but not being of his blood, could not fill. Her joy was, however, mingled with a certain regret, occasioned by the dilution of the intimacy of her evenings with Arwel, their hours of music and sketching, of listening to the radio, especially the thrilling operas, whose arias they were getting to know so well that, often having no idea of the real text, they could sing operatic duets with the most fantastic words imaginable.
Gwen was strongly in favor of the piano lessons and Arwel's practice, but she saw no point in his listening to Jean's playing: "No one ever became famous by listening to music," she said, "The only way to do that is by learning, by practising as much as you can." She didn't take into account either the fact that Jean derived pleasure from playing, an activity for which she had little time during the day; nor did she consider that a great musician (which, of course, Arwel was to become, thanks to the exceptional gifts he had inherited from his mother-Gwen had a handsome opinion of herself) had to be a music-lover, hearing music, listening, becoming acquainted. For that reason, she resolutely opposed their operatic sessions. "That may be alright for little boys who want to be singers; but you're going to be a pianist. Singing's for people who can't play the piano." On another occasion she argued: "What's the point of all that stuff! I like a bit of nice singing myself, but who can understand all that foreign stuff? German and French and Italian and the Lord knows what!"
Jean didn't know why Merivale ceased coming, and she knew nothing of the passionate orgies in which he and Gwen indulged in all the filthy holes and corners of the Merivale stock-rooms, mainly during working-hours. Nor did Jean know what had become of Goddard, other than that he had left Merivale's. She admitted (to herself only) to a great curiosity concerning Gwen's sex-life. She regretted that Gwen did not, of her own accord, tell her why Goddard had not come to the house a second time, why he did not come often; it was strange, to Jean, that so young and beautiful a woman should be neglected by such a repulsive old man. Usually it was the other way round, and yet Jean had seen enough of Gwen and Goddard to know that Gwen had brazenly asked for his favors and that he had rejected her advances.
13.
Arwel was at school, and Jean had made an early start on the daily chores. Before going up to make the beds, she wanted to wash some linen.
While Jean hung the washed garments on a clothes-line in the kitchen, the lid of the kettle was rattling steamily; the delicate aroma of scalded tea assailed her nostrils: she felt it was time for a cup of tea. She remembered that the milk-man hadn't been. How late he was! There remained a little of yesterday's milk, and it was alright. She poured out her first cup. "Milk-o!"
It wasn't the usual milk-man. Before she could deposit the tea-pot on its cork-mat, the kitchen-door opened, a man entered quickly, closed the door, lowered his milk-can to the floor, and asked cheerfully, "How much missus? Oh! You ain't no missus ... "
"Two, please!"
"Am I just in time for a cup? Shan't say no to a lady! Never do."
She was flabbergasted. The regular milk-man always knocked, waited outside, smiled shyly as she opened the door, stepped inside when it was raining, but only at her invitation, gave her two pints, and then withdrew with a polite, wordless nod of the head.
She looked closely at this new version of a milkman; she estimated his age at seventeen, no more than nineteen. He was large, fleshy, milky; there was about him a soft, greasy pappishness; his moon-round face was of a pale milky-green hue, and his eyes seemed to be the same color.
Leaving his can near the door, he advanced confidently into the kitchen.
She supposed that, when it was raining, a milk-boy would want to shelter a few minutes and a cup of tea is a pleasant way of passing the time.
Getting a cup from the cupboard, she said, "Milk? Sugar?"
"Milk, yes! Sugar, two lumps, please!"
She poured out his tea.
"Yours?" he asked.
She raised her head in an endeavor to discover about what he was questioning her. He was flicking, with outspread fingers, the undergarments hanging on the line; his face wore a sly, smutty grin. She considered his question;-it was an improper question. She wanted to appear not in the least embarrassed by it; he expected expostulations, blushes, coquettish giggles. She'd take the wind out of his sails with a simple, straightforward answer which would restore innocence to a situation which this bucolic Lothario was hoping to render risqu'.
"Those you're touching at the moment are mine," she said, matter-of-fact. "Those four pairs; but those at the end ... yes, those ... they belong to Gwen ... "
"Who's Gwen? Your sister?"
"No, she's not a relative; this is her house; She's the mistress here ... "
"And you? You scivvy 'ere?"
"Ay! Sciwy!"
"Hers are posh."
She had to concentrate for a moment upon his words in order to follow his train of thought. Gazing upon his shifty eyes, she realized eventually that he had returned to the subject of the washing on the line.
He repeated, "Hers are posh, but I bet you look all right in yours."
Inexperienced as she was in the ways of men, she sensed that he was groping towards misconduct with her. She was not displeased; she had no positive intention of granting that which he sought or of accepting that which he deviously offered, nor did she close her mind to his inarticulate suggestion. She had no sexual urge, but she admitted to a great curiosity concerning the carnal relations between man and woman. She would let him advance a little, deciding at what point he was to be halted when that point was reached. In the meantime she would give, verbally, as good as she took.
"You're a queer milk-man," she said, "The other always kept a civil tongue in his head. But you, you don't seem quite right in the knoddle, do you know that?"
He was conscious of the levity of her manner as she insulted him, and he felt that he was making progress. She'd chosen, un-wittingly perhaps, to fight on his own battle-field; mud-slinging was his method of expressing affection for a person and of conveying to someone that he was interested in them, that he was attracted to them, in one way or another. Another person's descent to his plane implied to him that that person was attracted to him, and his confidence received thereby a fillip.
"Anyway," he drawled, bubbling through the tea which he'd raised to his lips, "It wouldn't be much use you settin' your cap at 'arry, 'cos ... you know her up at't corner, sciwy for Missus Scully? ... well, he's 'arry's mistress ... "
He enunciated the word "mistress" in such a way as to suggest that he knew its meaning, but that the knowledge was fresh within him; which was the case, for it was only the previous evening that he'd seen a film in which the word had been used frequently, and he was proud of this addition to his vocabulary.
Jean was sure he used the word without a clear idea of its import. like a woman of years addressing a child, she admonished him, "You must be careful of that word; it has a more serious meaning than you think."
"I know wot it means; I'm older than you, and boys always know about these things better than girls; 'arry told me all about it. He was bragging, I know, but he was telling the truth just the same; 'arry's like all daft people; he gets away wi' things another guy wouldn't dare do, and then he's so pleased with 'isself that he 'as to blurt it out to somebody; and I alius yewmour 'im, so he tells me everything. Only he didn't tell me about you ... "
"Of course not! About me there's nothing to tell; and he didn't tell you about her either; you just made it up. Or, if you didn't, then he was telling lies, just to kid you, and you're soft enough to take it all in."
The color rose to his face, and he hung his head. She wrongly assumed that his embarrassment was caused by his shame at the ease with which Harry had deceived him; in fact Harry had had no sexual contact with Mrs. Scully's maid, nor had he spoken of such a thing. The new milk-man's confusion was that of one who lies and finds his lies detected. Jean was angry with Harry, and she pitied his young successor; her pity was such that, at that moment, she was aware of her willingness to take the boy up to her bed-room, if he requested it. But his mind was set upon flight; quickly, with trembling hands, he served her two pints, and retreated, a whipped hound with his tail between his legs.
He woke from sleep the following morning quite oblivious of that incident; the thought of humiliation returned only as he approached the garden-gate of Gwen's house, but it returned to him as did incidents in films he'd seen, as did occurrences he'd witnessed or about which he'd read in newspapers. It was something he knew had happened, but which was of impersonal interest.
A perfunctory knock upon the kitchen door was all the notice he gave of his presence upon the door-step. Allowing no time for an invitation to come inside, he entered the kitchen to the accompaniment of the tinny rattle of his milk-can; Jean was awaiting impatiently his arrival. She'd delayed her tea-brewing in order that she should be able to offer him fresh tea. As she poured the boiling water in the teapot, she addressed him: "It'll be a few minutes brewing; you're not in a hurry, are you?"
Danny (such was the name which Dawson, milk, had eighteen years previously, instructed the parish-priest to bestow upon his son) was not the brightest youth in Brooksfield, but he was smart enough to recognize Jean's manner and words as signs of her acceptance of himself as her regular companion at mid-morning tea. That was "nothing about which to sing a song." but it could be a beginning, the beginning of the sort of adventure which was never far from Danny Dawson's thoughts. Jean had, the previous day, allowed him to observe that she was not as easily shocked, as quickly moved to blushing giggles as the other girls he had known; perhaps, as they became friends, he would, by charm and guile, succeed in becoming to her what Harry was (in the tale he'd told Jean the previous day) to Mrs. Scully's maid.
Drinking their tea, Jean and Danny talked innocently of this and that: "Have you any brother, any sister? Do you like the pictures? I've got a horse, of my own. I've never ridden a horse. Not even a pony? No, but I'd love to. Come out with me some Saturday afternoon or Sunday. Will you teach me to ride?"
After ten minutes, he, well-pleased with himself, left her, equally pleased, and both looked forward pleasurably to their following meeting.
14.
Throughout the day upon which Maureen Gar-side had told Gwen how she, Maureen, had become Goddard's mistress, Gwen waited for a sign from Merivale that he wanted her. She wanted Goddard, and knew that such a longing was pointless; so her desire turned itself upon Merivale. She knew, however, that Merivale would take her when he felt so inclined, and that her making advances to him would enrage him. So she waited, and in vain. The working-day came to a close; Gwen did not haste to leave the premises, as every one else did; she toyed with the possibility that Merivale would come along to her office, hoping against hope that she'd be there. After half-an-hour she went along to his office, having decided to risk his anger rather than leave the premises without giving herself the opportunity of a session of carnal intercourse with the only lover (the word brought a bitter smile to her lips) she had. Merivale had gone home.
Leaving the office, she said to herself: "There must be, in a town as large as Brooksfield, many men in search of a woman for an evening's entertainment, men, perhaps, prevented from accosting the women they fancied, not by lack of desire, but by fear of getting themselves into trouble with the police, in the event of the accosted woman seeking official protection from her admirer. If only I could convey to some such man my desire to be accosted ... "
Gwen knew that the chances of her being so accosted were slight. In such things, girls of humbler mien had more success than had Gwen's type; Gwen dressed tastefully, elegantly, and she had pride in the expression of her face, in the high tilt of her head, in the straight ease of her gait. She was the type of woman whom the street-corner Casanova regarded with awe, as something desirable but so far above him socially and economically as to be unworthy of his attentions. Nevertheless, she decided not to go home for supper, but to eat in town, and then explore the parks, pubs and dance-halls where a man might be found in search of a partner for bed or the bushes.
Perhaps, even as she ate supper, she might catch the eye of a predatory male, and so begin her adventure early.
Two things combined to persuade her to dine at a modest restaurant. Firstly, her idea that amongst the habitu's of such a restaurant there would more-likely be men capable of making advances to a strange woman than amongst the bourgeois clients of the more expensive restaurants. The second reason was closely allied to its partner: it was that she sought to seduce a man of social standing different from her own social standing; three men had made love to her: there had been Trevor and Goddard, both of whom Gwen (in whose nature there was a goodly measure of snobbishness) classed as middle-class, to which group ahe also belonged, not only by her marriage but also by her origin and up-bringing. Gwen ticketed every person with whom she came into contact, ticketed them according to class, social and economic; she even divided both the working-classes and the middle-classes into lower, middle and upper, so that whilst Trevor and Goddard were lower middle-class, her other lover, Leonard Merivale, hovered between the middle-and upper-reaches of the middle-classes. Her fourth lover, however, was to be (Diana willing) a working-man whom she would dominate, even as Goddard had dominated her and as Merivale ruled her; in addition to the purely fleshly satisfaction this next lover would give her, there would be the satisfaction of widening her experience of people and carnal love.
Gwen paused in the doorway of May's cafe, debating with herself whether it wouldn't be better after all to have a decent meal first, with a bottle of good wine, in a restaurant somewhat more distinguished than May's place. After a bottle of wine she'd have more of the courage required of a woman setting out to explore strange territory, to study a strange race of people; she closed the debate, however, with a firm condemnation of the cowardly habit of finding excuses for doing late, and then later still, that which is dangerous, unpleasant or simply novel. If she was to find herself a male, no time was to be wasted in polite eating and drinking in exclusive restaurants.
The proprietor of May's caf'' was, of course, not a woman called May; it wasn't even a woman. It was an Irishman, Harry Robinson by name; he'd been many things during his half-century of life, but mainly he'd been a sea-man with wide-open eyes and ears. In nearly every port in the world he'd visited eating-houses, drinking-houses and doss-houses whose nomenclature implied that they were owned by Lid, Joe, Mack, Ike, Pierre, Heinz, Kount Boronov, Princesse Stephanie, Luigi Gomez; Harry had, early in his travels, come to doubt the existence of the people whose names adorned grubby hanging signs outside restaurants, or shone brightly in neon on the roofs of palatial bars, or were to be seen upon the steamy windows of houses which offered food, drink, sleep or whores. Consequently, he devoted his spare time to seeking out such houses, and endeavoring to get into contact with the Lai, Joe, Mack, Prince Paul, Countess Sophie who claimed to be his host. In less than one case in four, Harry had discovered, does the personal name forming part of the name of the establishment coincide in any way with the name of the establishment's owner. So, when he retired from the sea, Harry decided to give to the cafe he opened the name May's Cafe, and he hoped to derive some pleasure from the consternation upon the faces of customers who asked to see the proprietress and found themselves confronted, not by a corpulent, blousy ex-waitress, but by a handsome retired sea-rover, bearded (as befits a seafaring man), bearded (as he'd never been during his sailor-days).
Harry's staff was entirely female, for two reasons, of which the second in importance was that the wages expected by women and girls were lower than those he'd have had to pay to men. The waitresses were typical, amorous towards the young male customers, downright rude to the elderly and less attractive men and to any woman who didn't appear to be the type to report all short-comings to the boss.
Although Gwen was a proud woman, particular and despotical, she didn't immediately impress her waitress as the trouble-making sort; so she was treated as an unwelcome client, entitled to the minimum of attention. Actually, Gwen was the very woman, under normal circumstances, to cause a negligent waitress a lot of trouble; but on that occasion she suffered in silence rather than draw attention to herself as a client accustomed to better things. She wanted to be, or to appear to be, of the milieu in which she found herself, at one with the people there, a simple typist or shop-girl giving herself the exceptional treat of the best dinner she could afford.
Although the restaurant was almost full, Gwen had a table to herself; here and there were other tables at which sat only one diner, and she regretted that she hadn't the temerity to sit down at one of the tables whose only other occupant was a man. There were several such tables, and, whilst none of the men were, at first sight, particularly attractive, Gwen would have welcomed the opportunity of making the acquaintance of one or another of them. She asked the waitress for a sherry, and as she left the table to get it. Gwen plucked up courage to say to her. "Make that two sherries, please!" The recipient of the order looked at her as if she'd asked for a pipe of opium, and went away muttering to herself.
In the hope of acquiring "Dutch courage," Gwen drank her two glasses of sherry quickly. She asked for a bottle of wine to be brought at the same time as her soup: this request brought another cloud to the waitress' countenance. Cranky customers, especially women, were anathema to her; nevertheless she brought the wine as ordered, and ploncked it hard down on the table, as much as to say to all the other diners, "Look this way, folks! Our tame dypsomaniac!"
Before starting her soup. Gwen drank two glasses of the wine. By the time the waitress came, on reluctant feet, to remove her soup plate. Gwen was feeling fine. Throughout the remainder of her dinner, she made several attempts to attract one and another of the nearby males, but with little success. Ultimately she left May's Cafe in a state of complete sobriety, but feeling pleased with herself, in spite of her failure to enlist one of those men as her escort for the remainder of the evening. The truth of the matter was that not one of the May's Cafe habitu's who'd noticed her had failed to recognize her as a proud, better-to-do woman who was amusing herself by coming to look at them even as human beings go to Whipsnade to observe the queer antics of the non-human beasts; more than one of the men there would have given all they possessed for a night with her, for Gwen was a fine-looking woman whose body-proportions were such as left little margin for criticism.
After dinner, Gwen wandered here and there, along the brightly-lit streets of the shopping-center, past cinemas and dance-halls, public-houses and billiard-halls. Men there were in abundance, many of them doing all in their power to strike up acquaintance with the many girls who were parading up and down with the same object (slightly modified, perhaps) as Gwen. But the only one of these many men to make any sort of advance to Gwen was so helplessly drunk that Gwen felt no good could come of her encouraging him.
Walking with no great sense of direction, Gwen found herself in dimly-lit Elm Tree Road, and she remembered that near at hand was Abercrombie Park, notorious for its dark holes and corners into which loving-couples were wont to creep after sundown; Gwen knew that the park's main attraction was to couples, but she thought it at least possible that men would go there alone, in search of women. She turned into Archer Way, no more than a footpath, between high walls; at the end of the path she pushed open the iron gate which gave access to a dark corner of the park.
The only noises were the twittering of birds, far-away foot-steps and a whispered conversation near-at-hand.
As she wandered along the gravel paths of the park, she was aware of the presence of people hidden in the shadows; here and there were visible couples, walking or sitting, arms enlaced, on the wooden seats. In half an hour of searching, she found no unaccompanied man; she did see one other woman alone; and, thinking this woman might have just left her boyfriend, Gwen hurried along in the direction from which the other had come, in the hope of arresting the man before he left the park. But five minutes later Gwen reached the main entrance to the park, and still no lone male had crossed her path.
She remained within the park, and set out to explore further; she stepped off the path, and walked across the lawns, into the bushes and the wooded areas, moving quietly, listening for the sounds of love-making, spying out the secluded lovers, trying to surprise them in their secret acts.
She heard whispered entreaties, half-hearted protests, sighs and, once, the sobs of a little shorthand-typist, who, having enjoyed what she and her boy-friend had done together, was beginning to realize how momentous was the occasion. A flower, once plucked, can never again return to its natural liaison with its roots.
Gwen halted suddenly, pressing herself close against the broad trunk of a tree; the girl whose words had caused her to arrest her steps was lying a few feet away, in the arms of a man; she was frantically pulling her skirts down over her knees, whilst he, one hand under her skirts and caressing her thighs, was intent on raising her skirts.
"There's nobody," he was saying, his voice strained by excitement and impatience; "The only people who come here are couples, like us, who're not interested in what we do."
"But there was somebody; I heard breaking twigs."
"Oh, Lilly! There's lots of people, all around us. But they're taking no notice of us, and we don't need to take any notice of them."
"Let's get away from here, Bertie! Let's find another place, where there's nobody else!"
Hardly daring to breathe, for fear of betraying her presence, Gwen noted the genuine fear in the girl's voice and the anxiety, bordering upon anger, in the boy's voice as he replied, "But, Lilly, there is no such place; the park's full of people, all here for the same purpose as I am; if you don't want me, you've only got to say so, and I'll go away; then it'll be over between us. But you don't have to get out of it by pretending you hear somebody coming, and all that."
"But, Bertie, I'm not trying to get out of it at all; I'm as eager as you are. In fact, I had to put into your head the idea of coming here; I tell you that I heard somebody; but, whoever it was, if it was anybody, they've gone now, I think."
Lilly didn't sound convinced that they were unobserved, and Gwen had the feeling that the girl had decided that, observed or not, she and Bertie should do that for which they'd come to the park.
Ten minutes Gwen stayed there, behind the tree, watching the two young animals amusing themselves with one another's body; although there was no moon, the light of the stars was sufficient to enable Gwen clearly to witness all that happened. She even saw both faces distinctly enough to recognize the young people again, if ever she should meet the one or the other; she noticed that no precautions were taken against their game making mother and father of them. She noticed also that the boy was inept, whilst the girl had a flair for the thing upon which they were engaged, that she was a passionate little thing, giving more than she got.
Gwen moved stealthily away, telling herself that, if the evening gave her no more than what she had just had, then she would still count this amongst the delightful evenings of her life. Watching this desire for a man, but it had also raised her to a height of ecstasy where to be obliged to abstain from fornication would be no great catastrophe.
She walked again for half an hour. She heard the town-hall clock chiming ten o'clock, and her thoughts turned to half-past-ten, closing-time at the public-houses. A girl ought to experience little difficulty in picking up a beau in the bar of a public-house during the final fifteen minutes of the evening's libations.
She was hurrying towards the main gates of the park, intent on entering the nearest bar, when she saw, seated alone on a wooden bench, under a pale gas-lamp, a man, nay a youth, as she quickly realized, slackening her pace and directing her steps towards the bench. The boy was smoking, apparently deep in thought; he turned his head upon hearing her foot-steps. She sat down, and began rumageing in her bag for her cigarette-case, eyeing him scrutinously the while; he was thin and small, with a pale, weak face. She wasn't sure whether he had a feeble, yellow moustache or whether it was a shadow upon his upper lip; in the dim light, the trilby he wore appeared to be white or a very insipid shade of gray or beige; its brim was curled upwards at the back, and downwards at front with a most extravagant flourish. Gwen told herself that here was a wicked caricature of "Flash," the well-dressed corner-boy, whose dress, speech, every gesture are inspired by Hollywood gangster-films. Even the large rings on his fingers were copied from the costly, tasteless jewelry favored by the Don Juans of the underworld.
He held his cigarette between the tips of his thumb and fore-finger, only the unlighted end being visible, whilst the remainder of the cigarette was inside his loosely-clenched fist, from which smoke seeped in all directions. He raised and lowered his cigarette to and from his lips with short, affected movements, and he puffed the smoke out through his nostrils.
His assumed manner was intended to convey an impression of mature years, opulence, devil-may-care; but Gwen estimated his age at seventeen and his financial resources at nearly nil.
This boy had all the outward signs of what Gwen contemptuously called a "juvenile delinquent"; he was of the type of person who revolted Gwen; she moved nearer to him.
"Give me a light, will you, please?"
He fished in his pocket for his lighter, but she moved to within a foot of him, murmuring, "Don't bother about that!" She put her cigarette in her mouth: he'd previously put his cigarette between his lips, to leave his hands free in her service. She placed a hand on his shoulder, leaned across him, and brought her face within five inches of his; he raised a hand, to steady his cigarette, and she lit hers from his. Holding his cigarette so long in his mouth caused him to splutter; he took the burning weed from his lips, and she reached for his mouth with hers. He was surprised, but he quickly recovered, and he pulled her closer, responding to her kiss with hard lips which bruised her mouth.
"That were a bit of a-rite," was all he could find to say, in his colorless whine of a voice; the ill-shaped words stumbled over each other as they fell from his lips. He was confused by the fact of a woman having made advances to him; and he was somewhat awed by the woman herself, for, uncouth as he was, and in spite of his low intelligence, he had recognized her, from the moment she sat down, as what he would call "a classy judy."
She said. "For you it may have been a bit of alright, but for me it was delicious, thrilling; you're the sort of man a real woman needs."
He didn't note the malice in her voice, and he was inflated by her high opinion of his prowess as an osculator.
"I suppose it's the first time a woman has kissed you on her own initiative?"
The word "initiative" worried him, but he got the sense of what she said.
"Get away wi' yer!" he replied. "All the time I got smashing judies comin' up ter me, and doing just like you did."
"Oh, I see. Tell me! As a rule, when these women come up to you and kiss you, what do you do with 'em?"
He blushed in the darkness, and hardly knew what to say: the question puzzled him; he didn't know what she meant.
"What d'yer mean? Do with 'em?"
"Well, I mean, when they've kissed you, do they get up and walk away?"
As she spoke, she rose to her feet, and moved away two paces. His pale eyes fixed her, and they were the eyes of a ferret begging the rabbit to come and be devoured. He sprang to his feet, trembling with anxiety, lest she should slip out of his grasp. His blunt wits told him that a woman who was queer enough to kiss a strange guy without the slightest encouragement was also queer enough to get up immediately afterwards and go on her way as if nothing had happened.
"Oh, no!" he pleaded, "None of 'em ever did that; they all stayed, and went on kissing me. If they was orlrite, like you, I let 'em do it; but the others, I jus' told 'em, kind-like, but firm, that they'd 'ave to go away; o'ny mos'ly they was smashers."
Gwen knew herself to be dealing with a child, an ill-bred child, as innocent as ... as innocent as ... why, as Jean, for instance. For a brief instant, she visualized this young "spiv" and her lovely Jean in the sexual act together; and immediately regretted the affront her thoughts had inflicted uppon Jean. At the same time, she considered the effect which this boy and Jean would have on one another in the event of his ever visiting the house, as it was her intention he should. She recalled that, on one occasion, Goddard had spoken of Jean in terms which suggested that he could conceive of her as a potential bed-mate; how much more, then, should this boy (little, if at all, older than Jean) think of Jean as a more appropriate sharer of his bed than Gwen, nearly as old as the two of 'em together! For the first time, Gwen thought of Jean as a woman, capable, perhaps, of competing with her for the attention of her men.
She paused in her reverie, to ask the boy, "So the pretty ones stayed, and gave you more kisses, and the others went away?"
He nodded his head affirmatively, and she sat down again before continuing, "There was only kissing? Nothing more?"
Now he was really in a quandary. Should he go on lying and boasting, and thereby probably shock her and drive her away? Perhaps, if he assured her that nothing happened beyond kissing, she'd decide to stay, and they'd go on kissing. Kissing wasn't everything, but he thought that the longer she stayed the better would be his chances of getting her to go further than that; and even if they didn't get beyond kissing, it would be very pleasant. He'd had few enough kisses in his life, and certainly none from a grown-up woman nor from so lovely a woman as Gwen.
She noticed his indecision; she repeated, "Just kissing?" and before he could answer, she drew him to her, and he felt upon his mouth the moist warmth of her parted lips; her tongue licked his lips, and he realized that she wished him to allow her tongue to enter his mouth. He parted his lips, and a warm, trembling lizard caressed his tongue and gums, lighting fires within him which coursed through his veins until they scorched his penis.
"Just kissing," he replied.
Locked in her tight embrace, he heard her say, "That's no good! none at all! The next time a woman kisses you without being invited, drag her into the bushes, strip her naked, and stuff yourself into her until she screams for joy!"
He was hot with excitement;-this was truly his lucky day, he told himself. He must still move carefully, but he had no longer much doubt that this woman was offering him, without any effort on his part that for which he'd sought, intrigued, hoped and run risks, and all in vain;-until now.
Words came with difficulty, and his body was bathed in prickly sweat.
"They'd not let me do that," he stammered, "They'd have me locked up, If I tried that on."
"Silly boy!" she exclaimed, oblivious of how painfully he was aware of being but a boy, whilst she was an adult woman, "If a woman comes up to a perfectly strange man in the park, sits beside him and kisses him, uninvited, she has no right to resent anything he does to her in response to her initial advances; and, quite apart from resenting or not resenting, surely you understand that a woman doesn't kiss a strange man merely for the sake of a kiss, but rather for the purpose of inciting him to more daring things than a kiss."
"Is that what your kiss meant?" She laughed, and there was bitterness and contempt in her laughter.
"You're the brave one, are you not!" she scoffed, "You're going to take no risks, are you? You're going to do nothing without my suggesting it, and giving you clear-cut permission for it; a gentleman doesn't expect a lady to tear off her clothes and force his penis into her loins; he takes the initiative himself, even when he's not quite sure what will be her reaction to it. He runs the risk of her anger, even of a public scandal, as a measure of his desire for her. If you're going to be a success with women, you'll have to appreciate that when a girl joins you on a park-bench, and asks for a light, she's done her share of ice-breaking; the rest is up to you. Oh, Hell! Come along!"
She took his arm, and they walked a few yards away from the path until she found a grassy slope, hidden by short, thick bushes. Her anger at him had had the opposite effect from that which she had desired; he'd never imagined a woman being angry with him and, in the midst of the anger, lying down with him. Even when he was absolutely sure that she was intent upon breaking his virgin knot, his awe of her remained with him, restraining him from doing anything which she did not specifically indicate to him. This was a disappointment to her; what she really wanted was to be taken, brutally, by some uncouth, illiterate navy, who'd so enjoy her that, in order to have her again in the future, again and again, would submit to her domination, as she'd been obliged to submit to that of Goddard and Merivale. The boy she had was submissive enough, but he ought to have been full of fire until he'd had her; then she'd have had the immense satisfaction of forcing him down to her knees, beseeching for more. This boy had been abject from the start, in spite of his childish boasts; he couldn't be brought down lower than he was.
However, she'd decided to make do with him for that night anyway; future evenings in town might unearth a more manly man.
In the seclusion of the bushes, she undressed herself completely. The evening was chilly, but she was prepared to suffer anything in order that her baby should have the best available for his first taste of female flesh; she had to tell him to get his clothes off, and she smiled contemptuously as he took off his jacket and his shoulders disappeared. Stripped, he was a pathetic sight, shivering in the silver star-light; but, once she'd shown him what to do and how to do it, he proved to have more energy and passion in his feeble-looking body than seemed possible to Gwen. The ferocity with which he tore into her was a thrilling surprise to Gwen, and soon they were riding on the crest of the wave of ecstasy; when it was finished, he folded up, but she, much as he'd pleased her, regretted that there wasn't another like him, waiting to jump into her as he flopped out; feeling a great strength within her, she held him close in her arms for several minutes before dressing.
As soon as he saw that she was dressing, he pulled himself together, and followed her example.
Dressing, he thought to himself, "If that's it, God! It's wonderful!"
Imperiously she addressed him, "You're coming home with me; you did very well."
She softened, and touched his face, adding, "I'd like another helping of that, in bed; wouldn't you?"
Before he had time to answer her question, she posed another, "Can you spend the night out? Without rousing a lot of curiosity? What about your parents?"
For the first time he appeared to her as something other than a child. He replied curtly, "Leave that to me! I do what I like; nobody pushes me around." She appreciated that his words were intended as an indication of his determination to tell her as little as possible, and certainly no more than he thought she ought to know; she wondered whether he were an escapee from a borstal. If so, all the better! How many women had been ridden by a boy gaol-breaker?
They walked home, to Gwen's house, and were received by Jean, who had not yet got out of the habit of waiting-up for Gwen, however late she returned home.
Jean was not surprised that Gwen brought a male person home with her; in fact, Gwen had fore-warned of her intention so to do. What did astonish Jean was the fact of Gwen's not bringing home a man; for, whilst Jean observed that the person's clothing was in adult style, she saw him as a child, although a little older, perhaps, than herself. The thought passed through Jean's mind that Gwen had brought this boy home for some reason entirely different from her motives in bringing home Goddard and later Merivale; indeed that Gwen and this boy should have in each other an interest of a romantic or carnal nature was preposterous. He was a nephew perhaps, whom she'd met by chance; or one of Gwen's colleagues at the office. He lived out of town, had missed his last bus or train, and had been invited to spend the night conventionally and innocently as Gwen's guest.
Whilst Gwen was introducing Eddie (as he'd told her he was called) and Jean, he was congratulating himself on being introduced to so lovely a young female; he made up his mind instantly that, if this girl was haveable, he'd have her, and with no more delay than was necessary; he'd had Gwen, and he'd enjoyed her. He hoped to have her again, frequently; but the young girl interested him more at that moment, because he hadn't had her, and didn't know whether he ever would succeed in getting her to lie down with him;-of Gwen he was sure already, and that took some of the charm away from her. He considered in what way Gwen's interest in him might help him to get Jean: "If the boss is sufficiently keen on me," he said to himself, "she might be prepared to go to great lengths to keep me; she might even make it easy for me to knock-off the maid."
Gwen read his thoughts with some degree of accuracy, and for a moment there was jealousy within her: she reassured herself by thinking of Jean's youth and innocence; "This boy," she told herself, "has lost his virginity due to my insistence; left to his own devices, he would probably have remained vestal for several more years; and even now he lacks the know-how necessary for the seduction of so cool and pure a child as Jean, and she sees what he is clearly enough to give him no encouragement."
Jean produced a pot of tea and some sandwiches; she asked Gwen if there was anything else she required; receiving a negative answer, she retired to her bed-room. In bed she lay awake a long time; she was trying to understand the sex business, trying especially to understand Gwen, trying to learn, without sexual experience, what role carnal love would play in her own life, in what way she could give the most to the flesh and derive the most satisfaction from it. She went over ground which she'd previously covered, telling herself that carnal love must be a wonderful thing, otherwise people wouldn't go to such lengths to indulge in it. Jean had made up her mind that she too was going to have her first taste of it, as soon as favorable circumstances created themselves; but the favorable circumstances were, to Jean, a matter of great importance. She belived that the first time would hold an excitement which all subsequent occasions would lack, the novelty adding a certain something, a thrill, an ecstasy, a delicious fear. She was, therefore, determined to postpone her first time until she regarded all the details as being satisfactory, the man in question, the time, the place; she was prepared to wait, but she hoped fervently that soon, very soon, the man would present himself, at a convenient time, in a suitable place.
Jean heard Gwen and Eddie ascending the stairs and entering Gwen's room, and she wished that she were there with them, observing their every move and sound, sharing in their passion, even if only as a second-class partner. Within her mind she composed a dialogue and she drew clearly a succession of pictures: the characters in the dialogue and the figures in the pictures were Gwen and Eddie, but no! Eddie and Jean herself! Then it was Gwen again, with Eddie. No! Gwen with Danny, the milk-boy! Then there were four figures, two couples, one hardly distinguishable from the other; Gwen and Danny, Jean and Eddie, Gwen and Eddie, and suddenly Jean and Danny, naked, locked in an agitated, frenzied embrace, their bodies fused, glowing.
The bed-clothes were in a disorderly heap on the carpet, and she was lying across the bed, awake now, bathed in perspiration which made her nightdress cling coldly to her. Shivering, she dragged the sheets clumsily over her, and sobbed herself to sleep. When she emerged from sleep, decision was firm within her.
15.
In Gwen's room, more of the night had been devoted to sleep than either she or Eddie had intended: he had pleasantly surprised the initiative in their second session of intercourse: his hands shaking with nervous anticipation, he'd stripped her, dropping her clothing on the floor. Throwing her roughly on the bed, face downwards, he'd quickly slipped out of his clothes, which he'd carefully folded and draped over the back of a chair, Gwen had remained motionless on the bed, content to leave everything to him; he'd thrown his under her belly, to pull her into an all-fours position, and the fingers of his right hand had tickled her clitoris. He'd taken her as a dog takes a bitch, and she'd responded like a bitch on heat; savagely, he'd thrust into her with every ounce of his strength, digging his fingernails into the flesh of her belly ...
Suddenly in a flash of exceptional passion, she'd collapsed from her bitchie stance and had flopped back onto her belly; the movement had broken the contact between their respective sex organs, and fury had seized him. He'd spun her over onto her back; frenziedly she'd reached out for his slimy penis, and he'd brought the back of his hand into sharp collision with her right cheek, dazing her momentarily. The new thrust of phallus within her had restored her to her senses, and they had kicked, writhed, sweated and grunted in the final delirious motions of the act.
They'd sunk into slumber, too weak to crawl under the sheets.
So Arwel saw them when he entered his mother's room at six o'clock in the morning. He didn't know what to make of those two naked bodies sprawled across the bed; he'd often seen Gwen and Trevor together in bed, but they'd never exposed themselves thus to his eyes, and they taught him the importance of modesty with respect to his body. Gwen and this man were committing a breach of good conduct.
He'd come into the room to assure himself that Gwen was well, and that she still loved him.
The mattress's movement as he clambered onto it half-roused Gwen, who instantly reached out and drew the man's nude body towards her; Arwel conceived a bitter hatred of him. Through sleepy eyes, Eddie saw Arwel, and his body stiffened in Gwen's embrace; without turning her head, she knew that Arwel was there. Furious with the child, she hurled herself into a dressing-gown, and, scolding him all the way, returned him to his own room. Sure of his own innocence, the child knew Gwen's anger to be an admission of some great guilt of her own; he clung to her, rubbing his cheek against hers, sadness in his heart. She repented of her anger, tucked him in bed with more care than usual, and, great as was her need to feel Eddie's weight upon her, remained with her son until he went to sleep. He was much older than an hour earlier, no one now representing for him absolute virtue and reliability.
Eddie had crept into bed; tempted for a moment to throw him out of her house forever, she weakened in the heat of the joy he'd given her. Perhaps it was as well that Arwel started to grow up, to know what she was, to accustom himself to the conduct of which his home would henceforth be the scene. She felt freer to lead the life to which her tempestuous blood called her.
"The next time he comes in ere," said Eddie, as she joined him, between the sheets, "I hope I'm right inside you, up to the hilt, fucking like a rattlesnake."
"I didn't say there'd be a next time," she replied, smiling.
"There'll be a lot of next times," he insisted, his normally lazy, indistinct speech tinged with an American twang, "I'm on a good thing; you're alright, and keen, keener than what I am. And this little set-up will suit me fine."
He waved a proprietary hand around the room.
Gwen hadn't bargained for this; he spoke as if he'd found a new home, whereas she intended he should serve her as an occasional change from maturer, more civilized men; but she didn't want to run the risk of driving him away before she'd found at least one substitute. His next words reassured her a little.
"Wouldn't suit me regular, of course. I prefer my own quarter, up Charles' Hill way."
"What time do you have to be at work, Eddie?"
"I'm no muggins! Sign on three days a week; dole money no bloody good to a fella with my imagine tastes, but I got a few side-lines; most of my women are classy bints, so they never let me go short of a few quid."
Eddie obviously thought Gwen was his goldmine; "But he's wide of the mark," she thought. To dissuade him from running away she was prepared to give him a few shillings now and then, to keep him supplied with beer and cigarettes whilst she was at the office; and she was sure that the occasional gratuitous half-crown would be most welcome to her silly little "Chicago Big-shot."
He, however, had in mind a weekly payment of the few pounds which would enable him to dazzle the Charles Hill girls, who always laughed at his empty wallet and big ideas.
Casually she promised:
"You can rely upon me for the little help I can give."
Gwen wondered what were Eddie's plans for the day. After a few moments of silence, she proposed:
"After breakfast, you can take me almost to my office; will you do that?"
"I shan't be getting up for quite a while," he replied indolently, "Your scivvy can bring me a good breakfast about half-past-nine; I like ham and eggs, and lots of it; can't make you jump for joy on less than two fried eggs and a couple of dirty-big rashers."
His manner told her she'd be ill-advised to under-estimate his cunning, his ruthlessness, his ability to make her dance to the tune he called. He seemed to sense his power over her, and she wondered whether a conventionally educated middle-class woman was a match for a young gutter-snipe, devoid of principles, accustomed from the cradle to living by his wits.
"Let me bring your breakfast," she pleaded, "Jean isn't a sciwy, and I don't like to give her extra work."
"I said half-past nine," he replied, and she knew he'd receive from Jean exactly the breakfast he'd commanded, at precisely the desired hour. She was, however, afraid he might make other demands upon Jean; and the thought presented itself to her that, if she gave him every ounce of passion within her, consuming him to his last shudder, every molecule of his spunk, his final grunt of satisfaction, she would leave him in no fit state to pester the girl.
She lowered her face to his, her tongue stretched out towards him, its pink tip quivering like a bright flame; her tongue found his and a shudder passed through his body, his stiff penis jabbing into the flesh of her thighs. She raised her knees, until they gripped his hips, and, taking his throbbing tool in her hot hands, she guided it into the oily softness of her vagina; she screamed her joy as, tensing his body for an instant, he thrust himself hard into her, as deep as he could go. The bed creaked and rattled under the mad rampaging of their bodies, fighting savagely to and fro, in and in, out, in and in, until there was inside her the sensation of a thrillingly bowed violin-string snapping on a piercing high note; a spear of flame shot from his testicles through the pipe of his penis, and his sperm volleyed into her; with the remnant of her force she kissed him, and he was limp in her arms.
After her troubled night, Jean was quiet over the breakfast she shared with Gwen. She felt a certain resentment at Gwen's having had three men since her husband's death, whilst she had never had a man. (She forgot momentarily that Danny, the milk-boy, had made uncertain steps in the direction of her seduction, and that she'd rebuffed him; she also forgot to take into account that her turn would come.) Gwen thought Jean's frowns expressed a puritanical disapproval of her bringing Eddie to the house; and she felt genuine pity for an innocent child compelled to rub shoulders with vice.
Later, as Arwel was breakfasting, after his mother's departure, Jean took up the cudgels in Gwen's defense, explaining that he should have knocked on her door before entering, to give Gwen and Eddie time to cover themselves.
"When people are grown up," she explained, "they have certain special friends in whose company it isn't quite so shocking to take their clothes off."
He asked eagerly:
"Will we be special friends?"
In a rush of tenderness, she took him in her arms, and felt his boyish firmness through her thin dress; she wished he were as old as Danny or Eddie; then, instead of going to school, he'd be her "special friend," and they'd he together naked, delighting in the beauty, the warmth and greedy passion, the passionate generosity of each other's body.
She kissed him full on the lips, long and tenderly; and he rejoiced in her love.
Later, preparing breakfast for Eddie, she medi-he'd ridden her, given her to Danny, he'd ridden Gwen, and returned for a second helping of her. She was thrilled at the thought of entering the bedroom of such a man, in an otherwise deserted house; and she hoped that, by some strange system of communication, he would be aware of the things he'd done to her during the night.
Upstairs, Eddie lay naked on the bed; he'd washed, he'd combed his hair, and he'd penciled his too feeble, yellow moustache. He waited.
"Come in!" he commanded, and his nakedness threw her into a state of confusion, as though it were a step in the direction of her taking off her own clothes. His brazen flaunting of his body convinced her that he did know they had slept together, her dreams and reality being blurred at the boundary between them; she wondered whether the obvious thing to do was to lift her skirts over her head, and cast herself upon his erect and quivering penis.
His hand closed about her wrist, and she allowed herself to be drawn towards him until her knees came into contact with the mattress, and she was forced into a reclining position on the bed beside him; he dragged her close, and kissed her; his lips upon her mouth were felt in every part of her, in her every drop of blood, and she was weak in his strong embrace. She returned his kisses, her warmth exalting him. Through her scant clothing she felt the pulsing of his body; she clung to him, digging her finger-nails into his shoulders and buttocks.
Under her skirt, his hands groped along her thighs, and his fingers clutched at the elastic in the legs of her bloomers. Soon his hands were in her panties, upon her flat, hard belly, his fingers combing the hair. His hands still inside her panties, he pulled at the elastic about her waist, and she offered no resistance as her panties slid down over her buttocks, around her thighs, past her knees, to her ankles. She raised one foot, and he slipped the garment over it; a jerk of her other foot sent it sailing into a corner of the room. He pulled her clothing upwards until it was all bunched up under her chin and arm-pits. His eyes devoured her slim, honey-hued body, and his hands touched here and there in wonderment.
Waiting in eager anticipation of his next move, she heard the rattle of milk-cans; she leapt to her feet, smoothed down her clothes, and looked around, nervously and in vain, for her bloomers ...
"You're early, Dannie," she said gaily. "Tea's not ready, but soon will be."
She ruffled his hair, and laughed for no reason obvious to him.
"Pleased with yourself this morning!" he exclaimed; and she confirmed his statement by kissing him full on the mouth, warmly, with humid tenderness; he clutched at her, but she retreated with a happy pirouette.
"Tell you why?" she asked.
"If you like."
"It's a good job you came so early today," she began, the color rising to her cheeks at the thought of the information she was about to volunteer, "because I was upstairs with Mrs. James's guest, and he'd got my panties off; when I took him his breakfast, he was naked, on top of the bed. He started on me, and I found I didn't want to stop him; our hands were all over each other; if you hadn't come, we wouldn't have stopped until he'd shot his load into me. You've spoiled everything."
"Well then, bloody-well let him fuck you, if that's what you want! I'm not good enough for you."
He sprang to his feet, and headed blindly for the door; she threw herself in his path, crying exultantly:
"You are, though! For that sort of thing! Rather you than him!"
"When then?" he asked, "You and me?"
"Some day? Perhaps" was her reply.
Disappointment clouded his eyes from their depth to the surface.
"Things like that happen, Danny; they can't be planned; it's much better, if one day I say all unexpectedly: 'I'm hot and itchy, Danny; stab me with everything!'"
His penis throbbed and swelled against his pants. She let him fondle her breasts, his hands inside the bodice of her frock, and she whispered a promise that, however long he had to wait for her, the man upstairs would wait longer. Danny took leave of her, unsatisfied, but consoled by the knowledge that he'd robbed the man upstairs of Jean.
Upon her return to the guest-room, with a pot of freshly brewed tea, Eddie's hands returned at once to the caressing of her clitoris; but she deposited the pot on the table, picked up the tray, and walked on towards the door. He flung himself in pursuit of her, dropped to his knees at her retreating heels, and thrust his hands inside her skirts, gripping her thighs with his arms so that she fell to her knees amidst a clatter of broken crockery. After a brief struggle, he had her pinioned to the floor by his knees; sitting astride her midriff, he clawed at her loins until his frantic fingers punished her sex; he slid backwards, down her body, halting when his phallus was at her door. His muscles tensed for the spilling of her virgin blood, and she cried:
"No! Eddie!"
Fear overcame him: she really meant 'No!' and he'd thought her struggle a trick to excite him. Nothing could stop him going into her now ... nothing! Except a word ... Rape!
Rape had sent his father to prison for five years, during which his mother and sister had turned the home into a brothel, and he had known hunger, cold and loneliness. Crimes there were which he would commit, for gain, and with the probability of escaping detection; but the rape of a girl who knew him? Prison? Never!
She sensed his weakness, and jerked her slender body powerfully sideways. Easing herself from under his sprawling frame, she kneeled to collect the debris of crockery. To propitiate her, he stayed near at hand, helping her. After a few minutes, his hand stroked her butt, under her skirts.
"What came over you?" he asked.
She turned to him, and they sat side-by-side, leaning against the wall.
"Over me!" she exclaimed. "What came over you? A bit of fun is one thing, but rape!"
That word!
"It's not rape," he explained lamely, "if the girl wanted it for a start! If that fucking milk-man hadn't come, you'd have had it and liked it ... "
" ... But he did come, and when I came back here, I didn't want it any more, so if you'd forced me, I'd have had you locked up for rape."
"So he's that sort of milk-man, is he! Wait 'til Gwen hears about this."
To amuse herself and to hurt him, she made up a tale.
"No, he isn't," she said. "He served me, and left straight away; I took the milk down to the cellar, and, when I came back there was a canvasser for 'The Daily News' at the door; I asked him if he'd like a cup of tea, and he said he preferred milk, so I took him down to the cellar; I gave him his milk, and asked him if it wasn't rather strange taking him to the cellar for milk, instead of taking the milk up to the kitchen; he said it was, but if I liked dark, cool places, he didn't mind; "Like them for what?' I asked; 'For this,' he said, and he kissed me; I got down on some potato-sacks, and he gave me a good doing."
She placed her arms about Eddie's naked body, and her hand toyed with his penis, feeling it swell and throb under the intoxicating influence of her touch.
"It was wonderful, Eddie; but I couldn't take any more now; I suppose Gwen's different ... "
She responded passionately to his kiss, forcing back his head until she was in a dominating position. Her soft, warm lips parted in complete abandon, she pushed a globule of her saliva into his mouth. She eased him down to the carpet, and her tongue tickled his phallus; she resisted his efforts to place himself in a controlling position; soon his breath became labored, and all his muscles twitched. He was large in her mouth; his body stiffened, and she took him out of her mouth, but continued to masturbate him with her hand until the relaxing of his muscles announced the climax of his ecstasy. The warm cream was on her hands, and his eyes issued a command; she licked every drop of sperm from her hand; then she gently squeezed his penis until a drop of muck became a trickle, and he was small, pathetic and clean in her mouth.
He left the house without saying whether he'd ever return, but Jean knew he'd come again ... for her, even if not for Gwen..
There wasn't an unoccupied table in the restaurant; but Gwen had the choice of several tables at which one person was already sitting. Blind to the tables whose occupant was a woman, she was undecided between a prosperous, over-dressed bookmaker type of man and a tall thin chap who seemed more interested in his book than in his food; she decided that the studious individual would be easier to conquer than the confident, successful one, and she joined his table with a polite: "You don't mind?"
He rose to his feet, smiled a welcome, and resumed his seat when she'd sat down.
"Do you come here often?" she asked with nearly desperate eagerness.
He stared at her for fully half a minute before the import of her words conveyed themselves to his consciousness. But what Gwen had asked required for its answer no great intellectual effort; she had merely inquired of him whether he came often to that restaurant. Before replying, he asked himself a question, or rather two questions: What's it got to do with her? and: In what way will she benefit from knowing that I do Or don't come here frequently? What he was too naive to appreciate was that the questioner was almost certainly not interested in his answer to her question, but merely in the fact that his answering would set in motion a conversation, about nothing or about anything, from which she would derive some pleasure.
He replied, trying hard to smile as he did so, "Yes ... .. I come ... fairly often . ... twice a week or three times. It depends....."
"Oh," she interrupted, "It's the first time I've been here since ... Oh, I don't know how long! I usually go home for lunch, don't you?"
She paused, to give him an opportunity of giving her the adequate answer.
Although he hadn't heard what she'd been saying, he became aware, after thirty seconds of silence, that her voice was still; and he turned his eyes upon her face, which he immediately observed to be wearing the vacuously expectant expression of someone who has asked a worthless question, and is gradually realizing how irrelevant the question was; hoping the question was one of those which require a simple 'Yes' or 'No,' and that she wouldn't be able to verify his answer, he said, "Yes, ah yes ... yes."
His reply seemed to Gwen somewhat enthusiastic for sd commonplace a question; and she mistook that enthusiasm for a compliment to herself, for an indication of his pleasure at carrying on a conversation with her.
"I work at Merivale," she said, and he thought, What, in God's name, has that to do with me?
"I'm head of Cereals Imports," she continued bravely, in spite of her growing fear that he didn't care.
Her remark meant nothing whatsoever to him, because he wasn't listening, and consequently only half-heard ...
"What do you do?" she asked.
"All sorts of things," he replied automatically.
"Such as?"
"Eh?"
Having asked 'EH?' he was quite content to turn his attention to plum pie with steaming custard. Gwen looked closely at him; in spite of the shadow which hung over his visage, he was a handsome person: handsome of face, at least. Handsome of body? No! Seated, he was able to conceal his physical limitations. Not that he wished to do any such thing:-his thinness, his longness, to be quite frank, his skinny lankiness, didn't worry him in the least; he was totally unaware of his physical shortcomings, so enveloped was he in his artistic longings: Taylor Beecroft was a pianist, not only a talented pianist, but even a brilliant one. What is more, in spite of his general vagueness, he had the gift (a rare gift) of passing on his knowledge to others; in other words, he was an exceptionally efficient teacher of the pinaforte. No, he was more than efficient: he was possessed of the genius of pianistic tutoring ... He lacked that certain something which makes a virtuoso of the man who has achieved complete mastery of his medium of artistic expression, and who has, in addition, a deep appreciation of the particular art which interests him; some people call it "the artistic temperament." Nevertheless, Taylor Beecroft had within him that which could guide to greatness any piano-player who had within him the making of a pianist.
Let's be quiet honest, and admit that Gwen didn't choose Taylor as Arwel's piano teacher because she recognized him for what he was. Rather, she chose him because she liked his face, and because he had all the marks of a sitting bird. (If you're not a true-blue English huntin', shootin' an' fishin' wallah, permit me to explain that "a sittin' bird" is a pigeon, pheasant or partridge which, being in a sitting-not airborne-pose, is easier to shoot down than a bird on the wing.) Indeed, as Taylor Beecroft attacked his plum pie and custard, Gwen did not yet know that he was a pianoforte tutor.
She was, however, doing her best to find out what he was and what he did. She'd asked him what his profession was, and he'd avoided answering her; the cause of his failure to reply to her enquiry was that his mind wasn't on the conversation she was endeavoring to set in motion. But she imagined that he withheld from her the information she desired for the reason that he was involved in some frightfully exciting work which demanded the greatest secrecy. Was it crime? espionage? or scientific research? "That's it!" she told herself, happy to have found for his taciturnity a reason which was uncomplimentary neither to herself nor to him.
Gwen decided to go further in that direction; it was all very well to sit there admiring this brilliant young savant, but it would do no harm to ascertain that he was the considerable figure in the world of science she immediately imagined him to be. She'd ask again, wording her question more precisely, so that he couldn't escape with his blank stare and his meaningless "Eh?"
"What is your profession?" she asked baldly, and smiled at the shudder of surprise which passed through his shoulders and arms.
"I haven't really a profession," he replied, "I give piano lessons, when I can find pupils."
She brightened perceptibly, and said, "Why, what an amazing coincidence! I've been searching frantically for a teacher for my little boy. He already plays very well, for his age; he's eight, nearly nine years old."
In fact, Gwen had neither been searching frantically nor been searching; she had decided, some time previously, that Arwel would, before long, start to study music seriously, his studies with Jean failing to comply with Gwen's idea of serious; but, had she cared to, she could have quite easily contacted any one of a dozen reliable teachers of the pianoforte within a mile of her residence. She hadn't availed herself of the ample supply of piano-teachers because her plans for Arwel's serious piano-studies had been plans for the not very near future; they had been "one of these days" ideas.
They became plans for immediate execution the moment this strange young man informed her that he gave piano lessons.
The moment Taylor heard those words, his "if I can find pupils" manner deserted him; he had so few pupils that the addition of one was a thing greatly to be desired. Suddenly he became aware of the woman sharing his table; he was painfully aware of the fact that he had been making no effort to be agreeable to her; he was even conscious of his having been almost rude to her, of his having failed to answer her impertinent questions, of his having answered in an off-hand manner her enquiries and remarks. He was agreeably cognizant of her perseverance in the face of his coldness, and he began to entertain the hope that he attracted her, and that she had been making a deliberate, immodest attempt to strike up acquaintance with him. If she were interested in him, romantically, he might be able to persuade her to allow her child more than the one-hour-per-week for which the majority of mothers were prepared to pay; she looked like a woman of comfortable means, well groomed, expensively dressed. He'd convince her that nothing less than an hour per week would suffice, if her son were to become a pianist, rather than a piano-player.
He said eagerly, "Well, that's delightful! I do so like to get pupils when they're young. You say he already plays the piano?...."
"Yes, he's been taking lessons, informally you know, from the girl who keeps house for me; I'm grateful to her for giving him a sort of grounding, but I think it's time he started disciplined study."
"Oh, definitely! A lot of harm can be done, you see, by allowing a child to go too far without expert guidance. You'd want lessons to begin immediately?"
"Well, as soon as possible, but I'd like to discuss the whole matter with you, hear you play and hear about your instructional methods; and discuss terms."
Gwen had decided upon this man without hearing about his methods of teaching and without discussing terms; she knew his terms would not be steep. She'd noted his "if I can find pupils," and she'd recognized it as a cry from the heart of one who was finding it difficult to "make ends meet"; she would engage him as Arwel's tutor, at a rate favorable to herself. If he proved to be inadequate to the talk she entrusted to him, she could replace him later on; but before that she would have opportunities (she would make them) of spending some time with this young man, who would learn to take more notice of her than he'd taken during their she'd spend an evening with him, ostensibly for the meal. Before informing him of his engagement, purpose of discussing Arwel and his music; if that could take place at his home, she'd like that. She hoped he wasn't married and that he didn't live with his family.
Before she left him, to return to her office, she obtained from him his visiting-card, and it was arranged that she should visit him the same evening.
17.
During the afternoon Gwen experienced some difficulty in keeping her mind upon the job in hand; she was thinking, with thrilling anticipation, of the evening and Taylor Beecroft. She was creating the evening within her imagination, composing the dialogue which would occupy the first moments. She saw in vivid detail her own actions, his actions, and their actions together; finally she saw herself lying naked before him, gazing admiringly and lustfully at his unclothed form. Her thoughts troubled her physically; her flesh felt his hands, and she experienced a series of searing spasms ...
She heard a sound, and she reacted by digging her upper front teeth into her nether hp. The sound came to her again, and she realized that it was the ringing of her telephone. She seized the instrument eagerly, glad of whatever diversion from her disturbing thoughts.
The voice which came to her was that of Merivale. She grimaced as one whose palate has been assailed by sour rhubarb; the wry expression quickly gave way to a nervous fluttering of the lips and a wild flashing of the eyes; her voice a most unattractive squeak of desperate eagerness, she gasped, "Yes, sir! Yes, sir! Straight away!" The line died on her ear, and she made an ill-aimed move to rehook the instrument; it fell to the floor with a clatter, and she couldn't spare the time to pick it up. Hurriedly she touched her lips with a lipstick and whisked a comb through her hair; then she dashed out of her office into the main office of the Cereals Department; as she passed through she was oblivious of the surprised stares engendered by her running and by her agitated expression of visage.
The truth wore no resemblance to the surmise of the clerks and typists of the Cereals Department. Gwen had received, for the first time in six months, an order from Merivale to the effect that she was to report to him immediately in the condemned merchandise warehouse; it was possible that he needed to discuss with her the disposal of a quantity of grain which failed to qualify for certification as fit for human consumption ... It was possible; but Gwen wanted to believe (and, therefore, believed) that his reason for summoning her was that which had previously prompted him to meet her frequently in one or another of the little-frequented storerooms; during a period of more than two years he had used her body half-a-dozen times per month, whenever he had felt so inclined. He had ridden her in the filthy, dark, reeking holes and corners of his business premises, and he'd subjected her to the deepest humiliation, degrading her soul as well as her body by his exploitation of his two-fold power over her, the power a man has over a passionate, man-crazy woman, and the power of man of substance and authority has over a woman who needs him for the realization of her ambitions. Merivale had derived satisfaction from the certainty that he'd got the best of the bargain: what he'd given her, authority and the salary appropriate to it, had to go to someone; if not to Mrs. James, then to another. Inasmuch as he'd given it to her, in exchange for her body, he'd merely robbed someone else, namely the person who would otherwise have enjoyed the promotion accorded to Mrs. James: she had cost him nothing ...
What Merivale failed to take into account was that, in her relations with him, Gwen had been winning on both pans of the weighing machine; she'd given her body, her pride, her soul in exchange for her appointment as head of Cereals Imports and for the promotion still to come. But she'd have given all that for nothing, because, giving with both hands, she received all that her body and soul needed so frantically. When she gave herself to Merivale, her delight in it was boundless.
The more ruthlessly he thrashed her, rubbed her in the muck, urinated upon her and forced her to eat his excreta, the wilder was her joy in him: everything he devised to hurt her thrilled her. In her knowledge that she satisfied his desires her lost pride was restored to her, and she regained possession of her soul which he had torn out of her. Gwen had never been in any doubt that she it was who had the best of the bargain.
She was on her way to him again; after six months of neglecting her, he wanted her back; and it had been ordained that Merivale's call to her should coincide with the most desperate need of man she had ever known: just at the moment when she'd been on the brink of ruining her precious career by seducing one of her male subordinates in full view of twenty other subordinates, Merivale's phone-call had come to offer her what she needed without the disastrous consequences she'd been on the point of risking.
Gwen's joy in returning to Merivale was in no way diminished by her knowledge that, during the past six months, he'd been treating Helen Westcott (one of the dungareed girls who, for two pounds per week, worked like men in the warehouses, loading and un-loading railway wagons which brought in and took away consignments of merchandise) in more or less the same manner in which he'd previously handled her. Gwen had begun to suspect, during the first two or three weeks of Merivale's neglect of her that he had found someone to replace her as the means for the gratifying of his sadistic whims. So, whenever she could spare the time from her duties, she'd wander around the warehouses ostensibly making a tour of inspection or looking for someone hoping to observe Merivale creeping into our out of one of his secluded holes and corners with a woman. After a month of fruitless observation, she caught sight of him leaving the wines-store. Five minutes later a girl appeared in the doorway of the same store; the furtive, anxious way in which she darted her glance to right and left before stepping out of the shadows, convinced Gwen that the girl had been giving Merivale some pleasure, and that she'd very probably enjoyed doing it. The following day Gwen had seen Merivale leaving the storerooms devoted to edible oils; remembering, with a painful stab of excitement, the debauches in which she and Merivale had indulged there, in the Edible Oils store, Gwen had allowed him thirty seconds in which to pass out of sight of the door of the store. Then, turning the door-handle with great caution, she'd opened the door noiselessly, just enough to admit her to the store. A slight scraping sound in the far corner announced the presence of someone; on tip-toe she hurried along the alley formed by two rows of vast wooden barrels until she found herself within a couple of yards of a young girl frantically trying to rub herself clean of the black mixture of oil, dust and saw-dust which covered her whole body, back and front. It was obvious that, apart from the muck which she'd gathered by being thrown down upon the filthy floor, she'd been deliberately smeared with it.
Gwen recognized the girl as the one she'd seen making her exit from the wines store the previous day: Helen Westcott. She was somewhat less than fifteen years of age, and had been with Merivale no more than a month, having entered the service of the firm immediately upon leaving school. Lurking behind the row of barrels, the older woman feasted her eyes upon the lovely young body before her; filthy as it was, it was a body of a beauty to thrill any connoisseur of the erotic. Gwen wanted to appear to the girl, help her to cleanse herself, caress her, pinch her butt, and dig her teeth into the proud, retrousses breasts ... Eventually the child, despairing of ridding herself of the oily muck, pulled on her clothes, and left the store.
Without bitterness, Gwen had accepted her replacement by this Helen Westcott: she didn't blame Merivale for casting her off in favor of this luscious, more nearly innocent female; she regretted it, but she appreciated that she and Merivale had run the whole gamut of debauch, and that it was natural that her acceptance of his sadism should have palled upon him, so that he welcomed the opportunity of inflicting suffering upon one to whom it was strange and consequently more painful, more degrading.
Now, after six months with Helen, he wanted Gwen; he'd tired more quickly of Helen than he had of Gwen, who reigned for more than two years.
In her impatience, Gwen bounded up the primitive wooden stairs, four steps at a time, and she burst, breathless, into the condemned grain store, to be confronted not by a Merivale, angered at being kept waiting, but by Helen Westcott, whose face registered fear and embarrassment at the entrance of Mrs. James.
Gwen had the advantage over Helen, who'd never been told that Gwen had previously been Merivale's meat; Gwen, after a moment of surprise, grasped the significance of her and Helen both being there; Merivale, having tired of Gwen, and now of Helen, was going to amuse himself by playing them off one against the other, adding to all the other shames the shame he expected them each to suffer at knowing that the other knew her for what she was, Merivale's whore. "How naive he is!" said Gwen to herself, "in spite of his evilness! This situation is as pleasant a diversion as I could desire; and I'm sure this girl has not suffered him for six months without being herself cut from the same sadistic cloth as Merivale and myself."
Gwen was more qualified than was Helen to play the role of "Mistress of the situation," not only because she knew about Merivale and the girl, whereas the girl knew not that there was anything to know about Merivale and Gwen, but also because Gwen was older and more experienced, and because she'd been brought up as a member of a class more closely allied to the social, economic and political higher hierarchy than the class to which Helen belonged. Helen's parents were decent honest, hard-working people, modestly proud of being working people, proudly aware of their little worth and of the worthlessness of most of the more "worthy" people; Helen was a true "chip off the old block," and she'd remained decent below the surface, despite her being the kicked-around fornicating instrument of Merivale.
Gwen was the first to speak; "Ah, Miss Westcott! I suppose you've come up about this condemned barley?"
The child was confused, and yet pleased that Mrs. James seemed not to suspect her of being there for some immoral purpose.
"I don't really know, Mrs. James; I was just told to come up here, that Mr. Merivale wanted a warehouse hand; only ... he's ... not here ... yet."
"Oh, well, we'll have to wait for him; he sent for me as well; I suppose he's found a buyer for some of this stuff; it's quite alright, you know, for animal feeding-stuff."
There was a silence of about a minute, broken eventually by Gwen's saying, with a malicious smile in her voice. "When I saw you here, I thought perhaps you'd come up here to meet your boyfriend."
Helen's blushes were such as would have betrayed her even if Gwen had had no knowledge of the girl's relations with at least one man.
"Oh, Mrs. James!" she whispered lamely, "I wouldn't do that."
"Really?" said Gwen, "I'm told that some of these little-frequented stockrooms are quite popular with the men and girls of the warehouses."
Her confusion notwithstanding, Helen's mind was capable, at that moment, of forming the thought, "The men and girls of the warehouses! Go to the devil! There's a damn' sight more dirty-doings amongst you white-collar people and amongst the boss-class than there is amongst us!"
Her train of thought was ruptured by Gwen's resumption of her malicious taunting of the girl; "Why, on three different occasions I've seen three different girls, all from the stockrooms and the loading quays, up in the Edible Oils store, stark naked, covered with oil, and trying to wipe it off with rags so dirty that they smeared on more than they rubbed off."
Gwen smiled, with real amusement, at the girl's abjectness; and Helen wavered miserably between, on the one hand, the fear that Mrs. James had seen her that day, several months ago, when Merivale had beaten her, till she wept, with a thin ribbon of three-ply wood which he'd picked up from the floor, and then covered her weals and the rest of her body with oily mud; and, that she'd made up a story about seeing three different girls in that very condition merely as a means of tricking her into betraying herself;-and, on the other hand the jealous horror at the thought that Mrs. James had indeed seen three girls, naked and oil-smeared, in the Edible Oils store; that the three girls in question had not included her, but that they had been smeared by the man who'd smeared her; and consequently that she, far from being the chosen woman of fascinating, well-bred, refined Mr. Merivale, was merely one of the many doxies who groveled at Mr. Merivale's feet.
Footsteps on the stairs leading up to the room in which they were, announced to Gwen and Helen the arrival of Mr. Merivale, who entered the room, wearing the most evil of smiles.
"Well, you two had time to get acquainted?" he asked, his tone pregnant with arrogant certainty of the absoluteness of his power over both the women.
Gwen's answer had about it a ring of confidence which deflated him somewhat; "Yes," she said, "Miss Westcott and I have been getting along together quite well-haven't we, dear? We've been agreeing wholeheartedly upon the complete moral turpitude of the warehouse type of girl. It would seem that Miss Westcott, being too young to attract the lascivious attention of even the most depraved sexual maniac, remains virtuous, as a shining exception to the rule."
Sullenly, and eager for action to hide his vulnerability to the sharpness of Gwen's perception, he snapped, "Strip! Both of you! Be quick about it!"
Neither woman made a move to obey, although by now even Helen realized that Mrs. James was as much Merivale's ride as she was, and both women knew exactly what he wanted, and that he'd get it. In fact, neither of them minded his making a humiliating exhibition of her before the other, provided that the other should be equally humiliated: neither was prepared to be the first to undo a button.
He regarded them for a moment, hating them both, and yet wanting them both, wanting them together; alone neither of these women held any attraction for him; he'd sucked them dry as individual women, but he hoped that between them they could give him at least one more half-hour of ecstasy. The moment he lost interest in them as a fornicating team, he'd cast them aside, but with a feeling of loss, for they wouldn't be easy to replace. He thought there were probably several girls in his offices and several more in his various warehouses who'd become to him what Gwen and then Helen had been;-but to know which ones were approachable in that way and which weren't was exceedingly difficult; you'd probably walk right past one who was yearning for it, and make a proposition to the very girl who'd walk out at once and return with her parents and a police officer.
Merivale was not in a sweet temper.
"What the hell are you waiting for! You both stand there as if you'd never before stripped at my word of command."
He struck Helen fiercely across the mouth, hissing, "Don't bother about her! She'll get as much as you get, and she's had a damned lot more than you have, from me too; for two years she went through all you've been through these last months; she's fallen even deeper than you have, so don't be shy of her! Look at her!"
As he said this, he seized the skirt of Gwen's frock, and raised it roughly, exposing stockinged legs, naked thighs and bright red, diaphanous panties. Letting the skirts fall, he took Gwen in his arms, and she surrendered eagerly to his kiss as he lowered her unceremoniously onto a heap of in-bagged barley; his hands clutched insanely at the buttons of her bodice, and she hastened to help him, in order to deter him from tearing her clothing. Leaving her to un-button the bodice, he grabbed Helen's knee: she fell on top of them, and Merivale deftly slipped the bracers of her dungarees over her shoulders; he tugged at the blue linen of her trousers, which split at the sides as a protest against his ruthlessness; Helen started to take off her shirt, for the same reason as Gwen had undone the buttons of her bodice. Both women paused when they'd stripped down to brassiere and panties, and Merivale admitted that they were a fine-looking couple of tarts; he'd been lucky so far.
He waited; so did Gwen and Helen.
"Nearly five minutes ago, I told you two whores to strip; and I'm still waiting."
He paused, and then continued heavily, "The first time I had you ... you ... and you ... you were much more eager for what I had to give you."
Since neither woman made a move, he reached across, and grabbed with his left hand the front of Helen's brassiere, whilst his right hand took hold of Gwen's; Gwen quickly slipped her hands behind her shoulders, and loosened the button which enabled her brassiere to come away in Merivale's hand; Helen was not adroit enough, and he tugged sharply at the ribbon which ran across her back and under her arms. The ribbon, however, did not break easily, and bit its way into the girl's flesh, so that a sob of excruciating pain escaped from her throat. With the liberated garment he lashed at her naked breasts which immediately showed a red irregular weal above the nipples.
"In future," he said, slowly and coldly, "when I order you to expose your body to my admiring gaze, or to the scrutiny of any other person to whom I choose to accord that pleasure, you'll strip with more alacrity."
As he spoke, he picked up Gwen's stockings and he tied two knots in the two stockings together, one at the ankles and feet, the other about half-way along. Handing the bundle of nylon to Gwen, he said, "Take this! Teach this girl to do as I tell her!"
Without a moment's hesitation, Gwen began to smite the young girl's body and thighs with the knots of the stockings; the girl resisted, trying to dodge out of the way and to seize the whip as it swooped down upon her. Her resistance encouraged Gwen, who paused a moment to wrap the tops of the garments around her fist, so that the whip was shorter and more easy to handle; then she resumed the attack with a ferocity which thrilled Merivale and turned Helen into a whimpering mass of bruises.
The only thought in Gwen's mind was that she was so pleasing Merivale that, once she'd beaten her rival into unconsciousness, he would kick the prostrate one out of the way and give Gwen the most exciting ride she'd ever had; she wanted that; she needed it badly;-she'd needed it when she went up there to the grain store, but this thrashing of this luscious child had increased her need to a frenzied craving, to a madness. Gwen was as one possessed by demons. The child had fallen to the floor; Gwen kneeled over her, pummeling her now with her fists, the stockings trailing ineffectually behind; she pounded the stomach and breasts of her victim, and occasionally she relaxed a fist and with it smote Helen's face, deriving a savage pleasure from seeing the blood which trickled down her chin. Gwen ceased to see, to be aware of anything except defenseless flesh and pounding fists; Helen had no fight left in her, and Merivale saw, in a flash, that only immediate action would prevent his having a murder to his count. He grabbed Gwen, and she turned to him, holding him in an ecstasy of desire. She wrapped her naked legs around his thighs, and agitated her butt, going through the motions of fornication; she twined her arms about his neck and placed her wide open, trembling mouth over his, her tongue breaking down the barrier of his teeth and filling his mouth with flesh.
Helen stirred, and he turned his head to her; her arms were extended towards him in a passionate plea, her mouth was open and quivering, her tongue pulsating like a little snake; her eyes were wild, and the skin of her cheeks so tightly drawn that her face seemed transparent and her cheek-bones gave the impression of wanting to break out from their covering. Her whole body, battered as it was, was in movement; she writhed sensuously and her arms and legs jerked nervously, desperately calling to him, as she crawled towards where he lay with Gwen.
Merivale disengaged himself from Gwen with a brutal gesture, and she was obliged to remain where he had cast her, knowing herself beaten and afraid to protest. He bounded over to Helen, and as he halted before her, his penis appeared between his hands, and both women, who knew it well, gasped admiringly as they observed its proud, inflamed throbbing. He fell to his knees, and with one motion thrust himself into her to the full depth; a violent tremor passed through her, there was an explosion within her body and she was at the very summit of joy. For half a minute she was limp under him, as he worked himself out of her and back into her with a slow, strong rhythm; then she came to life again. She ached from head to foot, such had been the ferocity of Gwen's thrashing of her; but there was a greater ache within her;-she ached for Merivale, and he was there to assuage her need of him. Gwen was wide-eyed, as she witnessed Helen's response to his thrusts and withdrawals: as he thrust, she shivered savagely into him, and as he withdrew, she drove him backwards. Obsessed, she thumped his stomach with her knees; her teeth sought his throat and met the collar of his shirt; her lips were withdrawn from her teeth, which tore his collar and sunk themselves into the flesh where his neck met his shoulder. Within a few minutes their thrashing bodies had moved five yards along the floor of the store. Then their movement was limited by their collision with the stout legs of a heavy table. She was between him and the table; his every thrust bashed her back against its crude legs, and she was powerless to save herself. Helen emitted a dry, nasal, almost noiseless scream; her movements increased in their frenzy and then died down until she wobbled beneath him as though she were a straw-filled dummy. His spunk flew into her, and he joined her in inertia. Lying, writhing a couple of yards away, Gwen felt a sudden spasm within her, followed by a shaking of her body; she felt moisture upon her thighs, and she picked up a handful of rice with which she rubbed the cream from her thighs. Exhausted, she looked across at the others, a great bitterness inside her; there was no life in them. They were in the stupor peculiar to the human animal whose passion of the flesh has been gratified.
Gwen pulled on Helen's panties, leaving her own, for no reason, for Helen. Then she put on the remainder of her own clothes, except her stockings which were in ribbons. She stood for a moment looking down at Merivale and Helen Westcott; lowering her face towards them, she spat venomously in their faces, which were touching. Merivale didn't stir, but Helen turned a smiling visage up to Gwen and then slithered back into contented slumber.
Gwen returned to her office.
18.
Jean and Arwel were far from enthusiastic over Gwen's plans to hand over the boy's piano tuition to a professional teacher; it smacked of specialisation, whereas they liked to divide their leisure hours between playing the piano, listening to the radio, sketching and painting; but Gwen had decided that she was worthy of a famous son, and that her deserts would best be served by his becoming a great pianist. Her determination was fortified by her meeting with Taylor Beecroft, and she was quite prepared to engage an incompetent teacher for her son if by so doing she brought herself into frequent contact with a man after whom she lusted.
Having bathed, she put on her most becoming dress, and devoted more time than usual to her make-up and coiffure; and, before leaving the house, she warned Jean that she would probably return home late or not at all.
During the evening, after hearing on the wireless a record of Giacomo Lauri-Volpi singing a tenor aria from Giordano's Andrea Chenier, Arwel informed Jean that he was going to be an operatic tenor, when he grew up; and he asked her to give him singing lessons. He seemed so downcast at her explaining that she knew nothing about singing, and could not teach him, that she drew him to her and kissed his mouth tenderly. He turned his head away, embarrassed by her warmth, but she took his chin gently between her fingers and raised his face towards hers; his eyes held hers for a second before he lowered them shyly. She held him close, and touched his lips with her tongue; his lips parted instinctively, and he clung to her, thrilling her by the pressure of his young body against hers.
Until bedtime they sketched, and she was shocked by the accuracy with which he drew a man and woman lying naked on a disheveled bed; she was moved to wonder by his brilliant reproduction of a well-developed woman in a pose of abandon.
Meanwhile, at Beecroft's house, Gwen was cruelly disappointed to find that her prey lived with his sister Naomi, so there seemed little hope of the intimate hour for which she'd hoped. There was, in relation to Arwel's studies, nothing to be discussed which could not have been settled in five minutes at lunch-time, and Gwen feared that Naomi might, therefore, guess her real motive for coming. In fact, both Taylor and Naomi regarded her visit as quite normal.
They joined forces to persuade Gwen to accept half-past-four to half-past-five as the hour of his daily visit to her house; Gwen insisted that Arwel's lesson must take place later, ostensibly so that she could observe her son's progress, but actually because she intended that Taylor should not have left her house every day before she returned from her office. Her idea was that, immediately after the lesson, whilst Jean was putting Arwel to bed, she should have Taylor to herself for half an hour; ultimately, Taylor bowed to his welcome client's determination, while Naomi excused herself to prepare a cup of tea.
The moment Naomi left, Gwen sat down on the arm of Taylor's chair, saying:
"I'm glad we're alone at last; I came to spend an evening with you alone."
He drew her gently down onto his knees and bestowed on her lips a long, sensual kiss. His hands touched her face, and stroked the length of her body, lingering around her breasts, her buttocks, her belly and thighs. He kissed her again.
"Quick!" she hissed, "Take me! Take me somewhere!"
In his astonishment he could neither move nor speak.
"Your bedroom!" she suggested, and he shook his head negatively and miserably.
She pulled him to his feet.
"Outside! Take me out ... for a walk ... for ... "
She completed the sentence with a facial expression full of passionate promise and persuasive pleading. She grasped him tightly about the neck, kissed him savagely, madly, biting his lip ferociously.
Fearing that Naomi would return, Taylor endeavored to disengage himself; Gwen lost her mental balance; she slid her feet between Taylor's, and relaxed completely, with the unconscious intention of bringing him off his physical balance. He stumbled, and was able to regain equilibrium only after Gwen's full weight had fallen onto a small table, converting it into a pile of sticks.
Hearing the crash, Naomi dashed into the room; the fall had returned Gwen to some control of herself, and she had risen to her feet before Naomi's entrance. The moment Miss Beecroft saw the splinters of the table and the abashed expression on the faces of her brother and Mrs. James, she knew exactly what had happened, and she called herself a blind fool for failing to weigh-up Mrs. James earlier.
The table which had ceased to exist had been an exceptionally beautiful example of Chinese workmanship, very delicately constructed in highly-polished black wood, but strong; it had been in the Beecroft family considerably more than a century, and during that time it had demanded no repairing, no maintenance whatsoever. Paradoxically, it was fragile and as firm as a rock.
Naomi was so horrified and bewildered that she could not find words to express her indignation, at first. After her hatred had relented, she felt in her heart an immense compassion for the two miserable-looking vandals.
She moved quickly to where Gwen was standing in her wretchedness, and she embraced the ashamed one fervently. After a moment, Naomi turned to her brother, bathed him in a smile through whose sadness he discerned complete forgiveness, and said:
As she spoke, Naomi gently pushed Gwen towards Taylor. The absence of response on the part of both Gwen and Taylor roused her ire; God! She pitied them! Yes! Gwen especially was a pathetic patiently until the end of time, whilst they stared blankly over each other's shoulder? Or did they expect her to withdraw discreetly to the kitchen and her preparation of tea? No! Naomi was in her own sitting-room; it was as much hers as Taylor's; she'd remain there until she chose to leave.
A full minute of stillness passed, as Taylor and Gwen faced each other, one pace apart, with Naomi standing behind Gwen, willing her to cut down that pace to nothingness, the nothingness of taking and giving, the nothingness and the everything of nakedness and of passionate man-and-woman togetherness, oblivious of everything and everybody, and more than ever aware of all things and all people.
The petrified trio remained under a spell. Then, gradually, Naomi reduced the distance between her belly and Gwen's bottom to nothing. From behind
Gwen, she flung her right arm round Gwen's neck the two women were cheek-to-cheek.
Naomi's left hand began to undo the buttons down the front of Gwen's frock; Taylor's hands, which had hung limply at his sides, were brought and, with her forearm, she forced back the other's head so that Gwen's head was on her shoulder, and suddenly in front of his face: he turned and fled from the room and the house. Gwen's move to pursue him was hindered by the tightening of Naomi's grip upon her; they heard the slamming of the front door, and Gwen surrendered herself to Naomi, who, with excited, nervous, hungry motions, continued the stripping of her; as one of Gwen's garments after another fell to the floor, Naomi remained behind her. Gwen's stockings slid half down to her ankles, and she kicked off first one shoe and then the other; then, wearing nothing but her stockings, she permitted herself to be lowered tenderly onto the frothy, white sheepskin rug before the fire; Naomi's caresses set her blood on fire, and she writhed shudderingly when Naomi's mouth met hers and their tongues exchanged kisses. Gwen closed her eyes, rolled over onto her stomach, and, her whole body a quiver of desire, she beat the rug with her clenched fists; quickly Naomi undressed, and, naked, she turned Gwen over onto her back, and threw herself upon her.
Gwen received her with passionate embraces and deep kisses; belly-to-belly, in a welter of to-and-fro, nearly blind with gratified lust, they passed a few minutes, first one on top and then the other, not by design, but simply in the thrilling abandon of love.
Naomi groaned several times, every fibre of her body singing the highest note in the scale of ecstasy, and then she swooned. Happily, Gwen buried her nose and mouth in her lover's steaming loins.
19.
Merivale used Helen twice after Gwen left them in the grain-store, and arrived home so much later than usual that he and Eileen quarrelled violently. When his face turned purple, and he collapsed on the floor, she left him, and went up to her room to shed tears over his infidelity, of which she was convinced. Several hours later, she found him crumpled up exactly where she'd left him, and she hastened to summon a doctor. The creature which emerged from Merivale's sixteen-hour stupor was a paralyzed idiot, for whose survival little hope was entertainable.
Godfrey Irving took charge of the firm for the duration of Merivale's illness. He was a gentleman in his late fifties, a relative of Merivale's wife, and of considerable social standing; proud and politely arrogant, he had, during his many years in Merivale's employ, meticulously avoided all but the most indispensable contacts with his colleagues. An expert in statistics, finance and commercial law, he had been answerable only to Merivale himself, and had taken care to know nothing about the practical aspect of the business. However, he found that the various departments operated efficiently with little interference from him, and he rejoiced in the withdrawal from the firm's activities of an employer whom he considered inferior to himself in intelligence and social standing.
Merivale's death, after an illness of six months, left Eileen in complete possession of the firm, and Irving in control. Irving had ever been to her a sort of God, and she was grateful to her husband for dying and thereby allowing him to occupy a position worthy of his talents. Merivale and Irving had always disliked one another, and the latter had rarely been Eileen's guest whilst her husband lived; but, as a widow, after six months with a totally helpless man, she invited Irving to dinner frequently, for the declared purpose of talking business and the real purpose of seducing him. He accepted her invitations, hoping to use their t�te-...-t�te dinners as a prelude to sleeping with her. Neither, however, succeeded in conveying willingness to the other, so that after a few weeks their intimate dinners ceased.
20.
Knowing nothing of what happened between Gwen and Naomi after his flight from his house, Taylor was surprised by Gwen's attitude to him whenever they met at her house; she was friendly, never failed to enquire about Naomi and to insist on his conveying her love to her, and seemed to take a genuine interest in Arwel's studies. In fact she spoke about all sorts of things, but never about her visit to his house. And she made no attempt to seduce him or to convey the impression that she herself was seducible; in fact she was loveable, in the pure, unerotic sense of the word, and he found himself attracted to her in a way which left their bodies out of account;-something akin to platonic love, and yet it was quite definitely a man's love of a woman.
Puzzled, he tried to explain the situation to Naomi one evening, on his return from giving Arwel his lesson. Seeking for the right words, his manner was nervous, his hands trembled, he stammered.
Finally he said:
" ... and yet, I wonder if she does feel as I do ... this cool, unfevered devotion. Or is her desire as urgent as ever? Is she perhaps feigning coldness, because she knows my feelings have changed towards her, and she doesn't want to embarrass me by making demands I don't want to meet? But, no ... a woman as brazenly hot as she was that night has no such scruples ... she wants a man, she takes him, whether he wants her or not; No! She's changed, as I have! We've found that rare thing ... poetic love ... the pure substance of cool, undemanding love ... "
"If only I'd left you in peace!" she groaned, "You'd have enjoyed her, and she you; clean healthy sweat, sperm and ecstasy! Oh, forgive me, Tay!"
Sobbing, she threw herself into his arms, and recounted, in the finest detail, all that had happened after his running out of the house. She lived again that first evening, stripping Gwen and herself, combing with her fingers the hair of Gwen's loins, until her fingers found Gwen's soft, moist, oily warmth, and her fingers were inside.
Writhing in frenzied, joyous agony she found Taylor's mouth with her lips, and his tongue flamed in her mouth, so that her panties scorched her. She seized his hand, and thrust it imperiously upwards under her skirts; his hand tugged at the garment which burned her, and the heat of her loins concentrated itself in one spot.
"Gwen," she groaned, hugging him to her as he became soft.
21.
"But, Mr. Baker, why has Dent waited so long? Mrs. James has been in charge of his department nearly three years."
"I know she has, Mr. Irving; but Percy ... Mr. Dent ... and I too ... complained to Mr. Merivale at the time, but without any effect. When you took over, we didn't like to bother you until you'd ... sort of got used to your new responsibilities; and Mr. Dent seemed quite sure that you'd put things right without any ... prompting from us."
"Why should I reverse a decision made by Mr. Merivale ... I mean, this particular decision?"
George Baker, who had succeeded Goddard in charge of all buying of merchandise, was between two fires. On the one side was Percy Dent, whose case it was his duty to plead with conviction, and on the other side was Godfrey Irving, who wasn't going to like some of the things Percy had told him to say.
"Well, Mr. Dent insists Mr. Merivale had a personal interest in Mrs. James, and that he promoted her out of friendship. He thought that, as soon as Mr. Merivale handed over to you, changes would be made. I'm stating Mr. Dent's case in particular, because he's talking of asking the Union to look into it, and he's been the most direct victim; you see, he'd been second-in-charge of Cereals before Mrs. James came back; he helped to teach her the work, and then she became his superior. So he's more directly involved than anybody else; but there's ... general dissatisfaction."
"It's generally supposed then that I have neglected to rectify an injustice? No, don't answer that! I'll look into this matter, hear what Mrs. James thinks about it, and keep you informed. But you'd better warm Mr. Dent that I doubt very much whether I shall actually demote Mrs. James; all I can promise is that, if his charges appear to be founded, I shall try to promote him to the position he'd normally have had ... perhaps create something for him, but I don't see how for the time being. Tell him to be patient!"
As soon as Baker had left him, Irving sent for Gwen, for whose benefit he summarized his earlier conversation with Baker.
"When I took charge." he added, "I did nothing about it ... I thought the whole thing had been forgotten; but ... "
"But why should I be penalized for their stupidity, their cupidity and the infantine jealousy! I've worked and studied to become what I am; I've worried about the job. Whilst others left the office in the evenings without further thought for the work in hand; and now I'm used to authority and to the salary it implies. It wouldn't be fair to reduce my salary to that of a simple clerk!"
"Believe me, Mrs. James, I see this thing in more or less the same light; but can I afford to have a whole department, and ultimately perhaps the whole establishment, poisoned by the suspicions to which your colleagues have been giving tongues? I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I'd like you to have the complete picture, so that you can judge for yourself the difficulty of my position. The men and women of your department believe that you owe your position to favors which you granted to Mr. Merivale ... "
"Mr. Irving!" Gwen feigned outraged innocence.
She had long suspected that some of her colleagues had divined the nature of her relationship with Merivale, but never previously had any one given voice to such a conjecture in her presence.
"Please don't be offended, Mrs. James! I'm not expressing my own opinions; what makes the situation more difficult still is that, underlying what Mr. Taylor told me was the inference (not his, you know, but that of his subordinates) that I have taken over not only Mr. Merivale's commercial responsibilities, but also his alleged liaison with you ... "
This time, Gwen's "Mr. Irving!" had in it nothing of pretence; it was really a tremendous surprise to her that such an idea should be current.
"Mrs. James," he continued, "I don't mind the truth, even though it be defamatory of my own reputation, but I'm determined that this lie shall be killed. It is, if I may say so without offending your susceptibilities, an honor they do me, a compliment they pay me, to suggest that an old man like me should be the lover of the love nest and most seductive of women ... "
"Really, Mr. Irving," she said, "You are most gallant ... You are also very modest."
They both laughed, and he spluttered, "Now who's being gallant?"
Their laughter ceased, and he said, with great intensity, "Seriously, Mrs. James, I do draw the line at my being maligned in my innocence; and, as I see it, the rumor will continue to spread and to be enlarged upon as long as you remain with us, in a position of authority and esteem exceeding that occupied by persons who are your seniors in age and service ... "
"So the lie must be killed! Then you'll either have to kill it by demoting me, which would be cruel and unjust, or you can kill it by letting the rumor continue to circulate and by living up to the claims which the rumor makes upon your behalf."
Aghast, Irving rose to his feet, and moved round his table towards her.
She posed a hand on his forearm, and he gripped her arms avowing that she was as ripe a fruit as man ever plucked.
"Pluck me then! And forget about Percy Dent!"
Knowing now how she'd ensnared Merivale, he was willing to enter the trap himself. His arms encircled her waist and shoulders, and his fastidious lips saw no indignity in kissing the mouth of the late Leonard Merivale's strumpet.
Fearful lest his secretary should enter his office, be ushered Gwen into the adjoining water-closet, a tiny cabinet in which two people constituted a crowd. Closing the door behind them, he pressed her to the wall, his mouth locked in her lips, his hands squeezing her buttocks and breasts through the stuff of her vestments. She'd entered into the new relationship with Irving to safeguard her position in the firm, but his kiss drove all such considerations from her mind; she was all woman, all flesh and boiling blood, pathetically in need of the arms which held her, the hands and lips which explored her, and the rebellious prisoner whose stirring she felt through the tweed of his trousers. She set the captive free, and turned faint at the sight of its short, thick, rocky determination; living's hands made her flesh tingle, as they groped for the waist-band of her panties; so excitedly did he tremble in his impatience that she finally removed the garment herself. Lowering his posterior to the lavatory seat, he pulled her to him, making her stand astride his thighs, one foot on each side of the pot. The crown of his phallus touched the lips of her sex, which shed a tear of joy upon it as she sat down on his thighs, forcing his baton into her until the hair of his testicle-bag tickled her butt; he stretched her wider than she'd ever been forced before, and it was such sweet suffering! After rising and falling upon him a few times, she was so loose upon his pole that, to intensify her possession of him, she swung her legs together, inside his thighs, and grasped the water-pipe at his back in order to pull herself deeper onto him. Pushing with her feet, and bending her arms, she rode him to the edge of the supreme pleasure, falling with him into the sea of satisfaction, whose foam spattered the inside of her; Irving had undressed neither her nor himself, since he wished to return quickly to his office, ever fearful that his secretary would notice his absence; but it was so pleasant lying there, his pacified penis soaking in the oils of the magnificent nymph whose butt filled his resting hands, that he dozed until the re-awakening of his mascuhnity within her loins caused her to stir. She raised herself, and strands of shining mucus stretched from his sex to hers; he got up at the invitation of her arms, and, after a kiss which re-kindled their fires, she turned her back to him, lowered her head into the pot, and presented to him a well-fleshed posterior, covered by a skirt; he lifted this veil, and went into her again. Her disarranged hair cascaded into the water, as he forced her shoulders down and pulled her rear in to his belly; her sighs and groans came to him from the depths of the pot trumpet, and he heard the hsp of her copious vaginal oils as his penis dived deep into her and re-emerged prior to deeper probing. Her buttocks trembled into him, whilst her legs bent and straightened at the knees, eager to drive her tenderest parts into ever more delirious contact with the rock of him. He was not aware of his ejection of cream until it was actually happening; with a sigh of contentment she received of him and gave of herself, her entire being transformed into sweet jelly; her head rose, and slowly moved backwards until it rested on his tired shoulder. From her heart and blood she whispered: "Thank you!"
Re-adjusting his dress, he regained his office, and she put on her clothes in haste, sensing his anxiety she should leave without undue delay.
22.
The white lambs' wool carpet in Godfrey living's bedroom was adorned with a large diamond of shimmering sunlight in whose brilliance stood Gwen, her naked body aquiver with the sun's warmth.
His appetite appeased, he beckoned her to the bed, and raised anew the subject of Dent's complaint of some weeks previously. During the ensuing conversation he informed her that his plans for creating some new post to which he could promote Dent had met with the disapproval of Mrs. Merivale, and he asked:
"Couldn't you take a few weeks off work, and then come back with a request, on medical grounds, for some less strenuous, less responsible position? Dent could take your place in charge of the department, and you could take it easy in some clerical job."
"And keep my present salary?" she asked incredulously.
"No, of course not," he replied, stroking her thighs under her flimsy wrap, " ... but, strictly between ourselves, I personally would see to it that you were no worse off."
Aghast, she asked: "You'd give me money? ... out of your own pocket?"
"Why ... yes!" he stammered.
In a fury she hurled herself upon him, her claws striking at his face. A quick movement of the head spared him the gashes she sought to inflict. He seized her hands, laughing, and forced her back onto the bed; writhing helplessly under him, she spat in his face. Spinning her over onto her belly, he hauled her across his knees and spanked her soundly.
Outside the room, Delys, living's maid-servant, stuffed her handkerchief into her mouth to stifle her laughter. Delys had never understood why her employer brought other women into his house when he had a young, personable maid who would have been happy to share his bed; and she rejoiced in Gwen's suffering.
23.
Gwen was worried about Percy Dent's threat to involve his Trades Union in his dispute with Merivales, since she couldn't be absolutely certain that there wasn't someone who knew of the favors she'd granted Merivale in exchange for her promotion; but Percy himself was as unsure of his case for the prosecution as she was of her defense; Irving had informed George Baker of Mrs. Merivale's refusal to tolerate the creation of a hitherto nonexistent position for Percy Dent, and of his own determination that Mrs. James should not suffer demotion on mere vague suspicions of favoritism. Percy realized that, whilst most of his colleagues shared his conviction that Gwen had bought advancement of Leonard Merivale with her body, no one had ever admitted having seen them together other than in the normal course of duty. Outside the office they'd never been seen together, as far as Percy was aware; so the arguments he could present to the Union officials were backed by suspicions of the flimisiest substance.
"Look at it this way!" George Baker argued, "As far as any of us knows, Gwen is a first-class example of a well-behaved woman. Apart from our suspicions, no breath of scandal has ever touched her name, either during Trevor's life-time or the many years of her widowhood. It doesn't seem reasonable, somehow, that an otherwise highly moral woman, however ambitious, would sell herself for a bit of power and a few pounds per week ... "
"So even you are beginning to believe that she was promoted over my head merely because she's more capable and because Merivale's heart bled for the widow with a child to keep and nothing but her widow's pension?"
"No, lad! I'm just looking at this thing from the Union's point of view. If you were dealing now with a flighty tart, well ... it's not hard to believe that, being a trollop anyway, she'd make her vice pay dividends."
Turning away from George Baker, Percy said, in the anger of one whose own conviction is weakening:
"There are honest-to-God trollops and there are really smart ones, and I'm going to prove that she's one of the smart ones."
With that, Percy went up to the condemned grain store, his face clouded by his helpless anger. Finding Gwen in the store, alone, his face darkened still further.
"You do look upset, Percy," she said with genuine compassion.
"I was thinking about you," he growled, and she sought to ease the situation with a coquettish:
"That's a charming compliment."
Knowing what manner of thoughts about her brought ire to his eyes, she sought to soften his attitude towards her, hoping that she might at least postpone his discussing his discontent with the officials of his Union.
"They weren't very complimentary thoughts," he replied coldly.
"Frequently," she said, her voice low and caressing, "the thoughts which a man thinks will offend a woman are just the ones she takes as compliments."
"For example?"
"When a girl turns to look back at a man who's given her the wolf-whistle, he usually thinks she's going to call a policeman, whereas she's really acknowledging his flattery."
"I see what you mean; but I've given you no wolf-whistle."
"Of course not," she replied, invitingly, "but I don't have that effect on you, or do I?"
Oh, we may be rivals, even enemies, but I won't deny I find you damned attractive."
Without a word, she put her arms about his neck and bestowed upon his now victoriously smiling lips a long, tender kiss which developed into one devoid of tenderness, a kiss endowed with a ferocity which created frenzy in his blood. She guided his hand to her breasts, and made him knead them with all the combined strength of his hand and hers; his other hand fondled her thighs beneath her skirts.
"Not waste a minute!" she gasped, her eyes closed, her head swaying backwards, her loins assaulting his.
Percy knew she was his for the having, and his need for her was imperative. But no! Someone might come in, and all he'd worked for would be lost ... nearly twenty years of devoted service, and then dismissal for fornicating on the firm's premises! Besides, he'd proved to himself part of his suspicions ... she wasn't a paragon of virtue, in fact she was a woman so lustful as to be a danger to herself. Patience would allow him to exploit her sensuality; he must make her wait until he could have her in circumstances enabling him to persuade her to reminisce about her other lovers, about Merivale.
"Calm, my honey," he cooed, "It's too risky here."
"Please, Percy! I've got to ... Percy! Behind this bench! The pile of sacks! Quite safe! I know, I've often ... "
Her hysteria changed to speechless fear, as he dug his thumbs into the flesh of her shoulders.
"You've often ... ? What! With whom?"
In his eyes she saw tenacity and danger, as he lowered his distorted face to hers, spitting out:
"Your house ten o'clock this evening! Tell me what you started to say, and I'll take you to bed; otherwise, you can go to Hell."
So that's why no one ever saw Merivale and Gwen together. During innocent tours of inspection, it was here in the condemned grain store and perhaps in other stores that she'd paid the price of her preferment over Percy, even having her pile of sacks, hidden behind the bench, invisible to the chance intruder.
She rubbed her belly up and down against his, and her hands sought his penis.
"Have me now, Percy! Tonight as well! Whenever you want!"
His penis stiffened, and he feared he would be unable to avoid taking her immediately unless he escaped; as he fled from her, she grasped his arm, his presence of absolute necessity to her. He turned abruptly, slipped one foot behind her feet, and sharply tapped her shoulders; she fell heavily to the dusty floor with a flurry of skirts, and he made good his escape.
24.
During ten years at school Arwel shone in languages, English literature, music and art; in the other academic subjects he was a pupil of average achievements, whilst at wood-work and in sports and athletics he was the outstanding duffer. At home he was almost permanently in the company of Jean who sought no friend or interest outside the boy with whom she devoted her leisure hours to listening to music and especially opera on the radio and gramophone, to playing the piano, singing, writing poetry and painting pictures.
One of their rare quarrels resulted from her rebuking him for insisting that he was going to be an operatic tenor, when he grew up; he was a member of a church choir, but not for religious reasons, and his pleasing soprano voice had impressed the organist, who gave him private tuition free of charge; but Jean warned him one evening that he would probably develop a baritone voice within a few years, and that he ought to rid himself of his tenor complex.
In his stubborn refusal to accept what his adolescent reason told him was at least a possibility, he said some very bitter things to her; and later, tears burning his eyes, he begged forgiveness of her.
She gave his mouth a kiss of pardon, and chuckled deeply at his blushes, sticking out her tongue at him. When he followed suit, she kissed his tongue, her lips parted so that their tongues caressed one another; he shuddered and instinctively pressed his body tighter to hers. Her hands found his buttocks, which she pressed with both hands, holding him close for a minute.
At that moment, Gwen entered the house.
During the evening meal she informed them that she was expecting a visitor at ten o'clock, and that they would both have to be out of the way when he arrived; she also hinted that the guest would spend the night in the house.
After the washing up, Gwen went to her room, to rest for an hour in preparation for the active night for which she was hoping; Jean worked on a series of poems which Arwel had asked her to write in order that he could set them to music; and he devoted himself to his painting of "The Devil's Triil" which represented a wild-eyed fidler whose violin had as its body the skull of a human being, and as its bow a white lily from whose petals fell drops of blood.
Shortly before ten o'clock, Gwen came down again, and Arwel and Jean retired to their respective bedrooms.
Sitting alone Gwen suddenly conceived the idea of stilling Percy's suspicions by citing as the lover she'd been wont to meet in the grains store a certain Charlie Groves, a laborer who'd left Merivales a few weeks previously to take on a job at
Lornchester. Percy wouldn't see the man again, so there was little danger of her deception being discovered.
She ran eagerly to the door in answer to Percy's knock, and he asked immediately: "Well? Who was it?"
"Relax, Percy!" she coaxed, trying to flow into his arms, "We're going to enjoy ourselves."
"Not unless you answer my question!"
"But ... I can't betray the man who's given me so much pleasure."
"Very well!" he said, turning as if to go, his blood crying out so hungrily for her that, had she not intercepted him, he would have turned in his tracks, groveled at her feet, and begged her to be his mistress on her own terms; but Gwen, too eager, as ever, threw herself in his path, beseeching him to stay.
He raised her roughly to her feet, and demanded to know the name of the man she'd entertained in the grains store.
"I can't tell you, Percy."
"You mean you won't?"
"Very well, I refuse." , Arwel and Jean heard the resounding smack as Percy's palm came into brutal contact with Gwen's cheek.
Gwen recoiled, raising the back of her hand to her burning face; as if dazed, she wandered into the parlor, hoping he would follow. He did.
He seized her arms and hauled her to her feet; in response to her muteness he spat in her eyes, and she lowered her head in shame. His fierce grip on her arms caused her to wince, and a smile of satisfaction spread across his visage; he forced her to her knees, jerked her head backwards by her hair and commanded:
"Tell me who it was! Then stay on your knees, and beg me to do what you want me to do to you!"
To provoke him to further violence, she made no answer. He flung her backwards, and she fell heavily, her agony announcing that he'd pulled the top of her head off. On his knees beside her, he flicked her skirts up, and delivered a stinging blow to her bare thigh, watching, hot-lipped and dry-throated, as the shape of his hand on her pink flesh deepened to an ugly violet. She raised herself slightly, and tried to turn to him, to draw him to her; desire for him wracked her body. He pushed her away, and his finger-nails swooped down to her thigh immediately above the bruise; her leg stiffened instinctively, and his savage nails plowed four bloody furrows across the inflamed skin. She pushed her hand into her mouth to stifle a scream.
His hands went to the waist-band of her panties; peeling the garment off, he deliberately caused it to chafe her wound, and, when the heel of her mule caught the flimsy silk, he tugged impatiently and ripped the panties. He turned her over on her back, thrust both his hands up between her thighs, and tried to force all his fingers into her vaginal passage; failing this, he put in two fingers of each hand, and pulled in two directions so that the moist, stinking tunnel was stretched to the point of excruciating pain. She groaned, delighting in his cruelty, and he released his hold.
"Who was it?" he asked; and the look of disappointment with which he greeted her "Charlie Groves" told her he'd wanted to hear the name of Leonard Merivale.
Incredulous, he insisted:
"You'd never let a big, ignorant navvy mess you about!"
"The more uncouth they are, the better I like 'em."
He pulled her to him; her trembling fingers found him, and pushed him into herself.
The following morning, Jean found Gwen in the parlor wearing only tattered stockings; Percy Dent was naked, but his shirt lay on top of his chest; both were asleep. Jean gently squeezed a couple of drops of sperm out of the pipe of his penis, and he woke up and drew her to him, his phallus pulsing into life as his hands found her bare thighs beneath her skirts. She allowed herself to be dragged into a half lying posture, submitting to his kisses and to his pulling her panties down to her knees; his hands trembled about her belly and thighs, until one hand thrust itself up between her thighs, and two fingers were plunged into her, withdrawn slowly and then swiftly, powerfully dug into her again; she felt the moisture of her vagina, she heard the sound of his fingers chafing her sensitive, oiled flesh, and her nostrils were assailed by the sickly-sweet odor of herself. Her mouth swooped down upon his, and she kissed him greedily, her tongue quivering in his mouth; he held her to him, and she rolled over, so that he was astride her eagerly parted thighs; her shoulders propped against the stout leg of the table, she watched fascinated as the throbbing helmet of his copulative organ parted the lips of her. Half his column disappeared within her, and a shiver of delight passed through her; a cruel glint in his eyes, he pulled back and she saw the white, creamy film over that half of his penis which had explored her body. His testicles were between her knees, and she felt his moist penis against her thigh; demons distorted his face. With one strong, ruthless plunge he buried his hard spear of throbbing flesh deep into her agonized loins, and in her avidity she thrust herself towards him, into him, willing him to force more of himself into her, wordlessly imploring him to inflict greater suffering upon her; but, as he withdrew for a third assault she jerked her left haunch upwards, unseating him from his position astride her. He fell, as she'd intended, upon Gwen, who was startled out of the deep sleep of one who has been deliriously fatigued; Jean sprang to her feet, adjusting her panties in readiness for flight. Gwen smiled: either
Percy had had Jean or he'd tried and hadn't been instantly rebuffed;-whichever was the case, Gwen was relieved that Jean seemed to be developing into a normal woman after all.
Percy tried to escape from Gwen's clutches, convinced that, if he could lay hands on Jean before she left the room, he'd quickly have her back in a state of eagerness for him; but Gwen had two reasons for not letting him loose. She too believed Jean would offer him no resistance if he touched her again before the fire in her had subsided, but she believed the girl had some reason for wanting to dominate her passions for the time being, and she intended that Jean's wishes should be respected; furthermore, Percy's impatience to get at Jean indicated that he hadn't already had her, and so was in an advanced stage of frustration from which Gwen hoped to profit. With a friendly smile, devoid of coquetry, Jean left the room; Percy made a final effort to follow, but Gwen kept him for herself.
Jean re-appeared in the doorway almost immediately.
Gwen and Percy saw her leaning, relaxed, against the door-post, but their desire for each other was too intense to allow her presence to deter them from their sport. Percy's first few thrusts into Gwen, and her frenzied response delighted Jean, but delight became pain, hot, sweating agony, and regret that she'd given Gwen what could have been hers; her whole body quivered with longing for what Gwen was enjoying; she emitted a series of sobs, and gripped the door-post with her hands. She pressed her forehead so hard against the wood that, for a moment, all the pain concentrated itself above her eyes; then the pain flowed back into her loins. Holding the door-post, she bent and stretched her legs, rubbing her belly and thighs up and down the woodwork, as she observed the final mad antics of Gwen and Percy; Gwen's groans became a hoarse scream, and her ecstatic wriggling died down to a mere twitching of her legs; Percy's flame was extinguished almost simultaneously with Gwen's; and Jean clung motionless to the doorpost, feeling a trickling of moisture down her thighs.
Afterwards Jean's strength returned to her, and there was within her a new upsurge of desire. The sound of heavy breathing told her that Gwen and Percy were dozing again; she looked down at them lying on their backs in attitudes of abandon. Several strands of hair hung damply across Gwen's face, and were lifted by every outward flow of breath from her distended nostrils.
Kneeling down beside Percy, Jean regarded closely the little curl of flesh which was all that remained of the vast, aggressive column which had so recently cut its imperious way into her body, hurting and delighting her; she lowered her head, and took the sodden, little penis in her mouth. The man's body stiffened, and his hand moved in sleep towards his loins, where it collided with Jean's face; he drew back his hand as from a fire, and she left the room hurriedly, fearing to wake him.
When Jean entered Arwel's room, to rouse him, he was doing an auto-portrait with the aid of a mirror. Whilst she looked critically at the unfinished work, her hands fondled his face; he put his hands on her forearm and raised one of her hands to his lips; she turned to him, and met a smile illuminated by affection. She flicked aside the bed clothes, kicked off her slippers, and dropped onto the bed beside him.
"Will you have the bathroom first?" she asked, "Gwen and her friend have had a heavy night, and they need a little more sleep."
He made a move to leave the bed, but she arrested him, and beckoned him to approach her. He moved back in her direction, and knelt on the bed beside her; she drew him to her, and he slid into a reclining position. Her eyes closed, she held him tight, rejoicing in his belly against hers, in the firmness of his thighs along hers. Her mouth sought his in a kiss through which flowed her love and her desire; with all the gaucherie of an affectionate, embarrassed boy in the fifteenth year of his life, he clung to her, sensing that she was troubled, and he was ready to do anything to give her peace. He kissed her with brotherly tenderness, and she groaned, her hands kneading the flesh of his shoulders and butt with the fierceness of her need. She kissed him again, her mouth soft and moist, her tongue trying to rouse him to a need of her.
"Arwel!" she sighed, "Kiss me, my lovely! Hold me!"
He held her tight in his arms, kissing her fiercely; his loins stirred impatiently, and he wanted Jean as he'd never wanted her before. Suddenly he understood Jean, realizing the nature of her trouble, what she wanted of him and needed. His mind was thrown back to the distant morn when he'd seen Gwen and Eddie lying together naked; nausea assailed him, and he loosened his grip on Jean, rebelling against her embrace. He saw a pained expression in her eyes, and tears bumed his; tenderly he stroked her hair, like a big brother comforting a child.
Simultaneously they sprang from the bed, he on one side, she on the other; in the smiles they exchanged love was mixed with apologies, shame was accompanied by compassion.
At the door of the bathroom, they kissed as do innocent children, coldly, freshly; and she went downstairs vowing that Arwel would have the most succulent rasher of ham.
Gwen alone noticed that, throughout breakfast, Percy hardly took his eyes off Jean. She didn't resent the fact of Jean and Arwel having eyes only for each other; but she regretted that her young housekeeper paid so little attention to Percy. Reluctant as she was to lose her new lover, she would have suffered the loss gladly in order that Jean should have a taste of fornication, so that, in the event of her finding it to her liking, she could have all the lovers she wanted whilst she was young and enticing enough to get them without paying too high a price ... Sipping her coffee, Gwen wondered how she ought to set about engineering Percy's seduction of the girl.
25.
Percy became a regular visitor to the house, devoting a lot of time to Jean and Arwel whose interests in the arts he shared; he encouraged them to accept small parts in the plays he produced for the Brooksfield Thesbians; and Gwen welcomed their going out together to rehearsals, since she was thereby set free to spend evenings with Irving or wander around town, in the parks, public-houses and dance-halls, where new male acquaintances were occasionally to be made.
Being simultaneously the mistress of Percy and Godfrey demanded great prudence on Gwen's part; Irving would never have tolerated sharing a woman with one of his own employees, whilst Gwen feared that if Percy ever learned that Gwen's lovers included Irving, he would re-open his apparently forgotten campaign against her holding the post of head of Cereals Imports at Merivales. Percy knew that Gwen had lovers other than himself, but he was not of a jealous nature, and, in addition to being interested in Jean, he was beloved of the wife of the vicar of St. Michael's; so that, whilst what he had of Gwen pleased him, he never pried into her activities during the time they spent apart.
Irving's demands on Gwen were infrequent, but she never dared to offer him an excuse for not responding to his needs, until one evening, which she'd promised to Percy, Irving called her to his office just before half-past-five, and informed her that she was his until the following morning.
He seized her, kissing her, pummeling her breasts and buttocks, trembling with the urgency of his need of her.
When she expressed her regret at having a prior appointment which she couldn't cancel, the substance and manner of his reply suggested briefly that the manager's office housed again its former occupant, instead of the gray-haired, distinguished gentleman who'd succeeded him.
"Ring up your friends, whoever they are! Tell them you're sleeping with me tonight!"
He picked up the telephone.
"Number?" he asked, and she answered that he wouldn't need it, since, eager as she was to spend that and every other night with him, he couldn't have her, after so long an interval, at such short notice.
He seized her throat, his handsome face purple with rage. She gasped for breath, and he forced her to her knees; she emitted a sigh of relief as he relaxed his grip on her throat, using his freed hand to pull her head so far back by the hair that, when he kissed her, she was unable to respond to his passion. Savagely, he bit her lips and cheeks; she jerked her head free involuntarily, but his grip on her hair increased the hurt; his lips and teeth descended to her neck, and his teeth tore the blouse from her shoulders; his hands joined in the work of destruction, and soon she was naked down to the waist, writhing in an agony of desire. Their combined weight reduced a wicker-work waste-paper basket to a heap of sticks, some of which he used as an instrument for thrashing her about the shoulders and breasts.
When he'd ridden her, she washed her wounds, pinned the tatters of her blouse into some covering for her breasts, slipped on her coat, and walked towards the door.
He dragged her back.
"Listen!" he commanded, "You're spending the night with the man who's just fucked you. You're of no value to me unless you obey my orders even when they conflict with your other engagements and responsibilities; if I want to make love to a woman who has the right to be consulted about where, when and how, I have them in my own social circle, and I have the satisfaction of behaving towards them in company with the greatest deference, knowing that in their bedrooms they're lascivious whores; but you represent something different and yet necessary ... you don't belong, you've no rights ... and, unless you get that into your skull, you'll find yourself unemployed. Just you keep on throwing yourself at me, as you did the first time ... sweating and groaning! It's undignified, but one expects it of you, so it's really ... "
As if to prove her willingness to comply with his demands, she flung her arms about his neck, and kissed him messily.
Arrived at Irving's home, Gwen tried to keep her coat on until Delys, his maid, was out of the way, but Irving insisted on taking it off her without delay. Her slap-dash repairs to her blouse had not survived the journey, so that Delys saw shreds of soiled silk hanging crazily about Gwen's waist; Irving beckoned the girl to approach, and he knocked aside the hands with which Gwen was trying to conceal her bared breasts; Delys, admiring the proud upward sweep of the nippled mounds of glowing flesh, felt for the first time in her life Irving's arm circling her waist, his hand gently squeezing her breast. She insinuated herself closer to him, moving her knees outward so that her thighs rubbed against his, and she extended a hand to tilt Gwen's head backwards, letting the full glare of the electric light fall upon the thrillingly beautiful torso; Gwen watched them; Delys' arms were raised above her head, and she was leaning forward, a fledgling trying to fly, prevented from falling by Irving who stood close behind her, a hand upon each of her breasts; the front of his thighs was pressed tight against the back of hers, the stuff of his trousers in the closest possible contact with her dress over her buttocks. Together they were making short, strong backward and forward movements with their arses, like a dog and a bitch on heat. His hands ran down her belly, along her thighs, to the hem of her skirt, then rose again, bringing the skirt and underskirt with them; the removal of her black panties and the swift placing of his fingers inside her told him she was more than ready for him. Whilst he took her from behind, she clung to Gwen to avoid falling, and, in her excitement she dug her nails into the flesh of the older woman's breasts and belly. When Irving and Delys had satisfied themselves, he allowed the girl to slide to the carpet of the hall; by the time Gwen and Irving had drunk their sherry, Delys had recovered sufficiently to serve dinner, after which she went home, delighted with the events of the evening and anticipating thrillingly the frequent future assaults her employer would make upon her; she hoped that the people who saw her recognized her as a girl whose virgin knot had just been untied.
Having feasted upon Delys' young body, Irving had temporarily lost all appetite for Gwen's. After a few hours, his interest would revive, and he'd use her two or three times before they left the house in the morning; in the meantime, it seemed he was condemned to spend the evening with a woman he neither liked nor respected, and with whom he had no desire to converse. Had he dismissed her for a few hours, she would have been able to keep the appointment she'd previously mentioned; but he delighted in thwarting her, feeling that, when he eventually took her again, his pleasure would be greater in their shared knowledge that he had bent her to his will and treated her as a purchased woman.
Gwen would have been pleased to have him thrashing her, humiliating her by deed and word, thrilling her with his deep thrust inside her, using her and (incidentally) giving himself to her, again and again ... until exhaustion or even death overcame both of them; but she knew he wouldn't want her for several hours, and that he wouldn't set her free for the evening.
She uttered not a word, as he hid himself behind a newspaper. She wanted to rouse him to an anger in which he would beat her, but she feared to invoke again the ire which had caused him to speak earlier of her finding herself unemployed. She was not jealous of Delys; in fact, she rejoiced in the obvious pleasure the girl had derived from Irving's using her; but she feared that he now had, within his own home, the easy, pliable and humble partner in debauch who could replace her as his change of sensual diet after hours or nights of passion with his proud and high-born ladies.
Irving stood up suddenly, and left the house, saying:
"I'm going for a stroll; however long I'm away, you'd better be here when I come back; fresh air will revive my interest in that body of yours."
Listening to dance music on the radio, Gwen found herself thinking about Eddie, the young out-of-work wastrel who had been her lover some years previously ... They had parted without an actual quarrel, but his demands for money had become prohibitive, and he'd also insisted upon her forcing Jean to give herself to him, which Gwen would not have done even had she been able. She relived one or two of her copulations with Eddie, and longed for him, until sleep took her.
Irving paid Eileen Merivale the first call for two or three years, formal dinners excepted. She was thrilled to learn that his visit had no connection with business, and drew close to him, to give him the kiss with which a woman might greet a distant cousin. His acceptance of this gesture caused old hopes to rekindle within her; she placed her arms about his neck, leaning backwards so that, whilst their faces were more than a yard apart, her belly felt itself in close, intoxicating contact with his; her head hung backwards, and her hair fell. She laughed gaily, her tongue flickering like an inviting flame between her parted lips; when his kiss came, she struggled ardently towards him, eager to convey to him the desire she'd ailed to communicate to him during the intimate dinners of her early widowhood. One arm behind her shoulders, he lowered his other to behind her knees, and she kicked her feet joyously as his arms took the full weight of her; she clung to his neck, and moistly kissed his cheek. A few minutes later, upon j the blue silk of her bed, one of his hands was wandering firmly and gently over her belly and breasts, whilst the other thrilled her by its probing between her eager thighs.
Gwen woke up, shivering, with a question-mark in her head; the cloud dissolved; it was eleven o'clock, and she was in Irving's house ... The moment she realized that he was absent, she knew that he had gone to Delys' home, and that he would either spend the night there or bring the girl home with him; she longed for him ... or for Eddie ... or for Percy, with whom she'd planned to spend the evening and the entire night:-he was probably in her bed, waiting for her; if she hurried home, within half an hour she would have his fierce fire within her yearning loins; but she dared not leave Irving's home. He might return at any moment, or he might keep her waiting until breakfast-time, but, at whatever hour he entered the house, he would expect her to be there. Fearing that, if he found her in bed, he would interpret her having retired as a reproach for his late return, she stayed upright in an arm-chair; but she fell asleep ...
Gwen stirred, in the cold hour before dawn. Rubbing her eyes, she wandered from room to room in search of an Irving whom she knew she wouldn't find. Then she undressed, washed, and slipped into pajamas, having decided to risk a couple of hours of real sleep.
Leaning out of the window, thrilling to the breeze which played with her hair, she observed a light, mounting the hill, in the middle of the road. Seizing a filmy dressing-gown, she dashed downstairs and out of the house, tying the fragile garment about her as she ran. The front wheel of the bicycle wobbled as Gwen stepped breathlessly out onto the road with a softly modulated:
"Good morning!"
The cyclist's curiosity brought his mount to a halt, and in the pale light of dawn he advanced his metal-helmeted head to peer at Gwen and whisper conspiratorially:
"Anything wrong, Miss?"
She smiled into his coal-smudged face, replying:
"There was, but it's over now. Come in and have a drink!"
Reason told him to spring into the saddle of his cycle and peddle away as fast as his feet would turn, but curiosity made him follow this eccentric lady into the sitting-room where she poured two large whiskies. Whilst the puzzled miner took his first gulp. Gwen flung off the dressing-gown, pulled a ribbon at her waist and another at her throat: her trousers sagged down to her ankles, and a shrug of her shoulders sent the jacket sliding down her arms and onto the floor behind her. Half an hour later, he left the house, forgetting to drink the rest of his whisky, and leaving Gwen on the carpet, her body carrying smudges of coal dust on its outer surface and the memory of his powerful motions inside.
Lying amidst her night-attire, as the happy miner rode home to breakfast, Gwen decided she would try to retrace Eddie.
26.
Eddie told Gwen part of his story, and she learned further parts from his associates. Since their previous meeting he'd been in prison twice ... once for his part in the doping of racing gray-hounds and the other time for a rape of which he continued to declare his innocence. He maintained that the girl had given herself to him, most willingly, on Brooksfield Common; surprised by her father, before she'd had the sensitive parts of her loins bombarded by Eddie's sperm, she'd begun to feign resistance, and had afterwards insisted to her father and to a magistrate that he'd attacked her on her way home from a dance.
Eddie had continued to interest himself in any and every sport which lent itself to gambling; what he won was swiftly devoured by flashy, shoddy clothes, liquor and gold-digging girls. He'd also interested himself in all sorts of shady commerce, such as reselling a car for which he hadn't payed, in order to get money with which to impress a well-connected school-mistress whom he hoped to marry; he'd taken two rooms at a smart hotel in Brighton, she having insisted that, although only one room would be used, the other had to be reserved for the sake of appearances ... Later he had discovered that the girl's "wealthy" family were up to their eyes in debt, and that, whilst disapproving of him socially, they were relying upon his obvious prosperity to rescue them from bankruptcy: Eddie's love for his school-ma'am had instantly cooled.
Gwen's renewal of contact with Eddie had coincided with another of his financial difficulties; a fifteen-year-old girl, also of a family highly respected in the town, had died at her parents' home after a clumsy abortion had been performed upon her;-death having stilled the girl's tongue, the only other person who knew of Eddie's responsibility for her pregnancy and abortion was the woman who'd performed the operation. She had lost her nerve, and insisted that Eddie find the money for her escape to Italy and her establishment there in some sort of business.
Meeting all Eddie's debts and expenses made serious in-roads on the little capital Gwen possessed, which had been earmarked for Arwel's further education either at a university or a college of music; but Gwen didn't realize the extent to which this spoliation of her resources was taking place, and she always insisted that her salary would permit of her making good her losses of capital; Eddie's need of money was so urgent that he had become her slave, obliged to suffer for all the humiliations she suffered at the hands of Godfrey Irving: she would strip herself, show Eddie the marks left upon her flesh by Irving's frenzied thrashing of her, and then whip him into unconsciousness, feeling the pain flow out of her body into his. Then she would make him take her, and she would enjoy him in the knowledge that she was his mistress, which she'd never been to Merivale, Irving or even Percy Dent. Eddie continued to lose heavily at horse-racing and "the dogs'" and he tried to recoup some of his losses by participating in the fraudulent management of boxers and wrestlers, trained to win or lose according to the dictates of their managers; his partners usually disappeared with large sums of money, leaving Eddie either to pay the fees of their boxers and wrestlers or suffer the consequences of these gentlemen informing the police of his "sporting" activities.
Whilst Gwen was at her office, or spending a few hours with Irving or Percy Dent, Eddie consorted with women, not prostitutes, who were less shocked at the idea of getting into bed with a prosperous man than with a pauper: Eddie's type of woman felt less immoral taking her clothes off under the greedy gaze or a man, if the setting was a luxurious room of pale pink silk, costly furnishings, scintillating candelabras whose crystal pendants catch every particle of light, flooding the scene of fornication with artificial rainbows.
... Gwen footed the bill for all Eddie's excesses, but ultimately Arwel was the greater loser. He appreciated, better than Gwen seemed to, the sorry state of the family finances, and he realized that his going to Cambridge or to a college of music had come to depend upon his gaining a scholarship. Whereas his mother insisted he was going to concentrate on his musical studies, he wanted the wider education represented by arts studied at a university, keeping his music as an important, but not exclusive, interest; so that regular piano lessons and practice continued throughout the months he was devoting to his final revision prior to sitting the examination for London Matriculation, which he regarded as the first step towards obtaining a scholarship tenable at a university. Trying to ride two horses simultaneously, Arwel ran the risk of ultimately having to walk; and the situation was not helped by the fact that Eddie almost lived at the house, and was causing Arwel great anxiety by his flagrant exploitation of Gwen's physical need of him.
Gwen no longer had the upper hand of Eddie. She had come to depend on him so much for her sexual well-being, that she was obliged to give him all the money he needed and yet place herself at his disposal as previously he had been at hers. There had been the time, shortly after his return to her, that she'd been able to pile shame upon him by her treatment of him in the presence of Jean; once she'd called Jean into her room, and told her of his request that Jean be placed at his disposal, with or without her consent; then Gwen had twisted her own underclothes into a hard instrument with which she'd lashed him across the face, so that Jean had fled from the room, unable to bear the sight of his degradation.
Later on, he turned the tables on Gwen, deliberately choosing moments when Jean was present to demonstrate his new-found power over his former tormentor; in her presence he would undress Gwen, fondling her breasts, smacking her thighs and buttocks, digging his fingers into her loins, kissing her with their mouths open and their tongues fighting one another; and he would continue to excite Gwen until, unable to resist him any longer, and afraid to offend him by sending Jean away or suggesting that she and Eddie go elsewhere, she would beg him to take her, and he would comply. On such occasions, Jean had to exercise great restraint to prevent herself from succumbing to Eddie's longstanding and never-abating lust after her; and as he copulated with Gwen, Jean's delight was hot knives in her quivering flesh.
Eddie never dared to take such liberties in Arwel's presence, but Jean told him all her secrets. Arwel learned much from remarks which Eddie made, not to him, but in his presence, and he thereby built an image of Gwen as the central figure in orgies arranged by Eddie, his criminal friends and their women ... Gwen dancing in her underwear, on a table, whilst all the others beat out the rhythm with the hand which didn't contain their glass. A woman threw half a glass of wine in Gwen's face, her friends followed her example, and she was drenched from head to foot. A man jumped on the table, and pissed on her; she knelt before him, and drank his urine. All the other lascivious sheep pissed on Gwen and the first man as they fornicated on the table. Eight or ten men had Gwen, one after the other, whilst the other girls frenziedly stripped themselves for any man who wasn't busy with Gwen.
27.
Arwel left school shortly after the beginning of the Autumn term; his School Certificate results had fallen short of the standard which would have earned him a scholarship, and he had explained to his sympathetic headmaster that his mother could not afford to keep him at school another year. The head had offered to look out for a clerical position for Arwel, who had requested him to do nothing about it for a few weeks, since he had not yet given up hope that, by devoting the following two months to intensive study and practice, he would win a scholarship enabling him to spend a few years at a college of music.
Encouraged by Taylor and Jean, Arwel worked hard at his studies ... too hard, so that he was a nervous wreck within a month.
Gwen was blissfully unaware of the campaign of economy which was being waged within her own household; Jean or Arwel went to market for vegetables and other farm produce, saving a few coppers on the price they'd been accustomed to pay in the ships convenient to the house; lights and electric fires were allowed to burn as little as was necessary; they went less often than previously to the cinema, and they joined the queue for the cheaper seats in order to save a shilling. But Gwen continued to pay Eddie the price he charged for riding her and thrashing her whenever he felt so inclined; and Eddie, who thoroughly enjoyed his sessions of sexual intercourse with her, was prepared to go on being her lover as long as her money lasted.
Arwel worked himself so hard, and worried so much, that his playing deteriorated as the fateful day approached. One afternoon, Taylor warned him that his chances of success were growing dimmer day by day:
"On your present standard, 'Well, you'll get a second-class certificate; the judges will forgive your mistakes, because they'll recognize you as a young player with a real feeling for the music; but they'll say you're not ready for the Royal Col; it means a whole year wasted, a precious year; during the next twelve months you'll have to sort out all this domestic mess, get down to some serious, untroubled practice; I shall continue to come round, but I can't really help you any more: repetition of what I've taught you will sour you, and I've nothing more to teach you ... that's a sort of compliment to you, but I know it's a back-hander."
Whilst realizing the soundness of Taylor's judgment, Arwel gritted his teeth, determined not to rise from the stool before he'd played that Faure nocturne as Taylor wanted it played; after his tutor's departure, Arwel played over and over again the nocturne he'd sworn to master; he played it almost as he thought it should be ... Once more straight through, without a flaw! Damn! Damn and blast! Hell-fire! Back to the bloody beginning! After several attempts to persuade him to rest, drink a cup of tea and eat something, Jean settled herself down to listen attentively and patiently; perhaps he'd ask her to help him, point out his mistake, and then what a thrill for her if she could render him some slight assistance! She knew the work quite well, and she'd heard Arwel playing it, several years ago, with real understanding; if only he'd leave it alone until tomorrow, she thought, he'd master it without difficulty. But no! Again and again, hour after hour, from bad to worse! Upon his brow and under his arms perspiration prickled him, driving him mad; suddenly the Faurg nocturne was devoured by a tidal wave of noise; he thumped out every tune which swirled up to him from the pit of despair into which he felt himself invited and made the house reverberate with noisy rhythm. He was ready to fall, exhausted, from the stool when, in a faint waft of perfume, soft, strong arms held him and his head stopped spinning and screaming as it found itself pillowed upon a gently heaving breast; Jean held him for a moment until his whole body relaxed.
"Come!" she said, "Tea and buttered tea-cake! You've done enough damage to Faute for one day." Gently she led him to the fire, in front of which the small table was loaded with good things to eat, including buttered tea-cake, which he particularly liked.
Together they ate, drank tea, and listened to a music-hall program on the radio. After an hour, he returned to the piano, in defiance of Jean's insistence that he leave the piano alone until the morrow. Refreshed and calm, he began to play the Faute nocturne; and he played it well, and silently he thanked Jean.
Gwen wasn't expected home that night, having gone with Percy Dent and Eddie to one of the latter's parties, which invariably lasted until dawn or even later.
Having played the Faurg nocturne to his satisfaction, Arwel turned his attention to other pieces which were still causing him some anxiety. It wasn't long before he was as deeply involved in defeat as he had been before supper; here and there a passage, which he'd previously played satisfactorily, would taunt him, and he'd attack it time and again, getting further away from the target every time; he was doing himself and his music no good whatsoever, and eventually he had to leave the piano, his hands trembling so that he just hadn't the strength to strike the key-boards. It was nearly midnight, and Jean persuaded him to go outside with her, for an hour of fresh air and exercise before they retired to their respective beds. During their walk Arwel insisted on discussing his music, asking Jean where he kept going wrong.
"Darling," she said at last, "There's no place where you're going wrong: you're just altogether wrong. You've tried to do too much at once, and that at a time when other things have weighed so heavily upon your mind that there's really been only half your former self, trying to do the work of two men: you used to be calm and sure; now you're all worked up and neurotic, through being required, too young, to think about such things as the financing of your education ... All the other boys at school, and all the other entrants for Tuesday's music exam, they have the practical problems worked out for them, by their parents, and they're free tc concentrate on their studies; but you spend yourself on thinking about Gwen's welfare, about what's to become of you if you fail this exam, which of the many unpleasant alternatives to the Royal College you'll accept, and so on and so on. You come to your music tired and with frayed nerves; you're up to your knees in the bog to begin with, and the more frantic your efforts to extricate yourself, the deeper you sink ... "
"And when only my head is visible above the bog, you come to the rescue."
He stopped, drew her gently towards him, and kissed her tenderly. With equal tenderness she reciprocated, calling upon her final reserves of strength to prevent herself from transforming their tender kiss into a sultry embrace.
They had no account of time ... The town was far behind them, and without taking any notice of where they went, they'd turned away from the highway, into narrow twisting lanes, which became earth-tracks, leading to a gate through which they passed into the game preserves of they knew not whom; when Jean suggested that Arwel see what time it was, it was with the greatest difficulty, by the light of a few half-hearted stars, that he read the dial of his watch.
"Five and twenty past one!" he exclaimed, "It's time we started back."
"I don't see why," she replied, rubbing her cheek cosily against his shoulder, "There's no one to tell us where we should be or what we should do; I feel fresh enough to go on walking until day-break."
Nevertheless, they returned home, where Arwel tinkled the piano, whilst Jean prepared hot chocolate. As soon as they'd consumed their chocolate, Arwel returned to the piano and started to play, in all seriousness, Chopin's B Minor sonata. Half-way through the first movement, he stopped, clicked his tongue testily, and went back to the beginning; after a few notes, Jean interrupted his playing.
"Arwel, it's time we were in bed."
He spun round, his eyes flashing.
"In God's name, girl, will you leave me alone!"
Surprised by his outburst, but remaining calm, she replied:
"Yes! As soon as I've tucked you cosily between the sheets."
Defiantly he turned back to the key-board.
"No, Arwel! That's enough! Gwen will expect you to be practicing bright and early tomorrow morning, and we can't tell her you did your exercises at three o'clock in the morning instead of during the day ... If she knows I allowed you to stay up until this hour of the night three days before our exam, she'll skin me alive. Come, darling! To bed!"
"Jean, I'm busy; I'm not going to bed until I've played this sonata right through, once, and perfectly. Go to bed!"
"If I go to bed now, you'll still be thumping out that first movement when Gwen and the boys come in at cock-crow; you're going to bed now, like a good boy!"
"Oh, for God's sake, Jeannie, don't baby-talk me! That's half the trouble in this house; everybody thinks I'm just a child, a wonder-child, perhaps, but a child, certainly: well, I'm not; I'm not tired and I'm not going to bed; and don't you dare to interrupt me when I start playing again!"
"You're not going to play any more; you can get up at ten o'clock, and play all day; but if you're too tired to get up then, Gwen will know you went to bed late, and I shall be in hot water."
He rose to his feet abruptly, and stood quite close to her.
"Look, Jean! Stop thinking of Gwen and yourself! I don't expect much consideration in this house, but I am sitting a very important exam on Tuesday, and until then nothing matters but the piano and me; after that, if I fail I shall never touch the confounded piano again, and if I succeed, I shall in future do most of my piano-bashing elsewhere; I shall be here only a few weeks every year, and if my playing is such a nuisance to you, you can arrange to be away whenever I'm due to be here ... "
Jean's calm deserted her.
"My, my! Aren't you getting a big idea of yourself! And what a persecution mania you've developed! All of a sudden I don't like your playing the piano, and I'm sending you to bed ... "
"You're not sending me to bed; you're the one with big ideas; you've been reading a book on child-management; well, there are no children here, and it would take a better one than you to manage me. Now, run away, and don't meddle with things you're too young to understand! Go to bed!"
"Oh, you can go to the devil! I'm going to bed, and if there's any trouble tomorrow, you can look after it yourself; and play at least one right note ... for a change!"
As she hurled herself towards the door, she threw over her shoulder, maliciously:
"If you can't get it right, I'll come down again, and play it the way Chopin meant it to be played."
Up in her room Jean slipped quickly out of her clothes, wondering why she didn't hear the music of the piano; her panties in her hand, she paused, imagining she heard Arwel's footsteps on the stairs. She ran to the door and pressed her shivering body against its cold wood, listening, her heart beating wildly, to the footsteps on the carpet of the corridor. She had no God, but still she prayed that he wouldn't go to his bed without giving her the opportunity of apologizing for her share of the quarrel, without requiring her to lose face by making the first move towards a reconciliation ... The footsteps halted before her door, and she sent up a tentative and silent "thank you!" His knocking upon the door, and her opening of it were almost simultaneous; the door was wide open, and he'd stepped inside before she realized that she was naked, her panties still in one hand; with these she protected her nether parts from view, and she vainly tried to cover her breasts with one hand.
Her embarrassment dissolved as she observed his lack of it. With a gesture she threw her panties away from her, and raised her hands to the height of her head.
Unconscious of her nakedness, he put his arms about her, whispering:
"I'm sorry, Jeannie. It was just ... well ... the truth came out standing on its head."
Without a word, she snuggled closer to him, forgiving and begging a forgiveness which she knew was granted. He picked her up, and carried her over to her bed; the blood raced in her veins, singing happily and excitedly; her moment had arrived; her flower was falling, in full luxurious bloom, from the bough. She felt a throbbing in her loins, and prayed again, prayed he would hurry and have her before she reached her climax alone ... He flicked back the sheets of the bed; her body touched the sheets, a shudder ran through her, her whole body twitching ecstatically. Her buttocks lunged backwards, towards the middle of the bed and then shot forward, as if a powerful spring had been released. She moaned, trembling, and reached out for him, but he was out of reach; a paroxysm racked her body, and the white cream glistened on the inner sides of her thighs ... She was his mistress, but he hadn't had her. He was her lover, but she had thrilled only to the imagination of his thrust within her. Taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he wiped the muck from her thighs. Tucking her gently in bed, he kissed her brow, and left the room, switching off the light at the door.
28.
It was a bitterly cold November evening, a few weeks after Arwel's debut as a bank clerk; Arwel hurried home, knowing that Jean would have some food ready for him, and expecting to send the evening with Jean alone; Gwen and Eddie had a food ready for him, and expecting to spend the nearby town of Leechester; Eddie was entertaining some people with whom he was hoping to enter into business relations. As usual, Gwen was providing Eddie's share of the capital involved; Percy was attending a rehearsal of "The Seagulls" in which he was to play Treegorin; Taylor and Naomi were not expected, since they'd spent the previous evening at the James house.
Having worked somewhat later than usual, he entered the house at about half-past seven; Jean met him in the hall with her customary questions about the day's work, whether everything had gone well, whether there had been much to do, whether he had any news; it was like being greeted by a loving mother or spouse; it was comforting, it gave him a certain feeling of importance and a very strong feeling that somebody was genuinely interested in him and in his work. As usual she had eaten nothing since lunch-time, so that they could eat together, and that, at table, an atmosphere of camaraderie should reign.
After the meal, he went to the piano and smilingly played "The Golliwog's Cakewalk" whilst Jean cleared the table; the washing-up could wait until the following morning; she wanted to be near Arwel, but she didn't wish to have him in the kitchen helping her with the task; Jean insisted that when Arwel came home from his office, it must be to a peaceful foyer, a restful atmosphere, where he could spend his few precious leisure hours doing whatever pleased him, without thought for the problems and labor associated with a household.
Sitting at the key-board, Arwel lost count of time; now and then, he addressed to Jean a remark or a question about the music he was practicing; all the time he was pleasantly aware of her presence. She was sewing, and she was enjoying the music. As usual when they were alone, the sitting-room was an island of warmth and light in a sea of dark rooms which, for reasons of economy, were un-heated.
Arwel completed the twelfth movement of the suite "Iberia," and heard her voice quite close to him, saying, "Thank you, darling! That was lovely."
As he turned to her, she raised her hands to his face, and caressed his cheeks; in her right hand was the article upon which she'd been working, a pair of panties in a fragile white material to which he, a mere man, could give no name. The stuff was Soft against his cheek; he smiled up at her.
"I've finished this," she said, dangling the garment before his face, "I'm going to try it on; you don't mind if I do it here, do you? It's rather chilly in my room."
He didn't reply, and she didn't wait for his answer anyway; quickly she slipped out of her dress and under-skirt, standing before the fire, facing Arwel; he rose from the piano stool and crossed to the sofa where he sat down. She handed him her brassiere and vest; as he received from her hand the panties she'd taken off, he handed her those she was to try on; wearing only her new panties she struck a pose before him, slowly revolving on her toes, the better to allow his appraisal of her handiwork.
"Elegant!" was all he said.
"Elegant," she repeated, "The garment or me?"
"Both," he replied, "but I was speaking about the panties, because I'd previously seen the rest, and found it elegant."
She recalled the night of their quarrel, after which he had come to her room to apologize for his rudeness ...
"Elegant," she said again, "Yet the other time, you covered me and left me alone and miserable; you were younger, though, too young to understand."
Slipping out of her new garment, Jean threw herself down on the sofa, her arms about Arwel's neck; she kissed his mouth, and his fine long fingers stroked the skin of her shoulders, back and buttocks.
"On that occasion, when you picked me up in your arms, I thought the time had come of our friendship's consummation; I wanted you so desperately that my desire was painful."
They exchanged kisses sensuously, and Jean tried to make her flesh melt and fuse with his.
"But I'm not sorry you made me wait; I've been waiting for you fourteen years, and now that the waiting is over, I shall reap the harvest of fourteen years of the nursing of myself for this moment ... "
"This moment, darling," she repeated insistently.
Dazed, not quite aware of what was happening, not quite sure whether or not he ought to allow it to him, but wanting Jean, wanting her terribly, he submitted to her undoing the buttons down the front of his trousers. The pressure of his eager penis against the material of his trousers had been agony to him, but the agony subsided as warm, tender hands fondled his testicles, and soft lips and a moist flame of a tongue loved the shining, throbbing scarlet helmet of his penis. With her free hand, Jean helped him to remove his garments, until they were lying together naked. She guided his right hand to her loins, and one of his fingers to her vagina and clitoris; she whimpered with delight and cried out in her ecstasy as his penis probed her secret parts and then retreated prior to delving deeper into her. She held him to her as he thrust, and she backed away from him when he withdrew; she clung to him wildly as she felt her climax approaching, and she received his sperm within her. They remained in the most intimate contact after both had reached their climaxes, and Jean whispered with utter sincerity, that she'd never imagined that having a man could be quite such joy.
Having slept they knew not how long Jean and Arwel each felt the desire for the other renewed, and it was at Jean's suggestion that he took her from behind; they were in no way disturbed by the sound of a key turning in the front;-it would do neither Gwen nor Eddie any harm to know, as they'd be sure to learn eventually, that Arwel and Jean had become lovers; Gwen was surprised, but by no means shocked, to find Jean and Arwel, naked and making love like a dog and a hot bitch; it was only when Arwel, satiated, pushed Jean away from him, that he and she noticed that the persons who had witnessed their delight did not include Eddie, but did include a man they had not previously met; Jean was suddenly ashamed, and she made a hurried move to leave the room; Gwen's friend, however, took a couple of brisk steps which placed him in a position to bar her way; his arms enfolded her, and his hands caressed her body. Her shame deserted her, and she surrendered herself happily to his manual blandishments; only the fact that Gwen had brought this man home for her own use deterred Jean from giving herself to him at once.
After a few greedy kisses, Jean released herself from his grasp, whispering, "First Gwen! When she'd had a fair amount of you, I'll be ready for anything you can spare for me."
She ran quickly up to Arwel's room, and he followed her; in his arms she slept soundly and contentedly until the first light of day.
At breakfast, Gwen introduced her friend to Jean and Arwel. He was Sidney Horsbrugh, the man with whom Eddie and Gwen had had dinner the previous evening. He and Eddie were negotiating with a view to entering into partnership as proprietors of a club which would shortly be for sale, in London; Horsbrugh volunteered the information that his daughter, Rachel, who had also been present at the little dinner party, had suggested, on leaving Maynor's restaurant, that Daddy should take Mrs. James home, whilst Eddie took her home; this suggestion had been to everyone's satisfaction, and Rachel (who was sixteen years of age, and still at school) had told her father that she wouldn't expect him home before breakfast-time. She'd also expressed the hope that Gwen wouldn't be upset at the knowledge that Eddie wouldn't be home before nine o'clock in the morning.
Listening to this man's account of the sleeping arrangements which his daughter had made for herself and her father, Jean determined that the man should return to the house as soon as possible, but with his daughter; Rachel sounded like an excellent playmate for Arwel, and, whilst Gwen had Eddie, Sidney could find pleasure and sleeping space in Jean's room.
Gwen and Arwel left the house together, bound for their respective offices.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Sidney said to Jean, "Now it's our turn; but I can't spare you much time this morning; I've got a fellow to meet."
His words accompanied his edging her into the angle formed by the dining-room wall and the buffet; his hands, under her skirts, gripped her thighs, high up.
"Upstairs?" he asked, and kissed her before she could reply; her arms were about his neck, and she yearned for him.
"No, if you're pressed for time, I'd rather wait; I had rather a hectic night; so did you, I imagine; but I'm not accustomed to it; what you saw last evening, when you arrived, was only my second time, Arwel's too; and the first time was only a couple of hours earlier; so you see ... ? But, whenever you have time, you'll find me here, very ready for you."
"Good!" he replied, "The sooner I meet this other chap, the better, and you and I have lots of time before us, eh!"
He pulled her panties down to her knees, drew her to the center of the room, and leaned her far back over his left arm. After exciting her clitoris for a moment, he thrust his hand upwards under her clothing, over her belly and up to her breasts.
"No brassiere!" he said, as though informing her of something of which she was ignorant.
She'd have liked him to force her into having him; she wanted him, but she had a reason for wishing to postpone having him until another occasion; she wished, however, that without her giving herself he would take her brutally, heeding not her remonstrances, ravaging her bestially, without consideration for her and without respect.
After playing with her breasts, he returned to her clitoris, which he pummeled until she found herself expressing the silent hope that, when he'd gone, a big lecherous Alsatian dog would come bounding in and mistake her for an alsatian bitch.
When he eventually raised her to an upright position, and released his grip upon her, she stumbled, and he had to help her to a chair.
A few minutes later, he left, having accepted her invitation to come again, accompanied by Rachel, as soon as circumstances permitted.
Somewhat shaky on her feet, she began doing the essential household chores; and she waited. The kettle was simmering on the stove, two tea-cups, the milk and sugar and the rinsed tea-pot stood at the ready. And her work continued.
The rattle of milk-cans announced the approach of Danny Dawson; Danny had been delivering milk to the James' house almost as long as Jean had been there; Jean and Danny had become good friends, and never a morning passed without his drinking a cup of tea and eating a piece of her home-made cake with her; Danny's father had died before Danny reached majority, and about a year later Danny had married a girl whose lover he had become in direct succession to his father. Their first child was born six months later, and two more had followed at intervals of approximately two years; Danny never tired of singing his wife's praises; she was a good housekeeper, a devoted and sensible mother, and she had the interest in his business and the business acumen which together rendered her of great value to him in a business which had expanded greatly under his management.
"It's queer," Danny had said to Jean, on more than one occasion, "It was what yer call a forced weddin'; given the choice, I'd never have married that lass. Before we were married, when I was makin' use of her, I never went out with her or publicly acknowledged that we were friends; my old man was nearly forty years older nor her, and yet, whenever he wanted her, she were ready for him, and in't beginnin' she were gettin' nought out on it; he on'y started payin' her rent for 'er when she got sack from Simmonds' shop after Clarry Simmonds had catched her in't lavatory playing with his son's privates, an' Clarry's lad no more nor thirteen years o'd; Dad knew, o' course, that he were not the'on'y guy as was messin' about wi'er; and none of 'em payin' for it. You know Simmonds' lad? Well, o' course 'e ain't a lad no more, but, after Lily got sack from his Dad's shop, that lad went around ter 'er place reg'lar, right up to't time she married me. She taught him 'ow ter do it, an' she's told me that before he were fourteen he were givin' her as much pleasure as any fully-grown man; she also told me that one Sat'day afternoon she were in bed wi' a guy near sixty years old, a stranger as she'd met in't Rose an' Crown at dinner-time, an' as she'd invited 'ome; she told this guy as he'ld have to leave about four, 'cos she were expecting visitors, but she'd had enough ale, he could take 'er 'ome again an' 'ave as much o' t'other thing as he fancied. Well this old chap were givin' her a sort of farewell doin' when a knock come at door; he didn't want to stop until he'd given 'er the hot-sperm injection, an' nor did she; but, as soon as they'd both shot their load, he dressed quickly an' went out one door, whilst she opened t'other door to let in Simmonds' lad. Within five minutes of th'old chap bashin' it into 'er, she were wi' young Simmonds in t'bed as thon ol' fellar 'ad warmed for 'im; he 'ad to be home for tea afore half-past-six, but 'e gave it to 'er a couple o' times first. When she let lm out, a bit after six, t'other chap come straight in again; he couldn't wait until half-past-six, to see 'er in't pub, so he'd been waitin' outside for t'young-ster ter goo; he'd ridden 'er just afore he went, an' as soon as th'ol' chap come in, he got stuck straight into 'er, across kitchen table. So yer see, I 'ad to marry a lass as were proud to tell me as she bet that she were th'on'y lass in t'county an' p'raps in all England, leaving prostitutes out, as 'ad 'ad a lad less nor five minutes after t'other, an' that twice within two an' 'alf hours ... An' yet that lass 'as turned out to be a bloody good mother to my kids, a good house-wife, a good helper in my business, an', as far as I know ('though I don't care one way or t'other) a faithful wife."
In the early days of his delivering milk to the James' house, Danny had made certain "improper" advances to Jean, and had been repulsed. After that he'd tried frequently to cajole her into letting him make love to her; and he had been moved to a sort of admiration of her by her insistence in resiting his advances and still remaining friendly towards him. It was now several years since he'd repeated his plea for more intimate knowledge of her, but he had not ceased to find her very attractive.
Jean greeted Danny with her usual bright smile and cheerful "Good morning!"
He sat down at the kitchen table, and she poured out two cups of tea, deliberately putting two heaped teaspoons of sugar in his.
"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed, "How silly of me! I've put two spoons of sugar in your tea."
As though reading from a script which she had prepared in advance, he replied, "Oh, it won't kill me; but, gosh, yer ought to know me better than that ... 'Ow long I been drinkin' my mid-mornin' bowl o' char with you?"
She could have kissed him at once for that answer.
"Fourteen years! What a long time! and how old it makes one seem! Things have changed greatly; you're married a passionate woman who really knows how to satisfy your every desire; but, do you remember how, in the beginning, you used to be very saucy, and try to seduce me?"
She saw at once that he was puzzled, perhaps disgusted too; she'd taken things at too brisk a pace; and he couldn't adapt himself so quickly to circumstances which were, to him, unexpected, whilst they were circumstances she had long since foreseen and definitely accepted and even impatiently awaited.
She rose quickly to her feet, spun round on her heels, deliberately making her skirt flare. She turned out the gas under the kettle, and, returning to her chair, she intentionally, but apparently by mishap, flicked her skirts up too high as she crossed one leg over the other knee; Danny wondered whether his long pent-up desires were misleading him, or whether Jean was really in a coquettish mood that morning. Taking the bull not too firmly by the horns, he said:
"Things 'aven't changed so much; my bin' married to a woman I don't love, an' who no longer interests me much physically, don't make no difference to my wantin' you. I'm as 'ot for you as I ever was, an' it makes it worse when . ... "
He paused; he'd said enough to make her angry, if she were going to be angry at all, and she just sat there smiling at him encouragingly; so he continued:
"I get even 'otter than usual when you sit there showing yer legs almost up ter yer fanny."
She made no move to diminish the amount of leg visible.
"You mean to tell me you still want me, in the same way as at the beginning, and you've said nothing about it all these years?"
"Yes! Or rather, it's not same as earlier; it's worse."
She rose to her feet again, and the look of determination on her face told him that she was dismissing him.
He too rose, intending to serve her with the usual two pints.
"Come on then, Danny!" she said, as she turned towards the dining-room, "You have to go through the dining-room to get to the stairs."
She skipped upstairs eagerly. He too was eager, but still stunned; he was also afraid of leaving dirty boot marks on the delicate beige stair-carpet. By the time he halted in the door of Arwel's bedroom, she was inside and had taken off her skirt; the sight of her standing there, feverishly stripping herself, her under-skirt half over her head, and her bare legs completely exposed, topped by the white panties she'd completed sewing only the previous evening, removed all reserve and hesitation from him; he stepped forward and threw her impatiently across the bed.
29.
Upon his entry into the house at lunch-time, Arwel was greeted by a bright-eyed Jean who excitedly recounted the happenings of the morning.
" ... So we must expect a visit soon from Sid, accompanied by his Rachel. It's arranged that whilst he looks after me, you and she . ... well, darling that's what you really need ... something younger than yourself....."
He smiled his approval of her plan; and he noticed how like Gwen's her tone of voice had become, how her gestures and facial expression resembled Gwen's.
During lunch Gwen announced that she and Eddie were going to a boxing tournament that evening; Gwen had previously despised boxers and considered boxing uncivilized, but since Eddie had been taking her to boxing tournaments in which he was financially interested (the capital involved being her money), she had made the acquaintance of boxers and the entourages, and had had several pleasurable sessions of sexual intercourse with brawny, brainless young men belonging to the boxing world. One such session had been craftily planned by Eddie, without Gwen's prior knowledge. At Eddie's suggestion she had visited, unaccompanied, a young hopeful whose opponent that particular evening was one of Eddie's prot'g's; whilst another match was in progress Gwen had entered the young husky's dressing-room without knocking, and had found him naked except for his underpants which he'd been about to remove prior to pulling on his boxing-trunks. Without realizing the harm she was doing, Gwen had whipped off his pants and started to fondle him in such a manner as to result in his returning the compliment; the dressing-room being tiny and almost unfurnished, the floor had served as their couch of infamy ... Suddenly the room had filled with men who had come to inform the young heavy-weight that his match was due to commence; unheeding he had given the few thrusts needed to release his tempestuous cream into Gwen, and a few minutes later, weak and dazed, he had faced an opponent who, fresh and strong, had knocked him out within thirty seconds. During the boy's absence, his manager, who'd witnessed the last few seconds of his hopeful's love-making, had replaced the boxer between Gwen's thighs and revenged himself most brutally, much to Gwen's delight.
Only later the same evening had Gwen learned that Eddie's suggestion that she visit the boxer in his dressing-room had been made with the very intention that she should do what she had in fact done ... so drain the energy out of him that he'd lose a fight which he'd been strongly backed to win.
"I shall be almost in and out this evening, Jean," said Gwen. "Eddie's picking me up at seven-thirty, but I shall be home only about seven. It's rather exciting really: there's a new boy working on the loading-wharf at Merivale's ... he's what we call the 'Stencil-boy'.....he does nothing but stencil on boxes things like 'Fragile,' 'llrgent,' 'This Way Up,' etc.; he's only eighteen, and as shy as a kitten; he's afraid to do anything during working-hours or on the premises, but he's promised to take me round to his house this evening at five-thirty ... He told me most earnestly that he lives quite near the office, and that he's alone at home until his mother comes home from work at half-past six. Poor darling! He asked me if I thought three quarters of an hour would be enough to enable him to satisfy me....."
So, as lunch proceeded, Gwen regaled the ears of Jean and Arwel with details of her latest lover.
In the evening, Gwen arrived home (an expression of great contentment upon her visage) shortly before seven o'clock; having eaten hurriedly, she rushed upstairs to dress for her visit to the sports stadium. Generally speaking Gwen required a great amount of time for her toilet, but the fact that Eddie hated to be kept waiting and that he was due at the house at half-past seven gave her wings, and she was ready when he arrived. Whilst Eddie was helping himself to a glass of whiskey, Gwen told him that, when she and Sidney returned to the house the previous evening, they had surprised Jean and Arwel in the sexual act. Upon hearing this, Eddie gulped down his drink at once, and moved eagerly across to Jean, who was ready and willing for anything he might have in mind; she submitted to, and responded to, his uncouth kisses and his suggestive fondling of her body. They quickly worked themselves up into a state in which they'd have been capable of lying down together before the eyes of Gwen and Arwel; only a loud knocking on the front door pulled Jean out of the sultriness of his embrace, and she ran to the door.
Standing in the drawing-room, dressed for the departure, Gwen and Eddie heard a female voice, which Gwen immediately recognized as that of Delys, saying, "I've come from Mr. Irving; is Gwen . ... Mrs. James ... at home?"
Gwen realized at once that, if Delys saw her and Eddie dressed to go out, she'd surmise that they were going out together; and if she were to tell Godfrey that Gwen was going out with a man, his jealousy would have the direct consequences for Gwen. Frenziedly she thought now of getting Eddie leave by the back door, of leaving the room herself, returning quickly without her hat and coat, as though she'd been intending to spend the evening at home; but it was too late; pushing rudely past Jean, Delys entered the drawing-room as though she were at home. She could afford to be arrogant; she had come as the emissary of Godfrey Irving, so she knew she'd be respectfully received by the lady of the house, who was Irving's lady, or rather one of his several ladies.
Delys took in the scene at a glance; two people hatted and coated for a sortie. Two people who were quite obviously not going out in the so near future; and one of the people going out was Irving's property, whilst the other was without doubt a poacher upon that august gentleman's preserves.
"Godfrey wants you," said Delys insolently and imperiously, "and he says you're to be quick; he's got some unexpected visitors, and he's promised you'll put on one of your inimitable shows for them."
Torn between the need for arriving as quickly as possible at Irving's residence and the importance of giving Delys some misleading information regarding Eddie's relations with herself, Gwen stammered:
"Delys, I'd like you to meet Eddie ... he's a friend of Arwel and Jean ... he often comes round . ... "
Knowing she was lying, Delys interrupted brusquely.
"Gwen! Don't keep Irving waiting! He was boasting to his friends that the moment you heard he wanted you, you'd fly like mad to fulfill his demands upon you."
"So you're Delys, are you?" asked Eddie, "Am I pleased to make your acquaintance....."
He noticed Gwen's frantic gestures and grimaces, which were intended to warn him against saying anything which might convey to Delys the impression that he and Gwen were on terms of intimacy; but his mind was too full of other things to permit of his trying to decipher Gwen's dumb-talk.
"We've heard a lot about you," he continued, putting his arm about Delys' waist and drawing her close to him; "Oh, I'd have given a lot to witness that first time when Irving did you whilst Gwen held you."
"Oh, she told you about that?"
As she spoke, Delys snuggled closer to Eddie, and turned her head to throw at Gwen a regard which said, "Haven't you gone yet?"
"Well, Eddie," Delys continued, "If you're so keen on things like that, get Gwen to bring you round to Irving's some evening, and we'll repeat the performance especially for you."
For a moment Delys and Eddie stood together laughing, whilst Gwen stood by in an anguish of fear at keeping Irving waiting and an equal fear of leaving Eddie without some idea of when they'd meet again.
Brushing past Gwen without a word, Eddie guided Delys out into the hall and then up the stairs; Gwen slammed the front door behind her as she rushed from the house; Eddie smiled as he noticed that, as she mounted the stairs, Delys was already unfastening the buttons of her frock.
Gwen, as was to be expected, did not return home that night. At Irving's house were four men, in addition to Irving, and two girls, one of whom was the secretary of one of the men, whilst the other was a waitress whose acquaintance they'd made whilst having tea together at a restaurant. Without evasiveness Irving told his guests, upon Gwen's arrival, that they could rely upon her for an evening's entertainment; two of the men had been with Irving at Eton and then throughout his period at Cambridge; they were partners in business, and had remained Irving's firm friends through the years. Together those three had had amatory experiences and bacchic nights whose recounting would leave speechless even the most hardened reprobates and degenerates; Irving's friends took it as no affront that he himself was unable to remain at home, since he had an appointment with Eileen Merivale, his employer.
As soon as Godfrey Irving had left the house, the men stripped Gwen and the secretary; the waitress, who was a virgin, a girl of conventional upbringing, became frightened, and she said she was going home. She was prevailed upon to stay with assurances that she would not be treated as the other women were being treated, that indeed not a finger would be laid upon her; half an hour later, when every one buffeting Gwen and the secretary with cushions and with their discarded clothes twisted into whipping instruments, the waitress joined in with gusto, and worked herself up into such a frenzy that one of the men was stroking her thighs under her skirt for half a minute before she became aware of it; she pushed the man away, and struck at him with a cushion, laughing uproariously; when he seized at the cushion to take it from her, she dropped it, threw her arms about his neck and let herself go limp. Without disturbing the others, he carried her to the bedroom, where she excitedly helped him to undress her. The orgy continued until the waitress announced at about half-past eleven that she'd have to be going home; she went home four lovers richer than she'd been three hours previously. The secretary left at the same time as did two of the men; Gwen and the two remaining men spent the ensuing couple of hours making love in their brutal fashion and recounting their various erotic experiences. Even when all three had retired to one double bed, they slept but little, Gwen waking up at intervals of not much more than an hour, and each time feeling the need of one or another of her bed-mates.
At the James' house, Jean and Arwel painted and listened to the radio, whilst Eddie and Delys enjoyed one another up in Gwen's room. Shortly after midnight, they extinguished the lights downstairs, and went up to Gwen's room; quietly pushing open the door, they looked in, In the brightly-lit room they saw Eddie lying in bed in deep sleep, whilst at his side Delys, in a sitting position, was wide awake, bored, waiting impatiently for her new lover to attack her again. The arrival of Jean and Arwel created a needed diversion, and she responded to their beckoning fore-fingers by quitting the bed, and joining them in the corridor. Without a word, Arwel led her along to his room, whilst Jean entered Gwen's room, where, standing ankle-deep in the lamb's wool rug at the bedside, she undressed prior to slipping into bed at Eddie's side. Eddie continued to sleep.
In Arwel's room, Delys got into bed silently, and watched, fascinated, as Arwel undressed and folded his clothes carefully; her impatience to have his hands all over her body, his mouth at hers, and his phallus in her vagina was tempered by her delight in his slim body and its easy, graceful motions; she became his second woman, and he her third man, and both were well-pleased.
Jean couldn't sleep, knowing that within a yard of her was a man she could have for the mere effort of stretching out her hand. She wanted a man so badly, and, since Eddie had fondled her so thrillingly earlier in the evening, her erotic ambitions were more in his direction than in that of any other man; her desire was urgent and painful, but she wanted him to wake of his own accord, refreshed after his exertions with the tireless Delys; and she was determined that, when he reached out for her, he should be denied her until he knew that she it was and not Delys. She wanted him to have her in the full knowledge that he was having her, so that afterwards, wherever and whenever he saw her, he would say to himself, "I did her in such and such a place, at such and such a time, under such and such circumstances." In an impatient torment, Jean tossed and turned in the bed, trying to sleep, and desperately endeavoring to avoid waking Eddie by her restlessness.
When he eventually woke up, as the eastern sky began to turn pink, he spun round quickly towards his bedmate; fully alert, he was eager to taste again the luscious flesh upon which he'd feasted the previous evening.
Sitting up in bed, naked, only her legs hidden by the bed clothes, Jean was a lovely column of pink flesh, such as a red-blooded man would want to sink his fangs into.
"You!" he exclaimed, springing into a kneeling position astride her legs.
"Yes," she replied, stretching out her arms to him, "All ready for you!"
His eyes glinted greedily and cruelly.
"On this very bed," he hissed, "you made a fool of me twice in the same day ... a long time ago ... I had you just where I have you now, and you slipped out of my grasp. All these years you're refused me, whilst dozens of other women have been prepared to commit every crime short of murder to get me; the other time I didn't dare force you, 'cos I was afraid of goin' to quod for rape; but now I know a thing a two more than I knew then; I'll have you this time, by God I will, and I'll have you screaming for mercy....."
His hand shot up to her face, and she felt the impact of his knuckles across her mouth. Once, twice, again and again; his hand flashed again and again, his knuckles across her mouth, nose and eyes, and his palm stinging her cheek, her neck, her shoulders; blood trickled from her lips and from a cut below her eye; her face swelled under a rain of blows, and turned blue; she begged for mercy, and gained a moment of respite whilst he sprang across to his clothes ... He came back with his bracers, with which he thrashed her mercilessly, until the flesh bubbled on her shoulders, back and buttocks and her thighs.
Throwing his bracers across the room, he got into bed again, turned his back upon her, and prepared to go to sleep again, content, elated. Jean yearned towards him; painfully she crawled across the bed, until her arms encircled his body; her bruised face soothed itself by contact with his bare shoulders. One of her hands found his penis, which throbbed under her caress; she tickled the testicle-bag, and Eddie turned to her, his face ablaze with ugly triumph. Adopting a kneeling position between her thighs, as she lay on her back, he brought the helmet of his vast penis into contact with the aperture of her vagina. His first thrust introduced the entire column of his penis to her body, so that his testicles brushed her buttocks; he withdrew and then advanced again, another full thrust, and then he pushed his whole weight into her, as one desirous that his whole body should be sucked into the woman's loins; Jean's pain was a tearing, raging succession of fires within her, and she feared some permanent damage, but she uttered no sound until the tempo of their bodies rose to a humming, singing ecstasy, when groans of complete joy escaped her. She held him to her, and she strained towards him; she pushed him away, and followed him, retreated from him and pulled herself closer to him, defying him, urging him on to hurt her more than he had done. Their possessed bodies left the bed, and their limbs thrashed like serpents driven by demons; he tried to grind her into the carpet, and she tried to creep, nay to charge into his body ... Her legs locked themselves about his body, and his knees battered her butt; a sudden hurricane, gale-force winds, thunder and lightning accompanying groans, grunts and stifled screams came before the calm and tiredness of satiety.
Kicking Jean away from him, Eddie dragged his tired body to the warmth of the lamb's wool rug.
30.
Delys was in no doubt whatsoever that Eddie was Gwen's lover; she knew too how important it was, from Gwen's point of view, that Irving should not enter into intelligence of the fact. It was with some satisfaction that Delys anticipated the occasion when she would inform her employer that Gwen, his abject slave, had made a cuckold of him. As she walked towards Irving's house on the morrow of that first night of fornication with Eddie and Arwel, she decided not to break the news to Irving immediately; her sharing of Gwen's secret could perhaps have certain advantages; Gwen might be prepared to buy Delys' silence, either with money or with services of one kind or another;-certainly as long as Delys lover, the door of the James' house would be permanently open to her; and Delys intended to spend many nights with Arwel and Eddie, as well as with any other men whose acquaintance she might make under Gwen's roof. The moment would probably arrive when Delys would delight in betraying Gwen's secret to Irving, but in the meantime Gwen had nothing to fear.
Gwen, however, was very anxious. She knew quite well that, if Delys exercised discretion on the subject of Eddie and Gwen, it would be only for as long as it suited her;-sooner or later Irving would learn from Delys' lips that he wasn't Gwen's sole lover, and it would not then take him long to find an excuse for dismissing Gwen from the service of Merivale's; Gwen would have to be very sweet to Delys, and hope thereby to gain a few weeks' respite.
After her beating at the hands of Eddie, Jean entered a private nursing-home for several days. Realizing the difficulty of giving any false, and at the same time convincing, explanation of the circumstances in which she'd acquired her cuts and bruises, she told the truth to the home's only doctor who was also its proprietor; that her story roused in him an interest totally independent of that demanded by his profession was evident to Jean. Within three days all her bruises were banished, whilst the few cuts which hadn't healed completely gave no more cause for alarm.
"You'll be able to leave tomorrow," said the doctor, "if you feel strong enough."
"Oh, yes! I'll feel fine; I'm impatient to get back home."
"Back to another thrashing, eh?"
"Not so much that! There will be more of that, of course, but equally important ... no, more important ... are my friends, Arwel and Gwen. I'm their house-keeper, but they've always made me feel as though he was my young brother, and she my mother....."
"I too am impatient for your departure from this nursing-home," he replied; "Oh, don't look like that! You've been a model patient; the moment your discharge is registered in my office, you'll cease to be my patient, and I'm going to take you home in my car, and I'm going to treat you as a man treats a woman, instead of as a doctor treats her....."
"We don't have to wait until tomorrow."
"I'm sorry, but we must; at least, I must. I came into possession of this place at a bargain, its previous owner having been struck off the register after a woman patient had seduced him here, and later brought against him a charge of unprofessional behavior.....'in that you did seduce this woman whilst there existed between you a doctor-patient relationship'; I don't know exactly how they phrase these things, but that's how it is ... The other chap was engaged to be married, but this patient wanted him badly, so he gave it to her; there was no talk of love or anything like that; it was just mutual lust, with no promises, tacit or otherwise; but afterwards his continued intention to go through with his marriage roused the woman to such vengefulness that she wrecked his career....."
"But I shan't ruin your career."
"I'm not so sure about that; I shall wait until tomorrow, until you've ceased to be my patient ... "
"Go now, and register my discharge, and then come back to me!"
"I've told you ... tomorrow! I can't discharge you and then let you stay here; the duty nurse would smell a rat; we never discharge patients at ten o'clock in the evening, so even if you left here now, the nurse would still suspect something; you can wait until tomorrow."
Throwing back the bedclothes, Jean pulled her night-dress up until she was naked up to her breasts.
"If you don't jump into me now," she said, her eyes blazing with a mixture of anger and desire, "your blood's cold water."
"No, it isn't," he replied, smiling, "The sight of you, abasing yourself, increases my appetite for the woman I'm just going to join; I know my predecessor's story is true, because it's been confirmed for me by the woman herself ... She's waiting for me, less than a hundred yards from here, and she'll laugh herself stupid when I tell her about you."
The following morning, after her discharge from the nursing-home, Jean allowed her doctor to take her home in his car. Up in her room, he took her without undressing her, and left immediately afterwards, without telling her that she was the first woman he'd ever ridden.
31.
For the major part of the evening of the day of Jean's entering the nursing-home Arwel was at her bedside; Gwen also spent more than an hour with them, and she brought with her a portable radio receiver which she knew would give great pleasure to her dearly beloved melomane of an almost-daughter; after Gwen's departure (to keep an appointment with Sidney Horsbrugh) Jean and Arwel listened together to the first part of Schon-berg's 'Gurrelieder.'
The following evening, Percy Dent and Gwen went together to the hospital; Arwel, who had spent an hour with Jean at lunch-time, did not accompany them, since Gwen intended staying with Jean for a few minutes only, and he imagined that Jean and Percy would be pleased to be alone for the remainder of the evening.
During Gwen's absence Arwel practiced Bach's third piano sonata, the second movement of which had been worrying him for several days; Jean had said that he played it too crisply; he had added some smoothness to his performance, and she had expressed herself in agreement with his new interpretation of the movement. However, the more he played it, the more convinced he became that his brisker execution was the correct one; eventually he decided that Taylor Beecroft must hear his two interpretations, and give his opinion. As was ever the case with Arwel, a decision made must be acted upon with the minimum of delay; so, the moment Gwen returned home, he announced his intention of going immediately to the Beecroft house.
Gwen was expecting Eddie, so she remained at home.
Arwel had left the house only ten minutes when Taylor himself entered the James house; he rarely came without Naomi, but she was listening to a play on the radio, and said she might follow him later.
"Taylor! And alone! Why, it's so long since you came alone, that I can't recall the last time. You didn't meet Arwel?"
Taylor nodded his head negatively.
"He left here a few minutes ago, to go to you; he wants your advice upon a piece of this tuneless modern stuff he thumps out on this....."
She waved a hand in the direction of the piano, and Taylor half-tuned, saying:
"Oh, well, I'll hurry back home....."
"No, you won't; it's ages since you and I have had a minute together; he'll be back in half an hour. Is Naomi at home?"
"Yes; she's listening to 'John Bull's Other Island'; she may come round later."
"That's alright then; she'll tell Arwe, that you've come here, and he's so impatient to see you that he'll run back like a man chased by a legion of demons.
"Yes, I suppose so; it would be rather stupid to go back now, and find that he'd already left by another route."
Gwen patted the cushions on the settee, and motioned Taylor to join her in its silky coziness; he sat down cautiously on the edge of the settee, as far away from her as possible, giving an impersonation of a timid postman who has to deliver a letter to a house whose front door is guarded by a snarling Airedale.
Leaning back luxuriously in the cushions, Gwen threw one leg over the other knee; the hem of her skirt fell back carelessly upon the lower reaches of her thigh. She stretched out her left arm, and for an instant her hand, poised an inch or two from Taylor's elbow, was like the claw of a ferocious bird of prey about to fall upon its victim; a shudder passed through Taylor's body as her hungry fingers dug into the fleshy part of his upper-arm. Then he her; he tried to think of something to say, something which would offer her no opportunity of twisting the conversation into a sensual duet. But he remained speechless, and eventually allowed himself to be drawn deeper into the hedonic featheriness of the settee; Gwen seized his face between her hands, and looked into his eyes; her nostrils dilated, her skin stretched itself tight over her cheek-bones, her cheeks turned almost transparent, and her pale lips quivered nervously, excitedly as they swooped down upon his unwilling mouth. She felt him trying to divert his face from her, and her passion mounted, her desire for him became madness; she bit him; she writhed and clambered over him, pressing herself into his loins, causing her butt to jerk to and fro in a frenzy of lust. Taylor responded to none of her deliberate gestures, to none of the involuntary twitching of her body, to none of her irrepressible sighs and groans.
"Take me, Tay! Do it! Do me, Tay! Help me! Oh, God, help me! Tay! Tay! I must have it; I must."
He pushed her gently, but firmly away from him into the far corner of the settee, but she flung herself back upon him, and he was obliged to be more brutal in his repulsion of her: his roughness was an aphrodisiac to her; pulling her skirts up, she removed her panties with feverish hands, and struck a revoltingly seductive posture before him, her whole body trembling with the intensity of her need. Moved at last to an agony of desire, Taylor sprang to his feet and fled from the house, pursued for a hundred yards along the street by Gwen, crazily screaming her entreaties at him.
Having escaped from Gwen, Taylor was revolted at the thought of returning home, to Naomi and perhaps Arwel; there was an impurity newly within him, a demon which he must exorcise, 'though he knew not how ... Taylor pushed open the doors of a public-house, and, almost breathless, ordered brusquely a double Irish; it scorched his throat and twisted his visage into a grimace of disgust.
"The same again!" he commanded.
As the barmaid handed him his replenished glass, she asked, "Are you not well, sir?"
He drank half the contents of the glass, shook himself as one awakening from a heavy sleep, and drank the remainder.
"I'm fine." he replied thickly, vaguely aware of the beauty of the person who was swaying before him in a cloud of multicolored smoke, "You all right, darling?"
"Yes." she replied simply.
"Yes," he said, smiling foolishly, "You're all right."
Without waiting for his command, she filled his glass; the coins he pushed across the moist counter in her direction floated back to him, sugared with the words:
"This one's on me, honey."
"What!" he exclaimed, "Why?"
He imagined that he heard her reply, "For services not yet rendered."
A big masculine voice came to him from a distance of many leagues. His fists flashed upwards and struck his temples; for a moment he gripped hid head between his clenched fists, and then he was awake, light-headed, but not drunk.
To the full glass of whiskey before which he had slept during more than half-an-hour he addressed the mono-syllabic question, "Time?"
As if in answer, a massive voice sang out, "Time, gentlemen, please!"
There was noise and movement; there was the passage of time; there appeared at Taylor's side the barmaid, divest of her apron, coated, but hatless. By pressure upon his arm, she incited him to rise from his stool; together they left the house, and he allowed himself to be led along the street a few yards, and into the yard of St. Michael's church. Only when his feet left the hardness of the churchyard path, and began to tread silently the grassy plain under which reposed the mortal remains of a dozen or more once-worthy parishioners of St. Mike's, did Taylor realize that he was being raped; the actual crime took place in the middle of a vast rhododendron, where the girl stripped herself naked prior to removing every stitch of Taylor's clothing. Feeling his penis thrilling to the blandishments of her lips and eager tongue, Taylor decided it was time to cease playing his passive role; he curled the girl up on her hands and knees, holding her head under her body, with her chin between her breasts, and he thrust himself vigorously into her from behind; afterwards, as she lay tired and contented, he dressed, threw all her clothing over the wall, into the street below, and danced gaily along the church-yard path and out on to the street.
Arwel knocked on the door of the Beecroft residence about ten minutes after Taylor's leaving home bound for the James's house; before going to open the door, Naomi increased the volume of her radio, hoping thereby not to miss much of the plot during the little time it would take to get rid of the unwelcome caller. The moment, however, that she saw her visitor, the word unwelcome fell out of her mind, as did the play to which she'd been listening with the keenest interest.
She used, to retain Arwel, the argument with which Gwen had dissuaded Taylor from returning home the moment he knew that Arwel had gone to visit him.
"As soon as Taylor knows you've come here to see him, he'll return on winged feet; if you go back home now, you'll probably miss him on the way. Taylor has the grotesquest idea of what is the shortest distance between two points, and you and he would, perhaps, take different routes; your to and fro might go on all night."
It seemed reasonable to Arwel, especially since he believed Gwen to be expecting Eddie; Taylor certainly wouldn't stay long if he were the only person present apart from Gwen and Eddie; Taylor and Eddie hated one another profoundly.
When they were installed on a settee before the fire, and Naomi had turned the wireless dial away from her Strindberg play and to a Mozart concert, Naomi said:
"It's strange, 'Wei, but, although we've been friends since you were a child, and we've met frequently, this is, as far as I can recall, the first time you and I have been alone together."
Smiling, Arwel made no reply, since none seemed to be required.
Moving closer to Arwel, Naomi continued:
"Seeing you without Gwen or Jean as your bodyguard, I realize, for the first time, that you're no longer an adolescent, but a man....."
"I'm in no hurry to be a man," replied Arwel, "I shall be adult in God's time; but until then I'm quite content to be considered a child."
"You're making a big mistake there, Arwel.
Childhood is not without its particular charms, but life really belongs to the adult; and the sooner you accept the status of manhood, the longer you'll be able to taste the real pleasures of life. Never forget that there's an end as well as a beginning to life with a capital L. So at the beginning as well as at the end you have to make the best of every hour; you don't regard as living people those whose only pleasures in life are a pipe of tobacco or a bag of peppermints, a warm room in Winter and a sun-drenched park bench in Summer? Well, that's what we all become, unless we die before we're forty-five, in the case of women, or fifty-five, in the case of men....."
To Arwel, Naomi's remarks were interesting, but somewhat ridiculous; it was obvious that Naomi was thinking only of the sexual aspect of living; in which case her remarks were to the point; but Naomi was an intelligent girl, interested in literature, the theater, music, painting, politics, and philosophy. There was not the slightest doubt in the boy's mind that her appreciation of all these things would deepen with the years, that, with the passage of time, she would derive ever more satisfaction from those things which interested her in the early summer of her life. Before he could articulate his thoughts, Naomi added:
"Start living now, Arwel! Don't let Gwen and Jean hold you in imagine! Brush aside their sweetmeats! Sink your man's fangs into the hot life, and drink the exhilarating blood of adult experience!"
Gripping his shoulders tightly in her slender hands, blanched and reinforced by the intensity of her desire to persuade him to a course of action, she entreated him:
"Let me be your mentor, darling! I'll help you to manifest your manhood; I'll subordinate everything to my duties as your guide and teacher. Everything I am and have is at your command; take off my clothes, Arwel, and pour your virginity to me.....! "
Arwel took her eager hands gently in his, and tenderly smoothed away the tenseness from her fingers. Stroking her hands, he said:
"You're two or three days too late, Nao; I've already had two girls, and I have another on order....."
Lights of excitement shone in Naomi's eyes.
"Who was it? Jean!"
He nodded sis head affirmatively.
"The other was Delys; I think you haven't met her; she's Irving's housekeeper."
Naomi threw herself upon Arwel, her arms circling his neck.
"Why, this is priceless, darling! How you must have enjoyed my talking to you as though you were a child whom it was my duty to lead from innocence into the glories of sin!"
They laughed heartily together until Naomi brought her mouth to his in a passionate kiss to which he responded with every ounce of his strength.
"I'd have liked to be your first," said she, "but I'll content with third place."
Within a minute her dress was draped carelessly across the back of a chair, her underskirt and chemise were lying on the floor with her shoes, and she was standing provocatively before him clad in brassiere and panties. Removing the brassiere, she handed it to him prior to casting herself at his feet in a pose of complete and humble abandon.
He bent forward and seized the hair which curled behind her head; he pulled her into a standing position in which she was bent backwards, her arms dangling down behind her. One movement of his free hand sufficed to tear her panties from her loins; she moved one foot, so that her thighs parted wide, offering him easy access to that part of her which was at that moment all-important. He kneeled before her, buried his nose and mouth in the hairs of her loins, and licked her, holding her buttocks firmly in his hands, feeling their flesh shiver as his tongue scorched her clitoris.
They swayed to and fro in a frenzy of mutual desire; at the moment when her impatience became quite intolerable, he rose quickly to his feet, and lowered her onto the sofa; she thrilled to the thought that her moment had arrived, and, trembling from top to toe, uttering little sobs in anticipation of the joy she was going to squeeze out of his flesh, she reached out to him hungrily. He was out of the room before she realized that he had moved away from her; she sprang to her feet and bounded across to the door, which she tore open at the moment when he opened the front door of the house ... As he stepped out of the brightly-lighted hall into the darkness of the night, Naomi hurled herself across the hall, and seized the door which he was pulling to behind him. Oblivious of the fact that, standing in the illuminated doorway, she was clearly visible in her nakedness to passers-by, she supplicated him to return to her and satisfy the lust which he had roused within her.
Arwel didn't turn his head in her direction: he was by no means unsympathetic to her pleadings. Her desire for him was matched by his for her; but suddenly, as he'd been indulging in the preliminaries to having Naomi, he had thought of Taylor ... Taylor, a dear friend, whom he loved, respected and admired ... Taylor, to whom the naked, shameless trull whose sexual organ he was sucking was not only sister, but everything ... He didn't know how great or how little hurt he would be doing to Taylor in riding his nag, but he was unprepared to enjoy himself at the possible expense of his friend, so he fled from the house.
Arwel was only twenty yards from the front door when Naomi became aware of the fact that, at the garden-gate, a girl was gazing at her in undisguised amazement; closing the door, Naomi ran back to the sofa upon which she threw herself and wept bitterly until her sobs rocked her to sleep ... So it was that Taylor found her later in the evening when he returned home in the highest of spirits.
The girl who had embarrassed Naomi by her stares, hurried to overtake the man to whom the strange nude woman had been shouting. This girl was young and had had little experience of the ways of men, but she knew at least that only a very unusual man would reject advances as blatant as those of which she had just witnessed the final gestures.
Walking abreast of Arwel the girl said:
"It's none of my business, but don't you think it's rather prodigal of you to throw away a chance like that?"
"It is." he agreed, "especially since there are thousands of men within a mile radius of us who'd be delighted at the chance of having that woman."
"I suppose you've had it with her so often that it's become routine instead of poetry; isn't that the reason for your running away?"
"No, that's not at all how it is," he said, feeling as though he were confiding in an old and trusted friend, instead of in a girl whom he'd never previously met; he proceeded to tell her the whole story, ending with the request:
".....so please don't judge me too severely; I wanted her badly, desperately; but I didn't want to work out my appetite on a woman who belongs to a friend....."
By that time, Arwel was a long way from the route towards his own home; he had just followed wherever the girl seemed to be going ... .. in the direction of her home, he imagined. In point of fact they had just descended from the bridge which crossed the canal, and were walking along the tow-path bordering the water-way.
As Arwel stopped talking, the girl halted.
Looking frankly up into his eyes, she smiled, and said with the simplicity of the fourteen-year-old girl she was:
"I'm not ... 'a woman who belongs to a friend.'"
Astonishment almost rendered him inarticulate. He stammered:
"What do you ... you mean ... I don't . ... "
"You wanted that woman desperately," the girl said shyly, drawing him off the tow-path and into the shadow of some trees, "Has your hunger gone?"
"No," he answered, "The sharp agony of the moment subsides quickly, but there remains a gnawing regret that circumstances robbed you of what was almost within your grasp."
"In what way was Naomi so special, so different from other women?" asked the girl.
Arwel replied that Naomi was in no way special, and that she was different only in as much as he imagined each woman was different from every other woman, however slightly.
"So every woman you have is a new thrill, and almost any reasonably attractive girl could untie the knot of regret that you've mentioned?"
To his simple reply of "Yes," she said:
"You'll have to teach me, tell me what to do; I'm not as used to it as your Naomi."
"No! No!" she said a few minutes later, "I want all my clothes off; I want you to see me as naked as she was; do to me everything that men do to women; I once read in a novel that women like men to be cruel to them: be cruel to me, Arwel!"
Their bed of vice was no soft lawn grass; it was the black cinder-track, made rougher by the dried pine cones which tore the tender skin of her back as she writhed ecstatically under the weight of Arwel and under his merciless thrusting inside her.
"Hurt me, Arwel! Harder! Deeper! Again! Hit me! Arwel, make a woman of me! Make me bleed! Oeer! Oo! Aaahhh!"
The following day the girl visited Naomi; when she asked to speak with Naomi alone, and said it was about Arwel, she was told that Naomi and Taylor had no secrets one from the other, and that whatever she had to say must be said in Taylor's presence. Embarrassed at first by Taylor's presence, the girl soon thrilled at his evident pleasure in hearing the details of the story. She explained to Naomi that Arwel's leaving her unsatisfied had been purely a question of his affection for Taylor and in no Way implied Arwel's desire for her was inferior to hers for him. She repeated Arwel's declaration to the effect that he had wanted Naomi desperately; this latter was so thrilled that she kissed the girl passionately on the lips, and stroked her breasts and buttocks affectionately; Taylor was driven to agonies of joy by the girl's detailed and bright-eyed account of what had transpired in the shadow of the pine trees on the canal bank.
The girl herself, living over again those few minutes of animalism, was roused to the most intense sexual desire, so that she was aware of drops of moisture upon her panties.
As the girl fatigued by excitement of her tale, repeated, as well as she could recollect, the sobs and groans which had accompanied her reaching climax under Arwel's attack, Naomi embraced her, smothered her face with kisses, stripped her bare and gave her to Taylor; the moment Taylor's hands touched her unclothed person, the girl lost all lassitude, and, before Naomi's eyes she yielded herself tempestuously.
32.
During the two or three weeks following Jean's release from the nursing home, Gwen's house was the scene of one sexual orgy after another; but, whereas previously Gwen had played the most important role in such festivals of the flesh, she found herself suddenly obliged to share the limelight with the other two regular members of her house-hold ... Jean and Arwel. There were even heights of fornication in which Gwen was not involved, since much of her time was spent in Irving's bed and at the homes of various friends of Eddie. Such an occasion was the visit of Sidney Horsbrugh and his daughter Rachel; they were received, as prearranged, by Jean and Arwel. During about half an hour drinks were sipped, there was some quite normal, polite conversation, and Sidney danced with Jean, whilst Arwel followed suit with Rachel. Sidney had decided to take no initiative in getting down to the real business of their visit; he wanted to see how his daughter and these other young people would break the ice without his help. Jean also felt that it was not primarily her evening; she wanted, and intended to have, Sidney; but it was, to her, more important that Arwel should have Rachel, and that he should not have her presented upon a plate borne by Jean herself. Arwel knew he could have Rachel: she had come for that purpose; and he had agreed to her coming for the same reason. But she was so beautiful, so sophisticated that he feared to make a first move which might strike her as the gauche impatience and clumsiness of a man who'd never previously made love to a woman and had no knowledge of feminine psychology; he wanted to convey the impression that whether this girl became his mistress or not was a matter of no world-shaking importance; she was but one of many whom he could have at will. In fact, from the moment he set eyes upon her, he wanted her terribly, and every movement of her limbs and body was a thrill to him; she was, for the moment, the only person in the world who really interested him. Arwel hesitated.
Rachel began to think this young Welshman had taken a dislike to her; but her knowledge of her beauty and attractiveness quickly drove that silly idea from her head. Perhaps her father had made a mistake or was playing one of his tricks upon her; perhaps Jean and Arwel were not lovers at all, but a decent woman and boy typical of the British bourgeoisie; perhaps her father had lied when he'd told her his hands had knowledge of the whole of Jean's body, and that only his having an urgent appointment had prevented his reaching the highest peak of intimacy with her. Jean and Arwel conducted themselves with perfect propriety at their first meeting with Rachel.
Rachel, looking cool and fresh, complained, during a torrid rumba, that it was getting too hot for energetic dancing; when Arwel suggested either sitting down or playing more leisurely music, she declared her readiness to accept whichever of the solutions suited him the better; at the same time, she took off her dress and underskirt, and the ice was broken. When Delys entered the house fifteen minutes later, male and female attire was strewn about the room, and she saw Arwel and Rachel making passionate love on the floor; whilst Sidney, quite naked, was standing behind a vast armchair, his penis flashing in and out of the loins of Jean who was standing on her head, in the chair, with her long, slender legs coiled about the body of her debaucher.
No one taking the slightest notice of her. Delys helped herself to Gin and bitters, and sat down, to watch the final twitching of the two pairs of bodies, and to await her turn to enjoy the body of the unknown gentleman.
A few days later, Naomi's birthday was celebrated at Gwen's house. Quite casually, without betraying that she remembered it was Naomi's birthday, Gwen had said to Taylor, "Come round tomorrow evening, darling! Perhaps Nao will come with you." Wearing a lovely dress which Taylor had bought for her birthday, Naomi arrived with Taylor to find the James's house wearing the smile reserved for parties, celebrations; colored lights in the bushes and trees of the front garden; lots of lighted candles indoors, a profusion of flowers, paper chains, bunting, tinseled and Chinese lanterns, tables heavy with edible delicacies and a rich choice of drinks. She was greeted by Gwen, Jean, Delys, Rachel, Sidney Horsbrugh, Arwel, Percy Dent and even Eddie Lennon, who, in common with all the others, had a present for her. This one gave silk stockings; that one perfume; someone else chocolates. The complete works of Shaw in a beautiful volume bound in Bordeaux-colored leather was a present which Naomi greatly appreciated; Eddie's present was gossamer-fine underwear.
After the scrutiny of her presents, Naomi received something which gave her more pleasure than all the other things; it was a few words of counsel from Arwel. Learning that the lovely dress she was wearing was new and a gift from Taylor, Arwel said, "If I were you, darling, in view of the uncivilized mob here assembled, I'd take off that frock before somebody spills wine over it."
Considering the number of pairs of hands which aided Naomi in her taking off of the dress, it is surprising that it was still in perfect condition when Rachel took it up to Gwen's bedroom; by the time Rachel returned to the salon, those willing hands had removed all the remaining garments from Naomi's body; when she'd agreed to take off her dress, Naomi had determined that none of the men should amuse himself with her before she'd had Arwel. So, as her panties slid down the calves of her legs, she threw herself into the arms of an Arwel who was eager to receive her. The others, having witnessed the first two or three thrusts of Arwel's weapon into Naomi's body, paired themselves off with the minimum of discrimination.
No one went to bed that night; the beds were used, but not for sleeping. Having given their all one to another, a man and a woman would remain where they happened to be, too tired to move, and they would cease, for half an hour, to be aware of what was being done around them. Waking, a man would fondle the female nearest to hand, or he'd see a female form lying neglected a few yards away, and he would crawl across to it. When the party broke up the following morning, several of the participants didn't know with whom they had made love and with whom they'd failed to do so ...
After breakfast, Gwen went to work, so drunk that only Jean's insistence on prudence deterred Percy from accompanying her to the office. Although Gwen and Percy worked together, they invariably went to work quite independently of one another, in case Irving should see them together and begin to entertain suspicions about the relations existing between them.
One or two people in the office suspected that Percy Dent and Gwen James were friends in secret; they recalled Dent's earlier opposition to Gwen, and the sudden death of that antipathy; they'd noticed glances exchanged between the former rivals; but they'd never seen the two together outside the office. Tongues did wag, however, and lustily, when Gwen entered the office noticeably inebriated, followed, ten minutes later by a sober Mr. Dent who stank of liquor and wore the pale, haggard expression of one who has come to the office straight from a Bacchic feast.
Typical of the remarks made was, "I'll bet a pound to a pinch of snuff the liquor that knocked her out came from the bottles he hums of."
Even had Gwen heard these observations, she'd still have been very pleased with herself that morning. She'd arranged the party for Naomi's benefit, and that in all sincerity, for there was between Gwen and Naomi a love which is desperately rare between women. Gwen knew Naomi had thoroughly enjoyed the party, and that in particular she had delighted in becoming Arwel's mistress after her previous abortive effort to do so. Gwen had, however, her selfish reasons for not regretting the party; whether by chance or design, Taylor had seized Gwen, whilst Arwel and Naomi were fornicating together, and he had used her and given himself with a vigor and enthusiasm quite astonishing when you bear in mind that he had been visiting her house regularly during about a decade, and that he'd known throughout that period that a mere nod of his head would have stripped every stitch of clothing from her body, her body which was his to do with whatever he chose. It had taken him a long time to surmount the barrier which his imagination had built between himself and Gwen, and she was happy in the knowledge that the barrier was no longer effective. Everyone had had a good night and Gwen liked her friends to enjoy themselves.
Delys went, drunk, to Irving's house. She was late, and he was already struggling with the preparations for his breakfast.
"Where the hell have you been since seven o'clock?"
"Don't you swear at me! I've been enjoying myself ... at a party ... I've been so well-cucked that my private parts are like scorched off'ring ... ought t'have been there, honey ... enough of what you like or everybody ... "
"You're drunk; here, stop talking, and get my breakfast ready!"
"You get my breakfast ready! I could've ha dit at Gwen's, but I had to hurry ... "
"You could have had it where?"
His grip on her arm and the tone of his voice shook her out of her drunken babbling; she realized that she'd used Gwen's name, and that it hadn't passed unnoticed.
"Ben, one of my friends ... he asked me to stay to breakfast ... "
"Ben! To hell with your Ben! You said "Gwen." Gwen James ... that's where you've been ... you and her and a crowd of common poachers ... "
He seized Delys by the collar of her dress.
"Tell me where you've been! I'll tear every stitch off you and thrash you till you drop."
Delys didn't want to betray Gwen; they'd spent a thrilling night together, and there would often be nights comparable to it. But Irving, knowing a thrashing at his hands would delight her rather than punish her, wouldn't hesitate to dismiss her from his service, if her reply didn't satisfy him. She'd already said too much; he'd heard her mention of Gwen's name, and hadn't been deceived by her talk of the imaginary Ben. It was too late to undo the damage to Gwen, but time enough, perhaps, to avoid sharing Gwen's fate. like Gwen, Delys could get another job, but few employers were as generous and easy-going as Irving.
"I was at Gwen's house," she whispered. "It was a birthday party for one of her friends. It's true we had a good time, but not Gwen ... not with the men, I mean. They tried, but she wouldn't ... "
Irving released his grip on her dress, and she stumbled to her knees as he flung himself out of the kitchen.
She heard the front door bang.
33.
Dismissed from Merivale's for reporting for work in a state of inebriation, Gwen knew that Delys had betrayed her. Irving had said nothing about their personal relations, and he'd silenced her when she'd tried to ask if, in spite of her dismissal, she could hope to see him outside the office as previously. Anyone overhearing their conversation would have imagined, from what he had to say, that it was purely and simply a business matter; the director of a respectable business house observed that one of his higher grade employees is drunk and incapable of fulfilling her duties. He reprimands her, expresses his surprise that she should conduct herself in such a manner, and his regret that, in the circumstances, he is unable to make any allowance for the sterling service she has hitherto rendered to the firm. She is dismissed with instant effect, and will be given two weeks' pay in lieu of notice.
There followed, for Gwen, weeks of searching for employment. Several people to whom she applied allowed her to know that they could have no faith in a person dismissed by Merivale's from a position of importance. When she gave the reason for her dismissal ... the official reason ... they looked at her aghast, and said they could offer her nothing. She received one or two offers of clerical or warehouse employment of the humblest kind at salaries representing about a third of what she'd been getting at Merivale's.
At The Alliance wholesale Fruit Company, she refused a clerical appointment, and was informed that there would shortly be a vacancy in an administrative grade. The young man who gave her the information said it was a vacancy for the post of Female Personnel Officer.
"I am the personnel officer, you see; but it's become too much for one man, and the chief thinks there ought to be a woman as Personnel Officer for the women workers; she'd be subordinate to me, and would be able to help female workers in a way which no man can do, even one as experienced as myself."
He was a young fellow, pretty and childish-spoilt-childish; he was obviously too young for the post he held, and couldn't possibly have the experience he pretended to have. Gwen saw herself making so great a success of the job of Female Personnel Officer, that, before long, she'd replace this child as Personnel Officer for the whole firm. First of all, however, she'd have to use this boy as a means of getting the subordinate post, and she'd have to keep him so occupied thereafter that he'd be blind to her treachery.
"It sounds like the very type of job I need, and the job that needs me too. I'm sure you can arrange for the job and me to have the benefit of one another."
"Well, of course, the decision does he with me; I make all appointments, and the chief has to approve higher grade appointments; but his okay is a mere matter of form."
"So I have nothing else to worry about; I'll leave the whole thing to you."
"Oh, dear, it's not as easy as that; I have to convince myself that the apphcant is in every way suitable for the post, and there are already a number of people for the job ... senior members of our female staff. They have a certain priority, though I personally doubt whether any of 'em have what I'm looking for..."
Smiling wickedly, Gwen said, "I've got what you're looking for."
The poor boy wasn't quite sure what she meant, but he blushed slightly and lowered his excessively oiled head.
"I've had a lot of experience of handling large numbers of workers," Gwen said, leaning provocatively forward, "and I've found that the most important thing is that there shall be a really good understanding between the people in responsible positions. Now no elderly spinster, however good her qualifications for this post may be, is the ideal person for you to have as your closest associate; you're a young, handsome fellow ... "
Gwen paused for a moment. She'd said something which an intelligent young man would have found nauseating, even though he might be handsome and aware of the fact; but she noticed that this colorless fop lapped up her crude flattery as a hungry kitten laps up milk. She felt hope flowing through her as strong liquor flows along the intestines, along the nerves, warming not only the body, but the soul as well. She was sure this boy could be used to her advancement, and she pressed on.
"You ought to appoint a woman who's attractive enough and sufficiently broad-minded to be a companion as well as an assistant ... "
Laughing fatuously he gurgled, "AD work and no play, eh?"
"Precisely," Gwen said, "With me you'd have work well done, but you'd have as much play as you wanted, during and out of office hours."
"Well, I'll bear you in mind. Leave me your address, and I'll call you to an interview when I've more time to go into details of your experience, etcetera. It's noon already; if you'll excuse me, I must be going to lunch."
Ten minutes later, in a taxi which Gwen had ordered with the help of the telephone in the young man's office, they were on their way to Gwen's house, she having persuaded him that he'd not only have a better lunch there than at his usual restaurant but also that, after lunch, there'd be at her house the time and the place for their entering into closer acquaintance with one another.
Immediately after lunch, Arwel left the house, making the excuse that he had to make certain purchases on his way to the bank. At the same time, Jean let it be known that, for some time, she'd be very busy in the kitchen.
Conditions were entirely favorable to Gwen's plan. As she'd paid the taxi chauffeur on their arrival at the house, she'd also asked him to return at a quarter to two, to take her boy friend back to his office. They had half an hour to themselves, and they had to hand a bottle of Grand Marnier. There was nothing to prevent Gwen's giving a little of herself as a sample of what would be forthcoming in the event of her young man's throwing all his weight behind her candidature for the vacant post at Alliance Fruit; had she had a particle of the true whore instinct, the young man would have become her lover only after she'd been officially informed of her appointment to the post of Female Personnel Officer. However, much as the man wanted Gwen (or any other reasonably attractive woman), she quickly (and typically) came to want him even more; consequently, where she should have surrendered reluctantly in exchange for certain promises, she begged him, after their first kiss, to take her upstairs. Astonished that his conquest of her had been so easy, he hurried her up to her bedroom, and made her a present of his virginity.
During the conversation which took place as they awaited the arrival of the taxi, the young man was unable to withhold from Gwen the information that, in fact, his responsibility for the appointment which interested her was much less than he had allowed her to believe. It was the manager personally who made such decisions, and he depended upon his Personnel Officer merely for the compiling of a list of all the applicants, together with details of their ages, qualifications, experience, etcetera.
"I'd better see the manager then," said Gwen, her anger and disappointment struggling with her gratitude to this boy for the pleasure he'd given her.
"He's off duty for a few days; had some sort of injury to his ankle; he's at the hospital today ... at Leechester ... for an examination ... might be back at the office next Monday, so he said."
Surprised that Gwen should be so slightly annoyed by his duplicity, her newest lover undertook to come again soon, and to spend more time with her.
Remaking the bed, Gwen admitted to herself that she'd just made the mistake which she'd previously made too frequently ... the mistake of begging men to become her lovers, when, by patience, she could have had them not only begging for her favors, but ready to pay her price for them.
Gwen learned little from her experiences.
The following afternoon, at the house of the manager of The Alliance Wholesale Fruit Company, she took part in an almost identical performance of the drama in which she and the Personnel Officer had played the main roles; the difference was in that the manager, a sixty-five-year-old widower who worked because he enjoyed wielding authority, was more sure of himself than his employee had been. Within five minutes of Gwen's knocking on his door, he believed that he knew just what type of woman she was and in what state her fortunes were at that moment; five minutes later, she was in his arms, and his hands were all over her body; the stripping and the thrashing were familiar to Gwen. Brutally he rode her, and hoarsely his cries of joy mingled with hers as their writhing bodies soared to the heights of delight where they exploded in cascades of hot cream. Brutally he told her afterwards that she was precisely the type he didn't want in his employment, and wouldn't tolerate in the slightest contact with his gin.
His parting words were, "Here, on the other hand, you'll always be welcome; here there's no one you can pollute. You'll be back."
34.
After her experiences with the manager of Alliance Fruit, Gwen continued her search for suitable employment, but with less hope, less enthusiasm than hitherto; having more time on her hands than she'd had for many years, Gwen got into more mischief than previously.
Having reached the conclusion that work of the type she sought was not to be found, and aware of the fact that she'd either have to start earning some money or adapt her standard of living to her new circumstances, Gwen was ready for the proposition which Eddie made to her a few days later. He and Sidney Horsbrugh were going into partnership to take over a night club which was for sale in London; but Eddie had only a couple of hundred pounds as capital, and so depended upon Gwen for the remainder of his share of that which would be needed to launch the new venture. Knowing Gwen had very little liquid capital, he proposed her selling her house and its contents, and lending him the proceeds of the sale; she, of course, would share with him the apartment over the club, and Arwel and Jean would be welcome too. Eddie knew Arwel and Jean wouldn't accept his hospitality; otherwise he wouldn't have made the offer.
At first, Gwen rejected the proposal. She too knew Arwel and Jean would disapprove, and would refuse to live with Eddie, and she was reluctant to part from either of her children. Eddie, however, made it quite clear that he had irrevocably decided to join Horsbrugh in the ownership of the club, and later having agreed, if need be, to lend him the necessary capital at a high percentage. If Eddie were to go off to London, leaving Gwen behind in Brooksfield, he'd have been lost to her for ever. So she finally agreed to sell her house and all the furniture except that which Arwel and Jean would need to furnish a modest flat. She was, however, intelligent enough to insist that, instead of lending Eddie the proceeds of the sale (after payment of the mortgage and various debts), she would herself enter the partnership; Eddie was furious, of course, but Horsbrugh appreciated Gwen's common sense.
Having bought herself a share in the club sufficiently large to give her seniority over Eddie, Gwen set to work to persuade her two babies that, if they'd agree to go with her and Eddie to London, they'd be sharing a large apartment which was more hers than Eddie's, and so would be under no obligation to a man they both hated. Her efforts were, however, in vain. Arwel and Jean accepted a quantity of furniture, and Jean quickly found an apartment of two rooms and a tiny kitchen.
Gwen very much regretted the separation from the two people she loved most in the world, for she never deceived even herself that there was any Jove between her and Eddie; that was something stronger than love, baser perhaps, shorter-lived, but stronger. Her two children, however, viewed her going with mixed feelings. Jean adored Gwen, even whilst she was aware of her grave faults; Arwel loved Gwen as a boy naturally loves his mother, but he also loved her as Jean loved her, as a person, a depraved person, selfish, almost without principles, ruthlessly ambitious, but also naive, warm-hearted, good fun, eternally young. Nevertheless, whilst feeling sorry for Gwen, and whilst fearing for her future, they welcomed her stepping out of their lives, leaving them free to indulge in a gigantic spring-cleaning of their morals and general conduct; they tacitly agreed that, in their new home, they'd begin a new life, nor narrowly virtuous, but cleaner, more honest, more civilized than the old life.
The night before Gwen's departure for London was devoted to a wild party not unlike many parties of which Gwen's house had been the scene since Trevor's death, but perhaps somewhat madder than usual. During the night, as had so often happened, nearly every male rode nearly every female, but the following morning certain people were not sure of their own score. Percy, however, took his usual care to avoid having sexual relations with Jean. Jean and Percy had wanted one another for a' long time, but their knowledge of one another's body remained limited to the momentary contact of his penis and her vagina on the following morning following his very first entry into Gwen's house.
At seven o'clock in the morning, Arwel and Jean bade Gwen, her business partners and Rachel "Adieu!" and went to their own home for breakfast prior to his going to his office. Two hours later, a drunken quartet climbed into Horsbrugh's car at the beginning of their journey to London.