BONNIE HAS DISAPPEARED FROM THE SETTLEMENT, AND JEFF, SUPERSTUD FRONTIER SCOUT, has been hired to find her. But Bully, who hired Jeff, only wants Bonnie back for one reason ... Andthis he reckons as his due, since she is "owned" through bondage, by Bully. This gives Jeff pause ... in fact, several pauses, during which he has the opportunity to display to the reader and four lucky damsels in the book, a most unusual talent. It concerns an art he learned while studying in bed to become a geologist-in Boston, many moons ago. Sound crazy? Youbetchum. There's Prudence Goodbody, who has a good body. Then there's her good buddy, Susan, who also has a good body; Charity Breeden, ditto. But the local Injun chief has promised his daughter Naomee (who also has ... etc.) that she shall have Jeff., who is pretty brave, as her own personal brave. This then is the novel that asks the question: Can all these good buddies with their good bodies find happiness in a small mountain cabin complete with nudist weather and cool streams and damp forests on the old U.S. frontier? Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear ... And remember this quote from Alex Comfort in SEX IN SOCIETY: "Forms of behavior have to be considered in the light of what is known of their unconscious origin, in the light of what is customary or tolerated in a given culture ... of who does what, and when and where."
CHAPTER 1
JEFF HUDSON STRETCHED HIS LANKY, BIG-BONED six-foot-three-inch frame in anticipation as he lay there naked under the sheet of the huge bed, watching her take off her clothes. Light from a full, bright moon flooded the second-story room pf the great log cabin and the bed on which he lay was drenched with it. A warm, late-spring breeze wafted through the large double windows beside the bed and drifted across the room to where she stood before a vanity. Seconds earlier she had tiptoed silently into his bedroom for the night, urged upon him by her hulking brother who needed a favor, and without a word, she'd begun undressing.
Susan Crowder was a tall girl with a small-waisted, narrow-hipped, slender-thighed, boyish figure; except for the two plump, ripe breasts which jogged and swayed in mute accompaniment to her movements. Jeff felt the breath catch in his throat as she removed her last garment and tossed it quickly to the chair with the others, the soft moonlight dancing off the gentle planes and curves of her nude body. Her last act of undressing was to pluck the pins from the nut-brown wealth of hair piled loosely atop her head, and when this was done she leaned her head back, shaking the warm abundance down between her shoulders. A second time the breath caught in his throat as she turned toward the bed. Silver light from the moon glistened of the waist-length cascade of her hair and the dark triangle of angel floss at the apex of her long thighs.
"I'll bet you haven't been in bed with a naked school teacher in the township of Franklin before," she laughed softly as she lay down beside him, resting her head on one of his heavily hewed arms.
"Why would you bet that?" he chuckled, raising his leg and kicking the sheet to the foot of the bed. "Because you're the only schoolteacher in the settlement? I haven't been in bed with anyone yet, except right now with you." He turned his head to the side to look into her face, every detail of which he could see in the moonlight.
She had a high, intelligent forehead, deep, amber eyes and a wide mouth which smiled easily. As he lay looking at her, he drew her close and felt her resilient breasts push against his chest, felt the gentle heat of her belly against his, felt the soft brush of the angel floss against his extended, throbbing weapon. Then he lowered his lips to her wide, ripe mouth and she quivered smally in his arms.
"Oh, my!" she gasped, stars in her eyes when their lips parted.
"What if brother Bully should burst in here right this minute and find us like this?" Jeff grinned.
"Poof!" She waved a hand in a gesture of feminine disdain. "I wouldn't care. Were you surprised when I whispered to you at the supper table I was coming to your room tonight?"
"You could have knocked me over with a feather," he told her. "At first I thought I'd misunderstood. Always before, when I'd see you about the settlement, you'd be so prim and proper, like many of the other women here. I had no idea."
"Well, sir," she grinned at him in mock amazement. "In this prim and proper place, what would you have me do? Walk up to you in public and say: 'Dear Mr. Jeffrey Hudson, my name is Miss Susan Mayson Crowder and I have a smoldering wolly-booger. Would you be a kind gentleman and service me?' At this she buried her face against his chest and burst into a fit of girlish giggling. On recovering, she kissed him quickly on the nose. "I'll bet neither Prudence Goodbody and Charity Breeden or any others had to come right out and ask you to make love with them." There was a faint note of pouting in her tone when she said this. "I'll bet no young widows of the settlement ever had to ask you."
"I've never touched a one of them," he said truthfully. "Never. Given the opportunity I might, but they're all so prim and proper, too, that they aren't interesting. Except Prudence Goodbody. She always flirts with her eyes when she's sure no one is looking, but I always figured her for a tease."
"Honestly?" Susan asked, a trace of disbelief in her voice. "You've never-played mama and papa-with any of them?"
"Honestly," he replied. "If you recall, I'm never in the settlement more than a day at a time for supplies. If your brother hadn't hired me this afternoon, then insisted I spend the night here to get an early start in the morning, I'd be on my way back to my cabin now."
"That old cabin!" she said in pretended anger. "Why must you always go back to it? Why can't you stay here in the settlement?"
"Huh-uh," he said. "Too many people here, and people cause problems." Cautiously he began stroking the outside of the shy little cleft, applying just enough pressure to make it felt through the thick shield of angel floss.
"Wha-wha-what kind of problems?" she finally managed to gasp as tiny, tingling thrills of electric shocks shot through her slender body.
"Parson Grubbs had Stubby Cane put in the stocks this afternoon for taking a cup of whiskey," he said quietly. "That kind of problems. A man should be able to eat and drink as he chooses. His stomach is his own private affair and what he puts into it is no one's business but his."
"But Stubby is the settlement drunk," Susan said.
"I know that, and so does everyone else-and that's all the more reason he should be given special consideration, but not punishment."
"I still wish you'd move to the settlement for good," she insisted as he worked the forefinger through the angel floss and into the hot, moist little valley beyond. "Living out there in the wilderness like a savage, with all the Indians and such." She paused when he commenced gently to massage the top of the cleft with his finger. Then she entwined her arms about his neck and pushed against him with her hips. "You keep that up, Jeff Hudson," she gasped feverishly, "and I'll burst into flames. Two years is a long time for a woman to be without a man."
"You mean-" he began.
"Yes," she nodded, her eyes large in the moonlight. "A young lieutenant from Port Royal. We planned to run away and get married, despite my bull-headed brother, but he was killed by a war party of Indians just before peace was made with them. He was the only one-and now you." She drew his mouth down to hers in a long and famished kiss and when it was over she kept her face close to his, her darting tongue a lance of flame between his lips. "Oh my," she whispered slowly, as her soft hand stole down between them after she had relaxed back against the bed. "Oh my," she repeated, and there was a touch of awe in the words this time as her hand commenced exploring. Then she stared at him in silence several seconds before she continued.
"I can't-you can't-there's no-" She stopped, still staring at him, her large eyes holding his, then the words came in a rush. "Jeff, we can't play mama and papa! You're so-so-too big!" She quickly sat up in bed, looking down as if she could not believe that which her hand had told her. "Mercy!" she gasped, believing now and laying back beside him once more.
"Are you scared?" he whispered, raising to an elbow, then bending over to cap one of her ripe breasts with the heat of his mouth.
"Ggaahh!" The single, explosive sound of rapturous delight burst from her parted lips as her back arched and she grabbed his head between her palms. The sound came again before she relaxed. Then, as he began tugging gently with his lips and vacuuming with his tongue, at the same time tracing his finger back and forth through the hot little valley, her ragged, uncontrollable sobs of pleasure filled the room.
"Are you scared?" he repeated, his mouth an inch from the plump breast.
"I don't know!" she managed after several tries.
"Don't you think we should at least make an attempt?" he asked softly. "We'll never know for sure unless we do." And when she was a long minute in silence he continued, "Shall we?"
"Oh my God yes! "the words poured from her lips as one in a low, quivering moan. "Oh my god yes!"
Then he was above her, his weight suspended on his knees and elbows, and her arms were about his neck, and as she lay there beneath him in the moonlight, her eyes on his, he knew there would be forever imprinted in his memory the vision of her loveliness. After shifting his weight to one elbow, with his free hand down between, he parted the angel floss and centered the end of the shaft at the entrance of the mysterious defile. Very gradually he began applying pressure with his hips:
A short, sharp cry of feminine pain fled her lips as the great, blunt head of the massive invader gained purchase. But with the cry, the pain was no more and she spread wide her burning thighs, raising high her knees as she did so, and wriggled her narrow, boyish hips greedily to afford him smoother, quicker ingress. A thin, half-whispered scream escaped her as the invader worked its way deeper and deeper until the entrance of the defile was fitted tightly about the very base of the shaft and heat lifted from her slender body like steam from an oven.
"Does it hurt now.?" he whispered softly against her ear.
She lay there under him breathing heavily, struggling to gain control of herself, fighting against the sweet agony stealing through her body, and was so long in answering he thought she had not heard his question. He was about to repeat it when she breathed a deep, timerous sigh.
"Don't move," she whispered in quavering tones. "Don't move until I get a little more used to this-or I'll go all to pieces."
"But isn't that the general idea?" he chuckled, reveling over the fact that he was so delightfully encased in her young hotness.
"Huh-uh," she said cautiously, still not sure of her control. "Not till you do."
"And how do you know I wouldn't?"
"Would you?" She rubbed her palms up and down his ribcage, looking up into his face, a glad light in her eyes. Then, before he could answer, ' "Whew! I thought I would pass out just with you-getting started." She rolled her head slowly from side to side, her eyes closed now and tracing her lips against the base of his throat. "How I need this," she murmured gently. "Oh, how I need it." She lowered her heels to the bend of his legs behind his knees and sent one soft, long fingered hand on a journey down between them. "Oh lordy," she snickered after a moment's hesitant exploration. "If anyone had told me this was possible,, what with your size, I think I might have died of fright. What do you call it anyway, Jeff?"
"My weapon," he laughed softly at her naive curiosity. "I use it to fight the battle of the sexes."
"Boy!" she said in mild wonder. "I'll bet you don't lose many battles."
"I don't. Most of the time it's a draw."
"I'd like to see you get hold of that fiesty Prudence Goodbody with your-weapon. I'll bet she'd quit being a big tease then. She got Rafe Hampton so stirred up a while back he swore he'd beat the tar out of her if she ever did it again. She led him right on into thinking she would, then when he tried to visit her cabin one night she threatened him with a gun. What do you think of that?"
"I think Rafe should sneak in on her one of these nights and break her from teasing."
"He can't now. He's done left these parts. Storming mad he was, too, and Prudy Goodbody laughing fit to split a stitch. There's talk in the settlement that Bonnie O'Brian ran off with him, but I don't believe it. And I don't believe the Indians stole her either, like my brother does." She paused a moment, pressing his rib-cage firmly between her palms. "Hold real still, Jeff," she whispered softly. "Real still, now." Very slowly she lifted her feet high into the air, bringing them up and over his back, then lowered them to their former position, still slowly, moving her hips against the base of the buried shaft. "Lordy but that feels good," she sighed. Then, "Do you think the Indians took Bonnie?"
"Of course not," he told her. "And I don't think she left with Rafe Hampton, either. I think someone here in the settlement is hiding her just to spite that narrow-minded, overbearing brother of yours."
"I'm sure glad Bully hired you to find her," she said against his shoulder. "Otherwise you wouldn't have had supper here and Bully wouldn't have insisted on you spending the night with us and we wouldn't be playing mama and papa right now."
"Your brother has no business wanting to keep Bonnie a bond servant for five years just to repay the passage money he put up for her journey from Ireland. He doesn't need the money. Why does he do it?"
"Bully wants to bed her down, that's why, and as long as she's his bond servant he can keep her close by. He told me once that just the sight of her red hair and green eyes sent him into fits, almost."
"And what does Bonnie say about him bedding her down?" Jeff asked, nipping her ear tenderly with his lips. "If she affects him that way, he can always marry her."
"I don't know what Bonnie thinks, but you know Bully. In his eyes, he'd be lowering himself by marrying a bond servant. Even one as beautiful as her."
"And now Bonnie has disappeared."
"And Bully has hired you to bring her back because he is convinced the Indians have her and you are supposed to be a very good friend of Chief Wild Hawks."
"I am a good friend of Wild Hawk's," Jeff said, "but I have no intention of looking for her among his people until I'm satisfied she isn't being given concealment by someone here in the settlement. And I'm not sure I'll return her to Bully if I do find her. I don't believe in the bond-servant system, or any other system of slavery, for that matter."
"Yet you "took the job of locating her; of returning her!" Susan said.
"Can you think of a better way of getting around a pigheaded brother and reaching his lovely sister-?" Jeff said tenderly.
For a long moment Susan did not answer him. Then when the full meaning of his words dawned upon her, a glad light sprang into her eyes and the corners of her generous mouth lifted in a wondrous smile as she lay looking up into his craggy face. "Jeffrey," she whispered softly, "you didn't. Not because of me."
"You bet I did," he told her. "What do I care about Bully getting his bond servant back? And if you hadn't whispered to me tonight at the supper table you were coming to my bedroom, you'd have had a visitor in yours." The sincerity of his words left no doubt in her mind. .
"Oh Jeff," she sighed happily. "You can't know how glad that makes me feel. Have you wanted to-do this-with me for long?"
"Since I first reached the settlement a couple of years ago," he answered truthfully.
"And to think of the long, lonely nights I've spent wanting you," she said, tears edging her voice.
"Shhh," he whispered against her ear. "Now is no time to cry. Now is the time for this," and he withdrew his hips far to the rear, then drove solidly home.
Nor did he. At her words he commenced a steady advance-withdrawal rhythm as they lay there on the big bed, bathed in the silvery light of the moon.
Now it had been two years almost to the day that Susan Crowder's young lieutenant from Port Royal had strolled jauntily off into the May night never to return, and two years can be a long time to a healthy young woman, especially after she has been introduced to the delights of' sweet dalliance. So when she felt the plundering invader begin its gentle churning back and forth amongst her secret places all the aching, yearning, miserable nights of pulsating hunger jumped into focus sharp and clear. For the space of half a dozen of, the advance-withdrawal cycles she remained perfectly motionless, then she moved to match his rhythm with that of her own.
Susan managed to continue this for half a minute; until the tingling, golden glow heralding the approach of the visitation of supreme rapture started seeping all through her slender body; until the soundless, bone-cracking explosion of the heat bomb within her shattered all tensions low in her belly and the golden glow became a raging inferno searing every fiber of her being.
Then the visitation of supreme rapture was with her and her starved young body strove mercilessly to gratify all at once the hunger of its two year fast.
Animal heat lifted in waves from her body like heat from a burning desert and again the thin, half-whispered scream of ecstasy poured from her lips. Her back arched and her tummy flew up to smack solidly against him; her arms jerked to the side and her clutching hands tore at the covers on-which they lay; her long, tapered legs thrashed the air in wild abandon as she bucked her hips against the maddening shaft. Her belly muscles knotted and twitched spasmodically and the whispered scream of ecstasy drifted into a deep-throated purr of feline bliss from the scalding torrents of man-seed gushing forth to soak her thirsty tissues and drench her secret places.
"OhmiGod!" she sobbed weakly as one word. "OhmiGod!"
Jeff did not even bother to answer, but continued his rhythm without pause, wanting her to achieve absolute completion before he stopped. And it was only after she finally ceased to heave and grind her-hips against the shaft that he did stop.
CHAPTER 2
"FEEL BETTER?" HE WHISPERED AS THEY LAY there enjoying the tender after kissing.
"It was awfully quick and short," she said, with a deep, tremulous sigh of contentment, "but-oh, lordy, I haven't felt this good in years." She paused, stretched like a lazy cat and looked up at him with a big grin spreading slowly over her beautiful face. "Boy-ee," she chuckled happily, "you should be put up for stud."
"Would you be my manager?" he grinned in return, happy over her happiness and from the good feeling he had inside.
She shook her head smally. "It wouldn't work. After me you'd have nothing left for paying customers."
"Are you going to get up?"
"Of course not," she said pertly. "It can't be more than ten o'clock yet, and-" She stopped, suddenly understanding what he meant. "Oh," she continued, "I guess I better," and held very still while he slowly withdrew completely and rolled to his back. "Golly!" she gasped after she swung her legs over the side of the bed and got to her feet. "Jeffrey Hudson!" she scolded playfully, 'I'm-I'm sloshing!"
"Now you've learned something new," he chuckled heartily at her mild disconfiture.
"Then turn your face to the wall you-you rake-hell!" she said in mock anger, the smile in her eyes belying the words.
"Why?" he asked innocently, knowing why.
"'Cause, Jeffrey Hudson, there are some things no woman wants a witness to. So there! And keep it turned to the wall till I say you can turn back."
He did as she asked, and lay there listening to her quiet movements about the room and marveling at his good fortune until he felt her return to the bed.
"You may turn back now," she said, seating her-self close, her weight propped on one arm, and looking down into his face. She bent to kiss him hungrily when he rolled to his back again, her lips mashing against his mouth, her tongue playing tag with his. "Do you know that at one point a while ago I thought I was going to die with pleasure?"
"Perhaps we should be more careful," he teased solemnly, watching her from the corner of his eye. "Perhaps you should return to your bedroom and-"
"You hush," she said indignantly, placing a soft hand over his lips and kissing the end of his nose. "Now that we've had the appetizer, I'm ready for the full meal." She glanced down at the still extended, throbbing invader. "And so are you," She paused to look at him questioningly. "Aren't you Jeff?"
"I am," he said, scooting closer and moving his head to take the nipple of a firm, ripe breast in his mouth. "Just how big of a meal do you want?" She didn't answer immediately, but sat there shivering deliciously as he tugged with his lips and caressed with his tongue while one hand stole between her slightly opened thighs to toy in the dark forest of delight.
"Just how big of a meal can you supply?" she finally managed in a trembling voice, unable to remove her eyes from his mouth against her breast.
This time it was he who did not answer at once, but continued to nurse the plump young breast as his fingers worked through the shield of light fur and into the hot little valley. Between thumb and forefinger, he began to squeeze her gently in measured rhythm with his tugging lips. Only when he felt her squirm against his hand and felt the animal heat start flowing from her body did he cease all action.
"As long as you want," he told her, grinning. "I can go one hour-two hours-as long as you want."
"Poof," she said, not believing. "No man can go a whole hour without-you know."
"I can," he told her truthfully. "It's all a matter of concentration. When I'm playing papa and don't want to go, I simply force my mind to concentrate on something else. Any man can do the same with a little practice."
"Is that what they taught you at that fine school back in Boston?" she asked, stretching out beside him and still not believing.
"No. It's something I figured out for myself. And it works."
"Poof," she said again, reaching down to smack his throbbing weapon playfully with her hand, "if you could do that, Jeff Hudson, you'd be a giant among giants." Her voice grew soft and took a dreamy quality. "Just think of being-attended to-for a whole hour without having to stop or do anything but just enjoy it to the fullest. Boy-eee, I could make up for the past two years in quick time like that." A second time she stretched slowly, like a lazy cat before the fireplace. "How would you like to sneak out of here naked and go for a swim down at the river?"
"I'd like it very much," he told her, knowing she still did not believe him. "But is it possible?"
"It is. Because the river is at the back of the cabin. I've done it many times. Would you really like to go?"
"I thought you wanted to be attended to for an hoi: without stopping," he said.
"Oh, I do," she replied, and he could tell from the tone of her voice she as yet did not believe him, but thought his words only an idle boast of the moment. "But we can attend to each other at the river as well as here. And I've always wanted to go swimming naked with a man."
"Are you actually serious?" he asked, raising to an elbow to lay looking down. "If anyone sees us we'll be banned from the settlement for life. That wouldn't bother me one bit, but it might be a little awkward for you and Bully."
"But no one will see us, silly," she said, poking him in the chest with a delicate finger. "No one has ever seen me. This cabin is at the river end of the settlement. The river is only fifty yards away through heavy underbrush and I know a little pool a quarter of a mile down stream that's perfect." Het voice changed; took on a chiding note. "But of course, if you're afraid-"
"Who's afraid?" He dropped back beside her and gathered her nude loveliness in his arms, drawing her tightly against him, seeking her lips with his. When the kiss was over they lay for some time in silence, each looking deep into the eyes of the other. "One of the greatest sins in this life is being afraid of being yourself. I'm ready when you are."
For an answer she removed her arms from around his neck, moved to the edge of the bed, rose to her feet and went to the vanity on the far side of the room. In the dimness of the room's interior he could see her doing something with her long hair, and when she returned to him it was done in a tight bun on the top of her head.
"I don't mind getting it wet," she explained, extending a hand to him, "but it's so long it sometimes gets caught in the brush. Come. We'll have to use the back stairs. And don't worry too much about making noise. Bully's room is downstairs at the front of the cabin, and he sleeps like a log."
With her leading, holding him by the hand, and him following close behind, so close in fact that more than once his extended invader touched her soft young buttocks, they made their way out the door, through the short hallway and down the stairs leading to the back of the cabin. Without hesitation she opened the door and stepped outside into the bright moon's light, with him right behind her. Silently they made their way along the path leading to the small river, where she turned left, still holding his hand.
"Walk close to the water's edge," she whispered over her shoulder. "There's no path from here on, so be careful where you put your feet."
Less than half an hour later they stepped into a little clearing. Here the river cut sharply to the left off a low limestone cliff and at the angle of the bend was a pool of water fifty feet across, shimmering in the moonlight. Because of the cliff, the far bank was straight up, but on the side where they stood, a thick mat of grass reached from under the trees of the forest right up to the water's edge.
"Do you like it, Jeffrey?" she said, looking up into his face as she stepped close and slipped her warm arms about his waist.
"It's-?it's marvelous," he told her, smitten by the beauty of the spot. On all sides, they were surrounded by the tall forest. Because of the time the full moon was almost directly overhead and they, along with their surroundings, were literally drenched with its light. "It's almost like the pool of the stream running through the field where my cabin is-except there I don't have to sneak out in the dark to go swimming naked. I do it any time I like."
"Even in the daytime?" Her soft hand crept down to gently stroke his weapon.
"And why not in the daytime?" he asked, leaning back and cupping her breasts in both his hands. The nipples became hard and firm as he caressed them with his thumbs. "There's no one there but me."
"Not even the Indians?" she shivered smally, even though the late spring night was very warm, from the caressing of her breasts, and gripped the invader firmly to commence moving her hand back and forth.
"Not even the Indians," he said, leaning down to plant his mouth against her parted, upturned lips. "And if you continue what you're doing we're both going to lose by it."
"Oh," she said when she understood his meaning and stepped back, freeing her breasts and releasing him. Then she said impishly, "We did come here to swim, didn't we?" With this she took the mighty cudgel again in her hand and, giggling happily, turned and led him into the water. "The bottom is nothing but sand," she continued, "and I doubt if the water is above your shoulders."
It wasn't, though it did reach to the top of them, and it was just cool enough to be invigorating. When they stopped they were near the center of the pool and she turned, putting her back to the way the water was flowing, with him facing up stream, the water reaching to the top of his chest. Only then, did she release him a second time, place her hands on his shoulders, give a little jump and drifted down against him, circling his middle with her long legs.
"There now, Mr. Jeffrey Hudson," she asked primly. "How do you like that?" She smiled broadly at him and made a little moue through her smile.
"How do you like it?" he grinned in return, drawing her soft warmness close.
"Well," she said, tongue in cheek and canting her head to one side, like a listening bird and with laughter devils dancing in the back of her large, amber eyes, "it isn't every girl in the settlement that has a bathtub this big, equipped with her own favorite stud." Then she burst into tinkling laughter that rippled over the water around them.
Jeff stood there, his feet planted solidly on the sandy bottom, holding her close and grinning down at her, happy over her happiness. The contrast of her heating body with the coolness of the water was almost more than he could endure.
"Oh, Jeff-" she managed when finally the laughter subsided, "I'll bet you think I'm awful."
"I do," he told her. "I think you're awfully lovely, awfully beautiful and awfully human and normal." With his hands under the water he pushed down on her thighs around his waist, at the same time easing his hips to the rear to a point where the great end of the invader came to rest snugly in the downy nest of her. Then he slid his palms around under her buttocks to hold her securely and pressed forward with his hips.
"Oh," she said weakly, when she realized what he intended. "But can we? This way, I mean?" She held him fixed with her eyes as she moved her hips in tiny circles against the shaft, with him continuing the pressure and holding her firmly in the water.
"Of course we can," he assured her. "Just keep on with what you're doing and you'll see."
At that instant the thick, blunt end of the cudgel popped into the entrance of the dark love-cave and she started smally, them emitted a full-bodied, gusty sigh as she increased the speed of her hip actions and dug her heels into the backs of his thighs. .In less than a minute she had worked her greedy young body down the length of the shaft until she fitted tightly around the very base.
"Wheew!" she gasped desperately when it was done. "Now I know what a stuffed sausage feels like."
"Are you comfortable in this position?" Jeff asked her.
"Oh, lordy," she gasped again. "Why do you ask?" Yes."
"Can you remain in the same position for an hour to be-attended?"
"Jeff Hudson, are you going to start that again? You don't have to prove anything, you know." She shook her head in wonder. "I believe you," she said, not believing.
He realized she thought she would embarrass him by putting him to the test; by forcing him to prove his claim, so he decided to drop the subject. Proof through performance would be sufficient. Nevertheless, he immediately began to condition his mind for a long session. From past experiences he knew that when he concentrated on some totally unrelated subject he could continue for hours without expending himself. He had discovered this a number of years before, while in school back in Boston, studying to become a geologist.
At the boarding house where he stayed, near the campus, was a young lass of eighteen or so whose duty it was to keep in order the rooms of the boarders. A number of times Jeff had seen her about the house, and always she had a winsome smile and a cheery word for him. Then came the day when his geology class was let out at noon in order to give the students an opportunity to cram for a very important exam on the morrow. Somewhat concerned for fear he might not pass the test, Jeff had hurried to his room to do some serious studying and found the girl, whose name was Ann, in the process of cleaning his place.
Ann was rosy-cheeked and merry-eyed and slightly plump-and because both she and Jeff were two young people full of the fire and vigor of youth, he had been home only a few minutes before he found himself removing her clothes, albeit the problem of how he was going to study for the forthcoming examination while at the same time do both of them justice, nagged him in the back of his mind. Yet it shouldn't have, for the problem turned out to be no problem at all.
After the first, burning urgency of their session was over and he made as if to remove himself from her, she grabbed him greedily with her soft arms and her plump, hot thighs.
"No!" she whispered fiercely. "Ain't nobody here in the house but us. This is my afternoon off and the missus has gone shoppin'. When she gets back and don't see me nowhere she'll think I've gone home. I'm stayin' right here-and what are you aimin' to do about it?"
Patiently Jeff had explained about the approaching examination, how important it was and his need to study.
"Humph," she snorted with feminine disdain. "That ain't no big thing. Here," and she reached to the night-stand beside the bed for the book he had brought home to do his research from and laid it on the pillow beside her head. "There now," she grinned triumphantly. "Now do your studyin'. All you want of it, but don't stop doin' 'What you ort to be doin' to me, nuther!"
Delighted with the idea, though not really believing it possible, he had commenced his studies and at the same time commenced his advance-withdrawal rhythm, using long, deep strokes. Five minutes passed. He was engrossed with a passage from the book dealing with various rock formations near the earth's surface when plump little Ann started to buck and heave beneath him, yet so great was his concentration on what he was reading, he hardly noticed. He merely continued with his back-and-forth rhythm and continued reading.
Time passed. The early midday sun became the early afternoon sun and he kept right on with the action, with Ann squirming and lunging against the shaft and emitting tiny, mewling sounds every few minutes. Only occasionally did he stop to rest. Both of them had long since become covered with perspiration, and as the sun dipped behind the western horizon Ann lay limp beneath him, her eyes closed and her head to one side. It was at this point that he glanced at the clock ticking away on the bed side stand. Five hours! It was hard for him to believe, yet he knew the clock was right, for a glance toward his bedroom window told him a cold, wintry night was settling over the city. But five hours? With him expending himself only once-that first time? It was truly incredible.
The instant he flipped the book on the pillow shut the great dam within him, which had been building up all afternoon, burst asunder and scalding torrents gushed forth to fill his plump little partner to over flowing. When he finally recovered and removed himself completely to sit on the side of the bed, Ann rolled toward him, something akin to worship in her eyes.
Later that night, when he took her home, she paused on the doorstep and turned to face him. She kissed him quickly and just before she disappeared inside, she said: "There ain't never in the whole, wide world ever been another man like you, Jeffery Hudson."
He would always be grateful to plump little Ann, for through her he had learned a technique which had stood him good stead many times since. And was about to again. With Susan Crowder, here in this secluded, moonlit pool.
CHAPTER 3
SUSAN HAD HER LONG LEGS LOOSELY AROUND HIS waist, her arms under his and circling his upper chest, with her head resting against the base of his throat. Even in the coolness of the water, he could feel the heat flowing from her body and the encased invader felt like a burning brand, ensconced as it was, to the very hilt, within her smoldering moistness.
"Are you sure you are comfortable?" he asked again, though knowing she could not maintain her present position for as long as he had in mind. Back in his bedroom, when she had prettily poo-pooed his claim that he could continue indefinitely, he had decided that before this night was gone she would beyond question make up for her past two years of enforced abstinence.
"Yes, Jeffery," she said, in a small voice which trembled slightly. "I'm comfortable. As comfortable as I've ever been."
Without answering, he cupped his hands under her buttocks and eased her away from him, at the same time withdrawing his hips a little. When he had gone as far as he could go he drew her toward him, thrusting forward as he did so, thus starting the action.
Before long a tiny gasp of ecstasy fled her parted lips and her arms tightened about his chest. Each time he drew her forward now she pushed her heels against the back of his legs in effort to impale herself further, grinding her hips greedily against the base of the shaft, while her breath came in ragged sobs. Then came the tiny, whimpered ejaculation of utter submission from her throat signaling the approach of the visitation of supreme rapture. When it reached her, it was not alone.
A deep-throated chorus of reverberating thunder accompanied it, along with blinding flashes of jagged lightning which tore through her slender body without mercy.
"I can't stand it!" she screamed, when the visitation sledge-hammered her low in the belly while the thunder roared and the jagged lightning sawed at each nerve ending of her body. She tried to scream again, but the words refused to leave her constricted throat. Her head snapped back away from the base of his neck, her arms flew from around his chest to thrash the water madly and she would have gone beneath the surface had not Jeff gripped her firmly around her narrow waist, holding her steady as possible as he continued the action. Yet keeping her head above water was something he had not bargained for. It was only through very conscious effort that he was able to do so.
For now she was a thrashing, fighting fury, asking no quarter and giving none, with the strength of half a dozen girls her size. Once, as she lunged blindly in all directions, she almost divested herself of the plundering invader, yet he managed to control her sufficiently to keep the union intact. And he was able to keep this control until the visitation finally died away and she lay limp against his chest once more. Once again he cupped her buttocks in his hand as he continued with the action.
"Ooommm," she sighed gustily after awhile, wiping droplets of water from her face with one hand while she partially supported her weight with the other behind his neck. "Mercy me. What a fit I pitch. But you didn't do anything, Jeff. A woman can tell."
"But you did," he grinned down at her.
"Oh lordy," she sighed again. "I'll say I did. I thought for a minute there I was losing my mind. What makes me so-so demonstrative?"
"I don't know," he chuckled, "unless it's just nature. What do you think?"
"I don't know," she said, a small frown creasing her smooth brow. "I can't imagine why." Then a big grin spread slowly over her lovely face and she began to assist him in the action. "But whatever it is, I don't want it to change. Why didn't you when I did?" She reached up with a loosely gripped fist and biffed him gently on the chin. "Tell me. Why didn't you?"
"I didn't want to," he explained. "Not yet, anyway. You have two years of doing without to make up for, remember?"
"How can I forget?" she whispered as her expression became fixed, her eyes locked with his. "And if you keep on like you started, I'll do it again soon, too."
"I have no intention of stopping," he said as he continued to withdraw and thrust with measured tempo.
"Aren't you going to stop at all?" .
He didn't answer. Only shook his head.
"But I thought-" she began. "I thought-well, you know what I thought."
"That I'd be forced to as a natural result?" he asked.
She nodded. "Yes. Doesn't it ever-ever-relax?"
"Well," he chuckled again, "it isn't going to now. Not soon, anyway."
"Goodness. I don't see how you do it." Then she added quickly, "But I'm not complaining, understand. I'm not complaining at all." Then, after a brief pause. "Sheesh! You're the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, Jeff Hudson. I'll bet if that sassy Prudy Goodbody had some of this she'd throw a hissy."
"Why is it you don't like Prudence?"
"Don't like her?" she asked in amazement. "Who says I don't like her? I love her better than a sister. It's just that I sometimes get a little piqued at her because she treats men the way she does. Prudy and I are the very best of friends. Just you wait until I tell her about us. Then she'll really pitch a fit."
"Tell her?" Now it was his turn to express amazement. "You mean you're going to tell Prudence Good-body about us-tonight-here in the pool."
"I am," Susan said primly. "Unless you tell me I'm not to, I will. Why? Would you rather I didn't?"
"Well," Jeff said slowly, "it really makes no difference to me, one way or the other. Use your own judgement. But why?"
"Cause it might help her," she replied quickly. "Prudy's husband was awfully mean to her before that horse fell on him and killed him, and something he did to her makes her tease men because she really wants a man, but is afraid to give in when the time comes. Maybe he beat her, I don't know."
"If you're such good friends, why hasn't she told you?" he asked.
"Did you know she has never once mentioned her husband's name since he died?" she said seriously. "Not once, mind you."
"I never knew Henry Goodbody," Jeff said. "Never even seen him, for that matter. What sort of man was he.?"
"Cranky and ill-tempered most of the time. That's the reason the horse killed him. He lost his temper and was beating it over the head when it reared over backwards and fell right on top of him. He was a lot older than Prudence, and though she's never said as much, I think she married him to be close to someone. Her folks died in that typhoid epidemic three years back, you know."
"She married him to be close to someone, yet since his death she's lived in her cabin alone," Jeff said. "That doesn't make sense."
"Maybe after living with Henry Goodbody for a spell she'd rather be alone," Susan replied. "Maybe she doesn't want anyone living with her. I know she keeps to her cabin a lot. Sometimes I don't see her for days."
Now all during this conversation Jeff had never ceased his advance withdrawal action; his hands cupped on Susan's firm young buttocks, gently working her to and fro as he moved-his hips back and forth. And while the conversation was going on Susan's attention was partly diverted from their main purpose of being together, though she was far from being unaware of what was taking place. Until now, Jeff's action had been slow and smooth, even tender, but when he felt her clutch madly at the invader from deep within her and shiver all over he speeded his movements, holding her still now and slamming his shots home with brutal force.
"Oh," she cried weakly, suddenly, in a far-away, little-girl voice. "Oh Jeffery, I can't help it again!"
Instantly she scissored him about the waist with her long legs, grabbed his shoulders in her hands and leaned far back, fighting the plundering cudgel with her famished hips; twisting, squirming, jerking. For the second time since they had entered the pool, the visitation sledge-hammered her with merciless savagery low in the belly from the inside and again thunder and lightning were torn from the sky to be released within her slender form. Her wild, throat-rending scream of excruciating ecstasy flooded the forest around them. She screamed a second time, out of control, and Jeff, never missing a single stroke, saw her eyes bulge from her head in the silvery light of the moon, saw the tiny knots of muscle bunch along the angle of her jaw, heard the gnashing of her teeth as she thrashed about madly, hopelessly lost in the clutches of orgiastic thralldom.
"OhmiGod!" she wailed in wild desperation as she tossed herself hither and yon, though never with sufficient force to escape her blissful impalement. "OhmiGod!" she wailed again while wave upon wave of the supreme rapture rolled through her contorting body.
It was all Jeff could do, even with his great strength, to maintain his rhythm and at the same time, keep the plundering weapon centered. Yet he managed to do both, only relaxing his vigilance slightly when the visitation began taking its leave. This was evinced by Susan's cries becoming subdued and her actions less violent. A short, quick series of gaspy sobs signaled its complete departure and she went absolutely limp, slipping beneath the surface before he could catch her. Nor had she returned to full consciousness when he grabbed her quickly under the arms and lifted her up, holding her close against his broad chest.
"Oh, my darling Jeffery," she murmured finally against his shoulder, then wiped the water from her face and leaned away from him to look up into his, a glad wonder in her eyes. For a full minute they regarded each other tenderly, then she placed her hands on his hipbones and eased herself free of the shaft. "What manner of man are you, Jeffery Hudson?" she asked quietly as she lowered her feet to rest atop his. The water was almost up to her chin. Then she repeated the question in the same quiet tone. "What manner of man are you?"
"Normal," he said in a like voice, turning his hips to one side so the extended weapon would not interfere and drew her close. "Just normal."
"Huh-uh," she shook her head and droplets of water fell from her hair to the smooth surface of the pool. "No. That I can't believe. Women talk among themselves and I've never heard of one describing her man as the likes of you." She shook her head again, a tiny, puzzled frown on her face. "Now I know you were telling the truth and weren't just joshing me when you said you could go for hours."
"That's something I never tell," he chuckled softly, "unless I'm ready to prove it."
"Boy-ee," she sighed. "I can believe that."
"And now you're ready to quit," he grinned.
"Poof!" she giggled happily. "You said that. I didn't."
"Then let's be about our business," he said, chuckling again as he placed his hands under her arms in preparation for lifting her back upon the throbbing cudgel.
"Wait," she said, placing a warm hand against his chest and holding him with her eyes. "Can I-do you mind if I make a suggestion?" This last was asked breathlessly and in the clear light of the moon Jeff saw a deep crimson creep up her throat and spread slowly over her lovely face.
"No," he said, somewhat surprised at the blush and wondering what she had in mind. "I don't mind at all. What is it?"
"Did you-have you-?" she stammered with em-harassment, unable to remove her eyes from his face. "You see-I-" Then, "Oh, shucks! Have you ever seen a stud and filly playing mama and papa?"
"Of course," he laughed heartily, suddenly knowing what she had in mind. "But it would be rather awkward in this deep water."
"Not here." She turned and pointed toward the bank where they had entered the pool. "There. Do you see that rock sticking out from the bank?"
He had noticed the flat rock protruding from the bank when they first arrived. It was roughly the size of a dinner table and covered with a thick carpet of moss. The rock was perfectly flat and about twelve inches above the surface of the water.
"Come," she said, pulling him by the arm toward the bank. "The water is, just a little over knee-deep. I'll show you...."
The water was almost mid-thigh depth on her and when they reached it she moved between him and the rock, turning to face him as she did so.
"You aren't going to think I'm a hussy for suggesting this, are you Jeff?"
"That'll never happen," he told her, smiling. "You couldn't be a hussy if you tried."
"Well then, Mr. Hudson, sir, as you said a minute ago: let's be about our business." With this, a rapt look of expectation glowing on her face, she turned toward the flat, protruding, moss blanketed rock, bent from the waist and placed her face against her hands, resting on it.
"Spread your feet just a little more," Jeff instructed, moving in behind her. When she did as he asked he eased closer, found with his fingers the flossy pubic forest centered underneath her white, young buttocks, depressed the erect weapon and leaned forward, lodging the blunt end of the mighty machine securely within the shy little cleft. Next he readjusted his stance, placed his hands lightly on her hips, and again eased forward, watching the great shaft gradually disappear into the fiery cavern.
"Aaahhh!" Susan breathed gustily as she felt herself thus rapturously invaded. "How very wonderful it is."
Again Jeff adjusted his stance behind her when the shaft was buried to the uttermost, straightened, and once again conditioned his mind for a long session, unconsciously grateful to plump little Ann of Boston for the technique she had helped him discover.
"Are you comfortable?" he asked Susan.
"Lordy yes," she whispered. "Look." With this she lowered her entire body above the waist to the moss on the rock; her tummy and breasts resting against it while she placed her head sideways on her folded arms. Next she lifted her feet from the floor of the pool and held her widely spread legs out behind her for a moment. "I'm as comfortable as I've ever been in my life. Why do you ask?"
"Because," he laughed softly, "you might be there for some time." He glanced quickly up at the full moon floating high overhead. "I doubt if it's much past midnight right now."
"Oh boy," she said happily. "And all I have to do is lay here, relaxed as all get out, and be attended to."
"That's right," he told her. "That's all you have to do. Just lay there." So saying, he began the action.
At the first long, deep cycle, Susan gave a full-"bodied grunt of feminine pleasure. "Oh-boy!" she gasped smally. "Oh-boy!" Then, obviously struggling to retain control of her flaming emotions, "What makes me carry on so, Jeff, when I-you know?"
"Because you fight it," he said. The water was only a little above his knees and he stood comfortably relaxed, his arms now folded across his chest and his feet spread for perfect balance, moving his hips back and forth in measured, tireless tempo. "You shouldn't do that. You should just go limp and accept what comes."
"You mean just-go limp?"
"That's right. Go limp. Let all the tension out of your body. Relax every muscle in it."
"I'll try," she said, after a moment's silent reflection. "I don't know if I can do it, but I'll try."
In effort to accomplish this, Susan at once attempted to do as he advised and was pleasantly surprised to find she did it with no trouble at all. She lay against the cool moss, her eyes closed and her ripe lips parted, listening to the gentle spring breeze filtering through the forest around them. And as she lay there, motionless save for the small movement forced upon her by her partner's forward thrusting, she once again, for the first time in many months, began to feel like a woman. Nor was the feeling entirely physical. In this way she knew she was a woman. This could not be denied. But three times already this night Jeff and his wonderful attender had carried her across the blissful divide!, and with each successive journey the feeling had increased, had become more pronounced. Yet the feeling was more than that of being merely a woman. It was more that of being female. Wholely, utterly female, created solely to receive man, to offer him succor and care for his needs. This was her frame of mind as she lay there on the moss-covered rock, glorying in the indescribable sensation of the plundering invader gently caressing amongst her secret places, touching her where never before had she been touched, tenderly probing, stirring, delighting.
When she first noticed the golden glow heralding the approach of another visitation of supreme rapture, her entire body tensed, but only for a brief moment,' then all tension left her because she willed it and she remained absolutely limp as the visitation neared.
CHAPTER 4
AN INVOLUNTARY QUIVERING SEIZED HER WHEN it arrived, enveloping her completely in a delicious ecstasy and this time it had none of that sharp, saw-edged urgency which had accompanied it three times before. Even the heat bomb exploding in her loins forsook its harshness and flooded her slender, trembling body with a rapture so sweet and gentle tears of unutterable bliss sprang from behind her closed lids. And as the sweet gentleness continued to flow all through her, as the massive cudgel continued its tender caressing through the greedy, burning tunnel, a feeling of pure rapture lifted her from the flat rock beside the secluded pool deep in the wilderness frontier and carried her up among the stars. Here she floated freely, encased in a tiny cocoon of golden, ecstatic delight she had never known before. Thus she remained until she slowly, though very slowly at first, drifted back to Jeff beside the pool.
Even though her journey across the divide had been silent and relatively motionless this fourth time Jeff was nonetheless aware of it taking place, for it evinced itself each time he thrust solidly home. Each time he did so, each time he buried the massive marauder to the hilt in her hungry body he felt her frantic clutching at him from within. Only when the visitation had passed completely did he speak.
"Is there any difference between this time and those when you didn't relax?" he asked. He stood as before, but now with his hands resting lightly on her hips. He had done this as a precautionary measure, not sure she would be able to control herself. During her trip to the other side, he had neither paused or faltered in his rhythm, nor did he do so now, but continued with the long, deep strokes and measured tempo. When she failed to answer him after a reasonable time he realized why. She was weeping. By listening closely he could hear her quiet sobs above the rippling of the water coming over the shoal at the upper end of the pool. Because he could not be sure of the reason for her tears he was quiet for a spell, then he asked. "Is something wrong, Susan?"
"No," she answered in a subdued voice. "Nothing is wrong, Jeffery."
"Then why are you crying?"
"I don't know. But I can't help myself."
"There must be a reason."
"Perhaps so, but I don't know what it is. Happy isn't the right word. I've never felt like this before in my life." She sniffed delicately a couple of times and he knew her tears were over.
"Are you catching up on the past two years?" he wanted to know.
"Oh lordy," she said, giggling suddenly. "Like lightning. But aren't you tired?"
"No," he told her truthfully. "I told you I could continue this for hours and I can."
"Oooeee," she said, taking a deep, tremulous breath. "I can see right now that if we were together every night I just might not be enough woman for you. Have you ever thought of that?"
"Not really. In case you weren't, what would you do?"
"Ask Prudence to help me," she replied promptly. "That's what I'd do."
"And you wouldn't be jealous?"
"Why should I be jealous?" She raised the forepart of her body up on her elbows and twisted around to look at him over her shoulder. "A healthy young man needs a lot of women to fill his needs, and if one can't do it then he should take a second and a third, or how many ever are necessary." She stopped, watching his smooth action and feeling the great engine gliding back and forth through the dark forest of angel floss. "Oh boy!" she said quickly. "Prudy will never believe this."
"If things were as you said; if we were together every night and you weren't enough woman for me, and if Prudence refused to help out, then what would you do?" He asked the question solely to learn what she would say. That she had offered to share him with another woman had delighted him, though surprised him somewhat.
"If Prudy wouldn't help me then I'd get Charity Breeden. I know she would. Ever since her husband ran off to New Bedford with the sutler's daughter she's been rangy as all get out. Every time we visit each other all she can talk about is men. She wants one in the worst way, but she's afraid talk might get out if she gives one of the men in the settlement a chance."
"And she wouldn't be afraid of the talk if I were the man?" he asked, not understanding.
"Not if she had me to help her keep the secret," Susan said. "One woman might be suspected, but two together for that purpose never would."
"I see what you mean," he answered after chewing her statement over in his mind. She was right. No one would suspect two women. He was about to speak again when she interrupted his train of thought.
"Do you mind if I make another suggestion like I did when we were out in the pool?" she asked.
"No," he said, wondering what she had thought up this time. "Go right ahead." He was anxious to see what she would come up with.
"Then stop for just a minute."
He stopped. When he did she carefully drew her left leg from the water and pulled it up alongside her waist. Still carefully she moved her right leg under the water from the right side of his legs to the left, then straightened her left leg and lifted it over to his right. When she was finished instead of being turned in the other direction she faced him, the back part of her buttocks resting on the edge of the rock.
"There now, Mr. Jeffery Hudson," she grinned broadly in the moonlight. "How. do you like that maneuver?"
"If I hadn't witnessed it I doubt if I'd have believed it," he remarked, no little mamazed.
"Now don't start yet," she told him. Then she drew her knees high, toward her, and spread them wide. Next she raised her shoulders off the moss and braced herself by extending her straight arms down and back behind her. "All right now," she said. "Go ahead." When he once more commenced the action, she sat there with her long legs high and wide and the upper part of her body braced forward, eagerly watching the massive invader advance and withdraw, caressing her secret places.
"Oh, lordy!" she gasped desperately after a couple of minutes of the steady rhythm. "I can't stand much of this before-Jeffery!"
His name on her lips was a wild cry of ecstasy and he knew what it meant. Instantly he pulled himself free of her and stepped back to watch as she struggled mightily to ward off the visitation. Her feet were in the water now, for she had lowered and closed her legs when he moved away, but her hands were still braced against the moss-covered rock and her face, screwed tight in an agony of bliss, was lifted toward the night sky. Her chest heaved from her heavy, ragged breathing and her flat tummy rolled from her efforts. Finally a jerky sigh escaped her and she relaxed. The visitation of supreme rapture had not scored this time. Almost, but not quite.
"Why did you stop, Jeffery?" she asked in a pleading voice when she was fully recovered. "You left me hanging in the air."
"I know," he said, "and I'm sorry. But I wanted to show you something."
"OooF she shuddered deliciously, then grinned heavily at him in the moon light. "What is it you wanted to show me?"
"How to tease."
"How to-?" From her expression, she clearly did not understand.
"Come on." He extended his hand to assist her. "Let's go for a short swim and I'll explain." She accepted his aid and both of them waded out to the deepest part of the pool, to where the water reached just below Susan's chin. Because the force of the flow through the pressure tended to push her off balance and to offset this she held onto his arm and lifted her feet from the bottom. Next she did a dainty roll-over in the water and drew herself toward him as he slipped his arms around her.
"Mmm," she whispered dreamily. "I like this."
Jeff stood erect in the water, his right arm around her neck and shoulders and his left across her lower rib cage, while her long slenderness was stretched out at an angle toward the bottom end of the pool just under the surface. Directly beneath his head rested the two plump, resilient hillocks of her ripe breasts. A ragged sob of pleasure wafted over the water as he bent forward, lifting her slightly, and capped one with the heat of his mouth.
"Oh lordy," she breathed heavily. "If this is teasing, I'm all for it."
Without answering Jeff transferred his lips to the other mound of delight and again, because of the sharp contrast of temperatures of his hot mouth against the cool nipple, came her ragged sob of pleasure. For some minutes he continued to hold her, vacuuming with his lips and caressing with his tongue while she squirmed and twisted subtly to the water, her thighs and the soft pubic mound occasionally breaking the surface.
"But this isn't the kind of teasing I had in mind," he finally told her, raising his head.
"Wowie," she breathed, shakily. "Then what kind of teasing is it?"
"Do you recall what I did back there on the rock a few minutes ago?" he asked.
She nodded. "You mean when you stepped away just when I was about to-you know?"
Now it was his turn to nod. "That's right. You were just about to, but I withdrew and you didn't."
"And you call that teasing? I think it's downright criminal," she smiled.
"No. It isn't necessary for me to step back; just stop all action and hold perfectly still when you are about to, but not past the point where you can't control it. Do you understand? We'll return to the rack and do just as we did before, but each time you are about to, you let me know and I'll stop. When you have recovered again we'll play some more. Until you're about to again, then stop again. We'll do that several times and each time the force gets greater and greater and when you finally do let go, when you finally do go all the way-boom." He smiled at the tiny puzzled frown, on her face, then her expression cleared.
"And when I do let go all the way you mean it'll be better than it has already been?" she asked.
Again he nodded. "That's right, exactly. Better than ever before."
'I'm' not sure I can stand it." she said quietly. "The other times, even the one when I relaxed, almost drove me out of my mind."
"You'll stand it," he chuckled softly. "You'll survive."
" "Jeffery Hudson," she said in the same quiet tone, with the sincerity and honesty in her voice un-mistakable. "I'm not sure I will ever completely survive this night with you. I had no idea life could be so beautiful."
"Come on then," he told her. "Let's return to the rock."
"But I thought you wanted to swim."
"Huh-uh. Coming out here in deeper water was just to give you time to cool off a bit more."
"Boy-ee," she said, following him. "Oh boy."
Then she was again seated on the edge of the flat rock, her long legs folded at the knees and drawn high and wide and her hands braced against the moss. In the clear light of the full moon, she watched his every move; as he moved to stand close in front of her, as he depressed the mighty engine and centered the blunt end of the great shaft exactly at the entrance of the mysterious defile, as he began to ease toward her.
An explosive grunt of feminine pleasure fled her lips when the head of the invader gained solid purchase and both of them watched as, under the gentle pressure of his hips, it slowly vanished inside.
"And you want me to tell you the instant I feel-it-coming?" she wanted to know.
"That's right," he said again. "At the first sign of it. Then I'll stop still and we'll wait till it goes away.
When that happens we'll continue."
"Sheesh," she murmured contentedly. "I think every man should be made to study geology in Boston."
"Are you ready?" He adjusted his stance to her exact level.
"Lordy yes," she breathed. "Can't you tell?"
At this he placed his hands on the outside of her smooth thighs and both of them watched as the massive invader commenced 'gliding back and forth-back and forth.
"Ooommm," she moaned gustily. "How wonderful it is." Then, in a more alert voice. "But perhaps if we talked about something else it would help me from going all to pieces so often. Do you think it would, Jeff?"
"It might. We could try. What would you like to talk about?"
"I don't know. Anything. We could talk about Charity Breeden."
"If you like, but why her?" he asked.
"Because everyone in the settlement wonders why her husband left a beautiful woman like her and ran off to New Bedford with that sutler's daughter. I know. Charity told me why."
"Really?" More than once Jeff had wondered the same thing, unable to understand why any man in his right mind would leave a woman as lovely and charming as Charity Breeden was. Her hair was a rich, honey blonde, her eyes the bluest he had ever seen and she had a figure hidden beneath the voluminous skirts she wore that would make any man crawl across a bed of glowing coals on his hands and knees to get at. Ho knew this from the way she walked and handled herself in general on the numerous times he had seen her about the settlement. Any normal man would be a fool to desert such a bedsome morsel. "Then why did. her husband leave her for the sutler's daughter?"
"Well," Susan said candidly, still watching the massive marauder plunder amongst her secret places, "it's like this. She's built way back. Do you know what that means in a woman?"
"I haven't the faintest idea," he told her truthfully.
"Well," she said again and still candidly, this time raising her eyes to his face. "Some women, those who have a very high pelvis and are built way up front, can play mama and papa with a man while standing up; with the man standing in front of them. Most women are built like me and can play like you and I have been playing. Either like we are at the moment or the way we were a while ago with me laying face down on the rock and my legs hanging down in the water-or like a filly and a stud-with me on my hands and knees. The women who are built way back, as Charity is, can do it standing up, but with the man behind. Now do you understand?"
"I'm not sure," Jeff said slowly, no little flabbergasted. "You mean to tell me Charity Breeden can be-attended-while she is standing straight up?"
"That's right. That's what she said, anyway. And I believe her."
"But that's no reason for her husband to leave her," he said, not really knowing whether to believe or not. "Why didn't they go to bed, for heaven's sake?"
"They did, but she had to lay on her tummy, face down, and for some unknown reason this infuriated her husband. His name-was Leigh, by the bye."
"And they couldn't play face-to-face at all?" The possibility that they could not amazed him more than ever. Such an impossibility was absolutely incredible.
"Of course they could, silly," Susan giggled. "But according to Charity she had to rest on the back of her neck and this infuriated Leigh more than ever, just as it did when she wanted him to play like a filly and stud. Natrually this is very possible with Charity, but he would have none of her that way."
"So he ups and leaves," Jeff said wonderingly. "I'll be cooked in bear fat, but the man is loony. I think it'd be a delightful experience to attend a woman like Charity. Standing up and from behind, I mean."
"Humph!" Susan chuckled warmly up at him. "From what I've learned of you this night, Jeffery Hudson, you'd be delighted to attend any woman any way. If you want-" A noticeable shivering seized her. "STOP!"
He stopped immediately, remaining perfectly still, the shaft buried deep.
"Don't move!" she gasped quickly, her chest heaving suddenly and her tummy rolling as she fought for control. Then she said through gritted teeth, "Don't move a fraction. Not one." He didn't, but continued to remain motionless until the approaching rapture faded away without ever having arrived. "Whew!" she managed after a time. "That was close. Where do we go from here?"
"We wait a little longer," Jeff told her, grinning, "then repeat the performance."
"I believe you enjoy this torture, Jeff," she said, her voice normal once more. "Do you?"
"Of course not," he told her frankly. "And when it's over, you won't call it torture."
"Then why do you do it?"
"You honestly want to know?"
She did not answer, save with a nod, her eyes on his.
"Because of you," he said gently. "Because you have two years of doing without that you want to catch up on as quickly as possible and I want to see you do it. That's one reason. Another is this. It is the duty of the man to see that the woman gains complete, absolute satisfaction-regardless. Otherwise he is a poor partner, indeed. Ordinarily, in our society men have much more and greater freedom than women do. If a man isn't satisfied he can always go on the prowl, while the dissatisfied woman is made to suffer in silence."
"Oh boy," she said in a quiet voice. "And how I've been made to suffer these past two years. Can you believe that is the reason I first began sneaking down here to this pool at night? Just to cool off?"
"I believe," he answered, once more commencing the back and forth rhythm. "Are you still comfortable?"
"Ye-ye-yes," she gasped smally as the great invader began again to caress her deep inside. "Only go slowly. Very, very slowly, Jeff."
In compliance with her request, he decreased the speed of the tempo, taking a full ten seconds to complete an entire cycle.
"Where is your cabin, Jeff?" she asked after a while.
"You know those two tall mountain peaks you can see from the center of the settlement, near the church?"
"I've seen them, yes."
"Leave the settlement and go straight between them. My cabin is in a broad valley directly on the other side. A river somewhat larger than this one flows through the center of the valley, and my cabin is at the upper end. You couldn't miss it if you tried. Why do you want to know?"
"Well," she said whimsically, "the idea just occurred to me that the next time I have to come down here to cool off I pay you a visit instead and let you do the cooling. Would you like that?"
"I'd love it," he chuckled warmly, overjoyed that she would consider such a thing. "Come anytime you like and stay as long as you like."
"You really mean that, don't you Jeff?" There was a serious note in her voice he had failed to notice before.
"Of course I mean it. And don't bother to bring any clothes except those you wear in leaving the settlement. When I'm home I usually go naked all the time, especially in warm weather like this." He did not really believe she would ever visit his cabin, since it was so far through the wilderness, and that's the reason he said it.
"You're not spoofing me, are you, Jeff Hudson?" She held his eyes with hers in the moonlight.
"No," he laughed happily at the mental picture of them cavorting and playing in the meadow below his cabin, then added: "And bring both Prudence and Charity with you. We'll have the time of our lives."
"Well just don't you be surprised, Mr. Smarty Pants, if I do exactly that," she said pertly, with a toss of her head. "Then all four of us could run around naked and have a wonderful time." She hugged herself deliciously at the idea. For several seconds she was silent, then said in a quiet, still voice. "Here it comes again, Jeff. Please don't stop this time."
"Is that the way you want it?" he asked quickly.
"Yes," she replied. "Please."
"Then let me know when it gets here. I have something to show you."
"What?" Even the one word was constrained, tight.
"A change of-procedure."
Yet there was no need for her to warn him when the visitation of supreme rapture drew nearer. Not with words, anyway, for he could feel the spasmodic clutchings at the slowly moving attender from deep inside her belly. When this happened he reached down with both hands, took hold of her ankles firmly and lifted them to rest on his shoulders, bowing his back a little to do so. Next he crossed his forearms over her upright thighs just below her knees, in this manner holding her legs tightly against him, their backs down the length of his. torso and the bottom of her buttocks snugly against the tops of his thighs. He waited, tense and ready, his muscles bunched for action the moment the visitation drew close enough.
Susan now lay flat on her back on the moss-covered rock, her arms to the side, her eyes closed and her face to the overhanging trees above, waiting.
It was a short wait. A tiny whimper fluttered from her relaxed vocal organs, signaling the visitation's rapid approach and when Jeff saw her breasts rise in a deep breath, he knew the time had come.
Without warning he shifted the speed of the slowly moving invader into lightning gear, using short, quick thrusts which pounded into her defenseless, greedy bottom with the rapidity of a jack-hammer at wide-open throttle.
The soft, gentle purr which was a-borning in her throat converted instantly into another, harsher sound. "Gaahh!" she cried explosively and the visitation was with her-within her and all over her at the same moment.
Her long, drawn-out scream of agonized bliss smote the stillness of the spring night and she tried to buck upright, but Jeff's forearms across her thighs forbade this, and when she arched her back upward he forced her back the same way, never pausing in his machine-gun-like action, hut holding her snugly close and hammering away with all his youthful might. The unexpected violence of the rapture brought on by this action was more than Susan could sedately endure and she screamed a second time; a long, full-bodied, deep-chested scream of excruciating ecstasy that filled the forest around them and hung on the night air. Her eyes protruded dangerously from her head from the force of the wild emotion, she chewed her tongue from the rapture of it and with her hands pounded and clawed at the moss on the rock until great hunks of it were torn loose. On the several other times she had experienced the visitation tonight there'd been apoint in each when, far in the back of her mind, she knew she could stand no more, and it was at this point that the intensity of the visitation began to fade. But not this time.
This time she thought her Very body would burst open from the lightning and thunder raging within, for it failed to fade. Rather, it grew in strength. And in the little corneir of her mind wherein she retained contact with reality, she knew she was going to die. There was no hope but to do otherwise; to pass away completely from the sweet agony boiling inside her, brought on by the trip-hammer action of the plundering invader stirring among her vitals. If this was the way it was going to be, then let it, she thought, as wave after wave of unbridled ecstasy ripped through her tender young frame. The heat bomb, which had ruptured low in her belly seconds before, was sending torrents of searing flame from her head to her toes. A steel band tightened about her heaving breasts, cutting off her breath, as her belly muscles twitched and jerked. Her final thought, just before the visitation pushed her over the brink of consciousness and into the bottomless void below, was, can death be so sweet?
CHAPTER 5
EVEN AFTER CONSCIOUSNESS LEFT HER, SHE continued to writhe and jerk without pattern, and so it was that Jeff was some time in realizing she had deserted reality. When he did, he stopped the action, straightened, and stood looking down at her still-quivering figure. Then he withdrew completely and folded her legs to the side on the rock to prevent her from falling into the water. For some time he continued to stand looking down at her, a hint of a smile lifting the corners of his wide mouth, before he turned and waded into deeper water to wash.
By the time he returned to the rock where she lay, she was regaining consciousness, and when she fully returned to the world of sight and sound the first thing she saw was his face. He was bending over her, very close.
"Oh, Jeffery," she sighed in a wan voice as she circled his neck with her arm. "Oh, Jeffery."
"Shall we return to the cabin now?" he asked quietly, stroking her cheek with a huge hand. "The moon is already far down and will be gone soon."
"I suppose we better-if I can walk."
He took both her hands in his and helped her as she got shakily to her feet. For a long moment she stood there beside him, a wondrous smile on her lovely face and stars in her eyes, and just before she stepped down into the water she said in a trembling voice: "I don't think I'll ever in my life be the same person again. You've ruined all other men for me."
He helped her from the water when she returned from her bath and the two of them, with him following closely and cautiously behind for her movements were still sluggish and unsure, made their way back to the cabin.
"Are you sleeping with me the rest of the night?" he asked her softly when they reached his bedroom.
"I am," she told him promptly, having recovered her strength completely. "I've never slept with a man before-and besides, there's no danger from Bully catching us. He sleeps so hard it takes me an hour to get him out of bed in the morning."
"Who cares if he does catch us?" Jeff said resolutely. "If he did and opened his mouth just once, I'd take him apart with my bare hands."
"But you are going to search for Bonnie O'Brian, aren't you Jeff?" They were lying close and side-by-side on the huge bed when she asked it.
"I suppose I must," he replied. "I've already taken Bully's money. I'll gad about the settlement for a while in the morning to see if I can find out anything. I still think someone here is hiding her just for spite." They were silent for a spell, then Susan stretched lazily and raised on an elbow to glance down toward the now relaxed invader.
"Poor Jeff," she said gently. "For me so many wonderful times and for you only once, here, before we went to the pool."
"This was your night," he told her. "We'll have other times."
"I know I will," she said with great resolve. "I've already decided on that." She reached down and began stroking the slumbering invader. At once it was awake and at full attention. "Boy-ee," she marveled. "You're ready again. But so am I, for that matter, I wish we could go to sleep playing-mama and papa."
"We can," Jeff said, and when he saw by her expression she did not understand he continued, "Turnover on your side with your back toward me and draw your knees up high, toward your chin."
After she did as he asked, he maneuvered himself into the proper position behind her. With delicate fingers he parted the dark shield of down and centered the shaft. Next he slid one hand under the hip of the side on which she was lying, then grasped the other with his free hand. When this was accomplished he commenced inching himself closer, the great shaft disappearing into her hot moistness as he did so.
"And that's all there is to it," he chuckled. "Now let's go to sleep."
"Well, I never!" Susan said, in mild surprise. "Just like a filly and a stud, only we're laying on our sides."
Just before he drifted off to dreamland, he was conscious of a great quivering seizing her, felt her clutching at him madly from deep 'within, heard her ecstatic whimperings.
Sometime just before full dawn, Jeff became suddenly wide awake and immediately aware of his surroundings. Susan lay as before and the shaft was still buried to the hilt. He had time only to withdraw a short distance once, then advance, before the visitation, chagrined at being held at bay, save once, during this night's session, crept in close and sledge-hammered him low in the belly; slugged him brutally, savagely, without mercy. It hit him with such power he was forced to grit his teeth to keep from crying out. Suddenly he was drenched with greatbeads of perspiration, his limbs stiffened and knots of muscle bunched along his jaw as he fought to retain consciousness. There seemed to be no end to the outpouring as he lay there gasping harshly for breath. Yet as all things must, the visitation finally faded, leaving him weak and shaken on the big bed.
If Susan Crowder was aware of the scalding torrents gushing into her defenseless body, she gave no sign whatsoever.
A few minutes later, Jeff once more drifted off to' sound, untroubled sleep. Outside the bedroom's big window, the wilderness was becoming more silent and still than ever, as if in anticipation of the coming dawn.
A slash of rays from the new sun across his eyes wakened Jeff two hours later. He was alone in the big bed, but the pillow on which she had lain still bore the indention from Susan's head. After a few minutes he stretched luxuriously, rolled to his feet and retrieved his fringed buckskins from across the room and dressed leisurely, slipped into his moccasins, collected his rifle, powder horn and shot pouch from beside the door before stepping outside and pulling it to behind him. Silently, as was his nature, he moved down the short hallway toward the stairs leading to the floor below. Halfway down these his nostrils were assailed by the tantalizing odor of frying ham mingled with the fragrant aroma of freshly brewed coffee. These started hunger pangs snarling in his stomach and until that moment he did not know, himself, just how hungry last night's bout had made him. Following Ms nose, he soon found the kitchen, whence came these delightful smells. As he neared, he heard Susan singing joyously as she prepared the morning meal.
"And how are you this fine day, Miss Crowder," he grinned from the doorway. He leaned his rifle against the wall and dropped the other gear beside it in time to catch her as she came flying into his waiting arms.
"I'm wonderful," she chortled gleefully, her arms tight around his middle and looking up into his face. Then her voice dropped to a whisper. "I'm so sore I can hardly walk, but I'm wonderful. Did you sleep well?"
He nodded, holding her close. "What there was of it. And now, I'm starved." He glanced over his shoulder toward the ma'am part of the house. "Where's brother Bully?"
"Gone over to Sam Turner's to bargain for a seed bull. We're alone." She released him to step back, traveling her eyes from his moccasined feet to his head, her face glowing. "Mercy," she breathed, hugging herself deliciously, "what a man!" She handed him a clean towel from a sideboard. "The well is out back," she said. "I'll have your breakfast on the table by the time you wash up."
And she did. A platter of fried eggs, an even larger one of ham and sausage, steaming hot coffee, a pitcher of milk, wild honey, blackberry jelly, pear preserves, and a small crock of butter along with a plate of piping hot biscuits.
"Sheesh!"' he marveled as he took a seat at the table. "Had I known such a breakfast was waiting I wouldn't have gone to sleep at all." He attacked the food with gusto. "Why did you let me sleep so long?"
"I didn't," she said, seating herself opposite him and resting her chin in her palms. "The sun hasn't been up long. It's half an hour yet before school takes up."
"I almost forgot," he chuckled as he carved a thick slice of ham. "You are the settlement's schoolteacher, aren't you? But I thought it was already out for the summer."
"Huh-uh," she smiled, enjoying his ravenous appetite. "Today is the last day." She rose from the table quickly. "And I've got to hurry. Teacher can't be late on her last day." She paused in turning. "You don't mind, do you Jeff? Me rushing off like this, I mean."
He shook his head, his mouth full of food;
Susan ran up the stairs, to return a few minutes later wearing a long, black dress with a tight bodice and full, flaring skirt, the more or less accepted uniform for the women of the settlement, and carrying an armload of books. She came around the table to where he sat, kissed him quickly on the temple, then cupped his chin in her soft hand and turned his face up toward hers.
"When will I see you again, Jeffery?" she asked quietly.
"Soon," he told her, not rising. "And that's a promise."
Quickly she bent, pecked him on the mouth with her ripe lips and hurried out the door, saying over her shoulder, "Just leave the things on the table when you're finished-and, oh yes, I almost forgot. You might ask Charity Breeden if she knows where Bonnie O'Brian is. They are very good friends."
Well, Jeff thought to himself as he finished the meal some minutes later and started on his third cup of coffee, questioning Charity Breeden gives me a place to start, at least. Bully Crowder was convinced beyond reason that Bonnie had been stolen by Indians and Jeff was just as convinced that she hadn't. He had been good friends with Chief Wild Hawk for a long while now, and he knew beyond doubt the old warrior had not taken the girl. Nor had any of his men. But Bully thought the Indians had her. Let Bully think what he would. Jeff still wasn't sure he would return the girl, even if he located her. And that brought on more thought.
He had just finished his coffee and risen from the table when the light knocking came at the front door of . the cabin. When he opened it Prudence Goodbody stood on the porch.
She was dressed in much the same manner Susan had been when she left for school,, except for a large, checkered apron covering the front of her skirt. Prudence Goodbody was a dainty little person with midnight black hair coiled in a bun at the nape of her neck, coal-black eyes with long curved lashes and a complexion so clear, so pure, it gave the illusion of being translucent. Jeff had heard rumors that she was of Spanish descent, yet as far as he knew, they were only rumors.
"Good morning, Mrs. Goodbody," he said very formally, recalling that she was the biggest tease in the settlement. And this was no rumor. He knew this as fact. More than once she had talked to him with her eyes in a language wherein there could be no misunderstanding, though he had never once become entwined in her wiles, as Rafe Hampton had.
"Why, Mr. Hudson," she said, a pleased smile on her face and her dark eyes flashing impishly. "Fancy finding you here." Without being invited to do so, she stepped inside and looked quickly around. "Is either Mr. Crowder or Susan here?"
"No," Jeff told her, leaving the door open and returning to the table just to have something to do. He poured another cup of coffee and resumed his seat. "Bully is over at Sam Turner's and Miss Crowder has gone to the schoolhouse. I understand this is the last day of school."
"And what are you doing here, Mr. Hudson, if I may be so bold as to ask?" Her eyes had already taken in the remains of the meal on the table and his gear against the wall.
"Finishing breakfast," he told her casually. "Will you join me?" He spoke without looking at her, though he felt his insides move greasily with desire at her nearness.
"Oh, I couldn't do that," she said primly, seating herself on the very edge of the chair Susan had occupied so recently. She sat with her back straight and her hands in her lap. "I just stopped by to ask Susan if she was through with a dress pattern I loaned her last week." This would have appeared to conclude her reason for coming, since Susan was gone, yet she made no move to leave, but sat there with tiny devils dancing in the back of her eyes watching him sip a cup of coffee he didn't want. "Did you spend the night here?" she finally inquired prettily, her head canted slightly to one side and a knowing look on her face.
"That I did," Jeff said, remembering Susan had told him while they were in the pool last night that she intended to tell Prudence of their lovemaking. Why don't I tell her myself? he thought. Just to see if I can shake her up-maybe even beat her at her own game, somehow. Judging from the talk he had heard about her, he knew that if they remained talking long, she might invite him to a clandestine tryst. "Yes," he continued, sipping from his coffee again, "I spent the night here with Susan." He watched her closely over the rim of the coffee cup to see what it would tell him.
"And Bully-and Mr. Crowder too, of course," she smiled.
"Oh," Jeff said nonchalantly, "Bully was here, naturally, but he slept downstairs hi Ms room. Susan and I slept in the spare bedroom upstairs. What time we weren't swimming naked in the river, that is."
"That must have been fun!" she said automatically then, when the full, impact of his words registered her mouth dropped open and her eyes grew large. "Mis-Mis-Mister Hudson!" she gasped, a hand against her lips. "You mean-?"
"I sure do," he interrupted, enjoying the situation more with each passing second. "We played mama and papa all night long, both in bed and at the river. You should try it sometime in the water. Adds a certain zest you can't get anywhere else. I'm sure you'll like it."
"Well I never!" she said haughtily, springing to her feet. "Just you wait till I tell Susan of these lies! She'll-"
"Oh they're not lies, Mrs. Goodbody. Honest." He had to force himself to look solemn and sincere when he said it. "Susan is going to tell you herself. I just thought I'd tell you first, that's all."
"Mr. Hudson," she began, stamping one foot delicately, "if you think for a minute I'll stand here and listen to-"
"You know what?" he demanded, pointing a finger at her across the table. The words and the gesture so caught her by surprise she stopped cold and stared at him.
"What?" she asked in a small voice.
"Susan told me," he said with great seriousness, "that if it turns out she isn't enough woman for me, she's going to ask you to help her with the chore."
"With the chore?" Prudence fairly screamed, her small face a flaming red and her composure now completely shattered. "With the chore? Oh-Oh-" Again she stamped her foot, then turned and fled through the open doorway.
CHAPTER 6
A FIT OF HEARTY LAUGHTER SEIZED JEFF AND it was some minutes after her dainty figure disappeared from sight before it passed. Just wait till I tell Rafe Hampton about this, he chuckled as he gathered his gear and left the cabin, closing the door behind him. That is, if I ever see him again.
The last thing Susan had said to him that morning was that Charity Breeden and Bonnie O'Brian were very good friends. That being the case, and since he wasn't too interested in locating Bonnie just so Bully Crowder could take her to bed, talking with Charity Breeden was as good a place to start as any.
Her cabin was located on the outer edge of the settlement, half a mile from the one owned by Susan and her brother. It nestled comfortably in a grove of large oak trees and near the main road leading into Franklin from Port Royal. Not far from the cabin, a small brook gurgled merrily on its way. Behind the cabin was the forest; the limitless miles of wilderness which, as Jeff knew probably better than anyone else, was safe now that the Indians were friendly. As Jeff approached the place, he recalled with an amused smile Susan's tale that Charity was, as she called it, "built way back," and could play mama and papa while standing straight up with her partner behind.
The picture evoked in his mind by the lovely Susan's story intrigued him. Was it really possible? He had never heard of such a thing before. But then, he mused, there was a lot in this old world he had never heard of.
He heard noises of someone moving about just before he knocked on the door. His knock was followed by a short, silent pause which was broken by approaching footsteps and Charity Breeden opened the door. She wore a tight-bodiced, full-skirted dress that reached from her neck to her ankles-almost identical in style-to those worn by Susan and Prudence-of a wine-red material. Jeff could tell at a glance, from the way the skirt stood out, that she wore several petticoats underneath. And probably a pair of the ankle length pantaloons, which were so popular. And her husband left her because of something she couldn't help, he thought to himself as he stood there drinking in her beauty with his eyes.
Charity Breeden's hair was the color of wild honey and her eyes the same deep blue of the sky on a clear summer's day. She had a high, intelligent brow, a straight, sensitive nose and a wide, full-lipped mouth which smiled easily and often. She was not quite as tall as Susan, but somewhat heavier, with sturdy shoulders, ripe, heavy breasts, which the bodice of her dress could not conceal-and an almost tiny waist which flared into full, mature hips.
"Yes?" she said cautiously when she opened the door. Then, as recognition lit her face, "Why, Jeff Hudson! I haven't seen you in weeks. How in the world are you? Come in." She stepped away from the door to allow him to pass her. "What brings you back to civilization after all this time?"
"I got in yesterday afternoon," he told her, looking around the main room of the neat, spic-and-span cabin. "Came in for some salt and powder, and Bully Crowder hired me to locate his runaway bond servant. Susan Crowder told me you and Bonnie were very good friends. Can you tell me where she is hiding?"
"Here," she said, "let me put your rifle and things over here against the wall." She had followed him into the room after closing the door. Now she took his rifle and gear and stood them near a small, foot-square, open window facing the settlement.
"That little window is really a place to shoot Indians from," she continued when she turned to face him again, "But of course it's useless for that now." She looked at him for a long moment before she spoke again. "And you aim to return Bonnie to Bully Crowder if you find her?" she asked. "Ain't that what you got in mind?"
"She's his bond servant," Jeff said stubbornly. "It's the law."
"Humph," she said with force. "The law! Out here we make our own law. You ort to know that. And there ain't no one human bein' supposed to be slave to another. You ort to know that, too, and that's what a bond servant is-a slave and nothin' but. So there!"
"Then you do know where Bonnie is hiding." It was a statement, not a question.
"You said it, Jeff Hudson," Charity told him evenly. "I didn't. And you don't have tobe so stubborn and ill-mannered, either. If I know where Bonnie O'Brian is, that's my business."
"I'm sorry, Charity," he said quietly. "Bully Crowder thinks the Indians have her. That's the reason he hired me to bring her back. I had no idea I was being ill-mannered." He looked down into her upturned face as she stood close to him, feeling her nearness and smelling the heady female scent which followed her like a cloud. Then his experience with the opposite sex came to the fore and elaborated on something Susan Crowder had told him last night. Susan had said quite frankly that Charity was constantly talking about men when they were alone; that she was in dire need of male attention. Had Jeff doubted this, his doubts would now have been dispeled-for even though the blonde young woman stood at least two feet from him he could feel the heat flowing from her body like steam from an oven. Yet she had perfect control of her expression and her eyes told him nothing.
"Is Bonnie safe?" he asked, his eyes on hers. For the life of him he was unable to erase from his mind the pictures invoked by Susan's contention that Charity could play mama standing upright. How could such be possible? How?
"Bonnie O'Brian is woman enough to take care of herself," was her only answer. She was about to speak again when the call came from the road beside the house leading into the settlement proper.
"Charity?" the quavering female voice called. "You home, Charity?"
""Mercy!" A startled look came into Charity's eyes. "That's old Mandy Hanks! If I let her in and she finds you here, there ain't no tellin' what'll happen."
Mandy Hanks was a gossipy old crone who foraged in the forest surrounding the settlement for roots and herbs, which she sold in the community as medicine. She was also an insatiable gossip who, in her journey from one cabin to the next, shuttled all local news along with her sales. When the news was meager she was prone to supplement it with her own speculations, delivered with vague implications, subtle gestures and innuendo. Jeff knew her discovering him alone with Charity, in her cabin with the door closed, would be a choice morsel indeed. This did not particularly alarm Jeff, but Susan had said that Charity was acutely sensitive to being gossiped about.
"Head her off before she leaves the road," Jeff said tersely. "Tell her-tell her you're sick or something."
"Head her off?" Charity asked, grasping at straws. "How head her off?"
Then the words shoved themselves through his mouth from the back of his mind so quickly he was hardly conscious of saying them. "That little window over there. The one you said was to shoot Indians from. It faces the road. Talk to her from it. Maybe she just wants to pass the time of day, then move on."
Without answering him Charity raced to the far corner of the room, seized a sturdily built but very short-legged stool, then rushed to the foot-square little window, placed the stool under it to stand on.
"Mandy!" she called in a too loud, nervous voice. "Mandy Hanks!"
"Ain't no use in you squallin' so," the old woman replied from the road in a peevish voice. "I'm right here, Charity."
"I'm sorry, Mandy," Charity apologized hurriedly. "But I was afraid you might come in."
Jeff stood there in the middle of the room, looking at the back of Charity's trim figure as she stood on the squat stool talking out the window, and as he continued to look he felt desire move greasily low in his belly, the same as it had with Prudence Goodbody. Then he grinned broadly to himself. With Charity afraid of Mandy finding him alone with her would be insurance against her creating a scene, he thought. Perhaps. Or would she raise a ruckus, even with Mandy present, when she realized he was lifting her skirts? Yet Susan had definitely implied that Charity was in need of attention.
And your philosophy has always been, he chuckled silently to himself as he moved toward the stool on which Charity stood, to always scratch a lady when she itches. Well, let's see just how bad this one is itching."
"And why, Charity Breeden," Mandy Hanks demanded indignantly from the road several yards away, "are you afraid I might come in? I've always been welcome before."
"It ain't that, Mandy," Charity lied evenly. "But when I woke up this mornin' there was a rash on my body." Here her voice took on an ominous, warning note. "And you know how the plague came to Franklin a few years ago."
Jeff stepped up behind the young woman at the window, unafraid the person outside would see him or what he intended. The window was too small for that, and at a height that Charity's chin barely cleared it. Deftly he lifted the hem of her dress, along with the several petticoats she wore underneath. His surmise had been correct. She did have on a pair of the ruffled, ankle-length pantaloons. She started smally when he reached around in front and undid the knot holding them around her tiny waist.
"You ain't got the plague, have you, honey?" Mandy asked fearfully. With one hand Charity reached behind her to slap at him working the pantaloons down to her ankles. The blow missed him completely and she tried again, this time with no better success.
Then it was done. Her skirt and petticoats were tucked under the band of her apron and the ruffled pantaloons in a soft heap at her ankles. Once she almost turned but, remembering Mandy in the road, caught herself.
"No," she said in a voice quivering with sup-pressed emotion. "I don't think it's the plague." She shivered visibly as Jeff slid his hands around her and traced his finger over her flat tummy and upper thighs. "But it's better to be safe than sorry." She shivered again, more violently than before, as his hands began exploring, found what they sought.
With one hand Jeff loosed the belt supporting his pants. They dropped to his ankles, as had her pantaloons.
"I can see from the road here that you ain't exactly chipper," the old woman said. "Your face is as red as a beet." i Jeff's heart was pounding furiously with excitement, Susan was right. Charity Breeden was built 'way back.' and because she was standing on the low stool; she was, at exactly the right height. Quickly he placed Js. foot on' the outside of each of hers, bent slightly at the knees, with near frantic haste divided the soft forest of blonde angel down and, with the massive invader sticking straight up, eased back to his normal standing position.
Charity wiggled her posterior quickly several times while he was doing this and the invader, securely lodged within the blonde-shielded cleft, impaled her completely. Jeff stood there, encased entirely, seeing but finding it hard to believe, even yet. Without further ado he commenced his advance-withdrawal rhythm, using long, deep strokes.
"I ain't-feeling-chipper," Charity gasped desperately as she felt the plundering invader begin to move about in her secret places. "Go warn the settlement-to stay away."
"I don't know if it's the plague or not," and there was sincere alarm in her voice when Mandy said it, "but you sure got somethin', child."
At that instant Jeff felt the clutching at him from, deep inside her, felt a vast shivering seize her entire body, and felt the dam inside him give way, hurling thundering rivers of scalding man-seed into her hungry belly.
"Oh lordy!" Mandy Hanks said hurriedly. "It must be the fits you've got, the way your eyes is bulgin' and with you chewin' your tongue! I better go warn the settlement." Neither of the two young people at the window was aware of it when she turned and scurried back toward the main part of Franklin. Even when he felt the dam within him burst, Jeff did not cease in his rhythm, but maintained a steady pace, moving back a step because Charity had broken at the waist and pushed back against him. Her arms were straight as she hung onto the windowstill, her head down between her arms. And as he continued the action, a fluttering whimper of ecstasy escaped her. This was followed immediately by a low, quivering moan of absolute bliss.
"I'm dying," Charity sobbed in a soft, quiet voice. "I know I'm dying." And she continued to sob brokenly, hanging onto the window, until the visitation had passed completely. When this happened Jeff remained motionless for half a minute, the invader buried deep, then quickly withdrew and jerked up his pants from around his ankles.
Without a word or even so much as a glance in his direction, Charity Breeden tied her pantaloons back around her waist and casually strode into the neighboring bedroom and closed the door. When she returned several minutes later, Jeff was seated at the dining table. Her face was expressionless as she walked around to where he sat.
"Jeffery Hudson," she said in a steady, even voice, her blue eyes locked with his. "I ort to skin you alive for takin' advantage of me like that." Obviously she was evincing no little effort at maintaining control.
""! thought you'd enjoy it," Jeff grinned, getting to his feet. "I did. Tremendously."
Suddenly her lovely face lit with a glowing smile and she threw herself into his arms. "So did I," she laughed softly, happily, her face buried against his chest. "The only thing wrong with it was that it was too short." She paused to look up at him quizzically. "But whatever in the world ever gave you the idea that-"
"That it could happen in that position?" he interrupted.
"Yes," she nodded, stars in her eyes. "How come?"
"I didn't know for sure," he lied evenly. "But I'm glad I tried."
"Mmm," she sighed dreamily. "So am I, even if you did almost shock me out of my britches when you started. For a moment there when I was talkin' to Mandy Hanks through toe window, I didn't know what in the world I was goin' to do, what with you liftin' my skirts and takin' off my underclothes. Then suddenly I didn't care, but I'm glad Mandy will tell the settlement I might have the plague. Won't a soul come to visit me now until they see me first in the settlement to make sure I ain't sick." She canted her head sideways and looked askance at him. "But I suppose all your good deeds are done for the day?" Then her soft hand stole down to the front of his trousers and, at her gently touch, the massive invader bucked quickly against the restraining material. "Eee-i," she breathed heavily. "You ain't done for the day, are you? Not less you want to be."
"And I don't want to be," he grinned down at her.
"Not nearly."
"Honest?" There was doubt in her eyes. "Honest," he said.
"Then you wait right here for a minute, Mr. .Jeffery Hudson. Only come when I call you. Will you do that?"
"Try me," he said as she turned from him and made her way into the bedroom once again. "Just try me."
"A very few minutes later he heard her call softly and when he entered the room where she was he saw her clothes over a chair near the bed. As for Charity herself, she lay face down under the sheet on the bed. Without a word he hastily removed his clothes, letting them fall at his feet as each garment was shed. In a thrice he was standing over her and from the way tho sheet fitted the contours of her body, he suspected she wore absolutely nothing. This was confirmed when he flipped the sheet back. She lay face down with her face turned to one side, away from him, her hands folded under her head and her legs spread apart. Under her hips was a large pillow folded in half, which lifted her buttocks slightly.
Still silently, since his work was obviously cut out for him, Jeff mounted the bed, dropped to his knees between her spread thighs, depressed the throbbing attender until the end was lodged securely within the hot little valley, then leaned forward and down until his weight rested on her back. Without further ado. he applied pressure with his hips and worked the massive engine deep into her hungry body, thrilling to the delightful sensation of her firm, young buttocks nestling snugly against his groin when it reached home.
"Mercy," she grunted with feminine pleasure when it-was done. "Where did you get all of that?"
"Nature," he whispered into the ear under his lips.
"She was kind to me."
"Mmm," she murmured in return. "And ain't I glad."
Now Charity Breeden was a lusty young woman of twenty-three whose husband had forsaken her months past, and in those months she had suffered all those bitter tortures of the damned to one in such a circumstance. On more than one occasion she had almost invited one of the acceptable males of the settlement to her cabin, yet always there lingered in the back of her mind news of the tryst might be uncovered and such, to Charity, would have been the epitome of shame and humiliation. Yet as time had passed her fear at it becoming known she was miserably in need of a man diminished to the point where it was nil. In truth, the very hour Jeff had shown up at her door she had decided to visit the settlement of Franklin for the sole purpose of finding herself a suitable paramour. After all, a healthy young female can be neglected only so long.
And so it was that when Jeff Hudson leaned his weight down against her back; when she felt the great invader commence gliding back and forth among her secret places, caressing her where she had never been caressed before, a cozy, delicious glow of absolute bliss began pervading her entire, small waisted being. It was a sensation different from that when she had been talking to Mandy Hanks through the small window. Then it had been harsh and exploding, where now it was gentle and tender.
"Oh me," she murmured blissfully. "Can anything be so good a person can't stand it? Can-?"
Then the visitation of supreme rapture smote her mercilessly in the belly and the gentle tenderness was gone. Surging waves of flame shot through her famished body and she cried out sharply from the ecstasy of it, yet because of her position and his weight on her back she was almost unable to move. Her arms jerked, somewhat like the erratic strokes of a novice swimmer, while her hands clutched on anything and her legs, from the knees down, thumped the bed with ragged rhythm as she twisted and contorted at the plundering invader churning back and forth within her defenseless bottom.
"Have mercy," she pleaded quietly as tears of pleasure stung her eyes. "I can't stand this." Then she felt the scalding torrents of man-seed gushing into her thirsty belly and the visitation slugged her a second time without warning.
A spontaneous, guttural scream tore past her parted lips and her body tensed. Nor did the weight of Jeff on her back prevent her from moving this time. With seeming superhuman effort, she raised to her hands and knees. When she did this Jeff straightened his arms and because of their different body lengths, one was on each side of her head, preventing her from crawling out from under him.
"Oh!" she sobbed raggedly as the great, plundering invader continued its maddening rhythm back and forth. Even when she managed to turn and crawl to the far side of the bed Jeff followed, walking on his hands and knees over her, slamming the cudgel solidly home with each stroke as the burning wine of life continued to pour from his body. He could feel her mad grabbing at him from inside each time he withdrew and a tiny grunt escaped her each time he thrust home. Because of her need and because of his delight in their position, which afforded a coupling as complete as he had ever experienced, he was determined to play his part to the fullest.
When Charity realized there was no hope of escape from the delicious madness enveloping her completely she had little choice but to submit whole heartedly, which she did with a gusty sigh ox sublime pleasure. She sank back to the bed, stretched her legs out behind her, once more rested her head against her hands and closed her eyes, completely relaxed. She had just managed to do this when the visitation, encouraged by the stirring in her secret places, descended a third time. Perspiration broke out all over her greedy, young body as flaming ecstasy flowed through her, catching the breath in her throat and causing her to gnash her teeth noisily. Still the plundering invader kept up its merciless assault.
CHAPTER 7
THIS THIRD VISITATION HAD HARDLY TAKEN ITS gradual departure when a fourth seized her, with Jeff never pausing or faltering, but continuing his measured tempo-back and forth, back and forth.
Each time the visitation" made itself known to her he could feel her clutching at him from within and he noticed, before long, that the series of clutchings were evincing their presence more and more frequently. For a spell he wondered about this. He had never before known a partner to cross the divide so often, and they had been on the big bed for well over half an hour when he realized that Charity Breeden was experiencing one of those rare phenomena of nature-the continuous sexual climax.
Back in Boston, a friend attending medical school had tried to explain this to him, but at that time he had thought the friend was trying to pull his leg. Now he knew better. The girl beneath him was proof of it.
For now there was no let-up in the clutchings from within. They were a continuous thing which afforded him the most delightful sensation. Readjusting his position to a more comfortable one, he settled himself for a long session. Charity-was absolutely motionless now, and with her eyes closed and her lips parted, breathing somewhat heavily but saying nothing.
Jive minutes passed, and because of the delightful massaging she was offering from within, once more the dam inside him ruptured and the roaring thunder gushed from him, clenching his teeth and changing his rhythm from its measured pace to one of erratic starts and jerks. Though he never ceased it altogether, and when he recovered his normal breathing he returned to his smooth, measured tempo. This he continued for another several minutes, with the big dam inside gathering to burst once more from the delicious massaging afforded by Charity from within, when he spoke to her in endearing terms. When she failed to answer, he spoke again. When she again did not answer he stopped the action and lay looking down at her face a couple of inches away.
"Are you all right?" he queried quietly. When she still gave no hint that she heard,' it slowly dawned upon him that her need had been so great that the repeated attacks of the visitation of supreme rapture had gently pushed her into unconsciousness. Even when he withdrew completely, straightened her on the bed and stretched out beside her she made no move, save from breathing. After studying her nude young loveliness for a spell, he relaxed on the bed, and because he had been up most of the night with Susan Crowder and because he was a healthy young animal, he soon drifted off to sleep.
At midday he was awakened, wonderfully refreshed, by the lilting sounds of Charity's joyous singing from the kitchen. She must have sensed his awakening, for he had barely erased the dregs of sleep from his mind when she entered the bedroom. Her lovely face lit to a warm glow when she saw he was awake. She wore nothing but a small apron around her tiny waist and as she sat down on the bed her ripe young breasts jogged comfortably together.
"Hello, Jeffery," she whispered softly, leaning over to plant her full lips on his, a radiant smile on her face. "Did you sleep well?" she continued, when the kiss was over.
"Very well," he replied, his lips burning from hers' and desire moving sluggishly in his lower belly at sight of her dressed only in the apron. "Yes. I slept very well. And you?"
"I passed out from your-treatment, Doctor Hudson," she giggled suddenly, hugging herself deliciously. "Nothing so wonderful has ever happened to me before." Then a deep blush crept slowly up over her neck and spread over her face. "You think I ort to feel like a hussy for runnin' around naked like this?"
"You're not naked," he chuckled. "You've got the apron on. And besides, I'm naked."
"Mmm," she murmured, bending down to kiss him just above the navel. "Ain't it the very truth? I run around naked in the house a lot when I'm here by myself. Are you hungry? I've been cookin' while you slept."
"And what have you been cooking while I slept?" he asked, pulling her down to him and taking one of the nipples of her plump breasts in his mouth.
"John-John-Johnny cake and ven-ven-venison stew," she gasped raggedly. "But if you keep that up, Jeff Hudson, it'll never get et."
"Are you sure?" he grinned up at her.
"Real sure." Then her blue eyes grew large as she looked at him in wonder. "Jiggers," she marveled. "What a real he-man."
"A real he-man who right now is interested in Johnny cake and venison stew." he said, still grinning
"Humph," she said with a toss of her head. "I've got somethin' better than venison stew." A slow smile spread over her pretty features. "Ain't I?"
"You have," he assured her. "But after the workout we had I've got to get something in my stomach. I had a big breakfast, but I've done a lot in between. And besides," and here he cut his eyes sideways at her as he swung his feet over the side of the bed, "I've given my word I'll find Bonnie O'Brian and bring her back."
"And I've given my word I won't tell where she is," Charity said.
"Then you do know where she is?" He rose from the bed and began drawing on his clothes.
"I know," she said, lowering his eyes to look at her hands in her lap. "And I suppose you will too, before long. What makes you want to force her to return to Bully Crowder? All he wants to do is get her in bed."
"I don't really want to take her back to him. I don't believe in the bond-servant system, but I've given my word."
"Jeff!" Charity got to her feet and stood close to him, her eyes shining with excitement, "did you tell Bully when you'd bring Bonnie back if you found her?"
"What are you getting at?" he smiled, wondering what she had in mind. From her sparkling eyes he knew she had thought of something.
"Well," she said, still excitedly, "when you locate Bonnie, and I reckon you will before long, you don't have to return her to Bully right then, do you?" She stopped, her blue eyes studying his face intently. "I mean, can't you take her back next week or next month? Or even next year? As long as you take her back, you'll be keepin' your word. Won't you?"
For a long moment he stood looking down at her as she stood there clad only in the little apron, her ripe breasts, and most of the rest of her for that matter, exposed to his view. "I see what you mean," he fold her slowly, a gladness welling up in his chest. Then his mind made the decision for him and his lips pronounced the words. After all, it was a way out of a bad bargain he had regretted from almost the moment he had made it. "I see what you mean," he repeated. "Why did Bonnie run away?"
"Because she wants to be her own woman for a spell. She just wants to get away from Bully for a while and think things out. To get her head back on straight, is the way she puts it. Bein' a bond servant ain't easy for a person like Bonnie, who's always been free and her own boss."
"Then if you see her before I do," Jeff said, resolutely, "ask her if returning by the end of the summer is too soon."
"Oh, Jeff!" With this, Charity raised quickly on her toes and threw her soft arms around his neck, drawing his face down to hers. It was along and tender kiss, but with fire smoldering underneath. "I think you're wonderful. Will you be comin' back soon? I mean-you are aimin' to leave, ain't you?"
"After you feed me I am," he chuckled happily, greatly relieved that the problem created by Bully Crowder had been solved. "And if you don't do that real soon, we might never make it to the table."
"Ain't that the truth?" she snickered gleefully as she took his hand and turned toward the door. "But if you don't come back soon I'll come lookin' for you." She glanced over her shoulder as they entered the kitchen. "Do you understand?"
"I'll be back," he said, thwacking her playfully on her bare buttocks, "and that's a promise. I'll be back soon. Just see that you're dressed in nothing but the apron when I return."
"Law' me," she smiled happily as he seated himself at the table. "What with Mandy Hanks tellin' everybody that I'm havin' fits, and maybe even got the plague why, there won't be anybody even near this place."
After the meal, Charity watched disconsolately when Jeff gathered his rifle and gear from where they had been deposited against the wall on his arrival. She stood in the center of the main room of the cabin, still wearing nothing but the little apron, a sadness in her blue eyes he had not seen before.
"You ain't comin' back," she said contritely, her eyes lowered, her fingers working nervously at the hem of her single garment. "You're aimin' to go back to that cabin of yours, with all them wild Indian girls, and you ain't comin' back."
"I'll be back," he promised, placing an arm about her shoulders, drawing her close. "Truth is, I don't want to leave-but I've got to cook up a story for Bully Crowder that he'll believe. And as far as me returning to my cabin-well, I just might stop by a certain cabin on the way to mine and ask a certain blue-eyed, blonde haired girl to go with me. That is, if she doesn't mind sharing me with a couple of wild Indian girls." He intended this as a joke, for he had never touched a one of the young Indians for fear of endangering his friendship with Chief Wild Hawk, though Wild Hawk made no secret of the fact that he would be pleased if Jeff took his daughter, whose name was Naomee, off his hands.
"I wouldn't mind sharin' you, Jeff," Charity said honestly and solemnly. "A healthy young man like you needs several women to keep his head on straight." Then a gladsome smile blossomed over her soft features. "You really mean it, don't you? About askin' me to go with you, I mean."
He nodded, watching her closely. "And what would your answer be?"
"I'd go," she said promptly, happily, the smile spreading. "Just you see if I don't."
He left her then, after a dozen feverish kisses which almost decided him to remain, with the invader bucking rebelliously against the confining material of his trousers and his desire lurching sluggishly in his belly. Nor was it absolutely necessary for him to leave. He knew this. But the germ of an idea had started growing in the back of his mind and he wanted to think on it alone, out in the forest where a man's thoughts had full play without the hampering customs of civilization.
The idea was this: Why not take Charity Breeden and Susan Crowder both with him to his cabin? It was so far back in the wilderness in Indian country no white-settlers ever ventured there, and Chief Wild Hawk had given strict orders, since peace had been established with the whites, that none of them were to molest him in any way. The idea of sharing his cabin with both Charity and Susan fascinated him, yet there were certain aspects which had to be carefully thought out, with the most important one: Would each of these lovely young women feel content in sharing him with the other?
Yet both of them had told him the same thing, and practically in the same words-that a healthy young man needed more than one woman to meet his requirements. Still, it was a matter which needed more thought.
Now, when Jeff left Charity's cabin he had headed straight for the deep woods across the rutted road leading into Franklin, and without him consciously directing his footsteps he soon realized he was heading away from the settlement. He had no objections to this path, for it took him deeper into the wild forest where he felt more at home, more content, than he did in the stuffy, crowded atmosphere of the settlement. Soon he crossed the small river where he and Susan had last night spent such delightful hours, stepping on the stones projecting above the surface of a small shoal, and turned west around the toe of a high ridge which separated the settlement of Franklin from the wilderness proper. It was then he knew he had unconsciously headed in the direction of a secret pool where he frequently bathed on his way into town.
The pool itself was much like Susan's of the night before, though hardly as big. The sparkling, crystal clear water reached hardly to his chin and the bottom was of sand. He topped the ridge above the pool with long strides and headed down noiselessly, as was his nature to move in the woods, and had reached the base of the ridge fifty yards from the pool itself when he stopped suddenly, his mouth open for better hearing, his ears atuned to the sounds of. the forest. He remained motionless beside the trunk of a giant spruce for several seconds, listening intently. Yes! There they were again! Someone was splashing about in his private, secret bathing place!
Using extreme caution after checking the flint of his rifle he moved silently, but as a swift shadow moves, through the underbrush toward the source of the sounds. A few yeards from the water's edge, in the heaviest underbrush on this side of the small river, he came across a tidy heap of feminine garments. Immediately he recognized the large, checkered apron. Already once this day he had seen it. Yet the person in the pool simply could not be whom he suddenly suspected. He crept closer for a better look. It was.
Prudence Goodbody!
The settlement's one and only insatiable man-teaser was bathing in his pool-stark naked and at least two miles from the nearest cabin. For a full minute he stared, dumbfounded, his head above the underbrush, then he quickly withdrew to where her clothes were neatly piled. For only a moment did he hesitate, then he began to shed his own, tossing them in a heap near hers.
On a number of occasions in the past, when he had been in the settlement buying supplies, such as salt, nails and other items not provided by the forest, he had encountered Prudence Goodbody, and on their very first meeting she had flirted with him outrageously and in a manner no respectable frontier wife would. At least not in the presence of others. Following their first encounter Jeff had been wildly elated and wallowed in a glory of anticipation, envisioning a secret rendezvous frought with tender caresses and burning kisses. Later that same day he overheard a casual conversation between two men at; the tavern in Franklin which somewhat deflated his-'dreams and inserted a measure of caution into his .next move in Prudence Goodbody's direction.
Without saying so outright, Prudence had implied that he. should drop by her cabin after sundown but Jeff, enjoying a full measure of male ego where females were concerned, had no desire to make his call and be rebuffed. And this is exactly what would happen, if he was to believe the conversation he had innocently overheard. The conversation informed him in no uncertain terms that Prudence was nothing more than a tease.
So Jeff had not waited until after sundown. Late that same afternoon he had casually happened by the Goodbody cabin while Prudence was working among some flowers in the yard. Even though the cabin was .situated so that none of the neighbors could see them, even-,, if they had gone inside, after a first warm greeting, Prudence had become frigid and haughty in her manner and finally asked him to please take his leave.
CHAPTER 8
SINCE THAT DAY THE INCIDENT HAD RANKLED IN lean, lanky Jeff Hudson's soul and more than once he had vowed himself some sort of revenge. A goodly number of times since that fateful day he had met Prudence Goodbody about the settlement, and each time she had done her best to entice him to her cabin, but Jeff had never gone. During these chance meetings he had always been cautiously civil and politely distant-until this morning when she had found him breakfasting at Susan Crowder's home. He had received a small, token revenge then; in telling her of his night with Susan, hoping to do her hurt by informing her he had spent the night with another woman when she seemingly had tried to get him to do the same with her.
But token revenge is not enough, he told himself angrily as he threw the last of his clothes down beside hers. Not nearly enough. And now she could get as frigid and haughty as she pleased, or screamed to high heaven for all he cared. They were far enough from the settlement that none would hear her and before this day was out fiesty, sassy, teasing Prudence Goodbody would have learned the lesson never to attempt seducing a man again unless she was prepared to follow through.
Prudence had left the water for a tiny clearing on the far side of the river, and there she stood in the early afternoon sunlight, posturing and posing as if before an audience, her midnight-black hair hanging down between her shoulders. Something slammed into Jeff's belly from the inside when he raised his head just high enough for his eyes to clear the tops of the undergrowth. He felt his face go hot and full with desire as he watched, thinking to himself that the only single term which could accurately describe Prudence Goodbody was petite and ravishing. His breath became heavy and labored as he stood there in the forest, his eyes fixed on her small body flashing in the sunlight across the river, not fifty yards away.
At the moment Prudence stood facing the sun, her hands on her hips and her feet wide spread. Her plump little breasts were the size of oranges and had pink nipples. They stuck straight out from her chest, cone-shaped, and the pinkness of the tips was in delightful contrast to the milk-whiteness of her body. From her shoulders her torso narrowed down' to a waist Jeff knew, even from a distance, that he could span with his hands. Then her body widened slightly to accommodate her hips only to narrow again for her perfectly molded, tapering thighs at the apex of which nestled snugly the small black forest of her love tunnel. From the position she held: hands on hips, legs spread and facing the sun, she raised her arms high over her head and bent from the waist, touching her right toes with her left hand. Next she straightened and repeated the movement, using opposite hand and foot.
After repeating this exercise several times she stopped and stood with her head back, breathing deeply. Jeff could see her proud little breasts rise and fall each time and so fierce became his need that suddenly the great, extended cudgel, already throbbing with impatience, commenced to ache with maddening anxiety. A tightness seized him in the chest and for a moment he thought his breathing would stop as he stood there motionless, transfixed, unable to remove his eyes from her heart-clutching beauty.
When her breathing exercise was finished, Prudence stood still for a moment, then cupped both breasts in her small hands, her expression growing dreamy as she massaged the nipples. She stopped this after a minute or so and once more spread her legs, which she had closed during the breathing, moving her right hand down to the black forest of delight atop her thighs. With deft movements her fingers parted the floss. The dreamy expression was still on her face as her hand began to jerk and she walked toward the water. She was hip deep in the pool when Jeff could contain himself no longer, "Hey!" he called, working his way closer to the water's edge.
Shocked surprise flashed over Prudence Good-body's beautiful face at the sound of his voice, and because the sun was in her eyes she was unable to determine to whom the voice belonged. Without thinking she whirled, thrashed toward the bank she had just left, dashed across the little clearing and disappeared into the underbrush beyond, heedless of the fact that her clothes were on the opposite side of the river. To have been thus accosted fully clothed so far from the settlement would have startled her, but to be done so while completely naked was alarming indeed. This was especially so, and humiliating as well, since she had been in the process of trying to determine, for the first time in her young life, exactly what was the ultimate reason for male-female attraction.
She did not know this when she had become the wife of Henry Goodbody and he had never taken the trouble to let her find out.
Prudence Goodbody, nee Carver, had been born and reared to the tender age of sixteen in a small fishing village south of Port Royal. Life for her had been a routine, even monotonous , affair until that fateful day Henry Goodbody had come prancing by on his great black stallion. Even though he was twenty years her senior, the very sight of his proud, saturnine face had stolen her girlish heart and they had wed shortly after her seventeenth birthday. Being ignorant of the ways of a man with a maid, and especially of the ways of a husband with a young wife on their wedding night, Prudence had not known what to expect, neither from him nor for herself. She was aware that the relationship between married couples was an intimate something, but exactly what, she did not know.
Immediately after the wedding they had left the small fishing village for Franklin, where Henry's home was, but because of the distance had been forced to camp along the trail. And that night, her wedding night, was one Prudence would long remember. After a hasty meal, Henry had built up the camp-fire, spread their blankets, grabbed her from where she sat and jerked her erect. Without further ado he had torn all her clothes off, emitting short, squealing, pig-like grunts as he did so. Prudence stared at him in horror from the blankets where he had thrown her as he frantically took off his own clothes, his proud face now ugly and swollen with passion. When he completed undressing he snatched his heavy leather belt from his pile of garments, made her roll over to lay face down, then with fiendish gusto began to strap her naked bottom and thighs. She screamed from the agony of the beating and the more and louder she screamed the harder and faster he lashed with the belt, his short, pig-like squeals growing with each blow. And her pleading for him to stop seemed only to send him to higher peaks of vicious depravity. Only when she momentarily lost consciousness from shock and pain and ceased to scream did he toss the belt aside.
When she had fully recovered consciousness he jerked her to her back, pulled her legs wide apart and forced her knee high. It was from this position, as she lay beside the roaring fire in the forest, that for the first time in her young life Prudence saw the visible proof of the difference between male and female. She had known there was a difference, of course, but exactly what difference she did not know. Yet even as she had lain there, her body aching from the beating he had just administered, the sight of this difference sent a very tiny, yet undeniable, thrill coursing through her.
Then her new husband was atop her, his weight pressing down, his hands down between them. Again Prudence felt the thrill,, not so tiny this time, as his hands did necessary things to her, but when the end of the difference was centered and, he lunged mercilessly forward with his hips, driving the hard gristle brutally into her virgin body, the thrill evaporated and she screamed again and again. She kept screaming until he suddenly gasped for breath, a violent spasm seizing him, and she felt something hot blossom low in her belly.
Thereafter, all during their married life in Franklin and until Henry's death when the black stallion, pain-maddened by the savage beating it was receiving from the rider on its back, had reared over backwards, their relationship had been one of beatings with the belt followed immediately by his assault. And even though her existence was one endured in abject, despicable terror, before her neighbors Prudence managed to maintain the image of a happily married young woman but she knew, especially after hearing other wives talk about the treatment they received from their husbands, that something was drastically wrong with her marriage. Never once had she experienced that wonderful flight into rapture other wives whispered of. A time or two, when Henry's lashings had been less severe and he was probing among her secret places she had noticed a soft, golden glow building up in her body, but nothing more than this ever happened. He always spasmed his release too quickly and left her hanging, wondering what was next. Exactly what it was she was not sure, but she was convinced in her heart there was something more in their relationship for her.
She was almost relieved when the stallion had fallen on her husband. At least there would be no more of the savage beating, which left marks on her back for days. By the same token she would never learn what other men did for their wives either-unless she married again, which she did not plan on doing any ways soon. Yet she craved a man with an almost maddening hunger.
And this was the reason Prudence Goodbody was known among the men throughout the settlement of Franklin as a tease. She wanted a man. She needed a man. Yet when the moment came for her to give in to the hapless fellow she had built a fire in, the memory of the brutal beatings returned sharp and clear and she drove, him off one way or the other. Later she always wept bitterly because of her weakness and fear, and later she always enticed another anxious male to her cabin door, but she never let him enter. Prudence Goodbody wanted a man, but she wanted no part of the merciless lashing which, in her ignorance, she had come to believe was part of any intimate man-woman relationship.
Therefore, when she was hip-deep in the secluded pool and Jeff Hudson called to her she turned and fled instinctively, not from a man but from an agonizing whipping.
Her white body had hardly disappeared into the underbrush when Jeff hit the water in a long, low dive, surfacing on the far side of the pool. Instantly Jhe was out of the water and after her, moving swiftly and silently and able to follow her easily because of the noise she was making. Though he could not know for certain, he was pretty sure she did not know who was after her. At his call back at the river she had noted the look of shock and surprise on her face and he also noted she had turned abruptly at the first sound of his voice. This, coupled with the fact that only the top of his head was showing through the foliage, led him to believe she was unaware of his identity. As yet, anyway. But not for long, if he had his way.
The thought of ever having to force his attentions on any woman had always been odious to Jeff Hudson, but the time Prudence had led him on, then turned him down, still rankled deep. This, plus the vision of her nude lovliness destroyed any reservations he had. Then too, there was no way he could know she was not fleeing from a man, but from the beating she expected to receive if he caught her.
Prudence was leading him in a wide circle and before long he saw that she was headed back toward the river, probably in hopes of crossing it to her clothes and escaping altogether before he could reach her. When he was sure this was her intention, he cut left sharply to intercept her flight near the edge of the small meadow at the base of the ridge separating them from the settlement.
Because Prudence was speeding along the edge of the meadow and in much brighter light than that filtering through the canopy of the forest where he was she caught only a brief glimpse of him as he sped closer. And this glimpse was from the corner of her eye. It was when she turned her head a second time for a better look, as she raced frantically for the river, that it happened.
Almost directly in her path stood a thick-butted dogwood tree and from the gnarled trunk of this tree stack a limb two inches thick and hardly a foot from the grass matted earth. The limb stuck straight out for a distance of three feet, then forked. A few inches from the V of the fork a poplar sapling had sprung up, the main body of it crossing the dogwood's fork, forming a small triangle.
Now, when Prudence glanced hurriedly a second time toward the darker forest in an effort to determine who was chasing her she lost her balance after stepping on a small pine burr, and plunged headlong at the triangle formed by the dogwood and the poplar. A wild cry of despair escaped her as she lunged toward the triangle. An even wilder cry filled the air as the top of her head hit the triangle dead center, forcing the poplar sapling to one side, with her head going through. When the poplar sprang back to its normal position it was against one side of her neck, with the other side of her neck snugly within the dogwood fork, her head caught in the triangle.
Had she not been frantic with fear from the beating she expected to receive she could easily have freed herself, yet in her condition this never entered her mind. Instead, she braced her hands and knees against the grass and pulled backward, not unlike a stubborn dog objecting to being led on a leash. Her efforts were to no avail. Both the poplar and the dogwood bent with her only to spring back in place when she desisted. She was in this position, on her hands and knees with her head in the triangle, sobbing hopelessly, when Jeff stopped behind her, knowing what he was about to do.
For a full minute he stood regarding her, wondering why she did not free her head, before he realized she did not know it was possible to do so. Again she pulled against the triangle imprisoning her head and when she did her hips moved daintily from side to side, the black tuft of her bottom peeking at him coyly from beneath the center of her white, young buttocks. Jeff felt his face go hot and loose with desire as he dropped to his knees between her feet.
"Oh please!" she begged tearfully when she felt his nearness. "Please don't beat me!"
Jeff did not answer. Instead he inched his way forward on his knees until the great blunt end of the protruding, aching cudgel touched her dark forest of delight, his heart pounding with a wild exultation because she did not know who he was. It was a feeling he had experienced as a boy after successfully stealing a watermelon-the ripest, juiciest, most delicious melon in the whole world.
"Not this time!" she begged again. "Please don't beat me any more!"
A second time Jeff did not answer-for two reasons. The first: he did not know what she was talking about, and the second: he intended to remain anonymous, at least until the first act of the session was complete. With gentle fingers he parted the black tuft and securely lodged the blunt end of the massive marauder within the hot moistness of the shy little cleft. Once this was accomplished he grasped her firmly by her firm, young hips, adjusted his stance on his knees, and commencing thrusting in short, easy strokes. He continued this for some time; until he realized he was making no headway whatsoever. Prudence was quiet now, her tears of terror beginning to fade the instant the burning end of the shaft touched inside the cleft, her fears slowly giving way to a silent wonder.
Wasn't this man behind her, whomever he was, going to beat, her? Wasn't the going to punish her in some way before he took his pleasure? What manner of man was this that treated her so gently and silently? Could it be that he was going to conduct himself as she suspected the husbands of the settlement did toward their wives-make love to them with never a brutal whipping? And wasn't he going to squeal like an angry pig as he satisfied himself? All these questions were belaboring her befuddled brain when the man behind her paused in his gentle action, then thrust forward harder than before. This time she felt the hardness pressing against her begin its entry and even with her limited experience Prudence Goodbody knew she was in the hands of a man of giant proportions. Rapt in silent wonder over not being beaten and at the wonderful sesation caused by his action, she unconsciously wriggled her hips eagerly for smoother, quicker ingress.
CHAPTER 9
BEHIND HER JEFF STOOD COMFORTABLY ON HIS knees, his hands holding her firmly, looking down, watching the great cudgel slowly disappear into her greedy little body. Once he almost reached forward over her, bent the small poplar sapling to one side and told her to free her head. Then he thought better of the idea. No, he thought. This was the girl who had made a rendezvous with him, then given him the cold shoulder. Let her remain ignorant of who he was for the time. He wondered at her silence now, and at the assistance she was giving him since the invader had gained entry, for certainly her eagerness was not in keeping with his idea of how a. notorious tease should act, but what man, ever understood women, anyway?
Prudence was resting comfortably on her knees and elbows now, and she continued to wriggle her hips smally until the cudgel was buried deep. While this was taking place a feeling of wonderful contentment was stealing over her entire body; oozing through every fiber of her being, from the tips of her small, pink fingers to the very ends of her little toes. The only man she had ever known-her husband-had not only beaten her, but had been crude and rough as well, with their coming together a thing of ugly violence, with him lunging and pumping and .squealing like a cut pig. Not so this time. Not so with this man behind her now.
His every touch and movement was a tender caress and when she felt his mighty engine finally reach home within her a gusty sigh of joy escaped her parted lips. Tentatively she wiggled her hips with more force than before. Yes, she was delightfully impaled to the very base of the shaft; could even feel the brush of his hair against her taut, rounded buttocks. Again sound escaped her parted lips, this time a full-bodied moan of anticipated rapture.
"Who-who are you, sir?" she finally managed to say in a small voice.
On the spur of the moment Jeff answered her in the Shawnee dialect of the Algonquian Indian tongue, a language he was as adept with as his own.
"An Indian warrior?" she gasped in surprise, recognizing the tongue but not understanding what he said. Then, because she had more than once considered deserting the prudish, narrow-minded community of Franklin for the wild, free Indian life where, she understood, the mores governing men-women relationships were much less strict, she sighed heavily with contentment. "I'm glad," she said to the grass directly under her face, the triangle holding her head preventing her from, turning.
"Why squaw-glad?" Jeff demanded gruffly and in the manner of an Indian speaking pidgeon English, grinning broadly all the while. "Big Eagle much warrior!"
"Is that your name, sir? Big Eagle?" she asked quietly. Then she was silent for a spell before she continued, her words catching Jeff by surprise. "Is this the way an Indian warrior treats his squaw? By remaining motionless? Doesn't he ever move-or something?"
When Jeff absorbed and digested the true import of her questions his grin grew even larger. "Big Eagle much warrior?" he said, forcing his voice to an unnatural guttural. "Big Eagle fly now?" With this he withdrew almost the full length of the shaft and abruptly drove it home, thus commencing his advance-withdrawal rhythm.
A series of tiny, tingling shocks flushed through Prudence's small body when he did this and she gasped raggedly from the near unbearable pleasure. Once or twice before, prior to her husband's death, as he lay pumping and lunging and squealing atop her she had noticed the beginning of a pleasurable sensation gathering in her belly, yet it was nothing like she was feeling now under the tender ministrations of this wild savage behind her. Besides, Henry had always spasmed and rolled off before the sensation could mature. Deep in her heart she knew this savage was not going to stop; would not leave her hanging in mid-air. She knew this as assuredly as she knew her own name; knew it from his practiced touch and from the gentle churning of the plundering invader back and forth amongst her secret places. This action was swiftly converting the tingling shocks into a golden glow prevading her every fiber, for the massive machine was touching her, caressing her deep inside where she had never been touched or caressed before.
What will the end of it be? she wondered in her innocence. What is about to happen to me?
Is it that wonderful something the wives of the settlement whispered of in delighted but veiled terms.
Yet she was not long to be kept in ignorance. The visitation of supreme rapture was approaching steadily, would soon descend upon both these young people at the same time. Jeff knew the gathering storm within him would soon break while Prudence, having never experienced a call from the visitation before, could only wonder in rapt awe and silence.
Jeff first became aware of its presence within her small, delicate body when he felt her mad clutchings from inside at the massive marauder and at that moment the storm broke low in his belly. Prudence humped her back when the visitation struck her without mercy. Her eyes burned suddenly, her throat ached, her mouth went cotton dry as it flew open and scream after scream tore from her throat.
Then thunder and lightning ripped from the sky to fill them both; to charge without resistance through their anxious bodies. Prudence clutched the grass wildly with both hands to keep from falling off the earth as it rocked and heaved while she bucked and lunged along the plundering invader that poured scalding torrents of the wine of life into her thirsty belly.
"I can't stand it!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. "What's happening to me? I can't stand it!" The deliciousness of the rapture was becoming more than she could endure as Jeff, even enthralled as he was, his bliss-contorted face toward the sky, maintained his steady rhythm without pause. "Help!" Prudence screamed as the thunder and lightning of orgiastic devastation charged through her. Her breathing came in desperate sobs. Her clawing hands broke huge chunks of sod loose from the ground. Then her left hand caught hold of the poplar sapling which she thought imprisoned her head and, without knowing she did so, bent it to one side. She continued to hold on to the sapling even after she had removed her neck from the V of the forked dogwood limb, but released it as the rapture in her belly continued to grow, heightened by the out-pouring of burning rapture from her partner. "Help me!" she wailed in an agony of bliss as she, now freed from her supposed confinement, thrashed wildly about on the grass with such fervor that Jeff was forced to tighten his grip on her hips.
This he managed to do with ease, for now the visitation was leaving him. But not Prudence Good-body. She continued to twist and jerk on the mighty invader plundering her secret places, her efforts growing more pronounced and more erratic by the moment. Then the idea came to Jeff and he followed through with it immediately, though he had never held a woman in such a position.
Still gripping her hips firmly to prevent her from divesting herself of the shaft he folded his feet so the toes of each pointed toward the other, easing her back with him as he went. Then he bent forward, circled her tummy with one heavily thewed arm while placing his other hand just under her breasts. When this was done he straightened again, raising her as he did so, with her still securely impaled but seated on his sloping lap, with him seated on his ankles.
Even in this new position she continued to squirm and writhe without rhyme or pattern, her belly muscles knotting and jumping spasmodically. Her midnight black hair hung down between them.
"Gggaaahhh!" The sound was a single, explosive sob signaling the departure of her first visitation of supreme rapture-ever; an experience she would remember as long as she lived. "Ooohhhmmm," she breathed in quieter tones on her complete return to reality, for the first time conscious of the fact that he sat on his ankles and was holding her snugly against him. Now that the moment was over she was suddenly overwhelmed with a gnawing curiousity to look into the face of this savage warrior that had used her so delightfully. Even so, when she glanced up and over her shoulder her expression was somewhat fearful.
"JEFF HUDSON!" she shouted in a surprised voice. She stared into his craggy, grinning face, her mouth open, her eyes large. "Wha-wha-" she began.
"Be quiet," he chuckled, cupping her chin in one hand and, drawing her tightly against him, turned her head around to where he could reach her mouth with his. "You've made enough noise already."
Prudence shivered deliciously as she sat there on his sloping lap, still impaled on the mighty weapon, when their lips met. It was a gentle, lingering kiss filled with fire and tender meaning.
"Jeff Hudson," she said stoutly when it was over, "what a very rakehell you are." Then she hugged herself with both arms and grinned happily. "And I'm so glad."
"This is quite a switch from the girl I chased through the forest just a little while ago," he told her, wondering no little at her sudden change of attitude. "Why were you begging for me not to beat you?"
She studied his face for several seconds before she replied, then took a deep, timerous breath. During the next ten minutes, she gave him a full account of her miserable existence as the wife of Henry Good-body," of the beatings, of her late husband's brutal unconcern for her as a woman-everything.
"And you thought a whipping was all a part of playing mama and papa?" he demanded, not knowing whether to believe his ears or not. "That all men acted as he did?"
"But how was I to know the difference?" she demanded in return. "I was married at seventeen and knew nothin' about men. I didn't know what a man and wife was supposed to do in bed. I didn't even know what a-" she paused to study his face for the tenth time, then grinned and wiggled her hips, "what it is I'm sittin' on looked like."
"You mean this is the first time you've ever-"
She nodded her black head quickly. "Ever what?" she asked.
"Ever been across the divide," he said.
She nodded again. "Yes. If that's what you call it." She hugged herself again in delight. "And ain't it wonderful?"
"Then I take it you approve of Dr. Hudson's treatments," he smiled.
"I'll say I do. Did Susan?"
"Who?"
"Susan, silly. Susan Crowder. This mornin' when I dropped by the Crowder place and found you eatin' breakfast you told me you'd spent the night with her. You was tellin' me the truth, wasn't you?"
"Well," he said thoughtfully, "yes. I was telling you the truth, but I shouldn't have. No man has the right to betray a lady. Not ever. Under any circumstances. Yet Susan said she was going to tell you herself, and I suppose she intends to."
"I like Susan Crowder," Prudence said with simple honesty. "And we have no secrets from each other, except one, and now you know that."
"You mean your being afraid to get too close to a man because you assumed a whipping was a part of lovemaking?" he asked.
"That's right," she replied quietly. "And that's the reason I went so. frigid and distant that time. Remember? When you were to visit my cabin and came early? I wanted desperately to go through with it, but I couldn't stand being whipped any more."
"Forget it," he smiled again. "We'll make up for what we've missed in time to come."
"Mmm," she whispered dreamily, leaning her head back against his chest. "I like that." Then she smiled impishly up at him. "But why wait? What's wrong with right now?"
"Nothing is wrong with right now," he chuckled happily. "It's exactly what I had in mind, but what say we move back toward the pool where I found you? There's more shade there."
"Then you'll have to help me stand," she told him. "I think I'm still a little weak and shaky."
At this Jeff braced himself and grasped her small waist in both his huge hands. He had been correct back there at the pool when he had first seen her taking exercise. His hands spanned her waist easily. Effortlessly he lifted her off the shaft and stood her on her feet where she stood shaking grass and twigs from her hair until he rose to stand beside her.
"Merciful heavens," she gasped in honest surprise as she stood there transfixed, her large, black eyes centered on the still extended plunderer. "Is that-was that-did you-?" She stopped, dumbfounded, to look up at him standing close by. "Oh lordy," she breathed softly. "Even I didn't know I had a-a-thingamajig THAT big."
"A what?" he asked, not understanding.
"A thingamajig," she giggled, her feet spread, her fists on her hips as she leaned forward slightly, her head to one side peering up at him. "You ought to know what a thingamajig is, Dr. Hudson. You just got through operating on it with that-that-"
"Weapon," he supplied, understanding now.
"Yes," she continued. "That weapon. I didn't know my thingamajig could handle a weapon that huge. Henry was," she measured three inches off one hand with the forefinger of the other, "like that. Did-did you use it all?"
"Naturally," he said.
'Mmm-uh," she grunted with feminine delight "Ain't nature a grand old girl?" Then she took his arm in hers and they made their way back to the pool whence she had fled so frightened a short time ago. "I ain't decided yet," she smiled happily up at him as they neared it, "but I think you raped me, Jeffery Hudson."
"And you object, of course."
"Of course not!" she said with force. "Ain't nothin" so wonderful ever happened to me before. I feel like a woman now, like I got some use." She glanced up at him with her black eyes, a tender smile lighting her face to a soft glow. "And you must promise to rape me any time you feel the need."
When they reached the pool they stopped just inside the underbrush at a small clearing. Here the forest floor was covered by a blanket of soft moss, with a few leaves scattered about.
"Shall we go in swimming now?" he asked, though suspecting what her answer would be.
"Huh-uh," she shook her head with vehemence. "I want another one of your treatments, Dr. Hudson. Are you able?" With this she stepped in front of him and reached down with one soft hand to helf his jewels. At her touch the massive marauder, which had relaxed somewhat during their walk to the pool, bucked instantly to rigid, throbbing attention. "Mercy," she marveled as she continued to fondle him. "He's ready. That I can see." She was silent for a moment as her inquisitive hand explored beneath the upright shaft. "Goodness," she whispered in awed tones. "They're big as full-grown peaches. Or maybe bigger. How on earth do you manage to walk?"
"I manage," he told her, taking her by the shoulder. "Lay down there on the moss where there are no leaves. I'll show you something."
"You mean show me somthin' you ain't showed me already?" she asked, doing as he bade her. "My, but this moss feels good. I wish I could go without clothes all the time. What are you goin' to show me?"
"Stretch your arms over your head, spread your legs as wide as you can and just lay there flat on your back," he told her, dropping to his knees.
"Like this?" She lay as he directed, looking up at the sky through the canopy of the forest above. A gentle breeze sifted through the trees around them, nudging the smaller limbs and leaves and touching their bodies. "Is this the way you mean?"
"Exactly," he smiled. "Now just remain that way."
"If I can," she whispered. "What you aimin' to do, Jeff?'
"A lot of this," he said, bending quickly to plant his lips against her ripe mouth.
"Mmm." It was a drawn-out sound she made as their lips clung together, their tongues playing tag. For a full minute he knelt beside her, working his mouth against hers, her tongue a tiny lance of flame, searing where-ever it touched. "I can use a lot of this," she said when their lips parted.
From her lips he kissed the cute little point of her chin, then traveled his lips to the white column of her throat where he paused, nipping the soft warm texture with his lips, with Prudence holding her head far back as possible to deny him nothing. When he had finished there, he traced his lips lower, down her neck to the whiteness of her chest, kissing, nipping, caressing with his tongue; action which already was causing her breath to come in long, full-bodied gasps. Then he shifted on his hands-and-knees position, which gave him con-siderable mobility, to bring both her cone-shaped little breasts within easy reach of his mouth. tie started with the one nearest, holding his mouth open and tracing around the base of it with his tongue, working his tongue in and out rapidly between his parted lips. Slowly he circled the resilient hillock of delight, gradually climbing toward the pink nipple and the closer he got the faster and more ragged came her breathing, her chest heaving so that he was forced to raise his head up and down in rhythm with it. An agonized sob fled her lips when he reached the apex and lightly, but Only once, caressed the nipple with his tongue. Then he transferred to the other breast, where he repeated the procedure. Again when he came to the nipple he caressed it once with his tongue, moistening it, then pursed his lips to blow a thin stream of air. Because of the contrast of the sudden change of temperatures caused by the heat of his tongue, then suddenly the cold steam of air, the nipple contracted sharply. When this happened, and when, he was sure the nipple was thoroughly chilled, without warning, he capped it with the heat of his mouth.
"Oh God!" Prudence cried, arching her belly into the air and trying to roll toward him. This he refused to allow, but pushed her back and began tugging gently with his lips while he vacuumed with his tongue. "Oh God!" she cried again, an almost impreceptible quivering washing over the length of her. The quivering increased when he slid one hand down over the flat plain of her tummy to stop at her black nest at the top of her thighs. Deftly, expertly he worked an impudent forefinger through the floss and into the hot little valley beyond. Her belly muscles bucked whenever he transfered his lips to the other nipple quickly and commenced stroking her with his finger.
The white, tapered splendor of her legs, thrown wide as he had instructed initially, began jerking spasmodically with each stroke of his finger and as he continued caressing the top of her cleft they spread even wider, until they reached their limit. When this happened, and as he continued the stroking, her legs bent at the knees and her thighs started to rise slowly in the air, still wide apart. In less than a minute they were drawn high as she could get them.
It was at this point that he removed his lips from her breast and traveled them, down over the front of her ribcage to the flatness of her soft, white tummy. When he reached her navel he began working his tongue in and out with the speed of a trip hammer, still moving south all the time, removing his hand when his lips touched the upper border of the dark forest and depressing her legs until the bottom of her feet rested moved crab-wise down and around one foot, then back on the forest floor.. Still on his hands and knees he up between her raised thighs. At the edge of the floss he planted his opened mouth, his tongue still working frantically and when Prudence felt his hot kiss at the top of her inner thigh she gave forth a low, deep-throated howl of maddening bliss.
"I can't stand this, Jeffery," she wailed. "You're drivin' me out of my mind."
Without answering he began traversing her inner thigh from the edge of the floss to her bended knee, his tongue going a mile a minute. When he was through with the first thigh he moved on to the second, treating it in the same manner, with Prudence commencing to squirm and writhe like a dying snake. When he had finished with both her legs he started at the upper edge of the angel floss once and began working his way north. Back over her tummy he went, back over her rib cage, pausing for half a minute at each soft breast, then hovering his lips on her chin before lowering them to hers.
This entire maneuver, from the time it started with a kiss several minutes past, to the present moment, had been part of apian Jeff had in mind, a plan which would culminate in a surprise coupling for Prudence Good-body. Now Jeff was over her, his weight suspended on his hands and knees, and without seeming to do so, stretched his long legs out behind him, bringing the great, blunt head of the invader directly in line with the entrance of the mysterious defile, which nestled so snugly and innocently between her burning thighs. While his lips were still hovering over the point of her chin he glanced down between them to make sure the end of the mighty engine was at precisely the right angle and location. Again without seeming to do so he gathered his muscles, pecked her chin with his lips, then, raised his head to look into her black, starry eyes, filled now with tears of purest joy.
"Are you happy?" he whispered softly, knowing what he was about to do might well produce a violent reaction in her.
"Oh, Jefffery-" she began.
He never let her finish. Quickly he lowered his parted lips to hers in a feverish, open-mouthed kiss, at the same time driving forward with his hips.' His maneuverings had been exact. Without pausing the end of the mighty shaft plunged through the defile's moist entrance and slammed solidly home. Without a fraction's hesitation, Jeff began his rhythm in long, quick strokes.
Now Prudence had been laying flat on her back wallowing in an orgy of bliss under the tender ministrations of her partner. She knew they would make love again and her young heart pounded from the knowledge. Their first session together had been a revelation indeed; a time of inexplicable rapture, and now that it was about to be repeated her entire body was a quivering mass of expectancy. She closed her eyes and lifted her lips daintily to meet his when Jeff made his totally unexpected move.
Her eyes flew wide, her mouth flew open, air swooshed into her lungs when she felt the great hardness strike and bore deep. Without warning the visitation of supreme rapture was upon her and the heat bomb shattered all tensions low in her belly. Without warning roaring thunder and flashing lightning tore through her greedy little body and the air burst from her lungs in a wild, uncontrollable scream. The back of her head struck the moss a solid blow and her hands smote the forest floor beside them as the plundering invader rampaged among her secret places.
By the time she had caught her breath her eyes bugged dangerously from her head and now the pink tip of her tongue was caught between her small, white teeth. Aimlessly and without pattern her legs thrashed the air as Jeff increased the speed of his thrusts, slamming each one home with brutal force.
"I'M DYIN'!" she suddenly screeched with all her might.
Heedless of her cry, Jeff kept thrusting, and because he had never lowered his weight on her, but held much the same straight-armed position an athlete has on completing a push-up, her small breasts rose almost to touch him each time she gasped for breath.
CHAPTER 10
THEN IT WAS HER TURN TO MAKE A TOTALLY UN-expected move. With surprising strength and agility, she raised her shoulders and locked her soft arms tightly about his neck. An instant later her hot thighs gripped his waist and he felt her heels in the small of his back. Next she was hanging loose under him, free of the ground. .She maintained this position for only a few seconds, unable to do so longer for the mad surges of ecstasy charging through her small, white body. The second she dropped back to the earth she used her hands, her elbows, her heels and her buttocks in effort to crawl out from in under him.
Her efforts availed her nothing. Jeff merely lowered his weight down against her and let her struggle.
"You're killin' me, Jeffery," she said suddenly, quietly, in a little-girl voice. She only managed this because of a pause in the raging storm inside her. When the pause was over the visitation struck again, exploding a second heat bomb and unleashing more thunder and lightning through her quivering frame.
"Have mercy!" she screamed as the rampaging invader stroked and caressed her deep within, sending through her wave of excruciating rapture so sweet and unbearable she thought her mind was going. "Oh lord have mercy!" she begged, now completely lost in the throes of orgiastic thralldom.
Still, Jeff gave her no heed. Instead, he kept at his rapidly paced rhythm, knowing that soon the dam within him would break.
It did. And when Prudence became aware of this new heat scalding her secret places she became a clawing, snarling fury of such strength and violence Jeff was forced to grab her wrists and hold them against the moss, ceasing all action. Even so, she fought furiously to free herself, rolling her head from side to side and lunging blindly with her hips against the buried cudgel again and again and yet again. Once her lips drew back when she snarled and spat at him not unlike an angered cat. This was followed immediately by the very audible click of her white" teeth as she snapped at his arm.
But since all things must pass, good as well as bad, the visitation finally left her and she lay quiet under him, though she continued to squirm her hips against the base of the sunken shaft for some minutes.
"Whew!" she smiled after awhile, opening her eyes. Then she repeated, almost verbatim, words spoken by Susan Crowder the night before: "I don't reckon I'll ever be the same woman again, Jeffery Hudson," she whispered dreamily. "Not after bein' with you." Her eyes held his as she studied his face in detai. "Not ever. How did Susan take to your-treatment last night?"
"She had no complaints," Jeff smiled down at her, releasing her wrists and bringing his weight to rest on his elbows. "I think she wishes they could continue."
"Yeah," she replied, smiling at him and making a little rnoue through her smile. "I can see how she would. We're goin' to miss you around here while you're gone huntin' Bonnie O'Brian."
"Then you've heard the proposition Bully made me." It was a statement, not a question.
"The whole settlement of Franklin knows of it," she replied. "And I think it's a cryin' shame, too, that she has to be bound to an overbearin' oaf like him, what with him pesterin' her all the time to get between the sheets. That's all he wants her back for, anyway."
"How come I find you here alone and naked in the woods?" he asked, wanting to change the subject. His mind was already made up as far as Bonnie O'Brian was concerned, and he saw no point discussing the matter any further.
"I was takin' a swim," Prudence told him promptly, "and doin' some exercises. Why?" She placed her palms tenderly against his ribcage, closed her eyes and massaged herself against his buried weapon several times. He waited until she was finished before he replied.
"Didn't you know it could be dangerous? Some man was bound to come along sooner or later."
"That's right," she giggled suddenly, her eyes lighting with a secret gladness. "And he did." Then her face became serious. "I'd just about reached the end of my rope," she continued quietly. "It ain't fit and proper for a-woman to be-without a man, but every time one come near me when no one else was around I'd get scared as all get out, so I figured that if one caught me out here, in swimmin' naked, why-he'd do just exactly what you did. I was afraid of bein' whipped, of course, but then-well-anyway, I did it. And I'm glad." She circled his neck with her arms and drew his lips down to hers and when the kiss was over her dark eyes were large and solemn and very serious. "I'm so very glad, Jeffery," she whispered.
"So am I," he told her honestly, glancing awkwardly up at the sun to check its position. Within an hour the long shadows of evening would begin creeping over the wilderness. Time had fled. He had been with Prudence much longer than he realized, until now.
"You aimin' to leave me now, Jeffery?" she asked softly.
"For a little while," he said. His intentions had been to head for his cabin, but now it was too late. Instead, he decided quickly, he would rest awhile after Prudence departed, then return to the Crowder cabin for the night. And to prevent the obnoxious Bully from knowing of his presence, he could easily enter the bedroom he had occupied the night before through the huge, second-story window. If he slipped out before dawn no one would be the wider-unless he sneaked downstairs to the room where Susan slept. "But I'll be returning soon."
"Is that a promise, Jeffery, or is it just talkin'?"
"It's a promise." Then, of its own volition, his mind formed the words and forced them past his lips, mildly surprising him with their abruptness. "Since you like to run around with no clothes on, how would you like to spend the summer at my c bin with a bunch of Indian girls?" There were no Indian girls, but if she did not object to them, certainly she would not object to Charity Breeden-just in case he decided to take Charity with him.
"You mean me and you and a bunch of Indian girls-runnin' around naked all summer?" she asked in an awed voice.
"That's right," he said. "Would you like it?"
"I'd love it!" she chortled suddenly, then her glad laughter wafted through the forest around them as she raised her head to kiss his upper chest and the base of his neck several times enthusiastically. "You mean all summer?"
"All summer," he grinned at her happiness.
"And how many Indian girls have you got?"
"Oh-several," he lied easily, the slender, graceful image of Chief Wild Hawk's young daughter, Naomee, flashing through his mind. Twice already she had been to his cabin and each time she made it crystal clear to him she wanted to be treated the way a warrior treats his favorite squaw in private. But neither time had Jeff so much as touched her, even though Wild Hawk had previously made it quite clear he had no objections.
"Naomee no take Shawnee brave," Wild Hawk had chuckled recently when Jeff visited his village. "Naomee like tall man with white skin." Then he had regarded Jeff carefully for several seconds with his wise old eyes. "Soon now Naomee take you, my good friend. Soon."
"I like the Shawnee," Prudence said simply. "I think their life is a lot better than ours. It's freer because they ain't tied down by a lot of stupid customs and conventions."
"Then you'll go?" Jeff asked, his heart pounding at the thought.
"Of course I'll go, Jeffery Hudson! You just tell me when!"
"Well-not right now," he laughed. "Right now I think we should take a dip in the pool and get you back to your cabin. Hold still, now." With this he slowly withdrew completely and rolled to one side, stretching out beside her on the moss.
"Lordy me!" she gasped, raising to a sitting position and staring at him in wonder. "Suddenly I feel as hollow as a gourd. That-that instrument of yours-"Again her glad, girlish laughter rippled through the trees and underbrush as she sprang to her feet and made for the water. In seconds he was beside her and, for the next quarter-hour, they splashed and laughed and played, happy in their youth and at being together.
Some time later, after they had dashed the water from each other's body, dressed, crossed the ridge, and following a dozen fervent kisses with as many fervent promises from Jeff to return soon, he stood just inside the edge of the tall timber, watching her make her way toward the cabin she called home. After one long, lingering look in his direction from the doorway, she turned and disappeared inside. When this happened, Jeff returned to the deeper woods in a little hollow at the base of the ridge, soon located a giant spruce whose bottom limbs reached the ground. Inside the limbs the pine needles made a thick, soft mattress. Even with the nap he had taken at Charity's cabin, he still felt the need for sleep and had been stretched out on the needles less than five minutes before it overtook him.
The forest was dark and filled with night sounds when he awakened. High overhead the full, silvery moon of last night moved majestically across the sky. He lay motionless for some time when he awakened, wondering whether he should sneak into the Crowder cabin as he had planned. Even though he had spent countless nights under the stars since leaving Boston, still, it would be more comfortable to be in the big bed in the upstairs bedroom. With this thought in mind, he rose to his feet, then began making his way toward the settlement.
As he neared it he circled cautiously until he reached the Crowder cabin, approaching it from the rear; from the direction of the river. Careful to make no noise, he tried the door he and Susan had used last night. As he expected, it was securely bolted. Still moving silently, he moved around to the side of the cabin and under the window of the room he had occupied the night before. He half-expected the heavy wooden shutters to be closed. They weren't, and since the window itself had no glass, but was only an opening in the building to permit the cool air to circulate in hot weather, nothing prevented him from entering. Nothing, that is, exept that the window was on the second floor.
Earlier he had cached his rifle and gear near the river. He stood now under the window, studying the rough log wall, then without hesitation removed his moccasins and stuffed them into the pockets of his buckskin jacket. He had no problem finding plenty of niches for his fingers and toes. In fact, climbing the wall-was simplicity itself. It was just as he threw his leg over the sill and straightend it when he saw the figure sit bolt upright in the big bed and heard the frightened feminine voice, still somewhat thick with sleep.
"And who the devil might you be?" the girl gasped, clutching the sheet close under her chin.
Had there been any doubt in his mind, even with the light of the moon pouring through the window dancing off her flaming red hair he would have easily recognized the Irish accent.
"Hello, Bonnie," he said quietly. "I didn't think you'd return to Bully of your own accord. And certainly not this soon."
"So 'tis you, Jeff Hudson," she said, scorn heavy in her voice. "The great woodsman what took the chore of findin' me and bringin' me back to Bully Crowder. The likes of you ain't fit to breathe clean air."
"But you returned," he reminded her.
"Not to Bully, I didn't. Last night I spent with Charity Breeden and this night she arranged with Susan to let me in here when Bully came sound asleep-so if it's blood-money you're wantin' to earn just wake Bully now and say you brought me back."
"Didn't Charity tell you what I said about returning you?" he asked, taking a seat on the edge of the bed and looking at her.
A tiny frown creased her smooth, intelligent brow as she studied his face. Bonnie O'Brian was a beautiful girl, to say the least, and Bully Crowder was not the first or only man of the settlement who had evinced earnest effort to take her to bed. She had large, widely spaced amber eyes, a full-lipped, generous mouth made for laughing and a body, Jeff knew the numerous times he had seen her about the settlement, that could easily drive a man from his mind. As fate would have it, however, their conversation until now had been limited to nothing more than polite greetings, though many times Jeff had envisioned the two of them in much more intimate situations.
"Charity told me what you said." She tossed her head saucily. "Is it to be believed?" . "It is," he replied. "Do you?"
For a long moment she failed to answer and he was about to repeat the question when she spoke.
"Yes," she said softly, quietly. "I believe." Then she chuckled warmly and in the moonlight he could see imps of merriment dancing in the back of her amber eyes. "Nor is that all Charity told me."
"What else?" Jeff asked, though with a feeling he already knew what her answer would be.
"'Tis a shameful thing to take such advantage of a lass when she talks through the window to a friend," she said, laughter bubbling from her ripe lips.
"Charity told you that?" he grinned.
"Aye," she nodded largely. "And what about the bedroom and the venison stew and the little apron? And also about her going to your cabin in the deep woods where the two of you can run naked and free as you please."
"What do you think of the idea?" he queried.
"Would you be hungry?" Bonnie asked, politely ignoring his question. "After Bully was asleep Susan fetched me a huge tray of food. 'Tis on yon vanity, along with a large pitcher of mulberry wine."
"I could use some of the wine," he said, as he rose from the bed and approached the vanity.
"Beware," she cautioned quietly. "'Tis heady and strong and sets the blood afire."
Heedless of her warning Jeff tilted the pitcher to his lips, downing a long draught. He felt its warmth blossom deliciously in his stomach before he returned to his seat on the bed.
"I came here to sleep tonight," he said to her as she regarded him evenly in the light from the silvery moon "Though now I suppose I'll have to return to the forest."
She ignored this statement in much the same manner as she had his question of a few minutes before. In-stead she said, "Did you know I am no longer a bond servant, though Bully is unaware of it yet?"
"How so?" He partially reclined on the bed beside her, resting his weight on one elbow.
"Well," she continued eagerly. "A sutler's supply wagon arrived here in Franklin this afternoon. Charity told me of it. The driver claims the Town Hall in New Bedford has burned. There's no record now of me being a bond servant. All records were destroyed."
"But Bully still has his bond certificate," Jeff said. "It'll stand up in any court."
Bonnie shook her red head happily, warm laughter bubbling from her ripe lips again. "Huh-uh," she said. "This afternoon Susan searched Bully's papers and found me bond certificate. She burned it in the woods back of the cabin before me very eyes."
"Then all record of your being bonded has been destroyed," Jeff said, somehow elated.
"Aye," she said. "All. And in time I'll return the money he gave for me passage to this land."
"What is the amount of the sum?" And when she told him he continued in amazement, "Why, Bully gave me twice that just to find and return you to him."
"No!" she said in surprise. "Not really?"
"It's true," he said with conviction. "And you know what I'm going to do?"
"'Tis no tellin' what a wild creature of the forest will do, Jeff Hudson," Bonnie said happily.
"I'm going to return his money," he told her. "Half of it, anyway. Then he'll be out nothing, but will have gained your labor free in the months you've been here."
"Oh!" she said, a wild gladness coming into her amber eyes. "Oh!" Then she dropped the sheet she had been holding close under her chin and leaning toward him threw her arms about his neck. "But you've no cause to be so kind," she continued as he held her close.
"You want to bet?" he asked, and before she could withdraw, he lowered his lips to hers. The mulberry wine he had drunk was rapidly heating his blood and building a fire low in his belly. It was only after several kisses that he released her.
"Aye-ee!" she gasped smally, never taking her eyes from his as she lay back on the bed. "'Tis now I'm beginnin' to understand the reason for the delight Charity spoke of this afternoon."
"If you like, I'll leave," he told her, having no intention of so doing. "I've slept in the woods many times." Only then did he glance down to see that she wore no gown, but her breasts lay ripe and plump under the light of the moon pouring through the big window.
"Foolish man," she chided, wiggling her body to move away from him. "This bed is large enough for both."
At this Jeff rose to this feet and immediately began shedding his buckskins. In a matter of seconds he was under the sheet beside her and moved close, feeling the gentle heat of her body reach out toward him.
"You have intentions of makin' love to me, Jeff Hudson?" she asked in a strained voice which contained a note of fear.
"No," he told her and watched her eyes widen with surprise. "Not to you, but I'd like to make love with you."
"'Tis no possible," she said quickly. "Charity spoke to me of your-your-greatness. Such could ruin a girl for life-the first time." He looked at her quickly and, even in the moonlight, could see the blush fusing her lovely features turning them almost as red as her hair.
"The first time?" he demanded, raising to an elbow to lie looking down into her eyes. "Don't tell me-"
""Tis tellin' you I am, Jeff Hudson," she replied in a rush. "Have you been thinkin' I'm a common trollop? A strumpet to serve any man who wished? A wench what lifts her skirts to all who ask?" By the time she finished, tears of frustration were edging her voice.
He propped his head on his hand to lie looking at her, knowing she was telling the truth, yet finding it hard to believe. "And you've never-?" he began again.
"No!" she replied quickly, the sheet drawn to her chin once more. "Never!"
By way of answering he stretched out flat on his back on the bed, laced his fingers behind his head and lay staring at the dark ceiling above. If that's the way she wants it, he thought to himself, that's the way it's going to be. This afternoon with Prudence Goodbody was the closest he had ever come to forcing his attentions on any woman, and even though he had learned later such was what Prudence wanted, he had absolutely no intentions of forcing himself on this girl beside him. Rape just wasn't his forte. No matter how high the wine heated his blood, he made up his mind to keep his side of the bed.
Night sounds from the surrounding forest drifted through the open window, along with a cool breeze which ruffled the near edge of the sheet under which they lay. Once Jeff thought he heard someone moving in another part of the cabin, but he couldn't be sure and as he continued to lay there motionless the fire in his blood commenced to cool. Bonnie lay beside him, straight and stiff as a poker to begin with the sheet clutched tightly under her chin, but after a while she slowly relaxed and her breathing became more even.
"Well," she finally began hesitantly, but thought better of whatever she intended saying and again they were silent, each concerned with his own thoughts, then, "'Tis remarkable control you have, Jeff Hudson." she blurted, jerking to a sitting position once more and twisting to stare down at him. "Few men could contain themselves, what with bein' in bed naked with a lass and all."
"I didn't know you were naked," he teased, moving his hand under the sheet. The natural swing of his arm from left to right brought his hand in abrupt contact with the soft, downy forest at the apex of her thighs.
CHAPTER 11
"AND WHY WOULD YOU BE THINKIN' I COVERED myself with the sheet?" she demanded, shivering smally at his touch, but making no effort to withdraw.
"Oh, I don't know," he said slowly, still teasing and smiling to himself in the dimness of the room. "Modesty, I suppose. Or shame, perhaps. Many women refuse to let even their husbands see them without clothes because they're so awkward-looking and ashamed of their ugly bodies."
"No husband of mine would ever be ashamed of my body, Jeff Hudson!" she retorted hotly, tossing her red head defiantly.
"You misunderstood me, Bonnie," he said patiently, all the while exploring gently under the sheet with his hand. "It's the women who are ashamed. They're bodies are so uncomely they refuse to let even their husbands see them nude." He withdrew his exploring hand and she sat there staring at him in wonder. Again they were silent for a spell, during which she reclined again on the bed and he said quietly, "But you have a lovely body, Bonnie. I'm just sorry that you're a virgin, that's all."
"And what's wrong with bein' a virgin, pray tell?"
"Well, Bonnie," he said slowly, pronouncing each words distinctly, "a virgin is about the most useless thing belonging to the human race. What good is she to a man? As far as he is concerned, she isn't even a woman."
"As I live and breathe," she gasped in dismay, turning on her side to face him, "and how could such be true?" Her large amber eyes regarded him seriously in the moonlight.
"Because it is," he replied evenly, enjoying her mild discomfiture.
"You're right, of course," she surprised him by chuckling suddenly, warmly, and reaching over to tweek one of his exposed nipples. "And let me be the one for tellin' you, remainin' chaste and pure, as the sayin' goes, is little comfort."
"So you've been playing a sort of cat and-mouse game with me," he said, unable to conceal the surprise in his voice. "Haven't you?"
"Aye," she remarked primly. "But just to learn where you stood on the matter. A girl has her reputation, you know."
"And you think I'd tell if we-?"
"'Tis not the tellin' a girl fears so much, Jeff," she said, very seriously now and raising on an elbow to lie looking down at him, laying so close he could feel the heat flowing from her body. "'Tis her fear of bein' taken lightly."
"I don't believe I could take you lightly, Bonnie," he told her truthfully, circling her neck with his arm and drawing her down close. A decided tremor charged through her slender body when their lips met and it repeated itself as he worked his mouth against hers, teasing her pink tongue with his and at the same time sending his free hand on another exploration under the-sheet. This time he did not remove his hand. After a few seconds she moved closer and threw one hot thigh across his. Before long she began squirming her hips against his hand.
"I thought you were a virgin," he said when their lips parted and they lay drinking from each other with their eyes.
""Tis true," she said in a voice he knew to be the truth. "In a technical sense lam, but back home I used to ride horses bareback a lot. Such can do things for a girl."
"Then you weren't scared of my greatness, as you called it, any of the time, were you?"
"Well," she demurred slowly. "Charity did say you were right much of a man." Again she eased closer, pressing her body against his this time, until he could feel the soft brush of angel floss against his hip. After a moment she moved again and this time when she stopped she lay a-straddle his hips, her plump breasts flattened against his chest. Carefully, cautiously, she maneuvered her hips until he felt the burning kiss of the defile entrance against the throbbing end of the shaft. "Ay-yee," she whispered feverishly as her hands did necessary things down between them. "Charity was right-and what a greatness it be."
Slowly and with great care, she began working her body toward his feet. Quickly Jeff folded the pillow on which rested his head, bring his lips within reach of her breasts. At the same instant he took the nipple of one between his lips and she grunted sharply in pain from the blunt end of the pulsating cudgel popping suddenly inside the hot defile.
A deep sigh of relief escaped her when this happened. "For a moment I thought it impossible," she murmured, now working her hips frantically as they gradually swallowed the shaft entirely. When this was accomplished, when the defile fitted snugly about the very base of the shaft, he removed his lips and she straightened her arms. Her knees were folded as she straddled his hips and her hands rested now on the bed beside his ribcage. From this position, she commenced a gentle, even tender, rotation of her buttocks.
"For a girl supposed to be ignorant of the ways of a man with a maid, you seem to be doing very well," he chuckled softly, enjoying to the utmost his delightful encasement.
"Humph," she grunted with feminine disdain, never pausing in her action. "The knowledge is born in any woman honest enough with herself to admit it. Do you like this?"
"Naturally."
Soft laughter bubbled from her lips. "A man and woman couldn't get more natural, now could they?" The words had hardly left her lips when they were followed by a sharp, desperate gasp and her head dropped down between her straightened arms, her flaming red hair cascading over on his belly. A ragged, unnatural sound burst from her parted lips as she continued to grind away against the implaing shaft and as a violent tremor shook her he felt her frantic clutching at him from within. Then her head flew back, tossing her hair between her shoulders as she gave a series of tiny whines, her face toward the dark ceiling and screwed tight with approaching rapture.
Then the visitation sledge-hammered her low in the belly and Jeff quickly grasped her upper arms to prevent her from throwing herself off the bed.
"Gah!" The single, verbal ejaculation jumped from her throat and dashed about the room. Her movements were frenzied now, with her bucking high on the shaft only to fall back upon it each time, and Jeff holding her arms to afford a measure of balance. Then she jerked her arms free, reached down under him with both hands, seized his buttocks and pulled up while she, at the same time, pressed down with her weight and commenced rotating her famished hips on the upright attender in circles too fast for the eye to follow. For some time she continued this-until the visitation began taking its leave, then she gradually slowed as it finally departed.
"Mercy!" she sobbed brokenly as she fell forward against his chest. For a long time she lay there, quivering and jerking occasionally, and her breath coming in deep, uneven gasps. "Sheesh!", she finally managed quietly, crossing her forearms over his chest to lay looking solemnly at him. " 'Tis a masterful man you be, Jeff Hudson." Then she shook her head smally in wonder, a warm smile playing with the corners of her generous mouth.
"Then I take it you approve of such a man-woman relationship," he grinned.
"Aye," she whispered softly, nipping his chest with her lips. "And how could it be otherwise? Is it always like this?"
"No," he told her, still grinning. "It gets better each time."
"Mercy!" she gasped. "And how can that be so?"
"I'm not sure," he chuckled. "But that's the way nature has it arranged."
"Ah me," she breathed quietly. '"Tis a wonderful thing, that nature." Moving sluggishly, she pushed her self to an upright position, then rolled to the side to stretch out close beside him, snuggling her head against his shoulder, her eyelids drooping. For a while she was silent, then said, her words fuzzy with approaching sleep, "'Tis a night Bonnie O'Brian will long remember."
For a long time after her regular, measured breathing told him she was sound asleep he lay holding her, marveling at the events which had so recently befallen him. Heretofore his somewhat rare trips into Franklin had resulted in nothing unusual, then events had started piling up shortly after Bully Crowder insisted he find and return the girl who slept beside him now. First there had been his all-night session with Susan, much to his surprise and delight. Following this was his bout with Charity Breeden; an experience which would long remain in his memory. Then came his fan-tantis chase and attack and eventual peacemaking with delicate little Prudence Goodbody. And now this-with Bonnie O'Brian-the girl he had been hired to find because the man to whom she was bonded, or had been, was convinced she had been kidnapped by Wild Hawk's braves.
So where do you go from here? he asked himself. Certainly he could not remain in the settlement indefinitely. Even if they used every precaution to keep their relationship secret someone, sooner or later, would discover him with one of the girls. Then too, he didn't want to forsake his cabin back in the wilderness and the small paradise he had carved for himself there. Nor could he possibly give up the freedom ho enjoyed so much. Then what next? he wondered as he lay there holding the girl from Ireland. There was no denying the dilemma, if such it proved to be, must be solved, and it was something he" would have to do himself. Then his mind made the decision for him and he very gently disengaged himself from the sleeping girl, careful not to-arouse her when he removed his arm from under her head. Quietly he rose from the bed and drew on his clothes. The only way to clear his mind for straight thinking was to do as he had so many times in the past when faced with a problem-go into the forest where he could be alone.
Half an hour after leaving the bedroom the same way he had entered, he retrieved his rifle from where he had cached it, circled the settlement and headed for his cabin deep in the wilderness. Even chough the moon was full, he would be able to make little time before daybreak-and knowing this, he moved without haste, picking his way carefully until he came to the faint trail. On reaching this he moved with greater confidence, mulling over in his mind the problem confronting him. Once he almost backtracked to Charity Breeden's house with the intention of taking her with him, then thought better of the idea and continued on his way. Best he settle this by himself, once and for all. Such was his purpose in coming into the woods tonight in the first place.
An hour before dawn he stepped off the trail, raked together a huge pile of leaves and lay down to rest. Soon a delicious drowsiness crept over him and before long he was lost in sleep.
Judging from the position of the sun and from the shadows it cast through the forest it was hardly past eight o'clock when he awakened, immensely refreshed and eager to be on his way, anxious to get home now that he had decided to return.
After two hours of fast walking, and less than a mile from home, he suddenly stopped. Up ahead, where the trail veered to the right, he saw an abrupt movement which his trained woodsman's eye told him was not made by a forest creature. Nor was the movement caused by wind, either. At the moment, there was no wind in the forest. Nor even a small breeze.
Cautiously he sidled off the trail and commenced circling swiftly and silently through the underbrush, the remote possibility that some of Wild Hawk's braves had taken it upon themselves to go on the war path flashing through his mind. Yet this could never be. Wild Hawk was too respected as a chief. He kept too firm a grip on his leadership to allow any rupture of the peace. After ten minutes of circling Jeff arrived near the spot where he had seen the movement and on lifting his head above the underbrush he stared in amazement for a moment, then leaned against the thick butt of a nearby cedar tree, laughing silently. Not a dozen yards away stood Naomee, hot-eyed young daughter of Chief Wild Hawk, peeking around a giant pine' in the direction which he had been coming.
"See anything?" Jeff asked softly.
"Oh!" She jumped, startled, and whirled to face him, her eyes wild with fright. Then she recognized him and her face settled into a decided pout, which lasted only a moment, and was replaced by a fierce gladness.
"Does Wild Hawk know you're this far from camp?" he asked, approaching her.
"Father no care," she said flatly, with a defiant toss of her head. She stood there facing him, her feet spread and her fists on her hips. She was dressed in moccasins much like his own, a softly tanned deer-skin dress which reached to her knees and was gathered about her small waist by a strip of the same material.
Naomee's complexion was that deeply hued copper tone of all her people. Her eyes were as black as the two jet-colored braids of hair hanging down her back to her waist, and slightly slanted, giving her features a decided Oriental cast. Her pert nose was underscored by a wide, full-lipped mouth which, Jeff knew, could snarl as easily as it could smile, hi a group of women her own age and race, Naomee would have been little different from the others save for one outsanding physical feature. Or rather, two outsanding features.
Her breasts.
They were huge, like full-grown cantaloupes, and they swayed and jogged delightfully together with each movement of her body. This Jeff had noticed on his very first visit to Wild Hawk's village months before. He had also noticed the graceful, almost mincing way she walked and when she became aware of his attention she made it a point to stroll near him at the least excuse. Naomee was only a fraction over five feet tall and, though he could not be certain, he would have gambled that the deerskin dress was the only garment she wore except the moccasins. When she spoke again she used the Shawnee dialect, which she knew he understood.
"Why does the white-skinned brave sneak through the forest like a thief?" she asked somewhat roughly, though with the gladness still in her eyes.
"Why was Naomee hiding behind the tree like a thief?" he countered in the same tongue.
"I saw you leave for the village of your people two suns ago," she replied hotly, "and I have watched the trail since for your return. What took you so long?"
"Since when must I account for my actions to a Shawnee girl?" Jeff asked easily. "Is such the custom of Shawnee braves?"
"Naomee is no girl," she said, the blood of anger darkening her face. On several occasions when Jeff had rebuffed her attempts to get close to him, she had grown furiously angry and right now, for a reason he could not determine, he wanted her angry, again.
"Perhaps Naomee is not woman enough to be a squaw," he smiled, knowing from experience a casual attitude could send her into raging fits. "Perhaps no Shawnee brave will let Naomee share his lodge." Even as the words left his lips, he knew he had given her an opening-for the anger left her face and she smiled a teasing smile.
"You are right," she said lightly with a saucy toss of her head. "And I shall grow old in the lodge of my father unless he gives me away."
Jeff was well aware of the ancient Shawnee custom to which she referred. Any Shawnee father was well within his rights, providing he found himself saddled with a daughter so uncomely no brave wanted her, to give her to whomever he chose with the recipient forced, also by custom, to accept. That Wild Hawk should ever resort to this practice had never entered Jeff's mind, primarily because every eligible young buck of the tribe had, at one time or another, approached Wild Hawk for Naomee's hand. Jeff was also aware of the fact that even though Chief Wild Hawk ruled his people with a firm and just hand, Naomee ruled her father just as completely in matters concerning her personally. If the Shawnee chief had decided to give his daughter away it was from her insistence that he do so. The real decision had been Naomee's not WildHawk's.
"And does your father intend to give you away?" he asked cautiously.
"I have not decided yet," she said coyly, rolling her eyes at him. "What if he gave me to you?"
"I am no Shawnee brave," he smiled at her, "yet because of my friendship with your father and your people I would be forced to abide by the Shawnee custom." His heart leaped within his chest at the idea.
Many times in the past he had been sorely tempted to take Naomee into the woods alone, yet his fear that such might cause a rupture in his relationship with the Indians had held him back. It was not inconceivable that some determined brave desiring Naomee for his own lodge might cause trouble. But if Naomee was given by her father to him, no member of the tribe would dare object.
"Then there is little reason for you to be so distant from now on," Naomee smiled happily, stepping close and taking his arm. "Can you think of one?"
"Well," Jeff h-edged to see what her reaction would be, "I have several other squaws-"
"ARE THEY WHITE SQUAWS?" SHE INTERRUPTED quickly.
"Yes."
"Then I will have to learn to speak the white man's tongue better than I do," she said thoughtfully, "so that there will be better understanding between us."
"Then you have no objection?" he asked, somewhat amazed because she had always impressed him as being of the jealous type.
"Why should I object to your having several women?" she asked innocently. "All braves should have several." She released his arm and raised her left hand, fingers spread, then with the fingers of her right she began to tick them off. "A woman to keep his teepee; one to tend the cook fire; another to care for his weapons of war and one to make and mend his clothes. The custom is not strange to me, though I have noticed that among your people one poor woman is forced to do all these things. To my people such a custom is barbarous. How can a lone woman do justice to a man in all these things?"
He shook his head in no little wonder at this new side of Naomee. "I don't know," he said finally. "I'd just never given it much thought, I guess."
"Humph!" she snorted in feminine disdain. "Sometimes men are such simple creatures." She took his arm again and they started along the "trail leading to his cabin, walking close and sometimes jogging against each other lightly because of the uneven path. Because she was much shorter than he Jeff was able to see down inside the open neck of her dress and the sight of her huge breasts silently nudging each other caused his desire to lurch sluggishly in his belly and his face suddenly felt hot and full.
"We're going to my cabin," he said absently, without really knowing why he said it, unless it was because all at once he felt the need to say something.
"Why did you not bring your squaws with you to your cabin?" she asked after a while, still holding his arm and now looking up into his face. Her expression was serious. She really wanted to know.
"I may bring them later," she said, holding his voice even and wondering if he was telling the truth. "We have discussed the possibility of their visiting me for the summer. I told them that if they came they would have to go without clothes while they are here."
"Really?" Naomee asked in surprise, but with a merry twinkle in her eyes. "And what did they say?"
"They agreed, of course."
"A white woman running about the forest with no clothes on," Naomee said, a touch of awe creeping into her voice. "That will be something to s ee. Do any of them speak Shawnee?"
They were still conversing in the Shawnee dialect, and had been ever since Jeff surprised her behind the tree.
"All of them speak it come," he told her. "Though I don't know how well. Why do you ask?"
"Because it is important that the squaws of one brave have good communications," she said simply and honestly. "Otherwise a friction might develop. Does that not make sense?"
"It makes very good sense," he replied, realizing suddenly the direction their conversation was leading. He had made no mention that he wanted Naomee here to remain at his cabin, yet he now understood that she fully intended to do so and this new knowledge set his heart to pounding. "What will Wild Hawk say when he learns of your intention to remain?"
"He already knows of it,'" she chuckled warmly and stopped walking. "He sent you a message."
"What kind of a message?" Jeff stopped when she did and now stood looking down at her upturned face, noting the impish gleam in her eyes and feeling his own drawn down to the open neck of her deerskin dress where the two giant breasts nestled. "What kind of a message did Chief Wild Hawk send me?"
"It is written on the inside of my dress," she said, her eyes never leaving his. "And he wrote it there because in this manner you would know it was from him. Do you want to read it?"
"Of course I want to read it," he said, "but if it is on the inside of your dress, I do not understand-"
Naomee smiled at him brightly but made an impatient sound with her mouth, then bent from the waist, caught the lower edge of her dress in both hands and straightened, whipping the garment off over her head. Jeff winced visibly when she did this; winced from the desire which sledge-hammered him without warning in his belly as he stood there somewhat agape, staring at her wild and primitive beauty. His earlier assumption that she wore absolutely nothing under the dress had been correct and as he stood there staring he felt an unreasonable, almost savage rush of desire course through his veins.
Her great breasts did not sag, as he had suspected they might, but thrust firmly out from her body like big, resilient cones. The nipples were dark and smooth, and below her tummy was flat and taut. Farther down, a large expanse of curly black hair underscored it, giving way to a sharp point where it disappeared between her lush, tapered thighs.
"Here is the message," she said, pretending not to notice the effect her nudity was having on him-but her dark face alive with delight. She held the dress out for him to see and on the inside back of the garment was Wild Hawk's message carefully drawn in Shawnee hieroglyphics. Nor was there any mistaking the meaning of the message and, as Jeff read it, a tremendous wave of joy washed over his tall frame.
"According to ancient Shawnee custom," the message ran, "Wild Hawk, Chief of the Shawnee Nation, gives his only daughter to his good friend, Jeff Hudson, for safe keeping and protection." There was more to the message, couched in the colorful and beautiful language of the Shawnees, but this Jeff scanned swiftly with his eyes, his heart pounding madly.
"Well," he finally managed to say slowly. "It seems you are to have a place in my lodge." Only by conscious effort was he able to keep his voice normal. Then he foolishly asked, "How long have you known of this message on your dress?'
"Since I had my father put it there and announce it to the tribe," she smiled up at him, taking the dress from him but making no move to put it on again.
"And so now you are my woman."
"Yes. Now I am your woman." She bent slightly from the waist and glanced down over her nude body, then looked at him questioningly. "Do you like your new squaw?"
"Yes," he said thickly, unable to longer hide the desire in his eyes. "Who would not?"
"I am glad," she replied simply, taking his arm once more as they started along the trail. "I will try to please."
"Are you experienced?"
"Of course. All Shawnee maidens are given instructions on how a brave must be treated."
Jeff knew this to be true, and he also knew there was no such word in the Shawnee dialect for divorce. Even Wild Hawk, as wise as he was, could never quite understand the white man's custom of divorce. "When a squaw displeases you then you must beat her, of course, but never put her out to starve," the old chief had said on a number of occasions.
"Then you know how I must be treated?" Jeff asked the girl at his side. Before she could answer, he continued. "Do you know what I have in mind right now? Do you know how I want to be treated?"
"I know," she smiled joyously. "I can read it in your eyes." She gave a quick toss of her dark head. "But no brave can be properly treated wearing as many clothes as you have on."
"That can be changed," he laughed happily, hugging her from the side as they walked along. "Soon we reach the cabin."
A few minutes later they came to the edge of the forest and before them stretched the broad, lush meadow divided by the small river of sparkling water. At the upper end of the meadow and on this side of the river, the huge cabin he had built almost two years before rested snugly under a small grove of oak trees. The cabin was less then fifty yards from the river, with the high grasses of the meadow reaching almost to the building itself. A thrill of pleasure always tingled his skin at sight of the cabin, especially after he had been gone two or three days, and this time was no exception. What was there in the staid, confining life of Boston that could compare with life on the frontier?
"There's home," he said, a sincere gladness in his tone. Then he looked down at the nude, primitive girl beside him, still holding the deerskin garment in her hand. Boston could go lump it, for all he would ever care. He glanced quickly back at the cabin, for the first time noticing the thin wisp of smoke curling from the chimney. "Somebody's there!"
"No." Naomee placed a soft hand on his arm. "I made the fire. I have been living there since you left for the village of your people. It would have been unseeming for me to remain with the Shawnees after my father announced he was giving me to you, so I came here. I hope you are not angry."
"Of course I am not angry," he replied, a note of relief in his voice. "I was only startled to see smoke when I have been gone so long, that is all."
"I am truly glad the cabin is so large," she said mysteriously and looking at him from the corner of her eye while a teasing smile played around the corners of her ripe mouth.
"Why is that?" he asked, not understanding.
"Well," she said demurely, "so there will be plenty of room for the other squaws when they arrive."
"Yeah," he replied, not knowing what else to say. "Yeah." he repeated, wondering what he would do if Susan Crowder, Charity Breeden, Prudence Goodbody and Bonnie O'Brian were all to show up at the same time. That would just about make him the most fortunate young man in the whole world. Then he dismissed the possibility from his mind. It wouldn't happen. Even he could never be that lucky.
A few minutes later they reached the cabin, and the first thing Jeff did was to strip all his clothes off and head for the river. His long walk from the settlement made him feel sticky and he wanted free of the feeling. Naomee sat on the grass under one of the oak trees, watching him as he swam. Even at the deepest part of the pool in front of the cabin the water reached only his chin, which made it an excellent place to bathe. After a quarter of an hour of thrashing about he-waded toward the bank and accepted from her the large towel she offered, conscious of her gaze centered on his semi-extended weapon.
The sight of it seemed to fascinate her; seemed to attract and hold her black, almond-shaped eyes irresistibly. Even when he had finished drying and stretched out beside her on the grass, she continued to stare. She sat upright, her legs folded under in the manner of Indian women, and when he lay down he was within easy reach. Without hesitation, she put forth a hand and grasped him. Instantly the big cudgel bucked upright.
"Ayi-ee? she breathed gustily. "What a mighty warrior it is." For a spell she sat there in silence While her hand stole down to where his jewels rested below the shaft. "Ayi-ee," she breathed again, tearing her eyes away and glancing at him.
"Don't be alarmed," he grinned, speaking to her in English for the first time since their meeting. "All things are possible."
"Naomee no alarmed," she grinned broadly, replying in the same language. "But Naomee much anxious. Soon be real squaw for warrior. Not girl-squaw, like now."
Without answering, Jeff raised to a sitting position, gently pushed her over so that she lay flat on her back and as he suspended his weight above her on his knees and extended arms, her knees spread wide slowly and she drew them high.
"Will you do the honors?" she whispered, speaking again in Shawnee. "Or shall I?"
"It makes no difference," he told her. Then her hands were busy down between them, doing necessary things, and he felt the blunt end of the invader securely lodged in the hot, moist valley. She grunted smally with feminine delight as he slowly commenced applying pressure. Then he was being swallowed into the softness of that mysterious defile which opened warmly and wetly before his advance. Halfway home, he paused. "Everything?" he asked.
"Oh yes!" she gasped desperately. "Every fraction of it!" The words had hardly left her lips when she went thundering down the sheer slope pf rapturous climax and began to jerk and writhe beneath him. Her breath came in ragged sobs as she continued to spasm convulsively, her eyes clenched tight and tiny knots of muscle bunched along the angle of her jaw. When the visitation gradually passed, she opened her lovely dark eyes to look at him.
"You never!" she said accusingly.
"I never had time," he grinned down at her.
"That is not what I meant," she pouted prettily. "You asked me everything and I said yes, every fraction of it, but I can tell you did not."
"You mean I did not do this?' he asked, quickly gathering his muscles and driving the remaining half of the plundering invader to the hilt within the mysterious defile. "Is that what you mean?"
"Oh yes!" she screamed thinly. "Oh yes! Oh yes!" Then her pink, little tongue was a darting lance of pure passion pushing its way past his lips as he withdrew a fraction of an inch to advance again. Hardly had he made a dozen of these short strokes when he felt a spasmodic clutching deep inside her as love burst within her in an agony of ecstasy and her long, trembling, wailing sigh flooded the grove of oak trees surrounding the cabin.
Within a few seconds after her second trip across the divide she was receiving him deeply as possible, fighting under him, rocking back with such gusto her buttocks cleared the ground with each cycle, trying to swallow him completely into her burning softness as her gaspy, inarticulate noises of unbridled delight burst from her throat and her belly muscles tensed and relaxed, repeatedly. The inarticulate noises of delight soon evolved into-a wild, wavering cry as she moved under him with a hard, rocking rhythm, pulling her heels down against his buttocks to cup her body to his with her knees drawn high, her inner thighs pressed along his sides, her entire body surrendering to the rocking, cradling, sucking, pushing rhythm as she continued her sweaty, frantic animal dance of gratification, successfully charging the slope of victory again and again. Within seconds after a completed journey, she was once again a frenzied, moaning, begging readiness, thrusting upward to impale herself further with her legs drawn high into a spread-thigh fetal bundle.
Only when Jeff was sure her savage lust was beginning to be appeased did he permit the dam within his own loins to break-and just as she neared the apex of another frenzied spasm, he let go the scalding thunder clamoring low in his belly. As the heat bomb burst within her secret places, they both reached a completeness so profound, so absolute, that it left them weak and trembling in the sudden quiet.
"Did you enjoy yourself?" Jeff asked quietly, after they had been resting side by side for several minutes.
"Mercy, yes," she murmured contentedly. "Several times I thought I was going to die of pleasure," She was about to speak again when they both heard the sounds at the same time. Naomee snapped to a sitting position as Jeff bounded to his feet, staring in utter amazement in the direction of the trail leading from the settlement. He continued to stare, open-mouthed, at the sight before him. Then a wild surge of gladness washed through him and he threw back his head in laughter, his heart hammering excitedly in his chest.
All four of them were completely naked and each carried her bundle of clothing under her arm as they approached the cabin.
Susan Crowder! Charity Breeden! Prudence Good-body! Bonnie O'Brian! It couldn't be, he told himself in dumfounded delight. It just wasn't possible, yet here they were.
"Surprise!" Susan laughed as she rushed up to him and threw her arms about his neck. "I understand you like naked schoolteachers, and after a talk with the others," she waved her hand to include the three who accompanied her, "we all decided to come. And we would have arrived a bit earlier but we saw you were-busy playing papa."
An hour later, after the introductions to Naomee had been made, and after a hundred excited questions followed by a hundred equally excited answers, all the girls save Charity were splashing and cavorting and having the time of their lives in the pool before the cabin. Charity stood under one of the oaks, her arms folded and leaning against a protruding, waist-high limb, watching those in the water. She must have sensed Jeff's approach from the cabin for when he walked up behind her she spoke without turning.
"Do you think you can endure five naked women for the next three or four months, Jeffery?" she asked quietly.
"If I can't endure them, it certainly won't be because I didn't try," he told her.
Now Charity was leaning on the limb of the oak, her forearms crossed on it and her body bent slightly forward, facing away from him. For several minutes Jeff stood there in silence behind her, devouring her nude loveliness with his eyes, the memory of his delightful session with her while she was talking through the window to Mandy Hanks the day before still fresh in his mind. When he felt his desire move low in his belly and the massive attender buck to attention, he knew what he was going to do.
"Move just a little to your right, Charity," he said from close behind her now. "Stand on those gnarled roots sticking above the ground and your legs more apart."
"You mean-"?" she began, still without turning around but doing as he asked.
"I mean exactly that," he chuckled, planting the end of the shaft in the hot little valley shielded by the angel floss peeking at him from underneath the center of her rounded, young buttocks. She wriggled her hips to afford quicker, smoother entry and when this was done he reached around in front of her to cup her plump, fat little breasts in his hands, then worked the invader solidly home. When the entrance of the mysterious defile fitted snugly about the very base of the shaft, he paused for a moment to adjust his stance, then commenced a slow, comfortable advance-withdrawal rhythm.
"Merciful God!" Charity whimpered after the first few cycles of his action. "I ain't sure I can stand this, Jeffery."
"We'll be doing a lot of this before the summer ends," he grinned. "Better try to get used to it."
"I aim-to try!" she sobbed suddenly, raggedly, desperately, clawing with both hands at the bark on the oak limb. "I aim to try!"
Jeff didn't answer, just continued his slow, comfortable rhythm, his eyes looking past Charity's bowed head to the four nude girls frolicking in the water.
Boy, he thought to himself as the spasm sledge-hammered Charity from within and her knees began to sag, but. this is going to be a summer to remember.
