Many men lust after Linda, but the only one that she cares about is Steve, a handsome newspaper editor. When Linda's cousin Dodie arrives from the south, Linda's problems begin. Dodie is a charming nymph who knows how to lure men into every sexual situation imaginable.
Dodie seduces Steve, and Linda is left alone-but not for long! Linda's own sexuality is awakened and once her inhibitions are released, she finds out that lust runs in the family and that she can score just as easily as her cousin!
CHAPTER ONE
Spring had hit New York. Although the city was in the midst of numerous crises-an impending subway strike, Presidential candidates stomping from borough to borough in search of minority votes, and her own newspaper was blasting out headlines on the crazy Iranian dilemma-the new season blossomed like a flower, a gentle breeze of delightful cure-all for the case of depression that had affected everyone.
A feeling of vibrant vitality for life took hold of Linda as she turned the library corner and walked east on Forty-second Street.
But then her mind repeated the harsh words of her new city editor, and the surprising March sun turned a bit dimmer. She was a good reporter and she knew a hot story when she saw one. Unfortunately, the new young man with the big new title didn't. Well, she would try not to think of that.
Easter was not far off-yes, she would think of that instead.
At the suggestion of Lillian, a friendly co-worker, Linda had spent a long lunch hour walking through the sun-flooded streets indulging in the purely feminine sport of window shopping. The idea was to blot out the unpleasant memory of a run-in with a new city editor who apparently didn't know a good story when he saw one, and was obsessed with the idea that all reporters were mind readers.
To a certain extent, she had succeeded, although the argument, which could easily spell an end to her newspaper career, still rankled. In any case, she had managed to regain her sense of proportion, even to feel a little sorry for the young man who was trying just as earnestly as she was to make it big in New York.
Her leisurely stroll had resulted in any number of fascinating purchases-imaginary, to be sure, but none the less exciting. Through the simple process of wishful thinking, she had acquired gay curtains for her small apartment, the "home" with which she had rewarded herself only a week ago upon learning that she was being transferred from a routine job in the feature department to a more lucrative spot in the news room.
Mentally, she had replaced a nondescript studio couch in her form-fitting living room with a handsome divan on display in a furniture store window. A wicker basket bed in a pet shop had become a glorified chaise loungue for Spitfire, the yellow kitten she'd adopted. A florist's window yielded colorful plants, transforming an old-fashioned bay window into a miniature garden. An exquisite Ming vase became a lamp for the cubbyhole that was her bedroom.
Actually, she had bought nothing but the hat which Lillian, known to her co-workers as "Lil," had suggested as the necessary fillip for her flagging morale.
"A new hat always does things for a woman," said Lil, who had never been known to wear anything but a battered felt. "That blue beret you've been wearing has seen its best days. Throw it away and get yourself something snappy. That's an order, chickadee."
Linda had obeyed the kindly woman's order, but only because she could not resist the spring-like concoction on display in a small shop window on Fifth Avenue. She was wearing it now, though a sense of thrift had prompted her to fold the old blue beret carefully and tuck it into her handbag. There would be rainy days. Those rainy days might come soon, what with a city editor who had new-broom proclivities and undoubtedly could find fault with Shakespeare himself.
The new hat was an off-the-face model whose demure grayness complemented the cloudy darkness of her hair and the creamy whiteness of her skin. It had a jewelled ornament, accenting the violet lights in her eyes. It gave her tilted nose an audacious air, her eyes a quality of mystery and-yes-daring sophistication.
A glorified hussy hat, if ever there was one, Linda mused, lowering her eyes against the importunate glances of Forty-second Street bums. Just demure enough to be dangerously indecent. No self-respecting newspaper reporter would be caught wearing it during working hours.
That was true. It was, very definitely, not a working girl's hat. It belonged at the Colony Club during the cocktail hour. However, Linda reasoned, if the editor was going to fire her when she got back to the office, she might as well walk out with flying colors, as if she had simply stopped by to pass the time of day and was en route to a late lunch or an early tea at The Four Seasons.
At the corner of Lexington Avenue she spied a flower shop, more evidence of spring in Manhattan. It was filled with red geraniums, hydrangeas, and other growing plants, with bouquets of cut flowers w-edged in between. Linda was tempted to buy any number of plants as a nucleus for her window garden. But she compromised on two potted geraniums for her apartment, and a bouquet of yellow daffodils for Lil.
Then it happened-the incident that was to wipe out all memory of the recent unpleasantness with the editor, and to propel Linda out of her leisurely dream world of features into the realm of spot news. The salesgirl had just handed her the potted plants and she was trying to balance them on one arm while she reached out for the daffodils when a voice shouted, "Look out, miss! He's headed this way!"
The next instant a man, coatless and hatless, dashed past her, brushing her new hat from its moorings and almost upsetting her.
Before she could regain her balance, much less rescue the hat, a second man ran into her, sending her sprawling onto the sidewalk, where she lay for a moment in a welter of damp earth, broken flowerpots, and crushed geraniums. Her purse had flown open; its contents lay scattered among the debris.
"Hell!" she sputtered. "Hell! What's the big idea, knocking me down like this?"
"Sorry," the man grunted. "But you did get yourself in the way."
Ignoring his muttered, "Better stay where you are, miss, there's going to be trouble," she managed to retrieve her purse and billfold and struggle to her feet. Meanwhile the two men had barricaded themselves behind a flower wagon, so near that she could almost reach out and touch them. They were staring fixedly across the street, toward the subway exit at Grand Central Station. The flower vendor had disappeared and pedestrians were standing petrified, as if frozen in their tracks.
Linda was still annoyed over being so upset, but curious to know what all the fanfare was about. Her eyes followed those of the two men just in time to see a policeman, his pistol drawn, emerge from the subway exit. After looking cautiously toward the right, then the left, he relaxed momentarily, lowering his gun.
Instinctively Linda returned her attention to the two men standing nearby. She needed no second sense to tell her that they were gunmen, and desperate. The coatless one had produced a revolver from somewhere and was taking careful aim at the policeman across the street.
"We're here, Officer," Linda shouted, throwing caution to the four winds and unwittingly allying herself with the gunmen. "Right here, behind this flower wagon."
Almost simultaneously a shot rang out and the officer fell to the pavement. Linda closed her eyes, sickened as a pool of blood began to widen about his still figure. She supposed she would be the next target. Instead she felt a heavy hand on her shoulder and heard a gruff voice which said, "Duck, birdbrain. I told you before there was going to be trouble."
She must have ducked. In fact, she must have lost consciousness for a brief space, for when she opened her eyes she was crouching under the flower wagon and pandemonium had broken loose. The street was alive with policemen, and a gun battle such as she had never dreamed could happen anywhere outside of Iran was taking place on one of Manhattan's busiest thoroughfares.
Suddenly it occurred to her that the newspaper, only a few blocks away, was missing perhaps the biggest story of the year, while she, Linda Burns, who had fancied herself a potential ace newswoman, only to be told off by Steve Morrison, was crouching in terror under an old-fashioned wagon, safe only by the grace of gunmen and a gray horse that was either too tired, too lazy, or too frightened to move. This was no feature story requiring embroidery to make it readable. It was news-hot news. She would have to do something about it-and quickly.
Earlier that day Linda had stood before the city desk, waiting with pleased anticipation for comment on the story she had just turned in. It was her first news assignment, though she had worked in the newspaper's feature department for almost a year. She was proud of her handiwork, believed it would justify her promotion and assure her of a permanent berth in the news room. In fact, she had performed what she regarded as a minor miracle. Thanks to a natural flair for writing and an occasional assignment in features, she had transformed a news item remarkable mainly for its dullness into readable copy.
Steve Morrison, his red hair standing on end and his rangy figure curled around his newly acquired editorial chair, had glanced hurriedly through the typewritten sheets and groaned aloud. Then he'd looked up and said, without expression, "How long have you been here?"
"Ten months. My name's Linda Burns-Linda for Short," she added by way of introduction.
"Too bad you didn't shorten your story as well as your name. So you've been here ten months, huh?" He paused to impale her with skeptical blue eyes. "And you call this a news story?" With that he picked up a heavy blue pencil and began to mutilate her precious copy with a vehemence that was little short of vicious.
"Whyer-what's wrong?" she stammered. "It was a dull assignment, dull as dishwater," she continued, instantly on the defensive. "Nothing colorful about it. So I...."...." colored it up," he finished. "And buried all the essential facts. Apparently you don't know the first thing about news. Where did you come from anyhow
-features?" At Linda's nod, he added, "I thought so. Well, you'd better go back there." Then, heaping insult upon injury, he shouted in a voice that must have been heard in the farthermost recesses of the city room, "Billings! Come take this rewrite on the Hannegan stickup, and give it back to me in time for the edition. Make it brief. This gal I've inherited from the hooey department got her wires crossed. Thinks she's still doing sob stuff."
John Billings, an audacious young reporter who, according to office scuttlebutt, didn't have a serious thought in his handsome blond head, sauntered over, grinning as usual. He favored Linda with a playful pinch on the arm, picked up the story, and returned to his desk.
Linda could only stand here, her face crimson, angry tears crowding her eyelids, feeling that every eye in the city room was focused upon her. She wished the floor would open up and swallow her-and Steve Morrison too. She wished she had the courage to suggest that he go back to Iowa where he came from, just as he'd suggested she return to features, and walk out of the newspaper's offices forever. But somehow her voice wouldn't function and her feet refused to move.
She had practically beaten her brains out on the Hannegan stickup story, and the last thing she'd expected was a reprimand. Having it whisked away from her, to be rewritten by an acknowledged scatterbrain, was degradation reduced to its lowest degree. She could feel the hot tears of frustration welling up in her eyes, so she forced herself to turn away.
At this point Steve Morrison must have sensed her distress, must have realized that he was not dealing with a case-hardened newswoman. He held out a detaining hand.
"Wait a minute, Linda," he said, his tone softening. "Sorry if I was rough. But we're pushing deadline, so there's no time for any further trial and error. Your story's all wrong from a news standpoint. There's a heck of a lot of difference between features and news. Remind me sometime and I'll show you the ropes."
"Thank you," Linda murmured stiffly, resolving then and there never to remind Stephen Morrison of anything as long as she lived.
He looked at her again, appeared to be seeing her for the first time. She was very young-about eighteen, he decided, and pretty. Her eyes were the color of spring violets, and her dark wavy hair framed a small heart-shaped face whose woebegone expression prompted him to say, "Oh, you'll learn, cookie." He made a mental note to see that she did. "Chances are you'll be an ace newshound, someday. You've got plenty of time. After all, you can't be more than eighteen now, and...."
"I'm twenty-two. Do you still think I'll learn?" she flushed, wishing she hadn't said that, but the words had slipped out. Steve Morrison's condescension was even more humiliating than his belittlement.
"Anyhow," she continued, "you won't have to bother explaining the ropes. I did very well on features without any help, and I'm sure I'll do just as well on news."
She had never been less sure of anything. She supposed he would discharge her for her unconsidered outburst. In that case, she would have no chance to make good. She waited for him to speak the words that would spell the end of her career on the newspaper, but he only laughed and said, "No need to get huffy, cookie. I'd have given you another chance on the stickup story, if there'd been time. Besides, it isn't much of a yarn-worth only a couple of sticks. It will probably be killed in later editions."
Linda couldn't see it that way, but she maintained a discreet silence. At the moment it was the most important story in the world-her first assignment-and she had muffed it. Moreover, Steve Morrison had advertised her failure to the entire city room.
Back at her desk, she sat with her eyes lowered, her hands clasped in her lap, sick with humiliation. The clatter of typewriters should have assured her that, in this zero hour before deadline, nobody was paying any attention. But it only served as an embarrassing reminder that she was sitting idle while everyone else worked, making her feel all the more conspicuous.
In desperation, she rolled a piece of copy paper into her typewriter. Her first impulse was to type out a formal resignation and hand it in to Morrison. She had written two lines before she realized the folly of such a move. She must not resign. She could not return to features with any degree of pride, and it might be weeks before she could find another newspaper job. For want of something better to do, she began wildly typing.
"Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party."
She had covered almost a page with the inane exercise when she felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see John Billings, the blond reporter, bending over her. She tried to cover the ridiculous lines with her hands, but his low chuckle told her that he had already seen them. John, having finished his rewrite, had paused in the interest of camaraderie. But Linda, still crushed, was sure he had come to heckle her.
"Are you, by any chance, a spy?" she inquired coldly. "Or do you make a habit of going around reading over people's shoulders?"
"Only when I have a special yen for the people, sis," he chuckled. "What I dropped by to say was, don't let your little skirmish with our current stinkeroo throw you. Squelchings happen to all of us-even to me."
Lil Sargeant, whose desk was next to Linda's, looked up from her work to say in a bantering voice, "Especially to you, gorgeous. As a newsman, you smell to high heaven."
Lil, fat, fiftyish, and eccentric in dress, was an old-timer in the newspaper game. An unfortunate dye job gave her hair a brassy appearance, but she was recognized as one of the most competent newspaper women in Manhattan. And everyone knew that, despite her caustic tongue and simulated hardness, Lil's ample bosom encompassed a heart of pure gold.
So John Billings took no offense. He simply gave Lil's ear an affectionate twist, smiled at Linda, and went on his way.
There was a short silence while Lil marked up her copy and a boy came to take it away. Then she turned to Linda. "Steve Morrison's okay. Don't let anybody tell you different. He's new here himself, so he's got to make good just as you have. He's pretty young for the jobless than thirty. And I understand he's got a kid out in the Middle West to bring up. If your story was wrong, he had to say so. It's a special technique, news writing, and if you get too longwinded, or put the cart before the horse, you're licked. That's what he was trying to tell you, chickadee."
"Well, at least he didn't have to shout at me, make me a laughing stock," Linda pointed out.
"Nobody's laughing. It's all in your own mind. And as for the shouting," Lil con tinued, "all city editors shout. It's the nature of the beast. That's understandable. When you're smack-dab against deadline, you've got no time for the Emily Post stuff. Steve was only trying to help you, chick."
"Help me?" Linda wailed. "Why, the way I feel now, I'll never be able to write another line as long as I live. Never!"
"Maybe not," Lil snorted. "Maybe you can't stand the gaff. If that's the case, then you don't belong in New York, much less in a newspaper city room."
Then her blue eyes had softened, and she'd suggested the long lunch hour, the walk, the window-shopping excursion, the strange outcome of which had erased all memory of the recent unpleasantness from Linda's mind.
"I'm getting the heebie-jeebies just watching you," she'd added. "You're getting nowhere-and fast-just sitting here feeling sorry for yourself. Get going, girlie, and work some of that mad out of your system, get some starch in your ears. I'd go with you, on account of it's spring. Only I know my feet would fail me, so I'm having my lunch sent in...."
Linda never remembered crawling out from under the flower wagon. But she must have done so, for presently she was groping her way across the sidewalk, dodging bullets as best she could, her objective being a phone booth in a nearby restaurant. Still in a semi-daze, she telephoned the newspaper, asking that a cameraman be sent to the scene immediately. A few minutes later an excited young man, with a camera slung over his shoulder, arrived to say, "Gee, Miss Burns, what a story you've turned up here! It's the break I've been looking for, and I wouldn't have gotten it except for a fluke. I'm only a cub, but all the other guys were out to lunch. Gee, thanks for phoning when you did."
"It was a fluke for me too," Linda acknowledged. "All I hope is that I don't muff it."
She didn't muff it. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to be rounding up the details of a story in which she herself had participated, and to assemble the names and addresses and incidents that had led up to a holocaust in which three policemen had been killed, two gunmen captured, and one bystander critically injured.
Half an hour later, back in the newspaper's city room, it seemed just as natural to be writing a story so rich in factual detail that there was no need for embroidery. It was all a matter of selection.
She needed no help-not even from Lil, who sat watching her with approving blue eyes. Steve Morrison, apparently, had gone out to lunch. In any case, he was nowhere about. Presently she interrupted her writing long enough to say, "I bought you some daffodils, Lil. They were beautiful-like spring. Sorry, but I lost them."
"Okay," Lil answered. "I never cared much for flowers. In fact, I'm allergic to them; they make me sneeze."
"I lost my geraniums and my new hat too," Linda continued as her hands traveled swiftly over the keys. "The hat was beautiful too." There was no time to explain the reason for the wholesale loss; she could only hope Lil would understand. She must finish this story before Steve Morrison returned from lunch, if only to prove she needed no help.
"You didn't really need a new hat," Lil said. "I was just running off at the mouth when I said you did. That old blue beret you've been wearing is okay. Sure, it's a show for the dogs, but...."
"I lost that too," Linda confessed, without interrupting her typing. "It was in my handbag. All I saved was my wallet."
Lil studied the young reporter. She was so innocent, Lil thought. Well, she'd soon be shorn of that innocence-make no mistake about it!
Lil grinned. She'd been innocent once herself. It seemed like a hundred or so years ago, but it was true. She found herself slipping into a daydream, remembering that eventful night during her teens when she had decided that she no longer needed her virginity.
And in fact her first sexual experience had been terrific. No mean-looker herself, she had not found it unduly difficult to be asked out on a date with Moose Bronfman, the spectacularly good-looking captain of the football team.
According to the grapevine among Lil's contemporaries, Moose operated on his own schedule with each new girl. If she lived up to his notions of the way things were supposed to go, fine. If not-if she wouldn't let him follow his pattern of a hand inside the bra first date, inside the panties second date, jerk him off the third date, all the way the fourth date and thereafter-she'd had it as far as he was concerned.
He wasn't exactly the star of the academic world, but he did have a gorgeous body.
They went to a drive-in and he parked in his favorite secluded spot, supplied Lil with popcorn and soda, and looked at her rather blankly when she told him she was watching her diet.
The movie began, and after a moment his arm crept around the back of Lil's seat, and he nuzzled her hair affectionately. He was a good nuzzler.
He was a good kisser, too, when he worked his way around to that stage of his game plan. His tongue was surprisingly sensitive as it thrust moistly between her lips and explored the recesses of her mouth.
Lil's head started to whirl and tingles of sensation crept sweetly through her pussy.
She could feel a trickle of lubricating honey oozing languidly out of the puffy little slit.
His fingers brushed over the front of her sweater and her nipples perked up, eager for attention. And they got plenty, since Lil wasn't about to start any coy pretense of reluctance or maidenly modesty.
His fingers worked their way beneath her sweater and brushed thrillingly over the bare skin of her midriff on the way to her bra-and beneath it!
Lil's nipples were like rough pebbles beneath his touch, and she heard herself panting, the blood pounding in her ears. The oozing juice of her pussy was soaking the crotch of her flimsy panties. Little sparks of sensation seemed to be zipping out of her clit and traveling along her feverishly inflamed cunt lips.
She dropped one hand to the rapidly swelling bulge that was trying to fight its way through the zipped front of Moose's tightly clinging levis.
For a moment the thought crossed her mind that he must have a whole football stuffed in there-and as her fingers explored the blossoming colossus, she would have accepted the possibility of a pair of shoulder pads too.
She was upsetting his schedule of seduction, but he wasn't about to protest. He started to pant a little, and his hips jerked when she gave a particularly telling squeeze.
Lil unglued her mouth from his and hissed in his ear: "Play with my tits some more!"
Moose had relaxed his efforts when Lil had started her explorations of his goal area, but her urgent words reminded him of his duty.
He shoved his free hand beneath her sweater and into the other bra cup. There was a sudden straining of elastic and nylon, then the hooks on the back gave way, and Lil's tits were bouncing free under the cashmere as the remains of her bra slithered down to her lap.
"That's better," she sighed, and he began to rub his palms on her nipples, working them around in little circles. Lil found it absolutely delightful.
Her fingers closed convulsively over that throbbing mound at Moose's crotch, and she groped for the tab of his zipper. The denim of his levis was so strained by the activity beneath that she thought she would never get the zipper started. But she persevered. Finally one of her jerks of pleasure as Moose gently tweaked her nipples between his fingers did the trick, and with a satisfying smoothness the zipper slid down its track and her hands were filled with a pulsating mass of velvet-covered, steel-hard cock.
Lil thought it was beautiful! It was a good nine inches long and almost as thick as Lil's wrist. Its color was reddish-purple, and thin, clear fluid was bubbling out of its slit as it reared up challengingly.
"So how do you like that, babe?" Moose demanded with arrogant complacence.
"It's just beautiful," she whispered, her eyes riveted to the twitching shaft.
"Why don't you give it a kiss hello?" he grunted, not expecting she would do it.
But she did!
Without a moment's hesitation, Lil ducked her head down and planted a long, passionate kiss right on the oozing tip, then licked experimentally to see how that watery fluid was going to taste.
It was bland. Kind of nice.
She slid her lips down over the plum-shaped crown and swirled her tongue around the silky-textured flesh. His fingers tightened on her breasts, and he started to grunt and pant in harsh response.
Lil came up for air, and his cock tried to follow. She looked up into his face, and after a few moments his eyes came back into focus, and he gulped.
"My poor pussy is getting awfully lonesome," she said demurely.
Moose gawked at her-then released one of her tits and slid the hand over her knee, then warily up her thigh, as though not sure that she really meant it.
Lil spread her legs wider to prove that she did, and moaned encouragingly as his fingers crept up her thigh and brushed against the flimsy wisp of her panties.
Just that light touch sent about a thousand volts straight up to her womb!
"Jesus!" he croaked, "your panties are soaking wet! You really want it, huh?"
He squirmed a finger in under one of the legbands and hooked it over a pussy lip, separating from its partner with a slightly sticky sound.
It was Lil's turn to grunt and gasp with pleasure now, as his finger slid over the wet inner surface, skidded up, and collided with her marble-hard clitoris, then caromed back down to the fever-swollen lips of her virginal but very ready vulva.
As his huge finger started to worm its way inward, she tensed for a moment.
Moose muttered: "That feels like ... hey, Lil, you ain't cherry, are you?"
"Up to now," she gasped, jerking her hips to get his finger in her a little deeper.
"Wow! You're wetter and hotter than a ... aw, grab holda my rod, babe, willya!"
Lil reached for the nine-inch pole between his thighs and caressed it lovingly, slumping down in the seat to get her legs wider still.
Moose had got his finger in all the way to the last knuckle, and she sighed blissfully.
Juice from his prick started to trickle down over her knuckles as she worked the ring of her fingers up and down the steel-hard length of meat.
Moose started to work a second finger in, and Lil waited for it to hurt, but it didn't. It was a little bit stretchy, but it really felt marvelous.
"You wanna-" he gasped, "fu-" She tightened the grasp of her fingers around his cock. "Fu-huh-uh-UCKK!??"
"You bet your ass!" Lil assured him.
Moose slowly extricated his fingers from the clutch of her tight little pussy.
"Okay, babe," he growled, "you get them panties off and I'll give you something better than a finger up that juicy little cherry pie!"
Lil grinned up at him impudently. "Why don't you take them off yourself?"
Moose grabbed at the waistband and she lifted her hips enough to let him strip the soaked wisp of nylon down her thighs and off over her feet.
She could smell the fresh muskiness of her own excitement mixing with his, and the smell of his sweat. The cool air felt good on her overheated box, and she lifted her feet up and rested them against the dash, tilting her head enough to see the erotic reflection in the mirror.
He gripped her hips and tugged her close. With a grunt of pleasure, he buried his face in the moist, hot slit of her cunt. He swept his tongue over her juicy pussy lips, making her gasp and shudder with excitement. He dug his fingers into her smooth-skinned thighs almost painfully as he eagerly licked and sucked and nuzzled in the hot depths of her, overwhelmed by sexual hunger.
She seized his head between her hands and dragged him even closer, the passion-soaked membranes of her cleft pussy pressing chokingly against his mouth and nose until he had to fight free of her, struggling for air.
"Fuck!" he gasped. "We gotta fuck, baby-now!"
Lil looked down at his cockhead, slippery with preparatory juice.
"Sounds good to me," she said.
They scrambled over the seats and arranged themselves in the back-it was cramped, but there would be room enough for what they had to do!
"Hey," Moose grunted, "seein' it's your first time, let me lie down an' you get on top-that way you can control what's happenin'. I'm kinda big, y'know."
Lil was pleased by such thoughtfulness, and congratulated herself on her choice of Moose as her first lover.
She straddled him, and cautiously began to lower herself toward the blood-gorged, plum-sized head. She poised her cuntlips just above it and moved from side to side, gradually working herself down until the lips of her pussy were strained about the hot, slippery knob.
"Wow!" she gasped. "Big!"
Moose steadied her hips with his hands, urging her downward, though not forcefully. Lil let herself slide gradually, and there was a stretching, breaking pain that transfixed her for a moment....
Then suddenly the whole wet length of him was embedded in her wet, juicy cave, and a spasm of pleasure overwhelmed the pain and she groaned.
Moose slid his hands up her sides and pulled her forward so that he could reach the hard berries of her nipples with his hungry lips and tongue. Renewed volts of sexual exectricity sparked through her body. He stroked her back tenderly, then his hands glided down and cupped her ass, kneading the buttock globes.
Lil straightened her body again, and he brought one hand around to stroke her pubic hair, then started flicking at her clitoris while she began to lever herself up and down the long, thick pole impaling her.
Her juice began to soak the hair of his balls, and the sloppy, slushing, slurping sounds from her working cunt were erotic music to their ears.
"Fuck, oh fuck me!" she begged.
He started to buck his hips, matching her up-and-down motions, her buttocks meeting his belly with audible slaps of flesh. He hung on to her hips to steady her, staring avidly at her bouncing tits.
"Sweet, sweet cunt," he murmured.
But Lil's only reply was a wail of ecstasy as the violent explosion ripped through the tender membranes of her passion pit, milking his cock into frenzied surrender as his boiling sperm rocketed up from his balls to saturate her inner depths.
Yes, Lil thought, shaking herself out of her daydream, that had really been a night to remember.
And now, dammit, she had made herself so hot, she would have to go to the ladies' room and jerk off!
CHAPTER TWO
"A byline? You mean my very own name will be signed to the story?" Linda asked the city editor incredulously.
She stammered, trying to find words to thank him, but Lil nudged her to be quiet.
"Maybe my hearing's getting bad," she said, "but I didn't hear you promise a bonus along with that byline."
Steve laughed. "All right, Lil, I'll do some thinking about a raise for our young genius."
When he had gone, Lil passed Linda a box of Kleenex and the mirror she kept in her desk. "You must have met up with a pot of lamp-black when you were running down your story. I didn't want to interrupt while you were composing."
Linda took a horrified look at her reflection, then she fled to the ladies' room to repair the damages sustained in the memorable encounter on Forty-second Street.
It was almost impossible to remove the wagon grease from her cheek without also removing the skin. But she scrubbed away valiantly till the creamy pallor of her face took on a rosy glow. She brushed her hair till it became an ebony, tendril-fringed cap; reversed her stockings so that the ladders would be on the inside and she could pretend they weren't there. There was nothing she could do about her suit, except hope that the neighborhood cleaner had a magic solvent for black grease. Otherwise the entire outfit, her best suit, was ruined.
In the interest of sophistication, she wished devoutly for a lipstick. Stephen Morrison's manner, even when he told her about the by-line, had made her feel gauche and inexperienced, had made her behave and talk like a simpering schoolgirl. Lil's solicitude, though prompted by the best intentions, hadn't helped matters too much. She was grateful to Lil, but her implication that Linda was the doormat type, unable to think and act for herself, rankled. It was all the more disturbing to realize that there might be some truth in the woman's estimate.
Let this be a lesson to you, Linda Burns, she admonished herself. You 're turning over a new leaf, as of now!
On that thought, she lifted her chin a trifle higher and returned to the city room. In the interim the scene had changed from one of activity and high tension to comparative peace. An air of relaxation and good camaraderie prevailed, as is usually the case when an edition has been put to bed. The copy desk was deserted now, the men out stretching their legs or going for coffee. Reporters and other staff members lolled in their chairs, smoking and reading, or visiting around at other desks.
Steve Morrison, his red hair in its usual state of dishevelment, was perched on Linda's desk, chatting with Lil as if they had known each other for years. Linda hesitated, not wanting to intrude, but Lil beckoned.
"Come on over, Linda," she called. "It's time you got acquainted with Steve, the human being, instead of Stephen Morrison, the cantankerous city editor. I've been telling you all along his bark is worse than his bite. He comes from my neck of the woods, so to speak. I'm from Nebraska, you know."
Steve shifted his position so Linda could get through to her chair, and waited till she sat down. "And you?" he said pleasantly. "I know you're not a New Yorker. I can tell by your accent, though I've hardly heard you speak a dozen words. Cat got your tongue?"
"I'm a New Yorker now," Linda said, smiling. "At least I've lived here three years, which makes me practically an old settler. Nobody, it seems, was born here. I'm a southern girl-from Florida."
Something in Steve's rapidly changing expression caused Lil to say banteringly, "You aren't allergic to Southern gals, are you?"
He did not answer immediately. "Certainly not," he said after a moment. "Only when they try to trade on it," he added, and they all laughed.
The remark was innocuous enough, but Linda was sure she detected a hollowness in his laughter, and his eyes had suddenly gone hard. Was he trying to heckle her into giving up her coveted job? But no, she decided, it wasn't that. It was as though, at the mention of the words "Southern girl," a ghost had crept out of the past to haunt him. Strange man, Steve Morrison, she reflected, full of phobias, prejudices-and, yes, mystery. .
"Linda's not the trading type," Lil said. "Too bad she isn't. Anyhow, she's not a 'professional' Southerner, if that's what you mean. She's real."
John Billings, looking for all the world like a screen star on location, sauntered over and joined them. He was on his way out for liquid refreshment before the next storm broke, he explained. Wouldn't someone care to join him for coffee, tea, or whatever? Although the invitation was more or less general, his eyes were on Linda and it was clear that the someone he referred to was her.
Again Lil took over. "We'll take a rain check on that," she told John. "My feet hurt, and Linda's going home for a rest-eh, Steve? She's had a rough day, what with that street battle and all but getting herself killed."
Linda was tempted to protest, if only to assert herself as a free agent. She had no desire to go out with John Billings, but to be denied the privilege of refusing was, she felt, a little too much.
"I've just been bearing down on that raise of yours, Linda," Lil said when John had gone. "But Steve here, like all redheads, is a stubborn cuss. However...."
"Lil, please...." Linda groaned.
Ignoring the interruption, Lil picked up where she had left off. " ... It's all set. You're getting it."
Steve got off the desk and stood up. Obviously Lil's last remark was news to him, and it was clear that he had no intention of being bullied by this determined woman.
"I'm not so sure about that," he said coldly, resuming the role of uncompromising city editor. "I have no intention of being badgered by anybody, Miss Sargeant. I'll recommend a raise for Linda-if and when I see fit." Having put Lil in her place, he spoke to Linda.
"You may call it a day now, if you wish. There won't be much doing from here on. After all, you've done your good deed," he said in the tone of one addressing a deserving girl scout. "You probably want to rush home and tell your family the news."
"You've got a family, have you?" Lil probed.
"Yes. Yes, of course." Linda nodded her head vigorously. To confess that she was practically alone in the world would be only to invite further probing, further high handed solicitude. "At least I've got Spitfire," she tacked on lamely.
"Spitfire?" Lil looked at her curiously.
"Sounds like a nice, friendly soul." Steve's lips twitched and he began to laugh. "However, you girl scouts do go in for some pretty odd nicknames."
"If you must know," Linda announced with admirable restraint, "Spitfire is a cat. A yellow cat with white paws." She started to add, "Now go ahead and heckle me, if you must," but thought better of it. He might do just that, and she was in no mood to endure ridicule, or even to hold her own in a give-and-take exchange of light banter. In her present frame of mind he could very easily heckle her into walking out on the job, and that was the last thing she wanted to do.
Still chuckling, Steve returned to his desk to answer a phone call, while Lil favored her young co-worker with a muted "tch-tch" and a commiserating smile.
"Oh. A cat," she said, shaking her head deprecatingly. "So that's all you've got in the way of a family. I never cared much for the arrogant creatures. I'm allergic to cats. The very thought of them makes me sneeze." With that, she pressed a handkerchief to her face and sneezed vociferously, but the sound had all the earmarks of an explosive sob.
Linda, glad of a chance to escape from further probing into her personal affairs, said "Good night," and hurried away. Aside from her success in handling the big news story, it had been a harrowing day and her nerves were at the breaking point. Too, she was still disturbed about the job, wondering if she would be able to hold it. No matter how much she loved the work, it would not be easy, what with a co-worker who seemed bent upon killing her with kindness, and a chief who was disapproving, impudent and patronizing by turns. Her own foolish sensitivity, she reflected, was no help.
Lil Sargeant, her round blue eyes revealing a wetness that even the loud sneeze did not justify, watched Linda as she crossed the room and went out the door. But she was not thinking altogether of Linda. Her thoughts had traveled back some thirty years, and incidents out of the past trooped before her with unrelenting clarity.
She was thinking of another girl, from Nebraska, who had come to New York with dreams of a brilliant newspaper career. A girl, unassuming, vulnerable; unequipped tempera mentally and emotionally to combat the various hazards of newspaper life in the largest, the loneliest city in the world. This girl had learned the hard way, and became hard in the process. Out of sheer loneliness, this girl, like Linda had adopted a yellow kitten for companionship. But loneliness, coupled with her young vulnerability, had taken its toll.
"I was an easy mark," Lil muttered. "Ripe to be imposed upon by all and sundry. And what happened to me shouldn't happen to a dog. I'm right here to see it doesn't happen to Linda."
Aunt Minnie's letter provided the crowning damper to a day remarkable mainly for its complexities. Linda found it in her mailbox just before she started the four-flight trek to her apartment on the top floor. It bore a week-old postmark and had been forwarded from her former address, a bleak furnished room.
Linda experienced a brief thrill in the thought that Aunt Minnie, who was "family," was writing to her. Then she sighed, put the letter in her jacket pocket, picked up the bag of groceries she had bought on her way home, and trudged up the stairs. It was too much to hope that Aunt Minnie, who was Linda's nearest living relative, her dead father's sister, had suddenly gone family-conscious. Aunt Minnie wanted something, as usual. Except for Christmas and New Year's cards, she never wrote unless she did.
Usually her letters contained shopping commissions for Linda, with little regard for Linda's time and means. Aunt Minnie must have a new ensemble for the next Garden Club meeting. It must be so styled as to make the other ladies in Tuscaloosa, where Aunt Minnie and her daughter Dorothy Mae lived, turn green. Moreover, it must be a real bargain as to price.
Or "Dodie," as Dorothy-Mae was called, must have a new outfit direct from Fifth Avenue, with certain hard-to-get accessories to match. Linda, of course, would pay cash for all items. Aunt Minnie did not believe in charge accounts; they encouraged reckless habits.
Almost invariably the articles thus bought and shipped out were returned. The colors were wrong, as Linda should realize. The garments were too large, or too small, the prices too high; even in Tuscaloosa they could find better bargains. And so would Linda, in her spare time, exchange them for something more suitable? Or, better still, return them for refund? The result was that while Linda herself was obliged to economize, her closet contained any number of useless gewgaws, bought and paid for, with no hope of refund.
Just as invariably, such items as were retained remained unpaid for over a period of weeks. The widow of a well-to-do Tuscaloosa landowner, Aunt Minnie took her own good time about paying, having no conception of life on a shoestring in New York.
Time after time Linda had resolved that never again would she fulfill another shopping commission, but always she had weakened. Now, recalling Lil Sargeant's challenging remark about doormats, she was tempted to leave the letter unopened, lest she weaken again.
With this thought in mind, she placed the letter on a table in her small living room and went about the business of taking a bath, feeding Spitfire, and preparing a light repast for herself. Later, when she had settled down for the evening, her conscience began to nag at her. By ignoring the letter, she was not only letting Aunt Minnie down; she was also letting herself down.
"I'm behaving just like an ostrich," she decided. "As if by refusing to face a problem I could make it go away!"
Besides, she reminded herself still further, Aunt Minnie was not necessarily the problem. If she had been thoughtless in the past, or had seemed lacking in consideration and family affection, perhaps she, Linda, had been at fault. She had never had the courage to explain that she had neither the time nor the cash for hit-or-miss shopping. If, in this case, Aunt Minnie-bless her imperious heart-had the crust to ask the impossible, she must have the stamina to say no.
With determined fondness, she smiled at the meticulously penned inscription on the envelope, opened the letter, and began to read. As her eyes ran swiftly down the first sheet, she gave a slight groan. This time Aunt Minnie had indeed given a large order.
"I won't do it!" Linda wailed. "It's such a tiny place, and it's the first home I've had since Mother and Dad went away. I can't possibly take Dodie in. There's just not enough room."
But even as she said it, she knew very well that she would take Dodie in, and happily. Dodie was her own blood cousin, and they could be such wonderful companions. Even if the apartment was tiny, they would manage somehow. And Dodie, so Aunt Minnie had written, was desperately in need of a refuge.
CHAPTER THREE
After a brief apology for not having written to Linda for quite some time, Aunt Minnie had gone straight to the point.
"It may come as a surprise to you to hear that my poor Dodie, after a brief courtship and a hasty elopement, has suffered the tragedy of a broken marriage. The dear child has been so broken up over the whole thing that I myself have been practically out of my mind, fearing she would do away with herself as she threatened to do.
"Finally, some influential friends of ours got her a job in Washington, the idea being to take her mind off her trouble. She has been there a month, though I regret to say it's a case of out of the frying pan into the fire. It is a terrible job with terrible people who have no consideration at all. So naturally the poor child has had to resign. She refuses to come home and I can't say I blame her-local gossip being what it is, and nobody knowing who their friends really are till trouble strikes. Personally, I'd like nothing better than to sell out my properties here and move away myself...."
It was a long, rather disjointed letter. Obviously it had cost the distracted woman many a difficult moment to compose, and the blow to her pride had been devastating. Linda, reading on, felt her heart bleed with pity for this mother and daughter whose lives heretofore had fallen into place easily and who were so poorly equipped to meet trouble when it came.
Dodie, Aunt Minnie went on to say, having given up the dreadful job in Washington, was going on to New York to become a model. At this point, she became the doting mother, adding that undoubtedly her daughter would do exceedingly well in this particular field-what with her lovely blond hair, petite figure, blue eyes, and velvet-soft complexion. Having done this, however, she switched over and became the terrified mother who sees in the same qualities of pulchritude a dangerous hazard. At that juncture the letter took on an impas sioned note, indicating that Aunt Minnie was not far from hysteria when she penned the lines, "And this, my dear niece, is where you come in. You must take Dodie into your home, look after her. Protect her not only from the unscrupulous men (who, I have been told, regard innocent Southern girls as easy prey), but from her own trusting self as well. Remember, she is your blood kin. I cannot stress too strongly. After living in New York for several years, Pm sure you must know all the pitfalls; must have experienced a great deal, living alone as you do. In fact, I shall consider you responsible if anything should happen to Dodie...."
Linda, against her will, began to get a little angry. If she remembered correctly, Dodie was only two months her junior. As for experience, she was confident that Dodie was far ahead of her. During her years in New York she had been much too busy earning a living to indulge in extracurricular activities. However, she must not let Aunt Minnie's hysteria lessen the warmth of her welcome for her cousin.
"After all, she's blood kin, and I really do want her." She repeated the words several times, as if to convince herself.
She recalled, with a little qualm, that she had not seen Dodie since they were children, when the girl and her mother had come to Florida for a brief visit. At that time Dodie was, very definitely, a spoiled brat. Linda still carried on her arm a small scar where her young cousin, in a wild fit of anger, had bitten her.
"Maybe I was a brat too," Linda murmured, and took courage in the thought that undoubtedly Dodie had changed. Surely life, along with her marital tragedy, had softened her. She, Linda, must remember that and welcome her with all the love and affection that she herself had missed so much since her parents had passed on.
Aunt Minnie's letter rambled on for another three pages, and there was one line that caused Linda to waver momentarily, and to recall again Lil Sargeant's remark about doormats. It read, "In giving Dodie a home, my dear, you surely realize that, were the situations reversed, we would do the same thing for you."
Never once had Aunt Minnie offered her a home. Never once, unless she wanted something, had she even so much as shown an awareness of her orphaned niece's existence. Even now, it was obvious that she hadn't the faintest idea of Linda's circumstances and the manner in which she lived. To Aunt Minnie a "home" was a house with plenty of bedrooms, certainly not a miniature apartment three flights up in an old brownstone, with scarcely enough room to turn around.
Linda skipped the rest of the letter, down to the last paragraph, which gave the date and the time of Dodie's arrival. She was shocked into a fury of activity when it suddenly dawned on her that the "Wednesday" Aunt Minnie referred to was tomorrow. The letter, forwarded from the old address, was a week overdue. That meant that, come four o'clock tomorrow afternoon, Dodie would be here. She, Linda, would have to take time out from the office to meet the train. Meanwhile, she must get the apartment in readiness.
She spent most of the night rearranging things, so that an apartment designed for one person-and a slim person at that-would accommodate two. Dodie, of course, must have the bedroom, with the comfortable bed; she herself would sleep on the lumpy studio couch until her raise came through and she could get something better.
Dodie must have the better half of the single closet; she, Linda, would worry along as best she could with the half in which Aunt Minnie's "shopping errors" were stored. Dodie could have the small traveling clock for her bedside table; Linda would make do with the chimes in the Metropolitan tower. She could always hear them when the windows were open. There were five dresser drawers-three for Dodie, two for herself.
For a while Spitfire, realizing that something was afoot, followed her around, watching her curiously and, yes, disapprovingly. There was an expression in his eyes not unlike Lil's this afternoon when the woman had implied that Linda was incapable of looking out for herself. She paused in her work long enough to shake an accusing forefinger at Spitfire.
"I know what you're thinking," she accused her. "So it's just as well you can't talk. You're thinking I'm a human doormat. I can tell by the look in your eyes."
If Spitfire had been human, his response could not have been more expressive. He stared at the extended finger suspiciously, as if it were some strange djinn come to pounce upon him. Then, arching his back, he proceeded to spit-high, wide, and handsome.
"Well," Linda exploded, "of all things! I certainly must be a soft touch, when even my best friends start spitting on me."
She laughed when she said it, knowing that cats, like all house pets, were distrustful of anything smacking of change in familiar surroundings. This shifting around of furniture, the moving of the hassock on which he always slept, all in the interest of more space, had been too much for Spitfire. The accusing finger was the last straw. Linda was to recall the incident later, and to marvel anew at the uncanny perceptiveness of alley cats. It was as though some strange instinct had told Spitfire that life would never be the same again after this change, that this unwarranted activity on his mistress's part boded no good for his future home life.
Linda picked him up in her arms, stroked his fur, and returned his hassock to its original place in front of the studio couch. But he wriggled himself free-a rebuff if ever there was one, Linda reflected-and went over to stretch himself out on the hassock.
While she took time out for a brief rest and a glass of iced tea, Linda tried to tell that knowing animal about Dodie and her impending arrival, but he was peculiarly unresponsive. Usually when she talked to him he talked back and, by means of miaows, purrs, and growls, did a fine job of cooperating in a two-way conversation. This time she was accorded nothing more than a scornful look and complete silence. When she mentioned her by-line and the possible raise in salary, he simply curled himself into a fluffy yellow ball and went to sleep. Obviously he was not interested.
That was the way with animals, Linda reflected. They were wonderful pets, but poor substitutes for human companionship. In fact, it was silly, even a little mad, to be talking sense to a cat. Things would be different when Dodie arrived. Despite the difficulties and the small sacrifices involved, Linda had finally sold herself on the idea that the arrangement was bound to be a happy one.
Steve Morrison was in one of his expansive moods when, on the following day, she asked for time off to go to the train.
"My cousin is coming to live with me," she explained. "She's a stranger in New York, so I feel I must meet her and see that she gets home all right. The train is due at three-thirty. All right if I leave around three?"
"Sure thing. Earlier if you like."
He looked up from the newspaper he was glancing through, and smiled most ingratiatingly. "I'll go with you to fend off the wolves-that is, if you can arrange to have the train delayed a couple of hours. If your cousin is half as pretty as you are, you'll be needing a strong bodyguard. Why, your eyes are like twin stars this morning. I'll wager you can write rings around your cousin when it comes to looks."
Linda, taken aback by this unexpected compliment, dismissed it with a deprecating laugh. Groping around in her mind for something impersonal to say, she launched forth on a rather glowing description of her cousin, as gleaned from photographs and Aunt Minnie's letters.
Dodie, who was blond, was not at all like the brunette Linda, she explained. She was beautiful, really beautiful. She was coming up from the South to work as a model-a career to which she was ideally suited, in view of her glamorous good looks.
"Oh," Steve said. "Another blond doll from the South, all set to storm the big city and find herself a rich husband."
"Certainly not!" Linda exclaimed. "You're being very unfair. I don't know what you've got against Southern girls, or blondes, but you've got Dodie wrong. She isn't that kind of a girl."
John Billings stepped over, gave Linda a playful pat on the head in his usual friendly manner. "Did I hear you say a new blonde's coming to town?" he asked. And when she nodded, "Well, count me in on the welcoming committee. Not that I prefer blondes when there's a brunette around," he added pointedly, "but they seem to prefer me."
Two phones on the city desk began to ring simultaneously, and Linda chose the opportunity to return to her desk. Here she encountered a wet blanket in the person of Lil, who looked at her sharply and demanded
"What's all this nonsense I hear about you bringing a cousin up to live with you? I hope you know what you're doing, chick, though I doubt it. Could be you're sticking your neck out for trouble. Women don't usually get along too well when they try to live together in close quarters. One or the other always gets the short end of the stick. And, knowing how soft you are...." In lieu of finishing the sentence, she shook her head ominously.
"Oh, but this is different. Dodie is family."
"That makes it all the more risky," Lil declared. "Chances are you'd be better off with a stranger. You can't very well throw family out if a situation becomes unbearable."
Hoping to forestall further disturbing comment, Linda explained the whole thing to Lil, bearing down on Dodie's exquisite beauty, her sweet helplessness, her need for a home and affectionate understanding during this crucial period. She decided not to elaborate on her cousin's wonderful disposition; secretly, she was getting a little worried on that score, and Lil's dubious attitude was no help. Instead, she opened her purse and took out a tinted photograph which Aunt Minnie had sent for purposes of identification.
Lil looked at the picture and grinned a little sourly. "Oh, she's pretty all right," she conceded. "Looks like an angel, with her yellow hair and baby-blue eyes. I only hope, for your sake, she acts the part. Personally, I never cared much for the so-called helpless blond type. They seem to get along better than the rest of us."
"Don't tell me you're allergic to blondes, as you say you are to flowers and house pets," Linda teased. "I won't believe that either. You're blond yourself."
Lil chuckled appreciatively.' 'Only through the courtesy of my hairdresser. I was dark-haired, like you are," she confessed, "till I was pushing thirty and found I was getting nowhere. Figured if I altered my coloring my luck would change. You needn't laugh at that. It made about as much sense as anything else in this cockeyed universe."
She interrupted her confession to roll a sheet of copy paper into her typewirter, then continued, "I never made a bigger mistake, and I've made plenty. Altering my hair didn't alter my personality; I was never able to achieve a blond soul. Kept on thinking of the other fellow first and myself last, forgetting this was a dog-eat-dog world, with the devil taking the hindmost." She broke off to add, "I hope this rich aunt of yours realizes it costs money to live in New York, and intends to help out with the expenses."
"Oh, yes. I'm sure she does," Linda answered, and hoped devoutly that Aunt Minnie did. There had been no mention of expenses in the letter.
"Did she say so? Don't forget this sorry old world is crawling with chiselers, and sometimes your own kinfolks are the greatest offenders. Think they've got it coming to them, if you know what I mean."
"Aunt Minnie isn't the chiseling type," Linda announced loyally. "And if she didn't mention expenses, it's because-well, she doesn't like to talk about money. Thinks it's bad taste, like so many Southerners do. I'm a little that way myself."
Lil dismissed this remark with the scornful comment she felt it deserved, "Too bad you nice people have to use the filthy stuff to live on."
She turned to her work, and Linda, waiting for an assignment, sat watching her for several minutes, wondering about her and the kind of life she'd had. Lil, with her strange contradictions and impassioned sound-offs against the world and the people in it, was as much an enigma as was Stephen Morrison, with his absurd aversion to Southern girls. For some reason which she could not fathom, Linda felt a little sorry for them. In any case, she did not subscribe to Lil's views concerning the deplorable state of the world.
Why, it's a wonderful world, she told her self, full of people just as wonderful-when they want to be. Then, because she had to say it, have to believe it, she added firmly, "It will be all the more wonderful when Dodie gets here. I'll have family-not just inquisitive co-workers and casual acquaintances."
Shortly after three-thirty, with Dodie's photograph etched clearly in her mind, she stood on the station platform watching the passengers emerge from the Washington train. She studied every feminine face, but there was none that remotely resembled the angelic picture. She waited till the coaches were almost empty, then walked down the platform toward the parlor cars. Dodie, having no economic problems, would take a chair car, or even a drawing room, she decided.
Here the exodus was proceeding in a more leisurely manner. Luggage had been piled on the platform and redcaps were hovering about while smartly dressed passengers were identifying their various belongings. Presently Linda spied a fair-haired girl dressed in a heavenly blue suit, who looked precisely like the photograph, but who could not possibly be the heartbroken Dodie. Or could she?
The girl was standing near the exit of a roomette car, a heap of smartly styled luggage in front of her. There were two redcaps in attendance, and she was clinging to the arm of a dapper middle-aged man who was snapping out instructions to the uniformed men. Her gloved hand held a gold leash to which was attached something that looked for all the world like a frisky black bear.
Linda blinked and looked again. The girl turned slightly, so that her flower-like beauty and cameo features were clearly revealed. Yes, this was Dodie, no mistake about that. The animal Linda had mistaken for a bear was an oversized French poodle. And the man to whom Dodie was clinging so prettily was undoubtedly an old family friend-the dog's owner, Linda assumed. She took a deep breath and ran forward to greet her cousin.
"You're Dodie," she said. "I recognized you from the picture. It's wonderful having you here."
The blond girl's lips parted in a beguiling smile. "Linda-darling!" she carolled. Without relaxing her hold on the leash or the man's arm, she extended a smooth cheek for her cousin's welcoming kiss, then said breathlessly, "It's wonderful being here.
I'm so thrilled I'm going out of my mind. Now, sugah, you must meet little old Angus and Lord Beaufort." She paused, and her voice took on a querulous note. "I was beginning to think you weren't coming, and I was terrified. I don't know what I'd have done without Angus."
The poodle, evidently approving of Linda, tugged at the leash and lunged forward with the obvious intention of jumping on this new acquaintance. It took both hands to restrain him, so Dodie was obliged to release the man's arm.
"He's like that," she explained. "Only a puppy, and very friendly, even to strangers. Think you're a little old lapdog, don't you, precious?" she said in an aside to the animal. "I wouldn't want him to ruin your cute little dress. And he's perfectly devastating on stockings-really devastating."
Linda dodged the rambunctious animal's flailing paws, patted his curly head, said, "Good boy, Angus," and turned to the man.
"It's nice meeting you, Lord Beaufort," she said a trifle self-consciously. "I suppose you're one of Aunt Minnie's friends."
He frowned impatiently, cleared his throat, and started to speak. But his words were lost in a ripple of girlish laughter, followed by a wild commotion that sent the two redcaps scurrying for cover. Dodie, overcome with amusement, had lost her grip on the poodle's leash and the dog, free after several hours' confinement in a stuffy roomette, was having the time of his life. He was galloping wildly up and down the long platform, yelping happily, and jumping in puppyish delight upon all and sundry. His very size made the performance all the more ludicrous-and terrifying.
Finally a redcap more courageous than the others managed to capture the spirited animal, and quiet was restored. Dodie explained the reason for her spasm of laughter. Linda had made a ghastly mistake, she said between giggles. Lord Beaufort was the ebullient poodle's name, and the Angus who had befriended her when she thought she was alone in New York was none other than the celebrated Angus Peterson.
Unperturbed by the fact that no one else seemed to see the joke, she explained further that Mr. Peterson was the owner of an import model agency in New York. They had met when he helped her on the train in Washington and had talked for a while in the club car. Mr. Peterson was going to give her a job-perhaps get her into television.
"Aren't you, sugah?" She smiled up at him, giving him the pretty-please business with her guileless blue eyes.
He nodded, and grinned rather sheepishly. "Yes, if it can be arranged."
It would be hard to say which of the two was the more embarrassed, Linda or the estimable Mr. Peterson. Linda because she had made such an awkward mistake as to names; Mr. Peterson because, to his cautious way of thinking, to be called "sugah" by a snip of a girl was even more mortifying-and certainly more precarious-than having his name confused with that of a dog.
Too, he was beginning to feel trapped. He had not actually promised this beautiful girl a job. His discreet lips had uttered only a noncommittal maybe, or words to that effect. But there had been no "maybe" in her trusting eyes. With as much speed as politeness would permit, Angus Peterson saw to it that the two girls were settled in a taxicab, together with the sportive Lord Beaufort and quantities of hand luggage, and bowed himself out of the immediate picture.
"My personnel manager will see you early next week, Miss Deering," he told Dodie. "You're to phone for an appointment, and I'll make a note to tell him you're to be given every consideration." He cleared his throat nervously. "I myself am obliged to be out of town. A trip to the West Coast...."
"Why, the wretched old meanie," Dodie pouted as the cab moved away. "You'd think he was trying to give poor little me the brush-off."
She bit her lip in vexation, but there was a resolute look in her eyes which said very plainly that nothing short of refined mayhem would prevent the presumably helpless Dorothy-Mae Deering from becoming a Peterson model. Clearly she had all the sweet tenacity typical of the proverbial clinging vine. Linda, getting more uncomfortable by the minute but trying valiantly to deny it, was reminded of Lil's warning. Undoubtedly Dodie would get along; she, Linda, would be the hindmost.
The taxi ride from Pennsylvania Station to the apartment on East Thirty-seventh Street boded no good for the future. Dodie had more hand luggage than Linda had ever dreamed one girl could possess; the cab was practically bulging out at the sides. There was also a trunk to be delivered later. The problem was: Where to put all these things?
Lord Beaufort, an incredibly big poodle with lapdog delusions, insisted upon occupying the seat beside his mistress. The rest of the space was taken up by leather hatboxes, so Linda was reduced to the jump seat. Even that would not have been so bad, had "Beau" not refused to stay put. He was snobbish, rambunctious, and overly affectionate by turns. Having accepted Linda as a friend, he played no favorites. Between sitting down, standing up, and maneuvering his bulky body back and forth-from Dodie's arms to Linda's inadequate lap-he seemed bent upon taking over the entire cab. Even the driver was moved to protest.
"What goes on back there?" he shouted. "If you don't make that infernal hound pipe down, I'm throwing you out right here. Want to get us all killed?"
Dodie made a face at his back, then leaned forward. "Now, now, you sweet man," she cooed. "I'm sure you wouldn't do a mean thing like that-not to poor little me."
Obviously the driver was impressed, for it was he who piped down, while Beau continued his frolicsome depredations.
Linda, despite her discomfort in the present situation and her anxiety as to the future, could not repress a quick grin. She wondered if Dodie would be able to handle the landlord as successfully as she had the taxi driver. So far as she knew, the no-dogs-allowed rule was rigidly enforced in the apartment house. She herself, though fond of dogs as pets, had settled for Spitfire, the yellow cat.
If Beau was a problem now, she reflected unhappily, it was nothing at all compared to the problem he would be once they reached home. Undoubtedly Spitfire, who had his own eccentricities, would resent this intrusion by a spoiled animal whose manners were definitely on the swashbuckling side. Spitfire would surely try to enforce his priority rights, and the fat would indeed be in the fire. Besides, the apartment was just too small to harbor so many living creatures, human or otherwise.
Resolutely, she forced her thoughts away from the impending problems and spoke to her cousin, who had lapsed into a kind of moody silence.
"It's grand seeing you again, Dodie, and I hope you're going to be happy here." She hesitated briefly, then added gently, "I was sorry to hear about the breakup of your marriage. It must have hurt you a lot. But then those things happen sometimes. I'll do all I can to help you forget."
It was a spontaneous expression of sympathy and reassurance, coming from the depths of Linda's heart, but no sooner were the words out of her mouth than she saw that she'd said the wrong thing. She should have waited, perhaps, or said nothing at all. Dodie had burst into a wild fit of weeping, and even the taxi driver turned to glare accusingly at Linda.
Fortunately it was a brief storm. A few minutes later Dodie, after telling of her annulment, was relating her experiences in Washington. They had been quite gruesome-all work and no play; no consideration, no future. She had filed silly cards till she was blue in the face. She had no use for Washington. It was as dull as dishwater; simply crawling with puny government workers-all of them married-and fat politicians, all as old as Methuselah himself.
"Why, honey-child," she confided, "I wouldn't live there if you gave me the little old place."
"No, of course not," Linda said with determined accord.
Dodie, having paid her respects to. the job she'd held for three ghastly weeks, went on to deplore the dearth of eligible men in Washington and to voice her hope that New York was different.
"I wouldn't know," Linda answered a little sharply. "I haven't investigated." They lapsed into silence.
When they arrived at the apartment house the anemic taxi driver, bowled over by the blond girl's defenseless femininity and staggering under the weight of luggage, climbed the three flights twice.
Linda, who was performing the dual feat of holding Beau and trying to unlock the apartment door, heard her cousin thank the driver profusely, but she saw no money change hands. She herself had paid the cab fare, expecting they would be obliged to get the luggage upstairs on their own power.
"I don't know what we'd have done without you, you big sweet man," Dodie cooed as the driver started back down the stairs. "With all these dreadful steps to climb, and no little ol' elevator...."
Linda, annoyed but trying not to show it, turned Beau over to his mistress and concentrated on the refractory lock. "I hope you gave the big sweet man a big sweet tip," she said, a scornful note creeping into her voice.
"He deserved it, with all this luggage." She bit her lip, wishing she hadn't said that, but the words had slipped out.
"Oh. Should I?" Dodie's eyes widened in distress, and for a moment Linda was afraid she was going to cry. "But, sugah, he was a white man! And even if he is rather common, I wouldn't want to hurt his feelings by offering him money."
"He still has to live," Linda flung back, beyond caring what she said now. How right Lil was; right about a number of things.
Dodie fumbled around in her purse, found that she had no small change, then asked Linda for the loan of a quarter. "It's not much," she said, "but Mamma always says it never pays to be too generous with one's inferiors. It spoils them, and they take advantage."
Linda drew a dollar bill from her wallet and raced down the steps after the man. Dodie was her mother's daughter, she decided. They thought of others only in terms of free service. It was highly un-likely that they would ever comprehend the high cost of living in New York and chip in on expenses. Well, there was nothing she could do but pay.
No sooner had they entered the apartment than another problem reared its ominous head. Spitfire, stretched out on his hassock, sprang to his feet, ready to defend his home against this wholesale intrusion. Rearing back on his hind legs and waving his paws in the manner of a boxer, he spat-not once, but many times.
Beau, who had broken away from his leash and lunged forward, his tail wagging trustingly, shrank back. Instinct had warned him that this spitting creature was not a friend but a foe. Dodie, her eyes wide with terror, crouched against the wall and began to scream. Linda tried, as best she could, to bring order out of the chaos, lest the landlord appear and demand that the place be vacated immediately.
"Nice kitty," she cajoled. But Spitfire, no longer a kitten, paid her no mind. "Down, Beau," she ordered. But Beau, who was already down on all fours, simply wagged his tail helplessly. "It's all right, Dodie," she consoled her cousin.
"All right?" Dodie wailed. "A wildcat starts spitting at me, and you say it's all right!"
"Nonsense," Linda said. "Spitfire's quite tame. He's a lovely cat, once you get to know him.
"I hate cats! They terrify me." Dodie covered her face with her hands and, between sobs, demanded that the "vicious alley cat" be removed at once.
Spitfire, in his own inimitable way, solved the problem. First he turned scornful yellow-green eyes on the intruders, as much as to say, "Pooh, I've been thrown out of bigger alleys by better people." Then, with the superb grace of his kind, he slithered down from the hassock, sauntered across the room and out the door, which was still standing open.
With a little cry, Linda hurried after him. "Spitfire," she pleaded, "You can't do this to me. Come back. You're not an alley cat. You're a nice kitty and this is your home-our home."
But Spitfire, increasing his speed, bounded down the stairs and out through the front door, which the taxi driver had neglected to close.
When Linda reached the street, he had disappeared as completely as if he had never existed. Inquiries in the immediate neighborhood resulted in nothing more than the disheartening information that no one had seen a beautiful yellow cat with white paws.
Stung to the quick by this cruel desertion, Linda retraced her footsteps. As she climbed the stairs, she experienced a sense of deep loneliness, of deprivation that was not limited altogether to the loss of her beloved pet. It was almost as though she had lost something of intrinsic value within the space of a brief hour. Was it freedom?
Even the little apartment was no longer her own home. It belonged to a beautiful blond girl whose pretty helplessness was exceeded only by her uncanny instinct for getting her own way, and an oversized dog with incredibly bad manners. She, Linda, would just live there in the role of poor relation, paying the piper and keeping the peace as best she could. Beau and Dodie would run the show.
That night Linda had a vivid dream, centering around Steve Morrison. She enjoyed it. It was only upon awakening and remembering who her dream lover had been that her mood soured.
She had been fighting him off mentally since she first caught a glimpse of him. She felt very attracted to him, but she knew that in a business situation such relationships are best left undeveloped.
But her dream had changed all of that. Now she was forced to admit that Mr. Morrison was exerting a powerful attraction over her-so much so that it was beginning to interfere with her sleep!
Somehow she had dreamed that she was alone with him in a bedroom, at night; that she had just been preparing for bed as usual, and his presence there, in the same bed, was nothing at all out of the ordinary.
Tenderly, Steve gathered her into his arms.
She felt her large, soft breasts mashing against his chest, and the clean-smelling hair on the top of her head brushed his lips caressingly.
He slipped his fingers under her chin and tilted her face upward, then kissed her. Her lips were warm and soft and sweet, and her hot tongue darted out to meet his own responsively.
He was gratified and excited to feel her nipples hardening, pushing against his chest.
One of his hands slipped down the pleasing curve of her back and cupped a generous buttock. Her skin was silky, and the flesh filling his palm was firm and resilient.
"Mmmmm," she murmured. He pulled her even closer, and her triangle of springy pubic hair scrubbed against him.
His cock twitched in happy anticipation.
One of her hands started to trace a sensuous path down between the fronts of their bodies, slipping between his thighs to investigate what was going on there.
"Ohhh, nice, nice," she whispered as her knowing fingers caressed and explored.
The warmth of his cock felt wonderful to her hand.
But she was about to do more than that.
Although in real life she had never had a man's cock in her mouth, Linda pushed aside the covers and squirmed down in the bed, drawing herself out of his embrace. He felt her kneeling beside him, and a breeze of warmth touched his cock.
"Ohh, sweatheart," he moaned happily.
Then the wet heat of her tongue was exploring his aching flesh, bathing the sensitive helmet of his cockhead in hot saliva.
Steve gasped and squirmed uncontrollably.
"Like that, darling?" she teased.
"You know damn well I...."
Another moist caress sent a jolt of excitement crashing through his loins.
"Oh, it's getting so hard," she murmured, her mouth still resting against his cockhead, so that the vibration of her voice sent another spasm of delight through his helpless flesh.
Then she ceased to lick, and she maneuvered the swollen head into the warm, wet cave between her soft, gorgeous lips. Her teeth scraped over it, but very gently, just enough to provide a shock of sensation that dragged yet another gasp of pleasure from his throat.
Dreamily, Steve reached down his hand and fondled her softly curling hair.
Then one of her hands slipped around to his buttocks, and a fingertip stroked excitingly along the tight, dark cleft. She knew she could drive him crazy doing that.
Her finger went down to the engorged ridge between his asshole and the root of his cock. She rubbed along it for a moment, then cupped his balls, just firmly enough to add to his growing pleasure.
"Feel good, darling?" she cooed.
As if she had any doubts!
She moved her head so that his pulsating rod slid sweetly into the humid velvet of her mouth, and then on, incredibly on, until her tender lips were pressing against the very base of his masculinity.
He groaned, just to let her know that what she was doing was okay with him.
Then, inexorably, the blissful sensation was removed as her head tilted back, leaving his spit-soaked shaft stabbing futilely in the darkness of the room.
A moment later, she was crawling back up beside him, snuggling into his arms, her lips and tongue once again meeting and devouring his own.
After a few seconds, a little breathless, he broke the kiss and nuzzled at the fragrant hollow of her throat, then started to blaze a fiery trail with his tongue down to one of her abundant breasts.
He scooped his tongue around the thrusting, rubbery-textured nipple and tasted the crinkled flesh surrounding it.
She whimpered softly with pleasure, which greatly added to his raging arousal, and her hips made a thrusting movement against his loins.
He switched his attention to her other luscious mammary, gave it a few minutes of tongue and very delicate tooth work, then continued his exploration down the front of her body, flicking the tip of his tongue into her navel for a moment, then continuing still lower, until his tongue met the crispness of her pubic ringlets.
With careful fingers, he drew apart the outer lips and blew a current of air onto the exposed flesh beneath.
Linda moaned with delight.
He ducked his head until his lips were touching those other intimate lips that protected her inner sex.
She trembled.
Steve's nostrils were filled with the sweet, musky perfume and he breathed deeply, his cock twitching with the desire to plunge into her hot tunnel.
Instead, his tongue began to lave the juicy membranes, lapping up the sexual nectar.
"Oh, ooooh," she whimpered ecstatically.
When the tip of his tongue finally homed in on the morsel of her clitoris, hard as a marble inside its tiny protective hood, she writhed in sensual agony.
Her harsh whisper floated to his ears: "Fuck me! Oh, fuck me now! Now!"
But he stayed there a little while longer, batting the little marble back and forth with his tongue, enjoying her moans of delicious sweet agony.
"Fuck me, oh fuck me!" she was pleading.
He sucked on the little knob of flesh. "Mmmm ... nnnnoooo ... yes ... ooohhhhh ... you're driving me crazy...."
The crazier the better. The hotter she was, the better his ride would be.
"OOOOOHHHHHH!"
He knew that she was very close now, and he didn't want to send her over the edge until he had his cock tucked safely up inside the dark, velvety cave of her hot, sweet, receptive, tight little pussy.
Steve squirmed upward, the front of his body rubbing along hers, his chest hair rasping against her stomach and then her breasts as he settled himself in position on top of her.
Her thighs, quivering with excitement, parted widely, and her tender fingers gave his cock a loving squeeze before guiding its blunted arrowhead into position against her passion-soaked pussy.
He thrust forward, and her pelvis rose to meet him, and his rod of flesh cleaved joyfully inward.
The walls of her inner cunt contracted lovingly around his invading shaft.
For almost a minute they just lay there without moving, relishing their closeness, hearing only each other's aroused breathing. He kissed her again and again.
Then he moved his hips a fraction, so that his rigid cock slid a little way out of her, then thrust back home.
The inner walls of her pussy seemed to quiver and clutch, embracing the unyielding bulk of the welcome invader in a loving grasp.
Now the end of his cock was pressing against her cervix. He lay and enjoyed the depth of penetration for a few moments more, then grunted with pleasure as her inner muscles squeezed his cock in a sort of milking action.
Then he began to work in and out of her, at first only a little way, until she started to match his rhythm with her own pelvis and hips.
He increased the length of his hot stroke, a fraction more with each outward pull, until it reached the point where the ridge of his corona was feeling the outer air each time.
And every inward thrust was like plunging into a bath of liquid fire.
He could feel the sweat starting to trickle down his face and shoulders and chest.
He suddenly pulled out of her, leaving her gasping, and hooked his arms beneath her thighs, lifting them to rest on his shoulders. Then he plunged back into the plush furnace of her widespread cunt.
The moist sounds of fucking filled his ears, blending with her harsh gasps and tiny moans as he plunged in and out of her most intimate recesses. He could hear his own harsh breathing too, and realized he was perilously close to what promised to be a volcanic eruption.
He increased the tempo suddenly, and she began to flail her arms and an unearthly scream burst from her throat as her body convulsed so violently that it was all he could do to remain in position.
But the stimulus of her orgasm was too intense to be resisted, and with a helpless groan, he felt the boiling sperm come frothing out of his balls and fountaining out of his spasming cock.
CHAPTER FOUR
In the busy weeks that followed Linda had little time to dwell on personal problems. As time passed and she grew more proficient in the technique of news reporting, she inherited a variety of small, time-consuming assignments.
And Walter Jarvis seemed to regard her as a natural to fill in for anyone who hadn't bothered to show up.
When Lil remonstrated, telling her she was letting herself be imposed on, and reminding her that her raise hadn't come through yet, Linda protested that she loved the work.
"I don't mind staying late to help Walter Jarvis," she said. "I can't let him down. He was nice to me when I was in features." Actually, he had done nothing for her except hire her as a filing clerk, but she was sorry for him.
"As for the raise," she continued, "well, it doesn't matter-not really."
"Oh. Rich chick," Lil grunted, and said no more.
Linda tried to close her mind to the haunting thought that the raise did matter. It mattered far more than she cared to admit even to herself. She had spent practically all of her small savings on furniture for the apartment. Now, with three mouths to feed instead of one, her present salary was inadequate. Sooner or later she would have to face it.
The fact that Dodie had gone on an expensive reducing diet in order to meet the weight requirements of the Peterson Model Agency was no help. Beau, too, had gone haywire. Holding out for the choicest and most expensive cuts of meat, to which he had been accustomed, he had gone on a hunger strike. His last professional hairdo and grooming had depleted the budget to the point that Linda had felt compelled to economize for a little while on his food. But Beau had turned his pedigreed nose up at hamburger, as if it were something no nice dog should eat.
"I eat it-and love it," Linda had told him, hoping to cajole the obstinate animal into eating the food. But it was no use. Beau had simply wagged his tail and continued his hunger strike, which was now in its third day.
The biggest financial drain, however, had been in the entertainment department. Despite the smallness of the apartment, Dodie had to entertain her newfound friends from the agency. It was part of the routine one had to follow in order to get "in," she explained.
"It's only a teeny-weeny party," she would point out, "just a few people...."
Nevertheless, these small soirees, by virtue of their frequency alone, added up to a considerable crowd, and strained Linda's budget to the breaking point. Dodie vetoed the idea of homemade canapes, saying they looked amateurish. They must be ordered and sent up by a professional caterer.
Only the finest drinks could be served. Mr. Peterson himself drank nothing but Scotch, but there were others who preferred mixed drinks, or imported tea with plenty of ice.
"After all, sugah, it's terribly important that things be done right," Dodie would say. "My whole career depends on it. I've set my heart on becomin' a model, and if anything happens...."At this point she would break off to stare at Linda with tragic blue eyes, as if the possible results of failure were too dreadful to contemplate.
Linda, remembering Aunt Minnie's pronouncement that she would be held responsible if anything happened to Dodie, had no choice in the matter. There was nothing she could do but confirm the luxury orders and pay the bills as they came in. Whatever the cost, she could not, must not, stand in the way of Dodie's glamourous career.
Nor could she allow Beau to starve. She had grown fond of the ill-mannered pooch and would sooner starve herself. No one had rejoiced more than she when Dodie, turning on the charm full force, had convinced the landlord that pedigreed dogs gave distinction to a place and made fine tenants.
She winced as she recalled that never once had Dodie offered to share the expenses. Never once had she acknowledged the existence of such a crude thing as money-except to borrow it when she ran short.
Aunt Minnie, on the other hand, was not altogether blind to the situation. To Linda's surprise, she conceded quite frankly that it cost money to live in New York, just as it did in Tuscaloosa now that the world had gone mad. But her contributions were measured by Tuscaloosa standards, the assumption being that practically everyone owned his own home, hobnobbed with bankers, and had unlimited credit among tradesmen. The truth was that even the supposedly simple matter of cashing Aunt Minnie's checks, small though they were, presented a problem to Linda.
Once the checks were cashed, the money was turned over to Dodie, who really needed it. Becoming a Peterson model was an expensive propsition, to say the least. Dodie must have any number of glamour photographs, made by the best photographer in town. She must have the right clothes for any and every occasion before she enrolled. She must have a short reducing course; she was three pounds overweight. She must take lessons in posture; have her hair done at least twice a week.
Even now that she was "in," the situation was by no means improved. She was "enrolled," had all the prestige of a Peterson model, but it was still up to Dodie to make her own contacts for jobs. Linda forced her mind away from the unpleasant aspects of the situation to concentrate on the happier ones. It was nice having someone to go home to, even though it meant cooking a meal when she much preferred having a light snack and going to bed. Dodie was by no means bad company, and the friends she brought in turned many an otherwise dull evening into one of gaiety and merriment.
True, there were times, after a hard day in the office, when Linda did not feel quite up to taking part in the festivities. But she forced herself to carry on, grateful to Dodie for introducing her to this new laughter-crowded life. What did it matter that she couldn't retire till the last guest was gone and she could make up the studio couch? That she had to rise early, take Beau for a walk, and rush to the office, whereas Dodie could sleep until noon? It was a new way of life for her, and it was fun.
It was fun, too, taking Beau out for his early-morning and late-evening constitutionals. It was just as well, she conceded, that Dodie had foisted the dog-walking on her. She had taught Beau to heel, to walk along quietly like a civilized dog instead of a bucking broncho.
He no longer tugged at the gold leash, or expressed his affection for humanity in general by lunging forward and pouncing upon unwary pedestrians. Moreover, he was a handsome animal, and Linda would not have been human had she not noted, with satisfaction, the admiring glances that followed them as they strolled down the street. She made a mental note to buy Beau a nice piece of steak on her way home this evening. She and Dodie would eat the hamburger.
It was six o'clock by the time she got around to writing the love column for Walter Jarvis. She was practically alone in the office, so there would be no interruptions. The day staff had gone home, and only a few men on the night side had drifted in. If she hurried, she would be finished with the lovelorn column and home by seven.
Hastily, she glanced through a few of the letters Jarvis had sent in to her as possible column material. They were a hodgepodge of petty complaints, the querulous laments of self-centered people too obsessed with their own imaginary grievances to locate the source of their misery. There wasn't a single problem among them that the Golden Rule, sincerely applied, wouldn't have solved.
Linda, reading between the lines, was sure she had never seen so much evidence of blind selfishness in all her life put together. How did these people expect to be happy when they were so wrapped up in themselves, when they wanted everything for themselves and wailed to high heaven when it wasn't forthcoming? Didn't they realize that other people, too, had a desire for appreciation, a hunger for happiness? And that therein lay the crux of their unhappiness?
There was no need to look further for a theme, Linda decided. It was high time someone wrote a column on selfishness and its devastating effect on happiness and love. On that thought she chose the most coherent letter of the group, pasted it in place, and began to write the answer.
If she used Dodie as a shining example of what selfishness could do to people, she was not conscious of it at the time. But when she had finished and was reading the story over, she could see Dodie in practically every line. Dodie saw everything in terms of herself and her own benefit. She had everything a girl could possibly desire, but she wasn't satisfied. Just how much of this chronic dissatisfaction was tied up with the girl's unfortunate marriage, Linda had no way of determining, briefly, only to throw it away.
In any case, it was clear that Dodie was not happy. For all her pretenses, her laughter held an hysterical note that was not far removed from tears. The last paragraph of Linda's column, a quotation from Charles Kingsley, might well have been written for Dodie.
"If you want to be miserable, think about yourself, about what you want, what you like, what respect people ought to pay you, and then you will make unhappiness for yourself out of everything God sends you. You will be as wretched as you choose."
Linda had just finished copy-reading the story and was ready to drop it into the slot when Steve Morrison entered the room. He saw her, looked a little surprised, then smiled and came over.
"You still here?" he queried unnecessarily. "Haven't you got any home?"
"The love columnist didn't come in today," she explained, "so I wrote the column for Saturday. Poor Walter Jarvis was desperate."
"He was born desperate, from what I hear," Steve announced shortly. "Had your dinner?"
"No. But I've finished now, so I can go home."
"I've got a better idea," he told her. "I'm working tonight, but I've still got to eat. What do you say we dash over to the Dutchman's and sink our teeth into a nice juicy steak?"
Linda thought a minute. She had never been to the Dutchman's, which was a well-known and supposedly expensive rendezvous for newspaper people with upper-bracket salaries. And the very word steak made her mouth water. But Dodie and Beau were waiting, already cross and hungry because she was late.
"I'd love to," she began, "but...."
"Never mind the buts, cookie," he said in a voice of authority. "Get your bonnet. I haven't too much time."
Linda hesitated, but briefly. Why shouldn't I go with him? she asked herself. It might do Dodie good to cook her own dinner for a change. And Beau, the ornery pooch, can wait a little while longer for his steak.
She ran out to the locker, got her jacket and hat, freshened her makeup, and a few minutes later they were off to the Dutchman's.
When they entered the restaurant, several men seated at the bar turned to look appreciatively at Linda and to speak a word of greeting to Steve. They were members of the night staff, she assumed.
They sat in a booth near an open window where a cool April breeze caressed Linda's face and played tag with Steve's unruly red hair, making it look more rumpled than ever. He ordered a glass of light sherry for Linda and a highball for himself, and they sat sipping their drinks and talking about inconsequential things while they waited for the food to arrive.
When the steak appeared, sizzling hot and flanked by mounds of french fried potatoes, delicately browned, Linda could not help feeling a little guilty. It did not seem right that she should be sitting there feasting on steak while Dodie sat home eating dog meat and Beau ate nothing at all. However....
Steve's voice broke into her thoughts. "You're getting that raise next week, Linda," he said. "Sorry-but I couldn't make it retroactive."
"Why, that's wonderful!" she exclaimed, her eyes shining. She started to say more, but changed her mind. No point in going overboard by letting him know that a raise at this time was nothing short of a godsend.
"I did the best I could for you," he continued. "After all, I don't have the last word around here. I can only recommend. Caleb Marsh," he added, mentioning the name of the absentee publisher, "still insists on knowing where the money goes. Nobody gets a raise without his okay."
"I've never seen anything but his picture," Linda confessed. "I've often wondered if he really existed."
"Oh, he exists all right. And he keeps a close watch on the payroll. I'm sure Lil realizes this, so I can't for the life of me understand why she kept romping on me."
Linda hastened to defend Lil. "She was thinking of me, had my interest at heart. And I'm sure she didn't realize the situation."
"Nonsense," he said. "Lil's been around a long, long time, and there's not anything she doesn't know. In fact, I've heard her name coupled with old Marsh's...."
"Lil is my friend," Linda broke in hotly, "and I love her. Besides, I'm not interested in gossip."
He laughed. "Nor am I. I like Lil very much, though I do think she's got a mystery tucked away somewhere in her background."
Linda refrained from saying what was o her mind, I've been thinking the same thing about you, and they fell silent.
They tackled the food with all the gusto of two healthy young people with hearty appetites, and while they were waiting for dessert Steve told her something of his plans for improving the paper. It was to have new makeup throughout, new typefaces; there would be fewer features and more space for news. Caleb Marsh, who was presently engrossed in the business of getting married to a very young woman, had okayed all these changes.
"And here's where you come in, cookie." He reached across the table and gave her hand a fraternal pat. "You're going to have to work for that raise. I'm giving you a special daily assignment, complete with by-line. It should be right up your alley, since it combines features and news. But it means plenty of legwork. Think you can bear it?"
"Bear it?" Linda exulted. "Why, it's the nicest thing that ever happened to me!"
It was while they were waiting for the check that the unpredictable Stephen Morrison touched off the verbal bombshell. It shook Linda out of her new dream world, sending her senses reeling. Without any preamble whatsoever, he leaned forward and said with obvious resentment, "Confound it, I'm afraid I'm falling in love with you, Linda. And it's the last thing I expected, the last thing I wanted to happen. You Southern girls...."
"Why, what's wrong with us?" Linda blurted, without thinking. I shouldn't have said that, she told herself angrily. It must have sounded as if I wanted to argue the point. She added quickly, "No. Don't tell me. I wouldn't be interested in knowing your bigoted opinion of Southern girls, which I'm sure is based on some crazy prejudice."
He appeared to be vastly amused at her outburst. "That's just it, cookie. It really has nothing to do with you personally, come to think of it. If you'll let me explain...."
She looked at him coldly, then stood up, annoyed all the more at his smug composure. She herself felt anything but composed. He got up too, but she waved him back.
"Don't bother being polite," she told him. "You might feel compromised. I'm going now. Thanks for the dinner, of course-or am I expected to pay?" She took out her purse as a gesture on behalf of her pride, knowing very well that she had less than a dollar in change.
"Don't be silly," he laughed. "Gee, you're a sensitive little shrew, aren't you? But you're as cute as a brand-new penny. I love the way your eyes flash when you're angry." He grinned and held out a placating hand, but she ignored it and turned to go. She could not resist one parting shot.
"So you're afraid you're falling in love with me and you don't like the idea? Well, you don't need to worry. I'm sure I like the idea even less than you do."
She hoped she sounded convincing. She had been startled by his strange declaration, and was now beset by conflicting emotions. What she'd said was only partially true. While she did not like the idea one bit, she was beginning to like this complacent redhead a whole lot. She wished she knew the answer to his ridiculous grudge.
CHAPTER FIVE
Dodie's unexpected appearance in the newspaper's city room one June morning had some of the aspects of a minor bombshell, its repercussions being felt as far away as the feature department on an upper floor. Her mother's monthly check had not arrived and, running short of funds, she had dropped by the office to get a loan from Linda.
It was an unseasonably hot day and deadline was near. Perspiring copy boys were rushing back and forth; shirt-sleeved men on the copy desk were mopping their faces as they struggled with headlines, while reporters and rewrite men were sweating out last-minute stories on red-hot typewriters.
Lil had taken her shoes off, complaining that her feet hurt; Linda, in the midst of a refractory story, was wondering if she looked as wilted as she felt; Steve Morrison's red hair was at its disheveled worst. Even John Billings, usually so immaculate that he looked as though he had just stepped out of Esquire, had taken off his tie, turned in his collar, and rolled up his sleeves.
Dodie, on the other hand, looked enchantingly cool in a sea-green nylon frock, a daringly backless model made demure by means of a brief jacket. A band of silver ribbon circled her blond curls, enhancing the little-girl look in her wide blue eyes. It was almost as if an angel had floated down out of the sky into the mundane city room. Momentarily all hands stopped work, as though to pay silent tribute. Linda, glancing up from her typewriter, thought she had never seen her cousin look so ravishingly sweet and innocent, and felt all the more wilted by comparison.
Dodie smiled a greeting at Steve Morrison and waved a slender hand at John Billings, both of whom she knew. Linda, having declared a temporary truce with Steve, had invited the two young men over to the apartment to meet her cousin. On several occasions thereafter they had made a gay foursome, for dining, dancing, or the theater. Happily, Steve had been careful to avoid such topics as might disconcert Linda.
For a moment Dodie stood staring helplessly around the city room and, despite impending deadlines, more than one would-be cavalier half-rose from his chair to spring to her aid. Then, spying Linda, she ran over and the two girls exchanged affectionate greetings.
"Darling," Dodie exclaimed, "what a fascinating place! I never saw so much exciting activity. Why, it's like a cute little ol' beehive!"
Linda, conscious of the carrying quality of Dodie's flute-like voice, felt her face color. She was reasonably sure that everyone had heard the absurd remark, and suspected that the city room's fascination for Dodie lay in the preponderance of men on the staff.
Lil, who was in the act of putting a new sheet of copy paper into her machine, made a sour face. "Fascinating-my left hind leg," she muttered. "It's my idea of a community Turkish bath, Dodie, my pet. It'll be even worse come July and August-unless Marsh loosens up and lets Steve get some fans around here."
Dodie dismissed that with a reproachful smile at the older woman. She bent over Linda and, in a confidential tone, stated her business, adding, "I'm down to my last dollar, sugah. Of course I realize I shouldn't have bought this dress till Mama's check came. But I can't go around lookin' tacky, can I, honey? And I didn't have a thing to wear except a lot of little ol' rags."
Linda, still trying to keep her mind on the story she'd been writing, did not dispute this. Dodie was the Flora McFlimsey type, with plenty of clothes, but nothing to wear.
"I honestly believe Mama's up to something, sugah," Dodie confided. "Thinks if she holds out on the checks, I'll have to come home. Mama's like that."
"I don't think so," Linda answered, wanting to be fair. "I'm sure the check will come. If you'll sit down and wait a few minutes, till I finish this assignment, I'll see what I can do about getting some cash." She resumed her typing.
Dodie glanced around timorously and saw there were no vacant chairs near by. "And, pray, what do you use for chairs?" she queried, her nostrils quivering delicately.
"Oh, desks and things," Linda said, without glancing up.
John Billings interrupted his work to come over, bringing his own chair-an extraordinary thing in a busy newsroom where men and women have been known to stage battles over lesser comforts.
"Oh, you sweet, sweet thing!" Dodie clapped her hands together in appreciation of such extraordinary gallantry. "You're such a pro-found, understandin' man!"
John beamed, bowed deeply, and extended the chair, the implication being that life would be perfect, the world a wonderful place, if Dodie would only sit down and be happy.
"But I couldn't think of deprivin' you, sugah," she raced on. "After all, how could you possibly compose, much less typewrite, standin' up?"
Lil, who was done with her story and on the verge of tackling another one, contrived to convert an explosive snicker into something faintly resembling a sneeze. John's face reddened, and when Dodie remarked that she could not possibly live with herself if she accepted this "beautiful sacrifice," he returned to his desk, carrying the chair.
She was staying only a little while, she explained, and could sit anywhere.
"Holy cow!" Lil snorted, not caring what she said now. "I never heard such a to-do over a secondhand chair."
Dodie's benign smile faded and she started to say something, then, apparently, decided to consider the source of the scurrilous remark. Slipping out of her jacket, she seated herself on Linda's desk and began to swing her legs in the nonchalant manner approved for jeunes filles models, apparently oblivious to the fact that her back was bare to the waist.
There was a brief silence while the so-called sophisticates who constituted the news staff on a metropolitan daily convinced themselves their eyes were not playing tricks on them. It was no mediocre spectable, the delectable sight of a beautiful girl in an outrageously daring sun-back dress.
The silence broke and, as if a signal had been sounded, there was a concerted gasp. Then someone at the copy desk whistled. His co-workers, picking up the refrain, gave out with a mighty wolf call that might easily have been heard in the outskirts of Manhattan. Of the male contingent, only John Billings and Steve Morrison had the grace to remain silent. John began to type with unwonted violence, while Steve sat with his eyes glued to the typewritten sheet he was reading. Presumably, being gentlemen, they were loath to gaze upon Dodie's naked back.
Linda, cowering with embarrassment for Dodie and for herself, was grateful for this small evidence of decency in a world seemingly crawling with wolves. At the moment she could feel nothing but contempt for the men on the copy desk-reputedly respectable family men-who were behaving for all the world like obstreperous adolescents. Lil, never at a loss for words, summed up the situation with her usual frankness.
"No fool like an old fool with young ideas," she muttered. "Those desiccated buzzards should be ashamed of themselves. I'm ashamed for them."
Dodie, sweetly oblivious to the fact that she was the cause of it all, pressed her hands to her ears to shut out the raucous sound.
"Why, how perfectly frightful, Linda!" she shrieked above the din. "Do they always whistle like this when a newspaper is going to be printed? I know how you worry yourself sick about deadlines and stuff, but I didn't realize it was anything like this. How in the world do you bear it, sugah?"
Linda was spared the need of thinking up a rational answer to this irrational question, because Lil picked it up and answered in kind.
"No, sugah, they don't always whistle," she said in a fairly good imitation of Dodie's penetrating drawl. "Sometimes they say it with horns. It all depends on what mood they happen to be in and what lily-white hand is waving the flag that's got them infuriated."
Dodie's look of condescension was born of much practice. "Pooh," she said. "I know you're joking, because what you're saying doesn't make sense. Horns? You're not fooling me."
"Pooh yourself," Lil tossed back. "It makes as much sense as you do." For emphasis she closed a desk drawer with a sharp bang. "And you're not fooling me either, you sweet Alabama yam. You're the come-on type, if ever I saw it, and you'd be the first one to yell wolf if anybody called your bluff and picked up the invitation...."
"Lil, please" Linda wailed. "You can't say things like that to Dodie!"
"Oh, can't I?" Lil silenced Linda with a withering glance and returned her attention to the other girl. "You do what practically amounts to a strip tease right here in the city room. Then you put on a great-lady act and pretend you don't understand when the boys react normally. You know very well why those buzzards are whistling. You asked for it-sugah." She stressed the last word with a vehemence that was little short of murderous.
For a second Dodie's soft mouth set in a hard, unattractive line. But she contented herself with a shrug of bare, velvety shoulders, which brought further comment from Lil.
"Careful there, girlie," she said in a tone of mock concern. "You haven't got too much cloth to spare at the top of that bodice."
What Dodie might have said as she slithered down from the desk was forestalled by the sudden arrival of Walter Jarvis, feature editor. Jarvis had used the door from the composing room and appeared on the scene with the miraculous slickness of a conjure artist. As usual, his hair was hanging over one eye where he had apparently tugged it in a fit of desperation. His shirt collar was open, disclosing an Adam's apple which was now bobbing up and down as if he were trying to swallow his disappointment over the failure of some cosmic enterprise. One hand clutched a sheaf of galley proofs while the other tugged at his belt in a seemingly futile effort to tighten it.
"I'm in a devil of a jam, Linda." Jarvis's voice held an intimate note, as if they shared a special bond. "If you aren't doing anything special, maybe you'll be a sweetheart and...."
Linda looked up, and for once the distraught feature editor held no sympathetic appeal for her. Her own problem was too pressing. She was so concerned with the number of pages that were still to be written, and the fact that Dodie had stolen a good twenty minutes of valuable time, that she said absently, "Sorry, Walter, but I just have to keep going on this story. I have almost an hour's work here, and by that time I'm sure you won't need me." It was with faint surprise that she hear of Lil's softly spoken comment, "Attagirl, Linda. At last you're growing up."
It was true that Linda was learning the secret of successful news reporting: complete disassociation from the surrounding sound and fury, and from extraneous problems. She only half-noted Walter Jarvis's appealing gesture toward Dodie, who had slipped on her jacket and, to his nearsighted eyes, appeared to be one of the working force.
She watched them go off together and subconsciously felt that she ought to do something about it. How could Dodie, who was so helpless in emergencies, possibly help the equally helpless Walter Jarvis? It suddenly struck her that Dodie and Walter were very much a-like in at least one respect. They expected other people to step in and pull them out of whatever difficulties they might be facing. Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to let them practice their wiles on each other. At any rate, the suddenly mounting tension of the newsroom, as typewriters raced against deadline, recalled her to her task, and a split second later she had forgotten everything but the work at hand.
Dodie, only half-conscious of the fact that this harried young man had appealed to her for help, was grateful to him for having rescued her from an unbearable situation. She followed him up a narrow flight of stone steps and was ushered into a large, barn-like room which was, she thought, the untidiest place she had ever seen. Desk crowded desk in a dusty assortment of typewriters, papers, and long printed sheets similar to those which this kind young man held in his nervous hands.
Walter Jarvis was a small man but, to Dodie, he had acquired the stature of a plumed knight who had ridden the field to save her from a dragon masquerading under the vulgar name of Lil Sargeant. When he'd said to her, "You don't seem to be busy, miss, can you help me out?" she answered, "I'll sure try."
Jarvis walked over to a desk that held a typewriter and a few dusty newspapers pushed to one side. As he laid down the printed sheets he was carrying, he turned to her with a dazzling smile. Dodie, thinking she had made a conquest, settled herself prettily in front of the desk. Jarvis, his smile gone, said abruptly:
"If you can go through these galleys in the next half-hour and let me have the corrected copy, I'll love you forever. Help me out and we'll see about a nice cool lunch later."
But Dodie had never been shown how to proofread. She thought he was asking her to retype the material. So she did-and she tore up every galley as she finished the retyping, tossing the fragments into the waste-basket to signify that she was through with it forever.
Jarvis returned with the same brilliant smile-until he discovered what she had been doing.
"You were supposed to read them, not copy them, you nitwit!" he shouted. "You've destroyed the master proofs!"
"Don't fret," Dodie said, frightened now but trying to soothe him with charm. "You're such a smart, wonderful person you can fix everything up."
She scarcely saw him lift his hand, yet her cheek burned from the impact of the slap and there was a dull ache along her jawbone. For a second she was speechless, then she burst into tears and fled out of the room and down the stairs, catapulted into the city room, and threw herself into the nearest pair of masculine arms.
Steve Morrison, who had just been thinking of asking Linda to dinner, comforted her as best he could, but while he was so occupied, he saw Linda start out to lunch with John Billings.
Disentangling himself from Dodie, he said, "Linda. I'd like to see you for a moment."
She spun around. "I don't think so, Mr. Morrison!" And she was gone, Billings following close behind her.
Linda had been hurt, humiliated, in fact, by the way Steve had caressed Dodie-and in public, too. She was angry when she went to bed that night-so mad that she never wanted to see Steve again, but her dreams betrayed her....
Steve was urging her toward his office, escorting her to the chair and closing the door firmly.
"Listen," he said, "I don't want you to misunderstand what happened today."
"It was perfectly clear," Linda said.
"No it wasn't. For one thing, I'm crazy about you, and I can see that you don't even know it."
Linda was shocked. It was a good thing she was sitting down. Then, in two steps, he was beside her, pulling her to her feet, his mouth pressed against hers.
She could also feel a powerful tool pushing against her cunt.
Her pussy gave a little throb of involuntary response.
Then his lips descended onto hers, his tongue, a warm, wet probe, coaxed insistently until her lips parted, when it slid into her mouth, and her own went to meet it. The kiss was long and languid, as with unhurried eagerness they explored each other, tasted each other.
She felt his cock pressing hard against her and she ground her pelvis against his, loving the dull ache of it. She had never thought it would be like this, so sudden, so powerful!
Roughly, his hands came up and cupped her tits. She sighed-it had been too long since she had felt a man's hands on her, and she knew she was not going to let such a long time go by again.
Then he was undressing her, his hands trembling with excitement. She stood still and let him work, loving his warm hands, his thick red hair-everything about him.
Finally, clad in nothing but her heels and hose, bra and panties, she stood before him. He stepped back and sucked in his breath.
"You're absolutely the most incredible woman I've ever seen," he whispered. "How the hell have I managed to stay out of bed with you?"
"It wasn't all one way," she said, and her voice had a husky note of desire.
He undressed quickly. Any doubts that Linda might have had about what was going to happen evaporated when she saw his giant, thick erection.
He was hung like a horse.
She wanted to tell him how much she had longed for this moment, but she couldn't find the words.
Instead, she sank to her knees in front of him and took his thick prick in her hand.
It was a reddish, purplish color, its head dark and thick. All of it was big and thick.
"Like it, huh?" Steve's voice was filled with pride as he looked down at his emblem of masculinity resting on the palm of her hand.
For a moment she felt degraded by her position-but then she realized that she needed it, somehow. There was something about a man and a woman, she thought, something that makes one or the other degrade themselves.
But did it have to be that way? Certainly Steve didn't feel degraded-or even that he was degrading Linda. It was all in her mind, she realized.
And with that, her last inhibitions fell away.
Already responding to Linda's touch, Steve's cock trembled and pulsed into full rigidity, angling upward, away from the support of her hand, proudly reaching toward the heights.
At its tip, a hole with inflamed lips was oozing a thin, colorless liquid.
Almost timidly, she wrapped her hands around its alarmingly thick shaft.
"Yeeaahhh!" Steve groaned uncontrollably in pleasure at the sensation.
It was a tough-looking cock, yet its skin was so tender, so strangely silky.
A great vein pulsed along its length.
Linda took a deep breath, then bent her head, very slowly, until the pulsating phallic head was only an inch below her warm, soft lips.
She pushed her tongue out, and its quivering tip tasted the satiny skin that covered the head.
The butterfly-soft caress of her tongue-tip abruptly transformed the fluid ooze into a tiny stream, and the flow trickled onto her tongue, tasting a little bitter. Startled, she pulled back for a moment, then ducked her head back down, laving the cockhead with her tongue, then lapping up the thin, oddtasting fluid.
"Mmmmm...." Steve groaned.
Linda let the head of his cock glide between her lips. The organ was hard, iron-hard. She loved it, and she wanted to know how it felt to Steve.
"Is that good?" she asked, taking the prick from her mouth and jerking it gently while she spoke.
"It's all good," he sighed blissfully. "Anything you do feels good."
Her lips slid down below the flaring corona, and tightened around the shaft.
"Good, good, oh, baby, it's so good!"
She let her head drop further, until her lips touched her fingers, which still encircled the shaft. She moved them down, the hot, pulsing flesh filling more and more of the wet cave of her mouth, until she had half of it....
Then she felt herself gagging on its hugeness.
She paused, holding it motionless, then slid her lips back up along the shaft, away over the engorged head, and let it stand free once again.
Dark, pulsing, shining wet with the moisture of her mouth and its own lubrication.
"Play with my balls a little, baby," Steve begged, his voice breathless with excitement.
Obediently, her fingers delved between his thighs to seek out the soft, wrinkled skin bag that held his testicles. She cupped it in her hands.
"Squeeze them ... just a little bit...."
Carefully, she tightened her hold on his balls, fondling and squeezing gently.
Then she caught his throbbing cockhead between her lips once again, and ran the wet caress of her mouth down over the heated shaft, as far as she could manage.
Linda's throat rebelled. She could only take it so far, then it was too much.
She caught her breath for a moment, then she ran her tongue voluptuously all around the head, exploring its shape, discovering the little cleft on the underside where her tongue-tip naturally lingered, probing.
She investigated the tip, thrusting her tongue at the little oozing slit, then boldly venturing inside for a fraction of an inch, bringing another tiny gush of the silvery fluid welling out onto her tongue.
His balls seemed to jump and churn in her hands as she sank her lips down toward the base of the shaft once more. His hips thrust and she choked again.
Steve's hands suddenly caught her head.
"I guess you'd better stop now, baby," he gasped, "or I'll be finished!"
She grinned up at him, at the sight of the throbbing, rock-hard cock that sprang so fiercely from his loins, slick and shining from the saliva she had lavished upon it while she was sucking it.
"Now you do it to me," she said. "I want to feel good too, you know!"
"And you better believe you're going to," Steve said softly, and a moment later he was crouched on the floor beside her.
First he rolled down her panties, then he gripped her hips and tugged her close.
With a grunt of pleasure, he buried his face in the moist, hot split of her cunt. He swept his tongue over her juicy pussy lips, making her gasp and shudder with excitement. He dug his fingers into her smooth-skinned thighs almost painfully as he eagerly licked and sucked and nuzzled in the hot depths of her, overwhelmed by sexual hunger.
Linda seized his head between her hands and dragged him even closer, the passion-soaked membranes of her cleft pussy pressing chokingly against his mouth and nose until he had to fight free of her, struggling for air.
She was small and tight, and when he tried to work his fingers up into the split of her pussy, she could barely contain two fingers. Steve worked on her for a moment and grinned when he felt her loosening up inside.
Linda was hot for it-as hot as he was. It was a match made in heaven!
Then Steve twisted around on the floor and flung himself on top of her. She was wide open for it, pleading for it, and he saw no reason to put it off a moment longer.
While Linda was still shuddering with the pleasure of his fingering and licking, his pulsating cock was forcing its way between her cunt lips and thrusting into her, sliding effortlessly into the well-lubricated passage, and she moaned with new satisfaction.
"Ohhhh...." she whimpered ecstatically.
She was filled, and he was tightly embraced by the tight clutch of her fluttering pussy.
Like two machines in perfect harmony, they began to fuck. He was pumping back and forth, back and forth, like a well-oiled piston. She was bucking up to meet every stroke, her hips swiveling and turning, grinding and winding as she pressed her whole moist outer cunt against him, widespread to stimulate every nerve-ending that it was humanly possible to reach.
Then she flung her legs around his waist, her arms around his back. His searching tongue plunged like a drill into her receptive mouth and plumbed its furthest recesses with insatiable eagerness.
Steve's mind seemed to give way. He was no longer a thinking creature, but a focus of pure uninhibited sexual energy enfolded in flesh.
Linda worked and gasped and moaned and spasmed against him, striving for her orgasm ... and another ... and another....It was like a nonstop flood, he marveled, as she twisted and groaned and sobbed beneath him.
"Yes, yes, yes!" she shrieked ecstatically as the blissful sensations filled her.
Steve increased the tempo suddenly, and she began to flail her arms and an unearthly scream burst from her throat as her body convulsed so violently that it was all he could do to remain in position.
But the stimulus of her orgasm was too intense to be resisted, and with a helpless groan, he felt the boiling sperm come frothing out of his balls and fountaining out of his spasming cock.
For a few minutes they lay silent, exhausted, then, reluctantly, Steve rolled himself off the soft cushion of Linda's body and lay next to her in silent bliss. Never had she been so happy-
CHAPTER SIX
The week following the ignominious episode in the city room was marked by a coolness that had nothing to do with the weather. As the thermometer rose to new heights, so did the temperature drop, in certain quarters, to a point where Lil Sargeant, who was acting rather peculiarly herself, remarked on the incongruous situation.
"Gee, it's cold around here," she commented, mopping the perspiration from her florid face with a large silk scarf, which was the nearest thing at hand. "Seems we've run into an iceberg, or something."
"Yes, so it does." Linda smiled, assuming a nonchalance which she did not feel. She was thinking of Steve Morrison, who had become coldly aloof, icily polite. As if she were to blame for his ridiculous behavior in the Dodie incident! He was being quite unfair, she thought, choosing to forget that she had been first to turn the cold shoulder.
"You and Steve are behaving like a couple of nitwits," Lil said. "I'm surprised at you, Linda. I thought you had better sense. You'll get nowhere behaving like a human icebox."
"I do my work," Linda said through taut lips. "And you certainly can't say I'm not polite to him. After all, he's city editor, and I-well, I just work here."
"That's just it. You're too polite, all of a sudden. Why, you've got the poor guy so woolgathered he doesn't know what ails him."
Linda chose to ignore that, so Lil continued, "If you're sore about that silly performance he put on with...."
"I'm not sore about anything," Linda announced airily, hoping to silence the woman. "I'm not the least bit interested in what Steve Morrison does or doesn't do."
"Oh, aren't you?" Lil's lifted brows indicated that she didn't believe a word of what her young friend had said. "Just as I was about to say when you so rudely interrupted me, Steve only did what any nice guy would do when a girl flings herself in his arms and starts bawling. I'm sure you'd have been the first to resent it, if he'd pushed the little parasite aside."
"I'd rather not discuss Dodie, if you don't mind. I know you don't like her, but you've got to remember she's my cousin."
"Okay. Okay." Lil made a gesture of giving up. "I realize blood is thicker than water. But I still think you're being silly and unreasonable."
Linda had no answer for that, so she remained silent. She knew there was some truth in what Lil was saying. Perhaps she was being unreasonable, silly. But having adopted the role of polite indifference, she saw no way of stepping out of it with any degree of pride, especially since Steve had chosen to follow suit. He was being just as unreasonable as she was.
It was true that she would have resented it deeply had Steve rebuffed Dodie's appeal for sympathy. But he needn't have gone overboard, started stroking her hair-and, yes, actually petting her!-right in front of a room full of people. Moreover, he had left the city desk uncovered while he took Dodie to lunch and all the way home in a cab. He had been gone most of the afternoon. A fine way for a supposedly responsible city editor to act!
She supposed she should have run to Dodie's rescue too, making the condolence session unanimous, instead of going on to lunch with John Billings. But Dodie had appeared to be doing very well for herself in Steve's arms. And Linda, accustomed to her cousin's habit of making mountains out of molehills, had not suspected at the time that she had a real grievance.
Dodie's words to Steve, intermingled with sobs, had been unintelligible to Linda, and she had not known until later that the girl had been slapped. In fact, it had never occurred to her that timid, harassed Walter Jarvis would have the effrontery to slap anybody, much less poor, defenseless Dodie. It still seemed incredible, though Walter had apologized profusely and was still wearing sackcloth and ashes.
Linda had returned home that afternoon to find Dodie in a state bordering on hysteria. One minute she was sobbing imprecations against the "ungrateful beast" she had tried to help and who "should be tarred and feathered and run out of town."
The next minute, she was smiling through tears while she told Linda what a "pro found, understanding" man Steve Morrison was. Then she had taken Linda to task for not having warned her against Walter Jarvis, and blamed her for the dreadful thing that had happened.
"I'll never forgive you, sugah," Dodie had whimpered, and burst into tears all over again. Even Beau had stared resentfully at Linda, though his tail continued to wag in a friendly manner.
Dodie had sulked for two days thereafter, coming out of her doldrums only when John Billings phoned to invite her out for an evening at the theater. Linda had maneuvered that, in a desperate attempt to clear the air. The apartment had begun to take on all the aspects of a funeral parlor, what with Dodie regretting that she had come to New York and bearing down on the tragedy of the broken marriage which had prompted her to do so. John Billings's theater date had been with Linda, but he'd been quite nice about it when she explained she would be busy and suggested that he take Dodie instead.
In fact, John Billings had been a real help in the present crisis. Apparently he had chosen this time to rush her. His friendly manner and unfailing gaiety was just the fillip she needed at a time when everyone-well, almost everyone-seemed disposed to blame her for whatever went wrong.
Her new daily assignment was also a big help. It involved interviews that kept her out of the office a great deal. Between these outside interviews and John Billings's attentions, she was spared from too frequent contact with Steve Morrison. And so, up until the time Lil mentioned it, she had been quite sure that her chilly attitude toward Steve was not obvious to anyone-except, possibly, to Steve himself. She was a little disconcerted to realize that it was. However, Lil was an observant person, seldom missed a trick....
She was brought out of her thoughts by the sudden awareness that Lil was talking again, had been talking for several minutes. But it was what the woman was saying that brought her to startled attention...." The trouble with you, chick, is that you're jealous. Truth is, you're in love with the guy, or didn't you know?"
Linda all but sprang from her chair, and she could feel the color rise to her face. "Why, I never heard of such nonsense," she stormed. "I don't even like the man. Sometimes I even hate him."
"Nonsense or no," Lil returned affably, "it's true."
With an effort, Linda calmed down and began to make inane pencil marks on a sheet of copy paper. What Lil said was true, she reflected unhappily. She had fallen in love with the aggravating Steve Morrison, and she hated herself for it. Lil's next remark was, in her opinion, the very ultimate of absurdity.
"He fell for you right from the start. I've known that all along, chick."
Linda started to treat the remark with scornful silence, but decided she could not let it go unchallenged.
"Now you really are talking nonsense," she said. "He hates Southern girls and you know it. He's got some kind of a silly grudge against us, and doesn't mind saying so."
"Oh, piffle," Lil retorted. "You know just as well as I do that he's talking through his hat. Otherwise, why would you get steamed up over the idea he was falling for Dodie? When he sounds off like that, he's only ribbing you, trying to get a rise out of you. Or maybe it's only a defense mechanism talking. I wouldn't know about that."
Before Linda could think of a suitable answer, Lil leaned forward and said very seriously, "My advice to you, chick, is that you call off your dogs and make up with him-even if you have to eat crow and apologize."
"Apologize? Me? Why, I wouldn't think of such a thing. I've done nothing to apologize for."
"No? Seems to me you've been throwing him the cold shoulder like nobody's business, and for no sensible reason."
"Well, you can't say he's been any too cordial to me lately," Linda announced primly.
Lil conceded that, adding, "Oh, I'll admit he's been just about as ornery as you've been. But if I remember correctly, you started it; he picked it up, man-like. Now you've reached an impasse, because you're both too contrary to admit you've got nothing to be sore about. That's the way with feuds; the buildup is always out of proportion to the original cause."
That was true, Linda agreed mentally. She wished she could think of a way to end the silly farce without losing face. Aside from the romantic fantasy that Lil seemed determined to read into the situation, it was embarrassing to be working in the same office with a man, seeing him daily, with nothing but ice as a means of communication.
It was all the more embarrassing to realize that the feud was beginning to show signs of outlasting the memory of the cause. Even the cause, now that she looked back on it, held a significance that she preferred not to contemplate. You didn't care how many girls a man petted, whether in public or in private, unless you were interested in the man!
"If you're waiting for Steve to come crawling to apologize, chances are you'll have a long wait," Lil was saying. "Men seldom operate that way, especially stubborn redheads like Steve, and I don't think you'd like him so much if he did. Even when he's wrong, a man can always convince himself he's right. It's up to you, chick, to make the first move."
"Then there won't be any first move," Linda announced with all the firmness she could muster at the moment.
Lil shrugged her disgust at such youthful perversity, such lack of perception. "All right then. Have it your own way, which I don't mind saying is the hard way. I know I'm wasting my breath. Only I'd never forgive myself if I didn't point out that false pride is a darn poor crutch for a girl to lean on when she can have romance-love and marriage-instead," she added, lowering her voice almost to a whisper.
The last remark, coming from Lil, who disclaimed any title to sentiment, was surprising enough. But the way she'd caressed the words "love and marriage" caused Linda to look at her curiously, and to wonder again, as she had on previous occasions, about Lil's personal life. It was hard to think of this carelessly dressed, brassy-haired woman in connection with romance. True, there had been hints of a relationship of some kind between this old-time reporter and Caleb Marsh, the publisher. But Linda, hating gossip and fond of Lil, had refused to listen.
Lil made one more effort to steer her young friend into what she felt was the route to happiness for a girl alone in New York. "I hate to see you going around with that scatterbrain John Billings," she said.
"Oh, but he's nice, Lil," Linda defended him. "And he's not at all the addlepate you seem to think he is. He's really quite interesting-and fun. What I mean is, he's grand company. Of course," she added hastily, "I could never get serious about him, never regard him as anything but a friend."
"You'd be driving your ducks to a poor market if you did," Lil commented sourly. "He's too handsome to be useful. Besides, he's not the marrying type, he's too much in love with himself."
"Oh, Lil-please." Linda frowned impatiently. "Just because I have a few dates with him, it doesn't mean I want to marry him." She laughed and added in a spirit of mischief, "Maybe I'm not the marrying type either."
Lil saw no humor in the remark. "Oh, but you are, chick," she said with deadly earnestness. "So is Steve. In fact, I thought he was already married when he first came here and I heard him raving about that youngster out in Iowa. Thought maybe he was a widower till I found out the child belonged to a deceased brother."
"Yes, I know that. John Billings told me soon after Steve came. And now," Linda said, "if you've finished with your monologue on our wonderful city editor and your discourse on love and marriage, I'll get going. I still have my interviews to get for the Sunday paper."
"I've finished." Suddenly Lil appeared to have become strangely self-conscious. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair and said, "I'm a fine one to be talking about love and marriage, aren't I? Me-loving a career like it was human, and hating housekeeping like all get-out. Love and marriage-fooey to them both," she added with a laugh so strangely bitter that Linda flinched. "As a matter-of-fact, I'm...."
"Yes, I know, darling, you don't have to say it." Linda, conscious of an ominous tenseness, was striving for a lighter note, and had grasped at the first thought that came to her mind. "You're allergic to love and marriage, like you are to flowers and pets. Just talking about them makes you sneeze...."
Lil did not sneeze this time. Instead, she reached out blindly for the silk scarf, pressed it to her face, and began quietly to sob. Linda put her arms around her and tried, with her body, to shield her from any curious eyes that might be watching.
"Oh, Lil, darling," she whispered, "I didn't know it was like that. Please forgive me. I wouldn't say anything to hurt you for the world."
There was a brief silence while Lil, with a mighty effort, pulled herself together. "It's all right, chick," she said dully. "You didn't do it. I was already upset and trying to forget it. I suppose you know about Caleb Marsh?"
Linda did not know what to say, so she answered a little nonsensically, "Yes he's the publisher." She was thinking, Then it's true-that gossip. Lil is in love with him.
"Well, the old goat is getting married tonight, only not to me. He's found himself a showgirl who can't be a day over nineteen."
At this point the amazing Lil broke off to give an exhibition of what Linda was to regard later as a superb piece of showmanship. She opened her lips and gave vent to a horselaugh so like the real thing that the entire staff chuckled.
"All I have to do now," she told Linda, "is to cover the wedding and write the story."
Linda could only stand there, patting Lil's shoulder and wishing she could say something to comfort her. Presently Lil shrugged her aside, saying with a fine show of nonchallance, "Don't take it so hard, chick. It isn't your funeral. Better get started on those interviews. Love comes and goes, but a steady job is a fine ace in the hole, in case you get robbed of your man and want to go on eating."
CHAPTER SEVEN
The sky had grown dark and rain was beginning to fall when Linda returned to the office several hours later, her notebook filled with comments that would serve as a nucleus for her Sunday story. It was late in the afternoon and a storm was brewing, but she knew she must write the story before signing off for the day. Although it was only Thursday, copy for the following Sunday had to be turned in before midnight, the only exception being spot news.
However, this would be an easy story to write, she reflected, as she entered the elevator en route to the third floor where the city room was located. She had interviewed several businessmen, obtaining their views on the current political situation and its possible effect on world affairs. With the exception of one man, who chose to talk in riddles, all had been responsive and helpful.
With the material at hand, it wouldn't take too long to write a lead and whip the interviews into shape for publication. Then she could go home, prepare a simple dinner for herself and Dodie, take Beau for his walk, and go straight to bed. For some reason she felt desperately tired. The session with Lil had left her emotionally disturbed, vaguely unhappy.
All afternoon she had found it difficult to keep her mind on the business at hand. The memory of Lil's repressed sobs, her poignant words, and counterfeit laughter had persistently intruded. Indeed, there had been times during the interviews when Linda could scarcely see her notebook for unshed tears of pity for Lil. But she managed to present a smiling face to the interviewees and to maintain a believable semblance of poise.
When she entered the office she saw that all the day staff had gone, with the exception of Steve Morrison and John Billings. Steve, who was busy on the telephone, did not look around, but John came forward, smiling.
"I was waiting for you, slowpoke," he said. "Thought we'd have dinner together and maybe go to an air-conditioned movie. I know it's raining outside, so I'll even shoot the works and hire us a cab."
"Sorry, no can do," she told him. "I'll take a raincheck, if you don't mind. I have a story to write, then I've got to rush home, before Dodie starts worrying. I'm late now."
He nodded understandingly, expressed his disappointment, and went away. It was just as well that she had refused him and sent him away, she thought an hour later when she was still struggling with a story which she had regarded as the simplest of assignments. With all the material she had assembled, she seemed unable to write it. Again the memory of Lil's tragic face, her raucous laugh, took precedence over everything else. And so it was eight o'clock when she wrote the last line of her Sunday story and pulled the last sheet from her typewriter.
For no good reason, she stole a cautious glance at Steve Morrison. He was staring at her unsmilingly, with eyes that appeared to be saying, "What the heck are you doing here at this hour? Haven't you got any going-home sense?"
Her eyes flashed a message back to him;. "Never mind me," it said. "Little do you care if I have to work overtime. You wouldn't know what it means to be so concerned about a friend that you can't even write. You're just about as human as a robot."
He got up and came over to her desk. "Have you eaten?" he asked bluntly.
"Well, not yet. But I'm finished now, so I'm hurrying home to fix dinner. Poor Dodie must be starved."
"Oh-Dodie." He repeated the name as if it were anathema, but he added, "Yes, or course. It's too much to expect the world's number-one glamour girl to cook her own meals. She might break a beautiful fingernail."
Linda said, "Yes, of course," and wished he would go away.
"I'll get you a cab," he said, still without smiling. "It's raining pitchforks."
"Yes, so it is." It occurred to her, briefly, that despite Lil's prophesy Steve was making the first overture. Now was the time to make up, at least to meet him halfway. But hurt pride continued to carry on, far beyond the incident that had inspired it. So she heard herself saying, with icy politeness, "That's nice of you, but I'm sure I can get home on my own power."
He shrugged and returned to his desk. Linda, as she took the elevator down to the first floor, told herself that she had won a victory, but she wasn't at all happy about it. In fact, she felt just as weepy as the weather and could think of nothing she wanted more than to crawl into the corner of a quiet, impersonal taxicab and indulge in an old-fashioned cry. Whether her dark mood sprang from pity for Lil or shame for her own foolish pride, she had no way of knowing. It seemed to be a combination of the two.
Crying, however, was Dodie's prerogative, not hers, she told herself firmly. Right now Dodie was probably weeping tears of self-pity because she, Linda, was late and there was no dinner. A well-stocked refrigerator meant less than nothing to this girl who was accustomed to having everything done for her.
It was after nine o'clock when Linda, having achieved the miracle of obtaining a cab during a heavy rainstorm, reached home. She was pleasantly surprised to find her cousin, who had stripped down to her slip and was in the process of setting her hair, in the happiest of moods.
"Dar-ling!" Dodie exclaimed through a mouthful of hairpins. "The most wonderful thing has happened! I thought you'd never get here, so I could tell you about it. I had no idea Angus Peterson was such a sweet, understandin' man," she raced on. "Honestly, I was beginning to hate the old goat...."
It was several minutes before she calmed down to the point where she could tell what actually had happened. Meanwhile, Linda picked up Dodie's damp dress, which was lying on the floor where the girl had stepped out of it, smoothed the wrinkles as best she could, and placed it on a hanger to dry. Then, changing from her office frock into a housedress, she fed Beau and went about the business of preparing a rather sketchy dinner. Dodie, her hair-setting forgotten for the nonce, followed her around, relating the glad news in short, breathless sentences.
It seemed that Dodie, braving the inclement weather, had gone straight to Angus Peterson, head of the model agency. She had demanded to know-oh, very sweetly, of course-if and when she might expect a really worthwhile assignment.
"After all," she broke off to say, "the old meanie should know I can't go on forever, having expensive pictures made and taking posture lessons I don't need, unless something happens to make them worthwhile."
Linda nodded agreeably, and refrained from pointing out that Dodie had rejected the few modeling jobs that the agency had lined up for her. Either they were smalltime, or she didn't like the looks of the prospective employers.
Peterson had been difficult at first, Dodie admitted. Then she had wept a little, explained her predicament, and he had taken her out for a cocktail.
"I didn't want to tell him I'd have to get Mama to write Senator Whatever-HisName-Is, down in Washington, if something didn't happen soon. But I felt that I had to," Dodie announced defensively.
Linda, who was in the midst of breaking eggs for an omelette, stared at her cousin in dismay. "Oh, Dodie, surely you didn't do that! Why, that's practically threatening him!"
"Oh, didn't I?" Dodie's lips curled scornfully. "And I wasn't threatening him-not really. I just didn't want him to think I was a poor little Southern girl, living here in a dinky little old apartment, and didn't know the right people."
Linda maintained a discreet silence, though she did beat the eggs for the omelette with a fury that was nothing short of violent. After all, she reflected angrily, this was her apartment. Maybe it was "dinky," but it was home. Dodie, who shared this home, complacently and for free, had no right to belittle it, no matter how humble it might be.
Blissfully unaware of Linda's seething resentment, Dodie went on to explain that immediately her stock had risen in Angus Peterson's eyes, that the results of her talk with him had been even better than she'd hoped for.
"I'm to model daytime and evening dresses at a big fashion show," she exclaimed, clapping her hands ecstatically.
"That's wonderful," Linda said in a valiant attempt to match her cousin's enthusiasm. "And now, if you don't mind, you can set the table. We're having just a small meal tonight. It's so late-"
"Oh, that's all right. I'm sure I couldn't eat anyhow. I'm too excited to think about anything as dull as food." She paused to look at the omelette which Linda was now putting into the frying pan, and her pert little nose wrinkled perceptibly. "Oh, omelette again," she murmured. "I never did like the silly things. And this one is just the color of that dreadful Lil Sargeant's impossibly yellow hair."
Absently, she set the table, meanwhile chattering at considerable length about the forthcoming fashion show. It was a charity affair, to be held at the country estate of some bigwig on Long Island. Everybody who was anybody would be there. Most of the models were debutantes; she herself was a Junior Leaguer back in Alabama, she pointed out. All she had to do was to stroll back and forth on a velvet runway, looking her loveliest and wearing beautiful clothes.
"Of course, I'll probably be on the runway only about ten minutes, all told," she confided. "I wouldn't know about that yet. But I'm to be paid a hundred dollars, which is really extraordinary for a model." She spread crimson-tipped fingers on the table and calculated quickly. "Why, sugah, that's ten dollars a minute! Imagine that happening to poor little me-if you can."
Linda, forgetting her brief resentment over Dodie's thoughtless remark about the apartment, smiled warmly. "Yes, it is hard to imagine anybody, even the President, getting that much. Why, if I earned ten dollars a day, I'd probably be so biggety I wouldn't speak to anybody. I wonder you speak to me, darling," she added, laughing.
Dodie smiled a gracious acknowledgment, while Linda bent over and kissed her flushed cheek. "I'm so glad for you, honey," Linda said. "Now let's eat. You must get your beauty sleep so you'll look your very prettiest for that wonderful fashion show. I've had a hard day too, and I'd like to get to bed. I've been worried about"-she hesitated-"a friend."
Instantly she regretted the impulsive remark and hoped she would not be asked to identify this friend. Dodie, who had no use for Lil, would only ridicule the idea that a woman her age might be the victim of a broken romance. To forestall any possible questions, Linda changed the subject hastily, saying, "Did you take Beau out for his walk?"
The question was more or less perfunctory. Although the spirited animal was Dodie's personal possession and she loved to boast of his superior pedigree, dog walking had no place in her daily routine.
"No, sugah," Dodie answered. "It was raining when I came in."
It was on the tip of Linda's tongue to say, "It's still raining-harder than ever now." But Beau, at the mention of the word "out," had leaped to his feet and begun to tear at his leash, which hung on a doorknob. Now he lunged forward, almost upsetting Linda, to lick her hand and wag his tail hopefully.
She patted his head. "All right, buckaroo. I'll take you just as soon as I can."
Later, when she returned from the walk, her raincoat dripping and her dark hair a mess of wet curls, she found Dodie lying in bed, reading. The supper dishes were still on the table, just as they'd left them. With a deep sigh, Linda stacked them up and put them in the sink, feeling a little guilty as she did so. Dodie could wash them tomorrow, even if she did break a beautiful fingernail. As for herself, Linda was suddenly tired, desperately tired. Even the narrow studio couch, for all its lumpiness, looked vastly inviting.
Once she had undressed and gone to bed, however, sleep eluded her. For what seemed like hours she lay staring out into the darkness, tossing restlessly, trying to shut out the depressing sound of the rain as it beat with relentness monotony against the windowpanes, and to pull her mind away from Lil. She wondered if Lil had actually gone to Caleb Marsh's wedding, if she had come through the ordeal with characteristic aplomb, and managed to write the story with her usual fine sense of objectivity.
Several times she found herself reaching for the telephone on the end table nearby, to call Lil. Somehow it seemed important that ..she assure this loyal friend that she was not alone in a cruelly insensitive world. And yet the memory of Lil's fierce pride, her reticence concerning her personal affairs, held her back.
Finally, she fell into a worried sleep, only to be roused by the ringing of bells and strange reverberating noises that caused the studio couch to tremble under her slight weight. Still half-asleep, she reached over and pushed the shutoff knob on the innocent alarm clock, but the bells continued to ring. It was not until then that she realized the telephone had been ringing for quite some time. The storm, too, had increased in fury. Great sheets of rain pounded on the windowpanes, while now and then a vivid flash of lightning, followed by a roll of thunder, spread an eerie brightness through the small living room.
She picked up the instrument, pressed it to one ear, and clapped a hand over the other ear so as to shut out the deafening noise of the storm. "Hello," she said tentatively, sure that someone had dialed a wrong number. Automatically she had turned on the bedside light and the clock had told her it was one-thirty.
"That you, Linda?" It was Steve Morrison's voice, and instantly she was wide awake.
"Yes, it's me, Linda. What's happened?" Even before he answered, instinct told her that this unprecedented post-midnight call had something to do with Lil Sargeant.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Steve's next words confirmed Linda' premonition. "Sorry to disturb you at this ungodly hour," he said, "but I'm callin about Lil. I knew all along she was hard hi by the news of Caleb Marsh's marriage That horselaugh she pulled this afternoon didn't fool me one minute."
"It didn't fool me either," Lind answered. He's stalling for time, she thought. Can't bring himself to tell m what's happened. But the suspense was to great, so she went straight to the point.
"Oh, Steve, Lil hasn't done something desperate?" she stammered. "What I mean is, she hasn't...." She stopped, unable to repeat the ugly words, "committed suicide."
"Nothing like that," Steve answered promptly-too promptly, Linda decided. "It's just that I phoned her a little while ago to check on a couple of details in her story. She mumbled a few words, then the phone crashed to the floor and went dead. If I didn't know how straitlaced she is, I'd swear she's been drinking."
"Lil never drinks," Linda confirmed. "She's allergic. I'm going right over to see what's wrong." As she spoke, she was flinging off her nightgown and slipping her bare feet into shoes.
"I thought you'd want to go along, knowing how she feels about you. That's why I phoned before I started," Steve explained. "I'm still at the office, and it's raining like all get out. But I've sent a boy down for a taxi. I'll pick you up at your place in five minutes flat." He spoke quietly, but there was no gainsaying the note of urgency in his voice.
"I'll be waiting downstairs in the doorway," Linda promised. But a sudden click, followed by a buzzing noise, told her that Steve, in his haste, had broken off the connection.
For an instant she sat motionless, holding the telephone in her hand. Then she restored it to its cradle and, with fingers that seemed to be all thumbs, began hurriedly to dress.
Five minutes later Steve was helping her across the rain-swept sidewalk into the waiting taxicab. Once they were inside, he put an arm around her, holding her close, and she let it stay there. He bent over and brushed her hair with his lips, and she did not shrink back. All of their trivial differences were forgotten. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that two people, drawn together by a common dread, should cling to each other.
"Lil was a grand old gal," Steve said presently. "I liked her a whole lot. For all her phony allergies, she was real." Then, as if suddenly conscious he was speaking of her in the past tense, he added quickly, if a little unconvincingly, "Could be we're getting steamed up over nothing at all. Could be it was the thunderstorm playing tricks with the phone. In that case, we'll probably be thrown out on our ears for tearing in at two o'clock in the morning all set to do a rescue act. Maybe she has taken a drink or two, after all. Under the circumstances, I'd be the last person to blame her."
He had worried about Lil all afternoon, Steve admitted. "Especially after I found out a wise guy on the night city desk had assigned her to cover the wedding," he added. "I tried to talk her out of it. But you know how Lil is about assignments. They're inviolate. Once you're given one, you go through with it, even if it kills you."
"Yes. Lil's like that," Linda agreed. She leaned forward and urged the driver to hurry.
He turned halfway around to flash her a dirty look. "What do you think I'm doing now, miss?" he demanded. "Picking daisies? Don't you know there's a storm on?"
Steve said, "Never mind the backtalk, bub, keep moving," and continued with his story. "She seemed to think I was interfering with something that didn't concern me. Gave out with another phony horselaugh, told me to mind my own business or go back where I came from. Said she intended to cover the May-December fiasco, even if she busted a G-string in the process. Those," he added apologetically, "were her words."
Disturbed by her facetious remarks, Steve went on to say, he himself had returned to the office to make sure there was no monkey business in the coverage of such an important event as the Chief's wedding. There had been no slipup on Lil's part. Accompanied by a cameraman, she had attended the affair, which had been held in a fashionable Fifth Avenue church. She had sent in her story by messenger. As a piece of impersonal reportage, it was perfect. But the cameraman had overlooked important details as to captions. And so he, Steve, had phoned Lil in an attempt to identify certain guests who were present. It was then that he'd been startled into an awareness that something was wrong.
Lil's incoherent words, coupled with the crash of the telephone as it fell to the floor, had stirred him to action. After getting several busy signals, he had checked with the operator, only to be told by a sweetly impersonal voice, "Sorry, sir. The line is out of order."
When they reached the apartment house and pressed the button alongside Lil's name, there was no answer. They continued to press buttons indiscriminately until finally the front door clicked, and they entered a small but tastefully furnished lobby. The place was deserted at this hour, so they took the self-service elevator up to 4-D, the apartment designated as Lil's on the outside doorbell. Neither Linda nor Steve had ever been there before.
The door was locked and there was no answer to Steve's knocking, or to Linda's insistent, "It's me, Lil, Linda. Won't you let me come in?"
"She's probably asleep, or just being stubborn," Steve said. "Could be she was putting on an act. But don't get nervous, sweet. We'll get the janitor to let us in. If she's pulling a fast one, we'll tell her off and go home."
"She's not pulling a fast one," Linda broke in. "Not Lil."
The janitor was in his basement apartment, asleep. He was a little on the surly side, as he would be upon being awakened at this unpropitious hour. In his comatose condition, he had considerable trouble finding the right key, but he handed it over without argument and, to Linda's relief, did not insist upon going up with them. Whatever had happened, Linda reasoned, Lil would not want the world to know about it.
The apartment was quite dark, except for an occasional flash of lightning and a dim glow that filtered in through the transom from the corridor. There was a stillness about the place, too, despite the periodic rumble of thunder, that struck Linda as ominous. She was grateful for the reassuring feel of Steve's arm as it went around her again.
"We're just a couple of misguided do-gooders, out on a wild-goose chase," he said as he switched on the light in the small foyer. "If she's asleep, and I'm pretty sure she is, we'll just go away and pretend we weren't here."
They tiptoed into the living room and, noticing that the bedroom door was closed, Steve turned on a table light. Its soft glow revealed surroundings that were surprisingly tasteful and graciously home-like. There was nothing about this charming living room that hinted of an owner who boasted of an allergy to housekeeping. Aside from its homey charm, it was the acme of neatness-so unlike the careless, easygoing veteran reporter who was Lil Sargeant.
Linda, glancing around the room, was impressed, despite her perturbation. Why, this was a place that showed care and affection in countless small ways! It had all the earmarks of the cherished abode of a woman whose fondest desire was not a successful career but a home.
There was something bride-like, even virginal, about the fresh curtains at the windows; something housewifely about the needlepoint footstools, the hand-knitted afghan that lay spread across the back of the divan, and-of all things!-hand-crocheted lamp pulls and antimacassars. It occurred to Linda that even the most critical housewife could find no fault with this place. So Lil was allergic to housekeeping! Why, even the carefully tended flowers in the windowbox proved that she adored everything connected with it.
There was one discordant note in the charming ensemble. A framed portrait of Caleb Marsh, the publisher who only a few hours ago had married a young girl, sat in a prominent place on a desk, flanked by a bowl of fresh flowers. It was obviously intended for a glamour photograph. But even expert photography had been unable to glamorize a long, horse-like jaw or to soften the haughty expression in his close-set eyes. Linda had never seen the Chief in person, though a life-size picture of him hung in the newspaper's reception room. Even that was less revealing than this abortive attempt at glamour.
Steve must have sensed her reactions, for he shivered slightly and said, "I know a man out in Iowa who looks like a horse. I know Lil's no prize package as to looks, but she's pure gold. How she ever fell in love with the old goat is more than I can understand. They say he's been kidding her along for years."
He stepped across to the bedroom door, and Linda followed him. "We'll peek in and see that everything's okay," he said. "Then we'll sneak out. If she's been drinking...."
Lil lay on one of the twin beds with her eyes closed, her yellow hair a bright splotch of color against the white satin pillow. Whatever her condition, evidently she'd had the good sense to undress and go to bed properly, for she was wearing something light, apparently a frilly nightgown. A strange thing for Lil, who had described herself as being allergic to frills and caring only for common-sense apparel. Even on so-called glamour assignments, she had never been known to wear anything more elaborate than a suit.
Steve went over and put a hand on her face, then switched on the bedside light, and now Linda could see the woman quite plainly. Lil was not wearing a nightgown. She was attired in a light mauve dress, a festive affair with buttons and bows. Like a wedding dress, Linda thought, as her eyes took in the wreath of orange blossoms and lilies of the valley entwined in Lil's carefully marceled hair. She felt her heart sink as she studied her friend's face. It was drained of all color and she did not appear to be breathing at all.
There was a telltale empty vial marked "Sleeping Pills" on the bedside table, an overturned glass, and an ashtray containing several cigarette butts. The telephone still lay on the floor where it had fallen. Otherwise, the bedroom, like the living room, was in perfect order.
As if to intensify a situation already ominous enough, a canary in a cage near the window chose this moment to make its presence known. Grateful for the sudden light in the room, it hopped onto its small swing and began to sing joyously. Its operatic trills mingled discordantly with the sounds of the rain and the wind and the rumble of thunder. Lil was allergic to pets-or was she? Aside from her strong loyalities, nothing about her made sense.
Linda looked at Steve for reassurance, but his face had gone almost as white as Lil's. "No, she's not dead, sweet," he said in answer to her unspoken question. "But it looks bad, very bad. No way of telling how serious it is. Heaven only knows how many of those pills she took. Obviously she was fed up with living, decided she couldn't take any more. I'm calling an ambulance right away."
Presently the ambulance came and the little apartment was filled with strange faces-men in the white jackets of hospital attendants, men in blue police uniforms. And two men in dungarees carrying a stretcher.
"Will they take her away?" Linda whispered to Steve. Then, before he could answer, "I'm going right along with her, in the ambulance."
Steve shook his head. "Not if I know about it, Miss Birdbrain. You should know that if or when she comes to, she'll be so embarrassed she'll be fit to be tied. She'd never forgive you for knowing. I'm going to have to do a lot of tall talking to keep this sorry affair out of the office and off the police blotters."
"But if she dies...."
"She'll get a couple of lines in the obit column. You know, the hush-hush treatment, in deference to the Chief. Besides, I'm sure she'd want it that way."
"A couple of lines in the obit column," Linda repeated, resenting what seemed to her like a poor reward for a lifetime of service and unfulfilled love. She thought a minute, then said with honest sincerity, "Yes, I guess you're right, Steve. She would want it that way."
Steve led her into the small green and white kitchen-like a bride's kitchen-and told her to wait there while the ambulance doctor administered first aid to Lil. Mechanically, she set about the business of making coffee, lots of coffee. She did not want coffee and was pretty sure no one else did, but she had to have something to do with her hands.
And now the coffee was made, so there was nothing to do but wait and listen. She sat on a bench in the breakfast nook, listening to the rain whipping the window and the subdued murmur of voices in the adjoining room. Now and then the canary would burst into song, to stop abruptly on a high note, as if suddenly conscious that all was not well.
Little incidents out of the past came back to her; Lil's kindly, if sometimes annoying, interference; Lil's taking her to task for her unreasonable coldness toward Steve; Lil's unexpected championship of love as the most important thing in a woman's life, and her equally unexpected retraction.
She wondered about Lil's secret passion for Caleb Marsh, how much of it was real, and how much a figment of her own imagination. Obviously she had not seen the Chief as the horse-faced roue he actually was, or even as a business tycoon. She had endowed him with all the romantic qualities of a great lover, all the sterling attributes of an old-fashioned husband.
In any case his betrayal, whether real or imaginary, had been too much for the unacknowledged romantic, Lil. Despite her vigorous denials, she had been lonely, hungry for affection and companionship. For all her protests, she had not wanted a spectacular career; she had wanted the simpler, less dramatic things, love and the security of home. All of her supposed allergies had been nothing more than defense mechanisms in action, just as she had characterized Steve's noisy aversion to Southern girls.
Presently she heard the shuffling of feet, the opening of a door, the sound of footsteps moving slowly along the corridor, as if carrying an inert burden. Then, a few minutes later, the sound of a siren wailed as the ambulance slithered its way through the rainswept streets.
She supposed she should cry, but somehow she couldn't, although tears were burning her eyelids. It was all so strange, so incredible. She had known Lilian Sargeant only a few months. Lil, according to office gossip, was tough, hardboiled, not altogether an exemplary character. And yet Linda was sure that never again would she hear a birdsong, the sound of rain beating hard against glass, or footsteps going through an uncarpeted hallway, without thinking of Lil, her friend.
She leaned over on the breakfast table and, burying her face in her arms, began to weep bitterly. Perhaps, in some way she had not suspected, she had failed Lil.
She felt a light touch on her shoulders and looked up, drying her eyes surreptitiously on the sleeve of her blouse. Steve tweaked her ear, then went over and sat down in the chair opposite her.
"Don't take it so hard, chick," he said, just as Lil had said only a few hours before. "It's going to be nip and tuck from here on, but the ambulance doctor thinks she'll pull through."
"I made coffee," Linda said with unconscious irrelevance. "Lots of it. But nobody drank it," she added and, to her complete dismay, burst into tears.
He pretended not to notice the outburst. "Why, that's fine," he said with forced gaiety. "Nothing I like better than coffee-lots of it-especially when it's been whipped up by a cute little Southern doll who has probably never boiled water before. Hope you didn't break a fingernail in the process."
Oh. So he's started that again, she thought. Then, remembering Lil's advice, she decided to let the remark pass, but she could not resist saying, "Maybe we're not as useless as you think. I was practically born cooking."
He drank several cups of coffee without comment. Linda let that pass too, reasoning that, being a man, he wouldn't have drunk it had it not been first class. But she did rebel inwardly when he said, without preamble, "Lil's a fool-a blankety-blank fool."
"Maybe she is," Linda answered coldly. "Any woman's a fool to tear her heart out over a man."
"I didn't mean that," he said. "Personally, I can't see anything about either Lil or the Chief to get excited about. However, everyone to his own taste, I suppose." He dismissed that phrase with a shrug and added, "For a supposedly sophisticated newspaper woman, she had committed the unpardonable sin. Going theatrical and putting on an act, dressing herself up like a bride instead of shoving off quietly. Going melodramatic in a big way, like a small-time exhibitionist. For a career woman like Lil...."
Linda hastened to defend her absent friend. "I'm sure she didn't think of that. She was desperate. All she wanted was to die in the dress she'd expected to be married in. She was-well, just being a woman, I suppose," she added feebly, hoping Steve would understand a situation that was incomprehensible even to her.
He didn't. "What do you mean-being a woman?" he demanded.
Linda spread her hands in a gesture of futility. "Well, I don't know," she acknowledged. "But I know Lil wasn't a career woman at heart. What she really wanted was love, a home, happiness, like all women do." She paused, realizing that Steve was looking at her with speculative eyes, then added defiantly, "Like I do, too. Go ahead and laugh, if you must, but I think, just as Lil does, that love is the most important thing in the world. Want to make something of it?"
Steve Morrison's reaction was just as unpredictable as the man himself. "Lady," he said, "you've sold yourself. Come daylight, I'll start making dates with ministers and things. As of this very minute, you're engaged."
"Yes, yes, of course," Linda heard herself saying. It made just about as much sense as anything else that had happened during the past fourteen hours. After all, what else could she say, when Steve was holding her close in his arms and whispering, "Come be my love. I thought I didn't like Southern girls, but I knew right away you were different."
Somehow it seemed right.
Linda didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to dwell on what had driven poor Lil to this desperate point. But she did feel that Lil would enjoy the fact that she and Steve were there and they were in love.
She wanted everything to turn out all right. She wanted Lil to be back at work as soon as possible. She wanted the entire thing to never have happened.
But that was impossible. What she had to do, she realized, was enjoy what she had.
She decided to never again let Steve even think of getting away.
He was her man, and he was going to stay that way.
She pressed against him, and Steve was surprised by the force of her passion. "Hey," he said. "Do you think it's all right?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, here, in Lil's apartment?"
She smiled. "I think Lil would love it," she said. "And I think Lil would personally boot me one if she realized that I didn't take advantage of such sweet surroundings when I was alone with my man!"
He grinned at her. "You sure have a way with words," he said.
And then his mouth pressed against hers and his tongue snaked into her mouth, arousing her instantly.
Steve's hands cupped her full lush breasts and she quickly pulled away from him. She didn't want anything to stand between their flesh-certainly not her clothing!
She undressed while he watched, and she saw the burning passion in his eyes as he followed her every move. For some reason Linda had never supposed a man would feel that way about her.
And she was totally unprepared for it when it happened. It was so strange-she enjoyed arousing him, enjoyed being the one woman in the entire world that he desired above all others. It had seemed a dream for so long that she was still not sure it was real. But it was.
He came to her and clasped her tightly to his body. His clothing felt ugly and rude against her soft skin, and she pushed him away. "Take it off," she said with a smile. "I feel like a pervert if I'm the only one who's naked!"
He grinned and quickly shed his clothing. He was lean but muscular and she had never seen a man's body that attracted her more.
Perhaps it was his flat tummy or hard, muscular chest. Perhaps. Or perhaps it was that giant prick of his, always seeming to point in her direction.
She did like his prick. She had to admit that it was one of his more attractive qualities.
He sat down on the sofa and opened his legs wide. "Get over here," he said.
She knelt in front of him. Up close, his cock seemed even bigger-it seemed huge! As she jerked it, loving the way it hardened in her hand, she looked up at him and saw that he was grinning.
"What's so funny?" Linda asked.
"I'm just waiting, seeing how long it's going to take you to decide to suck it."
"And if I don't?"
He frowned, but his eyes let her in on the joke. "Then I'll reconsider the services that I provide for you," he said.
"Services?" She was still jerking his cock and a droplet of jizm had collected at the tip.
"Sure," he said. "There's tonguing, for one thing. You have no idea how that makes your jaws ache. Then of course there's the basic stud service, the old in-and-out. That's not something to sneer at, you know."
"Since you put it that way-"and she dove forward, her mouth filling with his hard pole. She sucked eagerly, wantonly, loving the taste of him in her mouth.
She felt herself and she was wet and she slid a finger into her hot center and worked it back and forth while she tongued his throbbing cockhead.
His legs were shaking with excitement. She took all that she could, bobbed her head a few times, and then let his cock slide from her mouth, a trail of juice connecting his prick to her lips.
Then she stood up and he leaned forward and jammed his face between her legs. She opened them wide and then clamped her thighs together, trapping him.
"Hey!" Steve shouted. "No fair!"
Linda laughed and opened her legs and he licked a hot trace through her slit that made her eyes blink in pleasure. She was ready for it now-had been since she finished sucking his fat prick.
That was all she needed. The rest was gravy. Working on his meat made her hotter than anything, and when he tongued her it was just too good to be true.
So he pulled her down atop him. She was facing him, straddling his body, kneeling. She felt his poker between her legs and she arched her back a bit and took the tip of his cock into her hot cunt.
He worked her down, loving the feel of his giant hardness as it parted the soft fragrant flesh of her cunt. He pushed in all the way as she settled onto his lap and the hot spurts of his juice bathing her, filling her, making her sob in relief.
It was what Lil would have wanted.
They slept in each other's arms for a little while, and then slowly Linda came back to consciousness, feeling Steve's hand gently trailing over her body.
She realized that she was ready for love again-and so, by the feeling of his hardness against her thigh, was he.
Eagerly, she turned to him.
Steve felt her big, firm tits pressing against his chest, and the sweet-smelling tresses of her hair brushed his lips tantilizingly.
He slipped his fingers under her chin and turned her face upward, then kissed her. Her lips were avid and moist and warm, and her hot tongue darted out to meet his own passionately.
He was aroused further when he felt her nipples hardening, pushing against his chest.
He slipped one of his hands down the sensuous curve of her back and cupped a luscious bottom cheek. Her skin was smooth, and the flesh filling his palm was warm and resilient.
"Mmmmm," she murmured.
He pulled her even closer, and her triangle of springy pubic hair rasped softly against him.
His prick twitched in eager anticipation. With one hand, she started to blaze an erotic trail down between the fronts of their bodies, gliding between his thighs to investigate what was going on there.
"Ohhh, terrific," she whispered as her skilled fingers titillated the hardening shaft.
The knowing touch of her hand was incredibly effective.
After a few moments, somewhat breathless, he pulled away from her lips and kissed the perfumed hollow at the base of her throat, then started to lick a path of fire with his tongue down to one of her generously formed tits.
He wrapped his tongue around the hard, almost chewy-textured nipple and savored the bumpy areolea surrounding it.
She whined softly with pleasure, which greatly enhanced his own urgent excitement, and she made a thrusting movement with her hips against his loins.
Her urgent whisper floated to his ears: "Fuck me! Oh, fuck me now! Now!"
Her legs, trembling with passion, spread widely in welcome, and her loving fingers gave his prick a tender squeeze before guiding its blood-filled helmet into place against her pussy, which was dripping with the juices of her almost insatiable desire.
He pushed forward, and her hips rose to meet him, and his shaft of meat drove exultantly in.
The muscles that -lined the walls of her cunt folded triumphantly around the penetrating rod.
For several seconds they just lay there without moving, enjoying their nearness, listening to each other's aroused breathing. He kissed her again and again.
Then he moved his loins a little bit, so that his steel-hard prick slid a little way out of her, then thrust back home.
The inner muscles of her cunt seemed to tremble and grab, clasping the bulky hardness of his big, driving cock in a passionate embrace.
Now the tip of his prick was pressing against the mouth of her womb. He was as deep as he could go.
She worked those amazing inner muscles, as though she were trying to milk the sperm out of him all on her own.
When he couldn't take any more of that delicious wringing sensation, he started to thrust in and out of her, at first only a little way, until she started to meet his movements with her own pelvis and hips, setting up a rhythm that took over their senses, seemed to invade their brains and very blood.
He lengthened his hard stroke, a fraction more with each outward pull and inward thrust, until it reached the point where the ridge around the head of his prick was feeling the outer air each time.
And each time he plunged back inside, it was like leaping into a tub of water just short of boiling.
Sweat was starting to trickle down his face and shoulders and chest.
He abruptly pulled out of her, leaving her gasping, and grabbed her thighs in his hands, spreading them even wider, lifting them higher, until they mashed against her sweating tits.
Then he dived back into the velvet inferno of her totally opened pussy.
He reamed her to her very deepest capacity.
The wet sounds of screwing filled the room, mixing with her passionate moans and gasps as he pistoned in and out of her most secret nooks and crannies. He could hear his own loud breathing too, and knew he was dangerously close to what promised to be a cataclysmic explosion.
He increased the speed abruptly, and she started to thrash her arms, and a wild yell of delight burst from her mouth as her body spasmed so violently that he could hardly stay in the saddle.
But the sensation of her climax was too overwhelming to be fought down, and with a helpless whimper, he felt the sizzling cream come boiling out of his balls and erupting out of his spasming prick, and together they were like a volcano that has just exploded.
CHAPTER NINE
The story of Lil's attempted suicide never reached the office. Lil's physical recovery had been rapid enough, once the crisis was over. When she finally agreed to let Linda visit her, she vowed she would never enter the newspaper office again.
Her face brightened when Linda told of her engagement to Steve, and Linda chattered on about their plans to look for a cottage on Long Island. But Lil was taken aback to hear that Dodie might be going to live with them.
Linda said brightly, "Oh, we won't have to worry about Dodie. She's getting a wonderful modeling assignment."
"And until then, I suppose she'll continue to sponge on you. You should have your head examined, for letting it go this far."
"Oh, she gets modeling assignments, and Aunt Minnie contributes," Linda said, choosing her words carefully. Neither Lil nor anyone else must ever know how few and far between these assignments were and that Dodie was spending the "contributions" on herself. "As for Beau," Linda hurried on, "he's a wonderful pet, almost human at times. And he's got a pedigree a mile long."
Lil considered that. "What's a pedigree?" she demanded. "He's still just a dog, isn't he? Chances are, for all his toniness, his mammy stood watch in a gas station and his pappy was a traveling salesman. His tail wags too indiscriminately for a registered animal. I've seen him only once and he all but tore himself apart, though he didn't know me from Adam. Pedigree, my eye!"
With a determined smile Linda pulled the conversation away from Dodie and Beau. "When I mentioned our ready-made family," she said quickly, "I was thinking of Donald, Steve's little nephew. Steve adores him, he's bringing him in from Iowa. If he's happy here-and I intend to make sure he is-he'll live with us. The poor little tyke is only six, and needs all the love and care he can get. He looks like an angel in his pictures."
"They all do," Lil commented sourly. "The brattier they are, the more angelic they look. And that goes for grown people too. Take your cousin Dodie, for instance. As for the little boy, I've seen plenty of pictures of angels in my time, but I have yet to see one wearing breeches."
But she smiled when she said it, and her eyes softened perceptibly. Obviously she was interested, for she asked to hear more about the child, as well as Steve's personal background. For all her prying, the information she had managed to obtain so far had been quite sketchy.
And so Linda, glad to see Lil's mind diverted and happy to talk about anything connected with Steve, obliged with the missing details. Although they had been engaged only a little while, he had given her a complete picture of his life up until the time they'd met. There were no secrets between them.
His father, formerly a small town newspaper publisher, was retired, Linda told Lil. His mother had been a semi-invalid for the past several years, ever since the death of her younger son on the Viet Nam battlefront.
Steve, having done his stint in the Army, had assumed the responsibility of providing for his dead brother's small son, Donald, who had been deserted by his mother.
"She was a fly-by-night," Linda said. "A silly little Southern girl who had won a beauty contest of some kind. She wasn't interested in being a wife and mother. Anyhow, while her husband was off fighting a war, she dashed off to Hollywood with the idea of becoming a movie queen."
"Then Steve, I suppose, built up a case against all Southern gals," said Lil, "thinking they're all a-like-like this flyby-night and your cousin Dodie. Now isn't that just like a man? Chances are his brother's wife came from South Brooklyn. They go in for beauty contests in a big way out there. I hope you've made him eat crow and apologize properly for his lack of horse sense."
"Apologize? Steve?" Linda laughed. "You yourself said he wasn't the type to eat crow; that I wouldn't like him so much if he were. I'm sure he's forgotten it, would probably vow it was all in my own mind. I've forgotten it too, and don't mention it. Love is too precious a thing to be spoiled by silly arguments and postmortems."
Lil grinned approval. "You'll get along, chick. I see you're smart enough to do as I say, not as I do. It's the easiest thing in the world to argue yourself out of a man. I know."
Linda nodded her head, but said nothing. If Lil chose to blame herself for losing Caleb Marsh, perhaps it was just as well. From what she, Linda, had heard recently about the elderly Chief, he preferred his women young and beautiful. Lil was only trying to save face-Caleb Marsh's as well as her own.
Although Linda and Steve had been successful in keeping Lil's secret from the newsmongers, they were not so adept at guarding their own. They had scarcely "discovered" their love before the entire city room was buzzing with the news that the redheaded editor and the pretty girl reporter were carrying a torch for each other. That romance had flowered was evidenced by Steve's inflated grin and the new radiance that enveloped Linda. The very way they looked at each other with exaggerated indifference was a confession of love.
"No use trying to fool those wiseacres," Steve told Linda in one of their stolen moments together. "Love is like a cold in the head-impossible to hide. Not that I care, of course. I'd like nothing better than to shout it from the housetops."
Linda didn't care either-not really. But there were times when knowing glances and facetious comments embarrassed her. Why, these people seemed to know more than she did about what went on between her and Steve. Some had even set the wedding date, while others hinted that they were already secretly married!
John Billings took the news of the engagement in stride. He had grown fond of Linda as a person, but without any further ado he transferred his attentions to Dodie. True, there was a clash of egos between the two. They spent a lot of time tossing mild insults back and forth and bickering over inconsequential things. As Lil would have expressed it, each wanted to be "headman in the admiration department."
Nevertheless, Linda was grateful for this turn of events. She had not wanted to hurt John Billings, who had been a real friend and whose expressions of affection she had tried unsuccessfully to forestall. He was still a good friend.
His attentions not only provided diversion for Dodie; they also permitted Linda and Steve to have more time together. On his visits to the apartment, John undertook the task of teaching Beau the rudiments of obedience and relieved Linda of some of her dog-walking duties. In fact, under his tutelage, Beau's street manners had become so perfect that even Dodie began taking him for long walks, though it was clear that her efforts in this direction were prompted more by vanity than solicitude for the well-being of her pet.
"Why, people even stop on the street to admire us," she would say with wide-eyed naivete. "You'd think New Yorkers had never seen a blonde before!"
"They're a dime a dozen," John would say. "Besides, Beau's not a blonde. I've never seen an animal, even a French poodle, quite so black."
"Oh, but, sugah," Dodie would pout, "they're looking at me. And I'm a natural blonde. And if you're casting aspersions on Beau's background, well, I'm right here to tell you he's got a pedigree that would make yours look sick."
"I have no pedigree," John would announce coldly. "I happen to be one of the few New Yorkers who were born here, and that's genealogy enough for me."
Dodie's small nose would wrinkle disdainfully. "But, sugah, even if you were born in little ol' New York, you must have ancestry. You know, a family tree, a crest, or something."
"Not that I know of," John would fling back. "And I'm not losing any sleep over it either."
"Oh, I suppose a person can't help being common," Dodie would say, "but I'm sure I wouldn't boast about it."
Whereupon John would rip Beau's leash from the doorknob, almost tearing the door from its hinges, and take the surprised animal for an unscheduled walk.
"Come on, Beau, old boy," he would mutter. "Let's get out of here. Seems you're the only person around this joint that makes sense."
"If he never comes back," Dodie would tell Linda and Steve, "it would be much too soon. Why, he's as common as pig tracks, just like that dreadful Lil person you're so crazy about. I only hope he doesn't jump off the Empire State building and take Beau with him." At this point she would wring her hands in distress. "I couldn't bear losing my sweet little ol' Beau!"
"You won't lose either one of them," Steve would say. "They're not the type to get lost and stay lost." Then he would laugh and add, "I can't for the life of me figure out why John Billings, who's really a nice guy, belittles himself to the point of coming back for more. I'm sure I wouldn't. I've never seen two people do a better job of rubbing each other the wrong way. You two can work up a fight at the drop of a hat, and about nothing at all."
"Nothing? You don't understand, Cousin Steve, sugah. I'm only a little Southern girl, alone in New York. If this dreadful New York man chooses to take advantage, what else can I do but fight back?" To Steve, who was trying to bring order out of chaos and to forestall, if possible, an avalanche of tears, Dodie's question made about as much sense as Dodie herself. To point out that she was not alone in New York, and that John Billings was simply reacting like the long-suffering sap that he undoubtedly was, would only be sticking his neck out for recriminations. However, he would stand his ground, saying, "I don't think John's taking advantage. I think he's just as crazy as you are. Could be you're in love with each other, though I'm inclined to doubt it. Don't ask me who's to blame for your continuous tiffs. I wouldn't know, and even if I did, I wouldn't care to say. But I'm sure there's never been so much fussing and feuding since Sherman's march to the sea."
"Oh. You would bring that up. So you want to fight the war all over again. Mama's always said that you Yankees...."
"What war?" Steve would demand before Dodie could finish. "Seems to me we've been fighting one war or another ever since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I fought in one of them and lost a kid brother in another."
"Yes. I know, sugah." Dodie would shake her head commiseratingly as she considered the recent conflicts. Then she would smile brightly and say, "You must have looked wonderful in a uniform; you're such a fine, upstandin' figure of a man. And I'm sure your poor sweet little brother must have got all sorts of medals and things. But I was speaking of the War Between the States, which you Yankees still seem to be fighting."
At this point, Linda, observing the danger signals in Steve's eyes, would take over, in the interest of peace and goodwill. "You're talking at cross purposes, darlings," she would say. Come on, Dodie, we'll fix sandwiches and have them ready when John gets back. I'm sure he'll be starving, just as I am. And you, Steve, might bestir yourself and bring in a couple of cans of beer for yourself and John. There's none in the icebox, and John will be back any minute now."
"I hope he never gets back," Dodie would say through compressed lips. "All I'm worried about is my poor darling Beau."
It was clear that she didn't mean a word of it. John Billings had been a port in a storm. He was not only good company and a handsome escort; he had strong shoulders upon which she might weep when she considered the incredible fact that Linda was engaged and she wasn't.
Also, there was the matter of the fashion show, upon which she had pinned such high hopes. It had been postponed to the first week in September. Meanwhile Mama, having been told of the fabulous salary to be earned for only a few minutes' work and assuming that Dodie was doing exceedingly well, was threatening to reduce her allowance. Dodie, having her own code and feeling rather virtuous about it, had not told Linda of her unhappy predicament. Instead, she had found in John Billings an indispensable confidante. And so such outbursts invariably ended with Dodie wringing her hands and saying between sobs, "Why, oh why, doesn't he come back? He can't do this to me, the ol' meanie!"
"Don't worry, he'll be back," Linda and Steve would say in chorus. "He'll have to come back to bring Beau," Linda would add. "Besides, his hat's here."
Aside from these extraneous flare-ups between Dodie and John, Linda felt that life was adjusting itself. On the whole, Dodie was less tempera mental and certainly more cooperative. Out of her earnings from occasional modeling jobs, she had contributed several articles for Linda's hope chest. She had agreed to take over the unexpired lease on the apartment and would continue to live there for a while, at least, after Steve and Linda were married.
Steve was the perfect lover and husband-to-be. He seemed to have acquired a new poise that extended even into the city room. He was rapidly becoming that paragon of virtue whose species is all but extinct in metropolitan newspaper circles: a city editor who doesn't shout. Steve never shouted anymore-well, almost never. When things went wrong, he simply tore at his disheveled red hair and grinned philosophically.
Despite the fact that Dodie gave him every reason to do so, he made no further sarcastic comments on Southern girls. Apparently he had developed a fine sense of discrimination along with remarkable self-control. His manner toward Dodie was that of a tolerant, slightly amused older brother. In short, he was just about as perfect as a human being could possibly be, or so Linda thought.
By the end of August most of their plans had been made. They had found a dream cottage on Long Island that surely must have been built especially for them. It was equipped with all modern conveniences, but there was an old-fashioned charm about its five rooms, proclaiming that here was a house that had been lived in and loved.
CHAPTER TEN
Just as soon as Steve and Linda decided to take the house-it truly was perfect for them-Aunt Minnie threw a wrench into the works.
Dodie was sobbing when Linda returned home after work. "What's wrong?" Linda asked. Everything had seemed fine that morning. The fashion show at Caleb Marsh's was in the works, and Mr. Peterson seemed to be taking a renewed interest in Dodie's career.
"Here!" Dodie handed Linda a letter.
It was from Aunt Minnie, and Linda's heart sank. She quickly took the letter from its envelope and began reading.
Aunt Minnie was complaining, as usual, only this time it was about the high cost of living, the fact that certain investments hadn't paid off in the manner in which she had believed that they would, and, in sum, that she was cutting Dodie off.
After all, as the letter went on to say, anyone earning that much money per minute hardly needed help from home.
"Are you going to go home?" Linda asked.
"Not with Mother acting like such a beast!" Dodie said. "Now I won't be able to take over the cute little apartment, and I guess I'll have to live out there in that pokey little town with you and Steve!"
Linda sighed.
Nothing was working out, as far as she could see.
Finally the day of the fashion show arrived. Steve drove out to Marsh's with Linda, and they decided that they were going to have a good time.
After all, it wasn't really serious stuff, and besides, with Dodie in the show, it was going to be fun.
Caleb Marsh, however, was not in a good mood. When he saw the casual manner in which the TV crews, the models, and the inevitable hangers-on treated his priceless antiques, his genuine Persian carpets, and his imported shrubbery, he almost had an attack.
He was already tired of the rounds of parties, celebrations, and other festivities that his new wife had involved him in. Of course, she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever known-a Peterson model-and he couldn't say no to her.
He managed to contain himself until the show began. Caleb Marsh sat next to Steve and Linda, and he enjoyed their company so much that he invited them out after the show. "Angus Peterson, my wife, Genevieve-a small group."
Linda said, "My cousin's one of the models-there she is!" Dodie was modeling a slinky negligee, and doing a damned good job of it.
"And your cousin as well," Caleb Marsh added quickly.
Genevieve didn't take to Dodie, and her snide comments had Dodie crying her eyes out in the powder room of the first club they went to after the show.
The conversation drifted to Lil, and Linda was pleased to hear Caleb Marsh say how much he thought of her, to his wife Genevieve's consternation.
Angus Peterson said, "I've been hearing a lot about this Lil. I'd like to meet her."
That was good news, and Linda could hardly wait to tell Lil. But Lil, when she saw Linda the next day, had a bit of news for Linda. "Your Aunt Minnie's arriving today," Lil said.
"What?"
"I took the liberty of writing her a letter," Lil said. "I told her that if she had any interest in her daughter's reputation, she'd get up here and take her daughter back with her."
Linda was shocked. "Calm down," Lil said with a smile. "Somebody had to do it, and besides," she said, checking her watch, "it's too late to argue. She'll be stepping off the plane in about a half hour."
Linda barely made it to the airport-and it wasn't just Aunt Minnie, she saw, but a young man as well.
He was introduced by Aunt Minnie as Bert Caldwell, a childhood sweetheart of Dodie's.
"I plan to marry that girl," Caldwell said.
Linda grinned. "Good luck," she said. "I'm sure Dodie would be very happy with you."
Aunt Minnie beamed.
But when they got to the apartment, Dodie wasn't there, and Aunt Minnie and Bert Caldwell were both perturbed.
An hour later there was a knock on the door. It wasn't Steve, it was John. "What's going on?" He asked, looking at the three of them. "A funeral?"
"It's Dodie-she's missing!" Linda said.
"Missing? She's sitting on a barstool at the corner tavern. I stopped in for a beer on the way up here and-"
Aunt Minnie looked as if she were going to pass out. "My Dodie? In a bar?"
She rushed out the door, accompanied by Bert Caldwell. They caught up to Dodie just as she planted an affectionate kiss on Angus Peterson's cheek. The next thing planted there was Bert's fist. "You old scoundrel!" The young man thundered. "Depraving innocent girls!"
Dodie's modeling career came to a screeching halt that day. She was on the midnight flight south with her mother and Bert Caldwell, and she didn't seem as unhappy about it as Linda would have supposed.
Steve and Linda calmed Peterson down and arranged a dinner with Lil. Angus and Lil deserved to meet each other, Linda thought.
Angus loved Lil from the moment he saw her.
And suddenly a peaceful life in a beautiful house on Long Island was theirs. Steve would continue on the paper and she would be a housewife-at least for awhile. "But if it gets boring...."
