Paul's was that he couldn't make it with Eloise, and Eloise's, that she couldn't make it with Paul. And the third trouble was that they were married. Howard Jones, in Crime in a Changing Society, tells us: "There are many ways of expressing intense hostility, but one way is through violent crime. This may consist of the wanton destruction of property, or of assault, or even murder. Some psychoanalysts are now raising the question of whether, especially in the case of crimes against the person, like sexual assault and violence, the victim may not be as responsible for the offense as the person who perpetrates it. The crime, in other words, may be invited by the victim because it satisfies some unconscious wish in him. There is plenty of evidence of the existence of such symbiotic patterns ... Are not existing aggressions, the demand for material compensations, the inability to tolerate frustration, going to be greatly augmented, leading into an increase in behavior which the community calls delinquency?" The increase in Paul's financial well-being was a flop-it provided far less than he had hoped, in terms of satisfaction. Instead, his attendant activities had left him at the bottom of the pile ... alone.
CHAPTER ONE
THOSE NEW LIVING ROOM DRAPES WE DECIDED ON will be ready by Friday," said Eloise Nagle. She stepped from her housedress, smiling across the room at her husband. "Would you mind picking them up at the store on you way home?"
Paul Nagle turned and eyed her ripe body intently. He had just replaced his medium-blue suit on the hanger, making sure the trousers were folded properly along the creases, adjusting the drape of the coat on the heavy wooden hanger.
"I'll bring them along."
"Good. Mother and I want to get them up this weekend." Eloise went to the closet while Paul stood aside to permit her to put away the dress she had just removed.
His gaze went over her figure. She was medium tall with nice breasts and pert, rounded buttocks curving beneath her pink, silken briefs. Her dark-red hair was attractively coiflured, in readiness for the evening.
She was taking their two children to the Christmas P.T.A. meeting at Lincoln Grade School. There was a special program planned, including songs by the third grade chorus, of which their daughter Alicia was a member. Pretty, quiet and serious little Alicia. Was she eight years old already? Could another year be gone?
"They won't be coming in for a while yet," Eloise said softly. She had turned away from the closet. Her dark blue eyes reflected the significance of her words While she had been hanging up her housedress, she had been informing Paul that Alicia and their five year-old son Kyle were busy in a nearby back yard, helping other neighborhood children make a snowman.
Paul stepped toward his wife. After more than nine years of marriage, he knew that her careful, efficient planning for the drab, wintry Wednesday had included what was to come.
"I like your hair that way," he said. His fingers encountered the clasp of her brassiere and unfastened it. He pulled the brimming spheres of soft white skin clear from the cups of the delicate pink bra. His gaze took in the circles of coral flesh studding those nude breasts. Her nipples were relaxed, awaiting the arousing tributes of his caressing hands.
Eloise smiled in pleased, receptive serenity when his palms pressed against the swelling warmth of her naked breasts. "Mmm, that's very nice," she said. She moved her body inward, stretching up to achieve the long, passion-provoking kiss they shared.
She allowed his fingers to slip inside the elastic waistband of her silken pink panties. She began slowly undulating her hips when his delving fondles played at the velvety edge of her cunt.
After a few minutes of liesurely love-play while she stood patiently beside their bed with legs braced widely apart and lucious breasts receiving his oral caresses, Eloise sank gracefully to the mattress. She slid her nude backside across the bedspread, moving to the center of the double bed. She smiled at Paul, bringing up her knees, letting her unclad thighs swing lazily apart.
He looked down at the creamy ridges of her inner thighs where the soft white skin led up into the tangled richness of her pussy. Her loins were pouting in supplicating poses of passion. The roving intimacies of his hands had built her desires. His loins had gradually stirred. Now he was also ready to unite their naked forms.
Descending on top of the woman whose arms closed around his back, pulling their interlaced loins into a deep, pleasurable embrace, Paul was afraid.
Afraid his semi-aroused maleness would fail him again.
Scared one of their children would come bursting into the house, racing to their upstairs bedroom to stare at their unclad bodies in the midst of sexual throes.
His hands fitted over his wife's large, conical breasts. He felt the nipples beneath his cupping palms. They were erect, taut with sensual excitement now.
Eloise kept shifting her supple form in swift, coaxing cadences with the quick, measured strokes of his inserted cock. Her eyes were closed. Her soft red mouth was curved in a pleased, expectant smile. Sex on a timetable.
Planned parenthood with the limitation long ago reached. Cautious, controlled physical intimacies.
Paul kept watching Eloise while he tried to dispel the cynical aura of tiredly resigned defeat from his thoughts. She had a low sexual boiling point. In a matter of moments, she would experience the climax providing thrills and releasings sufficient to her ultimate gratification.
As for him, how long had it been since he had really enjoyed those infrequent, thoughtfully scheduled bedroom rituals between a man and his mate?
"Ohh, darling!" Eloise murmured. "Mmm, it's :starting! I'm-going off! Ooh ... Ooh! Umm!" she panted, arching her quivering loins, raising her buttocks in a joyous thrust to meet his plunging tributes.
His erotic sensations were beginning to flare toward mutual gratification. Perspiration dotted his flushed forehead. His eyes were almost shut now as he worked in desperate, pumping exertions to attain the exploding proof of virility that brought with it a sense of contented completeness.
Then the telephone rang. The extension phone on the bedside stand shattered his clamoring desires. He froze astride his supine, nudely sprawled wife. His eyes opened as the shrill insistence of the telephone sounded again and again.
Eloise flashed him a wan, apologetic smile, her own surging cravings already satisfied. "Let it ring," she said. "Whoever it is will call back."
"No. It's probably for you," Paul muttered, knowing his merged flesh to be already shrinking in defeated frustration.
"But you're so close," Eloise whispered. She attempted an encouraging smile, her dark-blue eyes roving adoringly over his lean, darkly intense features. She wriggled her backside, fluttering her clinging loins in hopes of assisting his rapidly-depleting maleness.
With a smothered, groaning oath, he withdrew from the doomed intercourse, flopping heavily to the mattress beside his wife. The persistent buzzings of the bedside telephone had ceased. There was only silence in the shadowy upstairs room they shared, save for the labored sounds of their breathing.
Finally, Eloise pushed her naked form up from the mattress and reached into the closet for her pale-yellow chiffon dressing robe.
"I'm so sorry, darling," she said quietly. She turned to look across the bedroom at Paul. "We can try again later tonight. After the kids are asleep. When we won't have to worry about any interruptions."
He didn't answer her. He kept his eyes closed, hearing the subtle rustlings of cloth as Eloise slipped into her robe and gathered up his discarded underthings. While she went out of the room, walking along the carpeted upstairs hallway to the bathroom, Paul stayed on the bed.
They wouldn't try again later. After the P.T.A. meeting, by the time Alicia and Kyle were tucked away for the night, it would be too late. Eloise would switch on the television set for the late news program. She would probably decide to iron a white shirt for him to wear to the office the next day. Or there would be mending that she had to get done.
Besides, by then they would both to too tired to enjoy sex. And he was damned if he wanted Eloise to submit to him merely as a pacifying gesture. Because she felt sorry for him. Because one of their infrequent matings had resulted in another failure for him.
How often did they share physical intimacies? Was it more than two or three times a month?
Paul gave up those morose thoughts. He sighed wearily, rising from the bed. He reached absently down to smooth out the wrinkles in the rumpled mint green bedspread.
Every day, he became less of a man.
More of a well-trained mechanical robot. A puppet person, subject to the whims and controls of other people.
Yes. Eloise, his pretty, wholesome wife, had gently spun her web of conventionalities and neatly precise domestic routines around him. During the early months of their marriage, she had often reminded him about hanging up his clothes, about not smoking cigarettes at the dinner table when her parents were guests, because her mother had an asthmatic condition and became nauseated when people smoked strong, acrid tobacco in her presence.
Paul padded across the bedroom, staring out through the windows screened by neat, white curtains. Daylight was yielding to dusk. It must have been past five-thirty p.m. Any minute now, the downstairs doors would bang and the kids would come rampaging into the house after playing with their neighborhood friends.
He stared at the top of the bureau. At the empty plastic ash tray which hadn't been used in months. Gradually, he had discontinued all smoking while he was home. He was aware that Eloise disliked the aroma of stale cigarette smoke. A number of times, she had mildly pointed out to him how the smoke discolored curtains and stained the ash trays. She had shown concern for his health, lecturing him with soft, tactful concern about the dangers and disadvantages of the nicotine habit.
So he'd quit smoking in the house. Also in their aging Chevrolet sedan on Sundays when the family went for drives or to visit relatives. Leaving his pack of cigarettes and lighter in his desk at the office was automatic procedure now at quitting time.
Paul took out a pair of casual slacks and a darkblue wool shirt from the closet. From his side of the double wardrobe closet. A place for everything, everything in its place. That was a habit he'd acquired from Eloise. She was trying to be a good wife as well as a devoted mother of their children. She had helped him replace careless, undesirable habits with practical and beneficial character traits.
He was getting dressed when Eloise returned to the room following her cleansing and refreshing interlude in the bathroom shower. She flashed him a hurried smile just as the telephone shrilled on the bedside table.
"I'll get it," she said, moving past Paul, her robe already loosened in preparedness for her hasty change into the lingerie and outer apparel she would wear to the meeting at school that evening.
He stood near the doorway for a moment, watching her pick up the receiver. The caller was one of her friends and they started talking about the meeting of the church mission board, of which Eloise was co-chairman. The board met Thursday nights and the women were planning the deatils of the various matters to be taken up by the board the following evening when Paul Nagle eased silently out of the bedroom.
Alicia and Kyle came roaring in from outdoors shortly after he'd gone downstairs. He was wandering aimlessly about in the living room, gazing occasionally out at the whiteness of snow on the lawns being engulfed in gathering darkness, when they came charging into the kitchen.
"She pushed me down!" Kyle cried in outraged accusation from the doorway as his father swung away from the picture window and looked at him.
The boy's five-year-old face was ruddied from cold. His snowsuit was caked with dirty snow and icy wetness. His small lips were quivering, his eyes behind the glasses he hated brimming with tears he didn't want to fall.
Alicia came into the kitchen doorway behind her younger brother. "Well, he kicked at our snowman," she said. Her pretty little face had the defiant, guilty expression that showed whenever she knew she had done something wrong.
Paul went over and bent down to unzip his son's snow-caked jacket, pushing back the hood fastened to the garment.
"Your sister wouldn't want to hurt you," he said quietly.
"And you know it was wrong to try to knock down that snowman, don't you, Kyle?"
Both children apologized for their wrongdoings. After Paul had removed their outer garments, he took the soiled, wet snowsuits down into the basement and hung them on the line he'd strung near the gas furnace. The blower between the furnace and chimney blew warm air across the basement and by morning the jackets and pants draped over the nylon line would be dry.
He agreed to a game of ping-pong down there, while upstairs in the kitchen, Eloise mopped up the slush the kids had tracked in, then began readying the evening meal.
"We won! We beat Daddy!" Alicia called triumphantly as she and a grinning Kyle hurried up the basement steps ahead of their father.
"Your daddy's getting old," Eloise said. She winked at Paul. "Hurry now-get washed," she instructed with stern adoration, watching their boy and girl dutifully scamper through the house to the half bath off the kitchen. Smiling at her husband, she said, softly, "Are you sure you wouldn't like to attend the Christmas program with us?"
Paul had closed the basement door. Leaning against it, he slowly shook his head. "I'd like to, but I can't, Eloise. I'm too far behind on my work the way it is."
"It isn't fair that you have to lug that bulky attache case crammed with files and ledgers home nearly every night of the week," she said loyally. She put the butter, and salt and pepper shakers on the dinette table. She walked to the stove, where the homemade chili on the menu for that evening was simmering. "Why don't you tell them you need help? An assistant."
"Because I am the assistant, remember? After Mr. Lewis died, they just never bothered to bring in anyone else."
"Or give you a raise and the title of Comptroller, either. If I ever get a chance to talk to Stuart McKay, I'll tell him bow unfair he is!"
"All I am is a bookkeeper, Eloise. He could hire a young college grad to do my job. At less money, too. No, it wouldn't be too wise to brace Mr. McKay. Not now. Not when jobs are so scarce again."
They dropped the subject when Alicia and Kyle came back into the kitchen. The four of them sat down and began to eat. Paul scarcely heard the children's enthused reports of the toys and games contained within department-store toylands or of their eager expectations for Christmas, only days away. He ate without relish, without enjoying his wife's culinary skills proved by the delicious, piping hot chili or home-baked bread she had served with the meal.
Afterward, he dried dishes while Eloise hurriedly dressed the children and made final applications of makeup and cologne. He was just flipping the damp dish towel over the rack he'd fastened to the wall, when Kyle and Alicia came rushing out to kiss him before they left the house.
Eloise blew him a kiss from the doorway. "Don't know how long the program will last. Don't work too hard," she called, with the kids already scurrying past her toward the front door of their comfortable frame two-story home.
Paul went into the living room and waved at the departing headlights. Then he hiked into his study, where he had flopped the attache case crammed with paperwork on the walnut desk upon his arrival from the insurance office where he was employed.
He was about an hour into the job of catching up on overdue budget estimates and cost accounting summaries when someone rang the front door chimes.
With a harried sigh, Paul left the study and went to open the door. He didn't know who to expect. But he wasn't prepared to see Karen Rogers standing there, framed in the light flowing out into the winter darkness
"Hi, Paul. Brrr! Aren't you going to ask me in?" Her green eyes met his in one of those electric stares. She wore a fur-trimmed car coat with a parka-type hood pulled over her honey-blonde hair. The coat, bulky as it was, failed to block out entirely the enticing fullness of her breasts. She wore a pleated, brown skirt under the coat. Her lavish thighs moved gracefully beneath the skirt as Paul stepped aside so she could enter the front hallway.
"Eloise and the kids aren't home," he said. "They had that P.T.A. Christmas program at school tonight."
"Oh, darn! That's right," said Karen. She pulled off the hood, shaking out her becoming mass of rich, blonde tresses. "Whew! That wind caught me walking across the yard. It's turning cold again, Paul."
"What are you and Brad up to tonight?" he asked. It wasn't as light as it could have been in the hallway. He hadn't turned on the porch light or the one affixed to the vestibule ceiling, either.
Karen shrugged in careless dismissal of her husband. "Who knows where he is? Me, I'm out of reading material. I thought I could bum a book. Or a couple of magazines from Eloise. I completely forgot about that Christmas program she mentioned earlier this week."
"Come on in and help yourself," Paul said. He turned and led the way into the study, where he'd been working. He waved at the built-in bookshelves. Those and the huge, natural brick fireplace they seldom even used had greatly influenced their purchase of the old but solidly constructed house.
Karen Rogers wandered toward the desk, where his paperwork was scattered. She idly reached down and picked up one of the manila file folders. "Always with the nose to the grindstone, huh?" she lightly commented, smiling at Paul.
"Not by choice."
"Lugging work home is a bad habit. Brad used to. Before he acquired an even worse habit." She returned the folder to the desk. She casually perched on the corner of the walnut desk, crossing her knees with a graceful, effortless swing that gave Paul a tantalizing glimpse of the white skin above her nylons. "I wonder which of his playmates he's with tonight," she mused with unconcerned candor.
Paul had heard rumors of the philanderings of the male who lived next-door. Apparently, there was some truth to those juicy tidbits Eloise had reported to him. He didn't know what to say, or exactly what the striking young blonde was angling toward. He was fairly sure it wasn't a book or a magazine she wanted to pass the time with, though.
He sauntered back to the desk to stand nearer to her. His gaze went over her lush proportions with undisguised interest. "Wouldn't you be more comfortable if you took off that jacket?" he suggested, surprising himself by his invitation.
Karen gave him a slow, speculative look in return. Whatever she saw lurking in his brown eyes must have stirred her into easy compliance, because she unzipped the car coat and started slipping out of it.
Paul came nearer, helping her get the coat off her shoulders. His fingers brushed against her, sensing the soft warmth of her rounded shoulders. He experienced a tingling sensation in his loins as his stare went down over the curving magnitude of the breasts punched against the fabric of her floral-print, satjn shirtwaist.
She smiled up at him. "I don't want to keep you from anything more important," she murmured. "Maybe I'd better scout around for that book or magazine," she said, sliding off the corner of the desk. She was standing close. Very close to him. She kept smiling at him, her green eyes both daring and promising passion such as he'd never known.
He hadn't cheated on Eloise. Not once in nine years. Hadn't even come near to becoming involved with another woman. Now, with devastating suddeness, Paul found himself wanting this voluptuous, shallow and self-centered female. The poised, pampered blonde babe married to the guy living next door was teasing him. Testing him.
What would she do if he grabbed her?
Would she get scared and cry out if he suddenly hauled her into his arms and kissed the hell out of those moist, taunting red lips?
He knew it was wrong, that he was being crazy. But he reached for Karen Rogers.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE LAUGHED, EASILY EVADING HIS KISS. "I WAS wondering if you'd dare try this," she murmured. She didn't attempt to dislodge herself from the embrace. "I didn't think you'd have the nerve, Paul."
"Stop playing games with me."
"Oh? Is that what I'm doing?"
"You know damn well you are!"
"I didn't ask you to grab me."
"Okay. Okay," he said, his arms falling loosely away from her. He turned aside. "Go find that book or magazine. Then clear out of here, will you, please?"
She laughed again. The same sort of low, taunting laughter that only increased his sense of irritation. And of a strong, compelling urge to make violent love to this exciting-bodied, blonde wife of another man.
"You give up rather fast, don't you?" she drawled. She strolled across the study, pretending to be examining the books lining the shelves.
He stared at her back, at the bold curves of her buttocks beneath the pleated brown skirt. He took a slow, measured stride across the room toward her.
"You knew perfectly well that Eloise and the kids were going to be gone tonight," he said. His voice was hoarse. His throat was dry and constricted. He was trembling badly, hovering dangerously on the brink of something dark and frightening, yet powerful and almost irresistible. Something that made him move toward her.
"Did I?" She continued to direct her gaze at the rows of books filling the dark walnut bookcase shelves.
"You enjoy having men admire you. Getting them aroused, then hiding behind your marriage. You're a tease, Karen. A cheap, thrill-seeking tease. One of those women who likes to be wanted but who never gives."
She casually turned, smiling in sublime self-confidence at Paul. "Shall I tell you what you are?" She didn't wait for his answer. She cocked her head appraisingly. "You're a shell, Paul. A tailor-made version of a proper and respectable suburbanite husband and father. You do exactly what you're expected to do. You're afraid to be an individual. Yes, T was testing you." She kept smiling in that smug, infuriating manner, not the least perturbed by his slowly advancing presence. "All I'd have to do right now would be to scream. That would stop you, Paul. You'd stutter and stammer. You'd plead with me never to tell anyone about tonight. About how you almost made a pass at me. Almost."
"Get out of here." His voice was a choked, brittle rasp. His fingernails dug sharply into his wet, trembling palms.
Karen Rogers sighed, shaking her pretty head. "I'm sorry, Paul. I am being a bitch tonight. I guess it's because I know Brad's out chasing around with another woman. I guess that's why I acted on impulse and came over here. Yes, I knew Eloise and the children wouldn't be at home tonight." She came forward and placed her hand imploringly on his arm. "Let's forget these last few minutes, Paul. Forget I came over here."
His desire had gone beyond sanity. At her touch, lust madness overwhelmed him. He seized her, ramming their bodies fiercely together. His mouth crashed down over her surprised lips with bruising impact. His arms hugged her, holding her rigid form tightly pressed to his.
Panic replaced initial shock. Karen writhed with violent, gasping protest in his brutal, demanding embrace. She wrenched her mouth from his, her hands pushing desperately against his shoulders as she sought to break from its pinioning grasp.
"Stop it!"
"You stop! Quit acting like you didn't come begging for it!"
"Paul, really, I-"
He savagely hauled her back into another hard, searing kiss. His left hand shoved roughly against the rear of her skirt. He felt the warmth of her curving backside beneath the fabric.
Karen really began to struggle, then. She slashed at his face with raking talons. "No! Let me-go!"
Her resistance just whetted his intense sexual craving into animal lust. He half-dragged the flailing, clawing woman across the shadowy den, bent on forcing her down on the leather lounge acquired at an auction about a year after the house had been bought.
She gave a shrill, frightened cry. "No! Paul No-!" she panted wildly, her rich, yellow hair tumbled across her flushed young features. She sobbed frantically. "Don't-do this! You-can't! Y-you mustn't."
He forcibly flopped her down onto the tan leather lounge, fingers hooking in the bodice of her floral print satin blouse. He ripped the blouse and tore at the white bra beneath it. The bra came loose with a rending of cloth. He flung the tattered brassiere from him, both hands diving down over the delectable, pink-tipped splendor of those naked breasts.
Karen Rogers gave a low, despairing moan. Her scathing fingernails relaxed, trailing off his neck, where the livid red scratches remained. She went limp and docile on the width of the lounge, her eyes closed, her full red lips parted in quivering awareness of his emboldened fondles.
He stopped and kissed those warm, soft red lips again. This time, her mouth responded. Her lips clung to his with swiftly ascending erotic fervor. Her arms entwined around Paul's neck, pulling him down into a long, sensation-arousing kiss. Her bare breasts shoved up into his cupping palms, the vivid pink nipples be coming delectably harder ... Then they were naked.
She obediently spread her lush, white thighs. The molten magnificence of her golden loins was his to explore, to delight and fulfill to their mutual ecstasy.
He rammed into the insertion, reveling in the sense of male dominance. His hands clenched at her shuddering breasts. Her low, intense sobs of exquisite pleasure drove his plunging masculinity to greater frenzy.
"Ohh! Not so-rough!" Begging gasps of pained protest burst from Karen's lips. Her green eyes pleaded with her lover, recognizing the snarling carnal depravity which had replaced earlier passions.
The unheeding male camped astride her submissively sprawled form, squeezed at the ruby tautness of those flaring nipples. Her squirming anguish served to goad his rampaging sex organ to swift, lashing strokes. He felt the manacles of frustration and inadequacies burst as his culmination unleashed in a torrid torrent of lust.
When it was over, Karen gazed dully up at the man who had so brutally ravaged her. Her breasts were a mass of ugly bruises. Her maimed nipples bore the cruel imprints of his piercing teeth. Her abused loins ached with fiery numbness from the violence of his assault.
She winced, grabbing at the cushions as she tried to rise from the lounge where she had been violated. Her hands gripped at the leather cushions as she again attempted to pull her assaulted body up into some semblance of a sitting position.
"You ... nearly killed me," Karen whispered, fighting tears that combined hurt and shame. "Why, Paul?" she whispered. "Why did you have to be like this?"
He merely shook his head, hurriedly donning his clothes. He couldn't answer her hushed, stricken queries. Twinges of remorseful guilt filtered amid his confused thoughts. He watched his luscious blonde neighbor awkwardly fasten her torn brassiere over her mutilated breasts, then painfully pull up her ripped white panties. She bit at her lip, bending down with an effort to retrieve her damaged shirtwaist and rumpled, brown skirt.
Later, after Karen had crept from the house in abject furtive retreat, Paul prowled through the silent emptiness of the rooms. What he had done unnerved him. He couldn't reconcile his bestial actions to the image he had of himself.
And yet, he felt immense satifaction, awareness that he had it within his power to evoke his male demands and have them fulfilled. He was a man. He had successfully seduced and subjugated a desirable, attractive woman. He wasn't worried that Karen would disclose the savage intimacies he had wreaked upon her gorgeous young body. But he was concerned that his own reactions might betray him; that Eloise might see telltale reflections in his eyes.
So Paul put away his work and went to bed. He feigned sleep a short while later when his family returned to the house.
CHAPTER THREE
CHRISTMAS CAME AND PASSED WITH ITS USUAL, hectic joys and renewals of friendships revived on holidays when families exchanged visits to admire decorated trees and the presents displayed beneath them.
During the temporary lull following the yuletide festivities and prior to New Year's Eve, Paul, along with his co-workers, returned to the routines of the insurance-company office.
It was mid-afternoon on a dreary Friday with snow flurries fluttering lightly past the tenth story office windows when all work activities ceased.
Stuart McKay stood at the executive table in the spacious cafeteria, waiting for his employees to assemble. The trim, handsomely graying president of the insurance corporation smiled benignly out at the men and women gathered within the large room.
"We have put in another good and rewarding year, working together," he began, in his deep, reasonant speaking voice. His cordial gaze drifted casually over the secretaries and stenographers, past the bookkeepers and claims adjusters, over the attentive faces of the other clerical workers and executives. "I wish to personally thank and congratulate each of you for your loyalty and productive efforts on behalf of our organization."
"Skip the hogwash and break out the booze," muttered the man standing beside Paul. The flat-chested typist next to him tittered. At the cafeteria table around which more than sixty men and women were grouped, McKay continued expressing pride and pleasure at the thriving welfare of the firm.
After another ten minutes of suave, praising oratory, the jacketed employees of a catering service hired for the occasion began filing into the cafeteria, bearing trays with sandwiches and snack foods, carrying iced bottles of champagne as well as other liquors.
The office party began at around four p.m. It gained momentum gradually. By five-thirty p.m., one of the secretaries bumped into Paul, causing brandy to slosh over the side of the glass he'd been nursing
"Oops! Oh, darn! I got some on my dress." the nicely stacked brunette observed gaily. She smiled rather fuzzily up at the tall, dark-haired man she'd jostled.
"I am sorry, Ruthie," Paul told her, watching her brush clumsily at the liquor spots splashed over the front of her beige frock. Around them, other men and women were laughing and engaged in bright, relaxed and uncaring conversations.
The curvaceous little secretary must have been drinking beyond her usual capacity. Her cheeks were flushed, her dark eyes swimming dreamily. She laughed, swaying against Paul. She plucked the brandy manhattan remaining in Paul's glass from his hand, tipping it up with merry recklessness, draining the amber contents.
"Ohh, brother!" she gasped, teetering as she lurched around, squinting to locate a place to set the empty cocktail glass. "I knew I should've had more for lunch today. Whew! Ts this stuff hitting me!"
A grinning male with his sandy hair trimmed crew-cut style glided over and slung an arm around the cute brunette, guiding her away from Paul.
""Scuse us, old buddy." he slurred. "Ruthie's gonna do a dance for us. Right, honey?"
"You betcha I will!" came her instant response.
Someone took the empty glass from her. Other girls giggled, watching the crew-cut character employed in the auditing department lift the brunette to the top of the long cafeteria table from which the company president had previously begun the office party.
"Come on, Ruthie!" urged another grinning male who stood with his arm draped familiarly around the shoulders of a buxom file clerk with straight, flaxen hair. His fingers were playing idly over the curving contour of one breast, punched against her light-blue blouse.
Standing by himself near the back of the crowded cafeteria filled with boisterous hoots and catcalls of encouragement, Paul watched the brunette named Ruth begin a series of weaving bumps and grinds. The more encouraging yells and whistles became, the greater the undulating abandon of her impromptu burlesque routine attained.
"Kick 'em high, baby!"
"Man! Ohh, man!"
"Lookit her go!"
Paul listened to the wolf calls and alcoholic gigglings of other office girls clustered around the wildly gyrating brunette. He saw Ruthie shake back her tumbled mass of dark-brown hair, wanton glitters of flushed sensual excitement reflected in her petite, young features.
The row of gawking males standing close to the elongated cafeteria table emitted approving groans and cries of lusty appreciation as her nylon-encased legs kicked up, billowing her skirt, revealing flesh and lingerie bordering her soft white inner thighs.
Members of the catering service staff circulated efficiently throughout the crowded, smoke and noise filled room, gathering discarded glasses and bottles, replacing the depleted liquor supply. Several of the men wearing the neat maroon jackets paused to watch the girl cavorting tipsily atop the table.
Ruthie began unbuttoning her beige dress in response to the bellowing shouts to, "Peel, baby!"
"Take if off, honey!" from the enthused male faction of her well-liquored audience. She slipped, amost taking a headlong plunge off the table, but willing hands reached up and out, steadying her, slipping up her calves, past the tops of her stockings.
Paul glanced around the room. He hadn't seen anything of Stuart McKay or any of the other ranking executives for quite a while. He imagined they had remained just long enough to circulate amid their employees as a token gesture of goodwill before they had quietly taken leave of the party.
He stared up at the prancing, seductively writhing young babe who had flung aside her dress. She quickly ducked out of her pink slip, sending it sailing carelessly out into the crowd. Inflamed males and semi-intoxicated females clapped their hands, screaming and whooping in frenzied urgings for Ruthie to complete her strip.
A chubby, pink-cheeked member of the claims department suddenly leapt up on the table, groping drunkenly for the semi-nude brunette. She laughed shrilly, waggling an admonishing finger at him when one of his sweeping hands caught at her pink brassiere. His clutching grasp did succeed in liberating one large, boldly-nippled breast.
"Attaboy, Herb!"
"Whoeee! Lookit that ripe, juicy melon!"
"C'mon, Ruthie! Might's well finish the job!"
The stumbling college boy who had clambered awkwardly up on the table made another amorous rush at the dark-haired little secretary. Ruthie somehow avoided his clumsily pawing bulk and Herbie whipped desperately at the air as he went crashing ingloriously down from the table. Fortunately, his toppling hulk was caught by a half-dozen onlookers-except that nearly all of them went crashing to the floor from the impact of his hurtling weight.
Paul turned and walked out of the cafeteria right after he saw the crew-cut lad hop nimbly on the table and scoop the partially naked brunette into a sizzling kiss, amid the disorganized din and chaos running rampant in the shadowy bigness of the room.
Moving along the tenth-floor corridor past the glass doors leading into the various departments maintained by the insurance company, Paul saw snow continuing to swirl past the windows. By then, it was after six-thirty p.m. He was glad he'd suspected the tradition of the office party would be upheld. Before leaving the house that morning, he had told Eloise not to keep dinner waiting for him.
Now, entering the accounting department, hiking through the semi-darkness to his small private cubicle, Paul felt vague disgust and wished he too had ducked out before the party progressed to the ribald revelries. He was returning to his office just long enough to pick up the familiar attache case into which he had earlier packed work to do at home that weekend.
Only the light from the corridor shining in through the glass outer doors had illuminated his passage through the general accounting section of desks and bookkeeping machines. His hand encountered the wall switch inside his small office. He went in and walked around the desk. He'd decided to have a final smoke before leaving the building. He took his pack of Camels and the Zippo lighter from the center drawer.
He was inhaling his first drag when he heard voices from the outer office. A woman laughed at something murmured by her male companion. Paul stepped quickly over to switch off the lights in his office. He didn't want anyone to come staggering over and detain him. He was fairly certain whoever had entered the general office hadn't noticed the lights in the small room where he stood. The door to his office faced away from the glass entrance-doors and only light passing through the doorway could have been detected...." back here," Paul heard the man say in a low, thickened voice. "C'mon, Barbara honey. No one's gonna bother us."
"My hubby would kill me if he found out about this," said the girl uncertainly as their footsteps made soft, scuffing sounds on the tile floor.
"Aww, what the hell-c'mon," insisted her escort.
Paul saw them. He recognized the girl called Barbara as a young typist who doubled as relief switchboard operator-receptionist. She couldn't have been more than in her mid twenties; a nice-looking, friendly girl with black hair curled in attractive, Italian-style ringlets.
They tiptoed toward the remote recesses of the main office where light from the corridor couldn't reach them. Paul could only dimly distinguish them, although he could easily overhear their hushed, guarded conversation.
"Mmm, do I like these gorgeous hills of yours. Lemme unzip you, honey."
"No, Ken. We--you shouldn't be doing this."
"Why not? You like it. You like-this, too!" Their darkly blurred forms came together. Paul guessed at the identity of the medium-sized male he had only briefly glimpsed from his hidden vantage point in the blackness just inside his private office. The man was named Kenneth Osborne. He worked as a layout artist in the public relations department. He was about the same age as Paul. He was also a married man with a family.
Paul heard the girl named Barbara moan in low, excited protest. "Don't. Please don't, Ken," she shakily pleaded.
The sound of the back zipper of her sheath being pulled down was accompanied by the subtle rustlings of cloth being loosened. Again, the shapely black haired girl murmured in disturbed protest, saying, "Not in here, Ken. We-if someone comes in, we'll both lose our jobs."
"I'm going in. You know where," growled her obsessed lover-boy. He grappled with her, endeavoring to haul her down to the darkened floor at the far corner of the deserted general office. "Oh-oh," he muttered, abruptly relinquishing his mauling embrace. "Geez, are those damn drinks hittin' me all of a-sudden. Ohh-awk-!" He clapped a hand to his mouth, fighting against the retching that threatened to result in his being violently sick to his stomach. He executed a hurried, unsteady retreat, leaving the willowy, dark-haired typist there in the eerie murkiness.
As Barbara Gilmore stared in an alcoholic daze after the wobbling public-relations man, Paul experienced a tingling sensation of rising physical desire. Often, he had secretly viewed and admired the jutting profiles of the breasts with which Barbara Gilmore was endowed.
He winced as the forgotten cigarette cupped in his hand singed his fingers. He crept back to stub it out in the ash tray on the desk. His eyes were accustomed sufficiently to the darkness so he could make out the position of the girl. She was busily engrossed in making the necessary adjustments to her disarranged dress.
She didn't see the blurred male form silently stalking toward her. Not until he jumped forward, quickly seizing her. One rough hand clapped across her mouth, smothering her startled outcry. The other strong compelling hand trapped her wrists while her unrecognizable attacker brutally forced her knees to buckle, pulling her struggling form down on the floor.
Barbara gasped, trying to bite the stifling palm pressed roughly to her lips. She kicked and twisted in frightened throes, resisting her unseen abuser's powerful attempts to force her down on the darkness of the office floor tiles.
The bruising fingers securing her wrists suddenly released her. Before she could claw upward at his face, a fist slammed into the side of her jaw. The blow paralyzed her. It was followed by another savage punch sent driving clown into her stomach. She went limp, tortured lungs deprived of breath.
Those unrelenting hands flipped up her skirt and tore at her undergarments. The dazed, moaning, brunette must have feebly realized her peril. She used her remaining strength and awareness to issue a low wail of anguished terror. Her shriek never really got launched. At the first sounds, that vicious fist crashed into her mouth, driving her lower lip back over her teeth, bringing blood welling from the cut inflicted.
Barbara flopped heavily back against the floor dies. She was helpless to prevent those reviling hands from wrenching down the top of her previously unfastened frock, from tearing off her brassiere. She wasn't unconscious; she dimly sensed everything that was being done to her.
She knew ravaging fingers were biting sharply into the undefended tender flesh of her inner thighs, high above her sprawled knees. That her dress had been flung up around her waist so that her loins were bared. She felt renewed spurts of pain when those cruel, insistent fingers shoved amid the sensitive wealth of her innermost flesh.
Her nude breasts were out-lined against the blackened rear wall of the deserted office. Paul Nagle straddled her prostrate form, staring at those murky white spheres capped by wide, circular nipples of deep-pink flesh. He bent down, fitting his mouth over one quivering ruby tip.
Barbara Gilmore winced in agony at the searing punishments inflicted by the teeth nipping at her naked breasts, at the degrading atrocities those terrible hands were wreaking upon her distended loins.
Finally, he tired of tormenting her. He made a rapid, furious divestment of his slacks, allowing them to fall around his ankles. He yanked down his undershorts, then descended again upon the dazed, unresisting young female.
Their bodies slipped together in furious buffetings. The whimpering girl endured the ultimate in male inflictions, feeling the staccato frenzy of her demented attacker's physical fulfillment of his lust.
She began sobbing in soft, broken despair, unable to either move or cry out as her shadowy abuser hurriedly dressed and rushed from the unlighted office.
Paul fumbled for the neatly folded white linen handkerchief in the pocket of his suit coat while he waited for the elevator. He'd walked rapidly around the corner in the tenth floor corridor of the office building. No one had seen him leave the accounting department offices. Now, electric tension and clammy perspiration betraying his badly unnerved condition, he jabbed his right thumb against the elevator button again.
He saw the ugly stains of crimson on his hands. He hastily wedged both guilty members into the pockets of his coat after swabbing at his sweating forehead with the handkerchief. Finally, the automatic door glided open so he could step into the empty elevator car.
Just as he was entering the car, Paul heard excited noises of shocked discovering ringing along the office building corridor.
"She's been-attacked!" a woman proclaimed shrilly.
"Call an ambulance, somebody!" urgently commanded a man.
"Yeah, and get the cops over here, too!" yelled another man, his loud voice echoing along the corridor just as the elevator door swished shut, closing off further alarmed commotion.
Paul left the building and ducked his head against the stinging velocity of the snowflakes which had increased with night to near-blizzard proportions. He was hatless and coatless, scurrying toward the parking lot where he kept his car. He hadn't intended to assault that young married woman; hadn't planned any of what vicious sexual molestations had occurred. His topcoat and hat were back there inside his small office. As complete realization of what he'd done swept over him, Paul shivered inside-but not altogether from the cold sharpness of the wind that sent snowflakes knifing through the night.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE CHILDREN WERE ALREADY ASLEEP WHEN HE GOT home. Eloise gave him a serene smile of welcome. She was just beginning to untrim the Christmas tree placed in front of the large window in the living room.
"Some light snow flurries, huh?" she said lightly. "That's what the weatherman predicted. Want a cup of coffee? Or hot chocolate, Paul?"
"No, thanks. Yes, it's really coming down out there," he said. He tried to make his responding smile of greeting and his words as relaxed and normal as possible. He walked over to peer out at the swirling whiteness glistening in the light from the street lamps bordering the suburban block.
"How was the party?" Eloise asked. She stretched up to remove an ornament. She was wearing one of her favorite dresses, a dark-green jersey frock that accentuated the graceful, curving lines of her lovely figure.
"Oh, about the same as last year's. And the year before. And all the other office booze-fests," Paul answered vaguely. "I had a couple of drinks and stayed long enough to be sociable. That was enough party for me."
"I asked Karen and Brad over for New Year's Eve. They're coming over late, after the children are in bed. I thought we could play some bridge. I'll make some sandwiches for a midnight snack. You can be our bartender."
She was busy taking decorations off the tree. She didn't notice the surprised, guilt-ridden glance Paul flashed at her, hearing that Karen Rogers and her husband intended to see in the New Year with them. Lurid recollections of the searing intimacies he had forced upon the honey-haired wife of the guy living next door mingled with his silent awareness of his newest sins.
Were the police already looking for him?
What if Barbara Gilmore had recognized him? He could have dropped something; his hand felt furtively for the wallet he kept in the back pocket of his suit slacks. He was relieved to feel its outline.
Someone could have spotted him rushing out of the accounting department, leaving the moaning, abused form of the dark-haired secretary writhing on the floor.
What would happen to his life, to the lives of Eloise and their two kids, if he were arrested for criminal rape?
"Paul?" Eloise repeated his name in a low, questioning tone. She had paused in her task of undraping the Christmas tree. She was regarding him where he stood near the tree, staring out through the window.
"Hmm? Oh, I guess I didn't hear you. I was thinking about the work I forgot to bring home. I left the attache case on my desk. I just remembered that now," Paul explained, managing a rueful smile as he turned to meet his pretty wife's gaze. "I'm sorry, dear. What was it you said?"
"I just mentioned that Karen was over for coffee this morning shortly after you left. She asked about our plans for New Year's Eve. That's when I asked if she and Brad would like to come over here. We were at their house last year."
"Sure, that's fine. We haven't played bridge with them in a long while."
"Not since last New Year's Eve. Remember how jealous you were when Brad began clowning around? When he pulled me onto his lap just as the clocks were bonging out midnight while we were watching the New Year celebration in Times Square on the television set?" Eloise laughed softly, shaking her head. She turned back to the tree and reached for another ornament.
Paul saw the perfect proportions of his wife's luscious breasts as the dark-green fabric of her dress pulled snugly across those rounded contours. Her dark-red hair shimmered in the light reflected from the floor lamp behind her while she undid the decorations they had worked together putting on the tree.
"Brad's a real clown, all right," he said slowly. "And quite a ladies' man."
"That's what he likes to think, anyway."
"I still wish you'd slapped him when he grabbed you and kissed you that way."
"It didn't mean anything, Paul. You could have kissed Karen and I wouldn't have thought a thing of it."
What would Eloise have thought if she knew about those primitive passions so rawly exposed right there in the house less than two weeks ago?
Paul decided it best to let her comment go by without comment. He walked over to reach up for an ornament beyond her reach. "I thought you'd said something about a separation," he said. "From the way it sounds, Brad and Karen must have patched up their differences."
Eloise sighed. "Not really. He is still chasing around. Today, Karen told me he's having an affair with a new playmate. Some cheap young tart named Joan Becker. It seems she works at the bank where Brad does business. He's been seen with her a number of times, at cafes and supper clubs. Usually at some small place that isn't too well known, where he probably imagines no one would recognize him."
"Funny Karen puts up with it. She's a good-looking woman. She could find some other guy. Why doesn't she draw the line? Then if he doesn't toe it, she could leave him."
"She loves Brad."
Paul glanced at his wife. Eloise apparently believed her quiet, matter-of-fact observation justified the other woman's endurance of her husband's frequent infidelities. He wondered about the love Eloise and he were supposed to be bonded by-wondered what her reaction might be if she ever learned of his hidden sexual transgressions.
It was approaching midnight when they retired to their bedroom. By the time Eloise had finished looking in on the children after her turn in the upstairs bathroom, Paul was already undressed and in bed.
From his side of the double mattress, sprawled on his back, he watched his wife skim from her slip and hang it in the closet. The glows from the twin vanity lamps silhouetted her as she reached for her pale-yellow chiffon nightie. The light played over the firm fullness of her breasts when she removed her bra. Through the sheerness of her rayon white panties, the tantalizing triangle of femininity bordering her loins was apparent.
She caught his gaze at the disclosure of her naked form while she stripped down the wispy, white step-ins. She straightened, posing for him. A teasing smile played softly on her lips.
"It's been a while again, hasn't it?" she said, her voice a tender, caressing suggestion.
Paul watched her walk slowly across the bedroom toward him. His roving gaze went up from her ankles, over the long, slim lines of her legs, amid the creaminess of her enticing thighs. The vivid portrayal of her silkenly guarded loins should have stirred him. The proud thrusts of her unclad breasts with their prominent ruby nipples should have thrilled his masculine senses.
"I forgot to stop at the drugstore today," he said, watching mild disappointment cloud her pretty features. It was a lie. Last night, Eloise had snuggled briefly in his arms before they'd gone to sleep. She gently reminded him to pick up a box of contraceptives.
Her whispered instructions of the previous night had signalled that her menstrual cycle was in the "baby" days once more-that she would enjoy being gratified during that time when her passions were most easily and completely aroused and fulfilled.
Sex by timetable again. And he hadn't forgotten about going to the drugstore.
Eloise tried to conceal her regret at his lapse of memory. She knelt gracefully on the bed, her nude body swaying seductively toward him as she leaned down to lightly brush his lips with hers.
"We can be careful," she murmured. She dangled the taut pink tip of a breast inches above his face on the pillow. Her dark-blue eyes were bright with sensual invitation. She bent to kiss him again. Her mouth was warm and sweet. Her luscious contours flattened against his pajama top.
Paul had to reach up for her. Had to put his arms around her, drawing her down so her naked form was lying atop his. She moaned in soft, supplicating enjoyment of the long, savoring kiss. She shivered in exquisite pleasure when his hands slipped down the smooth warmth of her back, over the deep crevice between her buttocks, down into the excited wealth of her flowing womanhood. She lifted her head, thrilling to the skilled coursings of his lips over her throat, then across the throbbing magnificence of her breasts and finally to fit and tug demandingly at the erect deliciousness of one flaring, dark-pink nipple.
"Ohh, baby! Baby," Paul muttered huskily, feigning aroused desires he couldn't summon. His fingers dipped and searched the torrid secrecies of her most inner flesh, causing Eloise to whimper and writhe against him in panting encouragement.
"Get hard! Ooh, please-get hard!" she gasped, her own hands inside his pajamas, vainly coaxing at his reluctant maleness. "Ohh, honey! Honey,-feels so-wonderful!"
He rolled her onto the mattress and reversed their roles. Her lovely legs were widely apart, permitting his avid, probing caresses to attain the deepest measures of plunging explorations.
"Let's shoot you-up to the moon this time!" he growled, staring down at her flushed, rapt face, her clamoring breasts. His hands worked at the task of building her passions to the joyous bursting phase with a lover's daring swiftness.
"Mmm, ohh, darling! If you-knew how good that feels!" his red-haired wife said, her words choked by delirious abandon that became sobbing moans of ecstasy. She wildly arched her unclad backside, reveling in the rapid-fire culminations of the physical needs his fondling intimacies had built within her hotly swirling loins.
He loved her. She was a decent, attractive and quietly wonderful woman. No man could ask more from his mate when it came to maintaining their home, raising and caring for their two precious children.
Then why was it he could no longer find sexual gratification in those carefully spaced intervals of marital intercourse? Was he becoming impotent? At age thirty-four, was his manhood already on the downward wane?
Paul tossed and twisted restlessly that night on his side of the bed in the darkened room. Long after Eloise had fallen asleep, he lay quietly, staring up through the blackness, searching for answers he couldn't find.
What he did know, was that something dangerous was happening to him. Something dark and evil and unknown. It was as if a cruel, treacherous serpent was slithering within his emotions-a deadly snake that could strike without warning, destroying love and happiness with its wicked venom.
CHAPTER FIVE
IT WAS WHILE THEY WERE WATCHING THE NEW Year's Eve celebration on television that Brad Rogers made his usual pass at Eloise.
"C'mere, honey," he said, his hand going quickly out to seize her wrist. He hauled his unprepared hostess onto his lap, The snack tray she had been carrying back toward the kitchen with the intention of refilling it with more sandwiches and potato chips prevented Eloise from offering much resistance.
Seated in the chair opposite the lounge chair where the handsome guy from next door had pulled Eloise onto his lap, Paul scowled. He was about to rise, seeing his wife being kissed with liquor-bolstered passion, when Karen's luscious, honey-haired form glided between him and his view of the amorous clinch.
"Hap-py New Year!" Karen proclaimed giddily, smiling in teasing, playful sublimity as she plopped down on Paul's lap. She put her arms around him, hugging her lush breasts against him, backside squirming as she snuggled in seductive distraction, her full red lips pouting to be kissed.
The empty snack tray clattered to the floor. Paul had his arms full of warm, fragrant and affectionate blonde. The glimpse he had of his wife locked in a torrid clinch with Brad angered him. He drove his lips against the yielding sweetness of Karen's tempting mouth. His fingers slipped down from her shoulders and fit over the exciting pushes of her breasts against the bodice of her black party dress.
"Ohh, you're being very naughty," Karen whispered. Her dark-green eyes gleamed with wanton enjoyment of the caressing touches of his hands. She brought her lips back to his, shoving her gorgeous young body into his with sensation-arousing abandon.
They'd all drunk too much. The evening that began shortly after nine p.m. had started quietly enough. Eloise had served martinis before they sat down to play cards. Ordinarily, the drinks were moderately mixed and carefully spaced so that the effects of the liquor weren't beyond tolerance limits. But that night, Brad had assumed the role of bartender without asking or being asked to do so. The drinks he'd mixed had been anything but mild. And he'd kept interrupting the bridge session, nagging everyone to drink up, then replenishing the empty glasses.
By midnight, all four of them were getting tight. Even Eloise had gone off the deep end, her cheeks flushed, her gaze becoming bright and difficult to keep in focus. She might not have lost control if Karen hadn't joined in her husband's mood of reckless, gay determination to make the evening into some sort of martini-and-manhattan marathon.
So now, seeing his wife shamelessly swapping kisses with the playboy who lived next door, Paul continued his necking and petting session with the willing wife. Karen's breasts felt firm and exciting beneath his cupping hands. Her lips parted against his. The hot, searing sweetness of her breath mingled with his, their tongues flicking rapidly into goading conflict. She moaned, shivering in sensual pleasure.
"Mustn't start what you can't finish," she murmured, closing her nylon-clad knees together to prevent his straying left hand from going up between her thighs, under her black skirt.
Paul flashed another liquor-blurred look across the dimly lighted living room. There was only the floor lamp burning in addition to the picture on the TV tube that no one was paying any attention to. He saw Eloise brushing at the big hands that were clumsily cupped over the front of her jade-green dress. The sight of another man mauling his wife's breasts stung his anger to seething fury.
"Whoa, now Brad! Let's not turn this into a wrestling match," Eloise said in light, admonishing refusal. She tried to slide off the knees of her grinning guest. Brad chortled, easily hauling the somewhat disheveled red-haired hostess back against him.
"Aww, c'mon-let's make this a fun night," Brad coaxed, his persistent hands again sprawled familiarly over the curving fullness of Eloise's breasts. His mouth sought hers. He chuckled when she quickly averted her lips so that his intended kiss landed on her flushed cheek. He took one hand off the bodice of her frock. His fingers gently held the tip of her chin, forcing her face around to receive his long, savoring kiss.
Paul wedged his palm forcibly between those silk-clad knees, pushing roughly up amid the creamy warm smoothness of Karen's inner thighs. His hand disappeared under her bunched, black skirt. His groping fingertips made contact with the crotch of her undies.
"Hey, now, mister!" Karen chided, softly, her voice shaken and breathless at the electric sensations his bold liberties evoked. She allowed her legs to relax so that the gap between her thighs widened. She came eagerly into another hard, demanding kiss. She sighed, quivering with aroused reaction as his busily burrowing fingers crept under her panties and encountered the hidden velvety hotness of her cunt.
Eloise Nagle gave a startled cry. "Oh! Stop it, Brad!"
Paul wrenched from the sizzling kiss he and the excited Karen shared. He saw the other man's lust-inflamed face get rocked back by a stinging slap from Eloise, while she pushed violently at the hand that had sought to delve between her legs.
"That's a helluva thing to do to a guy," Brad rasped. He made no effort to keep the outraged redhead from jumping from his lap and moving out of his reach. "You act like you still got your cherry or somethin'. Cripes, Eloise-what are you? Some sorta frigid prude? Lookit Karen and Paul over there. Hell, it's New Year's Eve, isn't it?"
Eloise was looking. Her displeased gaze went over her husband and the dreamily smiling woman cuddled on his lap. She stared down at where Paul's forearm disappeared beneath the snuggling blonde's black skirt.
Paul hastily yanked his hand out from its velvety, erotic niche, saying, "Better get up, Karen." He kept his voice low, meeting his wife's disapproving look. "I guess our party was getting a trifle too wild," he said to Eloise.
Karen sighed, reluctantly sliding her deluxe chassis off Paul's lap, carelessly brushing her hands down to smooth the sides of her skirt over her hips.
"No harm done. Brad, you got what you were asking for," she said, glancing apologetically at Eloise, then in annoyance at her blearily scowling spouse. "It's after one o'clock. Let's go home and let these nice people go to bed."
Brad stubbornly set his jaw, awkwardly lurching up from the chair where he'd been slouched. He staggered more than slightly, moving in the direction of the martini pitcher on the liquor cabinet Paul had moved in from the study earlier that evening. With inebriated defiance, he unsteadily tipped down the pitcher, filling the water tumbler he'd used as his own cocktail glass. Some liquor spilled on the carpet. More of the potent martini contents from the pitcher sloshed onto the top of the walnut liquor cabinet.
He plunked down the empty pitcher and reached for the glass filled with the last of the liquor. With all eyes watching him, he drained the entire drink without lowering the tumbler from his lips. Liquor spilled over the front of his white dress shirt and muted maroon paisley necktie. He was obviously too far gone to notice or care.
Weaving dangerously, good-looking features warped into a belligerent, scorning sneer, Brad squinted foggily toward his attractive hostess.
"Y'know what I think? I think-" He almost toppled over, just managing to right himself before he would have fallen flat on his face. "I think you're a hot pussy who's scared to put out. Yeah, I betcha if I ever gotcha goin' when that big hubby of yours wasn't around, you'd lemme do anything I wanted."
"Oh, shut up, will you, Brad?" Karen said tiredly. She grimaced, glancing at Eloise. "He's soused to the eyeballs. Don't pay any attention to him."
"I'll help you get him home," Paul quietly offered.
"Like hell you will!" Brad took a backward step as he peered fuzzily at the advancing form of the taller man. "I can make it under my own power-I don't need any damn help!"
"Forgive us for behaving so badly," Karen said, again casting a flushed, apologetic look at both Paul and Eloise. She wobbled slowly across the living room, heading in the direction of the front door. "Come on, Brad. It's long past time for us to leave."
Her husband wasn't in any condition to hear her liquor-slurred and thickened summons. Just as Karen turned tipsily away, Brad abruptly passed out. His knees buckled and his head lolled forward, his eyes going glassy. He tumbled limply to the carpeting, completely stoned as the devastating effects of that final drink he'd gulped hit him.
"Oh, great! That's my skirt-chasing, big-talking husband," Karen murmured cuttingly when she spun unsteadily around and saw what had befallen the inert form of the man flopped face down on the living-room rug.
"I'll lug him over to your house," Paul said. He went across the room and knelt beside the bombed guy he was beginning to dislike heartily. He started raising Brad up, his hands beneath the other man's arms. "Get his topcoat from the closet," he instructed his wife.
Eloise moved to obey. "We all drank more than we should have tonight," she said, walking past the other woman. "My head's spinning, too. We'll know better next time, Karen."
"Brad always behaves like this, drunk or sober. He's had a yen for you ever since we bought the place next to this one," Karen said. "What really gets him is that you don't fall for his good looks or smooth line. He can't figure out why any woman wouldn't jump at the chance to be made love to by him." She gave a bitter laugh. "Sure, that's my Brad. The world's greatest lover-at least in his opinion. The hell of it is, there are always girls around to keep his illusion alive."
Eloise brought out the gray topcoat and she and Karen managed to get it draped on Brad while Paul held him up. Her eyes met Paul's, reflecting similar distaste for the way the evening was winding up.
"I can walk along over," Eloise said.
"I can manage him. Karen can take over once I've got him dumped on their bed," Paul said.
Eloise nodded. She looked drawn and tired. She wasn't accustomed to either the late hours or that much drinking. She walked to the front door with her husband and Karen. "You have to wear your coat," she said, again reaching into the front vestibule closet. Karen had already donned her beige cashmere coat and knotted a white scarf over her golden tresses.
"Good night, Eloise. Sorry about tonight," Karen murmured as she opened the door for Paul, who continued to support the lolling form of her husband.
"Paul can help you put him to bed," Eloise said. She managed a contrite semblance of a smile. "I'm afraid all of us will be suffering from a hangover tomorrow. Don't worry about tonight, Karen. It was just one of those things that happen sometimes. Good night." To her departing husband, she added, "I'll put a few things away around here while you're gone. We'll have to turn in too, as soon as you get back."
Paul half dragged and half carried the drunken mate of the woman trudging silently beside him across the snow-whitened darkness of the adjoining yards. He succeeded in reaching the house next door and kept hanging on to Brad while Karen unlocked the side entrance and switched on the light inside.
"Bring the dumb slob through here," Karen said, moving across the kitchen after they'd entered the house via the side door leading up from the landing going to both basement and kitchen. As she passed through the living room, her hand swept on the wall switch that lit a matched pair of table lamps. She peeled off her coat, tossing it carelessly onto the sofa, then walking into the hallway that led past the bathroom to the downstairs bedroom.
Paul lugged his unconscious burden through the house, and eased Brad down on the bed and worked at removing the topcoat.
"By morning, he probably won't remember much of this." Paul said, continuing to undress the lax-jawed, heavily breathing man he'd dumped on the bed. Paul glanced up at Karen. "That's just as well, isn't it?"
"You were surprised when Eloise told you we were coming over tonight, weren't you?"
"A little."
Karen laughed-a low, taunting laugh. Her darkgreen eyes played insolently over Paul's big frame while he removed the other man's slacks.
"You were glad to see me, though. Weren't you?"
"Of course."
"Oh, let's skip the 'friendly neighbors' routine, Paul. Not long ago, you had your hand up my dress. And the way you were kissing me-well, I enjoyed that, too." She came around the bed. She reached for him, drawing him around, moving them away from the inert form of her husband. "I told you not start anything you couldn't finish," she said, swaying in against him, her pliant young body pressing to his. Her arms slid up around his neck. "What are you waiting for? How much of an invitation do you need, Paul?"
He pushed her away, stalking from the bedroom. "You're as bagged as he is," Paul growled. "Go to bed. Sleep it off. That's what I'm going to do."
He strode across the living room.
"Paul. Paul look at me," Karen commanded from behind him.
Something compelling in her low, intense words caused him to pause in the doorway leading to the kitchen. Slowly, he swung back toward her.
Karen had unzipped her black party dress. Now, with his fascinated gaze upon her, she peeled the garment down from her milky-white shoulders. She stepped from the frock, lazily reaching back for the clasp of her lace-trimmed, black bra.
"Are you crazy?" Paul hoarsely asked. He was unable to quit gawking at her. His senses pounded and the rush of blood quickened inside him, seeing those luscious, conical breasts capped with voluptuous dark pink nipples become gloriously liberated from the confinement of the brassiere.
"Maybe. Yes, maybe I am a sex-crazed slut," Karen calmly agreed. Her fingers hooked in the elastic band of her exotic black briefs, inching them down with deliberate, tantalizing provocation. Her sensual, red lips curved in a mocking smile. "Maybe, part of it's because I've had more to drink tonight than I should have. Call it whatever you want, Paul. Maybe, I'm a fool for punishment. Remember that other time? That night a few weeks ago when you took me by force?"
"Karen, I-oh, hell!" With that muttered oath, he rushed back across the shadowy living room, seeing the dark golden richness of the triangle of pubic hair discolosed as she skimmed down her black step-ins.
She gave a low, exhultant laugh when his shaking hands closed hard over her nude breasts, squeezing at the thrusting firmness of her skin with fierce possessiveness.
"And maybe we're all animals," she whispered. "Sex, sex and more sex! That's what makes the world go around, doesn't it? You like playing with these big, round things of mine. Just the way Brad revels in rutting with any and every stray female he can seduce."
Paul's mouth closed roughly over hers, stifling further talk. His fingers rubbed and pulled at the taut warmth of sensitive flesh tipping her lovely, white breasts.
Karen moaned, her hands avidly loosening the front of his slacks, pushing inside his undershorts. She shivered in joyous expectation, marveling at the booming bigness of his semi-erect flesh.
They fell together on the cushions of the dark brown sofa. Paul shed his topcoat and hurriedly peeled off his slacks and undershorts. He stared down at the breathtaking splendor of her naked loins, at the excited erectness of those ruby nipples. His right hand smacked viciously into her crotch, a cruel, slamming blow that drove the wanton smile of pleased anticipation from Karen's lips.
He didn't know why he'd done it. Why he had hit her; why it had become so urgent and essential for him to hurt the unclad girl sprawled awaiting his most tender and ardent love makings.
Karen gasped in renewed pain as another brutal punch thudded into her nude abdomen, doubling her over and bringing up her already raised knees in writhing anguish.
There was shocked fear in her wide, mutely questioning eyes as she regarded the glowering dark-haired man hovering above her stripped body. She tried to speak, to cry out, to plead with him, to beg for mercy. Words wouldn't come. Nor could she move to avoid the descending fist that socked her nude breast, driving the nipple down amid the creamy whiteness of suffering flesh.
Bestial, ravaging hands ripped and tore at her loins, gouging and twisting at her most secretive and sensitive regions of womanhood. She sobbed, panting in wild agony, futiley attempting to roll off the sofa. Her fingernails raked across the backs of those abusing hands She flipped her naked form violently upward, seeking escape from the degrading horrors those relentless fingers were violating her flesh with, while his other hand bunched into a fist kept slamming blows down upon her body and face.
"I'm more man than that stupid husband of yours ever thought of being!" Paul said, completely caught up in seething furies that filled his loins with powerful passions threatening to burst forth before he was ready. "I'm a real man, do you hear? I can do whatever I want to you! Anything!" He didn't realize he was yelling; the roaring of maddened lust within him deafened his boiling senses to all else.
Karen wept piteously when he boarded her maimed, bruised and bleeding body. He kept pumping their loins together in swift, punishing frenzies. His hands were gripped over her tortured breasts, squeezing so hard that his knuckles whitened, that her nipples were horribly distended.
Gradually, her weeping ceased and there was only the harsh, irregular sound of their breathing, of their bodies beating together. Karen's eyes slowly opened and a smile of twisted pleasure mingled with excruciating pain touched her puffed, bleeding lips.
"Ooh, darling!" she whimpered. "Ohh! Ohh, I'm-I'm coming! Umm! Ahh ... ooh...." Her innermost flesh churned in flashing spasms of exquisite ecstasy.
He couldn't attain the climax he sought-the vast release and satisfaction of swirling sensations his every tingling fiber clamored for. Even feeling the convulsive clutchings of her loins mated to his, he simply could not achieve an orgasm no matter how vigorously he worked to produce the expulsion of pent-up passions.
He looked down at the woman whose rich yellow tresses were swirled around her pretty face, her features glowing with thrilled sublimity. He lifted his right hand from a maimed, discolored breast, clenched his fingers into a tight fist. He cocked the fist, then sent a blow crashing down to smash against those smiling lips already puffed and bleeding from previous blows.
Karen moaned in choking anguish as a warm rush of blood spurted from her mangled mouth. She lifted her naked buttocks in throes of intense agony when searing teeth closed savagely over her breast, biting into the swollen nipple that was already a fiery tip of throbbing torment.
Her abuser slid his big hand under her writhing backside, forcing her loins up to receive the full, driving impact of his assault. By then, she was powerless to resist, unable even to cry out in anguished protest to his most rampant abusings.
His sexual efforts finally resulted in the desired culmination and the lust-goaded madness drained from his perspiring body, the sadistic scowl erasing from his face.
When she was able to speak, Karen weakly gestured toward the kitchen, saying, "You-you'd better go, Paul. By now, Eloise will be waiting-wondering what's taking you so long."
He got dressed, guilt and shame replacing the demented obsessions that had prompted his reviling assault upon the badly bruised, bleeding young blonde. He glanced at Karen, who had painfully pulled herself up into a sitting position on the brown frieze sofa.
"Karen, I-about this, I just don't know what to say," Paul muttered lamely. His eyes looked down from her mussed hair and maimed face over the nude breasts, covered with livid welts and ugly lacerations. Her stared down from her breasts over the reddened slope of her stomach where his fists had slammed-at the ravaged loins that had received his most inhuman atrocities. "I'll keep my distance, after tonight. I promise you nothing like this will ever happen again."
She winced, trying to smile. "Don't promise that. I asked for what I got. I should have known what you were after that first time."
"What am I?" Paul asked dully, without hope. He zipped up his slacks, detesting the spent, limp symbol of maleness the fly zipper closed in.
"You're a badly frustrated guy. Someone with a grudge against the world. A man who hates the life he's forced to live, but who usually keeps his hates and fears and frustrations locked away inside him." Karen painfully pushed up from the sofa and limped over to bend down and retrieve her discarded bra and black panties. "I used to be a receptionist for a doctor before I married Brad. I picked up some medical terminology, Paul. In medical terms, you have sadistic tendencies, caused by your inability to cope with or adjust to your environment." She winced again, hobbling into the lace-trimmed step-ins. She gingerly fitted the black brassiere over her injured breasts. "There. You asked me, and I told you."
"But knowing what you know-remembering how it was that other time, why did you-?"
"Why did I coax you into taking me again?" Karen shrugged and another spasm of pain at the motion crossed her pretty but bruised and swollen features. "Maybe, because that doctor I worked for told me about machoists, too. That's people who delight in pain. There are women who can't enjoy sex without being whipped. Or beaten. Or both. And men, too. Could be I qualify as a masochist, Paul. Anyway, I asked for everything you did to me."
"I'd better get back home," he muttered uneasily. He didn't like being exposed; didn't like admitting she was right-that he was fast being transformed into a sex pervert. Especially, he didn't like the thought that someday, his unnatural sexual compulsions might result in a really serious tragedy. Without self-control, once past the barriers of sanity and decency, he was capable of anything. He might even kill someone.
Karen, clad only in bra and step-ins, accompained him to the landing and stood with him in the darkness beside the side door of the house. She placed her hands on his shoulders. She stood on tip-toes, her damaged lips lightly brushing his in a forgiving kiss.
"Don't blame yourself. Blame me for tonight. I wanted Brad to get tight. I teased him, saying he couldn't drink as much as he used to be able to put down. I even kidded him about Eloise, so he'd be sure to make some sort of pass at her."
"What do you think all that accomplished?"
"It got you over here."
"That was part of the plan?"
"Uh-huh. Do I shock you, Paul?"
"Not so much that. It's just hard to understand. I'm nothing special. Why the strong attraction?"
"I like my men big. And you gave me pleasure, Paul. Twice. That's twice more than Brad has ever physically satisfied me. I need a man who dominates and overpowers, I guess. Even though I was scared and sore all over that first time you took me, I was thrilled too. Gratified for the first time. I'm serious, Paul. You're the first and only man who has ever given me complete gratification. That's why I made plans about tonight. Why I hoped things would work out like this."
He kept thinking about what Karen had said as he walked back across the darkened, snow-covered yards to his own house.
Was she right?
Could it be possible that he was changing into some sort of weird, Jekyll-Hyde character? That by daylight he was the devoted, quiet-mannered husband and father who worked steadily if not spectacularly at a reasonably good and secure job-then at night, in a situation where he was alone with a woman, he became a vicious, abusing sex-sadist, caring only for carnal pleasures produced by causing pain and terror to his victims?
That sort of thinking upset and greatly disturbed Paul. He tried to dismiss all that had happened from his mind, entering his rambling frame two-story home. He locked the front door and absently wandered through the downstairs rooms, twitching off lights.
Treading the stairs to the second floor of the silent house, Paul wondered what progress the police were making in their investigation. He was certain the authorities had been summoned following the attack upon Barbara Gilmore.
What if she had recognized him?
Fear stabbed through his thoughts as he walked past the rooms where his children were asleep.
"Paul?" Eloise called softly to him from their bedroom.
"Yes, it's me."
"What took you so long?"
He paused outside the upstairs bathroom. "I helped Karen get Brad settled down for the night. It's not easy putting a passed-out drunk to bed, you know."
"You were over there almost an hour."
"I thought you'd be asleep already."
"I will be soon. How do you feel?"
"Okay."
"You sound-funny. You aren't sick, are you, Paul?"
"No. I'm all right."
"Come to bed as soon as you can." Eloise yawned audibly. "Mmm, it's so nice and warm in here. Happy New Year, darling."
"Happy New Year. Good night, Eloise."
"Good night."
He went into the bathroom. Just as he was closing the door, his wife called to him again.
"Yes, what is it?" he answered, sticking his head out of the doorway, looking in the direction of their room, along the upstairs hallway.
"I hope you weren't too angry with what happened tonight," Eloise said. "Brad behaved like a fool, didn't he?"
"He was pretty drunk. I didn't like the way he grabbed you and tried to fool around."
"I suppose I shouldn't have slapped him so hard."
"You did the right thing. Don't worry about it."
"Karen had more to drink than she should have, too."
"We all did." He wished she'd quit talking. He didn't like thinking about his rough, ravishing intimacies with the blonde who lived next door. "Let's chalk the whole thing up as a forgotten issue. This is the start of a brand new year, honey."
Bed springs creaked. Moments later, Eloise appeared in the dimness of the hallway. She came toward him, wearing blue-and-white-striped flannel pajamas. She had a net stretched over her lovely, dark-red hair. She looked cute and sleepy-eyed as she moved into his arms.
"I love you very much, darling," she told Paul solemnly. She met his kiss and they clung together there in the doorway of the bathroom. When the kiss ended, Eloise regarded him with adoring concern. "This year, please promise me you won't work quite so hard. You've been losing weight. You always look so grim-so worried."
He grinned in reassurance he didn't really feel. His hands affectionately patted her rear. "We're doing fine, honey. We've got a savings account as well as a checking account. The car is paid for. The mortgage on this drafty old barn has been whittled down considerably. All our other bills are current. Quit looking for trouble, will you?"
She snuggled against him. He could feel the tips of her breasts through their clothing. She rested her head on his shoulder. "Karen is pretty, isn't she?"
"Not bad."
"You took my advice, I noticed."
"Hmm?"
"When Brad got playful, you followed his lead."
"Oh. Well, you told me it wouldn't bother you. You said it's just part of the New Year's Eve festivities."
Eloise raised her head, looking up at Paul. "You had your hand under her dress. I'm surprised she didn't do what I did."
"She was too far gone to notice, I suppose. Anyway, it's over. Let's forget it."
"Karen likes you, Paul."
"That's nice."
"I mean, I think she would let you-well, do whatever you wanted to do with her."
He forced a chuckle, saying, "Want me to try? Want me to get my face slapped, too? Say, that was quite a wallop you delivered. I wonder if Brad will remember being put in his place."
Eloise kept looking steadily up at Paul. "Don't cheat on me. Not with Karen Rogers or any other woman."
"Oh? You're threatening me?"
She refused to let him pass it off as a joke. I'm serious, Paul. I'll leave you if you ever betray our marriage vows. If you ever behave like Brad Rogers, I'll divorce you."
He held her away from him, his grin diminishing. "Do you think I'd risk losing you or the kids? Do you really believe I'd trade a night of fun with some easy young babe for what I have?"
His wife sighed, pressing back against him, a self-reproaching smile coming to her lovely face. "I don't ever want to lose you, either, darling," she murmured. "Next year, Brad and Karen Rogers can celebrate New Year's Eve anywhere they care to. Any place except here with us."
CHAPTER SIX
LIFE STEADIED BACK INTO ITS USUAL, UNEVENTFUL routines after the holidays. Store windows lost their festive decorations and acquired displays pointed toward the spring season, still months away. January brought high gales and more snow combined with an occasional ice storm that turned streets and sidewalks into slippery glass.
It was late on a Tuesday afternoon near the end of the month when another such wind-driven deluge of freezing rain swept through murky skies surrounding the downtown office buildings.
Paul emerged from his small office and saw several girls employed in the department he supervised standing at the windows. They were watching the cold sleet bounce off the panes of glass, studying the rapidly darkening winter sky with murmurs of concern.
"Gee, I hope the kids got home before this started," one of the older women was saying as Paul approached the group.
"My husband had to take a truckload of furniture down to St. Louis today," said a younger girl, an attractive if somewhat plumpish brunette who operated one of the bookkeeping machines. She noticed Paul. She gave him a smile. "I can see I'll be sleeping alone tonight. At least I hope Jim has sense enough to stay off the roads and stop over down there."
"Driving won't be any fun," Paul agreed. It was within ten minutes of quitting time. He said, "Take off now if you want to. Try to get home before this mess gets much worse."
"Thanks, Mr. Nagle," said the brunette standing nearest to Paul.
"Every minute will count today," said one of the other girls, already starting to walk across the main office. "By five o'clock, downtown traffic will really be in a snarl. Good night, Mr. Nagle."
"Thanks. Good night," called the other two women as they hurried for their coats.
Paul wandered through the department, telling the other employees they could leave early. Most of the men and women working in the accounting section were gone by the time Paul reached the desk where his most recently hired co-worker continued to race her slim, well-kept fingers over the keyboard of the calculator.
"Time to knock off and head for home, Joan," he said, stopping beside her desk.
"Hmm? Oh, is it that late already?" Joan Becker responded, busily jotting down the total her tabulations had arrived at. When she finished making the entry in the ledger assigned to her for daily posting, she neatly stacked up the remaining pile of accounts payable invoices and put them in between the pages of the bulky, black, ring-binder-type ledger.
"Haven't you noticed what's happened to the weather?" Paul asked smiling at the industrious, pretty, young woman. Joan Becker had been hired by the corporate personnel director to replace a girl who had been forced to quit when her husband had been transferred at his job to another city. She was in her early twenties, a tall, shapely blonde with a cute, snub nose and shell-rimmed glasses that she had difficulty in keeping in place.
She shoved absently at the glasses that kept slipping down from the bridge of her nose, glancing toward the windows that were beginning to coat with frozen ice.
"It doesn't look too good out there, does it?"
"Not good at all. Do you have a way home?"
She closed the heavy ledger and opened the center drawer of her desk, shoving her secretarial chair back to permit the drawer to open.
"The bus. It will be running quite late today, I imagine."
"So will everything. If this keeps up much longer, there won't be any traffic moving at all."
Joan rose from her chair, stretching as she straightened up. She raised her arms above her head. "Umm, I've got a kink in my back." She smiled with a cute grimace. "A touch of T.B., too."
"Tired bottoms are a dime a dozen around here," Paul said, grinning back at her. His eyes hadn't missed the lavish proportions of her breasts when she had stretched with her arms upraised, lifting those large, luscious curves and shoving them against the front of her tan jersey dress. "If I can get my jalopy out of the parking lot, I'll be glad to drop you off at your place."
"Thanks, but I usually ride the bus with another girl. We live in the same apartment building," Joan said, smiling her appreciation of Paul's quiet offer. She started walking away from her desk and Paul fell in step beside her as they moved toward the coat rack near the entrance of the accounting department.
"How do you like your work here so far, Joan?" Paul asked, aware of the subtle intrigue of the perfume she favored. He glanced at her pretty, young profile, at the soft, rich redness of her lovely lips. Even with her glasses, she was easily the most attractive girl in his department.
"I like it. Oh, I could stand a bit more variety and I really prefer typing to posting ledgers, but this is a nice place to work and I have no complaints."
"Good. You've taken hold very well, considering this is only your second week. Maybe later, we can do some shifting around and get a typewriter for you."
"Dean wasn't too crazy about my going back to work again."
"Dean? Your husband?"
"Uh-huh. The old-fashioned type. He thinks a woman's place is in the home." Joan reached for her fur-trimmed, dark-blue storm coat.
Paul took the coat from her and held it for her so she could slip into it. His fingers brushed her shoulders and lingered there longer than necessary before he moved his hands away.
"It's probably smart for you to work before you have a family," he said. "Later, with children to care for, you won't be able to bring home extra bacon. I'd think your husband would be glad you want to work while you can."
"There won't be any children," Joan said, She couldn't quite conceal the bitter pangs of regret that reflected briefly in her blue eyes. Her smile was intended to pass off the remark as unimportant. "Of course we might decide to adopt a child someday. But not for a long while. Maybe never."
"Please don't try to think of something nice to say. I'm used to the idea now. At first, I thought I should give Dean a divorce. You see, we both wanted kids. We planned on having lots of babies." Her smile became wistful. "That was before I learned I was sterile. We'd been married almost two years and we knew something must be wrong with one of us. Dean saw a doctor first. It wasn't him. So, I was examined and we found out." Her eyes searched Paul's lean, serious face. "All of this just popped out," she said softly. "I feel foolish for telling you my problems. Anyway, I'm adjusted to things now. And I do like my job."
"I'm glad," Paul said. His gaze caught the movement of someone else entering the department through the twin glass doors. It was another girl. A trim, darkhaired young woman, wearing a becoming, pale-green suitdress.
Prickles of furtive guilt flashed through Paul as he saw Barbara walking toward them. Although the police were still investigating the assault which had occurred during the office party almost a month ago, the incident had been kept hushed, with no mention of the attack in any of the newspapers.
Now, watching the stunning, black-haired secretary, Paul tried to keep the uneasy fears he experienced from showing on his face.
"Hi. Ready to go, Joan?" Barbara asked. She directed a full-lipped, acknowledging smile at the tall man in the dark-blue suit standing with the other girl. "Some storm, eh, Mr. Nagle? Aren't you going to ship out, too? Another half-hour of this and we'd all have to spend the night here, I'm afraid."
"I am ready" Joan said.
"And I'll only be a few minutes behind you gals," Paul said. "Just as soon as I turn off the lights and climb into my topcoat, I'm off, too."
"Everyone else is gone already," Barbara said. "I wouldn't be this late if Mr. McKay hadn't brought another letter out to be typed. It seems I'm always the one who gets stuck with his last-minute inspirations."
"That's because your desk is handiest when he walks out of his private office," Joan smilingly advised the slightly shorter girl.
Comparing them, Paul found both their willowy, curvaceous, young figures exciting. Barbara Gilmore's breasts were less wide and more sharply pointed in rounded perfection as out-lined beneath her dress. Her hips and thighs were lithe, nicely curving lines, and both girls were definitely desirable.
"Look, since you live in the same apartment building, why not let me play chauffeur?" Paul heard himself offering. He ignored the warning signal that buzzed inside his brain. He saw the girls exchange swift, questioning glances, and Barbara nodded.
"Thanks. I certainly couldn't refuse you a second time," Joan said.
"Oh, I bet he just wants us along to push in case he gets stuck," said Barbara.
Both girls waited while he closed up the department and donned his hat and topcoat. Then the three of them left the building together.
The stinging pellets of sleet whipped around them as they hurried across the darkening parking lot near the office building. Cars crawled along the icy street, headlights picking out the glittering lances of rain that froze as soon as it landed on windshields.
Paul opened the door so the girls with the wind swirling at their coats and skirts could quickly duck into the front seat. After he had the enpfhe started, he left the car again and used the scraper on the ice-coated windshield. The parking lot was all but deserted of other cars. The few remaining vehicles were sheathed in thickening ice.
Returning to the comparative warmth inside the car, Paul tossed the scraper into the back seat and rubbed his cold hands together. "Whew! That temperature is dropping fast."
"I haven't seen a bus go by," Joan said, glancing at her watch. "It's past five, already."
"Who knows when the next bus would have come?" asked Barbara. "I'll bet it will be packed when it does come by. Lots of people will decide to leave their cars, rather than, try to drive in this stuff."
"Here we go," Paul said. He shifted into reverse, gingerly depressing the gas pedal. The rear wheels spun snow covered with ice as the car slowly backed from the parking space.
The treacherous downtown streets caused the car to skid and sway incessantly as Paul guided it cautiously in the direction of the address his attractive pair of passengers had given.
While they rode along in the inching procession of homeward-bound cars, Barbara unknotted her scarf, shaking dots of melting, icy wetness from her hair. "It's a good night to curl up with a good book."
"I won't even try to come to work tomorrow if this keeps up," Joan said. She was sitting next to Paul. Turning toward him, smiling up into his lean profile as he kept his gaze intently on the rear of the sedan he was following, Joan said, "We really appreciate this. I hope we aren't taking you too far out of your way."
"You aren't. This is practically right on the route I generally take home."
"I bet your wife will be glad when she sees you drive in," murmured Barbara. She stretched out her legs with a soft rustle of nylon stockings rubbing together. She leaned comfortably back against the seat. "Just like she must have been glad you got home from the office party safely a few weeks ago."
At her casual reference to the party, Paul's muscles tensed and his hands tightened on the steering wheel. He was almost tardy in applying the brakes as the long string of cars ahead of him stopped for a traffic signal looming indistinctly at the intersection with the highway.
"I keep hearing about those parties," Joan said. "Dean would never permit me to stay for one. Not that I'm particularly anxious to, but tell me-are they really as wide-open and free-wheeling as the rumors and stories I've heard about them?"
"What do you think of our annual New Year office shindigs, Mr. Nagle?" inquired Barbara, her low voice a throaty, intimate purr.
Was she playing some sort of game of cat and mouse with him? Could she have recognized him that ugly night when he had lost all control and savagely violated her, right in the very department where he worked?
He tried to keep his voice steady and unconcerned. "Oh, they're all right, I guess. I'm glad we didn't have a sleet storm like this that night, though. I'm not sure liquor and this sort of ice mix at all."
Both girls bundled in the front seat beside him laughed. Joan had removed her shell-rimmed glasses and tucked them into the carrying case inside her handbag.
Looking out through the semi-circle cleared by the car heater and defroster and hard-working windshieldwiper blades, Joan said, "I have a hunch Dean will have been called back to work. He's with the electric company, and with all this ice, I'm sure the line-repair crews will have to stay on duty until this storm lets up."
"He's a foreman, isn't he?" Barbara inquired. Then she looked past the blonde, who nodded in response to her query. Her appraising, dark-brown eyes went over Paul. "I like your topcoat," she drawled. "Good thing you didn't forget it again tonight."
She knew. She was aware of the identity of her attacker. Or at least she had strong suspicions that she was attempting to confirm. She was watching him while he drove, waiting for him to betray his guilt.
When they finally turned off the highway and cruised a half-dozen blocks along Locust Lane to the address of the recently constructed, brick sixteen-unit apartment structure, Paul drove to the next corner and turned the car around so he could stop at the curb in front of the building. Total darkness had closed in over the storm-beseiged city. The street lamps were tiny dots of light set amid the swirling white streaks of snow that began covering the ice which already glistened on tree branches and glared up from the surfaces of roads and sidewalks.
He shifted into neutral so the engine idled while the heater blower maintained the warmth within the parked car. Barbara had her hand on the handle of the car door. She smiled across the front seat at Paul.
"Want to come up for some hot coffee before you go the rest of the way?"
"If Dean isn't home, I'll be glad to be included in that invitation," declared Joan. She apparently hadn't heard about the violent climax of the office party. Nor had she noted the veiled insistence tinting the other girl's suggestion to Paul.
He shook his head. "Not tonight, thanks," he said, pretending he'd also missed the significance of the luscious young secretary's calculating, knowing stares. "I still have about a ten-minute drive from here. Unless I want to get hung up in a snowbank somewhere, I'd better keep pushing on."
"We'll make it another time, then," said Barbara. She pushed down on the door handle and opened the door against the lashing wind.
Joan gave a Paul a grateful departing smile. "I hope you make it home without any trouble, Mr. Nagle. Thanks again and good night."
"Good night," Paul said. As the pretty blonde slammed shut the car door and hurried toward the apartment building entrance beside her dark-haired companion, Paul stared after the women.
Despite the danger of further involvment, regardless of his opinion of what a scheming, ruthless bitch Barbara was capable of becoming, he felt powerful compulsions to repeat the sexual intimacies he had forcibly taken with that gorgeous babe.
He also found Joan exciting with her sleek flanks and big, young breasts. Given the opportunity he would enjoy stripping her, reveling in the golden-haired domain of her loins.
Paul jerked his gaze angrily from the front of the apartment building where the girls had disappeared. What sort of evil, lusting brute was he? Why did such depraved desires keep hammering at him?
He put the car into gear and began driving away from there. The wheels slid, slipping as they dug for traction. The car swung in, bumping the curb. Paul's troubled scowl deepened as he shifted into reverse. The sedan rocked back and forth as he alternated between forward and reverse gears, attempting to rock the tires out of the icy rut they were trapped by.
It was no use. Paul switched off the ignition and blew out a harried, exasperated breath. He tipped back his hat, trying to think what was best to do about the situation. He had no tire chains. There was nothing in the trunk of the sedan that would be of any help to him in his predicament.
He could go into the apartment building to see if the custodian had any spare sand. If he could throw sand under and around the ice-mired tires, maybe he could gain sufficient traction to blast the car out of those deep ruts there against the curb.
Paul opened the door and emerged into the severe gusts of frigid wind.
He hiked swiftly along the walk leading to the front entrance of the new multi-apartment building. Pushing in through the doors, he was glad to escape the biting velocity of the storm. He tramped his feet on the rubber mat, then went toward the tenant-registry panel in the quiet warmth of the foyer. He scanned the lettered names of the renters, seeking the apartment number of the manager.
His roving gaze caught a familiar name: Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Gilmore. Apartment 2C. Then another name he recognized. Mr. and Mrs. Dean Becker. Apartment 1G. That meant Joan Becker and her husband lived in one of the first floor units.
She would be able to summon the janitor or manager or whoever could be asked for a bucket of sand. Making the decision, Paul turned and walked into the inner lobby, then along the corridor between closed doors leading to the various downstairs apartments.
He rang the buzzer beside the door designated as 1G. Even if Joan Becker's husband opened the door, Paul saw no reason why he shouldn't introduce himself and explain the purpose of his visit.
But it was the pretty blonde in the spice-tan, jersey frock who stared out at Paul as the door opened.
"Oh. Hi. I thought you'd be halfway home by now," Joan said, obviously somewhat off-balance.
"The car got stuck," he explained, his gaze unable to refrain from going over the lush proportions of her tall form. "I thought if I could round up a pail of sand, maybe-"
"Of course. Come in," Joan said, stepping aside. "I'll phone and ask the man who looks after things in this building to see what he can find to help out." She closed the door and walked over to the ivory phone. She smiled back across her shoulder at Paul. "Please take off your coat and sit down while I call."
He removed his hat and topcoat, admiring the modern decor of the apartment while she used the dial.
While she stood with the receiver to her ear, awaiting an answer, Paul crossed the room and carefully placed his coat and hat over the back of a chair.
"This is very nice," he said, to make conversation.
Joan crinkled her small nose, saying, "It should be. For one hundred fifty dollars a month. Plus utilities, yet." She frowned prettily. "I'm not getting an answer. I wonder if he's home from his job yet. He only takes care of the building maintenance in his spare time. His regular job is as a machinist in a factory. I think the plant is located way over on the South side. Maybe he and the men he rides with haven't made it home yet."
"I can go into the basement and scrounge around," Paul said as she slowly replaced the receiver. "Or what I could do-and maybe that's a better idea-is call a garage. My insurance provides for towing service."
"That does sound like what to do. While you're making the call, I'll fix us a drink."
"You don't have to bother, Joan."
She was already walking toward the efficiency kitchen. Her lithe, lush flanks flowed smoothly against the rear of the tan skirt, her nylons making interesting whispers as they brushed lightly together.
"It's no bother. I was about to fix myself a Tom and Jerry, anyway. It looks as if Dean won't be along for hours."
Paul picked up the bulky telephone directory and flipped the pages to the classified section. Running his finger along the list of garages, he selected a firm that advertised towing service that was located in that part of the city.
The man who finally answered the call agreed to dispatch a tow truck as soon as possible. "I can't promise how long you'll hafta wait, though," he added. "Seems like half the cars in this city are hung up right about now, mister. Just give us time. You'll get your turn."
"All right. Did you write down the address?"
"Yeh. We'll be there quick's we can. G'bye," He disconnected without waiting for further conversation from Paul.
Joan Becker, mixing drinks, called to him from the kitchen. "Maybe you should phone your family, too," she suggested, smiling at him across the snack counter separating the rooms.
"Thanks. I guess I'll do that." He dialed his home number. He watched the excitingly endowed blonde as she carefully measured out ingredients.
Eloise answered after the third ring. She expressed concern, then relief after Paul explained that he was all right and delayed because the car was temporarily stuck.
"Where are you?" she anxiously asked. "Still at the office, darling?"
He darted a glance at Joan. She wasn't paying any particular attention to what he was saying. "Right. That's where I am," he muttered into the mouthpiece. "Why don't you and the kids have dinner? I'll grab something when I finally make it home."
"I'll keep the roast in the oven. I hope you can get home before this blizzard closes the roads completely, Paul. The sand truck was by twice already. Now, with all this snow, I can scarcely even see the street from here."
"Don't worry. I'll make it. But hard telling when that garage truck will get here to bail me out. If it does get late, kiss Kyle and Alicia good night for me."
"I will. Be earful, darling. And thank you for calling to let me know you've been delayed."
"Good-bye, Eloise." He cradled the receiver, turning back toward the attractive young woman, who was just walking past the snack counter, bringing in the drinks she had concocted for them.
She smiled, handing Paul a steaming, oversize mug. "This should help melt the icicles."
He clinked the mug gently to hers. "To warmer weather," he toasted, and they sipped at the drinks. She made a good Tom and Jerry. They enjoyed the drinks in leisurely, conversational fashion, seated in the living room while outside the windows, the storm howled in undiminished intensity.
Paul accompanied Joan into the kitchen when she arose and began making another round of the potent, stimulating drinks for them.
"I shouldn't be taking up so much of your time," he said. "You haven't eaten."
"Neither have you. Besides, I'm not very hungry. Are you? I could scramble up some eggs or fry a couple hamburgers."
"No, thanks, Joan. That tow truck should be along soon."
"What time is it?" she asked, pouring steaming liquor into the brace of mugs.
"Nearly six-thirty," Paul said, glancing up at the electric wall clock. He'd been in the apartment nearly an hour.
They returned to the living room with the replenished supply of drinks. Joan kicked off her shoes, crossing her ankles as she leaned back on the dark-green sectional sofa, holding her drink.
"If you hadn't tried to play good Samaritan, you'd probably be home with your family by now," she told Paul. "How many children do you have?"
He told her about Alicia and Kyle. That started them exchanging other bits of personal information. They discussed the importance of education, with Paul expressing regret that he'd never gone to college, telling the attentive, golden-haired woman how he had burned countless midnight oil in taking accounting and law subjects via a correspondence school.
Joan had attended the state university, where she had majored in math and commercial courses. She told Paul that was where she and her husband had met, about how they'd been married the fall following graduation, and about her strict upbringing, and how she had not been permitted to date boys until her junior year at high school. She confided that Dean had been her first and only serious sweetheart, that there were times when she wished her parents had allowed her more freedom. She thought it was wrong for a girl to be married before having the opportunity to be out in the world, meeting a variety of potential husbands before selecting a lifetime mate.
Their drinks were gone again. Paul nodded in slow, thoughtful agreement to Joan's winsome theories about how young people could marry in haste and repent at leisure. The warm glow of the liquor inside him relaxed him.
"My wife and I were engaged for more than a year before we were married," he said, vaguely conscious of the slight slur in his voice. He enjoyed the pleasant, comfortable effects of the drinks. When he arose, moving easily over to take Joan's empty mug from her, she got up, too. They both walked toward the kitchen. "Eloise graduated with honors from high school. She was in the top third of her class at college, too," he told Joan as she began fixing them another drink. He leaned reflectively against the wall. "Everyone told me how lucky I was to find a sweet, wonderful girl like Eloise."
"She must be very nice," Joan said. "Of course, you probably had your choice of dozens of girls."
"Not so many. Actually, thinking about it, the choice was more or less made for me," Paul mused, almost as if talking to himself. He recalled how enthusiastic and pleased his parents had been when he'd started going out with Eloise. Their families had long been friends. They had separated for a number of years when his father had taken a job in another part of the state. Later, after they had moved back to the city, the friendship had resumed. Paul was nearly two years younger than Eloise, so they hadn't attended the same classes during high school.
He remembered their first date. It had been mid-August on a warm, humid Saturday evening. He'd invited Eloise to see a movie at a drive-in theater. He'd asked her mostly to provide something to do on an otherwise dull summer night. A romance with a hot little chick named Gloria had just blown up. Gloria had cheated on him, sneaking out on a date with another boy, thinking he would never find out about her deceit.
Hadn't it been Eloise who had casually mentioned seeing the other girl getting into a car with a boy and another laughing, reckless-mannered young couple?
Paul thought back over the other dates he'd had with the serene, intelligent red-haired girl he'd eventually married. Eloise had kept him in line with gentle, subtle skill. She hadn't permitted him even to kiss her good night until their third date. She had carefully rationed their time together, seeing him only twice a week at most, more usually limiting their dates to Saturday night.
Both their mothers had hoped they would marry. Even his father had expressed liking and admiration for Eloise. What really intrigued him had been her sweet, unyielding virtue, her controlled modesty, her firm refusal to be mauled or to neck.
Finally, he had proposed. And after a discreet delay under guise of wanting time to think about becoming his wife, Eloise had consented.
Did he really love her?
She was possessive and domineering in her love for him. Oh, she never forced an issue. Never came right out and demanded he should do this or not do that.
But it had been Eloise with her soft, tactful urgings who had persuaded him to enroll in those correspondence courses, who had kept him from becoming discouraged, and it was she who had persistently assured him he could master accounting and obtain a better job for himself.
Yes, and she had even typed the resumes and letters requesting job interviews that had eventually secured for him his present position. She had saved the money needed for their down payment on that aging but comfortable and spacious home. She had spent numerous afternoons with real-estate men, looking for exactly the right house for them.
Everything he had, everything he was, he owed to his wife.
And he resented that debt with fierce, seething vehemence.
"Here you are, Paul."
Joan smiled quizzically at him, extending the steaming glass mug.
"Oh. Thanks. I was wool-gathering, I guess." He took the drink and turned to walk back into the living room. "I wonder where that tow truck is?"
"It will be along. Meanwhile, we're comfy and cozy in here."
"I'm not complaining," Paul said. He walked slowly toward the blonde, who stood smiling at him from beside the sofa. "A man couldn't want more lovely company on a cold, stormy winter night."
"Thanks. Mmm, I'm beginning to feel these drinks. Maybe, we should've switched to coffee. Or hot chocolate."
He stood close to her. His eyes took in the delectable roundings of her breasts out-lined against the tan fabric of her dress. "You're very lovely," he repeated. Tingles of desire began racing through his rangy frame. His free hand went out and touched the shimmering blonde richness of her silken hair. "I'm glad the car got stuck. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here with you, Joan."
She tried to laugh, moving away from his caressing hand. "Easy, Paul," she warned lightly, using his first name for the first time. "I think I should-put on the coffee pot. Whew! I should know better than to drink these on an empty tummy."
He stalked after her. "Such beautiful, golden hair. Do you know how beautiful and desirable you are?"
"Stop trying to play the wolf, Paul. You aren't the type." She continued to edge away from him. She wasn't frightened, though-more flattered and blithely amused than worried about the sudden transformation in their situation.
"I'm not playing. We're alone. You want the same thing to happen I do."
Joan had retreated until her back pressed into the snack bar separating living room from kitchen. Her luscious breasts rose and fell as she nervously regarded the man closing relentlessly in on her.
"My husband-Dean will probably be walking in through that door any minute, now." Her voice was low and taut with suppressed emotion. "Don't do something we'll both be sorry about, Paul. Please."
He reached out, pulling the glass mug from her hand. He leaned beyond her rigidly braced form, setting both drinks on the snack counter behind her.
"I want you, Joan. Be honest. Admit you want me to kiss you."
"No, I-"
"Say it!" He grabbed her shoulders. He shook her. "Say it, Joan! Or tell me to get out But be honest! Say what you're feeling!"
Her eyes widened as she stared up into his lean, dark features. She was trembling badly. She wet her lips, her palms pressing against the front of his suit coat, keeping their bodies apart.
"We can't, Paul," she thinly whispered. "We both know this is-wrong!"
"No, it's right. Oh, it's so right for us, darling," he muttered, his fingers caressing the soft warmth of her shoulders. He drew her slowly in against him, his superior strength easily overcoming her braced resistance.
She stiffened when his mouth closed avidly over hers. She gave a torn, desperate moan before her pushing palms relaxed and fell away, no longer trying to deflect the embrace. She allowed him to draw her body against his.
Paul felt her lips stir beneath his. Felt the excitement pound within the proud, full breasts crushed to his chest. His arms shifted, his hands trailing down the back of her dress, coming to rest over the supple curves of her buttocks. He pressed inward, shoving their thighs into more pronounced merging.
Joan's arms came up and tightened around him. She flung her lucious form into his, her sweet, clamoring lips warm and responsive to his demanding kiss.
"No. Not out here," she murmured when his fingers came up and began working down the long back zipper of her dress.
They went into the bedroom and clinched again as they kissed. Both of them were shaking with hotly rising passions as they sank to the bed.
Joan lay motionless, permitting him to undress her. She gave a stifled sob of exquisite pleasure when his bold hands found the naked wonders of her breasts. Her large, sensitive pink nipples instantly became erect beneath the savoring explorations of his fondling palms.
"Ohh, Paul! Paul!" she moaned, wriggling to help him haul down her dress and feverishly divest her of her wispy white briefs. She shuddered in aroused elation when his delving caresses penetrated the torrid recesses of her tangled wealth of golden loins.
He didn't want to hurt her. He didn't intend to let those searching, probing fingers gouge at her exquisite tunnel of sensual flesh.
Yet, he realized that he was causing pain. Through the lust-haze sweeping in around him, he saw the erotic lights of wanton thrills in her dark-blue eyes become replaced by flickers of startled hurt.
"Paul-you-you're too rough," she gasped.
"So beautiful. So hot and wet and clinging," he marveled harshly. His other hand closed more tightly over the throbbing bigness of her creamy, pink-tipped breasts, encompassing both taut nipples, roughly pulling the contours together. "Oh, man! What a gorgeous handful you've got, baby!"
"Oh! Paul-please! You're hurting m-me!"
"Shut up! I'll do whatever I damn please!"
She was really frightened now. She tried to wrench her nude body up off the rumpled bedspread. "Paul! Stop it!" she cried loudly. She clutched at the wrist of the hand that was pinching her breasts together. "Ooh! You're h-hurting them! Paul! I mean it! I-I'll scream if you don't stop!"
"What a hot, juicy hole!" he rasped, his other hand burrowing savagely amid her suffering femininity.
She did scream. A shrill, piercing wail of excruciating pain and terror.
His right hand released her abused breasts and formed a fist that slashed viciously downward to slam against her jaw. She flopped back on the rumpled bedspread, the tortured shriek dying in her throat.
When she began to revive, she numbly experienced searing streaks of almost unbearable pain shooting through her loins. Her eyelashes fluttered and she looked up at the blurred form of the naked sadist who was sexually assaulting her unresisting body.
Wisely, Joan did not struggle. She endured the buffeting atrocities until she felt the spasms within her cruelly violated inner flesh that signaled he was finished with the sadistic sex orgy.
She feigned unconsciousness while he pushed off her ravished form and went into the bathroom. She didn't dare to move, to attempt to slip off the bed and flee from her demented attacker. She didn't have the strength. Her entire body was a gigantic mass of livid welts, bruises and bleeding contusions. Her jaw was broken. She dully sensed that. She was afraid that her slightest outcry or attempt to escape from the vicious molester would bring him springing back to inflict even more injuries upon her already mutilated body and face.
He padded back to the bedroom and began getting dressed. The twisted flush of perverted passion had ebbed from his features. Paul cast a remorseful, concerned glance at the supine, undraped form of the girl on the bed. Had he caused those horrible abrasions on the nipples of her bare young breasts? Had his clubbing fists left those ugly red welts over her stomach and thighs? Was his bestial clawing responsible for the crimson trickles of blood staining the disheveled bedspread beneath her nude buttocks?
Shivering in revulsion, Paul finished putting on his clothing. He again stared down at the prostrate form of the blonde married woman he had assaulted.
"Joan? Joan, can you hear me?"
She kept her eyes tightly closed. She was afraid even to breathe-afraid any indication that she was conscious might prompt another attack.
He went over to the bed and looked down at her. He saw the imprints left by tearing teeth that had ruined her pink nipples. He winced at the sight of blood between her thighs, matting the darker blonde hair bordering her naked loins.
"I'm sorry, Joan. I'm so very, very sorry," he said huskily, tears welling within his dark brown eyes. He moved tiredly away from the woman his carnal violence had so nearly destroyed. He could have killed her. Even now, she might be dying from internal bleeding, caused by the blind, raging ferocity of his fists.
He jumped at the abrupt harshness of the ringing telephone as he moved out into the shadowy living room. When the phone rang a second time, Paul walked over and lifted the receiver without realizing what he was doing; a purely automatic reflex.
He heard the voice of a man say, "Honey? It's me. I just got in from patching up a line that broke because of all the ice. I'll be home in about twenty minutes. Joan? Did you hear me?"
Paul hastily rammed the receiver back in its cradle. He had to get away. Had to leave that apartment before Dean Becker arrived and found his wife sprawled in unclothed unconsciousness on the bed.
Just as he was leaving, he jolted to a halt, seeing a woman standing in the hallway outside the apartment.
"Was she any good, Mr. Nagle?" purred Barbara Gilmore archly, her dark eyes going insolently over Paul's tall frame. "I see she put a few scratches on your cheek. That's belter than I did the night of the office party."
CHAPTER SEVEN
"You must make about six hundred a month," said the black-haired secretary-receptionist thoughtfully, gracefully crossing her legs as she sat down.
She had ordered Paul to accompany her to her apartment on the second floor of the building. Now, regarding him with a taunting smile of scorning amusement, she was wasting no time. There was no finesse.
Idly swinging her lovely, nylon-clad leg back and forth while she looked up at the man standing near the closed door of the apartment, Barbara Gilmore said, "I'll expect two hundred every month. The first payment is due tomorrow, lover-boy."
"You're crazy," Paul said hoarsely. "If you think I'll-"
"I know you will, darling. How was I that night? Did you get your kicks from almost turning me inside out?" smugly inquired the confident, relaxed woman on the sofa. "I saw you come into this building after your car got bogged down. I didn't have to go into the apartment downstairs to know what happened. You'd just better decide and decide fast which you prefer. To pay me for protecting you, or being sent to prison for criminal rape. On two counts, at least. Two that I know of, that is."
"You're a greedy slut! You can go straight to hell!"
"Okay, lover-man. I'll live without the two hundred a month. Jerry-my hubby-makes plenty. I wouldn't have to work if I wasn't so damn bored just staying here. It's no skin off my nose."
"As soon as her husband gets here, I'll be arrested, anyway," Paul said miserably. He glared at the cold-blooded babe who was trying to blackmail him. "There's nothing I can do to stop her from identifying me."
"Oh, but I could," Barbara drawled casually. "I could go down and advise her to keep her mouth shut about tonight. I could tell her how her reputation would be ruined, once the police and newspapers got hold of this. I could convince her the best thing she can do would be to tell her husband and the cops it was a man who forced his way into her apartment and gave her the going-over. That she couldn't identify whoever it was that attacked her. That it all happened too fast. That she didn't get a good look at him."
It was his only way out. Paul hated the luscious, black-haired extortionist but he grimly realized she was his only hope. , "You'll be paid. On Saturday. If I'm not arrested. If you can convince Joan not to identify me," he said tersely.
Barbara laughed in soft, pleased triumph, rising from the sofa. She crossed the room toward the scowling dark-haired man. "I wasn't completely sure it was you that night. That's why I waited. Bided my time. You gave yourself away when I mentioned how you'd forgotten your coat at the office the night of the party. Don't ever play poker, Paul," she advised, her fingertips lightly brushing across his lean cheek. "Your face is a dead giveaway. Now, you'd better leave. My husband's an ex-Marine. If he ever knew you were the guy who socked it to me that night, he'd kill you. And he's due back any day now. He could walk in any minute. He's got a good job with the state. He's a troubleshooter for the department of taxation. Not a guy you'd want to tangle with, lover-man."
Paul angrily slapped away her hand. "Do your job and you'll get your money." He whirled, walking out of the apartment.
Barbara came out of her apartment behind him. "Take the back stairs," she instructed. "I'll go down and see what I can do for you with that poor kid you worked over."
He reversed directions, passing her in the corridor. He wanted to grab her, to slam his fist into her attractive but scorning, greed-etched face. Yet he walked swiftly by her without further comment.
She was the only hope he had. If she couldn't talk Joan into remaining silent about his sadistic ravishment, he was finished. He would be arrested. Sentenced to prison. He would lose his family, his job. There would be no future for him.
He saw the flashing lights on the roof of the tow truck as he walked along the sidewalk from the rear of the huge, multi-apartment building. He approached his car, watching the mechanic in coveralls and a wool plaid jacket hook on a heavy chain.
Snow continued to flutter down from the darkened sky although the earlier winds had diminished. He stood on the sidewalk, watching the wrecker grind ahead, tightening the chain length hitched to the front bumper of the sedan.
After his car was pulled clear from the curb, out of the deep ruts dug by the tires in the ice coating the pavement, Paul signed the charge slip and thanked the lank, middle-aged mechanic.
"Watch it, the rest of your way home," advised the man as he ambled back toward the idling tow truck. "This is about the worst night we've had in as long's I can recollect, mister."
Paul silently agreed with him. He looked back at the apartment building before he climbed in behind the wheel. He dreaded going home. He feared the sound of authoritative knocks on the door, of the police arresting him.
He drove away from there, despairing and afraid. Even if Barbara succeeded in persuading the badly injured, sexually violated blonde woman from naming him as her attacker, the police had their methods. They could identify his fingerprints. He'd left them on the glass mug in which Joan had mixed drinks. Had it been the liquor that had dissolved decent normalcy? He needed something or someone to blame. Joan had been receptive to his advances after her initial reluctance.
If she had more firmly resisted his first mild passes, possibly none of the rest of it would have happened.
The children were asleep when Paul finally arrived home. He picked listlessly at the warmed-over meal Eloise set before him. She kept him company in the kitchen. Outside, ragged flurries of whiteness kept swirling through the night.
"You look drawn and tired, darling," Eloise said. Her eyes showed loving concern as she smiled at him from across the dinette table. "I know it isn't any fun driving on roads when they get so slippery. I'm glad you're home."
He couldn't look at her. She was too good, too trusting and completely faithful in her own love.
What would his wife do if she learned what a brutal sex maniac he had become?
During the rest of that winter evening, with the fading fury of the blizzard piling snow on the already high banks of frozen whiteness, Paul couldn't relax. He couldn't dismiss the fears that at any moment the police would come for him.
They retired shortly after the late news on television. Eloise looked in on Alicia and Kyle before she and Paul entered their upstairs bedroom.
Slipping from her dress, she smiled across the shadowy bedroom at Paul. "Maybe there won't be any school tomorrow. Is it still snowing?"
He was at the window, staring bleakly out into the darkness. "Hmm? What did you say, Eloise?"
"I asked if the storm was letting up."
"Yes. It's nearly quit snowing."
"The snow plows will probably be out all night."
Paul turned from the window, letting the shade fall back over the frosted pane of glass. "I'm fed up with this climate. I'm tired of my job. It's a dead-end street, Eloise. There wouldn't be anything to lose if we sold the house and moved."
His pretty wife regarded him with surprise. She had removed her undergarments and now she paused in the process of pulling on her striped flannel pajamas.
"We all get moods like that, darling," she said gently. She walked toward him. The luscious curves of her breasts pushed out against the unbuttoned front of her pajama tops. Her dark-red hair shimmered richly in the lights from the vanity lamps. "You'll feel better after a good night's rest." She put her arms around him, drawing their bodies together.
Paul's arms had gone around her without conscious direction. He looked down into her upturned face. He felt the firm warmth of her thighs pressed to his.
"It isn't just a whim," he said. "I've been doing lots of thinking about our lives, Eloise. For a while after Mr. Lewis passed away, I thought I might be promoted. But let's face it. Mr. McKay doesn't intend to upgrade me to the comptroller job. The only reason I'm still in charge of the accounting department is because they haven't found a qualified replacement for Mr. Lewis yet."
She snuggled reassuringly against him, cradling her head on his shoulder. "You've done very well with the company. The children and I are very satisfied. We have a good, comfortable life, Paul. And I really believe Mr. McKay will eventually keep his promise. He said you should continue in your present capacity for a year before any definite changes were made. Well, that year is about over. Why not wait and see what happens?"
He was aware of the teasing caressings of her body against his. Her lips brushed lightly up across the ridge of his jaw. She smiled up into his face, then applied the warm soft sweetness of her mouth to his. She pulled their embracing forms more tightly together.
It was a sexual bribe. Eloise thought that if she gave herself to him, the sensual pleasures of their lovemaking could distract him from his restless dissatisfaction.
His hands slid down the back of her pajamas and rested on the slowly undulating curves of her buttocks. His fingers dug into her flesh beneath the flannel fabric covering her flanks.
"So you're in the mood for love, are you?"
"How did you guess?" she challenged softly. She squirmed against him, ignoring the hard, delving pressures of his hands wedged amid the cleft firmness of her backside. Her tempting red lips rose to seek his kiss. Her hands subtly slipped inside the waistband of his pajama bottom, levering it downward.
He hauled in with both hands, roughly widening the chasm between her rounded flanks. He heard her gasp in breathless reaction to the mauling force with which he yanked her into a searing kiss. Her breasts were flattened against him, her thighs pulled into hard, taut contact with his.
It was the first time he had ever seized his wife with such crude ardor. Eloise stiffened in his bruising embrace. Her lips didn't respond to his prolonged kiss. Her eyes had opened in shocked displeasure.
Paul suddenly released her, whirling to stalk away from her. "Let's quit the fooling around and get to bed." His voice was low and terse with thinly restrained anger and bitterness.
She refused to let it go. Staring after him as he flipped down the bedcovers and prepared to crawl in bed, Eloise said, "I think it's time we talk, Paul. We both know this phase of our marriage hasn't been what it should. What it could be."
"Oh, let's just skip the whole thing," Paul muttered. He flopped onto the mattress. He stared dully up at the ceiling.
His wife crossed the room and stood beside the bed. "No, we've pretended about this long enough, Paul. I think you should see a doctor."
"Why? What for? I feel fine. Just great."
"Our physical relationship has been on the downhill grade for years, Paul. Even before Alicia and Kyle were born, I realized our sex relations weren't satisfactory." She sat on the edge of the bed. There was concern in her eyes as she stared down at her husband. Her hand went out to stroke his dark-brown hair. "I love you, darling. I want you to be as happy and contented as I have been."
"Our sex sessions seemed plenty adequate for you."
"I'm not highly sexed, Paul. I'm sorry I can't be more passionate. It's the way I am, though. I know you have been disappointed. That your needs are greater. That's why I think we have to talk this through. Why we must work things out together, darling."
"Forget it. You can't help the way you are. I can't change, either. We'll just have to make the best of it"
"No, we can't let things go on like this." Her soft voice was definite. She let her fingertips run along the side of his lean, troubled features. "Paul, I-I've already discussed our problem with my doctor. He wants you to come in. He says-"
Paul jumped up into a sitting position. Her soothing fingers fell away from his enraged face. "So you told your doctor I was impotent!"
"No, Paul. Please, I-"
"You think I'm a lousy lover! A failure as a man!"
"Paul, don't lose control! You'll wake the children."
"What did you tell that damn doctor?" His big hands shot out, grabbing her shoulders. He started shaking her. "Come on! Come on, tell me! What did you say about me? Did you tell him I couldn't finish what I started when I climbed on top of you?"
Hot color flared on his wife's pretty cheeks. Her dark blue eyes flashed with violent resentment. "Stop-shouting!" She wrenched free from his punishing fingers, quickly rising from the edge of the bed. She spun to face him, breasts thrusting furiously under the top of her striped pajamas, hair swirled across her angered young features. "I told him the truth! I told him we're sexually incompatible."
"And whose fault is that?" He was bristling with rage. He sat up in bed, seething with mounting hostilities and resentments of his own. "Did you tell him how you ration out sex? How you try to run our lovemaking sessions on some sort of timetable-just the way you schedule everything else?"
"I told him I'm tired of pretending. Yes, pretending, Paul! Do you think I enjoy being aroused, then having to feign a climax? I'm as miserable and disappointed as you are every time we have intercourse." Her voice was low, cutting. She met his wrathful glare with calm, pitying candor. "Let's try to behave like adults-not like school-age children throwing tantrums. Let's admit that neither of us has really ever experienced erotic fulfillment. Our sex lives together haven't developed into the marital goodness a man and woman should share. Oh, Paul, don't you know I want to help you? To be the complete wife you deserve and need?"
"So I'm the one who needs help, eh? What about you-what did that doctor say about frigid women?"
"The doctor gave me a thorough examination, Paul. There is nothing organically or mentally wrong with me. He explained that often a man suffers from basic insecurities that can be traced back to-"
"Save the medical lectures! So you and your doctor pinned all the blame on me, did you? How did he check you out? Did you pull up your skirt and spread your legs on the examination couch for him? Did you let him-"
"Paul! That's enough!"
He swung up off the bed. "What's the matter, Eloise? Did I hit a raw nerve?"
"You disgust me! To even suggest I'd allow-"
"That doctor you go to isn't so old. He's not bad-looking, either. How was it with him? Did he give you the real McCoy? Did he ram it in and-"
The sound of her sobbing intake of shocked breath was accompanied by the loud, stinging slap of her winging palm. Paul's head was rocked back by the slap that smacked sharply against his lips. He staggered backward a step while Eloise stared at him in mute, wet-eyed anguish.
"Don't say--any more!" she managed to choke out.
He closed the distance between them with a single stride. His fingers ripped at the top of her pajamas. "I'm done talking!"
Fear swiftly replaced the miserable devastation in his wife's eyes. She tardily reached for the tattered folds of the flannel cloth from which buttons had violently popped. Even as she tried to gather together the pajama top, those rending fingers tore the garment from her upper body.
"Paul!" Eloise cowered before the towering form of her husband, her arms protectively crossed over her naked breasts.
"You'll see who's impotent," he growled, steadily advancing again when she began uncertainly retreating across their bedroom. "I'll show you I can give you as good a dose of the medicine you're aching for as any doctor!"
She cast a wild, frightened glance around the shadowy room. Her back was nearly to the wall. With desperate quickness, Eloise dodged aside, snatching up a hairbrush from the vanity table.
"Stay back! Keep away from me!" she yelped shrilly. When her stricken commands failed to halt him, she threw the hairbrush at him.
The arm he flung up warded off the hurtling missile and the brush glanced off his forearm. He rushed forward, hands roughly seizing the semi-nude, struggling form of his wife.
"I'm more man than that doctor-lover of yours!" he rasped. His fingers clutched the elastic waistband of her pajama bottom and he ripped it off with one savage downward yank. Eloise cried out in mortal terror as he propelled her across the room and bodily lifted her to drop her onto the bed.
She kicked out at him when he'd dropped his pajama pants and sought to fall upon her unclad body. Her flailing fists pummeled at him. Her legs were bunched up as he slammed down on the mattress, forcing his raging frame between the white softness of her inner thighs.
His vicious fingers burrowed into the undefended realm of her loins. Her backside tossed up off the mattress in writhing throes of agony. She clawed at him, sobbing and panting as those reviling hands tore deeply amid her quivering tunnel of flesh.
His mouth slammed down over one sensitive, darkpink nipple. His teeth worked at the tormented tip of delicate coral flesh while his fingers dug and twisted between her suffering thighs.
Both of them froze at the sounds of crying that originated from another upstairs bedroom-the frightened cries of a child awakened by the savage tempest that raged within that disordered bedroom.
"Mommy? Daddy? Kyle is scared," their eightyear-old daughter Alicia called bravely.
Some of the baleful tension ebbed from Paul. He blinked away the swirling maze of fury that had overwhelmed him. He looked down at the twisted, naked form of his wife.
Eloise stared numbly up at him. She moistened her trembling lips, her blue eyes were shining with tears. "I-let me up," she dully requested. "I have to go to them."
Slowly, moving as if his muscles were drugged, Paul pushed off the supine form of the woman he had so cruelly abused. He watched his wife drag herself out of bed and shuffle to the wardrobe closet. She donned her housecoat, cinching the cloth belt that drew the robe together over her nude breasts and ravished thighs. Without glancing back at him, she moved into the upstairs hallway, going to answer the plaintive cries and calls of their children.
She didn't return to the bedroom. Paul had pulled on his pajamas again. He sat on the edge of the bed, holding his head between his hands. His eyes were closed in despair and self-loathing.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I'VE WANTED TO HAVE LUNCH WITH YOU FOR several weeks, Paul," Stuart McKay said after the waitress who had taken their order moved away from tie table.
The downtown restaurant was filled with welldressed business executives and attractive secretaries. It was one p.m. and most of the lower-ranking employees had already returned to their jobs.
Paul accepted a light from the older man, then watched his employer apply the wavering tip of the flame to his own cigarette.
"It wasn't a free lunch I was after when I asked your secretary if I could have an appointment," Paul quietly told Stuart McKay. He met the other man's cordial, politely attentive gaze. "I do appreciate the invitation, though. And thanks for seeing me today. I know how busy Fridays are for you."
His gray-haired host laughed easily. "What day isn't busy, Paul? Anyway, this talk of ours has a priority rating on my schedule pad. It's something I've intended to get at even before the end of the year."
"Before you say anything, I think I should tell you I'm thinking of resigning."
The smile stayed on the older man's well-groomed features but his eyes searched keenly as he looked at Paul. "Would you care to elaborate? I'd like to hear your reasons for deciding to leave the company, Paul."
"My wife and I have separated. That's the main reason I want to pull out, I guess."
"Oh. I'm sorry, Paul. I wasn't aware of that."
"It only came to a head a few days ago. I moved into a hotel this Wednesday."
"You're certain it isn't merely a temporary difference? Every couple has quarrels."
"This has been coming for quite some time, Mr. McKay. I'm afraid our separation will be permanent. I told Eloise to see an attorney. To start divorce proceedings."
"Is that what she wants?" McKay inquired gently. He leaned back at the table, taking a drag on his cigarette while the waitress served their pre-luncheon cocktails. When the girl had again moved off, he flicked ashes into the tray at the center of the table saying, "This isn't common knowledge either, Paul. I have a daughter who just obtained her divorce. Already, she regrets her haste. She wishes she and her husband had tried to resolve their differences before they abandoned their marriage."
"Thanks for what you're trying to do. And I'm sorry about your daughter. But in my case, it's no use. Eloise and I have kept our marriage patched together, mostly for the sake of our two children. We both realize how hopeless it is to keep living together with nothing more than the obligation to Kyle and Alicia to hold onto."
"Let's pass that subject for the moment, Paul. I won't try to interfere in your personal life. It's your career with the company that does concern me." McKay carefully crushed out his cigarette. He raised his gaze to the younger man. His expression was one of serious sincerity, now. "Paul, I want you to stay on with us. As comptroller. That means a new office. More responsibilities and authority. It's a big job, Paul. A job I know you can handle. You've already proven that."
"Mr. McKay, a month ago-even a week ago, I would have jumped at the opportunity. Right now, I-"
"Please wait. Don't give me an immediate answer. Paul. Take the weekend to decide."
"All right."
"We're having a dinner party tomorrow night. I'd like to have you there. Maybe we can talk some more. Besides, I know how alone you must feel. I want you to come, Paul."
"Thanks again but-"
"You don't have other plans, do you?"
"No."
"Good. Then I'll count on you. Try to arrive somewhere around eight and eight-thirty. Do you know how to get to my place?"
Paul nodded. He was indifferent to the invitation; actually, his mind was already made up to quit his job and leave the city. It seemed like the only solution. Now that his marriage was going down the drain, he had no ties, no reason to remain in the area.
Returning to work that sunny, unseasonably warm afternoon, Paul tried to lose himself in his job. He smoked all his cigarettes as he approved reports and checked financial statements. Leaving the accounting department, he went into the deserted cafeteria.
He was inserting the appropriate coins in the cigarette-vending machine at one side of the large, dimly illuminated room when a girl glided through the doorway and walked across the tile floor toward him.
Barbara Gilmore stood beside the machine. A taunting half-smile played on her luscious red lips. Her dark eyes went boldly over Paul.
"You've been a hard man to approach," she drawled. "Every time I see you, you're either with someone or you're moving too fast to catch. It wouldn't be that you're avoiding me, would it, Paul?"
His eyes met hers. "I've been very busy."
"Have you found a girl to take over Joan's work yet?"
Paul glanced down at the pack of cigarettes his fingers were working open. Renewed guilt flooded through him at the sultry, black-haired secretary's mention of Joan Becker. He knew what she was so casually leading up to.
Other girls and men working in the accounting department had voiced puzzled wonder when the recently hired blonde girl had quit without giving notice. Paul had displayed similar surprise when personnel informed him of her telephone call saying she wouldn't be re turning to her job.
Paul extracted a smoke from the torn end of the pack. "No. Not yet," he said in grudging response to the question. His gaze took in the sweeping magnificence of breasts punched across the bodice of her jersey blouse. He was annoyed at his inability to keep his stare off her willowy curves. It wasn't as if he were not grimly aware of what a calculating bitch she was.
She glanced around the cafeteria to be sure no one was intruding. Then, with blithe frankness she said, "I did you a big favor, Paul. I persuaded Joan not to let her hubby come to the apartment and find her-shall we say-slightly indisposed? I got her to come up to my place. I had her pretty well patched up by the time Dean Becker arrived. We told Dean the cab we'd taken home had skidded into a light post and that was why poor Joan was so shaken up. It helped explain the visible bruises, too."
He didn't want to listen. He started walking away, but her hand went out, catching at his arm. Paul frowned "This isn't the time or place to talk about the other night."
"Painful memories?" Her soft laugh was scorning and wryly amused. She swayed against him. "Not as painful as they must be for Joan," she murmured. The provocative aroma of the expensive cologne she favored taunted his nostrils. She was enjoying his obvious discomfort. "We do have to talk though, don't we?"
"Now isn't the time," Paul repeated tersely. He pulled away from her, irked with himself because the seductive touches of her breasts lightly brushing his arm had the effect she'd intended. Grasping bitch or not, Barbara was exciting. Desirable.
She walked beside him as he hiked across the room filled with empty tables and chairs. "Tonight will be soon enough," she said. It wasn't a suggestion; it was a confident, caressing command. "You know where I live."
"That's out. I won't come near that place again."
"Oh? Well, you name it," she said without concern. "Your house? No, I doubt if your wife would appreciate an uninvited caller," she taunted. "Besides, we do have to have privacy, don't we, Paul?"
"Come to the Royal Hotel. I'll be at the bar," he said, realizing she wouldn't let him alone. That he had to get matters settled with her. One way or another. "At ten o'clock," he said, in a clipped voice that left no room for her objections. He lengthened his strides, walking swiftly away from her.
Rounding the turn in the corridor between corporate departments, Paul was so upset by his encounter that he didn't see the girl approaching from the opposite direction.
"Oh!" she gasped as they collided. Her small, tan handbag dropped to the floor. Paul's arms had gone out instinctively, steadying her. He'd felt the pleasurable impacts of her breasts ramming into him. Now, stepping back, releasing her, he smiled in apology.
"I'm sorry. I didn't hurt you, did I?"
She was young. Possibly in her mid-twenties. A medium-tall brunette with sensational contours and lithe, sleekly curving hips. The dress she wore was expensive. Her dark-brown hair was long and attractively fashioned, framing a piquant, lovely face that reflected first surprise, then relaxed into a studied smile of forgiveness.
"These corners are dangerous. It wasn't anyone's fault."
"I should have been watching where I was going," Paul said. He stopped and retrieved her purse. Returning it to her, he said, "I hope the ashes from my cigarette didn't land on your dress." He stepped on the butt that had flown from his grasp because of the collision.
"No damage done. At least I don't see any smoldering sparks. Do you?"
His gaze went over her under the pretense of inspecting the front of her smart dress for stray cigarette ashes. She was really gorgeous. Her breasts were large and perfectly formed, tapering to proud, firm tips sketched beneath the fabric of her tailored suit dress. Her nylon-clad legs were long and lovely, expanding into luscious thighs hidden under her skirt.
"You look to be in excellent shape," Paul said.
"Thanks. You took a thorough look," the girl murmured. Her gaze was equally unhurried as she took in the tall breadth of his frame. "It was nice bumping into you, Mr.-?"
"Nagle. Paul Nagle."
"Mr. Nagle. Anyway, I imagine I'm keeping you from your work."
"You wouldn't be applying for work with the company would you?"
Her laugh was musical. "Nope."
"A customer?"
"No again."
"Oh, I see. Just visiting."
"Something like that. Actually, the man I dropped by to see is busy." She began walking away from Paul. "Suppose I was here about a job? Are you looking for help, Mr. Nagle?"
"I could always use your sort of help."
Her full, soft, red lips became prettily pursed. "Do you always move so fast? It could be a reckless habit."
"Maybe that's how I feel."
She gave him another poised, contemplative smile. Then, turning away, she said, "I like to move fast, myself. And I'm late for a dental appointment already. "Bye-and watch those blind corners."
He watched her disappear along the office building corridor on her way toward the elevators. He'd failed to ask her name. Not that it made any difference; it was un-likely they would ever meet again.
Returning to his small office, Paul worked steadily at the accumulated stack of paperwork. He was still at his desk long after everyone else in the accounting section had left the building.
Habit was a funny thing. He got into his car and began driving along the streets, where melted slush was again becoming frozen into dirty, soot-ingrained chunks of ice as the temperature ebbed. Without realizing it, he suddenly found himself cruising along the block where the frame two-story residence housing his family was situated.
He peered through the dusk at the outline of the house. No lights were visible behind the curtains or window shades. Driving to the next corner, he swung the sedan into a U-turn and drove back past the dwelling. He brought the car in against the curb and parked there, switching off the headlights and ignition.
It looked as if Eloise and the children were gone. There was a sled on the snow covered front lawn near the front porch steps. The forlorn form of a snowman that had suffered during the unseasonable thaw that day caught Paul's gaze. He opened the car door and got out. He walked slowly along the walk leading to the porch steps. As he neared the house, he saw the folded newspapers the boy had tossed up on the floor of the semi enclosed front porch.
He climbed the steps, taking his set of keys from the pocket of his topcoat. He hesitated there on the darkened porch, listening, searching for some indication that his wife and their children were within the house. Only empty silence greeted him when he unlocked the door and entered the front hallway.
Roving through the familiar rooms where he had lived with his family, Paul swallowed hard, trying to dislodge the lump that welled in his throat.
Eloise had probably taken the children over to stay with her parents. To confirm the guess, he went upstairs. He entered his son's room and stared at the neatly made bed. He walked to the bureau and opened drawers. Kyle's clothing was gone.
It was the same in the pink room Alicia had slept in. Even her favorite doll was missing from its usual place on the window seat.
He walked into the bedroom he'd shared with Eloise. A few dresses still hung in the closet along with articles of his clothing he hadn't packed and taken to the hotel.
There was nothing for him there. He went back downstairs. Leaving the house, he locked the front door again and descended the porch steps. Glancing toward the lights issuing from the neighboring residence, Paul paused on the dusky sidewalk.
It was possible that Brad and Karen Rogers knew something about the departure of his family. On impulse, Paul followed the sidewalk to the adjacent house and mounted the porch.
Following his ring of the door chimes, a golden-haired woman appeared at the glass panel set in the heavy oak door. She peered out at Paul and recognition came to her eyes. She opened the door for him.
"Come in," she said. She moved aside. She wore a clinging, checkered housedress and wooly, light-blue mules. Paul had a definite whiff of liquor as he walked past Karen and into the house.
As she closed the front door and leaned against it, looking at him, Paul said, "Isn't Brad home? I was afraid I might be interrupting your dinner."
"You aren't. Brad's out of town." A wan smile reappeared on her luscious red lips. "It seems we're both abandoned, Paul."
"The difference is, Brad will be back."
"Oh, yes. He always comes back. After he's had his fun with whoever his playmate happens to be." She drew a long, resigned breath. "It's too bad about you and Eloise, though. Although I'll have to confess I wasn't much surprised when she told me you'd walked out."
Paul shook his head. "You have that a little wrong, Karen. Yes, I left. But only because Eloise gave me no choice. She made it very clear that she didn't want to live under the same roof with me."
"We didn't go into detail. All I know is that she was anything but happy. Her eyes were all red and swollen from tears, Paul."
He watched her move unsteadily away from the door, leading the way into the living room. The television set was on. A lamp on the step table was lit. There was also a light in the kitchen beyond the darkened dining room from which a crystal chandelier was suspended above the cherry wood table.
Karen turned, swaying slightly. She raised a quizzical, blonde eyebrow. "Want a drink, Paul? Something to drive away the chill?"
"Not right now. Thanks. Did Eloise say she was taking the kids to stay with her family?"
"Uh-uh. But I think that's what she did. I saw her father and mother drive in yesterday. No, I'll take that back," she said pensively. "It was on Wednesday. Late in the afternoon. Someone phoned, so I didn't see them leave. But I haven't seen a sign of anyone over there since then."
He nodded tiredly. His eyes watched her move out of the living room. There was a tray and decanter on the table in the dining room. He saw her pick up a glass and raise it to her lips.
"I won't stay, Karen. I just wanted to find out where they are."
"Use the phone. Call her parents. I'm sure that's where they are." Karen lowered the glass she'd just drained. She came back toward him.
"I have nothing to say to Eloise." Paul started to turn, intending to walk back to the front entrance of the neatly furnished older home.
"Paul."
"Yes?"
"Paul did what happened between us have anything at all to do with your breakup with Eloise?"
"No. She doesn't know about that."
"You're certain?"
"Positive."
"Brad suspects I've had a lover. Although he doesn't know who."
"What made him suspicious? He saw those bruises?"
Karen nodded. Her green eyes met his troubled gaze. "That and I must have looked or acted guilty. Anyway, he accused me of having an affair. I flung the accusation right back at him. That was on Mon day night. Before the trouble between you and Eloise. Oh, we had a dilly of a row, ourselves. One trying to out-yell the other. Snapping and snarling. Trading abusive insults. We nearly came to blows before Brad stomped out of the house and drove off." She gave him another listless, tragic smile. "I'm sure one of his girl friends provided for his creature comforts."
"I have to go. If I stay any longer, some of the other neighbors might start talking."
"Let them. To hell with all of them." Karen quickly crossed the room intercepting Paul. She pressed into him, her arms surging up around his neck. "Don't go," she pleaded. There was soft, husky desperation in her low words. She pushed more tightly against him, her lovely lips a trembling, half-parted supplication.
"Listen, Karen-"
"I'm tired of playing the dutiful, faithful housefrau! Can't you understand how wretched I feel, knowing what Brad is doing? Knowing that at this very moment he's in bed with some cheap, vulgar little slut?"
"You don't know that. You're letting your jealousy get out of control." He was fighting against the lust lashing at his own emotions. He was extremely conscious of the turbulent pushes of her thighs against his, of the sumptuous breasts mashed into his chest.
She stretched up, standing on tiptoes. Her hot, hungry mouth closed with his. She kissed him with hard, searing abandon. Her body shoved into his wantonly.
And Paul was only human. Despite his resolve, he found his arms tightening around her. His mouth took over the kiss, forcing her lips apart, bruising them with the fierce urgency that was so swiftly aroused within him.
"Punish me! Hurt me-love me!" she whispered shakily. Her eyes burned with smoldering glints of excited elation. Her breasts shuddered in great, gasping lifts as his roughly roving hands slithered down the back of her dress and clenched at her taut, curving buttocks.
"Why? Why should I hurt you?" he gritted, conscious of the roaring waterfall of perverted passions spilling inside him. He dragged her with him on the sofa lounge across the room. Light and movement flicked on the TV screen. The sound was tuned down; Karen had probably done that before going to the door in response to his rings.
She smiled up at his lust-darkened face. It was more of a pained grimace than a smile as his abusing fingers bit into the soft skin of her upper arm. She allowed him to fling her onto the sofa.
From there, making no resistance when his hands flipped up her skirt, she said, "Because I deserve to be hurt. Because letting you make love to me, having you hurting me, isn't as bad as being here alone. As staying in this house and knowing Brad is in bed with another woman. That's the worst hurt there is, Paul. It's a hurt I can't stand. So give me my revenge! Save my pride! Do whatever you want to me!"
His hands shoved upward amid the satiny flesh of her inner thighs. She swung her legs widely open to permit his mauling passage. She lifted her backside when those fingers seized her panties and pulled them off in a sweeping gesture of frenzied impatience.
She gave a low moan of pain when his knee rammed into her bared loins. His demented fingers tore at the top of her dress, ripped aside her slip and tore off the white brassiere beneath that garment.
"You're a bitch!" the man rasped thickly, now violently insane with savage, sexual obsession. He clubbed a fist down at the creamy sphere of her breast. The blow drove the delicate rose puckered nipple into the curving whiteness of surrounding flesh. "All women are selfish, demanding whores! This is all any of you are good for!"
Karen laughed. A shrill, uncaring, hysterical outburst that another brutal punch choked off as blood spurted from her cut lips. The blow sent her head slamming back against the armrest of the lounge.
"That's right! she gasped, unmindful of the claret streaming from her mangled mouth. She cried out in rejoicing anguish when his teeth nipped sharply at her undamaged breast. "I'm-no good! I've failed as a woman. I'm scared to h-have Brad's baby. That's why I had the abortion. Did you hear me?" she screamed. "I killed our unborn baby! I let a fat, piggish butcher work me over! I paid him to murder the child forming in my womb!"
"No good! None of you are any good!" raved the big, dark-haired man crouched between her naked, upraised legs. He batted her breasts with his open palm, using those tormented towers of flesh to give vent to his fury. His other hand spread over the golden patch sloping between her thighs. His fingers furled in her hair and yanked with tearing devastation.
"Ahhh! Don't-!" Karen shrieked, Her hidden need to be punished was transformed into stricken terror as the will to live became stronger than her sense of guilt and failure as a wife. She twisted beneath his weight of the man attacking her. She pushed up against his chest with both hands, arching her mutilated body in a frantic effort to escape those dreadful molestations.
Taken by surprise, Paul tumbled sideways, almost toppling off the sofa. Before he could recover his balance and regain his position astride the woman he'd stripped of her clothing, Karen had scrambled up. He made a lunge for her as she ran from the living room, but his groping fingers flailed at empty air.
"I'll get you! I'll fix you-screw you bowlegged!" He sprinted after her, completely berserk with lust. She sobbed in panting gasps of horror, stumbling and almost falling as she raced up the carpeted flight of stairs. She flung a terrified glance across her naked shoulder and saw her pursuer rapidly closing the shadowy distance between them.
Fear gave her renewed strength. She fled up the steps and darted into the nearest bedroom. She tried to slam the door of the room in which she had taken refuge. She heard the hard pounds of his footsteps. Just as he reached the doorway, the heavy oak door slammed and the lock clicked, sealing him off from the housewife, sobbing in shattered hysteria.
His fists banged against the sturdy panel. "That won't save you! Open up! Damnit! If I have to bust down the door, you'll get it even worse!"
"Get away! Stay out of here!"
He backed across the darkened upstairs hallway. He lunged forward, sending his shoulder ramming into the locked door. The heavy door shuddered in its frame, but held. Again, he went back, then charged. The sound of splintering wood blended with the scream of the cringing occupant of the room.
Karen reeled backward from the splatting impact of knuckles against her bosom. She tripped over a scatter rug, falling heavily to the floor. Before she could even cry out again, he was upon her.
Powerful fingers closed around her throat, hauling her forcibly up, then flinging her across the bed. She bounced on the mattress, rolling over on her stomach, her legs protectively drawn up.
"You deserve this." His coat was flung aside. He withdrew his leather belt from his slacks and coiled it, holding the end without the metal buckle. He snapped his wrist in a swift, forcible downward motion, and the silver-plated belt buckle slashed at the naked flesh cringing on the bed.
The huddled blonde writhed in convulsive throes of agony as the lashing belt came down again and again in savage fury upon her buttocks and thighs. Livid welts clogged with blood became crisscross over her back as her abuser whipped her with vengeful precision.
She writhed and rolled, kicking and grabbing blindly at the relentless lash. She whimpered, begging hoarsely for mercy-but there was none.
Finally she lapsed into a swooning faint, her head lolling down from the edge of the bed, her inert, bleeding form still and subdued.
Then he ravished her. He took off his clothes and unhurriedly climbed astride her supine body. Accomplishing the insertion of his rigid maleness within the liquid, quivering depths of her loins, he began a rhythmic cadence of assaults that gradually brought his passion close to the sexual climax his maleness clamored to achieve.
Karen's eyelashes fluttered and she moaned weakly, stirring beneath his plunging weight. She tried to focus on his ravaging form. One eye was badly swollen. There were ugly bruises on both cheeks. Her lips were puffed and lacerated with traces of dried blood on her chin.
Her nude breasts were horribly abused. There were cruel imprints from tearing teeth surrounding one nip pie. The other discolored swell of white flesh was mottled with livid black-and-blue blotches.
She attempted to rally, to speak. All she could do was submit to the pumping violations churning within her aching region of femininity.
Ultimately, he experienced the spasmodic sensations that brought relief and reassurance that he was a virile man. When it was finished, he withdrew from the forced intercourse.
Karen was reviving now. She could discern the lean, haggard outline of Paul's face. She remained prostrate on the rumpled bedspread, watching him pull on his clothing.
After he had dressed, he walked back to the bed, staring down at the woman he had so viciously assaulted. He searched for words. How could he tell her how deeply sorry he was? That he never would have come near her if he'd known what would happen?
Using her elbows, she slowly, awkwardly pushed her naked form up from the bed. She winced at the waves of searing pain that bit at her lacerated skin, at the shooting surges of intense anguish filling her ravished loins.
"Karen, I-" His hands had gone out for her. Seeing her cringe back, his arms dropped, his hands going to his sides. "Now you know why Eloise told me she couldn't keep living with me," he said in a dead, hopeless voice. "The other night she had a taste of this. She learned what a vicious, uncontrollable beast she was married to. I might have killed her if the children hadn't started crying and calling for her."
She regarded him with vacant, pain-glazed eyes. "Just leave, Paul," she said with empty dullness. "I have my own problems. This was my fault. I asked for what I got. But you cured me. I know now that I want to live a decent life. What I did was wrong, Something I can never forgive myself for. But I can try to atone for what I've done."
"You need a doctor. Karen, I-please believe me. You have to believe this was something I couldn't help. I-what I've done to you is-I wish I had the nerve to kill myself. A sex-depraved monster such as I've turned into shouldn't be allowed to live."
"I'll be all right. But you'd better go."
"I can't. Not when you're so much in need of help."
She stared down at her maimed bosom. "There's nothing you can do. I'll live. There may be scars, but no serious damage."
"Karen, you must believe how terribly, terribly sorry I am. I-"
"Brad will be home tomorrow. I intend to settle things between us then. I'll tell him he has a choice. Either he quits chasing other women or I'll leave him."
"You love him, don't you?"
"Yes. I know I can never love another man. But I'll divorce Brad rather than continue this sham, this mockery of a marriage." Her suffering gaze met Paul's again. "What I told you about losing my baby was true. No one else knows."
"And no one ever will."
"Thank you. But I have to tell Brad. If we are going to give our marriage another try, it has to be on an honest beginning."
"He'd be a fool if he let you go."
"Maybe. That's his decision to make."
"Why, Karen? Will you tell me why you did it?"
"You mean why did I go to an abortionist?"
Paul nodded. He tried not to look at her mutilated nudity.
Karen sighed, gingerly stretching out her naked legs, shifting positions as she sat on the edge of the bed. "I'm not really sure," she admitted quietly. "At first, I told myself I didn't want Brad's baby. That I hated him for cheating on me. That our child would only have to endure the same suffering and torment I was going through. Part of it was being afraid. The rest of it was vanity, I guess. I didn't want to be tied down. To have the responsibility of raising a child. I was afraid I'd lose my figure, that there wouldn't by any more nights on the town with Brad. That he'd become even more of a chaser once I was saddled with the responsibilities of caring for a baby."
"You wanted me to-hurt you," Paul surmised hollowly. He stared at her, beginning to understand why she had encouraged even his most brutal intimacies. "I was your way to atonement. The more I hurt you, the less your conscience bothered you."
"That's right," Karen calmly admitted. "Except that tonight showed me how wrong I've been, too. Sex, isn't a remedy, Paul. When physical pleasures become more important than decency and goodness, it's time to take stock. That's what I've done. Even while you were finishing with me, I'd come to a decision. This was a turning point, Paul. Don't ever try to touch me again, because I'll call the police. I'll fight you. I'll scream and scratch and do all I can to stop you from degrading me." She stared up at him. Her eyes showed firm resolve, unmindful of her mutilated nakedness. "I've hit bottom, Paul. It's sink or swim. And I will swim. With or without my husband."
"I think you will Good-bye, Karen,"
"That same decision will be yours to make. I hope you face up to yourself. Until you do, you'll keep following false images, Paul. Good-bye."
She stayed on the bed while he walked from the room. He didn't glance back.
CHAPTER NINE
IT WAS THE COMPELLING BUZZING OF THE HOTEL BOOM phone that awakened Paul from a fitful sleep. The night clerk sounded apologetic after Paul had groped for the receiver and switched on the bed lamp. "Sorry to disturb you. I have a Mrs. Gilmore at the desk," he reported.
Paul had forgotten all about the rendezvous he was supposed to have had with Barbara. He looked at his watch. It was a few minutes lacking of midnight.
"Please put her on," he said, scowling into the mouthpiece of the telephone. He'd cruised aimlessly through the city streets after leaving Karen. It had been considerably past ten o'clock p.m. when he'd returned to the hotel. He hadn't been hungry or thirsty; just bone tired. So he'd gone to bed, seeking shelter from his tormented thoughts in sleep.
The low, caressing voice of Barbara purred into the receiver as the night clerk transferred the call. "Your watch must have stopped, Paul. I tried phoning your home about an hour ago," she drawled. "Isn't it fortunate I decided to check with that nice old man on duty here at the reservations desk? Otherwise I wouldn't have known you were registered."
Paul saw no point in being courteous. "I forgot I'd agreed to meet you. I'm in bed. Can't this wait for another time?"
"Alone?"
His frown became more pronounced. "What?"
She laughed. "I wondered if you're alone or if I'd be intruding on something."
"I'm alone. And I can do without your clever little insinuations."
"My, but you are cross, aren't you? Tch, Tch. I'm the one who should be miffed, Paul. You stood me up. Remember?"
"It's late and I'm tired. Make it another time."
"No, darling," she said, her soft voice guarded and yet brooking no postponement. "Slip into your robe and prepare to have a visitor."
Before he could object, there was a click and the connection was severed.
He banged down the receiver and glared at the beige instrument on the night stand next to the bed. He had numerous thoughts concerning the black-haired babe on her way up to his hotel room. All of them were negative and many were obscenities.
When she rapped on the door, Paul was wearing his maroon smoking jacket over the slacks he'd pulled on. He crossed the room in his faded blue lounging slippers.
Barbara's dark eyes quickly appraised his big frame in the doorway. Her wary gaze swept briefly over the dimness of the room behind Paul.
"You could invite me in," she suggested, her self-assured gaze going back to him. Her plaid winter coat was open. The lime dress beneath accentuated the lush proportions of her figure.
"You did your own inviting," was Paul's curt reply. He stepped aside and she casually walked into the room past him. He debated about the door. Ordinarily, he would have left it open when entertaining a woman who wasn't his wife. Tonight, he closed it. He didn't give a damn if that bothered her.
She didn't appear perturbed. She was sauntering around the room, inspecting his accommodations. "Not bad," was her comment. She prowled into the unlighted bathroom. "Not plush, but better than lots of fleabags." She tossed him a teasing smile. "This was a surprise. You being checked in here, I mean. What happened? A tiff with your ever-loving?"
"That's none of your business. Suppose you talk about what is. Or what you think it is we have to discuss."
Her careless shrug lifted her breasts against the front of her dress. She'd peeled her coat back off her shoulders. Now while she walked back across the room, she removed the coat, draping it over the chair at the small writing desk along one wall.
"Do they have room service? I think I'd like some thing before the bar closes. I waited for you, Paul. A lady doesn't like to drink alone."
"I don't know." He watched her flounce over to pick up the phone from the bedside stand. He curbed the annoyed impulse to tell her to say her piece and get out. Until he knew what schemes were simmering inside that greedy brain of hers, it was wise not to antagonize her.
She dialed for the hotel room service. While she was waiting, she eased gracefully down to the edge of the unmade bed from which she'd awakened him. "Any preference, Paul?"
"No."
"Don't look so glum. This won't be as bad as you-" She returned her attention to the phone. "Room Service? Fine. Please send up a bottle of Scotch, a bottle of soda, some ice and two glasses to room four-fourteen. Yes, that's right. Oh, and also a pack of cigarettes, please. Hmm? Oh, something with a filter tip. Any brand. As soon as possible. Yes, that's all. Thank you."
Paul sank both hands into the patch pockets of his smoking jacket so she wouldn't see the fists they had tightened into. He watched her cross her legs and smooth the hem of her lime skirt over her silk stockings.
"You wanted to talk," he said. "All right. Let's talk. I'll listen to whatever it is you feel you have to say."
Barbara gave a series of chiding clucks. "Relax, will you, Paul? What's the hurry?"
"I told you I'm tired."
"So am I. I'll have to be back at my apartment before two o'clock. That's when my hubby gets off his shift at the foundry. That gives us loads of time, though.
"More than necessary. Yon think I owe you something for what you did the other night How much?"
She ignored his terse query. She yawned, stretching lazily, raising both arms above her head. "Mmm, haven't been getting the sleep I should," she complained. Her eyes were bright and watchful beneath her richly swirling mass of black hair. Her sensual red lips pouted as she cocked her head inquiringly, looking up at Paul. "Mind if I kick out of my shoes?"
"Why not? Go right ahead. Make yourself at home."
"Thanks. Will do."
He stood a few strides from the door he'd shut. He watched her scuff out of her pumps, then open her handbag and take out a cigarette. He had his own cigarettes and lighter in the pocket of the maroon jacket. He didn't feel like playing gentleman. He let her light her own smoke.
"What you did the other night is worth a hundred dollars to me," he said. He hadn't meant to take the initiative; he'd wanted her to begin the haggling over the value of her services. But he never had been any good at the waiting game.
Barbara smiled dreamily through the haze of smoke drifting from her nostrils. "This dress cost me more than that."
"I'm prepared to add another hundred to it. For the harm I did you the night of the office party."
"Offhand, I can name two husbands who would gladly pay more than that. To learn the name of the man who, uh, inconvenienced their wives."
Paul extracted a cigarette from his own pack and got it going. His hands were trembling slightly but not too noticeably. Being blackmailed was something new for him. He wondered if that smug, lush-bodied conniver perched on the edge of the bed was more experienced. She certainly was playing it calm and confidently casual.
"I wasn't going to bring my personal life into this," he said slowly. "But this much I can tell you. It won't do you any good to threaten to go to my wife."
"Threaten? Why, I never threaten, darling." She gave him a reproachful smile before taking another unhurried drag on her cigarette. "I assumed things weren't exactly as they should be between you and your wife. What happened, Paul? Did she find out about some of your, uh, extra-marital activities?"
"I told you before. That has nothing to do with this."
"You brought it up. But let's not bicker, Paul. I'm a reasonable, easy-going gal. Be nice and I'll be nice. That's the way I play." She reclined on the rumpled bed. "No matter what you may think of me, I like you. I always have. Oh, I suppose you think I'm just softening you up. But it's true, Paul. You're good-looking. And big. I've always liked big men. My husband's big. Almost too big," she mused, her eyes nearly closed. Without turning her head, she reached out, flickering ashes from her cigarette in the general vicinity of the cut glass ash tray on the stand beside the telephone. "He's gotten fat and sloppy from too much beer and too little exercise."
Paul started nervously at the sounds of raps on the door behind him. He turned. "Who is it?"
"Room service, mister," a muffled voice replied.
A thin, bespectacled man in an ill-fitting serving jacket blinked up at Paul as he opened the door.
"I'll take that," Paul said. He accepted the tray and walked over to place it on the desk. Moving back to sign the charge slip, he noted the wizened bellhop's fascinated gape. He twisted around to look at whatever the older man was staring at.
Barbara had shifted positions on the untidy double bed. She was sprawled on her back with both knees upraised and gaping apart so that the lime dress fell loosely away. From the door way of the hotel room, the view was truly sensational. Not only the tops of her stockings and a considerable area of creamy white thighs were visible. She wore a wispy pair of lace-trimmed, pale-blue panties that hugged her cunt and pulled in at the beginnings of her luscious backside.
"Here. That's all," Paul said, shoving the pencil and slip for the items on the tray back at the obviously impressed employee. He crowded the man out of the doorway and closed the door in his face, shutting off that scenic view. Swinging angrily around, he stalked toward the amused, unconcerned babe on the bed. "Close your legs," he muttered irritably. "What sort of cute stunt was that? Seeing you flopped there, giving him a tour of Grand Canyon, what do you suppose he thought?"
"Who cares about him? You seemed to enjoy the tour." She hadn't made any effort to shift into a more respectable and less revealing position. "Be an angel and fix our drinks."
"Oh. I'm finally beginning to get it. You want him to think what he obviously thought."
"What's the difference what that creaking relic thinks?" Barbara gave an experimental bounce on the mattress. "How can you get any sleep in this thing? It's like laying on a lumpy mess of oatmeal!" She laughed in gay spirits. "And stop acting like a prude. No one's forcing you to look at me, you know."
That was true. Except he couldn't quit staring at her. He knew she was a tramp. A shrewd, hard-boiled babe with a deceptively pretty sweetness and an exciting young build. Sex was her stock in trade. Even the most coarse prostitute was more honest than Barbara; certainly more predictable.
Paul walked back to the desk and poured Scotch into one glass. He hesitated, about to set the bottle down. He stared at the remaining glass. What the hell? What would he accomplish if he denied himself a drink?
He splashed a liberal quantity of liquor into the other glass, and added jots of soda to both glasses. He used the plastic tongs to transfer ice cubes into the drinks.
"Before this goes any further, there's another thing you might as well know," he said. He picked up the drinks and turned to walk over to the bed. His eyes refused to behave. They kept staring at the intriguing shadows beyond the smooth whiteness of her parted, upraised thighs.
"I'm listening, lover," Barbara murmured. She beckoned to him. When he walked around the bed, she extended her hand for one of the glasses.
"Today, I told Stuart McKay I was quitting. Leaving the company."
"Oh?" She sipped at the drink that was definitely heavy on Scotch. Lowering the glass, her moist red lips smiled at Paul above the rim. "That was bad timing, wasn't it? One of the girls clued me in during our coffee break this morning. That title is worth another couple hundred every month, Paul. And more later. I heard that old Mr. Lewis was dragging down better than a thousand a month. Not bad for a medium-sized company."
"Take the two hundred I've offered, Barbara. Because it's all I'll pay." He tipped up his own drink and consumed almost half of the potent contents. "I owe you that much. I think it's a fair deal."
She patted the bed beside her. "Sit down, Paul. Let's be comfy. You know, I think more business should be done in bedrooms, don't you? It's more-well, pleasant this way, wouldn't you say?"
"A month from now I might not have the two hundred."
"A month from now we could all be dead. Life is a chance. Every day of it." She wriggled, moving over to the middle of the mattress. "Come on. Sit down. I won't bite." She giggled. "Not unless you bite me first."
He was in no mood for her attempts at humor. His gaze kept going over the lines of her cozily relaxed chassis. Her breasts rose and fell in even, easy accompaniment to her slow, untroubled breathings. When she'd slip her shapely buttocks over on the mattress, her skirt had hiked up another few inches so that the hem was well past the tops of her expensive silk stockings. She didn't give a damn. She delighted in displaying her luscious anatomy.
Paul sat down on the edge of the bed. "Let's get this settled. I'll cash a check first thing Monday. Tell me that will square us. Then we'll finish these and say goodnight."
She measured him over the glass she was holding. "Joan Becker wants too hundred, Paul. That's cheap enough, considering what you did to her. There will be scars. And some bad memories."
"I don't believe you. She isn't that type."
"No? Don't kid yourself."
Paul raised his glass and drained the last of his drink. He put the empty glass on the nightstand. "Two hundred is all you get. Give it to her if you want. But that's all there will be."
"Take it or leave it?"
"That's right."
"And you definitely intend to resign?"
"Right again."
"Now it's my turn."
"For what?"
"To say I don't believe you." She tipped up her glass and swallowed a generous jolt of her drink. She reached over, brushing his jacket sleeve with her caressing fingertips. "Let me introduce you to me. I grew up as youngest of a family of fourteen brats. My old man died when I was twelve. Ma married again and her second husband was even more of a dumb, plodding ox than dear, departed daddy. He never earned more than fifty, fifty-five bucks per week. As a sweeper in a factory. I got married when I was seventeen. To a handsome crud named Larry." Her face crinkled in distaste. "Oh, I wasn't kidding myself. I knew he was a bum. A swaggering, conceited no-goodnik. But he had me pregnant. Besides, I figured anything was better than sharing a crappy, two-by-four room with three sisters." She took another meditative sip of her drink.
Paul's wandering gaze drifted over her. A slow sensation of desire began tingling in his loins. "I didn't know you had a baby," he said.
She grimaced. "Not one. Two kids. A boy. Then a girl. Less than a year apart. Larry had one talent, at least." She smiled in wry remembrance. She slugged down the last of her Scotch and soda and handed Paul the glass. "Do it again," she told him.
He rose and picked up his empty glass. He walked back to the tray and began all over with refilling the glasses. "I didn't see any sign of children's things that night I was in your apartment."
"That's because of a thing called fire," Barbara said. Her voice had lost its brittle, uncaring note. "Larry was staying with them. We were living in a trailer court in Michigan then. He must have dozed off with a cigarette. Something like that. Anyway, when I came back, it was all over. The fire department boys were packing up. All that was left was the melted skeletons. Know what I was doing that night? Labeling cans at a canning factory. For a crummy seventy-five cents an hour."
Paul brought back the replenished glasses and sat down, handing her hers. "I'm sorry, Barbara. I guess we've all had our share of tough breaks." He didn't know what else to say. He looked at her. Her pretty young features were etched in bitter lines. There was pain in her detached, far-away gaze.
"We didn't have any insurance. None. Larry was between construction jobs. All I had beside the clothes I was wearing was a big bill. For three funerals," she continued in a tight, almost inaudible monotone. She twirled the drink he'd given her between her hands, staring down into the amber depths. "I was nineteen, then. I'm twenty-five now. Somewhere between those years, I met hubby number two. So now I'm Mrs. Gilmore. He's okay, not a bad guy. Not if I forget the times he's puked all over our apartment. The other times when IVe had to scrub lipstick stains off his shirts. Or when he runs short of booze funds and dips into my purse. Outside of that, he's okay. Better than some, I suppose." She took a long pull on the drink he'd handed her.
Paul studied her, uncertain if she were feeding him a sob story lowering her barriers, telling him the raw, unvarnished truth. His hand went out of its own accord, coming to rest upon one partially upraised knee.
"You must love him, or you wouldn't have stayed with him."
Barbara turned her dark head on the pillow. She ran her gaze over his lean features. "Love?" she echoed blankly. A cynical half-smile formed on her lips. "I met him at a dance. He took me home. Him and his drunk buddy. They both propositioned me. He had more money. I didn't have any and I was two weeks overdue on my rent. That's how he got me. He had a better job then. It lasted a whole six months after I married him. Good thing I'd gone to night school and brushed up on typing and shorthand and the other business subjects I'd taken during high school." She hadn't appeared to notice the hand on her knee.
Paul put down his glass and fished out his cigarettes. He shook up several smokes and lowered the deck. They each took a cigarette. After he'd lighted them, he said, "Your husband is working now. Maybe he's straightening out."
She laughed. "Him? He'll never be any different. Some sharpie will tout him on some get-rich-fast deal. Like buying land up in Canda-I mean Canada. Know what? He took me up there with him. That was a couple years ago." The liquor she had partaken of before coming up to Paul's room added to the stiff drinks they were sharing now was beginning to tell on her. "We tried to find that land he bought. From a so-called friend of his. For three hundred lousy bucks. Finally, we did find it. Ten acres of swamp. Miles from any road. Good for crap. Some friend, huh?"
"It could have been worse. It could have been three thousand instead of three hundred."
Barbara gave a contemptuous snort. "That'll be the day! The three hundred belonged to me. I'd saved it over the years, somehow. My get-away money, I called it. I didn't think he knew I had it. It was stashed in a shoe box I kept far back in the closet. He must have been snooping through my things-maybe looking for something else. Anyway, he found the money, and it's gone." She squinted up at Paul. "So will I me," she confided, her voice definitely slurred. Her dark eyes swept over his lean face. "Jus' as quick as I can bail out. An' that's where you come in."
He sucked at his cigarette, hauling the acrid smoke deep in his lungs. He met her challenging pout with a steady gaze. "Meaning?"
"Let's have another drink." She tossed down the last of the Scotch, pushing the glass at him. She hiccuped gently, smiling in fuzzy comradie. "This is nice, Paul. I'm glad you quit being angry with me. You aren't mad anymore. Are you?"
He slid his hand down from the warmth of the knee where his fingers had rested, past the silk top over the smooth whiteness of her inner thigh.
"How could I stay angry with a beautiful girl like you, Barbara?"
She leaned over to flick ashes from the cigarette into the glass tray on the stand. "Maybe that drink can wait," she murmured. She snubbed out the smoke. She squirmed over so her hip touched his. Her arms traveled slowly upward around his neck. She drew herself up, lips teasing and inviting.
Paul had placed her empty glass beside his. His cigarette remained in the hand that wasn't involved between her carelessly separated legs. "How much is this kiss going to cost me?" he asked.
She ran her lips over the ridge of his jaw, brushed up across his cheek, then swiftly over his mouth. "Whatever it is, it will be worth it," she promised. "This time, I won't fight you, darling. You won't have to be so rough."
That's when he jabbed the glowing tip of his unfinished cigarette into the sensitive flesh beneath her chin.
The pillow he'd grabbed at the same instant smothered her incredulous shriek of pain. He crammed the pillow down harder, pushing her wildly thrashing body back to the bed. He sent a vicious fist slamming into her stomach. Her back arched in frenzied anguish, then shuddered as another blow thudded into her heaving abdomen.
Why was he doing this?
The question burned dimly within his mind but was instantly consummed by seething, formless hatred. He bore down on the pillow, clogging her muffled, wheezing gasps for air.
Her legs continued to kick. Her backside twisted in convulsive efforts to wrench from his unrelenting confinement. He drove a punch into the pillow. Another. And another savage slam that encountered flesh beneath the suffocating layer of the white pillow.
She sagged into limp inertness.
His ravaging hands ripped at her clothing. He flung away the pillow and tore down the top of her dress. She offered no resistance when his fingers hooked in her bra and jerked it off her breasts in a single rending sweep.
He glared down at her bare breasts. His fingers bunched in the crotch of the undies and shredded them in a violent divestment.
Then she was naked except for her stockings. His hot, lusting gaze devoured her. His hands became buried amid the dark splendor adorning her loins. His mouth went down over the undefended fullness of a breast.
Barbara moaned in uncomprehending torment. Her face was ashen, her breathing shallow.
He shed the lounging jacket and his slacks. His rigid cock became liberated as he impatiently discarded his undershorts. He straddled the supine form of the girl. His hands pried apart her thighs, then guided their loins into a swift, searing union.
"Ohh." Barbara's lashes fluttered. She winced at the brutal insertion of invading flesh. "Ohh," she moaned again, struggling feebly in protest of the vise-like grasps bunching her unclad breasts.
His assaulting torso beat against hers with frenzied cadences. He saw through the angry reddish haze that her vivid dark pink nipples were squeezed to the near bursting point. He gloried in her sobbing anguish. Reveled in her fluttering gasps of weak, panting protests.
Mighty spasms of lust shook his naked frame. He exalted in the physical explosions that proved his masculine prowess.
She was slowly reviving when he emerged from the bathroom and crossed the shadowy hotel room toward her. Her pain glazed dark eyes widened with terrified awareness.
"Don't-you touch me!"
"Barbara, please listen to me."
"N-No! Stay away from me!" Her low voice had risen to shrill, alarmed fear. She snatched up the twisted bedcovers, vainly striving to conceal her abused breasts and sadistically violated loins. "You're a-madman! A beastl"
"I didn't mean to hurt you."
"Keep away!"
He passed his hand over his eyes. His head throbbed incessantly. Her shrill voice grated on his jumpy nerves.
"I'll pay you," he began thickly. "You want money. I-"
"You belong in a cage! You're crazy! A sex-crazed fiend!"
"Shut up! Will you shut up?"
"Don't come near me!"
He struck her. His chopping fist connected solidly with her jaw. The blow literally lifted her off the bed, knocking her nude form sideways so that she dangled over the far side of the mattress, head and arms drooping toward the floor.
He hadn't meant to hit her.
He stared at her inert torso, at the grotesque pose of her motionless body. At the maimed breasts and ugly contusions on her upper thighs where his fingers had dug into her soft, white flesh.
"Barbara?"
Like a man in a trance, he shuffled forward and bent above her limp sprawled body. He reached down and shook her shoulders. Lifted her back onto the rumpled bed.
"Barbara?"
She was so still. So pale. He'd killed her!
That dreadful certainty chilled his blood. He shook her by the shoulders. Harder.
"Barbara! Barbara, I didn't mean it! I didn't want to do this!"
She was dead. Crimson dribbled wetly from the corner of her lax lips. She was a lifeless weight as he desperately held her up, begging her to open her eyes, to forgive him for what he'd done.
Panic gripped him. He released her shoulders and watched her unclad body flop back on the disheveled bed. He backed away.
He was a murderer.
He had to get away.
Run. Run! Run! The command boomed in his brain. He whirled, rushing from the hotel room.
The desk clerk peered up at him from a newspaper he lowered, hearing Paul's descent of the stairs.
Paul flashed the older man a furtive, unnerved look but didn't slacken his rapid strides across the deserted lobby. He knew his actions would arouse suspicion. He tried to check his pace; as he hurried out into the coldness of the night without either coat or a hat, he felt as if unseen eyes were watching him flee.
A cruising taxi pulled in at the curb. The driver stared out at Paul and Paul vigorously shook his head, waving the driver on.
He rounded the corner and hiked along the darkened city sidewalk to the parking area behind the hotel where his car was parked.
He fumbled in the pockets of his suit coat, then in the pockets of his slacks, searching for the keys. His badly trembling hands came out empty. The keys that fit the ignition of the sedan were in his topcoat.
Paul leaned against the side of the car. He closed his eyes, shivering from combined reaction to the horrors he had run away from and the freezing temperature.
What was he to do? If he did return to the room for his coat and the keys it contained, where could he go? They would find her. He hadn't used an assumed name. Even if he had, there were people who could identify him. The police would catch him, eventually. Why bother? What was the use?
Slowly, he retraced his steps.
As he walked leadenly back across the lobby, unmindful of the slush he was tracking over the green tile floor, the elderly night manager again put down the paper he'd been reading. He rose from the chair behind the reservation desk, peering at the big, haggard man with wondering concern.
"You feel all right, Mr. Nagle?"
Paul never heard him. He kept walking, moving woodenly to the stairs, then starting up, ignoring the open door of the nearby elevator.
His room was on the second floor from the top of the aging downtown hotel structure. He paused at the beginning of the dimly lighted corridor. He was drenched with sweat, breathing harshly.
He had to walk down that hallway. There was no place for him to run. He tilted back his face, blinking away the perspiration that stung his eyes, blurring his vision. His hands were clammy, jerking nervously.
He stared up at the flight of stairs that led to the top of the building. The roof was eight stories above the street. Anyone who leapt from there would be smashed to death on the pavement below.
It wasn't the first time he'd contemplated suicide. All he had to do was drag himself up there. No one would stop him. Most of the other guests registered at the hotel were asleep. His passage to the roof would be unchallenged.
He knew he couldn't do it. Not because he was a coward, but because of his deeply ingrained religious training. Self-destruction was a mortal sin. The soul of a man taking his own life was damned to eternal helL There was another reason. He didn't want to die. He wanted to live. Alive, he had a chance to survive. Maybe he could escape. He could try. He could get his belongings and leave by the rear exit; the fire escape. Yes. Now that his mind was working again, that seemed his best alternative.
Paul walked cautiously along the empty, poorly illuminated corridor. He drew a deep, steadying breath, bracing himself for the grisly sight on the bed when he opened the door he stood before.
He forced his unwilling hand to close around the knob and twisted it, pushing into the room. He wasn't prepared for what he saw. He froze in the process of easing shut the door as he stood just inside the shadowy hotel room.
Barbara was in the process of strapping on her tattered brassiere, having already pulled on her torn step-ins. She glared at Paul.
"You crud! You filthy, perverted sadist!" Her swollen lips curled in loathing scorn. She limped over to stoop painfully for her crumpled remnant of a dress. "You almost broke my neck. I think you did break my jaw, damn you."
"You-you're alive!"
"No thanks to you. I'm getting out. Blink so much as an eye and I'll scream. I'll have everybody staying at this dump running in here."
"Yeah?" She hobbled over to the foot of the bed, grimacing again as she knelt for her shoes. She kept her narrowed, wary eyes on him while she finished dressing. "Look, here it is. I get two thousand dollars-or on Monday the cops get you. That's it, pure and simple. The bank opens at nine. You bring the money to my apartment by ten. Because if you don't, I reach for the phone. Got it? At one minute past ten Monday morning I flush you down the sewer, where you belong. Unless you pay for the damages."
"I don't have that much money." He watched her limp stiffly across the room and pick up her plaid coat, then her handbag from the chair at the writing desk.
"That's your problem." She winced, shrugging into the coat, pulling it over the front of her ruined, lime-colored dress. "Move away from the door. I'm liable to pass out. I think you cracked a couple ribs. Two thousand is cheap. It's that or prison. And you don't know me if you think it's a bluff.".
He didn't try to prevent her from painfully stalking out of the hotel room. Long after the door had closed after her, he stood there, trying to decide what he should do.
All the money in the bank account registered jointly to Eloise and himself couldn't total more than a few hundred at most. The amount Barbara demanded was an impossible sum.
The lust-sickness or whatever was wrong inside him had backed him into a corner. No matter which way he thought of trying to run, it appeared there was no way out of the hopeless mess fast closing in around him.
CHAPTER TEN
When he returned to what had been his HOME, the next day, Paul immediately noticed the for sale sign a real estate agency had erected. It was stepped into the snow covering the front yard of the Rogers residence.
Parking the sedan in the adjacent driveway, Paul got out and stood there for a minute, staring at the sign, then at the house. While he was looking, Brad Rogers drove his station wagon into the other driveway.
"Hi! How are you, Paul?" hailed the man striding across the connecting yards. He was hatless, as usual.
His handsome face contained tired lines not entirely concealed by his friendly grin as he approached.
"This happened pretty suddenly, didn't it, Brad?" quietly asked the taller man, again glancing toward die metal sign set in the front yard.
"We called 'em this morning," Brad acknowledged, his grin fading. "Karen has been after me to sell for more than a year now. I got home late last night from out of town. She was still up."
Paul vividly recalled the events of the previous evening. His most recent sexual assault on his neighbor's wife was something he wanted to forget, but knew he couldn't.
"I imagine this place will be up for sale soon, too," be said.
"Karen told me about you and Eloise. Too bad."
"I came over to pick up a few more of my personal belongings," Paul explained. Both men watched a car cruising along the slushy street. Further along the block, neighborhood children were noisily at play.
Brad leaned against the side of the parked sedan. He stared toward his own house. "Things aren't exactly all sweetness and light between Karen and me, either," he admitted. "I was given a choice. Either we sell out and move somewhere else or she said she'd leave me." He gave a short laugh. "It must be catching, huh? What gets into women, anyway?"
"Who knows?" Paul glumly countered.
"Yeah, that's for sure. Oh, I guess I know what's bugging Karen. She's convinced I've been messing around with other women. She thinks if she gets me out of this city, I'll tow the mark. You know-the 'freshstart' routine."
Paul nodded slowly. "That always sounds good."
"Not to me it doesn't. But I don't want to lose her."
"What about your job?"
Brad shrugged. "The company lias other offices. I guess I can get a transfer, all right."
"And if you can't?"
"Then I quit and look for another job. Karen wasn't kidding about leaving me. I can't figure out why she was so upset. Sure, it was late when I got in around midnight. But even if she was tired, that doesn't explain why she was so edgy." He glanced askance at the taller man standing morosely beside the car. "Ever try to kiss Eloise and have her practically start bawling? I thought if I gave her a little tender, loving attention, she might unwind. Instead, she shoved me away when I tried to put my arms around her."
"We all get our moods, I suppose."
"If I was the suspicious type, I'd say she had a boyfriend. But hell-she never goes anywhere. Not without me."
"Maybe that's the trouble. She's alone too much. She has too much time to think, to imagine all sorts of things. That could be part of the problem, Brad."
"Oh, Karen knows I'm no saint. I never claimed to be. And, I've done some playing around. Not as much as she thinks I do, though."
"I hope you two get squared away," Paul said. He'd spotted the movement of a curtain on one of the side windows of the ajacent house. Karen was inside, watching them. He took out cigarettes and shook several smokes up, extending the pack to the troubled guy lounging against his sedan.
Brad shook his head. "I've gotta go in," he said, pushing away from the car. "Look, c'mon over after you finish getting your stuff together, Paul. I'll have Karen put on the coffee pot."
"Thanks but I just had breakfast a little while ago. I slept late this morning."
"You moved into a hotel?"
"Yes. For the time being. Until I get things settled with Eloise."
"That's rough. She's a swell gal, Paul. I sure hope you two can patch things over."
"Thanks. I'm afraid not."
"Well, I can't give advice. Not after the way Karen and I went at it with hammer and tongs last night." He sighed, moving away. "Anyhow, if you change your mind about that coffee, just walk over."
"Will do. See you, Brad."
"Okay, Paul. We'll stay in touch. Oh, and Karen and I will sort'a keep an eye on your house. Until something does get decided."
"Thanks again," Paul called after the departing man. He turned and walked along the driveway to the path he'd shoveled from the side entrance of the house.
He'd been listlessly wandering about, gathering together articles of clothing and personal effects, putting them into a cardboard box he'd brought up from the basement, when he thought he heard a car door slam.
Paul went to the living room window and saw his wife emerging from the car he recognized as belonging to her parents. She was alone. He saw her pause, staring at the sedan in the driveway. She wore her brown winter coat and a white kerchief knotted over her dark-red hair. The realization that he was there caused her to hesitate, and for a moment, Paul thought Eloise would decide not to enter the house.
Finally, she began walking toward the front en trance. Paul went to the door and opened it. Eloise was in the process of searching within her handbag for the house key. She glanced up quickly and they regarded each other across the threshold.
"I was about ready to go," Paul said. That wasn't true. It wasn't what he wanted to say to her, either.
Eloise closed her purse and tucked it under her arm. "I came over to be sure everything was turned off," she explained, her own voice low and unnatural.
He stepped aside. "Come in. That is, unless you're afraid to be alone with me."
"I'm not afraid of you, Paul." She stepped across the threshold and walked past him into the living room. She stood there, looking around at the familiar furnishings. She reached absently up and removed her scarf. She shook out her hair, loosening her coat. "Let's try not to quarrel. We both know there are decisions we must make-but it doesn't have to be today."
"Why drag things out? They say a clean break is best. Easiest to heal." He walked toward where she stood with her back to him. He reached out and helped her remove her coat. His fingers brushed her shoulders, experiencing the warmth and softness beneath her navy dress. "How are the kids?" he asked, walking away from her to deposit her coat over the back of an armchair.
"They miss you, Paul. They don't know why we can't live here."
"You could. No one told you to move."
"I needed time to think. Mother and Dad looked after Kyle and Alicia for me. This house is too empty. I just couldn't stay here after-"
"Go ahead! Finish it. After that night when I half-killed you. Say it, Eloise. Get it out in the open."
"I didn't ask you to leave me."
"You made it perfectly clear how you felt."
"How would you feel if the man you loved went suddenly berserk?" Eloise turned so she was facing her husband. "If you'd realized how sick our marriage was, you couldn't have expected me to let it die, Paul. That's why I went to the doctor. Why I had to find out the cause of our sexual incompatability."
"So you're back to harping on that again." He pivoted, stalking into the kitchen.
She followed him. "I won't argue or debate with you, Paul. But for your own sake, please consult a physician. Ask him-"
"Get off of it, will you?" he interrupted harshly. "Just tell me you want to be rid of me and we'll start from there."
"I don't want to lose you, to have our marriage end in a divorce," Eloise said carefully. She stood in the arch separating the living room from the kitchen. "Have you stopped loving me?" she inquired quietly.
He took a long while to answer. He was at the window above the sink, staring sightlessly out across the snow covered yards. "Right now, I don't know how I feel about anything," he finally replied. "I'm numb inside. Just going through the motions. Nothing makes much sense to me these days, Eloise. Until I get my thinking sorted out, I just plain don't know what I want. How I feel. Except lousy. As if nothing is worth the effort."
"You love our children."
"Yes. Of course I do."
"They love you. They keep asking me when we will all be back here, living together again." Eloise sighed. "I can't keep avoiding their questions, Paul. What shall I tell them?"
"Whatever you think is best."
"I told them you had to leave us for a while. That it was because of your job. They accepted that."
"I've told Mr. McKay I was leaving the company."
"You did?"
"Yes. He wasn't too happy about, it. He asked me to his house for some sort of dinner party tonight"
"You're going?"
"Probably. I told him I would."
"He wants you to reconsider, I imagine."
"He offered me the promotion."
"And you still told him you want to resign?"
"That's right. I'm fed up with my job, Eloise."
"And with our marriage?"
"Maybe. Yes. Why should I deny it?" He swung slowly around to look at his wife. His gaze went over the lovely fullness of her figure. "You're still young and good-looking. If you get rid of me, you'll meet some other guy. Someone with more ability and consideration. A man you can get along with, someone you can make into the type of husband you consider ideal."
Eloise stared at Paul. "I never tried to make you over."
"Didn't you? Be honest. Think back. Remember all those times you tactfully corrected me. How often you reminded me about wearing the right tie with the right socks to go with the suit I decided to wear. Little things, Eloise. A hundred million little hints and instructions."
"I only wanted you to-" She stopped. Slowly, she nodded her head. "Yes," she almost whispered. "Yes, I did make suggstions. But only because I wanted to help you, to keep improving our marriage."
"You laid out the clothes I was to wear. You wrote the checks and paid the household bills. You bought my shaving lotion and you decided what nights we'd go out and where we'd go."
"You never objected," Eloise said, her voice rising to become crisply defensive. "You didn't seem to mind letting me make the major decisions, either. Who had to decide whether we should buy this house or continue renting that apartment that was far too small for us? Which one of us went down to the federal income tax examiner and proved the expenses I claimed when I made out our return were legitimate?"
"Yes and who shoved me into a job I never particularly enjoyed?" Paul shot back, his voice also becoming terse with thinly restrained anger. "Who doled out bedroom favors on the budget plan? Who decided when we could afford a family and limited us to having only two kids?"
"That's not ture!"
"You know it's true! You and your calendar system of birth control!"
"If I'd left it to you, we wouldn't have had any children! Try to deny that!"
"All I ever said was that I didn't think any young couple should have children for at least the first few years-until they got on their feet."
"You wanted me to tell you what to do. If I'd left things to you, where would we be? Still crowded in that grubby, second-floor apartment with you plodding along at some unskilled factory job." Her cheeks were aflame with outraged color. Her breasts heaved indignantly beneath her dress. "Someone had to make the decisions. Since you wouldn't-or couldn't-well, I did!"
"And you thrived on dominating me."
"That's a lie! You're being immature! Unfair!"
"I'm unfair," Paul yelled, hands bunched into furious fists clenched at his sides. "Hah! That's good! That's really priceless!"
"You were never able to do anything without guidance. Your mother told me how insecure and self withdrawn you always were. She warned me I'd have to provide the strength and encouragement you need." Eloise regarded her darkly scowling mate with scathing impatience. "Well, I tried, Paul. I did my best to be a good mother and faithful wife. You nearly killed me the other night. That was my thanks for all the sacrificies I've made. For all the times when I've hidden my hurts and disappointments. If you think being married to you has been easy and serene, then you should know how often I've been close to tears. How many times I've overlooked your sulking bad moods and careless shortcomings."
"And of course you're so damned perfect!"
"I won't have you swear at me!"
"I'll swear all I damn please!"
"I'm leaving!" Eloise cried. She whirled, hiking rapidly back across the living room. "I refuse to endure your childish tantrums. Trying to reason with you is impossible!"
"So was trying to live within your carefully planned scheme of things. And if you think you're perfect-better think again," Paul shouted after her. "It was getting so I hated coming home. You made me feel like apologizing every time I wiped my hands on a towel or left the cap off the toothpaste tube. Why, I even worried about going to the bathroom-knowing what you'd say if I missed the toilet bowl. That's why I quit smoking around here. You made such a fuss about the bad smell and the scattered ashes that-" The loud slam of the front door told him she was gone.
Paul's tense form relaxed as the emotional outburst subsided within him. He was trembling. His palms were wet and marked by the hard imprints of his tightly clenched fingers.
She was as furious and resentful as he. They had both given way to long-restrained recriminations. Each had sought to hurt, to pinpoint the blame for their tragic state of affairs on the other person.
And what had been accomplished?
Nothing was settled. The rift that had opened between them had widened and deepened. Now there appeared no chance for a reconciliation.
Would Eloise continue to consult an attorney about a divorce?
It was more than likely she would.
Paul turned to walk slowly back to the living room window. He stared out and saw that the car which had been parked at the curb in front of the house was already gone. Eloise was probably returning to her parents' home. She would tearfully inform them of how viciously and unfairly he had spoken to her. Naturally, they would be on her side. He was the brute, the ungrateful failure, the cause of all the unhappiness for Eloise and the children.
Even his own family might consider him responsible for the abrupt abyss into which his marriage to Eloise had plunged. He recalled the times before he'd been married, while he had still lived with his parents, when they had made his decisions for him. Once he had purchased a second-hand car without discussing the acquisition with them. His father had walked out and looked over the older model sport coupe. A month later, his father's dire predictions about the car had proven correct and the engine had required a complete and costly overhaul. On another occasion, his mother had cautioned him about buying a business franchise without first checking the proposition with the family lawyer or through their bank. He'd ignored her advice. Within several months, the so-called nationwide clock-and-watch-manufacturing company whose products Paul was to have placed in stores under the expensive franchise arrangement had exercised a clause within the contract revoking his franchise by reason of his failure to meet the sales quotas assigned to his territory.
So many mistakes. So few successes. Maybe everything was his fault. Maybe he did need a wife who would gently dominate him. A woman like Eloise who could map out a secure and practical future for him to follow with a minimum of self-initiative. He had allowed her to do that. Perhaps, because of his concessions, his reluctance to oppose her in small matters, she had assumed he preferred her continued guidance and unspoken control of their well-ordered lives.
He was unable to sort out and analyze his true feelings about his wife and their marital relationship. A part of him contained resentment and the emotions a slave must have secretly felt for his master. Another portion of him cried out in silent, lonely need for her love.
Paul gathered what belongings he'd crammed into the cardboard packing box and carried the box out to his car. As he was about to enter the sedan, he saw a car pull up in front of the adjacent house. A pudgy, well-dressed man of middle age gestured, talking genially to a young couple who alighted from the car that had driven up before the Rogers's home.
He watched the real estate salesman lead the couple along the sidewalk leading to the front of the house next door. He climbed in behind the wheel and started the engine, backing the sedan from the sloping driveway.
As he drove away from the neighborhood where his children had been born and raised through their infancy, in his heart was a heavy weight of sadness. He very much missed Alicia with her beautiful, trusting and adoring eyes. And, husky little boy Kyle who tried so hard to be a man. To be like his father.
What had happened to the man? Where had qualities such as decency and self-respect been replaced by brooding bitterness and sadistic debasements?
He had a solitary, tasteless lunch. Afterward, he went up to his office and tried to wrap up some of the unfinished work that carried over from previous weeks.
It was approaching five p.m. and already darkness was coating the high office windows when Paul thought he heard someone else unlocking the outer department doors leading into the corridor.
Arising from behind the desk, he walked to the doorway. He stared across the murky rows of desks in the general office. A woman's form was silhouetted against the light entering through the twin glass doors. Some of the dim light glinted against the eyeglasses worn by the unidentified woman as she groped for the wall switches beside one of the doors.
A battery of overhead fluorescent tubes winked on and Paul recognized Edna Welkert. She was a medium-tall brunette in her late thirties. Quiet, not particularly attractive but a competent worker, Edna was one of those office employees who blended in with her surroundings. She did her job without receiving or expecting recognition or popularity.
Watching her go between the desks to her desk near one of the darkening windows, Paul say her open the center drawer. She shifted aside the contents, then closed the drawer and bent forward to open one of the smaller side desk drawers.
He moved out from his private office. Approaching her, he mildly cleared his throat to make her aware of his presence.
"Oh! You startled me," Edna said, managing a timid smile as she whirled and looked at Paul. Her shy brown eyes were wide behind her dark-brown, plastic-rimmed spectacles.
"I'm sorry, Edna. Looking for something?" he quietly inquired, returning her smile.
She nodded, again turning back to the desk where she had been in the act of opening the lowest drawer. "Yes, I can't seem to find my compact. Not that it's very valuable but it is an anniversary gift and I'd feel terrible if I've lost it."
"Do you remember the last time you had it?"
"Not for sure. I'd hoped I might have absently stuffed it in here," she answered, returning to the center desk drawer, pushing aside notepads and graph sheets she kept stored there. "My husband laughed when I told him I was driving down to look for it. He said if it was here, it could stay here until Monday. I guess I am attaching too much importance to it."
"You didn't lend it to one of the other girls, did you?"
"No. That much I am sure of."
"What about the ladies lounge, Edna? Could you have left it in there?"
She frowned, trying to remember. "I don't think so," she replied slowly. "Although, I did freshen up after lunch yesterday and I could nave put it down on the vanity table, I suppose."
He kept staring at her. His gaze took in the small but nicely rounded contours of the breasts hinted at beneath her cashmere coat. He speculated at the slim curves of her hips and thighs, noting the graceful lines of her legs.
"It's another place to look," he said, quickly glancing elsewhere when she caught him staring at her figure. He began walking in the direction of the rest rooms set in the opposite wall of the huge general office.
"I think I'll just let it go until Monday," Edna said. She closed the desk drawer. "My family will be getting hungry."
"This will only take a minute," Paul said. He gestured toward the door to the ladies lounge. "Why not take a quick check before you go?"
She hovered uncertainly in the aisle between desks. "As I said, it isn't that valuable, Mr. Nagel. I really, I should get home."
"Another few minutes won't matter."
"Well-"
"Come on-take a fast look."
She came slowly across the shadowy office. "If you have work to do, you don't have to take your time to be concerned about my missing compact."
"I was about ready to leave, myself. But I'm in no hurry, Edna."
"Please don't stay on my account. I-"
He forced a laugh. "You act almost afraid to be alone in here with me. Would you rather I'd go?"
She stopped, facing him without returning his bantering smile. "Yes, I-I would prefer that. Please don't take offense, Mr. Nagle," she hastily added, her cheeks scarlet. "It's only that-well, what I meant to say was that-"
"Just what do you mean?" Paul asked quietly, his own smile gone. "What have you heard about me, Mrs. Welkert? That my wife and I have separated? What sort of stories are they circulating throughout the offices? That I've taken up with some fast and loose young doll? That I'm a wicked, lusting lecher?"
"No! Really, I-I didn't mean anything. I-it's just that I've never been comfortable alone in a room with a strange man and-"
"I don't intend to rape you, Mrs. Welkert. If that's the bee buzzing in your bonnet, forget it," Paul said with scathing curtness. He spun on his heels, striding toward his small office.
"Ohh!" she cried in confused dismay. She fairly ran from the office, sobbing in shattered reaction to his insulting retorts.
Paul lit a cigarette with hands that were shaking badly. He'd frightened that drab, introverted payroll clerk. She might even decide to give up her job as a result of that unpleasant encounter.
The hell of it was, he might have tried to force his attentions on Edna Welkert if she had remained. What was wrong with him? Did sex have to rear its ugly head every time he looked at a woman? Was he losing all control? Was he becoming some sort of a twisted sex addict?
Or was it that his sexual experiences prior to marrying Eloise were so pitifully limited? That her greatly contrasting indifference to physical intercourse had left him starved for erotic pleasures?
He got out of there, not wishing to be alone with such upsetting and unanswerable thoughts.
Following a steak sandwich and a cup of coffee in the hotel dining room, Paul went up to his room. There, he freshened up and shaved for the second time that dreary Saturday.
There were more than a dozen cars already parked along the circular driveway leading to the impressive, split-rock mansion on the exclusive North side of the city when he arrived. He switched off the ignition and lights and sat behind the wheel, staring at the fully illuminated splendor of his employer's town house.
He didn't belong in the sophisticated, monied set. He would be woefully out of place as a guest of Stuart McKay and his silvery-haired, socialite wife.
Yet, he had been invited. And he's promised his boss he would come.
Paul got out of his car. His footsteps crunched on the snow as he hiked across the driveway and along the curving walk that led to the entrance of the stately two-story suburban showplace.
A formally attired butler politely asked his name, then requested his hat and coat. From the rooms off the commodious front hallway, Paul could hear the sounds of music and the murmurings of conversations.
"If you will please follow me, sir," said the butler after racking up Paul's coat and hat in a huge vestibule closet. He led the way toward a living room about half the size of a football field that was filled with laughing, talking men and women.
Stuart McKay was engrossed in whatever a stout, semi-bald business acquaintance was telling him, so it was slender, attractive Helen McKay who gracefully crossed the crowded living room to greet him.
"How nice that you could come, Mr. Nagle," she said warmly, smiling as she offered her hand to Paul.
He took her hand, returning her smile. "Thank you, Mrs. McKay."
"The night air has a definite chill. I imagine you can use a drink," she said. She motioned to one of the caterers and the man carrying a tray wended his way amid the throng of guests, moving toward them.
"You have a lovely home, Mrs. McKay," Paul said, for want of anything better to keep the conversation alive.
"Thank you. We'll have to show you around later. As soon as Stuart is free, I'm certain he will want to get you acquainted," graciously remarked his hostess. She was wearing a fashionable, midnight-blue party dress. Some of the younger women had favored more daring ensembles, Paul noticed as he glanced over the crowd of guests.
The waiter bearing a tray divided between Manhattans and martinis reached them and Paul selected a Manhattan, thanking the man. The drink in his hand, Paul was about to attempt further meaningless conversation with Helen McKay when he saw someone.
A willowy, dark-haired woman in her mid-twenties or thereabouts was sauntering toward them. Her sultry, blue eyes kindled with recognition even as Paul remembered her from their recent collision.
"I don't believe you've met our daughter, have you, Mr. Nagle?" Helen McKay was saying while he stared at the girl.
She was nearly to them, now. The clinging, vivid red party gown dipped deeply at the bodice, permitting almost half of the swelling fullness of her breasts to be admired.
Paul stared openly at the creamy magnificence on bold display. "We bumped into each other at the office yesterday," he replied. Those bumps very much intrigued him.
And the sultry-eyed brunette introduced by her mother as Phyllis McKay was aware of his interest in the daring, softly clefted rising of her bosom.
"Welcome to our humble abode, Mr. Nagle," she drawled. Her own eyes swept over him in challenging appraisal. She was just the slightest bit tight; that was obvious by the slurred huskiness of her voice and the difficulty she was having keeping things in proper focus.
Helen McKay smiled a contrite apology, saying, "I'm leaving you in good hands, Mr. Nagle. If you'll both excuse me, I should tell the people we brought in to help tonight they may begin setting up the buffet snack."
"Of course," Paul said.
"Looks like you're stuck with me," Phyllis McKay murmured as they watched the older woman move through the milling mob of well-dressed guests with smiling poise. "How are you doing with that drink?"
Paul regarded the Manhattan he'd scarcely tasted. "Fine, Phyllis. Where's yours?" he countered, his attention returning to the exciting lushness of her bare, curving endowments.
"Let's go look for it," she suggested, giving him a slow, speculative look. She was standing in front of him. From his superior height, she must have realized his stare could take in far more flesh than the revealing, cherry-red gown was designed to accentuate.
He followed as she prowled around the edge of the gaily conversing crowd, swaying ever so slightly as she searched for a drink tray. No one paid them much attention while they skirted the fringe of the monied mob of guests.
Paul reached down and let his hand hover above a Manhattan, but when she smiled, shaking her head, he selected a martini instead. "Here you go," he said, extending the drink.
"Thanks," Phyllis said. Her hands were warm, brushing his fingers in breif contact as she accepted the martini from him. "Want to meet somebody? Anybody?" she carelessly offered, glancing around the immense room. She was obviously bored by the party as well as mildly intoxicated.
"My being here was your father's idea," Paul explained. "I doubt if I'll ever see any of these people again after tonight."
"C'mon, then. Let's find a quieter place. I'd like to sit down. These damn slippers are murdering my bunions," she said, again leading off.
They left the main center of the party, walking through the downstairs rooms, passing a few other casually straying guests. Phyllis swayed across a room lined with volumes of expensively bound books and flopped gracefully down on a wine-colored leather sofa in her father's study. She patted the cushion beside her.
Paul sat down where she'd indicated. "This is better," he said. "But I wouldn't want to keep you from your friends. Please don't think you have to keep me entertained."
She'd taken a hefty sip at her drink. Now, lowering the glass from her moist, red lips, Phyllis gave him an arch, knowing smile. "I never do anything I don't want to do, Paul."
"Sort of a rebel, eh?"
"Maybe. Are you?"
"Not really. I'm afraid I'm pretty dull company. Just another working stiff."
"I asked dear daddy about you. He thinks you're a capable guy. Coming from a perfectionist like him, that's a compliment, Paul."
"Yes, it is."
She inclined her head, her lovely young features expressing frank curiosity. "Is it true you're thinking of leaving the company?"
"Yes."
"Mind telling me why? Just tell me to keep my nose out of your affairs if you don't care to talk about it."
"It's a cute nose. So is the rest of you," Paul heard himself saying, his gaze drifting downward over the front of her gown, across the creamy softness of nude shoulders then centered once more on the proud swells of those breasts so close to bursting from confinement. "No, I don't mind talking about it. There isn't much to say, though. I just feel I need a complete change."
"Because of those domestic problems?" She smiled again. "You see, I was interested. I kept nagging my father until he finally told me just to be rid of me."
"Partly that," Paul said. He took another pull at his Manhattan. "Mostly, I suppose that it's I keep having the feeling that life is passing me by. I want to see new places-do new things."
"That restless urge," she identified softly. "I know the feeling, Paul."
"It's more than that. You see, I've never really been off on my own. Never had a chance to make my own decisions, to go and do what I'd like. Maybe that sounds shallow, but it's the way I happen to feel."
"You're sure there isn't an office romance you have to get away from?" Phyllis queried shrewdly. Her appraising dark blue eyes searched his lean face. She must have seen something in his expression. She nodded slowly, thoughtfully. "Don't bother to answer that one. Now I am stepping way out of bounds."
"How do you like being back?" Paul asked, thinking a change of subject appropriate just then.
She leaned back on the leather lounge, resting her head on the top of the deep-maroon cushion. "One place is as good-or as bad-as another," she murmured indifferently. "After the divorce, I traveled for a while. Hawaii. South America. Lower California. Then here."
"Those are all places I've never seen."
"It was a nothing trip. You might be disappointed if and when you do cut the traces," Phyllis cautioned lazily. She had drained her glass. She twirled it between her fingers, her dark lashes nearly closed, a wry, pensive smile playing on her sensual red lips. "I got lonesome. After those first few weeks of so-called freedom, I got tired of handsome young playboys and pawing, prancing middle-aged romeos."
"A girl like you would never want for men." Paul upped his drink and finished off the Manhattan. She wasn't looking at him just then. He took advantage of his semi-reclining relaxation and stared covetously at the brunette with the gorgeous figure. "Your ex-husband made a mistake when he let you go."
"He didn't have any choice. A Mexican marriage is as easy to shed as it is to acquire," Phyllis said with the same, uncaring indifference, her eyes remaining closed. "Don fancied himself quite a lover. What a blow to his ego it must have been to discover he couldn't satisfy me. Poor Don." Her luscious lips twisted in pitying contempt. "He half-killed himself trying to prove he was man enough. That probably shocks you, doesn't it?" Her eyes opened. She watched Paul for some sign of discomfort at her candid remarks concerning the failure of her marriage.
He shrugged. "Why should it? I know what incompatability is."
"Oh. So that's what it is with you," Phyllis softly said in casual understanding. "Funny, I wouldn't think a big, rugged-looking man like you would disappoint a woman."
"Turn that around and you'll have it right."
"A wife that can't keep up?" her eyes were bright and interested again. She nodded in corrected understanding. "I see," she murmured throatily. "That makes us two of a kind, doesn't it?"
"Possibly. That would be something to check out," Paul said. He reached over and placed his hand lightly on the lap of her full-skirted, red gown. His fingers rested just above her knee. He could feel the firm warmth of flesh through the dress. ""I think I'd enjoy that type of research, Phyllis."
Her eyes widened in pleased awareness of his quiet, calculated invitation. "You really move once you've decided which way to go, don't you?"
"Maybe I'm more rebel than I gave myself credit for."
"Maybe you are, at that."
"Try me. Then we'll both know."
She easily dislodged his hand from her lap, rising in the same effortless movement. "Let's find ourselves another drink," she said, smiling down at Paul. "It's likely I've had too much, already."
"Or not quite enough," he amended, also rising from the lounge.
Stuart McKay was just entering his study when he saw his daughter walking toward him in the company of the big, dark-haired man he had been attempting to persuade to stay with his organization.
"So here you are," said the older man cordially, grinning from Paul to his daughter. "I might have known Phyllis would spirit you off." He chuckled. "Ever since yesterday, she's been asking about you." He addressed himself to the attractive brunette standing with his employee. "Will you excuse us for a few minutes please, Phyl?"
"Of course," Drawled the shapely divorcee. She reached over for Paul's empty glass. Her teasing eyes roved over his face. "You can pick this up where we left off. Later." She walked from the room, closing the heavy oak door after her.
When the two men were shut off in the handsomely furnished study, McKay waved Paul into a chair, then parked on the edge of his massive desk. He took a pipe from the rack on the desktop, then proceeded to stuff it with tobacco from the humidor.
"How does fifteen thousand a year and the title of Corporate Comptroller sound to you, Paul?" he threw out for openers, applying the flame of the desk lighter to his pipe.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Paul watched his employer puff at his pipe TO get it going. The impact of those matter-of-fact words had hit him hard, taking him by complete surprise.
The desired effect. McKay knew human nature. He knew that a salary close to double Paul's present income combined with an important title would be difficult to toss aside.
It was a query that deserved a careful, considered answer. Paul waited until the iron-gray head lifted and McKay amiably regarded him through the wisps of smoke curling upward from the imported-briar pipe.
Finally, Paul said, "I'd be a fool if I threw away an opportunity such as what you're offering."
"I am being realistic," admitted the older executive. "If we had to bring in a man from outside the company, his salary would be approximately the same as I've just offered you, Paul. And he wouldn't have your experience or background with the organization. I don't believe in haggling or time-consuming arbitrations, either."
"You must know I'm not a college graduate."
"I also know you've done a good job running the accounting department."
"My wife practically got me the job. She wrote up my resume. It was Eloise who noticed your newspaper advertisement and urged me to apply for that position as accounts payable clerk."
"That was a long time back, Paul."
"Quite a few years."
"How old are you now?"
"Almost thirty-four."
"You've done very well during the last nine or ten years."
"I have no complaints about my career with the company, Mr. McKay."
"Eventually, if a merger that's pending does materialize, there will be even more room for advancement, Paul." McKay dragged deeply on the stem of his pipe. His eyes reflected optimism for the future as he added, "Plans for our own single-story office building and sales display room are on the drawing boards. Expansion is a certainty. More people. Greater growth and its accompanying responsibilities. Be a part of that success pattern, Paul. You have the potential. And more opportunity with us than if you have to find another position and begin all over."
"Everything you say makes sense," Paul answered slowly. "Your offer deserves some long, hard thought before I make a final decision."
"Good. That's what I hoped you'd say," McKay approved heartily. He got off the corner of the desk, walking over to clap a friendly hand to the younger man's shoulder.
Phyllis was not immediately visible when they came out of the study and rejoined the party. Her father accompanied Paul to the buffet, urging him to enjoy the sumptuous repast the caterers had prepared.
He was nearing the end of the serving line when he saw her. Phyllis was still on a liquid diet. If her objective was to get thoroughly sozzled before the end of the evening, she had more than a fair start.
Paul threaded his way through the softly laughing, murmuring sea of guests, carrying his snack plate. He'd added additional small sandwiches and other delicacies after spotting the darkly exotic divorcee.
"Hi,," she said, peering fuzzily up at him. "Business all finished?"
"For tonight at least."
"Good. How'd you make out?"
"Nothing definite. Where can we sit? I loaded on a few extra goodies. I thought we could share this plate."
"If you didn't say no to him tonight, that means you've decided not to quit. I'm glad." She swayed against him. Fortunately, her martini was almost gone. Otherwise, the liquor sloshing along the sides of the glass would have spilled. "C'mon. I know where we can go."
"Not too far, I hope. I'm no great shakes at balancing," Paul said, walking beside the somewhat un steady brunette.
They passed another couple on the carpeted width of the open staircase. She led him along the upstairs hallway, then into a room near the end of the vast corridor. Closing the door, Phyllis expelled an audible breath of weary relief.
"Whew! I've nearly had it," she said, dropping onto the bed. She shook back her luxuriant mass of black hair. "It was worth the climb, though, wasn't it?"
He put the snack plate on the top of a limed oak bureau. "Is this your room?"
"That's right. Big, isn't it? I like big things. Big rooms. Big cars." Her gaze went up his frame where he stood near the bureau. "Big men."
"You're getting tight."
"I know it."
"What do your parents think about your drinking?"
Phyllis gave an indifferent shrug. "I never asked them. I told you, Paul. I do what I want to do. I always have. From when I was a little girl."
His eyes did some inspecting of their own. "You're a big girl now. In all the right places."
She watched him slowly walking toward her. "Just how much of a rebel are you?" she murmured.
"I'll show you," he said. He reached for the sleeves of the red gown and pulled at them. The bodice of her gown peeled clear of her breasts, taking along the brassiere worn beneath the fabric.
Phyllis made no resistance when he carefully hefted the yielding, soft warmth of her liberated breasts. "You shouldn't be doing that," she said, but without conviction.
His kneading fingers massaged die pink nipples they encompassed until the puckered flesh became erect. "All you have to do is scream," he reminded. He bent down and applied his mouth to hers.
Her lips stirred eagerly in response to his searching kiss. She moaned, sinking backward into a reclining position. His hands tightened over her rapidly heaving breasts. He kept kissing her. She began writhing in restless, beseeching arousement. When he sent one hand delving beneath her skirt, bringing it up between the smoothness of her inner thighs, she kept her legs pressed together at first.
"Mmm, you are a rebel," she whispered, allowing her knees to swing apart.
His avid fingers ripped at her undergarments, finally achieving access to her hot, throbbing cunt.
Phyllis gave an excited gasp, lifting her backside, shoving her innermost flesh into more pronounced contact with his exploring hand. His other hand twisted, fingers biting fiercely into the resilient roundness of her naked breast.
"I'm more than enough man for you!" he told her. He slammed his mouth to hers with bruising disregard for anything except his rapidly flaring desire.
She seemed to thrive on his abusing fondles. Her lips avidly received his bruising kiss. She moaned, writhing upward, encouraging the mauling pressures of his hands. She gave a muffled cry when his entire fist penetrated her widened loins.
And yet his flesh refused to react. He silently, savagely cursed the inert organ that remained physically unresponsive. His fingers clutched and tore at her body. His punishing mouth ground violently upon hers.
Phyllis sobbed in aroused, clamoring sexual craving. She wildly wrenched her abused lips from his.
"Do it! Ohh, get it-in!" she begged, panting in excited torment. "Ohh! Ohh, honey! Slam it-in! Quick Do it, lover! Do it-to me!"
Her innermost pussy was like a blast furnace boiling over with molten violence. Her nude breast throbbed in his hard, gouging grasp.
"I-I can't!" Paul choked. "Damnit-I can't!"
She ripped at the front of his slacks. Her feverish fingers seized his limp flesh. "Come on!" Phyllis muttered. "Come on-get hard!"
He released her maimed breast, digging into the satiny realm of her widely parted thighs with both hands. It was almost unbearable. He wanted to take her. To slam his readied maleness into that churning cavern of gaping femininity.
He couldn't.
"It-it's no use!" he gasped in frustrated despair. "I can't! It just-won't happen!"
"Come on! What's wrong with you?" demanded the semi-nude brunette sharply, sprawled in the disheveled throes of impatient passion. Her fingers tugged at his impotent flesh. "Ohh, I need it! I want it! Come on!"
"Stop it!" he yelled. One of his immersed hands jerked out from between her upraised knees. He flung her fondling hands away from his opened slacks.
"Give it-to me!" whimpered the almost berserk girl. She flipped up her rumpled gown and hastily ripped down her panties. "Ohh, please! I'm so-close! Do-anything! Do something-please!"
He clawed at her luridly disclosed loins, twisted and dug into the sensitive layers of skin surrounding that erotic tunnel of womanhood. His fingers tangled in the silken darkness of bordering hair. He slammed his fist into that distended ravine, driving as far into her velvety depths as her quivering flesh permitted.
She kept moaning, sobbing in passion-parched supplications. He fell upon her, his mouth closing over a taut pink nipple. He worked his inserted hand with violent, pistoning vigor within her loins.
"I-ohh!-I'm going-off!" she marveled joyously. She gave a great, relieved sob of release. His free hand wedged under her shapely nude buttocks, forcing up her thundering loins, his invading hand deliriously buffeted by her spasmodic gratification.
She stared up at hhn a few minutes later. He was sitting morosely on the edge of the disordered bed. Phyllis retrieved her discarded pink briefs and skimmed into them, then pulled down her rumpled red skirt and made the necessary adjustments to loosened bra and to the top of the party gown.
After she had restored her appearance, she swung her legs around and pushed up into a sitting position beside Paul.
"One of those nights, huh?" she asked in quiet, subdued sympathy.
"I don't know," he muttered, his low voice scarcely audible. "I don't know what's wrong with me."
Her fingers ran soothingly through his dark hair. "Thanks. You did fine by me. Just fine."
"I was rough with you. I'm sorry, Phyllis."
"Not so rough. You were just trying too hard. That's all. You'll do better next time, Paul."
He raised his head, looking at her. "You're sure you aren't hurt?"
"I'm fine," she repeated. "I'm not made of glass. I enjoyed it. All of it."
He kept looking at her. She wasn't visibly marked. Her dark-blue eyes reflected pleased serenity. Slowly, his hand went out. He pulled down the bodice of the gown. He stared at the creamy splendor of her breasts. Both nipples were erect, delicately puckered. Her soft, white skin was slightly reddened where his cupping hands had seized those firm young contours. But there were no livid bruises or lacerations to mar their beauty.
"I-then I didn't hurt you?" he asked wonderingly.
She seemed equally puzzled by his strange behavior. She shook her head, again tugging up the neckline of the gown. "You weren't exactly gentle, but I've been handled far more roughly."
"That's why, then," he said. He stared down at the floor. The truth had come to him. He was a sadist. Before, he'd fought against that awareness. He'd blamed his savage assaults on three different women other than his wife as unplanned acts of sexual ravishment. In all those incidents, the women he had violated had aroused him, then had attempted to deny him access to their flesh. So he had taken them. Force had been necessary; he justified those abusements under the guise of accomplishing sexual intercourse.
This was different, though. Phyllis McKay hadn't fought him. She had willingly sprawled on her bed for his erotic enjoyment. She hadn't tried to dissuade him; hadn't protested or resisted his advances.
He simply couldn't achieve an erection without bringing pain to the woman who was to be his sex partner.
"We can't leave you high and dry," Phyllis said, softly breaking into his deeply troubled thoughts. She leaned against him, her fingertips trailing lightly along his cheek. "Perhaps, this just isn't the proper time or place. I'll admit-even though I locked the door, I kept worrying about someone rattling the knob, trying to get in here."
Paul shook his head. "No. It wasn't that," he said hoarsely. "I wish I could chalk it up to nervousness. Or being over-anxious. But it's nothing that simple."
"How can you be sure? Before, you hinted that you were too much man for your wife. At least that's the impression I had," Phyllis murmured. She pressed her lavish breasts into him. "Where are you staying, Paul? I'll come there later tonight, if you want to experiment."
He looked at the lovely dark-haired daughter of his boss. She was oversexed. The beginnings of desire were being rekindled in her eyes. Her soft, red lips were moist, slightly apart, begging to be crushed by his searching mouth again.
Maybe she was right. He was ready to grasp at straws. What if it was nervousness or over-anxiety? He had to know. If it was worse, as he feared, then what? What would happen if he had become a sexual pervert? A warped, vicious sadist?
He told her the name of the hotel he was at, and the number of his room. He took her in his arms as they got off the bed.
"Stay away from me, Phyllis," he warned. "You're lovely and desirable. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want you. Something has happened to me, though. I'm afraid of what I've become."
"I'm not afraid. Not of you," she softly replied. She snuggled against him, offering her lips. "This is until later," she murmured.
He kissed her, conscious of her very gorgeous curve pressing pliantly into him. He released her with reluctance. They walked toward the locked door.
"I'll see if there's anyone in the hall," he said. He unlocked the door quietly and eased it ajar.
There was no one visible along the upstairs hallway. Paul glanced at the attractive young divorcee beside him. "Wait up here a few minutes," he suggested "I'll leave first."
"Until later," Phyllis repeated. Her eyes contained an erotic promise. She watched him slip hurriedly from her bedroom.
The same butler who had admitted him was stationed in the vast downstairs hallway when he descended the stairs. He moved without comment to obtain Paul's coat and hat.
"Thank you," Paul said, ready to leave. Beyond them, the sounds of the lavish party continued.
The older man in the employ of the McKay family kept his features carefully expressionless. "You may wish to remove the traces of lipstick, sir," he advised quietly.
Paul hastily dug out his handkerchief, scrubbing at his lips. "Thanks again," he said, moving with the tactful manservant in the direction of the front entrance.
The cold freshness of the night air felt good. He hiked to his parked car. Before climbing in, Paul turned to look back at the house. The exclusive estate was alive with lights and silhouetted forms in movements within. It was a different world. Not a place where guys like Paul Nagle belonged.
He got into the car and drove back downtown.
Couples were strolling past the lighted store windows. Traffic was moderate since it was approaching ten p.m. Late, but still too early to go to the hotel.
Cruising past the city park bordering the lake front, Paul decided to stop. He left the sedan and began walking along the walk amid the trees darkly out-lined against the glistening snow catching reflections from the park lamp posts.
It was quiet in there. A place where he could be alone and unbothered. Where he could think while he sauntered along past the empty benches and winter barren shrubs.
He stared across the darkness at the deserted band shell. Last summer, Eloise and he had taken the children to a Sunday night concert there. One of the few pleasant memories in recent years.
Suddenly, he was terribly lonely. He missed not only Kyle and Alicia but his wife as well. What had gone so sour? What had happened to the love, to the respect and closeness that had once bonded them?
Was it all his fault?
Eloise couldn't be blamed for being what she was. She wanted security and a sense of order in their lives. Nor was it her fault if she lacked his physical needs; if she required far less in the sexual aspects of their wife-husband relationship.
No man likes to admit to impotency. Even the thought of submitting to an examination by a doctor's poking and probing and asking intimate questions was almost intolerable. And yet, what if there was something organically amiss? Some temporary condition that a physician could diagnose and cure?
What could he say to a doctor? "Doc, you see, I've got this thing when it comes to making love to my wife:-or any other woman. If I don't rape them take them by force, I simply can't have an erection. Lately, I've started beating up the women I've tried intercourse with. That seems to help. Hitting them, tearing at their flesh-hurting them and hearing them cry out in pain-that seems to excite me so I can at least act like a man. Oh, I never really enjoy it. But it's better than nothing. Better than being a sexless wonder."
Paul had stopped walking. He was standing on the walk where it divided, going both directions around the shadowy structure of the band shell.
The police asked reputable physicians to provide them with the names of any patients treated for gunshot wounds. Did doctors also have to give police authorities the names of known sex deviates?
Any time a girl was mauled and raped, would a pair of scowling, accusing cops hammer on his door demanding to know his whereabouts at the hour such sexual molestations were committed?
Sadist. Lust fiend. Vicious sexual abuser.
Those ugly indictments kept booming in Paul's thoughts as he resumed his walk along the solitary park sidewalk.
As he turned the corner, following the walk past the deserted band shell, a girl approaching from the other direction saw him at the same instant. Her footsteps slackened. She kept looking at Paul as they neared each other.
She was young. Possibly not even yet twenty. She was wearing a car coat and plaid scarf. The dress beneath the short coat was brown. She was quite pretty.
Her eyes reminded Paul of a frightened young doe. She averted her face as they walked by each other in opposite directions. She appeared nervous. Her staccato clicks of heels along the walk increased in tempo.
Paul turned to stare after the girl hurrying through the desolate park. She was probably returning to her home after a babysitting job or after finishing her shift in a restaurant. Something like that.
What if he had grabbed her and dragged her inside that partially boarded-up band shell? She would have fought him, tried to cry out for help. Then he would have had to silence her outcries-overpower her and forcibly assault her.
He wasn't that bad.
His self-control was still intact; anyway, sufficient so he hadn't accosted any young, helpless girls. Not yet. Not ever! Paul made a vehement self-vow. If he ever sank so low as to molest innocent young women, he would take his own life. Then, he wouldn't want to live.
A few snowflakes were swirling through the night when he finally returned to his car and drove toward the hotel.
Entering the lighted warmth of the lobby, he veered across the squares of tile and pushed through the door leading into the hotel lounge bar instead of requesting the key to his room.
A combo was providing musical entertainment for the patrons as Paul slipped onto a stool at the bar. He ordered a drink, then fished out a cigarette.
He was lighting it when a woman's low, pleasant voice said, "Light me too, please."
Paul complied, swinging the flame of his pocket lighter against the tip of her cigarette. While she was dragging at her smoke, he had a chance to see what she looked like.
He hadn't noticed her when he'd walked in; the lights were subdued and he'd been lost in troubled, restless thought. She was red-haired. She wore her hair in an upsweep and it was most likely a dye job, although the dark lustre could have been genuine. The clinging, black dress she wore had a deep V-neckline covered by semi-transparent black netting. The perfume she used had a nice, subtle aroma. Her full, nicely formed red lips and small, straight nose went well with her dark-brown eyes. She was casually returning his brief appraisal. She wasn't bad-looking except for the pinched lines around her mouth and the small wrinkles around her eyes that even carefully applied make-up couldn't entirely erase.
"Thanks," she murmured when he snapped down the lid of the lighter and returned it to his pocket. "A quiet night."
"Its beginning to snow," Paul said. Just conversation. He knew she didn't give a damn about weather. Unescorted babes who struck up conversations with strange men in bars were easy to label.
She drew a long lungful of smoke. Her provocative breasts pushed at the bodice of the dress.
"Is it? I'm glad my place isn't far from here."
Paul took a pull at his drink. Other patrons were applauding as the group of musicians in blue blazers finished their number. A cute but tired-looking young blonde waitress walked past the bar, carrying a tray of empty glasses.
He didn't care about carrying on a conversation with the unattached doll perched on the stool next to him. What did he care about? Nothing seemed important.
She wasn't going to give up that easily. She swiveled around, her knees lightly brushing his legs. She picked up her nearly empty martini goblet. "Are you staying here at the hotel?"
Paul reached for the lighted cigarette he'd placed in the ash tray. "That's right"
"Where are you from? Up until last year, I lived in Alabama. This is my first taste of northern winters."
He nodded, only half-listening. On the small stage behind them in the corner of the hotel lounge, a wavy-haired comedian was running off his string of off-color jokes and snappy sayings. He was drawing mildly amused laughter from some of the customers.
"Do you live around here?" persisted the babe in the black dress. She raised her glass to her lips. Her eyes continued to study his lean profile.
"My wife and I have a house not far from here," Paul said, thinking to discourage her. "I wonder what's keeping her? She was going to freshen up in our room, then join me in here. If she doesn't hurry, the floor show will be over."
There was a distinct cooling of the red-haired girl's interest. "She isn't missing much. Well, have fun," she murmured, slipping off the green-leather cushion of the tall bar stool.
Paul glanced idly around, watching her prowl across the softly lighted cocktail lounge, probably in search of a more likely male prospect. He finished his drink and had another. After nursing a third drink until the conclusion of the mediocre entertainment, he left the bar.
The night desk man gave him his key. "Oh, and here's a phone message for you, Mr. Nagle," he said, when Paul would have turned away.
Paul took the folded slip of paper. Before he could open it and read the message, he saw a girl enter the hotel and start across the lobby toward him. He tucked the note in his pocket, moving to meet her.
"Hello," Phyllis said, dark-blue eyes swiftly searching his face. "You don't look especially glad to see me, Paul," she softly remarked.
His gaze took in the lush proportions of her figure beneath her coat. He took her arm, drawing her further away from the reservations desk, walking in the direction of the brace of elevators set in one wall of the large lobby.
"I didn't think you would come," he admitted quietly. "What happened during the party was craziness, Phyllis. If your family ever-"
"Afraid of losing your job?" She smiled, swaying in close to him as they faced each other. "Don't be. I told you, Paul. I live my own life. Besides, no one knows about us."
"Except the butler. He saw me come down from your room."
"Harold?" She laughed in soft, reassuring dismissal. "That's the same as no one, Paul. Dear old Harold is the soul of discretion. Before I ran off and got married, there were lots of boys coming around. Harold knows I'm no angel." She glanced toward the elevators. "Shall we go up?"
He walked slowly beside the young daughter of his wealthy employer. Taking Phyllis up to his room to engage in premeditated passion seemed shabby and cheaply sensual. Yet, his loins ached for fulfillment. He needed to know himself, to verify his virility.
They entered the hotel room he was assigned without encountering anyone. She stood just inside, watching him close the door, hearing the self-lock dick.
Paul moved to help her remove her expensive coat as she turned, offering her shoulders. She had changed clothes, no longer wearing the vivid-red party gown. A simple, beige dress clung to the curving lines of her body. Her dark-brown hair was softly brushed, framing her piquant, exquisite features.
"Cigarette?" Paul asked. He had draped her coat over the back of the chair shoved in between the pedestals of the writing desk. Now, extending the pack, he saw Phyllis shake her head. He extracted a smoke.
Before he could light up, she had glided over to place a restraining hand over his. "I should be all the stimulation you need," she said. She plucked the cigarette from between his lips. Taking the pack from his pocket, she stuffed the cigarette back, then slipped it inside his pocket again. Her arms went up to entwine around his neck. "We're all alone now, Paul. This time will be better." She pulled her lovely form against him, deliberately. Her seductive red lips were poised for his kiss.
"You really like it, don't you?" Paul muttered. "You're a real sexpot."
"I take my fun when, where and how I want to," she blithely admitted. "Be rough with me, darling. Don't be afraid. Muss my hair. Tear my clothes. Anything-except please don't treat me as if I'm made of brittle glass." She gave a brief, wry smile. "That was Don's trouble. My ex-husband," she identified carelessly. "He couldn't understand that a woman wants to be overwhelmed, physically dominated by her man." She pressed closer, taunting gaze roving over his disturbed, darkly square-hewn face.
"You're a nympho," Paul growled. His hands had traveled upward of their own accord. His fingers pushed into the rear of her dress, spreading outward over the firm roundness of her backside. "You want more than a man can give. Any man."
"Maybe. I've always had a low boiling point," Phyllis said. She stretched deliriously upward. "How's your point, darling?" she drawled. Her hips began a slow, troubling series of undulations. Her breasts were pushing against the front of his suit coat. "You claimed you were too much man for your wife. Now, let's see you prove it."
He slammed his mouth down on hers-a hard, angered kiss intended to hurt. His hands shoved into the cleft curves of her buttocks, driving their thighs together.
Phyllis moaned in pleased excitement. She wriggled in the embrace, seeking to blend their tightly locked bodies into an even more intense clinch. Her lips melted apart in response to his searing savagery.
"A hot, hungry bitch!" Paul rasped. "That's all you are. You want me to play stud. Okay! Okay, baby-I'll screw you. I'll ball the daylights out of you!"
"Talk. So much big, bold talk," she teased derisively. She met his darkly scathing glare. "Know what I think, lover? I think you don't have what it takes. Maybe that's why your wife wants to be rid of you. Maybe-" Phyllis gasped in abrupt surprise when his hands ripped at her dress. His fingers took the back of the neckline and jerked viciously downward, splitting the fabric along the back zipper. The dress fell from her nude shoulders as he seized the front of her beige brassiere, giving a furious tug that tore off the bra.
"You'll get-what you've been begging for!" he gritted thickly. He sent a cuffing slap across her cheek. The sharp impact of the blow sent the unprepared brunette staggering backward.
Before Phyllis could recover, he was upon her again. His cruel fingers shredded her filmy, silken panties, disclosing the dusky triangle sloping down between her naked thighs.
A slow, pleased smile came to her luscious, red lips, which had already been bruised by his punishing mouth. "Is that the best you can do?" Phyllis taunted. She didn't cringe or show any signs of being frightened as he stalked toward her.
His inflamed gaze took in the erect pinkness of nipples adorning those big, milky-white breasts. He grabbed for her, powerful hands closing brutally over those sensational endowments. His clutching fingers distorted the conical perfections of her breasts, twisting and pulling at the flesh, forcing the nipples to bulge and whiten from the cruel pressures being inflicted.
"I'll show you I'm a man!" he hoarsely promised. "I'll show you and everyone else! I'll fix you! I'll really fix you! "
She laughed in wanton rejoicement. "Will you? Show me!" A spasm of anguish flashed across her face when one ravaging hand left her breast and ripped into her crotch. She stumbled backward, propelled by his lust-obsessed abusement, finally being shoved down across the width of the bed.
His right first thudded into the breast it had been mauling, driving the taut coral tip into the angrily mottled and discolored whiteness of surrounding flesh. His other hand dug amid her unprotected loins.
She reveled in the demented fury of the assault. Her eyes were bright with sensual excitement. She whimpered in mingled delight and pain at the frenzied intimacies of invading fingers.
"This is-all you're good for!" he spat out. "All any woman is good for!" He used both hands to pry her already out-flung thighs apart, fingers biting into the soft warmth of flesh disclosed.
Phyllis sobbed, writhing wildly at the tearing, churning violations of her innermost loins. "Ohh! Ohh-wonderful!" she panted, unmindful of the anguish wrought by his defiling atrocities.
He felt the clamoring rigidity of his loins and grinned in elated gladness. He quickly stripped from his clothes, staring down at her badly abused body.
She stared up at him through the haze of suffering expectation, her glowing eyes wet with tears. She saw the brandished bigness he was prepared to insert between her wounded thighs.
"Is this what you wanted?" he growled. He climbed on the bed, positioning his hardened flesh above her mutilated loins.
"Yes! Ohh, yes!" Phyllis whimpered. She hurled her unclad backside upward to meet his descending cock. Their flesh merged with swift, throbbing eagerness.
He grabbed both breasts, driving his mouth down over hers. He pumped at her responding loins with unchecked frenzy. She moaned in thrilled, breathless ecstasy, receiving his passionate manifestations.
Her climax came first. She gave a great sigh of joyous release even as his raging lust thundered into a sea of hot, quickening sensations.
They went limp retaining their coupled position. They rested like that for several minutes before Paul opened his eyes, pushing up and out of the involvement of their spent loins.
Staring down at her, taking in her abused flesh, he knew her for what she was. A masochist. A woman who obtained her greatest sensual pleasures from pain. From being struck and bitten and physically maimed by a man.
And he was her counterpart. A pervert who took delight in punishing during throes of warped passions. A sadist.
The telephone rang while he was still in the shower. Phyllis, already refreshed and restored, called to him from the hotel room.
"It's a woman" she murmured when Paul emerged from the bathroom, wearing only his undershorts, water still glistening on his hurriedly toweled upper torso. She handed him the receiver, standing by clad in pajamas much too large for her that she had discovered while rummaging through the bureau drawer.
Paul spoke guardedly into the receiver. He immediately recognized his wife's low tense voice. His knuckles turned white, hand tightening around the receiver as he listened to her.
"Didn't you get the message I left?" she asked, the concern apparent in her words. "Paul, there has been a-an accident," she said, her voice muffled and choked by thinly restrained emotion. "Kyle was playing with Alicia and some other children this afternoon. They-he followed them across the street when they decided to play at one of the other houses. He ohh!"
"What? Tell me, Eloise! What happened?" Paul demanded. Prickles of fear chilled him. "Was there an accident? Eloise! You've got to tell me!"
"He-a car struck him, Paul. The doctors say-ohh, Paul! Paul, Kyle might not live!" she cried in a tormented outburst before sobbing uncontrollably.
Someone must have taken the receiver from her. The worried voice of her father said, "We're at Westlawn Memorial Hospital, Paul. Please come. As soon as you can."
"I-I'll-yes, I'll be right there," Paul mumbled.
He slowly cradled the phone, a dazed, unbelieving agony lining his lean features.
All the shame and guilt and other conflicting thoughts had dissolved into terrible fear for the life of his son. All that mattered was getting to the hospital. Kyle couldn't die. He must not die. An innocent, trusting five-year-old boy shouldn't suffer for the sins of his father.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Another week was ending. already, many traces of spring were evident. Even the blue sky visible through the downtown office building windows appeared warmer, softer.
Paul glanced up from the desk in his new office at the entry of an older man.
"Don't let me interrupt if you're in the middle of something," McKay said, glancing at the stacks of reports and correspondence.
Paul smiled, shaking his head. "No, I was woolgathering just now," he admitted quietly. He pushed back his executive chair, leaning against the padded brown leather cushion. "I'll have that revised budget for you by the first part of next week, Stuart."
His boss shrugged, dropping easily into the chair beside the desk. "No hurry, Paul. Our board meeting isn't until the following week."
"That isn't long. Not the way time goes."
"That's true."
"I was just thinking about how long I've had this office. Almost two months," Paul mused. He stared down at his hands where they rested together on the surface of the walnut desk. "Kyle has been dead for two months. Funny, I can't seem to accept that."
"I know. Some things we experience are difficult to live with. Life has to go on, though." Stuart McKay's hands were resting on his knees. He absently flexed his neatly manicured fingers, looking at the younger man. "I was sorry to learn about your impending divorce, too. It's definite?"
"Yes. The necessary paperwork had been done."
"Such things are never easy, either."
"No. No, they aren't."
"If there is anything we-the company can do or myself on a personal basis-"
"Thanks. It's Alicia I'll miss most. Oh, my attorney assures me I'll have visitation privileges. Eloise went along with that."
"She and your daughter are staying with her parents?"
Paul nodded again. "The house is up for sale. That makes two of them, right together. A jinxed neighborhood, I guess you could call it."
"You have a nice apartment now." Stuart McKay crossed his legs, clasping his hands together over his knee. "New surroundings sometimes help. This can be a new beginning for you, Paul. I hope you will find it that start of better times."
Paul was more or less prepared for what his employer was quietly leading to. Both he and Phyllis were aware that their affair was no secret.
"Having this job has helped," he said. He waited for the other man to say whatever had brought him into the office. Often during the bitter weeks of abject loneliness, he had tried to analyze his feelings. Not only toward the lovely daughter of his boss but about himself, about what he could salvage from the ruins of his previous existence.
He knew he wasn't in love with Phyllis. Oh, he coveted her body. Admired her haughty dark-haired beauty. And she provided her own peculiar brand of companionship. Her sexual appetite was insatiable. She reveled in the crude, lurid intimacies of their unnatural sex relationship.
Now, seated there in the elaborate office with her intelligent, dynamic father, Paul was mildly curious, wondering how her parents felt about that relationship.
After an interval of silence, McKay finally opened the discussion, saying, "I'm sending you down to take charge of setting up the offices at our Deansville plant, Paul. I'd like you to leave as soon as you've finished checking out the revised budget."
"All right. Will do, Stuart. That will probably be about Wednesday."
"Good. I'll have my secretary make your plane reservation."
"I'd like to take my secretary along."
"Of course."
"That project shouldn't take more than a week or ten days."
The older man's voice was firm and his gaze level. "Take a month, Paul."
"A month?"
"Yes. By then, I'll have Phyllis diverted to some other interest."
"So that's how it is," observed Paul softly. A wry smile touched the corners of his mouth. He nodded thoughtfully. "Okay. I guess you're right, as usual. A clean break would be best."
"I love her, Paul. Despite her flaws and weaknesses, Phyllis is very precious to my wife and I. We can't let her be hurt like this. I'm sure you understand."
"It wasn't something deliberate, Stuart."
"I know that."
"We were drawn together. I won't pretend or evade. Not with you. It's purely sensation. A strong physical attraction. Nothing more than that."
"Not for you, perhaps. Phyllis believes she's in love with you, Paul."
"Oh? Is that what she said?"
"She thinks you'll ask her to marry you. Just as soon as your divorce is final," confirmed the older man quietly. He rose from the chair beside the desk, walking over to the windows. "We both know that wouldn't work. Even if you did decide to marry her. Phyllis would soon tire of you. Or you of her. Any marriage based on nothing except sex is doomed."
"I won't ever marry again," Paul heard himself say. He was slightly surprised by his calm decision. Yet he knew it was true. He swung around in his swivel chair, looking at the man standing before the darkening windows. "I can tell Phyllis that if you'd like. I'll be seeing her tonight."
Slowly, McKay turned back from the office windows. He shook his head. "No. You won't see her tonight Paul. Or any other time. I want your word on that."
"She's coming to my apartment. I-"
"Don't be there. Move into a hotel. Refuse to see her. It sounds cruel and heartless, I know. But do this, Paul. Not for me. For her."
"She'll come here if she can't find me anywhere else."
"No. No, she won't. You see, Phyllis does have her pride. She won't beg. She won't chase after you."
Every word pained the haggard, gray-haired corporate president. He came slowly back across the office. "Do I have your hand on that, Paul?"
Paul got up and took the extended right hand. "If I work right through this weekend, I can be on that plane Sunday night," he said.
He was back at his desk that evening after stepping out for a sandwich and coffee at a nearby cafe. Only the desk lamp was on, so when someone entered the office, he couldn't make indentification, peering through the shadows cloaking the paneled walls.
She sauntered out of the shadows, her soft red lips curved in her usual amused, taunting smile. "Hi, boss man," Barbara Gilmore said lightly. "What's this I hear about our flying out together?"
He stared at her luscious form without bothering to erase the scowl of displeasure that had formed when she'd moved within the glow of light reflected from the surface of the desk covered with papers.
"You wanted to be my secretary. We leave from the airport on the ten o'clock flight Sunday night," he said curtly. She had blackmailed him into getting her promoted.
She moved closer, idly removing her gloves. "And if I can't go? If my ever-lovin' hubby puts his foot down?"
"Then you don't go. I'll take someone else."
"Uh-uh," Barbara drawled, vetoing his reply. She sat down on his lap, her arm going around his shoulders. She cuddled against him, her bold eyes daring him not to desire her. Her rich, dark-brown hair was curled in the Italian-style ringlets she favored. Her perfume filled his senses, seeking to stimulate forbidden desires.
He should know, Paul caustically reflected. In addition to her considerably increased salary as his private secretary, she also received extra pay for extra services. Money that would enable this greedy, grasping bitch to buy her expensive cologne by the barrel. Her sexual appetite was almost as demanding.
"I'm very busy," he muttered. "Just what is it this time? More money? I just gave you-"
Her fingertips pressed against his lips, silencing them. "Then are times when every gal wants to be manhandled," she murmured, leaning cozily against him. "I think there's a piece of Satan in all of us, Paul darling. My personal devil is very restless tonight. That's why I came back. I was fairly certain I'd find you here when I saw there weren't any lights on in your apartment."
He glared at her, conscious of the thrusting warmth of her breasts. She squirmed into a more comfortable position on his lap, knowing full well that her wriggling movements were stirring his maleness. Knowing sex could work for her profit.
"You are a bitch, aren't you?" he said coldly.
Barbara laughed. "Of course. Have I ever pre tended with you, lover? Have I ever tried to convince you I was anything else? But you like bitches, don't you? You enjoy hurting us. You get all heated up boffing us around. Well, I'll let you in on a little secret." She leaned upward, lips almost touching his ear. Her bust was delectably crammed against his white shirt. "Women love to be slapped around and abused. At least I do. And I think every women does. Except that not all of them will admit it."
He pushed his hand into her face, spreading his fingers and giving a vigorous, upsetting thrust.
She squealed, nylons flashing as she kicked ineffectually, landing on the carpet with jarring impact to her shapely buttocks. She blinked in momentary astonishment. Then, she laughed again, regarding him with bold, assured insolence. "You can do better than that. I know. I've been the route with you before. Remember?"
"Get out of here. I have lots of work that has to be finished." He tried to force his attention back to the blurred figures on the maze of statistical reports. Instead of looking at the gorgeous feminine figure sprawled on the carpet near the desk. She had him hooked already. What more did she want?
Barbara sighed dreamily. "Mmm, it's nice and comfy down here. Come join me, why don't you?"
He had to look at her. It was something he couldn't help. He froze in his chair, his pencil dropping from between his fingers. She was trying to make a sex slave out of him.
Because she had shifted positions again. Now, she was entirely reclined. Her luscious, nylon-clad legs were upraised and carelessly separated. He could see the contrasting whiteness of her lower thighs sweeping into the clefted swells of her backside. She wore wispy, white panties beneath her hiked-up, blue dress. The dusky outline of her cunt was faintly visible through the sheer step-ins. His for the grabbing.
With a smothered groan, Paul dived for her. His shaking fingers seized the bodice of her dress, tearing the garment down from her shoulders.
Barbara laughed in soft, excited triumph. She gasped an instant later when his fist rammed between her legs, smacking into her tender pussy. Another devastating blow slammed into her stomach, doubling her over.
"No! Not so-rough!" Barbara cried. She yelped as those ravaging hands ripped asunder her brassiere, then filled with the bulging bare flesh capped by vivid dark pink nipples "Ooh! Take it-easy, will you?"
He was oblivious to her shrill, anguished outcries. His teeth bit into the firm erectness of coral puckered flesh. His reviling hands tore at her loins, doing terrible things to her most sensitive fibres.
Neither of them heard her husband enter the office. Or saw the stocky man garbed in work clothes gaping at their wildly twisting, panting forms in frozen, stupefied and unbelieving horror. Suddenly, the man's hand dived into his pocket.
It wasn't until too late that Paul realized the cause of the sudden, searing pain lancing through his back. Until he fell heavily away from the naked, shrieking brunette with wet, sticky blood coursing through the hole in the back of his shirt that Paul dimly became aware he had been shot.
Numbness was already lessening the great hurt brought by the bullet that had passed through his body. He squinted through the converging black haze. He could hear the wailing hysteria of his secretary. The hoarse, urgent loudness of her husband's voice.
"He was attacking you, hon! I hadda do it! I hadda!"
"Y-You killed him! Ohh, you fool! You killed h-him!"
"I knew you was up to something. So this is the crud. The guy who you claim raped you the night of that damn party. Yeah, I've been a fool! That's for damn sure. I hope I did kill him! I oughta put a bullet in you too!"
Paul felt beyond the sins and suffering of mortal earth. They said he was dying. That meant freedom. An end to cruelties and uncertainties. He was smiling when the blackened void engulfed him.
But when his eyes opened, daylight stung them. He closed his eyes again, then opened them more slowly.
A wan, anxious face appeared above him.
"Paul? Paul, can you hear me?"
He was unable to understand. He stared up at his wife, thinking it impossible she was there.
Again, Eloise spoke to him. Her low voice tinged with concerned anxiety. "You'll be fine, Paul. The doctor says there wasn't any serious damage. You lost some blood and you had a dreadful shock, but you'll be all right. Do you hear me? Can you understand?"
He tried to speak. No words came. He willed himself to greater effort. His lips moved.
"Eloise. I-last night I was-shot."
"No. Not last night. Four days ago. But you must rest, Paul. You mustn't talk."
"I-want to. I have to." He licked at dry lips that seemed unwilling to move to permit passage of his weak ghost of a voice. "You know-what happened that night?" He saw her bite her own lips, nodding. "I wish that bullet had-"
"Shh! Don't say it! Don't say anything just now. The doctor gave me special permission to come in here, Paul. I-Alicia and I-" There were tears shining in her dark blue eyes. "We love you. Ohh, Paul! Paul, we both love you s-so very much!" she whispered.
From somewhere he found the strength to reach up and take her hand. His own eyes were dimmed by purging wetness. The cleansing sense of being reborn was within him.
