enovel The Sin Stripper John Dexter [Future Story Codes]

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The Sin Stripper ....(77k)    by John Dexter

FROM A TYPICALLY POOR BEGINNING, EDDIE WAS DETERMINED TO BECOME ONE OF THOSE WHO made it big. But he never expected to go quite as far or as fast as he did ... nor to find quite the consequences he found. "The development of sexuality in both sexes follows a well-defined course dictated by the impulse to convert ill-defined hunger into love by the discovery of the appropriate environ mental counterpart. This search begins in the self with the self as object and the phase is marked by narcissistic reveries. When these fail to bring satisfaction the field of investigation is widened further so as to include within it the opposite sex. Although sexual potency may by now have reached its peak, it is still prohibited from finding its consummation in a love relationship. Efforts have therefore to be made to discharge emotional tension into other activities." (Kenneth Walker and Peter Fletcher, Sex and Society). Eddie chose the courts as his means of working off frustration, as well as his ladder to greatness and wealth. He found both, for a time....

CHAPTER ONE

EDWARD KILBY WAS CONVINCED THAT THE SUM of each man can be reduced to one basic need he has. The need varies greatly from person to person, but if one can penetrate the soul, there will be found a terrible urge that makes a man the kind of person he is. Like a desire to be rich. Or powerful. Or respected. Or even, in the millions of obscure people around the world, the need or urge or desire to be nonentities-to sit out an uncomplicated life, troubled with as few responsibilities and problems as possible.

His own basic drive, Kilby concluded, was hunger. It had started as a physical hunger when he was young, living in poverty. As he grew through adolescence and into adulthood, the drive was still hunger ... but a hunger for things.

He had often tried to shake off this obsession with gathering objects, because he saw how foolish it really was. He was a smart guy, Edward Kilby was, and he knew that in young adulthood, he had acquired much more than sufficiency, but even if by some terrible bad fortune he lost everything, he had the brains and the ambition to get it all back again. Yet the unreasonable feeling didn't leave him., even when he could tell himself quite logically that you could only eat one steak at a time, you could only take one woman to bed to play with at a time (usually!), you could only wear one suit, drive one car, and so on. Sure, it was nice to have variations in all these things, but he wished he could get over the horrible compulsion to grasp everything.

Kilby was the kind of person who went over and over his life with a mental fine-tooth comb, trying to see what made him tick. Like the reasons for his becoming a lawyer. Even those who knew him intimately assumed he took to law because it was a way for a climber to make it into the world of wealth and influence.

Yes, he liked the financial rewards. But that wasn't the reason. Money didn't guide him that way. It was principle. And those same intimate friends would have laughed their heads off if someone had suggested such a motivation. That was because no man ever gave off clearer indications that he was propelled by greed. Which was true enough when he was in his heyday as a specialist in divorce cases.

However, his first impulse toward the law was an idealistic one.

Edward Kilby had been born into a well-to-do family. His father was part owner of a factory situated in a small town. He was a big wheel in such a burg, and his family among the aristocracy.

But when Edward was still in grade school, his father lost it all. The boy didn't understand what happened, but over and over he heard whispered discussion that mentioned that whatever the disaster was-and whether it was caused by his father's incompetence or his partners' treachery-it was legal. Unfair but legal. That's the impression the youngster got.

This sort of searing experience as a youth-being reduced over night from prosperity to destitution might have made him bitter about the law which said the disaster was okay as far as it was concerned. Just the opposite. It puzzled young Edward and continued to do so. How could anything be legal and yet unjust? His eventual decision to study and practice law started right then. He, Edward Kilby, would see to it that law would mean fairness, justice, honor, and all that.

Considering the way he turned out, perhaps his close friends would have very good reasons indeed for laughing themselves sick about Edward Kilby's youthful idealism.

After his financial downfall, Eddie's father left the family and the town. At first, he wrote back letters indicating that when he got on his feet again, he'd send for the mother and their young son. However, the letters stopped, and they never knew what happened to him.

Eddie and his mother were forced to move In with the father's elderly uncle and his wife. They lived on the outskirts of a town that was even smaller than the one Eddie was used to. The old couple was not actively unkind, but it was a burden for them to take in two such helpless and unprofitable boarders. Eddie was still in grade school, and his mother was sickly. In fact, she wasn't long for this world when she moved into that big, drafty, ramshackle old house. A frail person, she had at one time been considered the belle of the town, but she'd faded under what she considered the persecutions of life: being poor, being deserted by her failure of a husband, and sent to live in these miserable surroundings.

She died when Eddie was eight years old. He was broken up about this at the time, but he sprang back with the resilience of youth. He had an inborn tendency toward being a loner, and all the circumstances of his existence firmed this tendency up in him.

His uncle's place was neither fish nor fowl-it was right on the outskirts of the town, yet not part of the community; it was also partly a farm, but his uncle was getting on in years, and didn't grow much. It had a barn, but only one cow. There were a few skinny chickens running around.

It was then that Edward faced hunger for the first time, and did so almost every day he was there. The elderly couple lived frugally, even miserly, and they weren't about to change their spending habits to accommodate an unwanted relative. Being old, they didn't eat much anyway, and they saw no reason why Eddie should have more: they didn't see him as a growing lad in need of nourishment, but just an unasked burden.

So when for breakfast Eddie got a small glob of sticky oatmeal, he dreamed of the days when he'd had orange juice, eggs and bacon. When dinner consisted of a thin sandwich of cold, greasy luncheon meat, he imagined dining on the steak he saw in a magazine advertisement.

If the living conditions of his uncle's home were a deep disappointment, the school was a real shock. One small, decrepit building contained the whole school system-kindergarten to senior high.

These pupils were a revelation to Eddie. He had gone to a grade school in a very small town, but the kids had mostly been nice ones. Oh, they might get bratty out on the playground, but they were shy and polite mostly, especially with adults.

Not these. Mostly children from farms, they were mouthy and crude. Only about one in every twenty-five had any ambition or hope of going on to high education, so scholastically their records were appalling. They didn't care what kind of grades they got, and even if they flunked a grade, it made no difference. A big, hulking fifteen-year-old might still be in the eight grade, but wouldn't care-another year and he could legally drop out.

They were a rowdy bunch outside. They knocked each other around and they fought on the slightest pretext.

Eddie's first day with them was typical. He had worn a nice cap he had retained from the good old days of his father's prosperity. On the playground behind the building after school was out for the day, one of the big boys grabbed the cap from Eddie's head and sailed it to another boy, and so it went, until one of them chanted in a sing-song voice, "Red schoolhouse, red schoolhouse, it's on fire." He tossed the cap on the ground, it being the red schoolhouse, and-Eddie couldn't believe his eyes-all the boys made a circle around his hat, opened their pants, and urinated on it. Right there, he thought to himself, where anybody passing by could see! But they just laughed, and they knocked him around when he started to bawl. He wanted revenge, but what could he do? He couldn't just go back into the school and tell the teacher what had happened. He trudged on home, tearful and angry.

Much later in his life, Eddie reflected on those schoolmates of his youth. They were really not much different from the kids in, say, a city slum area. Poverty had made them hard realists who lived in a basic, forthright manner. They weren't used to niceties and expected nothing from anyone. They got their kicks in the earthy ways that their existence prompted them to. Eddie could later reason that they could so nonchalantly expose themselves and piss on his cap because they were used to excrement as an everyday portion of life-not in the sanitary manner of a city bathroom, but as part of farm life which meant outhouses for human beings, and yards full of the droppings of chickens, cows, horses, geese, and so on.

It was much the same with sex. A child in a city slum accepted sex as a natural part of every day; nothing was hidden from him-he knew early how intercourse happened, had probably seen it happen, and experimented himself while still a sub-teener. On the farm, the kids may never have seen their folks doing it, but the entire life of the farm depended on it happening with the animals, from chickens to cattle.

At eight years of age, poor Eddie was way behind the other children in knowledge of the mechanics of sex. He'd never even seen a picture of a naked woman, much less the real thing. He had no sisters, so he didn't know how little girls were different from little boys. But his schoolmates quickly made up for this.

As a whole, the girl population of the school was far less forward and crude than that of the boys. But there were exceptions. If Eddie had been taken aback by seeing members of his own sex urinate in public, he was even more shocked by seeing some of the little girls, going to or from school, go off the paths and into the woods to relieve themselves.

A favorite trick of some of the more pushy boys was to go up close behind a girl on the path, or even, at times, in the school hallways, and shout, "Up, down, turn around," while he quickly upped her skirt, pulled down her panties, and tried to whirl her around. They'd get mad and some would kick at their tormentors and some would threaten to tell, but the boys usually picked on the less prissy ones, so they rarely got more than a sore shin out of the adventure.

And one day in the cloak-room, Eddie had seen the ultimate. While about a half-dozen boys watched, a little hussy about eight years old pulled her pants clear off, and leaned back against a broken desk that had been put there until it might be repaired. Then a farm boy took his prick out, and it was big and hard. And he put it into the girl's pussy.

That was all, but it scared and horrified and fascinated Eddie. When he had matured, the scene still puzzled him. The two little kids knew how intercourse happened, but they had no desire, and the boy couldn't climax. It was just a re-enactment of something they knew happened between adults-though in their babyish minds, they didn't actually know why.

Eddie had absolutely no idea of the significance of what he had witnessed. It was somehow dirty, but he didn't know why. He had no interest in doing that to a girl. However, he too had had erections at an early age, and that worried him. Oh, not the ones he had in the morning when he got up-that just meant that he had to go. But others came unexpectedly, and had nothing to do with girls. If he'd hear or read about somebody being tortured or murdered in a particularly brutal way, he'd become hard. He never understood why, and this sort of thing didn't occur any longer when he got into his adolescence.

But of course, by then, girls played a part in his life.

Hunger turned Eddie into a thief while he was still in grade school. Sometimes he would steal into a neighbor's garden patch after dark, and take some carrots or kohlrabi. And he'd swipe apples from an orchard. Everybody raided apple trees there, but only Eddie did it because he wanted to eat apples; for the others, it was just sport, foolish vandalism. Once in awhile, Eddie's lunch from home would be so skimpy-sometimes he had none at all-that he'd sneak into the cloak-room and take some food from somebody else's lunch box. He only got caught once, by a kid who socked him hard on the arm, but that was all. Nobody thought much about it if a sandwich was missing or a piece of cake; they'd make a noise, but no big fuss. Food to them was something you grew or processed at home, so it didn't matter. Much later in life, Eddie was to see much the same thing in factories or offices-if somebody took home some of the product, nobody thought too much of it, if the theft wasn't out of proportion. A secretary might take home paper, pencils, a stapler, scissors, stamps, and things like that ... and never considered it stealing. However, that same girl would not think of taking a dime out of petty cash and not returning it; that would be dishonest....

But if no one else thought of stealing an apple or cupcake as thievery, young Edward did. It bothered him. He never made a habit of it, and tried to resist the impulse as long as he could, until his stomach got the best of his mind and conscience. He was always to be like that-he might do something wrong and do it over and over again, but he never got really used to it. Trivial or big, it festered inside him.

One of the funniest things that even happened to him while he was in that small-town school came about because of food.

Eddie had survived the brutal conditions of life in his foster home and the school to become a good-looking-if thin-guy of thirteen. He stood out among the boys there, because of his looks and his withdrawn manner, which seemed the excess of courtesy compared to the coarse ways of the others.

One day, Eddie was invited by one of the girls to go on a picnic the following Saturday. He'd had minor dates with this girl and others, and it was unusual to have the female do the inviting. This one's name was Ruthie. Eddie had heard rumors about her ... like, she was a push-over. But he discounted a lot of what he'd heard. Lord knew, there were plenty of girls in school who did, but the boys tended to pin the label of Hot Pants on any girl who wasn't so nun-like that she'd be nicknamed The Iceberg.

But Ruthie fully deserved the heated reputation she enjoyed.

She and Eddie strolled off into the woods to a favorite glade known to the kids, sheltered on a hillside. She had scarcely sat down on the blanket he had spread, when she smiled up at him, and said, "Well, handsome, wouldn't you like some?"

He sure would! He dove right in. He tore away her....

... wrapping on the fried chicken! She was amazed when she saw what he was doing. Here she sat, her knees drawn up to reveal most of her legs, her Intimate parts heated and juiced up for action ... and he was panting to eat! Ruthie had a moment in which she was thoroughly mad, but then she burst out laughing. Eddie wondered at her amusement, but she wouldn't explain. She began eating fried chicken and deviled eggs with him, but with the voluptuousness of the eating scene in Tom Jones. And after he had fulfilled his most pressing physical need, she got him to fulfill hers.

Eddie was not a virgin at the time-he would have been almost a freak among the boys there if he had been. But his experiences hadbeenfew and hurried; he was far Ruthie's inferior in experience and as a sexual performer.

It seemed to Ruthie that she had always been aware of sexual attraction. Like that girl in the cloakroom that Eddie remembered, she had been penetrated while in grade school, and she had been properly had by an older boy when she was eleven-which was only two years previous.

At the outset of her sexual career, Ruthie had done it because the boys wanted it-some expected it even if they so much as put out a little cash for a movie-even a soda.

Gradually it was she who expected it. She became sort of a female Don Juan. She wanted to have had all the men in the world at least once. She was trophy hunting.

Along with this vast experience came a real lust for sexual gratification, developed slowly from the time she was eleven. Now that she was thirteen, it wasn't enough that she could brag that she had seduced another boy-she also wanted the wonderful waves of pleasure than emanated from her lower parts, if her partner performed correctly.

But Eddie was a youngster without much practice in the erotic arts. He couldn't help himself-he had hardly touched her hot slickness than he felt the dizzying surge' of his climax.

That was all right with him; it meant little more to him than the load of good food he had just put in his stomach-maybe less.

Eddie had rolled over on his back, exhausted, content and lazy. Ruthie pulled herself atop him. Down below, he was limp, but she worked at him, with her words as well as her body. "Darling Eddie," she called him, and "Honey". As she slowly moved her hungry crotch over his, she also kissed him, teasingly darting her tongue through his lips. Her hands went through his hair, or moved down on his shoulders, as she murmured appreciatively of his strength ... though he knew, in truth, his physique was nothing to brag about.

But the whole process worked on him until he was Inflamed with eagerness to have her again. Through her movements, his cock thrust up in her again, but this time he was not so amateurish as to have no control. Still on his back, he moved his hands under her blouse to get at the young, hard, eager buds of her breasts. His tongue explored her mouth.

In this position, he could not get the full, satisfying thrust of his shaft into her, so he grabbed her round, naked buttocks, one in each hand, and heaved her over on her back. Now firmly in the driver's seat, he could do with her as he wanted. He had the highly gratifying masculine satisfaction of not only giving himself such great pleasure, but bringing her to completion also. She moaned in joy as he pushed into her; her red circle of heat moved hungrily against him as he withdrew a bit to let her shove up at him.

They came together. He saw showers of white-hot light in the darkness of his consciousness as he came and came and came. Ruthie cried out at the fiery relief she was feeling, and bit her lower lip so that there was blood on her teeth afterward.

For all the ecstasy that Eddie found in sex, he Was not playing the field at school. If he felt that he really needed bodily relief, he'd date some girl like Ruthie, who knew her way around and was had by all. Eddie feared being trapped by some nice girl who could be talked into sex, but who might not know enough to prevent becoming pregnant, or who might expect him to marry her anyway, just because they had done it together. As he got into senior high, he saw this increasingly often. Girls of about sixteen got pregnant and had to marry the unlucky guy. The guy didn't always think he was unlucky, of course, because he thought he was in love, and may have been, by his lights. Other couples went steady and expected to get married right after they graduated and the boy went to work on his father's farm.

Not for Eddie was the future that this portended.

As far back as he could remember about that town, he had determined never to be a permanent part of it. He knew he could never exist a lifetime in that place. He would go crazy, he'd die.

In his secret heart, Eddie Kilby felt he was far above these people and his surroundings. He came from better stock than they did; he would rise in the world to heights they couldn't glimpse, much less understand. He was like those children who get the illusion that they are not the real issue of the people who pass as their parents; someone better sired them, they are sure. They are lost princes, hidden dauphins.

So he didn't want to be hooked into any kind of alliance with any female in that place. He would get away ... he would enter the much better world that must exist somewhere outside this rural area.

It was probably at this time that, entirely unconsciously, entirely unknown to the surface of his mind, that he became interested in divorce. It was only later, after he'd become a lawyer, that he almost accidentally entered that field, but the groundwork had been laid, if ever so flimisily, by his dealings with a fellow classmate in high school.

Her name was Phyllis Deering. She was the sixteen-year-old daughter of a woman who clerked in one of the few stores in town. Mrs. Deering was divorced, and at that time, years back, and in that small, narrow-minded place, divorce was almost unheard of, and those involved-especially the women-were considered very tarnished characters.

Eddie could never have said exactly-why he liked to go out with Phyllis. It wasn't fun as with some other dates. She wasn't good-looking. In fact, she was rather drab and withdrawn.

But he could talk to her-maybe that was it. Really talk. No matter what he had to say, no matter how flippant or how deadly serious, she'd listen, and she seemed to comprehend his mood, really see into him and understand.

That's mostly what they did on their dates ... which weren't, much like dates as other teenagers knew them. Eddie got no allowance from his great-uncle, and he had few opportunities in that community to earn anything. A couple of boys had paper routes, but any delivery-boy positions were handled by sons in the families of the owners of the stores. In the summer, Eddie could sometimes get some seasonal jobs on the farms, but there wasn't much call for outside help, and Eddie wasn't the best hired hand anyway, due to his inexperience and-even more-his rather weak physical condition.

So when he took a girl out, it was a big evening if they got to the movies. He didn't have a car, so they walked wherever they were going.

The first night he invited her to just take a stroll out in the country, she hesitated. But he used persuasive words and finally, with downcast eyes and biting her lip, she went with him.

Later, he found out why she had held back. Being a homely girl, she had learned that the reason boys invited her out was to lay her-it was as simple as that. They expected it as a favor for asking her out.

But Eddie didn't try to force himself on her. And she didn't misinterpret this either; that is, she didn't think he was not making love to her because he found her too distasteful. No, he appeared to her to be a perfect young gentleman with whom she could communicate. She could unburden herself of many things she wanted to talk out, but about which she could speak to no one else in school; they would have been unsympathetic or would have blabbed about it to others afterward.

In many ways, Eddie and Phyllis had encountered much the same nastinesses of life. Phyllis's life started relatively comfortably, as Eddie's had. Then there had been the divorce.

"Why?" Eddie asked."

Phyllis shrugged at the question. She had for years tried to figure out the reasons, from the few hints she got from her mother and acquaintances, and from what she pieced together for herself. Finally she replied, "I don't know for sure. Mother would never give me a straight story-you know, unemotional. I only get her side, and she says things like 'he drank a lot' and 'he chased women'. He wanted to be free to whoop it up, she tells me."

"What do you think?" Eddie persisted.

"I think...." The girl stopped, embarrassed. She turned her face away. Eddie was sure that if it hadn't been dark there on the edge of the woods where they'd sat to talk, he would have seen that she was blushing.

He was soothing and confidential. "You can tell me what you think, Phyl."

She took in a big gulp of air and determined to do just that with her new friend-say what she thought. "Well, I gather that he left my mother because he was dissatisfied-you know."

"No," he said simply.

"Well, in bed," the girl finished quickly. She paused for some time, then continued: "I think that's why she's like she is today, why she acts as she does."

"What does she do?" Eddie asked.

"Don't you really know?"

"No, I don't."

Phyllis sighed. "I thought everybody in town knew about my mother. She ... she sleeps with a lot of men."

Eddie was puzzled. "I don't understand. I mean, what did the divorce have to do with that?"

"I think she's trying to prove ... you know, that she can make a man happy in bed. She's proving it over and over," the girl ended bitterly. "That's what divorce does to you, I guess."

"What?" Eddie queried, feeling foolish because this girl seemed to know so much more of the world than he did.

"Well, it tears at you inside-makes you feel inadequate. And then there's the financial matter."

"How's that?"

"The court ordered my father to pay support, but he skipped the state and we don't get a cent. My mother-she accepts things from the men ... like a prostitute!" The girl was on the verge of tears. Eddie didn't know what to do or say, so he sat there, miserable. Finally she went on: "I don't mean she does it for money, but she takes things from them, as if they were sweethearts. None of them is interested in her-you know-romantically. They-they just want one thing from her. And why not? She's no beauty. She's worked and worried too much. And even if they were interested in her, who'd want to have a divorced woman and a sixteen-year-old foster-daughter in one fell swoop? So she takes little token gifts-stockings, a compact, boxes of candy. It isn't much payment, but every little bit counts." The bitterness broke into her tone violently again. "Maybe that's how I'll end up."

"No, no." Eddie tried to say something comforting.

"Why not? The town can't afford a full-time house of ill-repute. Maybe part-timers like Mother are an economic necessity."

She was crying now, and he put his arm around her, and said meaningless little things like "There, there," and "Everything will be all right."

CHAPTER TWO

HE AND PHYLLIS TALKED SERIOUSLY OTHER times, too, but he made it a point not to get too involved. He never' laid a finger on her in a desirous way, although there was no doubt in his mind that he'd meet no opposition. She was in love with him, but she was careful not to push herself at him too much, because her instinct told her that he was warding her off. So their relationship was kept at a platonic level. Eddie was sorry for her, he wished he could help her, but he was careful to make certain she didn't mistake his pity for something deeper. He was grateful that she seemed to understand his hands-off feeling and that they could converse like buddies who'd been through somewhat the same hell.

No one would ever accuse Edward of being an intellectual, an egghead. But he had a native craftiness, great powers of observation, a good supply of energy, and ambition. In his youth as later, they didn't say intelligent about Eddie, but smart.

As far back as he could remember, he'd had the vague feeling that small-town life wasn't fit for him. His life with his stand-offish old relatives and at the third-rate school just rubbed this message in the harder.

He looked around to see by what means he could get away and by what means get all the money his hunger needed.

In books, he read about fortunes made in business, but nothing locally backed this up. The store-owners around those parts were no better off than the farmers. Everybody had fairly good years, but these were offset by bad ones. And it was a rough go over the long haul. Further more, you needed money to get started. And that was something he didn't have and had no prospect of getting.

Go into something like the ministry, a respectable profession? It paid only a couple of thousand a year, and you had to take a lot of guff from so many pious parishoners. Teaching? Just about the same.

It appeared that he might end up working as a gas-station attendant, or a worker in the creamery.

But then gradually it came to his attention that there were two men in that town who weren't doing badly. They were the community's only two lawyers. He hadn't really paid any attention to them because they didn't have any direct bearing on his life. He went into the stores, and thus knew about storekeepers. He knew about the creamery operation because he often had to go there to buy butter and milk. He watched the garage-owner repair cars. He saw and heard much about the clergymen. .

But until he was a teenager, he somehow never paid much attention to the two lawyers. Yet, they were as prominent in their way as any other personages in the community. One was the mayor almost all the time Eddie was there, and he made speeches at the school and other places. The activities of both on civic boards was duly noted in the weekly newspaper put out at the county seat. He had often seen them in the drugstore or just strolling down the street. He didn't know where they were going, but it didn't concern him.

Gradually, however, he became aware that they were important men in the community. Little as the town budget was, it still was money, and the mayor had powers about who got what contracts, and he hired or appointed men to various jobs. Furthermore, Eddie heard about the money they made working at their actual jobs-law. Loads of money, according to what he heard. They settled estates, made wills, checked contracts, had something to do with deeds, and all that. It didn't sound too intriguing to Eddie, and he didn't like the sneering or laughing that went along with people's telling of these things-about money-grabbing lawyers, and such. Still, he noticed that most people were always trying to make fun of people who are, higher up on the social scale. And despite all the snide remarks, people wished to patronize these men ... or had to, which, to Eddie's way of thinking, was even better.

So it was that Edward decided on the law as his life work.

He left his foster home and that community for good when he was graduated from high school at the age of seventeen.

Though the boy was underage, his great-uncle and aunt did not try to stop him. They did not actively dislike him, but he was a burden and a responsibility that became harder to put up with as they went, into irritable old age.

Eddie had expected to go to the city with nothing but a suitcase packed with his few meager belongings. So it was with great, joyful surprise that he was told that his mother had left him a little money that he was to have gotten later, and his uncle had anted up a bit himself. It was less than $300-no great sum for a teenager going as a stranger to make his fortune in the big city-but it was a godsend to Eddie, who expected nothing.

He sat up all night on the train, arriving at the depot in the morning. Which is the way he planned it. He didn't want to get to the city at night and have to hurry around looking for a place to sleep. He had decided to select a cheap room near where he'd be going to school.

He realized that the best legal education would be obtained at the University, but it would be tough to get in there. The degree from his rural high school would be looked at askance there. Besides, he would have to go to classes during the day. Since he would be working his way through school, he thought he'd have a better chance of Jobs If he went to classes at night and worked days; so many other students wanted it the other way, and there were fewer jobs at night, what with some stores and other businesses closed in the evenings.

He had found out that there was an independent law college in the city, where night classes were routine. He knew he could pass their entrance examination, since it wasn't so difficult, because they catered not only to young students such as himself, but to older persons who wanted to study law for one purpose or another, such as business executives who wanted to know about certain marketing legislation, doctors who wanted some legal background for their types of cases, and politicians who wanted to keep up with what was happening in legislation.

Eddie was happy to discover the kind of location the law school had: it was within walking distance of both the central downtown district of this city of some half-million, and near a once-prosperous neighborhood that had become a section of shabby boarding houses. In the latter, he got himself a room for very few dollars a week. The business district would provide him with a ready source of job opportunities, he hoped.

It was far easier than he had expected to get hired as a bus boy in a fair-to-middling restaurant in an office building seven blocks away. That would be a strenous walk in winter's fierce blasts, but now in the nice autumn days, it was a breeze.

Not many of the city boys wanted such a job, he discovered, because the pay wasn't much, and the noon shift didn't bring him much in share of tips from the waitresses with whom he worked.

It was the food that drew him to the restaurant in the first place. Not the particular food they served, since he knew nothing of the place ... but just food in general. He thought of how nice it would be to work in a place like that. Food-all kinds of it, in abundance.

One meal a day was part of his pay. It was to be given to the help before the noon rush. Eddie was always there early, and he put away large quantities of food. He was sure the others laughed at his appetite, he being so skinny, yet gobbling away that way. He didn't mind. As a matter-of-fact, he laughed to himself about them: here they had a chance to eat free, but many of them just nibbled. Some were so sick of food after it being part of their jobs year after year that they just took a bite or two; they complained about how poor it was, and razzed the cooks. They smoked cigarettes and drank coffee instead, letting their plates of food grow cold and dropping ashes on them.

Not Eddie. He even took secret bites of leftovers on some plates. It was a shame the way some people wasted good food. He was careful of what he took from a used plate, but his hunger overcame his fastitidiousness. He supposed he'd get over his haunting lust for food sometime, and maybe it was good for his future that he worked there, so he'd become as blase about it as the waitresses were. But for now, he packed his gut every chance he got.

This was a great saving, because he consumed so much at work, he often didn't have to buy any other meal for the day. If he did, it was a cheap one. More often than not, he'd just buy some food that he could take back to his tiny bedroom and finish at will. Nothing hot, since he had nothing to cook it on-just cold stuff. But he got by, with the vast aid of the restaurant food, and he was delighted at how little of the $300 was going for living expenses.

Quite a hunk of it had gone for tuition at the school. And for a while, it appeared that it had been a very bad investment.

Law school was far, far tougher than he had thought it would be. His only measurement had been the school he had attended in that small town. He knew, of course, that any other school would be bound to be better and more difficult, but he had assumed that he had at least gotten a fairly good education, since he had a diploma recognized by the state. He came to see that his learning was vastly inferior to even the poorest available most other places. And while this law school wasn't supposed to be half as tough as the University, it was about six times as tough as Eddie had anticipated. He found he wasn't equipped to study-really study. He'd never learned how, back home. Furthermore, nobody at the law school cared how you did. You could flunk out, and they wouldn't be concerned one way or another; He'd sort of thought all schools were like that high school-teachers and officials always prodding you along, giving you more time, letting the laggards sort of set the pace. It was, after all, a public school, and they couldn't flunk everybody who deserved it or who wouldn't work hard; nobody would ever have been graduated if they had.

So that first-semester shock of higher education almost knocked Eddie out. But he stuck. He had been awakened to the fact that he knew very little and would have to work harder than he ever thought possible, to obtain his goals in life.

With this dash of cold water in his face, he reeled in dismay at the vastness of his undertaking.

Fortunately, into his life came Mrs. Hanover.

Mrs. Hanover was in her mid-twenties, and was as beautiful a woman as Eddie ever hoped to see. She had an exquisite face of classic loveliness, and she wore her dark hair in dramatic fashion. She always wore suits to the night classes-sometimes two-piecers, with a filmy scarf at the neck held by a brooch, sometimes a three-piecer, with a blouse that matched the lining of the jacket. Eddie knew next to nothing about clothes, but even he could see that they were expensive, very expensive. And it was rare to' see her in the same one twice-a new theatrical effect could be expected each time she appeared, with the lovely face showcased by the cut and coloring of her coordinated apparel, with each outfit having its own matching shoes.

There weren't a terrible lot of women students, but Mrs. Hanover would have stood out in any company.

So the men all tried to get chatting with her. All except Eddie. To him, just turned eighteen, she was an older woman, no matter how voluptuous. Furthermore, he was in desperate straits about his studies. So he kept his mind on his books, and when they got a coffee and cigarette break half-way through classes in the evening, he'd duck into an empty classroom to pore over his law books.

"You're having lots of trouble," she said. It was not a question, it was a statement. And a statement of fact, of course. He guessed that she was very in with all the professors, and knew exactly what was going on. He was angry that she knew he was doing poorly, and he might have made some sarcastic answer, except that she now flashed at him a smile so full of charm and yet so warmly understanding that he nearly melted on the spot. After a moment, she added, "Maybe I can be of some help."

She could indeed, as the months to follow proved.

Behind that Vogue exterior, Elizabeth Hanover was a miniature legal .library all to herself. She knew what Eddie should be emphasizing, what to ignore. She knew what instructors put stress on what points, so that he could fashion his work for the best grades.

He couldn't understand why she was taking this amount of bother with him, but he reveled in it. Just about every night, she'd bring her paper cup of coffee in and sit by the desk he'd taken, and aid and advise him.

In slow stages, she got him to tell about his back ground. But it didn't work the other way. She revealed little about herself. But then he didn't ask much. He was too shy anyway, and he didn't know the subtle means of getting others to talk.

One evening she mentioned that she had a whole slew of books about law and other subjects that she thought might be useful to him. Did he want them? Of course he did, and she said for him to drive home with her that night and he could lug them down to the car and she'd drive him to his place.

He didn't want that. He didn't want this nice and rich-woman to know what a hole he lived in. He asked her to bring the volumes a few at a time to the classes at night. She said no, she wanted to get rid of the whole lot at once-that's the way she was.

Her car impressed him-a long, low foreign job-but the apartment made him gasp. Outside of the movies, he hadn't seen such a place-eight gigantic (to him) rooms, all carpeted, all with decorator touches-oil paintings, candelabra, fragile cigarette and candy dishes, two-dollar magazines on the coffee tables, forty buck art books, fresh flowers-the works.

The housekeeper had let them in, and Mrs. Hanover perfunctorily inquired about the well-being of someone named Tommy. She later explained that this was her six-year-old son. She asked Eddie if he wanted some coffee before he undertook the task of carrying the boxes of books to the elevator, then to the car. He was embarrassed by the luxurious ness of the surroundings and wanted to duck out fast, so he said he didn't.

The boxes were packed with excellent books, he saw as he glanced at some of the titles. They were worth a couple of hundred dollars, but she was flip about it when he mentioned it. She didn't have room anyway, and these were of more help to a beginning student than to her; she'd been at the college for several years. He could tell that it really was a trifle to her ... and seeing that apartment of hers, he could see why.

He thought he'd die when she saw where he had to live, so on the way over, he sat in chilled silence. But she pretended not to notice his taciturnity, and chatted on and on to put him at ease, m front of his boarding house, she parked and waited cheerfully while he struggled up with the first two loads. Sweating under the bulk of the third, he stood by the door of her car and tried again to express fully his gratitude. But she reached over to close the door, first wrinkling her nose cutely at him, then zoomed off into the night. That facial expression was just a routine little mannerism with Elizabeth Hanover, but it had a devastating effect on young Eddie. Could it be that she was really as interested in him as he was getting to be in her? Certainly he could see no reason why she should be. Yet ... if not, why all this?

One night, during the break in classes, he was giving her a jocular account of living at the rooming house. It was his attempt, via humor, to make how poor he-was, how sparely he lived all unimportant.

He was especially comical about the troubles using the bathroom. You had to be an Olympic runner to get in before anybody else, and if you didn't hurry, somebody'd be pounding on the door in a few minutes. About the only time you could take more than a five-or ten-minute bath in the tub was about three o'clock in the morning, and even then people complained because, the pipes made so much noise.

Elizabeth laughed, and Eddie was relieved that she didn't seem at all disdainful of his living conditions. But his anecdotes led to a suggestion he hadn't expected at all. She said, "Tomorrow is the housekeeper's day off, Tommy is in school, and I'll be shopping. Come out and take a leisurely tub all afternoon, if you want."

He was taken aback, and he blushed, which made her smile appealingly. Eddie stammered, "I couldn't do anything like that!"

"Why not?"

He had no real reason why not-it just seemed such an un-likely situation. She persisted, with her cute little nose crinkle, and he said okay.

She picked him up after the noon rush at the restaurant. On the way out, he regretted giving in-he felt like a damned fool.

In the apartment, she said, "You have your choice. You could even use the housekeeper's bath, but she hasn't had a man in her tub for years." She laughed, and he thought she was thinking of a risque meaning. "Or my son's bathroom. But I guess not. He's got soap shaped like a six-gun, and there's Batman on all the wash cloths. I guess you're stuck with mine."

She led him through her bedroom, and it was so intimate in appearance and so feminine that he hardly lifted his eyes from the thick beige rug.

"Look," he said, "this is silly."

Elizabeth paid no heed. She went into the bathroom to turn on the lights. "Anything you want-bubble bath, scented soap, dusting powder." They both laughed. "That's it," she went on, "relax. Enjoy, enjoy."

She held the bathroom door and indicated with her head that he should go in. "Now," she told him, "get in and give me your underwear and socks."

"What?" he exclaimed.

"I'll put them in the washer out by the kitchen-they'll be clean and dry by the time you get out."

"No, no," he said, making foolish motions with him hands.

"Yes, yes," she mimicked. "You do it or I will."

He went in, and she partially closed the door, with her back to it. He said again, "I'd rather not."

"Well, I'd rather you did. There's nothing worse than getting all clean and nice out of a bath and having to get into clothes you've had on before. Now, will you do it, or do I have to come in and do it for you?"

"All right," he answered reluctantly.

She could hear the rustle of his clothing as he undressed. Finally he told her, "Here it is."

Elizabeth took it from the hand he had stretched around the door. "Honestly," she commented, moving away from the bathroom. "You males. So bashful. After all, I'm practically old enough to be your mother. I've got a boy of my own, you know."

She turned at the door of her bedroom and looked back to where Eddie was peeking out, waiting for her to leave. "I'll be back in about an hour. Luxuriate!"

He waited right where he was for about ten minutes. The laundry room was so far away in this big apartment that he couldn't even hear it when she started his wash. But he could hear the front door close when she left.

He felt foolish standing in that huge, feminine bathroom-bare naked. Cold, too, since he had been pressed up against the full-length mirror on the back of the door. Part of the chill was his uneasiness in this unusual situation. How stupid could he get? Why had he come here to take a bath, for crissake?

Eddie felt embarrassed at having to hand over his grayish, worn underwear, with the torn undershirt. And one sock had a hole in the toe. Handing them to a woman like that-who probably threw out clothes just because she got tired of them after a few wearings, not because they ever showed any wear.

But as long as he was here ... He shrugged and started the water in the tub. Well, he'd take a bath, but short. Then maybe he'd find the laundry room before she got back, get dressed, and get out of there before he appeared any more stupid or gauche.

While waiting for the tub to fill, he ventured out into her room. He felt daring and excited at being stark nude here in a strange place. Especially this place-her bedroom. He shivered-what if she should walk back in?

Well, he knew one thing-she certainly wasn't old enough to be his mother. And she may have had a son, but Eddie had no sonly feelings toward her. No indeed! He was a big boy, Eddie was. And she was a young, terribly attractive woman. He hoped with all his heart that she would reappear right then. What would he do? He looked down and smiled self-consciously. His manly part was telling what he should do if she came back. But would he? With her-this fine, rich woman?

He looked around her bedroom. It was more spacious than the first floors of some houses back home. There were more paintings, a gorgeous dressing table in the mirror of which-clear across the room-he saw his thin body. It embarrassed him, and he turned away. And there was the bed. King-size for that queen. There was a light-green spread. He pranced over to feel its silken quality. Did he dare? Why not? So he laid his bareness on the cool smoothness of it and shivered. He got up guiltily, smoothing the spread again.

What could he be thinking of? Why was he cavorting like this-like a stupid kid? He certainly shouldn't be thinking such sensuous thoughts, he admonished himself. Especially in this place offered to him by that gracious woman, who had just felt sorry for a poor kid and wanted to help him. And here he was thinking about himself and her in the sheets of that acre of bed. He should be ashamed.

Despite his resolution about hurrying through his bath and skedaddling out of there, he forgot it in the relaxation that came over him as he sank, himself into the warm water. He was like a little boy simplemindedly pouring in bath salt and bubble-bath and kicking up a foam. He lay back and inspected the bathroom. Never had he seen such a place. Gold handles. Faucets shaped like swans' necks with the water pouring out of the birds' open mouths. Bottles and tubes of stuff all over. The toilet concealed behind a wall which held planters and green shoots of some kind.

Eddie began daydreaming. He was owner of all this. Oh, he'd have selected different colors and decorations ... but in his imaginings, he had the money that all this represented. And Elizabeth-his mistress. Or wife. Lord, to have a woman like that! He'd have her come in and scrub his back. And then, he'd get out, and they'd go into the plush bedroom and then....

CHAPTER THREE

"HI, THERE. I'M BACK."

He was startled from his fantasizing. No voice from a dream, that. She was back.

He hadn't shut the door of the bathroom. It was about halfway open. As she came into her bedroom, she could see into the bathroom to see him in the tub. He blushed and felt like an idiot. She started toward the bathroom.

"Don't come in here," he exclaimed. Even to himself his voice sounded funny-panicky.

She stopped, laughing. "My goodness! I just thought maybe you'd like your back scrubbed."

Her words gave him an eerie feeling. That's just what he had been thinking. It was as if she had read his mind as she entered.

"No, no, that's all right," he told her, although in the back of his mind, he wanted to say, yes, yes. If he'd been more experienced. But he had had nothing to do with such a high-class person. What if he should let her come in and do his back? There were suds enough to conceal his private parts, but what if they should blow aside and she could see what now he felt-desire rising visibly again?

"Well, hurry up, slow-poke," she said.

"You go in the other room."

"All right."

She turned to go. He stopped her by saying, "Where's my underwear?"

"Come out and dress," she said. "I can't do that!"

"I'll get you a robe." She went to the closet that stretched one whole side of the bedroom and got her least feminine-looking bathrobe, but even that was too frilly for him.

"Get my underwear," he begged.

"I will," Elizabeth answered. "But come into the other room. Put a bath towel around you."

"Why?" he asked.

Elizabeth mischievously pretended to misunderstand. "Why? Well, I don't care if you want to come out like that."

"I meant why do you want me to come into the other room?"

"You'll see. A surprise," she replied airily, and left.

He Jumped out of the tub and wiped himself off hurriedly. He thought of putting on his outer clothes without his underwear, then thought that would be uncomfortable. Besides, if she wanted to play games, all right.

He took the biggest towel he could find and wrapped it around his waist. Then he ventured out of the bathroom, across the tickley beige carpeting, and went into the living room, with its dark maroon settee and arm chairs. She had just returned from the washer with his underwear in one hand. She held it up to him.

"Here," she said. He went toward her, but she teasingly moved her hand. He made another motion for his things, and she twisted her arm behind her back. This time he lunged for it, and caught the two pieces, but he was very close to her and his towel almost parted too much on one side. Blushing, he started for the bedroom.

"Put it on here," she ordered.

"Why?"

"Oh, you're so inquisitive," she commented, pretending annoyance, as she might have at any stubborn little boy. "Do as you're told." As he just stood there uncertainly, she said, "My goodness, I'm not going to peek-a-boo."

This made him feel very provincial, but he stepped back of the settee, and put the undershirt on, then carefully pulled up the shorts under the towel. He never took his eyes from her, half-afraid she'd try to surprise him at some inopportune moment and shout "Boo!" at him or something.

But Elizabeth was busy with a package that she had obviously brought back from her shopping trip. When it was opened, he saw it was a colorful sport shirt and a pair of slacks. She turned to him and bit her lip to keep from laughing as she saw how he cowered behind the settee, crouching a little, the towel still knotted firmly around his middle. She tossed the shirt to him. "It's one of those that should fit anyone of your build," she informed him. "Same with the pants-they have that elastic waist that's supposed to be all right for anybody."

Eddie was thoroughly puzzled. "These are for me?"

She sighed, "Who else, dummy?"

"But why?"

She was tired of his constant questioning and shot back, "They had a sale at the Salvation Army store. Put them on."

Slowly, he did. He took the pins out of the shirt and put it on. Then he stood looking at her until she got the message and turned away. He quickly dropped the towel and got into the trousers. He felt embarrassed when the zipper made a noise.

Elizabeth turned. When he still stood there, she ordered, "Well, come out from behind there. Let's see if I guessed right."

Eddie walked out, feeling foolish. And he reddened again when Elizabeth looked him up and down appraisingly, then wondered, "Are they too tight?"

He felt she was focusing right on his crotch, and the pants did seem too tight, but he turned away and told her hurriedly, "No, no, they're fine. But ... but...."

The woman finished for him, "But why? Your clothes are shabby," she said matter-of-factly. Eddie wanted to take offense at her words. His clothes were shabby, but it seemed the height of bad taste to hurt somebody by saying so. But she added, "I was poor. I know how it feels. I don't mean to hurt your feelings. Don't be proud-I mean false pride."

Mostly at that moment he thought about her statement that she had been poor. He had never thought about the source of her wealth-just the end result; the clothes, the car, the apartment. Only now did it occur to him that it was possible she hadn't always been this rich, even though she gave every indication that she had lived in luxury all her life.

But he couldn't quite come out and ask her openly about herself, and he let her guide him into another smaller sitting-room and asked him if he'd have tea ... or how about a small glass of sherry.

That sounded all right to Eddie, in a daze as he was. He didn't know what sherry was, and was pleasantly surprised to see the small glass of beautiful amber liquid which she magically produced from a small antique cabinet and whisked into his hand. He sipped at it and didn't like it, but pretended he'd been sipping sherry for years. Actually, he'd never had any alcohol other than some beer once in a while back in that small town, provided by some boy who had sneaked it from home or had some older friend buy it for him.

Despite his dislike of the drink, he poured it down. And she refilled his glass. He didn't know it, but it was getting to him. He was warming up. Relaxing and semi-dreaming again, as in the bathtub. He kept up a more animated conversation with Elizabeth than he ever had, laughing and making jokes. She liked him this way, he could see, enjoying himself and being his more normal self, not on guard as he had been. While he was talking, he was again fantasizing. Beautiful Elizabeth, he noted her every feature. She sat on the edge of a sofa, one hand on her hip, holding back her suit coat, the other with her glass. Her shapely legs shone in their nylons, revealing far above the knee. Her blouse bulged roundly with her breasts. What if he should reverse the process now?-Unzip these nice new slacks, unbutton and remove the shirt, and take her into the big bedroom with the lime bedspread...?

He had not only warmed by this time, but was sweating. He felt his tongue thicken, and he couldn't always find the right word he wanted. Well, what words did he need? he thought to himself. Just something like, Elizabeth, old dear-let's get to bed.

Just about that time, the doorbell rang, and Elizabeth got up to answer it. She returned in a minute with a little boy. In his stupefied condition, it took Eddie a long moment to realize this was Tommy, her son.

It flashed through Eddie's mind to be annoyed at this interruption. But interruption of what? some clear, inner voice snarled in question. Did he really think that he-Edward Kilby, a snot-nosed eighteen-year-old in torn (if clean) underwear was going to bowl over this goddess? By mental exertion, he tried to sober up. It didn't help, of course, but he was able to control himself enough to move with exaggerated but unstaggering gestures, and to not say much, so he wouldn't betray his condition.

Eddie was introduced to Tommy, and the little boy seriously shook hands and murmured, "How do you do?" He seemed a nice, polite little kid to Eddie, who now felt like a damned fool standing there in his bare feet.

Elizabeth asked him to stay for dinner with her and Tommy, and then she'd drive him to school with her when the baby-sitter came.

But Eddie wouldn't stay. He quickly got her to get his socks from the drier, and he had her wrap his old clothes in the paper from the store in which his shirt and slacks had come. She smiled, but did as he requested. She would have burned the worn stuff, but she knew how it was to be poor and to hang on to everything one could.

Eddie took the city bus to his boarding house. He threw himself on the bed and put his arm over his eyes. He still felt dizzy from the wine, but he felt shame too. He wasn't ungrateful, but he hated to be in the position of being pitied, to have someone else-a stranger, practically-buy him a gift because she felt sorry for him.

Someday he'd have money like that. Someday.

He didn't even try to get up to go to classes. He didn't feel good, in his stomach or his mind. And he didn't want to see his benefactoress right away again, either. He wanted to figure how he should meet this new development in his life.

Eddie was shy of Mrs. Hanover for the next few weeks, but she persisted in visiting with him at the school. Besides, did he really want to stay away from her altogether? he asked himself.

She puzzled him, no doubt of that, but what had he to lose, to associate with such a pretty-and rich-creature? Nothing to lose. And a lot to gain. He didn't like the idea of her giving him those clothes. " Didn't like the idea, but liked the clothes themselves. So he was torn two ways in his regard for her.

She asked him to dinner and he couldn't turn it down. Every meal he got free meant less expenditure.

It was a night that there were no classes. It was also the night that the housekeeper was off. This he noted, although he really didn't know what to make of it.

He thought he'd please her by wearing the sports shirt and slacks she had purchased for him. But when she opened the door to admit him, she raised her eyes in mock dismay, "A sports shirt for dinner!" Then she added, "We'll have to get you a suit."

That made Eddie uneasy again. He hadn't wanted things to go that way-he looked like he was hinting.

But Elizabeth dismissed the subject; Eddie could tell that she had decided she would buy him a suit and that was that-no discussion necessary.

She had prepared the meal and it was excellent. It was expensive food-the best steaks-but plainly done, suited to an uncultivated male taste. And there was wine-several kinds. She proved herself a very capable little housewife and superb companion.

The only drawback to the early evening, as Eddie saw it, was Tommy. Not that her son was in any way bratty or loud or even obtrusive in any boisterous way. He was just there. His presence added an unwanted note for Eddie. A realistic note. He wanted Elizabeth to be an airy princess of his dreams. But this kid was a living, breathing proof that she was a flesh-and-blood woman who had done that earthy, sex business with some guy-and had this product to show for it. It was for Eddie like grasping a beautiful and ethereal sprite-and having her burp in his face.

But after dinner, the boy went off to parts unknown in the apartment house, while Eddie and Elizabeth sipped their brandy from great snifters. The first gulp of it and he choked. And that's what he'd done gulped it like beer. Wow! His eyes watered.

"Slowly, dear," she admonished him. "You don't drink brandy like this-old as the hills. You breathe it in and you sip." She slouched down comfortably in her chair in the little sitting-room, easing off her shoes. She made him refill his glass and bring her a little more. She wanted him to know his way around, it seemed.

At about nine o'clock, she went to get the boy from his playroom and put him to bed. While she was gone, he helped himself to a little more brandy. In fact, quite a bit more. That was a relative matter-quite a bit-it didn't seem like much in the glass, but when the golden fire rolled down his throat like lava, it was indeed a great deal. A great deal too much for a young man who wasn't used to it. He hated the burn of it at first, and the fumes that came up to sting his nostrils, but soon it didn't matter-he wasn't noticing these effects any longer.

When Elizabeth returned, he stood up, unsure on his feet, and mentioned that it was time for him to be getting along home.

Her big, dark eyes opened in amused surprise. "Why Eddie, the evening is just beginning."

In her stocking feet, Elizabeth led him off to her bedroom, holding his hand as he stumbled a little.

"Where are we going?" Eddie asked in a daze. "What do you want?"

With her free hand, Elizabeth slapped her forehead in mock dismay. "What a question!"

He felt very uneasy there in her bedroom again. It was partly his mental unease-not knowing what was going on-and partly the drink.

Eddie stammered, "I-I gotta-you know-go." He indicated her bathroom where he'd taken his leisurely tub several weeks back.

"So go," she shrugged, smiling. "But hurry back."

He went inside and closed the door. After relieving himself, he went to the basin and turned on the water, then went back to flush the toilet; he was still a very young boy, embarrassed by such functions. Then he returned to the sink and splashed cold water on his face several times. He grabbed a big towel and wiped his face vigorously.

There. He felt better. He'd go out there, say goodbye and leave. He didn't know what she was up to, but he was the kind of guy who didn't like puzzles everything should be clear cut, and this was a very peculiar setup indeed.

He opened the door, determined to give a curt good-bye and then out the door.

And there was Elizabeth, with her back to him, in front of her big dressing-table mirror, just dropping the black nightgown over her startlingly nude body.

Eddie didn't leave, of course.

His first reaction was one of utter stupefaction. He stood in the doorway of the bathroom stupidly, just holding on to the knob. A moment before, he thought he had been almost sober. Now everything became clouded in pink again. He wasn't seeing clearly, he wasn't thinking clearly, nothing seemed to have any order or time element. Had he just had dinner and brandy?-or was that two days ago? Had he just been to the bathroom, throwing water in his face?-or was that sometime this morning?

As much as the drink, her body dazzled him. He could only gulp air as he had the brandy. It was as if he had come across some nymph in the forest ... some creature so perfect that she wasn't meant to be viewed by mortal eyes.

But she was real, all right. And she was very mortal.

"Well, there you are," she said, in her bright tones. "Ready?"

He couldn't even answer. He couldn't move from the spot.

He had just a glimpse of her-yet it was engraved on his mind. Just a second or two to take it all in-her back to him, her front reflected in the mirror. Yet he would never forget.

Everything about her body was so symmetrical, so perfect. Her back narrowed in to the tiny waist, and then came to gorgeous globes of her buttocks. And the tantilizing glimpse of her breasts-again just at the point of being over-done; but just at that point ... perfect in their white erectness and their pink circles.

He tried to get control of his faculties. Well, had she given him this quick peek just to show an underprivileged boy what a goddess looked like? He should go now.

But wait! he told himself, as he hadn't moved and still slumped dumbly against the doorframe. Wait. She had used the word "ready". Ready for what?

Elizabeth wasn't going to keep him wondering long. She held out her arm to him as she walked from the dressing table to near the huge bed with its lime-colored spread. "Come along, darling. It isn't polite to keep a lady waiting. Don't you know that?"

His eyes focused on her as she moved. The gown was flowing tightly against her body. It wasn't quite see-through, but he knew what was under there and his mind pictured it all.

Eddie pushed himself away from the bathroom door, going to her awkwardly. "Why me?" he said in a daze.

"I like you," she said with a kittenish fervor that was partly mocking, partly ardent. "Hurry, lover."

But Eddie couldn't hurry. His hands fumbled until she laughingly knocked them aside. She unbuttoned his shirt and unzipped his slacks, pushing them down over his hips. He tried to stop her. "Can you do the rest yourself?" she asked, and turned toward the bed.

Elizabeth pulled back the covers revealing the dazzlingly white sheets. She hopped in, her black nightie showing in sharp contract to the bedclothes. She turned to him.

Eddie was reluctantly pulling off his clothes. He was reluctant not because he didn't want to be in there with her, but because of the process of getting there-stripping down while she watched. And with his present state of alert desire that was pushing out very conspicuously at his shorts.

He'd been naked with girls before, but that seemed different. They were farm girls and they would rut together. But with this perfection of bodily grace waiting for him there in bed, Eddie felt entirely unworthy.

But Elizabeth would make a game of it. "Come on, bashful," she prompted. "Look, I won't look." Very ostentatiously, she covered her eyes with her hands. "I won't peek."

Eddie turned aside from her direct view before he at last wiggled out of his shorts. He hurried toward the bed and she threw out her arms wide, laughing, "I peeked!"

Then Elizabeth put her arms around his neck and drew him down on her. She wiggled her bottom a little so that her nightgown crept up enough to match his nakedness below the waist.

His mind may not have been ready for this, but his body certainly was and he surged at her.

She closed her eyes and groaned as he took possession of her. "Oh, Eddie," she moaned softly, "no need for you to be ashamed to undress in front of anybody in the world! Nothing at all to be ashamed of, honey!"

He reflected later than he did himself proud-that first round. He had brought her up to the point when she could hardly stand it, and then he had laid it on fast and furious and she had damned near gone out of her head.

How she liked it!

It was after the first that he saw himself an inexperienced-newcomer up against a past-master of the game ... and a real, true lover of the sport.

Elizabeth hardly let him pause to get his breath. She wanted more. Then the alcohol was getting in his way for sure. This time he was able to get the same sturdy weapon at the target, but he himself couldn't make it over the top of the roller-coaster and into the screaming downhill thrill of climax.

Ironically, this didn't impede Elizabeth at all. In fact, it was all the better, because his cock was paying her erect attention and she could play off herself, while he gruntingly tried to get relief. In fact, she had two more dazzling displays of pleasure under his piston-like attacks, before he was able to dissolve into a forgetful spasm of climax.

And it was really forgetful-he practically passed out from the brandy and exertion. His chest heaved as he gasped for breath through his open mouth. He kept his eyes closed and his head buried in the soft mound of snow-white pillow.

He must have slept. He awoke with a start-it must have been an hour or so later.

Elizabeth sat in an armchair, reading a book. She had on glasses with dark frames. They didn't distract from her beauty; hardly anything would have. When she heard him stir, she took off the spectacles and looked at him, smiling.

She got up. She had a beautiful wrapper on now. "What a lazy-bones," she chided. "I've taken a bath and read half of a terrible detective story." She poured a cup of coffee from a silver carafe. She came to him as he sat up, his bare torso looking golden in that light, reflected off the lime spread.

Eddie took and then let out a long breath. "That was the end."

Her smile dazzled him-those white teeth, the eyes crinkled up in satisfaction, the lovely disarray of her raven hair. "Oh, no, Eddie," she said softly. "That was just the beginning."

CHAPTER FOUR

EDDIE WAS IN PARADISE. HERE HE WAS, A TEENager hardly one step above destitution, yet he was making out with a gorgeous woman who obviously had years of erotic, exotic experience behind her. And he was pleasing her.

It was an adventure not without its material rewards, either. She kept her word about the suit-a tailored job. And she gave him a couple of sweaters, and slipped him some cash for some new shoes.

But the real beauty of the whole affair was that he was falling in love with this doll. What had started as a weird experience with a kooky dame had developed into a real thing with Eddie. He thoroughly enjoyed the way she turned him and herself on in bed, but he just liked being with her and talking to her. She was a charmer.

Yet, if he had ever paused to take stock of what she had said in all those conversations, he would have found that she didn't tell him a thing about her personal life. On, there were opinions and feelings and ideas, but nothing concrete about Elizabeth Hanover.

Then one night, he was at her place for dinner, and was making himself very much at home. He had his coat off, his tie loosened. Elizabeth was cooking that night-Eddie was always there for a session in bed on the housekeeper's night off-and she hurried Tommy through the meal. Eddie didn't even bother to ask why.

The doorbell rang and she went to answer it. She returned moments later with a man of about forty-five, well and expensively dressed. The man looked at Eddie, and it wasn't a baleful look, but Eddie sensed the unfriendliness there.

"Oh, Eddie," Elizabeth said blithely, "this is my ex-husband, George. George, Eddie Kilby."

Eddie stopped eating in mid-bite. He was so surprised that he couldn't say a thing in acknowledgement; he just nodded dumbly at the man.

Elizabeth continued airily. "George is taking our son to the circus tonight. He should take him Saturday, but George has to be out of town. So I let him change his visitation day." The mockery in her voice was very, very concealed, but there was no doubt it was there. She was making fun of busy George who had to fly off to some business conference or other-busy, important George, the slightly sarcastic tone intimated-and also making fun of her own tiny gesture of generosity about letting him get to see his own son and take him to the circus.

After George left with his son, Eddie quickly went to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a sturdy swig of brandy. He had been taught now to sip, but he needed the solid snort.

"Whoa, lover," Elizabeth chided. "You have a long evening ahead of you and you'll need a clear head."

"For what?" he asked stupidly.

"For what?" Elizabeth echoed. "For the reason you come here,"

"I come here because-because I like you."

"Sweet," she answered. Could he detect a slight tinge of irony and sarcasm in that? Or was he getting too sensitive, looking deep into everything for hidden meanings?

He knew she was talking about making love, but it seemed out of the question tonight. Somehow it seemed inappropriate. He couldn't have expressed what he felt, but it was somehow unseemingly that they should be enjoying sex while the ex-husband was getting the son out of the way for a few hours.

As if reading his thoughts, she moved right on: "We can start early tonight. We won't have to wait until Tommy is in bed." She laughed.

He was puzzled by so many mysterious things about the situation. Almost in a daze, he blindly followed her into the bedroom. He wanted to say many things and ask many questions, but all that dissolved as she turned her back to him and asked him to unzip her dress.

He was lost in the aura of her magnetism. It was a treat to help undress her. His fingers fumbled' at her brassiere hooks. "Your fingers are so cold," she squealed. They were cold, because he was shivering in anticipation. His mouth literally watered for her, and all his warmth was flowing downwardwhere it would count in a few minutes.

Elizabeth pulled the dress and loose bra up over her head in one quick movement, letting the things drop from her fingers. She kept her arms high in the air, which made her lovely breasts stand out startlingly.

With trembling hands, Eddie peeled down her pantie-girdle, with her nylons attached. He sank to his knees beside her as he did so, and as she gently kicked the stockings from her feet, he embraced her and kissed her thigh.

The lovely nude wanted to play turnabout and strip him down, but Eddie slapped her playfully on the butt, telling her to climb into bed, that she'd be too slow undressing him.

She had hardly gotten between the sheets when he proved how fast he could strip for action-he was right there practically attacking her.

After their first furious bout of lust, she whooped once in exuberant spirits, as he rolled off exhausted, and she flailed one bare arm against the rumpled sheets. "The night is young," she exclaimed, "and we can do it over and over and over."

He smiled tiredly. "Well, maybe not that often."

She closed her eyes, smiling contentedly. "When I was in college, one of the girls I knew went with a boy they called Seven-Up. That wasn't because of what he drank," she laughed wickedly, "but because he could pop seven times in one night."

"I don't believe it," Eddie commented.

"They swear it's true. Why not? Couldn't you?"

He turned his face. It wasn't so much embarrassment at the conversation being directed his way, but because it sank in that she'd had so much more experience than he did.

Eddie had come to care so much for Elizabeth that he resented any prior events in her life. It was this that kept him from asking questions. He was jealous of anything that had to do with her that he hadn't shared in. That was idiotic, he knew that in his rational mind. But then love was idiotic in many ways. Love? Was that it? he asked himself. Was he in love? What else?

And it was that love that made him jealous and angry about her past. He didn't want Elizabeth to have been so experienced. He didn't want her to laugh intimately about some kid nicknamed Seven-Up. At the same time it nagged Eddie: was Elizabeth telling the truth when she said that this sexual superman was the boy friend of her friend ... or was she perhaps concealing from him, through that guise, the fact that she knew him-knew him intimately? And if not that guy, what others? Just her husband? It could be, perhaps-yet what he knew of her gluttonous appetite for sex ... he wondered.

He didn't make seven in the one evening. But then, Eddie wasn't trying for any records. In fact, he thought the three times they coupled in close fury was pretty fair, especially considering the short time in which he accomplished the job. He hurried because he wanted to get out of there.

But. Elizabeth said, "Oh, no, don't run off. You've got to stay until they get back."

That's just what he didn't want to do. He hoped to be off and away. He asked, "Why? Are you afraid of him?"

Elizabeth burst out laughing in reply, practically choking as she said, "No!" But she would give no explanation, say anything more to shed some light for Eddie's benefit.

So he stayed, nervously. He had taken up smoking and now he chain-smoked cigarettes while they waited. Eddie tried to make himself as presentable as possible. Not Elizabeth. In fact, just the opposite. She put on a short, thin negligee. It left no doubt that she hadn't a stitch on underneath. Eddie wanted to tell her to put something more appropriate on, but he didn't; he also wanted to know why she was doing this but he couldn't quite work up to making a bald demand for an explanation.

So that's how they were when George Hanover brought Tommy home from the circus: Elizabeth looking exactly like a woman would after tumbling in bed for a couple of hours, and Eddie trying to disguise the fact that he'd been part of the tumbling-so neat that it appeared as patently phony as he felt.

Tommy was so excited by his evening out that he didn't notice the strained air between the two men. The boy jabbered about the elephants and about the food he'd been stuffed with. Elizabeth made some none-too-subtle remark about George's purchasing affection. She sent their son off to get into his pajamas and then blithely dismissed George with a flip, "Night."

He left, very ungraciously, glaring at Eddie.

And Eddie didn't stay very long after that. At the door, he wanted to embrace Elizabeth and get one of those hot, tonguey kisses. But she moved out of his reach and when he said, "Good night," she reached out, patted his cheek gingerly and said matter-of-factly, "Good-bye."

In his mind Eddie dismissed Elizabeth's "Goodbye" as a slip of the tongue. And yet ... It bothered him when he got outside the apartment house and on the street.

But his thoughts along that line were interrupted by George Hanover's emerging from the front door behind him, hurrying along until he almost ran into Eddie before recognizing him.

George was putting away what was obviously his checkbook. He looked Eddie up and down in utter hatred and disgust. He spit out, "When will you be able to pay $600 a month rent?" Then he attempted to brush by Eddie to get to his car. But Eddie put his hand up to the other man's shoulder to stop him.

"What do you. mean by that?" He was determined not to take any guff from this middle-aged guy who had possessed his beloved.

George hit the hand aside, and shot back, "Who do you suppose pays the rent on that place? How much do you contribute?"

Eddie began, "Well, someday...."

George interrupted, scoffing, "Someday! Someday you may be able to afford the toilet paper for her three bathrooms."

"Well, she won't be taking anything from you when I marry her."

"Marry her?" George laughed sardonically. "I wonder how many of you hot-pants kids thought they were going to marry that bitch?"

The anger flared up in Eddie and he tried to grab this man who had insulted his girl. But that very anger made him a poor fighter, and George whirled, his fist connecting with the side of Eddie's face. Eddie went down, and George went to his car. A moment later, he had zoomed off into the dark.

The blow had stunned Eddie, of course-George was strong for a middle-aged man, he noted wryly-but it was more than that.

First there had been her "good-bye," and now this terrible insinuation from her ex-husband about other hot-pants boys. Just what the hell was it all about?

The next evening that she should have been at law school, she wasn't there. And then when she was, the following night, he only saw her at a distance. He had gone into their favorite meeting place at the coffee break, that empty classroom where she'd first approached him, but she didn't come in. He could hardly believe it. This was almost a shrine to him now, having initially becoming acquainted with her there. And she was ignoring his shrine. She was avoiding him, he had to conclude. But why?

The very next night, he tried to talk to her in the hall. She was cordial but hurried, breezing right on by. Afterward he tried to catch her before she left the main doorway, but she scooted on ahead. He spotted her car, and then, with a sinking heart, he saw that beside her as she sped off, there was a young man, a fellow student.

Eddie was so ill at this sight that he had to grasp the iron railing.

He pondered and brooded about all this the entire night and the next day. By this time, he was as angry as he was heart-sick. That damn minx! He'd go out there and have the whole mess brought into the open.

He knew if he went later, she might be gone, or-worse-entertaining some guy like that young law student she rode off with. And entertaining him regally-in the sack!

So he went to Elizabeth's apartment at about 4:30. She seemed surprised to see him, but not perturbed. It was that that really made him. mad. It was frustrating that she wasn't even emotional enough about the situation to be frightened of his glare. He'd hoped she was going to be angry herself-it was useless and maddening to attempt to have a war of words if one party is just calm and aloof.

In his up-tight condition-and meeting coolness instead of a blazing opponent-Eddie stammered out all that had happened. He told Elizabeth about being hit by her ex-husband and of what George had insinuated about her love life with other men. And he accused her of seeing that other young law student.

But her only reply after a deafening pause was "So?"

So? So?

He was furious, but he was also very hurt. She calmly lit a cigarette and said, "Why are you so upset?"

He could only stupidly echo, "Why am I so upset? Because I love you and want to marry you."

"I'm touched, baby," she said in a level tone, "but, honey, I get almost fifty thousand dollars a year in alimony and child support. Didn't you know that George Hanover is a millionaire? Many times over. How many centuries before you could afford that kind of support?"

"What does it matter? I love you."

"Oh, come off it, lover." She rolled her eyes up in exasperation at his melodramatic words. "You enjoyed a few of the fruits of that cash. The suit, the sweaters, like that. You enjoyed me, a million-dollar lay. But how would you like it living in a tenement with cockroaches-and me in a dirty wash dress instead of a black negligee?"

"I love you. The rest doesn't matter."

She laughed, loud and even vulgarly. "Oh, Eddie, honey, you're so incredibly young!"

Eddie lashed back, "What are you-some kind of a monster that you can treat me like this T

"I'm a woman who's got many of the best things in life, Eddie. And I got all of it by my lonesome-me alone going out and getting it. And I'm going to keep it. I'm not giving up anything for you and the thousand next youngest, handsomest studs in the universe. I was poor, Eddie-dirt poor-when I was young, and I like what I got. I appreciate it!"

"I've got money coming out of my ears. I've got all the male companions I want. And I'm improving myself. I mean, glimpsing the world George is in, I saw how ignorant I was. That's why I do things like go to law school, take art lessons, go to concerts. Someday, Eddie, I'll have the taste of poverty out of my mouth."

Eddie got up. He felt faint and sick. "I'll be going. I'll use your bathroom first," he said.

But Elizabeth guided him to the door. "I've got to hurry, Eddie. I'm very rushed. There's a gas station down around the corner. Go there."

And except for seeing her occasionally, that's the last contact Eddie had with his lovely lover, Elizabeth Hanover.

CHAPTER FIVE

YEARS AFTERWARD, EDDIE WAS TO LOOK BACK and wonder why that whole deal with Elizabeth should have thrown him for such a loop. After all, she was right-he should have felt himself fortunate to get a million-dollar lay with no strings.

But at the time, things were seen in a different perspective. He thought he was in love with her. Of course, he had no genuine, solid plans about what he'd do to attach her to him-him with no money and damn poor prospects for the future. Everything was against anything permanent there-Elizabeth with her caviar tastes, the fact that she was older, more experienced, and such a jewel of a female form that men would compete for viciously for years yet, until the bloom wore off.

So it was that the fact he'd been used as her plaything and as an object just to bug her ex-husband, all this crushed young Eddie into a funk. Despondent to an extreme, he didn't really want to live. He stopped going to his job and he stopped going to classes. Finally he came out of the blues enough to believe that he might be helped if he changed his surroundings. He had made some friends at the school who lived near the University, and he moved in with one of them in a run-down student apartment house near the school.

For a job, he got work nights at a beat coffeehouse on the border of the campus. It didn't pay as well as his other restaurant job, and there was hardly any food to speak of, mostly just coffee, sweet rolls, donuts, cake and like that. But on the other hand, he didn't have to work as hard, either. The proprietor of the Blue Cow was twenty-five-year old Sam, who ran the place mostly for his own amusement. They didn't do a terrific business, and Eddie just helped-helped at anything and everything, from sweeping to waiting on customers to sitting down and talking to patrons who just wanted that.

Because of the horrible mental anguish Eddie had been undergoing, he really didn't observe his new place of employment for about two. weeks. And it might have been longer than that if he hadn't chanced to overhear some stranger talking about the Blue Cow. The man had snickered and termed the Blue Cow a "queer joint".

At first, this puzzled Eddie. There was little doubt that the man was using the word to mean the same as odd or peculiar. On the other hand, Eddie knew so little about homosexuals that he just didn't know what to make of a "queer joint". Hell, he had but only the vaguest idea of a homo when he was back home, and while he'd picked up some salacious hearsay while in the city,' mostly he heard little aside digs about their activities, and very little real information.

Now that the notion was planted in his noggin, however, it became evident as he looked back that the Blue Cow did have some fairly weird-appearing patrons. But then, the campus and its environs was full of weird people-the bearded beats; the longhaired girls with faces whiter than death; the folksingers who went everywhere with their guitars, even to the rest rooms; the protestors who were ready in a minute to parade banners against war or against a no-smoking ban in classrooms; the jolly "extra girls available for every party or outing who hadn't opened a book since they "left home to complete their educations".

But until then, Eddie had never noticed that most of the customers of the Blue Cow were male. Once in a while there had been a girl, but she appeared to be just a close friend of a couple of the guys-yet not romantically, Eddie realized now. And there had been girls with relatively normal-looking young men; these, Eddie sensed, were sort of slumming, they were sight-seeing in the queer joint-it was, for them, sort of a local version of some touristy perversion palace in Paris.

His new knowledge of his place of work didn't bother Eddie one bit. It probably would have some months before, but not now. In fact, it seemed fittingly ironic that he should land there-he who had been so ill-treated by a female. He wasn't, of course, ready to flip over womankind forever, but on the other hand he wasn't going to go right back and become involved again immediately with female flesh. This didn't mean he'd experiment with the denizens of the Blue Cow, but now he felt, in a way, safe in there-a haven from the lure of luscious, softfeminine busts and bottoms..

And he'd been there two weeks, and hadn't even had an inkling of what it was like, so he couldn't feel that just being a flunky at the Blue Cow was going to debase or seduce him.

There was nothing terribly shocking ever happening in the coffee house. Later, Eddie realized that this was because no liquor was served there. If there had been, he was sure there would have been as many unseemly displays among these male couples as there would have been among male-female pairs in regular bars. But the Blue Cow was just a quiet meeting place for the gay guys. Every group needs a social gathering point, and this happened to be it for this border of the campus for the homo element.

After midnight one Friday, Eddie was asked by his boss if he'd like to make a little extra cash. He wanted Eddie's help in catering some food to a party. Eddie didn't know Sam could cook. There were stoves and ovens in the kitchen of the Blue Cow, but other than making coffee and an occasional hamburger, nothing was ever prepared there. That night, however, Sam worked like a demon. There were exotic seafoods, pizzas, complicated stews. He carefuUy placed all in containers to keep them warm and he and Eddie loaded them into his station wagon.

The house which was the scene of the party proved a surprise. Judging from the people he had seen in the Blue Cow, Eddie would have guessed it would range from a tenement to a fairly nice apartment. But nothing this elegant.

His only criterion for comparison was Elizabeth's place. This was probably not furnished quite so expensively, but it was, on the other hand, more elegant. The only room in Elizabeth's apartment that had been almost garish in heightened effect was her bedroom; well, in this house, every room was way out. They were elegant to the point of preciousness. It came as no surprise, after his stunned eyes had taken in most of the establishment, that two interior decorators shared these quarters.

Although obviously there was wealth represented here, and the guests were far out of Eddie's class, there was no snobbery toward him. In fact, he was not treated as the guy who helped cater the food. Some of them knew Eddie from seeing him at the Blue Cow, and greeted him as an acquaintance. He was handed a drink and made to feel at home.

It was excellent, aged Scotch in his glass, but Eddie didn't know that. He just knew it was very strong and he didn't like the taste one bit. However, he swigged at it, and he moved from one group to another, or they moved him.

When he had finished that glass, another was handed him-almost automatically, nobody really asking him what he "wanted, if anything-and he sipped at that. The fact that this one was bourbon and the next was vodka didn't make any impression on Eddie. He was unused to liquor; if he'd thought about it rationally at all, he would probably have had respect for it, so that he'd be cautious of it. Somehow-despite his experience with brandy and wine-he still thought of liquor as he knew it from the movies when he was a kid: people tossed off great glassfuls of it and it didn't stagger them. He thought it was just sort of adult soda-pop.

Within an hour or so, the party was hopping. Just like any other party, Eddie noted. Well, not quite, he had to qualify, since there were only males here. But the music was getting louder, just like at any other party, because people kept turning the volume up as the voices kept going up; it was a shrill competition, and the alcohol was egging all of them on.

Somebody handed him a fresh drink, and then he had to get to the bathroom; too much drinking.

Eddie managed to get up the wide curve of the staircase to the second floor. Following directions toward the bath, he went through a really charming sitting room. There were several couples there, chatting and laughing, but what brought up Eddie's attention sharp were the paintings, statues, and books. At first, he saw them only hazily, through his drink-distorted, weary eyeballs. But then he noticed that they were different art objects from any he had ever seen. Like the guests, they were all male. There was a huge painting of two men-naked. In an ordinary home, Eddie realized mistily, you'd see a big painting like that of a naked goddess or something, and you'd just appreciate it as a piece of art. But this painting of two naked men-well, it was no great work of art. It was obscene. And there was a white marble statue of two men, and they were-yes, there was no mistake-they were coupling like animals. There were other paintings and statues on just about the same theme, as well as huge, obviously expensive books that Were open to illustrations of men in various poses, and magazines with such pictures-and every one a nude.

Eddie smiled to himself. He was seeing all this, but he had the smug satisfaction of knowing he was normal and he was an outsider getting a first-hand look, but untouched by their perversion. He went on to the bathroom.

It was far more feminine than even that French whore-house decor of Elizabeth's bath. Eddie was just taking in all these observations, the casual observer of a peculiar facet of life. He wandered out of the bathroom, but he left by the door opposite the one he'd entered.

And-good Lord!-there in a bedroom was another twosome involved in coupling. Only this pair was life, and there was nothing of the quiet statue about them. This was flesh, this was for real.

Eddie took in the whole tableau in a moment, then backed out, going through the bathroom again.

He was laughing by the time he got to the parlor again. A few hours before, such a scene would have shocked him to the core, and perhaps so disgusted him that he would have had to vomit.

But now Eddie stood there snorting with laughter. The men in the room looked at him. One or two sniffed at his obvious drunkenness, but the others were gently amused by this boy.

Eddie was thinking of how funny they all were, and of the ludicruous scene of lust he had witnessed in the other room. It was funny-two men doing that. But then-to be objective, he admitted-he had to see all sex acts as funny, right now, in his present frame of mind. Sure it was ridiculous to see men going at it like that ... but was it any less funny how worked up he had gotten about Elizabeth? Was his panting and raving and frothing at the mouth as he thrashed on the mattress with her, much less silly? No, he had to tell himself, it all amounted to getting your gun off and any other explanation was just so much romantic dribble.

The guests gathered around Eddie. Someone gave him another drink. Eddie tried to talk with them, but found his tongue too thick to make it get out all the sense he wanted to; words slurred and then sentences slid away before he'd quite got them all completed.

What he was trying to say was how funny he found their entire setup here-the two men working away like animals for their satisfaction back there in a bedroom; the artsy conversation they were making in all the rooms of the house; the dancing together; those funny drawings and statues.

He couldn't quite get it all out in words, because he felt so woozy, and at the same time so amused that he could hardly keep from shouting with gleeful laughter.

Well, he'd show them what he thought was so funny. Staggering and weaving, he threw off his coat and took off his shirt. He ripped some buttons doing it, but he got the shirt away from his thick fingers finally, and tore the stupid undershirt off. Bare to the waist, Eddie stood by one of the white statues and made fun of the pose of one of the naked men. He laughed uproariously at his own sense of humor and parody. The others laughed with him. Eddie's head was spinning and he had to lean against the statue to keep from falling. Some of the guests swiftly grabbed him-not only to keep the statue from being toppled, but to keep Eddie from slamming to the floor and hurting himself.

They were with him all the way in his fun-making now. They laughed and chortled and made little jokes as they took the rest of the clothes off him. He tried to stop them, but his efforts were feeble. Not only was he so drunk, but he was laughing. Everything struck him as funny. Even their dainty hands seemed to tickle him as they "unveiled" him, as one called it.

Well, what the hell? He'd show 'em what a man looked like. He posed now beside some of the other statues, mocking the fragile, queer beauties.

And then there was one of the guests naked beside him, and the naked man abetted Eddie in making sport of the lewd art. Eddie didn't feel peculiar about being naked now-it seemed okay, like after gym classes in high school.

One of the guests had a Polaroid camera, and he took a photograph of Eddie with the nude companion. He ripped off the shot and handed it to Eddie. Eddie threw back his head and laughed-it was so ridiculous to see the two of them aping the beautiful statue. It struck Eddie especially funny that the statue was all white, while he and the boy had hair that showed up startlingly dark against their skin. He and his fellow model skipped over to be beside a huge painting, and again the young man with the camera snapped their picture. And then another.

Eddie had looked directly into the bright, flashing light that last time, and it seemed to stagger him even more. All he could see for several moments was big blinding lights that got larger then receded, then got big again. He put his hand up to his eyes, then held his head. His head was swimming, and his legs became weak. It wasn't the light now-it was nothing from outside, but all that liquor taking effect. He felt he was going to throw up and he felt as if he was fainting. Eddie passed out.

He awoke early the next morning. Someone was shaking him. It was Sam. He hadn't seen his boss for hours the night before, and now couldn't place him or his surroundings.

Sam got him up, and Eddie slowly, painfully got in his clothes. His clothes had been tossed on the bed, and the bed was in a bedroom on the second floor of that place. There was one of those Polaroid pictures on his coat, and Sam stuck it in Eddie's pocket before helping him on with the coat.

He wouldn't think any more of what might have gone on while he was out cold-that was over and past. In his pocket he found that awful picture. He started to crumple it up, then thought, No, by God, I'll save it. He wanted to be reminded of what a damn fool he'd been, and what might happen again if he went to dumb places and drank too much.

He put the photograph in a safe place among his possessions.

And he kept the resolutions he made to himself while that hideous hangover was upon him: he would quit the Blue Cow. Furthermore, he'd go back to law school and complete his education-and make something of himself.

CHAPTER SIX

ALTHOUGH HE HAD STEELED HIMSELF TO FACE the ordeal of having to see the beautiful Elizabeth Hanover on a regular basis-and thus perhaps have his passions aroused again-Eddie was spared. Elizabeth had begun to be bored by her studies for the moment, and had left on a trip to the Caribbean. He was happy about that, and now he could give his full attention to his studies.

That is, as full as he could, considering that he had to always have an outside job in order to get the cash for his tuition, rent, meals and other necessities.

From then on, he just had to take part-time chores to get a little extra spending money. He didn't need much of that because he had little outside life, beyond his studies. If he had a beer once in a while, that was about it. He never splurged at this point in his life, because he kept his eye on the future, when he'd have all the luxuries he wanted. With such self-discipline, he was able to fill up on watery soup, knowing some day he'd have steaks up to his armpits if he wanted them.

He had little time for socializing, even with fellow law-students, much less with dates. Dates cost money ... except....

Except that Eddie had an angle here also. If he really needed sex badly, he seemed forever able to get hold of some homely girl in the neighborhood who would to it just for the sake of his company. Eddie was good-looking and he had a certain grace that passed for gentlemanliness and shyness. He never revealed his inner self to any of them-his thoughts or dreams or ambitions-and they were content with the nice, smooth surface he presented.

At first, Eddie was a bit ashamed at how he was treating these girls, but after a while he came to justify it by saying, What the hell, I'm giving them something too.

So it didn't batter his conscience much as he gradually took more from them, not just their love portions in bed. He let them buy the liquor, instead of his sometimes bringing a six-pack or even a pint of whiskey; he let them prepare meals in their apartments, and they'd watch television afterward; gradually he let some of them slip him a few bucks so he could take them out to dinner and a show. Some of them weren't even so homely that he had to be ashamed to be seen with them, although he had a few dogs on the string that he used in desperation at times.

The thought of marriage was the furtherest thing from Eddie's mind. This was because he took a normal, provincial attitude toward the institution. In the first place, he was still very much a country boy to whom matrimony was "the big step". And somehow a sacred one. A man married to settle down-and he married the girl he loved so much he couldn't exist without her.

That's how Eddie, felt about the wedded union ... until he met Marion. No, it was not when he met her, but slowly, gradually as he got to know her. Because Marion wasn't the type of female that he'd fall head-over-heels for. To be honest with himself, Eddie had to remind himself that she wasn't even the type for whom an appreciation and an appetite grew on one as he got to know her-not a physical appreciation or appetite.

But she had other qualities. Mostly, these were material objects.

Not that Eddie had gone out selfishly seeking such a woman. No, indeed. Marriage meant too much responsibility and too much commitment, he would have told himself. Furthermore, he had a slim, remaining store of pride and of shame that would have kept him from entering into any sort of alliance in which the bride was the major source of income.

It was Marion herself who gradually converted him. Maybe he didn't take much persuasion, but she won him over. Perhaps he even hypnotized himself into thinking he cared for her-not with love, but at least some sort of warmth and affection.

Marion worked in a downtown office of a big manufacturing concern, as a market analyst. The job required a brain-a person who could handle a lot of statistics and make sense out of them, and then put the results into readable form for booklets that were issued within the vast network of the company; in other words, a combination of mathematical skills and some literary talent. It wasn't a routine combination, and she was a desirable employee, and consequently, excellently paid.

Eddie met Marion at a party that was given by a friend of one of the law students. Extra males were needed at the social function, and Eddie was talked into going along, since it meant free food, saving him the price of a meal that evening.

Marion was also an unattached guest, having come without an escort. She was several years older than Eddie-maybe even twenty-five-and she had nondescript brown hair pulled severely back. She wore spectacles which had thick lenses, and they were always slipping down her nose and she was always shoving them back into place. She always had a tiny, bemused smile, and with the glasses, she looked like a sweet little near-sighted mouse. That was, in fact, what gave her the nickname used behind-her back-Mousey-because who'd want to use it to her face and hurt her feelings? She brought out that kind of feeling; not exactly protective of her ... just that people avoided doing anything that would upset the harmless creature.

Eddie was introduced to her and he talked vaguely with her, but as he sipped the free liquor and gobbled the free food, he moved back and forth in the crowd looking at the females with bright eyes, sparkling laughs and big bosoms.

He got away from Marion as soon as he reasonably could that evening, and tried to make contact with some of the other girls. He hadn't been laid for some time and the liquor worked at him, arousing him. He found he was getting nowhere with the others-mostly because he couldn't offer them anything: he couldn't take them for a ride in a car he didn't have or offer to take them to a show or dinner or any kind of date. So he went back to Marion. She appeared to be the type he'd been sponging off of in a mild sort of way. She was not good-looking, a bit older, lonely. He, on the other hand, was young, vibrant, a charmer when he wanted to be.

She lived in her own apartment within walking distance of the party scene, and he offered to escort her there. On the way, he found out a lot of things. Such as the fact that she was very well educated, came from a well-to-do home, and was indeed lonely.

He thought he had it made, and within fifteen 'minutes he'd be helping her assuage her loneliness "by affection-in bed.

It was with some surprise that Eddie found himself getting no further than the hallway outside her place. .She gave him some smilingly prim line about it being "too late" to invite him in, and asked him to lunch there the following Sunday at noon. She said good night, and was gone.

Eddie stomped on back to his room, feeling deceived and awfully horny and there was nothing he could do about it. He was mad as hell at Marion. Here he'd been ready to service her but good in bed and she didn't even let him in to try to fight him off. He told himself he'd be damned if he'd go over there Sunday. He had mumbled to her that he would, but that was only because he had been caught off-guard and he had still thought he'd end up pumping her that night when he had said yes.

However, by the time Sunday rolled around, he had changed his mind. In the first place, he'd become greedy about getting every free feed he could. And he too could be lonely once in a while, and wouldn't mind a little companionship. Especially as he convinced himself that if he just turned on the ol' charm, he'd have her in the sack that afternoon.

When he arrived at her apartment, Eddie was flabbergasted to discover that she had another young couple there, also for luncheon. He had thought it would be just the two of them-like with the others he'd been fed by-and rolled afterward.

By this time, since he still hadn't had any sex since some time before the party, he was pretty edgy about trying to get his gun off. And there was nothing he could do now.

This put him in a bad mood anyway, and the conversation wasn't calculated to make him feel any better: it involved all sorts of subjects he knew nothing whatsoever about. The three others rambled on about art and literature and poetry and architecture and politics. To Eddie, ignorant in all these fields as he was, it sounded supercilious, as if they were deliberately trying to put him down. He left soon after lunch, mad as a hornet. This was the second time he'd left Marion that way, and he swore again to stay away. What'd he need an anemic, sexless mouse like that for?

It bugged him, that luncheon. Now, with a cooler head, he had to face the fact that it was not they, it was he. They hadn't gone out of their way to show him up, how little he knew about anything besides his law studies. It was he who was shallow. He'd heard how professional men get lopsided in their knowledge. A doctor or lawyer will have to concentrate so hard on learning his trade that he has time for absorbing nothing else. For example, he had heard of medics who finally came through their, poverty-stricken internship, got a lucrative practice going, and then when they had the money to afford the finer things of life, they had no notion of how to appreciate them.

Well, this wouldn't happen to him, Eddie vowed. And if he needed a Marion to help him in this regard, he'd see to it that he got a Marion.

Thus began the secondary education of Edward Kilby ... the artistic education at the hands of Marion, When he started spending so much time with her, Eddie hoped that, as a side attraction, he'd be jumping into bed with her with regularity. Not only was he not getting there with regularity, he wasn't getting there at all. But after a while, it didn't matter that much to him. He had adjusted his scheduling of dates so that he was picking up a little sex from the other nonentities, just as he had in the past. Besides, he realized that he was getting a lot more from Marion than any other girl he knew could provide. In fact, he came to see that perhaps this mental relationship, with no bodily contact, was better. It would mean no permanent entanglement.

She seemed serene and content with this arrangement, and enjoyed conduction her little cultural classes for a class of one. They necked politely a little at art movies, and he kissed her good night on the lips, but not forcefully.

One Sunday night, they took in an Italian movie at the local art-film theater. It was pretty hot stuff, with bare-bosomed actresses and lots of bed scenes. Eddie was ready to be heated anyway, since he hadn't had a woman for weeks. On the way back to her place, he stopped at his room and got a fifth of cheap wine that he had there.

Marion wasn't much of a drinker at all. Mostly she took nothing, and tonight she was just going to toy with her glass of wine. But Eddie was persistent in trying to jolly her along, talking about vine and making suggestive remarks inspired by the movie they'd seen. He got quite a few glasses of wine into her.

Marion was pretty giddy when he started necking with her on the sofa. He slid his hand down on her breast, and she laughingly pushed it away.

But Eddie wasn't playing. He needed it-badly. This time he firmly put his hand over her breast, which was covered by a thick, knit sweater. She got serious then and said, "Please, Eddie, don't do that."

Eddie kissed her, his hand squeezing at her soft breast. She moved her head and said, "No, Eddie, please."

His hand ran up her leg. She exclaimed, "No," and moved away. "Eddie, this isn't like you."

Eddie thought to himself, The hell it isn't like me. It's exactly like me. He looked at her sincerely and said, "I can't help it. You're so-so beautiful."

"Eddie, that's for married people."

"I love you," he stressed. He hadn't meant to say anything like that, but he needed it, and he'd do anything to get it.

"We've got to wait."

Eddie had put his arms around her. His hand moved down her back. He kissed her face all over, and her neck. He had maneuvered his hand under her skirt again. She pushed it away, but he got it back as he distracted her with soft words of love and sighs and moan's of endearment and passion.

She kept saying, "No, no," but he was overpowering her with sheer physical force and a flood of soft words of love. Soon his fingers had passed the tight outline of' her panties and were at the pit of love. She jerked instinctively away, but he followed through.

He slipped his hand around her back, under the skirt and half-slip, and put it down through the elastic of her panties, which he tried to force down. He forced his weight against her until she was down on the sofa. Then he had her skirt and slip up over her waist. He took off her underwear. She turned her face away in humiliation and shame as her nakedness was ex posed, still moaning, "No, no, Eddie. Wait, Eddie. We should wait."

He didn't want to take the time to take his trousers off-it would have been psychologically bad anyway, giving her time to think-so he just opened the fly. As he tried to force himself into her, she put her arms around his neck. She was sobbing, "Say you love me, Eddie, say you love me."

"I love you," he panted, as he tore into her soft parts, tearing them. For Eddie, it was a satisfying cry of pain as he took her.

"Say it, Eddie," she managed to say again, crying.

"I love you," he gasped, having gotten what he wanted.

Afterward, she went flying into the bathroom, There was certainly no doubt she had been a virgin. There was a big spot of blood on the sofa pillow. Eddie went to the kitchen to get a paper towel, which he wet, and went back to try to sponge it off.

Marion stayed in the bathroom for at least half an hour. Eddie was fidgety, and he thought of going to knock on. the door, to see if everything was all right. But he didn't have nerve enough. He became a little irritated. Big deal, he sneered. It hadn't, of course, been much of a piece of action.

But, he supposed, perhaps it did upset a girl to lose her maidenhead.

She finally emerged, still emotional and very red-eyed.

He tried various soothing things to say, and finally said, "Honey, it's not the end of the world." He wanted to add that it was only the beginning, but he thought she'd interpret that wrong. He would mean "only the beginning of having sex regularly together", but she might think he meant the beginning of their lives joined together.

Marion cried a lot, and Eddie had to stay far longer then he wished. He was tired and he was especially weary of her carrying on so.

He soothed her with words and with embraces. Un-likely as it would have seemed just an hour before-when she was giving out with a deluge of tear-she was able to get into her again. She was sore down there, of course, from her first ravagement, but she merely whispered tearfully, stoically, "What does it matter now?" He liked it a lot.

CHAPTER SEVEN

WHEN EDDIE LEFT HER PLACE THAT NIGHT, Marion had been acting as if a great disaster had struck her.

Having done this to her, he was determined to cut off his relationship with her. He didn't need her so badly that he had to put up with scenes like that, and he didn't want to have it go any further.

However, he got a phone call from her a few days later. She wondered where he'd been keeping himself, and said she had tickets for a play at one of the colleges that night.

So he went over for dinner. He'd just tell her after dinner, but before the play, which he didn't want to see-that it had been nice, but this was the end. But he didn't get the words out.

Marion was matter-of-fact and even casual with Eddie. She remarked about their sexual interlude that he mustn't blame himself or keep away from her just because he'd acted so-so naturally. He was taken aback by those words-so naturally.

It turned out that Eddie didn't have to endure the college performance. They stayed at her place, and he got her into bed. He never knew quite how that happened. But he enjoyed himself with her body, and before he left her place that night, he was numbed to discover she had taken for granted that they'd be married. And he hadn't put up one word or gesture or attitude against this union which she quite evidently took as inevitable, normal, and-natural!

He had many objections against marraige, which he could recall and bring up when he was alone. But she had a great many good reasons why he should marry her-and she didn't even have to put them in words: he knew what they were, her very person and way of life proclaimed them. For example, Marion wouldn't be so crude as to straight-forwardly put it to him that she would support him while he continued his studies, and that he wouldn't have to work at any more trivial, poor-paying part-time jobs. Not only did she have a position that paid excellently, but her family had money. As Marion's husband, Eddie wouldn't want for anything. She was well-educated and cultural, too, which was a decided asset for the wife of a young lawyer. She knew the right things to know in the artistic world, just as she and her family knew many of the right people in the social world of the city.

As for love, she took that for granted now. Marion knew he loved her and that he desired her-else why would he have seduced her? Eddie realized that it didn't occur to this naive girl that he just wanted her for sex because she happened to be there and avail able ... but that any other female body would have been as acceptable. Of course, on the other hand, that was as good a reason as any why he should take her as a wife-one woman was the same as another for his sexual purposes. Oh,' he knew that a beauty like Elizabeth Hanover would be ideal, but in the dark, Marion or any female was just as serviceable.

While Eddie thus reconciled himself to his fate if it was to be, he had a notion that he'd be spared because Marion's family would object.

It was a vain hope. Perhaps she had told them they were lovers and had to get married. Even without that added persuasion, it would have been no great difficulty getting their consent. The family was not so well off that they were snobbish or guarded against a fortune-seeker's getting their daughter. She was, in addition, not so young and far from a vibrant beauty, who could look to pick and choose among suitors. Like many a set of parents, the worst thing they could imagine for a daughter was the prospect of being an old maid, so even if they had felt she was marrying beneath her, this was far preferable to being spouseless.

And in actuality, Edward Kilby didn't look like that bad a prospective son-in-law. Since World War II, it had become customary for many brides to help their new husbands through school. It was no disgrace. Eddie was a fine-looking young man, he was doing well in his studies, and his eventual profession was honorable and lucrative.

Because of all the circumstances of the relationship, the wedding was kept small and dignified, with the ceremony in the large home of Marion's parents.

The parents had offered to pay for a honeymoon In Florida,, but practical Marion had decided to take the cash to save for a home of their own. So they'd honeymoon in her apartment.

Eddie had gone in a big way for drinks at the small reception for Marion's family and friends, and when they got to the apartment, he found that they'd sent along a huge bottle of champagne in a silver bucket. Since she didn't drink but a token glass, Eddie finished it off by himself, thinking that married life on this lavish scale wasn't so bad after all.

Marion's bridesmaid had helped her pick out a traditional, flimsy nightie. When Eddie, drunk and giddy, wove his way to the bedroom, she stood there awkwardly, her dark-rimmed glasses still on-making a funny picture of a studious girl trying hard to be casual with her body showing clearly through the supposedly sexy right wear.

Eddie laughed and grabbed her clumsily, falling heavily on top of her as she sprawled foolishly on the bed. Unceremoniously, he pushed up the fragile material, and he tore off into a heady gouging of her private parts with all the drunken abandon of a bawdy-house customer getting his money's worth out of a whore.

He tried for the second time that night, but the alcohol was against him, and he fell off Into a drunken, snoring stupor.

He awoke late the next day, hearing the water running in the bathroom. He had a terrible, hung-over feeling, and also a sense of shame for the way he'd treated his bride the night before.

After her shower, Marion returned to the bedroom in a plain housecoat. He felt sorry for her, in a way. For one thing, he'd never tried to have intercourse with her so that she also would have an orgasm. He had never even been nice while taking her sexually. Well, he'd try now. He'd take her in his arms, tell her all the words of affection that she wanted to hear, and with his manliness, he'd make her come so that she'd cry in pleasant pain at the ecstasy.

When she was near the bed, he put his arm around her buttocks and said seductively, "Come here, doll."

Marion pulled away. She was going to the kitchen to make breakfast. "No." Then she added, wrinkling her nose, "It's so messy."

It was an ominous start for their marriage, on both their parts.

As their years together passed, this matter of their non-adjustment in sex more and more bugged him. It wasn't just the mediocre experiences inbed-a physical thing-but what this did to him mentally, as a male. It undermined him as a man that she wasn't interested in him as a sexual being; it undermined him that he couldn't make her burst like a skyrocket as they arrived at their height of passion together. It didn't matter that she was not satisfied; no, that didn't matter a bit, what she wanted or didn't want; only his own satisfaction mattered to him. It undercut him as a man. He told himself that she was more stupid than any prostitute-they knew the value of moaning and groaning phrases like, "What a man!" which did something to a guy whether he believed them sincere or not.

Occasionally he'd revert to his old ways of picking up homely stray girls who were grateful to get the attention of being laid by this good-looking young man. But this was a poor solution to his problem. It could no longer be just a casual matter, since he was now a married man, and had to sneak about doing this. If he went for the better-looking stuff, he had to spend time and money before he could get in good with them. Time was sparse since he was a serious student. The money he'd have to use in such adventures would all come from Marion, and the grated on Eddie's soul; perhaps even a little on his conscience.

Marion was an intelligent and sympathetic woman, and Eddie could always go to her for advice and find her very practical and helpful. He could talk to her, too. He told her just about everything that had ever happened to him, even the sexual adventures-perhaps in a bragging fashion-and funny things like the strange adventure in the homosexual mansion. He showed her the photograph of himself taken that night, he hoped it would excite her and they'd have a big time. She didn't get hepped up, but he stripped her and took her anyway. That was one thing she objected to about their lives together-how every subject, every conversation, every, occasion ended with Eddie's pumping her, if he had his way. From her point of view, it must have seemed that he was oversexed. Or it gave her doubts about herself being undersexed. At best, she thought that she stimulated him a great deal, and that wasn't too awful a concept for a woman to live with.

He was never idle in his studies, and he passed his bar examinations with flying colors. He had some tentative feelers from some of the big law firms downtown, but, for his own reasons, he settled in a small office with another young lawyer on a business street away from the heart of town.

It was rough sledding for months, with not enough money coming in to support a canary, much less himself and Marion. She, of course, continued to support them.

Then, he got a case that started him on a whole new aspect of his career-and of his life.

CHAPTER EIGHT

EDDIE HAD HAD NO INTENTION OF SPECIALIZING in divorce cases. He really had no idea of what sort of road his career would take. Sometimes he felt he should pursue a line that would get him, eventually, a cushy position in some corporation's legal lineup. Sometimes he daydreamed of the life as a trial lawyer, saving rich defendants in flashy murder trials.

But it was the case involving the Van Nessens that cemented his career in the divorce field. And a more un-likely case than he could even have dreamed up in a drunken moment.

Eddie probably got-and accepted-Elsie Van Nessen's divorce case because he wasn't knowledgeable about who the Van Nessens were. Oh, he'd heard the name, but he wasn't aware of the money and power behind it. Any other attorney in that city would have found an excuse to get out of taking Elsie as a client. Indeed, many had turned her down, giving one reason or another-and never the truthful reason.

Because plump, dyed-blonde Elsie Van Nessen was up against the prestige and pomp-and cash-of the family, all alone.

But Eddie didn't know all that. All he knew was that he'd gotten a phone call from a woman wondering if he was available to take a case. He said he'd squeeze it in, and asked her to drop in.

When he hung up, he smiled wryly to himself. Was he available? Hell, he had nothing else to do.

He found out later that Elsie had just been going through the. list of attorneys in the yellow pages of the phone book and had run down as far as his name-that's how he got her, or vice-versa.

Elsie came to the office that afternoon. Eddie had been expecting a client who was practically destitute. He was quite surprised to see in his doorway a woman practically swimming in fur and jewels. Some instinct told him immediately that these were the real thing, even if the woman did look-well, not cheap-but overdone the way a cheap or lower-class woman might. Her hair was dyed or bleached or whatever (Eddie didn't know) until it was almost white with just a touch of yellow. Against this halo effect was a face with far too much make-up on it. Enormous red lips and eye shadow that seemed layered on. False eyelashes that stood out an inch or more. A super-healthy pink stuff on her cheeks.

She sat down heavily and tiredly on the. chair he offered her. He wanted to go about this business in a routine and orderly manner, but Elsie said that it would be better if he came to the club that night to see her dance first, and then they could discuss the divorce.

Eddie should have refused to be so unprofessional and should have adamantly said no, but he was caught off-guard. This was a dancer? She had made enough by dancing to buy herself these jewels arid furs? Eddie was flabbergasted, and rather numbly he took down the name of the club and said he'd see her about ten.

Since Eddie was no night-clubber, he did not know where the club was, but assumed it must be a fairly swank place. Looking up the address, he was surprised to find it practically on the skid-row of the city, among a group of other such cheap joints.

Intrigued now but more wary, he drove down there that night. Outside the bar-club, she had called it, har-har-was a huge photograph of her in an abbreviated costume and with her name in huge type, Elsie Van Nessen. A star, yet! Eddie shook his head, wryly amused.

He stood at the bar nursing a bottle of beer until the show began, if it could be termed a show. The emcee came on, told a few raw jokes, then sat down at the piano. He played a tinkly, suggestive introduction, the pink lights came on, and then Elsie entered.

Eddie couldn't believe it. Was it a comedy act? If so, only he apparently thought of laughing. There was some good-natured yelling from the crowd, some whistling, stamping of feet, overloud applause. But no one hooted.

Elsie writhed around wearing a costume of green, shiny material somewhat like a one-piece bathing suit. She had on black-net stockings. In her hair was a large, high comb, giving a sort of Spanish look. Wrapped around her was. a boa that she moved to make it appear like a snake enveloping her.

She moved and tossed and kicked and made supposedly seductive poses. When she threw her leg in the air, about half of her fat, white backside showed, even if covered by the very loosely woven net stockings. When she leaned forward, it appeared that her plump white bosom would pop out of her bodice and cascade down to her waist.

It was difficult to take his eyes off this obscene performance that was passing for entertainment, but Eddie forced himself to watch the customers. No, they weren't making fun of her by snorting and laughing, but it was obvious that they had the same thoughts of her dancing-it was ridiculous. A fat slob up there making a spectacle of herself. Yet the place was crowded with people watching her intently. And not just the usual human garbage found in this type of dive noramlly, but lots of well-dressed couples and college-age couples on a lark.

What was all this? Eddie wondered, finishing his beer as Elsie finished her dance to a roar of applause. She came out to do a little encore, and raffishly started to take down one side of the green outfit, to expose a breast, just before she exited again into the curtains on one side of the tiny stage.

Eddie made his way back to her dressing room, which was a small cubicle made by putting up a few temporary walls in a corner of an old storeroom.

Elsie eagerly asked if he'd seen her perform.

He said yes, and she didn't even wait for any kind of praise, she just was almost pathetically girlish in delight that she was in show business. She apologized that she couldn't go somewhere to talk to him, but she had more shows to give tonight. During her days, she had to rest up to be able to give her all to the audiences that paid to see her.

From what she told him that evening and from what he was then able to gather from other sources, Eddie realized why other lawyers had turned down her case. She was fighting the Van Nessen millions, and the lawyers wanted to stay on the good side of that power bloc in this community.

It was actually such a ridiculous case! But at the moment it was happening, even Eddie couldn't be much amused by it. He was too involved. It was only after it was all over and behind him that he could pause to laugh.

Actually, it was the name that was involved in the case, much to Eddie's surprise. He would have surmised from a surface glance at the matter that maybe this young pot of flesh was a gold-digger out to squeeze a fortune from her husband and his family. She did, to be sure, want a goodly alimony, but this wasn't the basic trouble between the two factions.

As a girl, Elsie had been one of those well-rounded-not yet fat-persons who is shy but good-natured. She had a pink aura of charm and graciousness about her. As a young bride, she was probably deliciously tasty and accommodating in bed-especially on a cold night, as the wits used to put it.

The years went by and Elsie put on weight, but she still had a bubbly, good-natured charm. Her rather commonplace, staid husband didn't mind; all he expected, really, of a wife was that she know her place-which was to be unobtrusive, and not call public attention to herself unduly, especially in any unseemly way.

What no one had even guessed was that Elsie had :a need for attention and adulation. It was built-in, but it had never had a chance to express itself.

In her late twenties, Elsie had very little to occupy her time. Much to her disappointment, she was childless and the doctors told her she'd remain that way. So with all their money, she couldn't have what she wanted that way.

Furthermore, it didn't appear as if she could have become pregnant anyway, due to the infrequency of her sex life with her husbnad. And she knew it wasn't just because she was old-hat to him or plump-she realized, that she had a husband who had very early in his life become lethargic toward sex and most everything else. Elizabeth Taylor could have walked stark naked into his bedroom and her husband, with his slow-moving Van Nessen blood, would wonder what this stranger was doing intruding in his house.

So in her late twenties, Elsie began taking ballet lessons from a high-class school that catered mostly to the children of the rich, but which had evening classes for their mothers who wanted to keep in trim. That was Elsie's excuse-she wanted to keep her weight down, and this was better than plain exercise.

But inside this increasingly-fat woman there was a dancer trying to force her way out.

She wanted-needed-attention from others. Once at a cocktail party, she had a bit too much to drink and she got up to dance. She whirled around in the big, wide skirt she was wearing, showing the white of her fat thighs above the bands of her nylons, which cut into her legs. Some of the guests were horrified, but others got into the spirit of her dancing and applauded and even whistled.

Her husband had been horrified and barely spoke to her for a week, and then broke the silence to say how humiliated he was. His wife drunk! This hurt Elsie. Yes, she had been drinking, but she didn't do what she did just because she was drunk. And she wanted him to know and understand this-that she wanted to dance because she wanted to dance, that she hadn't just let herself go because of liquor. But he understood that even less than he could understand anyone with the Van Nessen name getting so drunk in the first place.

Their relationship then got even worse-on their own social level, for it couldn't have gotten any worse on an intimate, bedroom level. She might even have felt better about their lack of sex if she had discovered that her husband had a mistress-at least that would have been some excuse. But she knew he didn't. He-and it-seemed to have just dried up.

She didn't mind. She lived only for this incipient career she dreamed was right over the horizon, when she'd dance for crowds which would be amazed at her skill and grace. As for the practical matter, of living, she had a little money of her own and needn't go crawling back to any narrow-minded, scared-of-his-shadow Van Nessen for bare survival money.

But things went badly for the great career she envisioned. She couldn't get a job. In fact, most of the men she had to see about working were distressed that she'd evjBn seek employment as a dancer, or they laughed. K couple of them wanted to know if she did a comedy routine and one suggested she try to get into a burlesque act he'd heard of which used fat women and called itself The Beef Trust or something like that. it was discouraging, but somehow Elsie was determined in spite of these petty disappointments. She knew that most stars had had years of anguish and set-backs before making it big.

Her husband had made a few attempts to get her back to their home, but when he came to reason with her, he mostly acted irritated about her independent actions and tried to bully her back into the Van Nessen corral.

Things would have remained at this standoff-with the pair separated but not divorced-except that Elsie finally got a job. This brought about legal action on the part of her husband. It was because Elsie got star billing in her act at that very bowery bar in which Eddie had seen her.

The bar manager didn't hurry things, but he slowly felt out the ground about Elsie's amibtions, the family, the whole bit. When he had definitely established that she wanted to be an entertainer and she was truthfully a member of the distinguished local family, he signed her to a contract that made her his headliner. And it gave him the right to use her name and photograph in his advertisements.

It was a thunder stroke for the Van Nessens to open their newspapers the next Sunday to see a huge display advertisement that announced that Elsie Van Nessen would dance nightly at the club which was on a neon street of bars, the hangouts of drunks and drug addicts and prostitutes and homos.

If they went down to peer incredulously at how low a place it was, there in front was a huge, garishly colored photo of Elsie in her daring dancing costume. And again the Van Nessen name.

The newspapers of the city were leary of offending the Van Nessens by making a big play of the story of one of the Van Nessen wives shaking her hips for the amusement of bar-flies, but one of the columnists made brief mention of the affair. He couldn't very well just ignore the story, since it seemed everybody in town had heard of it and were gossiping about it.

The Van Nessens were in a tizzy. They stood for Money and the Establishment, for Banks and Churches, for Respectability ... and here was their name being bandied about in this ludicruous way.

They thought of trying to get some court to get a restraining order making it illegal for the name to be used in the ads. But that wasn't possible: Elsie was-God forbid-a Van Nessen.

One of them made a discreet trip down to see the bar manager, but he scorned their suggestion that Elsie be relieved of her job. She was bringing in the customers, that was all there was to it. He was not frightened by the prestige of the Van Nessens-not a bit. He told himself later that, hell, with all their money, they shoulda hired a couple of strong-arm guys to rough him up-that would have changed his mind. But this crap about it hurting their name-who cared?

The only thing to do then, counseled the wise old legal firm that handled the Van Nessen affairs, was for Elsie to be divorced. The case would be brought up before a judge who would make it a provision that she not retain her married name. That wouldn't be difficult-all the judges around were friends of the Van Nessens or had political obligations to them.

So Elsie's husband filed for divorce. His case actually was fairly strong, from any point of view. Elsie had been the one to leave her husband's bed and board. He had made several efforts to get her back to her home ... and to her senses, as he had put it. So it appeared that, legally she had deserted him and he had made all the efforts legally necessary to show that it was not that he hadn't tried to reconcile.

Because of all these factors, Elsie had trouble getting a lawyer. Many didn't wish to tangle with the Van Nessens-they wanted, rather, to be on their side. Furthermore, it appeared that there wouldn't be any money on Elsie's side. She had a little, but nothing sensational.

That was another factor that other lawyers took into consideration about the Van Nessens-they could be very cheap. In this case, they had decided that Elsie should be financially punished for bringing this scandal on the family. Instead of a generous alimony or settlement, they decided on little or nothing for her. But then, they were stingy; if they hadn't been, they could have solved the matter of at least the bar owner by just bribing him to fire Elsie. In this attempt now-at not giving Elsie a living alimony-they had made a huge mistake. For when Eddie decided to take the case-which he did because he needed the work-he had determined that he would make the husband appear in a bad light by this gesture of ill-will; he with his millions not wanting to give his wife a dollar or two.

But it was Elsie's own idea that turned out to be the really sensational one of the divorce case. And Eddie later got the credit for it, although he had fought it ever since she had first mentioned it: she would dance in court.

The Van Nessen lawyers had put in a statement about Elsie's odd behavior and "vulgar dancing" in the skid-row saloon. This incensed Elsie more than anything else that had been charged against her. After all, she had deserted her husband and left his damned bed and board. But to say she was a cheap, vulgar dancer! Hell, she was an artiste! And she'd show this to the world-or at least the judge.

Eddie did his level best to dissuade her, but she was adamant.

He had a few points of his own to make on her behalf in court. For example, when the case finally came up before the judge, and there had been much testimony about her odd behavior and desertion, Elise herself got on the stand.

EDDIE: Mrs. Van Nessen, you were a faithful wife?

ELSIE: Oh, yes.

EDDIE: We realize it is not our concern here-none of our business really-but you were what we call a "good girl" before you were married?

ELSIE: Yes.

EDDIE: No one has ever challenged your virtue? ELSIE: Challenged it?

(There was a little light snickering in the court at this point, but the judge just frowned. He was interested in the testimony anyway, and wondered where it was leading.)

EDDIE: I mean, no one could accuse you of being a lady of little virtue.

ELSIE: I should hope not.

EDDIE: Is it not a fact that you have had relations only with your husband in your entire life? ELSIE: That is correct.

EDDIE: Now, Mrs. Van Nessen, you are a normal woman.

ELSIE: Of course!

EDDIE: You have normal appetites and desires, of a normal married lady. Tell me, Mrs. Van Nessen, you shared a house and a bedroom with Mr. Van Nessen.

ELSIE: Yes.

EDDIE: You were never in any way disloyal or unfaithful to your husband. ELSIE: Oh, no.

EDDIE: What does a wife have the right to demand of a husband, Mrs. Van Nessen? A shelter, food? ELSIE: Yes. EDDIE: Love? ELSIE: Yes.

EDDIE: We will not try to speculate about the aspect of love which is termed affection, since that is a subjective thing and can't be accurately counted or measured. But of the more objective, physical aspect of love ... Mrs. Van Nessen, did you ever deny your husband?

ELSIE: What? Oh, you mean...? No, I didn't.

EDDIE: Now isn't it true, Mrs. Van Nessen, that there was really little opportunity to deny your husband his marital rights because he-didn't demand them very often?

ELSIE: That's right.

EDDIE: Did you ever feel neglected, Mrs. Van Nessen?

ELSIE: Well-I-I-I....

EDDIE: The court, I'm sure, hates to embarrass you as much as I hate to do so, but we must know. You have been charged with deserting this loving and eager husband who wanted you back. Now, the lack of physical affection has been established in certain cases as reasonable grounds of desertion. You are a healthy young woman, you have certain normal drives, you expect-well-that marriage will give you an outlet for them. Right? ELSIE: I guess so.

EDDIE: You know so, Mrs. Van Nessen, but we understand your embarrassment about this. We certainly would not bring all of this forward except we must clear your reputation of this charge that you willfully left your husband's bed on a whim. All right then: normal physical needs, we all agree. Were they being fulfilled? That's the question at this point. In the year prior to your leaving your husband's bed and board-as the legal terminology is-could you give us some idea of the frequency of your relations?

(If the judge is anxious to learn where this questioning was going, the spectators are pantingly eager, their mouths literally watering.)

ELSIE: In the year before?

EDDIE:. Yes.

ELSIE: There's no need to guess-it was once. (A hushed giggle runs through the courtroom. The judge looks sternly at the people on the benches.) EDDIE: Once? ELSIE: That's correct? EDDIE: You're sure?

ELSIE: How could you forget a thing like that?

(Laughter from the spectators. The judge finally raps his gavel for the first time. He is annoyed, but also amused.)

EDDIE: Now this is a subjective matter, and a very delicate one, Mrs. Van Nessen. Was it-shall we say-satisfactory for you?

ELSIE: Well-I ... I don't like to say anything. He is older, you know.

This testimony shattered the opposition for the moment. Who could blame a prime, healthy hunk of womanhood like Elsie Van Nessen for leaving a man who not only couldn't give her what every woman needs, but wasn't even trying?

If that established that her husband was impotent for all practical purposes, her dance was the thing that really swung the case in her favor. And Eddie got the credit for it, which established him as an ingenous lawyer who specialized in divorce; neither of which facts-ingenous or divorce lawyer-was true at that time, in that case.

CHAPTER NINE

ELSIE HAD ASKED EDDIE IF IT WOULD BE Possible to get the judge to come down to the club to see her perform some night. He had smiled and said no. Then she suggested she do her routine in court.

"For what reason?" he asked.

"To show that it's artistic and not vulgar," she told him.

Eddie wasn't at all sure that it would do anything of the sort, but he didn't cross her on that matter; he just said it could not be done. But she was firm, and Eddie now saw how stubborn she could be when she got something in her head. He could understand what her husband had been up against.

She stuck to her guns, and he finally gave in. After all, he was only her lawyer, and new at the game, at that.

When he brought up the matter in court, the attorneys for the husband objected, and the judge wanted to know what purpose it would serve. Eddie said that Mrs. Van Nessen's artistic abilities had been challenged. The opposing attorneys denied this, although it was true that her talents were at least questionable. If an artistic opinion was wanted, let qualified experts be brought in. Eddie wondered if they didn't think the judge was qualified to render an average citizen's judgment upon her dancing-because Mrs. Van Nessen didn't have any pretensions of being Pavlova, but only a dancer capable of bringing pleasure and beauty to the audiences of the common masses, not of the ballet-loving type. Thus Eddie once more pinned on his opponents a label of being snobs-this time, cultural snobs. It was already assumed that the Van Nessen bloc represented the snobbery of wealth and power.

That was the image that was given out in the newspaper reports. The newspapers of the city couldn't ignore a story of so much popular interest, and the wire services had their men covering it, and throughout the country people were reading the amusing details of the plump wife who wanted to dance for the crowds. When the judge said she could now dance for the court in her working costume, the newspapers around the nation demanded more on the case, and they and the television networks wanted pictures of Mrs. Van Nessen.

The whole thing had gotten out of hand. The Van Nessen family certainly hadn't expected anything like this when they instigated the divorce proceedings, and the judge had seen it only as a routine case.

As for Eddie, he wished he were anywhere but in the courtroom that day. No photographers were allowed in the place, of course, but they were heard milling around outside. The room was packed with far more spectators than it was meant to handle-everybody wanted to be there on this big occasion.

Everybody was, it seemed, excited, angry, or in a tizzy. Everybody but Elsie.

Elsie was calm. She was getting what she wanted now-to show the world, as it were, officially that she was a dancer.

When she came into the courtroom that afternoon after the recess, Eddie slid down .in his chair, trying to look as inconspicious as possible. He thought everybody must be laughing not only at Elsie, but at him. Here he was, a young lawyer getting involved in such a dumb thing. His fellow barristers must despise him as a P.T. Barnum type.

During the recess, Elsie had gone to the women's rest room to change into her dancing outfit. She returned to court with a coat over her shoulders.

She had thought of bringing a tape recorder along and dancing to music, but Eddie had advised against it. It would be too much, he had told her. Indeed, this was the finest piece of advice he could have given her. If she had taped that rinky-tink piano playing from the bar, it might have had a disastrously cheapening effect.

She got up, and stood there. Just stood there. It took Eddie a moment to realize she was waiting for him to get up and remove the coat. He stumbled up and did that. It was a gesture to a lady, to an artiste.

The tables had been pushed to one side in the area in front of the judge's bench. Now, silently, with no accompaniment but her own sense of rhythm, Elsie danced.

To Eddie, who had seen her perform previously, it still seemed a bit pathetic. But not funny. She was fat, sure but there was no doubt she was graceful. And without the surroundings of a dim saloon and the noise of drinking patrons and the cheap piano, it wasn't vulgar. Hell, it wasn't great art, but she had never pretended to that. All she had ever said was that she loved to dance and she wanted to entertain people with it. It was obvious from her absorbed look now that she did love it, and it was obvious that the people were very diverted.

When he put the coat around her shoulders afterward, he felt no humiliation at having been part of this. He had begun to like and admire this woman.

He guessed that they had won their point about her not being some sort of freak stripper, which was the impression the opposing forces had given.

Downstairs in the lobby of the courthouse later, Eddie was standing waiting for Elsie when one of the younger lawyers of the vast team of Van Nessen legal counsel stopped by to say, "Marvelous move, Kilby. You really handled this one neat." He moved away quickly so none of the other attorneys could see that he had spoken to Eddie, whom they regarded as an upstart.

At first Eddie had thought that the young lawyer had been sarcastic, and yet his tone was actually admiring. Eddie shrugged.

Elsie came along, surrounded by newspaper and television people. She asked him if they could go to the studio where she wanted to repeat her dance for the network and cameramen. Did he think that all right? He-wanted to say no! They'd been damned lucky so far that the judge hadn't reamed him out for making the trial, a circus. But it was so obvious she wanted to do this-and probably would do it no matter what he said-that he just smiled and said, "Okay."

Eddie had had the idea that this notoriety might ruin his chances for advancement in his profession. He couldn't have been more wrong. In fact, it was the very thing to get him rolling. He had realized that getting his name connected with this case had set it in front of a vast public. The lawyers in that state couldn't advertise, but here he was getting a million dollars worth of free publicity in the news columns of the papers, and his name mentioned on radio and television.

He began' getting calls from clients who wondered if he could take them on. He had snorted not long ago when Elsie had put the same question to him, but soon it became a matter of trying to squeeze new ones in.

Naturally, since he was so identified with the Van Nessen divorce case, most of his prospective clients were those thinking of divorce. They thought he was an expert-he must be. And it was certain he was becoming one, all right.

As for Elsie, she had triumphed any way her case was looked at. The Van Nessens and their legal aides had come into court expecting to push her aside and take away her married name-and pay peanuts to her. She now exacted her sweet revenge, and the Van Nessens probably wished she'd asked for a pound of flesh rather than what she asked for and got. Rather than have one of the Van Nessens give an accounting of his full wealth in public court, they settled with Elsie after the judge quickly granted the divorce. Elsie didn't mind that her husband divorced her, and not vice-versa, because as consolation she got a lump trust fund of half a million dollars, plus $4,500 a month living expenses, plus some jewelry and art objects that had been given her and her husband over the years from the family treasures.

They paid Eddie's fee also. He had no idea what he should ask for, so he made up a figure out of air-$42,500. He got a check for it the next month. He did not know if he had asked too much, but he suspected that he'd have been paid almost anything that he'd asked for. He thought of that afterward, but at the time, it seemed like such a miracle that he had real, honest-to-God tears in his eyes.

Bless that fat dancer!

The rather sudden affluence of Eddie's law practice upset the equilibrium of his marriage. Marion had never groused about carrying the major load of their financial burdens. On the other hand, when Eddie was now able to support them, he was cocky as hell about it, and made Marion feel like a real dependent when he shelled out the cash from some purchase for her self or their house. This attitude, in turn, soured Marion, and she at this point began to hark back to the days when she had paid for everything. His rising reputation in the community was also disconcerting to her. Previously, at the office, she had been the object of some pity-because she had to support her husband. Mixed with this was some cattiness about her having to pay for her loving. And envy that the object of her love was a young, handsome guy. At this time, the pity was dropped. They wondered why she worked since she had a husband who could support her; why not give the job to someone who needed it?

As the general level of his living standard zoomed, Eddie became increasingly dissatisfied with Marion. He had never been delighted fully with her as a wife, not even being ungrudgingly grateful for all she had done for him. But he'd never been in a position to kick much about this crude trick that had been played on him-he, Edward Kilby, getting this older, homely female as a housemate. Because she had paid the bills and she had been his only source of steady sex, unsatisfactory as he found it over the long haul. He couldn't bewail his fate when he wasn't making I any money; if he hadn't liked it, he could have cleared out, he knew, but he had been too cowardly and too much of a sponger to do that.

Even Eddie himself couldn't have told how deadly serious he might have been about wanting to get rid of Marion at this time. As a matter-of-fact, he wasn't certain he wanted a divorce. In the first place, his being divorced would prove embarrassing. It would be one of those funny items that newspapers and magazines liked to pick up: the local paper would pick up the news and report it humorously-well known divorce lawyer is divorced himself by dissatisfied wife. And every so often, a wire service or magazine would do one of those cute features about various amusing things like that-safety expert gets traffic ticket on his way to banquet to get award for safety work-that sort of thing, and no doubt Eddie and Marion's case would be repeated again and again.

So he didn't actually push for an actual termination of their marriage. Because he, no more than she, had no alternative. There were women he liked to take to bed, who were in fact, terrific at the sport of love ... but he couldn't see having them around all the time any more than old Marion.

So he didn't push for his own divorce ... until he met Belda Kassnar.

CHAPTER TEN

BELDA CAME UPON THE SCENE FOR EDDIE LIKE a miracle. Every man has some dream-girl concept deep in his heart, but he never actually has any real hope of getting her. He may find someone who approximates his ideal, and he rationalizes her into being the girl.

Belda Kassnar seemed to be the dream girl come alive for Eddie. She had far more intelligence and artistic inclination than Marion ever hoped to possess. She had a body that gave promise of all the delights Eddie had had as a boy with Elizabeth, way back in his law-school days. But she wasn't as outrageously sensual in appearance as Elizabeth, any more than she was somberly interested in arty matters, as was Marion; she seemed a marvelous balance of elements. What a perfect wife for a young lawyer moving toward the top, Eddie felt.

She had no unpleasant background, either. Most of the women he had been meeting in the past few years were involved in legal matters of one sort or another, usually of a marital nature. Eddie had no qualms about spending a night or so with one of these refugees from marital bliss, but in general he had become wary of them. It wasn't, certainly, deserved by all of them, but enough were unbalanced (at least temporarily) so that he always suspected that there was something wrong with them that they couldn't keep their marriages together.

He met Belda through her father, who had once been a U.S. senator from the state. Eddie had connected himself with a political party because he felt that his future might get a boost from politics. Belda's father was still called Senator Kassnar for honorary reasons, and he was a big power in state affairs, and he had a voice in the doings of the national party, also. He came from a wealthy family and he was now head of the family's real-estate holdings in the city. For all his money and position, he was a very democratic soul, having seen good men rise to greatness through the political processes of this nation. So he treated Eddie with as much respect and cordiality as he did any other worker for the party, on whatever level.

By this time in his life, Eddie had acquired an earning ability and experience enough to give him an ease and assurance in any society. For purposes of making an impression on Belda, this was the very moment. She was bowled over by him, because she was used to men of far more substance and to men of great power. But it was the combination-the physical good-looks of the man, the mental agility. the fluency of his speech, his in-touch knowledge of things outside his field, which counted to her, such as the theater, music, books, art. Yet he was never glib or pompous.

It wasn't that Belda was looking for a man. No, indeed. Far from it. It was the other way around. All sorts of men were looking for Belda. Why not? The looks, the class, even the money, although most of the men who dared hope that Belda Kassnar would give them a second look had enough cash to match-and-mate her, should they be so fortunate.

So she didn't set out thinking of Eddie as anything but an interesting man who wanted to do something in politics. Interesting? She soon revised that to fascinating.

She knew, of course, that he was married, but since she did not at this time have any notion of knowing him any better than as a fellow party-worker, it didn't concern her in the least.

As Eddie got more deeply into politics and his name kept arising for possible candicacy for this or that office, he and Belda met more and more often. Although he was experienced in the courtroom, he was a novice at politics; Belda had been brought up on the game and she took it upon herself to advise him. She saw in him a potential for rising high in political life-he had a charm that she sensed could be communicated to the electorate; here was a candidate who could be sold to the people and who might be worthy of the trust they gave him.

Belda had seen much of politics through her father's career, both in their state and in the nation's capitol, when he had served in the United States Senate. She knew every little dirty trick in political life, every means of graft and corruption that she had seen used. But she had also viewed some outstanding statesmen and unselfish patriots who had served their government and people in their elected offices. She believed in the system; it had it faults, but it was the best the human political brain had come up with, she felt. Although she was only a girl really, she had a mature mind" and a dedicated one. Lf she could bring the best candidates forward for the people to choose, she would think she also had served. And in Eddie, she saw great potential.

They had met often, but rarely got to really talk. One June afternoon, the Kassnars had a party at their country place. The guests were invited to bring their swimming clothes and their golf clubs, to spend a few hours relaxing before the big barbecue that evening.

Eddie had never learned to play golf. Drink In hand, he wandered from the patio out toward the pool. Belda was stretched out on a flowered couch by the umbrellaed tables at the end of the swimming pool. It was as if she were holding court, with so many men hovering about, coming and going, being annoyed at all the competition. He just stood there looking at her. What a lovely creature. The teeth looking white as she laughed, her face in shadow under the wide-brimmed straw hat; the long, beautifully shaped, tanned legs; the curvaceous body in the bathing suit which allowed her to be appreciated, but not ogled, it being of modest cut. All her clothes were like that-leaving no doubt how nicely feminine she was, but not being in the least immodest, allowing no chance that she could be criticized as vulgarly female. Political life had taught her to always have herself ready for critical inspection, but leaving herself open for no attack on the grounds of indiscreet taste.

He just stood looking at her, and she must have sensed this admiring look from afar. She finally turned in his direction, and squinted in the sunlight to see who it was. When she saw it was Eddie, she motioned for him to come to her. He did so, and as some of the other men moved away a little, he could get quite close to her.

He jested, "The bathing beauty who doesn't go near the water."

She pretended to shiver. "Have you felt the water? It's freezing! June is nice and sunshiney, but it's still too cold to swim."

Some other people came up then, and for a while, he could just stand there like an outsider, viewing these courtiers coming to pay homage to the princess.

When they had left, she swung her gorgeous legs off the couch, and leaned forward toward him; in the process, she exposed quite a bit of her fresh young bosom, even in the modest, one-piece suit. "I'm going to go change. Would you like to see the horses? The stables in ten minutes." She got up and padded off into the house.

Eddie-wandered off toward the stables at a leisurely pace. His nonchalance was entirely on the outside. Inside, he was quivering with excitement. Oh, he didn't think she was making an assignation or anything like that-he wasn't that egotistical and she wasn't that foolish-but no matter what her purpose, she was showing him some special' attention. Belda was getting into his blood.

Belda appeared in a lovely, simple frock. They went into the stables together, having the entire place to themselves, since all the help had been summoned to the main house to do various jobs in connection with the party.

"Do you ride?" she asked.

Ordinarily, Eddie would have given some answer such as, Only women. He liked suggestive conversation with women, feeling it got them in the mood. But this was a female of a different caliber than he was used to. So he just laughed and said no. That was also a new Eddie. If he hadn't said something spicy, he'd have lied, in the old days. If she had said that to him a few years back, he'd have said, sure, and scooted his butt out of there and for the next week he'd have taken riding lessons somewhere, and then come back the next Saturday and gone on the trail with her, even if his behind had been bounced to a pulp from practice. But he was now more natural, more himself-the nice self that maybe was hidden deep down.

"Maybe I can teach you someday," she said, "I'd certainly like that."

She turned to him, full-faced and serious, but not somber. "I had to talk to you, Eddie. Your name has been mentioned-are you ready as a candidate for representative."

"Representative? You mean state representative?"

"No. United States representative."

"My God," Eddie said, taken aback.

"Indeed!" she said, smiling a bit at his reaction. "And my first words of wisdom are that you never swear in front of any voters like that."

"You are kidding about this, aren't you?"

"No. You're probably aware of some of the hang-up about a candidate for that job. We're up against the old guy the opposition is putting up. We need the party, that is-someone young and fresh. We think the voters will be buying the youth look this season. Why I wanted to tell you, Eddie, Is ... well, first I think you're a good candidate from all I know, and I like you." Before he could stammer any thanks, she went on, "So I'm telling you In advance, right now, that the powers-that-be are watching you and will be until the convention next month. You know, when these wheels approach a young man with an unexpected honor like this-or burden-he's liable to say something about, 'Aw, shucks, I'm not worthy', or, 'I don't think I can do it', or some such thing, and that's unnerving to the selecting committee, because they don't know the young man and they may think he knows best. Then the nomination goes to some party hack and either we lose, which is good for the people but bad for the party, or we win, which Is bad for the people, but...." She stopped and gave her enchanting smile. "You get the idea."

He wanted to say so much to her, but she had turned. Over her shoulder she said, "Forewarned is forearmed, Eddie. Now I've got to stop neglecting alL of Daddy's other guests."

"Belda..," he said.

She stopped. "Yes?"

He was going to say thanks, but knew it was corny and unnecessary. "I wish I could ride."

They smiled a quick, uneasy smile of understanding. She wasn't going to say anything, and she had turned again to go out the door. Then she stopped. "Friday night. Could you pick me up about, eight at the...." Belda had to think of a neutral spot, "at the back entrance to the public library?"

"Of course."

Her face away from him, she licked her dry lips, her features drawn and serious. He thought she might be going to retract what she had just proposed, or laugh it away as a joke. But she swiftly went out of the stable door, leaving Eddie equally as apprehensive about what they were getting into, but absolutely joyful with anticipation also.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THAT FRIDAY NIGHT, WITH MAGNIFIED anticipation, Eddie awaited Belda at the back entrance of the library. He had made some trivial excuse to Marion to explain why he wouldn't be home until late. Not that it mattered. He came and went as he pleased, and she was used to it by this time.

As he sat in the car, Eddie perspired. He was nervous about meeting her. He felt he was falling in love with that gorgeous creature, and that made him nervous. He was nervous also because she was of such an important family, with so many connections; she and they could mean a lot to his future. Nervous to about the fact that he was, after all, a married man secretly meeting a girl.

Then he smiled to himself: maybe he was just sweating for the simple reason that it was an extremely sultry evening. In fact, that was what Belda mentioned to him when she got into the suto.

He hadn't even noticed her coming along the sidewalk, though he'd been watching for her. Then she was just there-and slipped in beside him.

"Drive," she said softly, and he pulled away into the twilight street. After a few mintues of silence, she mentioned, "Isn't it deathly hot? I'm sticky all over. Let's go for a swim." She looked at his silhouetted profile, and asked, "You do swim, don't you?" He knew she was referring to what he'd said about not riding.

Eddie smiled back. He loved the intimate tone of her words, and the ease of their relationship. "Sure, I do. But I didn't think you did." He recalled how marvelously attractive she was in her bathing suit beside the pool, the day of the party.

He thought that now she'd say for him to drive to the house and they'd take a dip in the pool. But she was way ahead of him. "We can't go to the house."

"Your father would disapprove-of us?" Eddie asked, somberly.

"Maybe. But I can handle Dad, he's no problem for me. But there might be guests or somebody dropping in. Why tell the world-yet?"

It thrilled Eddie all the way down to hear that. She was thinking of the future, and the future included him in her plans....

He was also pleased and relieved to hear that she apparently had her father in the palm of her hand. She seemed absolutely certain that she could get him to do what she wanted ... even to approving of a divorced man as his son-in-law.

Good lord, Eddie declared to himself. Here he was already mentally separated and legally severed from Marion. Well, why not? It would have to he. He would have to have Belda. Here was a woman! And a person who could offer him entrance into the world of politics and power. And was so lovely. Besides, Marion would have to go. This was his love.

The even more incredible thing was that Belda was in love with him. What more could life and the world offer him?

Since they couldn't go to her home or any public place to swim, Belda directed him to a side road off the highway, which led to a gate in the south pasture of the Kassnar estate. She had told him before about the river that bordered their estate. This dirt road took them through the pastures and down among the trees by the river. She told him where to stop, near a quiet inlet in the swift stream, with a rocky beach below a grassy area.

"But I don't have a bathing suit along," he said, hoping she'd say the right, spicy thing. And she did.

"So?" she said matter-of-factly, settling the matter.

However, she merely said they could swim in their underwear, and didn't suggest nudity, as he had prayed.

The stickiness of the weather had changed a bit. There was now a dry, gusty wind. A half-moon sent down some light, but skittering clouds passed over it from time to time.

As Eddie stood there on the grassy knoll, his heart was so full of emotion he had to swallow to keep from making some absolutely foolish, sentimental remark, and if he hadn't kept tight control of himself, he might have had tears in his eyes. It Was, he felt, such a moment of beauty in his life.

He was not nearly so much the master of this situation as he thought he would be. Wasn't he, he told himself, a man of much experience? Hadn't he undressed himself and many, many women? Hadn't he laid these naked creatures this way and that for what seemed centuries? Yet here he was, shivering like a schoolboy, feeling a wee bit embarrassed and getting down to his skivvies.

He couldn't quite understand this: but part of his nervous condition wasn't that he wanted everything to be superbly correct for himself and Belda. He. wanted there to be nothing coarse or gross or upsetting about it. He wanted it to be a pure and lively experience.

With a lump in his throat, he watched Belda. She was not embarrassed or hurried. She moved with grace and simplicity to remove her outer clothing. He saw her slim figure from the back, with the thin band of her bra and the briefs white against her tanned body, which was bathed down in silvering from the moon.

"Come on," she said, and went tripping into the water-throwing herself straight in when she got to water a bit above her knees. She came up gasping and laughing. "Oh, it's cold!"

"It can't be," he said, moving toward the water, feeling the hot dry wind on his front. He didn't want to hurry in, yet he felt embarrassed that she was turned down to face him, and he just in his under Wear shorts.

"Coward!" she challenged.

So he ran and dove at her. She-was gone from the spot when he got there, and he came up short of breath. It was cold. And the water was so stingingly awakening after the sultry atmosphere of the city.

He began to feel easy with her now, like a playmate for a spirited little girl. He tried catching her, but she was a far better athlete than he had expected, and moved around like a dolphin.

But finally she allowed herself to be caught. He put his arms around her and kissed her wet nose. Then she slipped away. She dove down and the next he saw of her she was near the shore.

"It's so ishy to swim in wet clothes," she shouted to him. "Now don't look."

He pretended to look away, but he watched her unfasten her bra and throw it up on shore, and then wiggled the clinging panties down till she could step out of them. Her wonderful upright buttocks shown glistening white in the moonlight.

"I peeked," he yelled at her.

"Oh, you!" she exclaimed, turning and diving under to cover her nakedness in one flowing movement.

He stood there, chest-deep in the water, watching for her to come up. It was such a long time, he wondered if something had happened to her. Just as he was about to worry, he felt the sudden tug on the elastic of his undershorts, and a second later, Belda's other hand had knocked him off his feet, and the shorts were down by his ankles, and they came off one foot.

They both surfaced, gulping for air. He was coughing like mad, because he had gone under unexpectedly. She was laughing like a naughty little girl. "There!" she shouted. "Now we're both naked as jaybirds."

"I've lost 'em," he said of his shorts.

"Yes," she cried back in mischievous glee, "and when I get to shore, and throw your pants in, then what'll you do?"

She started to swim for shore, and he knew he'd better head right after her. She was such an irrepressible child, she might even do just that, thinking it was a great joke.

She got there on land first, of course, and for one moment before he arose from the shallow water, he watched that slender beautiful nymph trip across the grass toward his clothes.

Then he got out of the river fast and chased her. Thankfully, he had put his clothes behind a tree, and she had to look for them. Otherwise, she would have gotten them and run away with them.

But Eddie caught her just as she had picked them up. She was laughing almost out of control and struggled momentarily.

Then they both stopped horsing around. They became aware of their cool, naked bodies touching. He had his arms around her waist. He withdrew them just as she dropped his clothing and stepped back into the clearing.

The clouds that had hinted at a storm had thickened. The wind was not so inter mitten now, but steady and hot and getting stronger. It was blowing up a windy shower. The moon obscured more and more by scuddering black clouds.

He didn't follow her as she moved, out into the grassy knoll, and onto a point of land beneath which the waters rolled. He just watched the nude Belda with awe and wonder, as if he were seeing a fantastically beautiful creature from another world.

The hot wind was quickly drying their bodies. Belda stood, her legs apart, letting the wind blow away the moisture. Her hands were in her damp hair and she was moving her head this way and that to get the water out.

Eddie gulped again as he noted the slender waist and the sudden and wondrous swell of her hips. When she turned, one full, hard breast glistened with wet in the shifting light.

Overhead, the clouds thickened into a solid mass. From the distance came thunder. Then lightning.

As one of the bolts lit up the whole area, he saw that she had turned, her hands still in her hair. When his eyes got used to the dimness again after the flash, his heart leaped as he saw that her arms were stretched toward him.

Eddie moved toward her. They caught each other in their arms. A few drops of rain fell in tingling hardness on their bare shoulders.

His body felt the marvelous breasts and the eager, uplifted pussy. His hands ran down her back and up into the mad tangle of her damp hair.

It would be just as simple as bending her over and onto the grass. How dramatic, a small voice in the hack of his mind told him thunder, lightning-what setting for their first lovemaking.

Yet, Eddie stopped. The rain gave him an excuse to say that they'd better get to the car.

Was she disappointed? he wondered. Or was she proud that he was a gentleman and didn't take her crudely on their first time out and just on the ground.

Later, Eddie wondered why he hadn't. And he knew the answer. He wanted everything with Belda to be beautiful-and proper. This was his one chance to do the right and correct and proper thing by a woman ... by the woman who would be his wife.

Ironically, this marvelous feat of self-control and longing for ideal was to ultimately cause Eddie the most harrowing trouble of his entire life.

It seemed he was going everywhere these days, and meeting everybody in the city and the state who was important. He was getting a very quick introduction to all the powers in the party, and they were giving him the once over. It all had to be very hurried since the convention was right around the corner.

Belda went with him everywhere; usually, so did her father. That was a matter of propriety, since he was a married man and Belda Kassnar's intimate interest in him must not become general knowledge.

Belda was falling deeper and deeper for him. Her man, that's how she considered him. Eddie was her choice, and he'd be the party's choice also. Her man-to shape into a successful national leader and into a husband.

Despite all they had to do in meeting officials and socialites, Eddie and Belda managed to have some moments alone. In those private times, they had some sessions of embracing and kissing, but nothing heavier. Eddie was constantly disturbed. by the new vistas of success that were being stretched out ahead of him. Belda had to spend much time briefing him on what he should do and say in their outings together.

There were a few times when it appeared that Eddie would revert to his more usual, normal self as far as sex interest was concerned. One afternoon when he was at the Kassnar mansion and they were seated on a couch in the cool library, she kissed him full on the mouth and then darted her tongue quickly between his lips and touched his tongue. He was surprised and excited. And, if the truth were known, shocked. He told himself he had to get a grip on himself or he'd let his swelling of passion get the best of him. He wanted her, but at the same time, he was let down to discover she was, after all, just a woman with the usual desires. He wanted her, in a way, to be above all that. Not that he didn't wish a flesh-and-blood mate, but he wanted everything about their relationship to be correct and proper. He didn't want her to be another broad he could knock over in ten mintues; just gently push her back there on the couch, sliding her skirt up as they went. No.

Then he thought-as he previously-that maybe she was testing him again ... to see if he'd behave like a gentleman. Well, he did-damn it!-and went home to take out his lust again on the cold, rigid body of his spouse.

The only other time of temptation for him was in Belda's room late one night. There was more opportunity for lovemaking and she was less dressed, yet strangely-it was even less to his thking than the afternoon of the French kiss on the couch.

There was to be a post-midnight luau at the home of one of the Kassnar's wealthy friends. It was for the young members of that fashionable crowd, and Belda thought it important that Eddie meet and mingle with them, for they represented not only donors to their political cause but potential active workers for Eddie's candidacy. Especially the young women, for whom Eddie was expected to have an appeal mostly on a sexual-attractiveness basis.

Belda was on a mad schedule, and she had had to attend a charity function that same evening. Eddie picked her up there and drove her to the Kassnar mansion where she'd change into casual clothes for the outdoor party.

Senator Kassnar was out, and the servents were a-bed. Belda motioned with her head for Eddie to follow her up the high, curving stairs to the second floor, after he had indicated he would wait for her down in one of the living rooms.

Quietly they ascended the deep-carpeted steps. He felt a tingle of anticipation, although he really had no reason to suppose that there would be anything to anticipate, unless he made the moves. Perhaps it was just the excitement of the new surroundings he was viewing for the first time. He knew of the Kassnar wealth, yet it was ever striking him anew when he saw some new manifestation of it. Such as now, stepping into Belda's quarters. A suite-not just a bedroom.

The evening had been hot and sticky. It reminded Eddie of that other evening they had been on the river bank just before the storm. Belda said she had perspired so at the charity function that she'd just have to have a quick shower, in order to be presentable.

She stepped behind an ornate and expensive Seventeenth Century French screen to undress. Stepping up on tiptoe, she looked over the top as she unfastened her brassiere. "I suppose this is being excessively modest ... after the river," she laughed, reminding him of her nakedness. "And, you are, after all my finance, almost."

Belda put a robe around her and disappeared into the bathroom. He heard the shower running. He sat down on the edge of one of the dainty couches that looked as if it had just been lifted from the Versailles of several centuries back.

The turmoil was strong within him. What the hell was wrong with him, anyway? Sure, she was a rich girl, but she had a body-breasts, butt, the whole business-just like anybody else. Why not make use of it? What was this stand-offish stance he was taking on?

Well, he told himself, for one thing, he wished she hadn't said that about being her "fiance, almost".

She had meant it to show how close they were, but he had taken it as showing how far they still were apart. "Finance, almost". Sure, but he still had a wife. None of his brooding about the matter concerned that wife, except negatively. He resented her for being his wife and thus an obstacle. He felt absolutely no guilt about being unfaithful in his motives. He would shuck her without a second thought when the time came. But now she was there to remind him of a dull, dreary, dreadful past. And although committing adultery had meant not a damn thing to him in the past, with Belda, he didn't want it that way. He wanted nothing to spoil the purity of their relationship.

There was more behind his brooding mood. The running water, the bathroom, the luxurious bedroom-it brought back sick memories of that lovely woman from the law school, and how he'd come out of the bathroom to make riotous love to her. And then the terrible ending to that affair, with the divorced husband.

Too many memories, too many.

He was interrupted in his reverie when Belda emerged. She had wrapped herself in a large bath towel. She paused just as she came out the door. Almost automatically, he had risen-and they looked at each other. Her hand relaxed and the towel dropped around her feet.

It was a stunning sight. He had been awestruck to see her in the moonlight. He wondered later if the light and the circumstances had added a luster to her gorgeousness that would fade in more usual circumstances.

But no. If anything, she was even more beautiful. Eddie had seen enough women to know that full nudity is more often than not destructive of an illusion of beauty. Most women are far batter off when dressed or semi-dressed as far as appearance is concerned. The breasts, the stomach, the pubic area had to be great in order not to look unseemly. Most females couldn't pass the test, Eddie figured.

But Belda. Oh, yes. Yes, indeed! Belda could pass any examination for feminine loveliness. And it was the whole figure, not just the more obvious sexual attributes. It was the lovely hair; the divine face; the tanned, healthy shoulders; the slender waist; the impertinent hair against the untanned, milky hips; the long, strong legs.

Her smile was unsure. "Darling, do you like me?"

Eddie moved toward her unsurely. "I love you."

She persisted, "Yes, but do you-you know-do you like me?" A little flutter of her hands indicated her entire body.

He knew what she meant, and he wanted what she probably wanted. He took her in his arms, and she pressed his clothed body hard against her flushed, warm skin.

His embrace was warm, but not heated. After a moment, she sensed that he was not going to pick her up or guide her to the bed. To save herself embarrassment-perhaps even shame-she said as lightly as her played-on emotions could muster, "Darling, I've got to get dressed."

He let his arms drop, and she went about clothing herself. They didn't say much. He didn't even watch her, as he might have peeked at some other gorgeous female going about her intimate bedroom affairs. He felt a bit ashamed. Should he feel ashamed, he asked himself; for doing the right thing? It would have been more manly to have thrown her on the bed, but he had done the correct thing.

The luau was exhausting, what with so many people to meet in so short a period of time, and the strong impression he was supposed to make on all of them.

When he drove Belda home, it was nearly dawn. He tried to put much emotion in his good-night kiss, but they were both so tired by this time, it didn't matter. Still, he was the one this time to flick his tongue into her mouth. She smiled and got out of the car and into the house.

Eddie was worked up despite himself and his fatugue. He decided that when he got to his house, he'd crawl into bed with Marion, and just spread her legs and plunge in. What the hell did he care about how she felt, or all that love-play stuff? That was for lovers, and she was only a woman he lived with until he could respectably leave her. She was there to serve and she'd serve him all right.

There was only one hitch to this plan of relieving himself on the unmoving body of Marion-she had already been moving: she had left him.

CHAPTER TWELVE

EDDIE HADN'T EXPECTED ANYTHING LIKE THIS from Marion. But then, he hadn't expected anything of her, period. He never considered what she might be feeling or doing or going to do. He never had her much in mind at all. They ate and slept together as just part of a mindless, emotionless routine. The words they exchanged were mundane and rather meaningless.

He had taken her as much for granted as the rug on the floor, and walked over her the same way.

That she should even think of leaving him was outrageous. He had the same thing in mind for later, but that she should do it, why that was awful! After all, who was she? A homely, passionless, dumb housewife. While he-he was a handsome young man who was being groomed for statesmanship. She should not be allowed to interfere with his path to glory by thus prematurely parting herself from him.

Eddie felt awful. He blamed it on lack of sleep. He went to get the bottle of bourbon, and then he went off to the bedroom. He'd have a snort or two, then get hold of Marion at her folks' place before the fact that she had left him became knowledge to more than just the family.

He poured down the alcohol, and suddenly his weariness reached up from his tired limbs and hit him inside his head. He could resist sleep no longer, and he let himself down heavily, stomach-first on the bed.

Lord, it would be nice to have a woman now, he felt-to plunge deep into the oblivion of passion. But he had neither Marion nor Belda. He only had booze and a lonely bed.

In his later existence, Eddie was often to wonder if this had been the decisive moment when he should, have acted; could he have changed things if he had gone promptly to seek out Marion? Would she have listened? Could he have gotten things back on their normal level?

But he didn't. He was angry and he was feeling sorry for himself. And even feeling a grudging little sympathy for the thought of homely old Marion and her pathetic, practical underwear. So it had been too much bourbon and then sleep.

Perhaps if he'd hurried over to her ... had reasoned with her ... had even lied to her by telling her about his affection for her....

Perhaps ... if only ... why didn't I?....

But he hadn't sought her out until he woke from an unrestful, alcoholic pass-out. It was after ten in the morning. He knew he had to do something to get her back and get her back with no fuss. He even hated to call her parents. For all he really knew, she might not even be there. She might have run away with the milkman or jumped into the river. Naw, he told himself, not Marion. Little, mousy Marion would creep weepily home to Mama and Daddy.

He called their house, and the frosty voice of her mother informed him that, yes, Marion had spent the night there, but she had just left. She did not know where her daughter was going and probably wouldn't tell Eddie even if she knew.

After he hung up, Eddie was relieved about the situation, for no accountable reason ... except that Marion was following the standard pattern. No surprises. She was teed-off and she went home to Mama. With a woman like that, Eddie thought to himself smugly, you can outguess her and outsmart her, by being two jumps ahead of her.

When Eddie had wandered about the deserted house that morning at dawn seeking to find out what Marion had taken with her. He had thought only in terms of things such as silver cigarette boxes, some bonds and title documents to some possessions of theirs, some rare coins and stamps he had obtained.

Never once did it occur to him that she had in her possession something so valuable and deadly that it made his concern about material things appear stupid.

But Marion remembered.

She carried it in her purse when she went to her parents' home that night. She held it in her hand that next morning when, about ten o'clock, she called Senator Kassnar at his downtown office to inform him that she was on her way to see him. When she finally got him on the phone, after a secretary had tried to give her the brush, he asked in cool fashion, "Who is this?"

"I'm Mrs. Edward Kilby," she replied, just as coolly. She told him she'd be right down. When she hung up, she looked down at what she held in her hand, and her lips contorted in a combination of smile and sneer. She was out to get Edward Kilby, and she would.

Senator Kassnar was thoughtful as he sat back immediately after receiving Mrs. Kilby's phone call. He cancelled some appointments he had for the morning in order to be free to see her.

She sounded very determined. But that was to be expected. He realized that she had heard what was going on between his daughter and her husband..

He was more perturbed than he ever had been when he became aware of the talk. He didn't like his name or his family bantered about in such a manner.

But he could never stay angry long with Belda. Her father was Belda's first conquest; the old man had been enchanted with his lovely daughter since he first saw her, twenty mintues after she was born, and he loved her to excess; for him, Belda could do no wrong.

As for Marion Kilby; well, that was unfortunate. Perhaps she wanted to cause trouble; maybe she just wanted to be bought off. Whatever she had in mind, Senator Kassnar was sure he could handle the situation. A man doesn't rise as far as I have in politics, he thought to himself, without knowing how to take care of any contingency.

Depending on how she acted, he might try bribing her to keep quiet until after the election, or he might try appealing to her better nature, if she revealed that she might be soft-soaped into acting their way for the good of family, home, country, flag, and like that.

But ten mintues after Marion had been ushered into his private office, Senator Kassnar understood that Marion Kilby was neither to be bribed or persuaded. She was attacking the man who'd wronged her, and she was doing it viciously, at deadly gut level.

With just a hint of the ceremonious about her action, Marion revealed her weapon. It was the thing she had brought from the house that Eddie hadn't even remembered that she had, much less would ever use against him.

Senator Kassnar opened the small envelope which Marion had handed him. Her air had been one of finality, her expression informing him that this was what she had made the object of so much mystery. Inside was a photograph.

Senator Kassnar recoiled at the pornographic aspects of the picture, and it was a moment before he realized that-yes, that was Eddie Kilby.

It was the photograph that was taken at the party for the homosexuals in that huge mansion with all the homo statuary and paintings, so many years before. In one of his weak moments, Eddie had told her of that wild incident and given her the picture.

Now, the affair was back to ruin him.

Stunned, Senator Kassnar placed the photograph back in the envelope. Charges of just ordinary sexual immorality, such as infidelity, would have been bad enough for a political figure; charges or suspicions of perversion were absolutely impossible to overcome, with the majority of voters being ultra prim when it came to the matter of queers.

Senator Kassnar handed the packet back to Marion. "Thank you, Mrs. Kilby," he said in a strained voice.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Well? Well what?" he replied. "What did you want out of this? Money?"

Marion was flustered. Actually she didn't want anything out of this, but to cut savagely at Eddie for all the hurts he had given her. "I ... I don't know what I wanted you to do."

Senator Kassnar arose. His voice and bearing were strong again. "I shall see to it that he never sees my daughter again. As for any hopes he had for public office, well that would be insane of him even to contemplate. Good day, Mrs. Kilby."

Marion was confused by all that she had felt the past day or so, and she was ready to meekly leave. Senator Kassnar suddenly stopped her. "Could I have that photograph?"

"Why, why, yes," Marion stammered. She handed it to him. "Why do you want it?" she asked.

"Personal reasons."

Marion left.

Senator Kassnar looked out the window, but saw nothing of the expansive view of the city it afforded. He had the small snapshot in his hand, but he put his hands behind his back, as if keeping this dreadful object as far out of sight as possible.

There might be some mistake about this, he thought. Perhaps it was some sort of tasteless fraternity prank, or Eddie had been in some sort of weird theatrical endeavor. Could there be any decent, logical explanation to oppose to this pictorial evidence?

The old man was not thinking of Eddie's political career or any use he might be for the party. Eddie was through in that regard. That bitter wife of his would certainly see to that.

No, Senator Kassnar was thinking only of his daughter, beloved Belda. She was in love with Kilby, and it would break her heart if anything broke them up. If there was some mistake, perhaps they could yet be together. After all, a man didn't have to be a statesman in Washington in order to be acceptable. If everything were straightened out, perhaps Belda and Edward could move somewhere else and have a happy life.

If everything were straightened out.

He had to face that situation now. It weighed as heavily on him as anything in his life ever had having to talk to Belda about this.

When they were alone together at home, Senator Kassnar came right to the point-gently, but firmly. He didn't want his beloved girl to say that she'd been having sexual intercourse with a married man, and yet it would be a distinct relief it she did. He asked her point-blank about sex.

Belda blushed and turned away. "What is this?"

"I want an answer, Belda, and a truthful one. Just tell me-did he ever-well, have you?"

Something in her father's tone made Belda realize the ultra-seriousness of the occasion. It wasn't just an irate parent wondering if his daughter had been seduced or wronged. "No, we never did that."

Senator Kassnar slumped heavily in his chair. He wished he had heard another answer. "Why not?"

Belda tried to laugh, "Why, Daddy, what a question for a parent to ask."

"Why not?" he thundered.

It was Belda's turn to be somber. She was even frightened by the tone of the inquisition. "What is all this? I want to know the truth. What's behind all this?"

For a long moment, he just looked at her, wondering if she could take it. Well, she'd have to know. Wordlessly, Senator Kassnar handed her the photograph.

Belda reacted as if she had been kicked in the stomach with terrific force. She sort of folded up on the sofa. "Is this a joke? It must be some sort of joke. Tell me it's a stupid joke," she almost wailed.

"Is it a joke?" Senator Kassnar countered softly. "You tell me." He suddenly felt awfully tired and very old.

"But he's married," she exclaimed.

"A lot of them are. And a lot even have children ... which he doesn't even have."

He said it so matter-of-factly. Neither took much notice of the fact that in one short sentence, Eddie had been relegated from one merely accused of some unseemly act into a convicted felon. To both their minds, he was now like "a lot of them".

Senator Kassnar looked at his utterly stricken little girl. He wished she'd break down and cry, and come to him for the warmth of his embrace and his soothing words.

But Belda did not break down. After a few mintues, she composed herself and arose..

"You all right, Belda?"

"Sure, Daddy, I'm all right. After all, there was . ... nothing between us."

She gave a little attempt at an ironic smile, then left for her room.

Later, only Eddie knew the irony of the situation, and he was never clear enough of emotion so that he could appreciate how humorous that irony was. If only he had been his usual self there on the river bank with Belda, if only he had taken that beautiful, nude body in his arms, put her on the ground and given her everything he had in a fierce tussle of unrestrained lust-then he wouldn't have lost Belda. But no!-for once in his life he had tried to act better than he was, to behave like a gentleman, to try to live as he thought the people in Belda's world lived. Or if he'd given in to his baser passions that night in her bedroom. He could have shown her what a man was-not only normal in desire, but extraordinary in performance.

But no. He had saved himself to go home to top his frigid, rigid wife. And she had gotten so sick of loveless sex-among other things, he admitted that she had been driven to her icy-hearted vengeance on him.

Belda had a sandwich in her bedroom that evening, in place of dinner with her father and a guest downstairs. She had excused herself as being ill. Senator Kassnar came up to see her after the meal. She was to have gone on to a meeting with him and their guest, but he understood when she said how tired she was.

He was not overly worried about her when he left. His daughter had always been resilient and she'd snap out of this too. She was taking it well, he thought.

Several times Eddie had phoned the house, but she wouldn't talk to him. She finally told the maid, "Tell Mister Kilby that I'm out-permanently."

Belda went into her bathroom and started the water running in the tub.. The water running-it reminded her of the night she had taken the shower. Then naked, and from Eddie, nothing. Nothing!

The revelation about him had been utterly devastating. She had built so many dreams around what she could make of him, and then what they could do for the world together. Together! And they couldn't even get together between the sheets.

Belda hated having people laugh at her. She had not liked it when she knew that people were gossiping about her affair with Eddie. But at least they thought of it as an affair. And she hadn't been ashamed. People may click their tongues about your morals if you sleep with someone you're not married to, but they don't snicker.

Not like when you're a beautiful girl-in love with a queer. What would all her friends and everybody else make of that now? Now that they knew about Eddie? She was sure they did or would soon. You couldn't hide any sort of secret from those people. Everything came out. Everything. What a fool she'd been. Like any dummy in any backwoods hick town-she, Belda Kassnar, acting so stupidly.

As the water ran into the tub, she went to a closet in the hall. Years ago, she had gone to Colorado with a group of girls on a camping trip, and she still had all the expensive equipment stored away there.

She took out the small, Italian-made knife, carefully carrying it in its leather sheath.

Belda entered the bathroom and carefully closed the door. She placed the knife on the edge of the bathtub, and then began undressing. She hung up her clothes nearby on the hooks. She had never minded previously looking at her naked self in the full-length mirror behind the door, but tonight, she did not want to see that which was considered a classic of feminine beauty.

She had a sudden, down-to-earth thought. She had heard that when it happened to a person, all of them, every part, relaxed. They despoiled themselves. So Belda went to relieve herself in the other part of the bathroom. Afterward, she mechanically washed her hands, as any girl did from girlhood.

She was a bit amused by the way she was acting. She had always read that only people out of their heads did this sort of thing, yet she was as cool and reasonable as could be. She had thought it all through, from every angle. She wasn't certain, for instance, that even a whole bottle of sleeping pills would do it; and what if her stomach recoiled from the massive dose and she upchucked the whole mess? And other methods seemed so messy. She'd hate to do them to her lovely body, and leave a mess behind.

She looked at her face in the mirror over the lavatory, and gently plopped up one side of her hair with her hand. What foolishness, she smiled to herself: it would be all wet and stringy soon anyway.

Belda stepped daintily into the tub, and settled those lovely haunches into the steaming water. She could .see her legs get pinkish from the hot water, under their smooth, lovely tan. What would she be like in a few hours? Did so much drain from the body that one got pale? She slid down into the tub, her feet on either side of the strong pour of water from the gold faucet, which she wouldn't turn off, letting the water go out the drain beneath the faucet. She was covered to her neck with the enveloping and comforting liquid. She looked down at the form which was now distorted madly from the water and steam. It wouldn't have been anything for him to have possessed that body, which was considered so faultless and lust-provoking. Oh, why hadn't he? Why? Why? Why?

Belda pulled herself up into a sitting position, wiped her hands dry on a towel hanging nearby, and took out the superbly sharp, imported, expensive knife.

Eddie was having a cup of awful coffee that he had had to make himself the next morning. He felt very depressed and very confused. Yesterday, all day, he couldn't get hold of Marion-her mother said she was gone to see people downtown. And Belda too. Phoned many times. And then that last, final-sounding message from the maid at the Kassnar mansion. What did it all mean? He hadn't slept well all night. He needed sleep and he needed a woman. Even Marion would be nice to have back, just to have somebody around. Well, maybe she'd be back. Women can be persuaded to do almost anything, he told himself.

The phone rang, and he was sure that it was going to be one of the two women in his life.

The voice at the other end of the line was a man's, and he identified himself as a reporter for the paper.. He reminded Eddie that he had given him his first publicity, way back when Eddie handled the divorce involving that fat stripper.

"Yeah, yeah," Eddie said, in a bad humor. "What do you want now?"

"I just thought it would make a cute feature-you know, big divorce lawyer being divorced himself."

Eddie wished he could have played it cool and not exposed himself, but before he could think, he exclaimed, "What?"

"Sure," the reporter went on. "I got another lawyer friend who is handling things for Mrs. Kilby. She saw him yesterday. And I thought I could get your angles-some little funny stuff."

Funny? Eddie was almost sick to his stomach.. This might ruin things for him with the party and with Belda.

"I got nothing to say," he snapped.

He could almost hear the shrug in the reporter's voice. "Okay. So she'll get her side in the paper and you'll look like a schnook. She says she'd going to take you for everything you've got."

Eddie bit his lip to keep from saying something vile to him. Instead, he just said, "No comment."

The reporter laughed, thinking back to when Eddie Kilby was a'two-bit lawyer. And now he was behaving like a big shot.

Eddie was ready to slam down the receiver, when the reporter just off-handedly remembered something. "Say, you knew Belda Kassnar, didn't you?"

"Yes, I know Belda Kassnar," Eddie admitted guardedly. "Why?"

"You mean you didn't know that either? Don't you have a radio or TV set? Don't you listen to the news? it seems there was a police call from out there early this morning and...."

THE END
The Sin Stripper ....(77k)    by John Dexter





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