Anne Martin hesitated in the hotel corridor before giving the signal that was certain to end her marriage. Four men stood around her: her lawyer, the photographer, and the two private detectives who had tracked her husband and his current mistress to this room.
The lawyer said, "I think we'd better not waste any more time. Ann."
"All right," she said with a sigh. "Go on in. Get it over with."
She stood back. One of the detectives produced a master key and slipped it silently into the lock He flung open the door and rushed in, followed immediately by the photographer, then the second detective, finally Anne and her lawyer.
Flashbulbs exploded. Shouts of rage echoed in the room.
Anne took it all in. She saw her husband-Geoffrey Lloyd Martin, III-naked in bed, and a naked girl next to him, a slim, dark-haired hussy who couldn't have been more, than nineteen or twenty, with heavy dark-tipped breasts and a flat belly and curving, voluptuous buttocks.
They had been making love when the door crashed open. The photographer had caught them right in the act. But now they were separated, sitting up angrily on the bed, cursing at the detectives and the photographer, blinking their blinded eyes as flashbulb after flashbulb erupted. Anne stared coldly at her husband's naked body, then staring at the girl. The girl, her bare breasts heaving wildly, threw her arms across her face to hide it, but the photographer gleefully snapped shots of her breasts, thighs, and hips.
The lawyer said, "Come on, Anne. You've seen enough. Let's get out of here."
He propelled her into the hall. A moment later, the rest of the little band of invaders joined them. The door slammed shut to an echo of angry howls.
There was silence.
The lawyer said to the photographer, "Develop those prints by five o'clock tonight. I want three of each, plus the negatives."
"Right."
And to the detectives he said, "Good job, fellows. I'll take care of your bill in the morning."
And to Anne he said, "Do you want me to drive you over to your place?"
"Please," she said in a soft, shaken voice.
They left the hotel. The lawyer, a short but suave and tremendously successful man named Richardson, offered Anne his arm, and they stepped out into the cool April sunlight. The noisy bustle of Sixth Avenue traffic roared by.
"I'm parked down near Fifth," Richardson told her.
Anne nodded. She hardly listened. She was thinking. It's all over, now. I'm going to get a divorce. I'm going to be single again.
Her lips quirked bitterly. She was wondering why all this had had to happen. Was it the reward of virtue? She had kept herself pure. She had dated only the best people, the most eligible bachelors. She bad made a good match, everyone said, in marrying handsome, debonair Jeff Martin, a wealthy Wall Street man of thirty. She had even kept herself a virgin till the age of twenty-three, had come unsullied to the marriage bed.
And for what?
For two years of hell?
Two years of trying to look the other way, while Jeff carried on with a series of mistresses right under her very nose?
Well, it was all over now. Richardson would handle everything. She wouldn't even have to make the stereotyped trip to Reno. Adultery was grounds for divorce in New York State, and they had plenty of evidence now. Jeff wouldn't dare put up a squawk.
They reached Richardson's car, a sleek black Mercedes-Benz sedan. The lawyer held the door open for her. She got in, kicked off her shoes, leaned back against the soft, yielding cushion.
The week before, Richardson had rented an apartment in her name on Upper Fifth Avenue, once it became apparent that a separation was near. This morning, moving men had efficiently moved nearly all of her furniture to the apartment, leaving Jeff's Beekman Place suite, where they had lived, bare of everything except that which Anne cared to leave him-meaning everything for which she had no use. He was going to pay, and pay well, for what he had done to her life.
The lawyer dropped her off at the apartment. "I'll be in touch," he said. "Don't worry about a thing, Anne. From this point on, it'll all go like clockwork."
"I hope so. I don't want there to be all kinds of nasty complications."
"There won't be," Richardson told her.
She smiled bleakly at him and went in. Alone.
It wasn't a bad apartment. It was three rooms instead of five, but the rooms were a little bigger, and she was on the fifteenth floor instead of the sixth, which moved her a litUe further away from the noise of city traffic. She wandered through the rooms, arranging the furniture to suit herself, remembering the day she and Jeff had bought this particular table, that particular highboy.
Then she thought of Jeff lying, writhing and twisting, between that naked brunette's legs.
Anne decided to take a shower. It had been a long sweaty, tiring day. She went into her new bedroom and began to undress. She had taken the bed, even though it was a double. Poor Jeff would have to sleep on the sofa tonight. She smiled. He would be furious when he got home and found that she had swiftly swiped three quarters of the furniture. As if he weren't furious enough about having his little tryst so rudely interrupted.
She peeled off her clothes quickly and eyed herself naked in the full-length mirror back of the bathroom door. Taking a critical look, she had to admit she wasn't so bad. That was one of the things that had mystified her about Jeff's promiscuity. She was attractive enough. She wasn't cold in bed. Why had he gone so often to seek his sport elsewhere? Force of habit? Compulsive lechery?
Whatever the reason, he'd pay for it, she thought. Through the nose.
She studied herself. She was twenty-five, and her body was unlined, showing neither the stresses of motherhood nor of domestic toil. Her skin was smooth, satiny. Her body had a slim Botticellian flow, from the narrow shoulders down past the full, round, pale breasts, to the softly rounded belly, the suddenly widening hips, and the firm, stocky thighs. It was a graceful body. People told her she looked something like Botticelli's, Venus Rising from the Sea. That was in Jamaica, when she had worn her flesh-colored bikini that made her look nude. Jeff had told her the same thing when she was nude.
It was a good body, she thought. She shook out her flowing auburn hair. Not particularly an athletic body, with muscles and strings and coils. Just a woman's body, young unspoiled, almost virginal in its simplicity, yet sensual, with heavy-breasts and buttocks, the way a woman's body should be. On the promise of her body, she had made an illustrious marriage. But, she had not been able to hold her husband, all the same.
She let the bath water run.
When it was scalding hot, she stepped m, gasping a little as the hot water hit her skin. Then she settled in, leaned back, enjoying the feel of the water against her loins. She put her hands over her breasts, cupping them the way Jeff had liked to do, and dug her fingertips lightly into the resilient flesh. A little hiss of pleasure escaped her lips. She pressed her thighs tightly together, pleasuring in the sensations of her own body under the warm water.
She had come to Jeff a virgin, pure in body and soul. She had left him as an experienced woman, fully awakened to the desires of the flesh.
And now she was going to be single again. The divorce was as good as granted. Richardson was one of the best lawyers in the city, and he'd take care of it smoothly and without a hitch.
She hadn't given much thought to what her life would be like after the divorce. But now the future was yawning wide open in front of her.
What now?
She didn't know. She stretched out in the tub and closed her eyes, and wondered what tomorrow held in store for her.
She had dinner alone, that night in a small restaurant on Madison Avenue not far from her apartment, and returned home by half past nine. The phone was ringing when she walked in, and she was afraid for a moment that it was Jeff, calling up to berate her for her treachery. But then she realized that Jeff couldn't possibly know her new number.
It was Richardson. The lawyer was just calling to find out how she was getting along.
"Everything's fine," she told him. "I went out and had myself a good dinner. Have you talked to Jeff?"
"I've talked to his lawyer. They seem to want to settle the whole mess as quickly as possible."
"That's good."
"We're working on the financial end now. They've already agreed to pay you four hundred a week during the period of separation. I'm negotiating on the alimony now. And the division of assets. I think I've got them on the run. They know there's no possibility of a countersuit, so they're eager to settle fast."
She thanked him, put down the phone, and prepared for bed. Nude, she slipped between the cool, fresh sheets, relishing the feel of them against her buttocks, against the tips of her breasts. She closed her eyes and thought of how Jeff and that girl bad looked at the moment they had come bursting in-Jeff on top of her, his buttocks in the air, moving. Sex was really so silly when you looked at it objectively, she thought. Such an undignified act.
But so much fun.
And now she was alone. She clasped her hands between her soft thighs, rolled over luxuriously into the middle of the big bed, and tumbled down into sleep.
The next morning, Anne took a cab downtown to the commercial part of Fifth Avenue, and spent a few pleasant hours browsing through the shops and art galleries. In the afternoon she went to see a movie; a new British comedy. She liked the idea that her time was her own, that she could come and go precisely as she pleased.
The movie was over a little past five. Anne strolled up Fifth Avenue for a few blocks, and suddenly found herself in front of a cocktail lounge that she and Jeff had gone to frequently. It was a quiet, sedate place, with no jukebox, no canned music, no irritating distractions. She smiled. A cold Manhattan would be just the thing now.
She started to go in.
She got as far as the outer vestibule. Then a woman's voice said. "They aren't going to let you in there like that, you know."
Anne turned. The woman stood in a corner of the vestibule-a well-dressed girl a year or two older than Anne, with blonde hair and a knowing, bright-eyed expression. Anne frowned at her.
"Why won't they let me in?"
"Unescorted women are not allowed. This is a respectable place, you know. They don't want any professional girls coming in to solicit the patrons."
"But I'm not-" Anne stopped and laughed. Of course! She had always come here with Jeff. It had never even occurred to her that they might not admit her alone, because she had never tried. All those signs about "No Unescorted Women Permitted" had never registered, because since she had been old enough to go to cocktail lounges, she had always had an escort.
But not now.
"What are you doing here?" Anne asked. "Waiting for someone like you to come along. They'll let two women in together. But not one So when I feel like a drink, I wait till another bachelor girl comes along. Or don't you care to join me for a drink?"
Anne eyed her uneasily for a moment. A sheltered girl she had an inmate fear of strangers who accosted her. Even well-dressed strangers like this one. But she knew it was a fear she had to learn to get over. She smiled.
"All right. Let's go in."
There was no trouble about getting a table for two. They were shown to one of the better ones, along the side opposite the bar, and their order was taken immediately-a dry martini for the blonde, a Manhattan for Anne.
The blonde said, "I'm Janet Lester. I'm in the publishing business."
"Anne Martin."
"What sort of work do you do, Anne?"
She smiled shyly. "None, I'm afraid. I-I sort of live off my alimony."
"Nothing wrong with that, if you can work it. Been divorced long?"
"Actually, no. Actually, I'm not really divorced at all, yet. Just separated. But, the divorce is coming through. It won't take long."
The drinks arrived. Anne stared at the other girl's finger, saw no wedding ring. She said, "Publishing must be a tremendously interesting field."
"Not very. But a girl's got to do something for a living. I figured I had three choices: I could get married and live off my husband, I could become a girl and live off lecherous businessmen, or I could go into publishing and live the way I want. It wasn't much of a choice. I like my freedom. And I've got it"
"I've got my freedom now, too," Anne said a little sadly. "All the money I need, and nobody to tell me what to do with it. But I'm a little afraid."
"Of what?"
"Of life. I've never been on my own before. First parents, then husband."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-five."
"Time you learned a little about life, then."
"That's what I say too," Anne agreed. The blonde looked at her speculatively. "I could help you, if you're interested."
"How?"
"Take you under my wing. Introduce you to some of my friends. Get you out into circulation."
"I'll think about it," Anne said.
She thought about it as one drink stretched into two, and then three. She felt her inhibitions breaking down rapidly. She liked this girl, this Janet. There was something straightforward and undevious about her that Anne appreciated. And-though she was only twenty-six-Janet had a tremendous air of worldliness that did not seem at all put on. She was a girl who had been around. She knew the score.
Anne found herself talking about her own life-how she had been a virgin till the age of twenty-three, how she hadn't really known the facts of life till she reached college. How her parents had sheltered her from any harsh reality until they could deliver her safely up to the man who was to become her husband.
"What do your parents say about this divorce bit?" Janet asked.
"They're dead," Anne said. "They both died last year. When I say I'm alone. I mean really alone."
"And thrown out into the cold world with nothing but a fistful of hundred-dollar bills."
"That's about the size of it."
Another drink, and Anne was getting even more intimate. She admitted to strange longings, confusing desires. She wanted to know more about sex. She wanted to have unusual experiences. She wanted to make up for all the lost time, all the goody-goody boredom of her wholesome and sanitary and sheltered little life.
Janet said, "You're on the level about this, now?"
Anne's pulse pounded. "Yes. Yes."
In a low voice Janet said, "I can arrange for you to have any sort of experience you want. I've got friends, plenty of them. They'll be glad to oblige. But I'm not sure you really mean what you're saying. I think you'll turn tail and run the second anything off-beat comes near you."
"Listen to me," Anne said tensely. "I grew up in a rich man's neighborhood. I went to a rich man's school. Not by school bus, but by private chauffeur. T was never allowed to pick my own playmates. I wasn't allowed to pick the boys I dated, either. They had to come from a specific social class and their fathers had to have a specific amount of money before I was allowed to go out with them. I think I was seventeen years old before I knew a Jew by name. Or an Italian or a Negro, except for the maids and gardeners. I'm tired of the social register bit. I'm tired of consorting with white-Anglo-Saxon-Epis-copalian-males, who went to Ivy League schools and belong to all the best clubs. I'm tired of palling around with a bunch of Junior League post-debs who went to Wellesley and Radcliffe and now devote their energies to charity balls and benefits. I've had that life up to here. I'm sick of it. I married a white-Anglo-Saxon-Episcopalian-male, who went to Harvard and belonged to the absolute best of the clubs there, and where did it get me? It got me alimony. Period. So much for that whole bunch."
"You've really had it rough," Janet said.
"I've had it smooth," Anne replied. "So smooth, that I'm sick of it. I'd like to get out and experience life a little. I could get married again in six months, you now that? To somebody every bit as upper-crust and eligible as Jeff was. Of course, I'd have to pick a divorced man this time, but otherwise there'd be no problems. Well, I've had that."
"What do you want now?"
"To see real people. People who don't have Senators for grandfathers. People who sweat. People who are alive. And I want to do things. Dirty things. I hardly even know what they are, I'm so naive. But I want to be a sinner! You get that! I want to sin!"
"Easy, girl," Janet murmured. "You're losing control of yourself."
"I've had control of myself long enough. I want to throw off the traces now."
"People are looking at us."
"Let them look," Anne said recklessly. She knew that her face was flushed and her eyes were probably wild and glassy. She had had four drinks, and that was two more than she had ever had at any one time. She was getting drunker by the minute.
"You know what I want to do?" Anne said. "I want to take off my clothes and dance naked on the bar."
Janet laughed. "Not here. You'll get arrested. Look, I know a place where you can dance naked all you like, and nobody'll be shocked. But not here. This is still part of the world you want to rebel against. Don't make trouble here. Especially before your divorce. What would happen if your husband's lawyers read in tomorrow's papers that you'd been picked up on a D&D charge in a Fifth Avenue cocktail lounge?"
"What kind of charge?"
"D&D. Sorry. Drunk & Disorderly."
"You're right," Anne said. "I better calm down."
"You better." Janet glanced at her watch. "It's half past six. Let's go take a walk until you're sober again. Then we'll have dinner somewhere. Where do you live, anyway?"
"Fifth Avenue and 84th."
"Okay. We're practically neighbors, then. I live at Park and 79th. We'll spend the night together. If you want to find out about life, you might as well start right away."
CHAPTER TWO
The check came to a little over twelve dollars. Anne paid it herself, waving Janet's money away, and the two girls left the cocktail lounge. They strolled up Fifth Avenue to the Plaza, and then turned eastward along 59th Street into Manhattan's most fashionable area.By seven, they had arrived at Third Avenue and East 64th Street, and they stopped into one of the better French restaurants for dinner. Anne had often eaten here with Jeff, but there was no flicker of recognition on anyone's face as she was shown to a table with Janet; obviously she registered on their memories only as part of a husband and wife couple, and drew only a blank now.
They ate slowly and well, running up a thirtydollar check. Again, Anne took it.
"Let me pay my share," Janet said.
"No. I insist. You can pay me back in other ways." She smiled meaningfully.
They left the restaurant. It was shortly after nine, a mild, balmy spring evening. Janet hailed a cab, and they rode uptown to her apartment on 79th Street.
It was a newish building, sleek and straight. The doorman smiled at Janet as she entered, and nodded knowingly at Anne. Anne felt tense and uneasy as they rode upstairs. She had not had any drinks with her dinner, and by now she had completely sobered up. Her normally cautious instinct told her to get away from here, not to get involved in something that might turn out to be sordid and unpleasant.
She forced her fears away. Janet opened the door and they went in.
The apartment was attractive-four rooms, reasonably large, brightly painted. There were books everywhere, and some paintings in a bizarre modern abstract style, and handsomely stylish modern furniture.
"Make yourself comfortable," Janet said. "I'll fix us some drinks. What will it be? Martinis?"
"I've never had a martini in my life," Anne said.
"Never? Well, there's always a first time, as they say in Baluchistan. Want to try one?"
"I suppose."
Janet busied herself in the kitchen with a cocktail shaker. Anne kicked off her shoes and browsed around the living room.
"Are these all books your company published?" she asked.
"Some of them. The ones that say Hammond and Reynolds. The rest are mine."
There were hundreds and hundreds of books-novels, works of history, psychology, psychiatry. Anne didn't recognize most of the titles. But she was a little startled to come across one section of the bookshelves containing The Marquis de Sade, Henry Miller, Frank Harris, and a great many others. Anne pulled out one tall book with a German title, and was surprised to find it full of glossy-paper photographs of naked men and women. The photos were not retouched. There was a text running along the bottom of each page, but it was in German, and Anne had no idea what it was all about. Still, these were odd books to find in a girl's library. But, Janet seemed to be a rather odd girl.
Janet returned with a tray, bearing two glasses and a tall, gleaming metal cocktail pitcher. Carefully she poured two brim-full martinis and handed one to Anne.
Anne sipped it experimentally.
"Well?" Janet asked.
"It's bitter."
"Take another sip. Nobody likes the first sip of the first martini."
Anne tried again. This time the cocktail tasted better-still wry, but cold and interesting on the tongue. She found it going down easier and easier after that.
They relaxed on the big sectional couch and talked, mostly about Janet. Janet was an editor for and important book company, Anne learned. She knew all kinds of famous authors, and was forever going out to lunch and dinner with them.
"Half of them try to seduce me, too," Janet drawled. "You'd be amazed how many authors think that they'll get a better deal from their publisher if they seduce a lady editor. Most of them try."
"But don't succeed?"
"Oh, some of them succeed," Janet said casually. "Not that it helps them any when they negotiate contracts. It's strictly a matter of whim with me. I collect the famous ones, mostly. Like Donald Morris, for instance. He must have been after me for five years. Three, at least. I finally let him score a month ago. And then there's Madeleine Renault, the one who writes those historical novels of the Crusades-she was after me in the worst way. What's the matter?"
"N-nothing."
"You didn't know Renault was a lesbo? Oh, sure. Just read one of her books and you'll know She kept telling me, 'You have the most charming eyes and the most lovely breasts the most splendid this and that,' and finally I gave in. Couple of weeks ago."
"You-sleep with both men and women?" Anne asked in a hesitating voice.
"Why not? More fun if you're ambisextrous, darling. That way you never miss a thrill. Have you ever been to bed with another woman?"
"The only person of either sex that I ever had anything to do with was my husband," said Anne, in a tone that struck her as unnecessarily prim.
"Well, well fix that," Janet said. "You'll sleep with me tonight. Or don't you want to?"
"Well-"
"Come on. Say it. You're afraid, aren't you?"
"No."
"Sure you are. It's as I said. Let you get close to a new experience, and you'll run like crazy. Because you're still the timid little debutante virgin. And you always will be."
Color came to Anne's cheeks. "Give me another drink." she said. "I'm almost finished with this one."
"Bravo!"
"I'll need two or three," she said. "I've got to get over my inhibitions first. I'm still very new at this, Janet."
"You'll stay the night?"
"Yes."
"You'll sleep with me?"
"Y-yes," she answered, in a husky whisper.
"There you go!" Janet exulted. "You see, if you want to savor life, you just have to learn how to say yes. You've been saying no too long. But I'll teach you. Say yes to everything, Anne. It's the only way. You just live once. Why waste it? Why not drink deep?"
"You're right. You're absolutely right. I've wasted twenty-five years. But from tonight on-"
"From tonight on you're a different person," Janet said. "Let's drink to you. To the new Anne. To the Anne who seeks adventure and excitement, wherever it's found!"
"To me," Anne said.
They clinked glasses. Anne drank half her martini down in a single gulp.
Janet refilled the glass. Anne began to feel a subtle glow of warmth stealing over her. The titles of the books on the shelf across the way were starting to blue. Even Janet's even, regular features were growing hazy and distorted.
"What time is it?" Anne asked.
"Almost eleven. Want to go to bed?"
"I-yes. Yes."
Janet tugged her gently to her feet and led her into the bedroom. Anne felt faintly troubled, but the cocktails spread a relaxing haze over her inhibitions.
She said, "What as I suposed to do?"
"Don't worry about that. Just do what comes naturally. Lie down and watch me undress, and then I'll undress you."
"Have-you done this often?"
"Often enough," Janet replied.
Anne stretched out comfortably on the wide, resilient bed. She propped herself up on her elbows and watched as Janet unzipped her dress and got out of it. She hung it up, pulled her slip off. Anne did not feel aroused. She had seen other women undressing before. What was so special about it? She felt no desire.
But then, Janet reached around back and unhooked her bra. The cups dropped away, revealing her breasts. They were big breasts, even bigger than Anne's, and the skin was a wonderful milky-white color. The nipples were very small and very light pink, sitting well up on the curve of her breasts and sticking up rigidly. Her breasts stood out round and firm, without any need for artificial support. They were very close together, so that a deep V-shaped cleft was formed between them.
Janet's breasts swayed as she leaned forward to pull her panties off. Now all she wore was a garter belt and stockings. Anne was surprised to note how appealing the effect was. The black garter belt cut into the soft flesh above her full buttocks. The stockings were dark green, almost black, and the garter belt and stockings contrasted sharply with the paleness of Janet's skin. She turned to show Anne her buttocks, and Anne felt a strange stirring.
Without removing the stockings or garter belt Janet came over to the bed and crouched by Anne's side. Her fingers grazed Anne's cheeks, skimmed lightly across her lips, then dropped to the buttons of Anne's blouse.
Deftly, Janet removed Anne's blouse and skirt, and then the slip. Anne became more and more conscious of the near-nakedness of the girl who was undressing her. The heavy, swaying globes of Janet's bare breasts had a musky seductiveness of their own, and when she knelt, the straps of the garter belt pulled into the flesh of Janet's smooth flanks in a way that caused a mysterious dryness in Anne's throat, a new and unexpected tension in her.
"Now the bra," Janet whispered.
Anne belt forward obediently and felt Janet's fingers slipping the hasps of her bra apart and removing the bra. Her breasts were free. Janet's fingers circled them lightly, lovingly, touching the nipples that, Anne realized, were starting to grow hard already.
"You have beautiful breasts," Janet said softly. "I'd like to kiss them."
Anne did not reply. Janet leaned over, putting her lips first to one snowy mound, then to the other. A sudden impulse overcame Anne, and as Janet stood by the bed, Anne put out her hand and encountered the round, taut, satiny globes of Janet's buttocks, and let her hand move over them.
Then Janet was removing the rest of Anne's clothes-the stockings, the panties, the garter-belt. Anne was totally nude, now. She lay back against the soft linens, watching while Janet, still clad in garter-belt and stockings, padded across the room to turn off the light.
Janet switched on a lamp. Standing by the bed, she turned slowly, to give Anne a full view of her body. Then she unhooked the garters, rolled off the stockings, took the garter-belt off.
Completely nude, Janet joined Anne in the bed.
"Relax, now," Janet told her gently. "This is going to be wonderful for both of us. I just know that's how it'll be."
She stretched out full length with Anne, just as though she were a man.
Janet put one hand on Anne's breast, caressing it firmly though not painfully. Touching her lips to the nipple, she kissed it, sending a shudder through Anne's entire body. Then she put her lips to Anne's mouth.
Janet's lips were soft, tender, moist. The kiss began as a gentle one, then became more passionate as Janet's tongue slowly crept into Anne's mouth. Anne shivered. She had once put her tongue into Jeff's mouth and had enjoyed the sensation of contact-but he had not liked the idea and had never let her do such a thing again. Jeff, with his stuffy ideas about what was proper and what wasn't!
Now Janet began to move her body against Anne's, sending new sensations through her. She reached up, her hands spreading out against Janet, squeezing the muscles of her back, going lower to press her thigh, to urge her to move faster.
Anne began to gasp.
Then Janet slipped down lower on Anne's body, showering her with kisses.
Janet lifted her head. "Do you like that?"
"Oh. yes, yes!"
"Did your husband do things like that?"
"Never."
"You see? You're starting to live already."
"Do it again," Anne pleaded.
Janet obliged. And then, after a while, they reversed and Anne reciprocated hesitantly at first, then with full abandon as she saw the effect it had on Janet.
Both girls were trembling with excitement now. They intertwined like two wrestlers. Then Janet was kissing her breasts again, and Anne gasped in pleasure, and over and over they went in a tumble of restless movement from one point of pleasure to the next, and back again.
There was a slow, thunderous sensation, coming up out of the depths of Anne, making her heart pound until she feared that her ribcage would split open. It was a crescendoing drumbeat that rocked the universe. It was a savage, furious, pounding frenzy that boomed and bellowed into reality like a stampeding dinosaur.
It was just beginning to happen, and, fearful of the intensity of what was happening, Anne started to hold back, and Janet sensed it, and whispered sharply, "Go on, darling, go on I All the way I"
And Anne went all the way.
She gasped and drew in breath like a damned soul-pleasure-damned-and she writhed and let it happen to her. She was dimly aware that Janet was going through the same thing at the same moment, but she was too carried away by the strange thing that was happening to her to be able to pay much attention to Janet.
Again and again the ripples surged through her. Until finally the last blazing torrent, and Anne sank back, utterly spent, totally consumed. She drooped limply on the mattress, one arm hanging over the side.
It was ended.
"My God," she whispered. "I never dreamed anything could be like that."
The harsh sounds of ragged breathing filled the otherwise silent room.
She felt the nakedness of Janet against her. She opened her eyes and saw the blonde girl at her side, lying face down, her body shining with sweat, glimmering down her back and buttocks and calves.
After a while Janet moved away and looked at her. Janet's eyes were gleaming.
"Good, wasn't it'?"
"Tremendous."
"The same here."
"I never knew," Anne said, "that two women could-give each other pleasure-"
"It happens," Janet said, "When you're not worried about being made pregnant, or being left high and dry in the lurch, or being hurt, or all the other things a girl can worry about when a man's with her. Just the two of us, knowing exactly where a woman likes to be caressed, what she likes to feel. It can be tremendous then. But it can be that way with a man, too. The right one."
"Do you sleep with more women than men?"
"Half and half," Janet said. "It depends on my mood. I don't like to get rountine, that's all. I like variety. Different partners all the time. Once it gets routine for you, you're dead. You may still be on your feet walking around, but don't think that fools anyone. You're dead all the same."
"I don't ever want to get like that," Anne said with feeling.
"You won't. Don't worry. Just stick with me, and I'll see that you don't."
"What-what happens next?"
"You'll see," Janet said. She reached across, cupping one of Anne's breasts in her hands. "I've got some things in mind."
"Tell me about them."
"No. I don't want you to get scared and back out. We'll move along from one thing to the next."
"You won't give me any hints?"
"No hints. One thing at a time. You've experienced lesbian love now. And you enjoyed it. You smashed your inhibitions right to hell. But this is just the beginning. We'll move on from here. We'll give you a real education. All the things you missed when you were going to finishing school to learn how to hold a teacup.
Anne smiled. "They ought to see me now. The girls from finishing school. Lying here next to you like this."
"Don't worry," Janet said contemptuously. "Half those girls are probably lesbos themselves by now. I've met a lot of them. The hoity-toity type. Pinky sticking out. Too spoiled to give love to a man the proper way, so they give it to each other." Janet laughed. "And what about the teachers in your fancy schools? What do you think they did after hours? Played bridge?"
"I never thought much about it." Anne said.
"God, are you naive! Those teachers were probably going through all the gyrations we just did, only probably not having as much fun. It's their number one sport."
"I know I'm naive," Anne said. "But I'm counting on you to change all that."
"I will. I'll make you a veteran sinner before you're finished with me. It's a course you never took in school. Intercourse." Janet hah-hahed, hollowly. "I guess that wasn't so funny was it? But I mean it. I'll teach you things you never even imagined. Right now let's get some sleep though, how about it?"
"All right."
Janet leaned over and for a moment their bodies touched, the dps of Anne's breasts pressing into the dps of Janet's, and Anne felt a new stirring of desire. But Janet did not seem to be interested. She kissed Anne lightly on the lips, and pulled off to one side of the bed. Anne had one last glimpse of Janet's golden body before the lamp was switched off.
Anne lay awake for a long while. She wondered what her friends would say if they knew she had made abnormal love to a lesbian.
She didn't care. She had lived the prim, virtuous life, and then she had lived the life of a faithful wife, and it had gained her nothing. Nothing but a lost virginity and a divorce.
Time to start living, now ..
Time to throw away her old stuffy ideas about right and wrong, and start the blood coursing in her veins.
Time for a little sin....
She nestled up against Janet, who was already asleep. She pressed into Janet's smooth back, up against Janet's buttocks. She closed her eyes and let relaxation sweep up over her.
She slept.
CHAPTER THREE
They woke Early. Janet had to be at her office, which was far downtown on Fifth Avenue at nine. Morning came as a shock to Anne. To find herself naked in bed, next to a beautiful, naked blonde girl, caused a moment of disorientation, of confusion. But it passed, and she pressed her body fervently against Janet's in a passionate kiss of good morning.
While Anne took a quick shower, Janet prepared a simple 'breakfast. Then it was Janet's turn to shower while Anne cleaned up. As they left the building, Janet said, "I'll call you this evening around five, darling. As soon as I have something definitely set up for the evening."
"What are you planning?"
Janet smiled enigmatically. "You'll see. But I guarantee you'll like it."
She hailed a cab and disappeared. Since it was such a fine spring morning, Anne walked the six or seven blocks to her own apartment. She felt like skipping along. A bubbling sensation of liberation danced in her breast. She had broken the strangling chains of the past, she told herself. She was stepping out into a new existence, radically different from anything her upbringing had prepared her for. She was a little bit afraid-but mostly she was hopeful, exuberant, excited.
There was some mail for her at her new address. A letter from her lawyer, containing a check for her first week of separate maintenance, plus information on the status of her bank accounts and so forth. Some of the accounts had been in her name alone, and those were all right; others had been joint, and at the lawyer's advice she had quietly withdrawn those balances earlier in the week and put them in escrow pending a settlement. He gave her a complete rundown on what was where.
It was a lot of money. None of it was really hers, she thought guiltily; she had never worked a day in her life, wouldn't know how to begin earning money. But that was all right. The law said Jeff had to support her until she remarried. And money didn't matter to Jeff. He had inherited a couple of million anyway. And it was no trick at all for him to make fifty or sixty thousand with one or two phone calls. She had seen him do it. Knowing that he didn't have to work very hard for his money made it easier on her conscience to be taking it from him.
The day tricked away in luxurious ease. She spent the morning in Central Park, wandering over to the zoo and peering at the unhappy-looking tigers and the playful, all-too-human chimps. But the sight of mothers with baby carriages depressed her. Especially the young mothers. Girls of twenty-two, twenty-three who had a toddler at their side, another one in a carriage, and sometimes a third already bulging out their coats; while she was childless at twenty-five, and maybe not likely ever to have any children. Most of the girls she had gone to school with were mothers already. But Jeff had wanted to wait a while before starting a family. "Not before the third year of the marriage," he had said whenever the topic came up. "Let's get used to living with each other first, Anne."
But the marriage had only lasted two years. And so, she had no children. In a way, Jeff had acted with foresight, she thought. How much more painful the whole breakup would have been if there had been a baby. It was as though he had guessed that the marriage wouldn't last, and hadn't wanted there to be any innocent victims of the divorce.
When the sight of mothers and babies became unbearable, she moved uptown, away from the zoo, and strolled through the open fields, where the trees were just beginning to send out their spring buds. In mid-afternoon she left the park and rambled over to Madison Avenue, had a snack at a hamburger shop, and was home a little past four. She got out of her clothes, and soaked in a warm tub, to relax while waiting for Janet's call.
Five o'clock came and went, and there was no call. Anne began to feel a trifle tense and worried. But then, at twenty after, the phone jangled.
Anne pounced on it at the first ring.
"Hello?"
"Anne, darling."
"Janet! I've been sitting here by the phone waiting for it to ring."
"Well, it's all set for tonight."
"What is?"
"Dinner at my place. I've got a perfectly fascinating man coming over. One of our writers. So dazzlingly handsome you won't believe it. And virile! I know you'll be captivated with him. You'll love meeting him. He's cooking dinner for us. It ought to be quite unusual."
"What's his name?"
"Roy Bradley. You won't have beard of him. We've bought two of his novels, though. The first one comes out in May. He's a very promising talent. But dress informally, will you? Pedal-pushers or something like that. He doesn't like women who wear crinolines or frills."
"All right," Anne said, beginning to feel a strange pulse of excitement. "What time should I come over?"
"Around half past six, I guess. Don't be late, darling."
"Don't worry. I won't be."
Anne put down the phone and feverishly searched through her wardrobe for something that would be casual unfrilly, and still chic. She came up with an orange jersey and a pair of bright green, skin-tight Capri pants. She dressed and looked at herself in the mirror. The pants were extremely tight, and she had put on a pound or two, and the result was that the borders of her panties were clearly outlined. After a few frowning moments of thought, she pulled the pants off and removed her underpants. There was a wonderful feeling of boldness about wearing Capri pants over her naked skin. She smiled at the mirror image. But now her bra seemed to jar the effect. Gaily, she whisked the jersey off and abolished the bra.
She was a little fearful of the result. But her breasts remained high and firm even without the support. The only thing troublesome was that the points of her nipples were visible against the tight fabric of the jersey, so that anyone could tell at a glance that she wasn't wearing a bra.
To hell with it, she thought cheerfully. Janet's novelist didn't like frills. And underwear came under the category of frills. Anne had heard about women who didn't wear any underwear; now she was one of them. Good, she thought.
Even under her long coat, though, she felt naked as she rode down in the elevator, and so instead of walking over to Janet's she took a cab. As she entered Janet's building she was conscious of the doorman's eyes on her rear, as though he could see her bare buttocks through the scant millimeters of cloth that hid her nakedness.
Her heart pounded as she approached Janet's door. Her hand shook a little as she rang the bell.
The door opened.
"Hello," a man said in a soft voice. "I'm Roy Bradley. I'm so glad to see you. Won't you come in? Janet will be out in a moment."
Anne entered, and looked at Bradley with awe. He was, indeed, tremendously handsome. Frighteningly so. He was well over six feet tall, and wore a thin jersey and narrow-hipped pants that vividly lined the powerful contours of his lean, supple body. His hair was thick and curly, his forehead high and smooth, his eyes deep, searching, sensitive. His nose and lips were thin, aristocratic.
There was one thing about him, though, that Anne had not been expecting at all.
He was a Negro.
His skin was a beautiful chocolate color. Obviously, there was white blood somewhere, not too many generations back, in him, but he was unmistakably a Negro.
Anne tried not to let her shock show. In her world, Negroes were chauffeurs, butlers, handymen. They smiled politely, showing yards and yards of white teeth, and tipped their hats. They didn't write novels. You didn't spend evenings socially with them. It wasn't a matter of race prejudice, really. It was simply that Negroes were servants, by and large, and it didn't make any sense to mingle socially with servants.
But this man was no servant, obviously. He moved with regal pride, though not with a swagger. Clearly he had a high opinion of himself, and just as clearly that opinion was a well-merited one.
Janet appeared from the bedroom, wearing much the same sort of outfit Anne had chosen, only in blue and orange. Anne was amused to see that Janet, too, had not bothered with underwear.
"I'll get back to my cookery," Bradley said. "We will eat in a very few minutes."
He glided lithely into the kitchen as Anne and Janet embraced. Anne gloried in the pressure of Janet's breasts, firm but yielding under the pullover, against her own.
"Isn't he beautiful?" Janet asked.
"Gorgeous. But, you didn't tell me that he was-black."
"I wanted it to be a surprise. So you get little lessons in tolerance as well as in love. Anyway, he's not really black. Just soft of caje-au-lait."
"Where's he from?"
"Trinidad. Calypso country. That's why he's got that lovely soft accent. He's a millionaire, you know. His father is one of the big landowners down there. And Roy can do everything. He sings, he dances, he writes wonderful books, he's a game fisherman, he's a poet, a cricket star-oh, a regular superman. But of course, his skin is brown, so when he comes north he has to be careful which of the fancy restaurants he goes into, which hotels."
"It sounds like a shame," Anne said.
"It is. And it's our people who've done it to him, too. Our white-Anglo-Saxons who get along quite well with colored chauffeurs, but who can't stand it at all when there's a colored man living in the co-op next door, or eating crepe suzettes at the same restaurant."
"Dinner's ready!" Bradley sang out from within.
They went into the dining alcove. He had spread bowls or rice and meat and vegetables, and had opened a tall bottle of cold white wine. As they took their seats, Bradley explained, 'This is one of my very favorite dishes. It's a Trinidad curry. East Indian cooking with a West Indian flavor. My mother is from Calcutta. As you may know, a great many people from India live in Trinidad. A great many."
The food was delicious. Anne had been to an Indian restaurant once with Jeff, and had liked it, though the food was terribly spicy. But the curry as Bradley prepared it, was quite different, with an exotic tinge to it.
After dinner, they sat around in the living room, sipping a cocoa liqueur that that Trinidadian had brought with him. After a while Janet said, "Roy, why don't you dance for us? Or is it too soon after eating?"
"No, I'll be glad to," he said. "Would you find the record?"
Janet rummaged through her record albums and drew out one of Calypsco music. She put it on. For three or four minutes Bradley squatted in the middle of the room, almost motionless, getting into the rhythm of the music with little quivering gestures of his hips and shoulders.
Then he rose. He peeled off his pullover, revealing a strikingly muscular chest and massive arms.
He began to dance.
It was a wild, footloose dance, a barbaric stamp and leap, but with the restraint of a highly civilized man. He moved around the living room like a great cat, Umber and incredibly graceful. His chocolate-brown body began to gleam with sweat
"You dance too!" he called after eight or ten minutes.
Anne remained where she was. But Janet moved out onto the floor with him and began to match his rhythms. She danced jerkily at first, uncertainly, awkwardly. But in no more than a minute, she caught the feel of it. She began to move in coordination with him. Sweat dripped down her cheeks, and in a sudden impulsive moment she yanked her jersey off. Her breasts, bare beneath, leaped and bounced as she moved.
"Come on," Janet called to the watching Anne. "You too! It's fun!"
Hesitantly, Anne rose. She could waltz, she could foxtrot, she had even been taught the minuet-but her repertoire of genteel debutante-ball dances did not include anything like this. And, the sight of Janet dancing bare-breasted with the strange Negro awakened her old inhibitions and propriedes. But she forced herself to go out there.
She let the rhythm impress her for a moment or two. Then she started to move.
"That's the way!" Bradley called encouragingly.
"You're doing fine," Janet cried.
Round and round they moved, the three of them leaping and prancing with unfettered abandon. The violence of the dance made Anne begin to pant and sweat. Abruptly, in a gesture that she performed in a hurry so she would not have time to think about what she was doing, she yanked off her jersey and tossed it to one side. Cool air swirled around her breasts.
She danced. She danced wildly and gaily, savoring the freedom of her bare breasts, thrilling to the way Bradley looked at them, enjoying the sensation of their bouncing free with every leap.
On and on they danced, until first Anne, then Janet collapsed on the carpet in exhaustion, and only Bradley danced on, serene and unfatigued, moving from height to height with the calm grace of a mountaineer, showing no trace of weariness at all.
And finally the record came to its end. Janet lifted it from the turntable.
No longer spurred on by the frenzy of the music, Anne became uncomfortably aware of her half-nakedness. It had seemed perfectly natural to bare her breasts during the dance. But now afterward, she felt embarrassed at sitting here this way. She did not want to be the first to cover up, though, and since Janet remained half-nude, Anne leaned back, defiantly determined to enjoy it.
"Now read us some of your poetry," Janet commanded.
"Ah, no," Bradley grinned. "I would rather not"
"Stop pretending to be shy," Janet told him. "You just want us to coax you a little."
A little coaxing was all that was necessary. Bradley produced a portfolio and began to read. His poems were strange, tortured, powerful ones, and he read in a passionate husky voice. They were love poems, mostly, deeply felt ones of unusual strength.
Finally, he put the portfolio away. Janet produced some cognac, and they drank a while. Then she put on a record of soft dance music.
"Come dance with me," Bradley whispered to Anne.
She glided dream-like out onto the floor with him. He drew her close, and the points of her breasts touched the hard, muscular chest of him, and there was a sensation of desire in her. Body to body, they moved slowly over the floor. He was grace incarnate. She pressed her body to him, quivering in tension at the closeness of him against her.
He danced with Janet, while Anne watched. Then, when the record ended, Janet suddenly began to strip entirely. In a moment she was totally naked. And Bradley was starting to disrobe. Anne felt a moment of terror. Were they going to make love right here, in front of her?
Then Janet said, "You too, Anne. Hurry!"
Caught up in the frenzy of the moment, Anne fumbled for her zipper. Bradley was naked already, and she stared in astonishment at his incredibly beautiful body, smooth and lean and gleaming. He was the most masculine man she had ever seen. Of course, she reminded herself, she had no one to compare him with but Jeff. Even so, he so far surpassed Jeff physically that it was a little frightening. Was it posible for her to make love with such a man?
The three of them were nude, now. Ignoring Janet for the moment, Bradley moved toward Anne. He knelt before her and kissed her breasts in turn, and showered kissed all over her body, and then suddenly she found herself gasping in sudden urgency.
She could not control herself. She dropped to the floor, pulling him down to her.
She lay back, gasping, feeling the prickles of the carpet against her, and in a dream-like way she opened her eyes and saw him smiling down at her. saw the brown color of him, and realized that she was accepting another man, that Jeff was no longer the only one who had made love to her.
Then the shivering, throbbing fury hit her.
And even as she quaked with the magnitude of her fulfillment, he was leaving her, he was turning away and taking Janet. Anne opened her eyes again, saw him with the blonde, pale white skin contrasting with chocolate, bodies moving with eager urgency.
Then it was Janet's turn for fulfillment, and for the first time in her life, Anne watched another woman at the height of passion. It was a terrifying sight to see the strange distortion of Janet's face, the wild look of frenzy that came upon her.
But Bradley was by no means finished. Back to Anne he came, now. His desires seemed unquenchable. She was ready for him, and she gasped at the sudden tingling impact of him.
Finally it came to an end. The frenzy left them. They lay sprawled out on the carpet, deleted, exhausted, drained. There was no sound but that of weary breathing.
Anne had never in her life dreamed of lovemaking like this. There was something primeval about it. It was almost as though what had happened had taken place in a cave in some steaming jungle, rather than in a plush apartment house on Manhattan's east side.
After a long while they rose silently and began to dress.
She smiled to herself. A few days ago she had been a prim, prissy society girl. And now-now she had done things that would have been unimaginable only a week ago.
And this was just the beginning, she thought....
"I must go now," Bradley was saying.
He kissed each girl's hand gravely, courteously. "It had been a highly pleasurable evening for me," he said softly. "I trust we will be able to indulge ourselves this way once again in the not too distant future."
"I hope so," Anne said.
He smiled at her. "And will you permit me to send you a copy of my novel when it appears?"
"I'd love it."
"Thank you so much." He smiled at both of them, bowed. "Good night. Anne. Good night, Janet."
And then he was gone. Anne stared at the door after it had closed for a moment. Then, realizing the enormity of the evening's sin she began to laugh hysterically.
CHAPTER FOUR
The reaction didn't hit her until the next day.
She was having lunch with her lawyer. They were discussing the legal ramifications of her case. And just by way of changing the pace, Richardson asked her, "How are you enjoying your new freedom?"
"Very much."
"What do you do with yourself?"
"Oh, I go to art galleries and museums-and the zoo-and the movies-" She stopped. And I was seduced by a lesbian, she thought. And I was involved in a three-way orgy with the lesbian and a Negro. And-
Suddenly it was all to much for her, the enormity of the shameful things she had been doing. She turn-ed pale, and began to tremble uncontrollably as a chill struck her. Biting her lips she turned away from the lawyer.
He said in concern, "Anne! Anne, are you aB right? What happened?"
"Nothing. I-I'm fine."
"You're shaking like a leaf." He reached across the table, took her cold hand in his. "What's wrong, Anne?" he asked gently. "You can tell me. Are you sick? Or is it just nerves?"
She seized at it. "Just nerves," she nodded. "I'm-overwrought, I guess. Living alone like this. All the legal talk. And remembering-remembering Jeff and that girl, how they looked-"
"It must have been a shock. You aren't used to that sort of thing. You haven't known much about the seamy side," Richardson said.
She bit her lip to keep from bursting into hysterical laughter. There was an almost overpowering temptation to describe, in pornographic detail, the things she had done the last two nights-to tell him about Roy's body, the size of him, the inexhaustible virility of him; to talk of Janet's breasts, how wonderful it felt to have them pressed against her own.
She fought back the temptation. Richardson would simply think she had lost her mind.
She said, "Be a dear and order me a drink."
"Of course. A Manhattan?"
"Make it a martini."
He looked at her peculiarly. "Since when do you drink martinis, Anne?"
She shrugged. "It's something I picked up recently, I suppose."
She put the martini away in such a hurry that the lawyer's eyebrows rose even higher. But she felt better afterward, more in control of herself. She was still a little shaky as she left the restaurant and taxied back to her apartment.
Janet was supposed to phone her when she was finished with work, to discuss her plans for the evening. But Anne decided that tonight she would beg off. Things were moving just a little too fast. She needed time between each new experience to rest, to digest what she had done.
She phoned Janet at her office, not wanting to wait till later when things might have been arranged. "I just wanted to tell you I'm not going to be able to see you tonight," Anne said.
"How come?"
"I'm still pretty tired from last night. Besides, I don't want to make a nightly routine of it. Not yet. I've got to move a little more slowly."
"Oh. Well, anything you say, Anne. I thought I'd take you down to Greenwich Village tonight. Show you some of the special places."
"Let's make it tomorrow," Anne said.
"Right. Tomorrow for sure."
She was glad to have the chance to spend a quiet evening at home. But, by nine o'clock she was hopelessly bored. She had read for a while, then had turn-on the television to fritter an hour away mindlessly. But her thoughts kept turning to Janet, to the pleasures she had already known, to the things they might have been doing tonight if she hadn't begged off. it's becoming an obsession already, Anne thought.
Obsession was the right word to use, she knew. Her body was alive with strange, new cravings. Janet had awakened twisted desires in her. She regretted having taken the night off. She wanted to be out experiencing things, doing things. But it was too late now. She phoned Janet's place, got no answer.
Where was she?
Who was she with?
What was she doing?
Anne felt an emotion very much like jealousy. But it was all her own fault, she told herself. She had wanted to stay home tonight.
She turned on the television again. A grinning, idiotic comedian was making vacuous jokes. Anne sighed.
It was a very long evening.
The next day, she met Janet at her office downtown, at half past five. They strolled down Fifth Avenue to Washington Square, then turned west to enter Greenwich Village. They ate at a small Italian restaurant on West Fourth Street, a place that served plenty of spaghetti, and plenty of bread to mop up the sauce.
"I phoned you last night," Anne said, "around nine. There wasn't any answer."
"I went to the movies," Janet said. "With some friends. You'll meet them."
They paid their check and left the restaurant. "Our first stop," Janet told her, "is a bar on Seventh Avenue South. You can consider everything you see tonight a part of your education. And it's going to be a very educational evening, believe me."
The bar was long and dim and low-ceilinged, like any other bar. But Anne knew there was something special about it the moment she walked in. There was no jukebox. Instead, the delicate strains of a Beethoven quarter were coming from twin stereo loudspeakers mounted above the door.
There was another unusuual feature. Nearly everyone in the place was female. There were girls everywhere, in the booths, at the bar-most of them in twos. Many of them had short-cropped hair and wore men's shirts, slacks, men's-styled shoes.
"What is this place?" Anne whispered.
"Can't you tell?"
"A bar for women only?"
Janet chuckled. "You are a child, aren't you? Yes, this is a bar for women only, though that's a quaint way of putting it. You know what kind of clientele they specialize in here?"
"Lesbians?" Anne said, questioningly.
"Give that girl sixty-four thousand dollars! Yes, this is a dyke joint. Bet you didn't even know such places existed, did you?"
"What happens if-if somebody who isn't a lesbian walks in? A man and a woman, for instance?"
"Usuually they don't. When they do, they size up the situation pretty fast and clear out."
"And the bartenders?"
"Fairies-both of them," Janet said. "It makes it cozy all around."
They went to the bar. Janet kept waving to friends of hers as they passed the booths. She seemed to know, or be known, almost everyone in the place. Anne reddened as a couple of the girls whistled at her.
They reached the bar. A swishy-looking bartender waltzed over to them and said, "What'll it be, dear?"
"Are you in a martini mood tonight, Freddy?"
"Of course, darling."
"Make it two martinis, then. Dry."
"Coming up," Freddy said. He glanced at Anne. "Who's the ravishing friend?"
"None of your business," Janet snapped.
"She's a pretty one," Freddy said. "She's almost enough to make me wish I wasn't gay. Mmm? Is all that for real in front?"
"Wouldn't you like to know," Janet said. She leaned across the bar. "What time do you go off duty here tonight, Freddy?"
"Ten."
"Okay. Why don't you pick up a pal and meet us over at the Circus? I want my friend here to see the show. Then the four of us can go up to my place and spend the night. Is it a deal?"
"Great, Janet."
Freddy went off to mix the martinis. Anne silently looked around. She was beginning to see the sort of thing that Janet was planning for tonight, and she was a little taken aback by it. But, she had wanted adventure, she reminded herself. She had wanted to see the sinful side of life. And she had certainly picked the best of all possible guides to lead her along her sin quest.
They had two martinis apiece, while Janet chatted with old friends. A couple of the lesbians tried to make passes at Anne, who simply goggled helplessly at them while Janet did the work of fending them away. About nine, they left the bar.
It was a relief to get back into the fresh air after the dank, moist atmosphere of the lesbian rendezvous. Outside, Anne said, "Are there many places like that in New York?"
"Oh, nine or ten."
"My God. I had no idea."
"You've got no idea of a lot of things, honey. But you just stick with me and you'll see it all," Janet grinned.
"Do you know many of those girls very well?"
"I've only been to bed with three or four of them," Janet said easily. "The rest are just girls I've met at parties. I'm not really anything like a full-time lesbian. Generally I like men better. But I'm accepted by them as an insider."
"And by the fairies too?"
"Some of them," Janet said. "Freddy's a doll. We'll have some fun with him later on."
"How do you mean?"
"You'll see," Janet promised, mysteriously.
They walked through the narrow, twisting Greenwich Village streets for a few blocks. Stopping in front of one bar on a side street, Janet said, "We aren't going to go in here, but you ought to know about it anyway. It's the opposite number of the place you just left."
"You mean, for fairies only?"
"Take a look," Janet said.
Anne peered through the window. Yes, the place was full of men. Not a woman in sight. Tall men. short ones, bearded ones, pretty ones. But men. Laughing and drinking, and some of them holding hands.
Anne stared in, awed. Somehow, she had never imagined it would be this way, with open places of congregation for the homosexuals and the lesbians. But, of course, she had known so little of what really went on.
"What would happen if we went in?" she asked.
"Nothing serious. We'd get served like anybody else. But we aren't wanted in there, so we won't go in. They've got as much of a right to be alone as anybody else. We won't inflict ourselves on them. I just wanted you to see."
Anne nodded. She was disturbed by these revelations of a whole society of sin. They walked along.
Two blocks further on, they paused at the mouth of a dark alley.
"We go in here."
"What is it?" Anne asked.
"A night club. A very special kind of night club that not everybody knows about."
Frowning, Anne followed her down the dark alley to a doorway, then down a winding spiral staircase into the basement of an old building. Passing through a double doorway, they were met by a short, plain girl with startlingly big breasts jutting out of her black turtleneck sweater.
"Could I see your membership cards, please?" she asked.
Janet produced her wallet. Nodding to Anne, she said, "And she's my guest."
"Very good. Would you sign the book?"
A guest book was handed to Anne. Janet said, sotto voice. "Not your real name."
Anne glanced at the page. It was full of John Does and Richard Roes. With a grin she signed the first vacant line Martha Goes and handed the book back. They passed through an inner door and entered.
It was a long rectangular room, with chair arranged at back and front to provide a crude stage in the center, arena-style. Half a dozen unshaded light bulbs provided illumination.
There were fifteen or twenty people there already, most of them crowded into the rows nearest the stage. A young usher came over, and said, "How many, please?"
"Four," Janet said. "We're expecting two more about ten past ten."
"They won't be late? The show starts at ten-fifteen, you know."
"They'll be here."
They took seats in the second row. People were filtering in steadily. Waiters were circulating among them, taking orders for drinks.
Janet said, "This place is a private club, you understand. Members only. That doesn't make what goes on here legal, but at least it helps to keep outsiders away. Membership is very carefully screened. And, rather expensive."
"What does go on here?"
"It's called a Circus," Janet explained. "Only without any clowns. They have circuses like them out in Paris and in Mexico, but they're hard to find here. This one's been running for a year and a half and hasn't been raided yet. Somebody must have a good friend on the police force."
"And the show-"
"There are three of them every night. At nine, ten-fifteen, and midnight. One show is a man and a man, one is a woman and a woman, and the third is a man and a woman. But you never know in advance which is going to be next. They keep mixing them up. They draw the pairings out of a hat half an hour before the show starts."
"You mean-they perform? Right out here in front of an audience?"
Janet smiled. "You're catching on fast."
"But-but that's against the law!"
"So what! It's really a kind of super burlesque show. Only Minsky's never showed anything like this."
Anne felt a creepy sensation. Her descent to the depths was taking her into an almost unimaginable abyss.
The waiter came by. They ordered martinis. The place was filling up fast.
A little past ten, the bartender from the lesbian place came in, with a friend. A male friend. Janet waved to them. Freddy, who was tall and willowy, with wavy black hair, had found a handsome, soft-eyed boy who didn't look much more than nineteen, short, with hair as golden as Tanet's. They came over and took the two seats to Janet's left
"We just made it in time." Freddy said. "Girls, I want you to meet my buddy Rip, meet Janet and-and-I didn't catch the name-"
"Anne."
"Anne. Janet and Anne."
"Hello," Rip said. He smiled shyly.
The house lights dimmed, cutting off further conversation a moment later. Anne found herself in complete darkness. She could just barely make out two shadowy figures emerging from a side door and taking positions on the stage in the center of the room.
The lights went up. A man and woman stood there, fully dressed, holding hands and smiling nervously at the audience. Cheers went up from the heterosexual part of the audience. The homosexuals and lesbians expressed their different disappointments with sighs, boos, or whistles. Someone, two rows behind Anne, said, "Third time in a row they've had a mixed couple. It's getting to be a rut."
Anne watched in almost horror-stricken fascination. Spotlights played on the couple on stage, and from a loudspeaker came the hypnotic rhythms of Ravel's Bolero.
The couple embraced in a ritualistic way, like two wrestlers squaring off before the match.
Then they began to disrobe each other.
Off came garment after garment, with a nimble-footed attendant carrying each discarded item away. The man was about thirty, short and brawny, with enormously wide shoulders and a hairy body. He had a Latin-American look to him. The girl was much younger, perhaps no more than twenty-a brunette with a slim, supple body, small breasts, full buttocks. There was nothing special about either of them. They were just people you might meet on the street, never suspecting that they earned their livings by making love in public.
They were naked now.
Body was pressed against body, mouth to mouth.
Together, they sank to the floor of the stage. Anne found herself craning her neck to get a better view.
The man was caressing the girl now, her breasts, her thighs. He was greatly excited and looked formidably male, though not quite so much as Roy Bradley had. He knelt over the girl, moving in rhythm to the pounding music, until he covered her with his body.
Then he took her.
There was a kind of crackling tension in the room. Even those whose personal preferences were not of this sort, were carried away by the sheer animal intensity of the couple on the stage. Anne watched with unblinking attention, and realized that she was moving her own body in rhythm to every movement she observed.
The girl was gasping, now.
Janet leaned over to whisper, "This part is usually faked. The girl's just an actress."
But she was a good one.
Then it was over and they both lay limp, exhausted on the mats. There was the sound of breath being let out simultaneously from a hundred pair of lungs.
The naked couple got wearily to their feet. Sweat rolled down their bodies. They bowed, a little dazed now, and cascades of applause showered in on them. The lights went out. When they came on again, the stage was empty.
A voice said over the loudspeaker, "The next show will start at midnight. We will have to clear the auditorium by half past eleven. Until that time you're free to remain here and order drinks."
Janet looked at Freddy and his friend. "Come on," she said. "Let's get out of here. Up to my place!"
CHAPTER FIVE
THERE WAS SOMETHING ABOUT THE SITUATION that reminded Anne of one of the limericks Jeff used to tell when he got a little looped. She couldn't remember much of it, but it ended up along the lines of "Who would do what and to whom?"
For a little while, at least, it seemed to be nothing much. They sat around in Janet's living room, drinking pretty heavily. Then Janet produced a guitar from a closet and the blonde boy named Rip began to sing folk songs. He had a very high, pure voice, almost like a woman's but without any vibrato at all. The songs that he sang were old ones, "Green-sleeves" and others of its style and vintage. Anne was pleased that he didn't go in for songs of the downtrodden masses, like most Greenwich Village folksingers. It bored her woefully to hear hoarse-voiced night club entertainers sound off about the glories of the labor movement, the evils of the Park Avenue capitalists, and the heroic martydoms of various old-time Communist agitators. "Greensleeves" was a different matter entirely.
After Rip had sung four or five numbers, he said he was starting to lose his voice, and begged to be excused from further singing.
Janet said, "How about playing the guitar for us while we do a strip act? One at a time, and you give us background music."
"Yeah," Freddy said. "Great idea!"
Anne was silent. She could sense the wheels turning in her friend's head. Janet was always concocting some new act of abnormality.
Rip said, "Okay, I'll play. Who'll go first?"
"I will," Janet said immediately.
Rip strummed the guitar contemplatively, then launched into an uproarious pseudo honky-tonk tune, with heavily accented chords that conjured up the atmosphere of the lowest of water front dives. Rising from her squatting position on the floor, Janet moved seductively out in front of the other three.
"This girl's setting a real challenge for herself," Freddy remarked. "Trying to warm up a couple of gay lads like Rip and me."
"Maybe I will," Janet said. "Who knows?"
Her hands went to the zipper of her dress. As Anne watched, amazed by the professional skill of Janet's motions, she pulled off the dress, and tantalizingly shimmied her slip upward over her head, tossing it aside. In bra and panties she paraded back and forth, waggling her hips practically in Freddy's face, turning to aim a bump and a grind at Rip, who only grinned and strummed his guitar harder.
She wriggled and writhed for a few moments. Then she deftly plucked away her bra. Her full, high breasts rose into view, dappled with little beads of sweat. Putting her hands on her hips, she stood leaning back as far as she could, wiggling from side to side to make her breasts leap and jounce, then coming forward, bending over so that her breasts hung downward and swayed from side to side like two tolling bells.
Anne glanced at Freddy and Rip to see how they were taking the display. They were both smiling in mild interest, as though they were seeing a ballet or some other cultural event. But they did not appear to have the slightest personal interest in Janet.
Janet was rolling her stockings off, now. As she removed the first, she flung it at Freddy, who caught it gaily and wrapped it around his arms as a token. The other went toward Rip, who let it lie where it fell.
Off came the panties, the garter-belt. Janet was totally nude. She swung round in a wild pirouette, displaying the lush contours of her breasts and buttocks and thighs, while Rip gave her a wild crescendo of repeated chords, then a sudden cut-off. Panting and perspiring, Janet bowed to her little audience, who replied with mild applause.
"My turn," Freddy said.
Rip played a solemn stately tune for him, something that might have been written by Bach. Freddy moved with the grace of a ballet dancer, flinging his clothes to one side or the other as he swivelled back and forth. He reached nudity much more speedily than Janet had. His body was slim and willowly, without any surplus fat on it. But there were very masculine muscles rippling under the skin, and there was nothing effeminate about his body.
"Come on," Freddy said, as, nude, he resumed his seat on the carpet. Although he was sitting next to the equally nude Janet, there was no trace of excitement visible in his face. But Anne noticed that Rip was looking with eager fascination at him, a fascination that he had not shown when Janet undressed. "Your turn," Freddy said to Anne.
Anne hesitantly took the floor. Rip gave her a lively, swinging tune.
She wasn't able to strip with the professional poise and sense of timing that Janet had displayed. Rather, she moved in awkward little bursts of action, nervous fingers peeling away her clothes too fast. In a moment, her breasts were bare. As she started to roll her stockings down, she glanced at the nude Freddy, and was surprised to see him staring at her body with intensity. Rip noticed it, too, and his soft, poutingly feminine lips curved downward in what could only be an expression of jealousy and annoyance.
Stockings, panties, garter belt came quickly. Anne revelled in the freedom of her nakedness as she dropped sprawling to the carpet facing Janet and Freddy. Janet reached across, taking the guitar from Rip.
"I'll play for you, now," she said. Rip undressed quickly to the rhythm of a quiet, reflective song. His body was slender, fragile-looking, with soft rounded limbs that betrayed no hint of the muscles that might have been beneath. He seemed only half-developed, and color rose to his face as he became aware of Anne's interest in him.
Now that all four were naked, Janet passed drinks around again. Then she said, "We don't need to go to a place like the Circus. We can put on a show of our own. Anne and I will watch you and Rip, and then you can watch us."
"Hey, great!" Freddy said. "But then I've got a greater idea for a sequel."
"What's that?"
"Me and Anne, you and Rip."
"Hold on a second, Freddy," Rip said.
Freddy looked at him. "What's the matter, kid? Afraid of a little variety?"
"You know I don't like chicks."
"It's time you got off that kick," Freddy told his friend bluntly. "A chick is okay, now and then. And you can't do better than having your first one with Janet."
"You've never slept with a girl?" Janet asked.
"Never," Rip said, coloring and looking away. "And I don't think I want to."
"Suit yourself," Freddy said. "But I'm in the mood for it. That Anne over there, she does things to me that I didn't know could happen."
Anne flushed. She wasn't sure whether to be flattered or insulted. She decided that it must be a tribute to her sex appeal if someone like Freddy was willing to forsake his boy friend's embrace to make love to her.
Janet said, "Let's face all that afterward. Come on, now. You and Rip give us a show, first of all."
Rip was in a sullen, uncooperative mood. But Freddy brought him out of it with a few skilful caresses. They moved out into the middle of the floor.
Anne stared almost fearfully at them. It was weird to see two men embrace, to watch their faces as eddies of pleasure came and went, to observe the convolutions of their figures. Rip and Freddy made love skillfully, artistically-
It was fascinating in its own way, Anne thought The same sort of fascination she had once known when watching a female spider devour its mate after an act of love.
The moment came when both men tumbled away from one another.
Anne looked at Janet. The blonde girl's face was flushed with excitement, her eyes were bright. And, Anne herself felt a trembling surge. She had watched the act of love twice tonight-first a man and a woman, then a man and a man. Now she yearned fiercely to shift from spectator to participator.
She reached across, tugged at Janet's hands. Together the two girls embraced in the middle of the room and sank to the carpet. Flushed and breathing hard Rip and Freddy watched from the side of the room.
Anne's fingers closed delicately on the blonde girl's breasts. Her lips sought Janet's and found them, and their tongues touched lightly, then thrust at one another with passionate fervor.
Janet's fingertips drew trails of fire down Anne's body, and then they strained in a crushing embrace.
For a long while after it was over, neither of them moved. Drained by their experience, they lay still, arms clasped around one another, Janet's full, heavy breasts warm against Anne's.
Anne felt terribly drowsy, tremendously happy. After a while she sprawled out on her back, staring up at the ceiling, smiling contentedly.
"Open your eyes."
It was Freddy He stood above her, straddling her body like a colossus.
"I brought you a drink," he said. "It's your reward for that fine performance."
She sat up. He crouched naked next to her and handed her a tall glass. She sipped it curiously. It was cold and sweet and had a variety of tastes.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I call it a Third Sex Special," he said. "It's got a little of everything in it."
"He's the best bartender in Greenwich Village," Rip said "He knows more about mixing weird drinks than any two you could name."
"That's because I studied under masters of the art," Freddy said. "Two years in Paris. I was under some of the best of them. Over some of them too at times. Ah, Paris! Ah, Pierre! Francois! Jacques! Martin! Andre! Michel! David!-"
"That's enough," Rip said sourly. "You trying to make me jealous?"
"Wouldn't dream of it, my lad," Freddy simpered.
The cold, delicious drink revived Anne's spirits. She came awake again, was filled with renewed vitality. She looked around, and had to pinch herself to remember that she was actually experiencing this, that she was sitting here naked at three in the morning with another naked girl and two naked men, that she had just made illicit love with the girl, after watching the men....
Janet said, "How about the grand finale, now?"
"Let's skip it," Rip said.
"No," Freddy put in. "I insist. Come on, Rip. It'll do you good. You can't really be honestly gay until you've tried the other kind. And it'll make you a better lover. Janet will teach you lots of things."
"I'm not interested in sleeping with a woman," Rip said. "It makes me sick to my stomach just to think about it."
"It's a neurosis you'll have to overcome," Freddy said blandly. "And Janet is the best of all teachers for you. Look at those breasts, those thighs. Go over to him, Janet. That's right. Cares him. Ah. See? Despite himself, he shows interest. Go, my children. Make love and enjoy."
Freddy walked over to Anne. "Let us leave the little lovebirds to their own amusement. Will you do me the favor of your favors, my dear?"
Anne smiled shamefully. "If you want me."
"I want you indeed. I've been captivated by you since the first moment I laid eyes on you." He knelt at her side and put his hands on her breasts. "These-they are perfect. No man could fail to admire the symetry of them, the texture, the flawlessness. Alcibiades himself would have raptures over them."
Anne frowned. "Do you-often make love to women?"
"This is the first time in five years," he said.
"I find women too complicated for me on a long-term basis. But a single night, a few heavenly moments of bliss-yes, yes, yes! I'm capable of enjoying it. I'm not so far gone that I can't respond to your charms."
He took her in his arms. This was something Anne had never realized before about the half-world of deviant love-one of the many things she had never realized. When she thought about the matter at all, she thought that lesbians slept with lesbians and homosexuals slept with homosexuals, and no crossing of the line in either direction. Well, maybe that was true of some, but certainly not of all. There were bisexuals like Freddy, like Janet, who took their pleasure where they found it and sought the embrace of one sex or the other as the mood took them.
Freddy's hands were on her breasts, now. His lips nuzzled hers. He moved with ease and skill, but it was a different kind of motion from that of Roy Bradley. Bradley had had an overwhelming masculine power about his motions; Freddy seemed somehow weak, less robust, less majestic. Roy had been like a tiger, Freddy more like a Lynx.
Artfully he brought her toward a peak of excitement. He seemed to be moving carefully, to be conserving his energy. He lacked the boundless, inexhaustible vigor of Roy Bradley, who could plunge wildly ahead in the most dizzying of assaults, because he always had a reserve of stamina. Freddy wasn't designed that way, Anne realized. Even her husband Jeff, who by contrast with the other two men she had slept with was the crudest of romantic bunglers, had more brute vigor than Freddy.
But Freddy was good. For a man who was five years out of practice, he was superb.
He led her onward and upward, higher and then higher.
"Are you ready?" he asked. "Are you almost there, Anne?"
"Yes! Yes!"
Anne clung tightly to him as they rode out the i fury of their embrace. There was a fierce drumming in her skull, a pounding in her chest, and then she heard him gasp, felt his body go tense as the ecstasy seized him, and an instant later it was all over and they lay still.
"That was good," he whispered. "That was very good."
"Better than with Rip?"
"I can't tell a lie, my dear. I prefer the masculine embrace. But, this was memorable. This was something I'll never forget. The mere sight of your lovely breasts-the taste of your lips-the perfume of your body-it'll be something I'll cherish forever."
Anne smiled. He was cute, she thought. She had never known anyone quite so charming. Of course, he was abnormal, and he had made love with her just on a whim. But he had given her pleasure, and she had given pleasure to him, and as they went their separate ways they would have nothing but pleasant memories of one another.
Jeff should know about this evening, she thought wickedly. He'd turn purple. Oh, well. Any time I need cash I can write my memoirs. All about my short, happy life of sml It'll be the biggest seller
"I guess they've had it over there," Freddy said, gesturing toward the other side of the room.
Anne propped herself up on one elbow to take a look. Rip lay face down on the floor like a drowned man, with Janet next to him, lying on her side and playfully tickling him with her fingers.
Freddy got to his feet and drew Anne up. They walked over toward the other couple.
"How did things go?" Freddy asked.
Janet looked up and smiled. "Oh, it was jolly fun. Rip wasn't too cooperative, but we managed. Didn't we, Rip?" She nudged him.
Rip didn't lift his head. "Leave me alone," he muttered hollowly.
Freddy said, "What's the matter, old bean? Didn't you enjoy it?"
Rip turned and glared at him. "It was disgusting," he said. "Disgusting. Those big swaying breasts-like udders-the slobbery kisses-"
Freddy laughed. "You don't know what good is, boy. You've just had one of the most fabulous chicks in New York, and you look lower than a snake's chiropodist. Can't you appreciate feminine appeal?"
Rip's expression was miserable and woebegone. "I don't like touching women, now you've made me sleep with one. I feel slimy. I was innocent, pure-"
Freddy guffawed. "A pure pansy! That's a good one!"
"Stop riding me, Freddy."
"Okay. You do the riding. And the first one I suggest you ride, is Anne here. She's marvelous. A really passionate wench. Look at those haunches. Those flanks. Here-touch her breasts. Bend a little lower, Annie-"
Rip scrambled suddenly to his feet and darted past them, into the bathroom.
There was the sound of retching.
Freddy smiled jovially as he turned to Anne and Janet. "I guess he doesn't like girls after all," he said. "Well, it was an interesting experiment. I love to experiment, don't you?"
CHAPTER SIX
Freddy and Rip left just as dawn was breaking, Freddy simply looked a little tired, but his friends looked pale, drawn, and shaken.
Janet and Anne saw them to the door. Freddy kissed each of them gently on the lips, thanked Janet for inviting them up, thanked Anne for the particular pleasures she had given him. Then the two men were gone.
Naked, Janet and Anne made their way through the living room. The place looked chaotic. The girls' clothing was scattered all round, and there were empty glasses, overflowing ash trays, all the debris of eight hours of partying and orgying.
Anne slumped down on the edge of a chair, her hands clasped between her knees, her shoulders rounded, her breast drooping forward.
"Tired?" Janet asked with a smile.
"Exhausted. Completely exhausted."
"Me too. And here comes the sunrise, now. We might as well not even bother to go to sleep."
"You'll be worthless at work today, won't you?" Anne asked. "Or are you going to take the day off?"
Janet chuckled. "I guess you've completely lost track of time, eh? Today's Saturday."
"Is it?"
"Cross my heart."
"I never even realized it. I just wasn't paying attention to the days." She got heavily to her feet, crossed the room, dropped down in the window seat, and stared out at 79th Street as the first pale light of dawn crept through the gray of the dying night.
Janet came over to her and stood behind her, pressing against Anne's back and slipping her hands under her arms to cup Anne's breasts.
"Having fun since you met me?" Janet asked softly.
"It's different, Janet."
"No guilt feelings? No doubts? No creeping morality getting you down?"
"No," Anne said. "I feel like I'm living for the first time. Finally experiencing things. Finally drinking deep." She turned, her eyes sparkling despite her weariness, and looked up at the older girl. "What's left? What will we do next?"
"Don't be impatient, Anne. Let each thing come as a surprise."
"But I want to know. What can we possibly do after the things we've already done?"
"Oh, there's plenty yet. Believe me."
"I can't imagine what."
Janet slipped away and padded into the kitchen. "Give your mind a workout. Try to figure out some things you'd like to try. And while you're doing it, give me a hand with all the stuff here. I want to get it all cleaned up before morning."
Anne began to collect the ash trays and dirty glasses. Her mind roved back over the night just past. The lesbian bar, and then the one for men, and that "Circus" where she had watched a couple on stage. And then coming up here with Freddy and Rip, and watching them, and making love with Janet, and then with Freddy while Rip was with Janet across the room.
Poor Rip, Anne thought. He had looked so sick, so upset after being with Janet. It had really shaken him up. He had been so wobbly that Freddy practically had to dress him and carry him out.
Well, no doubt sleeping with a girl for the first time was a shattering experience for a boy like that. But he shouldn't have taken it that badly, Anne thought. It couldn't have been so unpleasant.
Anne yawned. She felt absolutely dead. It was past six in the morning, and she was still going. She carried a load of glasses into the kitchen and put them down on the sink. Janet was energetically washing away. Anne smiled at the lovely curves of the blonde girl, the supple line of back and buttocks. It was a pity that young people had to wear clothes, Anne thought. A pity to hide all that beauty when there was so much' ugliness in the world.
"I'm completely knocked out," Anne said. "My eyes are falling shut."
"Lie down and take a nap, then."
"I don't want to stick you with all the work," Anne said.
"Don't be silly," Janet retorted. "I'm used to this routine of staying up all night. You aren't. Go get some sleep if you need it. Go on! Shoo!"
Anne nodded sleepily. She wandered inside to the bedroom and let herself drop headlong into Janet's bed. She buried her face in the pillow. Seconds after she closed her eyes, she was asleep.
She was awakened by the feel of smooth, cool, naked flesh against her body. She opened her eyes slowly, reluctantly.
Janet was in bed with her. The blonde girl was embracing her, touching the tips of her breasts to hers.
"Good morning," Janet said. "Feel better now that you've slept?"
"Much," Anne said, stretching voluptuously. "What time is it, anyway?"
"Noon. You've had six hours of sleep."
"It seems like six minutes," Anne said. "But I feel lots better. Were you asleep too?"
"Me? No, I've been up. Reading. And watching you sleep. You're beautifuul when you sleep, has anyone ever told you that? So relaxed, so serene. Like a pale statue someone left on my bed." Janet laughed. "I get awfully poetic after a night like that. Sorry. Well, what's on your schedule for today?"
"I think I'd better get back to my place and into some fresh clothes," Anne said. "Set my hair, freshen up all over. After that-well, I don't know."
"No plans for the evening?"
"No plans at all. I'm new at this business of living alone, remember?"
"Well, I'll see what I can dream up."
"Let's not make it anything too complicated," Anne said with an apologetic smile. "I don't want to overdo it. An orgy a night is too lively for me."
"Okay. I know what you mean You've got to get accustomed to the pace. I'll see what I can fix up. Something relaxing and low-keyed. But sexy."
"Right," Anne said.
She dressed quickly and, kissing Janet good-bye, walked over to her apartment. Sunlight streamed down. It was a gorgeous day, the quintessence of spring. She was so happy she felt like singing, dancing, leaping her way madly through the streets.
The mood was short-lived.
Her telephone was ringing as she walked through the door of her apartment. She darted to it and grabbed up the receiver.
"Hello?"
"Anne? Tom Richardson. I've been trying to reach you for ages." The lawyers sounded irritated.
"I've been-out," Anne said.
"I'll say you have! I called at six o'clock last night, and no answer. I called at eight, and no answer. At ten. At twelve. At two in the morning. At half past two. At eight this morning. At ten. At noon. And now again. If I'm not being too personal, where the hell have you been all this time, Anne?"
"I was with some friends," she said coolly. "What's so important that you had to keep calling so often, anyway? Couldn't it have waited?"
"What friends were you with?" Richardson demanded, ignoring her question.
"Oh-friends, that's all."
"I can see you're going to be troublesome. All right, Anne. This isn't something I want to discuss over the phone. Do you mind if I drop over to see you?"
"It's Saturday, Tom. I didn't know you worked on Saturdays."
"I've got a client's interest at stake. You think I give a damn if it's Saturday? I want to come over to talk to you."
"Is there trouble about the divorce?"
"There may be," Richardson said darkly. "I'll see you in half an hour, and make sure you're alone when I get there."
"Of course I'll be alone," she said indignantly. "What are you thinking of?"
"I don't know. I just want to make sure none of your 'friends' are around that's all."
He hung up. Puzzled, Anne frowned at her reflection in the mirror above the telephone table. What was he so buzzed up about, anyway? What had happened? Why was he so snippy, so impatient with her.
She shrugged. She'd find out soon enough, she thought.
Before he showed up, she knew she had to eradicate some of the signs of last night's orgy. Her hair was a mess, and there were dark rings under her bloodshot eyes.
A touch of cold cream helped the dark rings some, and fast work with a hairbrush remedied her coiffure. There was nothing she could do to un-redden her eyes, and she hoped Richardson would not notice.
Half an hour, to the dot, after he had put down the phone, the lawyer rang her doorbell. Anne let him in, and was taken aback by the hustling way he came bulling into the apartment.
He was angry.
Very angry.
It was written all over his face. He paced up and down like a man in the grip of some uncontrollable tension. Then, whirling sharply, he burst out, "What the hell were you doing last night, Anne?"
"I went out with some friends, I told you."
"What friends, what friends?" he barked at her.
"Tom. I don't understand why you're so curt with me this morning. I'm entitled to live my own life without any supervision from you."
"You are not entitled to live your own life," Richardson snapped. "Get that idea clear out of your head. For the last time, will you tell me what friends you were with, or am I going to have to resign as your attorney?"
Her eyes widened. In a halting voice she said "I was with a girl named Janet Lester. Why do you ask?"
"How long have you known this Lester girl?"
"A short while Only a few days, actually. Tom, I'm not going to put up with the third degree this way. I don't-"
"Quiet," he said. "Do you mind telling me what you and Janet Lester did last night, or is that too personal a matter?"
Anne felt her cheeks flaming. She said, doggedly, "I went out for dinner with her. An Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village. Then we stopped off in a bar for a couple of cocktails. Then I went back to her place to relax and listen to some records."
"And stayed all night?" Richardson demanded inexorably.
"That's none of your business," Anne retorted. The sawed-off little lawyer sighed deeply. "Anne everything that a client does in my business. Everything. I've got my own professional reputation to uphold. And if you go around sabotaging me behind my back-"
"What are you talking about, Tom?" Richardson scowled. "Never mind that for a moment. Where did you meet this girl Janet?"
"In a cocktail lounge. More or less by accident. I was alone, and she was alone, and we struck up a conversation, and I liked her. I can't understand why you're asking all these questions."
Icily Richardson said, "Did the bar that you and Janet went to after dinner last night happen to be a place called Tina's?"
"It might have been. I didn't notice."
"Oh, cut it out! It was Tina's. I know goddamn well it was!"
"Do you have detectives following me, Tom?"
"No. I don't. But I have friends here and there around town. And around half past nine I got a call from one of those friends. She's a lady lawyer named-never mind her name-who happens to lead an an usual sex life. She's a lesbian, as a matter-of-fact.
And one of the places she sometimes goes to is a Greenwich Village lesbian hangout, name of Tina's. Last night she called me and said did I know that one of my clients just came into the place with a blonde in tow? With a notorious lesbian named Janet?"
Anne looked at the lawyer in alarm. "How did this woman recognized me?"
"She's sharp. She's seen your name in the paper, with your picture. Mrs. Goeffrey Martin of the so-and-so charity benefit committee. She's got a memory for faces. And she knows I'm handling your divorce." Richardson glared at her balefully. "So you were seen in a well-known dyke joint in company with a well-known dyke. And then, by your own admission, you spent the night at her apartment. Is it fair to draw the obvious conclusion?"
"Draw any conclusion you like," Anne said bitterly. "I don't know why you insist on hounding me like this, Tom. Are you a guardian of public morality?"
"Listen to me," Richardson said in a softer voice. "I don't know what's going on inside you, Anne. I'm pretty damned sure you weren't involved in any lesbian stuff while you were married to Jeff. At least I hope not. And I'm no puritan. For all I care, you can get yourself made nine ways from Sunday. You can sleep with baboons, if that's what you enjoy. But do it after the divorce."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that yesterday afternoon I got wind that your esteemed husband is thinking of putting detectives on your trail, just to see how you behave while you're separated from him. I'd look very pretty if the detectives turn in a documented report on your lesbian activities."
"What harm can that do, I'm not admitting anything mind you, but-"
"What harm? I'll spell it out for you. You're suing Jeff for divorce on grounds of adultery. He can't keep it a secret. Adultery is just about the only grounds you can use in New York State. And you've got the goods on him. Okay. On the surface he doesn't stand a chance. You'll land a whopping settlement and a fat alimony check on top of it. But-get this, now-he can dig up this lesbian angle. He can ask to have the marriage annulled, Anne. He'll pull all the strings he can, once he gets wind of what's up. He might even work your own trick on you, and have photographers come bashing in some night when you and your blonde girl friend are having a ball."
"But-how-what?"
"He'll tell the court that this kind of stuff went on all during your marriage. He'll insist that you hardly ever wanted to go to bed with him, because you were so involved with lesbianism that you weren't interested in sleeping with your husband."
"It isn't true!" Anne protested. "Jeff and I had a perfect sex life. And I never did anything-anything lesbian-while I was living with him."
"That's okay. He'll show the evidence and say that this was what was going on, and so he had to turn to mistresses for sexual satisfaction. He can get an annulment that way. An annulment means that the marriage is considered never to have existed. Which means he has no obligation to you. No maintenance, no support, no alimony, no nothing. He can even sue you for the furniture you took from him. And you'll be out on the street without a penny, Anne."
"You're joking."
"Sure. Big joke. I'm telling you, you're playing with dynamite." He shook his head and paced up and down. "I know, you've got sex desires just like anybody else. For Pete's sake, did you have to turn lesbian, though? If you simply went off for the night and banged some guy, that would be bad enough. But this can wreck your case altogether. For all I know, somebody tipped him off about where you were last night, and his lawyer is already planning how to get the annulment."
Anne trembled. "I don't want that to happen."
"Of course not."
"What am I supposed to do now?"
"Sit tight," Richardson said. "Live like a vestal virgin till that decree comes through. A woman who wants a divorce has to be above reproach herself. You haven't exactly started off the right way."
Biting her lip, Anne wondered what he would say if he knew the true magnitude of the things she had been doing this week-Roy-Rip and Freddy-the "Circus"-
She said. "Do you think they already have detectives on me?"
"I don't know. But you'd better behave as though they do, and hope nothing has gone wrong so far." He eyed her steadily. "Are you really turning lesbian, Anne? Is this something that's-that's just started to happen, or-"
She shook her head. "I don't want to talk much about it. It's a reaction to the divorce, I guess, Tom. I'm trying new things. Not necessarily only lesbianism. That was more or less an accident."
"Well, no more accidents. I'll be damned embarrassed professionally if an airtight adultery case turns into an annulment against the client, because the client can't keep herself out of the wrong beds for a couple of weeks. Will you be good, Anne? Do your promise?"
"I'll be good," she whispered.
When Richardson left, she threw herself down heavily on the bed and began to sob. How had he found out? Why was the world so full of spying eyes? She had thought that there was no chance of anyone knowing her activities of these past few days.
She didn't want an annulment. She didn't want to be left penniless. That was a nightmarish, terrifying thought. She had no way in the world to earn a living. And who would marry her after she had been branded a lesbian?
She came to the melancholy realization that her education in sin was going to have to be interrupted, at least for a while. The risks were too great. She couldn't see Janet until the decree was definite. After that, she could live as she pleased.
But for the time being she had to be without sin.
It was a gloomy thought. Her body was just coming alive, just starting to sense the exhilarating joys of the flesh. She had had only a tantalizing taste-and now, to have to give it all up, to go back to chastity and solitude while her divorce case was pending-no, that hurt.
I have to, she thought. I must! The telephone started to ring. Anne reached out for it, picked up the receiver with a cold, shaking hand. "Hello?"
"Darling, this is Janet. I just wanted to tell you that I've made absolutely the most fascinating arrangements for tonight. We-"
"I can't make it, Janet."
"No? But-"
"Listen," Anne said. "My lawyer was just here. He knows I stayed out all night. Some lesbian lady lawyer he knows spotted me at Tina's last night and tipped him off. He's wise to the whole thing. And he thinks my husband may put detectives on my trail and find out what I've been up to. He says it can prejudice the whole divorce action."
"But-"
"I'm sorry, Janet. It's too risky. I simply can't see you again until after the divorce. Will you try to understand, darling? I'm in such a terrible position. If Jeff can get an annulment, I'm finished. So, this is going to have to be good-bye for a while. I don't know how long."
"Anne, you mustn't let them scare you this way."
"I have no choice. Don't try to change my mind. This hurts me terribly, Janet. But it has to be. So long. I'll call when-when I dare to-"
She didn't listen for a reply. She let the phone drop into its cradle and stared at it bleakly for a moment. Then hysterical tears welled up out of the depths of her, and she threw herself face down on the bed in an agony of miserable loneliness and fear.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sunday.
The first day without Janet. Alone. All on her own, now.
It was an endless day.
She tried to find ways of using it up. She went out in the morning and bought a copy of the Times It was so heavy she could hardly lug it upstairs. She fanned out the sections on the living room floor and sprawled out to leaf through them.
She read everything doggedly-the sports section even the real estate section. She stared at meaningless classified ads. She read The News of the Week in Review and pondered the doings of a lot of men she had never heard of, in parts of the world she could not place geographically. She read the book review section, the travel and resorts section, the magazine section.
But even the Sunday Times could eventually be read in its entirety. Anne tossed the last section aside. It was still only midday. Long hours stretched ahead of her before night and the oblivion of sleep.
She went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was practically across the street from her, anyway. Because it was Sunday, the museum was crowded with children, who gawked at the Rembrandts and yawned at the Greek sculpture, and ran sliding through the Egyptian rooms with their crowded display cases. Anne wandered, like some fugitive Egyptian herself, through the echoing halls, looking at nothing, seeing nothing.
The museum closed at five. More futile hours stretched ahead for her. What was Janet doing now, she asked herself? What games was she playing? With whom?
What am I missing? she asked herself unhappily.
She walked over to Madison Avenue and found a small, unpretentious restaurant. Dinner was lonely. The restaurant did not seem to have a liquor license, so after dinner she walked down Madison a few blocks until she came to a reasonably respectable-looking bar. Wondering if this place would admit an unescorted woman, she went in. Nobody seemed to notice her She slipped onto a seat at the bar.
"What yours, Ma'am?"
"A whiskey old-fashioned," Anne said hastily.
She gulped the drink. She could sense eyes starting to come to bear on her, here and there in the bar-the eyes of men, lonely men, hungry men, men who were probably asking themselves whether or not it was worth while to make the effort of picking her up.
She got out of there in a hurry and stood for a moment on the corner. Janet's place was only a few blocks away. It would be so easy to walk over there.
No, she told herself sternly. Tom said you had to be above reproach.
She started to walk back toward her apartment. She wondered whether Jeff would actually go to the extent of hiring detectives to spy on her. Maybe he already had, she thought. There was something oddly glamorous in the idea of being followed. What, if anything, could a detective who had trailed her today report back to his employer? A trip to the museum? Harmless. Dinner at a cozy little restaurant? Nothing scandalous there. A solo visit to a Madison Avenue bar? Well, a little shady, but she hadn't spent much time there, hadn't gotten into conversation with anyone.
And then home, home to bed. Home alone.
A highly virtuous day, Anne thought. But she felt the throbbing of desire in her loins, and told herself tiredly that a few more days of this kind of virtue, and she'd go out of her mind completely.
She undressed and looked at her naked body. She put her hands on her breasts, cupping the firm, taut mounds of flesh, letting the rosy little nipples protrude between her fingers. She felt a stab of lust in the inward most part of her. She didn't want to be alone. She wanted someone else's hands on her breasts, someone else's weight pressing down on her body.
Whose?
Anyone's. Anyone's at all.
How did the song go, she asked herself? I want to be bad. And the lawyer told her she had to be good-or else.
She got into bed.
She nestled against the pillow and drew her legs up into her belly. She dreamed.
She dreamed of naked men stalking through her bedroom, men so magnificently endowed that they made Roy Bradley of Trinidad look like an eunuch. One at a time, they came to her bed, where she lay naked but regal, like the Empress Catherine. One after another, they settled down with her.
And each time, just as she was about to reach the moment of fulfillment, the stallion who rode her winked out of existence, like a pricked soap-bubble.
Again and again the tantalizing dream racked her. Until finally, somewhere near dawn, one of her phantom lovers did not disappear at the crucial moment, and she was granted an instant of pleasure, and then sleep.
But the next day was worse-and the one after that even worse.
The tension grew.
Anne walked the streets wearily, trying simply to use up the hours. She phoned her lawyer two or three times a day, nervously asking him, "Is there any news? How long will it be till the decree comes through? Do you expect any snags?"
And all he could say was, "Soon, Anne. Soon. Relax. Don't worry about things."
But she did worry. It was four days since she had seen Janet, and maybe by now Janet had found some other regular companion, someone else to share her adventures in lust. Janet hadn't called since Saturday. Out of sight, out of mind, maybe. Janet was starting to forget her.
Those few days of lust seemed almost dream-like now-Roy, Rip, Freddy, the "Circus," all the rest of it. Insubstantial wraiths that had never been real. The only reality was her old life, the life of society teas and boxes at the Philharmonic and genteel parties.
The fifth day came.
Five days without love, five days without even the company of a human being. Five days on a deserted island in the middle of Manhattan. Five days of isolation and bitter loneliness.
Anne was downtown that day, shopping in the plush stores just below 42nd Street on Fifth Avenue. She had to do something to use up the money that Richardson received, in her name, from her husband. Bored with shopping, finally, she walked back up to 42nd Street and turned east, heading toward Grand Central Station. It was getting along toward half past four.
She wanted a drink.
She stopped into the nearest bar. Here, east of Fifth, there was no question of turning unescorted women away. This was a commuter's bar, that sold to all who had the price of a drink.
She took a seat at the end of the bar and ordered a martini. As she fumbled in her purse for a dollar bill, a smooth voice to her left said, "Do you mind if I pay for that drink for you, Miss?"
Anne turned, feeling awkward and fumble-witted, her face flaming. "No-yes-I-ah-that is-" she blurted in confusion.
"Here, Jack. This'll cover it."
The drink was paid for. Anne still gaped. She wasn't accustomed to being accosted by strange men in a bar. She wasn't accustomed to being in bars, period.
She looked at him.
He was forty, well-dressed, prosperous looking, with close-cropped brown hair and a clipped little mustache. His voice was even, resonant-the voice of a television announcer, almost. He was ordering another martini for himself now-
Anne's heart raced. Was she being watched? Was there a detective sitting in the far corner jotting down notes on everything she did?
The man with brown hair said, "Is something wrong? You look troubled."
"No, I-ah-" Anne smiled. "You took me by surprise, that's all. Buying me that drink."
"It seemed like a friendly thing to do."
"It was," Anne said. "Thank you very much."
"I'm Jerry Hawthorne," he said. "I'm in public relations."
"Anne Martin," she said, and regretted it instantly. Hadn't Richardson warned her to be discreet? And here she was giving her real name to a strange man trying to pick her up in a bar.
He smiled warmly-too warmly-at her and said, "You live around here, Anne?"
"Up on Fifth a ways. I'm just shopping down here."
"Presents for your husband?"
"I'm divorced. Or almost divorced." His expression darkened. "Ah. I wondered. Decree hasn't come through yet, eh?"
"Not yet."
"So you feel half free and half chained. I know what it's like. I went through it a couple of years ago myself. No fun."
"How long did it take?" Anne asked. "I mean, from the time you were separated to the time you actually get the divorce?"
"Months," Hawthorne said. "More than a year, in fact, all told."
"Oh! I was hoping it would be over in just a few days."
"No such luck. But mine took longer than usual. Betty was out for her pound of flesh, and it was a bloody business getting disentangled from her. I'd just as soon not talk about it. It's bad for my blood pressure to remember the sordid details."
"Of course. What sort of public relations work do you do?"
"Oh, I'm an image-refurbisher," he said. "Mostly for politicians with tarnished images." He signalled for two more martinis. "Take Senator Joe Blow. He voted against Social Security, cheered Taft-Hartley, and thinks Commies ought to be shot without a trial. In other words he's way on the right. But since the last time he ran for election, there's been a big change in his state-an influx of city-dwellers who have liberal ideas, and who won't vote for a reactionary. So Senator Blow has a problem. If he pitches his campaign for his old supporters, he's likely to get beaten. But, if he suddenly swings to the liberal side, he'll lose all the conversative voters who used to back him, and he probably won't get the liberal votes who don't trust him. So what does he do? He hires our firm, and we set out to build a middle-of-the-road image for him."
"It sounds like interesting work," Anne said.
"Only theoretically. Actually it's dull dirty stuff. I'd like to get out of it, if I could. Form nqr own company and handle corporation work."
"Why don't you?"
"Money," he said simply, swallowing his olive. "I'm still broke from the divorce settlement. It takes capital to start a new company. I don't have the capital. And I can't afford to leave my present job, because it pays too damn much. So I sit and complain instead. And maybe someday-"
"I hope you do," she said. "You deserve to be doing what you want, to get what you want out of life. Too many people tie themselves up doing things they hate, and one day they wake up and find their lives have been meaningless, and it's too late to change."
"Amen to that," Hawthorne said. He smiled St her.
She smiled back.
She realized she was getting very drunk. Two quick martinis on an empty stomach. She also realized that she liked this man very much. He was slick, but there was an earnestness about him, just under the shiny surface, that made a direct and immediate appeal. Anne was glad he had picked her up.
She felt a sudden pang of desire for him.
What about the detectives? she asked herself. Suppose he's taking all this in?
She shrugged the thought off. There probably wasn't any detective anyway, except in Tom Richardson's imagination. And she had lived virtuously for five days. It was time for a change. Every girl needs to get picked up in a bar at least once in her life, Anne thought.
She said, "Do you live near here, Jerry?"
"About four blocks."
"And do you have some gin in the house, and a little vermouth?"
"Naturally."
"Then why don't we go over to your place, and mix martinis there?" she heard herself ask brazenly. "It's more private than it is here."
"Do I understand that you're picking me up?" he asked with an incredulous little smile.
"It's terribly forward of me, I know. But I'm a terribly lonely person, Jerry."
"You're not the only one."
"Let's go to your place, then."
"Gladly," he said.
He paid the bill and they left. He seemed a little amused, and a little shaken as well, by her direct, blunt approach. No doubt he had been constructing a careful campaign of seduction, which she had demolished in an instant with her forthright request to be taken overt to his apartment. Now he was trying, it seemed to her, to reshape his entire appraisal of her.
"I'm not usually like this," she said, as they walked toward Lexington Avenue. "In fact, I've never done this before in my life. I've been a dreadfully respectable girl." Except for a few days last week, she added silently.
"I can believe that," he said with a little chuckle. "You know, when I first spotted you in the bar, I figured you were a pro. Good-looking girl-in a bar alone, no wedding ring, you know. Then when you got so flustered, I figured you couldn't possibly be one of those. And when I started to talk to you, I began to think I wasn't gong to get anywhere at all, because you weren't that sort."
"And then I had to turn around and proposition you." Anne said.
"Exactly. Crossed me up completely."
"I'm tired of being conventional," she said. "I've done all the proper things since I was old enough to be toilet-trained. Now I want to be a little improper."
"A noteworthy idea."
"I think so too," she said.
He had a small apartment-an efficiency, in fact-in one of the new buildings east of Lexington. Two rooms, both of them microscopic, but neatly kept. He had a cleaning woman in twice a week to tidy up after him, he explained.
Anne settled down on the couch while Hawthorne mixed martinis. She looked at his books He had a great many of them all of them non-fiction, books of history, biography, sociology. Not a novel in the lot. And the books looked as though they'd been read assiduously.
"Try this," he said, handing her a martini. "Maybe it's a little too dry for you."
She tasted it. "No. No, it's fine."
He settled down next to her on the couch and they drank in silence for a while. Anne studied him and wondered just how things would progress from here. She didn't want to seem to be too forward-but at the same time she wanted him. Badly.
She decided to let him handle it. He was probably, experienced enough in the arts of seduction to be able to get her into bed smoothly.
He said, "How long have you been separated?"
"A couple of weeks."
"Hard to adjust, isn't it?"
"Tremendously hard. But I'll survive. Somehow. The only trouble is the loneliness. I haven't seen any of my old friends, haven't gone anywhere. I just try to use up the hours."
"I know what you mean." He eyed her closely. "How long were you married?"
"Two years."
"Children?"
"No, thank God."
"You're lucky," he said. "I had it different Betty and I were married six years. Long enough to have two children. She's got custody of them now, of course. I'm allowed to visit at carefully regulated intervals. Not that it matters. The kids hardly remember me. Another couple of years, and I'll be a stranger to them." His lips curled bitterly. "But why are we talking about our miseries? I'm the one who started it. Let's talk about gay things, happy things."
"For instance?" Anne asked.
"Spring in New York. Young love. The arts. Sex. Next fall's election. Anything at all."
She smiled. 'Okay, let's talk about sex. Where do we begin?"
"By taking a stand. Basically, I'm in favor of sex. How about you?"
"It depends," she said.
"On what?"
"On the time and the place and the person."
"I see," he said. "Would you care to go into any details?"
"No."
"How unfriendly of you. But since you won't talk, I'll tell you about my sexual philosophy."
"Go ahead, professor."
"I believe in more and better sex for everyone. I think sex is a good thing, basically, whether taken for exercise or for emotional reasons. Or both. Perferably both, but you can't have everything. I think sex is what makes the world go round. I think sex is better than television. I think you're beautiful. I think I'd like to kiss you."
"I think it's a fine idea," Anne said.
"Let's do it, then."
"Let's."
She turned her face toward his. He leaned across her and kissed her-chastely, lips to lips, keeping his mouth closed. She kissed back in the same cool way, and for a long moment their lips were joined. Then he pulled back from her and smiled.
"I once knew a girl who tasted as good as yon," he said. "Her name was Beverly. She was thirteen and I was twelve. Beverly Schultz, sad to say. A charming girl. A prize among women."
"What happened to her?"
"She got married," Hawthorne said. "Oddly enough, to a guy named Schultz. No relation. I haven't even thought about her for twenty years, come to think of it. But she tasted like you. Fresh and good and wholesome. She was also the first girl I ever kissed, for that matter."
"Am I the second?" Anne asked mischievously.
"Not quite. But the ones in between don't count for anything. Kiss me again."
"Gladly."
A second time their lips touched, and this time, after a moment of holding back, the restraints broke. Anne clung to him passionately, and her lips opened, and his tongue slipped lithely between her teeth, and for a long moment he probed the warm dark depths of her mouth, while she pressed her body tight up against him. They jockeyed for position on the couch without ending the kiss.
His hand grazed her breasts, lightly, almost school-boyishly, in a kind of tentative exploration to see how far he could go. She put her hand over his, clasping down hard, and her heart raced as she felt his fingers cupping the taut flesh beneath her bra.
She kicked off her shoes and stretched out full length on the couch. He hovered above her, kissing her cheeks now, nibbling the lobes of her ears, gently kissing her eyelids.
Her breath was coming in short irregular bursts now. She felt his hands on her breasts, felt him unbuttoning her blouse. She leaned forward, cooperating with him as he fumbled for the snaps of her bra.
The bra dropped away. Her breasts, ripe and pale and full, were bare to his gaze. Anne heard him suck his breath in sharply in a little sound of desire and pleasure and even perhaps astonishment. Then his fingers tenderly touched the soft flesh of her naked breasts.
It had been so long, Anne thought. Almost an entire week. Now she was on fire.
Her body twisted and turned against his. The hard points of her nipples throbbed with yearning. Her eyes were little slits of desire.
She pulled her lips from his and gasped in a throaty whisper. "Undress me, Jerry. Everything. Hurry, Jerry. Hurry! Oh, please, hurry!"
CHAPTER EIGHT
He stripped her with skill and ease. She lay naked on the couch waiting for him, and he peeled off his own clothing. His body was a good one, a good ordinary body, not too muscular but neither skinny nor flabby. He didn't seem to be a superman like Roy Bradley, nor a weakling like the fairy Rip. He was just a well-built, average good-looking guy, and Anne was pleased with the way he looked in the raw.
He settled down next to her on the couch.
His fingertips traced lines of fire up her thighs, across the soft flesh, spirally inward to the core of her. She let him touch her wherever he wanted. Her breath became uneven as excitement mounted in her.
"I'm ready," she told him. "I want you now, Jerry. Don't bother with the frills. Just-"
He pressed down on her.
"That's it," she whispered. "Ah-yes, that's good, that's so very good, Jerry-"
Then the full impact of it was hitting her, and she let herself go, let herself dissolve completely. Gasping, she thrashed wildly about in the throes of her pleasure, and three harsh, strange, animal like cries escaped from her distorted lips. She felt Hawthorne's body suddenly go tense as he pointed her in the blinding fulfillment of their embrace. Then he relaxed and an instant later she too was making the rapid descent from the summit of excitement.
He was sweating heavily. She wrapped her arms around him, enjoying the solidity of him with her.
My fourth man, she thought. Jeff, Roy, Freddy, and now Jerry. I'm really getting to be quite the experienced tramp, all right. Four different men. And Janet makes five. I mustn't forget Janet.
There had been a time, not so long ago, when she had assumed that she would only sleep with one person in her life. That was back in her virgin days, when everything looked so neatly plotted out. Marry someone, remain faithful. Of course. But she hadn't taken divorce into that neat computation. Nor meeting Janet. Nor this whole shameful frame of mind that she had been in since the separation.
She touched Hawthorne's smooth, firm flesh and smiled. It was good to lie here like this with a man. Even a stranger. She didn't really think of him as a stranger any more, even though she had only known him a couple of hours. She felt that she could trust him, that he wasn't out to hurt her or cheat her.
Anne wondered how he would react if he knew some of the things she had done with Janet last week. In retrospect, those things horrified her-particularly that wild night with Freddy and Rip.
How much better it was, she thought, to make love the normal way, with one other person only, and that person a man. It was so cheerful and wholesome this way. There was nothing sordid about it. Sleeping with Jerry was so different, she thought, from the complicated deals in threes and fours that Janet had been dreaming up.
I guess I'm just bourgeoise at heart, Anne thought. I like life the normal way.
He pulled away from her and sat up. He was looking at her breasts.
"Is something the matter?" she asked, "No. Not at all."
"You're staring at my breasts as though I have three of them. Or as though you've never seen a pair of breasts before."
"I haven't," he said. "Not like these. Does it embarrass you? Breasts like yours are made to be looked at." He put his hands on them, savoring the weight and mass of them against his palms. "Did your husband ever tell you, you were beautiful?" he asked.
"No. He wasn't that kind of man."
"You're better off without him, then. Let me tell you what he should have. You're beautiful, Anne."
"No need to flatter me. You've already had the prize, anyhow."
"I'm not flattering. I'm commenting. Objectively and impersonally. What do you do when you see a gorgeous sunset? You say, 'It's that beautiful?' Well, I see a gorgeous woman. And I'm expressing what I feel. Let me look at you. Stand up, Anne."
"Do I have to?"
He grinned. "Not if it embarrasses you. But you shouldn't be embarrassed. You've got nothing you need to be ashamed of."
She stood up. He got to his feet and eyed her, walking around her in a circle to get the 360-degree view. It was pleasing, yet awkward to be scrutinized so closely.
He sighed. "Perfect. Did you know that you had a perfect body? Not an ounce too much bottom, not an inch too much hip. Delicious. Absolutely delicious. You know what I'd like to do, Anne? I'd like to photograph you."
"You mean, nude?"
"Naturally."
She reddened. "I don't think that's such a good idea. For all I know you're really in the pornography business, and you'll turn around and sell prints of me to a bunch of pimply-faced schoolboys-"
"Not a chance," he said. "You can watch while I develop the pictures. One print, and I'll destroy the negative. Photography's my hobby. I mean serious photography-as an art. Want to see some of my pictures?"
"I'd love to."
"Remember, you asked for it," he said. "I'm an incorrigible showoff when it comes to my pictures."
He opened a closet. It was stacked high with matted photos. He took a pile about three feet high out, and put them in front of her on the couch.
"Take a look," he invited. "Ask me anything yon want about them."
She hadn't been prepared for the beauty of them. They were large black-and-whites of lovely texture. Most of them were outdoor scenes, almost abstract-a seashell on a sandy beach, a pattern of caterpillar-eaten leaves, a rock garden. But there were nudes, too-handsome girls in the sun, girls with beautiful breasts and lush, full buttocks.
Anne said, "You print all these yourself?"
"Of course. No real photographer lets anyone else do his darkroom work for him."
"And these girls-who are they?"
He shrugged. "Girls I've known."
"So many of them."
"These pictures cover the last twelve years. A guy's entitled to know a few girls in that much time." He pulled one shot from the stock. "This is my wife Betty. I took that shot some nine years ago, when I was still dating her."
Anne looked at the photo. It showed a tall, Nordic-looking, blonde girl in the nude, standing at the crest of a low hill. Her breasts rose high and proud, her yellow hair fluttered in the breeze. She was a beautiful girl, Anne thought.
"Where did you take the picture?" she asked.
"Out on Long Island. A little picnic area where we weren't disturbed. She was lovely, then. And I loved her so much. But the magic wore off fast. You should see her now. Sloppy. Fat. You see those breasts? They're like udders now. She let herself go to pot completely after we were married. The most cynical witch ever spawned, Betty is. But I loved her then, when I took that shot. I'll never forget the day. A perfect one. We made love right after I snapped this one."
Anne leafed through the pile. "And this one?" she asked, pointing to the photo of a darkly intense nude sprite standing hip-deep in some country stream at sunset, staring at her reflection in the swirling water.
"A girl named Marian," Hawthorne said. "I kept company with her around ten years ago. Gorgeous girl, but too moody. The picture catches her exactly. A week later we had a big quarrel about some stupid thing, and broke up. She married a dentist. They were both killed in a plane crash in Italy about five years ago." He shrugged and put the photo aside. "And this was a girl called Rosanne. Funny sort. I took her out last year for a while. I could photograph her in the nude, but I couldn't sleep with her. She was a frigid exhibitionist."
Anne looked at the photo. It showed a strapping blonde, who seemed to be bursting with life.
She said, "Do you photograph every girl you meet?"
"The beautiful ones. But don't get me wrong. I'm not a lecher who paws these pictures late at night. I'm strictly interested in the esthetics of it I've got eight hundred pictures in that closet, and only about fifty of them are nudes. See for yourself."
"I noticed."
"Can I photograph you?" he asked. "On one condition," she said. "Which is?"
"That when you show your collection of photos to the next girl you have up here, you don't show her mine. I don't want to be exhibited."
"Fair enough," he said. "I'll keep you in a private drawer and look at you only on solemn occasions, like the Fourth of July or Aaron Burr's birthday. But maybe there won't be any next girl."
"What do you mean?"
"Well-that maybe after photographing you, I'D give up and join a monastery-or something. When you've experienced the absolute pinacle of beauty-"
"Cut it out," Anne laughed. "You'll give me a swelled head. When do you want to take these pictures?"
"What about this weekend?" he asked. "We'll drive out into the country, if the weather's good. I know some places where we'll have privacy."
"Just one thing," she said.
"Mmm?"
"I'm not divorced yet. And my lawyers is very prudish. He wouldn't like it if he found out I was going around with some other guy before my decree was final."
"Of course."
"So we've got to be careful. I mean, when we drive, if there's an accident and our names get into the paper together-or if some local sheriff arrests us for indecent exposure or something-"
"Don't worry," he assured her. "No one will know a thing."
"And I'm afraid I won't be able to let you come to my apartment at all," she went on. "In case they're spying on me. I won't be able to stay overnight with you here, either. Oh this is miserable!"
"It'll all be over sooner or later," he consoled her. He glanced at his watch, the only thing he was wearing. "What say we get some clothes on and go out for dinner? Or is that verboten too?"
"No. I'm sure it's okay."
He tugged her to her feet. Pulling her up against him, he embraced her, the points of her breasts pressing into him. They remained body to body for a moment, then relaxed and separated.
As they dressed, Anne thought, I'm beginning to fall in love. I didn't know it happened so fast!
It was a brand new experience for her. There hadn't been anything like real love involved in her marriage to Jeff. The marriage had been negotiated like a business merger, rather than having been any true love match.
But now-just to look at this man, to hear his voice, to learn what he was like-she found it all wonderfully exciting. She realized she hardly knew him. But what she had seen so far. impressed her He was kind, sensitive, mature, thoughtful. And he was good in bed.
What more did she need?
She knew that she would marry him the day her divorce became final-if he asked her.
But, maybe he didn't want her. Maybe he was wary of marriage, having wed one beautiful girl who went sour on him. Maybe he enjoyed a bachelor's roving life.
It was too early to think about such things, Anne decided. She fastened her garter belt, smiled as he passed his hand over her bare buttocks, and drew her panties on. He cupped her breasts as though saying good-bye to them before she put her bra on.
They ate a small restaurant a block from his apartment. It was an American restaurant, and the smell of roast lamb was in the air as they walked in. Anne had never been in an Armenian restaurant before, Hawthorne seemed to be an old hand at it, explaining to her what everything on the menu was. They had a big meal, washing it down with chilled Greek wine.
It was eight o'clock when they emerged from the restaurant.
"Can I take you home?" he asked.
"Sorry, but you'd better not. My lawyer think my husband may have detectives on me."
"When will I see you, then?"
She smiled. "Tomorrow, if you'd like."
"I'd like very much."
"Call me in the morning, then."
"Will do. Can I get you a cab?"
"No, I'll walk for a while," she said, not wanting him to pay for her cab ride. She blew him a kiss and walked away up to 42nd Street. She got into a taxi outside Grand Central Station.
She felt buoyant, excited, alive.
She realized that she had been off on the wrong track entirely with Janet. Sin, cold, seamy sin, was not really what she wanted. Certainly nothing so perverse as Janet had offered.
What she really wanted, she saw now, was not sin, but love-: normal, honest love embedded in a relationship with a normal, decent man. Like Jerry Hawthorne.
Instead she had let herself be led off into weird and amoral sinning. At the time she had found pleasure in it, but now there was a sour taste in her mouth at the memory of the things she had done. It had been so easy to give in to temptation, so fatally easy. But now, she thought, Jerry Hawthorne would be her bulwark against the darker sins that cried to be committed.
She reached her apartment, went upstairs. She felt relaxed and calm and good. Undressing quickly, she took a hot bath. As she soaked in the tub, she heard the telephone ringing in the other room.
Ifs Jerry, she thought.
Excitedly she rushed naked and dripping from the tub, and without even bothering to put on a robe she snatched up the telephone.
"Hello?"
"Darling!"
Anne stared at the phone in disappointment. "Oh-hello, Janet."
"It's a week since I've spoken to you, Anne. I couldn't wait any longer. I had to call you. You don't mind, do you?"
"Mind? Of course not."
"You sound strange. As though you didn't want me to call."
"Don't be silly, Janet."
"I was wondering-what you'd been up to all this week. Did you ever find out whether there was a detective watching you or not?"
"I haven't seen any," Anne said.
"Of course not. That silly lawyer of yours was just being over-cautious. And because of him we're been apart for six whole days, now. It seems like six months, darling. Or six years."
Anne fumbled for words. She wanted to tell Janet that it was all over, that she was no longer interested in what Janet had to offer, that she was trying to guild a sound relationship with a normal man.
But the words would not come.
She did not know how to tell Janet that everything was finished.
She stammered something incoherent. Janet said, "Are you still going to hide out like a criminal, or do you plan to do some socializing again?"
"Well-I don't know-"
"Listen to me," Janet said. "I've got something perfectly tremendous arranged. How would you like to go on a little trip."
"A trip?"
"A motor trip. Up into Canada, up to Quebec. We'd be gone about a week. It would be a real ball, darling. A tremendous time. And your detective wouldn't know where you were. You'd get away from it all. It's what you need most, darling. Fresh air, a change of scenery. Have you ever been to Quebec?"
"No."
"You'll love it. It's so very quaint, and beautiful in the springtime. We'd leave on Friday, and we'd stay till the following Thursday. It won't cost you a penny, either. Just a joy-ride."
"How-what-how will you work it? Just the two of us?"
"Of course not, silly. There are these two perfectly adorable men I know. No, they're not gay, either. They're both perfectly gorgeous, darling.
They're a musical comedy team. One man does the lyrics, the other one the music, and their shows are always hits. The last thing they did was Hide and Seek. That Ethel Merman show, remember?"
"I didn't see it."
Well, it was a smash hit. They've got piles of money, too. Their names are Ron Benson and Chuck Harness, and I've dated them both, and they're younger and lively, and they like travelling as a team. They invited me to come with them and told me to find a fourth. And I thought of you immediately, Anne."
Anne frowned. She didn't want any part of this. To go away for a week with two strange men, and no doubt engage in all kinds of filthy four-way perversions, if these friends of Janet's were like any of the others-
But yet, she needed badly to get away.
There were arguments on both sides.
And what about Jerry Hawthorne? And the photography expedition planned for the weekend?
Anne said doubtfully, "I sort of had other plans for the weekend-"
"Break them! I promise you, darling, this will be an unforgettable trip. You'll have the time of your life. Oh, come on! Say you'll go. I've already committed us. I can't back out now."
Anne hesitated.
To say 'yes' would be to backslide. It would, in a way, be a betrayal of Jerry.
But Janet's influence remained strong. And it was so easy to give in to temptation.
"All right," Anne said weakly. "I'll go. I shouldn't do it, but I'll go. What kind of clothes will I need to take along?"
CHAPTER NINE
ONCE SHE HAD COMMITTED HERSELF, there was no turning back. She even found herself developing a sort of guilty enthusiasm for the trip.
She phoned Richardson to let the lawyer know that she was going out of town. He didn't seem to object. He told her that everything was moving along well, and that she could hope to be a free woman in another three or four weeks, just so long as she kept out of trouble.
"Have you found out any more about that detective business?" Anne asked.
"Not a thing. It may have just been a rumor. I've got no proof. Do you have any reason to think you're being followed around?"
"No."
"Okay, then. Just go on living a clean life and you'll come out of this okay."
Anne had to smile ironically as she put down the phone. Well, what Tom Richardson didn't know wouldn't upset him. Maybe after all this was over, she'd break down and admit in detail all the things she had done while waiting for her decree to come through. But not now.
The next problem was a difficult one, and one that she looked forward to with no enthusiasm. She had to break the weekend date with Jerry. After all the excitement and real rapture of their first meeting, she was going to have to call things to a halt.
She asked herself if it was smart to break a date with Jerry for the sake of going off on a pleasure-jaunt with Janet and two of her wild friends. Looking at it objectively, she saw that it didn't make any sense. Jerry was solid; she was falling in love with him. She might have a bright future with him. But she was throwing him over, at least for the time being.
For what?
For Janet, and the flighty, insubstantial pleasures that Janet offered.
Anne stared gravely at her reflection in the mirror over the telephone table for a long moment. She told herself that she had given up too much of her life doing the proper thing, the sensible thing. This was the time for irrationality, the time for sinning. If Jerry still wanted her when she came back from her trip to Quebec-well-things might still work out all right. But if not-
She shrugged and picked up the phone.
She dialed his office number.
A switchboard girl answered. Anne said, "I'd like to talk to Mr. Hawthorne, please."
"Who is calling?"
"Anne Martin."
"Just one moment, please."
Then Jerry was saying, "Hello, Anne. I was just going to call you in a little while, but-"
"I had to call you now, Jerry. There's something I've got to tell you."
"Oh?"
"I-can't keep that date with you for the weekend. The photography."
"Listen, honey, I told you, I'd make just one print and destrov the negative. If you're afraid that I'll-"
"No, it doesn't have anything to do with the photography. It's just that I had another commitment. Something that flew right out of my mind when I was with you."
"What is it?" he said, sounding skeptical.
"A-a girl friend of mine and I are driving up to Quebec for a week. We're leaving Friday morning, and we'll be gone till next Thursday. So I'm afraid I'll have to take a rain-check on our weekend outing, if that doesn't upset your plans too much."
"Well, of course it upset my plans," he said. "I've been doing hardly anything but thinking about the weekend since you left last night. How could you forget a thing like a trip to Quebec?"
"It just-slipped my mind," she said lamely. "I'm dreadfully sorry. Will you forgive me? We can take our outing next weekend, without fail."
"I've got a better idea," Hawthorne said.
"Yes?"
"What sort of girl is this one you're taking the trip with?"
"Oh-just a friend of mine, that's all. Her name's Janet."
"Well, would Janet object to getting a date and making it a foursome for the trip? Or how about my going along with you as a threesome?"
Anne closed her eyes wearily. "I don't think that would work out. Jerry."
"Why not?"
"Janet-doesn't like men very much. She's not the sort who would travel with a man or two men for a whole week. They get on her nerves. So I don't think it would be so good if you came along."
"I see." Coldly. "And you can't get out of this trip, either?"
"We have reservations and everything. And she's been looking forward to it for so long," Anne lied glibly.
"And I suppose I haven't been looking forward to seeing you again? And now I have to wait a whole week?"
"Jerry, darling, don't be angry with me. This is just one of those awkward things that happens. I'll be back next Thursday, and we'll spend the weekend together, and I'll make up to you for all the time I was away. I promise. I'll make it up five times over."
"All right, Anne. I'm sorry. I can't help it if I sound disappointed. But I'll try to be cheerful while you're gone. Can I see you tonight, just to wish you a bon voyage?"
Anne felt a pang of guilt and anguish. She was free tonight-but if she let herself see him, it might mean an end to the trip, because she would never be able to go away from him once she spent a night with him.
"No," she forced herself to stay. "I've left all my packing for tonight. And we're leaving practically at dawn tomorrow. So I couldn't-"
"Okay," he said disappointedly. "I know when I'm licked." He sighed. "Have a good trip, then. Send me a picture postcard or something. I'll be thinking of you Anne."
"And I'll be thinking of you, darling," she murmured into the phone. "Especially at night, when the lights are out."
She put down the phone, feeling like the blackest of hypocrites. To purr all sorts of nonsense into the phone when she was actually going off for a week with two men she didn't even know, struck her as the most cynical thing she had ever done.
She shrugged. She was caught in a trap-between her love for Jerry and her helpless compulsion to follow Janet's whims. So long as Jerry didn't find out how she was actually going to spend that week in Quebec, there was still a chance that she could patch things up with him when she got back. But if he discovered what the real story was, he would be furious with her and there would certainly be no hope of ever repairing the damage.
Lying was starting to come easy to her, she thought But she wasn't sure whether that was a sign of progress away from naive innocence, or just a token of her increasing corruption.
Janet phoned that evening to give Anne the last-minute details on the trip. "We'll pick you up at five in the morning," she said. "Don't be late. Chuck gets terribly impatient when people hold him up."
Anne packed lightly, trying not to need more than one suitcase. She went to bed at half past nine, but had trouble falling asleep, and when the alarm went off at four in the morning she was groggy and dizzy from lack of sleep. A quick shower, two cups of black coffee, and she felt a little more alive, but not much. She dressed for travelling, in slacks and pullover, and was just about ready when her bell rang at five minutes to five.
She opened the door to let Janet in. "Darling!" Janet cried. "It's been an age! Only a week or so, I know, but it seems like forever!"
The two women embraced. When Janet released her, a man stepped forward.
"Hello," he said. "I'm Ron Benson."
"Anne Martin."
"I'm the one who does the lyrics," he said. "In case you're interested. Chuck writes the music. He's downstairs in the wagon. Have you seen any of our shows?"
"I'm afraid I haven't," Anne said.
It was a tactless, if honest thing to say. Benson seemed immediately crestfallen. In something like amazement he muttered, "But everyone's seen our shows!"
"I ought to warn you now," Janet said. "Ron and Chuck are the world's greatest egotists. Ron thinks he's W. S. Gilbert and Chuck thinks he's Mozart. Never admit you haven't seen their shows, or that you think My Fair Lady might be better. Just coddle their egos and you'll get along famously with them. Right, Ron?"
"Go to hell," Benson said lightly. "We can finish this unpleasant little discussion downstairs. You know how Chuck hates to be kept waiting."
"Another point to remember," Janet said. "These boys live to deadlines. Everything has to be just right on time. Especially with Chuck. He's a fanatic about it."
Benson took Anne's suitcase and they left. A monstrous blue station wagon was parked in front of the house, and a young man in tee-shirt and khaki pants was pacing around nervously in front of it, looking constantly at his wristwatch. As they emerged from the house he said peevishly, "What the hell took you so long? It's three minutes past five, you know that? We'll never get the goddamn show on the road at this rate. Hi. I'm Chuck Harness. You've seen Hide and Seek, haven't you?"
"Of course," Anne said, with a smile at Janet. Benson winked at her. "I just loved it," she went on. "The music especially. So gay, so light-just like a 20th-century Mozart-"
"You've been coaching her," Harness said ungraciously. "But I'll accept the flattery anyway. Let's get moving now, huh?"
As Harness stowed her luggage aboard, Anne studied the two of them. They were both young-looking, seeming to be no more than in their late twenties-though they had to be a good deal older than that, because Janet had told her that their first show had appeared on Broadway more than ten years ago. Benson was short and lithe, with curly red hair and an open, likeable expression. Harness, the composer, was tall, maybe six feet four or five, very thin, with straggly sandy hair and an impatient, harried expression. They were perfect foils for each other physically and probably in other ways as well.
Harness drove the first shift, with Janet sitting next to him, and Anne and Benson in the second seat. They headed north through the dark early hours of the morning, cutting across Connecticut on the Wilbur Cross Parkway, stopping just outside Hartford to change drivers and have a second breakfast, and then continuing on north on Route 5. There was little conversation enroute-just endless singing, as Harness and Benson roared out in stentorian tones practically every song they had ever written.
Anne was glad when Benson replaced Harness at the wheel, because Harness had driven like a maniac, hardly ever letting the speed drop below seventy. But her relief evaporated in a moment, because Benson was, if anything, even more reckless at the wheel. The roads were beginning to thicken with morning traffic; now that it was past eight, and he wove between the slow-moving cars with glorious abandon and no regard at all for possible consequences.
But the pace told. They crossed into Massachusetts and forged northward through Holyoke and Northhampton and Greenfield, and then left Massachusetts behind, whizzing into Vermont. The scenery started to get rugged. Lovely mountains were rising to their left on the New Hampshire side of the Connecticut River.
They stopped in Brattleboro to pick up the fixings for lunch, and fifty miles further along Benson pulled off the highway and announced, "We'll have our picnic here."
It was a beautiful spot. They were on the banks of the Connecticut, in a secluded, woodsy area completely cut off from sight of the road. Janet unpacked a picnic basket and spread a blanket on the ground, and began unloading knives, forks, salt, ketchup, and-to Anne's astonishment-an insulated cooler that contained cavier and white wine.
"Do you realize," Benson asked, "that we may be the first people ever to have eaten cavier on a picnic in the state of Vermont?"
"Doubtful," Harness said. "No matter what you do, there's always been someone who's done it ahead of you."
"Isn't it the truth," Janet said.
Benson tilted his head thoughtfully to one side. "You know, there's a song in that," he said. "Someone's always been there first. That's the theme. A patter song. Lots of feet to the line."
"Like a caterpillar," Anne said. "Lots of feet." She had put away the wine enthusiastically, and now it was going to her head.
Benson had a pad and pencil out. He was jotting down words as fast as he could write. He threw out a random line at Harness, who immediately began to shape a melody around it. When Janet tried to say something, they both shushed her simultaneously-
"Hey," she yelled. "I thought this was supposed to be a vacation for you two geniuses!"
"We've got something good going," Benson said, "Will you leave us alone till we work it out?"
"We don't do this often," Harness put in.
Janet shrugged. "Okay. Let's leave them be. Come on, Anne. We'll go exploring."
With Benson madly scribbling down lyrics and Harness humming to himself, Anne and Janet got to their feet and started to wander through the woods, down to the water's edge. It was early afternoon, a bright, warm day that seemed more like July than early May. The temperature was well up in the seventies.
They stood by the river, watching it swirl rapidly by. The water was crystal-clear, sparkling in the brilliant sunlight.
"You know what I'm going to do?" Janet said suddenly. "I'm going to take a swim. Right here and now."
"Won't someone see you?"
"Who? We're a hundred fifty yards from the road, and it's all woods. And more woods on the other side. Anyway, what of it if someone sees? I've got nothing to be ashamed of, do I?"
Anne shrugged. The idea of just peeling off your clothes and diving into a river out in the open would have horrified her inhibited old self. Even now, she felt a little uneasy about it. But while she hesitated, Janet was undressing. She stepped out of her slacks, pulled off her sweater. Off came bra and panties and socks. Janet stood for a moment on an out-jutting rock overlooking the river, naked, the sunlight bringing out the rich creamy color of her skin. Bright streaks of light illumined her full, firm buttocks and her tapering legs.
Then she leaped, a beautiful arching dive that carried her out almost to the middle of the river. She bobbed up in a moment, her breasts at the surface of the water, her golden hair streaming down. She grinned and waved to Anne, yelling, "Come on in! It's cold, but it's great!"
Anne nodded. With nervous fingers she began to undress, getting out of her clothes and leaving them in a little pile on the river bank. It was, she thought, a wonderful feeling to be standing here naked in the sunlight, the cool woodsy breeze caressing her body.
She stepped out onto the rock.
She paused there. The river was swirling rapidly by. She was afraid to jump. She wasn't a terribly good swimmer, and what if she hit a submerged rock, or a tree-trunk, or some other hazard?
"What are you waiting for?" Janet called gaily from the water.
Suddenly Anne heard a rustling sound behind her. She whirled, putting one hand over her loins and the other across her breasts, like a Diana surprised in the woods at a morning bath. Benson and Harness were staring at her in obvious delight.
"Look, Chuck. September Morn!"
"Isn't that something," Harness said. "You find the damndest things in these Vermont woods."
Mortified by the frankly appraising way the two men were studying her nakedness, Anne turned round again to face the water. She was conscious of their glance on her buttocks. Then she sprang outward, diving feet-first into the rapidly moving river.
It was cold.
It was the coldest shock she had ever had. She went in over her head, and bobbed up, shivering, her teeth chattering. Janet swam over to her.
"There, that wasn't so bad, was it?"
"I'm freezing! Let me out of here!"
"You'll get used to it. Give it a minute."
Anne paddled around. She could feel herself growing accustomed to the cold, now that the first moment of shock was past. And it was fun. The icy water felt good against her.
"You looked so startled when they came out of the woods," Janet said.
"I was embarrassed. Strange men seeing me naked-"
"They'll see a lot more of you before this week is over," Janet told her. "There's no percentage being modest. They aren't expecting it. They think you're one of the gang, and you damn well better be."
"I expect to be," Anne said. "But I'm still new at this sort of thing."
"I get you. Breaking down the inhibitions takes time. But when we come out of the water, act like you're perfectly at ease. Don't run right into your clothes."
"Let's see some swimming!" Benson shouted from shore.
The two girls began to paddle around. Anne looked up at Janet, who was swimming ahead of her, and saw Janet's white buttocks breaking the surface of the water. Her cheeks reddened as she realized that she too was probably exposed like that as she swam. No wonder the two men on shore were enjoying the sight so much.
After a few minutes more they came out of the water. It was really too cold for any extended swimming. Janet emerged first, standing on the bank and shaking herself dry like a puppy. Anne hesitated a moment, then boldly strode out of the water oblivious of the admiring and brutally frank scrutiny she was getting from Benson and Harness.
Janet handed her a towel. She rubbed her hair dry, then her breasts and legs. The swim had been wonderfully invigorating. She tingled all over.
Stretching out on her towel, Janet said, "I'm going to dry off in the sun for a while. Why don't you two go write some more songs?"
Harness said, "It's getting late. We ought to get on the road."
"Oh, what's the hurry?" Janet asked. "We aren't running a race."
Benson grinned. "I've got a better idea. Why don't you and Chuck go over behind those trees there, and Anne and I-"
"Nothing doing," Janet said. "Nude swimming is one thing, but outdoor love won't go. You know what they do to you in Vermont if they catch you outdoors? They make a eunuch out of you to teach you a lesson. The next time you're more careful."
"I'll bet you are," Benson said. He walked over to Anne, who was on her back, glorying in the warmth of the sun on her bare breasts and thighs. He looked down at her. It gave her a dizzy feeling to be lying here naked under the gaze of a man she hadn't even known yesterday. She thought sadly of Jerry Hawthorne, then drove him from her mind.
"Too bad. I wanted to be the first." He squatted down next to her, and her body stiffened at the closeness of him. He said, "We'll be in Quebec tonight. Will you do me the honor of sharing my humble bed?"
"That's the fanciest proposition I ever heard."
"Isn't it, though?" He reached out, touched the warm flesh of her thigh. "But I want to make sure I get there ahead of Chuck."
"Maybe you two ought to flip coins," Anne said. "I wouldn't want to be the cause of a quarrel between two partners."
"Don't worry," he said.
"Are you girls finished baking yourselves?" Harness demanded.
"We'd better go," Janet said. "He'll blow his top any moment."
Anne got to her feet and stretched, breathing deeply. Her chest expanded, her breasts rising outward, the nipples standing up stiffly, haloed by the sunlight's golden glow-She dressed quickly. The blood was coursing more rapidly in her veins after the swim and the sunbath. They packed up the picnic things, headed back to the car.
Harness drove. He went zooming toward the border like an astronaut in the X-15. As they crossed through Lyndon Janet turned round and said to her, "Glad you decided to come?"
"Yes," Anne said. "I'm having fun."
"The fun's only beginning," Janet stud.
Anne smiled. But inwardly, she regarded herself as something of a traitor for having such a good time.
CHAPTER TEN
As they approached the Vermont-Quebec border, later that afternoon, they began to see French-language billboards and road signs. They passed through Derby Line and into Canada, stopped briefly for the perfunctory Customs examination at Rock Island, and headed on through the rich, lovely, tranquil farmland of French Canada toward Quebec City.
Northward they went, through the sleepy little towns, each dominated by its towering gilt-steepled church, up into the city of Sherbrooke and on beyond, through towns named St. Etienne and St. Agapit and Dosquet, and finally to the broad St. Lawrence River and across it into the city of Quebec. Night had fallen. They had been on the road more than twelve hours, included stops, but now they had arrived. Benson drove down the wide avenue until the gray gates of the Old City came into sight.
Within the gates, they crawled at a slow pace through the narrow streets, so European in their crookedness. They reached their hotel soon after. They had decided to stay away from the Chateau Frontenac, Quebec's big hotel, and instead had registered at a small but elegant place overlooking the Citadel.
They were given two adjoining rooms, spacious and airy, each with private bath. The bellhop who had brought their luggage up asked them, in French, which suitcases went in which room.
"I'll take care of it," Benson said smoothly, handling the boy a colorful Canadian dollar. Deftly Benson scooped up Anne's suitcase and his own, and carried them into the left-hand room.
"Now, hold on a sec-" Harness began.
"The rooms are adjoining," Benson said in an attempt to mollify him. "We can switch around as the mood takes us. This is just a matter of who uses what closet, you know."
Harness didn't seem pleased by the explanation, but he accepted it grudgingly. Anne began to unpack. There was something very illicit about unpacking in a hotel room in a distant city with a man who was not Jeff, she thought. She had always associated hotel rooms and sin, and for the first time there was some substance to the thought.
"Do you want me to go into the bathroom while you get into your clothes?" Benson asked.
Anne shrugged. "You've already seen what I have to offer, so why bother?"
"Just thought I'd ask."
She liked him for having asked. He stayed in the room, changing into a dress suit, while she got out of her travelling clothes and into something more formal. His eyes came to rest unabashedly on her as she removed her bra. Her breasts swayed gently from side to side as she bent over her drawer to find her strapless bra. Color came to her cheeks When she looked up, she could see the hunger in his eyes. His jaw-muscles were bunched.
Quickly she slipped the bra over the heavy mounds of her breasts, and some of the tension seemed to go out of the lyricist's face. The connecting door opened, and Janet walked in without knocking. She wore nothing but a bra, and held a dress over one arm.
"What are you wearing tonight, hon?"
Anne pointed to the dress lying on the bed. Janet nodded and held up hers. "This won't be too dressy, then. I was wondering."
She turned and walked out. Anne noticed how Benson's eyes followed the tapering curves of Janet's bare buttocks as she returned to her own room.
Half an hour later the four of them, dressed now like well-to-do tourists, strolled up the steep bill to the center of the old city. They ate a plush French restaurant on the Rue de la Fabrique. a handsome place with glittering chandeliers and high, vaulted ceilings. The meal was an elaborate one with champagne to accompany the appetizer, white still wine with the soup, a powerful red Burgundy to go with the steak Chateaubriand, and cognac with coffee. Anne felt tipsy and full to bursting long before the end of the meal. Benson and Harness ate with a gusto that was incredible in men so lean, but it was possible almost to see them burning the food as fast as they consumed it. Both of them had a terrific nervous energy that kept them going compulsively.
It was half past ten by the time they left the restaurants. To walk off the meal, they strolled through the winding streets for half an hour, getting hopelessly lost but forging on anyway, and unexpectedly emerging from the maze with their hotel in sight a block away. As they entered the hotel, Benson declared that he needed a nightcap, and so they stopped into the hotel bar. Four fat middle-aged men were arguing vigorously but unintelligibly in French. Anne declined a drink and watched while the others put away ponies of Benedictine.
Then they went upstairs.
There was a brief whispered conversation between Benson and Harness. Anne looked on, perplexed, as they stood in the hall outside their rooms.
Finally Benson said, "Good night, you two. Let's go, Anne."
So it was all decided, she thought. Benson and Harness had reached an agreement. She would spend tonight with Benson. Tomorrow, maybe, they would switch off. Who knew? It was an unsavory deal all around.
They went in.
Benson locked the door.
He turned, grinning at her. "Alone at last, my pretty one! If I had mustaches I'd twirl them. Come kiss me, my love."
She went to him. But there was a coldness, a restraint about her. He was likeable, he was handsome, he was wealthy-but she did not want to sleep with him. She wanted to be in New York, with Jerry. Not here with this man she hardly knew.
But you don't really know Jerry either, she reminded herself.
Somehow that was different. Somehow, she and Hawthorne had come to know each other well even in the brief few hours they had been together. Whereas here she was just a blind date, a throw-in to round out a foursome of sin.
Benson pulled her to him. He was wiry but strong and his powerful arms grasped her, his lips closed on hers. He kissed her passionately, and she did her best to pretend an equal passion.
When he released her, he seemed satisfied He stepped back and said, "You want to tell me something, Anne?"
"What?"
"Who are you?"
"I don't understand-"
"Where'd you come from? You didn't just drop from the skies. How did you meet Janet?"
"We met in a cocktail lounge," Anne said. "We liked each other. She invited me to come along on this trip, that's all."
"And what do you do, in the city?"
"Live on my support allowance. I'm separated from my husband."
"I get it. A divorcee."
"Almost."
"A lovely divorcee. A woman of mystery. Well, I won't ask any more questions. I don't want to penetrate the enigma of your past. IM rather do my penetrating in the present." He laughed. "Let's not waste any more time, shall we?"
He began to undress her, helping her out of her black cocktail dress, expertly unfastening the strapless bra, pausing to cup her satin-smooth breasts for a moment before going on to the rest of her clothes. She was naked in another moment. She stood tense and uncomfortable in the middle of the room, arms folded across her breasts, wondering how she was ever going to give this man pleasure when she was so little in the mood.
He started to undress, tossing his clothes into the armchair. His body was solid and compact, well-muscled, covered with thick curly hair. She felt a moment of excitement as she looked at him.
Then he came toward her.
His lovemaking was rough, almost brusque. He squeezed her breasts with his powerful hands, then took them to his lips, while digging his fingertips into the softness of her buttocks. His unromantic approach seemed to jolt Anne out of her reluctance. She found herself responding moment by moment as he continued.
He was clasping her body now, kneeling to her. He bent forward and drew her up, and there was a sudden instant of surprise as he took her. She had not been expecting it just then. But with a quick motion he joined his body to hers.
He clasped her tight to him. She could feel the short, vigorous movements. Her body was starting to tingle with excitement. Her breath was beginning to become irregular, rough. She could feel the first grounds wells of passion building up.
In another few minutes fulfillment would come.
Faster and faster he moved, and Anne started to gasp with pleasure, closing her eyes, lying back against the pillow, concentrating on the invader of her body, on the rough vigor of his love. Her whole body trembled as the first sign of fulfillment came upon her, and she gasped again, moaning a little in the throes of her passion-
And suddenly he left her.
"No!" she cried. "Come back!"
"I'm not going anywhere," he said in a hoarse, oddly thickened voice.
But she felt his hands at her hips, tugging at her, straining.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Turning you over."
"Why?"
"You'll see."
"But-"
"Turn over!" he snapped.
She was so surprised by his peremptory tone that she lowered her guard, and he spun her over on her belly. The next moment, she felt the pressure of him against her.
-and then a sudden pain, a blaze of agony-
"W-what are you doing?" she whimpered.
"It'll only hurt for a moment."
"No, please-please, don't do it-"
To late. She clawed at the pillow as he continued to attack her. He lay atop her, face down his hands underneath her to clasp her breast, to squeeze them until she felt dizzy with the pain, and further down there was the different and far more severe pain of this strange rape, and then the resistance ended, and there was no more pain, only a burning sensation, and she felt him moving above her, and suddenly he began to wheeze and moan, to move faster, and she sensed him stiffening, going rigid in the moment of culmination.
And then he was withdrawing from her, turning her over again.
He took her a second time in the usual way.
Half dizzy with pain and confusion, she lay back, dimly aware of his eager, violent motion, and then the first rumblings of the earthquake of ecstasy started again, and the world stood still for her and a drum beat in the distance, the pounding fury of it threatening to shatter her eardrums, and then it was up, up, and over the top, as a great quaking wave of passionate fulfillment swept down to engulf her.
She lay still. Benson was atop her, sobbing for breath. His body was drenched in sweat. He had his face buried in her breasts, between the two high firm mounds of them.
Neither of them spoke for a long while. Then he said, in a voice that was strangely altered into an ugly croaking thing, "Did I-hurt you?"
"A little."
"I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself. I got carried away Anne."
"I was so terribly surprised."
"You never did anything like that before."
"No," she said. "I didn't even know people did things like that."
"They do. Some people."
"People like you."
"Me," he said. "It's the only way I get any real pleasure."
"Then why did you do it the regular way with me afterward?"
"To give you pleasure," he said. "Most women don't enjoy it that way. At least not most normal women. So I do it both ways. It knocks the hell out of me, but I see to it that I give at least as good as I get. You're sure I didn't hurt you?"
"Not seriously."
"Sometimes I do. I can't help myself. I get carried away."
She didn't answer.
He said. "Some girls kick and scream when I try to do it to them. My first marriage busted up on my wedding night because of it. I said to my wife, turn over, and she said. You're out of your head, buster, and that was that. She packed up and left me. On my wedding night. Five in the morning, I had to ring for a bellhop and give him ten bucks to find me a girl, because I was so heated up. So they sent a pro up to the bridal suite. I bet they're still talking about it over there."
He got up and lit a cigarette in the darkness. Anne saw him staring moodily off toward the window.
She said, "You-really enjoy it that much more the other way?"
"Yes."
"Always?"
"Always. First time I had a girl I was sixteen. I didn't enjoy it much. Couple of years later I was with another girl. Eileen, her name was. She was older than I was. I was living in Greenwich Village, and we shacked up, and I made it with her for a while the usual way, and one day I complained to her that I didn't think I was getting the bang out of love that other men did. I thought maybe I was a homo or something. And she said, how about trying it the French way? And I said. What does that mean? And she said, I'll show you." Benson laughed in retrospect. "So she pulled up her skirt and pulled off her panties and lay down on the bed. She was one of the kind who enjoyed it that way. Most of the girls I've known since don't."
"But why-why is that way so much better for you?"
"Why?" His laugh was bitter. "Girlie, I've spent thousands of bucks on headshrinkers to find out why. And I don't know any more about it than when I started. One said it was because I was a latent homo. So I went out and picked up a queer, but I didn't enjoy it all with him. It's got to be with girls. Another doctor said it's because I hated my mother, and so I try to get revenge on all girls by humiliating them in that position. But that's a lot of jazz. I liked my mother, for one thing. For another, I don't try to get revenge on girls. I try to give them a good time their own way. Like I did with you."
He fell silent.
Anne looked at him in the dark. Her body still hurt from the strange violation he had inflicted on it, but she was not going to tell him that. Even though she felt somehow defiled and filthy inside.
She pitied him.
He was young, handsome, successful, maybe even a millionaire. But making love gave him no pleasure except when he did it in an abnormal way, and she could see that that was torture for him. He wanted to be normal. But it had been denied him to get his pleasure like other men.
"Why are you sitting over there?" she asked.
"I don't know. Thinking."
"Come back to bed. We've got a whole town to see tomorrow."
He stubbed out his cigarette and joined her in the bed. From the next room came the sound of Janet's giggling, followed by a deep, rumbling laugh from Harness.
"They're having fun," Anne said.
"Harness always has fun in bed. Not like me. He's such a healthy character."
He stretched out full length next to her. For a while, neither of them moved, and Anne thought he had gone to sleep. But then he stirred and nestled up against her, cupping one breast and taking the other to his lips. She began to respond rhythmically.
As new passion grew in her, she wondered involuntarily what Jerry Hawthorne was doing tonight. And self-disgust choked her throat. To have gone away with someone was bad enough. To be made love to in this twisted way was even worse.
Why should I worry? she asked. Jerry's got no claims on me. Or me on him.
She ran her hand down the front of Benson's body, through the thick mat of hair on his chest, then lower. He turned to her, aroused again.
"Let's try it the regular way," she whispered.
'If you want."
They began to move.
She gave it all she had. All the accumulated experience of the past two weeks, plus whatever she had learned in her two years of marriage. She wanted this to be good for him. She wanted to help him break the shackles of his abnormality.
But it was no use. Once, he tried to slip free of her, but she resisted him, forcing him to continue.
Passion rose in her, mounting higher and higher, until she could no longer restrain herself. Desperately, she held back, sensing his coldness, but nothing she could do would bring fire to him, and finally she simply had to succumb to the roiling eddies inside her. In a series of gasps she slipped over the edge of fulfillment alone.
After she had passed the peak, she kept moving, hoping against hope. But suddenly he moved away from her, turning his back.
"It's no use," he said heavily. "It won't work. It's got to be the other way."
She bit her lip. She was tired now, deliciously drowsy. And she still hurt from before. She didn't want to yield to him again.
But she could sense his suffering. He lay rigid next to her, tense, anguished.
"All right," she said.
She lay on her side. She felt him curling up against her. His breath was hot on the nape of her neck, and for a moment his hands stroked her soft skin, and he squirreled down to kiss the small of her back, and then he sighed in desire and took her.
It hurt less this time. But it was still not pleasant.
It was all over in a few moments; she felt him quiver in pleasure, heard the moan of his ecstasy, and then the final, almost regretful sigh that marked the finish.
"Good night, Anne," he murmured, kissing her cheek tenderly.
"Good night, Ron."
She closed her eyes. In a moment or two she could hear his regular, even breathing behind her.
Her body ached. But at least she had given him some happiness.
In a disgusting way, she thought.
She wished again that she had not let Janet talk her into coming. Each day, she moved further and further along the road of degradation. Each day, one of Janet's friends introduced her to some forbidden new form of lustful satisfaction.
What happened when she reached the point of no return?
What happened when she found that she turned into a girl like Janet, who lived only for pleasure?
Anne felt tears of fright coming into her eyes. She buried her face in her pillow. Soon she was asleep, but it was an uneasy sleep, filled with strange dreams or abnormal monstrosities.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next night it was Chuck Harness' turn to have her.
They had spent the day out seeing the town-shopping, going into the old churches, visiting the Plains of Abraham, stopping into the Wax Museum. At dinner they went to a small, picturesque restaurant on the slope that led to the lower city-a delectable place where a bowl of piping hot onion soup was a quarter, a passable filet mignon two dollars, and where the management obviously hadn't heard that restaurants allowed themselves a 100% markup on the cost of a bottle of wine.
After dinner they went back to the hotel. And Chuck Harness was taking no chances that his collaborator would pull another fast one. As they approached their rooms he said bluntly, "Anne, shall you come into my room tonight, or will I go into yours?"
"It doesn't matter," she said. Inwardly she resented the way sex was taken for granted among these people. But she knew they would never begin to understand the reasons for her resentment. They had an entirely different outlook on such things, "Suppose I go into your room, then." Harness said. "It'll be easier all around. I just have to bring my toothbrush."
"Okay."
They split up, Benson and Janet going into the other bedroom. That afternoon, when Anne had drawn Janet away from the two men, she had asked the other girl what she knew about Benson's peculiar sexual preferences.
"Of course knew about it," Janet said.
"You might have told me in advance."
"I didn't want you getting all flustered by worrying about it," Janet said. "He didn't hurt you. did he?"
"Only a little. But it was the surprise of it. I didn't enjoy it."
"You have to admit it was unusual."
"Sleeping with a gorilla would be unusual too," Anne replied. "But not very much fun."
"Maybe not for you," Janet said. "But think of the kicks the gorilla would get."
"Well, tonight he's yours."
"I'm not worried. I've been to bed with Ron before. He always gives a girl a good time the way she likes it, as well as his own way. Anyhow, I enjoy a little variety. You ought to know that by now."
And now she was alone with Harness. The composer locked the bedroom door and turned to face Anne. He said, "I just want to let you know in advance that I don't have any quirks like Ron."
"I was wondering."
"He can be pretty rough on a girl sometimes. But let's not talk about him." Harness settled comfortably in a chair and lit his pipe. He draped his long legs over the arms of the chair and said, "Been divorced long?"
"Just separated. My decree isn't final yet."
"Uh-huh. Savoring the first taste of freedom, is that it? Shed your hubby last month and now it's off to Quebec on a joy-ride. Oh, well, I can't blame you. I felt the same way when I got divorced. Went off on one long binge. A different girl every night. I had to. To make up for lost time." He puffed reflectively. "Got married when I was nineteen. Both of us music students. Real serious. I was going to be the next Stravinsky. Both virgins, too. And we were married for seven and a half years. During which time I was absolutely faithful. I find that a little hard to believe when I think about it. Well, we broke up, finally. She accused me of selling out when I wrote my first Broadway show. Crazy girl. She wanted to live in a basement and take baths once a month. And here I was making three thousand a week, and she couldn't stand it. So she left me, and we got a divorce, and she married a professor of English Literature and now lives in the stylish poverty she so admires. I hope she's happy. Meanwhile after the divorce I decided it was time to start living a little. Instead of being a gawky stupid kind of nineteen I was a rich man of twenty-six, a goddamn celebrity. So I started to have girls. Loss of girls. That was ten years ago, and I haven't stopped yet."
"You've made up for a lot of lost time; then."
"I've overdone it. But I can't help myself now. I'm on a merry-go-round that doesn't stop."
Anne stared at him thoughtfully. She recognized something of herself in him-the inexperienced person who is suddenly at liberty to savor life to the fullest.
He said he was unable to stop. That he went on and on, unable to get off the pleasure joyride.
Janet was another like that. And Ron Benson was a third.
Am I heading the same way? she asked herself.
She didn't like the idea of going endlessly on in search of new pleasures, until the double chins started to sprout and her breasts turned into udders and her buttocks into wobbling globes of jelly, until the time when she became one of those dreadful old sinners who lived in constant desperation because there was no one to gratify their lusts.
No.
She wanted off the merry-go-round sooner than that.
But how?
She forced the depressing thoughts out of her mind.
"Shall we go to bed?" she asked.
"Okay." he said. "Take your clothes off."
"Just like that?"
"You want me to be romantic?"
"I was expecting at least a little of it," she said. "You didn't buy me for the night."
He shook his head. "Romance isn't in my line, Anne. I'm offering sex. Pure and simple. Let's get undressed and make it, I say. No soft words. No snuggling. That's just so much jazz when two people don't know each other."
His words were like pails full of cold water. She stared at him levelly and said, "Hasn't anyone ever told you that a woman likes some lovemaking before the main event? That you can't just get down to business?"
"Sorry. I know all about it I don't believe ft. It's a lot of self-coddling jazz. You take any woman at all, and the right guy can start from scratch and get her heated up in five seconds,"
"That isn't so."
"Take your clothes off and I'll show you."
She was offended by his blunt, direct approach. She was offended enough to think of refusing altogether. But that would start a needless quarrel. And maybe he was right. Maybe he did have something new to offer, something no other man had tried.
"All right," she said. "I think you're wrong and that I'm going to have a lousy time. But I'll give you a chance to prove your point."
She began to undress. She felt absolutely no desire for him, and even when she stood naked before him there was no sensation.
He got lazily out of the chair. His casual motions now were in sharp contrast to the nervous, intense, hurry-it-up side of his personality that he had been displaying on the trip up here. Obviously this was part of some carefully calculated act, Anne thought.
Yawning, he took his shirt off, draped it over a chair. He unbelted his pants and stepped out of them. A moment later he was naked. He was lean and bony, seemingly without flesh at all. His enormously long legs and arms gave him a spidery appearance.
He took her by the hand led her to the bed. They stretched out together.
His hand rested for a moment on the lower curve of her belly. She felt his incredibly long fingers spreading out, stealing over her. Another hand was cupping her breast. But there was something cold, remote, about the way he was doing it. It was the strangest style of lovemaking she had ever encountered-almost as though a pane of glass separated him from her.
Then, suddenly, he was on her and with her.
He took her before she really knew what was happening. There was the abrupt sensation of contact, of linkage, of union-
And then motion.
She knew now why he had been moving so slowly, so lazily, so casually, in the last half hour. It was because he had been saving energy, storing up the charge. And now the accumulated store of intensity was discharged with a vengeance. She felt as though someone had thrust a live wire into her. He moved with the steady, obsessive fury of a high-velocity drill.
It was a bizarre sensation. He covered her completely, and he moved with incredible vigor and persistence. Within moments she felt her entire body tingling. In moments more, there were throbbing, pulsing sensations of ecstasy.
On and on he went, seemingly tireless, maintaining perfect control over his body. Anne gasped and moaned. As the final moments approached, he slipped his hands underneath her, drawing her up to meet him.
"It-it's happening," she said. "Now! Oh, GOD! Oh! Ooooohhhhh!"
Shivers of uncontrollable excitement surged through her. There was a moment of almost terrifying spasming inside her, of nervous contraction that left her weak and dazed and soaked in sweat. At the height of it she felt Harness joining her in fulfillment, and then it was over.
She felt shellshocked.
It had been a blitzkrieg of sex.
The whole thing, from start to finish, had lasted less than five minutes. He had taken her by storm, had beaten down her resistances, had conquered her completely. She lay back, drained and depleted, with his fleshless form at her side, his limbs dangling off in all directions.
"Well?" he asked calmly. "How was it?"
"Very-strange-"
"But satisfying?"
"Yes. Satisfying."
"I told you it would be," he said, almost gloating. "It's a technique I invented myself. There aren't very many men who are capable of making love like that."
Thank God, Anne thought quietly. It had been something like making love with a dentist's drill, or with a steamroller. The mere fact that she had achieved physical fulfillment didn't alter the essentially unpleasant nature of what he had just done to her.
She said, "I-I still like a man to be more romantic. I'm sorry, but-"
"I've got a confession to make," he said with a grin. "I was experimenting with you."
"You were what?"
"I'm not like this all the time. It was just an idea I wanted to try. To see if I could bring a strange woman from start to climax without any warmups. I've never done it with anybody before." He laughed. "I didn't like it very much myself. I mean, it was interesting, but there wasn't as much excitement as when you do it the usual way."
She looked at him in surprise. "So I'm just a guinea pig to you?"
"Are you angry?"
"Annoyed, a little."
"Don't be," he said softly. "It was something I had to find out, sooner or later. It was just your luck that I was in an experimental mood. But I'll make it up to you. You'll see."
He leaned across her body and kissed her breasts, each in turn, lingering over the nipples and making little nipping kisses with his lips. She was still angry with him for using her that way, and so did not respond. But a moment later his hands stole down her body while his lips still caressed her breasts. She felt a renewed pulse of interest.
Now he was as tender as he had been brusque before. Gently, patiently, he caressed her, playing on her body as though it were some infinitely rare and sensitive musical instrument. It was as though he were determined to show her that he was also skilled at making love to a woman the way a woman likes being made love to.
Now he was in no hurry. A thousand times he traced little whorls around the high cones of her breasts with his fingertips; a thousand times he ran a line of kisses down her body from her forehead; a thousand dmes he stroked the soft, velvety flesh of buttocks and thighs and hips and loins. Time ran by, until she was in a fever of desire, a sweat of lust, and then he turned to her again, embracing her easily, leading her on deftly from one height of passion to the next, and then to the summit, and into a blinding flash of satiation.
"Was that better?" he asked, when it was over.
"Much, much better."
"But it was worth trying the experiment. It's the only way you learn things about yourself. I didn't know I could do it that way till I tried. You probably know you could respond. Now we've learned something."
"Something useless."
"At least we know it," he said. "Good night, Anne."
"Good night."
He kissed her breasts once more, then rolled over and sank almost immediately into deep sleep. Anne was awake a little while longer.
This was a very odd team, she thought. Harness had assured her that he had no quirks, but he was wrong. In his own way, he was just as peculiar as his collaborator. They were both very strange.
She decided, as sleep stole up on her, that she would be very glad when this week finally ended and she could get back to New York, and her apartment, and her own private life. And to Jerry.
She sent him a postcard the next morning after breakfast, while waiting for Harness and Benson to finish changing some travellers' checks into Canadian dollars. She stared at the blank postcard for a long moment before deciding what to write, and finally scribbled inanely, Dear Jerry, I'm having a grand time up here in Quebec but I wish you were here with me. With warmest best wishes, Anne.
She looked at the card when she had written it. It seemed so stupid What had she said, really? Nothing more profound than Having wonderful time, wish you were here, which any 8-year-old could improve on. And she hadn't even been able to sign it honestly, Love. Instead she had used a mealy-mouthed circumlocution like With warmest best wishes.
Resisting an impulse to tear the card up and throw it away, she stuck a stamp on it and dropped it in the mail slot. Jerry would get it tomorrow she thought, or perhaps by Tuesday. Thursday she would be home, and Friday she would see him again.
Sunday to Friday. That wasn't so very long she told herself. Five more days of putting up with the talented but off-beat Messrs. Benson and Harness, and then she'd be free to go back to Jerry. If he'd have her after the way she had broken their date to go off on this Canadian jaunt.
There was nothing much to do in Quebec on a Sunday. The restaurants were open, but mest of the stores weren't. They drove out into the countryside for a picnic, getting back to town late in the afternoon.
Harness made reservations for them for dinner at a hotel just outside the Old City's walls. But Benson was thirsty, and insisted on stopping off for some drinks in his own hotel's bar first.
The same four fat Canadians were sitting in their corner, nursing brandies and arguing vociferously with each other in French. Anne, Janet, Benson, and Harness settled themselves along the bar and rang for service.
The bartender appeared-a woman, the buxom wife of the hotelkeeper. She smiled and asked in heavily accented French-Canadian English what they would care to drink.
"Martini for me," Janet said.
"The same."
"I'll try the Calvados," Benson said.
"Scotch on the rocks," Harness said morosely.
They sipped their drinks gratefully, went through them in a hurry, and, at Benson's insistence, started on a second round. Behind them, the argument grew even more heated and explosive.
"Who understands French around here?" Benson asked in a low voice.
"I do," Anne said.
"What are they beefing about, then?"
She shrugged. "I can't understand more than one word out of ten. They've got a dialect all their own. It isn't really French. At least not any French I understand."
"You can't even get the drift of ft?"
"Only a little. They're arguing politics. The one on the outside, there, he doesn't like America. I think he's saying that Canada ought to recognize Communist China. The man facing him, he's a reactionary." Anne listened a moment. "He thinks America should have bombed Russia ten years ago, before Russia got this strong. And the two men in the middle-I can't figure out what they're saying. Something about the position ef the Catholic Church, I think. Unless I've got it all cockeyed."
Benson grinned "I think I'm going to have a little fun with them."
"Careful," Harness warned. "Don't fool around with four Canucks in their cups."
"Ah, they're old and fat," Benson restored. "Besides, I need some entertainment."
He drained his glass, swaggered away from the bar, and amble over to the table in the corner. The argument stopped as Benson approached.
Grinning broadly, he said, in wretched French, "Alors, messieurs, ja suis un Americaine. Bon jour. Je suis-un ami du President Kennedy-ah-I just want to tell you-what's the word-I'm up here to investigate subversion in Canada-to see if there are any Communists up here, you know-"
The four Canadians were looking at him in blank bewilderment. The one on the end, the friend of Communist China, passed his hands through his fraying goatee and said haltingly, "You joke with us?"
"No. No joke. Serieusement. Is that the word? I'm a Congressman. My friend over there is a Senator. And the girls are our secretaries. If you don't mind, we'd like to ask you a few questions about-"
"No spik English," was the early reply.
Harness said quietly, "Ron, I don't think you ought to bother them if-"
Benson waved them off. "Pardon, messieurs. Dites-moi-uh-votre opinion de-de General de Gaulle. De Algeria et le O. A. S. And what do you think of Fidel Castro? I'd very much like to know if-"
Anne watched in alarm as the expressions of the four puzzled French-Canadians grew darker and darker. They were obviously annoyed by the brash intruder who was throwing this barrage of fractured French at them.
Benson said something else. The reply he received was bluntly obscene. Benson's face reddened, but he kept his grin.
The four French-Canadians had red faces too. But they were not grinning.
Anne did not see who threw the first blow. All she knew was there was a sudden moment when all four Canadians were on their feet. There was the sound of breaking glass. Someone hurled a drink in Benson's face.
Then the five of them were milling and pushing and shoving. A moment later, Harness crossed the room, and joined the fray in his collaborator's defense. Chairs toppled. A table crashed to the floor.
"Stop them!" Anne cried. "Oh, please, stop them!"
Other men were running into the room. Within seconds, a full-scale brawl was in progress.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Anne heard herself screaming, a high wail of terror. But no one else heard her The melee was in full swing. There were a dozen people in the room, swirling around riotously. Harness and Benson were in the middle of it, fending off their cursing attackers. Janet had waded in too, ripping at the Canadians with fang and claw. The woman bartender joined the fray, grabbing Janet and trying to pull her away. There was the sound of ripping fabric as the front of Janet's dress tore.
Anne was unable to move. She watched the brawl as though she were dreaming it. Blood was streaming from an open cut on Ron Benson's forehead. Janet, her breasts nearly bare, was tugging at the older woman's hair. Bellboys were trying to restore order.
Chuck Harness, laying about him with his long arms, was flailing everyone in sight.
Then there was the wailing sound of swans.
"Police!" someone screamed.
Anne crammed her fist into her mouth and crouched next to her chair, quivering in fright. This was the thing she had dreaded, that Tom Richardson had warned her so vehemently against. To get mixed up in a scandal, to tarnish her reputation before the decree came through-
I've got to get out of here, she thought. They mustn't find me.
She turned to run, hoping to get up to her room, to pack up and clear out. She could take a bus back to New York and no one would be the wiser. Otherwise the consequences would be severe.
"Going somewhere, Miss?"
A bulky figure blocked her as she reached the doorway to the bar. A uniformed figure.
The police were here.
Whistles sounded, and abruptly the fighting stopped. The room fell silent. Fearfully, Anne slunk back in, and huddled against the wall.
The place was shambles. The bar mirror was cracked, chairs were overturned, the floor was littered with broken glasses and ash trays. The smell of spilled liquor pervaded everything.
Ron Benson was holding a handkerchief to his cut forehead. Harness nursed a puffing lip. Janet vainly tried to hold the shreds of her dress together, to hide the heavy rounds of her breasts that peeped from beneath the torn fabric.
One of the Canadians lay flat on his back, out cold. Another was starting to develop a shiner, a third had either a bloody nose or a broken one. The bellhops looked battered. The barmaid was grimly adjusting her disarrayed clothing. The whole room looked as though it had been the scene of a passing hurricane.
"All right," a towering policeman asked. "What happened here?"
"It was just a little misunderstanding, officer," Benson began, but the policeman silenced him an imperious gesture and turned to one of the Canadians. He repeated the question in French. A torrent of Gallic verbiage was the response, accompanied by a flourish of excited, exaggerated gestures.
The explanation seemed to go on forever. But finally the policemen seemed satisfied. They began to sort out the original participants of the brawl from those who had simply come in to see what was going on in the bar. At last only the original eight were involved.
"Down to headquarters with all of you," the police lieutenant said, Benson came up to him. "Hold on a moment, officer. We're American Citizens, and besides they began the fight. I don't see why-"
"We'll sort all that out down at the station," was the gruff reply.
Two paddy-wagons were waiting outside. Benson, Harness, Janet, and a terrified Anne were loaded into one, the four Canadians into the other. They drove off.
"Don't give your real names," Benson kept saying as they made the trip through the winding streets to the prefecture. "The wire services will pick this whole stupid story up if they find out it's us involved. Give them aliases or we're sunk." He dabbed at his blending forehead. "We ought to be able to talk our way out of this, if only they don't find out we're important"
On the way over they worked out pseudonyms. Benson would call himself Jim Bennett, Harness. Chester Colman, Janet, Eleanor Gray, and Anne, Nora Hammond. Whatever happened, Benson said, they had to sdck to those names.
I am Nora Hammond, Anne kept telling herself. I mustn't forget that. I am Nora Hammond.
It was basically a good idea, but doomed to failure. It went down the drain five minutes after they entered the police station. They had given their names to an interrogating officer, who had carefully entered each pseudonym on the record sheet in front of them. He was a small, fussy-looking man who inscribed each name with scrupulous precision, as though listing them as candidates for university diplomas.
Then he looked up at them, surveyed the four of them with one owlish glance, and said in crisp, business-like tones, "May I see your papers, please?
"Our-papers?"
"Yes. Passports, if you happen to have them with you. Otherwise any proof of identity will do."
The four exchanged glances. There was nothing in Benson's strategy to see them through this situation, though it had been foolish not to anticipate it.
Benson said, "Well, ah-that is, we don't have our passports with us, because we didn't think they'd be necessary coming into Canada."
"Perfectly right. Your drivers' licenses will do, or anything else bearing your names and physical descriptions."
In a lower voice Benson said desperately, "Couldn't this part be dispensed with?"
"Certainly not, sir! I must make out a full report on the altercation. See, here, it asks me to note the means of identification supplied by the arrested parties."
"But-some of us are rather well known in the States," Benson said cajolingly. "It would be very awkward if there were any bad publicity-"
"I'm terribly sorry, sir. You should have thought of that aspect before becoming involved in a barroom fracas. May I please see your identification, now? This is taking much too much time."
Benson sighed. "I'm afraid he's got us, Chuck. We might as well give in."
"We might as well," Harness agreed.
They handed over their driver's licenses. The officer looked at the names, then at the descriptions, finally at the men. "Ronald Benson," he murmured, filling in the blank on his sheet. "Charles Harness. Very well, gentlemen. And now, if the ladies-"
"I lost mine!" Anne blurted. "I don't have any identification at all! Nothing!"
The officer's smile was a patronizing one. "Please, Miss. Don't force us to call a matron in to search your effects. Be cooperative and this will be a good deal less unpleasant for all of us."
"Go ahead, Anne," Benson said softly. "They've got us hogtied. Might as well give in."
Anne hesitated, and then, tremblingly, took her medical plan identification card from her wallet and handed it over. "I-don't have any driver's license," she said. "Will this be good enough?"
"It will. Anne Martin. Very well. And you, Miss?"
Janet surrendered her identification. The officer noted down her name.
"Benson, Harness, Martin, Lester. Really, I fail to see why you were so reluctant to disclose your names. There's not one that I recognize."
And he left the room.
Chagrin was evident on the faces of Harness and Benson. "He never heard of us," Harness muttered. "Can you beat that? We're just Joe Blow and Sam Doakes to him!"
"Ignorant backwoodsman," Benson said.
Anne smiled feebly. "Maybe the story won't get into the papers this way, if nobody recognizes your names. God, I hope so. If the wire services pick the story up-"
The recording officer was coming back into the room, now, accompanied by another policeman, this a tall, white-haired man in a resplendent uniform, who was obviously in charge at the prefecture.
"Mr. Benson? Mr. Harness?" He smiled bleakly at them. "I've just been informed of your presence here. I'm certainly sorry to find two men of your stature mixed up in such a sorry mess as this. I've long been an admirer of your music, but I never imagined I'd meet you under such disturbing circumstances, sad to say-"
There was a glow on Benson's face. Harness was grinning happily. They were Recognized. They were Known.
But Anne felt her heart sink. Not even their fame was going to get them off the hook, she thought. Right now they were basking in the delights of boosted egos, but when that wore off they'd realize the awkwardness of the whole position. The story was sure to make the newspapers now.
She could only trust to luck that somebody would have the good taste not to report the names of the famous Broadway team's female companions.
They spent the night in jail. The cell that Anne and Janet shared was not at all uncomfortable, but there was no privacy, with bars instead of a door. The girl across the hall from them was a drunken, demented teen-ager who insisted on stripping off her clothes, parading around obscenely, waggling her buttocks at anyone who would look. Jail matrons kept dressing her, but she would strip the moment they went away. It was a long night. The girl sang almost till dawn.
Their case came up in the morning, right after breakfast. Canadian justice moved swiftly. They were allowed to plead guilty to charges of disorderly conduct, the witnesses who had been subpoenaed to testify against them were sent home, and they were fined $50 apiece and given sentences of thirty days in the workhouse, sentences to be suspended on the condition that they left the Province of Quebec with in the next twenty-four hours and did not return at any time in the following three years.
They accepted the conditions of suspension. Harness paid the fines and costs, and they cleared out. They were given a police escort back to their hotel, so that they could pack their belongings without becoming embroiled in a new riot.
Early that Monday afternoon they piled into the station wagon and drove off.
"And so, as lovely Quebecc sinks into the sunset behind us," Benson began.
"Shut up," Harness muttered. "You had to get us into this stupid deal in the first place. If you hadn't gone over to poke fun at those fat Canucks we'd still be in Quebec today, instead of getting the gate."
"What of it?" Benson asked. "We had some fun, it only cost us two hundred bucks, and we'll have our names in the local papers. Any publicity is good publicity, my agent always used to say."
"Maybe for you and Chuck," Janet put in. "But what about poor Anne? If this story gets picked up by the wire services and her name's in it, it'll jazz up her divorce plans faster than you can snap your fingers. Maybe publicity is okay for you two clowns, but-"
"Oh, can it," Benson snapped. "I've been hearing about Anne and her divorce all morning. She ought to stop worrying. Anyway, it's her own damn fault. A girl with a New York divorce decree pending is out of her mind to go touring around the country with a couple of strange guys. Just because she's got hot pants and can't wait doesn't mean that I've got to worry about getting her name into the papers. Who told her to take the chance, anyway?" He turned around suddenly, still clinging to the wheel. "And where are we heading now? The Adirondacks? Toronto? We've still got four days of vacation left"
"New York City," Anne said firmly.
"Oh Thursday," Benson said.
"No. Today. I've had enough of this trip. I want to go home."
"Listen, Annie, be reasonable," Benson said. "You're locking the stable after the horse is gone. You might as well just enjoy the next four-"
"I want to get back to New York right away," she insisted. "Not Thursday but today."
"Okay," Benson said. "Wait till we get to Sherbrooke and we'll drop you off there and buy you a ticket on the next bus going to New York. Janet, looks like Chuck and I will just have to share you until-"
"Hell with that," Harness broke in suddenly. "You got her into this mess, Ron. You aren't dumping her on any busses now. We'll take her straight back to New York."
"But it's only Monday."
"I don't give a damn, buster. You're going to do the gentlemanly thing. We go back to New York tonight. If you don't like it, you get out and take a bus wherever you want. It's my car."
"Hold on, Chuck-"
"I'm holding. But we go to New York."
They went to New York. Benson gave in, after a nasty quarrel that revealed him as a startlingly selfish person. He was acting like a spoiled child, Anne thought, refusing to abandon the vacation despite what had happened in Quebec. But Harness was adamant, and Janet stuck by him. At length Benson scowlingly agreed to call the rest of the trip off and return to New York.
They drove steadily all day, stopping only when it was dark for a brief dinner. By half past nine, Anne was getting out of the oar in front of her building.
Both men seemed abashed by the fiasco that the trip had turned into. As they said good-bye they promised her tickets to their current hit, told her they'd be in touch, thanked her for being such a sport about everything, apologized again for the brawl.
Janet held Anne's hand a moment and said. "I'll call you. Next time maybe things will work out better than they did this time."
There wasn't going to be any next time, Anne thought. But she kept her face from showing her feelings. Picking up her suitcase, she went into the house.
It was good to be back. A hot bath, she thought, and then to bed and in the morning she'd call Jerry and set up a new date with him. She wanted to forget all about Quebec and the two oddly unpleasant men who had joined the growing roll of those who had slept with her.
First, though, she thought it would be wise to call her lawyer.
Just in case.
She dialed Richardson's home number. A girl, probably the lawyer's daughter, answered.
"Tell him Anne Martin is calling, please."
A moment later Richardson barked at her, "I figured I'd be hearing from you sooner or later. When did you get back into New York?"
"About ten minutes ago."
"I could wring your neck, do you know that, Anne? I could choke the life out of you if you were here in front of me. I've been boiling all day. I've never had a client like you. So suicidally stupid. On account of you I've been gobbling tranquilizers like gumdrops since this morning, you know that?"
"Tom, what's happened?"
"What's happened. You mean you don't know? Is this more of your innocence routine?"
"I've been driving all day, Tom."
"You haven't seen a paper?"
"No," she said, and a ring of fear began to constrict around her throat. "Is there-is there something about me in the paper?"
"Is there?" Richardson roared. "Is there? You want me to read it to you?"
"Y-yes."
"This was in all the papers today. The Times, the News, the Post, the whole works. And probably in half the newspapers of the country. It's a wire service despatch datelined yesterday, at Quebec. The Times tucked it away in a little squib, but the tabloids gave it a big play. Here's what it says, Anne: 'Police here reported the arrest of two of Broadway's biggest names after a drunken fracas in a hotel bar. Lyricist Ron Benson, 36, and his partner, composer Chuch Harness, 38, were arrested Saturday night after Benson allegedly made objectionable remarks to four men in the bar of his hotel, touching off a brawl that injured nine and did $1500 worth of damage.
"'Arrested also the travelling companions of Benson and Harness, Janet Ixster, 26, and Anne Martin, 25, both of New York City. The foursome had been touring Canada since Thursday. After a brief hearing all four were fined $150 and given suspended thirty-day sentences, on condition that they leave the Province of Quebec immediately!
"'Benson and Harness wrote the current Broadway musical hit, Hide and Seek, and such earlier success as Riding High, Top of the Town, etc.'"
Anne felt as though she were going to faint. She sank limply into a chair and said in a thin voice, "Anne Martin is such a common name-"
"It's too late for that sort of stuff, Anne. Jeff knows you were in Quebec this weekend, and now he knows what you were up to. He's going to file a counter-suit now to protect himself. You left yourself wide open for it. He's got you dead to rights. It's still adultery when you sleep with another man before the decree."
"How can he prove I slept with-"
"He doesn't need to prove anything," Richardson said. "He can demonstrate that you went off to Quebec and got involved in riots and were arrested, and that's enough to throw a cloud on your moral status. He can fight a divorce in New York now, because you aren't beyond reproach. For Christ's sake, didn't I tell you to live clean until we had this thing taken care of?"
"I tried, but-"
"But you couldn't do it. If it wasn't lesbians it was song-writers. And now you've just goofed yourself out of a nice fat property settlement. Anne, I never realized youu were this sort of person.
Loose, that's the word for you. I don't know how I could have misjudged you so completely, but let me tell you, I'm sorry I ever let myself get mixed up in handling this case. I ought to drop you right now."
"No, Tom."
"No, I won't, because I've got a conscience. That's the only reason. But we've got to change our tactics now, because of your stupidity."
"What's going to happen?"
"We'll have a conference with Jeff and find out what kind of settlement he'll agree to. Then you're going to go down to Mexico and get yourself a quickie divorce. It isn't a tenth as good as your New York divorce would have been, but it'll have to do, now. I figure you've cost yourself about three hundred thousand bucks in settlement on this weekend. That's a high price for fooling around, Anne. A damned high price. You could have waited."
"I wish I had. I was so stupid, Tom!"
"Don't I know it! Well, what's done is done. Now we have to salvage the ruins. I'll phone you tomorrow around ten to work things out in detail. In the meanwhile, for Pete's sake keep yourself out of trouble. Or do I have to put a chastity belt on you?"
The phone banged in her ear.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mexico was hot and dry and dusty. It was full of cactuses and scrawny runny-eyed dogs and sleepy men. It was full of bored-looking wives in the process of getting divorced. It was full of bright-eyed, mustachioed Latins promising nameless pleasures to any of the bored women who cared to come investigate what lay behind closed doors. And there were trampy-looking girls in faded dresses that came down barely to their knees, loitering in every doorway.
Anne hated every minute of It.
But at least it was quick. That was the single solitary virtue of the whole ugly and sordid deal On Thursday morning Richardson drove her to Idlewild and put her aboard a DC-8 bound for Mexico City.
A few hours later she was standing around in a modernistic airport south of the border, waiting to change planes. Then she was aboard a diminutive two-engine plane bound for Chihuahua State and the divorce mill. Richardson had arranged the whole thing by telephone. There was an English-speaking lawyer waiting at the airport to greet her and show her to the hotel.
He told her which papers she had to sign.
He took the signed proxies Jeff had given her.
He left her alone in the hotel of waiting wives.
Thursday night slipped by in an amiable haze of tequila martinis.
Friady she went sight-seeing, did a little shopping, found a store that would ship five bottles of good rum home for her at a ridiculously low price.
Saturday she sat around the hotel swimming pool, baking in the sun and listening to the other wives tell the sad story of their marriage.
Sunday she slept late, read for a while, lounged by the pool again.
Monday she went to court. The decree took ten minutes to receive. Other women were waiting in line for their diplomas after her.
She was free. It was all over. She was no longer Anne Martin. She was Anne Colville again. The name sounded strange to her, and she had to repeat it several times before it began to seem familiar It was odd how the married name that she had borne only for the past two years had so completely supplanted the maiden name that bad been hers for nearly twelve times as long.
Monday at noon she checked out of her hotel and cabbed to the airport. The two-engine plane brought her safely to Mexico City. She had half an hour between planes to wander around the airport, listening to the pleasant murmur of Spanish. Then she boarded the big jet. The stewardess who checked her in looked at the manifest, smiled and said, "Buem viaje, Senora Martin."
Anne smiled. "Akora soy Senorita Colwlle"
The stewardess understood. She winked and said smilingly in English, "Ah. The very best of luck, Miss Colville." And she moved up along the line.
Anne leaned back against her cushion. So this was what it felt like to be divorced? She felt-somewhat secondhand. And old, even at twenty-five. The glamor of singleness, of virginity, was gone from her. She felt used.
She told herself she was being foolish. Life was just beginning for her, now. Of course, she had to be careful not to make a mess of things. And certainly she hadn't started off on the right foot by falling in with the likes of Janet.
Janet had called twice in the three days between Anne's return from Quebec and her departure for Mexico. Anne had hung up both dmes. There hadn't been any third call.
She hadn't heard from Jerry Hawthorne. She had been afraid and ashamed to call him, and had prayed without reward that he would call her. There were two possible explanations for that. Either he had seen the news squib about her Quebec adventure, and was so disgusted with her that he didn't want to speak to her again-or else he hadn't heard a thing, and simply didn't know she was back in town. After all, she hadn't been due back till Thursday, so there would have been no reason for him to call in those three days.
She hoped that was the case. Otherwise-
She shrugged. Otherwise she was all alone in the jungle of New York.
It was one in the morning when her plane landed at Idlewild. There was no brass band to greet her. Not even Richardson had bothered to turn out. The lawyer had made it quite plain that he was washing his hands of her; he had gotten her her divorce and the best possible alimony settlement under the circumstances, and he would receive his fee, and that was that. He had amply communicated the knowledge that the next time Anne had any legal work to be done, she had best seek out some other member of the bar. He was through with her.
She felt angry with herself for the horrible botch she had made out of the divorce. What had begun as something clear-cut and simple had grown cloudier and cloudier as she progressed along her sin quest. And ultimately she had fouled it up completely Richardson had told her the actual dollars-and-cents cost of her little fling into illicit living, and it horrified her.
But all that was over and done with she told herself as she claimed her baggage and made her way toward the row of waiting taxis. Crying over spilt milk never made any sense. She was divorced, she had some money though not as much as she had hoped for, and now it was time to begin rebuilding her life.
"Where to, Miss?"
She gave the cabbie her address. Then she leaned back and closed her eyes trip to be over.
The telephone was ringing.
Anne opened her eyes groggily, wondering who would bother her in the middle of the night. She was surprised to see daylight glimmering beyond the window. As she reached for the phone with one hand, she looked at her watch with the other. Ten after eleven. She had been sleeping through the morning.
"Hello?"
"Anne! Is that you?"
"Jerry?" she said falteringly. "Who else? Christ, girl, I've been trying to caH you since last Thursday afternoon. Isn't that when you said you'd be back? Hell, I was almost ready to call the Missing Persons Bureau. You decide to stay an extra week or something?"
"No," she said tiredly, but in relief. He didn't know! "I-I was back in New York only a short while and then I had to leave again. You see, I went down to Mexico for my divorce. I got back last night."
"I thought you were getting a New York State divorce," he said puzzledly. "How come the Mexico bit?"
"Something came up that made it-awkward-for me to get the New York decree. My lawyer suggested I go down there and get it over with."
"It wasn't that detective bit, was it? I mean, they didn't find out about the evening you and I--"
"No," she said quickly. "It doesn't have anything to do with you. It was just-something that came up. Something annoying."
"So you're free now?"
"That's right."
"Congratulations, Miss-Miss-what's the name you're using now?"
"Colville. Anne Colville."
"Congratulations, Miss Colville. Is it all right if I take you out to dinner tonight to celebrate your new freedom?"
"Of course, Jerry."
"We don't need to worry now. It's all right for us to be seen together in public."
"Perfectly all right."
"And even all right for us to-spend the night together, if we wanted to?"
"Nobody could stop us," she whispered.
"Okay, then. I'll pick you up at your place around half past six, let's say. Wear your finery. Well paint the town lavender and chartreuse."
"It's a date, Jerry." She bit her lip. "You don't know how glad I am to hear from you again, darling."
"You don't know how glad I am to get something more than a bunch of ringing noises when I dial your number!"
She put down the phone. She realized that she was trembling with excitement. He still wanted her! He hadn't seen the newspaper article-or at least he hadn't seen her name!
Naked, she sprang from the bed, into the shower. She scrubbed herself joyfully, until she was pink and glowing all over. For Jerry she thought. I want to look my best for Jerry. Her breasts and loins and thighs took on a radiant glow of cleanliness.
After a quick breakfast she set about unpacking the suitcases that she had just thrown into the closet last night. She found her low-cut black cocktail dress and pressed and ironed it. Excitement tingled in her. Her new life was going to begin on the right foot, she told herself. The idiotic brawl in Quebec might have cost her some divorce money, and robbed her of the security of an airtight New York divorce, but at least it hadn't cost her Jerry.
That was something to be greatly thankful for.
She felt guilty about hiding the truth of Quebec from him. She was a woman with a past, now, and she reddened to think of it Of course Jerry didn't expect her to be a virgin. But what would he say if he knew that she had been to bed recently with a Negro, a homosexual, a lesbian, and had broken her date with him so she could go off to Quebec and sleep with two men she had never even met before?
He would despise her.
It would shatter his image of her as a clean, good person who had had an unhappy marriage. He would come to see her as a warped, twisted person, and he would flee from her as though she carried a disease.
Do I have to tell him? she asked herself.
Can't I just slide over it?
She had never had to face this problem before. She wondered how other girls, girls with real pasts, dealt with it when they got married. Maybe it was best to make a clean breast of the past, or maybe not. When she had married Jeff there was no need even to worry about such things, because she had done nothing.
But now she had.
Shrugging, she brushed the whole matter out of her mind. There was time to figure it out later Jerry hadn't asked her to marry him, just to have dinner with him, and she didn't need to trouble her conscience over that. Later on, if their relationship showed signs of becoming a permanent thing, she could face this problem again.
Meanwhile, she told herself, it was more important to get her hair set and look her best for him tonight.
She was back from the beauty parlor around half past four that afternoon. The telephone was ringing as she came in. She grabbed it up quickly.
"Hello?"
"Are you still sore at me?" Janet's voice asked without preliminaries.
Anne scowled in disappointment. "I told you the last time that I didn't want you to call."
"Look, honey, you can't blame me for what happened in Quebec. I didn't start that stupid fight. It was all a big mistake-"
"I'll say it was. My going on that trip altogether was a mistake."
"You didn't have fun before the fight?"
"No. I wish I hadn't gone."
"Listen, Anne, please don't be sore at me. I'm all broken up about what happened. Did you go to Mexico for the divorce?"
"Yes."
"And you got it without any snags?"
"On Monday."
"Then you don't need to worry about detectives or clean living or anything any more," Janet said. "Suppose I organize a party to celebrate your freedom. A real wild party, over at my place tonight?"
"No, Janet."
"Come on. Just say the word and I'll start inviting. Roy Bradley will come, and Freddy, and Ron and Chuck, and a bunch of the best guys in town. It'll be a ball, hon. A party you'll never forget. Well welcome you back to single life in grand style."
"I-I've got a date for tonight," Anne said, not as firmly as she would have liked. Why did Janet always bob up to tempt her like this? Why couldn't she find the strength to hang up the receiver.
"Break it," Janet wheedled. "Break it and come to the party instead. A party in your honor. You can dance naked on the tabletops, do anything you damn please. You're free now."
"I can't break this date, Janet. I mean that."
"Who's it with?"
"That doesn't matter."
"The same guy you were supposed to go out with last weekend?"
"Yes," Anne said. "I disappointed him once, and I'm not going to do it again. Besides-"
"Tell you what," Janet cut in, "Bring him to the party too. Let him meet the gang."
"No," Anne said, horrified.
"Sure. I'll organize the party and you come over around nine, ten o'clock, whenever you like. Don't be too late. And bring him along. If your date's a drag, just ditch him and come yourself. I'll be expecting you. Don't let me down, now."
Click!
Anne stared numbly at the dead receiver in her hand.
She felt weak and dizzy and sick.
There was something almost devilish, she thought, about the way Janet kept popping up to dangle new temptations before her. And she was so helpless, so unable to refuse.
A party in her honor! More accurate to call it an orgy, rather. All she needed to do was bring Jerry Hawthorne to something like that. Let him get one look at the sort of company she kept. He wouldn't be amused. He'd be disgusted by the display of perversion and brutal lust. And he'd make certain to give her a wide berth in the future.
But yet she felt an irresistible tug toward the party. To see Roy Bradley's bronzed, gleaming body again--to mingle with shameless sinners like Freddy and Rip-to make love out in the open, to bare her body, to watch others strip, to revel in the whole catalog of lusts and sins and perversions-it was like the pull of a giant magnet. Her newly educated mind began immediately to visualize the party-two full-breasted, tawny-bodied lesbians naked on the couch, leg twined around sleek leg; a pair of men wrestling bestially under the table; Roy Bradley, nude and shining, dancing with some slim, long-haired naked girl from Greenwich Village-
A saturnalia of sex, she thought. As far removed from the tepid cocktail parties of her earlier life as anything could be. Janet would organize all this in her honor, and she could go, and bring Jerry along-
Jerry.
She pictured Jerry standing in the midst of the orgy, his handsome face puckering with revulsion. Perverse sex wasn't his line at all. He obviously had little interest in it, little sympathy for those who practiced it. His own healthy masculinity had no need for, no room for, the dark byways of sexuality that Janet and her friends doted on.
He would walk out.
He would walk out of the party, and out of her fife, and that would be that.
Anne shrugged. It was time to start getting dressed. She had all evening to ponder what she would do.
It was so easy, she thought, to push knotty problems into the future. And so hard to deal with them when they finally could be sidestepped no longer.
She was all ready when Jerry rang the bell downstairs at half past six. Switching on the house phone, she said, "I'll be right down, darling."
She took a last look at herself in the mirror. Everything was in place. The black dress had a crisp sheen to it, and the pink bowls of her breasts bulged over the neckline in an enticing way. Around her throat gleamed the elaborate gold necklace that Jeff had bought for her in Curacao. Her hair glistened. Every hair was in its proper place.
Throwing a light wrap over her shoulders, she looked up and left. Hawthorne was waiting for her in the lobby, a tall, attractive figure, pacing tensely back and forth. She ran to him.
"Hello, stranger," he said. "Long time no see."
"Jerry! Oh, Jerry!"
Oblivious of the staring, wryly smiling doorman, she flung herself into his arms. He embraced her tightly, and she was annoyed to feel tears glistening in her eyes as she turned her lips toward his.
"I've spoiled your makeup," he said as they drew apart.
"I can fix it. I've got a mirror right here-"
"Do it in the car. I'm starved!"
"So am I" she grinned.
His car was right outside-a funny, snub-nosed foreign car. As Anne settled into the unusually comfortable upholstery she said, "What kind of car is this?"
"A Citroen," he said. "One of the best cars there is. I won her in an office raffle last year."
"You're a lucky man."
"I know that," he said with a grin.
The car started almost noiselessly and they glided off. Anne concentrated on repairing her lipstick. Almost before ten minutes had gone by, they were pulling into a parking space.
He helped her from the car and they entered the restaurant-one of New York's best, a dazzling French restaurant where she had once eaten with Jeff. Glittering chandeliers reflected light from the mirrored walls. Bowing, tuxedoed captains welcomed them. Within, a horde of waiters moved silently about their tasks.
They were shown to a banquette near the rear, facing the front so that they could see the entire dining room-one of the .best tables in the house.
"Would Madame care for a cocktail?" a waiter purred.
"Yes," she said, frowning thoughtfully. "What would you suggest?"
"Cinzano on the rocks, perhaps?"
"Fine," Anne said.
"I'll have pernod on the rocks," Hawthorne said.
The drink helped to loosen the knot of tension in Anne. She relaxed, smiled warmly at him, felt all her cares and worries drop away.
"How does it feel to be a single woman again?" he asked her.
"It feels just great. For a while. I don't think I'd like it as a permanent deal."
"Is that a hint?" he asked with a twinkle.
"Polite girls don't hint," she said.
"Are you polite?"
"I try to be. I'm not always successful."
He eyed her warmly-perhaps thinking, she figured, of the session in bed that was to follow this elegant meal. She basked in his gaze, knowing that she was probably the most beautiful, the best-dressed woman in the restaurant, and savoring the pleasure of knowing that later this evening she would peel away the jewelry and the costly gown and reveal the soft, clinging contours of her nude body to his delighted eyes. Not every woman, she knew, looked as well without her finery as with it.
The meal moved along as though on oiled bearings-everything flawless, the service, the cooking, the conversation. For the first time in two weeks Anne felt perfectly relaxed and happy.
But finally dinner came to its end. They sipped VSOP cognac with their coffee, and the maitre-de came over to chat with them, obviously taken with Anne's beauty and radiance, and then Hawthorne was signing the check and they were on their way out, to the accompaniment of smiles all around.
"It's half past nine," Hawthorne said. "Shall we go somewhere else, or straight home?"
"I don't know," she heard her own voice saying cutting through the glow of satiation inside her. "There's this party tonight that a friend of mine is giving. We were invited to stop over for a while. Sort of a party in my honor, to celebrate the divorce."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
She tried to call the words back. But they had been spoken, and they were irrevocable. "Party?" he said. "You didn't mention that before."
"Well, I-it came up suddenly, this afternoon."
"I'd love to meet your friends."
"It won't be-very interesting," she stumbled. "Really. I wish I hadn't mentioned it. I'd rather not go, Jerry."
"Don't give it up on my account. We can stop in for half an hour or so, at least."
"No-really-" she faltered. "Is it far from here?"
"A short drive," Anne said. "But I don't want to go. I'm sorry I brought the whole thing up."
An odd little scene developed between them-Hawthorne eager to go to the party and meet some of her friends, Anne terrified of going there with him. At length he said, "If you're so dead set on not going, why did you mention it in the first place?"
"I-don't know. It just slipped out."
"Who are these people, anyway?"
"Friends."
"Of you and your husband?"
"No. People I met after we split up."
"Not very old friends, then. It's less than a month, you said."
She shrugged. "I haven't known them too long. That's why I'm not keen on going."
"But if they're giving the party in your honor, Anne, they must know you pretty well-"
Staring at him levelly, she said, "Please, Jerry. It's not the kind of party I think you'd enjoy. They're-a pretty wild bunch."
"I don't mind that."
"Some of them-aren't normal sexually. A couple of them are lesbians. And some are homosexuals."
"What of it? I don't give a damn about anybody else's private life as long as it doesn't hurt me."
"But it would embarrass me to go there with you," she said.
"Are you ashamed of me? Am I too square-looking for your wild friends?" he asked, perplexed.
"No, that isn't it at all."
"Then-what? Why?"
"Because-because-" She faltered, flat herself blushing furiously. "Please, Jerry, don't keep this conversation going."
"I want to know," he said. "Why would it embarrass you so much to take me to a party of your friends?"
She bit her lip. In a low, barely audible, quavering voice she said, "Because-I've had affairs with some of them, Jerry. There. It's out in the open now. You understand?"
His puzzled smile remained. "No. My God, you think I'm going to hold your past against you, Anne?"
"It's not really my past. It's practically the present. These are all people I met recently-since my separation-that's when it all happened." She put her hand to her forehead. It felt feverish. "Please, Jerry. Take me home. I'll explain everything. I'll spill the whole filthy mess out. Only take me home, and not" to that horrible party."
He was looking at her strangely, now. "All right," he said. He started the car. "I'll take you home. Which place-yours or mine?"
"Mine," she said.
They were there in ten minutes. Little was said on the trip over. Anne wondered whether or not she had made a tremendous mistake by blurting all this out. Let sleeping dogs lie, she thought.
But it was too late for that. She couldn't clam up now. She had to go through with it, drag the whole filthy story out into the open. Now that she had started it, she had to finish it, and accept the consequences, whatever they might be. It was only fair to Jerry.
One drink too many had done it, she thought. If only she had just forgotten all about the party, all about Janet and her loathsome friends-but no. Sooner or later, if she had gone on seeing Jerry, the skeletons would have come tumbling out of the closet, one way or another. They always did. Better to expose everything now. Before anything serious developed.
They went upstairs. She showed Jerry around, and he nodded approvingly at the handsome furnishings, the fine view of Central Park. She fixed drinks and they settled down in the living room. Her hands and lips felt cold. She was trembling with fear.
"Now," he said. "About this party, and those friends, and these affairs of yours-"
"I'll begin at the beginning," she said in a thin, weak voice. She fortified herself with a deep gulp of her drink. "I was a virgin when I married Jeff. That was two years ago, when I was twenty-three. You can tell from that that I had a very strict upbringing. Extremely inhibited. I was taught to save myself for my husband, and I did."
"That marks you as an unusual girl right there," Hawthorne said.
"I imagine so. Well, for two years things went pretty well, except that my husband was unfaithful. I couldn't close my eyes to it after a while, and so we split up. A little less than a month ago. And then came the reaction. The backlash from all my years of nice-girl virginity and from being a faithful wife. I woke up and saw that I hadn't seen anything of life, that I hadn't experienced anything. And there I was, alone in the world, lonely, eager for company, eager to meet new people. And I did. I met a girl named Janet Lester one day in a cocktail lounge."
Hawthorne listened without commenting as Anne spilled the story out, one detail at a time, in the order that it had had happened.
She spared nothing. Caught up in what she was saying, she unreeled it like a memory tape. She told him of her lesbian seduction by Janet, of the wild night with the Negro novelist Roy Bradley, of the even wilder night spent with Freddy and Rip. Staring moodily into nowhere, Anne went on to tell him how Janet had tempted her into breaking her date with him for the photography session, luring her instead off on her ill-fated trip to Canada. She told of making love to Benson and to Harness, and of the disastrous climax to their visit, the real reason why she had had to go off to Mexico for her divorce.
She did not look at him once while she was speaking.
She finished finally, "So Janet called here this afternoon. She found out I had a date with you, and right away she told me to break it. This time I said no. Then she came up with the idea of the party. Everybody she knows will be there-all the people I talked about, and some that she didn't have time to introduce me to. It'll be a regular orgy, don't you see? And this is the thing she wanted me to bring you to, Jerry. I don't know why I even mentioned it. Out of some masochistic urge, I guess." She paused. "Well, now you know the whole filthy story of what I've been doing since I left Jeff. Jerry, I've been crawling around in the gutters-down in the muck and filth. I couldn't help myself. But I'm glad it's all off my chest, now. I had to break down and tell someone. I'm sorry it had to be you, because now you probably despise me, and it's too bad, because we could have had some good times together. But-"
She let her voice trail off.
She looked at him now.
The pain and shock were evident on his face. He was staring at her as though he did not believe what he heard, as though he wanted not to believe the evidence of his ears. He said nothing. His lips moved faintly, but no words emerged.
He seemed stunned by the magnitude, the enormity, of her sinful revelations.
She said softly, "I'm sorry, Jerry. Now everything's ruined, but I couldn't help it. This is a lousy way to end a lovely evening. You must hate me now. You must be revolted."
He didn't answer.
He appeared to be absorbing what she had told him, trying to make himself realize that this delicate, lovely girl had actually committed unspeakable sins with a variety of men, women, and in-between in the past month.
"Jerry?" she said, worriedly.
He moistened his lips, as though about to speak.
The telephone rang.
Automatically, without thinking about what she was doing, Anne reached out for the receiver. "Hello?"
"So you are home," Janet said. "I took a chance and called you. Listen, the party's going full blast, sweets. You can hear it, I think."
"Yes." She could. The sound of roaring laughter and high obscenity formed a background for Janet's voice.
Janet said, "The whole bunch is here, and they're all asking for you. Roy and Rip and Freddy and Ron and Chuck and all the rest of them. There's a game of strip poker going, and I'm half naked, and you ought to see the rest of them. Roy came with a six-foot-tall colored girl and the two of them did a strip dance that-"
"I'm not interested," Anne said coldly.
"Stop giving me the high-hat treatment and come on over. You're missing the time of your life."
"I don't want to," she replied. "And I don't want to ever hear from you again. Do you understand that? I'm breaking off completely. If you bother me, I'll report you for being a nuisance."
"Come on, Anne-"
"Go to hell," Anne snapped.
She slammed the phone down and walked back to Hawthorne. He still hadn't moved. But he rose now, facing her, peering into her eyes. He looked so strange, she thought. Almost like a zombie.
She said, "That was Janet, trying to get me to come to that horrible party. At least this time I was able to tell her no and make it stick."
"I heard," he said hoarsely.
"Jerry, why are you looking at me like that? Do you really hate me that much?"
He shook his head. "I don't hate you, Anne. I-I-damnit, I love you!"
"Love me?"
"I love you, Anne."
"In spite of all the things I just told you?"
"In spite of them. Because of them, even. Because you were so honest. Because you hid nothing."
"You aren't disgusted after knowing that I-I did those things?"
"I'm startled," he said. "It takes some getting used to. But no, I don't hate you, I'm not disgusted. You were unhappy, at loose ends with yourself. You fell into a trap of weakness. I don't even think you knew what you were doing. You must have been like a puppet that this girl dangled on strings."
"That's it. That's it exactly. Janet ran me like a puppet master."
"And on she went. Turning your hunger for human companionship into something filthy and perverse and debased. Dragging you with her from sin to sin."
"But it's all over now, Jerry. I'm free of her. I can feel the freedom. I won it tonight, somehow. She has no hold on me any more."
"I'm glad, Anne. Because I love you. Because-because I want to marry you."
"No," she said, almost terrified by the words. "You can't. You don't know me, except for the things I've just told you, and they're horrible. How could you want to marry a girl who's slept with a lesbian-who did all those other things-"
He smiled. Life was coming back into his face now. "Don't you think I've had my share of sinning too?" he asked. "You think I'm a saint? I've got enough blotches on my escutucheon so that I don't go around preaching holier-than-thou at other people. Especially people I happen to love."
"You couldn't have done anything as horrible as what I did, Jerry. I wouldn't believe it."
He shook his head. "I wasn't quite as imaginative as your friend Janet, I'm afraid. But remind me to tell you sometimes about the year I spent in an alcoholics' sanitarium, getting dried out. Or about the girl I got pregnant when I was twenty. Oh, I don't want to drag the whole past out into the open. I haven't committed any crimes, haven't done anything dreadful. But I'm not perfect. Not by a long shot. Anyway, the past is the past. You've broken with yours. Let's forget all about it. Put it in a box marked Do Not Open-Ever."
"Can we do that, Jerry?"
"We can try," he said. "We can start the future right now. With a kiss."
"Jerry, are you sure you want me?"
"Positive. And I want that kiss, too." She came to him, gliding into his arms. He took her chin lovingly in his hands, tilted her head upward, kissed the tears from her eyes. Then his lips moved to hers, and after a moment his tongue slipped easily into her mouth, and she tensed as pulsing excitement awoke in her.
He let his hands rest on her breasts, half bared by her low-cut gown. She broke away from his kiss for a moment to murmur, "Undress me, Jerry."
"A pleasure."
His fingertips trailed across her bare shoulders, found the zipper of her gown, drew it downward. He eased her out of it, kissing her as he did so. He located the hasp of her bra and opened it. The cups fell away. Gently he pressed the reddened ridges where the bra had left lines in her soft flesh. Then he spread his fingers, taking each of her breasts in one of his hands, kneading them gently, toying with the nipples. Anne tingled with pleasure at the feel of his strong hands on her breasts.
The rest of her clothing dropped away, until she wore nothing but nylons and a garter belt, and he knelt, kissing the cool, smooth flesh of her buttocks, passing his hands between her legs, setting her on fire.
Kneeling, he removed her stockings, then the garter belt. She was totally naked. Her body was bursting with awakened desires. It had been over a week since she had had a man, two weeks since she had been with him.
"Let me help you get your clothes off now," she whispered, her eyes sparkling.
He was naked quickly.
Hand in hand, they raced nude into the bedroom. He turned to her, drawing her body against his, and she felt the hard firm manhood of him, and his arms were bands of steel around her, her breasts pressing into the ridges of his chest, and their tongues met, and his fingers stole down her backbone, down to the satiny rounds of her buttocks, and she gasped in the urgency of her need.
Then they moved to the bed.
His deft caresses conjured quivers of ecstasy from her. She whimpered in anticipation of the pleasures he would give her in another moment.
"I want you so much, Jerry-right now, darling. Don't wait!"
"I love you, Anne."
"Love me always."
"How can I help myself?"
She drew him down to her. There was a long, breathholding moment of groping and fumbling, and then she let her breath out in a long slow sigh of delight as their bodies joined.
"Jerry-darling!"
"I love you," he whispered.
"Jerry!"
A jolt of passion. Again.
"Jerry-oh!" Again. "Ooohhh!" And again.
"Jerry! Oh! Jerry! Oh! Oh!" Faster and faster.
Their bodies churned on the bed, and the springs creaked their unheeded protest as body plunged against body, and rising excitement wrung wordless cries of pleasure first from her, then from him. Their lips mingled, his tongue touched hers.
As the rippling eddies of passion overtook her she clawed at him, fingers digging into the firm muscles of his back. She locked her legs tight around him, and there was a choking sensation in her throat, a feeling of such total passion that she thought she would be overwhelmed by it and dashed to destruction.
Instead she rose, higher and higher toward the summit of fulfillment.
This was it. This was the real thing.
The long, weary quest was over. The quest that had taken her from sin to sin, from lust to degradation.
"Hold me," she whispered. "Tighter! Tighter!
Oh, Jerry-"
He held her, moving to the steady rhythm of his desires. He pressed himself against her and she acknowledged the eager ardor of him with efforts of her own, and then there was a sensation of warmth, and prickles running up and down her spine, and blinding lights that forced her to close her eyes, and it was happening now, more intense, more powerful than she had never known it before.
The real thing.
This was love.
Her breasts heaved, her body rocked, and she was moving wildly now, crying out incoherent snatches of words, anything that came into her head, and then words of love, earthy words that she had never spoken before, and then, with a clap of inward lightning, she reached the absolute peak, and he reached it with her, and together, light as clouds, they toppled silently, slowy, into the valley of repose.
They lay still, letting their hearts slow down.
"Love me?" she asked.
"Love you," he whispered.
"Much?"
"Very very much."
"I'm glad," she said.
An image flickered into her mind-the image of Janet's apartment, and the party going on there, naked and half-naked people all over the place, some of them drunk, some of them making love. All of them basically unhappy people, searching in a welter of sinful lusts for the key to life's joy.
She did not need to search any more.
She had found the key.
She banished the image from her mind. Janet and Roy and Freddy and Rip and all the rest were insubstantial phantoms, fading, vanishing.
His lips met hers. His hands rested lightly, affectionately, on her breasts.
"You know what?" she asked.
"What?"
"I wish we were married already."
"So do I. But there's all sorts of red tape involved first. Blood tests and licenses and such."
"You mean I need a license before I can sleep with you?" she asked playfully.
"That's what the law says."
"It's fun being a criminal, then," she laughed. She turned to him and slipped her leg lightly between his. "Let's break the law some more, while it's still possible. It's no fun after it's legal, is it?"
"Twice as much," he said. "I'll prove it to you next week."
His fingertips drew trails of fire down her body. She held tight to him, tighter, still tighter. She held on.
