The light in the classroom was bright and clear. Outside, the trees were sharp green, and the sky a deep, autumn blue.
Frank Whitney shuffled through his three-by-five cards, rearranging the notes of his lecture. As he did this, a bevy of attractive girls was filing into his classroom.
Frank avoided looking up at them until they had all settled into their seats, and the bell had rung. In this way, he could be assured a degree of protective distance from them.
Frank Whitney had taught at Clinton College for Women for three years. Each year it seemed to him that the girls who flowed into his classroom were more and more youthful, beautiful and tempting.
Not that he was old. He was only thirty, and he stood tall enough and had enough strength and facial character to please any woman, not to mention his intelligence, and the added charm of being able to quote poetry at appropriate moments.
"This course will be devoted, for the most part, to a study of the following authors," he said. "Dreiser, Steinbeck, Farrell, Dos Passos, Faulkner, Miller, Hemingway, and possibly Thomas Wolfe."
There was a tittered response when he mentioned Wolfe, a response he had come to expect. Coeds were incorrigibly romantic, and of course, Wolfe filled the bill for them. It was a favorite trick of his to half promise to do Wolfe. Then he would force them to work harder all semester to find time for Wolfe.
"Before I speak about Dreiser, who comes first on our list, you'd better read him," Frank said. "Today I'll limit my remarks to such matters as term papers and the exams."
As he talked, Frank permitted his eyes to move cautiously over the colorful young girls who peered up at him. Their legs, almost without exception, bare above the knee.
One stout but voluptuous brunette in the front row sat with crossed legs, her skirt caught up to the middle of her young, creamy thighs. She bit at the end of her pencil and her dark eyes laughed up at him.
Full-breasted girls were sitting everywhere, the breasts protruding in tight sweaters. Green breasts, red breasts, yellow breasts. Some of them wore heavy pendants which swung in the cracks of the ripe, mel-onous chests.
He often wondered how long he could hold out against them. Each year his blood raced, and he felt himself grow tense with excitement when he watched them move or heard them laugh. And he was uncertain why.
But he knew he was a match for them. He had a wife of sorts who kept him occupied. He had been divorced from Ann for a year now. But they continued to see each other. And Ann left no stone unturned to effect a reconciliation.
Ann was an attractive woman, and she used every charm in the book to entice him back. And she had an ace in her father, who had tremendous power at the college, and was chairman of the classics department.
"I will expect two papers, and will give the usual two exams," he told the girls in front of him.
He continued talking, and his roving eyes fell upon a pale, delicate face framed in a rich flame of red hair. The girl sat near the window, and the light gave her fair skin a pearl-like glow.
The features of her face were chiselled and symmetrical. Her eyes, large and steady, met his gaze.
He noticed she wore a tight-fitting grey-wool dress that tapered at the waist. Her waist was as slender as her neck. All grace. Her legs were lean and long. And again, her ankles were incredibly small and well-turned.
A sudden dryness in his mouth caused him to clear his throat. But he could not keep his eyes from wandering back again and again to fall on the girl.
Her breasts were fine-large and firm. And the luxurious thickness of her wine-colored hair fell well below her shoulders. Sleekly tucked into the low, grey V-neck of her dress was a light pink silk scarf.
And her lips were touched lightly with the same color.
Something in the long, curving line of her mouth suggested that her touch was feather-light, and her passion well-controled, well stored for the right moments.
She had the distinct, cool perfection of a lady. A lady who knew her own powers, and who was well capable of unleashing the fire which smoldered in her eyes-if she chose to do so.
Frank spoke on for the remaining half hour, but he heard his voice like a thing apart from himself. His thoughts and emotions were entangled with the heaving breasts of the beauty he had discovered.
"So start thinking of your papers," he said, and looked at her again. She sat relatively immobile throughout the lecture. Her eyes were fixed to his, her notebook closed. Her slim white arm was posed in the air, holding a cigarette which she drew upon with smooth, unhurried thoughtfulness.
"That's all for today," he said, finally. And a number of the girls stirred, closed books, or whispered. "If there are any questions, I'll be happy to answer them personally."
He looked at the red-haired beauty. Almost imperceptibly, her chiselled lips seemed to flick a soft, knowing smile. Her eyes were still and deep as wells, without a trace of coyness or uncertainty.
Several girls, most of them dressed brashly in reds and eye-dazzling blues or greens, had surrounded him. He could perceive a heady mixture of floral perfumes as they neared. He glanced at the girl who enchanted him, and saw that she was still in her chair.
"Professor Whitney," one of the girls said. "What works of Wolfe will we be covering?"
Frank looked at the girl who had spoken. She was a tall, dark-complexioned girl with pouting, orange lips. Her hips flared enticingly, and her legs were long and sturdy. She stood with her legs parted, lustily, and her books were pressed against her chest, causing a provocative bulging.
Frank knew she could be dynamite, and trouble, and he cautioned himself to give her no reason to come on to him, as a few coeds did each year at this time.
"I prefer not to commit myself about Wolfe," he said quickly. "It depends on how the class goes. You can ask me again in a few weeks, however."
This seemed to answer the questions of several girls, and they departed with the big girl. Then the closing buzzer rang, and other girls scurried out. And he was left alone with the redhead.
"Do you have a question?" he asked, and forced a smile.
"Yes," she said, in a deep, .husky, pleasant voice. "I have one question."
His chest tightened as the girl got up and ambled leisurely toward him, and then he got a wiff of perfume. A heavy, womanly scent.
She stopped in front of his desk, her pink lips turned up at the corners. But her body was erect and still.
There was no hint of playing up to him in the assured, calm posture of her curving body.
"Perhaps, that is if I understand the course correctly," she said, obviously choosing her words carefully, "you would not mind if I researched a contemporary author. You know. Letters. Works-in-progress. Stuff like that."
"Who?" he asked, amazed at her ambition.
"Lang Hughes," she said, looking directly at him, her large eyes challenging. Her eyes were the color of slate, but with the softness of a darkening, winter sky.
Her answer startled him. Hughes was not only a leading American author and highly controversial, but was also extremely interesting to him.
"I'm sure I could succeed in getting material," she added, and bit her lips. Her cheeks dimpled slightly.
"That should be very interesting," he said, but his thoughts were racing. And since Hughes was notorious for refusing interviews of any sort, he wondered how this girl would bring it off.
The buzzer announced the beginning of the next class. Frank gathered up his notes, and grabbed his attache case. "If you like," he said, as nonchalantly as possible, "we can discuss it over coffee. If you have some free time. The fact is, I am myself working on a paper which could use a few supportive words from an author like Hughes."
"Fine," she said. "I'm free for the moment."
Frank walked with her through the small park area of the city campus toward the large coffee lounge.
The late afternoon wind caught in her rich hair and brought a delicate flush to her cheeks.
She walked with a graceful sway of hips, her firm buttocks moving in sleek coordination as her thighs pressed against the tight-fitting wool of her dress.
They entered the lounge, and Frank felt himself losing rational control. As he assisted her into her chair, he flushed as she placed her curving buttocks on the seat with expert timing.
He knew he was being tempted beyond safety. He wanted her. Her power over him was amazing. He had planned to do a necessary stint at the library during the afternoon, but the time with her passed quickly, and then they were talking about Hughes.
"I was introduced to Lang Hughes several years ago," she was saying. "My mother knew his family."
"Isn't he in Europe now?" Frank asked.
"Oh, gracious no," she said, and for the first time she laughed.
Frank felt himself redden. Her laughter was full, self-delighted. "Why do you laugh?" he asked.
"Well, I laughed about Hughes' being in Europe," she said. "And also because I realized you don't even know my name."
"Officially I'm supposed to," he said, and noticed the twinkle in her eyes, and the pink cheeks as she continued to smile. "But you're right, I don't know."
Her eyes were intimate now. "My name is Angela," she said.
"That's a lovely name," he said. "But I'm not allowed to use it, you know. We must maintain the professor-student thing, you know."
"Oh, that's right," she said. "Angela Harris. Miss Harris, officially, Dr. Whitney."
"Well, Miss Harris," he said. "My position is a bit delicate. I could use some information on Hughes myself. I guess I implied that earlier."
She did not answer, but her large eyes danced as she sipped her coffee. Then, replacing her coffee cup, lifting her heavy hair from her neck and leaning back in her chair, she said with a steady voice, "Perhaps I might be able to help you meet him, if you like." And her lovely lips curled, and taunted him slightly.
"Where is he now?" Frank asked, not wanting to continue the intimacy and challenge of her offer.
"Near," she said, her voice strangely abstract.
"Near the city?" he asked.
"He's married, you know," she said, and he could detect a tinge of emotion in her voice.
Not certain what relevance this piece of information had, Frank waited for her to continue. She raised her head, breathed deeply so that her fine, snow-white throat throbbed. Her voice was hushed and thick as she spoke again.
"He and his wife live twenty minutes from here," she said. "A lovely place. Hughes comes into town, well, quite often."
Frank glanced at his watch and saw that it was nearly five. He had to meet Ann, yet he did not want to leave Angela, not one minute sooner than he had to.
"You could meet him, most ideally, at the opening in the city next week," she said. "Mother's giving a party. And Hughes will be there."
"What opening?" he asked.
"An adaptation of Crime and Punishment. Turned into a musical, of course. Bizarre, isn't it?" Her face dimpled and her nose wrinkled in a wry grimmace. "We're all holding our breaths, hoping it won't be too bad. Can you imagine?"
Frank agreed that the novel would be difficult to turn into a musical. It was amusing to contemplate, and he laughed.
Angela joined his laughter. Her smile was captivating, her breasts heaving with suppressed delight.
"I'll come," he said, still laughing. "Tell me where and when."
"Let me check," she said. "I'll let you know in a couple of days."
Without warning, she stood, her face looking down at him intently, her deep eyes twinkling at his confusion.
"Don't worry," she said. "It's just that, for today, my time's spent. Have to get home."
With this, she whirled about and he watched her amazing grace as she left the lounge. Her hips swayed politely, but the sight of them was tantalizing, and unforgettably arousing.
CHAPTER TWO
The town clock was striking five when Frank leaned on the bell of Ann's midtown apartment. He whistled in harmoney with the preliminary strokes of the big clock. His spirits were high, and he jingled the loose change in his pocket as he waited.
Then the door opened. Ann was dressed in a low-cut cocktail gown and she was pouting in mock anger. Without speaking, she moved to press her breasts against him.
"You stood me up again," she whined. Then her teeth nicked his ear with fine, surgical perfection. Frank could detect a whiff of scotch on her breath-which always affected her like an aphrodisiac. Especially when she had been wronged in some petty way.
He remembered that Ann's greatest and most intolerable scenes were derived from self-pity mixed with three or four drinks.
Frank slapped her plush buttocks and held her at arm's length. "Let's save that game for later, baby."
"Why are you so late?" she whined.
He shook his head and grimaced, and they stared at each other. She was not a bad-looking woman. Her face was strong and attractive. Her hair was clipped short and hugged the sides of her face with a damp, sleek order. Her body was full and generous, her hands firm, sure, quick.
In fact, if she had not had the deep-rooted compulsion to compete with men-even in bed-their marriage might have been very luscious.
But Frank had been wary for a long time of her meaningless fights and sexual whims. And she had been trying to win him back for the past few months. She had poured her lush body into a variety of cocktail dresses several times each week, and had brought him together regularly with visiting professors whom, professionally, he could not afford to ignore.
She took his hand and tugged him inside and closed the door. He started down the hall, anxious to meet Dr. Landsdown, a leading critic of modern literature, who was the guest today.
"Is Landsdown here?" he asked.
"Of course, baby," she said, smirking. "We're all waiting politely for the great Professor Whitney to present himself. But first, give a kiss to an old friend."
She raised her head, and he placed his mouth to hers, without much feeling. She lashed her tongue, seeking entry, and he was forced finally to open his mouth and taste the liquor and aroused warmth of her mouth.
Ann bit him sharply, and Frank felt his blood race with anger-and undeniably, with desire. He crushed her to him, panting as he smothered his face in the smooth, soft hollows of her neck and breasts.
He heard her laughing deeply as she placed her firm thigh between his and he exploded with warm desire. He realized she would probably take him right here in the hall, and then he saw her fumble open the huge hall closet.
She tried to drag him into the closet and clawed at him and groaned his name. But he tore free from her, and backed away.
"Come on, hostess," he panted. "Don't forget your guests. And your reputation."
She snorted out a harsh laugh and turned, and he followed her up the long hallway and into the huge, main room of the apartment.
There were three men gathered at the opposite end, around a grand piano. Two of them were colleagues from the college. The other was Landsdown.
The men turned as he and Ann entered. Lands-down raised his head stiffly, his grey, trimmed beard glistening, his eyes intelligent. He was a medium-sized man, with a large pair of shoulders and a thick waist.
"Professor," Ann said, "this is my husband, Frank Whitney." Then she looked over her shoulder at Frank. "Scotch, dear?"
Frank nodded at Ann, and approached Landsdown, whose hand was extended. "Good afternoon," Frank said, receiving Landsdown's firm grasp and inquisitive gaze.
"Your wife tells me you're preparing a series of lectures," Landsdown said, abruptly. "Interested in a visit to my school? What's your topic to be?"
Landsdown was hitting him hard, and he stalled an answer, and with mercy, Ann slipped him a glass of Scotch. Frank took a long, full drink of the whiskey, and it cruised into his body with a bolstering sting.
He swallowed and cursed himself for not even having found a topic. Ann obviously had set him up for some fast talking, so she could enjoy watching him sweat. She was constantly getting him into situations where he was fighting in a blindfold with one hand tied behind his back. He glanced at her now.
"I asked the professor to get you to talk about your lectures the moment you walked in," she said, with a gloating smile. "Otherwise, I knew you'd avoid the subject. You're so shy about these things."
Frank felt the collar of his shirt pressing against his neck, and he swallowed.
"It's been a few weeks since I've worked on the lectures," he said. "I'm afraid I'm a bit removed from it, from the project, for the moment. The beginning of school, you know. Getting the courses on the rails."
"I understand, perfectly," Landsdown said. "But what is your topic to be?"
Frank took another desperate swallow of scotch. "The creative process," he said, weakly. "How an author's mind functions as he writes."
Landsdown raised his brows. "You write yourself?"
Frank drank his scotch, and heard Ann titter. "No, no," he said. "I plan to study and interview a contemporary novelist. Use his information to corrulate with my theories, and, of course, past theories on the subject."
"Ambitious," Landsdown said.
The other two men, from the classics department, men Frank hardly knew, nodded agreement.
"Let me know when you're ready," Landsdown said. "And I'll see if I can get you a spot to guest lecture at my school," Landsdown said.
"Thank you," Frank said, but he felt uneasy and did not quite know how to take the offer. He had the faint, gnawing feeling he was being ridiculed.
The talk turned to some work in the classics department, and then to a new book by Landsdown. Frank drank and talked, but watched Ann constantly, as though she would devise some new mischief for him.
Finally, Landsdown turned to Ann. "Is your father coming?" he asked.
"I guess not," she said. "He said if he couldn't make it by seven, then we'd have to excuse him."
"I'm sorry," Landsdown said. "I had hoped to see him again before I leave."
"You're not leaving tonight?" Ann asked.
"Afraid I am," Landsdown said, clasping his hands behind his back, and rising impatiently on his toes. "In fact, I really should be on my way. It's a long trip, you know."
"My father will be sorry he missed you," Ann said.
"He would certainly have come had he known you were leaving."
Frank listened to the talk, and thought how much Ann's father helped her. His prestige and academic power made her a center of campus life, and secured for her the position she had in the department of drama. And, he remembered uneasily, her father had been no little help in his own academic career.
The other two men began to shift uneasily. Finally, one of them said, "My wife is expecting me home for dinner."
"Could I grab a ride?" the other man asked.
There was a sudden flurry of good-byes and handshaking, and then Ann was seeing the three men to the door. Frank mixed another drink, and as he sipped it, he realized he was a little tight.
He dreaded the idea of being alone with Ann, yet he knew she would be furious if he left now, also. He was divorced from her, and told himself he should claim his independence. Yet, he dared not anger her too much, not with the power she and her father could bring to bear on his life and his career.
And then she was striding back into the room, and Frank drank the whiskey and stared at her and knew he would make love to her, knew he wanted to make love to her, despite everything he disliked about her.
"He's a delightful man, don't you think so, Frank?" she asked.
"Very nice," he said, without enthusiasm.
"He was nice to you," she taunted.
"Yes, I suppose so," he said, feeling his stomach draw up tensely. Anger flooded his body, and he hated her for the ways she devised to make him feel obligated.
Ann moved to him, smiling, mocking, and took his tie in her hand and tugged gently. "You shouldn't suppose," she said.
Suddenly, without reason, he remembered the bright, flush-faced laughter of the redhead. He thought of her willowy body and lovely pale face, and for a moment he was lost in the memory of the delicate waist and womanly breasts and porcelain skin.
He jerked Ann's hand free from his tie and stalked to the window. The town clock struck seven as he stared out into the dark. He heard Ann move behind him, but he ignored her.
He went tense as he felt her hands on his waist, and then she shoved her body against his. Her teeth sank savagely into his neck, and he gasped and shoved her away.
He turned and looked into her mocking, smiling face, and stood still as she came to him again. She slammed her body into him, and he felt his body exploding with heat as she rammed her thigh between his legs.
In an instant, he wanted her beyond rationality. They were kissing, a wet, sucking kiss, and she was clawing at him and moaning his name with hoarse whispers.
Frank twirled her around, and shoved her against the wall, and tore her dress off, without breaking the surging kiss.
As usual, she was wearing nothing beneath the thick folds of her dress, except for garter belt and panties. As she bit his neck, he ripped the flimsy panties off, and dug his fingers into her buttocks.
He took her wildly and savagely and without hesitation, hearing himself whimper and feeling his passion scream through his body. Then he groaned, and his legs weakened and buckled with the soaring excitement.
They staggered back and collapsed in a chair, and he gasped out his breath. She stirred and shoved and was gone, and he wiped sweat from his face and watched her sway over in heels and stockings and garter belt, and mix drinks, then walk back to him.
He moaned as she sank onto his lap, and handed him a scotch. He slugged down the whiskey and went warm again as Ann hugged her body to him, and kissed his ear with wet lips and a wild tongue.
And Ann's hands were good-too good, too expert. He hated the way she could have him whining for her body. But she twisted on top of him and he moaned and dropped the drink to the floor.
Her breasts pressed into his chest, and her nails raked his back and her lips smothered his mouth. She twisted again, savagely, and he moved his thighs, and heard himself saying, "Ann, Ann, oh, yes, darling...."
He screamed and clawed at her gyrating buttocks, then he collapsed against the chair, spent and weary. And the feeling of drunkenness permeated his body.
He felt her move again, but he was too exhausted and drunk now to care. He asked himself why he had once again become the victim of her whims.
But he lay his head back and closed his eyes, and the fire-haired beauty played about his dreaming mind, and in his imagination he grasped for her long, white thighs, and felt the suppressed, twisting passion of her body submit to him.
CHAPTER THREE
The next two days went slowly, with no sign, no glimpse of the lovely redhead. Prodded by his words with Landsdown, Frank plugged away at the library preparing preliminary designs for researching the creative process.
And when his Modern American Literature class met, there was no sign of Angela. He was more deeply disappointed than he cared to admit, even to himself.
He dismissed the class five minutes early, waved off questioners, and plodded toward the lounge, still hoping to catch sight of Angela.
He sat at a corner table and sipped coffee and scanned the room. Fortunately, nobody disturbed him. Once or twice he hid himself behind a newspaper when he saw a former student enter. But no one came over.
He finished his coffee, as his mind rambled upon a thousand explanations for the girl's absence. He thought of illness, and many other things. And he admitted to himself Hughes could be the reason.
He forced himself to accept the possibility they could be lovers. He could conceive any man's wanting her.
And then, beneath the bright lights of the coffee counter, he saw her hair glowing like an autumn bonfire.
His whole body reacted. The coffee he had swallowed spluttered in his throat. He stood, coughing, his stomach pulsing with anxiety.
It seemed a very long moment while he watched her take coffee to the cashier, pay, and then turn to walk toward his corner. It seemed he could not move.
"Hello," she said, nearing the table. "Shall I join you?"
He nodded.
She was dressed in a deep, peacock-blue suit. Her legs were cloaked in a white gauze-Mke stocking, making their delicate curves prominent, the neat kneecaps a small provocative dot of bone-white. Her suit was cut low in front, and this time there was not the tact of a scarf, so that her white throat was bared. The thick red hair fell into the wide open collar and nestled against her neck.
Two china-crystal bracelets rang sweetly on her wrist, drawing attention to her frail grace.
Frank was overwhelmed as her perfume aroused him and her deep, moist eyes were frankly upon him.
"Sorry I'm late. Missed your class, too." Her voice was so graciously smooth and low that she could have said, "Sorry I killed your mother," and it would-have seemed entirely acceptable.
Frank nodded. "All right. I can easily give you the notes."
"Did you miss me?" she asked, not looking at him, but placing her cup and napkin.
Frank moved to assist her with the chair. "I missed you," he said, with a tone of solemn admission.
As before, she eased her lovely buttocks on the seat neatly, and Frank resumed his place opposite.
"The party's set for Monday. This Monday. I'm giving you my mother's card." She pulled a small, matching blue-bag to the table top and fingered deftly to remove the card, which she promptly extended to him.
Frank read: Gara Finley, Hotel Brindsy, Fifth Ave. "Your mother, you say?"
She nodded, a sprightly, energetic movement of her chin, three or four times, up and down. Her eyes sparkled, and her pink, well curved lips turned upward at the corners.
"You're coming?" she asked, her eyes all the time knowing his answer.
"Of course. I'm delighted. Hughes will be there?"
She seemed to flush slightly. Her throat throbbed with a deepening breath.
"You can expect him," she added, firming her lips.
Frank sat contemplating her for a long moment. His dry throat, his nervousness were plain symptoms that he was becoming dangerously involved. Angela met his gaze with her large eyes. He perceived what seemed a darkening in her eyes, a hint of feeling that acknowledged his own emotion.
Frank's literature class, the one Angela attended, met three times a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. As today was Friday, Frank realized that there would be only one more official meeting between them on Monday afternoon before he would be thrust into the highly informal and dangerous encounter with her at the Monday night party.
"Penny for your thoughts," Angela said playfully, dimpling.
"You're very pretty," Frank said directly. He searched his memory for some snatch of poetry which he could recite. Anything which he could say to relieve the tenseness of the silence between them.
"There is a garden in her face, Where roses and white lilies grow," Frank recited.
At this flattery Angela took a deep breath and her breasts swelled. She smiled then, and said, "You must know how a woman adores beautiful words. It's quite winning, really."
Despite himself, Frank reached for her white slender hand which lay on the table. Her hand was cool and soft. He held it for only a moment, because of the chance that they might be observed.
As he removed his hand, Angela opened her bag and brought out a cigarette. Frank offered her a light, and she inhaled and tossed her thick hair. Then she exhaled, keeping her eyes upon him intently. Frank's body was heated and pulsing with desire.
And though he was feasting with pleasure upon her beauty now, he wanted badly to be away from her.
He needed time to cool off, and to consider carefully the peril of his attraction.
"Well, well-hope I'm not interrupting anything important."
Frank looked up to see where the voice was coming from-looked up squarely into Ann's hard gaze. "Is this young lady one of your pupils, dear?"
Angela looked down at her cigarette and Frank stammered, "Ann! I-that is, we were just discussing the lecture. This is Angela Harris. She's interested in doing a paper on Lang Hughes. I had a few questions about her project. You know, routine thing."
"Oh, I understand perfectly, darling," Ann said with a mocking voice, patting her short hair with her red-nailed hand. "But we don't need introductions, do we, Angela? Angela is in my drama class. Missed you today, my dear. Were you ill?"
At Ann's question Angela raised her enormous eyes and said in a quiet deep voice, "No, not ill, just tied up. My mother needed my help this morning. Sorry."
"Oh don't apologize, my dear," Ann replied with a strong tone of sarcasm. "I'm certain your work will more than compensate for any absence."
Frank sighed deeply. He was weary, beyond words, of Ann's jealous and determined hounding. He looked furtively around the room to see if they had attracted unwanted notice.
As if sensing his unrest, Angela reached suddenly to snuff out her cigarette, and then stood up. Her magnificent height dwarfed Ann. Frank's breath caught in his throat as he watched Angela breathe deeply, inflating her ripe breasts.
"Well, if you will excuse me-" she said in a well-mannered voice.
"Oh don't rush off on my account," Ann sneered. Ann was poured into a drab black suit. But her full hips and thighs made a rich, womanly contrast with her narrow waist. Her lips glistened with a glossy red lipstick. Frank could not help making a quick comparison between the two women. Angela's cool white skin, and her natural, youthful pinkness of lip and cheek were far more seductive than the coarser, hotter surface of Ann's allure.
"No, no," Angela replied with a cool, polite tone. "I must be off. It's time to think of the weekend."
Angela offered a generous, and what seemed an encouraging smile, to Frank. Then she turned and Frank admired the long, well-coordinated way she swung her chorus-girl hips as she walked away.
"Quite a beauty," Ann said, sitting down beside Frank. "Are you certain you can play around without getting into trouble?"
"Play around?" Frank said, pretending innocence to Ann's obvious threat. "How do you mean?"
"Oh, lover," Ann said with a mocking grin. Her red-nailed hand again smoothed her hair. "Don't for a minute think I'm not aware of that little girl's game."
"Game?"
"Yes, game" Ann went on. "She sees in you an easy mark, no doubt of that. And you're just the fool who'll give her the rope to put around your neck. And don't think the college won't hang you with it, darling. There are too many promising young English professors in this world. And there is always the possibility of dispensing with any one of them that gets out of line."
"OK, since you know so much," Frank said, angered. "Just let me know what kind of hanging party you foresee. And don't pretend you don't enjoy talking about such things."
"Really, lover," Ann said, stroking her red lips with her tongue, "Must we always get into these squabbles? Why don't you and I get out of this juvenile college lounge, and have a drink somewhere?"
It was during exasperating moments like these that Frank wondered why he had so long put up with Ann. The answer wasn't too obvious. But it definitely had to do with the fact that she threatened him with her powerful father's wrath assaulted his senses with her knowing sexuality, and had taken advantage of the fact that he had been extremely busy adjusting to the demands of his new teaching position.
There had been constant pressures upon him during the past three years at Clinton. And after a weary, battling day, it had been all too easy to succumb, during the past year since their divorce, to Ann's cozy invitations to "drop by" for a warm dinner.
Then too, each provocative woman he had been exposed to was, more likely than not, some coed-and that was a strictly forbidden area for college professors. So Frank had become accustomed to suppressing his frustrations, and putting all of his energies into his work-out of necessity.
"Well, now about that drink, Frank?" Ann insisted again.
"Not tonight," he answered, and stood up to go.
He left Ann sitting with a frown on her face and her red lips pouting. He noticed her opening her purse and inspecting her makeup in her compact mirror as he pushed through the revolving door of the lounge and headed outdoors.
Frank breathed in deep gulps of the fresh autumn air, and hailed a cab. He headed the cab toward mid-town, expecting to drop into some anonymous bar and straighten out his thoughts.
Suddenly he remembered that, in his haste to escape Ann and the whole oppressive atmosphere of the college, he had forgotten to pick up some needed books in his office.
He ordered the cab to turn back. The whole muddle seemed to him ominous. Deep in his gut he knew that he was approaching some sort of breaking point. And the exact moment when he would at last cut loose he knew very well would occur the moment Angela offered him her lips and her body.
He wondered if she would. He half hoped it would not happen. But if it did, if she did follow through on those seductive glances she had thrown his way this afternoon, Frank knew it would all be over. He would be rid of Ann, and he would lose his job. The kind of angry passion he felt for the girl was reckless and hot.
"Don't wait," Frank instructed the cab driver.
He hurried to his office, trying not to see or connect with any of the people he passed. Once inside he locked his door and impatiently riffled through some papers on his desk, looking for a recent letter from an old school buddy. The letter had been the first contact he had had with his old friend, John Framer, for four years.
In the letter Framer had offered to give Frank the use of his large farmhouse "at anytime this year you would like." Framer was wealthy, and traveled a great deal. And the offer had special appeal to Frank at the moment, something that would fill the bill if Frank should happen to leave the college abruptly.
He found the letter, gathered up the books which he needed for the weekend, and was about to leave the office when the telephone rang.
"Yes, Professor Whitney speaking," Frank answered.
"Angela, here," came the hushed, deeply feminine voice at the other end.
Frank was speechless. The girl frightened him. Did she realize the extent to which she might change his life? Did she have the maturity to understand the explosive position she had placed him in?
"What is it?" Frank finally managed to ask.
"Are you alone?" Angela asked, her voice coming over the tiny black machine with all the precision and grace of a very well-turned debutante's.
"Yes, yes," Frank said, impatient and fired with his desire for her which increased each moment.
"Can we meet somewhere?" she said distinctly.
"Yes, certainly I can meet you. Where?"
"I'm way downtown. There's a small restaurant-quite private-just a block from where I'm calling. Name of Black Robin. I'll be in a back table there. See you soon? Oh, it's 8th Street and Fifth Avenue."
"I'm coming," Frank said decisively. "I should be there in twenty minutes."
"Good-bye," Angela said, and hung up.
Frank held the phone in his hand a moment. Then he hung up and hurried out of the office.
CHAPTER FOUR
Wishing he had an overcoat, Frank eyed the clouding sky with pessimism. Drops of rain could be seen at random places on the cement walk.
Cabs were scarce, too. It was five minutes before he finally caught one. The cab driver had his radio on loudly. Frank looked out at the windows of shops and restaurants, prematurely bright with fights because of the darkening clouds. It was five-fifteen, the radio announcer had said and Frank checked his watch to be sure.
Inside himself Frank felt a new and pleasurable virilence and well-being. He felt young. He felt nice. Indulgently he took out a cigarette and lit up. He inhaled deeply and thought about the country, about the farm Framer had offered to him.
He fantasied how it would be if he could persuade Angela to take a weekend up there with him. Perhaps he could have her and his job too, if he moved secretly. Perhaps....
In approximately twenty minutes he was, as promised, at the door of the Black Robin.
Inside, his eyes searched for her familiar red glow.
She was seated at a small black booth at the very end of the room. There was a moment before she looked up to see him.
And during that moment he drunk in her beauty fully. He let his eyes and imagination wander over her serene face with the long dark lashes. He undressed her mentally, imagined her full breasts spilling lushly into his hands, and the velvet whiteness of her body.
Then she looked up and gave him the full force of her knowing deep eyes.
Frank walked up to her and smiled, saying, "Is she kind as she is fair?"
"You're quoting poetry again," she laughed and her face turned that color of pink carnations, and her cheeks dimpled.
"Right you are," Frank said gaily and slid into the booth seat opposite her.
"Perhaps you think it's dreadful of me to call you down here without explaining," Angela said, and then winked at him with a new degree of intimacy, and added, "Do you?"
"Listen, baby. I have not got a full Friday night schedule, and I like your company-as long as you don't start weeping on me. I don't promise to be much good with sad, sad problems. What's up?"
"Oh it is nothing, really," she answered. Then she threw her head back and looked at the ceiling as she took a deep sigh and her breasts heaved. "How can I begin...." she murmured as if to herself.
Frank was entranced by the drama of the girl's changing moods and inflections. She seemed like a three-dimensional, stereo sounding, full technicolor movie in comparison with the rest of his life. He noticed that her lips were more than usually full, as if with emotion. And there was just the hint of pinkness about her nose, and a flush to her cheeks.
"Well?" Frank encouraged.
"Simply this," Angela said, bringing her huge grey eyes close to his, leaning forward until her luxurious breasts pressed against the table and bulged as if to burst. "When I got home mother told me Prof. Ann Whitney had called. Take it from there."
"What?" Frank exclaimed. "Ann? Called your home? What in damnation for?"
"Can't you imagine?" Angela said, nearly whispering, nearly breathing upon his face.
"Frankly, no. I can't imagine."
"Oh, I'd supposed you were accustomed to this sort of thing from her," Angela said, pouting a bit as if she were disappointed. "I understand you and she were recently divorced, correct?"
"Correct," Frank said grimly. "Our lives have been something as sordid as a television serial. And about as sensible."
"All right, then," Angela continued, her curving lips dimpling as she pressed them together emphatically. Her eyes sparkled like a little girl's: excited eyes, so great and dark and endlessly wonderful. "It appears she still wants you back."
"What in heaven's name did she say over the phone-to your mother, you say?" Frank asked with rising impatience.
"It was a threat," Angela said simply. Then she leaned back and brushed her heavy red hair away from her neck and waited for his response.
"Oh hell," Frank exclaimed with exasperation. "What were her exact words? Please, be exact."
Angela leaned forward once more, and Frank found himself inhaling a mixture of her fresh breath, her body warmth, and the same heady, smooth perfume he had noticed about her the first day she came up to him. Her lips formed the next words with a childish energy, and her eyes darted back and forth upon his face excitedly. "She told mother that she would report us if we didn't quit."
"Exact words. Exact words, please," Frank urged.
"Tell your daughter that she is asking for trouble and expulsion if she persists in seeing my former husband, Prof. Whitney, outside of the classroom." Angela delivered Ann's alleged speech with a cool, candid tone.
"Oh, very neat," Frank said sarcastically.
"No, not so neat," Angela corrected. "My mother was hysterical. I could barely get away to call you. It was a frightful scene."
"You see what I mean now-about Ann and myself resembling a melodramatic television serial. Ann delivers me constant grief and crisis-in installments."
"I don't understand exactly," Angela said, leaning backward against the booth and folding her slim hands, business-like, upon the table in front of her. Beside her hands was her empty cup. It registered with Frank suddenly that, in his excitement, he had failed to offer her something further to eat and drink.
"Suppose I order something for us, and then you tell me what it is that you don't understand?" Frank suggested.
"No, no. I've a better idea. Suppose we find a nice little cozy bar and unwind," Angela said with a wink of her eye.
Frank paused at this, wondering if she was of age to drink.
"Oh I can handle myself. I'm twenty-one last month," Angela quipped. It was as if she could read his mind. Again Frank felt his throat turn strangely dry. She was frightening. Her provocative body and face-her entire manner so sure and keenly arousing left Frank with doubts as to which one of them was in control. And he knew his job with the University would be the high price of a slip-up. Did she, could she understand this?
He nodded. Angela stood, the full willowy height of her attracting the admiring eyes of two middle-aged men at the neighboring table. Frank felt himself flush as he overheard one of the men say "That's some order the guy has there-get a load of that stacked broad. The babe in the red hair."
Frank noticed the other man nod and rip his eyes up Angela's undulating torso.
Angela felt the men's stares also, for she flushed, smiled a bit wickedly at Frank and tossed her head-like a thoroughbred horse.
Frank dropped some change on the table and took Angela by the arm and led her from the restaurant. Never knew when it was going to come in handy to be tall, Frank thought, grateful that he was more than a match in height for the girl at his side.
It was raining solidly by this time. Angela waited under the green awning of the restaurant while Frank searched the street for a cab.
No luck.
"Let's run around the corner and see if there's a cab coming from uptown," Angela called.
"You stay here, keep dry," Frank called back and hurried around the corner, all the time seeing nothing resembling a cab in any direction.
As he stood on the curb, getting more and more drenched in the heavy shower, Frank could not help thinking how cozy it would be if he could bring Angela back to his apartment. By the time he had spotted and hailed a cab, he was determined to head home with her.
Angela was sitting, gazing out the window, and Frank, without asking her, told the driver his address.
Angela, hearing his command, turned abruptly and looked at him, her lips trembling slightly, delicately at the corners.
"Male prerogative, honey," Frank said, grinning.
"I'm too wet to sit in some bar-and I don't want to risk being seen with you."
Angela's eyes seemed to widen slightly, then she grinned, too. The rain had dampened her lush hair becomingly. It clung to her white temples and made her eyes seem darker and more alive than ever.
"You call the plays, sir," she said in a teasing tone. "And I'll follow suit."
"We should get along fine," Frank said. He noticed Angela shift her weight and recross her long slim legs, the white stockings accenting every curve right down to her incredibly lean ankles. Her thighs were plush and curving with her legs crossed. The sight of her made Frank feel warm and moving inside his stomach-like a good wine.
It took them only ten minutes to reach Frank's apartment. The rain still continued at a strong rate, and before Frank and Angela had gained the hallway, both were considerably wetter.
Angela was laughing as they went into the elevator and rode to Frank's third-floor apartment. Her eyes were alive with excitement, and her lips were moist and enticing.
Something in the formality in her seemed to have been washed out by the rain.
Frank opened the door and Angela strode in confidently, her flaring hips swinging gaily, making Frank alive with an electric desire.
Frank turned on his stereo, and went into the bedroom to change into dry clothes.
"I'll be right out and fix you that drink," Frank called.
"Oh fine!" She replied. Her voice had taken on that deep husky quality.
Frank checked his image in the mirror as he buttoned up a new sports-shirt. The dark brown plaid of the shirt made his dark eyes and wet hair glisten. He knew he had not been short-changed on looks. And it made him happy to see himself, well aware that reciting poetry was not his only asset.
As Frank walked back into the living room, he found Angela removing her wet stockings. She pulled the glamorous white mesh carefully down over her sleek white calves, ankles, feet, pointing her delicate toes and tensing her thigh muscles seductively.
Her thick red hair was in a state of playful abandon. The dampness had given its natural curl new vigor and her small delicate face was framed in the flaring wine-color.
"What will you have?" Frank asked, walking briskly to the bar.
"Scotch and soda," Angela answered without hesitation.
"You asked for it," Frank replied, feeling warmth both from the apartment and from his racing blood.
As he handed her a double scotch, the phone rang.
Something told Frank not to answer it, but Angela urged him.
"Do stop it. It will make us feel more guilty if you don't," she advised.
"You, maybe, not me," Frank said, but he picked up the receiver anyway.
To his dismay, Ann's voice came over the wire, hard and clear.
"Frank, where have you been? I've been trying to reach you for the past hour. Dad's here and wants to see you about something. I think he wants your help on the vocational program for next week. Can you get over here right away? He's in one of his raffish moods. You know, wants to see you immediately. You know."
"Hold it, Ann, just hold it a minute-I'm busy."
"What! Maybe you didn't understand me. I said Dad, not me, wants you over here right away."
"It's all the same tune, baby doll," Frank said coolly. He had his eyes on the curving hips of Angela as she lay full-length on the divan and gave him a mischievous, little girl wink. Angela's head was propped up on one hand, and her ripe breasts tilted sideways with inviting angles.
"What's more," Frank went on in a level voice, "I had a disturbing call from Angela's mother which points strongly to the fact that some person is meddling with my private life."
"Don't be roundabout with me," Ann clipped. "I'm working in your best interest. The girl is going to cost you your job if something isn't done to stop her."
"Let me be the judge of that," Frank snapped and hung up.
As Frank turned to Angela, she opened her pouting lips and said, "Pro-fess-or Whitney, I do believe you are getting us both in hot water." Then she giggled and her face reddened, her body jarred by suppressed amusement.
Frank walked over and sat beside her, his weight on the sofa causing her mounds to vibrate and roll perceptibly. "Do you think you can be enough woman to take the place in my life of a hounding ex-wife, and stuffy responsibilities at the university?" he asked her. The question was half serious.
In reply, Angela put a cool hand delicately upon his cheek and looked deeply into his eyes. Her breasts heaved with a deepening sigh, and her long rounding hips shifted as she said, "I'm not at all responsible, Professor."
"Cut the professor routine," Frank said abruptly. "I'm speaking to you as a man."
"Tell me some poetry," Angela said playfully.
"Damn the poetry. Grow up and answer me," Frank said sternly.
Angela's great grey eyes seemed alarmed at his emotion. She took her hand from his face and gathered her blue jacket about her breasts in a demure, tentative gesture.
The telephone began to ring again. This time neither Frank nor Angela took their eyes away from each other.
"Answer me, Angela," Frank insisted, almost beyond control as he became more and more intoxicated with her sensitive, moist lips, her soft white flesh, her perfume.
Angela threw back her head and offered her mouth to him, her hands passive and limp at her sides.
Frank grasped her lithe body, brought her great rounded breasts against his chest and entered her mouth, his tongue joining hers in a hot, whipping frenzy of pleasure and need. He felt her body convulse with some sudden instinct and her arms came about his neck in a dragging, imploying weight that brought him down upon her, drove him crazy with her steaming sweetness.
The phone all the time ringing, Frank grasped her smooth thighs, dragged down her panties, and all the while she showered his face and neck with heated caresses of her eager mouth.
Without a pause, gasping and fondling each other-Frank's hands reaching within her dress, squeezing gently, then roughly, her breasts, until she moaned and rocked against him with frantic delight.
Then together they rode, worked, sweated a new, personal rain upon their driven bodies and, without a question but that they were all the way together, their bodies exploded with electricity and honey.
Frank could tell she was pleased, for, like him, she relapsed quickly into a glowing, languorous rest. Side by side, his mouth opened into the dark perfume of her hair, her hands upon him, with a gentle pressure, they lay for long lovely minutes. Her leg covered one of his, and her firm, warm weight was unspeakably pleasureable.
Finally, she stirred, and then sat up slowly, one bare white breast dangling, with taut pink nipple, from without the blue suit where it had come unbuttoned. She smiled, her teeth white and sure. Frank knew then that whatever her price, he was willing to pay it.
"Have your drink, beautiful, and I'll tell you a line of poetry," he said gently.
But Angela shook her head, and looked at him deeply, her eyes showing a seductive white below the dark pupils. "You're good as you are. I don't need more." Her voice was low and husky, and her manner suggested that she was satisfied-satisfied as a woman.
Frank reached over and took her lips, stroked the long clean line of her mouth and then licked gently at her teeth, the satin of her inner cheeks. She complied, biting him affectionately and with skillful, tender pressures.
Frank felt himself stir again, and he broke off. Angela gave a small, very feminine smile that seemed to say: "I'm with you, baby. I'm with you."
He stroked her naked legs, letting his hand reach the thickening splendor of her thighs, watching her belly pant, and her breasts bulging. On her lips a tricky, little flickering smile of delight appeared, disappeared, and appeared again. Her thick-lashed eyes closed.
During his caress of her, Frank was wondering vaguely how he could continue this affair. What part would the meeting with Hughes play? How angry would Ann's old man be that he had refused to come over? What about the book he was to write, the lecture he was to prepare? What about the farm offered by his friend Framer?
One thing he did know, as Angela trembled and her melon-like breast that stood naked from her jacket pointed to the ceiling. He wanted most of all never to again have to submit to the harsh, rough, commanding sexuality of his ex-wife.
CHAPTER FIVE
Frank moaned and glanced at his clock as the telephone's shrill voice interrupted his morning sleep.
The clock registered ten AM.
Frank fumbled until his hand grasped the receiver.
"Yes," he managed to say, half asleep. He had stayed up late, after seeing Angela safely home.
"Listen, Frank, I know you were probably asleep," came the voice over the phone. It was Ann. "But I must see you today. Can you drop by for lunch?"
Frank sighed as he heard the old, overused phrase "drop by." But, still feeling guilty for his behavior toward Ann and her father the night before, he kept his irritation to himself.
"All right, Ann. I'll be over about twelve-thirty. Anything special?"
"Plenty. But it will wait for two more hours," Ann replied in a brittle tone.
Frank could just imagine her, probably dressed in a vivid orange housecoat, sporting some equally loud nail polish, and wearing some overdone makeup on her face.
Frank was fully awake and his stomach pinched with little angry spasms. So he got up after saying goodbye to Ann and went into the bathroom to shave and shower. Glancing out the window on his way back to the kitchen, Frank gladly noticed that the weather looked good.
He could still catch the flavor of Angela on his lips. A bit of her perfume also seemed to cling to him, even after he had showered and shaved. He knew it must be his imagination. But it was enjoyable.
He had his coffee leisurely, and glanced over one of the books he had brought with him from the office. The book was a collection of essays upon the creative process of mind. As he scanned a couple of the essays, Frank wondered if his meeting with Hughes would be fruitful.
Somehow the time went, and by twelve Frank had finished his reading, scanned his mail, and given random moments over to the contemplation of Angela, seeing her red hair and her naked breast, as it had been the day before.
He wore a conservative grey suit, conservative dark tie, and, armed with unusually good spirits, he headed for Ann's.
He expected nothing less than he got.
Ann met him at the door in comparably grim dress: a navy sheath, no jewelry, and-surprisingly for her-no lipstick except for a faint pink one.
Actually, Frank considered that she looked nice. Her ample breasts and hips were a bit restrained as she led him into the living room. But he could not deny that she was well-stacked, and capable of quickening his blood.
He found drinks waiting for him. Ann, of course, knew exactly what he would want on a Saturday afternoon, and there it was, the scant gin and tonic staring him in the eye. The one of many symbols of Ann's continued power over him. Frank next wondered what in the devil he was doing here anyway, after last night.
"Well, lover," Ann said, sitting down in a plush chair, and crossing her curvaceous legs. "I believe you've some explanation for last night, but it would have helped me considerably if you'd offered it yourself over the phone. You may imagine I had a damn hard time explaining your absence to Dad."
"Listen, Ann. I have a right to my own life. I can't be on call twenty-four hours a day, including weekends, to you and your Daddy." He hit the last word with the full force of sarcasm.
"Oh yes you can," Ann hissed. "If your job depends on it you can. You don't get a cushy ten grand a year for nothing, you know. And there's a thousand others ready and willing to do more than you to get that position."
"It's black-mail, baby. That's the short of it. I don't buy."
"Then be prepared to get your walking papers," Ann snapped.
Her dark eyes blazed, and her heavy mounds pulsed with anger. Frank wanted to leave, but something incited him to be cruel. He was seeing red. He knew it was over, but he wanted to see blood flow. And not just his own.
He stood. He was taller than Ann by almost a foot. That was one thing she couldn't quite match, even though she wore the highest heels she could find and straddled his prone body almost as often as she found him lying. But she couldn't quite look him in the eye without straining her neck, he noticed with pleasure.
"Who's going to hand me my walking papers, lamb-you or Daddy?" Frank asked.
"Maybe we'll let somebody else do our dirty work," Ann sneered with a curl to her lips. Then she sipped her drink and looked at Frank as if she were enjoying a leisurely moment.
"With all the talk over the past three years-which by the way is very tiresome-I've always been somewhat curious who would have the guts to swing it," Frank told her. He wanted his drink badly, but he was too proud to take it.
"I can't see that it matters who swings it as long as it's swung," Ann said, looking out the window, and again sipping her drink with annoying disregard. "You'll feel it, though, count on that."
"Is the present charge one of neglecting your father-or could it just be that your libido is undernourished?" Frank sneered, trying to cut her feelings, get some reaction.
Ann set her glass down abruptly at this taunt, and smoothed her dress over her full thighs. "Let's safely assume that the charge is something like this-you neglect your contacts at Clinton, and see too much of a certain coed. You should know better than attempt cozy conversations with a student in the school lounge. You've been seen with her there twice in the past week."
"I notice," Frank snapped back, "that it is difficult for you to separate my duties to the school with my obligations of a lover to yourself. If you like, I've enough steam in me right now to give you your tumble for the week. Will you be satisfied with that?"
"Don't be vulgar with me, baby. I can have you anytime. Hasn't that been proved? You seem to sleep over here every time you drop by."
"Just my obliging nature, sweetheart. You don't like it?"
"If I told you what I think of you as a lover, I'm afraid it would hurt your little ego, Frankie," Ann said, rubbing her neck with one hand, as though she were getting just a bit ruffled.
"You think my ego depends on you?" Frank sneered. "That's hardly the case, when for the past year I've been doing everything known to man to get you off my back without taking my job with it."
At this Ann stood up, her mounds pounding with the anger which colored her face. Her nostrils flared, and her arms were held tight to her body. Her hands were clenched.
"I don't need to sit here and receive your insolence.
I don't need that sort of thanks for trying to help you," she said, her voice shrill and loud.
The edge of resentment for her meddling and her power over him was up in Frank. He took three steps toward her, and looking down into her dark nervous eyes, he said coolly, "Lady Ann, let's just call it a day before the fighting gets too dirty for even you to handle."
"I'm not afraid of you!" Ann said loudly.
Frank was tempted to whip her about and give her a resounding slap on the buttocks. "What would a little girl like you do if I should tell Daddy on her," Frank taunted.
"Ha! What do you mean?" Ann countered.
"Does Daddy know how much you use him to keep me in your bed?"
Ann slapped him. Frank felt the full weight of her rather strong arm, the blow traveling into his neck. His cheek felt like a burn with salt on it.
Without hesitating he slapped her back and she fell backwards over the chair, fell into it, half breaking her fall with her arms.
For a moment her mouth opened in stunned expression, then she scrambled inelegantly to her feet and came at him, her fists beating him ineffectually about the chest. He raised his head to avoid her and caught her wrists in both hands.
"Damn you," she panted, her body trembling, her breasts jarred by her struggling.
"Let me go, you impotent son of a lamb," Ann hollered.
Frank released her without warning, and added a resounding beat of his hand on her firm, rounded buttocks. Ann fell forward, cursing.
"All right, baby. Just cool it, and remember one thing: I'm nobody's toy from now on. I'm through with faculty patty-cake, and dropping by to warm your life up."
With this, Frank turned and walked briskly down the hall of her apartment.
"You'll hear from this," Ann screamed behind him. "Just wait, Professor. You haven't-"
Frank slammed the door and cut her off. He was sweating and his entire body trembled with a violent temper.
He walked quickly along the busy afternoon street, coming shortly into a block with numerous delicatessens, groceries, and bars. But he walked on.
Frank suspected that Ann was this minute on the phone, telling her father that he should send the posse out for him. Cut him out of the University game. Frank could imagine Ann nursing her fat buttock, and exclaiming petulantly what a brute he was.
Frank kicked a fallen branch on the walk as he entered a park. The leaves were dusty and yellow. Angela's hair-that was the true color of autumn. Again and again he saw her nude breast, as it had tumbled out of her vivid blue suit, like the moon between mountains.
On the other side of the block of the park was the university area. Frank shunned that by hurriedly walking down another side street, his eyes searching for a cab.
Hailing one, he climbed in and took a deep sigh. He told the driver to head downtown. His watch said one-fifteen.
About thirty blocks from where he had picked it up Frank left the cab and ambled into a dark, nearly empty bar. It was then one-thirty.
He sat at the bar and put away three double scotches, and watched the customers coming and going. He saw one of the younger set, a kid with a little bunchy brown beard, usher in one of those unforgettable creatures wearing the latest modern fashions-she had on a pair of bell-bottomed slacks, and when she took off her jacket, her midriff was bare but for a dark halter. Her breasts inched up above the halter in bronze roundness. Her lips were thickly coated with an iridescent lipstick, and her eyes were heavily made up.
Irrationally, Frank felt himself lusting for her. He figured it was the liquor which by now had turned his gut into a stinging heated nest of energy.
The girl's buttocks rocked and churned to the jukebox, and the bearded boy with her girated at a distance, bobbing his head idiotically with each swing of the beat. Frank found his eyes glued to the girl's firm, rocking hips, and her flat, panting belly which glistened nakedly about her hip-pants.
After about an hour of this exhibition, the two finally left.
Frank hung on, had another couple of shots, and felt his mind begin to numb and the pleasure of the alcohol seep into his legs. He was abstractly curious how he would manage when he came to stand up.
He hadn't been this drunk, alone, for a long time. Always before, for the past three long years, it had been with Ann pouring the drinks down him, stroking his cheeks, grasping his arms possessively, and finally, seducing him with her powerful massage, her lips, her nudging thighs and breasts.
He had come to associate liquor with sex. It occurred to him, suddenly, that he had not prepared himself for the helplessness of being drunk without a woman about.
But another drink numbed him past lust. And he had many more drinks, before he stumbled out and caught a cab home.
CHAPTER SIX
Frank spent Sunday quietly, reading, not thinking too much, and resting for the tough week ahead.
Monday morning he rose sharply at eight. He went over his lecture notes for his two Monday classes, groomed himself carefully-including some aromatic after shave lotion, and whistled as he stood in the cold-sharp brilliance of the September sun, and watched for a free cab.
He scanned the morning's paper as he rode uptown toward Clinton. Coincidentally he glimpsed mention of the opening, the musical version of Crime and Punishment, scheduled for that evening.
It occurred to him that he had failed to obtain the exact time of the party where he was to meet Hughes. It meant of course, that he would have to speak with Angela after class. Not that he doubted he would anyway. But it bothered him some, knowing that Ann was out to cost him his job.
He wondered if it wouldn't be wise to slip Angela a note before class, a note suggesting that they meet at the Black Robin again, and avoid the student lounge.
Reaching school, Frank found a note from Ann in his mailbox. It contained notice of a meeting scheduled between him and the head of the English department. "No doubt you'll be hearing directly from Prof. Ames," Ann had written. "But dutifully I thought I would take the time to warn you in advance. It won't be pleasant." She had signed the letter, "Yours truly."
It rankled to find Ann progressing with her disruptive plans so rapidly. Frank knew his last hope was the Hughes project. If he could just get the paper ready in time to inform Landsdown that he was prepared to commence his lecture tour....
The paper on Hughes, together with the lecture tour which he hoped Ann would be unable to stop, was, Frank knew, his one chance to prove his secure standing with the university.
So much depended on how his meeting with Hughes would go tonight, and how much he could stall Ann's determination to have him dismissed.
He wondered what Ann's moves would be. What Prof. Ames, the head of the English department, had been told to cause him to call Frank in. Or was Ann bluffing? Something told Frank she was not.
His first lecture class of the day went smoothly. Most of the class were Freshmen, and the subject was, for the most part, general.
He had spent most of the period lecturing on an area of American literary history which was fairly well familiar to him, so that he could ease himself of the coming strain of the day.
During lunch, he avoided the faculty cafeteria, and went instead to a neighboring sandwich shop. This way he relieved himself of the possibility of encountering Ann, or worse, Ann's Daddy.
He feared, as angered as he was, that if he should meet Ann's father today, he might be tempted to insult his daughter, as promised.
And in the sober reflections of yesterday, at home with pipe and hangover, he had decided that the wisest policy at this point was to play for time, and to keep things polite as much longer as possible.
After lunch he returned to his office, and fidgeted, waiting for the afternoon lecture class. He dictated a letter to Framer, suggesting that he was very interested in use of the farm, as offered-adding that he might possibly use it this coming Thanksgiving, to do work on his paper, if not sooner.
In back of his mind, always, was the thought of eloping with Angela, should things at school get too hot. What else?
By elopement Frank did not exactly mean marriage-just a quick run to the country to see if they could shut out the world for a while. As for marriage, at her age, and because Frank was still smarting from his last encounter with that institution-the whole idea of getting that involved again seemed remote to him.
Frank felt a slight quiver in his stomach, and before ambling down the hall to class, he gulped an Alka Seltzer, and hoped to God he could hold up through the mess he was slowly, but surely, getting himself into.
Angela was already in the room when Frank entered, some five minutes before the beginning of the lecture. He caught her eye immediately, and she smiled, winked.
She wore a brilliant gold sweater, and her youthful breasts were never shown off to better advantage. From her delicate earlobes two small and rich looking pearls dangled. Pinned above one upthrusting mound was a heavy matching pin.
Within the gold of her sweater's expanse over her breasts Frank could discern the small dots of her nipples.
Her long lean legs were covered with taut pale gold mesh stockings.
His stomach tightened all the more from the sight of her.
He mounted the small platform where he was to deliver his lecture, and had the distinct, uneasy feeling of playing the role of a sacrificial male. For Angela was not the only attractive female in the room, though in his opinion she was far ahead of the rest.
Just below his lectern three more girls eyed him hungrily. It was an expression Frank recognized from his past years' experience. And it was not solely, he knew, an expression which derived from their passion for American literature. He knew from rather bizarre experiences with such young ladies, that a good percentage of their enthusiasm was derived from their hope of proving their womanhood to the young, eligible professor who now stood before them.
Such thoughts gave Frank a sort of negative reassurance that, should he indeed lose his teaching job, it would not be entirely for the worse. For it occurred to him that if he was forced to continue this unnatural indifference to the very sharp female intentions of his students, he might eventually find the university had emasculated him.
With such conflicting thoughts in mind, Frank got through the lecture as smoothly and quickly as possible-quickly in the sense that he did not give the girls a chance to ask questions today.
After class, Angela came over to him, and placing one hand on her flaring hip, said, "I just had drama class with Ann this morning. She passed back our first papers. I got an F. How do you explain that?"
"I don't know, do you?" Frank said, enjoying the dark fire in her eyes, glancing down where her short, youthful skirt vibrated about her thighs.
"I think I do," Angela said, her voice sounding irritated and her lips pronouncing each word fully, revealing her perfect white teeth.
"Well?"
"Oh come on," Angela snapped, her breasts heaving like golden melons, "I'm being victimized by her. She's insane. My paper was worth at least a "B" and I've got an average to protect!"
"Look, Angela, let's talk about this somewhere else. Do you have some time? I'm off for the day now," Frank suggested, suddenly extremely weary with the pettiness of the whole squabble. He was a bit annoyed that Angela was complaining about grades, when his entire career was involved.
Angela nodded, her pearl earrings glistening, her face flush and her mouth firmed.
"Look, I can't talk with you in the lounge, and there's barely time, now that I think of it, to go elsewhere. Why don't you just tell me what time to show up at the party, and we'll find a moment to discuss it there," Frank said. What had changed his mind was that he had just seen Prof. Ames pass by the door. It was too close for comfort here at school.
"If you think such an outrage can wait, I guess it can," Angela said coolly. Her eyes were darker than he had ever seen them. "I'll see you about twelve tonight, after the opening, the address I gave you. I'm sure you would want to be spared the show. Believe me, it is something to miss. Hughes won't be there either."
Then she took long, limber strides toward the door, the short skirt whipping about her hips and thighs and revealing the perfect glamor of her firm body.
As he listened to her rapid, clicking steps in the hall, Frank wondered if, perhaps, he had been too indifferent with the girl's trouble with Ann.
For though he had foolishly risked his job to know her better, she had perhaps shown a more proportionate wisdom in being unwilling to risk anything, even her grade average. She might well be behaving with more maturity than he had credited her with.
The thought troubled Frank for the rest of the day, and stayed with him until he arrived, at twelve sharp, at the Harris apartment, in the Hotel Brindsy.
A rather pompous gentlemen answered his ring, and ushered him with a beckoning gesture into a large, sumptuous room filled with people Frank did not recognize.
He felt a bit squeezed by his stiff tie and collar, and the general indifference of the others-so it seemed-to his presence. So he headed for the bar and ordered a double scotch from an attractive brunette in a red-sequined dress who was acting as bar mistress.
Armed with his drink, he then began to wander slowly among the guests, looking for Angela, or even for Hughes.
He spotted Hughes first. He was taller than Frank had realized. And grouped around him were at least twelve people. The situation seemed impenetrable.
Before he could decide what to do, a short woman with a waterfall of bright blonde hair that fell to her shoulders intercepted him.
"Darling," she lisped, taking his arm and blinking up at him with light blue eyes which shimmered with silver makeup-not unattractively, "You do look bewildered by something. Can I help?"
"Thank you," Frank said. "I am looking for Miss Harris."
"Oh Angie! Well my first guess would be that she's with my husband. But as it's clear from here that she's not I recommend the bedroom. Naughty child, that," she whispered, wrinkling her slim nose at Frank as if to imply that everything was informal between them.
"Your husband?" Frank asked, somewhat intrigued.
"I'm Eva Hughes, Lang Hughes' neglected thing," she said, and leaned upon Frank's arm even more heavily, putting her nose into her deep glass and taking a gulp of her liquor.
With that announcement, Frank had had enough. He knew he had the looks that Mrs. Hughes was attempting to use to gain attention. But it was not at all the sort of attention Frank wanted from Hughes.
"Excuse me, please, Mrs. Hughes," he said, smiling as tactfully as possible and extracting his arm from her firm grasp.
Eva Hughes pouted and took a deep breath so that her rather small breasts inflated and then deflated in a spastic manner.
Frank went into the bedroom, as instructed, and sure enough he saw Angela lying upon the bed, her shoes kicked off and her back propped up against the headboard. She was dressed in a rich lace dress, the color of sand. The dress was cut unbelievably low, and her lush breasts were raised up by the tightness of the dress so that they were at least half exposed, and the crevice between them was shadowed and deep.
"Hi! "she said.
"Good evening," Frank answered a bit grimly, for he resented the presence of a rather overweight, middle-aged man who sat, obviously drooling over Angela, at the foot of the master bed.
"Meet Chippy," Angela said, in a deep voice, swinging her hand carelessly in the direction of the man who sat on the bed. The man nodded solemnly at Frank.
"He wrote the book," Angela explained. "You understand-he wrote the words and stuff to go with the music. It didn't do you justice, that music," Angela said directly to the fattish man, leaning toward him, her thick red hair falling over her face. She appeared drunk.
As she regained her position against the head-board, it seemed to register with Angela that Frank was not entirely at ease. She suggested to Chippy, at that point that he please go out and tell Hughes that Angela wanted especially to see him, in the bedroom.
"Tell him secretly now, Chippy," she added in her deep voice as Chippy left the room. She winked at Frank as she said this.
Frank had that identical twinge of terror in the pit of his stomach which he had often felt around Angela. He recognized it now to be a blown up version of what he always felt for any coed. There was something unfair about coeds. They had a man too much on the plank.
"Well, baby, am I delivering as promised, or not?"
Angela said in a taunting voice and rubbed the heavy white spread where she was lying with her foot, sensuously.
Frank was half afraid to approach her, she seemed so devastatingly female at this moment, like a blood-red spider in a web of lace. The room was filled with her perfume.
Before either of them spoke again, Lang Hughes came into the room, and without looking at Frank he went directly to Angela and sat down and kissed her.
Frank felt his stomach leap, and his blood hit his cheeks and temples as Angela drew her legs upwards, curling into Hughes' embrace.
The kiss lasted for a long torturous moment. Then, as Lang withdrew slightly, Angela peeked around his shoulder, winked at Frank, and said, "Lang, here's a friend we're neglecting. I want you to meet him. He's special."
Hughes turned his head a bit toward Frank, in what seemed an annoyed gesture.
"Who?" he said in an irritant tone.
"It's Frank Whitney, darling, a good friend. Do shake hands and meet properly," Angela urged in a cooing deep voice that turned Frank's shock into a suppressed rage.
Obediently Hughes stood up and offered his hand to Frank in a quick, seemingly impatient gesture.
Despite himself, Frank took his hand, and found his grasp firm.
"How do you do, Whitney," Hughes said, eyeing Frank with a critical expression. "You with the show?"
"No, no, darling," Angela said laughing. "Frank's a critic. I've promised him you'd talk to him. He wants to talk to you."
Hughes looked even more carefully at Frank now, and seemed perplexed.
"You will talk together nicely, won't you," Angela said. Frank found the entire scene almost unendurable. But an instinct told him to at least make a try for the interview with Hughes. So he stood numbly, letting Angela make all the connecting moves.
"Sure, sure." Hughes said, and fished in his inner pockets. He soon came out with a small white card which he handed to Frank. "Come up and see me anytime. Just give me a ring first," Hughes said.
It occurred to Frank that Hughes might be trying to get rid of him, so, in front of Angela, he decided to get a definite time.
"Let's make it an appointment. Something precise that I can count on," Frank said tersely.
He noticed Hughes' eyes narrow with something that appeared to be resentment, then he spit out, "All right, Wednesday at noon good enough for you?"
"This Wednesday at noon?" Frank said, turning his own schedule over rapidly in his mind. In back of Hughes Angela was nodding her head vigorously, laughing, flushed with excitement, as if it were all a funny game. Frank could see the warm creamy curve of one thigh where her leg was raised up.
"Yes, yes, this Wednesday," Hughes said abruptly, and sat down again on the bed beside Angela. He commenced to stroke her hair, and let her head fall limply toward his hand.
"Fine," Frank said grimly and turned to leave as quickly as he could. He managed to avoid a rather severe looking woman with red hair, whom he estimated was Mrs. Harris, and slipped out the door of the Harris apartment without further incident.
He went directly home, poured himself another drink, and sat smoking for nearly an hour, trying to piece together Angela's behavior.
The only excusable explanation, and one that barely satisfied Frank, was that she was trying to cover up her attachment to him in front of Hughes. For hadn't Lang's wife implied that Angela and Hughes were close?
This possibility at least brought enough calm to Frank to permit him to drop off to sleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
True to Ann's warning, Frank received notice in his Tuesday morning mail that Ames, the head of the English department, wished him to come by for a personal conference on Wednesday morning.
Frank had spent most of Tuesday evening, therefore, carefully preparing the questions which he would put to Lang Hughes the following day. If the interview went well with Hughes-or better yet, if he could secure another interview with the famous writer, then the paper he was planning on the creative process of writing would be well on its way.
Frank figured that, with Hughes' cooperation, the paper could be finished in another two weeks of hard driving work. The preliminary research for the paper was finished. All that lacked was Hughes' testimony, which Frank expected to use as illustration for the paper.
At the end of the two weeks, on condition that he still held his position at the college, Frank would be ready to contact Langsdown and make a date for the beginning of his lecture tour.
Rational thoughts of Angela Harris had never been possible. Frank tried to keep the irrational thoughts of her at a minimum. But her ele mental beauty had so deeply impressed itself upon his mind that he had difficulty seeing the rich blue of the autumn sky without associating it with the vibrancy of Angela's coloring. And then, at times gazing at the sky, the rounding clouds brought to mind the white, rounding glow of her body.
Frank listened to his own footsteps resound as he walked to Ames' office at nine AM sharp Wednesday morning. He found himself, even though she had probably been the initiator of the meeting, somewhat grateful to Ann for the warning.
He had armed himself with as many firm replies as he could imagine Ames would possibly demand of him.
As he entered the reception room, Ames' secretary smiled and said cordially, her eyes dim behind thick glasses, "Oh yes, Professor Whitney, Dr. Ames will see you right away. Go right in."
Frank straightened out his tie and turned the knob to Ames' office with as firm a grip as he could manage. His stomach was kneading again. He'd overlooked the Alka Selzer.
Ames was seated reading a letter as Frank opened the door. He was a short, thick-set man of about fifty-five. A grey mustache lent him a degree of distinction. As always, he wore the metal-rimmed glasses, a conservative suit, and dark tie.
Ames looked up quickly as Frank entered.
"Yes, good morning, Whitney. Take a seat, I'll be right with you," he said, nodding, but without smiling.
Frank seated himself and waited while Ames finished reading the letter.
Then Ames laid the letter carefully upon one side of his desk, folded his hands formally, and leaned over toward Frank.
"Well, Whitney, we've quite a bit of ground to cover in a short amount of time."
Frank nodded expectantly, politely.
Ames sighed, rubbed his folded hands, and then continued, "As you must know, running this department is hardly a matter of aesthetics, Whitney. I have a lot to consider besides poetry these days-so to speak."
Ames paused here and gave Frank a searching gaze. Frank nodded agreement.
"I've had to call you in here, Whitney, because there is not enough happening in this department. To come to the point-there isn't enough being published, and there are a lot of applicants for positions here who already have an impressive amount of publications to their credit. Do I make myself clear?"
Whitney nodded grimly, not wanting to speak out of turn until Ames had had his say.
"Now regarding you personally, Whitney, I'm afraid there is cause for an amount of alarm. It appears, according to my best knowledge, you've not published anything for the past two years. Is that correct?"
Again Whitney had no choice but to nod grimly.
"Well, in that case, perhaps you can tell me right away, in light of the demands of your position, what projects you have underway?"
"Yes, indeed, sir," Frank said, mustering up as much energy and enthusiasm as he could. "I expect to be lecturing at Meers College within the next month."
"You have a date?" Ames questioned, his brows raised in an expression of astonishment.
"Langsdown extended the invitation to me, informally, last week. I expect to be ready, it's a new paper on the creative process, it should be ready in two weeks' time, no hitch."
"What's holding you up?" Ames said, somewhat irritantly. "I suggest you get it in and present it to the department here by next week sharp. What's more, I suggest you write, or better phone Langsdown today and get a definite date."
"Yes sir. Is that all?" Frank asked, fully dreading some mention of Angela Harris, but wanting to get everything out in the open.
"That's all, and that's enough, Whitney." Ames said. With these words Ames stood and extended his hand.
As they shook hands Ames told him, "I'm on your side. But it won't be easy. Just make sure the paper is in, the lecture is set, and, last of all, that the paper is a good one."-
"I'll do that," Frank said.
During what remained of the morning, Frank contacted Langsdown by phone and expressed to him the earnestness of his situation, without glamor. Langsdown agreed to help, and called him back within an hour to say that the lecture date was set for Oct. 7th, less than two weeks away.
With this success, Frank spent the next half hour revising and adding to the questions he was to ask Hughes in an hour or so.
About eleven-fifteen, before leaving, he telephoned to make sure Hughes was expecting him.
Angela answered.
Frank paused to catch his breath with the unpleasant surprise. Then he asked for Hughes.
"He's right here, but it will take a minute. Can I give him a message?" Angela asked.
"I'm just checking on an appointment we had for noon today," Frank said.
"Oh, of course, Frank," Angela said, "One moment."
Frank could hear the click of her heels as she left the phone. Within a minute or so he heard her return.
"Frank, Lang is very tied up. He wants to know if you could make it another time?" she said.
Frank drew out a cigarette, lit up, and took a deep drag. He could almost hear Angela's breathing on the other end of the line.
Finally, "Are you there, Frank?"
"Yuh, I'm here, baby," Frank answered, his mind racing, his stomach forming panic patterns.
He was feeling deeply humiliated that he was falling into a highly reliant position to Angela, just as he had been to Ann.
"Listen, Angela, I need your help," he said finally.
"Yes," she said. "What's wrong?"
"Look, I've just had word from the department here that I've got to have this paper ready for them by next week. My job depends on it, thanks to Ann. I'm in hot trouble. And it all hinges on my getting through to Hughes right away. You understand?"
"I'll speak to him again," Angela said, "Hold on."
Within two or three long minutes she was back on the phone. Hughes had been persuaded to see him as agreed, this noon, within thirty minutes.
Before he hung up, Frank asked Angela to come over to his apartment that evening, to "straighten some things out that need it."
"I understand, Frank. I'll be there at nine o'clock tonight," Angela promised in her cool, polite voice.
Then they hung up. Frank rubbed his brow, grabbed for his overcoat and hurried rapidly to pick up a cab and get over to Hughes' as fast as possible.
The traffic was stubborn and inconvenient, making Frank nearly fifteen minutes later than scheduled. But Hughes was there as promised. And Angela had apparently left.
As if he were extremely pressed for time, Hughes led Frank quickly through a small hallway into a small, comfortably furnished room. He offered Frank a drink, and they sat across from each other for an uncomfortable moment before Frank began to explain his mission.
Hughes proved very cooperative and surprisingly candid throughout the interview. Frank could not help but wonder continually about the quality of the man in bed. That is, how successful he was with women. The answer to his question came unexpect-antly as Hughes offered to show him an uncompleted manuscript, in which the hero of the story was in the process of seducing and establishing an affair with a young woman.
To his dismay, Frank recognized the woman as modeled after Angela. He discovered this as he glanced at the middle of the manuscript. There the woman was described as "a long lean beauty with a whip of red hair and a stormy eye." Frank felt himself redden in the face as he was compelled to read on. Hughes watched him all the while with an expression of smugness on his face.
Frank took his eyes from the manuscript and stared at Hughes in a manner which must have seemed disbelieving. For Hughes smiled wryly, and stood up.
"Perhaps you'd like to take that home with you and ponder it," he said, with a tone of irony.
"All right," Frank said, also standing.
Nothing more was said between them until they reached the outer door. "I need badly to have another talk with you," Frank said. "After I've looked over and straightened out in my mind what I've learned today."
"All right," Hughes said. "Will one more talk be enough?"
"Quite enough I promise."
"Very good, let's make it tomorrow," Hughes said, without hesitating. "Noon?"
"Right," Hughes said.
"I'll be here. Thank you very much," Frank told him.
Neither man extended his hand. And Frank turned and left the building, catching a cab and heading back to Clinton for his class.
The doorbell rang at nine sharp. Frank went to the door and found Angela there dressed in a black trench coat, her hair loosened and falling about her face.
Rather than be angry at her not confiding in him about Hughes, Frank could only feel a great hunger for her.
She seemed more than normally tense, her eyes flickering their dark lashes, and her moist mouth parted slightly. Angela said, "Well I came. I keep promises, grant that."
Her voice was seductively low, and Frank felt ashamed somehow, ashamed for himself. Because, in all honesty, despite the obvious fact that she was Hughes' mistress, Frank still desired her.
She moved toward him, and her mouth searched for his.
Within the world of her mouth, his hands caressing the curve of her back and pressing her buttocks against him, pressing her firmly, Frank's mind turned off.
"Oh you do understand," Angela murmured, breaking from his kiss momentarily.
"No," Frank answered, and then, slamming the door, he brought her tightly against him with a firmer embrace, "I don't understand what you do to me. But maybe this will help-" and again he caught her mouth and their tongues lashed.
Angela was breathing in short gasps when they broke, and a happy, somehow dangerous half-smile was on her damp mouth.
Without speaking Frank put his arm about her shoulders, and they walked to the bedroom.
He took off her overcoat, loosened her skirt, and pulled her tight dark sweater over her head. Her breasts fell back from the sweater.
She was wearing only a slip, no bra.
"Male perogative again?" Angela asked, her great breasts heaving beneath her transparent slip-the pin-sharp pink of the nipples clearly visible.
"Something like that," Frank said, and felt his throat all tight, and his own breath coming hard. "Let's get all this out in the open."
With mischievous mockery, Angela gave a grinding bump of her curving hips, and then laughed with her head thrown back.
She stopped laughing just enough to say, "Oh doll, don't make us into a television melodrama too." Then she wrinkled her slim nose, and smiling, shook her finger at him tauntingly. "You bitch." Frank said.
"What's the matter," she countered, still grinning. "My game too rough? Want to go back to administrative Annie?"
"I've been reading about you this afternoon," Frank said.
"Really," Angela said, and brought her breasts and the warmth of her body against him. "Nice. Something Lang wrote? He writes very pretty things."
"He obviously knows you better than you implied to me."
"Did I imply," Angela said, with the same mocking smile, her cool hands leafing through his hair, tickling his ears.
"All right. What is your game?" Frank finally asked, his mind, body, and emotions straining for control.
"Game's over then?" Angela asked, her lips pouting in what appeared to be a mock disappointment. "Once I tell you what's in my hand we won't be able to play any more. It turns dull."
"Kindly explain what's not a game to you?" Frank asked her, pulling her hands away from him.
"OK, professor," Angela snapped, her eyes suddenly black, and her white teeth bared. "Here's where you get your education. So listen well. A game is a game so long as one person can't help but win unless he bears a handicap. In this case that's me" she snarled, and drew her tumbled hair back from her pale face.
"First of all, and get this straight, I don't need you to pull a good average at Clinton. In fact, I was doing better before I met you and that creature who still thinks of herself as your mother. Ann has brought my mid-semester average to an all time low!"
Frank did not attempt to stop Angela. The energy she created in her argument seemed to heat the room. She had backed away from him, and as she talked in a loud, emotional voice, she bent forward toward him, the way a kid will stand at a safe distance telling off someone he's afraid of.
"In the second place-I didn't tell you about being involved with Lang because I don't talk my personal life to anyone. Besides Lang and I have to be especially careful because of publicity."
"I notice Hughes' wife doesn't seem to have the same concern as you, Angela."
"Of course not. Eva wouldn't stop at wrecking his career if she could."
"It appears to me your care for secrecy isn't too effectual. Eva seems to be pretty well informed on the whole affair. And what's more, I notice past a couple of drinks she's quite willing to tell the whole story to the first person who happens to walk up to her."
"She's got nothing to go on but her vicious imagination," Angela snapped, her face taut with anger.
"Well, from what she told me I'd say it was a dangerously exact imagination. You underestimate her, my dear."
"And third," Angela went on, ignoring Frank's arguments, "If you check it out you'll find I never once said anything about getting seriously involved with you. And I never denied that I was seeing Lang."
"And the real killer," Angela went on, taking a step toward him, hugging her body beneath her near naked breasts, "The real killer was this afternoon when you told me over that phone that what I had proposed to you as a casual favor, had suddenly become a matter of life and death to you. Good heavens! It's all adding up to a drag, professor. And I think I could do without the whole mess!"
Frank stood quietly for a minute, until she seemed slightly unnerved by his silence, and went to dress.
"Wait just a minute," Frank said at this point. Angela turned, stopped.
"My turn, sweetheart. My speech. OK?" Frank said simply.
Angela shrugged her white shoulders, and put one hand on her flared hip, as if she were expecting to be bored.
"First of all, let me ask you one thing. What's in a game like this, as you describe it, what's in it for you?"
"Nothing at all," Angela said, her lean lips snarling. "So why do you play?"
"You wanted to play. I'm generous," she answered.
Frank took a step toward her, she visibly flinched, and retreated a step.
"Frank, I'm going now." Angela said, biting her Up and seeming nervous.
"You're terrified of me, Angela. Know why? 'Cause you forgot something in your nice neat analysis. You forgot feeling."
Angela bit her lip, and her handsome eyes widened as Frank neared her. He stroked the satin flesh of her arms, and then her cheeks.
She visibly trembled. Frank picked her up, then, and placed her on the bed. He loosened the slip's straps from her shoulders and held the tips of her breasts, one by one, in his mouth, pulling, warming them to life.
Angela moaned, and grasped for him, pulling his head down hard upon her melting mounds.
"You're right," she gasped. "My great handicap, greater than yours by far, is that I've wanted you."
"Be quiet," Frank told her. And from that moment their argument ended, and the duet of muscles and sensations swept them, beat by beat, caress by caress, into a fury of rhythm which erased all the meaning of anger and words.
"It was good," Frank said simply, after they had rested.
"Yes," she said. "It was."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Somehow Frank, after getting Angela straightened out, had managed to go over the Hughes' notes, and the manuscript Hughes had loaned him very carefully.
By noon, the next day, Frank entered Hughes' office again. Today he was exactly on time.
Hughes gestured for Frank to sit down. And then Hughes sat himself, selecting a large chair with its back to the window. Outside only sky was visible. It was a stark blue of September, as harsh as a blue-. jay's cry.
"I read the manuscript very carefully," Frank began. "It seems to me very interesting to compare the model with the fictional result."
"That's why I gave you that particular piece of writing," Hughes said. "I thought you could have a field day determining just how my fiendish mind distorts real things." With this Hughes laughed.
To see Lang Hughes laugh was a rare and remarkable event. His face became as extremely blithe, as it was normally harsh.
"The model, of course, is Miss Harris," Frank said, wishing to avoid anything progressing which seemed like a game-especially a game at his own expense.
It worked. Hughes stopped laughing abruptly at the statement, and even stood, putting his hands behind his back and working them nervously.
"Yes," Hughes admitted after a silence. "Please keep it to yourself."
"If I should use the manuscript, as you can imagine I would want to, I'd be careful to imply that it was written a safe number of years ago." Frank said. "In fact, perhaps you'd feel better if I promised to keep out of my paper any quote from the manuscript which might too easily identify Miss Harris."
Hughes nodded thoughtfully. "You know," he said gruffly, "I hate lies and petty cover-ups as much as any man. But in this case I can't see that I've any choice. Good God but there's a crowd of vultures about! Did you know that?"
Frank nodded, thinking of Ann and 'Daddy,' and, of course, dear Professor Ames, ever on his side but pushing him off the cliff at the same time.
"No, no, you couldn't know exactly what I mean, Whitney," Hughes objected. "You have to wait until you own about a thousand so-called friends, people who know your name and read your books, but don't have the faintest idea what you're all about. Get these people meddling in your life and you'll get what I mean. It's impossible."
Frank tried, briefly to imagine if there were a thousand people in his life like Ames, or Ann. The conception was so horrible that he gasped, and looked at Hughes.
"Yes," Hughes said. "I can see you've some notion how it is, at that."
Frank smiled, in spite of the rivalry he felt toward Hughes.
"Say, once we've finished this talk today," Frank said, "I'd like to ask you something. Please remind me.
Hughes looked at him with a critical expression, and nodded.
From this point on, Frank referred mainly to a list of questions he had formerly prepared to ask Hughes. These questions related strictly to the paper Frank was to write. But time and again the two men seemed to stumble on the embarrassment of discussing Angela indirectly.
The cause of this was the manuscript in which she was the leading character.
Frank asked Hughes several more questions, then stood up, shook Hughes' hand and prepared to leave.
"What about that last question?" Hughes reminded him.
"Oh yes. I had meant to ask you if you intended to marry Angela Harris-off the record." Frank asked.
"Does it matter what I intend?" Hughes replied. "Better pay more attention to what I do."
With this, Frank decided he'd had enough of Hughes to last a long time. There had been the distinct flavor of patronage from Hughes. And if there was anything Frank detested, it was condescension.
Frank took his leave of Hughes quickly, thanking him, but again refraining from a handshake. Hughes, likewise, did not show any sign offering his own hand.
Frank found it somewhat disconcerting to have thought that he had seen the last of Lang Hughes for a while, only to find Eva Hughes waiting in his outer office when he returned to the college that afternoon.
She stood up, wringing her hands with apparent anxiety, as Frank entered.
"Forgive me for bursting in on you," she said. Her eyes and nose were red, as if she'd been crying. Her petite body was clothed entirely in a rich dark brown dress. She wore a mink hat, and becoming dark stockings on her attractive, lean legs.
"Of course, Mrs. Hughes. Come in." Frank opened the door and ushered her into the small office.
As soon as he had closed the door, Eva Hughes took his arm-just as she had at the party.
Her smallness was extremely appealing, and her blue eyes looked up at him with a helplessness that was entirely irresistible.
"I of course know about Angela Harris' business quite well," she began. She bit her lips, and then added, "I've had to. That is, Angela has a way of involving me-unpleasantly."
"I understood that clearly the other night," Frank said simply, trying to spare her what was, apparently, a painful effort to explain something.
"Yes, yes. But, I-" here she broke off, and Frank noticed she was trembling. Her grasp on his arm had the same desperate quality it had had when he had first encountered her at the party.
"Let's sit down and relax a bit," Frank suggested. She nodded, with a bleak expression on her face. She then sat stiffly upon one of the nearby chairs, drawing her legs up attractively, allowing herself not the smallest degree of ease.
"I know about the manuscript Lang has showed you," she went on in an extremely tense voice. She continued before Frank had even a chance to sit down behind his desk. "I know what's in it."
She looked at him carefully as she said this. Then, crossing her lovely legs, revealing about three inches of sleek thigh, she added, "I've come here to get you to witness to its contents. I'm divorcing Lang. I need evidence."
"Uh uh," Frank said shaking his head. He felt a bad headache coming on. "The material was shown me in confidence. Professionally I could not betray such generosity."
"I can pay," she said, emphasizing her abrupt statement, by standing up and walking over to the front of his desk.
"I can pay, in many ways, not just in dull dollars and cents. My grandfather is a respected trustee of this University. You understand that kind of talk?"
Frank continued to shake his head, all the while seeing that she was getting more and more disturbed.
"I can make you head of this department! Do you realize that!" Her eyes were watering, and she bit her lips again, leaning with both hands upon his desk.
"Mrs. Hughes," Frank said. "I've had a trying day, and a headache to go with it. I'd appreciate it, very much, if you'd let me work out my own considerable problems before taking on yours, or anyone else's."
"Don't fool yourself," the woman answered, more firmly than ever. "Nobody's that independent. I can help you," she insisted.
"Look, let's get out of here. I think we could both use a drink," he said.
She looked up at him gratefully, her exceptional blue eyes blinking back her obvious emotion.
"Yes," she said simply. "I'd like that. But let's go to my place."
"All right. That would be nice too. But promise me-no more talk of the manuscript," Frank insisted.
She looked at him carefully as he said this. Then, apparently sensing the futility of insisting otherwise, she smiled again.
"I'll try," she said.
It took Frank very little time to collect what he needed for his work at home. For the most part he moved about his desk, pretending a certain involvement in order to give Eva time to apply fresh makeup to her face, and to calm herself generally.
"Ready?" he asked finally.
"I think so. Are my stockings all right in the back?"
Not knowing exactly what kind of error he was looking for, since the stockings were seamless, Frank nevertheless surveyed her legs carefully as she turned about.
Eva Hughes sported a pair of legs that were distinct and unforgettable. They were, like the rest of her, petite. And yet they curved gracefully outward at the calf, and suggested a nice cool swell of thigh above her brief skirt. The ankles were extremely small, the bones in them giving her foot a sharp, alert line.
"You look fine from this angle," Frank admitted.
She looked back over her shoulder at him, and smiled as if bashfully, with her lips closed and her chin dimpling.
Eva put her arm in his, and he had to remove it, pointing toward the outer office and shaking his head.
They walked, then, discreetly through the outer office, the halls, and found Eva's sports car drawn up in the "reserved for special guests" area of the campus parking lot.
"You see," she said, giving the little a car a sharp thrust on the gas, "I rate special privilege all over the world."
"You're in good spirits," Frank observed.
"Not really. But I alternate from maudlin to very, very brave. It depends how much I think I can get away with you see."
Frank admired the sharp line of her small face as he watched her take off her hat, and the sun-silk of her bold hair was struck and scattered in the wind.
Within fifteen minutes Eva had parked the car neatly on an exclusive side street.
She got out quickly, without waiting for Frank's assistance, and walked with a confident thrust of her neat little hips toward an impressive white stone house with trim hedges, and a brief velvet lawn.
"Here," she said, and walked up the steps. Then she opened her purse, apparently searching for the key.
"We won't be disturbed, and you can get rid of that headache in complete peace. I promise." She said this as she opened the door, and checked her mailbox.
"Nice house. I thought you said you had an apartment?"
"I didn't want to frighten you. Actually this house belongs to Mrs. Harris' ex-husband. He and I were great friends for years."
"It gets more complicated every minute," Frank remarked, as he followed her slim, twisting body up an initial flight of stairs.
"Not really, darling," she replied. "It's a funny story, actually."
She led him into a large front room with a grand piano at one end near the windows. On the walls were enormous paintings in original oils.
"The paintings are George Harris'. " Eva remarked. "He still paints. But not as much as before."
"Before what," Frank questioned, somewhat intrigued.
"Before the divorce, of course, silly," Eva said, tossing her hat and purse on the nearby sofa, and going out of the room.
When she came back she carried two martini glasses filled to the brim. She managed without spilling.
"If you don't mind, my curiosity is aroused. When did they divorce? And why did you say you and George Harris were good friends?"
"Oh, it all started when I married Lang. That was nearly ten years ago, if you must know. I was twenty at the time."
"You look that now," Frank said.
Eva smirked, her chin dimpling and trembling with amusement. Then she continued, crossing her sleek little legs so that her skirt reached new heights. She appeared to be balancing on just one of her tight little buttocks.
"Lang and George Harris, who you must realize is Angela's father, well, Lang and George were good friends," Eva explained.
"And of course, when Lang and I married, I met George, and we hit it off famously. I used to go to Miami, and then down into the Florida Keys with Lang every New Year for the Harris' regular blow offs. Mrs. Harris too, of course."
"Anyway, to make a long story short, they divorced. And Mrs. Harris, the old hag, blamed it all on me. And about five years after the divorce, Angela hits twenty-one years of age, and starts revenging herself on me by trying to break up my marriage. So the short of it is that Angela is no more in love with Lang than I am with her. She's just making a fool of him, and trying to pay me back for something I never did."
Frank found the story fantastic, but somehow creditable. Eva Hughes was one of those women who could seem extremely friendly with a man, and really not mean it seriously. Not that Eva was the type to give a man a run around. Not that at all. It was just that she looked too good to escape another woman's suspicion.
Frank raised his martini toward Eva, and said "I salute you, madam. You have guts."
"I'm not interested in protecting Lang anymore. His ego won't let him see the truth. And it's his funeral. I'm finished."
Eva stood up and came over to where Frank was sitting.
"Tell me, Mr. Whitney-"
"Doctor Whitney," Frank corrected her, just to tease.
"Tell me, Doctor," Eva went on, leaning toward him and parting her smooth lips, "Do I appear like a home breaker to you?"
Frank bent forward and took her mouth. He kissed her delicately, each of them holding their drinks, like two people on a tight rope.
Her mouth was cool and sweet-tasting.
Frank felt her biting his tongue, gently, and heard his breath deepening.
When they broke, their drinks still balanced carefully, she smiled through moistened lips. "I guess that proves it," she said in a thick voice. "Proves what?"
"I rather did have an effect on George Harris, even though I warned him. Anyway, I broke off with him after Angela started acting up. I thought it might call her off."
"Did it?" Frank asked, taking his drink now, feeling his headache ebbing and the hot drop of the liquor in his body.
"Nothing keeps her from Lang. Not even you, I notice."
Frank stood up, at this. "I'm going," he said shortly. "It's getting warm here." Eva smiled sensuously at him, but did not try to stop him from leaving. Seconds later he was on the street, feeling, above all, confused. He knew one thing, he had gotten away from Eva none too soon. The last thing he needed now was a third woman in his life.
Next time, Frank vowed, he would save himself the frustration of playing at sex games where the woman has the advantage.
He felt older and wiser-and meaner. Tomorrow he would square things with Angela, and with the university. And tonight, he would work-hard, and get the paper on Hughes ready for a preliminary presentation to Ames.
CHAPTER NINE
Friday was the sort of cool, bright day that perfectly reflected Frank's mood.
He reached Ames' office before anyone but Ames' secretary was about and dropped the preliminary report about Hughes on the dim-eyed secretary's desk.
With this, Frank walked quickly to his own office, picked up his mail, and opened a letter from Framer which he found among his letters.
Framer informed him that he was welcome to the farm any weekend, starting this very week. But that, for stays longer than the weekend, Framer suggested Thanksgiving or after.
This information coordinated very well with the plan which was forming in Frank's mind. For he could see no way to straighten out the confusion which seemed to pile up concerning he and Angela, except to take her away for a weekend, this weekend. And Framer's offer of the farm was just perfectly timed for such a project.
All that was necessary now was to confront Angela with an urgent invitation, and get her consent.
Angela ... for the first time since his day had begun Frank allowed himself that pleasant trend of thought. He remembered the way her anger had melted into desire for him just two days before.
When it came time for his afternoon class, Frank noticed that Angela entered the classroom late, and that she sat unobtrusively in the back of the room. She was wearing a striking white dress, and her breasts protruded like cones of frozen cream. Her hair was piled formally upon her head, giving her that regal appearance that was so characteristic of her, and yet so baffling in a girl her age.
As the class ended, however, Frank announced that he would like to meet several girls, including Angela, in his office after class to discuss their term papers.
After he had called into his private office each of the girls but Angela, he finally asked her to come in. As she entered, his room filled with perfume, and Frank admittedly felt once more the force of her beauty as she stood before his desk and drew long inflating breaths into the rich melons beneath her dress.
"I wanted a chance to talk with you," he explained. "Can you take the weekend with me? I've a farm we can reach in a few hours. I'll pick you up wherever you say about eleven o'clock tomorrow morning."
"Frank!" she exclaimed, her eyes widening. "You're absurd! How can you expect me to cover for myself. My mother will have to know where I am. It's impossible."
"Come on, baby," Frank insisted. "You're clever enough to interest a man. Certainly you should be clever enough to see it through."
"See it through?" she said, wrinkling her brow, her hands on her hips, her breasts edging forward. "See what through?"
"Whatever you start. You started with me, you have me going. And in order to help me get my life straight from the mess it's in, I believe you should spare me a weekend. Or is Lang Hughes' name on your dance card for this weekend?" Frank pressured her.
"Nobody's on my dance card-for any weekend," Angela snapped. "I've got work to do, and I don't go in for what you've in mind."
"You read my mind, do you?" Frank retorted angrily. "Then suppose you tell me what I've 'got in mind,' as you put it?"
"As far as I can tell, you think it would be fun and private if we both just hopped off for a couple of days at some old farm. I don't need that kind of privacy."
"No, I guess you don't," Frank said. "You have nothing to lose but your mother."
"Don't push me, Frank," Angela said, her face red and her eyes hot. "You ought to be the first person to understand that I can't move about on a day's notice. There is Lang to consider you know. He's in tight with mother. I can't do anything but the two of them gang up on me."
"Oh, so you've more than you can handle?" Frank said, taunting her.
"Don't expect me to do this again."
"Where can I pick you up?" Frank asked.
"Pick me up at the modern art museum," she said at last. "I'll be just inside the door. Eleven tomorrow."
With this, Angela turned, and her high placed buttocks wiggled angrily as she left the office.
Frank cleaned up his desk and prepared to leave for the weekend. It would be a busy weekend. He would have to finish the report. And he would have to straighten out Angela. Half joking with himself, he figured he would dedicate Saturday to getting Angela in line, and then Sunday he would use his advantage with Angela to get her to help him type up the report.
Frank left the office, and took a long walk in the wind before he caught a cab and headed home. His stomach, as usual lately, felt like a rubber ball somebody was stepping on. But his head was clear, as clear as the boisterous wind which he watched from the cab's window.
Leaves pulled on the branches or danced in confused circles along the sidewalks. It would be very pleasant on Framer's farm this weekend. Frank anticipated taking a long, refreshing walk with Angela tomorrow along the horse paths which pervaded the woods near the farm.
He reclined back into the cab now, closed his eyes, saw Angela again in his mind's eye. Her red hair, as he imagined her, flickering in the wind, her arm in his. His stomach squeezed a bit harder at the thought. And Frank took a deep breath to ease the feeling of wanting her.
The cab took a lurching turn, then pulled up outside his building. As Frank jumped out, he noticed Ann's sedan parked a few doors up the street. "Damn," he thought, "She still has my key. I've probably got another session with her coming up."
After paying the driver, Frank glanced anxiously upward toward the window of his apartment, as if expecting Ann's face there.
Then reluctantly he went to the elevator, and joined several tenants in the annoyance of waiting for the doors to open. Half of him wanted to bolt, certain that he did not want to confront Ann until things were a bit more solid under his feet. But he was through running and cringing, he told himself. He was going to face it-all of it-and he might as well begin now.
The elevator opened on the third floor, and Frank walked without hesitation to his door, put his key in the lock, felt the tumbler click, and then walked in.
"I'm in here, Frank," Ann called from the kitchen. He could smell and feel a hot steam of his favorite chicken curry. Ann was playing rough all ready. Poor man and his vulnerable guts, Frank thought grimly.
He walked into the kitchen to find Ann seated at the bright blue table, smiling, her eyes seemingly full of a softness that usually accompanied her coy moods.
"What's up," Frank said, tossing his books on the low telephone table just beside the door.
"Thought I'd fix you up something to celebrate," Ann said in a tone Frank recognized as affected.
He watched her take a deep drag on her cigarette, mash it out hastily, and then go to the stove. She was wearing dark red slacks, and her buttocks whitened the material with their moving pressure.
Frank took another deep breath, and felt himself lung-full of the pleasant odors of the cooking. More deeply, his nerve-ends were straining like fiddle strings. Ann was playing him, and an unpleasant impatience made him reach for a cigarette.
"What, may I ask, is the occasion we are celebrating?" he asked, lighting up.
"You, darling," Ann said, stirring the curry, her magnetic buttocks jiggling with the movement. "Ames called me today. You're off the hook."
"You mean the report?"
"Right-o. Ames says it's good. You're safe," she said. "I'm glad it worked."
"Let's eat," Frank said abruptly, and turned his back on her, flicking his ash into the tray on the table.
He heard Ann take a quick couple of steps toward him, and then felt her hands on his shoulders.
"We're a team, Frank," she whispered, her lips close to his neck, hot breath making his spine cold.
What difference does it make, Frank thought, feeling his body react to her, his arms growing restless.
Play with her and have some fun. It was a strange combination of anger and nerves Frank felt.
Ann put her arms about his body, bringing her breasts against his back, her thighs firmly against his buttocks.
"Aren't you overlooking something?" he asked coldly.
"If you mean our last fight," Ann said in a low soothing tone, "Well, yes. Let's forget that. I lost my temper."
"As I remember, a few of the things you said respecting my potency were a bit overdone," Frank continued, holding himself back.
"You were mean too," Ann said. "But let's not go over it now. Let's make up."
Frank broke her embrace and wheeled about. "What's your motive now?" he snarled.
Ann took a step backwards, and brushed her bangs from her forehead.
"How come you're so quick to threaten me with extinction and the next minute you're on my side, protecting me, as you put it? Are you really that shallow you can't decide whether to have me killed or have me in bed?"
"Okay, Frank," Ann said, her arms on her hips, her heavy breasts thrust forward in the thin jersey-top. "I apologize. Now let's stop jabbing at each other and act civilized."
"Let's eat," Frank said, disgusted. With this he pulled a chair and seated himself.
He began to eat. "It's good," he said reluctantly.
Ann smiled in a knowing, irritating way. Frank decided right then and there he'd have his fun with her tonight, and that tonight would be the last of it.
"Thanks," Ann said, smiling insipidly.
They finished eating and Ann rose and wobbled her buttocks on the way to the sink. Frank closed his eyes for a second, shutting Ann out and enjoying a minute of blank peace. Then came the sound of the faucet, the full rush of hot water bombarding his thoughts.
"Never mind the dishes," he said loudly. "Oh, it'll just take a minute," Ann retorted brightly.
"Oh, come on, Ann. I don't want to listen to that noise now. It's been a long week," he complained.
"You have something better to do?" Ann said, rotating her torso so that her breasts strained with contortion as she looked around at him.
Frank took a long hard look at her, from the bottom of her spike-heeled sandals with her glossed red toenails, up the curving of her calves and thighs that were packed tightly into the red jersey slacks. He let his eyes play on her tense stomach, pulled in flatly as if her breath were held. He registered the curve of her full hips retreating to her waist. Then the ripe, motionless breasts, like red apples on a windless day, waiting....
As he looked into her face, he noticed her lips were parted, and her eyes provocatively half-closed, but directed toward him.
He stood up. Ann did not move, but stayed there, watching him tensely.
Then he grabbed her waist and brought her against him. She -edged her face away, but he could feel her heart flutter under the insulation of her mounds. He grasped each ample buttock, and squeezed her roughly in his hands.
Ann raised one leg, as if to threaten him, placing it hard against his inner thigh.
With one hand he reached for her chin, brought her face around quickly and then bent and kissed her. She answered him, as he'd expected she would, hungrily, grinding her body against his, sucking and wrestling with her darting tongue. Her arms roped his neck.
Her leg that had challenged him dropped, and instead pushed toward him. Her buttocks bunched and firmed in their thrust as he stroked them.
Frank unbuttoned, unzipped, and undressed her lower body, raking the pants downward impatiently as if they were cobweb. Ann churned insanely, bumping against him, her eyes closed. Frank would have enjoyed leaving her cold at that point, with some remark about 'suddenly feeling impotent,' but his own body would not allow him the pleasure of such a game.
Ann moaned like a wounded animal, and clung to him as if she were sinking in quicksand. "Oh Frank," she said at last, "You do me good."
But he wasn't done with her yet. He would make her dance, but good. Bitch, he thought.
He went at her again, his legs charged with excited muscles, thrusting until he thought neither of them could stand up much longer. Ann began to pull down on his shoulders, her body quivering and collapsing on him.
He pushed her more sharply against the wall, and without a sound went at her again, working, banging at her body until he tore surrender from her throat, she, moaning, saying, "Oh, oh," in helpless pants. Then he could stand no more of it, and went down on the hard waxed floor with her.
After five minutes' rest, he stood up, took the key from her purse to insure she wouldn't get back in, and left.
"Don't be here when I get back," he told her. "I'm through with you. You bore me."
He saw her look at him as if surprised and disarmed. He had gotten to her this time, he was sure. And that was what he wanted: one less woman, one less crutch, one less complication.
He had a couple of drinks, musing to himself at the neighborhood bar. Then he walked back slowly to his apartment.
All the way up the elevator, Frank hoped very much Ann would have cleared out by now. He had a lot of work to do on the report. He wanted time off tomorrow, time for Angela, for straight dealing, and perhaps even for pleasure if things went well.
But pleasure with women was something he was planning to keep a rein on, even with the tall seductive Angela. In fact, particularly with Angela, since she represented his weak spot more than Ann certainly.
He reached his door, and opened it cautiously. The apartment was silent.
He spent the rest of the evening firming the report on Hughes. It was very pleasant to know something was tangible, and Frank realized the report was not only tangible. It was good.
CHAPTER TEN
Frank checked his rather cumbrous station wagon out of the garage, and found some good, cool jazz on the radio. A windy, dim mist of rain blew across the street.
He tried buzzing the parking zone before the museum, in hope that Angela would be ready and watching. She was. As soon as he pulled up she came out in a light colored trench coat, and hurried toward the car.
He helped her with the door, then found himself just inches from her large eyes. Her eyes seemed to match the rain, the day.
As he froze for a moment, looking at her, she quickly slid into the seat beside him, her long pale legs guiding close to him. And then, without a word, she put both hands on his face, and leaned to kiss him.
Her lips were cool and yet, as Frank found his body twisting to join hers and his blood jumping with excitement, he reached deeper into the smooth candor of her mouth and found the warmth of her there.
"You're delicious," he murmured when they broke off.
Angela's grey, exciting eyes darted back and forth toward his, her face still only inches away. He felt his ribs turn electric as he watched her moist lips part, smile.
Frank nodded, and then turned to drive. All the while a keen, swinging sound of a cool xylophone tapped away on the radio. Frank stretched his body, letting his foot down on the accelerator, enjoying the warm pleasure in the muscles of his legs that the movement caused.
"Hand me a cigarette from the glove compartment, baby?" he asked.
From the corner of his eye he saw Angela's slim white hand reaching, opening the little door, and deftly handing him the cigarette.
Frank liked to see her move. He wished she would take off the coat, let him see her taut, full breasts. Slyly he turned up the heat in the car, and shuffled off his own coat.
As he wrestled with the last sleeve, Angela reached to help him, her last movement being to tug his ear.
By the time they hit the turnpike, Angela unleashed the belt of her coat, and removed it, her large breasts straining forward in a thin, faint pink sweater that showed everything.
A stream of drab cars filed by to Frank's left, as he sped to pass them.
As the radio announcer attempted to give the news, Angela moved quickly to turn him off.
"Sometimes I like to forget who I am, even where I am," she said simply, and slid her body into the middle of the seat, putting her hand on Frank's thigh.
Immediately a pleasant streak of warmth travelled up the right of his body from her touch. Frank swerved the car to an abrupt stop along the gravel, and turned to her.
"Sometimes I like to forget everything but you," he said frankly, letting his eyes run over the round full curves of her breasts, and down to where her hips flared in a tight-fitting white skirt.
He put his hands on her shoulders, moved them down, grasping her body beneath her arms, feeling the heat of her there, and the soft pressure of her breasts.
He felt her ribs expand as she took deep breaths. Her legs stretched. Her mouth was relaxed, and her eyes seemed sleepy and desirous.
Her face was like a pearl set in the grey shell color of the car windows. Frank felt his legs charged with the tension of wanting her. He pulled her closer, his hands sliding down to the narrow of her waist. "Do you suppose," he asked her, "you can help me escape the bad taste of rumor and discouragement that Mr. and Mrs. Hughes like to put into me?"
Angela's dark eyes opened wide. "What do you mean?" she said in a husky voice.
"That, despite our good time last Wednesday evening, there still seems to be some question as to whose girl you are: your Daddy's, or Lang's or perhaps even your mother's. The very last possibility seems to be you are mine," he told her.
"My Daddy's," Angela exclaimed. "That's absurd!"
"Well, I am naturally put to wonder just how much of what Eva Hughes talks is fiction. I know what Lang writes isn't entirely false. And I know your mother isn't exactly impressed with you and I as a partnership. So, baby, what besides your kiss is real?"
"So everybody, including Eva, is talking for me," Angela said testily. "And you listen, do you?"
"I'm forced to listen," Frank said, simply. "Just as I was forced to watch you and Lang at the party last Monday. And what I see and hear together isn't exactly enough to be happy on."
Angela dropped her head, so that all he could see of her face was the straight cool line of her nose and the puff of her lips beneath her hair.
"Damn it, Frank," she said. "Do I have to answer to you-and everybody else. Why can't people just leave me alone-stop trying to corner me."
"I'm not people, baby."
"Yes you are," Angela answered with energy, flinging her red hair back, her mouth lifted from her teeth in a sneer. She looked at him directly, energetically, and her body stiffened. "You are when you put yourself into some sort of imaginary line up and then tell me to 'pick who.' Say, is this going to be a fun weekend, or a cross examination?"
"It depends," Frank said.
"No!" Angela said, raising her voice. "I want to know, because if you think I'm going to go through a lot of verbal garbage like we did the last time I saw you, then I'm getting out of the car right now. I want none of that."
"I realized you've already explained nicely how you don't need me," Frank said. "But there seems to be some inconsistency between your touch of me, and the words you send in my direction. For example, I've done a little checking up on your 'great average' at school. And I find that the mark Ann was about to give you isn't anything new. And your work in my class isn't even average.
"And more," he went on, "I made it clear when I invited you for the weekend that I intended some straight talk with you."
"Look, Frank," Angela said, her dark eyes narrowed angrily, "We both know this weekend could wind us up. Let's save the high dramatic scenes for later. I'm sure I don't want two full days of brinkmanship, starting now."
"I intend to start it now, and end it now," Frank insisted.
She did not say anything, but leaned upon her elbow against the dash, looking out of the front window, her pink breasts gracefully falling, making Frank's words come low in his throat.
"Angela," he said. "Eva Hughes tells me you are trying to break up her marriage. Not because you love him, or want to marry him, but because of some sense of revenge that I don't entirely understand. Something to do with her, and your father."
"That's stupid," Angela said. "Though I've heard her talk that way before. She's only trying to preserve her ego, and get sympathy. She simply can't hold Lang, and she knows how close we are."
"Why would she make up such a story?" he asked.
"How should I know?" she said, sarcastically. "She's sad. All this junk about my father and all. Lang and I have been attracted to each other for years. We became lovers. That seems simple enough."
"What the hell are you after, Angela?" he asked. "You can't just walk through peoples' lives like this."
"I can do what I want," she snapped.
"Not with me," he said.
"Especially with you," she snapped. "You're just jealous, Frank. I have no obligation to you. Just because we made love."
Frank angrily started the car, and shoved his foot down on the accelerator, pushing the speedometer until it had to race to keep up with the car.
"You're just jealous," she repeated. "I don't owe you a damn thing. I don't even know why I agreed to come along for this stupid weekend."
Frank did not answer, except to push the car up to eighty, watching the rear window, and wanting very much to get to the farm.
"You'll kill us," Angela said.
"Have a little faith in me," he snapped.
They drove in silence for another hour. Then, with a sharp left, that threw Angela against the door, he cut into the driveway of Framer's large white farmhouse.
As soon as he pulled up, Angela opened the door and started to run across the field across the woods. Frank started toward her, running easily, half amused and half terrified.
She stumbled once, and fell to her knees, but got up and started running once more. Her large buttocks jerked desperately in the hobble of her narrow skirt, her arms moving in all directions, trying to preserve balance.
Then he saw her take a bad fall, about fifteen yards ahead. Angela glared up at him as he approached her. She was rubbing her ankle.
And then she grabbed a large stick. "Stay away from me," she hissed, her face red and her hair tumbled wildly. Her breasts were dancing as she gasped for breath.
He fell to the ground beside her, and grabbed her wrist and twisted the stick out of her grasp.
He was prepared for anything. But she only lay there, her eyes large, her breathing heavy.
"Don't touch me," she said, and started crying.
He saw her lovely lips trembling, and he bent over and kissed her very gently. First on her cheeks, then lightly on her lips. She pulled away from him.
"Why don't we just forget the whole thing and go home," she said. "I'm tired."
"You're not tired," he said. "This is the only time you've been off your high horse since I've known you. You're just deflated."
"Yes, I am deflated," she said, with a low, moanful voice.
"And you're afraid of me," he said.
She nodded. "We're afraid of each other, Frank."
Suddenly, everything seemed quite clear to Frank. He looked into Angela's beautiful face and stared at her heaving body and knew he wanted her, forever and ever, no matter what the cost.
"Angela, I love you," he said simply.
"Frank," she said, with a deep huskiness. "Don't talk."
He looked down at her. Her eyes were firmly on his, her soft lips parted, her body still and expectant.
He reached for her with his mouth, and they met, hard and hungry. She ventured with her tongue, and her hands wandered all over his back, up to his neck, kneading and pulling on his shoulders to bring him relaxed and closer.
Frank had once more found the Angela he most desired. She had opened the magic way for them again. And this time, with her straining and churning to clasp him, to work with him, fighting the zipper, grasping, pulling, tearing to be entirely with him, the cold damp on her cheeks warming, burning red with want, Frank knew at last, without question that he would always be crazy for this girl.
She was no illusion. She was as much fire as her hair.
"Come on," he said. "Let's get inside." He started to stand and help her up.
"No," she said, in a suppressed voice. "Here. Now. It's good here. It's natural."
As she spoke she pulled on his body, reached, grasped his buttocks and brought him down to her again. She invited him with an expression of urgency in his eyes.
So Frank fell to her, opened her clothing, had his hands on the smooth warmth of her flesh, her thighs, her stomach....
They worked together, and he heard birds singing. "Marry me," he gasped.
"Yes, oh, yes, Frank," she said, and groaned.
And her body was liquid fire, and he closed his eyes, and in a moment he heard his moaning matching hers....
