The walls were decorated with larger-than-life murals, depicting the off-beat in sex-the ceiling, one enormous mirror-the floor carpeted in lush red fur as luxurious as any bed.
"Just ripe for the front pages," Anne thought, adjusting her camera. Suddenly there was the sound of voices and she ran into the closet.
"... Okay," girls' voices were saying as they entered the room. "What do we do?"
"Take off your clothes," a man's voice ordered. "Slowly. One thing at a time. Both of you."
"Like we was working like strippers," the girls giggled.
"That's right!" He began to whistle a strip tease song. "Now, come here. Let me feel. Let me audition you."
"Do we make the grade?" Anne heard them ask.
"Summa Cum Laude," he said gravely. Then Anne recognized the voice. It was the Dean-
CHAPTER ONE
The train chugged to a full stop before the station. Anne Winters leaped to her feet, charged with anticipation. Here she was, Ravenwood College. The Big Challenge! Step Number One in a campaign that could either be wildly successful or devastatingly disastrous. She had put across a sensational selling job back in the city-now it was up to her to deliver. It could be dangerous, dirty, but never dull!
Anne pushed over into the aisle, shoving herself along with the vital, noisy horde, looking-at first glance-like any one of the other ebullient coeds. Nobody'd guess the truth. Anne Winters was signing up for a course never before included in the Ravenwood curriculum.
She breathed a sigh of relief, stepping off the train into clean fresh air. Damn that grinning football halfback who'd shoved along with her through the sardine-packed aisle. He'd made it more of a Times Square on a New Year's Eve deal than just getting off a train. His share of sex for the day. If he'd mauled her anymore, she'd have yelled "Rape." But it wasn't the male student that was the subject of her absorbed attention right now-the male teacher was her objective.
"Wow! The enrollment's looking up!" A tall brash character grinned with masculine approval, until a fellow coed hauled him off towards a waiting taxi.
Fresh kid, Anne thought, not minding at all. He couldn't be over twenty-which was four years younger than she. But she'd have to start thinking young, Anne warned herself briskly. She was a sophomore student at Ravenwood College, no different from any of the others. She caught a swift, anxious glimpse of herself in the mirror of a gum machine. Perfect! She could pass for eighteen or nineteen without a flicker of suspicion; what with her impudent short hairdo and college-girl wardrobe.
Anne moved with the others towards the avenue of cabs, knowing that she was creating a sensation in the flamboyantly red knit that did such fantastic things for her audaciously-devised figure. In sweaters she could devastate a classroom, suggesting a combination of Bardot, Monroe, and Novak. The face perfectly featured, brightly inquisitive, highlighted a passionate mouth and astonishingly green eyes with Liz Taylor lashes.
"That's no way to get yourself a cab, honey," Anne swung around to face the handsome, mocking face of a six foot hulk of masculinity.
"What would you suggest?" Anne tossed back, realizing she'd been so lost in introspection that she'd let every available cab fill up to leave her behind with the other slow-movers.
"I might drive you out if you asked me nicely," he drawled, his keen brown eyes inspecting her casually, missing nothing.
"Would you like a tape measure?" She tilted her head provocatively.
"Let me guess." He squinted, enjoying the task. "Thirty-eight, twenty-four, thirty-five. Right?"
"Indecently close," she giggled.
"It would be easy to check," he said tentatively, his eyes sending forth a frank invitation.
"What do you teach?" she demanded coldly. "The art of sex?"
"I'd be glad to set up a special course for you," he assured her leisurely. "With lots of post-graduate work."
"How often do these cabs run?" Anne decided it was time to dispense with the chit-chat.
"They'll be back for another load in about twenty or twenty-five minutes. My name's Mike Rader-I run the local bookstore. Not the campus store-the town store," he identified it with a grin. "That makes me a respectable chauffeur for prospective students."
"How do you know I'm a student?" He might be useful, Anne catalogued, pleased at the encounter. A guy with a bookstore was a pipeline to everything in a college town.
"Honey, you pop off the train on the first day of registration, with that eager 'what's it going to be like' look on your puss. What else but a student?"
Yet Anne sensed a speculative quality in his evaluation.
"Student," she verified quickly. Thank heavens for that year of college centuries ago-it made the whole deal feasible. "Sophomore. I'm a transfer."
"You don't have to tell me that. I wouldn't have missed you last year." He was propelling her toward a rather beat-up convertible in the adjacent parking area. "Where you staying?"
"Monroe Hall," she supplied, sliding behind the door of the car as he held it ajar for her.
"You know, it's tough on an old guy like me to remember you kids are jail-bait. You're so darn sophisticated!"
"How old are you, grandpa?" She lifted one eyebrow in conjecture. "Twenty-eight, thirty?"
"Thirty, my pet. A nice round sum that puts me a good twelve years and two centuries ahead of you."
"Not quite," she murmured softly, finding this Mike Rader amazingly interesting on such short acquaintance. He could be useful, too, she reminded herself guiltily because her mind was straying along very un-academic paths.
"Dinner Friday night?" he suggested offhandedly. "This is Tuesday-by Friday you'll be bored with campus hash."
"You sound as though you've played this circuit for years," she kidded, wondering how she could steer the conversation into more fruitful channels. Fruitful for her campaign. Surprisingly, he saved her the trouble.
"What brought you here to dear old Ravenwood? The frantic publicity about its being chosen the Typical College of the Year?"
"I never go for the typical," Anne retorted with an edge of sharpness. He was flirting dangerously close to facts. "Is it the typical college?" She kept her eyes ahead.
Something about her voice captured his attention. "Why is that important to you?"
"It isn't!" Anne turned to stare at him with a growing antagonism. "Why do you expect the worst of people?"
"You're jumping to conclusions," he chided good-humoredly. "Typical College of the Year is supposed to be complimentary, didn't you know? Must have taken Ravenwood a lot of cash down back alleys to promote it."
"From what I've heard about the typical college student of the year-" she gestured knowingly.
"What about dinner Friday night?" he pursued again. "I'm a man with a one track mind."
"That could be dull-or dangerous." She ignored the faint pressure of his thigh against hers.
"Interested in finding out?" The pressure was intensified, gently insistent.
"I'm jail-bait," she reminded him.
"Are you?" he taunted, taking his eyes off the road for a fraction of an instant. "Fascinating little wench!"
"Does the Dean of Ravenwood College know about you?" Anne moved away from him, annoyed that this character could affect her so shockingly fast-and with such intensity. She was supposed to be objective on this jobl This was one hell of a start; to be side-tracked so fast.
"He'd be more interested in knowing about you," Mike told her with a chuckle. "Wonder how long it'll take him?"
"You mean he plays the field?" Anne stiffened to alertness. "The Dean?"
"The Dean has a one-track mind, too-one at a time. The younger the better. We take bets each semester who's going to come under his wing for some special private coaching, on the subject of erotica."
"You think I'd qualify?" she laughed, yet a certain reticence was seeping through her. Anne Winters was a thoroughly ambitious girl. She'd worked like the devil to sell herself on this assignment! But how far would she have to go? And with whom?
"I doubt it," he said quietly. "Be glad of it."
"What do you mean?" Her newspaper writer mind clicked furiously.
"You're a curious one!" His keen dark eyes searched hers as he unexpectedly swung off the main road into a private lane.
"Where are we going?" she demanded sharply. Instinctively, she knew he was detouring from Monroe Hall.
"I got a funny hunch about you, honey. Oh, incidentally, I can't go on calling you honey or darling the rest of the school year." He raised an eyebrow quizzically.
"Anne Winters," she said warily. "And you still haven't told me where we are going."
"This hunch of mine," he went on calmly. "It tells me you're a crazy kid who's looking for excitement. All that publicity about this being a typical college town, full of college hoopla and wild parties. You're out of your league when you start messing around with guys here. Like me," he went on with brutal frankness. "What's a college kid like you doing letting a strange guy pick her up? How do you know I'm not dragging you off to some dive to throw you on your back?"
"You wouldn't dare," she said coldly, her pulse hammering despite her outer casualness. He was right, of course-she was acting out of character letting him pick her up this way. Back in the city, Anne Winters was a strong-minded girl who could easily take care of herself, but here Anne Winters was an eighteen-year-old coed. Quite a different set-up. She'd have to watch herself or she'd blow the whole thing.
"Baby, I'd love it," he said softly. "Only I know better. Most of you kids talk wild and play little."
"That's what you honestly think?" Anne demanded sharply. "You figure all the magazine and newspaper talk about the loose-living college generation is strictly propaganda?"
"I think it's way out of bounds," Mike said frankly. "Sure, plenty of the kids sleep around, but there are a hell of a lot more who don't get into the real thing."
"Look under the blankets of the faculty and you get a much more torrid view, I'll bet," Anne quipped, watching him closely.
"That's just what I'm about to show you, sweetie " Mike murmured softly. "So you'll have enough sense to stay out of the major leagues if they should start scouting." He was pulling up before a small secluded cottage, flanked by a heavy wall of trees. A cottage completely hidden from the road; non-existent if you didn't think of penetrating the narrow pathway that led to the house. Almost a sexual symbol, Anne thought involuntarily.
"What's this?" A new routine, her mind asked warily? The old story presented in a slightly new version?
"This is the Dean's private classroom," Mike shot her a benign smile. "If he invites you for some special coaching, you'll know what he has in mind."
Anne followed him quietly up the steps of the cottage, her mind warning her there was something fishy about this whole set-up. Why should Mike bring her out here this way? Why so protective when he barely knew her? What was his beef against the Dean? She always did everything the hard way-the girl who was always too early or too late. Things were clicking into place with far too much ease. Suspicions shot wildly through her mind.
"Walk inside," Mike said, holding open the door, and the way he said it was a challenge.
"I hope this isn't the old etching bit, with a college degree," she flipped with a provocative grin, and walked into the living room. "Good heavens!" She stood stock still, staring in amazement. "If this is the Dean's private classroom, the village whorehouse must be the college day nursery!"
Her mouth fell open, her eyes popped as she surveyed the room with soaring disbelief. And then with deceptive slowness Mike Rader's arms were sliding about her, and his body moving close to hers. Lord, she was a prize sucker, she thought dizzily! She had walked right into the trap like a four-year-old following the man with the lollipop....
CHAPTER TWO
Mike Rader's mouth descended on hers gently-just a whisper of a kiss. Anne nearly fell when he carefully released her with nothing else.
"I couldn't resist that, Annie," he murmured softly. "I flipped for you the minute I saw you pop off that train with that wide-eyed eagerness; trying so hard to be sophisticated." His face took on a hardness that was an unexpected switch. "Something about you that reminded me of my sister. She went to school here for a while."
"What happened?" Anne tried not to look about her now.
"She thought she was pregnant-the guy took her to some quack. She died. Nineteen years old, Annie, and she died on a makeshift operating table in a dingy rooming house. And she wasn't even pregnant-the autopsy showed that. We managed to keep it out of the papers." He laughed humorlessly, his hand clenching and unclenching. "The Ravenwood faculty was most anxious to keep it out of the papers, because she was going out secretly with an instructor.
Nothing you could take into court, but it was murder."
"Not the Dean?" Anne gazed incredulously.
"No," Mike conceded. "The Dean's son. Teaches biology. Isn't that a laugh? That was two years ago. Five months later the son got married, and everybody quietly forgot about Patty. Only how can a brother forget?"
"I'm sorry," Anne said intensely. "I'm sorry I brought it all back so sharply."
"I opened the bookstore here in town right after Patty died. I had some crazy idea about justice." He laughed again-the same laugh that was more of a cry than anything else. "I snooped around, trying in some screwy way to dig up something I could take to the Dean to denounce his high-and-mighty son. After a. while I stumbled on this joint."
"I never saw anything quite like it," Anne whispered, forcing herself, self-consciously, to look about.
"There's probably never been anything like it, in your life or mine-and I've been around," he admitted wryly.
Anne stared open mouthed at the hand-painted draperies that covered a whole window-wall, wondering what artist had obliged with the series of sketches. They were elaborations on the sex act-one position after another done in an exaggerated style that was sickening. There were vases, ashtrays, lamps-all delicately hand-wrought, in phallic symbols. The wall opposite the window was set up for screening movies-and it was easy to guess the subject matter on the reels of film so decorously placed on an adjacent table.
"It's unbelievable," Anne gasped.
"Come on into the bedroom," Mike urged quietly, taking her by the hand.
He opened the door and waited for Anne to enter. She halted in the doorway, her breath heavy and uneven.
"At what university did the good Dean study?" Anne flipped, her eyes popping at this additional journey into erotica.
"Quite a layout, isn't it?" His voice was husky despite his efforts at nonchalance.
Together they inspected the sight before them as though mesmerized. Three walls decorated in larger-than-life murals, depicting the off-beat in sex-the ceiling one enormous mirror-the floor carpeted in a lush red fur that was as luxuriously soft as a comfortable bed. The sole furniture in the room consisted of a king-sized divan in white and gold, placed in the center, like a setting awaiting its precious stone.
"It's like something out of another age," Anne managed a nervous giggle. "Makes me think of Du-Barry and Madam Pompadour."
Mike chuckled. "You'll collapse when you see the Dean!"
"Stuffy, dignified, and a cold fish?" Anne guessed. "A perfect portrait," Mike acknowledged, his eyes traveling over the red knit and its luscious contents. "You know, that crazy rug's the exact color of your dress?"
"It is, isn't it?" Anne's eyes met his and stayed there, both of them deafeningly conscious of the other now. "Would you believe it-it's the first time in my life I've ever worn red." Small-talk, anything to cover the screwy thoughts dashing through her head, Anne admitted silently. She guessed at the wildly unrealistic ideas chasing through Mike's head, aware of the emotions tearing through him as they stood there, just touching, in this incredible cottage.
"You look great in red," he whispered huskily, gripping one shoulder as though he'd pop out of his skin if he couldn't reach out to hold her. "You'd look great without it, too," he added, taking inventory, with better than frank admiration.
"That's a compromising remark," she flipped un-convincingly. "You've been taking private coaching from the Dean."
"Not lately," he corrected unsteadily. "Lately, I've been too tied up in knots, too eaten away inside, to remember such things existed." He had both hands about her waist now, moving with sensuous pleasure over that brief span.
"All that business at the railroad station, the invitation to dinner? Small-talk, from habit?"
"Something like that." He pulled her close, his face against her, his chest brushing those full passionate breasts, thighs touching thighs.
"Something contagious about this room, Mike," she murmured, her hands on his shoulders now, feeling his desire, glad for it. "Somebody should have hung out a sign."
"I've got it bad, Annie." He swayed with her, his mouth brushing her hair, down her cheek, her throat, and when it reached the hollow between her breasts Annie knew she didn't care what happened. Only that it would happen.
"We're out of our minds," she warned. "This isn't on the list of courses recommended by the faculty."
"The Dean would approve," he reminded her softly. "In fact, you might say he's urging it." Anne caught the odd little smile about his mouth as he released her, unexpectedly. She waited in silence while he bent down to remove his shoes. "It wouldn't be fair to desecrate that rug, would it?" Mike reached for the smart black suedes that were already half-off Anne's feet, as though she'd compulsively followed his lead.
"You seem to be doing all right on your own." The sound of her voice in that sudden overpowering stillness startled her. What on earth was she doing here? Like the thing Mike had said earlier, about letting him pick her up. Maybe she wasn't eighteen, the way he thought, but his exhortations still carried impressive weight. An impish chuckle escaped her, though, as Mike fumbled with the zipper down the back of her dress. "Out of practice?"
"We'll take care of that fast," he whispered, his breathing uneven in anticipation. Everything Anne's mind ordered her to do, her body rejected. She couldn't walk out now! Afterwards, they'd pretend this crazy interlude never happened, but at this moment it was the only thing in the world that mattered. "Lord, you're beautiful!"
The zipper had moved swiftly once Mike found it, and now the red knit lay at the edge of the red rug, and Anne felt excitement surging through her as she read the desire in his eyes. Mike wasn't just a pick-up, her conscience insisted. Something special about him-not just the professor-ish good looks, the well-knit male body that was the focus of her attention at this moment. Something about this man was compelling, fascinating. She had an insane longing to be sure there'd be more than just today. She wanted to know everything there was to know about Mike Raderl
"I'll bet the Dean could do better than that remark!" She took refuge in raillery because the frantic love his eyes made to her was driving her too fast.
"Make sure you never find out." She stood there, poised as though for flight, while his eyes caressed the sight of her in the sheer black bra and panties that were a seductive contrast to the milky whiteness of the rest of her. And then his hands were reaching for the hooks of her bra, and a soft moan escaped her as the black lace loosened and fell and his hands replaced them. "Oh, Mike!" She closed her eyes, wanting only to feel.
His hands made a cup for the lushness of her breasts, and his mouth moved to tease the taut pink nipple. The hands moved downward with tantalizing lightness, taking the black lace panties with them, down the firm white thighs, the perfect legs. And his mouth followed the path of his hands, and they stayed there, a tableau in passion-Mike on his knees on the blood-red rug, and Anne with her hands clutching his ruddy crew-cut, her eyes tightly closed, her lips parted in anticipation.
"It's awfully comfortable down here." He broke the silence, his voice husky as he stretcherd across that ripe redness.
"I don't doubt that." Anne's eyes followed the length of him while he silently peeled off his own clothing, that same odd smile about his mouth.
"Come here, Annie." He extended a hand to help her down to the rug beside him, and they lay side by side-two hungry people-each recognizing the other's assets.
"I'm here," she whispered, wishing he'd stop the casual by-play. "What are you going to do about it?"
It was a challenge Mike couldn't ignore. Anne sighed with incoherent appreciation as his hands sought to love all of her. Then his mouth above hers, hard and demanding; his tongue, a pointed flame finding hers, writhing with hers as her body writhed within.
"That was good," he murmured hotly, coming up for air. "I'll bet we can do better."
Again his mouth was blending with hers, their tongues frantically lashing. His legs swinging across hers; his broad masculine chest heavy on her breasts; his thighs moving with hers.
"Oh, Mike!" Anne moved with him, her breath coming in tortuous gasps, her hands clutching at him. "Oh, darling!"
His own body ablaze, he teased her, knowing her soaring frenzy; exciting her with hungry skill, until she couldn't bear it anymore. He felt her hands search for him, the tingling sensations in his body becoming as unbearable for him as it was for her.
"Annie, you're terrific!" His teeth nipped at her ear, his body moving rhythmically with hers until she sobbed with a glorious mixture of relief and anticipation, knowing this was only the beginning for two such as them. "Annie, baby!"
They stopped talking now, plunging, plunging, plunging; their bodies a confused ripple of waving movements, their towering passion tearing at them until it surpassed even them.
"Oh, Mike darling, don't let it be over. Mike, please."
For a moment they lay there, locked in completeness, and then Anne felt his arms and his body relax their tightness, as her own were relaxing, and suddenly she caught a glimpse of them in that weird ceiling mirror, and laughter shook her.
"That lousy mirror, Mike!" Her eyes were both horrified and fascinated. "I feel like tossing a brick at it."
Mike swung over on his back, staring up at the view.
"Crazy, isn't it?" he grinned for a moment, until his eyes met hers again, and they both forgot the mirror.
Mike was on his back, swinging Anne above him where the Dean's mirror could cause no havoc. But the two of them remained terribly aware of those murals, offering overt suggestions. Suggestions they were irresistably drawn to accept.
"Mike, we're out of our minds," Anne whispered protestingly, but the protest was a sham. They both knew it. "Oh, Mike, Mike, Mike!"
CHAPTER THREE
Incredibly, it was over. Anne lay back across the white and gold divan, her fingers trailing the tensely set outline of Mike's face. Less than two hours ago she'd stepped off the train! This education she hadn't expected. Later she'd remember her reason for being here. The towering importance of success in that mission. But right now she didn't want to think.
"Mike, what's the matter?" Curiosity impelled her to ask. The way he lay there, tight and somehow angry with himself, frightened her.
"I'm the matter," he said angrily. "Bringing a kid like you out here. I should have known what would happen!"
"Mike, I'm not a kid," she insisted softly.
"A college kid, like Patty." He rose to his feet and grasped at his clothes. "I'm no better than that other louse!"
"I'm not a kid." Anne tried to get the message across. "And I'm not exactly a stranger to sex. Couldn't you tell that much?" She managed a cynical smile.
"I make such a production about guys who go out after the college kids, and look at me, the great God Mike!" He was dressing swiftly, avoiding her eyes.
"Mike, look at me!" She leapt to her feet, unaware of the passionate sight she made beside that white and gold divan until she saw that look in his eyes. "All right, wait till I dress," she said impatiently, and hurried into her clothes while he watched in angry silence. "I'm going to tell you something, and then I want you to forget it."
"What?" he smiled lopsidedly. "The sordid story of your high-school sex life?"
"I haven't been in high school for eight years," she told him calmly. "And my sex life-twice I was sure I was wildly, permanently in love. We couldn't afford to get married right away, which turned out to be a blessing. We just never made it in bed. I guess I have the makings of a nymphomaniac."
"I should have guessed you weren't a kid." He stared in amazement. "But you could pass for eighteen without a murmur," he insisted, then curiosity took over. "Why the act, Annie?"
"I came here to do a job. As a student I can ferret out the information I want."
"Let's get out of here," he ordered brusquely. "We can talk in the car."
They walked out of that bedroom, through the outlandish living room, their eyes fixed on the door ahead, eager to avoid the lurid walls.
"That crazy notion of yours," Mike said quietly, as they settled themselves in the car again. "That bit about the nymphomania. The guys weren't men enough for you, that's all. You're the best, honey."
"Coming from you, that's a compliment, I take it," she flipped.
"What's this secret project of yours?" He reached into his pocket for a cigarette, handed it to her to light for him.
"I'm a free-lance writer at the moment. I took a chance, quit my nice comfortable job on a New York newspaper to try to sell myself for a feature series. If I make it, I make it big. If I flop," she shrugged it off carelessly but they both knew better, "I can always get a job as a typist or receptionist. I've done it before."
"What kind of a series?" Mike prodded, and Anne remembered he ran a bookstore. She shot a sidewise glance at him. Writing the Great American Novel on the side, she wondered? Possible. He looked the type-he had that dedicated thing about him, like the way he felt about his sister. It took dedication to put three or four years in on a book-she couldn't do it. Annie was impatient for success now. She wanted the excitement of knowing she was somebody, plus the bankroll that went with it. "Well?" he prodded. "Is that a secret, too?"
"It'd better be, to most people in this town," Anne chuckled, a glint in her eye. "They'll be out to lynch me if they find out!"
Mike cast a skeptical glance at her. "I hope you know what you're doing, honey."
Anne speculated briefly. Maybe it'd be the wise angle, to tell Mike. He had a real gripe against part of the faculty already, after what had happened to his sister. Not that she blamed him for that. But a smart girl could easily utilize that grudge.
"It's a series for a New York tabloid, on the sex life of a typical college professor. Sex with a Ph.D."
"You serious about that?" His voice was low and devoid of anything but casual curiosity. Anne sensed his shock. This was something she hadn't anticipated.
"Why not?" she countered defiantly. "I'm sick and tired of hearing the perennial cry about the degenerate college generation. Why not ferret out the truth about what goes on under the sheets of the great American College Professor?"
"That's what you're using for an excuse," he said grimly. "You're after a fast buck and to hell with who gets hurt," he interpreted bluntly.
"That's a rotten attitude!" Anger stained her cheeks, lending fire to her eyes.
"A lady peeping Tom." He kept his eyes coldly ahead. "Looks like I tagged you all wrong, Beautiful."
"Now you listen to me," Anne murmured intensely. "This is a tough world and nobody's laying out a carpet of rosebuds to make it easy for me. I've been earning my own keep since I was seventeen, which incidentally was when I left the halls of ivy behind me for lack of that money that apparently makes you so sick. I've been searching for a gimmick for years, some lovely shortcut into success. If I hit it right with this series, I can write my own ticket in the future."
"I must be slipping. I had you wrong all the way." His eyes stubbornly avoided hers.
"Suddenly so moralistic?" Anne scoffed, anger tinged with apprehension surging through her. God, she'd been naive, spilling the truth to him that way! "You could wreck my whole set-up," she admitted warily, watching him.
"I won't louse you up." He was turning into a long private driveway. "Here it is, Annie. Monroe Hall."
"Thanks," she said coldly. "It's been a short but hectic friendship!"
Without another glance at Mike, Anne reached over into the back of the car for her valise, shoved the door open with unnecessary force, and walked the path to Monroe Hall.
"Hi! I was wondering what I'd draw, with my usual lousy luck. Must be changing with the new scenery." A slim, arrogant blonde with a cold attractiveness sprawled across one of the twin beds in the room assigned to Anne. "I'm Rea Camden, the room-mate," she drawled in explanation.
"Hi, Rea. Anne Winters." Anne smiled cheerfully, rather relieved herself that she'd drawn someone who wasn't drooling with wide-eyed youthfulness. Rea might be the standard age but she knew the score.
"It could be gruesome tied up for the whole year with a creep." Rea stretched luxuriously, eyeing her room-mate with appreciation. "I don't give a damn about the degree, natch-it's just a lot easier to have fun here than back home with my folks watching me every minute. To listen to them, you'd think I was on the road to ruin." She giggled, her youth showing through briefly. "I got expelled from three high schools and they got the jitters. Not that anybody could prove a thing, really-it's not like they caught us in the middle of the act. Just a little before once, and twice right after. I hardly had time to get my clothes back on!" She flung her head back reminscently. "The boy I was with each time nearly died of fright." She was watching Anne covertly; trying to see if she'd get a rise out of her, Anne guessed.
"You pick Ravenwood for the usual reason?" Anne swung herself across the other bed, aware of Rea's detailed inspection.
"You mean that splash about being chosen Typical College of the Year?" Rea said nonchalantly. "I suppose it might have helped. They're going to do a terrific magazine spread on Ravenwood again at the end of the year, I heard. It might be fun to see my picture splashed about in a national magazine." A glint of excitement appeared in her heavily made-up eyes.
Rea was what they meant when they talked about the promiscuity of the college set, Anne thought in-stantly.
"You get a look at any of the teachers yet?" Anne inquired offhandedly, reaching for her valise to start unpacking. Her trunk would arrive tomorrow, to give the legit touch to her set-up. Not that she'd need a trunkful of clothes-two to four weeks and this whole story ought to be wrapped up. "Male, I mean." She shot a wise smile at Rea.
"Not yet, but I've heard rumors." Rea folded her hands behind her head, a wise little smile of anticipation lighting her face. "The chemistry instructor named Meadows-I hear he's like something out of a Hollywood movie. The sexy kind, and he's the hero."
"Married?" Anne tried to look intrigued; eighteen-year-old style.
"Who cares?" Rea shrugged. "But the way I got the story, he's got a habit of becoming very absorbed in students-young, attractive, and stacked. They say he has a way of checking an experiment right there in the classroom!" Rea gave what Anne interpreted as a shiver of passion. "He rubs more backsides than a lady masseuse at a Palm Springs hotel!"
"Too bad I'm not taking chemistry," Anne sighed elaborately. But there'd be other ways to meet this Meadows character.
"I am. The chemistry I'm interested in fits into other categories-but I figure he might extend his teaching if I play it right. I'm tired of kids," Rea said frankly. "I'd like a real man for a change. The part of my college education Mommie won't have to pay for," she flipped, reaching for a bottle of nail polish Anne was placing on the unoccupied chest of drawers. "Neat. You mind if I try it?"
"Why not?" Anne smiled, her mind clicking away like an electric typewriter. "Say, I have a terrific idea! Why don't we make a pact? Let's concentrate on older men this year-nobody under thirty. Then we compare notes!" Anne's brightly pert face sparkled with synthetic excitement. "I'll bet we come up with some dolls." That ought to speed up the research, with Rea working for her. And with her cash resources on the shaky side she'd have to wrap this up fast. There'd been no way to avoid plunking down a whole term's tuition, though she'd arranged for monthly board and room payments. And she'd never see that tuition money again. "Like the idea?" she pursued.
"Great." Rea nodded, her face alight with in-quisitiveness "You got a thing for older guys from experience?"
"I've been out with some," Anne conceded, the first pangs of guilt touching at her now. But she wasn't leading Rea down any paths this hot little babe wouldn't be following on her own. It was that lousy Mike, putting her on the defensive. She had a job to do-the way it was done wasn't important. Success was.
"I heard my old man say once, kids are like jack-rabbits-it takes an older guy to make a gal know the McCoy.' Of course, he didn't know I was listening," Rea giggled. "He was in the den getting fit with some buddy while my mother was away. Boy, could I have blackmailed him after what I heard."
"You make a play for this Meadows guy," Anne was busy climbing out of the red knit now and into skintight slim jims and a matching top. She noted the gleam of approval as Rea watched. "I ought to be able to find somebody worth a play on my schedule."
Anne's mind shot back to the Dean, and his cottage-and her breath quickened, remembering Mike. Why hadn't she kept her mouth shut with him? Nothing else, she told herself with a flash of humor-just her mouth. He'd really shook her up-worse than the mad thing with Jeff all those months, when they'd been waiting for his promotion to come through so they could afford to get married. But Jeff hadn't stood up after the first mad weeks-maybe Mike would fizzle out the same way. Only deep inside, she didn't believe this. Mike was the real thing-he knew all the angles, the whole score. Damn, she could have gone for him so bigl Forever! So she'd shot off her mouth and loused the whole deal up. Loused it up for herself-and for the job she was here to do, if he decided to talk. Apprehension sneaked through her. Would Mike be quiet? She'd never pulled such a fool thing before!
"Hey, Winters! Anne Winters!" A high-pitched feminine voice yelled up the stairs.
"Yeah?" Anne stuck her head out the door.
"Phone call for you. A guy."
"Be right there!" It must be Mike, Anne thought, pleased. She didn't know another soul on the campus.
"You don't waste time, do you?" Rea was watching with undisguised admiration. "What do you do, send out radar signals?"
"He gave me a ride from the railroad station," Anne explained, heading down the hall already. "Tell you about it later."
"Just introduce me," Rea yelled after her. "Maybe he's got a friend!"
Anne raced down the stairs to pick up the phone, wondering what had prompted this fast about-face. When she'd left him, Mike had looked upon her as though she had leprosy. The Great Moralist, she scoffed, to soothe her own doubts.
"Hello."
"Hello, Anne. It's Mike."
"Hi, Mike." She waited, slightly out of breath; not merely from the run down the stairs.
"You left your gloves in the car," he said calmly.
"Oh." So that was it-the polite gentleman. Or did he think she was coy enough to do that deliberately? "You can drop them in the mail if you're busy," she forced herself to suggest with an undercurrent of mockery. As though daring him to see her again. She wanted to see Mike again-why lie to herself about that? Maybe she'd find more at Ravenwood than she'd originally hoped for.
"I'll bring them out. After dinner," he strived to sound matter-of-fact, but it wasn't coming off well.
"Mike...." Anne hesitated, reluctant to drag up the thing that hung between them, but her earlier curiosity taking over. "What did you mean when you said I wouldn't qualify with the Dean?"
"No aspersions on your assets, honey," he chuckled unexpectedly. "It's just that the Dean goes for wide-eyed innocence, the kind that's rarer than a stripper who teaches Sunday School. He'd really have a ball in a junior high school but he's scared to go below the age of consent."
"Maybe he'd have a change of mind, under the right auspices," Anne taunted with a surge of gaiety. "Take any bets?"
"Why don't you get out of town, Annie, before somebody cuts that lovely throat?" Mike was suddenly ice-cold again. "I won't tell, but the next guy might not be so easy to handle."
"I have an assignment, remember?" Why had she come out with that idiotic remark? From the minute she'd stepped off that train this afternoon, she'd done nothing right! Maybe Mike was right-maybe she was out of her depth. But she wasn't stopping now-not a gal with her stubbornness. She'd see this through, one way or another. No matter what it entailed.
"I'll drop the gloves off at Monroe Hall," Mike said quietly, and hung up.
Anne flopped down upon the stairs, hating herself for handling this so stupidly. To Mike she was probably an out-and-out tramp. A girl who'd been so easy with him, and who'd be just as easy with any other interesting looking John who happened to come along. It wasn't like that with her at all-just this nutty talent of hers for talking too much. She'd have to watch that from this point on. Her job was to gather data-the sex life of the American College Professor. That didn't mean she had to live it. How many instructors on the faculty, she chuckled inwardly? Not even a would-be nympho like Rea could cope with all of them.
She walked slowly up the stairs again, Mike's words echoing in her mind, because they contained an element of truth.
"Why don't you get out of town, Annie, before somebody cuts that lovely throat?"
CHAPTER FOUR
"Winters! visitor!" The same feminine voice caroled up the stairs to Anne as before. What did she do, Anne wondered, hang around waiting for any available male? The girl with the voice-Carla something or other-had the look of a scared nymphomaniac. If Carla were in any of her classes, it might be advantageous to watch her.
Anne sprinted down the stairs, knowing it was Mike Rader waiting down there. Thoroughly conscious of the tempting portrait she made in the deep purple slim jims and jersey top-which fit her as though they'd grown together with that voluptuously white skin-Anne made a point of protecting that whiteness.
"Hi," she slowed down to a sinuously taunting gait. "Sorry to drag you so far out of your way."
"Here're the gloves," he said shortly, then hung there as though debating about saying more.
"Or is this out of your way?" Her color heightened, angry at his indecision. "I gather you know this field very well." Her eyes swung over to Carla, making it her business to check on Anne's visitor. Obviously impressed, Anne made a mental note, and this annoyed her even more.
"See you around," he said, his eyes oblique, then he turned on his heels and strode out of the room.
"What does he teach?" Carla babbled avidly. "I'm getting in line right now."
"He isn't an instructor," Anne informed her coldly.
"Private property?" Carla pressed.
"I don't see any 'no trespassing' signs up, do you?"
Anne headed determinedly for the stairs. She hadn't come here searching for the Big Romance, so why get all keyed up? If she developed the animal urge so desperately again, there were plenty of men available on the faculty, she thought, her chin set. If she were going to play, at least put it to good use! Her mind was jumping now on how to handle the series. She'd talked volumes about it, without actually presenting the editors with a concrete format. Actually, she didn't know that herself-but it was beginning to come to life. The diary of a sorority sister-done in frank, unflinching style, no details omitted. Maybe she'd have to hang out the friendship towel for Carla-this would be a sorority sister with many faces!
"Why'd you let him get away?" Rea pounced avidly upon her at the door. "I was watching through the window-that one's something!"
"He's a nut," Anne said crossly because she was annoyed with herself.
"I wouldn't mind going nuts with him." Rea went into that crazy passoniate shiver that was part of her. "Introduce me, room-mate?" She caught her tongue between her teeth, frankly visualizing herself tangling with Mike.
"Why not?" Anne laughed. "Like I told Carla, I gather he's public property."
"Not interested?" Carla's eyebrows hit skyward. "What's wrong with you, baby?"
"He's not my type." Anne forced herself to be casual. So he was her type and she was panting to let him know! She'd written herself out of the play, hadn't she?
"When?" Rea was at the mirror now, fluffing her long blonde hair into her version of the sexy-siren hairdo. Anne had to admit-on Rea it looked good. "And where?"
"He runs a bookstore in town. It's easy to swing." She tried to ignore the tremor of excitement that soared through her. She might be introducing him to Rea, but it was a chance to see the screwball character again....
The next two days passed in a haze; registering for classes, sizing up new faces, keeping a sharp eye for the male species among the faculty. As the magazine articles had shown, this was outwardly the comfortable middle-sized college with a pleasant routinely-trained personnel: the good healthy college life that typified College U.S.A. Anne attended several planned gatherings, arranged to introduce students. Funny, though, she mused, how thoroughly conscious everybody was that the eyes of America were focused on them as the Typical College, in its best sense. She had a pretty good idea of what went on in the minds of the typical student of the typical college; now to find out what cooked inside the minds of the faculty. But she wouldn't find out at parties chaperoned by instructors, nor in the classrooms. How could she make contact? Step Number Two.
Anne took off the blinders and forced herself to face the problem. So far she'd fed herself-and her editors-a glib hocus-pocus about how she'd garner facts. Now here it was-the actual situation: Anne Winters, writing under the disguise of Sorority Sister, dishing out the dirt about the college professor's dirty linens. Her brash confidence was shaky now. She could promote gorgeously; could she deliver?
The alarm went off, and Anne swore softly, opening one eye to see if Rea would turn it off. She lay there, giving no inkling of hearing.
"Oh, shut up, you foul-mouthed monster!" She reached over to switch off the alarm, took careful aim and prodded Rea in her rear, indecorously exposed beneath the top of her baby dolls. Rea couldn't be bothered with bottoms.
"Tell 'em I dropped dead," Rea muttered, then swung over on her back to look at Anne. "Classes today-I hate this joint already."
"You haven't even seen what the faculty dishes up," Anne murmured with a glint of humor. "Don't blast them down till you check the pickings."
"I don't feel sexy in the morning." Rea complained. "I don't come to life till noon."
"That was last year, in that girls' junior college you told me about," Anne prodded. "You'll feel differently here."
Rea sat up in bed, hunched up in concentration. "Want to bet I can get myself raped by midnight tonight?" she challenged.
"How could it be rape, when you don't resist?" Anne countered, trying to push down the shock. This kid was too fast even for her.
"I'm using the delicate verb," Rea grinned. "Bet you that white angora sweater you like so much against your fixing me up for a date with the bookstore boy. I could go for him big!" Rea stared at Anne, and Anne knew what she was thinking. The way she'd been stalling about introducing her to Mike. At first she'd been thoroughly willing-it gave her another chance to see Mike, at least, though that could be accomplished easy enough-all she had to do was to go in and buy a book. Why did she get into such complications about Mike, she demanded of herself angrily. Dumb!
"Okay, it's a bet," Anne accepted briskly. "Sex by midnight, with a member of the faculty," she stipulated. "Students don't count."
"Let's get dressed," Rea jumped swiftly out of bed. "Suddenly I feel like going to classes."
Anne sat in her first class, sizing up her instructor. No fodder for her mill here. She was sitting in the front, with her narrow tweed skirt pulled high above her knees, displaying a luscious length of nylon-clad thigh. The bright yellow cashmere sweater clung amorously, making her the cynosure of every male student in the room. It wasn't that Mr. Kendricks wasn't aware-he was scared out of his wits. Pleased, too, she noticed as she caught and held his eye, and sent non-academic messages. Vanity coddled madly because Anne was letting it be known she found him interesting. But he wasn't buying.
"Stop wasting yourself on Kendricks," a voice behind her whispered when the instructor was momentarily involved in a two-way discussion with a student. "He's married and uninterested."
Anne twisted about to inspect the grinning male behind her. It was hard to remember some of these kids were just that, she thought with a start. That handsome hunk of male behind her-nineteen at the most, she guessed, but he could pass for twenty-five. Out in the business world, if he'd asked for a date she might have accepted.
"Now, me, I'm all ripe for the picking," he murmured, his eyes stripping her. "Kendricks has a wife, three kids, and a yen for the boys."
"How do you know?" she whispered back, fascinated.
"Watch me," he ordered, and Anne snapped to attention.
Her mind taking notes, Anne watched. The character behind her questioned Kendricks, turned on the full charm-and he was endowed with plenty, Anne conceded. Kendricks fumbled with words, changed color. He was over-eager, almost coquettish now. One thing for sure, this boy wouldn't have to worry about the grades he got this term! Of course, she warned herself-this minor skirmish didn't mean Kendricks played. She'd need more action than this to include him in the case histories of her college professors.
Anne was deliberately slow in gathering herself together after class.
"Satisfied?" Her temporary assistant fell into step beside her.
"I don't know," Anne rebelled. "Maybe he's nervous, Joe."
"Jon," he corrected. "Spelled J-o-n. I'm not wrong about Kendricks-that's why I signed up for his class. It'll be a snap course for me. I got the word last year about him."
"I think you characters jump to conclusions. It's the fashion today-call every guy gay." She waited, knowing he was determined to convince her. At the same time something about Jon added up in her mind. This handsome hulk might have made a minor play for her, but that was just to keep himself in practice. He was hot for Kendricks himself! "Keep me posted on developments, will you?"
"Okay." He was eyeing her peculiarly. "You go in for first row seats?" She forced herself to meet his eyes, saying nothing.
"To each his own. I get a kick out of knowing who goes for what."
"I'll let you know," he reaffirmed, but his face took on a veiled, cautious look. He'd make a play himself for Kendricks, but she'd never hear about it.
"Maybe we can talk about it over coffee," she murmured invitingly, letting the hard nipples beneath the yellow angora just graze his chest. triumphantly noting his instant reaction. She was right-he was AC/DC. He could pant for Kendricks or her, dependent upon the occasion. At the moment he didn't know which was the more inviting. "One of these days when you feel in the mood," she amended, not to force the issue. He'd be more of a source of information if he leaned towards the instructor.
"Yeah, let's," he agreed, relieved that he wasn't faced with a decision. Abruptly, he took off for his next class.
Anne did some casual research; studying in the library, questioning the girls in the dorm who'd been in Kendricks' classes last year, perusing the college yearbooks. With a faint smile of satisfaction, she sat down at her desk to make notes. Not conclusive enough to protect herself if it ever came to a point of a libel suit, but instinctively she knew she'd come up with proof that would satisfy the editors. Their lawyers knew all the tricks-and nobody mentioned names, only case histories.
Anne unlocked the portable typewriter she kept under the bed, rested it on the night table and made her initial notes:
"Case History One, Entry One: Mr. A, married, father of three children, three, seven and eight; teaching at this college for eleven years. Considered by the faculty as one of their most respected instructors. Sexual inclinations: homosexuality. Incidents to be reported."
"Get out the white sweater, darling!" Anne's fingers jumped from the typewriter keys and her eyes leapt up to face Rea.
"Told you I'd win the bet, didn't I?" Rea tossed herself across the bed, her eyes still glazed over with passion. "It's five hours ahead of schedule, too."
"Tell me about it." Anne swiftly put away the typewriter, trying to be nonchalant as she locked it up. "In detail," she reminded, teasing yet serious.
"If college keeps on this way I'll hang around for three or four degrees." The little pointed tongue was between her teeth now, and Anne thought, if all the gal students were like Rea the campus would be one non-commercial brothel. "I dawdled about after the I long-winded lecture he threw at us-"
"Who?" Anne demanded.
"Who do you think? Meadows, per schedule." That crazy little shiver again. "Annie, he's tremendous! I'm off kids for good."
"Facts," Anne prodded, oddly self-conscious now that it was here. Too bad she didn't have a tape recorder, her realistic side was pondering-that would j be sensational.
"I dawdled, he got interested, we made a tentative date to talk about chemistry later in the afternoon.
Naturally, he can't afford to be seen with a student. He picked me up with his car about a quarter of a mile down from the campus, and we went driving. For a while." Her mouth curved into a meaningful smile as she lay back across the bed, kicking one foot up and down. "Wow!"
"Where did you go?" Anne was hit by a wild idea that the Dean's cottage might be faculty property.
"A run-down motel about f our miles north. I gather it's doing a land-office business during the college year. Brockie-boy says it's safe in the afternoon-students don't go for sex until after dark." She giggled reminiscently. "His name is Brock-he got sore as hell when I called him Mr. Meadows right in the middle of you-know-what."
"What's the name of the motel?" Vital statistics were important, for documentation.
"Forest End Motel," Rea mocked. "Thinking of booking the joint?"
Anne shot her a conspiratorial smile. "I'll keep you posted."
"You've got your sucker lined up!" Rea bounced into a sitting position. "Who's the guy?"
"Not yet," Anne demurred. "I'm just making notes." Rea would die-or, more likely, pop with fascination-if she knew the real dope behind these notes. "Go on, tell me the seduction plot."
"He was panting from the minute I got into the car. You'd think he was some hot kid who hadn't had it for a month. Anyway, we drove along, throwing the usual line, and I'm sliding closer and he's getting hotter. I was practically in his lap when he couldn't stand it anymore and he pulled off the road behind a long line-up of bushes." Rea giggled. "Must be the college's Lovers' Lane, after dark. But he wasn't waiting until after dark."
"They ought to charge him for the use of student facilities," Anne tossed off lightly. "Go on, I'm practically panting myself."
"Well, there we are climbing out of the car and heading for the bushes, when he lets out a dirty word and grabs me by the hand and heads back for the car. I don't know who was with him, but the guy was that wierdo Hawthorne, who teaches ancient history. He was standing there with his bare fanny hanging out, and then he heard us. I was dying to see who the babe was in the bushes. All we could tell, they must have come in her car, and they had an M. D. license plate. What local doctor has a wife who goes in for ancient history?"
"Hawthorne?" Anne squinted, trying to place him. "The beard?"
"That's right," Rea nodded brightly. "Brook laughed like crazy when we were back in the car and he realized who it was. He says Hawthorne is as stuffy as the Dean." Anne started at the comparison-they were similar in other areas, too. "Must have a secret income or something, because you should see the foreign job he drives!" Rea sighed ecstatically. "And Brock says he goes in big for paintings. Takes a trip to New York twice a year to buy stuff to cart back here, to show off to the art-lovers."
"On a teacher's salary?" Anne whistled softly. "To heck with him," Rea brushed this aside with an impudent gesture. "Let's get back to my bed-mate. We were in the car again, and seeing those other two got him more steamed up than ever. We made it to the motel. We just made it," she giggled again, "because another minute and I'd have been flat on my back right there in the car on the open road."
"He probably keeps a charge account with Forest End Motel." Anne's green eyes glittered dangerously. The nerve of the old wolf, taking on college kids that way!
"They knew him all right," Rea acknowledged. "The way he walked into the office and they tossed a key out at him. I could see through the window. Then he grabs me by the hand, pulls me into Number Four Cabin, and three minutes later I didn't have a stitch on and he was going to town like a maniac. I thought, this guy's really something-and I reached for my clothes to get dressed, figuring this was it. Sweetie, that was the sample!" She closed her eyes and wriggled reminiscently. "If this is what college degrees do for a man, I'm going in for the intellectual life. He didn't say a word-just stood there with that screwball gleam and that wacky smile and reached for me again. When they figure out new positions, Annie, Brock Meadows will be the first to know. You know how with a kid it's boom-boom-boom and the whole jig's up? Brockie-boy never gets tired. I thought I'd go right out of my mind, the way he kept on teasing. You think-here it comes, honey, and it's going to be terrific-and he teases some more. Know what he likes? To have you yell at him-and talk dirty. He kept begging me to call him four-letter words! And when I bit him because I was ready to go through the ceiling and he kept holding back, it was like I'd found the magic key. The more I bit him, the wilder he got. He may be marked for life!" Rea hugged herself exultantly. "I told him-I plan on lots of homework for his class, under his private coaching. Or over it, since he's so versatile." She sighed in utter content, and Anne felt a stirring of apprehension.
"Where are you going now?" Anne glanced up in surprise as Rea catapulted towards the door.
"To call Brockie-boy about tomorrow. We didn't decide on a meeting place."
Anne pulled out the typewriter, went over and cautiously slid the bolt on the door, glad that some earlier tenant had been so thoughtful as to provide this privacy. Rea would be phoning from an outside pay station-she wouldn't be so stupid as to call from the dorm phone.
CASE HISTORY Two, Entry One: Mr. B. Single, thirty-seven, teaching at the college four years. Reputation, wolf. To quote a student, "In the course of teaching a class rubs more backsides than a lady masseuse." Does well after class, too. A many-sided man in the field of sex-you might say he's earned his Ph.D., summa cum laude."
Anne finished up her notes on Brock Meadows, unbolted the door, and settled down to do the authorized homework. After all, she had to make a pretense of being a student at Ravenwood.
"Say, darling," Rea drawled, strolling back into their room with a gleam of victory. "What about the winner collecting her winnings? When do I get that date with your bookstore boyfriend?"
Anne shoved down a surge of annoyance. She'd made the bet, hadn't she? And why should she care if Rea got her hooks into Mike Rader? Mike and she hated each others guts! At least, that's the way she wanted him to think.
"Tomorrow, Rea. After class." Anne forced herself to smile ingratiatingly.
Damn that Mike Rader! Why did he have to start five-alarm fires raging in her this way? She was here to concentrate on sex from an abstract standpoint! The problem: to make herself believe this....
CHAPTER FIVE
Anne waited for Rea in the Campus Eat Shoppe, per arrangement, tingling with anticipation at the prospect of seeing Mike again. She was letting herself get all worked up because she was absorbed in the series, Anne tried to convince herself. When she'd done the series on the dance hall girls, hadn't she worked in a dance hall herself for two weeks to get the feel of it? She shuddered, remembering the greasy hands that had got the feel of her.
"All set?" Rea slid into the small rear booth Anne occupied.
"This date bit," Anne started off carefully. "I introduce you but how do I make him ask you out?"
"The bet, darling-a date with Pappy Bookstore." Rea tossed her blonde mane about with insolent abandon, her eyes roaming about the Eat Shoppe. "Anne, look-there's the Beard," she whispered avidly.
"So what? He teaches here, doesn't he?"
"He recognizes me! He knows I saw him out there in the bushes. He looks burnt up enough to kill me!" An aura of excitement enveloped her as she sat there, thrilling at the knowledge that Don Hawthorne had recognized her.
"Then he knows that you were with Meadows," Anne reminded crisply. "Don't look so smug."
"I don't have to worry, bunny. It's the teachers who're in hot water for leading their little lambs astray. This should be a terrific year at Ravenwood College. Typical College of the Year!" Rea chortled. "Boy, we could give the magazines some pictures they'd never dare use. Unless it were a scandal sheet like 'BETWEEN YOU AND ME'!"
Anne perked up sharply. She was slipping! All she needed to document her material was pictures. Not to use-to keep in the newspaper safe for any libel action that might arise. Of course, she wasn't using names or places-but the inference was there. The editors had said something about playing the series up as a factual story of a "typical college professor" gathered from research in a "typical college." In small letters, not caps-but the reading public wasn't stupid. They'd grasp the facts, and go miles beyond.
"You want something or shall we start right on in to town?" Suddenly Anne was anxious to find out more about Mike Rader and his bookstore. What was the real score with him and this town? He'd told her about his sister Patty, but all that was two years ago. Why did a man like Mike Rader hang on in a quiet, outwardly uneventful town like this?
"We can hitch a ride ten minutes later," Rea decided, her eyes straying to Don Hawthorne.
Anne lifted an eyebrow. "You going in for beards?"
"He's cute, in a drab sort of fashion," Rea murmured. "Wonder who the chick was out there in the bushes?"
"Maybe his wife wonders, too." Anne sent a cautious glance in Hawthorne's direction. Forty-three, married, no children, the information clicked into place in her mind. She'd looked into some vital statistics on this boy. The lean intellectual type with extravagent tastes. Could it be the M.D.'s wife had been catering to that taste? Interesting to find out. And the way Rea was developing a curiosity in the Beard, that question might soon be answered. Don Hawthorne, Ph.D., wouldn't be collecting any kale from Rea. Of course, Anne reminded herself, Don Hawthorne might give Rea the brush-off for other reasons than the fact that she was in no position to pay off for her sessions in the bushes.
"What are you cooking up now, sweetie?" Rea interrupted with a grin. "Want the Beard for yourself?"
"He's all yours." Anne inspected her with a glimmer of amusement. "If you think you can find the time!"
"It's late." Rea moved out of the booth with brisk determination. "Let's go see that man about my date." Her eyes challenged Anne's. "Let's see how you swing this election bet."
They caught a ride into town with an aging ex-football star of Ravenwood, who spent the whole trip warning them against picking up rides the way they had with him. He was so hopped on the subject, Anne thought cynically! How many passes had he made at coeds hitching rides into town? Too old now to do much more than talk about it.
"Thanks for the ride, Pappy," Rea flipped as they climbed out of the car, and Anne grinned in approval. Rea read the old boy's problem: anxious but unable.
"This must be Mike's store," Anne nodded. "Not a bad joint."
The two girls sauntered into the store, brightly adorned with row upon row of paperbacks. Mike catered to the intellectually rich but financially poor, Anne decided-but right now he catered in absentia. A couple of stray customers dawdled about the shelves, Mike nowhere in sight. Then she heard the clicking of a typewriter from somewhere in the rear. Maybe she'd been right about Mike-busy knocking out the Great American Novel. Was it about this town? Was that the underlying reason for his reaction to her own announcement? Professional jealousy?
One of the two browsers made up his mind, walked to the cash register to leave a collection of coins on the outside, reached underneath for a paper bag, and took off. The remaining settled down to read. Evidently, Mike catered to a steady clientele-they knew him, he trusted them. This Mike was a character.
The typing stopped suddenly, and footsteps replaced the click of the keys. Anne swung around, face to face with Mike. A pulse in her throat was suddenly pounding unbearably as her scornful green eyes held his brown ones.
"Welcome to my humble store." Mike bowed mockingly, but Anne knew her sudden appearance had shook him up.
"We were in town-I owe my room-mate a bet. This was my chance to pay up. Mike Rader, Rea Camden." The easiest way-play it for truth.
Mike's eyes flickered from her to Rea, freezing as they hovered on the frankly inviting blonde.
"I'm the prize? I'm flattered!"
"Take me out and I'll tell you all about it." Rea was sending out extravagent promises.
"Saturday?" Mike suggested unexpectedly, and Anne's provocative little smile froze. But she was being irrational again, she warned herself. Wasn't this good? She was getting off the hook with Rea. "I'd like to talk to you now, Anne. Privately." He nodded towards the back room.
"Why not?" Anne tried for nonchalance, not quite making it. What now?
Anne preceded him into the rear of the store, waited for him to swing open the door.
"You won't mind if I close the door?" He was overly sarcastic.
"Should I?" she challenged, her head high, anger coloring her cheeks. Why did she let this character always put her on the defensive.
"What kind of crazy nonsense are you stirring up with that kid out there?" he demanded hotly. "Putting me up as the door prize!"
"You were her idea, not mine," Anne flung back, too conscious of his nearness.
"What about the bet?" he persisted. "Her idea?" He was frankly scornful.
"I didn't make Rea into a sexpot!" Anne flared. "That was her own decision."
"The bet-what was that?" he persisted, anger covering his own charging emotions with dwindling success.
"None of your business!" She was arrogantly defiant, her eyes flashing, her breasts rising and falling with the burning mixture of antagonism and desire. There was something electric about Mike when he was furious this way, she thought subconsciously. Nobody had ever stirred her up so fast, so intensely!
"Why did you ever have to come to this town?" he reached out to shake her by the shoulders, and suddenly the rest of the world stopped existing for both of them. "Oh, baby, baby!"
"Mike!" She swayed with him, her eyes tightly shut, wanting to forget everything but the whirlpool of emotions that Mike generated in her. "Mike, you do such wild things to me!"
"I didn't plan it, Annie-I was steering clear of women. No room in my life, I told myself!" His face brushed hers, his hard lean body pressing into her provocative softness.
"It gets in the way of things, feeling this way," Anne whispered. "I came to this town on a terrific assignment-you sidetrack me."
"Annie, Annie, what am I going to do about you?" He allowed one hand to trespass gently beneath her sweater, groping its way around the back to release her bra.
"Mike, we can't-not here," she whispered, as his hand moved about to find her breast and she melted as he made love to her.
"It's all right, sweetie-we could be discussing a book," he was gently insistent, pulling her back with him towards the deep club chair that flanked his typewriter table.
"Somebody might come in," she protested weakly, while he lowered himself into the chair and pulled her down with him.
"Locks automatically." His mouth found hers, shutting off verbal conversation, but his tongue told her eloquently of the passion tearing at him-and hers answered in like language.
His hand moved beneath her skirt, teasing, persuasively encroaching until her fingers clutched at his shoulders and her mouth clung frenziedly to his. And then he was shifting her to one side while his free hand reached for his own zipper, and Anne clenched her teeth to silence the tide of excitement that threatened her.
"Mike, we do the wackiest things," she half-laughed, half-sobbed, while he maneuvered deftly. And then he found her and the sob became a moan and she didn't care who heard!
"Sssh," he whispered warningly, then quieted her with his mouth.
Mouths tangled in clamorous passion, his hands on her breasts, her hands helping him as they plunged together with towering passion that threatened never to end. So wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, Anne's mind recorded gratefully. What in the world could ever be so ecstatically urgent?
"Mike, I don't care! I don't care what they think!" she was reckless in her abandon as his mouth moved from hers to the low V of her sweater, and all of him churned to be with her.
And then it was over, and they both knew it was too dangerous to start again. Both of them acutely conscious now of the voices outside, the curiosity that must be mounting beyond that locked door.
"Wow!" Mike helped her to her feet and hurriedly made himself presentable.
"That was good, Mike," Anne admitted, her eyes letting him know how good.
"I have to see you again, Annie," he said urgently. "Not here. Not just a few minutes this way."
"All right, Mike." The full, passionate mouth curved in a whisper of a smile. "Saturday?"
"I have to take out the nursery brigade, remember?" Amusement shone in his glance towards the door. "Besides, don't keep me waiting that long," he prodded. "Tomorrow."
"Okay," she agreed. "Pick me up at the Eat Shoppe?" The less Rea knew about this the better, Anne decided with instinctive good judgment.
"The Eat Shoppe." He kissed her lightly on the nose, then opened the door for her.
Anne was slowly regaining her inner composure. Mike wanted to see her again, yes-but she could guess what was uppermost in his mind, after his amorous mood was appeased. He'd want to dissuade her from going ahead with the series. He'd be wasting his time. Nothing would stand in the way of her ambition. Success was too terribly urgent-she'd waited too long to let this chance slip out of her grasp. This other thing, too-she couldn't deny the passion Mike generated in her every time they touched. But first and lastingly important, she had to finish her survey, start knocking out the material. Maybe she could speed up the whole project, she decided in a burst of impatience. Start writing while she completed her research. Open up with a real blockbuster: the Case of the Amorous Dean!
CHAPTER SIX
"I was about to send out the rescue squad," Rea drawled as Anne and Mike came into sight.
"To rescue which one of us?" Anne was deliberately flip.
"Saturday night still in effect?" Rea challenged Mike, a certain watchfulness in her attitude towards Anne. Perilously close to guessing the truth, Anne surmised-but even Rea didn't think they would have had the nerve to go so far so close.
"Why not, infant?" Mike grinned casually. "Saturdays are my nights for baby-sitting."
"I'm the precocious type," Rea warned with a seductive wiggle.
"Let's get going," Anne said nervously because Mike's eyes, as they trailed back to her, were dangerously revealing.
"Saturday night, lover," Rea tossed over her shoulder as Anne prodded her towards the door. "Monroe Hall, eight o'clock. I'll have the welcome mat out. In fact," she tossed back audaciously, "I'll be lying on it."
"I thought you were set for a wild thing with Brock Meadows," Anne offered, an odd stirring of unrest within her. "What happened?"
"Nothing that I haven't told you about," Rea stole a last glance at Mike through the window. "But I'm anxious to make up for lost time. Last year I was at a girls' college remember!" Rea was silent a few moments, shooting secretive glances in Anne's direction. "You aren't telling me everything about Mike and you.
"He wanted to make up," Anne said slowly. "He mussed me up a little, then kissed me like there was no tomorrow. So today we made up," Anne shrugged it off. "Tomorrow we'll fight again. I told you-Mike isn't my type."
"If you want to make him your Older Man of the Year, I'll behave," Rea offered.
"I'll let you know," Anne said shortly. "Right now I wish I'd never met him." Which wasn't strictly true, but it sounded good.
"I was off my rocker about a guy when I was fifteen. A kid but I thought he was the greatest then. Know what? He went chasing after my best friend all the time-and she was the homeliest babe you ever met. Homely but the guys trailed her like they were cats and she was coated with catnip."
"She must have had something," Anne smiled sympathetically.
"You bet!" Rea said bluntly. "The back seat of her old man's convertible. I followed her once. She was taking on five kids, one at a time. She was a smartie, too-made sure she wouldn't get pregnant. Used to steal her father's supplies."
"Let's take the bus back," Anne suggested uneasily.
"That's dumb," Rea objected. "Who wastes money on carfare in Ravenwood?"
"Okay, let's hitch," Anne sighed. She was still keyed up from the session with Mike-hot, hectic, and short.
"That Mike got you worked up," Rea said with frank curiosity. "Sure you don't want me to butt out?"
"Sure," Anne insisted crossly. "Maybe this whole brainstorm was a dud. Why should you bother with an old creep like Brock Meadows?"
"I don't know where you went sour, angel, but this was the most fascinating game ever thought up. Why shouldn't I see Brock?"
"I'm not concerned about your seeing him," Anne said bluntly, feeling strangely like a mother hen. Why should she be so disturbed about Rea's sex life? Rea would find it, one place or another.
"Brook's nice and safe." Rea suddenly wagged her hand frantically at an on-coming car. "It's like I heard my father say once-to some chick in his office-"
"When he didn't know you were around, no doubt," Anne laughed reproachfully.
"You think I spend my life behind couches?" Rea grinned. "I was practically behind this one. He said, with an older guy a gal doesn't have to worry-he's smart enough to be careful nothing happens. That's the nice part about this deal-you don't worry yourself to death about getting caught. A teacher can't afford it!"
Anne's mind shot back to Patty Rader, Mike's sister. Had she thought something like that, too? But she'd died on a butcher's makeshift operating table, thinking she was pregnant. And the biology teacher still taught at Ravenwood College. Chasing other students, as he'd pursued Patty, Anne wondered? She hadn't encountered Dean Britton or his son as yet. An illustrious twosome for her Hall of Fame, she told herself brutally, thrusting off this sick feeling that pervaded her when she remembered Mike telling her about his sister.
"You gals from Ravenwood?" their newly-acquired chauffeur asked as they settled into the front seat beside him, Rea in the middle.
"Don't we have that Ravenwood look?" Rea asked perdy, casting a "watch me" wink in Anne's direction.
The clean-cut bookish chap behind the wheel chuckled good-naturedly. "Now what would that be?"
"The 'Typical Student of the Year', of course." Rea's leg was unnecessarily close, Anne noted furtively, but whether it was Rea or the driver who'd maneuvered into that position, Anne wasn't sure.
"Haven't you seen all the magazine spreads?" Rea clucked reproachfully.
"Some of them," he conceded, "considering that the Dean is my old man." He sent briefly appraising glances in their direction now. "I'm Ralph Britton."
"What's your subject?" Anne asked, as though hoping to find that Dean Britten had two sons that taught at Raven.
"Biology." He grinned wryly. "A most unpopular course among the fair coeds of Ravenwood. My classes could stand a little pulchritude."
The knee so close to Rea's was moving with gentle insistence now, and Anne caught the gleam of triumph in her eyes. She fought down the apprehensive warnings that shot through her as she watched the silent exchange between the other two. She'd started this wacky thing with Real Somehow, she'd have to sidetrack her. Rea was headed for trouble-Mike was right there. How, she couldn't possibly imagine at this point, only somehow she must.
Anne glanced at her watch. At least an hour before she had to meet Mike. She was anxious not to return to the dorm-Rea's curiosity was too healthy about Mike and her. The Eat Shoppe was too crowded to kill that much time, even if she'd wanted to hang around there and soak up atmosphere and possible information. Might as well take a walk. That's when she did her clearest thinking-walking alone. Right now she wanted to re-create every detail of Dean Britten's secret hideaway, for that opening blockbuster in her series. Give the reading public a pithy colorful word picture of a college Dean's approach to the art of love: Sex with a Ph.D.
Anne walked briskly in the crisp autumn air, enjoying the crunch of the leaves beneath her feet as she turned off from the business streets into the private residence section. The houses well-kept, cheerful, glowing with the dinner-time activity of happy family life. Mike was right about one thing, she giggled good-humoredly-she was bored to death with college chow already. He was picking her up at the Eat Shoppe but she was confident Mike had a more inspiring dining spot in mind-among other things.
"Oh, damn!" Anne swore softly. Just ahead of her a vaguely familiar figure was emerging from a car. Ralph Britten. Somehow, she didn't want to meet him now. It wasn't merely the frank invitation in his eyes when he'd left Rea and her off at the dorm, nor the way he'd managed to brush her breasts as he reached over to open the car door for them. It was Patty Rader, who was growing into tremendous proportions in her guilt-laden mind. The crazy dream last night, when she'd awoke in a sweat. It'd been so real, seeing Rea dying in a hospital bed, the way Patty had died. And Mike, bending over her accusingly, shouting horrible denunciations at her for what she'd done to Rea.
With a swift decision Anne cut into the driveway of the darkened house before her, to take a short-cut through to the next street. Anything to put Ralph Britten out of her sight! She moved with towering impatience through the driveway, the carport, into the unfenced yard behind. Some doctor's small private sanitarium, Anne recalled now as she moved hurriedly through the crackling leaves, and then she stopped dead in her tracks.
Just ahead, unmindful of her, a pair were emerging from a car. Don Hawthorne and a man she didn't know. Some instinct told her to take refuge in the shadows.
"Jerry, you're out of your mind," Don was insisting, his voice laced with desperation.
"Am I?" the other man spat at him in cold fury, and Anne's mind was actively piecing together identification. Jerry would be Dr. Jerome Lee. Rea had said something about Don and a doctor's wife in the bushes-at least, there'd been an M. D.'s car so it was safe to assume it was an M. D.'s wife. "How long did you expect to pull the wool over my eyes?"
"Jerry, for heaven sake," Don pleaded, and for a frightened instant Anne thought he'd spied her crouching behind the hedge.
"Come on inside," Jerry ordered peremptorily, Don following meekly through the side entrance. The lights flashed on inside and nobody bothered to pull down the blinds. The window was wide open and their voices clear as though they were at touching distance to Anne.
"Jerry, you know me better than to believe such drivel," Don was turning on the quiet, intellectual charm. "You know how I feel about you!"
"You told me that wife of yours was something you had to put up with," Jerry's voice was shaken with anger. "That was something I could understand. But that-that blonde bitch!" his voice rose shatteringly. "After everything I've done for you! Everything we've meant to each other!"
"Honey, please." Don put a persuasive arm around the doctor, and Anne froze to attention. So that was the score! The hidden figure in the bushes with Don Hawthorne hadn't been the doctor's wife. It'd been the doctor!
"Your wild extravagances-the money you run through so fast!" he screeched at the Ravenwood instructor. "Who else would tolerate that but me?"
"You dreamt up that story about the blonde," Don was insisting, trying to propel his companion into a chair. "Jerry, you know how I feel about women! There's nobody in my life but you, sweetie. Nobody!"
With unexpected suddenness Don Hawthorne was at the window, letting the blinds cascade to their full length, pulling them tightly shut.
Anne walked away. Another case in the hopper.
"Case History Number Three: Mr. C, forty-three, Ph.D. in Ancient History, married fourteen years, no children. An art lover, a bearded intellectual with extravagant tastes. Plays with blondes for fun, men for finances. Currently being kept on the side by a local surgeon."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Anne pushed hurriedly through the doors of the Eat Shoppe, aware that she was at least fifteen minutes late. Mike was probably the kind who was livid if somebody kept him waiting. The place was fairly empty, she noted, her eyes scanning the booths for Mike. Had he got sore and left?
"Hi." Mike called softly, from the one corner in which she hadn't looked. "I was beginning to think you either can't tell time or you forgot."
"Mike, I'm sorry," she went to him breathlessly. "I was all involved in an assignment-I didn't realize it was this late."
"Interesting assignment?" He lifted one eyebrow quizzically.
"A class project," she colored faintly. Not the exact truth, but she wasn't ready to get into a battle with Mike just yet. "Where do we go from here?" He was herding her to the door with a gleam of anticipation.
"A new restaurant I discovered about twelve miles out. Feel like a drive?" The pressure of his fingers on her arm was gently teasing.
"Why not?"
They walked in silence to where Mike had parked his car, each involved in his own contemplations. Mike had something on his mind tonight besides making love, Ann surmised, watching him sharply. She couldn't quite figure him out-a lot inside Mike required digging to be understood. There was more to him than this business of making love at odd moments. For the first time since Jeff she felt this urge for something permanent. The career girl role was great-up to a point.
"How're you doing on the series?" he broke the silence when they'd driven along about a mile.
"Good," she said briskly. "Everything's shaping up on schedule."
"What is the schedule?" Mike shot her a speculative glance.
"I ought to be able to finish the spade work in another four weeks," she h-edged because suddenly she didn't want to finish too soon. What would be her reason then for hanging on here?
"And the actual writing?" he persisted.
"Another week." As it stood now she would be one step ahead with research, no more. If she wanted to be honest with herself-and provided the research continued to roll in with such speed-she could be set to pull up stakes in another week or ten days at the most. After that, what about Mike and her, three hundred miles apart?
"You work fast," he said with a reluctant admiration.
"It's garbage," she said frankly. "Not like working on something important."
"You don't know if it's important or not when you're sitting off in a corner in front of a typewriter-day after day, month after month. Sometimes you think you must be cracked to bother."
"Novel?" she asked lightly.
"Yeah, I got the bug, too," he grinned. "Fourteen months now, another three or four to go before I have something to turn in."
"Let me read it?" Anne asked softly.
"I don't know," he said candidly. "I need encouragement like crazy-but I'd want it on the level. None of this "honey, it's terrific' stuff unless you meant it."
"I won't He, Mike. Not that my opinion is anything great," she admitted.
"That's why I like running the store-it gives me time to work. I hate pressure. I'd go nuts in advertising or television."
"You're not the slow, plodding type," she objected. "Why sell yourself short? You ought to make out well in anything you set out to do." Mike didn't have to stay in this town. Why couldn't he go back to New York with her? Anticipation sang through her. Maybe she could swing this, if she handled herself right.
"All hell might break loose here when that series hits the newsstands," Mike swung the conversation with abrupt suddenness. "Have you any idea of what it can do?"
"I know what it can do for me!" Her face shone with pleasure. "It'll open every door I've been knocking on without results since I hit New York."
"What about the others?" Anne felt the tension gripping him now. "Some big-nosed character is going to smell out this is the town, and then comes the rat-race to match your fictionalized facts with faces."
"No fiction in these articles," Anne snapped out briskly because Mike was wrong. She was reporting the truth!
"It's messy, Annie-dragging out everybody's dirty linen. You could get hurt."
"The Great Moralist at it again?" Temper flared in her despite her determination not to let him bait her.
"I hate dirt and scandalmongers and peeping Toms," he admonished sharply. "Isn't there enough rottenness in the world as it is?"
"Then you must hate me!" Her eyes blazed, her body tense. "Why did you ask me out, anyway?"
"Because I keep getting this screwy hope you'll stop acting like a selfish, over-ambitious idiot and drop that series!"
"I can't figure you out. You told me why you came here-it was to get back at Ralph Britten! What changed you into a simpering Pollyanna?"
"I met Ralph Britten's wife-I've seen their baby," he said quietly. "I couldn't mess up their lives."
"You're so dramatic, Mike!" she taunted furiously. "According to you I'm a vulture out to prey on sweet little innocents. The facts I'm uncovering are just that to me-facts. People are interested in knowing what goes on in the so-called quiet lives of their college professors. I'm telling them!"
"And to the devil who gets hurt?"
"What's the point in talking to you?" Fury churned in her because she'd planned this evening so differently. "Stop the car at the next bus stop and let me out! I've had it, Mike Rader!"
Anne stalked into the dorm, torn with frustration. Only one way for her to keep out of trouble-steer clear of Mike. It was ridiculous, the way he kept fostering this sense of guilt in her. What was so wrong in what she was doing? She wasn't giving out names and places-disguised facts, sensational enough to make exciting reading.
"You look as though you've been stood up," Rea greeted her, her eyes on the clock. "You said something about a date. Of course," she went on elaborately, but Anne caught on to her suspicion that it was Mike, "you never did say with whom."
"It was tentative," Anne fabricated deliberately. "With that creep Kendricks. I must be slipping," she tried for a flip attitude. "You're way ahead of me."
"Guess who's newest on the string?" Rea popped into sitting position, her eyes alight with triumph.
"Instructor?" Anne popped to attention. Where was this kid going to stop?
"The Beard himself." Rea giggled. "I've never been kissed by a beard before."
"When did this happen?" Rea must be the blonde Don Hawthorne and the doctor were arguing over.
"This afternoon. It was easy. He practically drooled when he kissed me. And he was dying to talk to me about the other afternoon, only he didn't know how to get onto the subject. We've got a date Sunday. His house-his wife's going away for the weekend." Rea reached over for the perennial bottle of nail polish to do her nails again.
"That's not exactly smart, going to his house," Anne warned somberly.
"Better than to a motel," Rea pointed out. "Nobody'd expect him to play around in his own house."
"I just remembered a phone call I have to make. Back home," Anne bed. "I'm running short of cash."
"You could always earn it," Rea chided. "If you're not too fussy."
"Doing what?" Anne braced herself for one of Rea's brash suggestions.
"Ever see Donna Goodman, that new woman in the Spanish Department?"
"No," Anne shook her head.
"She looks awfully lost and lonesome-and I don't mean for men. With most of the babes around here man-crazy, she's probably languishing for love with something sexy and female."
"I'm not that short of cash," Anne laughed. "And stop trying to shock me. I've had some warm Platonic friendships with Lesbians."
"I never did anything like that." Curiosity was reaching out to grasp Rea. "What do you suppose they do?"
"Easy to figure out if you use your imagination," Anne said bluntly.
"If I use my imagination I might have an orgasm all by myself. I don't want to waste it!"
"Rea, you're mad!" Anne giggled despite herself. "Now let me out of here so I can go phone home."
Anne hurried out of the dorm to the nearest public phone book, to put a call through to New York. It took longer than she expected. The operator had to track Wallace down through a series of numbers.
"Dave?" she said finally, relieved to get through to him.
"Yeah. Anne Winters?"
"I wanted to check something with you," she started.
"Shoot, Anne." His alertness told her how anxious he was for information.
"Everything's moving along great," she said with a cheerfulness she didn't feel because Mike's words still echoed within her. "I expect to mail out the first in the series by tomorrow. 'The Case of the Amorous Dean'."
"Terrific," Dave Wallace approved. "How do we stack up with proof?"
"Pictures of the love nest good enough for you? Somewhat erotic for use in the paper but they ought to stand you in good stead if the Dean yelps 'libel'."
"Get it out to us, Annie-we'll take a chance," he said crisply. "But watch your step-these quiet college professors could turn into something ugly if they knew the hornet's nest you were stirring up."
"Don't worry about me," Anne said recklessly. "I'm having a ball here! Tomorrow I visit the love nest, complete with camera. Looks as though we're in business, Dave!"
CHAPTER EIGHT
Anne cut her last class and hurried into town to shop for a camera. It'd have to be a fast one, she reminded herself, and sighed. That meant more cash out of her meagre reserve. The newspaper was paying fabulously-when she delivered.
Anne walked into the camera store, forcing herself to be casual, shopping with a sharp eye out for her special requirements. She hoped she'd remember the site of the cottage-that had been her first day here. Also she hadn't expected anything like that so the details had escaped her. There was only one way to find out-get on the job. The Dean wouldn't be around. She'd checked the activities schedule-he was thoroughly involved in a lecture before some woman's club until late in the afternoon. Plenty of time to shoot her pictures and clear out, in the event the "amorous Dean" had an amorous affair scheduled today.
Outside the store Anne slid the camera out of the package and into her purse. Thank heaven for these over-sized purses, she thought gratefully, shoving everything under wraps. She walked to the corner to catch the bus. At least she knew the general direction.
Anne rode along in a seat by the window, her eyes fastened on the scenery, pressing herself to remember. Normally, she had an almost photographic eye. Now roadmarks she'd subconciously remembered were clicking into position. Suddenly she reached for the "stop" cord. The tiny almost hidden roadway a few yards back-that was the private road to the Dean's cottage. She remembered what she'd thought about it before: almost a sexual symbol.
Anne hopped down from the bus with a nervous excitement, retraced a hundred fifty feet to the small half-hidden private road. She was right, she thought triumphantly. This was the Dean's cottage. The path up to the cottage now, almost furtively checking the area. Nobody in sight, of course. She walked up the steps, crazy excuses about why she was here popping into her head in the event somebody actually materialized. She rang the bell, a measure of precaution. Nobody answered. Swif dy she bent down to the doormat to retrieve the key, as Mike had done. How many times had Mike used that key, Anne wondered now? Part of his routine in making a girl, she forced herself to face this possibility. It was a sensational line. And who else used that key that the Dean left so con-viently under the mat?
Anne walked into the unforgetable living room with a sense of being watched. Those leering faces on the drapes, the mocking symbols on every side. No time for nonsense, she reminded herself. Snap pictures that would be most useful! She concentrated on what she had to do, not realizing the time this task was consuming. Enough of die living room, she concluded finally, and moved inside to that lushly wild bedroom. Her pulse hammered uncomfortably at the memories that kept claiming her attention-Mike and herself on that red rug, that white and gold divan, the eerie feeling when she'd first seen their reflections in that mad mirrored ceiling!
It was pointless to think back to all that now, Anne struggled to consider the matter objectively. Nothing for Mike and her, the way each of them felt away from sex. He'd never see things her way-and she'd worked too hard, too long, to give up an opportunity like this.
Anne dug into the over-sized purse for another roll of film, nervously inserted it, and started to shoot again. A slightly hysterical giggle overcoming her at the picture of Mike if he knew where she was right this moment! She was so absorbed in her camera work that she didn't hear the steps outside; the door opening in the living room. Her heart all but stopped at the growing volume of chatter. Her eyes darted about for an avenue of escape. No exit from this lousy room except into the bathroom, another dead-end! She couldn't let that invading force outside find her here! Then, terrifyingly, the lone male voice and the two female voices came perilously clear as the door to the bedroom began to move open. With lightening swiftness Anne shoved herself inside the narrow closet, leaving the door barely cracked for breathing space. She closed her eyes against die blackness of the closet interior, the voices outside taking on added sharpness.
The man was Dean Britten, Anne could swear. But the girls? Light, high voices, high-school-ish.
"I told you I'd show you something you'd never seen before, didn't I?" Dean Britten was chortling. "Didn't expect something like this when you flagged me down for a ride!"
"I never did see something like this," one of the girls giggled, high with excitement. "Did you, Evie?"
"Golly, no!" Evie was striving desperately to sound sophisticated. "Course, I heard about 'em," she insisted. "From fellas."
"You girls live around here?" Evidently, the Dean was making himself comfortable on the white and gold divan, because Anne could hear the faint give of the springs.
"Over in Evanville," This was the other girl, not Evie, Anne interpreted. "We just got jobs in the mill."
"Young to be out working." Anne could visualize the Dean all but drooling now.
"I'm almost seventeen," Evie tossed off nonchalantly. "Daisy's sixteen and a half."
"Two beautiful young ladies. I'll bet you have lots of boys on your trail!" His voice was husky now, his mind way ahead of the action.
"Oh, we keep busy," Daisy flipped. "Kids, though. Nobody important." These were two wise ones, Anne recognized with a sense of shock. The Dean might make it with one or even both of them, she admitted.
"You're mature gals," he said with pointed respect. "You must know the score by now." Raillery, underneath an impatient anticipation.
"Yeah." A cagey cautious reply, from Evie.
"I probably won't be seeing you two after tonight, you'll be all tied up with handsome young guys. Why don't you let me give you each a birthday present before we leave?" His breathing was heavy in the sudden stillness of the room. He hesitated, and Anne mentally saw the two teen-agers outside, wise beyond their years, waiting for the old boy to state his price. "A fifty dollar bill for each of you. What do you say?"
Silence. Dead silence, so quiet Anne was afraid they'd hear her own labored breathing inside the closet.
"For doing what?" Evie demanded bluntly.
"Everything," he admitted. "But you won't get into any trouble. Afterwards, you take the fifty dollar bill and disappear."
"How do we know we won't get in trouble?" Daisy asked suspiciously. "I don't mean like you telling people because you couldn't afford to start nothing like that. I mean like how do we know we won't get pregnant?"
"Yeah, what then?" Doubt was attacking Evie, even while greed struggled for acquiescence. "We play around with kids, sure, only nobody ever got to home plate so far," Evie stated with a calm candor.
"Never?" Passion was tearing at the old man.
"Not all the way," Daisy backed her up. "What happens you get careless or something?"
"You don't have to worry with me-or my friend. He's a doctor. He'll be here any minute-and he'll be supplied."
"Two guys?" Evie sounded both dumbfounded and intrigued.
"When we stopped for gas, I phoned him. He should be along any minute."
Again, dead silence, and Anne had a horrible conviction that they'd noticed the closet door, minutely ajar, and were pouncing on her momentarily.
"Okay," Evie announced suddenly, evidently arriving at a visual decision with her pal. "What do we do?"
"Take off your clothes," he ordered in a barely audible whisper. "Slowly, one thing at a time, and throw them on the bed. Both of you." His voice was coming stronger now. "That's it! That's the way!" Unbelievably he began to sing a strip-tease song, interspersed with pleas of "Take it off!"
Creating his own private burlesque show, Anne thought with a trace of hysteria. Probably as far as the old bat could go.
"Everything off!" his voice was unexpectedly imperious now. "That's it, girls. Stand there, let me see you. Let me see!"
"Like we was working like strippers!" Eve giggled. "You think we could?"
"I'll bet," the Dean was agreeing avidly. "Let me feel. Let me audition you two young ladies."
Anne didn't have to be outside to know he was running his trembling old hands over the ripe young breasts, the slim young hips and thighs-it was there in his tortured breathing, in the self-conscious giggles of the two girls that were gradually being less self-conscious and more excited.
"We make the grade?" Daisy demanded between giggles.
"Summa cum laude," he said gravely. "Now undress me, so I feel as though I belong here. Come on, don't be bashful," he coaxed, and the air was filled with giggles as the two girls set to work.
"Hey, John?" A male voice penetrated the incoherent sounds in the bedroom. "You there?"
"Come on in, Don, come on in!"
"Are you speaking literally?" a male voice inquired mockingly. Don Hawthorne, Anne recognized in shock! What was this doctor routine?
"Hello, Doctor," the Dean said pointedly. "The young ladies are concerned about repercussions. You brought supplies from your office?" The doctor bit was borrowed because the Dean evidently knew about Don's extra-curricular activities-a weird joke to him to introduce Don as the Doctor.
"Thoroughly equipped," Don assured them gravely. "All you'll get from this session is one hell of a great time."
"What are we waiting for?" the Dean chortled with soaring good humor. "Undress him, dolls. Clothes aren't allowed in this nudist colony!"
Giggles, excited protestations from Don Hawthorne that were phony but salubrious. The girls were obviously thoroughly keyed-up now-all inhibitions that might have existed were evaporating.
"I never went out with anybody with a beard," Daisy was saying hotly. "Not even a real fuzz!"
"You'll learn all about beards right now," Don was booming exuberantly. "Ready, John?"
"I will be, don't you worry," the old boy assured him eagerly. "Come on, girlies, let's play leapfrog!"
Anne stood there, frozen in position, listening to the sounds of passion in the bedroom beyond the closet door. Hearing the Dean call forth orders like a football coach. He wasn't wrong-he was ready, for anything and everything! The four of them, like four animals in the forest, tearing at one another, panting, screaming, going into frenzies of primitive passion. The Dean like the Toastmaster at an eighteenth century orgy!
"Now all of us," he half-screamed in ecstasy. "Everybody together. Let's all go crazy together!"
Anne moved compulsively to the crack in the door. The lights blazing madly, the four contorted figures, sprawled grotesquely in union mirrored in that wacky ceiling, the air hot with passion. She couldn't stop herself. The camera automatically came into focus, the flashbulb was in position. Anne shot the picture, and pandemonium broke loose as the four crouching figures realized their private party wasn't so private after all!
"I'll kill her!" Don yelled insanely. "I'll kill that lousy slut!"
CHAPTER NINE
Anne tore through the room, past the four frozen figures, out of the living room and down those front stairs. The detached part of her mind telling her they were too stunned to give chase-and too nude! She hoped her hands hadn't trembled too much, that the shot was sharp and clear. She'd drop the film off in the mail tonight, for developing in the newspaper darkroom. Better put it in the mail right now, she corrected herself-that film was definitely too hot to handle.
More alarming, had any of them recognized her? The two girls, of course, were absolute strangers. The likelihood of Dean Britten's recognizing her was negligible. That left only Hawthorne. Inevitably, they'd see each other sooner or later on the campus. Now time was an urgent element-she had to finish up her assignment fast and get out!
Anne refused to let her mind drift back to Mike. A closed book, that-one that never should have been opened in the first place. No room in her life at this point for such a luxury as a Big Romance. It was time-consuming, energy consuming. Anne needed her wits to be sharp and constantly alert if she was to make it big career-wise.
Still shaky inside from the encounter with the passionate foursome, Anne went about the business of getting the film off in the mail, special delivery so Wallace would have it tomorrow. That would show him what she'd latched onto here in Ravenwood! She returned to the dorm now, somehow reluctant to come face to face with Rea-if she were home. That girl's social life was becoming hectic, Anne thought with a pang of discomfort. If Rea went hog wild somewhere along the line, if anything went wrong, she'd always feel to blame. Mike again! Tomorrow Rea would be seeing him. Would the Great Moralist stay that way under Rea's attack? It'd be interesting to find out, she tried to consider it in a cool detached manner. Except that the memory of Mike wouldn't let her be detached.
Anne hurried inside the dorm, up the stairs to her room. Rea was out, thank heavens. A chance for her to throw herself on the bed and relax. Of course Rea would be out-it was Friday night. In a way this was a break-this crazy evening happening before a weekend. She'd make a point of staying off the campus grounds over the weekend. By Monday, with luck, Don Hawthorne's memory of her fleeing figure might be dimming. She'd make a point not to wear that outfit again here in Ravenwood, Anne warned herself.
"It must have been quite a night!" Rea's mocking voice intruded into Anne's heavy restless slumber.
"Hi, Rea." Anne managed to pry her eyelids open. "What time is it, anyhow?" Foggily she tried to recall if this were night or morning.
"Well past one. I sneaked in through the window on the stair landing. Left it open just in case, and Carla promised to check it when she got in. It's easy to climb up that lattice and in through the window," Rea giggled. "It's like they planned it for students with a nocturnal urge."
"Where did your nocturnal urge take you tonight?" Anne asked casually.
"Brockie-boy." Rea went briskly about the business of undressing. "You think maybe he's over-sexed?"
"I don't know," Anne countered. "I've never been in a position to check."
"I have." That crazy Rea wiggle now. "Every position!" She stood stock still. "I think he got careless tonight, though."
"Rea!" Anne sat upright.
"Oh, you don't have to worry," Rea reassured her bluntly. "I have enough sense to take care of myself. He looked a little jittery when we talked about it, though."
Now was the time, Anne thought bitterly, when she ought to make a clean breast of everything-if she took Mike's lead. Tell Rea the whole sickening business about Ralph Britten, her own survey, the nasty consequences Rea could suffer if luck deserted her.
"Rea, let's drop this campaign," she coaxed with brittle gaiety. "No fun getting caught."
"Right now I'm having fun," Rea insisted with an almost hysterical gaiety. "Know what? Brock wants to send me to a doctor in town."
"What doctor?" Every little piece was falling into such concise position, Anne thought dizzily. This narrow little circle of Ravenwood lechery!
"He mentioned something like Lee, I think," Rea frowned, trying to remember. "I wouldn't go, though-why let the whole world know my business?"
Anne walked over to the window, stared out into the night. A pleasant little college town, serene and quiet in the moonlight. That's how Ravenwood looked to outsiders, passing through. Typical College of the Year? Anne doubted that. But what a sensationally colorful story it made for the papers! Wallace would be drooling with delight, she coaxed herself laboriously into a sense of achievement.
"Annie," Rea broke the silence as they settled down into their beds for the night.
"Yeah?"
"What do you think it'd be like with another girl?"
"I haven't the faintest idea." Anne's voice was laden with icy rejection.
"When I was away at camp one summer there was this counsellor who wanted to make me. She tried like hell, but I was scared. I wonder what it's like?"
"Forget it," Anne flared, trying not to believe the invitation in Rea's voice.
"I can't," Rea insisted. "I got this curiosity in me that wants to know about everything. Why don't we give it a whirl, Anne?"
"You're out of your mind!" Anne lay tense under the sheet.
"Maybe I'm just oversexed," Rea giggled, and then Anne heard the blankets tossed back from Rea's bed, and her bare feet reaching for her slippers.
"Go to sleep, Rea, it's late," Anne said quietly.
"Aw, Annie, don't be a spoilsport all of a sudden," Rea coaxed, and Anne felt the long tapered fingernails of which Rea was so proud, slipping lightly under her own blankets, touching her thighs.
"Rea, stop being ridiculous!" Anne ordered sharply, sitting instantly erect in bed. "This is the end of the line."
"You talk a lot but that's all!" A disdainful nastiness crept into Rea's voice. "You make all kinds of fancy dialogue, but I'll bet you're the kind that runs the minute the guy is ready!"
"For heaven sake, can't you talk about something besides sex?"
"What else is important?" Rea laughed then, a cold little laugh that told Anne plainly where she stood in Rea's little black book. "No wonder Mike gave you the brush."
"I didn't say he gave me the brush," Anne contradicted.
"Why else is he going out with me?" Rea taunted.
The truth rose to her lips, to be crushed out. She couldn't say, "Mike thinks you're a wacky kid, no more"-not without giving out the truth about herself, that she wasn't an eighteen-year-old stock college sophomore.
"Have fun, you two," Anne said coldly, and determined fell back against the bed, pulling the blankets snugly about her head.
"We'll do that." Rea promised softly. "Think about us tomorrow evening. You know me-think hard!"
Anne slept through breakfast, deliberately feigning sleep to avoid talking to Rea. It was stupid of her to be concerned because Rea would make a play for Mike. What was Mike to her, anyway? And at the same time her mind soothed her with the consoling reassurance that Mike wouldn't touch Rea, knowing how she was frankly trying to make him. Rea's obviousness would be repugnant to Mike. But why think about Mike at all, she feproached herself? How stupid could she be?"
Anne wandered over to the Eat Shoppe for lunch, still determined to give the campus a wide berth. Weekends it wasn't likely she'd encounter Don Hawthorne at a student eating hangout. She dawdled through a lonely lunch, fighting restlessness. She'd given most of the students, except for Rea a wide berth. The fellows had made the usual passes, had met determined resistance. For the first time since she'd been at Ravenwood, Anne felt adrift, an outsider.
She'd call New York, she decided on impulse-find out if Dave Wallace had recieved the film as yet. She reached for her purse, checked her coin purse for change, then headed for the phone booth.
"Hi, it's Anne," she began as Dave Wallace's voice finally came to her across the wires.
"Annie, you're going great!" Dave broke in enthusiastically. "What's holding you up? Get me the first of the series, so we can start to work here. Some hot course they're teaching at that Typical College of the Year," he chuckled. "Makes me feel like enrolling for post-graduate work."
"I'll have the first in the mail tonight," Anne promised. "The second by early next week. How raw shall I get?"
"All the way," he said soberly, getting down to business. "What's too strong we'll cut, that's all. But give it everything, baby. Undiluted raw sex."
"Okay, boss," she said flippantly. "I'll keep it rol-ling."
They talked another few moments about the general outline of Anne's efforts, then finished off the call. Anne walked out of the telephone booth, feeling vaguely encouraged by Dave Wallace's enthusiasm. Then her eyes dilated in alarm. Don Hawthorne was perched on a stool at the fountain, regarding her with a quizzical look. He was recognizing her, she thought desperately. Now what?
Hawthorne picked up his coffee cup and headed for the table adjacent to the phone booth, his eyes still on Anne.
"Don't I know you?" he asked pleasantly, sitting down.
"I don't believe so," Anne hesitated. "I'm a student at Ravenwood, of course-"
"Then you know me." A sense of triumph, that he hadn't been entirely wrong, lit his appraising eyes.
"You're Mr. Hawthorne," Anne managed with the deference an instructor ostensibly demanded.
"Sit down while I try to remember where I've met you," he said leisurely. "Drives me frantic to forget a face. Especially an attractive one." His eyes moved slowly down the length of her, letting her know his approval, all the way.
"My room-mate is Rea Camden-you've probably seen us together right here." A casual bantering tone, Anne ordered silently.
"Oh, yes, Rea." The eyes were oblique now, a note of caution in his voice. Wondering how much Rea had told her?
"That's probably why I look familiar." Nervousness creeping treacherously into her voice now. Damn, she couldn't afford to be found out yet! It wouldn't be healthy to be found out, period! Anne thought with a rush of intuition. Something deadly cold about this ascetic looking man that warned her he'd stop at nothing to protect what he considered important in his life. Her mind chased back to the rough draft of her article starring Don Hawthorne and his amorous partners-instantly identifiable by the subject himself.
"No," he said with a defmiteness that startled her into attention. "This was away from the campus," he was insistent. "I have a peculiar mind-it ties in people and places. I don't know you from here."
"New York perhaps?" she reached for the provocative approach, to distract him from this line of probing. His knee brushed hers under the table, so lightly as to be barely a definite gesture, yet the awareness in his eyes told her he was testing. She didn't move the knee, allowing it to remain in feather-light touch with his. Safer to let him dwell on this track than the real one!
"So you're a New Yorker," he drawled. "That's my town." A gleam of reminiscent excitement shone on his face.
"Mad about it myself. The museums, the galleries, the theatre-nothing like it."
"Interested in art?" Interest quickened in him now.
"I was practically a fixture at the Museum of Modern Art." Anne took a stab at his choice: the moderns.
"I manage to get to the city two or three times a year," he told her with satisfaction. "A hobby of mine, collecting new artists."
"Expensive hobby," Anne contrived to sound wistful. "I never get beyond the looking stage. Once I think I lived madly and spent thirty dollars at the Village show."
"How'd you happen to come to a school like Ravenwood?" he demanded curiously.
"My parents decided I'd be better off in a small town atmosphere," she invented, knowing instantly he took this to mean, away from the city temptations.
"Bored here?" The knee moved in softly persuasive movements against hers.
"Deadly," she sighed, taking a leaf from Rea's book. "What can a girl do for excitement around all these kids?"
"Not all kids." His eyes held hers meaningfully. "Rea seems to be happy here."
"Rea makes interesting friends." Okay, he wanted to know if she was aware Rea was dating him.
"Why don't we go over to my place and let me show you my new artists? Maybe that way I'll remember where it was we've met."
"All right," Anne agreed, intrigued with the opportunity to see the inside of Don Hawthorne's house-and his mind. That he had more extensive explorations in view, Anne guessed but ignored. She'd know more about the man, seeing how he lived, perhaps seeing a picture of his wife around. So far she hadn't seen Elaine Hawthorne around the campus or about town. He must be pretty good to keep his wife and the doctor happy! Plus the little side ventures, like Rea.
"Rea's a most attractive girl," he said conversationally, as they rose from the table and headed for the cashier. "But she's basically a kid, for all that sexiness." His hand rested on her elbow, his fingers managing to caress her breast. "Now you-fully a woman. Not one of these leggy pencil-slim shadows. A man holds you, he has a lot of woman!" His voice dropped to a promise of passion. "Why bother with a substitute when the real thing comes along?" He took her check together with his and made brief small talk with the cashier, then propelled her through the door in the direction of his car.
"The Ravenwood board of directors approve of students being seen with the faculty?" Anne made a feeble attempt at raillery as he handed her into the car, swung around to the other side to get in behind the wheel.
Don Hawthorne calmly glanced about the parking area to make sure they were unobserved. "What the Ravenwood board of directors don't know can't possibly interest them."
His arms slid with senuous enjoyment about her, his mouth parting as it came down to find hers. The meticulously trimmed, tawny beard scratched at her chin.
How could she wiggle out of this one, Anne asked herself frantically, while her body ignored her mind and allowed Don Hawthorne full scope. She'd gone this far-how was she going to pull out of making the full trip?
Anne sat beside Don Hawthorne, trying to tell herself that fleeting moment of love-making in the parking area had left her cold. It hadn't. She had been stirred up far beyond the point of detached interest. While she was no Rea, Anne recognized the truth-she needed love on a steady basis. Mike made her uncomfortably conscious of this. And Don Hawthorne had an oddly fascinating quality about him.
Hawthorne turned into the driveway of a corner house, set far back on a carpet of meticulously cut grass. The house was gleaming white, the curtains hanging in precise fashion at the windows. Everything indicated the fastidious mind of Dr. Don Hawthorne, who oddly enough refused to use the title due in deference to his degree.
"It's a charming house," Anne said, her mind churning with the knowledge that Elaine Hawthorne was absent for the weekend.
"It's my masterpiece," he said with satisfaction. "The inside, that is." He was leading her to the door now, his hand reaching eagerly for the key.
Don had a right to be proud of the house, Anne admitted with reluctant admiration. A gem of a home, far beyond the reach of the routine college instructor. His wife had started the ball rolling with her own money, Anne surmised swiftly, then Don had branched out to continue the lavishness.
"Your wife?" Anne paused suddenly before a painting over the fireplace. Instinct told her this cold, distant woman was Elaine Hawthorne. Beautiful, in an arrogant fashion that no doubt fitted Don's mental picture of his wife.
"That's Elaine," he conceded carelessly. "She's away for the weekend." His hands were at her waist as he inspected the lushly endowed length of her.
"I rather imagined that," Anne laughed throatily.
Don reached on the mantle for his pipe. "How did a luscious chunk of woman like you, with a mature mind to go with that gorgeous body, ever land in a school like this?"
"I told you," Anne warned herself to be cautious-not to overplay the sophistication. "My parents like the idea of the typical college routine. Not that anybody'd consider you the typical instructor," she reminded pointedly.
Don chuckled, lowering himself onto the sofa. "I hate that horrible publicity. What can be more disgusting than being 'typical'?"
"I imagine if you dig under the surface at any college, you find a different picture than our dear parents would prefer to believe." Anne's green eyes were darkly mocking, her legs crossed high as she settled herself on the sofa beside him.
"Quite a little philosopher." He was making talk now, something cooking away in his mind, Anne guessed, watching him alertly. Wondering how much Rea had told her about him?
"What about that art collection?" She stirred, too keenly aware of his hand reaching across the sofa to touch her thigh.
"You'll like it," he promised lazily, his eyes uncommunicative. "I have another collection you might find interesting, too. The secret work of an unknown artist. Me." His mouth twisted into a sardonic smile. "No real talent but I enjoy it."
"Show me," she commanded, daring him.
"Come along." He extended a hand, pulled her alongside him and toward the stairway. "The secret studio of Don Hawthorne."
He tossed open the door and waited for Anne to enter. The walls were adorned with paintings, all nudes. All grotesquely exaggerated. Enormous breasts, bulging buttocks, the kind of imagination that made Anne wonder if he were the artist who'd perpetrated the artwork in the Dean's cottage.
"They're different," Anne said lightly. "Interest-mg.
"I can show you something far more interesting." His hands slid from behind, about her waist while she inspected a painting barely removed from the obscene. His body pressed hard against her back.
"Oh, come off it, Anne." He swung her around to face him. "You didn't come here to see paintings." His eyes mocked hers. "You knew my wife wasn't home."
"How did I know?" she countered.
"Rea must have told you," he took a shot in the dark and Anne hated herself for letting him know he'd struck at the truth. "I know you gals," he went on triumphantly. "Always comparing notes about your men. Rea's a sexy wench, but she's a kid. She practically threw it at me, so why should I refuse? I like a woman who knows the score. A luscious bundle of sex like you!"
"Rea would be furious with me." She laughed unsteadily.
"Who's to tell her?" His fingers were at the buttons of her sweater, working with practiced ease. "Besides, she's the elementary course-you're post-graduate. Top level."
'Why do you wear that foliage, Don?" Anne's mind was in a turmoil, fighting the emotions that threatened to blot out logic. "I read somewhere men wear beards to prove their virility."
For an instant he stiffened, and Anne remembered Dr. Jerome Lee. For a horrifying instant she was sure she'd given herself away in a crazy fashion. But then his body relaxed, and his mouth brushed her ear.
"I'll prove it to you, baby, irrespective of the beard."
This was absurd, Anne told herself wildly! What was she doing here? Why didn't she stop him? How could she let herself, feeling the way she did about Mike? But Mike was real-Mike was everything, the truth came crisply through her mind. This was a shattering unexpected episode to be forgot tomorrow.
Still, Anne fought to remember everything she knew about Don Hawthorne. How any woman who was willing could probably attract him, how the Dean and he had cavorted yesterday with those two brash kids from a neighboring town. How he played the doctor, to cater to his expensive whims. Nothing seemed important, with Don's hands on her, removing each item with the devoted attention of a master.
"You're exquisite," he muttered huskily. "The best thing this town ever had to offer!"
"It's a small town," she tried to laugh, excitement choking her. Don Hawthorne had his Ph. D. in the Art of Love, too!
"It's an oasis in the midst of a desert," he whispered, pulling her down on the low broad couch before the fireplace. "An oasis inhabited by two. Two thirsty people, my lovely. And I believe in trying every drink on the shelf."
A shiver of hysteria shot through her, remembering the orgy in the Dean's bedroom. Her eyes shut, her mind refusing to cope with anything now except the clamorous demands that tore at her. Her nakedness meeting his, her hands working with a frenzied feverishness, to match his. Her mouth open to receive that pointed flame in his mouth. The room heavy with sounds of passion.
"This is absurd," she said, knowing she couldn't stop now, her legs tangling with his, her fingers clutching at his shoulders, all of her ready to receive all of him.
And then the sharp, insistent ringing of the phone that jarred them back to reality.
"Damn!" he swore, freezing in position.
"Ignore it," Anne whispered. "We didn't hear a thing."
"Honey, you drive me crazy," he whispered back, his maleness loving her.
"Then don't wait," she begged, her breath coming in sobbing gasps. Her insides screaming with desire. If he left her now, she thought crazily, she'd go out of her mind.
"You're a passionate wench!" Don ignored the insistent ringing, plunging with her, the two of them fighting to make this the best ever. "Oh, baby, you're the greatest!"
And then, without warning, while her nails dug into him and her body cried out for more, he was absolutely still, except for his hand reaching over to retrieve the phone.
"Yes?" he said guardedly while she lay there hating him. And then Anne was conscious of impatience mixing with a certain uneasiness. "Honestly, John, do we have to talk about it now? I'm rather busy."
Her eyes held his reproachfully as he sighed and removed himself. Until her passion subsided and reality crept back. That was John Britten, Dean of Ravenwood, her mind caught on sharply. The two of them worried about the girl last night? What if Don caught on to the fact that she was the girl? With a towering sense of alarm, Anne started to dress, half-listening to the conversation on the phone.
"John, I told you-Elaine took herself off the weekend. She probably hired that bitch to get something on me. I have a good idea she went home to see her brother, the lawyer. She'd love to divorce me if she thought she could get off without paying out any of that miserly money of hers." Suddenly, he must have realized how avidly she was listening, Anne guessed. His face took on a wary gleam as he listened to the voice at the other end. Then again, impatience crept in. "Sure, it was something Elaine cooked up-what else? And you don't need to worry-she wouldn't dare produce that in court. It'd be too embarrassing to her fastidious, frigid soul."
He didn't suspect anything, Anne thought with a flash of relief. He pinned this on his wife! She was safe, until he might bring it out into the open with Elaine Hawthorne. But right now, he suspected nothing. With a nervous speed Anne finished dressing, reached for her purse, letting him think she was paying no heed to the telephone chatter.
"I'd better run," she whispered, mentally laughing at the ridiculous picture of Don Hawthorne, nude on the couch, arguing with the Dean. Another terrific shot for her album-if she dared.
"Wait a minute," he said angrily, a hand over the phone.
"Can't," she mumbled, hurrying so fast for the door she nearly fell.
"Where the devil are you rushing" he yelled after her, the words trading her down the stairs.
Anne reached the fresh outdoor air with a gasp of relief. And then alarm shot through her. What inane mistake had she perpetrated this time? To run out of the room that way! A duplication of her exit yesterday! The one thing that might trigger Don Hawthorne's mind into remembrance!
CHAPTER TEN
Anne walked with compulsive speed without quite knowing where she was going. Her mind raced over the events in that super-charged studio of Don Hawthorne's. Be rational about the whole thing, she tried to tell herself. So he suspected, what could he do? Suspicion wasn't proof. A man in his position-he couldn't pull any rough stuff! Or could he? There was a hardness about him, an inner brutality that could resort to desperate measures.
Rea had a date with him tomorrow, Anne reminded herself. Would he try to pump Rea for information about her? She'd been too glib in talking with him, too much the girl from New York who'd been around; Not at all like an eighteen-year-old college student with a streak of nymphomania, which had been her planned cover-up. All right, she worked to remain calm-suppose he pinned her down as the girl with the camera. Couldn't he believe then that his wife had hired her? That the thing went no further than that? Only if his wife wasn't questioned pointedly. And once the series broke, if word leaked back to Ravenword, he'd know. Her only safe road now-finish up her survey and get out fast.
She'd spend the rest of the afternoon working, in the town library where she wouldn't be disturbed. It made her nervous, working in the room at the dorm now, with the chance of Rea popping in at unexpected moments. There was always that feel of somebody looking over her shoulder, discovering the truth. Her steps took on direction now-the public library. She had her notes and notebook in the oversized bag she always carried.
Anne stopped short, suddenly aware that Mike's store lay directly ahead. Unawares she'd taken the route to the library that led past the store. She'd better start putting Mike out of her mind right now. In a matter of days she'd be out of this town. She'd never see him again. Desperation shot through her. It could have been so different if she'd been smart. Why had she opened her big mouth to tell Mike? He'd gone right off the cliff for her from the beginning, until his social conscience had risen up between them. She had to see him again, even if only for a moment, she admitted with passionate hunger.
Her face coldly set, Anne walked into the store, relieved that the customers were sparse. That same typing in the rear again. Mike had told her he wanted his life clear of complications-to keep his mind on his work. But what a screwball way to run a business! Why, anybody could walk off with half the store and that nut wouldn't even know! Maybe that was one of the reasons she was in love with him-that warmly unconventional, stubborn streak in him that insisted on living the way he wanted. Okay, so she'd admitted it. Anne Winters was in love with Mike Rader. Finis.
"May I help you?" Not until Mike's voice intruded with a contrived impersonal calm did Anne realize the typing in the rear had ceased.
"I wanted to pick up a book," she babbled, taking refuge in a strange arrogance. "This one," she chose a book without actually seeing the tide, fumbled in her purse for change.
"Shall I wrap it for you?" Only his eyes belied his inner excitement.
Had he thought she'd come back to beg forgiveness, she wondered with silent antagonism. Well, he was all wrong!
"Never mind." She shoved the book into that oversized purse, swerved, and walked swiftly out of the store, Mike's puzzled stare staying in her memory.
At the library, Anne found herself a corner table, unoccupied except by an elderly research worker. She dug into her notes, trying to make her mind work logically and with speed. "The Case of the Amorous Dean" was in the hands of the newspaper. By Monday morning she'd mail out the "The Chemistry Professor with a Ph.D. in Sex." Brock Meadows. No, she decided, better hold off on that for some vital picture material. The small camera that posed as a cigarette lighter-the one she'd used in the dance hall racket story. It was safely tucked away in the bottom of her trunk. Get it out for some action. Rea saw him regularly-follow Rea, capture Meadows. Simple. No, the second series would deal with her more versatile subject. Don Hawthorne himself. She had the shot of the party for four-that protected the newspaper as far as he went. Follow that with "The Chemistry Professor," then switch to Kendricks. She was so thoroughly absorbed in working she jumped when a vaguely familiar voice intruded.
"Is this how you spend your Saturday afternoons?" It was Jon what's-his-name, Anne noted with a start. The one who'd kidded her about Kendricks that first day in class. AC/DC himself.
"I've been goofing off since classes started," Anne said casually. "Figured I'd better take time out to catch up." Hastily she covered her notes.
Jon inspected her with interest. Obviously, this was his day for girls.
"Feel like a drive? You'll end up with red eyes instead of green ones, pouring over books that way," he mocked invitingly. "I know all the local points of interests."
"I'll bet." Anne rose, though, with a smile of acquiescence. This was her chance to dig up some data on Kendricks. She had a strong hunch Johnny-boy had been playing him big. "Especially the ones out of bounds?"
"Especially those," he grinned, and they both frowned as the research worker muttered a nasty "ssssh!"
It was almost twilight, Anne noted in surprise. But then the days were so short compared to the summer. In no time at all Rea would be swinging out of Monroe Hall to meet Mike. She didn't want to think about that.
"Buy me a hamburger," she ordered with breathless gaiety. "I can't bear the vision of dining hall mess."
"A pleasure," he agreed with alacrity, and Anne caught on fast. He was the first boy on the campus known to have dated Anne Winters. A luscious doll, in their books; Anne knew her assets.
Anne deliberately flung herself into a mood of levity, sure she could handle Jon. After all, he was a kid, despite the outward appearances. Though she reminded herself again, when his thigh strayed with frank intent towards hers, that sometimes it was difficult to remember about these kids.
"Where are we headed now?" she demanded, when they'd left the roadside tavern that was listed as out-of-bounds for the college crowd.
"Introduce you to the local Lovers' Lane," he grinned good-humoredly. "Or have you already put it to the test?"
"Not yet," she managed a sultry laugh. "But make sure you keep this on a guided tour basis. I'm not in an amorous mood tonight."
"Why not?" His thigh exerted a tempting pressure. "A babe like you ought to be in the mood all the time!"
"I'm on the rebound," she said candidly. Let him think whatever he wanted.
"Okay, I'll play the boy scout," he chuckled. "But that's the hell of a waste of a Saturday night."
"How are you making out with Kendricks?" she inquired lightly.
"What do you mean?" Jon's hands on the wheel betrayed his shock. As though caught in the act, Anne thought, watching him.
"Remember what you told me, about his course being a snap for you?"
"Oh, that." His nervous laugh was manufactured. "Think I made a mistake about the old boy. Nice guy, thoroughly normal."
So Jon had made it with him, Anne told herself. How much did Kendricks' wife know about his real sexual inclinations? More interesting to her reading public; how many of his students found out?
"I hear it's common knowledge Kendricks is queer," she persisted. "I got it from a boy who ought to know!"
"Who?" Jon's voice was strangely antagonistic. "What creep's been throwing around stories?"
"I forget who it was," Anne said casually. "Some fellow who was in a position to know, the way I got the story."
"Kendricks doesn't play the field," Jon insisted coldly. "People are rotten about spreading stories." Unexpectedly he stepped hard on the gas. "I'll give you a moonlight view of our Lovers' Lane, thoroughly endorsed by the student body." He was determinedly flip now.
They drove along in silence, until Jon turned off the main road and slowed down to a crawling pass. Anne found out why soon enough. The parked cars, without lights, made it dangerous to proceed with any speed. But it wasn't too dark to see in the back seats of those parked cars. Her eyes peered sharply at something familiar about the fellow sprawled above a small redhead, on the back seat of a convertible she seemed to recognize. Jon parked now, at an angle to the convertible, and when he reached to pull her out of the car to the more comfortable dimensions of the rear, Anne didn't object. She was impatient for the better glimpse this would give her of the other car.
The man's face slowly moved away from the girl's, into the faint moonlight that streamed into his car. His face contorted with passion, his body moving with the panting little redhead's. Ralph Britten. He'd discovered a successor to Patty Rader. Would Mike still feel so magnanimous if he knew? There might be a sweet little wife and baby in the family homestead, but there was another teenage student on the backseat of his convertible!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jon sulked vaguely when he left her at Monroe Hall slightly before ten o'clock. But his manhood felt safe-he'd put in time on the back seat of his car with Anne Winters, a top gal on the campus for sexiness. Anne had known she could handle him, even with her mind racing over what she knew about Ralph Britten from Mike, from her own encounter with Rea, and now tonight. She'd made all the expected responses to Jon, the routine flip dialogue, and the definite "no" she'd warned him about. She didn't go about seducing teen-agers, though it would hardly be seduction with Jon, Anne laughed grimly. But as she figured, tonight was his night for girls-he'd got all over-heated, sore when she called the end of the class.
She strode through the all but empty lounge room of the dorm, up the stairs to her room.
"What are you doing in this joint on a Saturday night?" Carla stared in amazement, obviously herself en route to a special date, judging from the super-sexy cocktail dress that emphasized every curvaceous inch of her. The scared nymphomaniac evidently wasn't scared anymore.
"I was out with a creep," Anne tried to shrug it off. "An infant."
"What's this thing Rea and you have for older guys?" Curiosity shone from her excited little face.
"What do you mean?" Anne poised before her door, anxious to escape Carla.
"I remember that gorgeous character that runs the bookshop in town-he was panting for you, the way I saw it. Rea has a thing going with the faculty." She giggled, ready to take off. "Half the faculty, the way I hear it."
"You hear wrong," Anne said coldly and slammed inside her room. Wasn't anything secret around tins campus? Didn't anybody care? Her mind tabulated the instructors whose sexual meanderings she knew personally: Brock Meadows, Ralph Britten, Don Hawthorne, Kendricks, the great Dean himself. Not to mention the gossip galloping about the campus on at least four others.
Anne was digging around in her trunk for the lighter-size camera when she heard the high heels clicking familiarly up the stairs. Rea. Back so early from her date with Mike? Somehow, the idea was reassuring.
"That Mike!" Rea slammed the door furiously. "You sure pick men! Treated me like I was his five-year-old niece. Gave me the Dutch uncle routine about running around with older guys. What does he think happens when you go out with a college kid? They're all saints or impotent or something. I did everything but pull down his zipper!" she went on nastily, knowing what this did to Anne. "I told him he might at least prove to me he was a man." She kicked off her shoes and reached up the slim lovely legs to jerk down the nylons. "Know what I think, Anne? You and Mike belong together! Both of you, a pair of old maids!"
Sunday dragged on miserably, despite the fact that Anne slept straight through breakfast, emerging from bed in time for lunch. Rea disappeared before Anne was out of the shower. "Good," Anne told herself glumly-she could work undisturbed the rest of the day. It wasn't likely Rea would return to the dorm before her date with Don Hawthorne. For the first time since she'd arrived at Ravenwood Anne felt at loose ends, disoriented. All because of that pious Mike!
Before Mike's tirades, she'd been bursting with enthusiasm for this assignment, she reminded herself. She'd worked like a dog to sell the idea. It was sure fire-now she knew she could supply exactly what Wallace's readers would eat up. Only somehow, the whole venture had lost its zest. It had to do with what Mike had once said about personal involvement. Anybody who wanted to make it big, achieve Success with that capital "S", couldn't afford to be sidetracked.
Despite her frenzied efforts to keep her mind on the job, Anne struggled with little results most of the afternoon. By dinner time she was ready to scream with frustration. She decided to forego college fare, the same young coed faces surrounding her at the table. Right now she was fed up with youngness!
Anne wandered to the Eat Shoppe for a lone snack. The place was fairly busy. Obviously, Anne wasn't the only student charged with restlessness on a Sunday evening. Most of the customers were fugitives from college dining halls. She sat herself in a small booth near the rear, not realizing until she was seated that she was directly behind Donna Goodman.
After she'd ordered, Anne turned her scrutiny on Miss Goodman. A rather plain big-boned woman with an anxious eager-to-please look about her. Absorbed in conversation with another woman teacher whom Anne didn't place. Had Goodman found herself a playmate, Anne wondered?
Donna Goodman's voice was losing its soft whispered tones as she became absorbed in talk with her companion.
"I was terribly shocked when I talked with Ronnie on the phone. It just didn't seem possible they could mean Ravenwood," Donna was visibly disturbed.
"Why would a New York paper be interested in this college?" the other woman scoffed, and Anne froze to attention. "Those tabloids wouldn't look for sensationalism in a place like this I"
"But Ronnie says the way the story read-not coming right out and saying it was Ravenwood but hinting at a 'typical American college'. She says they kept hinting in a nasty way toward Ravenwood."
Wallace had shoved up the planned publication date, Anne thought, stunned. They'd used it as a Sunday spread!
"Did she read much of it to you?" The other woman watched Donna with a horrified fascination.
"Not much over long-distance, but she's mailing it out to me. Do you suppose they could be talking about Dean Britten?" Donna's voice quivered with an undercurrent of alarm.
"We'd have to read it ourselves to get any real idea. Many people in town buy the New York papers?" Donna's companion inquired inquisitively. "A paper like that?"
"A few instructors who're from New York or studied there," Donna said. "I know Hawthorne subscribes to all the New York papers, except the out-and-out rags. The Comet masquerades as a liberal paper. He must get it."
"There'll be an explosion here when the word gets around. U it's anything like Ronnie tells you!" The woman's face was avidly alive. "Can you imagine our beloved Dean unmasked on the front pages of a New York newspaper?"
"Sssssh." Donna was nervous. "The whole thing may be a mistake. Don't say a word to anybody else yet."
By tomorrow, when the New York papers hit town, everybody would know, Anne tried to consider calmly. They'd take wild bets on who "Sorority Sister," the author of the article could be. Teacher or student? The conjectures would be running rampant.
Caution told Anne to go back to Monroe Hall, pack up, and get out. But two points fought against the practical decision. This nagging reluctance to put all those miles between Mike and herself, despite his attitude. And a crazy, smoldering determination to prove to him that her series might possibly do more good than damage. The constant chatter about the degenerate college age group-over sexed, promiscuous, defiant; what kind of an example were their illustrious elders setting for them here in Ravenwood? What about all those side classes being held privately? This series might start a flaming conflagration in town-but it'd burn out a lot of the dirt! Mike knew she wouldn't he-he must know her that well by now. She was writing facts, not fiction. If she could just convince him she was right, the way he'd been right when he'd first come here: fighting mad because of his sister, wanting to get back at Ralph Britten. Because Britten was traveling the same sordid path, smugly sure he was safe under academic robes. "Face it," Anne, she told herself brutally. She didn't want to give up this opportunity to make a big splash career-wise-but she didn't want to give up Mike, either.
Anne awoke Monday morning with an intuitive knowledge that this day would be like none other before. Donna Goodman would receive clippings in the mail. Don Hawthorne and other faculty members would be reading New York papers-some of them the Comet, carrying the lurid account of "The Case of the Amorous Dean". What about Mike, she wondered nervously? Again his words echoed through her mind, warning her to get out of town before somebody cut her throat.
Anne went through breakfast and her first classes with no hint of anything wrong. But by the final class of the afternoon she smelled trouble. She noticed the furtive conversations and the whispered snatches in the corridors, between instructor and instructor, student and student. An air of feverish excitement seemed to suddenly permeate the campus atmosphere. Anne rushed back to Monroe Hall, wanting to hide her face, caught up in a soaring fear that she might give herself away. Only somebody at Ravenwood could have written that first article-and the candidates would narrow perilously fast. Now they'd connect the girl with the camera that afternoon with the article. Question: when would the Dean or Don Hawthorne connect that girl with a student named Anne Winters?
"Hey, Anne!" Rea fairly tumbled into the room. "You hear that stuff going around?"
"You mean about some college Dean who's throwing around sex?" Anne concentrated on her book.
"They're talking about Dean Britten!" Rea glowed with excitement. "Everybody says they all but say it's the Dean of Ravenwood. What do you think?"
"Probably a hundred colleges have the same idea, about its being their dean," Anne fenced.
"Nope." Rea shook her head firmly. "Not the way they introduce the thing. It's a tie-in with all that publicity about this being the typical college. Wow! If my parents latch on to that, I won't be here another semester!"
"You think they'd pull you out?" Anne glanced up.
"If they smell sex within fifty miles of me, they'll drag me out. Only I'll put up an awful stink," Rea warned defiantly. "This college suits me fine."
"It'll all die down by tomorrow," Anne shrugged. Only how could it, with a new article already in Dave Wallace's hands? She'd mailed out the second last night-it'd probably run on a split-week basis, the way she figured Wallace's planning.
"I wonder where we could get hold of a New York paper?" Rea pondered feverishly. "Boy, would I love to get a first hand reading of that!"
The carbon copy lay dangerously close, Anne thought with a start. Thank God, Rea wasn't suspicious!
"Your pal Hawthorne probably subscribes to the New York papers, with his interests," Anne said carelessly, instantly regretting her stupidity. She wanted to soft-pedal local interest, not foster it! This was what the students would eat up.
"I'll try to see him." Rea's eyes shone brightly. "That bitch of a wife is back today, of course-he warned me not to call him there. She's after grounds for divorce, but he isn't interested. Makes no secret," Rea went on admiringly. "He wants his women in quantity. A guy like that, no one woman could hold."
"Nor one man," Anne snapped, knowing she was talking rashly.
"He isn't gay," Rea tossed back in astonishment. "What ever gave you that idea?"
"A rumor," Anne shrugged it off casually. "No truth in it, I'm sure."
"Who told you?" Rea persisted avidly.
"I don't remember. What's the difference?"
"Curiosity, that's all." Rea sat cross-legged on her bed, her tongue caught between her teeth as she concentrated. "I'll bet I know the score there. Don's a guy with extravagant tastes. He must have found a boy to cater to them. He said something yesterday-about sex being great, any kind. Maybe he likes boys too."
"I have to go to the library." Anne untangled herself, trying to quell the turmoil charging through her. "See you later."
Anne hurried to the nearest telephone booth to phone New York. Dave Wallace was out.
"Would you care to talk to anyone else?" the operator inquired politely.
"Thank you, no. I'll try the call later."
She had to talk to Dave, find out what he'd done to make it so obvious-supposedly-that this college in the article was Ravenwood! She'd expected the people themselves involved would catch on to the true identity of the locale, but what had Dave done to advertise it to strangers? It had to be more than the mere reference to the school as a "typical college." Where could she get her hands on a copy of the paper, to see for herself? The stationery store carried out-of-town papers, she suddenly recalled. She'd try them.
Anne rushed breathlessly into the stationery store, waiting impatiently until the salesman was free to be approached.
"Do you carry the New York papers?" she inquired eagerly. "The Comet?"
"We do, but not today," the man grinned good-humoredly. "What happened, anyhow? Half of Ravenwood college has been here in the last three hours trying to buy copies of that paper. We only get in about ten a day!"
Anne walked slowly out of the store, her mind working feverishly. Somehow she had to get her hands on a copy of that paper; to see for herself how deeply embroiled she was. Also, if the other installments in the series were to be run, she'd need awfully strong proof to avoid libel suits-if the locale were so obvious. What was the matter with Dave, anyhow, she wondered, irritated.
She hesitated before an unfamiliar little luncheonette. The college crowd was devoted almost exclusively to the Eat Shoppe and spots along the road into town. She wandered in, more for an opportunity to sit down somewhere than because she was hungry.
"Coffee and a hamburger," she ordered, her eyes straying to other diners, holding newspapers. None of them with a copy of the Comet, though. This was becoming an obsession with her, she thought miserably, and it was no time for her to fall apart.
Now was the time to sit down and work out a plan of operation, Anne ordered herself sharply. She'd have to get out of here in a matter of days-instinct told her even this might be a physical hazard. Typical intelligent middle-class people, who on the surface would never resort to violence-yet hadn't these same so-called typical individuals shown themselves as thoroughly different from their outer wraps? What made her think she was safe because of that surface niceness? To see this campaign through she needed proof to ward off libel attacks. That meant more photographs. She'd have to stop being squeamish, resort to the lady peeping Tom tactics that Mike had accused her of utilizing. She'd started this series-she wouldn't stop midway.
Anne hurried back to the dorm now, relieved that it was all but empty because of meal time. Quickly, she packed the little camera and spare roll of film. It was crazy, desperate, but she had to do it-prowl this college town for evidence to back up her claims of its sexual bawdiness. She could be arrested for trespassing; for any number of charges, she admitted to herself. But she couldn't evade this foolhardy determination to finish off what she'd started. She'd have enough evidence on film before she left this town to make the whole town sit back and take its medicine.
CHAPTER TWELVE
With cold deliberation Anne chose an outfit she'd never worn at Ravenwood. Moreover, she wore dark glasses and a kerchief-anything to make her less identifiable in the event she crossed paths unexpectedly with someone who might know her. The camera was conveniently tucked away in the pocket of her suede jacket. She checked her purse for identification. A Ravenwood student, complete with burser's card, should have no difficulty renting a car in town.
A churning excitement behind her calm exterior, Anne walked into the office of the local rent-a-car service, filled out the necessary papers, handed over part of her dwindling cash reserve, and waited for a car to be brought around for her use. Mike would want to throttle her if he knew this latest step, she thought with a trace of hysterical amusement. Or had he managed to route her out of his mind altogether? But she mustn't let herself think about Mike now, she warned herself silently. The job ahead was too important! Nervously, she slid behind the wheel to start on her search for photographic dirt. The small camera wouldn't give her the sharply clear prints of the kind she got of the Dean's party, but they'd be clear enough for the job they would have to do. It would be a long, nerve-wracking evening-she'd start on the less arduous assignment-Lovers' Lane, Ravenwood College.
Anne parked the car, turned off the lights, and sat. It was early, but she was playing hunches. Any faculty member would know the students were involved with more earthy assignments like dining this hour of the evening. It was presumably safe. With her rented car, nobody could identify her.
Anne sat there, nervously self-conscious, wondering if perhaps she was completely nuts to be playing this cloak-and-dagger routine. Impulsively, she reached for the ignition key-and then she pulled her hand away. A car was pulling off at one side. A man shoved open the door and stepped out, reached a hand to pull the woman behind the wheel to him. They stood together, silhouetted as one in the faint spill of moonlight-the frenetic chasing of hands spelling passion. There was something familiar about the woman. Anne squinted, trying to bring the woman's face into focus. Now she recognized her! It was the face in the portrait that hung in the Hawthorne living room: Elaine Hawthorne, Don's wife. The man was a stranger.
Anne fought to keep her hand from trembling as she set the camera for action. She moved noiselessly across the few feet of dirt that separated her from the other two. She saw Elaine Hawthorne's eyes tight shut, her face contorted with desire, the two bodies moving on a bed of autumn leaves. Next, a shot of the license plate of the car, Anne remembered; the ownership could be checked out later. She moved back towards her own car, freezing as a branch crackled beneath her feet. The other two hadn't heard-she caught her breath in relief. She returned to her car, in somber darkness, waiting to see what else the darkened lane would serve up for her use.
Suddenly another car approached. A man stepping out carrying a flashlight in his hand. Don Hawthorne, trailing his wife-protecting his investment. Fear caught hold of her, inexplicably. She was safe-an innocent bystander, she tried to tell herself, yet ice shot through her as she caught the shining chunk of steel in Don Howthorne's hand.
"How charming, Elaine!" Anne sat immobile, her hands clutching at the wheel as Don Hawthorne interrupted the frenzied passion of the two tangling in the leaves. "But I thought you were more fastidious. A student, my dear?"
"You dared to follow me!" his wife gasped. "You!"
Suddenly Anne knew she had to get out of there or scream. She turned the key, her foot on the accelerator. Shifted, and swung the car crazily down the road, her headlights garishly spotlighting the figures of Don Hawthorne, his wife, and a Ravenwood student. She heard the oaths that followed her as she careened recklessly in the opposite direction. Then, as in a nightmare, she realized the other car was following her, its lights pinpointed on her car, gaining with a deadly swiftness. With more luck than wisdom Anne swerved into a dark side road, turned off her lights as she pulled to a full stop. She heard the other car whizzing past. She was safe, for now.
Hawthorne must be fuming! She'd caught him first with the Dean and his floosies, now with a gun in his hand pointed at his wife and a student. He didn't know about the secret encounter with him at the doctor's little sanitarium. But Don Hawthorne was quick; he'd realize fast enough his private life would hit the newspaper pages of the Comet right behind that of Dean Britten. She couldn't chance staying here any longer-a shiver shot through her, visualizing the gleaming gun in his hand. Maybe it'd been just a prop to threaten his wife-she wasn't even sure of that-but if he discovered her, he'd use it. She knew this instinctively.
She started up the car again, fighting hysteria. Don Hawthorne was forever catching her in flight. This time he'd remember! He'd know the girl on his trail was Rea Camden's room-mate. With a sudden compulsion to rid herself of the car, despite the fact she'd paid for its use for twenty-four hours, Anne hurried back to the garage to return it. This brainstorm could turn into a death knell!
Anne walked into the dorm, with a sense of doom crushing down upon her. Outwardly, Monroe Hall was the epitome of casual college life. Two girls dancing to the phonograph record, one teaching the other new steps of the latest college fad. Carla curled up at the telephone, reveling in her new freedom from fear. Had she made the instructors' list yet, Anne wondered cynically.
"Hey, Anne," Carla's voice caught her as she started up the stairs. "Phone call for you about ten minutes ago."
"Who was it?" Anne compelled herself to speak calmly, shoving down the alarm that raced to the surface.
"Mike," Carla said. "No last name." Carla watched her brightly. "That's the bookstore character, isn't it?"
"That's right," Anne assured her crisply, the green eyes smoldering with excitement. Mike had called her!
"I'm through here," Carla was bristling with friendliness. "Bye, Skip," she murmured into the phone and hung up. "Go ahead, call the man."
"I might if you scram," Anne assured her calmly. "Okay." Carla unwound herself from the phone chair. "I just wanted to see you operate. You must have something to keep a guy like that on the leash. I'd park with him anytime!"
"Blow," Anne said grimly, waiting for her to ascend the stairs before she dialed. "Hello," Mike's voice sounded tired. "It's Anne," she murmured breathlessly. Just the sound of his voice did things to her, she thought distractedly. How could she run off and leave things unfinished this way? Because his calling told her it was still unfinished. Mike wasn't done with her, despite their battles!
"See the New York papers?" he demanded grimly.
"No, but I've heard," she admitted warily.
"Maybe you wrote the article, but you have to see the introduction to know what's going to happen around this town in the next twenty-four hours! Or have you read it?"
"I haven't-it's already started-what you just said about the next twenty-four hours." She was talking guardedly, knowing Mike would understand.
"Don't say much there," he warned, nevertheless, and Anne caught the undercurrent of anxiety that gripped him. "Let me do the talking. I have a pipeline to the college-a guy who helps me out in the store now and then. He said Britten and Hawthorne were closeted for an hour, screaming their lungs out about what they'd do to the newspaper. Britten plans to sue for a million dollars."
"It won't work," Anne whispered into the phone. "He couldn't afford to."
"What do you mean?" Mike demanded tersely.
"He knows they have insurance," Anne said pointedly. "So does Hawthorne."
"He's in it, too, huh?" Mike sighed.
"Up to that exquisitely trimmed beard," Anne admitted.
"Look, I don't like this, Annie," Mike began worriedly.
"Nor do I," she interrupted. "There's a side to the beard you may not know."
"I'm picking you up in twenty or thirty minutes," Mike told her with sudden determination. "I want you off that campus, under wraps. The next train out is tomorrow morning."
"What would the housemother say?" Anne managed to be momentarily flippant. "Staying off the campus overnight!"
"You won't be worrying about that after tonight." Mike's mind was clicking along rapidly. "You've opened up a Pandora's box here-somebody might end up with a broken neck. You."
"You wouldn't like that, Mike?" Her voice purred seductively. If she got out of this mess in one piece, maybe Mike and she could make it on a full-time basis.
"Turn off the sex," he allowed himself a brief chuckle. "We'll talk about that later. Watch for the car-it won't be more than half an hour."
Mike hung up then, and Anne moved slowly up the stairs, enveloped in satisfaction that Mike was concerned about her. It meant he was still crazy about her, the way he'd shown himself that time at the Dean's-and in the tiny backroom where he worked. Despite everything; his anger at her activities, his contempt for her ambition, Mike wanted her!
Anne opened the door to the room, surprised that Rea wasn't there. She'd mentioned something about staying home tonight-catching up on classwork. Perhaps she'd gone over to the library. Anne thought. Just as well. This way she could get out of the dorm again without arousing Rea's curiosity.
Did Mike know more than he was telling her, she wondered fearfully, changing into a skirt and sweater. The delicate yellow cashmere coordinate that lent golden glints to the heavily-fringed green eyes, emphasized the darkness of her hair with its deceptively young styling. The sweater hugged the rich fullness of her breasts with loving appreciation; the slim skirt ending just at the knee, flattering her exquisitely proportioned legs. She wanted to see that look of soaring desire in Mike's eyes again.
She reached into the closet again, for her suede jacket, then bent down to retrieve the typewriter she'd relegated to this new position. Then she reached into the inside jacket pocket for the key to the typewriter case, to take out the notes she kept carefully concealed in there. But as she dragged the portable out into the room, something unfamiliar caught her eye. The lock was open! Somebody had been in the typewriter easel.
Her hands trembling, she dragged the case onto a chair, trying to tell herself she'd left it open by accident-knowing she'd never do something so careless! She lifted the top, her hand reaching swiftly for the envelope with her notes. The envelope that should have been there, but wasn't. Somebody had been here; somebody who was on to Anne Winter's real reason for being at Ravenwood College! Someone who knew her, but whom she didn't know! She stood, immobile with fear, afraid of the next moment. Trouble was en route. Where, how, when?.....
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Anne closed the lock of the typewriter and numbly put it back inside the closet. She felt an eerie feeling that unseen eyes were watching her, ready to pounce. She glanced out the window. Mike, hurry! Please hurry!
"Winters! Anne Winters!" The voice from downstairs was a jarring note that shook her back to reality.
"Yes?" Mike must have driven up with miraculous speed, she thought gratefully. It was barely ten minutes. "I'll be right there," she called down, running towards the stairs.
"Take it easy," the girl at the phone said cynically. "It isn't a man calling."
"Oh?" So it wasn't Mike waiting downstairs for her. And what girl would be phoning her at Monroe Hall? She reached the bottom of the stairs, still with that feeling of living in a nightmare. "Hello?"
"Anne?" said a feminine voice, desperate and familiar.
"Rea?" Amazement charged through her.
"Yeah. Something crazy's happened. Anne, you have to come over here. Right away!"
"Rea, I can't," Anne protested, even while part of her mind knew she must. The urgency in Rea's voice clearly indicated how desperate she was.
"You have to!" Rea insisted stubbornly. "If you don't something awful will happen to both of us. I can't talk over the phone-come over here fast!"
"Where?" She'd have to get hold of Mike, explain somehow about the delay.
"The comer of Wildwood and Lake Street. I'll be waiting for you. And Annie, for God's sake hurry!" Rea hung up before Anne could protest any further.
Anne put the receiver down, momentarily too upset to stir. Then her mind leapt into action. This thing with Bea had something to do with the disappearance of her notes-it had to be that way. In some way Rea was in trouble because of that. No time to sit back and try to solve the mystery. She had to go to Wildwood and Lake, fast. Where was that, anyhow? Her mind groped for the area. Lake Street cut into Wildwood about two miles down the main road from town, she recalled vaguely. Caution said, wait for Mike. He could drive her there in a matter of minutes. But Rea had sounded so terrified. Anne dialed Mike's number, waited, her pulse racing, while the phone rang insistently at the other end. No use. Mike was already out of the place.
"You using that?" a bookish blonde on the stairway demanded.
"No." the voice startled her. "The phone's free."
Anne moved reluctantly. How could she reach Mike? "Look, if somebody drops by for me, will you tell him I'm at Wildwood and Lake?" she asked desperately.
"What are you doing over there?" the girl looked astonished.
"Holding a seance," Anne was coolly flippant, outwardly. "If he's tall, handsome, and named Mike, send him over."
"If I'm around," the blonde promised. "Why don't you write it on the callboard? Somebody'll check with that for sure."
"Thanks," Anne mumbled. She should have thought of that herself. Why why had the girl been so astonished about her going to Wildwood and Lake?
Anne hurried out of Monroe Hall, across the campus, down the road to the bus stop. She should have waited for Mike, the thought darted persistently through her brain. What could be so urgent that Rea couldn't wait another ten or fifteen minutes? Her eyes watched the road anxiously, on the chance that Mike's car would show up before the bus. But it didn't. Anne took a seat by the window to watch the street names.
As closely as she watched, Anne nearly rode past her stop. It was hard to see the street sign at Lake-it was nearly hidden in the litter of the construction crew set up at the site. Lake and Wildwood was in the process of being converted into a new industrial building. Anne got off, wishing she'd brought a flashlight along. Why had Rea told her to come here? And where was she?
Anne walked along the area, feeling strangely alone and lost at a site like this, at this hour of the evening. Not even a night watchman around, she thought apprehensively. What kind of a wild goose chase was this?
"Anne." It was an insistent little whisper.
"Rea!" Anne spun around. "What goes on here?"
"They made me phone you." Rea's defiant sophistication was replaced now by a young fear. "I didn't want to do it, but they made me!"
"Who made you?" And why did Rea insist on staying there in the shadows?
"I did." Even before he emerged from the protective covering of the construction beams, Anne knew who it was. Don Hawthorne.
"Hello," she shot him a faint smile, as though to deny whatever charges he might fling at her.
"You're quite a girl, Anne Winters." His eyes held hers mockingly. "But then I told you so before, didn't I?"
"That's right," she agreed steadily.
"What a shame all that talent had to be channeled in such unwise directions." He took his hand out of the jacket pocket now, and Anne saw that her assumption was correct. The same gun she'd seen pointed at Elaine Hawthorne earlier was pointed now at her.
"Where do we go from here?" Anne refused to show the alarm that encased her.
"My car's right around the corner," Don nodded. "Walk, both of you."
"This is wacky!" Rea's voice rose hysterically. "You can't get away with kidnapping us!"
"Rea, sweet, I loathe hysterical women," Don murmured quietly. "I'd hate to hit you over that sexy little head with the end of this revolver."
"You wouldn't dare," Anne flung at him. "You're in no position to get away with rough stuff. Besides, people know I'm here."
"Who?" He walked firmly between them, a hand tight about Rea's arm, the revolver at Anne's back.
"All of Monroe Hall!" Anne watched him from the corner of her eye. "I left the address right on the call-board."
"That won't help them much," he assured her, pointing to his car. "Now open that door, Anne, and you climb in under the wheel. Rea in the middle. You make any move I don't call, Rea gets it in the ribs."
"You're off your rocker!" Rea screeched in helpless fury. "You can't get away with anything like that!"
"Don't get on it," Don chuckled nastily. "Now start driving, Anne. Straight down Wildwood till I order you to turn. It'll be a right."
Anne started the car, rolled off with a jerky burst of speed, her mind darting furiously for some way out of this mess. If a cop picked her up for speeding, or reckless driving, she thought eagerly, and stepped on the accelerator.
"None of that," Don ordered sharply. "Stay within the speed limits, no violations. We're not being joined by any officers of the law."
"Anne, please," Rea begged, her eyes wide with fright.
"Sorry," she apologized briefly, her hands gripping the wheel. Would Mike realize this was trouble? And if so, how would he know where to look for them? "How much further?" she asked. Talk to keep down the rising alarm that threatened to stifle her.
"About a hundred yards," he said with quiet satisfaction. "A sharp right."
Suddenly, Anne's throat constricted. The scenery, even at night, was penetrating her consciousness. She knew exactly where Don Hawthorne was taking Rea and herself. Straight to Dean Britten's cottage. The cottage described so luridly-and so truthfully-in "The Case of the Amorous Dean." What unfathomable plot had Hawthorne and Britten cooked up, she demanded inwardly? What evil rotten scheme that could reach out to affect even Rea? Why bring Rea into this, she asked herself with a trace of panic? It was bad enough to find herself caught in such a mess, but why somebody else? Why an outsider?
"Here it is," Don instructed, his face an inscrutable mask. "Sharp right through the trees-that narrow path there."
He didn't have to be so explicit, Anne thought with an edge of hysteria. She'd been here before! She knew this sex symbol of an entrance way. She pulled up before the small house, noting the thread of fight that shone through those phallic draperies. Don Hawthorne the artist, no doubt.
"All right, we'll go inside now." He reached over to fling open the door, prodding Rea out with one hand, the gun now pointed in Anne's direction. Ever the cautious one, Anne muttered inwardly. Why couldn't he make one slip? That's all! One slip and she'd be out of here! But not without Rea. She couldn't leave her, even if escape made itself available. Poor little kid, stripped of that veneer of sophistication, the smart answers, the sexy approach. Just a scared eighteen-year-old now, wondering how on earth it had all happened.
"What's this?" Rea asked, her teeth chattering, shivering despite the unexpected warmth of the autumn night.
"Ask your friend," Don said. "She knows all about it. She's been here before."
"The Dean's little love nest," Anne explained tightly. "His secret little hideaway for the study of sex."
"If the old boy's that desperate, why didn't he send out an invitation?" Rea attempted a flippant approach. "We'd have been happy to come to his party."
"This is the invitation," Anne said grimly, and then shut up.
Don Hawthorne was slowly unlocking the door, then shoved it open and gestured for the two girls to enter. Anne heard the gasp of amazement as the contents of the room assaulted Rea's eyes. And she heard her own gasp of amazement at the inhabitants of the room.
"Well, young ladies, come in and join us," the Dean said with charming warmth. "I believe you know my son.
The Dean and Ralph Britten rose with ceremonious welcome-clothed only in the heavy smoke of their Turkish cigarettes....
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Anne fought to stem the surge of frenzied laughter that rose to choke her. What insane charade were these three pulling? Down what strange paths were their minds charging now?
"While we have a definite point to be made this evening, we may as well enjoy the process," Don chuckled, with a gleam of weird humor lighting the unfathomable eyes.
"How?" Anne demanded grimly.
"By relaxing and taking advantage of a rare opportunity. How often do five such congenial people, so perfectly in accord on one score get together this way?"
"What score?" Rea shot an anxious glance at Anne.
"The art of love." Don bowed mockingly. "None of us are novices here."
"You must be sick!" Anne's shocked eyes avoided the two nude men.
"This sickness is a pleasure," the Dean murmured in the cultured tones that enraptured women's clubs regularly.
"It's quite warm in here," Ralph Britten remarked, as though they were at a faculty tea. "Why don't you young ladies get more comfortable?"
"This is nuts," Rea blurted.
"Come on, Rea," Don reproached. "For you this ought to be a ball. I know you, doll-you'll be screaming with ecstasy in ten minutes!"
"I never did anything like this." Her eyes chased from one man to another.
"So it was one man at a time, in the secrecy of darkness," Don drawled. "We have no secrets between us. After all, we each know something about the other-or we will before the night is over. Maybe Miss Anne Winters will want to write up this party for the society pages of the Comet!"
"Why did you have to drag in Rea?" Anger stained Anne's cheeks.
"Suddenly so noble?" Without warning he reached out to pull Anne to him. "Which reminds me-you and I were so rudely interrupted that other afternoon. It won't happen this time."
"Music?" the Dean said eagerly, going over to the hi-fi and fiddling with the already-chosen stack of records.
"Drink?" Ralph reached over for Rea, pulling her taut against the strong clean-cut body that could have modeled as the Typical Clean-Cut Young Professor.
"No!" Suddenly Rea swung out and slapped him across the face.
"You wildcat!" Ralph grabbed her hands and twisted them behind her back.
"This party is far too over-dressed," the Dean complained impatiently. "Let's rectify that immediately." With a gleeful chuckle he reached to pull Anne from Don.
"Hey, John," Don argued good-humoredly. "Let's don't play rough."
"This girl plays rough," he reminded with a streak of ice. "And nasty!"
Anne shut her eyes, not wanting to see the sight of Ralph Britten fighting with Rea, slowly managing to pull the sweater above her head, grappling with the hook of Rea's bra. The sick laughter of the two men who sandwiched her between them as they saw Rea's bare young breasts, rising and falling extravagantly as Ralph's hands clutched at them. His hands pulling down the skirt, anxious now to remove everything that separated him from her.
"Not a bad little filly," the Dean all but drooled. He was moving away from Anne now, and her eyes watched him as he moved across the room, reached into the drawer of a chest. "I wonder if she photographs well?"
Rea screamed as the flashbulb went off practically in her face.
"Another shot," Don ordered, his grip on Anne tightening with excitement. "Something more esoteric."
"Don't rush me." Ralph was panting as he lifted Rea and dropped her on the couch, and followed her. "Give me time to get into the mood," he laughed, his hands racing over Rea. And then her hips imprisoned between his knees, his hands laboring to build desire in her. His mouth on her breast, teasing, ignoring her fighting hands. And then Rea stopped fighting-and implored. She writhed with desire, the tortuous need of unfilled passion. Anne stifled a scream as the flashbulb went off again. So this was their insane plan!
"Entertain this young lady," Don ordered briskly, and before Anne realized what happened the Dean had her tightly pinioned against the wall. Her eyes dilated, torn between the plunging pair on the couch, the tall lean figure of Don Hawthorne swiftly stripping. She swerved to one side with unexpected strength, and the Dean went staggering across the room. "Oh, no!"
Don Hawthorne caught her by the ankle and she fell to the floor, on the lush carpeting of the living room she remembered too well. Not like that red fur of the bedroom, she thought hysterically-but she remembered this, too.
"What do you expect to gain by this?" Her hands battled him, futile beneath his quiet strength.
"We'll discuss that later. Why don't you lie back and enjoy this?" Calmly he reached for her shoes and tossed them across the room. His hands sliding up the perfect legs, caressing the nylon thighs, finding the garters. Enjoying the return trip down the length of those thighs and legs as he methodically disposed of the nylon.
That weird music, Anne thought hysterically, knowing it was useless to struggle. How like these three to insist on a music background!
"Sure you wouldn't like a drink?" Don asked politely.
"No!" Anne spat at him and dug her teeth into his shoulder.
He yelped, then slapped her sharply across the face. "Okay, let's play rough," he said with relish, and his hand ripped the skirt from her. Her sweater roughly pulled upward, leaving her flushed and gamine-coiffed as it traveled over her head. His hands pulled the bra down about her waist, sliding the rest that was under the soft yellow skirt into a tangled heap at her feet.
"You won't enjoy it this way," she taunted between clenched teeth. "I dare you to say you do!"
The camera went off again, in the Dean's hands. This time Anne his model.
"Another shot," Don ordered huskily, his back to the camera as he shifted to make sure Anne's face was clearly in view. His breath labored as he lowered himself between the lovely thighs, fingers lightly touching the firm pink nipples set in voluptuous whiteness.
"I believe I'm being the wallflower around here," the Dean complained, completing another shot. "Really, is this fair?"
"You know you love watching," his son tossed over his shoulder, his body loving Rea's. "Take advantage."
"I could teach you both a few tricks," the old man snickered. "Don't keep me waiting this way!"
Anne shut her eyes, feeling sick inside, while Don Hawthorne taunted her with fantastic frenzy. His hands and mouth everywhere, budding, building, building, until she fought to remember what this was.
"Come on, John, join the party," he called jubilantly, and Anne moaned uncontrollably as the two men worked to make this passion unbearable. The sounds in the room reminding her of that afternoon when the Dean had entertained, and she'd been only an observer.
"Hey, Ralph, get a shot of this," Don ordered sharply, and in a haze of disbelief Anne saw Ralph Britten, with Rea's back pressed tautly against the front of him, manage to shoot the erotic picture the three of them made there on the floor. What sick minds existed in them, she asked herself wearily? When would this end? When?
The crazy procession of photographs the men each took in turn, with Anne and Rea as their models-in twos, threes, and fours. A collection of erotica for the Dean's private files, Anne asked herself, in semiconscious hysteria? This couldn't be happening to them! Two coeds at Ravenwood College, with three faculty members! When would this madness be over? What next?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"All right, the party's over!" The voice was masculine and coldly commanding.
None of them in that weird party with its dissonant musical background had heard the car drive up and pull to a stop, the man exit and walk up the steps, across the porch and inside the door. Anne half-sobbed with relief, as she drank in the sight of him standing there in the doorway, the gun in his hand. The gun Don Hawthorne had carelessly placed on a table because he was evidently so sure these two girls recognized the futility of a battle.
"Mike, thank God!"
"How did you get in?" the Dean demanded harsh-ly.
"The guest key under the door. Remember you keep it there?" Mike met his glare, unperturbed. "So courteous of you."
"Who told you about that key?" Ralph shot a surprised suspicious glance at his father, back again to Mike.
"A young lady. Someone who was exposed to your special brand of hospitality." Hostility smoldered in Mike's dark eyes, his hands white as they clutched the gun.
"I warned you that would cause trouble one of these days!" the Dean snarled at his son, the cultured tones less cultured now, that suave exterior harsh and ugly.
"You may as well put down the gun," Don Hawthorne smiled with faint mockery. "It's utterly useless."
"Would you like me to test that?" Mike questioned, his eyes holding Don's. "On you?"
"You sound like a Grade D TV movie," Anne scoffed, fury churning through her that this could be true.
"You don't honestly think I'd take a chance with a loaded revolver? With two wildcats like Rea and you on my hands?" He shook his head reproachfully. "You ought to know I'm not the type to go in for bloodshed. Besides, consider the penalty if for some reason a gun went off? So messy! And how would I explain it to the police?"
"I suggest the two young ladies get dressed," Mike said steadily, holding on to the gun.
"Oh, Lord!" Anne groaned, reaching for her clothes, exchanging horrified glances with Rea. In the midst of excitement they'd momentarily forgot the portrait they made-the five of them candidates for a nudist colony.
"It's a shame you interrupted our party this early," the Dean purred. "We were really swinging!"
"How do you expect to get away with this?" Mike's eyes inevitably swung back to Ralph, body accusing-and Anne remembered Patty. "Did you honestly think you could go on forever, without anyone stepping in to put a stop to you?"
"A stop to what?" Ralph demanded, yet Anne detected a scared note. Did Ralph know who Mike was? Practically everybody on the campus knew Mike Rader's bookstore. The name wasn't so common that Ralph shouldn't have been curious. Or perhaps he was naive enough to think Patty hadn't talked?
"The rottenness you perpetrate at Ravenwood College!" Mike's voice was suddenly choked. "You're going to pay up, Ralph Britten. All of you!"
"This isn't pay day," Don said crisply, reaching for his own clothes, gesturing to the other two men to do likewise.
Don wasn't lying about the gun's being unloaded, Anne guessed, actually aware of the precariousness of their position. The three of them against the college trio. She shot a questioning glance at Mike, caught his own wavering convictions. Was Mike aware of the photographic binge? Did he have any conception of what the three men had in mind? A sick blackmail, Anne interpreted, waiting for the denouncement.
"Go on, check the revolver," the Dean prodded coolly, reassured by Don's knowing wink.
Anne watched Mike make the decision to check, and from the tightening of his jaw she knew Don Hawthorne hadn't lied.
"So you see, old boy, you're merely an uninvited guest to this tea party." Don crossed his arms and stared coldly. "Get out"
"Not without the girls," Mike said stubbornly.
"Nobody's holding them aginst their wills," the Dean informed him sardonically. "They're free to go. Now."
Mike shot a puzzled glance at Anne.
"They've got what they want," Anne muttered, choking with frustration. "Photographs, Mike! The way you saw us when you came in."
"It'll be a simple matter to blot out the faces of the men-the girls will remain," Ralph explained with taunting politeness. The air seething with antagonism between the two of them. Ralph must know Mike was Patty's brother, Anne decided.
"What do you expect to get from that?" Mike demanded.
"A trade," Don said briskly. Here ft came, Anne thought wearily-the deal they'd thrust upon her. "Miss Winters took some photographers of her own-we want the negatives."
"In return for ours?" Rea asked eagerly, her eyes turning swiftly to Anne's.
"That's part of it," Don stipulated. "An exchange of negatives, plus an apology from the Comet that nobody can miss! A statement that the series was malicious, false, and that the remainder of the series will be abandoned."
"They'll never agree!" Anne gasped. She could visualize Dave Wallace's face at the mention of an apology!
"They'd better," Don said bluntly, "or the collectors of lewd pictures will have a sensational new series to add to their files."
"You won't gain anything by smearing Anne and Rea," Mike tried valiantly. "And a paper as big as the Comet won't retract an article with the kind of proof they must have on those involved." Anne flushed, realizing Mike guessed she'd taken photographs of the cottage and its occupants, plus other bits of erotica.
"I'm not interested in how results are obtained-only that they are," the Dean said, in the tones he'd use in addressing a student body. It was incredible, Anne thought, that a man could change so utterly in the space of minutes. "The next installment is scheduled for day after tomorrow. Wednesday. If that articles appears, these photographs go into circulation!"
"Wait a moment," Mike said with a deceptive calm. "Anne had no idea about that over-pointed introduction. The whole plan was to be sensational, yes-but in an anonymous vein-"
"We don't give a damn!" the Dean interrupted angrily. "That introduction labeled Ravenwood College-and I'm the only Dean of Ravenwood." His eyes shot venemously to Anne. "Nobody has to tell us how the additional installments will read-we're all familiar with Miss Winters' activities here."
"A deal," Mike went on, as though he hadn't heard the Dean's outburst. "A trade of negatives, plus a statement from the paper that, due to various ill-advised conjectures innocent colleges have been pointed out as the College X of the series. The college, actually, is a composite-having no real counterpart."
"Get out," the Dean said harshly. "You're wasting our time."
"I think not," Mike demurred, his jaw set. "You accept my deal-or the Comet has another series it can run. "The Seduction, Abortion, and Death of a Ravenwood Honor Student.' Would you care to see that in print?"
"You're grandstanding!" Ralph Britten was paper-white.
"Am I?" Mike jeered. "Would you like to see my sister's diary in print? Naming names?"
"Who was your sister?" Ralph tried to brazen it out.
"Patricia Raden! Your darling Patty!" Mike's eyes burned with remembered grief. "Oh, there are letters, too. A dozen of them!"
"I don't believe it!" Ralph was plainly scared.
"Patty Raden? The girl who died mysteriously?" The Dean frowned, watching Mike.
"The kid who died on an abortionist's table, the coed whose death was hushed up lest the college be in for some unsavory scandal. Your illustrious son, Dean Britten! A nineteen year old student, and he sentenced her to death!"
"You idiot." The Dean's scathing glance moved to his son. "How many times have I warned you not to make mistakes like that?"
"There's no diary," Ralph refuted, brashness returning. "And no letters. I never wrote her a letter!"
"You wrote her little notes, slipped into her pocket when she came into your class. A love-sick little kid, she saved them-every precious scrap of that shoddy affair."
"She didn't keep a diary," he insisted, his eyes meeting Mike's with stolid calm now. "I remember-we talked about it once!"
"Patty kept a diary, in full detail. Names, dates, places. Ravenwood College can close its door if that's ever published."
"You wouldn't smear your sister's name that way," Don said casually. "You're not the type."
"My sister's dead!" Mike tossed back, bitterness radiating from him. "Nothing can hurt her now. Maybe that diary can stop a repetition of her death. That's why I came to this town-to get you, Ralph Britten!"
"Let us see the diary," the Dean hedged. "How do we know it exists? Do you expect us to take your word?"
"That's the gamble you have to take," Mike stared from one man to the other. I'm not bringing Patty's diary out of that safe-deposit box unless it's to take to the editor of the Comet. Now what's it to be? My deal, or Ralph Britten and Ravenwood College unmasked before the whole American public?"
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Anne watched the exchange of glances between the three men, unable to read their enigmatic masks. "Well?" Mike prodded.
"Suppose we agreed," the Dean assumed, "how do we know you can work this half-baked apology you suggest?"
"That's my job," Mike pointed out. "I have until Wednesday to put it across. You hold your negatives, the Comet holds theirs. If the Comet runs the item I've outlined, we exchange negatives."
Could it work, Anne asked herself fearfully? Would the Comet play ball? One thing sure-she'd be through! But somehow, at this moment that seemed thoroughly unimportant. And Mike held the ace. They couldn't refuse to return the negatives as long as he held that diary over their heads. If there was a diary. She refused to meet Rea's eyes, beamed hopefully in her direction. If there were no diary, and this crew discovered that-Anne shuddered inwardly. Three vindictive men-they's have no qualms about ruining two lives.
"Till Wednesday," the Dean said finally, his face veiled. "The party's over. Will you please get out of here now?" His sarcasm carried from Mike to Anne to Rea.
Mike took each girl by the arm and hurried them across the room, out the door, into the car he'd left right at the front steps.
"I don't believe it! It didn't happen!" Hysteria threatened Rea.
"Stop it!" Mike ordered. "We're not out of the woods yet."
"Mike, how can you sell Dave Wallace on what amounts to a polite retraction?" Anne demanded desperately. "He's a stubborn character."
"But he can't be stupid. He wouldn't be editor of the Comet if he were." He kept his eyes straight ahead.
"Where are we going?" Rea chattered shakily. "It must be curfew time at the dorm."
"We're taking you home," Mike said. "Then Anne and I are going someplace where we can thrash out this problem."
Anne waited while Mike fumbled with the key to his small apartment. The first time she'd been here, she thought wryly. She would have liked it to have been under different circumstances.
"Here we are," Mike ushered her in with a sigh of relief. "Oh, baby, what a night!"
"Oh, Mike!"
Suddenly, she was in his arms, trembling from the reaction of everything that had happened.
"It's okay, baby. Everything's going to be okay." Mike was so sweet, Anne thought gratefully. He knew this wasn't the time to make love. It was the way she'd thought. Mike was a guy for always. If she hadn't made such a stinking mess of herself.
"You were right, you know," she laughed shakily. "I could have got my throat cut!"
"Here, sit down," he pulled her down beside him, and for the first time Anne permitted herself to glance about Mike's apartment. Cosy, warm, relaxing, Anne realized with a sense of pleasure. "We have to plan out an attack."
"Mike," Anne began gently. "Is there a diary?"
"Yes." Mike stared into space. "Patty's diary. I would never let a living soul read that diary, of course-but Ralph Britten can't afford to take that gamble. That diary brought me, churning with frustration, and then I realized I'd get nowhere playing the venegeful brother. I'm using that diary, though-it's the theme, the background of my novel. In some way, if it's successful, I feel Patty will be revenged. No names mentioned, no town, nothing-but every body in Ravenwood will know-and they'll clean up this college!"
"What about Dave Wallace?" Anne's mind raced back to the hurde ahead of them. "How can you convince him to play ball? He won't be too concerned about me-politely regretful, yes-but he'll call it an occupational hazard."
"I'll find out when I see him tomorrow," Mike's face was tired in the mellow lamplight. "I'm taking the morning flight into New York."
"What about the bookstore?" Anne faltered.
"You'll take over. You won't mind cutting a few classes?" he managed a grin. "Or is the education of Anne Winters finished?"
"You know it is, so far as Ravenwood is concerned." Anne reached to touch him. "Mike, you're pretty wonderful."
"I rather like you, too," Mike conceded.
Like wasn't enough, Anne thought fretfully, too distraught at this point to know if his fight banter was just that-or more.
"You must think I'm an awful little tramp," Anne said frankly.
"Why should I?" Mike countered. "That little party back there was under duress. Wasn't it?"
"You know it was!" she flared.
Mike grinned. "I figured that would get a rise out of you!"
"Mike, I'm so miserable," she muttered, her face against his sweater.
"You won't be in a minute," he promised, his hand reaching behind her to kill the lamplight.
"Mike, I'm so sorry I made such a mess of things," she whispered in the darkness.
"Well talk later," he murmured huskily. "Right now I have something else in mind."
The only sound in the darkness were those of hands running passionately over material, the murmured sighs of soaring desire, the soft sighs of Mike's mildly decrepit couch.
"Darling, I love you like crazy!" Anne's voice penetrated the semi-silence. "What am I to do about it?"
"Prove it to me," Mike commanded hoarsely. "Prove to me how much you love me!"
Silence again as the two bodies on the couch fought for satisfaction. The mounting sounds of incoherent murmurs that rose to a cry of satisfied passion as they plunged together to completion.
"Annie, baby!" He silenced the scream that rose to her throat in a most satisfactory manner.
Anne awoke with a sense of unreality, her whereabouts hitting her over the head with a disturbing clatter. She was here in Mike's apartment, and the horrendous episode of the night before was disturbingly fresh. Her eyes shot about the small bedroom. No sign of Mike. She moved swiftly across the room, in Mike's pajama jacket, to call to him from the doorway.
"Mike?" Then she saw the note. He'd left already for New York-the morning flight. It was all right if she opened the store late. He left the key on the table, some detailed instructions about the day's activities in the store.
Anne showered, dressed, prepared breakfast for herself in Mike's kitchen, her insides clamoring with doubt about Mike's project. How would he possibly handle it? They'd discussed it in vague terms last night, nothing more. They should have worked out a plan, at least, she thought desperately. Mike was so easy-going, so wildly optimistic sometimes. He had this crazy belief in people, she reminded herself with a sigh of impatience. The way he handled the bookstore, trusting almost everyone.
It would be a day that never ended, Anne told herself, as she finally arrived at the bookstore, thrust the key in the lock. She'd go out of her mind staying here today, not knowing. Yet she didn't dare call Wallace with Mike on his way there to see him. Needless to say, career-wise she was dead, but at least if she could save herself from those photographs. Her face stained with color, remembering. And Rea! That dumb kid-she'd never live it down.
She moved about the store, encased in a sense of doom. Talking to customers with her mind miles away, answering the phone, even placing the orders Mike had given her when the salesman arrived. Each time the phone rang, hoping it was Mike. Again the noisy jangle of the phone and Anne dashed to answer. The hours were moving so slowly.
"Hello," she said breathlessly.
"Anne?" It was Rea. "I figured you'd be here."
"Mike's in New York," she said guardedly, as though the line might be tapped.
"Did he call you yet?" Rea's voice strident despite her efforts to control it.
"Not a word," Anne told her, sighing.
"I'll cut my next class and come over," Rea decided.
"No, don't do that," Anne ordered. "Honey, it's better if you just act as though nothing had happened."
"You'll call me soon as you know?" Rea prodded. "Annie, I'm ready to flip my lid! If those photographs get around! My folks'll throw me right out!"
"Don't think about it now, Rea. Just keep praying Mike makes it."
"I'll check with you later," Rea said miserably, and hung up.
Anne stayed open an hour past Mike's normal closing time, hoping each moment he'd call. The day seemed endless, the night ahead unbearable. Finally, she knew it was futile to remain open any longer. People would begin to wonder about the lateness-and Mike's absence. He was a popular character around town.
She locked up the store, walked slowly down the four blocks to Mike's apartment. It was a good feeling, though, she thought, to walk into Mike's house like this. Feeling his presense all around-his typewriter on the table, the pipe rack, the sweater he'd been wearing yesterday. She shivered, remembering yesterday. The phone rang and she dashed to answer it.
"Is Mike there?" A strange woman, surprised to hear another woman answer it.
"Not at the moment. May I take a message?" She waited curiously for the caller to identify herself.
"Nothing important," the woman demurred, and hung up.
"Member of my fan club?" Mike stood grinning in the doorway.
"Mike!" Anne rushed across the room to him. "How'd you make out?"
"Got a match?" he asked lightly.
"Right here," she said, not comprehending at first.
"Let's start a miniature bonfire, ending your modeling career." He placed two rolls of film in an ashtray, took the match from Anne.
"Mike, how did you swing it?" Her eyes glowed with relief.
"Dave Wallace has a daughter seventeen," Mike said quietly. "I let him read Patty's diary. The first chapters of the novel."
"Mike, you're pretty wonderful," she whispered. "But I told you that before, didn't I?"
"No objections," Mike chuckled. "But I'm afraid you'll have to make a change in careers. Think you could survive as the wife of a bookstore keeper and would-be Great American Novelist?"
"I couldn't survive any other way," she insisted body, and immediately set about to prove it.
