On her next vacation from school she found a paperback marriage manual in one of the bookstores in town and smuggled it home and upstairs to her bedroom, where she read it from cover to cover. Most of the information was vague and confusing and seemed written for people who already knew what sex was about.
She compared sketches of a woman's organ-vagina the book called it-with her own, laying the book flat on the bed as she pried open the lips with her fingers and studied its various parts. With a hand mirror held up to the opening, she was able to see the flap of skin she had discovered earlier. The book said it was her clitoris and the most sensitive part of her. It was supposed to swell up when it was stimulated, the manual said, and continued rubbing of it by the male would produce an orgasm.
That was one of the things Donna found harder to understand. What did orgasm mean? The manual didn't explain the word at all; it simply said if sex was good a woman had one and if it wasn't she would not. But what was it? How did it happen? How did it feel? And, the question that intrigued her the most, could she have one?
CHAPTER ONE
Curled around her pillow, Donna Anderson slept soundly. The sheet that had covered her and David had slipped to her ankles. The sun that was rising outside their window gave her body a golden tint, and it was lush and white and smooth. She stirred sleepily and, dreaming, her hand hesitantly touched her bare breast.
Her husband rearranged the pillow and leaned back on it, folding his long fingers behind his head. He thought and listened to the sound of the air conditioner. Despite their years together, his wife remained a mystery. Although they awoke together every morning, there remained in her some secret self that he had never been able to reach or to touch. She was an enigma that slept and breathed softly and calmly.
David propped himself on his one elbow, looking at her. She was literally breath-taking. She made his breath come short and harsh in his throat when he looked at her. And no amount of looking could satisfy his desire to gaze on her white softness, to absorb the physical lushness through his eyes. He felt a fierce surge of possessiveness for her, doubting that he would ever fathom her mystery. The doubt only made the feeling stronger.
Donna drifted slowly to the surface of her troubled sleep, her mouth tasting like the bottom of a bird cage, her expression tense and uneasy, the look of a woman troubled by her dreams. She stirred languidly, her heavy breasts now flattened mounds as she twisted and turned to free her legs from the sheets. She sighed deeply, covering her full mouth with a tiny fist, buried her face more deeply into her pillow and drifted back to her dream of Alice Browning and that terrible night in St. Mary's School for Girls....
"Well," Alice was saying, "it's really very simple. You know what you've got, don't you? I mean you have looked at it once or twice, haven't you?"
"You mean .-..?" Donna's eyes strayed down to her thighs, then quickly away.
"Yes, that's exactly what I mean."
"Of course I know about it!"
"You know what it's called?"
Donna lowered her eyes, ashamed to admit that she couldn't answer Alice's question. She'd never really thought about what that part of her body was called.
"It's your cunt."
"My-cunt?" The word sounded awkward on her tongue, and somewhat vaguely dirty because of its abruptness and the harshness of its letters.
"That's the medical term for it," Alice informed her. "Boys call it something simpler. Your pussy."
"Pussy!" Donna started to giggle. It sounded so ridiculous! Her pussy! "Why on earth do they call it that?"
Alice shrugged her shoulders. "How do I know? Maybe because it's got fur."
"Fur?"
"Sure, you know, hair?" Alice squashed out her cigarette and looked intently at her friend. "You do have hair on yours, don't you?"
"N-no. I don't." Then, unable to restrain her curiosity, she asked, "Do you?"
"Yeah! I started getting it last year! It's a real bush now!" She leaned closer to Alice on the bed, her voice low and strangely sultry. "Want to see it?"
Donna gulped, feeling suddenly embarrassed by the situation that was developing but unable to resist plunging deeper into it. "Yes," she whispered.
Alice took her hand and squeezed it hard. "Okay, I'll show it to you. But on one condition."
"What's that?"
"You show me yours, too. I can't believe you ' don't have any hair on it! Is it a deal?"
"I-I guess so."
Alice's eyes sparkled mischievously as she got up from the bed and quickly unzipped her dress, pushing it down her body to the floor. Her breasts inside her bra seemed like mountains compared to the little slopes that had just begun to pop out on Donna's chest. She reached her arms back to unsnap her bra and her breasts suddenly sprang free, full and firm, with dark brown nipples at their tips. Smiling, staring straight into Donna's eyes, Alice worked her fingers into the elastic of her panties and skinned them down her hips.
"See?" she murmured proudly, stepping out of the panties and standing stark naked in front of Donna.
Donna couldn't believe what she saw. A patch of bright red hair sprouted between Alice's thighs, triangle shaped, wide across her lower belly and narrowing as it dipped down between her legs. In the center of the hair, through the shiny curls, she could see the brighter pink of her friend's cunt, the lips slightly parted due to her wide stance.
"Nice, isn't it?" Alice said softly, moving her fingers slowly down her thighs until just the tips of them touched the edges of her red pubes. She played with the curly hairs for a moment, then inched her fingers closer to the outer lips of her cunt. "Now it's your turn."
Donna wanted to back out of it, forget the lesson and flee from the room, but she knew she couldn't. She was fascinated by the strangeness of Alice's body, at the differences between it and her own, and vaguely ashamed that hers was not the same. She stood up from the bed and took off her dress. She left her bra in place, embarrassed by her smallness compared to Alice. Her hands trembled as she pulled off her panties.
"My God, you're right! You don't have any hair!" Alice exclaimed. She stared hard at Donna's cunt, bald as a little girl's, the skin around it still smooth and pink, with the slightest darkening into red near the lips of it. Alice moved closer, her hand reaching out slowly. "Can I touch it?"
"Don't!" Donna drew back in fright.
"I just want to feel it, for God's sake! How do I know you don't shave it? I'll bet you do! I'll bet anything that you've got hair, too, but you shaved it off!"
"I did not!"
"Then let me feel! I can tell if you've got whiskers on it!"
Challenged into something that seemed worse than letting Alice touch her, Donna consented. "All right, go ahead. You'll see I'm not lying!"
Alice's hand came slowly to Donna's belly, her palm pressed against the skin, then slid slowly down. "It's smooth," she murmured, as her fingers rubbed over the satin pink flesh surrounding Donna's hole. "You're right."
A deep, burning sensation began to creep through Donna's belly. She had touched herself down there many times before, in the shower or on the toilet, but there had never been a feeling like this. It had to be the way Alice was touching her. The gentle, barely felt pressure of her warm fingers rubbing around and around over the lips of her cunt, almost tickling it, sending sharp jolts of feeling straight up to Donna's belly.
"It feels nice, Donna," Alice murmured. "Real nice. Want to feel mine?"
"No!" Donna backed away again, but Alice's hand stayed on her.
"Come on, feel it, so you'll know what it's like." She reached with her other hand and caught Donna's wrist, brought her trembling fingers to her body and down between her legs. She pressed the flat of Donna's palm against the tangle of silken curls covering her cunt. "See? That's not so bad, is it? That hair is nice and soft, isn't it?"
It was soft. Like the feathers of a dainty bird, Donna thought. Alice moved her fingers in a slow circle, brushing them through the hair until the tips of them touched the opening of her hole. It was wet and slightly sticky. Donna pulled her hand back in fright.
"I-I'd better get to my own room. Sister will be coming around to check on lights out soon."
"There's still time," Alice insisted, grabbing Donna's hand so she couldn't pull away. "I didn't finish telling you what you wanted to know yet."
"Some other time, Alice. I really have to go."
"Scared?"
"Of course I'm not scared! Of what?"
Alice smiled strangely and shrugged with exaggerated casualness. "I don't know. You seem afraid of something."
"I'm not. It's just late and...."
"Then sit back and let me finish," Alice ordered. She led Donna to the bed and all but forced her to get on it. "You weren't afraid because I touched you like that, were you?"
"N-No!"
"It felt good, didn't it? Boys do that to you all the time. They really like to get their hands inside your panties and play .with you."
"They do?" Donna couldn't imagine letting any boy put his hand inside her panties and do to her what Alice had just done. That had been bad enough; with a boy it would be almost unbearable, she imagined.
"Sure they do! They love it! They like you to play with them, too. I'll bet you never even saw a boy's cock, did you?"
Cock! So that was the other word! It sounded even worse than cunt! No wonder the Reverend Mother had been so reluctant to talk about all this, Donna thought.
"Yes, I've seen one."
"What a baby's?" Alice laughed. "I'm talking about the real thing! I'll bet anything you never saw one like my boyfriend Tim's got! Wow! You'd faint if you ever saw his!"
"Why should I faint?"
"It's so big! Honest to God, Donna, it's longer than my whole hand! And if you think I've got hair, you should see him! He's like a bear! He's eighteen, you know, and going to State this year. I guess that's why it's so big. I could hardly get my mouth all the way around it!"
"Your mouth!" Donna gasped. "You put that in your mouth?"
"Uh-huh," Alice murmured. "He liked it a whole lot when I did."
Is that what sex was all about? Donna was appalled at the thought. If it meant letting some boy stick that ugly looking thing of his into her mouth, she was glad she'd been ignorant for so long and sorry she had ever asked to be enlightened.
"Of course that's not all we did. He fucked me, too."
Donna blinked in confusion, having no idea what that meant and not really wanting to know.
"You know what fucking is?" Alice asked.
"I have to go back to my own room now."
"It's sticking it in you!" Alice crowed. "A boy fucks you when he sticks it inside your hole, that's what it is!"
"Oh, God!" Donna covered her ears with her hands, feeling as though she might be sick at any moment. That couldn't be true, it just could not be. If it were, it meant that everyone she knew-her mother and father, that nice newly-wed couple down the street, Mrs. Baker, everyone-was doing such a dirty thing!
"Where are you going?" Alice grabbed, her roughly by the arm, holding back as she struggled to pick up her clothes and get out of the room. "You think fucking is bad? Is that why you're running away? It's not! I'll show you, Donna! You can do it to yourself, with your finger! Or we could do it together! I'll show you!" Her hand grabbed at the soft flesh between Donna's, legs, squeezing it to make her open her thighs. Alice's finger prodded at the smooth, hairless opening of Donna's cunt. "Look, like this!" She pushed her finger forward and it rammed into Donna's hole.
"Stop that! Stop it!!"
"See? It's like that! Only a boy's cock is bigger! It feels better!"
"Alice, stop it! I'm going to scream!"
"Lay down with me, on the bed. I'll make you feel good, Donna, and you can do it to me. You'll like it, I promise." Her finger was moving up and down inside Donna's cunt, pushing open the virginal lips, drilling high into the moist, warm tunnel in spite of Donna's efforts to make her stop.
"Stop it!" she screamed.
Alice's eyes were wild, her strength almost brutal. She had no intention of stopping, but suddenly both girls stiffened in panic. There was a loud rap on Alice's door.
"Girls! What's going on in there?" the nun in charge of their dormitory called.
"Nothing, Sister," Alice answered. "We were just fooling around."
"Well, stop that noise and get back to your own rooms. It's after ten o'clock."
"Yes, Sister." They listened for the sound of the nun's footsteps going back down the hall, then Alice tightened her grip on Donna's arm. "If you ever tell her what happened, I'll kill you, Donna! I swear I will!"
"Let go of me!"
"Do you promise not to tell?"
"Yes! I promise!" Her arm freed, she quickly picked up her clothes and ran for the door, tears streaming down both cheeks. "I won't tell because I don't believe anything you told me! You're a liar and I don't believe any of it!" Donna ran out of the room and down the hall to her own, bolting the door from the inside and crying herself to sleep.
The trouble was, she knew Alice hadn't been lying. Everything the girl had told her seemed disgusting, sordid, impossibly depraved, yet it had the ring of truth to it because it explained so much. The very nature of sex, Alice reasoned, accounted for the reluctance of people who were decent to talk about it. They did it, but they were ashamed of themselves for doing it. That was why Reverend Mother had completely skirted the issue; why the Whore of Babylon and Jezebel and Salome were evil and the Virgin Mary good; why some people became saints and others were condemned to eternal hell. It explained the absence of any information about sex in the school library or any course on the subject in the curriculum to justify it as a part of the normal order of things. Their absence only strengthened Donna's beliefs that sex was sinful and those who indulged in it were as damned as Alice.
And yet, perhaps because it was cloaked in such illicitness and all things sinful are infinitely more attractive to the human mind than those righteously permitted, sex became an obsession with Donna. Less than a week after the first night in Alice's room she began doing things to herself when she'd gone to bed. The first time it had happened almost unconsciously. She was tossing and turning, unable to sleep, and suddenly thrust her hand down between her legs, pressing her palm into the warmth of her young cunt. Instantly she felt a soothing peace seep through her and as her fingers began to move back and forth across the soft flaps of skin she felt a contentment unlike any she had ever known. The next night it happened again in the same way, but this time just rubbing the outer surfaces of her hole wasn't enough. She felt a tingling inside her belly, a need to touch herself more intimately. Wriggling just the tip of her forefinger between the folds of flesh, she felt a surge of pleasure that increased as she put her finger in deeper.
Working her finger around inside the hole, she discovered parts of herself that she had never known existed. Specifically, a strange nub of skin just inside the opening of her cunt which seemed to grow in size and hardness the more she played with it. She became frightened and pulled her ringer out quickly, afraid she had done something harmful, but it was a long while before the churning in her belly stopped and she was able to sleep.
On her next vacation from school she found a paperback marriage manual in one of the bookstores in town and smuggled it home and upstairs to her bedroom, where she read it from cover to cover that very night. Most of the information was vague and confusing, seemingly intended for people who already knew what sex was all about, but there were line drawings accompanying the text and these Donna found fascinating.
She compared the sketches of a woman's cunt-vagina the book called it-with her own, laying the book flat on the bed as she pried open the lips of her cunt with her fingers and studied its various parts. With a hand mirror held up to the opening, she was able to see that flap of skin she'd discovered earlier. The book said it was her clitoris and the most sensitive part of her cunt. It was supposed to swell up when it was stimulated, the manual said, and continued rubbing of it by the male organ would produce an orgasm.
That was one of the things Donna found hardest to understand. What did orgasm mean? The manual didn't explain the word at all; it simply said if sex was good a woman had one and if it wasn't she would not. But what was it? How did it happen? How did it feel? And, the question that intrigued her most, could she have one?
Turning to the pages which showed rough line sketches of a man's cock, Donna studied every detail. "So this is a penis," she murmured, examing the shaft, the sack of testicles, the tubes which carried sperm. "Funny looking!" she thought, giggling to herself. It didn't look half as well constructed as her cunt, she decided. A cock was kind of ugly, in fact, with all those lumps and bumps and things hanging down from it. Her own smooth, pink-lipped hole looked much more compact and attractive.
Determined to discover the secret of having an orgasm, Donna reread the section dealing with a man's penis to see just what it did to a woman to bring on this extraordinary thing. A cock, she discovered, was normally soft and flaccid, less than a couple of inches in length. But when excited, it filled with blood and swelled to greater size, usually between five and six inches long.
Putting down the book, Donna began to think. Alice said her boyfriend's cock was huge when he got excited and the manual had backed her up. Alice had also said that when it was hard, her boyfriend stuck it inside her and it felt good. From what Donna could gather in her reading, this was precisely what the book was confirming. But Alice had said something else, too, about it feeling just as good when she did it to herself with her finger. Did this mean it was possible to give yourself an orgasm, Donna wondered. Since all the other information Alice had given her had turned out to be true, was there any reason to doubt this part of it? Donna decided to find out for herself.
Getting out of bed, she went to the door and double-checked to be certain it was locked and that her parents were still downstairs watching television as they did every night. Satisfied that she wouldn't be interrupted, she went back to bed and slipped off her nightgown. She propped two pillows behind her back and settled herself on the covers, half-sitting, half-reclining so she would be able to watch what she was going to do.
There was a strange tingling inside her belly and an uneasy nervousness running through her body as she brought her hand slowly down to her cunt. The lips were warm and slightly moist as she rubbed her ringers over her hole. It felt good, as it had every time she'd done it, and when she began to work the tip of her middle finger into her cunt it felt even better.
She lifted her head from the pillow and looked down at what her fingers were doing. She saw her finger disappearing between the puffy pink lips of her cunt as she pushed it forward. Inside her hole, it felt twice as long, twice as thick, but good, too. Biting on her lip to keep from crying out unexpectedly, she rammed her finger all the way into her little hole and the feeling that shot through her was almost blinding. She began to pull her finger back out, afraid to continue her experiment, but as it withdrew, she found that the feelings weren't stopping. In fact, taking it out felt just about as good as putting it in. She hesitated for a moment, then pushed her. finger forward again. A sharp hiss rasped through her lips as her cunt took the finger and tightened on it automatically.
When she tried pulling her finger out a second time, she brushed her clitoris with her knuckle and found it had swollen with excitement. She began to play with it with the tip of her finger, batting it back and forth and almost fainting as thrill after thrill raced through her body.
She knew she should stop, that it was wrong for her to be doing this, but she couldn't help herself. Something strange was happening to her body. Her cunt felt as though it were on fire, the heat burning hotter each time she shoved her finger in and out. Her cunt was getting juicy, too. She could feel the slippery warm slime on her finger and somehow this made her feel even more excited.
She lay back down, determined to keep it up until something happened, no matter what. Reckless now, she began to feed a second finger into her hole. She thought both wouldn't fit, but they slipped easily inside and the added thickness made her squirm with pleasure. Her fingers began to move faster, batting at her swollen clit, pushing deeper into the wet hole with each thrust.
Donna began to sweat and her breathing grew harder. With her free hand, she began to massage her little titties. To her surprise, the nipples on both had hardened and when she touched them it was like electricity surging through her. With one hand, she squeezed her tits, with the other, she continued fingering herself. Her legs began to move up and down, her ass squirming on the covers as her excitement mounted. She could feel it building inside her like a volcano. Each thrust of her fingers felt better than the one before it, each made her cunt just a little more juicy.
Suddenly she began to pant hard. She felt the churning in her belly, as though it were a stream of hot lava flowing down the tube of her cunt. Her fingers flew faster than ever. In and out! In and out! Her legs stiffened, her toes began to curl up, her ass bouncing on the bed. And then, just when she thought she was going to pass out, it happened. Donna began to come for the first time in her life.
She screamed, bit down hard on her lip to hold back another scream. She could feel it pouring out of her! All over her fingers, down the smooth flesh of her thighs, down her quivering legs. Like acid, it burned its way out of her cunt. She felt the outer lips parting, spreading wide as the juice from deep inside creamed its way over her fingers. It seemed as though it would never stop, as though she had broken a sac full of her life's juices and it would keep pouring from her until it was empty and she was dead.
But slowly it did stop. Her cunt continued to twitch for several minutes after the last drops had seeped out of it, but that, too, stopped. Donna pulled her fingers free and looked at them. A thin, milky-white fluid coated them and when she brought her fingers to her nose to smell them, the scent was bitter and sharp. The sheet under her thighs was sopping wet with her sweat, and the juice that had dribbled from her fingers. She hoped it wouldn't leave a stain for her mother to find.
She wiped her fingers, her thighs, and the outer lips of her cunt with tissues, then put her nightgown on and got into bed. She expected to lie there half the night, unable to sleep because of guilt. She had just done a terrible thing and should feel ashamed of it, vow to never repeat it. The trouble was, she didn't feel the least bit guilty or ashamed. A warm, satisfied glow suffused her body and for the first time she began to realize that the things some people called depraved could be very nice indeed....
CHAPTER TWO
Donna murmured drowsily and stirred under the gentle touching of the fingertips, her senses slowly shedding the cobwebs of sleep. She became aware of the lips that tickled her cheek and acknowledged the pressure with a flickering of her dark lashes and a kittenish uncurling of her youthful body. "David?"
"Good morning, sleepyhead."
She sighed and rolled over on her back, yawning softly as she squinted against the glare of the morning sunlight that penetrated the slanted blinds , of the windows. "What time is it?" she mumbled, still a bit groggy, fearing that she'd overslept again.
David smiled down at her, his blond hair touseled, his attractive face showing the tiny stubble of a beard. "Relax," he crooned, moving his lips to her ear. "It's early."
Donna sagged with relief and stretched out her legs in a slow and luxurious movement, letting the smooth muscles of her thighs go taut for a moment. She was vaguely aware that her sleep had been a troubled thing once again and, as always, that she was unable to recall the fantasies which had ruffled her serenity and left her feeling subtly exhausted. It was becoming a habit, of late ... a disturbing premonition....
"I love the smell of you in the morning," David whispered, his face lost in the glossy disarray of her black hair. "I love it all the time, of course, but especially in the morning. It's warmer and sweeter somehow."
Donna smiled and reached down to lower the hem of her short nightgown on her rounded thighs. She found herself enjoying the tranquility that pervaded the small bedroom, the muffled sounds of morning activity beyond the window of their newly acquired house, the feeling of security provided her by the closeness of her husband's clean and strong body. These were the pleasant moments, she thought, eyes closed contentedly. The gentle, tender, loving moments. So precious, so fleeting, so few....
"Let me look at you," he murmured, almost shyly, his fingers easing the thin strap of her nightgown down from her bare shoulder. "I never get enough of looking at you. Each lovely, wonderful part of you."
Donna felt herself tensing as he exposed her well-formed breasts. "David...."
He silenced the weak protest with his lips and tugged the thin flimsy gown down to her waist. When he lifted himself on one elbow again and turned his head, Donna squirmed under the near-tangible feel of his eyes. Even after a year of marriage, she was incapable of overcoming this senseless embarrassment and she lay tense, hands curled into fists at her sides, eyes tightly closed.
David chuckled amusedly. "Here we go again."
She fidgeted. "I can't help it."
He kissed at one sensitive point of her breast. "I know," he murmured adoringly. "I know and I love you all the more for it."
Donna tried to relax, tried to will a response to the hand and mouth that moved on her flesh. She placed her hand at the nape of his bowed head and toyed with the stiff bristles of blond hair she found there. I love him, she thought. I really do. I really do.
"So sweet...." he whispered.
She trembled under the moist pluckings of his lips and he mistook the trembling for a sign of mounting excitement and his kisses grew more aggressive. She felt him shift higher and his leg was heavy as it nudged at her own and the churning began all at once, deep in the pit of her stomach, making her heart skip a beat and a cold perspiration break out on her palms. "David...."
He kissed her throat, forcing her head back into the soft pillow. "Please, honey. I want you so much."
Donna experienced a stab of cold fear as the low-pitched urgency of his voice registered on her brain. She looked into his face, her insides contracting, and saw his longing and love and need. A sudden rush of guilt and compassion forced her to clutch at him and turn her face away, and when he greeted her embrace with an ardent kiss on her shoulder, she was reminded of his patience and goodness and of how deeply she truly cared for him. "Are you sure we have time?" she offered timidly, hating herself for uttering the words, hating the thing inside her that demanded she voice a final protest. "Yes, yes...."
She bit hard on her lip, keeping her face averted from him as he fumbled in the removal of her nightgown, his desire apparent in the awkwardness of his hands. She went passive as her nudity was completed and a strange numbness spread through her limbs, making them heavy and deadened. There was a terrible uneasiness, a shriveling of spirit, a nagging awareness as he withdrew from her to strip away his pajamas and reach in the drawer of the night-table by the bed. Naked, she shivered and prayed for him to hurry and begin so that it might end that much sooner.
He was beside her, looking at her, running his hand over her body. "Jeezus, how I love you," he murmured throatily.
Donna felt her cheeks flush with shame and she forced herself to him as he moved above her. She was only dully aware that he was whispering to her and kissing her and guiding her. A massive lump of ice had formed in her stomach and she could only shiver under his weight.
"Honey, honey...."
Donna felt the hands lift her and a searing awareness of the grotesqueness of their posture added to her despair. "Hurry," she moaned desperately, wanting him to start, get the lovemaking over with, end his need, finish. It shocked her as it always did, forcing a tiny cry from her lips and a jerking tension in her body. The bulky insistence of his passion overwhelmed her senses and made her temple throb. She writhed in acute discomfort as she sought to adjust to the unrelenting invasions and she tried to think of other things, but, as always, it was impossible. Finally, falling limply into a subservient and docile role, she surrendered herself to his needs and allowed him to use her as he wished.
"Oh, sweet baby ... sweet baby...."
Donna caught the telltale variance of his hoarse breathing and felt the subtle acceleration of his movement and knew it was time to further shame herself by simulating the passion she had never felt with him. Unseen tears stung at her eyes as she tried to make him think he was giving her pleasure and that she was nearing fulfillment together with him. She urged him on with a burst of awkward ardor, hating herself, hating what was happening, and yet knowing that this was the least she could do for him. "Yes, David," she moaned feverishly, "Yes, darling."
With his lips pulling softly at her nipple, David kneaded her other breast. She sighed and gave herself to the wonderful feeling that was creeping over her. One of her soft hands caressed the flesh of his body. There was something about the texture of his skin that pleased her enormously. Her other hand flung outwards and came into contact with something new he had added to their love nest. A pillow. She smiled in the dark at his thoughtfulness. Then she twisted her body in a quickly sensuous movement and placed her mouth on his cock. She felt him shiver with gratitude. It gave her a sense of power to be able to make him feel so good. When she had brought forth his gushing fountain, she cuddled close to him, listening with pleasure to the thumping of his heart under her ear. He held her close and rested for a while. She stirred and he realized he had almost drifted into sleep.-She was stroking his awakening penis with deft little touches of her fingers and thumb. She had a way of moving her thumb around in little circles on the end of his crown that made him think of the soft kiss of a butterfly. His fingers tantalized her, answering the tugging pull of her fingers on his cock with a moistly erotic motion of his fingers on her clit.
She said, "David ... I was just, oh, that feels so good-I was thinking maybe-if you could sort of-not make me come so quick this time, I might be able to call the shots. I mean, maybe I could see other people, other things. Learn how to control this ... ummmmm! This ability to get out of myself and into other, oh! places."
"We'll try it," he said, and reached for the pillow. He put it under her ass.
He mounted her slowly, just inserting the very end of his cock. He stirred her slightly in exotic little circles. She panted, feeling like an abandoned creature made for his explicit use with her hips thrust forward to meet his throbbing tool. Suddenly, he thrust all the way in, and because of the position of her hips, it seemed longer, bigger. She felt stuffed with cock all the way to her belly button. As soon as he hit bottom, he remained where he was, tight and hard, pressing against her belly. Then he slowly took his hands and spread her legs a little, and at the same time pressed them backwards. Her ass was high in the air. Her knees were bent at both sides of her head. She revelled in the feeling of being utterly, totally possessed. He began penetrating her deeply, completely, thoroughly. In the position she was in, she was forced to remain passive, something new for her. He kept her legs firmly pinned to the sides of her head and she was unable to so much as wriggle her ass a little. It thrilled her. She knew a rush of gratitude for his experience. She would never have thought it possible to feel so good without moving at all. The pressure of his chest ground against her and hard against her lips. He tongue-sucked her just as he cock-fucked her and the warm pulsating action of her channel grew quicker, more agitated. He stopped. "Now!" he breathed. She lay quietly with her mouth open, aware only of the need of her body for more. "Not yet," she said. Her voice was strained and anxious.
Again he drove into her deeply. He kept up the rhythm for a few more seconds and she felt the rushing of her juices, the vibrating sting of her nipples and the gobbling sucking of her sex and gasped. He stopped again.
There she was. Gone from her body. The roaring in her ears like a thousand winds consumed her and tossed her about in a foggy sea of faces that she didn't know, places she had never been. All she wanted was out of the tight grip of the bright place where the light was so dazzling that it hurt her eyes. She cried out and found herself back inside the body and feeling all there was to feel. "Oh, Fuck me hard!" she cried. And he did.
Donna held him in her arms, suffering the weight of him along with the pangs of her conscience, suppressing her sigh of relief and gratitude that at last, their lovemaking was over. She stroked the smooth, hard planes of his bare back. Rest, darling."
There was an aching in her thighs, an aching in the small of her back, an aching in her head. The coat of mingled sweat made her flesh stick together and, as it cooled, she found it clammy and unpleasant. Yet, she remained still, cradling him, waiting for his rangy body to twitch with a final tremor of dead passion. And as she waited, she wallowed in her shame and dull despair.
David rolled away from her. "Are you all right?"
She moistened her lips and managed a smile. "Yes."
He kissed her shoulder and drew a deep breath before pushing himself up into a sitting position on the side of their bed. He placed a hand on her stomach and slowly, lovingly, massaged the tautness of her skin. "I love you."
"You're wonderful."
She smiled, lowering her lashes. "You'd better go now."
David nodded and then rose from the bed to pad nakedly across the room to his dresser. He gathered his things and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. At the click of the latch, Donna pulled the sheet over her body and drew a deep, steadying breath, the panic and pain having subsided and been replaced with a familiar heaviness.
How could he be so blind?
How could he keep from seeing the truth?
She couldn't go on fooling him indefinitely, pretending, enduring, dying a little each time he wanted her. It had to end. He had to find out.
Donna found herself almost hoping it would happen. She had been alone too long with her secret and the strain of the unforgivable deception was becoming unbearable, far more that she had anticipated. A tear came to her lashes as she listened to the sound of the shower and David's buoyant spatterings. If only she didn't love him, she thought unhappily. It would be so much easier, so very much easier. He was so good, so unworthy of hurt, so deserving of love, real love, the kind she was incapable of giving him. What was the answer?
She couldn't go on and yet she couldn't leave him, not of her own free will. She was too weak to face up to the consequences of such an ominous action. She had always been too weak and it was this same weakness that caused her to marry him when in her heart she knew it was indescribably wrong and cruel and hopeless. And yet, he had seemed her only hope of salvation, her only avenue of escape, her only means of negating the truth that plagued her.
Was there nothing to do but wait until he came to realize the fact of her frigidity with him and the ugly cause of it? The prospect chilled her. She could imagine his shock, his hurt, his disgust. How could she explain it to him, expect him to understand, ask for his forgiveness after all the times she had lied to him with her words and silence and sighs and body? How? How?
"David, I'm sorry," she whispered into the pillow, her despair robbing her of all strength to continue the flow of painful thought. "Forgive me."
Slowly, tiredly, she rose from the bed and donned a housecoat and slippers before moving to her dressing table. As she brushed the errant curls of her dark hair into some semblance of order, Donna found herself studying the reflection of her face in the mirror. She looked like any other female, she told herself detachedly, meaningfully. Prettier than most, perhaps, her pale complexion and green eyes serving as an attractive contrast to her black lashes and curls. There was a sculptured delicacy to her cheekbones and nose and chin that gave them a look of breeding and intelligence and sensitivity, but she had seen that same quality in hundreds of other young girls who had never suffered her problem. No, she looked no different than other women and yet she was different. Terribly different.
She trembled, feeling chilled again, and walked through the rooms of the ranch house into a kitchen that was flooded with bright sunlight. She turned the light on under the coffee and set the table, filling the small glasses with orange juice. She tried to busy herself and emerge from the morbid introspection of her thoughts, knowing that she had nothing to gain from them. She lit a cigarette and saw that it was the last one in the package; she recalled having opened two packages the previous day and the significance of her chain-smoking nagged at her. Another sign of the strain, another sign of the tension.
Donna puffed jerkily as she moved to the window and waited for the coffee. The brightness of the sun was almost blinding and she found herself resenting the monotonous string of sunny days. It was only the beginning of summer and yet she couldn't remember the last time it had rained, the last time there had been any crispness in the air. She frowned, crushing the cigarette in a tray, looking out at the sprawling lawns and carefully spaced homes. Suburbia.
One long, unchanging, unrelenting year.
The coffee bubbled and she poured it into the cups, trying to alleviate her mood by considering what she could do during the day to keep herself occupied. The usual routine was to spend an hour cleaning the house, then showering, doing her nails, going to the market, reading the newspapers, listening to the records, drinking endless cups of coffee, smoking countless numbers of cigarettes, and end up staring at herself in the mirror.
She could go to the lake.
Donna felt a chill pass over her and she froze, her pulse skipping a beat. No, not the lake, she thought frantically. Not again. She wasn't strong enough to face it again.
David entered the kitchen, whistling, buttoning his suit jacket, his blond hair glistening from the shower. He pecked at her cheek and settled himself at the table. "This is what I call service," he grinned, gulping down the juice and reaching for his coffee.
"We aim to please," Donna smiled, sitting opposite him.
David slipped the pages of the paper until he found the sports section. "The Dolphins look as though they're going to win it again," he mused.
"Will you be working late again this evening?" she asked, afraid of the endless hours ahead.
David looked up with a small frown. "To tell you the truth, I don't know. Williams said something about formulating plans for our next stockholder brochure." He closed the paper and hurriedly emptied his coffee. "I'll call you as soon as I know, okay? I'd better get moving. It's getting late."
Donna rose and followed him to the front door of their home. George Cole's maroon Oldsmobile was parked in front of the lawn and the beefy insurance man tapped the horn impatiently. Donna saw Matt Morgan in the back seat, talking with another of their neighbors. She waved at them and turned back to face David, who was checking his briefcase. "I forgot to tell you. The Coles are having a party tonight."
David smiled. "Great."
She looked at the way the suit fit his lean frame and the way the white collar set off his tanned features. "You look nice."
He laughed, pleased. "Thanks."
She rose on her toes and kissed his cheek. "Have a good day."
"What are you going to do with yourself? Why don't you go out to the lake and get some sun? It'll do you good."
Something jumped inside her. "I thought I'd work around the-"
"Forget the house. Go relax."
Donna nodded vaguely, troubled. "I'll think about it."
David edged away. "See you later, honey."
"Bye."
He waved from the street and Donna returned it before going back into the quiet house and closing the door. She leaned back against it for a moment, closing her eyes, feeling drained and spiritless. It was an effort for her to push away and walk back to the bedroom where she removed the housecoat and walked further into the bathroom for her shower.
It was barely nine o'clock; David wouldn't be home until six-thirty or seven. That left ten hours, ten long and unendurable hours, a frightening void which she had to fill somehow if she was going to keep from going crazy.
She turned and looked at her naked body in the mirror attached to the rear of the bathroom door. She looked at the shapeliness of her thighs and the flaring curve of her hips and the flatness of her belly and the proud ripeness of her weighty breasts.
"Go out to the beach," she repeated dully, recalling his words. "It'll do you good."
A bitter and ironic smile twisted her lips as she ran the heels of her palms hard down her smooth flesh. She shuddered at the sensual contact and maintained the pressure until her knees buckled slightly. Then slowly letting her hands fall away and straightening up, she knew what she was going to do.
It was senseless to pretend that there was any room for a decision. She had known all along what was going to happen and that she no longer had the strength to fight it.
She would do as David told her. She would go to the lake. To what awaited her there.
Donna stepped into the glass stall of the shower and turned her pretty face into the needle-like spray, holding her breath and remaining motionless, letting the tears flow and mingle and lose themselves in the cascading waters.
David, forgive me....
CHAPTER THREE
Joanne opened her eyes to the morning sunlight that streamed into the bedroom. She closed them, then opened them again very slowly against the brightness. She yawned heavily, feeling groggy and listless and vaguely aware of her troubled sleep and its obscure dreams. It's the pills, she thought despairingly, those damned pills.
Feeling uncomfortably confined and warm, she kicked away the sheet and opened the buttons of her pajama jacket, easing herself out of it and tossing it aside. She rolled over to lay on her back, breasts bare and thrusting, realizing only then that she hadn't heard Matt leave for work. She wondered if he had bothered to kiss her goodbye.
Probably not, she thought bitterly. He was more than likely in too big a rush to get into that office of his, into the world of big business and magazine advertisements and high-powered sales campaigns. He loved every moment of it. He loved it more than he loved his wife.
Joanne reached out to the table that separated the twin beds for a cigarette. She lit it and dropped the burning match into the ashtray before plumping the soft pillow beneath her head and settling back on it. The cigarette tasted stale and she coughed as the smoke caught in her throat. It wasn't healthy to smoke before eating or at least having some coffee, or so Matt kept telling her whenever he happened to be home when she awoke. She frowned at the thought and took another drag. The hell with being healthy; what good did it do?
The stillness of the air in the bedroom told her that it would be another warm day. Summer had come early to the suburban community of Fair-lawn. It depressed Joanne to think of all the humid weather still to come: July, August, part of September. Another long and boring and uncomfortable summer. Matt had his refuge: his air-conditioned office, his refrigerated restaurants and ventilated trains. She had no place to hide except in the luke-warm water of her bath or the stagnant water of the artificial lake five miles north.
Joanne puffed irritably on the cigarette, feeling the beginnings of a dull headache. She cast an accusing glance at the table and the small box of pills. She hated them, the effects of them, the necessity of them, the cause of them. Yet, sleep without them was impossible. Sedation of the senses. A temporary escape from the nagging tension and edginess. Over a year now, she thought. Ever since Matt received the promotion and added responsibility and promise of a possible partnership in the agency.
Tranquilizer pills ... the price of success.
But why should she be the one who had to pay it?
It was Matt's success, not hers.
Joanne closed her eyes tiredly and thought back to the previous evening, even though she knew it would only serve to aggravate her depression. Matt had brought home work from the office again. He was totally absorbed in it when she turned off the television, kissed his cheek, and went upstairs. She undressed mechanically and then, with pathetic hope, dabbed her breasts and thighs with perfume. She selected her newest and most decorative pajamas, feeling that anything more feminine would be too obvious. She sat up in bed, pretending to read, and waited.
She could still hear the occasional rustling of papers when the tiny clock on the dresser struck midnight. Almost an hour had passed. She moistened her lips, refusing to give up hope, and walked from the bed to the opened door. "Matt? Aren't you finished yet? Do you know the time?"
"Just a few more minutes, darling."
She went back to wait, resenting his preoccupation, the fact that he found it so interesting, so stimulating, so rewarding. She hated his success for draining him of energies that were rightfully hers. And mixed with the hostile thoughts was the ever-present pressure of womanly need. It nagged at her and set her nerves on edge and added to the natural moisture of her body.
"Matt?"
"Coming."
He looked exhausted as he entered the room and began to disrobe. Joanne set aside her novel and slid down just a bit in the bed, carefully adjusting the sheet so that it in no way obstructed the fullness of her breasts beneath the flimsy jacket of her pajamas. He came out tiredly from the bathroom in his own pajamas and moved to peck at her cheek before lowering himself to the edge of his bed.
"Must you work so hard?" she asked, trying to keep her voice soft and loving.
He smiled. "I'm under a deadline."
"You're always under a deadline."
He nodded wearily and turned back the sheet on his bed. "It does seem that way, doesn't it?" he murmured. "Good night, darling."
She felt her body twitching. "Matt?"
He stretched out with a prolonged sigh before looking over at her. "Yes, dear?"
She forced a smile and it seemed to stretch the skin of her face. "Let's not go right to sleep."
He yawned. "Joanne, I'm pooped. And I've got a rugged day ahead of me tomorrow."
"Matt? Let's make love.'?
He frowned, rising on one elbow, clean and virile in the starched pajamas. "Tonight?"
"Don't you want me?"
He sighed. "Of course, but I'm...."
"Tired," she snapped bitterly. "I know."
Matt kneaded the bridge of his nose and reached out across the space that separated them to clasp her hand. "Don't be angry with me, Joanne. I'll make it all up to you, I promise. It's just that I've been going at a terrific pace the past few weeks."
Joanne could feel her cheeks burning. She blinked her lashes to fight back the tears and nodded. "Good night, Matt." She turned quickly and opened the drawer of the night-table for the pills. After swallowing two, she turned off the light and rolled on her side, keeping her back to him. She stared into the darkness and waited for the pills to do their job. A few moments later, when the drowsiness was just beginning to form, she heard Matt's first snore. Another night gone.
Joanne sat up in the warm sunshine and crushed the stub of the cigarette in the tray, her mood worsened by her reverie. Time was sliding by and it could never be recaptured. Soon they would be too old to do anything about all they had allowed to escape them, all the nights, all the days. What good was the success, a bigger house, a newer car, a full-time maid, an expensive wardrobe? Could they compensate for the lack of excitement, the lack of romance, the lack of togetherness as a man and woman? Should success excuse the neglect, the misery, the unhappiness, the frustration?
Frustration.
Too inadequate a word.
Torment.
Everything in their marriage seemed to be shrinking, diminishing bit by bit. Even when they did make love, it was no longer the same. It seemed to hold less emotion, less pleasure, less satisfaction, less meaning. He was always so tired, so burdened with fatigue, so preoccupied with totally unrelated thoughts. The acts were unvarying and ritualistic and empty and painfully brief. There had been a time when he would have been concerned if she did not reach fulfillment along with him, but now he no longer seemed to care or even know. Fulfillment.
It was hard to remember the last time.
Over a year, she thought bitterly. Ever since he got that damned promotion. Ever since the success. Ever since the pills. A year of being hungry, or being tormented. And the worst part of it all was that he didn't seem to be aware of any of it. He didn't seem to be conscious of the weight she'd lost or the cigarettes she smoked or the drinks she needed or the pointless hours in front of the TV. He didn't even see how she had begun to look at other men, at other husbands, at strangers, at young boys in tight bathing suits.
Joanne trembled and moistened her lips, sliding lower in the bed, her hands rising slowly to her naked breasts. She cupped them and rubbed them with her thumbs over the sleeping nipples as the heat of her desire began to spread through her body. The young boys at the lake, high school boys, so strong and clean and smooth-skinned. How many of them had she undressed and caressed with her eyes?
The nipples responded, hardening, rising, sending sparks of tingling sensation through her body. She continued to manipulate them as she turned her face sideways into the full softness of the pillow. The handsome men at the parties, some of them married, all of them so attentive and appreciative and admiring. How many of them had she allowed to seduce her in the privacy of her thoughts? How many of them had she imagined as being her lovers, partners in experiments of a nature that only her frustrated mind could conceive?
The sound of a vacuum cleaner on the floor directly below her bedroom jarred Joanne from her inflammatory thoughts. Doris was starting the house cleaning earlier than usual, she thought, the hands still for a moment. She knew it meant that there was a lot to do and that she should get up and go down and make noises like she was mistress of the house.
Reluctantly, she drew a deep breath and pushed herself up from the bed. The belled pants of her pajamas slid down her long legs as she moved into the tiled bathroom for her morning shower. The final thirty seconds of cold water left her gasping and shivering and clear-headed. It did nothing for the ache that remained deep within her, but then it never did. There was only one cure for that ailment, she thought despairingly, rubbing the thick towel hard over her glistening breasts.
And it didn't come in pill form.
It came in pants.
Joanne trembled and moved to stand before the full-length mirror.
She was tall, nearly five-eight, and her figure was exceptionally good for a woman of thirty-one. Thirty, she reminded herself, refusing to acknowledge the fact that her thirty-first birthday was only a few weeks away. The belly was comparatively flat and the thighs were firm, if a bit too strongly rounded. The waist was not as narrow as she would have like it to be, but the width of her hips aided the illusion of suppleness. Large breasts, prominently thrusting and firmly suspended, appeared in keeping with the lustiness of her over-all figure, but she knew they were out of true proportion. Still, it was a good body, she thought. A most desirable body. It drew stares and whistles and, on occasion, propositions. It seemed a shame that it was going to waste.
How could it have so suddenly lost all its appeal for Matt? Had she changed so much in the twelve years of their marriage? Had he grown so accustomed to it that he no longer found it inspiring?
She could remember their honeymoon when her body was less womanly, almost rangy and coltish. He had covered it with kisses and called her his golden amazon. She could remember the early years of their life together as man and wife. He had tutored her in the art of pleasure and told her she was all the woman a man would ever need. And even as recently as a few years ago, he continued to have that need two or three times a week.
What had happened?
More important, what was going to happen?
Joanne could feel the hunger building, a type of hunger that demanded food-without patience or respect or consideration of marital vows. It carried a danger with it and an unbearable tension and with each passing day, it grew in force. Unless Matt realized what she was going through, unless he came to know her need, unless he helped quench the unrelenting fires, something terrible would have to happen. Something that had not happened during their marriage despite the many opportunities and temptations and moments of feverish weakness.
Joanne shuddered and tossed the damp towel aside, fleeing nakedly from the steamy bathroom and her ominous thoughts. She dressed quickly, slipping into her fragrant undies, a pleated white skirt and contrasting black shirt with cuffed sleeves. She brushed her blonde hair and tied it back with a red ribbon before painting her mouth.
After a look in the mirror, she tugged the ribbon loose and let her hair fall loosely to her shoulders, deciding she looked too youthful with a girlish ribbon.
"Thirty-one...." she whispered unhappily, looking into the mirror of the dresser, examining the lines of her face. There was a beauty there, a strong and lasting beauty. The straight nose and proud forehead and wide mouth and blue-green eyes seemed to go well together. She had a radiant complexion, outdoorish, with a sprinkling of freckles. She had to peer more closely to detect the telltale tightness of her mouth and the pinched fragility of her nostrils and the elusive anxiety of her eyes. Hunger, she thought. Tension.
"Get hold of yourself, dammit," she muttered, turning away. She walked out of the bedroom and down the stairs to the lower floor of the split-level house. The rooms sparkled from recent dusting and polishing. She went back to the walnut kitchen where the sullen-faced and sallow-skinned maid was carting a basket of wash into the pantry. "Good morning, Doris."
"Mornin', Missus Morgan."
"Do you need me for anything?"
"No, ma'am."
Joanne nodded, not surprised, and carried her orange juice and coffee to the breakfast nook. The window was open and the sun warmed the back of her neck as she flipped idly through the morning newspaper. A trio of flies buzzed lazily beyond the screen mesh and there was a smell of cut grass on the air. Joanne put aside the paper, sipped her coffee, and looked out at the quiet residential street.
Fairlawn ... a way of life ... suburbia at its best ... or worst, depending upon your tastes.
Relatively exclusive, it was a community made up of semi-successful executives and their attractive mates and a few well-mannered but generally ignored children. The lawns were tailored and the houses never in need of repair. Only late model cars adorned the driveways and there was a stiff penalty for littering the curving streets. Everyone' voted Republican, subscribed to The Times, and belonged to the local country club.
Basically, Fairlawn was a community of bored and restless and unhappy women.
When the men moved as a well-trained unit to the local station and the commuter special, the women were left alone. Servants and boarding schools and day nurseries left them too little to do in the way of homemaking. As a result, they all attended card parties and luncheons and fashion shows and self-improvement lectures. Some escaped the boredom in solitary or not-so-solitary cocktails, some in pointless hobbies or not-so-pointless flirtations, some in afternoon movies or sun-bathing at the lake. They passed the long hours any way they could, waiting for their lords and masters to return and hoping they would bring something with them that would relieve the deadening monotony of their existence.
It was a dull, uninspiring, suffocating existence and Joanne had been a part of it for nearly eight years. Just thinking about it put an edge on her tension, made her feel a greater need to break out, get off somewhere by herself, somewhere she might be able to blow off steam, release all the pressure that was pent up inside her.
The more she thought about what to do with .herself on this warm day, the more inviting the prospect of simply going off without destination became. She rose from the nook and hurried through the house to the foyer, wanting to get started on her adventure before changing her mind. Draping a sweater over her shoulders, she checked the contents of her purse and extracted the keys to the car. "Doris?"
"Yes, ma'am?"
"I'm going shopping in town."
"Yes, ma'am."
"You nnedn't wait until I get back."
"Yes, ma'am."
Joanne hesitated, holding the front door ajar. "Should Mister Morgan call for any reason, tell him I'll be home for dinner and remind him that we've been invited to a party tonight at the Coles'."
"The Coles'. Yes, ma'am."
Joanne walked out into the warm sunshine, feeling a bit exhilarated by her impetuous decision to ride off in search of adventure. The nervous fluttering in her stomach as she slid behind the wheel of the station-wagon told her that perhaps it was a more momentous decision than she cared to admit to herself. She forced herself not to think about where she was going and why and what she might encounter.
She simply started driving.
CHAPTER FOUR
Karen Cole finished painting her lips and began penciling her arched eyebrows. The sounds of organized activity drifted up from the rear terrace of the stately colonial house and she was able to judge the progress that was being made in preparation for the party that evening. She smiled at her reflection in the mirror, inwardly amused at the surprise she had in store for her thirty-odd guests. It was going to be one of her most memorable parties, one that Fairlawn would talk about for months to come.
She rose from the dressing table and turned her head from side to side, appraising her profile in the mirror, one hand touching artfully at her upswept copper-colored hair. Satisfied, she went across the room to where her clothing was carefully laid out across her large bed.
There was a knock on the door.
"Yes?"
Amanda's voice slipped through the door. "Mister Terrence would like to see you for a moment, ma'am."
"It will only take a second, Missus Cole," a high-pitched and nervous male voice echoed.
Karen frowned with annoyance and held her dressing gown around her slender and sinewy body. "All right, come in."
The door opened and a fragile man in a close-fitted seersucker suit fluttered into view. "I'm terribly sorry to disturb you, Missus Cole, but I simply don't know what to do with that odd table. I was wondering if we just couldn't...."
Karen waved Amanda out of the room and cut the caterer short with a sharp look. "Did Amanda give you my plan for the terrace arrangements, Mister Terrence?"
"Well, yes, but-"
"I believe there was adequate space for the table-placing in the sketch."
The little man retreated nervously. "It was just that I thought it might be better if we-"
Karen gave him a contemptuous glance and parted her gown, letting it slide down her shoulders and fall to the bed. "That's your trouble, Mister Terrence, you think too much. I believe you'd find your duties much simpler to perform if you simply did as you were told."
Terrence was blushing and painfully trying to avoid looking directly at Karen's scantily clad body. "Yes, of course, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to infer-that is-"
Karen laughed softly, amused by his cowardice and discomfort. She deliberately walked slowly around the bed, forcing him to gaze at her long legs in the sheer stockings, the frilly garter-straps, the skin-tight and near transparent panties, and the strapless and half-cupped brassiere that just barely contained her well-spaced breasts. "I'd suggest you simply follow my instructions and refer to Amanda if there are any minor complications. She knows my tastes much better than you."
Terrence backed to the door, nodding, perspiring. "Yes, of course. You haven't anything to worry about, Missus Cole. I'm sure everything will be just as you planned."
Karen lifted the sheath and looked over at him. "It had better be, Mister Terrence."
The little man paled and left the room.
Karen laughed and eased the sheath over her head, carefully avoiding disturbing her hairdo. He was such a frightened little mouse. He knew better than to antagonize her. One word from her and he'd be ruined in Fairlawn.
She smoothed the snug dress over her sleek hips and drew the zipper up her back, making it even tighter. The memory of the look on the caterer's face when she'd removed her gown had been hilarious. He nearly choked. She wondered idly whether he was an out-and-out fairy or simply effeminate. She rather leaned toward the latter, considering his overall timidity. She couldn't imagine him approaching a young boy-no less a fully grown man. The poor thing....
Karen dismissed him from her thoughts as she prepared to leave her huge bedroom. She checked the contents of her handbag, glancing quickly at the check she had written out the previous night. A smile toyed at the corners of her painted lips and she put it away, closing the bag and walking out of her room.
Amanda met her at the foot of the stairway. "Is there anything else you want me to do while you're in town, ma'am?"
"Just keep an eye on Terrence, that's all. I'll call later to make sure everything is going smoothly."
Amanda nodded and handed Karen her white gloves and matching scarf. "Will Mister Cole be calling?"
Karen tugged on her gloves. "Probably. Tell him to be home no later than six and to be sober." She started toward the door and stopped, pursing her lips thoughtfully. "One thing more, be sure to remind him that Roy Worthington will be expecting the contracts on the land-development deal early this afternoon. Is that clear?"
"Worthington, contracts. Yes, ma'am."
"It's most important, Amanda, so don't let it slip your mind."
"I won't, ma'am."
Karen nodded and walked through the high-ceilinged foyer to the door, her stilted heels clicking sharply on the polished floor. "I should be home by five-thirty at the latest. I'll call to see how things are progressing if I get the chance." She went through the door without waiting for an answer.
The sun was warm as she walked to the double garage, molding the flimsy scarf around her coppery hair and donning the harlequin sunglasses. The sleek sports car responded instantly to the ignition key and she backed it into the drive, shifting abruptly, causing the tires to spin in the gravel. She wheeled it down the drive to the wide street and veered sharply toward the highway.
A truck lumbered ahead of her and she rapped her horn twice before shifting into high to cut around and ahead of it with reckless efficiency. She reached the highway and relaxed a bit, content to let the car roar along at a steady sixty-miles-an-hour speed.
She thought about the party.
She could just imagine the impact her surprise would have on the carefully selected guests. Some of them would be delighted, of course. A few would be shocked to the core. The rest of them would merely blink and turn red and mumble their admiration in words of one syllable. At any rate, every one of them would admire her daring. That was what she wanted ... their admiration, nothing else. She didn't care if they approved or disapproved, if they liked or disliked. All that counted in the long run was that they continued to admire and fear her.
Perhaps fear was too strong a word, she thought. Respect, probably. A grudging but formidable respect.
They were like a flock of sheep, actually, eager to be led, eager to be told what clothes to wear, what drinks to drink, what dances to dance, what morals to adopt George was the perfect example, she thought cynically. He was only too happy to jump each time she snapped her fingers. And why not? She had made him a success despite himself, organized his life, his business, his thinking. And it hadn't been an easy task, not easy at all.
Karen saw the city limits approaching as she let her mind wander back to when she first decided to marry the insurance agency George Cole was steadily destroying with his bumbling inefficiency.
It had been so pathetically easy to hook him, to have him eating out of her hand within a matter of a few weeks, to have him agree to divorce the colorless creature who liked to grow flowers in the rear lawn. A few nights of working overtime at her desk, a few tight dresses, a few carefully timed bending exercises when he passed, a few intimate smiles, a few well-chosen words. And then, in the soft lighting of her small apartment, the groans of passion as he huffed and puffed above her.
The real challenge came after the honeymoon. She took over the affairs of the agency bit by bit until he saw that he couldn't hope to compete with her acumen. She turned a staggering business into a goldmine within the space of three years, using her brains and her charms and her body to secure the contacts and connections necessary to assure solvency. George didn't want to know how she did it just as long as he was able to sit back and enjoy life without responsibility. She often wondered if he would dare to object or take issue if she told him how many potential clients had been persuaded to transfer their accounts in strange hotel rooms rather than their offices. Probably not, she thought contemptuously, knowing the extent of her husband's weakness and docility.
The traffic thickened and she slowed, adjusting to the city speed limit. She cruised through the crowded streets aware of the envious and admiring glances she drew from the pedestrians on the sidewalks. She idled for a red-light and a car pulled alongside her and the driver, a middle-aged man, looked appreciatively at the silken expanse of her long legs. Karen gave him a cool, expressionless glance and reached down to lift the tight sheath a few inches higher, almost to the top of her stockings. The man blinked and looked away. She smiled and pulled off from him the instant the light changed.
She swung into the familiar street and found a parking place halfway down the block. She backed into it, thumping loudly the bumper of the car to her rear before stepping on the brake. She cut the motor and opened the door and climbed out, pushing down the sheath, giving only a brief look at the possible damage done to the other car.
She headed for the dilapidated loft building.
Karen wrinkled her nose in distaste and tried not to inhale as she climbed the three flights of stairs to the loft. There was an unpleasant aroma clinging to the paint-peeling walls, partly decay, partly disinfectant, partly stale garbage. When she reached the top and faced a single metal door, she blew out her breath and opened her purse. The key fit the lock easily and then she pushed the heavy door inward.
As she had expected, he was asleep on the narrow bed set off in one corner of the studio. She closed the door and walked toward the portrait, drawing off her scarf and gloves and putting them atop a table together with her purse. She moved to an advantageous position to view the oil painting displayed on the easel. She smiled, pleased, and moved a step nearer in order to examine the detail.
They'll die, she thought delightedly.
They'll just fall down and die.
She laughed aloud and the bed in the far corner creaked as the young man tossed restlessly. Karen looked over at him and frowned, wondering if he would prove troublesome. She had too much on her mind to endure a scene. Much too much. She sighed resignedly, knowing she had to awaken him, and walked to the bed.
He was on his back, the sheet tangled around his waist, his chest bare and hairless and strongly-contoured. He looked even younger in sleep, like a little boy. The prettiness of his features lacked the intensity that was there when he was awake. She gazed down at the long and dark lashes, the high cheekbones, the sensual mouth, the cleft chin that betrayed some of his inner weakness.
"Jacques, wake up."
The lashes lifted and the dark eyes focused sleepily. He blinked once and smiled. "I was dreaming of you."
Karen did not return his smile. "Have you finished the painting?"
The smile faded and he frowned slightly. "No, not yet. I worked until almost dawn, but there is one area that needs remodeling."
Karen struggled to contain her anger. "I told you it had to be ready this morning."
Jacques sat up, the sheet sliding down from his hips, indicated his nudity. "I know, I know, but it was impossible for me to do it without you. Don't be angry with me, please. It will only take an hour's work and it will be finished."
Karen glanced at her watch. There was time. "You're sure? One hour?"
The lithe painter nodded eagerly. "I promise."
She shrugged, knowing she had no choice. "All right, let's get started. I have a busy day planned."
Jacques reached out for her hand. "Not too busy, I hope...."
Karen saw the light in the dark eyes and smiled.
"Not now, darling. You never work as well after as you do before. You need all of your energy, all of your emotion, if you're to create."
Jacques showed his disappointment. "It is only a mechanical task today. It doesn't matter if I...."
"We wouldn't want to ruin it at this stage, would we?"
He breathed defeatedly and shrugged. "As you say."
Karen smiled and patted his cheek before turning to walk across the barren studio to the area that served as a dressing room. She began to undress leisurely, ignoring the availability of a thatched screen for a shield, indifferent to whether or not Jacques watched her as he rose from the bed and pulled on his spattered denims and wrinkled sweatshirt. She hung the expensively woven sheath on a hanger and unhooked her stockings, carefully rolling them down her long legs with her palms in order to insure that they would not snag and run.
She felt Jacques behind her before she heard him. The hands slid around her waist and a pair of warm lips grazed her back. She froze in the half-bending position. "Be a dear and unfasten my brassiere," she murmured.
The hands withdrew and the fingers opened the clasp. The brassiere slipped loose and she gathered it in her hand, turning a bit to toss it atop the screen. Jacques' hands slid around her body again and the strong fingers curled over her naked breasts. Karen moved her buttocks back into him for a brief second before easing out of his embrace. "Not now, darling. We have work to do."
Jacques sighed audibly. "You are too cruel."
Karen smiled at him over her shoulder. "That's why you adore me so."
The youthful artist grinned. "I suppose you are right." He kissed her shoulder and walked toward the easel.
Karen stripped off her panties and rubbed the reddened imprint of the plastic band from her flat stomach. She squared her shoulders and walked, totally naked, over to the draped platform. "What part of me needs remodeling?" she asked idly, sliding up on the perch.
The young artist paused in the preparation of his oils to follow the fluid movements of her body. "The best part," he smiled.
Karen nodded and assumed the pose, striking it mechanically after so many sessions in the loft studio. "I'm surprised you need me to model," she purred. "I would think you'd know that part of me by heart."
Jacques laughed happily. "I will never know any part of you. Not completely. That is your mystery, your allure, you-"
"We're wasting valuable time, darling." Karen interrupted. "The sooner we get finished with the painting, the sooner we can ... relax."
Jacques moistened his lips. "I will hurry."
Karen settled herself for the long period of posing, knowing that she needn't concern herself with her facial expression. He was concentrating on a part of her that had an expression all its own, a part that would rock the staid community of Fairlawn to its very foundations. She found herself wondering what reaction it would have on George. He'd probably choke on his scotch and water and turn all kinds of colors and, finally, manage a weak grin and try to pass it off as a big joke. The man of the world. Good old George. The slob.
There was only one reaction in which she was interested.
The group reaction.
She wanted to watch their faces when she unveiled the painting. She wanted to hear the intake of their breath, the choked cries of surprise, the murmurs of astonishment and, possibly, indignation. And then later, not too long later, the stilted words of praise and admiration which would represent another triumph over them for her.
She glanced over to the easel where the young man was working industriously. "Jacques? Tell me what you were dreaming."
He looked up, preoccupied at first, then smiling. "It is much too revealing and sordid," he replied.
"Nothing is too sordid, darling. You should know that by now."
"Do you really want to hear?"
"Yes. Talk to me about your dream while you work. It will help pass the time ... and put me in a mood to relax later."
Jacques' dark eyes glowed. "In my dream you were a queen, an empress ... cruel and beautiful ... beautifully gowned...."
"And you, Jacques? What were you?"
"Your slave."
Karen laughed huskily. "Tell me what terrible things I did to you. Tell me all about them, even to the tiniest detail."
Jacques nodded, his brush flicking the canvas. "All right."
Karen settled back to listen.
CHAPTER FIVE
The mid-morning sun baked the uneven expanse of grass and caused the still water of the artificial lake to glitter brightly. It was an isolated section, rugged and lonely and guarded by high trees. Donna had stumbled upon it during a solitary walk one afternoon the previous month, not seeing the PRIVATE sign, posted by the tenants of the nearby cottages which peeked out from the cluster of trees.
It was toward one of these rustic cottages that Donna looked as she settled herself on her small blanket. The tiny redwood unit showed no sign of life but one window was open and a curtain fluttered with the occasional breeze. Donna leaned back, tilting her face up to the heat of the sun, adjusting her sunglasses, tugging at the brief white shorts and matching halter. When she was comfortably positioned, she closed her eyes and tried to relax.
The heat quickly pervaded her body and she found it earthy and lasting and strangely reassuring. Little lights danced against her lids and she concentrated on them until they faded away, leaving her nothing to do but think. She did not want to think of that morning or of David or of the nearby cottage that had drawn her back. She pushed her mind to other thoughts, another time, another place....
It was autumn and a slumbering stillness cloaked the wooded campus. The gentle tolling of chapel bells failed to ruffle the serenity. Most of the students had long since deserted the grounds in favor of spending the holiday weekend at home with their families and friends. Others, either unable or unwilling to do the same, contented themselves with lolling about the great stone steps of the various buildings.
As the last echoing chime drifted up into the darkening sky, two figures met at the foot of a tree-lined path which led to the massive archway opening out into a quiet suburban street. They met, hesitated, exchanged a long and meaningful look, then clasped hands and walked silently along the walk, crunching the fallen leaves beneath their feet. Behind them, from an opened window of a dormitory, wispy sounds of a phonograph floated on the evening breeze.
Mitch, tall and smooth-striding in rough tweeds, paused as they approached the crest of the sloping walk. Donna, her slender body trembling with nervous excitement, moved obediently as she felt Mitch's hand draw her off the path into the shelter of low-hanging branches. She leaned back against the scratchy bark of the trunk, her nervousness increasing.
Mitch's husky voice thrilled her. "I want to kiss you. I can't go any further until I kiss you."
They kissed, their lips fusing, and Donna felt a great warmth descend upon her. Mitch's tongue parted her lips and made her legs weaken. A sputtering roar of an approaching car terminated the kiss abruptly. They moved apart and Mitch cursed in a low tone. Donna smiled and squeezed Mitch's arm. "It's all right," she whispered.
Mitch looked at her soberly. "Is it? You're sure?"
I'm sure."
"It isn't too late to go back."
Donna knew it was her last chance, but she also knew that she could no longer deny the overpowering desire which had tormented her for the past two months since meeting Mitch. "I don't want to go back," she said simply. "I want to go with you."
They kissed again and Donna sighed, nestling her face in the hollow of Mitch's shoulder, liking the feel ,of the tweed and smell of its woodland scent. Some of the uncertainty ebbed and the longing, which until recently she had never been able to define, seemed to grow within her.
They walked under the antiquated arch into the street and away from the edge of the campus. Donna moved with downcast eyes, feeling a chill in the night air, a trembling in the pit of her stomach. They reached a corner and Mitch touched her arm. "This way. It isn't far."
"All right."
Mitch smiled. "Nervous?"
"Yes."
"So am I."
They went a few more blocks and turned into a courtyard of a four-storied building. Donna followed Mitch up the marble stairs to the third floor and paused on the landing while Mitch worked a key in the lock of one of the doors. It swung inward and Mitch stepped aside. Donna felt her heart pounding as she hurried into the strange apartment.
Mitch switched on the light and locked the door behind them. "Be it ever so humble...."
The apartment was actually only one large room with an attached bath and built-in pullman kitchen. The thatched screen failed to conceal the old-fashioned refrigerator and sink. The carpet on the floor was threadbare and stained and the coffee table was scarred by dozens of cigarette burns and glass rings.
"Pretty grim, huh?"
Donna smiled awkwardly. "Not at all. I think it's nice."
Mitch shrugged and gestured around the room. "Make yourself comfortable. I'll open a window and let in some fresh air. Would you like a drink? I have beer or wine."
"No, nothing, thanks."
Donna went to the over-sized studio couch which seemed to dominate the room and sat down on its edge. It was surprisingly soft and yielding beneath her weight and this fact caused her to shiver inwardly.
Mitch opened a window and came back to stand over her. "I can't believe you're here. I keep wanting to reach out and touch you to make sure."
Donna held out her hand, needing some physical contact to calm the inner fluttering. Mitch took it and sat down beside her. Donna closed her eyes and placed her head on Mitch's shoulder. "I'm glad I'm here. I really am."
Mitch slipped an arm around her waist, drawing her still closer. "I love you so much." .
It sounded strange and yet wonderful.
They sank back on the pillows, lips seeking and finding, murmuring to one another in low whispers. Donna felt herself sinking into a warm pool where she could float weightlessly, her body lulled by a hundred caressing ripples. It was magical and lovely and entirely new.
"I want you," Mitch murmured, kissing her face.
Donna felt her nerves jump. "Yes...."
"I want all of you."
"Oh, Mitch...." she whispered, dizzied by the words. "Help me. Teach me. I don't know what to do."
"You'll know."
In another moment the overhead light was out and they were removing their clothes and they were together on a sheet instead of a coarse coverlet. .Donna was shaking with an urgency that made her whimper brokenly as Mitch removed her tiny panties and eased them down her legs. Her nakedness complete, she shivered and curled her toes, tensing every muscle in her body. "Do you like me?" she whispered, knowing Mitch was gazing down at her.
"You're beautiful."
"Am I really?"
"Every inch of you."
Mitch began to stroke her thighs lightly, making it impossible for her to be still. She writhed as the fingertips touched her where no others ever had. She thought her brain was about to explode as the teasing continued. "Oh, Mitch...."
Mitch moved higher above her and one hand caressed the sensitive tips of her naked breasts. They jumped in response and when Mitch bent down to kiss them, Donna moaned aloud, her arms curling high above her head. The gentle plucking of the soft lips sent spirals of sensation coursing through her body and she arched with need. "Oh, yes, yes."
The hands guided and tested and teased. The lips tasted and tortured and brought her nerves to the breaking point. She could not control her moaning or writhing as she reached for the older girl. "Let me kiss you," she whispered hotly.
Eve Mitchell cupped a hand beneath a conical breast and offered it to Donna. "Is this what you want?"
Donna stared at the dark-ringed nipple and shuddered with excitement. "Yes ... oh, yes."
Mitch leaned down and Donna fastened her lips to flesh, her body twitching as she gave way to her long-denied cravings. "Now this one," Mitch gasped, shifting her position. Donna obeyed hungrily, her passion raging, her instinct guiding her. The studio couch groaned in protest as their combined weight shifted time and again.
Mitch's thighs opened slightly, and Donna felt her fingers moving uncontrollably downward until they came to the swollen, hotly throbbing mound.
"Let's do it, Donna ... let's really, really do it ... over and over ... I'll show you the black heat ... ummmm ... the hot sweetness ... the way to burn 'til you want to go insane with it ... want it to suck your whole body higher and higher ... I'll show you the way to explode into a million pieces...."
The woman's fingers were a burning thrill down Donna's back. She shook uncontrollably, her thighs pulsating with an intense heat she had never known before.
Donna closed her eyes, feeling weak. A long, powerful hand moved down her stomach to part her thighs, and Donna's ripe, hot body stiffened with the piercing sensation as strong fingers grasped her own pubic mound. She moaned loudly, and her legs fell completely open, yielding totally to the wet fingers, and she felt her juices flow down into the working hand.
"Uhhhmmmmmmm," Mitch murmured, "have you ever had it like this, my sweet Donna? Have you ever tasted the ripeness of another woman's body ... sucked the sweet juices from their hot, yielding well ... take this ... yes ... take ... take....
Donna opened her eyes and watched the huge, dark nipple lower itself heavily toward her lips, and her mouth opened slightly, her tongue moistening her lips, her lips readying themselves for the soft, pliant, perfect skin that tipped the magnificent breast. And then she felt the bulging softness enter her waiting, open mouth, and she caressed it with her wet tongue. The skin bloomed, and swelled into a huge, pliant flower, and she sucked it tenderly until it became completely rigid. Her hand moved slowly upward and grasped the soft skin that hung like a gigantic gourd, and it swelled to complete hardness, tremendously huge. She took the other breast, and Mitch moaned deeply above her, her huge body completely overshadowing Donna's own, the hips moving around, the thighs spreading wide, until her knees were at Donna's head.
Mitch lowered her moist lips to Donna's stomach, and her fingers worked in her now-flowing slit, and the woman kissed and licked, lower and lower, until the sensation became almost too much for Donna to bear.
She stared transfixed at the wet, swollen mound of black, curly hair, and her head tilted back, arms reaching upward to slide along Mitch's muscular flanks, pulling lightly downward. Donna watched the bulging, swollen flesh move down, down, as her waiting, open mouth tingled with anticipation.
And then the wet blackness was almost there, and the sweet heaviness of scent engulfed her senses, filling her body with a wild passion that overwhelmed her reeling mind. She saw the erect, throbbing clitoris, a huge swollen finger, reaching downward like a ripe, red plum, and her mouth closed over its juicy thickness to suck tightly its sweetest treasures.
Mitch groaned loudly, and Donna's lower lip moved inward to take the hot, flowing juices.
The slim girl screamed with pleasure and grasped Donna's buttocks with her large hands. Donna gasped, unable to breathe, as she felt the mouth close around her entire vagina, and the thick heavy tongue push its way deeply into her hot, burning folds of skin.
"Uhhhhh ... Mitch!" she screamed, as the tongue journeyed into her again and again, and her legs sprawled wildly open as she arched her smoldering triangle upward and grasped the woman's tongue with her vagina.
Screaming with ecstasy, she jerked the huge, violet-colored opening of the convulsing girl down against her face, biting and piercing again and again deeply into Mitch's hot, flowing crevice.
They exploded into a fury of violent movement, and Donna's body writhed wildly with the sensation, as she felt the heavy mound grasp her face, the wildly moving buttocks of the powerful Mitch pounding against her mouth and working her lips harder and harder.
Suddenly, she screamed, gasping loudly, as the tumultuous explosion of her orgasm coursed through her body.
Her scream was answered by Mitch's own, and Donna dimly felt through the surging of her own desperate passion the flooding torrent of Mitch's own climax gushing into her sucking mouth.
Then she lay floating in the misty vacuum of the afterglow of passion, drifting for a long time, it seemed, with the deep sensations of sensuousness.
She was unaware that the girl had left her, but felt her return, and opened her eyes a little.
Mitch stood over her, her thighs wet with the sweet juices of their passion, and Donna saw her securing a dildo tightly to her waist. The woman dropped to her knees beside Donna, and picked up a bottle, emptying some of its contents into her hand.
"You're the end ... Donna ... just the end ... I want more and more ... and more of you. I want all you have to give me ... and I will give you everything ... everything!"
Donna looked up into the wildly impassioned eyes, and again felt the burning between her thighs.
She moaned, and her voice seemed far away.
"Yessss ... yessssssss ... drive me so deeply ... I don't ever want to return ... do it to me again ... and again!"
The slender hands turned over and thickly oiled the stiff, smooth phallus, and Donna saw it for the first time ... very, very long ... thick ... with a tremendous head. And she was dimly aware that she would not forget this experience for a long time.
The girl slowly turned the bottle over Donna's own body, and the oil flowed over her breasts. She smoothed it and rubbed it everywhere, and then Donna watched as the oil was spread over Mitch's own skin.
Then came the time. Mitch moved over her, slowly lowering her wide hips toward Donna's waiting, throbbing black mound, the lips swollen outward, like a giant flower, flowing with the nectar of sweet sensation.
The bulbous head moved downward slowly, finally reaching her at the first folds of the soft opening, and Mitch's skillful fingers parted the mound further.
Donna closed her eyes, a deep, long moan escaping her lips. Mitch covered the woman's lips with her own, her hot tongue finding and searching, her strong arms finding Donna's rigid, waiting buttocks, her own buttocks tensing, testing the angle.
And then, slowly, she moved her hips forward, and the giant penis began its long, slippery journey into the depths of Donna's flowing well.
Donna groaned loudly, feeling the huge thickness spread her opening, moving deeper and deeper, and suddenly the pain of it became almost unbearable, and she screamed.
Mitch lunged, penetrating almost totally, driving the folds open, and Donna's body quivered with a rip of pain she had never before experienced.
The heavy, slick body of the woman on top of her crushed her downward, and the hips withdrew, poising for just an instant.
Donna watched the buttocks snap downward once again, and again she screamed, but the bursting, expanding pressure yielded to an overwhelming pleasure that mixed with the terrible pain, and she felt her own thighs encircling the thick muscular legs of the other woman. Again, Mitch withdrew, this time snapping into Donna entirely, and Donna's stomach filled with the tremendous penis-stretching, expanding, the pleasant feeling completely overwhelming her entire consciousness.
And the gigantic shaft drove into her hard, stiff, like a steel rod, and the room filled with Donna's scream of ultimate passion. She fell spinning into the deep pit of total blackness, feeling only the ocean of white hotness swelling higher and higher, rising to drown her, unable to breath ... spinning ... the shaft working harder and harder, plunging deeper and deeper, the fire of her tortured vaginal lips burning hotter than ever before.
Then her mind seemed to explode with the ecstasy of it, her body raging convulsively upward to meet the driving rod until the pounding thrusts were too quick to distinguish ... and Donna toppled on the brink of an insane passion, her entire being consumed to finally shatter into a million pieces of bright, searing light.
"OHH, Godyessgodyessyessyess ... Fuck me!!"
It had been the beginning for Donna, the beginning of the long holiday weekend, the beginning of a new life, the beginning of something she came to understand too well and need too much.
Much too much.
Donna sat up on the blanket, the memory of her affair with Eve Mitchell having honed her hunger and heightened her desperation. The love act with David earlier that morning had also contributed even though she had found it unpleasant. Every nerve in her body ached for the completion she had never fully experienced in her marriage. She couldn't go on any longer without it. No matter how wrong it was, how shameful it was, how damning it was, she had to have it.
She could no longer flee from herself.
From the truth.
A shadow fell upon her, blocking out the sun.
Donna turned her head and stared through her tinted glasses at the figure which loomed so majestically above her. The woman towered dramatically against the blue sky, strong-boned, lushly curved, thick-haired. She seemed almost arrogant and overpowering in her statuesque perfection and Donna could feel herself beginning to tremble.
"You came back."
Donna nodded dully. "Yes."
"I hoped you would."
Donna lowered her lashes. "You knew I would." The woman smiled. "Yes, I guess I did."
The silence that followed scraped her nerves raw and Donna bit on her lower lip. She knew what was about to happen and although she wanted desperately to be loved, the thought of it unnerved her. The reason was not so much the actual infidelity as it was the shaming helplessness which filled her.
"Come inside. I have coffee on the stove."
Donna looked at the extended hand a second before accepting it. With its help, she rose from the blanket and stood face-to-face with the reason why she had returned to this isolated section of the lake. The reason had a name. Lois. Lois Clifford.
"You can leave your things here," Lois said, holding Donna's hand. "No one will bother them."
Donna nodded stiffly, finding it difficult to speak.
They began to walk to the cottage.
Donna looked around the sunken room, noting the huge fireplace and sprawling furniture and thick-napped rug and the shelves of books and figurines. "It's very nice."
Lois nodded proudly. "I decorated it myself. Sit down and I'll get the coffee."
Donna sat on the arm of the long couch and watched the woman cross the room. Even in bare feet, she was unusually tall. She wore a bulky knit sweater that failed to hide the bigness of her breasts, and the tightly fitted slacks molded her strongly rounded thighs and smoothly curved buttocks.
She recalled their first meeting when she'd stumbled upon the remote section of lakefront. Once she managed to overcome her embarrassment of having intruded on the private property, she found herself talking freely with the black-haired woman who had come down from the nearby cottage to join her by the edge of the water. Right from the first, she had been aware of Lois Clifford as a woman, but she had fought to conceal her desires, talking compulsively of David and his position at the company and their home in Fairlawn, of almost anything she could think of to establish and drive home the fact that she was happily married. Lois simply listened, drawing her out without seemingly doing so, asking short, direct questions, watching her face closely when Donna answered them. And then, it happened.
Just as she was getting ready to leave, the dark-haired woman touched her wrist. Donna looked into the bottomless black eyes and knew all at once that Lois had recognized her for what she was. "Don't go home to your husband," Lois had said. "Stay here with me."
Donna felt dizzied and her senses reeled. She managed to stammer something about having to fix dinner and going to some stores. Nothing she said seemed to have any meaning but still, she said them.
After a moment, Lois withdrew her hand and smiled at her. "All right, if you must go-but come back soon. I'll be here."
Just a few words, a certain look, nothing more, but enough to awaken all the dormant hungers she had fought so hard to keep suppressed, to remind her of the twilight world she had married to escape.
Lois returned, carrying a tray with the coffee settings. "I better warn you," she smiled, "My coffee has been condemned by the American Medical Association." She set the tray on the table and lowered herself to the floor in cross-legged fashion. "How do you take it?"
"Black," Donna answered, trying to relax, sliding down off the arm to the cushions of the couch. Lois handed her the cup and saucer. "Thank you."
The statuesque woman balanced her own cup as she leaned back against the front of an upholstered chair. "Why did you wait so long?" she asked quietly. "It's been nearly a month."
Donna tensed. "I know."
"Were you afraid?"
"Yes."
"Why? It isn't entirely new to you, is it?"
"No."
"I thought not."
Donna looked up. "How did you know?"
Lois smiled. "I didn't know, I merely suspected. I thought you might be a possible victim, the bored young housewife and all that sort of thing. Then, when I saw your reaction when I asked you to stay with me-well, I knew."
Donna found herself admiring the woman's honesty and envying her calm acceptance of her Lesbianism. There seemed to be no shame, no guilt, no uneasiness at all attached to the fact. "I've never met anyone like you," she admitted softly.
Lois laughed huskily. "I've led a long and wicked life."
"Were you always ... gay?"
"No, not always. I went through two husbands before I found out the truth about myself."
Donna looked at the beautiful face and tried to estimate how old Lois could be. The black eyes, the sensual mouth, the arched eyebrows, the high cheekbones, the luxurious hair-all seemed to hold a maturity that might belong to a woman of thirty-seven or-eight and yet the rich body beneath the bulky sweater and tight slacks was unquestionably youthful. Voluptuous, perhaps, but youthfully firm.
"I hope you don't have to rush off today."
"No, not until late afternoon."
"Wonderful," Lois smiled. "That gives us plenty of time to get to know one another. Tell me something about yourself."
Donna finished her coffee. "I told you everything the first time we met."
"That was just the icing on the cake."
Donna smiled, feeling suddenly reckless. "All right, what do you want to know?"
The dark eyes slid down from the halter to the white shorts and bare legs. "I want to know what I have to say to get you in bed with me."
Donna felt her breath catch in her throat.
Lois was smiling and watching her face. "It's nice bed, king-sized. Soft." She uncoiled slowly and rose to her feet, holding out a hand. "Come, I'll show you."
Donna remained motionless, frozen.
Lois came around the table to stand in front of her. "Don't be foolish. You know it's what you want. Come."
Donna felt her heart hammering as she obeyed the magnetic voice and piercing eyes. She felt Lois' hand clasp her own and her feet moving across the springy rug. Then they were in another room shaded and cool, and the bed stared up at her. Waves of excitement swept through her as the beautiful face cut off the view. The black eyes were slumberous and the red lips shimmering as they came closer and closer.
It was a possessive kiss, deeply probing.
Donna felt her knees buckle as the two hands cupped her buttocks and pulled her body against the bigness contained in the sweater and slacks. "Hold me," she breathed, feeling her strength fading. "Hold me tight."
She closed her eyes.
CHAPTER SIX
"May I have another drink, please?"
The youthful bartender looked up in surprise before moving over to refill her glass from the shaker. "You've really got a big thirst, haven't you?" he smiled, taking a bill from the money spread on the bar.
Joanne Morgan nodded without resentment, content in the glow of the consumed Daiquiris. She liked Whitey. She liked the way he mixed a Daiquiri, the way he worked behind the bar, the way he seemed to fit in the rustic atmosphere of the highway roadhouse. She wondered if he liked her. "I feel a little conspicuous," she smiled, sipping her third drink, looking at the young man's crew cut. "Being your only customer, I mean."
He shrugged, polishing the glassware. "It's a little too early for us. We don't start getting any action until about three o'clock."
"Is this your place?"
He laughed softly. "I wish it was. I just work for the guy that owns the motel next door. He owns this joint, too." He paused, eyeing her. "First time here?"
"Yes."
"Live in the area?"
"Not really." Joanne answered, letting her eyes show him that she wanted a change of subject. He nodded and resumed polishing the glasses. She was pleased that he understood her need for anonymity. It was for this reason that she had driven so far from Fairlawn. No one who knew her would ever be frequenting the roadhouse, particularly at such an early hour. She felt safe, secure, protected. No one would ever know if she happened to meet a strange man.
It's got to happen, she thought grimly, drinking hard and fast. She'd never be able to work up that much nerve again. It's got to happen-and soon. The powerful drinks were already beginning to affect her and although they added to her recklessness, they could detract from her pleasure later on when something developed. She didn't want to be drunk. Besides, she had to go home that evening for Karen Cole's party, damn it.
She was about to turn her thoughts back to the stocky, white-haired bartender when the door of the roadhouse swung open, letting in the heat of day and the brightness of the sunlight. She looked at the two men who walked toward the bar and her pulse jumped. She tried not to show her delight, her nervousness, her uncontrolled pleasure that the odds for success had been increased.
Whitey grinned at the two men. "What are you two doing here? I thought you were moving on first thing this morning?"
The younger of the two, dark-haired and slender and attractive, groaned and nodded. "So did we. After you went off duty last night, we really tied one on. We just woke up."
The other man, short and dark-jowled and balding, leaned on the bar and waved at the bottles. "You'd better give us an eye-opener, Whitey. We still have three hundred miles to drive before we get to where we're going."
Whitey moved to serve them and Joanne watched him pour out two strong shots of scotch. The slender stranger turned his head to gaze appraisingly at her and she felt her body tense as his bold eyes swept over the black shirt and white pleated skirt. The balding one looked at her wedding ring briefly and then at Whitey in a questioning manner. Joanne saw Whitely smile slightly and move one shoulder in a subtle shrug, indicating he wasn't quite sure.
Joanne kept her eyes focused on her drink, her blood flowing hotly, her nerves jumping. The younger one was handsome, even with his bloodshot eyes and unshaven cheeks. And she liked the way his eyes picked at her clothing. It seemed to suggest that he was well-versed in appraising and estimating what was underneath. She lifted her glass slowly to her lips, trying to appear cool and composed and yet not aloof.
"Mind if I play the juke box?"
She turned to look at the young stranger's face, the questioning smile. He had very white teeth, she noticed. "No, not at all," she replied.
He nodded and walked over to the machine, inserting some coins in it before returning to the bar and his drink. The music began to play, a ballad, not too loud. "My name's Eddie," he offered, smiling at her.
Joanne fought to keep from trembling. "Hello."
"This is Jim."
She nodded at the chunky one. "Hello." She saw them all looking at her expectantly and she smiled nervously. "I'm Jo," she said, automatically altering her name.
Eddie grinned and lifted his drink as he moved over to where she was sitting. "Mind if we join you for a drink? Hey, Jim, come on over here. Whitey, how about giving up a round?"
"Coming right up," the young bartender smiled.
Joanne sat up a bit straighter as the two men came to stand on either side of her. The older one, Jim, seemed content to let his younger companion make all the advances while he just hunched over the bar and sipped his drink. Joanne felt obliged to make conversation. "I gather you're just passing through?"
The dark-haired stranger nodded. "We're heading up to the mountains for a little fishing. We go there every summer for two or three weeks." He paused, his eyes dropping to the fullness of the black blouse. "How about you, Jo? You live around here?"
"About an hour's drive," she answered vaguely, lifting the drink Whitey had just served her. Eddie seemed to be aware of her evasion, but he said nothing. The fourth Daiquiri tasted even better than the previous three and she drained it in two nervous and compulsive swallows. "May I have another?"
The three men exchanged a look as Whitey picked up the shaker. Eddie pushed out some money to pay for it. "My pleasure," he smiled, his shoulder nudging hers at this point. "I like to watch a woman drink when she's the type who can handle it."
Jim grunted. "There ain't many women around who can."
Whitey hovered nearby. "Jo here is one of the best I've seen in quite a while."
Joanne was aware of why they were flattering her. She could see it in their eyes. They wanted her. They wanted her any way that they could have her, drunk or sober. The awareness made her tingle and she knew that before long, she would have to make the ultimate decision. The drinks were clouding her thoughts with each passing minute, making it easier for her to simply drift along with what was happening. If she was going to check the momentum, she'd have to put an end to the game and go out to the waiting station-wagon and head back to home.
Home ... more loneliness ... more torment, more boredom, more of the aching nothingness that had driven her out into the world in search of an escape, even a temporary escape ... now that she was out, why should she even think of returning?
"Care to dance, Jo?"
She blinked up at Eddie's smiling face. He had his hand on her wrist and his touch was strong and masterful. She let out her breath and slid from the stool wordlessly, letting him take her arm and guide her back through the empty tables to the small dance floor in the rear of the road-house. As she turned to face him, her arms raised expectantly, she could see Jim lean over the bar to whisper to the smiling Whitey. Eddie moved inside her arms to grasp her and she closed her eyes.
They moved slowly to the syrupy music and her knees trembled as her breasts flattened against his hard chest. He wasn't as slender as she had thought, his body was muscled and firm and his shoulders a great deal wider than they first appeared. She could feel herself melting up against him even though she hadn't consciously willed it, as though her body was seeking out the contact itself.
"You're really an armful, Jo," Eddie smiled, his breath tickling her ear. "I've always had a weakness for big women."
"I'm not too big, I hope," she answered, trying to keep her voice steady, acutely conscious of the hand that slipped down the small of her back to the rise of her curving buttocks.
"Not from what I can see ... and feel."
She felt her cheeks heating as the hand dropped lower to cup and hold her. She knew this was the moment to slam on the brakes and yet she couldn't bring herself to do so. Everything in the room was blurring and the throbbing of her too-long neglected body was almost painful. She could feel Eddie holding his head apart from her, watching and waiting for her reaction as his hand continued to fondle her through the pleated skirt. Then, as if reassured, he let out his breath slowly and moved back in close to hold her more firmly in his arms.
It's done, she thought. Now he knows why I'm here.
The music ended and she stepped away from him, her breasts pulsing and her forehead moist with perspiration. She looked into his eyes and saw the awareness there and it shamed her. He took her hand and began leading her back toward the bar where Whitey and Jim were awaiting them. Joanne tried not to see the look the three men exchanged, the look that verified their suspicions, the look that notified the two men of Eddie's conquest.
She slid up on the padded stool and gulped at her drink, hoping to soothe her throat, to muffle the ragged beating of her heart; The liquor burned and she gripped the glass tightly, feeling it hit home and add to her vague dizziness. All at once she wanted to be drunk, to be aware of what had to happen next, even the pretense.
Eddie spoke up quickly, too quickly.
Jim emptied his shot glass and pushed away from the bar with an exaggerated sigh. "I guess I better take the car down to the gas station and get that bum tire changed."
"Eddie spoke up quickly, too quickly. "Yeah, why don't you do that, buddy? And, uh, don't forget to pick up those things we need at the sporting-goods store in town."
"I won't. It was nice meeting you, Jo."
Joanne bit her lip and nodded, unable to speak her lines in the comedy. The squat man waved to Whitey and walked out of the roadhouse. Eddie ordered another drink for himself and for her from the waiting bartender and then gave the crew-cutted attendant a significant tilt of his head. Whitey collected for the drink with a smile and rang it up on the register.
Joanne waited for his line.
"If you folks will excuse me, I have to clean up the kitchen before we start getting busy."
"You go right ahead," Eddie grinned. Whitey walked away and disappeared into the back.
Joanne felt Eddie's arm slide around her waist, the fingers of his hand barely grazing the fullness of her breast. She trembled and nearly spilled some of her drink as she lifted it to her lips.
Eddie put his face near her blonde hair. "Look, why don't we cut out of here, huh? Why don't we go back to our cabin where we can be more comfortable? I've got a bottle there. What do you say?"
Joanne felt dizzy and weak. "What about your friend?"
"You heard him. He's going to be busy for a while. A couple of hours, at least." He blew into her ear teasingly. "Come on, Jo, you know what I'm talking about-"
Joanne set down the glass deliberately, suddenly sober, at least for that one crucial moment. "All right," she said hoarsely, not recognizing her own voice.
Eddie grinned and helped her down from the stool. She scooped up her money and cigarette and put them in her purse as he stood by her side. She couldn't bring herself to look at him as he escorted her out of the roadhouse into the glaring sunshine. The humidity of the afternoon slapped her across the face like a soggy wash-rag and she was made conscious again of all she had had to drink. She swayed and Eddie's hand tightened on her arm. "Take it easy," he laughed, indulgently.
"I'm sorry."
"We're in Number Ten," he offered, steering her down the line of motel units.
Joanne tried not to think of what was happening. She tried not to look over to where her stationwagon was parked in the lot. She tried not to feel cheap or whorish as she stopped in front of a cabin door and watched the strange young man insert the key in the lock. She tried not to wonder what Matt was doing at that very moment and whether or not he'd ever find out to what lengths his career-obsession had driven her.
"Come on," Eddie smiled, holding out his hand to her as his body held open the door.
Joanne wet her lips, lowered her eyes and entered the cabin.
The twin beds were rumpled and unmade; the cabin was heavy with the scents of male perspiration and stale whiskey; the air-conditioner purred in muted constancy, somehow adding to the stillness; the dresser was cluttered with crumpled shorts and socks and soiled shirts and various male accessories.
Eddie came up behind her before she realized that he had closed the door. The arms snaked around her waist, pulling her back against him, and the hands crossed themselves as they rose to cup the bigness of her breasts. Joanne heard the broken sob that escaped her lips and the sound of her purse falling to the carpeted floor. The hands tightened their hold and his lips moved against her ear and down her throat. She began to tremble as he kept her tight against him, against the solid muscle of his body, against the proof of his increasing desire.
She sagged back against him, too weak to stand without his support, the pleasure mingling with the alcohol in her blood and causing the room to whirl.
She felt him opening the black shirt and tugging it out of her skirt and she heard her teeth begin to chatter with excitement. She lost all control of her hips as they welcome the pressure of his body and struggled to maintain the contact each time he moved.
He stepped away to pull the blouse back down her arms and the separation was agonizing and sobering. She shivered as the refrigerated air played over her warm skin and he fingered the hooks of her brassiere. It sprung loose and she moaned as her large breasts leaped from their confinement, the nipples already rigidly aroused. They felt as though they were going to burst with the sensation that filled them and when his hands came back around her body to hold their nakedness, Joanne uttered a small and wanton cry.
"You're really built," Eddie murmured admiringly, kissing her bare shoulder, handling her thrusting breasts.
"Please," she whimpered, unable to stand the delay another moment, the toying having awakened all the raging passions of her body. "Don't talk. Don't say anything."
The hands left her breasts and dropped to the pleated skirt. It opened and slid down her legs to the floor. She stood quivering as the half slip followed and then her panties. Waves of gooseflesh rippled over her nakedness as she turned to clutch at him, her mouth devouring, her hips demanding.
They stumbled to the bed and fell atop it.
Joanne felt him struggling to free himself from her feverish embrace and she gasped as their lips broke contact. "Hurry," she panted, throbbing, unable to keep her body from moving in sensuous writhing. "I can't wait any longer."
The dark-haired young man stared at her in mild astonishment and began removing his clothes. It seemed to be taking him an eternity and Joanne groaned, moving to assist him. He laughed softly. "Boy, you are in a bad way, aren't you?"
"Hurry...." she repeated, no longer caring what he thought of her. Finally, with her help, he was naked and ready and she looked down on him, her eyes glazed with lust, her body aflame with need. He was so much like Matt, she thought dully. A young Matt. Straight and strong and smooth-muscled. She touched him, moving her hands over his flesh, feeling the excitement within her body surging to new heights. He tensed and drew in his breath and his hands were cruel in their handling of her heavy breasts. She moaned and fell down on the bed, pulling him to her, imprisoning him with her arms.
"Now...."
All the months of unrequited need, of unsated hunger, of uncontrollable craving seemed to burst forth at one time. The force of it blotted out the face of the young man she held in her arms, the ceiling of the cabin, the feel of the twisted sheets beneath her naked body, the stale stench of the air, the steady sound of the air-conditioning unit. All that remained was sensation, rhythmic sensation, wondrous sensation.
"Talk to me," he muttered, piercing the fog that enveloped her.
She moaned.
"Talk to me."
She rolled her head in anguish and struggled to find the strength to speak. The squeaking of the bed-springs provided an accompaniment for the feverish words that came from her lips. She didn't know what she was saying or whether she was making any sense or whether she was pleasing him sufficiently with the hot admissions. She was beyond thinking or caring about anything but what was happening and what she was feeling as her powerfully formed body drove to the long-awaited fulfillment.
She could feel his cock approaching and she clung to him desperately and begged him to stay with her to the end. She begged him in every way she knew how until she was no longer able to speak but could only indicate her need with guttural moans and wildly abandoned exertions. The moment came and she heard herself cry out as she arched to meet his cock. The force of it jolted her senses and wracked her body and numbed her brain and she whimpered as tremor after tremor coursed through her.
Eddie's hands were on her thighs, and she parted her legs and thrust her cunt up against him. His cock was hard and he slipped between the lips like a knife sinking into her body. She could feel his balls smacking against the crack of her ass. Her cunt swallowed his hardness into its liquid depths until she could feel the bumping thrusts of his jabs banging against the womb wall of her cunt. His full cock was inside of me, spearing out the exploding passion built up from fear, stoking the fire that was burning uncontrollably.
She locked her legs around Eddie's hips and clawed at his back and ass with her nails. She tried to pull him closer to her, tried to make his body a part of hers. He pumped into her like a wild stallion, and she humped back at him, matching his fury with a wild, primeval passion.
Her body twitched and writhed uncontrollably under the stark, sexual buffeting of his hunching body. Her cunt clenched shut around his thick, driving cock, like a mouth devouring his hardness until she had fully gobbled him between the pink folds of her lips. She could feel him in the wet passageway, against the walls of her vagina where the head of his cock was sliding and spreading and sending wave after wave of pleasure through the molten fury of her cunt. Her face grew brutish with passion, and she moaned incoherently. "Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me!" she screamed.
Passion pushed reason from her brain, and her body grew wet and slippery with perspiration. Her legs kept sliding off Ins hips, but she continued to replace them, each time moving them higher and higher, until her body was almost bent in half.
Eddie put his hands under her ass and pulled her up from the bed. His fingers felt like burning coals against her flesh, and he pressed them into her, as though they could somehow wring out even more pleasure from her tensed, sexually tortured body.
He was thrusting almost straight down into her, driving his cock deeper and deeper, sending new waves of passion and excitement to explode like flashes of incandescent light in her brain.
Sweat and discharge dribbled from her cunt, wetting his shaft, and it trickled like spittle down between the lips of her cunt. She felt the wetness between the cheeks of her ass, and under his pinching fingers, making her body slippery against him. His fingers accepted the juices, and he spread them across her ass and cunt as he pounded into her with his weapon-like cock.
In her passion, she sensed that there were others around her, watching them and cheering them on. But she felt no shame, no awareness of their presence. All that mattered was her passion, and the growing reality of the orgasm that was building with each thrust of Eddie's rigid, throbbing cock. Matt was gone from her mind. In the whole world, all there was this single moment of pleasure, and the shatteringly intense relief that it would bring down upon her tortured, anguished body.
She pushed up with her cunt as Eddie stiffened and thrust viciously into her. She tightened her cunt around his trembling cock, grinding her hips against his driving middle. He began to come.
But he didn't, and she could feel his hot sperm gushing into the slippery passageway of her cunt. Eddie's come throbbed into her in thick spurts as he emptied his balls but did not begin to quell the fire that burned inside her.
Her cunt was going insane, and she tried to climb up against the sides of his cock; to hold him against her, screwing down tightly to prevent him from slipping away from her.
But her efforts were wasted, and his cock stopped throbbing, and it lay silently inside of her. Eddie tried to pull away from her, but she raked at his back and locked him against her cunt with her legs. Her cunt clamped around Eddie's deflating cock.
"Enough, enough!" he said, pushing her away. "I've got no more to give."
Joanne stared up at his face with passion-crazed eyes. His body was soaked in sweat, and his neck and shoulders were striped in blood from her nails.
"Please! ... Please!" she begged. She reached for his cock, but it was small in her hand, and sperm dripped from her fingers. "Please!"
She buried her spermy hands against her throbbing cunt and pressed down on the clitoris. But her fingers were not enough, and even when she shoved two, then three fingers into the aching, empty canal of her cunt, it only heightened her frustration.
"Somebody, please fuck me!" she begged. "Fuck me!"
Eddie stood up. He laughed at her torment.
She was only dully aware of his leaving her.
So long, she thought. It had been so long.
The blaze abated but the heat remained.
She heard a voice and stirred, opening her eyes with a great effort. The door was just closing and the stocky man named Jim was smiling over her as he tossed his car keys atop the dresser. The younger one was seated on the edge of the bed, smoking a cigarette, still naked, still flushed, still breathing hard. The balding stranger came over to where she was sprawled nakedly on the narrow twin bed and grinned down at her. "You're a noisy one. I heard you all the way from the parking lot."
Joanne tried to move, but something held her inert.
Eddie laughed tiredly. "Hell, she almost broke my back. She could take you and me and a dozen other guys without even getting winded."
Jim reached down to stroke her upraised knee. "Is that right, honey? You got something left for me?"
Joanne saw the desire in his blue eyes and the heat began to mount again in her body. Even as she looked up at him, she could feel her nipples begin to harden with anticipation. "No, please...." she whispered weakly, unconvincingly, tremulously.
Jim chuckled and began unbuckling his belt. "Aw, come on, Jo," he laughed. "Don't be that way. Eddie and I are buddies from way back. We share and share alike." He stepped out of his khaki pants and pulled his shirt over his head. "Besides, from what Eddie says, you could use another bit of loving."
It was true. She knew it and so did they. If it weren't, she wouldn't be there on the bed the way she was, naked, and passive and wanton. She wanted him. "All right," She murmured, knowing it wasn't necessary, knowing he was going to take her anyhow.
The hairy-chested man stepped out of his shorts and came down to the bed. She felt his hands exploring her moist body and she was aware that Eddie was watching them from the other bed, the cigarette dangling from his lips. She shuddered and closed her eyes and put her arms around the naked man and let him begin.
Eddie chuckled. "Jo, baby, you're the living end-"
Jim grunted agreement.
Joanne dug her heels into the mattress and strained upward, moaning with pleasure. "Don't talk ... she gasped.
She reached up for him and slid her hand across his thick thighs. She found his cock, and it burned her flesh with its heat. It was long and thick, impossibly so, and her fingers greedily slid along its length, stretching widely, but unable to slip her hand fully around his thickness.
She pulled him by his cock toward her. Her cunt ached, and she needed to have something to fill that emptiness inside her.
Jim grabbed her thighs and rolled them back with ease. He bent her body in half, and her upturned cunt was almost pressed into her face. Her breath gushed out as her thighs pushed against her breasts, flattening them. Her feet were somewhere behind her head. The air felt cool against her wet, exposed cunt.
Jim pressed his enormous weight into her, and she felt the tip of his monster organ push between the tight, pink lips of her cunt. She cringed away, but he dropped his body down violently, and his cock stabbed her cunt.
She screamed out in pain and felt the walls of her cunt expanding as though the flesh would tear under the spreading force of Jim's cudgel-like cock. But the canal was wet, well-lubricated from her own excitement and the slimy thickness of Eddie's come, and she felt the swollen sides of Jim's cock sliding deeply into her, touching her to a depth she never before knew was possible; as though he had pierced her very soul. She could feel his thighs straining against the backs of her own thighs, and the heavy sack of his balls were pressed between the cheeks of her ass.
Her cunt began to shake around his pressing thickness. She felt the lips of her cunt slither slowly up his cock until somehow she had managed to swallow his organ. He began the ancient rhythm: thrust, withdraw, then thrust in again, and she responded and ground her cunt up against his stomach. Pleasure shot through her loins with each thrust and her cunt quivered in expectation around his cruel, pushing cock.
"Soon ... Soon! ... soonV she moaned, frantically afraid he would stop before she reached the point.
But this time it didn't take much. She was close before, and the fat, pushing thrusts of Jim's cock was all that she needed. She felt her cunt tighten down as her thighs clamped shut around the giant's hips.
"I'm coming!" she screamed. "Oh, God! Fuck me, I'm commmminggg!"
Her head rolled from side to side on the bed and she locked her arms behind her knees, pulling her body even further in half. As she pushed up to match Jim's downward thrusts, she could smell the musky, sexual aroma of her own sweaty, come-filled cunt.
Pain was gone from her mind: all that was important was that she was coming. Wildly, insanely, and in total abandon. Her soul was stripped naked in its pleasure, and underneath was exposed a raw sensual animal.
Jim began to come. Thick hot spurts of sperm gushed from the tip of his cock as though it were under pressure. She felt him filling her, flooding her, drowning her cunt in a thick, milky pool of come. Her cunt was a starving mouth, and it milked his organ with an insatiable, driving thirst. The passage was filled to the saturation point, and the fluid spilled down her cunt, overflowing the grasping, clutching hole. Sperm stained her cunt hair and made her thighs sticky with wetness. She could hear Jim's cock squishing as it humped in and out of the deep wet hole.
The pleasure finally peaked and turned quickly into pain. Exhausted, her cunt relaxed, but Jim continued to throb into her even though she was no longer resisting him. She groaned with each thrust, and her legs felt dead. Her cunt was raw and tears began to roll down her face.
Jim stopped humping and he pulled his cock from her cunt. The air felt strange against her nakedness, and her cunt seemed empty without the cruel cock in it. Her legs fell like dead weights onto the bed, and she lay, spread-eagled across the sheets. Her whole body was numb, and perspiration soaked her flesh.
"Wow," Jim muttered. "Wow!"
The room fell silent except for the sound of the bedsprings and the whirring air-conditioner and their ragged breathing.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Karen tightened the clinging kimono around her slender body and touched the paper napkin to the corners of her mouth. "I feel much better now that I've eaten," she smiled, pushing away from the makeshift table and rising from the wooden stool. "It's incredible how much of an appetite you can work up by just posing."
The young painter hurried to finish his wine and follow her across the loft studio to his unmade bed. "Why don't you relax while we're waiting for the oils to dry?"
Karen stopped by the side of the bed and smiled back at him over her shoulder. "I am a bit stiff."
Jacques returned her smile. "I'll massage you."
Karen maintained her knowing expression as she nodded. She opened the silk kimono and allowed it to slide down to the floor at her feet. She knelt nakedly on the bed before stretching out flat on her stomach and crossing her arms beneath her cheek, her tightly curved buttocks gleaming in the light from the slanted ceiling-window. "How long do you think it will take to dry?" she asked casually, making herself comfortable.
Jacques moved to sit beside her on the bed, his reply muffled by the sweatshirt he pulled over his head. "Not long. It's already been twenty minutes." He tossed the crumpled shirt aside as he gazed down on her naked figure.
Karen nodded lazily. "That's good. I have another appointment this afternoon." She felt his hands commence the kneading motion on her neck and shoulders. "Not so hard, darling." The pressure lightened and she sighed contentedly. "That's much better."
She closed her eyes as the hands worked slowly and carefully down her bare back to the base of her spine. She allowed her thoughts to return to the terrace of her home and the arrangements for the evening and she made a mental note to call Amanda and see how things were going. At the same time, she could check to see if George had thought to call and whether Amanda had reminded him of the Worthington contracts. It shouldn't have to be any great problem, she thought analytically. She had clinched the deal, all that remained was for George to draw up the contracts and have them set over for Roy's signature. Even George couldn't mess up that assignment....
"Utterly feline," Jacques murmured, his hands caressing and fondling her trim buttocks. "Every inch of you."
Karen smiled and shifted slightly to allow his fingers greater freedom in their intimate movements. She enjoyed the feel of them on her flesh, particularly the way they wandered from time to time. "Do you mind massaging me this way, darling?" she asked baitingly, confident of his answer.
"Mind? I adore it." He underlined the statement by lowering himself so that he could kiss each firmly rounded buttock. "I shall never have enough of this body. Never."
Karen pushed her rump up to him again as his hands moved down to her thighs. "Again, Jacques. Kiss me again." He obeyed passionately, obviously pleased with her request, and she smiled amusedly as she watched him over one shoulder. "You're so sweet," she murmured, relaxing again.
The dark-haired artist commenced rotating her feet at the ankles as he loosened the sinewy muscles of her calves. "Marianne came to see me last night," he muttered nervously, his handsomeness marred by his frown.
"Oh?"
"She returned my ring."
"I see."
Jacques sighed. "It was not easy for me. She is a nice girl and I am still very fond of her."
"Did she try to-well, dissuade you?"
Jacques nodded painfully. "Yes. She still loves me, it seems. I told her it was useless. I told her that I loved you and that it was a love that would never die." He paused, his frown deepening into a scowl. "At first she would not listen but after a while, she saw that I spoke the truth. She wept and told me that she was returning to Paris to continue her studies. She should be enroute by now. She was taking the first available flight."
Karen smiled, experiencing a glow of satisfaction in having triumphed over the young and beautiful model. "I hope you were kind to her, Jacques."
"I tried to be."
Karen turned over to lie on her back. "Now this side," she purred.
Jacques moistened his lips as he stared down at her gleaming nakedness. A muted sound escaped his throat as his hands moved to cover her high-pointing breasts. "I must have you," he muttered fiercely, moving to embrace her.
Karen checked him with one hand against his bare chest. "Don't."
He scowled. "What is it?"
She smiled composedly. "I don't want you to muss my hair. I have that appointment, remember?"
He groaned. "How can you be so heartless, so cruel, so ... so detached?"
She laughed. "Realistic, darling."
He returned his attention to her breasts, his fingers adoring in their manipulations. "You enjoy torturing me. You enjoy delaying my passion." He smiled helplessly. "And I love every minute of it."
Karen glanced down at her spiking nipples. "Kiss me, darling."
He nodded happily and complied, his mouth warm and moist on the rigid tips. Karen went limp, one hand going to his head, the fingers curling in his dark hair, guiding him, caressing him, encouraging him. She could feel his desire mounting with each passing second and she knew he would soon lose control of himself. He was a passionate creature and too young to have learned as yet how to direct and prolong his incredible appetites. She tugged at his hair, insinuating what she wished, knowing he could not balk, aware that he would expect later reciprocation. She hid her smile from him as his mouth trailed slowly over her flat belly and toyed at the smooth-skinned thighs.
"Be my slave," she whispered huskily. "Make your dream come true. Serve your cruel queen, Jacques."
The young man moaned excitedly and shifted his position in order to obey. Karen drew in her breath sharply at the initial sensation and her fingers tightened their hold in his hair. She drew up her long legs at the knees and shoved a pillow beneath her body without bothering to open her eyes. "Slowly, darling," she whispered hotly, her body moving in response. "Gently."
He quaked at the effort of restraining himself, but complied with her command. "You are exquisite," he panted, voice muffled, body hunched. "I adore you."
Karen was content to listen to his broken phrases and feel the proof of his abject devotion. She twitched uncontrollably under the spell of his artistry and marvelled at his natural instincts and acquired talent. It had taken her months to train and educate George into being only adequate as a lover. George, the original minuteman, the original meat-and-potatoes man-gawd, what a waste. She arched high under the force of a particularly piercing kiss. "Oh ... lovely ... lovely...." she breathed, feeling her body vibrating with impending tensions. "Now ... faster ... faster...."
Jacques redoubled his efforts.
She had an unbelievably magnificent body. It was full and the flesh was obviously soft, but its firmness of tone was immediately evident in the huge, but youthfully uplifted breasts: they swelled from her chest, starting high near her collarbones and jutting straight out before her; from below, the underside curved up fully and gracefully to meet at the tip where pale pink nipples blushed in erections of anticipation. Her belly was curved gently and, beneath the deep dimple of her navel, was marked in the middle by a faint shadow of peach-fuzz that darkened as it descended to merge with the thick foliage of long, silky, black pubic hair that hid from view the perspiring sex below. Her thighs were plump at the top but gracefully tapered.
Jacques fell to his knees and began licking and kissing every inch of flesh around her feet and ankles, then teased her body with light, feathery, fleeting kisses and licks over her back and shoulders and neck and stomach.
Karen's breathing grew deeper, and her chest began heaving. Her knees quivered. Her head turned uncomfortably from side to side. Half of her body had now been covered with lingering mouth caresses, and it shone bright and coppery in the muted light. She felt perspiration accumulating around her lips and in the palms of her hands. And the snug warmth of her vagina itched and was growing warm and moist.
Jacques was now dragging his tongue up the silky flesh of her thighs, pausing here and there to kiss and nip at the smoothness. Then he was descending with his mouth over her shoulders and down her side; he ducked for a moment and ran the tip of his tongue into the sensitive hairless valleys of her armpits and when she shuddered he repeated the move."
Her body was responding with shudders and occasional muscle spasms as the long, slow tease continued. Her head rolled from side to side, her nostrils flaring with deep gasps of air; her brow was furrowed and her mouth was wet with saliva from her teeth tightly clenching. His mouth was on her breasts now, tongue skimming over the top and around and under the firm bulging melons-slowly winding its way toward the swollen, almost bursting nipples. Then he swooped to her crotch: kissing and licking the responsive flesh in the shallow indentations where thigh and pelvis joined, sometimes moving to the other side by circling over the nearby mound of pubic hair and across her belly, sometimes burrowing through it, munching on the bristle and sucking on the prickly skin below; his mouth then moved slowly and easily over the tightly stretched skin of her spread buttock cheeks, slipping from time to time into the groove between them and stopping its licking action only when it came near the exposed, shiny-pink anus.
She ran her tongue nervously around her unconsciously pursing lips. He slipped his hand down through her pubic hair toward the boiling gash between her legs. A deep sucking breath hissed through her teeth as his index finger slid into the forward part of her cunt and moved in pursuit of the aching little clitoris buried beneath folds of thick, wet flesh.
His finger touched her clit, as though by design, at the precise moment that his mouth opened wide and swallowed the rigid coral tip of her breast. Her back arched and her tits thrust forward, forcing as much of themselves as possible into the sucking drooling mouth that attacked her. Then his stiff, pointed tongue suddenly poked at, then bored hungrily into her anus. While it swirled around inside the tight little tunnel, lips and teeth suck and nipped the unbearably sensitive ringlet of skin surrounding the asshole itself. His jaws worked rapidly up and down while her whole body shook. Finally his tongue dipped into the swampy rawness of her cunt. She was convulsed when his tongue pushed through the pulpy red lips to find and toy with her erect clitoris, her body gave itself up to electric spasms.
"Yes ... yes ... yes ... ' Jacques intoned deliriously.
Karen collapsed and shoved him away from her. "Stop."
He groaned and sought to lift himself above her, his hand fumbling with his denims. "I cannot wait any longer," he whispered hoarsely, passionately, expectantly.
Karen rolled quickly to one side, thwarting him. "Jacques, please," she gasped, struggling to catch her breath. "Be reasonable."
The young man trembled and fell to the bed, his expression revealing the torment of having to wait.
Karen sat up on the edge of the bed, her back to him. When her pulse slowed to a normal tempo and her breathing was back under control, she reached out for the telephone, one hand patting testingly at her unmussed hair.
Jacques gaped at her as she began to dial. "What are you doing?"
She listened to the ringing. "I just remembered something." She ignored his groan of anguish and straightened her back as Amanda answered the phone. "Amanda? Is everything all right out there?"
"Oh, yes, ma'am. Mister Terrence just left."
"Did he give you any trouble?"
"No, ma'am."
Karen sighed with relief and lifted the telephone cradle to her bare thighs. "Did Mister Cole call?"
"Yes, ma'am. He called about noon. I gave him your message."
"What did he say?"
"He said he'd already taken care of the contracts."
"Did he sound as though he'd been drinking?"
"No, ma'am, I don't think so."
"Good. All right, Amanda, that's all."
"Yes, Ma'am. I'll lay out your things and have a bath prepared."
Karen smiled. "Wonderful. Goodbye, Amanda." She hung up the telephone and set it back on the table. Jacques lifted himself on one elbow in a show of eagerness. She glanced at him, at the nudity of him, the evidence of his anxiety, and frowned slightly. "I'm sorry, darling, but I really must be going."
He sat up with an expression of disbelief. "Going? You can't be serious!"
Karen stood up, her body having cooled. "Let's not have a scene, Jacques," she stated calmly. "I've already told you that I have to go uptown on business. Besides, you've exhausted me." She walked over to where her clothes were neatly folded and bent to pick up her panties.
"You can't leave me this way," the young man groaned weakly.
Karen began to dress. "Please don't pout, darling. Be a good boy and begin wrapping the painting for me. I haven't much time." He remained on the bed, unmoving, and she was forced to pause in the midst of attaching her stocking to the garter-strap to give him an angry look. "Jacques, please do as I tell you."
The young artist slumped defeatedly and crawled out of the bed. He pulled the denim pants up his naked body and reached listlessly for the stained sweatshirt. He slipped into a pair of moccasins and walked over to where the painting reposed on the easel. He began to work with the wrapping paper in silence, a scowl accompanying his silence.
Karen smiled and continued dressing. When she was finished, she moved to the mirror to attend to her lipstick. She touched the brush lightly to her red hair and stepped back to appraise herself. She had no cause for dissatisfaction, she decided, turning away.
Jacques completed his task and stepped away from the large package. "It is ready," he announced sullenly, his young face still showing resentment.
Karen walked to him, her high heels clicking on the wooden floor. She stopped before him and patted his cheek tenderly. "Are you terribly angry with me?"
He lowered his eyes. "You are too cruel."
"All queens are cruel."
He frowned. "Do not tease me."
She laughed softly. "I'm sorry, darling. I really do wish I could stay and-soothe you." She let her gaze travel down his body. "I know how awful you must feel, really I do."
He looked at her hopefully. "It would not take long."
She laughed again. "Why, Jacques, what a terrible thing to say!" She stepped back and gestured at the wrapped painting. "Will you carry it down to my car?"
He hesitated. "When will I see you again?"
Karen busied herself with her purse. "Please, darling, I haven't much time. Do you think you can manage it by yourself?"
"Yes," he murmured resignedly, moving to pick up the package.
Karen walked ahead of him to the door and held it open as he passed through the outer hall. She watched him start down the stairs before she turned to look around the barren loft studio. She looked at the bed in the far corner and thought of all the hours she had made use of it during the past few months. Finally, with a small shrug, she turned and closed the door and went down the steps. . "You're sure it won't smear?" she called.
"I'm sure," Jacques panted, struggling to navigate the treacherous stairway under his awkward load.
They went out into the street and crossed to where to low-slung car was parked at the curb. Karen hurried ahead of him to pull the bucket seat forward to enable him to slide the painting into the rear. He fitted it on a slant and covered it completely with the canvas top which he buttoned securely on both side of the car. Karen waited until she was satisfied with the result of his precautions before walking around to get in behind the wheel of the car.
Jacques wiped the perspiration from his handsome face as he turned to look at her. "You have not told me when I will be with you again.
Karen started up the motor and opened her purse. She held out the key to his studio. "I don't think I'll have any use for this any more," she stated cryptically.
The young artist took the key and glanced down at it in momentary confusion. "I don't under-"
Karen followed up quickly with the folded check. "And this is yours, too. For services rendered."
He took the check and stared at her.
Karen smiled sweetly and pulled away from the curb, shifting the gears smoothly as she increased her speed. She looked in the rearview mirror and saw him move into the center of the street to look after her, the look of astonishment and confusion still marring his attractiveness. Karen laughed and swung the car around the corner and into the stream of traffic heading uptown.
A quick glance at her wristwatch told her that it was three-thirty. She was late but not too late, she thought smugly, pleased with the way she had handled what could have been a difficult and time-consuming situation. Poor Jacques-actually he had been a wonderful diversion-now he was left all alone, a victim of unrequited love and his own fiery romanticism. And Marianne, the lovely young model, having flown away with broken heart to Europe-it was all too tragic, really. Karen chuckled softly to herself, enjoying the satisfaction that had come with her triumph over the very desirable young creature.
She weaved in and out of the narrow lanes of traffic with cool indifference to the other motorists. She smiled at their beeping complaints, her mind having already erased all memories of Jacques and their brief affair. The immediate future was the only thing which concerned her. The land-development deal had taken her months of social and business strategy to set up and it was a wonderful feeling to know that in a few minutes, the contracts would be signed and she'd be assured of a winter on the Riviera.
She only hoped that George hadn't blundered with the contractual details and caused further delay. Roy Worthington wasn't impressed with George to'begin with and it wouldn't take much for him to change his mind about the whole arrangement. Still, he was smart enough to know that she was the power behind the throne and that she could carry off the transaction to his satisfaction.
Karen moistened her lips and knew that she wouldn't rest easy until her copy of the contract was signed and sealed and nestled safely in her purse.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Donna moaned softly as another spasm of ebbing passion shook her body. She couldn't move a finger, so complete had been her fulfillment. She lay sprawled nakedly across the big bed, her arm hanging over the side, not caring how wanton she might look, basking in the sweat lethargy that came only at such a moment. She took a deep breath and rubbed her moist face against the scented sheet and wondered when her body would cease the rhythmic throbbing.
She had never known it could be so good. The monumental release had been more explosive than any she had ever experienced. Lois had shown her areas of her own body she had never dreamed could possess such latent sensitivity. The strong-bodied woman had been wonderful, incredible, tender then fierce, gentle then wanton, teasing then masterful, provoking an ecstasy which had lifted Donna to unequalled heights of abandon.
"I'm going to do everything to you," Lois had whispered in the midst of their lovemaking. "Everything." And she had, revealing nuances that left Donna gasping with wonderment and delight.
Donna smiled and stretched her body contentedly, reveling in the glorious freedom that Lois had inspired in her. Her mind refused to think back beyond the past ninety minutes of pleasure. There would be time enough later for the torments of doubt and shame and guilt and worry. She didn't want to spoil the way she was feeling.
She heard Lois re-enter the bedroom and she lifted her head from the sheet to look at her. The woman's nudity was breathtaking. The legs were goreously rounded, the hips strikingly flaring, the breasts astonishing in their size and firmness. And her face, so flushed and beautiful and exciting....
"Hello," she smiled, happy with Lois, happy with herself.
Lois sat down on the bed and kissed her naked buttock. "Hello yourself. How do you feel?"
"Glorious."
Lois held up a damp washrag. "This will make you feel even better." The cool touch of it on her sweaty buttocks made Donna go taut. It roamed over her back and then her legs. "Roll over."
Donna obeyed and sighed as the cloth cleansed her throat and breasts and belly. "It feels good." She wriggled as the rag slipped to her inner thighs. "You're tickling me."
"I thought you liked to be tickled."
Donna smiled. "I do."
Lois looked at her, smiling too. "You're a passionate little minx." Donna blushed, remembering her abandonment.
"It's your fault. You made me so excited couldn't help myself."
Lois laughed and leaned down to kiss the comers of her mouth. Donna was acutely con scious of the heavy weightiness of the large breasts as they pressed upon her own. She stirred embarrassed by the renewed desire she felt awaken within her. It didn't seem possible, but she wantec Lois again at that moment. She wanted to give the beautiful divorcee a measure of what she had given to her so unselfishly. She wanted to taste her wondrous breasts again and feel the heat of her magnificent body.
Lois tossed the washrag aside and stretched ou on the bed, her hand reaching for a package o cigarettes and lighter. "Do you want one?"
"All right," Donna replied, forcing herself to control her needs.
When they were smoking together, their bodies touching at shoulder and hip, Lois let out a deep sigh. "It never tastes quite as good as after a gooc roll in the hay, does it?"
Donna smiled. "You're awful."
"Well? Does it?"
"No, I guess not," Donna answered, letting he fingertips graze the sculptured thighs.
Lois smiled at the caress. "Haven't you hac enough?"
"Not of you."
"That sounds interesting."
"You want me to make love to you, don' you?"
Lois chuckled. "Make love. Have you eve thought about that phrase? It sounds like-oh, don't know. I think it's the 'make' that gets me."
Donna smiled and inched over so she could rest her cheek on Lois' rounded shoulder. "What should I call it then?"
Lois told her.
Donna blushed. "That's horrible." Lois laughed. "But apt."
Donna inhaled her cigarette and handed it to Lois to put in the tray on the table beside the bed. She cupped her hand around the large breast and manipulated the blunt nipple with her thumb, an action that caused Lois to draw a deep breath of awareness and satisfaction. "You have a wonderful body," Donna murmured, preoccupied with her idle fondling.
The older woman smiled and stroked Donna's hair. "Talk to me. Tell me a little about your sordid past. But don't stop what you're doing. It feels good."
"Where shall I begin?"
"Who was the first for you?"
"There's only been one. Her name was Eve Mitchell. We were at college together."
"Did you love her?"
"I guess I thought so at the time."
"What happened?"
Donna frowned and moved a bare shoulder in a shrug. "She graduated and went back home. We wrote for a while, but then it just ended."
"And there was never anyone else?"
Donna thought of Barbara. "Not really. After Eve, I tried to convince myself that I wasn't really gay, that I was just in love with her and that I couldn't ever be that way with anyone else."
Lois looked at her wisely. "When did you find out you were wrong?"
Donna squirmed, reluctant to recall the unpleasant memory. "When I was working in New York," she replied. "There was a girl in the office named Barbara. We became friends and-well, pretty soon I started thinking of her the way I had with Mitch. That's what I called Eve."
Was she pretty? Barbara, I mean."
Donna nodded. "Yes, she was very pretty. She was like a little doll, all pink and white and blonde and ... and innocent. She had no idea I was gay, of course. I don't think she even knew there was such a thing as a lesbian. Anyhow, no matter how hard I tried to fight it, I kept on wanting her more and more each time we were together." She sighed, remembering. "What made it all the worse, I was going steady with David at the time and we all went out a lot together on double dates and things."
Lois finished her cigarette and put it out. "It must have been rough on you."
"It was terrible."
"What happened."
Donna wet her lips, shamed by the incident. "It isn't a very pretty story. One night we all went out to a party and after it, I asked Barbara to stay over at my place. She'd had an awful lot to drink, and-well, to be honest, I thought that if she was that drunk-you know."
Lois laughed. "Yes, I know."
Donna scowled. "It wasn't funny, believe me. I hadn't been with anyone so long I was nearly jumping out of my skin. Barbara was so drunk I had to help her undress. When she flopped down on the bed and went to sleep and I looked at her that way-well, it wasn't funny. I decided to sleep outside on the couch instead of in the bed with her. I even took a cold shower. I tried to go to sleep, but it was impossible. I forced myself to think of David and of what could happen if she became angry and told him. Nothing helped. After what seemed like an eternity, I got up from the couch and took off my pajamas and went into the bedroom where she was sleeping."
Lois showed an impatience. "What happened?"
Donna averted her eyes ashamedly. "Nothing, really. I began touching her, but I went too far and she woke up. I was too afraid to do anything but pretend I was as drunk as she was and ... and doing what I was doing in my sleep. It sounds silly, doesn't it? Anyhow, she just rolled over and went back to sleep and that was that. She never mentioned it the next day. Maybe she even forgot it."
Lois smiled amusedly. "And so the next time David proposed, you said yes and married him, huh?"
Donna nodded. "Something like that. It wasn't only to get away from Barbara. I didn't want to be gay. I didn't want to lead that kind of life. I knew I could love David and I hoped that he could change me."
The dark-eyed woman touched Donna's face. "I'm glad he didn't."
"Really?"
"Really."
Donna returned her attention to the lofty breasts. "Have you had many women?"
"Thousands."
"Don't joke. Have you?"
"What do you think?"
Donna thought about Lois' incredible artistry. "I guess you have. Was there anyone special?"
"No."
"What about your husbands? Did you love them?"
"Not really."
"Did you enjoy being with them?" Lois smiled. "At times. Do you enjoy your husband?"
Donna felt her cheeks coloring. "No. I love him very much, but I can't enjoy being with him that way."
"I bet he's good-looking." Donna smiled. "Very."
"And young."
"Yes."
"And good to you."
"Yes."
Lois scowled. "I hate him."
Donna laughed. "You do not."
Lois showed that she had been only teasing and leaned over to kiss Donna on the mouth. "Mind if I give you some advice? If you do love him and want to stay with him, you'd better learn some way to make it easier to be with him. Why don't you try making love to him? It's a whole lot easier, believe me.
Donna looked at the older woman in confusion. "What do you mean?"
Lois smiled wickedly. "Turn everything around. You do all the work and let him lie back and relax."
Donna pictured herself with David that way and blushed. "I couldn't!"
Lois laughed. "Sure, you could. Try it once and see."
"If you don't mind, I'd like to change the subject."
Lois shrugged and placed Donna's hand back to her breasts. "Is this more to your liking?"
Donna smiled. "Yes."
"Play with me for a while."
Donna sat up, crossing her legs beneath her. Lois stretched out and closed her eyes, her magnificent body totally relaxed and inviting. Donna kneaded the twin mounds gently, teasing the nipples until they gradually hardened and rose. She watched them peak and she bent to take them between her lips in tiny kisses, her tongue caressing and tasting. They seemed vastly sweet and she didn't think she could ever tire of them. A tremor went through her as she felt Lois move her hips in a show of mounting pleasure. "I love your body," Donna murmured, trailing her hands down to the wide hips.
"I'm too heavy."
"No, you're not."
"What do you like best about it?"
Donna kissed the breasts. "This ... and this ... and...." She shifted to kiss Lois again. "And this."
Lois stirred sensuously. "Mnnnnn, that was nice."
Donna took a deep breath, her own nipples alive, her own body throbbing. She crawled atop the naked woman and pressed herself down on her, seeking and finding her mouth. The arms went around her in a tight embrace and the strong hips moved in a slow rhythm. Donna could feel her blood racing and her heart pounding as she responded to the tempo. Lois' tongue was a wild and hot serpent, inflaming and taunting her. The hands that glided down her back and commenced playing an illicit game on her buttocks added to her excitement.
"What do you want?" Lois breathed huskily.
"You."
"How? How do you want me?"
Donna shuddered, her hips quickening. "Like this," she gasped.
Donna leaned over her, fastening her rouged lips to the hard tip of Lois' throbbing breast. Donna's fingers moved encouragingly in the closely cropped hair as Lois alternated her kisses from nipple to nipple. Donna began to move sinuously under the moist tongue and the nibbling lips. A series of moans drifted from her parted lips. Donna smiled and sought to speed the end by sliding her hands to the woman's buxom breasts. "Is this how you want it, honey?" she murmured as her hands caressed the cool silk, squeezing and pinching the breasts beneath in a knowing fashion.
"Yes," Lois breathed heatedly. "Yes, that's what I want. Hurt me. Please, hurt me. Harder, Yes. Harder. Make me kiss you. Make me."
Donna gripped her fingers in Lois' hair and twisted her head back until she groaned with pleasure. She forced the face between her taut, young thighs and whispered:
"Oh, sweetie, this is crazy ... crazy ... but I'm so hot ... so hot ... oh, sweetie, love me ... love me up ... let me see how you love me ... all the way ... you make me so happy ... make me happy ... make me happy ... make me happy ... all the way, sweetie ... all the way ... now ... now ... now...."
Donna felt as though her skin were on fire, her breasts tingled with the feel of Lois' feathery-soft, stroking fingers. It felt so good when Lois touched her-when she whispered so promisingly in her ear ... and yet Donna knew it was wrong to feel as she did about another woman-to want so much more to happen.
Lois was kneeling on the floor in front of Donna and the girl pressed her legs tightly together in sudden embarrassment. Her supurb thighs rippled with modesty-glossy and full of promise. Lois lifted Donna's legs one at a time, gently, opening her thighs until Donna's hot, steaming pussy smiled up at her. Then she pressed herself forward until her face buried in the soft skin of Donna's stomach. Donna felt her flesh hang like a wet and ambiguous core, a clinging seam, voracious between her yielding thighs. Donna jumped as she felt the flick of a moist tongue on her hip, and wiggled with eagerness she could not control as the older woman's hands slipped inside her buttocks and softly fingered her anus.
She heard Lois moan, then felt the flick of a tongue once more on her belly. The moist fire crept upward to her belly button, then to her ribs, and finally, as the woman bent over her, she felt the damp touch on her breast and cried out in surprised delight. She bent her head and watched as Lois' tongue licked across the smooth surface of her breast-stirring the tan little bud at the end into rigid, pounding life. Then, with her eyes clenched tightly shut, she felt the nipple slide past the woman's heavy lipstick and enter her mouth-where it was met with a flood of moist pleasure. She heard Lois gurgling deep in her throat as her tongue flicked madly over the nipple and then down onto the cherry red circle around it and further on to the white mound of soft flesh. She seemed to want to pull all of it inside her mouth, seemed unable to get enough. Slowly, so slowly that it was almost painful to Donna, Lois began to draw off the breast-her tongue gradually flicking its way closer and closer to the nipple once more as her lips closed over it and then with a wet little smack released it altogether.
Donna's blood was pounding in her veins, her legs were rocking back and forth, in and out, with desire. She knew what she wanted now-what had to happen before she went berserk. She put her hands on top of the tightly cropped head and pushed her down-down-Lois' lips were like warm fur as she hotly kissed Donna's belly, then the tongue slid the length of her hips and stopped. Donna watched expectantly as the woman positioned herself again on her knees in front of her. She seized the girl's upper thigh roughly and urged her legs wider apart. As Donna responded, she heard Lois moan with anticipation-then watched as the woman's head drew closer-her tongue already flicking outside her mouth in eager readiness.
Donna screamed at the first contact, her fingers digging into the pinned hair and rocking Lois' head so violently back and forth that for a moment the delicious contact was lost. Donna moaned and released her grip, waiting for the consuming pleasure to return. Her heart pounded heavily as the rouged, tight little bud-like mouth pressed closer and closer, Lois' head tilting and burrowing further into the flesh so that the touch of her rigid tongue was deeper with each soft lapping. Donna felt as though her whole insides were on fire-raging out of control-spreading her legs so wide that she almost split herself in two.
Her body suddenly attained a terrible awareness. When she touched her thigh, the soft flesh quivered and prickled. She watched her bare belly rise and fall with each gentle lapping of the woman's tongue, and felt a vast expansion, like an ocean horizon, swelling within her. When her lover's nostrils buried themselves within her mound, the tickling breath almost caused Donna a spasm, or rather a sensation as deliriously brittle as a spasm, while the final convulsive tremor lay deeply buried, blindly waiting. Donna sighed and urged herself by gently stroking her belly and thighs with her fingertips, feeling her buttocks heave and thrill with the almost unbearable pleasure of anticipation. Soon a prickling sensation mounted in the extremeties of her limbs, rising gradually and deliriously like falling rain through every fleshy drain until the very air seemed to have weight and lay like steel bands of paralysis at her thighs and armpits. Her body trembled with helplessness, her mind drifting further and further away into total darkness. She hung ecstatically, impotently, between two worlds, as though a warm sword had been thrust to its hilt in her moist crevice. Her eyelids closed tightly and she lacked the strength to open them as a hoarse sob of lust tore from her throat. She lost consciousness for a moment and became a gushing and pullulating furrow, dark and warm as soft loam awaiting a sudden summer shower.
"Oh, suck it off," Donna groaned, her head lolling from side to side on the damp pillow. "Bite it!"
Lois brought her fingers to her mouth and sucked them for a moment, then thrust them into Donna's boiling cunnus, greasing the maw with her spittle. She lowered her head, guiding her thirsting tongue into the dripping slit, nuzzling her nose deeply past the sopping lips, her fingernails pinching cruelly into Donna's bottom. Her belly lurched upward, her heel digging into the sheets. She felt a delicious shift at her vital center as Lois' tongue slid softly like a tadpole into her vagina and every silky hair on her pussy tingled. Her vital juices rose up in her belly like the waters of a raging river, until she thought it would never end. She felt the marvelous soft texture of the woman's face rubbing her thighs, the fibrous strength of the close-cropped hair, and always, everywhere, the voluptuous putty-soft quality of her tongue. She became a vessel which threatened to burst at any moment. When finally the walls of her vagina did shudder and burst, the waters of love poured forth with that strange mingling of pleasure and pain like the giving of birth. For what seemed an eternity, she felt an ecstatic sifting of sands within her womb, like wind blowing over an endless desert, a vast boiling cauldron of shooting stars, and with a frantic lurch of her hips leaped to their final ecstasy. Her mind was eclipsed, suffocated within the warmth of her womb, and then her limbs felt as though they floated underwater towards sunlight.
She lay panting, her arms flung wide, her breasts heaving, her body trembling. "Oh, Lois...." she breathed weakly.
The raven-haired woman moved over her, her face flushed and wildly beautiful. The violent end only seemed to have ignited her to greater passion. She began to kiss Donna hungrily and her body assumed the position of a dominant male. "Don't stop," Lois muttered, working her hips furiously.
Donna groaned and curled her legs, accepting the woman just as she had accepted her husband that morning. She clung to Lois passionately as they moved in unison. It began to build again and she cried out with joy, her hips jerking under the grip of the warm hands that guided her. "Faster ... faster ... faster...." she moaned.
Lois pulled her face between her heavy breasts and she opened her lips hungrily, accepting them. The tempo quickened and the bed bounced beneath them. The moment of fulfillment came for Donna with almost painful force, but Lois had to continue on for another few moments before she rocked and groaned and collapsed.
They remained in their entwining embrace as their bodies cooled and their pulses slowed. Donna felt exhausted and a heavy drowsiness was stealing over her. She knew she couldn't let it happen, that she might oversleep and not reach home in time for David. Yet, despite her fears, she was reluctant to fight the sleep, reluctant to ease away from the moist warmth of Lois' nakedness. "I want to go to sleep, but I'm afraid I'll never wake up," she whispered tiredly.
"I'll set the alarm," Lois replied, equally weary.
"You won't let me stay too long?" ' "No."
Donna sighed happily. "All right."
Lois extracted herself and reached out for a small electric clock on the table. She set the alarm and then moved back to where Donna was awaiting her. "I set it for five."
"All right."
They snuggled close to one another, getting comfortable. Donna closed her eyes and kissed the smooth cheek. "Lois?"
"Yes?"
"It was wonderful."
"I know."
"What am I going to do now? Now that I've found you, I mean?"
Lois smiled lazily. "I don't have to be a problem."
"I told you that I love David. I really do."
"What has that got to do with it?" Donna frowned, disturbed. "Well, I just can't...."
Lois looked at Donna curiously. "Look, you can go right on loving him and being his wife. I don't expect you to leave him for me. We can see each other as often as we want without anyone being the wiser. It might even be best this way, in fact. It might even make everything easier for you at home."
Donna thought about it. There was some truth in what Lois was saying. It would be easier. There wouldn't be the nagging need, the aching frustration. She wouldn't have to be lonely. She would always have Lois to look forward to whenever she wanted to take her mind off what she had to do with David. It would be easier to pretend with him if she could substitute Lois for him in her mind.
"You don't think he'd ever find out, do you?" Donna asked, hating the thought of ever hurting David in any way.
Lois plumped the pillow beneath her head. "Not if you're careful. Hell, I can tell you the names of a dozen respectably married Lesbians who have been carrying on affairs behind their husbands' backs for years without the poor guys ever being the wiser. I know one who's been having a thing with her husband's kid sister ever since the girl moved in to live with them, believe it or not."
Donna shook her head in amazement. "I thought I was the only one who ever married and tried to make a go of it. I never realized other women might have the same problem."
The big-bodied brunette yawned and patted Donna's cheek. "We all like to think we're unique, but it doesn't quite work out that way, honey. We belong to a big club, maybe the biggest. Now close those pretty eyes of yours and go to sleep."
Donna nodded and closed her eyes. The drowsiness returned and she felt herself going limp. She thought of David and of the party that she had to attend with him that evening at Karen Cole's house. Despite all that Lois had said, she wasn't certain that she'd be able to hide the truth from him. It seemed to her that he'd need only to look at her to know that something important had happened to her. She hoped she was wrong. She hoped Lois was right.
She didn't want to lose David.
She didn't want to lose Lois.
It would be so perfect if she could keep them both.
So perfect.
CHAPTER NINE
Joanne finished drying her legs and ankles and straightened up, wrapping the huge towel around her lusty body in sarong-fashion, tucking the folds securely over her heavy breasts. She paused, facing the closed door, listening to the sounds of music and male voices on the other side. Two strangers, she thought shamefully. How could she have allowed it to happen? How could she have allowed Eddie to watch Jim take his turn? She dreaded opening the door and going back into the room where she'd have to face them again.
They were getting drunk. Eddie was, anyhow. He'd taken a bottle of scotch out of his suitcase while she was on the bed with Jim and the bottle was half-empty. The two gulps he had coaxed her into taking while she was still in a haze after having Jim were still affecting her. She knew if she took another drink, she'd slide back into the condition she'd been in when leaving the roadhouse with the persuasive Eddie.
She couldn't get drunk. She had to get home.
Joanne wet her lips, squared her shoulders and opened the bathroom door. She walked out, her bare feet leaving damp footprints on the carpeting, her strong thighs rippling the flap of the towel. She stopped, her pulse skipping as she looked over to where the dark-haired young man was idly checking the contents of her purse. "What are you doing?"
Eddie looked up and laughed. "Missus Joanne Morgan, Twelve Sheriden Drive, Fairlawn ... pretty classy. What's Matthew do for a living anyhow? That's his name, ain't it? Matthew?"
Joanne felt her stomach sinking. "You had no right to go through my things."
Eddie tossed the purse aside indifferently. "Aw, c'mon, Jo, don't be sore; I tell you what, how about a dance, huh?"
Joanne looked around the room. "Where are my clothes?"
Jim sighed wearily, his arms folded beneath his head. "He hid them. He likes to play games."
Eddie grinned. "Ten-to-one you can't find them. He lifted the bottle to his lips and then handed it across the space between the twin beds to his companion. Jim took it, wiped the mouth with his palm, and drank gurstily, his attitude revealing complete disinterest with the byplay.
Joanne trembled helplessly. "Please, Eddie, I have to leave now. Now that you know my name, I don't have to lie to you. I am married and I do have to get home before my husband. Please, give me my clothes."
The young man frowned. "Can't you call him or something? Hell, I figured we could all get dressed and go over to the roadhouse and have ourselves a big night."
She fought to keep her poise. "We're going to a party tonight and there's no way I can get out of it." She looked toward the bland-faced, balding man for help. "Jim, help me to make him understand."
Jim shrugged and sat up on the bed. "It's okay with me if you leave. I'm going to take a shower, go grab myself a steak and leave the rest of the night up to you two. If you stick around, great ... if not, I'd just as soon we took off for the mountains without wasting any more time." He rose to his feet and stretched out his arms, not at all affected by his total nudity.
Eddie stirred impatiently. "Aw, look, what times does he get home? Hell, it's early yet. We could still have a few laughs and you could get back before him. I know ... why don't you give him a ring and tell him you'll be late or something?"
Joanne saw that it was hopeless. Even if she was able to convince the drunken young man that she had to leave, it Would take time. It was nearly three, she estimated. The drive home was at least more than an hour's time. She sighed and nodded resignedly. "AD right, I'll call him, but I've got to leave by four o'clock. No later."
Eddie grinned happily. "Great."
Joanne went to the bed that Jim had vacated and picked up the telephone. She dialed her home number, but there was no answer. Doris had evidently finished her chores and left. She hesitated a moment and then dialed Matt's office, glancing uneasily at Jim who had paused to light a cigarette and then at Eddie who was drinking from the bottle again. The operator answered and she asked for Matt and the girl asked her to wait a moment.
Eddie moved over to sit at her side, his smile playful and impish. She covered the receiver with her hand. "Please, Eddie...."
"Relax."
Before Joanne could say anything more, the operator's voice came over the phone. "Go ahead, please." There was a clicking sound and then Matt's curt greating, brisk and impatient.
"It's me, Matt," Joanne said apologetically. "I'm sorry to bother you, but I thought I'd better tell you that I might be a little late getting home for dinner tonight."
"Oh, all right."
Joanne became conscious of a slight tugging pressure on the towel and she glared at Eddie, shoving his hand away. She wet her lips, her nerves jumping. "I've been out shopping all afternoon," she lied, feeling a need to embellish her excuse. "I thought I'd look around for those drapes and...."
"It's all right, Joanne," Matt interrupted quickly, obviously indifferent. "You go ahead and do whatever you want to do. I'll see you at home later."
Eddie's hand was stroking her crossed legs, the fingers under the flap of the towel on her thighs. Joanne was finding it difficult to sit still as she flushed guiltily, Matt's words echoing in her head. "You just go ahead and do whatever you want to do." She gave Eddie an imploring look as she sought escape from his probing fingers and cleared her throat. "You haven't forgotten about the party tonight, have you?" she asked, merely to have something to say.
"No, not at all. George was talking about it during the drive to town this morning. He said that Karen had something planned for us. Something unusual."
Joanne frowned. "I can imagine."
"I have to go now, Joanne."
Joanne looked at the grinning Eddie and the casually detached Jim and wished there was some way she could prolong the conversation. She sighed resignedly and brought the receiver closer to her lips. "All right, Matt. Goodbye."
"Goodbye, darling. Have fun."
She winced and replaced the receiver in its cradle.
Eddie pinched her thigh playfully. "See? Now we don't have any problems." He plucked at the towel again. "Come on, take off the towel. I like to look at you."
Jim interrupted the byplay. "I'm going to take a shower."
"Sure, go ahead," Eddie replied, without looking over at his older companion. He laughed as J Joanne sought to parry his playful hands. "You go take your shower while me and Jo-"
A knock on the door of the cabin cut him short.
Joanne looked up in fright as Jim walked over to answer it. She started to rise to her feet to hurry into the bathroom, but Eddie caught her arm and held her down on the bed beside him. Jim opened the door a crack and stepped back, pulling it wide. "I was beginning to wonder what happened to you," he remarked casually, looking out at the visitor.
Whitey entered the room. "I had to wait for someone to come in and take over the bar." The ruggedly attractive bartender hooked his thumbs in his pockets as he waited for Jim to close the door and his smile was arrogant and confident as he looked at Joanne. "It looks like you guys been having a ball while I've been working."
Jim grunted. "She's good."
"Yeah, I bet she is."
Joanne felt his eyes moving over her bare legs and partially concealed breasts and she felt a chill race up her spine. She shook her head dumbly, trying to escape the meaning of his appearance and Jim's greeting and Eddie's lack of surprise. She was forced to accept the fact that it had all been planned in advance, that the three men had formed some sort of agreement about her back at the roadhouse. They had known she would be willing to be with each of them, with all of them.
Whitey moved deeper into the room, a half-smile splitting his ruggedly attractive face. "I have a kid watching the joint for a few minutes so I don't have much time." He gave Joanne another admiring look. "Not as much time as I'd like, I mean."
Jim picked up a fresh pair of shorts and headed for the bathroom. "Well, have fun."
Joanne found the strength to speak, pierced by Jim's use of Matt's phrase. "I'm not what you think," she stammered weakly. "I'm not the sort of woman who can be passed from one man to the other. I have to go home. I have to...." She stopped, aware of how futile she sounded, how little attention they were paying. She moistened her lips and looked at Eddie. "Please, let me have my clothes."
Eddie rose and walked over to slip on a pair of slacks and thonged sandals. "I'm going down to the ice machine for some cubes. I'll be back in about five minutes, okay?"
Whitey nodded absently, unable to take his eyes from her. "Sure, that's fine. Like I said, I got to get back to the joint."
Joanne trembled. "I won't do it."
Eddie grinned from the door. "You want us to call your husband and ask permission?"
Joanne paled and hung her head. She heard the door open and close. She heard the water being turned on in the bathroom shower. A hand touched the side of her face and she stiffened. It lingered on her cheek and slid down her throat to her breasts. She remained motionless as it worked the tucked-knot of the towel. The towel opened and fell away from her body, leaving her fully exposed in the seated position.
"Please...." she whispered, a lump in her throat.
"That husband of yours must be nuts," Whitey murmured, his hands testing the fullness and firmness of her breasts. "If I was him, I'd be afraid to leave you alone for a minute."
The handling of her breast ignited her desires again and she trembled helplessly. She closed her eyes as he pushed her backwards on the bed, her legs dangling over the edge. He sat at her side and began to trace the rich curves of her body, moving her well-padded hips and thighs with the probing and admiring fondling. The heat of her loins mounted. She bit her lip and felt the perspiration break out again on her forehead.
"I wish I could make it a real party, honey, but I got to get back to work."
Joanne felt the bed shift as he changed his position. She felt his hands pushing her down to the sheets. She shuddered, knowing she would not refuse. Then, too soon, he was ready for her and his hands were on her breasts again, urging her to him.
He groaned.
Jim leaned forward and grabbed her breast as though it were a melon. He squeezed it hard, and she winced.
"Look at those tits!" he exclaimed. "Big an' juicy."
Whitey ignored his own comment and put his hand down between her legs. "I don't wanna see no tits. I wanna see pussy."
He spread her legs wide apart, pushing them up at the knees so that her cunt was open and exposed to his view. His widening eyes ran up and down her crotch, from the sloping curve of the mound to the twin cheeks of her ass.
"You sure are a hairy bitch, ain't you?" he commented. He pushed his finger against her cunt and ran it up and down the slit. The lips were wet from come and perspiration, and his finger swabbed the entrance hole with his own discharge.
"Jim, come here a minute," he said. "Hold this open for me."
Jim slipped his hand down over her cunt and opened the lips with his two fingers. The flesh inside was pink, and it glistened wetly with sweat. The entrance hole clutched open and closed, like a red, winking eye.
Whitey took his finger and bathed it in the wetness of his mouth. Then he put his finger against her cunt hole. He pushed it up into her, sliding it effortlessly through the heat and wetness of her body. The finger pumped in and out, and he watched excitedly as it sunk between the blond-haired lips that Jim obediently held open for him.
Whitey pulled the finger out. "Keep holding it open," he instructed Jim. "I'm gonna lick her clitty for her."
He bent forward, and she felt his hot breath against her cunt, snorting from his nostrils like a bull in heat. His tongue moved out of his mouth like a snake, and it lashed against her clitoris in a hot, wet lick. Involuntarily, her body trembled from his touch, as though her cunt were insensitive to her mind's standards.
Whitey stroked his tongue against her, licking it upward from the edge of her cuntal entrance, moving it up through the open slash of flesh until he was lapping at the sensitive, exposed bud. Jim's fingers kept her lips apart so that Whitey was licking the clit directly. The sensation was excruciatingly intense.
"Careful," Jim giggled. "You're getting my fingers wet."
Whitey pulled his mouth away from me. "That is sweet-tasting, honey!" He wiped his slobbering mouth with the back of his hand and looked up at Jim.
"Me, now!" Jim said. "Let me eat her." He tried to pull Whitey away from her.
Whitey stopped him. "No. No ... I got a better idea."
Whitey grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up. "Here, lady, you get up now and let Jim lay down. Jim is tired, ain't you, boy?" he laughed obscenely.
Jim lay down and Whitey spread his legs open for her. Jim's cock was half-hard, and it lay across his thigh with sleeping potential. He had blond hair on his crotch, but the sun had bleached it almost white. His skin was stained red with sun burn and his balls were drawn up in a tight, hairy package under his prick.
"Why don't you suck on Jim's cock?" Whitey suggested.
She wanted it to be over as quickly as possible; wanted to deaden herself to the sensations, and let her body be a tool for their pleasure. They were no more a part of her life than the heat was, she told herself. Just a momentary discomfort with which she had to endure. When it was over, and they had finished with her, she could return to Matt.
She took Jim's cock in her mouth, and it grew lard almost immediately. It wasn't especially large, but it stood straight up from his belly like a rod. She slid her mouth down the entire length of the organ, wetting it with the dribble of her saliva, spreading wetness all over the hot cock with her licking, basting tongue. Jim's hands slipped around her head, and he pulled her mouth down on him until her lips were pressed against his belly. He thrust up with his hips, pounding his stomach into her face, pounding his cock against the back of her throat.
"Put it into her, Jim!" Whitey cheered. "Fuck your cock into her mouth!"
He held her face so tightly against his stomach she couldn't jerk him off with her mouth. She couldn't slid her lips down the organ. So instead, she flattened her tongue against the length of his cock, and swished it back and forth in her mouth. She pressed the moving tongue tightly against him and tried to make him come from the friction of her tongue.
Jim moaned loudly, and he pressed his hips even more tightly against her mouth. His cock was sunk near the back of her throat, and she had to breath through her nose to keep from gagging.
"I can't see nothing!" Whitey protested. He put his hand on her shoulder and pulled her back. "Now, lick the knob of his cock with your tongue so I can see!"
She did what he asked. She held Jim's cock in her hand and licked the tip of the organ with her tongue. Her tongue moved slowly across the throbbing flesh, washing languidly over the swollen crown, then ran teasingly up until she had inserted it into the slitted opening on top. She licked his cock as though it were a lollipop; she licked it as though she were enjoying it.
Whitey was on his knees now, kneeling in front of them. His cock was about six inches from her face, and he was jerking off as he watched them. She could just barely see his cock from the side of her eyes. It was big and fat, and the thick, circumcised head seemed to be staring at her lips.
Her mouth popped from Jim's cock and turned to the side. She had to open her jaws wider, pulling her lips tautly, so that she could accommodate Whitey's greater size. She stretched her neck towards him, and took him into her mouth. The flesh was hot against her tongue, and he tasted different. She could smell the sweaty aroma of his balls as her lips gobbled down the stiff rod. Her teeth scraped erotically against the sides of the thrusting organ. She could only swallow half of him, and the other half was outside of her mouth. She found herself staring, at the gray-speckled tangled bush of his crotch.
Whitey jumped when her mouth touched him, and a groan of surprise escaped from his lips. His jerking hand pulled away from his cock as though it had given him an electric shock. He began to pull his hips back, and then, as he realized what was happening, he thrust forward and tried to bury the thick stub of his cock in the wetness of her mouth.
Jim looked up and stared. His eyes widened in excitement. He licked his lips and stared at the cock that was sunk in her mouth, just inches from his face.
"Help me, Jim boy," Whitey said. His stomach was heaving fitfully as he breathed. The round paunch hung fatly over the base of his cock, and the twisted black hairs strained between the folds of sweaty flesh.
"Put your hand on my cock," he said. "Jerk me off into her mouth."
Jim did as he was instructed. He turned his hand to the side and slipped it around Whitey's cock. His fingers tightened around the hardness, and he rapidly jerked his hand up and down the cock, banging his fist against her tightly drawn, puckered lips. After a moment, their rhythms were coordinated, and when she pulled back her lips, Jim jerked his hand forward; when she plunged down, Jim pressed his fist against Whitey's belly. After a while, Whitey began to moan.
"Suck me, baby!" he moaned. "Oh, I'm gonna shoot my hot scum down your throat!"
Instead of being relieved that the ordeal was drawing to an end, the idea of his violating her mouth suddenly turned Joanne's stomach. She tried to push her revulsion to the back of her mind as she had a hundred times before under similar circumstances. It was a job she was doing, she told herself. Nothing more than a job.
But this time the message didn't work, and she felt nausea rising up like a fist.
"No!" she said, pulling her mouth free of his organ.
Whitey looked down at her. He was angry. Jim's hand was still on his cock. "What do you mean? ... No?"
She swallowed hard, fighting back the nausea. "Fuck me!" she lied. "I want to be fucked!"
Whitey stared down a moment, thinking. Then a sickly, sexual smile broke across his lips.
"Say it again," he coaxed.
She knew then what he wanted, and she wanted to give it to him. She wanted it to be over. Her brain was swirling with all kinds of crazy, confused thoughts.
She should have been over this long ago! She told herself. Why should she feel shame now? Why should she be repulsed by something she'd been doing? She felt as though she were betraying Matt.
"Fuck me!" she said to Whitey. The words nearly made her gag. "I want you to fuck me! I want to feel your cock in my cunt! I want to feel you coming inside of me!"
Whitey's mouth fell loose, and his eyes glazed with excitement. It was the answer to his most hidden, secret fantasy, and it came to life right in front of him. His cock trembled convulsively, and Whitey tried to hold it firmly.
Whitey took Jim's hand from his cock. "Turn over," he said to her.
She pulled herself up from Jim and moved over on the bed. She was on her knees, and she bent her body forward and rested her arms against the mattress. Her hips were elevated and her thighs were spread. Her body looked like a pyramid flipped over on its side. She closed her eyes.
Whitey stood up and walked over to her. He ran his hand over the bulge of her ass then down between her legs. He pulled her thighs further apart, then ran his fingers up and down the slit of her cunt. He pushed two fingers into her and sucked in his breath excitedly when he saw how wet her cunt was.
"Stand over there," he instructed Jim. "In front of me. I'll fuck her and you can jerk off an' come all over her neck and shoulders and back."
Jim protested. "But I want to fuck her, too!"
Whitey was excited and his voice quavered. "Do what I say, Jim boy. You can come all over her back! We'd be facing each other when we come. We'd see each other coming!"
Jim was silent as he weighed this new idea.
"It's what she'd want, Jim!" Whitey explained. "You tell Jim it's what you want, lady!"
She tightened her muscles to keep from trembling. "It's what I want, Jim. I want to feel you coming all over me."
The man stood erect and placed himself in front of her. Her eyes were closed, but she could sense him standing over her, jerking himself off.
"That's it!" Whitey groaned. He moved closer to her and she felt his thighs against hers; the scrape of his hair tickled against her naked legs. She felt his cock stab against the wetness of her cunt and she shuddered.
"Higher!" he barked. "Put your ass up higher!"
She tried to, but her back was straining. She felt Whitey bend his knees and he lowered his body. His cock poked against the outer edge of her cunt, and she felt his fumbling hands flit against her as he tried to guide the trembling organ into her body.
"Tell me!" Whitey urged. She felt him enter her. "Fuck me!" she moaned.
The walls of her cunt were suddenly spread apart as the searing thickness of his cudgel-like cock speared into her body. His cock was like fire against her flesh.
Matt! She thought the name to herself. It's Matt! Matt, Matt, Matt! She repeated his name like a chant, as though repetition alone could make it true; as though repetition alone could deceive her body. It's Matt!
"Fuck me!" her mouth said to Whitey. "Stick your cock in my cunt! Into my pussy! In my box!"
Whitey thrust his hips like a wild animal. His cock slid up and impaled her with its swollen thickness. She felt his balls swinging against the lower edge of her cunt, banging silently between her legs. His hands were around her hips, holding her tightly against him. He pushed up hard, trying to enter even deeper into her, but he had no more cock left to give. It was all inside her.
He began to withdraw and it seemed as though her insides were being pulled out around his hook-like cock. Her sides ached, and her cunt swelled like a tightened fist around his slicing weapon.
"Tell me you like it!" he said, thrusting like a bull.
She moaned, "J love it! I love it!" His cock was like a saw in her cunt, grinding in and out of her, steel teeth sinking into my flesh, chewing her up until she bled. "I want to feel you come! Fill me up with come!"
She could hear Jim above her, grunting and straining his fist up and down his cock. His shins were pressed tightly into her shoulders as he arched his body up. She heard the slap of his hand against his belly.
"Soon, Jim, soon," Whitey announced. "I can feel it coming up near the back of my spine! My balls are getting tight! It's building!"
His cock slid in and out like a beserk piston. Her cunt ached with each thrust. She didn't feel pleasure or emptiness-only degradation. Deep, burning shame in front of Matt.
She tightened down her cunt, squeezing his cock as hard as she could. She wanted to bring him to orgasm; she wanted to hurt him back for the way he made her feel. She ground her hips down tightly against him, pressing her thighs together, pushing down with her hips. She wanted to tear his cock from his belly; she wanted to crush it and grind it into dust. She used her cunt like a vise, biting her muscles into the hardness of his cock.
"Now, Jim! Now!" Whitey moaned.
She felt his cock explode inside of her. It was like a gun going off in her cunt. Her body recoiled as the bullets of his sperm riddled her with a thick, hot, flow. His cock trembled as though it were throwing a fit. The flesh grew hot, and her cunt began to bleed down his heavy, milk-white come.
Then Jim began to come, and his sperm felt like hot rain on her shoulders and back. Jim was moaning loudly and incoherently. His sperm felt like wet fire against her body, and she wanted to crawl out from under its touch. It plopped down thickly, making a puddle against her spine, trickling down in finger-like rivers until the fibrous flow clotted like mucous in her hair and oozed around her neck in a wet, spermy necklace.
"I'm coming, too!" Jim moaned. His hand continued to slap hard against his cock.
"I can see it!" Whitey moaned. His own cock was still pumping into her. "I can see it coming out of your cock! It's splashing on her, Jim! On her back!"
She hated her body. She wanted to shoot it, kill it, destroy it. She didn't want it to be a part of their vile, obscene pleasure.
She fought back the feeling of sickness and controlled her disgust. She even controlled it when c the sperm on her back grew cold and slimey, and it felt like scum against her skin.
Whitey pulled his cock out, and a thick trickle of sperm dribbled from the wounded hole in her cunt. He fell over on the bed, holding his cock with both hands.
She stood up, and the sperm ran like fine lace down between her legs. Her thighs were coated with a thin film of drool, and it felt cold against her skin even in the heat.
She opened her eyes. Jim was standing yet in front of her. His cock had shriveled down to nothing, but he was still pulling on it mechanically. Sperm dripped from his fingers.
"Are you finished with me?" she asked. Only the thinnest touch of emotion betrayed her otherwise controlled voice.
Whitey looked up at her from his position on the bed. He was still holding his cock with one hand.
"I'm finished," he said. "Unless you want to try it again?"
She exhaled heavily. "No."
"Then you can go."
Joanne bit hard on her lip, her head throbbing, her body trembling, her nerves jumping. She remained on her back until she found the strength to push up and rise to her feet. She lifted the discarded towel and wrapped it around her nakedness, her hands shaking, her fingers weak.
Eddie returned with a pitcher of ice cubes just as Whitey was sitting up and repairing the damage to his clothes. Eddie grinned and winked at her. "I guess you could use a nice cold drink right about now, huh?"
Joanne blushed and turned away from the two men.
Whitey blew out his breath and went to the door. "Maybe I'll see you later, huh?" He looked at Joanne and smiled. "Nice meeting you, Jo."
She trembled.
He left, closing the door behind him. Eddie handed her a drink. "Here you go, honey."
She could feel the tears coming and when Jim emerged from the bathroom, she pushed him aside and ran inside, shutting the door loudly and leaning heavily against it as the sobs burst from her.
After a while, when the sobs subsided a bit, she turned to a basin and filled it with ice-cold water from the faucet. She doused her face with it until she was breathless. She leaned forward and let her breasts submerge in the coldness, a shiver of contracting senses causing her body to buckle dangerously. After a few seconds, she pushed herself away and let the water run down her belly and thighs as she struggled to regain some measure of her composure.
She felt a little less dirty, a little less cheap, a little less degraded. Not much, only a little. The shock of the ice water had cleared her brain and she was able to think clearly. It was over, she told herself. The worst was over. Actually, she had no one to blame for all that had happened but herself. They were only men, looking for a good time, an easy woman, a few hours of unexpected pleasure. She had flaunted her availability before them and made herself as accessible as possible and they had only reacted as could be expected. It wasn't their fault.
Joanne took a deep, steadying breath and pushed her blonde hair away from her wet face. She dried herself slowly with the towel and looked into the mirror. She looked exactly the same as when she had studied herself that morning at home. There were no marks, no indications, no clues at all to all that had happened since. In fact, the more she looked at herself, the better she looked. All of the tight strain and tension was gone from around her eyes and mouth and nostrils. She was slushed and glowing, embarrassingly so.
Perhaps it had not been so wrong, after all.
She had to face up to the truth of the long day. She had known what she was doing and what she had hoped to find when she'd left the house that morning. All right, she had found it and, regardless of the minor humiliations and pangs of pride, she'd loved every passionate minute of it. She looked and felt better for having done all that she had set out to do.
The only aspect that remained to disturb her was Matt. A sense of terrible guilt, even though it was his neglect that had driven her into the arms of these strangers. Guilt, and ... fear. Fear that he might somehow be able to sense that she'd betrayed his loving trust. Admit it, she told herself sternly, that's the only thing that really matters now that it's all over and done with! The fear that Matt will someday find out that she no longer belongs entirely and solely to him.
He'll never find out ... she couldn't allow it to happen.
There was a knock on the door. "Hey, Jo, you okay?"
She opened the door and looked at Eddie, feeling confident and sure of herself all at once. "I have to leave now. Will you please get my clothes and give them to me?"
The young man seemed taken back by her crisp tone. "Aw, Jo...."
She smiled and walked by him. Jim was dressing and his round face indicated he had also noticed her change of attitude. She patted his arm as she went by him to pick up her drink and sip it. "It was fun, but the party's over: Maybe we'll run into each other on your trip back from the mountains."
Jim smiled uncertainly. "Yeah, sure."
She glanced at Eddie. "Be a good boy and get my clothes."
Jim glanced at his younger companion. "You heard her."
Eddie scowled but moved to the sliding doors of the large closet. He opened them and pulled over the chair to stand on so he could reach the most remote section of the high shelf. He took out the pile of clothing and stepped down from the chair, putting the clothes on the foot of a bed.
"Thank you," Joanne smiled, going to the bed and dropping the towel from her nudity. She eased the panties up her legs, not caring that both men watched. There was a noticeable discomfort as she struggled to hook her brassiere, her breasts feeling extremely sensitive and reluctant to be confined. The pleated skirt followed and then the black shirt. Joanne buttoned it before sitting down and slipping on her high heels. "Will you boys be moving on tonight or will you wait until morning?"
Eddie started to answer but Jim interrupted him. "Tonight."
Joanne nodded and checked her purse to see that nothing was missing. "I hope you have a good trip. Catch lots of fish and all that sort of thing. As I said, perhaps we'll meet again when you're coming back this way."
Jim grinned. "We'll make a point of it."
Eddie leaned sullenly against the wall. "Yeah, we'll remember your name and address and give you a ring."
Joanne refused to be flustered. "Just make sure it's during the day when my husband's at the office."
Jim chuckled. "You're all right, Jo."
"Joanne."
"I'll remember," Jim answered.
"So will I," Joanne countered saucily, standing and readying to leave. She looked at Eddie and merely nodded before moving to the front door; a part of her, not quite as resolute as the rest, afraid that the young man would do something to stop her and destroy the assured pose. "Well, goodbye...."
Eddie walked across the room, his attractive but sullen face showing resentment. He caught her wrist and spun her around to face him. "That's not the way to say goodbye, honey," he muttered, mashing her lips with his teeth in a fierce kiss.
Joanne remained passive in the rough embrace, letting his tongue fill her mouth, his hand pull up her pleated skirt until it was able to grip the fullness of her buttock. She kept her eyes open, staring at him, all the while he sought to further humiliate her. Finally, with an angry curse, he shoved her away and walked back to pick up the bottle.
The chunky man with the receding hair merely chuckled.
Joanne straightened her skirt and looked at him. "Goodbye, Jim."
"Take it easy, Joanne."
She opened the door and walked out into the afternoon sunlight. A moment later, she was hiking her skirt high over her knees and putting the station wagon into motion. She pulled out of the gravel parking lot and swung on the highway, heading back toward Fairlawn, pleased with the way she had handled herself. She felt like a new person, the kind of person she had always envied and admired, but never could quite emulate. She felt confident and assured and able to cope with almost anything she could even encounter in the future.
Like Matt, for example....
CHAPTER TEN
Karen opened her second magazine and flipped the ash of her cigarette into the brass ashtray beside her chair. She thumbed the glossy pages absently, trying to conceal her impatience from the busty secretary behind the curving desk. She looked up at the sound of a buzzer and saw the girl turn to the intercom. She quickly lowered her eyes and pretended to be absorbed in the magazine as the girl swivelled back to her.
"Mister Worthington will see you now."
"Pardon me?" Karen looked up slowly.
"You may go in now," the young brunette smiled.
"Oh, thank you."
Karen took her time in putting aside the magazine and snuffing out the cigarette. Conscious of the girl's appraising eyes, she uncoiled fluidly from the chair and walked across the room to the large door marked PRIVATE. A buzzer sounded again and the door moved under the pressure of her hand. She gave the girl a small smile for pressing the release and wondered fleetingly if Roy Worthington's wife had any idea how attractive her husband's private secretary was. She rather doubted it.
The inner office was impressive in its wood paneled and leather accessories and huge windows and thick carpeting. And the man who rose from behind the massive desk to greet her with a smile was no less impressive. Extremely tall, with darkly tanned skin and grey-flecked hair, Roy Worthington fitted the roll of the high-powered executive perfectly. "Karen, what a pleasant surprise," he smiled, coming around the desk with an outstretched hand.
Karen clasped it and fluttered her lashes. "I do hope I'm not intruding, Roy. I was in the neighborhood and I thought I'd drop by to see if the contracts were delivered as promised. I hope you don't mind."
The slender man guided her to a padded chair opposite his desk. "Not at all. As a matter-of-fact, I planned to give you a ring before I left the office today."
Karen froze halfway down to the chair, her heart skipping a beat. "Is there anything wrong?"
He smiled reassuringly. "No, not a thing. I simply wanted to discuss a minor detail with you. Here, make yourself comfortable. May I fix you a drink?"
Karen let out her breath softly and settled herself. "I really shouldn't. I don't want to take up too much of your time. I know how busy you must be."
Worthington moved to the glittering bar in the far corner of the room. "Nonsense. I'm never too busy to talk to a beautiful woman. What will it be? Scotch? Bourbon?"
Karen crossed her long legs and leaned back. "Bourbon, thanks."
"How's George?"
Karen looked away quickly from the pile of contracts assembled on one side of the wide desk. "Oh, just fine, thank you; and Mary?"
Roy Worthington returned with two glasses and handed her one before leaning back against the edge of the desk. "She's very well, thanks."
Karen smiled sweetly. "We'll all have to get together again soon. I enjoyed her company so very much that afternoon at the country club." She saw the tall man raise his glass in a silent toast and she matched the gesture before sipping at the strong mixture of bourbon and ice. "My, that's potent. I must remember that I have to drive home."
Worthington watched her removing her white gloves before he spoke and Karen sensed that he had something on his mind other than the usual pleasantries. "I read over the contracts about an hour ago," he said finally, his expression bland.
Karen tried to hide her panic. "I hope they met with your approval. I tried to see that everything we discussed was incorporated into them."
Worthington nodded slowly. "Yes, they were just as we discussed."
There was something definitely wrong. Karen could feel it. She wondered if George had in some way managed to foul up the deal and she swore to herself that she'd kill him if that were the case. Her winter vacation on the Riviera was threatening to go up in smoke. She sipped her drink, needing time to bolster her spirit and regain her composure. She cleared her throat softly and smiled up at him. "You know, it might be to our mutual advantage if we were to initiate the necessary groundwork as soon as possible."
"Get the ball rolling you mean," he echoed.
"Exactly."
"Sounds logical."
Karen moistened her lips, aware of his hesitancy. "That is, unless you have some reason for wanting to delay matters." She looked back at the contracts on the desk and cursed her inability to determine whether or not they had already been signed. "I'm sure that we can resolve anything that might be disturbing you as to our agreement."
Roy Worthington chuckled amusedly. "Relax, Karen, we have a deal."
She felt her cheeks flush, knowing that he'd seen through her pose of confidence to her desperation. She managed a weak, apologetic smile and quickly emptied her glass. "I'm glad to hear you say it, Roy" she said finally.
"Care for another drink?"
"No, thank you."
He turned at the waist to pick up the top copy of the contract and study it briefly, his lips pursed in an expression of thought. "All that remains to make it legal is my signature," he mused. He looked back at her, his eyes slightly narrowed. "Oh, yes, with the addition of that minor clause I mentioned."
Karen tried to keep her voice from shaking. "Minor clause?"
He tossed the paper back to the desk. "As you already know, I haven't much confidence in George's ability to handle a deal of this size. On the other hand, I'd feel most assured if I was to be guaranteed that you'd take an active part in the supervision of the insurance angle."
Karen nearly sagged with relief. "Is that all? I've already promised you I'd do everything I could to-"
"I'd prefer to have it in writing," Worthington injected.
Karen shrugged. "As you wish."
He put aside his glass and smiled. "Naturally, by personal attention, I mean that you'll be working very closely with this office during the planning period ... very closely...."
She blinked, wondering if she were misinterpreting the meaning of his carefully phrased words. "Of course," she answered hesitantly, "that goes without saying."
"You don't object?"
"I'll enjoy every minute, of it."
"Good. I'll have the clause attached to the contract then."
Karen nodded. "All right."
Worthington stared her squarely in the eye as he picked up a pen from his desk along with the copies of the contract. "We do understand each other, don't we?"
Karen couldn't quite accept what was taking place. Up until a few minutes ago, Roy Worthington hadn't once shown any interest in her other than as a social acquaintance and a shrewd businesswoman. He'd seemed to her the perfect husband and father, not at all the type who'd be interested in any extra-marital fling. Then, suddenly, thinking of it, she remembered the rich-bodied secretary in the outer office and she wasn't at all sure about anything.
"You haven't answered my question, Karen," he murmured calmly, his pale eyes fixed on her face. "We do understand one another, don't we?"
Karen looked at the pen in his hand and felt her insides tighten into a knot. She wanted to tell him that she was ready to be anything he wanted if he'd only sign the damned contracts, but she knew that she had to protect herself in case she was imagining the whole thing. Then, too, she had to keep up appearances-for a while, anyhow. She looked back at the distinguished realtor and frowned. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were propositioning me, Roy."
He laughed aloud. "You shouldn't be so surprised, Karen. Few of us are what we seem to be. Don't you agree?"
She sensed that he was somehow baiting her. "Possibly," she replied, smoothing her gloves nervously over her crossed leg.
Worthington allowed the hands holding the pen and contracts to rest on the edge of his desk as he faced her. "I might as well be completely honest with you, Karen. I was talking to an old friend of yours yesterday and I happened to mention our deal."
Karen tensed. "Oh? Who?"
"Bill Tyler."
She tightened her hold on the empty glass. "Tyler?"
Worthington's quiet smile nagged at her. "He owns that trucking outfit you insured early last year. Surely you remember him."
She shifted uneasily. "Oh, that Tyler."
"He was telling me how satisfied he was with your services-personal and professional-especially the personal."
Karen cursed Bill Tyler silently, but maintained a composed attitude. "I'm glad he was pleased. We've been trying to maintain a high level of client relationship in all our-"
Worthington cut her short. "Come off it, Karen. We both know exactly what I'm talking about."
Karen knew it was useless to pretend any longer. Tyler had obviously told Roy Worthington everything ... and in detail most likely. He was the type. "All right, Roy," she stated flatly, feeling more relaxed all at once. "What do you want?"
"Nothing more than Tyler received for signing with you."
"Fine." She pointed toward the contracts. "Let's make it legal."
The slender executive chuckled and leaned on the desk as he scribbled his name on each of the dotted lines. Karen watched him, thinking idly of how much money each "of his signatures was worth to her. Three times as much as Tyler's signature had been, she estimated. She waited until Roy had finished and pushed back the thick pile of legal papers. "What exactly did he tell you?" she asked, completely at ease at this point.
"Tyler?"
"Yes."
"He was quite flattering."
"I can imagine."
Worthington looked at her legs again. "We'll have to be quite discreet. Mary's rather old-fashioned when it comes to things of this sort."
Karen smiled. "Naturally."
"How about George?"
"He's never been a problem in the past."
Worthington chuckled. "You're quite a woman, Karen."
She lowered her lashes a notch, her smile suggestive of the delights that were in store for him. "You don't know the half of it, Roy-but you will."
He smiled and pushed away from the desk, taking her arms in his hands and lifting her to her feet. Despite her height, she still had to tilt her head back to look into his eyes. He slid his hands slowly down her arms until they were able to move to her hips. "I plan to spend a night in town next Tuesday," he murmured, his mouth close to her lips. "Will that be convenient?"
"Perfectly."
He breathed in her perfume and the hands urged her pliant body into contact with his own. "I'm not sure I can wait until then."
Karen moved her lower torso expertly and lifted one hand to the nape of his neck. "I might be able to get away for a few hours tomorrow afternoon."
The hands moved to grip her buttocks through the tight sheath. He pressed against her and touched his mouth to her ear. "I'll be busy tomorrow afternoon...."
Karen became aware of his mounting desire and decided she'd better cease her rhythmic and subtle movements. "Roy, darling, I really think we'd better exercise some kind of that discretion you mentioned earlier. After all, you do have a secretary seated just outside your door."
The wiry executive refused to relinquish his hold on her tightly rounded buttocks. "She won't disturb us."
Karen frowned. "Roy, please, I'd like to stay a while, but I'm having guests tonight and I-"
Worthington straightened up to smile at her meaningfully, his pale eyes twinkling. "What I have in mind wouldn't take too long."
Karen feigned shock. "Really, Roy!"
He laughed, holding her. "I forgot to mention that Tyler told me how the two of you cemented the deal that morning in his office. He made it sound quite intriguing, to say the least."
Karen relaxed resignedly and lifted her hand to look at her watch. "Well, I suppose I do have a few minutes...."
The wealthy realtor squeezed her buttocks approvingly.
Karen smiled and tilted her head toward the door to his huge office. "You're sure we won't be interrupted?"
"Positive."
She nodded and took hold of his wrists. "Let me get my purse."
Worthington released her and watched her take a tissue from her purse. He grinned appreciatively as she cleaned the lipstick from her mouth. "Yes," he laughed, "that would be embarrassing, wouldn't it?"
Karen smiled back at him and looked around the office, painfully conscious of the late hour and the party she'd planned for the evening. "Where would you be most comfortable?" she asked, looking back at him.
He frowned slightly. "Aren't you going to...."
He stopped and gestured at her sheath.
"I really haven't that much time, darling. I'm sorry."
He shrugged and heisted himself up to a seated position on the edge of the desk facing the empty chair. "This will do, I think," he smiled.
Karen nodded pleasantly and moved the chair to a suitable position before sitting down. "I hope you don't think I'm being cold blooded about this, Roy," she murmured, loosening his clothing. "I promise that when we have more time, you'll be more than pleased with our agreement."
"I'm sure I will."
Karen touched his hands and looked up. "Try not to muss my hair."
She gave him a grateful smile and returned her attention to the business at hand. When he was ready, she made an appreciative sound in her throat and lifted her eyes to his flushed face. "Why, Roy, I never dreamed you'd be so ... so virile."
There was a scattering of dark hair on his thighs, and a narrow strip of it running down from his navel. But Karen was transfixed by the magnificence in the middle of all this. The trickle of hair across Roy's belly flowered and spread suddenly as it reached the lowest part of his abdomen and became a quilted mat of twisted silkiness, framing the perfect organ that hung loosely between his thighs. Even in this relaxed state his cock was at least six inches long. It was smooth and white and snub-nosed and thick at its tip. And behind it dangled a large scrotum that seemed bursting with libidinous potential.
She sank to her knees and gently lifted his gradually swelling penis with the tips of her fingers. Leaning forward the necessary few inches, she planted a soft, dry little kiss against the tender flesh at the cock's under-base where it joined the scrotum. She nibbled the sensitive flesh there for a moment; then she pushed her tongue out, draping it fully over her lower lip, and slowly dragged it up the entire length of the long cock's underside.
With great care and patience she repeated the motion, this time finishing by swiping the wet tip of her tongue around the expanding pink mushroom head of his gorgeous prick.
Roy's knees shuddered at this last touch, and Karen dove back under and between his spread legs. Still holding his penis upright-though it needed very little support by this time-Karen opened her mouth wide and enclosed the dangling, wrinkled sac of his scrotum with her hot, wet lips. Roy groaned. Karen's fingers began rubbing up and down the thick, pulsing body of his member while she sucked carefully but deeply on the pouch in her mouth, occasionally poking playfully at one ball or the other with her swirling tongue. And all the while, her fingers moved steadily up and down the length of him, rubbing the pliable outer flesh of his cock against the tensing muscle beneath.
Now she released his balls from her mouth and moved her head still further under and between his thighs. While her fingers continued to pump away at his cock, Karen's tongue darted in and out now with rapid-fire speed, licking and swiping at the narrow space between the back of his scrotum and his rectum. She continued to move back still further, flicking her hot tongue like a pink flame all around and about his anus.
Roy's whole body shuddered. His breathing became mixed with quiet moans of ecstasy.
Karen's fingers tightened about his prick and pumped faster and harder ... up and down....
Her mouth moved quickly all over the area from his balls to his asshole, covering it with fleeting kisses and licks and slurps. Then, pushing her face between his buttocks, she nuzzled affectionately at his anus, finally pursing her lips around it and drilling the tip of her tongue into the delicate rosebud of flesh itself. And there she remained for long moments: her hand squeezing and pumping with increased fervor on the flaring hugeness of his prick; her mouth pursed and sucking hungrily on the grommet of his anus, while her tongue bored gently inside. With her free hand she began jiggling his balls, carefully squeezing and pinching and teasing them.
She felt him grow tense. His prick trembled almost imperceptibley, and his scrotum drew tighter. Karen pulled her head out from under him and urged him to sit back further. Then her target was singular. His cock. And she smothered it with love.
"Yes...." he rasped.
She lifted her face to him and exaggerated her breathlessness for effect. "Oh, Roy, you're so wonderful. I can't help myself with you. Oh, Roy, I'm on fire."
He groaned excitedly and quivered with impatience. "Now!"
At first she nuzzled and kissed the puffed pink bulb atop his spear, while working up a mouthful of saliva. Then slowly she slid her open mouth down the full length of it, covering it with a thick, slippery film. Her mouth withdrew and she began nibbling gently on the velvety head and slipping the edge of her tongue into the thin groove at the cock's tip, while her dainty hands-both of them now-worked deliberately up and down the length of his massive prick, slowly jerking him off.
Roy's legs slid helplessly out in front of him and on either side of Karen's crouched form. His eyes were closed and his breathing short. Then he groaned deeply and his jaw drooped open. His body grew tense. His hips pushed up. With the sensitive nerve endings in her tits, Karen felt his cock beginning to throb faster. He was ready. He was going to come. There was nothing that could stop him. He was moaning and twisting and thrusting his pelvis forward.
Suddenly Karen pulled back, then parted her lips and plunged forward, swallowing the entire length of his rock-hard penis ... deeper ... deeper-her tongue swirling wildly, her breath sucking deeply-deeper ... until the tip pressed hard against the back of her throat and her nose was buried in his matted pubic hair. And there, immobile, she remained. Her tongue dove and dipped and stroked his giant, captive cock; her mouth sucked and slurped and gobbled as though trying to swallow it whole. And now her hand returned to his balls, fiddling, squeezing, twisting....
Roy gasped once more. His body snapped forward. Arched. His face grimaced. And a searing blaze in his loins suddenly shot up the length of his rigid pipe, bursting hotly through the tiny aperture at its tip and gushing the boiling, creamy juice into Karen's mouth.
She gagged and gasped in delirious joy, gulping and swallowing every drop.
Roy Worthington sagged as if all strength had been drained from him. He twitched convulsively once and then let out his breath. "Whew...."
Karen smiled and adjusted his clothing before rising to her feet and patting her hair. She smoothed her tight sheath into place and took the lipstick out of her small purse, holding up a tiny mirror as she repainted her lips. "I must really run now, Roy. I have a million things to do before the guests arrive tonight. You'll forgive me, won't you?"
He nodded, still a bit dazed. "Of course."
She patted his cheek as she closed the purse. "Tuesday?"
He nodded again. "Tuesday."
She started for the door and stopped to look back at the desk that had become cluttered with disturbed papers. "You'll send our copies of the signed contracts to our office, won't you?"
"Yes, of course."
She smiled and waved. "Until Tuesday, darling." She opened the door and walked by the young secretary who looked up from her magazine with an openly curious frown. Karen ignored her as she swept out of the office, a smug smile on her face.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Donna patted her forehead with the soft tissue, removing the moisture that had lingered after her long shower. She sat in a belted robe, her slender body still glowing from the vigorous rubbing with the large towel. She put aside the wadded tissue and crossed her bare legs as she shifted position slightly on the dressing-table stool. The stiff bristles of the hairbrush punished her scalp as she applied them to her dark hair, her mind attuned to the sounds of David's exuberant singing under the shower.
He had come home in a wonderful mood, having enjoyed a good day at the office and anticipating a good evening at Karen Cole's party. Donna nibbled frantically on her lip, thinking about her own day and her own state of mind. It had taken all her strength to meet him at the door when he'd arrived, to force a smile which was like her usual smile, to kiss his cheek in the way she normally kissed his cheek, to let him look at her as she always let him look at her. It had been three or four minutes of the tightest tension she had ever known and she was still stunned that he hadn't seemed aware of any change in her.
Donna alleviated some of the strain by sighing aloud. The mirror showed a new radiance to her complexion, a new softness to her mouth, a new tranquility to her dark eyes. It seemed incredible to her that David had not noticed them. The lips especially, she thought, touching her fingertips to them. They were puffy....
An uncontrollable shiver raced up her spine as Donna thought of the cause of the puffiness. The long afternoon with Lois Clifford had done more than merely fill a terrible need. Lois had been masterful, submissive, passionate, responsive, wanton, tender, everything one woman could be for another woman. Donna had never known such fulfillment, such satisfaction, such ecstasy. It had been much more than a casual fling or a wild escapade. Something had grown between them during the hours of togetherness, something stronger than she had ever felt for Eve Mitchell. A kind of love. A kind that only women like Lois and herself could feel and understand.
Donna put down the hairbrush and leaned on her elbows, staring blindly into the mirror of the dressing table. What was she going to do? Lois insisted that it needn't constitute a problem, that there was no reason why she couldn't go on loving David, being his wife, seeing her as often as she needed. Donna wished she could be as confident as Lois. She hated the idea of leading two lives and maintaining the deception indefinitely. She had never been the type who was able to lie fluently. Yet, it wasn't as if she were really being unfaithful to David or betraying his love. She wasn't going to another man to give him her body and her love. There was a difference, however vague and intangible it might be.
The strange thought made Donna frown with confusion. It was true, even if she wasn't able to rationalize it. No other man would ever have what she was able to give to David. No other man would ever know the intimacy of her body, the warmth of her lips, the sound of her deep sighs. He had been and always would be the only man in her life, so how much of an infidelity could there be? Did it count if a wife went to bed with another woman? Was she cheating her husband of something that was rightfully his? If so, what?
A sudden turbulence brought Donna up from the stool. It could work out, she thought excitedly, nervously. David wasn't the type to sense anything amiss as long as things appeared unchanged on the surface. He was too naive, too trusting, and too blinded by his love. In time, she could even introduce him to Lois and he still wouldn't be aware that she was anything more than a good friend. Lois would have no trouble convincing him such was the case (she had practiced that sort of thing) and he'd never guess. He'd never know.
Donna trembled, hugging her arms tightly, feeling the excitement bring a flush to her cheeks. There would be a balance in her life. Lois could give her the gratification she could never achieve with David. There would be no more nagging need, no more terrible frustration, no more gnawing loneliness and hunger. As for guilt, if the affair with Lois kept her marriage to David intact, how much could there be? Was it better to deny her need for the wonderful creature and allow the torment to destroy her love for David? Was it better to tell him the truth and shatter his happiness or keep it a secret and go on contributing to his bliss? Why should there be guilt?
Donna undid the knotted belt of the robe as she considered the all-important question. The robe slipped back from her shoulders and she let it drop to the bed as she gazed vacantly down on the outfit she had selected to wear to the party. It wasn't until she heard the low whistle that she realized that David had completed his shower and had emerged from the bathroom. She spun quickly, covering her nudity with her arms, blushing at the delight she found in his broad smile and bright eyes. "I didn't hear you," she mumbled sheepishly.
He walked toward her, clean and rangy and handsome. "I'm glad. I don't usually get a chance to see you this way." He put his hands on her arms and moved them, revealing all of her nudity to his eyes. "You don't know how beautiful you are," he whispered ardently, letting his gaze travel over her breasts and thighs.
Donna felt her knees shaking. "David, don't ... please ... I feel funny...."
He laughed softly and drew her to him. "I love you most of all when you're embarrassed. You're like a little girl."
Donna felt her breasts flatten against his wet chest. He was wearing shorts and was still damp from the shower. She cleared her throat, acutely aware of the hands that were stroking her bare back, of the strength that was pressing against her tensed thighs. "David, the party," she muttered, turning her face as his lips moved on it. "We haven't time."
David tilted her head back by lifting her chin with a finger. "We can be late. It's supposed to be fashionable, anyhow. Besides, it's all your fault. You shouldn't have given me the idea." He laughed at her frown and kissed the tip of her nose. "Come on, what do you say, let's be late for the party, huh?"
Donna saw the love in his eyes and knew that she could not deny him. Then, too, she felt the need to please him, to atone for the afternoon, to make an expression of her love and need of him and all he represented. She wet her lips and curled, her arms around his neck and made her body pliable and inviting. "The clothes," she whispered, her skin tingling, her legs weak.
David kissed her hard before releasing her. He hurried to the bed and removed the feminine garments strewn there. Donna stood and waited, her palms pressing on her bare thighs, her nipples hard and pointing, her mind filled with thoughts of all Lois had said about the means of maintaining her marriage. Try to make love to him, she'd said. You do all the work and it'll be easier. Let him lie back and relax.
Donna shivered convulsively as he reached for her hand and drew her down to the bed beside his naked body. He kissed her lips and explored her mouth with his tongue and massaged her breasts with tender affection. She felt a wave of pleasure . as she substituted Lois for him in her mind. The illusion was not hard to sustain and she encouraged it desperately, aware that she was about to put herself to the test of whether or not she was capable of loving both a man and a woman. "Kiss me, please," she moaned heatedly, clinging to him, thinking of Lois, afraid of what was still to come.
He obeyed and then withdrew for a second and she tensed, the same dread returning to chill her pleasure. She opened her eyes and looked at him and knew that she must make the attempt. He seemed surprised when her hands pushed shyly at his shoulders, forcing him back down to the bed. She trembled, feeling wicked and awkward and sluttish as she slid after him, her hands holding him in the strange position. He smiled up at her, delighted all at once. "You're wonderful," he murmured, loving her with his eyes.
David pulled Donna closer, until his face was buried between both her breasts. He rubbed his face in them, pressing them against his cheeks and licking at the sensitive flesh in the cleft with his tongue. He continued to pinch her nipples as his tongue ran up and down the valley, then began to work its way over the firm roundness of the left one.
Donna sucked in her breath sharply as his tongue stroked over her. It had been so long since David had done anything like this she'd almost forgotten how good it felt having a man's rasping tongue licking her tit. She could feel the nerve endings around her breast tingling as his tongue moved slowly around and around its firmness, each circle bringing his mouth that much nearer to the throbbing hard nipple.
When at last he caught her nipple with his tongue and pulled it between his lips, she let out a shriek of joyful surprise and pressed against the back of his head, feeling her tit deeper into his mouth.
"Yes! Yes, David," she whimpered. "Suck on it! Oh, honey, suck. Use that tongue on me until I go right up the wall!"
David's mouth twisted and writhed, turning first one way and then the other, so that he could get at every inch with his darting hot tongue. A sting of warm saliva dribbled out of his mouth and ran slowly down the underside of Donna's tit, driving her wild with excitement. Her hands pressed harder against the back of his head, her chest straining out as though she wanted to stuff every bit of herself into his mouth.
"The nipple! Suck on the nipple!" she begged, and when David did what she asked for she screamed in delight. "Oh, honey! It feels so good! Oh, baby, suck on that nipple!" She twisted and writhed on the couch, then suddenly jumped high in surprise as both of David's hands came down in her lap.
His fingers pinched her inner thighs, working their way toward the hot center of her cunt. His thumbs pressed into the slightly damp flesh until he could feel the outline of her cunt, then he began to toy with her, drawing his fingers up and down the slit. He pressed ever so gently into it, pushing past the outer lips of her hole and exciting the sensitive flesh inside it.
Her cunt was completely open to his prying hand as David seized it again and began to comb his fingers through her wiry bush. He stuck his middle finger through the jungle of hair and up into the juicy slit, moaning with excitement as he felt Donna's cunt muscles close on his finger. His mouth went back down on her tit, the right one this time, and he sucked it furiously while his fingers continued playing with her hole.
Donna's body was on fire as it never had been before. Never before had David excited her so much! She felt as though every sensory nerve inside her was being lapped by fire. As David's finger drilled in and out of her hole, she flung her hand between his legs and seized the firm prick sticking up from the root of his belly. Her fingers ran through the thatch of black hair surrounding it, then gripped the giant cock at its base and began to manipulate it.
"He's going to stick this big thing into me!" her mind screamed. "God, he's going to rip me open with this big prick! He's going to make me bleed and scream! Oh, I'll never be able to take all of this! Never! But I'm going to die trying!"
As she beat her hand up and down on him, she could feel David's cock swelling even harder. It was already like a baseball bat in her fist, and getting bigger every second! Her cunt was twitching to feel it drive inside, to break her open and make her a woman at last. She could already feel her own sticky juice as David's finger continued prodding in and out.
"Give it to me!" she suddenly screamed. "Right now! I can't stand it a minute longer! Oh, baby, give it to me!"
"I'll give it to you, baby, don't worry about that!" He gave her pussy one last tweak.
"Yes! Yes!" Donna whimpered, but before she did, she reached for his big prick again and pulled it to her mouth. She had to taste it before he began fucking her with it. She had dreamed so many times of having David's cock in her mouth that she had to know what it would really be like. Her lips spread as wide apart as she could manage, but even doing so it was difficult to fit the head of David's prick into her mouth. She pushed her face into it, forcing the giant cock between her lips. It filled her entire mouth, ramming deep at her throat before even half of it was inside.
She wanted to use her tongue on his cock, to lick and stroke it, tease it as she did with Lois' cunt, but it was impossible. The sheer bulk of David's prick forced her tongue flat against the bottom of her mouth. Instead, Donna used her lips on it, pushing her face back and forth on it, blowing him as best she could.
David seemed to like what she was doing, for his hands dug hard into her shoulders and he began to pump his cock at her face. "Suck it, baby!" he groaned. "That's the way! Take David's cock and suck it!"
Donna's head bobbed faster and faster, her fingers toying with his heavy balls underneath. She was nearly delirious! She'd wanted this cock for so long, but never suspected just how good it would be when she really had it. She could have sucked on him until he unloaded in her mouth and been happier than she'd been in years, but she wanted even more than that now.
Her lips slid off the swollen dick and she bent her head and planted two quick kisses on his balls, then rose over him, spreading herself flat and fingering her pussy to be certain it would be juicy enough for him to get inside with as little trouble as possible.
"Give it to me!" she whimpered, tossing her hips at him and showing him the juicy pink meat of her inner cunt. "Ram it into me, David! Oh, baby, stick that big cock of yours into me right now!"
Her breathing was like the grunts of a mare in heat as she got onto the bed and dug her knees into the pillows on either side of her widespread legs. He pawed at her hole for a moment, wetting it even more, then gripped the base of his prick and aimed it between her legs.
Donna squealed with a mixture of fear and excitement as she felt the fat head of David's cock rubbing outside her cunt. It was still slippery wet from being inside her mouth and when he pushed down, it began to go into her with ease. She felt the lips of her cunt spreading as David drove his cock into it, but suddenly they would spread no further and his cock was still struggling to get inside. She felt the first sharp twinge of pain shoot through her cunt and pushed up on his chest to keep him from suddenly driving hard into her.
"Oh, God! God!" she screamed. Her head tossed from side to side on the couch as she felt him push again and feed even more of that giant prick into her tight hole. The feeling was unbelievable! It hurt, but it hurt good! She wanted it!
She spread her legs wider and her cunt took him easier. She felt it pushing into her, nearly five inches deep now, and suddenly as he rammed forward she screamed and a blinding pain flashed across her eyes.
"Good?" he grunted. "Is it good, baby?"
"Oh, yes! Yes!" Donna screamed. She flung her arms around his neck, squeezed him tightly and fought to put her mouth on his. She kissed him long and deep as she began to move with him inside her, pulling the giant cock slightly out and then shoving it back home even harder, driving it still deeper as her cunt began to open for him.
With each stroke, Donna could feel his cock moving in her, the thick head swelling and pulsing against the walls of her vagina.-She felt the suction when he pulled out. Her hole was quivering around every inch of him, her swollen clitoris tingling as the big cock rubbed against it and set off spark after spark of excitement.
He covered her mouth with his, kissed her hard and drilled his tongue halfway down her throat, then pulled away and rose up so he could put his lips on her tits. His teeth bit into them, gently at first, then harder, until Donna was screaming in ecstasy. Her body had never known such an assault of pleasure!
"I'm going to come!" she whimpered. "I can't hold it back, baby! I'm going to let go!"
Donna felt her toes curling up, her legs stiffening as each thrust of David's hard cock brought her that much closer to orgasm. She could feel it building inside her like a bubbling volcano. Harder and harder she pumped and he clung to her frantically, wanting to come and yet wanting to delay it as long as possible so she could experience even more of the pleasure the fucking was giving her.
Suddenly it became impossible to hold back any more. That cock in her was just too exciting. With a shriek of joy her fingernails dug into his shoulders and her cunt began to explode. She felt the bursting inside her, coating David's cock with the sticky juice so that when he drilled in and out it was even more slippery and twice as exciting.
Donna heard the telltale intake of breath and felt the surge of David's come. She quickened her motions, obeying his needs, assisting his pleasures, thinking of the next day when she would go to the lake and enter the cottage and take Lois in her arms and tell of how easy it had been. All of a sudden, the weeks and months and years ahead of her no longer loomed unbearable but, instead, were rich with happiness and satisfaction. David and Lois ... Lois and David ... giving and taking ... taking and giving ... tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow ... without change....
"Oh, David, isn't it wonderful?"
He groaned his assent.
Donna laughed and flung back her head. He'd never know just how wonderful. She'd see to it.
Joanne was enjoying the leisurely dance with Matt. He was surprisingly graceful and responsive to the muted music, performing the intricate steps with the same assurance and precision he applied to everything he undertook. He was perhaps too formal, Joanne thought idly, conscious of the propriety of his hand at the small of her back, but then, formality was an integral part of his personality.
The music ended and they stepped apart. Matt smiled at her as they moved to the stone balustrade of the wide terrace. "Shall I get you a fresh drink?"
Joanne noticed the lines in his face. He was tired, as usual, but he was making a strong effort not to show it. "Yes, a tall one," she answered. He nodded and moved toward the crowded serving bar across the dancing area, his stylish clothes adding to his dignified appearance and well-groomed attractiveness.
Joanne took her eyes from him and gazed up at the bright stars in the dark sky. It was a balmy night, cool enough to be pleasant, warm enough to insure the selection of the outdoor terrace for the party site. She listened to the hum of subdued conversation and laughter and tinkling glasses and music and marvelled at finding herself back in the familiar world of upper-class suburbia. It seemed even stranger that no one was at all aware of the illicit excursion she had taken that afternoon. Matt, of course, had been too preoccupied with lingering thoughts of business when he arrived home to take note of any change in her appearance or manner. And there was a change, she added mentally, pleased with herself. A drastic and dramatic change.
The tension was gone.
Joanne sighed, enjoying the feeling of utter relaxation. There was a vague sensation of tiredness in the small of her back and at her neck, but it was a good tiredness. She smiled, recognizing the cause of it, admitting to herself for the hundreth time that she had serviced three men in less than three hours that very afternoon. Three men, one after the other. When she had awakened that morning, there had only been one man in her life ... and now, that same evening, there were four who had known her body.
Four!
Matt returned wearing a quizzical smile. "You're looking quite pleased with yourself."
Joanne took the tall glass. "I am?"
He nodded. "Very. Is there any particular reason?"
"No, not really," Joanne answered, sipping the cold drink. "I just feel good."
Matt tasted his own drink, his eyes studying her over the rim of his glass. "You look especially beautiful tonight, Joanne." He continued to appraise her admiringly. "There's a glow to you. A definite glow."
Joanne sipped again, wondering what he'd say if she told him who had put the glow there. "My, this tastes good," she murmured, deliberately changing the subject.
Matt moved a bit closer, dropping his voice. "Are you still angry with me for last night?"
Joanne frowned, puzzled. "Last night?"
He seemed surprised. "When we went to bed...."
"Oh!" She suddenly remembered the previous night when she had asked him to make love to her and he'd begged off due to exhaustion. "No, I'm not mad."
He smiled, touching her hand. "It will be different tonight, I promise."
Joanne recalled his pledge of the previous night. He had said he'd make it up to her. An ironic smile toyed at the corners of her lips and she was forced to avert her face for fear he could see it. She waved to the young couple dancing by and nudged Matt, drawing his attention to the floor. "There's Donna and David."
Matt waved and the young couple waved back before continuing, their bodies close together. Matt smiled approvingly. "I guess there's not much question about their being in love, is there? I guess the honeymoon still hasn't worn off."
Joanne nodded agreement. "They make a fine couple."
Matt looked off in another direction. "I see our hostess fluttering about again. I wonder what surprise she had in store for us tonight. She's acting like the cat that swallowed the canary...."
Joanne watched Karen Cole ooze through her guests with typical poise. "You can be sure that whatever she has up her sleeve, it'll be unusual. She just loves to cause a sensation of some kind."
Matt nodded and emptied his glass. "How about another?"
"All right."
Joanne lit a cigarette and watched him become enmeshed with an inebriated George Cole and some other men. She knew why Matt was drinking at such an unusual pace. He needed stimulation to bolster his depleted energies if he was to perform as he promised. She felt a sudden compassion for her husband, aware that he probably had no real wish to make love to her after a long, gruelling day at his beloved office. It would be as always, unvarying in its progression, strained, unsatisfying, laborious-but he would feel as though he had done his duty for the week.
Nothing like it had been for her that afternoon....
The unexpected thought brought a tingle to her body. The three strangers had treated her like a cheap whore, using her selfishly, taking her crudely, and yet it had been wonderful. It was true, she had loved every sordid minute of it despite her occasional pangs of wounded pride. Eddie, the young one, had been passionate. Jim, his older friend, had been masterful. And even Whitey, the bartender, had been thrilling despite his haste. Three men, three strangers, taking their turn with her....
Joanne trembled excitedly.
She wondered if her promise to see them again upon their return from the vacation trip had been as facetious as she had then intended it to be. If and when they called her at her home, would she hang up or would she rush out to a roadhouse to meet them? Would the thought of letting them share her body again chill her or would it fan her passion as it had that afternoon? She felt herself warming even as she thought about it and she knew the answers to those questions. The long afternoon had changed her more than she'd realized until that very instant. She was capable of thinking about going to other men without the slightest twinge of conscience.
There would be no more sleeping pills, no more cold showers, no more self-pity. She was going to reach out and take what she needed-if not from Matt, then someone else! She had wasted enough time suffering the pangs of neglect. Never again! Never, never, never again!
She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders and looked around the crowded terrace. Matt was hopelessly involved in a many-sided conversation at the bar and his apologetic expression cast her way indicated that he wasn't having any luck at escaping the exuberant George Cole. Joanne nodded her understanding and walked around the dance area toward the glass doors which led into the house. Once inside, she noticed that the study door was closed and criss-crossed with ribbon. Whatever Karen was planning for the high-spot of the party was obviously contained in the room, Joanne decided, continuing to where another group of guests were availing themselves of a buffet and bar.
Someone bumped her elbow as she turned the corner and she stumbled slightly. A hand caught her upper arm and kept her from falling. "Oh, I'm sorry. Forgive me."
Joanne looked up into a clean-shaven and youthfully-attractive face. "That's all right," she smiled, recovering from the bump. "I guess I should have beeped my horn."
The young stranger removed his hold on her arm and returned the smile, his eyes fleeting to the low bodice of her evening dress. "I, don't think we've met. I'm Ted Conners."
"Joanne Morgan. Are you a newcomer to our community?"
"No, I'm a crasher. A friend of a friend of a friend...."
"Well, welcome anyhow."
The eyes continued to pay homage to her high-thrusting breasts. "It's a very nice party, isn't it? Are you having a good time?"-Joanne felt suddenly reckless. "Not as good as I had this afternoon," she smiled, letting her lashes drop a peg. "But then, that was a much more private party than this."
The young man blinked and smiled. "Oh?"
Joanne saw Matt approaching in the distance. "You won't forget my name, will you?" she said quickly, maintining a polite expression for Matt's benefit. "Joanne Morgan. I'm in the book."
The young stranger nodded rather dazedly. "I'll remember...."
Joanne flashed him a brilliant smile before moving away to meet Matt and loop her arm in his. "I thought you'd never get away from George, darling. What was he talking about anyhow?"
Matt shrugged disinterestedly. "What else? He just closed another land deal today. Something to do with a land-development project out in the country."
Joanne peeked back over Matt's shoulder and saw Ted Conners still staring at her. A flicker of excitement coursed through her at her daring. It had been so easy, she thought. So very easy.
"Would you like to stay inside a while or have another dance on the terrace?"
Joanne smiled at her husband. "Another dance."
"You're not tired?"
She laughed. "Not a bit."
Matt seemed mildly puzzled by her show of energy and enthusiasm but he didn't comment on it. They went back out to the decorated terrace and began to dance.
Joanne closed her eyes and placed her head on his broad shoulder and wondered if the young man named Ted Conners would call her as' promised. She wondered, too, what would come of it. Perhaps she'd meet him at some discreet cocktail lounge for a few drinks and then-if he was a bachelor-he'd have to have his own apartment. If he were married, there were any numbers of motels along the highway. They could even go back and see Whitey at the roadhouse....
She shivered convulsively and moved closer to Matt.
He frowned at her. "Are you cold?"
"No, I just wanted to be close to you."
He kissed her forehead tenderly. "We'll be close-later."
Joanne nodded and closed her eyes again, knowing that it wouldn't matter to her if Matt disappointed her again in their lovemaking. She would be able to put up with him, with his preoccupation, his career, his tiredness, his neglect. She'd be able to endure it because she wouldn't be dependent upon him for what she needed. And he'd never be aware of it, never. She'd be very careful to see to it that life would go on just the same for him as it had in the past.
A distant clamor brought her out of her reverie. "What is it?"
Matt craned his neck to look in the same direction as everyone else on the wide terrace. "There seems to be some sort of confusion in the house. An argument, I think. I guess someone had one too many."
Joanne nodded, happily indifferent, and put her cheek back to his shoulder. "Keep dancing, darling. This is one of my favorite numbers."
Matt obeyed. "What's the name of it?"
Joanne smiled serenely. " 'What a Difference a Day Makes.' "
Karen excused herself from her conversation with a group of prominent residents and headed toward the terrace bar where George was spouting to a trio of men about his highly profitable business coup with the Worthington Land Development Corporation. She took a moment to carefully adjust the bodice of her cocktail dress-so that the men would have ample opportunity to admire her unrestricted breasts. The tactic was instantly rewarded by the looks cast in her direction as she joined the quartet and looped her arm in her husband's. "George, darling?" she purred sweetly. "May I see you for a moment, please?"
"Sure, honey."
Karen guided him away from the trio with an apologetic smile and maintained it as she hissed her anger at the tottering George. "Will you please stop making an ass out of yourself? Go into the kitchen and have some black coffee. Stay there until you're able to walk without looking as though you're about to fall on your face."
"But, honey, I'm-"
"Do as I say, damn you!"
Karen walked away from him without waiting for a reply, her attention drawn to the sudden commotion within the house. As she went through the glass portico, she saw Amanda come rushing up the hall to meet her. "Amanda, what is it?"
The domestic was visibly shaken. "Missus Macklin, you'd better come. There's a crazy man in the study. I tried to keep him out but he-"
Karen cut the woman short, aware that some of the guests were staring at them. "Lower your voice, Amanda. I'll take care of it." She smiled reassuredly at the guests and hurried to the study, a scowl marring the. polished perfection of her features as she noted the torn ribbons that had adorned the study doors, now flung wide apart. She entered the room that she had chosen for the site of the great unveiling and stopped in her tracks upon seeing Jacques standing before the fireplace.
"You!"
The lithe-bodied and darkly attractive young artist was noticeably drunk. "Yes, it is I. Does it surprise you?" The words dripped venom and bitterness, matching the ugly light in his eyes.
Karen glared indignantly. "What are you doing here? Can't you see that I have guests? How dare you to come to my-"
"I came for my painting."
Karen's eyes jumped to the wall and felt some relief as she saw the paper-covered painting still intact. "You seem to have forgotten that it is now my painting. You were paid in full for it, as I recall." She became aware of a low murmuring behind her back and a quick glance showed that a large number of guests had gathered at the wide entrance to the study. She frowned impatiently and lowered her voice. "I must insist that you leave immediately. You've already caused me considerable embarrassment."
"What'samatter, honey?"
She heard George's drawl and saw him push through the crowd. "It's nothing, George. Nothing at all. Please take care of our guests and let me handle...."
Jacques stepped forward, speaking over her voice. "You are George Cole?"
George lumbered into the room with a puzzled frown. "That's right. Who are you?"
Jacques bowed politely. "I'm the artist who painted your wife's portrait. I have also been her lover for the past few months."
There was an audible gasp from the onlookers and George grunted as though struck a blow in the pit of his stomach. Karen saw his bleary eyes turn toward her and she knew she had to make some sort of dramatic gesture for his sake as well as for the sake of all the people who had heard the startling remark. She crossed the space between her and the young artist in two long strides and slapped him across the face as sharply as she could, the sound echoing in the large room. "How dare you!"
Jacques recovered and smiled slowly. Without a word, he caught her wrist with one hand, preventing her from moving away. The other hand flashed in the air and Karen cried out in fright a split second before the hard-palm stung her cheek and rocked her senses. He released her wrist and she staggered a few steps to lean on the back of the couch. "GEORGE!"
George reacted slowly, shaking off his drunkeness and astonishment. "Now hold on there, buddy," he growled, lumbering forward.
Jacques reached out for one of the bottles on the serving cart. He slammed it against the edge, causing it to shatter and spill its contents all over the floor. The jagged edges of the bottle brought cries of fear from the audience and caused George to stop dead in his tracks. The young man stared at George calmly. "I have no wish to hurt you, my friend. What I have said about your wife is true. She has been my mistress for months."
The room became deathly quiet and everyone seemed to be looking at Karen. She wet her lips and ignored the throbbing of her cheek as she drew herself up proudly. "He's drunk, George," she stated crisply, "I can't help it if he-"
"Be quiet, Jacques snapped, brandishing the broken bottle.
"You're insane," Karen gasped, retreating from the pointed edges.
Jacques nodded. "Probably. I must have been insane to have allowed you to use me as you did. I allowed you to destroy my manhood, to detroy a love that was pure and beautiful, to teach me all that was evil and jaded in life. Yes, I was insane, but not any more." He looked back to George who was gaping open-mouthed. "You are married to a wicked woman, Mister Cole. She is cruel and selfish and without conscience. I pity you." He drew a deep breath and walked to the wall and the painting. "I created a woman on this canvas that is unreal. It is my duty to destroy it." He raised the bottle and plunged it into the thin paper wrapping, drawing the cutting edges downward diagonally, splitting the paper and canvas in two and leaving it in shreds.
Karen screamed. "No...."
The crowd pushed forward, straining their eyes to piece together the portrait that was now only dangling remnants. Jacques tossed the pieces on the floor as he walked out of the study, pushing through the crowd that was only too eager to part for him. Karen looked at the painting and then at the faces that seemed to fill the room. One pair of eyes was more promiment than any of the others. George licked his lips before speaking. "You bitch ... you cheating bitch!"
Karen was conscious of her audience as she smiled. "Go to hell, George," she stated quietly.
Everyone seemed suddenly embarrassed and a large number of them started moving away from the study and toward the front door of the house. Karen watched them go, ignoring George, thinking only that she had given them something far better than a daring painting to talk about in the months to come. The telephones would be buzzing without let-up, the tongues wagging with delicious avidity. There wouldn't be a woman in Fairlawn who wouldn't know every juicy detail of what had happened at Karen Cole's party. She smiled inwardly, realizing that more than a' few would choke with envy when hearing about the handsome and violently passionate artist with whom the wicked Karen had been carrying on an affair.
"What are you smiling about?" George mutered resentfully.
"Was I smiling, darling? I didn't realize."
He glared at her. "Damn you...."
She sighed and crossed the room to the doors. The last of the guests were making an awkward departure. She looked back over her shoulder to where George was pouring himself a stiff shot of bourbon. "Don't forget to put out all the lights before you drink yourself senseless, dear. I'm going to bed. I've had a rather tiring day." She smiled. "Good night, George."
Karen laughed throatily and climbed the stairs of her huge house. Yes, it had been a long and tiring day-but a profitable and exciting one. Very profitable and very, very exciting. It would be some time before the monotony set in again over the staid community of Fairlawn. Quite some time.
