Dave Blanchard bought his cabin in the mountains to get away from money grabbers and phonies, but he and his wife found a new kind of humanity there. The new neighbors weren't selfish; they shared of themselves. You might say a piece of everyone was in the common pot. The Blanchards had discovered the good life, as others have before them. ". . . approximately five million couples in the U.S. have at one time or another mutually agreed to exchange partners for sexual intercourse. Furthermore, one out of every ten married couples under 35 will participate (or have participated) in spouse swapping. One out of every five couples, regardless of age, will question each other about this situation, and one out of ten couples will feel out their friends to see how they feel about it, hoping for sympathetic hearings," write William and Jerrye Breedlove, in The Swinging Set.
1
like everything else "success" had brought to him, the cabin was going to be a failure, Dave reflected. All the goddamned literature from Spruce Slopes Realty and their lousy tour and the names they dropped were hollow, and he was lying awake nights wondering when he would find that elusive satisfaction that "making it" was supposed to bring. Here at eight-thousand feet, with giant pines surrounding the clearing and deer ghosting through the shadows, and the laughing sound of the stream always in the background, it ought to be perfect; it was one of the things that he had dreamed of since, at the age of twelve, he had attended his seventh grade "camping experience."
And yet today-his and Ruth's first day in their cabin-the air had been hot and still, and the flies had been intolerable. The odor of pine that he had always tried to capture in his shaving lotions and scented furnishings-and even in his new, oversized office-was spoiled by being heavy with the heat. Instead of the muted roar of breezes through thick needles, there had been only the incessant drone of the flies. Where sap oozed from the bark at holes the woodpeckers drilled, it had almost bubbled in the still air.
Ruth twisted in his arms and protested; sweat made their skins slide. At least he had this, he thought-her willing embrace in the blackness of the veranda and her certainty that he was all that his dreams had predicted.
"Honey, you're not with me! You're a million miles away!"
"No, pet. I'm here. How the hell could I be anywhere else at a time like this?"
He caressed her, his hand slippery in the sweat that coated her back. His lips cut off her reply. Of all that he had accomplished in the time since his graduation from college, his marriage to Ruth was the nearest to living up to expectation.
Her belly tensed now, and she rubbed it against his, rolling his softening shaft between them and renewing its stiffness. Her arms tugged at him, and she drew her face back and sighed.
"I know you're thinking," she said. "There's something in your mind besides making love."
"I'm sorry, pet. I forgot myself. I was just thinking about how goddamned hot it was today-and wondering why it hadn't cooled off yet."
"And here I thought that we were making all the heat tonight."
Her body moved free of his, and he felt her hand trail down his side and over his belly. Her fingers closed around his penis, and she squeezed gently.
"Darling," she whispered, "it's beautiful here. Don't let one hot day spoil it for us."
Her hand tightened, and she stroked slowly. His groin tingled, and he grasped her buttocks, his grip slipping again because of their sweat.
"Goddamn!" he exclaimed. "When you do that, I can't think of anything else-couldn't if I wanted to!"
"Then don't try, honey! Come back to me!"
She fingered his balls, then stroked his penis again. He felt it swell and pulse, and he looked down at the fullness of her breasts, their nipples just touching him, bobbing with the motion of her arm. A guy would have to be out of his goddamned mind to think of anything but her in this situation, he reflected ... clear out of his goddamned mind!
He backed against the railing, lowered his butt onto it, and stretched his feet before him. Ruth followed, standing astraddle his thighs, keeping her hand moving on his cock. He felt suddenly fierce, and his hand plunged into her muff to excite the tissues it concealed. He found that she was wet with hot, thick juice.
"Ah-h-h!" she whispered. "That's what I've been waiting for, Dave! That's what I want! ... Until it's time for this!" She gave his cock a hard squeeze.
Dave's thighs tensed, and he gasped.
"Jesus, pet! Take it easy! Jerk on that bastard too much, and you'll get a handful of something else!"
"I'd better not!" She laughed. "I've got a place waiting for that!"
He shivered. She sure as hell did! She had a warm, soft place waiting ... a place that was going to close around his prick and squeeze it-softly, with spongy tissues that felt like never-ending lips-and drain it. His fingers dripped with her juice. He found her clitoris and massaged it. She cried out in low tones, her hips twisting and the inner sides of her thighs rubbing against his.
"Oh, Dave! I feel like I'm all pussy tonight! Maybe because we're on the front porch. I-don't be mad at me, Dave, but I'm not going to be able to wait very long!"
"Hell, that's all right with me!"
"Oooh! You big thing you!" She shuddered and squeezed the head of his cock again. "Oooh! I've just got to have you in me!"
She squirmed, getting her right foot up and over the rail beside Dave, letting it stick out behind him. Clinging to him, she swung the other leg up and laid it across the rail on his other side. She lifted her ass up and pulled herself in close to his belly, her crotch riding over his cock.
"Now," she said. "Now, I'm going to swallow that gorgeous prick, baby! I'm going to hide him in my gut!"
Dave seized her buttocks and guided her onto his straining prick, feeling the hot wetness of her labia trap his bulbous head and lowering her until the rim of her vagina circled his swollen prod.
"Drop me!" she demanded. "Dave, drop me onto him! Let me drive him in, all the way to my lungs!"
He braced himself and let go of her. She plunged cunt first, engulfing his cock and crashing against his groin. Her thighs hardened. She raised herself, then let herself crash down again.
"Oh! Oh my, Dave! You don't know what that feels like!"
Her hips snapped forward and backward, swiveling at her waist, as if there were a spring there, and she clung to his shoulders with her hands, leaning backward, away from him. Her breasts leaped like bullfrogs, and her belly wrinkled and folded. The tendons on her inner thighs stood out in the shadows, and her hips were a blur of motion.
Dave's breath caught in his throat, and his hands slid on her back. He felt his balls bounce against his thighs, and his cock felt as if she were stripping the flesh from it. His head buzzed, and he winked his ass-hole to the rhythm she set.
"Darling! I'm going to come!" she moaned, her voice shaking.
She plunged at him, her crotch grinding at the base of his penis, and he felt his guts churn.
"Oh, baby!" she whispered. She lapsed into the language that passion always triggered-the language that had suffused his early life in the mid-city gutters where he had spent his childhood. "Oh, fuck me, Dave! Screw that thing clear out through my eyes! It's long enough to come out of my mouth, Dave! Fuck me, darling!"
A great fist closed on his prostate, and his body shuddered as his semen erupted through the length of his cock into her gulping cavity.
"Yes, yes! Oh, yes, Dave!" She groaned.
They trembled together, joined at their crotches, shaking like butterflies as the orgasm raged within them, and Ruth's legs stiffened and straightened, the backs of her thighs raised clear of the railing. She jerked herself forward abruptly, her wet body smacking against his and her lips crushing against his mouth. She rolled them savagely on his, and he felt the hardness of her teeth through them. He swallowed hard, and his tongue drove at hers, and his arms clutched her to him while he forced his last drops into her.
She collapsed, letting her mouth soften and withdrawing her face.
"Oh-h-h!" She shuddered. "Oh, Dave! That felt the way it did when we were first married! Oh, I'm going to like it here!"
"I'm going to like these parts, baby," he replied. "These times are going to be great!"
"What's that!" Her whisper was strident and startled, and she clutched at him with sudden urgency.
"What's what, baby?"
"Listen!"
He humored her, keeping quiet and listening. Then he heard a muffled cough and the sound of footsteps in the dry carpet of needles on the slope to his right.
"What the..." he whispered. "Probably someone taking a walk before turning in!" "Oh, Dave! Do you suppose they heard us?" "Hell, I doubt it." If he let her think they'd been overheard in their passion, he'd never get her out here again, he thought. "Hell no, they couldn't have!"
He brought one foot under him and straightened, holding Ruth tightly around the waist, and moved away from the railing. He tiptoed across the veranda into the deeper shadows against the house, listening closely to the passing footsteps. He waited for them to recede, but he realized suddenly that they were approaching.
"Damn!" he exclaimed under his breath.
He felt Ruth's legs, now wrapped around him, drop along his, and she slid slowly off his softening penis. He grunted and lowered her from it until her feet touched the floor. She backed free of him, and he watched her shadowy figure while she bent to retrieve her robe. He reached for his own, drawing it around his shoulders and feeling for the sleeves. As he pulled it over his nakedness, the footsteps reached the foot of the steep stairs of the porch: he could make out two dim figures. He walked to the head of the steps.
A man's voice called out softly. "Anyone home up there? We thought we heard voices."
Who the hell could it be? Dave asked himself. Nosy goddamned people! A guy ought to be able to have some privacy clear out here! That was why we came here.
He waited, listening to the feet that climbed the stairs and watching the figures become solid-a big guy and a woman about Ruth's size.
At the head of the stairs the couple paused. They peered through the darkness at Dave, and then at Ruth. The man chuckled softly.
"You own this place?" the man asked.
"Yes," replied Dave. "I'm Dave Blanchard. This is my wife Ruth. Wait a minute, I'll turn on the light."
"Don't do that. You'll have all the bugs on the mountain gathering here."
Dave laughed. "That's why we were in the dark, to tell you the truth."
The strange woman laughed, and her voice had a softness to it-and a love of life-that grabbed Dave's guts and twisted them into a trembling knot.
"Sure it is," she said. "We're in the next cabin, over that way." She gestured along the slope toward the south. "We like to go for hikes in the evenings ... especially when the weather's as hot as it has been this week."
The man spoke up. "Dave, we're the Andrews. I'm Andy and this is Cora."
"Andy Andrews?" Dave extended his hand.
Andy grasped it and chuckled again.
"Well, it's really Gabriel Andrews, but I lick anyone who calls me that, so most people stick with Andy."
Ruth moved to Dave's side.
"Won't you come inside?" she asked. "It isn't much hotter in there, and we could turn on the lights and have a beer."
"No, hon," Cora said. "If the air does stir, we'll get the benefit out here."
"Well, let me bring the beer anyhow," suggested Ruth. "Why don't you help me, Dave? You could get out some pretzels."
"Good thinking, hon. Andy, you and Cora sit down. We'll be with you in a minute."
"We'll just do that. Thanks."
In the tiny kitchen, Ruth turned on the light and opened the refrigerator. She got out four cans of beer and Dave rummaged in the cupboard until he found the pretzels.
"Dave, I know they must have heard us. I just know it!"
"Naw. I don't think so. Not well enough to know what we were doing."
"Don't you suppose they'd think wearing robes out there was unusual?"
Dave shrugged. "They might. On the other hand, why not wear robes, if you're just going out for a last look at the night before turning in?"
"Okay. You win." Ruth laughed. "Why don't you take this stuff out? I'd like to spend a minute in the bathroom before I go back out."
Dave carried the tray outside. Andy and Cora sat on the glider; it creaked as they swung slowly to and fro in it. Dave extended the tray.
"I always did envy the Sparkmans," Cora told him. "I've tried for three years to get Andy to have one of these made for our place."
Dave chuckled. "It was one of the main attractions for us."
"Buying the place or renting?" asked Andy.
"We bought it. That hot spell in Phoenix made up our minds for us." Dave shook his head. "Today, I decided we'd made a mistake."
"We don't have many days like today. Maybe three or four a year."
"I hope not. I'd put the cabin back on the market tomorrow if I thought it was going to stay like this."
Cora protested. "You couldn't do that! You haven't even met the neighbors yet!"
"No offense, Mrs. Andrews, but we didn't buy the cabin for the neighbors."
"No. None of us did. But it turns out that they're a real bonus."
"How's that?"
"They're nice people-all of them. They don't bother each other, but they've turned out to be the very best."
Ruth came out, taking her beer from the tray and settling into the chair next to Dave's.
"What's this about people?" she asked.
"They were telling me about what nice people the other owners up here have turned out to be." Dave growled.
Ruth laughed gently. "Don't mind Dave too much," she warned the Andrews. "He mostly hates people."
"How come?" Andy sounded interested.
"Rotten goddamned species," Dave muttered. "Greedy, selfish, back-stabbing bastards, for the most part."
"Man! You sound like you've got a first class hard-on against the whole race!"
"I have. When you grow up where I did-in the slums-and then find out that the ones with money are just as bad, except that they're sneakier about it, you don't build up much fondness for humans."
"Hell, I didn't figure people in the slums were bad. I just figured they were broke!"
"Hell, I didn't say they were bad. I'm just saying they have to look out for themselves-any way they can! Somehow, I thought people with enough to eat could afford to be different. But they're not; they're brutal, and they do it with smug, self-righteous smirks on their goddamned faces." Dave stopped with an effort, then mumbled. "Sorry. Didn't mean to get carried away."
"No sweat. This country's-likely to make a guy open up, Dave. It's too much space for a guy to feel like keeping himself buttoned up." Andy gave the glider an extra hard push, and its creaking grew louder. "You're a long way from those slums now. It took more than pocket change to pick up this cabin."
Dave hesitated. Andy's comment was an invitation to open up even more, but his instincts rejected the impulse to respond fully. He compromised. "The people I grew up among had one big disadvantage," he said. "They didn't know how to cover up what they felt. I found out that if I could get an education and learn to be a hypocrite, I could play the game just as well as those bastards from the suburbs. Better, it turned out ... maybe that was because I drove harder or wanted more ... maybe it's just because I hate people."
Cora interrupted. "Ruth, is he really the ogre he tries to sound like?" She laughed. "I just don't quite believe all I'm hearing."
"Well, he's really quite nice. He is anti-social, but he's sweet under that crusty shell."
"His heart isn't made of stone, then." "Not his heart."
Dave winced, and he thought that he heard Cora gasp. It would have been difficult to put more than one interpretation on Ruth's remark, and the tone of her voice had removed any doubt that might have lingered. And yet that was not like Ruth. . . making suggestive cracks in front of strangers. That left a person too vulnerable, Dave reflected ... you could never tell what kind of people you were dealing with, and why give them an edge?
But Cora didn't seem to be too much shaken by the implication. She continued. "He sounds rather nice, the way you describe him. I'd guess you don't run too hard when he starts chasing you."
Ruth giggled. "I can always find something convenient to trip over."
Dave changed the subject. "How much time do the owners spend in their cabins up here?" he asked Andy.
"Some of them can't make much time for it," Andy replied. "Those who can are up here quite a bit. Cora and I expect to stay until the middle of September, this year."
"Another six weeks? How long have you been here so far?"
"We came up the third week in May."
"Christ, man! How do you get the time!"
"I don't, really ... not as a regular thing. I managed to wrap up a big deal in early May, though, and I just decided to take three or four months off before going back into things. Actually, I hadn't meant to take that long, but after we got up here ... well, the neighbors and things ... anyhow, we stretched it out some."
"We sure did!" Cora's exclamation was rich in contentment and pleasure. "I wish it'd never end!"
2
Ruth loved the cabin. It had what she needed for the limited housekeeping that she felt had to be done, but it was simple enough to keep that minimum very small. She loved the intimacy of the woods, and she often stayed at the cabin while Dave went off on his long explorations. She got to know the habits of the small creatures that made the trees their home, and there was no time when she could look out of a window and not find the drama of life unfolding before her.
It was natural that she should find it easier to adapt than Dave did, she supposed. She had grown up in a family where camping was one of the important activities in life, and she knew better than Dave that mountains were not greatly different from any other kind of terrain in their changeable moods. She wished that there was some way to share her past with Dave so that he could fill in the terrible voids in his experience. Telepathy would have been ideal, she had often thought; it was too bad that man could not unlock the secrets of its use.
It would have been hopeless if they had found communication the problem that most of their acquaintances did. She was quietly thankful for the fact that Dave found it easy to talk with her. But it was none too easy, even at that. There was the matter of language. How two people could use words out of the same dictionary and still have such different concepts of their meanings was beyond her. She knew that there were people who studied that question, and she had a hazy notion of the link between concept and word, but theory seemed to have little practical use when it came to arriving at a single interpretation of a phrase with Dave. In such instances-and they were not rare-it was a matter of determination and perseverance.
She found herself agreeing with the Andrews about the neighbors. The people who owned-and were now staying in-the nearby cabins were special. They were certainly no cross-section of the outside world, she realized. They were warm and understanding, and they appeared to have no desire to probe for weaknesses. It was as if they were strong enough not to need to identify the shortcomings in others to gain security. Her parents would have liked them-all of them-although she was now convinced that the codes that these new friends lived by were significantly different from that of her family.
There was an openness in the mountain conversation that she found exhilarating at the same time as she was shocked by it. Whenever two or more of the couples got together, the subject of sex seemed to come up. She had to admit that it did not dominate the discussions, but it was sure to be touched on. And the general attitude was one of relaxed, pleasurable acceptance. Sex-the overall feeling seemed to be-was fun and natural, and one would be a fool not to refer to it when it was pertinent.
She rather suspected that some of these couples were quietly engaging in more than talk. Repeatedly, she intercepted exchanges of glances between men and women who were not married to each other-glances that held more familiarity and rapport than hikes and community barbecues and the frequent evening poker games would be-likely to engentler. But that very familiarity was puzzling, for it seemed to be recognized by everyone, and she had seen no evidence of resentment of jealousy or discomfort. Certainly, the comments on sex were candid and specific. They had embarrassed her at first, but she had gotten over that by now, and when she was alone she wondered how she could have become so nonchalant about the frankness with which she, herself, had come to treat the topic-especially in mixed company.
She found herself mildly amused at the fact that she had adjusted faster than Dave. Worldly as he was, it had taken him longer than it had her to fall into the carefree mental habits of their neighbors. When he finally had-and she smiled ruefully at the thought-there had been no halfway measures. From that moment, he had become as casual as-if not more blunt than-their most outspoken acquaintances. Nor was he above caressing a cute behind from time to time, Ruth added to herself. It would probably be only a matter of time before he would forget himself and reach out to test one of the more appealing boobs in the crowd, for that matter. The curious thing was that she could not imagine such an action arousing much protest from anyone, even the husband of whatever woman happened to receive the gesture.
It was strange-this new permissiveness-but she liked it. And it seemed to be affecting her relationship with Dave. There was no question but that they were sexually more active. There had to be a lot of contributing factors, she admitted, but the community spirit was not one of the lesser ones.
She glanced at the old-fashioned clock on the mantle and realized that she should be thinking about the get-together that they were to attend tonight. It was unusual for adults to plan a costume party, but here she was, willing to accept it as natural. Cora had made it all sound very daring when she had invited Ruth and Dave. Ruth tried to remember Cora's words, picturing herself on the veranda with Cora, with that sudden shower making a curtain between them and the trees. She had made some comment-some expression of disbelief-when Cora had brought up the costumes, and Cora had giggled.
"All right," Cora had said. "So it's kid stuff. So what? We play up here! We have fun, and that's what vacations are all about!"
"But a masquerade! Disguises!"
"Tell me, honey, how do you like the rest of us, now that you know us?"
Ruth smiled. "That's not a fair question. What am I supposed to say?"
"Well, forget about Andy and me. What about the Kings and the Dormans and the Vedders?"
"Well, I'm afraid you and Andy were right that first night. The neighbors are a real bonus. If a club could guarantee that all of its members were like these people, we'd pay what the cabin cost just to join!"
"Exactly. Not a deadhead in the bunch. So a masquerade."
"With identical costumes and masks that will really make it impossible to tell who's who?"
"Right. We don't want any of the men to know which woman is his-or any of the women to know which guy is which."
"You'd be in trouble if the men were very much different in size."
"Maybe we just lucked out. They're all about the same height. And none of the women really stands out as unique in build, cither." Cora giggled. "We're all pretty good."
"And ready to tell anyone," added Ruth with a grin.
"Well ... maybe not just anyone. Anyhow, are you and Dave game?"
"I guess so. He's going to be a little edgy about the design of the costumes, though. He's still a little conservative about modesty, you know."
"He's not above a little grab-ass now and then!" Cora laughed. "He got hold of my behind the other day, and for a minute, I wondered if he meant to lay me right there."
"He does take liberties. Of course, he's hardly alone in that."
"I know. Fun, isn't it."
Thinking back to the conversation now, Ruth had to agree that it was. A month before, she would have been offended if any man besides Dave had paused to caress her bottom. She would have made a federal case of it if he had given her belly a quick, passing stroke, and Dave would more than-likely have sent the guy to the hospital. But they had somehow changed, and it was fun. She went into the bedroom and laid out their costumes.
They were simple and functional, except for the masks. Andy must have laid out a small fortune for those, buying them for all five couples. She remembered her disbelief when they had insisted on making casts of her head-and Dave's-before ordering the masks. But when they were delivered, she had understood why. Each was a shell that covered the head completely. Inside, the soft, pliable coverings were molded to the facial contours of the owner. Outside, some absolute genius had fashioned one face for the men and one for the women, and his models had to be among the most attractive people in circulation. Cora maintained that he had used models-male and female-for the features, and Ruth believed her. But the most amazing thing was that the heads looked as natural as they did.
She and Dave had tried theirs on the day that they were delivered, and it had been uncanny. Later they had experimented, putting on the masks and then undressing, and she had shivered at the illusion she had of being naked in a room with a stranger. Of course, they had finally had to make love in the disguises, and she had been unable to shake off the feeling that she was in bed with a man she had never met. Only the fact that he was such a good-looking guy and had such a warm smile had enabled her to follow through with him.
The covering was unbelievably thin, in spite of its effectiveness at changing her appearance. She could feel a touch through it as well as she could without it. It was going to be a strange evening.
She undressed and bathed, and she was in her costume and had her robe over it before Dave got back from his hike. He showered and dressed, and she felt again the tight excitement at the way the brief garments emphasized his body. With the women's costumes revealing as much as they did, she and Dave would get home from the party in a frenzy of lust, she knew. And none of the other couples would be any better off, she suspected.
At five, she put aside her robe, and they left the cabin for the Andrews'. It was warm again, and from the feel of the air, it would stay that way. But Ruth did not resent the fact the way she had the first day here. Instead, she breathed deeply of the pitch fumes and relished the sensation of warmth on her skin.
The Andrews' cabin was similar to Dave and Ruth's, in that its space was devoted primarily to a huge living room. There was a fireplace that dominated the north end of the room, and the floor was two-thirds covered with furs. When Dave and Ruth arrived, Andy was starting to move the furs, piling them in empty spaces next to the walls.
"For dancing room," he explained with a grunt, as Dave lent a hand.
It was uncanny, Ruth thought, to walk in and find the host and hostess indistinguishable from Dave and her. Within fifteen minutes, the remaining three couples came in, and suddenly Ruth discovered that she had lost Dave. There was no shortage of men-there were five of them, all right-but they were identical, for all intents and purposes. She felt a moment's panic, and she sensed a similar reaction among the other women as they circulated from man to man, searching for some clue. But the men appeared to recognize the element of humor in the situation, and they limited themselves to grunts and chuckles, refusing to identify themselves.
Someone-Ruth assumed that it was Andy, but she was not sure-started the record player, and there was music to dance to. One of the women-and again Ruth had to guess that it was her hostess-gestured toward the bar in an obvious invitation to the guests, and there was a period of confused activity while drinks were mixed.
One of the men approached Ruth, and she caught herself wondering if Dave had somehow recognized her. But when he spoke, she knew that he had not.
"Dance?" he asked.
"Love to," she responded.
She went into his arms, holding her drink to one side, and they moved into the middle of the room. She was powerfully conscious of his body against hers, and she gasped at the sensation. The costume she wore was of a plastic fabric, consisting of a pleated mini-skirt and two broad swatches of material coming down over her breasts to the waist. Cora had asked the women to leave their bras at home, and Ruth had agreed that the cut of the costume top made such a garment impractical. But now the contact with this man, through the clinging material, was disturbingly erotic.
Near them, one of the women squealed, and Ruth and her partner turned to stare. The woman was laughing shakily, and Ruth saw that the man who danced with her had his hand on her behind, massaging her buttocks with considerable warmth. Ruth gasped at the open display, then started convulsively as her partner seized her own bottom.
"After all!" she exclaimed.
"Nice," he remarked, his voice neutral. "Nice little ass."
"Please!" And then she hesitated. If she' made just a little effort, she thought she could penetrate the disguise in his voice. It did sound a little like Dave, and she giggled, relieved to have found him out in his prank. How he had identified her, she had no idea, but he was obviously teasing her.
She leaned into him as they danced, rubbing her breasts against him and pressing her lower abdomen against his groin until she could feel a bulge forming inside his costume. She would give back some of his own medicine, she thought. She chuckled at the thought of his embarrassment when they were to change partners.
When the music stopped, there was a shuffling of partners, and she relinquished "Dave" with a loving peck on the neck. Her new partner studied her figure with close attention, giving her an approving grunt, and a tight knot formed in her belly. His grunt was one that she had heard many times in the past, and she wondered in panic whose belly she had been rubbing against during the preceding record. She gave herself up to Dave happily, finishing her drink and setting the glass aside. She felt his hands exploring her body, but feeling secure in her disguise-certain that no one would be able to tell who the woman was who had been so outrageously "felt up" on the floor, she made no objection. She felt her excitement grow, and she pressed close, her sensations centering around the hard lump that lay between her belly and his. She blew softly into his ear, giggling when he shivered and groped harder with his hands. When the music stopped again, she whispered to him.
"Oooh! If that piece had lasted much longer, we'd have had to slip outside of here for awhile!"
"Why not go anyhow, babe?"
Babe! The term exploded inside her, and cold sweat broke out on her skin. Dave hated that expression, and she had seen his face darken and his fists clench on hearing it. Her skin prickled with the memory of the roving hands, and she backed away. She lost the man in the immediate confusion, and another swept her into his embrace.
"Hot!" her new partner muttered. "Too goddamned hot in here!"
This was Dave, she told herself. There was that underlying rasp beneath his voice that she loved so. She snuggled to him and crooned her agreement.
"Fun, though, isn't it," she commented.
"Yes."
She rubbed against him, renewing the glow that her other partner had brought her, and she sighed contentedly when he responded by playing his hands over her body. She noticed that the other couples were similarly engaged, and two of the men had actually slipped a hand inside a top for more intimate contact. She made no objection when Dave reached inside her top and cupped his hand over her breast. Her breath came in short gasps as the thrill of the massage washed over her, and she squirmed and whispered encouragement. The third selection ended too soon for her, and she clung to Dave for a moment, but she released him when another of the men claimed her, and she watched him sentimentally while he made his way to another of the women.
"Goddamn!" Her new partner whispered. "Smorgasbord!"
Again she felt a thrill of horror. No one pronounced that word exactly the way Dave did, and the man who now held her had to be her husband! She choked.
"My God!" she exclaimed as the truth burst over her. "This is terrible!"
"What's that, baby?"
"You're the fourth man I've darned with-unless I'm getting repeats-and each time, I ... I ... oh, no!"
"You think it's your husband?"
"Yes!"
He chuckled and rubbed his palm on her behind. "Nice, isn't it."
"No! I've been ... oh dear! It's so embarrassing!"
"Cora planned it that way, of course," he said. "It means no one will ever be able to point to you and say that you did such and such."
"Oh, dear! I don't know what to do! Dave, I just don't know what to do!"
"Well, relax and enjoy it for now."
He kissed her, and they gave up all pretense of dancing as he bent her back and felt for her breast under her costume. She squeezed his shoulders as his fingers played with her nipple, and she closed her eyes when he bent forward to nibble at her neck. His lips moved downward along the skin between the halves of her costume top, and then he pushed the material aside and took her nipple in his mouth.
"No! My God, don't! Not right in front of everyone!"
But he continued, and she tensed with excitement and saw that two other couples were in the same stage of play. She relaxed and concentrated on the pleasure that his gentle sucking gave her, aware of a sense of wicked daring and thankful for the anonymity of the mask.
When the music stopped, she ignored the quiet, moaning softly at the insistence of the eager lips. She was panting heavily, and she failed to react immediately when Dave let her go as another man slid his arm behind her back and bent his head to continue the sucking. Then she gasped and pushed, but something about the tilt of the head that was now fastened to her breast made her pause. She groaned and shut her eyes.
Again, she was sure that she was with Dave. It was horribly clear to her that there was at least one trait in each of the men here that was like Dave. She could convince herself with each of them that she was with Dave, and she admitted to herself that, even with him, she would-likely discover some action-if she looked for it-that she did not recognize. She was with five Daves-or none, depending on how she chose to react-and all five were excited and exciting. She gave up the effort to protect herself from familiarities by other women's husbands, letting her hip press inward against this man's bulge and yielding to the stimulus of his hard-sucking mouth.
Her nipple was stiff and swollen now, and it sent a continuous jangle of desire flooding through her. She felt her partner's hand stroking her other breast and sliding upward to her shoulder, and she was conscious of the fact that he was pushing her costume off her shoulder. She shivered with excitement as he slid the cloth down over her arm, but she made no protest, and he quickly repeated the process with the other side. The top of her costume hung like two sashes from her waistband, and she stood in his grasp, naked to the waist, as he moved his mouth to her other breast.
Glancing about, she discovered that three of the other women were in the same state of undress as she, and even as she looked, the fourth couple joined the semi-nudity. Her partner took her to the side of the room and pressed her down onto one of the piles of furs. His hand stole upward along her thigh as his mouth once more closed on her breast, and she clutched at his shoulders in a fog of passion.
He raised his head and smiled at her, gazing into her eyes. She returned the smile and raised her lips to his. His tongue darted along her lips and then drove deeply into her mouth; and she swallowed and sucked on it, staring at his face. The icy blue of his eyes seemed to warm, taking on the sparkle of the sea under a hot sun. She tensed and arched her body. Dave's eyes were brown! But his hand reached the top of her thigh, and she persuaded herself that another moment or two of his embrace would harm nothing. She pushed her mouth harder to his, crushing his lips over his teeth, and she felt her breath coming in short, hard puffs. Her partner drew back from the kiss, chuckling softly.
"Good!" she whispered. "Oh, this is good!"
3
Dave grinned as he saw the other couples abandon the dancing space for piles of fur rugs. The girl in his arms trailed her finger down his neck and then back up to the point of his jaw and tentatively wiggled her belly against his.
"Am I boring you, darling?" she asked.
He stared into her eyes, still grinning.
"Not at all. Y'know how it is when a kid opens a present?"
"I remember. In fact, I don't think I've changed when it comes to something like that."
"Neither have I. As a kid, I didn't gel to open many presents. When I did have one, I made it last ... milked every drop of pleasure from it."
"And?"
"And tonight's like opening one of the most exciting presents I've ever gotten. I'm making the most of it; that's all."
"Oh. Well, you haven't got it open, yet."
"Of course not! Only an ass would jerk the wrappings off all at once!"
"Oh, sure. So you've just peeled the top of the box so far."
"I see you're getting all the kicks you can from watching the other kids unwrap their packages."
"Yeah, What I haven't figured out yet is, just how far is the unwrapping going to go?"
"I have a feeling about that."
"What kind of feeling?"
"A hopeful one. We'll probably go just as far as the most uninhibited couple pushes it."
"With the rest following along because they don't know whether their husband or wife is one of the daring ones."
"Right. Look, whatever-your-name-is, how about giving me something to call you besides 'stud'? I never did like to shack up with a guy until I knew his name."
"Well, why don't you call me Dave?"
"Dave? But there's a real Dave in the group. Oh! Are you Dave Blanchard?"
"I'm not going to tell you that."
"But you oughtn't to be using a real name."
"Hell, he wouldn't care. Not when I'm doing things to something as nice as you are!"
"Flattery. Dave, that's going to get you just about anything that's to be had."
"That's good. What am I going to call you when I thank you?"
"Well, let's see ... How about Sue?"
"like you said, there's Sue King."
"And like you said, she wouldn't mind. Besides, I always did like the name."
Dave chuckled. He had no idea who "Sue" was. She was damned well not Ruth; she was just about the same size, but there was a difference of a few pounds-with this girl not quite so full in her curves as Ruth. The thought was a stimulating one, although he was conscious of an uncomfortable tightness in his belly when he watched other men handling their partners and knew that one of those women was his wife.
He bent his head to Sue's breast and drew it into his mouth, cradling the nipple on the back of his tongue and pressing it against the roof of his mouth. She gave a low, strangled cry and jerked against his face, her fingernails digging into his shoulders.
"Good God, Dave!" she exclaimed. "Don't pull it off! I've grown fond of it!"
"Mmph!" he mumbled. He moved his jaw in a gentle chewing manner, and his teeth slid over the spongy flesh. He turned her body and caressed her outthrust belly, his fingers dipping under her waistband with each stroke.
She moaned softly and her hands eased their grip on his shoulders to fondle his neck. He suddenly noticed a patch of golden-brown pigmentation beside the aureole on the other breast, and he realized that it was a recognition feature-if he ever saw this woman's breasts again. He had a strong suspicion that he would, for the evening's activities now appeared beautifully planned to result in a general orgy. He sensed that the intent was to break the ice for a neighborhood sex circle, and he was surprised to find the idea as agreeable as it was to him.
"Dave..."
"Hm?" He refused to release the breast from his mouth.
"There's a pile of rugs over there that no one's on."
There ought to be, he thought. It was clear now why Andy had dumped the furs in five piles. Dave picked the girl up and carried her toward the unoccupied pile, her breast still in his mouth. He dropped to his knees and lowered her to the fur, going down over her. His hand, under the backs of her knees, pushed upward on her thighs, her skirt riding before it to her hips.
"Careful!" She admonished him. "No one else has gone that far yet!"
"They're working on it," he replied.
She rolled her head, turning her face away.
"All right," she whispered. "They're not looking at us, anyway."
Her hands roamed over him, and her body twisted restlessly beneath his caresses. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted, and she made small, sighing sounds as he continued to mouth her breast and tease the nipple.
"Do the other one, Dave," she said at last. "Do the other one, please!"
He released her breast, noting its reddened hue and the way it glistened from its coat of saliva, and sucked the other into the cavern of his mouth. She had smaller boobs than Ruth, he reflected. He would never have been able to get all of one of Ruth's breasts into his mouth. But this girl's nipples weren't small-not for her size! They stood out proudly: firm and dark and erect-after his mouth play.
She had drawn her heels back against her buttocks, and her knees rocked to one side, then the other, as he continued to brush his palm along the backs of her thighs, between the tops of her stockings and the edge of her panties. He released her breast and began to kiss her belly, moving his lips from spot to spot in a random pattern. She arched her back, lifting it off the fur, and gasped.
"Oh, that's good! It feels like fire, every time your lips touch me!"
Dave's right hand slid from the backs of her thighs to the fullness of her crotch, rubbing the soft flesh through her panties, and he pressed inward at the forward end of the damp folds to flatten her clitoris. She jerked convulsively, straightening her legs and shunting his hand away from the sensitive area. Dave chuckled and twirled his tongue in her navel while he placed his hand on the bare skin at the top of the fronts of her thighs. He moved his fingers to her crotch again, feeling the matted hair under the material of her pants and rolling her pulpy flesh against her pubic arch. He felt the stiffer finger of tissue that was her clitoris, and he pushed it hack and forth while she bucked with her hips.
She reached down to pull her skirt over her exposed hips, and Dave slid his hand upward to the top edge of her panties. Bikinis! he thought. Goddamn! Bikinis!
He abandoned the idea of slipping her panties off under her skirt. Sooner or later, by God, she would be excited enough to let him finish undressing her, and he wanted to see her in those bikinis without her skirt! He contented himself with sliding his hand inside the front of the wisp of material and worked his fingers gradually through the tangled hair of her mound.
He curved them around the lower surface of her mound into the embrace of the pulsing lips, guiding them between the slick, wet surfaces to the floor of the crevice. He felt her thighs tighten, and she clutched at his wrist, but he leaned back toward her and covered her mouth with his. She gulped at his tongue, then drove hers past it into his mouth, probing at the arch of his throat. One of her arms slipped around his neck, and her other hand groped at his belly, moving quickly to his imprisoned penis. She inserted her fingers into his waistband and tried to push her hand inside his pants, but she could not. She writhed and groaned her protest, and he felt her fingers fumbling for the fasteners. Then, suddenly, she had opened the fly and had the hot shaft of his penis in her hand. She slid her hand up the shaft to the head, cupping it in her palm and caressing its rim with her fingertips.
Dave stiffened, and he sucked furiously at her tongue. He pulled his fingers back, loaded with her viscous juices, and isolated the tip of her clitoris. He slid them in circles on its tiny surface, and her hand clamped onto the head of his penis with a convulsive squeeze. He continued to massage her hardening little organ, and her body rolled from side to side. She tented her knees again and her thighs snapped apart, then jerked together: her behind bounced up and down on the furs.
"Oh, Dave! Omigod, Dave! Wait a minute!" She paused, and her breath hissed in and out. "Wait a minute! WAIT!"
He withdrew his hand, and she lay against him, panting hard.
"Oh, God! I almost came! Oh, Dave!"
His fingers found the catch at the side of her skirt, and he unfastened it. There were three more, he discovered by touch, and he undid each of them. Slowly and gently, he worked the waist of the skirt down on her hips, and she lifted her bottom into the air while he pulled the cloth under it.
"We shouldn't," she mumbled. "Dave, we shouldn't!"
But she made no move to resist, and he pushed the skirt off over her feet. Her stockings must have those new tops that don't need garters, Dave told himself, observing that there was a generous expanse of bare thigh between her stockings and her bikinis. There was also a tuft of blonde hair showing beyond the edge of the bikinis' crotch, he noted. She sure as hell wasn't Ruth!
Her panties were sheer-a narrow band of nylon that passed across her belly, below the faint crease that divided belly from mound-and they had dozens of tiny pleats. Her pubic hair peeped over the top as it did out the sides, and it pushed the thin material up in a springy bulge over her mound. He touched the crotch of the garment and found it wet with her fluid.
Her breathing had quieted, and he bent again to kiss her nipples. He ran his hand under the panties and dipped his fingers into her swollen sex lips, spreading her juices and massaging the quivering flesh. She began to writhe again, and she flung her legs apart with a groan.
"Look what you're making me do," she said with a pout of desire. "Just look!"
He raised his head and studied her again.
"Don't, damn it!" She caught at his head with her hands and pulled his face back to her breasts.
"But you said..."
"Hell, I know what I said! That doesn't mean I meant it! Oh, darling, you're driving me out of my mind! You're going to pull my clit out by the roots!"
"I don't think so. I'm not really pulling at it."
"Oh, God! Then it's going to pull itself loose! Love me, darling! Love me!"
She groped for his penis, and both her hands closed over it.
"Oh, darling! He feels so big and so hot! I love him to death!"
Dave glanced over his shoulder. Across the room, one couple was already naked. The woman was thrashing wildly, and the man was working furiously at her widely opened sex lips. Two other couples were nearly as active, with both women undressed and the men massaging them furiously.
On his own side of the room, the last couple had progressed to approximately the point where he and "Sue" had.
He ran his fingers over the surfaces of Sue's vulva lips and into the valley between them, touching the rim of the mouth of her vagina. She drew a deep, shuddering gulp of air and began to stroke his penis. He ran his finger around her rim, tingling at the scalloped feel of the firm tissue, then pushed inward. She arched toward him, and her legs splayed wider.
"Oh! Oh!" She grunted and raised her knees. "Deeper, Dave!"
He thrust the finger in to the last knuckle and twirled it around the inside of her barrel, rubbing its tip against the folded walls. She groaned and bore down.
"Good, good!" she exclaimed. "Don't stop, darling!"
His thumb settled against the side of her clitoris, and he began to massage her with it. She gasped, then panted hard and stroked his penis faster. He found his own breath coming in deep, hoarse pants, and he knew that he could not tolerate much more of the masturbation.
"Hold it, for Christ's sake!" he exclaimed. "You want me to come in your hand?"
"Oh, no, darling! Please don't!"
"Take it easy then!"
"I'm sorry ... I didn't realize what I was doing!" She puffed. "How can I tell what I'm doing when you're doing that!"
His thumb continued to massage, and the frenzy of her motion steadily increased. Suddenly, she thrust herself upward, arching between her heels and her shoulders, and a tremor seized her.
"Stop! God in heaven, stop! I'm ... I'm...! "
Dave moved his thumb away from her clitoris, and she settled back to the furs, her hips oscillating gently and the mouth of her vagina clamping on his finger in an irregular rhythm.
"Oh-h-h!" She shuddered. "Oh, Dave! That was so close!"
He pulled his finger out of her and pushed her panties over the curve of her hips. She pulled her legs together, drawing up her knees while he worked the flimsy garment over her thighs.
"What'll they think?" she whispered. "What'll they think?"
"I don't think they're going to know for a while," replied Dave. "They're pretty busy!"
"Dave ... while they're busy ... Dave...? "
"Yeah?"
"Dave, put him in for just a minute ... while they're too busy to notice ... Oh, I want him in for a minute ... so much!"
She lowered her left knee, and Dave scooted over it into the saddle between her thighs. The head of his penis settled into her soft tissues, and he felt it probe at her love mouth.
"Yes! Oh, yes, Dave! Now ... push!"
She rotated her crotch upward against the stiffness of his penis, and he surged toward her, driving his bulging head through the resisting rim, into her cavity.
"Oh! Oh!" She gasped. "Oh, yeah! That's right! Keep pushing!"
He leaned inward, and he felt her inner folds gulp his entering shaft, drawing it in until the head struck taut tissue. Sue bucked, and her hips began a rhythmic humping motion.
"Slide it in and out for a minute, darling," she whispered. "Just for a minute!"
He stroked his penis in her, knowing that they were not going to stop until they had completed their orgasms. She clutched at him, her hands jerking spasmodically, and she caught his shoulder flesh between her teeth. He pumped steadily, feeling the tautness at the inner end of her passage gradually relax until at last she had swallowed his entire penis. His brush crushed hers, and with each deep stroke, he felt her flesh flatten under his thrust. She met him, blow for blow, and her thighs fell away from his.
She released the skin on his shoulder and whispered. "Dave! Oh, Dave! I'm getting there! Stop! Oh, God, stop!" Then, when he paused in his pumping, "No! Oh, no, darling! Don't stop yet! Not just yet!"
Her belly tensed against his, and she ran her hands down his back to his buttocks, digging her nails in and jerking his body against hers in a wild flurry of motion.
"Harder!" she demanded. "Harder, darling! Faster! Oh, darling, just for a minute longer!"
He felt a fist closing on his prostate, and he jammed himself against her grinding crotch. She cried out softly, and her hips surged frantically as her body stiffened.
Searing spurts of semen jetted through his penis, burning him as they spewed out into the depths of her passage, and he felt a sudden burst of contractions at the mouth of her vagina, as if she were trying to force his fluid into herself faster. She pressed herself up against him, her body trembling and flinching with each contraction, and then she began to subside. She sagged into the furs, and he collapsed onto her, gulping for air. Their bellies molded together through their sweat, and there was a thick layer of sweat where her arms went around him.
"Darling! Oh, darling!" she whispered. "Were we the only ones? Oh, God! What did we do?"
"We did all right, baby," he said. "And we weren't the only ones." He looked at the other couples quickly. "We just finished first."
"Oooh! They're all going?"
"All, baby."
"Then it's all right. Hold me darling. Please? Oh, Dave, I love you almost as much as ... I mean, almost as much as my husband."
Dave slipped his arm under her and held her to him.
"You're all right, baby," he said. "You're all right."
4
Gradually the sounds of puffing and grunting and moaning died away, and the five couples lay quietly locked together on their separate piles of fur. There were whispered conversations and an occasional quiet chuckle, and at last the woman on the pile next to Dave and Sue wriggled out from under her partner and staggered into the other room. She returned with an armload of towels, and Dave smiled at the thought that he was able at least to identify Cora.
She dropped towels beside each couple, and they began to stir and sit up. Dave studied the bodies, fascinated by the similarities and searching for betraying differences. It irked him not to be able to pick out Ruth, and he tried desperately to recall some distinguishing marking on her body. He promised himself that he would find one the next time they were together. One other girl besides Sue had blonde pubic hair, while the brushes of the other three were dark. He grinned. Ruth was the only one of the five women whose normally visible hair was dark. Two of the other four depended on dye.
He was relieved to find that there were no tired breasts in the crowd; each of the five women had proud, full breasts and with little sag. He reached over to caress Sue's, and she twisted back from his touch.
"Hey!" she exclaimed. "Fresh!"
Dave laughed. "I was just thinking how nice it is that none of you carry hound's ears around," he remarked.
"Nor melons, I see," she replied.
"Nope. No silicone here."
"Darling, if you knew what was going to happen, would you go to a party like this?" "A sex party?" "Yes."
"I wouldn't have. Not before tonight." He paused and considered his answer, wondering. "Well, I don't think so, anyway."
"Would you now?"
"Yeah, if it was run like this ... masks and all." "You don't want to know who I am?"
"Well, I didn't really say that. Yeah, I'd like to know. I like you!"
"But if you're going to make love in public, you'd rather not have people recognize you."
"Would you?"
"God! I'd die of embarrassment! Some of the things I do when I'm that worked up!"
"Sex isn't a goddamned ballet! I didn't notice any of the other broads acting very prim!"
"You looked!"
"Hell, yes! Didn't you?"
"I guess I was too busy."
"Hmm. Well, they were making a big deal out of it. You were pretty subdued, compared to a couple of them."
"Was I too subdued, darling?"
"No. You're great. What say we start all over?"
"Not now! Goodness!"
"Why not?"
"Because I'm hungry! I thought we were going to have supper here."
"We are. At least, that's what Andy and Cora said."
"Well, I'm not going to do any more hard exercise until I've had a meal."
"Right now," replied the woman he had taken to be Cora. "But let's get the rest of our clothes off-those who have any left on."
She rolled her stockings down and pulled them off her feet. There was a moment's hesitation, then everyone who was not already naked followed her example. One of the men began to tug at his mask, arousing a chorus of protests.
"Let's keep the masks on," suggested Cora. "They won't interfere with our eating, and they might save embarrassment."
They trooped into the kitchen, and she ladled stew into deep, divided dishes, then pointed out a covered pan of hot rolls. Watching the women eat, Dave was sure that he could tell which was Ruth. He kept track of her as she moved about; as soon as they had finished, he would slip over to her. But in the confusion of getting the dishes into the soapy water afterward, he knew that he had lost sight of her, and he contented himself with circulating, resigned to the fact that she had once more become anonymous.
One of the men grabbed a woman and dragged her back into the living room, avoiding her kicking and clawing. She squealed and laughed, and the rest of the party followed them. In the living room, the man released her and flung himself onto a pile of rugs.
"I move a vote of thanks to the Andrews for coming up with this party," he said. "Second!" cried someone.
There was a roar of "ayes". The reclining man, whom Dave mentally dubbed "Balls" for adequate reason, nodded.
"There were no 'nays', " he announced. "The vote is unanimous. Thanks to the Andrews, whichever ones you are!"
A second man, leaner than the rest and with somewhat less hair on his chest, looked about and spoke up.
"I agree. This is a hell of a lot of fun. I think we ought to think about doing it more often."
"I'd like that," said one of the women. "That is, if we could keep using the masks."
"They get hot," objected Dave.
"Maybe so, but I'd hate to have the rest of you know who I was when I started to get excited."
The other women joined her in her sentiments.
Dave chuckled. "I guess masks aren't much of a price to pay for this kind of sport," he conceded.
The woman who had won her point crossed to the furs that "Balls" lay on and dropped down beside him. She fingered his chest hair and sighed.
"I still feel all wound up," she said.
Dave went to another of the piles and lay on his back. He felt wound up, too, but at the moment he could content himself with watching and listening.
One of the taller brunettes joined him, dropping onto the furs and lying on her side, propped on one elbow. She smiled and ran her fingers over his chest.
"You're not Fred or Dan," she said.
Fred Dorman and Dan Vedder, Dave thought. She's got to be either Elsie Dorman, which would mean she's a dyed blonde, with this dark muff, or Jean Vedder.
"No, I'm not," he admitted. "I'm calling myself Dave tonight."
"You've got too much hair on your belly to be Fred and too little to be Dan." She laughed softly. "How do you like it here?"
He shrugged. "I'm a little disappointed. It ought to be cooler, and there are too damned many bugs."
"You just want too much, Dave."
"All my life, honey. Everything's made up to look better than it really is, once you get your hands on it."
"People, too?"
"People, most of all. Fakes and liars and cheats. The better they look from a distance, the worse they are when you get close."
"They're not all like that."
"Maybe not. I haven't met any who aren't."
"What about the ones up here?"
"I haven't gotten to know you people well enough yet to say. And I'm not seeing you in the dog fight of making a buck, either."
"You're funny, Dave. How much better could you hope to know anyone?"
Dave forced a smile. "Okay. I'm beginning to know some of you-some of you women, anyhow."
"I'd like to know you better."
She ran her fingertips through the hair on his belly and purred lightly at one of the ringlets at the base of his penis. She pulled it straight and let it snap back, then pulled at it again. Her upper arm rested against the side of her breast, pushing it down against the other to create a deep, tight crevice. Dave reached over and slid his finger from one end of the crack to the other, and the girl shivered.
"That felt different," she said. "Sort of suggestive."
"I'm full of suggestions. If you run out of ideas, I'll give you some." "F'rinstance."
"You're doing all right, so far. You're making me relax."
"Well, don't relax too far. I've got hopes."
She touched the shaft of his penis with one finger and drew her nail gently along its length. His belly tensed as she approached the head, but she rolled her finger at the last moment and traced around its shoulders with her fingertip. Dave studied her manipulation. His penis was in semi-hard condition ... not rigid, but full. The teasing sensation of her playful touch made it twitch, and he felt it begin to grow. He stretched his legs and worked one arm under her, resting his hand on her back.
Curious what a feeling of intimacy there was in feeling a girl's ribs against a guy's biceps and the bareness of her back under his palm, he thought. This one carried it a whole stage further with her unhurried attention to his pecker. He'd have to think about that sometime when he had nothing else to do. Right now, he was going to let things develop by themselves for a bit ... see what she meant to do.
She was still tracing invisible patterns on the shank of his penis, and he could stand that for a long time. She had one leg stretched out alongside his and the other knee up, opening herself in a most unlady-like posture, but then her thoughtful caresses-as if she were daydreaming-had nothing in it to remind a guy of the Emily Post type primness he associated with the term lady, either. He was going to explore the tissues behind that rich mop of dark hair in a minute. Not yet, though; he didn't want to distract her from the course she was following.
She slipped her fingers under the body of his penis, where it lay on his thighs, and lifted it, closing her hand around it momentarily. The sensation jarred him, and the shaft jerked and hardened, so that when she let go it flopped on his belly, underside up.
She giggled. "I got to him, that time. I thought he was playing possum!"
Dave grunted. "Can't fool a good woman." "You might be able to fool a good one, but not me.
"Hey, you want me to call you Elsie or Jean? Or do you have some neutral name picked out?"
"Why not Jean? One syllable's always quicker than two."
She stroked the swelling underside of his shaft and let her fingertip slide across the tight slit at its end. She repeated the maneuver twice, and then smiled at him.
"There! I knew I could make him cry."
"Cry, hell! That drop just shows he's watering at the mouth! He's sizing you up for a meal, baby!"
"Him? If he doesn't watch out, I'll have him for dessert!"
"Honey, he gets fat on broads like you. He's leading you on."
She laughed and Dave pulled her onto him suddenly, feeling the heat of her breasts spread over his chest and capturing her lips with his. She grabbed his penis at his first move, and now she clung to it as their mouths locked together. Her breath struck him in hot puffs, and he reached down with his free hand to squeeze her buttocks. She laid her knee across his thighs and jerked his penis; he felt her body stiffen. But in a moment, she broke from the kiss, lifting her head and laughing.
There was a happy, carefree quality in her laugh that intrigued Dave. It reminded him of the squeal of a child who plays without experience of the; hurts and unfairness of the world about him. He hugged her, then let his grip loosen, and she rolled back into her original posture. She bent to touch his lips with hers for an instant, and her tongue darted out to flick against his mouth, but she was oo quick for him to catch it and suck it in.
She stared down at his penis and let go of it, rubbing her fingertip against the velvety surface of its head.
"He's hard, now." She mused. "He's hard enough to ride."
"Yeah, I guess he is."
"I'm going to try him." She made the announcement in such a matter-of-fact tone that the meaning slipped past Dave.
She; got to her knees and swung her left leg across him, kneeling astride his waist.
He placed his hands on her hips and gazed up at her, measuring her now conical breasts with his glance and noting the preoccupied set of her lips. She stared down into his eyes, and he discovered for the first time that her eyes were green, with a smoky hue like the ocean in a hard blow.
She leaned her weight on one hand, which she placed in the middle of his chest, and reached down with the other to point his penis up toward the dark fullness between her thighs. She settled back slowly, and he watched while her dark flesh came down to meet the shining skin of his bulb. Her folds yielded, and then they seemed to flow around the hard obstacle. He felt her heat and the slick wetness, and there was a hard ring blocking his tip. She stopped moving, then, and the ring winked against him, distending after each wink, so that it worked itself slowly over the bulge of his penis head and pulled at it. He held his breath during the silent contest, visualizing it as the same slow process he had seen once when watching a snake swallow an egg that was larger around than he was. The rim of her love mouth reached the flare of the head and gulped without result, and then there was a sudden relaxation, and she engulfed him.
She dropped, driving herself down around his shaft without opposition and bumping hard on the prominence of his pubic arch. He grunted, thankful that his thighs were parted far enough to give his balls somewhere to go. Jean rose, her rim stripping his tool to the back of its head, then dropped again.
"Oof," he said. "You're at the wrong end if you're trying to knock the wind out of me."
"Where's your sensitivity, oaf?" she demanded, rising and letting herself drop.
He grinned. "You've swallowed it."
"I thought so. Your artistic sense is all in your peter! Well, you ought to be able to enjoy the show, then."
"Oh, hell! I'm enjoying it, all right! I especially like the way your boobs bounce!"
"Bastard! Don't say it that way! When you're speaking to a lady, tell her ... well, on second thought, don't remind her that she's got bouncing boobs. There just isn't any way to say it that doesn't make it sound as ludicrous as it looks."
"Sorry, Jean. I didn't mean they didn't look good. Cans like those look good no matter what they're doing. But they did catch my attention."
"All right. Look, if you like; just don't comment."
While they talked, she sat still on him, and he could feel the tendons on the inner sides of her thighs relax and mold themselves to his hip bones. But her grip on his penis was not relaxed. Her rim continued to wink, squeezing the base of his shaft and then loosening, and the walls of her vagina contracted gently in a motion that rippled repeatedly from the mouth to the inner end, milking him with a seductive rhythm.
"Goddamn!" he exclaimed. "You know you could jack a guy off that way?"
"Dave! For God's sake! Watch your language!"
"Hell, you're doing it! I'm only telling it!"
"I'm caressing you, not jacking you off."
"Well, your goddamned caresses are going to jack me off if you aren't careful. I like it-don't get me wrong-but a warning is in order."
She chuckled, and her breasts quivered. "All right. You're forgiven."
She bounced on him, making each rise just less than the length of his penis, and the impacts at the bottom of each stroke got increasingly forceful. She smiled down into his face, and her hands clutched his wrists as he continued to grasp her hips. Suddenly, her casual expression evaporated. She fixed her stare on a point above his head, and her teeth gritted. Her breasts jounced violently, and the flesh on her inner thighs leaped. She drew a great, gasping breath, and then she began to pant.
"Damn!" she said. "Damn, damn, damn! It got to me!"
"Don't apologize. I'm feeling edgy, myself!" "Do you like this, Dave?"
"Of course! I think it's great!" He tightened his grip on her hips. "Let me help you."
Bracing his elbows on the furs, he pumped her up and down, and it was like bouncing a package on his belly. A wave of giddiness swept over him, and he caught his breath. She was just a little too tight to let this sort of thing go for long; she was stripping him, and the palpitating walls of her barrel were mauling the head of his penis with an insistent, sucking power that he knew he could not ignore.
"Sonuvabitch! You're going to make me come, Jean!"
"Oh, Lord! You'll be lucky if you come as fast as I'm going to. Stop for a minute!"
He stopped pumping her, and she thrust first one leg out behind her, then the other, propping herself up with straight arms. She raised her legs and let them lie on top of his.
"Spread your legs, Dave," she said, panting.
That's a goddamned switch! he thought. But he spread them, and her weight rested on his pubic arch, through hers. Her clitoris had to be trapped between those two plates of bone, he realized, and when she rocked, as she began to, it had to be rolled cruelly. Her eyes appeared glazed, and her breath hissed between her teeth. Her breasts lashed back and forth, and the cords in her neck stood out as she tilted her head back.
She gave a low, undulating cry, and her body was racked by a long shudder. Dave felt her vaginal walls clutch his penis spasmodically, and he knew that she had vaulted into her orgasm. He caught her upper arms and pushed, raising them so that she hung between his hands and the base of his shaft. He swept her back and forth along his penis and his belly knotted abruptly, squeezing his prostate and starting the concentrated buzz in his roots that signaled his own climax.
He pressed her shoulders further back, and her belly was a drum-taut surface thrusting out over his. He hooked his toes inside her ankles and pushed outward, driving her thighs widely apart and letting her settle harder against his groin. His fluid spurted into her, burning the inside of his penis as it erupted, and she groaned and closed her eyes.
When he had forced the final charge into her, he felt himself going limp, and he lowered her onto himself and held her close.
"Whew!" She blew on his neck. "Whew! That got wild!"
"You're some kind of ass, Jean! That's a hell of a fine way to screw!"
"Oh, Dave, you made it better, the way you grabbed hold at the last! I thought I'd never stop coming!"
"I'd guess there were variations to that technique."
"I suppose so. I lose control of myself too fast that way to do much experimenting, though." "Baby, we've got to try that again, someday." "All right. We will."
5
There came a time when there was no more semen to give-nor any more desire to receive it-and the women flocked into the bedroom to clean up. In the still-warm night, Dave and the other men went outside, where they wet cloths and mopped themselves.
"I don't know which of you is Andy," one of them said, "and I guess I ought to be pissed off for the way you set my wife up for getting plugged, but I'm not; I don't think I've ever had quite so much fun at a party. It was a goddamned stroke of genius!"
Dave grunted assent. "Amen! For once, I didn't have to listen to a bunch of brittle lying!"
"I'll say not!" echoed someone else. "There wasn't much lying there! Not with everything out in the open!"
"Look," another said, interrupting the chorus of comments. "I don't know about you guys, but my beard's staring to grow through this goddamned mask. I'm taking it off."
Dave fingered his. If he took it off, he was going to have to go back into the cabin naked and recognizable. It would not be a quick, unobtrusive thing of going directly to his clothes and slipping into them, cither, because all of the men's costumes were the same, and he could not recall where he had left his. Still if one mask came off, one or two more might, and his own anonymity would vanish.
He protested. "I liked this party. It was great! But I'm not quite ready to go running around among the women naked without this mask, and I'm going to feel like I've been had if half you guys destroy my disguise."
"Yeah, man! You take that mask off, and the rest of us have had it!"
"Oh, all right. Sorry. I got carried away."
They made their way back inside, meeting the women, who were emerging from the bedroom.
"Hey! How the hell do we know who we're taking home!" yelled one of them.
A woman laughed. "You'll have to take your chances. You'll just have to start out without your wife-or without knowing which one she is. The one who goes into your cabin with you is the right one-presumably. You'll find out once you've got her inside with her mask off. Don't come back here for an exchange, though."
There was a general chuckle, and naked bodies drifted toward the door.
"Pick up your costumes tomorrow," the same woman suggested.
Dave grinned to himself. Cora had a damned good body, he reflected. He wondered if she had foreseen that she was going to have; to identify herself at the end of the party. Of course, she and Andy could have left with the rest, circling back through the woods. But it appeared that they were not concerned about being known. They stood in the doorway waving as the rest disappeared into the darkness.
All of the other cabins lay in the opposite direction from Dave and Ruth's, and Dave felt confident that the one woman who turned the same direction as he was Ruth. He joined her.
"Ruth?"
"Dave?"
"Right."
"Oh, honey! I'm so glad to know who it is I'm with! I got to missing you!"
"How do you feel? Physically, I mean."
"All right. I'm tired-as if I'd been on a long horseback ride-but I feel good."
Dave chuckled. I guess you got a lot of riding, all right. Mow do you feel mentally?"
"I ... Dave, I don't know. All confused. Do you mind what happened?"
"No. I think I halfway expected it."
"So did I, now that I look back. I didn't admit it to myself, though."
He laughed. "Of course not. If we'd admitted it, we'd have had to stay out of it, and we wanted it to happen."
"Dave! I'd never thought of doing that kind of thing!"
"Not consciously. Probably not at all ... it wasn't something you were waiting hopefully for ... but when the-likelihood came up, you didn't want to miss it ... not deep inside."
"I don't know. Maybe you're right. You think that's the way you felt."
"I'm sure of it. I didn't recognize it, either, but I know it must have been there."
"But why? Why would we want to make love to other people? Oh, Dave! I love you so! Are you getting tired of the way I make love?"
"Hell, no! You go at it with as much eagerness as a man does! You're great!"
"Then why, Dave? Why would we be ready to try someone else?"
"I'm no goddamned psychologist. All I know is that it's kind of exciting to think of some other guy fucking you! Twists my guts in knots, even now! Just plain excitement, in my book."
"I guess that's it. But there must be some reason for it to be exciting."
"Sure. A head-shrinker would-likely have all sorts of reasons."
"What sort of reasons do you think they might give?"
"Hell, hon! I stayed away from that stuff as much as I could in college! You know that! I hate people! Why should I listen to half-assed theories about how they tick when the profs haven't ever been out among them?"
"But they didn't let you stay clear away."
"Well, the one reason that occurs to me hasn't a goddamned thing to do with what they taught in those courses. I think maybe it's like a couple of rams in two fields. Each ram owns a field and the ewes on it. If one of them feels like a little excitement, all he has to do is step across the boundary into the other guy's territory. He may get his ass whipped, but he's sure going to stir up some excitement!"
"Maybe that's it. But no one got belligerent tonight."
"No. I guess no one thought he was getting the short end of the stick. And then these people seem to be pretty self-confident. I don't think anyone was worried about being made to look bad."
"What do you think of these people, Dave? Apart from the party, I mean."
"I haven't decided. I feel comfortable with them, for one thing. They've all got their faults, all right, but they don't waste a hell of a lot of time trying to cover them up-or to make excuses. They've got something I haven't, though."
"What's that?"
"They're satisfied. Oh, they're not ready to retire, but they're convinced that they're doing what they want to-and that it's bringing them what they want it to."
"How come they feel that way and you don't?"
"If I knew, maybe I'd be satisfied, too."
"I wish you could find out, Dave."
"So do I. It burns me to see them so contented. I keep thinking there's something beneath the surface that I haven't seen-something that's as rotten as what's in most people. Hey! You got better acquainted with two or three of them! What do you think?"
"I liked them, Dave. They were warm, thoughtful men."
"Hmm. If there's anything rotten there, it's pretty deep, then. You expect a guy to be pretty much himself when he's screwing."
They climbed the steps to the veranda and leaned against the rail, looking into the blackness under the trees. By leaning further, they could peer upward past the eaves into a patch of sky, where vast numbers of stars spangled the night.
"Dave, what's that?"
"Where? What?"
"No. That sound!"
"I don't hear ... wait! That rushing sound?" "That's it. That's what I mean." "You're sure it's not the stream?" "It's not."
Dave felt a sudden cooling of the sweat film that covered his body. The sensation passed, then came again.
"Hey! A breeze! That's the wind coming!"
He put his arm around her, and she snuggled against him while they listened. The low, soughing sound grew, and the coolness returned and stayed, and then they felt a definite, chilling draft.
"It's wind! It's the goddamned wind! Maybe it's going to be cool, after all!"
Dave swung Ruth away from the rail and danced about the veranda with her.
"The wind! The goddamned wind!" he kept shouting.
"Dave! Dave! Everyone in the mountains will hear you!"
"I hope they do! I want everyone to know!"
"Dave! For goodness sake!"
He clutched her to him, her skin suddenly feeling deliciously cool.
"Come on, baby! Let's get in on a comfortable bed and screw!"
"My God, Dave! Haven't you had enough of that for one night!"
"All the strange ass I could handle, baby. But I didn't get a piece of yours. Come on!"
She was panting, then, and she laughed and ran with him. A gust of wind tore at the shutters, and the spruce moaned. Inside, the air cooled, and the sweat that Dave felt between Ruth and him was not caused by the weather.
There were no more hot days. The wind had come to stay, sometimes hard, more often gentle, but it brought coolness with it, and the pine scent was fresh and good. The flies appeared to have found somewhere else to feed, too, although there were still enough to enrage Dave.
On the second day after the party, Dan and Jean Vedder came to the Blanchard cabin, and Dan had a five gallon can that had a yellow stripe painted around it. There was harmless conversation, and Ruth brought out beer, and finally Dan pointed to the can.
"Dave, you keep bitching about the flies. That stuff got rid of them around our place." "What is it?"
"Hell, I don't know. All I know is that one of my chemists mixed it up and told me to spray it around where the beasts breed. It works wonders!"
"For Christ's sake, where do they breed? I'd begun to think they just came out of the air full grown!"
"Come on. I'll show you."
Together, they toured the area around the cabin, and Dan pointed out the places where the flies laid their eggs. They diluted some of the chemical and sprayed it in those areas, and Dan kept up a running commentary on the pleasurable aspects of the mountain community.
Dave grinned at last. "You sound as if you'd written the goddamned brochures," he said.
"No. I'd have made them sound better than they do. Dave, this beats anywhere I've ever been!"
"It's all right, I guess."
"What did you think of that surprise party?"
"Who was it supposed to surprise?"
"It didn't surprise you?"
"Oh! Well, the games did."
"Right. What did you think of it?"
Dave sighed. "Well, I'm not sure that it was a complete surprise. Ruth and I were talking about that. We're convinced that we had an unconscious suspicion of what was going to happen. Anyhow, I had a hell of a time ... great ... but I'm having trouble believing it really happened."
"It happened. I don't know about you, but Jean and I have been married eight years, and we've never done anything like that. Hell, it's never occurred to us!"
"Wife trading, you mean?" "Yeah. Or even playing around! We get along fine! We're not bored! Why the hell should we go out looking for strange meat?"
"That's what Ruth and I asked ourselves afterward. Come up with an answer?"
"Naw. Hell, we liked it, so why analyze it? The thing that surprised me was that it came off so smoothly. No soreheads and no big complaints from the women."
Dave laughed. "I don't suppose I know all there is to know about women, Dan, but my feeling is, if you don't hurt a broad-and if she gets to say yes or no-she's not going to scream very loud." "You and Ruth enjoyed it, then." "Yeah, we had fun." "Enough to try it again?"
"I noticed that the masks got packed real carefully. I guess we'd try again."
"Good! That's the way Jean and I felt. We're taking a sort of straw poll."
"Look favorable?"
"We haven't talked to the Kings yet. Everyone else is game."
"Dan, what do you do out in the real world?" "Why?"
"You sound like a promoter."
"Oh. Well, I suppose you could call it that. I've got a paint company ... paint and a few household chemicals."
"Okay. That took some promoting."
"A hell of a lot. I started without any money. Two or three times I got back to the same condition, too. But it finally all came together. If we ever have kids, they may get a better start than I did, Dave."
"I doubt it. Starting out with money is a disadvantage, the way I see it."
"I don't know. I've met some real success stories who started with good hacking."
"Maybe. Anyhow, are you and Jean ready to schedule another party?"
"Just about. We want to see how the Kings react, first. But you'll go along."
"Yeah. We're with you."
Dave and Ruth drove out for supplies, spending one night at home before returning to the cabin. Dave collapsed into a chair on the veranda when they got back, sipping a beer and glaring at the car.
"Goddamn!" He sputtered. "This place leaves a lot to be desired, but I'll take it over the lousy city!"
Ruth came out from the kitchen. She rested her hand on his shoulder and bent down to kiss him. "Why, darling?"
"Jesus! Noise ... smells ... people pushing. . . ! How the hell can people survive it! Ruth. I don't know how I can go back to it!"
"Well, maybe you'll have to learn how to get back here mentally-how to take a mental break once in a while and imagine you're here."
"Not me, baby. I spent my whole childhood imagining I was somewhere I wasn't. I found out the dreamers never get anywhere! No more of that for me!"
"I don't think it's quite the same thing, Dave." "Maybe not. I'm not going to find out." "Someone's coming, hon." "Where?"
"From the side. Over there." "Sure enough!"
They waited, and the Vedders came out of the woods along one of the faint deer trails.
Dan waved and called to them. "Hey! We missed you yesterday. All rested up from the party?"
Dave glanced at Ruth and noted that she was blushing. He grinned at her.
"Yeah, we're in good shape," he replied.
"Good! How about another one tomorrow night?"
"Boy, that's quick, isn't it?"
"Maybe. But Ed and Sue King are going to be going back to civilization in about ten days. Figured we might work in two or three parties by then."
"Dan, I think you're hooked." "Hell, yes, I'm hooked! So's Jean, to hear her tell it."
The Vedders came up the stairs and settled themselves on the glider. Jean looked into Dave's eyes, and hers were the same shade of green that he had seen at the party.
Dan stared into the trees and mused. "Funny bunch of people in these few cabins. We came out here-spent a hell of a lot of money buying this place-so we could have somewhere to go where we didn't have to be around other people all the time ... can't even see the nearest cabin from ours ... and then we find that the neighbors are all the kind we'd choose if we could write the orders, ourselves. Damnedest thing!"
"Tomorrow night?" asked Ruth.
"Right. How about it?"
"Costumes?"
"Well ... masks, anyhow. I suppose costumes don't matter much, once we've got our clothes off."
Ruth objected. "I'd be embarrassed to death, getting undressed with everyone knowing who I was because of what I was wearing."
Dan laughed. "You haven't been here long enough for any of the men to know what clothes you've got! And what do you care about the women? They're going to have their minds on something else. They'll be getting undressed under pretty much the same conditions, y'know."
Dave nodded. "That's not unreasonable."
Ruth shook her head. "I hate to admit it, but there's another objection. It sounds silly, but I'd rather have everyone know who I was than to know, myself, who was undressing me. With the costumes, I can halfway fool myself into thinking it's Dave."
"I think Ruth's right," said Jean. "It'd be better to wear the costumes again ... maybe just for this time."
Dan shrugged. "All right. They're easy to get out of, anyhow."
Dave had no preference, but if Ruth wanted costumes, he would insist. He was surprised at the feeling of gratitude that he felt toward Dan for not making insistence necessary. There was a quality about the man that made it easy to like him.
Dan rose and drew Jean to her feet. "Come on, chickadee. We'll double check with Ed and Sue. Six o'clock be all right? We're not quite as fast with the food as the Andrews."
6
The Vedders' cabin had been constructed right at the edge of the stream. Out of deference to the spring overflow, the nearer side of the structure rested on massive stilts, but its front porch hung out over the turbulent water, and the sound of the miniature rapids was a continuous factor behind every conversation, inside or out. When Dave and Ruth arrived, there was a light, cool breeze, but Jean had spread a table on the porch, and it was evident that they were to eat outside. Dinner was ready, and there was lime for only one round of drinks before they ate.
For Dave, the feeling was much like the one he had experienced at the Andrews'. The moment he and Ruth mingled with the others, he lost her. The memory of her face beneath the equally attractive one of the mask faded, and he found himself adrift with five strange females, all of whom openly promised later intimacies with the glances they exchanged with him.
He moved among them, knowing that he should be able to identify four of the five-Ruth because he ought to know her under any disguise, Cora because he and Ruth had gotten to know the Andrews better than they had any of the others, and Jean and Sue because he had made love to them. Exchanging comments with one of them, he was startled to hear Ruth's voice, and he was embarrassed to have to admit to himself that he would not have known her if she had not spoken.
He patted her thigh and whispered to her. "You're doing beautifully, Ruth. I didn't know you until I heard you talk."
"No fair, Dave! You'll give me away!"
"Sorry. This'll make it look like just a casual greeting."
He patted her behind and let his hand remain for a more intimate caress. She gasped and jerked away with a giggle, and he turned to a girl behind him. Having discovered Ruth by the sound of her voice, he was deeply disturbed to find that he now knew that he was facing Jean. He had no business recognizing her more easily than he did Ruth, nor could he understand what made him so sure.
"What the hell!" he exclaimed. Then, lowering his voice, he spoke her name.
"Sh!" She frowned, and the green of her eyes confirmed his identification. "How do you know?" she asked.
"I don't know what tipped me off. It's your eyes now, though."
She laughed. "I'll have to start wearing contacts if we're going to keep doing this."
"I don't mind knowing who you are. And if it bothers you to have, me know, I'll pretend not to recognize you the next time I'm near you."
"I don't mind," she said. "Not with you."
He tingled at her implication. Patting her bottom as he had Ruth's, he let her move on to another of the guests and waited for another woman. Damn! he thought. What was it that made me know her! There goes Ruth again. And how the hell do I know that, since she isn't saying anything? And this one is Sue, sure as hell!
The girl he identified came closer and leaned against him, her belly touching his and her face turned up.
"Mmmmm!" she exclaimed. "I know that scent! We've been closer than this!"
He hugged her and gave her a grateful kiss.
"Hey! What was that all about?" she asked.
"For giving me an answer. I knew you, but I couldn't figure out how. Hell, you smell different!"
"I don't know whether that's good or bad."
"Good. You smell good, in the first place, and it's good to be able to know you when you're close."
"Now, that's not fair! The idea of the masks is to keep us all anonymous!"
"Then I won't recognize you next time."
"Dave, I don't mind. It's funny, isn't it. With the ones I've made love to, I like them to know me. It's the others I'm not sure about."
"It's worth thinking about."
He released her, and she drifted away.
When he approached the next girl, he forced awareness of her scent, and he recognized Cora at once. He touched her briefly, resolving that he would make an effort to get together with her after they had eaten. And he began to search for the elusive Elsie Dorman. He kept encountering the other four women, knowing them by their distinctive scents, and he began to suspect that Elsie's duplicated one of theirs. But at length he found a new fragrance. The girl leaned against the railing at one end of the veranda, and she appeared to be absorbed by the scene below.
"It's beautiful," she murmured. "You can just let your mind sink into it and go anywhere in the world."
"You like that idea?"
"Oh, yes! There are so many lovely places I haven't been!"
She continued to stare into the froth below, and Dave leaned on the rail beside her.
"It's hypnotic," he remarked.
"Yes. I could watch it by the hour."
"Your cabin isn't close to the stream."
"No." Then she turned to him with a shy smile. "Well, maybe yes and maybe no. You're not supposed to know."
"All right. Anyhow, by the time that matters, I'll have talked to most of the others. If I'm with you again, I won't even know it's the same girl."
"Maybe. I don't really believe that. Each of you men seems to have a sort of aura of his own." She smiled again. "And this is the first time you and I have talked together at one of these parties." She shivered suddenly.
"Cold?" Dave asked.
"No. You won't laugh at me?"
"Of course not!"
"Well, I'm scared! I know it's silly, and I tell myself I'm not going to be, but when I get here and lose ... that is, lose my husband ... and know that men are going to do things to me that no one but ... well, but a husband ought to do ... Oh, it scares me so!"
"Don't you like making love to strangers?"
"Oh, please! Don't say it that way! Not strangers! I couldn't stand that! At least, I can half convince myself that none of you are real strangers ... that you're all quite good friends."
"I'm sorry. That was a lousy way to say it."
"With real friends, it's all right. It's just another way of sharing-of communicating-and friends ought to share and communicate."
"That's a nice way of putting it."
"It's the way I think of it. It's the only way I can make it right."
"And it's got to be right for you."
"Oh, yes! I couldn't do anything if I felt it was wrong!"
"You said something about auras. You think you know which men you've made love to."
"Yes. I know. I was lucky at Cora's, I guess. Both men were considerate. Both new men, I mean." She dimpled. "I ... we cheated, my husband and I. The last time, it was ... well, we were together."
"I guess it isn't really cheating ... not if that's what you want."
"Anyhow, they were nice. And since then, there's been a closeness when I've talked with them that wasn't there before. It's nice."
"Closeness because you've made love."
"Well, because of what we've shared ... because we've communicated as intimately as a man and woman can. It creates a kind of understanding. It seems to me it must be a sort of telepathy." "Hmm. I think I like that notion." "Let's eat!" called Jean.
Elsie smiled again. "Maybe later?" she suggested.
Dave nodded. Definitely later.
After dinner and a liqueur, Dave circulated quickly among the women. He found the scent that he knew was Elsie's, wondering what gave her such a delightfully heady fragrance, and touched her arm. She tensed momentarily, then turned to face him.
"Let's get a little bit away from the others," she said, in a low voice.
She knew him; he was confident that she did. He sensed that she was nervous, too, and he realized that she was one of those women who could be hurt badly by lack of kindness. They moved back to the corner of the porch where they had talked before, and she leaned against his arm.
He made no immediate advance, but gazed out into the deepening shadows. Across the stream, a small heard of deer moved noiselessly between the trees.
"Oh, look!" whispered Elsie. "Aren't they graceful!"
The buck in the lead lowered his magnificent head to browse, and then raised it high, testing the air.
Elsie whispered again. "He owns the world! He's the king."
"Unless a mountain lion wanders through."
"Even then. If that happens, he has to warn his subjects and protect them."
It might happen that way once in a hundred-thousand times, reflected Dave. But he said nothing. He felt her hand touch his, and he took it, strongly conscious of how small it seemed. She turned it and squeezed his fingers, and her palm was warm. They continued to watch the deer until the shadows hid them, and then they simply stared into the forest while it got dark. In the last of the twilight, she turned to Dave, loosened her hand from his grasp, and slipped her arms around his neck.
"Kiss me," she whispered.
He touched her lips with his, and for a moment they kissed gently and experimentally. Then she pressed her body to his and crushed his lips against his teeth.
Her breasts were firm, and they flattened little as they pushed against his chest. His fingers felt sharply defined muscles in her back, and as he slid them downward, he was pleased at the slenderness of her waist. After the sensation of stroking the bare skin of her upper back, it was a mild disappointment to have to explore the roundness of her buttocks through the pleats of her skirt, but as his hands passed down the backs of her upper thighs he became aware of the fact that there was no indentation of panties. He brought his hands back up, testing carefully. There was no doubt; she had come to this party with nothing under her costume.
At last she pulled back.
"Darling, do you mind awfully if I take off my shoes and stockings right now?" she asked. "No."
"I hate shoes and stockings. I'd much rather go barefoot all the time."
He chuckled and leaned back. "Did you go barefoot when you were little?"
"Always. I didn't have a pair of shoes until I was fifteen."
"Good God! Where did you grow up?"
"In the mountains. Not these mountains, but they were a little like this."
"Where?"
"Kentucky. I'll tell you about it sometime, if you want me to." "I'd like that."
She set her shoes in the corner and rolled her stockings and laid them on the shoes.
"Now, don't step on my toes," she warned him.
Dave kicked off his shoes. "If I do, it won't be with thick soles." He laughed.
There was an unreal quality about the scene. He knew that the others were near; he heard exclamations and giggles and an occasional gasp. But their sounds seemed part of another world. Here with Elsie, the tumult of the stream floated up to dominate them, and she was a wood sprite that had offered herself to him. He felt a wry amusement at himself for even permitting such a fantasy to enter his thoughts, and he was grateful when she came into his arms again, her warmth and softness human and feminine.
He kissed her mouth, and she responded greedily, her tongue darting in and out of his mouth while she made hungry, sucking noises. Her hands groped nervously at the back of his neck, and she swayed on her feet as if they were dancing. Her belly rubbed back and forth across his groin, and he felt his penis twitching to life.
She drew her face back, eyes closed, and murmured, "Urn, yes! He-likes it!"
And then she covered his mouth again.
Dave's hands moved over her back. He squeezed up handfuls of flesh and kneaded them, and she squirmed in his grasp. He reached down to her ass and clutched its cheeks, alternately pushing them together and parting them, and with each relaxation and retightening of his fingers, he gathered in more of the material of her skirt. The time came when he felt the hem join the crumpled folds in his palm, and his fingers rested on warm flesh.
"Ooh!" she exclaimed, pulling away from the kiss. "That surprised me! I didn't know you were doing that!"
With his thumbs, he pushed the folds of cloth up onto his wrists, and he cupped his palms on her ass cheeks and massaged them vigorously.
"Oh, darling! That excites me!" She rose to the balls of her feet, pressing her groin onto the hard curvature of his right thigh. He thrust his knee forward, and she slid her thighs on either side of his, clamping them on it and letting her crotch ride hard on the bulging kneecap. She made soft noises in her throat, and Dave reached up with one hand to loosen the top of her costume. She stepped back, standing quietly with her hands at her sides while he pulled the cloth off, over her arms.
"Do the skirt, too," she whispered.
He unfastened it, and it fell in a heap about her ankles. She stepped out of it and stooped to pick it up, laying it with her shoes. She startled him, then, by returning and immediately unfastening his clothes.
"I want you naked, darling. I don't want anything between us." Her voice was barely above a whisper, but it had a new vibrance in it that shot a thrill through Dave. She laid his clothes beside her own and came back to him, her arms up to him. He pulled her to him, and they clung in a long, energetic kiss before his hands began to move again.
She twisted in his arms, leaning her back against his chest and parting her legs. She laid her head back in the hollow of his neck and moaned softly while he massaged her breasts. Her nipples were already erect, and she trembled when he ran his fingertips down her belly and buried them in the moisture of her crotch.
"Oh, yes!" she whispered. "Let's not wait!"
She thrashed her hips and thrust her knees apart as he manipulated the tissues of her love mouth, and one of her hands pushed between him and her bottom to grasp his prick. She hung onto it, squeezing hard, while her hips leaped back and forth. Suddenly she whirled.
"Oh, darling! It's as if a giant wind were in me! Help me up!" She lifted one leg, laying her thigh against his hip.
He grasped her buttocks and lifted, and she swung her legs up and locked her ankles behind him. She clamped her thighs about him like a vise, throwing her head back and laughing soundlessly. Then she leaned forward and clung fiercely to him.
"Now, darling. Now spear me with him. I want him."
He pushed her bottom out and moved her gently until he felt the head of his penis seat itself against the depression that surrounded her love mouth. He lowered her onto it, then, and she pulled herself to him with her legs. She groaned in her throat as his cock head plunged into her, and her legs trembled against him while the shaft followed the head in, inch by inch. When she bottomed against his groin, her legs set up a hard, rapid pumping, and she slid back and forth on his tortured organ. She grunted softly with each impact, and Dave clung to her bottom, dazed by her self-assurance.
Abruptly, so suddenly as to catch him almost without warning, he felt the familiar convulsion at the root of his penis, and his semen filled his shaft.
"Ooh! Ooh! It's hot, and there's so much," she whispered.
Her belly tightened against his, and a violent tremor seized her. She ground herself on the base of his spurting penis. She sobbed quietly after she came, and then she went limp in his grasp. As his own trembling subsided, he held her to him, kissing her throat gently.
"Oh, darling," she said. "Oh, darling! I love you! I love you so much! Don't take me off right away. I want to share the quiet of 'after' with you, too."
7
Dave sat on the edge of the overhanging porch, his back resting against one of its roof supports. Elsie lay in his arms, her head on his shoulder and her fingers aimlessly drawing figures on his chest. About them, he noticed that the other couples were quieter than they had been at the first party. From what he could see of their figures in the dark, they were no less active, but the frantic pace had been replaced by a more leisurely enjoyment. He commented on the fact, and Elsie agreed.
"They know they don't have to hurry so much to get around to everyone. There'll be other times," she said.
"You sound sure of that."
"Of course! Dave, I love you. I'm going to make love to you again-lots of times." "I hope so."
"I love the others I made love to last time. So do the other women. Tonight's not the end."
"You really think this will go on? ... that we'll become a sort of community, husband-wife thing?"
"I think so. I think we're going to be close friends, and that's going to mean we want to share."
"That's what friendship means to you," ' "Sharing? Of course it does. What else could it be, Dave?"
"I don't know, doll. I've never wanted friends. I'm not sure what else there could be."
"Friends are for sharing." Her voice was confident. "They're for sharing with and loving."
"I like your definition."
"I can't imagine any other."
"And you don't draw any line where sharing stops."
"Darling, how can you? If there's a line, then it's only sharing part!"
"Sure. Some would say that was the difference between friendship and marriage."
She sighed and snuggled closer. "I think most people don't have very many friends. A lot have only their wives or husbands."
"Wives and husbands are often not particularly friendly."
"No. It's tragic. But marriage is an effort to give each person at least one friendship. I'm just lucky. All of a sudden, I've got many."
"Elsie, doesn't it concern you that there are a great many things about a person that don't come to the surface in one or two sex adventures? You can make love to someone a lot and still not really know him."
"Maybe. But I know him better than I would from conversation. And it's easier to talk with someone when you have made love to him, I think."
"Why?"
"Because there's not so much to hide." She kissed his neck. "I feel free to be honest with you, darling, because you were so kind and gentle with me. You see, that told me something."
"How?"
"You didn't have to be the way you were. You could have been demanding and rough and crude. You could have been awful, but you weren't. You could have been selfish, but you weren't. Why? Being the way you were didn't make it any more exciting for you. So you must have done it just for me."
"So you take that to mean I have the right feeling toward you."
"Yes. It means that you're interested in nice things happening to me. I think it means that you want to understand me." "And?"
"And I think that means you're not going to be looking for what's weak and little in me, but for what's big and strong and good. I don't mind letting you know me. You see?"
"It's a different way of looking at people, baby. Maybe it makes sense."
"Dave, they write about women who make love as if they didn't want to ... as if they didn't get any fun out of it. Do you suppose there are such women?"
"Of course there are!"
"Well, they don't want people to know them. And they don't want to share themselves."
"Probably. No one's going to accuse you of that."
"I hope not." Her hand slipped up over his shoulder and behind his neck, and she squirmed to a more relaxed position. She sighed and was quiet, and Dave suspected that she was napping.
He stared downward toward the water, hearing it but seeing only an occasional spark of light as leaping droplets caught and reflected rays from the dim lantern on the porch.
A figure approached, and Dave sniffed and he knew that it was Cora Andrews.
"Things are getting too quiet," she murmured.
"Have you let her go to sleep?"
"I think so. Is it time for a reshuffle?"
"It looks like the first round's over. People are beginning to stir again."
"Is Jean planning to move things inside? It's beginning to feel like night in the mountains ought to."
"Someone's inside getting a fire going in the fireplace." She chuckled. "That started after he'd finished building one in me."
Elsie wriggled and sat up. "Did you say 'fire'? In the fireplace?"
"Right."
"Ooh! That would feel good! I'm getting cold." Elsie touched Dave's cheek. "No reflection on you, darling. I'm warm where I was against you."
"Thank God!" Dave laughed. "You had me worried for a minute."
"Help me up, Dave?"
He grinned into the darkness at her use of his name and boosted her as she struggled to her feet. Then he grabbed the railing and heaved himself erect. Elsie went on into the cabin, and Cora came closer to Dave.
"It's going to be our turn next, Dave. You're the only one I haven't had."
"Young lady, you're being careless with names."
"Don't be pompous."
"All right, Cora. Sorry. Looks like these masks have outlived their usefulness." "Not really."
"But no one seems to be fooled, now."
"Except for the two or three women who need to believe they're being fooled."
"How long do you think that'll last?"
She laughed quietly. "You talk as if you expected these parties to go on happening indefinitely."
"I think you and Andy started something that isn't going to end tonight."
"I hope we did, Dave."
"Why, beside the fact that you're getting some variety?"
"Variety hasn't much to do with it. So far, I haven't found a hell of a lot of difference between sex with one man and sex with another. It's more a matter of closeness."
"That sounds a little like Elsie." "A little, perhaps. Dave, Andy and I have found something up here that we weren't expecting. You and Ruth and the other three couples are about the nicest, most relaxed people to be around that we've ever met."
"We ought to be relaxed! Hell, we're off the racetrack! We're up here to relax."
"That might be it. I don't know. But it's not all of it. Anyhow, we wanted to try an experiment.
We wanted to test a theory of Andy's."
"This whole business is an experiment to test an idea?"
"Yes."
"Goddamn! It's like a doctor giving himself a deadly disease to test what he hopes is a cure, isn't it!"
"I guess so. Anyhow, I think it's working."
"Is his theory for publication?"
"He doesn't mind talking about it. He thinks that a compatible group would get along better-understand each other better and share more ideas-if they weren't always skirting areas that were real personal."
"like sex."
"like sex. He thinks that we spend a lot of energy guarding against accidental slips. If we didn't have to do that, he thinks we could understand ourselves a lot easier."
"What do you think?"
"Dave, I don't know. I'm a woman; and it shook me when he started to talk about opening up the doors with group sex. Now, I'm glad we did. It's fun! If it does prove anything, that's great. But I don't really care much. I'll just go ahead having fun while Andy tries to find out whether we're accomplishing anything."
"Andy doesn't mind talking about his idea, you say?"
"Not at all."
"I think I'll have to ask him about it."
"All right, darling, but not now." She stepped closer and let her body brush against his. "Right now, I'd rather you played with me. Andy's theory can wait." She took his hand and led him toward the door.
Dave went with her willingly. Following her, he was once more aware of the sinuous way her hips moved when she walked. She ought to provide a new experience in subtle response.
But the evening seemed a little less simple. Where it had been another adventure in "sexploration", it was now, abruptly, part of a conscious experiment. Cora's concept of the operation might or might not accurately reflect what Andy had in mind. Andy, like each of the other four men in the group, was one of the handful who had made a spectacular success of his business activities. Success, Dave well knew, came more from ideas than from sheer hard work. The man with unusual ideas and the drive to see them to fruition was the man who came out on top of the heap.
That became pertinent in a tiny community like this when something novel was introduced. Andy's idea might be entirely innocent. It might well have to do only with social awareness and a new level of group understanding. There might be nothing more to it than Andy's basic fondness for people.
On the other hand, it could easily be some devious project that was designed to add to his already considerable worth. If it was, then Dave and the other three men were pawns in Andy's game, and that was a position that Dave had no relish for. He had not arrived at his own success by allowing himself to be moved in another's game, and he saw no immediate advantage in starting at this point in his career.
It was easy to imagine possible ulterior motives for Andy's experiment, but those that crossed Dave's mind at first were too obvious and crude to deserve further consideration. The crudest, of course, was simple blackmail. With a lesser person than Andy, that might have been the most-likely possibility. With Andy it was an almost impossible contingency.
But there were subtler possibilities that Dave could not rule out. And he was suddenly impatient to begin exploring them with Andy.
He was chagrinned to discover that he had little interest in continued sex. He studied Cora's body with its planes and curves illuminated by the flickering flames and wondered if he could revive his eagerness. She led him to one of the easy chairs and settled herself on his lap.
"Come on, Dave," she said softly. "Time enough to worry about Andy, tomorrow."
8
It was true, Dave realized. If there was anything sinister in Andy's experiment, there was nothing that could be done about it tonight. With one party and part of another behind them, the group was not-likely to enmesh itself much further by seeing tonight's activities out, nor was it probable that stopping at this point would do any good. Besides, Cora was warm and eager, and she was the one woman on the mountain he had not tried.
He felt a sense of lazy relaxation and well-being as he looked down at her body. In the days since he and Ruth had come to the cabin, he had observed that Cora was more active than the average woman of his acquaintance. She had appeared to be in superb condition, smooth-muscled and firm, and now that there were no clothes to conceal her, he saw that she had no evidence of fatty layers. Her skin was tight and lustrous with the glow of healthy circulation. Its highlights and shadows clearly defined gently molded muscles that fitted together without bulges or deep hollows. And where her flesh folded because of her position, there appeared to be junctions of muscle-blocks, alluringly rounded, rather than rolls of pulp.
Her breasts overcame the unflattering posture, their bodies full and ripe, without sag, and their aureoles swollen and rich, tipped by delicately mounded nipples. He liked the light, almost golden, tan coloration of those focal points. Her navel was deep and generous, and the mound under her glistening, dark pubic hair was proud and strong-looking, even though she was sitting. He liked well-defined waists-and Cora's dipped in excitingly.
He looked back at her mask, and where it exposed her lips he saw an amused, alert half-smile. Her eyes held his, then, and she sighed with a happy chirp.
"Satisfied?" she asked.
He grinned and laid his hand on her thigh. "Damn right," he said. "I thought you were going to look great, naked, and you do."
"Thank you, dear. Shall we screw?"
"Let's not be in a big-assed rush, Cora. I'd like to make you last."
"A guy who says things like that makes a woman glad, Dave. It's nice when there's something there besides biological pressure."
"There's that, of course, but there's a lot more."
"I think I'd like to kiss you. I never have."
"That's right! Goddamn!"
She was sitting erect, her forearms resting on his shoulders and her hands brushing his upper back. Her face was a foot away from his, and she pursed her lips in a kissing gesture. Dave chuckled at the image she created of wanton anticipation, and he returned the sign. She made a production of it, slowly leaning toward him and sliding her arms around his neck. As her mouth approached his, she continued to stare into his eyes, and he felt an abrupt tightening of his belly. He held her with his left arm, his forearm at an angle and his hand on the back of her shoulder, and now he placed his right hand on her waist, his thumb riding up on her ribs.
Her lips touched his with a feather-light contact, and she drew back a fraction of an inch. They brushed his mouth again and then again, and he was aware of a floating sensation, as if time were standing still with him on the verge of discovery. He rejected the impulse to drive his mouth against hers and allowed her to set the pace. She moistened her lips and laid them on his, and they had a movement of their own, as if she were memorizing the contours of his. She parted them and repeated the exploration, and her tongue tip came out to feel the ridged surfaces that she kissed. Dave presented the tip of his own tongue, and for a long time the two organs parried and danced against each other.
Then Cora suddenly pressed in, her tongue driving past his and her mouth crushing his lips against his teeth. Her tongue startled him with its flexibility and speed as it flicked over the inside of his mouth, and he sucked greedily at it. The motion excited him, and he stabbed his own tongue past hers, deep into her mouth, its tip finding the arch of her throat and teasing it. She swallowed, then gulped again and began to suck, her own tongue swelling and pressing his against the roof of her mouth, the vacuum she created in her mouth making his tongue tingle and burn.
She rolled her head from side to side, and a contented mewing sound came from deep in her throat. Sensation welled from the contact surfaces through Dave's system, and his fingers kneaded her flesh. Her breasts surged to the tempo of her labored breathing, and Dave's groin ached with need. He groped for her hip with his right hand, and his fingers felt the steady rhythm of minute contractions in her buttocks. As the heat rose in him, he stroked her, running his palm in curves over her hip and her half-exposed behind and then closer to him, over the surface of her belly. He felt her move her left knee out toward his, her thighs parting, and the warmth that radiated from the newly exposed flesh reached his forearm.
He caressed the inner sides of her thighs, his thumb and wrist brushing against the ends of her pubic hair with each stroke, and then he encountered the moisture that was spreading from the darkness of her crotch. He pressed, gently squeezing the soft folds and feeling her fluid ooze between his fingers. Her hips flinched, and she pushed her breasts hard against his chest.
As his fingers explored her crevice, slipping in the viscous liquid there, she began to writhe, and her mouth became a hungry, savage implement. She clutched at him with her arms, and her fingers scrabbled at his back. He found the rim of her love mouth, running his finger around it in slow, gentle sweeps. She scooted down on his lap, thrusting her hips forward and rotating her crotch up to his hand. Holding the lips of her vulva apart with his thumb and his little finger, he felt inward with his index finger, penetrating the mouth of her vagina and rubbing the pulpy inner wall.
Cora pulled away from his kiss and stared into his eyes again.
"You make it worth everything, Dave. It's good when neither of us is in a hurry." "Sure."
It's good when it's not entirely a matter of physical relief, he thought. like with Ruth ... it got better after those first desperate scrambles ... after their first fierce needs had subsided so that they could explore the finer thrills of hunting out the more delicate sensations and savoring them at their leisure.
Cora's vaginal mouth was loosening and winking, and Dave withdrew his finger from it and drew it lightly over the base of the slopes of her sex lips, teasing them and further wetting them with her juices. She thrust herself out to receive his caresses, and her lips pouted with her smoldering desire. He approached the head of the crevice, nearing the hood that covered her clitoris, and he felt her thighs harden in anticipation.
The pad of his finger deposited thick fluid along the side of her clitoris, and she gasped and started. Again and again, he returned to the floor of the trough between her vulva lips for more juice and carried it forward to coat the tissues around her tiny pseudo-penis. Her breath came hard and rapidly, and she twisted against his body, her thighs splayed widely and her feet twitching. She raised her right leg, laying it over the arm of the chair, her thigh pressing hard against his belly, and then she let her upper torso sag back on his left arm, her being focusing on the growing excitement in her crotch.
Dave began to stroke the sides of her clitoris, and the little organ stiffened and erected, emerging from beneath its cowl. He wetted his finger once more and rotated it in tiny circles on the tip of her clitoris, keeping his touch light and gentle, and she moaned and let her head drop back. Her throat swelled, and its cords stood out. Her eyes were wide and unblinking, and she opened her mouth as if to scream. But still, her only sound was the crooning moans, and she seemed to be sunk in a whirlpool of sensation. He increased the pressure of his contact so that the clitoris, itself, rotated under his manipulation, and it rolled on the bony floor under it.
Cora jerked her knees together, trapping his hand and interrupting the massage, then flung them apart and snapped her hips up and down for resumption.
"Dave!" she cried in strangled tones. "Dave! For God's sake! Easy!"
He varied rhythm and pressure, and her expression was one of exquisite pain as her body continued to increase its agitated motion. She clutched at his wrist, stopping his hand momentarily, then pushed hard and ground herself against his contact, and finally let go and seized his thigh. He returned to the massage, raising the tempo. Her belly leaped and her legs churned.
"Oh, Dave! Please! Don't let me come without your cock! I've got to have him in me, Dave! I've got to have all of you! Dave, I've been waiting for weeks to feel you in me ... don't take that away from me!"
"Of course not, doll. Whenever you're ready."
He could wait for her, he knew, but he knew, also, that he was ready to fill her when she had to have him.
"Now! Oh, please, Dave, stop! I want you now!"
He stopped, and she scrambled upright. She straddled him-her back to him-and bent forward in the intensity of her concentration as she lowered herself onto his upright penis. She drove herself upon it, engulfing it in one swift plunge. Dave gasped at the heat of her cavity. He felt her inner folds close on his shaft, and he cupped his hands over her breasts as she straightened and spread her legs, flattening her buttocks against his lower belly.
"Now, dear! My clitoris again! Oh, darling, make me come!"
He pumped his hips slowly, continuing to knead her breasts. He felt her body lose its rigidity, and she settled back on him, rubbing her head against his cheek.
"Yes, darling," she whispered. "This is better. I don't want it to end yet."
He pumped with long, slow strokes, careful to end each withdrawal before the head of his penis could spring out of her, and then drove deeply into her again.
She twisted her body and pulled at his head with her hand, turning his face and drawing his mouth down to hers, and they locked their lips in a hot, wet kiss while his penis continued to slide back and forth in the grasping walls of her vagina. But, at last, she caught at his right arm and pushed it away from her, forcing his hand back down onto her mound.
She took her lips from his long enough to whisper. "I want it to happen now, darling. Make it happen now."
"All right, doll."
She covered his mouth with her lips again, and her tongue probed for his. He pushed aside the cowl over her twitching clitoris and started to massage, and she jammed her bottom against his belly. His penis stroked faster, and she made throaty noises of delight. He felt a tremor sweep over her, and under his forearm her belly tensed. There was a sudden, crushing contraction of the ring at the mouth of her vagina, and he winced at the answering spasm at the base of his shaft. Waves of shuddering washed through him, and his prostate knotted. His semen spewed out of his penis into her, and she pressed her hand to her belly, clawing at the sudden fullness.
She shook violently, straightening her legs at the knees and extending her feet to the sides with her toes pointed. Her mouth gulped avidly at his, and her belly writhed in time to the waves of contractions in her vagina.
Suddenly, her mouth went slack, and she let her head fall back on his shoulder.
"Oh, God, Dave!" she whispered. "Brr-r-r! I'm as weak as an invalid!"
Her legs went limp, and her body molded itself to his relaxing frame. He held her close, warm with the afterglow of his climax, and filled his lungs with her scent.
9
Cora's panting subsided, and she groaned.
"I liked that, Dave. It was every bit as good as I thought it was going to be! You're wonderful!"
"Thanks, baby. You don't owe any apologies, either."
"Dave, let's talk about next time." She paused for a moment. "We'll have a next time, won't we?" "I sure hope so!"
"Let's talk about it ... now, when we're not all excited."
"What about it, doll?"
"I. . . well. . . Dave, there's something about me that isn't exactly like other women." "I sure as hell didn't find it on that trip!" "No, I mean about what excites me. I. . . well, there's a funny feeling I get when my bottom is against something live ... squashed against a guy's belly ... it's like putting frosting on the cake. That's the way I like to come!" "Up the ass?"
"No, no! Not that! It's just that I like to get it from behind-in my pussy, but from behind. I suppose I've got real sensitive nerves in my bottom." She flushed and smiled. "Andy and I tried it a few times up my ass. It was good, but not as good as the regular way. But it's best when the guy can get in with my back to him."
"Well, I guess that shouldn't be any problem."
"I knew you'd say that. Thank you. Oh, I love you, Dave!"
Dave felt a momentary reluctance toward accepting Cora's declaration. Twice, now, women had volunteered love, and he had no intention of permitting the new sexual activity of the mountain to interject disturbing emotional factors into his relations with Ruth. But there was something about the way Cora said it-as there had been with Elsie-that robbed it of the grasping quality such confessions would normally have.
Her voice was happy-sounding-rich with contentment-and free of any undertone of dissatisfaction or demand. She had stated the feeling in a matter-of-fact way, as if she simply wanted him to know something about the overall depth of her emotion, but without any implication that she needed anything that she did not already have.
He thought about his own feeling for her. It was tender and warm. It hurt a little, and he realized suddenly that it was a miniature version of his love for Ruth. He could not fully describe the emotion by telling himself that he liked Cora-or Elsie. The word was too weak. The nearest emotion in his dictionary had to be love, and he knew that it was a love that was without selfishness. It was not a feeling that demanded exclusiveness or that required Cora's constant presence, but simply a warmth that filled him as he thought about her.
He did love her, and he knew that he loved each of the other women that he had made love to within the week. He loved Ruth on a level that was far deeper and filled with far more need, but this new emotion could be nothing else. He mused over the idea, bewildered at the discovery that there was a discreet relationship of this kind, and he wondered if it was to be found in polygamous societies. If so, he reflected, Christian moralists were denying an intensely satisfying state of being to western society.
Cora stirred and looked at him.
"You're quiet, Dave. Does it worry you to have me tell you that I love you?"
"Not now. I had to digest the idea, though."
"Do you mind?" "No. I love you, too, Cora." "Then you understand. I was a little afraid you wouldn't."
He chuckled and ran his hand over her relaxed belly. "It's a novel experience. I've always thought of love as a possessive kind of emotion."
"A property thing?" She laughed, and the sound tinkled.
"That's right. An assertion of property rights."
"Maybe, in a different kind of world, it wouldn't ever be like that. In ours, I guess there has to be at least one person you feel possessive about."
"I wouldn't give much energy to trying to change that. Not while I've got Ruth." "No. It's good."
Dave lay on his back in front of the fire and soaked up its warmth. He let his gaze wander from person to person, enjoying the quiet stimulation that it gave him to remember the way each of the feminine bodies had felt in his embrace and the glimpses he had gotten of their entanglement with the masculine figures that shared their present informality. He found that the masks now did nothing but provide an eerie sense of standardization for bodies that were, otherwise, readily recognizable. It was easier for him to place the women than for the women to place the men, and he gave amused thanks for the fact. But with the men, it took him only a moment's reflection to determine which he was watching.
On the whole, he decided, he preferred the women's own faces to the masks. Sure, the guy who had designed the mask had used a gorgeous model and had done a remarkable job with his art, but the mask had now become a negative factor to Dave's enjoyment. He was happy with the little differences among the women, and he had to pause when he looked at one of them to mentally place her face where the mask was. He hoped that Ruth-and whoever shared her inhibitions-would not insist on their disguises after tonight.
Then Ruth left the milling group and came to him, dropping to the floor beside him. She looked thoughtful.
"I've been all the way around," she announced. She said it as if she were telling him that she had just climbed a difficult peak or completed a swim across a wide lake.
"Congratulations!" He grinned. "So have I ... except for one."
"Honey! You've missed one?"
"I sure have."
"Who?"
"You, of course."
"But that's ... that is ... well, we've made love lots of times!"
"Sure. But not at a party."
"Oh, Dave ... you're just a thrill-seeker!"
"Naturally! That's half of sex."
"My goodness! How embarrassing!"
"That I'd think of screwing you in public?"
"Well, yes, in a way. No! That it would bother me to think about it."
"It doesn't really make sense for it to bother you.
"Yes, it does."
"How?"
"Making love to you is something special, Dave. It's something that just belongs to the two of us. I hate to share it with anyone else."
"You're talking the way you would have about sex a week ago."
"I know it. I used to think that making love was sacred ... that I couldn't do it with anyone but you. It turned out I could."
"Yeah."
"Now, it's our sex-yours and mine-that I can't share. It's because there's something else in it for us besides pure sex."
"The fact that we're in love."
"Yes. Still, that's only partly true. It isn't just that we're in love; it's that I love you so much more than I do anyone else." She looked puzzled. "Dave was there any emotion besides excitement when you had those other women? Do you feel anything for them now?"
"I felt terribly tender, baby. It was a sort of miniature version of the way I feel toward you."
"I ought to be upset."
"I was afraid you might be."
"I'm not, though; I'm relieved."
"Why?"
"Because I felt that way with the other men, and because I'd hate to think of your making love and feeling nothing but physical lust. That would be just too degrading."
"I hadn't thought of it that way. A man wouldn't, normally, I think."
"I suppose not. But women grow up that way. It takes something pretty drastic to make them turn into whores."
She was quiet for a long time, staring into the fire and smiling once in awhile, as if her thoughts pleased her. At last, she broke the silence.
"I'm awfully happy, Dave."
"Anything special?"
"Lots of things. I don't have to hide anything, for one. These are wonderful people, for another. Dave, do you realize just how wonderful they are?"
"I hadn't gotten around to asking myself." "They're amazing! What do you suppose our chances were of winding up among such nice people?"
"I don't know. I don't really know just how nice they are."
"The things that have happened haven't told you?"
"Hell, no! I've learned that all four of those women screw like experts-as if they'd rather do that than anything else-but I haven't found out a hell of a lot more. Well, I suppose I can take it from you that their husbands are pretty good, too. Still, what's that say about the rest of their characteristics?"
"Honey, couldn't you tell anything about those women while you were making love to them besides how hot they were? Surely they made little remarks that told you something about them!"
"Yeah, you're right. I did learn more than that. They're fine women. Too bad their kind is so rare."
"How do you know how rare it is?"
"Look, sugar. I didn't learn anything about their general characters that I wouldn't eventually have learned without laying them. I've gotten to know a few women pretty well over the years-without shacking up with them-and they sure as hell weren't the jewels these four are."
Ruth chuckled and laid her head on his chest. "All right, dear. If you say so. Anyhow, you can tell something about them faster this way, and they are terribly nice."
"Yeah. I'd say the odds were pretty heavy against all four couples' being as great as they are."
"I felt that way. It's weird! Even now, I feel as if there were a sort of glow coming from them!"
"That's the fire, for Christ's sake."
"Not that, silly! A sort of psychic glow."
"Elsie Dorman said she knew which man was which by his aura. I decided she meant 'scent'. You're sure the 'psychic glow' you're talking about isn't just the smell of eight or ten people who've been screwing and still have the smell hanging over them?"
"Honey! Good heavens! You make it sound icky!"
"Well, I like the smell, so long as it doesn't get stale. You're sure that's not it?"
"No. I'm not sure. All I know is that I feel loved and wanted. I feel as if everyone here wanted nothing but my happiness."
"I've been teasing you, baby. I'm sure you're right. But that's because you're so goddamned innocent. They couldn't want anything else without being evil people."
"And they're not, are they."
"No, they're not. You've made your point." Dave paused, and his hand rested on her familiar curves. "Now, how about doing something about mine?"
10
Ruth fondled Dave's limp penis in her hand and made a soft, clucking sound.
"Your point acts used up, darling."
"Cautious. It doesn't want to get its hopes up too fast."
"I'm not sure he could get it up at all, right now."
"Not for just anyone. Maybe I'm asking the old pecker for too much. Maybe he won't get up for you, even though I tell him to."
"Sounds a little like a challenge. I'll have to see just how reluctant he really is."
She twisted around and bent over Dave's belly. Lowering her head, she kissed the flaccid organ, and Dave felt a glow of appreciation for her gentleness. She sat up and smiled back at him. "I'll be right back, dear. Don't move." "I'll be here," he promised.
She rose to her feet and disappeared. In a moment, she was back with a glass of red wine. She dropped to her knees beside him.
"He needs love and something to revive his spirits," she commented.
"If you think he's going to drink that, you're out of your mind! I'm not going to have a drunk cock!"
"How about a loaded cock, darling ... or a stiff one?"
Dave laughed lightly. "Be my guest."
Ruth dipped her fingers into the wine and then drew them out, dripping with the clear, red liquid. She touched the head of his penis, letting the wine run from her fingers onto the soft flesh. She repeated the process, then poured some of the wine directly from the glass onto the shank of his penis. Dave winced and chuckled.
"Now, I think he'll listen," Ruth said. "I'll whisper some love talk to him."
She set the glass to one side and bent again. Dave felt her lips nibble at the underside of the organ, slowly working her way from root to tip and back. She retrieved the glass, poured more wine onto him, then touched him with her lips again. He propped his head up with his folded hands and watched, staring down his length past tight curls of body hair. He saw her tongue come out, and she touched the tip of his penis with it. Seeing the gesture at the same time as he felt it gave Dave a strange tingle of excitement, and he tensed his belly.
Ruth licked the organ, holding it in place with her fingers, and slowly covering its entire body. Dave watched the beaded moisture disappear to be replaced by a glistening coating of her saliva, and then she went back over the surface again, lapping it dry. He saw and felt a sudden twitch in the babied flesh, and Ruth squealed.
"There!" she said. "He knows I love him!"
"Egotistical little prick," commented Dave. "He's a show-off."
"He's not so little, either. Not when he gets really interested!"
She straightened the shaft with her fingers, pointing the head at the ceiling, then opened her mouth and put her lips down over it. They closed around the shaft, and Dave felt her suck the cylinder into her mouth. Her tongue scrubbed the tender flesh of the head. Dave gasped and clenched his fists.
"Hey!" he exclaimed. "That's pretty drastic, isn't it?"
She shook her head without releasing her mouthful, and it felt to him as if she were shaking him by a handle. He gritted his teeth and grinned. She was not going to coax stiffness back into that rod, but it was fun having her try.
She sucked it in until its entire length had disappeared, and Dave could feel the curvature of the arch of her throat around the head. Shivers of excitement trickled through him, and he felt a hard pulse at the base, between her lips. She closed her teeth gently, then pulled her head up, stripping her teeth along the flesh until they stopped at the back of the head. She pushed her head back down, sucking hard and again taking his entire penis into her mouth.
What the hell! he thought. Why, she's never sucked the sonovabitch before! She's going by guesswork-and some perverse sense of challenge! Good thing I'm harmless right now.
But the pulse continued to hammer at the roots, and Dave realized suddenly that the flesh that she held in her mouth was no longer totally soft. There was a measure of stiffness to it, and he became aware of a growing sensation. Ruth increased the power of the vacuum and started a chewing motion with her jaw. Dave's penis jerked repeatedly, and he felt its head push against the back of her throat. Her head slowly rose, and the base of the shaft emerged by fractions of an inch from her gulping lips. She shook her head again, and it looked to Dave strangely like a dog shaking a bone. He felt the stiffening continue, and suddenly Ruth was working hard.
She twisted her body again, straddling his torso ... lying on his belly, her nipples brushing it and her knees pressing his shoulders. He freed his arms, locking them around her thighs, and squeezed her swaying buttocks while her head bobbed over his awakened penis. She tilted her head back and pushed herself down along his belly, her teeth riding slowly down the length of his shaft toward the base. He felt the head constricted in a narrower passage and knew with a surge of great excitement that she was practicing a sword-swallowing act with his now-rigid iron.
His thighs tingled, and he let them fall away from each other. He felt her hand grope for his balls, and her tongue scoured the ridges of his shank as she began to swallow. Her throat mashed in on the hard bulk of his penis, drawing it down powerfully, and Ruth shuddered violently in his grasp.
His gaze settled on the pink, gaping flesh within the darker folds of her crotch, and he extended his tongue to touch the throbbing surfaces. They had an iron-salt taste, and he groped for the wine glass with his fingers. They closed on it, and he brought it up over her and tilted it, letting the red fluid trickle into the trough between her ass cheeks and over the raw petals of her love mouth. She flinched and clamped down on his penis, and it occurred to him that the alcohol in the wine might burn her tissues. He lapped at it quickly, licking it off her flesh and swallowing it along with the saltier residue that came with it.
At the rapid friction of his tongue, her labia began to darken and swell, and they unfolded, filling to a shiny, out-curved funnel that revealed the small, scalloped mouth of her vagina. Even as his tongue continued to lap and to probe, the rim of the hole began winking, and it slowly opened, until it gaped at him hungrily. She forced her thighs apart, and her shoulders humped at the violence of her attack on his turgid penis. He drove the tip of his tongue into the mouth that faced him, and the tendons in her thighs bulged.
He saw her head come up and felt her teeth dragged back along the shaft of his rod, and her ass cheeks contracted tightly. He pulled at her, drawing her crotch against his face and stabbing his tongue deeply into her cavity. He tasted the metallic flavor of the evening's juices again, and there was a buzzing of excitement in his head. He gasped and stiffened as she once again forced her mouth down over his raging member and swallowed it.
She slipped her hands beneath his ass and tugged rhythmically at his buttocks with her fingers, and he tightened and relaxed them, feeling his groin rise and fall and seeing her head follow its motion. He tented his knees, his body afire with the desire that she had kindled in him, and then pulled his tongue out of her vagina and muzzled downward to suck in the flesh around her clitoris. With his tongue he sorted out the folds, forcing the cowl out of his mouth and isolating the firm roll of tissue that was her love switch. He sucked on it and scrubbed its sides with his tongue, and her hips leaped.
He clamped her thighs against his ears with his arms, immobilizing her lower torso, but her hips continued to surge, and her belly ground against his chest. He nibbled the tiny "penis" with his teeth, and he felt her mouth become frantic in its sucking on his rampant staff.
Ruth's body stiffened, and then she started to thrash. She placed her palms on the floor and pushed herself up. dragging her mouth off his penis. She struggled with him. pulling her legs free of his clutching arms and scrambling off him. She whirled to face him, and he imagined that her eves were smoky.
"Dave! Dave! Oh. God! We're both ready!"
"I sure as hell am! And I didn't think I had anything left, baby!"
"Maybe it'll be dry. darling, but it'll feel the same!" She straddled him. staring down into his face. "I'm going to try something new ... I hope it works!"
She squatted over him, flat footed, and he reached down to guide the tip of his tool into the folds that thrust downward between her quivering thighs. He felt the head meet her gaping rim, and she settled, her feet bending onto the toes as she squatted on her heels. With the motion, she engulfed his penis, and she caught at his hands.
He rested his upper arms on the floor and held his forearms vertically, and she balanced herself by clutching his hands. Her calves and thighs began to tremble from her strained position, and he felt suddenly as if his penis had been swallowed by a vibrator. He gritted his teeth and levered his groin upward against her. Her face flushed, its color visible around her lips and at her throat, and her fingers tightened on his. Her breasts were nipple-tipped cones, and they shook in the shadows beneath her shoulders. She moaned softly as the strength of the vibration increased.
"Omigod!" she exclaimed. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to straighten my legs, but it's going to be a wild come!"
"I hope it feels as good to you as it does to me," Dave said.
"Oh, darling! I feel like my twat's made of nerves-all of them raw!"
"Something inside's gobbling me up!" "Dave! It is! I can feel it!"
Sweat broke out on her face, and it trickled onto her chin and fell on his belly. The veins in her forehead stood out, and the mask was flexible enough so that they showed, along with each wrinkle of her face. For an instant, Dave had trouble separating Ruth's personality from that of the model from whom the mask had been taken. He shuddered, and the motion heightened the sensation that Ruth's trembling body had already imposed at their interlock.
"Oh! ... oh! ... Dave, I love you!"
"And I love you, baby!"
Dave was dimly aware of a ring of faces around them, and a corner of his mind registered the fad that their friends had paused in their own activities to study what Ruth was doing to him. The knowledge intensified his excitement, but he knew that it would distract Ruth if she noticed, and he pumped his hips, thrusting in and out of her pendant sex mouth with powerful strokes that made his head spin.
"Darling!" she cried. "Oh, Darling! I'm there! Fm coming! NOW! PLEASE!"
His prostate contracted, and he felt waves of spasms travel up the length of his penis. In the roar that filled his head, he could not tell whether there was a rush of semen or not, but it was unimportant. His body flogged the floor in the frenzy of his orgasm, and he felt his pubic arch pounding the pulpy matter between her thighs.
She threw her head back and gave a long, hoarse groan, and then she collapsed. Dave weakly tugged at her legs, pressing them outward and straightening them so that she could lay them outside his, and she fell forward onto him, gasping for breath. He held her to him and listened to the beat of her heart.
"Oh, Dave!" she whispered thickly. "That was the wildest!"
"It was quite a finale," he said. "You're still the champion, baby!"
She snuggled and gave a soft moan of pleasure.
"Thank you, darling," she said.
11
Dave held Ruth in his arms, and she seemed to sleep. He listened to the sounds of mounting passion around them, and from time to time he turned his head to look toward the source of an unusual exclamation. He recognized the bodies that were paired off, and he was pleased to see that the other couples had followed the example that Ruth and he had set, selecting their own spouses for one last frolic.
At length, the excitement died away, and there was a period of quiet, with labored breathing the only sign of the recent violence. In the flickering light from the fire, the interlocked bodies looked to Dave like strange new animals, multi-limbed and dual-headed. He chuckled as the notion grew stronger, and Ruth stirred and asked what he was laughing at. When he told her, she raised her head and stared about them, then joined in his amusement. Next to them, Andy and Cora roused themselves from their exhaustion long enough to find out what had struck them funny, and then the imagine was repeated from couple to couple.
It was hardly as funny as they seemed to think, Dave reflected. Hut their amusement seemed to feed on itself, as if they had become too depleted to control themselves-or as if they had to have sonic way to break the grip of the emotional spell they had fallen under. They struggled apart and stumbled erect, falling against each other with the abandon of drunks.
Ruth clung to Dave's arm. and he groped for the back of a chair to steady himself.
"Does anyone mind if I take off this goddamned mask?" asked Ruth.
There was a momentary silence, then one woman after another voiced consent. Solemnly, everyone worked his mask off, and the women felt their hair, pouting over the damage.
"Come on," Cora urged. "Let's at least straighten up ourselves a little!"
Dave exchanged grins with the four other men. "Goddamn!" exclaimed Ed King. "I've never seen Sue such a tiger! She acted like she was going to tear me apart!"
"Sue!" interjected Dan. "I thought Jean was wild!"
There was a confused babble of exclamations and then a round of contented chuckles. Fred Dorman patted his belly and turned toward Andy.
"Andrews, you sonuvabitch, you really started something! If this keeps up, we're going to wear out!"
Andy shook his head. "I doubt that. I didn't see any signs of wear out tonight."
"Maybe not, but I'm sure as hell drained right now."
"That won't hurt you."
Dave wondered if this was a good time to introduce the subject of Andy's theory, but he decided against it. He hated the thought of turning things serious after the gaiety of the evening.
Dan broke out the liquor, and the men poured drinks for themselves and their wives. While they continued to wait for the women to reappear, Ed King raised his glass.
"I'm not going to propose a toast yet," he said, "but I want you guys to know that I hate leaving here this time more than I ever have before. I feel as if Sue and I are going to leave part of ourselves behind."
Dorman agreed. "I'll be damned if I know how we all turned out to be so compatible, but it's going to be a real jolt to have to break up and go back to the race."
They appeared to be getting close to the heart of the question that had begun to trouble Dave. There was just too goddamned much compatibility here to suit him. It was not natural for five couples-any five-to get along as well as the mountain group was doing. It was even less-likely when the stresses of inter-couple sex were pumped in. Hell, it was as important for the executive to spot places where things were going too well as it was to be able to put his finger on sour spots: that was what made the difference between survival and oblivion. And Dave had no time for failure.
The trouble, Dave reflected, was that each of these men knew that as well as he did. Every one of them ought to be scratching his head and looking for the hooker. And Andy certainly should be maintaining a wary watch on his friends for signs of suspicion. If nothing else, he ought to be alert and poised for whatever thrust any of them might make.
But Andy appeared to be totally at ease, so that even his reaction to King's and Dorman's regrets was lazy. He smiled and shrugged.
"People get to know each other out here," he said. "Put them into a situation where everything's stripped away but their primitive drives, and you get to know what's at the core. That's all that's happened to us. And the basic understanding we've built up isn't going to fall apart just because we go back outside. We'll be getting together out there."
"I'm not so damned sure of that," muttered Vedder. "What'll we have in common out there, except that we own cabins in the same tract and have fucked each other's wife."
"The fact that we know how well we understand each other," replied Andy.
Dan turned away and stared into the fireplace. He spoke without turning back toward the group. "It doesn't wash, Andy. There's one thing you haven't touched on, and it blows the whole goddamned thing out of the water."
"What's that, Dave?"
"The odds against five random couples turning out to be so goddamned compatible;. We understand each other so well it makes me sick to my stomach. Hell, it's a million to one against a coincidence like that."
"Of course it is! It's no coincidence, Dave!"
"We think alike and get along together and fit in together. It isn't coincidence? Hell, I'd never heard of any of you when I bought our place up here! I made a choice from a hundred possibilities! You're telling me that was rigged?"
"Well, what I'm saying is that it was almost inevitable that we'd be compatible. You see, I..."
"Hey! Enough serious stuff!" called Jean as she came out of the bedroom. "We're back!"
The other women came out with her, and with their hair halfway under control and their faces somewhat freshened, they made Dave's belly tighten and started a nagging throb in his groin. lie realized that he had underestimated the increased effect that it would have on him when each of those superb bodies appeared with its real face. No matter how well he had been able to substitute the real face for the mask, he had still been looking at the body of a stranger. No matter that he had shared the greatest possible intimacies with each of those women, the intimacies had still involved that same gorgeous stranger.
Now, he was face to face with the women whom he talked with during the day, when they were dressed and proper and modest, but he was seeing them naked and available and with appraising expressions.
He was startled, too, by the degree to which the bodies differed now. Wearing identical faces, the bodies had looked very much alike. There had seemed to be only the subtlest of differences, even in the intimacy of sexual embraces. Now, each of the women's bodies was clearly distinguishable from the others. Each could readily be classified as a separate type, and their individuality reawakened the excitement of multiple conquest in him.
He looked at the other men and thought that he could see reflections of similar thoughts in their expressions. He fell a keen surge of joy at the knowledge that he would surely have a chance to make love to every one of these women without her mask. It would be far better, and it would be as new an experience as it had been the first time. He knew that it would have a fullness that had something to do with what Cora had described of Andy's theory.
A sour taste filled Dave's mouth at the recollection of Andy's theory. He had pinned the other down to an admission that the selection of couples for this retreat had not really been random. His suspicion had been supported, and the fact hung over him like a pall, smothering the joy of seeing his feminine friends as they were. He subsided into moody watchfulness, determined to take the first opportunity to resume his questioning of Andy Andrews. By God, he would have the facts out of the man or know the reason why. And it was all too-likely that when he did, there would be no more of what had become a marvelous enrichment for him.
But the group clustered about with their drinks, and the talk remained light, and then it was time for the party to break up. He had not gotten to talk seriously with Andy again, and he conceded that he was going to have to wait until tomorrow.
On the following day, Dave could not rest until he and Ruth could decently call on the Andrews. As it turned out, the Kings and the Dormans were there, also, and Dave felt a sudden rush of tenderness toward Elsie Dorman, recalling her innocent preoccupation with the non-human world about her. Fortunately, the women found some topic that apparently needed freedom from masculine interference for proper pursuit, and they disappeared into the cabin.
Dave lost no time in pressing for resolution of the problem that haunted him. It seemed vital to him that the matter be laid to rest before Ed and Sue King had left the mountain.
"Andy, we were talking about the odds against having five couples wind up here without prior screening and turning out to be as compatible as we are. I figure the odds at higher than a million to one against. You disagreed."
"Hell, yes, Dave! The odds were just about that high in favor!"
"With random selection? How do you figure that way?"
"Random? Jesus, Dave! Think about it! What proportion of the populace could have bought into this tract?"
Dave thought about what he had paid and the financial responsibility he had been required to demonstrate (against the possibility of some action of his ruining the investments of his neighbors, the seller had carefully explained.)
"All right," he admitted. "There aren't a hell of a lot of people who have that kind of money. But I do know quite a few, and I wouldn't be caught in the same room with most of them ... not socially."
"Of course not. But what did you get for your money?"
"Not a hell of a lot in the way of tangibles," Dave replied. "But that wasn't what I was after."
"No, it wasn't. How many of the guys who have the kind of money you have would take a second look at what you bought?"
Dave frowned. "None of them."
"Right. Dave, what I'm saying is that the price and the nature of the tract did a tremendous weeding out job. The fact that this is in the mountains instead of being at the desert or at the beach-or somewhere else-and that there's no kind of social activity within reach and you've narrowed down the prospects even further. How the hell could you help finding people here who think pretty much the way you do?"
"All right. I can do the rest of it, myself. So it just about had to work out."
"Sure! So we're not all in the same line of business!" Andy squinted and looked hard at each of the others. "I'll bet any one of us would handle a deal about the same way. I'll bet any one of us could fill in for one of the others, with a little coaching on technical facts."
Dave sighed and leaned back. He understood what Andy was driving at. More, he had an uncanny sense now of anticipating the other. He knew that their conversations would, in the future;, be conducted on a different plane. In fact, that would be true with any of the other three, as well. Entire concepts, complete to the finest detail, would pass between them in the space of a half dozen words. But their understanding hinged on something besides similarities of character; it hinged, too, on the fact that they knew each other's basic personalities. They shared each other's most primitive drives, and they knew it. They had shared in the most intimate act in life, apart from death, and they had built confidence and mutual awareness through it. He grinned broadly. There were four women he was going to get to know even better than he already did!
12
As it turned out, Dave did not make love again to Sue before she and Ed left the mountain. He was not disturbed; it was a short flight between Phoenix and Dallas, and they would get together as soon as he and Ruth finished vacationing. Besides, they would all meet here next year.
Sue's whimsical wish that the others would see them off naked caused some amusement, but the four couples who were to stay behind turned out dutifully unclothed, and they clustered in the sunlight, where they continued to wave until the trees hid the Kings' car.
The Andrews took one of the deer trails toward their own cabin, then, and the Vedders hiked up the road toward their streamside home. Elsie and
Fred Dorman lingered, and Fred suggested that the four take advantage of the pleasant weather for a nature walk. Dave caught Fred's glance, and they stared at each other, then exchanged grins.
"I'm all for it, Fred," Dave said. "Lead on."
It was clear that Fred had a particular spot in the forest that he was making for, and Dave paid little attention to the paths that they took. Wherever Fred was going, it was going to be an ideal site for an afternoon's sex, and with Elsie waiting to renew the acquaintance begun over the stream, at the Vedders', Dave was more than ready.
They broke out from under the trees into a wide clearing, and Dave had to pause to let its beauty sink in. Here was the mountain forest he had dreamed of when he and Ruth were shopping for their retreat. She turned to him now and nodded, awareness in her expression. Then she caught up with Fred and slipped her hand between his arm and his body.
"Fred, it's the most beautiful place we've seen here!"
He saw Fred smile down at her and put his arm around her waist, and the two cut across one edge of the clearing and turned onto a small trail that led them out of sight.
Elsie had paused beside Dave, and she touched his hand.
"Do you hear the stream?" she asked quietly.
Dave listened. He heard the gurgle of water, realizing that he had heard it all along, and he walked across the center of the clearing with Elsie until they stood on the hank of the brook. The water had cut deeply into the soil, and they looked down a sheer wall to the surface, some six or eight feet below. Dave glanced at Elsie's face, and he saw that she had the same dream-like expression that she had worn when he had discovered her at the Yedders'. But this time, it was her own expression ... not diluted by the mask.
"Oh, Dave ... I love it ... I love it so much that I'm not sure whether I'm really alive when I see it."
He laid his hand on her shoulder, and she leaned against him.
"You're alive," he said.
"Yes. I am." She shivered, and her hand went up to cover his. "Yes, I'm alive."
She turned away from the water, then, and raised her face toward his, her lips barely parted, her eyes calm. He touched her lips with his, and she went slowly into his arms, the length of her body molding itself to him, feature by feature.
Dave felt the warmth of her lips steal over him and knew that for a long time he would want nothing more. He held her in his arms, and the kiss extended the length of both of their bodies. Their tongues met and danced over each other, and they explored the recesses of each other's mouths. They rocked their heads in slow, opposed motion, rolling their lips on each other's. Elsie's fingers played gently on the back of his neck, and his gently kneaded her back.
They sank to the spongy ground and found it warm with the sun's radiance. They let themselves tip sideward, falling full length, and they lay together, Dave rolling onto his back and carrying Elsie with him, so that she lay on him, her breasts flattened against his chest, the brush at her loins prickling the skin of his belly, her thigh pressing his semi-rigid penis into his groin.
She raised her head and smiled down at him.
"Dave, I love you."
"You told me so once before."
"Yes, but we were wearing masks then."
"That made a difference, didn't it."
"Oh, yes! I don't know why, but it's a different you, and I love you even more now!"
Before he could reply, she covered his mouth with her lips again, and the kiss was no longer the peaceful, gentle communion that they had shared before. Her lips hardened, and they were hot, and she probed and demanded, and her breath struck his face in hot, dry puffs. She held his face between her hands, and they turned it to meet the urgency of her mouth, and a sudden need pierced him, stiffening his penis and clamping his testicles with a hard ache. He tightened his arms about her, and her eyes widened. He felt her teeth nip his lips as she pushed her abdomen hard against his. And she raised her face from his again.
"Darling! Oh, darling! I told you we'd make love again! And I said it would be better!"
"Yes, you did. Elsie, you're psychic."
"No. I'm not. I'm hot, and I want you!"
"Of course. Well, you've got me, love. You've got me, and I'm damned glad you have."
She dropped her mouth to his once more, ferociously, and her lips mauled his in a savage, gulping feast. He felt her legs part and her thighs clamp his sides, and she rotated her hips downward and forward, pressing the soft flesh of her twat on his belly. He arched upward to meet her pressure, and he felt her moisture; spread over his skin. His hands slid down her back and over her bottom, and his fingers curved inward to separate her vulva lips and stroke their inner surfaces. She writhed in his grasp, and her body twisted and bucked. At length, she broke the kiss, panting violently.
"God!" she exclaimed. "Sometimes I wonder how God made people with so much sensitivity!"
"Or how they turned out to be so sensitive in some spots." Dave chuckled.
"Yes. Oh, Dave! When you handle my pussy like that, it just turns me into a wild woman! Oh, I love it!"
Dave grinned at her tortured expression and drove a finger into her cavity. He slid his other hand under her and captured her clitoris, teasing it gently. Her hips began to leap, and her breasts rolled against him. As her love mouth loosened and gulped at the intruding digit, he pressed at it with a second, and he slowly forced it into her, beside the first.
"Yes, yes! Oh, darling! Split me in two!"
She bounced on him, and he accelerated his massage of her clitoris. His index and middle fingers on his left hand were deep in her vagina, and he probed at her rim with his ring finger, spreading her fluid and testing the taut ring of muscle. When the tension eased, he pushed inward with the fingertip, and it slid through the opening, and her legs splayed wide.
"Ah-h-h! More! Give me more, Dave!"
He toyed with her with his little finger and he twisted his hand back and forth, as if he were reaming out her love mouth. It continued to stretch, and at last he drove the fourth finger in.
"Omigod, Dave! Omigod, I'm going to swallow your whole arm! Hard, Dave! Push hard!"
He continued to rotate his hand to and fro, and it slid gradually further in as her juice coated it. She pressed her hands against the ground on either side of him, raising her upper torso above him, and thrust herself backward, onto his intruding hand.
He felt her love mouth engulf his knuckles, and her rim pressed down against the web between his thumb and his palm.
"Ah-h-h! Ah-h-h! Jesus loves me, Dave! I can't stand it; it's so good!"
Her body writhed furiously, and she tossed her head from side to side, her hair lashing her shoulders and her breasts flogging her chest. Foam flecked the corners of her mouth, and tears of ecstasy streaked her face. And then she stiffened and bore down with a grunt.
"Oh, Jesus, Dave! I've got to come! Take it out! NO! SLOW! For God's sake, slow, Dave!"
He extracted his hand slowly, and she settled onto him, panting and sobbing.
"Now, Dave! Let him come into me."
She flung herself onto her hack on the ground and raised her legs at a wide angle. Dave scrambled to his knees, and, when he positioned himself between her thighs, she lifted her feet and laid them on his shoulders.
"Tilt me, Dave. Get up and tilt me on my shoulders."
He got his feet under him and rose, and her legs lifted her bottom clear off the ground, pointing it upward at him.
He bent at the hips, and the bulk of his penis loomed over her once more tight love; mouth. He lowered the head until it centered on the opening, and then lunged, burying the massive cylinder to the hilt. His black hair mingled with her blonde, and he felt his testicles rest in the valley between her buttocks. She uttered a hoarse groan.
"God in heaven, Dave! Your cock is pushing into my lungs! Fuck me, Dave! Hard!"
Dave pumped at her, and she flexed her legs, bouncing on his penis. Bent as it was, it ached with each blow, and his balls pounded against her. She cried out in an incoherent stream of passionate syllables and her fingers dug at the ground. Wave after wave of excitement burst within him as the head of his penis ground against her organs.
"Now, Dave! FILL ME! FILL ME UP!"
She went rigid, and Dave relaxed the iron control he had imposed on himself. The familiar fist of orgasm slammed at the root of his penis and shot his seminal jet into her, and she cried out wordlessly and trembled in the intensity of her own climax. The clearing turned dark around Dave, and the roar in his head drowned out Elsie's voice. He felt the spasmodic fist slow in its blows, and his taut tendons sagged. Elsie's legs lost their hardness. Her tremors diminished, and he began to hear her again. As her body went limp, he lowered his own over her, and when she let her feet slip from his shoulders and straighten along his, he lay on her, supporting his weight on his elbows.
The wild look had left her eyes, and she smiled at him. Her fingers toyed with his hair, and she puckered her lips. They kissed tenderly, and he heard a soft crooning in her throat. He released her mouth and grinned at her.
"Dave, we're wild when we make love. That's the way it ought to be."
"It's good that way," he replied.
"We'll do it lots of ways, Dave. You like doing it lots of ways, don't you?"
"Of course, baby."
There was a sound to their right; Fred and Ruth came out of the edge of the forest.
"Is it all over for now?" asked Ruth.
Elsie laughed quietly. "For now," she said. "For now."
They walked slowly on the way back to the cabin. Fred and Elsie led, and Dave and Ruth followed. Ruth clung to Dave's hand, and she was quietly thoughtful. When she finally broke the silence, it was with a question.
"Happy, Dave?"
"Happy, pet."
"Will the cabin be all right? Can we keep it?" "I wouldn't give it up. How do you feel about it?"
"It's a new life, Dave. I don't want it ever to change."
"It won't. Not with these people on our side."
"Dave. I love you. The more we're with the others, the more I love you."
"I love you, too. pet. With you here, life's good."
