One of the most popular games people play is the swapping game. As Thomas J.B. Wilson, Ph. D., says in his book, Wife Swapping-A Complete 8 Year Survey of the Morals in North America: "Calculated estimates from professional statisticians now place the number of adult Americans who have in the past or are currently engaging in mate trading in clandestine groups at more than five million couples: This would mean that more than five per cent of the total married population of the United States has been, and/or is, involved in mate trading." When Cal and Dianne were sent to Land's End by the mother chapter of Swappers' International to solve a problem of prejudice within the group there, they went along with it. After meeting some beautiful swapping couples and solving their problem, they discovered they had just participated in the biggest game of them all. They had been put on by the entire group, so they just settled down for a long winter's night of swapping enjoyment!
I
She was hardly more than a girl, big tits or no, Cal reminded himself. What the hell was her name? Oh, yes. Marlene. Marlene Delbert ... or Delman ... or something like that.
But those tits! God! Choke a man if he got careless!
A man was not-likely to get careless about that right now, though. like a young animal, she squatted over him, her nails biting into his sides, her ass scrubbing his thighs, her pussy clamped in a death grip on his cock.
Cal sighed happily.
A guy was not-likely to forget himself, he thought, with those tits hanging in front of him this way. They swung and bounced, full and ripe and heavy, and the nipples stood out like fingers. It seemed a marvel that a girl with such a slender body could boast such great boobs, but there they were.
He tightened his ass, driving his groin upward against her, and she squealed with delight. She released her grip on his sides and flung up her head and leaned back, arching so that her belly was deliciously outthrust and her tits jutted forward like gun turrets.
"Honey..." she whispered, but he knew that everyone in the room could hear her. "Honey ... do that again. Do it hard!"
He stabbed upward again, feeling his ass come off the floor and the hardness of his groin crush the soft, girlish mass of tissues at her crotch. She shivered and bent forward, squirming on him and seizing his protesting sides with her strong fingers.
"Ooh!" Her hair fell over her face, and its ends caressed his chest. "Ooh, Cal! When you do that, I feel like I've got to come!"
She thrust her legs behind her, stretching them along his, and held them off the floor, with her weight bearing down on the root of his cock. Grinding herself backward and forward, she turned serious. Her teeth clenched, and stood out at her temple.
Cal raised his head, catching a nipple in his mouth and sucking hard. He clutched at her bottom, squeezing the great handfuls of writhing flesh and kneading them. This kid had no inhibitions, he reflected. Give her a cock and a little movement, and she was all sex. No wonder she and her husband were so in demand for these parties!
"Come! Come! For God's sake, pump me up!"
Catching her upper arms in his hands, Cal pushed them up. and back. She hung in his grip, her back arched and her body driving down onto his hard-on, and he swept her back and forth. He hooked his toes under her ankles and swept her legs up and out, stroking her along the length of his buried cock.
There it was! he thought. God, yes! There it came! Searing fluid coursed up his rod and spewed into her, and her face twisted into a mask of passion.
"Mm! Mm-m-m! GOD, YES! Oh-h-h!"
She trembled, and Cal thrust upward, squeezing one more jet of semen into her. He gave a great shudder and lowered her, and her great breasts spread and flattened on his chest, and she caught his face between her hands and covered his mouth with hers. Muscles within her cavity milked his now-dry cock, and her thighs worked against his. Her belly rubbed over his, and she rocked on her tits.
But the tenseness left her, gradually, and she drew her face back and smiled at him. Her lips were wet and full, and her eyes glistened.
"For a minute, I thought you were going to break my back!" she exclaimed. "God, that hurt!"
"Sorry, baby. You okay now?"
"Oh, yes!" she sighed. "You can do that any time! It was a good kind of hurt!"
"Funny we haven't gotten together before. I think people have just been trying to keep us apart."
"I guess the schedules just weren't right. Every time you and your wife made a party, John happened to be on a trip, and then when we made it, you two had something else going."
"Damned bad timing." Cal growled.
Marlene smiled and wiggled on him. "Bad," she agreed. "But we finally got together. John said he'd quit his job before he'd miss this one."
"Yeah?"
"I think he meant it. 'I'm going to get my dick into that North legend if it's the last thing I ever do!' he told me." She giggled. "What's so goddamn special about that wife of yours, anyhow?" "Special?"
Marlene nodded. Cal looked across the room to where Dianne held a pair of dark, lean hips in the circle of her legs. He noted the gleam of sweat on the straining couple and heard Dianne's soft, breathless laugh.
Marlene's gaze followed his, and she wiggled again.
"See what I mean? See the look on Rod's face? He wouldn't back away from her right now if the place were on fire! I keep hearing things about Dianne's being the best piece in the whole organization! I'm jealous!"
Cal sighed contentedly. "You don't need to be. You've got a hell of a good reputation, yourself."
"But what is it about her? You ought to know. After all, you sleep with her all the time."
"Don't get all that much sleep," Cal grunted. "I gotta admit that she's something else. I guess it's attitude. Other women get excited and eager when you push them hard enough. With Dianne, there's a kind of breathless attitude. She acts as if she'd been waiting forever for you to get around to putting it in her. It's a big, happy game with her, and she always seems to be sorry it took so long to get going."
"I suppose that has to be it," conceded Marlene. "That makes it with a guy, doesn't it." "Yeah."
There was a flurry on the couch, and the tumbling couple stiffened into rigidity. The only sign of movement was a slow, powerful grinding of Dianne's hips.
"God!" exclaimed Marlene in a whisper. "Look at the way she milks him!"
Cal nodded. "He won't have much energy left when she lets him go," he admitted. "She'll suck the last drop out of him and still ask for more."
"Br-r-r!" The rest of us haven't a chance!"
"Sure you have, baby. You put up a great screwing! And you've got a blue ribbon set of tits, too! Sonovabitch! How do you keep from falling on your face!"
She laughed happily. "Thank you! What a nice thing to say!"
"I mean it! A guy doesn't get his mouth on tits like yours once in a blue moon."
"I ... Well, I'm proud of them. They just grew that way, I guess. And the closer I watch my weight, the more they stand out."
They would, he thought. The girl hadn't an ounce of fat, and her trimness accentuated the development of those magnificent globes. But they must be almost embarrassing to her at times. He asked.
She flushed and nodded. "Sometimes," she said. "I've got to be careful not to catch them in something." And then she shrugged and sighed. "But they're worth it. I don't have to beg."
He would be willing to bet that she did not. With that kind of equipment, she could just about take her choice. She would be a legend in her own right, if he was any judge of his friends in Swappers International. With her attitude to supplement her figure, he would guess that her name would be kicked around in every country that had representative chapters.
The girl appeared to be growing restive now, though. He realized that she was eying bulky Erin Jorgenson with more than casual interest, and Cal had an abrupt sensation of being a piece of furniture.
"He's big, isn't he!" she said quietly.
"A real brute," agreed Cal. "I hear he'll twirl a woman on the end of that cock of his until she yells for mercy."
"Ooh! Don't say it like that!"
"You haven't had a round with him?"
She shook her head, but Cal could tell that her mind was not on the words. She was already beginning to tense for something from the blonde giant. She had obviously forgotten Cal, and she began to disengage herself from him. He clasped her to him for a moment.
"Listen," he said. "Listen to me, Marlene."
"Hm? What?"
"You keep hearing things about Dianne ... things about what a great piece she is." "Yes."
"You'll kill yourself with these people if you forget that a guy has two ends to his passion." "What's that mean?"
"He's something important to himself. It makes him feel good when a girl falls all over herself to climb onto his dick. But there's afterward, too. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth if she acts as if he were a worn-out broom handle when she's gotten what she wants."
"Oh, Cal! That's not fair!"
"Screwing is like a hill. It's got an upslope and a downslope, and a guy gets something out of both sides. Start climbing the next hill before you're off the first one, and guys won't be coming back for seconds."
"Cal North! Of all the..." she stopped suddenly, and her face looked thoughtful. "Was I really that obvious?"
"Yeah. You were that obvious."
"I'm sorry, Cal. I didn't mean it that way."
She snuggled, pressing her cheek to his shoulder, and it was a pleasure to hold her. She had good intentions, he decided. She simply lacked guidance. He kissed her forehead and stirred.
"We can't lie here on the floor all night, though." It was a concession to her still-hungry body. He continued. "Let's get up and see what else is going on."
"All right."
He helped Marlene off, and she stood. Cal sat up, realizing how hard the floor had been, then rose and stood beside her. The room had taken on a bacchanalian look. Everyone was naked, and more than a few were mixing their sex with liberal quantities of the heady wine that the Clymers had provided. Bess would have a hell of a time cleaning up the mess, he thought. He wondered if the carpet was going to carry a permanent stain for the rich, purple spills, and he wondered, too, how long it would be before Bess and Don would screw up enough courage to stage a repeat of this party. But he sensed impatience in the girl at his side, and he took her elbow and guided her through the grunting mass of people.
"Eric ... Eric!"
The blonde giant turned at the sound of Cal's voice.
"Cal, you scoundrel! Glad to see you here! I thought I heard Dianne laughing when I came in! How the hell are you?"
"Missed you at the Foremans' party, man. Out-of-town business?"
Eric chuckled. "No, not that night. Freeda and I had a couple of novices in the net, and we couldn't let them get away."
Cal grinned. "Get them converted?"
"And how! They're ready! We'll have them at the next party."
"Where is Freeda? I haven't seen her."
"You will. She said she wasn't going to call it a night until she'd had you in the saddle. Realize it's been over three months since we've gotten together with you and Dianne?"
"Damn right I do! Glad you're here, Eric. Hey, meet someone special. Eric, this is Marlene. Marlene Delbert..."
"Delpert, darling."
"Yes. Delpert. Marlene Delpert. You'll like the way she warms up."
Eric looked down at the girl, and his face took on an expression of rapt pleasure as he stared at her breasts. "Just like at home," he said softly.
"Home?" asked Marlene.
Cal laughed. "Once-just once-Eric and Freeda went to Sweden, where their families came from. But that's 'home' to Eric."
"Tits, Cal-boy. That's what they've got at home. Acres and acres of tits! Tits a man can bury his face in! And this child would be a queen, even there!"
Marlene appeared pleased by Eric's frank assessment.
"Were you a king?" she asked, glancing significantly down at his massive cock.
He sighed. "I'm afraid not. I was more like an apprentice."
Marlene shivered. "God! What a place that must be!"
Eric winked at Cal over the girl's head. "It is that," he said with a sigh. "But are those jugs as full as they look?" "Well..."
She twitched her shoulders, and the great globes quivered.
"Hm-m-m." Eric, laid one hand on a mound and caressed it. "Hm-m-m. Feels like it. Let's see how they hold up."
Marlene closed her eyes and leaned toward him.
"Let's," she crooned.
Cal backed away. He watched Marlene's hand stroke Eric's belly lightly, then close over the semi-rigid cock, fondling it's bulky head, and knew that she was still hungry. It was good to have a kid like that in the crowd, he reflected. Her appetite could not fail to stimulate the other women to greater efforts. But then, Eric was something of a tonic, himself. Damned few of the women could resist making a pass at him, when he and Freeda showed up.
Cal's thoughts were interrupted by a husky, quiet voice.
"Was she good, darling?"
He looked back as cool fingers touched his shoulder.
"Bess! I sure haven't seen much of you tonight!"
Bess giggled and pirouetted. "Now you've seen all of me, Cal."
"I like." He patted her hip. "Busy?"
"Never that busy. But let's talk first. Okay?"
"Hell of a waste of time when I've got you naked and loaded, baby."
"Cal! I am not loaded!"
"With all that wine, you're sober?"
"Well, not exactly sober. But not loaded, either."
"I'll take your word for it." He stroked her belly, and she looked up at him with smoldering eyes.
"Stop that, Cal. Later. Don is in the den. Why don't you join him while I try to get Dianne away from Rod?"
"I don't know about that. Looks to me like they've grown together."
Bess giggled again. "Then I'll get my pruning shears. Although that'd be a shame."
"Don't do that! Look, I'll wait in the den."
She nodded. "I'll bring Dianne. I'm sure Rod'll forgive me, just once."
She threaded her way toward the relaxed couple, and Cal headed for the den. At these parties, it was generally considered bad form to break for serious business, but if Don and Bess were willing to risk that in their own home, then something must be up.
Don was slouched in one of the easy chairs, and he grinned up at Cal, waving vaguely toward another. Cal crossed the small room and dropped into the chair, returning Don's grin.
"Why the pow-wow, Don?"
"Trials of the office, Cal. Being president of Swappers International has its obligations."
Cal shook his head. "Not at a party, old man. You and Bess have just as much right as anyone else to let go and have fun."
"Most of the time. But you're out of town so much that I was afraid to try to catch you tomorrow. Bess and I both thought that we'd better nail you while you were here."
"What's it all about?"
There were damned few men in the organization with Don's stamina, and Cal sensed that it would take something out of the ordinary to draw the lean man away from the free-giving women, even for a few minutes. So far as Cal knew, the organization was healthy and vigorous. It had been over a year since the last interference from authorities, and he had heard no rumors of any new drive. But something was evidently in the wind.
2
Dianne wriggled again. It delighted her to watch Rod's embarrassed grimaces when she did that.
"Damn it, woman! I'm drained!"
She cooed at him. "Come on, baby ... just a little more..."
Rod groaned. "Not even for you, Dianne. Unh! That twat must have hands of its own!"
"Lips, darling. Lips. They're just kissing you."
"They're squeezing the hell out of me! That's what they're doing! Shit! I'm dry, I tell you!"
"But good. You don't get soft as fast as the others do."
"How the hell can I! You've got it strangled!"
Dianne sighed and tightened her arms around Rod's shoulders. He was a dear boy, and she knew that his protests were a sham. He loved this post-orgasm attention, and he would remember it, long after he had forgotten the feel of his penetration. This kind of play was the second half of her sex signature. She smiled at the success that she had found with that signature; she knew that she had become something more than just another member of the club. She knew-and delighted in the knowledge-that wherever a chapter of Swappers International met, her name was certain to come up.
It had been a conscious thing on her part. There had been a time when she would have given sex up without a murmur ... when it had seemed almost boring, with its routine of feel-up and insertion and grunting and collapse. She had loved Cal, then, perhaps as much as she did now. She had wanted him to have the best, and with her figure and looks, that had seemed easy. But it had come to her that any wench off the street could have given him the same relief. And relief was not what he really wanted.
She had tried to develop a better technique. She had grown aggressive, and she had learned to fling herself about during their bouts until she was like a wild woman. But she had known that there was still nothing unique about her. And she had felt the magic of sex waning.
They had considered the idea of swapping, at about that time, and she had trembled with fear and hurt at the thought of sharing him-and of depending on that kind of excitement to keep their own sex alive. But she had accepted it, and it had brought a measure of novelty back into their marriage.
Still, the answer had to lie somewhere else. After the first few times, the sameness was back, and Cal had admitted that "one pussy was pretty much like another". "Even the movement doesn't change that much," he had said. "Women don't vary a hell of a lot ... and I suppose men don't, either."
He had said something else, then, that had seemed trivial and pretty. At first, she had dismissed it with the thought that he was simply in a low mood. But it had come back to her from time to time, and at last she had sensed the fact that it was the key to the sameness.
"Trouble is," he had said, "that a guy gets to feeling like a goodamn appliance. He's just a handy peg for a woman to ream out her twat on, once in a while, and when she's scratched the itch, back he goes on the wall."
It had been unfair, of course. The itch was not all that one-sided. Few women would take the initiative unless the man showed signs of interest, himself. A lot would not, even then: the man contributed a lot to the initial build-up.
But maybe that was an unspoken part of what he was trying to say. She had thought about it, and she had decided to experiment.
It had not been easy for her. Going to Cal when he showed no apparent desire for sex and letting him know how hungry she was for it had fallen little short of degradation. There had been times when her efforts had repulsed him, rather than awakening desire in him. But she had learned what excited him and what did not. The most effective weapon that she had was the simplest. It had turned out to be an air of breathless wonderment and bubbling exuberance, in the end.
It still amazed her, how grateful men seemed when they got the feeling that she found something more than just physical stimulation in their fondling. And she had discovered that low-key sex play after they had shared their orgasms sent them away feeling like giants. She had learned that she could spend as much time in light-hearted activity afterward as she had in reaching her orgasm, and that her partners left her-finally-exhilarated by something that they could not define for her.
There was no need for them to define it. She knew the extra dimension that she had added to the act, and she was content to know that they looked forward impatiently to the next chance to make love to her.
There had been a period when she had thought that Cal had had enough of swapping. The element of novelty never did come back, and he seemed so much happier with her than with the others that she expected him to suggest that they drop the club. In fact, they did miss a number of parties at that time. But then they began accepting invitations again, and she had found herself as eager as Cal to stay with the people they had come to know. And she suspected that the overall quality of the games had improved as a result of the spirit that she and Cal had infused.
"Hey, you two!"
It was Bess Clymer. She stood beside the couch, looking down at Rod and Dianne, and her mouth twitched.
"Hey, you two ... haven't you had enough for this round?"
Rod groaned in mock exhaustion.
"For God's sake, Bess! Help me off this woman! She's sucking my guts out!"
Bess shook her head. "Shame on you, Rod. Talking that way about a dear thing like Dianne. My goodness!"
Dianne laughed. "Isn't he terrible?"
"He certainly is. I wouldn't put up with him, if I were you." Bess paused, and she cocked her head and studied Rod. "On the other hand...! "
Rod pushed himself off Dianne. "On the other hand, you'd be willing to give me a little, wouldn't you."
He slid his hand along Bess's thigh, and she pursed her lips. She swayed momentarily, pleasure suffusing her expression, and Rod fingered her breast with his other hand. Then she pushed his hands away, fumbling as she did so.
"Rod ... Rod, please! Later! Oh, you rascal!"
Rod laughed. "I can tell when I'm not wanted. Where's the wine?"
He turned and headed for the bar, and Dianne struggled to her feet.
"What is it, Bess? You didn't get Rod off me so you and I could play games."
Bess colored and smiled. "No, I didn't. Don and Cal are waiting for us in the den."
"Oh?"
Dianne followed Bess, chuckling at Bess's reaction to the allusion of woman-play. Swapping-at least, the swapping that she and Cal participated in-was pretty much heterosexual. Oh, the women sometimes put on an exhibition for the men, just to arouse them, but there was no serious activity between them. But Bess was known for her vehemence about Lesbian activity. There had been a time when the mere touch of another woman's hand would trigger her anger, and even now, she shuddered visibly at any such suggestion.
Bess led the way into the den and, when Dianne had joined her, closed the door. Cal and Don glanced up at them, and Don made a feeble gesture toward rising. But he did not complete it. Instead, he sighed and sank back into his chair, and Bess and Dianne seated themselves on the couch.
"Gotta save my strength," commented Don. "Lotsa broads to cover before the night's over."
Bess was tart. "Being in here isn't helping you get them covered," she reminded him.
"Of course. Let's get this out of the way."
Don lost his over-relaxed air and leaned forward. The transformation was startling, in spite of the fact that Dianne had seen it often. A moment before, he had looked like a slothful, ignorant clod; now, he was alert and dynamic. There was suppressed excitement in every fiber, and his eyes sparkled.
"Cal, how hard would it be for you to take a couple of weeks off?" he asked.
Cal shrugged. "I could get away," he said. "Thieboldt's been pushing me for that mood thing, but I happen to know that he doesn't mean to publish it until midwinter. Why?"
"Got a call from Mason in the Land's End chapter. Sounds like they've got a problem."
"And...? "
"Well ... Bess suggested that you and Dianne might drop in on them ... find out what's wrong and see what ought to be done."
"Just like that? What kind of problem is it?"
"Mason wouldn't say over the phone. Something about tension among some of the members. I got the notion that he was afraid someone might blow the whistle, just for spite."
"Personalities, maybe?"
"Maybe. Anyhow, it's not just a neighborhood feud. And we sure don't want Mason to get hurt."
"You really think he could do anything?"
To Dianne, Cal sounded doubtful. He sounded as if he were disappointed in Don for making such a big deal out of some local squabble. And she knew how much he hated being dragged into unpleasantness. But Don nodded.
"We think you could. People loosen up around a new couple."
That was true, she thought. It was not a matter of carrying gossip, either. It was rather more a matter of wanting to save the newcomers from embarrassment-or worse. Swapping was an intensely personal sort of relationship, and a couple could be hurt badly if they walked into something without warning. So swappers everywhere took it as a solemn charge to warn, where necessary, and to forearm visitors against the idiosyncrasies of the local chapter. If she and Cal visited Land's End-as members of Swappers International, the local S.I. people would see to it that they knew what was happening before they participated in the first activities. What influence she and Cal could exert after that might be an entirely different thing.
"Think it's urgent?" asked Cal.
Don nodded. "I think so. Damned urgent."
"Why?"
"Well, at Land's End, they make the usual rounds. Two or three couples, mostly, hitting each other's homes when they feel like a little action. But they have a big party once every two months, and from what Mason says, everyone makes those. There's one due weekend after next. He's afraid the whole lid's going to blow off that night."
"Why the hell doesn't he cancel the thing ... get more time?"
"He tried. Most members called him about the notice and said they weren't about to give up the party. So he's stuck with the date." Don grinned. "I guess there's a sizeable chunk of club money tied up in advance reservations and all."
"Reservations?"
"He says they've got a lodge lined up ... one of those swank places on the beach ... must have cost a small fortune."
"Well ... " Cal looked at Dianne, and she studied his expression. Everything about his face showed reluctance to walk into a warring club, and she knew what it would cost him to accept the assignment. Still, she knew, too, that he would be miserable if he turned Don down. S.I. people were special to Cal, and he could no more ignore a call for help than he would be able to on a crowded beach ... not if he meant to sleep comfortably afterward. She made an almost imperceptible nod.
Cal sighed. "All right. We'll go."
"I thought you would." Don got up and went to his desk. "Here's a packet."
Cal riffled through the papers in the envelope. "Travelers' checks?" he asked.
"The club's paying your expenses," said Don.
They left the next morning. It was an uneventful flight, and they rented a car at the other end for the seventy mile drive to Land's End. They checked into the motel-Surfrest-and found that their reservations were in order. The proprietor was a great, gray-haired fellow, who greeted them as if they were royalty.
"Dining room's closed," he told them. "But you can get lunch in the snack bar, if you haven't eaten yet."
They thanked him, and he showed them to their room. The window in the back overlooked the beach, and Dianne knew that she was going to like it here. When they were alone, Cal went to the telephone and dialed the number that was shown in the packet.
"Hello?" he said. "Hello? ... I need to reach Sugar Imports, please ... Yes ... Oh, thank you."
He wrote a string of numbers on the back of the slip from the packet, then repeated them into the mouthpiece.
"Thanks again," he said.
He hung up and dialed the new number.
"Hello ... Yes, I'm calling the Sugar Import offices ... No ... Yes ... Yes..." There was a pause, and Cal winked at Dianne.
"They're damned careful," he whispered.
Before she could reply, he was speaking into the instrument again.
"Yes, that's right. Sugar Imports ... Yes, we just reached town ... Where? ... All right."
He hung up again.
"Sounds okay," he commented to Dianne. "Male or female?"
"Female." He grinned. "Sounded like she was already in bed with me."
Dianne stuck out her tongue at him. "You're not there, yet."
"No. But we're on our way."
"Now?"
"She suggested that we kill an hour in a place called Hunters' Grill. Good food and plenty of liquid if we want it."
"How are we supposed to recognize her?"
"She said that there wouldn't be too many people there at this time of day. We'll take a table and spend a half hour looking over the couples. In the meantime, she and her husband will be doing the same. At the end of that half hour, there'll be a phone call for anyone from Sugar Imports', and her husband will take the call."
"And then we introduce ourselves?"
"Right. And we either stay, or we come back here and check out."
"Of course."
It differed in minor details, but in essence it was the same ritual that they had encountered any time that they had visited a strange club. There always seemed to be two key elements to such a meeting. It had to be disguised, and both couples had to have time to study the other before meeting face to face. She recalled one instance in which she and Cal had refused to go into the actual contact phase ... the sharp-featured, cruel-eyed man with the scared-looking girl and her own twinge of revulsion at the thought of his touching her. The telephone call had come, and hawk-face had taken it. But Dianne had already let Cal know how she felt, and they had continued to sip their drinks, pretending not to have noticed the call. The other couple had stayed in the lounge for another twenty minutes, and then had left, peering closely at each of the couples who were still there. She and Cal had left that town, sending a telegram of regrets later.
But such occasions were rare, and she supposed that today's encounter would be the more usual one of friendly acceptance. If the couple who were to meet them were Tod Mason and his wife, Irma, they had to be something special. To Don and Bess Clymer, at any rate, there were few who could rival the Masons' charm and warmth.
Still, she felt the old nervousness, and she took the time to survey herself critically before she and Cal left the room.
3
Hunters' Grill was at the far end of Land's End. They had to drive along Bluffs Boulevard to reach it, and the ocean lay at their left and the town's dozen or so commercial buildings on their right. The Grill was one of the few buildings that stood between the street and the bluff, and they could see that it was cantilevered out over the sheer drop.
They parked on the far side and went in. Through the traditional gloom, as their eyes became accustomed to the reduced light, they made out trophy-lined walls and intimately spaced tables. There were four men and two women seated at the bar, but they appeared to be alone, none interested in the others. They slouched on their stools, staring silently into their drinks, and Dianne had a weird sensation that time was standing still for them-that they were wrecks washed into a lifeless, motionless dimension. She shivered, and her fingers tightened on Cal's arm. He led her past the bar to one of the far tables, and she looked away from the lonely figures toward the few couples who were seated among the jungle-like artificial plants.
They had a different look about them. Not all appeared to be happy, but all showed an awareness of their surroundings. Two couples sat together, and Dianne crossed them off her list of possibles. Another couple, an elderly, portly man with an air of money about him and a svelte, platinum-blonde girl were far too obvious in their separate kinds of interest in each other to be the Masons. There was a quiet couple who looked up briefly from sandwiches, then back again, who were young enough and contented-looking enough. And there was a fifth couple, perhaps a few years older, who sat across from each other drinking old-fashions. They, too, had time for a quick glance at Cal and her, and then they returned to their animated conversation.
A girl whose curves were only barely concealed by the briefest of skirts, and whose naked breasts sagged against her chest, came to the table and took Cal's order.
"She sure as hell wouldn't pass the pencil test," remarked Cal. "Stick the edge of a menu under one of those tits, and it'd be like hanging it on a clipboard."
"Cal! Maybe she had a hard night."
"Maybe. I'd guess she's had a lot of them."
Dianne shook her head. "Kids, hon."
"Huh?"
"She's got kids. Probably got someone baby-sitting with them while she earns enough to pay the rent."
"How do you figure?"
"Take a close look when she comes back. She's got marks on her breasts, as if they'd cracked open and then healed. That's from filling up with milk."
"I'll be damned!" exclaimed Cal after the waitress had served their drinks and retired out of earshot. "I'll be damned! She has 'em! How come you noticed and I didn't?"
"I don't look for the same things as you when I see a naked woman," she said sweetly. Reminding him could not hurt. "Nor think of the same thing."
He chuckled. "I hope not. Okay, so she's got kids. How many?""
"I don't know, but she hasn't worked here very long."
"Come on, Sherlock. Give."
"Well, she's not sure of herself. She had to fight herself to keep from putting her hands over her breasts when you were staring at them. And she worries too much about the bartender, as if she were afraid he'd try something. And it bothers her to have the waistband of her skirt so far below her navel ... she hasn't even figured out how to get rid of the white space where she isn't tanned."
Cal laughed. "If I ever need a private investigator, I'll know who to get. What can you tell me about the customers?"
"Those at the bar are miserable. They're either dropped out already, or they're about to."
"Yeah. Couldn't scare up a smile there if you tried."
"Those two couples together ... I think they're having problems. The bald-headed man is so angry he's ready to hit someone."
"And that moonfaced broad isn't helping matters a bit," observed Cal. "If it weren't for the other two, the guy'd hang one on her, I'll bet."
Dianne nodded. If the four got out of the bar without violence, she would be surprised.
"That old man and the girl," she said. "I think they might make a good story. He's got money that she'd like to have some of-and she's got youth and beauty and a body that he means to get a piece of."
"Sonovabitch'll probably go to sleep in the middle of the action." Cal snorted. "Either that or have a stroke."
"I don't know. He'll probably make her do all the work. After all, he's buying and she's selling."
"Yeah. I guess so. What about the young couple?"
"With the sandwiches? Honeymooners." Cal sighed. "I was afraid of that. Now that woman, I'd like to lay!" "Once or twice, maybe."
Cal frowned and studied the girl, then grinned. "I see what you mean. She looks pretty blank."
"And that leaves one couple."
"Yeah it does, and they look like they brought in all the trophies on the walls!"
They did, she admitted to herself. They had a lean, fit appearance that made her think of safaris and evening cocktails outside a broad tent, rather than of dimly lighted bars. But that was because of Cal's comment. Until he had said that, she had pictured them on skis-and perhaps standing under a straining sail on a yacht. She could not visualize them scrambling for a living, though, for their clothes had a quiet elegance about them that had to come from the best shops, and their expressions were free of the pinched tautness that came from wondering whether the next paycheck would stretch far enough.
The door swung open, and another couple entered. At first, they were silhouettes, but when the door closed, she could see them clearly. They made-likely candidates, too, she decided. like the couple she had just been studying, they looked fit and alive. The man had rich, deeply waved hair, and his features were rugged and open. The woman moved like a cat, and every step activated muscles that rippled up and down her frame under a clinging sheath of some synthetic knit. The two hesitated until their vision had recovered from the sudden plunge into the half darkness, then made their way to a table that was reasonably isolated. They peered at their neighbors with undisguised interest, and Cal chuckled.
"Okay. That lets the hunters out. These two have to be the Masons."
"I guess you're right. They do seem to be more interested in who's here."
"Looks like they know the hunters, though," Cal said.
The new couple had caught sight of the two Cal referred to as hunters, and the man half rose. The two couples exchanged smiles, and then the husky man sank back and leaned toward his cat-like companion. She smiled and nodded, and they settled back quietly to wait for the waitress.
Somewhere, a telephone rang. It had a muffled sound, as if it had been covered with towels. The bartender bent and came up with a receiver. After a moment, he laid the receiver on the top of the bar and stared out at the tables.
"Excuse me," he said. "Is there anyone here from Sugar Imports? There's a call here for anyone from Sugar Imports. They say it's urgent."
There was a momentary silence. No one moved.
"Sugar Imports?" asked the bartender. He placed his hand on the receiver.
The man who Cal thought looked like a hunter sighed and pushed his chair back.
"I'll take it," he said quietly.
"Sonovabitch!" whispered Cal. "It was him, after all!"
"And hee-hee. I'd have sworn it was going to be the other two."
Dianne nodded. She had hoped that it would be. There was something wildly attractive about the homely man, and she knew that the woman's feline grace would have captured Cal's imagination at once. Still, the hunter couple looked like they would be worth knowing. In most crowds, they would have stood out, and she and Cal would have gravitated toward them.
There was a brief, one-sided conversation at the bar, and then the man handed the receiver to the bartender.
"Thanks," he said, laying some change on the bar top. "Damn fools don't know what's urgent and what isn't."
The bartender clucked with sympathy, and the instrument disappeared. One of the lonely men at the bar spoke without looking up.
"Everyone's that way," he said with a slur. "Whole damn world. Piss on 'em."
The hunter ignored the remark and returned to his companion, smiling pleasantly at Dianne and Cal as he sat. Cal sipped thoughtfully.
"Any objection to meeting them?" he asked Dianne.
She shook her head. "Not at all. I wonder if they're the Masons?"
"I suppose. Mason's the local president, and he's the guy who gets stuck with this job in most chapters."
"I'm a little sorry it wasn't the other couple." Cal grinned. "Okay, Sherlock. Let old Watson make a prediction, We're going to see a lot more of that other couple in the next couple of weeks." "You really think so?"
He shrugged. "They know the Masons, and they look like people with adventure in their blood. I'll bet on it."
"I hope so."
Cal rose. "Time for an introduction, I guess. Coming?"
She waited for him to help her with her chair, then joined him as he approached the hunters.
"Excuse me, sir. I heard the bartender say Sugar Imports. I have a friend who's connected with their Chicago office."
The man rose quickly. "Really? Perhaps I know him."
"Fellow named Clymer ... Don Clymer."
Dianne saw an expression of pleasure come into the woman's face, and the man smiled broadly.
"Of course I know Clymer! How is Don? And how's his wife?"
"Bess? She gets better all the time," replied Cal.
Dianne winced. It seemed a bit early for a remark as pointed as that. But the man chuckled and extended his hand.
"Join us. We've got to hear all about Don and Bess. I'm Tod Mason; this is my wife, Irma."
Carl gripped Tod's hand. "I'm happy to meet you-both of you. We're Cal and Dianne North."
"North?"
Both Tod and Irma stared at Dianne, and she felt a surge of embarrassed gratification at the respect in their eyes.
"In the flesh!" said Tod in a whisper. "A legend in the flesh."
Irma laughed softly. "Don't be gauche, darling," she said. "Let them sit down."
"By all means!" replied Tod, starting guiltily.
"I'll bring our drinks," Cal said.
Dianne and Cal took the two vacant chairs at the Masons' table, which meant that Irma was on one side of her and Tod was on the other. She felt at home immediately.
"How are they?" asked Irma hungrily. "We haven't seen them for over a year."
"Very much alive," Dianne told her. "They had a party at their home last night, and they were in great form."
"Don ... was he ... is he...? "
Dianne smiled. "He is. Cal was right. They keep getting better, Irma. I don't know about Bess, except by watching her, but Don just can't be beat."
Tod drained his glass. "Tell you what. We've been away from the office long enough. Why don't you go back with us? We'll lock up and take the rest of the afternoon off."
There was always the pretense, thought Dianne. As if every bar had hidden mikes to trap people who met in them-or bartenders or patrons who were disguised cops. But a person got used to it and played along ... and maybe it was all part of the whole, delicious game.
"Fine!" commented Cal enthusiastically. "We're on vacation, and you can probably point out the things we ought to do while we're here-or stay away from."
In the rented car, they followed Tod and Irma away from the main street. There was a narrow road that wound north along the bluff, and here and there they saw stately houses perched on the slopes above them. They drove into a stand of fine old redwoods, and on the other side, nestled into a recess in the hillside, lay a heavily glassed, low roofed house of the most modern architecture.
Tod swung his car off the road into a curved drive, and Cal followed him.
"From the looks of it, you people have all the privacy you could ask for," Cal said when he and Dianne joined the Masons.
Tod surveyed the scene, pleasure evident in his manner.
"We like to think so," he said. "That was the primary consideration when we bought." His gaze lingered on Dianne, and she recognized the universal animal undercurrent in his voice when he continued. "like to test it?"
He seemed a different man from the one who had answered the telephone in Hunters' Grill. More now than then, she could see the jungle about him and sense the presence of the savage in him. His eyes were bright and eager, and he pulsed with suppresed excitement. An answering thrill tugged at her, and she longed for the pressure of his body against hers. She looked at Cal.
Before Cal could frame a reply, Irma said, "We didn't really say "Hello" properly before. You deserve better."
She advanced on Cal and put her arms up. As she slid them around his shoulders, his hands settled at the back of her waist. He bent his head, and their lips met. Dianne nodded and moved to Tod; watching could be lonely.
Tod's forearms were like steel bars across the small of her back, and she felt her belly crushed against the hardness of his, and the recession between her thighs molded over the ridge of his upper thigh. She dug at his back with her fingernails and flattened her breasts against him. His breath had a tantalizing hint of the tropics in it as her mouth felt for his lips, and then they were upon hers, bruising and inflaming them. She felt his tongue stab at her mouth, and she parted her lips and sucked greedily. She felt one arm loosen its pressure against her back while the other continued to pull her against him, and his hand fondled her buttocks and probed at the crevice between them.
God! she thought. Good God! What a man!
He was the right kind of man to lead a chapter of the club, she admitted to herself. He had a quality of magnetism about him that few women would have considered resisting. And he was charged with hunger, so that every move he made was directed toward a single objective. She could not imagine dissent within his group.
His free hand was tugging up at the lower edge of her light sweater, and she flinched.
"Out here?" she managed, pulling her mouth free for a moment.
"That's the privacy we were talking about."
"But the road! It's right there!"
"Hear anything on it?"
"No."
"Then no one's coming. The grove's on both sides of us, and it amplifies noises remarkably."
She was listening to him dubiously, but at the same time, she was holding up her arms so that he could pull the sweater over her head. To her surprise, the bra came with it. Somehow, without her being aware of it, he had unfastened the catch while pulling up the sweater.
Grasping her shoulders, he held her at arm's length and gazed at her.
"Dianne North," he said softly, with a touch of reverence in his tone. "The Dianne North! Mrs. North, what I see, so far, is just as good as what I've heard."
"Thank you," she whispered, tensing as he lowered his head to kiss her breast.
4
Dianne laughed suddenly and joyously, and Tod released her and stood back, startled.
"May I?" she asked, reaching for her skirt zipper.
"Hell, yes!"
She laughed again, and the laughter had a happy, bubbly feel as it welled out of her chest and through her throat.
"Delicious, Tod!" she said in response to his puzzled look. "It's just too beautiful here to keep still! I just love it!"
She thought that he was beginning to understand, and she stripped off her skirt and panties. She stretched, letting the breeze caress her body. She kicked off her slippers and peeled away her hose, then spun about on her toes, reveling in her nakedness.
"Just too beautiful for anything!" she cried. "Except making love, of course!"
She flung herself upon Tod, and he rocked. She mouthed him savagely, her lips nuzzling at every angle of his face, and she felt his paralysis melt. His forearm bridged the small of her back again, and his other hand once more fondled her buttocks. His fingers curled under the lower bulge and probed into the softness of her crotch. His arm lifted her, raising her feet from the ground, and his hand forced her thighs apart and groped at her moist tissues. Heat flooded her, and she laughed, half-hysterically, and rubbed her breasts against him.
"You cheat," she said then. "I'm naked, and you haven't taken anything off at all."
He muttered. "You've got to be a witch ... you've got me all twisted up ... all off timing."
"But that's the fun of it, honey!" She laughed again, knowing that it was a happy sound, rather than a jesting one. "Ooh! ... it's no fun when it's out of the Manual of Arms!"
"All right, all right. Let go for a minute."
He withdrew his hand from her crotch and set her on her feet. She watched him with part of her attention while he undressed, exclaiming over the powerful set of his shoulders and the slimness of his waist and hips. And between times, she cast quick glances at the luxuriant growth about them and commented on it. She realized at once that Tod was as pleased by one type of comment as he was by the other. He loved this place, and it was clear that the feeling was as deeply rooted in nonerotic associations as it was in the freedom to enjoy sex with the carefree abandon that it merited.
Tossing his clothes aside, he returned to her. She found herself pressed against an unfamiliar bush-a sturdy, resilient growth, but downy and pleasant to touch. It grew to the level of her waist, and she leaned back over it, parting her feet and giving herself up to the excitement of Tod's exploring fingers. Her breath came faster, and she heard herself giving soft moans of delight. Still, she laughed in short, breathless bursts, unable to express the intense happiness that filled her.
Tod growled tenderly. "My God, woman! I've never had a woman who loved it as much as you do!"
"It's ... it's almost all there is!" she exclaimed. "Right now, I can't remember what else there is!"
"Nothing," he said. "Nothing!"
She was ready to believe him. She knew that Cal and Irma were locked in similar antics somewhere-she thought that she heard them from time to time-but beyond Tod's shoulders, the world was a blur to her.
His fingers had captured her clitoris, and incredible jolts of excitement crashed through her in an incessant stream. He leaned in against his hand, his knees refusing to let her bring her thighs together, and now he leaned over her, holding her in her arched position. Her feet left the ground, and she caught at the backs of his thighs with her heels, tugging at him and pleading with him to either slow the movement of his fingers or fill her with his cock.
His hand slid aside, and there was a hard, hot pressure against her aching love mouth.
"Oh! Oh! Yes, please!" she moaned.
"Keep jerking your ass like that, and I'll never get the thing in," he said in a joking tone.
"Unh!" She thrust herself against the pressure, and she felt the head penetrate her rim and bury itself in her. "Unh! ... There!"
"Yeah! There!" he echoed. And then, "Now the ass, baby! Shake it all you want!"
The resilience of the shrub confused her and made a shambles of her rhythm, but she flailed her hips, scrubbing her softest tissues on the bristly mat of his pubic hair and rolling her shoulders from side to side. The experience was unique to her, and it drove her excitement into a realm that she did not know.
"Oh, Tod! For God's sake! Am I coming, or not!"
"I don't know, but I hope you are; I'm going to!"
His admission hit her like an electric shock, and she raised her knees and laid her thighs in the hollows on either side of his waist. Locking her ankles, one over the other, she squeezed, and the sudden pressure of the insides of her thighs removed all question as to her orgasm. The contractions started at the base of her pelvis and raced up the length of her channel, grinding at the iron of his shaft. A red haze came and went before her eyes, deepening with the beginning of each new wave of contractions and lessening as the wave progressed inward. She held her breath to keep from screaming her pleasure.
She felt-but vaguely-the sharp throb at the base of Tod's penis, but when he smashed the mass of bone that lay behind the shaft against her already flattened crotch, giddiness washed over her. Tod strained against her, and there was a sudden heat in the core of her belly, and its pool radiated warmth through her, drawing her convulsive spasms to a head.
"Ah-h-h! AH-H-H!" she cried out in spite of herself.
At the sound, Tod gave a mighty shudder, and his body pressed down on hers.
Her spasms weakened, and she caught him in his arms, tenderly kissing his face and letting her fingertips caress his back.
"Tod! ... Oh, Tod, dear! ... This is so good!"
"It was," he said. "Best ever."
"Not was! Is!"
"What!"
"You wouldn't leave me now, would you, dear? Just back out and turn your back and walk off?" "Well ... most women..." "Not yet. Please?"
She sensed his bewilderment, and she made the mouth of her vagina squeeze his softening instrument gently, again and again. He gasped the first time, and then began to chuckle.
"You're not serious, are you?" he asked.
"Wanting to go again, you mean?"
"Right."
"No. Not right now. But this is pleasant, too, Tod. It's a different kind of good, and I need it." "Why?"
"Because things happen so fast. I get excited and eager, and then you've got your cock in me, and we're both ready to come. It goes so fast I can't get all of the good feelings from it."
"So you get what you missed by playing afterward."
She nodded happily. "That's it."
"I'll buy it."
Tod slipped his arm under her back and stroked her with his other hand. It was a strange bed, she thought-maybe the strangest she had ever lain on under these circumstances-and the fragrance of the crushed leaves was utterly foreign to her. But with her legs clasped around Tod's waist, she felt secure and comfortable, and her excitement trickled away with a delightful lack of haste.
After a long time, Tod sighed. "Beats the hell out of me how come this makes it so much better," he said. "Most times, I'd be asleep by now. But today, I don't feel sleepy at all."
"You don't act sleepy, either," she murmured. "What about Cal and Irma?"
"Damned if I know. I haven't heard anything for quite a while. They're probably asleep."
Cal was not asleep. He was experiencing the most ferocious hunger that he could remember. Irma's initial onslaught had awakened his lust, and he had gulped her kisses with open mouth. That was a funny thing about women, he had reflected. One pussy was just one hell of a lot like the next, but mouths were infinitely different. No two women kissed alike.
Of course, no two screwed exactly alike for that matter, but to the old dick, every twat had the same feel.
Well, that was going a bit too far. A guy would have to admit that there were two basic types. One type was like sticking the thing through a hole into a cave ... nothing there except at the mouth. The first time he had run across that type, he had been so shocked that he had to pull it out and stick his fingers in to explore. The walls had been hard and smooth, stretched outward like the inside of a basketball, and he had wondered what kept the woman's belly from bulging from it.
Since then, he had experienced rides on that kind more than once, but they were rare.
The other type-like Dianne-had a narrow channel with soft, tough folds running around it like belts of muscle. When a guy got his cock up that channel, it had something holding it from one end to the other, and when she came, the contractions were most-likely to travel upward from the mouth to the inner end. But all that meant to the cock was that the pressure was everywhere, rather than just at the door.
There might be another type; he had dreamed about it, once ... about a twat that had the bands of muscle divided into finger-like things that clutched at his dick like suckers and would not let it go. It had been half nightmare and half bliss, and for a long time, he had been hopeful that the next woman-or the one after her-would have that kind of walls. But the hope had died, and he was now convinced that such anatomy existed only in this dreams.
He was willing to concede that a guy's cock was far from an efficient tool for exploring and distinguishing between different contours. If it could penetrate and bury itself, there was little sensation other than those of heat and pressure ... and sliding friction, of course. It was capable of informing him accurately whether a passage was tight or loose-wet or dry. But those attributes were a function of pressure and friction. If he could explore the inner surfaces as thoroughly with his fingers, he might find innumerable fine distinctions. He might even find that pussies were as varied as mouths.
But there was no doubt about mouths. His own lips were more sensitive and discriminating than any other part of his body. He knew that there had been experiments on that, and that they had established the fact. And his lips told him that women's mouths differed in many ways. Their lips might be thick or thin, muscular or flabby, mobile or passive, warm or cold. And the way a woman acted during a kiss varied, too. Some took it quietly, willing but noncommittal. Others-and
Irma was a fine example of the latter-kissed with greed and violence, so that a man's balls ached, and the head of his cock felt as if it were about to rupture from internal pressure.
Her tongue darted between his lips and teased his, and when he thrust his own tongue after hers, she sucked ravenously. Her hands pressed against the back of his head, driving their faces together so that his teeth jabbed into the inner surfaces of his lips, and he knew that it must be painful to Irma.
But when she pulled back for air, her eyes were wide and dark, and only the wetness on her mouth showed the nature of the kiss.
"Oh-h-h!" she whispered, her breathing rapid and shallow. "Oh-h-h, Cal! You can kiss!"
"Someone like you, yes!"
"Oh, my! Cal, if you kissed me a few more times like that, it'd make me come!"
"Just kissing?"
"Kissing, Cal! Not 'just' kissing!" "Oh. You mean that?" "God, yes!"
And from the way she writhed, he had to believe her. Some quirk in Irma's make-up evidently provided a powerful open line from her mouth to her sex centers, for the kiss had aroused her more than finger play would have most women in the same time interval. Something about the idea intrigued him. It would be a fascinating experience, feeling a woman reach her orgasm wholly from his kisses. He determined to try.
"Would you like that?" he asked.
"I love it! Tod does it sometimes." A smile appeared briefly. "Of course, that means I get to come two or three times to his once; he won't let me off with just that one climax."
"It sounds a sporty course, doll. I'm not at all sure what it would do to me to have you come in my arms that way, without my even having felt you up."
She laughed gently. "I'm not trying to get you to do that," she said. "This time, you're the guest."
"I think I want to try, though."
"You really do?"
"Yes."
Irma glanced over her shoulder toward Tod and Dianne, and Cal followed her example. Dianne was naked. He had listened to her laughter, knowing that she was losing herself in the magic of the setting, and it was no surprise to see the way she twisted and bucked in Tod's grasp. He grinned.
"They're well on the way," he remarked.
Irma nodded. "Shall I ... you want me to undress first?"
"No. You don't need to, yet."
"All right."
She leaned toward him, then, and he took her in his arms. Their kiss started more gently this time. At first, their lips barely brushed each other. But the pressure increased, and she slid the tip of her tongue over his lips, wetting them, and pressed it inward to feel his.
Cal returned her advances cautiously. If a kiss could drive her all the way to an orgasm, then she must have formulated some set of rules for the game. She was, no doubt, unaware of them, but he was confident that they existed, and he had no intention of chilling her passion by violating them.
Some of the rules had to be obvious. Even if he were convinced that she had none of her own, he would have made up one. A kiss could involve only two mouths, or it could involve other parts of the body. To satisfy his own curiosity, he wanted to rule out the possibility that her kissing orgasms were brought on by bodily contact. And despite his desire to feel her with his hands, he was equally determined not to induce orgasm by their explorations.
Irma drew back, her eyes shining.
"You know how!" she exclaimed. "Cal North, you know how! And you had me believing you didn't know what I was talking about!"
"I swear I didn't," he said. "This is new to me!"
"Then let's lie down!" she panted. "It's easier on both of us that way."
They dropped to the grass, and he lay with his body at right angles to hers, so that only their mouths could touch. She lay on her back, and her breasts thrust upward against the thin material of her dress, her stiffened nipples clearly evident. She crossed her ankles and gulped a deep breath.
"I ... I'm ready," she whispered. "It's going to happen this time, I think."
But before she let his mouth come to hers, she rolled to her side and raised herself on her elbow. She apologized.
"I've got to be able to move my head," she said.
She closed her eyes and parted her lips and tilted her face toward him. He brought his lips to hers, touching them lightly and tasting them with his tongue. She shivered and uttered a strangled moan, and her tongue thrust against his. Her head drove forward, mashing their mouths together, and she sucked hard, drawing the body of his tongue in beside hers. Cal extended the organ, exploring the sides of her tongue and its fibrous underside. And then he opened his mouth wide, sucking at hers and forcing his tongue to the arch of her throat. She fell back, and he followed her, pressing the back of her head against the grass. She gulped and swallowed, and then she added her suction to his. Out of the corners of his eyes, he could see her body twist and writhe. Her chest heaved, and her hips rose from the ground, then dropped back. She flung her legs apart, then tugged at her skirt, pulling it up until she could part her legs in a form of the splits. She rolled from side to side, and her fists pounded the grass.
Suddenly, her feet far apart, she dug in her heels and bridged, her abdomen high, her weight on the back of her head and her heels. A tremor shook her, and Cal could see the muscles of her belly ripple in a kneading fashion.
She gave a prolonged shudder and collapsed, her mouth slack. Cal withdrew his tongue and eased the pressure on her lips. She turned her face and gasped for air.
"Cal North, you bastard..." Her tone was sleepy. "You've done that before; I know you have."
"No. I've never had a woman come from a kiss. Not until today."
"Well, you did today."
Cal nodded silently. He was finding it difficult to restrain his body's impulse to come. Every time he let the image of her climactic moment return, a fist seemed to clamp on his prostate, and he had to turn his thoughts to subjects that were wholly removed from Irma. Sweat poured from his face, and he rolled onto his back and stared at the sky.
"What's wrong, darling? Are you all right?" asked Irma.
"Yeah. But I'm having a hell of a time getting control of myself."
She giggled, suddenly seeming unable to handle the ideas that came.
"Oh, Cal! You're telling the truth. You haven't done this before. Oh, darling, don't come now."
"I won't. Not if I have to tie a knot in the bastard."
"I don't think I'd like that."
"No?"
"Not unless you could untie it inside me. Because that's where I want it, now." "Already?"
"You were good to me, Cal. You babied me. Now let's make love."
5
Cal was more than ready to do that. Dianne lay quietly on a bowed shrub, with Don securely mounted between her thighs, and from the way she was kissing and fondling him, they had passed their peak and were engaged in the after play that had won her such a reputation. Cal felt momentarily self-conscious; it was seldom that his orgasm came so much later than hers. And yet, he was at the very threshold of his lovemaking with Irma, and unless the woman was explosive, Tod and Dianne would reach the end of even this phase before he and Irma achieved their orgasms.
He ran his hand slowly over her, testing the firmness of her flesh and finding her as lean and taut as she had looked. Through the material of her dress, he caressed one of her breasts, his fingertips trapping the nipple and rolling it tenderly.
"Ooh! You're fun, darling!"
"I've hardly done anything, yet."
"I know. But you're willing to start a little at a time."
"It's better that way. A guy misses too much if he grabs for the dessert first."
He tried to identify the seams of her bra and failed. Either she wore none, or it was too fine to be detected. He doubted that there was one, because the dress material was too flimsy to conceal anything. Out of habit, he reached for the other breast, then, and he caressed it as he had the first. It struck him, as it often did, that he must be a damned fool to let himself be a slave to some vague notion of "equal treatment". But there might be a rational basis for the habit. There were certainly sex nerves in both breasts, and it made no sense to ignore one set of them.
But then he passed the hand over her belly, stroking slowly and lightly and smiling at the way Irma drew in her abdomen. He found no trace of panties, and he suspected that if her skirt had ridden an inch further up her thighs, her pubic hair would now be visible. But he hesitated at reaching between her browned thighs to her crotch. Instead, he rubbed her hips and fingered her belly, and she blew out each breath with a soft hiss.
"For God's sake, Cal!" she exclaimed in a low, intense voice. "Grab it! Grab a handful! It's aching!"
Her fingers plucked at his shirt, unfastening the buttons, and he moved his arms to let her pull the shirt and T-shirt off. His fingers trailed over the inner cords of her thighs, then, and she made a sound like a kitten mewing and humped her belly upward.
She unzipped his pants and pushed at them and at his shorts. He chuckled unsteadily at her new eagerness and helped her remove the clothes.
"You've got a nice body," she said, half-coherently. "So have you." "You don't know, yet. You haven't seen it." "I've been feeling it."
"Not the important part. Besides, what can your hands tell you through my dress?" "Those buttons real?" "Yes."
They ran in a line from the vee of her neckline to the hem of the skirt, and Cal leaned over her and unbuttoned them slowly. As he did so, her hand closed about the rigid shaft of his penis, and she smiled up at him. The edges of the dress fell back, exposing browned, smooth flesh with neither a blemish nor a light streak.
"Hey! You really sunbathe!" he said.
"How do you know I'm not Mexican ... or Indian?" she asked.
He laughed. "I guess I don't. Are you?"
"I sunbathe. But I am Mexican. Tod and I got married when he was staying in Guadalajara ... that's where I grew up."
"The ... your people must have hated him for taking you away."
"We go back often."
The last button came out of the buttonhole, and Cal pushed the edges of the dress away from her, so that she lay on it as if it were an open cape. Her breasts stood proudly, rounded cones, even though she lay on her back. Her belly dropped sharply from the edge of her rib cage, and glossy black hair capped the full mound where her thighs joined.
He looked back at her face. Her eyes were half closed, as if the lids were heavy, and her lips were parted and gleaming moistly.
"Now, darling," she said with a husky tone.
"Now, grab a handful."
He slid his hand down the concave surface of her belly and over the mound. His fingers followed its curvature, burying themselves in full, hot folds. Her knees fell to the sides, and she jerked at his tortured cock in sporadic strokes. The crevice between her love lips felt deep and slippery, and his fingers explored its length and depth, sliding over the swollen inner surface. He felt toward the front end of the valley, hunting for her clitoris.
She shuddered. "When you touch it ... " she panted, "I'll scream! I ... can't help it! ... I'll have to!"
"All right," he whispered.
He touched it, and she screamed, flinging her hips into the air. He stripped back the protective hood, and his fingertip rubbed in tiny circles. Irma was no longer a rational woman. She thrashed and writhed, her teeth set and her lips drawn back and her eyes wild. Her legs flailed the air, clamping on his wrist and then springing far apart, and her hips bounced to and fro on the ground.
"Madre de Dios!" she exclaimed, slipping into her childhood language. And then, "Mother of God, Cal! Mount me! Ride me, for the love of God!"
Sweating the pain of her grip on his cock, he scrambled to place his body over hers, positioning himself in the valley between her thighs.
"Yes, oh, yes! Drive it in! Quick!"
He lowered himself, sliding a hand under her writhing bottom. He felt the head of his instrument sink into the moist heat of her folds and center in the depression that surrounded her love mouth.
"Please, Cal! Please drive it in! HARD!"
She tensed, and it came to him that the next moment was a crucial one in her sex code. It would not do to lean gently forward, savoring the sensation of the head of his penis slipping slowly into her. Instead, it was vital that he lunge, plunging the entire shaft to her core in one brutal thrust.
He set himself, and her hips rose a fraction, rotating her crotch to the best angle.
"Hard, darling!" she whispered.
He smashed against her, feeling his pelvic arch meet hers with a blow that shook her entire body. There was a great pressure at the head of his penis for an instant, at the beginning of the stroke, and then it surged inward, driving to the center of her belly, shoving bands of firm muscle open and letting them close on the shaft.
"Ah-h-h! Perfect, darling! Now, fuck!"
He pumped, holding her bottom off the ground with his hand, and she matched his rhythm with the beat of her hips.
"Yes, yes! Pump hard!"
She drew her knees up, clamping them on either side of his body, and he rose to his own knees. Her shoulders pressed against the grass, and she straightened her body so that the force of his thrusts was transmitted in a straight line from her crotch to her shoulders.
"NOW! NOW!" she shrieked, and her heels beat a tattoo on his hips.
He groaned deeply, and a convulsion seized his guts, spewing his semen into her in hot, jagged spurts. Her barrel squeezed his shaft terribly, and she stiffened her body under his weight. The giddy heat rose in his head, and he imagined a buzzing around him. Then his excitement began to subside.
Irma collapsed, and he fell forward upon her. Their sweat mixed in a slippery pool between them. Irma laughed softly, and there was a hint of a sob.
"Oh, love," she whispered. "No wonder Dianne is so good! She practices with you!"
Cal chuckled. "We had to meet sooner or later, you and I. Don was just too enthusiastic about you for me to have missed this."
"I'm glad you're here," she said. "Did you come because of Tod's telephone call to Don?"
"Yes. But I can't see how anything could go wrong in a club with you and Tod running it."
"Maybe that's the problem. Anyhow, I'd rather Tod told you about it. Why don't we stop loving each other for a while so Dianne and I can empty ourselves?"
"Well ... all right ... "
He shook his head with wry amusement and reluctantly dismounted. Tod and Dianne pulled apart, and the two women disappeared into the house. Tod grinned after them.
"Cal, there are times when I regret joining S.I. but this isn't one of them."
"I'm damned glad we came here, Tod. And it sounded to me like Dianne had the time of her life."
"She's even better than I'd heard. But I suppose it'd be tough to do her justice."
"What's the trouble here, Tod? I can't imagine people getting unhappy with you and Irma heading up the club!"
Tod winced. "Let's go inside and clean up. It's a story that ought to be told over a drink."
When the four had gathered in the living room, tall glasses of gin and tonic at their elbows, Tod outlined the problem.
"You saw that couple who came into Hunters' Grill just before the telephone call?"
"Yes."
"Well, that's Frank and Mary Corwin. How did they look to you?"
Dianne shivered, her breasts quivering and gooseflesh appearing on her skin.
"I'd sleep with him!" she said.
Cal grinned. "Nothing wrong with Mary, that I could see."
Todd agreed. "Right. They have that effect on people. There isn't a couple in the Land's End chapter that's more in demand. I think Frank and Mary could convert their bedroom into a study and spend every night in someone else's bed. Everyone loves them."
"Hard to find a chapter with Masons and Corwins in it," observed Cal.
"Perhaps. The problem is that the Corwins are from Atlanta."
"I don't..." Cal stopped abruptly, and his gaze went to Irma. "You mean they...! "
Tod laughed. "Not Irma. They seem to want to believe that she just sunbathes a lot. They know all about her, but they manage to forget."
"I should think you'd find that irritating."
Tod shook his head and smiled fondly at his wife. "Not really. It never occurred to us until a few weeks ago. We knew where the Corwins were from, but they didn't show any prejudice at all. I guess we assumed they were exceptions."
"What happened to change them?"
"Nothing changed them. They just weren't challenged before. But a new couple came under consideration. You know how that works."
Cal nodded. "They start swapping with one or two couples who belong to the club, and it looks like they'd fit in. Then the rest check them out, a couple at a time."
"That's right. A couple who were in the Guadalajara chapter got a chance to come up here. Manuel worked for the Shell people, and they had an opening in the research plant here in Land's End. He applied for it, and they transferred him."
Irma had a dreamy expression. "We were so happy," she said. "We'd made love with them at home, and we knew how good they were. When they got here, they were just as good as they had ever been."
"We kept them to ourselves for a while," Tod said with a grin. "But they knew all about our chapter, and we didn't have the heart to hold out on the other members. We started introducing them around. They got pretty well all the way around the club, except for two or three couples. They missed the Corwins, because Frank and Mary were on a long visit to Atlanta."
"And when the Corwins got home, the shit hit the fan," Cal guessed.
"It was about like that. Frank blew sky-high. He let out the word in no uncertain terms that if we let niggers in, he and Mary were out. Period."
"They're black?"
"I don't really know. They're beautiful people, both of them, by standards in their home. They've got bodies that won't quit, and they're as fine a couple as you could hope to meet. They're cultured and belong to about the same economic bracket as the rest of us. And they like sex. But their facial features aren't Aryan-or Caucasian. Maybe they're Mexican-or Indian-or maybe there were blacks in the background. I don't care. Most of the members of the club don't care. But Frank does, and no one wants to lose Frank and Mary."
"Irma said the fact that you're the president of the chapter might contribute to the problem.
How?"
Tod frowned. "What's the normal procedure for settling chapter problems?"
"Well, that's what the president's elected for."
"Right. But I've got a personal interest in this case. The only people I have to convince of what's right are the Corwins, and they'd say that I was prejudiced ... that I've got a conflict of interest on two counts. Manuel and Consuela are personal friends, number one, and I'm married to a Mexican, number two."
"Shit." Cal sagged back in his chair. "Shit!"
"Exactly. All over the place. I don't see how you and Dianne can help, but as long as you're here, you ought to meet the Corwins and the Moragas."
Cal was all for that. He knew that his memory of the cat woman would haunt him until he could replace it with a more substantial memory of making love to her. As for the Moragas, if Tod and Irma thought that they were something better than average, he was more than ready to take their word for it. And that meant that he and Dianne had to try them.
"When?" he asked Tod.
"When will you be up to it?"
"How about you, baby?" Cal studied Dianne.
She smiled and shrugged. Under any other circumstances, he would put off the whole thing for a couple of days; he had a sudden enormous appetite for his wife. But these were not normal circumstances.
"Any time," she said., Irma objected. "No fair, Tod! They went to a party at Don and Bess's last night and flew all the way out here this morning. And look what we did to them! They've got to have some rest first!"
"Well ... " Tod considered the matter. "I guess you're right. Tomorrow'll be soon enough. I'll get hold of Frank and let him know you're in from Chicago. He and Mary know enough about you to insist on your coming to their place tomorrow."
Cal hesitated. "Look, would it screw things up if we met Manuel and Consuela first?"
"Well ... no ... why?"
"Just a hunch. I think it might matter."
"Okay. Now, how about something to eat?"
6
To Cal, Land's End represented a fascinating use of the coastline's features. The town, itself, consisted of the four block business section-the single row of businesses that lined the east side of Bluffs Boulevard-and a cluster of homes that rose on the slopes behind those establishments. The road ran north and south of Land's End, presumably leading to other similar villiages, and the third component of the community was the aloof estates that lined that road, each insolated from the others by raw timber land. He judged that there were one or more resorts or lodges hidden along the same road, and the coming party of the Land's End chapter was probably scheduled into one of those.
There was considerable evidence of an artists' colony associated with the village. He saw several small outdoor collections of paintings and less definable art forms along Bluffs, for one thing, and some evidence of art in work. No doubt there were a few writers in the community, as well. All in all, he was satisfied that the place was one of those fabled California havens for people who chose to insulate themselves from the mainstream pace of contemporary life.
But they-some of them, at least-were obviously not yet ready to make that insulation permanent or total. For some of them, contemporary customs held a degree of charm, or they would not have spawned a chapter of Swappers' International. That seemed understandable. There were vigorous, beautiful people here, and they had restless minds and independent ideas. They were here to get the most out of life at their own pace, not to vegetate, and if the S.I. philosophy of sex would enrich a part of their activities, then they would embrace it.
He was sure that they would have established such a cult by themselves if the international organization had not existed. The fact that it did merely served as a convenience to them. It gave them a workable, pre-tested formula to use, criteria for screening prospective members, and easy access to people with like tastes in other parts of the country. Of course, the screening criteria were now at the heart of a controversy here, and Cal was in some doubt as to the way they ought to be applied.
There was a clause in the guide to screening prospects that said clearly that it was desirable to give weight to physical attributes. "Pick 'em beautiful," Don had quipped once. "Pick 'em beautiful and eager. Why try to screw when you're sick to your stomach?"
For the first time, Cal acknowledged the fact that such criteria left something to be desired. What was partly at issue here at Land's End was that standards of beauty varied between divergent cultures. Not that the beauty question was the primary problem, though. Race prejudice, clearly and simply, lay at the bottom of this thing.
Just the same, the situation was strongly suggestive of a notion that had occurred to Cal more than once in connection with race difficulties. He suspected that a person's race prejudice was strong or weak according to whether the subject was ugly or beautiful. The Corwin reaction tended to support that idea. Frank had no objection to Irma, who was a striking beauty by Caucasian standards. The Moragas, apparently ugly by the same standards, had aroused the full force of his native prejudice.
Cal sighed. Beauty standards were too goddamn subjective. They changed, too. Take a look at any review of the history of the film industry, he thought. The thing that made stars beautiful in the early days would make them seem ridiculous today. There had been a brief period when leading parts had been cast with "ugly" people, and that had been the type the studios pushed for headlines. But exposure had educated moviegoers to see the beauty of function in those people, and now a broader idea of beauty had taken hold. The rugged features were clearly better regarded than delicacy of line.
As they went from the car to their motel room, Dianne commented on his long silence.
"You hardly said a word all the way," she said.
"Sorry. I was thinking about what makes someone beautiful."
"Made up your mind?"
"I don't know. I think it's more complicated than it used to be, though." "If it was ever simple."
"Well ... maybe it wasn't. But it's getting more complicated. A guy hasn't a blueprint to follow, any more."
"You have," Dianne asserted.
"Yeah? like what?"
"If they screw good, they're beautiful."
"Aw, come on!"
But he wondered if she had scored a hit. That capability had a hell of an influence. Still, it was another over-simplification. If a person was ugly enough, a guy might never discover what a good lay she was.
Tod called an hour later to confirm the date with the Moragas. They were eager to meet Cal and Dianne, but they would wait until tomorrow, making allowances for the Norths' exhaustion. Would seven in the evening be all right?
It would, Cal decided. He and Dianne could explore the beach and the forested hillsides, and the quiet hours just might give them a chance to get reacquainted with each other.
The hours passed too fast, after all. Cal wondered what had happened to the time while he and Dianne were dressing for the encounter. Knowing that they would turn to sex, both dressed for it. Dianne's dress was designed to hurry the moment, and it was constructed to make underwear unnecessary. It was designed to come off with a minimum of effort, too, Cal remarked to himself. As for him, he wore trousers with a built-in jock and a sport shirt, omitting his customary T-shirt and shorts.
With Tod's meticulous directions, Cal managed to find the Moraga place without too much difficulty. It was one of the few that lay between the road and the ocean, and it clung to the wall of a ravine that cut downward through the bluff. The ravine was mostly filled with heavy growth, and the Moraga place was so well suited to its surroundings that neither he nor Dianne had noticed it in their two traverses of the road the day before.
He eased the car into the obscure turn-off and down the tortuous trail to the parking ledge. Dianne commented on the increase of temperature, and Cal agreed reluctantly that getting into the enclosed space did seem to have cut off the cooling circulation of air.
A man came from the house, dressed only in loose-fitting shorts, and Cal stared at him with curiosity and a measure of apprehension. It had occurred to him in the last mile of the drive that he, himself, might have a latent streak of prejudice that would surface if Manuel were excessively ugly. He knew that Consuela's face would not bother him, no matter how bad it happened to be. Tod and Irma had praised her figure and her screwing prowess, and that was enough for him. But he sensed that he might balk at the prospect of having Dianne mounted by a particularly brutish man. He sweated as he gazed at the approaching figure.
The first thing to register with him was the magnificent body, and the word that ran through his mind was "taper". Manuel tapered. His shoulders were broad and sloping, with immense muscles going into his neck. His chest was full, but he tapered downward from it, every line suggesting power and speed. His arms shared the smooth taper, and his hands startled Cal with their length and grace. He heard Dianne gasp.
"Good God, Cal! Look at that beast!"
There was awe and admiration in her tone, and he knew without question that she used "beast" in a positive, rather than a negative sense. So she was impressed. He forced his gaze back to Manuel's face. Seeing Manuel in a business suit, he would have been stricken by the man's features. In the first place, Manuel's head looked flat. And every line of his face accentuated the broad, flat appearance. His eyes were wide-set and had heavy lashes that followed the horizontal lines. His nostrils flared widely, and his mouth was unbelievably wide. His chin was short and broad, and the angle of his jaw jutted sideward. Even his ears tilted and stuck out to the sides.
But Manuel grinned, then, and the warmth of his expression robbed Cal's observations of any trace of significance. But in the moment that Cal started to forget how grotesque Manuel's face was, his mind had time to print out a last conclusion.
"Black!" it told Cal. "The sonovabitch is as black as the inside of a coal mine!"
Consuela appeared in the doorway behind Manuel, then came into the yard, and Cal forgot the black man. Consuela was a hint lighter in color than her husband, but Cal knew without thinking about it that her facial structure would be simply a feminine version of Manuel's. But the girl was built for sex. Not for reproduction and the rearing of kids, Cal reflected, but raw, wild never-ending sex! She wore a garment that he could only classify as a sarong. He recalled vintage movies that he had once seen, in which a one-time star had made the sarong famous. Consuela's garment made that other seem like a nun's habit. This one had a shred that went over one shoulder to hold it up; it had to. It fitted loosely enough to have fallen from her without it. The top angled down across her breasts, revealing more than it covered, and they were full, proud globes. It draped across her belly with a caress, and it ended so high on her thighs that Cal was in doubt as to whether he could see errant wisps of pubic hair or not.
"Oh, my!" whispered Dianne.
Oh, my, he thought. Shit, yes, oh my! This broad defined classification. If she and Manuel did come into a U.S. chapter of S.I., she would turn the standards upside down. A fierce pain stabbed into his groin, and he held his breath, waiting for it to ease, determined to speed the process of getting acquainted.
Consuela joined Manuel, standing close, so that her breast brushed his arm, and she smiled. The smile exuded the same warmth and welcome that Manuel's did, and she spoke.
"Do get out and come into the house," she said.
Her voice was rich with overtones, and it made Cal tingle from its suggestion of intimacy.
Manuel's deep voice echoed her plea.
"Don't sit out there in the heat," he said. "It's cool inside."
Cal numbly opened the door and climbed out, then quickly rounded the car to help Dianne out. They approached the other couple, and it seemed the only way in the world to greet when they were seized and embraced.
The inside of the house was cooler. Cal guessed at a twenty degree difference in temperatures. And there was a great, sweating crock of chilled punch, with a slab of ice floating in it.
The furnishings had an exotic air of the unusual about them. There were massive rings set in the walls, and curios or baskets of fern hung from some of them. There was a broad, rough fireplace, and there was a profusion of low, wide armchairs, upholstered but covered with Mexican blankets, and low, backless couches. But for its great size, the room would have appeared crowded.
As it was, the beamed ceiling seemed almost to lower itself on him because of the length and width of the place.
They lounged in the chair and let the flow of punch soak up the heat of the drive. Manuel talked about Guadalajara-it's spaciousness and beauty and its older sections with their quaint markets and ageless home, and the contrast of the newer buildings, especially those serving the growing Yankee colony. Cal gathered that Manuel had a generally poor opinion of the Yankees, although he was quick to mention outstanding exceptions.
"What about Land's End?" asked Dianne.
"Another kind of world," Manuel said. "Not a real place, at all."
"Not real?"
"No. Oh, there's a nucleus of townspeople who live in reality. They're the ones who have to provide the goods and services to keep the rest alive. But for most of the people, Land's End is a make-believe place where they can dream their own world."
"like the Masons?"
He nodded with a smile, and his voice was almost tender. "like Tod and Irma ... and all their friends."
"But...! "
"We love them. Their world is charming and exciting. I think it's far better than reality. But it is not real. There aren't many people in the real world who can afford the time that these people spend in their dreams."
"How do you?"
"We don't quite live in their world yet. But we could, time-wise. I get paid for ideas, Cal, and what part of my time goes into them is my affair."
"Doesn't it bother you? ... The thought of pulling out of the real world and being part of a fantasy?"
"Not at all. Well, it would, if it were that clear-cut. But it's not. A man can put himself outside the mainstream and get a lot better perspective of the direction that changes are taking. That way, he can make more reasonable contributions-have ideas that are crisper and more timely. If he lets himself be swept along in the mainstream, he can't see beyond the nearest two or three waves, and his ideas are going to be distorted and limited. So if I can live in the Land's End fantasy and still watch the mainstream of reality, I'm in the best of all possible situations."
"You had one foot in the fantasy world while you lived in Guadalajara. I hear you belonged to that chapter of Swappers International."
Manuel grinned. "Ah, yes. We were part of S.I. That was where I met the few thoughtful Yankees that I knew."
"Tod tells me you've met most of the S.I. people in Land's End."
"Fine people. Eager people." Manuel scowled, suddenly, and Cal had a vision of the man in Aztec armor, war club raised. It chilled him. "We've missed a few. The Corwins, for example. Look, Cal. You and Dianne watch out for the Corwins. I don't trust that dog."
"Why?"
"Well, it's no secret that he's a bigot. Okay, that affects me personally, and most Yankees let it go at that. So the man is prejudiced ... has a bundle of hate locked up in one corner of his system. But that isn't all there is. Cal. Prejudice is strung on a network that touches every part of a man's character. It feeds on unconscious fear, for one thing, and if a man has it, you know that he's not secure enough to rise above his fears. He's got to have some kind of mechanism to convert them into something else. And you've no idea what other things besides race differences appear as threats to him. Hell, Corwin may think that the industrial-no, the technological-pace of the central U.S. is just as big a threat!" "Oh, come now!"
"Why not? Or he may have a thing about current writing, because it consolidates change and accelerates the pace. Hell, the world of literature may be the biggest threat in the world to him!"
Cal laughed uneasily. Manuel was bringing the point home.
Consuela stirred. When she began to speak, Cal sensed the universal female role asserting itself-the need to leaven the dough of intellectual bread.
"Enough of that for right now," she said gently. "You two fascinate me. How is it, being part of the home chapter of S.I.? What kind of people are in the chapter? And do you travel very much? ... Get out to the other chapters?"
7
Cal leaned back and glanced toward Dianne. His mind was still engrossed in the ideas that Manuel had advanced, she sensed. It would take a moment for him to make the adjustment to the new line of thought that Consuela proposed. She filled the gap.
"What's it like?" she laughed. "It's happy. There's no big difference in the people. Some are a little selfish and some are too big inside to be real. They're just like they are anywhere else."
"But being in the home chapter ... where it all started...! "
Dianne shook her head. "It didn't, of course. That's just where the idea of making an association of the clubs that were already operating took hold. A lot of the chapters are older than ours."
"You'll have to admit that there are some remarkable people there," put in Manuel. "That chapter's got some of the ablest administrative people you could find anywhere." He grinned. "We've met a few of them, too, and there are some of the sexiest!"
"They're not all that special," Dianne protestec "We've visited a few other chapters when we wer away from home, and every one of them had couples who'd stand out in the home chapter ... like you two."
Consuela flashed her a smile. "You're guessing.
"Maybe."
"What about the travel? Have you gotten out many of the chapters?"
"Not many. For the last three years, we've tried to lay out our vacation travel to get us to as many as possible."
" ... And gotten home exhausted," added Ca
Manuel chuckled. "On vacation now?"
"Sort of." It was not a lie, Dianne decided. Any time that they were away from home was vacation for her.
"Are you up to some exercise?"
She gazed at their host, measuring the tone of his voice and trying to quiet the sudden churning in her belly. She knew that Cal was up to it, and the tingle that suffused her at the thought assure her that she, too, was impatient.
"Yes. I think we are."
Consuela rose from her chair and crossed to her husband. She bent over him, giving Dianne and Cal a generous view of her full, dark breasts, and kissed his forehead.
"It's hospitality time, then, dear," Consuela said softly.
Manuel caressed her, briefly. He smiled up at her, and Dianne thrilled to the spark of love that leaped between them. She knew that most of the couples in S.I. were more in love than their non-swapping counterparts, but this seemed exceptional, even for swappers.
Consuela straightened, and Manuel got to his feet. While Dianne watched in puzzled amazement, he brought thick, white cord from a drawer in the chest beside the fireplace and tied a length to each of Consuela's wrists.
"I don't get it," said Cal bluntly.
"You will," replied Consuela with a husky chuckle.
Manuel explained. "For the moment, she's yours, Cal. Hospitality. I won't call it a local custom from our old home; it's just a fun custom we made up. The first time we entertain a couple in our home, we give Consuela to the guy this way."
"Dianne reacted. "Consuela! How humiliating!"
The Mexican girl shook her head. "Not at all. It's the lazy woman's way of making waves without paddling. You've no idea how excited it gets a man, and I don't have to do a thing! I love it. I'd be furious if Manuel tried to do away with it."
"And it's your way of showing hospitality."
"Yes."
Dianne hesitated, then made the plunge. She spoke slowly, hoping that her tone sounded judicious.
"You're in our country. In a way, we're the hosts."
Consuela shook her head. "You're in our home. Inside these walls, it doesn't matter what country we're in."
"But it does. Cal and I represent the home chapter of S.I. That gives us host status."
Cal studied her, and she saw a faint frown creasing his forehead.
"What're you getting at?" he asked. His tone told her that he knew already.
"We can't let them be more hospitable than we are," she said.
He smiled, almost sleepily. "You're not objecting to what Manuel's doing to Consuela."
"Of course not."
"Then you're demanding equal opportunity."
She nodded. Her belly felt as if it were crawling, and she felt a finger of fear that seldom touched her. But if Consuela could take it-and enjoy it-then by God, she could!
"More rope in that drawer?" Cal asked Manuel.
"Sure."
"Do you mind?" "Hell, no!"
Cal went to the chest, and Dianne got up, watching Consuela and Manuel. Manuel had tied other lengths of the cord to Consuela's ankles, and now she raised her arms toward the low ceiling, standing beneath one of the beams. Manuel passed one of the wrist lines through a ring. God, Dianne thought, they've even got them in the ceiling!-and pulled it taut, then tied it. The other wrist line went through a ring that was perhaps three feet from the first. Quickly, then, Manuel knelt and, while Consuela pushed her feet apart, he threaded one of the ankle lines through a bar that was set unobtrusively into a recess in the floor, a foot or so further out from Consuela than she had reached with her foot. When he took the slack out of that rope, it pulled Consuela's leg straight, and drew the foot further from the other. Humming softly, Manuel repeated the process with her other foot, and she hung quietly, spread-eagled, the lines of her body asking for attention.
Cal touched Dianne, and she flinched. She extended her arms and let him tie a loop around each wrist. Manuel came to them and reviewed the knots.
"Not that one, Cal," he remarked. "Pull on that, and it'd cut her hand off. Do it like this."
He unfastened the knot and fashioned another. Cal handed him one of the remaining lengths of line, and both men dropped to their knees, each trying to loop to one of Dianne's ankles. She looked up, located rings in the ceiling, and moved under them. She hesitated for a moment, then reached toward them with her arms.
When Manuel and Cal tied the wrist ropes to the rings, she had a moment's disappointment. Her arms were not taut. Somehow, she had the feeling that when one was spread-eagled, the limbs ought to be stretched to their full extent. But as the men knelt and she began to spread her legs, she realized that there would be no lack of tautness. To her horror, they tightened the ropes, forcing her to place part of her weight on her wrists, and she twisted her hands until she could grasp the lines that ran to the ceiling, relieving the strain of the loops.
Her dress, strapless for greater ease in undressing, felt as if it might slip down to expose her breasts, and she started to panic. But she laughed inwardly at that kind of display of hold-over modesty and relaxed to savor the novelty of her situation.
She could have been cradled in Manuel's arms by now, laughing softly as she accepted his caresses. She could have been comfortable and secure and confident in a familiar game, pausing in her building excitement to enjoy the spectacle of Cal's manipulations of Consuela's twisting form. Instead, driven by a perverse combination of bravado and curiosity and lust for the novel, she waited, as Consuela was waiting, for the impudence of unguided male onslaught.
She corrected herself. It appeared that she would wait even longer than her hostess. Cal had gone to Consuela, and he now ran his hands lightly over the girl's taut flesh. Either Consuela was terribly sensitive, or she had learned through experience to please her partner with a display of reaction. She gasped, then blew out the breath between her lips in an audible stream, and her flesh writhed wherever Cal touched it.
Manuel stood apart, his attention divided between his wife's responses and Dianne's tensing figure. Dianne longed for the power to read his thoughts and emotions-and to predict how soon he would come to her. Perhaps his hesitation was another part of the curious code of hospitality that he and Consuela had concocted, letting the male guest get a start before complicating the action.
But her host turned away from Cal and Consuela and approached her, and she steeled herself to receive the sensations of the hands that would soon play over her body. Manuel stepped behind her, and she held her breath. To her dismay, his fingers grasped the zipper pull of her dress without touching her.
"No!" she cried without thinking.
"What?"
"I mean ... well, I just thought you'd ... well, like Cal."
Manuel laughed softly. "He may be doing this for the first time, my love. As for me, I find a different sequence more stimulating."
"Oh. But..." She bit her lip, cutting off further protest.
Without hurry, Manuel unzipped the dress. She had made the garment precisely for such occasions, and the zipper ran from top to bottom. The dress opened at the back, now, and peeled down and away from her skin, baring her breasts and then her belly and then all of her. She shivered. She and Cal had spent more than half of their married life in S.I., and there must have been over a hundred couples who had seen her without her clothes, submitting to the most varied intimacies. But she had never felt a fraction as naked as she did now.
It was a complex sensation, she decided. She felt far more naked because of the fact that her sexual excitement had not yet been aroused. Still, she could have stood in the middle of the room and stripped without experiencing this intense awareness of her body. The fact that she was helpless to resist anything that might happen contributed, though, and so did the fact that she was so widely outspread. That might be the real key. If she stripped and lay spread-eagled on the floor, she might feel a little like she did now.
Manuel walked slowly around her, studying her lines, his gaze resting for a long time on her breasts and then on her groin. Her flesh crawled under the impact of his stare.
He went to the wall, where he extracted a great feather from one of the curios. It's tip was all but hidden in a tuft of tiny, fluffy feathers, and Dianne felt hypnotized as she watched his return. He stopped before her, and she shivered again.
He touched her armpit with the tip of the large feather. She expected it to tickle, but the state of her nerves converted the sensation into a powerful sexual stimulus. She gasped. He played the feather slowly over her body, sometimes letting the bristly tip touch her and sometimes using the downy tuft.
At first, she felt severely handicapped in her movements. But as her excitement grew, she came to know the potential of the ropes that bound her, and she lost her fear of falling. She tossed herself about, depending on the ropes to bring her back to her original position, and her contortions matched her mounting frenzy.
She felt herself losing coherency in her thoughts, and she wondered repeatedly if she was going to reach her orgasm without Manuel's having touched her. He played the tuft over her nipples, and he played the bristly tip over her belly and the inner sides of her thighs. But he varied the application on her sensitized love tissues. He drew the tip along the surfaces of her folds, and then startled her and drove her into a state of hysteria by substituting the tuft. The feeling was indescribable, but streaks of excitement stabbed through her in intolerable waves as the tuft twirled over the tip of her clitoris.
She arched her back and thrust her abdomen forward, rotating her hips to elevate her crotch to the touch, and she ground her teeth and let her weight hang fully from her wrists.
"How ... long!" she gasped. "Manuel! ... How ... much ... longer!"
"How long can you stand it?"
"I ... don't know! Is the ... feather ... all I get?"
"No, Dianne. It's the appetizer."
"Oh-h-h!" she groaned, knowing that it was a groan more of pleasure and anticipation than of despair.
"Manuel...? "
"Yes?"
"Manuel ... can you make it last a long time?" "I can try."
"Oh, please! Please do!"
He ran the feather between her thighs and sawed lightly back and forth with it, the edges riding over the. now-gaping love lips. She thrashed with passion, and she was only half aware of the fact that he was unfastening his shorts. But when they fell, she gave a low cry of admiration and awe at the bulk of the up-thrust cock that pointed toward her. The shaft was impressive, she thought, but it was the head that would make a woman shrink from parting her thighs for him. The shaft was thick, but without startling length. The head bulged, misshapen and lumpy ... easily twice the size of any that she had known.
"God!" she whispered. "God! What a cock!"
Manuel appeared to be pleased by her reaction, and he twitched his hips, causing the instrument to leap at her. She flinched, and he chuckled.
"We do all right together, Pablo and I."
"Pablo?"
"Such a one could not go nameless."
"Pablo. It sounds harmless."
"Why not? He has never done harm."
He withdrew the feather and disappeared behind her. She tensed again, not knowing what to expect. Manuel rested his hands on her hips, then closed them about her waist.
"God," he said with a grunt. "Good. They meet."
It was true. She looked down, and the tips of his fingers touched solidly over her navel, while she could feel the meeting of his thumbs at her back.
A new kind of excitement welled up in her. The feather had made her tingle, as if it had been electrified, and she was certain that Manuel could have forced her into an orgasm with it. But there was life in his hands; they were hot and strong, and they pulsed with an awareness that matched hers.
He stroked slowly upward, then, his fingers passing from her belly to her chest and pressing the soft masses of her breasts upward until the upper surfaces looked like great, distended globes to her. His fingers closed on her nipples, and he drew them out and rolled them. She panted heavily, pushing backward to find his body.
He laughed quietly. "You want to touch me?"
"Yes ... yes...! "
She felt his body touch her, and the knobbed head of his penis rested hard against the small of her back. Manuel's hands stroked back down over her belly, and he fingered the corded tendons of her inner thighs. She gritted her teeth and dug her chin into the hollow of her chest. When his fingertips buried themselves in her folds, she flung her head up and shouted. A flash of heat raced through her, and the sensation was the old and dear one that she had learned to associate with approaching climaxes.
He massaged her clitoris, and his fingers drove upward into her cavity. She tossed her hips and jerked at the ropes, moaning with delight. A time came when she knew that she could no longer delay her peak.
"Oh, Manuel! Manuel, darling! I'm going to come!
I'm going to come soon!"
"Then we must prepare Pablo for his role."
"Oh, yes!"
"And you for Pablo's entry." "Yes! God, yes!"
But she should already be prepared, she thought. As big as that boulder at the end of his prick was, she could take it. She could surely not be enlarged further than she was at this moment.
Manuel untied her ankles, and he continued to stand behind her. His fingers manipulated her tissues, and she pretended that her legs were still secured. She felt the hardness of his balls on her bottom, and it came to her how much taller he was than she. It would be difficult for him to crouch far enough to plunge that weapon into her.
He placed his arm about her waist, backing away and taking her with him. Her feet left the floor, and she found herself hanging at an awkward angle. Her legs swung out behind her, straddling his, and when her belly was crushed by his hold, she felt the massive bulb pressing against her love mouth.
"Ooh! Ooh!" she whispered. "Now, Pablo! Up my pussy with that magnificent head of yours!"
"No encouragement for Manuel?"
"Please, darling! Give him to me!"
The pressure increased for a moment, then slackened. And Dianne let herself sag. There was a terrifying blow against her bottom, and she felt the long, brutal stroke of the over-sized head as it plunged inward along the length of her barrel.
"Omigod!" she screamed. "Omigod, Manuel!"
She was filled with heat and hardness and friction. Manuel pumped, his belly beating against her buttocks in great, shaking blows. Lust and agony mingled within her, and she swung on her wrist ropes, her head hanging.
"NOW! NOW!" she yelled.
Contractions knotted her belly, and she felt a flood of fluid surround the buried head. She shook, and the pumping ceased. For an endless time, she hung on the great cock, her orgasm jerking at her muscles and her breath stopped. But at last, she felt her passion subside, and she collapsed in his grip.
"Oh, Manuel! Oh, thank you, Manuel!"
8
Cal went to Consuela with a sense of semi-reverence that was unusual and disturbing. He forced his gaze to cover her body, self-conscious in the knowledge that she was watching and evaluating him. He felt that he was more a prisoner than she-that his attitude and behavior were on trial.
Consuela's feet had to be deformed by her spraddle-legged stance, he thought. It was certainly not normal to stand that way, and it had to deform her ankles, too. But they were shapely ankles, in spite of that ... slender and graceful. Her calves were full, and the muscles were clearly defined as they took the increased thrust of her position.
Her thighs fascinated him, and he lost himself in contemplation of their lines. He had studied good thighs before. He was convinced that Dianne's came as close to perfection as he was ever going to discover. Consuela's were equally lovely. They tapered gently from hip to knee, and right now the inner tendons stood out in long, tense lines. They were smooth and symmetrical, and he intended to run his fingers along the length of those taut cords.
She was symmetrical all over, he thought. Her body could not have been better constructed, either from an esthetic or a functional point of view. So what was there about her face that made it so ugly? He knew what it was. In his culture, the ideal that was held up for a standard was the face with narrower features ... the chiseled, classical look. But for the artist, the standard became more basic. To the artist, beauty consisted of a flow of lines and of the play of light upon surfaces. He could remember when they had talked of facial planes, but even then the examples had been faces with sharp contrasts between curved surfaces.
Judged against those criteria, Consuela's face had to be called beautiful. It had no harsh angles, but there were sharp transition zones where one radius of curvature yielded to another. Any every feature was boldly defined and regular.
He knew abruptly, with a sense of happy relief, that when his gaze reached the girl's face, he would see the same beauty that Manuel saw in her.
He stared at her hips. There was a tiny area at the top of her thighs that was hidden by the edge of her sarong, but his imagination readily supplied the missing details of the juncture. Her hips were broadened by the angle of her legs, but her belly was satisfyingly flat, and her waist had to be smaller, even, than Dianne's. The contours of her rib cage suggested a diver's lung capacity. The lines of individual ribs were visible in the light and shadow of the sarong. And that chest provided a substantial foundation for proud, globular breasts. With her arms raised as they were, the lines of her shoulders were hidden, but he saw bands of resilient muscle, and he guessed without relevance that she could easily pull herself up on her wrist bonds, taking her weight off her feet.
At last, and now calmly, he could gaze into her face. The play of shadows was even more pleasing than he had imagined, and he realized how beautiful she really was.
"God, you're a beautiful woman!" he exclaimed.
She gave him a breathless laugh. "I wondered if you'd ever come to the end of staring!" she said.
"I don't know that I'm finished yet, but I've denied myself a feel as long as I can."
He reached out to her and passed his hands over the lines that he had studied so carefully. She was as firm as she looked. At the first touch, she gasped and her body arched. She must be fantastically sensitive, he thought. And then he realized that she was over-reacting.
Naturally. It had to be part of the game of hospitality. It pleased him in a way, but in another, it was faintly irritating. He was used to gauging his sex play by the way the woman responded, and if Consuela was going to give false responses, then it would be impossible to know accurately what progress he was making. He could only resolve the situation by arousing her to such a state that she would forget to play the game.
He pressed close to her and kissed her mouth. Her lips were full and cool, and he would have classified them as highly mobile. He worked his mouth, savoring the flavor of her skin and the fragrance of her breath, and he was surprised at how smooth her skin appeared, even at this close distance. He saw her eyes close, and her lips crushed against his.
She might be deliberately over-reacting, he thought, but the kiss had turned honest. He continued to kiss her, his tongue probing, while he fingered her nipples. Slowly, he slid one hand down her belly and into the shadow beneath her sarong. like Dianne, she was naked except for her over-garment, and he found the tissues of her crotch hot and wet. She was excited, then! He felt for her clitoris and started to massage it. Her body lashed forward, and she grunted savagely.
Cal drew back, gasping for air, but his fingers kept up their quick rubbing. He felt that the surface was drying, and he dipped to the mouth of her love passage for fresh fluid, spreading it generously on the slopes of her penis-like organ.
"Oh! Cal!"
He knew that there was nothing subtle nor exotic about the approach that he was using. It was straightforward and brutal, and it was devoid of imagination. But with the excitement that her position generated in him, he was afraid to apply any technique that would inflame him further. There would be time for that if they ever made love again.
A sudden desire to stare at her naked body overwhelmed him. He stepped back and studied her sarong, then quickly unfastened a catch at the shoulder and one at her waist. The sarong fell from her, and her skin gleamed in the subdued light. She had strong, supple-looking lines, and his hunger for her bounded.
"I hope I've got enough self-control to do this right," he muttered.
She laughed, and her voice shook. "Don't have too much, Yankee," she said. "Things are supposed to move fast when I'm hung up this way."
"They'll have to."
He renewed his attack on her clitoris, using the other hand to explore the walls of her love passage. She sagged, settling onto his fingers, and then rose to her tiptoes in an effort to escape the torment at her clitoris.
"God in Heaven, Cal North! I can't take any more! End it!"
He backed away to strip, cursing himself for having waited. If he ever made love this way again, that would be his first act. He would stand before the helpless woman and strip slowly, giving her the opportunity to appraise his body as he did hers.
When he stood naked before her, he realized that her excitement had leveled off, and he went close to rekindle it. She twisted and writhed, and he knew that she was ready for him.
Bending his knees, he crouched at her belly and used his hand to guide his penis to the welcome of her love mouth. She had the wettest pussy he had played with, he thought, and his dick would penetrate as if it were on skids. He eased it up, and it slid inward, enveloped by warmth and pressure.
When the root of the shaft lodged against bone, he clutched her buttocks with his hands and lifted. He felt the tension increase in her legs and saw that her feet left the floor. Knees straight, he swept her back and forth on his cock, and he felt her clitoris, trapped by its upper ridge, being rolled between them.
She tilted her head far back, her eyes bulging and staring at the beam overhead, and corded tendons stood out in her shoulders, leaping and writhing. She snapped her hips back and forth as if she had a hinge in the small of her back.
"Oh, Cal! Oh, Cal!"
"Now, Consuela? Now?"
"Yes! Mother of God, NOW!"
He strained upward, crushing himself against her stretched frame, and she quivered. Deep in his gut, a buzzing sensation hardened into bursting contractions, and waves of heat spurted up the length of the passage of his penis. Spasms racked Consuela, and her belly writhed on his with inner contractions. She groaned and shuddered, then went limp.
Suddenly spent, Cal felt his knees sag, and he bent them, letting Consuela's feet touch the floor. Her head fell forward.
"Oh-h-h!" she whispered. "Oh, darling!"
Reluctantly, Cal pulled his softening organ from the warm sheath and stepped back. Consuela hung motionless and quiet, her legs useless, her weight suspended entirely from her wrists.
Her chest heaved, and her globular breasts jounced with an irregular rhythm. Cal had a moment of fright, wondering if Consuela had taken too much, and he returned to her to touch her.
"No, no ... not yet, baby!" she muttered.
"You all right, doll?"
"Ooh, yes! ... But I must catch my breath." "But you're hanging!"
"I am strong. Sometimes..." her voice trailed off and she smiled faintly. Then she raised her head and gazed into his eyes. "You are a good person, Cal. You and Dianne are good people. I like you."
Cal was embarrassed by the glow of gratitude that came with her words. He grumbled a thank you and backed away from her. Exhausted as he was, the lines of her helpless figure aroused him, and he knew that he had to have her again. On impulse, he told her so.
"Consuela, I don't know what's happening to me! I've got to have you!"
"Be strong, love. Wait, just for a few moments."
"Let me get you down from there, then."
"All right."
She flashed a radiant smile at him, her teeth gleaming and her eyes sparkling. "Cal ... " "Yeah."
"You're different." "How?"
"Many times, I ache to start over again, even when I've just finished. But the men are never like that."
"Hell, I'm no different. I don't know if I can do anything. But I know I can't let you alone!"
She shivered and laughed. "Ooh! You make me sound so irresistible!"
"Now that's a good word, even if it does have more than four letters."
He untied her ankles first, but she made no effort either to pull her legs together or to relieve her wrists of the burden of supporting her weight. He pressed his belly against her and placed one arm about her, lifting her and taking the strain out of her arms. It felt awkward, but he found that he could untie Manuel's special knots with one hand.
Consuela let herself collapse in his arms, her cheek pressed to his. She whispered in his ear. "You know? I think I love you a little, darling!"
"Oh, shit! Not that!"
"Just a little, baby? Nothing dangerous; just a tiny bit of love."
He sighed. If she put it that way, it was probably okay.
"Yeah, I guess I know what you mean. I feel that way, too."
She fingered his penis, and he winced.
"Poor think," she murmured. "It's so tired."
In spite of himself, Cal chuckled.
"Poor thing, hell! Sonovabitch's just been up as fine a pussy as there is in the world, and now he's hanging there fat, dumb and happy, listening to you feel sorry for him. Shit!"
"Oh, Cal ... he worked hard!"
"That's the only way he can work! So?"
"It takes so much out of him. Poor dear. He's so exhausted that he doesn't feel my fingers."
"like hell!" Cal muttered and tightened a muscle in his groin. He felt the flaccid piece of meat twitch in Consuela's hand.
She squealed. "He does feel them!" Her hand squeezed, and Cal tightened the muscle again. "There!" she exclaimed. "He knows me! Sweet thing." She was cooing.
She pushed Cal toward a couch. She seemed alert and vivacious, and he breathed a sigh of relief to know that hanging by the wrists had not hurt her, after all.
"Why the sigh?" she asked.
He told her, and she laughed with delight.
"When Manuel and I were first married, he had curious desires," she reminisced. "I recall one thing that happened."
She pushed Cal onto the couch and lay on him, her belly rubbing against his slowly and gently.
"It was summer," she continued. "We were very young, and Manuel had friends who came to the house to play cards with him. Often, he asked me to serve their drinks without clothing, and I did."
"I'll bet that made your house popular for their card games." Cal felt a sense of disgust with Manuel.
"They were all married ... mostly to girls I had gone to school with. And all of the wives did that. Some did much more."
She sounded as if she enjoyed the memory, and Cal mentally apologized to Manuel. After all, what she was describing was a sort of swapping.
"Hospitality ... to us, nothing is more important."
"I guess," he said.
"One night, Manuel had an inspiration. Having naked serving girls had gotten too common, and the wives were experimenting, each trying to outdo the rest. That night, I was tearful; I could not think of anything to outdo the woman whose husband had been host the last time. But Manuel found an answer."
"Yeah?"
"He tied me." She smiled with a faraway expression, as if reliving the night. "He crossed my wrists and lashed them, and he lashed my ankles together with many turns of the rope. And then he hung me from the rafters outside the front door." She shivered. "Br-r-r! They felt me as they arrived-felt me all over!-and there came a time when I wanted all of them!"
"God!"
"That was the night! ... And that was the night that we began giving our men something besides something to look at!"
She rolled off him, but she lay on her side, her belly still pressed against him, one thigh resting on his, her breasts warming his upper arm. She caressed his penis, and he realized that it had regained a semi-erect condition.
"Ah-h-h..." She snuggled. "See? He's coming back to life! Dear, sweet thing!"
"Pampered bastard, I'd say," Cal growled.
But he felt curiously relaxed and at ease. Land's End might have a problem, but right now he could not bring himself to care. It was good to be in this cool, cavernous living room, a beautiful woman toying with his spoiled cock, knowing that there was no schedule to rush him.
He looked for Dianne, and she was still in the middle of the room, her hands clenched on the wrist lines, her body hanging tautly, her knees limp. Her position would have scared him a few minutes earlier; now, he saw the expression of satisfaction and anticipation in her face and knew that she was thoroughly enjoying her helplessness.
Consuela turned around, resting her furry mound against his shoulder, and laid her breasts on his belly. She crooned and bent to place a tender kiss on the head of his organ.
"He needs love, darling," she said. "He's starved for love."
"Horseshit!" exclaimed Cal rudely. "But if that's what you feel for him, be my guest."
"I think you must be jealous."
Cal uttered a mock groan, then chuckled with contentment.
9
Consuela squirmed, inflaming Cal with the sensation of her warm curves sliding against his skin. She kissed the knob of his penis repeatedly, her lips moving about over it, and her tongue coming out to bathe it with her saliva. Her tongue tip sought out the tiny slit and probed at it, and a sharp tingle tightened his balls. He tensed.
"Sonovabitch, woman! You'll spoil the hell out of him!"
"Mm-hmm ... I'm sure I will."
Her lips worried and teased the head, and Cal felt rigidity return.
"Better," she murmured. "Much better."
She pressed the again-swollen organ against his belly and nibbled at the protruding underside as she would at a fat ear of corn. Cal's belly knotted, and his fists clenched. He twisted and seized one of her buttocks, jerking her torso onto him and parting her thighs so that they bracketed his head. Her crotch smelled strongly of female heat, and the iron odor of his own earlier passion ran through it like an undercurrent. He used his fingers to strip back the hood of her clitoris and, for a time, he studied the tiny mound.
It was covered with skin the color of the inside of her mouth, and it looked like a shining volcanic cone. He smiled at the simile, thinking of the way she erupted when that cone was teased. Under that stretched skin, he knew, rested an organ that was a miniature version of his own cock. It was soft and quiet when she was calm, and it swelled and hardened when her excitement rose. But it served only one purpose. It had no function in her life but to transmit jolts of excitement through her when it was touched. The thought captured his imagination.
There, by God, was an exception to the design economy of the human body. He could think of no other organ, male or female, that did not serve at least two functions. His cock was a finely tuned sex tool, but it was the thing he pissed out of, too.-Assholes had one primary function, but they had nerve endings that were directly tied into the old sex machine. More than once, he'd been in the position where the woman he had his cock in was slow in reaching her peak, and more than once, he had found that a finger up her ass pulled the trigger for her.
Mouths did all sorts of things. And even pussies, sex-programmed though they were, got down to serious business when it came time to squeeze our babies.
But not the clitoris. That little bastard did nothing in the world but scream "Fuck"! when it was touched. It had no openings, put out no fluids, generated no magic hormones; it did nothing but react to stimulus.
There had to be some great message in that fact, he thought, but he was getting too wrought up to put it into words. He extended his tongue to touch the pink slopes, and Consuela's hips leaped.
"Ow!" Cal yelped.
"Oh, baby! I'm sorry!" Consuela shifted her weight and kissed the spot on his shaft where she had nipped him.
He grinned. That quick lick at her clit had sure gotten to her!
He drew the tip of his tongue along the steep slope, and her hips writhed, but she did not bite him. Instead, her lips closed over the flesh of the underside of his cock and sucked at it.
"Better," he mumbled.
He continued to lick the sides of her clitoris, and her hips moved with increasing agitation. She moaned continuously, the sound muffled by his flesh. She nibbled her way back to the head, and he felt her take the bulb into her mouth. Sucking, she drew her lips slowly backward, as she would have with a penny sucker.
She repeated the maneuver again and again, and lust choked him. He knew that he would reach his orgasm soon, despite the way he had drained himself into her so recently, and he was determined that she should achieve one of her own. He sucked her clitoris between his lips and began to scrub its tip with his tongue, maintaining a strong suction throughout.
Consuela abandoned his cock for a moment to cry out in her excitement, and she heaved herself upward, jerking free of his mouth. He grinned.
"Come back here, doll," he said. "I haven't finished eating."
"Oh, my! I can't stand that for long!"
"Don't fight it, puss."
He gripped her buttocks with his hands and pulled her down, seizing the inflamed clitoris in his mouth again.
"Mm-m-m!" she groaned loudly. "MM-M-M!"
She forced the head of his penis into her mouth, her teeth behind the flared shoulders, and sucked vigorously, her tongue mauling the throbbing flesh. With that aggressive action, Cal knew that they both had to be nearing their peaks, and he manipulated her clitoris brutally. He held her down, his forearm clamped across the small of her back, and she thrashed her legs, pounding her knees and her feet against the couch beyond his head. She cupped his balls in one hand and clawed at his thigh with the other, and he felt his guts tighten in anticipation of spewing out his fluid.
He ought to warn her, he thought distractedly. He ought to release that organ of hers long enough to tell her that she was about to get a mouthful of jism.
"Look out!" he cried, momentarily loosening the grip of his mouth on her clitoris. "I'm going to make it!"
Her head bobbed. She understood. But there was no slackening in her sucking, and he returned to mauling her clitoris. She tensed abruptly, and her thighs clamped against the sides of his head. She bore down on his face, and he struggled for air, refusing to slow the pace of his chewing.
Consuela shuddered, and she drove her head down, gulping his shaft into her mouth and taking the head to the back of her throat. A wave of darkness swept over Cal, and he felt his hot fluid spurting from him. He knew by her rigidity that Consuela was in her orgasm, and her frantic gulping on his organ suggested that she was in a frenzy of desire to please him.
The ferocious knot in his belly eased, and the tautness began to drain from his limbs. Consuela sucked viciously at him, drawing from him the last of his semen, and her body began to relax.
At last, she pulled her head away from his softening penis and laid her cheek on his thigh.
"See?" she murmured. "He needed love."
"Baby, he doesn't get that kind of loving often," Cal admitted. "You okay?"
"I'm limp. You did awful things!"
"Awful! You didn't like that?"
"Of course I did! But I didn't mean to come."
"Why not?"
"I was giving, not taking."
"Shit, that isn't the way to play the game."
"It's fun once in a while."
"Maybe. But we both made out, that time."
"Mm-m-m! Yes, we did!"
Dianne rather enjoyed her position. As long as she gripped the wrist lines securely, the lashings were relatively loose on her wrists, and her arms used muscles instead of joints to hold her weight. She felt deliciously available to Manuel, too, and she liked that. Soon, she thought, he would spread her legs again, securing them so that her sex centers were gaping at him. There should be other ways for him to take her, though, with her still helpless.
"Manuel, dear?"
"Yes, woman?"
"Do something different ... please?" "Untie you?, "
"No! Oh, no! Just different." "Oh. Sure!"
He retrieved the two pieces of rope that were still fastened to the floor bars, untying them and dropping them besides her feet.
"You like this," he said. He sounded mildly surprised. "I do."
"Many women like it until they come. Then, they want down."
"Maybe I will, later." "Of course."
He tied one of the lengths of rope to each of her ankles, then picked her up in his arms. Letting her body rest on his arms, he reached upward, and she felt herself roll against his upturned jaw. He caught one of the ankle ropes in one hand and pulled the end up. "In the end, he put the rope from her right ankle through the ring that her right hand wrist line went through, and the left through that which secured her left wrist. Securing the lines, he removed the support of his arm from her body, and she sagged from the lines, her feet touching her arms.
Manuel fussily adjusted the length of the two ankle ropes until her body hung with her bottom the lowest point. She realized, looking down past her breasts and over her now "folded" belly, that her love mouth was at precisely the level of Manuel's groin. Feeling a chill that seemed to penetrate into her cavity, she sensed, too, that she was yawning wide open.
"Ugh! What a spectacle I must be!" she said with a grunt.
Manuel nodded cheerfully. "But handy," he pointed out.
He stroked the flattened breadth of her crotch with the flat of his palm, and her tissues shrieked at her. She gasped and tossed. This was the first time in her life that she had been suspended without being able to support her weight on some object. It was a unique sensation, and a primitive kind of terror surged through her. But Manuel's hand moved lightly over her exposed surfaces, and she quickly forgot the terror and replaced it with hunger for his grotesque penis.
He seemed to be in no hurry, and he played with her tissues in a leisurely fashion, fingering them, forcing them apart, and stroking them with his fingertips. He buried his thumb inside her cavity, his fingers closing on her buttocks, and swung her gently.
"Good God, Manuel! I'm a pendulum!"
And a very wet pendulum, she decided. She must have an incredible layer of liquid on her folds, for Manuel's massage sounded like a child paddling in the mud. He was smearing it around, too, she discovered. He covered her bottom with it and scooped it into the crevice between her buttocks. Without warning, his left thumb still groping in the interior of her barrel, he drove his right thumb into her anus.
She screamed and twisted her body convulsively, but neither thumb was dislodged. The inner pressure goaded her to a frenzy of writhing, and she gasped and moaned. Strained apart as she was, gaping for any kind of penetration, her nerves thrust to the surface, she knew that she would explode in orgasm in moments. She felt a sense of savage pleasure in her position and what was happening to her, but it dismayed her to realize how quickly it would have to end.
It was nothing new to get it up the ass, she reflected wryly. It was not the most comfortable thing in the world, but the burning that came and went was more than outweighed by the added sensation of fullness and the pulses of excitement that it brought.
"Manuel! ... Manuel, dear!..."
"Huh?"
"Oh, Manuel! Stick your cock up me! ... Please! ... I've got to come!"
He would, she told herself. He would. Up her ass, for sure. And that would be all right. She would rather have it in her pussy, hot and throbbing and hers, but she knew that he would give it to her in the ass, and she would take it there and shriek her joy and clamp onto it and come with him.
He withdrew his thumb from her love mouth, and she felt the bluntness of his cock replace it. She stiffened with surprise, and he thrust forward, ramming the great tool to its hilt in her. The thumb in her rectum drove upward at the same moment, and her body convulsed.
"Oh God, Manuel! Oh, God, yes!"
He pumped powerfully, each stroke slamming the head of his penis against the battered inner end of her passage, and her guts churned and writhed. Her orgasm swept through her, shaking her in its grip and submerging every other sensation. She was only dimly aware of the heat that filled the core of her belly and the deep grunts that came from Manuel.
And then it was over, and he withdrew from her, and she hung quietly, panting for breath and swaying slowly from side to side. She felt groggy, and it took her some time to locate Cal and Consuela. Curious, she thought ... they're all mixed up ... she's cuddling that dick like a baby ... guess they sixty-nined it ... didn't get the kicks I did, I'll bet. . .
Manuel was sprawled in his chair, and he was gazing at her sleepily, as if he found it difficult to keep his eyes focused.
That would do it, she thought suddenly. That would really tie it! She would be in a hell of a shape if they all went to sleep with her hanging here like this.
"Manuel ... Manuel, darling!"
"Uh?"
"Manuel! ... Wake up!"
"Huh?" His eyes widened, then he blinked. "Huh? What's wrong? Someone coming?"
"Darling, don't go to sleep yet! Get me down first! I think I'm getting numb."
"Huh? ... Oh! ... Oh, shit, baby! I'm sorry!"
He struggled to his feet, and he looked like a sleepwalker as he approached her. But he was on his feet. And he did appear to be aware of his surroundings. He reached up and fumbled with knots. Her right arm dropped free, and she wondered if he realized that he was making no effort to catch her. Still, there were three more knots to go, and he had plenty of time to make the adjustment.
Her left arm came loose, then, and she dropped to a vertical posture. She found that she could rest her palms on the floor, and relief welled in her. She was going to be all right.
"Hey! You look good this way!" exclaimed Manuel. His voice had a new ring of alertness in it, and she knew that he was awake. "I like this, baby!"
"I'm getting awfully cramped in my hips," she said tentatively.
"Well, we don't want that. We can play with this another time."
Half of the men she knew would have dismissed her hint without thought, she realized. Manuel's consideration had to be telling her something about him. He unfastened the knot at one ankle, and she let the leg hang. She knew that she must present a new and wildly erotic picture this way, and for an instant she thought of capitalizing on it. But the pain in the leg that was still tied flamed at her, and she groaned softly.
Manuel twisted her until her bottom rested against him. He clasped her in his arm and raised her, taking the strain off the leg, and she felt his fingers at her ankle. In another moment, the leg fell free, and Manuel awkwardly righted her.
The sudden burning in her arms and legs as their circulation resumed nauseated her, and she leaned heavily against Manuel for a time, then crumpled slowly to the floor.
"Omigod!" she whispered. "My legs and arms are asleep, and they burn like fire!"
Manuel rubbed her limbs gently, and the agony subsided. She sighed and uncurled, stretching beneath his soothing hands.
"Feel better?" he asked.
"Much. Thanks, Manuel, dear."
"How about some punch?"
"If it's to drink, yes. I think I'll have to rest a bit before I can stand any other kind of punching."
There was a polite sound to the laugh that he accorded her effort. He helped her into a chair and poured a refill for her. She studied the quiet couple on the couch, and Manuel's gaze followed hers. He shook his head.
"Lazy," he commented.
"And not caring," replied Dianne.
"Sure, we care," said Cal, his tone believing the claim.
Consuela stirred and rolled off Cal. She sat up and brushed her hair out of her face.
"Mmmmm! ... Do we care!" she echoed.
Now, there was one who did care! thought Dianne. That one gave more than a few wiggles of her ass!
Cal groaned a protest and squeezed Consuela's thigh.
"Goddamn it, woman, I was comfortable!"
Consuela giggled. "You're a lazy man. Let's have a drink and let our insides get normal again."
"Well ... well, yeah, I guess I might be a little thirsty."
He rose to a sitting position, pausing to fondle Consuela's breast.
"That's first class equipment for around the house," he said. "Sure glad we met you two."
Manuel chuckled, pride evident in his manner.
"She's a real woman, that Consuela. Still, you've no cause for envy."
Cal grinned at Dianne. "I'm not about to complain about that," he said, and Dianne felt the sincerity in his tone with warmth and happiness.
10
Cal lay motionless on the bed, his hands folded beneath the back of his head, and let his gaze wander idly over the ceiling. Beside him, Dianne breathed quietly, and he knew that she slept. Perhaps he ought to be doing something, but he was damned if he was going to make the effort to think about it.
Land's End was a bit of all right. Tod Mason was about as friendly a guy as you were-likely to meet, and Irma-with her super-charged mouth-made a guy wonder what else he was-likely to discover before his pecker lost its starch. And then there were the Moragas! Jesus, what a couple!
He felt a tingling in his groin when he thought about yesterday's session with them. He had believed, when Consuela rolled off and straightened her hair, that the peter work was over. They would have a few drinks-and maybe something to eat-and then he and Dianne would be on their way back to the motel.
They had the drinks, all right. And they had something to eat ... Mexican' dishes that he had never tasted before. And plenty of talk, of course. The talk ranged, but it touched on the Corwins.
"Shit, I don't know," Manuel had exclaimed once. "We never have really met them. We've seen them once or twice, and they've sure as hell seen us, but we haven't been introduced."
"That's odd," said Cal. "I'd have expected Tod and Irma to do that as soon as the Corwins got back into town."
Manuel shrugged. "I think the Corwins had already bumped into three or four other couples before they called Tod to let him know they were back. I guess Frank opened up on us without giving Tod a chance to say anything. After that, Tod probably figured it was a good idea not to push us together."
"You and the Corwins haven't actually had it out, then."
"No. And I can't see anything to be gained by having it out with them. Not when the bastard's so narrow-minded."
"Are you sure Tod understood Corwin? It wouldn't be the first time communications got screwed up."
"He understood. Anyhow, it's no big deal. We're not hurting for company."
"No, but..."
But Cal had let the matter drop. He sensed that Manuel's reaction to the Corwins was mainly defensive-that the man had been hurt by the fact that someone was judging him-and Consuela-by their color and facial characteristics, rather than the more important things. He did have strong notions about prejudice, but he had nothing personal against the Corwins, except for the slur.
The line of thought was arousing Cal from his semi-sleep, and he became increasingly aware of Dianne. Tenderness filled him, and he basked in the animal heat that her body radiated. There had been times when he had thought that it would be more fun to keep her to himself. It sometimes seemed a shame to waste her on other guys. But he knew that she enjoyed the adventure of their swaps, and he could hardly deny that the women he had laid were good. On the whole, swapping had been good to them-and for them-and he doubted that they would give it up soon.
The Corwins ... there was an experience that he and Dianne had coming. That ought to be damned interesting. He and Dianne had both felt surges of interest when they had seen the couple in Hunters' Grill, and he was looking forward to meeting them. He was especially impatient to meet Mary.
Dianne stirred and the rhythm of her breathing changed. She stretched and turned, and her hand groped for him. He chuckled and touched.
"Cal?"
"Right here, baby."
"Mm-m-m ... I love you, honey!"
"Yeah. I love you, too."
"Honey, are we still in Land's End?"
"Yeah."
"Oh ... now I remember ... the Moragas were yesterday, weren't they." "Right."
"Suppose it'll be the Corwins tonight?" "I expect so."
Dianne stretched again and pushed herself off the bed. In the light that streamed through the window, she resembled some pagan goddess, and Cal ached with the desire to hold her in his arms.
"Baby, you're the most beautiful creature in the world," he said.
She turned to stare at him, her expression tender.
"Why, Cal! You sound as if you meant it!" "I do."
"You're sweet."
"Yeah. That's what I'm noted for." "Let's go down to the beach, hon. Okay?" "After I call Tod." "All right."
She went into the dressing room, and Cal reached for the telephone. He dialed, and Irma's voice answered.
"Hello?"
"Hello. Irma? This is Cal North."
"Cal, darling! Where are you?"
"At the motel. Been sleeping off a heavy schedule."
"Oh, dear! Awfully tired?"
Cal chuckled. "Not now. But your friends, the Moragas, wear a couple down. They go in for strenuous entertainment!"
Irma giggled. "They are vigorous people, darling. You liked them?"
"Love at first sight. But why didn't you warn us about their hospitality game?"
"Hospitality game?" Her tone was blank. Then, "Oh! Oh, my goodness! I forgot! Good God, how thoughtless of me! Did it bother you, darling?"
"Strong medicine for a first meeting. But it did break the ice!"
"I'm terribly sorry I didn't remember about that. But Consuela's a real artist in the ropes, isn't she."
"She is that. I might add that Dianne caught on fast, and I'd have a hard time finding fault with her output."
"Dianne! Darling! She tried that?"
"Sure as hell did! Handled herself like a veteran. Hey, Irma, what about the Corwins? We might as well get on with it."
"You wouldn't rather take a day or two to get your strength back?"
Cal laughed. "Manuel and Consuela weren't that bad. Besides, we're going to be lazy today."
"You already have. It's past one."
"In the afternoon? Jesus Christ!"
"Darling, why don't you wait until tomorrow for Frank and Mary? You want to be rested when you start to play with them."
"Irma, if you say so, that's what we'll do. You and Tod want to make the arrangements?"
"Yes. We'll call them now and then call you back."
"Okay. We'll wait in the room until you call."
Cal hung up and heard the sound of water running in the shower. He hummed tunelessly and propped himself up with the pillows. Irma was being a little overly conservative, he thought privately, but there could be no harm in taking a day off from the round-robin screwing that he and Dianne had participated in for the past few days.
Before Dianne had finished in the bathroom-dressing room, the telephone rang.
"Hello," he said into the mouthpiece.
"Hi. Cal?" It was Tod.
"Right."
"Talked to Frank and Mary. They're all excited about having someone from the home chapter here at Land's End."
"Hell ... I'm touched."
"Cal, they're fine people. You won't meet warmer ones."
"Sorry. I guess I let myself be influenced by what warm, fine people the Moragas are."
"I know." There was pain in Tod's voice. "I know. But I think there's not such a black and white thing here as you might think. It wouldn't be the first time that first class citizens wound up on opposite sides of the fence."
"I suppose not."
"Try to meet the Corwins with an open mind. Okay?"
Cal hesitated. That was the thing that he was mentally asking the Corwins to do with Manuel and Consuela. He could hardly do less for them.
"All right, Tod. We can do that."
"You'll be glad you did. And Cal..."
"Yeah?"
"Cal, how are you and Dianne feeling?" "like new. Why?"
"Well ... well, Frank and Mary want to meet you tonight. They're willing to put off the sex part of it for a day or so, but they can't wait to know you."
Cal laughed. "And you'd like to be sure that we're up to being on our best behavior."
"Ouch! Damn it, Cal, you don't have to put it that way!"
"No offense, Tod."
"Well, I didn't want to let them loose on you unless you felt up to it."
"No problem. Where shall we meet them?"
"Why not in the Surfrest Lounge? That way, you won't have to be hunting for their place."
"Fine. What time?"
"Eight be all right?"
"Sure. We'll have finished dinner by then." "Good. I'll let them know. And Cal, what did you think of Senora Moraga?"
"She was something extra special, Tod. She made the whole trip worthwhile, even if we had to turn around right now and go home."
Tod chuckled. "That hospitality rite of theirs does something to a guy, doesn't it."
"like a carload of dynamite! It's not the kind of thing to help a guy keep his cool!"
"Well, swapping's not, for that matter."
"You're right."
When the conversation was finished and Dianne had appeared from the dressing room, Cal told her of the planned meeting with the Corwins.
"They're not planning to get into sex tonight," he told her. "But they apparently want to be able to say they're on a first name basis with someone from headquarters."
"You make them sound awful, honey. They're probably not that way at all."
"Maybe not. We're going to find out."
He showered and shaved, and when he and Dianne started down the path to the beach, he was feeling a little more willing to reserve judgment on the Corwins. The beach turned out to be hard to get to and very much isolated. It lay in a cove, and headlands jutted into the water less than a hundred yards apart to seal them off from the rest of the coast. The sand was coarse, and it lay in a steep slope. The surf broke close in, the swells humping scant yards from the surf zone, flinging themselves up suddenly into towering walls and crashing down with thunderous roars. From the level of the sand, the scene was one of wild grandeur, and it shouted of the conflict between sea and land.
Dianne shouted to be heard. "Not exactly the place for a nap!"
"Nor for swimming!" replied Cal.
He surveyed her bikini, thinking of what the surf would do to it if she attempted to go in. He smiled. It would be far more economical for her tc leave the suit on the beach. But she would not gc in, nor would he. It would come closer to suicide than he wanted to come. There was too much angry power in those breakers, and in the moment before one broke, it sucked the wash under it, sc that its toppling tons of water smashed down or naked sand, creating a foam that was half solid.
Despite Dianne's assessment of the beach as poor place to nap, the crashing of the surf drowned other noises that might have been distracting, anc both Cal and Dianne cast themselves onto the sane and slept. They awakened to find that the sun was nearing the horizon, and they hurried back up the path to their room, thankful that they had not had to make the climb in the darkness. Cal broke into a cold sweat at the thought that they could easily have been caught by an advancing tide, but he said nothing of that possibility to Dianne. Still, he would check on the tides before they went down again.
After a light supper of seafood, they went to the lounge to wait for the Corwins. And at precisely eight o'clock, the other couple entered. Cal rose immediately and approached them. Frank looked surprised.
"I'm Cal North." Cal extended his hand.
"Hell, I've seen you before!" Frank's voice was as deep as his face was craggy. "Where the...? Of course! You were in the bar at Hunters' Grill day before yesterday! You met Tod and Irma Mason there."
Cal nodded, and Dianne joined them. Frank introduced Mary, who looked just a little less like a cat in the cocktail dress that she wore. Just a little less, though, Cal decided.
Out of habit, he took time to study the dress in terms of what it would take to get it off her. Not that he would be doing that tonight, of course, but it was an exercise that was fun, and it cost nothing.
The neckline plunged between her breasts, almost to her navel. The garment was backless, and a band of the silky material went over her shoulders to the back of her neck, where it was presumably either tied or caught by some kind of fastener. The skirt draped over her hips, rather than hugging, and it revealed them by the way that it clung, instead of by its cut. To him, that meant that there was probably no zipper needed.
"Join us for a drink," suggested Cal. "We've got a balcony outside our room that hangs over the bluff. It's pretty well shielded from whatever's on either side."
"Then we can talk there," Frank said.
"Right."
"Sounds great."
They went to the room, and Dianne took Frank and Mary to the balcony while Cal mixed drinks. He followed them.
"What brought you out here to Land's End?" asked Frank.
"A recommendation from Don and Bess Clymer. They've got a thing about Tod and Irma, and they had the idea that the rest of the Land's End chapter were probably just as much fun."
Mary smiled, and on her it looked sensuous. "Oh, they are," she said. "It's the best."
"I'll second that," Frank growled. "We've been back in the other part of the country for the past six weeks, and we hit every chapter we could squeeze into the schedule. Didn't find one with the wealth of material that this one has."
"That sounds like a strong plug," observed Cal.
"Well, I don't go around plugging the club, but I've got to say that it's the best we've seen."
"What makes it so good?" asked Dianne.
"Well-l-l ... Damned if I know, Dianne. I guess a guy's more-likely to analyze something that's not going right than something that's got nothing wrong with it."
But Dianne persisted. "It is the kind of activities? The settings? ... The people?"
Frank frowned and shook his head. He gazed speculatively at Mary, as if somehow the answer would be written on her face.
"A combination, I suppose," he said at last. "The setting's got to have something to do with it. Take Atlanta. I grew up there, and I took Mary there to live when we got married. Hell, we belonged to the Atlanta chapter for three years before we moved out here! But it just wasn't the same when we went back this year."
Mary shook her head. "It didn't seem the same, anyhow. But I think the people had changed, more than our feeling about settings."
"No," Frank sounded positive. "No. The setting made the biggest impression on me. See, about half of the people ... well, I guess it'd be more like three quarters ... live in the suburbs. You know what that means. Maybe they've got real fine homes. Maybe they spent fifty-sixty thousand dollars for them. They've got a third of an acre and great big lawns and lots of trees and shrubs. But there are houses on both sides of them and across the street. There's traffic out in front. Not much, maybe, but some. Listen to some jackass peel rubber taking a turn, and you're right in the world of today. All of the magic of the night and nakedness and new bodies is gone. Everything all of a sudden feels kind of fake and cheap. And swapping-our kind of swapping-isn't that."
"But you didn't feel that way about it when you lived there, did you?" asked Cal.
Frank looked troubled. "I didn't know that I did," he admitted. "But I suspect that the feeling was there, under the surface. I think that might have been one of the things that made the move look attractive."
"It certainly isn't like that here," Dianne said.
"No." Frank shook his head. "Here, you've got to drive to the next door neighbor's place-or take on a long hike.'
"I should think that would be depressing to people who ... well, to lots of people. I shouldn't think Cal and I would like that."
"Maybe not. Mary and I do. The fact is, people who don't want that kind of privacy-or isolation, if that's the way you think of it-don't come to Land's End to live. Except the trades people, of course. They go somewhere else."
"That says something about the people in your chapter, then," said Cal.
"Damn it, they're the finest people you'll meet anywhere!"
"I'm not criticizing. I'm just saying that the people in your chapter have some important things in common. They consider "privacy" to be pretty precious, for example."
Frank nodded. "Okay. I see what you're getting at. They've got other things in common, too. They're too big to fit in the mainstream. They've got to be where there's room to breathe. And I mean something different from having a lot of distance between houses. I mean freedom from having small ideas beating against you every minute of the day and make-a-buck shysters bumping your elbows every time you turn around."
"Land's End is for people who'd rather live in their own fantasy world than in the real world, then," Cal baited Frank.
The barb appeared to sink home, for Frank flushed and hesitated before answering. When he did speak, his voice sounded carefully controlled.
"Okay. We hear that sometimes. I hear it from the people I deal with in business, and we run into types from the entertainment circles-and the arty kind-who make that kind of crack."
Cal smiled inwardly, conceding that Frank had properly put him down for his deliberately shallow conclusion.
Frank went on, "It isn't quite that simple. Let's keep that idea on file; I'd like to tackle it when we know each other better."
Cal shrugged. "All right. What else have you people got in common that other chapters don't have?"
"Well, I'm prejudiced, of course..." Cal choked.
" ... But we've got the best-looking, fittest damned couples you'll find in any chapter in the world! Every chapter I've seen has some real knock-outs ... you and Dianne are like that ... but they all have some average ones, too. There isn't an average person in the Land's End chapter."
"How do you like Land's End, apart from the club?" asked Dianne.
Frank stared at her thoughtfully, then stood. "You two feel up to a half hour walk?"
Cal and Dianne exchanged glances. Cal, for one, very much felt like stretching his legs, and he guessed that Dianne would.
"Sure!" exclaimed Dianne.
11
They paused on the edge of the road before Surfrest and looked north at the business section of Land's End. Bluffs Boulevard was lighted, but not brilliantly. And there was not a neon sign to be seen. The moon, three quarters full, stood above the high slopes that lay behind the town, and its ghostly light bathed the landscape.
"Land's End is two or three towns," Frank said, and his voice was low, as if he preferred not to disturb anyone. "One town is the business section. That's it."
"Quiet for so early in the evening," Dianne commented.
"No reason for it not to be. The people who run those shops like their private hours, too. They're not trying to build a strip for night life. But look at the buildings."
"They're not real easy to make out," Cal said. "A guy knows that they're there, but they don't stand out."
"No, they don't. And they were planned that way ... to fit into the land."
Without further comment on that part of town, Frank led them in the other direction. Somehow, and Cal wondered how it had worked out that way so unobtrusively, Dianne was at Frank's side, and Mary and Cal were walking behind them. There was a faint scent of woodland blossoms about Mary, he discovered, and he assumed that it was in her hair. She walked without apparent effort, gliding rather than bouncing, in spite of the uneven terrain. And she stayed close enough to him to arouse his male response.
Around the first bend in the road from the motel, Frank walked out toward the edge of the bluff. They stood on level ground, and there was a wide, open space across the road before the trees started. The slopes that towered before them were black with trees, but moonlight flecked the treetops with silver. It was a picture of rare depth and natural beauty, and it seemed right to Cal when Mary leaned intimately against him. He put his arm around her waist and stared upward.
"Now, there's another Land's End," said Frank quietly. "There's life going on there, but we're not part of it, and it doesn't push at us. It's just there."
Mary spoke, as if to herself. "Even people live up there. There's a house on that shoulder, and you can see the whole ocean from it."
"It's pretty well hidden," Cal said. "Can't see any lights."
Mary shook her head, and a wisp of her hair brushed his jaw.
"It's not hidden. You can see this spot from it. You can see the house in the daytime. The people aren't there right now."
"You know them, I suppose."
"It's our house."
"God! You lucky people!"
"Yes. And thank you for saying that."
She tilted her face and placed a kiss on his cheek. His arm tightened momentarily, and he felt an answering pressure in her body. But Frank and Dianne were moving again.
Instead of returning to the road, Frank led the way along a faint trail that hugged the edge of the bluff. At the south end of the headland that they were on, he stopped.
"There's a trail here that goes down to the beach. It's a good one ... want to go down with me?"
"Sure."
They went down cautiously, but there were no severe hazards, and they arrived at the bottom without incident.
The wall at their backs thrust blackly out through the surf zone, and each incoming wave hissed and boiled along the rocks. But the beach lay open to the south, extending out of sight in the doubtful illumination. They were shielded from the moon's rays by the cliffs, and there was little detail to be seen on the beach. But moonlight bathed the surf, and the foam glowed with a brilliant display of phosphorescence. Frank and Dianne walked slowly along the beach, and Cal and Mary followed. The sand was finer than that in the cove, and the beach appeared to be less steep. But there were dips that lay across their path, and ridges that stuck out into the wash of the surf like rounded fingers.
On one of the higher fingers, Frank stopped again. He gestured at the ocean.
"That's another part of Land's End. After Land's End, there's the ocean. And it's any ocean you want it to be, if you wait for the right day."
"Oh, it's beautiful tonight," said Dianne.
Frank chuckled, his sober manner evaporating. "Special show we ordered just for our visitors from the home chapter."
"It calls for special thanks," murmured Dianne.
She rose to her tiptoes and put her lips up to his. Cal smiled in the dark, feeling a quickening in Mary's body. He turned her, and she pressed herself against him, her arms going about his neck. He held her tightly, his mouth crushed to hers, and suddenly her belly thrust itself forward.
Her lips worked, and he felt them part. He touched them with the tip of his tongue, and her tongue leaped to meet his. Her arms tightened convulsively, and she was suddenly alive in a different way. Her body was vibrant, and her muscles writhed in a slow massage of every part of his flesh that they touched. The impression that he had of her as cat-like returned with almost physical impact, and he caught himself waiting for the low, penetrating love call that heralds the mating of cats in the night. But it did not come at once.
He felt her flesh with his hands. Her buttocks were lean, but they yielded willingly to the kneading of his fingers. He stroked her side, and she turned her body for him without relaxing the pressure of her kiss. He felt the outer curvature of her breast, and she turned further and arched her back, giving him maximum access. His fingers pressed beneath the folds of her dress, and naked, hot flesh filled his hand. He caressed the full mound and fondled the rubbery nipple, and Mary made a throaty sound and broke the kiss.
"Now, Cal?" she asked. "You're not too tired?"
"I can't imagine being too tired for you," he said.
"Now, then!"
She backed a step away and put her hands to the back of her neck. Her dress began to crumple, and in a moment it had slid down the length of her body and lay in a dark heap at her feet. She stepped out of it and kicked off her shoes. She bent to remove her stockings, and Cal stripped himself with racing fingers.
Mary straightened, and she paused to survey his body with deliberate thoroughness. While she did, he noted that her breasts were quite similar to Dianne's full and proud, but semi-conical, rather than globular. Her body was slim and supple-looking, and the blonde patch at her crotch had a vaporous, silvery appearance in the dim light.
She came back to him, and she clasped her hands at the back of his neck and leaned back, her arms straight, her love mound thrust against his upper thigh. She parted her feet, letting her thighs straddle one of his, and the area that her love tissues covered felt hot and wet. He toyed with her nipples, and she gazed at him, smiling and languorous.
"I'm going to love you, Cal North. I know I am."
"Be careful with that word!" he protested. "Why?"
"It's dangerous!"
"No, dear. Jealousy and hate and envy are dangerous words, but not love."
"Love at the wrong time-or with the wrong person-can bring on those other things."
"Not in our world. We all love each other, Cal. We don't play sex games with people we don't love." She paused. "Not after the first time, anyhow."
"You really work it that way? ... It's not just a convenient tag?"
"It's real, Cal. We mean it. If anything happened to Frank, I wouldn't hesitate a moment about spending the rest of my life with any one of the other men in the chapter. Any one of them who lost his wife, that is. What I mean is that I really love every man in our chapter! Regardless of the sex, I love them. And that's what the chapter's built on."
"Good God! There's the real difference between the Land's End chapter and the rest!"
"Yes. I guess it is. Anyhow, I can tell that I'm going to love you."
He placed one hand on her back and stroked downward to her buttocks. She squirmed, rubbing her tissues on the ridge of his thigh and brushing her belly against his erect penis. He bent to kiss her breast, and suddenly she was all over him. It was as if he had found some hidden switch. She climbed him. He knew that there was no other words for it. He had had women throw their legs around him and cling to him before, but none had climbed him the way she did.
Her agility confused and disoriented him, but he managed to keep his hands and his mouth in contact with her writhing body. And the contact appeared to be effective; her agitation grew, and she began uttering a continuous, affectionate growl and to bite. Her bites were not the tiny, playful nips that he had sometimes experienced. But neither were they painful. She opened her mouth to its widest extent and took a great chunk of flesh between her teeth, then worried it tenderly before releasing it and grabbing another chunk.
They sank to the sand, and she continued to swarm over him, and their love play rolled them over and over each other. At last, Cal found himself on his back, and Mary had somehow impaled herself on his turgid penis. Her hips pumped with impossible speed, and she moaned with a penetrating note that reminded him more than ever of a great cat. She leaned over him, deeply, and her hands locked behind his head and pulled it to her, so that her breast rubbed against his face. He caught her nipple between his teeth and scrubbed it with his tongue, and the pressure between their pubic mounds grew intolerable.
He gasped at the hard, incessant mauling that the inner walls of her barrel was giving his shaft, and a knot formed in his gut and squeezed at the root of his organ. Hot fluid surged through the passage into Mary, and she shuddered convulsively and gave way to spasms of contraction. Her body arched, and she threw her head back and cried out. She trembled violently, then abruptly collapsed upon him, her lips showering his face with tiny kisses.
It was not enough to hold her. His fingers were not yet able to lie quietly, and he stroked her with short, hard tugs. Her body tensed, and suddenly, incredibly, she was crying out, and her hips were grinding her on the base of his softening shaft, and she was back in her orgasm.
When she collapsed this time, she lay quietly on him, and her breathing was deep and regular.
"Oh, I do, Cal! I do!"
"Do what, baby?"
"Oh, darling! I love you! Oh, I just love you to death!"
"You're a strange creature, Mary. You're not like any woman I've had."
"I'm glad of that. I wouldn't like to be like someone else."
Dianne clung to Frank, feeling the heat of his kiss seeping downward through her body and awakening her most primitive needs. In the fever of the kiss, she found herself unable to breathe, and at length, she had to jerk her head away and gulp great mouthfuls of air. Frank turned her, and she leaned back on his arm, letting her belly and the hardness of her love mound rest heavily on the bulge of his upper thigh. The fingers of his free hand sought out the fastenings of her blouse, and he began to undress her. She trembled and held herself still, feeling her garments fall from her, one by one. His hand played rapidly over her naked body, and she sighed happily. Then, releasing her, he stripped himself, his gaze fixed on her figure.
When he stood naked, he reached out to her, and she went into his arms. His hands were everywhere, and excitement mounted in her and tore great moans of pleasure from her. He lifted her from the ground, holding her against him, and she put her legs around him and squeezed. His hands went to her buttocks, and he levered her hips outward, positioning her so that the mouth of her love nest settled over the bulbous head of his penis. With a quick, powerful stroke, he swept her down onto the rigid tool, and she felt its heat and strength implanted within her belly.
She uttered a low, strangled cry, and her hips lashed backward and forward. Frank pumped, and their bodies met in sharp, dizzying impacts. Her passion exploded in her, and she buried her face against his shoulder.
"Frank! Oh, Frank! Quick! QUICK!"
"Now, pet. Right now."
A jolt of heat struck the core of her belly, and contractions rolled up her barrel. There was a roaring in her head, as if the surf had closed over them, and her skin flamed with her heat.
With a last, great shudder, she felt herself lose her rigidity, and she melted against him, molding her flesh to his angles. He kissed her forehead and her cheeks, and she tilted her face and offered him her lips. They locked in a long, tender kiss, and his breath eddied about her nostrils with the scent of the highest mountain meadows.
"Oh, Frank...! Stay in me, please! ... A long time, Frank!"
"All right, pet."
Frank was quiet, but at last, his deep voice came to life, and he was talking to Cal as well as to her.
"And this is another Land's End," he said. "The best one."
12
The four of them sprawled naked on the sand, reaching out to touch each other from time to time, quietly and immersed in the warmth of shared contentment. The moon had cleared the lip of the bluff above them, and its light seemed to them to throw the scene into brilliant relief.
"If you're going to be in Land's End for any length of time, you'll meet most of the people," said Frank in a musing tone. "Tod and Irma couldn't keep you to themselves, and knowing now how good you are, Mary and I won't be able to."
Cal chuckled. "We want to know all of them."
"Well ... I don't know about all, but. . . " Frank rolled onto his back and stared at the moon. "You'll have a chance to learn what kind of people they are. You won't find any-among the members of the club, anyhow-who've retired. They're not that kind."
"They all work?"
"In their way, yes. You suggested that we came to Land's End to get away from the real world. That's not true. All of us have our lines to that world. But we have a better perspective from here. We can see the whole pattern, and the decisions we make are in tune with the flow of the mainstream, rather than being directed by the current in some eddy."
"Okay. I think I follow you. I think I've heard that before, in just about the same words."
"I wouldn't be surprised." Then the tone of Frank's voice changed abruptly. "You could meet people you'd rather not. Don't let yourself be pushed."
"What do you mean?'
"Tod married a Mexican girl. She's a knockout, as you know, and she screws with the best of them. Wouldn't know but what she was just tanned. Couple of people they knew down there have come to Land's End, and they're a different kind. Niggers, Cal. Goddamn niggers! And Tod and Irma have turned them loose on damn near every couple in the club! NIGGERS!"
"Are they good?" asked Cal.
"Shit, I don't know! People say they're out of this world, but we're not about to take 'em on!"
"Skin make that much difference, Frank?"
"Color? Look, I'm not a narrow-minded, bigoted goddamn southerner, Cal, even if I am from Atlanta. I've got friends among the blacks. But I told you what the people in our club are like. They're beautiful! Not just average good-looking ... beautiful! We like it that way, and if the club starts taking in homely ones, just because they can fuck up a storm, then we're out."
"You've got to be saying more than it sounds like," observed Cal. "You're just too big to mean that the way it came out."
"Okay. A person's beautiful if everything's in the right proportion. He's got physical and ... well, what would you like me to call it? ... psychic beauty, maybe. Both, you understand. Y'know, we've got something in this chapter that Swappers International tries to discourage..."
"What's that?"
"We love each other, Cal. There's not a man in the group that I don't love like a brother ... or whom I'd object to Mary's living with if anything happened to me. Think I want her to live with a nigger?"
"I don't know, Frank. I guess you wouldn't ... not if he was dark."
"Not dark, goddamn it! Ugly! Shit, I've met guys who were ebony-black who were so beautiful I'd have been proud to see Mary with them! But some flat-headed, lump-nosed, ugly sonovabitch? Hell, no!"
"Swappers International," said Cal slowly. "Ever expect to hit any of the foreign chapters, Frank?"
"One of these days, I guess. Thinking about maybe going abroad next year."
"Better stay clear of the S.I. people outside the country, Frank. You'll find a lot of them ugly."
"Why?"
"They've mostly got beautiful people in their chapters, too, that's why. Only they're beautiful by their standards-not ours."
Frank was silent, and Cal waited. At last, Frank rolled onto his side and stared at Cal.
"A beautiful nigger..." he hesitated as if selecting his words, "the blacks we think are beautiful aren't beautiful niggers, are they. They're beautiful Caucasians who're black."
"That's right." Cal sat up. "A man's ideas tell me something about him, Frank. Know where I heard that bit about the Land's End perspective on the mainstream?"
"No."
"Manuel Moraga."
Frank nodded. He gazed at his wife thoughtfully, and his fingers clenched and unclenched in the sand. He sighed, finally, and looked down at the hand.
"Cal, I'm a fair man. I won't condemn a man without a hearing. A nigger's nigger is the ugliest thing in the world, but I want to hear those Moragas talk. Let's go see them."
"Tonight?"
"Why not?"
"It's late, Frank!"
"Damn it, man, they'll...! " Frank choked off the exclamation. "All right. Let's make it tomorrow. Make it daytime, so they don't think we're there to screw."
"I'll ask Tod to set it up."
"We'll go together, now! You two and us!"
"All right."
They dipped into the Moragas' ravine at one thirty, and Manuel and Consuela were waiting outside for them. There were chairs and casual stands at the side of the house, under a grape arbor, and they sat there drinking the iced punch that Manuel liked to serve. Frank asked what had brought the Moragas' to Land's End and listened closely when Manuel described the rationale of their move. Both Frank and Mary studied the two Mexicans closely throughout the explanation, and Cal thought that he could see a hint of awareness coming into their expressions. He knew without doubt that both were aroused by the physical structures of Manuel and Consuela, and he sensed that they were already forming a resolve to make love to the two, regardless of their long range suitability as members of the club. Consuela appeared to be watching Frank with unwavering attention, and her eyes betrayed her growing hunger.
She interrupted Manuel at a break in his conversation.
"We're not really being very hospitable," she murmured. "We ought to show the Corwins the inside of the house."
Manuel looked briefly surprised, and he cast a frankly appraising glance at Mary. Then he nodded slowly.
"I think you are right. Excuse us for a moment. We've got to see that the living room is ready."
"For God's sake, don't go to any trouble!" exclaimed Frank.
Manuel smiled. "No trouble. Just hospitality."
The Moragas disappeared, and the Corwins looked at Cal and Dianne with bemused expressions. Cal grinned.
"It's one of their games," he said. "I think it'll impress you. You're ready to have a sample of their sex action, I take it."
"It's only fair," said Frank. "And that woman has my pecker aching!"
Manuel returned to them.
"Come on in," he said quietly.
When they left the sunlit yard, the subdued light of the living room left them blinded for a moment, but Cal made out Consuela's outstretched figure, and he turned to catch Frank's reaction. The big man drew in his breath with a sharp hiss.
"What the...! "
"She is yours, senor." "I won't ... . ! "
"Please, Frank..." Consuela's voice rippled. "Please ... this is the way I want it."
"God Almighty!" Frank whispered.
Manuel touched Mary, and she swayed toward him.
"Are you going to tie me up like that?" she asked.
"No. Not unless you ask me to." "Not this time. There's too much of you to explore."
Manuel chuckled, and his hands passed over her body. But her hands were busy, too, and she unfastened Manuel's clothes and tugged at them. In moments, the two were naked, and Mary leaned into Manuel's embrace and kissed him violently. Dianne pressed against Cal's side, her eyes wide, as Mary swarmed up Manuel's frame.
"Good God!" she exclaimed. "Did she do that to you last night?"
"She sure as hell did! I didn't know what to do!"
"Br-r-r! She's like an animal!" "A beautiful animal," he said, smiling. "Yes. Beautiful. Look at how she winds around him!"
"She's more like a snake than a cat, right now." "Except that she's hot-blooded." "I'll buy that."
Frank showed no awareness of his surroundings, except for the painfully lovely body before him. He stood only inches from her, and his hands played quickly over Consuela's belly and her open crotch. Without ceremony, he had raised the edge of her sarong to her waist, and now she writhed to the urging of his fingers. But he paused, stepping back to strip, as Cal had belatedly wished he had done in their first encounter.
Consuela gazed at the great bulk of her partner and formed an "O" with her lips.
"Ooh," she exclaimed softly. "You're all man, Frank Corwin!"
"A guy gets the feeling he's got to be all man to take you, Consuela."
"Thank you ... but please don't make me wait too long for you."
He grinned at her and moved close, straddling her right thigh and pressing his erect penis against her side. His left hand toyed with her mobile buttocks, and his right buried itself in the luxuriant, glossy pubic hair that half concealed her yawning folds. Her body lashed, and he clamped his thighs on hers, confining her movement and frustrating her responses. She twisted and strained, and perspiration started from her skin. Frank grinned, crouching and bringing his face around to the magnificent globes that jounced with such tantalizing abandon.
"Oh, Frank! Oh-h-h-h! ... Ah-h-h! ... Suck hard on me! ... Ah-h-h!"
To Cal and Dianne's left, Manuel had fallen backward onto one of the couches, and Mary now thrashed over him, her body contorted and tossing. But he had pinned her, his forearm barred across the small of her back, and his fingers kneaded the tissues of her crotch. His feet were hooked at the inner sides of her calves, and they thrust her legs up and outward, stretching her tautly.
Her feline growls sent chills racing over Cal, and he wondered half coherently if she had learned the sounds deliberately. Dianne shivered and drew away from him.
"We don't want to just stand here like this, dear," she whispered to him. "God, Cal! How I want you to fuck me!"
"Want to make a first class orgy out of it," he said.
"Yes! That's exactly what I want to do!"
She had her blouse off, and now she pushed her skirt over her hips and down her legs. She paused for a moment, her breasts swelling around the edges of her skimpy bra and tiny, sheer bikini-type panties barely covering her love mound. Cal felt a tightness in his lips to match that in her groin, and he wet them with the tip of his tongue. He stripped in frantic haste, and Dianne smiled wickedly and began to remove her bra. Afterward, she let him tear off the panties, and he threw the shreds aside. He clutched her in his arms, their bellies writhing together, rolling his bone-hard penis between them.
"Let's just put him in me and watch the others for a while," suggested Dianne.
"Okay," he said. "But that's dangerous. Never know when something'll trigger me."
"I don't mind, honey. Come on."
Dianne glanced about her.
"I want to be able to see," she said. "Wait! I've got it!"
She bent over the back of one of the low armchairs, her forearms resting on the arms, her belly on the padded head rest.
"Come on, honey ... but not up my ass this time, please."
"Tempting ass, that." Cal grinned and cupped his hands on her buttocks. "Well, all right, if you'd rather I didn't."
Crouching, he aligned his swollen cock with her pussy, then slid it home with a long, smooth stroke. He let it nestle there, resting his weight on her mounded buttocks and reaching under her with both hands to clutch her breasts in his fingers.
"Mm-m-m!" she sighed. "I wish we could grow together this way!"
"I believe you really do, baby."
"Oh, I do!"
Before them, Consuela was flinging herself about to the limits of the taut ropes that held her. Frank sweated and trembled, and his face was a study in concentration. He bent and twitched the knots loose at her ankles, then grasped her buttocks and hoisted her hips to the level of his. Her legs came up, and she held them in a horizontal position, widely separated, astraddle his bulk. He swept her toward him with a mighty jerk, and she screamed as she engulfed his swollen cock.
"God, Frank! Oh, God! You've ruptured me! ... Oh, no! No you haven't! ... You're perfect! ... Ah-h-h! ... AH-H-H!"
Frank screwed his face into an incredulous grimace.
"Christ, woman! What're you doing to me!"
"Loving you, man! Loving you and that monster of a cock!"
"You're milking the sonovabitch! Ahhh! Here it comes!"
"Yes, yes! Oh, sweet baby, Yes!" And they collapsed, Consuela hanging limply by her wrists.
On the couch, the dark body and the smaller, lighter one thrashed and tumbled, first one above, then the other. They were tightly fused where their four legs joined, and they flailed wildly about that focal point. Mary's voice rose in a sharp crescendo, and then both bodies arched into rigidity. Only the two sets of hips showed any motion, and they ground out a slow, passionate dance.
Mary screamed, abruptly, twice. "Manuel! God in heaven, Manuel! You're scalding me!" then, "more. Manuel! For Christ's sake, MORE!"
They sagged slowly back into the softness of the couch, heaving with their efforts to breathe, but limp and spent. Dianne's hips pumped slowly under Cal, and she turned her head to whisper to him.
"Listen, now," she urged. "Listen..."
Consuela's lips brushed Frank's cheek repeatedly, and she crooned to him. "Frank, baby. I love you. Yes, I'm sure of it. I love you."
He groaned softly. "Woman, I love you, too. I'm a sonovabitch if I can explain it, but I do."
And Mary was moaning as she had to Cal on the beach, "Oh, I do, Manuel, I do!"
"Do what, Mary Corwin?"
"Love you! Oh, Manuel, I just love you to death! You're so beautiful!"
Dianne squirmed. "Love me to death, man! I think Land's End has solved its problem."
Cal laughed softly and pumped, feeling her buttocks give to the thrusts of his belly and her guts give before the stiffness of his cock.
"There was no problem in Land's End," he said. "How the hell else were they going to generate any excitement?"
"It was a game, then."
"A game."
"Honey, let's play our game ... quick, honey! ... Hit me with it! HARD!"
He lunged against her, and she cried out, flinging her head up beside his.
"Yes! Oh, my goodness yes!" And then, "Oh, Cal, I do love you so!"
