Anita was a businesswoman, and tin was her business. Inside-out, front-to-back, she knew it. Whether it was the whip-wielding, corsetted J. Edward Coleridge or the frigid-wived Fred who just wanted some sincere loving, Anita's customers were not always right, they were always delighted! And the phone never stopped ringing, the marks entered her timetable one after the lustful other, like an efficient delivery service keeping up its service schedule. Hour by hour Anita always knew exactly where she'd be, what particular type of twisted passion she'd have to be a part of-and never once did one of her shameless customers ever guess that deep inside, the real Anita loathed them, felt love only for one person, a warped little tramp named Joyce ... For that was Anita's own private and secret little problem, her own shuttered, evil little world of abnormality. And while she lived two lives, one for the customers, one for Joyce, time ticked on, like a lust bomb set to explode them ail into a sex hell....
CHAPTER ONE
Jack Donovan said, "I don't know if this sort of thing interests you or not, Fred. But I got the number of the sweetest little tootsie you could imagine, last week. She's expensive, but worth every penny. If you go in for that sort of thing, that is."
Seated across the table from Donovan at the expensive restaurant, Fred Markell toyed with his cocktail glass and said, in a voice that tried to be casual, "What's she like, Jack?"
Donovan shrugged. He was a big man, heavy-set and fleshy, almost oppressively big in the eyes of the smaller, leaner Markell. Donovan's eyes seemed to narrow as though he were looking off into a vast distance to visualize the appearance of the girl he was touting.
"She's blonde," Donovan said. "Tall. Twenty-one, twenty-two. She hasn't been in the business long, no more than six or eight months. She was married for a while when she was around eighteen, but she went into the call girl business after the marriage split up."
Markell nodded. He began to sweat a little, and his left leg started to tremble uncontrollably. He tried to hide the inner stab of desire from his lunch companion, but he doubted he was succeeding.
"Stacked?"
"God, yes! But she isn't a cow, mind you." Donovan laughed amiably. "She's bosomy without being sloppy. Big and firm, even when she's stripped. And everything else in proportion. I tell you, Fred, this girl is strictly calendar-girl stuff."
"What about the bedroom department?"
"She's a pro, isn't she?" Donovan replied. Markell nodded again and took a quick drink, and his fingers tightened on the stem of the cocktail glass until he thought it might break. He felt himself bursting out into a cold sweat of lust. He had always envied Jack Donovan's freedom to make his way gaily from one bedroom to the next. Donovan had never let marriage tie him down, the way Markell had.
Markell said cautiously, "What's the rate?"
"Say, you really are interested, aren't you?" Donavan said, leering.
Markell's voice was tight and thin and tense. "Sure I'm interested, Jack. What's the matter? Don't I have a right to be?"
"I thought you were a good faithful husband, Fred."
"Most of the time," Markell said. "But it isn't worth it. It just isn't worth it." He hunkered down over his drink and said in a confidential, you-and-me voice, "Janet and I have been miles away from each other psychologically for a good two years now. If I had one more drink in me, I'd tell you all about our sex life. Hell, I'll tell you anyway. It's been lousy lately. Lousy. Lousy t"
"That so?" Donovan said sympathetically. "God, Fred, I'm sorry to hear that!"
Markell leaned forward across the table and stared at the oval, pudgy face of the man opposite him. Whispering hoarsely, conspiratorially, Markell said, "I tell you confidentially, Jack, we aren't getting along at all. Not at all. Something's happening to Janet. She's turning frigid. I don't know what it is. But it's driving me crazy, Jack. Absolutely crazy."
"Maybe she's just worried about getting old," Donovan suggested. "That can sometimes foul up a woman's nervous system."
Markell laughed. "Old? Hell, she's thirty-three. Thirty-three, Jack! She hardly has a wrinkle. She's still got her figure. If she's old, what am I? What are you? We're forty, for Christ's sake! No, it isn't that. It's-I don't know. Some kind of neurosis. All I know is she hardly seems to like sex any mare."
"So you're in the market for a call girl?"
Markell nodded. He reddened at having to make the admission. "Yes," he said. "I figure it's simpler that way than starting a love affair with somebody. Love affairs lead to complications. Call girls don't."
"You're so right, buddy-boy. So very right."
They had another drink apiece. Markell was starting to feel relaxed, now that he had finally managed to confess to a sympathetic friend what had been bothering him for so many months. He had always been devoted to Janet, had not, like so many businessmen in his income bracket, gone on from one extramarital affair to the next. Oh, he had slipped, now and then, but not often enough to really matter. By and large he was a faithful husband.
But he couldn't go on that way any longer. He was a virile man. He had certain healthy desires that his wife was failing to satisfy.
He had to look elsewhere.
He closed his eyes briefly and tried to imagine this girl Donovan was dangling before him. This youthful blonde with the big boobs.
She danced into his feverish brain. She was nude, her golden hair flowing down to her shoulders. Her breasts were big ripe cones, swaying gently with every motion of her body. The nipples were high and small and very pink, sticking up stiffly out of reddish-brown aureoles the size of half-dollar pieces. Below her breasts, her body swept away to sudden breathtaking flatness, and then flared again at her hips, and there were the firm pillars oi her thighs, and he was holding her, his hands splayed out over the hard but satin-smooth rounds of her buttocks. Then, magically, he was naked too, and she was smiling, her lips full and firm and red, moist and parted, and his mouth was on hers and their tongues were touching and he was covering her with his body and she was reacting almost the instant he pressed his body to hers, quivering and thrashing and leaping as though a jolt of electricity had passed through her.
And then they were together on the bed, her soft body active and eager and hungry, and he took her again and again, and each time he took her she went through the full frenzy of excitement, until finally, in the small hours of the morning, he lay back against the cushions, drowsy and exhausted and happy. He opened his eyes to see her standing naked above him, her breasts rising and falling gently, and she was smiling, and she leaned forward and looked at him out of sparkling eyes, and the tips of her breasts touched him and he was alive again, and then they were making love while he lay back and dreamed a dream of everlasting passion-
Markell mopped the sweat from his forehead and the vision vanished.
He said, "What does she charge?"
"Twenty-five bucks for the regular thing," Donovan said. "She'll give you an hour of her time for that. There's a sliding scale for specialties, if you happen to go in for stuff like that. And it's a hundred bucks for all night. That's pretty much a standard rate for a New York call girl."
"Fine," Markell said. "Give me her telephone number, will you?"
Donovan took a page from his notepad and laboriously printed the number. "Here," he said. "It's an answering service. What you do is, you call up and leave your telephone number, and then when she gets around to it she calls you back."
Markell carefully pocketed the slip. "You won't say a word to Janet about this?"
"Are you kidding? Me, double-cross a fellow husband?" Donovan asked indignantly.
Markell laughed. "I didn't think you would, really. But I'm sort of new at this kind of operation. You've got to keep that in mind."
"How long have you and Jan been married?" Donovan asked. "Ten years, is it?"
"Nine years last June."
"Nine years of marriage and you never stepped out on her once?" Donovan asked incredulously. "Come off it, Fred. I just don't believe it."
Markell shrugged in an offhand way. "Oh, there were one or two little incidents at summer resorts. But they were sort of things that just happened, you know. Quick impulses. It isn't like this. It isn't like all this cold-blooded planning in advance, and then actually paying for it."
"But it's simpler, this way," Donovan said. "And easier, too When you need a woman in a hurry, you can't wait around for a little incident to happen."
"Yes," Markell said. "Simpler this way."
They left the restaurant at a quarter past two With a solid, substantial meal in his belly and a tingle oi desire in him, Fred Markell walked the six long blocks up Fifth Avenue to his office, thinking about the call girl whose number Jack Donovan had given him.
She danced in his brain. She capered back and forth, lips moist, thighs inviting, heavy breasts tolling like bells. She was light and slender and slim, in his passion dream, all but at her breasts, where two firm globes sprouted with unexpected lushness, and at her buttocks and hips, where the flesh was firm and lovely to behold.
At forty, Fred Markell was unquestionably a successful man. As the head of a medium-sized real estate brokerage firm, he had already piled up a personal fortune comfortably along in six figures. He had an annual take-home pay in five figures-five high figures. He owned a fine Tudor-style mansion in one of the better Westchester towns. He had a beautiful wife.
The only flaws in his existence concerned the matter of the beautiful wife. She was unable to have children, for one thing. A tumor eight years ago had settled that for keeps. Adoption didn't appeal to her, so .they were childless. And she seemed to have lost all interest in sex, lately, as well.
It puzzled and bewildered Markell. He could remember the early years of their marriage, before the money came. Janet had been warm, loving, passionate. Those days, he was hardly able to wait for the day to end, so he could be together with her in bed.
But things had changed.
As he had grown wealthier, Janet had surrounded herself with a high wall of hobbies and outside interests, and somehow the hobbies and outside interests had drained off all her energies. She was so busy these days with the Garden Club and the United Nations Association and the Symphonic League and the Library Drive and the City Cleanup Campaign and all her myriad other organizations that she seemed to have no time left for the basic matter of making love to her husband.
Markell resented it. He tried to complain to her, but she shrugged it off. She was seeing a psychiatrist, these days-it cost him $60 a week-but so far the head-shrinker had told her nothing except that her nothing except that her frigidity was a "hostility phase" that would require several years of intensive therapy to remove. The therapy had been going on for six months now, and the only result Markell observed was that Janet now had a fine new vocabulary to use when she explained why she didn't care to sleep with him on a particular night Now she could talk about "resistances" and "negative transferences" and a lot of other fancy things.
But the fundamental fact was unaltered. Their marriage was at a standstill. And, as a healthy and vigorous man still in the prime of his life, Fred Markell was determined to do something about it.
Lunch with Jack Donovan today was the first step. Donovan was always philandering. He was famous for it, infamous. It hadn't been hard to get him to bring the conversation around to a specific girl who was available to anybody who had the price.
And now Markell had her number.
He slid in behind his broad desk. His secretary came bustling up to him with the list of messages taken during his absence. Markell waved her aside.
"In a moment, Miss Falk, in a moment. I've got an important phone call to make first."
He spread the sheet of notepaper out in front of him on his desk. Donovan had printed the name ANITA, and a telephone number.
Anita.
Markell closed his eyes for an instant and saw her again, the dream-Anita, the girl with the pink-tipped breasts and the firm buttocks, the girl with the delightful thighs. The girl with the moist lips, the soft voice, the talented body. He bit his lip in desire.
Did the real Anita look at all like this dream-Anita, he wondered?
There was only one way to find out.
Markell picked up the receiver. He began to dial the number.
Jack Donovan's expression was a thoughtful one as he returned to his office, just east of Madison Avenue in the mid-forties. He hadn't expected quite that load of revelation from Fred Markell. They had been friends for many years, of course-since college days, as a matter-of-fact But still-
There were some things you didn't even tell a friend, no matter of how many years' standings. Like the business of your wife's being frigid. Of her not wanting to sleep with you. Of your needing someone else to find a hired mistress for you.
Those were things a man kept to himself. Unless, oi course, he was very desperate.
Donovan entered his office. His secretary, Judy, came into the room. Judy was a dark-haired girl of about twenty-five, who had been with him for two and a half years, and who had been his part-time mistress for all but about six weeks of that time. She had very large, solemn eyes, very large, interesting breasts, and the cutest Little bottom Donovan had ever seen.
She said, "Dick Sansom called you, Mr. Donovan. He'd like you to call back at-"
"I'll get around to it," Donovan said. "Later. Right now I want two favors from you."
"Sure."
"The first is to come over here."
The girl grinned, knowing what was on Donovan's mind. She came to him. He put his hands on her breasts, feeling the firm hillocks of flesh lying just beneath the thin fabric. He squeezed. He stroked her back, letting his hand roam downward. He put his lips to her cheek, and nuzzled along the line of her jaw, and playfully nibbled her earlobe.
The girl began to pant. "Shall I lock the door, Mr. Donovan?"
He let go of her. "No," he said. "I just wanted to fool around a little. Now you can do that second favor for me."
"Of course, Mr. Donovan."
"Go back into your office," he said. "And stay there. And keep my line clear for the next five minutes."
The girl looked a little hurt, and no wonder, since he had built up her expectations and then disappointed her. But she was smart enough to know that Donovan was no man to be crossed. Modeling, she picked up her pad and went out of the room.
Donovan lowered himself heavily into his swivd chair He delivered himself of a small belch. He had eaten too much and he knew it, but it was a pleasant feeling all the same. There was time to start reducing next week, he thought. Or the week after.
He thought about the things Fred Markell had revealed to him.
Janet is frigid, Markell had said. Janet is so busy with her outside hobbies that she has not time to sleep with me, Markell had said. That's why I need a mistress.
Donovan smiled. He knew enough about women to realize that when a woman stopped sleeping with her husband, it wasn't just a one-sided business. She usually had some good reason for it. Maybe she was tired of her husband's inept and amateurish lovemaking. Maybe she had grown bored with his bungling.
A frigid wife, Donovan knew, was a sure set-up for another man. Especially Janet.
He knew Janet. He had been best man at her wedding to Markell. He had suffered the agonies of the wedding night in his mind.
He wanted Janet. For ten years, he had wanted Janet. But she was his friend's wife.
Now that marriage seemed to be in trouble. At long last, Donovan felt free to make his move. He hadn't dared, until now. He hadn't been able to gauge the real situation between the Markells. But now he knew, knew that things were not well, knew that there was an opening into which he could move. Janet would be his. He was sure oi it.
There was a constricting band of tension across his fleshy belly as he thought of Janet Markell, nude in his arms; beautiful Janet, slim, dark-haired Janet-
He picked up the phone. He dialed the area code, dialed the home number of the Markells.
He listened.
One ring, two, three. Five. Eight.
On the tenth ring he hung up, and, out of characteristic cautiousness, dialed again, just to be sure. There was no answer this time, either.
Donovan shrugged off his disappointment. Janet was out-maybe at one of her organizations, a meeting of the City Cleanup Campaign or something. Or perhaps paying a visit to her psychoanalyst. No matter. He'd find her home eventually, if he just kept calling.
And in the meantime-
He pushed the buzzer on the intercom. "Judy! Judy!"
The dark-haired, big-eyed secretary came into the room. "Yes, Mr. Donovan?"
"I want a third favor now."
"Of course, Mr. Donovan."
He moistened his lips. "The couch-"
She smiled and nodded This was an old routine between them, now She carefully locked the door to his office She kicked off her shoes She lay down on the broad leather couch along the wall.
Donovan approached her He drew her skirt up, up over her waist She was wearing black, shiny panties monogrammed with a bright red heart.
Gently, Donovan drew the panties oil her. There was the paleness of her bare thighs and the straps of her garters. Judy smiled twinkingly at him She was a love machine, available at any time, and she knew she was important to him in that capacity. He lowered his heavy body to hers. He slipped his hands up under her sweater. She had loosened her bra, and he could put his hands right over the heavy globes of her breasts. He caressed them, and she started to sigh It didn't take much at all to awaken her, and he lowered himself still farther, possessing her.
Donovan closed his eyes, as he made love to her, but his mind was full of thoughts of Janet Markell.
CHAPTER TWO
Janet Markell was two miles away at the moment when Jack Donovan was making love to his secretary. Janet was in an office in the mid-Eighties, just to the east of Madison Avenue. She was visiting her psychoanalyst.
The analyst's name was Myron Gerber He was 45, and had been healing the suffering souls of over-privileged men and women for twelve years He was a lean, owlish-looking man who wore horn-rimmed glasses chewed unlit cigars without ever lighting them, and worried mightily about his own troubles most of the time. His troubles were not sexual, as were those of most of his clients, but financial. It cost him $60 a month to rent his office, and $550 a month more to rent his nearby apartment Even though he extracted $20 to $30 an hour from the women who consulted him, and even though he was very much in demand and rarely earned less than $500 a week from his practice, he was hard put to keep up with his own overhead.
But Dr. Gerber managed to keep his own troubles out of sight while listening to those of his clients. Most of his clients were women. Most of them had sex troubles.
Most of them, as a matter-of-fact, were very much like Janet Markell. So much like her, indeed, that Dr. Gerber sometimes had trouble remembering whose symptoms were whose from one session to the next. That was why he took such copious notes.
Janet looked like so many of the others-young, though not too young, and chic, though no fashion plate of the Duchess of Windsor school, and elegant, and pretty, and not visibly unhappy, but oh-so-sad down below the surface.
They sat facing each other. There was a couch in the room, a fine nine-foot couch that Freud himself would have been proud of. But Dr. Gerber did not believe in imposing his own rules on the patient. If the patient did not care to use the couch, the patient did not have to. The patient could assume any position she pleased.
Janet didn't like to use the couch. "It makes me feel so stereotyped," she told Dr. Gerber on her first visit "Like somebody in a New Yorker cartoon, you know? Do T have to use the couch?"
"Not if you don't want to," Dr. Gerber told her, his voice a soft, reassuring baritone.
"Do you want me to?"
"I'd prefer it," he admitted. "But T won't compel you The time will come when you trust me enough to take the couch voluntarily. Until then, sit where you like."
That was six months ago, and Janet had still not come to the point where she cared to use the couch Dr. Gerber had not pressured the issue, of course And so Janet went on facing him across his desk She wanted to see his facial reactions as she talked to him.
Not that they were very revealing Half the time, at least, Dr Gerber did not react at all-hardly seemed to be listening to her The rest of the time, he chewed furiously on the soggy stump of his cigar, but his expression was never a readable one.
He said little. He listened, and nodded sometimes, and chewed.
"I wonder if it's because I never had any children," she said. "Maybe that's the reason I've lost interest in sleeping with Fred. A denial of the maternal instinct leading to a denial of the sexual impulse. Would you say there's any truth to that?"
"Could be."
"You don't sound like you think there is."
"It's hard to say, Mrs. Markell It's an interesting theory. But I wish you wouldn't sit there theorizing You do too damn much theorizing as it is. T wish you'd get past the intellectual layer to the emotional."
"I try, Dr. Gerber. God knows I try! But I can't get there! I think too much!"
"Mmm."
"Maybe that's the source of my trouble. Thinking. I'm in a rut. I sit here going back and forth over the same old things. But maybe what I need is to shake myself up a little. To do something wild, something spontaneous and unpredictable, like-like taking a lover."
She stopped, shocked at herself.
"Go on," Dr. Gerber prompted. "Follow that line of thought. Don't just let it dry up and die there."
"Maybe-maybe-" she faltered. "Maybe a lover would help. To rekindle the spark of excitement in me. To get me going again. Maybe even making Fred a little jealous, maybe that would help-" She was silent a long moment. Dr. Gerber chewed thoughtfully on his cigar. He never broke a silence. He collected his fee whether or not anyone said anything at all the whole session, and he could make out a case for fifty minutes of silence as being meaningful and revelatory.
She looked at him. "What do you think, Dr. Gerber? Do you think I ought to take a lover?"
He never, never gave a direct answer to a leading question like that. Never. Janet knew it, even as she asked.
Dr. Gerber's eyes flickered opaquely. He shifted the cigar from one corner of his wide mouth to the other and delivered the answer she knew was coming:
"What I think about your taking a lover doesn't matter, Mrs. Markell. What do you think about the idea?"
Fred Markell gripped the receiver tightly and listened to the ringing of the phone. There were three rings. Then a professional operator-voice said crisply, "Whom Ho you wish to speak to, please?"
Markell hesitated a moment, half tempted to hang up and forget the whole crazy idea. "A-Anita," he said.
"Yes, sir. Certainly, sir." Strict mechanical properness, though the answering service operator almost certainly knew she was working for a whore. "She is not available at the moment, sir. May I have your number and the time you would prefer to be called back, please?"
"Yes," Markell said He moistened his lips, squeezed the receiver tensely, gave the operator his number "Have her call me before half past five. That's my business number, you understand."
"Certainly, sir And the name?"
He paused a moment, wondering. "Fred," he said. "Just Fred"
"Thank you, sir."
There was a click Markell put the receiver down slowly, with something of a sense of anticlimax So that was all there was to it, he thought, if you wanted the services of a beautiful and passionate wench just call up and leave your telephone number. And then wait. Wait and wait and wait.
He tried to do his regular afternoon work There were important papers to sign, urgent phone calls to return, complex documents to draft He worked with only half his mind. His concentration centered on this girl, this Anita.
What would she be like?
A tall stacked blonde half his age. That was what Jack Donovan had told him. A knockout.
He wondered. If she was really as beautiful as all that, he considered, why would she be in that sort of business? Why not be a movie star, a model, or even some executive's wife? Why should a really good-looking top-notch girl become a call girl?
Markell knew he was being naive. Obviously she was good-looking, or Donovan would never have recommended her in the first place. After all, Donovan had his own reputation as a connoisseur of woman-flesh to maintain and uphold.
So maybe the girl just liked being what she was. Or found that she made more money that way than any other. Who knew the reason? Who could ever understand the first little thing about what made a woman tick?
Not me, Markell admitted bleakly.
As the afternoon wore along, he grew more and more impatient. Most likely she slept late, till two or three or maybe even four in the afternoon, he figured. And then she woke, and phoned her answering service, and got the list of the new clients and their numbers. And started calling them.
He had left his personal phone number. It was a direct wire from the outside. It didn't go through the switchboard, or even through his secretary's desk. Markell had set up the phone that way so he could be sure not to have eavesdroppers on important business calls. He had never dreamed that one day he would be waiting for word from a call girl on that same telephone.
Around a quarter to four, the phone finally rang. Markell snatched it up with feverish impatience.
"Hello, is this Fred?"
The voice was soft, husky, sensual-everything that a woman's voice had to be in order to embody the essence of sex.
"Y-yes."
"Hello, Fred. This is Anita. You called me?"
"That's right. A friend of mine gave me your number at lunch today. He-"
"All right," she broke in brusquely. "What kind of arrangements would you like to make, Fred?"
She was really down-to-Earth, Markell thought. No time wasted in idle chit-chat with this chick, obviously. Strictly business.
He said, "I thought maybe we could get together for an hour this evening-"
"Sorry, Fred. I've already got two other engagements for tonight. I could see you around two in the morning tomorrow, I guess-"
"No, that wouldn't do. I'd have to be home by then, and I live outside the city."
"What about Friday night at nine?" she suggested Obligingly.
It's just like making an appointment with your dentist, Markell thought. Only the treatment is more fun. He checked his engagement book, riffling through it with his left hand. "Friday night at nine-mmm-yes, that's okay," he said.
"You have any place special you want me to meet you?" she asked.
"I thought we'd go to a hotel."
"Okay," she said. "You take care of the booking, then. My stop just before you is at Third Avenue and 51st Street, so get a hotel room somewhere in that general vicinity. After you've booked the room, phone my answering service just like before, tell them the name of the hotel, the number of the room. I'll be there at nine o'clock sharp, Friday night. Okay?"
"Okay," Markell said.
"See you Friday, Freddy."
She hung up.
Everything cool, calm, and collected, Markell thought. A real businesswoman. A pro. He could appreciate efficiency. He liked the way she had everything organized. If she turned out to be half as good in bed as she seemed to be in running her business, Friday was going to be a memorable evening indeed.
Janet Markell got home at half past four that afternoon. She had left the analyst's office at three, and had browsed through a couple of the interesting little shops along Madison Avenue in the Eighties, looking for porcelain. Janet collected Chinese porcelains. She had filled a couple of cabinets with rare old pieces. She stopped into one store that had a nice pair of peach bloom bottle-vases; the proprietor tried to tell her that they were Kang Hsi, but Janet knew better than to believe him-they couldn't be more than a hundred years old, at the outside. Not that it mattered. At $25 apiece, she could buy them for their beauty alone, and not worry about their authenticity.
She bought them. Why not? About the only pleasure she had in life was spending her husband's money, and Fred would never notice another few dollars here or there.
"A very wise purchase, madame. Very wise."
Janet nodded. "They're beauties, all right."
She carried them out to the car. The car was another of her pleasures, her prides and joys. It was a trim little Lancia that Fred had bought for her on their last trip to Europe. It had seemed like a bargain at the price-$2,000 less than the New York price-and Fred never had been able to resist a bargain.
In Italy, where there are no speed limits on the new superhighways, Janet had gloried in driving the car at 100, 120 miles an hour, hardly even caring. The fact that the speedometer was calibrated in kilometers per hour made everything seem unreal, anyway. But now, back Stateside, she was much more cautious. She hardly ever drove above 75, even on turnpikes.
She shot northward now, across Westchester into Scarsdale, off the highway and into the quiet, leafy lanes where the houses started at $50,000 and went up, up. up. The car purred along, and she came to the intersection of Chestnut and Maple, and turned onto Maple, and thence to Harcourt Crescent, and to her house.
Her mansion.
It was an imposing two-story Tudor house, with leaded windows and half-timbered walls, standing majestically in the center of a two-acre plot. The lawn gleamed like green velvet. The house itself was spotless, inside and out. Janet pulled into the driveway, pebbles spinning under her wheels, and went into the house. Half past four.
Time for a shower and a cocktail. Then she had work to do-typing addresses for the P.T.A. Anything to keep back the terrifying realization that she was really useless to the world, to her husband, to herself.
She went upstairs, into the bedroom. She could hear the maid downstairs, whistling as she vacuumed. Janet threw her purse on the bed, carefully set the package containing the new vases on the window sill without opening it. She began to undress.
She was quickly nude. She glanced at herself in the full-length mirror inside the closet door. She liked to keep close watch on herself, in fear that one day age would descend on her abruptly.
Age had been kind so far.
She could pass for a girl in her mid-twenties. Her hair was dark and lustrous, her face unlined, waist flat and taut. Her breasts had always been small, but in maturity they had rounded and firmed, so that they were lovely to look at, little pink apples of flesh. Her waist was narrow, her hips slim, her buttocks lean, almost boyish. She had good legs and an alert, intelligent face. Perhaps she was a little on the thin side, but nobody could have reason to complain about her looks.
She started to go into the bathroom.
The telephone rang.
Janet picked it up quickly, frowning. "Hello?"
"Jan? Jack Donovan here."
"Oh Hello, Jack. Is something the matter? You were supposed to see Fred today for lunch-"
"Yes Yes, T saw him He's okay We had a nice little talk And then I figured I'd call you up and have a nice little talk too."
"I was just going into the shower-"
"I won't keep you long," Donovan said "T just wanted to let you know something that I've been meaning to tell you for a long time, Janet."
"And that is?"
"That I want you in bed, Janet, I just thought I'd let you know. I didn't feel like keeping it to myself any more."
Fred Markell left his office at twenty after five that night, walked briskly over to Grand Central Station and just barely made the 5:31. Seventy minutes later, he was home. It was a pleasant early-autumn evening, cool and clear.
Janet didn't come out to greet him. Markell walked inside and found his wife in the study just off the hall from the master bedroom. She was diligently typing out envelopes.
She looked up at him. It seemed to him that she looked a little thinner, a little more tired and drawn than usual He wished she would gain about ten pounds Particularly in front. Markell liked breasts. He had hoped, when he married Janet, that her bosom would fill out a little when she had some children. But there hadn't been any children, never would be, and she still wore a padded bra. Otherwise, she was a good-looking woman in every way. But tonight she seemed tense and preoccupied.
"Evening, Fred."
He glanced at the envelopes on the desk. "What are you so busy with?"
"I volunteered to type the addresses for the P.T.A.'s meeting notices," she said. "Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. I've been typing since I got home from Gerber. God, am I beat!"
So it was going to be another one of those days, Markell thought grimly.
"I don't suppose you've been able to steal any time from the P.T.A. to prepare dinner," he said. "And this is Ethel's night off."
Janet gasped. "I forgot all about what time it was! I got so wrapped up in all this typing-"
"That's all right," he said easily, keeping his annoyance in check. He didn't want to pick a fight with her, not now, when his mind was full of the sweet promise of Anita's as yet unseen body. "I had a big lunch today anyway. Jack Donovan wanted to sell me some parcels in New Jersey. Strictly swampland."
"You didn't buy?"
"No," Markell said. "But it wasn't a completely wasted lunch after all." No indeed, he thought. "No deal, but at least I had a damned good filet mignon at Brother Donovan's expense. And I'm still a little full. So if you'll just put together some kind of salad, that'll be enough dinner for me-"
Janet nodded and headed into the kitchen. He watched her buttocks moving against the taut fabric of her slacks. It's always this way, he thought. She got so damned busy with her community activities that she never had any time for him. Almost deliberately, she drainer! her energies into ridiculous, meaningless things, and then was too exhausted to perform any of the duties of a wife.
The least she could have done was mixed a few drinks when he came in, he thought. Even if she didn't want to bother with fixing supper.
But she didn't do anything She was strictly a parasite, he figured. She lived off him, and served no purpose at all in the household. The P.T.A. probably appreciated her services deeply, he thought. But what the hell kind of marriage was that?
Janet scraped together a sort of dinner. Then it was back to the envelope-addressing for her, while Markell, fuming inwardly, watched television, paid a few bills, answered a couple of letters. The dull evening dragged away. He wondered who Anita was with, now What she was doing. She had said she was busy tonight.
Quarter to eleven.
Bedtime in Suburbia, Janet had finished with her envelopes, it seemed. Markell walked into their bedroom and there she was, nude before her mirror, combing out her dark hair with short, stiff strokes that made her breasts jiggle. He came up behind her and looked at her.
I'll give her another chance, he thought. She doesn't have to drive me to call girls. I'll be faithful if she'll only have a heart.
He ran his hands over her small round breasts, over the smooth curve of her buttocks. There was a time when her nipples would get hard if he as much as looked at her, but now, as he cupped her breasts, he could feel the little buttons of flesh still soft, soft, soft.
"Hurry up and finish with your hair," he muttered. "Let's go to bed."
She looked at him glumly. "Not tonight, Fred. I'm just not in the mood. I'm so tired."
"Sure. All those envelopes to address-"
"Fred, please."
"Okay. Okay. Consider the subject dropped."
Any other night, he might have started a bitter argument, might have haggled with her and disputed with her until she finally gave in and let him, passively and coldly, have what he wanted. But tonight he had the promise of Anita to comfort him.
He got into bed, and threw a sour look at his wife's nude, inaccessible body.
Go on, he thought. Keep on being a cold witch, Janet. One of these fine days you may find yourself tossed out of here on that sexy pink backside of yours. I've tolerated your antics too long, girlie. You'd better watch your step. Anita is only the beginning. The natives are getting restless.
He rolled over on his side and waited tensely for sleep to take him.
CHAPTER THREE
Friday finally came. The hours had ticked by leadenly all day Thursday, but now it was Friday, now it was Anita-Day. Markell bubbled with scarcely suppressible excitement all morning. He felt like a kid about to have his first really hot date. He kept looking at his watch, trying to urge the minutes to move along.
At noon, he left his office and walked quickly uptown and eastward through the lunchtime crowds, stopping at 52nd Street. There was a hotel at 52nd just east of Third, a shiny new building that hadn't been open more than a few months. Markell straightened his tie, adjusted the brim of his hat, went inside.
A desk clerk eyed him respectfully. Markell glanced around the lobby. It was flamboyant, Miami Beach style, with glitter and glare everywhere.
He said, in his best top-executive voice, "I'd like a room for this evening."
"Certainly, sir. A single?"
"Make it a double."
"Certainly, sir. Private bath, television set. Eighteen dollars. Would you sign here, please?"
He signed in under the first name that came to his mind-Edward T. Connally-and beamed at the clerk. The clerk beamed back and handed him his key. Since he had no luggage, the clerk tactfully-he must have been used to such situations-suggested that he pay in advance for the room, and Markell found no objections to that.
"Checkout time is noon tomorrow, Mr. Connally. If you'd like an extension, just notify us at the desk."
"That's all right, thanks. I doubt that I'll be staying past breakfast time."
The clerk favored him with a knowing smile. Markell wasn't fooling anybody, he realized. These hotel people knew damn well that this was a local businessman who needed a room for a short while for a very specific purpose.
But they didn't give a damn, Markell knew. They weren't in the morality business. They were just interested in selling their rooms, and if two people were going to occupy the room, what he did in the room was strictly his own business, as far as the hotel management was concerned.
From a pay telephone in the hotel lobby, he called Anita's answering service and gave the operator the name of the hotel, the number of the room, and the time. The rest was up to Anita.
He had a quick light lunch. Somehow, he didn't seem to have much of an appetite today. Returning to his office around one, he put through a call to his home.
Janet took her time about answering. The phone rang seven times, and Markell was just ready to conclude she had gone out, when she finally picked it up, with her nonchalant "Hello."
Markell moistened his dry lips and said, "I'm going to be home late tonight, Jan."
"Oh?" she said languidly. She hardly seemed to care at all.
"Yes, there's a conference that just came up. It'll keep me busy pretty late. We're all going out for dinner, one of those things. I guess I won't be home till after eleven."
"All right, Fred. I've got some U.N. work to do this evening, anyway. Don't wake me when you come in, if I'm asleep."
"I wouldn't dream of waking you, dear," he said tightly. "I wouldn't dream of it."
Janet put down the phone. "It was Fred," she said. "He won't be home till late, he told me. It seems he has an important conference tonight." She giggled. "He sounded so sincere, too."
"What did I tell you?" Jack Donovan asked. "Tonight's his night with the call girl. I wasn't making it up."
"Poor Fred. He didn't need to lie to me," Janet said. "He could have simply told me how he was spending his evening. I wouldn't have minded."
"He didn't know that."
"No," Janet said. "He didn't. Will you have another martini, Jack?"
"Don't mind if I do. I'll help myself."
"Of course."
Donovan had arrived at the Markell house half an hour earlier, having left his office at noon and driven straight there. His car was parked in the driveway. In a quiet neighborhood like this, nobody was around to notice whether or not Mrs. Markell was entertaining male visitors in the middle of the day when her husband was at work. And if someone did notice, what of it? This wasn't a tattletale kind of neighborhood. Everybody was sophisticated, upper bracket here.
Even so, she was a little tense about Donovan's coming here. Yesterday, at her visit to her analyst, she had brought the subject up, had explained how Donovan had phoned and crudely propostioned her.
"And how do you feel about it?" Gerber had asked her.
"I feel that I want to sleep with him."
"Even though he's an old friend of the family?"
"I don't care. For the first time in ages, I'm excited about something. I'm breaking out of this boredom that's gripped me. I think maybe if I have an affair, I'll snap out of my depression."
Gerber hadn't said it would be a good idea to go to bed with Jack Donovan. But he hadn't said it was exactly a bad idea, either. The analyst hadn't committed himself. He never did.
Janet took his attitude as an unspoken blessing. Gerber clearly wanted her to be unfaithful, but wouldn't come right out and say it-
Well, okay. She would be unfaithful, then. As a kind of therapy.
And now Jack Donovan was actually in the house, looking big and natty in his $250 Italian silk suit. And suddenly Janet was afraid.
Donovan was someone she had known for years and years-Fred's oldest friend, practically a brother. Could she sleep with him? He was just fat, pudgy Jack Donovan. Could she see him in a framework of sexual desire?
Yes.
Yes.
Donovan grinned at her. "You know," he said, '"I've been dreaming about going to bed with you practically since the day Fred came around with you and said you were the girl he was going to marry. Did you know that?"
"I gathered it."
"Fred knows it too, doesn't he?"
"Janet shrugged. "I suppose he does. But he doesn't care. I don't think he thinks anyone would really seriously want to go to bed with me."
"He's wrong."
"I hope he's wrong," Janet said.
"He's dead wrong."
"But what made you finally call me up, after wafting all these years?"
Donovan shrugged. He swirled his martini around, took a deep sip. "That conversation I had with Fred," he said. "He told me in just about so many words that you and he had stopped sleeping together. I figured it was a damned shame that a beautiful girl like you had to be deprived of sex. So I figured I'd offer my services."
Janet's eyes sparkled. "I'm glad you did," she said. "I was going wild with boredom."
"Maybe I can fix that," Donovan said.
"Maybe you can."
She finished her drink. Her heart was racing. She felt terribly wicked, terribly sinful.
She had never been unfaithful to Fred. Not once. There had been temptations, but they had been repressed. The last time she had slept with anyone but Fred was before their marriage. Ten, eleven, twelve years ago.
And suddenly she was on fire. Suddenly she craved exotic sins.
"Come on," she said. "We've done enough talking. It's time for action."
Donovan nodded. He was smiling strangely. He came over to her, stood next to her, tall, broad-shouldered, big, heavy. He looked down.
His hand slid out, and Janet caught her breath as he cupped her breasts through her light frock. He squeezed them-hard.
Very hard.
Painfully
"Hey, that hurt," she said.
"Did it?" He laughed. Then he slapped her in the face. And laughed again. "Did that hurt, too, Jan?" He slapped her again.
It was nine o'clock, now.
Fred Markell sat hunched tensely on the edge of the bed in his hotel room. It was a fancy room, complete with modern furniture, bright-colored walls, gay wall-to-wall carpeting, low ceilings. He had gone to the room at half past eight, after a skimpy dinner and an hour of tensely wandering around Manhattan.
He was on his way through his third cigarette in the past half hour. He had ordered a bottle of Scotch and some mix sent up from room service, and he had already gulped down two drinks, with a third half gone. And now, finally, it was nine o'clock.
Any minute, Anita would make her appearance.
Markell wondered how things like this were supposed to go. He had had no experience at all in buying sex before. Would she be expecting him to be undressed and ready for her, or would that be too blunt and un-subtle and gauche, he wondered?
Did he pay her before? After? They hadn't even discussed fees. Donovan had told him it was $25, but that might just be her rate for some people, not all. He didn't know. He realized that for all his forty years, for all his success in the business world, he was terribly inexperienced about some things.
No time like the present for learning, he thought. It's never too late to learn.
One minute after nine, now. Was she going to be late? It wasn't likely, considering the business-like way she had set up the appointment, but-
There was a knock at the door.
He sprang up, half tripping over himself in his nervous haste, and then, with a scowl of angry self-contempt, he halted and moved at a more composed pace toward the door.
He opened it.
"Hi," a girl said in a soft, husky voice. "I'm Anita."
The first sight of her was like a cold sword being slipped between Markell's ribs. He caught his breath sharply, wincing at the impact of it.
She was beautiful.
She was one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen.
She made the dream-Anita he had envisioned look tawdry and coarse and second-rate.
There was nothing cheap, nothing vulgar, nothing in the least trollopy and whorish about her. She was dressed elegantly, her gleaming blonde hair was done in a stylish bouffant coiffure, a few small pieces of simple jewelry were her only ornaments. She looked like nothing so much as a young, wealthy Sutton Place wife out for the evening.
She was only a girl, too, he saw. Her complexion was clear, her eyes wide and blue and shining, her expression somehow an innocent one. His heart pounding fiercely, Markell invited her into the room.
"Sorry I'm a few minutes late," she said with a shy smile. "I'll make it up to you, though," Markell indicated the bottle of Scotch. "Care for a drink?"
"A weak one, please."
She moved across the room, fluidly, gliding rather than walking, and Markell saw the motion of her buttocks in the tight sheath of her dress, and his throat went dry and coppery-tasting at the thought that all he had to do was say the word and she would pull off that dress and everything else, and show him the pink perfection of those buttocks, and the hard-tipped pouting beauty of those round breasts, and all the rest.
She settled in the chair near the television set, crossing her legs and displaying a breathtaking stretch of flawless leg. Her ankles were thin and tapered, her calves full, spectacular. Markell fixed a drink for her. His hands were trembling.
She was in no hurry. She sat and talked for ten minutes or more, completely poised and sure of herself. They chatted about the weather, about politics, the international situation. She didn't ask him his last name, but with deft ease she found out almost everything else there was to know about him-the kind of business he was in, his approximate financial status, his age, and his troubles with his wife.
Especially his troubles with his wife.
She was terribly sympathetic about that. She was kind and understanding and seemingly sincere.
"So many wives cut their own throats that way," she said, in that soft, throaty, little-girl voice of hers. "They think that once they've got their man on the hook, they can sit back and live off him the rest of their lives without giving anything in return." She smiled dazzlinery. "Which is the whole reason for my profession, I sometimes think. If there were less frigid, neurotic wives around, there wouldn't be a call girl industry."
"I agree," Markell said thickly. "I agree one hundred per cent."
He had had four highballs by now, and he was starting to feel just a trifle lightheaded. He wondered when Anita was going to get around to the business at hand. Did she always talk first? Was that part of the standard routine? Or was she simply sitting here waiting for him to make the first pass?
She seemed to notice his impatience, seemed almost to be reading his mind. For, when she finished her drink, she stood up, stretched lithely-
And began to undress.
All the while she did it, she favored him with a warm, loving, you're-a-very-special-man-in-my-life kind of smile. Markell had to admit that it was a tremendous act. She was a really polished pro. There was nothing sordid or whorish about the way she was undressing. She was doing it as though they had been lovers for years, as though it was the most utterly natural thing in the world that she should be standing her, taking her clothes off in front of him, He watched her.
Hungrily.
He watched her peel away the bolero jacket and the tight sheath, and the slip, and he watched her as she carefully hung things up so they wouldn't get creased or wrinkled-she had to look nice and fresh for her next client, after all!-and he watched her in her bra and panties and garter-belt and stockings, and then she casually unclipped the bra and swung it away from the high hillocks of her breasts, and, still clad in panties, she lifted her flawless legs one at a time to open the garters and roll the stockings down, and when they were off she blithely peeled away her panties and then the garter-belt with its dangling straps, and then she was nude.
Her body was stunning, a thing of pink and gold, with incredibly lovely full firm breasts and excitingly contoured buttocks, with pale beautiful hips and thighs. She seemed to gleam. Her breasts rose and fell rapidly, and the tiny red nipples stood up steeply, and her eyes were alive and bright, and her smile was brilliant. The lighting from overhead gave a special glamour to her nakedness.
She stood before him, glorying in her taut-fleshed young nudity, in her twenty-year-old vitality and newness, and Markell felt a pang of sadness come over him at the realization that this was all pretense, that her beauty did not belong to him and never would.
An hour ago she had been sleeping with somebody else a few blocks from here.
An hour from now she would be standing nude in front of another man in another hotel room.
Over the past months she had been had by hundreds and hundreds of men; fat ones, skinny ones, ugly ones, drunken ones, shy ones, brutal ones-men whose only common denominators were the facts that they had her telephone number and they had her price.
There was nothing to be proud of, Markell knew, in the thought of being privileged to feast his eyes on such wonderful naked beauty. Anybody with the right number in his little black book and some loose cash could have the same privilege.
Still, she was here. And-for the moment, at least-she was his.
He advanced toward her.
Her breasts more than filled his trembling hands. The hard nipples pressed like little rocks against his palms. The heat of her body burned his cold skin.
She was smiling tenderly. She pressed herself up against him. Her moist, parted lips grazed his cheek, wandered down along the line of his collar. He slid his hands over her back her skin like satin, as his hands traveled down, down to her buttocks.
They kissed.
It was a sizzling kiss. Markell hadn't kissed his wife that way, or been kissed that way by her, for five years or more. Her lips went tight against his, and the warm softness of her tongue burrowed into his mouth, and she flattened her body against him and twisted ecstatically from side to side. Markell gripped her tightly.
When they parted, coming up for air long minutes later, Markell was flushed and excited. And so was she. Was it only a tart's pretense, he wondered? Was she faking it, giving him a skillfull professional imitation of passion?
Somehow he didn't think so. Maybe he was being naive, he knew, but it seemed to him that there was real passion in her face, that her nostrils were flaring and her nipples were hard and her breasts were churning because she was genuinely attracted to him, and not just putting on an act for a new client-
He stepped back and looked at her.
"Well?" she asked gaily.
"You're marvelous," he whispered. "You're incredible. I've never seen anything so beautiful."
"I also do tricks," she said.
She drifted close to him. Her deft fingers began to work on his clothing. Markell filled his nostrils with the sweet smell of her, and relaxed, letting her remove his garments. He gave himself up to her completely, surrendering to the hypnotic spell of her flawless body, and she gathered him in, carried him off to a realm of utter delight
CHAPTER FOUR
Jack Donovan stared at the nakedness of Janet Markell. Finally. At last. For ten years, he had dreamed of being able to see her this way, and now, finally, he had been allowed the privilege.
"Fred does. Fred thinks my breasts are much too small. He's always been complaining. In subtle ways, but he never fails to let me know."
Donovan laughed. "Fred's a nice guy, but he's an idiot in a lot of ways."
"I'm not bosomy," Janet said.
"You're not a cow, no," Donovan told her. "But who likes milk?"
Janet gilled. Her face was tinged with red, more from excitement than from embarrassment. They were both nude, but so far they hadn't gone past the point of simply talking to each other.
Donovan came over to her. He let his hands rest on her small cool breasts. He covered them up, gripped them between thick, fleshy fingers, letting the nipples protrude. Her nipples were growing hard, he saw.
He pinched them. Hard.
"Ouch!" Janet cried. "Why do you like to hurt me, Jack? Where'd you get that sadistic streak?"
"I know you enjoy being hurt," he said, "That isn't so."
"Sure it is. You just won't admit it to yourself, Jan. You're a masochist at heart. That's why you stayed faithful to Fred so long. Why you denied all your physical impulses. Because you felt you had to hurt yourself. To punish yourself. Maybe for being sterile. You like people to hurt you, Jan. And I like to hurt So we're a good pair."
"My analyst says-"
"Nuts to your analyst," Donovan snapped. "Keep Mm out of this discussion!"
His hands tightened on her breasts. He was gripping them hard, now.
"How does that feel?" he asked. "It-hurts-"
"And you like it. You like it, don't you?"
"No, of course I don't! I-yes! Yes, I do! Harder, Jack! Squeeze me harder!"
She was suddenly afire with passion, now that she had decided to give vent to the real feelings within her. Donovan saw the excitement, the sudden frenzy in her eyes, and grinned in satisfaction as her naked body pressed and churned against his.
He released her breasts and wrapped his arms around her entire body, hugging the slim nudity of her, half-choking her. Her breasts were cool and hard-tipped against him.
It had all been so easy, Jack Donovan thought. She had been a pushover. No coaxing, no wheedling, no cajoling had been necessary. All he had to do was ask for it, and she gave. He cursed himself for not having tried it years ago. Why had he waited so long, dreaming of Janet Markell as he slept with woman after woman? Why hadn't he just barged in and taken her?
It would have been better for both of them that way. Well, there was no undoing the past. But at least, he thought, they had the present-
And the future.
"Take me!" Janet moaned. "For Christ's sake, take me, Jack!"
"What's the hurry?" he grinned.
"I want you! I want you!"
"Let's not rush," he said. "Remember, Fred's playing with his little blonde lassie now. He'll be busy till late. We've got loads of time."
She clawed at him, her hands running through the thick curling hair of his chest, then going down past the heavy flesh of his abdomen. Donovan grunted.
"Since you like to get hurt," he told her, "I'll hurt you a little."
His hand lashed out, slapped her stingingly across the breasts. Janet dropped back, looking at him in fright and confusion. Chuckling, Donovan came toward her. He nipped at her breasts again. Then, as she turned, he landed a loud, smacking blow on the tender flesh of her buttocks.
"Stop it!" she cried. "Don't!"
"You really want me to stop?"
"N-no! No, no, no!"
"Okay, then."
He grabbed her. Her slim, fragile body was like a in his bear-like grip. His fingers dug deep into her flesh, gouging her, bringing little whimpers of pain to her lips. And yet there was a look of pleasure in her body, of a strange delight-
He squeezed tighter.
Tighter.
Then he threw her roughly to the floor. She landed hard, her buttocks smacking against the carpet. She sat there, dazed by her rough handling.
Donovan threw himself on her.
He wasted no time m further preliminaries. He knew they were useless. Like most of the so-called frigid women he had known, all Janet needed was a shaking up, a breaking out of the routine. No doubt Markell had wooed her according to all the prescribed marriage manual techniques, and they hadn't worked. So why not try a little brutality? Why not a little sadism?
His heavy body bore heavily down on hers.
It was more of an attack than anything else. He took her roughly, coarsely, like a Neanderthal coupling in a windy cave. He took her bestially. He took her fiercely.
For an instant, Donovan thought it was going to fail.
He looked down at her and saw nothing but pain and fear in her eyes. But that was only the first instant, and the look in her eyes was the look of the old Janet, the tame frigid suburban Janet that he was murdering in this moment.
The next moment the shell of that Janet shattered. And Jack Donovan found that he had a wildcat beneath him.
She thrust and arched her back. Her gasping was fearful to listen to, a savage clawing for breath, the sound of a woman drowning in her own frenzied passion. He bore down hard on her, and every motion sent new currents through her, and as he outraged her flesh she went berserk.
Her nails raked the skin of his shoulders. Her legs went wide and high, releasing a decade of frustration and desire in one furious instant.
Beneath him, her body trembled. Hovered for a moment on the brink of ecstasy.
"Go on, baby!" he urged. "All the way! Ride it! Ride it, baby!"
He felt the terrific surge of ecstasy welling up from her, the savage explosion of her passion, the almost numbing intensity of her fulfillment. Her body curved high off the floor, while she whimpered and moaned, and then a long, low, utterly weird sound of ecstasy escaped her lips, and a moment later she was right at the peak, crying out nonsense syllables in some private language of love, and Jack Donovan held tight and rode along with her, astonished himself at the force and power of the emotions he had unleashed.
Fred Markell was having the time of his life.
He had never had a girl like Anita. Never. She was so smooth, so graceful, such utter perfection in every gesture. Of course, she had had plenty of on-the-job training. But he forced himself to forget about that Artfully, she made him feel that he was the first man in her life, the only man.
Her taut-fleshed young body moved in scintillating curves beneath him. He closed his eyes, pressed his face down between the round globes of her breasts-at last, a girl with breasts in bed with him-and moved his body, and she moved hers.
He began to tremble.
She sensed it. She began to do things with her muscles.
Markell had read about girls who could do tricks like that. The women of India, he had heard, ware famous for it But the closest he had ever came to India was Korea, which wasn't the same thing at all. Anita knew those tricks. She showed him.
It was fantastic. It was almost miraculous. "It was certainly dazzling Like little hands, he thought. Little hands gripping, releasing, gripping, releasing again. It astonished.
He moved closer. Her body rose to meet his assault. She had perfect rhythm, perfect timing. In everything.
He gasped. She began to gasp.
He went rigid She moved faster.
He climbed higher. She joined him.
Faster.
Higher.
Faster.
Higher.
Now the summit was In sight, and they were Both moving at a furious rate, playing out the game of passion to its finale, twisting and turning and moving in all the time-tested motions, and then Markell felt the surge hit him and in the very same moment, so convincingly that he did not see how she could possibly be faking it, she reached her fulfillment and churned and eddied beneath him until the last movement of ecstasy had passed and it was over.
Afterward, they lay together for a few minutes, his head pillowed against her breasts, the soft fullness of them filling his nostrils with their warm fragrance. He wanted her to stay there forever, but when the afterglow had died down she began to lift his head.
"No. Don't go away."
"I have to, Freddy."
"Stay a while."
"I can't. You've got to go home, Freddy."
"I can go home a little later."
"No. I can't stay," she said softly, apologetically.
He knew why. She was being too tactful to tell him so in that many words, but obviously she had another appointment, her schedule was busy, and she had to move along. He knew he couldn't object. He had no right to interfere with someone else's pleasure. He could not even ask Anita to stay with him an extra hour instead of going on to her next client, and he realized that if he did ask, she would have to refuse.
So he let her get up, and he watched the lithe motions of her body as she walked across the room toward the bathroom. The pink rounds of her bare buttocks wigwagged at him playfully, and then the door closed behind them, leaving only the image glittering on his retinas, Anita's smooth tapering back and lovely hind-side. He heard water running inside. He lay back, tired and happy.
A few minutes later, she emerged, tiptoeing out. She crossed the room again, still nude, and leaned over to kiss him, the heavy bells of her breasts swaying, going ding-dong as she bent forward. He reached up, momentarily cupped her breasts, and then she slipped from his grasp.
"Naughty. Mustn't touch."
He laughed thinly. He watched her dress. It was a pity, he thought, that such radiant beauty should be covered up by clothing. She snapped her bra, drew her panties up over the satiny globes of her buttocks, and it was like watching the sun dip below the horizon-He said, "When will I see you again?"
"You have the number, Freddy."
"But you may be booked up for weeks!"
"I never take a booking more than a week in advance," she said. "And I've usually got an hour or two open up till the day before."
"I wish I could have you all the time."
She grinned and pulled a stocking breathtakingly up her leg. "I'm expensive," she said. "Can you pay $500 a week for my upkeep?"
"I doubt it."
"Well, that's about how much I make as a freelancer. If you can match it, well, I'm yours. At least for a while."
"For a while?" he said.
"Until I get restless," she told him. She yawned voluptuously and began to draw on her other stocking. "I'm a very restless girl. But I like you, Freddy. You're a real man, if you know what I mean. And I think you do." She came over to the bed again and kissed him, and ran her hands lightly over his chest and arms. The scent of her was dizzying to him. "I'm looking forward to seeing you again," she whispered. "Again and again and again."
She finished dressing, and restored her make-up, while Markell watched, fascinated by the ethereal grace of her every gesture.
Then she turned to him. "There's one little matter to settle, of course."
"Of course. I don't know-"
She smiled. "Whatever you think it was worth. Let your conscience be your guide."
"I don't have that much money, Anita. I could never pay you the full value."
"Let's say $25, then. On account."
"Tine," he said.
Before her arrival, he had carefully put two tens and a five in a hotel envelope, and had left it on the dresser. Now he handed it to her. She took the envelope without opening it, put it in her purse, waved him a cheery goodbye, threw him one last sizzling bedroom glance, one for the road, and left.
It was five minutes after ten.
She had been with him exactly an hour.
She was a real pro, Markell thought admiringly. So much time allotted for preliminary small-talk, so much time for business itself, so much time reserved afterward for a lingering farewell.
He thought again of the beauty of her, of the savage pulsing pleasure that she had aroused in him, and a tight band of tension wrapped itself around his middle. He couldn't bear to think of her going on and on, selling herself to a multitude of men, being handled and used and soiled by a bunch of sweaty strangers.
He wanted her.
She was a treasure, he thought. She was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him. Aside from the sheer beauty of her, the silky golden hair and the firm melon-like breasts and the taut-fleshed buttocks, there was this special way she had about her, this way oi making a man teel really masculine.
On those increasingly rare occasions when he had made love to his own wife recently, Janet had managed by word and deed to chop him down, to needle him, to deflate his ego. Anita did just the opposite. She knew how to build a man up.
Markell was still in a dreamy glow as he left the hotel, twenty minutes later. He surrendered his key at the desk, paid his room service charge for the liquor he had ordered, and drifted out into the cool night, feeling completely satisfied with himself and the world. He caught a cab to Grand Central, and got there just barely in time to make the 10:43.
He was home just before midnight Janet was in bed, reading.
"Hello," he said.
"Hi. You have a hard evening?"
"Not so bad. You?"
"I addressed envelopes," she said. "And then I read. A quiet evening at home."
"I'm sorry I had to desert you," he said, feeling more than usually solicitous of her, now that he had betrayed and deceived her.
"It's all right," she said, with a warmth that he found surprising. "I didn't mind being left all alone. Did your conference accomplish anything?"
"Not much. You know how these things are. I imagine there'll be all kinds of wrangling for weeks to come."
"You want to tell me the gory details, Fred?"
"They'd only bore you. I might as well not bother you with them."
"I suppose," she yawned. "Well, good night."
She reached over, turned out the light on her side of the bed. Within moments, she appeared to be sound asleep.
Markell undressed, washed up, and slipped into bed beside her, careful not to wake her. Let her sleep, he thought. And let her spend her days addressing envelopes or doing whatever else she damned pleased. He didn't mind, now. He had other ways of gaining satisfaction.
He closed his eyes. This was, he knew, going to be the soundest night's sleep he had had at any time in the past ten years.
Sleep took him. It was a few minutes past midnight.
Beddy-bye time in Suburbia.
CHAPTER FIVE
But it was a long way from being beddy-bye time in Manhattan. That busy, high-strung borough was just getting toward the peak of the evening. Fred Markell and his loving wife Janet snoozed on and on in their snug suburban love-nest. Some twenty miles away, in a different but equally posh suburb, Jack Donovan and his ever-loving were also wrapped in the arms of Morpheus.
But Manhattan was still swinging.
Particularly a blonde chick named Anita.
Let's follow Anita around for a while. Let's see her make her rounds. It's instructive, because Anita was typical of a whole slew of young, bosomy wenches then at their busiest in the high-living isle of Manhattan.
We last saw her at five minutes after ten, waving a cheery goodbye to Fred Markell, whom she had just loved, to his extreme satisfaction. She closed the room door gently behind her, walked down the plush, brightly carpeted corridor to the elevator, pushed the button, and moments later was being whizzed at a high speed toward the lobby.
It was eight and a half minutes after ten when she emerged on East Fifty-Second Street, after a leisurely stroll past the gleaming jewelry and perfume displays in the hotel lobby. Anita had some time to kill, now. Her next appointment was at eleven o'clock, on 69th Street near Fifth Avenue. So she had the better part of an hour to use up.
She strolled slowly northward, walking with the fluid grace that endeared her to so many men. She was in a good mood. She knew she had pleased her latest client, Freddy, and that made her feel good. She liked to please men. She liked to make them tingle all over. Especially, she liked to have them telephone her for repeated appointments. A call girl needs a regular clientele. She doesn't like to have to depend on new trade all the time. She likes to have a hard core of steady, dependable, well-heeled Johns who can be counted upon to make use of her services twice a month at the very least.
After all, Anita knew that she was at the peak of her earning capacity now She was twenty years old, and she would stay twenty years old for the next seven months The bloom of youth was still upon her. She hadn't grown hard and flinty-eyed.
She knew that she could manage to keep her fresh, buoyant, youthful look for perhaps three more years. She had already been in the life nearly two years, and everyone agreed that five years was just about the limit for a girl's youth. After that, a kind of whorishness rapidly set in, and there was nothing she could do about H.
So Anita knew that right now she was in the greatest demand she'd ever have. She was young and lovely, and men would eagerly pay $25 a tumble for her, $100 for all night, with extras for specialties.
That time wouldn't last forever, she knew.
From age twenty-five to age thirty she could depend on a different kind of appeal. Not the dewy-eyed, almost virginal appeal she had now, but a more sophisticated, a more brittle kind of lure. During those years, if she was lucky, she could command pretty much the same sort of rate she was getting now.
But after thirty things would change.
Then she would be an old tramp, and it would start to show. She would have to cut her rates, to go in more for rough trade and way-out specialties. If all went well, she would still be drawing $15 a toss, $50 for all night when she was thirty-five, but pickings would get leaner and leaner, unless she had found herself a rich daddy along the way. And after thirty-five-
Anita didn't look that far ahead. She firmly planned to be retired by the time she reached the Serutan brigade. She knew a couple of old tramps, one who was forty-six and still pounding the pavements, she was determined not to end up that way. She wanted to be independently wealthy by the time that day came. So Anita was thrifty. Anita saved. Anita kept one eye cocked firmly on the future.
Anita understood thrift. She had it all worked out. Her income was in the neighborhood of $25,000 a year, cash. She didn't pay any income taxes-why pay tax on something that was illegal to begin with?-and so she only had her overhead to contend with.
The overhead was considerable. There was her wardrobe, which had to be the best and latest of everything. There was the expense of hairdressers. There was rent on her stylish East Side apartment. There was food and entertainment, of course, and sundry expenses, and a certain amount of reserve to be kept against the possibility of needing an operation some day.
Even so, Anita found that she only needed about half her income to live on. The rest got socked away. $12,000 a year going into savings would give her close to $150,000 by the time she was thirty, and that was a nice little nut to retire on. Invested smartly-and her clientele numbered a few topnotch brokers who were helping her put the money where it would thrive-she could count on a steady income of maybe $7,000 a year, without having to work. By turning a trick now and then, she could pick up a few grand more, and that would be enough to let her live comfortably, free from all economic security.
It was a wonderful dream. It was worth getting made twenty times a week to work toward a dream like that.
Anita sauntered up Third Avenue. At 58th Street, she came to a bar she knew, a respectable place where she could go in and have a drink without complications.
Buying a drink in Manhattan pub is more difficult for a prostitute than most outsiders would imagine. Some bars including most of the high-class ones, simply will not admit an unescorted woman. In other bars, walking in unescorted meant that Anita would be subjected to twenty propositions in the next fifteen minutes, since it was understood that the only reason a girl would go into a bar alone was to make a pick-up.
Anita never made pick-ups in bars. She thought it was vulgar and sleazy. She did all her business by telephone, using word-of-mouth to spread her fame. So when she went into a bar, it was for the simple and uncomplicated purpose of buying a drink.
Which meant there were only a certain few reliable bars that she could enter without fear of difficulties.
This was one of them. The clientele tended to be high-level and sedate, and the place was clean, and nobody made passes at unescorted girls. Anita went in.
She smiled at Lonnie, the night bartender. Lonnie smiled at her.
"How's tricks, kid?"
"No complaints."
"Got some time to run into the back room with me for a quickie, Anita?"
She smiled at the bartender's feeble joke. Lonnie was an abnormal, and boasted that he had never touched a woman's bare body in his life. She was the only woman he liked to talk to, because he knew he was in no danger from her.
Anita said, "Negroni, Lonnie."
He winked at her. "Sorry. All out of campari tonight."
"Run next door and borrow some, then." He produced the bottle. "Only kidding, keed."
"Big joker."
He mixed the bitter cocktail. Anita sipped it slowly, keeping an eye on the glowing clock behind the bar. It was half past ten, now. She still had lots of time. She finished the cocktail, left a dollar and a half on the counter, winked at the barkeep, and went out.
The temperature had dropped a little in the past fifteen minutes. A chilly wind was blowing down Third Avenue out of the Bronx. Anita pulled her jacket a little more tightly around her. Winter was on its way, she thought in annoyance, and wondered if she could find a sugar daddy who would take her down to the Caribbean for a while. She had worked that gambit last year, going off for two and half blissful weeks in Jamaica in dead of winter as the hired companion of a balding, paunchy, just-divorced sweater manufacturer named Feldstein. A pity she couldn't swing the same deal again this year. But Feldstein was dead, cut down by a cerebral hemorrhage while working a double play with two of Anita's pals in an East Side hotel room. Anita had heard the story the next day. At least Feldstein had died the way a man ought to, succumbing to a stroke after his sixth round of the night. But that sure put the kibosh on another trip to Jamaica when winter came rolling in.
At 65th and Third, Anita halted in front of a shadowy figure lurking in the doorway of a bank. She recognized the other woman-an aging call girl named Tammie, who had lost her figure and had come upon hard times. Tammie shivered in the doorway, a thin, pallid figure. She was only thirty-two, but she had gone to the well a few thousand times too often, and signs of wear showed in her face, in her eyes. She looked fifty.
"How's it going?" Anita asked.
"Lousy. I turned one trick tonight, around seven. A stinking ten bucks. Since then nothing. Just a chill from this goddamn wind."
Anita shrugged. "Maybe your luck'll change. The night's not over yet."
Tammie spat wearily. "My luck's never gonna change, kiddo. If I had a pair of boobs like yours, I'd make out. But look at me. Just look at me."
Tammie threw open her jacket. Her blouse was open, underneath, she wore no bra. For a moment the street-lamp gleamed brilliantly on Tammie's breasts, small, dangling, pale, out-curved breasts, shrunken and fallen. An old woman's breasts, and she was still young. Anita had to struggle to keep from showing her disgust.
Tammie covered herself again.
Anita said, "You'll catch cold."
"If I'm lucky I'll get pneumonia and die. If Pm lucky. I envy you, Anita. Big boobs like yours. The men must fall all over themselves for you." The tone changed from a bitter one to a wheedling one. "Say, look, Anita, you think you could let me have five, just for a couple of days?"
"Sure," Anita said. "Here."
She thrust a bill at Tammie, managed a pale smile, and walked on. Anita never refused when some unhappy prostitute asked for a small handout. What the hell, she figured she didn't need the money that badly, and the donation was a kind of offering to the gods of whoredom, a gift to ensure that the same thing wouldn't happen to her. Not that Anita seriously thought it would. Tammie had told stories of her own girlhood, ten, fifteen years ago-endless parties, high on pot and sneaky pete, getting made twenty, thirty times a night, taking on whole gangs, whole men's clubs. And, of course, spending the money as fast as she made it, sometimes faster. Small wonder she had ended up on Crud Street. I won't let it happen to me, Anita thought-
She walked on.
It was a quarter to eleven, now. A few minutes later she was at the corner of 69th and Third, and she walked eastward through the silent streets, across Lexington, across Park, across Madison, until finally she was drawing close to Fifth Avenue. She knew these streets well. Her clientele came almost entirely from the area bounded by 72nd Street on the north, 47th Street on the south, the East River Drive on the east, and Fifth Avenue on the west. That was where the money lived, in New York City, and Anita was strictly a carriage-trade item.
Her trick for eleven o'clock was at the home of a gentleman named J. Edward Coleridge, who happened to be a very important vice-president at one of New York City's most important commercial banks. He was one of Anita's regulars. He was fifty-seven years old, a tall, strapping man who looked a little younger than he actually was. His hair was iron-gray, his eyes were steely and firm. He drew $37,000 a year in salary from the bank, and had a private income of about twice that much more, derived from investments his grandfather had made sixty years before. J. Edward Coleridge had no economic need to work, and never had. He worked because it was his family's tradition to work, and not merely to sit around clipping coupons.
He lived in a four-story town house that had belonged to his father before him. It was a magnificent dwelling, which he knew he could sell on a week's notice for $200,000 and up. It contained a magnificent library of rare books, none of which J. Edward Coleridge had ever read, and a fine collection of mounted rhinoceros, tiger, and buffalo heads, none of which J. Edward Coleridge had been directly responsible for killing, and sumptuous Florentine furniture, and a great many paintings by minor Old Masters, and even one or two Monets and Renoirs.
J. Edward Coleridge lived alone. That is, unless you considered his various servants, which he never did. He had been married-at the age of twenty-three, to a lovely virgin from a socially prominent family-but the marriage had been quietly annulled ten years later, and since that time J. Edward Coleridge had been without mate. Which is not to say that he had been without sex, of course.
He had had a series of call girls. Every few years, he required a new one, since his tastes changed. The J. Edward Coleridge record was held by a girl named Jessica, who had been his concubine from August, 1937 through May, 1943, and who now, married to a leading New York business man and beginning to grow portly as she entered her fifties, could be seen on display in prominent boxes at the Metropolitan Opera and at Philharmonic Hall.
Anita had been servicing J. Edward Coleridge for eleven months now. She had taken over the account from a girl named Ellen, who had given up the life to become the permanent mistress of a Swiss jeweler. Every Friday night at eleven, without fail, Anita appeared at the town house on East 69th Street, and performed the specific act which J. Edward Coleridge required of her. For this, he gave her $30, always paying her with new, crisp ten-dollar bills that looked as though they had been run off earlier that day. He represented fifteen hundred cookies a year to her, cash on the line and she went out of her way to please him.
Now Anita rang the bell. It was one minute to eleven, the witching hour so far as J. Edward Coleridge was concerned. The door opened almost immediately, as though Coleridge's butler had been waiting behind it, which probably had been the case.
The butler looked almost as much like a rich banker as J. Edward Coleridge himself did. He smiled frostily at Anita and said, "Come in. The master is expecting you."
"Where is he, Lloyds?"
"In the library, as usual. Shall I escort you?"
"It's all right. I know my way by now."
Anita moved through the gloom of the old house, up to the top floor, where the library was located. There was an elevator, but it was so aged and creaky that Anita was afraid of it, and she always walked.
The library was a magnificent room, sixty feet long, twenty feet wide, with windows fifteen feet high. It was lined with books-fifteenth through nineteenth century, nothing later-and with curios-Egyptian mummy cases, Chinese scrolls, Japanese swords.
"Good evening, Anita," J. Edward Coleridge said solemnly.
"Hello, Mr. Coleridge."
He smiled at her, in his reserved, austere way. Anita beamed at him. He stood in the middle of the huge room, his arms folded. He was wearing a sumptuous Japanese silk kimono, another of his heirlooms.
He nodded toward a chair. "All your things are ready, as usual."
"Shall we begin right now, Mr. Coleridge?"
"Right now," he said.
When she was here, Anita never wasted time on small talk, on any of the little professional tricks she employed with other clients. They were all wasted on him. J. Edward Coleridge was all business.
He watched her coldly as she undressed. In a moment, she was nude before him, and his hard eyes glittered as they passed over the heavy mounds of her breasts, the flatness of her belly, the pink, youthful voluptuousness of her buttocks.
Anita let him stare at her for a few moments. Then she began to get into her costume.
She wore the same costume every time. It was a hand-me-down from her predecessor, and for all she knew it had been worn by all of J. Edward Coleridge's women from Jessica on. It was a rather strange costume. It consisted of a one-piece bra and corselet arrangement. Holes had been cut in the bra to let her nipples poke through. The heavy black corselet fit tightly around her body, almost like a suit of armor. It ended abruptly, and was cut sharply in the back to leave the plump cheeks of her buttocks bare.
She also wore a pair of black mesh stockings which she fastened to the straps of the corselet. The area between the middle of her thighs and the beginning of her waist was thus left completely nude, as were her nipples, while the rest of her torso was imprisoned in the tight-fitting corselet. She slipped into it. Then she turned, presenting her back to J. Edward Coleridge, who approached her, rested his hands a moment on her bare buttocks, and then laced the stays in as tightly as she could bear it
"How is it?" he asked her.
"Just right."
"Very well," he said.
He shrugged off his kimono. His get-up underneath was even more grotesque than hers. He wore tight rubber stockings, all the way up his thighs. Around his middle he had wound a coil of thick twine, pulling it so tight that it cut into the flesh. Anita had never seen him without the coil of twine, but she was sure that over the years he had developed gouges there. He was surely fantastically uncomfortable in his strange rig. Aside from the stockings and the coil of rope, he was completely naked.
Gravely, he handed her a whip.
The night's routine was about to begin.
The whip was a flexible cane, two feet long, to one end of which several strips of leather had been mounted. Anita gripped it tightly. J. Edward Coleridge turned away from her, and she lifted the whip high and brought it down across his bare back.
Whack!
Whick!
Smack!
His back was crisscrossed with the marks of thousands of whippings over thirty years. Anita coldly flayed him some more, taking a cruel relish in the way the leather thongs cut into the calloused skin. He winced, and gasped, and shook as she punished him, whipping not only his back and shoulders but his buttocks too, and his arms, and the backs of his legs.
It went on for fifteen minutes, until Anita's arm ached and her body was covered with sweat. Some nights he took twenty or even thirty minutes of whipping, never even whimpering as she blazed away. But tonight was one of the shorter turns.
"All right," he said finally. "Now give me the whip, Anita."
She handed it to him and turned her back. "Bend over," he ordered.
She did so. Her bare buttocks, beneath the cutting edge of the corselet, went taut. She held her breath. Some nights he could be really violent, other times he was content simply to crack the whip at her without even touching her.
Suddenly, as it always did, his icy Wall Street reserve cracked, and from his mouth came a stream of wild accusations.
"Witch! Tramp! Tart!"
With each word, he brought the whip up and flicked it down. The first two blows hit the floor near Anita's feet; the third whicked glancingly across the bare, quivering flesh of her buttocks; the fourth did not touch her; the fifth nicked her again. Her body was her fortune, and she had made it clear right at the outset that he couldn't be allowed to mar her or scar her in any way, and so far he had kept his word. But she never knew when he would run wild with the whip and draw blood from her tender buttocks.
She continued to assume the position, and he continued to whip her. Most of his blows hit the floor, or else landed on the stout back of her corselet, where she was unable to feel them. Only four or five times did he actually strike her on the buttocks, and then not painfully.
Finally came the sound she was waiting for: the sound of the whip-handle landing on the floor as he discarded it. She turned, and in the same gesture pivoted and sank to the floor, her legs sprawled.
J. Edward Coleridge stood above her, and for the first time that evening his desire rose. For it was only when this grim farce was acted out that he became potent at all. Unless Anita immediately received him when he was ready, the act of passion became impossible for him.
He threw himself upon her.
For a long moment their bodies thrashed on the floor, the marble cold against Anita's bare, beaten buttocks. He jammed tight against her, thrusting with fury and fierce energy, and there was the strange grating sound of his coiled twine scratching against her corselet, a sound that always reminded Anita of two crickets mating, and then suddenly he gasped and clung to her tightly and put his mouth over one of the nipples jutting through the corselet, and with quick ecstasy his body went rigid and Anita felt his fulfillment, and then it was over, and he rose from her and donned his kimono and went out of the room without a word.
Anita waited. A moment later he returned, and there was the smell of liquor on his breath now, for he always gulped a drink of brandy when he went out of the room He helped her off with the corselet. He passed his hands lightly over her as she stood nude before him. He gently kissed each rigid little nipple.
He smiled. "Thank you," he said. "Until next Friday-"
He left the room again. Anita dressed, aware that he was watching through a hidden peepole as she covered her nudity. When she was fully dressed, she left, and on the way out the butler handed her three brand new ten-dollar bills. It was just midnight.
Anita had one more trick to turn that evening, in a room at the Waldorf-Astoria, at one. She stopped off for another drink before arriving, and took care of the $25 job with her usual professional dispatch. It was an advertising man from out of town, an ordinary guy with no special ways of making love, for which she was grateful after her session with J. Edward Coleridge.
After her night's work was completed, at two that morning, Anita journeyed on to a bar on East 53rd, near Fifth, where she could be pretty sure of making a pickup.
What's that? Anita never made pick-ups in bars, you thought?
She never made them for professional purposes. She never picked up men in bars.
But women were a different thing entirely. Anita slept with men for money, but she slept with women for pleasure. And the bar on East 53rd Street was a bar frequented by Lesbian call girls, who go there after their night's work is done to pick up a sleeping partner.
Anita had no trouble finding one, of course. She was young and beautiful and in demand.
You knew she was a Lesbian, didn't you? Most call girls are. When sleeping with men becomes a way of life, you have to turn somewhere else for kicks. And Anita was a typical call girl. Anita liked other call girls.
On this typical night, Anita picked up a girl named Louise, a sultry brunette with a 40-inch bosom and swivel hips. They went to Anita's place and had themselves a ball.
While Suburbia slept.
CHAPTER SIX
Fred Markell fell easily into the pleasant habit of seeing Anita twice a week. It became a regular part of his routine of work.
He phoned her answering service on the Monday after her first session with him, and when she called back later in the afternoon he said, "I'd like to see you again on Tuesday, Anita."
"Sure. What time?"
"How about four in the afternoon?"
"Sorry. Can't do."
She explained to him that she never saw anybody professionally before seven in the evening. Her usual working hours, she said, were from seven to about two or three in the morning, unless she had some special job. "That's the way it is, Freddy. I'm sorry, but-"
But he wheedled her and cajoled her, and told her how beautiful she was, and finally got her to agree to make an exception in his case. The clincher came when he told her that he wanted to make her a regular twice a week habit. The idea appealed to a security-loving girl like Anita, and so it was all arranged.
Every Tuesday he would go to her apartment at four in the afternoon.
And every Friday, he would see her at eight in the evening, at a hotel room he rented for purpose not far from his office.
It worked out. When Tuesday came around, he would tell his staff that he had to leave early, and he would clear out by quarter to four. No one questioned him, of course, since he was the boss. He would hotfoot it up to Anita's apartment, in a chic luxury apartment house in the East Sixties, and she would be waiting for him. Since she usually woke around half past two in the afternoon, she was fresh from her breakfast when he arrived. She was generally wandering around the apartment in the nude, which made things all the more convenient. They would grapple and he would take his pleasure from her panting, full-breasted young body, and two tens and a five would change hands, and he would make his way down to Grand Central Station for the commuter special a little after five, with a glow of secret satisfaction lighting up his face.
Fridays worked out just as well. "I've got to work late," he would tell Janet, and Janet would nod and say, "Of course, dear," and that would be that. He would have dinner alone, in a small spaghetti house next door to the hotel, and by eight o'clock he would be in the room when she arrived, and she would show up, scented and lovely and always wearing something different, and he would lovingly peel away layer after layer of clothes until a naked Anita gambolled in his arms, breast-tips stiffening and buttocks aquiver, and they would tumble together to the bed and her body would arch delicately and receive his eager body, and off they would go to joy land.
They stayed together till nine, sometimes half past nine, and then he went home to Janet.
Janet didn't seem to mind. In fact, she seemed definitely delighted that the nasty subject of sex hardly ever appeared to come under discussion at home any more. Occasionally, simply for the sake of keeping up appearances, Markell would make love to his cold, unwilling wife, usually on a weekend when Anita was far away in distant Manhattan.
But most of the time Markell just left Janet alone. Anita gave him more than ample satisfaction.
Markell wasn't sure just exactly when he conceived the idea of asking Anita to marry him. Perhaps it was the third week, perhaps it was the fourth, of their steady relationship. The idea didn't spring full-blown into his head, of course. Few ideas of that sort ever do. It crept stealthily out of his unconscious, until finally it possessed him completely, became an obsession.
At first glance the idea seemed ridiculous, preposterous, even disgusting.
Marry a call girl?
What man in his right mind would do such a grotesque thing?
But the more he thought about it, the more sense it made to him.
For one thing, she was dazzlingly beautiful. No argument on that score.
For another, she was sexually talented. He had had ample proof of that. She was a dream in bed, capable of meeting his every need.
For a third thing, she was absurdly young, only twenty, half his age. She would remain beautiful for the remaining twenty or twenty-five years of his active life-forever youthful, a thing of beauty and a joy forever. If, later on, he couldn't satisfy her and she wanted to take lovers on the side, he wouldn't mind that, he told himself. At least he would have had her all to himself for many years, and in old age he could be charitable and share the pleasures with others.
On the other hand, there was the drawback that she had slept with scores of men, and scores of scores. Markell considered that.
Did it really matter, he wondered?
Nobody was a virgin any more, at least nobody that got married past the age of sixteen or so. Janet had had four or five lovers before he had married her, and he hadn't cared about that. So where did you draw the line? If you were willing to marry a woman who had slept with four men, why not marry one who had slept with four hundred? Both had slept around. Was there any real difference?
Yes, there was. Because the one who had slept with four hundred meji would be vastly more knowledgeable, vastly more experienced. She could be endlessly fresh, endlessly challenging in bed.
Sure. Unless you were very moralistic, and Markell didn't consider himself a prude, it made more sense to marry an expert in the art of love than it did to marry an inhibited, inexperienced girl who had happened to have a few awkward and abortive sex affairs.
Of course, he told himself, it would be inconvenient and embarrassing if people found out about her past. He didn't care, but others might.
That was the one tricky factor here.
He didn't know how many of his friends and business associates had slept with Anita. Jack Donovan, for certain. Others, quite possibly. Donovan was given to passing his favorite phone numbers around to his chums. A lot of eyebrows might get raised if Markell announced his engagement to a girl everybody in New York City had been to bed with. He didn't want to set tongues wagging. He didn't want to be the subject of perpetual gossip. He didn't want people to say, when he entered a posh restaurant with Anita, "She used to be a call girl before he married her."
And then, too, there was one other little consideration to take in mind, before he took Anita to the altar.
He already had a wife.
There was the troublesome problem of what to do with Janet.
Janet Markell stood by the leaded window of the living room of her elegant Tudor mansion, staring impatiently out at the street. She was waiting for her lover to arrive.
The phrase made her feel warm and excited and terribly sinful. I am waiting for my lover. Jack Donovan, my lover.
She let the idea roll around in her head for a while. The affair had been going on almost a month, now, and she still wasn't used to the idea that she had a lover. That she was once again a passionate, normal woman who could take pleasure from sex. It had been so long, so terribly long.
But now life and vigor was returning. Jack had helped her rediscover her own womanhood. She still didn't enjoy making love to Fred-guilt held her back, she thought-but when she was in Donovan's arms, she was quivering with voluptuous sensations all the time.
She stared out the window. Where was he? He was fifteen minutes late already.
Janet wondered whether Fred suspected. Certainly there had been a change in her lately; she was less tense, far less jumpy and irritable. Did Fred know what had brought about the change? Did he suspect she had a lover?
Somehow, Janet doubted it. He was too wrapped up in himself to care, she felt. He was still seeing that girl, that tramp, according to Donovan, and he was probably so enmeshed in his romance with her that he wasn't capable of noticing what was taking place in his own home, right under his nose, between his wife and his oldest friend.
Good, Janet thought. Let him keep on not noticing anything. I'm having the time oj my life, and I don't want it to stop.
She saw the familiar two-toned Lincoln pulling into the driveway. At last! Donovan had arrived!
Janet felt her pulse quicken. Hastily, she ran to the front door, getting there the very moment that Donovan thumbed the chime.
She threw it open.
"Jack! Jack, darling !"
An instant later she was in his arms. His powerful arms gripped her tight, and her heart fluttered wildly as she pressed her warm, eager body against his. The chill of the November day seeped into her, through the thin wrap that was her single garment.
He released her and shucked his coat.
"You're late," she said softly. "I was so worried. I thought something might have happened."
"Everything's okay. There was a little red tape at the office, that's all."
"Did you eat?"
Donovan nodded. "I had a snack before T came out." He grinned at her. "God, you look beautiful tonight! You've got a glow about you, Jan."
She giggled girlishly. "You know what? I weighed myself a little while ago. I've gained six pounds this month. Because of you."
"Because of me?"
"Sure. You've started life flowing in me again. I'm ripening-filling out-"
He let his hands rest for a moment on the soft mounds of her breasts, cupping them, caressing them through the wrap. With a smile, he said, "I thought you were getting a little bigger in the uppers. But I figured maybe it was just my imagination."
"No. It's real. All my bras are tight. I'll have to buy some new ones."
Donovan's eyes twinkled. "Maybe you're pregnant."
"That was a cruel thing to say. You shouldn't joke about that."
"I wasn't joking. I thought, maybe-"
Janet shook her head. "No. It's permanent and it's final, and I don't want to talk about it or even to think about it. Hold me, Jack. Just hold me and don't say anything, and kiss me, and-"
His arms engulfed her again. His heavy body strained tautly against hers. Janet pressed tight, grinding her breasts and thighs against him, trying almost to merge her body with his.
After a moment they parted. He settled down on the couch, while she prepared drinks for them. It was a regular ritual for them, just as she made a ritual, after he had left, of washing the glasses and emptying the ashtrays before Fred came home.
As they sipped the drinks, Donovan said, "Fred's working late again tonight?"
"That's what he told me,"
"Working like a galley slave, I bet."
"Probably." Janet stared at Donovan. "What kind of girl is this Anita? How well do you know her?"
"Well enough. I've been to bed with her a few times, though not since I started with you."
"What's she like?"
"Young. Very pretty. Good head on her shoulders. Big boobs."
"Like udders, I suppose?"
"No," Donovan said. "Big and round and hard. They don't dangle. She's a beautiful girl."
"More beautiful than I am?" Janet asked slyly.
"It's a different kind of beauty." Donovan said. "She's younger, and she's blonde. It's the difference between-well, between a daffodil and an orchid There's a kind of innocence about her, and a kind of worldliness about you-a different fascination-"
Janet laughed. "A tramp with innocence about her, and a frigid housewife who's worldly? Sounds like you've got everything all mixed up."
"I can't get the point across, I guess. But I know what I mean."
"I'm sure you do. And how is she in bed?"
"She's a pro," Donovan said.
"Meaning what?"
"Meaning that she always gives a good show Whether she feels anything inside or not, she makes it look like she's having a ball. I imagine she's secretly a Lesbian Most of those girls are. But they hide it well."
Janet shuddered. "Sounds sordid. To think of Fred mixed up with a girl like that-"
"Jealous?"
"Just annoyed," Janet said. "Annoyed at myself, mostly. It reflects on a woman when she can't keep her own husband interested in her."
"Fred's a fool," Donovan said. "He doesn't know what's good for him."
"No. It's more complicated than that. What happened to our marriage happened on both sides. We-fell out of love with each other. I don't blame him for sleeping with his blonde tramp. She makes him happy, even if it's all fake. So long as he can't tell the difference, I've got no right to be jealous. Not while I've got you."
"Do I make you happy?"
Janet's eyes were slits of lust, and her voice a husky, throaty whisper. "Happier than I've ever been in my life," she said. With a sinuous shrugging motion she let her wrap fall to the floor, and stood nude before him. Her body took on a warmth, a radiant glow, as his eyes roamed it. Janet filled her lungs with air. Her breasts had grown, now that she had finally came into her own as a woman; she had gained weight, had filled out, had an extra reserve of stamina now. She was changing, and Jack Donovan had changed her, she knew. He had awakened the womanhood of her.
She went toward him.
She began to take off his clothes.
It was funny, she thought, how different her life had been, since she had first gone to bed with Donovan. For years and years he had just been Jack, Fred's friend, an amiable, slightly boozy, slightly overweight guy with too much money and too much interest in sex, who had been looking hungrily at Janet without ever making a pass. And now, suddenly, he was transformed. He no longer seemed the clown, the skirt-chaser that he had been. He was Pan, he was a demon of love, he was her guide to a myriad new worlds of pleasure, worlds she had long ago abandoned all hope of entering.
They were both nude, now. He drew her down next to him on the couch. His body was pressed against hers. His hands roamed her, caressing her breasts, passing along her thighs and legs.
"Have you told your analyst about me?" he asked.
"Of course."
"What does he say? Is he shocked?"
"You can't possibly shock an analyst. Nothing you say can shock him."
"What does he say, then?"
"He thinks it's fine that I respond to you physically. Now he wants me to try to transfer my erotic attachment from you back to Fred."
"That's an easy order to give."
"I told him that."
"Do you want to transfer back to Fred?"
"I want you," Janet said.
"What does your analyst say about that?"
"He doesn't. He thinks it's infantile of me to want a lover, but that as short-range therapeutics it's a good idea, since it's liberating my libido."
"You know what I think of your analyst?"
"What?"
"I think his libido needs liberating."
"So do I."
"Ever feel like doing it?"
"He doesn't attract me."
"I thought all women patients were supposed to fall in love with their analysts," Donovan said.
"Well, not me. For a while I was interested, but then my attention got distracted."
"I wonder who did that?"
"I wonder."
"How much do you pay this analyst?"
"$30 a session," Janet said. "$60 a week." Donovan whistled. "Just for talking?"
"That's right."
"Hell," he said. "I can give you better therapy than he does, and I don't even charge for it."
"So far you've just been doing a lot of talking."
"Just preliminaries, m'dear. I'm ready to begin the therapy now. Are you?"
"As ready as I'll ever be."
"Okay. Tell me what it feels like when I put my hand here."
"Mm."
"And here?"
"Mmm!"
"And there?"
"Mmmm!"
"And when I do this?"
"It makes me want to do this," Janet said. "Go on, then. Don't repress an impulse. Liberate your libido, kiddo. Liberate it!"
"That's just what I'm doing!" Janet moaned.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A good many miles away, in a Manhattan hotel room high above Third Avenue, Fred Markell was also liberating his libido in the approved Freudian fashion. He lay nude with a nude Anita in his arms. She was making little purring sounds as he touched her breasts and thighs. Her warm, sleek body throbbed with life and vigor. The lights were on. He always left the lights on bright when he made love to her. There was no sense robbing himself even of one pleasure. He wanted to be able to look, as well as to touch, to taste, to smell, and to hear her sounds of passion.
He cupped her breasts, squeezing them, feeling the rigid little nipples. He put his lips to them, running his caress over their tops. Anita giggled.
"What's the matter?"
"Tickles."
"Is that bad or good?"
"I don't know. Keep doing it."
He kissed her again. Anita quivered. Markell smiled. This was his tenth session with her, and by now he thought he knew her pretty well. They were old hands at the game of love by this time. She had given him pleasure in a number of ways, and he believed he had given her pleasure as well, and everything was fine.
She had been with him fifteen minutes, now. There was plenty of time left. On some occasions she forgot to ration time with him. She gave him an extra fifteen, twenty minutes, sometimes even half an hour. Markell loved her for that. It took some of the sordid curse of prostitution out of the relationship for him, to think that she wasn't doling out the time to him in metered segments.
He caressed her thigh, trailing his fingertips up the warm, infinitely smooth flesh. His fingers touched warmth, and Anita's breathing grew a little heavier. His roaming fingers played about, while at the same time his other hand caressed the ripe hillocks of her breasts.
Then she was draping one lovely tapering leg casually over his body. Her eyes brimmed with desire, and she smiled and said, "Let's love this way tonight," and a moment later she was sitting over him.
Markell grinned. One thing he appreciated most about her was her unrestrained fondness for experiment, for trying different ways of love. With Janet, love was something carried out in one particular standard fashion, and no deviations were permitted. But not with Anita. None of this you-on-top-me-on-bottom nonsense for her. She liked variety.
So did he.
So everything was fine.
He lay back, snuggling comfortably against the pillow, and she sat over him. Her nimble, skilled fingers slid down his body, found their goal. Not that he needed any assistance, but she offered it anyway, and he accepted it gratefully. He half-closed his eyes, shivering a little in pleasure as her slim little fingers worked.
Crouching above him, she bent over, letting her soft golden hair slide gently over his entire body. He filled his nostrils with the fragrance of her.
She bent far over, letting the heavy swaying bells of her breasts move, the hard-tipped nipples so close to his lips that he could and did open his lips to kiss them, like ripe fruit he could reach up and taste.
She sat astride him, her blonde hair cascading down, shimmering about her as she moved She worked her way forward on him, and raised her body, and then slowly lowered it until she rested squarely on him.
Markell clamped his eyes tight shut. He reached up, blindly, for the twin hillocks of her breasts, and found them. He filled his hands with their hard-tipped warmth, and clasped them and squeezed them, while all the time her body continued to churn and twist and rock.
Her body moved, her resilient buttocks bouncing like soft cushions against the hardness of his own body. Faster and even yet faster, until the seething intensity of desire within them seemed so blazingly warm that their bodies appeared about to weld together.
Markell relaxed. He didn't need to do any work. He just had to lie here, letting the deliciously soft warmth envelope him, feeling the satiny cushions of her buttocks against him.
This was really living.
This was the way to go. For .
But how to make it permanent? How to keep Anita with him forever?
As she moved and churned above him, and as he ripped and squeezed her bountiful breasts, he thought for the hundredth time of how he could free himself from Janet and make Anita his wife.
Divorce didn't look too likely. He had no grounds for divorcing her, and, so far as he knew, not even the shrewdest lawyer around was likely to work up any kind of case against her. She was cold, yes, but frigidity wasn't grounds for divorce. And he doubted that an iceberg like Janet would do anything so out of character as commit adultery.
On the other hand, he doubted that he could make her divorce him. She led a nice plush life now, and he would really have to work at it to make her want to pull out. Even if he came home drunk night after night, slapped her around, brought other women into the house, she'd probably try to bear with hiro.
Or else she would take him to court and squeeze him for every penny she could get. Janet was perfectly capable of bleeding a man white, Markell realized bleakly. And the court, presented with the case of a faithful, diligent husband suddenly turning into an ogre, would see immediately that here was a case of a man deliberately trying to force his wife to divorce him, and so the price of his liberty would be a steep one.
He didn't want that. He didn't want to have to bankrupt himself just to get rid of Janet.
But he wanted to be rid of her. Soon. And she was too damned healthy to die naturally any time in the next forty or fifty years. Markell couldn't wait that long. He found it all but impossible to wait the three days that separated one visit with Anita from the next.
But how-?
He pondered the situation. And while he pondered it, Anita continued to rock and roll above him Her breasts overflowed in his hands. He looked up at her, saw her eyes slitted in passion, her lips slack, distorted with excitement. He felt the inner quiverings of her, the first surging pulses of ecstasy.
His own body trembled with the nearness of his fulfillment.
He struggled to hold it back, to keep from going off like a roman candle. Not yet, he begged, not just yet, Let it Last for a while-
She churned and thrashed above him. She rocked and she rolled. She wriggled and heaved and swayed, now clockwise, now counterclockwise, every wild motion sending new shafts of pleasure through him.
Now she was bouncing, and he closed his eyes again and felt the sensation of having warm butter dropped on him again and again, and then he opened his eyes, to see her breasts bouncing, those plump, taut, heavy globes with their swollen red tips, and then passion got hold of him and he was forced to shut his eyes again, and he felt glowing within her, and her muscles were doing tricks again, and he was close to the finish, and suddenly she let out a sobbing gasp of pleasure and in the same moment he felt his body rear involuntarily, felt his muscles convulse and quiver.
A million flares went off back of his eyeballs. Sirens wailed in his brain. Fireworks went off.
It was as if a rocket had come surging off the launching pad in a blast of flame, was rising, rising heavenward, and exploding in a wonderful shower of brightness, and a tidal wave of ecstasy crashed through him and he felt her body spasm and go taut, and he reached up, seized her breasts again, held on to them as though he felt that he was drowning in the tide of his own need and wanted something solid to hold.
And then, then at the peak of his ecstasy, in that numbing, mind-jarring instant of pure physical pleasure, an idea struck him.
An idea involving Janet and Jack Donovan.
An idea that might just solve his marital problem for him.
Naked, Janet Markell crouched on the floor in front of Jack Donovan. Her hands gripped the thick muscles of his thighs. Her head was thrust forward, and her kiss was fervent.
She could hear his hoarse panting, and she knew he was pleased. She continued to do it. She felt a new excitement. It gave her a strange pleasure to be doing this.
She had never done it with her husband. She had always felt that Fred would be shocked by it, that he would object, that he would find it repugnant. Fred tended to be too fastidious about love, Janet thought.
But she had no such qualms with Donovan She knew that in his eyes, anything went. He was unshockable, like her analyst. So long as something contributed to pleasure, why, that something was not only permissible but downright desirable.
Only once before in her life had she done this with a man. and it was so long ago she hardly remembered it, now. It was back in her college days. Fourteen, fifteen years ago. There had been a boy-what was his name, Jimmy, Bruce, she couldn't even remember that?-and they had had a campus love affair.
It wasn't her first experience, but it was almost the first, and she was very, very, serious and scholarly about it. She and Bruce or Jimmy or Jerry or whatever his name was would buy paperback books on sex, things like How To Have A Harmonious Marriage, and they would sit naked and crosslegged on the bed in his dorm room to pour over them, and they would run across words that stood for activities that could not be mentioned in their Anglo-Saxon forms, and after they read about them they would put them into practice.
So Janet had done it with him, then. She could remember the pleasure of it, and the sudden surprise of his culmination. Fourteen years, maybe fifteen, and she had never done it again. Until now.
And then he said, "Wait! Stop, Janet!"
She looked up, her eyes wild with pleasure. Why?"
"Because I want you to enjoy it too."
"I am enjoying it."
"No. There's a better way. Come on up here on tine couch with me."
Obediently, she scrambled up. She felt like a rank amateur, like the veriest of beginners. Even though it was sixteen years since she had lost her innocence, she realized she actually knew very little about love. Even after ten years of marriage. Even after who knew how many hundreds or even thousands of rounds in bed.
She had never learned much, somehow.
But Donovan was teaching her.
He was better than a marriage manual. With him, she had no need of poring over closely-printed pages and puzzling over Latin terms, as she had done in the forgotten past with the boy of forgotten name. With Donovan, it was a matter of immediate doing, not of reading about.
He was positioning her, now. Adjusting her limbs on the couch.
She was mystified for a moment. But only for a moment. The logic of what he had in mind, the sheer good sense of it, struck her an instant later. Of course. He always knew the best way of doing anything. He had had so much experience in these arts.
They lay together on the couch, and once again, her eager kiss met him.
But this time she felt his hot breath against the softness of her, and then-
She gasped for breath.
Her nostrils flared. Her whole body quivered. She felt his lips, and she shook with passion, and her head moved violently.
Yes, she thought. Yes, this was far better than her way. This way they could both share the same sensations, could rise together toward that summit of ecstasy, toward the moment of passion.
She held tight to him. She coiled her body, opening for him. Their harsh gasping filled the room.
Janet quivered. She had never known a pleasure as strange as this. She wondered how Fred would react if he walked in now and saw the two of them entangled this way. Did Fred ever do things like this with his blonde floozie, Janet wondered? Perhaps he was less fastidious with her than lje was with his wife. Maybe he was more adventurous in Anita's arms. Maybe-
Janet went tense. She felt a trembling, now, a sudden inner spasm. Her body began to churn in the rhythms of passion, and her lips redoubled their efforts. In another moment, she knew, she was going to be at the crest of ecstasy. What about Donovan? Would he get there too? Was she doing the right things to him? She felt confused, felt like a timid virgin.
And then she heard him gasp, and knew that she was doing the right things, and suddenly he was rigid and panting against her, and her mind blanked out as passion hit her and she gasped and writhed and then came the pounding explosion in her body, and an instant later she felt Donovan give a tremendous shiver and then it was happening to him, too, and she took a strange pleasure in what was occurring, intoxicating herself on the wine of his ecstasy, and then it was over, and they lay still in a tangled heap on the couch.
His hands stole down to cup her breasts. His breathing was hoarse and ragged.
"Did you enjoy it?" he asked after a moment.
"It was wonderful, Jack."
"I wasn't sure. I was so tied up myself that I couldn't tell how you reacted."
"It was tremendous, Jack. If it was only as good for you as it was for me-"
"It was. I'm sure of it."
She put her arms around him. They came close together on the couch, and she leaned her head against his chest.
"Jack, I-"
She stopped.
"What did you start to say?"
"Nothing," Janet said.
He didn't reply. Janet opened her eyes and stared across the room.
I almost said, I love you.
She studied the words in her mind. I love you? But she couldn't say that. She was married. He was married. There was no room for love. Love led to marriage, and they had other partners. Donovan even had children. Love was out of the question. Passion, yes. But not love.
She bit her lip. Cold reality had intruded into her dream world, drifting in unbidden in the aftermath of her ecstasy, taking the edge of warmth off her pleasure.
Donovan sensed it. He said, "What's the trouble, baby? Tell me."
"It's nothing, Jack. Nothing at all."
"I can tell. You're worried."
"No."
"Saving it for your analyst?"
"Please, Jack-"
"Something's eating you. Come on, out with it. I won't even charge you for the advice." Janet sighed. "All right. I'm worried."
"Go on."
"I'm worried about us. Where are we going from here? What are we heading toward?"
"I don't get you," Donovan said.
"You've got a wife and children. I've got a husband. We've got to think of them."
"I haven't thought of my wife in six years," Donovan said, "and I don't intend to start doing it now. I support her and I clothe her and I sleep with her now and then, and she's happy, and why should I worry about her? As for your husband, he's busy having a play-for-pay girl right this second, and I bet he isn't worried about you. So why the hell get worked up about it?"
"Because-because-how long can it go on, Jack? You and me, making love in secrecy like this?"
"What could stop it?"
"Something always does. No love affair lasts forever. Something always breaks it up. Some outside force."
Donovan laughed gently. He put his hands on her breasts, on the firm swells that had grown so pleasingly plump in the last few weeks. He caught the nipples between his fingers, and playfully toyed with them, rubbing the curves of her breasts together.
"Don't worry," he murmured. "Nobody's going to tip over this apple cart. Fred's happy, and my wife is happy and we're happy too. I don't see any reason why our little affair can't quietly go on until we're all old and wrinkled. For ever and ever and ever, Jan. Forever and ever."
CHAPTER EIGHT
The weekend came.
On weekends Fred Markell made a determined effort to return to a normal domestic life. He tried diligently to put Anita out of his mind, and to play the part of a suburban husband living a conventional life. He had to, because Anita had a strict rule about working on weekends. She didn't. She didn't check with her answering service at all on Saturdays and Sundays, and didn't want to be contacted by anyone. So he was forced back on his wife's company every weekend.
It wasn't all that bad. They played the part. They went to the theater together, and they gave parties or went to them, and had neighbors over for drinks and a little bridge, and went through all the motions of marriage.
And Janet, too, had to give up her secret life and play house every weekend. Donovan was living his own life on the weekends, and Janet had to return to being Mrs. Fred Markell, and to forget all about her lover and the forbidden things they had done together.
On this particularly Saturday night, the Markells went to the theater. They motored into New York in late afternoon, had dinner at a good French restaurant in the East Fifties, then cabbed across town to Broadway to take in a hit showing, leaving their car parked on the relatively tranquil East Side.
At dinner, that night, Markell noticed for the first time that his wife was changing. He was puzzled by it. She seemed more beautiful, for one thing. She had always been attractive, of course, but tonight, the first time he had seen her dressed formally in weeks, she looked unusually good. She looked-almost like a different person.
Gone was the expression of blank boredom. Gone was the look of festering discontent. Gone were the worry-lines around the eyes, the rigid set of the tense jaw, the thin clamped look of the lips.
Janet looked radiant tonight, Markell realized. Her eyes were alive, sparking. Her smile was a ready one. Her face was relaxed. Her skin had a glow, a freshness about it that almost reminded him of Anita's gleaming complexion. Janet was wearing her low-cut black dress tonight, her "sexy" dress, only it had never seemed sexy to him before.
It seemed sexy tonight. Very sexy.
It scooped low in front to reveal the curves of her breasts. In the past, the dress had revealed mostly the inadequacies of Janet's figure, so that he had never taken much pleasure in her wearing it.
But tonight-
Her breasts seemed to rise in lush full firmness, cresting the top of the dress, thrusting upward, two pink globes of desire.
He wasn't sure he saw what he saw. It was a weird thing to be staring down his own wife's neckline at dinner, but stare he did. Had she bought some new kind of bra, some poosh'em-up trickery that thrust her breasts into prominence this way?
No, he thought. He looked at her cheeks, saw the healthy plumpness there, the rosiness, the fullness. She's putting on weight, he thought. Her cheeks, her arms, even her boobs.
Perhaps it was some kind of glandular disturbance, Markell thought. Some complicated manifestation of advancing age, some malfunction of the always delicate feminine plumbing. Maybe. But he had to admit that right now it looked tremendous. She had gained just the right amount of weight, in precisely the right places, to cross the borderline that divides good-looking women from really beautiful ones.
It's one of her typical witchy tricks, Markell thought with heavy irony. To go and turn beautiful on me just when I'm trying to work out a way to get rid of her.
His resolve wavered a little. But then he thought of Anita, and he regained his determination.
Janet was certainly easy on the eyes tonight But she still wasn't in Anita's league.
She never would be.
Besides, looks weren't everything. Maybe Janet was filling out, maybe she was putting on weight, but that didn't make her any better to sleep with. She was still cold. She still found excuses not to come across. In fact, it was even worse than ever these days. They hadn't slept together in almost three weeks. That was the longest spell they'd been apart since their marriage.
He wondered if she suspected anything. Surely she knew he must be getting it somewhere else, if he didn't even make an attempt to sleep with her. Maybe she knew and didn't care, he thought. Maybe she was perfectly content to have him quietly satisfying himself elsewhere and thus spare her the nuisance of having to give in to his desires a couple of times a week.
Markell decided to put it to the test tonight. Three weeks was long enough. He'd go for her tonight, see if there was any change in her temperament-
And if not-
Even if there was-
He moistened his lips. It was time to get the wheels turning. They had already had their appetizers, and he wanted to get things set up before they finished dinner.
He lifted a spoonful of vichyssoise to his lips. Then he said, "Are we free the weekend after next, Janet?"
"I suppose so."
"Saturday and Sunday, I mean."
"Yes. We're free. Why?"
Markell shrugged. "I happened to talk to Jack Donovan the other day. He says his wife's mother is sick, and she's going to fly out to California for a few days at the end of next week."
Janet's eyes were suddenly opaque. "So?"
"Hell be all alone. She's taking the kids with her, just in case Grandma kicks off. I figured we could invite Jack out to the house as a weekend guest. You could show off your cooking."
A muscle flickered in Janet's cheek. Her voice was odd as she said, "You're sure you want him for the whole weekend?"
"Why not?"
"Well, he drinks so much."
Markell shrugged. "He's not all that much of a boozer. I've never seen him smash any furniture or throw up on anybody's carpet. And he's my oldest friend, Jan."
"Okay. We'll have him."
"You don't sound enthusiastic."
Janet shrugged. "I don't know. I just think maybe we'll get tired of him after a while."
"It's only a weekend, Janet."
"Okay. Okay."
"I'll tell him about the invitation on Monday, then," Markell said. "You're sure it's all right with you?"
"I told you I didn't mind," Janet said.
Markell was a little perturbed by the lukewarm way Janet received the idea. He hadn't expected her to leap up in the air and click her heels with joy-Donovan was his friend, after all, not hers-but her coolness troubled him a bit. He wanted everything to go well. Was there some friction between Donovan and Janet that he didn't know about? Maybe some old incident, a drunken pass thrown at Janet, an ugly word, a belch? Donovan tended to be a little coarse at times, Markell knew. Maybe-
To hell with it. Things would work out. He'd see to that.
He turned his attention to dinner. Tournedos Rossini, accompanied by a good bottle of Chateau Beychevelle '57, and all the trimmings. He ate with gusto.
At eight-thirty, he and Janet were in their orchestra seats at the theater. The taste of fine cognac was in his mouth, and his stomach purred contentedly over the baked Alaska that had been their dessert. He was in a fine mood. Only one thing spoiled his pleasure. The woman at his side was Janet-
And Anita?
Where was Anita tonight? In whose arms? Doing what? Doubts plagued him. He wanted her. He wanted her desperately. And all the time. Soon, he told himselt Soon.
He and Janet were home by midnight. He locked up the downstairs doors, checked around, and headed upstairs to join her in the bedroom. She was already half undressed, wearing only her underwear.
Markell felt a stab of desire for her. He saw the irony of the situation: lusting after his own wife, deceiving his mistress with his wife! But it was a pleasant novelty to want her again. He wondered if she would want him. Or would she spoil the evening by refusing?
She seemed to be in a good mood too, relaxed and cheerful. As he undressed, he kept an eye on her. She had taken her bra off, now. Yes, he thought. Her breasts were fuller. It wasn't any trick of her bra. They had rounded into firm, swaying globes. She was still small, of course, compared with a busty wench like Anita, but she had nothing to be ashamed of.
Nothing at all.
She was wriggling out of her panties, now. The tight and of her garter-belt framed her buttocks, and he saw how the belt cut into the flesh. Her buttocks looked stiller, too. Plumper. She was filling out all over.
"That was a nice evening," she said, as she peeled ff her stockings.
"Very nice. Pity there aren't more like it"
"There could be," she said. "I suppose."
She was completely nude, now. Markell was practically out of his own clothes. Janet had crossed the room, had walked to the window.
"Look," she said. "It's snowing!"
"First one of the season, I guess. Looks like I'll be shoveling tomorrow."
"But it's so beautiful, Fred. Look!"
He went to the window, leaning against her and looking over her shoulder into the darkness. She was right. The snowfall was beautiful. Big, fluffy flakes were drifting down, gleaming in the light of the full moon. The flakes were forming a snowy halo around the streetlamp on the other side of the street. And, though the snow could not have been falling more than five minutes, it was already beginning to accumulate on the ground. A light powdery whiteness covered the hedges and the lawns and the boughs of the evergreens that were clustered in front of the house.
Suddenly his hands were on her breasts, cupping them. He felt her stiffen, as though she were about to push him away, and then she had an all too obvious second thought and let his hands remain. He cupped and squeezed her breasts. In the past month, his hands had grown accustomed to holding Anita's breasts, which abundantly overflowed his fingers, and it was almost a novelty to be cupping his wife's, to be able to encompass her entire bosom within his curving fingers. He stood there behind her at the window, pressing his body against hers, gently rotating her breasts.
He put his lips to the nape of her neck, breathed softly on her.
She doesn't want me, he thought. But she's going to pretend, for the sake of not spoiling the evening.
"Come away from the window," he murmured. "Let's go to bed."
"All right, Fred."
He turned out the light. She was in bed, waiting for him, when he got there.
His hands reached for her breasts. And-unexpectedly-her hands reached for him. He felt her fingers traveling lithely down his body. He gasped in sudden surprise.
Janet didn't do things like that.
Janet was a passive girl who lay there and let him do things to her. She never did anything.
Only she was doing things now.
What the hell was going on, Markell wondered? She was filling out, and she was more passionate in bed-
He cupped her breasts. The nipples were growing hard. She couldn't fake that, he knew. She was panting in short, breathy gusts.
He felt the warmth of her. His lips went to hers, and her lips were parting, and he felt her tongue, eager and ready within.
She hadn't been this passionate in years and years, Markell thought in wonder and bewilderment. He felt confused by this turn of events. What was it all about? Just when he had made up his mind to dispose of her, why was she suddenly so friendly, so receptive in bed?
He caressed her breasts, then moved his hands down, to the firm flesh of her buttocks. Her body twisted against his. She started to tremble.
He was more puzzled than ever.
He had thought he had the situation lined up. And now everything was changing around maddeningly.
She was grasping at him, touching him. Her lips were warm and moist. She moved against him with an animation he had not seen in her in more years than he cared to remember. He grasped her buttocks tight, and she locked her arms around him, pulled him toward her.
The union came suddenly, and she seemed to welcome it. That was unusual. Even more unusual was the shiver of pleasure that went through her as he drove to of her, withdrew, drove again.
It was so strange to be in bed with a passionate Janet that he nearly spent his desires in the first moment, out of sheer confusion. But he regained control. He put his lips to her breasts, taking first one, then the other.
She arched her back, lifted herself high off the bedding, met his movements with passionate counter movements of her own.
Unbelievable, he thought. They were really making it, somehow. Together.
Her eyes were closed. Her nostrils were wide, flaring.
He moved with her, eagerly, energetically, in full command of his powers now. And Janet squirmed and trembled. His hands went under her, lifting her, driving himself to her.
"Oh, God," she whimpered. "God, that's good, that's so good, Fred, yes, yes-I"
Her voice tailed off into a wordless moan of pleasure, a banshee wail of glee. It was hard to imagine. Prim, reserved Janet yelling in pleasure, like a she-witch in heat? Janet panting, Janet gasping, Janet leaping around fit to break the bedsprings, Janet responding, Janet reacting-
Yes.
She was almost there, he realized.
And then, incredibly, she was loving him, and he was right alongside of her, and his passion seered her and drove her to still higher frenzies of passion, and he clung to her and held on tight and rode along with her, up to the summit and then down the other side, down into the vale of peace, and then motion began to cease, and there was stillness, and they were quiet. He waited.
He was afraid she was going to say, "I love you," and bind him still further to her.
But she did not. She said nothing. She lay there, perhaps a little stunned by what had happened, just as he was.
Markell broke the silence first. "It was good," he said. "The best in years."
"Yes."
"How did it happen?"
"I don't know."
"If only it was this way all the time-"
"Let's not talk about it, Fred. You know I hate post-mortems."
"But this is a different kind of post-mortem. It's a post-mortem of a good one."
"It doesn't matter. Don't say anything. Let's just lie here. Quietly."
"All right, Janet."
He cupped her breasts and stared off into the darkness. Maybe it was the analyst, he figured. Maybe all those $30-an-hour sessions had finally accomplished something. It would be a miracle if that was what happened. Markell had no faith in the analytic mumbo jumbo, none whatever.
But something had jarred Janet loose out of her apathy, out of her coldness.
Something. What?
More important: would it be this way again the next time? Or had this just been a fluke, a product of a fine meal, a relaxed evening in the theater, a good day all around?
It was a fluke, he told himself.
It had to be.
His mind couldn't accept any other conclusion. Because, if by some miraculous occurrence Janet had been transformed, if she were going to become passionate again and bring new life to their marriage, it left him far out on a limb. He was emotionally committed to Anita. But did he still need Anita, if Janet had changed?
Yes, he thought.
He thought of Anita, Anita of the golden hair, the full breasts, the swivel hips, the firm-fleshed buttocks. Anita of the sparkling eyes and willing body. He wanted her. Even now, he wanted her.
But what about Janet, then? This strange new Janet?
He glanced at her in the darkness. She had turned away from him. And he heard sounds-muffled sobs. "What's wrong?" he asked. "Nothing."
"You shouldn't be crying after-after-"
"I can't help myself."
"Won't you tell me the trouble?"
"There's no trouble. I swear it."
"But-"
"Good night, Fred."
"I wish you'd tell me."
"Good night."
He shrugged. She was more mysterious than ever. Crying, after her first successful lovemaking in eons? And not crying for happiness, either. She was miserable.
Maybe she was just as mixed up as he was, he thought. This unexpected burst of passion had astonished them both, then. It had shredded up all the established understandings of their marriage.
Her sobbing had stopped. Soon she was asleep. Markell was still brooding over the mystery.
I've got to know, he thought. Was it a fluke? Or has everything changed?
He got his answer the next night, Sunday night. As they went to bed, Markell reached out for her again. His hands closed around her breasts. But she had been in a withdrawn, melancholy mood all day, and as he expected she turned her back on him now.
"Please, Fred. Not tonight."
"But it was so good last night. I wanted an encore."
"I don't feel like it. Sorry."
He didn't press the point. It was the same old Janet, then.
Last night had been only a fluke. Only a fluke.
He resolved to forget about it. He concentrated on the day when Anita would be his, and there would be no more refusals, no more debates about whether or not to have her. He closed his eyes, and forced all speculation from his mind, and after a while sleep took him.
CHAPTER NINE
Monday morning, he phoned Jack Donovan, asked to have lunch with him.
"Anything special on your mind," Donovan asked.
"Nothing having to do with business," Markell said. "No hints?"
"No. Will you meet me at noon at the Coach and Four?"
"Okay," Donovan said. "It's a date. The Coach and Pour, noon today."
Markell was there on the dot of noon, but Donovan bad already arrived. That was a little odd, Markell thought, because Donovan wasn't usually a particularly punctual man. But there he was. He was waiting just inside the door, leaning against a pillar. His expression was a thoughtful preoccupied one.
"Hello, Jack!"
Donovan gave a half-smile. "Guess I beat you here, Fred."
"Guess you did."
A table was waiting for them. They settled into it, ordered drinks. There was a moment of uneasy silence, and Markell wondered why Donovan was so restless-looking, so apprehensive. Was something amiss in Donovan's investments? Or had he had trouble with one of his many mistresses? Or had he simply had five or six drinks too many last night?
Donovan broke the silence. "You still seeing Anita?" he asked abruptly.
Markell nodded. "A couple of times a week."
"Great girl, isn't she?"
"Tremendous." Markell said. He saw a leer appear on the other man's face, and resented it. He had never quite been able to forget the fact that Donovan had recommended Anita to him, that Donovan had sampled her wares first. An unwanted image drifted into his mind: Donovan's heavy, gross body topping Anita. Donovan's hands grasping the pale melons of Anita's bosom. Anita's legs sticking out on either side of Donovan's fleshy form. Two bodies twisting in love, groaning in passion-
Donovan was staring levelly at him. He said, "You're pretty hipped on that girl, aren't you, Fred? I mean, not just as a call girl, but something beyond that. Is that how it is?"
"Maybe."
"You ought to watch out for that," Donovan said. He twirled the stem of his martini glass casually. "These girls, they try to get you to fall in love with them, they try to make you think they love you, only you. That you're the special man in their life. Meanwhile they're sleeping with half of New York and maybe part of Connecticut too, but they tell you, you're special. And they soak you. Bought her any gifts yet?"
"A few," Markell said, tight-lipped. He didn't like Donovan's cynical approach. He wished the subject of Anita hadn't arisen at all. It was a profanity to hear her name on Donovan's fleshy lips.
"Like what? Anything big?"
"No," Markell said. "Just trinkets. And some perfume. I'm not giving her any Cadillacs yet."
"It doesn't matter. It begins small. A ring, a pair of pearl earrings. Then it works up. An ermine wrap, a sports car. Next thing you know, you'll be thinking about marrying her. There's always some damn fool who wants to marry a call girl. Men never learn. A girl like that, once a slut, always a slut, and pity the poor goof who tries to reform her."
Markell ran his tongue nervously around his lips. He didn't like this conversation in the slightest. It was coming much too close to home, and Donovan was scoring a direct hit at every step of the way, probably without realizing at all how barbed his words were.
Markell said, "Listen, let's get off the subject and onto a different one. The subject I invited you down to talk about."
Donovan looked a little tense. "Okay?"
"I want to talk about next weekend."
"What about it?"
"You said your wife and kids would be visiting her parents in California next weekend, remember? So I was talking with Janet, and she suggested we invite you to stay with us. We wouldn't want you to spend a lonely bachelor weekend all by yourself."
Donovan's tension seemed to vanish. He grinned broadly and said, "That's damn nice of you, Fred."
"Did you have any plans for the weekend?"
"Well, as a matter-of-fact," Donovan said, "I was thinking of lining up a little companionship for myself for that weekend. But I hadn't arranged anything yet. And now I guess I don't have to."
"Good. Come on up to our place. We can discuss that Long Island deal, for one thing. And you can just relax in front of our fireplace and help reduce our liquor supply. Janet will love to see you. You know how fond she's always been of you."
"Yes," Donovan said drily. There was an odd look in his eye. Markell knew what Donovan had been interested in Janet for years and years, quietly letching after her. But Donovan had had so little opportunity to be alone with her.
Markell was determined to give Donovan that opportunity next weekend.
"Is it a date for the weekend?" Markell asked. "Sure," Donovan said. "It's a date."
When he saw Anita the following Tuesday, Markell let her know that he wouldn't be free for their regular Friday evening meeting.
"We're having a weekend guest," he told her. "He's coming up Friday night. So we'll just have to skip seeing each other this Friday."
Anita pouted. "Is it anybody I know?" she asked playfully.
Markell ducked the question. "Somebody I do business with some of the time," he said evasively. He stood by the window of her apartment, looking at her as she sprawled nude on the bed. It was snowing again, a light powdery fall. Winter was moving in fast.
Anita said, "I'm going to miss you Friday night, Freddy."
"I'll miss you too. But well be able to see each other more often than twice a week, soon. A lot more often, Anita."
"Oh?"
"I'm planning ... I'm planning some changes," he said. "Big changes."
She smiled and propped herself up on her elbows, her breasts swaying and jiggling enticingly. "Tell me all about it, lover."
He shook his head. "I don't dare. You'll find out when the time comes. But I tell you one thing. I'll be able to see a lot more of you after it happens. Would you like that, Anita?"
"Of course, Freddy."
"Would you like to see me a whole lot?" he asked carefully. "Like every day?"
"Why not?" she asked. She left the bed, crossed the room in that marvelous flowing walk of hers, moved up against him. She ran her fingers fondly through his hair. "I like you, Freddy," she murmured. "I like you plenty."
He left the matter at that.
He didn't want to do too much talking ahead of the fact, too much bridge-crossing in advance. Just so long as Anita was fond of him, so long as she seemed to want him, he could go through with the thing he had planned, knowing that when he finally did get to the other side of the bridge he would possess the kind of happiness he had never dreamed it was possible for him to attain.
Holding her tight, he ran his hands down her body, ripped the taut mounds of her buttocks, savored the fullness of them, the lush abundance. Her body was hot against his. Her mouth sought his, and her tongue was like a living thing with intelligence of its own, darting, entering, probing.
She drew toward the bed.
She slid his clothes from him with all her practiced skill.
"Anita," he murmured. "Anita, Anita, Anita-" She writhed against him. He sighed, pressed forward, and their linked bodies trembled in passion. He cupped her breasts lest they sway. The stiff nipples stared blindly up at him. Her muscles spasmed deliriously, rested, spasmed again.
Higher and higher they climbed. Right up to the summit of ecstasy.
They hovered there a long, wonderful moment. Then with furious slamming force Markell complete the act, and the two of them went spinning off into the ecstatic exhaustion of fulfillment.
Afterward, Markell looked at her face. Her eyes were closed. She was smiling.
It was, he thought, the face of a woman in love.
Markell was right. Anita was in love. Only not with him.
The great passion of her life had begun only a few days earlier, the previous Friday, to be precise. Anita had gone through her day's routine, finishing up at the town house of J. Edward Coleridge, and then, as was her nightly won't, she had gone to that certain little bar on the East Side to see what pickings were available for her own particular brand of amusement.
The pickings had been excellent that night. There was a new girl in the bar, apparently a fresh recruit to the sisterhood. She was already six deep in proposidoners, but Anita took one look, thought, That's for me, and cut her way deftly through the competition to emerge with the prize.
The new girl's name was Joyce. She was a redhead from Miami, a lively, athletic-looking girl with wide-awake eyes and an offbeat way of doing things. Anita realized that the moment she heard that the new girl was from Miami.
"And you came north in December?"
"Sure," Joyce said. "Miami's full of cruds now. Winter people. Fat-bellied insurance men getting away from the snow. Nuts to 'em. I mean, let someone else have 'em. I figured I'd come up here, where the real people are. I can go back south in the spring."
"But are you accustomed to cold weather?" Anita asked.
"I'll live," Joyce said, "The thing is, winter is so goddamn beautiful. Especially if you live down where the seasons never change. To see the trees without any leaves, just like skeletons-and to feel a real cold wind rip into your guts-and to see snow! Snow! I was seventeen before I ever saw snow. Except in pictures in the National Geographic." Joyce's eyes glowed. "You know what I want to do, Anita? And don't tell me I'm crazy. I want to walk naked in the snow. I want to feel it all over me. Brand-new snow, like a white blanket!"
Anita grinned. "Wow!"
"You don't think I'll do it? You just wait and see," Joyce said.
That night, Anita took her home with her. And discovered that Joyce was as passionate as she was kookie, a live wire who knew all the tricks. They made love, and then they sat up talking till dawn, Joyce telling Anita of her adventures in various Caribbean islands and in Miami Beach hostelries, and then they made love again, and again, and again, since it was the weekend and Anita did not have to worry about the calls of clients.
And by the end of the weekend, Anita knew that she was in love, that this was the real thing, that she wanted to spend all her time with Joyce.
That was impossible, of course. There was the matter of earning a living. Neither girl could live on love alone. Joyce, like Anita, was smart about her retirement plans, and worked hard, peddling herself strenuously five days a week, five hours a night, the same schedule as Anita. And they both agreed not to let anything come between them and the earning of the precious grubstake that would stave off hardships in the years to come.
But the hours after midnight belonged to them.
On this particular Tuesday, after Fred Markell had left her, Anita phoned her answering service and found out about the engagements that were lined up for her for the day. After fifteen minutes on the telephone with various prospects, she had her schedule made out. A round at seven, one at nine, one at ten, one at midnight. Four clients, and a probable income of about $110 for the night, plus Markell's earlier $25.
She went through her tasks diligently and enthusiastically at each stop, and one in the morning saw her meeting Joyce at the bar. Joyce was already there. Her last client had been through with her at midnight, and she was sitting at the bar sipping a daiquiri, while a host of hangers-on vainly tried to make time with her.
The moment Anita entered, the other women scattered.
"Hello, hon." Joyce grinned. "Been waiting for yon an hour."
"Couldn't help it."
"Rough night?"
"Four tricks," she said. "And one this afternoon."
"You'll get too rich," Joyce laughed.
"Hard times a'coming," Anita said. "I want to be prepared for them." She glanced at the bartender. "Let's have a martini, huh?"
Anita sipped her drink. Joyce said, "I've been fending off the wolves for an hour. Look at them! Those witches would sell their souls to get into bed with either of us!"
"And we're selfish enough to want each other," Anita said. "That's real nasty of us."
"Isn't it, though."
They pressed their bodies close. They grinned at each other, and winked.
"Let's get out of here," Anita said, finishing her martini and dropping a bill on the bar. "We can find better places to be together."
Arm in arm, they left. It was cold, down in the thirties, but there was no wind, and a strange stillness had settled over the city. The cold hardly mattered. And it was beginning to snow. Big flakes were floating down, covering the hard deposits of the earlier snowfalls of the month, and the streets were turning white.
She hugged Anita tight. Slowly, they walked through the falling snow.
When they reached 59th Street, Joyce said, "You know what I want to do now? What I told you the other night. I want to run naked through the snow."
"You'll get arrested."
"Oh, don't be square! It's practically two in the morning, and all the cops are asleep. We'll go into Central Park. Well be safe there. Even the rapists are afraid to go into Central Park, so it's absolutely empty."
Anita shrugged. It was a kookie idea, but what the hell, they were in love, and who gave a damn if they got arrested or caught pneumonia?
They headed for the park.
A blanket of white covered everything. The accumulation of snow was six inches deep in most parts of the park, higher where the drifts had mounded up. Only on the roadway itself was the snow cleared away, and the new snow was rapidly doing its work there.
They trudged hand in hand through the snow, leaving a deep trail behind them, until they came to a quiet place ten blocks to the north, a tranquil area of trees and boulders, all coated with white.
Joyce's eyes were gleaming. A strange excitement glittered in her eyes.
She began to pull off her clothing.
Anita watched in astonishment. Here it was, thirty degrees above zero, and this girl from Florida was stripping in the snow. Already her sweater and bra were off, and she stood there bare-chested, snow falling on the luscious, heavy mounds of her breasts. Joyce had big breasts, bigger even than Anita's, high and firm and round as melons. They were tanned-Joyce loved to romp in the nude under the Florida sun.
But there was no sun now. It was two in the morning in Central Park, and flakes of snow were turning to ice-water as they struck Joyce's bare flesh.
"Come on!" Joyce cried. "It feels great, Anita!"
Puppet-like, Anita began to open her coat. She let it drop to the snow. A chill went through her, but she was surprised to find that as she removed her garments she grew more accustomed to the cold, hardly noticed it at all after a moment. Off came her dress, her slip, her bra. Her bare breasts rose and fell rapidly. Her breath was a white cloud in the snow.
Joyce was completely nude, now. She was capering in the snow, running around wildly, a gleaming, jiggling-breasted figure, laughing and hurling handfuls of snow into the air. Anita hurriedly finished stripping, her fingers fumbling with her garters, pulling off her stockings, dropping her panties and adding them to the pile.
She was stark naked. Right out in the open in the middle of Manhattan.
And snow was coming down, delicious snow.
She looked around for Joyce, and saw her a hundred yards away. The crazy girl was sitting in the snow, with her knees apart. She was-what the hell?-she seemed to be stuffing snow into her!
"What are you doing?" Anita asked.
"Cleansing myself," Joyce replied. "Cleaning away the four tricks I turned today. Snow's the cleanest thing in the world. It makes me feel pure again. Like a virgin. Come down here."
Anita laughed and threw herself face down into the snow. It was almost a foot deep here, and she sank in as though throwing herself onto mud. Her breasts bored into the white fluff. She turned over, rubbed snow against her body, touched handfuls of newly fallen snow to the most intimate parts of herself. There was a strange tingle of pleasure. Joyce was right She felt clean, cleaner than ever before. Snow covered her everywhere.
Crawling through the snow, Joyce came over next to her. She picked up a handful of snow and clapped it over Anita's breasts. Both girls laughed. Anita grabbed Joyce's buttocks and forced them into the snow. They threw snow in each other's faces.
Anita was throbbing with desire now. The tips of her breasts were hard and blazing against the coldness of the snow. The same madness that gripped Joyce now infected her as well.
They grappled with each other, wrestling playfully, rolling over and over, while still the snow came down, frosting their eyelashes, lodging in their hair, coating their naked bodies. Joyce scooped up snow, clapped it against Anita's belly, rubbed it into her body. Anita shivered and cried out gaily.
Then, a moment later, both girls were intertwined and entangled. Joyce's lips were against Anita's, and her body was moving furiously, passionately. The coldness of the snow was obliterated by the raging heat of their bodies.
Passion gripped them. They rolled over and over in the snow, now Joyce on top, now Anita. Their breasts swayed and jiggled, and touched, nipples drilling into soft firmness, and they grasped each other's buttocks and breasts and thighs, and tongue touched tongue in light-hearted playfulness and then in more earnest excitement, and no part of their bodies went unkissed or untouched or unsqueezed, and all around them was snow, warm snow, clean snow, good snow, beautiful snow, and as the fires of their passion mounted the force of the snowfall doubled and redoubled, so that soon they were all but covered by it, then came the shattering moment of climax as body reared and bucked against full-breasted body, and ecstasy riddled them both and it was over. It was over.
They stood up, panting hard, sweating in the snow, their bodies red and tingling. They brushed the snow away, but more fell all the time. Anita looked at the other girl, and with eyes brimming with love took pleasure in the sight of Joyce's body.
She was beautiful. She was in every way the counterpart and match for Anita's own lush beauty.
"We'll get pneumonia," Anita said. "We'll be dead by morning."
"But at least we finished up with a bang," Joyce giggled.
They brushed the snow away and began to get dressed. They didn't bother with underwear. Then-clothes were all but buried in snow anyway. They donned only their outer clothes, stuffing panties and stockings and garters and whatnot into the pockets of their coat.
They looked at the scene of their lovemaking. For an area of several hundred square yards, wild tracks had been left in the snow, along with breast-prints, buttock-prints, the outlines of nakedness. But already the new snow was filling them in. By morning there would be no hint at all that two of the most beautiful girls in New York City had come here, had stripped away every stitch of clothing they wore, and had taken each other in a furious frenzy of perverted sex.
They grinned at each other. Arm in arm, they left the park. At 59th and Fifth, they passed a policeman standing by the plaza, but he merely stared blankly at them. They walked on. The wind had picked up, and Anita felt its cold fingers stealing under her dress, exploring her wet and chilled nakedness, her thighs, her bare breasts.
In fifteen minutes they were at Anita's apartment. It was warm, cozy there. Hurriedly they stripped away their wet clothes, towelled dry. They both looked rosy-red from frost, and their fingers were a little numb, and the tips of their breasts throbbed from frostbite.
Anita produced a bottle of brandy. "We can use this," she said.
Naked, the two girls settled down together on the couch to take their medicine.
"I love you," Joyce whispered.
"I love you," Anita answered.
By morning they had finished off the complete fifth of brandy By morning the had made love twice more, as well. It must have been a good kind of medicine, too. Despite their reckless exposure, neither girl came down with so much as a case of sniffles the next day, let alone anything so dire as pneumonia.
CHAPTER TEN
Friday came. The beginning of the weekend that Jack Donovan was going to spend at the Markell house.
Markell had arranged to meet Donovan at Grand Central Station at about half past four, so that they could beat the weekend rush of commuters. Markell got to the station about five minutes early, and headed for the commuter tracks. Donovan was already there, leaning against a pillar, a weekend bag at his feet They shook hands. Markell said, "You're really getting punctual in your old age, Jack."
Donovan shrugged. "It's pure survival, Fred. "If I was late, I'd have had to ride up to your place in the rush hour. I figured it was easier and smarter to show up on time."
Grinning, Markell said, "Sensible. How about heading for the bar car?"
"That sounds sensible too."
They boarded the train, got to the bar car ahead of the rush, and wrapped themselves around two martinis apiece before taking seats. The martinis were weak and watery, the way martinis usually are aboard a commuter train, but they served their purpose, all the same. Markell felt warm inside, and relaxed, as he settled down for the short ride. It was a dark, wintery afternoon, a hint of more snow in the air outside.
Markell thought of Anita. He thought of Donovan sleeping with Anita. The image, that image which he had not been able to eradicate from his mind, of Donovan and Anita naked and together in bed, came to his mind again. It was an image that tormented him. He never could forget that it was this man who had first given him Anita's phone number, that it was Jack Donovan who had tried her out first, who had known her body, who had fondled her breasts, and squeezed her silk-smooth buttocks, Donovan, Donovan!
Markell tried to forget. He had little luck.
By the time the train had pulled out of the station, it had started to snow a little. By the time they were passing through Harlem, it was snowing more than a little, and as they reached the River dale station it began to come down in earnest. The train's progress was slowed. They crawled on through the storm.
They reached the Markell house by six. Janet came out to greet them. She was dressed informally, in a jersey pullover and a pair of slacks. The jersey, taut against the swells of her breasts, showed off the recent gain of weight in the most provocative way possible.
Markell said, "I think you know this man, Janet."
"We've met," she said. "But it's been a long time since I've last seen him."
"Months and months," Donovan said. "Too long. How've you been, Jan?"
"No complaints."
"You look good."
"I've put on a little weight," Janet said complacently.
"In all the right places."
"That's what Fred was telling me not so long ago. Here, let me have your coat."
Markell noticed the warmth of Janet's greeting, the way she beamed when Donovan came into the room, the sparkle in her eyes. It was almost a little suspicious, Markell thought. As though there might be some mutual interest kindled there. Well, at this point he hardly had any objection to that. Not at all.
They settled down in the living room, Markell putting up a blazing fire while Janet mixed drinks.
"The place looks good, Fred. Really good. I hadn't seen it since you painted."
"That long? We painted before the summer."
Donovan shrugged. "Guess I haven't been around for a while, then.' "Guess not."
Janet was watching them both. She seemed lively and animated, more so than she had seemed for months. The tight jersey and the corduroy pedal pushers had her figure on open display, stressing the fine lines of her hips and legs as well as the new blossoming of her bosom. Markell had known for a long time that there was an attraction between Donovan and Janet. But it was not an attraction that had had any chance to be consummated, so far as he knew. They had had so little opportunity to be alone together. Markell had seen to that, avoiding any natural chances such as a mutual vacation or even a short weekend trip.
But now everything was different.
Let them do what they damn please, he thought.
The first time Markell left the two of them alone, Donovan turned to Janet and said in a low voice, "Do you know what it's all about?"
"No. Not a thing."
"Not even a guess?"
"No."
They had been having variants of that conversation for almost two weeks, now-ever since Markell had first raised the matter of the invitation. They were both ried, though on the surface they remained calm.
"Do you think he knows?" Donovan asked.
"I'm sure he doesn't."
"How can you be so sure?"
"He's acting so relaxed, so friendly. There's not a trace of jealousy about him."
"Maybe he's putting on some kind of act," Donovan suggested.
Janet shook her head. "Fred's not the devious type. He's not an actor. I know him."
"But why'd he invite me, then?"
"Maybe he's just being friendly," she said. "You're his oldest friend, after all. And he knew you were being left alone for the weekend. Maybe he just felt like making a nice gesture."
"Maybe."
"I'm sure of it. We've got guilty consciences, Jack. That's why we're reading all kinds of stuff into that invitation. I'm sure it's perfectly innocent."
Donovan said, "Then will you sleep with me tonight, Janet?"
"How? How can I? With him in the house-"
"Wait till he falls asleep. Then come to my bedroom for a while."
"I don't dare."
"You said he doesn't suspect anything."
"But if he wakes up, and finds that I'm not next to him in the bed-"
"You can tell him you got restless," Donovan said.
"Sure," Janet's voice was acid. "I got restless and went sleepwalking and happened to wind up in your bedroom. How gullible do you think the guy is, anyway?"
Donovan took on a brooding expression. "You mean I'm going to have to spend a whole weekend here and not be able to touch you once?"
"Not unless Fred leaves us alone for a couple of hours. Not unless he goes away."
"That's hellish, Jan. You know I can't resist you."
"And I can't resist you. But we've got to We can't just jump at each other the moment he shuts his eyes. It may be some sort of trap, Jack. We mustn't tempt fate. We have to be cautious."
"Maybe you're right"
"I know I am," Janet said. "Listen, we have all the other days of the week for each other. Why try anything when he's right here in the house with us? We can hold out Jack. We have to."
"All right All right But-"
"Shh. He's coming back!"
They spent a cozy evening in front of the fire, the three of them. They talked-about real estate, about the chances of a rally in the stock market, about Donovan's wife and his young children, about the international situation, about the election that had been held the month before, about the possibility of a tax cut in the year to come. It was a perfectly ordinary, innocent conversation. Markell sat in his big chair next to the fire, and Janet and Donovan sat on the couch, but they sat at opposite ends, with plenty of room between them. From time to time, Markell would refill everyone's glass, but none of them drank to any unusual degree.
About midnight, Janet yawned delicately and said, "I think it's time I got some sleep. You boys can stay up and solve the rest of the problems of the world, but I'm going to sack out."
"Me too," Donovan said. "Just as soon as I finish this drink."
Markell nodded. "I'll be up in a few minutes, Janet."
She left the room, smiling a chaste good night to both of them. Markell nodded. He had been watching her carefully. She was obviously keyed up, excited about having an unattached man in the house. She was trying hard to seem casual about it, but Markell knew his wife well enough to sense the undercurrent of excitement in her.
Donovan would be sleeping downstairs, in the guest room. Markell wondered whether things would actually get as far as he was expecting them to.
He and Donovan talked a few minutes longer. Then Markell rose, stretched, and poked at the fire, breaking up the glowing embers.
"Well, see you in the morning," he said.
"Right. Good night, Fred."
"Good night, Jack."
Markell went upstairs. Janet was already undressed, and was standing nude in front of her mirror, vigorously combing out her lustrous black hair. The deepened bowls of her breasts shook with each stroke.
He felt a certain sadness, looking at her unadorned beauty and remembering the passionate times they had had together, back at the beginning. But then he remembered, too, the long years of coldness, the bickering, the open enmity, and he did not regret the course of action that he had decided upon.
"Well, that wasn't so bad, was it?" he asked.
"What wasn't?"
"Having Jack here. You seemed afraid he'd get drunk and break the furniture."
"He's calmed down," Janet said. "I guess being a father has changed him."
"Or maybe just getting old."
"He's not so old," Janet said. "He's only forty, same as you."
"I used to think forty was ancient."
"Sure When you were twenty. How will you feel about it when you're sixty?"
"I'll worry about that when I get there," he said.
They clambered into bed. Markell turned out the light.
I'll give her one more chance, he thought. Perhaps her last chance.
He reached for his wife.
His hands closed around the plump hillocks of her breasts. He felt her draw away from him, almost shudder as he touched her. It wasn't a promising sign.
"Please, Fred."
"Don't you want to?"
"No."
"I want you, Janet."
"Not tonight. Please."
"Why not?"
"It-I don't know. I don't feel like ft. There's an outsider in the house. He might hear us, or something."
"He's all the way downstairs. There isn't a chance he could hear a thing."
"Even so-"
"And even if he did hear," Markell said. "What of it? He knows we're married. He was at our wedding. He knows that married people are supposed to have relations with each other. So I don't see what-"
She moved away from him in the bed. "I just don't feel like it, that's all. Never mind why."
He stared at her bare, lovely back.' "I guess that Saturday night was just an accident, then. That time when it was so good for us."
"I don't know." Her voice was muffled. "Let's not argue. Let's just go to sleep."
"All right," he said. His body throbbed with desire, but he contained himself. Soon he would no longer have to put up with these refusals. Soon every night would be a night of passion.
Soon.
But he did not go to sleep. He remained awake, watching her, waiting to see if she would rise and go downstairs and into Jack Donovan's bedroom. He was positive that she would not do it, but even so, he had to wait, had to watch, had to make certain.
Half an hour ticked by. Sleep clawed at him. He forced himself to keep awake. Janet seemed asleep already, lying on her side, her breasts rising and falling with slow regularity. It was past one, now.
Markell decided that nothing was going to happen tonight, that Janet would not take advantage of the presence of another man in the house. He closed his eyes. He relaxed.
Tomorrow was another day, he told himself. After a while, he slept.
But Janet was still awake. She lay on her side, her back to her husband, one leg drawn up underneath her body, her hands clasped at her thighs.
There was a raging fire in her.
She could feel the magnetic pull from downstairs, the steady, almost telepathic urging radiating from the guest bedroom. Donovan was awake down there, she knew. He was lying there waiting for her, trying to magic her down there to share his bed.
Do I dare, she wondered?
No. No. It was too risky by far.
And yet she wanted to, so badly. It might not be so dangerous, she thought. Fred seemed to be asleep. And Fred usually slept soundly, once he dropped off. All she had to do was slip out of the bed, tiptoe downstairs, enter Donovan's bedroom. He would be waiting for her, and the candle of his lust would be lit, and she could quench its fire with her willing body.
So easy.
Yet so impossible.
Caution had to rule. There was too mucn to lose, so little really to gain. A tumble in bed, a bit of sweaty grappling, a moment of passion, a spasm of ecstasy-that was all fine, but not worth the risk. If Fred awoke, if he missed her, if he came downstairs and found her under Jack Donovan's waiting body, there would be hell to pay. Suppose he divorced her? She'd be alone. She couldn't marry Jack; Jack had a wife of his own, kids. She would have no money, no property, not even a settlement from Fred. She'd be out on her own at the age of thirty-three, trying to start her life over.
Na, She couldn't risk it.
She had to lie here, with the fire raging in her and Jack Donovan only a few moments away, and she had to force herself not to want him.
Fred had wanted her. But she had refused him. Maybe that had been a mistake, Janet thought. Making love to Fred would have eased the craving in her. After all, she had responded to Fred two weeks ago, so why not now? So long as she closed her eyes and pretended it was Jack who was doing it to her-
But that seemed filthy. To pretend, with the real Jack downstairs-no, she couldn't do that. It was weird to think of deceiving your lover by sleeping with your own husband, but Janet had not been able to do that. To soothe her forbidden lusts by engaging in licit passion.
She put her hands over her body. She felt the warmth, the palpitation.
She burrowed into the pillow, pulled the covers high above her head, and struggled to squash the lustful thoughts that were assailing her. A long time later, she dipped into an uneasy sleep.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next morning, just before noon, the telephone rang. Markell had arranged that with his switchboard girl on Friday afternoon.
The three of them had been sitting in the living room, killing the morning in front of another blazing fire. Janet answered the telephone.
"It's for you," she said, handing the phone to Markell. "A girl from your office. Calling from New York."
"Must be trouble," Markell muttered.
He took the phone, spoke into it briefly. Across the room, Janet and Donovan were laughing over some joke. Markell exchanged a few words with the girl, then hung up. He walked over to join the other two.
"Sorry, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to be a lousy host today, people," he said with a shrug. "That was my secretary calling me. It seems there's been some stupid legal foul-up in a title closing, and I've got to go to the city right away."
"Can't it wait till Monday, Fred?" Janet asked.
"I wish it could," Markell said. "But it can't. If I'm not there by three o'clock this afternoon, they're going to void the contract. Which means forfeiture of all fees, surveying costs, the escrow account, and whatnot. I'll be out about five thousand, altogether. I don't have any choice but to go."
"Sounds messy," Donovan said.
"Messier than I like to think about," Markell replied.
Donovan chuckled. "Well, I guess Janet and I can hold the fort while you're away, Fred."
"Yes," Markell said. "The two of you will just have to manage without me. Play gin rummy, or something. Honeymoon bridge. It's a hell of a thing to do, skipping out on a weekend guest this way, but it can't be helped. You understand that, Jack."
"Of course. Naturally."
"How long will you be away?" Janet asked.
Markell shrugged. "The conference will last at least a couple of hours, as a rock bottom estimate. And then it'll take me about an hour or so to get back home.
Figure I'll be back here between six-thirty and seven o'clock. Probably no later than seven, and certainly no earlier than half past six. Wait dinner for me, will you?"
He studied their faces carefully as he spoke.
But Janet and Donovan seemed to be pitying him for having to go out into the wintery cold and engage in business shenanigans on a Saturday, when he could be home and comfortable by the fireside. But they were making no attempt to talk him out of going to the city. They seemed quite prepared to while away the next five or six hours without his presence.
He slipped into his warm winter coat. "I'm on my way," he announced.
"Want me to drive you down to the railway station, dear?" Janet asked.
"You won't need to. I'll walk."
"But there's snow on the ground."
"I don't mind. It isn't that much of a walk, you know. I'll survive." He waved cheerily at them. "See you at dinner time," he said. "Don't get into any mischief, now."
He left the house. It was a little past one o'clock, on a cold, blustery day. It was an eight-block walk to the station. He set out jauntily through the cold.
In the house, Janet and Jack Donovan stared at each other in surprise.
"He's gone," Janet said.
"I'll be damned. He just got up and left us here alone. I'll be goddamned."
Janet said, "Aren't you glad we didn't try anything last night? It was so risky then, and we would have been so afraid of getting caught that we wouldn't have enjoyed it. And now we have the whole afternoon together. Alone in front of the fire."
"Is it safe though?"
"Why shouldn't it be?"
"Maybe it's some kind of trick," Donovan said. "God, you're suspicious!"
"I'm having an affair with my friend's wife. It's the kind of situation that could blow up in my face at any second. I just think there might be a trick in it."
"There can't be," Janet said. "It was a genuine call. I recognized his secretary's voice."
"Even so-"
Janet laughed mockingly. "Please, Jack. You give my husband credit for much more deviousness than he really has. He's not all that Machiavellian, believe me."
They sat there in silence for a while.
Janet said, "Aren't you even going to kiss me, now that we're alone?"
Donovan's face was dark, troubled. "Wait," he said.
"Wait? For what,"
"Just wait. He's only been gone ten minutes."
"You think he's hiding in the bushes, spying on us," Janet asked lightly.
"I don't know He may come back, that's all He may decide he doesn't want to walk to the station after all. Eight blocks in the snow-"
"He's a good walker," Janet said. "He's probably at the station by now."
"Maybe he'll come back."
"God!" Janet exploded. "I never knew you were such an old maid, Jack. I thought you were big, bold, a brave seducer. And you sit there snivelling with tear."
Donovan scowled at her. "Listen," he said, "I'm in another man's house, and he's got every right to come back and blow my brains out if he catches me sleeping with you, and for all I know that's exactly what he plans to do."
Janet laughed. "Last night I was the cautious one, and you were all set for action Remember how you nagged me to come down to your room after he fell asleep?"
"That's different."
"How, different?"
"A sleeping husband's one thing. We know where he is and what he's doing But a husband out of the house-a husband who might come busting in at any second with a gun in his hand-"
"Don't be asinine. Fred's no cowboy."
"I'm not taking chances."
"God," Janet said. "You mean to say I'm going to sit here alone with you all afternoon and be a perfect lady for six hours or so? I'll go out of my mind, Jack. I'll crack up."
Donovan smiled. "It isn't that bad," he said. "At least let's give him a half hour or so. What time does the next train leave for New York, anyway?"
"Hold on I'll check the timetable." Janet went into the kitchen, returning a moment later. "There was a train at 1:06."
"He couldn't have made it. He didn't leave in time.
When's the next one."
"1:32," she said. "Ten minutes from now."
"Okay. Let's wait a little while. Let's give him a chance to get on the train and go."
They waited.
They had a couple of drinks. They had a couple more. The fire died down, and Donovan built it up again.
They waited some more.
Finally Donovan said, "All right. I guess it's safe. He isn't going to pop in and surprise us."
"Hooray I"
"Come here, baby."
"Hooray, hooray!" Janet said.
A moment later she was in his arms.
Their kiss was a deep, passionate one, doubly inflamed because of the long time they had spent in the house together, unable to go near one another. His tongue sank deep into her mouth, and his hands covered her breasts, squeezing them, savoring the high-peaked firmness of them.
He started to take her sweater off.
She put her hands over his, pulled them away. "No," she said. "Not here."
"Why not?"
"Ground floor. People could look in."
"Well draw the blinds."
"No. Let's go upstairs. The bedroom."
"Whatever you say," Donovan shrugged. They raced up the stairs. Janet maneuvered herself out in front, and got to the bedroom ahead of him. She flew in, went bouncing down on the bed.
"A whole afternoon together!" she cried joyfully. "A whole goddamn afternoon!"
"And we've already wasted half of it," he said.
"Stop grumbling You were the one who wanted to wait so long, remember?"
"Sure. Sure."
He began to undress her. Garment by garment, he stripped her, pausing to cover each newly exposed area of skin with kisses before going on to the next. Soon Janet trembled with excitement. She lay back, letting his capable hands work on her body She was nude, now. Her nipples were fully aroused, and there was eagerness in her body.
She undressed him, then.
Their clothes formed a double heap on the floor.
She locked her body against his. They kissed again, passionately, and slid tight against one another, and his hands went to her breasts, to her buttocks, her thighs.
They were in no hurry now. They caressed each other for a while, neither of them rushing on to the consummation of their passion. When they had been petting for a while, Janet felt restlessness come over her She left the bed, rose, walked nude to the bedroom window.
She stood by the open blinds, looking out. The bedroom faced back. There was the garage, and then emptiness, an undeveloped tract, so she had no need to cover herself. It was snow-white outside, but no new snow was falling.
Donovan came up behind her. He slid his hands over her breasts.
"Come back to bed," he murmured.
"Coax me. Beg me."
"The hell with that. I order you!"
She turned, and laughed at him. "Tough guy. A little while ago you were scared green Fred might bust in on you, but now you're the boss again."
"That's right. I'm the boss. And you watch out or I'll show you who calls the tune around here."
"Big shot!" she taunted him.
"I'm warning you," he said, breaking into a grin.
She stuck her tongue out at him. She put her thumbs in her ears and flapped her fingers at him.
"Okay, girlie," he said ominously. "You asked for it, and you're going to get it."
He reached out for her. She tried to dart away, but he was faster than she would have thought likely for such a big man, and he caught her by one wrist and drew her to him with ease. She struggled, but there was no escaping from his powerful grip.
He tossed her down on the bed, face down. And held her there. Janet kicked and thrashed, half in fun and half in annoyance, but she was unable to free herself.
"Now," he said resonantly. "Now you suffer, white slave! Now you experience torment! Now you quake in agony and terror!"
He lifted his hand high.
He brought it down, squarely across her exposed, upturned buttocks.
There was a loud whacking sound as hard palm connected with soft, quivering cheek. Janet yelped. Donovan laughed. He slapped her again.
"Hey, cut that out, Tarzan!"
"Me boss. You slave," he grunted. "Okay, I agree, but-"
Up went the open hand. And down. The flesh of her buttocks trembled as the slap landed. Up and down again. And again. And again.
He was hurting her. Janet felt tears flooding into her eyes as the spanking continued. And yet there was that strange mixture of pleasure and pain, again. Her fanny felt red hot, it hurt terrifically, and yet-and yet she didn't want him to stop. No. She wanted him to punish her, to turn her buttocks flaming red, to shower slap after slap on the bare, tender, upturned flesh.
He did.
He was breathing hard, practically grunting now, and it was no longer an act. His hand descended with the rhythm of a spanking machine. Janet turned and looked at him, and saw his face flushed with excitement, his nostrils flaring, and it seemed to her that never before had he been this aroused.
He pounded her buttocks brutally, fiercely, wildly. But then, after a moment, sanity seemed to return to him, and he paused, breathing hard.
"Am I hurting you, Janet?"
"Yes, but don't stop!"
"You enjoy it?"
"Yes! Yes!"
He rained blows down on her again. But now he varied his target, slapping her now on the back of her thighs, now on her buttocks, now in the small of her back. Each stinging slap brought new sensations of pleasure to her. There was a tightness in her throat, a throbbing in her. She lay face down, twisting and wriggling and pressing herself against the bedding.
Then he said hoarsely, "I want you, Janet. Now!"
"Of course."
She started to turn over. But, to her surprise, he held her in place.
"No," he said. "This way."
"I don't understand-"
"You want to experiment, don't your You want to know all the ways of love?"
"Yes! Yes!"
"All right, then," he said. "Trust me. Even if it hurts at first. Trust me."
His hands were on her now, and Janet felt him kneeling above her, felt him approaching her.
Then she caught her breath in surprise as she became aware of him at the portal of her body, and realized what he was going to do.
"Jack!" she cried out in fear.
The next instant he took her.
He drove himself with savage ferocity, and Janet let out a wail of pain in the first blazing moment and sent unbelievable, unendurable agony through her. But the first moment was the worst. Her nerves accommodated to the pain, and an instant later she shivered as pleasurable surges went through her entire frame.
His weight was on her. She drew herself up, rising to her knees, and she pressed back against him, driving him, gasping at the magnitude of the new, undreamed-of experience.
He clasped himself against her. He put his hands on her swaying, dangling breasts and gripped them tight.
Sweat drenched her. Strange new emotions were swirling through her dizzied brain. The tense circumstances of the entire weekend, with Jack and her husband both here, the mystery of his departure, the excitement of the spanking, the blazing pain of his taking her, all combined to build into a new, an overwhelming kind of ecstasy.
She gave herself to him with furious intensity. Again and again she pressed backward against him. The pain was fantastic, but the pleasure was far keener than anything she had known before. She had heard of this kind of love, had seen mention of it in oblique, mysterious ways, but she had never practiced it, had never even wanted to, had had only the faintest of curiosity about it, and now, as her entire body throbbed with passionate sensations, she was glad beyond all reckoning that she had given in, that she had surrendered this other virginity of hers to his, that she had been able to experience this incredible pinwheeling ecstasy.
"How is it?" he asked her, his voice choked wkfc passion.
"Marvelous! Marvelous!"
"Does it hurt?"
"Only a little. But it's so good, Jack. I can't tell you how good."
"I'm glad," he said.
He had one hand on her breasts, squeezing them, laying with the rock-hard nipples. The other hand traveled down the front of her body, and she felt him touching her, and she thought she would go out of her mind completely as pleasure reached her from three zones at once.
She gasped her way to one peak, and then another, and then a third. She closed her eyes, digging her hands into the pillow, practically shredding it, and crouched down, moving her body from side to side, swiveling and pivoting, and she wondered how long it could go on, how much more before the man imprisoned in her reached his fulfullment, how much more before her own brain burned out from an overload of ecstasy.
But Donovan seemed inexhaustible. Higher and higher they surged, higher, ever higher.
Janet experienced surge after surge of pleasure. She thought fleetingly of the women she knew, her friends, those placid wealthy suburban women, and wondered if any of them had ever known a tenth, a hundredth of this ecstasy in the years of their lives.
No, she thought.
This kind of pleasure was reserved for a special few. For the seekers, for the sinners.
She could hear Donovan whimpering, now. He was obviously at the limits of his endurance.
"Go ahead, my darling," she surged. "Go on! Don't hold back!"
He went rigid. The next moment, there was a new sensation, and she knew he had spent himself in a shudder of delight.
But still he moved, still he wanted to give her pleasure. And still Janet responded.
And then, suddenly, right in the middle of another climb to the peaks of delirious delight, Janet froze, and all passion left her.
She had heard the door open.
Someone had come into the room.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Fred Markell had been tor a walk.
He had walked the eight blocks down to the station, getting there just in time to see the 1:06 for New York depart, moments before. The next train was at 1:32, but he had no intention whatever of waiting for it. He circled the station and headed back toward his house.
But not the way he came. He took Laurel Crescent, the undeveloped road that ran up the rear way From Laurel Crescent he could enter his own property from the back, crossing the rear yard and getting unnoticed to the garage.
From the garage, he could watch the house.
Warily, Markell moved through the quiet afternoon, through the deserted, snow-covered area. No one lived back here yet. The property had been sold recently, and the developers would be around with their bulldozers in the spring to put up a row of their flimsy little frame boxes, but as of now the tract was empty.
Ideal territory for skulking through. He could see his house, now, imposing in the center of its plot, its gables white with snow. The house was just another couple of hundred yards ahead.
He stepped through the closely planted, snow-congested hedges onto his grounds, and made his way through the rear yard toward the garage. He glanced at his watch. He had been gone a little more than half an hour, now. Plenty of time for mischief to get started, it it ever was going to get started.
The garage had two entrances; the main one for cars, and a small door in the side. He unlocked the side door and went in.
It was a detached garage, set back about seventy feet from the house. The garage was on the biggish side, a two-story garage, with room for two big cars on the ground floor and a couple of rooms as a storage area and a rumpus room if they ever had children. The single window in the front of the garage apartment gave a good view of the back of the Markell house.
And the bedrooms were in the back of the house. Looking out, he could see the bedroom windows.
Markell pulled up an empty box and settled down to watch.
The one thing he was afraid of was a mistake in timing. He didn't want to make his entry too early or too late. Give them time, lots of time, he thought All the time in the world. He hoped they wouldn't do it on the living room couch or down in the cellar or someplace like that, someplace that would be invisible from his vantage-point.
He waited.
Half an hour crawled by. He caught sight of Janet, once, fully dressed, going into the kitchen for something, probably getting ice-cubes. She didn't look toward the kitchen windows, but even Markell ducked down out of sight, watching her with one eye. A moment later she was gone from sight.
Fifteen minutes later, Donovan was briefly visible in one of the other rear windows. He was fully dressed, too.
It would be a whopping anticlimax, Markell thought, if nothing at all happened. Of course, he could go through with his plans anyway. But that idea left him chilled. He doubted that he could carry out such a cold-blooded act. But somehow he clung to his original confidence that everything would happen as he predicted.
He continued to wait.
It was three o'clock, now.
It was fiercely cold in the unheated garage, and he was shivering, his lips going blue in the cold. He hugged himself for warmth and wondered what the hell was taking Donovan so long. Surely two hours ought to be enough time to get things started.
And then he saw what he was waiting to see.
Janet was looking out one of the back windows of the bedrooms. And she was nude.
Markell ducked down out of sight again, lifting his head warily. He looked again. She hadn't bothered to draw the blinds, of course-there was nobody back here to see, she would have reasoned. And there she was. He could see her small breasts, her swelling hips. All of her, on full display.
And there was Donovan, dimly visible behind her. Naked also.
This was it, Markell thought. He wouldn't have to stage anything. They had done exactly what he had wanted them to do.
He studied his watch. Give them five minutes, he though. No more.
He let five minutes tick past. Five eternities.
He left the garage and quietly moved toward the house. The safety was off his gun. He had bought the gun several years ago, when he and Janet had first moved this far out of the city. He had argued then that out here, in a wealthy suburban town, they were a natural prey for burglars, especially when the nearest house was a few hundred feet away. Some kind of protection was necessary.
He had never used the gun. But he hadn't forgotten how. Even though his Army days were in the pretty distant past, he hadn't forgotten. It wasn't something you forgot easily. He still remembered which end of a gun you were supposed to point at the target.
He entered the house silently. He tiptoed up the stairs.
He hesitated for a moment outside the bedroom door. He could hear the sounds from within, the passionate gasps, the whooping cries of pleasure, the eager encouragement, the erotic moans and sobs. Blood flooded to his brain, and he felt dizzy as he stood there with the bedsprings creaking maddeningly through his mind.
My wife, he thought. And my friend.
Jack. Janet.
Jealousy rolled like a sweeping tide through him, and he was nearly swept away by it Nearly.
He realized that his frame of mind was all wrong, that he had no business feeling jealousy, that he shouldn't give a damn about Janet, about Jack. They were just obstacles in his path. They had ceased to have any relevance to him as human beings. They were roadblocks, standing between him and Anita, and they had to be overturned.
He listened to the sounds from within.
He listened to his wife's ecstatic voice crying in a harlot's wall, "Go ahead, my darling I Go onl Don't hold back!"
He listened to the grunting and the moaning and the pounding of flesh against flesh.
He pushed open the bedroom door.
There they were, on the bed. The marital bed, Markell thought with a pang. They were both nude. Their bodies were intertwined passionately.
Bestially.
He hadn't been prepared for the way they would be. He had expected to find them in a sexual embrace, but not like this. Not with Janet lying face down, and Donovan pressing against her.
Somehow, the sight of the two of them in their unnatural position gave Markell a great sensation of relief. It seemed to provide him with a justification for the thing he was about to do.
They hadn't noticed him yet.
Markell lifted the gun.
It was dangerous to hesitate now. Dangerous to stop and think.
They saw him. Janet first.
"Oh, no!" she cried, looking over her shoulder at the man in the doorway. "No!"
A moment later Donovan was climbing off her, leaving the bed, getting to his feet. The man looked dazed and bewildered. Janet lay where she was, her outraged buttocks pointing insolently at Markell.
Donovan shook his head, gestured foolishly with his hand as though to ward off the shot.
"For God's sake, Fred!" Donovan yelled hoarsely. "Fred, are you crazy? Don't!"
Markell squeezed the trigger, taking a kind of pleasure in doing it.
There was a monstrous explosion. The bullet smashed into Donovan's throat, and he stood huddled together in the middle of the floor for a moment, scratching at the irritation in his throat. Then he dropped over onto the floor, gurgling and spouting blood.
Janet screamed.
Then she oame rushing toward him, her naked breasts jouncing and jiggling, a wild, suicidal rush, an insane charge. Perhaps she was hoping to confuse him, to daze him long enough to save her own life.
She ran up to him. Markell put his hand between her breasts and shoved her violently away from him. She went staggering back, arms pinwheeling.
"Fred! No!" Janet screamed. "No!"
He fired.
It was so easy to pull the trigger. The slug drilled a hole between the round little swells of her breasts, and the impact of the shot slammed her back against the bed. She fell over onto it, her legs dangling to the floor, her head back.
He lifted the gun again, targeted it on the taut whiteness of her belly. But he did not fire. The shot would rip her open, would scatter blood all over the room. He couldn't do that. He didn't want gore everywhere.
Besides, it was unnecessary. She was dead already. He walked over to her, and saw the hole between her breasts, and touched his hand to her. Her eyes were wide open, glassy, staring.
He turned her over. He looked for a long moment at her buttocks. He could see the signs of the bestial love-making that had been taking place. He flipped her over again, and she slumped down limply, like a discarded doll.
He looked at Donovan. Was he alive? No, impossible. The shot had sliced right through his throat, had smashed his spinal cord. He had died within seconds. He looked beefy ridiculous as he lay there, the dead Don Juan, nothing more than useless meat now.
Markell was quivering violently. He wanted to rush into the bathroom and retch. But he held the impulse back, swallowing furiously.
He put the gun down. On numb legs he walked down the hallway, picked up the extension phone.
He dialed the operator. "Hello," he said, "Give me the police."
He waited. A bored-sounding voice said, "Police headquarters."
"Hello," Markell said strangely calm now. "My name is Fred Markell. I live up by the end of Harcourt Crescent. I just came home and found my wife in bed with my best friend. I shot them both. I think they're dead."
Anita was asleep. It was Sunday morning, so far as she was concerned, but for the rest of New York City k was Sunday afternoon. She and Joyce had been up almost till dawn, first at a party attended only by call-girls, then at Anita's apartment, together and alone, for some riotous lovemaking.
Now it was three in the afternoon. Anita had been asleep since eight that morning. She stirred, now. Without opening her eyes, she groped in the bed for Joyce, but found no one there.
She was alone.
There was not even any warmth in the bed where Joyce had been sleeping.
Anita opened her eyes. There was a note pinned to the pillow. It was dated two p.m.
"Went out for groceries and the paper," Joyce had scrawled. "I'll be back soon. Don't go away."
Anita smiled and let herself relax. She had been worried, for a moment. But Joyce would be back. Good. They had a whole long wonderful Sunday to spend together, hour after blissful hour.
Yawning, Anita got out of bed, stretched, stood by the window to touch her toes. Five, ten, fifteen toe-touches, her breasts swaying and bouncing gaily every time she swooped floorward. Her lithe body easily went through the maneuvers of the calisthenics.
It was a great life, she thought.
Great to be young, great to be healthy. Great to be good-looking and making good money.
Great to be in love.
Smiling, Anita walked into the bathroom, got under the shower, began to scrub herself. She enjoyed taking showers. She loved the hard bristles of the scrubbing-brush against the tenderness of her buttocks and thighs, she loved the feel of the needle spray against her breasts and nipples, she relished the cascades of cool water hitting her eyelids and lips.
As she showered, she thought about last night's party. It had been wild, all right. Really wild.
There had been a dozen girls there, altogether. Six couples. The party took place at the sprawling, posh Beekman Place pad of a former call girl who now, at forty, still had all her old beauty and vigor, but who had retired, and who, thanks to some smart investments managed for her by a couple of her Johns, was a millionaire.
Anita had never seen a place like it. Seven rooms, with woodburning fireplaces in master bedroom and living room, not one but two terraces, a river view, the finest in furnishings and draperies-
And the bed.
That round bed, fifteen feet in diameter, that enormous bed in the middle of that even more enormous bedroom, that bed big enough to hold a regiment-
The bed had been busy all during the party. It had taken a while for everyone to unbend enough to put their inhibitions away, but once that point had been reached, the bed had been in constant action as couple after Lesbian couple crawled in to use it. The party had started with all of the girls wearing their most elegant clothes, with every hair smoothly in place. But then the hostess, Maria, had started serving her special punch-champagne spiked with tequila-and before long inhibitions had gone with the wind. By midnight, nearly everyone was half-nude and disheveled, with breasts practically bare and hair rumpled.
And the fun, and the games!
They had played spin-the-bottle, the twelve of them, only the way Maria played it, the rules were a bit different. You spun the bottle, and whoever it pointed at was yours to kiss, as always. But you could choose the part of the body you wanted to administer the kiss to, and the recipient had no choice but to uncover it and let it be kissed. The first few spinners went for relatively conventional places-right nipple, left buttock-but then things got wilder, and more intimate places were called for, until it became a matter of kissing the intimate place only, and every girl in the place had her skirts up and her panties down, and the game degenerated into a sex spree forthwith.
And there were other games, too.
Maria had invited a couple of other friends, besides the original twelve, to stop up and visit the party. And these friends came in, around half past two in the morning. Unlike the other guests, these two weren't call girls. They weren't even girls.
They were men-at least by definition.
One of them was a tall, blond-haired young man with pale blue eyes and an angelic, Botticellian face. He looked like he was about twenty, but the word was that he was a good ten years older than that.
The other man was as short and dark as his companion was tall and fair. He was a little, stocky, balding man with hard, piercing eyes and a powerful jaw, whose aggressive masculine appearance was marred totally by his weak, simpering mouth.
The two of them came in, hand in hand. They stared about them at the dozen girls in the room. Some of the girls were completely nude, by this time. Others wore only panties, or only a bra, or only garter-belt and stockings. There wasn't one girl in the room who would not have been arrested on any public beach in the United States if she appeared in her present costume.
The two men stared at this array. Shock registered on their sensitive faces.
The blond said, "You didn't tell us this was going to be an all-girl party, Maria!"
"Well, it is," the hostess drawled. "But you boys ought to be right at home here. Nobdy's going to make any passes at you tonight. Nobody of either sex."
The short balding fairy simpered. The tall blond one still looked uncomfortable.
But they joined the fun and frolics, and sampled the tequila punch, and managed to hide any revulsion they might be feeling at the sight of so many female breasts in such casual array. Before lone they were as relaxed and cheerful as any of the Lesbians.
"Give us a show!" Maria suggested some time later.
"Yes," the others echoed. "A show! A show!"
The boys were reluctant. The boys were horrified. But a little while later the boys were very drunk, and the boys were taking off their clothes, and then the boys were caressing each other and making love to each other while the girls sat in a circle around them and watched in fascination.
Nor did the festivities end there. Because an hour later, one of the girls, a plump, sexy brunette named Liz, came up to the blond fag, whose name was Thom, and said to him, "How'd you like to have me right now?"
Thom reeled drunkenly and said, "Are you out of your ever-lovin' mind?"
"Nope. I'm offering myself."
"I haven't had a woman since I was fifteen, and I don't plan to try it again," Thom declared loudly.
The plump girl laughed. "Oh, I don't mean the regular way, silly! That's so dull! I mean, do it to me the way you just did it to your friend there-"
She turned around, showing him the pink rounded swells of her posterior.
The idea was wildly applauded. Thorn was hesitant, but just druak enough to go through with it. After all, as Maria pointed out to him, one backside was pretty much like another backside, regardless of sex. And if Thorn's friend didn't mind-
Thorn's friend didn't mind. Thorn's friend was delighted, as a matter-of-fact, to be a witness.
So Liz presented her lush buttocks and Thom had her, to his apparent delight, in front of everyone. Anita clapped her hands in pleasure at the sight, and when it was over she and Joyce hotfooted it for the big bedroom and the big round bed to work off some of the tensions and desires they had built up while watching the provocative display.
Oh, it was a wild party, all right. One of the wildest Anita had ever been at. And now it was the morning after, or, rather, the afternoon after.
She came out of the shower and dried herself off, and flopped down on the couch to wait for Joyce. A moment later, Joyce's key turned in the door, and there she was, arms laden with bundles. A newspaper stuck out of the top of one grocery bag.
"Hi," Joyce called. "When'd you get up?"
"A little while ago. I just took a shower."
"Hangover?"
"Not much."
"Me neither. It's beautiful out," Joyce said. "Cold, but not windy."
"Did it snow again?"
"No," Joyce said. "Not this time," She put her packages down and shrugged out of her coat. Anita, nude, crossed the room toward her, kissed her lightly. Joyce put one cold hand delicately over Anita's bare breasts, for a quick, gentle squeeze.
Anita said, "I wonder how those two faggot boys are feeling this morning?"
Joyce giggled. "They really had themselves a workout last night!"
"Have you ever had a man have you that way?" Anita asked.
Joyce nodded. "Three or four times. I hate it. I charge $50 for it. What about you?"
Anita shrugged. "Only once. It was interesting, but I'm not sure I'd like to do it again. It-hey, what the hell is this?"
"What?"
"Here. In the paper."
She had opened the tabloid, and had been leafing idly through it as she spoke. Now she pointed to a headline on the third page.
KILLS WIFE AND BEST FRIEND; 'FOUND THEM IN BED' HE SAYS
"What about it?" Joyce asked.
Anita shook her head. "This guy who killed his wife, Fred Markell. You see his picture here? He's one of my regulars. Every Tuesday and Friday. I'll be damned. I'll be goddamned!"
"Did he seem like a murderer to you?"
"No," Anita said. "He was a pretty nice guy, I thought. He said he didn't like his wife, that she was a frigid witch, but he didn't act like he was crazy."
Anita stared. "He cancelled his Friday session with me. Said he was having a house-guest for the weekend. Must have been the guest that he knocked off. I'll be damned," Anita said again. She chuckled. "Such a quiet guy, too. You never can tell about any of them. You just never can tell, can you?"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
There was a trial, of course.
It caused a local sensation, and kept the New York tabloids buzzing for a week or so about the "Westchester businessman" who had done in his wife and her lover.
Markell testified that he had left his house on business that Saturday afternoon, but had felt a twinge of nausea at the railroad station, a sudden stab of pain in his stomach.
"I figured I was coming down with indigestion," he said. "And since I had missed my tram anyway, I didn't think it made sense to stand around on the platiorm and get really sick. So I headed back home."
"You walked?"
"Yes. I walked."
"And what time did you get back to your house?"
"Oh, I don't know," Markell said. "I suppose around two o'clock."
"Tell us what happened when you came home."
"I had left my wife and Donovan in the living room. But there was no sign of them. I called, but I didn't hear anything. I was puzzled by that. So I went upstairs."
"Did you have any reason to think they would be upstairs?"
"Reason? No reason. It was just that they weren't downstairs, so I thought they'd be upstairs."
"Did you suspect they might have gone upstairs for the purpose of intercourse, Mr. Markell?"
"No. I mean, the thought was hardly uppermost in my mind. I never thought Janet would-"
"All right. Tell us what happened when you got to the second floor."
"I stopped at the landing. I listened. And I heard sounds."
"Describe the sounds, please."
"Sounds of passion. Sounds of sex. Very explicit sounds. I could hear the bedsprings creaking, and I heard them sighing and panting and moaning. And I heard my wife say something to him."
"Do you remember what she said?"
"Not literally. She was telling him not to hold back, to go ahead and enjoy himself."
"And then?"
"And then I went to the bedroom door. I stood there for a couple of seconds, not really believing my own ears. Finally I threw the door open and went in."
"Describe what you saw, please."
"They were both naked. On the bed. Our bed. They were-they were making love."
"Will you describe the scene in detail?"
"The way it really was?"
"Yes. Certainly."
"It's rather-rather revolting."
"The testimony is important, Mr. Markell."
"All right," Markell said. "My wife was lying on her stomach, with her buttocks up. And Donovan was on top of her. He was having her in-in an unconventional way. An abnormal way."
"Be more specific, please."
"Anally," Markell said. "Is that specific enough?"
"Yes. Go on. Tell us what you felt."
"Shock, of course. And anger. And disgust. It was not only the fact that they were making love, deceiving me the moment I left them alone, you see. It was the way they were doing it. The position. It was so abnormal, so disgusting. To think that my own wife-" Markell looked down. It was a moment before he could go on. Finally he said, "I rushed to the dresser drawer. There was a gun in there. I grabbed the gun. I was berserk. Donovan got up off the bed and started to come toward me. I shot him in the throat. Then Janet ran at me. I was out of my mind. I pushed her away from me, and as she started to fall backward I shot her in the chest. I shot each of them only once."
"And then what did you do?"
"I called the police," Markell said.
There were some holes in his story, of course, but only he knew about them, and they were less obvious to the others. There was, for one thing, the fact that he had left to go to the station at one o'clock, that he had missed the 1:06 train, and that he had killed Janet and Donovan a little after three in the afternoon. That left almost two hours to be accounted for.
He couldn't tell them that he had hidden in the garage for most of that time, waiting for the right opportunity to run into the house and shoot the guilty pair. That would have introduced an element of premediation into the act that might send him to prison for more years than he cared to think about. So he had to gamble it, gamble that the medical examiners would be unable to tell the exact hour of death, gamble that no one would press him too hard about the time sequence of the entire afternoon.
No one did. That point was glossed over completely by the prosecution.
There was also the possibility that someone might have seen him skulking around in his own back yard just before the killings or going into his garage. He had to risk it. No witnesses were produced.
There was also the troublesome thought that Anita might be brought to the stand. If the prosecution could say, "This man had a mistress. Here she is. He was eager to marry her, but he had no way of obtaining an easy divorce, so he trumped up this act of passion to get rid of her," it could mean the electric chair for him.
But no one had traced his connection with Anita. So far as anyone knew, he had been a perfectly faithful husband. The only person who was aware of his infidelity was Jack Donovan, and Jack Donovan was in no position to testify, to name names and suggest motives.
So Markell slid by.
Janet's psychiatrist was called to the stand, and reluctantly testified to the dead woman's instability. He did a lot of carping about professional ethics, but finally allowed him to reveal the fact that Janet had been considering taking a lover.
"Did she ever name this lover, Dr. Gerber?"
"You must realize that matters discussed in a psychoanalyst's office are as confidential as those of the confessional," Dr. Gerber said coldly.
"Yes, but did she name this lover she was considering taking?"
Dr. Gerber made a sour face. "She said he was an old friend of her husband's."
"Was his name Jack Donovan, Doctor?"
"Yes. Yes. Donovan."
So it was established that Janet had regularly been cuckolding her husband for a period of time. Gerber finally admitted that Janet had not only been considering adultery, she had been practicing it for a good many weeks.
That was an important point. It removed the possibility that someone might suggest Markell had staged the whole affair, gunning down his wife and his friend, stripping them, and making it seem like an act of sudden madness.
The local police testified that the victims had indeed been nude and in bed when shot.
The coroner testified that relations had been taking place between the victims just prior to their death. He gave a full report, which the tabloids gobbled up, even though they could not print the details but were forced merely to hint at "abnormalities." The coroner described in clinical terms, the observations he had made of the dead woman's body, and of the dead man's body. He offered as his conclusion the definite assertion that sexual relations of an abnormal sort had taken place between Janet Markell and Jack Donovan in the moments just prior to their death.
On and on went the parade of evidence. The trial was only a formality. The prosecution had no case, and knew it, and hardly even made an effort. It was a clear case of justifiable homicide, wife and her lover caught in the act, and the District Attorney had no mind to fight against the prevailing sentiments.
The jury was out no more than half an hour.
"Have you reached your verdict, Mr. Foreman?" the judge wanted to know.
At that moment Markell felt his most severe stab of tension. But, as he held his breath painfully and waited, out came the verdict.
"Your Honor, we find the defendant, Frederick Markell, guilty of second-degree manslaughter under extreme provocation. It is the recommendation of this jury that leniency be observed in passing sentence upon him."
Markell rejoiced. At the very worst, he'd have to spend a short time behind bars. But his lawyer was more confident even than that, and the confidence was soon justified, when the sentence was announced. A two-year sentence, it was-suspended.
A month after he had murdered his wife and his friend, Fred Markell walked out of court a free man.
He had big plans.
During the month of legal maneuvering, he had carefully kept away from Anita. He had no doubt that the District Attorney was keeping tabs on him while he was out on bail, and he didn't want to give the prosecution any reason to think that he might have wanted to be rid of his wife. But he waited until a proper interval had passed. He kept away from her, as the days passed. He didn't even call her. He went through agonies of doubt, of jealousy, but he staunchly refrained from any contacts with her.
He spent his time trying to reestablish his normal life. It wasn't easy. A man who has publicly admitted murdering his wife is bound to get some curious stares from his friends and associates. Going through the average business day was a chore. People were forever looking at him. Conversations were always awkward, stilted, as though everyone wanted to ask him, "Well, what did it feel like to shoot her? Were you nervous? What was it like, anyway?"
No one dared to ask. No one so much as mentioned the fact that he had once had a wife.
He closed up the big house in Westchester, and took a small apartment in Manhattan, in the upper 90's on the East Side. A couple of real estate brokers phoned him, offering to represent him if he cared to sell the house, but he brushed them off.
"It's not for sale," he explained. "I just don't feel like living there now."
"Of course. Of course. A terrible tragedy, Mr. Markell."
"Yes," he said, and got rid of them.
He had told the truth. He didn't feel like living alone in a big old house. There was time to move back there later, when he had remarried.
When he had married Anita.
But he had promised himself not to see her or even talk to her until three weeks after his trial. It was a difficult time. He lived an austere, ascetic life.
The only break from his austerity and asceticism came one night, about two weeks after his release. It was a calm January night, and he left his apartment for a stroll, and as he passed Lexington Avenue and 91st Street, he saw a figure in a doorway, a young woman.
She said, "Want a good time, mister?"
She was a Puerto Rican, no more than 19 or 20, and she was very pretty, despite her shabby clothes. She smiled at him, showing dazzlingly white teeth, and said, "Ten dollars, mister. Come on. You look lonely."
Markell studied her, hesitating. He was afraid of disease, afraid of a trap of some kind, afraid of being observed. What the hell, though; he was hard up, he hadn't had anything for weeks, and he wanted her. It was still another full week before he could go to Anita.
This relief would make it easier for him to last out the remaining span of time. "All right," he said.
The girl grinned. She took him by the arm, led him into a nearby tenement. She had a room on the ground floor. A baby lay sleeping in a dilapidated cradle, right in the room where the bed was.
"Ten dollars?" she said hopefully.
Markell gave her the money. She lay down on the bed, pulled her skirt up around her waist, then hiked it still higher.
She was nude underneath. Her body was slim and well formed, and she looked clean. At the sight of her dark nakedness, Markell felt a sudden surge of powerful desire, the abstinence of the past weeks coming to a head now in furious need.
He opened his clothes. He threw himself on her.
He cupped her cool buttocks, her small firm breasts. There was milk in her breasts, he was sure. They were such hard breasts, so swollen.
Her body rose to meet his. Eagerly, he buried himself in the warmth of her.
There was no question of finesse, none of love-making. He wanted quick relief, while she wanted nothing more than a chance to get rapidly back to the street and hunt for the next buyer. Her body moved, hips twisting artfully He grabbed her buttocks, pulled her against him, and in fast motions reached the tingling peak of sensation, and a moment later achieved his release.
He rose from her, looking down at her attractive body. She smiled at him.
"I like you," she said. "You will come back soon?"
"Sure," he said glibly.
"And you tell your friends, yes? My name is Frasquita. I am clean, I have no disease. I have baby to support. Will you help me?"
"I'll tell all my friends," he promised solemnly.
He got out of there. The last he saw of her, she was standing up, passing a towel over her body, and the baby was starting to cry. He felt depressed by the whole scene, but at least he was free of that pounding sexual tension that had kept him keyed up for weeks. For that much, at least, he was grateful to her. The poor kid.
Frasquita.
It rhymed with Anita.
Anita, Frasquita, Frasquita, Anita.
Anita.
Just seven more days, he promised himself. That was all. Then he'd allow himself to go to see her. At long last. And he'd tell her about the big plans he had for their future.
He strolled down Lexington Avenue, wrapped in the warmth of his pleasant dreams.
Anita, Anita, Anita!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Anita had had a busy week.
J. Edward Coleridge was in some kind of snit-he was taking heavy losses in the stock market, it seemed-and instead of the regular Friday night visits, he had wanted her three times a week. And the banker had been worked up to fever pitch, slamming the whip against her buttocks till she yelled in pain, then compelling her to whip him until blood flowed.
That sort of thing took a lot out of a girl. Of course, he paid her extra for these visits-$50 an hour, instead of the old $30. Even so, she was showing the strain of having to cater three times a week to the abnormalities of J. Edward Coleridge. And there were all her other clients to deal with as well. And there was Joyce.
Night after night, Anita and Joyce grappled deliriously. They had been keeping steady company for two months, now, and the passion hadn't dimmed yet. Anita could not get enough of her. And Joyce seemed to feel the same way. They caressed one another's breasts, they rubbed bodies with gay abandon, they led each other from climax to climax to climax.
And then they lay naked in each other's arms, drifting pleasantly along toward morning.
"Have you heard anything about that fellow who murdered his wife?" Joyce asked one day.
"He got off," Anita said.
"Really! How'd he work that?"
"Justifiable homicide, or something. You know. You bust in, and there's your best friend taking your wife, and you go berserk. No jury'll send a man to the chair for that kind of killing."
"Provided it was kosher," Joyce said.
"This sounded like it. He wasn't the kind of man to go around murdering people just like that. He must have blown his top. Especially the way the guy was giving it to her. That really must have teed him off."
"You haven't heard from him since he got out?"
"No," Anita said. "I guess he's given up sex for good, or something. A pity. I could count on a regular $50 a week from him. Plus extras. And he was such a nice guy, too. Not a creep like most of them." She yawned. "Come closer, will you?"
"Gladly."
Anita's hand closed over the warm, pulsing globe of the redhead's left breast. Joyce's fingers wandered down Anita's body.
Their lips met.
Their tongues touched.
Their bodies arched and strained. Anita climbed i over Joyce, sitting astride her with her back toward Joyce's face, and bent forward. She lifted her buttocks. Joyce came to a half-sitting position.
Simultaneously, the two girls went into action.
It was a new position for them. A Lesbo named Marijane had taught it to them only a few days before, and they liked the novelty of it, and they had been trying it ever since. Life was always full of pleasant little discoveries like that.
Anita sighed and gasped as Joyce's hands and lips worked their magic. She burrowed forward, reciprocating the favor. The two girls soared together toward the heights of pleasure.
Then, afterward, they lay in each other's arms again, warm, snug, happy.
"I'm so glad I found you," Anita murmured.
"Not gladder than I am."
"We're going to have a great time together," Anita said. "This is only the beginning."
She reached over, kissed Joyce's nipples. They rested for a while.
Joyce yawned. "What time is it?"
"Three in the afternoon."
"Time to go to work," she said. "So early?"
"I'm turning a trick at the Waldorf-Astoria today," Joyce said. "Convention of surgeons in town, and one of them phoned me. They want me there at four-thirty when the afternoon session breaks up."
Anita giggled. "Watch out they don't operate on you, now."
"I'll keep an eye on them."
"You better. Those surgeons are sneaky louses. They start fooling around inside you with their hands, and first thing you know they get your appendix out."
"Don't worry," Joyce said. "Nothing's coming out of me today. It's all going in the other direction."
Joyce rose, crossed the room, began to get dressed. Anita watched, enjoying the view of Joyce's taut, full buttocks, of her ripe, heavy breasts.
Joyce left. Anita stretched out to get some more rest. Her own first trick of the day was at seven. That gave her a few more hours for lazying around.
This was the day, Fred Markell decided. He had waited long enough, biding his time. He was going to see Anita.
He dropped in on her uninvited, ringing the bell of her East Side apartment at half past three in the afternoon.
She came to the door, looking sleepy and surprised to see him. She was wearing only a gauzy gown that hid little of her full-fleshed beauty. Her nipples plainly showed through, jutting against the flimsy fabric, and Markell could see the deep indentation of her navel, and the firm, shapely pillars of her thighs beneath the gown.
He had been living a life of purity for nearly two months, now, broken only by his single round with the Puerto Rican girl. His entire body went tense with desire at the sight of those lush breasts and rounded thighs scarcely concealed by her gown. He stood there silently at the door, frozen, hypnotized by her beauty. He drank it all in, remembering what it had felt like to cup those breasts in his hands, to lie between those solid. thighs, to taste the honey of her lips. He trembled.
"Freddy!"
"Hi, Anita," he said with a grin. "Long time no see, huh?"
"Jesus, Freddy-" She seemed taken aback, her poise and professional calm deserting her for a moment "Come on in," she said. "But-God, you should have called first!"
"Why? Got company here?" he asked.
She smiled faintly. "No, silly. But-but it would have given me some time to get washed up, presentable. That's all."
He stepped inside, closed the door.
He looked at her. She turned away from him for a moment, and he saw the curving globes of her buttocks. The filmy gown hid nothing at all.
"How's about a kiss?" he asked.
"Well, sure. Sure."
Then she was in his arms, and the fleshy balls oi her breasts were tight against his body, and ne was hungrily reaching for her, crushing his lips down onto hers.
But she didn't kiss back with the old warmth. There was an element of reserve, almost of fear. He forced his tongue between her lips and into her mouth. His hands clawed at the mounds of her breasts.
She stepped back. "Easy. You'll rip my gown if you do that."
"Take it off, then! You know how long it's been since I saw you?"
"Okay. Okay."
The gown dropped to the floor. All her magnificent opulent nudity was on display for him. His brain tingled at the sight of those deep breasts, those perfect little nipples, the flawless white thighs with their delicate traceries of blue veins. She smiled, seeing the look of rapt fascination on his face, and turned in a complete circle, showing him her steep-breasted profile and then the meaty lusciousness of her naked buttocks.
When she was facing him again, he said, "You heard the story, didn't you?"
"You and your wife? Sure. It was in all the papers. So the trial's all over, huh? They let you go?"
Markell nodded. His eyes glowed as he stared at her stunning nudity. "Yes," he said. "I'm a free man now. I hope you understand why I couldn't call you all these weeks, Anita."
"Sure, I saw that," she said. She was looking at him strangely. "You must have really blown your top, Freddy. Killing your wife like that. And Jack. Poor Jack. He was the guy who first gave you my number, wasn't her
"Yes. That's right."
"Poor Jack. He didn't deserve that, Freddy. Your own friend. And your wife was just a witch, anyway."
Markell shrugged. He didn't want to stand around here talking. He wanted to throw himself on her, to clasp her beautiful body to his, to ravish her, to taste her lips again, to take the heavy globes of her breasts into his mouth and draw on them, to caress the coolness of her buttocks, to plunge his quivering, yearning manhood into the hot chasm of her desires.
But he held back. He said, "I bad to kill her, Anita. I didn't want to, but Janet had to get put out of the way. It was simpler all around to kill Jack too. I felt bad about it, but after all, he was taking my wife, and so I had to-"
"You mean-"
He cut her off. "And now I'm a free man," he went on. He rubbed his hands, drank in her nudity with his eyes. "Some time this spring, we can get married, Anita. At long last."
"Married?" she said, blurting the word out as though thunderstruck by it.
He was surprised at the vehemence of her reaction. He blinked and said, "Ot course. Why did you think I'd do a thing like that? Certainly it wasn't out of jealousy, Anita."
"But-but-" Her lips were trembling, now, and she crossed her arms over her breasts in an odd gesture of shame. "Who said anything about marriage, Freddy?"
"Why-I assumed-" He stopped, contused.
"Don't you remember when I said we'd soon be together all the time?"
She shrugged. "I figured you meant you'd be taking me over as a full-time mistress for a while."
"I meant marriage."
She was staring strangely at him now. "But-no, Freddy. This is ridiculous. It's absurd. I don't want to marry you. You or anybody else."
He gaped at her. A terrible pounding began just back of his forehead.
"I killed Janet so I could marry you," he said in icy tones. "It was murder. I planned it, Anita. Just so I could be free to marry you. I invited him out to the house for the weekend, I left the two of them alone together, I hid in the garage. I did it all so I could marry you."
She shook her head. "I was married once, Freddy. When I was seventeen. You didn't know that, did you? But I left him after a few months. I couldn't stand it. One man, thinking he owned me. Thinking he could take me any time he wanted, just snap his fingers and I'd come running, ready to love him. No. I'm not a monogamous girl. I get tired of a man after six, seven months. Sometimes even quicker, Freddy. I can't help the way I am."
There was a pain around his heart, now. A needle-like stabbing. "I'm rich, Anita. I can give you everything you dream of."
"I'm rich too," she said evenly. "I got a fat settlement from my husband, and I earn plenty doing what I do. I'd rather have my freedom. You keep your money."
"But-but-" He moved toward her. His groping hands reached out toward her bare breasts, but she stepped away from him before his fingers could close on those twin coral-tipped ivory hillocks.
She shook her head. "It wouldn't work, Freddy. I'd be cheating you inside a few months. That's what my nature is. You want to buy me a couple times a week, that's fine. But not marriage. No."
"Please! Please marry me, Anita!" It was practically a wail now, a desperate cry wrenched from the depths of his soul.
"No, Freddy. That's final. God, Freddy, if I married you and cheated on you, you might decide to shoot me. Just the way you shot Janet. I'm afraid of you, Freddy. A man who'd shoot one wife would shoot another."
"I swear-I'd never harm you-"
"You never planned to harm Janet, either." Her eyes were glistening, now, and her big breasts rose and fell rapidly, her nakedness becoming all the more maddening to him as she voiced her repeated refusals. "I'm scared, Fred. Get out of here. I don't want to see you any more. Not even twice a week like before. I just changed my mind. What you did was crazy, killing your wife. I couldn't dream of marrying you. Especially after-after-" She giggled. "A call girl marrying a murderer. Some marriage that would be. Go on! Get out!"
"No!" he cried. "I want you, Anita. I love you! T love you!"
"Well, I don't love you," she returned. "Let me tell you one last thing. One bit of information you ought to have. I'm a Lesbian, Freddy."
"No. That's a lie."
"Is it? I'm in love with a girl named Joyce. She stays here with me. We make love late at night. She's a call girl too, and we earn our money giving out for men, but we get our real pleasure sleeping with each other."
"You're making all that up," Markell said hoarsely. "You can't possibly be a Lesbian."
"For a couple of years now. I'll prove it, if you want. I'll show you a little gadget Joyce and I sometimes use on each other. It straps on. We can pretend we're being had by men, when we use it. And-"
"No. Stop this crazy talk! I want to marry you!"
"Don't be a nuisance, Freddy."
"Come here. Let me make love to you. Let me show you how much I love you."
"Will you get out of here?"
He stood stock-still, dumfounded, numbed. Then he blurted, "If I can't marry you, I'll kill you! You did this to me! You made me kill my own friend-my wife-you Jezebel! If I can't have you nobody will!"
He lurched forward hysterically, arms outstretched toward her.
She eluded his grasp. She sidestepped him, her bare breasts swaying tantalizingly. He clawed at her, and his hand closed on the meaty curve of her left buttock, and he gripped the flesh for an instant, but she broke free, scampering away, a nude nymph. His hand blazed where he had touched the bare flesh of her buttock. He felt dazed, confused. There was a savage pounding of desire in him. He was on fire.
"Kill you," he grunted. "Nobody going to have you if I can't have you-"
She dodged around him, ran into the next room. He followed her, her retreating buttocks drawing him like magnets.
There she was, standing next to the bed, now. Naked, the high, firm cones of her naked breasts heaving excitedly. The nakedness of her dazzled him. She was so young, so beautiful in her pink-and-gold nudity, her blonde hair dishevelled, wild.
She was reaching into the desk drawer, taking something out-
"Anita!" he wailed. "Anita!"
"Leave me alone, Freddy. I'm warning you, get out of here and never come back."
He looked at her, beheld her naked and stunningly beautiful, her body gleaming with sweat, her breasts rising and falling, her nudity maddening him to berserk fervor. He longed to throw himself on top of her, to possess her.
He saw the little gun in her hand.
He charged forward like a bull in rut. She screamed, and he stopped short a few steps from her as the first shot caught him in the belly.
"Anita-Anita, I love you-"
He dropped to his knees. Blood was starting to spurt from him. She was standing above him. He lifted his head, past the splendor of her thighs, past the flaring beauty of her naked hips, past the deep bowls of her breasts, to her lovely face.
