Leslie Stanton, Ph.D. A biologist who was always willing to prove any point with any available person, male or female ... and her specialty was love ... any way and as often as possible. Like Jack Home ... who frequently drops by for a night of bedroom lectures. Audrey Moore ... who joins Leslie for a quiet dinner. Max, the new man in town, who takes a lot of persuasion first ... all over her apartment ... the lawn. And all the time Max has his own special assignments. One of them to persuade Leslie to write for Max's company. Another is Georgia ... his lovely secretary ... alone in the office. Doris of the turquoise eyes ... constantly striving for some shameful release of her own. Then Claire ... frequently and degradingly. Even Audrey, rushing from Leslie's perverted embrace ... to share the ultimate degradation with Max ... while Doris and Jack find something special together ... until she pulls the whole house of sin down forever....
CHAPTER ONE
Her mood the night before and during her deepest sleep had been bad. Her dream immediately before awakening, however, was delightful.
In her dream she lay naked to the warm morning sun, yet she was pleasantly chilled. Her eyes were tightly closed against the new light and she felt, rather than saw, the little goose bumps that were rising on her body. She shivered deliriously.
Why was she chilled? Oh yes, now she understood: she was lying in a cool mountain stream, the water rushing not too swiftly all over her. She smiled as she felt the pleasant, gentle touch of the water.
But something was happening: the water wasn't so cool any more. It was quickly warming up and the warmth entered her flesh. Goose bumps melted away. She could scarcely tell the difference between the warm water and her own body.
Then there was no difference. She and the water were one and the same. She had turned to liquid. She herself was the warmly flowing water, twisting, turning, coursing through the stream bed.
She was no longer warm. She was boiling, sparkling, and bubbling, and she felt so good. Her warmth increased as she flowed even faster, turning on her bed, gasping with pleasure. She was warmer now, approaching the boiling point. Smooth pebbles brushed over her where her breasts should be, and then-
She awakened abruptly.
She was lying on her right side in her huge Japanese bed, and a man's hand was gently caressing her left breast.
She had gone to bed alone.
With a startled cry,-she reached behind her and grasped a hard masculine leg.
"Shouldn't leave your door unlocked, lady," a male voice murmured.
"Jack, you fool!"
"Anybody could come in. Some poor maniac like me. He's been hanging around for weeks, months, years. He knows that a beautiful woman with rich auburn hah-and boobs like cantaloupes lives here. He bides his time. He tries to hold himself back-"
"Will you let go of me!"
He wouldn't. His fingers left her breast to trace her shaking waist. She tried to lock her knees, to drag his hand away, but he persisted and her needs overruled her. With a sigh, she relaxed and let him play as he pleased.
"Finally he can't stand waiting any longer," Jack went on. "At some likely hour, he tries the door. It's unlocked. Silently he enters. He creeps through the living room. Through the dining room. Down the hallway. At last he finds milady's chamber...."
Why does he have to do this? she wondered. Why am I letting him?
She was at cross-purposes with herself. A passionate woman, her desire was always ready to be fired, but increasingly she found herself weary of that. She would rather go to bed alone and awaken alone. It wasn't as if she truly loved someone and was loved in return.
Loving, reduced to its lowest common denominator, had become a bore.
And yet she was reaching out to hold him as he held her. Male and female primary characteristics yearned for completion.
"He sees her lying there asleep," Jack whispered huskily. "She's stark naked and unbelievably beautiful, far more so than he had ever realized. Breasts like great gobs of cherry-topped ice cream. Her waist a veritable campus for the romp of love.
"What can the poor devil do? Naturally love, lust, passion, is aroused. He can hardly contain himself. He strips of his clothes, every last stitch, mind you, and he flings himself down beside her. He clutches her, nibbles her, kisses her. He devours the cherry-topped ice cream, he scampers over the campus...."
She groaned and tugged at him.
For the first time that morning she looked at him: a slim, dark, thin-cheeked young man, a few years younger than she. He was wiry, intense, and at this moment, attractively virile.
"What are you waiting for, maniac?"
"One more look at the lovely landscape."
He bent and gave her a flickering kiss.
"If you're going to love me, hurry!" she commanded, panting, and she reached for him.
He didn't need her guidance, but his first actions seemed to go on forever, and then they were lying quietly in one another's embrace.
"A moment's more respite?" he asked when their breathing had calmed.
"No. No, go on."
He went on and she went with him.
But not entirely with him. Why? she asked herself. What's the use, if this is all there is to life? The same old rituals, the same old responses. Pleasant enough in a way. therapy for jangled nerves, a relief from the glandular and psychic pressures....
But is that all? Is that all biology affords?
It's like living on hamburgers; pleasant enough at first, but eventually one gets the feeling that somewhere there ought to be something called steak.
Their pace increased.
Oh, you're good, good, good, she thought. Oh, I like that.
But is this all there is?
She wanted to sob, she wanted to Deg tor something more, something that would fulfill her. She wanted tn scream for him to stop, to go away, to leave her alone.
And at the same time she was thinking, oh I like that, I like him. I like what he's doing, oh he's good and good and good-
And she was barely aware of speaking aloud, telling him what he was doing and urging him to make her do something else.
And she yelled that her final moment was arriving-
Then that moment was there and she was thrashing wildly.
And he stiffened-
And that was over.
Sadly, meaninglessly, futilely over. One more culmination. So what?
"Good?" he asked.
"That was nature being natural."
As soon as he had rolled away from her, she fished beside the low Japanese bed for a cigarette. She lit it, took a couple of puffs, and made a face.
"You might at least give a woman a chance to brush her teeth first."
"I didn't try to kiss you, did I? Wasn't that thoughtful of me?"
She made another face, gave him the cigarette, and went to the bathroom.
Why the hell did he have to come here? she wondered as she stood under the cool shower. She heard him on the other side of the curtain, using the washbasin, and she resisted the temptation to ask him to soap her back. If she did, he'd be at her again.
She stepped from the tub-shower. It was a mammoth sunken thing meant to hold at least two adults, a veritable junior size swimming pool, as she sometimes thought of it. Yet it took up but one corner of a bathroom in which one could have mounted a couple of pool tables. She felt better, but not much.
Why had he come? To take advantage, she thought testily. But of course that wasn't fair. They were friends. He liked her and she liked him. Very much.
But it was time to break up the combination.
She returned to the bedroom. Jack had opened the curtains and slid back the long glass wall of the room so that it was entirely exposed to the outdoors. Still naked, he stood on the veranda and smoked a cigarette as he gazed at the lawn. The lawn itself was surrounded by a high impenetrable hedge, some poplars, and a wire fence-and she had forgotten to lock the damned door!
"Better get dressed," she said. "Or five minutes from now you're going to look pretty silly walking down the street in the nude."
"Don't I even get any breakfast?" he asked.
She relented. "Oh sure, if you'll cook for both of us."
"Come out here," he said, smiling. "So I can hold you."
It was a good cue, she decided, for her to say what she had to say and be done with it.
"Jack, that was the last time."
He glanced at her sharply, measured her seriousness.
"What brings this on, Leslie?"
"I think you know. What good is that?"
"Well, good in itself."
She took his cigarette and puffed on it as she shook her head. "No more. Do you remember how we got started?"
"Yeah?" His voice was small and he made the word a question.
"You had your lost love and hadn't been able to get over her. I tried to help you. I've tried on and off for almost three years, since soon after I came here. I suspect I've failed."
"Now, don't tell me every time we've loved you've been doing a Florence Nightingale. And don't tell me that's simply been your field work as a professional biologist."
"Of course not." She took his arm and leaned against his shoulder. "But that's no good for me or for you. We've degenerated into ritualists, and I'm too old for that kind of thing. So are you. And you don't love me.
Jack hesitated before replying. "What's love?" There was a hint of bitterness in his tone.
"I don't know. Biology doesn't completely explain it. Neither does psychology. Nor religion nor anything else. But my God!" Her voice rose. "There's got to be something!"
"It's not another man, then."
"No."
"And that damned Audrey hasn't turned you into a Lesbian?"
She laughed weakly. "Oh, no!"
"Then don't shoo me off entirely, sweetie. You may want me back."
"It's better to break off clean."
"Without even warning me that that was to be the last time?"
"Definitely."
"Once more, sweetie. Here, on the grass." He took the cigarette from her and stubbed it out "No, please, Jack."
"You've brushed your teeth, now give me that morning kiss."
He didn't give her time to object. The arms she had been holding swept around her bare waist, encircling her and drawing her to him. Her legs met his, her breasts flattened against his chest. Their lips met.
She tried to make it a kiss and no more than a kiss, but when his lips played delicately, pressed harder, she felt hers responding to the warm flutter of desire.
She hated herself for having become so attuned, so responsive, to him.
His left hand was on her right breast, lifting, flexing, drawing toward the nerve center, and new warmth flooded her. Pressing against him, she became aware of his own returned desire.
"Oh, Jack, no." Her protest was weak, as weak as her knees at this moment.
He didn't heed her. He pushed against her seductively.
"Oh, you rat, Jack."
"You see, you may need me sometime. As I need you now."
His lips returned to hers, his hand left her breast. It traveled unhurriedly across her body. He made her shake in his arms like a young aspen.
Carefully, never releasing her, he led her down from the porch to the grass. She was faint and her eyelids fell, almost closed.
When they stopped, she let her knees give way. Kneeling, she grasped his legs and kissed him, deeply.
He toppled her backward and moved to her. She looked at him and now she longed for what she saw. He didn't make her wait long. He rushed ahead, tentatively, exploratively.
With a single sigh, he took her.
And even as she moaned with pleasure, she wondered what the hell was the use.
After breakfast, a shower, and loving for the third time, Jack Home left.
He offered to give Leslie a lift to the university, but she declined. She wanted to be alone for a while, or at least not near Jack. Their morning session had left her nerveless and numb. Once would have been all right in spite of her negative feelings about the whole thing. At least that was relaxing, if she still needed relaxing after a good night's sleep. Twice wasn't bad; in fact, the second had really been better than the first. But why in hell had she yielded to Jack's urgings the third time?
It just went to show how you could condition one person's body.
But how was she to become deconditioned? Find another man? Prowl around? Such ideas didn't appeal to her in the slightest.
She couldn't help wondering if she weren't thinking along the lines of a self-pitying brat. The vast majority of the women m this world might well envy her. She was Leslie Stanton, Ph.D. in biology, and a leader in her field. She had won every major award available by the time she was thirty-one. She had a position at a small but extremely well-endowed liberal arts and sciences university, one of the best in the midwest or, for that matter, anywhere. Her job was virtually a sinecure: she delivered a lecture now and then, conducted some graduate and staff seminars, attended others, and had most of her time free for her own research and experimentation.
Which had become increasingly dull.
She had this beautiful house all to herself. Located on the edge of town and off the highway, it afforded a degree of privacy that most people dreamed of and never achieved. Built along Japanese lines, it was thoroughly American, thoroughly beautiful, and wonderfully roomy. It was a dream to keep up, and she had practically dispensed with any kind of help, calling in a cleaning woman once a month and having the lawn tended when it needed care.
Besides the security her parents had left her, she had other sources of income. Her textbooks sold more copies than most books on the bestseller lists: the last she had heard, only Samuelson's economics text sold better than any one volume of hers, but she had three volumes running up printing after printing. The romances she ocoasionally dreamed up under a pseudonym sold exceptionally well. She certainly didn't have to worry about money.
She was healthy; she was beautiful. Clad in her underwear, she went into the bathroom. There she shoved her panties down, unhooked her brassiere and raised it, and gazed at herself in the mirror.
She saw the ripe body of a thirty-four-year-old woman, one who had left her adolescence well behind and had at last entered the best years of her life. Four years past her youth, she was fully matured, far too much woman for the sandlot leagues of the twenties. With cold objectivity of a first-rate biologist, she noted once again that her face and body were designed for specific things. Nature had given her a face to attract a man of intelligence, taste, and discrimination, and endowed her with a body to give him excitement. Mother Nature's way of maintaining the race, and nobody had improved on it.
The thought increased her melancholy.
There would be no children from Jack, nor did she want any from him.
Once, not so long ago, such matters as husband, children, and family life had left her indifferent. If eventually they came to her, all well and good. If not, life had other rewards. She had exceptional intelligence and a scientific talent. She had no difficulty in making contact with kindred souls. The world was willing and eager to pay for things she could easily produce, and she didn't know what it was to have an unpaid bill. One of the golden lads and lasses.
As for loving, charming and capable company was generally available. In her early days, she had regarded that need as a rather amusing animal appetite to be appeased or indulged now and then at her convenience. As she had approached her late twenties, it had become a much more important part of her being, and in all honesty, she was forced to the conclusion, however romantic, that life contained mysteries which she might never fathom.
She had studied it assiduously. What she learned, she used both for her own pleasure and for the good of others. She had brought more than one woman to amorous maturity. She had given confidence to more than one man who had been psychologically maimed by an unwilling wife or a sadistic mistress.
But her own satisfactions had become increasingly hollow. She wondered what she had missed. She might have had several children by now, if she had played her cards in a different manner. She had several acquaintances of her age with children now entering their teens. As a biologist, she knew that if she didn't have a child soon, she might never be able to do it. It might be too late already.
The idea that it might be already too late for children gave Leslie a chill. She fixed her under clothes and continued dressing.
So I'm fully matured, she thought. Except that I've never had a baby. There is a school of thought that a woman can't be fully matured until she's had at least one child. If that's true, perhaps I'll never know what real physical maturity is.
Perhaps she should have allowed Jack to give her a child. But that wouldn't be fair without his consent. She doubted that he would ever give that.
An idea was slowly crystalizing in her mind. It had been latent for some time and now it could no longer be denied.
She wanted to be in love. She wanted to be passionately and irrevocably committed to one man. No infatuation, no mere friendship, no fond fun-and-games; that wasn't what she wanted. She wanted to go the limit. No turning back. Loved and seduced, cherished and raped. A man who would give her a child and, together, they would be complete.
I'm thinking like a stupid schoolgirl, she told herself miserably, a stupid schoolgirl in love with love. I'm regressing to my adolescence.
But the idea, the desire, persisted.
She had a staff seminar scheduled for that afternoon, and she made herself go over the materials she wished to discuss. The meeting was to be devoted to reviewing some of the latest publications in her field, and fortunately there was an interesting item or two or she would have been bored to tears.
She drove her little red MG over to campus town and had lunch in a burger joint before going to her office. There was little mail for her, and the only envelope which looked at all promising was from her publisher.
It proved to be a disappointment. For some time now they had been trying to interest her in doing some scientific popularizations, and few ideas appealed to her less. Why spend weeks trying to reduce complex subjects to common language when she might be working on something fresh and interesting? Writing textbooks had been a drag; she had only done so because for her purposes she hadn't been satisfied with the ones currently available. If she were going to turn out something popular, she'd rather make it a romance.
The only thing new about the letter was that it announced the impending arrival of somebody named Max Flagg and it requested that she give him a few minutes of her time. Would she please see him?
She didn't know if she would or not. She had an impulse to send a telegram requesting that Mr. Max Flagg keep as far from her as possible.
The four-hour seminar proved to be something of a respite from her mood. Everyone stuck to the subject, and Leslie threw herself into the discussion, giving thanks that they didn't lapse into one of those asinine arguments that so frequently cropped up: should or should not graduate assistants be specifically required to wear white shirts and ties rather then open-necked, colored sports shirts when conducting discussion sections during the summer session.
Afterward, the blues returned slowly but in force. She fought them by making herself prepare a good steak dinner and by leaving the gin bottle alone.
From seven-thirty until nine she tried to work her way through a detective thriller. It proved to be too much detection and too little thriller: one of those books which devote page after page to speculative reconstructions and explanations which the reader knows perfectly well will turn out to prove wrong, so why wade through them? One of these days, she thought, I'm going to try a thriller. All action and character-in-action and reversal after reversal and some romance and-
The doorbell gonged, a soft resonant double gong.
"Leslie?"
"Come in."
Audrey Moore opened the screen door and entered.
"Just saw a pretty good French movie over on campus," Audrey said.
"You were on campus wearing that?"
The young French teacher had four brief pieces of clothing in evidence. Two low-heeled red slippers. A pair of tight, white shorts. An undersized and low-cut red halter that barely managed to contain the respectable amount it was meant to contain.
"Why not? Thrills for students and staff alike. I'm very democratic that way. Darling, I could feel the tension around me wherever I went."
"I dare say. One of these days you'll be picked up by the campus cops for inappropriate apparel-"
"Or, better yet, for corrupting the morals of the young."
"I'm serious, Audrey. You could lose your job, if you don't get yourself raped first."
Audrey flopped down into a chair. "Raped," she said musingly. "I wonder what that would be like."
Leslie studied the younger woman. "I wonder if perhaps that isn't what you're trying for. It would take the decision out of your hands, and you feel that you could then relax and enjoy that, as they say."
"Let's get off the subject."
"When are you going to take a man, Audrey?"
"When I damned well feel like it."
"I wonder. How old are you? Twenty-nine? And still a virgin."
"Demi-virgin, I think is the word. It has such a quaint Victorian sound. I rather like it. Means you've had that and you haven't, doesn't it?"
Leslie ignored the question. Audrey's presence did little to make her feel better. Like Jack, Audrey was one of her failures. She had hoped to turn her friend into the path of normal sexuality, but Audrey persisted in clinging to a practice which was less Lesbianism than mutual self-gratification.
Oh, she was attracted to men, all right. Highly attracted. And highly attractive. In her present and not atypical attire, for instance, she was not merely seductive as another beautiful woman might have been: she appeared downright wanton, as if she were hoping to be taken.
And wasn't she? Hadn't the idea of being raped seemed to have a certain appeal for her?
She was quite willing to go out with men. She wasn't repelled by their kisses, and more than once she had brought Leslie a tale of how she had let some man caress her breasts, but that was as far as it ever went. Even the few months of psychotherapy Audrey had taken had done nothing to improve the situation.
"Hotter than hell, isn't it?" Audrey said.
"I hadn't noticed."
"Well, I had. And I'm going to do something about it. Later I'll me your shower-"
"Let's go out back. I do have callers from time to time." Audrey had started shoving her white shorts down. Now she stepped out of them and followed Leslie to the back veranda, taking off her red halter as she went.
"By the way," Audrey said as they settled into deck chairs, "a girl I know got a letter today. Seems that I have some old friends coming back to visit the campus. I kind of went for him, he was the only fellow I really wanted to love, but he went for her, the tramp, and poor Jack Home got left out in the cold."
Jack Home. His lost love. Leslie was brought to attention. "What in the world are you talking about?"
"Nothing consequential, but since you're buddy-buddy with Jack, I thought I'd mention it. You see, Jack Home was going with this girl Doris. He was a sociology instructor, as he is now, and she was a grad student working in the sosh office. Max Flagg had worked for the University Press-"
"Who?"
"Max Flagg. He went to work as a traveler for some tech publisher and this was in his territory. He met Doris and married her. Took her to New York when he was promoted to the home office. Doris wrote this friend of mine that they were going to take a long vacation this summer and spend a week or two here, since they still have so many friends on campus."
Leslie thought it over for a moment. "Strange to say. I received a letter todav myself. This Flagg person works for my publisher and he figures he can meet me and try persuading me to write some popularizations."
"Not strange at all. Since Max Flagg is no stranger here, your publisher figures he can meet you in a more social and less business way and build up more pressure on you. Succeed where others have failed."
"Obviously."
They sat quietly in the dark for a few minutes, listening to distant traffic and the shrilling of insects.
"Nice here," Audrey said. "Just insect music and a slice of moonlight."
After a moment, she arose, padded along the veranda, and sat down on the edge of Leslie's chair. She put a hand against Leslie's leg.
"No, Audrey. I don't feel like that."
"Take off your clothes."
"No, please. Not tonight."
Audrey squeezed. "Aw, come on. A girl's got to do something for herself. I go crazy if I don't now and then."
"Why don't you find yourself a man, damn it!"
"Because I want you!"
But, of course, that wasn't the whole story. Leslie sighed. If she went ahead with Audrey, that would be one more hollow, meaningless sensation, leaving her feeling all the more worthless and unfulfilled.
She put her hand to Audrey's knee. "Never mind me. I'll take care of you-"
"No! Together!"
Audrey found the edge of her panties. In spite of herself, Leslie savored the thrill.
"Come on, Les sweet," Audrey whispered. "Let's be naked together."
"All right. All right."
Quickly, trying not to think, Leslie stripped off her clothes and lay back on the deck chair, making room for Audrey to join her. Their fingers began to tease one another's bodies. So childish.
Leslie was bored. She was bored with Audrey. She was bored with this small academic community where everybody watched everybody else and knew too much about them. She was bored with teaching others the art and craft of love while never finding a satisfactory and lasting love for herself. She was bored to the point where she would have liked to scream.
As Audrey's touch increasingly excited her, Leslie closed her eyes and escaped from boredom to fantasy. She was alone, she was naked.
He appeared before her like a dark shadow, her lover.
They attracted one another irresistibly in every way; soul, body, spirit. There would be no stopping, no turning back.
He came toward her, slim, strong, cat-like and, as the moonlight struck his figure, she saw that he too was naked.
She shook with desire as his gaze raked her nude torso, shook with desire for him as she looked at his virile body.
He loomed near her, touched her breasts, her legs, kissed her waist, raised her to a height of passion she had never known before.
She groaned with pain and joy, twisting, squirming from his caresses, wanting him to take her.
And he took her tenderly, brutally, lovingly, savage-ly. Time after time, while she tightened her arms about him in return.
Until, until....
Like two chemicals reaching a critical point. They abruptly combined, flared up. a blazing white light, pulsing, pulsing, burning with liquid fire.
But of course this wasn't like that.
No gift of life. Nothing but sterility, emptiness, meaninglessness.
No tender brutal lover.
Just Audrey.
CHAPTER TWO
Three o'clock on a Thursday after-noon in early July, Max Flagg looked out his office window. Bright sunlight made the buildings on the other side of Park Avenue South look almost brilliant. He wished he were out in that sunlight. Well, in twenty-six hours plus whatever time it took him to clear up the odds and ends on his desk, he would be on vacation.
Not quite on vacation. There was, of course, the matter of the Stanton contract.
Georgia came in carrying a sheaf of papers clipped to envelopes. She placed them on the desk before him.
"That's all of it, Max," she said. "If you'll sign it, I'll get it into the mail right away."
"Thanks, Georgia."
She was standing much too close to his chair, practically leaning over him. His shoulder brushed her waist as he moved forward to look over the correspondence.
He wondered if she knew about his troubles at home. Funny how people sometimes sensed those things. If things had been going well between him and Doris, he wouldn't have minded Georgia's provocative young beauty. Even her subtle little passes would have been pleasant, much as Max disapproved of affairs in the office. But, as things stood, Georgia was a disturbing influence, as were one or two others among the staff.
Georgia was the worst of them. Now, as he glanced over each letter and signed it, she propped a well-molded hip on the corner of his desk, twisted, and bent forward to watch what he was doing. Each time Max glanced up-and it was difficult to refrain from doing so-he got a clear view of the top of her bosom and the shadowed cleavage.
Was Georgia really turning on the pressure? Or was it his imagination, due to unsatisfied desires? Both, he decided. He'd bought her an after-work cocktail a couple of times, and the electric hand that had landed on his leg hadn't been innocent. More than once, Max had had an impulse to reach forward and plunge a hand to her neckline or skirt. What would she do if he were to touch her right now? Nothing, he decided. Gasp, look surprised, freeze; then melt in his hand. They'd leave, go to her apartment and undress.
He stirred uncomfortably in his chair. He had to avoid such thoughts, they excited him too much. But Georgia was making it difficult to avoid them. If he and Doris didn't make progress in the next few weeks, he might start propositioning Georgia.
He finished the correspondence.
"Anything more I can do for you?" Georgia asked, in a peculiar tone. "No, I think not."
"If you have any extra work before your vacation, I don't mind working late."
"I'll let you know."
"All right. Don't forget, now." She made it sound almost as if they had a conspiracy.
He watched the swaying motion of her hips as she left. No girdle, nothing but nylon. Nylon on a well-formed body.
Cut it out, Flagg. You'll drive yourself crazy.
The phone rang. It was Davidon, his boss, asking him to come over right away.
The old man was just one office away. "Sit down," he said. "This won't take long. I got a reply from Miss Stanton."
Max sat. "And?"
"She grudgingly says that naturally she'll be glad to see you."
"Grudgingly."
"Between the lines."
"Why not leave her alone. Davie? She's supposed to be such a sharpie and so independent; if she doesn't want to sign, she won't. And she's made it pretty clear how she feels about the matter."
"Several reasons." Davidon said with a smile that was superior and yet somehow not condescending. "For one thing, we're in business, and there's many a golden egg in that Stanton goose."
"But this kind of golden egg?"
Davidon nodded. "Even her textbooks are a pleasure to read-"
"But a popularization is a different thing. Even a fiction writer can often do a better job than a scientist."
"You may not know it, but under the name Lane Stanley Miss Stanton is a fiction writer. Her stuff is garbage but it's pretty good garbage, the latter-day Bronte sort of thing that's been doing so well lately. We don't know for sure, but there's also a rumor that she dashes off an occasional spicy epic for the paperback market, too."
Max shrugged. "Okay, she could do the job if she would. What other reason?"
"I'm retiring soon."
Max had expected it. but the blunt statement shook him. The implications were coming to his mind, even as Davidon spelled some of them out.
"You know how it's been since we combined with a general publisher, Max. They let me take over sales management for the works when my counterpart retired, but when it comes to the line of promotion, there's some suspicion that the experience of the assistant manager for tech publications is too narrow for the top job. Your rival is sitting just a few doors down the corridor, the assistant manager for general publications. I can see that in this outfit if he takes my job a precedent is likely to be established. And it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that you'll be bypassed and stuck in your assistant manager's cubbyhole for the next thirty or forty years. Unless you start hitting the agencies and reading the want ads in the Sunday Times. See what I mean?"
"I see." All too clearly, he might have advised.
"I'd hate to have that happen to you, Max. You deserve much better."
"And you figure that if I can bring home the bacon where our colleagues next door have failed-"
"With my backing, no guarantees, of course, you should be a shoo-in."
There was no question, then, that Max had to land the new Stanton contract. It was either that or, in all likelihood, pounding the pavement.
They spent the next thirty-five minutes going over the contract and discussing its various aspects. Max had a certain margin for bargaining should it prove necessary, and all in all the contract was quite liberal. Most teachers would have jumped at the opportunity to do such a job.
On returning to his own office, Max tried to remember everyone he had known at his alma mater. He made a mental note to dig out his class annuals. As a student, as a university press employee, and as a college book traveler he'd made a wide and varied acquaintance, but after all he'd been in New York for three years now, and his memory was by no means flawless.
He had to get that contract.
Trained in English, American, and two foreign literatures, he had nonetheless made a remarkable record in selling tech material. The result had been a fast promotion to the main office. For a short time he had feared that he'd been promoted from the work he did best to the position of glorified office boy, but he'd grabbed the reins of the new job and had made it important. Two of his best projects involved developing a mail order business for small colleges and interested laymen and setting up curricula based exclusively on company publications and getting the gaps filled in by new publications in such a manner that the programs were marvelously flexible.
Max Flagg, the bright young man who was going places at a gallop.
Max Flagg, the bright young man who was apt to gallop right against a brick wall.
Unless he hurdled it by getting the Stanton contract.
Georgia bustled in and out of his office a couple of times He silently damned her as a distraction.
At five minutes after five, Doris appeared at his door and he arose to greet her.
She was more attractive than ever, he thought, viewing the lightweight turquoise suit that matched her eyes. Her blonde hair was a shade lighter than taffy and her complexion had a healthy glow.
"You're beautiful," Max said, kissing her lightly. Amazing how the firm curves and hollows of her face could radiate coolness and warmth at the same time. He found the same quality in her eyes, in her shy, tentative smile.
"I love you," he said.
"Even after a long, hard day at the office?"
"Especially after a long, hard day." He looked at the two shopping bags Doris had brought in. "Spend all the money?" he asked.
"Not quite. But I tried."
"Good for you."
Right now he desired her. Sometimes her appearance was enough to kill desire, beautiful though she always was. He wondered, with a trace of guilt, if he was responding to her now because Gloria had excited him.
He decided to make it a special evening, and they took a taxi to Shine's Restaurant. There the dry Manhattans were excellent, as usual, and the roast beef was superb. The quiet richness of the establishment induced a feeling of ease and relaxation.
"It's settled," he said during the coffee and brandy. "I'll be going after the Stanton contract."
"Oh, I wish you wouldn't," she said. "I wanted this to be a real vacation. Nothing you had to do hanging over your head and sending your thoughts away from us."
"It's necessary, honey," he said, and as quickly and briefly as he could he outlined the situation for her.
"Then I suppose you'll be spending quite a lot of time with this Stanton woman."
"Possibly, but no more than necessary. And I'll promise you this. I won't have the job on my mind all the time. Furthermore, I'm entitled to take an extra day away from the office for every day I have to work on Dr. Stanton. Well, I'll take two extra days, honey. Double time for overtime."
Doris smiled, a touch of the imp on her glowing face. "Can't you get away with that?"
"Watch me."
"Now I feel better."
"So do I." He waited a moment, braced himself, tried to sound casual. "In fact I feel so good I'd like to celebrate. Why don't we hurry right home? Or why bother going home tonight, we can get a hotel room-"
"Oh, Max...." Doris's smile faded. "I don't have a thing with me-"
"Very well, well race for home."
"Max, I've been out shopping all day and I'm very tired and-"
"Just not up to celebrating." He tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice. "I understand."
"I'm afraid that would go badly, and I want to be all rested for our vacation-"
"Sure, honey."
The silence between them had a dead quality.
Max tried to sound casual. "Look. Maybe it would be a good idea if I stayed in town tonight. I can get some work done at the office so that I won't have to stay late tomorrow night. Maybe I'll even be able to get away early tomorrow."
The dead silence remained.
"I wish you were coming home with me," Doris said at last. "Maybe I'll feel differently once I get home-"
"No, honey. I know how you are."
It was definitely the wrong thing to say. He watched Tloris shrink in her chair and he felt guilty as hell.
But it wasn't his fault, was it?
"Where'll you stay?" she asked in a small voice.
"I don't know. At a hotel. At the Johnsons', maybe. I may just sack out at the office."
"Will you phone me? And let me know where you are?"
"Certainly."
All the way to Penn Station their silences were dead and his attempts at pleasant conversation were strained.
He wondered if she knew. He wondered how much she knew.
Once he had put her on the Long Island train, he taxied back to the office. He would, as he had told her, get as much work out of the way as he could. There was no deceit in that.
He threw himself into the paperwork battle, trying to lose consciousness of all else, and for a time he succeeded. The first time he looked at his watch, it was after ten-thirty and he knew that Doris had long been home.
He phoned her.
"Doris? It's me, honey. I wanted to be sure you got home all right."
"Of course, I did, you silly. Where are you now?"
The question somehow surprised him. "At the office. I told you I was going back-"
"Where are you sleeping tonight?"
"Oh, God, I forgot! I haven't made any arrangements at all. I" may stay right here."
"Why don't you come home. Max? I miss you, darling."
He held his breath. Yes, why didn't he go home? Why not go home and hit his miserable bed and forget the troubles that took place in it?
He needed something more than sleep....
"I still have an awful lot to do darling, more than I had thought. I'll be here quite late-I'll miss the last train-"
"All right."
"I'll see you tomorrow."
"Good night, Max."
She sounded so weary, so unwittingly imploring, that he was tempted to change his mind and race for the station. But before he could say a word she had hung up.
Phone back?
No.
Well, he would stay here and work until after the last train. He could be at least that honest with her. But he had better phone Claire Johnson right now. "It's Max, Claire."
"Oh, hello, darling."
"Claire, I'm working late tonight. I'll be here for another hour and a half. May I stay with you tonight?"
There was a pause. Lately his life had seemed filled with pauses. Empty pauses, futile pauses, dead pauses.
"How convenient for you," Claire said, "to have a home away from home."
"I'm sorry, Claire. Please believe that I've never taken you for granted. If I seemed to at any time, I apologize ... Good night."
"Good night." They hung up together.
He tried to put the incident out of his mind and lose himself once again in his work, but it was difficult The trouble was a simple one. He needed a woman.
God, why was Doris that way? It wasn't that she lacked passion. If anything, her problem so diminished all the other factors in her life that at times she seemed obsessed-or possessed-by her passion. Yet she never quite reached the level where satisfaction came.
When she tried, she tried like hell. The result was that love-making ceased to be a pleasure as they worked at some pattern prescribed by the latest manual. The further result was that they both became angry in the midst of this pseudo lovemaking, damning one another for their clumsiness and ineptitude. The next result was that Doris was rendered a mass of screaming nerves and he was rendered totally impotent.
And finally, they were both reluctant to try any more sordid, loveless, degrading bedroom calesthenics.
He had found incentive again with Claire.
She was the wife of a company officer. They had separated but had not been divorced as yet, since neither had plans to remarry. Max had met her in the office, where she had once worked, and their mutual attraction had led to its biologically appropriate conclusion.
But Max still loved his wife and he hoped to God that she didn't know about Claire.
His physical need continued to distract him. He remembered Georgia's offer. Why hadn't he taken her up? If he could cheat on his wife, he could cheat on his mistress-especially since she had apparently cut him off.
Georgia would have been good. He imagined the two of them together. He'd give her a drink from the vodka bottle he kept in his desk drawer. They'd stand closer and closer together until it was inevitable that they touch. His arms would go around her, hers would take him They would kiss, slowly, testingly. They would grind together and look into one another's eyes, knowledge of what was going to happen fully revealed there. He would unbutton her blouse and unhook her brassiere. He would take a breast to hand and tease it. He would leave the breast to raise the front of her skirt. She would sigh, her eyes growing heavy-lidded. She would reach for him as she slid down her panties. She would back up to the arm of the heavily upholstered chair.
Then gently, slowly, wordlessly, he would take her, give her what she wanted....
He yanked open a desk drawer, pulled out the bottle, and broke the seal.
He had to stop thinking like this or he'd go crazy.
He gulped down a couple of ounces, put the bottle back and tackled his work again.
Should he risk making a fool of himself and call Georgia? Nonsense.
He struggled with work, he fought to keep working until midnight.
To hell with it. He'd get a room in a hotel where he was known, get drunk, soak his dammed trouble in alcohol and ice cubes. He put his papers away and filed the bottle in a desk drawer for further reference.
That was when the phone rang.
"Max?" It was Claire's voice.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry for the tone I took. I had no right. Why don't you come over?"
"I'd like to, Claire, but I don't want to be a damned nuisance-"
"Now, don't be that way. We're not children."
"I didn't mean it like that. I really would like to see you."
"The door will be unlocked. Come right in."
He left the office immediately. Taxis were hard to find in that part of town at that hour-the after-theatre crowd still had a lot of them sewed up-but he managed to get one after several blocks of looking. The subway would have been almost as fast.
The address was right off Fifth Avenue in the seventies. The glaringly lit elevator was deserted but for Max, and the apartment door was-as promised-unlocked, dangerous though such a practice was. Claire, no fool, had never given Max a key.
One light was on in the living room, another in the hall.
Max opened the bedroom door.
She was lying on the edge of the bed, moonlight streaming over her body, her face in shadows. Her cigarette glowed as she took a puff.
"Hello, darling," she said.
"Hello, Claire."
He quickly discarded his clothes, feeling her watching his every move. He walked over to her bedside. When she extended her cigarette, he took it, puffed on it, put it out.
Her hand reached out to touch his side. Warm blood rushed in response.
"God, you're beautiful," she said. "Kiss me."
He sat down beside her and kissed her. Her lips seemed to thicken at his touch.
He moved his kiss down, seeking out those places he knew to be particularly vulnerable-the nipples, the undersides of her breasts, her waist. When she rolled away from him, he kissed the small of her back and explored farther.
She rolled back toward him, aflame, and he continued to fondle lovingly every part of her flesh, all her most responsive places, while she reached for him, gave him soft kisses.
"Not too much," she said, her voice taut. "I want this to last a little...."
It was the signal, he knew, to take her, and he moved to her. She gasped, they fumbled, he found her.
For a time they lay together quietly.
"Good?" she asked, the first to break the silence.
"Good."
"Send me, darling."
He worked deftly in a surge of exquisite mutual pleasure that made Claire moan.
His hand clasped a breast. His lips went to hers.
Sensation heightened with each moment, narrowing consciousness. The frustrations of the days, the weeks, fell away.
He tried to contain himself for Claire's sake. But he could not. Muscles contracted spactically. "I've got to!" he heard himself say, and then he finished, pitching, driving, and she was crying out and matching him for the ultimate moment.
The moment slowed, subsided, ceased.
He rolled away from her.
"Sorry that was so fast," he said.
"That's all right. You needed that even more than I did, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"Poor Maxie."
After a cigarette and a trip to the bathroom, he decided it was time to make another phone call. There was a bedside phone, but somehow he hated to use it. He went to the front hall and dialed.
"Doris? It's Max."
"Yes, dear?"
"I'm sorry-did I wake you up?"
"No ... I couldn't sleep."
"I thought I'd better let you know where I was. I'm at the Johnsons'."
It took her a moment to answer. "All right."
"Everything okay?"
"Oh, yes."
"Try to get some sleep, Doris."
"I'll take a drink, some aspirin, read for a while."
"See you tomorrow."
"I love you."
Now it took him a moment to answer. "And I love you, dear ... Good night, now."
"Good night, Max." Feeling vaguely sick, he hung up. When Max returned to the bedroom, one light had been turned on, and Claire was coming out of the bathroom. She had put on a white cotton shortie nightie.
A hell of a good looking woman, he noted for the hundredth time: a good figure, a blaze of red hair, top and bottom, a strikingly handsome face-to say the least. He guessed her to be in her mid-or late thirties, and she was the type of female who would be physically attractive for at least another fifteen years.
He followed her into the kitchen, where she made smoked salmon and creamed cheese sandwiches, and they had milk, then coffee. They gossiped about the office and talked about the shows they had seen recently, and, in spite of his phone call to Doris, Max felt relaxed and at ease.
Why, he wondered, couldn't nights with Doris be like this?
He followed Claire back to the bedroom. She sat on the bed, pulling her legs up under her.
"We have some special talking to do," she said with a slight smile.
He sat down beside her. "What's special?"
"You're starting a long vacation on Saturday, aren't you?"
He nodded, wondering what she was building up to. "I'll be gone at least a month."
"I'll miss you. But perhaps it's just as well. There's no future for us, is there?" It was more a statement than a question.
"What are you driving at, Claire?"
She smiled sadly. "Once I thought there might be a future for us. I'm not so much older than you and we get along beautifully. But I'm afraid there's one hitch ... Are you still in love with your wife, Max?"
"Sometimes I think so."
She gave him a quick glance, looked away, and nodded. "No future."
"Are you trying to tell me it's all over between us?"
"Oh no. Not exactly. But I do think we should allow more possibilities for the future than there are right now."
"I don't follow you."
"Put it this way. During" your vacation, I think you should make a concerted effort to square things with your wife. And whether you succeed or not after you return to New York it would be well if you didn't call me for a long long time. That way perhaps you and Doris will have a better chance-"
"I'm not so sure-"
"And I'll have a better chance too. You're a lovely man, Max, but I don't want to spend the rest of my days as your mistress."
She laid it on the line and said nothing with which he could argue. He felt at once relieved and set miserably adrift. He was relieved because his affair with Claire had made him feel guilty-guilty for betraying Doris and for not bending all his energies to helping her. He felt set adrift because his affair with Claire had helped cure the virtual loss of ego he had suffered from his relationship with Doris. Now he would no longer have Claire to lean on. He would be thrown back on his own resources.
Claire laughed softly and leaned forward against him. "Don't look so grim darlihg. Who knows what the future may bring? And there's always tonight."
He took her into his arms and kissed her.
Yes, there was always tonight.
But this would be the last night. Claire was right, of course: there had to be an end to cheating and lies and deceit. They couldn't go on forever this way. He had to make a true and complete marriage with Doris-or break with her for good and try to make a new life with someone else. Hereafter there would be no half-life, no half-marriage. He would sleep with no woman other than Doris.
But there was always tonight.
He kissed her harder, caressing her bosom through the short gown. As she raised its bottom edge, he reached beneath it, caressed her, found her breast. She pulled the gown to her neck and crushed herself luxuriously against his chest.
She pulled her arms from the gown so that it hung from her neck and over one shoulder. Their arms tangled as they sat on the bed, and they moved closer together.
They loved one another with teasing, feather touches and torrid kisses, and nothing was barred as they made their flesh sing at an even higher pitch. They kissed and caressed and nibbled at every part of one another, losing themselves completely, forgetting the fear and danger and violence of the rest of the world.
For a while at least they had what all lovers should have.
Finally, she leaned back on her elbows, and issued an urgent invitation.
He responded, and this time everything was slow and generous and good.
As good as the next time.
But morning came at last, and Max left.
Tonight wasn't always, after all.
CHAPTER THREE
Leslie killed time-killed one dreary day after another.
She almost wished that this Flagg person would appear-the one time she thought of him-on the off-chance that he might break the sterile monotony of her days. But he didn't appear, and the days and hours dragged on.
Audrey visited her from time to time, usually to make passes. Leslie parried her aside, fended her away, shunted her off.
"Oh, come on, Leslie! Don't tell me you're turning puritan in your old age!"
"I'm no puritan-"
"Don't I know it! I know how you like me, sweetie."
"But I don't feel like that now!"
"You've got needs, the same as any other woman! Don't tell me Jack Home has been wearing you out-"
"I haven't been seeing Jack."
"Somebody else? Got a new girl friend?'"
"No. Audrey, for the thousandth time, why don't you get a man-"
"I'm in love with you, sweetie-"
"Oh, nonsense!"
The truth was that Leslie was beginning to dislike Audrey. Bad qualities which had been muted when the two first met were now emerging in full strength. Audrey had harbored a certain bitterness toward herself-toward her inability to graduate to an emotionally mature life. But her self-hatred had reached a point of revulsion against itself and had been turned outward: she tended increasingly to turn bitterness and cynicism against practically everyone, male or female, who came to her attention.
Moreover, she was becoming increasingly adept at prying out dirt-or what she chose to label as dirt. In a small community where rumor and scandal were parlor games, Audrey saw more and knew more than anyone else-and was becoming vicious in the way she spread the dirt which she uncovered.
She could not always sustain the out-flow of her bitterness. From time to time it was blocked and welled up in her, and she was sick with self-loathing. She resisted the idea of psychiatric aid even though she was beginning to be plagued with spells of illness.
Leslie tried to pity her. She tried to remember the quality of soft femininity which Audrey had once had and which might still be hidden under layers of tarnished brass. But the young woman was beyond her help now, and granting her some pleasure was at best a temporary aid: that might even be harmful.
Leslie's growing dislike for Audrey was reflected in her growing dislike for females in general-even herself. Once she had been so organized that almost anything-or anyone-that aroused her sense of beauty or compassion or intellectual balance brought forth a kind of sensual-in the broad sense-response. But now her own body gave her little pleasure except in reference to a man: some man she was waiting for but who never came.
"It's the slow return of the repressed," she told herself broodingly and with a touch of self-mockery, "and I'm developing the neurotic organization of the 'normal' woman."
She frequently met Jack for lunch, and it was always pleasant. After their last morning together, when he had insisted on making love, he had never made a pass, and she was grateful.
He seemed to sense that she was going through some kind of crisis, but he never questioned her too closely. He chose to be a quiet, a warm and friendly presence willing to listen should she ever want to talk. If there was ever a break in the sluggish monotony of her days, it was when she was with Jack, and a couple of times she was tempted to invite him to her house to try to seduce him. But she decided against that. She knew the impulse couldn't last until they reached her door, and going to bed with Jack might start their affair going all over again.
And so the hours creaked and ground in weary procession.
And then one afternoon Audrey appeared at her door with a dark stranger.
In a way-his dark slimness-he was like Jack Home, but a little shorter, a little more solidly built. His quiet almost sober, manner didn't mask a certain feeling, an aura, of masculine force, of power.
She had had no idea of what Max Flagg would be like.
But she would never have guessed him to be a man like this one.
From the moment he stepped into the room and Audrey said, "This is an old friend, Les. Max Flagg," and he said, "How do you do, Dr. Stanton," her entire body, her face, her soul had felt warm and flushed. If she had taken off her clothes and looked at herself in a mirror, she would have been pink.
They dallied through the casual conversation the situation called for, and Audrey reluctantly complied with Leslie's request that she go to the kitchen and take her time mixing some martinis.
"I expected you before this, Mr. Flagg."
"My wife and I have been taking our time driving cross-country and visiting old friends and relatives. We'll go as far as Denver and then take a southern route back."
"Then you won't be here long?"
"For a week or two. Since we have so many friends here this will be our longest stop-over."
"I'm sorry you didn't bring Mrs. Flagg with you."
"So am I, but-"a wry smile flickered over Max Flagg's face, "-she was already committed to some kind of hen-party." He hesitated for an instant as if trying to decide how to phrase what he wanted to say. "My wife and I-to a certain extent-tend to go our separate ways."
Leslie's heart thumped at his words and there was a heaviness deep under her ribs. She felt more flushed and warm than ever.
Wasn't Max Flagg suggesting that all was not well between himself and his wife?
At that moment it was as if some invisible magnetism, some gravitational force, had sprung into being between them.
"Don't you gentlemen usually carry little brief cases or attache cases with you, Mr. Flagg?"
"This is primarily a vacation trip for me, Doctor, not a business trip."
"Pleasure before business."
"Exactly. Since we probably have a number of mutual friends here, such as Audrey, I thought we might get acquainted first."
"Then I'll be seeing more of you."
"I'd like that."
"So would I ... Are you busy this evening, Mr. Flagg?"
"My wife and I are supposed to go to a party at Professor Brentwood's, I'm afraid-"
"Jerry Brentwood is a very good friend of mine. I may be there."
"I'll look forward to seeing you."
They both smiled very slightly. It was a pledge of sorts.
Audrey soon returned with the drinks. Too soon. They settled down to campus chatter, Audrey taking the lead in emphasizing the muck but, happily, not laying it on too heavily.
The hour came when Max Flagg announced that he had to go met his wife. "Can I give you a ride?" he asked Audrey.
"No, sweetie, I'll stay here a bit longer."
"You'll have to take a cab, then," Leslie said, anxious to be rid of her. "I'm not going into town."
"I don't mind. Ta-ta Maxie."
Max Flagg went through the conventions of departure and from the front veranda the two women watched him go to his station wagon and leave.
"What do you think of him?" Audrey asked as the wagon pulled away.
"A very nice young man."
Audrey looked at her appraisingly. "Not too nice, I hope."
"Not too nice."
"Sweetie, don't forget that he's married."
"I suppose he is. Up to a point." Leslie immediately regretted her words. She turned briskly and reentered the house.
Audrey followed her. "Now, what the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing. Just that it's always seemed to me that there are degrees of marriage, differing in every case-"
"And he's not too married, huh?" A sharp note had come into Audrey's voice.
"I'm sure he's extremely married" Leslie lied.
Audrey continued to stare at her. "Maybe, maybe not," she muttered. Then she laughed. "It would be funny if you started getting ideas about the one guy I once thought I'd like to love."
"Very amusing."
Though not looking directly at Audrey, Leslie could see that she was chewing her lip.
"Are you angry about something, Les?"
"No, of course not!"
"You sound sort of distant."
Leslie hurried through the house toward the back veranda. Oh lord, why couldn't Audrey go home! Leslie wanted to be alone. She wanted to think about Max Flagg.
On the veranda, Audrey came up behind her and put her arms around her. "Not mad?" she said. "Not mad."
"You're my best friend in the world, Les." Leslie patted Audrey's hand. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
"Probably better than you're doing now."
"Never."
Why didn't Audrey let go of her? Why did she have to hang on her like this, like so much dead weight, like so much dull, uninteresting human pork? Why didn't she leave?
"Les, sweetie...."
"Yes...." Here it came.
"It's been a long time...."
"I think we'd better leave things that way, Audrey."
"Don't be silly, sweetie." Audrey moved her right hand up to a full globe. "Don't I"
Leslie wrenched herself free of the clinging, exploring hands. Audrey's eyes widened.
"Well, what the hell's the matter with you!"
"I simply don't want you, Audrey, I'm not in the mood!"
"You're never in the mood any more!"
"That's right!" Anger, icy and uncontrollable, took command of Leslie's tongue. "I'm never in the mood any more! Never, ever again! I'm sick and tired of that, you'll have to go elsewhere! I'm no frustrated old maid who doesn't know what to do with a man once she has the chance. I'm a woman a grown-up woman, not a Lesbian. Do you understand me?"
She stood panting, glaring at Audrey. Audrey was frozen in an attitude of shock.
The shock faded visibly. "Maxie really got to you, didn't he?"
"I'm sorry, Audrey. I'm sorry." Leslie tried to melt her anger. "No, it wasn't Max. It was everything. I've been fed up with the world lately, and I had no right to take my feelings out on you."
She was aware of an element of hypocrisy in her words: it could be very dangerous to make an enemy of Audrey.
She was equally aware of the hypocrisy in Audrey's soothing words: "Sure, sure sweetie. I know how you feeL We all have these times. I'll tell you what-you sit down here and I'll call a taxi. And while I'm waiting for it, I'll make you another big cold martini."
"Would you, Audrey?" Leslie said eagerly. "It would be so good of you!"
More hypocrisy. God, what a Tartuffe she was! Make Audrey think she was doing her a big favor and thus, perhaps, take some of the potential pressure off!
"Be right with you, sweetie." Saccharin tones. More hypocrisy. So this would be the new game they would play.
Still, the big martini proved to be excellent and after Audrey had left, she sat alone on the back veranda and relished it. Gradually she unwound.
She had better call dear Jerry soon and find out if he minded her coming over. The sooner she saw Max Flagg again, the better.
Max Flagg what was there about him?
Then she remembered.
That daydream she had had the last time she and Audrey had been together. That silly adolescent fantasy she had indulged in.
The dark lover who had come to her, naked and impassioned. The dark lover whom she hadn't been able to resist, hadn't wanted to resist. The dark lover who had taken her mercilessly....
In her mind she was seeing her dark lover again, and the hunger swept through her. She was seeing her dark lover and now she recognized him.
It was Max Flagg who was naked before her, Max Flagg who was ravishing her.
If she only could. She wanted him the dark lover of her dreams, the one she would love and cherish forever.
Yes, she had to have him. She had to have him in her arms.
At this moment, her entire being seemed to have but one objective: to make love with Max Flagg.
Max was angry with himself, angry and disturbed, as he drove back into town.
What had he thought he was up to? His only real interest in Leslie Stanton-aside, perhaps, from the interest of meeting one of the world's leading scientists-was to get an important contract signed. Never in his life had he even considered playing the lady's man to achieve a business objective.
Yet at the very instant he said those words about Doris and him tending to go their separate ways, he had known how they would sound. He had known what his tone would imply. But he had been powerless to control himself. It was as if some unknown power within had taken control of him and was speaking through his mouth.
And the lady had known precisely what he had-no, not he!-what his words and tone had meant! He angrily disclaimed the implied intention.
Well, if Dr. Leslie Stanton had any biological ideas about him, they were badly mistaken. He had no intention of cheating on Doris ever again. If matters reached such a pass that he had to go to another woman, he'd get a divorce. But, like every other man who gets married, he'd taken his chances and he'd do his damnedest to abide by the results. God knew, Doris had worked like hell to make things right for them.
Even if she was driving both of them nuts.
He wondered if Leslie Stanton would show up at Jerry Brentwood's that night.
She was a hell of an example of womanhood, all right.
Audrey was something, for that matter-she certainly liked to throw herself around. She had always been a bit of a tease, but now you half expected her to pull out a boob and wave it at you at any minute. And withdraw it the moment she saw that you were really becoming excited. She had become a lot more bold and brassy in the last three years, and undeniably she had everything it took to interest a man.
But she barely compared with Leslie Stanton, as far as Max was concerned. What an attractive female that was! Brownish-reddish hair: a kind of brilliant auburn, he supposed. Dark eyes. A handsome womanly face. A figure that was too effective to be merely perfect. And the way that figure moved! None of Audrey's wiggling-a flow, a waviness, an undulance.
It was the remembered vision of Leslie Stanton as much as the heat of the day that brought sweat to Max's forehead.
Well, get her out of your mind, buster. Beautiful women helped to make the world a tolerable place during one's brief span-but you have a lovely wife to care for your needs.
Oh, yeah, sure.
Be picked up Doris at the Faculty Club, and they went to their hotel to wash and change for dinner. They had decided to stay at a small, inexpensive, comfortable hotel rather than in some friend's home, because it gave them more privacy and freedom. They had dinner with another couple, the Bannons, at a favorite restaurant of the old days and then headed for Professor Brentwood's.
It was a larger party than Max had expected. Jerry Brentwood had attempted to round up as many people who knew Max and Doris as he possibly could. Max would have preferred to renew old acquaintances a few at a time rather than having them thrown at him so fast he hardly had time to say hello, but he noted that Doris was apparently enjoying herself, and he was grateful to Jerry for his efforts.
He wandered from one group to another, exuding a somewhat forced joviality, trading reminiscences, getting "brought up to date." He was glad that he'd hung onto his class annuals, for without them he would never have remembered all the names and faces he did, and he was still put into an awkward position in a couple of cases. But, with the ease of a good salesman, he faked it successfully and prevented anyone's feelings from being damaged.
When, after a couple of hours, the pressure of social fellowship was beginning to tell on him, Max contrived to fade from sight, disappearing out onto a side terrace and behind a tall stand of bushes.
"Hello again."
She was there. And now he knew that he had been waiting for her, looking for her, wishing for her, during the entire evening.
She wore a dark green dress, low-cut with string shoulder-straps: a cocktail or informal evening dress, he supposed she would call it. She filled it like an overdeveloped adolescent who hadn't lost the last of her baby fat. But what she had was not baby fat. She was all woman.
"Hello, Dr. Stanton-"
"My name is Leslie, Max-"
"I hoped I'd see you here, Leslie."
Again, the words were coming from his mouth as if someone else were dictating what he must say.
As if, it suddenly struck him, he was saying what Leslie Stanton wanted him to say. And there was no doubt-from her smile, from the light in her dark eyes-that she was pleased by his words.
"I've looked forward to it, too," she said.
Music floated through the lighted French windows, across the terrace, and out into the darkness around them. Without a thought of what he was doing, Max held up his left hand and, stepping forward, put his right hand just above the small of Leslie's back.
They danced.
As they danced, he felt the smooth muscles of her back working against his palm. They moved closer together and her full bosom dusted lightly against his chest.
She smiled. The tip of her tongue flickered over her richly sensuous lips. Her eyes at the same moment glittered and darkened.
"I'm glad to know that I was right," he said, unable to prevent his voice from shaking. "About what, Max?"
"I couldn't believe that you were as lovely as I remembered."
She smiled. "Is this how you usually go about getting a contract signed?"
"To hell with the contract."
At that instant, he meant precisely what he said. Earlier, no. Later, no. But right now the only thing claiming his interest and attention was the woman in the crook of his arm, the woman whose body was in his hands.
He danced with her, and he hadn't danced like this since his early days with Doris. This was not the dance of social convention. This was the dance of sensual pleasure! It verged on the dance of courtship, the dance as the first stage of love-play, the dance that led to complete abandon.
This was not two bodies in step with the same music but two bodies in step with each other in a sensual rhythm.
They couldn't stay together long with propriety. But they did stay together-much too long. And after they had rejoined the party and gone their differing ways, Max remained conscious of Leslie's presence across the room. Through cigarette smoke, through party chatter, through the shifting and milling of the other guests, he remained aware of Leslie's voice, glance, her animal attraction.
In less than an hour, Max again made his way across the terrace and out onto the dark lawn.
He turned around and Leslie was there. They danced.
"It occurred to me," she said after a time, "that we'd have to met again to discuss the contract. Why don't you come to the Faculty Cabana Club tomorrow afternoon? Sign yourself-and Mrs. Flagg, if she'd like to come-as my guests. Use the Club any time you wish while you're here." She hesitated and again her tongue-tip moved over her lips. "We can meet there, or at my house, any time."
She moved her left arm from Max's shoulder and held out a key. "Cabana No. 21 "
Max took the key. "Thank you, Leslie."
She smiled.
Her smile grew and her eyes closed as once again his arm tightened around her.
"It was a nice party, wasn't it?" Doris said as they drove back to their hotel.
"Fine. A little crowded, but a lot of fun."
"You seemed to have fun with that Stanton woman, dancing on the lawn."
Max tried to sound casual. "She's quite a hunk. And at least she hasn't given me an outright veto of the contract."
"I think she's attracted to you."
"Naturally, darling. Women simply can't resist your husband's wiles and blandishments. I'll get that contract yet."
Doris laughed mirthlessly. Her voice was strained with the effort to keep the conversation light. "Are you sure the contract is the only thing you're after?"
"What else?"
"Well, if I were a man and I met a cookie like that...."
"You'd betray me darling?"
"Who knows? I might."
"Well, if you ever do," Max turned on a mock-harsh voice, "just be sure you get the contract, see?"
They both laughed, and Max was pleased that the laughter bubbled up naturally.
"The same goes for you, sweetheart," Doris said, a smile still in her voice. "If you must give in to another woman, I want to see us get a substantial return on the investment."
She raised up and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
Once back in their hotel room, they quickly got ready for bed. As Max brushed his teeth, he told himself he'd better keep his imagination from running amok over this Stanton dame. She was, as Doris had said, a cookie-quite a cookie. But the odds were that she had no real intentions on his fair body, and certainly he had none on hers. Since she had apparently had no inclination to sign the contract, it was decent of her not to give him the boot immediately but to display a willingness to give it a look-see and listen to what he had to say.
But that was as far as matters went. For both of them.
There was no sense in confusing matters just because the woman had a grand pair of boobs and a lovely behind.
And she definitely was lovely....
He looked around the bathroom for his pajamas and realized that he had forgotten to bring them in with him. Still wearing his briefs, he returned to the bedroom for them.
He came to a dead stop the instant he saw Doris.
She was sitting on the turned-down bed, her legs curled under her, and she looked quite casual as she took a last puff of her cigarette and ground out the butt in a tray.
But the effect on Max wasn't casual.
She wore something like a shortie nightie, something like a hip-length negligee; a single layer of black silk, decorated with a few black silk roses, tied at the neck. Under it another wisp of back silk clung to her and a pretense of a black brassiere cupped each beautiful, shimmering hemisphere. Naked pink nipples pointed against the transparent black nightie.
"You like?" she asked softly.
"You've been saving your ammunition," he said huskily.
She nodded. "I bought it before we left New York. Been saving it for the proper mood."
He gazed over her velvet and silken blonde and black length. He prayed that she had left him enough self-confidence to do justice to her.
But he mustn't let that kind of thinking take over. It was that kind of thinking that could easily defeat both of them.
He focused his full attention on her.
"You're beautiful," he said. "I keep learning over and over again just how beautiful you are."
She smiled and held out her arms for him. He went to her. They flowed into one another's arms.
He kissed her and caressed her. He touched her nipples through the black silk, then went beneath the nightie to take their hard warmth to his fingers.
"I do love you Max, I do love you!"
"And I love you always. Always and only and forever.
"I love you and love what you're doing-you make me so female, Max. Oh, do things to me!"
He swept the black veiling aside to worship her breasts. He feather-touched the small of her back and waist. Sensation grew more piognant, wave after wave. The liquor of love flowed over Max, dizzying him.
Doris's nails cut his torso. As she moaned under his touch, she shoved his briefs down, tantalizing him.
"Make love to me, darling," she whispered. "Make love mean and gentle and cruel and sweet. For me, Max!"
The next step was coming soon, he knew. Things worked best for them not that that was saying much, considering the past if they didn't wait too long.
"We'll make this lovely," he said. "Sweet and gentle and I'll give you all my love."
"Oh, darling, be gentle with me."
As she raised herself he moved the black fabric away, fully revealing what until now had been half hidden.
"Now, Max, now...."
He lay her back, black silk on white sheets, and looked at her beauty as lie kneeled near her.
She reached for him, eagerly.
Slow and careful, he took her.
This was time for quiet now, time to wait. They were motionless and savoring, until she initiated the work gently.
They worked slowly.
But it was a matter of calculated planned pleasure. There was no spontaneity, no real joy.
They were not loving one another; they were trying to love. They were gymnastic.
The count picked up. Max struggled to contain himself. He worked to de-emphasize the mounting feeling fought to keep going.
But he couldn't keep his eyes off her, and the sight of her ravished him. The expanse of rolling waist, the yearning nipples straining out of the fragmentary brassiere, the pressure of her grasping arms.
He could not resist; he finished.
"Not yet! Not yet!" she cried out.
But that was too late. He worked again and yet again, unable and unwilling to stop, time and place blanking out.
"Oh please, not yet!"
That was over and spoiled. Even the ultimate moment had been diminished for him by his straining for an unnatural control. Doris' straining had made that worse, and her lack of satisfaction, her complete frustration, ruined that entirely.
"Damn you!" she cried.
He reached to touch her, to help her achieve some satisfaction at the very least.
"No damn you!" she howled. "What kind of man are you! What's wrong with you! I was nearly through. If you'd only kept working! Why couldn't you? You damned-
"For God's sake, I'm not Superman! I'm a human being!"
"You're a louse! You're no man. You call yourself a man, you rat--"
She went on. And on and on.
She couldn't help it, he knew, and there was no stopping her. She had to get it out of her system. But he couldn't help snapping back.
"Maybe I'm not a man. If I were, I would have married a woman."
His words cut her off. He hadn't expected that. More likely, she would have thrown the lamp at him. But she didn't. She turned aside and wept.
"I'm sorry, Doris. I do my best."
But he couldn't comfort her now. Still weeping, she pulled off the remaining black silk garments-and how pathetic they seemed to Max now-and pulled on white cotton pajamas. After a trip to the bathroom, she went to bed, turning herself toward the wall.
Max pulled the sheet over himself and turned out the bedside lamp.
A bad night, a rotten night, he thought as he lay in the dark. Here they lay with their backs to one another and as distant as if they lived in two different worlds.
And yet in the same hell.
It was odd; in spite of his release, he felt frustrated himself. Their relationship had been so incomplete, even in the act of love, that right now he wanted a woman. He wanted Doris.
But he couldn't have Doris. He might never in a thousand years have Doris.
Leslie....
She came to his mind like a bright vision in the dark. Every curve of her body, every movement, was completely real. And completely inviting.
He tried to banish her from his mind. With an effort, he turned his thoughts to Jerry Brentwood and the others who had been at the party. He reviewed them one by one.
Sleep wouldn't come and the minutes ticked by. A quarter of an hour, half an hour, three quarters of an hour. There was no movement from the other side of the bed.
Then the vision of Leslie was with him again, stronger than ever. She came toward him, tilting her head back and offering her kiss, closing her eyes. A strap fell off her shoulder and the green dress rolled away from one breast, revealing a passionate nipple ... She reached down to raise the front of her skirt and brought herself to him.
Max gritted his teeth. For the second time that night he found himself completely excited.
And there wasn't a thing he could do.
A soft hand fumbled over his hip. He reached back to take the hand in his own.
They lay silently, unmoving, waiting for sleep to come.
CHAPTER FOUR
Leslie felt a shiver of excitement AS she looked toward the swimming pool. It was the excitement of knowing that she might see Max Flagg at any moment. Her gaze circled the sparkling pool carefully. She didn't see Max. But there was Doris, flanked by Jack and Audrey, so Max must be around somewhere. Or perhaps that was wishful thinking.
She went to Cabana No. 21 and knocked before trying the door. It was just possible that Max might be in there this very minute. But there was no response to her knock, and she used her second key to enter.
Inside, she found, besides Doris's clothes, a pair of men's slacks and a sport shirt on a hanger. She smiled.
Max was here. He was somewhere very close to her at this very moment.
She stripped off her clothing and looked at herself in the mirror. She imagined Max's image in the mirror beside her; naked excited, intent on taking her as intent as she was on being taken. Soon, darling, soon.
Someone knocked on the door and a voice called out, "It's me sweetie. Audrey."
Leslie wished she had something on but decided that it wasn't wise to keep Audrey waiting. She opened the door and let the younger woman slip in.
"Well, look at the yummies," Audrey said, viewing Leslie's nude body.
"Hands off, baby. Mommy's going for a swim." Leslie tried to sound light-hearted and today it wasn't difficult.
"Saving yourself for Maxie?"
"Don't be silly."
"I'm not being silly-I'm no fool. But I can tell you this. I've been keeping my eyes on Max and Doris, and I can make you a guarantee. Those two are in love. I mean really in love."
Leslie was chilled. Audrey, she knew, was not always imperceptive. Was it possible that Max Flagg had been conning her? After all, there was a contract at stake, one that was probably very important to Max.
But that was silly. No matter how important the contract, the attraction between her and his man had been real. And he hadn't been faking the several rather slighting references he had made to his wife, she was positive. He had given her the contract to read a couple of days ago here at the Faculty Cabana Club, and he hadn't made a single reference to it since.
No, surely Max Flagg hadn't been conning her. He wasn't that kind of an operator.
"Certainly, they're in love," she told Audrey. "I'm glad to have my own impression verified."
Audrey laughed softly and derisively, and Leslie had a strong desire to hit her. Her abiquitous presence, her obvious willingness to make trouble, was becoming bloody damned tiresome.
Leslie took a two-piece yellow bathing suit out of the small chest of drawers she kept in the cabana. It was as close to a bikini as one dared to get at the Faculty Cabana Club, and she knew it did things for her that a bikini couldn't do for most other women.
She half expected Audrey to try to delay her putting the suit on, but all she did was grin and say, "Well, good luck, mommy. He'll never know what hit him."
Leslie ignored the remark. Audrey was only fishing for some confirmation that her suspicions might prove to be correct.
Without bothering to put on a cap, Leslie left the cabana and raced for the pool, leaving Audrey behind. As she ran, she saw Max bobbing in the water on the other side. She did a racing dive, felt the fine thrashing of bubbles around her, and knifed through the cool water in his direction. When she guessed that she was nearly to him, she surfaced, took two strokes, and said, "Hi!"
His grin was spontaneous. He was glad to see her. "Hi, beautiful. How's my favorite mermaid today?"
"Favorite?"
His shrug suggested an element of embarrassment. "My wife likes to swim, but not as much as you do."
She pushed herself down into the water, grabbed his knee and pulled him under. He kicked and struggled to get away from her, and she enjoyed the feeling of a man's muscles against her palms.
Pulling away, he twisted beneath her, and, as he returned her touch, she was flooded with warmth. She wondered if she effected him the way he effected her. Surely, she must.
They surfaced and laughed at one another, but there was a kind of strain, a special excitement, in their laughter. Yes, she did effect him.
"Max," she said after a moment, "I have a confession to make to you."
"What's that?"
"Since you gave me that copy of the contract, I've hardly glanced at it."
"No hurry."
"Isn't it important to you?"
"Extremely. It affects my entire future with my company, in all probability."
"Then I'd think you'd want matters settled right away so that you can relax and enjoy your vacation-"
"Look." His voice suddenly took on a special tension. "The sooner you sign that contract, the sooner I lack an excuse for seeing you."
They stared at one another.
Max tried to bring lightness back into his voice. "I have no right to say that, but it's true. I get a big kick out of being with you, Les. Let's just say that I enjoy the privilege of using your membership in the club here."
"Yes. Let's just say it's that." For now, she added silently.
They played in the water a few minutes more, and Leslie swam away from Max. She had seen so much of him in the last few days that she knew it must look suspicious, especially considering the fact that this community often saw illicit meanings where the facts were completely innocent.
Both to allay suspicion and under the theory that it was a good policy to know the "enemy," Leslie had made a practice of spending time with Doris as well as with Max. She knew this was un-likely to fool anyone but she could at least refer to it as a point in her favor should Audrey or someone else raise the voice of gossip too loudly. Now she made a note to herself not to let Doris get away without spending some time with her.
But first she must see Jack Home.
She climbed out of the pool, only half-conscious of the eyes that were turned toward her sleek, wet body, and went in search of Jack. She found him in the club bar-and-grill enjoying a Tom Collins.
"How's it going with Doris?" she asked in a low voice as she slid onto a bar stool beside Jack.
"Oh, she's fine," he said casually. "Same sweet girl and all that yok."
Leslie ordered a gin buck. "Attractive as ever?"
"She is attractive, isn't she?"
"You know what I mean."
"Deed I do." He said it as if he did not.
She ignored his affectation of disinterest.
"Then you won't mind taking her to the party at the Faculty Town Club tomorrow night."
For the first time Jack's ears seemed to prick up. "I had assumed that she'd be going with her husband if with anyone."
"I mentioned the party to Max. I suggested that we might all go together. If you're free."
"I see no objection to that."
"A foursome. You and me, Max and Doris."
Jack smiled. "Or however you want to cut it."
"Still go for her, don't you, Jack?"
He shrugged and looked away. "It's been a long time. About four years."
"How time flies!"
They completed their arrangements. Leslie finished her drink and went back to the pool. Doris was still sitting in the same canvas chair in which Leslie had seen her earlier. She was quite a picture, Leslie noted, in her one-piece aqua suit.
Leslie sat down beside her, saying, "Hi, there."
"Oh-hi." Doris turned a smile toward her. It was a warm sun-lazed smile, sincere, whatever Doris's suspicions about her husband might be.
Did she have any idea of the growth of special feeling between Leslie and Max? If she did, she might well be suppressing it. Or perhaps Jack Home was proving to be an adequate distraction.
"I hope your husband thought to tell you," Leslie said. "Yesterday I suggested that both of you come to the Faculty Town Club party tomorrow night."
"He did say something about it."
"Good. Jack Home will be going with us, too. The four of us should have a lot of fun."
"Yes. Jack's a nice fellow."
Leslie relaxed beside Doris, trying to "read" her, trying to get the feel of her mood. She was fairly sure there was big trouble between Max and his wife: she could feel something between them that was wrong aM wrong, but she couldn't be absolutely certain what it was. Doris was Jack's lost love. Did that cast any light on the matter?
She remembered that Jack had said or hinted that Doris had some problem in frigidity. If that were the case, the problem might very well have carried over into, and poisoned, the marriage.
Which was all to Leslie's advantage.
She was working slowly. Ordinarily, if she and some male had found that they attracted one another to an exceptional degree, she would have seen to it that they went to bed at the first available opportunity. Love generally worked out best that way. They would have kept on loving until one or the other was bored, parted friends, and that would have been that.
But matters were different with Max. He was married and despite an marital troubles, he might well be deeply attached to Doris. He might succumb to a weekend orgy, get the trouble out of his system and be done with Leslie.
And, more and more, she was intent on not being done with.
More and more, she wanted never to say, "It's been fun-farewell!" to Max Flagg.
Hence, their relationship must go deeper than merely going to bed. It must become the harmony of the whole being, the attraction of the soul as well as of the body.
Although she tried to avoid referring to the concept, tried almost superstitiously to avoid it, Leslie knew, quite well what she was looking for.
A true marriage. A husband.
And that meant working to preclude completely and desperate element in her relationship with Max. It meant sinking her hooks into him far more deeply than Doris ever had, so deeply that Doris could never get him back.
And why not? she rationalized, why not when it might be as well for Doris as for Max and herself? If this were a marriage gone sour, Doris would be far happier with someone other than Max, wouldn't she? Jack Home, for example, was still interested in her; she might have made her worst mistake in tossing over Jack for Max.
Leslie became aware that perhaps dishonesty had entered her speculations, and she had a moment of self-hatred as a result.
If you're trying to steal her man she thought, you're trying to steal her man! After thirty-four years of playing it fairly decent and straight, you've gone mean-witch and you're trying to steal another woman's prize to keep yourself happy, so have the grace at least not to be a hypocrite about it!
Leslie was an attractive woman in a rather full-blown way, Doris reflected, and she was a pleasant person to be with. It was quite understandable that Max should like her and spend time with her, even ignoring the business aspect of the situation.
And it was quite natural that she, Doris, should be jealous. But she had to remain aware that it was only jealousy, only in her own mind, only a part of the sickness in her own soul.
But, on the other hand, perhaps her jealousy had some grounds-thanks to the way she herself treated Max. After what happened a few nights ago, for instance, was it surprising that Max hardly looked at her? Would it be so surprising if he went to another woman to salve his ego?
She winced as she remembered how she had turned on him because of her own frustration. But she had been trying so hard, so desperately hard, and then he had gone right ahead, thoughtlessly, taking his own pleasure-!
There she went again. Blaming poor Max. When she knew perfectly well, much as she hated to admit it, that more than once she had virtually destroyed him with the razor edge of her vicious tongue.
Oh, to hell with it. Why think of such things?
And yet the image of Max and Leslie persisted in springing to her mind, sickening her.
She shook her head as if to clear it and looked around the pool. Where was Jack?
And why should she look for him?
Funny. She had been afraid to see him again. The idea of her and Max and the man who had at one time taken her to bed, all being in the same room, trading small talk, was extremely distasteful. It didn't help in the slightest that Max didn't know Jack had been her lover. If anything that might make things worse, because Jack could ignore the fact that Max had cut him out and could take the smug male, "I was there first" attitude, as if she and Max both were merely discards. She had seen men behave that way before.
But things hadn't worked out that way at all. There was no slightest hint of condescension on Jack's part, no trace of male one-upmanship toward either Max or her. The result was that Doris now felt guilty for underrating the degree of Jack's sophistication.
And she felt disarmed when he made clear that he was still attracted to her. He had lost her long ago and had never gotten over that loss. He knew of the inability she had once had and might have still, but it made no difference to him.
He wanted her.
He hadn't said that in so many words. He had hardly hinted. But neither had he hidden the fact behind any kind of mask. And his presence helped her to reaffirm her womanhood and desirability when her failure with Max had torn her confidence apart.
She had never made complete love with a man until she met Jack. Oh, there had been a certain amount of light petting, of course, but even in that respect she had never gone as far as most of the girls she knew in her dorm here at school. After she had graduated, her behavior had remained the same for a long time, on the undergraduate level, as she now thought.
She took a secretarial job with the university. She dated and had fun and was a "good girL"
But what was a good girl? She noted that most of the girls she had started school with were married. The "heavy petters" were married. Those whom she suspected or knew to have slept with boys were married. Some married the boys they had played pre-marital games with. Some married others. On the whole, they all seemed happy regardless of past history. The only exceptions of which she was positive, in fact, were a couple of girls who had been as cautious in their pre-marital years as she was being.
That didn't prove any praticular pattern of behavior to be right or wrong or best or worst. But it did tend to suggest that the pattern Doris had been following wasn't an absolute requisite for marital happiness in the years ahead.
Doris began to re-evaluate the pattern of her life. Then she met Jack.
Perhaps it had been an infatuation. Perhaps she had simply wanted to get married and had left behind by her girl friends, many of whom had children by that time. Or perhaps she had been truly in love with Jack.
In any case, she let him take liberties she had never allowed before. Little by little, the bars went down. She let him touch her bosom. She let him unfasten her brassiere. The suspicion that he would lose respect for her and that he would come to want her for only one thing was still with her, and, to her surprise, the more she let him touch her the more he seemed to care for her.
He told her he loved her.
He told her that when he received his next raise they'd be married. He asked her, almost implored her, to marry him. And she consented.
They floated in the warmth of their mutual love and desire, and the bars went down further yet. With increasing frequency, she visited the room he called his home. There her young bosom was entirely bared for him. There, for the first time, she rid herself of her panties for a man. There, for the first time, she saw a passionate man naked.
And, inevitably, in a moment of pain, they were both sacrificed.
Exquisitely, even with the pain, and she had never loved Jack more than when he reached his final ecstasy and thundered a dozen times or more.
But that was incomplete. The next time would be even better.
But that wasn't.
Nor was the time after that.
But she learned from the books she acquired from the library that these things frequently took practice for a woman.
She practiced.
She stayed all night with Jack more often and coaxed him several times each night, and each time she worked to reach a conclusion.
Unsuccessfully.
And then one day Max appeared in her office. She might have seen him once or twice before, but if so she hadn't noticed him. But from the moment she did notice him, he was never out of her mind.
He took her out that night. He was near her every waking hour of that weekend.
Jack was ignored, forgotten. Max came back each evening, even when it entailed driving a hundred miles or more. Jack was nothing, Max was everything. Surely she had been fooling herself about Jack. Or how could she feel this way about Max?
She saw Jack, broke off their affair as gently as she could under the circumstances, and continued to live with Max only on her mind.
After a few weeks, he proposed marriage and she accepted. A date was set.
But how could she wait until the ceremony? By now she was used to having a man, even if she had never been satisfied, and the only man she wanted was Max. She yearned for him.
On the next Friday evening, she went to his hotel, knowing that he usually checked in before calling her. She met him out front and, after he had visited the desk, she went with him to his room, quite shamelessly ignoring the presence of following eyes and the bellhop who carried Max's bags.
When the bell hop was gone and Max had washed up, she threw herself at the arms of her man.
"I love you, Max. Tell me you love me."
"I love you more than life."
After a moment, she dared. "Darling, would you think me quite shameless if...."
"Tomorrow I had planned to move to a motel..
"You mean, you were going to...."
"If you'd let me. I don't want to wait, Doris. I can't wait. This is driving me crazy, holding you, touching you, but never really loving you."
"I want you to, Max. You're my man. I want my man."
They kissed and she wanted him so badly at that moment that she wished he wouldn't bother to take off all their clothes, just take her as quickly as possible. But he insisted on stripping her naked and taking off all his clothing, and she was glad. Her emotions hit a higher pitch than they ever had before, long before he took her, and she knew that when he did take her, everything would be all right.
He took her.
He loved her leisurely and cried out in the agony of his peak.
But she was left unsatisfied.
Well, she told herself, it was their first time together, so the results should have been expected.
But the results didn't change the next time or the next. By the time they were married, she was quite worried, but she kept telling herself that everything would work out all right.
It didn't.
The next year was a journey into hell. Every month their situation was worse. She constantly expected an improvement that never came. Their life together ceased to be one of love and became a series of desperate, strenuous, soul-consuming wrestling matches, each one culminating in a bitterness that was close to hate.
Max prevailed upon her to seek psychiatric aid, and she finally acceded to his wishes, though it took all the nerve she had to go to her first session. It took just as much nerve to revive her hidden memories, to retain and describe in detail her worst dreams, to be completely truthful in telling of her relations with Max and Jack.
But, oddly enough, the world didn't fall apart with each revelation. Neither what she told nor what she learned destroyed her, though she more than half expected it to.
Bit by bit, it all come to light: the fears and fantasies of the past that poisoned her present. The unallayed Freudian complexes were brought to light and made laughable; the childhood warnings against self-abuse and he danger of madness entailed, with all the concurrent guilt she had stored up, were rendered harmless. Doris began to know the truth about herself and about the world around her. The world brightened.
Gradually her relations with Max improved in every respect. Although total success in bed didn't come, they were closer, and Doris occasionally found a touch of something beyond anything she had ever experienced before.
After a year of therapy, she was certain that she was on the verge of success, and the sessions were brought to a close.
It was true that a few months later something was still missing. But she thought, if only she tried a little harder. Oh, she had been trying hard, but she must try harder yet.
She tried. And the harder she tried, the worse matters became. Rapidly she and Max descended right back to the hell from which they had so arduously climbed.
The bed became an instrument of torture. At times she became completely cold, Max completely impotent.
Still she struggled. Nothing.
Nothing but failure, nerves that clammered like a thousand telephones, loathing for Max and herself that sickened her.
Yet she tried because she loved him and because she needed his love and to be loved.
She knew that he was trying, too, of course. Even after she was reasonably certain that he had turned away from her and toward Claire Johnson. She visited his office one afternoon to find the information that the Johnsons had separated.
She hated Max for that and yet she couldn't blame him. Max had to save himself. What an irony if she got what love from Max she did through the grace of Claire Johnson. What a bitter draught to drink, that Doris had to lose her husband to another woman in order to have any expression of his physical love at all!
When, after four years of marriage, a long vacation presented itself, Doris looked on it as a great opportunity. They would be away from New York; Max would be away from Claire. There would be few or no distractions. They would make it a second honeymoon, far better than the first one and, at long last, they would achieve total marriage.
She prepared for the trip carefully; both her wardrobe and her state of mind.
Dreams, illusions were quickly bled away in the wound of recurrent failure.
She was as patient and unblaming with Max as he was with her, at the start of the trip. She had by now come to the point of exciting herself artificially in the hope it would carry her across the finish line. She covertly eyed handsome filling station attendants, truck drivers and teen-aged boys. She indulged in fantasies which she hoped would help to bring her to completion in some motel room that night. She dressed seductively at bedtime.
She failed.
She was failing still.
But she had to keep on trying. No matter how much she cursed Max, no matter how much she hurt him and he her, she loved him and she had to make their love complete.
Or maybe she was fooling herself.
She sometimes wondered. Had she turned to Max because of her frustration with Jack Home? Would things have turned out differently if she had remained with Jack?
She was a good girl, this Doris, Leslie thought. A good girl and a sad girl. It was impossible to escape the impression.
My God, she should be trying to help the poor kid if the problem was what she thought, not trying to take her husband away from her.
But Leslie couldn't afford to think in those terms. Better to remember that the all had a bit of life left to live, barring bad luck, and if Doris's Life had gone badly with Max, maybe it would go better with another man.
More hypocrisy?
Jack appeared from behind them and said hello. Doris looked up and smiled at him.
Good. Hurray for our team. Take her, Jack. Take the blonde witch to bed with you. Give her the whole world and take her out of little Leslie's hair.
"Me for the water," Leslie said. She arose, took a long step to the edge of the pool, and dived, cutting the water like a blade.
She surfaced, swam a few strokes, and looked over her shoulder. Jack was settling into the chair she had recently occupied and Doris, still smiling, was turning toward him.
Audrey was hovering nearby. May she drop dead a thousand times consecutively and simultaneously.
Leslie felt mean, vicious. It was one way to keep to her intention.
She looked around for the man she intended to seduce for a lifetime and she saw him; Max Flagg.
CHAPTER FIVE
Max Flagg, Audrey reflected as she swung about in his arm, was as attractive as ever. No better a dancer, and perhaps not as good as he had once been, but attractive. Funny how the cards fell. Doris had cut her out with ftaax, and now it looked as if Max were cutting her out with Leslie. Not that she had proof positive, but it certainly looked that way.
Well, to hell with them all. Our little Audrey was getting a mite tired of getting the short end of the stick. If she couldn't get the long one for a change, no one was going to.
Mix well, condition fuse, and light. She felt for the rhythm of the music, swayed with t, and tried to stay in step with Max.
Damn Faculty Town Club parties, anyway. Why couldn't they have had this one out at the Cabana Club where there was a bar? The dance was being held in the Student Union Building and, like most other American institutions of higher learning, this one had a regulation forbidding anything stronger than dishwater on campus. Therefore you had to cross Kennedy Avenue and go down the block to the Faculty Town Club proper to get a drink. Unless you wanted to carry a flask like some silly undergraduate, drunk on F. Scott Fitzgerald.
"Could you go a drink, Max?" she asked.
"I could go a couple of them."
"What say we make the long trek over to the club?"
Max glanced about the dimly lighted dance floor. Looking for Les, no doubt.
"She isn't here."
"What?"
"Never mind. Come on, Strongheart."
She led him through the too many corridors and down the too many steps it took just to get started toward the Faculy Town Club. What lousy planning.
Once on the night-lit street, she asked him, "Now that you've been here for a few days, how're you enjoying yourself?"
"Having a great time, Audrey."
"You don't keep much of an eye on Doris, do you?"
"Of course not. Why should I?"
Audrey shrugged, wondering if she were getting into water that was deeper than she had calculated. "No reason, but old stamping grounds, old boy friends, old lovers, all that jazz."
If Max had a little jealousy aroused, she thought, he might head toward his own reservation and leave Leslie alone. And surely he had noticed that Doris was spending quite a bit of time with Jack.
"Old lovers?" he said. "Were we ever really lovers, Audrey?"
The bumpkin had read her wrong. "I wasn't referring to us."
"To whom?"
"To Jack, who else." She halted under a street lamp and looked at him. "My God, don't tell me you don't know about Jack!"
Audrey walked on. "Never mind."
She waited to get a rise from Max, some insistance that she clarify what she had said. It never came. Maybe the guy was indifferent, though that was doubtful.
At length she continued without waiting for coaxing. "You must know that Doris and Jack had a big thing together before you came along-"
"Audrey, I don't give a damn about Doris' history before I met her. It never occurred to me to question her. Her past is her own business. It's not mine."
Oh, come on, now!" she teased. And yet she knew that he was sincere from the trace of boredom in his voice. But there was another card she could play. "Max, I agree with you completely in what you say, as far as it goes. But what if the past intrudes on the present? What if it affects the future?"
"How, specifically? And don't clam up on me the way you did a moment ago. Are you trying to tell me that something's going on between my wife and Jack?"
"I'm only trying to tell you that if I were you I'd keep an eye on her under the circumstances."
"You're quite the little Miss Fix It, aren't you?
You don't mind throwing your weight around." Max grinned at her. "Are you sure you're not just a little jealous of Jack?"
The suggestion, completely unexpected, shocked her. After a dozen heart beats, she burst out laughing. "Yes, I'll bet that's it! I'm sure that's it!"
They crossed the avenue and headed toward the club.
Audrey wondered how things would have gone if Max had never met Doris. She and Max had gotten along pretty well in those days. He had wanted her and she had wanted him. And if only she had given in before Doris, if only she hadn't beat her to the prize.
But that was water under the bridge. Now there was the matter of hanging onto Leslie, or rather of getting her back. It wasn't that she actually preferred a woman, she told herself, but the men around here didn't appeal to her. Oh, some were all right. Jack was all right physically, but he was a crumb.
She wondered if Jack really was loving Doris once again. It was an interesting thought. Jack's apartment was right across the corridor from hers in the new staff apartment building, and more than once she had seen a woman visit Jack and leave hours later, even as late as the next morning. She hadn't seen Doris there in the few days she had been in town, but of course Audrey could hardly detect every coming and going. The only real evidence, such as it was, was that so often Audrey saw the two of them together. At a couple of recent parties, at the Faculty Town Club, once at lunch and, not surprisingly, at the Cabana Club almost every day.
And counter to recent pattern, she rarely saw Jack with Leslie any more.
Yes, it would seem that Jack might well be trying to corner the Doris market.
Let him. And let friend Max, here, do a bit of sweating about that.
Max conducted Audrey into the Town Club building and down steps to the basement bar. He ordered Four Roses and soda and looked around the room. It was decorated with the not-unexpected knotty pine and low beamed ceilings, but the booths and chairs were comfortable, and it was a pleasant place to shake dice for drinks, trade gossip, and talk shop.
At any other time, Max might have enjoyed getting back to the casual chatter about "and have you met that new English instructor, Tracey what's-her-name" and "the new language lab is almost completed." But Audrey had put thoughts into his mind which he would never have confessed aloud.
He had never known that Doris had had a lover before him. Max had never given the matter more than a few random thoughts.
He had never known that Doris had not had an earlier lover. For all he knew or cared, and he was quite honest about this, she might have had half a dozen lovers before he came along. That was strictly her business, as he told Audrey, and none of his. If she had been a streetwalker, a call girl, or even a party girl, it probably would have made a difference to Max, but such was not the case.
And who could really tell? Loving her, he might have ben able to overlook even a truly bad background.
No, he was damned if he was going to develop a sweat or faint dead away simply because Doris had, years ago, loved Jack Home.
He caught himself up short. He mustn't let Audrey introduce any wild assumptions into his thinking. He still didn't know if Doris had had a previous lover and, if she had, he didn't know that was Jack Home.
He did know that she had gone around with him. Come to think of it "it had slipped his mind, since it was ancient history, Doris had been engaged to Jack when they first met.
As he automatically traded social cliches with Audrey, Max looked around the room. In a round corner booth, he spotted Doris.
Alone with Tack.
Doris had been seeing an awful lot of Jack. Until now. Max had hardly noticed. His own attention had been pretty insistantly fastened on Leslie. Such being the case, there was no reason why Doris shouldn't find some agreeable man to squire her around.
But, damn it, Max and Leslie hadn't been lovers and never would be, while Doris and Jack....
But he didn't know it had been Jack! He didn't know if it had been Jack Home or anybody else.
"Let's sit down," he said to Audrey, and she followed him as he went toward the other couple's booth.
Max uttered a conventional "May we?" and slid to the seat beside Doris . ithout waiting for a reply. Audrey took the seat on his other side.
There was a moment of silence, an awkward moment.
Like lovers interrupted in the midst of an intimate conversation. Max thought. He immediately resented himself for having such a thought, and shame brought heat to his face.
"How goes it in the great field of sociology, Jack?" No doubt Jack had a glib answer for a layman's glib question.
He had it: "It our neck of the woods, social relativism continues to rule the day. Some of the boys are doing great things with mathematical analysis, but in my view they should examine their philosophical presuppositions more closely. There has in the past been made a great effort to separate sociology from individual psychology, and yet, it seems to me, the psychology of the sociologist himself tends to influence his methodology and his conclusions, which in turn lead him to conclusions in the realms of individual psychology and philosophy."
On and on. Pat, fluent, authorative. The young schoolmaster in perfect command of his subject. Erecting an effective barrier to communication on a personal level.
"There you are." It was Leslie, standing by the booth table. "I was beginning to think I'd lost all of you."
She started to sit down beside Jack, but at that moment the jukebox made a few grating noises and started humming a tune. Leslie stood up again and faced Doris.
"Oh, good, may I borrow one of your men, darling?"
Audrey quickly stood up and drew at Max's arm. Max cursed her silently. At this moment, he wanted to remain with Doris.
However, no graceful excuse came to his lips, and he was forced to go to Leslie's inviting arms. They danced away from the table toward the other end of the room. The volume of the jukebox was held down to a civilized level and the music wasn't bad. Max thanked God for small favors.
Leslie smiled. "Unhappy with me, darling?"
"I'm sorry." Max forced a grin. "I feel good, but I sometimes think my frown is built in. When other people light up a smile, I light up a frown."
Leslie laughed and said, "Nonsense."
They danced together smoothly, comfortably. Leslie's russet dress didn't make any secret of the perfect hang of her superb breasts, but at the moment Max thought that there was something rather bovine about the woman. He thought of Doris's sleek trimness of figure.
He turned Leslie so that he could look toward the booth they had just left. Audrey, too, had gone. Doris and Jack sat together, alone once more, neither of them looking toward Max and Leslie. Both of them, somber faced, focused their attention on a single spot near the edge of the table.
God, Max thought, I have been ignoring Doris lately, ever since that night ... They had even gone to parties separately and met there, and gone their differing ways afterward.
It was a hell of a way to run a marriage, a pretty good way to ruin what was left of one.
"What's the matter, Max?" Leslie asked anxiously.
"Oh, nothing. I guess I'm not the best company. Doris and I have been pretty active during this vacation, and I guess the strain is telling on me."
"Better get a good night's sleep, no?"
"Yeah. The legs go first, they say."
They both laughed.
When Max looked at the corner booth again, it was empty.
They walked together through the summer night. They walked together and they hardly said a word. It wasn't necessary.
Odd, Doris thought, how comfortably she and Jack got along together, considering the past. Odd how they gravitated toward one another.
Or perhaps not so odd. Max had been so distant lately, so taken up with that Stanton woman. And Jack gave Doris a feeling of reassurance.
Like tonight. Supposedly Doris had been with her husband and Jack with Leslie Stanton, but when Max and Leslie had drifted off to dance together early in the evening, Jack had seemed pleased to be left alone with Doris.
They came to the Union Building and walked slowly up the driveway to the main entrance.
"Shall we go in?" Jack asked. "Dance to real live music?" it's not true," she said gently. "I'm afraid it's a sentimental old-wives' tale, Jack. What's past is past and generally best forgotten."
"I can't believe that. I can't believe there isn't something, some spark."
"No spark."
"But it isn't as if we had parted enemies. You never hated me, did you?"
"Certainly not!"
"Then, as a friend, let me speak freely-"
"Oh, Jack-"
But he wouldn't be stopped. "I've always wondered if you didn't leave me for Max because we failed in one important respect-"
"Oh, no!"
"And I've wondered if we wouldn't have been all right, if we wouldn't have stayed together, if it weren't for that one thing."
"You shouldn't be talking like this!" He was bringing to mind things she hadn't thought about since her therapy; the nights in his bed, the look of him as he made love to her.
She tried to replace the images of Jack with images of Max. But that didn't help matters any because, quick to ignite, the blue flames at her body flickered even faster and higher.
"Maybe I shouldn't talk like this, but I repeat; things aren't altogether right between you and Max-"
"And I repeat that they're fine in every way that counts-"
"And you're completely and absolutely happy?" dark. Then he looked away. He took out two cigarettes, gave her one, and lit them.
"Have you completely forgotten me, Doris?"
She fumbled for an answer and had to say, "I'm not quite sure what you mean."
"I was in love with you. I have never been in love with anyone else."
She hesitated. She didn't want to speak of certain things. "We were no good together, Jack."
"You know better. We were good together in almost every way.
"But not quite every way."
"And you and Max are?"
"In every way that counts."
She felt that intense stare on her again, even as she failed to meet it.
"I see. Forgive me, but that wasn't the impression I got-"
"Jack, you have no right-"
"No, but I'm going to say it anyway. You two don't strike me as a pair of lovebirds."
"We've been married four years."
"Which explains nothing."
If Jack thought that, she saw no point fn arguing with him. At this moment, she didn't have the strength to attempt to alter his opinion.
"Doris, please don't be angry. I beg you. But is it true," his voice in the dark was completely forlorn, "that a woman never forgets her first love, or lover?"
She wasn't angry. She felt only pity for him. But it was best not to let any illusions spring up. "I'm afraid
"Not yet. I'd rather walk a little longer. It's a lovely night."
"With you, that it is...."
They walked around the building to the interior of the quadrangle, trading lazy monosyllables. When they reached the back, they turned and followed the concrete walk toward darkness.
The quadrangle was like a small park, it was so large. Leslie took off her shoes and walked on the grass. The green of the bushes was fresh in her nostrils and when she looked up, the stars were bright through the tops of the elms.
"Lovely," Jack said.
"Lovely night," Doris repeated.
"Lovely you."
Doris smiled. Jack leaned over her, the white blur of his jacket coming ever closer but never touching. He placed a gentle kiss upon her smile.
"A man's not supposed to admit it," he said, "but it took a certain amount of courage to do that."
"You shouldn't have."
"Why not?"
"For your own sake. And Max's."
"And yours?"
He didn't give her a chance to answer. His arms came around her, his lips met hers again, and this time he held her close.
In spite of herself, she felt a response welling up.
"And for my sake," she said breathlessly as she broke away from him.
He stared at her and she could feel his gaze in the
"Yes! Yes!"
She knew her tone had been too vehement. She wasn't surprised at the note of reluctant triumph in Jack's voice as he said, "Sweetheart, nobody is ever completely and absolutely happy."
"Max and I have had our moments," she said weak-ly.
"Moments...."
The images of Max-or of Jack-or perhaps they were simply images of any excited male, wouldn't leave her mind. Damn Jack for turning her on like this! He had no right! Come hell or high water, she was Max's woman and his only.
"We had our moments, too," he said softly, "even if they weren't complete...."
Why was she so easy, so especially easy, to arouse this evening? Because it had been so long since the last time she and Max had tried? Because she was jealous of Max and Leslie Stanton?
Because she was with her ex-lover?
Two cigarettes flew into the darkness.
His arms were around her again and he held her closer than ever. She couldn't resist him but she tried to conceal her response.
It was impossible. When his lips found her mouth, she couldn't keep hers from moving over his.
"So you do have some feeling for me," he whispered breathlessly.
"I have feeling. It's not for you, it's simply feeling.
"Right now it's for me. Doris, you can't be too happy with him-"
"I'm not. I mean I'm not unhappy!"
"But not happy, and you and I, we're a little older now, more mature, more experienced. We could be a success now, Doris, you know we could-"
"Oh, don't say that!" She had to shut him up!
"Please don't be angry with me, sweetheart, but think about this. We could at least try-"
"No!" She strained against his arms, knowing she wasn't trying hard enough to escape from him, not truly wanting to escape. "No!"
"You don't know how much I still want you, Doris. I love you, I want you. I want to do the things we used to do! Darling, that's all I ask-"
"Phase!"
With a great effort, she tore herself from his embrace. They stood motionless, panting, staring at one another in the darkness.
"If you're waiting for an apology, you won't get it." His voice was hoarse, tortured. "I meant every word I said, and I won't apologize for wanting you, and for wanting to make you far happier than you are now. If you want to be angry with me, that's your privilege."
"I'm not angry with you, Jack." How could she be angry with him for lacking control when she herself could hardly exercise it? How could she be angry when she had come to welcome his attentions?
"Then think over what I've said. I want you, darling, I'll always want you."
She slipped her shoes back on and hurried away from him, hurried through the darkness back toward the light.
He caught up to her but stayed half a pace behind all the way to the Faculty Town Club. There he caught her arm and, under the light of the front door, turned her to face him.
"Maybe you're not angry," he said, "but we're still friends?"
"Good friends." Goodness knew she needed a friend, and if only Jack wouldn't get too close to her. "You'd better wipe your mouth," she said, "and how is my lipstick?"
"Fine."
They found Max and Leslie in the booth where they were earlier. Doris said she was tired and Max tossed off the last of his drink and stood up to leave.
Doris still simmered with the feeling Jack had brought to life for her, and all the way back to the hotel she wondered how he would be. Not like the last time, she prayed, please, not like the last time.
Perhaps Max wouldn't want her.
He had to. Because she at least had to make the attempt.
And no matter how badly that may turn out for me, she swore, I'll make that good for him. I'll smile. I'll make him happy.
The moment the door of the hotel room was closed and one light was on, she whispered, "Max...."
Her whisper of his name brought a new light to his eyes, and she knew it was a reflection of the light in her own. After four years of marriage, even such a marriage as theirs, there were many things that didn't have to be put into words.
He tossed aside his suit jacket and yanked off his tie before taking her into his arms. She found herself in a firm, inescapable cage, and when his lips sought hers, she didn't have to hold back her responses. He held her, followed the serpentine curve of her slim back and firm buttocks.
Between their warm, eager kisses she reached for his shirt buttons and the white fabric came off his bare chest. He reached down to rid himself of his shoes and socks.
"Undress me, darling," she said.
His arms came around her again as he reached for the zipper at the back of her dress and pulled it down. He released her enough to allow her to pull the dress over her head: first she removed the dress and then her slip.
She rolled her panties down to make a band at mid-hip, a band that hardly covered her, and pressed herself against him once more. She was a furnace now.
The band of her brassiere tightened for a few seconds as Max pulled at the fasteners, and her breasts were released. She pulled the bra away, embraced his shoulders, and returned her kiss to his. Through the long twisting and turning kiss, she swiveled, pushing her soft breasts against him.
He shoved her backward. Her hips hit a small telephone table, her shoulders hit the wall.
"Oh, Max, Max...."
He held her against the wall, a hand to each breast, twisting and lifting, drawing and pinching, and the thermostat of pleasure rocketed.
"Oh, Max, say you love me...."
"I love you, darling, how I love you. How I'm going to love you. I love you and all that is you."
One hand followed the molding of her torso, massaging as she tried to kiss Max again. Her breath was coming in short rasping pants and gulps.
His hand dived under the band of her panties.
"Oh, Max!"
She pulled his belt buckle loose and then his zipper. She clawed at him. Then she threw herself to her knees and tugged away his last clothing, and kissed him.
But not for long. He seized her under the arms and lifted her. He picked her up like a baby and carried her toward the bed as she kicked one foot free from her panties.
He laid her down and moved to her like a hungry bear. "Love me! Love me!" she moaned as she reached for him.
She took him.
Then she remembered; she must make this good for him. This once she must forget about herself if at all possible to be good for Max.
She tried. Despite all the incentive to toil simply for her own satisfaction, she made a determined effort to arrange every movement for his pleasure.
After a moment she realized that he was doing the same thing for her. Every moment was planned and intellectualized. She wanted to say, "Oh, don't! Be yourself! Enjoy my love!" but she knew that if she did, she might make matters even worse.
So she bit her tongue and tried all the harder to give joy to him. She found herself approaching an unknown peak.
And he cried out as he struck fulfillment that boosted her up, up, up to where she could almost touch the unknown peak.
But not quite.
He relaxed. He fell away. "You're so good," he murmured, "so lovely, so good."
He sat on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette. Looking around at her, he said, "I hope you found some satisfaction."
Tell him that was good, she thought. One of the best yet. Tell him that he's wonderful.
Instead, her throat was blocked by a strangling sob. Tears blinded her and flowed down her face. Involuntarily, both her hands went to her ravenous, unsatisfied desire. Knowing he was watching her and not caring.
He groaned, "Oh, God!" and he reached out, trying to help her.
But she had lost the battle once again.
Before Jack could leave, Leslie asked him to bring her a fresh drink and to join her in the booth for a few minutes. Jack got two whiskey-and-sodas from the bar and rejoined her.
"Enjoy yourself?" she asked.
"Sure, why not? And you?"
"Why not? Tell me something, Jack, is it your impression that there's something wrong there?"
"How do you mean?"
Leslie shook her shoulders impatiently. She hated this sparring around. "It's my impression that there's something kaput between them."
Jack looked away, his expression sour. "Hell, a four-year-married couple doesn't have to hang on one another at all times. Within ten minutes of now they'll probably be back in their hotel room, loving like mad, if you'll pardon the expression."
"Then you did notice something."
"I took liberties as the phrase goes, and all that I noticed then was that she seemed eager as hell to hop into bed with Daddy."
Leslie issued half a laugh. "The prospect of our friends having a perfectly legal love life doesn't seem to charm you."
Jack shrugged. He looked as if the taste in his mouth were bitter.
Leslie decided to go to the heart of the matter. She leaned toward Jack and she lowered and softened her voice. "Listen, old friend. We can level with one another, can't we? I mean, we aren't a couple of kids."
"So level."
"Do you want her, Jack? Do you still want her after all this time? After meeting her again?"
Jack didn't answer immediately. He scratched at a puddle on the table with a blue plastic swizzle stick.
"Well, Jack?"
"Leslie, you make love sound like nothing more than the damn hunting season."
"Lets face it-there is a connection. One more direct than the answer von just gave me."
"Yeah, I guess I still love her and I want her...."But what?"
"But I have an idea that whatever may or may not be wrong between those two, they still love one another."
Leslie felt the anger of frustration. Hadn't Audrey said much the same thing? And I can make you a guarantee. Those two are in love. I mean really in love. But they couldn't be right. Max had been a little cool and distant this evening, but there was no mistaking the fact that he was as drawn toward her as she was toward him. She couldn't be wrong about that.
She hunched still further toward Jack, and her voice grated. "You're wrong. If Doris isn't available, she soon will be."
Now Jack looked at her, his face impassive.
"Take her, Jack. If you want her, take her to bed and keep her there. You haven't lost the game yet, and you're not going to."
He didn't blink. "I knew you went for Max, but I didn't know it was like ihis."
A flush heated her face and chest. Her jaw muscles were taut. "I'm only giving you some good advice."
"You're intent on splitting Max and Doris right down the middle, aren't you?"
"They're already split-I'm positive of it-"
"You just want to help the process along-"
"And pick up a few pieces."
Jack said, "Leslie, I've never seen you like this before. You're the kindest woman in the world. You wouldn't hurt a fly-"
"I don't want to hurt anybody!" she said angrily. "I only want.. "Him."
She nodded miserably. She might as well say ft: she had been aching to say it aloud to someone: "I want him. I want him in the worst way-and the best. I want him for always."
"And you want me to help you."
She nodded again. "And I'll help you."
He kept her waiting a long minute.
"All right," he said.
She laughed. It was a relieved laugh, as if everything had been solved. "Let me freshen up," she said, "and then take me home."
As Leslie headed toward the women's room, Audrey turned from the bar and came toward Jack. Until that moment, he had hardly noticed her.
"Secrets?" she said in a poisonously sweet voice.
"Only from you, sweetheart, only from you."
"Now, is that nice!"
She slid into the booth beside him and wiggled up dose, her opulent breasts performing a little dance and threatening to escape their confinement.
"Les and Max are getting pretty thick, aren't they!" she said. "How does it feel to lose twice to the same man, lover?"
At no other moment had he disliked her as much as then. He couldn't have stopped his words if he had want ed to. "Speaking of losers, how does it feel to lose to men and women both?"
He felt her go rigid in the seat beside him. "What do you mean?"
"Oh honey child! Do you think it's any secret around here that you only go for broads? Hell, everybody knows about you-the Midwest's Champion Tease. Too damned scared of a man be interested in him-"
"You rat! Now I'm glad you lost your play for Doris-"
"Don't be too sure."
He had gone too far and he knew it.
"Oh?" she said after a minute.
"Okay, I lost," he tried to make amendment. "Forgive a bitter old man's ungallant statement."
A smile appeared on her face and slowly widened, "I heard what you said. And I think you meant it."
"Go to hell."
"I won't ask for a ride home, darling. I'll leave you to brood on your love life. Ta-ta."
She left, looking much happier than Jack felt.
CHAPTER SIX
The weekend had arrived at last.
Leslie was free from seminars and conferences, free from the university. She had plenty of work to do: a great deal had piled up in the last week. But it could wait.
Her Max, as she was now inclined to think of him, could not wait. He wasn't planning to stay here forever, after all, and besides Leslie was eager to be with him every minute she could and to complete the capture.
Without saying anything about it, she dropped any pretense of wanting to be with anyone but him. Early Saturday morning she phoned the Flaggs at their hotel, asked if they'd be at the pool that day, and said she would be there as soon as she was finished with her shopping. Did they have any shopping they wanted done?
No, but Max would be happy to help her with hers, if he could.
And so Max came out to pick her up in his station wagon, and they shopped. First they visited a supermarket and a liquor store. Then she guided Max to a small shop and made him help her select the most seductive lingerie they could find.
"You should really try it on first," Max said.
"Want me to model it for you?"
"For helping you pick it out, I think I'm entitled to that, at least."
She cocked her head as if considering the proposition. "Very well," she said half seriously, "comes the appropriate moment, I'll model it for you."
"I won't let you forget."
They drove back to her house and she put her new acquisitions away, bustling about domestically. By the time she was done it was eleven-thirty, a little early for lunch.
"Really want me to model for you?" she asked. "I'm not sure you're far enough past your adolescence."
"Try me."
"Open a couple of beers while you're waiting."
She went to the bedroom and took off her dress. Under it she wore brassiere, panties, and half slip. She took off the bra and put on the new one, a black nylon job that cupped the bottoms of her breasts, hinted at her nipples where the material thinned, and left the tops of her bosom quite exposed.
She slid open the wall and stepped out onto the back terrace. Max was already there, two cans of beer in hand.
"Nice, no?" she asked.
"Woman, you're phenomenal!"
"Naturally-all thanks to my brand-new bra."
They sat in the deck chairs and sipped their beer in reasonably comfortable silence. The tension between them wasn't all that Leslie wished for. Not that there was ordinarily any reason for a grown man to get all excited over a couple of boobs in a revealing brassiere, but her relationship with him wasn't ordinary.
She wondered if Jack had been right in something he had said at the Faculty Town Club. Maybe Doris had exhausted Max last night. She had a vague sense of something being wrong with him. In spite of the tan he was rapidly acquiring, there was a touch of sallowness about his appearance, and a couple of times that morning his voice had shaken oddly-almost, she thought, like that of a little boy holding back tears.
After a while, she went into the house, pulled on an old shirt, and cooked him a good lunch of pork chops. Leslie was convinced that the bit about the way to a man's heart being through his stomach wasn't entirely nonsense. Why should it be, when the stomach was part of the sensual apparatus?
More beer, more lounging about. She put some Lady Day on the phonograph, but it was too sad and they switched to Peggy Lee. Leslie was delighted with the ranee of Max's musical taste: he dug anything from Vidalrli to Cole Porter, from Tebaldi to Bessie Smith.
When they decided it was time to head for the Faculty Cabana Club, Leslie threw a wrap-around skirt over her half slip, and they took off in the wagon. She used the cabana first, selecting a suit she had never used before. The halter was small and was held up by a loop of cord around the neck, the ends fastened between the breasts. The bottom wasn't much bigger than the halter, but the real reason she hadn't used it was that she suspected it might become transparent when wet. But today she didn't give a damn.
Max showed the right reaction when she came out of the cabana.
"Too bold?" she asked.
"Fortunately-yes."
She laughed and headed for the pool.
Doris was already there-as was Jack-and as the afternoon wore on, Max paid a good deal of attention to his wife. In fact, Leslie decided, he was making a point of being with her. What was the significance of this? she wondered. To make up for having deserted Doris during the day? To demonstrate to Leslie that he was a loyal husband? To convince himself of his loyalty?
The suit Leslie wore proved to be as nearly transparent as she had feared-and hoped. She giggled to herself and wondered what the delightfully scanalized would say and if she might be ordered out of the pool at any moment. The suit had been dead white when she had come out of the cabana, but it certainly suggested a flesh tone now, with a little extra darkness at each nipple. Men made a point of passing close by her and talking to her. A few made showoff dives into the pool. Her figure, she knew, had never been more provocative than now.
The only thing that worried her was that, in his preoccupation with Doris, Max might miss the view.
She saw to it that he didn't.
When he was in the water and away from Doris, she played tag with him. When he was out of the water and sitting with his wife, she made a point of walking her wet pink and white fanny around. Like a model, she twisted again, making it a three-quarter turn, and walked close by him, saying hello so that he'd have to look up at her. She went to the bar, got three Tom Collinses on a tray, came back, and leaned forward to serve Max and Doris. Doris couldn't miss the show anymore than could Max, but to hell with her.
At five the three of them picked up Jack and had dinner together at a good spaghetti house. Jack suggested that they make an evening of it, but the Flaggs already had a commitment. Jack volunteered to drive Leslie home.
"Well?" she asked, as they headed toward the edge of town.
"I don't know," Jack said. "I've been afraid to say anything leading for fear it would mess the deal up. She doesn't seem to miss Max when he isn't there, but I can't help wondering if this split-up won't prove to be A figment of your imagination, Les."
"Keep with it, baby. Your hour will come."
"Speaking of hours...."Jack laughed. "You poured it on pretty thick this afternoon, didn't you? You're apt to get drummed out of the Club and into the streets."
"Did I look good?"
"Good? Was that how you were supposed to look? God, if you plan to be lonely this evening, Les, let me give you a little distraction."
"You save your little distraction for Doris."
It proved to be a long, dull evening. By virtue of the strongest concentration, Leslie managed to keep her mind off Max long enough to get a little back work done, but she had to take a couple of stiff drinks and some aspirin in order to relax enough to sleep.
Yet she slept long and it was almost noon when she awakened. The alcohol and aspirin had worn off and she felt lively. Doris-of all people-had mentioned that they would be at the pool today, so after a good breakfast she hopped into the little red gem and headed for the club.
Doris' and Max' clothing were already hanging in the cabana, she noted with satisfaction, though she would have been happier-she laughed to herself-if Doris' had been hanging in Jack's little shack two doors down.
No transparent bathing suit today. Something modest, something demure. She picked out a one-piece green job that indicated everything and revealed absolutely nothing.
A slightly overcast sky did nothing to dampen the feeling of good spirits that surrounded the pool. Even Doris, so often inclined toward a certain somberness. was in a joking mood.
"'Fraid you'll have to do without me for a while. Maxie. I told Francine Brentwood I'd join her and some of the girls for a chit-chat this afternoon. Can't you struggle on without me?"
"I'll drive you over-"
"I've already volunteered," Jack said.
"Where'll I meet you for dinner?"
"You won't," Jack cut in again. "I am wining and dining your wife. I'm taking her to a very expensive joint and I can't afford the both of you."
"So he picked the pretty one," Doris said.
"Stepping out on me," Max accused.
"Well, for goodness sake, an old married woman likes to have a little romance in her life."
"I can't fight that."
Doris grinned and kissed Max. "Good-bye. dear-I won't be out too late. Stay out of trouble."
Stay away from me, you mean, Leslie thought. She felt the blonde woman's thoughts turn in her direction. But why, then, was Doris going off so gaily with Jack?
To make Max jealous, of course.
Well. Leslie would give Max something to think about besides what his wife might be up to.
"I'm at loose ends," Max said, when Doris and Jack had departed toward the cabanas.
"Don't make bawdy and disrespectful remarks about me, sir. Or I won't invite you to dinner."
"Home-cooked?"
She executed a burlesque wiggle. "I certainly am."
"The remark is withdrawn." She wiggled again and rolled her eyes. "But I'm not!"
It took them a couple of hours to get waterlogged and to decide they needed more than an occasional Collins to keep the blood flowing. Max used the cabana first, and then Leslie went in.
She pulled off her suit, hung it up to dry, took a fast shower, and toweled herself thoroughly. Some dusting powder was in order, as was some perfume, strategically placed: even the small of her back got a dab.
The garment which she then pulled on-the only garment, aside from brown slippers-was nothing more than a very loose, colorfully flowered sack. It was low-cut and slit several inches up each side of the skirt, yet it was modest as well as attractive: a dress eminently practical for summer fun.
Practical for other purposes, too.
She persuaded him to leave his station wagon to be picked up later and to ride in her sport car. She did the driving, hiking her skirt up on her legs and tucking it modestly under her knees. His view of her bare legs couldn't do her cause any harm.
Within a few minutes, the car was in the garage and they had entered the house. They went into the living room, and Leslie poured a couple of strong doses of Courvoisier.
"You understand, don't you," she said, as they remained standing after a few sips, "that I expect to get kissed for this meal. I mean, a lady don't cook for nut-tin'."
"Kissed before or after?"
"Preferably both."
Max kissed her. It was a gentle kiss, warm on her mouth, but not demanding.
"That's nice," she said in a tone of considered judgment. "Not up to the brandy, perhaps, but nice."
Max set his glass down on the coffee table. He took her face in both hands and this time he kissed her hard. Her elbows and knees went weak and, as her arms hung limply at her sides, she almost dropped her brandy.
His face withdrew from hers, his hands fell away from her. "That," she said with a nod, "I like."
She swallowed some more brandy and put her "lass down next to his. She shoved him toward a couch and made him sit down. She kicked off her slippers. She sat down beside him, facing him, a leg curled beneath her, and draped her arms around his shoulders.
They smiled and kissed, and she put her head on his shoulder. "Who says Post Office is an after-dinner sport?" she said. "And if you reach for a cigarette or a pipe, I'll kill you."
They kissed some more, and his hand felt good on her ribcage. She went at him more fiercely, throwing herself at him and abandon, pulling them closer together. Her skirt pulled up, baring her leg. and he stroked it, saying, "Nice leg." They necked some more and petted lightly until he announced that he was "coming up for brandy."
She left him and poured a new set of drinks, then sat down on the coffee table, facing him.
"I'm glad you're not a puritan," she said.
"Oh, you might be surprised what a puritan I am!"
She let that ride. "We're good together, you and I."
He nodded. "I think we could be."
"We could mean a lot to each other."
"I think we already do, don't we?"
His words shot a thrill through her. She was on the right track.
"Max, I know that you and Doris have troubles of some kind. If you'd care to tell me...."
"That wouldn't solve anything, Les."
She took a deep breath and wondered if she were about to make a mistake. She asked, "Do you still love her?"
His answer came hesitantly. "How the hell do I know?"
"I understand. One becomes so involved, in so many ways."
"You're a very understanding woman."
"Only where you're concerned."
It was close to an outright declaration of love, and it brought a response from Max. He set his glass aside, leaned forward, and kissed her. Only their mouths touched, but it was a kiss of passion.
She put her glass on the table beside her, arose, and went to him. She knelt on the couch, by his hips.
She returned his kiss. She returned it hard and lingeringly, and when her mouth opened, his did, too. She pressed to him, rising and pushing his head back. His fingers moved the thin flowered cloth over her vertebrae, and at his touch she squirmed, her bosom straining at him through the material. His hands went to the backs of her naked legs, and discovered her bare buttocks.
"Max, Max...."
But he brought that to an end. His hands left her buttocks, moved to her sides, and gently raised and set her away from him.
He picked up his brandy and half finished it.
"I'd better get out of here, Les."
"Why, Max?"
"You know why. I've wanted you from the first moment I set eyes on you."
"Don't you know how I've wanted you?"
Max poured himself another stiff brandy. "You said we were good together. Hell, we might be perfect-"
"We would be."
"But the fact remains, I've got a wife-"
"You don't love her. Can you honestly say you aren't in love with me?"
He gulped the last of his brandy. "No. But you see-I've cheated on Doris before. At the time, it seemed necessary if I weren't to go crazy. But I swore I'd never do so again-"
"Leave her, Max. If you aren't right for one another, leave her."
"Maybe we aren't right, but as far as I know Doris has never cheated on me. And she does keep trying. She does keep trying to make things right for us. We may both end up in the bughouse, but somehow I can't help feeling obliged to stick it out with her as long as she wants it that way."
"I see."
Leslie saw, all right. And she felt a great dull weight in her heart.
Her plans had failed.
"I don't think we should see one another again, Les."
The weight in her heart grew heavier. She sensed that it was futile to argue with him about Doris, that it might even be harmful to her cause, but she hadn't expected him to go this far.
"But we must see one another, Max. We still have to talk over that contract-"
He cut her off with a shake of his head. "You read it over "If it anneals to you. sign it and send it to New York. If it doesn't, burn it up, and to hell with it."
"But I understood that it was important to you."
"It is. It may mean my future, my entire career. But there are other things even more important."
For a time, she could only look at him in wonderment. "You're quite a guy," she said at last.
"I'm sorry it couldn't have turned out better. Now. I'd better hoof it-I've got to get back to my wagon."
He refused her offer to drive him back to the Faculty Cabana Club, and left.
Leslie sat alone in her house, drinking brandy. The affair had ended so abruptly, she was left numb. After all her plans, all her big build-up, it had ended after a few kisses in a matter of minutes. She had hardly even argued with him, feeling that he meant every word he said and that any opposition would only stiffen his resolve to be done with her.
Where had she gone wrong? She wouldn't have handled every man in the manner in which she had attempted to handle Max, of course, but she had been thinking in long-range terms, fitting every move to her estimate of his personality, his intelligence, his degree of sophistication.
And then she saw-or rather, she saw through herself.
This affair had meant so much to her that she had been afraid. Rather than following a natural course of action, she had delayed everything important, had planned all the trivia, had even plotted what bathing suit she would wear at which point. She had been scared by any thought of failure and had blown the deal as a result. She was like a natural athlete who becomes self-conscious and is so busy thinking of mechanics that he can't help but fumble.
Each of her little steps toward final success had meant next to nothing. Time had been wasted and Max's guard had been raised. And if she had followed her natural instinct and inclination, she might well have had Max in her bed within the first forty-eight hours and kept him there all this time and forever.
She had lost because she had turned a heartfelt love impulse into a shabby intrigue.
Now Max was gone and he wasn't coming back. She had a hard time getting that through her head. Not even, the contract could draw him back. He had the kind of hard "do as I see fit" integrity which she had once thought was hers-until she was ready to throw all morals, even her own hardly conventional morals, to the wind in order to have Max Flagg. And now he was gone.
But she couldn't let him leave her so easily. She couldn't let him leave her at all. It was unthinkabe that she would never see him again and never have him in her bed. She loved him and she had to do something about the situation-fast.
But what?
Go after Max? No. He might go to other friends or he might spend the evening alone. He might conceivably pick up Doris and leave town, but it was un-likely that he'd make her break her date with Jack.
Jack. Perhaps he could make himself useful at this point. Perhaps he could drive some kind of new wedge between Max and Doris. If not seduce her, at least keep her away from Max for the night. Or might that make Max feel free to come back to Leslie. Anyway you looked at it, it was a gamble. But the way things stood now, she was losing and therefore it could hardly hurt to stir up the pot a little and see what happened.
She had better get in touch with Jack.
She dialed his apartment number and got no answer. On an off-chance, she tried the Faculty Cabana Club and Jack's office but didn't get him at either place. She tried his apartment again and failed. She considered phoning the Flaggs' hotel, since Max surely couldn't have gotten back there yet, and Jack might be there with Doris. She decided to leave that possibility alone-it wasn't wise to embarrass Doris should she be alone with Jack in her room. The Brentwoods provided a safe possibility, however, and she phoned there. No, Jack Horne wasn't around.
With rising desperation, she tried Jack's apartment again and sighed with relief when she heard his voice.
"Hello, Jack. There's something I want to discuss with you,"
CHAPTER SEVEN
Doris intended to put every problem, every worry, every suspicion out of her mind. She wouldn't think about whether or not her husband still loved her. She wouldn't wonder if he might not be making love to Leslie Stanton right now. There was no point in such speculations, she told herself, since he had had plenty of opportunities in the past and would have more in the future and she could hardly keep him in sight at every minute of the night and day.
She would simply put all that aside for this evening and have fun. Jack had been most circumspect in his behavior since that evening at the Faculty Town Club, the evening that had ended so miserably for her and Max, and she knew she could trust him to stay away from touchy subjects and to give her a good time. She excused herself from the other women, making vague references to plans for the evening, and took a taxi back to the hotel. She didn't trouble herself with the thought that the others would undoubtedly gossip about Jack's having brought her and would correctly guess that he was her plans for the evening.
Jack was already parked outside the hotel when she got there. She went up to her room alone and changed her clothes as quickly as possible. She put on a white party dress and gave thanks that she had remembered to have the fluffy skirt pressed. Someone had said something about rain being forecast, so she took out her hooded cream-colored raincoat.
The evening was quite young so they had time to drive about before dinner. They cruised the old streets she had once known so well, praised the oaks and mourned those elms which had fallen, the victims of blight. They stopped at a couple of outlying bars that had once been fashionable among the university crowd and drank toasts to the once decorated walls, now tattered or bare, and Doris was deeply pleased when one of the bartenders recognize her. "Since I've worked here, this place has been popular with the campus crowd about three times," he told her philosophically, "and around next year it's due to get popular again."
They drove country roads as the dusk fell around them. They passed old roadhouses and old parking places.
They passed one place where Jack had sometimes made love to her-and she wished that they had traveled a different road.
Finally Tack drew his car into the parking lot of Furgasons. It was an old mansion in the Georgian style, remodeled and extended, and Jack assured her that it still had a reputation for being the best restaurant in four counties.
The praise prove to be warranted. The traditional decor was comfortable and softly lighted without making it difficult to see across the table. There was no orchestra at that hour and by some miracle each table seemed to be soundproofed from the chatter and clatter of every other. When the martinis came, they were large and cold, yet hardly a drop of excess water was detectable. The steaks were rare with barely a raw spot, and the dark wine Jack ordered went with it perfectly. They ate and talked at luxurious ease, as if the night would never end and they had all the time in the world.
After dinner, Jack took her to a new roadhouse, one that had been built since Doris had left town. The eight-piece orchestra rated as superior, and they danced more numbers than they sat out.
At moments, as she glided over the dance floor in Jack's arms, she felt as if she had never been away. The four-year interlude with Max was a dream, a painful and degrading dream.
But she banished such feelings. She didn't want to think or feel or remember anything about Max at all. She wanted to relax and dance and feel that at this moment all was right with her world.
Wearied by the dancing and ready for another scene, they went to another bar, one with not too much nostalgia attached, and after a drink Doris noted that it was getting late. Soon the last round would be served.
Such being the case, Jack observed, they might as well wait for it-and Doris readily agreed. Jack's presence was warm and not much conversation was necessary.
After they got into Jack's car, Doris paid no attention to where he was driving until he pulled up in front of his apartment building. She worried: he wasn't going to spoil it, was he?
"I'd better get back to the hotel, Jack."
"A nightcap."
"I've had too much already."
"Oh, then you need coffee I Come on, lady, we're going to sober you up."
Well, she wasn't a child-she could take care of herself. She smiled and followed him.
In front of his door, he shushed her-"We've got to sneak you in past Audrey"-and she giggled. Once inside, she accepted his invitation to look around his three-room apartment while he put the coffee pot to work. She found the place to be roomy and comfortable, a big step up from the room where she used to visit him.
When he called her, she went to the kitchen, where he had two cups of coffee and a pint of Martell's ready. They settled down on opposite sides of the table. She had been prepared to ward off a pass as gently and firmly as possible, but now as they talked she began to doubt that the pass would come.
At the end of a long pause, he said, "Doris, be happy," and outside the building thunder growled, as if to dispute the admonition.
"I am happy," she told him. "This evening I'm quite happy."
"Be happy always."
"I try. Don't we all?"
He shook his head and sipped his coffee. "No. Some do not. Some prolong misery forever."
She tried to laugh. "But I'm not miserable!"
"All right, you're not miserable. I'm only saying that if you aren't perfectly happy, do something about it. Do it fast, soon, and with finality."
She fell into silence. This was one of the things she had hoped to avoid. "Let's not talk about it, Jack," she said at last.
"Then there is something wrong."
"Oh, look. There's something wrong between every man and woman. There's something wrong between any two people in the world whose lives touch for any length of time. So if there's something wrong-don't make a tragedy of it."
"If you're not happy, it's already a tragedy."
She got up from the table and went into the living room. She didn't want to be with him if he was going to talk like this. But he followed her.
"Doris, I'm not going to ask you to leave him for me. It would be the height of arrogance to assume that you could still love me after all this time. Even if I do love you. But if he doesn't love you, do leave him. Find someone else, someone you can find happiness and fulfillment and a good life with-"
"Jack, it wouldn't do any good!" The words broke from her like an involuntary sob.
"Of course, it would-"
"No-because my trouble-Is still-I" The one thing she wouldn't have dreamed of admitting, and she had said that aloud to him.
Jack slumped into a chair.
"Makes a big difference, doesn't that?" she said with an unhappy laugh. "Our Doris doesn't seem like such a prize any longer, does she? And our Maxie doesn't seem like quite such a rat if he occasionally casts an eye over the landscape for what's available."
The story had been told and Jack wasn't talking and it was time to head for the door.
Her hand was on the knob when he spoke. "I still say, leave him. Come back to me. We'll get you the medical help you need. If it takes another four years or five or ten or however many, we'll fight it out together. And I promise you that from the first time-the next first time-you let me make love to you, I'll never look at another woman. Stay with me tonight, if you will, and I'll be yours forever."
At that moment, Doris Flagg loved Jack Home. It was only for a moment and she had no physical desire for him and she wasn't in the slightest vulnerable to his desires. But at that moment she loved him.
And, loving him, she told him the truth.
"No, Jack. I've been through the therapy bit, and that won't work either. During the second year of my marriage, my analyst came to know me only a little less than God does. And for a while analysis actually seemed to be helping me. But it fell through. The problem got worse again, worse than ever, and I can't say it's getting any better-"
She expected Jack to wilt further but he didn't. He stood up, looking at her with new interest.
"And in your psychiatrist's opinion you should have been cured?"
"He thought I was-or that I was well on the way toward it. He said it was time I was on my own-"
"And yet you couldn't with Jack."
Her voice wavered. "Oh, we will-we'll find the answer yet-I love him, Jack-"
"But you just said you were even worse after therapy and that you can't say you're getting any better!"
"Please don't throw my own words back at me "
His voice was harsh. "Doris, stop kidding yourself-"
"All right, I'm a lost cause!"
"You're nothing of the sort. You simply married the wrong man. You left me for him out of desperation and you called it love. Once you were cured, you still couldn't make the grade with him because something in you didn't want to-"
"That's not true!" Panic brought her voice up a level.
"And you know perfectly well in your heart that if you haven't been able to achieve success with Max by now. you never will. Never, Doris!"
"Will you please leave me alone-"
"Never. You are making a lost cause of your life, throwing it away, because you haven't got a chance in the world with Max. Hell, don't take my word for it-I'm not a psychiatrist. Ask your own. Do you think he won't back up what I say?"
She didn't want to believe what Jack said, but she didn't have an answer. When he spoke again, the urgency had gone out of his voice.
"I don't know. Maybe the real reason you couldn't was that you'd developed a permanent habit of failure. Maybe you felt guilt and resentment because you had married him. It's hard to say. Leave me out of it, when I want you so badly, but I'll say it. Leave me out of the picture. But leave him out of it, too. I remember how you used to kill yourself trying to. Just find someone else."
She went back to the kitchen, poured more brandy into her coffee, and drank it down. "I think I'd better go now."
As he drove her back to the hotel, the sound of the first rain and the warmth of the coffee and brandy brought back her earlier feelings of ease. She regretted that Jack had spoken as he had, but perhaps, considering his feelings, she had gotten off lightly.
"You don't hate me for speaking as I did?" he asked after he had pulled the car up to the curb.
"No, Tack. I've always had a special and very nice place in my heart for you. Now, more than ever."
He kissed her cheek.
She darted through the rain into the hotel lobby.
She realized for the first time as she entered her room that she half-expected Max not to be there, but his voice came to her through the dark: "Doris?"
"Yes."
She turned on the bedside lamp. Max was in bed, without pajamas as usual, the sheet pulled up to his waist.
"Have a good time?" he asked. "Lovely. Did you?"
"Been in this damned hotel room since late afternoon, wishing you were here. Didn't even feel like taking in a movie. Glad you had a good time, though."
It had never occurred to her that he might spend the evening alone, and somehow she was startled. "I sort of thought you'd be with Les Stanton."
"Oh, that...." He took a cigarette from the bedside table and lit it. "I wasn't going to mention it tonight, honey, but I'm afraid there won't be any contract."
"Darling, I'm so sorry!" He shrugged. "We'll live."
Yes, they'd live. She supposed that he was telling her that not only was the contract off but also anything else that had been going on between him and Leslie Stanton.
Or maybe there never had been anything.
She stripped to her underwear and went into the bathroom to wash off her make up. There she also finished undressing and put on a pair of fresh white pajamas. When she returned to the bedroom, Max had finished his cigarette. She kissed him good night, turned off the bedside lamp, and went around the foot of the bed to climb into the other side.
She yawned in the darkness and thought, God, what a crazy way to end the evening: talking about her frigidity with her ex-lover! Oh, well, it had been a delightful evening anyway. She wasn't going to let anything spoil it.
She felt Max moving toward her. and his arm came over her waist. Maybe he wanted a last kiss in bed. She turned her face toward him.
The shadow of his head moved toward her and their lips met. He kissed her several times, tenderly and tentatively. She whispered. "Good night, darling," and he kissed her again, harder.
His head rested between her breasts, and she patted it and combed his hair with her fingers. He stroked her for a moment, stopped as he brought his lips to hers once again, and moved his hand under her pajamas to her breast.
Suddenly she was extremely tired. She felt this way sometimes: the day took so much out of her that she simply could not go through the struggling attempt to make love, and her back started aching and weariness made her almost ill.
She didn't want to go through this tonight. Why spoil a beautiful evening by ending up the way she had the last time she had loved Max? Or the time before. Or before. Or....
Max's kiss played at her lips and his fingers tugged at her nipple arousing her in spite of herself. She had to stop him fast.
She pushed him away. "No, Max...."
He persisted.
"Max, not tonight, please."
"You'll be all right."
She remembered what Jack had said. You haven't got a chance in the world with Max. Maybe it was true.
She hadn't the slightest reason in the world to believe otherwise. In any case, she didn't want to rise to the challenge tonight.
"No-I'm too tired. Max, I just don't want to!"
He drew away from her and she felt him looking at her in the dark. Then he rolled over to his own side of the bed.
She felt guilty. "Tomorrow, darling." She reached for his hand, found it, and held it. Neither of them moved and she couldn't hear him breathing.
His hand pulled away from her and he sat up in the dark. He left the bed, went into the bathroom, and turned on the light. After a moment, she heard a strange hoarse sound from the bathroom, a sound that oddly terrorized her: she could have sworn that Max was crying.
When he returned, she couldn't tell if he had been or not. Hastily, he began pulling on slacks and a sport shirt, socks and shoes.
"What's the matter? Where are you going?"
"Take a walk."
"But it's storming out!"
As if to emphasize her point, lightning cracked, thunder rolled, and the sound of dashing rain came harder and faster.
"Doesn't matter," Max mumbled. "Little walk, maybe a drive...."
"Max, come back to bed. We'll hold one another and listen to the rain."
Without pause, he continued dressing. He never faced her, he never looked at her. He went to the bathroom to turn out the light. A flash of lightning revealed him going to the corridor door.
"Don't go out, Max, please don't!"
"You get some rest, honey. Don't worry about me."
And then he was gone.
The night had turned chilly, and Doris pulled a blanket as well as the sheet up under her chin. It was an hour before she slept.
Leslie slept lightly. She curled up in the great, low Japanese bed, bundling herself up in a white sheet and a light comforter of pink nylon. When lightning pierced needles through the curtained doors to the veranda and thunder growled, she stirred a little and burrowed deeper under the covers, barely aware of the storm.
How many times the doorbell had rung before she heard it, she didn't know. When she was fully awake, it rang twice more. She hurriedly tossed the sheet and comforter from her naked body and turned on a light. The bell rang once as she hurried toward her closet, and she knew intuitively that it was ringing for the last time. She pulled on a white silk robe and knotted the cord about her waist as she went through the house toward the front door. One light was burning in the Living room: perhaps that was why she had a caller.
She opened the front door and looked out through the screen. No one was on the veranda but there was a dark shadow on the lawn.
"You, there," she called. "Who are you? What do you want?" Her heart was beating like a drum, and she couldn't have said it was because she knew the answer to both questions or because she didn't.
The dark shadow came back toward the door. "Saw your light," it said. "Thought maybe you were awake."
It was Max and he was soaking wet.
"Come in here! What are you trying to do, catch pneumonia? Come in-take off your shoes!"
Max did as he was told. At the moment, he looked like a rain-bedraggled dog. Leslie shut and locked the door. She took Max's shoes and socks and led him to the bathrom. She told him to take off all of his clothes and to hand them to her through the door. "You'll find clean towels in there," she said. "Get yourself thoroughly dry."
When he had handed her the rest of his clothing, she went to the basement and put everything but his belt, shoes, and the scant contents of his pockets, into the clothes dryer. Then she returned to her bedroom closet and selected another white silk robe-a man's robe. 'What to drink? Oh, yes the Courvoisier. Taking up where they left off. She got the brandy and two small snifters and put them on the low bedside table beside the lamp.
She took the robe, went to the bathroom, and tapped on the door.
"I have something for you to wear, Max. Are you ready for it?"
The door opened a crack and she handed him the robe. After a moment, he came out.
His smile was bleak. "You must want to kill me for breaking in on you like this."
"Never." She tried to bring warmth to his smile with her own. "How do you like your robe?"
"Nice. A man's robe...." He stopped, embarrassed by the indiscreet phrase.
"For my lovers." She made it a joke.
"Been many of them?"
"Not so many. And none I truly loved."
He didn't resist as she led him toward the bedroom. He was almost too docile, too tractable, like a creature with no manhood left.
She sat him down on the edge of the bed and poured two brandies. "Drink this. Better make the first one fast."
They drank in silence and she poured another round.
"And now, Max, do you want to tell me?"
It was a while coming. "I guess I'm licked. Whipped. I've tried with Doris, Doris has tried, but that's no good and that'll never be any good."
He sobbed and turned away from her. The limp bend of his back, the way his head hung, sickened Leslie. She had wanted him to be a man but he was more of a shell or a simulacrum. Not a man, she thought, but a whipped animal.
"Are you going to get out?" she asked. "Or are you going back to let her kill you?"
He shook his head. "I don't know."
She moved closer to him, put her arms around him, and they leaned together, huddling like children. "I think I know what's wrong, darling."
"I don't want to talk about it." ; "Of course not. But you're going to be all right.
You're going to stop thinking about how things have been for you. Because from now on things are going to be different." She put one hand under the top of his robe and scratched his chest. "Do you know why I let you come in here tonight, darling?"
"You should have shot at me-"
"No. Because I love you."
"I'm not sure there's much of me left worth loving."
Her nails made lazy circles on his chest. "You're wrong. You're still a man, and I'll prove it to you. Kiss me, Max."
They kissed, and the kisses were long and loving and gentle. They kissed and drank brandy and kissed some more. They listened to the storm, and she nibbled at his throat and his tongue touched her ear.
"Warm and dry now?" she whispered. "The chill all gone out of you?"
"All gone."'
"And I'm warm too. You and I, we're warm together.
His hand at last found her breast, and in time she bared it so that he could kiss the nipple. "You're beautiful, Les."
Her breath caught at the pressures he was giving her, the movement of her breast at his hand. "You haven't seen everything, darling, but you may, if you wish to...."
Then there was new urgency in his love-play, but he stayed above her waist. She reached toward his robe and found him, passionate and wanting. He choked on his own startled breath, and he pushed her caressing hand away. His hand went to her and his lips returned to her breast. As she trembled at his ministrations, she pulled her belt loose and shoved her robe away After all the days and nights of longing she was finally completely revealed to him: shimmering breasts and rolling hips with their strips of tan a little lighter than the rest of her body. She was ready and waiting.
"You are beautiful!" he said. "All of you-so beautiful, so desirable!"
She untied the cord at his waist and pulled his robe open and she felt faint at the sight of his wiry-muscled torso, the hair thick on his chest, his passion. Her teeth and lips found his chest, his waist, his legs and went back to his mouth.
"I love you. Max," she said, "I love you and I want you to love me " But she didn't use the euphemism when she told him what she wanted: she used the honest word and she repeated it when she said, "Love me, Max, please Please love me now."
For an instant, she felt him shriveling in her arms.
"I may not be so good, Les-the way I am now I may be too fast."
She laughed. "I don't care, darling. Fast, slow-do whatever you want to do. Do anything you please! But please. please love me, darling!"
He pushed her back to the bed. He cast his own robe aside and he lay down beside her. exploring her eager body for a moment more while she almost sang the words: "Oh. love me. Save me with all your love and let me love you. Let's love and love the whole night through."
And then he was looking at her. No man had ever appeared to her more beautiful, more desireable. more completely virile and passionate. As trite as the concept was, it occurred to her that he looked like some ancient god about to love a mortal woman.
As he approached, she tried to help him. When he took her, it was as if he were striking her with a magic wand, and her cry was like that of a banshee.
And then she had him!
She had him at last, and she would never let him go. He would leave her for a time, as a man must, but from now on she would always get him back, she would always have him again.
He was no whipped dog, no simulacrum, now. As she met his demanding lust, she remembered her dreams be like this, and then the dream vanished in favor of the reality: the flickering fires of her body and the dance of her steaming breasts. Never before had she loved and been loved like this.
That was, as he had said, fast, and she didn't care because she was with him. As she recognized the meaning of his animal cry, she let herself go to the throes of the final wild moment.
Max screamed.
His eyes rolled up, his teeth were bared, and he moved like the rapid fire of a double-action revolver, murderously, time after time. And each time, her own final moment thundered harder, and she screamed with him.
Then he was becoming gentle again and she let her fingers relax on his back.
They worked slowly, his head sank to her chest, and he began to sigh.
But this wasn't all over, she knew: she had him now. now she had him and he had her, and they would never let one another go.
She had won.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The rain stopped and the summer heat began to return before dawn broke. Leslie had turned on a small space heater, and when the first light of day appeared, Max got up from the bed and flipped off its switch.
He looked at the magnificent body of the woman on the bed, a body strong-limbed, healthy, magnetic. Her eyes were closed but she had a faint smile on her face, and he didn't think she was sleeping.
Did he love her? He didn't know. The concept of love now seemed to have no real meaning to Max Flagg. It was too vague, too shopworn, too often and too long abused. It had been used in so many different ways to signify so many different things. Sometimes it referred to pure self-interest of a sensual order. Sometimes it refrerred to a sublimation of the physical impuse, at others, to bed, and nothing more.
And occasionally love referred to a strange and perfect fusing of all the things included in the narrower definitions, as if spirit and flesh had achieved a perfect unity-both within one person and between two persons.
At this moment, it seemed to Max that he and Leslie might have achieved such a love, but he banished the thought from his mind. He didn't want to think. He wanted to be free of all the agonies of mind and body he had suffered during he past years. He wanted merely to exist-as a freely functioning, joyously functioning, uninhibited human creature. He didn't want to think of Doris or yesterday or tomorrow. He wanted merely to live-with this woman in this room at this minute.
She had told him to do with her as he pleased, and that was precisely what he had been doing. And from the first moment, she had raisen to the occasion and proved herself a scientist-no, an artist-at the craft of love.
As he looked at her, she stirred, shoulders shrugging, heels digging, back twisting, and her mountainous, breasts moved on her chest. Max responded to the sight with fresh desire.
There was no hurry. There had been no hurry in their loving since the first time. Like most men, Max had had most of his loving corrupted by clocks and schedules. He had been bound by office hours and television programs and necessary bedtimes and so many other dubious blessings of a timetable-civilization. Love had had to be fitted in. But not so love with Leslie. With Leslie, everything else had to bow to and give way to love.
He stepped up on the low bed, walked to her, and stood gazing at her, his feet against her warm flesh; and Us passion increased as he looked. He had no plans, no idea of his intention. He would let love direct itself.
He kneeled, carefully, lightly, his knees near her shoulders. As he touched her, her smile grew and her arms closed around his waist. She was awake, though her eyes were still closed.
He took a breast to each hand and he moved them. He carefully rolled them, twisted them, and drew at them, feeling the nipples harden for his palms. He plucked at the nipples and pinched under them, and Leslie sighed and twisted.
She brushed his hands aside, and took her breasts herself. She pressed them together and pressed them on him great, soft, hard-cored, hard tipped globes of burning velvet, and he shuddered with pleasure. He groped blindly for her, and she responded to his touch. She mewed and twisted. Suddenly, she grabbed his hips and threw him to his hands and knees. He was caught by a warm kiss, wild and slashing.
That was almost too much for him. He yanked away from her and fell to the bed. Then they were fighting, scrambling, to get at one another once again.
Then they paused, relaxed, smiled again, as they lay in warm embrace. They had plenty of time, all the time in the world, before they built to the final tearing moment.
After breakfast, he phoned Doris at the hotel. His tone was cool, disinterested, and impatient. He couldn't help it and he didn't give a damn.
He let her know that he was calling to tell her he was all right, in case she were worried. He had run into someone he knew had a few drinks, stayed the night, etc. When would she see him? Sometime during the day, he supposed Would he be at the Faculty Cabana Club? He supposed so yes: sometime this afternoon.
Still unclothed, he walked out onto the rear veranda. A moment later Leslie, who had been ironing his slacks and shirt joined him. She was wearing some of the underwear he had helped her to select: the Iess-than-modest black brassiere, bikini-type black lace panties, and a shortie nightie made of a single layer of transparent red nylon.
"You're all dressed up and going nowhere," he said. "Why the clothes?"
"The better to tease you with, my dear."
She came toward him. her gaze raking his body like finger-tips. She reached for him and he immediately responded.
"My God, what a man, what an animal, what an insatiable beast you are!"
He took her into his arms, supped one hand over a bare buttock, used the other to toy with her breasts. "The better to love you, my dear."
Laughing, she tore away from him and ran down into the yard. He went after her, and the grass was still delightfully wet on his feet the air sweet on his body He caught her and they wrestled and grabbed at one another, still laughing, and he tore away again.
Perhaps it was the wet grass that caused her to fall, perhaps her own wish. At any rate, she went down on her knees and one shoulder, red nylon flying over her head. Max fell down behind her and pulled the black lace away, seeking with his hands as she tried to escape. She laughed and groaned at the same time as he moved toward her....
And so they continued, uncounted times, whenever nature showed the propensity. They didn't strain themselves; they weren't out to set any records or score any gymnastic feats. They simply did what came naturally and they took their time and they did well, going through all of love without shame or reservation. For a time, at least, the Garden of Eden had come to life again in the home of Leslie Stanton.
Unhappily, they couldn't entirely ignore the demands of the reality principle. In the afternoon, Leslie had a seminar which she couldn't very well skip. So she dropped Max off at the pool and said she would meet him there later.
As Leslie had promised, Max found a pair of men's trunks that fit him in the cabana, and after putting them on he went to poolside, found a chair and settled down to doze. He was just dropping off when Doris came over to offer him a wan smile and to sit down beside him.
"Hi," she said. "You survived the storm, I see." Max made a sound which might be taken as an affirmative.
"Who did you meet last night? Some old college chum?"
"A friend."
The silence that followed was long, but it didn't disturb Max. He was refusing to be disturbed by anything or anyone. In a way, he felt like a wounded man who knew he could survive if he lay perfectly still and ceased all thought.
"Come join me in the water, Max!" Doris said with a note of forced enthusiasm.
"Later, maybe."
"Oh, come on!" She stood up and pulled at his arm, "Not itow. Go on, go away, will you? Just let me sit here."
There was no touch of bitterness or complaint in his voice. There was no anger. He had spoken the words as he might have said them to a stranger whom he would not be able to remember five minutes later. And perhaps for that very reason he felt a brief stab of guilt as Doris slowly released his arm and silently walked away.
It didn't matter. Nothing mattered except that he was alive and the sun felt good and later he would be with Leslie again. He closed his eyes and simmered.
Three and a half hours later, Leslie appeared and they swam together for a while. Then Doris motioned for him to come to the side of the pool. She told him that they had an invitation to a party that evening. Max told her he was sorry but he had other plans.
"When will I see you?" Doris asked.
"I don't know. I may be out late again tonight"
"All night, you mean?"
Max shrugged. "Maybe. Look, you gs to your party and have a good time, eh? Don't worry about me."
After Doris had left, Leslie swam over beside Max
"Are you going to tell her about us? And when?"
"I'll have to tell her sooner or later, I guess. But right now I don't want to have any dramatic scenes. I've had enough dramatic scenes for a lifetime. Right now, I want simply to live, that's all. Just live."
When they were tired of swimming, they went to the cabana. Leslie went first and Max joined her, after a haphazard look around to see that he wasn't observed, a couple of minutes later. They stripped and admired one another without feeling any particular impulse to do more and without feeling that they had to force the urge. After showering together, they dressed and left the cabana separately, meeting at Leslie's car.
They went to a good short-order place and stuffed themselves with double servings of chili-mac and milk and black coffee, then Max took the wheel and they rode about some more, feeling like carefree wanders-which, for the moment, they were. Max drove out into the country, following side roads he had almost forgotten.
As dusk set in, Max found some lonely woods, and they left the car and strolled a short distance through thickets that separated them from the road, enjoying the sweet, fresh scent of the air. Suddenly Max noticed the look Leslie was giving him. It wasn't lewd, it wasn't suggestive. It was interested. So he stopped. She was wearing the loose brightly-flowered dress she had had on only the day before and she walked toward him, raising it to her waist. They caressed one another for a time, wordlessly, thoughtlessly, until they lay back against a slanting tree trunk.
It was almost dark when they finished. As he stepped away from her, she pulled her dress over her head and hung it on a bush He sat down and smoked a cigarette while watching the moonlight on her body as she poked about the woods. Fortunately, the ground was high and dry, so there were few mosquitoes, but Max laughed as he saw Leslie give two or three slaps.
When she pulled on her dress, he knew it was time to leave. He drove back to the house.
The night went as the last one had, with a little more sleep.
Leslie had to spend the next morning at the university, and the habit of going to the Faculty Cabana Club remained unbroken. Doris arrived soon after Max did. Thev traded listless and desultory words, and Max left her to go his own way. He felt something coming to a head, something which would upset the unthinking animal peace he had found, and he told himself, Not yet I Not yet!
Just before lunch, Leslie appeared. They spent a couple of afternoon hours at the pool. Doris once approached him and asked him his plans, and he told her he'd probably be out quite late that night, but-with a stirring of worry? of conscience? that he'd try to make it back to the hotel. After Doris had left, he and Leslie returned to her house. There they loved, napped, ate, and loved some more. They had practically given up drinking and they did little smoking. They wanted nothing to dull or reduce the hours together, the moments of love.
Doris was defeated.
Once she had loved, or thought she had loved, Jack Home. Their affair had been unsatisfactory for her.
She had fallen in love with Max Flags and their affair had been equally unsatisfactory, but she had married him. She had fought to become the adequate female she needed to be, but without success. She had undergone therapy. She had spent hundreds of hours painfully wrestling in bed. She had undergone the bitterness of virtual certitude that her husband had taken up with another woman-a bitterness made all the more unbearable by the thought that perhaps she couldn't altogether blame her husband.
She had undertaken a second honeymoon, and what a delusion, what a folly, that had proven to be! Never since meeting him had she felt more separated from her husband than she did now.
The first night Max had stayed out, the night of the storm, when she had refused him, she had been certain that he had gone to Leslie, but she had fought against the conclusion.
The second night, she had ceased to fight. Max was giving the love that rightfully was Doris' to that damned witch.
Now, tonight, he would be with her again. They were together all the time. Leslie Stanton appeared to be a very alluring dame and Max had a strong drive quite likely the two of them did little other than stay in bed.
Once the thought and the images which the idea brought to mind would have driven Doris mad with jealousy. Now they drove her to despair.
Jack Home asked her to spend the evening with him. She had nothing better to do, and she accepted. They had dinner together and went to see a movie, a double-feature of old big-budget westerns, and Doris found that for a few hours she could forget Max and the troubles they had. Afterward, feeling like a fool, she asked Jack to stop by the hotel before they went out for a drink, so that she could find out if Max were there.
He wasn't.
They went to a quiet bar and Doris nursed her drinks. Her deep despondency had returned and she felt too sad even to get drunk.
They stayed together until the bar closed, and Jack suggested that they go to his place for a nightcap. Doris refused. She wanted to get back to her hotel room-and, she hoped, though she didn't say so, find Max.
As she was getting out of Jack's car in front of the hotel, he stopped her for a moment. "Doris, if he isn't there-or even if he is come back and tell me, will you?"
Doris nodded. She went into the hotel.
The room was dark when Doris entered, and Max wasn't there She didn't turn on a light. She sat down in a chair, feeling sick and frozen, deserted and alone.
How long she sat there, she couldn't have said, but she remembered that Jack might be waiting, and she left the room.
His car was still parked by the curb. She opened the door and entered it without a word, and without a word Jack started the motor and drove away. She didn't protest when he pulled up m front of his apartment building and helped her out of the car.
Neither said a word until they were in his living room and he was handing her a Scotch and soda. Then, "Jack " she said, "I've 1ost him haven't I?"
"It's not for m" to say. Doris."
"I've lost him." She sipped her drink and wandered about the room, trying to get used to the idea. "I suppose it must be more than just physical. I mean, I can understand Max being attracted to another woman, but I can't understand his being with her so much unless he were deeply entangled. unless he were in love, and I...." Try as she might, she could not keep her voice even and calm.
Jack kept quiet and let her suffer it out.
"Oh, I hate him. Jack! But how can I blame him? I tell you, I'm a lost cause! Remember what I said? A lost cause...."
Then she was weeping and trying to drink her whiskey at the same time. Somehow, she made it.
Jack handed her a handkerchief. "Not a lost cause. Never for me."
"Oh? You still want me, Jack?"
"Yes."
"Nice to know somebody wants me. If only for the first night. Sure you want me?"
"I want you. I love you. I want to make love to you."
Hardly knowing what she was doing, she tilted her head back and gave him a sideways look, directly in the eyes.
She shrugged.
It was a commitment, and she didn't have sure knowledge of why she had made it. Out of loneliness, possibly, or because Jack wanted her and she didn't wish to feel useless in the world of male and female. It wasn't because she had any physical desire for Jack or any other man at that moment. Quick to excite though she was, at that moment she was completely disinterested.
Jack kissed her mouth and she neither responded nor drew away. "Would you like another drink?" he asked, and she shook her head. He took her glass and sat it down with his.
He took her arms in hand and he kissed her again. His mouth went to her closed eyes, to her throat, to her right ear.
And when his breath hit her ear, she felt the familiar stirring.
I don't care, she thought. Useless to try. So I won't try. Let him take all the pleasure he wants-but I'll just take whatever there may be, try to take no more, and cut the suffering to a minimum.
His mouth was on hers again, and now she was responding. She let her body sway against him and raised her forearms to clasp his waist.
How strange this was! She was back in arms she had known over four years ago, arms so different and yet so familiar. And how differently she felt tonight about things.
His arms slid around her and tightened. His mouth opened and she welcomed his kiss with increasing eagerness. Pangs of pleasure began to dash over there, and her mind grew dazed. But the reaction was purely automatic. She wasn't preparing herself for more than she had ever experienced, because she knew that only by a miracle would she be able to find more. She was allowing her body to do as it pleased and asking no more.
The handkerchief he had handed her, still in her hand, fell to the floor as her body, through no volition of her own, began to twist from side to side against him. Her breasts, separated from him by at least three layers of material, felt heavier and fuller. Her lips, too, felt fuller and almost bruised. The sensation grew as his touch went over her spine and cupped her hip.
"I love you, Doris," he said in the faintest of voices. "Always know that I love you." And with that, he walked her, danced her, back to a couch and made her sit down.
He sat beside her and they kissed again as he caressed her chin, her throat, the V-neck of her white shirt-blouse. Fis fingers found the first button and unfastened it. They drifted over the center of her brassiere, found he second button and did the same thing. Each slight touch on her flesh shot a kind of spark through her, and she found her own fingers going to the buttons of his shirt. He found her third button and, after a little tug of the material from her waist, the fourth and final one. He opened her blouse all the way.
Reaching under the blouse and around to her back, he located the hooks of her white cotton brassiere and deftly disengaged them. The cups lost their fullness and the bottoms of her breasts, milky-white against the tad of the rest of her skin, showed beneath them. He raised the brassiere to her shoulder-level.
"God, you're beautiful. Even more beautiful than I remember. So beautiful...."
She felt the increasing warmth of his breath as his face moved closer to her exposed bosom. Her nipples, more pink than brown, had grown pebble-hard, and he took the right with his mouth, warming it, moving it as if to erode or melt it, but it only seemed to grow more sensitive.
He moved his lips back to hers, scarcely touching her. He turned her shoulders and helped her lie back across his arm. She kicked off her shoes and swung her legs to the couch, a careless, reckless move, letting her skirt slide off of her hips.
As his kiss moved over her face, his hand continued to build her warm untanned breasts and nipples. When his kiss returned to her breasts, his hand plucked her skirt farther and moved over her waist with a feathery touch. And when his kiss moved back to her ear, flooding her with shivers, his fingers dipped toward the elastic of her panties. He was teasing her.
She was panting and shaking in his arms. She wanted him to go farther. She wanted to twist in his arms tear open his clothes, and caress, kiss him. The old habit of straining for satisfaction, the old dream of achievement haunted her. Should she try one more time? Should she toil, strain, make one more mighty effort?
No. That would kill her or drive her crazy. Tonight she didn't have the strength to survive the ordeal. She must relax as much as possible to keep that ancient battle from starting. She must simply let happen what would happen, and then maybe Jack wouldn't be to disappointed in her.
He made her sit up again, her back to him. He pulled off her blouse and she shrugged away her brassiere. She was wearing no socks or stockings. She stood up, unzipped her skirt, and stepped out of it. Now she was clad only in simple white panties.
She turned and walked back to where he was still sitting. He reached for her and she expected him to pull her panties off, but he didn't. He lowered the top edge only enough to kiss her navel as he clutched at her buttocks. Her need grew to such an extent that she wished he would throw her to the couch and take her immediately so that she could be at ease again.
But he did no such thing. He shoved off his shoes and stockings and stood before her. Her hands knew what to do. They finished the job of unbuttoning his shirt, taking their time, then pushing it back off his shoulders. He wore no undershirt, and they stepped together, breast to chest as they kissed. And, as they kissed, her nails furrowed over his chest, and she found his belt buckle. Then his zipper. He ridded himself of his trousers.
Now? she wondered. Right now? she hoped.
But now wasn't the time. He picked her up, an arm under her shoulders, another under her knees, and carried her through a short hallway to the dark bedroom. She whirled blindly in his arms and then settled lightly on the bed.
He turned on the bedside lamp and they stared at their familiar bodies, so long lost to one another, and he murmured that she was " ... glorious, glorious...." She hoped he would finish denuding her, and he did. Poised on the edge of the bed, his back to her, he put a hand on each of her hips and, as she helped, slid her panties down. When she married Max, she had thought that no other man would ever again look at her. but now Jack was going down to kiss her and she was going wlid at the prospect. She quickly pulled his briefs down to grasp in haste.
After a moment, he freed himself from her grasp and pushed off the last of his clothing as she kicked off hers. His kiss return to her, setting her muscles to involuntary shuddering. His mouth traveled over her ribs, over her breasts to her neck, and they were almost ready. She pressed against him and heard herself begging: "Oh, Tack, take me, don't make me wait any longer!"
She reached for him and brought him nearer. Slowly and gently, he took her.
He was so good that she wanted to cry out. She wanted to make that better and better, wanted to struggle up that Everest the peak of which she had never achieved.
But she mustn't. If she did, the terrible rasp and jangle of her nerves would be far worse than otherwise, and Jack had raised her to such a level already that the counsequences would be bad enough. If she fought to make that distant summit, she didn't know what kind of fit she might throw afterward. She might go into one of her murderous rages. When she had tried to hold herself down for Max's sake, matters had turned out badly enough-such a thing must not happen tonight with Jack.
So she managed to refrain from the big try She rode with what was happening. She matched his mood with one of her own, with the rhythm they had instantly achieved. And with each moment, she rose a little higher, like an air balloon rising into the sky in even steps. She went up, up, up.
Higher and higher. She rolled on her rising white cloud, floated higher, breathing hard and hoarsely in that rarified atmosphere of love, higher and higher, stronger and stronger.
Her voice was a terrified wail.
Something had broken for her, snapped, shattered, and she was blowing to pieces. She was going into convulsions. Her body was hysterical.
And she knew she was there. She was at the summit. She had ascended Everest. She was in the throes of complete ecstasy. She grabbed Jack's back and yanked him closer, going and going-
And at that very moment
Leslie abruptly stiffened on the Japanese bed. Then her nails snapped up to dig into Max's back. Her naked body dancing with ecstasy in the final moment, lost to everything but that moment, as she clutched at him and consumed him and tried to keep him with her forever-
And at that very moment
Jack got what he wished, what he had dreamed of, what he had worked for.
He recognized what was happening to Doris, as that happening itself set him off, and he was all one yearning, finishing delight. He hurled himself and his thunder to the sweet darkness, not knowing how often, knowing only that he was going, going, and that was the greatest thing he had ever done or that had ever happened to him. as he kept going, going-
And at that very moment.
The eighth beautiful woman was too much for Max, or enough as his ultimate pleasure arrived.
Nothing else matter, nothing else existed to matter. The only thing that existed was this great cataract of pleasure which they were sharing.
And then that was over-
Doris sighed and held her lover's head against her. She purred and said. "Oh. Max. Max. That was good!"
Jack kissed the breast he found near his lips and whispered. "Oh. you sweet baby, you finished, didn't you?"
Max smiled, contentedly.
When Doris came out of her trance she stretched herself out on the bed beside Jack, luxuriously.
For now, she thought. I'm happy. I'm not going to think of a thing except what's happened to me. The wonderful thing that has happened.
Why that had happened, she didn't know, and she didn't want to stop to figure things out. Not now. That might spoil her joy. And right now all she wanted was to enjoy her maturity, her full womanhood, the fulfillment for which she had striven these many years.
"So, you're happy, eh?" Jack said, handing her a cigarette. "Yes."
"I told you that you might I 'Md you-"
"Please. I don't want to talk."
"No. Of course not."
"Except, maybe. about how good you were. And she told him while he listened quietly, his head near hers.
And then, abruptly, she was hungry. She dragged Jack from the bed and out to the kitchen, where she made cold-cut sandwiches and ate three huge ones, washing them down with almost a quart of milk. Later, Jack put some records on his player and, still unclothed, they stepped into one another's arms and danced.
Their closeness warmed her. Her eyes grew heavy-lidded, her lips and nipples thickened, the feeling grew. Her right hand feel from his, reviving his passions.
"You like that?" he whispered.
"Yes, Jack, I do."
He touched her. "You like this?"
"Yes, I like...."
"And you want me to make love to you again?"
"Yes, yes...." She went groggy, aware only of her powerful yearning. "Yes, please, again...."
CHAPTER NINE
"I hate to see you go," Leslie said, as she pulled on her robe. "I hate it."
Max finished buttoning his shirt and tucked the tail into his trousers. "And I hate to leave you. but I can't go on deserting Doris like this until certain things are settled."
"I understand, dear. But come back to me as soon as you can."
"Tomorrow evening."
"So long? But I love you-" He kissed her. "Tomorrow evening. I'd better spend a little time with Doris. We have some decisions to make."
Leslie nodded but she was unsatisfied. She wondered if she could seduce Max into staying with her for the rest of the night. But, no. They had been together so often and that would be asking too much. Besides, her consolidation of her victory was going quite well, and it wouldn't do to spoil things by being demanding or possessive.
They went to the front door and he refused the offer of her MOB She brought his hand to her breast as they kissed good night, and then he was gone.
Hurry back, lover, she called out silently. Hurry back to me. He was such a man, such a dream of a man. that losing him for even a few hours began to reawaken her desire for him-and before his dark silhouette had disappeared from her front lawn, her hand went under her robe to touch her tingling flesh.
Hurry back, lover. You're mine now, all mine.
The air of the summer night had a pleasant spring-like coolness as Max hurried through the dimly lit streets, and the sky was clear and sparkling. As he walked briskly and breathed deeply, he had the sensation that he was awakening from a dream. No longer drugged, reality and sanity returned to him.
God, he had deserted Doris during the last few days! He'd hardly spoken to her, hardly seen her, hardly been aware of her existence! What had she been doing with herself? What had she been up to? Did she have any idea of his infidelity? Surely, she must.
Questions he had been evading like a madman at last insisted on rising to consciousness. They were loaded with anxiety, and yet he felt strong and quite able to cope with them. He felt big-chested and toned up; he felt like a man who had recovered from years of a crippling disease by means of a strange and magical interlude, a magic dream.
Max Flagg would make out.
But mere confidence would solve nothing. What was he going to do about Doris? About Leslie?
The fact that he and Doris had done so poorly-no, so terribly-together didn't change the fact that on some levels they had made a marriage. That was the most basic and important welding in a marriage, but there were other cements as well: the shared recollections, the common associations-even the very agony they had gone through together in bed was a kind of cement, perverse though it might be. And Max still had a fondness, a sense of loyalty, a kind of love for his poor mate.
Leslie, on the other hand, was still new to him. As wonderfully as they got along in bed and as much as they found themselves to have in common, they were still strangers, as compared to him and Doris. She had been a refuge for his tortured flesh, a healing force in his life, but did they really have together what it took to turn a few days and nights into a successful lifetime? Max thought so. He hoped so. But the sheer drag that Doris had on him after four years was such that he couldn't be completely sure.
But then, he asked himself, could anyone ever be sure about the future of a new marriage or of any new relationship? Wasn't it always an adventure in which you risked your destiny?
He spotted a police patrol car, flagged it down, and bummed a ride back to midtown. From there he walked to his hotel. He had no idea of how Doris would receive him or what he would say to her: he would play it by ear. His nervousness grew as he crossed the lobby and entered the elevator, but it didn't bother him: he felt keyed up to do the best thing no matter what might lie ahead.
He inserted his key in the lock of the door as quietly as possible. He took a deep breath and entered the room.
Moonlight flooded through a window and revealed the bed. It was made up. No one had slept in it that night.
For a moment, it was difficult for Max to realize that he was alone, and he softly called out his wife's name. There was no reply. He turned on the bedside lamp and then looked into the bathroom. "If Doris had been there that evening, there was no evidence of the fact.
Very well, she had gone out. She had gone to some party. It had run late, turned into a brawl, perhaps, and she hadn't yet pulled out for home. It was very late, and the odds were that she would be back at any moment.
Max undressed and pulled on a pair of seldom used pajamas. There was an indefinable appropriateness in his wearing them now. He crawled into bed and turned out the light.
Sleep would not come immediately. Where the hell was Doris? Couldn't she have left a note? not that he'd been in the habit of keeping her informed lately, of course.
Could she be with Jack Home? Quite likely. She had been seeing quite a lot of the guy lately.
Darkness and relaxation brought on a doze, which in turn deepened into sleep. But the sleep was troubled by vague dreams which refused to make themselves completely known. When he awakened to a tapping at the door, he thought Doris! And he knew that he had been thinking about her throughout the night.
He pulled himself out of bed as the tapping at the door was repeated. He and Doris had wangled two keys from the management, and they never bothered to turn them in. Doris must have forgotten or lost her room key and was too embarrassed to ask for another. Max glanced at his watch and noted that it was only a few minutes past seven, and then opened the door.
It was not Doris. It was Audrey. Audrey, wearing clogs, a buttoned-up cloth raincoat, and a feline smile.
Where the hell was Doris?
"Going to ask me in, lover?"
"Oh. yeah. Sure. Come on in."
Audrey came in and closed the door behind herself. Max shook his head to bring himself more fully awake.
"What are you doing here at this hour?" he asked rather stupidly.
Audrey laughed. "Well, I couldn't get much sleep last night and I asked myself why. And it occurred to me that once we were such good friends, and yet we'd hardly gotten together during your visit. Not alone. So here I am."
"Wait a minute."
Max went into the bathroom, took off his pajama top and splashing cold water on his face. By the time he was finished, he was thoroughly awake. He hoped he could find some way to hustle Audrey out. He had enough on his mind without having to be pleasant to her. Still, he had better be civil.
He left the bathroom and said, "You offering me a breakfast date, sweetheart?"
"It had occurred to me. And it also occurred to me that you might be getting tired of the Faculty Cabana Club." She was unbuttoning her raincoat, and it fell open to reveal that she was wearing a two-piece bathing suit of ocelot design. It was a much briefer suit than she would ever have dared to wear at the Club. "But I happen to know of a little old swimming hole we can have completely to ourselves. It's so private we can swim in the raw if we want to."
Her words were not necessarily an invitation-but her semi-nude body most certainly was. It reminded Max of an earlier time, a time five years ago. Audrey had been a much sweeter, a much more likable, girl then; and at times Max had wondered if they might not make a permanent thing of their relationship. They had become increasingly intimate, and Max knew most of that body, though he had never seen it as close to naked as it was now. Seeing it was no disappointment and he was reminded of those evenings when he had known her.
But this was no time to think of that.
He said. "It sounds like fun, Audrey, but I'd better not. I want to see Doris I've been kind of ignoring her lately"
"Yes, you have."
Her tone brought back the anxiety which had pervaded him last night. It hit him with its full force.
"So? Have you turned personal relations counselor, Audrey?"
She ignored his rhetorical question and looked around the room She looked at the bed. "Doris slept out last night, didn't she?"
He considered his words carefully before he spoke. "Sweetheart, maybe we haven't gotten together much since Doris and I arrived, but you've got the look of trouble about you. Now, if you have something to say, I wish you'd spit it out without any fancy trimmings."
Her coat still on and still open, Audrey stood down on the edge of the bed and looked up at him. "You really want me to?"
"Certainly," he said, and he wasn't at all certain.
"My apartment is right across from Jack Home's. Quite late last night, I saw them arrive there together."
"So what? I've brought a girl to my place many a time, just to have a drink or a bite to eat, it was as innocent as that!"
"With an ex-lover?"
Audrey, if that's all you have to say-"
"Did you play records two or three times during the night? Did your girl laugh?"
The wind went out of Max. He sat down beside Audrey on the side of the bed.
"I'm sorry. Max," Audrey said, sounding as if she meant it. "I told you about them. I told you to keep an eye on her. But you were so interested in Leslie." The evidence was entirely circumstantial, but he could no longer avoid the obvious inference: Doris had been unfaithful to him, as surely as ne had been unfaithful to her. And the thought made him feel sick. He had asked for that, of course-in effect, he had virtually thrown the two people together-and he had got what he'd asked for.
"What time did she leave?" he asked dully.
"I went to sleep. If she isn't here now, I suppose they're still together."
Still together. As he and Leslie had been. Having breakfast together, or perhaps early morning love.
Audrey moved closer to him, put an arm around his bare waist, and leaned against his shoulder. "What are you going to do about her. Max?"
"I don't know." If he had stayed the night with Leslie, the chances were that they'd be loving at about this time. And if Doris were with Jack, she might very well be naked in his arms.
"I don't know," Max repeated.
He had no right to be jealous, but he was. And, more than that, he was weary and lonelv. All the superb confidence of a few hours before had fled from him.
Well, that's it. he thought. The game's over.
"Max...." Audrey said.
"Yes...."
She tilted her head up to look at him and lightly scratched his chest. "You and I used to have some good times together."
Again he remembered the crazy hours during which they had grappled with one another and never reached an adequate conclusion. "You were a damned little tease."
"No, I wasn't! I was scared. Things went so fast toward-toward being grown up, and I wasn't ready for that. But if there was any man who could have had me, that was you." Her nails scratched toward his waist. I've dreamed of you often. Because I've never been ... with a man ... yet."
He looked into her eyes, which like her hand and her body, seemed to ask him to go ahead. The request stirred his desire. So did the memories of their times in the past. So did the mere fact that in the last few days he had become habituated to loving on a regular and frequent basis.
Her nails bit at his flesh and his mouth went to hers. Doris was with another man and Leslie was far away and he needed a woman and what the hell. Audrey's mouth opened and he struck for it, and she turned and twisted in his arms.
They remained sitting on the edge of the bed, caught in a shuddering embrace. As they kissed again, Max pulled down the narow strap that had barely covered Audrey's breasts, and as he massaged the healthy white globes, she unhooked the halter from her waist and tossed it away. She was milk-warm and firm in his hand, large-breasted and shivering; and only after his touch had brought a blind look to her eyes did he bite for the nerve centers. "Stop," she said, "for just a minute, please stop!"
He withdrew his lips and let her rest in the crook of his arm. But he never took his fingertips off her, and soon they were circling to dip briefly but deeply at her ocelot bikini bottom. Her teeth were chattering and she was trembling as if frozen rather than melted, and he paused for a few seconds before touching her again-and the next time, he went under the cloth, and she gasped and pulled him away.
Her head was tossed back and resting against him, her eyes closed. For several minutes, she held his hand and refused anything from him but his kisses, and he felt the return of comparative calm to her body. Then she released his hand and, without looking, reached down and slid her suit bottom off and kicked it away. Still sitting beside him, she straightened her back and pulled back her shoulders. Knees tightly together, she shifted back and forth and sideways. She swayed her well-formed breasts and rolled her muscles. He had forgotten that her body was this good, this exciting, but then he'd never before seen her nude.
Reading his thoughts, she opened her eyes a slit and looked into his, saying, "You've never seen me this way before, have you-with nothing but a coat over my arms?"
"Never."
"No man has. Do you like me?"
"You're beautiful, desirable, irresistible, luscious, seductive. You make a man love-drunk and lusty...."
As he whispered to her, he went back to his love-play, bringing each square inch of her torso to life. She sighed and held his head against her bosom and slowly relaxed for him. He found that she was ready and he was careful not to hurry her.
When he sat up straight, she looked at him for the first time. This wasn't the first time that she had seen and touched him, but, after so many years, this might as well have been the first time. With a whimper of pleasure, she found his drawstring, and pulled. He shoved the pajamas to the floor, and she suddenly slipped away from his arm to kneel before him.
What she did then brought his sensations to a level equal to her own, and he had to make her stop. He raised her to her feet, picked her up, coat and all, and laid her down on the bed. Careful not to frighten her, he joined her, lying down gently.
He worked his way to her ribs, to her nipples, to her neck. He was nearly ready when he saw the first sign of panic in her eyes.
"We don't have to this first time, do we?" she asked.
"Yes, sweetheart."
"But not yet!"
"Not quite yet."
He gave her a moment, taking care to keep her desire high, then began.
"No!" she cried out. "Not this time! We can do other things! But not this time, Max!"
"Easy, sweetheart, easy."
She started kicking, thrashing, twisting to shove him away. She called him a few dirty names and began to weep. But he kept working. She wasn't screaming and she wasn't struggling nearly as hard as she might have, and he knew that her need for him was almost equal to her fear of him.
When at last he convinced her, it was because her body betrayed her.
"You're hurting me," she wailed.
"No. Audrey," he said soothingly, "nothing hurts, and you know that. Now just lie still for a moment, and I promise you that nothing will hurt."
Keyed up as his body was, his mind was oddly detached as he lay there. He noticed that he had no sense of being unfaithful to anyone, not to Doris, not to Leslie. Since he was convinced that Doris was having an affair with Jack, it wasn't unnatural that he felt free to take another woman. But he would have thought that his growing relationship with Leslie precluded any conscienceless infidelity. Obviously, that wasn't so. However great a potential he and Leslie might have as a pair, Max wasn't yet fully committed to her emotionally He realized that if he hadn't met Leslie, he probably would have found another woman sooner or later. He might conceivably come to love Leslie far more than he had ever loved Doris, but his primary attraction to her was not one of complete love. It was basically a matter of needing a tender, responsive, healthy female with whom to have a relationship. That another woman might have done as well was shown by the fact that now, with re-vided confidence in his masculine ability, he was with poor, vicious, man-scared Audrey.
When he felt that he was safe, he began to move. "Oh, don't! Don't!" Audrey wailed, but he continued. At the same time, he found a lust-toughened nipple and teased it from side to side.
"Don't, don't, don't," the woman sobbed, "don't, don't, don't, don't ... oh!" A plaintive little cry broke off her protests.
And she pressed against him.
From that point on, she developed rapidly. Her sweating, wincing, twitching face was still more that of a victim than a participant, but she tried her best to enjoy this and quickly caught onto the counter-rhythm. Her body became enthusiastic and she brought his pleasure as well as her own to a fine edge. And before he knew-in less than a minute-she said, "Oh, Max!" and went into convulsions.
He didn't stop. He kept moving, kept the rhythm, and when that had passed, she was still moving with him. She cried, "Oh, God...." and kept going. Never again. Max thought, would she be the tease she had been. Never again would she say. "Don't, don't, don't," when she meant, "Go! Go! Go!"
"Oh, you sweet man," she said, her words now coming out in a kind of growl. "You sweet big man! Oh, give me everything!
Her arms went limp at her sides. Max tried to restrain himself but he didn't know how much longer he could.
He finished. She called out, "Oh, Max! Here I am again f" and threw herself at an abandoned frenzy. Suddenly, in the very midst of the peak, they both broke into laughter, laughter that lasted as long as they continued.
The laughter and the ultimate moment died. Audrey held Max tightly so he couldn't get away. She closed her eyes and hugged him and said, "I never dreamed this could be like that! I never knew! "If only I had known! Oh. Max! You're so good! Oh. Max. I wish that one of those nights when we used to torment each other you had raped me. Yes, I do I wish you had five years ago."
A strange voice said, "Sometimes I wish he'd raped you five years ago, too."
Opening her eyes wide, Audrey looked over Max shoulder.
"Oh, God!" she said.
CHAPTER TEN
The atmosphere of the hotel room was sick after Audrey had scurried out, leaving him alone with Doris. Wan faced and with an odd smile, Doris sank into a chair. "Funny," she said. "I thought it was Leslie you were with."
"It was."
"Then your loyalty must be less than absolute. But I've known that for a long time, haven't I?"
So she had learned or guessed about Claire. "And your loyalty? Audrey told me about you and Jack Home."
"And no doubt you were eager to believe her and thereby to justify yourself."
"Not so eager. Not eager at all."
"Oh? A little thread of sentiment. Max? Don't tell me you still love me. Or maybe you'd better-we both need a good laugh." She paused and covered her eyes. "Anyway, Audrey told you the truth. I did spend the night with Jack and we did make love. Several times."
Her words turned to poison in Max's mind, but he kept his voice level. "Must have been good."
"If we're splitting up, that's none of your business. If we stay together, what Jack and I did must be unimportant. Which will it be, Max?"
"I think that's up to you."
Max had a sinking sensation as he said the words. He was passing up his best chance to be rid of Doris and all their mutually inflicted pain. "If Leslie had meant more to him, he would never have passed the decision to Doris. But it seemed that Doris's wishes, Doris's happiness, still meant something to him. If his loyalty was, as Doris had said, less than absolute, it nonetheless existed.
"I don't see why it should be up to me, but," Doris shrugged, "if you want it that way. I need time to think. Our next stop-over was to be up north, at my cousin's. I'll drive up there this afternoon. You stay here."
"All right."
She lit a cigarette and blew a smoke ring. "This was to be a second honeymoon, remember?" She waved the smoke ring away. "Some honeymoon. Max, I do wish you'd put some clothes on, I'm so sick of looking at you...."
That afternoon she put her cases into the station wagon and drove over to Jack's apartment. She hadn't told Max that she was going to do this, but she wanted to see Jack at least once more before departing for her cousin's home.
She found Jack's apartment key under his door mat. as he had said she would. She went in and awaited his return from the university. It would be almost an hour before Jack would be free, time enough to think-and perhaps too much time.
She hadn't planned to be unfaithful to Max again until she had left him-if leaving him was to be her final decision. But now she was weakening: finding her husband in Audrey's intimate embrace had reopened the possibility. In broad daylight, it was difficult to believe that last night had actually happened, and she couldn't help wondering if Jack could satisfy her again.
If he could, perhaps she should marry him. She didn't love him but she was realistic enough to know that she could learn to. And it might be better for Max if they dissolved their marriage. Oddly enough, having reached fulfillment made it much easier for Doris to admit that her earlier inadequacy was a major reason for Max' straying.
Thoughts of last night, thoughts of Max and his women, thoughts of trying for fulfillment again, induced a gentle humming sensation in Doris. Hell, I'm getting eager, she thought, and Jack still isn't back here.
She tried to calm herself but she was getting increasingly eager, and after a time, with a somewhat naughty feeling, she slipped off her panties to be ready for Jack. But no, she decided, that was silly: she might as well go all the way in her preparations.
So she went into the bedroom and found a clean pair of pajamas. She stripped off her clothes, and she was just pulling on the jacket when she heard the apartment door open. She didn't bother with the buttons. Hastily, she stepped into the pants and was pulling them up when Jack entered the bedroom.
He smiled at her. Nothing had to be said. He walked to her, and the pajama pants fell to her ankles as her arms encircled his shoulders and his came around her back. The excitement built in a mighty rush as he held her and kissed her and caressed her. but she forced herself to go slowly as she undressed him.
Yes, last night had been real. And this was going to be real. And this was going to be good.
They moved to the bed and he began to croon to her how much he loved her and how much he needed her. She tried to stop thinking. She tried to give herself to the stroking, flexing, exciting man who was caressing her.
But thought intruded: I must finish! I've got to again! I must!
And suddenly she knew that she wasn't going to. With something like terror, she recognized that no matter how she worked, how she strove, never in this world would she succeed.
Then why had she last night?
The answer, obvious though it was, came like a stroke of revelation. She had reached her success by not trying. Instead of investing all her will and energy in a hideous effort, she had allowed her body to do as it pleased, as it knew best! She had simply let that happen.
But if that were true, it wasn't Jack who had turned her on at all, good though he was. She had turned herself on. Jack's presence wasn't necessary: the same thine might have happened with any other attractive man. Maybe even happen with Max, if she weren't so conditioned against success with him.
She had the answer, and it brought with it a tremendous sense of happiness and relief. She relaxed and laughed aloud as she reached for Jack. With great and delicate pleasure, she took him. Yes, she thought, this was going to be good after all. And she wanted this to be good for Jack too, because this would be his very last time with her.
And with that thought, she gave herself entirely to pleasure.
Leslie couldn't believe it.
She had been waiting for him all day. And because she had had only him in mind, her need and her anticipation of the night to come had built with every hour. She had thought about that, had planned-the things they would do, the ways in which she would give him pleasure. She had been ready to take him into her arms the moment he came through her door.
And now he was sitting in her living room, sitting against the red glow of sunset, and telling her that he was leaving with his wife that very evening.
"But we love one another! We had an understanding, Max! Not in so many words, but you know we had it!"
He nodded. "Yes, but I had an understanding with Doris, too. I still owe her something."
"You do not! She's not happy with you, is she? Set free, she might find happiness; and we've already got it. But if you stay with her. we all lose."
"Maybe, but I promised her 'for better or for worse.' and she hasn't released me from that promise-"
"But she can't keep us apart-"
"I'd better go now, Les."
Then she lost her temper. She had thought her winnings were secure and they were slipping through her fingers and it was too damned much. "You rat! You think you can throw me over just because you're tired of going to bed with me-"
"You know it's not that-"
"I know I'll get you for this! You think I'll ever sign that contract-"
"I don't expect you to-"
"I not only won't sign it, I'll lay the blame on you! I'll tell 'em I'm not signing because you goofed the whole deal. I'll tell 'em that because of you I'm switching publishers. I'll tell 'em so much, I'll make your name mud with our company. Now get the hell out of my house!"
Even as Mar left, she wanted to call out to him: Come back! Come back! Max-just one more time....
But he was gone and he wasn't coming back and she was alone. Her temper had left her dazed and it was hard to realize that her affair with Max was over. And so suddenly!
Why? Where had she gone wrong? She had operated badly at first, of course, but thereafter everything had been going so perfectly. What had she overlooked?
Audrey's words came back: And I can make you a guarantee Those two are in love. I mean really in love. lack's word? came back: Whatever may or may not be wrong between those two, they still love one another. And Leslie sat down and wept.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The time was late evening and the place was the bathroom of a motel unit, and Max Flagg was automatically going through the routine of washing, brushing his teeth, and pulling on his pajamas.
It had been a quiet week. They had visited some of Doris' relatives and had pressed on westward until now they were near Denver. During this time, a kind of respectful silence had sprung up between them. They conversed pleasantly, like strangers cast together by chance on the same trip, they were courteous, they were casual. They didn't speak of the past and said little of the future.
Sometimes Max wondered why Doris had chosen to stay with him. All she had said was, "Well try it together for a while and see how it turns out." It portended a bleak future, and he wondered why she was ready to settle for it. For that matter, he wondered why he was.
He didn't even have any great regret over giving Leslie up. Life could have been great with her, he knew
-a wonderful life. And yet the idea of actually leaving Doris, of never seeing her again, of never hearing from her, of living a completely separate life, quite aside from the question of whether or not he still had any love for her, actually leaving her would be a little like cutting off one of his arms.
He went into the bedroom. Doris was lying in one of the twin beds. Her lamp was on and she was propped up on an elbow, reading a magazine. Her sheet was pulled up over her hips and above that she was covered only by the short, transparent black silk nightie she had worn once before, when the night had turned out so badly.
Even lying half-covered and with her back to him she was a beautiful sight, a concoction of rolling curves that had been made for love, or should have been. Max wondered if there were any significance to her suggestive apparel. Could she actually be hinting that they should attempt to make love? In view of the cool climate of their present emotional relationship, that seemed un-likely.
But should he make sure? Should he make a tentative try? Test her? He measured his reaction to the sight of her and found no physical desire-he hadn't had any for a week.
He moved to the edge of his own bed. his back toward Doris, and sat down. No, there would be no futile attempt at love making tonight. For all he knew
-or cared, at present-there would be none ever again. Oh, he supposed that had to come eventually, but he was more than willing to postpone that indefinitely.
He pulled down the sheet, rolled under it, and lay back on his pillow. Doris's light wouldn't bother him, and soon he would be asleep.
"Good night," he said.
"Good night, dear."
After a moment he heard the rustle of magazine pages and the swishing sound of a sheet. Then Doris came around the foot of her bed and toward him. She was wearing her wispy black panties, he noted. Long-legged, willowy, her breasts full and high, she was a sight to raise the temperature of any man who didn't know her as well as Max did.
She sat down on the side of his bed and faced him, smiling in her shy, tentative way. "I thought I'd kiss you good night. We haven't kissed good night lately."
He managed a smile in return, and she leaned down to kiss him lightly.
"We've been pretty distant this last week, Max," she said afterwards. "I think both of us wanted it that way. We needed time, time to let the past die. Don't you think so?"
"Yes."
"And a week isn't very long for that. But if it takes much longer, I'd like to do something to help kill the past."
"I don't know what to do, Doris." Did she think that a return to the old bedtime frustrations was going to help? Max didn't yet feel up to coping with that, and he hoped she would soon return to her own bed.
But instead, she leaned down to kiss him again, a little harder this time, and then her tongue came out to flicker lightly over his lips. She pushed his head to one side and her tongue went to his ear. As she touched it, he felt his desire stirring in spite of himself.
Perhaps she sensed his attitude, because she chided him gently, "Max, don't be afraid of me."
"I'm not afraid of you, Doris-"
"Good. You don't have to be afraid of any woman." With that, she kissed him again, probing his teeth quickly, and with one hand she unbuttoned his pajama top.
The moment he had hoped to put off had come, then. She wanted to make another attempt. He could deny her, send her back to her bed. but it seemed cruel. Besides, he had left it up to her if they were to stay together. He hadn't actually been forced to remain with her. and she would probably have let him go if he had insisted upon it. Since he was here and since he was her husband, he had certain responsibilities, like it or not.
She opened his pajama top and felt his chest. "You have a lovely body, darling. I love your chest." She pulled off the silk that hung from her shoulders and said, "Do I have a lovely body?"
"The loveliests."
"What do you like about it?"
Rather than answering, he pulled her toward him and kissed her.
"That's more like it," she said, rubbing her soft, pillowy bosom over him. "But what about my body?
Do yon like my breasts?"
"Beautiful breasts, like to kiss them, bite them . ."
"Play with my breasts, darling. Play with them like you used to. Make them ring like bells."
Then she was lying beside him but on top of the sheet, and his lust had returned. He molded her breasts, pinched them, teased and tortured them. The past was vanishing from his mind as he devoted his attention to the desirable woman beside him. She had begun to pant with need, and he wanted her as much as she wanted him.
As he clung to her, she moved an arm down under the sheet and touched his pajamas. "You do still want me, don't you?" she said. "I was so afraid you wouldn't want me!"
"Of course I want you. You've been the most desirable woman in the world for me from the moment I first saw you."
"And what are you going to do about that, darling?"
"Take that silly bit of wrapping off. Take off these damned pajamas...." While his caresses went over her body, he told her in some detail what he planned to do. ""Oh. do, Max. Do that!"
He got out of the bed. There was no hurry now. He took his time in discarding his paiamas and in walking over to where he could look over her seductive length. She smiled at him and reached to touch him.
"Yes, you do want me," she said.
Something in her manner puzzled him. He missed the feeling of worry, of desperation she had always injected into their loving in the past. She didn't seem to have the final outcome in mind at all, and that had always been her primary consideration Now she gave the appearance of simply enjoying the moment.
He pulled her to her feet and said, "Let's dance."
She laughed. "Now. darling?"
"Yes. now" And bending his knees, he pressed against her They swayed sideways, and slowly he went to his knees tasting her body as he went. He caught the black material at her hips and peeled it down. She struggled to get away from him but he didn't release her until her knees buckled and she collapsed on the floor.
He pulled her panties the rest of the way off. picked her up. and placed her on his bed. They were as ready as they would ever be, he knew. Yet he was reluctant to go further Fear kept returning in spite of desire.
Again she read his mind, or saw the look in his eyes, because she said, "Don't worry about me, darling. Make this good for you. That's all I'm concerned with now. Make yourself feel wonderful."
He felt complelled to explain. "But, Doris, a man wants his woman to enjoy things too-"
"Don't! Don't talk. I'm here. I'm ready and I love you, darling...." She rose on one elbow and held him. Then her eyes dimmed, her mouth opened, and she swayed forward to kiss him. a long, dangerous kiss.
Now he couldn't wait any longer. He pulled away from her and she fell back on the bed. In a few seconds of exquisite pleasure, he took her.
"Am I being good to you?" Doris whispered.
"Wonderful."
"And you're being good to me. You're giving me what I want."
So he began to work and she worked with him. They took things slowly at first, but nerves had already been brought to a fiery pitch and now they quickly turned to white flames.
"Oh. that's good." she said, and again Max was bewildered. Where was the old sense of struggle which had always been so painful before?
"Max, do you feel good?" she asked.
"You're making me feel good." he said, "and I love you."
They ceased talking. Max gave himself to sensation. All he knew was that Doris was more marvelous than she had ever been before. The last of his worry disappeared, and he knew only that he was loving his wife. He gave her all he had.
And then she was laughing. Her arms had released him and were limp at her sides, but she was working completely out of control.
And he knew that she had finished. She wasn't faking, she was really there.
So was he. He was finishing with her.
After they had taken a shower together, they decided it was her bed's turn. They propped themselves up on pillows and clung together, resting. He played gently with her nipples and, with something like admiration and wifely pride, she stroked his chest.
"Didn't think I could, did you?" she asked with a grin.
"It doesn't matter. You did."
"Do you know how I learned?"
Max had a pretty good idea who had taught her, and he didn't care to hear anything about that. He didn't answer.
But Doris went on. "I figure out that I had to relax. That I had to quit trying so hard. Poor Maxie was doing his part as far as any man could-I had to learn the rest. Like any other woman."
Max sighed and smiled. She was trying to tell him that it wasn't Jack who had done this for her, not really. Well, true or not, he would accept that.
Anyway, he didn't have time to think. He was coming back to life at her touch, and there was a gleam in her eye. He put a hand to her hip and felt it tremble. Her arm muscles twitched and she licked her lips.
"All right, lover," she said, "do right by me."
The honeymoon had at last begun.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Leslie was morose, depressed, withdrawn. She couldn't keep it from showing, hard as she tried, and perhaps that was the reason Jack suggested that she come over to his apartment for dinner that evening. She had happened across him and Audrey in a campus coffee joint. Jack had turned toward Audrey and had added, "You'll come, too, of course."
Audrey was already there and wearing an apron when Leslie arrived at six. She had prepared some Italian-style veal, spaghetti, and a tossed salad, and Jack had a bottle of excellent barberone to go with it. After a thoroughly enjoyable meal, they put a few records on the player and settled down with light highballs-just enough Scotch to take the curse off the water and indulged in the usual exchange of gossip, rumor, and shop talk.
Leslie was grateful for the evening because it helped to take her mind off of her loss. Though she tried not to think about Max-there was no point in brooding over him-his ghost continued to haunt the back of her mind. She wondered if taking a new lover might not help, but she had little desire.
Still, she was in the presence of two former lovers, either of whom should be readily available. Audrey was out: there'd be no more of that. But Jack was a reasonable possibility and, having lost Doris, he might well be in the mood for a little consolation. Very well, when Audrey left, she would stay and see what evelved.
But the evening moved on and Audrey showed no signs of intending to leave. Leslie became irritated. Audrey had no right to be jealous and try to keep her away from Jack, if that was what she was up to. She should face the fact that their affair had reached its final conclusion.
But Audrey showed no signs of jealousy and none of the little signs of sensing that she might not be wanted. On the contrary, the little glances she exchanged with Jack-and the way Jack went over to sit beside Audrey on the sofa-
Then it hit Leslie. The invitation to Audrey had not been an afterthought. She, Leslie, and not Audrey, had been the second guest. And Audrey had taken on the role of hostess so naturally, so unassumingly, that Leslie hadn't even noticed it. Which implied that, of the two women, Audrey was the more at home here.
And Jack and Audrey, having given her a good dinner and a pleasant evening, were waiting for her to leave. So that they could be alone.
What in the world had happened to Audrey? For the first time, Leslie noticed that she had developed a new ease, a lack of witchines....
Well, there was one way to test her observation's. In the old days, when Leslie decided to leave a party, Audrey invariably insisted on leaving with her.
Leslie stood up. "It's been a nice evening but I must get home. I have a long day tomorrow."
Nobody objected.
The test wasn't completely valid, Leslie decided. After all. Audrey did live right across the hall.
She went to the door and Jack accompanied her. Audrey came up behind him and hung on his shoulder.
Leslie felt a touch of panic, she didn't want to be alone, she didn't want to be left out.
"Oh dear," she said, "I forgot all about doing the dishes "
"Don't worry, Les," Audrey said. "I have a good dish-dryer-don't I, dear?" And she kissed Jack's cheek.
That clinched it. Beatrice and Benedict, Leslie thought ruefully. In all likelihood, Audrey was staying the night. Leslie took her leave, silently wishing the two of them well.
She drove her little red car slowly back to her home and was struck by its loneliness as she approached it. Once inside, her heels clattered hollowly on the kitchen floor.
She didn't feel sleepy and so she decided to work for a while. God, how the professional literature piled op! How could any one person be expected to keep up with it all and still live like a human being? She tackled a quarterly scanning its pages quickly, separating new ideas from new data trying to relate both to what she already knew in order to make the contents of the magazine a part of her mind and general intellectual equipment.
After half an hour, she decided it was no use. Nothing she read struck a spark and she was absorbing next to nothing. She threw the quarterly aside.
She turned on the television in time to catch the late news and the weather report. She considered watching a late movie, but the first sequence was abysmally dull, and she turned the set off.
Going back by her desk, she noticed the contract copies Max had given her, and she picked them up. Poor Max. She tried to wish him well with his wife, but it was hard and a bitter taste arose in her mouth. Had she fooled herself about the kind of man he was? She didn't know. But she couldn't honestly convince herself that he'd only been out for a contract and some free play. And if he was so hooked on that wife of his, it could have poisoned any life he and Leslie might have had together.
But, lord, she had turned witchy when he'd told her he was leaving! Knowing that she would hardly be thrilled by the prospect and might well tear him apart, he could just as easily have left with his wife and never said a word to her. But at least he'd had the courage to face her.
Maybe she ought to sign his damned contract. I obligated her to a few weeks of work she didn't feel like doing, but if it helped the rat. and right now a hard grind might be good for her. Well, she'd think about it in the morning.
She still didn't feel sleepy, but she took two buffered aspirin tables and shed her clothes. What was the sense of wearing clothes when you were alone in your own house own a warm summer evening, anyhow? She took a fast shower, got the Courvoisier bottle and a glass, and went into her dark bedroom. She opened up the walls so that the room felt like part of the outdoors, and the moonlight came across the back veranda and fell on the Japanese bed.
She piled pillows high on the back of the bed and lay back against them, brandy bottle and glass in hand. She poured herself a drink, inhaled its aroma, and sipped at it.
Jack and Audrey had probably gone to bed by this time. They might be on a second round. She wondered about Max and Doris. Jack had refused to give her any details about how things had gone between him and the blonde, but she had gained the impression that the latter had learned a thing or two. Perhaps Max would benefit.
Everybody was with someone else.
She was alone on her bed, clothed only in moonlight, sipping brandy. Leslie Stanton, Ph.D. in biology, the lady with the body designed to give any man a thrill for her benefit. Leslie Stanton, who had everything to offer and no one to give anything to....
What if right now she saw a dark shadow out on the far edge of the lawn, a shadow hardly perceptible against the high dark hedge. It would startled her and she would hold her breath. Her heart would beat harder and faster as the shadow advanced toward her and, as it stepped into the moonlight, she would see that it was a man; tall, hard-muscled, stark naked, and she would be too frightened and too fascinated to cry out.
He would come closer, closer, up onto the veranda, and he would see her lying here. Seeing her, naked before him, his passion would rise she would respond....
Then he would come toward her. He would fall to his knees and lay hands on her and force her ... He could bite her. kiss her, caress her breasts.
Then he would take her as she had never been taken before driving her mad with desire-
But no one was taking her. There was no dark mysterious lover. There was only a naked woman lying on her bed in the moonlight, soothing her loneliness with brandy and dreams.
