In the book, Sex In America, we read: "Adultery has not become a way of life for the American woman. She does not view sexual straying as one of her rights, nor adulterous love as a pleasure she deserves to enjoy in addition to those of her married life. In our society adultery does not coexist with marriage, but combats it; the affair rarely achieves balance and equilibrium, but nearly always is a cause of change and upheaval which ends in its own termination or Premarriage." Brenda was not prepared for the possibility of her marriage ending when her adulterous past was suddenly brought to light. She had thought she was helping the marriage, and now she took a second look at her lustful adventures.
CHAPTER ONE
Dave Marshall brought his dusty blue Mustang to a stop in the driveway of his split level ranch house and glowered.
He'd had a bitch of a day. It was hot, and he hadn't made a penny. Now he'd come home to find his wife sunning herself on a chaise, in full view of the neighborhood, wearing the snuggest short shorts she could get her ass into and a bikini top that barely restrained her beautiful bulging tits.
Brenna sat up, took off her ornate sunglasses, and waved, daring a breast to bounce out.
When Dave rounded the rear of the car, she asked, "Any luck today?"
"What do you think?" he growled.
"Well, you don't have to bite my head off!"
"Get in the house," he told her.
"I don't know as I will," she pouted. "Not when you talk to me that way."
"Do you realize you're making a spectacle of yourself?" he asked softly but with a cutting edge. Then, he answered himself, "Yeah, I suppose you do. You always were a hell of a show-off!"
Her eyes followed him as he trudged to the side entrance of the house, his coat slung over his shoulder his white shirt open at the collar and soaked with sweat. Her full lips set themselves in a line of disgust.
What is the matter with him? she wondered. Other men can make it. Why can't he?"
She got up, brushed off her Jiggly fanny, and hip switched in the direction he had taken.
Brenna was an exceptionally beautiful woman, twenty-six years old, with dark auburn hair and a figure that made male pulses pound. She and Dave had been married for three years and had no children. She didn't want any and he couldn't afford any, so there was no real basis for argument.
He couldn't afford the house on which they were making man-killing payments, either. The way things were going now, he couldn't even afford the Mustang.
In Los Angeles he had been doing pretty well as a solicitor for a large insurance company, but Brenna hadn't been satisfied with the way they were living. She had wanted to move to a posh new suburb and she had talked him into believing he could make a go of it with an agency of his own. Now they were a month and a half behind on the house payments, three weeks late on the car, and they were hurting.
When she entered the bedroom, he was stepping out of his trousers. Dave was twenty-eight, slim, modestly muscular, and had a handsome face. His hair was brown and fell into nautral waves.
"What the hell's the idea of sprawling out there and showing your tits to everybody?" he demanded.
"I'm covered," she said, and posed with arms out flung.
"Just barely. We have a patio, you know."
"But it's all shade at this time of day."
"So get the goddamned sun in the morning." He stepped out of his shorts and tossed them into a hamper.
Brenna's eyes slid over him. He looked good to her, even when he was acting nasty.
She had told herself many times that, with what she had to offer, she could have married a man who was financially well off. She'd had at least one good opportunity-the man who ran the insurance agency where she and Dave had both worked. She'd been the boss' secretary, and they had dated a few times. He was very interested in her, but she had chosen Dave instead. She and Dave were still in love, and she still found him very attractive in a physical way. However, there was a strange disquietude within her. And now, money troubles made it worse.
He plodded into the adjoining bathroom, left the door open, and stepped into the shower. The spray started.
Brenna removed her bikini top and walked over in front of the mirror. She cupped her round, thrusting tits from underneath, lifted and squeezed. That felt good. She could close her eyes and imagine these were Dave's fingers loving her.
She polished the reddish nipples and the puckered surrounding discs with her thumb, then plucked at the emerging tips. Sensations of warmth spread through her.
God, but she was ready! She was almost always ready. All Dave had to do was to come out of that bathroom naked, his prick bobbing atop his balls, and say, How about it, baby? She would roll onto the bed and kick her legs up.
But he wouldn't say it. He was PO'd. And he was worried about money. There was nothing that took the charge out of a man as effectively as that.
Brenna wriggled her shorts away and stepped out of them. She adjusted her silky white brief s. She walked to the bureau, selected a bra, fastened it around her, and twisted it up into place about her breasts. She tucked the tender flesh in carefully. The fabric made her still-stiff nipples itch.
By the time her husband came out, she was wearing a trim aqua shirtdress and was patting at her shoulder-length hair in front of the mirror. She watched his naked reflection move past and got a sharp twinge of sexual desire.
"What's for dinner?" he asked as he walked to the bureau.
"That's a good question," she said. "I haven't started it yet."
"Son of a bitch!"
"Well, you want a couple of drinks first, anyway, don't you?"
"Man, the way I feel tonight I could drink a gallon. In fact, I think I will."
"Then you'll have to go out and buy some. All we have in the house is less than a pint."
"Are we still with the Diner's Club?" he asked. "Did you make the last payment?"
"You know I didn't."
"Shit!"
She turned to look at him sharply. "Dave! What is it? There's millions of dollars worth of insurance business here in Sunny Hills, just waiting to be gobbled up. You could sell insurance in L.A. when you were working for somebody else. Why can't you sell it here?"
"You wanta know why?" he snapped back, turning to face her with his shorts dangling from his hand.. "Out here things work differently. All the important people know one another. They belong to the same country club; they tee off on the same green; their wives attend the same garden parties. You've gotta be a member of that group to get any business that amounts to a darn-and, even though we live here, we don't have the cash to put up the right kind of front. Why, I couldn't even pay the country club initiation fee, let alone the dues and the cost of dinners and drinks.
"I've talked to the fat cats around here. They all give me a good hearing, but in the end they always say they give their insurance to Joe or Ed or somebody else who belongs to their clique. And they aren't about to switch, because it would cause social repercussions."
"But can't you show them where you can save them some money? You used to get business that way in L.A."
"Sure. In L.A. everybody Is cost-conscious. Out here there's a goddamned avalanche of affluence ... except, somehow, it hasn't touched us." His tone was bitter, and this hurt her.
He turned away and stepped into his boxer shorts.
The telephone on the night table buzzed softly, and Brenna moved over to answer it.
"Mrs. Marshall? This is Mr. Grantham of First Southwestern Federal Savings and Loan. You didn't answer our letter concerning your delinquent house payments."
"There wasn't anything to say, Mr. Grantham. We don't have the money at the moment."
"Well ... I'm very much afraid that we can't wait any longer. We've been extremely lenient with you folks."
Dave moved over quickly and snatched the telephone from his wife's hand.
"Who is this?" he demanded.
"This is Grantham of First Southwestern Federal, Mr. Marshall."
"Yeah? Well, you'll get your money. We're not deadbeats. Just quit bugging us, will you?"
"Sir, we've been very lenient as it is. One payment is six weeks in arrears, and the other, two weeks."
"I know that," Dave said in an anguished tone, and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm trying to get the money for you."
"We'll wait until the end of the week, Mr. Marshall That's all. Unless the full amount due us, plus our additional service charge for overdue accounts, is in our hands by that time, we'll have no choice but to institute foreclosure action."
"All right ... all right. You'll have it." Dave replaced the phone and added, " ... you goddamned mother-frigging bastard."
Brenna gazed at him and bit her lip.
Dave whirled on her. "Let's get some dinner started."
"Yes."
She went directly to the kitchen and began the preparation of the evening meal, while Dave headed for the small, walnut-grained bar in the living room. He found the bottle of Old Forrester which, as Brenna had said, contained slightly less than a pint. He poured a double jolt into a glass and downed it, grimacing. He poured another double and carried it across the room to the TV set. He turned the set on.
He settled down to watch a newscast while Brenna worked in the kitchen.
She reflected on the way he had talked to her, on the call from the mortgage-holder, and on their general situation. She didn't blame him for being out of sorts If she blamed him for anything, it was for not being able to crack the nut that he had to contend with in his business. But she half accepted his excuse concerning that, too.
Perhaps it had been a mistake moving out of their Los Angeles apartment, but she so enjoyed having a nice house of her own in an attractive community like this. She didn't want to lose it.
She shouldn't have let Dave catch her sunbathing on the front lawn. Knowing how jealous he was, she should have had more sense. But the fact was that she enjoyed showing herself off. Dave knew this, and it fed his jealousy.
She'd gotten some appreciative ogles from homeward-bound husbands while she was out there. She imagined that several of them were thinking about her right now as they sipped their evening drinks, mentally comparing her tits with those of their wives.. From all Brenna had seen in her socializing around the neighborhood, she had far and away the best pair-and not only the best tits, either, but the best legs, the best fanny ... the best of everything.
She wondered idly how much insurance she would be able to sell if she started calling on the "fat cats" of Sunny Hills. More than Dave could sell with all his foot-slogging and sharp figuring, she imagined.
But the fat cats-would expect something in return for the insurance business they would give her, and that was where she would have to draw the line. What she had to give in the bedroom belonged only to Dave.
Still, the thought stuck in the back of her consciousness.
Dave was drunk by the time dinner was ready. He hadn't offered her a drink, and she didn't mind about that. She had never cared for the stuff, really. She usually drank with him to be companionable, but there wasn't much booze in the house today, and she didn't begrudge him taking it for himself.
When he was drunk, he could be frivolous. That was the way he reacted when his general mood was good. But on a day like this-and they had been having quite a few of them lately-drinking made him more morose, he hardly spoke to her. This hurt Brenna, but still she made allowances.
The television remained on during the dinner, and they watched it from the dinette. Dave grumbled an occasional comment, but otherwise concentrated on stuffing himself.
Brenna found her mind reverting to the thought she'd had earlier. She could help Dave out a great deal ... and he would never have to know about it. Helping Dave would mean helping herself, as well, because the money he made would go toward the house and car and the swimming pool she had been wanting. And they would be able to expand their social life.
She had always held a broad-minded attitude toward sex. She grew up in an "enlightened" home where everything was discussed openly, and there were no rigid moral precepts except with respect to hurting people. Her father had always said that anything was permissible so long as no one was hurt by it, and that was the way he and her mother had lived.
Looking back on it now, Brenna realized that each of them must have had some sexual experiences on the outside. Her father was away a lot on business, and her mother mingled socially on her own. But they saw to it that there was no scandal, and there were no recriminations voiced in the home. They got along well together, and Brenna always took their love for each other for granted, just as she took for granted their love for her brother and herself.
In high school, Brenna had had her first sex experience. It was with a boy two years older. He was president of the senior class, handsome and popular. She had thought she was in love with him, but after he left for college the flame flickered out, and she became interested in someone else. She had a total of three sex affairs before she was graduated.
Her mother had explained to her at an early age about how a girl had to protect herself if the boy wasn't willing to assume the responsibility. Her first boy friend used a condom, but he complained about it.
Indicative of the truly enlightened relationship which she and her mother shared was the fact that Brenna was able to go to her mother and tell her frankly what was happening. Her mother didn't seem distressed.
"Frank's a fine boy," was her mother's comment, "and if you're very fond of him, it's all right. The important thing is not to value yourself cheaply or allow anyone else to do so."
Thereupon her mother took her to a doctor in another town and had her fitted with a diaphragm.
The fact that sex was never treated as a forbidden thing caused Brenna to grow up with a more casual than average attitude toward it, free from compulsion jaro or con. She observed girls from stricter homes who turned into sluts-who, according to the stories she heard, would do it with anybody and even several at a time. Brenna couldn't imagine herself behaving in this way. She had no reason to want to "get back" at her parents for anything. She saw sex as an extension of friendship, and she had no desire to submit to a boy she didn't like and respect very much.
The same attitude prevailed during her two years at college and after she went to work. She dated a great deal, but had sex with only a few. She never used it as a bargaining tool, although she did get nice presents from men, and she couldn't help being aware of the bartering value of what she had tucked between her pretty legs.
She didn't think seriously about marriage until she met Dave. She fell for him hard. She didn't withhold her body while they were dating, and this fact didn't discourage Dave from proposing to her. Quite the contrary. But there was a negative result, as well, she later realized:
The fact that she had been liberal with him caused him to wonder how many other men she had been liberal with. This, plus the evident pleasure she derived from being admired by men, inflamed his jealousy and led to quarrels.
Dave's upbringing had been somewhat stricter than her own. He, like most young people in this country, gained the impression early in life that sex was dirty. This didn't interfere with the growth of a normal sex urge, but it tended to warp his mental attitude toward it. Carnal enjoyment was always somehow tinged with a sense of guilt, even in marriage. One of the reasons he wanted children was that subconsciously he felt this would take the guilt away.
Brenna didn't want children yet because she and Dave were not completely settled and, yes, she was concerned about the effect upon her physical beauty.
Anyway, there was lots of time. She wanted no more than two kids, and she believed it was best to have them close together. Though contrary to the accepted norm, she felt the age of twenty-eight was young enough for a wife to become a mother. After she had waited that long, there would be no cause for regrets, and she would be better able to face the problems which child-bearing was bound to present.
Being without children gave her a certain sense of freedom, even though she was married and had been faithful to Dave for three years. She appreciated the admiring-glances she got from other men, and there were times when her fancy was tickled by the thought of having intercourse with them. But she remained in love with Dave and, on the conscious level at least, there didn't seem tobe any reason to go over the fence.
Until now....
Oh, come off it, girl! What are you thinking of? What you need is for that handsome husband of yours to take you to bed tonight and screw you good. You haven't been getting enough of it lately, what with his business worries and all, and that's caused your mind to wander. The idea of putting out to help Dave in his career is sophomoric. It probably wouldn't work and, if it did, he would be bound to find out. Dave's your husband and your lover. Forget everything else.
She tried to forget the illicit notion, and she probably would have succeeded if the evening had developed as she desired.
But Dave resumed his drinking after dinner. He finished all the liquor in the house and then announced his intention of going out to buy some more.
He was unsteady on his feet and his eyes were bleary, which meant he was in no condition to drive. Anyway, they didn't have money for him to throw around this way.
"Darling, don't go out," she murmured, and-walked over to press herself against him. She deliberately rubbed her breasts against his chest and nuzzled his neck. "Take me to bed, hmm? I want you."
This sweet invitation from his beautiful wife would ordinarily have prompted immediate, happy acceptance on his part. But this was not an ordinary night, Dave was oiled to the ears, and he was deeply and painfully bugged.
Still, his sex glands were not dormant. He couldn't help but experience a glowing warmth when Brenna snuggled up to him like this. And the liquor loosened him a little.
He put one hand at her small waist and wrapped the other around a bilging buttock. He swayed her gently and pulled her closer so that their loins as well as their chests rubbed teasingly.
She chuckled in a soft, sexy way and kissed along the line of his jaw, not minding the slight stubble that was there. She didn't object to the liquor on his breath, either. She just wanted him.
Their mouths merged, and his tongue thrust forward to fill her with pulsating excitement. She gave a little moan and clutched him harder about the back. His hand caressed her bottom, moving the cheeks in her dress and light underpants, his fingertips tickling her cleavage.
Drunkenly, he began to draw her dress up, and she let him. The living room drapes were open, but a six-foot block wall surrounded their back yard, so no one was likely to see.
Dave got his hand underneath her skirt, directly onto her pantied ass, and he squeezed and fondled its spongy-firm divisions. He became excited, but so far there was no manifestation at this lower front. Brenna was sizzling with desire. Her sex zone was becoming moist. All she could think about was having him put her on her back and put his hard rod where she wanted it to be.
"Come on, darling," she said "Let's go into the bedroom."
"No!" he exclaimed, placing his hands on her nearly naked bottom. "I want you right here!" His speech was thick, and his manner remained a little ugly.
She hesitated for only a moment. "All right. But let's close the drapes first."
"Hell with the drapes," he said, and began to kiss her passionately around the neck as his fingers sought the waist elastic of her panties, pried their way underneath it, and starting pulling her panties down.
"That's no way to undress a girl," she objected with a little laugh, and wriggled out of his arms. "Let me take my dress off first."
"Okay, but hurry it up."
She was slightly flushed and her nerves were tingling happily. She was dewy between her thighs.
Dave worked clumsily with the buttons on the front of his sport shirt as she removed her belt and started on the buttons down her front. He threw off his shirt nearly losing his balance and fumbled at the fasteners on his pants.
Brenna stepped out of her dress, a delightful vision in a loaded bra and snug panties. Because it was a warm day and she wasn't going out, she hadn't put on either a slip or hose. Actually, the smooth tan on her legs permitted her to go without stockings any time she wished to do so.
Dave dropped onto the couch to pull his slacks off, his slip-on shoes going with them. He tugged off his socks and, when he looked up, was treated to the powerfully seductive vision of his wife's naked, swaying breasts as she leaned forward to skin her panties away.
He wanted her intensely.
He quickly worked his shorts off, and then they were both naked, he sitting on the couch and she standing in front of him. He stared at the delightful furry treasure of her loins.
"Well?" she whispered with a little smile. She was staring at him also, and so far nothing had happened. His penis remained limp.
It's the liquor, she thought, on top of all his troubles.
She dropped to her knees on the carpet and her hands lovingly urged him to recline on the couch. She began by kissing him on the lips, her tongue flickering lightly while her hand slid over his hair-adorned chest and down to his navel.
Dave groaned and wriggled. It felt so good. He was warm all over, his brain was wheeling, and he wanted her. But still his body refused to manifest desire.
Brenna's hand slid lower, across his belly and into the area of intimacy where his thighs met his torso. She lightly touched his flacid flesh and this evoked an even stronger desire within her. Then she seized his lethargic penis in her hand and began to stroke it. Still the organ didn't thicken and stiffen and lengthen out.
He had never been this slow before, even when he was drinking.
His hands were at her breasts, rolling them and plucking gently. They had gorgeous fullness and were springy-firm in spite of their size. Her nipples thrust and throbbed urgently.
Brenna moved her mouth to his chest, licked at his nipples, and got some hair between her lips which she paused to pick out. She kept her right hand on his cock all the time, stroking and fondling.
Nothing happened.
Her mouth slid to his waist. Her tongue dipped into his navel. The firm surrounding flesh shivered against her lips, but her right hand still reported no progress.
Seized with wild desire, she lifted her head again and moved it where it would stimulate the most. A cry of sweet anguish rattled in his throat as her soft wet lips closed about the most sensitive portion of his anatomy. She began ever so gently to suck.
Giddy nerve messages flashed to his brain and back again. It was so great, so wonderful, to have her lips there, compressing and drawing. He squirmed and sighed gradually, as she continued to suck his limp penis, a fullness began to occur audit stiffened up.
She sat back on her haunches, breathing hard, her full breasts rising and falling, quivering with the motion. Her swollen nipples canted out and upward. She watched herself stroke him with her hand.
Now he was stiff again. Though not bar-hard, he could make it.
She climbed on top of his recumbent form, forcing his legs together and wedging one knee between his hip and the back of the sofa while her other knee perched precariously on the outer edge of the seat cushion.
Her cascading breasts shook erotically as she braced herself on one arm and maneuvered his penis against the spongy divisions of her sex cleft with the other hand. Her moist flesh claimed him eagerly, the union was achieved.
When he felt the slippery envelopment of her cunt, he growled and a new surge of strength went into his erect member He skimmed his hands along her tensed thighs, over her hips, up her sides, and to the front.
He squeezed her tits as she began to move up and down about his pole.
His excitement peaked quickly, too quickly. The encompassing caress of her exquisitely soft and wet vaginal-membranes, the shaking of her breasts within his grasp, the thrust of her hard nipples, the passion etched on her lovely face as her auburn hair swirled about it-all these, plus the memory of her ardent lips clasping his dong, combined to act upon his liquor-weakened state and produce a premature ejaculation.
Brenna was just in the midst of her excitement, rotating and pumping up and down about him, when she felt him suddenly stiffen more, and then his heated juices geysered up.
"Oh, no ... !" she cried, and began to move faster. But it was no use. She was too far from the golden ring to reach it, and now, as his twitching stopped and the strength began to drain out of him, her opportunity was totally lost.
Her nipples were still stiff. Her breasts ached. Her loins tingled. A conflagration raged all through her, but she had to get off her husband and face up to the fact that he had been unable to satisfy her.
There was no hope for a second try, not the way he was tonight. He was already in something of a stupor, brought on by general fatigue, too much liquor and sex satiation.
She looked down at him and said gently, "Don't you think you'd better go to bed?"
"Later," he breathed, his eyes closed. "Later. Feel too good to move right now."
Brenna went to bed alone and, there in the quiet darkness, caressed her burning pussy, bringing a fullness of excitement back to it, though there was no tangible male fullness within. Her other hand rolled her breasts and plucked at the nipples.
She climaxed-but shallowly.
Before she dropped off to sleep, still alone, her thoughts reverted to the proposition she had put to herself earlier. Now there was a stronger than ever argument in favor of it. Not only did she and Dave have a money problem, but, because of this, sex had become a problem, too. And if things didn't improve, he was apt to go on drinking more and more. Wasn't it time for a wife to take a hand?
CHAPTER TWO
Just down the street from the Marshalls lived Hank and Jeannie Samson. Hank owned a market in the nearby shopping center, one of the few independent food stores in the area which had been able to compete successfully with the large chain supermarkets.
The Samsons had five kids and were considered a very compatible couple by everyone who knew them.
Hank was a little overweight, balding and pushing forty. His wife was slim and cute, but no great beauty. She was about thirty five. They and the Marshalls were acquainted, having attended several neighborhood parties together. Occasionally Jeannie and Brenna would drop in on each other to exchange gossip over a cup of coffee, and whenever Dave and Hank met they would chat for a minute or so.
Also, whenever Hank drove by in his Toronado and spied Brenna sunbathing on her lawn, he would leer jokingly or let out a lusty whistle. This was all in fun, supposedly, but Brenna had the notion that he wouldn't have minded getting an opportunity to put his hands (and perhaps something else) where his hot gaze was.
Until now, she had never considered letting him have the chance. But he did own that good-sized market-building, stock and all. And markets required lots of insurance against fire, glass breakage, interruption of business, liability judgments, burglary, robbery and what-have-you.
Dave had hit Hank once about his insurance business at a party, but the store owner had laughed it off, saying he was well taken care of.
How well taken care of was he in the bedroom department? Brenna wondered.
The five kids didn't prove anything. Only five acts of intercourse were necessary to make them, and the presence of children in a household was more apt to inhibit sexual activity than to encourage it.
Mentally stacking herself up against Jeannie, Brenna couldn't help but conclude that she had it all over the older woman, not only as to youth but in every other aspect as well. Take tits, for instance. Jean's were tiny little nubbins-bumps on a log while Brenna's were dazzling beauties, firm and putthrusting. Jean had skinny legs, while Brenna had thighs that were lusciously full and calves that curved elegantly. Fannies? Jean did have a pert pair of buns, but Brenna's were so much fuller and more voluptuous.
Brenna hadn't made up her mind to go after Hank Samson. She was doing some hard thinking about it, but she had left herself a mental escape hatch.
One thing-if she did decide to make a play for him, and if the play was successful (which could hardly be regarded as less than a foregone conclusion), Dave must never know. As jealous as he was, if he were to learn she had been with another man he would leave her ... or he might even do something violent. She dared not think about that.
Anyway, she persuaded herself, if she did go through with the scheme, it would be for the good of their marriage-for Dave's own good, in all respects-and therefore it would be justified, even though he would be furious if he found out.
She wouldn't enjoy herself. She would make it a point not to. But she would get Dave a big fat insurance order, and that was what would count, long after she had washed off the odor of Hank's passion. Provided she decided to do it. This morning she put on one of her cutest outfits, a blue and white checkered sheath that rode the crest of her out-flung bosom, snugged in breathtakingly at the waist, and clung to her full, meaty thighs. Its hem hit just above her knees. It wasn't too showy for the neighborhood, and yet it did an excellent job of showing off what she had.
Underneath she wore a garter belt and light briefs, rather than a panty girdle, so that her buttocks could move freely. She satisfied herself as to this by looking over her shoulder as she walked away from her dresser mirror. Not only did her buttocks roll, but the sheath cradled them so lovingly that a springy quiver was evident.
Fine. It was just the effect she wanted.
She went shopping.
Samson's Market was moderately crowded, as usual. Brenna didn't often shop there. Though the meat and produce were excellent at Samson's, there was a wider selection of brand name products in the chain stores, and their prices on staple items were usually a few pennies lower. With the Marshall's household budget undergoing a pretty tight squeeze of late, Brenna had to shop where shecould-save the most. Hank didn't know whether she shopped at his place or not, since he didn't work on the main floor of the market except in emergencies. His office was upstairs.
Brenna took a shopping cart and maneuvered it along the aisles, selecting a few items she needed. When she reached the far corner of the store, where a plain wooden stairway led up to the storage area and office, she paused, her heart beating a little faster.
The acceleration of the beat was not caused by sexual excitement over the prospect of having an affair with Hank, or so she assured herself. He was not an attractive man, and anyway she was in love with her husband. It was the daring nature of the scheme that stimulated her.
She hesitated, teetering on the brink of going ahead with it.
It wouldn't be wrong, she told herself again; it would be for Dave's good ... if it worked.
But somewhere also in her mind there was an image of Hank as he looked when he ogled her-the brightness in his eyes, the twist of his fleshy mouth. She enjoyed that look, even though she didn't admire the man. She also enjoyed imagining how he would look when she was spread out nude in front of him. Oh, he would just eat her up!
With her heart beating faster and with a tightness rising in her throat, she pushed the shopping cart over against the wall, parked it next to a display of mops and brooms, and turned toward the stairs.
She began to climb them, her butt rolling enticingly.
She hadn't really made her decision there in the store. She was doing what she had decided on at home. The escape hatch had been an illusion, a way of kidding herself and keeping up her courage until the moment for action arrived.
The moment was here.
She made her way across the upstairs warehouse, between rows of stacked cartons, toward an open door. When she reached the door, she leaned into the small, cluttered cubicle. Hank, in shirt sleeves and perspiring, sat at a plain wooden desk, figuring on a stack of papers.
With her heartbeat running riot and her throat still constricting, Brenna lifted her hand and rapped lightly on the doorjamb.
Hank raised his head.
The change that came over his face was remarkable. Fleshy stolidity turned to brightness. He jumped up.
"Brenna! Well, for God's sake, come in." He moved around the desk and positioned a straight-backed chair for her. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" He was beaming.
"I just thought I'd stop by for a little visit," she said. "It's been quite a while since we've gotten together."
"Yeah...."
The smile fairly dripped from his face as he watched her seat herself and cross her luscious legs. Her skirt slipped well up on her thighs, and the lower portions of her stocking welts came into view.
Look and enjoy a real pair of legs, Brenna thought. They're a lot different from Jeannie's spindly ones, aren't they?
He moved back around the desk and sat down. "How've you been?"
"Fine. I just love this weather we've been having, don't you?"
Hank picked up the remark and gave it the twist she had anticipated:
"I've been noticing how you enjoy it, sunning yourself out on your lawn. Man, you're a sight for sore eyes in those shorts and that skimpy little top. It's a wonder the other gals in the neighborhood don't complain."
"Oh ... do you think it's indecent?" Brenna asked with a sexy pout.
He leaned forward. "Honey, I think it's great! I wish I could look at you all day."
"Hank...." she purred, reproving him mildly but at the same time letting him know she had enjoyed the remark.
The game of teasing a man, artfully leading him on to the point of her ultimate surrender, which she hadn't practiced during the three years since her wedding day, came back to her easily. Pleasurably.
And-oh, the way he was looking at her! He was figuratively drooling, and she could read every lewd thought in his mind. He was wondering if he stood a chance of getting into her, if that was what her visit meant or if mere neighborly friendship had prompted it.
"Hey !" he said suddenly. "How about stepping out with me for a cup of coffee? Or something stronger, if you'd like."
"I would, Hank ... but people are apt to get ideas. I mean, seeing you and me together. Even if we drove some place, we might be recognized leaving the store."
"Shoot, there's the elevator we use to move goods in and out. It opens into the store at one side and onto the unloading ramp at the other. My car's parked right out there. There ain't a chance of us being seen."
He's really worked up now, she thought. He figures he's actually going to get a shot at me. I wonder if his whatzis is quivering. She almost giggled over the thought. She was enjoying herself during this initial phase of the seduction more than she had thought she would. It's because the whole things seems so naughty, she decided. And yet it isn't naughty at all. Not really. I'm doing it for Dave. For us.
She stood up. "Well, all right, Hank. If you think it's safe."
He almost stumbled over himself in getting around the desk. It was comical, how eager he was. And yet it warmed her at the same time.
Their exit from the store proved as inconspicuous as Hank had assured her it would be. The only one who saw them was a box boy who was tidying up in back. Brenna didn't recognize him, and she was sure he didn't know who she was.
Once inside Hank's red Toronado, she felt better. The powerful car took off with an exhilarating surge, and Hank asked smilingly, "Well, where would you like to go?"
She leaned back and ran her fingers through her lustrous hair. "Away from here," she said. "As far away as we can make it. To the moon, if this thing will fly."
That got him. Brenna could tell. His face tightened for an instant and his eyes became very bright. Now he knew for sure that she wasn't kidding.
His gaze licked over her out-thrust breasts and fell across her nipped-in waist to the warm spread of her hips and the tempting columns of her thighs.
"Baby, I'll take you as far as you like," he husked, and placed a moist, pudgy hand on her leg. It burned through her skirt and slip, igniting another fire within her.
Brenna felt like squirming.
My God! she suddenly realized. I want him. I actually want to make it with him!
They went to a motel, a posh place down near the beach. It was far enough from Sunny Hills so that both of them felt safe.
He parked the car out of sight from the office and registered while she waited for him. He returned and moved the Toronado into a slot next to the long two-story building. He was tense now, saying very little. Small drops of sweat dotted his forehead, in spite of the fact that the car was air-conditioned.
They got out of the car and walked to the door of the room that he indicated. She preceded him inside. It was cool and pleasantly dim, the Venetian blinds being tilted upward. The beige carpeting was plush; the furniture and appointments were impersonally attractive.
Brenna turned to face the man who was going to take her. Her heart kept up an excited thump-thump-thump.
Hank grinned through his sweat and general nervousness. "How about if I order some drinks? They've got room service."
"Do we need them?" she asked, and moved up to him.
"Goddamn, Brenna, I would never've believed it!" he croaked, and then he was all around her like an octopus, pulling her close, smearing his soft lips across her cheek to her mouth.
She smelled his sweat and felt his grossness. He was so different from Dave. Yet she thrilled strongly. Her thighs quivered and her loins got hot. Her breasts itched where they jammed against him, her nipples extending themselves inside her bra.
What had started out as a service for hubby, with only a slight auxiliary benefit to herself in the form of an ego charge, had turned into an exercise in lust gratification. Even in the midst of it, Brenna had to ask herself how and why. She loved Dave. She really did. And she had always had such a mature and healthy attitude concerning sex. What in the world had come over her?
There was no answer. All she knew was that this took her back. It was as if she were single again, trying a new man for the first time. The old thrill was there.
But this was a man she didn't particularly like or admire. He was just a man.
The fact of his manhood was brought marringly home to her as they kissed with tongues working, as the hot breath from his nostrils struck her cheek, as he squeezed and rolled her feminine fullness against him.
She felt the goad of his hardening penis through their clothing, and this thrilled her. She clutched him hard, grinding her pelvis. She felt as if she was about to go up in smoke, as if the top of her head was about to lift off.
His hands were clumsy with her zipper, and his fingers felt pudgy and damp as they slid against her bare back, down and up, twice crossing her bra strap. He pulled the dress away from her shoulders and forward, only to discover that her belt had to be undone before he could take the dress off. Smoldering as she was and enjoying his excited response to her nearness, she still couldn't help but make fun of him in her mind. Dave was so much smoother-except, of course, when he was drunk, as he'd been last night.
Don't think about Dave, something told her. Then, another inner voice countered, why not? I'm doing this for him.
Now her belt was undone and she was writhing in Hank's loose embrace as he groped for her back zipper again, pulled it the remaining distance to the end of its track.
She blurted, "My gosh, you're really up there," and laughed giddily as she placed her hand on the tented front of his pants.
"Oh, baby, I want you!" he husked.
Like Christmas morning for him, Brenna thought.
He was trying to push her dress down. It would have come up more easily, because of the fullness of her hips, but she decided to let him push it down if he wanted to. She wriggled to help.
Her bra was lacy and nude-toned, as was her very short half-slip. Her breast flesh trembled above the bra-cup rims. He puffed a little in his excitement and dropped to one knee to peel her dress down. Her half-slip started to drag along, but she held it up and adjusted the waistband. Let him see it, she thought, and let him be teased a little longer.
She braced herself with a hand against his thick shoulder as she stepped out of the dress, flexing her beautiful stockinged legs and showing him quick glimpses of thigh skin as her slip hiked up.
"Oh, God, you're beautiful!" Hank exclaimed, as he pulled her to him, his hands on her springy, rounded bottom. He nuzzled her belly through her slip and pants.
Would he? Brenna thought. Maybe I can get him to do it.
Dave had never made oral love to her. He just wasn't the sort. She had gone down on him quite a few times, but he had never reciprocated.
She'd had it from a couple of men before she was married, and it had been wild. There was just nothing like the feel of a man's lips down there, his tongue flickering into her and all over her clitoris. But after she discovered that Dave didn't care to go that route, she'd told herself it didn't matter, she could get all her excitement from the prick; that was what Nature had intended, hadn't it?
But now the thought that Hank might go down set her completely aflame.
"Hurry ... hurry...." she implored.
He petted her up and down the legs, dragging her nylon slip above her stocking tops, then letting it drop as he ran his hands around her resilient rear once more. Finally he hooked her slip elastic and pulled slowly, baring her panties, drawing the slip completely down.
Her golden-tan thighs were mouth-watering perfection. They gleamed a soft, warm invitation above her hose. White garters traveled upward to disappear under her panties. The briefs were peachy-beige, like her bra, opaque and shiny, with tiny lace trim and a filigreed rose at once side.
Hank caressed her all over, first rubbing and squeezing with his fingers, squeezing her butt, stroking her hot lower belly, then with his thumbs.
"Take them off!" Brenna demanded Hank hooked the panties at the top, stretched the waist elastic, and drew them down, exposing her cute navel and exquisite belly curve, then the slight flattening out which was almost an inward dip before her fur piece came into view on its plushy mound. It was just below the level of his eyes, dangerously close to his lips, and she heard his sharp intake of breath.
Oh, yes, goddamn you-do it! she thought, and then he let her pants snap into a slender rope about her lower thighs and his hot breath struck her loins. She tilted her hips and pushed the reddish-brown tuft at him. He pressed his lips to it.
She cried out and ground herself against his mouth.
But this was no good. She was standing, and those goddamned pants were still around her legs.
"Get undressed!" she demanded and backed up.
"Yeah!" He huffed to his feet. The tent at his front was more impressive than ever now.
She arched her back, making her breasts point high as she worked the bra hooks. She stripped the bra away, and her breasts stood bare, the reddish nipples extended.
"Jesus...." Hank breathed audibly as he looked at them. He tore at them. He tore at his clothes.
Brenna rid herself of her constricting panties, then stepped out of her shoes, leaving her slim garter belt and light-blue hose on, she fell onto the center of the bed and hoisted her knees up, parting them widely.
Hank could see everything her sleek, full thighs, the undercurves of her butt cheeks; auburn pubic curls; her puffy, light-brown outer lips and the gleaming wet pinkness between them.
He gazed and she thrilled.
In a moment, she had something comparable to look at as he pulled his white knit under shorts away. His cock was a thick, stubby one compared to Dave's long, lean poker. It was beautifully tumescent and dark with passion.
She wiggled, rubbing her ass against the bed. letting her tilted thighs sway this way and that.
Hank hesitated for only a moment, then he belly-flopped onto the mattress, going right where she had hoped he would, his head down between her legs.
"Yes!" she exclaimed, and lifted her thighs onto his shoulders.
His open mouth collided with her sizzling pussy. As his lips and tongue went into action, she moaned and wriggled against him, tightening her hold about his head, all but suffocating him with her quivering thighs and sweet cunt. His hands filled themselves with her butt cheeks, and he kissed and kissed.
Oh, he loves it ... he loves it! She silently exulted, then there was a glorious tightening, and suddenly she popped.
Now the rest was only so much icing on the cake, but it was all good-his lips at her nipples, bringing new fullness to them as he rolled and pulled them; his hands rolling the plushy globes of her tits. And then the stocky root of his passion, going where his tongue had been, getting in, making her feel more stuffed than she did with Dave, because Hank's shaft was thicker.
He started to hump, puffing, holding himself propped up on his arms so he could watch her face and her quivering breasts. It didn't last long, but it was long enough. Brenna came for the second time as he pumped faster, then really powered into her, his body twitching uncontrollably as his cream spewed forth.
It was done.
Her eyes remained closed as the whirling in her head gradually lessened. She seemed to be slowly settling into a pile of fluff. Down ... down ... down....
The bed beneath her shuddered as Hank sought a more comfortable position, and the pressure of his weight was gone, though she had hardly felt it at the last.
Her eyes slowly opened.
There was a soft, steady whisper from the airconditioning vent, but she felt warm. A light film of moisture clung to her flesh. The room seemed serenely dim as before, but what really mattered was that she was not the same.
She had been thrilled as Dave had never thrilled her. Her body, which belonged to Dave, had been invaded-and delightfully so-by another man.
She turned her head and found that she was looking directly into Hank's blue-gray eyes. They seemed different than before-serious, even soulful.
She became a little afraid. He mustn't think this was that serious. And she would have to talk to him about the insurance.
She forced a smile.
"Well, that was a nice way to spend a lazy summer afternoon," she chirped.
"Brenna, you're unbelievable. What caused it? Shoot, you can't be in love with me!"
Good! She was very glad he had said that.
"I'm not," she replied blithely.
She sat up, and her naked breasts bounced. She pushed her loose hair back from her face, and her dark eyes twinkled as she looked down. How honest can you stand for a girl to be?" she asked.
"Pretty honest, I guess. What do you want to say?"
"I like you, Hank. That's why I picked you."
(So far she wasn't being honest at all. She had picked him because he was handy.)
"Picked me?" He grinned curiously. "What does that mean?"
She hesitated, girding herself. She wasn't sure how he. would take this. Somehow, in her mind before hand, it had all seemed so simple; but now that she was faced with the situation, it proved extremely awkward.
She began ... "Well, you know, Dave's having the devil's own time making a go of his insurance business in Sunny Hills."
Hank blinked.
"He just can't seem to corner any big accounts-like yours, for instance."
"What's that got to do with this?"
"Don't you understand? I said I picked you, didn't, I? It was because I like you, but it was also because you carry a lot of insurance on your market."
"What?"
"Please ... it's not as cold-blooded as it sounds. I wanted to be with you, I really wanted to. And it was entirely my own idea. If Dave had any notion about what I've done, he'd be enraged. But I felt ... I mean, I hoped ... that you might want to do something for me in return."
"Well, I'll be goddamned," he murmured, still Staring.
"I've been honest with you, Hank."
She figuratively held her breath as she waited for his answer to what she realized now as a pretty crude proposition. She feared she might get a hard slap across the face.
"Christ, that's a good one!" he guffawed. "That's really a good one!"
"I suppose it is funny, at that," she admitted, joining in the laughter mildly. "But I'm very serious."
"Baby, I don't doubt that you are."
"Well? How about it, then? Will you give Dave your business?"
"Will I give him the business?" He roared some more. "Shit, yes! He can have all business I've got. And as for you, you hot pussycat, I'm gonna give it to you again, right now."
He pressed her roughly onto her back against the mattress and scrambled forward so that his torso was above hers. He began to kiss her around the face and worked his way down. He spent many long minutes on her breasts, licking and nibbling and sucking.
But Brenna was slower to rouse this time. Now Hank's lack of physical attractiveness seemed more important; also, she felt somehow very cheap. The one rule her mother had laid down for her when she was young, and which she had always tried to follow in her relationships with men, was not to cheapen herself. Now she had broken that rule. She had bartered her body for the first time in her life.
She closed her eyes and tried to banish the truth from her consciousness as Hank's soft, wet lips worked avidly over her bosom.
He kissed as far as her belly button this time. Her garter belt stopped him just below that point. He spread her legs and mounted her again.
This time he was not as stiff, but she was very Wet and open, and he slipped right into her pocket. He remained propped on straight arms. He bared his teeth, and his eyes glinted as he stroked.
Brenna closed her eyes and turned her head away. She put her hips in motion, even though she felt little excitement at what was going on.
You're a whore! a damning voice accused. This is how they do it!
Hank lasted quite a while, huffing and plunging, sliding against her most sensitive nerve ends. Gradually her sexuality reasserted itself, taking precedence over her shame. Her hips began surging hungrily to meet his avid thrusts.
Her obvious passion gave him new excitement, swelling his plunger, and the tempo of the act picked up. Now they both were fervently involved, striving, flesh-against-flesh, to attain another blissful release.
It happened, and a mushrooming burst of warmth flared in Brenna's belly and spread to her head and toes. She quaked and cried out as she received Hank's spurting cream and final Jarring thrusts.
His amused and bemused attitude was best summed up later as they were getting dressed. He said: "And to think-all Ed Claybaugh ever gave me for my insurance business was a calendar!"
Again he laughed.
His words and laughter hurt Brenna, though he didn't seem to intend them to be derogatory in any way. His amusement appeared genuine.
And how could she blame him? She had certainly engineered the matter in a pretty crude manner.
During their drive back to Sunny Hills, Hank was subdued and actually deferential once more. He told Brenna he wanted to see her again.
"Not because of the insurance," he added. "Dave's got that, regardless. But just because we go so goddamned good together. Frankly, Brenna, I never before had a sex session like that in my whole lousy life."
She looked at him and felt a little better.
But she didn't believe there would ever be another time. With anyone.
Back at the store, she accompanied Hank through the rear entrance, into the elevator and upstairs. There she gave him a quick kiss, which seemed only appropriate under the circumstances, and she returned to the main floor of the market via the wooden stairs.
Her shopping cart, containing several items was right where she had parked it about three hours earlier, next to the mops and brooms.
Still feeling ashamed of herself and wondering if the people around her could read her guilt, she pushed the cart to the check stand and nervously waited behind a broad-assed woman in green capris until the woman's thirty-dollar order was tallied and boxed. Then Brenna paid for her own meager purchases and gave the freckle-faced box boy a thin smile.
Her days' shopping tour was over.
CHAPTER THREE
That evening, Dave's mood was a little better than it had been the night before. He had sold a pair of auto policies-which netted him a total of seventy dollars in commissions, and he was working on a fire policy for a small apartment house which-would be worth over a hundred dollars to him if he Closed the deal.
It looked as if they would have the money they needed to make the house payments, he said, if his luck ran this good for the remainder of the week.
Brenna felt certain that his luck would get even better. Tomorrow Hank Samson would call him, provided the food merchant lived up to his word. He had promised to get his policies together this afternoon and go over them. He had a couple of renewals coming up in the next few months, he said, and there was no reason why he shouldn't give Dave the orders right away.
She had no idea how much commission would be Involved, but she knew Hank was heavily insured. His liability coverage alone would be a juicy plum, and he'd mentioned that it was one of the policies about due for renewal.
Dave didn't initiate any sex play that night, and Brenna was grateful. She needed one full day, at least, to get over the effects of Hank's lovemaking.
She still couldn't understand what had come over her when she'd entered the motel room with him, and particularly when he had made his first move to go down on her.
She felt more certain than ever that she wouldn't put herself in such a position again. Whatever windfall Dave derived from Hank "would be the one and only benefit he would reap from the bartering of her body. It would help to see them through their present financial squeeze, but from now on Dave would have to make it on his own.
She only hoped Hank wasn't the sort to talk out of School. All he had to do would be to say one word to a male friend who knew the Marshalls; the friend would probably tell his wife, and then it would be all over town that Brenna Marshall had played whore for her husband. She shuddered at the thought.
Hank didn't seem the sort who would do that, but she couldn't be sure. His possession of her was something to brag about, and when he had a few beers under his belt ... well, she didn't dare think about that.
There was this in her favor: if the word got out about her, it would hurt Hank, too. She doubted that Jeannie was the tolerant type.
She awoke the next morning feeling a great deal better.
She really became elated when Dave phoned her from his office at ten-thirty, bubbling with good news:
"Baby, it was right out of the blue! Hank Samson called and asked if I'd like to take over his whole insurance program! He's got this fat liability policy expiring soon. He gave me the dope on it and said to go ahead and write it up. He didn't even ask if I could beat his present carrier's rate."
"Oh, Dave, that's wonderful! How much do you stand to make?"
I'm not sure yet I'm waiting for a rate confirmation from my company. Their safety engineer has promised to get out there this afternoon and look the place over. I'll bet I clear close to five hundred, though. And the glass policy he gave me will yield fifty bucks."
"Gosh! How soon can you collect?"
"Well, actually the premiums won't he due until his present coverages expire, but I'll deliver the policies to him as soon as I get an okay from my carriers. Who knows? Maybe he'll hand me a check right then."
"We can hope," Brenna said.
"You know," Dave told her happily, "I think my luck's changing. Maybe all the sweat I've shed in the last few months is starting to pay off."
It was my sweat, you sweet dope, Brenna thought. But she said, "Honey, I'm so happy for you."
He put his lips very close to the phone and whispered playfully, "You'd better be in the mood for action tonight woman. The way I feel, I might be ready for bed before dinner."
The suggestion gave Brenna a happy thrill. She wanted him tonight, and the sooner the better. That would get Hank out of her mind and it would help purge her body of his touch.
Hank, however, had no intention of being relegated to limbo. Toward the middle of the afternoon, he phoned her.
"I called your hubby this morning." His voice was oily, insinuating.
"That's nice, Hank. Thank you."
"Those two policies are gonna me a nice piece of change. And he can have my others when they come along. You see how I'm living up to my part of the deal?"
"There wasn't any deal, as you put it."
"Okay. Call it an exchange of favors. I just wanted you to know I was following through."
"Is that why you called?"
"Yeah. Well ... no. Not exactly. I was wondering ... damn it, Brenna, yesterday was so good! It was good for you, too, wasn't it?"
"Hank...!"
"Look, if things aren't Just right between you and Dave, if he doesn't....well, satisfy you the way he should ... there's no reason why you and I shouldn't get together every once in a while. I mean, if it was good once, it'll be even better the second or third time."
"Hank, we're both married."
"Sure. And we're gonna stay married. But that don't mean we can't have a little fun on the side. Who's it gonna hurt?"
The conversation vexed her. Hank shouldn't be calling like this. She shouldn't be talking to him. The fact was, she didn't want to talk to him. She never wanted to see him again.
"You've got to realize," she said firmly, "that what happened was a one-time thing. I wanted to do it, I told you that, but now it's out of my system."
"Is it?"
"Yes, Hank. It really is. Giving Dave your insurance business is sweet of you and appreciate it. It's a very fine gesture. But that's one thing, and the way we live is something else. I just felt like kicking-over the traces. Now I'm going to be a good wife again."
"I see."
"So if that's all...."
He asked earnestly, "Didn't I please you enough?"
"Hank!"
"Okay, okay. I'll give you some time to think about it. But we're mature people, Brenna. We're entitled to our pleasure, one way or another."
"Good-bye, Hank," she said and gently hung up the phone.
She hoped that she hadn't crimped Dave's deal, but she couldn't stand to talk to Hank any longer. She simply couldn't!
Some of the things he had said kept ringing in her brain: Time to think about it ... mature people ... entitled to our pleasure-one way or another.
Adding to her unease was the fact that she didn't trust herself. She had gone to Hank with one idea in mind, but once she was with him, her interests had flip-flopped. She still didn't understand exactly why, and she was afraid the same thing might happen again.
By the time Dave arrived at home, she had composed herself. But the sound of the Mustang coming to a stop in the driveway set off a new commotion. An old familiar thrumming began to travel along her nerves and into her intimate regional Her pussy was perceptibly warmer. Her nipples stirred in her bra.
Sex with hubby. That was the prospect for tonight, and, from the way Dave had talked, it might happen at any time after he walked through the door.
Brenna had taken her customary late-afternoon bath. She had powdered and perfumed herself and put on a skimpy lingerie, no girdle or armor like bra. She hadn't even bothered with a garter belt and hose, since Dave was not a stocking buff. He was more of a buff buff, and he liked to get to it as quickly as possible.
Her outer attire was a candy-striped dress with a full skirt. She had pulled back her hair and caught it with a pink ribbon which ran over the crown of her head The effect was girlishly sexy.
Dave came through the door with a dark-tinted bottle clutched in his hand, its top wrapped in foil. Brenna recognized it as champagne.
"Tonight we celebrate," he said with a big grin. "Here. Get a pan and put some ice in it. I'm gonna change.
He whirled her around in passing, gave her a quick kiss on the lips, and was off toward the rear of the house, leaving Brenda holding the champagne.
Her guilt returned.
Dave felt proud of himself. He believed he had brought Hank around by the pitch he had made at that party some time ago and by a couple of casual reminders when they had bumped into each other. If he were ever to find out that the sale was not his doing at all-that alone would hurt him. But if he were to learn what Brenna had done....
She closed her eyes and steeled herself, as if this somehow might banish the thought. When that didn't work, another part of her nature struck back:
Damn it, I had to do what I did I It was either that or lose the house-if not now, then next month or the month thereafter.
But this answer wasn't entirely satisfactory, either, for she had enjoyed herself with Hank. As gross and unappealing as he was-she had enjoyed herself!
She prepared a pan for the champagne and placed the bottle in it. She got down a pair of wine glasses and rinsed them quickly under the faucet.
Dave appeared in the doorway happily, buttoning his shirt.
"I got an okay from my company," he said, "and the commission's five hundred and twenty-two bucks.. Can you imagine that? What an order !"
He came up behind his wife and smacked her sharply across the seat.
"Oooo...." she said, and turned to press herself against him. He inhaled her perfume, felt her delightfully contoured softness.
"What do you think of your husband now?" he murmured. "As an insurance man, I mean. I know what you think of me otherwise."
"I think you're great," she replied. "In all respects."
Then her mouth sealed itself to his and they kissed heatedly, with a twisting and stroking of tongues, as his hand rubbed her bottom and made her very, very hot.
Dinner was a casserole which was taking care of itself in the oven. She had made a salad to go with it, and that was in the refrigerator. The table was set. There was nothing for her to do at the moment but give all her attention to her husband, sip champagne with him for a little while, and then, perhaps, if he was serious about what he had said on the telephone earlier, take off her clothes and roll into bed with him.
It was up to him, of course. He always liked to take the lead in matters of sex, and that was the way she preferred to have it. But she felt sure they would have intercourse this evening, either now or later, and that it would give her a great deal of pleasure.
The long kiss, accompanied by Dave's ardent fanny fondling, turned her on. She could have gone to the bedroom with him right away and the devil with the champagne, but she knew he wanted a drink or two first.
"Can dinner be held off for a little while?" he asked, his eyes twinkling.
"Sure thing. Let's have at that bottle."
She adjusted the oven control, and Dave carried the improvised champagne bucket into the living room. He placed it on the cocktail table and sank to the modernistic green sofa behind it, extending a hand toward Brenna. Laughing, she placed the glasses on the low table and let him draw her down beside him, so close that their hips and thighs pressed warmly.
He turned her in to his embrace and they kissed again, this time mere languorously, with lips looser, tongues stroking more freely, not only in and out of each other's mouths hut along their joined lips, as well.
And Dave began to feel her up, as if they weren't a husband and wife in their own living room but were a dating couple.
This sent a special happy thrill through Brenna. Why it should, she didn't know, nor was this a time to analyze the matter. This was a time to give herself over to sensation-to enjoy the healthy, ardent male who was making love to her like a college boy on a date.
His warm, possessive hand crawled up the leg which was partially elevated from the couch cushion because of her twisted pose. His fingers spread little trails of fire, and his palm was at the center of the conflagration. He rubbed her smooth, meaty thigh higher and higher. She moaned, and her dainty tongue pistoned at him.
He drew her further forward so that she was seated on only one hip, and his hand slid all the way around to her upraised, panty-clad buttock and took hold. He squeezed gently and rotated the pliant flesh.
Brenna broke free from his kiss and pushed his hand down with a little laugh. Smoothing down her skirt, she settled back on both of her cheeks.
"Hey, if we're going to have that champagne, we'd better take it easy with the heavy petting. You know what a short fuse I've got."
"And you know what a long one I've got," he replied rakishly, and drew her hand to his cone-shaped lap.
"Oh, mister, there's no problem tonight!" she murmured appreciatively as her fingers crawled around his upright rod and caressed it through his pants.
"I don't know what the hell was the matter with me last time," he said as he leaned over to grasp the champagne bottle.
"I do," she replied, removing her hand from his lap and watching him strip the paper off the top of the bottle. "You just plain drank too much."
"Oh, hell," he growled derisively. "That wasn't it. You know I've been pretty high before, and that didn't keep me from screwing up a storm. Matter of fact, I usually last longer after I've had a few. "A few yes, not a pint."
"Baloney," he said and let the champagne cork go with a loud pop.
"Wheee!" Brenna exclaimed.
He quickly poured the bubbly wine into the two waiting glasses.
They raised their glasses and, gazing happily into each other's eyes, linked arms and sipped. Gone was Brenna's sense of guilt. Though Hank Samson was the reason for the little celebration they were having, he was banished from her thoughts. Her world now was composed of Just Dave and herself, friends and lovers. The fact that they also happened to be married seemed almost immaterial.
They punctuated their drinking with bits of conversation and kisses and petting. Brenna's loose candy-striped skirt and the lacy slip she wore beneath it slid lap-high, and Dave had the entire length of both bare thighs to caress as the urge impelled him. Once his eager fingers went all the way to her crotch and caressed her cushiony hotness through her silken pink briefs. His other hand fondled her lightly brassiered breasts, making her nipples very hard.
Finally, when they were midway through their third glass of champagne, Brenna felt she could wait no longer. Her head was deliciously light, and tingles of excitement were breaking out all over her. Her loins were a molten furnace. Her breasts throbbed.
"Come on," she murmured. "Let's make it to the bedroom."
She was up and on her way without waiting for an answer. This time, Dave gave her no argument. He too, wanted to get naked and copulate on the big wide bed.
She laughed over her shoulder at him as he charged down the hall behind her. She rolled onto the bed with all her clothes on, and he sprang astride her. She was on her side as he landed, and he shoved her onto her belly. His fingers manipulated the zipper at her back, then the hooks of her bra. He reared backward and flipped her skirt and slip up.
Her ass in sheer pink panties was a marvelously tempting sight. The rondules were plump and jiggly as she squirmed against the bed. The leg elastics of her panties angled upward across them.
He took a good long look, then swung one of his legs around so that he was kneeling beside her. He grasped her panties at the top and stripped them all the way down and off, removing her shoes at the same time.
He rolled her onto her back.
She helped him get her dress off, haul her slip down and remove her bra. A luscious vision in the nude, she elevated one knee slightly and waited with frankly watchful eyes as he opened the top of his slacks and lowered them, together with his shorts" His long, throbbing penis swung free.
"Oooh, Dave...." she purred, and wrapped her cool hand around it.
He bent and began to kiss her high-mounded breast while she caressed him. He pushed her tits together and licked all around their tingling red crests, nipping from time to time and occasionally pulling a quick suck.
The darting touch of his wet tongue and the pressure of his lips made her think of something else-the desire for oral sex swept over her like an ocean wave.
Hank had done it; why couldn't Dave? The vivid memory of Hank's suctioning lips and probing tongue came back to her. She burned. She wriggled.
"Dave ... please!" she heard herself imploring, and let her hands clutch his head purposefully. She began to push him down.
"Hey, what the hell!" He stiffened against her urgings and sat up, a surprised half-smile on his face. "What is this, huh?"
"Oh ... darling ...lover ... you know what I want...."
"Are you serious?" His eyes glinted, and there was an edge of anger to his voice, "You know damn well I'm not going to do that. I'm not that kind of guy!"
Anger exploded within her. Where did he get off saying a thing like that? She had done it for him quite a few times, as recently as the previous night. Did he mean that it was all right for her, but that he was too good to do it in return?
He laughed to ease the tension and lowered his lips to press them against her soft belly, close to the navel. He kissed there for a moment, but that was as far as he would go. Then he was up on his knees, scrambling on top of her, holding his pecker in his fist. He fell forward and found her slippery crevice with the burning tip of it. He let himself in.
Brenna tensed as his long, slim hardness took possession of her. Usually she went all soft and twisty when he presented himself to her, and she started agitating around right away. But she didn't think of it as a gift this time. She had been rebuffed, in a way which really hurt. He had made her feel inferior, as if she were something for him to use any way he liked without giving a thought to returning the pleasure.
Well, damn him, she was entitled to enjoy herself, tool And what she wanted wasn't perverted. Some men loved to kiss her that way. Hank, for instance. And there had been others. They'd found her love-place dainty and sweet and satisfying. Dave was the one who was peculiar, with his silly notion that a perfectly harmless sex technique which brought pleasure to a woman was morally wrong or compromised his manhood In some way.
She let him thrust alone, and her tension prevented her from rising toward a peak of sexual ecstasy. She found herself actually resenting his lunges, particularly when he started to move fast and grunt incoherently in his intense involvement with the act.
"Come on ... what's the matter?" he asked, between gasps. "Move it, will you?"
She began to, move her pussy slightly-up and down, up and down, around his plunging rod. But it was a purely mechanical gesture. She felt nothing.
Even the spasms of his completion failed to fire her. She felt him twitch as he bore in. He spurted. Then he was still. She was conscious only of his weight.
"Hell, honey, what was the matter?" he asked, breathing hard. "Nothing,"
"Did you come?"
"Yes," she lied.
"Jesus, I sure didn't feel it." He lifted his head and forced her to turn her head on the pillow so that he could look into her eyes. They were troubled ... and accusing.
"Brenna, we're going to have to have a talk."
"No !"
"Yes, we are. What you wanted me to do-you never asked me to do that before. Who've you been talking to?"
"I've always wanted you to do it," she blurted.
"Well, you've never said or did anything before." His expression changed. "Did some guy do that with you before we were married?"
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Dave! I don't want to talk about it. Now get off!"
He studied her for a moment, then grumbled, "This is a hell of a way to celebrate the good luck I had today." He backed off and out of her.
Brenna laid her cheek against the pillow, closed her eyes, and remained still. A hell of a way, indeed! And just what good hick was he talking about? There was no luck involved, and no effort on his part, either.
He was getting dressed. "You haven't forgotten dinner, have you?" he asked-a trifle sharply.
"No, Dave, I haven't."
She waited until he had left the bedroom, then she got up. Her head was a trifle light. She felt edgy.
This was twice in a row now that he had left her in the lurch. She had to admit, however, that this time it hadn't been entirely his fault. At least, not in a physical sense. He had been hard as a a spike and had lasted long enough. It was her own hangup which had formed the basis of the trouble, and his humiliation of her had capped it. But how could a woman have a climax with a man who regarded her only as a vessel into which to empty the flood of his lust?
She thought about Hank as she went to the bathroom to cleanse herself and get dressed. For all his physical grossness and his age and his general lack of sex appeal, he showed greater appreciation for her than her own husband did.
She thought back in an effort to decide whether this dissatisfaction with Dave which had touched her so strongly today was something new, brought on by her affair with Hank, or if it really had been with her for some time and she had merely repressed it before. She was inclined to believe the latter. And she didn't think it had only to do with Dave's refusal to make love to her in an exotic way. It went deeper. There was Dave's general cockiness, his domineering attitude.
CHAPTER FOUR
She telephoned Hank in the morning and they made a date to meet the next day. He wanted to get together that very afternoon, but she deliberately put him off. It was bad enough that she had called; she didn't want him to think she was panting in heat.
He owned a cabin at a nearby mountain resort, and he suggested that they meet there.
"I don't know if my old clunker will make it up those mountain roads," Brenna said, referring to the '58 Chevrolet which was the Marshall's second car.
"Then let's meet someplace near here. How about Sunny Hills Park, behind the tennis courts? You can leave your car there on the parking lot; it'll be out of sight from the street."
"When?"
"Ten o'clock."
This suited Brenna, and she agreed.
That evening Dave reported that he had delivered the liability policy to Hank and had gotten a check which covered half the premium. "He's going to pay the rest right after the coverage goes into effect," Dave said.
"We've got enough now to make the house payments, haven't we?" Brenna asked.
"Yeah. And maybe the car. Honey-things are looking up."
Their quarrel of the previous evening was forgotten, as far as Dave was concerned. Or at least he had pushed it into the back of his mind.
Brenna hadn't forgotten it. She remained a little aloof throughout the evening, and Dave made no move to initiate sexual contact. She let him go to bed first, and he was asleep by the time she arrived in the bedroom.
She lay in the dark and thought about Hank.
Would he kiss her in that special way again? She hoped so.
Then something warned her sternly that she would have to stop thinking about this, unless she wanted to develop a real hangup. After all, this was only one part of sexual pleasure, one corner of the total picture.
A slight sense of guilt started to worm its way into her mind again and she resolutely pushed it out. Dave didn't appreciate her-he had proved that-and Hank did. Hank was evidently dissatisfied at home, as she was. They were entitled to seek their pleasure together.
When she drove to meet him the next morning, she was excited. But her first sight of him put a damper on it somehow. God, but he was pudgy I And he had lost almost all his hair. And, why did he always sweat so profusely?
She covered these negative feelings with a smile and as she got into his car, they kissed once, quickly.
He took a back road out of town to minimize the possibility of their being seen by anyone who knew them. Brenna remained a little tense-as did he, apparently-until they had left Sunny Hills behind. Then they both relaxed.
His hand crossed the console between the bucket seats to wrap itself about her soft thigh, which was encased in snug blue stretch pants. He squeezed a little, patted her twice, then took his hand away.
He grinned at her. "Man, it's great to be taking off with you like this! I feel like a kid."
"Who's minding the store?"
"It's taking care of itself, I hope. Anyway, being
"with you is more important"
Brenna wasn't enjoying herself as much as she had expected. But the day had only begun.
"Your call came as quite a surprise," he said. "I mean, it was so soon after you told me there wouldn't be another time. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure not complaining, but it was a surprise."
"I'm an impulsive person," was Brenna's reply.
"That's great! Just keep those impulses coming my way." He grinned at her again.
"Tell me about you and Jeannie," she said, "What kind of marriage do you have?"
He became visibly uneasy.. "Oh, it's just a marriage, no better or worse than most."
"Do you love her?"
"Yeah. I guess so."
"And does she love you?"
"She loves the kids and our home and ... sure, I guess that includes me."
"How long have you been married?"
"Thirteen years. Hey, that's enough questions. Let's enjoy each other, shall we, instead of talking, about our marriages?" He made the suggestion amiably enough, but it was clear that her questions had bothered him.
Brenna smiled faintly and looked out at the scenery. They were on a winding two-lane road which was lightly traveled on a Friday morning. Gradually the brush on the hillside gave way to scrub pine and, as the road went higher yet, full-sized evergreens began to appear. The air became cooler. There was a nice breeze.
They had the air-conditioner off and the windows open from the start of the drive because it was not a very warm day. Brenna enjoyed having her hair tossed about by the breeze.
Once, after a quiet spell of several minutes, Brenna glanced at Hank, got his happy grin in return, and wondered what she was doing there. But this thought quickly passed. There was ample reason, she assured herself, though Hank might not be the best of all possible companions.
About an hour later, as they lay stretched out on the grass not far from his cabin, her man-style shirt open and her bra up around her neck, Hank didn't seem to have any deficiencies at all. He had her large, soft-skinned, squeezable tits in his hands, and he was kneading them ... gently, lovingly, her stiff nipples burrowing into his palms.
"Christ, Brenna," he murmured, "I never played with such a beautiful set before."
"They beat Jeannie's, hmm?" She seemed to be compelled to ask.
He scoffed. "Hers are like walnuts. They're firm enough, but there ain't nothing to 'em. Yours are firm and big, too. And you got the prettiest nipples!"
With that, he dropped his face and gathered a swollen, tingling nipple in his mouth. He sucked on it.
Heightened thrills shot through Brenna's body. Her hand slid downward along his thick torso to find the prong of passion which pressed for freedom inside his pants. She opened his fly slowly, tickling his tool through the slit in his shorts while he pulled his soft, wet mouth from one titty and moved it to the other. He chewed lightly on the tip. She whimpered and quickly finished the blind operation with her hand, then reached all the way through his open fly and swung his stubby stiff pecker out. She slid her hand up and down around it as he sucked at her nipple.
There was something peculiarly exhilarating about doing all this out of doors, with the pine branches whispering high above them, casting kaleidoscopic shade patterns on the grass. A jay cawed and flitted from one tree to another; a cool, fragrant breeze touched Brenna's nostrils.
Finally Hank let her nipple go with a pop. She looked down at the gleaming breast-tips which were very red and full. They throbbed with joy over the loving he had given them.
Dave never took so long with the kissing and sucking. All he really cared about, it seemed was to get into her as quickly as possible and work his passion off, as if it were something to get rid of rather than something to enjoy.
She sat up, her full breasts swaying and jiggling delightfully as they poked out of her open shirt. Now she bent, making the swoop, and she examined Hank's gleaming, rosy sentinel of lust. It was perhaps an inch shorter than Dave's, but considerably thicker. She shook it back and forth between her loosely encircling thumb and finger.
Hank groaned, "Baby, I go out of my mind when you play with me."
"Does Jeannie do much of this?" she asked, leaning closer.
"Not much. At least, not any more."
Brenna was seized with a giddy desire, and she dropped her face, enclosing the head of his penis in her mouth.
"Agghh!" Hank cried, and he arched his body, digging his hands into the ground.
Brenna worked her soft lips against his corona. Hank writhed. She lifted her head slightly, letting it escape, then she stuck out her tongue and, as she held the root between her thumb and index finger, she licked the burning apex of his desire.
"Goddamn it, stop !" he yelled in blissful anguish.
She sat up, laughing and looked down into his face.
"Oh, baby, you're the greatest!" he exclaimed hoarsely. "I'm nuts about you!"
Then he became the aggressor, quickly placing her on her back and pulling her stretch pants and scanties off. He parted her legs and went down.
Brenna cried and pressed her feet against the ground, tilting her pelvis more, forcing her swampy sweetness more fully against his mouth. The thrills he gave her were intense, especially when his tongue twirled her clitoris, and she came, quaking and crying, sobbing, the stored-up passion of several days erupting in a rush.
It was almost anti-climactic when Hank mounted her and inserted his cock into her cunt. But as he began to move it, she responded. Soon her butt was bouncing up and down, and she was exhorting him to "Go harder I Go harder !"
He moved hard and fast, pistoning into her, and her second orgasm struck-this one deeper, and producing vaginal convulsions which set him off. He squirted hot. His long groan-first sharp, then tapering off in fluctuation-suggested agony, but it was the kind of agony that men love.
After the storm was over, he gave another groan, this one much softer, and twisted to plant his warm mouth on the softening crest of a tit. Brenna hardly felt this final oral caress. She was so deeply and thoroughly satisfied that she seemed temporarily detached from all physical sensations, as if she were floating somewhere above the world. His shrinkage within her soft, wet well also, was unnoticed. She was hardly aware of his weight, though this was substantial in comparison with her own.
After a time, he got off and rolled onto his back beside her.
They looked up through the trees, their eyes half-lidded and really seeing nothing at all. They didn't speak for quite a while. The moment seemed too fine to mar with conversation.
Gradually Brenna's thoughts began to gather focus, and she realized that the situation between Hank and herself had become too serious. He had a marriage, and so did she. He also had children. She didn't want to be instrumental in breaking up his home, and she didn't want to have her own home broken up.
The pleasure she had experienced with him had been wonderful, but she knew she mustn't let this blind her to everything else. And she had to be sure he was not deluded.
She sat up, and it took her another few moments to fully regain her equilibrium. She looked at him and saw that he was watching her, a serenely contented expression on his fleshy face.
"If that was even half as good for you as it was for me," he said softly, "it was the event of the century."
"Hank...."
"Yes, angel?"
"We need to come to an understanding."
"What's to understand? We love each other."
"No!"
"Sure we do. There's no use refusing to admit it." She Jumped up, tits jouncing. He rose to a sitting position. "What's the matter?"
"Take me home. Please. We can't stay here any longer."
"Brenna ... people have no control over things like this. It happens in spite of their best intentions. I feel something with you that I've never felt with another woman. I think you feel the same thing."
"I don't!" she declared strongly, but the words had a hollow ring.
"Go on. I know better. Even though I'm a lot older than you, and not particularly handsome, you get some thing from me that you don't get from your husband. Love-that's what it is. And you give me your love in return."
"No! You mustn't think those things, let alone say them."
She began moving frantically, gathering her pants and underpants and shoes.
"You tried to fight it before and couldn't," he told her. "You had to call me. It'll be that way again."
"Never! It's over. It has to be over. We can't see each other any more."
Clutching her clothes and crying, she ran bare-assed to the cabin, her loose shirt flapping absurdly above her naked, twisting buttocks her breasts swinging and bouncing in the open air.
By the time he had fastened his clothes and joined her in the house, she-was fully dressed. She had dried her eyes and was repairing her makeup. Her countenance in the small dresser mirror was masked.
"There's no reason why we can't go on the way we are," he said.
"There's every reason." she replied in a flat tone, not looking at him. "We're both married."
"Screw that. Lots of married people play around."
"If you want a better reason, I don't love you."
"But...."
"I don't, Hank! Please believe me!" After a long pause, he said, "I don't think you know your own mind right now." She didn't reply.
He turned and strode across the thinly carpeted floor, which creaked underfoot. He stopped and whirled to face her.
"You enjoyed yourself a little while ago," he said with a touch of defensive anger. "Don't tell me you didn't."
"I admit I did." Then she added crudely. "But hot pants isn't the same as love."
"Okay. So if it's hot pants, it's hot pants. Why worry about what you call it? The point is, we need one another."
"No."
He walked up to her. "Brenna, I swear to God, I don't understand you."
"I'm not surprised," she said, tracing her mouth with lipstick, "because I don't understand myself. But I know we can't go on seeing each other. It's too dangerous."
"What are you talking about? Nobody knows, and nobody's gonna find out. You see how out-of-the-way this place is. We can keep on coming up here. There's no chance in the world of Jeannie or anybody else dropping in on us."
"No, Hank."
He sighed heavily in resignation. But his resignation was only for a moment, "Okay," he said. "You go home and think about it. Remember how good it was. It can be even better. We can draw it out more. Shoot, I could kiss your sweet pussy all day,"
"Hank!"
He gazed at her, then turned and left the cabin, the screen door squeaking before it slammed behind him.
Their drive back to Sunny Hills was taken mostly in silence. They stopped along the way for lunch, and this also was a quiet time.
When they parted behind the tennis courts, Brenna got out of the car quickly, avoiding a kiss.
Hank leaned forward and looked earnestly at her through the window as he said, "Think it over. Remember. I'll be calling you."
"Good-bye, Hank," she replied, and walked to her car.
She really wanted it to be good-bye as far as Hank was concerned, for already in the back of her mind another notion was working:
If it had been so good with Hank, it could be even better with someone else-someone who was more attractive and who was not likely to become so serious about it all.
CHAPTER FIVE
For her second extramarital adventure, Brenna picked a man by the name of Walter Branch. He was the wealthy contractor who had developed the subdivision in which the Marshalls' house was located.
She and Dave had been introduced to him in the tract office when they had signed the escrow papers about eight months earlier. He was tall and distinguished looking, with a touch of gray in his dark curly hair, but his lean, sun-tanned vigorous body belied his age. He had impressed Brenna strongly at the time.
She remembered how he had looked at her, his warm eyes glinting pleasurably as they took in her thrusting tits and her beautiful bottom and all the rest. She would have no trouble seducing him, she decided.
Again she fell back on the rationalization that the seduction would help Dave's insurance business, though she could no longer deny that this was only a partial consideration and not even the principal one. Too much had happened lately-between herself and Dave, and also with Hank. She had become reawakened to the sheer sensual power of sex, which somehow had become masked in her relationship with Dave. Still, love or the lack of it was not an issue. She believed she did love Dave. She intended to stay with him. And she assumed that, in time, all their problems would somehow be solved.
But for the present, she needed this, both for the financial benefits it would yield and also for sexual pleasure, which was physical and psychological combined.
On the negative side of the ledger was the feeling which she could not banish, that what she was doing was cheap, that this was the wrong way for a woman to spend her sexuality. But when she had a husband who truly didn't appreciate her, and when there were money problems on top of that, what was she to do?
She resolved the conflict in the way she'd known it would have to be resolved, and she set out on her conquest of Walter Branch.
This time she would proceed differently than she had with Hank. In the first place, she needed an excuse for calling on Branch at his office in a nearby town; secondly, she decided it was well to get the insurance angle out in the open at the beginning. In that way, Branch could form the proposition in his own mind. She wouldn't have to spring it on him, as she had done with Hank.
She dressed carefully, putting on one of her best outfits, a dark suit of silk shantung. It fit her perfectly, and the skirt ended above the knees.
She debated on whether to call Branch's office first or to merely drive over and take a chance on catching him in. She rejected the idea of a Call because, on the telephone, she was just a voice, and once she mentioned insurance he was likely to dismiss the matter as nothing more than a sales pitch. In person, she could convey much more to him.
Crossed legs, with a slight exposure of bare flesh above the stocking tops, was apt to have a much greater impact than the huskiest, most bedroomy vocal quality she could affect.
The Branch Development Corporation was housed in a modern one-story stone and stucco structure. Brenna parked her old car in the lot at the rear and walked around to enter through the front of the building. Excitement tingled along her nerve tracks.
This was really a pretty ambitious endeavor, going after a man of Branch's caliber. For all she knew, he had a veritable sexpot of a wife tucked away at home. But, remembering the sort of man he was and the way he had looked at her, she believed that the opportunity of sampling a new sexpot would interest him. A cocksman was always on the lookout for a new subject in which to insert his cock-and, though Branch was approaching middle age, he was a cocksman if ever she'd seen one.
His outer-office was populated by a goodly collection of pretty girls, but that didn't discourage Brenna. He probably kept them just for their looks, she figured, since a smart man didn't get involved with his employees.
She asked an elaborately coiffured redhead at the reception desk if Mr. Branch was in.
"Do you have an appointment?" the redhead countered in a tone that suggested a yawn.
"I'm sorry, I don't," Brenna smiled. "I'm an old acquaintance of Mr. Branch."
"The name?"
"Brenna Marshall. My husband and I bought a house from him on Hyacinth Drive in Sunny Hills."
"I see. Well, Mrs. Marshall, Mr. Branch is quite busy today, and I doubt...."
Brenna interrupted her with a smile, "Just tell him I'm here, please. I believe he'll see me."
The redhead gave her a look which said, What makes you think your stuff is so hot? but she turned and punched a key on her intercom box. Brenna waited confidently. Perhaps Branch would not remember her name, but he probably would be curious enough to grant her an audience.
She couldn't make out the low-pitched conversation between the redhead and her boss, but the expression on the redhead's face as she turned back toward Brenna made the result of the conversation clear.
"He'll see you," the redhead said grudgingly, "if you'll wait, please." A wave of her slender hand indicated the chairs in the reception area.
A salesman who was seated opposite her, attache case on the floor beside his feet, looked up from his magazine and. got his gaze caught somewhere in the vicinity of her stocking tops. She knew she was showing a lot, but since she was seated well back on the couch and the tops of her thighs were snugly together, there was no danger that her panty crotch was visible. If he could have seen that, he would also have seen auburn curls and light-brown lips, because the panties she wore were nearly transparent, even where they were reinforced between her legs.
She picked up a magazine and glanced at it idly while the salesman gazed at her creamy thighs and mentally took her to bed, she thought. He was pretty young-in his early twenties-and she almost giggled as she wondered naughtily what would happen if the receptionist were to call his name at that moment. Would he pretend he didn't hear while he fought desperately with himself to ease his excitement, or would he get up with a hard-on and display it before the whole office.
Mercifully, no such crisis occurred. The receptionist ignored him, and the salesman continued to wait. Brenna scanned the columns of the magazine in front of her, developing no interest in the articles. She glanced up and caught the salesman's eye. Her lips took on a very slight, Mona Lisa-like smile, and she looked down again.
Her eyes were still trained on the book when a deep-pitched vibrant voice spoke in front of her:
"Mrs. Marshall?"
She looked up, and there stood Walter Branch, all six-feet-two of him, in an expensive blue suit, his face tanned and handsome.
"Yes, Mr. Branch. It's nice to see you again."
She uncrossed her legs and stood.
"The pleasure is certainly mine," he said.
Oh yes! she thought. Look at the way he's looking at me, his eyes so warm. He IS happy I dropped by!
"I wonder if I could talk with you for a few minutes?" she asked.
"Of course, of course."
Guiding her by one arm, he maneuvered her in front of him as they headed for the door of his private office. He's studying my ass, Brenna thought. I wonder, is it rolling too much? Her skirt fit it quite snugly and, without a girdle on, it did have a marked tendency to roll and quiver. But since the cheeks were just full enough and perfectly molded, she believed that the impression which they made was as likely to please a discriminating corporation executive as a truck driver. At any rate, she would probably soon find out.
Branch's office was deeply carpeted and hung with expensive drapes. Original oils adorned the walls.
"Sit down, won't you?" he invited, indicating an upholstered chair beside his free-form desk. He moved around the desk and sat down in a swivel chair with a high, padded back.
Brenna hesitated just long enough to permit him to settle himself, then she took the chair, sliding one lovely leg up and over the other. Her skirt slid well back on her thighs.
Branch's eyes moved appreciatively to the crossed thigh display, lingered, then rose to meet her gaze. A very slight change had occurred in his expression. To her, it resembled the look of an experienced hunting hound who had caught the scent of game.
"Mr. Branch," she smiled, "I don't know if you remember or not, but my husband is in the insurance business in Sunny Hills."
"Oh, is he?"
"He has no idea in the world that I intended to call on you, and this isn't really a sales call ... strictly speaking. But you must control a great deal of insurance business, and I was thinking ... "
"Yes, Mrs. Marshall?"
"Call me Brenna, won't you?" She moved her legs very slightly, heightening the cross just a bit.
Again his gaze dropped ... and lingered.
"I'd love to call you Brenna," he said, his voice softer and a little deeper than before. "In fact, I'd love to get to know you-well." His tone placed a special emphasis on the last word and he smiled again more warmly than ever.
"I'd like that too."
"You know, this office isn't really any place to discuss a matter like this. At least, not with such a charming person as you. What do you say we adjourn to a place that's a little more cozy?"
Oh, he picked up on it fast, she thought.
"Sounds interesting," she murmured, and let her brown eyes play suggestively with his.
He reached slowly toward his intercom, not taking his gaze from her until the last moment. He told the box, "I'm going out, Miss Prentice. Hold all calls."
He got up, circled his desk, and extended a hand to Brenna.
Without another word being spoken, they left his office by the back way and were soon on the parking lot-but not the main portion of it where visitors' and employees' cars were lined up. Branch's big Continental was located in a reserved area right next to the door, separated from the rest of the lot by a brick planter.
He held the car door while she got in, and he watched her skirt skin back as she swung her legs around. The lower portions of her stocking welts were on display, and the legs which showed through the sheer nylons were smooth and symmetrical.
He rounded the rear of the car and slipped in behind the steering wheel.
"Where are we going?" Brenna asked, and smiled at him again.
"A little place of mine," he said. "We can be comfortable there, have a couple of drinks, and talk more easily than we could at the office or in a bar. Do you mind?"
Somehow the question implied a lot more than the mere words conveyed. He was checking; confirming his earlier judgment. If she agreed, he would know that the way was wide open.
She was struck by the similarity between this episode and the one involving herself and Hank. But there were important differences, too. Branch was completely sure of himself. He didn't get nervous and sweat. And he was taking the lead. If she hadn't indicated very strongly to Hank that she was interested in sex, he actually would have driven her to a coffee shop. When they were there, he might have tried to promote the next move. With Branch, if she indicated no reservation now, there would be only one step. When he had her in his "little place," as he put it, he would close in for the romantic kill.
"That's fine," she said in response to his question.
He started the Continental, and they were on their way.
His hideaway was located in an expensive apartment house about three minutes' drive from his office. Each of the units in the building had its own outside entrance. Branch's was on the ground floor at the rear. He parked in the alley behind the building, and it was only a few steps to the door. The walkway was shielded at that point by banana trees, making it all but impossible for anyone to be observed entering or leaving the apartment.
"Do you own this building?" she asked.
"My company does!" He smiled and unlocked the door.
She preceded him inside.
The air-conditioner was running, the place was pleasantly cool. It was luxuriously furnished. There appeared to be a living room, a bedroom, a kitchen and a bath. Cozy, but large enough for an afternoon or even a weekend.
"What do you drink?" he asked, and walked immediately to the small, well-appointed bar.
"Whatever you're having."
"Then it's bourbon on the rocks."
He got the glasses, dropped ice into them, found a bottle and poured. Brenna was impressed by the fact that everything in the apartment had been ready for their rendezvous. The air-conditioner was on; there was ice in the small refrigerator at the bar. She presumed Branch saw to it that the place was always like that. A woman probably came in to ready the apartment each morning.
Cocksman, had she called him? He was the epitome of that epithet.
He carried their drinks across the room, and after she took hers, he seated himself opposite her. Again his warm gaze swept up her legs, probed at the snug embrace of her bare upper thighs, and rose to the place where her round breasts punched arrogantly against the dark silk suit.
"Well," he said after he had sipped, "So you wanted to talk with me about insurance."
"That's right. My husband's been in the business for quite some time, but he opened his own agency just recently, when we moved to Sunny Hills. He's having quite a problem getting accounts."
"That's too bad."
"I imagine you require quite a lot of coverage for your tracts during construction, and for buildings like this that your company owns."
He smiled. "Insurance is such a dull subject. I'd much rather talk about you."
Brenna would have preferred not to talk about insurance too, but it was at least one of the reasons she had come to him, and she was determined to see that her visit paid off on this score.
"My husband needs the business, Mr. Branch."
"Walter," he said gently, "Or, if you want to please me-Walt."'
"Then Walt it is."
"Now, as to the insurance." He looked at his glass and agitated the ice in it. "I have an agency that handles all my business. They're very good-an old, reliable firm. To put matters bluntly, I can't afford, to have my insurance program screwed up."
She was mildly shocked.
"I'm not saying your husband would screw it up," Branch continued. "He may be a very competent man. But, you see, I have no way of knowing for sure, and I can't very well take a chance."
"You could have told me that in your office," Brenna said sharply, rising to her feet.
"Yes. But then I would have missed out, wouldn't I?" He smiled. "Brenna, you're a very beautiful woman. I want you."
"But you're not willing to do a favor in return?"
"I didn't say that. I said I couldn't afford to have my insurance program screwed up. Come on, let's talk about it." He gestured toward the couch where she had been sitting.
She hesitated, then sat down once more and crossed her legs. But she deliberately did not show him as much this time. He could see only a sliver of bare skin on her thigh.
"I like your approach to this thing," he said. "Direct. No beating around the bush. That's why I feel I can talk frankly with you. Ami right?"
"I suppose so."
"Good! I think I'm in a position to put your husband's insurance business over the top. Care to hear it?"
"Of course,"
"Whenever my company starts construction of a new housing tract or multiple dwelling, we obtain blanket insurance on it, covering course-of-construction risks. This coverage remains in effect on each building until the building is sold. Naturally, the moment an escrow is closed, my company's interest in the property terminates, and my insurance goes out of effect. It's up to the purchaser to see that his own coverage goes into force at that time."
"I understand."
"Now, most buyers of tract houses have no particular preference regarding insurance carriers. In the past, my salesmen have recommended that they take out coverage through the same agency I use, and over eighty per cent of the buyers have done it. That's been a big windfall to my insurance people, and one that's netted me nothing except their good will. Under the law, they can't split a commission with me. My company could obtain an agency license and into the insurance business, of course, but that would fuzz up our operations, and pretty soon we'd have salesmen who were spending more time trying to corner insurance on a customer's car or life or what-have-you than in trying to sell him a home.
"The point is this: There's no binding reason why I should channel other people's business to the agency I use. It's enough that I give them all of my own. I could very easily instruct my tract salesmen to hand out your husband's cards, and he could start writing that business. There's nothing simpler than covering a single-family dwelling and that's what most of the business would amount to. There wouldn't be any of the complications that are involved in course-of-construction coverages, performance bonds, and all the other crap I have to contend with. Even if your husband isn't the hottest insurance man in the state, and I don't know if he is or not, he couldn't go wrong on this."
"And you would channel all that business to him?" Brenna was elated.
"I could," he corrected. "And I will ... if...." He left the sentence hanging there. His eyes twinkled.
"If what?" Brenna asked slowly. She was sure she knew the answer, but, as long as everything was being brought out in the open, she wanted him to say it.
"Let's discuss that after we go to bed. What do you say?"
She stared at him. He was a clever one. He could be merely stringing her along. She felt she should obtain a more tangible committment as long as she had gone this far.
On the other hand, she wanted to go to bed with him right away.
"Well?" he said, and chuckled. "You did intend to go to bed with me, didn't you?"
"I'm not sure how a lady should answer that," she replied.
"Oh, come off it," he said crisply. "If you start giving me that lady crap, I'll heave. You marched into my office with a very cold-blooded proposition in mind-your twat in exchange for some insurance business to your husband."
Brenna gasped.
"Well, darling," Branch went on, "I happen to want your little twat. Unless a lifetime's experience with women is telling me wrong, you have considerable potential in bed. Quite possibly it's a potential that your husband has not fully tapped. But I must be sure about you before we go any further."
"That's the most insulting proposition I've ever received."
"Really? Well, if I misinterpreted your approach to me in the office and your agreement to come here, I'm sorry. You're free to go, of course."
"And the insurance?"
"Darling ... I don't give anything in exchange for a-woman's smile or a glimpse of her pretty legs."
Brenna got up but instead of heading for the door she strode to the other side of the room and stood gazing through a window. Branch waited and sipped his drink.
She turned and faced him. Her cheeks had become a little pink.
"You could have made it more palatable for me," she said. "You didn't have to talk to me as if I was a tramp."
"If you were a tramp, I wouldn't have talked to you at all, and you certainly wouldn't be here with me now. But unless all the signs are wrong, you are a woman who is prepared to trade on her sex. There's nothing necessarily trampish about that. Every smart woman in the world trades on sex in one way or another. If you'll excuse a pun, it's the leading asset they have. All I insist upon is a frank understanding, and I'm prepared to show you no special deference just because you're a woman."
"Do you talk to all your women friends this way?"
"Of course not. It's different if I meet them on a social basis. But you came to me with a proposition. Be honest now ... didn't you?"
"I suppose you could say that," she replied, with her eyes cast downward.
"Very well. That's the basis on which we'll deal. If you're interested, get undressed."
Brenna raised her eyes and gazed at him. This man was not a Hank Samson who would wag his tail and bark on command. She should have realized as much.
But, in spite of everything, she found him terribly attractive. Though she hated to admit it, the attraction was increased by his abusive attitude. All her life, men had catered to her. Here was one who wouldn't, and that made the stimulation twice as intense.
Also, the insurance business he was offering provided he was sincere about it-would do her husband, and herself indirectly, a great deal of good.
"Let me ask you just one thing: If I please you, can I count on my husband getting the insurance business you talked about?"
"For one roll in the hay? No. If you please me ... then we'll talk about it. I'll tell you this, however: I'm not misleading you. I don't have to do that to get a piece of tail."
"You're terribly vulgar !" she accused, her face flaming.
"Yes. Intentionally so. I don't want you to have any illusions about our relationship. Now, will you take your clothes off?"
She stared at him What could she do? He had her over the well-known barrel.
CHAPTER SIX
She asked for another drink first, and he poured her a stiff one. He poured a small refill for himself.
His eyes were magnetic as she sat opposite him and nervously sipped at her drink. His hot gaze seemed to be pulling the clothes from her, piece by piece. They talked-lightly now, not about sex-but neither of them had anything but sex in mind.
She wanted to go to bed with this big, hard, confident, experienced man. She felt that physically he could give her all that she needed and more, perhaps more than she had ever gotten from anyone else. The insurance business was not so important now. She couldn't be sure if it had ever been really important to her.
"Well?" he said, when he saw that she had finished the liquor in her glass. "Are we ready."
"Y-yes. I guess so."
She got up and walked a little unsteadily into the bedroom. The Ughtness in her head was partly due to the booze and partly due to the extreme sexual excitement which this man generated within her. Her loins were already flaming hot, and her nipples were erect in her bra.
Branch walked to a chair near the wall. "Go ahead," he directed. "Take your clothes off."
"What are you going to do?" she asked in surprise. "Just watch?"
"Yes. That's a pleasure, too, you know. Anyway, I want to get the full impact of your nudity from an objective standpoint first, before I become too personally involved."
"You make me feel like some sort of livestock on display."
"Don't be silly. Think of yourself as a stripper, or a model. It's a well-known fact that women secretly enjoy exhibiting themselves. And from the looks of you with your clothes on, dear, you have a lot to be proud of."
Brenna supposed that was a compliment, but she didn't feel complimented. Branch's whole approach was a decidedly uncomplimentary one. But if it rubbed her ego the wrong way, it set her libido to palpitating. She had never felt so hot-pants ed.
Branch crossed his legs" in his expensively tailored suit and puffed lightly on a cigarette as, with nerves tingling and head buoyant, Brenna's hands worked at the buttons on the front of her dress jacket.
For one agonizing moment she asked herself, What in the world is becoming of me? Then she forgot about that and gave herself over to the process of denuding herself. Branch's eyes did give her enjoyment, as he had said. And there was more of a challenge involved in baring herself for him than for someone like Hank, who had probably never been with a really beautiful woman until she'd come along.
She took off the jacket of her dress, which left her with only a bra above the waist. It was Scandia nude, as were all her underthings that day, and very lacy. The dark discs around the nipples were revealed, but only as a shadow, and the little stalks themselves were hidden by the lacy design.
What made her so attractive in a bra was the way the soft, creamy flesh of her tits rose above the rims of the cups and created the beginning of a deep, dark valley. And the flesh dramatically changed colors just above the top of her bra, because this garment was slightly smaller than the bikini halter in which she sunbathed. The uppermost flesh was ripely golden, then suddenly it became a virginal-white.
She could feel Branch's eyes probing at the bra, admiring that-which jiggled nakedly and seeking the even more delightful areas which were still hidden.
Without looking directly at him, she opened the fasteners on her skirt and let the skirt down. Her half-slip was as lacy as her bra, and very short. It barely extended below the tops of her stockings and, as she flexed her legs to step out of the skirt, tanned flesh winked.
Brenna laid her skirt on the chair where she'd put her jacket, and turned her back to the audience of one. As her thumbs hooked under the waist elastic of her slip, the pounding excitement within her increased. Her head seemed lighter still.
She stretched the elastic and let it down, exposing her bottom in nude-colored nylon briefs which were as light and provocative as a caress. The cleavage of her lovely plump ass showed through them, and now when she bent to rid herself of the slip, she was certain that Branch got a glimpse of her sexual playground. If he did, he said nothing, and he didn't budge from his chair. Most men would have been all over her by this time, but not him.
Brenna tossed her slip aside, and as her stimulation mounted even more she arched her back, thrusting her fanny out, and opened the hooks of her brassiere. She drew the bra forward, off her shoulders and down her arms. She let her right hand brush the crest of her left tit and satisfied herself that the nipple was standing all the way out. She was sure the other one was equally extended. They both felt as if they were about to explode with the throbbing excitement that filled them.
She turned and faced Branch, her color high, her head held proudly. For the first time since she began disrobing, she looked directly at him.
He seemed surprisingly calm, still seated well back in his chair with his legs casually crossed and still smoking his cigarette slowly. But his eyes were bright, and she read real appreciation in them.
"Beautiful!" he said in a tone that assured her he really meant it. "I can honestly say that I've never seen lovelier tits."
Brenna glowed. The warmth was caused by an odd mixture of pride and resentment. She was proud that this experienced man, this connoisseur of women, should give her such a compliment, but she resented the fact that he had phrased it so bluntly. He seemed to have no personal consideration for her at all.
She paused before removing the rest of her flimsy garments, and Branch read her mixed reaction to his compliment.
He smiled. "I'm not trying to humiliate you, Brenna, for the sake of humiliation. I just want you to see, very clearly, that I'm not catering to you. And I insist on absolute honesty between us."
"You're a strange man," Brenna permitted herself to say.
"Perhaps. But you don't know all that I have in mind yet. Now, take off your pants. Leave your garter belt and stockings on, please.
Without turning away from him this time (which would have been silly, considering that her peach beige briefs were window-sheer) Brenna hooked her panties at the top and peeled them down, denuding her rounded belly to the place where her tan stopped, then beyond ... uncovering the patch of curly, dark red-brown hair, which contrasted so exquisitely with the fair surrounding flesh of her bikini strip ... then drawing the panties along her thighs to the reinforced tops of her hose, and on down. She bent and stepped out of them daintily, turning each upraised leg in front of the other so as to avoid complete exposure of her snatch.
She dropped her panties on top of the other clothes on the chair.
"Now turn," Branch directed.
She did so, making no effort to hide any part of her anatomy, letting her buttocks move normally. Her slim garter belt and the tops of her stockings framed them, and this dramatized their plump, symmetrical beauty.
She faced the man again, and he gazed at the curly dark tendrils on her love mound.
"I'm not disappointed," he remarked as if he had been studying a painting. "You're every bit as beautiful as I hoped you'd be. All right, lie down on the bed Just the way you are."
He stood and calmly crushed out his cigarette. Brenna was surprised to discover that the front of his trousers showed no sign of arousal. In fact, he was not aroused. The man was just as calm as he sounded.
Brenna began to wonder exactly what she had become mixed up in. Branch gave the impression of vibrant virility, in spite of the fact that he was no longer young. Even his voice had been richly vibrant, at first. But as he was studying her while she stripped, his voice had taken on a lighter tone; his manner had become detached.
He stood near the foot of the bed and looked at her as he slowly undressed. She kept her eyes open and watched him in turn. She was curious, and this had momentarily dampened her sexual excitement.
She was on her back with one knee up. While her thighs were not spread, neither were they snugly together. She was sure that, from where Branch was standing, he could see the pouting undercurves of her buttocks and her curl-covered gash-but still the front of his trousers had not bulged.
He had removed his jacket and tie and-was now unbuttoning his shirt. He. took off his cuff links, then the shirt. He opened the top of his trousers and dropped them along his legs, revealing blue nylon shorts. His body boasted an average amount of hair on chest, belly and legs. All his exposed parts were tanned, and he was athletically trim.
He lowered his shorts, and Brenna sharply drew in her breath. His penis hung limp but, for that state, it was extraordinarily large. He stepped out of his shorts and tossed them aside.
"There," he said, and smiled as he looked at her.
Subtly, he had changed again. His eyes had grown warmer; his voice had regained its deeper timbre; his attitude of detachment had passed. But still his penis had not risen to the occasion.
He walked slowly around to the side of the bed. Brenna's heartbeat quickened in anticipation, but she was not sure what she anticipated. This had certainly been a peculiar tete-a-tete so far.
She began to move to the far side of the bed to make room for him at her side, but he placed his hand on her belly, partially on her flesh and partially on her garter belt, and said, "No. Stay in the center."
She remained where she was and regarded him uneasily He raised his hand from her, and she was aware of a tingling that marked the spot he had touched.
His gaze was trained frankly on the dark center of her body. Then he touched it, his fingertips shallowly tracing her groove. Gentle and quick though the caress was, it seemed to cleave her in two. Her legs fell far apart, and her pussy tried to follow his hand upward. She felt utterly defenseless. Suddenly she had become so hot she sizzled.
"Oh, God!" she exclaimed.
Branch crouched between her out-flung legs. He bent and grazed with his lips the tender flesh on the inner side of one of her thighs, just above her stocking top.
Her pelvis bumped at the air.
"Come on!" she demanded.
"Hush!" he whispered and fastened his open mouth against her inner thigh, farther up. He sucked and moved his teeth and licked her with his tongue. As he did this, his hand slid up and down her leg from stocking up to ankle, as if he enjoyed the sleekness of the nylon against her flesh.
Now his hand slipped underneath her leg and gripped hard, just above her knees. He pushed her leg even farther to the side. She whimpered as she felt his tongue tip begin to slide up ... up along her burning, satiny flesh.
He got almost to the line where her thigh joined her torso-the place where tan gave way to whiteness farther up and to natural light-brown at her crotch. He raised his face.
"Ooh, noon...." she moaned.
He chuckled, almost sardonically, and bent to her opposite thigh. She was burning with desire. She felt her loins oozing. Surely he could see it. What manner of man was he?
As he swabbed her lightly with his tongue, just above her stocking, she opened her eyes and twisted slightly to look at him. His rod still wasn't up. It dangled placidly.
Oh, no! she thought. He's getting me all worked up, and he won't be able to do anything. He'll have me climbing the walls.
Frantically, she began to push at his head to get him away from her. She tried to close her legs.
He fought back, gripping both legs hard, keeping them open. He looked up.
"What's the matter with you?" he asked. "Surely you're not getting moral qualms now."
"Moral qualms, hell! You're only teasing and tormenting me."
"Whatt?" He seemed amused. "You know you can't take me."
"What are you talking about?"
"You're not ... up!"
He looked down at himself, then at her. He laughed, "Don't let that trouble you, pet. I've trained myself to have perfect control. My friend there comes up when I tell him to, and not before."
To Brenna, that sounded absurd. No man had that kind of control over his penis. From her very earliest days of dating, she had been aware of male hardness pressing against her during dances and at other times when intercourse was out of the question. If voluntary control was possible, her escorts would have maintained control then.
But Branch resumed kissing her, and she let him. She lay back against the pillow and closed her eyes again. The heat within her body once more commenced to build.
It had better be up when he needs it, she thought. If it isn't, I'll kill him!
Once more his kisses slid very close to her burning cunt, but they did not touch the crevice. Instead, they leaped to a mid point on her belly, and he licked along the lower edge of her garter belt.
His mouth was a marauding firebug, planting little blazes wherever it went. There were so many little fires burning now that her body was fast becoming one gigantic conflagration. She squirmed, and her brain seemed on the verge of a swoon. She actually feared she might pop before he ever touched her center and waste herself against nothing but air.
Now he stopped kissing and sat back on his haunches.
"Turn over," he said softly but resonantly, and he began guiding her stockinged legs.
She flopped onto her belly, and he adjusted her legs so that they were close together and he was astride them. Suddenly he shocked her by slapping her buttocks-once, twice, three times, four-back and forth, first with his right hand, then with his left.
"No!" she cried, for momentarily it had hurt, but then he was gripping a plump, pliant buttock in each hand, squeezing it between his thumb at the bottom and his fingers, which were wrapped around the side, and she felt his mouth ... pressing against the fullness of first one cheek, then the other ... his teeth grazing, his lips and tongue sliding....
She wriggled, arching her back, pressing her bottom harder against his face.
He lifted his head and lunged more fully over her. He began to kiss her along the shoulders, moving and stroking her auburn hair at the same time. He kissed along her back, then buried his face in the small of it.
He backed off of her and said, "Roll over again."
She was a forest fire now, ablaze all over. She yearned to feel his masculine power; to have him open her and glide deeply inside. He didn't have to do any more kissing at all, if he didn't want to. She was more than ready now.
But Branch wasn't anywhere near-through. Methodically, he crouched atop her body, keeping cool in spite of the intense heat he had generated within her, and bent to feast at her fruitful bosom. He licked her tits all over, then went from nipple to nipple, clasping the burning stalks and pulling upward until they popped free, only to be recaptured and pulled upward again.
"Oh, Walt ... oh, God...." Brenna cried. "I can't stand it! I'm going crazy!"
He dropped his mouth onto hers and they kissed ravenously, mouths wide open, lips sealed and working. Their tongues played like porpoises, rolling and twisting.
Suddenly his mouth was gone, and he was propelling himself backward. In one magnificent motion, he freed her legs and spread them, dropping in between. Holding her behind the knees and pushing them far apart, he placed his chest against the mattress just below her loins.
"Jesus ... Jesus!" she cried, and then she felt his insinuating tongue gaining entry. Her loins spasmed excitedly as the serpentine' action continued. He began to lick up and down. He found her clitoris and clasped it between his lips, sucking gently while tapping it rhythmically with his tongue. She bit her lips to keep, from screaming. She clenched her small fists until her nails bit into her palms, then she clutched and ripped the bedclothes.
She felt on the very brink of orgasm, but for some reason she couldn't tumble over. It was maddening.
Now Branch raised his head again.
"Oh, hurry ... hurry !" she cried.
As he surged up over her, she twisted for a look. No! Oh, God, no! She thought. It was thicker, but still soft.
"You promised!" she cried accusingly. "Goddamn you!"
"Look!" he ordered, and he moved higher astride her middle so that his gentitals were very close to her face.
Suddenly ... miraculously ... his cock lengthened and lifted until it was standing high and straight, gored with pulsating blood. It was the most magnificent cock she had ever seen; it was slightly longer than Dave's and had greater fullness.
"Oh, put it in me!" she cried.
He gave a grunt and backed up quickly, spreading her legs again. He fell forward. Her hand went down, but he slapped it away. She lifted her cunt in breathless expectation, every nerve in her body tingling. Then she felt his thumb and forefinger spreading her apart, opening her deep, moist pink cavern ... and his huge bulk came gliding in, filling her with delight.
Her face twisted in excruciating rapture and she wrapped her legs about him as his pillar of manhood plunged in and out. She clamped her calves down hard around the backs of his thighs and pulled herself against him, twisting and gyrating in exquisite joy.
"That's it ... that's it!" she cried. "Keep doing it! Oh, lover I That's perfect. What a beautiful prick!"
He kept powering into her as if he had a boundless reserve of energy, twisting a little from time to time so that he rubbed her in a slightly different way, but keeping up a steady excitation. She thought she wouldn't be able to ascend any higher on the passion scale, but she found that she kept rising, her nerves growing more and more taut, her whole body athrob.
She strove violently to reach her climax, her slippery hot cock-sleeve clutching at his tremendous tool again and again. He seemed to go deeper with each pulsating stroke, filling her love chamber completely, pressing every nerve end she owned. Still he plunged.
She began saying, "Ah ... ah ... ah ... ah...." explosively, each time he lunged in deeply.
"You've got ... a wonderful ... pussy!" he exclaimed vibrantly.
Hearing him say that made her shudder and cry out, but she couldn't reach a release. It was as if he was controlling her responses as surely as he controlled his own.
"Hurry ... finish!" she said between gasps.
He moved a little faster.
"Oh, yes!" she screamed. "Go ... go ... go!"
He moved faster yet.
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Welcome back," Branch said from his pillow as he lay stretched out beside her.
"Good God! I actually fainted! Why, that never happened before."
"Were you ever stimulated so much before?"
"No, I guess not."
"Then that explains it. The higher an object is lifted, the farther it has to fall."
"So I'm an object now."
"That was a figure of speech."
She turned onto her side and looked at him. He was still nude. She placed her hand on his fuzzy-haired chest and slid it down to his flat, firm belly. His penis was relaxed, but the evidence of their recent lovemaking clung to it moistly.
"How long was I out?" she asked.
He continued looking at the ceiling. "Half a minute."
"Were you worried about me?"
"No. That's happened before."
"You're a wonderful lover. You have a sharp tongue and you don't always flatter a girl, but you can sure screw the hell out of her."
"Thank you, fair lady. And as for you, let me say you were as hot as I hoped you'd be. So we can now discuss business, if you'd like."
"Business? Now, wait a minute, Walt."
"Business is what I said, and that's what I mean. I told you one roll in the hay wasn't going to put your husband on the gravy train, if I may mangle metaphors."
"All right. So I'll let you screw me again some time. But that's hardly a matter of business."
Brenna had become at ease and utterly shameless with hm. After what she hadbeen through, it seemed silly to cling to any pretenses, which accounted for her casual use of blunt language and her ready consent to future fun and games. But she didn't understand what he was driving at with this talk about business.
"Let me tell you what I need," he said. "In my profession, it's necessary to persuade important people from time to time-zoning administrators, mortgage loan officers, utility company agents, even city councilmen. In real estate development there are often close decisions to be made on matters of zoning, utility relocations, easements, loans ... you understand. Decisions like that can fall one way or the other, depending on how the responsible individuals happen to feel toward my company. If they like us, they usually say yes. If they don't, it can just as easily be no. A hundred thousand dollars or more can ride on their decisions in any given situation."
"What's all this leading up to?" Brenna asked.
"Just this-if I were in a position to set up a date for a man I wanted to impress, and if I were sure he would be taken care of very well, it would be worth a great deal to me. The insurance business I could throw to your husband would amount to only a small part of it. That would be regular and steady, but in addition there would be cash fees for specific services rendered."
Brenna sat up, her breasts bouncing. "You're asking me to become a whore!"
"Oh, for Christ's sake. I thought we were through with that silliness. We were going to be honest with each other."
"Listen ... regardless of what you may think of me, I would never do it for money."
"You already did it for money," he said calmly as he looked up at her from the pillow. "In return for insurance business to your husband-that's money, my pet-you gave me the use of your pussy and all the ornaments that go with it, which incidentally, are mighty fine." He lifted his hand and gave her relaxed left nipple a tweak. It started to puff out.
She glared at him for a few moments, then dropped onto her back once more.
"Damn you, Walt! You have such a degrading way of putting things,"
"No, I don't. I simply refuse to gild and sugarcoat facts so that they look and taste like something they're not. If we're going to get along, you've got to be that way too."
"All right. Isn't it a fact that you want to turn me into a whore?"
"No. You're a whore already. I just want to help you make it pay better."
"Bastard!" she cried, and lunged off the bed.
"Darling...." he said in a bored tone, "a whore is any woman who does it for financial gain. That includes a great many respectable women. There's a difference between a whore and a tramp."
"That's certainly a fine distinction," she said, still angry.
"Fine perhaps, but true. Now let's not fuss about words, shall we?"
"What you're saying is that you want me to go to work for you-to entertain important people so that they'll grant you favors."
"That's the general idea."
"Walt, I'm a married woman."
"That didn't stop you from peddling your ass to me."
"Will you stop talking that way?" she exclaimed, stamping her foot and causing her tits to jiggle up and down.
"No, I won't stop. I'm going to make you be honest with me. Otherwise there's no show ... for insurance or anything else."
"I ought to put on my clothes and get out of here right now."
"If you do, it will make you the most foolish broad in the world. You'll be blowing the investment you've already made and passing up a chance to collect in a big way. This is no chicken shit proposition. I wouldn't offer it to just any woman. As a matter-of-fact, I've been waiting for the right one to come along. I believe you are she."
Brenna bit her lip thoughtfully.
"Just ... how much money would be involved?" she finally asked.
"That's my girl," Branch smiled. "Come back to bed and we'll discuss it."
She did.
"You would use this apartment," he said. "It's far enough from your own neighborhood; there would be no risk to you whatsoever, and you would have no expenses to upkeep. I would get in touch with you by phone to set up the dates. No one else in my office would know. The fewer people who know about these things, the better. Sometimes I would expect you to spend an afternoon with a man, sometimes an evening or possibly all night."
"That's out. I could never manage it."
"Don't be silly. You could invent a sick relative who lives out of town. A poor auntie who had no one to look after her but you. She could have some creepy ailment that comes and goes. When she has a relapse, she calls for you, and you phone your husband at his office and tell him you'll be away for the night. That's all."
She didn't believe this would work with Dave, but she decided not to argue that point further at the moment. She said, "You haven't told me how much you would pay."
"Very well. Let's set a flat fee schedule-an afternoon, fifty dollars; an evening, seventy-five; all night, a hundred. How does that sound?"
"Pretty good," Brenna had to admit.
"Now, of course, you understand that includes anything the gentleman wants."
"What do you mean, anything?"
Branch smiled at her. "I'm sure you know the rundown-straight screwing from front or rear, blow job, between the knockers. You can draw the line at anal intercourse."
Her fact was flaming and she said sarcastically, "Thanks a lot!"
"Incidentally...." His smile still held. "How are you at blowing?"
"I've never had any complaints." Her face felt like a hot stove.
"Show me."
"Not now."
"You must. This is a very important item. Many men can't get it from their wives."
"I'll do it if I have to," Brenna said. "You can take my word for that."
"No, I don't want you to have that attitude about it. When it's done, it must be done freely, without any suggestion of displeasure. Do it to me now."
Brenna changed to a sitting position and looked down at his limp prick. She switched his gaze to his face. "I don't feel like it now, Walt."
"So, also you may not feel like it when I set up a date for you. So do it!"
"Walt...." she whined.
He ran his hands into her tumbled hair, grabbed hold, and bent her head to his bidding.
He was soft, and she had to get down very close. Her Ml breasts rested against his middle. Her hair tickled his thighs. He maintained his hold on her, but she proceeded cooperatively because she could see she had no choice. Anyway, the prospect wasn't all that bad. Mainly her objection was to the fact that he was so domineering.
Her mouth worked at his softened cock, and gradually excitement flowed into it and it stiffened. She bobbed her head slowly up and down. He groaned in pleasure.
His hands were busy at her suspended breasts, rolling the nipples, tugging at them, squeezing the quivering soft-firm globes. He jiggled them up and down on his open hands.
Excitement returned to Brenna, and when she finally had him very hard and pulsating with passion, she stopped the oral caressing and looked at him with smoky eyes and slack lips. .
"Finish me the other way, Walt....please," she said.
"Very well. Get on your belly."
She positioned herself, and he moved around behind her. He grasped her hips and raised them high as she kept her chest against the bed.
The sight of her this way was stimulating in the extreme, especially with her garter belt and stockings on. Her big beautiful ass was framed, upthrust, and split so that she showed everything she had.
He traced the round, smooth cheeks with his fingertips, then reached forward between her spraddled thighs to tickle the hairy bunch of softness. She whimpered and let her bottom sway a little, pushing back.
He used his finger for a little while, and when he had her at fever pitch, he grasped his stalwart rod and directed it to the slit. He pushed inside.
Ramming her that way gave him a great deal of pleasure because her buttocks were so full and round. His flat belly bounced against them as ho plunged and it rubbed them when he rotated. His penis was so long that there was no problem of keeping the head in, even when they both moved quite freely.
Now he urged her up onto her elbows so that her tits tumbled above the bed, and he played with those delectable hanging beauties as he continued to thrust and gyrate within her. f" It lasted long and pleasurably and, for her, the pleasure became extremely intense when he slid a-hand down along her belly to pluck and roll the little bit of erectile tissue at the top of her groove.
She finished that way, bumping her bottom backward, her whole body quaking. Branch spasmed and spurted and groaned, then lay still against her back.
They disengaged and rolled onto their backs, side by side.
"Satisfied?" she asked. "Very."
"Do we have a deal, then?"
"You tell me."
She hesitated for only a moment, then told him, "Yes."
"Smart girl," he said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
When she got home Brenna looked at herself in the mirror and had the feeling that a stranger was staring back at her.
In spite of Branch's fine rationalization in support of the thesis that it was not wrong to put out for money, she felt very cheap. Still, she had agreed. Not trusting herself at all any more, she wondered how much weight the money itself had carried against the promised excitement of being supplied with an endless string of admiring men. She wouldn't have to scrounge for them and face the risks attached to quasi-romantic affairs. She would be safely and comfortably ensconced in Branch's hideaway, and they would come to her. They would regard her as a social inferior, of course, but these men would not be members of her own social group, so what would that matter? When they saw how beautiful she was, they would look up to her on that account, and somehow that meant more in Brenna's mind.
But how would she regard herself?
How was she regarding herself right now?
Damn it!
She turned away from the mirror in anger and entered the bathroom. She stripped throwing all her clothing on the floor, and bent to draw water in the tub. She made it as hot as she could possibly stand it.
Easing into it was uncomfortable at first, but her body gradually accommodated itself, and then the hot bath became soothing-to her psyche as well as to her physical system. She lay back, not touching the soap for a while. Bubbles from the bath powder she had sprinkled into the tub billowed around her.
She closed her eyes and thought about Walter Branch.
He was a snake, of course. Her mind drew a parallel to the serpent in the Garden of Eden, but she would have been the first to admit that she was no Eve. Branch had tempted her into reaching for the apple, but really she had reached for it because she wanted the taste of the fruit.
My God! How had she become this way?
She thought of running-getting out of the bath and putting some clothes on and leaving Dave's house, going far away, never seeing Dave or Branch or anyone else she knew again. Perhaps her marriage to Dave was the cause of all her troubles, and if so, it would be better to put that behind her and begin a new life somewhere else.
But she didn't want to lose Dave. She honestly didn't.
All her life she had been particular about not becoming a slut, and now she seemed to be eagerly embracing the very way of life which she had consciously shunned. And yet she wanted to continue being a respectable suburban wife, too.
She thought back, trying to determine what had given rise to this peculiar ambivalence. The mental quest got nowhere. She only knew how she felt she seemed to need what she could get from a man like Branch or even Hank Samson. Yet she needed Dave, also. And the need for money which she and Dave, shared seemed to bind the whole thing together, giving force and direction to what she had thus far done and what she was going to do.
She reached for a washcloth, causing her breasts to lift out of the bubbles; then they settled back. She picked the soap from its tray and slowly began to bathe herself.
As she massaged her breasts, working them up and down and around, titillating the nipples until they sprouted out long and stiff, she thought of Branch's lips on them ... and Hank's ... and the lips and teeth and tongue of a faceless man.
What would he be like-the first man Branch sent to her?
Would he be an old, fat politician? A middle-aged bureaucrat? A smooth officer of some bank or savings and loan association?
God! Was there a chance that it might be that man from First Southwestern Federal who had been bugging them about their delinquent house payments? She hoped not. Oh, that would be a catastrophe!
No, wait. The man didn't know her, except as a name and a voice on the phone. She had never met him.
Maybe she hadn't better use her first name with the men she met for Branch, since it was so unusual. She would make one up. Since she had some monogrammed things it ought to begin with a B. Let's see....Barbara, Betty, Bonita. Barbara-that was all right. She would be Barbara.
She made a mental note to call Branch and tell him. She would be Barbara, and that was all. No last name. No personal identity. Just Barbara with a pretty face and a lush figure and thighs that opened easily ... and, of course, a mouth....
As she continued washing herself, she thought of the way she'd used her mouth on Branch. How many men would expect her to do that? Probably most, since Branch had said this was something lots of them couldn't get from their wives.
It was something she couldn't get from her husband, damn him!
Hank had gone down. Branch had gone down. But Dave? Oh, no. He was too pure. It was all right for her to go down on his dick, but he was afraid he would get some kind of terrible contamination from her pussy.
She settled back in the tub and lay there quietly, thinking about this particular minor aspect of her trouble. It had to be considered minor. It was, after all, just a part of sex play-there were lots of other things for a man and a woman to do. There was no reason for a person to get hung up over this, pro or con.
But Brenna did enjoy it. There was no denying that. It gave her the most voluptuous thrills she had ever received, next to the actual climax she got when a man was plunging deeply into her. That had to rank first. But that was always so much better if the other had gone before.
Silly. It had to be mostly in her mind. Fingers at her vagina could do just about everything a pair of lips or a tongue could. Perhaps she enjoyed the mouthing so much merely because it was supposed to be forbidden. That had to be the reason.
Could it be, then, that the whole business of adultery appealed to her merely because it was forbidden too?
Perhaps.
But surely there was more to it than that. There had to be some special quirk in her case. Adultery was forbidden to all married women, but how many of them had such a burning desire to screw around?
She tried to recall Kinsey's figures on adultery, couldn't, and decided that it didn't make any difference. No two cases were the same. She wasn't the same as anyone else.
She got out of the tub, dried herself carefully, and strolled naked into the bedroom. She had just selected a bra, slip and panties and was about to put the pants on when the telephone rang.
Dave.
The thought sent a stiletto Jab of guilt through her mind.
She took a few extra moments to compose herself as the phone rang a second and third time, then reached out and picked it up.
"Hello?"
"Brenna?" It was Hank.
"I told you not to call me," she snapped. "We're through."
There was silence on the line. She thought of hanging up without another word, but something stayed her hand. "Hank?"
"I didn't believe you could be so unfeeling." There was real hurt in his voice "When we were together, you were so warm."
"Hank, I told you ... we have to end it, before someone really gets hurt. Now, that's final."
He sighed heavily. "I suppose you haven't had long enough to think and remember. I'll give you a little, more time."
"What are you talking about? That sounded like a threat"
"Not a threat, just a statement of my attitude. I have to have you, Brenna. I can't live without you."
"Hank...." she said in a reproving tone.
"I mean it. I'm too old and so are you, for us to kid one another. You feel the same way I do underneath. I felt it each time I was with you, and a man can't be wrong about that You're just refusing to face up to the truth. Well, if you won't do it by yourself, I'll have to see that you do."
"Hank, I'm going to hang up this phone, and I don't want you to ever call me again."
"Think, Brenna. Remember."
She hung up.
Now there was something new to bug her. As if her own guilt wasn't enough, she had this stupid middle-aged man hanging around her neck like an albatross.
Her nerves thrummed as she picked her white silken pants off the bed, gave them a shake, and gathered the fabric in her hands so that she could step into them. She put in one foot, then the other. She drew the panties up and wiggled them into place about her hips. Her forefingers rode the inner sides of the leg elastics and tugged the bands snugly underneath her pouting buttocks. She adjusted the waistband slightly.
Next she picked up her bra.
The next time Hank called, if he did, she would simply hang up the moment she heard his voice. It was a mistake to give him even the encouragement of speech. He was nothing but a nuisance now, and she would have to deal with him as abruptly as she would deal with a buzzing fly.
God, what a sniveling baby he had turned out to be! You would think that a creature who was supposed to be a man could take a little nookey and not let it go to his head.
Well, this would be a lesson to her: No more fooling around with overgrown babies like him.
In spite of the sense of guilt which seemed to be an indispensable part of the new promiscuous life she had chosen for herself, Brenna didn't consider another lesson which she might have drawn from her experience with Hank-namely, no more fooling around, period.
What did occur to her right then, as a way of ameliorating her guilt, was to stage a little party for Dave as soon as he got home. He had instigated such a happening not long ago, and it hadn't worked out well because she had tried to get him to go oral and he had refused. All right, if he wouldn't, he wouldn't. She'd had her oral loving for that day, anyhow. So this afternoon it would be just plain old-fashioned sex. Subconsciously she felt that by making this special gesture to bring pleasure to her husband, she would be compensating for her adulterous conduct. It wasn't as if she had to make compensation to him, for actually she felt he wasn't being hurt. On the contrary, her outside affairs had already helped him financially and would help him a great deal more. She was really proving something to herself-that she was a good wife in all respects, not the slut which her inner nature had told her she was becoming.
She decided to leave off her bra.
And her slip.
And stockings.
She would wear just panties, a dress and low-heeled shoes.
Then an even more daring thought occurred to her: She wouldn't wear a dress, either. She would greet Dave at the kitchen door with nothing on but a pair of panties, and not the plain, utilitarian ones she was wearing now. She had a pair of very fancy ones-red, with a lot of lace and ruffles on top of the sheerest gauze. A girl friend had made her a present of them on her birthday a while back, as a joke, and she had never worn them. The right occasion hadn't arisen, somehow. Well, the right occasion was here now.
She skinned her white pants down and off and strolled naked to the dresser to find the fancy ones. She took them out and looked at them with her hand inserted. Goodness, they would show off everything with the lace and ruffles furnishing only a gauzy, romantic veil.
Okay. So, what was wrong with that? Dave was her husband, and it would give him a kick.
She put the red pants on, preened in front of the mirror several times and was more than satisfied with the effect. Her pussy was displayed shockingly, but the adornment of the panties kept the exposure from being crude. The effect was quite fetching, particularly with her big, red-tipped titties standing out as well.
Talk about sex appeal! If this didn't make Dave's equipment snap to attention in a hurry, nothing could.
She moved to the dresser and sat down to tend to her hair and makeup.
Soup, cold cuts and salad comprised the menu for tonight. Brenna prepared the salad in advance, wearing a light robe as she did so, and she poured the soup into a saucepan on the range. She didn't turn on the gas underneath it.
As the time for Dave's arrival approached, she removed the robe and returned it to the bedroom. Naked .except for the shocking red panties, with her lush breasts quivering, their nipples extended, she walked back through the house. At the living room. bar, she took out a bottle of bourbon and the Manhattan glasses. She carried the glasses to the kitchen for ice.
Just then she heard Dave's Mustang enter the driveway at the side of the house and come to a stop in front of the garage.
She patted at her hair and put a smile on her face. She looked down at her panties and straightened them slightly.
Oh, this would flip him! It really would!
She waited, pleasurable anticipation drawing her nerves taut.
The door opened and Dave walked in.
"Jesus Christ!" he exclaimed.
"You like?" she purred and turned for him, letting her breasts jiggle and twisting her buttocks in the gauzy pants.
He was so shocked that he had let the door stand partially open behind him. He realized this now and slammed it.
"Well, darling?" Brenna smiled, facing him again. "Does this give you any ideas?"
"Yes!" he snapped angrily, his face darkening. It makes me think I'm married to a whore."
Her mouth dropped open. She could only stare.
"Get into the bedroom and get dressed," he demanded.
"But, Dave ... I thought...."
"You must be out of your mind, prancing around the house that way. Somebody across the street might see you through a window."
Tears were coming into her eyes. "Nobody can see me but you. I dressed this way just for you. I thought you'd like it"
"Yeah? Well, that just goes to show how little you know about me. Now get some clothes on, will you? Then get out of here and fix me some dinner. I'm hungry."
Letting out a wail of anguish, Brenna turned and ran through the house, her big tits swinging. She ran into the bedroom, closed the door, and twisted the lock. She threw herself down across the bed and sobbed.
She was married to a monster! No wonder she had to go out with other men. How else could she gain the appreciation she deserved?
There was a rattling of the bedroom doorknob, then Dave called tersely, "Open up! I want to change my clothes !"
"Go to the devil!" she screamed.
"Whaat?"
She sat up and twisted around on the bed, her pretty face streaked with tears.
"I said, go to the devil! I don't want to see you! As for your dinner, you'd better go out and buy some. I'm certainly not going to fix it!"
"Brenna, do you know what you're saying?" His voice was coldly stern; like a schoolmaster addressing a naughty child.
"You're damned right I do! Go to hell, Dave, and see if I care! Go straight to hell!"
Another fit of sobbing struck her and she flopped face downward on the bed again. She doubled her fists and beat them against the mattress.
So it's come to this, Dave thought. Things have been difficult lately, but this is more than a man can take.
"All right," he yelled. "I will go out. And don't expect me back until I damned well feel like it. That might be never!"
He turned and strode indignantly through the house to the door by which he had come in. He stomped out to his car, got in, and started the engine with a snarling roar that could be heard all through the neighborhood. He backed up the car with a squeal of rubber.
He didn't have to take this kind of shit. No man did. He'd been working his butt off to support her in a community they couldn't afford, where it was twice as hard to make a living as it was in L.A. and this was the thanks he got.
The scene which had greeted his eyes when he'd arrived home returned to him as he goosed the Mustang out of the tract and onto the adjoining boulevard. She had been traipsing around the house like a goddamned hooker, with bare boobs and those indecent red pants that showed off her ass. God knows who had seen her through the window-horny husbands as they were driving home, gossipy wives. Pretty soon it would be all over town that he was married to a cheap piece.
He should have had more sense than to marry her in the first place. She had let him get into her pants on their third date. He had no idea how many men had been there before him, but there must have been plenty. She had probably spread it all over Los Angeles before she knew him. It probably wouldn't be long before she'd be spreading it all over Sunny Hills, as well.
And there was that business of her trying to get him to go down. Men had probably done that with her, too. Some men-would do anything when they were exposed to a fetching cunt.
Well, he wouldn't! Only a bastard who was a pansy at heart would eat twat.
There was something else he might do tonight, though. The image of his beautiful wife's near-nudity had aroused his lust. Taking Brenna was the last thing in the world he wanted to do now, but the arousal which she had stimulated could be transferred to somebody else.
Before he was married, Dave had been quite a swinger. During the last three years, he had been completely faithful to his wife-but it hadn't been for a lack of opportunities.
The girls who ran his answering service, where he also had his typing done, always gave him a warm eye. There was one little sexpot in particular-a blonde with squeezable knockers and a fanny that begged to be patted-who had been giving him the come-on for months.-The last time he was there, she had even told him a dirty joke. He had laughed, and that was all.
Maybe he had been a sucker all this time. He felt now as if he was.
He wondered ... if he were to look up that cute blonde in the phone book ... Betty Compton, her name was-and call her, would she meet him some place?
That would be too abrupt, he decided. But there was other tail around. Hell, a good-looking guy had lots of chances.
He decided to try to corner some for tonight.
The restaurant he chose for dinner was a fairly nice place, modern, located on one of Sunny Hills principal boulevards. He and Brenna had eaten there on a couple of occasions, and several times he had bought drinks for prospective insurance clients at its bar.
He parked on the wide lot beside the rambling stone-fronted building and entered through the bar doorway. One of the bartenders recognized him, and they exchanged nods. He found a place in front of the gleaming dark wood and sat down.
"How are you tonight?" the bartender asked as he moved over while idly polishing a glass.
"Lousy," Dave said on impulse.
The barman's eyebrows went up. "What's the matter? Did the stock market kick you in the nuts?"
"No. Nothing like that. Give me a bourbon, will you? Double."
"Sure thing."
The man moved to get it and Dave glanced around. The place was busy, as usual at this hour. Dave saw a man he knew and gave a little wave. The man responded but immediately turned back to the men with whom he had been talking. The bastard, Dave thought.
Men and women sat together at tables and in booths along the wall. Dave let his gaze skim over the talent, sizing it up.
Suddenly his eyes stopped.
There was a piece sitting alone. Hot-looking, too. She was a statuesque redhead in clinging black, the skirt pulled well above her knees, which were crossed. She was seated in a booth, facing toward him, but she didn't pay him any notice. She had a cocktail glass in front of her and was staring moodily at it.
A click told him that the bartender had deposited his drink on the wood.
He turned and grasped the man's arm. "Over there by the wall," he said. "The redhead. Who is she?"
The barman looked. "Alma Krueger," he replied. "Her husband runs the Dodge agency."
"Yeah? Wonder what she's doing here alone."
"She comes in all the time. I'd guess there's trouble at home."
"Hell, she's dressed up ... as if she intended to meet somebody."
"Why don't you take a chance, Mr. Marshall?" the barman grinned thinly. "Never can tell."
The idea stirred him and he thought about it as he sipped his drink. She might make a good romp, especially if she was sore at her husband. When he was single he had scored with two or three of that kind, and he had picked them up in bars too.
But, damn it, people knew him here, and they knew the Krueger woman. That was the trouble with small towns. A man couldn't operate like he could in the city.
Still ... it might be worth it.
He let his eyes linger on her, mentally measuring her thighs and her tits. The thighs were long and full-looking at their tops; the tits were so-so at best. But a woman didn't have to be built-like Sophia Loren to please him. In fact, it was better if she wasn't. He had seen broads with enormous knockers in strip shows and those melons had flopped all over the place. Even Brenna's breasts were a little on the heavy side, though they stood up well. Dave didn't object to bite-sized cuties that didn't have to be brassiered. They were fun to play with-so tight and springy.
His cock gave a twitch as he thought along these lines and studied the redhead. He sipped more of his bourbon.
By the time he had drained the glass, his mind was made up. He ordered a-refill and carried it to the redhead's table.
She looked up as he approached. Her face was angular, but not unattractive. There was an aristocratic quality about it. Her eyes were a little haughty, though sad her lips were thin.
"Hello, Mrs. Krueger," Dave said. "I'll bet you don't remember me."
She looked him over coolly and said, "You win."
He smiled more engagingly. "It was at a party about three months ago ... no, maybe longer than that."
"What's the difference?" was her surprisingly frank response. "Care to Join me?"
"Sure." A wave of exhilaration went through him as he sat down, "Can I buy you another drink?"
"If you like."
He signaled a waitress and she picked up Alma Krueger's glass. "You, sir?" the girl asked. "I'm all right."
"My name, incidentally, is Dave Marshall," he said, turning a warm gaze on Alma again. "I'm in insurance."
"I see."
"Were you ... uh, waiting for someone?"
"No. I just dropped in."
"How about having dinner with me?"
"Since you know me, Mr. Marshall, you also know that I'm married. Didn't anyone ever tell you that married women are out of bounds?"
"I've heard it said, but I don't believe it. Anyway, I'm married too."
Alma's drink arrived and that suspended the conversation for a moment. Dave paid for it and tipped the girl.
"What would your wife think if she knew you were prowling the bars, inviting strange women to dinner?" Alma sipped and studied him.
"She sent me out. No dinner at home, she told me. So what's a man to do?" He took a jolt of his booze.
"Now I'm supposed to tell you my secrets, I assume."
"Nope. Not if you don't want to."
"I might, but not here. As to dinner, we hadn't better take that here, either. It's bad enough that we're sitting together right now."
"You can leave first, if you like. My car's on the lot. A blue Mustang."
"You leave first," she replied. "I'll join you. But the parking lot's as public as this. Why don't you drive over to Cedar Street and follow it out to the road maintenance yard. There's a big lot there, and it's deserted at this hour. Park, and I'll be along."
He was surprised to have her spring such an involved suggestion right off the bat. She must have been through all this with other men.
"Okay," he said. "But don't stand me up."
"If I wanted to stand you up, I'd simply say no right now. By the way, did you say what your first name is?"
"Dave."
"I'm Alma."
He tossed off the remainder of his drink. "I'll be waiting for you," he said. "Five minutes," was her reply. He got up and walked out.
Alma was true to her word. A white Chrysler" drove up and parked next to his exactly four and a half minutes after he had arrived at the deserted maintenance lot. Alma got out of it and joined him in the Mustang.
He leaned and turned her upper body to face him. They kissed.
At first her lips were unresponsive. His worked against them and they gradually parted. They quivered then took hold. Dave slipped his tongue into her mouth.
Since there was a console between the bucket seats, they couldn't get their hips close together without someone sitting on the divider, but that didn't prevent their kissing. And something which it facilitated was Dave's investigation of her breasts.
He brought a hand up between them and clasped his fingers around her upstanding right mound. As he had perceived visually, the titty was not large. But, as he had hoped, it was taut and erect inside her bra. He could tell by squeezing that most of the erectness was natural. That breast would stand up nicely even when the bra was off.
He felt the hard nubbin of her hippie rise, and he plucked at it through her dress and bra as they continued to kiss. Her tongue fluttered against his, and the hot breath from her nose struck him on the cheek.
He dropped his hand to her leg and quickly pushed her dress and slip up to her lap. He couldn't see what he was doing because his head was inclined the other way as they kissed, but his fingers reported very smooth thigh flesh above her stocking tops.
He traced a garter upward toward its base, encountered a frilly pantie edge, and fingered his way inside, now deserting the garter strap and sliding an inch or so toward center. He got into her curls.
She broke the kiss and quickly pushed his hand away, smoothing down her skirt and slip almost before he had a glimpse of her denuded legs. Brief though the glimpse was, it was highly stimulating. Her thighs were excellent-smooth and strong-looking and untanned. Such whiteness of the upper leg was unusual on a Southern California woman-at least, the kind of woman Dave had played with-and he found it exciting. He might even be willing to spend some time kissing legs like that.
"You act like a tiger who hasn't been fed in weeks!" Alma exclaimed, her breath still coming hard. Her face was flushed now.
"That's how I feel tonight," Dave replied. "I guess home cooking hasn't been giving me the vitamins I need."
"That's the way Carl figures, too."
"Carl?"
"My bastard husband," she replied evenly. "Come on-let's find a restaurant."
They took off, an Dave experienced a sense of freedom he hadn't known in ... well, in over three years ever since he had become engaged to Brenna.
He drove to a restaurant in an adjoining town. The location was out of the way and the room was discreetly dark, with candles flickering on the table tops.
They had lobster tails and wine, and topped the meal off with brandy. Their conversation had been insignificant, touching on topics of broad general interest such as the weather and world affairs and happenings around Sunny Hills. As the meal drew to a close, however, Alma brought up the subject of her marriage.
"To show you what kind of an animal I'm married to," she volunteered, "he called me this afternoon and said, 'how about going out to dinner tonight? So naturally I got all ready. Then, at the last minute, he called again and said something had come up-a district sales meeting, no less, and he wouldn't be able to see me. What's more, I wasn't to expect him home until late because the boys always liked to stop somewhere for a few after the meeting broke up.
"Well, I smelled a rat the size of an elephant, so I put in a call to the district office. Was there a sales meeting tonight? Of course there wasn't. What had happened-and this isn't a new story, by any means was that some hot-tailed wench had walked into the agency late this afternoon to look at cars, and Carl had talked her into meeting him for a very personal demonstration tonight. You know what he'll spend his time demonstrating, don't you? Of course you do. You're planning to demonstrate the same thing with me, and you're in insurance."
"You're very outspoken," Dave said with a smile.
"Why not? Incidentally, where are you planning to take me?" She sipped from her brandy glass and watched him.
"A motel?"
"All right. But let's drive a little farther away from Sunny Hills."
"We can head toward San Diego, if you like, and drop off the freeway when we see a likely place."
"This can't be an all-night party. Carl will be getting home around midnight or one o'clock. He'll expect me to be in bed asleep."
"Agreed," Dave said with a smile. "Shall we go?"
Alma nodded.
An hour later they were in a motel room, and he was holding her in his arms, passion rising through him like sap in a tree. Her gently rotating pelvis was bringing him along, as was her flickering tongue. Her breasts were hard little applies pushing against him.
He started to undress her by manipulating the zipper at her back. It slid all the way down, and he petted inside her open dress. She was lean and sleek, a nice change from Brenna. But actually he wasn't thinking about Brenna at all. Even though this was his first venture into extramarital experience, his conscience was not troubling him. The whole thing was a pleasant lark.
Alma stepped back, her face really flushed now, and drew her dress up. One dim lamp was burning, which created a romantic atmosphere, but truthfully there was no romance in what was going on. Neither of them had pretended that there was anything but raw sex involved. Dave wanted it for its own sake and because he was PO'd with his wife; Alma apparently was doing it to strike back at Carl. Whether she really enjoyed sexing it or not, she would have the satisfaction afterward of knowing that he hadn't put anything over on her He had two-timed her and she had two timed him. That left him even.
Dave took off his jacket and tie.
Standing directly in front of him, Alma reached behind her to unhook her black satin bra. She drew
"Nice," Dave said and meant it. He was unbuttoning his shirt.
"You mean, you're one man who doesn't insist that his women resemble cows?"
"Shape is more important than size," he said as she posed in front of him while he took his shirt off. "The shape of yours is very good. They're high and firm. And I like those orangey tips."
She gave a little laugh and looked down at them. She lifted her hands to cup them from underneath and pinched her nipples gently between her fore fingers and thumbs.
Dave quickly lowered his pants. He wore boxer shorts, and there was a high tent at the front of them. Alma took it in with her eyes, and, as she watched him, she hooked the waistband of her lacy black slip and let it down.
Her briefs were snug and black and filmy A wedge of indeterminate color showed through them where her torso met her thighs. She wore a black garter belt underneath which was hitched to dusky hose. The white tops of her thighs gleamed like beacons between her stockings and her pants.
She lay down on the bed that way. Dave bent and pulled off his socks, then whisked his shorts down. Alma was still watching.
"Now it's my turn to express approval," she said, her tone having turned a little husky.
He rounded the end of the bed and moved up at the side, his long, slim penis pointing the way before him. He lay down beside her. Her cool hand encircled his rod right away.
She let out her breath heavily "Like a piece of iron," she said. "Carl's is never that hard. At least, not with me."
"You deserve a hard one," he said and leaned over her.
The whole thing was almost impersonal as if they were automatons executing & programmed maneuver instead of human beings about to make love. But Dave was thrilled as no automaton could ever be. As he bent and tasted her nipples, the thrills increased. They were helped along by Alma's eager hand, which was sliding up and down on him exactly right, with just the desired amount of pressure. After he had twirled each orangey nipple and made them ruddier and pulled them upward and let them pep out of his mouth, he. had to wrap a hand about her wrist and restrain her from further pumping. He would have to let his excitement taper off a little before he got into her, or she might not be satisfied, "Sit up and face away from me," he said. "I want to see how your tits feel when I reach around from the back."
She did as he requested, and he reached. He cuddled them and worked his fingers pleasurably.
"Christ-they are hard little devils," he told her. He removed his hands from them and turned her slightly so he could take a look. "They don't hang at all," he marveled. "There's no crease under them."
"I wish Carl appreciated them as much as you do," she responded candidly. "If I'm not mistaken, the girl he's out with tonight has a pair of flopped over cantaloupes. Those are the kind he always seems to look at."
"Let's see what the rest of you is like," Dave husked. "Lie down again."
She lay on her back once more and he slipped her black panties off. The hair on her loins was as red as that on her head. "God damn !" He said. "You are a find."
She chuckled for the second time. "You know, you do a woman's ego a lot of good."
He gazed at the total expanse of her beauty-the high, firm breasts, with no tan line above or below to interrupt the smooth sweep of flesh, her nipples full and rigidly pointing upward; the flatness of her middle where the black garter belt crossed; the plateau of her lower belly which terminated in a little red-pelted rise; her smooth, firm thighs.
He gently gripped both legs and moved them apart. He studied the plushy slit with the dull red curls atop it and the bright pink flesh within.
He moved between her legs right away.
"Hold on!" she said pressing her hands against his lowering chest. "I'm not ready enough."
"I don't want to wait," he pleaded
"At least take my stockings and garter belt off. That will help work me up."
"All right," he sighed raggedly, and bent to the task of unfastening her garters.
He did this quickly and slipped her stockings along letting his fingertips trail on the baby-smooth skin. He bent and gave her a kiss on the inner thigh, just above her knee. She shivered.
"That feels like more," she purred, and her hands fluttered around his head.
He turned to the other thigh and kissed her just above the stocking top.
She was caressing his ear and the short hairs at the back of his neck. She had a very good touch. He slid his mouth a little higher and nibbled flesh which was very soft and tender. So far he had been aware of the scent of soap and a trace of perfume. Now suddenly the musky fragrance of womanhood reached his nostrils, and he sat up. He decided he had gotten too close.
"What's the matter?" she murmured as she watched through slitted eyes.
"Nothing."
He unfastened the garters on her other leg and slid that stocking down. He backed up and picked. both nylons off her feet.
She quickly rolled over and he was presented with an enticing view of her white little ass, which didn't rise in round rich divisions like his wife's. By comparison, Alma seemed short-changed, but what she had was nicely formed.
He petted the cheeks with his fingertips and she moaned.
Now he reached to her waist and unfastened the garter belt. He gave her a little pat on the bottom and she rolled onto her back once more, allowing him to pull the belt away.
"Now?" he asked huskily.
"Kiss titties some more," she said, and directed his head.
He sighed again and sprawled loosely atop her, his hard penis sandwiched between their bellies, as he massaged her firm little breasts, pushed them together as well as he could, and kissed back and forth. Her nipples were hard as nuggets. He plucked at them and rolled them.
"That's it ... that's it...." she said, her passion obviously rising.
He shifted his weight to one side and worked a hand down between their bodies. He opened her cunt with his fingertips and stroked inside. She was getting wet, but wasn't as juicy as Brenna would live been by this time. He pressed his middle finger deeper into the envelope of sensitive membranes. She was snugly contracted in there.
"Hubby hasn't been in for quite a while, hmm?" he breathed against his ear.
"Two weeks," he panted "I've been going out of my mind.
Dave was fingering her deeply now, getting her open farther in.
"I think....! think I'm ready," she told him.
She seemed slick enough for the start, so he elevated himself a little and swung his shaft to the right slant for penetration. Her hand found his moist, throbbing head and directed it to her soft core. They touched intimately. Gently he applied pressure, and she began to accept him, the velvety inner lips of her vagina sliding upward around his rigid pole. But he was able to sink no more than a couple of inches before he encountered considerable resistance.
"Easy...." she whimpered.
He remained like that for a while, his heart thudding, his rod seeming to swell with urgency. He thought conversation might help her, so he began to discuss what they were doing. It did help. She whimpered more and twisted and took another inch.
He pulled back and slid forward, going no deeper than he was before.
"Oh, yes....yes!" she said.
He pulled back and pressed harder upon his return, making a substantial gain. Talk about hot and tight! She was almost like a virgin.
He became wild with need, and he pulled back and thrust again forcefully, taking her nearly all the way.
"Do it ... do it!" she cried.
He began to stroke vigorously and rhythmically, going deeper and deeper still. She put her hips into motion. Her fingernails bit into his back. Her long, strong thighs gripped him.
"Now!" she exclaimed. "Really give it to me!" He gave it to her faster, plumbing her with the full reach of his rigid plunger. Their mutual lubrication had increased so that her vagina was a snug, slippery sleeve for all seven inches of his cock"""
"Yes ... yes....yes...." she chanted, "Screw me!"
CHAPTER NINE
As Dave drove slowly homeward after leaving Alma at the parking lot, he was troubled by the guilt of a husband who has cheated. This was particularly strong in his case, because sex, even at home, had always seemed tinged with sin.
Dave turned his guilt around, as Brenna had done before, and neatly projected it to her.
It was her fault, not his, that he had gone out tonight. It was .her fault that he had picked up Alma. It was her fault that he had taken Alma to a motel and bedded her.
This made him feel a little better, but now he had to face up to the prospect of confronting Brenna, and that was bound to be difficult. He wanted her to welcome him home warmly, to forgive him and blame herself for everything, to make it possible for them to enjoy a happy life together. But he doubted very much that she would take this attitude. She would probably give him the silent treatment, and this would heighten the tension between them.
He had given only a brief thought to the alternative of not returning home He didn't want to break up his marriage, and he didn't want to lose Brenna. In spite of the fact that she made things difficult for him, he believed he loved her. He had faith in their future, if only somehow he could get her to become less self-centered, less interested in showing herself off to other men, and more serious about working with him to create a real home and family.
Yes. A family. That was what he wanted.
If there were children in the home, a lot of his troubles with Brenna wouldn't arise. Kids would settle her down, occupy her thoughts and time. They were what she needed.
Kids would increase his financial problem, but he had reason to hope that this was working itself out. The fat order he had gotten from Hank Samson was a harbinger of others which were to come. Personal problems now seemed more important than money.
At home, in a darkened bedroom which had known rage and tears and deep hurt since sundown, Brenna now lay on her back and stared sightlessly toward the ceiling. There was no moon tonight, so the room was pitch black, even with the drapes standing open.
Hours ago Brenna had removed the fussy red pants which had set Dave into his tirade (thought she still couldn't see for the life of her what the pants had to do with anything), and she now lay totally naked. She hadn't bothered to tend to her hair or to remove her makeup. Her mood at the moment could best be described as leaden.
Dave had rebuked her in a way which really hurt, because he had ridiculed her attempt to intrigue him with her body. Then he had gone out and remained away the whole evening. She could hardly believe he had been alone all this time. He wasn't the sort.
She had visualized him with different women-first a blonde, then a brunette. Once he was on top, pistoning into eager feminine loins; then he was on the bottom and the girl was above, swinging her hair and her knockers as her hips ground and pumped up and down about his penis.
The visions vexed Brenna. She had never been jealous of Dave, because he had never before given her cause to be. Now that he had, she knew how the emotion felt at the active end, and this made her a little more understanding of the way he acted when she deliberately showed herself off to the neighbors. But this didn't mean that she forgave him for the way he had behaved tonight.
What had happened to them in the last couple of "weeks? It seemed that everything had come to a head at once. What had been a tranquil marriage, if not a completely happy one, had cracked and threatened to fall apart in fragments.
She wondered how Dave would act when he returned home, which she fully expected him to do before the night was over. They'd had a bad quarrel, but she certainly hadn't given him cause to leave her. Or rather, she amended, he didn't know anything about the cause she had given, and that amounted to pretty much the same thing.
How was she to treat him when he returned?
If there was to be any forgiving, he would have to be the one to express it. Better yet, he should apologize for flying off the handle as he had.
But when had he ever apologized to her for anything?
She stirred restlessly, wondering what time it was. She was about to rise and snap on the bedside lamp, but then she told herself it didn't matter.
She thought about Walter Branch and what she had committed herself to do for him. This now seemed like a dream. Her marriage was so much more important, and it was threatened.
Oh, how could everything get so terribly fouled up?.
As if to soothe herself, she placed a hand on her satiny belly and caressed gently. She felt a tingle of response. Not really thinking about what she was doing or what it might lead to, she slid her hand upward until it surrounded a plump, pliant breast and she began to squeeze it ever so gently.
That felt nice. She could almost forget everything else when her hand was working at her body this way. It could have been a man's hand-Dave's or Hank's or Branch's. It made little difference.
She put her imagination to work, and it produced a man in the darkness, hovering over her. But he was a man without the features of individuality. He was a vague form with hands and lips-that was all, at the moment.
One hand was working at each breast, rolling and squeezing the full resilient globes. A thumb and forefinger formed a pincers at each nipple. Brenna pinched really hard, and this hurt but it thrilled her at the same time. It made her nipples swell to immense hardness. They throbbed. The pleasurable throbbing impelled her to do more.
By grasping a breast at the side and directing it while she twisted her neck, it was possible for her to reach the edge of her nipple with her lips. She did this, and she imagined that the kissing was done by her faceless lover. Her lover's tongue flickered out and danced over the stalk of super-sensitive flesh.
Good! So good.
An imaginary lover who could impart such thrilling caresses to her breasts could accomplish even more at her lower region, for this was where she really lived, in a sexual sense. A hand slid down over her belly button, all around her tummy, then slowly threaded its way into the silken tangle at her loins. Fingers teased the lips of her cleft, sliding down and up and down and up. The caressed flesh puffed slightly, as if in preparation for a male invasion. It became very warm, and it tingled. Her passion spring began to flow, at first slightly and then more, as her caressing became even more intimate, venturing into the tender tuck of flesh, pressing for greater depth....
Brenna began to breathe hard, and her hips twisted, her up-slanted thighs swaying. Now one finger was very deep, probing ... probing.
Her imagination re-formed the faceless man, this time crouching between her legs. She withdrew her finger and, when next her twat was touched, it was by her anonymous lover's lips. Two fingers employed in scissors fashion, created the sensation of lips first clasping, then spreading her soft, moist flesh. She arched her loins upward, reaching for the tongue which was to thrust from between the lips. Three fingers came into play, and then the tongue was provided. It entered her and twisted and slid. It found her little love button and stimulated that until she thought she would surely die with delight.
And then, suddenly, lips and a tongue wouldn't do any more. Her phantom lover would have to produce something more formidable.
Her imagination conjured the sensation of weight pressing upon her, of a bulk which covered her, and then of a hardy jabber that touched her between the velvet outer gates and forced its way down and into the secret place, deep and deeper, until it was surrounded by her hot and palpitating pussy, which was syrup-slick.
The jabber plunged in and out, in and out, rubbing her little button exactly right each time. Pushing her feet against the mattress she caused her loins to lift and fall, lift and fall, in counter motion to the jabber's strokes.
A hand busied itself across her breasts, rubbing the hard, throbbing nipples, shaking the swollen globes.
She let herself whimper and moan because that was what she felt like doing, and there was no reason to hold the sound back.
Her imaginary lover was breathing hard, his hot exhalations striking her cheek and neck as he played with her titties and jolted her loins, all at the same time. His plunger lacked fullness and depth, but she tried to overlook that and succeeded quite well, considering, the way it was rubbing her button so perfectly each time.
Go ... go ... go! she thought.
He moved faster than a real man ever could, for a wrist had more snap than the lithest hips. She jammed her eyes tightly shut, arched her pelvis higher, and took the lightning strokes of passion time after time after time until....
She tightened, convulsed blissfully, and sighed.
She lapsed back against the mattress, and her lover suddenly went away ... poof ... dissolving like a wisp of smoke in the air.
She felt very much alone.
The sense of dullness, which had depressed her before, was no increased two-fold. She felt as if she wanted to die.
After a bit, she did turn on the light to see what time it was. Ten minutes to midnight. She turned off the light and rolled onto her side, facing the edge of the bed. She became chilly and she reached down and drew up the covers.
She thought of Dave.
What if he didn't come home?
But he would.
A wave of lassitude came over her, and she felt as if she might drop off to sleep. Perhaps she would have, except for the sound of Dave's car entering the driveway.
Apprehension immediately cut through her weariness, tensing her beneath the covers. Then she realized that he would not know if she was asleep or not. All the lights in the house were out. She decided it would be better if she feigned sleep.
She forced herself to remain perfectly still as she listened to the closing of the garage door and then the sound of her husband entering the house. He didn't call to her. A glow in the bedroom doorway .indicated that he had turned lights on elsewhere.
His footsteps approached in the hallway, and she closed her eyes.
In the doorway he hesitated.
"Brenna?"
Silence.
He rounded the foot of the bed and took a close look at her. Asleep, he decided and he was grateful for this. He noted that her shoulders were completely bare, without even straps, which meant that she was sleeping in the nude or nearly so. It was possible that she had pants on.
Her condition of dress or lack of it didn't interest him. He was sexed out, but he wouldn't have approached her anyway tonight. That would have required making up first, and he was not prepared to make concessions.
He closed the drapes and took his clothes off. He thought of showering, to remove any trace of Alma from his flesh, but didn't want to take the risk of waking Brenna. Anyway, he was tired.
He got into pajamas, returned to the front of the house and shut the lights off there, then padded back down the hall to the bedroom. He opened the drapes to allow some air to circulate.
As carefully as possible, he climbed into bed beside his wife, immediately turning on his side so that he faced away from her.
He wondered how things would be in the morning and decided that this was a matter which would have to be faced when he came to it. Surprisingly, perhaps, in view of the uncertainties of the situation and the guilt which still plagued hm, he dropped off to sleep within five minutes.
Morning came to him first as the sound of running water. He opened his eyes, realized that he was alone in bed, and realized that Brenna was in the bathroom brushing her teeth. The sound of the toothbrush mingled with that of the water tap.
The recollection of last night returned in a rush his quarrel with Brenna, being with Alma, screwing her, climbing into bed later beside his sleeping wife. He sighed. He felt let down.
As he turned to look at the clock, he realized that it was Saturday. He wouldn't be going to work. The time was ten minutes to eight, but that didn't matter. He lay back against the pillow.
As the sound of running water in the bathroom stopped, the twin borers named guilt and apprehension went to work on him. What he had done last night was wrong; he had violated his marriage for the first time. Worse, in a way, Brenna probably suspected his adultery and would treat him accordingly.
The bathroom door opened and his eyes dropped shut almost automatically. It was better if he didn't confront Brenna yet. He had to think about things first to steel himself.
He listened to the faint rustling sound of her moving about, evidently with her robe on. A drawer slid open. There was more rustling.
His eyes eased open very slightly, so that he could barely see through the slits between his lids.
Brenna was nude, turned half away from him, a ripe tit thrusting out and upward. He looked at her rich fanny and the lush fullness of her upper thighs. A stab of sexual desire went through his vitals.
She moved to her dresser mirror and it caught a reflection of her dark red brown vee and threw it back at him. His pecker began inching out.
Damn it, he had been with another woman just a few hours before. He had cheated on Brenna by bedding the other broad, and he had enjoyed himself a great deal in a physical way. Yet now, when he saw his wife in the nude, he became excited. What was he, some lecher whose aspirations didn't rise above the level of his belt? Didn't it matter that he and his wife had quarreled, that he had cheated on her?
Wasn't there something involved here except the mere gratification of physical lust?
Apparently not, at least insofar as his body was concerned, for his arousal attained full dimensions. He had to elevate one of his legs a little, so that his excitement would not be evident. He did this very slowly, and Brenna didn't notice. She was looking at her face in the mirror, studying her eyes. Now she patted her hair.
She sat on the vanity bench, her buttocks spreading attractively. Her position obscured the reflection of her lower front, but both breasts were plainly displayed in the mirror. Dave kept looking at them, and his penis throbbed.
She began combing out her hair, her arm moving in jerks, and this caused her boobs to bounce.
What had he seen in Alma?Dave wondered. Brenna had it all over her in looks. Alma had been pleased when he'd admired her smallish breasts; she had referred to large ones derisively as "flopped-over cantaloupes", but there was nothing flopped-over about Brenna's, They were round and luscious, and they shoved right out.
She put down her comb and picked up a brush. She began to stroke her lustrous auburn locks. This caused her breasts to quiver delightfully again.
Suddenly Dave knew what he would have to do.
Responding to the basic physical urge which possessed him and precluded subtle considerations of what was right or wise in the situation, he got up his shaft poking through the front of his pajamas, and lunged for his wife. Glimpsing his reflection in the mirror, she gasped and leaped to her feet, turning as he reached her. The moist head of his rigid rod collided with her belly and was sandwiched upward between their bodies as the bulbs of her tits compressed against his chest. Her mouth opened wider to release a cry, and he trapped it with his own ardent lips before the cry could be formed. He sent his tongue forward like a burning spear, and his hands gripped Brenna's pliant bottom, squeezing the cheeks and rubbing them against each other as he worked her ass all around.
Her first impulse had been to protest vocally and even to put up a fight, but now she couldn't. His spontaneous desire had evoked a similar response on her part, and she succumbed to his scorching kiss, to the thrusting hardness of his penis against her middle, and to this hands, which possessed her backside. The points of her breasts quickly hardened to dig into him and she moaned amidst the thrashing of their tongues.
In a moment, and without a word being spoken, they sank to the bed and the only rational thought which registered in Brenna's brain was: He can't have laid another woman last night or he wouldn't be so wild for me now.
Dave scrambled atop her and paused only long enough to smear his open mouth back and forth across the throbbing red buds of her breasts before his sword of passion found its way into her snug and slippery sheath and sank to the very hilt.
She cried out in joy and arched her body to thrust her loins even harder against him. She wanted to feel every millimeter of his aroused manhood. Her hands gripped his strong shoulders and she threw back her head, eyes closed, red-brown hair fanning out on the pillow.
He took her masterfully, riding the crest of an exultation which exceeded anything he had felt with Brenna since the early weeks of their marriage. His pulsating pecker slid up and down, in and out, caressing her clinging, slick membranes and causing her to thrill wildly.
He IS mine ... he IS mine, she thought over and over as he stroked. Her hips surged in glorious countermotion to his. Their lower bellies patted. His balls bounced against the lower portions of her buttocks. She was flooded with the lubricant of her loins now, and the long smooth strokes produced a sloshing sound.
"Oh, darling ... darling!" she cried just before her pent-up need exploded, and the spasmodic contractions of her vagina brought him along. He spurted hotly into her depths.
After it was over and he lay atop her, breathing hard and licking at her ear, inside and out, she thought that this was surely one of the best times they had ever had. All her hurt and anger had been washed away. She could even laugh about her torment of the night before.
"You louse," she chuckled happily, "why'd you give me such a bad time, huh? After you stomped out, I imagined you with another woman, giving her what I Just got."
"Don't be silly," he breathed warmly as he nibbled at her lobe, "How could I give it to anybody but my own hot little wife?"
"I was afraid you thought I was too hot yesterday,"
"It was just those blasted red pants you were wearing, with nothing on top. I could imagine every guy in the neighborhood seeing you through the window and wanting some."
"Oh, angel...." she murmured, and petted his back and buttocks.
A little while later she made him a big breakfast-eggs and sliced ham and potatoes-and they ate happily together, all their troubles forgotten. Dave's guilt was washed away. Her eager acceptance of him in bed had taken care of that.
But nothing was solved.
And later, when Dave was on the golf course and Brenna was alone in the house, her thoughts turned to her arrangement with Walter Branch. At the moment she had no conscious desire to go through with it, but she told herself it would be a great next to Dave and would provide some extra cash which they could certainly use. And Dave would never know.
She went about her work of straightening up the house, and afterward took a shopping trip. Superficially she was serene, but her deep inner disquietude remained-made worse, if anything, by the events of the last couple of days. And floating vaguely in the furthers reaches of her mind were images of males-their faces, especially their eyes, as they admired her beauty.
The dullness of last night was gone. She was living again. And, though she wouldn't admit it to herself, she was looking forward to new thrills.
CHAPTER TEN
The thrills soon began coming thick and fast.
She'd had no idea, when she made her deal with Branch, that there would be so many men whom he would want her to help him "persuade".
She wasn't, of course, told who the men were, except to the extent that they identified themselves to her, and this usually involved only their first names. And she wasn't told to attempt to influence them in any particular direction-just to make them happy in a physical way. This she did. And they pleased her, in turn.
Her pleasure was not always so great physically because some of the men were old and others were not adept at making love. But they all paid her homage with their eyes and hands and lips, and that she appreciated. She took her climaxes when and if she could, and she got more than enough.
Most of the dates were in the afternoon, as an accommodation to the men who were married. This accommodated her, as well, because she didn't have to make excuses to Dave in these instances. Even though he was self-employed and his time was therefore his own, he had never been in the habit of cutting his work days short or stopping by the house for lunch, even when he was in the area. Occasionally he called, and sometimes the phone was not answered, but these instances could easily be explained away-Brenna was either shopping, visiting a neighbor or engaged in some community activity, she said, and Dave accepted these excuses.
She followed Branch's advise and invented an aunt who supposedly had recently moved to Long Beach from the Middle West and was in poor health; this furnished an excuse for Brenna's infrequent absences at night. Once Dave suggested mildly that Brenna might invite her aunt over for an evening or even a few days, since the Marshalls had more than enough room, but he didn't press the suggestion; the prospect was not, after all, a pleasant one from his standpoint.
Brenna had no reason to believe that Dave suspected her of any misconduct. She had quit her sunbathing on the front lawn of their home, and he obviously appreciated this. Moreover, she was careful to avoid giving him any cause whatsoever for jealousy.
And she took very good care of him in bed.
Brenna had never in her life had so much sex, and the excitement of it tended to lessen as the quantity increased. Also, she was constantly troubled by the new mental picture which she had of herself-that of a woman who-gave herself to men for whom she had no particular regard.
But to counter this there was the realization that she was deriving great benefits, in cash and in insurance business for her husband, and by this time she had accepted, at least on the conscious level, Branch's rationalization that her conduct was no worse than that of a wife who remained with her husband merely because he was a good provider. There was nothing sordid about the affairs, except for the fact that Branch set up the appointments. The men all treated her well-even deferentially, when they discovered how beautiful she was-and the time she spent with them compared favorably with the general run of sex episodes.
Dave was starting to get calls from buyers of homes in the Branch tracts, telling him that he had been recommended to them. At first this puzzled him, but he-wrote the insurance policies eagerly, and pretty soon he adjusted himself to this new source of revenue on the ground that the Branch organization had heard about his competence and recommended him as a genuine service to their clients. He even called Branch to thank him for the referrals, an occurrence which Branch reported to Brenna with a chuckle.
"I patted him on the back and told him I was happy to send the business his way," Branch said. "He suggested that we get together for lunch some time, and I told him nothing would please me more."
"Don't you dare," Brenna warned.
"Don't worry. I wouldn't do anything to embarrass you."
As to the cash she received, Brenna opened a special savings account for that. She decided to let the money accumulate until she had a sizable amount, then tell Dave that she'd received some sort of bequest. She could work out the details later. Anyway, they weren't pressed for money any more. The sudden increase in Dave's business had solved their problem along that line. In fact, he was doing so well that he had talked to her about the possibility of giving up the desk space he had been renting and opening a full-fledged office of his own.
"There's a girl at my answering service who says she'd like to work for me full time," he reported.
"Which one is that-the one with the baby voice?" Brenna inquired with a slight edge.
"Yeah. I guess her voice is kind of babyish. To tell the truth, I never paid much attention to the way she sounds."
"Oh? In other words, her looks have interested you most, hmm?"
"Don't be silly," he replied, eyes twinkling. "The fact that she has big luscious tits hasn't impressed me in the least."
"I'll bet! Now I know how it feels to be jealous."
"You needn't be, honey," he said, giving one of her breasts a tweak. "Your tits are at least as good."
This offered slight comfort, especially considering the way Dave looked when he said it. Anyway, her tits were old stuff to him, and those of Miss Baby Voice weren't. At least, Brenna hoped they weren't.
Still, she wasn't really worried about losing Dave. She was looking forward to the time when she would be giving up her arrangement with Branch and settling down to the full-time job of wife and, hopefully, mother But she couldn't do that just yet. Dave mustn't lose the new source of steady revenue he had found, and she didn't have enough money set aside.
Strangely, perhaps, her love for Dave hadn't diminished during the course of her activities on the outside. If anything, she loved Dave more strongly now. Tensions between them had eased, and she no longer felt frustrated over his unwillingness to make oral love to her. She got enough of that on her afternoon dates, and anyway it seemed to have largely lost its kick.
One thing-the more men she went to bed with, the more she was inclined to appreciate the way Dave was built. His rod had it all over those of most of the other men, both as to length and hardness. Of course, most of the men she dated were older. Only Branch was hung better than Dave, and he didn't have quite the rigidity in his dick which Dave's boasted. All in all, Dave was an excellent lover-except for his reluctance to kiss her as much as she thought he should. Each time she went to bed with him now, she climaxed explosively.
A person looking in from the outside, and in possession of all the facts, might well have considered Brenna's behavior and attitudes bizarre in the extreme. Even she was aware of their peculiarity. But they seemed to make sense, at least for the moment, and this convinced her that she should maintain the status quo.
Hank Samson posed a problem.
Twice he called when she was at home, and each time she hung up without speaking as soon as he identified himself. Each time he called back, and she let the phone ring itself out.
She believed that this treatment would eventually turn him off. A man of his age didn't, after all, yearn indefinitely for a woman he couldn't have. That was a young man's affliction. Once Hank became convinced that she meant business, he would say to himself that she could go to hell, and he would either concentrate on socking it into his wife, Jeannie, or he would pick up with some other woman oh the outside.
Or so Brenna thought ... when she thought about him at all. Actually, Hank was a closed book in her mind. She no longer had the slightest interest in him.
One afternoon Branch telephoned her with a proposition which was out of the ordinary:
"Tomorrow night we're going to have a party. I'm trying to arrange some big financing with a savings and loan outfit in L.A., and the two men who have to approve the deal have been dragging their feet So I've invited them over to the apartment I'm going to be there, too, and I've gotten in touch with a pair of Hollywood hookers. They're not in your class, darling, but they're the best I can get hold of on such short notice. What I have in mind is that, once the party gets swinging, we'll all trade partners a couple of times. You won't mind that, will you?"
"In other words, you expect me to take on both the other men and you, too. Is that it?"
"Why not? You'll be paid by the head." He followed the remark with a chuckle.
"That's supposed to have a dirty double meaning, I suppose,"
"Come on, Brenna," he chided. "Don't go square on me now. The truth is-I've gotta make these guys happy. And I want the part to seem as spontaneous as possible. First we'll just drink and swap sexy stories; then one of the hookers will do a strip tease ... From there on, the party's gotta really swing."
"The apartment has only one bedroom," Brenna pointed out.
"So what? You don't object to screwing in front of an audience, do you? You know, some guys get a bigger kick out of watching than out of actually doing it themselves. And every man enjoys watching as a preliminary."
The idea of making it with a man while others watched excited Brenna, even though she told herself that this was another step in the process of self-degradation which had begun on her first date with Hank and had gotten rolling in a big way when she made her deal with Branch.
"Am I supposed to be your date?" she asked.
"That's the general idea. We'll make it first, while the other men go with the hookers. Then they'll each get their turn with you ... provided they can stand the gaff. Are you willing?"
"Yes, Walt. I suppose so." Actually she was not as reluctant as she sounded.
"That's my girl! We're all going to meet at a bar. I want you to get there first so that you'll be with me when the others show up."
"I don't like that," Brenna said. "We agreed at the beginning that none of this would be out in the open. What if I'm recognized?"
"You won't be. It's a secluded place I have in mind." He mentioned the name and location. "That's at least a dozen miles from your home," he added. "Well...."
"I want to do it this way because I don't want to give these boys the idea that they're walking into a whorehouse. "Understand?"
"All right," she said.
"Nine o'clock tomorrow night. You can make that, can't you?"
"Yes."
"And you'd better prepare Dave for the possibility that you might not be home until morning. Auntie's going to have to be very sick this time."
"You want me to wear a cocktail dress, don't you?"
"Sure. Something that shows off those beautiful knockers."
"Well, how can I get out of the house that way?"
"I see what you mean. Okay, here's what you do-dress in regular clothes, but have your other stuff in the car when you leave home. Go to the apartment first and change there. Then go to the bar."
"I suppose that will work," she admitted.
"Sure it will. Darling, I have great confidence in you. You can get away with anything."
Brenna was almost prepared to believe that herself, by now. She had gotten away with a lot to date, and Dave hadn't caught on. There was no reason why this new ploy shouldn't work.
She was aware of a rising tide of excitement within her as she bathed and got dressed the following afternoon. She had already phoned Dave, leaving word with the big-titted girl at his answering service for him to call her back. When he did, she explained about Auntie's relapse.
"What's the matter with that old broad, anyway?" Dave had responded.
"Shame on you! Is that any way to talk?"
"No, I suppose not. But it seems to me she ought to be in a nursing home or some place if she's this sick. How late do you think you'll have to stay with her?"
"I don't know, Dave. Maybe all night."
"Jesus Christ!"
"I'm sorry."
"Okay ... okay. Will we have dinner first?"
"Of course. But I'll have to leave right afterward."
The fact that she was going to make dinner for him had seemed to render the thing more acceptable, and he agreed without further delay.
Husbands! Brenna had thought after she hung up the phone. They only want a wife for two things-to take care of their cocks and their stomachs. And she wasn't sure but what the stomach came first.
Well, anyhow, she'd gotten an okay from him.
Immediately she placed her good clothes in an overnight bag and stashed this in the trunk of her car. Then she went into the house to get ready.
After bathing, she powdered herself all over and got into her nicest lingerie. She would carry perfume in her purse and apply it at Branch's apartment. It wouldn't do to smell of Arpege when she left for an evening with Auntie.
While she bathed and dressed, her mind conjured images of some of the things that might go on before the evening was over. Three couples loving it up in that small apartment would be a blast!
Well, if Walt didn't mind, she didn't.
Mind? She was looking forward to the festivities with glee.
Something almost happened at the last minute to upset the apple cart, however. When Dave arrived home, he let her know right away that he wanted a piece. He did this by first giving her a pat on the fanny as she stood at the kitchen counter making salad, and then instead of taking his hand away and proceeding on into the bedroom to change his clothes, he gained a firm hold on the pliant hemispheres of her butt and turned her into his embrace.
His scorching lips sealed themselves to hers, and his tongue pumped into her mouth. She squirmed in alarm, and this served to agitate her tits against him. He pulled her lower body harder to him, and she felt the beginning surge of ardor at his loins.
Exerting herself to the maximum degree, she broke the kiss and pushed free of his embrace.
"Honey!" she panted. "We can't get all worked up. I told you, I have to go see Aunt Bertha."
"Screw Aunt Bertha! Anyway, why can't we do it now?"
She thought quickly. "Because we're having steaks and I have to put them on." Actually she had planned on having the steaks tomorrow night; she had intended to serve soup, salad and some sandwiches tonight, which were already made.
"Oh, all right," he grumbled, and went on toward the bedroom to change.
She wasn't entirely happy with his abrupt acquiescence. Her mention of the steaks had caused it, and this tended to bear out her suspicion that a wife's service to her husband's stomach was more important than what she could do for his tally whacker.
But no matter. She should be grateful that ho didn't press a sexual demand this evening. She was going to have more sex than she would want at Branch's party, no doubt, but this prospect didn't trouble her. She still looked forward to the evening as' one of fun.
Everything went smoothly at home from this point on. She stacked the dishes right after dinner, spent a few minutes tidying herself up, then left the house, ostensibly to see Aunt Bertha. Dave had to content himself with a wifely peck on the cheek.
She drove to Branch's secluded apartment and got herself ready to meet the men. The dress she-wore was moderately low cut, so that the upper portions of her round, plump knockers were on display. She had been to the beauty shop the day before, and her hair was styled in an elaborate upsweep which brought out the fine qualities of her face.
As she left the apartment and proceeded to the bar where she was to meet the others, Brenna represented the epitome of sex appeal. Her nerve tracks tingled with anticipation.
Branch was in good spirits, and he obviously was very pleased with the way she looked. The two girls from Hollywood showed up a few minutes later, along with the men who were their dates.
Brenna had never met any prostitutes before. She had assumed that they would have a rather cheap, brassy look, but these two did not. One was honey blonde, medium in height, with a well-rounded figure. The other was a tall brunette, a little on the bony side, but exotically appealing, with an olive skin and large, dark eyes. They spoke well and smiled warmly, so that it would have been impossible to distinguish them from a pair of office workers or bit actresses on a legitimate date. Their mode of dress was at .least the equivalent of Brenna's in quality and style.
The men were in their mid-thirties. One, named Edgar, was tall and rather quiet. He paired off with the exotic brunette, whose name was Elena. The other man, a stocky, ebullient fellow named Bob, got the curvy blonde, Joann.
They all settled down for some serious drinking,, but Branch set a light tone for the conversation.
"You know what's so good about women over forty? No yell, no tell, no swell ... and grateful as hell!"
There was general laughter, after which Bob made a contribution.
"Have you heard about the two kids in the swimming pool? The little girl kept splashing water on the little boy, and finally he said, 'If you don't stop that, I'm gonna duck you.' So she said, 'How the heck can you do it when you can't even pronounce it?"
There was more laughter.
"I know one," said Joann. "What do they call a, noontime quickie."
"I don't know, baby," Bob replied. "What do they call it?"
"Funch."
Everyone laughed again.
By this time the drinks were imparting a warm glow, and sex was firmly established as Topic A. More racy stories followed, and the men began to sneak some feels under cover of the tabletop in the dimly lit booth.
Brenna happened to glance down and saw Bob's stubby fingers lift his date's skirt and slip above her stocking tops. He wrapped his hand around the warm flesh of her upper thigh.
Across the table, one of Edgar's hands was out of sight, and it was evident from the expression on Elena's face that it was busily at work on her.
Finally Branch said, "You know I keep a little apartment not so far from here. What do you say-we drive over? There's all the booze we want" we can play some records. How about it?"
The men accepted eagerly, and the women, of course, went along. Brenna rode in Branch's car, with Bob and Joann in the back seat. Edgar and Elena took his car.
As they drove the short distance to the apartment, Dave was at home alone looking at the clock. He had turned off television, because there was nothing on the tube that interested him.
Damn it, he thought,-why did Brenna's aunt have to pick this particular night to have an attack, or whatever the hell it is that happens to her? From the way Brenna talked, she might have to stay all night, and here I am with an itch a mile long.
The trouble was that he had spent sometime that day at the answering service, talking with Betty about the possibility of her coming to work for him fulltime. She obviously was in favor of the idea. No doubt as a means of trying to persuade him, she had deliberately rubbed a bulging titty back' and forth across his arm. She'd done it several times, so it certainly couldn't have been an accident.
This had nearly given him an erection right there in her office. Thinking about it afterward, and about the warm way Betty had smiled at Mm, had caused him to develop a hell of a lech for his wife. But it hadn't been possible for him to get to her before dinner, and now it looked as if he was going to be out of luck for the entire night.
He glanced at the clock again. It was a little after ten. He wondered if Betty was at home. She had made it a point to give him her phone number and address so that he could call her there in case he decided to hire her full-time. That would mean cutting out the answering service for which she worked, and she would have to quit them, so it didn't seem right to make the arrangements in their office. At least, that was the excuse Betty had offered for tendering her address and phone number.
Dave got out his pocked address book and opened it to the B's. There was the listing. He read the number over to himself and glanced at the telephone.
It wouldn't be right to go and see her, he told himself. But he kept thinking of her firm, full tits, arid a stirring in his loins impelled him to act.
It was at least partly Brenna's fault, he rationalized. She had no business running off and leaving him for the entire night, especially after he had let her know he wanted a piece. Anyway, it wouldn't hurt her. And wasn't a husband entitled to have a little outside fun?
A surge of pleasurable anticipation arose within him as he walked to the telephone and picked it up.
"Come on, baby-take it off!" Bob cried as Joann gyrated in the center of the room, her fingers plucking teasingly at a shoulder ribbon of her bra.
The hi-fi was blaring rock 'n roll, the other couples were ensconced on sofa and chair, caressing and kissing, and Joann had already removed her dress and slip and stockings. Now she was prancing around in her bra and pants, white garters dangling from beneath the pink panty hems.
Her generous rounded buttocks wiggled in the clinging nylon like the proverbial piglets under a blanket, and her outsize breasts all but burst the cups of her pink brassiere. Both undergarments were opaque, so the men had not yet gotten a glimpse of her nipples or the thatch at her loins.
Elena was seated across Edgar's thighs, and he watched the girl who was dancing as his hand explored high underneath Elena's dress. Her face was a little flushed and, strangely enough, her eyes were on Brenna, who sat beside Branch on the sofa.
Brenna had glanced at the exotic girl a couple of times, and the look which she had drawn in return was unsettling. Elena looked at her much as a man might, and there was a smoky hint of mystery in Elena's dark eyes.
"Goddamn it, Jo, don't tease us!" Bob yelled. He was pretty high and obviously as hot as an August night in Algiers.
"Yeah, Jo," Branch chimed in. "Show us those lovely boobs of yours, hmm?"
"Well, If you think it's all right."
She slid a bra ribbon down her arm and wiggled to get it past her elbow. A big breast popped out, its nipple red and flaring. She repeated the process with her other shoulder strap, and the other boob appeared.
A whoop went up from Bob, and Edgar's hand beneath Elena's dress apparently became more active as her legs parted and she slid her hips forward.
Branch turned and-whispered into Brenna's ear, "Here's where we go into action."
A surge of new excitement pulsed through Brenna as Branch turned her and pressed her backward against the seat cushions of the couch. He swung onto his knee beside the sofa, and, as he pulled her dress and slip all the way up to her waist, the others were treated to a spectacle which vied in erotic excitement with the one which Joann was putting on.
Brenna's golden-tanned thighs gleamed above her tight stockings as she elevated her knees and twisted in passionate agitation. Mint-colored frills and nylon clung to the hot vee of her lower belly and combined with the upraised shield of her legs to hide her pubic pelt.
Branch worked the necessary fasteners and proceeded to strip her dress and half-slip all the way up and off; Her tits were clasped at their undersides by a frill-edged, strapless bra of green satin, and her posture had already caused the luscious, mounds of flesh to shift upward so that the rims of her aureoles were exposed. Branch gripped the bra and parted it at the center, spilling her tits completely. His plucking fingertips quickly made her nipples hard.
As the pixies of passion began their little dance along her nerve tracks, on her breast tips and in the thicket of her loins, a cry from the center of the living room drew her glance.
The dancing Joann had just dispensed with her panties, revealing the fact that she was in reality a dark brunette, and Bob had arisen with a whoop to swing her up in his arms and carry her, as she squealed excitedly, toward the door leading to the bedroom.
"Hey, you two!" Branch raised his face to yell. "No fair running off. Let's enjoy ourselves all together."
"Is that all right with you, baby?" Bob asked the naked girl in his arms.
"You know it!" was her firm reply.
"Okay. I guess if the rest of you can stand it, I can." With that Bob deposited her in the center of the living room floor, and he paused only long enough to strip off his tie, shirt and trousers before he joined her.
Brenna didn't watch them for a while, and she didn't look to see what Edgar and Elena were doing. She was too absorbed with the action of Branch's talented fingers as they blazed trails of quivering excitement over her breasts and belly and along her thighs. He snatched and released first one garter clasp, then another. He brushed her stockings down. He bent to plant his hot mouth against the trembling soft flesh of an upper leg, and, as he kissed her there, his fingers wormed their way under a panty elastic and into the tangle of curls atop her love mound. The tip of his middle finger moved lower, parting her hot, moist vagina and sliding inside.
"Oooh ... daddy...." she moaned, and wriggled her ass against the couch cushions.
It wasn't long before Branch proceeded to slip her panties off, after which he leaned back to remove his own clothes. Brenna took advantage of this opportunity to check on the progress of the other two couples.
Elena's dress had been lowered to her middle and lifted high on her thighs. Her back was a long smooth line of uninterrupted naked flesh. More nakedness gleamed at her upper legs, above shining black stocking tops, as she straddled Edgar's lap, facing him, His pants and shorts were halfway down, and Brenna glimpsed his hairy balls as Elena lifted herself momentarily to sheath herself upon his upstanding sword of masculinity.
On the floor, Bob was atop Joann. His shorts were bunched about his knees, and his naked butt was twisting as he transmitted his passion to the voluptuous blonde. He glanced at Brenna while he was in the midst of it, and winked.
Joann's breasts quivered with the rhythmic force of Bob's onslaught. She had one cheek against the carpet and was watching Brenna and Branch. From the chair across the room, Edgar also was observing the couch over Elena's shoulder, even as her hot, clinging cunt slid up and down around his penis.
Brenna thrilled at the attention she was getting and the moment Branch's big stiff cock was revealed and he moved toward her, she parted her legs widely, placing one foot on the back of the sofa and the other on the floor. But Branch didn't mount her right away.
He said, "Sit up, darling," and he helped to lift her with his hands.
Her head was in a swim from the combined effects of the liquor and the erotic excitement which charged the atmosphere in the room. Branch moved forward between her parted legs, and his hands at the back of her head had to exert hardly any pressure at all in order to persuade her to bow to his will.
Her wet, warm mouth enveloped the end of his rod, and her lips worked at the ridge as her tongue teased the tingling tip. His hands were down between them-jiggling, rolling and squeezing her full breasts.
He let her suck and lick at his penis for long moments, then guided her onto her back once more and arranged her legs as she'd had them before the fellatio had begun. He lowered himself atop her and his slick shaft slid all the way into her eager cunt. While he screwed her, she watched through glazed eyes as Bob finished with Joann and pulled out. Elena arose from Edgar at about the same time, leaving a wet and wilted stalk between his legs.
Bob went to Elena, while Joann and Edgar found a place on the floor near the far wall. The two couples watched each other and the action on the couch, kissing and caressing lightly all the while. By the time Branch was ready to begin transmitting his final jarring lightning bolts of passion into Brenna, the swappers on the floor had joined. Elena crouched above Bob, while Edgar topped Joann.
Brenna closed her eyes now and gave herself over to the glorious sensation of touch as Branch's big, thick penis slid in and out, in and out ... gathering speed and force all the time, battering her, ramming her, pummeling her as his passion grew.
She tightened suddenly and squealed, arching up to clasp the full, throbbing length of the organ as it squirted and twitched, Branch growling and shuddering from the impact.
The rest of the evening was a blur before her eyes. She and Branch poured fresh drinks and consumed them as they watched the copulating couples on the floor shudder to a finish. In thinking about it later, she didn't believe Bob had gotten to her, but her memory refused to work reliably. Her last firm recollection of the heavy-set, jolly man had him sacked out on the floor, naked, of course, his mouth open and snoring loudly, his prick having shrunk almost to the dimensions of a caterpillar.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"Oh, Dave I ooh, darling, that feels so good!"
These words issued from the lips of Betty Compton as Dave's lips sucked at one of her huge, pink nipples. At the same time, his hand was warmly clasping her other boob, kneading and rolling it as its tip dug into the cup of his palm.
Betty had been happy to have him come over and "discuss her new job", but shortly after he arrived the discussion had been drowned in kisses. He had begun to undress her as they sat on her living room sofa. He had removed her dress and slip and bra.
Now she sat beside him in her white nylon panties as he paid ardent tribute to her mammaries.
He hadn't begun to undress himself yet so Betty commenced to do this while he kissed and played with her bosom. She began at the place which interested her most, lowering the zipper on his fly. As she whimpered and twisted her shoulders, wiggling her tit more deeply into his mouth, her hand snaked its way inside his pants and shorts, grasping the hardy shaft it found there and swinging the weapon out.
"Oooh ... so long!" she exclaimed appreciatively as her curled fingers slid up and down his rod, then delved into his clothes once more to coddle and caress his nuts.
With this going on, Dave was impelled to escalate his caressing of Betty. His mouth remained clamped about the bristling crest of. a boob, but he let the other breast ooze out of his grasp as he directed his hand downward and reached her satiny belly, making her shiver with delight, and Dave lifted the elastic of her pants to slide it inside the flimsy garments. Now his hand cupped her entire plump little tummy, his fingertips touching the top of her triangular patch of curls. She gripped his penis hard and scootched forward on the couch, tilting her pussy for the caress she wanted.
Dave didn't disappoint her.
His long, slim fingers slid down through her curls until his hand surrounded her love mound. Now he pulled his lips from her breast and brought them to her eager mouth, which was open. His lips sealed themselves to hers, and his tongue stirred the warm interior of her mouth as his fingers opened the envelope of her passion and began sliding up and down along the hot, slick groove.
She whimpered and twisted her hips until one of his fingers penetrated deeper. He moved it as far into her as it could reach, then began to slide it in and out as her hand pumped his passion-plunger. It seemed to grow bigger and harder with every stroke until it was as engorged as it could possibly get.
Finally he removed his hand from inside her panties and lifted her hand away from him. Her head lolled back, her eyelids falling closed, her mouth wet and open.
"Are you ready, honey?" he asked huskily.
"Oh, yes! Take me to bed ... please ... now ... !"
He stood up, his pecker pointing nakedly, and lifted her in his arms. He carried her into the adjoining bedroom and placed her in the center of the bed.
He paused long enough to remove all his clothing, then joined her on the mattress. He kissed her along the top elastic of her panties, caressing her cunt through, the moist nylon at her crotch. He let his lips roam once more to the twin soft hills of her bosom, gobbling up each rigid nipple in turn and letting them boh away after he had taken a long, soul-satisfying suck.
"Oooh, hurry.." she moaned. "I can't wait any longer. I've gotta have it."
"Have what, sweetness?" he murmured as he began to remove her panties.
"You know. This!" Her hand found what it wanted and wrapped lovingly about the rigid stalk.
"Tell me. I want to hear you say it."
She said, "Give me your cock! Ram it into me all the way!"
He tossed her panties over the foot of the bed, and her legs moved wide apart. He wheeled atop her, and her eager hand fed him into the channel of her lust. The thrill as his hard tool slid all the way into her hot, moist depths was so intense that it felt to him as if the top of his head were lifting off.
He began immediately to pull and thrust, pull and thrust, pumping her, probing her, rubbing the love button at the top of her velvet crack so that she squirmed and squealed with delight.
He dug his hands downward between her body and the bed and filled them with the spongy divisions of her ass. He compressed the cheeks and lifted them so that he could penetrate her even more deeply, and the compression made their fit very snug indeed. This contributed to Betty's pleasure as well as his own, and she began to tell him, in panting bursts of purple prose, how much she enjoyed what he was doing to her:
"Oh, that's wonderful! Keep doing it! Harder! Harder! Oh, God ... nnn, I love your prick ... you move it so good ... screw me all night long...."
He felt for a while as if he could really last all night. His organ pulsated with the full virility of his manhood, and as he slid it up and down within the encircling softness of her cunt, the exhilaration which beat through him was wonderful in the extreme. Betty was moving now as well, twisting and bumping upward. Soon it became unnecessary for him to hold her buttocks any longer, and he slipped his hands out to brace them flat against the bed. He elevated the upper portion of his body and watched her pink mouth twist in sweet anguish as he continued to drive his dick deeply into her.
When Betty began to come, he knew he couldn't delay his own climax, and he yielded to the temptation to stroke very rapidly. He made the bedsprings squeak harshly as she gasped and cried and clutched him with her deep internal muscles. Then he let go, shuddering and expelling his lust. The hot juices of their bodies mingled.
"Ooohhh...." she sighed blissfully as he lowered his weight against her and lay still. "Darling ... I've never been loved so well!"
That was the way Dave felt too, at the moment. But then, he nearly always felt that way right after he finished with a girl.
It wasn't long before guilt came to the forefront of his mind, and he slipped out of Betty and rolled onto his back.
"I knew it would be that good for us," she murmured dreamily "I knew it from the first time you walked into the answering serviced said to myself, if I can ever get that guy into a bedroom, he'll show me a wonderful time. And you did! Oh, darling, I feel so beautifully screwed."
He chuckled and placed his hand on her wet genital mound. "It was good. But we mustn't let ourselves get carried away. I'm married, you know, and I intend to stay that way."
"Okay," she replied a little sharply, and removed his hand from her. "So I didn't try to make you say you love me, did I?"
"You didn't, Betty. And I admire you for that."
"Great!" was her sarcastic reply. But her tone quickly changed as she turned toward him and began to kiss him along the arm.
"There's no reason why we can't have a lot of times like this together, and, who knows, maybe something will grow out of it. Stranger things have happened."
"That kind of talk makes me edgy-things growing, I mean. You do take the pills, don't you?"
"Of course. Don't worry." She nipped him with her strong, even teeth.
Though he apparently didn't have to worry about an unwanted pregnancy, he felt a twinge over Betty's attitude. She had acted very free and easy until after they had made it; then she'd let him know quickly how she felt. She was in love with him; there could be no doubt of that. He didn't love her and didn't want to. He thought about Brenna.
"I've got to go home," he said as he sat up.
"You told me your wife was with a sick relative for the whole night. What's the hurry about leaving?"
"I'm not sure she'll be away all night."
"How do you know she's with her aunt, or whatever it was she told you?"
"Hmm?" He looked at Betty closely.
"I mean ... well, wives have cheated before."
He thought about that briefly. It was possible, of course. Brenna had always enjoyed the admiring glances of other men, and she had played around some before he met her. But he didn't really believe....
He got to his feet.
"It was great, honey," he said to the bushed blonde who lay, hair mussed and legs spread, in the center of the rumpled bed, "Dave?"-
"Yes."
She sat up, and her large breasts bounced. "This wasn't just a one-night kick, was it?"
"I don't know," he replied a little sharply. "Don't push me."
"Okay." She hesitated. "What about the job? Is that all set?"
"Yeah."
She smiled and hopped to her feet beside him. She pressed her naked front against him, her breasts spreading, their loins mingling moistly.
"I'll be a good secretary for you," she murmured, "and a good mistress, too. You'll see."
He shied away from committing himself about the second part of the proposition. But something in the back-of his mind told him that he wouldn't be able to have her in his office every day, parading her boobs back and forth and wiggling her ass, without decking her every now and then. And probably ever time he would feel as guilty afterward as he did right now.
"Can I use your shower?" he asked with a smile.
"Sure. I'll join you, if you like."
"Not this time," he said, and patted her springy butt. And he realized, after he had said it, that this was a commitment of sorts. Well, what was a man to do?
"Hey ... sleeping beauty...."
The husky drawl was accompanied by a gentle shaking of her shoulder, and Brenna opened her eyes. She looked up to meet the dark gaze of Elena, who was standing beside the bed nude, looking down at her.
Brenna blinked, then suddenly sat up, causing her breasts to lurch. She looked down at her quivering nakedness, then at the naked girl beside her, then around the room. She was still in Branch's apartment, but she and Elena seemed to be alone, and they were in the bedroom. Brenna didn't remember going in there before she fell asleep.
"How'd I get in here?" she asked. Her mouth tasted dry, and her head throbbed dully.
"Walt carried you. You were really out, love."
"Where's everybody else?"
"Gone. The party's over."
"What time is it?"
"Three-ish. I don't know."
"Why didn't you leave with the rest of them?"
"I wanted to take a bath before I got dressed. I can't stand to walk around with the essence of male clinging to me. Maybe you'd like to soak for a while, too, hmm?"
"What I'd really like is about three aspirin."
"Mm-mm." Elena shook her head. Brenna watched her tiny tits quiver. "Aspirin isn't the thing to take now. Take another jolt. One stiff one. That will ease your head better than anything else."
"Maybe you're right," Brenna admitted.
"Stay there. I'll get it"
Brenna watched the other girls' neat, olive-toned buttocks twist smoothly as she left the room. It gave Brenna a peculiar feeling to be alone with her in the apartment, particularly with both of them naked. She recalled how Elena had looked at her earlier.
When the tall brunette returned with the drink, Brenna stared at the dark, glistening triangle at her loins
"Here." Elena handed Brenna the glass. "Drink this."
"What is it-vodka?"
"Mm-hmm."
Brenna lifted the glass and took a lengthy sip. She coughed and put the glass on the night table Almost immediately she felt better.
"That was some whoop-de-doo," she remarked, and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
"Weren't they disgusting, though!"
"What?"
"The men, I mean. What a bunch of pigs !"
Brenna looked at the other girl closely. "I wouldn't say they were that bad."
"You mean you enjoyed the way they treated you?"
"Well....not completely."
"Of course you didn't. If you were honest, you'd admit you didn't enjoy it at all."
"Now, wait a minute."
"After you've been at this as long as I have, it'll be all you can do to put up with the slobs. But the money's good, and you can always find other compensations.".
"What do you mean?"
"Making it with a girl, of course That's the only way to go, believe me."
A strange sensation passed through Brenna. She had known women who were supposed to be "gay," but she had never been close to one in circumstances like this.
Elena was watching her. "Aren't you curious?"
"About what?"
"Going to bed with a girl."
The tingling sensation within Brenna grew stronger. "No," she replied quickly, too quickly.
Elena noticed this and smiled. "There you go, fibbing again. You'd like to try it at least once. You know you would. Well, baby, this is your chance. I'm wound as tight as a spring, and, like I said, I washed all the male smell off."
Brenna stared at her. She felt color rising in her cheeks. The tingle which had been working between her legs turned into the kind of erotic excitement she always felt just before she went to bed with a man.
"It isn't right," was all she could say.
"No? Well, I wouldn't be the one to judge. But just offhand. I'd say it doesn't seem any worse than lying down with a man you don't know ... and for money, yet. Of course, maybe you won't like it at all. If not, that's reason enough to never do it again."
"I'm sure I wouldn't like it," Brenna said, but she was not at all positive.
"Most girls say that before they try. The fact is, you don't know. Here-this is a little test."
Elena's hand moved quickly forward and closed gently around one of Brenna's breasts. She worked the firm, pliant flesh with greater gentleness than any man had ever shown, but with amazing erotic effect. Thrills scurried through Brenna's body. Her nipple hardened.
Finally she grasped Elena's wrist and moved the fondling hand away.
"Well?" the slim brunette drawled, a wise glint in her eyes.
"We mustn't do it."
"Why? Because you didn't like it?" She glanced pointedly at Brenna's breast. "If you didn't, your titty did. Look how hard the nipple is."
"That doesn't mean anything," Brenna replied, and tried to edge past her.
"But how did you feel ... inside? Wasn't there a pleasant response?"
"No I Where are my clothes?"
"Go on and take your bath first, honey. I won't bother you if you don't want me to."
Brenna hesitated. She really should bathe before going home. She didn't want to risk having Dave detect a tell-tale scent on her.
"All right," she said. "But I'm going to lock the door."
Elena laughed melodiously. "You really don't trust yourself, do you? I'm glad to know my touch was that effective."
"That isn't it at all."
"Okay, have your own way. But there's no lock on the bathroom door."
Brenna looked at her Intently. "Will you promise not to come in while I'm bathing?"
"I won't do anything you don't want me to do," was Elena's slightly ambiguous reply.
Perhaps this ambiguity appealed to Brenna. At any rate, she did walk to the bathroom. She entered and closed the door behind her, confirming what Elena had said about the absence of a lock. Funny, but Brenna had never noticed that before. Of course, she had never before felt the need of locking anyone out.
She poured some bath powder into the tub and turned on the water. The bubbles billowed up, their fragrance filling the room, and the sight and smell made Brenna feel better. She looked at herself in the mirror.
Making it with a girl, she thought. Are you the type? Could you really get a kick that way? When Elena played with your tit, it felt good. No use denying that. But that was only a fluke. It had to be.
Brenna took out her toothbrush and paste. She brushed her teeth and rinsed her mouth, using a paper cup from the wall dispenser.
By now the tub was nearly full, and she bent to turn the water off. She stepped into the fragrant bubbly warmth and eased down. She lay back for a few moments before starting to bathe.
The door opened.
Elena smiled. "I promised not to do anything you don't want. But surely that doesn't include helping you bathe." She dropped to her knees on the bath mat. "I have very good hands."
Wild excitement churned through Brenna as the other girl dipped her hands into the tub and found Brenna's slender waist.
She could have insisted that Elena leave, and no doubt Elena would have done so ... but Brenna didn't insist. She didn't say anything, in fact. She steeled herself against the thrills which were bombarding her nerves, and she closed her eyes as she felt Elena's soft, slippery hands take possession of her breasts. Elena began to knead them very gently.
"There ... there...." the exotic brunette crooned. "Doesn't that feel good? Doesn't it feel like more? Hmm?"
She kept kneading with one hand as she slipped the other out of the water and picked up the soap. She moistened the bar and turned it several times in her hand, then dropped it into the water and said, "Sit up. Let's get those titties above the water line, so I can really work on them."
Brenna obeyed.
Elena's soapy hand clasped one, and this created a sensation which was even more pleasurable than before. The extremely slippery feel of hand on breast, with only Brenna's stiff nipple to interrupt the otherwise complete sense of softness, was very stimulating to both girls.
Soon Elena was rubbing and rolling both of Brenna's lush breasts, and Brenna had her head back, eyes closed, enjoying every nuance of pleasure to be drawn from this strange intimate experience.
When Elena urged Brenna to get up on her knees in the tub, Brenna complied. Now Elena was able to fondle and caress her nether regions, and she did this with a tenderness which no male had ever shown. Her hands around Brenna's wet, slipper buttocks were a delight. Her fingertips between the velvet lips of Brenna's pussy sent thrills careening through her which made her head light.
She was hardly aware of what was happening when Elena helped her out of the tub and began to dry her with a huge towel, the mild abrasiveness of which stimulated her nerve endings to an even higher pitch of desire.
Now Elena helped her into the other room and over to the bed. The slender brunette lay beside her. As Elena's hands began to work their magic on Brenna's willing body once again, the Lesbian murmured, "Play with me too, darling. Put your hands here ... and here." Elena showed her. "That's it. Mmm, now isn't that nice?"
And when the time came for them to change position, Brenna accepted this eagerly.
She had always derived her greatest thrill from kisses lavished on her body, but no man had ever kissed her as excitingly as Elena did now. Elena knew just how to apply her lips and tongue so as to evoke the most voluptuous reaction. And Brenna had the added excitement of kissing Elena's pussy at the same time.
They were caught up in a mutual surge of passion which carried Brenna to a height far surpassing anything she had known before. Her climax was deliriously good.
She didn't stop to realize that the novelty of the experience had a great deal to do with the degree of excitement which she felt. Her mind raced on to a conclusion:
I must be a Lesbian at heart. I've always enjoyed oral love, and with Elena it was the greatest.
This thought twisted tormentingly in her mind, like a hook in a fish's mouth, as she was getting dressed and as she left the apartment, carrying the suitcase which contained her party dress and high heels. The torment increased as she drove toward home, where she knew Dave would be waiting for her.
What if he wanted sex tonight? Oh, God, she couldn't!
The way she felt now, she doubted if she would ever be able to make love with a man again.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Hank Samson was atop his wife, his penis sliding up and down in her vagina, and she was whimpering softly in pleasure the way she always did.
Though he had been the one to Initiate the sex act, and though his body demonstrated arousal, he wasn't really enjoying himself. His mind was tormented by thoughts of Brenna even while he possessed Jeannie and moved atop her in a mockery of passion.
His eyes were closed, and he fought to create in his imagination a vision of Brenna's voluptuous loveliness. He tried to convince himself that it was her body he was having. He moved harder and faster in an effort to stimulate the illusion.
But it was in vain.
The scrawny form beneath him was his wife's. There were practically no hills at all on her chest when she was lying on her back-none of the cushiony feel of Brenna's luscious breasts. Jeannie's pelvis was bony. Her legs were too thin as they wound about him. Even inside, she lacked Brenna's plushy warmth.
It was no good!
No good at all!
He finished when she did, climaxing weakly and without true satisfaction. Frustrated in his soul, he rolled off Jeanie.
"Oh, that was wonderful," she purred. "I'm glad you woke me up for that."
He gave a little chuckle, kissed her and said nothing.
"Well, see you in the morning, lover." Jeannie turned onto her side.
In less than two minutes, she was sound asleep.
Hank couldn't remain in the bed. He couldn't stand to lie beside her, especially now.
He would have to go for a walk, he decided. That would work some of the frustration out of him and tone down his resentment. Then maybe he could drop off to sleep after he got back.
He left the bed and uhurriedly dressed.
The night was warm and moonlit. The residential street was silent and deserted, except for some prowling cats, and he walked along slowly, smoking a cigarette.
If one of the neighbors were to hear his footsteps and see a man on the sidewalk at that hour, they might become alarmed and call the police, he realized. But this was a chance he would have to take. He had to work the meanness out of his system, or he was apt to do something dreadful.
Just as he approached the Marshall's home, and as his mind toyed lewdly with images of Brenna in bed with Dave, a pair of headlights appeared down the street. Hank hesitated, then stepped in back of a tree in the parkway. The tree was a good deal thinner than he was, but he felt certain his presence would not be evident unless someone were really looking.
The headlights slowed at the Marshalls' driveway and the car turned in. From the side Hank recognized Brenna's old Chevy.
Now, what in the world would she be doing out alone until this hour? he wondered as he watched her alight. And she's carrying a suitcase!
He stepped out from behind the tree and moved forward, his heart beating fast. Just being close to her was enough to arouse him, but the excitement he now felt was a mingling of sexual stimulation and resentment, for the question which he had asked himself a moment earlier had just been answered in his mind. "Brenna?"
She gasped and whirled about. "It's me, Hank," he said. He didn't smile as he moved up.
"Good Lord! Hank, what are you doing out here at this hour?"
"I could ask you the same thing, except I figure I already know. You've been out with some guy. Goddamn you, Brenna! You threw me over because you said you were going to be a good wife, but that was a lie. You're a hot-pants! You've been out screwing around!"
"Hank, for God's sake, keep quiet," she whispered urgently. "Do you want to wake up the whole neighborhood?"
"Okay," he whispered back. "I'll tone down. But I want you to admit the truth." He grasped her by the arm. "You've been with a man, haven't you?"
Brenna's thinly constructed composure cracked, and she jerked her arm away from him. "What business is it of yours?" she whispered harshly. "I've told you to leave me alone. Now get lost! I never want to see your stupid face again. Is that clear?"
"No! Goddamn it, no!" Hank howled.
A light winked on across the street and another in the house next door as Hank grasped her by the. arm once again and literally dragged her to the front door of her house. She struggled with him, but it was useless. He was strong and determined.
He grasped her purse and, as he continued to hold her with his other hand, set the bag on a stone ledge at the side of the porch so' that he could get into it one-handed and remove her keys. He held them up, found the right one in the glow from the nearby street lamp, and unlocked the door. He shoved her into the house and followed.
"Hank, you're out of your mind!" she exclaimed under her breath. "What good is this going to do?"
"It's gonna do me a hell of a lot of good!" he said in full voice. "You've ruined my life, baby. Now I'm gonna ruin yours !"
"Hey, who's out there?" Dave called from the dark interior of the house.
"It's Hank Samson, Dave. I'm with your wife."
Hank snapped the lights on and as Brenna stood frozen to the spot, her mind a confused whirl of conflicting thoughts and emotions, Dave appeared in the living room doorway. His hair stood on end. His beard-shadowed face was wild. He wore pajama bottoms only and was struggling into a robe.
"What's the meaning of this?" he demanded. "What are you doing here, Hank?"
He noted the way Hank was holding Brenna by the arm, then his eyes dropped to the suitcase she was holding. "What are you doing with that, Brenna? What in the name of God is going on?"
"Sit down," Hank said, more softly now. "I've got a lot to say, and then I figure Brenna will have some things to tell you, too."
Bewildered, Dave sat.
And Hank began to talk.
By the time he was through and had left the Marshall? alone in their house, Hank was relieved, in a sense. At least the steam was out of him, and his resentment was eased by the belief that justice had been done.
The Marshalls sat silently and faced each other, seeing different people than they had known all these years. The jealous anger which Brenna had expected to read on Dave's face, was not there. She read compassion. And Dave saw his worst suspicions about Brenna confirmed in the guilt which her face wore. But he felt at the same time that her guilt was no
"worse than his. He had cheated on her twice. The shame of the last instance was still fresh in his mind; the scent of the woman with whom he had lain still clung to his flesh.
"I ... I thought you'd kill me if you found out," Brenna said, her voice so low that it could be scarcely heard.
He looked again at the open suitcase which lay on the floor. He raised his gaze to his wife's face, "Why did you do it?" he asked.
She stared at him and her lips trembled, but no sound came out.
"What set it all off?" he persisted, "Did you decide you didn't love me any more?"
"No!" she said quickly. "I did love you. I do!"
"Then why was it? Surely it couldn't have been for the insurance business Hank threw my way."
"No, it wasn't," she admitted, looking down. "I thought that was the reason at first, but I know better now. I'm really not sure about the reason, Dave. I don't know my own mind very well. But I think....I think it was because I didn't feel like a real wife to you. I was kind of in a middle world, between being a wife and being single. That was why I couldn't put other men out of my mind. I seemed to have to revert to the way things were before."
"But why?"
She looked at him directly and there was a candidness about her gaze which he hadn't seen in a very long time. "I believe part of the fault was yours, because you didn't trust me. And part of the fault was mine-I've been vain, and I wasn't willing to have children. They would have made a difference. Also, I think some of the trouble goes way back."
"What are we to do now?" he asked gently.
She looked down once again, "I need help. I want to start seeing a psychiatrist. In the meantime, if you want me to live somewhere else...."
"No, we should be together. Especially now." She raised her eyes to his. "I'm not promising any thing, Dave. I still feel that I love you, but ... well, I'm not sure of anything I feel. I'm not even certain that I'm capable of love. Maybe I was never taught to love, really. Maybe I was just taught to indulge myself."
He stared at her and said nothing.
"I'm going to try to find out who and what I really am," she murmured, "and then we'll see if there's a future for us. I hope there is. I want there to be."
It was on this slender hope that their marriage rested.
Dave crossed to her, held her hand in his for a moment, then walked to the guest room, where he spent the remainder of the night.
In the silent darkness Brenna lay alone, staring toward the ceiling.
The experience which she had shared just an hour before with Elena seemed unreal now. The party ... her arrangement with Branch ... all the men ... everything that had happened to her in the last several weeks seemed part of a bad dream.
