enovel Afternoon Foreplay I.M. Feddup [Future Story Codes]

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Afternoon Foreplay ....(105k)    by I.M. Feddup

I

I lay awake, waiting for the sleeping pill to take effect. Hopefully it would act soon.

The silence of the room was punctuated by two sounds. One came from the easy breathing of my husband Aron. He was already sound asleep; but then, he always slept well, especially after we had made love. His hand rested on my naked breast. He had put it there after I had returned from the bathroom where I had taken my sleeping pill.

I envied his blissful contentment. No, that wasn't quite true. My feelings were closer to resentment than envy. There were very few times when a good screwing was sufficient to put me in that contented euphoria so vividly described in sex manuals or glowingly depicted in so many novels. Usually an orgasm would be followed by the man and the woman blissfully sleeping in each other's arms, with naked bodies still touching and the rhythm of their breathing identical. I never had experienced these reactions after having sex. If I experienced anything, it was a heightening of tension, a restiveness, that like the surge of the flood tide took long hours to subside. This did not mean that Aron was unable to bring me to a climax but rather that no matter how intense my orgasm, it was never intense enough to send me off to sleep. After almost two years of marriage, I should have been able to reconcile myself to this condition, but I wasn't. And as a result, I was beginning to resent any sexual contact with Aron. I. kept my feelings to myself, and became adept at feigning an intensity that did not exist.

The other sound in the room came from the intermittent splash of a huge raindrop against the windowpane. I found this unnerving, like the drip of water from a leaky faucet.

I never cared for rain. It was depressing as hell, especially at Christmas time. If it was snow. instead of rain, then for a few brief hours the city would be an enchanted place, at least until the snow became dirty and slushy.

A few brief hours of snow and I would go--

"Shit!" I whispered, annoyed with myself for indulging in mental masturbation, playing the useless childhood game of what if-when I knew damn well it was raining. It had been raining all day and the forecast was for more of the same tomorrow. I took a deep breath and waited until I heard the splash of a drop against the window before exhaling. Then I closed my eyes and hoped that I would soon feel the effects of the sleeping pill.

Closing my eyes accomplished nothing. I opened them, looked up at the ceiling and suddenly realized how desperately unhappy I was, in fact how desperately unhappy I had been for longer than I cared to remember. It seemed to me that I had never known real happiness. Even as a small girl I seldom laughed, though in all fairness to my childhood and adolescence, I would have to add that I never cried either. Though this wasn't because I had never wanted to, but rather because I couldn't.

I grew up in a fatherless house. My mother told me that he was killed in Korea, shortly after I was born. When I was old enough to ask more questions about him, the answers I got were never very specific and left me more dissatisfied than before I asked. By the time I realized that I never saw a photograph of him, I possessed wisdom not to ask why.

My mother remained a widow, though she was an extremely beautiful woman and probably had many opportunities to remarry. I was quite sure that she never even had another male friend after my father was killed. But when I reached the age where I began to date, I realized how utterly abnormal her behavior was, especially since she radiated a dark, provocative sensuality.

Despite all her attention to me, I often felt alone and sometimes unloved.

Perhaps her greatest contribution to me as a woman, aside from the genetic, which gave me her dark complexion, black hair, sloe eyes and a figure which I knew women envy and men admire, was to give me the idea that I was different from other girls. But she never explained how I was different, and I remembered spending long hours trying to discover in what way did I differ from the girls I knew.

I thought I had the answer when I reached puberty, but I soon found out that several of my friends arrived at their biological womanhood before I had.

Once I asked my mother exactly why I was different.

She looked at me speculatively and said, "You must discover that on your own." Then she hugged me tightly. When I saw her face again it was stained with tears.

In my junior year at college, my mother suffered a stroke and died two days after she was admitted to the hospital. All opportunity to discover the secret of my difference was lost.

Two weeks after my mother's funeral, where I was the only mourner, I received a letter from her lawyer (I had no idea that she had one), informing me of the fact that I had come into a considerable amount of money. When I called the lawyer for an appointment, as he had requested in his letter, he said that he would be happy to meet with me but stipulated that I would not ask any questions. The result of the meeting was straightforward. I was provided with a substantial monthly income for the rest of my life, which would enable me to do all of the things that most people wish they could do.

During the neat few weeks I found that I really didn't care to know anything more than I knew because I discovered two significant facts about myself. The first was that I possessed an extraordinary artistic talent. And secondly, not only did men find me attractive but I found them extremely attractive.

Shortly after my mother's death I had my first affair. For me it was an affirmation of life, a statement of my own body. It was something that I had to do!

The man who introduced me to the pleasures of sex was a young instructor at the Art Student's League. He was as good in bed as he was in the classroom. And having experienced sex, my appetite for it became almost insatiable. I took a succession of lovers until I met and married Aron Dawson.

I don't know why I married him, though he is an extremely handsome man, with the broad shoulders of an athlete and 'the kind of perfect face that would make any artist want to sketch or paint him.

We lived together for several months before we married. It was he who wanted to make the relationship permanent. He joked that it was because I was the best damn lay he ever had.

Later I came to realize that he had not had many women. It was I who taught him the delightful subtleties of sexual expression. He was an apt pupil, and for a while I thoroughly enjoyed the many different roles in which I functioned. To be teacher, wife, mistress, and whore to the same man challenged my inventiveness.

For the better part of the first year of our marriage I temporarily gave up painting, but then found myself at loose ends, so to speak, and the painting helped.

Aron was a mechanical engineer and was employed by a large company at an excellent salary. He, was a man whose mind was logical to a degree that would often infuriate me. He never allowed himself to make a decision without first mentally computerizing all the facts.

I soon learned he arrived at his decision to marry by a careful analysis of all my attributes both in and out of bed, including my financial independence, before he asked.

Though I realized that we were poles apart, at least in the way our thought processes functioned, I also knew that the real bond between us was sex. For a while it was sufficient, but as it began to pall, I resented his reaction to my paintings.

He did not understand them and I couldn't explain them.

My art always had more than a touch of the bizarre in it and this feeling soon dominated all of my work. The things I painted did not exist in this physical world. But I saw them. They existed full blown in my mind and all I had to do was set them down on canvas.

The more recognition my work brought me, the less I needed Aron. Several times within the past months I was on the verge of telling him the truth about my feelings toward him. But either from lack of courage, or because I intuitively realized that the difference between myself and other women that my mother had drilled into me was beginning to manifest itself, I remained silent and waited, though I did not know why or for what I was waiting.

I was suddenly overcome by an intense feeling of frustration. I was twenty-two, beautiful,, and filled with the longing for sexual satisfaction. That this might be my lot for the rest of my life was more hideous than anything I could think of and made me tremble with fear.

And then I began to feel the effects of the sleeping pill. I imagined it dissolving into my bloodstream, moving to my brain, where it deadened the senses and let sleep finally claim me.

II

Early the next morning I was awakened by the movement "of Aron's hand down my back. I felt him pull my night gown up over my rump and then his hand began to caress me, sliding from one to the other while making sure that his forgers dallied just long enough in the crack between them to tease me. Ordinarily, I would have given in to my own desire or, if I still didn't feel like it, I would have allowed him to mount me and derive pleasure because I knew I was giving him pleasure.

But this time I did not move. I remained inert, feigning sleep. His caresses became more insistent and more intimate. I moved and made a wordless sound of disapproval.

"Honey?" he called softly.

I pretended not to hear.

"Honey?"

His voice was somewhat louder and its tone more determined.

"Honey?" he said a third time.

I knew I could not pretend to be asleep much longer. And his deft ministrations had awakened the need to be laid.

"What is it?" I asked, raising my head from the pillow to look at him. The, boyish smile on his face irked me.

He let go of my ass, put his arm on my shoulder and rolled me closer to him. "I want you. "Then his hand closed over my breast.

My nipples were already turgid and my cunt moist. But despite the growing desire in my body, I still did not want him to lay me and remained inert. His hand went from my breast to my sex.

"No!" I. exclaimed and drew away from him. "I don't feel like it."

The smile on his face vanished and in its place came the expression of complete surprise.

Almost immediately I was sorry for having been so sharp with him. I reached across the narrow space between us and touched his face with my hand. "I'm just not in the mood," I said apologetically.

"Oh?"

I forced myself to smile. "I didn't sleep very well," I explained. "I finally had to take a sleeping pill."

His brow furrowed with concern. "Is anything wrong?" he asked solicitously.

"I'm just tired," I said. "And somewhat worried." I had no intention of mentioning anything about my mental state, but the words were out before I could stop them.

"What's bothering you?" he questioned.

"A host of trivial things," I told him with a shrug. "Nothing of any importance."

"You're working too hard," he commented. "There's no need for you to spend so much time painting."

I knew that he would pick on my work as the chief source of my trouble. And because I did not want to make an issue of it, I said, "You might be right. Maybe I'll slow down a bit."

"No maybes about it," he told me. "It's an order. We don't need the money and if you're going to become sick over it, the whole thing isn't worth it."

I felt a sudden surge of anger at his less than subtle attempt to stop me from painting. I resented it but-managed to control myself and said, "I'll take it easy for a while."

"Good!" he exclaimed and playfully slapped my behind. "Go back to sleep." "Thanks."

"Think nothing of it," he said with a wave of his hand. He left the bed and padded into the bathroom.

I settled down again and swept the room with my eyes. The light was very dim, almost dark. I looked toward the window. From the grayness that showed through the open spaces on the side of the curtain and shade, I knew it was still raining. I shook my head, heaved a deep sigh and turning my head away from the window, closed my eyes.

For a few minutes the room was silent. Then I heard the shower and the sound of Aron's-off-key singing that lately I found exceedingly jarring. Aside from the monotone voice, he sang bits of songs mixed with nonsense doggerel of his own creation. This singing, if it could be called that, was his way of waking up. Aron was a morning person. Even when making love, he was a better performer in the morning than at any other time.

The shower stopped, and all I heard was his singing. I would have shouted at him to be quiet but again my need to avoid an argument took precedence over the vexation I felt. My only wish was that he would finish dressing quickly and leave me in peace.

After a while he bent over me and. said, "I've got to scoot now. See you at dinner."

"Yes, dear," I said, trying. to be cooperative.

"Remember," he cautioned, "don't work too hard."

I nodded and as a parting gesture he dosed his hand over my breast, then moved it to my cunt, which he fingered for a few moments before leaving the bedroom.

I waited until I heard the sound of the door to the apartment close and the lock click shut before I allowed myself to exclaim aloud, "Damn him to hell!"

I was absolutely sure he had purposely teased me in order to retaliate for my earlier negative response. He knew me well enough to know that once he touched my clit I would become excited.

I swore at him again, but the spring had already been wound tight. There was little I could do but find some relief for the tension in my body.

I sat up and slipped off my nightgown. When I lay down again I spread my naked thighs, dosed my eyes and very slowly I began to roll my bare nipples between my fingers until they became very hard. Then I kneaded my breasts, delighting in the pressure of my hands on them.

This was not the first time I masturbated in order to fund relief from my sexual tensions. I started to do it when I was about thirteen years old, which was when I discovered the good feeling that came when I played with my clit. And later on, when I was still a virgin, I would do it after a date with some young man whom I found to be sexually exciting. Then during the time I was sleeping with various guys, I did it because one or another of my partners failed to satisfy me.

But more recently I resorted to it because Aron failed to give me to the kind of satisfaction I craved.

My hands moved from my breasts to my flanks and across my stomach and then slowly over my pubis. The self-administered caresses filled me with an exquisite warmth and numbed my brain. I slid one finger over my turgid clit while the fingers of my other hand were busy caressing the wet lips of my vagina.

I gasped for breath as the intensity of my pleasure mounted. I placed one finger just inside the entrance to my cunt, which was already contracting spasmodically. With slow, deliberate movements I escalated the tension in my body many times. I increased the movements over my clit and within myself.

I writhed from the sheer pleasure that filled me. I lifted my thighs, clamping my hand between them.-The knot of tension inside of me was too enormous to contain and my body heaved up to meet the shuddering implosion of orgasmic fury that brought an animal-like wail of pleasure to my lips and made me tremble.

Drenched with perspiration, my hands wet with vaginal lubrication, I lay back. My eyes were still closed, and I luxuriated in the deep feeling of contentment that possessed me. After a while I opened my eyes. My vision was still slightly blurred and it took me a few moments to focus them.

I turned toward the window again and wondered if it was raining but I was too lethargic to move and find out. I closed my eyes and felt myself slip into a satisfying sleep.

Sometime later I reached down and pulled the blanket over me. I placed my hand between my naked thighs and drifted into a deeper sleep.

III

Moments before the wail of a passing fire engine slashed through my sleep I was dreaming. The dream was familiar.

* * *

I was in a valley. A deep snow covered. the land. Overhead the sky was covered by dark masses of rushing clouds. The howling wind had a fierce bite. In the distance a keep thrust itself out of the living rock on which it stood. I went toward the keep and suddenly found myself in its main hall.

In the shimmering torchlight I saw many people. All of them were dressed in black robes with the cowl pulled over their heads, obscuring their faces. I sensed something important was about to happen. My heart began to race. Though I moved among the hooded figures, they were oblivious to me.

I edged my way to the front of the hall until I had a clear view of what was happening.

A naked woman lay stretched out on a black-draped altar. A hooded figure moved toward the woman. Behind him was a huge inverted cross. The figure stood over the woman. Then suddenly I found myself looking up at a face no longer obscured by the hood. I was naked on the altar...

* * *

The shrieking sirens shattered the dream, scattering its remnants beyond my reach of recalling anything specific about it.

I opened my eyes and looked at the alarm clock on the night table. It was past ten o'clock. I decided to get up and go to my studio. By the time I finished my household chores, showered and dressed, it was eleven-thirty. When I stepped out on to the street I decided to stop at the luncheonette around the corner and take time for a quick brunch before going on the bus downtown.

A cold, wind-blown drizzle was falling. The street and everything on it was an ugly gray. I was chilled and quickened my pace. When I reached the corner my skin was covered with goose bumps.

A short time later I entered the steamy warmth of the luncheonette, glad to be out of the rain. I went directly to the counter and sat down. Except for a young man dressed in a black trench coat, I was the only other customer.

I knew all of the help by sight. The three men who worked the counter were standing close to where the young man in the black trench coat was seated. One of them gestured to me and said to the other: "La bruja esta equi." The third man looked at me and said something in a low voice and then all three of them laughed.

I suddenly felt terribly uncomfortable and would have left but the man whose comment I had heard already had started toward me. He was the one who usually waited on me.

He smiled and asked if I wanted a menu.

I had heard the question but several things were happening simultaneously. Though I did not understand Spanish, the word bruja seemed to strike a familiar chord. And during the few moments I was trying to remember where I had previously heard the word, the young man in the black trench coat turned toward me. But my vision suddenly blurred and he dissolved, even as I looked at him.

"Do you want a menu?" the counterman repeated.

I moved my eyes back to him. "No thank you," I said. "I know what I want."

He nodded.

I took a moment to wipe my eyes with a tissue and then said, "Orange juice, a toasted English and coffee."

"Coffee now."

"Yes, thank you."

As soon as his back was turned to me, I looked toward the end of the counter. The man in the black trench coat was not there.

"Very bad weather," the counterman said, placing a steaming cup of coffee in front of me.

"Yes." To appear more normal I added, "It's supposed to rain all through the day."

"The man on the radio said that it will turn to snow later tonight. There's already much snow out of the city."

"At least," I said, after sipping the hot coffee, "everything won't feel so soggy." He did not answer and went off to fill the rest of my order. I stole another glance at the end of the counter. There was no one there. But I was sure that I had seen a man in a black trench coat. Perhaps he had left when my vision had blurred?

The counterman came back with my orange juice and toasted English. I expected him to return to his friends but he remained in front of me. I drank the juice and began eating the muffin.

The counterman's attention seemed to be focused on what little was visible of the street through the steam-clouded plate glass windows. Unless I was determined to keep my eyes down-cast, it was impossible for me not to look at him.

He was not tall, but solidly built. His hands and arms were covered with thick black hair. He was swarthy and his face was interesting. I guessed he was about thirty, though he looked older.

As I studied him, I Nought about how I would sketch him. And feeling much warmer, I reached down to unbutton my coat. The movement was automatic, a simple response to an environmental situation. The slacks and sweater I wag wearing were quite ordinary. But a moment after my coat fell open the counterman changed his focus of attention from the windows to me.

The expression on his face betrayed his thoughts. He looked at me, moving his lidded eyes from my face to the swell of my breasts.

The obvious intensity of his desire sent a hot flash of excitement through me. My cheeks burned. I knew I could e looked away and ended it. But I didn't. I was thrilled by what was silently happening between us. I watched his nostrils flare as he sucked in air and slowly exhaled.

I knew that his prick was hard. And though he made no other move I could feel him reach out and press, my breasts with his hands. Then suddenly I felt myself responding to his thoughts. I knew what they were. He was imagining what I would be like in bed. How he would play with my tits with his hands and how he would slip down between my naked thighs and move his tongue over my cunt. How he would finally thrust his swollen prick into my hot, wet sea.

We stared at each other for several moments. Then suddenly his eyes opened wide and his jaw went slack. A reddish hue suffused his dark complexion and he started to back way. Somehow he realized that I had divined his thoughts and was either embarrassed or frightened, possibly even both.

But I was not going to let him retreat so easily. "May I have more coffee?" I said, pointing to the half-empty cup.

He nodded and returned for the cup.

When he set it down in front of me again I said, "I'm a painter."

He looked at me questioningly.

"An artist," I said. "I paint pictures."

He nodded and smiled.

"Would you pose for me?" I asked.

"You want to paint me?"

"Yes," I answered, starting to drink the second cup of coffee.

He laughed.

"I'm serious," I told him and to prove it I wrote down the address and phone number of my studio. "You call and tell me when you're coming."

"But lady--"

"My name is Lila Dawson What's yours?"

"Carlos Hermiez," he said.

"By the way," I commented, "I pay the usual model fee."

"Money?" he questioned.

"Twenty-five dollars an hour," I said.

"No joke?"

I shook my head.

"Madre mia!" he exclaimed. "That's good money."

I smiled, knowing he would come to the studio and pose.

IV

Just as I left the luncheonette, my bus came. I paid my fare and had the choice of many seats. I took one in the rear, near the window.

Progress downtown during the best of weather was slow, but that day it seemedas though we were hardly moving. I regretted not having braved the rain and walked the two extra blocks to the subway.

I decided to keep calm over the lack of progress and content myself with the thought that at least I was out of the rain. But that did not still my impatience for very long. I began to fret over the time that was being wasted through no fault of my own. There were so many things that needed doing at the studio.

I sighed with exasperation and looked out the rain-splattered window. Though it was only late morning, most of the stores had their lights on. And those people who were on the street walked under the protection of an umbrella or were hunched over to avoid the full force of the pelting rain.

I found myself wondering why I had said anything to the counterman about posing for me. Surely I hadn't planned to, at least not on a conscious level. I seldom painted anything or anyone in a realistic manner.

But then I remembered the way he had looked at me and how I had felt. And I knew I had used the request to pose as an excuse for whatever reaction I had had to the way he had looked at me.

I smiled and saw my reflection in the window smile back.

The truth of the matter was that I was flattered by his obvious sexual interest. And to extend that line of thinking somewhat further, I admitted that he did arouse a certain curiosity in me.

I tried to imagine what I would say if Carlos-it was easier to think about hint by his name than by simply referring to him as the counterman-did call? His name automatically conjured his image.

Perhaps, as a matter of courtesy, I would sketch him for an hour or so. There might be a way for me to use the sketches in some of my work.

I turned away from the window and regretted I did not have something to read, although I seldom carried any sort of reading matter on the bus. Usually I spent the time looking at the faces of the other passengers, their hands or just the way they sat. The facial expression, the placement of the hands or the general posture of a man or woman revealed a great deal about the individual, whether he or she was troubled, angry or frightened. But in addition to this interest, I had a more specific reason for seldom reading on the bus, which had to do with the motion of the vehicle. The constant movement made it difficult for my eyes to hold their focus and I invariably wound up with a headache.

I looked around the bus. Except for myself, there was an elderly woman seated up front, close to the driver, and too far away from me to study. I turned my attention to the window. The rain was still falling without the slightest indication that it would soon cease. If anything, it seemed to be coming down heavier than it had been before. Even the gloom had substantially deepened.

As I contemplated the miserable weather, I became acutely aware of the motion of the bus. It suddenly seemed to be bouncing up and down.

The movement was just enough to make me reach out to hold on to the rear of the seat in front of me in order to steady myself. I was beginning to feel nauseous and closed my eyes to prevent an attack of vertigo. Had I possessed some degree of control, I would have gotten off the bus as soon as possible.

For a few moments I wondered if the butter on the English muffin I had eaten had been rancid. But as I clung to the seat in front of me the queasiness began to pass. I became conscious of another feeling.

I refused to believe that what was happening was really happening. My eyes were still closed.

I tried to lift my lids but I couldn't. Instead they seemed to hold themselves shut with a will all their own.

The movement had excited me. I felt the seat slide beneath my buttocks and even though the skin of my rump was separated from it by several layers of clothing, I could feel it rub against me.

I had never experienced anything like this before-at least 'not that I could remember. I recalled having read about it in one of the women's monthly magazines. I knew that some women did react sexually to the movement of a bus or the subway. But I never had before

The more I tried to fight it, the more intense the feeling became. Alternately I began to close and open my thighs. My cunt was wet and my nipples were hard with excitement.

I shook my head. This couldn't be happening but I knew it was. I could feel the exquisite tension already gathering deep inside of me.

I surrendered to the feeling and dropped one hand to my lap. I started to open the bottom button on my raincoat. I knew that if I put my hand between my thighs and moved it I would intensify the erotic pleasure, even though it would be separated from my body by the clothing I wore.

As I opened the button I suddenly had the strange feeling I was spinning back through time.

I moved my hand along the outside of my thigh. At the very moment when I slid my fingers over my cunt, I opened my eyes and found I was no longer in the bus...

* * *

I stood close to a huge tree in a forest of huge trees, It was night and a cold, wind-blown rain splashed over the naked branches. I was dressed in a long, loose black skirt, a white loose-fitting blouse that revealed more of my breasts than it covered. I wore a black-hooded cloak to protect me from the rain. I was cold and wet.

Then suddenly I heard the sound of a galloping horse. I drew back and waited until I could see the rider; but as he came within sight of the tree, he slowed down and finally stopped. He called my name. I stepped out of the shadows and looked up at him. He was a tall man and over his close-fitting riding clothes, he wore a black cloak with its hood pulled over his face.

"It is time for us to ride," he said. "The others are already there."

Before I could answer, he lifted me and placed me side saddle in front of him.

"No," I told him. "I like it better the other way."

He laughed but did not prevent me from sitting astride the horse.

I wore nothing under my skirt and the saddle felt cold against my flesh. Once we started, he placed his arm around my waist.

"Will there be many there?" I asked, once we were moving.

"All but two," he answered.

I asked who the absent ones were.

"Those who were taken and condemned to die," he said.

His words made me gasp. "By fire?" I asked.

"Aye," he replied.

Fear made me tremble and I leaned closer to him. To die in flames was too horrible for me to even imagine.

My companion sensed my fear and tightened his hold on me. "It's of little worth to think about," he said. "We are what we are and there's an end to it."

I knew he was right and soon found myself thinking about how good the leather felt against my bare buttocks. The jogging of the animal caused me to adjust my position and when I did I inadvertently pushed the lips of my cunt against the cold leather. It was intensely pleasurable and I pushed myself down to feel more of the saddle against my sex.

I sucked in my breath and gave a deep sigh, knowing full well that he would feel the rise and fall of my breasts beneath his arm. I wanted him to do it while we were riding. He had never fucked me-if he had, I did not know it. He was the one who always brought me to the others, after I had become one of them. Once we joined the others I was taken by the Master and my companion went with whatever woman would have him. For all the many times I had ridden with him I had never seen his face. Sometimes I fancied that he did not have one. But that did not bother me. I had need of his prick, not his face.

Purposely I edged back, allowing my naked but. tocks to rest on his loins with the hope that the movement of the animal below us would force my crack over his manhood.

I waited a few moments and then to my delight I felt his prick begin to harden.

"I am cold," I told him.

He started' to wrap my cloak more securely around me.

"I would that you warm me as a man warms a woman," I said, taking his hand and placing it on my breast.

He said nothing but his hand slipped into my blouse and clutched my bare breast.

"You are hard against me," I said.

He breathed deeply and letting go of the reins, pressed both his hands over my breasts.

I reached back and began to stroke the front of his breeches. Then growing bolder, I found the opening and pulling his lance free, placed its throbbing heat between the cheeks of my buttocks.

"Roll forward a bit," he said hoarsely.

I did as he bade me do.

He thrust at me but as fate would have it, the horse under us moved in such a way as to make him miss his original mark and he jammed his pole into my anus. I cried out and leaped forward, almost falling from my place, but I succeeded in pulling free.

But he held me by my breasts and by standing in the stirrups finally managed to shove his cock deep into my cunt. I settled down on him and closing my eyes, gave myself up to the voluptuous feeling of being fucked while riding.

Every jog of the horse brought forth some hitherto undiscovered pleasure. His prick moved deep, then pulled out part-way and then again deep into me. His hands crushed my breasts until I felt as though he meant to tear them from my body. The heat of his penis in my body grew more and more intense and the strange feeling inside of me seemed to pull closer and closer to a thinness which would give way under the stress of our mounting passion.

When we were close to our end, he spurred the horse forward and as the animal broke into a canter, I heard him groan and felt the hot gush of his fluid fill me. Then as the moment of my pleasure came I gasped and cried aloud with excruciating delight. My eyes opened...

* * *

I was looking out of the bus window. I felt myself coming. I had to fight back the cry in my throat and at the very instant I climaxed I saw an other reflection in the window. The man in the black trench coat was seated across the aisle.

I tried to speak but couldn't. Just as the bus lurched to a stop, I was seized by a coughing fit. But by the time it passed the man in the black trench coat was gone.

V

It took every bit of will power I possessed to remain on the bus and not scream. Though I had no memory of where I had been, I was absolutely sure that for some indeterminate length of time I had not been on the bus. Then there was the business of the man in the black trench coat-that truly frightened me. To have seen him twice within a relatively short space of time and in both situations to have him vanish before my eyes, so to speak, put an enormous strain on me.

By the time I finally left the bus, I had managed to calm down enough to convince myself I was probably suffering from fatigue and would be wise to heed Aron's advice. After all, no one was actually driving me. like most self-directed individuals, I was my own worst taskmaster.

The studio was three blocks from the bus stop. It occupied the top floor of a three-story walkup. Its work area had good natural lighting from a northern exposure, but the rest of it was dark, the way most railroad flats were. There was a small kitchen area in the rear, complete with sink, stove and refrigerator. Between the work area and the kitchen I had set up a trundle bed and placed a few pieces of furniture. This was screened off from the main part of the studio and served as a kind of rest area for me since I was often. exhausted after painting for several hours.

The studio was more than a place to work, and more than the proverbial home away from home. I often thought that aside from paintings, which were more an expression of what I humorously termed my disturbed psyche, the things I put in the studio and their arrangement were representative of my personality. like most artisans, I kept my things in a state of organized confusion which Aron always found disquieting but which I found reassuring.

As I walked rapidly to the studio, I was comforted by the knowledge that I would soon be there, especially since the rain was beginning to turn to sleet.

The three streets from the bus stop to the studio were not terribly long but they were ugly. There were tenements on either side. Piles of garbage usually littered the sidewalk and the vestibules always seemed to be occupied by one or more sleazy looking men who would sometimes call out and ask if I was looking for a good lay.

But the bad weather had driven everyone inside. Even the vestibule doors were closed. Though now and then I saw the face of a man or woman in a window. Deserted, the street was even more ugly than it usually was. There was a starkness about it. No, that wasn't quite right either. The fire escapes that jutted out from the fronts of the dilapidated buildings seemed like chains-all at once I imagined a painting, a huge canvas of the street where the buildings were honeycombs and the people in the windows became bees but not the honey-producing insect recognized by everyone. The bees I would create had human faces and insect bodies.

The idea excited me and I quickened my pace. I wanted to make a few rough sketches before it lost some of its fire.

Though I had intended to work on a painting which was almost completed, I deferred doing it in order to develop sketches of my new idea. But nothing I did seemed right. For one thing, I could not manage to get anything down remotely resembling the intensity that I felt the subject deserved.

I did a dozen sketches and all of them missed the mark. My attention began to wander. I became conscious of the sound of the sleet falling on the large glass panes of the skylight. I found it abrasive and turned on the radio to drown it out, but the music was equally irksome. I shut the radio and began to pace.

Several times I paused in front of the painting on the easel. My dislike for it grew each time I looked at it. Though it represented many weeks of work, I felt more like-destroying than finishing it.

Nothing seemed right and I flopped down into a chair, wondering why I had bothered to come to the studio. Then suddenly I realized that the sound of the sleet was gone. I looked up at the glass. It was already covered with a thin film of snow. I left the chair and went to the window. Large flakes of snow were already falling.

As I stood and watched the snow cover the street, I felt more and more depressed. And soon my throat, ached and tears flowed out of my eyes and trickled down my cheeks. I was lonely beyond words, but I hadn't the remotest idea why I felt that way. Then quite suddenly I realized that I was thinking about my father, the man I had never seen. I was weeping for him. It was absurd-I didn't even know him but my need for him was enormous.

I wished my mother had told me more about him. Anything that would have given some image of how he looked. Was he tall? Did, he have a good smile? Was his hair black or blond? Because my mother had been a beautiful woman, I assumed that he had been a handsome man.

I knew it was foolish to go on like that and I forced myself away from the window. Then I dried my eyes, blew my nose and returned to my sketch pad. I had no conscious desire to draw anything, but nonetheless I picked up the stick of soft charcoal and began to work. Though my effort was desultory, a figure took shape. It dominated the large sheet of paper. It was black and faceless. I studied it and then with a cry of recognition, I tossed the pad to the floor and leaped up. I had drawn the man in the black trench coat.

I turned away and went back to the window. It was snowing harder and the light outside was dark gray. My eyes lowered to the street. And I saw him. He was still wearing the black trench coat and he was looking directly up at me. But I couldn't see his face.

I balled my hand into a fist and jambed it into my mouth. Then I ran to look at the drawing pad. The page on which I had just drawn him was absolutely white. "No," I shouted. "Oh no!"

I could not accept what was happening. I looked at all the sketches I had made and through every page in the pad without finding the one I wanted.

I ran back to the window. He was still there.

To assure myself I wasn't losing my mind, ,I slipped on my raincoat and rushed out of the studio. As soon as I reached the street I stopped. The snow was so heavy and the wind so bitingly sharp that I was forced to pull up my collar and cover my head with a kerchief. Then I saw him.

He looked straight at me, turned and began to walk away.

"Hey, mister!" I called. But the wind rushed at me and it seemed as though my words were thrust back into my throat. I ran after him.

The snow blinded me and I found it necessary to brush it out of my eyes, every few moments. But I was sure that he was not a figment of my imagination. My heart raced and I could hear the pounding of my blood as it surged through my brain.

If I quickened my pace he increased his and conversely, if I slowed down, he did too.

Several times I called to him but he did not hear me or purposely did not respond.

The snow made a strange whispering sound as it fell over the streets. And though I passed several people and saw any number of autos, buses and trucks, their sounds were strangely muffled. The snow made a crunching sound under my footfalls.

I saw him pass under a lighted street lamp but when I reached it his footprints were already obliterated by the wind and snow. I followed him for blocks but he always remained just in front of me.

I was slow to realize he was leading me somewhere. And even when I had, I ignored the warnings that issued forth from that portion of my brain that still functioned rationally. My single purpose was to go where he was going and prove he was real.

I caught a glimpse of the buildings on either side. Almost all of them looked like old warehouses. I had no idea where I was but from the frequent wail of a ship's foghorn I guessed I was close to the river.

Suddenly the figure in front of me stopped.

I quickened my pace and to. my surprise he did not move.

When I finally reached him I realized we were standing outside of a dimly lit hallway.

"Who are you?" I asked.

He laughed but did not answer.

His laughter had a richness about it, making it seem more like some viscous substance than sound.

"Why have you led me here?"

He pointed to the hallway.

"No!" I said.

He laughed again and started to go into the hallway.

I did not want to follow but I was filled with an overwhelming compulsion to do exactly that. I trailed behind him. At the end of the hallway was a steep flight of steps that led into a black void. Darkness in my mind was always associated with descent, almost never with ascent. The steps creaked under our weight. The air was dank and stale. I felt as though the walls were crawling with countless millions of slimy things.

The higher we went the darker it became until we were surrounded on three sides by blackness and only at our rear. was there a pinpoint of light. I had the uneasy feeling that my feet had lost contact with the steps and that I was climbing up the steep sides of a huge black cloud.

A door squeaked open and I followed the man into a large room illuminated by torchlight.

"She has come," a voice whispered.

Several others echoed the exact same words. For a moment all of the voices seemed disembodied, but then I saw many figures move out of the deep shadows. They were dressed in black robes with the hoods drawn over their heads.

I was so busy looking at the hooded figures that I did not realize the man in the trench coat was no longer with me. Before I could ask where he had gone I was flanked by two figures and moved to a place where the light was brightest.

"Where am I?" I asked.

No one answered.

"Who are you?"

No one answered.

And then suddenly I felt several pairs of hands on me. They were trying to remove my clothing and I struggled to free myself. It was a useless expenditure of effort, and after a few moments I-let them undress me.

When I stood naked before them, one of the figures took a torch and brought it close to my breasts. And with his free hand he touched the bare skin. "She is marked," he told the others.

I looked down at my breast. His index finger touched a small nipple-like mound that protruded from the under side of my right breast.

An exclamation of delight arose from the audience.

He found an identical growth on my left breast and when he pointed it out to the others, another and more intense sound of approval came from the spectators.

"Are you all right?"

I blinked and a policeman came into focus.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "I must have had a bit of vertigo."

"The subway is a bad place for that," the officer said, "especially on a lonely station like this."

I nodded but until he had mentioned it, I had no idea where I was.

"Would you like a cab?"

"No thank you," I answered, "I think I would like to get some fresh air."

He nodded understandingly, and said, "You better see a doctor the first chance you get."

I nodded, turned and walked out of the station. I had no idea how I got there or for that matter why I left the studio when my work was going so well.

VI

It was still snowing when I emerged from the subway station. I discovered that I was in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. I remembered it had been snowing when I looked out of the studio window, but I had no memory of having left it, or for that matter I could not think of why I had taken the subway to Greenpoint.

The cold air filled my lungs and I felt much better, almost as though I was waking after having slept for a long time. I looked at my watch. It was only four o'clock in the afternoon. Somehow I felt it should be much later. The discrepancy between what the time really was and what I thought it should be rankled me even more than my inability to account for my presence in a subway station in Brooklyn.

I hailed the first empty cab I saw but the driver did not want to go into Manhattan. I couldn't really blame him, because it was the height of the rush hour. But he changed his mind when I offered to double whatever the meter showed.

The ride into the city was slow going. I sat back and tried to remember what had happened but could not come up with anything other than my trip to the window. From time to time I noticed the cabbie looking at me through the rear view mirror. At first I thought his interest in me was the usual kind elicited by our sexual difference and ignored it. But the more frequent his glances became, the more uneasy I felt.

"Excuse me, miss," he finally said, "but are you all right?"

"Yes," I lied. "What made you ask?"

He shrugged. "I guess," he said with a shrug, "you look kind of pale."

"Oh?"

For awhile neither of us spoke. Then he said, "Pushing a cab around as long as I have gives a guy a kind of feeling about the passengers. Know what I mean?"

"Not really," I answered.

Again he shrugged. "Kind of a sixth sense," he said.

I smiled and asked what his sixth sense told him about me.

"No offense meant," he said, "but I get the feeling you're in trouble. Are you?"

The question was a good one.

"I mean," he said before I could answer, "it's not usual for a woman to be where I picked you up. It's a tough neighborhood, if you know what I mean?"

"I really don't know why I was there," I told him. "Maybe I fell asleep on the train?"

My answer caused him to swivel his head around and look directly at me. I think he thought I was trying to pull his leg and for the rest of the trip he said nothing. When we pulled up to the curb in front of the building where my studio was, I not only doubled the amount on the meter but I also gave him an extra dollar. He thanked me and I left the cab.

As soon as I reached the studio I looked at the painting I had been working on and saw that I had done nothing more on it. Then I saw the sketching pad and the several drawings of the idea I had tried to work out.

I decided to phone Aron and tell him to meet me at the studio. As soon as he was on the line he asked me where I was.

"In the studio," I said.

"Then why the hell didn't you answer the phone?" he asked. "I must have dialed your number a half-dozen times."

"Oh?" I said, stalling for time to think of a logical answer.

"Listen," he said, "one of my clients came in from out of town and I'm in a sticky situation. I'm going to have to take him out to dinner."

There was nothing terribly unusual about. As project chief, Aron often entertained the people, with whom he dealt.

"And because of the weather, he can't get a flight out," Aron explained. "The hotels are booked solid."

I knew what was coming next.

"I told him he could use our guest room," he said.

"You didn't!"

"I'm sorry," he said. "But he's the engineering vice president of the company-"

"I don't care who he is," I said sharply. "I'm just not up to entertaining."

He was silent for a few moments and then he said: "He's the man who okays the equipment I design."

The implication was obvious and terribly disconcerting.

"It's part of the game," Aron said. "I have a good relationship with him and I wouldn't want to put any rough edges on it now."

"I'm not part of the business."

"Please," he said. "Don't make it more difficult than it already is."

After a few seconds, I gave in, for no other reason than to keep peace between us. I even agreed to meet Aron and his guest for dinner at the Four Seasons.

"Try to be on time," he said just before I hung up.

VII

By the time I showered, dressed and left the apartment to meet Aron, the snow had stopped. I went downtown by cab and I was in a bitchy mood. I felt put upon not only by having to dine out but also by having my home opened to a stranger.

The doorman helped me out of the cab and I gave him a generous tip because I was flattered by the way he looked at me as I slid out of the cab. The maxi coat I wore was completely open and the short hem of my dress moved high on my thighs. I had purposely picked a dress that accentuated my body.

I had expected to see Aron with his guest in tow, but he was not in the downstairs lobby. This annoyed me still more since he had asked me to be on time. I decided to go up to the bar and have a drink while I waited.

It was practically empty and I took the first stool I came to that would permit me to watch for Aron. I had just slipped the coat from my shoulders when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and saw Daniel Wicker, a man whom I had met at various cocktail parties. Aside from the fact that my agent Mr. Riggs told me that he was an art collector, I knew nothing else about him.

I looked at him, smiled and said hello. He was not much taller than myself. His. face was not particularly handsome, and his hair was thin.

"And what brings you here?" he asked. "Wait," he said, settling down on the stool next to mine, "you decided to look for me."

"What?" I laughed.

"Surely Riggs must have told you--"

"Wait a minute," I said, "and tell me what you're talking about."

"Your .paintings," he answered. "I've been thinking about them and decided to buy two."

My jaw went slack.

"Then you haven't spoken to your agent?"

"Not for the past few days."

Wicker laughed."

"I called him late this afternoon," he explained.

"Well, thank you, Mister Wicker."

"Make it Dan and tell me what you're doing here and what you would like to drink."

"In that order?"

"Suit yourself."

"Well," I said, "I'm waiting for my husband."

"Damn!" he exclaimed, snapping his fingers. "Why are all the beautiful women I meet married?"

I shrugged and told him that he was just lucky. I noticed that when I moved his eyes instantly went to the d'colletege of my dress. I had a sudden flash in insight that Wicker collected more than paintings.

"You've answered the first part," he said, "now what about the second part?"

"A Bloody Mary."

"Done!" he laughed and he ordered my drink, and another round for himself. "Now," he said, making his words sound as though he were rubbing his hands together with enthusiasm, "let's talk about art-your art in particular. Do you know you're a very talented woman, though I must say the choice of your subject matter is way out."

I laughed. "Thanks for the compliment," I responded. "But if my subject matter is so far out, what made you decide to buy my work?"

"Excellent question!" he exclaimed. "But if I tell you, I'll give away the secret of my success."

The bartender placed our drinks before us and moved away.

"Here's to your talent and my confusion," he toasted.

We touched glasses and drank. His eyes moved back to my breasts.

"You still haven't told me why you bought my paintings?" I said, setting down my glass on the bar.

He touched his nose. "This tells me to," he said.

"Thanks a lot!"

"What I mean is that they have the smell of success about them," he explained. "You have a way of looking at things that is unique."

"Tell me more," I laughed.

"You see in the darkness that every human possesses."

I reached for my drink and sipped at it.

"You didn't like what I just said?" he questioned.

"I'm not sure."

"Perhaps we could discuss it sometime in the near future," he said, looking at my breasts again. "I'm sure we might be able to come to some sort of explanation for--"

"Are you sure it's just my paintings that interest you?" I asked.

"No."

"At least you're honest," I said.

"I see no reason why two mature people can't come to an understanding, especially if they already have a great deal in common."

"Aside from art," I asked, "what else do we have in common?"

"Isn't that enough?"

"No," I answered, sipping more of my drink. "I know many men who are interested in art but not one of them has ever suggested that I go to bed with him."

Wicker shook his head. "Perhaps they lack the nerve," he suggested.

I nodded and said, "That may be. But you still haven't told me what, if anything, is common to the both of us?"

He leaned closer and Ifelt his leg press against mine. "The mutual interest in the perverse," Wicker said in a low voice, "in the dark things of life."

I tried to smile.

"You can't deny it," he said confidently. Suddenly he seemed loathsome: And I moved away. But at the same time part of me responded to his words.

He straightened up. "We don't have to set a time now," he said. "But should you ever feel the need for--"

"My husband is quite capable of fulfilling that need," I said sharply.

He smiled. "No doubt. But there are levels of fulfillment, as you well know."

I finished my drink and set the empty glass down on the bar. "I'm Afraid," I told him, "that you'll have to settle for my paintings."

"I'll chance that," he said.

"You can bet on it," I said tersely. "You really can.

He nodded. "But in case you should change your mind," he said, "I generally stop off here at about six in the evening."

"It has been a pleasure to meet you again," I said, looking straight at him. "But I think I would prefer to wait in the lobby for my husband. And, oh yes, thank you for your interest in my work."

I gathered my coat around my shoulder and left the bar. Just as I was halfway down the steps leading to the lobby I saw Aron and his dinner guest. A few moments later he greeted me with a kiss on the cheek and introduced me to his guest, whose name was Michael Riggs, but immediately asked me to call him Mike.

We shook hands. He looked like something out of a Norse legend: tall, broad-shouldered and blond-haired and blue-eyed.

His hand firmly gripped mine as he told me how much he appreciated my generous offer to put him up for the night.

I glanced at Aron. Obviously, he had invited Mike after he had spoken to me, which meant that he had lied when he had said that he had already extended the invitation. Aron looked away and suggested that we go upstairs for dinner. "I just hope they kept our reservations," he said as Mike and I followed after him.

"They're not terribly busy," I commented.

He glanced at me.

"I had a drink at the bar while I was waiting for you," I told him.

"I'm the one to blame for being late," Mike said. "I got hung up with a long-distance phone call to my company. And you know how those things go?"

"Unfortunately," I answered, "I know only too well how those things go."

Aron looked daggers at me but I couldn't have cared less. I just was not about to let him use me to entertain his business client. It occurred to me just how pushy Aron had become or up until now had I been blind to it? I never cared for people who were pushy.

VIII

I was absolutely determined to be as bitchy as possible, but Mike's presence prevented me 'from , behaving that way. He was an extremely engaging man, witty and charming. From the way Aron spoke to him whenever the conversation drifted to their mutual area of interest, I knew he respected him professionally.

During dinner I found out that Mike was a bachelor who thoroughly enjoyed his unwed state. I knew that he had no difficulty getting partners for his bed, but he didn't seem to be hung up on sea. I guessed that he took it as it came. If a woman was willing and he was attracted to her, fine, but he could have a relationship with a woman on a non-sexual level. Naturally, this was just supposition on my part.

Aron had told him about my painting and he was genuinely interested in it. His questions were intelligent and showed some familiarity with art. I chided him about his professed ignorance and he laughingly assured me that now and then he would read the art news in the newspaper.

He seemed to know a great deal about many different things and did not hesitate to venture his opinion.

After dinner we found a small flight spot on the East Side and stayed long enough to have a few drinks. It was there that I told Aron about Wicker's interest in my paintings. Both he and Mike were excited by the news and Mike immediately ordered another round of drinks to celebrate.

Then I mentioned Wicker's other interest. I guess I was feeling high and did not have very good control over myself.

"The lecherous bastard." Aron exclaimed. He looked at Mike and said: "Believe me, buddy, the art world is filled with guys like that." His speech was thick and slurred.

Mike nodded and added, "But the man showed good taste."

I felt his hand rest just above my knee.

Aron looked at me from out of his lidded eyes. "If I ever-meet the son-of-a-bitch," he grumbled, "I'll punch him in the nose." Then he folded his arms on the table and rested his head on them.

Mike paid the bill and together we managed to get Aron into a cab and then up to the apartment. Then he helped me get him into bed.

"He's going to have some hangover tomorrow," Mike said after Aron was securely tucked into bed.

"Probably," I answered and then asked him what time his flight left.

"Late in the day," he answered.

We said good night and as I closed the door to the bedroom, he headed for the guest room. I slipped out of my dress and hung it in the closet. Then I removed my underwear. After I had my panties off, I went into the bathroom, took a quick shower and brushed my teeth.

I did all these things in a slow, uneven way. I knew I was just this side of being drunk, but it was a good feeling, the best I had had all day. I had to be honest and say that I had enjoyed myself at dinner.

I turned from the sink and looked at myself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. The artist in me studied the reflection and noted the beauty of body and face, then the woman in me fully understood why men found me sexually attractive.

I moved closer to the mirror and ran my hands over my breasts and down my flanks. Then suddenly L stopped. Something drew my attention to my breasts. I examined them. They were full, provocatively high and well-toned. But I already was aware of these attributes.

There was something else. I was sure of it. But what was it? Something-I moved my fingers over my naked breasts and carefully examined their sloping tops, nipples, and then I moved to the underside of each mound. I felt it before I saw it and when I did see it, I knew I was looking at a small mole. There was one on each breast. But there was nothing unusual about them. I had had them for years. In fact, I remembered that one of my former lovers had playfully told me that they were called the "devil's nipples." But I couldn't remember whether he had ever sucked on them, though as I recall, he enjoyed sucking on my nipples. He was, as the expression goes, a tit man.

I let go of my breasts and shrugged. Whatever I had thought was important about my breasts had somehow lost its significance and I continued to look at myself. I must have shifted from my original stance because I saw multiple images of the upper portion of my body in the reflection of the mirror above the sink. It was as though I exited in a number of different planes. The effect was neither totally pleasant or unpleasant. I moved and each image made the identical corresponding movement.

Then suddenly I found myself wondering how I would react if each image did not move as I moved. Scientifically, I knew it couldn't happen. Yet, the idea held me. For anyone to experience something like that could cause a psychological disaster, a trauma from, which there would be no recovery.

I began to perspire. I was overcome by the feeling that I had to get away from the mirror but I couldn't move. I willed myself to move, but I remained rooted to the spot. The mirror in front of me grew larger and larger. The one in back of me increased its size too. Both mirrors began to move toward me. I screamed but not one sound issued from my throat. I felt the cold surface of the mirrors against my naked body. I was inside of them, sealed between their surfaces, as though I was some sort of biological specimen encapsulated in glass.

I heard a woman's voice. She was calling me. Though I couldn't see her, I knew it was my mother.

"You must never do that again," she warned.

She was speaking to a small girl. I could see the child quite .plainly. She was deep in the glass. I knew I was looking at myself as I had been several years ago.

"Do you understand me?" my mother said.

The child began to cry.

My mother went to her and said, "Try to understand that I only wish to protect you."

"But every little girl looks in a mirror," the child answered.

My mother closed her eyes and for several minutes held them tightly shut. "Holy Mother of God," she whispered imploringly. "Help me... help me!" Then she opened her eyes and, looking at the child, said, "Promise me that you'll never do that again."

"But mommy," the child protested, "I made believe I was inside the mirror--"

"Don't say any more!"

"But mommy, I could make all the. mes do different things."

"I know," my mother said. "But it's a wicked thing to do."

"But I didn't do anything," the girl insisted.

My mother looked even more distressed than before.

"I made believe," the child explained, "and it happened."

"You must never make believe that way again," my mother said. "Promise me you won't ever do it again.

The girl remained silent.

"Promise?"

"I promise," the child said. "I promise... I promise... I promise...."

The words sounded quite clear and were repeated over and over again. And then I realized that I was saying them and I was standing naked in front of the mirror. I shook my head. So many strange things had happened during the day that I couldn't be sure that any of them were real. I closed the light, left the bathroom and climbed into bed.

Aron grunted in his sleep and placed his arm over me. His fingers touched the outside of my right breast.

I closed my eyes and felt myself slipping into sleep.

IX

The next thing I knew was that I was awake and Aron was bending over me.

"I've got to go to the office," he said.

"What time is it?"

"Eight-thirty," he answered. "How do you feel?"

"Sleepy," I replied.

He patted me and said that Mike was still asleep. Then he walked out of the room, leaving the door open.

If I wasn't so tired I would have gotten up and closed it. But I just didn't have the strength. I turned over, shut my eyes and began to sleep, though not before the thought occurred to me that Aron wanted Mike to fuck me. Perhaps I wanted it, too. Then I slept.

What seemed like a few moments later I opened my eyes and saw Mike standing in the doorway. He was wearing black silk pajamas. He came toward the bed, bent over me and brushed my lips with his. Though the kiss was swift, it left the heat of his desire on my lips.

I lifted my hands to his face and brought his lips back to mine. His tongue entered my mouth as he came down next to me in the bed. He kissed my neck and drew the blanket away from my bare breasts. I took a deep breath and thrust them up at him.

"Lovely," he whispered, closing his both hands over them.

The pressure of his hands on my breasts was delightful. I closed my eyes to fully savor it.

He moved one of his hands under the blanket.

I kept my eyes closed. His fingers felt hot. He moved his hand between my thighs and I opened them to make it easier for him to reach his goal.

The fingers of his-other hand were busy with the nipple of my breast.

I gasped with delight from the two-fold attack on my body and then I felt his finger slide between the moist lips of my cunt. He was gently scratching it and I quivered with pleasure.

He separated the lips of my cunt and began to finger-fuck me. When he finally touched my clit a galvanic jolt of pleasure made me cry out.

I was no more than an instrument in his hands and he played-expertly on all the stops. I moaned and whimpered from the orgy of sensations that passed through my writhing body.

I felt his cock against my thigh.

Mike stopped diddling my cunt and at the same time let go of my breast. His hands closed over the cheeks of my rump and started a new wave of excitement in me.

He trailed his fingers up and down the crevice between the cheeks of my ass and I reached inside his pajama bottoms. His cock throbbed to my touch and I wanted to press it to my breasts and feel its heat between my lips.

"Wait," he said and for the few moments that it took for him to strip off his pajamas, he moved away from me. But then he pressed his naked body against mine.

He rolled over me and I opened my thighs. When I felt him push into me I moaned softly.

His lips came down on mine and I gave myself up to the pleasure of his embrace.

He slid his tongue over every portion of my mouth and at the same time his hands held my breasts. And I arched my back to meet his short jabs into my cunt. I was intoxicated from what was happening to me. He was far more adroit at lovemaking than I had dared to hope.

I played my hands over his hairy chest, down his torso until I felt his balls. As span as I touched him there, he quickened his pace and drove deeper into me.

To prolong the pleasure, I rolled higher on my back and closed my legs around his back. But he slowed down of his own accord and his hands moved under me until he caressed my buttocks.

I looked up at him. His face was taut with passion and I had the odd sensation that I was dreaming, even though my body was filled with the ecstasy of being used.

I closed my eyes again, sure that what was happening was real. The tension in my body signaled the beginning of my climax. I thrust harder at him, wanting all of him in me.

"Faster," I shouted. "Move faster."

His hand moved down the cheeks of my ass and then one slid around to my snatch. He held the fleshy mound tightly, letting my clit feel the abrasive movement of his prick.

My body burned. The tension in me expanded beyond the dimensions of my body. Then it exploded, shaking me with climactic fury.

When my body ceased shuddering, I became silent. I was conscious of my exhaustion and the weight of Mike's body on my own. I had no idea whether he had come and cared less. I closed my eyes and drifted off into a deep and very black sleep...

The sound of the phone penetrated my sleep. I turned toward the night table and lifted the receiver. Riggs was on the other end. He immediately began to tell me about the sale of my paintings to Wicker. I was not yet fully awake and scarcely understood him. Then. suddenly I realized there was someone in bed with me. Without looking, I knew who it was.

"I'll call you back," I said into the phone and hung up. Then I turned toward Mike.

He was awake and looking at me.

"When?" I asked.

He smiled and asked, "Does it really matter?"

I had to admit that it didn't.

He put his hand on my naked breasts and said, "You've got witch's tits."

"What?"

"A double set of nipples," he explained, touching the real one and then the mole underneath my breast. "This one is for the devil."

"Thanks loads!"

"But since I'm a mortal man," he said, "I like the ones up front." And he began to suck on the nipple of the breast nearest to him.

I knew he wanted to fuck again and since we had already done it, I saw no reason not to do it again.

X

The second time Mike screwed me was as good, perhaps even better than the first. After we-rested we showered together. Then while he shaved I made coffee and bacon and eggs for the both of us.

I felt no guilt or tinge of regret for having had sex with Mike. If I had any feelings about it, they had to do with Aron's behavior and not my own. For one thing, I could not deny the fact that Mike gave me more satisfaction than Aron. And secondly, I still believed that he wanted Mike to fuck me. After all, he did go out of the room without shutting the door and he knew I was naked. Though to give him the benefit of the doubt, his actions could have been completely unconscious.

When everything was ready I called out to Mike.

"Be there in a jiffy," he said.

I poured coffee for him and for myself. Then I sat down and waited, He came to the table fully dressed except for a tie and the jacket to his suit. "I hardly expected all this," he said, sitting down opposite me.

"You deserve it," I told him with a smile.

"Will you put that in writing?"

I shook my head.

He reached across the table and put his hand on mine. "You know," he said, "you were good, really good. And I've been around a bit to know."

"Would you put that in writing?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.

"You. don't need it," he replied, commencing to eat. "You know exactly what you have to give."

"Really? I like what I hear, please tell me more."

He bit into the toast and impaled a-piece of bacon on his fork. After he had swallowed the toast and bacon and took a sip of coffee, he said, "Some women have it, some don't. I guess it's a matter of whether or not they think that by laying for a guy they're giving him something extraordinary. A woman who thinks that usually doesn't give a damn thing. She lets a man fuck her and that's it. But a woman who is smart enough to enjoy a good lay-well, she's the one who makes a guy know how good a lay can be."

Our conversation soon drifted around to my sexual relations with Aron. Mike was extremely interested in this aspect of my life. And showed some surprise when I told him that Aron was damn good in bed but for reasons unknown to me I no longer enjoyed sex with him.

Before he started his second cup of coffee he suggested that maybe I was the one who had changed and not Aron. Then finally we got down to the proverbial nitty-gritty and he asked why I had called to him.

"I did what?" I questioned, almost dropping the cup I held.

"C'mon now," he laughed, "you know what I mean."

I shook my head.

"You called," he said. "I cane to the door of the room and there you were. I don't think I would have made a pass at you though I did find you physically attractive. It's not wise for a man in my position to go around sleeping with the wives of his business associates. But since you made the first move I figured that if it wasn't me it would have been some other guy."

He was perfectly frank and none of what he had said offended me. Maybe it should have but I was still too surprised that I had called him to worry about the morality of my actions.

"What did I say?" I asked.

"Just my name," he answered.

"Was there any difference in my voice?"

He thought for a few moments and then said, "It was throaty."

"Oh!"

"Why?"

"I was just curious," I answered evasively.

But he was too sharp a man not to see through my question and the reason I gave for asking it. He studied me for a moment and then said, "I'm a good listener if you want to tell me anything."

"There's really nothing to tell," I said, forcing myself to smile. But then I added, "I don't fully understand it myself."

He shrugged. "That's, the trouble with personal problems, the people who have them don't really understand them, while those who don't have them do understand them."

I wasn't sure whether he was trying to be witty, profound or a combination of both.

"Individual with problems are too involved with them, while--"

"I understand," I said. "Thanks but no thanks. I'm not the kind of person who leans on others."

He smiled and said: "We all lean on others, no matter who or what we are."

I wanted to get off me as a topic for conversation. "Tell me," I asked, "who you have recently leaned on?"

"I'm not the one with a problem," he answered. "But you are."

"Is it so obvious?"

"It wasn't until a short while ago," he answered.

What could I have told him that would have made sense? Nothing. To avoid having to say anything, I stood up and started gathering the dishes together. When they were all in the sink I started to wash them.

Throughout all this Mike said nothing and remained seated at the table.

I felt that he was studying me and whenever I glanced at him over my shoulder he pretended to be interested in the wall on the other side of the room.

"When do you have to be at the airport?" I asked, more to end the silence than any sincere interest.

"By three," he said.

"If you'd like to see my studio," I told him, "I'll take you down there."

"That would be nice," he replied. "I don't think I was ever inside an artist's studio."

"It's really not much--" I started to say and then I heard the chair creak and a few moments later realized that he was directly in back of me.

He put his hands on my shoulders. I was only wearing a light woolen bathrobe and I felt the tension in his fingers.

"Listen," he said softly, "ordinarily I'm the kind of a guy who minds his own business. But something tells me you're in deep trouble."

"Why, because I let you fuck me?" I asked spitefully.

"That was a bitchy thing to say," he commented.

"I'm sorry," I told him, and I was.

He drew closer tome and nuzzled the side of my head. "I promise," he said, "not to mention it again."

"It's not that I resent your effort to help," I said, "but I really have nothing to tell anyone that makes sense."

His hands slipped down from my shoulders to my arms and then, drawing open the top of my robe, he placed them gently over my breasts.

I expected him to open the rest of the robe and reach down to my snatch. I was fully prepared for another session in bed. I hoped that was what he wanted. It would have been a small price to pay in order to get him off the topic of my problem.

But his hands remained on my bare breasts.

"Whatever it is," he said, "I'm sure it will all work out to the good."

I put my hands over his. "Thank you," I said. "That was very sweet of you."

"That's me," he laughed. "Sweet Mike." And he pressed my breasts to give more meaning to his words. Then he removed his hands from them and said, "If I stay this way much longer IT probably rape you."

"Only it wouldn't be rape," I said, turning toward him and opening the rest of the robe myself.

"God you're beautiful!" he exclaimed.

"Is that all you have to say?" I chided.

"No," he answered. "But it will have to do for now."

"I thought you were a man of action, of immediate decision."

"So I am," he said with a nod, "but if I took you to bed now, it would be more than an ordinary lay.

He looked at me to see if I fully understood and I nodded. But he made no move toward me. I wondered what the hell he was waiting for. I had already told him that he could do with me what he wanted. What else could he possibly expect?

Slowly his hands went out to my breasts but instead of closing over them he ran his fingers over the small moles on their undersides.

His touch made me jump away.

"Did that hurt?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"Then why the sudden movement away from me?"

"It just felt peculiar," I explained.

"Sensitive there?"

"Yes," I said. "But why all the questions?"

"Several hundreds of years ago," he said, "if a woman had these growths, she was believed to be a witch. That's why they're called the devil's nipples."

Suddenly all the desire I had felt for him vanished. I felt that he was a threat and I closed my robe. "I'm sorry," I said, "I don't feel like playing any more."

He nodded. "I think I understand," he said.

"There's nothing to understand," I told him.

He smiled but said nothing more.

I was sorry that I had invited him to my studio and wondered if there was a way to get out of taking him there.

XI

As it turned out, I didn't have to worry about Mike's going down to the studio with me. He changed his mind and said he would go out to the airport and try to get an earlier flight.

While he finished dressing I phoned Riggs.

He told me that Wicker was very much interested in my work and would like to see other paintings.

I made no mention of my meeting with" Wicker the previous evening. There were two reasons for this: namely, Riggs was the kind of fussy little man who might think I wanted to cut him out of his commission. And secondly, I didn't want him to get the idea I might be more to Wicker than an artist.

Just before our conversation ended, Riggs asked me to come up to his office either in the late afternoon or the afternoon of the following day. I told him I would be there the next day.

Mike came to the doorway of the bedroom just as I hung up.

I was still wearing the bathrobe and the top was open, leaving my naked breasts fully exposed. I was so annoyed with him that I didn't bother to close the robe. It was a bitchy way to get back at him but it was the best way I had at my disposal. After all, I couldn't very well physically vent my anger.

His eyes were on my breasts but he finally looked at my face and said, "I'll be going now."

He tried to embrace me but I eluded his grasp. "I'm sorry you're angry," he said.

I, shrugged. "It really is very unimportant," I told him. "Now if you want to go I'll let you out." He looked as though he was about to say something but then changed his mind, turned and went to his room for his suitcase.

A few moments later I was alone.

Then for some inexplicable reason I was absolutely furious with Mike. I found myself hating him. I paced back and forth across the living room swearing to myself, wondering why I had been fool enough to let him screw me.

My anger grew.

Then I went to the window and looked down on the street but I was too late to catch a glimpse of Mike. He had probably gotten a cab as soon as he stepped out of the building. Bastards like him always managed to get what they wanted.

I was still at the window when I saw the man in the black trench coat. I gasped. And then I realized he was pointing to something. Though I couldn't see it, I knew it was a cab. I also knew it was the cab Mike had taken. I don't know how I knew these things but I did.

And then I whispered, "I wish he were dead, I really do."

The man in the trench coat stoppedpointing and I walked away from the window, feeling much better than when I went to it. I wasn't even uptight about seeing the man in the black trench coat.

I went to the kitchen, finished the dishes and then started to dress.

Because there was quite a bit of snow on the ground, I decided to wear leotards under a heavy woolen brown plaid skirt and a long-sleeved sweater. As I started to put on my bra it occurred to me that the sweater was bulky enough to permit me to get away without wearing it.

Had it been summer I might have dispensed with my panties too. But I saw no reason to freeze my ass off when the effect of not wearing underclothes would be totally lost by having to wear all the other clothing.

I slipped the sweater on and saw that it permitted a certain amount of bare skin to 'show through. Depending upon the position of my breasts the openings between the stitches would frame one or both of my bare nipples. That really didn't bother me too much because all I intended to do would be-done alone. I was going to the loft to finish the painting on which I-had been working for so many weeks.

As soon as I was fully dressed I slipped on a pair of black boots, tightly tied a black silk kerchief over my head and put on a three-quarter length black leather coat. Then I left the apartment.

Since I had already eaten breakfast I did not stop at the luncheonette. Instead, I walked straight to the subway.

Just as. I went through the turnstile, the train came into the station. Though it was late in the morning, the car I entered was fairly crowded. But I managed to get a seat.

Most of the other passengers were busy reading newspapers or books. Seated directly across from me was a young woman about my age. She was completely engrossed in a woman's magazine. She looked like something out of a fashion show. I guessed that she was either a model or perhaps a highly paid executive. She wasn't beautiful but she was exotically attractive and she was well built. I found myself wondering about her, the kind of person she was.

The train stopped at the next station. A few of the riders got off and an equal number seemed to get on. When the train started again I closed my eyes. The young woman across from me no longer held my interest. I began to think about Mike.

I began to regret my actions toward him. Not the fact that I had had sexual relations with him but rather my inability to accept the kindness that he was willing to give me. Usually I. was not that bitchy.

The train made several more stops on its way downtown. But I kept my eyes closed until I began to experience the odd sensation that someone was staring at me.

I had opened my coat when I sat down and wondered whether one of the other passengers had caught a glimpse of my skin or perhaps my nipples were peeking through the open stitches?

I drew my coat closed, hoping that would make me less interesting to whoever was staring at me. But it didn't. I still felt that someone was staring at me.

I resisted the temptation to open my eyes as long as I could but when I glanced around, I saw that no one was looking at me. To, the right the situation there was exactly the same. Most of the passengers were reading, had their eyes closed or were just gazing out in front of them. The same was true for the people on the left.

I was annoyed at my egotism and once more closed my eyes.

Perhaps I was more conscious of not having worn a bra than I realized? But that was absurd. If I knew anything about myself, it was that I was not a modest person.

Before I married I had even allowed one of the men who had been screwing me to take pictures of me in the nude. I rather enjoyed being photographed that way. It gave me a peculiar kind of a thrill. When I had left him for another man he had gallantly returned all of them except one in which I was fiat on my back with my knees drawn up, my naked thighs spread apart to reveal my cunt, whose lips I held open with my hands. Just thinking about that particular photograph and the circumstance in which it had been taken caused my nipples to become turgid. In order to prevent any further autoerotic response I opened my eyes. He was there-the man in the black trench coat.

The wide brim black hat he wore was pulled down over his face, preventing me from seeing it. Yet I knew he was looking at me.

My heart began to race.

Who was he? Why was he following me? What did he want from me?

The questions mingled with the pounding roar of the train. I could not take my eyes off him.

Then very slowly I saw him move his head.

I sucked in my breath and waited until his face came into view. But at the exact moment when I would have seen it the lights went out. Seconds later when the lights came on again his face was hidden from view.

The train thundered to a screeching stop. I waited until the doors were closing and leaped from my seat. I was out of the car just as the doors shut.

I trembled with fear. And it took several minutes before I felt steady enough to continue the trip downtown. But by the time I reached my studio I was chiding myself for being such a ninny. Obviously, there were many men in the city who wore black trench coats and hats. That I could think one of them was following me took on the aspect of absolute absurdity. The other times I had seen a man in a black trench coat and wearing a black hat had to be nothing more than coincidence or for some reason my unconscious had been stimulated in a way that any dark trench coat and hat would have appeared to have been black.

My explanation was logical and I was satisfied with it. Nothing seemed terribly disjoined and I began to work with gusto. The hours passed quickly and then I put the last touch of paint to the canvas and stepped back to look at my work. Now that it was finished I could hardly believe that it was a product of my talent.

It had turned out far better than I thought it would. I was actually pleased by what I saw. But I was wary of this feeling since I knew from past experience that its intensity would be a measure of the depression I would feel later on when the thrill of having finished it wore off.

I moved off to one side and then the other to look at it. From any perspective the painting maintained the feeling of depth that I had worked so hard to achieve.

I picked up a thin brush, dipped it into a small glob of white paint and in the lower left comer signed my name.

A moment later the phone rang. I looked at it, determined not to answer it, but the ringing was persistent. I picked up the receiver.

"Lila?"

It was Aron.

"Lila?" he repeated.

"Yes," I said with a deep sigh.

"Have you heard the news?"

"What?"

"On the radio," he said. "The' news on the radio."

"No. I've been working. I just finished--"

"The plane that Mike was on went down," he said.

I looked at the phone in my hand.

"It crashed on take-off," he said. "Mike was killed."

"Oh no!" I cried. "Oh no!"

"Are you all right, Lila?"

"Yes," I managed to gasp. And then he went on to tell me the details of the crash but I wasn't listening. I only remembered that I had wished him dead and now he was.

Finally Aron said something about being home for dinner and I told him that I would see him then. I hung up and, throwing myself down on my bed, wept for Mike, and oddly enough, for myself.

XII

All at once I felt the desperate need to get out of the studio. The walls seemed to be moving in on me. That I had wished Mike dead and that he had been killed was not coincidental, but something, my intuition told me, for which I was responsible.

I washed my eyes but the redness persisted. I really didn't give a damn how I looked. I grabbed my coat and left the studio.

As soon as I was on the street I realized how late it was. The long winter twilight had settled over the city. The snow and the patches of dirty gray slush added to the melancholy scene. The wind was biting enough to make me gather my coat around me and pull up the collar.

I started walking in the direction of the bus stop.

The garbage in front of the houses looked even uglier than ever. I saw one heap on which an old, battle-scarred tomcat foraged for scraps of food. He stopped his pawing and looked at me. His eyes shown with peculiar yellow light, the kind more suited for a place of darkness than the twilighten shrouded street.

* * *

I slowed my pace and looked at him.

He bared his teeth and hissed at me. His body arched and his tail moved slowly back and forth.

I never liked animals and they invariably reacted to my dislike. I remember having read somewhere that human beings who have a negative response to animals emit a particular scent that they sensed.

I was still some distance from the cat when his head went up and his back arched.

If it had not been for the color of his eyes, I would have continued on my way. But their hot yellow glow forced me to slow down and when I came close to him I stopped. We eyed each other with hostility. And then I had the peculiar sensation that if I passed him he would leap on my back.

I backed away and the tension in his body seemed to lessen.

I looked around. My first thought was to cross the street but the instant that idea occurred the cat leaped down from his perch on the garbage heap and started to move in front of me.

For an instant I felt like laughing. The damn cat stood in front of me. Then the absurdity of the situation struck me. There I was, a grown woman being stopped by a cat. I would have shooed the animal away but as soon as I made a motion he hissed and arched his back.

Once again we surveyed each other. I intuitively knew that if I had crossed over to the other side of the street he would have followed.

I felt ridiculous just standing there. I turned around and started back down the street while behind me I heard the cat hiss but his sound was more like a throaty laugh than anything else.

The sound made me quicken my pace. And as I headed for the corner I had the distinct feeling that the cat was right behind me. Had I possessed the courage I would have looked back over my shoulder to confirm or deny my suspicions.

My plan was to go right when I reached the, end of the street and in that way go up the other street that ran parallel to the one I was on. But at the last moment I changed my mind, turned left,. crossed the street and continued walking uptown for several minutes.

When I left the studio I had no idea where I wanted to go. My only thought was to get away from the feeling of closeness that had manifested itself while I had wept. Perhaps I had felt a vague need for a drink--something that would have calmed me down. Or it could well have been that I had needed the feeling of not being enclosed? Whatever my feelings had been, they were now quite different.

Meeting the cat had taken the edge off one set of emotional reactions and had produced another. The original repugnance I had felt when I initially had seen the cat had. been caused by my innate dislike for the animal. But then when I had imagined that it might have leaped on my back if I had walked past it, a less obvious fear had been functioning. And although I had not realized it at the time, I had been afraid of being sexually attacked by the cat.

Even as I walked, the thought of that sent a shudder of disgust through me and raised goose bumps on my back.

I paused to wait for the light to change when I suddenly remembered my visit to the loft the previous afternoon. I couldn't recall all of the details of what had happened there but enough of them came back to make me feel as though the street was familiar. I realized that I had turned right on the very corner on which I was standing. And just before the light changed I did just that.

Once I was on the other side I quickened my pace. I knew I was going toward the river. The streets became shabbier and their familiarity increased. And then I saw the man in the black trench coat. He was standing in the middle of the block and when I came close, he turned and hurried on in front of me.

On a particularly deserted street, where all the buildings were warehouses or abandoned lofts, I saw him enter one.

With my heart beating rapidly, I entered the same lobby he had. A short distance from the door was a long staircase. I heard the sound of his footfalls echo in the deserted hallway.

Though I knew it was insanity for me to follow, I did.

I went up to the first landing. All the doors I saw were locked. And though the light in the hallway was very dim, I could see that the building had not been used for along time. The paint in the wall was peeling. Grime and dust covered everything, even the floor. But oddly enough I did not see the footprints made by the man in the black trench coat, though I knew he had gone before me.

By the time I reached the second landing, I realized that there was a skylight over the stairwell. The glass had been smashed out of it and I could see that the light in the hallway came mainly from the outside.

I went up another flight of steps and reached the top floor.

The light was somewhat more intense but from where I stood at the head of the steps, all the doors were locked. There was no sign of the man in the black trench coat. I went from door to door, trying to open each once and succeeded in opening none.

I started back to the stairway when one of the doors creaked open. Hesitantly I approached it. I was positive that it had been securely locked when I had tried to open it. Just as I reached for the knob, I noticed a dim light was burning inside the room. I opened the door and stepped inside.

For a few moments I saw no one but then the thin reedy voice of an old man said, "You have not asked my permission to come in."

I turned toward the dimmest corner of the room and saw a small, wizened looking man with leathery looking skin and dressed in very old' clothes. He was standing looking directly at me. A greasy old cap was pulled down over the left side of his face, which was pockmarked and covered with a rough grizzle. And the pupils of his eyes were almost yellow.

I felt him looking at me the way a much younger man would.

Finally I said, "I didn't mean to disturb you but I saw someone enter this building and I thought he might be here."

He smiled, revealing his toothless gums. Then he began to laugh and soon the laughter turned into hacking cough. "I'm the only one here," he said. "This place belongs to me."

I had no intentions of contesting his claim.

"Who is this someone you were following?" he asked, the tone of his thin voice going up several notes by the time he uttered the last word.

"A man."

"What is his name?"

The question took me off guard. "I don't know," I said with a shrug.

"Describe him."

Again his question took me by surprise. "He was wearing a black trench coat and hat," I said.

He cocked his head to one side and looked at me as though I was some kind of an oddity. "And that's all you can describe?" he asked after a few moments of silence.

I nodded.

"Why did you follow him?" he asked.

What could I answer that would make sense?

He became impatient and said, "Is he your lover?"

I shook my head and answered, "I'm married." And to give more validity to my answer I showed him my wedding band.

"Meaningless," he said with a wave of his hand. "It's not!" I cried.

He broke into a hacking laugh again.

I started to move back toward the door. To have spoken with him at all had made little sense and to continue speaking to him was completely absurd. But as I reached the door it swung closed. I whirled around and looked at it and then I faced the old man.

The yellow glow in his eyes glowed with an evil insanity. I could feel them move over me. I wanted to scream but my throat tightened. I was sure that he was going to leap at me and tear every stitch of clothing from my body.

But he remained standing where he was.

For a few moments nothing happened. Then he said, "Take your coat off."

I started to object but nonetheless I unbuttoned my coat, slipped it from my shoulders and let it slip to the floor.

He came slowly toward me, his head cocked to one side. Then he stopped in front of me. His yellow eyes roamed over my breasts. Then very slowly he extended his hands and touched them. He raised his eyes to mine and nodded approvingly.

I thought he would attempt to put his hands under my sweater but he stepped back several pages.

"Take your clothes off," he said.

"What?"

"Do as you are told or I will have to take stern measure."

"You're mad!" I exclaimed.

He rushed forward and slapped me across the face. "Never say that!" he exclaimed. "Never say that!"

My cheek stung and I rubbed it.

"Now take your clothes off!"

This time I did not answer. I crossed my arms, took hold of the bottom of my sweater and then pulled the garment over my head, uncovering my bare breasts with a single movement.

Though he was watching intently, he seemed totally unaffected by the sight of my bare breasts. "Now those pants," he said, "and whatever else is under them."

I removed my boots, then my slacks and lastly my panties. I stood before him completely naked. He did not move. "Lift your breasts," he said.

I was about to object but he made a threatening gesture with his hand. I lifted them.

He smiled.

"I'm cold," I complained.

"Soon that will pass," he said.

For several minutes nothing happened. I was beginning to think that the old man was getting his kicks from looking at my naked body. I had heard that when a man loses his ability to fuck, he sometimes restored his vigor by looking at naked women, at least to the point where he could have an erection.

"Turn around," he said.

I had no choice and did what he ordered.

"From either side," he said, "you're a fine looking woman."

His compliment had no effect on me. All I wanted to do was get dressed and out of there. Then suddenly I heard the hiss of an animal. The sound was loud and very clear. And an instant later I felt him against me. His body was naked and his prick hard and hot. I started to move away but he grabbed my breasts from behind. I gasped and looked down. His hands were like two hairy paws. I screamed.

From behind me I heard his hissing laughter. And then he tumbled me to the floor. I lay stomach down on my leather coat. I felt him rub his hairy body against mine. And his prick slid in between the cheeks of my ass.

And then he raised himself up over my back. When he came down again his cock drove deep into my curt. I cried out in pain and tried to shake him off. But he clung tightly to me. He began to pump when we rolled over the floor.

At first his efforts to arouse me had little effect but then I found myself responding. I began to move my ass to the rhythm of his pumping. I could feel his prick growing larger and hotter inside of me. No man could possibly possess such an organ.

I closed my eyes and bit my tongue. The nest instant his cock was out of my cunt and he jammed it into my ass. I screamed and in an explosive burst of energy I broke free, leaped up and, grabbing my, clothes, ran from the room.

It wasn't until I reached the first landing that I stopped to dress. And then I didn't bother to put on my panties or sweater. My boats, slacks and coat were enough to get me out of the building. I rushed out into the street and ran across the gutter. A short distance away I darted into a building and managed to get my sweater on. I turned and looked toward the building. It was too dark to distinguish it from the others on either side of it.

I began to walk. My walk soon quickened and then it became a run. Sometime later I found myself on the subway going. uptown but I did not remember how I got there or where I had been. I was just happy to be out of the studio. When I arrived home, I was surprised to find Aron. He was quite worried about me. When I asked why, he pointed to the clock on the mantel. It was almost midnight.

"But that's impossible!" I exclaimed. "I left the studio only a short while ago."

XIII

I wasn't hungry but Aron insisted that I eat something and while I showered he fussed around in the kitchen. I wasn't really interested in what he was doing or even that he was doing it for me.

I stayed in the shower for a long time, letting the hot water pour over me, not only to relax my aching muscles but also to rid my body of the feeling that it was filthy. I noticed that my breasts were bruised and I hoped that Aron in his solicitude for me wouldn't decide that what I needed most to make me feel better was to be laid. If he did arrive at this kind of therapy, I would be hard put to explain the marks on my breasts.

Other parts of my body were equally bruised and though I couldn't see the lips of my cunt, they felt as though they had been subjected to no small amount of abuse. But it was my ass that hurt the most.

As soon as I finished showering, I put on a pair of pajamas and a heavy bathrobe. I wanted to look as asexual as possible. Finally I went into the kitchen and sat down.

Aron had tea ready and a ham and cheese sandwich.

"What did you eat?" I asked.

"I made myself scrambled eggs," he answered, leaning against the wall.

I knew he was studying me but I tried to ignore it and said: "I'm really sorry about--"

"Forget it," he told me with a wave of his hand. "I wish I could have taken off and lost myself for a few hours. After all, I knew Mike."

I had completely forgotten about Mike.

Aron moved from where be was to the chair opposite me and sat down. "Aside from being associated with Mike through business," he said, "I liked him as an individual."

I knew he had a need to talk about Mike but I surely didn't want to hear anything about him. "There are lots of guys in the business that are phonies," Aron said, "but Mike wasn't. He was professional all the way."

I never cared much for eulogies and this one bothered me even more than those I heard in the precincts of a funeral chapel.

"He was great," Aron said with a sigh. "You know, he was slated for the presidency of his company."

"I didn't know," I said, swallowing the last of the sandwich.

Aron nodded. "And there's something else."

"Oh?"

"He offered to make me director of research when he became president."

"Is that why--" I stopped myself before I said something that was better left unsaid.

"Why what?"

"It's not important," I answered.

He gave me a peculiar look but did not pursue the matter any further.

"I'm very tired," I said. "I think I'll go to bed."

He offered to wash the dishes and I accepted. Then I left the kitchen and went into the bedroom. I slipped off the bathrobe and sank down into the bed. I was terribly tired.

A few minutes later Aron came into the room. "I'm going to watch TV for a while," he said.

"All right," I answered.

"Lila?"

"Yes," I replied. I thought he had left the room but he was standing near the doorway. "Yes, what is it?"

"Would you do me a favor?"

"Yes."

"Would you go to the doctor and have him examine you?"

I sat up. "But why?"

"Please," he said. "Just do it for me."

"I'm perfectly all right," I told him, unable to keep the annoyance I felt out of the tone of my voice.

Aron came to the bed and sat down on it. "I've been meaning to speak to you for a while now," he said. "But the moment never seemed right."

From the way he spoke I knew he was having difficulty finding the words. "I'm perfectly all right," I said, trying to reassure him.

"Just listen to me," he responded. "I've been aware of it for some time," he said.

"Aware of what?"

"Please don't interrupt me."

"I'm sorry."

"I don't want you to be sorry," he said sharply. "Just listen."

"No more interruptions," I told him.

"Something has happened to you in the past few months," he explained. "I don't understand it but you have changed. Our life together has become different."

I made an impatient gesture of denial but remained silent.

"I wouldn't be telling you this," Aron said, "if it wasn't so."

"Nothing has changed," I lied.

"Sometimes," he said, bending close to me, "things change without our knowing it."

"All right," I challenged, "name one thing?"

He hesitated.

"I want you to name one thing," I demanded. "Our sexual relations," he said, taking hold of my hands.

I wrenched myself free. "You get enough, don't you?" I was angry that he should find fault with that aspect of our relationship. I had convinced myself that he was too insensitive to me to know that I no longer wanted him.

"Yes," he said, "I get enough as you put it. But more often than not I feel that you're not there."

"That's your problem," I told him angrily. "And not mine. Maybe you should see the doctor."

He didn't answer.

"Besides," I commented, "you're a hog when it comes to sex."

He stood up, walked a few steps away, from the bed and then faced me. "You make me feel like I'm just using your cunt to jerk off." The tone of his voice fitted the harshness of his words.

"Thanks," I replied, "for the compliment."

He came back to the bed and put his hand on my shoulder. "I hoped I wouldn't have had to tell you these things," he said.

"I bet you did!" I exclaimed and moved my shoulder to get his hand off of it.

He was silent for a few moments and then asked whether or not I would see the doctor.

My first inclination was to give him a negative response but I realized that it would be wiser to agree-at least in part. "I'll think about it," I said.

"That's not good enough."

"What?"

"I want you to go or--"

"Or what?" I asked, furious about his attitude.

He ignored my question and said: "Don't put any more of a strain on our relationship than there already is."

"I don't have to do that," I answered. "You . managed to accomplish that without my help."

He turned and started out of the room.

I called to him before he reached the doorway.

"I think you should go to sleep now," he said, turning to me.

"Just one question?"

"Okay," he replied. "Go ahead."

"Just when did you realize this great change in me?"

He stood framed by the light in the living room and seemed unable to make up his mind whether to leave the bedroom or remain.

"There must have been one incident in our blissful sex life," I said sarcastically, "that sticks in your mind."

"There is," he answered. "But it doesn't stick in my mind; it does stick in my craw."

"When?" I pressed.

"You know when," he said. "You know when as well as I do."

I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. "I really don't know what you're talking about."

He walked back into the room and stopped midway between the bed and the door. "A month, maybe six weeks ago, you stayed up to read--"

"And that bothered your" I. questioned with a forced laugh. "Now be honest, you wanted to get laid--"

"Will you shut up!"

His voice was low and threatening.

"That night you came to me."

"Then why complain?"

"Because," he said tightly. "I suddenly realized that you didn't love me, that all you wanted was to be fucked. And I knew that if I hadn't been there any man would have done as well."

"Maybe better," I shot back' at him.

He clenched his fists.

I was suddenly afraid that I had gone too far and that he would come at me but he remained where he was and after a few moments said: "I have said all that I am going to say." And then he turned and left the room.

I lay back on the pillow and looked up at the ceiling. I suddenly found myself remembering exactly what had happened that night.

* * *

I was up reading the latest issue of Art News. But I really wasn't paying much attention to it. I was terribly edgy. I had been feeling that way most of the day. I had started a new painting that afternoon and I was filled with doubts about it. Nothing I read sank in and I began to flick through the magazine. Suddenly I came to a photograph of a painting by Hieronymus Bosch, the fifteenth-century Dutch artist whose paintings of devils and witches always fascinated me. But this one possessed a strong erotic content. The naked figure of a woman lay stretched out on a bed and, hovering above her in the gloom was the dim figure of some malevolence, half man and half demon.

The picture grabbed my attention and held it. Even though it was a photograph, the expression on the woman's face was clearly indicative of her ecstasy. And the straining of her body, left no doubt in my mind that Bosch had painted her just as the tension in her body mounted toward a climax.

The longer I looked at the photograph, the more erotic my own feelings became. I closed my eyes and wondered whether I could ever experience an orgasm of such magnitude? I felt my nipples bud and a more than gentle heat burned in me.

I saw no reason to decieve myself or deny my need. I opened my eyes and set the magazine aside. I switched off the lamp and went into the bedroom. I had already showered and was wearing lounging pajamas. I slipped them off and crawled into bed completely nude.

Aron must have been aware of my presence because he moved closer to me. I waited to see if he sensed my nudity. He didn't and I realized that he was asleep and that his movement to me was somewhat like a reflexive action.

I called to him but he gave no indication of having heard me. I called again but this time my voice was louder and I gently shook his shoulder.

He awoke with a start. "What's wrong?" he asked, already beginning to sit up.

"Nothing," I said. "I just want you to hold me."

"Oh," he said and slipping down again, he put his arm over my waist. A moment passed before he realized I was naked. When he did, he raised his head and said: "Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yes," I giggled. "I'm all right." His hand was on my stomach and already my blood was racing. I waited for him to make the next move. I realized that the last few times he had wanted to make love to me I came up with some sort of an excuse that would put him off.

"I was fast asleep," he said.

That seemed like a putdown but I quickly realized that he was just stating a fact, even though it was an obvious one.

"Hold me," I whispered. "Hold me tight."

He drew me to him.

I opened his pajama top and caressed his chest. I tried to press myself against him but I felt him move away.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"You tell me," he answered. "I already told you," I said. "Nothing is wrong."

"Then why-"

"I need you," I told him and again pushed my breasts against his chest.

"And what about when I need you?"

"Please," I said, "I need you."

"Then tell me what you really want?"

For a moment I didn't understand. Then suddenly I realized how much he resented my actions of late. "What do you want to hear?" I asked.

"The truth!"

I took a deep breath and as I exhaled I repeated his words. But then I added, "I want you to fuck me, understand? I want you to fuck me."

"Nothing more?"

"No," I answered and shoving my hand between us, I grabbed hold of his limp cock. But I knew exactly how to make it into the tool I could use. With infinite care, I coaxed it to its full throbbing life. I even played with his balls since I knew how much he like that.

His passion was inflamed and he quickly removed his pajamas.

My nipples were so hard that they hurt. I waited for his hand to caress my breasts but I quickly realized he was going to make me work for this lay if I wanted it and he knew I wanted it.

I French-kissed him and sucked his tongue deep into my throat. Then I felt his hands on my breasts and I knew I was going to get some action out of him. His fingers grabbed hold of my nipples and pulled on them until I had to tell him how wonderful that felt.

I didn't wait until he began to suck on them. I pushed his face down to my naked breast and told him to suck my nipple. He did and I moaned with delight. I made him move from one to the other. And as he sucked my nipple, I ran my hand up and down his febrile prick.

I was fully aroused and could have taken him into me the moment he began playing with my nipples but I wanted to prolong the pleasure he was giving me as long as possible, and I knew that if I caressed his prick long enough..he would sooner or later play with my cunt.

I closed my eyes and waited to feel his hand on me. When he finally placed it there I splayed my naked thighs to show him how much I wanted him to run his fingers over my cunt. I felt like a bitch in heat but I really didn't give a damn. My interest was wholly self-centered. I closed my eyes and heightened my pleasure by imagining I was, in the embrace of some demi-human creature the way the woman was in Bosch's painting.

Aron's hand were still on my breasts, and I wanted him to play with my cunt. I was becoming more and more impatient for him to move there. Finally I took hold of his hand, withdrew it from my breast and placed it where I wanted it. That was enough to give him the idea of what I wanted. Ordinarily he would. have found his way there and I would have to admit that he was quite expert in his ministrations. He had once told me that one of the first women he had ever screwed was several years older than he was and had taken the time to show him what to do. Her teachings were not wasted.

I felt his light touch along the lips of my cunt, while at the same time he rolled one finger over my clit. The sensations were exquisite and I could hear myself purr with delight. Then he began to finger the entrance to my cunt. Reflexively I clamped his hand between my naked thighs.

Then suddenly I felt the desperate need to have his prick in my mouth. That to me had always been the height of sensual expression between a man and a woman. Before I had been fucked by more than one man, I thought that oralsex was the ultimate expression of love. But I soon learned that it was nothing more than part of a whole spectrum of pleasures.

Even as these thoughts went through my brain, I changed my position, placing myself over his cock. A moment later I had its head between my lips. I could tell from the way he thrust it deeper into my mouth that he was enjoying the movement of my tongue and lips.

Then I felt his fingers in my cunt again. I pushed myself higher and a moment later experienced the delightful shock of his tongue flicking over my clit. He was really working me over, finding the most sensitive parts of my cunt. I began to move so that I would direct his kiss to those parts of my sex which gave me the most pleasure.

I soon realized that he would come if I continued sucking his cock much longer. I stopped and rolled off him. As soon as I altered my position to what had been, he thrust his hand over my cunt and immediately began to finger-fuck me.

"Now," I said breathlessly. "Give it to me now."

He didn't. need a second invitation and placed himself between my naked thighs. A moment later he slipped into me. He kissed my lips and I could smell the scent of my own fluid on his face. I could even taste it on his lips.

I closed my eyes and surrendered myself to the voluptuousness of his slow movements. With ' sure knowledge of what his actions would do to me, Aron slid his cock in and out of the entrance to my cunt. I began to moan, and moved my head from side to side, trying to quell the need to make him quicken his pace.

Out of habit I reached down and caressed his balls. He paused and I felt his prick quiver inside of me. Then he began to move again, slow at first but quicker and deeper as the moments passed.

The tension in my body reached unimaginable dimensions. I began to thrust my hips at him. The tip of his prick went deeper into me. My body felt as though it had been shattered, fragmented into countless bits of writhing flesh. Each wave scattered the pieces in the darkness into which I had been hurled by the first climatic implosion.

From somewhere outside of me I heard the heavy grunt of a man, and I felt the hot gush of his fluid fill me.

Very slowly I returned to reality and when I was finally back I opened my eyes. Aron was still on top of me. He was breathing very hard. His weight pinned me down. I moved to throw him off. He had fulfilled his purpose. I had no more need of him.

He tried to kiss me.

"No," I told him.

"No." He was too furious to speak.

I turned over and went to sleep.

* * *

That was what had happened the night Aron mentioned. And from it he knew or surmised that something was wrong. I wondered if there was anything else, something perhaps even more significant than our sexual relations? There was no way for me to know. But I decided that to keep what small measure of harmony existed between us, I would visit the doctor the following day. Then I slept.

XIV

The nest morning I awoke before the alarm went off. Aron was still sleeping. His hand was under my pajama top, covering my breast. I did not move away from him, not because I felt any different toward him but rather I wanted to remain motionless and enjoy the quietness of the early morning.

It was not quite seven o'clock and the sun had not yet risen high enough to flood the street with light. I listened to Aron's breathing and turned my head to look at him. His face was the essence of boyishness, not a line marring its youthful appearance. The innocence of his expression got to me. I resented it. He was a man like other teen, and from experience I knew that no man is innocent. One way or another every man lusted after the forbidden and that it was usually fear that kept them from going after it. Whether the fear stemmed from inside or out, it was sufficient to hold his dark lusts in check. Only those men who were willing to run the risk of self or social censure ever experienced fulfillment of their hidden desires.

I wondered what lusts hid deep in Aron's brain. What did he want to do but was afraid to, lest he reap the bitter harvest of self or social recriminations?

Oddly enough, I couldn't think of anything. He was too law-abiding to harbor dreams of committing a crime. And he really wasn't capable of a moral lapse, even when we began sleeping together before our marriage; he was the one whose conscience was troubled by what he termed our "flagrant disregard for the social mores of society."

Perhaps Aron's lusts lay in a completely different direction? Then the idea occurred to me that his professional ambition might offer the most logical avenue for his type of man. The more I thought about that possibility, the more interesting it became.

Though it was true that he was a fine engineer, it was equally true that he burned to get ahead in the field. He often told about how one or another of his colleagues fouled up an assignment, and when he did there was always a certain amount of childish glee involved, especially if he didn't like the man to begin with or didn't think that the man was a good engineer.

I smiled to myself. I had found Aron's hidden lust and what made it more gratifying to me was the fact that I was positive he was ignorant of it.

I supposed he imagined that one day he would head a vast electronics corporation. And if he achieved that goal, people would point to 'him as a man who through his own ability and initiative rose to the very top of his profession. Lust in that form was socially acceptable, even praised.

I was struck by the incongruity of what society accepts and rejects, when in the last analysis-

The alarm went off and interrupted my train of thought.

Aron swung around and closed the alarm. "I hate the sound of that damn thing," he growled. He was really more asleep than awoke. "Why can't they make something that doesn't take the top off your head when it sounds?"

"I'll look around for a clock that has a softer alarm," I said.

He looked at me. His movement to shut the alarm had disrupted the blanket and left the top part of me uncovered. My breasts were clearly visible through the thin material of the pajama top. From the way his eyes narrowed down to slits I knew exactly what his thoughts were. Suddenly I realized I could make things easier between us by being nice to him, which meant showing him that I wouldn't be averse to having sex.

"Why don't you go in a little later?" I suggested.

He shook his head. "I'm so jammed up with work," he said, "that it would take a month of Sundays to get out from under it"

I heaved a deep sigh, purposely thrusting my breasts out And then I told him that I would go to the doctor that morning.

"Maybe," he commented, "all that's wrong with you is that you're run down."

I agreed. He still hadn't left the bed and as long as he was in it I had more than a fifty-fifty chance of giving him what he really wanted. "Look," I said, "why don't you go back to sleep for a while and then work later this evening?"

He considered that for a few moments and then asked, "Are you getting up now?"

"No," I told him. "I could easily go back to sleep." And I drew the blanket over me, hiding my thinly clad breasts from his view.

"I guess it won't hurt to get more sleep," he said and slipped down under the blanket again.

I remained on my back waiting for him to move. After a few moments he put his hand under my pajama top and laid it on my stomach. Rather than risk giving myself away; I turned on my side and presented him with my back. I knew that my movement would make him hesitate. And as I lay on my side I wondered what he was thinking. After a while I felt his hand on my shoulder. I moved my arm to make it easier for him to reach my breast. He was slow on the uptake but finally his hand closed over my breast First outside the pajama top and then inside on my bare skin. He began to play with my nipple and soon the bud became an erect stalk.

He edged closer to me and I felt the thrust of his cock against the cheeks of my ass. I felt his other hand push the back of ,my pajama bottom down. I raised myself to make it easier for him to move the pajama bottoms below my buttocks and then slip them off.

As soon as I was naked he caressed my stomach and slowly slid his hand on my snatch.

I was excited and I pushed myself against his cock until I felt the head of his prick between the cheeks of my an. Each time I moved I could feel a corresponding trembling along his shaft.

I opened my thighs, hoping that he would not take too much time.

His fingers teased the lips of my crack and I found myself moaning with delight. With one hand diddling my cunt, he used the other to play with the nipples of my breasts.

I was thoroughly enjoying myself, though not because I loved him. My pleasure was purely sensual. My body and nothing more was responding.

Deftly Aron opened the lips of my cunt and worked his fingers over the inside surfaces until I whimpered from sheer pleasure. I thrashed around like some hooked fish.

He moved over my clit and I gasped aloud. In moments he had me alternately moaning and whimpering with pleasure.

My movements caused his cock to leave its nest between the cheeks of my ass. But just as I was about to reach back and replace it, Aron pushed it into my cunt.

Up to that moment I hadn't realized he too had slipped out of his pajama bottom but I knew it the instant I felt his balls move against my buttocks.

It was a gesture that was meaningful to me since I remembered that he had once told me how much pleasure it gave him when his bare balls moved against the naked cheeks of my ass.

For a few moments he remained motionless inside my cunt.

I decided to give him a real thrill and began to make the walls of my vagina quiver. Though I knew how to do this and I knew how much a man enjoys the pulse-like movement, it took a great deal of effort for me to make it happen. But there had been times when I had been so overpoweringly aroused that that muscular contraction so highly prized by men started of its own accord.

I could feel Aron shudder each time he experienced a ripple inside my cunt. Then when it passed he worked steadily, using his cock in me and his fingers on my clit.

From time to time he caressed the cheeks of my ass. Sometimes he even played his fingers down the length of my crack but he always stopped short of touching my anus. Often I had hoped he wouldn't, that he would have the need to explore my body there.

It had always served as a delicious change of pace. But Aron had never touched me there. Perhaps he clung to the childish notion that it was taboo. I never pressed him to do it, but since I felt that I was giving him what he wanted, I also felt that he should reciprocate in kind. But the only way to get him to do it was for me to ask, or tell him outright, what I wanted him to do.

"Aron--" I began, but I couldn't continue, becaused as I had turned my head toward him, he had misinterpreted my actions and I found myself kissing him. To draw away from his kiss would have been disastrous. Awkward as it was, he continued to kiss, even to let our tongues touch. Finally he moved away.

But now he was intent on sucking the nipple of the breast nearest him. With his cock still in me, he moved over my body in such a way that enabled him to place his lips on the nipple of my right breast.

He rubbed it with his tongue and drew his teeth over it. His sucking served only to heighten my excitement and I knew from the way he tried to take all of my breast in his mouth he too was reaching a pitch of excitement. Finally he let go of my breast and slid down behind me. His hands once more were busy at my cunt. But this time he used the both of them. One played over my clit and the other along the lips of the slit. And at the same time he continued to move his cock in and out of me.

I couldn't find the breath to speak and even if I had, I would have only pleaded with him to move faster and harder. But there was a way to quicken his movements. I reached behind me, found his balls, and began to caress them.

The effect was instantaneous; his pace quickened. Not only that, he rolled me on to my stomach, and began to really pump.

The pace became faster and more intense. I could feel his cock becoming even hotter than it had been. At the same time, the tension in my own body increased. I knew I was near to climaxing.

"Move!" I shouted. "Move faster... harder... goddamn you, fuck me harder!" The words exploded from my lips just moments before the tension gave way inside of me and my body contracted in or orgy of climatic spasms.

A short time later I heard Aron grunt with satisfaction and felt him explode in me.

I fell asleep with Aron still on my back.

I felt Aron move off me, but I was not sufficiently disturbed by it to waken. I even felt his hand move between my legs for one last touch. It was the kind of a gesture made by a man who is in love with the woman he has just laid, a way of extending his gratefulness to her for having given him pleasure.

I imagined that each and every couple possessed some non-verbal means of communicating such tender sentiments.

But Aron's touch meant little to me. What I had done had been done out of my desire to avoid further conflict with him and not out of my desire for him. That I had experienced pleasure from having him fuck me had been the result of my having taken what had been available to take. No matter who the man had been I would have climaxed.

With this thought lingering in my brain like a heavy mist I sank deeper and deeper into sleep...

XV

The dream came just before I awoke. As soon as I realized I was going to dream I tried to rouse myself but couldn't.

I was already in the dream. Indeed, I was part of it, since it flowed out of me.

I saw the house I had lived in when I was a small girl, perhaps no more than four or five years old.

It was huge by my standards then and still would have seemed tremendous if I had seen it recently. It stood alone with no other building around it. On three sides it was surrounded by rolling hills. On the fourth side was the ocean.

Though I could not see it from where I stood, I could hear the crash of the waves as they broke on the rocks far below the walls of the house. There was a mist that hung over the edge of the abyss like a huge curtain. It was there even on sunny days.

The house itself, as I have already noted, was enormous. It was built of gray stone blocks and stood on an outcropping of rock that was considerably higher than the surrounding hills, giving it the appearance of having been part of the living rock that supported it rather than a structure put there by the hand of man.

The sun vanished and the sky became a dull gray casque. A strong wind came up, blowing off the sea, then it started to rain.

I ran to the house and opened the huge oaken door. Once inside I went to where my mother was. The light in the room was very dim and unsteady. She was much more beautiful than I remembered her. She had long black hair and lovely pale skin. But on her face was the familiar sad expression that seemed to become even sadder whenever she looked at me. She took my hand and led me to my room. Then she told me I was not to leave it all night and that no matter what I heard, I was to remain in the room.

I asked if I was being punished. But she assured me that I was not and that I was still her precious little girl. She clutched me-to her breast and I saw that her cheeks were wet with tears.

Child-like, I asked her why she was crying. But she only shook her head. I could not understand such an answer and asked the question again. She brushed her tears away and said that later when I became older I would learn that a grown woman often weeps because she is happy.

I asked if I would some day be so happy that I too would weep. She nodded and said that she had at least given me that. Young as I was, I wanted to know what that meant. But to this question my mother remained mute.

Much later, after I had finished my dinner and was asleep I was awakened by the violence of the storm that raged outside. The wind buffeted the house and shrieked past the window.

The only light in my room came from the glow of a dying fire in the hearth. I gathered the blankets around myself and tried desperately not to cry out. Streaks of lightning zigzagged across the sky and were quickly followed by tremendous cracks of thunder.

I was sure that several times I felt the floor tremble from these enormous explosions. In my child's mind, as yet unschooled in the knowledge that it was the lightning that was dangerous and not the thunder, I envisioned the walls giving way under the repeated blows of the thunder.

I stayed in my bed as long as I could without giving way to the fear in me. But one particularly loud thunderclap sent me running from my bed to the door and out of my room.

The hallway was absolutely black. Not even the momentary blaze from the intermittent lightning penetrated into the thick darkness, but the sound of the thunder did, making it seem as though some huge fist was pouncing on the roof.

I did not need any light to guide me to my mother's room, which lay at the end of the hallway overlooking the sea. I moved on tiptoes toward my goal.

In the past I had always gone to her when I had been awakened by a bad dream, and she would take me into her big bed and I would snuggle close to her warm body. Then no longer afraid, I would sleep.

But as I came close to the door of my mother's room I' slowed my pace and remembered what she had said to me earlier.

I stopped. I did not want to make her angry and would have returned to my own room but another crash of thunder sent me rushing to hers.

I reached the door and was just about to turn the big brass knob when I saw the thin sliver of yellow light on the floor. The-light surprised me. I knew it was very late and I also knew my mother should have been asleep.

I looked to the yellow line and saw it did not extend out into the hallway but remained just under the door as if it was nothing more than a strip of yellow metal that had been tacked there. And then I heard voices: first my mother's and then a man's.

I couldn't hear what they were saying to each other. But I couldn't understand why my mother was talking to a man and why he was in her room.

I glanced back over my shoulder and thought about returning to my room. I was still frightened by booming thunder but now my curiosity had been aroused. I wondered who the man with my mother was. I didn't have a father like other little girls. My mother told me he had been killed while fighting in some far-off country.

My hand reached for the knob and when I finally took hold of it I slowly turned it. Then I eased the door open and entered the room. My eyes went straight to my mother's bed.

I moaned in my sleep. I was an unwilling captive of my own dream and did not want it to continue but I was powerless to stop it.

I watched that little girl become transfixed by what she saw. Her sight became mine. I was looking at the bed with my eyes, interpreting what I saw with my brain and my experience.

Most of what I saw consisted of moving shadows, though sometimes I would see the naked skin of my mother or the man. But what I didn't see my imagination supplied.

The man was tall, his face a mask of intensity and his fingers long and sensitive looking.

My mother lay supine. Her hair spilled over the white pillow like black water. She looked up at the man. Her eyes were lidded and her bare breasts rose and fell with controlled passion.

"You should not have come back," she said to her lover in a tight whisper.

"And why not?" the man asked, settling down beside her. "No man has a better right to lie by your side than I"

"But you are not a man," my mother answered.

He roared with laughter and-his laugh seemed to make the storm grow wilder than it had been. The lightning blazed in the window and flooded the room with a dazzling whiteness. I dropped to the floor, afraid that I would be discovered. The thunder echoed the man's laughter, making everything between the earth and sky reverberate with it.

"And you are not just a woman," he told her when his laughter subsided.

"I am mortal," she answered.

He thought on her answer for a few moments and then he said, "And for that I am truly sorry. If you were not mortal, together we could roam the world and--"

"You told me the very same thing the night I let, you take me," she said.

"It was true then and is still true."

"A sorry truth," she answered. "One that has given me a daughter who is neither of my kind nor of yours. She belongs to no one."

"To which one of our kind would you have-her belong?"

"I wish I knew," my mother said plaintively.

"To ease your burden," he told her, "I will claim her when the time comes."

My mother was about to say something, perhaps object, but his lips came down so swiftly on hers that she never made a sound. His hands started to move over her breasts and she responded by splaying her thighs.

I watched him slide his hand down her naked belly and when his fingers reached her cunt, she arched her body.

I knew the exquisite pleasure of that touch only too well and even as I saw it played out in my dream, my own cunt began to throb with excitement.

He played his fingers over the lips of her sex and at the same time sucked her nipples with a hunger that was sheer; delight to my mother.

She had taken hold of his tremendous cock and was slowly moving her hand over it.

I saw her move over him and take the head of his enormous organ into her mouth.

He uttered a satisfied grunt and told her that he would give her more delight than she ever dreamed of having. He placed his slender finger on the cheeks of her ass and lifting her up to make her cunt more accessible to his mouth, he placed his tongue deep into her.

My mother trembled and tried to, gorge herself on his tremendous cock. But even as she was enjoying the movement of his tongue in her cunt and over her clit, he played one slender finger over her ass and finally thrust it in.

She cried out with pain but once he was in there she told him how good it felt.

I found myself envying her.

And then quite suddenly he lifted her off him and set her down on the bed. Then he slipped over her and pushed his enormous cock into her cunt.

Again she cried out, telling him that he was burning her insides. But then she raised her arms to embrace him and brought his lips down to hers. He kissed her long and hard. His hands kneaded her naked breasts and as he fucked her, his body seemed to grow larger, until it covered my mother and she was reduced to a mere speck.

I could hear her cries, and as he rode her to the heights of pleasure that few women ever reach, he stroked her naked breasts or pushed his hand under her buttocks to tease her. Whatever he did seemed to heighten her pleasure and soon she began to make sounds that were more animal than human. Finally she shouted: "I'm there... I'm coming... Oh my love... My love!"

And then he too made wild sounds but his were more like the roar of the storm-tossed ocean, or the frantic bellowing of a bull when he sees a cow. It was too much for me to endure. I leaped to my feet and rushed at the dark form that embraced my mother and with my small fists beat on it, screaming for it to let go of my mother.

"Let go of her," I shouted. "Let go of her... Let go of her...." The words grabbed hold of me and like grappling irons dragged me from my sleep. I was awake. Soaked with perspiration I couldn't stop myself from trembling.

This time I remembered what I had dreamt. It hung in my brain like a mist hovering over a stagnant pool. To think about it was horrible. How could such a thing have happened? Had it really happened, or was I just having a nightmare?

I shook my head. I was well aware of how strange things seemed of late. I also knew that I had the peculiar feeling that I was losing my hold on reality but I did not know how this was happening.

When my trembling ceased and I was able to think more rationally, I decided that maybe Aron saw something in me that I could not see and that perhaps I should really go to the doctor. After all, Harry Simpson was more than just a doctor, he was our friend. Aron had known him since the time they had gone to high school together. And they still saw each other socially.

I reached for the phone and started to dial his number. Then I stopped and put the phone back in its cradle.

What would I tell him? That I had a terrible nightmare? Surely it wasn't enough to become upset about. That I couldn't account for my actions for long periods of time although I knew I had been somewhere and had done something. Should I tell him I let one of Aron's clients fuck me? Or should I tell him my marriage is falling apart?

I knew I could not tell him any of these things.

But then I realized that Aron might call him to find out what was wrong with me and if I didn't go there would be more trouble between us.

I really had no choice. I would go but try to pass my visit off as a routine matter, a kind of checkup to make sure everything was all right.

I managed to get an appointment for one o'clock that afternoon. She asked that I be at the office on time, and I assured her that I would.

I felt better after I made the appointment and took a few moments to call my agent. When he came on the line I told him I would be there somewhere between two and three. He said that was all right and hung up.

A short while later, I was in the shower, enjoying the rush of hot water over my naked body. I began to hum. I was oddly happy and I felt alert. I was sure it was going to be a good day-very sure.

XVI

I dressed casually, in slacks and a long-sleeved sweater. But because I was going to the doctor, I thought it wiser for me to wear a bra than go without it. I still needed boots and I chose a three-quarter length, shearling-lined, horse-hide coat. Once I had my gloves and a scarf on, I was on my way.

Since I had not breakfasted and probably would skip lunch, I stopped at the luncheonette. There were several other people at the counter and when Carlo waited on me, he only had the chance to tell me that he would get in touch with me in a few days. I had forgotten about the offer I had made to him to pose for me. But as soon as he alluded to it, I remembered and said that there was no rush; he could call any time.

After I finished breakfast and lingered for a second cup of coffee I paid the check, left Carlo a generous tip and started out for the doctor's office, which was located some distance uptown on Fifth Avenue across from Central Park. Since I had more than an hour and a half to my appointment, I decided to walk up Fifth Avenue.

I went to the, corner and turned west. The day was bright with sunshine and because the wind had dropped off it seemed considerably less cold than the past few days had been. I walked quickly and when I reached Fifth Avenue I started uptown.

The park was on my left and looked very pretty covered with snow. The trees had snow on their limbs and if I ignored the buildings and the sounds of the traffic, I could have easily imagined that I was far out in the country and not in the city at all.

In a short while I was in view of the Metropolitan Museum and was tempted to go in and spend some time just wandering around. But I knew if I gave way to the temptation I would forget to keep track of the time. I decided I would be better off arriving at the doctor's office early rather than late. and miss the chance to see him.

I was fifteen minutes early when I finally did get to the office. The receptionist took my name and took my folder out of the file. Then she told me to sit down. She was very efficient and business-like in her manner. Perhaps if she hadn't been quite so brusque I might have attempted to start some sort of a conversation with her.

I opened my coat, removed my gloves and kerchief and sat down. Then I picked up one of the many magazines that were stacked on a nearby table and began to flick through it. It was one I had already read. I found myself wondering why there were always old issues of magazines in a doctor's office and seldom new ones? I became bored with the magazine and set it down on the pile from which I had taken it.

The receptionist was busy typing and I became fidgety, though I tried not to show it. But after what seemed like an hour or more, thought it was only a few minutes, the door to the examination room opened and the nurse came out.

She was a young pretty blonde with a good figure that her white uniform did not hide. She said something to the receptionist who handed her my folder and gestured toward me.

"Mrs. Dawson?" the nurse called.

I stood up, took my gloves, kerchief and handbag.

"Please follow me," the nurse said.

She led me to an examination room and told me to hang up my coat and then undress.

"Is it really necessary?" I asked. "I just want to speak to the doctor."

"It will save time," she explained, "if the doctor wants to examine you."

I knew it would be useless to try to change her mind.

"Just down to your panties," she said, handing me a sheet. Then with a smile she informed me that the doctor would be with me shortly. Then she left the room, closing the door after her.

As I stripped, I wondered if Harry was using her for more than just a nurse. After all, she was available and had everything a man wanted. When I was down to my panties, I started to drape the sheet around me and then stopped. Out of sheer perverseness I slipped off my panties before I finished covering my nakedness with the sheet.

While I waited for the doctor I looked at the room. It was painted an off-white. There were several cabinets along the walls and a large examination table.. My inspection was interrupted by the arrival of the doctor.

"Hello Lila!" he exclaimed.

And though he extended his hand to me, I put my arms around him and kissed him on the cheek. The movement caused my sheet to slip below one breast. I drew away and immediately covered myself.

Harry was obviously surprised by my warm greeting but he maintained his cool. "How's Aron?" he asked, moving away.

"Fine," I answered. "And he sends his best."

Harry nodded. He was short for a man, no taller than I and he was somewhat heavier than he should be.

He looked at me, his eyes went to my breasts and then down the length of my draped body. Doctor or not, he was still a man. I guess the sight of my bare breast had more of an effect on him than he would be willing to admit to himself or anyone else.

"Now what seems to be the trouble?" he finally asked.

"Just a routine checkup," I said. "You know how it is."

He cocked his head to one side and studied me. "I wouldn't have thought you worried about your health?" he commented.

"It's not really me," I told him. "It's Aron."

"Oh!" he exclaimed, rubbing his chin.

For the first time since I knew him I noticed that he had gray eyes.

"And there's nothing that you can put your finger on that might have caused himto worry?"

I shook my head. "Nothing really."

He nodded as though he had accepted what I had told him but intuitively, I knew that he didn't believe me.

"Well," he said, "a checkup now and then is a good precaution."

"Especially if it makes Aron happy," I added. But I was sorry I had said that. The note of sarcasm in my voice was more than evident. "What I mean," I hastened to explain, "was that he worries too much."

"I should say," Harry said, "that you should be pleased by his concern. Most women complain that their husbands are oblivious to them."

"Not always," I said with a sly laugh.

He smiled. "Of course they don't mean always," he agreed. "Why don't you sit down on the table," he suggested, "while I check your blood pressure."

And for the next few minutes he was busy taking my blood pressure, which turned out to be spectacularly normal. Then he asked me to stand up and lower the sheet so that he could apply the steothoscope to my chest. The round metal disk felt cold against my bare flesh. He told me to breathe deeply several times and then he had me .turn around and lower the sheet so that he could listen to my lungs.

"Everything seems fine," he said when he had finished.

"I told you there was nothing wrong with me."

"Now will you uncover your breasts?" he asked. I opened the top of the sheet.

He felt one, then the other. "No sign of any lumps," he commented. And then he touched the small mole under one. "How long have you had this?" he asked. He was already examining the other breast. "There's one here, too."

I laughed and said that was to distribute the weight evenly.

"Would you please lie down on the table?" he said.

"But why?"

"I'd just like to get a better look at the moles," he answered and then he repeated his question. "Ever since I developed breasts," I told him as I stretched out on the table.

He picked up my folder and after scanning it said, "I have no record of having seen them before."

"That's because they're hardly big enough to see," I told him.

He went to the sterilizer and took out a long thin piece of metal that looked like a knitting needle. "Now I want you to tell me if you feel anything when I touch you with this," he explained.

I nodded.

Deftly he bared my breasts, and starting with the right one, he touched it with the point just above the aureola.

"Easy," I said. "That's sensitive."

He smiled and continued to test my reactions. Then he pushed my-breast up so that the small protrusion on the bottom was more accessible. When he touched it with the point of the needle, I felt it and told him so.

He did exactly the same thing to the left breast and I again felt the point when he put it against the other mole.

"What does all that mean?" I asked when he finished.

"Other than that you're sensitive on all parts of your breasts," he said, "I'm not sure." He put the needle back into the sterilizer and went to one of the cabinets and took out a reflector. Once he had adjusted it on his head he came back to the table and shone. a very bright light on my right breast and studied it.

I don't know whether it was he result of his hands on my breast or that I was chilled or a combination of both conditions, but I felt my nipples begin to harden.

"You know," he said when he had carefully examined my left breast, "that those aren't really moles."

"Oh? What are they?"

With his hand still on my breast, he looked up and said, "Something we don't often see."

He must have felt the slight pressure of my hardened nipple against the palm of his hand because he glanced down at it. But he did not. remove his hand from my breast.

"They're what we call secondary nipples," he said. "A long time ago they were termed devil nipples or witch's teats."

He looked down at my breast again. "Tell me," he said, "if you feel this?"

And he began to rub the secondary nipple on my left breast with the ball of his forefinger. He looked at me questioningly.

I did feel something and it was intensely pleasurable. I nodded and said, "Yes."

He used his other hand to rub the secondary nipple on my other breast.

"I feel that too," I told him.

"May I ask you some questions?" he said, finally removing his hands from my breasts.

"Yes."

"Even if they're somewhat personal?"

"Go ahead."

"When Aron caresses you does he ever touch those nipples?"

"No."

"He must be aware of them," he said.

"I'm sure he is," I answered.

"From which set of nipples do you derive more pleasure?"

"I told you Aron never touched--"

"And before you were married?" he asked.

I shrugged. "I don't really remember," I answered.

He smiled. "Well, there's nothing to worry about," he said. "You just have a spare set.", He chuckled as though he had said something funny.

My breasts were still bare and my nipples retained their hardness. He looked at them and said, "Your breasts are very sensitive."

"Is that a question or a statement?" I asked.

"An observation," he answered. "Now let me ask you whether or not you've been sleeping well?"

"No better or worse than usual," I replied. And then to give him something to work on I added: "Though I do think I feel more tired than usual, but that may be due to the fact that I've been working harder."

"I almost forgot about your painting," he said. "How is it going?"

"Quite well," I said. "In fact, I just sold two of them to an important collector."

"Beauty and talent," he said. "That's an unbeatable combination."

"Tell Aron that."

"I'm sure he knows it," he said. "One more question?"

"Go ahead."

"Any trouble with your period?"

"Nothing more than the usual tension and headache that precedes it," I said.

He nodded. "Would you sit up?" he asked. "I want to test your reflexes."

I raised myself into a sitting position and let my legs dangle over the side of the table.

"Cross them please," he said. "I'll have to open the bottom of the sheet."

"I'll do it," I told him and I did.

The moment he saw that I wasn't wearing any panties his face became flushed. "Didn't the nurse tell you--"

"Yes," I said. "But I thought you might want to give me an internal so I took them off." Then I crossed my legs.

He had to strike my knee with the small rubber mallet several times before he hit it just right and caused my leg to jerk.

"Now the other, please," he said.

I uncrossed my legs, giving him a good look at my snatch.

"Your reflexes are good," he said after he had tested the other leg. "I'll just give you a tranquilizer and suggest that you don't push yourself quite so hard."

I nodded but I realized that my. total nudity upset him. He was obviously torn between wanting to look at me and his professional ethic.

"You know," I said, "you haven't asked the most important question."

"Oh?"

"You-know what that is, Harry," I told him.

He blinked.

"Aron isn't all that much of a man," I said. "Do I make myself clear?"

He nodded.

"Sometimes I think I'll go out of my mind," I told him, knowing that I was driving him out of his mind. "But I guess marriage isn't all sex, is it?"

He swallowed. "No," he said. "But no marriage can really work without it."

"Then you understand my situation?"

"Yes."

I leaned back and opened my naked thighs. "If you were--" I stopped. "Do you know what I wish?" I said.

"No."

"But you can imagine, can't you?"

He nodded.

I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. "Aron should be here," I said. "Maybe you could help?"

Harry put both his hands on my naked thighs.

"No," I said. "As much as I might want to, I couldn't--"

"You're beautiful," he said.

"And you're a wonderful man," I told him. "But Aron is your friend and my husband."

That brought him back to reality. He stepped away.

"Will you speak to Aron?"

He nodded. Then he said: "When you're dressed come into my office for your prescription."

As soon as he left the examining room I giggled like a schoolgirl. Poor Aron, I thought, I turned the tables on you. Your friend Harry almost put the horns on you and he still might try.

XVII

As soon as I was dressed I went into Harry's office. Though I had been there several times before I had not remembered what it looked like. When Harry answered my knock on the door with "Come in," I entered the office to find him behind his desk, bent over a large book. He did not even look up to acknowledge my presence but he did tell me to. dose the door and sit down. Since the only chair available was next to his desk, I sat down in it: He was still busy reading the book and I took the time to look around.

The office was paneled with darkly stained oak and much of the available wall space was given over to floor-to-ceiling book cases. And where there was empty space it was taken by some meaningless momento that lent nothing to the decor. There was a large Torricelli barometer in one space, another contained a bas-relief of a ship's hull mounted on a plaque, while in a third space hung a photograph of a tropical beach.

"I'll be with you in a few moments," he said.

I made no comment but I did give up surveying the office and impatiently waited until he finished his reading.

"Well," he said after more than several additional minutes had passed, "I finished."

I nodded "You said you wanted me to take tranquilizer," I told him.

"Perhaps we can dispense with that," he said. "I want to make a suggestion."

For a moment I thought he was going to proposition me. "All right, make your suggestion."

"Fine," he responded. "But first I want to ask a few more questions."

"But you assured me that there was nothing wrong with me. Besides," I said somewhat sharply, "I told you what the problem is. In fact, I even told you where and who the problem is."

"That's precisely why I thought of a different approach," he answered.

I leaned back. "Ask your questions," I told him.

"You don't sleep well?"

"I told you that I don't."

"You're fatigued?"

"Yes," I said with exasperation. "I'm fatigued."

"You feel that you are sexually unfulfilled?"

"I'm sure you know the answer to that," I told him.

"Do you dream?"

"Yes," I said. "I'm just like everyone else." The memory of the dream I had had that very morning came rushing back, with an almost unbearable intensity.

"I never meant to imply that you weren't," he said.

His comment slipped by me and it wasn't until he asked if I every daydreamed to the degree that I lost my hold on reality acid I answered, "If that didn't happen I would never be able to create the kind of paintings--" I stopped and looked at him. He had tricked me into revealing a portion of myself which I would have preferred to keep guarded.

"Naturally you have a rich imagination," he said. "Though I must say it reflects a flair for the bizarre. But I'm not much of an art critic," he commented with a shrug.

"Thank God for that!" I exclaimed.

He chuckled. "Now that was a healthy response," he said. "What the younger set would call 'a putdown,' I believe?"

"Most definitely," I told him. "But you said that you had a suggestion in lieu of a tranquilizer?"

"Yes," he answered. "I would like you to agree to let me hypnotize you."

"What?"

"I think through hypnosis we might discover the root of your trouble," he said.

"The root of my trouble, doctor," I responded curtly, "is that I'm a woman who needs a good lay."

If he was shocked by what I said then he didn't show it. Of course he was less vulnerable sitting behind the bulwark of his desk than he had been in the examination room when I had opened my naked thighs and he had found himself looking at my cunt.

"That is an effect," he said evenly, "but not the cause."

"And is that your professional judgment?"

He nodded.

"Did you find that in that book you were so diligently reading when I entered, or were you acting?"

"No," he answered, touching the book. "It is not on the subject of medicine. And I wasn't playacting."

I smiled. "When you saw me naked," I said, "I knew that you wanted me."

"Yes, I wanted you."

"Perhaps that would be--"

He shook his head. "For a few moments I lost my self-control," he said. "And--"

"But you just said--"

"I'm a man, Lila, andyou are a woman," he said. "But I know Aron a good number of years and I find it hard to believe that he cannot satisfy you sexually."

"I don't give a damn what you believe!" I exclaimed hotly.

"Even though you know there is something wrong?" he questioned.

"I know no such thing."

"But you do know," he insisted, "if not on a conscious level, then on an unconscious one."

"Crap!" I exclaimed. "Just mumbo-jumbo and nothing more."

"Then why are you fighting it so hard?"

His questionbrought me up sharply. I suddenly realized that if I didn't consent to allowing myself to be hypnotized, he would discuss the matter with Aron.

"All right," I said. "I agree."

"Why the quick change?"

"Because I have enough problems with Aron; I don't need any more."

He nodded.

"When do you want me here?"

"Tomorrow, say about six. I'll ask Aron to be here too."

"Must he be?"

"I think it would be wiser," he answered.

I shrugged.

"He will not be in the room when I hypnotize you," Harry said.

I heaved a deep sigh.

"Does the prospect of being hypnotized disconcert you?"

"Why should it?"

"Some people feel that they surrender themselves to--"

"That's ridiculous."

"I agree," he said. Then he stood up. "Then I will see you tomorrow?"

I stood up too. "Yes," I answered.

He offered his hand but I ignored the gesture and telling him I could find my way out, left his office without looking back.

As soon as I was in the street I felt considerably better, but still not at ease. Harry was quite right about my feelings. I did not like the idea of putting myself under another person's control, even if the person was a doctor.

I glanced at my watch. It was past two o'clock. I had spent more time with Harry than I had intended.

I hailed the first empty 'cab I saw and told the driver to take me to Riggs' office and gallery.

XVIII

Riggs' gallery occupied two floors of a four-story white building that was wedged in between two other structures that towered over it. It was considerably longer than it was wide, which made it seem smaller than it was.

I went up to the second floor by elevator and when I stepped into the gallery Riggs was directly in front of me.

"like any other artist," he scolded, "you have no conception of time and less conception about the basic social amenities."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Obviously!"

"I'll not take any apologies," he said, turning his nose up. He was a small thin man, with yellowish gray hair and dry parchment-like skin. Though he flittered about a great deal, I suspected the business end of the establishment was handled by his wife, who stayed in the office on the floor above and seldom came down to the gallery. She was a big flouncy woman with a hard voice. To imagine Riggs climbing on top of her to screw her was impossible. In fact it was ridiculous. Even the thought of Riggs ever getting a hard-on was impossible to imagine.

"I've been terribly busy," I said, following him as he started down the gallery.

He waved my explanation aside.

"All right, Riggs, if you're going to be bitchy," I said, suddenly stopping, "I'll leave and come back some other time."

He halted and wheeled around. "You'd do that?" he asked incredulously.

I remained silent.

He nodded. "You'd do it," he said in a much more moderate tone.

"Now why was it so important for me to be here? You could have mailed my check to the studio or my home."

"I wanted-to discuss your future with you," he said.

"Oh?"

"Why don't we go into my office and--"

"That's fine with me!"

Riggs' office was in the rear of the second floor. It was quite opulent and showed a more feminine taste than masculine.

Once we were in the office Riggs closed the door. He offered me a drink, which I accepted.

"What will you have?" he asked.

"Scotch if you have it," I answered.

He poured a jigger of Scotch over ice and asked if I wanted water.

"Fine."

He took rye for himself and when we both had our drinks, he toasted my success and sat down behind a Louis Quatorze desk. He took another sip of his drink and then said, "You've come a long way since I agreed to exhibit your paintings."

"Thank you," I replied.

"And you have the potential to go a great deal further," he commented.

"I hope so," I responded after taking another swallow of my drink. The Scotch warmed me but his flattery had an even greater effect. "I think you will like my new painting even more than the others."

He set his glass down on the desk. "Every artist feels that way about his latest work," he said.

"I'm not just telling you that because it's mine," I said, remembering how hard I worked to get the multidimensional effect. And I told him about it.

He listened and when I was finished he said, "I'll tell you when I see it."

I found his casualness about the painting disquieting. But I knew that he not only judged a painting by the technique and originality, but also considered its commercial worth. I never painted with the last criterion in mind. I don't think I could have.

"Don't look so crestfallen," he said. "You know this is a business. If there is no market for what you produce, you can be the greatest painter who ever lived-the painting still will not sell."

I nodded. He was right and I knew it.

"First let me tell you that Mister Wicker paid thirty-five hundred for your paintings."

"That's wonderful!" I exclaimed. It was the most money anyone had paid for my work. I had gotten five hundred for all of the others that had been sold.

"Yes," he commented. "It is quite an increase. And I am sure you can do much better."

"To doing much better," I said, lifting my glass.

He joined me in the toast.

"What do you want to discuss?" I asked, setting my glass down on the coaster he had provided "Several things," Riggs answered. "First, about the future direction of your work--"

"Yes?"

He held up his hand. "If you're going to interrupt me," he said, "I'll never say what must be said."

I apologized.

"I want you to start moving into other areas of painting. But don't misunderstand," he was quick to qualify his previous statement. "I don't want you to abandon what you do so very well. It's just that I think you can do equally well with the less bizarre or at least diminish it until it is only one aspect of a work rather than the totality."

I was going to object but I held myself in check. I wanted to hear what else he would suggest.

"I also think you might experiment with other media besides painting."

"like what?" I asked, unable to keep still a moment longer.

"Perhaps some sort of sculpture?"

"That's not my bag!" I responded hotly.

"How do you know? You've never tried, except perhaps at school. If you try it," he said, "you might very well find that you not only like but can exercise as much talent in that medium as you do in painting."

He was beginning to sound terribly pedantic and I told him so. "My paintings," I said, "come from the depths of me."

"They would hardly be worthwhile if they didn't," he said calmly. "I am not asking you to do the impossible. You have nothing to lose by trying and a great deal to gain."

I knew he was right.

"Don't grouse about it," he said with a smile. "I think you might find painting from reality as stimulating and satisfying--"

"You don't have to sell me," I said, "on my own ability. And as' for the other media, I'll have to think about it."

"I can't force you to do anything that you don't want to. I am only suggesting," he replied with a shrug.

"Is there anything else?"

He nodded. "Mister Wicker," he said.

"What about Mister Wicker?"

"He thinks very highly of your work."

"I'm flattered."

"He is a very powerful man in art circles," Riggs said.

"I know that."

"Then why in heaven's name don't you act as if you know it?"

I was on my feet in a moment. "Tell me straight out what you mean," I said.

"You could be nice to him."

"Meaning," I said sarcastically, "that I should fuck for him since obviously that's what he wants?"

Riggs made an empty gesture. "You put it rather crudely," he said.

"Is there another way?"

"Whatever your relations are with him is not my affair," Riggs answered. "But I think you'd be very foolish indeed to stand on, shall I say, a code of morality which does not apply in the business world."

I sat down again. "Tell me," I asked, "what does apply?"

"It's all a matter of back scratching," Riggs explained. "You scratch his and he'll scratch yours."

"Suppose mine doesn't itch for him to scratch it?"

"But his itches for you," Riggs replied. "Do I make myself clear?"

I remained silent.

"He wants to see you," he informed me.

"The hell with him!"

"If that is your last word," Riggs said, "then I'm afraid I will have to ask you to find another gallery.

"What?"

"Mister Wicker is a very important customer of this gallery."

"Meaning that he underwrites it?" He shrugged.

"Then the hell with you too!" I exclaimed, bolting out of my chair and going swiftly to the door.

"You're being terribly foolish," Riggs said.

I didn't even answer and left the office, slamming the door behind me.

XIX

Furious would hardly have described my mood after I had left the gallery. I walked swiftly, as though I actually had a place to go. I had heard that women in the theater or in films often make their way to the top by screwing for every director who might give them a chance at a part. I had even heard that female singers used their curt, so to speak, to open the door to success. And I personally knew an authoress who put out for several different editors in order to have her writing accepted. And though I knew that there were, several women artists who used the bed as a means to an end, I had never imagined that I would have to resort to the same stratagem to have my work exhibited.

Well there was more than one art gallery in New York and I was certain that I would have no difficulty finding one that would be willing to show my paintings' without asking me to-I slowed down. Going with a new gallery would mean starting almost all over again. After all, my name didn't mean anything to most collectors. I would probably not even get five hundred dollars a painting, not that the money was so terribly important to me but I was not so foolish to think that the value of my paintings would be judged by anything but the amount of money someone would be willing to pay for them.

I decided that at least I would have the satisfaction of telling Mr. Wicker just what I thought about him. I glanced at my watch. It was four-thirty. I still had plenty of time to go back to the apartment and change before I went to meet Wicker at the Four Seasons.

I did just that. I even took a quick shower. And when I dressed I made sure that I chose a dress with a deep V neckline. I also used more perfume than usual. I left Aron a note telling him that I had to meet someone who was interested in buying my newest painting and that I expected to be home about eight.

In the street I found a cab and told the driver to take me down to the Four Seasons. It was six-fifteen when I arrived in the lobby.

I went straight to the bar and looked for him. He wasn't there. But it was crowded and from the way a good number of the men looked at me I knew they. were wondering if I was a hooker or a woman just out on the town for some fun. One of them asked if he could buy me 'a drink. I refused the offer and told him I was waiting for someone.

By six-thirty I was beginning to think I had chosen an evening when for one reason or another Wicker would not be there. I decided to give myself until seven o'clock. If he didn't show by then I would leave and probably go home.

At seven I paid for the two drinks I had had and started down the steps to the lobby. When I reached it Wicker had just come through the open door. We must have seen each other at the same time since we both stopped: he directly inside the lobby and I on the third from the bottom step. He was blocking someone's way and was asked to move. He seemed to be flustered for a few moments but quickly recovered his composure and approached me. I had not moved from where I had originally stopped.

"What a pleasant surprise!" he said, extending his hand.

"We can forget the amenities," I said, opening my fur coat so that he could look at the bare skin exposed by the V cut of my dress.

He dropped his hand.

"Riggs told me," I said.

He nodded. "And I suppose you came here to tell me what you think of me?" he asked.

"Something like that," I replied.

"If it will make you any happier," he said, "go ahead and tell me."

He was so casual about it that I found myself less than angry. Had he been in the least bit belligerent, I might have told him off. But since he was not in the least antagonistic, I was unable to speak.

"Go ahead," he said, "and then perhaps well be able to start on a different footing."

"And just what kind of footing do you want?"

He smiled. "I think you know," he said.

"No," I answered perversely. "I want you to come right out with it."

"I want to go to bed with you," he said with absolutely no hesitation.

Suddenly I realized that he was being honest. No con job, just a simple statement. And I had to admit he was attractive.

"What if I agreed?" I asked.

"I think you would not regret it either in or out of bed."

I weighed the advantages. They were many. And as far .as the disadvantages went, I didn't see that they mattered too much.

"Have you made up your mind?" he asked.

"Yes."

He waited for my answer.

I smiled and gave him my hand.

"There's a hotel not too far from here that doesn't ask too many questions," he said.

"Since this is your party," I said, "I'll go wherever you go."

XX

The hotel was on Lexington Avenue and from the way the room clerk treated Wicker it was obvious that he was a frequent guest. The room we were given was on the eleventh floor. It was newly furnished with what could beat be described as "hotel modern" but the light wood of the dresser and the night table were already covered-with cigarette burns.

The bellboy was an old man with an ill-fitting blue uniform who couldn't thank Wicker enough for the dollar tip he gave him. I had the feeling that he would have bent down and kissed his shoes if Wicker had asked him to.

Finally we were alone. I went to the window and looked out. I couldn't see the street because we were too high up. But when I looked up I did see a patch of cloud-covered sky that reflected the red of the neon lights along the streets.

I felt Wicker's eyes on me. He was still standing near the door. I had . the strange feeling that my being with him was preordained and that it was just a small portion of everything else that had happened to me in the past few days.

I looked at the building across the street. Many of the offices were still illuminated. Then suddenly in a window just across from me I saw him, the man in the black trench coat. I gasped and stepped back.

"Anything wrong?" Wicker asked.

"There's a man in the window--"

He came alongside me. "Where?" he asked.

I pointed toward the window.

"But he was there," I insisted. "I saw him."

"Do you see him now?"

"No."

"Did you shut your eyes?"

"Of course not."

Wicker put his hands on my shoulders. "No wonder your paintings are filled with weird creatures!" he chuckled. "You see them, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Your imagination is only exceeded by your beauty," he said, nuzzling my hair.

Then he slowly turned me around to face him and kissed me. At first I resisted. The man in the black trench coat was still very much on my mind But as he held me and the moments passed my resistance lessened and finally altogether ceased. I placed my arms around his neck and opened my mouth to his tongue.

The kiss was delicious. He used the tip of his. tongue on the roof of my mouth and goose bumps raced down my spine. And even as his lips were on mine he somehow managed to slip my coat off. His hands closed over my breasts, first on top of the dress and then he moved one inside the bra cup.

But when he touched my bare breast I felt it was time to come up for air, so to speak, and I moved away.

He showed me he understood by nodding and reaching over to the window blind, he closed it. Then he asked if I wanted to undress in the bathroom.

"I'm not that modest," I said. "anyway, I rather enjoy the way you look at me."

"And how is that?" he laughed.

"like a hungry lupine," I said.

"Are you afraid of being eaten?"

"Ho," I answered, understanding the double meaning, "I'd rather enjoy it."

He laughed and removed his own coat.

The front of his trousers bulged out with his turgid prick. He saw me looking at it and said, "I could no more control that than I could the movement of the tide. And to tell the truth I don't think I would want to." He removed his jacket, undid his tie and drew it out from under the collar of his shirt.

He was looking at me and I realized that he wanted me to undress. I slipped off my shoes and hiked up the hem of my dress to undo my pantyhose.

I took off a string of pearls I was wearing and laid them down on the dresser. Then I slipped off my wedding band and engagement ring.

"Why did you do that?" he asked. He .had already removed his shirt and was unbuckling his belt.

"I don't really know," I said.

He shook his head. "If I live a thousand years," he said, "I don't think I will ever be able to understand the way a woman thinks."

"Would you unhook the back of my dress?" I asked, going to him and turning around.

"I'll do more than that," he said and he not only unhooked it but drew the zipper all the way down.

I was about to move away when I felt his hands move inside my dress and lock together on my stomach. He pressed me back to him and I could feel the swollen mass of his cock against my ass. He rubbed my stomach and then pushed one hand into my panties. His fingers moved in a swirling motion over my snatch and at the same time his other hand closed over my breast.

"What made you change your mind?" he asked, curling his fingers over my snatch and into the lips of my cunt.

"It's the path of least resistance," I said. "And besides, this isn't the first time that I'll be laid."

"Oh, I believe that," Wicker answered.

He let go of my cunt and breast. I started away but he caught hold of my arm and turned me around. Then very slowly he pushed the dress from my shoulders. When the dress was below my breasts he freed the right mound from its nylon cup. Its nipple was hard with excitement and he bent his head to it. His lips closed over it and tendrils of delight flicked down into the depths of my womanhood. I pushed his head hard down on my bared breast.

"Let me undress you?" he asked, letting go of my breast.

"You just about have," I answered.

He smiled and quickly worked the dress down to the floor. I stepped out of it. Then he reached around and undid my bra. The garter belt came off neat and finally my panties. He stood and looked at my naked body as though he was admiring work of art.

"I think," I, said, "that you should stop looking and start acting."

That provoked him into action. In a matter of moments he was naked too. He took me in his arms and pressed me against him.

His body was hot. I reached down to his prick and began to play with it. I moved my hand under his balls and had him breathing hard even before we moved to the bed. But as I played with his cock, he was caressing my curt.

Somehow we moved to the bed. Once we were down on it, he kissed me hard on my lips and pushed his tongue into my mouth. He sucked on my lower lip and rubbed my breasts with an almost vicious movement.

He left my lips and immediately began sucking my nipples, going from one to the other with boyish frenzy.

I closed my eyes and enjoyed every nuance of his caresses. My curt was already wet, throbbing with anticipation.

I held his prick and continued to stroke it, moving from its febrile head to his balls. I even teased his ass-hole, and this really made him leap.

I felt his fingers explore my curt, probe its quivering entrance and then move to my clit. I moaned and writhed with delight. Each moment I felt a new and more exciting sensation than the one I had experienced.

Then somehow we swung around; my head toward his feet and his head close of my curt. I closed my lips over his cock, working them down its length and teasing its head with my tongue.

His fingers opened the lips of my curt, making me tremble with delight and then I felt the exquisite push of his tongue in my curt. I gasped with the sheer pleasure of it, but did not let go of his prick.

He teased my clit with his tongue and at the same time moved his hands all over the cheeks of my ass, even fingered my bung-hole. I lost sense of time, of reality and gave myself up to the pleasures that engulfed me. I was in a world of exquisite physical delight. I could have had him suck me for hours on end. Once again we moved and this time I was on my back and my naked thighs were spread open. He slid over my body and swung himself between my splayed thighs. I felt him enter me and closed my eyes to give myself up to the final surge of ultimate physical pleasure.

He speared me slowly, working his cock just inside my curt. His hands closed over my breasts and he held them with such ferocity that I felt the dual delights of pleasure and pain. His thrusts into my curt quickened and went deeper. Pulsations rippled in my curt and I felt the quick mounting of tension in my body.

I swung my naked legs over his back and thrust against him. We moved as one.

The need in me became almost unendurable. I urged him to go faster, to ride me harder. My whole being strained up toward the moment of climax. I sobbed and moaned. My teeth closed over his shoulder. I raked his back with my fingernails.

I felt myself coming. My body crumbled. I was torn apart, exploding in bits and pieces, thrown into the orgasmic wonder of living, throbbing space. I had to see the spinning of the universe... I opened my eyes and looked directly into the mirror on the opposite wall and as my body trembled in its seizure of passion I saw him. The man in the black trench coat stood in the mirror.

I screamed and shut my eyes. My body heaved in its climax and when the waves of pleasure began to subside Wicker made a deep throat sound. I felt his prick quiver and an instant later he exploded into me.

XXI

When I returned to the apartment I found Aron watching TV. He asked who the client was and I told him. "Did he buy the painting?" he questioned.

"I am sure he will," I answered. Then I went into the bedroom, undressed and slipped into a robe. I was famished and decided that I would have something to eat before I took a shower.

Aron followed me into the kitchen and said that he had-spoken to Harry and was glad that I had agreed to Harry's suggestion.

I told him I was very tired and didn't wish to discuss the matter.

He moved around to where I sat and put his hands on my shoulders and began to massage them. "You know," he said, "I'm sure that everything will work out."

"I hope so," I said with a sigh. "I really hope so."

His hands stopped moving but they still remained on my shoulders. Suddenly I realized what he wanted. And then his hands slipped into my robe and closed over my breasts. I stiffened, but the-next instant relaxed. I didn't want to arouse his suspicions, and besides I felt a kind of perverse thill by the idea of being fucked again.

I pressed his hand. "After I shower," I said.

He kissed the top of my head and released my breasts.

A half-hour later we were in bed and I let him take me. Oddly enough, my response with him was as wild as it had been with Wicker. But even while he was screwing me,. I imagined it was someone else, the man in the black trench coat.

After Aron had screwed me he fell asleep in his customary fashion with his arm around my naked waist. I remained awake for hours. All sorts of thoughts skittered through my brain. But none of them lingered long enough for me to develop into a continuum of thinking. Eventually I drifted off to sleep and found myself in the midst of a dream...

* * *

I was in a large room, almost in the center of it. I stood on a small raised platform. I was dressed in a filthy garment. My hair was unkempt and full of knots. A heavy iron chain circled my waist and my hands and feet were shackled.

A row of men sat in straight-backed benches off to my left. On my right was a dais of some sort. In the glow of the torchlight I could hardly see the faces of the men but I, knew that they were all looking at me. And I also knew they were dressed in the robes worn by members of an ecclesiastic court.

A man approached me. He came close enough for me to see his face though the front of his cowl was low over his forehead. I could see his eyes. They glowed with hate and his face was taut with the same emotion. He raised his hand and pointed to me.

"This woman, who answers to the name Lila is accused of being a witch."

Therewas absolutely, no sound from the other members of the court. I heard only the rapid thumping of my own heart.

The same man who had just accused me of being a witch had the night before come to my cell and promised me leniency if I would let him use my body to satisfy his lust. Had I a choice I would have rather had the town's beggar lay with me.

But since I had been taken into custody by the police of the inquisition and placed in a dungeon I had spread my thighs for the guards who watched over me and for those men who brought me food. None of them had cared whether or not I was a witch. What had mattered to them was that I had no way of preventing them from taking what they had wanted.

The guards would sometimes use me two at a time, one taking advantage of my cunt, the other my ass hole.

And once a third had made me suck him off while the other two were busy satisfying themselves in the openings at the lower portion of my body. As for, the men who had brought me food, I would not have had anything to eat if I had not submitted to their lust.

But since my prosecutor had seen fit to come to my cell and had offered leniency if I would do what he asked of me, I could hardly refuse him, either on the ground of chastity or on the fact that I had not believed him. Even before I had been accused and taken as a witch, I had known about his reputation for lechery. I had asked him what he would have of me and I would do it.

He had spent the better part of the night with me on the straw of my cell and he had used me to his whim, giving me little pleasure but baiting his desire with the slim hope that I might escape death at the hands of the court.

"She is accused of having consorted with the devil," he voice thundered. "She has rendered her body to his use and has given her soul to him."

"Proof?" shouted a man from the dais. "Prove that she is a witch!"

"His mark is on her," my prosecutor said.

"Show us this mark," the voice from the dais demanded.

The prosecutor approached me. His hands went to the top of the garment I wore and, grabbing hold of it at either shoulder, he tore it asunder, revealing my naked breasts to the members of the tribunal.

The sight of my breasts caused them to stir and a murmur filled the room though I could not tell whether it was one of shock and disapproval or one of surprise and lust.

The prosecutor grabbed hold of both my breasts and pushed them up. "There, see the devil's nipples. They are for him and he comes to her to take suck from her breasts and she in turn renders homage to him by kissing his butt and his male organ."

As I listened to him I started to laugh. Those things that he had told the court were the very acts which he made me do for him.

"Even now," he said, "the devil is making her drive the sanctified mission of this august assembly of men."

I raised my shackled hands and brought them down on the wooden barrier in front of me. "Ask him," I challenged the court, "where he spent the night?"

"With you," he answered. "It was my Christian duty to attempt to get her to relent and ask for the grace of the church again."

"You relented by forcing your will on me!" I shouted. "You relented by having me kiss your butt. You relented by making me take your organ in my mouth and swallow its juice."

"Silence!" shouted the man on the dais.

Horrified, I watched myself being accused of witchcraft.

"Since the devil's nipples are proof of her crime," the prosecutor said, "I ask that she first be broken on the rack and then burnt at the stake."

"Where is your promise of leniency?" I asked.

"The Bible says: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.'"

"Then kill me."

He smiled. "Your death must not be meaningless, must not be without a purpose. You will suffer so that others who might want to follow the devil will think twice before they do."

I gathered a wad of saliva in my mouth and blew it in his face.

He slowly wiped the spit from his face, turned to the dais and asked that I be sentenced as he had requested.

I was, and was immediately removed to the torture chamber, where I was stripped and tied to the rack.

But before I was broken each of the three men whose job it was to break the bones in my body used me to satisfy their lust as they would have used any other woman. Though I felt nothing I spitefully simulated passion for each, so that they would never forget me.

Within two hours both my legs and arms had been broken. Then they crushed my ribs, and broke my back.

I was dragged from the torture chamber to the stake where I was trussed up and tied.

The executioner's assistant piled faggots around the stake and under the prayers of many priests the executioner set fire to the faggots.

I was naked and then it was almost night. A cold wind was blowing and snow was falling. The flames took but a short time to reach me and when I first felt their heat it was an almost welcome relief from the harsh bite of the cold and the wetness of the snow.

But the heat quickly changed to searing pain and I cried out in a prolonged agony. Even as I was dying I shouted my defiance. "I belong to the devil," I cried, my voice rising above the roaring to the flames and the howling of the wind. "I belong to him and he will come for me."

Just before I lost consciousness I heard a voice cry out. "Lila, I promise you a new form, in another life, in a time far in the future. You shall be mine. I will it and my will is...."

* * *

I bolted up and cried: "Oh no! It didn't happen that way."

My cry roused Aron. "What didn't happen?" he asked.

"I was having a nightmare," I said. "I'm all right now." And I lay back on the pillow again, trembling with fear.

THE END
Afternoon Foreplay ....(105k)    by I.M. Feddup





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