Jennifer Rand lived in terms of colors and forms. She could recall a time, if she tried hard, when life had been brilliant hues and bold forms. But she had to try very hard, and mostly she preferred not to, because the effort evoked too great a contrast with the subtle gradations of today's grays.
She looked along the length of her naked body. Sun flecked her skin and made her freckles stand out like leopard spots. It glanced off Michael's black hair-curly, like a little boy's, and damp-and left his face in shadow against her breast, where his mouth pulled it into a funnel shape. It made a pool of light on the little swelling of her belly that was visible through the valley between her breasts, and turned the red thatch on her loins into a diffused flame under Michael's slim-fingered hand.
She panted-and knew how many inhalations she'd make each minute-and that it was time. There were faint streaks in the gray of her world that were now tinged with traces of red, .and the occasional moan that slipped past her parted lips had a hint of violet.
If she were to paint the essence of the moment, as she had in the past, the canvas would be the same as it had been before. The grays would swirl, and there'd be undertones of red that you'd feel, rather than see, and the forms would be surfaces without thickness. Surfaces without thickness ... and shades of gray ... as her sensations were gray and without thickness.
The suction on her breast drew at her, balanced by the fragile stream of excitement it diffused into her. The touch of Michael's fingertips against her moist flesh built surfaces of tingling readiness within her, and she felt her hips respond with their characteristic rhythm.
She stroked Michael's shoulder with her fingers and moaned to him. His body, warm beside hers, was as quiet as the grays of her world, except for the kneading fingers and sucking mouth that anchored it to her. Dear Michael, she thought. Dear man-boy with your gentle fingers and your silent lips. It's good this way. It's good with the sun warming us and tiny puffs of cloud up there and the pool's sparkle flickering on the wall. And the old excitement's growing inside me, distilled from its old lustiness to a delicate fabric that I know every fold of.
She'd soon be pushing her bottom off the pad, and her knees would fall apart, and she'd whisper to Michael that it was time. The gray fabric would be a deeper gray, and the undertones would hint of crimson. Emptiness was supposed to be mere absence of anything, according to some scientist she'd had to listen to once. But the emptiness that was female was more than that. It was hunger and demand and impatience.
It was growing in her now, that emptiness, and her fingers dug at Michael's shoulders with increasing force.
She pressed her heels into the pad and thrust up with her hips. Michael was good at lovemaking. She guessed if they had competitions, he'd come out on top-and she smiled through her panting at the double meaning of this. He seemed to sense the precise instant that her body would adapt itself to the stroking on her clitoris. His touch would shift in that instant to the sensitive inner surface of her vulva lips, and a new jolt of excitement would fan out into her.
But his very skill had become so much a part of the world she knew as habit that she could run through the entire sequence in her mind ahead of the act. Their sex-love it, and him, as she did-had no brighter hues than the rest of her life. Comparing the grays with the primitive gaudiness of their first years together chilled her, for the change made her ask what non-color they were drifting toward.
"Michael!" Jennifer gasped. "Michael! Now! I want you, now!"
She clutched at his shoulders and wrestled with his weight, trying to roll him into the cradle of her waiting thighs.
"Please, Michael! Please!"
Michael Rand lived in terms of words. His world was a verbal structure, and as his fingers rolled the firm little organ that was the key to Jennifer's passion, their actions ran through his mind in lines of verse. They were snatches of poetry with a rising meter. Some of the lines were long, flowing on with measured cadence until he wondered when their statement would end. Others were short and brisk, with hard syllables and a rapid pace. But whether long or short, each line was a gauge. Its first wed came when his fingertips moved to a new spot in the wet flesh between Jennifer's legs, and the cadence matched the rhythm of his fingers, and when the thought was finished he knew it was time to touch different nerve centers.
The pulse of Jennifer's panting blended with the rise and fall of the words that passed through his mind, and her moans feel on beats within the lines. He pressed his slender belly against her even more slender body, and the hardness that was trapped between them hardened more. He sucked at firm flesh, and his tongue teased-the lump that lay against the roof of his mouth.
Michael could remember a time when his poetry of eroticism was built with words of the earth and space, but that was a time of self-consciousness and convention. Now, they were words that dug into the guts of anatomy and the mind, and they described with clinical detail.
Jennifer's body would always thrill him as it writhed to his touch. The feel of her taut muscles twisting against his own brought the same physical response to his fibers that it had from the beginning. But the poems of lovemaking were mood pieces now, not stories. They had no current of conflict, of obstacles and uncertainty and surprise. They were like the novels that no longer reached out to seize him as he put down the first words and held him until the final resolution came.
His fingers skipped a stroke, and the silent line of verse stumbled as his mind touched on the pool of dread that was his present lack of inspiration. For an instant, he forgot the surging flesh beneath his hand as he let himself wonder again what had happened to the well of things that had to be said, that had kept his novels pouring out in one success after another. But he caught himself; now, feeling the sun on his skin and the sweat that let his skin slide on hers, was not the moment to give way to that deepening despair.
Her hands clutched at him, and she wanted him now, and she was trying to squirm under him, to clasp him between her knees, and a pulse in his gut told him that it was time.
He levered himself over her near leg and into the V of her crotch. He probed against her softness, his buttocks winking as he tried to center his thrust; then the slippery folds guided him to the waiting mouth. He tensed and lunged, and he felt his smooth hard penis slide through and in, her cunt walls grasping it tightly.
"Ohhh, yes!" she whispered.
Her hips rotated under him, and her hair tangled with his stiffer bristles, and their bellies rubbed. Michael settled into her cradle with a grunt of satisfaction and began to pump. For the space of the next hundred breaths, he'd forget how sterile the words were becoming. He'd give himself to Jennifer as she gave herself to him, and it wouldn't matter that there were no new plots left in him.
He rested on his elbows, his chest suspended above Jennifer's, his knees and toes pushed into the pad to give him leverage for the pumping of his hips. He felt sentimental and sloppy as he gazed down at her red hair and gray eyes and slim, straight nose. Watching the surge of her delicate breasts as she met his thrusts brought a tightness to his groin.
He slipped his hands under her ribs and thrust faster. Her thighs pressed in against his hips, and he felt the sag of the pad as she lifted her feet to clamp them together at the backs of his thighs. She squeezed, and her fingers scrabbled at his back.
He felt the sudden buzz at the base of his penis that meant his contracting balls were going to spew his semen into her.
"Are you ready, doll?" he asked.
"I'm...." She grunted, and her thighs clamped about him. "I'm ... ready. Oh! Now, darling!"
They surged together. Heat washed through him, and the words in his mind blurred. There was a rhythmic squeezing in his groin, and a flow of hot fluid outward through the shaft that joined him to her. He yielded to a violent tremor and pressed down against the hardness of her pubic arch as he felt an answering tremor sweep over her and heard the abrupt crescendo of her moans.
They collapsed, whispering. Their panting subsided, and their taut muscles relaxed by degrees. Jennifer's legs unwrapped from around Michael and slipped off his thighs. He glanced back to see that she let her calves dangle over the sides of the lounge.
"It was good, sweet," Jennifer whispered.
"Good," Michael agreed.
But it had been good as a character sketch is good, without plot, without depth, without resolution. He had a faint sense of desolation.
Eric Jorgensen pulled himself out of the pool and stood naked on the deck, letting the water run off him to form a pool at his feet. The sounds next door were gone now, silent after that last flurry of moans. He glanced down at Karen, the lines of her body still broken by the pool's surface ripples, and put his finger to his lips. Then he beckoned to her. She reached up for his hand, and he hoisted her to the deck beside him.
She shook her head, flinging cold drops from her blue-black hair over his chest, and grinned up at him.
"Gypsy spirits at work," she whispered.
"You're the only gypsy in this neighborhood,"
Eric whispered in reply. "That was just good old screwing-Michael on Jenny."
"Jennifer," Karen corrected.
He shrugged. "Anyhow, screwing. Jennifer's the dignified artist who lives next door. Jenny's the broad inside her who screws."
Karen's laughter tinkled, and she clapped her hand to her mouth. Then she sobered. "There's something wrong with the Rands, Eric. Their stars are entering darkness. I cannot see beyond."
"For God's sake," muttered Eric. "Don't tell me you're reading their fortunes again!"
She pouted. "It isn't reading fortunes," she said. "It's their aura. You felt it last night!"
Eric nodded. Both Michael and Jennifer seemed to be drifting out of touch with the world. That was probably to be expected with artists and writers, though. Who the hell would expect anything else? But at least they used to get excited about things. They didn't even do that any more. They acted as if they'd been wrapped in some super-insulation.
Christ! He could remember when the four of them-he and Karen and the Rands-had to break up their little parties early because one or another of them was getting too eager. More than once, he'd thought Karen was going to wind up giving a wild, gvpsy piece to Michael, or that he (Eric) was going to forget himself and find his own giant frame covering Jennifer. He wished to God they had, now. Maybe that would have kept the Rands from sinking into the mental nothingness that seemed to have them bogged down now.
He looked down at Karen's brown body-at the saucy breasts with their dark nipples, at the hips that swelled so generously below her tiny waist-and couldn't resist cupping one breast in his hand.
Karen wiggled and touched her belly against his hip. He realized suddenly how little he'd been getting lately. No goddamn sense worrying about the Rands. He had problems of his own! That warm swelling he held in his hand shot needles of desire through him, and wherever they went they were followed by awareness of how long it had been since he'd last buried his cock in Karen's eager warmth.
The last time-no! the time that had turned him off without getting him in-had been the morning two months ago when he'd awakened to find himself already halfway there. His own heavy breathing had formed a background for Karen's little cries of invitation, and his hands had been doing the right things, and his rod had been stiff and ready to plunge. But the dream didn't go away fast enough, and he was aware that his sleeping mind had pictured Karen as a wonderfully complex piece of missile hardware that he was tuning. The final step was to arm it, and it was the plunge of the arming device that he'd awakened to direct.
The abrupt knowledge that almost the entire act had been one of mechanical hardware function in his imagination had jolted him. He'd let his memory revive the time before, and the time before that, and had recognized that for over a year their sex had invariably started while they were asleep.
It came often, and it was violent and satisfying. But as he looked back, the veil between dream and reality lifted, and he knew that for that year their screwing had been a mating of missile components, rather than the conscious merging of human male and female flesh. In the instant of recognition, he'd shriveled and cooled. He hadn't been able to face Karen with a hard-on since then-not because she knew the dreadful truth, but because he did.
The pressures of designing the guts for the country's ultimate weapon, through years of desperate efforts to beat the other side, and then of managing the engineering program for the most vital space program, had burnt out all that was human in his subconscious and replaced it with a machine. Screwing was mechanical hardware sliding inside mechanical hardware, in his mind, and he hadn't even known it until he caught that dream before it could fade away.
He held Karen tightly, and his throat ached with his misery as he felt the stiffness in his penis dissolve. When a man reached the point where his job got that kind of hold on him, he wasn't a man any more. He shook his head against the chill though that rose more frequently each week. But it persisted. A man of his size and vigor who couldn't give himself to a body like Karen's had no business living. If the feel of her curves molding themselves to his bulk couldn't arouse him, he was already dead inside, and he had no business letting the outer shell live.
His voice felt husky to him when he spoke. "Aren't they due over here in a little bit?"
"Michael and Jennifer? Yes." Karen looked deflated. She backed away, and her shoulders sagged. "They're supposed to be here in about an hour."
"I guess we ought to get things ready, then. I'll get the barbecue going while you organize the other stuff."
He reached for their robes.
Karen drew her robe around her and knotted the belt. She left the pool deck with heavy feet. The darkness that had been thickening before the Rands' stars for so long was nothing like the pall that had so abruptly fallen across her life with big, wonderful Eric. Her gypsy blood raced at the thought of him, and formerly, when she'd let herself think of his lovemaking during his absence in the day, it had made her all clumsiness till he'd come home and satisfied her. But for an agonizing two months, he'd had no appetite for her body.
She knew it was nothing she'd done. If anything, Eric was more tender with her now than he'd ever been before. It was just that in the first few moments of contact he seemed to retreat into some secret self, leaving nothing but a cold shell for her. He had nightmares, too. She awoke frequently these nights to his cries of protest.
Her heritage of occult knowledge convinced her that an evil presence had seized her scoffing Eric, but it did not identify the presence nor show her the spell that would release him. Something within warned her that if she couldn't come to grips with the specter, it was going to take Eric from her. It would snatch him into that shadow world between the worlds and keep him there through eternity. She shuddered, then opened the back door.
Eric came in while she was measuring out ingredients for the sauce they'd pour over the meat.
"I'm worried about the Rands," he said.
That was like him. He would worry about someone else, even though he was suffering far worse than they. It was the trait that had made his employers push him into management and load him with such an impossible burden of responsibility. He could no more help picking at the knots in other people's problems than he could forget the hardware that his engineering mind loved so.
"They let the world go by," she said.
"You think so too?"
"Yes. It isn't good to lock yourself up in your mind. Jennifer stopped painting what was real, and Michael forgot that the people and problems in his novels had to come from life. They're drying up."
"We've got to do something," Eric said.
She nodded. Eric loved the Rands as much as she did. It hurt him as much as it did her to watch them disintegrating. She smiled up at him as he towered over her.
"We ought to stir their blood," she said.
"Shock them back to reality?'
"Yes. If we could make them have to cope with something new, or make them face some kind of decision they've never faced before, they might learn to live again."
Eric began to grin. "They're pretty reserved, aren't they?"
Karen nodded. The high wall that separated the two pool yards was silent proof. The Rands had put in their pool with the idea of nude swimming and sunbathing, but they'd had to have the wall, first. She chuckled.
"Shall we trap them into swimming with us ... naked?" she asked. "Maybe push them in with their clothes on, then get them to strip?"
Eric patted her shoulder. "No, chickadee, let's just push them into the situation verbally-and as much more as they can be pushed into. See if you can get Michael excited. That ought to get their blood going!"
It might, she thought. It might get Eric's going, too, and throw a new element into the inner struggle he was waging with that shadow spirit.
"You'll have to do something about Jennifer, then," she warned him. "I'll try."
CHAPTER TWO
Jennifer leaned back on the lounger and studied her companions. There had been a time, she realized as she let her gaze linger on Eric, when she'd feared the giant blond. Where Michael was fine-boned and lean, average in height and almost cat-like in his movements, Eric was the essence of the ancient Nordic explorers. He would, in an earlier day, have been a typical Viking sea captain. Behind his physical power lay quick emotions and a rapier-sharp mind. There had been times when, in spite of herself, she'd have given herself to him without question.
But the fear had faded, and there was nothing but love in its place, now. She loved him more dearly than she did her own brothers, mostly because he'd been so careful to restrain his dynamic personality.
Karen was the perfect foil for him, she thought. The gypsy blood gave the girl the bounce and spirit that could accept Eric's drive and absorb his energy. This afternoon, for example, Karen seemed hardly able to contain herself. She'd brought out a tray of drinks the moment Jennifer and Michael had arrived, and she sat now on the edge of a lounge sipping hers, but it was obvious that she could hardly wait for the glasses to be emptied.
Jennifer smiled to herself. Karen was such fun that it was unthinkable to tease her for long. She tilted her glass to her lips, watching Karen over the rim. Michael drained his drink at the same time, and their glasses clinked together as they set them on the deck between their lounges. "Ready for a swim?" asked Eric. Jennifer nodded as Michael said, "Sure!"
"Oh, good!" Karen sprang to her feet. "We're going to do away with all the old ways today."
"Old ways?" asked Jennifer. What could Karen be talking about? "Yes. We're going to live like the gypsies."
"How did they live?" Jennifer sensed that something unusual was coming. A twinge of excitement touched her.
Karen untied the belt at her waist and let her robe slip from her shoulders. Jennifer gasped. The brown body glistened in the sunlight, naked. It amazed Jennifer how different Karen looked this way. Not even the skimpy bikinis she usually wore showed off her perfect body with real justice. She had a voluptuous rounded bottom, whereas Jennifer knew that her own was almost boyish. Her breasts were fuller than Jennifer's, too, and for a moment, Jennifer tried to imagine one of them funneled into Michael's mouth.
"Come on!" cried Karen. "All off! Today we live the way we were created!" She flung her head back and inhaled, and Jennifer heard Michael's sharp intake of air.
She looked at him. "Honey, shall we!" she asked.
"Why not?"
There was nothing surprising in Michael's response. She knew that he had no strong feeling about clothing, or about letting other people see him without any. He'd been part of the sexual freedom movement when they met. Since their marriage, he'd gone along with her more inhibited views, of course, but she knew it was out of his desire to please her, rather than any change in his own beliefs.
Eric tossed his robe onto a deck chair. His genital equipment was as massive as the rest of his body, and Jennifer shivered at the thought of cradling it. She tried to scold herself for the thought, but she couldn't convince herself that she ought to feel contrite. Michael stood and stepped out of his suit, his lean figure looking slight beside Eric.
Jennifer fought the knot in her stomach and got off her lounger, looking down at her playsuit with its demure blouse and pleated skirt. The bathing suit under it was brief enough to embarrass her, and now she was about, to abandon even that pretense at concealment. She unbuttoned her blouse and slipped out of it, then unfastened the skirt and dropped it to the deck.
Karen dove into the pool, and Michael and Eric followed simultaneously. Jennifer took advantage of their dives to untie her top and lay it on the lounge. Her breasts were only half the size of Karen's, but she knew that their pert out-thrust made up for their smallness. She unhooked one side of the suit bottom and pushed it down over her legs. The late afternoon sun glinted on the curly coppery hair at her crotch, and in spite of her difficulty in breathing, she stretched herself for a long moment before stepping to the edge of the pool and diving in.
They swam without resting, diving and surfacing like porpoises, and soon Karen climbed out and toweled herself. She threw herself down on a lounge without reaching for her robe. When Michael came out, she beckoned to him and moved over to make room for him to sit beside her. Eric heaved himself out at the side, and Jennifer climbed out using the ladder, As Jennifer rubbed herself dry with her towel, she saw Karen pull Michael's head down to hers. Michael took the smiling girl in his arms, and they kissed. This time, there was a difference in the feeling that the sight generated in her, Jennifer decided. She and Michael had a deep affection for the Jorgensens, and there had been many times when they'd indulged themselves in affectionate embraces with them. She seldom watched Michael and Karen closely at such moments, because she was too engrossed with Eric. But seeing Michael's naked skin against Karen's as they clung together made the flesh on her thighs tingle with sudden tightness.
She laid her towel aside and felt Eric next to her. His hand touched the small of her back, and she turned and lifted her face to him. He bent to put his lips on hers. Her arms went round his neck, and she arched to meet him. One of his arms circled her waist, and his other hand cupped her buttocks. He drew her against him and straightened. She felt her feet rise from the deck, and her body hung against his, crushed to him. She tightened her arms and mashed her mouth against Eric's lips. The tip of his tongue touched her flattened lips. She parted them and touched his tongue with hers.
Over his shoulder, she saw Michael swing his legs onto the lounge and stretch out next to Karen. Her own body trembled at the heat of Eric's chest and belly. Her breasts were flattened by the pressure, and the roundness of her lower abdomen pressed into the hollow above his navel. She could feel the hard cylinder of his penis lying in the hollow where her thighs clung together, and his breath came against her cheek in hot, fast puffs.
She rolled her head from side to side, sucking at Eric's tongue. A hot tremor swept over her, and she jerked her head back.
"Eric!" She gasped. "Please, Eric, let me down!"
Eric squeezed her tighter, then gently lowered her to the deck. She pushed away from him and fell onto the lounge.
"God!" she whispered. "That was close." She turned toward Michael and Karen. "Come up for air!" she called.
They parted, and Michael grinned at her.
"I feel a little shaky," he told her.
"So do I," she replied. "What's happening?"
Karen sat up and ran her hand through Michael's hair. She looked at Jennifer.
"Jennifer, darling," she said. "Would you be terribly angry if I told you I wanted Michael to make love to me?"
Jennifer hesitated before replying. Would she? She didn't feel angry, and Karen had admitted by her question that she did want him.
"Of course not," she said at last. "It's a compliment. But saying you want him to make love to you ... that's not just letting me know that he attracts you. It's asking if I'd be willing to let him take you, isn't it?"
Karen nodded. "We're all awfully close," she said. "We love each other, I think."
Jennifer smiled and looked up at Eric. "Yes, I think we all love each other. We've gotten to know each other better than most people do."
"I'd just like to get closer to Michael," Karen said.
Jennifer was silent. She wondered what it would be like to surrender the one thing that she and Michael had shared with no one else. Was it the element of their marriage that made it a marriage? she asked herself. Was it hoarding that one bit of private property that made it worthwhile to be married? She thought not. Their relationship was something deeper. It didn't really hinge on sex, but rather on the way they looked at life. It was a spiritual sharing, rather than a physical one.
But it would do something to her to know that Michael and Karen were interlocked in that intimate embrace. She'd be torn apart with wondering exactly what they were doing at any particular instant. The thought of watching them make love made her catch her breath. Still, that would be easier on her than wondering.
She wasn't the only one concerned, however. Eric was part of the picture, she remembered. Why wasn't Karen talking to him at the same time? Jennifer looked at him again. He was watching her, waiting for her reaction. She realized that Karen wasn't in doubt as to his attitude; Karen already knew how he'd react. That mean they'd given the matter some thought ahead of time, had discussed it and agreed that they were willing. It also mean-almost surely meant-that Eric had a green light to make love to her, if she'd let him.
Jennifer felt weak. She closed her eyes, and her breath came in rapid, shallow gulps. As always happened when her eyes were closed, she visualized a canvas. The shadings were in grays, as they'd been now for so long, but they were in stronger contrast, and to her surprise, the forms had depth. They marched into the distance, solid and bulky like Eric.
She opened her eyes. Her fingernails dug into her palms, and she pushed her fists against her belly, gasping because they felt like chunks of ice. She wanted to ask Michael what she ought to say, to share the decision with him, to let him string words together in those patterns of logic that he did so well. But she knew she wouldn't have him alone with her before she had to answer. She didn't have to, of course. She knew what his logic would be; it was just that she'd have liked to hear him say it.
"I...." She swallowed "It's all right," she whispered. "It's all right, Karen. But don't take him where I can't see you. I couldn't stand that."
Michael chuckled. "You sound as if you're afraid she'll make me disappear.
Jennifer shook her head. "It's only that I couldn't stand wondering what you were doing."
"I know, baby." Michael got up and came to her. He leaned down to brush her face with his lips.
She clung to him fiercely for a moment, then released him. "Do it right," she told him. "Make me proud of you!"
He laughed, and the little-boy sound was in his voice. He kissed her again.
"Go on!" she exclaimed, giving him a push. "Go on! Don't keep her waiting!"
Michael laughed again and returned to Karen's side. Eric lowered himself to the edge of Jennifer's lounge and ran his hand over her, from collar bone to knee. She held her breath and shivered. Her skin tingled, and she saw goose-flesh spring out on it. "Oh, Eric!"
He fingered her breast. "Beautiful," he said softly. "Just beautiful!" He stroked the mound of flesh, drawing her nipple up and letting it snap back. Jennifer watched the pink button stiffen and pucker. She felt a crawling sensation at her crotch, and the tingle grew more intense.
She became aware of the fact that Eric was staring at her, examing her lines as a schoolboy might examine his first nude.
Memorizing her! For the first time, she realized how much she'd already become his. If they went no further, he already possessed her in the sense that any time, anywhere, he could lean back and shut his eyes and summon up her image in his mind. She had an instant's panic and understood the primitives and their insistence that their image was an inseparable part of their being.
"You're so different from Karen," he said. "You're the same height, and I guess you both weigh about the same, but you're so different!"
"How do you mean?"
"You look long and ... and lean. She's always seemed short and cuddly. It's the proportions, I guess." He trailed his fingertips over her belly, making her shrink in on herself. "She's got a round little butt and lots of meat on her thighs and very full breasts. You've got broad shoulders and a big rib cage for a girl, but your thighs are slim, and your fanny is more like a child's. And what a tiny waist!"
Jennifer laughed, her voice shaky. "I suppose you know the kind of effect it has on me to have you sit here describing me."
Eric grinned and nodded. He bent down and kissed her belly. She gasped and put her hands on his head.
"Oh, Eric," she whispered. "That sent tingles all the way through me!"
Instead of answering, he kissed her again. He covered her belly with light kisses, and she found herself squirming at his touch. He nuzzled at the hair on her loins, and she clamped her buttocks together in a spasm of excitement.
Very gently, Eric pushed her knees apart. She clenched her fists and gritted her teeth, steeling herself as she pictured his examination of the moist, pink flesh between her thighs. She tried to relax, letting her legs fall further apart and forcing her buttocks to relax. She saw Eric's head move again, and she felt his light kisses moving over the hair-covered mound.
Eric slid off the lounge to his knees, and Jennifer could see only the back of his shoulders. He slid one arm under the small of her back and the other under her knees, pulling them together. He raised her legs into the air, then lifted her body with his other arm, tilting her up onto her shoulders. She gasped for air.
"Eric! What are you doing?"
He leaned his chest against her belly, then she felt his chin at her crotch. The hand at the backs of her knees pushed, and she yielded to the pressure, letting her legs bend from her hips, lying on Eric's shoulders, a thigh on each side of his thick neck.
"Oh, no! No, Eric," she moaned.
She tried not to imagine the view that he now had of her. She tightened her thighs on his neck and shut her eyes, as if having her eyes closed would keep him from seeing her gaping cunt. She felt his arm clamp her body against him, and he stood, lifting her off the lounge. She hung against him, head down, his penis rubbing lightly against her cheek.
Suddenly, his lips were kissing the flesh in her crotch. She tensed as fingers of fire stabbed through her. She felt him draw her clitoris in between his lips, and she jerked convulsively as his tongue played over its surface. He worked the tiny organ back and forth in his teeth, and her breath came in sobs.
Passion shook her, making her toss her head from side to side. She grasped his thighs with her hands and pushed herself out away from him. Her back arched under the supporting pressure of his arm, and she put one foot behind her other ankle and clamped her legs in a scissors grip on Eric's head.
She let her eyes open again, staring at what she could see of Eric. He stood with his feet planted well apart for balance. His penis looked like the end of an oar before her face, and she caught her breath at the size of the bag that hung below it.
His mouth continued to tease her, and her body writhed and bucked as her excitement rose to fever pitch. She let herself fall back against him and reached up with one hand to clutch at the great organ that throbbed so hard.
"Oh. God! Ere, Eric! I can't stand it!" she cried. "Please! Please! I'm going to come if you don't stop!"
She felt his lips release her clitoris, and she expelled her breath with a shudder. But his mouth simplv moved over the lips of her vulva, then sucked them in. He began to chew on the pulpy mouthful, and she felt something drive between her lips to the mouth of her vagina.
"Oh. no!" she moaned. "Not that!"
But his tongue pushed through the opening and probed at the walls within. She kicked and twisted without being able to free herself. She felt as if a great fire had suddenly ignited in her crotch, its flames licking over her and consuming her self-control.
"Eric! Dear Eric! I can't help myself! I'm going to ... oh, my God! It's too late! I am! I'm coming! Oh! OH! OHH!!"
Waves of contractions passed through her belly. A gripping tremor shook her body. She cried out wordlessly, her voice a long, undulating groan. She jerked the great penis to and fro and clamped her thighs on his head, her feet locked and jerking.
The tremor passed, and the heat subsided.
"Oh-h-h!" She breathed out softly, and collapsed, her arms dangling toward the deck. "Oh, Eric!"
Eric lowered her onto the lounge and seated himself beside her.
"You're something special when you get worked up," he said.
CHAPTER THREE
Jennifer let herself sink into the sun-warned cushion. Coming less than three hours after the orgasm she'd had with Michael this afternoon, this one had drained her of everything. She felt numb, and only by a determined effort could she wiggle a finger. Her legs had sprawled when Eric laid her back down, and her left foot hung off the lounge, her toes touching the concrete deck. It was a most undignified pose, she thought, but she lacked the energy to pull her legs together. Besides, the air played over her wet tissues, and evaporation brought a welcome coolness.
She closed her eyes for a minute to see what the canvas looked like. The forms were still thick and solid-looking, but their edges were tinged with gold that graded into copper. She started. How long had it been since she'd seen real color on that imaginary canvas? She opened her eyes and looked at Eric.
His head was bent. He stared at her with an expression of tenderness, and the corner of his mouth twitched.
"That should have happened a long time ago," he said.
"Why?"
"Because, if it had, this wouldn't be the first time. We'd have built up an account."
"Oh." Of course. This wasn't a one-time thing. She hadn't thought about it before, but when she'd consented to Karen and Michael's making love-and to Eric's having her-this afternoon, she'd made a commitment that went far beyond this day. She'd opened a door, and they'd now crossed the threshhold into another life.
She thought about the door and what it opened onto. She knew with certainty-and it was a comfortable certainty-that she'd have sex with Eric many times in the future. It was a little like getting married. No, she thought, not like getting married. Getting married is announcing that you've decided to share each other in bed, or wherever you like your sex. It's a public declaration. Today's action was not. The door she'd opened by her decision led. instead, into an inner chamber off the main courtyard of her marriage. It opened on a retreat, where she and Michael could duck in for renewal, where Eric and Karen could also, when the need arose in them.
It was a special kind of retreat. It was a retreat from what suddenly seemed to her to be the stuffy, artificial repression of natural pleasure.
She sighed with contentment and looked across at Karen and Michael. Either she'd been terribly fast, or they were slow. Probably they were taking their time. It was easier for her to come back after an orgasm than it would be for Michael. Even the novelty of a new partner wasn't going to make him erupt as she had.
As it was, Karen appeared to have lost herself in her passion. She tossed and flung herself about without restraint, and a steady stream of moans and little mewing cries came from her. Her heels were drawn up against her buttocks, and her knees stuck up in the air on either side of Michael. His hips pumped with hard, fast strokes, and Karen shook from the impact at each blow. Sweat ran off Michael's face, splattering as it landed on Karen's breasts, and his body shone with wetness.
Something tugged at a corner of Jennifer's awareness. The way Michael's back muscles were jerking, he'd reach his climax in another two or three minutes. Karen was shaking so hard that Jennifer doubted she'd last that long. What was it that was bothering her? What difference did it make whether they got there at the same moment? That wasn't it. But....
She had it! She jerked her face around to stare at Eric. He hadn't come! He'd forced her to an orgasm-a wild, screaming orgasm-and put her down without relieving whatever pressure had built up in him. It wasn't as if he'd remained cool and detached, either. He'd been stiff as a tree; his penis had leaped in her hand as she'd gone over the edge. But somehow he'd been able to refrain from completing his own cycle, and he'd let her collapse without demanding satisfaction.
She reached up to touch his cheek. He turned back from his enjoyment of the scene on the other lounge and looked down at her.
"Eric?"
"You didn't come."
"No."
She looked down at his penis. It was still erect. The picture of Karen bucking under Michael's thrusts was probably enough to keep it that way. She closed her hand around it.
"Why?" she asked.
"I ... just because," he said.
"Eric, please. That's no answer."
Eric studied her, and an expression of understanding flickered into his eyes. "It wasn't you, doll," he said.
"What was it?"
"Something that's been eating at me for the last two months." He sounded dejected, and he looked it.
"Serious?"
"I don't know. Sometimes I'm afraid it is. I wanted to ... well, I was afraid to tell anyone, even Karen."
"Tell me, Eric."
"All right, I'll try. It's my work."
"What's your work got to do with it? You're a manager with a bunch of engineering groups under you, aren't you?"
"Sure."
"The people are bothering you so much with their problems that it drains you?"
"No. It hasn't anything to do with the people. It's the hardware."
"The hardware?"
He nodded. "I'm turning into a goddamn machine. I dream of the hardware while I'm falling asleep, and I wake up out of dreams in which Karen's just another missile component."
"No!"
"Yes. I dream that I've just finished checking her out, and I'm getting ready to slide a fuse in ... or a piston, or a connector. At any rate, the details vary, but the theme's always the same-we're hardware, not people."
"That sounds awfully erotic. I should think it would be exciting."
"It isn't. Who wants to be a goddamn machine? Worse, how would Karen feel if she knew I was unconsciously using her as a valve or a pump or something like that? She doesn't deserve to be turned into cold metal!"
"That's terrible, Eric! What are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know. I've been thinking about that ever since I realized what was happening."
Jennifer absently stroked the thick penis.
"You feel so warm and hard," she murmured. "I wish you'd put it into me for a while." She smiled at him. "Even if it is just a big tool."
"I can't even bring myself to do that," he said. His voice was miserable-sounding.
"I've got it," Jennifer said. She rolled off the lounge and stood up. "Lie down there, Eric Jorgensen." Eric stared at her.
"Go on!" she commanded. "Lie down!" Eric obeyed.
"On your back, dolt!" She laughed.
He rolled over and stretched his legs. His penis reared up at her, springing out of the blond bush of his pubic hair like an oak stump out of the underbrush. Jennifer faced him and put her right leg across him, planting her knee on the lounge, next to his hip. She reached under herself to guide the head of his penis and lowered herself carefully until the bulbous head pressed against the mouth of her vagina. She used the fingers of both hands to pull the lips of her vulva apart, exposing her narrow entry to the massive penis, and eased herself downward. The pressure increased, and she felt no outward yielding.
"Wait," she said. She knew she could tear herself on that thick staff, and she had no intention of doing that.
She crawled backward, both knees now on the pad, and bent down to touch the head with her tongue. She opened her lips and put them around the tip of his penis, covering it with a thick layer of saliva, then released it and once more crept up to cover it with her vulva. Again, she parted the folds and pressed herself down against the head, and this time she felt it sliding inward as she stretched. Then she was over it, and she sank down the length of the shaft.
"Whew! That's tight!" Eric exclaimed.
"You're big," Jennifer replied.
"With hardware, you'd call that a 'Tress fit'." Eric said. "See? There I go!"
Jennifer laughed. She felt suddenly light-hearted. "So what!"
"So everything's hardware; to me."
"Right now, I don't care." Jennifer straightened her legs, letting them dangle ou. the sides of the lounge, her weight resting on the base of Eric's penis. She jacked her hips backward and forward, as if she was in a saddle. Only it was more like getting skewered on the pommel, she thought with a smile.
"What's funny?" Eric demanded.
"I was comparing this to riding a horse-being impaled on the pommel."
"My God! You've done that?"
"Of course not! Mental comparison, I meant."
"Oh. How does it compare?"
"I think I like this better." She swung her hips back and forth again. "It's fun."
"It is, at that," Eric admitted.
Jennifer felt movement beneath her. Eric was beginning to thrust with his hips. By his expression, she doubted that he was conscious of the action. She continued to surge on him. Her position, with her legs so widespread and her weight resting directly on her crotch, had her clitoris mashed against Eric's pelvic arch. She suspected that it gave her far more stimulation than it did him. She pulled her legs up and got her knees on the pad again. She began to pump up and down, stroking herself along the length of his shaft. The edge of excitement she'd felt creeping through her was gone, but she had a sudden glow of mother-warmth, and she wanted to gather Eric up in her arms and cuddle him.
"Unh!" Eric exclaimed. "You're doing things to me that I didn't expect!"
"You're not angry, are you?"
"Hell, no! But I feel a little embarrassed."
"You feel embarrassed? Eric Jorgensen!"
"What's wrong?"
"How do you think I felt with my bottom in the air?"
"Oh! Well, I hadn't thought about that."
"Hanging upside down just isn't very dignified."
"I suppose not."
"And being naked and having someone's face between your legs at the same time makes it a lot worse. Besides, you had me so excited my breasts were bouncing!"
Eric chuckled. "I couldn't see that."
"I guess no one was looking," Jennifer sighed.
Eric burst into a deep guffaw. Jennifer gasped at the sudden tattoo on her privates, but she redoubled the vigor of her strokes.
"You sophistocated mink! You're trying to force me into an orgasm, aren't you!"
"Of course," Jennifer giggled.
"You can't do it."
"Why not?"
"I'm not going to ... let myself ... go!"
"I don't notice that you're getting any softer."
"I guess I'm not."
"Then you'll get there." She increased the power of her strokes, dropping onto Eric each time from the head to the base of his penis.
"Christ, woman! That's ... going to ... do it!"
"Good." Jennifer's hair flew about her face, and she glanced down to see her breasts jouncing with each bump. But Eric's face was twisted with excitement, and she could not stop.
She felt him arch beneath her, and suddenly he was bucking so hard that she had to grab his waist with her hands to keep from falling off. She felt her nails dig into him.
"Ouch!" he yelped. He stopped bucking.
Jennifer resumed her rhythmic pumping, and saw Eric's belly muscles contract.
"Goddamn!" he exclaimed. "It's starting!"
She felt it. His penis pulsed, and hot fluid poured into her with a warmth that flooded her insides.
"Oooh! That feels good, Eric!"
"Ahhh," Eric sighed. "It sure does!" He chuckled. "You made me do it, didn't you?"
"I did." Jennifer looked over at Michael.
He lay quietly on Karen, his cheek resting on hers, her breasts flattened beneath him. Her knees were still bent, but they lay out to the sides now, limp. Jennifer shook her head. She'd missed their climax, and she'd wanted very much to see it. However, the protective feeling toward Eric persisted, and she leaned forward and straightened her legs outside his and lay on him.
"Were you thinking about hardware, darling?"
"Do I have to answer that?" he asked.
"Please?"
"Okay. I'm afraid I was." Jennifer rubbed her cheek against the thick hair on his chest. "Darling?"
"Yes?"
"Do you mind what I did?"
"No, I don't. I loved it."
"I'm going to keep on until you forget about machinery."
"You know, I think you will."
"That was like having you as a captive."
"Tonight, after we've eaten, I'm going to do something like that to you," Eric promised.
"What do you mean?"
"Wait and see."
Jennifer shivered. "I've already had two orgasms today." She shouldn't have said that, she thought. It was carrying tales.
"That's good. It'll make you last longer."
"Oh, Eric, you sound terrible. Just like a wicked knight talking to a prisoner in a dungeon."
"Am I the black knight?"
"No, red."
"Aha! Then red I shall be." Eric glanced across at the other lounge. "Looks like the prince and the fair lady did each other in."
Michael opened one eye. "All the way in, I might add."
"I'll say!" Karen's voice was muffled. "You don't weigh much, after Eric, but if you stay where you are any longer, I'll smother."
"Sorry, love." Michael disengaged himself slowly.
Eric began to chuckle. His arm stole around Jennifer's waist, and he held her to him. "Now what?" she asked. "I just had a brilliant idea."
"What?"
"Never mind. I'll show you." Eric pushed himself up off the lounge, clutching Jennifer tightly. She tried to wriggle loose, but she found herself to be still impaled on his penis.
"Doesn't that thing ever go limp?" she demanded.
"Sure, but it takes a long time when it's squeezed as tight as this!" He stood up.
Jennifer wrapped her legs around him to keep them from dangling. He stepped forward, and she felt him leap into the air.
"NO!" she yelled.
But in the next instant, she felt the water of the pool close over them. She held her breath as they sank, and she felt the sudden surge when Eire's feet touched the bottom and he sprang upward. At the surface, he reached back with his free arm and caught the edge. With his other, he continued to pin her to him.
"Isn't it time you let me off?" she asked.
"Do you really want off?" he teased.
Jennifer nodded. "For a while, anyhow."
"Kiss me first, doll?"
"Of course!"
She put her arms around his neck and kissed him passionately. Grinning inwardly, she worked her hips at the same time, pumping against him. She felt his arm loosen. Bracing her feet against the side of the pool, she pushed off.
"Hey!" Eric protested when she surfaced. "No fair!"
"I kissed you, didn't I?"
As Eric hauled himself out on deck, Karen and Miqhael dove into the water. Michael surfaced beside Jennifer.
"Sorry, sweetheart?"
"No," she whispered. "Eric needs help."
"He does?"
She nodded. "Besides, I liked it. How about you?"
"I'm glad you decided the way you did." They pressed together and exchanged a wet kiss.
CHAPTER FOUR
They let Eric wear his apron while he barbecued the shish-kabobs. "After all," Jennifer had protested, "We can't take chances!" But when he served up the food, he tossed aside the apron and they ate naked. It was going to take a bit of getting used to, seeing each other this way.
Between bites, they talked swap.
Eric had browsed through books on it, and he figured there were two kinds of swapping.
"In one kind, they just screw everything for the novelty. No affection, though-that'd lead to complications."
"Just a physical smorgasbord," Jennifer suggested.
"Right. Stay away from emotion. They want to sell themselves on the idea that physical sex is just another sport."
Michael shrugged. "I don't see variety being so damned great. Jennifer doesn't bore me." He grinned. "I do the boring."
Eric leaned forward for another helping of shish-kabob. "No argument. The other kind of swapping sounds different. Like a four-way marriage."
"With love and kisses and all that?" Michael studied Eric.
"Yeah. A big blob of love with more than two people rolled up in it."
"Hmm. Everybody loves everybody."
"Goes all to hell if they don't."
"Screwing in full view of the others and to hell with privacy?"
Eric nodded.
"Just look around and bang whoever's closest when your balls give you a twinge?"
"Or whoever does it the way you want it at the moment, I suppose."
"Sonuvabitch! That could mean a couple of guys! Or two women!"
"I wouldn't go for that," Eric admitted. "Although they say the Greeks did."
"Neither would I." Michael shook his head. "I had a taste of that as a budding author. I like women better."
Jennifer looked uncomfortable. She and Karen exchanged glances, and Michael had to smile at their expressions of distaste.
"Men for me," Karen said.
"Me, too!" Jennifer shuddered. "No offense, Karen."
"Of course not!"
Karen got up to bring on the dessert. Michael liked the way her breasts jiggled with her movements.
"What about after the food?" Karen asked. "Same thing we were doing before?"
Michael glanced at Jennifer. She still appeared to be short of breath. The whole business was difficult for her. She was under a hell of a lot of pressure.
"How about it, hon?" he asked her.
She breathed deep. "All right. If you want to."
If he wanted to. Hmm. She was scared. Scared as hell. But she wanted to be game. Besides, she looked like something was tugging at her every time she thought Eric's big dong. And he'd like to see her on it once more. He shivered at the thought.
"Same as before," he said.
"Did you see what she did to me?" Eric demanded, leering at Jennifer.
"Hanging on your neck like an inverted mink?"
"No, no! After that!"
"Hell! After that, I was too goddamn busy to see what anyone was doing but Karen!" Michael laughed and pretended to brush sweat from his forehead.
"Just what did she do?" Karen asked. "Well, you might say she raped me."
"Eric Jorgensen!" Jennifer cried. "What a terrible thing to say!"
"Sorry, chickadee. I'll admit I didn't fight. In fact, I even lay down and rolled over for her. Be that as it may, I made her a promise."
"What kind of promise?" asked Michael.
Karen interjected, "Before we go into that, I'd like to make a suggestion."
All talking at once, the others chorused:
"Go ahead!"
"Shoot!"
"We're listening."
"Well, since we're simply expanding our communication channels, we ought to communicate the best we can," Karen said.
"God! I don't think I can do much better than I did," Eric objected.
Karen stuck out her tongue at him. "That's not what I mean. Michael and I had fun-didn't we, Michael?-but I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to see what you other two were doing. Would it be terribly embarrassing if each couple let the other couple watch? If we took turns as couples?"
Michael winced. Talk about being self-conscious! He wondered if he'd ever be able to reach an orgasm with Eric and Jen sitting around watching him. Of course, they'd probably watched part of what he was doing this afternoon, but they'd been pretty busy, themselves. It'd be a hell of a lot different if they had nothing to do but think about how he and Karen were handling themselves.
"I guess I wouldn't object too much to trying," he said. "But I know I'd be self-conscious as hell!"
"So would I." Jennifer shivered. "But I guess it's okay."
"I'm game," Eric said.
"Good." Karen looked almost smug. "Now, what were you saying, dear?"
"That I made Jennifer a promise," Eric told her.
"You mustn't go back on a promise. What did he promise you, honey?" Karen asked Jennifer.
"He wouldn't tell me. He just promised."
"Michael laughed. "Sounds ominous."
Eric set his dessert plate on the table. "I don't know whether this'd be new to you or not, Jennifer. How would you like to let me make love to you with you tied up?"
Jennifer gasped. "What!"
"Sure. Let me tie you up, then stimulate you until we all decide it's time to quit-or until you run out of gas."
That might be damned interesting, Michael thought. It'd be full of excitement, and it might be fun to see how long Jen could take it before breaking into an orgasm. He watched her face work under the conflicting emotions that must have been coursing throught her.
"Eric, do you like to hurt people?" Jennifer asked.
Karen answered for Eric. "You know him, honey. What would you say if someone else asked you that about him?"
Jennifer hesitated. "He's gentle," she said at last. "I've always thought he wouldn't knowingly hurt anything."
Karen nodded. "You're right."
"There's no streak of sadism buried where we haven't had an opportunity to see it?" Jennifer sounded as if she knew the answer but wanted to hear someone confirm it.
"Of course not, said Karen. "Honey, I taught him all about sweet torture. I've been letting him do that to me for years. Every once in a while, we get the idea we'd like a change, and he ties me up for an hour or two while he plays with me."
Jennifer still looked doubtful, but she squared her shoulders and said, "All right, Eric. Let's see how this works."
Karen cleared the table and took the remains of the meal into the house. Eric lighted the patio torches and laid a stack of cushions on the table.
"Ready, Jennifer?"
"I ... I guess so."
It struck Michael that he hadn't heard Jennifer sound so unsure of herself for years. Not only was she being forced to make decisions without first buttressing her judgment with his rationalizations, but she was facing situations that were foreign to her previous experience. And they went right to the heart of her emotions-straight to the area that is governed by feeling, rather than by logic.
He watched Eric bend down to pick Jennifer up like a baby and settle her on top of the cushions. Eric took the cloth belts out of his and Karen's robes and the ropes off two life preservers that hung on the wall beside the pool. Michael saw Jennifer's eyes fixed on Eric as if he were preparing for her execution.
Eric returned to the table. He tied one of the cloth belts to each of Jennifer's wrists and one of the ropes to each ankle. Then, he secured the free ends of the bonds about the table, spread-eagling Jennifer in a taut, face-up position.
"Oh, God!" Jennifer whispered, screwing her eyes tightly closed. "Oh, my God! What have I let myself in for?"
Eric leaned over her and kissed her face lightly, then covered her mouth with his. Michael shifted his position for a better view and saw Jennifer's throat work as she warmed to Eric's lips. The position itself, or the knowledge of how utterly dependent she was and how helpless to protect herself, must have been giving Jennifer some kind of stimulus, Michael decided. The kiss was doing a hell of a lot more to her than it normally would have. Her shoulders began to twist, and the muscles in her belly already taut, started to writhe, and her hips jerked.
Michael beckoned to Karen, and she came to him. He drew her against him, his arm about her waist, and nodded toward Jennifer.
"That's a hell of a potent kiss," he observed.
Karen smiled. "It is, and it isn't. It works that way on me, too. If he just stood there and looked down at her, she'd start getting excited, knowing that sooner or later he'd do something and that she couldn't do a damn thing about it. But he's giving her a super French job. As soon as she forgot herself far enough to let him get his tongue into her mouth, he jabbed it way in. She's having all she can do to keep from choking on it. That's pretty goddam sexy, when he's got your face between his hands and you can't even turn your head."
But Eric evidently sensed the level of excitement Jennifer had reached, for he released her face with his hands, and she made no effort to ex-cape the probing tongue. Eric's hands played over her outstretched body, and she reacted as if they were electric probes.
"He's barely touching her," Karen .whispered. "She can't ever be quite sure whether it's his fingers or her imagination." She laughed silently. "It doesn't take long before you're convinced he had twenty hands."
Michael nodded.
"But look, we could make it even better if we did the same thing, if we helped," Karen whispered into his ear.
Michael grinned. That would be real fun!
He and Karen leaned forward. She trailed her fingertips up the inside of Jennifer's left thigh while he followed her example on the right. Jennifer thrashed under the multiple stimuli, and Michael worried for fear she'd have an orgasm from that simple manipulation.
Finally, Eric drew his face away from Jennifer's and straightened. He pressed his knuckles into the small of his back and bent backward, grimacing.
"Oh, God!" Jennifer moaned without opening her eyes. "I've never felt anything in the world like this!" She rolled her head to one side, pressing her chin against her shoulder. "What kind of drug did you put in my food, Karen?"
"None," Karen laughed, "but you're under a gypsy spell now."
"I believe it!"
Gypsy spell, Michael mused. A gypsy spell woven out of the threads of Jennifer's own imagination-out of the threads of whatever fantasy she's created to fit her bound condition and the touch of fingers she couldn't count, "Limbs out-flung and bound by gypsy spell...." What a hell of an opening line!
"Limbs out-flung and bound by gypsy spell,
And nerves as taut as limbs-
Spread and bound in helpless, bold display, Receiving, begging more-
Naked, writhing fiercely, taking all, That maleness wills to her-
Heat is rising faster than she knows, And passion fills her veins-
Tugging at the bonds she hopes will hold, She longs for stronger probe."
Stronger probe, but first, stimulus to carry her upward toward that peak that Eric will try not to let her reach too soon, Michael thought.
Here was conflict. Here in an exhibition among friends as close as friends could ever pet, his Jen was pinioned to expose her most tender erogenous zones to a paced stimulation she couldn't control, completely submitted to Eric's will. In the first moments of her experience on this table, she'd surely tried to resist responding. But all of the factors in the situation were against her. She was naked in front of someone besides him, and she'd never experienced that-not as an adult, anyway-until today. She was spread out in as undignified a position as she'd be likely to assume for a long time. She was helpless to direct what was happening to her-to speed it or slow it or stop it-so helpless that she could hardly move, let alone evade whatever probing might be done. Eric, rather than Michael, was using her like an instrument aid would determine how quickly to drive her beyond conscious reaction into animal response and on to her ultimate orgasm. And Eric's success was being observed by her husband and Eric's wife, both of whom were free to select unobstructed viewpoints.
Now, in the early part of the activity, the conflict lay in her resistance to the rising tide of excitement within her. But there would be a point at which she would stop fighting and give herself up freely to the excitement. From that point onward, she would create a new conflict, praying to be allowed the relief of orgasm. Michael sighed and held Karen tighter; something was happening inside him that was separ-rate from but locked to what was happening under the flicker of the torches.
Eric's fingers were stroking Jennifer's body in long, slow arcs now, and she drew deep breaths that sounded like shuddering sobs. When his hand passed over her belly and down onto the hair-covered mound at her crotch, she arched her back to thrust herself upward. When he stroked her breasts, she twisted her shoulders and rolled her head, and her lips formed words without sound.
Michael's penis ached as he watched Jennifer's struggles. He knew that his excitement was partly due to her reactions and partly to his own suppressed desire to be doing the things Eric was doing, but he also knew that it would be impossible to judge how much effect each part had on him. It didn't matter. He leaned forward tensely, his hand massaging the soft flesh just above Karen's hip, and wishing that Eric would be a bit less deliberate.
Eric's fingers lingered in Jennifer's pubic hair, and Michael saw that she was holding her breath. She must know that in a moment Eric will be rolling her clit in his fingers and probing at the mouth of her pussy, he told himself. She knows, and she's steeling herself for it. She's braced, the way she'd brace herself if she was getting ready to step into a cold shower. The difference is that she'd know when she was going to step into the water, while she doesn't know exactly when Eric's going to make that first contact.
Here again was a nugget of conflict. Then Eric's hand moved, and his fingers closed over the sensitive love-button, and Jennifer drove her hips down into the cushions and cried out. Eric dipped his fingers below her clitoris. He ran them around the inner surfaces of her vaginal lips, coating them with the fluid that oozed out of her, then scooped it up and smeared it on her clitoris. He began a massage that varied from slow rolling to fast brushing to intense vibration.
Jennifer's hips leaped and twisted, and she moaned and panted. The muscles that ran lengthwise up her thighs and over her belly tensed to stand out like taut ropes, then relaxed momentarily to leave shadows where they'd stood. She jerked at her bonds and pleaded with Eric to wait, then to hurry.
When she threw her head back and gave way to a tremor that stiffened her and shook her flesh until it shimmered, Eric withdrew his hand and let her passion subside a bit.
"It's not time yet," he said.
"Oh, God! Oh, God!" Jennifer panted. Then her breathing steadied, and the trembling tension went out of her, and she let her gaze rest on each of them in turn. "Why didn't you let me finish coming?" she asked Eric.
He smiled down at her and laid his hand over the sticky folds of her cunt. "Because it'd be all over too soon," he said. "Are you in a hurry?"
"Not now. Right now, I hope it'll last forever. But a minute ago, I wanted to come, and you wouldn't let me."
Eric chuckled. "I guess that's the goal. If I can keep you high enough to keep wanting, but not let you peak out on us, I've got the right gauge."
"Are you going to make me come without you?"
"I haven't decided yet."
"I can't make that decision for you, can I? You're not going to let me tell you what to do."
"That's right, doll."
Michael grinned at this. He realized suddenly that one of his hands was cupped over one of Karen's tits while his other hand squeezed a buttock, and that she had a firm grip on his cock.
Damned good thing he'd already come twice. If he hadn't, he'd be popping off just from watching the scene before him.
CHAPTER FIVE
Eric retuned to the attack. Jennifer writhed and begged. Her passion returned with a rush and threatened to drown her. It looked to Michael like she'd forgotten who she was or what was happening. He suspected she'd let down the wall that hid her primitive subconscious.
Verbal bastard, he berated himself. Stop trying to put it all into words and just enjoy it the way she is! But she was the one who thought in pictures, not he. Life was words, for him, and emotions were just words set to different beats.
The beat that Jennifer was pounding out on the table was pre-primitive. It was a beat brought from the depths of the primeval ocean.
Raw response and ultimate desire were the only forces that lived in her at this moment.
He wasn't ready for it when she did reach her orgasm. From the look on Eric's face, neither was he. She'd gone into a new kind of response-maybe that should have warned them-in which her hips just ground out a slow, powerful, rotary motion. Her panting had changed, too. It became deep and regular, rather than rapid and ragged. And instead of random moans, she'd been uttering soft grunts with every few breaths for some time. Then, all of a sudden, she arched herself on her widespread heels and the back of her head, and went into a violent spasm.
Eric jerked his hand away, but there was no relaxation. Seeing that, he thrust his fingers deep into her vagina, and she bore down on them. After what seemed to Michael an unbearable time, she fell back to the cushions.
Michael was sure she was unconscious, but in her position, her pulse was clearly visible. It beat out a steady tempo, and her color was good. He relaxed and ran his hands over Karen.
Eric backed away from the table. "Jesus!" he exclaimed. "What an orgasm! She sure did get away from me!"
Karen squirmed against Michael and laughed. "Ladies are built different," she said. "You've been practicing on a gypsy."
Eric grinned. "How long will she be out?" he asked Michael.
"Damned if I know! I've never seen it happen before!"
"Think she's all right?" Eric suddenly looked worried.
Michael nodded. "Yeah. But maybe we'd better untie her."
They loosened the bonds and removed them from Jennifer's wrists and ankles. Michael moved her legs a little toward each other to relieve their strain, and placed her arms at her sides. He couldn't resist the temptation to kiss her. Jennifer stirred.
"Is it over?" she whispered without opening her eyes.
"It's over," Michael replied. He felt a tenderness for her that was almost painful. "Feel all right?"
"Like water," she said. "Quiet water."
"You ought to. Your climax was spectacular!"
"Darling, where's Eric? I still belong to Eric for the moment, don't I?"
Michael smiled and kissed her again. He stepped back, and Eric took his place.
"Here I am, chickadee," Eric said. He took her in his arms.
Jennifer opened her eyes and smiled at him, put her arms around him and kissed him. "God, you're skillful!" she said.
"I've learned there's still some skill I need to pick up," he replied. "I let you get away from me!"
"Does that mean I won?" she giggled. "I guess it does."
"But you weren't in me, so I really lost."
"That makes us even." Eric squeezed her. "No it doesn't. I owe you one."
Eric picked her up and walked to a lounge with her in his arms. He lowered himself onto the lounge and cradled her. "We'll leave it on the books for a while," he said.
"All right. It's time for Michael and Karen, isn't it?"
"That's right."
Michael turned Karen toward him and let himself sink into animal enioyment as her breasts rested on his chest. His hands felt her back, his left caressing her from shoulders to waist and his right making circular patterns on her buttocks.
"Michael, darling."
"Yes?"
"Do you realize what a difference there is between you and Eric?"
"I sure do! He's a giant!"
"I didn't really mean just size, Michael."
"What did you mean?"
"In lovemaking. It's partly size, of course. He has such enormous hands, and his fingers are so thick. Your hands are small, and your fingers are so slender ... they feel different on me."
Michael grunted. Her body in his arms robbed him of interest in Eric's hands. He bent to kiss the fullness of an uptilted breast. She placed her hands on his shoulders and leaned back as he sucked the nipple into his mouth. The tip of his tongue teased the sides of the nipple, pushing the hardening lump against the roof of his mouth. His left arm circled her, and he turned her so that his right hand could stroke her belly, low down.
"Ahhh!" Karen sighed. "Delicate! Your ringers feel so delicate on me."
He buried his fingers in her thick pubic hair and worked them toward her crotch. The firmness of her mound gave way to loose folds of silken skin as he came to the hood over her clitoris, and he pulled it back to massage the tiny organ. Karen stiffened and thrust her belly forward.
"Ooh, I'm getting all wet!" she said.
He dipped his fingers into the wetness, feeling for the mouth of her cunt. It had a hot, slippery feel, and he ran his fingertip around its rim slowly. He caressed the folds of her vulva and ran his fingers in and out of the oozing hole. Karen moved her legs apart and leaned further back. Michael stroked her slit, his fingers starting at her cunt hole and passing in slow motion to the tip of her clitoris. He centered a finger on it and began to massage it in tiny, circular orbits.
She began to oscillate her hips. Michael massaged harder as he sensed her movement. She might talk about the differences between Eric and him, but they paled beside the contrast she made to Jennifer. Where Jen was a mobile organism, Karen felt as if she was a collection of independent components. The way her hips moved, it was hard to doubt that she had a universal joint in her lower spine.
He released her breast from his mouth and kissed her lips. Her tongue played over his lips, and he sucked it in to worry it as he had her nipple.
She pulled her face away. "Darling," she exclaimed, "I've seen too much! I want you right now!"
"Good God, Karen!"
"Put your hands on my waist," she directed. Michael did as she told him. "Now, hold me."
He tightened his grip, and she began to bend backward, her legs widely separated.
"Darling, bend your knees until you can drive your rod into me!"
Michael shook his head in doubt, but he bent his knees and inched forward, letting the head of his penis approach the darkness of her crotch. He felt it bury itself among the hot folds and he shifted his position until his cockhead lay in the entrance to her sex channel.
"Push, darling!"
Michael drove against her, and his shaft plunged in to the hilt.
"Ahhh!" That's what I wanted!" Karen began to rotate her hips, the hardness of her groin rubbing at the base of Michael's penis.
Michael gasped. "What's that?" Something had clamped down on the base of his prick and was gripping the shaft as if to milk it.
Karen laughed deep in her throat. "You like that?"
"God, yes!" he exclaimed.
"I call it gypsy milking," she said.
He pumped his hips, but it was a short stroke, for the suctioning action on his rod half-paralyzed him. Her hands closed on his elbows, and she pulled herself toward him.
"Hold me tighter," she said. She swung her legs up to wrap them around him.
Michael backed to one of the patio roof supports and leaned his back against it, then began to pump hard. The milking continued, and he felt a heavy contraction deep in his gut.
"I hope ... you're ... ready!" he exclaimed. "I'm about to lose control of myself!"
Karen's hips suddenly jerked into violent rotation. She ground herself against him with such force that he had to groan. The contractions hardened, and heat shot through his cock and spilled into Karen.
She shuddered, and her nails bit into his shoulders. He crushed her to him, and she buried her teeth in the flesh of his chest. He stiffened and gritted his teeth.
Finally, her shudders subsided, and she let her jaw relax and withdrew her fingernails from his skin. Michael's arms felt weak and useless. He stumbled to a lounge, taking her with him, and lowered himself backward onto it. Karen lay on him, her thighs clamped on his.
"Ooh, that was good, Michael. I feel so good!"
"I feel hysterical. How the hell could that have happened so fast?"
"Watching Eric and Jennifer did something to us, didn't it?" Karen asked, snuggling affectionately.
"I guess it did, at that." Michael stroked Karen's hair and kissed her forehead. "You're a fine lay, gypsy child," he said.
"Michael! What a thing to say!"
"Should I say you're boring?"
She laughed. "You'd better not!"
"I think I've had it, baby." Karen wiggled her hips. "Do anything for you?"
"Sure. One more wiggle, and you'll squirt my prick out."
"Like this?" She wiggled again, and he felt the strange tightening action she'd used before.
"See? What did I tell you? That did it! Just like a watermelon seed."
"Michael, I think that's what I love most about you."
"What?"
"The way you always find some graphic word to liken to something else."
"That's how I'm supposed to make my living," he said.
Karen pushed herself off him. "Come on, darling. Into the pool."
"Well, I don't know."
"Why not?"
"I feel so watery, I'm not sure I could tell which was me and which was the pool."
"Oh, come on!" Karen backed away from his reaching fingers and stood on the pool coping.
Michael struggled to his feet and followed her. The water closed over him, and he pushed himself through it with a sense of homecoming. When he surfaced, he discovered that Eric and Jennifer had joined them. They swam lazily, criss-crossing the dark water after each other.
At last, Jennifer gave up and clung to the edge. "I'm sleepy," she announced. "Do I get to go home with Michael?"
"I guess the rules allow that," Eric said with a chuckle.
While they were toweling themselves, Karen walked to the high wall that separated the two yards.
"Would it cost much to cut a gateway here?" she asked.
Michael glanced at Eric. The big man frowned and hesitated. He'd be running figures through his engineer's mind, Michael thought.
"No, it probably wouldn't be unreasonably high," Eric said. "How about it, Michael? Shall we get someone out for an estimate?"
Michael thought of the privacy their walled-in pool yard afforded. He knew Karen's suggestion was based on the fact that neither couple need worry about the other seeing them sunning and swimming nude any more. She'd obviously reached the conclusion that in their new degree of intimacy, they'd be better off with access to each other that wasn't as public as their front entryways. But with a gate, the old seclusion would be gone. He wondered how important that seclusion was. The glow of affection he felt for Karen and Eric tonight seemed far more important.
"Sounds like a good idea," he said. "Do you want to call them?"
Eric grinned. "I have a friend...." he said.
Michael and Jennifer kissed Karen and Eric good night and wrapped towels about themselves. They gathered up their clothes and went through the side yard to the front gate.
In their bedroom, Michael examined Jennifer.
"I've never seen you look more exciting than you did on that table."
Jennifer shivered. "I've never experienced anything quite like it," she replied. "I'm still not sure I'd ask for it if no one else brought up the subject."
"Would you hesitate the next time someone did suggest tying you up?"
"That would depend."
"Oh?"
She looked into his eyes thoughtfully and said, "Darling, if you wanted to tie me up and play with me, I'm sure I'd agree. It'd be fun. If Karen and Eric want to when we're all together, I'll probably go along with them. But what we're doing with them doesn't mean I'm ready to give myself to anyone else, or to start sharing you with any of our other friends."
"Oh." So she'd been concerned-might still be concerned-over the possibility that their intimacy with the Jorgensens would be taken as license to begin to swapping with the rest of their acquaintances.
"I'd think it would be best to keep our new activities with the Jorgensens our secret," Jennifer said.
Michael nodded. "Let's," he replied. He took Jennifer in his arms and kissed her. "Honey?" she said. "What?"
"What's wrong with Eric?"
"I didn't know anything was."
Jennifer told him the story that Eric had related to her. "He seemed depressed," she finished.
"I should think so, if he's let it get to him so much that he can't make love to Karen!"
"Is she that good?"
"She's that good." Michael patted Jennifer's bottom. "She's not like you, baby, but she's good."
"That's your diplomatic voice, Michael. What you mean is, she's sensational, and Eric must be a case for the psycho ward is she's neglecting her."
"Score one for your side, sharp-eyes. If he's stayed out of that hot little pussy for two months, he belongs on the funny farm!"
"But what causes it?"
"Hell, baby, Eric's the organization man everyone talks about. He's a big, dynamic, intense sonuvabitch who can't let himself relax. It sounds to me like the job's gotten to him."
"Oh, honey, he's too much man to go that way. We're just going to have to help him."
"If my using Karen will help, I'm willing."
Jennifer sniffed. "Well! Do you realize that Eric and I didn't reach one orgasm together tonight?"
"Well, I knew you made it by yourself on the table. You mean you did this afternoon, too?"
"You saw the way he was holding me."
"Upside down, you mean?"
She nodded and flushed. "I couldn't control myself then, either."
"God almighty! Did he ever come?"
"Yes, finally. I ... well, I sort of did rape him."
"You what?" Michael laughed at the image that rose in his mind. "Come on, baby!"
Jennifer described her determination to force Eric into an orgasm.
"Hell, I can't figure out how he could even have hesitated, Michael objected.
"Honey, it's more serious than it sounds. He says he just wilts when he thinks about it!"
"But he didn't with you."
"Well, maybe the fact that it was me-was I?-sort of made him forget hardware."
"I'm sure that was it. Yes, you're right, Jen. We've got to help them."
"Just think-two months with nothing!"
"That's what I've been thinking. It's a goddamn wonder they didn't wear us out!"
"I don't know about you, Michael, but I feel worn out."
Michael sighed. "I hate to admit it to a naked broad, sugar, but I do too. Let's get the hell to bed."
CHAPTER SIX
The gate was a goddamn nuisance, Michael decided. It was a goddamn nuisance from the moment Eric got ready to call his contractor friend.
It began on Monday morning. Michael had the house to himself, Jennifer having decided to shop for new underwear and stockings, or something like that. He'd gotten the germ of a plot idea at the breakfast table, and now he was getting acquainted with the main character. Then the telephone rang.
"Hello. Michael?" It had to be Eric's voice.
"Yeah, it's Michael."
"Good! Look, I got hold of Mulvahill. He can come out to make an estimate on the door in the wall today. You going to be there?"
"I'll be here."
"Any particular time be best?"
"I don't care what time he gets here, but I'd like to have an idea what time it'll be."
"Fine. He said he'd like to make it at ten."
"Then I'll expect him at ten."
That kept it going. You have to learn to expect those bastards when you see them, Michael told himself. Mulvahill hadn't gotten there by eleven-fifteen, when Jennifer got home. Michael had waited since ten o'clock for the doorbell, his concentration riddled and his patience wearing thin fast. Jen had found some hot new lingerie-the kind designed to be worn by a girl who wants it taken off her as quickly as possible-and she wanted to model it. Michael started to suggest that she wait until the contractor had been there and left, then thought better of it. So she was just showing him the first article when Mulvahill rang.
Michael cast a last longing look at the way the thing interrupted her lines, then grumbled all the way to the door. He took Mulvahill through to the pool yard and showed him where they wanted the gate. There was a small arbor that abutted the wall, with wisteria blossoms dripping from it. Michael thought the door ought to be secluded in the arbor; that would give it the atmosphere of a hidden retreat.
"It'd be better to put it here ... or over there," Mulvahill told him, pointing to the spots.
"I'd rather have it right in there."
"Lot better traffic flow over here."
"I don't want traffic to flow."
"Well, it's going to play hell with that vine. I mean, it's nci going to do it any good to have men working back in there around it."
"Aren't there ways to protect plants when you're working around them?" Michael asked.
"Sure, but you have to be a lot more careful, and it takes more time."
"Why don't you just give me an estimate of what it'd cost to put the door right in there and protect the vine while you're doing it?"
"Can we work from both sides of the wall?"
"Yes."
"I'd better have a look at the other side."
So Michael had to call Karen to see if she minded his bringing the contractor around to look at her side of the wall.
Mulvahill studied the Jorgansens' side. "Now, from over here, it looks like you'd have the best traffic pattern with the door in this corner."
Karen shook her head. "I think we'd rather have it here."
Mulvahill shook his head. "Okay, but I think you're making a mistake."
"We're not trying to build a goddamn freeway," Michael growled. "Are you going to be able to make an estimate?"
Mulvahill looked injured. He measured and paced and showed them pictures and jotted notes on a grubby pad.
"I'll take the facts and figures back to the office and have them run out an estimate. We'll give you a call tomorrow. Offhand, I'd say it'll run about two-fifty."
"Call Eric, not me," Michael told him.
"Who?"
"Eric. Eric Jorgansen."
"Oh. Yeah, I guess I can do that."
So they called Eric the next day with the estimate, and he called Michael to see whether he agreed they ought to give a go-ahead to the contractor, who'd promised to have a crew there Wednesday. The crew actually arrived Friday morning, and by noon they had a six-foot hole in the wall and had destroyed the vine.
Naturally, there was a considerable amount of masonry work to be done, and they knocked off work Friday afternoon with a ragged, gaping hole in the wall. They'd be back Monday morning, they assured Michael. He swore in Swahili, facing the prospect of a weekend with the wall torn up. What was worse, the germ of the plot that had come to him Monday had evaporated.
But he ate dinner Friday night with a spark of optimism. Maybe the weekend wouldn't be all bad. They were to take in a show in the evening with Eric and Karen, than come home for a drink or two and some music. He put the wall out of his mind and smiled across the table at Jennifer.
"Have I told you recently how good you look in candlelight?" he asked. "Not since last night."
"Why don't we call Eric and Karen and tell them to go without us? We'll be here when they get back."
"Now, Michael, you told me you wanted to see how they handled that bridge scene in the movie.
Besides, it wouldn't be fair to get that kind of head start."
"All right, all right. It was just a thought."
He wasn't sorry afterward that they'd gone. The bridge scene was quite different from the way Granger had written it, and the change was actually for the better. But Michael was glad to get home and mix the drinks.
When he was mixing the second pitcherful, Karen came into the kitchen.
"You ought to put in a wet bar in the living room," she said.
"That's a bum idea," he objected. "If I had one in there, I wouldn't be out here, and you wouldn't have followed me."
"Okay. Then kiss me."
Michael turned from the cabinet and took Karen in his arms. Her lips were soft and full, and she made little clucking noises as their mouths met. She drew back, and he held her out away from him and surveyed her.
"That's a hell of a sexy outfit," he commented.
"Thank you." She lowered her eyes. "The neckline is awfully low."
"Low!" He reached out with his finger and touched her bare navel. "It's kind of wide, too. I'd say it was just about right for warming up."
"You say the sweetest things." Karen sucked in her belly at his touch.
Michael leaned forward for another kiss, and his hand slipped inside the gown to cup a warm, full breast. He squeezed it gently and caught the nipple between his fingers.
Karen breathed hard and pushed against his lips until his teeth gouged into them. She pulled herself away, panting.
"Careful, I haven't had any since last Sunday. I'll be raping you before ve get back to the living room, if you're not careful!"
Michael chuckled. "Is that a promise?" He drew the front of her gown aside to expose the breast he'd fondled.
"Your nipple sure puckered up fast," he observed.
"I told you, I've been practically virginal lately." She wrinkled her nose and swayed forward to rub her bare tit against his jacket. "And gypsies just aren't meant to do without."
He sobered. "Is it really that bad, doll?"
"Oh, Michael, I'm so frightened! Something's terribly wrong with Eric. He's changed. I know you don't believe in spirits, but I'm sure some dark force is trying to take him from us."
"By God, whether I believe in them or not, we won't let that happen!" Michael realized that he meant it.
"You and Jennifer will help?"
"You're damn right! And in the meantime, don't you let yourself get all frustrated."
She smiled suddenly, a deep dimple appearing in her cheek. "Kiss me again, darling."
Michael bent as she twisted to present her breast. He kissed it and sucked the nipple into his mouth for a moment, then he released her.
"Let's get these drinks back in there before someone starts complaining," he suggested.
"All right, darling." Karen rearranged her gown with a shrug.
Eric grinned as they appeared. "You've put a gleam in her eve, Michael," he said.
Karen shook her head. "It was there when I followed him."
"Aha! The scent of the game trail!" Eric leered.
"Games?" Jennifer sat up. "Did someone say something about 'games'?" She got to her feet and crossed to Eric, who was sitting half buried in a huge armchair. She lowered herself to the arm. "Let's play games," she said, letting her hair brush his face.
"I'm all for it," he replied, caressing her butt. "You sure do smell good." He sniffed at her hair.
"Eric?"
"Yeah?"
"Let's let Karen and Michael go first tonight. We warmed them up last time."
Eric chuckled. "All right, chickadee. Don't mind if we do. But how about a kiss?"
She twisted into his arms, and their mouths met.
Michael joined Karen on the sofa, where they toasted each other silently. They set their empty glasses on the end table, and Karen turned around and lay across Michael's lap, her upper body supported by his arm. Their lips touched, and Michael abandoned himself to the sensation of her exploring tongue. As their breath came quicker, he bared her breasts and caressed them, his hand moving urgently on them.
Karen drew her face back. "I'm afraid I'm going to be dreadfully impatient tonight," she confessed.
"I think we can handle that all right."
"How?"
"We'll just let you go through a preliminary bout to take the edge off."
"Ooh ... I'm going to like that!" She studied him. "Are you planning to tie me?"
He shook his head. "Not tonight. Not unless you want me to."
"No. I'd rather save that for sometime when we get started first thing in the morning."
"Fine." He stroked her breasts and drew his fingers over the nipples with the same kind of motion Jennifer used to put a point on a brush. He liked Karen's coloring. The brown of her skin deepened in a circle at the tip of each breast and gave way to a reddish brown on her nipples. He wondered if the rounded mounds would flatten and sag as she grew older. He hoped to God they wouldn't.
He lowered her so that she lay across him with her upper torso in his lap and her head resting on the cushion beside him. The position accentuated the upward thrust of her breasts, and he let his mind wallow in the stimulation the sight provided.
"Darling," she said, "let's get my gown off my shoulders. I'll be more comfortable."
He raised her and helped her pull the dress off her shoulders and down to her hips.
"That's better, Michael." She lay back, and he toyed with the delectable mounds of flesh as he drank in the sight of her belly where it dropped away from her rib cage. He ran his hand down the slope and onto the gentle swell of her lower abdomen, again and again, and she began to roll her hips slowly from side to side.
He pushed his fingers under the edges of her gown and encountered crinkly hair.
Karen smiled with parted lips. "I wore only what you could see tonight," she said with a laugh. "I told you I was going to be impatient!"
Michael grinned. "I don't object."
He fingered her labial folds, and she moved her thighs apart for him. Her pussy was already well coated with juice, and he massaged lightly as he watched her excitement rise.
"Oh, Michael darling! I've got to do something with my hands!"
"You'd better let me sit on them. It's too early to start clawing."
"All right," she panted.
Michael levered himself up, and she slid her arms under his thighs. He let himself back down on them and continued massaging her. With her arms pinned, she flung herself from side to side, moaning softly.
"Darling! Michael! Push my dress the rest of the way off!" she cried. "I'm going to tear it!"
Michael pushed the gown over her hips, and she kicked it off. She flung her legs wide and ground herself against his hand. With a wordless cry, she arched her body and shook violently. Then she dropped back and sighed.
"Oh, God, darling! What a come! Is that what you meant about taking the edge off?"
"That's it," Michael replied.
"It's off, then. Now get undressed and let's start over."
Michael eased his weight off her arms and waited for her to extricate them. He helped her to sit, then he stood up and stripped. He felt a deep sympathy for Karen. He thought that he could dimly understand what she must be going through with Eric and his problem. It seemed foolish for Eric to hide the story from her; she'd probably a hell of a lot rather know why he wouldn't screw her than be allowed to keep on believing it was the doing of some evil spirit. But maybe Eric knew what he was doing. If he told Karen about his hardware obsession, she might go to pieces in the conviction that the old spirits were growing more powerful by assimilating the new technology.
He shrugged off the thought with irritation. This was a time for action, not meditation. It was a time for cutting loose from words. None were needed with that sensitized body waiting for him. Karen held her arms out to him, and he dropped to the sofa beside her. The sensation of her naked body against his made him dizzy. He held her tightly, whispering to her of what they were about to do.
Karen turned, leaning her back against his chest. He fondled one of her breats with one hand and placed the other on her crotch. She scooted down, spreading her knees, and rotated her hips with the rhythm of his hand.
"I don't know just how much of the edge we took off," she whispered. "I'm building up fast again!"
"If it's too fast, we'll just make it another dry run," Michael said.
She writhed under his massage and caught his erection in her hand. "I don't want another dry run," she said.
"I know, but we don't want to wind up the night with you only half satisfied, either."
"No."
Her hips bounced savagely, and she rotated them with the swivel action that had so astonished Michael the previous weekend. Michael tried to pace her arousal, but she was not to be slowed.
She flung herself upon him, straddling him and fighting to impale herself on his upright penis. But the tremor of her orgasm seized her, and she could only grind her crotch against his belly and sob as the waves of passion swept over her.
When they subsided, she grabbed his shoulders. "Now, damn it! I'm going to have your cock in me this time!"
She clambered off him and lay on her left side, her back to him, her right knee drawn up toward her chest.
"Put it in!" she demanded. "Put it in and screw me!"
Michael grinned. It would take a hell of man, he reflected, to keep her satisfied. She'd keep any guy plenty busy. It should prevent his thoughts from straying, too. He straddled her left leg and burrowed the head of his too-ready penis into the folds that guarded her glory hole. His prick slid in, lubricated by the thick layers of juice, and he gasped at the rich sensations that her position produced in him.
His hips took up a strong pumping action, and Karen reached down with one hand to grasp his knee.
"Hard, darling! Hard as you can!" she pleaded.
He drove his tensed belly against her upper buttock and watched the shock jar her body again and again. She flung her head back and to the side to stare up at him. Her eyes bulged, and she chewed her lower lip.
"Oh, darling!" she cried as Michael felt the beginning of his orgasm. "Now, darling! Now!"
The great contraction struck him with a jolt, and he leaned into Karen, paralyzed. As the hot fluid pumped into her, she took up the motion he'd abandoned. Her body absorbed his shaking, and she moaned as she joined her orgasm to his.
She let her head drop and released her grip on his knee. "Michael, Michael," she whispered. "At last, I feel like a whole woman!"
Michael let himself collapse on her and kissed her shoulder. "Can't beat that," he said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Eric watched moodily as Karen ground herself against Michael. "She's really flopping on that rod of his," he thought, as he inventoried his wife's lover. He liked the guy. Really, he loved him like a brother. But that was because Michael was a writer and not an engineer. The guy was all male, all right, but he was all artist, too. Writer-type artist, of course, not picture-type. And Eric hated arty engineers.
He would almost make two of Michael, he reflected. At six-four and two-forty, he'd almost make two of practically everyone he knew, except that fat slob Millican. God, he couldn't stand Millican! That was probably a big chunk of his goddamn sex hangup. That last promotion, taking over the engineering department, had meant he had to deal directly with the other department heads, and that included Millican of production. How they'd ever let a loud-mouthed, ignorant sonuvabitch like that get into supervision, he'd never figure out! The guy was dirty in his speech and dirtier about his person. He thought he knew everything there was to know about hardware, and there wasn't a day when Eric didn't have to get into a shouting match with him about some tolerance call-out on a drawing. The bastard just couldn't get it through his mind that all he had to do was make it like the drawing.
With his own people, Eric reflected, communication was a thing of quiet reason. Oh, sure, there were differences of opinion. Even engineering wasn't so exact that it got rid of those, but at least the guys that were in it understood the technical foundations. They got emotional about numbers and flow patterns and heat exchange and materials, but they all talked pretty much the same language, most of the time.
Millican was another matter. He might as well have been speaking Chinese for all the sense he made. Even the kids in his shops had better comprehension of what the engineers were doing than he did. But of course, they'd been growing up within the last few years, while that bastard had grown up while they were putting the first metal skins on airplanes.
Michael, of course, wouldn't fit anywhere in the plant. He was just as sharp as any engineer, but he was sensitive. A guy had to be sensitive to write, probably. If he wasn't, he couldn't sense what made people do the things they did. And it was knowing people so well that made it possible for a writer to create believable characters. But people-sensitivity was the last thing you could stand in industry. Christ! Imagine sending Michael down to get something across to Millican! Or sending him in to straighten out the budget with Forsythe, for that matter.
Nope. An engineer had to be hardware-sensitive, not people-sensitive. Let an engineer begin to develop sensitivity to people, and he'd be in trouble-as Eric surely was.
Something brushed Eric's cheek, and he looked away from the brown and tan two-backed creature on the sofa that was Michael and Karen-his own wife, Karen-in the exhaustion of sexual satiation.
Jennifer's fingers, so pale compared to Karen's, were just withdrawing from his face.
"You're awfully far away, Eric," she murmured.
"I guess I was," he admitted.
"Are you going to come back now?"
"I'm coming back, I think." He wondered. He felt the curves that held so still for him and warmed to their promise. If he could think of them only that way, only as femininity at his disposal, he might be able to plunge himself into their engulfing folds and find physical relief. Sure, it'd be mechanical, with every movement and every shape presenting itself in his mind as the movement or shape of a piece of hardware, but it'd be relief. If he slipped, though, and remembered that it was Jennifer, he'd soften and shrivel and lose his lust. He'd collapse within himself because he loved her and couldn't let her take the part of a machine.
"You're slipping away again," she whispered. She rubbed herself against him and pulled his hand around to rest on one of her breasts. "Please, Eric!"
He focused his eyes on an imaginary point in the distance so that he'd look through her face instead of into it. He rubbed his hand over the swelling tit and thought of a fabric-covered cell of honeycomb construction. Such a cell, filled with the right fluid under the right pressure, would have this consistency. He fingered the breast and reviewed the list of materials that might be used to capture the resilience and the softness he felt.
The problem gripped him. He felt at her dress for an opening to the skin.
"Here, I'll get it," Jennifer said.
She twisted and reached and pulled, and in a moment she was naked to the waist. Now, he could test the texture and the structure without the camouflage of dress and bra. Material for the skin of the cell would be something else. It would have to have this silken smoothness-not too hard to duplicate-and just the right thermal properties, and those would be damned difficult to come by. Yes, this was a marvelous component.
He rolled Jennifer's nipple between his fingertips. Amazing how different was its texture and consistency! If it hadn't been for the way it stiffened and collapsed, he could have named whole families of new plastics that might be used to duplicate it. But not one of them had a bi-stable nature that would meet the dynamic requirements. And it would take an absolute genius to design the sensing elements to take the place of nerve centers.
The sudden tensings and the little gasps that his manipulations evoked were clear evidence of sense react circuits of impossible complexity. He felt Jennifer's arms steal around his neck and her lips on his cheek. Her breath came in warm little puffs that entered his ear and triggered another complex reaction chain. He sensed a tightening of the fibers that supported the weight of his testicles and a constriction at the base of his penis. The constriction was letting blood surge into the organ with every beat of his heart, but the return veins were clamped off, and the increasing volume of fluid was filling collapsible cells up and down the length of the shaft.
He was aware of an outbreak of goose flesh on his neck and chest as the puffs in his ear continued. He kneaded Jennifer's breasts and stroked her belly. What a great machine she was! He tore at the dress, forcing it onto the swell of her hips.
"Wait, lover! Please don't rip it!"
Jennifer sprang to her feet and did something with a zipper.
"Do you want to take it off me, or shall I?" she asked then.
"Go ahead, doll." Eric avoided letting himself look at her face. He preferred watching the cones of her tits as she leaned over to push the dress down.
She straightened and stepped out of the pile of material. Eric gulped, and the cells in his penis suddenly charged themselves to capacity, so that he was conscious of the new hardness. A gauze strip-scarlet gauze-lay over the mound on her loins. It tapered to mere strings at the sides and hugged the swollen flesh in her crotch.
Eric rose and jerked off his own clothes, then reached for the body before him. His fingers twitched at the ends of the strings, untying the bows, and dived under the cloth to the flesh between her thighs.
Jennifer gasped and rose to her toes as he thrust his middle finger up into her cunt.
"Eric!" she exclaimed. "Yes, oooh, yes!" She twisted on his finger.
Spreading his other fingers over her buttocks, he lifted her off her feet and carried her to the back of a chair. He set her down and turned her around so that the fronts of her thighs pressed against the chair back. He bent her forward, and she fell onto the thick upholstery, reaching down to stop her fall by bracing her hands on the arms.
Eric flexed his knees to align the head of his cock with the mouth of her cunt. Machine-like, she vibrated in anticipation of his lunge, and he drove his weight into her. The rigid shaft plunged and disappeared from sight, and Eric uttered a great sigh of satisfaction. Jennifer's body stiffened convulsively, her legs flying out on either side of Eric's and her head coming up.
"Aghhh!" she cried. "It's so deep!"
Eric pounded her tensed asscheeks with his belly and felt his balls thumping against the leather under Jennifer's hips as he stroked his shaft in and out. She was his screwing machine, and he grasped her waist with his hands to hold her in positiion. His pace accelerated, and he absently noted the way her head jerked with each impact.
Something roared inside his head, and a knot of heat built up behind the base of his rod.
It's going to blast loose any second now, he thought. Karen's watching me work this machine, and she's going to see real fireworks!
He pushed down on Jennifer's waist, forcing her cunt to tilt up toward him, then drove his weight against the upturned receptacle. An explosion of heat ripped at his guts, and searing fluid filled his cock. He poured out his passion fluid into Jennifer's hot cavity, sobbing his relief as he erupted.
After a long moment of shaky paralysis, he pulled back and released her.
"Oh, my," she said. "Oh, my God! What a violent climax!" She went limp, her hair spreading over the seat cushion. "I haven't the strength to get myself out of here," she said, her voice muffled.
"I've got you," Eric told her.
He picked her up like a rag doll, then turned her and cuddled her in his arms.
"Oooh," she breathed, resting her cheek against his shoulder. "You're a violent man, Eric."
"Did I hurt you, baby?"
"No, but you scared the hell out of me."
"Did you come?"
"Did I!"
"Good. So did I."
She giggled. "I'll say you did!"
"You could tell?"
"I couldn't tell much else that was going on, but when you pumped me full, I thought I'd blow up like a balloon!"
"I'm afraid I was a real brute."
She snuggled against him.
"Just wonderfully masterful," she said.
He put his mouth close to her ear. "I feel terrible admitting this to you, but I imagined you were a machine."
She sighed. "A sex machine."
Eric winced, and Jennifer laughed.
"Right now, that's the sweetest thing you could have said to me," she whispered.
"It's the best thing that could have happened to me tonight," Eric admitted.
"You had to forget you were screwing someone you knew and convince yourself it was mechanical, didn't you?"
"That's right, doll."
"Oh, Eric. I wish I could plant the idea in your subconscious that I'm really a robot, rather than a live woman!"
"Hmm! If I could condition myself to believe that, I'd screw you half to death!"
"We'll have to think about it," Jennifer said. "Now you're going to have to put me down. All that lovely juice is getting ready to run out."
"Can't have that!"
Eric righted her and set her on her feet. She dashed for the bathroom.
Eric watched Jennifer till she was out of sight, then glanced over at the sofa. Karen still lay on her side with one knee drawn up, and Michael still crouched over her, straddling her left leg. His knees pressed against the small of her back and her belly, and he cupped one of her boobs in his hand. Was the sonuvabitch going to stay on her all night?
Eric shook himself irritably. For the guy who'd first suggested this damn swapping-and who'd just handed the other guy's wife a pretty stiff ride-he was in a lousy position to be getting jealous. That was the kind of reaction you'd expect from a kid. Or maybe from a production type.
Jennifer and her robot-that ought to be a classic! The worst part of it was that he knew he could make himself go that route when he was hot enough, and it wouldn't be fair to the woman. He picked up his empty glass and went to the coffee table to refill it from the pitcher. The ice had almost entirely melted, and the stuff tasted a little watery, but it was better than nothing.
"Is it any good?" Michael asked.
"It's all right, considering how long it sat."
Michael shook Karen. "Shall I get off and pour you another drink?" he asked.
Karen stirred. "You'd have to pull out," she objected.
"Hell, I'll have to anyway, sooner or later."
Karen smiled. "Maybe not. If you stay in long enough, maybe you'll start getting stiff again."
Eric laughed. "She's got it laid out for you, Michael. First thing you know, she'll put a spell on you."
Michael straightened up and grinned. "Just thinking about it almost does something for me." He pushed against Karen.
Karen's smile broadened, and she squirmed. Jennifer appeared.
"Are they at it again?" she asked Eric.
"Not really." He poured her a refill. "They're just trying to convince each other that they can come back before Michael has to back out."
"He does recover fast," Jennifer remarked.
"I hope he doesn't this time," Eric replied. "You must have some kind of magic. I'm about to fall asleep on my feet." He shook his head. He couldn't remember when he'd last felt so bushed.
Michael chuckled and backed away from Karen. "In that case, I'd better let your wife pull herself together," he said.
"Ohhh, Michael, did you have to do that?" Karen hunched her shoulders, then stretched. "I really wanted you to stay in there, darling."
"We can't let Eric fall asleep on us, can we?" asked Michael.
"I used to let him," Karen objected. "Fall asleep on me, that is."
"And I used to warn her how dangerous that was," Eric added.
"Pour me a drink, darling, please?" Karen looked at her husband.
"Of course. How about you, Michael?"
"Sure! Here are the glasses."
Their glasses full, the four relaxed. Jennifer cuddled up on Eric's lap, and Karen snuggled against Michael.
"Mulvahill's people aren't too damn sharp with that door project, are they?" Eric commented.
Michael frowned. "They haven't impressed me very favorably."
"I'll have Mulvahill's hide if they don't do a first-class job."
"They're going to have to replace that vine they wrecked," Michael observed. "They charged extra to protect it."
Eric flexed his biceps. "They'll replace it." He made a mental note to have a word with Mulvahill. The bastard certainly hadn't conducted himself very well on this job. He was getting as bad as Millican.
When their glasses were empty again, they decided against mixing more drinks.
"Tomorrow's another day," Eric said. "We oughtn't to overdo it."
He gathered his clothes and Karen's under his arm.
"Come on, gypsy. We'll go home the back way."
They went into the pool yard and through the hole in the wall. They turned to exchange good nights with Michael and Jennifer from their own yard.
Inside, Karen pressed herself against Eric and rested her hands on his shoulders. He thrilled to the caress of her body, running his fingers down her back.
"Darling, are we helping them? Do you think they're coming alive?" she asked.
"I don't know. I think so. At least, they're beginning to get emotional about things again."
"That's true. They'd gotten so nothing ever stirred them up."
"Michael's sure as hell stirred up over the way Mulvahill's handling that wall."
"You shouldn't have to ask me." Eric said ruefully. He held her in his arms and sought her lips with his. Jennifer couldn't begin to compete with Karen in kissing, he reflected. Her lips just weren't full enough to make the most out of a kiss.
"Let's go to bed, darling," Karen suggested when Eric raised his head. "You're going to get me all excited again."
"Heaven forbid!" Eric laughed at the shocked expression in Karen's eyes. "It would never do to wear you out at the beginning of the weekend."
"Oh, you-" Karen wrinkled her nose at him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Eric opened his eyes to find sunlight streaming into the bedroom. He rolled over and felt for Karen, but his hand found only crumpled bedclothes. He opened his eyes again to look at his watch. Eight o'clock! He kicked the covers off and sat up. He'd really slept! He felt eager for the day to start.
In the shower, though, he found the hardware problems going through his mind in the same old patterns. He wondered if it was all due to the Millican types, or if maybe the hardware itself had something to do with it. Or perhaps it was the atmosphere. A few years ago, he'd made the decisions-he and his bosses. He was one of the best goddamn engineers in the country. He didn't need the awards on his office wall or the community relations department's clipping book to remind him of that. When they'd been building planes for the airlines, that had meant something. TWA or United or one of the other giants would decide they needed something to put them a step ahead of the competition. They'd rough out an idea of what the new service was going to require in the way of a vehicle, and come to the manufacturers with their needs. After a period of head scratching and doodling, Eric and his kind would go back to them with preliminary designs. From that point on, the engineers were at the controls.
He'd enjoyed the responsibility. Somehow, no one had thought to waste the time and energy to second guess him. Everyone knew that when he completed a design, no one was going to come up with a better balance between cost and performance. There were even the times when other giants in the industry had paid Pacific Aircraft to have him review their designs, or to get to the bottom of some critical problem for them.
Eric was one of the major factors in Pacific's having been selected for such a big role in missile construction.
"I don't mind telling you," one Pentagon general had told Webb Black, Pacific's president, "that Jorgensen was a key element in our considerations."
At first, that had been fine. The government people had seemed grateful to be able to leave technical decisions in the hands of those best qualified to make them. But there with a new generation in government program offices now. People who couldn't make it up the ladder in industry found bureaucracy a place to exaggerate their abilities and nurture infant empires. To justify their positions, they had to second guess-and third and fourth, when things were quiet.
Worst of all, they'd discovered that hardware qualities that were byproducts of good design and careful workmanship could be named and treated as separate attributes. With the proper ballyhoo, any one of these things-like reliability or dependability or maintainability-could provide a reason for building whole new empires. It had gotten so that Pacific's designs were no longer Pacific's. Eric's engineering department was little more these days than a keeper of the drawings and a convenient whipping boy.
Eric came out of the shower and shaved, feeling a sour resentment. He wondered how it would feel to be back in the business of doing the right thing, instead of whatever had the best chance of surviving a lot of goddamn committees. Maybe John Carroll had the right idea. It had been six months now, but he could still hear John as he'd leaned across the table and urged Eric to reconsider.
"Look, Eric," he'd said. "You're probably one of the best engineering minds in the country. On top of that, you can do a job of management, and the other two can't. Why do you let them sew you up in an airtight bag like this? I need you, and I'm willing to pay to get you!"
What had made him put John off? Had he lived in the government womb so long he was afraid to get back out in the real world? He nicked himself and cursed. Sure, he'd have had to give up the house. Sure, he'd have been carting Karen all over the world. But he'd have been making the decisions again. He'd have been pushing back the curtain of complacency and giving some leadership, instead of fighting with that overstuffed prick, Millican, about a tolerance-or mutton-headed Forsythe about whether his department really needed forty new file cabinets in next year's capital equipment budget.
He jerked so hard at his shoelace that he broke it. Karen came in while he was hunting for another.
"Oh, come on, darling! It's too pretty today to let a shoestring get to you. I've brought your coffee."
Eric growled and turned. In spite of his mood, he felt a surge of pleasure. Karen hadn't dressed; she stood in the doorway, his coffee mug in her hand, brown skin catching a stray ray of sun.
"Goddamn, you look great!" he exclaimed.
"I feel great," she replied.
She advanced into the room and handed Eric the mug. He set it on the top of the dresser and patted her bare ass.
"I'll get another shoestring for you," she said, laughing. "I could hear you cursing the broken one clear out in the kitchen."
Eric grinned at her. "Shouldn't have been so loud, I guess. But I'll bet that last pair was made by civil service."
Karen glanced up at him with a startled expression. "What an odd thing to say! Why civil service?"
"Never mind, hon. Just venting steam."
"Steam! It must be something that's been building up in you. What brought it out this morning?"
"Damned if I know. Maybe just because it's such a beautiful morning."
"I'd hate to think that a nice day was going to trigger vile thoughts." Karen pushed a drawer shut and held out a pair of shoestrings. "Oh, that reminds me. You had a call just after I got up. You're to call the office. Ask for Boardwell."
"Boardwell? Did they give you an extension?"
"Yes. I wrote it on the pad."
"Okay. What's for breakfast?"
"How about hot Danish?"
"Fine. I think I'll make the call first."
"Then I'll bring your breakfast into the den. You might be on the phone for an hour."
"All right."
Eric threaded the new laces and tied his shoes. He went to the den and dialed the plant, then asked for the extension Karen had jotted down. The other telephone rang several times before someone picked up the receiver.
"Yeah?" came an impatient voice.
"Fred Boardwell, please."
"Boardwell? He's busy. Is it important?"
Eric's hand tightened on the instrument. "Tell him it's Jorgensen returning his call."
"Who?"
"Jorgensen."
"Boardwell hasn't made any calls this morning that I know of."
Eric held his breath and counted to ten.
"Hello," the voice said. "Hello! You still there?"
"Goddamn it, yes, I'm still here! Get Board-well on this line, now!"
There was a long silence. At last, Eric heard the sound of a door closing and the clicks and scrapes of the receiver being picked up off a desk top.
"Boardwell here."
"Fred, this is Eric. Who the hell answered the phone when it rang?"
"Morgan, I guess. At least, it was Morgan who came to get me. But listen, Eric. You know those special parts for the new hydraulic pump?"
"Yeah."
"Well, they've been machined wrong, and all hell's broken loose."
Not the pump! Eric doubled his fist. NASA had the bright idea they needed a different pump, wanted it on board the next flight. They'd sent in the design, and Boardwell's people had refined it to the point where it would work. But the production schedule was almost impossible, and if Millican's people had screwed up the hardware, they just weren't going to make it.
"Got it under control, Fred?" Eric asked.
"Hell, no!" Fred paused. "It wasn't all Millican's fault, this time."
"It never is," growled Eric. The lousy sonuva-bitch had more alibis than he could ever use. "Whose fault is it?"
"Well, I guess NASA got to one of Millican's planners. They cranked back in some of the dimensions we had to correct."
"Without engineering direction?"
"You know how it is when someone from the customer house gets hold of one of those guys."
"Jesus Christ! What's happening now?"
"Well, the inspector caught the goof. He called one of my engineers in and rejected the lot. My guy wrote rework instructions, and the goddamn customer guy refuses to allow them!"
"What's he think ought to be done?"
"He says to go ahead and assemble the pumps and fly 'em." Boardwell cleared his throat. "It seems he's the guy who ran across this design in some journal and put the original dimensions on it."
"Oh, shit! You showed me the figures on that thing, Fred! It wouldn't run sixty seconds with those dimensions!"
"He says to fly it."
"All right. Are you making any progress?"
"No. The government inspectors are backing him up. Our own inspectors don't know what to do."
"Well, I guess I'd better come on down."
"I wish you would, Eric."
Eric hung up. Fred was a good man. Eric had selected him, himself. If he couldn't get things moving, they really were in trouble. Goddamn meddling customer people! He stuffed the rest of the Danish in his mouth and went back to the bedroom for his jacket.
He detoured through the kitchen on his way out. Karen was straightening up, still naked and suddenly terribly desirable.
"I've got to go to the plant, hon," Eric said. "I don't know how long it'll take."
"Oh, Eric! Not today!"
"Sorry, baby."
Karen looked at him, then down at herself. "Damn!" she exclaimed. "Damn-damn-damn!"
Eric kissed her, letting his hands wander as he did.
Karen pulled away, laughing. "You stop that, Eric Jorgensen! You'll get me all worked up, and I'll have to go over to the Rands' this way. They'd help me!"
"You stay away from the Rands that way," Eric chuckled. "If we go, we go together."
"Hurry back, please."
"I'll do my best."
Inside the plant, things were about as sloppy and disorganized as usual for a Saturday morning. Fred looked like he'd been on his way to the beach with his kids when they'd called him in, and the three engineers he had there looked little better. Drawings were scattered over desks and tables, and book specifications lay about.
Millican and one of his shop foremen slouched at a couple of empty desks.
"Don't know why you and the customer people can't talk to each other," Millican grumbled when he saw Eric.
"How long have you been taking engineering direction from the government, Millican?" Eric snapped.
"Now wait just a goddamn minute! There's no call to say a thing like that!"
"No? Then how did this screw-up happen?"
Millican bristled. "I'll have you know-'
"Shut up! Get out of here and let me figure out how to get us out of this mess you got us into!" Eric took a quick step toward Millican, and the bluster evaporated.
"Okay, okay! Don't get mad! Just get things moving so I can get my people back to work!"
Eric turned to Boardwell. "Where's the government inspector?" he asked.
"He holed up in his office after red-tagging the rework instructions."
"Okay. Is anyone from planning in the plant today?"
"Yeah, the whole crew. They're doing a rush job on one of the Air Force contracts."
"Then I'll call Arley. He's still the boss down there, isn't he?"
"Yeah. You going to call him before you straighten things out with the government guy?"
"I want him to make up planning on that rework. He can get quite a bit of it done while I'm arguing with the government."
Eric decided not to call Arley after all; he took the rework instructions with him and walked out to the factory. Back in a corner behind paneled partititons, planners bent over their desks. Eric found Arley in his glassed enclosure, drinking coffee.
"Mr. Jorgensen!" Arley got to his feet. "Don't see you out here very often."
"I don't like to have to come out here," Eric remarked. "Has anyone told you about the hydraulic pump parts with bad dimensions?"
Arley stiffened. "I heard there's a beef between our inspection and the government inspector," he said. "I don't know anything about bad dimensions."
"Well, here's the planning card they machined those parts to, and here's the detail drawing for the part." Eric threw the paper on Arley's table.
"So?" Arley looked up at Eric with an air of indifference.
"So you're responsible for the planning, aren't you?"
"Yes, sir. I sure am!"
"That planning has the wrong dimensions on it ... and your approval signature."
"Who says they're the wrong dimensions?"
Eric felt pressure at the base of his skull. Someday, one of these self-satisfied bastards was going to go a hair too far, and get decked. "Look at the drawing," he told Arley. "Compare these two dimensions, for example, and these." He pointed.
Arley stared at him without glancing down. "You trying to tell me they're different? I know they are."
"Then you don't have to ask me who says the planning has the wrong dimensions," Eric said. He tried to repress the fury in his voice. "Do you work to company procedures, Arley?"
"You know I do, Mr. Jorgensen."
"Would you care to get them out and show me what they say about planning and engineering drawings?"
"We both know what they say."
"Then can you tell me why this planning doesn't match the drawing?"
"The customer said...."
Eric had had enough. "Goddamn it, Arley, don't tell me what the customer said! We've got a program office to talk to the customer! We've got an engineering department to do the engineering! Your job is to make up manufacturing instructions from the drawings! You have no business talking to the customer, at all!"
Eric realized that Arley was suddenly wet with sweat. The guy knew he'd dug his own grave. He was simply hoping against hope that some kind of miracle would turn him into a hero.
Eric spoke again, his voice lower. "Here's a copy of the rework requirements for the parts that were built to that planning, Arley. I want to see a planning card out for this rework this morning. Millican'll be coming by to see how you're getting along, and one of Boardwell's engineers will review the card to see that it agrees with our instructions. Is that clear?"
Arley appeared to shrivel. "I'll get my best man on it, right away."
Eric recovered the drawing and the faulty planning and left Arley to do what he could to redeem himself. On the way out, he noticed a man with a NASA identification badge deep in conversation with one of the planners. It turned out to be Ed Grant, the fellow Boardwell had said had persuaded planning to revert to the original call-outs on the ill-fated part.
Eric stopped beside Grant. "You're a long way from the dugout, Grant," he remarked.
"I beg your pardon?" Grant looked puzzled.
"You don't get out here to the coast often." Eric grinned at the young government engineer. "You were probably never told about the complicated visitors' rules your headquarters worked out with our management."
"Why, no ... I guess not!"
Eric chuckled in his most fatherly manner. "You're off limits. Why don't you let me escort you out of no-man's land before someone notices?"
"I'd appreciate that. I thought the customer could go anywhere he wanted to."
"Of course, you can ... almost. But you have to make arrangements with the program office first. For one thing, they have to arrange for an escort if you want to go into an area that's got Air Force work going on. The generals are touchy, you know."
Eric guided the NASA engineer back to "engineering country" and went on to the government inspection office. He found a worried-looking inspector there by himself.
"Hi, Harry." Eric extended his hand.
"Jesus, Eric! What're things coming to? The boss is out of town for the weekend, and your people and NASA have me caught in their crossfire!"
"Have you looked at the drawing for that part, Harry?"
Harry wiped sweat from his face. "I'm afraid not, Eric."
"What if the parts they turned out don't match the drawing?" Eric asked.
Harry shook his head unhappily. "The rules are pretty clear," he replied. "The parts either get reworked to the print, or they get scrapped."
"Right."
"But NASA says not to touch them, that they're right as they are."
Eric sighed. "Here's the drawing, Harry, and here's the planning the part was built to. Oh, and here's the rework engineering you red-tagged."
Harry studied the different documents. When he straightened, his worried expression had been replaced by anger. He removed the red tag and voided it. "Tell them they can get this rework going," he growled. "You wouldn't know where that NASA guy is, would you?"
"Grant? I just brought him back into the engineering area. I found him down in planning."
"Will you call your security people for me, Eric? I want that guy escorted out of the plant for the weekend. My boss is going to want to take this up with NASA, and I don't want that guy in the plant until he has."
"Happy to oblige." Eric reached for the telephone.
On the way home, he felt depressed. This morning's incident needed some thought.
CHAPTER NINE
Karen shook her head. "There's a fruit gelatin, and I can make up grilled cheese sandwiches in a few minutes."
"Sounds great." Eric took off his jacket. "What's on the schedule for the rest of the day?"
"Nothing, yet. Let's get Michael and Jennifer over here for some more sex."
She looked like she really wanted to. He never had been able to define what it was about her that made it so obvious when she was hot, but there sure as hell was something. Right now, she looked the way she had that time they'd deliberately set out for a week of nothing but sex.
"Yeah," he agreed. "I've a lot of hostility to get rid of, and maybe it'll blow over if I get some tail."
He noticed that Karen studied him carefully after that remark, but she turned toward the kitchen without saying anything. Poor kid must really be hurting inside when I talk about needing tail and don't even try to get it from her, he thought. This business couldn't go on for much longer. If he couldn't lick that mental block pretty quick, by God, he was going to kill himself-or something!
Lunch was as good as ever, and when Karen called the Rands, they let her know they'd be delighted, but said they did have some shopping that had to be done. Would three o'clock be all right? they'd wanted to know.
"Let's take a nap till then," Karen suggested after she'd told Eric the Rands' plans. "It was a short night."
There was work he could do in the yard, Eric reflected, but it could wait. He followed her into the bedroom and stripped mechanically as he watched her undress. Goddamn it! She looked so damned good that way! He wanted to grab her right then, but the fear of wilting at the critical moment held him back.
But maybe he'd been unnecessarily selfish. The fact that he couldn't get past that barrier wasn't any reason for denying her at least a measure of relief. He could arouse her to as many orgasms as she could take when he had her tied up. Perhaps he should have done that during the past couple of months. If he had, he might not have gotten into the frame of mind that had made him suggest the swapping bit as a way to shake the Rands out of their doldrums.
Karen threw herself onto the bed. "What was wrong at the office?" she asked.
"Oh, it was one of those deals where our people got too sensitive to what one of the government people wanted."
"Government people! Was that what you meant by that crack about civil service?"
"Not really. I didn't know about this when I broke my shoelace."
"Oh. Well, was it this kind of thing?"
"I guess it was." He stretched out beside her, staring up at the ceiling. "Just the whole lousy link between industry and the government."
"You know," Karen mused, "I don't think you've ever been quite happy with your work since Pacific got that first big missile contract."
"Oh, come on, honey. It hasn't been for that long."
"I think it has. I can still remember how moody you were when you came home from that first design review."
"Hmm. Oh, yeah, I remember that." The Air Force people had been fine, but there was that systems management contractor whose flunkies had sat in on the meetings. Those people had been as nit-picking as the NASA people were now. Of course, they'd had some excellent engineers, but they'd worried like grannies, and he'd felt like walking out more than once. Still, he'd later been able to shut them up. Once they understood what he was doing, they'd been his staunchest allies.
"That was pretty temporary, wasn't it?" he suggested.
"Off and on," Karen admitted. "But the 'on' times got more frequent and lasted longer."
"I didn't know that."
"You were too busy trying to figure out how to work out the problems, honey. Things were so secret in those days that I had no idea what was going on. All I could do was watch how it affected you."
"That wasn't much fun, I suppose."
"Not much. There were good times, of course."
"We did get in on some wild parties," Eric agreed.
"I wasn't thinking about those as much as I was about the times when we got away from it all for a few days. Like the trip to Arrowhead."
Eric grinned. That cabin had been the most isolated spot he'd ever seen. "Kee-riste! What a week that was!"
"Mm-hmm. It was the sort of thing you can never quite believe really happened." Karen shivered. "You were a Viking!"
Eric took her hand in his. There had been something of the Viking in him then, he thought. He'd often wondered how two people could be as happy as they were. He'd failed to realize that it was a matter of having everything going for you. He'd been secure in the knowledge that whatever important decisions had to be made in his job, he could make. And he'd seen the world of design getting better because of himself and others like him. Just how much that feeling of self-confidence had to do with his relations with Karen, he hadn't realized.
He recognized it now, this afternoon, by God! He wondered if it was too late to be discovering something so fundamental. He'd given Pacific his entire professional life up to now. Was there any of the old spark left to give to someone else? Or, better, to sell to someone else. He knew that there were people who thought so. He wasn't old yet. But if he stayed with this mill, he'd age faster than the calendar would show.
"How would you like to do some moving around?" he asked Karen.
"What kind of moving around?"
"Oh, you know. Moving from one assignment to another, like we did when they were putting missiles into the ground."
"They don't send department heads out like that," Karen objected.
"Not often. But if they did, how would you like it?"
"Would we have to give up this house?"
"Would that hurt a lot?" Eric felt Karen's hand twisting slowly in his. His question hadn't been fair. He hadn't given Karen enough information on which to base a reply. The other person had to have the ground a lot better denned in order to give an intelligent answer.
"I'm not sure that I...." Karen hesitated.
"Look, baby. What if I just turned in my resignation at Pacific and took on an engineering directorship with some outfit like Conelco, that designs and installs specialized equipment all over the world?"
"John Carroll's with Conelco, isn't he?"
"He's the president."
"I wouldn't mind the moving around at all. I think it'd be fun to see all those different places. But isn't that quite a different kind of engineering?"
"No. It sounds like it, but you just put the hardware together differently."
"And it's mostly for commercial customers?"
"Mostly." Sure, Conelco did some government installations. But they made up about two or three per cent of the business. If civil service butted in too much, Conelco simply threw them off the site. It was in every contract.
"Are you going to resign from Pacific?"
"I don't know yet. The idea just came to me while we were lying here talking."
Karen giggled. "This is a picturesque way to reach a milestone."
"Yeah. Maybe I ought to set up the camera for remote shutter and record the scene."
"Do it, Eric!" Karen sounded excited, as if the idea grabbed her. "Go ahead and do it!"
"All right."
He brought in the camera and set it on its tripod. He focused on Karen and set the timer, then lay back down beside her and waited for the flash. When it came, he got up and pulled out the tab. He stripped out the film and developer pack and set it aside to complete its action. Karen watched. When he peeled away the developer layer, she sat up.
"Did it come out?" she asked. "Let me see it, honey."
He handed her the picture and reached into the camera bag for a backing board.
Karen laughed. "I like it," she said. "It's us ... all of us."
"It's all of us," Eric agreed with a chuckle. "No one could accuse us of concealing anything from each other in that conference!"
"That's right. Why don't you put some kind of note on the back to explain?"
"Like, 'Conference on the advisability of resigning from Pacific?' " he asked.
Karen nodded. "And the date."
Eric took the photograph to the dresser, where he'd left one of his pens. He made the notation. "There," he said. "Documented for posterity."
"I suppose we ought to start a separate album for this kind of documentation."
"Yeah. I'm glad we had color film in the camera.
"Black and white wouldn't have done you justice." Eric looked from the picture to Karen with a grin.
"What time is it, honey?" Karen asked. Eric glanced at his watch. "One-thirty." Karen got up. "I'm not sleepy now." She began to dress. "Honey?"
"Yeah?"
"We've got a while before Michael and Jennifer get here. How about priming her?"
"Well...." Eric hesitated. "But you're getting dressed."
"I know. That won't matter." She went to the closet and unpinned one of her shoulderless dresses from its hanger. "Please, Honey?"
"Okay. Whatever you say."
"I say let's have a drink first. Then we'll get started."
"Sounds like a major undertaking."
"It is. Oh, bring the camera."
"The camera? Good God, what do you have in mind?"
"I'll tell you while we're having our drinks."
Eric followed her from the room without bothering to dress. She went to the patio and looked in the outside refrigerator.
"Let's have screwdrivers," she suggested.
Eric measured out the vodka and put in ice and orange juice. He eased himself back on one of the lounges and studied Karen. She looked almost feverish, he decided. Her two months' fast and the Rand business were proving to be a go-tent stimulant.
Karen drained her drink quickly and perched on the edge of her chair waiting for him. He finished his and set the glass aside.
"Now?" Karen asked.
"Now."
She got up and crossed to the edge of the patio next to the pool, standing between two of the uprights that supported the patio cover.
"I want you to tie me between these two supports," she said. "It's your show from there."
"All right, baby."
Eric searched for and found several chunks of rope. Returning to Karen, he tied one to each of her outstretched wrists. She spread her arms out to her sides toward the supports, and Eric secured the free ends of the ropes.
She was breathing hard before he finished. "That's it," she said. "Oh, Eric, I'm already all juicy!"
"It's doing things to me, too," Eric replied. Karen looked down and chuckled. "Ooh-it is!"
He wrapped an arm around her back and pressed his mouth to hers. Greedy, he thought. Greedy was the only word that could describe the way their mouths clung together, or the way their tongues probed and danced. God, what a slow-witted ass he'd been not to give her at least this much satisfaction in the past weeks!
He let his hands play over her body, thrilling to the sensual feeling of her cloth-covered flesh. She twisted to force more sensitive areas under his touch and sucked at his tongue. Already she'd taken the taut ropes in her hands and was tugging at them. There'd been a time when he'd thought she was trying to get more slack when she did this, but he'd learned different.
"It's not that at all," she'd protested. "They simply give me something to pull on. When you do things to me, I feel violent. When I'm tied, I can use all my strength pulling at the ropes, or whatever, and not get hurt or hurt you."
It had seemed strange reasoning, but he'd agreed to reversed roles once or twice, and he'd had to admit that she was right.
Now he turned down the top of her strapless dress and touched one of her breasts. She panted and thrust the tit up at him.
"That's good!" she exclaimed. "It's so good! I love your hands, honey."
He stroked slowly, savoring the sounds of her mounting excitement and the sight of her writhing body. He tried to decide whether it was more stimulating to watch her get passionate like this with her clothes on or to see the muscles play under her exposed skin. In the long run, he decided, it was a choice he'd rather not have to make. He liked it both ways, and so did Karen.
"Eric, the camera. Documentation, you know."
He left her and set up the camera. He fussed with it a little while they considered camera angles, but finally the tripod was positioned to their satisfaction, and he set the timer. Karen was delighted with the pictures as they were developed.
"We do have plenty of film, haven't we?" she asked.
"Sure. Why?"
"These are all with me dressed."
"Oh. Yeah, there'll be film left when I've got you stripped."
"All right."
Eric's hands caressed her more rapidly. He slid one hand up under her dress, stroking her thigh, and it encountered her panties.
"Those are coming off," he said.
"Ooh!"
He pulled them over her hips and down her legs, and she stepped out of them. He ran his hand back up under the skirt and fingered the damp folds in her crotch.
She twisted and thrust one knee across the other leg.
"I sometimes forget how devasting that can be!" she exclaimed. "Don't stop, honey."
Eric knelt before her and tied a length of rope to each of her ankles, then pulled her feet apart as far as they'd go without hurting her, and tied the ropes to the uprights.
"Now!" he said.
He returned his hand to her pussy and massaged her clitoris. From time to time, he dipped a finger into her heated hole, and she was soon thrashing under the urging of his attack.
"Eric! Eric! I'm going to come! Oh, God! I am already!"
She threw her head back and her belly forward, trembling violently. Eric pressed his hand up against the soft, dripping flesh with brutal force until she began to relax.
"Oh, thank you, honey," Karen said. "Thank you!"
CHAPTER TEN
Karen clung to the ropes and let her head hang forward. Her hair brushed her naked breasts, shining black strands against the brown swells. Her dress looked almost lewd turned down to her waist, its hem riding up on her taut-spread thighs. She panted hard while she felt the first new strength seep through her after the utter depletion of her orgasm.
"Darling?" she said.
"Yes, baby."
"Untie my ankles for a minute, please."
"All right." With a twitch at the end of each rope, Eric released the bows at the uprights. Karen drew her feet together and stretched. "Now take my dress off," she said.
Eric unzipped the back of the dress, and Karen watched the front fold down till it hung from her hips. She saw Eric's thick fingers at her hips, working the dress over their swell, then the material fell in a crumpled heap about her feet. She kicked it aside.
"You can tie my ankles again now." She slid them out to the sides and waited for Eric to tighten the ropes.
"Would you mix me another drink, honey?" she asked.
"Sure." Eric went to the bar.
"Maybe you ought to make up a pitcherful," Karen suggested. "The Pands will be here soon, and they'll probably be ready for drinks."
"Good idea." Eric measured the mixture and stirred it.
He returned with a screwdriver and held it up to her lips. She drank deeply.
"Mmm! It's good," she told him. "Why don't you take another picture now?"
"In action?"
"No, just like this."
"Okay."
She watched Eric focus and aim, and still the flash startled her. Eric pulled out the film and began to time it. She was half-shocked when Eric took the picture to her and she saw what the lens had seen.
"My God, Eric! I didn't realize how much showed!"
Eric grinned. "It doesn't leave much to the imagination when you're like this." She heard the doorbell.
"Good heavens! What time is it?" she asked.
"Two-forty. It's too early for Michael and Jennifer. I'll get rid of whoever it is."
"Hurry, honey. I didn't realize how late it was getting. We won't have time for any more priming."
"I guess not." Eric disappeared into the house.
The moment he got back, she'd have him untie her, she decided. She knew suddenly that she was never going to let the Rands-or anyone else-see her like this. This was for Eric, and no one else!
She'd watched his reaction to the sex play. She felt a lightening of the dread that had been troubling her. He'd acted more than interested. Given another hour, he'd have plunged his hardened rod into her, she was confident. She almost wished they hadn't arranged for another afternoon of sex with Michael and Jennifer. She wanted so badly to take him out of the grasp of whatever evil spirit it was that held him. But perhaps tomorrow would be soon enough ... or next week.
He'd better hurry, or Michael and Jennifer will be here before he gets back, she thought. She stared at the hole in the wall. The arbor on the Rands' side kept anyone from seeing through from this side, she noted, and decided that she and Eric ought to put up a similar arbor on this side. It'd make the door like the entry to a hidden retreat-a retreat to one side of their sex lives that no one but she and Eric and the Rands would ever know about.
Hearing the back door, she glanced over her shoulder. Oh, no! It was Eric, all right, but Michael and Jennifer were with him! How could he do this to her? She wrenched frantically at her bonds, but she knew she wasn't going to escape from them. Eric couldn't know of her determination not to be seen this way, of course. As far as he knew, anything went with the Rands. She'd given him no indication to the contrary.
"My God in heaven!" It was Michael's voice. "What's this all about?"
"Karen!" Jennifer exclaimed. "My God, you look primitive like this!"
Karen turned her face to the front. She listened silently to their approaching footsteps. Then Michael was in front of her, his gaze traveling up and down her taut figure.
"Jesus!" he breathed. He reached out to run his hand down her belly and over the inside of one thigh.
No! Oh, no! Please don't! she cried inside. But apart from a sharp intake of breath, she gave no outward sign of her agitation.
Instead, she said, "Aren't you early?"
"Our shopping didn't take quite as long as we expected," Michael replied.
"We just couldn't wait," Jennifer admitted with a laugh.
Karen studied Jennifer. She was conscious of a twinge of jealousy and envy. While she hung here spread-eagled and naked and aroused, sweat trickling from her, Jennifer faced her in a Perma-prest summer dress without a wrinkle. Karen had always liked that dress on Jennifer, with its scooped neck and the way it buttoned down the front, all the way from the neckline to the hem. But it looked so cool and demure now, and so chic above those high heels, that Karen could have cried. She felt exactly as if it were a scene of the meeting between a naked savage and a royal lady.
At the thought, the contrast etched deeper. Jennifer stared at her curiously, cool and poised, her drink now in her hand. Karen, on the other hand, stood with her arms stretched out to the sides and up, their muscles taut, her legs parted so far that they ached, and her belly out-thrust from the unwelcome lust in her gut. The spark of an idea stirred in her mind.
"My drink," she said, furious at the huskiness of her voice.
Michael picked up her glass. "Is this yours?" he asked.
She nodded. He brought it to her, tilting it to her lips. She drained it.
"Finish your drinks," she urged. "We've lots of fun ahead, and I already have a head start on the rest of you."
The other three tipped their glasses bottoms-up, then set them down. Michael approached Karen.
When he was close enough, she whispered, "Wait. We'll get to that in a minute."
"Okay." He paused, his hand resting on her hip.
"Put Jennifer right there," Karen said to Eric, nodding to the next space between uprights.
By chance-happy chance, she reflected-she'd had Eric tie her in the last space beneath the pool side of the patio cover. Putting Jennifer in the next one, the first one around the corner, would put her in plain sight, close and half-facing Karen, Jennifer walked to the space and faced Karen. "Here?" she asked.
"Right." Karen smiled. "Her arms, Eric."
Eric found more ropes, and Jennifer held out her wrists.
"I think I'm scared," said Jennifer as Eric tied the ropes to her wrists. "You make this look like it's strenuous, Karen."
"It is," Karen agreed. "But you'll like it." She knew that Jennifer would like it, of course. But she wouldn't look quite so goddamn cool and poised in a few minutes. The red hair that was arranged so perfectly now would soon stream down over her face. Her mouth, so prim right now, would open, and she'd hiss out her passion. That demure, unwrinkled dress would hang open from top to bottom to expose the quivering flesh underneath. And those slender legs, now modestly together, would be pulled far apart to let the lips of her cunt hang down, quivering for the touch of Eric's thick fingers. Jennifer would pant and toss and moan, and sweat would pour from her as it had from Karen.
Jennifer stretched her arms up at the same angle as Karen's, and Eric secured them. Eric kissed Jennifer the way he had Karen, and his hand explored her body as it had Karen's. Jennifer responded quickly, her excitement amplified by the fact that it was Karen's husband who caressed her, and that she had an eager audience.
Eric stopped when she was writhing fiercely He unbuttoned the top button of her dress.
"Oh, please, not yet!" Jennifer pleaded.
But Eric grinned and unbuttoned the next button.
"No, Eric, no! I'm not ready yet-I'll be embarrassed!"
Eric ignored her pleading as he continued unbuttoning the long row of buttons. The dress fell open, revealing a pale blue bra with half-cups that left the nippies and the upper halves of Jennifer's breasts exposed. Below, it sagged away from her hips to show her sheer pantihose molded to her flesh.
"Mmm!" Eric hummed. "You look good enough to eat!"
Standing to the side so as to leave the view unobstructed, Eric manipulated the straps of the bra until it fell to the ground. Jennifer's breasts settled into lines that were drawn upward by her position. He stepped behind her and pulled the dress back, buttoning it at the waist.
"That'll keep it back out of the way," he said with a chuckle.
Jennifer's eyes were tightly closed, but she gasped when she felt Eric's hands at the top of her pantihose.
"Not that!" she cried. "No-no-no!"
Eric rolled the waist down to the top of her pubic hair.
"I guess that's far enough for right now," he said.
He took Jennifer's left tit in his mouth, sucking nearly all of it in, and stroked her belly in a circular motion. She began to twist and cry out, crossing her legs and uncrossing them repeatedly as Eric fondled her.
Karen felt a renewed flow of fluid from her vagina as the vivid memory of the sensations Jennifer was experiencing mingled with her own satisfaction at how fast Jennifer's cool poise had given way to passion. She panted with gypsy glee when Jennifer's tossing head loosened her hair and brought it down about her face and over her shoulders.
But from that moment, her ill will evaporated and did not return. She felt a surge of empathy with the tormented woman, and smiled as she thought of the height of excitement that Jennifer would reach. She watched Eric's hand dip inside the top of the pantihose to Jennifer's clit and saw Jennifer fling her butt violently to the rear as she crossed her legs. Karen knew what that would mean. To Eric, there were two basic principles involved when a woman let him tie her up for lovemaking. The first was that she was in a position that gave him unlimited access. The second was that she'd yielded to him the right to all decisions.
As she expected, he paused to push down the pantihose, working carefully to avoid damaging them. In moments, he had them off. He laid them on the table and set her shoes beside them. He returned to her with two additional lengths of rope, with which he secured her legs in the same wide split as Karen's.
"Oh, Christ!" Jennifer moaned. "I don't think I've ever felt so exposed-not even that first night on the table!" She shuddered and pressed her chin against her chest.
Eric ran his hand down over her belly and into her crotch. From the way Jennifer rose on her toes, Karen knew that he'd thrust his finger up her sex channel. But he withdrew it after a moment and began to massage Jennifer's clitoris. Every vestige of dignity dropped away from the slender redhead, and she thrashed wildly. Eric took his hand away and stepped back.
Jennifer sagged on the ropes and drew great, shuddering breaths. At last she opened her eyes.
"God, I wish I could be two places at once," she said.
"Why?" Eric asked.
"I wish I could see myself right now. I wish I could paint this scene, showing me without any of my social veneer."
Eric left her and got the camera. Jennifer, her eyes fixed on Michael, started frantically at the flash.
"My God!" she screamed. "Not a picture!"
"It's yours," Eric said, his voice soothing. "There's no negative."
There was a silent pause while they waited for the photograph to finish developing, then Eric stripped it and held it up for Jennifer to examine.
She shuddered. "Mother of God!" she exclaimed. "I look more primitive than Karen!"
Karen laughed. "You haven't seen me in that state of excitement yet."
"I guess not," Jennifer panted. "God, what a picture!" She squirmed. "Put it away, Eric. Come to me! I can't wait!"
Eric chuckled. He laid the picture beside the one of Karen, picked up his drink, and flopped on a lounge.
"You can wait," he said, brushing away the liquid that had spilled on his belly. "Watch Karen and Michael for a while."
Jennifer whimpered and sagged lower on the ropes. "Do I have to wait?" she whispered.
"For a while."
Karen turned her head to look at Michael. He was staring at her again, a hungry expression on his face as he wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. He undressed deliberately, his gaze fixed on her face. His penis stood fully erect, red and throbbing. Karen doubted that he could bring her to her climax before his own betrayed him. She realized that her posture must be unbearably stimulating to him. His obvious agitation excited her, and she felt as if her skin were covered by crawling bugs.
Michael came to her, stepping so close that her nipples touched his chest. She felt the hardness of his prick press into the muscles of her belly, and she strained forward to-meet it, then backward to escape it. It ought to be Eric's, she cried silently to herself. It ought to be Eric's!
But it was going to be Michael's this time, and she'd turn herself practically inside out before this time ended. That was what she'd wanted when she suggested the game to Eric ... not afterward, but at the time.
Michael leaned against her, and his hands caressed her belly and her buttocks. He started to whisper to her.
"This might be the only time I'll ever have you in this position," he said. "There's a look in your eye that makes me suspect it will. But until I untie you, or Eric does, you're mine. And he won't untie you until I say I'm finished, will he?"
"No," she whispered.
"No matter what you say? No matter how hard you beg?"
"No." She could hardly force the word out.
Michael put his arms around her, one just above the small of her back, the other on her rear cheeks, and pulled her belly out against his. She arched and felt herself crushing his penis between them. Michael's mouth closed over hers, and his tongue probed at her lips. She twisted, jerking at the ropes on her wrists and ankles, but she was helpless in his grasp.
He drew his head back. "I love you, pet," he whispered. "I've a terrible premonition that I'll never see you naked again after tonight ... that I'll never again get to make love to you. I want to make the most of it while it lasts."
"Oh, Michael, don't say that! I love you, too." It wasn't the same as telling someone that for the first time. She'd told him that before. But somehow this was different from the other times. She did love him, and Eric knew that she did, just as he loved Jennifer. It wasn't exactly the same kind of love she had for Eric, but it was love.
He released her, and his hand stroked down over the curve of her belly to her vulva. He teased the folds and rolled her clitoris to and fro, and she struggled and moaned and cried out. She hungered for him to fill her tingling cavity with his cock, yet at the same time she hoped he wouldn't hurry. Her hips ground out a rotating dance that she was hardly aware of. Her breasts bounced, and she flung her hair from one shoulder to the other.
She felt her orgasm erupt in her with no stimulus other than his massaging her clitoris. It was a wash of heat that flashed suddenly throughout her body. It was a pounding roar in her head that made it impossible to hear her own voice. It was a feeling in her throat that made her know she was crying out with passion, and it was colored lights behind her eyes that blotted the afternoon scene from her sight.
The rigidity went out of her body, and for a moment her clit refused to send her any more messages. She felt numb as she hung by her arms, her feet resting uselessly on the deck because her legs lacked the strength to support any portion of her weight.
But little by little strength came from her hidden reserve, and her legs felt like they were once more made of bone and muscle. She gulped for air and looked at Michael.
"I don't know how many more like that I can take," she said with a gasp. "Not many, I'd guess."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
While Eric and Michael talked together in low tones, Karen recovered sufficiently to look at Jennifer. She was shocked at the look of pain on Jennifer's face.
"Your shoulders hurt, honey?" Karen asked.
Jennifer nodded without speaking.
"You're holding your arms wrong," Karen told her. "I've been this route before, and I've found out there's more than one way to hold yourself. If you hang forward very long the way you're doing now, your shoulders'll pull right out of their sockets."
"They already have," Jennifer moaned.
"Let's put them back in, then. Watch me."
Karen turned her arms so that her hands were extended palms upward. She grasped the ropes in her hands, taking the bite of the loops off her wrists, and allowed her body to sag. Her back arched so that her belly protruded and her shoulders and head hung backward. After a long moment, she straightened and looked at Jennifer again.
"Could you tell what I was doing?" she asked.
"I couldn't do that," replied Jennifer.
"Why not? Sure you can!"
Jennifer shook her head. "I couldn't push my belly out like that, as if to asking anyone who happens to pass by to stick something up me."
"Honey, do you think you look at all reluctant the way you are? With your arms and legs spread that way, everything hangs out as it is. You're going to need to get rid of as much of the ache as you can. Now, turn your arms so your hands are palms up-no, palms up, as if you were praying like the old time prophets did."
Jennifer rotated her arms. "That's right," Karen said. "Now your arms are sort of coming out of the front of your shoulders instead of the sides, right?"
"It does feel a little better, " Jennifer admitted.
"Of course it does. Now, throw your head back and let yourself sag." Jennifer obeyed.
"That's it. Lean back ... way back. Now, don't you feel better?"
"I do," Jennifer replied in a strained voice
"but I feel like my whole body's saying, 'Here I am. Come and get me. Shove it to me.' "
Karen laughed softly, "darling, that's what you're there for! You're going to get plenty of I sex. You're going to get so excited you might j even wet your pants ... if you had any on. But surely you don't think you're the only one it's i going to stimulate!"
"Well, no. But...."
"Then what do you care what your body says to them? Jennifer, when it comes to sex-when you get right down to it, and you know it's coming-give it all you've got! You'll have the happiest man alive, and you'll discover it makes you happy, too."
Karen took the position of rest she'd advised for Jennifer. She let her head hang back until j she felt she was almost in a deep back-bend, then turned it so she could see Jennifer. Now both of ( them looked like "come and get me," she thought. And she was glad that the most restful pose they could achieve in these bonds looked so suggestive. Their men were going to go away from this session with something to remember!
Eric stirred. She knew it by the creak of the lounge, and she twisted to watch him. He advanced on Jennifer with the gait of a knight of a gladiator advancing into the arena, except that his weapon jutted out and up from his loins. She glanced from him to Michael. Yes, Eric's cock was nearly twice as thick as Michael's, and considerably longer. In the long run, she was luckier than Jennifer. But at the moment, it was Jennifer who was going to get screwed with that, not she.
Jennifer leaped and yelled when Eric touched her. Karen realized that she hadn't heard him get up. He laughed.
"You're goosey as hell!" he said.
"Ooh, you nasty man! I just didn't hear you coming." Jennifer straightened and scowled at Eric.
"Ah, well. Never mind," he told her. "I'll soon cheer you up."
He stroked her belly for a long time; before he did anything else, the continuous caresses had aroused Jennifer so much that her thighs quivered uncontrollably. Then he stroked her breasts with the same patient touch. Jennifer breathed more and more rapidly, and at last she began to moan.
"It isn't fair, Eric!" she complained. "I can't move ... can't push your hand away ... and you can take as long as you like for this."
"Yes. Isn't it wonderful?"
"Oohhh, you!"
He slid his hand back down across her belly and buried it in her crotch.
"Aghhh!" she cried. "It's like a torch!"
She snapped her hips forward and back, and Eric's huge hand stayed perfectly with the motion.
"What's in me?" Jennifer cried. "Finger," replied Eric. "Just one?"
"Yes. Want more?"
"Not yet. But if it's a finger, what're you doing to my love-button?"
"Massage. Thumb."
"Oh, Jesus! Merciful Jesus!" Jennifer redoubled her thrashing. "Two fingers, Eric!" she yelled suddenly. "All right ... like that?"
"Unh-huuh ... now three."
"Hmm ... like that?"
"Oh, yes! oh, God, yes! Harder on my clit! I'm ... I'm ... ohhhh!"
Jennifer drove her crotch down against Eric's hand, grinding her hips in fast, hard circles. Her belly fluttered, and her head shook. She leaned far back, hanging onto the ropes with whitened knuckles.
Suddenly, she collapsed.
"Ahhh," she sighed. "Marvelous, Eric!"
Eric retreated, his penis almost purple. He dropped onto his lounge and let his gaze rove from Jennifer to Karen, then back, again and again.
"So different they might almost be two different kinds of animals," he remarked. "But both so goddamn female and so goddamn good to love they make your balls ache!"
Michael chuckled. "It'd be hard to find any better."
Karen felt warm all over. Her two men-and Jennifer's, of course-were fairly quiet guys, but what they said made a woman feel good for being what she was. She breathed evenly, exhaling completely each time, so that she'd fill her lungs all the way to the bottom with oxygen. When Michael came back this time, she'd need all the oxygen she could store.
He returned at last, and this time he pushed the tip of his cock against her belly and leaned against it.
"It's going into you this time'" he promised.
"Be careful when it does," she warned him. "Don't forget yourself, or you'll hurt it."
"Thanks, baby. But why did you warn me?"
"Goddamn it, Michael, I love you, and this is something we're doing together, not a fight!"
"Of course, baby. I'm sorry I asked such a stupid question."
"Forget it, darling." She flexed her belly against the head of his penis. "Just wait till I get my hands on that ... I'll love it to death."
Right through the pressing tip, she felt Michael's sudden shiver.
"I've half a notion to untie you right now," he said. "I'll bet I'd go off in thirty seconds if you got hold of that!"
He began to kiss her. His lips touched lightly, drifting from one spot to the next like a hovering butterfly, then fastening to her flesh and sucking at it until she knew she'd have red hickeys that would turn to purple bruises. He covered her with his kisses from her shoulders to her knees, and she shuddered at the heights of passion she reached without his concentrating on any one of her really sensitive nerve centers.
"Oh, Michael, Michael," she moaned, "your mouth is like a gypsy wand. It's black magic."
He said nothing, but continued to kiss, narrowing the range of flesh over which his mouth roved until he seemed to be covering a zone of only two handspans, with her clitoris in the center. Then he drew the quivering organ between his lips and began to suck it.
Karen jerked, throwing her body from side to side in an effort to escape the flame that poured into her from his mouth.
"Michael! Oh, Michael! Please, Michael! Wait! Please stop! Ohh, I'm not going to get to have your rod in me!"
But in the very instant that she felt her orgasm seize her fibers, Michael withdrew his mouth. For long, tense seconds, Karen felt her body wring itself as if it were a dish rag. Then it sagged, and she knew she'd backed away from the threshhold of orgasm in time.
Michael touched her belly with his fingers.
"Are you ready now, baby?" he whispered.
"My God-yes, I'm ready, Michael!"
She watched him crouch, knowing that she'd have to help. When he appeared to be at the right height, his penis just below her crotch, she flung herself back into the position she'd taught Jennifer. She glanced at Jennifer to see if she was watching. Jennifer would have to do this for Eric in a little while. Jennifer's gaze was fixed on her. Karen smiled at her as she felt her pussy protrude. She tightened her butt cheeks and rotated her hips so the underside of her pelvis moved forward and up.
"That's amazing!" she heard Michael exclaim.
She felt something hard among the folds of her vulva, then a jolt, then hard fullness inside the velvet sheath of her sex.
"Ohhh!" she breathed. "That's so good!"
Michael pumped tentatively, and she caught her breath at the rush of heat the motion brought her. She felt his hands clutch her ass-cheeks and pull her up and in against him, and her feet left the deck. Michael shoved upward with his legs until hers felt as if they were stretching like elastic, and he pumped hard at her.
The heat and the roar and the brilliant lights behind her eyes hit her, and she felt a great shudder in Michael's body and a flood of warmth surrounding the hard shaft within her belly. Then there was only darkness.
When she recovered, Michael had left her, and she hung once again alone. She seized the ropes in her hands and levered herself backward to relieve the strain on her shoulders. They'd ache like hell tomorrow, she knew, but that ache would go away, and she'd still have the memory of total bliss. She glanced to her left. Eric was back at Jennifer.
Karen sighed with contentment. Jennifer was a real woman; it was her first time in this trying position, but she kept hanging on, coming back for more. Her body flailed now as vigorously as if she'd been spread-eagled for only a matter of minutes, as if it was her first experience under the expert titilation of Eric's mouth and fingers. Eric's cock was swollen as large as Karen had ever seen it. For a moment, she envied Jennifer again, but tenderly this time.
"Oh, be good to him, Jennifer," she whispered for no one's ears but her own. "Make it so good he'll never forget it."
She saw Eric crouch at last, and she saw the fleeting look of awareness in Jennifer's eyes. Then Jennifer hurled herself back on her ropes and thrust her pelvis forward and up. Eric's thick rod looked positively brutal as he drove it into the waiting darkness, and Jennifer cried out.
But it turned to a glad cry, and the slim girl bounced herself on the shaft. Eric seized her buttocks and yanked her to him, making her legs and her ankle ropes stretch until each leg made a single line with its rope. He pumped, and Jennifer's eyes bulged and her mouth gaped open, and she went rigid.
Karen saw big veins stand out on Eric's forehead and neck, and she saw the convulsive thrust of his hips as his pumping abruptly stopped. They quivered there, motionless for half a minute before Eric's straining thighs relaxed and he let Jennifer's feet touch the deck. He stayed where he was, though, his penis still fully embedded and his hand supporting the small of Jennifer's back, until the long red hair stirred.
"Oh, dear," Jennifer whispered, "I must have passed out. Is it time to come?" She hesitated, wiggling her hips experimentally. Then she exclaimed, "Oh, my God! I remember-we did come-together!"
She stared into Eric's face, her own breaking into a broad smile.
"We did, Eric. Was I a machine?"
Eric laughed. "Only at the last," he said. "I almost forgot."
"Oh, Eric!" she whispered. She bent her head forward to kiss his mouth.
Michael came to Karen and untied her ankles. He grasped her waist in his hands to take enough weight off her legs for her to work her feet together. Then he reached up and untied her wrists, letting her fall against him.
"I won't be able to hold myself up, darling," she warned him.
"All right." He picked her up and carried her to a lounge, where he laid her down.
"Thank you, Michael. Could I have another drink?"
"Of course."
She sipped her drink while Eric removed Jennifer from her bonds and deposited her on another lounge. In a moment, Jennifer was sipping too, and looking at Karen over the rim of her glass.
"We've been through quite an experience together, Karen," she said.
Karen smiled at her. "We sure have. I imagine we'll remember each other this way for a long time."
Jennifer nodded. She looked over at Eric, and Karen sank back.
Karen was tired. She was tired in every muscle, but she still felt alert and eager. If she could only go to Eric now, if she could only hold him in her arms and caress him and entice him into her, he could satisfy the hunger she felt only for him. She wanted Eric so! But she mustn't be a bad hostess.
She was suddenly tired of the retreat the four of them had created. The only retreat she wanted was Eric's arms around her. Michael was different, all right, and she knew she'd never regret having given herself to him. She'd often relive these moments she'd had with him. His fingers had a delicacy of touch that was utterly foreign to Eric, and he sensed a woman's rising passion in a different rhythm. She'd tasted him and enjoyed him-and still loved him, as she always would-but she wanted no more sex with him.
Eric and Michael moved to the edge of the pool and talked in tones too low for Karen to hear. They talked for a long time, and they glanced occasionally at the hole in the wall. They turned back toward Karen and Jennifer at last.
Michael sat on the edge of Jennifer's lounge, and Eric touched Karen's shoulder before he took her empty glass back to the bar.
"Jennifer?" said Michael.
"Yes?" Jennifer rubbed her cheek against Michael's arm.
"Let's go home, Jen.' Eric has some things he has to do, and I've got something I'd like to take care of."
"Me, honey?"
"You."
Jennifer smiled and sat up. "Let's go," she said. "Don't forget that picture of me. I've got to paint that."
"Right."
When they'd disappeared through the hole in the wall, Karen turned to Eric.
"That was sudden," she said.
"Just about right, I'd say." Eric grinned. "I have a telephone call to make. Don't get dressed."
Karen shivered. She got up and followed Eric into the house taking the Polaroid photos with her. She put them on the dresser with the first one, and went into the hall to listen. She caught the end of Eric's instructions to the operator.
"Yes," he was saying "person-to-person for John Carroll."
She went into the bathroom for a douche, turning John Carroll's name over in her mind with the name of his company, Conelco.
When she came out, Eric lay on the bed smiling.
"Did you reach him, hon?" she asked.
"Right. All he wanted to know was how soon we could be in New York. He'll brief us there, then we go to Vancouver for the first assignment."
"Oh, Eric! How soon?"
"I called the boss and gave him a verbal resignation. He agreed to two weeks."
"Oh, darling!"
Karen flung herself across him, crushing his lips with hers.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jennifer lay on the king-size circular bed in what Michael had always called their playroom and stared at the picture Eric had taken of her. It fascinated and repelled her at the same time. It showed a creature that was someone else-a Jennifer from another time, perhaps even another universe. It was an unbelievable primitive Jennifer, with raw lust oozing from every pore.
And she could remember Eric's monstrous shaft penetrating that other Jennifer with irresistable force.
She knew, too, that the other Jennifer lived less than a heartbeat away from her ... that Michael would be able to dismiss her as she was and call up her other self with hardly more than a touch, hardly more than a word. She'd be able to change into that other self without help, merely by a thought. She thrilled to the knowledge.
She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to visualize the painting she would create from the photo. She saw a canvas, and on it she saw vivid colors and bold shapes, solid and dynamic before a background of infinite depth. She mentally dissolved the canvas and let it take form again. It came back, the colors on it yet more vivid, but differently arranged. The forms were still bold and vibrant, and the background extended forever.
She opened her eyes and held her body rigid. She thought, Oh, God, is it possible? Have the colors and forms come back to me? She bent her neck and gazed down the length of her body, noting with satisfaction the delicate swell of her breasts, with their soft pink nipples, and the hollow of her belly. She smiled at the boldness of the red thatch that glowed on the mound at the juncture of her thighs, and at the tapered thighs themselves.
She sighed happily as she reflected on the violent work those parts of her body had done. It pleased her more than she would have believed possible-or proper-to know that there was still a spark of hunger there for Michael's body.
She called to him softly, "Are you almost ready, darling?"
"I'm on my way, Jen."
She shivered. "Oh, God! Hurry, hon!"
He came through the door, pausing for the space of a breath to stare at her.
"It never fails, baby," he said.
She knew what he was saying; he'd said it so often. It never failed to jolt him to see her stretched out on that great bed. The paleness of her slender body against the crimson velvet spread-the great circle of crimson velvet. He'd once said that the great crimson circle had to be an exaggerated symbol of the female sex orifice, and when she lay upon it this way, the symbolism need never be put into words.
He shook himself, as if to break a spell, and came to her on the bed. She wondered for a crushing moment if he was picturing a brown body with fuller curves in her place on the red velvet. But when she stared into his eyes, she knew he was not.
She held her arms up to him and felt his weight crush her breasts. His lips covered hers, and his tongue stole into her mouth to touch hers. She clung to him, and her thighs fell away from each other as his sensitive fingertips sought out the nerve centers below her hair-crowned mound.
"Darling," she whispered when he uncovered her mouth. "Oh, darling Michael, I love you so terribly. Please don't let me spend another breath of passion on anyone else-ever!"
"No, baby. Never."
His fingers found cells he'd forgotten existed, and she writhed against him and cried out to him. Each time she closed her eyes, brilliant colors swirled through her mind.
She clutched at him, urging him into the cradle between her knees, and when he lay above her, she clasped her legs around his butt and drew him to her, so that his stiff shaft buried itself in her cunt.
"Now!" she urged as he pumped. "Now, darling!"
She arched beneath him and felt the heat of her orgasm well through her.
Michael disentangled himself from Jennifer slowly and cautiously. At the last moment she stirred, but it was only to turn her head and fall into deeper sleep. He eased away from her across the bed and got to his feet beside it.
He stared down at her for a long time before stealing from the room. The tenderness he felt for her as she slept there was almost painful. Even now, sexually drained as he was, he could scarcely restrain himself from reaching out to run his fingers over those lines that were so trim and functional. He wished she never had to dress; she was designed to be forever naked.
He experienced his first fierce sense of proprietorship. She'd been seen-and felt-naked by another man for the last time. He had no intention of continuing the relationship they'd had with Eric and Karen. It had been a fantastic interlude; he felt the deepest gratitude that it had happened. But it was over, and there would never be another.
He turned away reluctantly, thinking that he'd love to lie beside Jennifer now while she slept. But his mind raced. Plots and characters tumbled over each other in his thoughts. Nothing could keep hm away from them for another hour. He'd make a few notes on each. That way, they'd rest and let him rest.
He thought about the past two weeks as he sat at his desk. He visualized Eric and wondered whether he'd let the image haunt him as time passed. Eric was no mere giant of a man; he was a god. In all his experience, all the shower rooms he'd ever been in, Michael had never seen such a fantastic cock on another man. Tonight when he'd made love to Jennifer, she'd been tight. He'd been half-sick with dread when Eric had thrust that mast into her, expecting her to rupture. When she hadn't, but had accepted it and gone on to such a spectacular orgasm with it in her, he'd turned to a new dread-that his own smaller rod would never quite satisfy her again. It had, of course, and within only hours of the other experience.
Still, whether it had affected Jen's feelings or not, it was a bit deflating to remember that penis. He shook his head, laughing at himself. Hell, no, he wasn't going to let the memory make him feel inferior. For one thing, he was going to be too goddamn busy writing to be concerned, and when he wasn't writing, he was going to be too busy making love to Jen.
Apart from the strong new awareness of his and Jen's sex needs and capacitities, the Jorgensen affair had done something else. He thought he'd never before felt so alert and sensitive to the world about him. He had a sense of being able to feel what Eric had felt this evening, just before they broke up the party, and what Karen had felt as she lay on her lounge watching Eric. He even thought he knew how Mulvahill was going to feel when they told him Monday morning to have his crew fill in the hole in the wall without bothering about a gate.
He thought about calling his agent. Feldmann would get a hell of a lift out of hearing that Michael was feeling productive and enthusiastic again. He'd had to put off the publishers for Michael far too long. It was about time Michael gave him the go-ahead to call them and tell them they'd have what they were after as fast as Michael could get it on paper. That was going to be the problem, of course. Getting it out of the mind and on paper was a mechanical process. There were physical limits as to how fast that could be done.
He shrugged. So it would take a bit of time; it would get done. And each completed piece would take away a little of the bad taste from the long dry spell. He realized he'd have to make allowances for his haste, and decided he'd better plan on more careful rereading than he normally did. Perhaps he ought to warn Feldmann about that, so Feldmann could have one of his bright young assistants spend some time checking for mechanical errors in each manuscript Michael turned out during the next few months.
Michael shuffled his notes. He had most of the characters and all of the plots down in some sort of order. There were just those four weirdos to capture on paper. The dark spirit that Karen had been so sure was riding Eric would be hardest. But he absolutely had to have it.
Maybe he should let it go until he had a chance to ask Karen more about it. No ... he'd be damned if he'd let such a vicious creature off so lightly. He caught his lower lip between his teeth and began to list the attributes he'd deduced about the demon.
At last, he was able to lean back and grin at the pile of notes. He'd captured the essence of every one of those characters. He felt shadows of others beginning to form, but that was what a good author expected. For tonight, he'd close up shop.
He turned out the light and went to the bedroom. Jen had turned, but she still slept soundly, still naked on top of that crimson circle. Michael rummaged through the storage chest until he found a light cover. He spread it over Jen and turned off all the lights except the one in the bathroom.
He washed and took care of his other bedtime chores, then climbed into bed next to Jen. When he crawled under the coverlet and stretched out, he heard her sigh. She scooted over against him, plastering herself to him.
"Oh, Michael," she whispered, "I love you so much!"
He took her in his arms. She snuggled, resting her forehead against his chin.
"I love you, too, precious," he said.
"Michael?"
"Yes?"
"Good night."
"Good night, Jen."
* * *
Eric awoke with a feeling that something had happened. He lay still, mentally exploring. He was on his back, the blanket across his chest, his shoulders bare. The night light cast a soft glow over Karen's head, her gypsy features framed by her black hair. Her face was turned toward him in sleep, lips parted, breath coming in little sucking sounds. His attention caught by the sounds, he watched her for a moment and realized she was moving her head in small, rolling motions.
Under the blanket, she was on her back as he was, but her body lay at rn angle, one leg thrown cross his belly, that buttock pressed into the hollow between his hip and his chest. Her other leg was resting akimbo, and his hand covered the warm folds of her crotch, his fingers pressing between them. He realized then that her thigh lay on his rigid cock.
He briefly shut out the physical contact from his consciousness and probed for something that lay just below the conscious layer. Dream ... there'd been a dream ... it hadn't been the scene that he saw and felt now, but it had been analogous ... there'd been a point-to-point correspondence between the elements of the dream and those he'd seen and heard and felt on awakening. Nothing unusual about that. In fact, it was precisely that problem that had halted his sexual relations with Karen two months before, when the dream had been of mechanical components that had resolved themselves into Karen's body-and his-when he'd awakened.
As he struggled to penetrate the surface that divided awareness from none-awareness, he half-dozed, his fingers working with unconscious, small movements in the moist heat of Karen's pussy. Then the shape of the dream came into the mists in his mind. There was a warm female form with a face he'd never seen and long hair that flowed about her and a sad whisper of song floating over her. She pressed against him as Karen pressed in her sleep, and his hands clutched at her.
Recognition jolted him into wakefulness. In his dream, there'd been a living, desiring woman instead of coldly beautiful hardware! His awareness of Karen was awareness of his wife and fe-maleness and sex, rather than a machine! He stared wide-eyed at the ceiling and closed his fingers on Karen's soft vulva. His sense of awareness and triumph swelled. He drew back his hand and moved Karen's leg off his body, slowly and gently so as not to awaken her. Slipping out from under the blanket, he stole from the room. He had to give himself time to accept the fact that his hardware was no longer dominating his people.
He closed the bedroom door behind him. In the hallway, he paused to consider what he meant to do. The idea of a stiff belt of whiskey gave way to that of a hot cup of coffee, and he headed for the kitchen. It took only a few minutes to heat the pot that Karen had left sitting on the stove, and he filled a mug and took it into the living room. He had to have light. He turned on the indirect fluorescents and sprawled on the couch. He still had a reassuring erection, and he sipped his coffee and gazed down over his belly at it. He deliberately recalled the position that Karen had been in when he awoke, laughing with delight to see his cock given a sudden jerk at the thought.
He cautiously explored further, remembering how Karen had looked on the patio. The mental picture of her outspread body hanging between the uprights washed over him with an impact that took his breath. His penis swelled abruptly, and darkened. He gulped his coffee and laughed again. He let himself relive his climax with Jennifer; sweat broke out on his body and his fists clenched. He hastily backed away from the thought.
He toyed with Karen on his mind, visualizing her body in every position and every act he'd ever seen it in. Not once did its lines flow into the mechanical forms associated with missile hardware. But his rod throbbed painfully, punctuating his conviction that he was once more a lustful, capable man.
John Carroll's delight at his call returned to his mind.
"Jorgensen? Jorgensen! Eric, what the hell are you calling about at this time of night? And Saturday night, at that! ... You what? ... Christ, yes, we do! How soon can you break away from Pacific? If you can make it anything less than thirty days, do! ... Yeah ... Okay. Look, Eric, call me again after you've told them at Pacific."
So he'd hung up and called the boss at home.
"What's that Eric? ... God almighty damn! You can't! I won't let you go! ... You don't? ... Well, I know we have to let them review and approve, but it's the taxpayer's dollar, and they ... God, Eric, not so loud! They might have my phone bugged! ... You won't! Well, all right. I want you to know what a blow it is. We can decide on your replacement slowly-no need to rush it-but we can have one of your people take over as acting department head until we're sure. Could you compromise a bit? Make it two weeks? ... Okay, Eric. See you Monday morning."
So he'd called John back, and everything was set. Pacific had let him cut off half the thirty days that was customary for notice of resignation, and he'd given them two weeks more of a life that was suddenly and newly precious.
Thinking about what was to come Monday brought a grin that felt wolfish to him. By God, when those NASA cats started to throw their weight around-and they sure as hell would-they were going to be dealing with Eric Jorgensen, citizen, not Eric Jorgensen, chief engineer for Pacific. They thought they had a corner on righteous indignation; they were about to see a whole new dimension in that commodity. They thought they were pretty good at disdain and condescension. Well, by God, this was one time he wasn't going to hide the fact that he knew more about engineering on a bad day than they had the capacity to learn in a lifetime! If they had the sensitivity of a goddamn garden slug, they'd writhe under his contempt!
He looked down at himself to discover that he was sweating profusely. His hand shook as he brought the coffee mug to his lips. He chuckled and let his thoughts go back to Karen on the patio. The shaking stopped, and his penis jerked erect. Sensing another presence in the room, he looked up. Karen stood in the hallway, her eyes glistening out of the semi-darkness. He smiled and beckoned to her.
Karen studied Eric for a two-second interval before she emerged into the lighted room. There was a hint of animal excitement about him that she hadn't seen for far too long. Normally, when she'd awaken to find Eric gone from the bed, she'd locate him out here, weary and fuming and worrying. Not this time, though. She'd stood silently in the shadows of the hallway long enough to watch his emotions pass across his face in a varied parade. She'd seen satisfaction and resentment and quick anger and lust. But under and through all of them had run a strong cord of fierce enjoyment.
In his eyes now, as he smiled at her and beckoned to her, she saw the sexual drive. She understood that he saw her as a female animal, and she knew he wanted her. The long hunger in her stirred, and her breathing quickened. Eric's vibrant aliveness showed no tint of the black spirit's presence. Sometime during the past few hours, Eric had found the magic necessary to destroy the evil demon that had possessed him. He was her man again, and she ached for him.
She took the first step into the light. The second was hurried. Then she broke into a run and flung herself on him with a glad cry.
"Hey!" he yelled, then he laughed, his laughter mingling with the sound of her joyous sobs. He leaned forward to set, his empty mug on the coffee table, then clutched her to him.
His hands and his tongue were everywhere. Karen gasped and squealed and wallowed on him. She felt as if she'd fallen into an electric tumbler as her body gyrated in his grasp. She snatched at the great, live staff that sprang from his loins, fiercely determined to possess it, to swallow it up in her cunt and close herself around it. It was hers, and she'd never again allow any other woman to touch it.
But the interlude with the Rands had been something she was glad she hadn't missed. There would linger forever in her memory of the past two weeks the quiet pleasure of having retired to an exotic retreat, where the black shadows of the real world shrank and fell into perspective. No, she would never be sorry about the love they had shared-physical or emotional.
She found her face momentarily close to Eric's penis. She seized it and thrilled at its darkened skin, its throbbing fullness. She pressed it to her cheek, then to her lips, and her tongue tip came out to touch its velvety surface in a tender gesture of submission. She arched herself, twisting to capture Eric's hips between her thighs.
"Darling," she whispered. "Oh, Eric darling-quick! Take me!"
She felt the pressure of his bulbous cockhead at her sex portal, then the longed-for hardness was sliding up inside her ... at last.
