She writhed and throbbed beneath him, and he brought her along automatically, admiring the sweep ol her breasts and the curve of her hips, looking down between their joined bodies, sensing dimly the explosion of passion that was about to take place in her.
Then she was yelling at the whole world about it, and he let her, and at the height of her--
CHAPTER ONE
TIMOTHY SELDEN COULDN'T BELIEVE HIS eyes when he spotted Richard Montgomery squiring the two blondes into the hotel. Selden had the hotel penthouse suite in keeping with his job as director of Shipman Films Industries. His gaunt, though genial face turned to pink and purple as he saw Richard's hand deftly cup the left breast of one girl on that side of his fast moving body. Then the action was repeated to the accompaniment of giggles from the other blonde. The trio barged through the revolving doors and disappeared. Mr. Selden, who had remained as if stunned outside observing the callous display, suddenly regained his composure and went into the revolving doors after them Richard Montgomery was evidently allowing himself to be put into a predicament that would put a black eye on the name of "Shipman Films Industries". Selden gave the elevator man a comfortable tip for the information as to where the trio had finally alighted. Before long Mr. Selden was up in his penthouse. He frowned heavily at the thought of that blonde's breast in Richard's hand and he strode up and down the rug. He formulated a plan to get Richard out of that room downstairs. He picked up the phone and asked for the room where Montgomery had registered. The bell tingled and it was eventually lifted from the cradle.
"Hello, Happy Birthday to who ever you are," said the male voice.
Selden hit back quickly, "listen you fool, I want to talk to Richard Montgomery fast, not later, now. "
"Wow old boy, you're angry at somebody eh?" Then the half drunk voice was heard to yell over to Richard. "Hey Dickey boy, let go and answer the phone, it's for you."
Richard fumbled the wire and the phone finally came alive: "Montgomery here, did I forget you, whoever you are, just come up to---
"Damn it Montgomery, you're drunk, this is Timothy Selden talking. Do you want to get fired?"
"Oops!" said the bleary voiced Richard. "What are you doing phoning me here?"
"I thought you went out with our clients tonight Richard . What kind of tom foolery are you carrying on. I spotted those blondes downstairs and--"
"Oh yeah, cute huh, they're friends of Shipman Films Industries. Come on over and meet them, have them, own them old man, we own them."
"What the hell are you talking about Richard?"
"I'm saying the clients are being treated to a little bit of relaxation, Selden old boy. We have a couple paired off for everybody's welfare tonight. Tomorrow, back to the contracts."
"Richard, cool off, I don't get the whole picture here, but what do a bunch of big busted blondes got to do with our office? You're not using them on our accounts are you? That's not my way of doing business, you should know th--
Richard laughed and broke in with, "Hold it Seldy, I forgot you're the virgin in all this. Don and Hy Shipman are the bankrollers didn't you know? Some of our best money making deals were consummated off the bounce of one of these broads backsides, sure as hell did. You ought to see this little honey whose trying to yank the phone out, out, of my hand right now. Oh wait, please go sit down balloon chest, I'm talking to the director of Shipman Films Industries . Seldon!! you still there? This crazy kid has been working for us for four years now and she's insatiable. Say Selden, come on down to see us or we'll come up for a drink, how about it?"
"Hell no, young man, you stay right there. This I've got to see for myself. Why don't you tell them I'm just going to run by for a minute or two so I can break away.
I have got to talk to Hy about this tomorrow."
"O.K. good, you'll love the girls," and with that he hung up the phone.
Selden did manage to get down to the party for his look and what an eyeful he got. The moment he got in two girls ran at him. He nearly got a heart attack because the only thing either of them was wearing was their skin. They virtually attacked the middle aged man and though he tried to keep his aloofness his hands managed to be all over the two whores. Then one got up on the table to entice him with a strip routine.-Only this time she was stripped to begin with. She went into a strippers crouch and bent back to react to the record players music on the downbeat. She went wild, her feet spread apart. Before long everybody in the room watched the erotic display up on the table as she sprang and weaved and snapped up and around and down in an unconventional strip routine that was leading to the eventual orgy that Richard and the Shipman clients usually were headed for. Before too much longer even Selden had his hands running all over the girl and then one of the clients and Selden picked her up like they were serving a turkey at a buffet and they carried her over to a couch. The last thing Richard remembered was Selden leaping nude on her as somehow Richard Montgomery suddenly became sullen for tomorrow there would be another hotel somewhere and his destiny made it such so that the hotel suite looked just like all the other expensive hotel suites he had been in during the past year or so. There was the usual tasteful carpeting on the floor, modernistic drapes on the windows, the usual television set. There was the usual furniture, modern without seeming excessively so.
Everything was quite as usual, Richard Montgomery thought, as he stood by the window with his glass in his hand. There was even the usual pang of guilt, smothered but still insistent, at the back of his chest.
So far the evening had been quite according to schedule. At five he had shut up his desk in the midtown executive suite of Shipman Films Industries, and had taken a cab over to the hotel where the two buyers from Cleveland had checked in earlier that day. The girls, three of them, had been waiting in the lobby. One girl for each of the buyers, and one for him.
So the buyers wouldn't feel uncomfortable. Whatever they got, Montgomery also got.
Drinks in the hotel cocktail lounge, with Montgomery picking up the tab. Then dinner for six, that ran up a total bill of just under $125-plus tip. Montgomery had taken that check, too, with his trusty credit card.
By then everybody was in a jovial mood. So it was back to the hotel suite with the men and the girls for some private revelry.
The revelry was proceeding, Montgomery thought. Over on the couch, Massey was wrapped around the brunette, her panties were off and he had his hand beneath her dress, moving around busily under there to the accompaniment of pleased giggles. On the armchair near the window, Larue was thoughtfully exploring the contents of the redhead's bra, which were considerable.
Montgomery knew the pattern. He'd been living it long enough.
The buyers would fool around with the girls for a while, and they'd start getting that bedtime look in their eye, and Montgomery and his girl would choose that moment to make their exits, leaving the buyers to their own devices. And then the next day, a couple of overhung but very well entertained buyers would show up at the offices of Shipman Films Industries, and Don Shipman would show them around the plant and sell them a million dollars' worth of merchandise, and there'd be another nice bonus for Richard Montgomery.
At the cost of some $600 in entertainment-a nice contract had been snared.
Montgomery's mouth drew downward in a dry scowl. He was a big man, and he worked hard to melt away the fat that all this high living kept putting on him. He was in his 30's and he made $30,000 a year plus stock options, and he had been a vice president of Shipman Films Industries for the last half year coming up through the ranks from the copywriting department.
He was getting into a broody mood, and that was bad for business. You had to stay cheerful, otherwise the buyers might start feeling guilty about what they were doing, and the guilt could show up in the cancellation of an order.
The blonde drifted up to him. He'd been ignoring her for the past five minutes. Her name was Terry-and she was twenty, stood five feet five, had a thirty-nine inch bust. Montgomery had used her a few times in past assignments, but this was the first time she'd drawn the job of being his date for the evening.
Terry smiled at him. She had been wearing a jacket, but it was off, and the strapless dress she had on was cut low enough to reveal the tanned mounds of her full breasts.
"What's the matter, Richard? I offend you or something?"
"Just wanted some fresh air over here by the window," he said.
"You don't seem to like me."
"Sure I do Terry."
"Why aren't you showing it?"
He shrugged. "I don't know."
"It isn't smart, Richard. The two of them busy feeling around and you standing here like a wallflower."
"I know."
"Is this your night to worry about what your wife would think?" She asked.
"Every night's my night to worry about that."
Terry peered up at him, suddenly serious. "If you're such a devoted husband, how come you take on work like this?"
"How come you take on your kind of work?" he asked.
"Because I get paid a damned good wage for it."
"Okay. That's my answer too," he said crisply.
"Well, if you want to keep on collecting that wage, make it look like you're really enjoying this."
He nodded. "Come here."
He held out his arms to her, and she slid into them with that particular liquid grace of hers, and her breasts were bulky against his chest, and he felt her stomach touching his, her thighs moving from side to side, exciting him, and his mouth went to hers, and the soft lips opened to him, and there was her tongue, and for a long moment they kissed as though they really meant it. He rubbed her bare back with the tips of his fingers, and then she took his right hand and brought it around front. It rested on her bosom, cupping the nearly-exposed breast, and with a kind of detached amusement he found himself working the breast out of the bra, and resting it on the neckline of her dress, the nipple standing up and he bent forward, kissing it. Desire stirred within him, battling with the guilt.
They clinched for a moment. He looked over her shoulder and saw Massey still burrowing under the brunette's dress. The hem was somewhere up around her waist, and Montgomery could see long flawless legs and the rounded bottoms of her buttocks.
Near the window Larue was playing peek-a-boo games with the redhead's 40-inch bosom. But he looked up when he saw Montgomery watching him.
"Hey, Montgomery!"
"Yes Sam?"
"You know what this party's missing?"
"Can't imagine."
"Champagne," Larue said. He was a tall, fortyish executive with a bald, freckled scalp. "We need some of the bubbly. Make it a real swell time."
"Yeah," Massey called. "Get some champagne, Montgomery!"
"Will do," Montgomery assured them. He crossed the room, picked up the phone. Terry followed him, one breast still hanging bare. The orgy, Montgomery thought, was still in its preliminary stages. But it was rapidly getting to the more interesting points, and ordered the champagne.
The champagne would be another thirty bucks, at inflated hotel prices, but it was the government's money that was being spent, not his. He charged it to Shipman and Shipman charged it off promotional expense and the taxpayers footed the bill.
The champagne arrived ten minutes later-a great whopping magnum jutting out of an oversized ice-bucket. Montgomery took bucket and all from the bellboy at the vestibule of the suite; he wanted to come in and open it, but Montgomery wasn't anxious for the bellboy to get a peek at the general state inside. He gave the boy five bucks-making a mental note to add it to his list of personal cash disbursements during the evening-and carried the bucket triumphantly inside.
Half an hour later, a lot of the champagne was gone, and remaining inhibitions were getting very few indeed. Waving his glass around, Massey said, "You know what I'd like now? I'd like this little lass to dance for us. Do some bumps and grinds, lass."
Sadie, the redhead was obliging enough. She turned on the radio, and began to dance.
She would have made a good stripper, if she hadn't decided to be a call girl instead. Slowly, she moved through the rhythms of the music, eyes slitted in imitation of passion, garments coming off regularly. She stepped out of her dress, then drew her stockings off seductively, then tossed the bra off baring two big firm white breasts tipped with bright red nipples, and ultimately rolled her panties down, inch by inch, and then the panties were off.
Unabashedly naked, she moved serenely around the room, glorying in the physical magnetism of her deep, swaying breasts, of her round taut-fleshed buttocks, of her firm thighs. She cupped her breasts, pushing them forward crooning a little wordless song of lust. She danced waggling her buttocks at the onlookers. She tiptoed over to the champagne, drank some, then poured some down onto her breasts, making them glisten.
The men were ecstatic. And before long they had the brunette, Rhoda, peeling too. Her breasts were smaller but well formed, and she had slim legs, that contrasted nicely with Sadie's more voluptuous body. And then, at Massey's suggestion, Montgomery's girl Terry stripped as well. Her body was something of a medium between the other two, tanned all over, with firm ripe breasts and rippling muscles.
With the three girls naked, now the climax of the party couldn't be far off. Montgomery wondered how it would turn out. Sometimes-when inhibitions were really few, or space limited-it turned into an all-in-the-same-room orgy.
Not often. He was glad of that, because he couldn't avoid sleeping with his date then. With his guests erotically entangled, he had to follow suit.
But not tonight. Massey was the first to get the urge, and he picked up the nude Rhoda and hauled her into one of the two bedrooms. The door closed.
"Hey, he's got an idea there." Larue said with a shamefaced grin. He looked at Sadie who lay stretched out on the floor, the heavy globes of her breasts still shimmering with champagne. "Let's you and me get some privacy, huh?"
Montgomery was now alone with the nude blonde.
She looked at him hopefully. She was crouching on the floor, her legs bent, the skin of her buttocks drawn tight. "Well?" she said. "They'll be busy for a while. Are we going to make use of it?"
"Let's skip it."
"I won't tell," Terry said.
He studied her. His body ached with desire. All that liquor tonight, and the good food, and three naked girls, and now this one down at his feet, with fine full breasts and a tanned body, and she was his for the night, all paid for and ready to be taken.
It wouldn't be hard. All he had to do was drop down to her, and she'd wriggle her hips professionally and give him a fine time and the benefit of years of practice.
"No," he said. "I'm going to go home."
"Have halitosis?"
"I'm tired, that's all. And I'm trying to maintain my tottered shreds of fidelity."
"Who are you fooling?" she said with a sarcastic grin. "I'd like to have a dollar for every girl you've had since you got married."
"None because I wanted to."
"Sure. You did it for the good of the team."
"I did it because it would have looked bad if I didn't go along with what the others were doing. But I don't have to tonight. They're all bedded down inside. I can just put my tie on and go home."
"Oh, come off it," the girl said impatiently. "Make me feel like I'm earning my money. "
Montgomery chuckled. "You must be in heat or something."
"Listen," she said, "the last time I worked this caper with you, you made it with a friend of mine named Kate and she said she hadn't made it so good in a year and a half. When you consider all the fat jerks I have to make love to in a year, can you blame me for wanting a man?"
The appeal to his ego, was too strong to resist. He hesitated, and she rose to her knees and leaned against him, running her hands up and down the front of him, and the next moment he was on the floor with her, and she was pulling his clothes off.
There was no need to bother with preliminaries. She was ready for him, and he joined her and they began to move, and he put his mouth on her breasts, running his lips over the satiny skin, and a small moan escaped her lips. He moved faster, with the skill that was partly the result of a decade and a half of making love to women, and partly the product of his own physical endowments. In a few moments she was starting to gasp and then to have the first spasms of fulfillment, and he paused a moment, waiting while she shivered beneath him, and then brought her on, and then, when it seemed that she would dissolve in sensation completely, he moved with sudden urgency and there was the trembling frenzy and it was over.
He rested with her for a while. Then he left her. She remained on the floor, limp, satisfied.
"That was good," she said. "Your wife's a lucky woman, Richard.
"Yes," he said bitterly. "Very lucky."
He put his clothes back on, went to his briefcase, took out a sheet of paper. He felt drained, washed out.
There was the guilt now. The depression that came rolling in after the sweaty passionate fervor.
The men were both good for the night. He was free to leave. He opened his pen and carefully printed a note to Massey and Lerue and left it in a conspicuous place near the door. Then he looked down at Terry, who had rolled over on her stomach and was dozing off.
He bent and pinched one firm buttock. She yelped and sat up.
"Time to go home," he said.
"Oh, stay with me some more."
"Cut it, Terry. It's late and I'm clearing out. You can hang around here if you want, but I don't recommend it." She scrambled to her feet, breasts bobbing. "Oh, all right. party pooper."
"You had your fun."
"Not enough of it."
"There'll be other times," he said. "Come on."
He lit a cigarette and watched in a passionless way as she moved about the room, dressing. The taste of her was still on his lips. His body still tingled with the memory of the warm clinging softness of her. She knew her stuff. He could see why she was worth so much a night.
He went into the bathroom to tidy himself up. To make it seem that he'd been doing nothing more reprehensible than wining and dining a couple of Shipman clients. When he came out. Terry was dressed, looking chic and elegant, the kind of woman any man would gladly go to bed with.
"I'll give you a lift. My car's in the garage."
They took a cab across town to his garage. The car was a brand new sports model. He sat behind the wheel for a long moment, making sure he was really sober enough to drive without stopping for a cup of coffee. As the father of two children, he couldn't take risks with himself. Though they'd be provided for in life insurance, and through a generous company plan.
His mind was clear. He started the car and drove slowly. He pulled up at a curb.
"Thanks for everything," Terry said.
"Don't mention it. "
"See you soon?"
"Depends on the way the assignments run. " He said. "Don't count on making a regular deal with me."
"Incorruptible Richard Montgomery. Good night."
"Good night," he said.
He made a U-turn and headed uptown. A thought struck him as he drove: this was the first time since they married that he'd deceived Susan without having to. He could have said no to Terry but he hadn't.
He drove on homeward thinking, there's always a first time.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS ONE FIFTEEN IN THE MORNING when Montgomery pulled into the driveway of his $50,000 home in a fashionable section of Bronxville. He pressed the electronic do jigger that opened the garage door by remote control.
He tiptoed upstairs into the. kids' bedroom. He stuck his head in, just to make sure they were sound asleep. He had produced one son, one daughter, and that was sufficient.
He went into his bedroom.
Susan stirred. She was a light sleeper, and always woke when he came in.
"Richard?" she asked, yawning.
"No," he said. "I'm from the Governor's office. I'm here to ask your husband if he'd like to direct traffic on 9th Ave.
"Impossible," Susan said. "He's already got a very important job." She sat up and stretched. "What time is it darling?"
"Twenty past twelve."
"Home early tonight."
"I got the clients potted fast and took off," he said, hanging up his jacket.
"Did they have a good time?"
"It looked that way. Had a good dinner. Ran up a $7 check," he said, carefully halving it to edit out the presence of the girls at the table.
As he undressed, he wondered how much Susan really knew about his job. She knew, of course, that his chief function in the company was a social one, that he had been shifted from selling to Public Relations and spent his days and many of his evenings entertaining buyers with big bankrolls. But how much did she know about the sort of entertaining that went on? Did she know how he spent his evenings?
He didn't think she knew about the call-girls. He desperately didn't want her to find out. He wanted the illusion to endure, the illusion that he was faithful as well as loving.
He washed up, got into bed. He and Susan had always slept nude. She was a tall brunette, well proportioned on a rather delicate scale. He had met her 12 years ago and neither these years of marriage, three pregnancies nor two childbirths had damaged her beauty in any way. Strangers were often astonished to learn that she had a seven year-old son when she looked no more than twenty-two or so herself.
She kissed him lightly on the lips, and he ran his hand fondly over her small breasts. She curled up against him. On nights when he had business engagements they never made love-Montgomery claiming that it was better that he got right to sleep, having come home late. It was a weak excuse, but she didn't seem to question it. Now, she took a comfortable position, and within minutes was asleep again.
Montgomery remained awake a while. His mind kept going back to the hotel room, to the naked girl crouching on the floor asking him to make love to her.
I must have been drunker than I thought. Do I really believe that there's an honest distinction between adulteries that don't count and adulteries that do?
He forced himself to be more honest. There had been other adulteries. Not many, at least not till lately.
He thought about them now.
Susan was pregnant for the first time, and he hadn't even looked at another woman since their marriage 3 years before. They had shared a cabin on the beach one summer with this other couple. The redhead was pixie and had long legs, and it was six weeks since he had last slept with Susan. He came back from a swim and opened the door and there was Stella, naked and surprised, with her big breasts hanging out and the towel between her legs, drying herself off, and he walked over to hr and took off his bathing trunks and threw himself on her.
Only once, with Stella. A crazy accident, he thought. Both of them had tried to forget it as soon as it had happened-just one of those wild things.
Two years later Susan had lost a baby and she was in a badly depressed mood, and on doctor's orders they couldn't sleep together. It had been some holiday party and it was a noisy brawl of a shindig and there was this kid there, Laura, not out of her teens, with wavy beautiful hair and laughing eyes, trying oh so hard to be poised. And early in the evening he had somehow gotten involved with her in a long drunken discussion of sex and morality, and then later in the evening her escort passed out, and Susan was upstairs resting because she didn't feel well, and Montgomery had gone off into one of the side rooms to sit down with a drink and quietly unwind the tensions inside him, and this Laura had come into the room looking for him, and sat down on his lap, and the next thing he knew she was opening his clothing and fanning out her dress, and she had no panties on underneath any more, and he was entering the warmth of her body and he had fulfillment while she went on solemnly prattling about sex theories and ideas about the castration complex.
Right after his son was born, a third adultress came into his life. Tall and stately and big-chested, the adventuress type who had picked Montgomery out at a vacation spot as the man most difficult to seduce. Well, she had succeeded. Once. The second time, he had been able to deal with her.
That made three adulteries, Montgomery thought. And none of them really amounting to anything-no emotional involvement, no lessening of his love for Susan. So he told himself he was a more-than-average faithful husband.
Then the new job, the nights of living it up with call-girls and buyers.
He had excuses for those nights, too. Since the transfer had practically doubled his salary, he could say that he was doing it for Susan's sake and for the kids. And since he had never had any relations with the girls unless it became unavoidable, he could even tell himself that he was maintaining his fidelity, simply lending out his body, once in a while.
But what about tonight?
You could claim you were seduced again, he thought. But why make excuses? There was a naked girl begging for it, and you couldn't see any reason why you shouldn't, so you did. And you still try to pretend you're a good husband.
He began to wonder whether Susan had ever been unfaithful to him. He didn't think so-
She hadn't been a virgin when they first met. He knew that but he hadn't pressed her for details. It was none of his business. He didn't think she should have kept herself in a deep freeze waiting for him to burst into her life.
But since their marriage-
He didn't know. And tried to tell himself that he didn't care, but he did care.
On the other hand, if he knew that Susan had stepped out of line a few times since their marriage, it would clear his own conscience. He wouldn't need to think that he was betraying her in any way, if the betrayals were mutual.
Why worry about all these crazy things? Why not come to terms with his conscience, and let it be?
He leaned over and kissed the tips of Susan's breasts. She smiled in her half-sleep.
He burrowed into his pillow. Gradually, he fell into deep sleep.
Susan woke him the following morning. She got up earlier because of the children. But he could fix his own hours at the job, now, and he didn't have to report in the morning at all, if he wanted. They didn't expect him to stay out till all hours liquoring up buyers and then come in early the next morning. The leisurely mornings were the best part of the assignment, Montgomery felt. He enjoyed the feeling of being able to eat a full breakfast and drive to work on a relatively uncrowded highway.
Susan had instructions to let him have seven hours' sleep. "Good morning, Mr. Sunshine."
"Morning. "
"Here's your coffee."
"I love you," he said.
"You just say that because I bring you coffee in the mornings," Susan laughed. "Admit it."
"You think I'm going to incriminate myself?" He took the coffee from her.
Montgomery smiled and got out of the bed, putting the empty coffee-cup down. He was in a good mood. The fears of the night before now seemed remote, brought on by too much champagne. He usually felt good in the mornings. He hadn't had a hangover in a decade-which was one of the reasons why Don Shipman had picked him to take his present assignment. He could stand the pace. He didn't get sick from too much drinking, or pass out. and he could be cheerful and gay, most of the time.
He showered and shaved, while Susan got his breakfast ready. He ate a hearty meal, and left the house, kissing Susan goodbye warmly. It was a fine, clear morning.
"What's your schedule for tonight?" Susan asked.
"I'm free. I'll be home by five."
"Good. And lunch?"
"Lunch appointment with some birds from L.A."'
"I was planning to make a roast for dinner," Susan said. "Try to have a light lunch."
"Will do,' he promised.
The highway was pleasantly unclogged at this hour. He drove quickly, glancing occasionally out at the river. He liked spring mornings. It was a pity summer came so soon.
By 10:30 he had dropped his car off at the garage and was entering the offices of Shipman Films Industries.
He entered his office. His secretary, a bosomy girl named Randy-who, he knew, lived in constant disappointment because he never made a pass at her-gave him a sizzling smile and said, "Good morning, Mr. Montgomery. Mr. Shipman would like you to call him immediately."
Montgomery nodded. He slipped behind his desk and glanced at the papers Randy had piled there. He okayed all the press releases the company sent out-it was his chief job, now, aside from entertaining buyers. He checked each release out for accuracy before it went off to the stockholders or columnists.
"Any changes in my appointments?" he asked.
"No, Mr. Montgomery. You're having lunch with the men from L.A. at 12:30, as scheduled."
"Right." He picked up the phone and said, "get me Mr. Shipman please."
A pause. Then Don Shipman's cool voice saying, "Good morning, Richard. Just get in?"
"You guessed it Don. Any word from Massey and Larue?"
"They're with me right now. Over on the far side of the viewing room so they can't hear me. They had nothing but the best to say about you boy. Nothing but the best."
"Glad to hear that."
"They're reacting to the films too. Favorably. I think we've landed a big one, Richard. "
"Swell. "
"Did you know those bastards are giving us a 3 year contract for all our documentary films?"
"They never said a word!" Montgomery exclaimed.
"It's being announced next month. Rayner's been showing them our sample films and they're going to take us on for 3 years. Say, four million bucks' approximately." Shipman chuckled. "You mind if I send Susan some pearls? I feel like showing her how I appreciate her talented husband. "
"That's-that's very nice of you Don."
They talked a moment more, then hung up. Montgomery looked off at nothing in particular. He had really scored last night and Shipman always sent little gifts to Susan after a big contract was landed. Sort of a guilt-offering, probably, for making her husband cheat on her, in the company's interests. He shrugged. It was good to know your abilities were appreciated. Even if they were only the abilities to cajole buyers into signing contracts.
He continued checking his mail and other papers.
CHAPTER THREE
THE TWO GUYS FROM L.A. WERE REALLY loaded. Ralph Sholtan was wobbly. Montgomery felt a little light-headed, but he was easily the most sober of the foursome. He pretended to be just as mellow as the others, though, and they all parted in high good humor.
"Come on," Montgomery said to Sholtan, after the officers had gone rollicking away. "Let's get back to the office."
"How about 'nuther drink."
"Save it for dinnertime," Montgomery said. He took Sholtan's elbow and guided him gently toward a waiting cab.
Montgomery felt completely sober by the time he had reached his office. Alcohol burned rapidly inside him. His tolerance was growing greater with a constant practice.
"Anybody call?" he asked, as he entered his office.
"No, Mr. Montgomery."
He nodded and picked up his phone, asking for Don Shipman. He responded in a few moments.
"How'd it go boy?"
"Great. "'
"Sounds encouraging. Everything friendly?"
"Extremely. They're meeting with Sholtan tomorrow to discuss the contract terms. I think we laid the groundwork properly. "
"You always were an expert at laying things," Shipman said. He chuckled appreciatively at his own joke. "Listen, Richard, you going to be free Wednesday night?"
"I suppose. What's the deal?"
"Roger Lumbold's coming in from Boston. He liked our presentation and he wants to talk business with us. He's staying at the Shoreside and he wants to see a musical. I lined up some tickets for four."
"Four tix?"
"That's right. I talked to Lumbold long distance and he gave me the impression his wife's playing it cool and he wants some fun. Check your files on him and do your best. Maybe an all night job. This could be a big contract publicity wise. "
"Okay," Montgomery said.
He went to his file cabinet and took out the loose-leaf in which he kept his records of the pros and cons he dealt with. He turned rapidly and ran down the list of buyers till he came to the name of Roger Lumbold.
He kept the entries meticulously up to date. The book was worth a fortune to any blackmailer, Montgomery thought.
Putting the file back in its place, he removed a second loose-leaf book, this one given to him by his predecessor in the job. It was an address-book that contained the phone numbers of New York's most elegant call-girls.
He flipped through the pages for a few moments, then reached for the phone. At the other end of the room, Randy was busily typing away. She knew what kind of arrangements he was making, he was positive-but she kept her mouth shut.
I Even so, he tried not to let her in on too much of what went I on.
He asked for an outside line, dialed it, waited. A sensuous feminine voice said, "Hello?"
"Carol?'
"Could be . Who's this?"
"Richard Montgomery."
"What can I do for you, sweetie?"
"Guess. "
"You're looking for a babysitter, maybe?"
"The baby's 45 years old," Montgomery said. "But you've got the right idea."
"Okay," Carol said. "Who and when?"
"The when is Wednesday night. The who is Janet."
"No can do sweetheart."
"The hell you say!" Montgomery snapped. "Who's been getting my priorities?"
"Darling," Carol said patiently, "Wednesday night Janet 'is already booked to help some nice boys from a department store warm the heart of a branch manager."
Montgomery drummed on the table "Can't you make a substitution?"
"Does it have to be Janet?"
"The last time this guy was in town I got him Janet and le ate her up. I want him to have an encore.
"Janet's expensive."
"Am I paying for it?" Montgomery said. "Look, do you have somebody else to give the department store fellows?"
"Of course I do." Carol said. "But Janet is choice stuff. They'll be disappointed. "
"Hell, who's the bigger account?"
"You are, darling."
"Okay, then. I want Janet."
"A hundred twenty-five."
"The extra twenty-five is to appease you for inconvenience of switching assignments, is that it?"
"You guessed it, love:
"It's a deal. Janet for Wednesday night. Now, I'll want a girl too. Who's available?"
"You take your pick, I'll see what I can do." Montgomery thought for a moment. "What about Pat?"
"She's available."
"Good. Pat and Janet, tomorrow night at 5:30 o'clock sharp; lobby of the Shoreside."
"By the clock."
"Where else?"
"That'll be two-twenty-five, sweetie."
"Put it on the bill," Montgomery said. "Or don't you trust us any more?"
"Don Shipman's checks are always good around here," Carol said. "Keep in touch doll."
"A pleasure."
He put the phone down slowly. It was always the weirdest part of the business, this angle of ordering girls as though you were asking for some bottles of beer to be sent over..
Montgomery used a little group of four madams to supply him with the girls for his entertainment. They were all ex-call-girls themselves, who had gone into the distribution end of the business because it paid better for less exertion. He had met Carol once. A blonde girl, wearing a tight dress that set off the mounds of her breasts to breathtaking effect. A cool customer indeed, and she was as attractive as any of the girls who worked for her. But Carol wasn't for sale any more. She gave it away when she felt like it, but she couldn't be bought.
Down at the bottom of Montgomery's file cabinet was Carol's current catalog. She published it every year, a hardbound volume that contained color prints of each of her girls, stark naked, front and back shots guaranteed unretouched, along with a brief personality profile of the girl and her measurements. It cost Carol plenty to produce the catalog, and it was a strictly limited edition that went only to a tight group of clients. And heaven help you if you let anything happen to your catalog. At the end of each year, Carol collected the old one when she delivered the new edition.
Montgomery had once asked her what she did with the old catalogs.
"I send them overseas darling. They find it very exciting to drool over naked white girls. I understand there's a waiting list for copies."
He shook his head. A crazy world, he thought. And a pretty foul world down at bottom. It was getting so that an out-of-town buyer expected the wine-woman-and-song routine. And the girls had to be really sharp ones, too. Montgomery had heard horrid stories of contracts that had been lost because a girl wasn't properly tactful when a client had a slight case of temporary impotence. But you could rely on Carol's girls. They delivered the goods.
It wasn't five yet When he cleared his desk and there was no reason for him to stay any longer. Those days when he could, he liked to clear out early, beating the traffic jam on the highway.
He started for the door. "See you tomorrow Randy. When you finish typing those letters you can take off."
"Right, Mr. Montgomery. Good night."
He smiled at her. A nice kid. Big bosom and a cute little backside. Half the people around the office, from Don Shipman down, were positive he was sleeping with her. But he had never touched her. He had to cling to some fragment of his marital vows.
Anyway, Randy didn't starve for sex. Don Shipman had seduced her a couple of times, Montgomery knew-Shipman had his inner office rigged out as a regular love chamber, and she was in demand among the lesser brass too.
His car took a couple of minutes to come down from the top of the garage. He waited impatiently. He wanted to get home, home to the kids and Susan. He had a full night to spend with them. He could sleep with Susan tonight, for that matter. An increasingly rare event, now that his social calendar was getting so-heavy.
Susan and the kids were waiting at the door for him. Hail, the conquering hero! The breadwinner is home!
He kissed the children.
He kissed Susan. She was soft and clinging, in his arms, and he told himself for the billionth time how much he loved her.
"Hello, darling. Did you have a good day today?
"Just an ordinary day," he said. "Strictly routine. The same as most days, nothing especially interesting," he answered.
CHAPTER FOUR
AFTER A VERY GOOD DINNER THERE WAS the ritual of putting the children to bed, and then Montgomery and Susan settled down in the living room for a quiet evening together. Montgomery turned on the television set, but uselessly. Nothing interested them.
They read the papers for a while, and played some music, and talked about the children.
Then Susan said, "My secret admirer called me again today."
Montgomery blinked. "Your what?"
"I told you last week. Hy Shipman. He phones me several times a week."
Montgomery's eyes widened. He remembered, now, that she had said something about getting phone calls from Hy, but she had told him about it one night when he was more than half asleep, and in the morning he decided he had dreamed the whole thing.
Susan smiled, innocently, almost naively. "Hy's been calling me ever since the dinner at Don's place two months ago. He keeps wanting me to meet him for lunch in the city, and when I explain that I've got small children to take care of he says okay, he'll come up here some afternoon, and then I tell him I have very observant small children-"
"Is her serious?" Montgomery asked.
"In a half-hearted way," Susan said. She shrugged lightly. "It's mostly my fault, I suppose."
"How so?"
"At the dinner he must have had a couple of drinks too many, and we started talking and Hy began telling me all his troubles. How Don treats him like office help instead of the second-in-command, and how nobody has much respect for him, and how his wife is frigid and hardy ever gives in to him unless he pleads first. I was sympathetic, especially on the wife angle. I think I may have given him the impression that I was sympathetic enough to be willing to sleep with him out of sympathy."
"And are you?" Montgomery asked, a little to his own surprise. Susan's eyes flared. "I've never slept with a man out of sympathy. Love, yes. But not pity."
"So poor Hy doesn't stand a chance, but he keeps calling?" Montgomery said, trying to relax the momentary atmosphere of tension.
"Yes. He sounds so damn sad and mournful. He tells me what a great guy you are, how much business you've brought in. And then asks if I'll go to bed with him. Politely. And I say no."
"Politely?"
"Of course. He's one of your bosses, isn't he?"
"Why haven't you told me this before?"
"I did, but apparently you didn't hear me. So it can't matter much to you-"
"It does!"
"Richard, don't go making any trouble. I told you the story to amuse you, not to get you all riled up. I don't want you talking to Hy about this."
"Why not??"
"Because I can handle him," she said crisply. "I know how to keep him at arms length without really offending him. You'll go stomping into his office and the next day you'll find yourself out of a job. Richard, he's harmless. He doesn't discourage easily, but it's no cause for alarm." She paused. "Or is it? Are you afraid I'll sleep with him if you don't Takes Steps Immediately?"
"Of course not," Montgomery said. But he did not meet her eyes as he said it.
He felt uncomfortable. Hy Shipman was Don's elder brother but he had always been relegated to a position of subsidiary importance. He was a paunchy, man of melancholy disposition, married to a nervous woman much younger than he was. It was hard to think of Hy as a seducer. He was too ineffectual for that.
Yet the thought suddenly obsessed Montgomery that perhaps Susan would sleep with him, if he kept after her. That perhaps she had already slept with him.
Just because you've been unfaithful, is that any reason to suspect Susan? Can't you trust her when she says she can handle Hy? She's trying to laugh him off, and you're making a big noise.
"You aren't saying much," Susan said.
"I'm trying to get used to the idea of Hy Shipman as a great lover pursuing my wife."
Susan laughed. "He's pursued the wife of every other executive in the company. When one turns him down he turns to the next. It's unfortunate. Last month he was going after Nancy Sholtan. Then it was Debbie Anderson. And now it's my turn."
Montgomery shook his head. "I knew Hy clowned around a lot at parties. But I didn't think that he seriously wanted to-"
"Well, he does. Only he never gets anywhere. And especially not with me."
"Naturally," Montgomery said.
"Oh? You're sure?" Susan teased.
"If I can't trust you, who can I trust?" he asked.
"That's a good question. But I don't know. Two minutes ago it seemed to me you had a questionable gleam in your eye. As though you were all set to have me watched."
"Don't be silly ,Susan."
"You ought to be flattered that the insignificant wife of your unworthy self has attracted the attention of a connoisseur of womanflesh like Hy Shipman."
"Oh, shut up. Let's go to bed."
"Is that an invitation?"
"It's a suggestion," he said.
"Can I draw inferences?"
"Any you like."
They laughed, and he drew her to her feet and kissed her lightly, and they went around the ground floor turning off lights, and headed upstairs. Susan went on into the bedroom. Montgomery as always, stopped into the children's rooms.
Susan was undressed when he entered the bedroom. She slipped past him into the bathroom, her small, flawless breasts swaying with each step.
Montgomery got into bed and skimmed through a magazine while waiting for her to join him. She spent a long time in the bathroom. She came out finally, a nude elf, and he looked at her with pleasure, taking in the firm high thrust of her breasts, the delicate rise of her neck, the sensuous outcurves of her hips, the wonderfully slim, lovely tapers of her thighs and legs. She gave a deceptive appearance of fragility. Actually, he knew she was strong, stronger than he was in many of the ways that really counted.
She smiled at him and switched off the light. He turned to her the moment she entered the bed.
She slid into his arms with a motion long familiar to both of them, a motion a decade had made familiar yet not robbed of its wonder and joy. She flattened her body against his along its entire length, feet ending around the middle of his shins.
His hands went automatically to the round globes of her bosom. He felt the nipples rise in response to his caress. His fingers cupped the borders of her breasts imprisoning the soft and yielding, yet still firm and resilient spheres of warm flesh.
Susan gave a little indrawn hiss of desire and began to move her body in a beckoning rhythm of love. After twelve years of marriage-and the six months plus before their marriage when they had been sleeping together regularly-there was no need for any very involved preliminaries between them. Susan was ready at his first touch. Their lips met, her tongue slipping like a dart between his lips. His hands roamed the silky skin of her entire body. She smelled faintly of perfume donned specially for him.
He put his head between the ripe cones of her breasts, burying his face in the firm sweet flesh, and she began to pant with eagerness, moving into a position of love. Her eyes were wide open. She smiled at him.
"Tell me you love me," Susan whispered.
"I love you more than I could ever tell you," he murmured.
She smiled at him. Her legs twined round his body and he joined with her easily, and they lay still, merging body and spirit, frozen in a timeless split-second, poised before the wild race to the peak.
Montgomery waited. He knew the pattern well.
Beneath him, Susan quivered and sobbed suddenly. Her entire small body shook as ecstasy took hold of her. Her hands dug convulsively into his back, the short nails hard against his skin.
"Now darling," she cried. "Now, now, now!"
She moaned wordlessly and every muscle in her body contracted, and Montgomery felt the throbbing, pounding fury of sensual delight, and together their bodies seemed to blend into one as they swept over the crest of passion simultaneously, successfully, completely.
This was the way it ought to be, he thought.
Never for advantage. Do it only for love and it's something too wonderful for words.
He continued to move for a few moments after it was over, and then he subsided, relaxing, pillowing his head on her shoulder. She put her hand on his cheek, drawing him tenderly down onto her breasts. Perspiration oiled their bodies now, and in the darkness their double panting sounded like an eager breath of some beast of the jungle.
We're good together, Montgomery thought. Good now and good right from the start. I'm really lucky to have a wife like Susan. She deserves all the best there is in this world. She's a gem, an absolute gem. I wish-damnit, I wish I deserved her!
He kissed her lightly, all passion spent now.
"I love you," she whispered.
"Always?"
"Always," she said.
Their bodies parted and Montgomery settled into his pillow. Usually, after an act of love as successful as that one that had just been, both of them dropped off instantly into sound sleep. But Montgomery sensed tension in her now. He hovered between wakefulness and sleep and after a few moments he heard her stir and turn toward him.
"Richard?"
"Mmmm?"
"Awake?"
"More or less."
"Richard, do me a favor. Don't make a fuss about the Hy Shipman business."
"I told you I wouldn't."
"Please. Because Hy'll take it the wrong way. He'll have to fire you to save his own ego. He couldn't bear to have you around with you knowing that he'd approached me and been refused."
"I won't kick up any fuss." Montgomery said. He was silent a moment, then said, "Susan, have there been any others like him?"
"Others?"
"Who make passes at you."
"Of course, silly." She ran her fingers lightly over his broad chest. "Every day, from the delivery boys, the postman-"
"I mean from Shipman."
"A couple of them."
"It goes on all the time," she said. "You ought to be flattered that so many men find your wife desirable at her advanced age."
"I don't like the idea of it."
"Why?" She kissed his nose. "Can't you trust me to say no?"
"Of course I trust you. But-"
He stopped.
"But what?"
"Nothing," he said. "I love you, that's all. And I'm very, very jealous."
"Don't be. After all, how many nights a week are you downtown, boozing around with those men, maybe having girls trying to pick you up? The temptation must be tremendous. But I try not to be jealous. I know you love me, and I have faith in you. Now let's get some sleep, darling."
"Good night," he said.
He rolled over, with his back to her. But her words pierced his mind like daggers.
He turned and tossed in a cold sweat.
He saw how terribly vulnerable he was. Too many people knew about his real job. The top executives at Shipman, men whom he and Susan saw socially at least once a month, realized that he was in charge of hiring call-girls and amusing out-of-town clients with them. Maybe they had told their wives about him. And at one of the cocktail parties when somebody or somebody's wife had too many, and came reeling over to Susan to make some bawdy joke about the way her husband earned his lofty salary-
And then, later, in private, Susan asking him solemnly to tell her the truth defying him to continue the life of the lie-
And then the fragile, rickety house of cards would come tumbling down when honest Susan would ask him for the truth, and he would tell her, and that would be the end of everything he had built.
Susan stirred at his side.
"Still awake?" she asked.
"Yes "
"What's wrong, darling?"
"Nothing."
"You know that isn't so."
"I'm just tensed-up," he said.
"Poor darling. That short day today must have knocked you flat."
"Too many drinks at lunchtime.
"You never complained of too many before," she said. "I thought you were .the lad with the solid stomach."
"Trouble is I'm not a lad any more," he said. "Can't take the pace any more."
"Baloney. Roll over and get some sleep."
"I'm trying hard."
"Don't try hard. Relax."
Her hands moved over his back, massaging him, unknotting the tension in him. She worked over him for three or four minutes, then kissed him lightly and went back to sleep. Still he remained awake.
He grew annoyed at himself. Got to get some sleep, he thought, if he didn't, he'd be tense and tired tomorrow. That wasn't good, and Roger Lumbold wouldn't be too appreciative of that.
CHAPTER FIVE
AT 5:30 THE NEXT EVENING, RICHARD Montgomery entered the Shoreside's lobby, badly in need of a drink. It had been a long day.
The girls were waiting by the clock.
"Long time no see." Janet purred, as Richard walked up to them.
"Not since last year." Montgomery said.
Montgomery said, "how about Janet getting her enticing rear end into the elevator and fetching Lumbold, yes? I told him 5:30 sharp."
"I'm on my way," Janet said.
Montgomery and Pat waited in the lobby while Janet rode upstairs to Lumbold's room.
The elevator door rolled open.
Roger Lumbold appeared, Janet on his arm. They strutted into the lobby regally. It was vaguely comic, seeing the pompous, fat man with the tall radiant girl on his arm and towering over him.
He was wearing expensive clothes. His fingers glistened with rings. An expensive cigar jutted out of the corner of his mouth.
He grinned and rushed forward. "Monty," he cried, shattering the lobby's genteel hush. "You old bastard, it's great to see you again!"
"How've you been Roger? You look great. The business must be treating you swell huh?"
"Not so bad, not so bad."
Montgomery said. "Want you to meet Miss Pat Raymond. Pat this is Roger Lumbold.
Lumbold took a long look at Pat starting with her hair then travelling southward past the rounded crests of her breasts visible over the top of her dress, then downward to her legs.
"Nice," Lumbold said. "I envy you Monty. You always go out with such dolls."
"You don't do so bad yourself," Montgomery said. Lumbold was heavily tanned and big brown freckles splotched his shiny dome of a skull. "Hey, listen, how about a quick drink, then off to dinner?"
"Swell with me pal."
"Let's go."
Onward to dinner, then three acts of fairly good theatre, into a cab and back at the Shoreside. The evening had come full circle.
"Come on up to my room, everybody. We'll have ourselves a party, and I mean a party!"
Onward to the Shoreside's seventh floor. The tasteful furniture, the broad couch, the bed big enough to sleep four.
Onward to the telephone. Montgomery making his familiar, call to Room Service, catering to the whims of this man.
"Hey, Roger! Roger!"
Roger was counting Janet's breasts hilariously. "Yeah, pal?"
"How about caviar?" Richard asked.
"Yeah!" Lumbold glowed. "Get us some caviar. And some wine to drink with it. Damn good idea. Damn good.
Nodding, Montgomery turned to the phone again. "All right, Caviar for four. Yes, on toast, and a bottle of wine. Let's see, now. What? '58 is fine. Yes, of course. And charge that to the Shipman account. Shipman Films Industries. Fine. Right."
A knock on the door. A tray rolling into the room, eight ounces of caviar resplendent on ice, crisp triangles of toast surrounding it. And a tall golden bottle of wine, cold, crisp, dry. Lumbold scooped a huge glob of caviar onto a piece of toast. It's almost half of the total supply, but what of it? There's more just by picking up the phone. And Montgomery had had caviar so often he's tired of it.
The wine is gone now. So is Janet's blouse. Lumbold wants to see her breasts, and Janet is hardly one to object. Even half-naked, she retains her elegance. Her breasts are huge, but not ungainly. Rosy nipples, rosy aureoles, pink flesh.
"Get something to drink, Monty-boy!"
"Will do, Roger."
Montgomery picked up the phone and ordered a bottle of the first thing that came into his mind. "Send up a fifth of Scotch. Charge it as before."
The Scotch disappeared.
Janet is naked, as Earth-goddess clothed in flesh, standing spread-legged in the middle of the floor while Lumbold pinches her plump buttocks. He pinches hard, and the red marks remain, but Janet makes no complaint. So long as Lumbold does nothing that damages her future market value, she'll put up with his whims. His pleasures were important, but not more important than her career.
"Come on! Everybody undressed! Let's have a real nudist party, huh?"
There was no way to gainsay Lumbold's whim. Clothes piled in the middle of the floor, and the four of them were naked. Lumbold had" a fat hairy body juggling and quivering. Pat, slim and graceful and her breasts like twin grapefruits. Janet ripe, abundant, puckered dimples in her thighs and buttocks, breasts too big to get a hand all the way around.
Onward into a surging heap of humanity. Lumbold lay at the bottom of the heap, Janet and Pat on top of him. Montgomery at the summit.
He thought of Susan, home asleep in the big house, dreaming of him.
He thought of her saying, I know you love me, and I have faith in you.
Faith. With Pats' swollen-nippled breast being shoved gleefully against his lips.
Faith. With his hand on Janet's plump buttocks.
Faith. With Pat heated and lathered, eager for consummation.
The couples split apart, now. Montgomery saw Lumbold and Janet near the door. Janet lay flat on her' belly, while Lumbold squatted on her, then, without warning, lowering himself and plunging.
Then Pat was grasping him, the professional lover wanting some loving, pushing her body up against his, and her big eyes were moist and soft with passion, her lips parted, her hair dangling disheveled, her breasts sweaty and stiff-nippled.
"Richard-"
He looked at her as though from a million miles away. What did he have to do with this girl who was a stranger to him who had been loved by an army of men? How had he become entangled with her, he who was a husband, a father, a responsible taxpayer?
"Please-I've got to have you-"
Pat was pleading for it, moaning for it. His hands crushed her breasts roughly, and she nodded her head and moaned harder.
He took her abstractedly, hardly paying attention to what he was doing, entering her with no more sensation of delight than if he had inserted his finger into the mouth of a water-faucet. She writhed and throbbed beneath him, and he brought her along automatically, admiring the sweep of her breasts and the curve of her hips, looking down between their joined bodies, sensing dimly the explosion of passion that was about to take place in her.
Then she was yelling at the whole world about it, and he let her, and at the height of her gyrations he became aware of his own response, the surge of fulfillment, without joy or release. She lay back on the floor, limp.
They rested a long time. Then Montgomery turned from her. In the far corner, Lumbold had passed out. Janet lay cradling him tenderly. Her back was to Montgomery, and he looked at the long curve of her shoulderblades and the small of her back and the sprouting ripeness of her buttocks without interest. It was almost two in the morning. Empty bottles lay everywhere.
The buyer had been well entertained.
Now let the buyer respond with a damned good contract in the morning.
He began to dress.
"Leaving?" Pat whispered.
"Why not?"
"We could stay all night."
"I've got a home to go to."
She nodded. "All right."
She got to her feet, breasts swaying. He stroked her firm heavy breasts with what he wanted her to think was friendly affection. He patted her superb rear.
He finished dressing. He didn't offer Pat a ride home. He let her shift for herself. He took a cab across town to his garage, got into his car.
Susan's words hadn't stopped echoing.
He felt no guilt. The guilt had been last night, and the night before. He was beyond the point of guilt, now. He had given a piece of his soul, and the seed of his body, all for Shipman Films Industries.
He drove home quickly.
CHAPTER SIX
THE NEXT DAY MONTGOMERY SETTLED into his morning routine at the office.
He started getting a little tense toward eleven. Roger Lumbold had an eleven o'clock appointment to see Don Shipman about possible contract negotiations, and Montgomery always was a little apprehensive about the follow-throughs on his nights out. He was confident that he had done a good job of oiling Lumbold up, but all the same, you could never be sure until the contract was signed and the press release typed up to go out.
He busied himself with the day's output of information. As the head man of Shipman's PR department, he had to okay it all.
Then the phone rang.
He didn't answer. He let Randy take it on her extension. She looked across the room and said, "It's Mr. Hy Shipman, Mr. Montgomery."
The mention of Hy's name sent a stab of jealousy and irritation through Montgomery's vitals. He stubbornly forced his emotional reaction to subside, picked up his phone, and said smoothly, "Good morning, Hy. What can I do for you?" Could you manage to stop into my office sometime this morning, Richard?"
What the hell does he want? Montgomery wondered.
He said, "Well, yes, of course I could. Is it anything serious, Hy?"
"Nothing really urgent. I've got a deal I'd like to offer to you, that's all.
"Right-o, Hy."
He hung up and frowned curiously at the picture of Susan on his desk. What was this all about? As a rule, he didn't have much personal contact with Hy. His immediate boss was Don, and Hy remained off in his own obscure department. He couldn't remember when Hy had last asked him to come to his office for a conference.
Montgomery went down the hall to Hy Shipman's office. It was a big, well-furnished office.
Hy himself was not imposing. He had an unimpressive face, and plump, with uncommanding eyes. He was a millionaire, thanks to his brother's unremitting effort to build the company, but there was nothing about Hy's appearance to distinguish him from a $50-a-week postal clerk.
Montgomery faced him, reflecting that this flabby creature had been diligently trying for the past several weeks to seduce his wife. But he kept his feelings under tight check trying to pretend that Susan had told him nothing at all.
"Sit down, Richard. Smoke?"
'I prefer my own," Montgomery said, producing a pack, and trying to take the sting out of his seeming churlishness!
"I've never come to like filter tips.
Hy chuckled. "You'd rather drag all the muck and filth right into your lungs, eh?"
"I'm a masochist at heart," Montgomery said. He took a puff and did his best to look comfortable in Fly's presence. "What's this deal you were talking about, Hy?
Hy smiled sickly. "You've been on the handing-out side of our entertainment program for a long time, now, Richard. Don and I were talking about you the other day and we figured it was time to let you just relax and soak up some of the gravy, without always worrying about what the client was thinking."
"So?"
He leaned forward and steepled his thick pudgy fingers.
"United Film Association is sponsoring a little junket. The idea is an exhibition of International Documentary Films.
At least, that's the official idea. The real idea is just to create good will, to-you know the general idea."
"I imagine I do."
"Okay," Hy said. "The deal is this. Two men from each of about a dozen companies are going. The trip will last two weeks.
With demonstrations for maybe only 5 days, the rest of the time you relax. Everything from hotel rooms down to cigars. Sound interesting?"
"Sure."
"Of course, you'll draw your regular salary for the two weeks since you'll be serving as a company representative. You and Ralph Sholtan. And this won't be counted as time off your vacation, either. You lucky bastard, you. I'd go myself, only it happens that Don and I are going to be tied up here right through to the end of June, maybe even weekends too, so we have to pick somebody Is." Hy's eyes twinkled. United is planning to provide everything, you understand. I know you have a fondness for the ladies, Richard, so let me assure you that there'll be a steady supply of dames in all sizes, shapes, and "
"Hold on," Montgomery said suddenly.
"Yes?""
"What's my wife going to be doing while I'm lolling in the sun with the dames?"
Hy looked surprised. "Why, I thought you understood that part, Richard. There won't be any wives along on this trip. It's strictly stag. More fun that way, get me?"
There was no amusement on Montgomery's face. "You want me to leave Susan behind and go take two weeks of junketing without her?"
Hy shrugged. "She's a sensible girl. She wouldn't deprive you of two weeks of sunshine and fun just because she can't come along."
"Are you sure United won't make any exceptions to the no-wives rule?"
"Positive," Hy said. "The way they outlined it to me, it's going to be strictly fun and frolics. A different lassie in your bed every night, that kind of thing. Unless you don't want one, of course. They're not going to force a man to be unfaithful to his wife. But I happen to know that you don't have any qualms about a little fun on the side, so I figured you were the ideal man to represent us. I don't mean it in any insulting way, mind you-just that I know what sort of things go on when you're entertaining the clients, and Don and I thought, well, that you'd like to have somebody else entertain you the same way, sort of put the shoe on the other foot-"
"No," Montgomery said.
"No what?"
"No I'm not going," he said. He stared levelly at Hy, wanting to lash out at him with the truth. This is all a real clever dodge, isn't it? You want to get rid of me for ten days so you'll have a clear shot at my wife.
He voiced none of those thoughts.
Instead, keeping his voice calm and unexcited he said, "I think you've got the wrong idea about what I'm really like, Hy."
"Eh?"
"Appearances to the contrary, I'm a pretty devoted husband," Montgomery said easily. "I know, I do some fooling around with the call-girls, but I do that with a special compartment of my brain. I do it for the company, not because I want to be unfaithful to my wife. I love her a hell of a lot, you see. I couldn't dream of taking two weeks off to go chasing around. I couldn't just leave her behind. We've never been separated more than a day or so before, and I don't want to start now. Thanks for thinking of me, Hy. But I think you'd better give the assignment to somebody who'd be happier accepting it."
Hy looked uncomfortable. "You wouldn't have to sleep with anybody, Richard. It would just be sort of a rest trip for you, if you like."
"Thanks all the same, Hy." You fat bastard, you're trying hard to get rid of me, but it won't work. "Better offer the junket to somebody else. I appreciate the offer but it's not my cup of tea."
There was displeasure showing in the pasty features at the other side of the desk. Hy had worked out a nice scheme for clearing away his competition, and he obviously hadn't expected Montgomery to toss it back in his face.
With a phony grin Hy said, "Well, now, I didn't realize you were all that devoted a husband, Richard-"
"I am." Tightly.
"We kind of had the impression you were a more fun loving type," Hy went on.
Montgomery shrugged. "I'm willing to sneak a piece if it'll benefit the company. But I can't see just running off to grab up free girls on my own account."
"Don't you see anything illogical in that attitude?" Hy asked quietly.
"What of it? I never said it was logical. But it's the way I feel." Montgomery stood up. "Thanks all the same, Hy. I'm sorry it's no go."
"So am I," Hy said. "We thought we were going to be giving you a treat. Now we'll have to find some other way to show our appreciation for your services." He shrugged. "Take it slow, boy."
"Yeah. See you Hy."
Montgomery was fuming as he made his way back to the office. He was positive that there had been only one motive in Hy's mind, and that was to get him as far from Susan as possible while Hy turned on the heavy artillery. Montgomery clenched his fists impotently. There was nothing he could do, no way he could fight back. He couldn't openly accuse Hy of scheming to seduce Susan. He couldn't hotly tell him to keep his fat nose out of the picture. All he could do was shrug and smile and go along with Hy's phony reasons for offering him the trip.
He called Susan at noon, just to say hello. He made no mention of Hy's offer over the phone. There were too many ears on the switchboard to talk about anything as explosive as that. Instead, they chatted about meaningless things for a few minutes. He told her he'd be home early.
Lunchtime, now. For a change, Montgomery's' schedule was dear all day. No lunch dates, no evening entertaining to do. He ate lunch at a small restaurant a block from the office. His companions were Ralph Sholtan and Carl Anderson, both of them on the executive level.
At lunch Ralph Sholtan said, "I hear we're going to take a sweet little trip, Richard."
"Where'd you hear that?"
"Hy told me yesterday. The two of us are going.
"Well, you're out of date," Montgomery said. "Hy offered me the trip this morning and I turned it down."
"Huh?" Sholtan blurted.
"You heard me. I told him I didn't feel like being away from Susan and the kids for two weeks.
Sholtan and Anderson looked at him strangely. Sholtan said, "Richard, you sick or something? Turning down fun and games?"
"I get enough fun and games on the job," Montgomery said tightly. "I don't need any junkets."
Richard, I figured for sure you'd be going." Sholtan said. "A guy like you who likes the better things of life-"
Montgomery's voice was stony. "I just got through explaining to Hy Shipman that I don't go after the call-girls purely for fun. I'm a company man, and I do my best-
Anderson was snickering. Sholtan guffawed.
"Listen to him!" Sholtan hooted.
Montgomery felt a tight band of anger wrapping itself around his middle. He looked from one man to the other. They were both a couple of years older than he was, and had been on the executive list a lot longer. They had had more than their share of expense account entertainment from other companies, and neither could be called a faithful husband.
Montgomery said slowly, "I don't know what idea you guys have of me, but it's probably wrong. Get this: I love my wife, and I'd do anything in the world to make her happy. That includes sleeping with call-girls if it means a raise in my salary. Got that?"
They looked flustered. "Well, yes," Anderson said.
"Okay. Now Hy comes along and offers me a junket that won't help the company in any way. It's a pure pleasure trip. So it's not up my alley. I backed out and told him to give it to someone who was interested. Maybe he'll tap you for it, Carl. Interested?"
"Sure I'm interested," Anderson said. "In fact, I've been wondering all morning how come you got preference ahead of me on the deal."
"Maybe Hy thought I could be dispensed with for two weeks and you couldn't," Montgomery said, "Or-or maybe he had other reasons." He didn't elaborate.
They let the matter drop. But the rankling bitterness inside him remained all day.
He was coming to see clearly the sort of image he projected around the office. They all pictured him as a self-centered, completely a moral character. Maybe I am, he conceded. But he had different rationalizations for what he did. Not the sort of man at all who would leap at the chance to get away from the wife and kids for two weeks of free sunshine, free booze, and free sex.
With brutal self-honesty he asked himself just how much he was really fooling himself.
He didn't know.
He knew that he would like to be able to say he would have turned down the trip. But there was no way he could be sure. It was a tempting trip. Any healthy male with his potency and his stomach-lining still intact would be glad to have a plum like that fall into his lap.
So you suspect them too, and do you distrust your own wife?
He shook his head. Each day was bringing some new emotional tangle.
He let the afternoon tick away in a flurry of meaningless paperwork. At three ten the phone rang. It was Don Shipman calling.
"Been with Lumbold all day," Shipman said.
"And?"
"And I think we'll have some juicy press releases to send out pretty soon."
"That's great, Don."
"He's flying back tonight to get the big brass okays. He'll have a decision for us soon. You did another swell job for us, Richard."
"Thanks," Montgomery said
"Listen, I talked to Hy, and he said you nixed that United junket. What goes?"
"I explained it all to him, "Montgomery said carefully, "I didn't want to be away from Susan that long."
But we figured you'd go for the trip idea."
"Sure. With Susan."
"Not otherwise?"
"Afraid not, Don."
"Guess you'll have to skip this one, then," Shipman said. "But I'll keep you and Susan in mind in case there's anything else coming along. We want to keep you happy, Richard. You're a good man. You're a real prize, you know that? And if I had a wife like that, I'd feel the same way."
CHAPTER SEVEN
MONTGOMERY AND SUSAN WERE THE last duo to arrive at the party completing the group. John and Elaine didn't like to give big parties. They preferred intimate groups, where there could be some real change of conversation. Standing at the entrance to the Sorensons' backyard patio, Montgomery surveyed the guests. The guests got along very well together.
The youngest person present was twenty-eight and John Sorenson at thirty-eight was the oldest. None of the men made under $20,000 a year. None of the women had less than two children, and none of the women was anything but attractive and well groomed. All twelve of them had all the refined quality of education and poise.
John Sorenson came up to them. A big man. as big as Montgomery, he gave them a cheerful welcoming grin, and gestured in the direction of the bar that had been set up on one side of the patio. Drinks in hand, he and Susan drifted into the group, smiling their hellos. Gerald King, the surgeon, short and dapper and handsome, with his strikingly bosomy wife Cathleen. Bruce Evans, like Sorenson a legal brain, with his elegant wife Fran. Dennis Ryan, since the first of the year a partner in a firm of investors, accompanied by his stately redheaded wife Andrea. Eric Smyth, an industrial designer and his short, snappy wife Arlene. John and Elaine Sorenson.
Montgomery felt isolated from these, his closest friends.
He looked at Gerald King and wondered whether he had ever cheated on Cathleen. He smiled at Andrea Ryan and was struck by her resemblance to a call girl he had used a month before-her younger sister, maybe?
The drinks began warming him and blotting out the inner doubts and conflicts. He relaxed. These were people who liked him, people he liked. People he could trust.
Much talk was made on all subjects imaginable and then Montgomery said, "All this financier talk makes me parched, need a refill."
He made his way to the bar where Susan, he saw, was talking with Eric and Arlene Smyth. He poured for himself.
"One for me too, please Richard."
He turned. It was Fran Evans. He smiled admiringly at her loveliness and handed her a drink. There was an awkward t moment of some tension between them.
A year ago, at one of these parties, Fran had gotten too high and much too L friendly with Richard.
She had drawn him off to one side and suggested in quite frank terms that they have an affair.
He had been startled.
When she had his hands suddenly and pressed them against her small breasts, he begged off.
Nothing had come of the incident, and neither of them had so much as mentioned it since.
Fran smiled warmly at him and said. "You don't look well, Richard. You've been working too hard."
"Maybe."
"You look tense."
He shrugged. "I've been operating on a stiff schedule all year long."
"Any vacation soon?"
"In the Fall."
"If you live that long."
"I look that bad to you, Fran?"
"Well, not really. But I can see that you're tied up in some kind of emotional knot inside. Since I started analysis, I've become much more perceptive at detecting other people's troubles. And I can see trouble all over your face, Richard."
"So you think I've got some conflict, eh?"
"Absolutely, Perhaps some trouble with Susan-"
He shook his head. "Susan and I are as close together as we ever were."
"Well, whatever it is, Richard, I'd like to suggest that you see an analyst, just talk to him. I know you have your pride, that you can't easily admit you need help, but all the same, you'll be amazed at what a relief it all can be."
Montgomery nodded and went to work on his drink and they joined the others. He was annoyed at Fran Evans.
He had no plans to throw himself into an analyst's clutches. But he had to find some way of coming to terms with the conflicts that plagued him these days. They were growing more intense.
The party was getting mellow now. All of them sat around drinking and nibbling snacks and talking and laughing, and at times dancing, and Montgomery found himself relaxing almost completely.
Someone started the idea of taking a swim. He had gone back to the bar for another martini, and when he returned everyone was giggling and talking at once. There was a pool in the private back yard.
"Should I get some bathing suits down?" Elaine Sorenson asked.
"Why bother?" Arlene Smyth said. "We can swim in our undies."
CHAPTER ONE
"And get them all wet?" Fran asked.
"Well, we can take them off too," Cathleen King remarked.
Everybody was at least two and a half sheets to the wind, and the idea was spreading. Montgomery, who was holding his liquor with his usual skill, glanced warily at Susan as if to find out if she wanted to get mixed up in this. To his surprise, he found Susan grinning and applauding the idea.
"I'm going to be the first!" Andrea Ryan cried and she was wiggling out of her dress. Suddenly, all laughter stopped, and all eyes turned on Andrea as she continued undressing.
The situation was suddenly tense. Andrea looked around, a little taken aback by the attention, "Well, am I going to be the only one?"
Someone shouted, "We'll follow, go on."
She had stopped when she was down to her bra, panties, and stockings. Now, with a kind of frenzied haste, she pulled them off and stood for a moment naked.
To see he nakedness of a friend of some years standing is always a surprise. Montgomery had seen Andrea while surf bathing, and in gowns, but never nude. He studied her now with a critical eye, noticing oddly that her left breast was a trifle larger than the right one, noticing the marks that her underwear had left on her hips and thighs.
Then she turned and ran down the path to the pool, buttocks juggling. She mounted the diving-board and leaped high in the air, landing legs-first with a splash that resounded alarmingly.
After that, the rush to the pool became a spree of relaxed tensions. Fran Evans was the next to strip, her body lean and taut, with large breasts and long lovely legs. Gerald King was the first man in the pool, his strong body flat and athletic, and then Arlene Smyth was making a dash for the modesty of the water, her heavy breast bobbing up and down. The Sorensons dove in together. John, big and heavy-muscled. Elaine-slim, flat-buttocked-and then Montgomery found himself naked and heading for the pool, and a moment later Eric Smyth leaped in behind him.
A muscle in Montgomery's cheek pulsed as he watched Susan naked and lovely-looking in her slim-bodied delicacy trot to the pool and dive in, and after her came Cathleen King, her stunning breasts looking a trifle sloppy in the absence of her bra, and Dennis Ryan with belly-whopper and finally Bruce Evans was in.
The twelve of them splashed around for a few minutes. Suddenly, Montgomery looked around and he could see the expressions beginning to appear on his friends' faces, as though they were one by one beginning to wonder what madness had hit them.
Cathleen King was the first to climb out, seized a towel and held it clumsily, covering her breasts but accidentally leaving her buttocks bare and she walked back to where she had left her clothes. But the effect of the water was a sobering one drying off. Only Fran Evans, serenely breast-stroking up and down, seemed to be enjoying her nudity. The rest, Montgomery included, seemed ashamed of the wild impulse to which they had given way.
Montgomery left the pool. Andrea Ryan stood near the edge, drying off, and she handed him her towel with a quite casual gesture. Naked, she walked back to the group of chairs. Montgomery dried himself and helped Susan from the water.
Susan looked shocked. Montgomery grinned at her.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"It was like a dream," she said. "All of us sitting around and then running naked into the pool like that-" She shook her head. "I wish it hadn't happened, Richard."
"Why?"
"It's-dangerous," she said. "Once a group of good friends breaks down inhibitions this way, pretty soon it's a trip to the divorce mills for all."
Richard patted her bottom. "Don't be alarmed, everybody was shocked by it. Get your clothes back on before I rape you in front of everybody."
"You wouldn't!"
"When I get aroused I'm uncontrollable, you ought to know by now."
"Dry my shoulders and stop bragging," Susan laughed back.
Within fifteen minutes, everyone was fully clothed again. Montgomery's mind was full of thoughts of the nakedness of Andrea and Fran and Arlene and Elaine and Cathleen and he was certain that every one else was remembering, comparing, evaluating, criticizing-
"We'll do it more often," Andrea Ryan said.
"Well!" Cathleen King said, "That was certainly refreshing!"
"Only next time we'll bring our swimming suits," Arlene Smyth said.
"Oh. don't be an old prude." Andrea shot at her. "It's so much more fun in the raw!"
John Sorenson shook his head. "I think I agree with Arlene. Just as a simple matter of self-preservation."
"Better explain that, John," Eric Smyth said.
"I've got a lot of privacy back here, but just suppose a policeman who came along to tell me there'd been an accident or trouble out front, and could he use the phone?
Picture it when he found us naked in the yard.
"We could tell him we were nudists," Andrea suggested smiling at herself.
"You need a license for any mixed nudism in this state," Bruce Evans said, so John is right. We'd get into a hell of a thing if we were discovered."
"We'd be hauled off," Sorenson said.
"It would look just fine for us in the papers to get mixed up in a nude scandal. We'd be accused of wife-swapping orgies and all the rest of that stuff."
The thought was a direct one. So, with the incident half an hour in the past, it was starting to take on an almost unbearable quality.
Then the party began to fall apart. Everyone was uncomfortable, and embarrassed. Everyone wanted to leave.
It was after midnight when Montgomery and his wife left. They strolled down the quiet street toward their house without talking.
The babysitter reported all well. Montgomery paid her and walked her back to her own house. When he returned, Susan was undressed standing nude in front of the bedroom mirror and towelling her hair.
"A little wet yet," she said.
He shook his head. "That was the damndest sight Susan, the damndest."
"Obviously we all wanted to do it."
"A bunch of goggle-eyed six-year-olds." He turned to her, ran his hands up her slim waist, caressed her high, pointed breasts. "It was bound to happen. After all the swapping jokes we've been making all these years. The restraints just gave way."
"So long as we didn't, just went swimming." Susan said. "Let's go to bed, Richard.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BY THE NEXT MORNING SUSAN KNEW OF the cancelled trip.
"All right. I just didn't want you to feel you had to sacrifice that chance on account of little old virgin me," she laughed.
"I don't."
"I love you," she said with a grin. "Come here and give me a kiss. Then get to work on the mower."
"You're a slave driver, darling wife."
"You don't have to do the grass cutting," Susan said. "I'll have Hy do it. He says he'll do anything if I'll only climb under his sheets."
"Very funny," Montgomery said.
He kissed her in a passionless way and went outside. Two days passed and on Sunday Susan and he read papers and listened to records when suddenly her hands roamed his body, caressing him, arousing him. With amusement he realized that she was re-enacting the first time they had ever slept together, over nine years ago. That too, had been on a couch, with a record playing on the phonograph. It was their second date, and they had gone to the opera. They were in such a mood that Montgomery suggested going to his apartment and playing records of the opera afterward, and Susan had accepted. It had been a warm, rainy night in Spring and he had picked up a bottle of wine on the way, and they had been drinking and necking and listening to the records and then he had found himself unbuttoning her blouse to squeeze her breasts, and then she was touching him, and before many more minutes had elapsed it had become apparent to them both that this was no mere petting going on, but that it was going to go all the way.
It went all the way, there on the couch, and to their mutual surprise it was as close to perfection as the first time ever is. Montgomery had decided right then and there that he was going to marry her.
Now, he realized, it was another similar night. They had no wine, and a decade had gone by, generally a damned fine decade. It was the same music and the same weather and the same girl, and she had hardly changed at all in those years.
How? Where? Did I go wrong, he wondered.
I never wanted to be unfaithful to her. I loved her. I love her. I love her. So how did I get mixed up with whores and fat businessmen."
He knew how it had happened. Partly out of his desire j to give Susan the best of material comforts, he knew. And partly-this hurt-partly out of his own hidden core of selfishness, of lustfulness, of goatishness. No one had twisted his arm to get involved with call-girls. Don Shipman hadn't hypnotized him into becoming a pimp for the company. In the final analysis, he had done it because he wanted to.
He held Susan tight. She had put on a bathrobe after an after-dinner shower, and there was nothing on underneath it, and he pulled on the belt and opened the bathrobe's flaps, and there was her body, slender and sweet-smelling, the round breasts puckering stiffly at the nipple, the belly soft but firm, its base offering excitement. He caressed the satin-thighs, and she began to breathe deeper.
Her eyes were open, shining with love and pleasure and memories. She pulled him down and kissed him, and he cupped her warm breasts, filling his hands and then she was opening his clothing. He slid up to her with ease and there he found the warm soft wonder of her surrounding him, and they began to move, gently, the music providing rhythm, and her lips sweet against his mouth, and he wondered about what the kids would think if they chose this minute to wake up and troop downstairs, and he decided to forget all about that thought. His hands went under Susan, and he squeezed tight and lifted her toward him.
Then it was happening, the upward welling of their passions. Richard gripped her breasts and closed his eyes and the moment took him, and he knew it was taking her, too.
For a long time after it was over they remained hard breathing, and silent on the couch. Then Susan kissed him and whispered, "Remember the first time?"
"How could I ever forget?"
"All we're missing is the wine."
"I could get some," he said.
"No. No. Stay here. We don't need it now. The wine was before, remember? To break down my inhibitions, or something."
"Did you ever have inhibitions?" he asked.
"Once upon a time. But you wouldn't know about them."
"No. I never had the pleasure of meeting your inhibitions."
"I wouldn't want you to." she said.
All passion spent, now, they went to bed. Montgomery felt somehow rejuvenated.
* * *
He left earlier than usual the next morning getting to his desk before ten. Around him, Shipman Films Industries had come to throbbing life, but he was still bemused by that magical hour on the couch with his wife.
It didn't take long for the mood to shatter though.
Don Shipman called him shortly after ten. Shipman was in an expansive, jovial mood. After rambling on for a few minutes about the company's progress, he said, "And how's the old constitution holding out, boy?"
"No ulcers yet Don."
"That's good. That's damn good. Because I want you to give your all for dear old Shipman this week."
"Like how?"
Shipman said, "Got a wire from the Best International Agency last night. They liked our proposal for the documentary job. They liked it so much they're sending some men in to look over our crews. They're planning to spend all day Thursday and Friday in town."
Montgomery reached automatically for his memo pad. "How many of them coming in?"
"At least two, maybe three."
"That's fine," Montgomery said. "How am I supposed to-"
"Make all the arrangements for three. If only two show up, send the extra girl home and tell her she'll be paid for the evening anyway. Can't afford to be cheap with a ten million-buck contract."
"All right," Montgomery said. "What motel?"
"I'm not sure about that either yet. We'll be getting the details tomorrow. You just arrange for three-no, four girls, and dinner, and I'll fill you in with the rest as soon as I know it."
"What about a show?"
"These guys don't care for the theater," Shipman said. "They're simple types. A good meal and a good time in bed, that's what they want. Puts them in the right mood for negotiating. Okay, boy. It's all in your capable hands, now. I know you'll give us everything you've got."
"Oh sure," Montgomery said.
He put down the phone.
He walked to the window, stared out at the houses across the street.
On his way to the office this morning, he had made all sorts of lofty resolutions. He was going to cut out the call-girls routines. He was going to tell Don Shipman off.
He couldn't.
There was the thought of explaining to Susan why he would have requested a demotion and a pay cut. There was the thought of giving up his position of responsibility, such that it was. There was the thought of letting Don Shipman .down. There was the thought of stock options.
He couldn't break loose.
Not yet.
He stood by the window a long time, thinking, fighting for inner strength. When he finally turned away, he had arrived at a compromise that would let him retain his job and restore at least some of his integrity.
He would make a slight change in-the entertainment method of operation.
From now on he thought he would no longer stay around for the orgies. He would hire a girl only to accompany him on dates with the clients, and then when they go back to a hotel room with the client, Richard would sit around and have a party for a while, and then later on he and his date would politely get out, leaving the client and his girl to do whatever they damned pleased.
Nobody should object to this. The client would be wined and dined, flattered and laid. The client wouldn't object, unless-like Roger Lumbold-he was the kind who got a special kick out of making love with an audience. Well, they'd have to forego that special kick. They'd be getting enough kicks besides.
From the moment he made his decision, Montgomery began feeling better.
I've had a fling for the last year. Now I'll get back to sanity. I'll try to earn Susan's love, he thought.
But the test would come Wednesday night, when he was actually in the room with the call-girls and the clients. If he could actually pick himself up at twelve o'clock and bid everybody a cheery goodnight, he'd have reason to be proud of himself for breaking the habit.
Richard shrugged and dialed Carol. She sounded sleepy and mean, but Montgomery managed to make the arrangements with her. Four girls for Wednesday night.
"Which one's for you?" Carol asked.
Montgomery thought for a moment. In the past, he had slept with Kate, Terry, and Pat. He had used Rhoda a couple of times, but she had always been assigned to the client, never to him. It was better to pick her than any of the others. It would be too easy to be tempted by the others, because he remembered their individual skills and assets.
"Rhoda," he said. "I'll phone you tomorrow to let you know what hotel and what time."
"Okay, sweetheart."
He skipped through the rest of the day with the greatest of ease. Lunch-with a writer. It certainly was an easy afternoon. He was in a cheerful, relaxed mood, pleased with himself for having turned over a new leaf. The leaf was not fully turned, yet, he realized, but at least he was moving in the right direction, at last.
He left the office about twenty of five. It was a beautiful afternoon, bright and sunny. He almost felt like singing.
He pulled the car into his garage soon after and ran smiling into the house.
"Susan! Susan, honey."
Susan came out. She tried to force a smile. But her face was troubled, and there was redness in her eyes which she dabbed with her handkerchief.
Richard knew something had happened, probably a beaut.
CHAPTER NINE
'OH, COME ON WHAT'S THE MATTER Susan?
They sat own facing each other in the living room. Susan took a long, deep mouthful of the martini, and said, "Hy phoned again this afternoon."
"And?"
"He told me you'd be working late on Wednesday night, and he tried to visit me around nine o'clock that evening."
Montgomery moistened his lips. "What did you tell him?"
"I told him he couldn't, of course. He was very hurt, he asked me why. I told him I loved my husband, that I didn't think he was very much of a person to be working to seduce the wife of a needed employee."
Susan paused.
"Go ahead," Montgomery said.
She took another drink. "He-he was insistent. He kept telling me it wouldn't do any harm to sleep with him, that he couldn't understand why I had to be so obstinate about such a trivial thing as being unfaithful to you. He said you were unfaithful to me two or three times a week."
Susan's quiet, expressionless words ripped their way into Montgomery. But he made a quick recovery.
"He said that, did he the louse?"
Susan nodded. "That's exactly what he said. That you were unfaithful two or three times a week. I lost my temper and hung up on him, but he called back. I said I'd hang up again, and he said no, listen to him for another few moments. "So I listened to the whole story from beginning to end."
"The bastard," Montgomery said quietly. "That fat bastard."
"I listened to all this," Susan said, "and then I told him that if he called back again after I hung up I was going to get in touch with the police and accuse him of molesting me. But he warned me that that was dangerous, because there were so many ways he could hurt you. I hung up anyway and he didn't phone again."
"What time was it then?"
"Around three o'clock today."
Montgomery scowled. "The filthy toad. He couldn't get to you any other way, so he had to go trying to pour mud all over me." He stared into nowhere, realizing bleakly that he had failed completely to anticipate this stab in the back. Hy had been unable to pack him off to Mexico, so he had resorted to this.
Susan said, "Is it possible? That a man would want another man's wife so badly he could tell filthy lies that way?"
"Anything's possible, Susan."
Susan, pale and red-eyed said, "You know something?
For a while I almost believed him, about the way you meet the girls in the lobbies and all. And calling them by their first names, it's all a lie, isn't it, Richard?
He did not answer.
For the first time, she seemed to become alarmed. "Isn't it, Richard?"
His head throbbed. He didn't know what to say, what to do.
Some middle way had to be found.
Montgomery said haltingly, "Susan, there-are girls you should-"
Wide startled eyes looking at him.
"Richard-"
Stubbornly, he forced himself to construct the lie. "Hy was distorting it, twisting it to serve his own purposes of course."
"I don't understand."
"What I mean--what I'm trying to say-is that we do use girls to entertain the clients.
Call girls. Terry and Janet and Pat and a lot of others. He wasn't making that part up.
But-" He compelled himself to go on. "But the rest of it is a lot of manure."
Susan said, reproachfully, "You never told me there were girls along, Richard. You just said you and clients went out for drinks and a show."
He shrugged. "I didn't know how to tell you. At first I hid it because I thought you'd object and make me give up the job, and after a while I hid it just because I had been hiding it so long."
"You could have been honest with me, Richard. I always thought you were honest with me about everything."
"I was. Am. But-don't you see, Susan, how tough it is to tell your wife that you spend your evenings in the city squiring around glamorous leggy call-girls?
"You big stupe, haven't I told you I have faith in you? Since when do you need to keep secrets from me?"
He felt uncomfortable, now that he realized she was swallowing his lie. "I didn't know. I guess I didn't think you trusted me as much as you did. Who ever expected Hy to fee you a bunch of garbage."
"He wanted to hurt us."
"I could kill him," Montgomery said.
Susan shook her head. "Don't. Don't make a fuss. Just let him see that we're still living together, that I didn't take his accusations seriously. He'll get the idea soon enough that no poisonous lies can shake my faith in you, then.
"I love you."
"Always, I hope."
"Always."
She leaned forward, gave him a martini-tasting kiss, grinned at him in her old elfish way. The tension was starting to ebb from her face. Montgomery glanced past her, saw the kids peering around a doorway to look at them kissing.
"I'd better get supper on the table," she said. "The children must be famished."
"But if I didn't have to get a meal out," she whispered. "You know what I'd be doing now? Right here on this couch? To show you how much I believe those stories of you and call-girls named Terry?"
He managed a smile. "Later, there's always later for us."
Susan nodded and went into the kitchen, carrying the empty glasses. Montgomery turned away, restless and tense, and wandered into the study to pace up and down.
He wondered whether he had accomplished anything by telling the lie.
Susan might reasonably have grounds for further suspicion, now. Her faith was strong, yes. But she was not a total fool. Having been told flatly that he had concealed something from her, she might go on to investigate and to find out more.
"Soup's on!" Susan called.
He made his way toward the dining room, trying to hide his inner tensions. It was a losing struggle. He was convinced that Susan could see right through him.
Images mocked him as he walked. The girls he had slept with and denied. Naked, they circled around him now, jeering silently, leaping up an down, their tongues out, their breasts bobbing. Terry, lithe, nude and dark haired, with her hands at her stomach making obscene gestures. Kate, big-busted and cream-skinned, bending over to wiggle her rump at him. Pat waggling her stiff-nippled breasts an inch from his face.
And all the others charged him as naked, cavorting sights, assuming suggestive poses laughing, teasing and tormenting him. A big blonde whose name he had forgotten pranced up, howling like an animal, caressing herself, then whirling around, jabbing an imaginary weapon into his body.
Then a willowy blonde he had made it with on a winter night showed up, a blade in her hand and her fingers went to the base of his belly, seeking his maleness, holding it aloft for the other nude visions to see and-
He paused, leaning against the wall.
I'm going nuts, he thought. Maybe Fran's right, maybe I ought to go to an analyst.
"I called you a minute and a half ago!" Susan said sweetly. "Didn't you hear me, Richard?
"I'm coming dear," he said.
He straightened up, gesturing at his own bad thoughts and he shook his head to clear it. He had nightmares before, but never while awake.
He made another effort to pull himself together and went into the dining room.
The children were already seated. Montgomery took his seat at the head of his family.
Damn Hy Shipman to eternal misery, he thought.
Richard knew his anger was misplaced. It wasn't Hy who deserved the brunt of it. It was himself. Hy was a conniver who was trying to capitalize on Montgomery's vulnerable spots, but the fault for this lay with Montgomery, not with Hy, and he knew this much.
Susan brought the soup and sat down.
Montgomery said, "Incidentally, one thing he told you was right. I will be working late on Wednesday night."
"Entertaining?"
He nodded. "Two or three slobs, the usual routine, plenty of booze and some sex. I ordered the girls this afternoon."
"Like ordering a pound of roast beef?"
"Pretty much. Pat, Terry, Kate, and Rhoda. Rhoda s going to be my date. You don't mind, do you, darling?"
She smiled. "Of course not. It's all a job, isn't it?"
"That's right, pretend your husband is a gynecologist earning his bread groping around in at females private organs. Well, this is my job, so I'll be having dinner with Rhoda. I'll try to be home by midnight, though."
"What happens to Rhoda at that time dear?"
"Rhoda can either stay and join the fun, or she can go home early when I leave. Most of them prefer to check out. They get paid the same whether they spend the night or leave at midnight, and they'd rather get the sleep than a workout."
Susan shook her head. "Is all business conducted this way, Richard? With drinks and free girls?"
"A lot of it," he said. "It's nothing new. It's just that it's become routine."
"Your food's getting hot dear," Susan said with a smile.
CHAPTER TEN
MONTGOMERY FOUND HIMSELF IN A BAD mood until Tuesday. The night before, he and Susan had patched up the feud of ideas, and the evening had ended in making love again, and made it with a mutual desire.
But what was behind the smiles he received.
Richard worried about that. The doubt had been put there so he was vulnerable. And this time there would be no forgiveness from Susan. Hypocrisy on top of hypocrisy was too much. He hadn't used his chance to make a clean break of things, and now if she found out that he had even lied about his lies, he knew that was the end.
He threw himself into his job with fury. The work was like a drug, allowing him to forget the foolish heights over which he was hanging. He ripped through the morning press, handouts and releases, quarreling with all the mistakes and with terminology, even with the crookedness of the typewriter. For the first time in a long while, he treated his work as though it meant something, instead of being simply a passing fancy between clients and whores.
He was careful not to go anywhere near Hy Shipman's office. And he gave his secretary orders to take all calls and to tell Hy, if he phoned, that he was tied up and would call him back some time later on. He was afraid that if he came face-to-face with Hy, there would be a fight. Richard harped on that idea very long.
Although I shouldn't be too rough on Hy, Montgomery thought. He's just out for himself, but he didn't tell Susan any lies. He was just using my wounds to help his own case. A bastard, but I left myself wide open for him to try, didn't I.
Steadily and faster Richard worked on. Before noon, he went down the hall for a five-minute conference with the boys in the pressroom. As he came back into his office, Randy was just hanging up her phone and she looked up.
"Oh. Mr. Montgomery."
"Did somebody phone me," he asked.
The girl nodded. "A Miss Carol."
"I told you I was coming right back. Couldn't you have her hold the phone for a moment"
Randy said, "She was in a big hurry. I had her wait a minute or two and then she said she had to go out, that she wouldn't be back until three this afternoon. And she hung up on me. I'm sorry, Mr. Montgomery."
"All right. All right." He jotted a note on his memo pad: Call Carol after three. "Did she tell you anything?"
"Yes, she did Mr. Montgomery."
Montgomery looked impatient, "Well, let's not play games, Randy."
The girl smiled. "She told me to tell you that Pat is sick and won't be available tomorrow night. She's got a girl named Ann who could go instead. Ann's in the catalog. Carol wants you to call her back after three and tell her if Ann's okay. If you want to make some other arrangements for the fourth girl she'd like to know.
Montgomery stared at his secretary. All these months, he had been trying to pretend to himself that Randy didn't really know what was going on. The calm recital of names and facts just now indicated that Randy had a knowledge of the entire deal. He had come to think of her as being a part of the office walls.
He went to the file cabinet an took out Carol's catalog, turning the pages of glossy unretouched full-color nudes until he came to Ann. Ann was a girl he had never used before. She was short with Auburn hair and large breasts. They looked like they had been intended for a girl of amazon size, and then somehow misplaced on Ann.
Well, she would do, anyway. She had a good face and nice legs, and maybe the man she'd be with would be the kind who liked her out-of-size-big boobs and a somewhat overgenerous rump. At this stage in the game he couldn't be picky about the available quail.
He put the photo away.
Twenty minutes to lunch time, now. He had a lunch date with an executive of a big firm that was considering taking on Shipman as a packager. Montgomery hadn't ever met Mr. Hall, but the advance word was that he was a crab, and would need special coddling because he was so miserable.
The phone rang again.
Randy picked it up and said sweetly. "Mr. Montgomery's office, hello. Oh, yes, I'll tell him. Just one moment, I'll check with him. Hold on, please."
She cut off the phone and glanced across the room at him. "Mr. Montgomery?"
"Who is it?"
"Mr. Halls' secretary. It seems Mrs. Hall was taken sick suddenly around an hour ago, and Mr. Hall had to go home. He won't be able to keep his lunch date with you for this afternoon."
"All right."
"His secretary wants to know if Friday will be okay, same time."
"Am I free for lunch on Friday?"
"So far."
Montgomery shrugged. "Okay. Make it for Friday."
He turned back to his work, while in the background he could hear Randy efficiently setting up the lunch date. He wondered whether Hall was really home tending a suddenly sick wife, or whether there was some other reason for breaking the date. Well, no matter. He'd have a quiet lunch by himself, or with Albee across the hall. Nothing elaborate, just a sandwich and coffee, for a change of pace.
Five minutes went by. Then Randy said, "Mr. Montgomery?"
He looked up. The phone hadn't rung. She didn't often talk to him.
"Yes, Randy?"
Randy moistened her lips. She seemed tense, ill at ease. She said, "You-you aren't eating lunch with anyone today."
"That's right. Maybe I'll ring up Albee and we'll go across the street-"
"Oh, no-"
"What's that?"
"I mean-I wish-" She hesitated, obviously confused and embarrassed, and made a visible attempt at pulling herself together. Montgomery said nothing. After a long, awkward moment Randy said, in her old self-assured professional voice, "Mr. Montgomery, I've been your secretary for seven or eight months now."
"That's right."
"I've never eaten lunch with you. Not once. Mr. Shipman takes his secretary to lunch now and then. So does Mr. Sholtan and the others. But you-"
"I've been treating you too coldly?" he asked, with a faint smile.
"Well, yes," she said, all shook up. "I mean, I don't want to sound forward or anything, Mr. Montgomery, but as long as I spoke up I might as well finish my mouth off. It seemed to me that after Hall broke his date you could have said, okay, Randy, let's you and me go out to lunch instead. But you didn't. Don't you like me, Mr. Montgomery? There are times I get the feeling you don't notice me and don't look at me. I'm not so hard to look at, am I?"
He smiled. "No, you certainly aren't."
It was the truth. By anybody's standards, she was a tremendously attractive girl. He looked her over. She was about twenty-three, and had light golden hair hanging from her forehead. A clinging red dress that molded and outlined the big hills of her breasts. It wasn't hard to visualize the supple body underneath the fabric, as well as the strong thighs, and wide hips around the firm buttocks.
Randy was a girl who liked the physical pleasures of lovemaking. He had ample evidence of that from the testimony of other men around the office who had had her. And yet he had always treated her as a piece of bric-a-brac. There had been no warmth between them. He didn't even know where she lived.
'What a lousy way to treat a pretty gal, Richard thought. "All right," he said. "Let's have lunch together, Randy."
"No, I wouldn't want you to take me just because I asked you."
"But I want to."
"You never asked me did you?"
"I'm asking now. Will you do me the honor of accompanying me for lunch?"
Randy grinned, "I'm not sure now."
"Playing hard to get?"
"Why not?"
"Should I get down on my hands and knees and. beg you?"
"Don't do that, Mr. Montgomery. You'll spoil your good suit."
"Then say yes."
"Yes," she said laughing.
It was twelve o'clock now. Montgomery was amused by the way she had pushed him into the invitation. Well, it couldn't do any harm to get on friendly terms with his own secretary. After all, he wasn't making a play for her, just taking her to dine. No need to be unnatural. It would be a test of his own new resolutions, he thought. All he had to say to Randy was, "I'd like to go to bed with you," and she'd be available, anytime. He hadn't said those words so far, and much as it probably miffed Randy, he wasn't going to say them.
Not to anybody else but his wife.
At noon Richard said, "Ready Randy?"
"Ready, Mr. Montgomery."
"Call me Richard till we get back to the office."
"All right," she said with a grin. "Richard it is."
He had considered a complicated arrangement so they would not be seen leaving the building together, but a moment s thought made him see that the whole thing was unnecessary. Why should he care if someone saw him taking his secretary to lunch? Everybody did it around here. Even if Hy Shipman saw, and reported it ghoulishly to Susan, he didn't care. His conscience was clear, at least so far as his relationship with Randy was concerned, and he didn't think it would upset Susan to learn that he was taking his own secretary to some brunch.
He hailed a cab and they rode across town to one of the restaurants where he usually ate. No sense taking her to a hamburger joint, he thought. And going to one of the places right near the office was just inviting all company gossips to explore further.
They settled into a secluded table. The waiter gave Montgomery his usual greeting, smiled approvingly at his bosomy lunch date and said, "Will it be drinks for two, M'sieu Montgomery?"
Montgomery glanced at Randy, who nodded approval. "For two," Montgomery told the waiter. "Extra dry."
Soon they sipped the manhattans. Randy kept smiling mischievously at Montgomery across the table. He looked at her in open appraisal. A hell of a lot of pretty girl, he thought. A damned shame she thought her proper goal in life was to run around offering her body to the boss or his associates.
"Can I ask a personal question, Randy?"
"Maybe I won't answer, but you can ask me."
"Fair enough, how old are you?"
"I'll be twenty-two in February."
"You never thought of a lot of other things, too, Richard."
Richard reddened, "another question then?"
"Go ahead boss man."
"How come you're single?"
"Maybe I like it that way Richard."
"Do you, really now?"
Randy shrugged. "Girls aren't all alike, Richard. I'm not the domestic type. I suppose I'll get married some day, but when I'm good and ready. First I want to have my fling at life and love."
"I'm gathering that alright!" he said.
"I must shock you terribly, Richard."
"Why, what makes you think so?"
"Because you're the kind that divides all women into two classes. One class includes women like Mrs. Montgomery-women you marry and go on sleeping with, but who mustn't sleep with anybody else but you. Then the other class consists of Carol's girls-girls you hire and go to bed with without feeling any guilt or emotions. But I'm a still an other class. I don't sell myself, so I must be a good kid, on the other hand, I'm not a virgin so I'm a "bad" one. I cut across your file.
"You must think I'm awfully naive, Randy."
"In some ways you are." She looked at him closely. "Why haven't you ever made a pass at me, for instance? It isn't because I'm ugly is it?"
He felt uncomfortable. "I never did because I don't like mixing business with pleasure."
"Oh? Come on now! Then what about Carol's girls? Isn't that mixing business with pleasure."
"In a way" he said. "But-that's different. It isn't like making a pass at you."
"You see?" she said, as if having won her point. "Your values are all confused. You don't mind being unfaithful to your wife, but only with a girl who's selling herself."
"How do you know I'm unfaithful to my wife?" he asked sharply.
Her smile was knowing. "Oh, please, Richard. I'm not an absolute ninny. Suppose you just hold hands with those girls you go out with,. I couldn't help overhearing certain conversations."
He scowled. "All right. All right big mouth."
"Well, then," she pressed, "don't you see the contradiction? You've worked out some kind of complicated rationalizations that tell you it isn't immoral to sleep with a call girl but it is immoral to sleep with me. And there I sit, looking at you and wishing-" She reddened. "I might as well tell you that I find you desirous Richard and that I find you one of he most masculine men I know. And that I've been suffering all these months because you were ignoring me."
Richard stared at her levelly, realizing that inside that neat little head there was a very well developed brain. A brain clever enough to see right through him, to pinpoint his crazy j philosophy of existence. Randy had him dead to rights, when she talked about his complicated rationalizations.
He said uncomfortably, "Okay, I plead guilty. I'm the kind of damned fool who slept with call-girls and blinded my eyes to the girl right in my own lap, and even the call-girls are out, now."
"I don't understand, Richard."
"I'm turning over a new frame. I had a long consultation with my guts this past seven days, saw the inept life and I m changing. From now on no more for me, or pretty f secretaries."
"What about your date for tomorrow night?"
He shrugged. "I'll have a call girl with me, of course,! just for appearances, I don't plan to lay a hand on her. Business is business, but I'm not going to get my sex life mixed up in it again."
"You're fooling yourself, Richard boy."
"Do you think so?"
"I'm sure of it. You just aren't built to resist temptation. And it isn't fair to the female sex to grant Mrs. Montgomery a monopoly on you."
"That's flattering, but I still intend to stick to my new wish."
She smiled in a peculiar bedroomy way. "Richard?"
"Mmm?"
"I have a suggestion."
"Go ahead."
"When you call Carol back this afternoon, tell her you don't want Ann."
"Why?"
"Take me as the fourth girl instead."
"You?"
"That's right. It'll save the company a hundred bucks, for one thing. And it'll give me an interesting night on the town. And a chance to see how you intend to stick to your resolutions."
He stared at her. "I couldn't take you, Randy."
"Why not? I'll go as your date. And we'll see how much you can resist me."
"Absolutely out, O-U-T."
"Why?" She said seductively. "Afraid of your will power or that maybe I can get you to give in, Richard? Afraid that when you see me in a low-cut cocktail gown you won't be able to say anything but yes?"
Now he felt light and tense. Randy's words cut deep. He said in a heavy voice, "You don't belong on that kind of an outing. You aren't a call girl, Randy. You shouldn't mix with them and pretend to be one."
"There you go again. Putting me up on your pedestal again. Don't you see that I'm just a healthy working girl who likes a little sex and who's frustrated as hell because her handsome boss won't make a play for her face, figure or anything?"
"I'm sorry," he said.
Randy pouted. "So am I Richard dear."
"The answer's still no for tomorrow night. I'm taking Ann."
The muscle throbbed in his temples. She's angry at me. But she's right. I don't trust myself. I don't dare get in a position where she could tempt me.
"You're being stubborn, Richard."
"Maybe so but that's it-".
"You can't give a poor little girl one night of fun?"
"I'm a married man, Randy."
"It's a little late in the day for saying that, isn't it?" she asked in a voice like melted poured sugar.
Richard winced and his anger soared. "I suppose I deserved that," he said after a moment. "But no, it isn't too late to stop riding the joy-wagon. I stopped as of this week end. You made your play for me a little too late, Randy, that's all."
She did not reply but went into action instead.
Randy put her shoeless foot against his instep. He felt the bare sole rubbing against him, and he made no moves.
If she wanted to play footsie with him he thought, let her grab her cheap thrills this way.
Then, abruptly, she lifted her foot. He felt toes tracing a path upward past his knee. Abruptly she had her foot between his knees, arousing him. He let the foot stay there for some four or five seconds, while his heart began to pump faster.
Then, angrily, he shoved the foot away.
"I should throw you out for a stunt like that.!" he snapped.
"If you want to, go ahead, big, big boy."
He was breathing hard, and his shirt was pasted to him now. "Don't ever do that again," he stuttered. "And don't play any more of these little games of yours. I'm all done with cheating on Susan. I'm trying to hold my marriage together, and I'm damned if I'll let you smash it. If you've got an itch, get somebody to scratch it, I'm not available to do it."
Randy eyed him steadily and her face was very pale now.
I can't-help it, he thought. She can't have me, that's all there is to it. He realized he was trembling with his inner strife and rigidly controlled desire for this easily available girl. I won't let her do this to me. I can't give in so let her sulk all she wants. She's bound to forget her crush for me sooner or later.
"I'm sorry if I've hurt your pride, Randy," he then said.
"You're a lovely desirable girl, and under any other circumstances I wouldn't need any urging. Now, with a wife to consider that's something else again."
Her voice was bitter as she said, "You'd better order our coffee, Mr. Montgomery. We wouldn't want to be late getting back to the office."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
After that crying shame of an adventure with Randy, the afternoon stretched out warily before them.
Randy spoke to him only when she absolutely had to. The rest of the time, she remained behind her desk grimly working away. He could sense her hatred like a hot wall between them. Without looking up from his work, he could feel her eyes on him. He couldn't blame Randy for being furious. After months of silence, she had finally broken down and admitted she was hungry for him, and he had let her know that he had picked this weekend to reform. Maybe she didn't even believe him. Who knew and what the devil did it matter now.
He realized that he was going to have to get himself a new secretary and have Randy transferred to some other guy in the company. Too bad: she was a damned efficient secretary. But after that lunchtime imbroglio they could no longer go on sharing a single office. The unvoiced friction between them would go even further. She might go on trying to seduce him, making a contest out of this challenge, and sooner or later she would surely win. His resistance had never been very great and it was still being put to the test. Randy represented too big a threat to his willpower.
She would have to go elsewhere soon.
Wearily the afternoon ticked on. Outside the office he found himself looking past her when he had to speak to her. He could not bear to look into her eyes, to see the hatred mirrored therein.
Hell hath no fury like a Randy scorned, man that was true enough, Montgomery thought.
He wondered whether or not he was being a damned fool. After a dozen or more sprees what did it matter if he got into one more girl? It would have made her happy and avoided all this embarrassing friction.
He closed his eyes and he could visualize it clearly as if they were in the hotel suite with the clients, and it was after midnight and the party had reached that boozy stage The girls were mostly undressed, all but Randy, who didn't have the professional confidence of the others. He was in one corner, necking with her, his hand thrust into her blouse, and her bra was open, and he was squeezing the ripe warm' fullness of her breasts. Across the room Terry was stark naked and doing a suggestive dance, while Kate was letting one of the men pour whiskey over her bare body to the accompaniment of gales of hurrahs.
And then the couples were breaking up, and Montgomery found himself alone in one of the rooms of the suite with Randy, and they stared at each other for a long time tensely, the days of the office routine dropping away its inequality, two people about to join their desires.
Then he was taking her clothes off, garment by garment, and the breasts that had been hidden so long were bare to him now, big round hot mounds of flesh with nipples standing up erect, as were her taut hips bare, and full ripe buttocks of hers before him. She would smile as though to say You see, Mr. Richard Montgomery, there were all these goodies in front of you at the office and all you had to do was say "go." and look at all the fun you missed by not saying it.
Then she was lying on the bed naked, and he was standing above her, and she reached out and drew him down, and then they were close together, and her body warm against his, and he trembled with stiffness and let her engulf him, and she was rocking up and down back and forth, big breasts against his cheeks, soft body taut against him and down below, the warmth of her gripping him, quivering, giving pleasure, and all the time her big eyes open, amused, telling him that this was what he had been too stupid to see. His hands would be underneath her, bringing closer and then there was a simultaneous explosion in both of them going on forever more and then afterward they would dress and tiptoe out of the suite and he drove her to her apartment somewhere, and then went on home, home to Susan with the smell of Randy on his lips and the warmth of her on his body, and knowing now that he had indeed been a damned fool to pass her up, but that he could start making up for all the lost time right away if he just-
No, he suddenly thought as he opened his eyes, looked across the room, Randy was in profile to him, her face set in deadly concentration as she typed.
He eyed the contours of her breasts, pushing out against the fabric, and looked away hurriedly in a frenzy at this.
I mustn't give into her.
Richard mopped the sweat from his forehead. The daydream had been almost real. It almost seemed to him that he had actually been making love to Randy. He could feel the firmness of her breasts in his imagination again.
He was shaking all over.
I've got to stop this, he thought. I've got to fight back temptation. Or else I'm cooked.
Or else. He knew that once he started an affair with Randy, he was doomed. Randy wasn't a call girl who was busy every night, available only at a price. Randy was here all the time, available and wanting him. Once they began making it together, all he had to do was lock the office door and pull the blinds and walk over to her desk, and the next minute she d be lying on the carpet with her panties off and her skirt over her hips for sure. It would get to be a daily routine for them. A quickie in the morning, maybe and another in the afternoon too. And he'd start giving her cash money, and lots of gifts, and it wouldn't be long before Susan was in the divorce courts on his account.
Randy was too available, too easy to have. He didn't dare give way the first time, because after that there would be no fighting it.
It was quarter after three by now.
He picked up the phone, asked the switchboard operator for an outside line, dialed Carol's number.
"Hello?"
"Richard Montgomery here, honey chile."
"Oh, yeah. Missed you before. Who's the nice kid who answered?"
"She works here."
"Does she look as sexy as she sounds?"
"Better," Montgomery said. "Listen, about tomorrow night, Carol--"
"Yeah?"
Ann'll do. She doesn't look ideal, but I won't be too fussy with that figure, she'll make it.
"The picture isn't a good one," Carol said.
"Oh skip the sales talk," Montgomery said. "I told you I'm hiring the girl. You sound like you're afraid I ll change my mind."
"Okay, Okay, big boy. I'll quit when I'm ahead."
"See you," Montgomery said.
He put the phone down and glanced across the room at Randy. She still wasn't looking at him. But her shoulders had slumped, a little, as though she had been inwardly hoping all afternoon that he would change his mind and ask her to go out with him Wednesday night. But now she heard the phone conversation and the last chance of that had vanished.
"Good night, Randy," he finally was saying.
"Good night, Mr. Montgomery," she tautly answered.
But he knew that if he had accepted her offer and let her become his mistress, it would have been the first step toward his downfall. He hadn't had any choice in the matter but to believe in what he said to her.
Nor did he have any choice now but to transfer her and get a new secretary, preferably a fat bag on her last leg. It was a step that had to be taken for his peace of mind and for the r mutual benefit as protection from each other. Richard thought. To protect him from her on one hand, and to protect him from himself eventually.
Richard came into the office early on Wednesday. He Had hardly thought about Randy overnight. There had been Susan, and his kids, and her good dinner and a good program on TV, which made all tensions drain away.
He felt that he was on the road toward climbing out of his recent confusions. Turning Randy down was a step in the right direction. Tonight when he was mixing it up with Carol's girls again, he'd have another test of his new strength. If he could manage to avoid temptation again, he could start thinking that perhaps he had really accomplished something, that he was on his way to conquering the weakness in him.
That he would once again be a decent husband to Susan.
He was tense and apprehensive about tonight. All those girls, and two of them girls he had been to bed with.
Would he be able to withstand the temptations, when the booze got low in the bottles and the clothes started to come of? He thought about Rhoda. A sexy redhead with long legs and a firm body. Suppose she felt like making it, tonight? Suppose she got her hands inside his clothes and started something-.
He shook his head to ward off the thoughts.
The thing to do is get things clear with her right at the start. Tell her that she's just coming along for a date and a drink and that she wasn't going to go to bed with him or even do any heavy petting. Maybe just telling her the straight story would make everything okay. A girl like that likes a little vacation from too much sexing.
He nodded and told himself he'd manage. Susan could be proud of him then. He was making the biggest damn effort of his life. He didn't want anything for it, just Susan's continuing love.
He took care of the most pressing matters on his desk, and walked down the long hall to the office of Timothy Selden, Shipman's Director.
Selden, a genial man of fifty, leaned forward and said, "What can I do for you, Richard?"
"I'd like you to find me a new secretary."
Selden frowned. "What's the matter? Randy's quitting?"
"No, nothing like that. I'd-I'd just like you to transfer her." Montgomery smiled uncomfortably. "We-we don't function together, Tim. There's a kind of antagonism starting to develop between us, and I'd like to transfer her before it breaks into the open."
"Well, okay, if you say so. But she's one of the finest girls on the staff. Not to mention one of the prettiest."
"I know that. That's why the transfer."
"Oh?"
"Tim, she's too much of a temptation. I want you to get me a mousy secretary! I won't make any bones about it. The truth is if she stays with me any more I'll have to make a pass at her. And I don't want to. I'm trying hard as hell to be a good husband."
"I understand, Richard," Selden said quietly. "Okay. I'll find Randy a job somewhere in another division. With a pay boost to sweeten the blow. Make it seem like a promotion, so she won't get the idea you're dumping her. We don't like resentful people around here."
"You're a wonder, Tim."
He shrugged. "I get paid to get maximum value out of the help, Richard. Obviously you can't work at full efficiency if you've got to fight off the urge to seduce your secretary half the day. And she can't be efficient either if she spends her time wondering how to get you into the sack. I'll take care of it. Richard."
"Thanks," he said as he left the office.
Montgomery returned to his desk, feeling that a load had been lifted from his shoulders. He was going to miss having Randy around, with her well-filled sweaters and her toothpaste-ad smile. But a tremendous sexual tension would be relieved from both of them. As it was, they both had to strain to keep from plunging into each other's arms.
An hour later, the office phone rang. Randy picked it up, spoke briefly into it, and then put it down.
She said to him, in the crisp, emotionless voice she had been using since lunchtime yesterday, "That was Mr. Selden, Mr. Montgomery. He'd like to see me. Do you need me just now?"
"No, Randy. Go see what he wants."
She was gone a long time. Montgomery fidgeted tensely wondering what was taking so long, what Randy might be N telling Selden, what Selden might be telling her.
It was almost lunchtime when she returned. Montgomery had a lunch date with a freelance writer who wanted to do a feature on Shipman, and he was getting ready to leave when Randy returned to the office.
Her eyes looked red, as though she'd been crying. But her face was deadly pale.
She looked at him balefully and said, "You're getting a new secretary."
"How'd that happen?"
"Don't pretend you don't know," she snapped. "Selden claimed you had nothing to do with it, but I know you just wanted to get rid of me." In her anger, her breasts rose and fell rapidly under her sweater, and Montgomery felt a wildly irrational desire to launch himself from his desk, grab those big breasts, throw her down on the carpet, pull her panties off-
He said as calmly as he could. "They aren't letting you go, are they."
"No, of course not, just being transferred. I'm getting a raise of $10 a week. Isn't that nice? And you're getting a new secretary. Dorothy Carr. You ever see her? One ton square." Her glare was defiant. Montgomery fidgeted, realizing that once again Randy had seen through him. His little maneuver was totally transparent to her.
"Randy-"
"Skip it. You did the smartest thing. We couldn't go on in this office after yesterday."
"I'm glad you see that."
"Sure I see that. I also see that you think you're too good for me. You wouldn't touch me. You must think I've got V.D. or something. I-"
"Randy!"
She got control of herself. "All right, Mr. Montgomery. For the next two and a half days I'm your secretary. And you'd better hurry, now. You've got a lunch date with that magazine fellow, remember?"
He nodded and walked toward the door.
She glanced at him. There was bitter hatred in her eyes. Right then, he feared her. He had never been hated by a person before, not to this extent.
Perhaps now she'd try to hurt him back and it would be only fitting, but he was wishing she would not.
He got back to the office a little after two. To his surprise, Randy wasn't there. She was supposed to return from lunch at one o'clock, and she sometimes stayed away an extra five or ten minutes, but never longer than that. Was this her way of showing defiance? Her coat wasn't in the closet. She was more than an hour overdue. It was as though she were daring him to punish her for taking the extra-long lunch hour.
Shrugging, he settled down at his desk to do his chores. There were a couple of phone calls, and he took them himself. Fifteen minutes passed, and still no Randy. Has she walked out for good?
He wished that there hadn't been the necessity for this messy parting of the ways. She was efficient. But no. She couldn't suppress her desires any longer. So she had wangled the lunch date, and had spoken her mind, and had jammed her damn foot between his knees, and now he was getting a new secretary and Randy was an hour and a quarter late coming back from lunch, and maybe she was-
Maybe she had done something serious, he thought, like jumping under a truck. Who knew? She was nervous enough, suppose she was in love with me, he speculated.
Calling in the police, not yet, anyway. If she stayed out all day and tomorrow, it might be an idea to investigate. But not yet. She was a sensible girl. She wouldn't-
The phone rang.
He snatched at it avidly.
"Montgomery," he said.
"Richard, this is Fran. Fran Evans," the distant voice said.
Anxiety clutched at his head . "Fran? What's the matter? Why are you calling?" Fran lived across the street from the Montgomerys. A call from her could make him panicky.
She said, her voice still thin and remote, "Can you come home, Richard?"
"Why? For what? What's happened?"
"Susan-"
"What about her?"
"She-she came over here about fifteen minutes ago, Richard. Said she was-leaving you. Going away somewhere. She asked me to take care of the kids till you got home. Gave me a note to give to you."
"Fran, are you serious?"
"I wouldn't joke, Richard. I'm here with your kids and mine-little Richard just got home from school-but I think you ought to come right home. Susan sounded all worked up. Richard, I never knew there was trouble between you two. If there's anything I can do to help-Susan was practically hysterical-"
Montgomery felt a cold fear in his gut. Susan was leaving? Running away! He was dazed.
He said in a shaky voice, "All right, Fran. I'll see if I can come home right now."
"Please do, Richard."
You, you don't want me to read her note, do you?"
Its sealed, Richard. I'd just as soon not find out what's in it. I-I don't want to butt in-"
"Okay. I'll be right home. Are the kids upset?"
"They don't know what's happened. They think Susan's out shopping."
'Okay. I'll leave as soon as possible. Thanks, Fran."
CHAPTER TWELVE
HE PACED HIS OFFICE FOR A WHILE, THEN picked the phone and asked to be connected with Don Shipman.
"What's on your mind, Richard?"
"Don, I-I've got to go home. There was just a call, Susan's been taken sick."
"Sorry to hear that."
"I've got to leave right now. There's a neighbor taking care of the kids, but-"
"Sure, Richard. You didn't need to ask me about something like this. An emergency comes up, you go home. You don't' need to punch any time clocks."
"But-" Montgomery hesitated. "I've got a date tonight. With those clients. And I won't be able to take care of it, now."
"Don't worry about it, Richard."
"We can't just stand them up."
"Listen," Shipman said, "we'll get somebody else. George or Bob, maybe I'll go myself. Just have Randy type up a memo about tonight, any information you think your replacement would need to know, and leave it on your desk. And then take off. Too bad about Susan. Something serious? Keep in touch."
Montgomery mumbled something and broke the contact.
There was no Randy to type memos for him. He rolled a sheet of paper into her typewriter and laboriously pecked out a note listing the names of the girls he had hired, the hotel, and a couple of general suggestions. He folded it, put it on his desk.
Half past two, now. Tension cut into him. He tidied his desk and walked out without locking the door.
There was a little delay at the garage. They brought his car out at half past four every day, except when he told them he was working late. But they weren't expecting him at twenty to three, and so he had to stand around. There it was, at last. He got behind the wheel and drove it out into the street.
He souped it up and it roared for the highway.
He drove with caution, getting into the middle lane and clinging grimly to it as he rolled along. He didn't trust his jangled nerves at any fast speed. Fran's words kept going through his mind. "Leaving you, going away somewhere, gave me a note to give to you."
This wasn't like Susan at all. When trouble came up she held her ground and faced it squarely. She didn't run away. And things had been going so smoothly lately, too. Ever since Hy's phone call. Had Hy called again? What had done all this on the spur of the moment.
Ten minutes later, he was pulling into his own driveway.
The house looked bigger than he remembered it.
And emptier also at this moment.
There weren't any lights on inside. No laughter of children, No Susan out to greet him.
He put the car in the garage and went into the house, just to look around, to collect his wits before he went across the street to the Evans. But when he peered out the front window, he saw Fran Evans coming across to him.
She was wearing a shirt and hip-clinging pants, and her face was solemn. She came along, without Richard Junior or his sister. Montgomery waited for the door-chime to sound, then moved on leaden feet toward the door to let her in.
"Fran."
"Richard. Poor Richard."
They stared at each other for a moment, tongue-tied. Then Montgomery said, "Where are the kids?"
She gestured over her shoulder. "Across the street. They're all playing together. The maid will keep an eye on them while Em over here."
He nodded. "Thanks for all you've done, Fran. I really
"Thanks for what? I haven't done anything yet. Just made a phone call to you, that's all." She smiled faintly and took an envelope out of her hip pocket. "Here. Susan's note. Look, let me fix you a drink while you're reading it."
He pointed vaguely toward the sideboard, and she got busy. Montgomery sank heavily into one of the living room chairs and with trembling fingers ripped the envelope open.
It was on Susan's notepaper, pink and unadorned. The note was written in her precise script, the lines very close together and obviously done under a nervous hand.
"Richard:
"There was a phone call this afternoon from Randy, who said-
He put the letter down later on the arm of the chair. There was no need to read it again. Every word was burned indelibly into his brain.
So Randy had spilled the beans.
That was her revenge for his having refused her attentions. He had gone out for his lunch date, and she had gone immediately to his files, dug out the secret book-he thought it was secret-in which he jotted down his opinions of the various call-girls, and had raced for the telephone to dial Mrs. Montgomery. For a woman-to woman talk. Certain things you absolutely must know about your husband, Mrs. Montgomery."
Fran came out of the kitchen, now, bearing a tray laden with drinks.
"Finished reading it?" she asked.
He nodded numbly. "All finished yes indeed."
"Want to tell me about it, Richard? Get it off your chest, whatever it is?"
"Here. Here, read it yourself. Just don't go blabbing it all over the neighborhood."
He handed her Susan's note and reached out for a martini. He gulped it greedily and refilled the glass from the tall shaker. Fran was still scanning the note.
The part about Susan's two affairs stung him. He realized now how little he understood Susan. Because he was offended that she should dare to have slept with other men. Whatever her reasons, he was wounded. He saw the contradiction in his attitude-freedom to do all the tomcatting he wanted, but no similar freedom for Susan once the marriage knot was tied--but his emotions would not accept what his intellect knew to be hypocrisy.
Who were the men, when had she slept with them? Why?
He shrugged. It didn't matter, any more. Nothing mattered. She was going to divorce him, and take the kids away from him, and he would have to go back to Manhattan and get a furnished room somewhere, at thirty-four going on thirty-five, and be a bachelor all over again. With alimony payments. And unlimited fun with call-girls, at company expense. He didn't want call-girls. He wanted Susan.
Fran finished the note. "What's this all about, Richard? I don't follow it all."
He explained briefly. Then he said, '"Last week one of the company bigwigs phoned up Susan and tried to get her to sleep with him. The line he used was that since I was unfaithful all the time, why shouldn't she be? So we had a showdown and I denied having been unfaithful."
"But you really were?"
"Yes. Yes." He took a deep pull of his second martini. "Then Tuesday this Randy, this secretary of mine, made a pass at me. I told her no I wasn't interested. Damned pretty girl, but I had reformed."
"Really?"
"Really," he said leadenly. "She wouldn't believe it. She knew all about the call-girls. She knew a lot more about me than I gave her credit for knowing. This is the way she got even with me. She called up Susan and read her my private files."
"Oh boy, poor Richard."
"Don't pity me. I had this all coming to me, Fran. All of it. I was just hoping it would never happen."
"But that bitch of a secretary had to go upset the applecart."
Montgomery shook his head. "She was only reacting at me because I hurt her."
"Hurt you, yes. But breaking up a man's home-"
"It deserved breaking up."
"I thought you said you had reformed."
He nodded, "As of now. But what about all the times before?"
"As long as you stuck to your guns, the past wouldn't have mattered." Fran said. "If you were genuinely trying to reform."
"Maybe. Maybe."
He looked up at her. She seemed so worried about him, he thought. Tall, slim, serious-faced now. He remembered how she had looked that crazy night when they had all gone swimming together, when she had stood there naked, her breasts big and high, her long legs so lovely.
She noticed that he was looking at her. She sat down next to him.
"Richard-"
He held out his empty glass. "Pour me another."
"You'll get drunk."
"You made half a dozen drinks, didn't you? Pour me another."
She hesitated, then filled his glass and hers. They drank in silence.
Montgomery shivered. Everything gone to smash, now.
Susan gone.
The kids going to be taken away from him.
He wondered if he could use Susan's admission of infidelity as evidence in a counter-suit. He shrugged the idea away. It was dirty fighting. He didn't deserve the kids. Susan did. What was the sense of dragging them through a filthy battle?
Fran slipped her arm around his shoulders. She said softly, "Lean your head against me, Richard. Relax. You're all keyed up, now. You'll eat yourself up inside."
She took his head and pillowed it against her bosom. He felt her breasts, hard within her bra. He made an effort to relax, but he was tight as a drum. Fran kept on talking to him, soothing him, trying to ease his guilt, his mood of bleak depression. He paid no attention. He repeated phases from Susan's note over and over again. He wondered where Susan was now drinking alone in some bar? Perhaps in a hotel room, easing her loneliness and anguish beneath some stranger's plunging body?
"Stop torturing yourself, Richard."
"What the hell do you want me to do? Get up and dance a jig because my marriage just fell apart?"
"It fell apart when you first took your new job, Richard. This is just the delayed reaction."
"I suppose."
She ran her hand around the back of his neck, squeezing the tensed muscles there. Suddenly he turned to her, feeling an abrupt agonized need. He put his lips to hers, and he saw her eyes wide open and astonished, and then she was kissing him back, hard, her tongue entering his mouth. And he remembered the time she had wanted an affair with him and he had refused her, and now, suddenly, he needed her, needed a woman's warmth, needed some one to hold him and lie beneath him and drain all the fear and anxiety out of him.
He had her blouse off, and then her bra, and her little high breasts were bare to him, and her hands was touching him.
He pulled away suddenly. "Fran, what are we doing?"
"Don't worry. Hold me. Hold me, Richard!"
"I don't want more! It isn't fair-to Bruce-to you-"
"Stop worrying about being fair, Richard. Hard. It isn't the first time I've cheated Bruce. This isn't cheating. It's medicine. You need help, I can give it."
She took his hands, put them on her breasts. His fingers tightened.
"That's it. Squeeze, squeeze! Hurt me, take me again!" She clawed at his naked body and she was running her hands up and down over him, and he was pulling her tight and then they were both at it again and they tumbled to the floor together, gasping.
"Hit me," Fran muttered. "Slap me around. Get it all out of yourself."
She squirmed in his arms, and then her bare buttocks were uppermost, but taut white globes, and he hesitated for a moment before he brought the palm of his hand down across them. There was a loud clap, and angry redness sprang up on the soft skin, and she writhed in pleasure and he slapped her again and again, paddling her until she was red, and he felt desire like a lance in him from the sheer pleasure of spanking her as an animal release of the rising hand, the falling hand, the contact between palm and buttock, the shiver of her desire.
"Yes, yes!" she cried. "That's it! That's the way, Richard!" She rolled over, now, clawing at him, biting at him, and he squeezed her, and she drew him down on her and they came together over and over again.
Within moments, she was begging for release, whimpering, and then it was happening, and he buried himself with her and shook as fulfillment took him with terrifying impact.
And then it was over.
They lay together on the floor, their bodies still joined. Montgomery felt calm, now. The wild frenzy of their love act had robbed him of the inner turmoil caused by Susan's unexpected departure.
He looked up. Fran was looking into his eyes with the warm glow of a woman who has just had the most deeply satisfying experience of her life.
"What's your analyst going to say about that?" he asked.
"He'll understand. He always does. Anyway, that was well worth a month on his couch."
"We shouldn't. We shouldn't have done it."
"Why not? We were both so tensed up. And I've wanted you so long, Richard. That night at the pool, when I saw you naked-"
He left the warmth of her. "Well, now we've had each other."
It wasn't shabby and sordid, Richard. It wasn't a grubby bit of adultery. We needed each other, just then. We gave each other therapy. You were coming apart, cracking up. And I've been going through hell for months. We were helping each other, by giving each other a moment of physical release. Isn't that so?"
He shrugged. He didn't care what excuses Fran found for it. Actually, she wasn't far from wrong. They had both been carried away by the tensions of the moment, but he felt better now, more able to think clearly, and so did she, it seemed.
He began to dress. He looked down at her as she lay on the floor. She was such a long girl, he thought, with those enormous beautiful legs of hers and those big thin arms and breasts.
'Get dressed," he said. "I'm in enough trouble as it is. If Susan decided to come back this minute, she wouldn't believe anything about our giving each other therapy."
"You're right." Fran scrambled to her feet. There were still red blotches on her buttocks where he had pummeled her. He remembered the savage glee of her response during the spanking, and wondered whether she had taken that little quirk up with her analyst. Probably.
There was an inch of fluid left in the cocktail pitcher. They divided it gravely.
"What are you going to do now?" Fran asked.
"I'm not sure," he said. "First thing is providing for the kids' dinner."
"I'll take care of that," Fran said. "I've already told our girl that you three will be eating with us tonight."
"No, Not us three. Just Richard, Junior and sister."
"What about you?"
He shrugged evasively. "I can't sit at Bruce's table after-after making love to his wife, Fran. I'll go eat in the city. And I'll make arrangements for my sister to come stay here and take care of the kids for a few days. I-I want to be alone too. Like Susan. To think things out. To get everything straight in my own mind."
"Don't go away, Richard."
"I have to. Just a day or two." He shook his head. "I'll have my sister up here tonight. She doesn't mind. She's done it before when Susan and I wanted to get away by ourselves for a weekend." He scowled a little, remembering the wonderful times with Susan. Ended now. He managed a smile. "Thanks for everything, Fran. I mean everything. You've been grand. Now go back across the street. Tell my kids I won't be home for a couple of days, that Aunt Jodi will take care of them. Don't let them worry."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
FRAN HAD GIVEN OF HER BODY, AND SO had he, and their mutual needs had been met at least for the time being. He didn't ever want to sleep with Fran Evans again-he wasn't minded to break up another man's marriage-but he would always be grateful to her for what she had given him this afternoon.
He wandered around the house for a little while, getting himself organized. Then he went to the phone and dialed his sister's number.
Jodi was five years older than he was. She was his only sister, practically his only living relative. He had always gone to her when there was trouble. She had married at nineteen, and she had two boys in their middle teens who went to boarding school, and so she was always available to come down and mind his kids for a couple of days when he and Susan had wanted to get away.
The phone rang five times. Then she answered, with her warm, crisp, "Hello?"
"Jodi? Richard here."
"Oh, yes. I was going to call you Richard, about inviting you and Susan up here in a couple of weeks-"
"Let that go. Can you come down here and tend the children for a few days, Jodi?"
"I suppose so. Why?"
He hesitated. "Ah-Susan's mother was just taken very ill. We got a wire. It looks bad. Susan flew out to California at noontime, and I just got home from the office. She wants me to follow her out there on an early evening plane."
"I can't come down before seven o'clock," Jodi said. "That's all right. The children are across the street, with a neighbor, Mrs. Evans. Fran Evans. It's the gray house directly across the way. They'll stay there till you show up, and you can bring them over here and put them to bed. They don't know why we're leaving."
"Okay, Richard. I'll come down right after dinner. You'll be gone by then?"
"That's right."
"For how long?"
"I don't know, maybe three days."
"Wire me, let me know how everything is," Jodi said. "Will do. And thanks. Thanks loads, Jodi."
He hung up. There was a sour taste in his mouth and he wondered how much of the story Jodi believed. Well, she'd find out the truth soon enough, Montgomery thought. For the time being, let her think her brother's marriage was still intact.
Carefully, he folded Susan's letter and put it in an inside jacket pocket. He checked the house.
Soon he left the house.
He had no idea of where he was going. It was still early, not much past four. If he wanted to, he could drive right back to Shipman, drop off his car, tell Don everything was okay, and go through with evening date as scheduled.
But he did not want to do that.
He didn't want to spend his evening in a whorish jollity. He didn't want to see any girl in this line.
Later, he walked into a bar. Couple of drinks right now might loosen him up, he thought.
At this hour in the afternoon the bar was empty. The Bartender came bustling up to explain to him that dinner wouldn't be served until five o'clock, but would he mind waiting for the next twenty minutes?
The bartender was a deeply tanned little man with a big mustache. He smiled at Montgomery, who said, "I want something different, recommend something."
"Perhaps. Let's try a cocktail."
He watched the bartender dump a pair of rocks into a glass and uncork the bottle.
He had four in swift succession. By,, this time it was just about five o'clock, and the waitress, obviously perturbed by his drinking, came over to suggest tactfully that he take a seat at one of the tables. Montgomery shook her off. He was still sober, at least outwardly. The thought embittered him. Why can't I get stinking drunk like other men?"
"Another one," he said, pushing his glass over the bar, he did not refuse it. Montgomery got his fifth glass. He drank it slowly, feeling it beginning to soften the tightness in his nervous system, stirring the glass to make the ice cube melt into the cloudy licorice-tasting drink.
"That's it," he said. "How much?"
He gave him the credit card. The bartender frowned and said that they weren't supposed to accept these cards as charges but he did.
There was a luncheonette on the corner. He entered it and went to the phone booth. He had the idea that he wanted to call Randy and talk to her. After all, she hadn't come back from lunch. He was a little worried about her. He hardly remembered, all of a sudden, what she had done to him during his lunch hours.
He opened the phone book. What was her last name? Hill, he thought. Randy Hill. The print was tiny and blurred, more blurred than he remembered phone books to be, and he suspected that perhaps he was a little drunker than he gave himself credit for. Hill, Hill, Hill-
Randy Hill.
Three of them.
One up town and one down on the lower East Side, and the third on-he laughed-the third one was on West 48th Street, which wasn't more than a block or two from where he was right now. Of course, none of them might be hers. She might live with her parents, or with a roommate who had the phone listed in her name, or maybe she didn't even have a phone. If he went over to the Shipman office he could check her record and find out. But the office was twelve blocks away. It was easier to invest a few dimes.
He debated for a moment, then dialed the Lower East Side number. He got no answer, and hung up after the eleventh ring. He dialed the West 48th Street Randy Hill.
"Hello?" The voice was soft, tentative, low-pitched. The right voice.
"Randy?"
"That's right. Who's this?"
"Richard, Richard Montgomery."
"Oh."
"You didn't come back after lunch," he said. "I got back around two and you weren't there."
"I-didn't feel like coming back," she said.
Abruptly he realized why she had not come back. He sobered up enough to remember the phone call she had made, and a hot stab of pain pierced him.
He said thickly, "You didn't have any business phoning my wife, Randy."
"So you know?"
"Yeah. I know. It was a bitchy thing to do."
"Yes, it was." Her voice was flat, toneless. "That's why I couldn't come back. I hate myself now. I think I want to kill myself. That was the lousiest thing I ever did in my life. But I couldn't help it. I loved you, can't you see that? I loved you. and you booted me."
He pawed the wall of the phone booth. "Randy, look-I-I'm married was married-I couldn't fool around with you-"
"All those other girls, though!"
"I was through with them. And I never dared start with you. I knew if I ever let myself go with you, there'd be no stopping."
"That's what I dreamed of," she said. "You making love with me, and falling in love with me, and leaving your wife and family and everything-"
"You damn mooney-eyed kid! You deliberately broke up my marriage to help out your dream!"
"Did I break it up?"
"My wife left me. After you called her."
"Oh. Oh. I'm so terribly sorry, Richard. What a bitchy thing I did."
Her voice had a strange, faraway quality about it.
He said, "I hope you're satisfied now."
"Richard-Richard darling-"
"Don't call me that!"
"But-no, I guess you have every right. To be angry. I did a horrible thing. I don't-deserve-to live-"
Click!
He stared at the receiver, jiggled the hook. No good. She had hung up on him.
Montgomery frowned. It had been a mistake to call her. He was all stirred up inside, now.
Maybe she was going to kill herself now, Montgomery thought.
Anxiety burrowed through the alcohol-fogged layers of his brain. He didn't want her to kill herself. She had done a bitchy thing, sure, but she was only a love-crazy kid who had boiled over, finally, after months of being ignored by the man she thought she loved. He could see enough of her viewpoint not to hate her for telephoning Susan.
He decided he had to see Randy, convince her that she mustn't do anything rash. What was the address? He lurched out of the luncheonette and started heading west.
It turned out to be an old brownstone. He pushed open the front door. There was a directory inside, and he scanned it a couple of times before he found the line that said, RANDY HILL, 5C.
He started up the stairs.
Top floor. He hesitated in front of the apartment door.
He knocked.
"Who's there?"
Randy's voice. She hadn't done anything to herself yet. Montgomery thought in relief. Or had she already swallowed the sleeping pills?
"Richard."
"Richard?" she repeated.
"That's right."
The door opened.
Montgomery focused his eyes, looked inward. Randy was wearing a frayed green bathrobe, and she was smiling tipsily at him as she hung onto the door.
"Real surprise," she said. "Honored. C'mon in. Yeah. Welcome."
He stepped in, he was dry-throated.
The place was a mess. It was only a two-room apartment, and it was littered with cast-off clothes, handkerchiefs, magazines, cigarette packs. Not at all the kind of place he would expect his neat, precise secretary-ex-secretary-to be living in.
And Randy herself, usually so well-groomed and crisp, was different too. Her hair was disheveled, her eyes red, her face puffy. The bathrobe was ripped.
And she was drunk, probably had been drinking all afternoon, although he hadn't really been aware of it on the phone. There was a whiskey bottle on the table, half empty, and a single used glass.
"Have a drink?" she asked.
"All right."
Randy lunged tipsily toward the table, found a second glass, unsteadily poured him a shot and one for herself. The whiskey was a cheap, raw stuff. It stung his gullet on the way down.
She said, "So your wife left you?"
"Yes."
"And all my fault."
He shook his head. "You were the final factor. The fault's mine."
"I shouldn't have called her."
"You were worked up," he said. "I treated you like a heel. I was always afraid of myself."
"Well, you don't have to be afraid now. She going to divorce you?"
"I imagine so."
"Okay. You can marry me, then. And we'll all be happy."
"You don't understand," he said. "I love my wife I don't love you, Randy."
She giggled. "Who gives a darn if you love your wife? She isn't gonna be your wife any longer, is she? And I love you, I always have." She laughed thickly. "Every time I laid somebody at the office, I kept pretending it was you. Maybe that's why I took on so many of them. Hoping maybe you'd be the next one to ask me. Maybe I shouldn't want to be telling you this. Because who want to marry a girl that's been had by everybody? But I love you."
She downed her drink.
He took her by the wrist. "Listen to me, Randy. I want you to forget all about me. Wipe me from your life. Find some fellow closer to your own age-"
"Can't help it, I love you, Richard."
"Stop it, Randy."
"Why? You're free now. I took care of that.
"Stop it!"
"That's all I did, phoned your wife, she said gaily. "And she walked out on you. So here we are. You and me. Can I ask you to marry me? Here. Look what you're getting. Sorry, it isn't brand new, but it isn't in such bad shape either, here look-"
Randy threw her bathrobe off.
She was naked underneath, and even more attractive than he had pictured her. Big, high firm globes of breasts A strong body, wide-hipped, firm-thighed, with smooth skin and no bulges. She turned, showing him her profile, then swung around, revealing taut buttocks then the front view again. She was fantastic.
He looked at her, feeling desire and yet feeling sickened. He didn't want this big-breasted girl in this cheap room.
He wanted Susan.
" "Damn you," she shrilled, "are you made out of wood?
Maybe you're really queer! Maybe all the stories I heard were lies!"
"Shut up."
"Come show me you aren't queer."
He remained frozen a long moment.
Then he took a step toward her and that did it.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
RANDY PUSHED HERSELF TOWARD HIM nude. He took another step, and then he was standing close to her, and he reached out, put his hands on her breasts. The flesh was warm and firm and the nipples pressed against his palms. He stood there, his fingers encircling the lush mounds of her breasts, and for a moment there was no sound in the room but their gasps.
"That's it, Richard come on, give me what I want you to give me now!"
Richard's face was grim. He cupped her breasts, feeling the heaviness of them against his hands. Then her lips were on his, and his tongue explored her mouth, her wet mouth, and she leaned forward, rubbing the lower part of her body against his. She was trembling with desire, red hot, eager.
For a long moment neither of them moved. Then, urgently, she tugged him toward the bed. Her fingers flew nimbly over his clothes. He continued to stroke her soft skin, to feel the warmth of it. Keeping one hand on a breast, he ran the other down her side, around to her buttocks then to the backs of her thighs.
A passionate arousal came from her. She was moaning, anxious to have him. He stroked her and kissed her, and then she pressed him down to her and with easy thrusts they joined and she began to move.
So it was happening finally, he thought.
Months of working in the same office, months of stealing quick glances at her and noticing (how her skirt went tight when she bent over, noticing how the front of her sweater jutted out, and now here she was, naked beneath him, his body linked to hers, her mouth slack and her eyes closed as she went through the rhythms of love with him, and pretty soon she'd be....
Susan, he thought suddenly.
He looked down at the naked, ecstatic girl below him. Her head was thrown back, and she was hardly aware of him now. She was lost in some private lusts. She wasn't doing this with him. She was taking pleasure from him. They were simply joined by a bond of flesh. They were separated otherwise.
And he kept thinking of Susan!
He kept wondering what he was doing here, with a drunken girl in a panicky pursuit of gasping seconds of passion. Where was Susan now? Why wasn't he with her?
He became detached, remote from what was going on beneath him. He could look down, see the girl's breasts heaving, see her lips wet and drooping, see her body beating up and moving again, and again and it was as though he were watching a stripper in a nightclub go through her imitation love.
They weren't making love.
Their bizarre act was reaching its climax. He felt nothing. She could have gone on for hours without effecting him. What he wanted to do was rise, and get out of here as fast as he could.
Find Susan. Patch all the differences up.
But he couldn't just abandon Randy so brutally. Let her have her pleasure first.
Randy was moaning, crying out as the ecstasy started to overwhelm her loins. Montgomery watched her studying the facial muscles, listening to the sounds she was making, watching the play of expression on her features as wave after wave engulfed her wild trip to fulfillment.
At last she seemed to be finished. She lay back, exhausted.
He drew free, and he stood up, pulled his clothes on.
Her eyes opened wide, "Richard-where are you going?"
"Away from here."
"No."
"Sorry."
"But you didn't-you didn't finish-"
"You did. Isn't that what you wanted?" he asked.
"I wanted you to be in it with me together only."
"I just wasn't in the mood."
"Don't go, spend the night here. We can do it again. Maybe it'll be better for you next time."
He turned toward the door to leave.
Randy sprang from the bed, ran after him, sweat-shiny breasts bouncing and juggling. She caught him as he opened the door, pulled his hack, ran her hands wildly over his body in an attempt to stimulate him, to make him want her.
"You-don't love me-?"
"No," he said. "I don't Randy."
"It was so good-feeling you, Richard in--
"Was it me? How could you tell?"
"Don't talk like that, Richard."
"It's true, though. You weren't making love with me. You were making love with the idea of doing it, that's not the same thing." He shook his head. "I've got to get out of here."
"Richard! No-"
He stepped out into the hall. She followed him, stark naked. She clung to him, pushing the tips of her breasts against him trying to drag him back. He broke free of her and started down the stairs.
"Come back, Richard!"
He reached the landing below, and turned to look back. She was hanging over the rail, her bare breasts dangling toward him, her arms outstretched as though she wanted to reach down fifteen feet and pluck him up. He paused, nearly turning to go back and throw himself upon her and take the satisfaction he had not had.
He kept on going.
Her voice was a desperate, wail far behind him. A naked girl on the staircase crying out to the lover who did not want her. The poor bitch isn't in love, she's just in heat, he thought as he went.
It was still fairly early, and had not yet grown dark. He walked rapidly eastward, back to his car. His body ached from the incompleteness of the act he had just taken part in. He felt depressed, isolated from the world, deeply confused. The image of Randy naked and deserted was vivid in his mind. He would never again think of Randy as the crisp, well-groomed girl behind the typewriter. From now on, when she came into his mind it would be as a naked girl, bending over to him to come to bed with her.
He reached his car and got in, turned the engine on, sat behind the wheel for a long moment.
He didn't know where to drive to.
He felt terribly alone, he wanted Susan. This was all like a bad dream. Susan, Fran's body, and then this abortive lovemaking with Randy. He still tingled at her nakedness. She was so lush, so full-bodied, so eager for him.
He put the car into gear and let it glide forward into the traffic. He came to the corner and turned left on an avenue, going uptown.
He drove aimlessly for a few blocks, then found himself flipping on the directional signal and making a turn. He drove automatically, on reflexes alone. His mind was far away, wondering about Susan, about Randy with her hot thighs and pulsing habits.
The streets were beginning to look familiar.
He realized that he had driven automatically to the Shipman office.
Like a Robot he thought.
Richard pulled up at the curb, turned the car off.
He went into the building.
Why am I going here, he asked himself?
He had no answers. He just kept moving, down the lobby, past a night watchman, toward the elevator, he pressed the button.
The night watchman said. "You want to see someone?"
"I work here. I'm Richard Montgomery."
"Have to see your identification, Mr. Montgomery.
"Of course. Of course." He fumbled for his wallet, got it out, showed the card.
"Okay, Mr. Montgomery, just the rules, you understand."
The elevator arrived. Montgomery got in, told the man what floor he wanted.
It was dream-like, coming to the empty building.
He reached his floor.
He got out, walked down the hall to his office. The door was unlocked. He let himself in and switched on the lights.
There was Randy's desk, over there. He tried to remember how she had looked, all those months. He had seen her often enough. But the image that came to mind was Randy naked, in profile, typing. He could see the heavy curve of her left breast, the long sweep of her left flank, and just a bit of her belly, of the curling tufts at its base, and the firmness of her thighs.
His entire body ached in a dismay of sexual wants.
He sat down heavily at 'his desk, putting his head in his hands. The episode with Randy was taking on nightmare qualities. He had called her, and he had gone to her, and he had lent her the use of his body to satisfy her urges, and then he had walked out. Weird. He wondered what she was doing now. Lying on the bed naked with her bottle of booze. Or maybe still standing naked in the hall waiting for him to come back or waiting for a neighbor to come along and give her a tumble.
He realized he didn't care what she was doing.
Oh Susan!!
Where was Susan? In a bar, somewhere? Getting picked up? In a hotel room, a stranger squeezing her tender breasts, a stranger lowering his gross, hairy body over her delicate form? The thought was like a hot blade rammed through his body.
But she was unfaithful to me before. Twice. She said so. Another man on top of her, in her. He shook his head, told himself not to think of such things. He was only torturing himself. Turnabout is fair play.
"Richard?"
He looked up, startled. Don Shipman had pushed open the door and stood in the opening, peering in at him quizzically. Montgomery said nothing.
Shipman said, "What are you doing here, Richard?"
"I was working late," Shipman said, "and I was just about to leave, and I thought I saw someone go into your office. So I came to take a look. You didn't have to come back today, Richard. How's Susan?"
"S-Susan?" he repeated.
"What was wrong with her? Richard, are you okay? You remember, you went home at two-thirty because Susan was sick?"
"Oh. Yes. I remember." He shook his head, made an effort to clear it. "She's all right. Who went out with the clients tonight, Don?"
"My brother Hy went."
"Oh. Oh, I see. That figures." Richard managed a faint smile. "I hope he has a good time."
"Your secretary Randy didn't show up this afternoon," Shipman said. "Her card wasn't punched."
"I know. She left-at lunchtime. I saw her half an hour ago. She-she-" Montgomery stopped. He made an effort to pull himself together and said, "Don, Susan isn't sick. She's left me."
"Left you?'
"You heard me."
"Richard! I never dreamed there was anything wrong between you two-"
"Nothing wrong except that I was dating call-girls two or three times a week. And sleeping with them when I thought I'd annoy the client if I didn't. Other than that, we had a perfectly normal marriage. Faithful to each other. Honest and sincere."
"Richard-"
"Listen to me," Montgomery snapped. "Last week your brother Hy phoned my wife up. He has hot pants for her, did you know that? He called and said how about it, and when she said no he told her about me and the call-girls. By way of softening her up. Getting her angry enough at me to sleep with him, know what I mean? Only she didn't go for it. She had too much faith in me to believe Hy's story."
"Richard, this is incredible!"
"Anyhow, while I'm out for lunch Randy calls up my wife and reads her my private files. My opinions of the various girls we hire."
"No!"
"Just her little way of getting even. I find out later that she did it so Susan'll divorce me and I'll be free to marry her. Wasn't that clever? And then a neighbor calls me this afternoon to say Susan just brought the kids over, she's leaving me. That's the whole story. The whole damn miserable thing.
Don Shipman tugged at, his chin. "Richard, you don t know how upset I am. To have Susan walk out-"
"You're upset? Nine years married, and then my wife has to get told by two different people that I've been shacking hundred-buck chippies! And I didn't want to do it! It was for the company! Darrin it all, T got forced into it! I wanted to be a good husband. I-"
"Be realistic, Richard. Nobody ever forces a man to say yes to temptation. You could have refused."
"But I didn't."
"No. You didn't."
Montgomery shrugged. "Okay, so I wasn't cut out to be a saint. We're in a hotel room, and the girls have half their clothes off, and there's Terry with boobs like a couple of melons and she's saying come on me, and I want to put my hat on and go home but who can? Not you either boss."
"So you gave in," Shipman said. "And when your wife found out. she reacted just the way any wife would. What did you expect? If you're going to live it up, you've got to pay the price eventually."
"You bastard," Montgomery said, remembering only too late that he was talking to the president of the company. "You bastard, you put temptations in my path and then you tell me it's my own fault that I gave in!"
"What do you want me to do? Call up Susan and tell her not to leave you? This is your own battle Richard. I gave you an important job because I knew you could handle it. It was none of my business what explanations you were making to Susan. For all I knew you were telling her the truth. Don't come yapping at me because you get caught in the act and can't face the music."
Montgomery was silent for a moment. Then he said, "You're right, Don. I'm blaming you, but you aren't to blame. I could have turned down the job. I didn't. I could have refused to sleep with the girls I was dating. I didn't." He shrugged. "Well, better late than never. I'm quitting."
"Richard!"
"I know it's late, thems the fact but ... I know it won't give me Susan back. But at least I'll be able to face myself. I'll get a job somewhere. And I can start rebuilding myself. So long, Don. I'll be back in a few days to clear out my desk. I've got to get out of here, now. You can send me my check, and any bonuses I'm entitled to. I'll sell my stock options and clear out."
"You aren't thinking, Richard. What's the good of giving up a top job now? You've lost Susan. Keep the job, at least. It's big money, and-"
"Sorry, NO."
Montgomery got up, reached for his hat. Slowly, he walked slowly away.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
He wondered what kind of settlement Susan and her lawyers would ram down his throat. A big chunk of their jointly-owned property, most likely, and stiff weekly payments for the upkeep of the kids. Well, he'd manage. He'd socked away enough cash in the past decade to provide him with a good nest-egg. He could sell the house, now, for maybe fifty thousand. That would help.
Every dollar would help, he thought. He wouldn't be making twenty eight grand any more.
He was on the highway, and he realized with some irritation that he had let his reflexes take over again. He hadn't planned on that. It was just that when he left Shipman and got into his car, he almost naturally headed for the highway, and here he was.
Well, no sense getting off the highway and turning around now, he thought. He had nowhere special to go in the city. Might as well go home, tell Jodi all about it and try to get some rest. By this time Fran would have given the kids supper. Maybe even put them to bed. He didn't want to see the kids. He didn't think he could look his own son in the eye right now.
He reached the familiar exit, and headed down the street to his home.
Jodi wasn't here yet. But there was a light on in the living-room. Montgomery frowned. Maybe it was Fran in there? But that didn't make sense. Fran would be across the street, with her own kids. Or she'd be upstairs putting the kids to sleep. She wouldn't be in the living-room. But who-
He got out his key, let himself in and walked into the living-room.
There was a woman sitting alone in there."
"Hello, Richard," she said quietly.
"Susan!"
He hadn't been expecting her. She sat there, looking small and frail. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, her face sad and defeated-looking. Montgomery was caught off balance.
He said. "I thought you were going away."
"I was. I was away for three hours. I took a train down to the city. I walked around, I got another train, and came back. I couldn't leave the children, and I wanted to be home."
"I'm-glad you came back," Richard said.
Susan eyed him steadily. "I got here about twenty minutes ago. Fran had given the children their meal and had put them to bed. She was going to stay with them till your sister got here. She told me that you had gone out, away, too. I was afraid-afraid you weren't coming back-"
"Why should you care about me any more, Susan?"
"Because you're the father of my children. Because-because-oh, damnit, because I love you!"
She was fighting to hold back the tears. Montgomery looked at her in amazement.
"Love me? Still?"
"I don't know." She shrugged and looked into the dark corner of the room. "I don't know, any more. That phone call-your secretary-"
"It was true, Susan. Everything she said was true."
"Oh."
"I hated myself Monday night, when I told you those lies. But I couldn't-don't you see, I couldn't tell you the truth, Susan."
"Only because you don't really believe I love you."
"Why do you say that?" intoned Susan.
"You left me, didn't you, once you found out?"
"I came back," she said quietly. She looked up. "I went away because I was so deeply hurt. Hurt that the truth had to come from other people, strangers, malicious enemies out to hurt us and split us apart. Why couldn't you have confessed it, Richard? You were weak, and tempted, you gave in. I would have forgiven you. But you had to hide everything."
"You were hiding things from me Susan."
"Was I?" She was suddenly animated. "Did I ever lie to you? Did you ever once ask me if I had ever had any other affairs?"
"Of course not. I never dreamed you would?."
"Why? I'm human too, aren't I?" she demanded.
"I wouldn't have dreamed of asking you."
"But I would have told you. There was a wall between us, and I didn't want to be the first one to climb it, but I would have been honest with you if you had only been thinking of me, Richard."
"That's easy to say now."
"I mean it!"
"All right," he said. "Who were they, Susan? And when?"
She was calm, icy calm now. He was a little afraid of her, so thoroughly was she in control of herself.
She said, "The first one was a couple of months after Richard was born. His name was Bill Brady."
"Bill?"
"That's right. It was a petty kind of revenge, I guess. I knew you had slept with his wife at the summer cabin. Bill found out about it from her. And I had suspected it all summer, from the guilty way you two were acting. So that fall we had a party and Bill and I got a little drunk and we agreed it was only fair to even the score to complete the wife-swap, and so we went out to Bill's car and did it."
Montgomery's face was stony.
"That's it exactly, spiteful."
"And the other time?" he said.
She was defiant. "The other time was after the miscarriage. We went to a party and you got seduced by some teenage kid with a yen for you."
"Veronica?"
"That's the name. Everybody at the party knew what had happened ten minutes after you did it. So again I had to have my revenge, Richard. And I got it about a week later. Salesman, I never even knew his name. He was a kid twenty ... twenty-one. Working his way through college. Maybe a virgin. It was quick and grubby and I didn't enjoy it, but at least I evened the score. Twice I had found out you were unfaithful, and twice I got even. Maybe there were other times that I didn't know about."
"Just one," Montgomery said. "Her name was Adele, and she went after me at that place in the mountains. Once." Susan smiled. "Isn't it funny how you always seem to be getting seduced? You never do the seducing. The girls run after you."
"I can't help that."
She shook her head. "I don't blame them. I did the same thing with you. But-all right, I missed one time. But it was " one I didn't know about. And I had always felt, well, if I got even with you that it was cancelled out, didn't matter. But today, when I found out how many girls there had been--she grinned bitterly-"it was more than I could possibly cancel out. I'm not designed to be like that Richard."
"But you came back."
"Yes. I came back."
They were silent for a long moment. He stared at her searchingly and said at length, "Are you staying?"
"I don't know."
"What does it depend on?"
"I don't know that either. I want to stay, Richard. To pick up the pieces of our life together. You're weak and easily tempted. I don't want you lying to me. That hurts worse than your deceiving me."
"Does it?"
"Of course, the whores and the one-night affairs, that's not emotional infidelity, just physical. You get on top of a girl you don't know, and you have half an hour of pleasure. I don't like the idea, but it doesn't really hurt me the way it would hurt me if you had a love affair. If you got emotionally involved with another woman. Has that ever happened, Richard?"
"No, never."
"You mean that?"
"I mean it," he said gravely, "Susan, I know I've got no right to ask you to believe anything I say. But I've been a prisoner of my own weakness. I've never fought very hard against it. I've let myself drift into relationships. But I have tried to fight it, some of the time. There were girls I turned down. Randy was one. There was another, a neighbor, in fact-"
"Fran?"
"Why do you say that?"
"Because she told me. How she wanted to go to bed with you at a party, and you said no."
Montgomery moistened his lips. "Did she also tell you that we finally did go to bed? This afternoon, in fact?"
"Yes. She told me that," Susan said softly. "And she told me why it happened. I was hoping you'd be able to tell me, too."
"You don't hate me for it?"
"No. Nor Fran either. As long as it happened for those reasons of compassion."
Montgomery managed a smile. "One other thing. I quit my job this afternoon."
"You what?"
"I told Shipman I didn't want any more. That I was going to look for a clean job, no call-girls involved."
"Richard, you shouldn't have done it."
"Why not? I didn't have a family to worry about any more. Just myself. And I figured it was high time I started living right. So I quit. I-"
The phone rang.
"Busy here, isn't it?" Susan said with a smile. "I'll go answer it. You let Jodi in."
Nodding. Montgomery went to the door, opened it. His sister, tall and handsome, nodded to him.
"I thought you were making an afternoon plane," she said.
He shook his head. "No. It was all changed. I-we-listen Jodi, I told you a pack of lies. About Susan flying to California. She didn't. We had a big quarrel, that was all, and she walked out and I didn't know what to do and I didn't want to stay here . So I asked you to come down and stay with the children."
"Oh, Richard-"
"But she came back," Montgomery said. "I don't know if its for keeps or not but she's back. So we won't need you to stay here. I'm sorry as hell to have dragged you down here on a fool's errand, but I was confused, and I didn't know-"
Susan appeared from an inner room. She smiled warmly at the startled Jodi and said, 'The .-call's for you, Richard. Its Don Shipman."
"I don't want to talk to him."
"Oh. don't be silly. Go ahead. I'll be hospitable to Jodi , meanwhile."
Reluctantly, Montgomery went inside, picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
Shipman said, "Hello, you damn hothead."
"I thought Susan left. What's she doing answering the phone?"
"She turned out to be still around," Montgomery said. "What's on your mind Don?"
"I want to ask you to reconsider."
"No sir, forget it man."
"We need you, Richard. You're our key man, you know that?"
"Get somebody else to squire the girls around, I've had it."
"We will get someone else. But we still need you."
"Listen, Richard. I've been thinking it all over. And I see that I took advantage of you. I shouldn't have given a family guy your kind of assignments, it was the most cynical damn thing I ever did in my life."
"Skip it, Don. I'm through with it now."
"Yes, we'll get somebody else to handle that end of the job. Some big kid who likes a good time and isn't tangled up with kids and a wife. You can break him in. But we want you to stay on, running the department. Going out on lunch dates, going to conventions, the works. Everything that's in keeping with your conscience as a husband. But nothing that goes over the line. Same salary. Same deal. Well?"
"Are you serious, Don?"
"You nut, of course I'm serious! Will you be here tomorrow?"
Montgomery smiled. "On those terms the answer's yes. Don, Yes!"
He put down the phone, walked back to his wife and his sister.
"What did he want, Richard?"
"To tell me he's reducing the scope of my duties. No more after-hours entertaining."
Jodi said uncomfortably. "As long as everything seems to be okay, maybe I'd better move along-"
"Stay for dinner, at least," Montgomery said.
"No. No. I'm the fifth wheel here right now. You two have a lot of talking to do with each other."
She smiled, turned, left. Montgomery heard the big Lincoln pulling away.
He looked at Susan and somehow they were not alone, now or forever more.
