The trailer-makers' PR men would rather have them called "mobile home parks," instead of the stigma-ridden, older name, "trailer camps." But the layout Bud chose for his honeymoon, while it was such a place, had a community sickness that had nothing to do with trailers or mobile homes or parks. The name of the game was lust, and it invaded the private, honeymoon life of Rosalie and her new husband, taking them over almost completely. Why did he go along with these awful people, she wondered. What had happened to the sweet guy she had married? And ten days after her bridal night, which she approached a virgin, she was ready for alchoholism, Lesbianism, suicide, or-or what? To quote William and Jerrye Breedlove, in their study, The Swinging Set: " ... approximately five million couples in the U.S. have at one time or another mutually agreed to exchange partners for sexual intercourse. Furthermore, one out of every ten couples under 35 will participate (or have participated) in spouse swapping. One out of every five couples, regardless of age, will question each other about this situation, and one out of ten couples will feel out their friends to see how they feel about it, hoping for sympathetic hearings. All these figures are increasing." This was a trend Rosalie would readily have believed....
CHAPTER ONE
Rosalie had never imagined that she would be spending her wedding night in a trailer home. She had never really given much thought to the subject of her wedding night, anyway-except, of course, that she ultimately would have one, and that most likely it would be spent screwing in some elegantly appointed hotel room or perhaps in the rustic cabin of a honeymoon lodge. Her mind didn't think in terms of trailers.
But now it would have to start doing just that.
It was a strange feeling, sitting there in the front seat of a well-worn green Buick, knowing that she was on her way to begin married life.
With Bud.
With this stranger at her side.
"Penny for your thoughts, baby," Bud said, with a warm grin. They were on the approach to the George Washington Bridge, heading westward out of New York. The camp where Bud kept his trailer was just on the other side, in New Jersey, overlooking the Hudson.
"Is that all they're worth to you, Bud?"
"It's all I can spare currently, my love."
"Better bid higher," she told him. "Okay," he said. "I bid one penny and one kiss."
"It's a deal. But don't make payment just now, or we'll crash into that bus."
He braked the car to a crawl, despite the obvious annoyance of a honking motorist just behind him, and bent over to give her a quick but affectionate kiss.
"I'll make payment on the penny later," he said. "You can make delivery on the thoughts right now."
"I was thinking that I love you," she said. "Is that all?"
"Isn't that enough, Bud?"
"It's plenty, baby, Plenty." Rosalie leaned back, letting one arm dangle out of the car. It was a fine May afternoon, bright and cloudless. The sun was still high in the sky. The dark wall of the Palisades marched upriver to the horizon.
Mrs. Rosalie Richards.
She rolled the phrase silently through her mind, still unable to get used to it. Mrs. Bud Richards.
She could call herself that too, if she pleased.
How do you do, she thought. I'm Rosalie Richards, and this is my husband, Bud.
An entire set of brand new concepts had to become part of her: This man is my husband. I am his wife. Tonight we will sleep in the same bed. He is allowed to look at me with my clothes of). He is allowed to touch my breasts. He is allowed to screw me....
She closed her eyes and tried to force the fears back into that dark compartment of her mind from which they had emerged.
There's nothing to be afraid of, she told herself firmly.
I love him and he loves me. And it's the natural thing for us to have sex together. Stop acting like a ten-year-old, Rosalie Hollander. Rosalie Richards, I mean. Richards, Richards, Richards. You have a new name, now.
She was nineteen, going on twenty in a couple of months. It was a good age for getting married. She was out of her girlhood, but had not yet begun to settle into any inflexible molds of adulthood. Most of the girls Rosalie had grown up with and had gone to high school with were either married or engaged, by this time. She had been one of the last of the lot to snare a man, and though she had never felt any sense of inadequacy about this she knew it would have begun to trouble her if she had remained single another six months or a year, because by then her girl friends would be having their first babies, and the pain of singleness would have been that much greater for her.
She had remained a virgin longer than the other girls, too. It had been more a matter of fear than morality. She was afraid-afraid of the pain of initiation, afraid of being a bad lover, afraid of getting pregnant. So while the other girls had begun wearing knowing smiles, had begun talking with familiarity about diaphragms and orgasms and The Pill, Rosalie had remained primly on the sidelines.
All that had been swept away, now, by Bud Richards, by this muscular stranger who had pushed his way into her life and who-five weeks after she had first met him-was her husband.
Bud braked as they reached the toll booth.
"Do me a favor, sweet. I need half a buck for the toll, and I'm out of change."
Rosalie grinned and took two quarters from her purse. For a date to have asked for money to pay a toll would have been a breach of etiquette-but it was her husband who had asked, and Rosalie found a special pleasure in fulfilling his request.
They passed through the booth and on under two underpasses, turning off finally to the right.
"Is the trailer camp very far from here, Bud?"
"Six minutes."
"And how many seconds?" she asked mischievously.
"I never timed it that fine," Bud said. "Shame on you. I thought you believed in being precise."
He laughed. "So sue me."
Bud slipped his right arm around her shoulder to caress her, while holding the wheel casually between two fingers. His hand slipped a little further around her, coming to rest over the full roundness of her right breast.
Rosalie felt a little quiver of anticipation, and she glanced down at the strong, tanned fingers holding her flesh. Bud had never been anything but gentlemanly during their brief courtship. They had begun kissing early, of course, and the kisses had grown increasingly passionate, and by the third week she was letting him touch her breasts-clothed, of course. He hadn't attempted to go any further. By that time they knew they were getting married, and he was willing to wait another couple of weeks and begin their physical relationship the traditional way.
And now they had been man and wife for three hours. It had been a small wedding, just a handful of close friends and relatives. Bud's "people" were all on the West Coast, and he hadn't even invited them. And anyway, it didn't seem appropriate for there to be a big wedding when the principals had met only five weeks before. There wasn't time for the proper preparations.
So there had been a simple ceremony, and then a simple reception, and then Rosalie and Bud had climbed into his car to drive across the river to the trailer camp that would be their home.
The highway was ugly and cluttered with filling stations. But suddenly Bud took a sharp right, traveled a couple of hundred yards, and emerged at the main entrance of a place that proclaimed itself to be the River View Mobile Home Court.
"Don't fuss about that. We all call them trailers anyway. It's just the public relations guys who go in for the fancy names."
The trailer camp was crowded. More than a hundred trailers, of all sizes, shapes, and colors, were arrayed in long lanes. Bud made a left turn, going around the outside of the motor court, and pulled the car into a fenced-off parking area behind a row of trailers.
"All out," he said.
Their luggage was piled on the back seat and in the trunk of the car-four suitcases containing everything Rosalie had chosen to take with her from her old life, from evening gowns down to a beloved stuffed giraffe. Rosalie opened the rear door and began to haul one of the smaller suitcases out, but Bud caught her by the wrist.
"The luggage can wait," he said. "Let me show you the trailer, first."
She smiled tensely. "All right, Bud." He held her hand as they walked up a lane of trailers. Many of them had little porches, and people were sitting out on them, sunning themselves. They waved to Bud as he passed by. He waved back without stopping.
As they passed a blue trailer with a white stripe, a woman emerged, her arms full of laundry. She was a tall blonde, just on the wrong side of thirty, with keen, alert eyes and full lips. She wore black toreador pants that highlighted the lush contours of her hips and buttocks, and a tight, white jersey that seemed almost ready to burst under the impetus of the astonishing out-thrust breasts of her.
"You there, Bud," she said. Her voice was deep and throaty. "That's the little lady, is it?"
"You guessed it," Bud said. He turned to Rosalie. "Want you to meet one of your new neighbors, sweet. Paula Burkhart. Paula, meet my wife, Rosalie."
"I've heard a lot about you," Paula said sweetly.
"Good or bad?" Rosalie asked.
"All good. I'm wildly jealous. You've got a hell of a fine hunk of manflesh there, Rosalie."
"Don't get worried," Bud said quickly. A little too quickly, maybe. "Paula's married, and her husband owns a shotgun. She's pulling your leg."
Rosalie smiled uncertainly at the older woman. The newlyweds moved on.
"Here it is," he said, reaching the next trailer. "Thirty-five feet by eight feet, and every square inch of it ours. How do you like it?"
"It's-beautiful, Bud."
It was, in a way. It had slanting ends and a little sloping roof over its center third, and a porch with steps and a pretty iron railing. If you looked at it quickly, you could almost think it was a house instead of an elongated metal box divided into rooms. The color was approximately turquoise, shading off somewhat into green. An arrow of deep aqua ran the entire length of the trailer.
"Home sweet home," Bud murmured. "Be it ever so humble."
"I like it, Bud. I really do."
"I hope so, baby. I want you to like it."
Then, without warning, he bent and scooped her off her feet, one arm under her firm buttocks and the other around her shoulders. She laughed shrilly as he carried her up the four steps of the porch and opened the door. She was not a small girl, but he carried her as though she were weightless. He stepped in, over the threshold, and let her down slowly. When her feet were touching the floor, she turned, pressing her body against him, grinding her loins against his, rubbing her breasts into his chest. His arms circled her like steel bands, pulling her flat against him with crushing force, and then, after a moment, he released her. They looked deep into each other's eyes for a long moment. Her nipples had turned hard within her bra and her cunt felt hot.
Bud said, "It's going to be great, baby."
"It's going to be marvelous, Bud. I know it will. I wish I could tell you how happy I am right now."
"What do you think of the place?"
"I haven't even looked at it yet, darling."
He switched on the lights. She turned and gave a little gasp of pleasure as she saw how attractive and comfortable it looked. They were standing in a sort of living room, narrow but fairly long, with a miniature couch, two small chairs, and a lamp. The sofa was brown and yellow with silver streaks, the chairs orange, the throw-pillows aqua. Venetian blinds covered the two windows, but they were bordered prettily with tan draperies studded with brown and orange abstract shapes. The entire effect was a cozily charming one. Rosalie liked it at once.
She moved on into a compact kitchen with turquoise appliances, a half-size sink, an electric oven, a cooking range, a small refrigerator, and a dinette set that could seat four. A bathroom adjoined it, and then she was in the bedroom, complete with double bed, two dressers, lamp table, and mirror. In various alcoves through the trailer, Bud had installed cupboards and a bookcase, doing a fairly professional job of it.
The trailer was cramped, certainly no doubt about that. It wasn't any ten-room mansion. But it was roomier than Rosalie had expected, really, from Bud's descriptions of it.
And, after all, they wouldn't necessarily be living in it for the rest of their lives. There were bigger model trailers available for people with families'-models up to nearly twice as big as this one, Bud said. Though of course you needed a special permit and a truck to move them from one place to another, so they didn't have the full mobility of the ordinary trailer.
"Now that you've seen it," Bud said, "You can tell me. Like it? Be honest, now."
"It's a palace, Bud. A regular palace. I'm going to love it here. I just know I will."
And then she was in his arms again, cozy in his embrace, and his hand was working its way between their tightly pressed bodies to cup the roundness of her thrusting breasts, to hold them tight.
She felt his big body trembling, and she knew that he was quivering with desire, that he could hardly restrain himself, that he wanted her, wanted to make her really his wife this very moment, and despite her fear she wanted it too-
There was a knock at the door. Bud released her and looked around doubtfully behind him. He started toward the door. "Who is it?"
"Giggles."
"We aren't disturbing anything, are we, you two lovebirds?"
It was Paula Burkhart's voice. Bud glanced at Rosahe. She shrugged. "No," he said. He opened the door.
A group of about a dozen of the trailer-camp people was standing outside, with Paula at the head of the assemblage. A man next to her was beamingly holding forth an ice bucket from which the red tinfoil of a champagne bottle protruded.
Paula said, "We were planning to give a party to celebrate the wedding. But then we decided that maybe you two wouldn't really want all kinds of noise and hullabaloo tonight, that maybe you just wanted to be with each other and not the rest of us characters. So we just chipped in and bought you a bottle of champagne. With the best wishes of everybody in the camp."
Rosalie felt tears crowding into her eyes. There had already been plenty of champagne for both of them today, but it was still a touching gesture.
She and Bud thanked their well-wishers. The crowd of trailer camp people melted away, and Bud carried the bucket inside, setting it on the kitchen table.
He said, "It's almost seven o'clock. Dinnertime.
Are you very hungry?"
"Not really. Not after all the junk I ate at the wedding. Those canapes, and the little frankfurters-"
"Same here. I feel stuffed. I was figuring we'd go out to eat somewhere tonight, but there really isn't any need for it, is there?"
She shook her head. "No, there isn't."
He hesitated, although she knew what he wanted to say. "Tell you what," he said finally. "Suppose let's you and me have some of this champagne, by way of finishing off the celebration. And then we can call it a day."
He was looking straight at her breasts. "That's a fine idea, Bud."
He began to open the bottle, telling her where the glasses were. He had no champagne glasses, but there were a couple of wine glasses, and Rosalie put those out. The cork erupted from the bottle with a majestic pop. Bud filled the glasses, and pushed one toward her.
"To us," he said.
"To us," she repeated softly.
She sipped the champagne. It was cold and dry, far better than the stuff they had had at their wedding reception. It went down easily, and soon they were on their second glass apiece.
Rosalie eyed the man who was now her husband-this man she had not even known five weeks before. They had met at a concert, an open-air concert in Central Park. She had gone with a girl friend, and he had come alone, and their blankets were next to each other, and somehow they had begun to talk about music, although neither of them knew very much beyond the names of Bach and Beethoven and Mozart and Chopin and Brahms, and then, before the intermission, Rosalie had sensed something happening, and so had her girl friend, because she had tactfully withdrawn and left the two of them together. And that had been the beginning-
So now I'm Mrs. Bud Richards, she thought in wonder, as she sipped her champagne.
And he was still a stranger to her. She knew so little about him. That he was twenty-seven, yes, and that he had been born in Oregon and had gone to college in the Far West, and that he was six feet, one inch tall and weighed one hundred ninety-five, and that he was handsome and intelligent and understanding, and that he had been in the Army for a couple of years, and that he had traveled around a lot, and that he had bought himself this trailer two and a half years ago and had been all over the United States in it, stopping a few months at a time in various trailer camps, and that he had come to New Jersey in early spring. She knew that he was some kind of electronics technician who worked on long-range missiles, and who was likely to be shifted around the country from one missile base to another, practically without warning. And she knew-or hoped-that he loved her.
That was all she knew of him. But those were only externals. The real Bud Richards, the person who lay behind the biographical facts-he was still unknown to her.
She finished her third glass of champagne. Bud was already done with his.
"There's at least another round apiece in the bottle," he said. "Want it?"
"No, thanks."
"It'll only go flat if we don't drink it."
"You have it, then." She smiled. "I'm getting giddy already. Lightheaded. And I don't want to be crocked tonight. I want to be sober. I want to remember every minute of it, Bud."
He nodded gently. "You're afraid, aren't you?"
"A little."
"Don't be."
"I can't help it, Bud. All brides are afraid on their wedding nights, aren't they?"
"I suppose. At least, all brides who-who aren't experienced."
"Like me."
"Like you."
He rose from the table, jamming the cork back into the champagne bottle after a fashion, and putting it away in the refrigerator. He looks so tall, Rosalie thought, with his head practically touching that low ceiling. So strong, so handsome.
My husband.
"Ready for bed?" he asked. "Yes," she said, as firmly as she could.
CHAPTER TWO
He turned off the kitchen lights, and they made their way down to the other end of the trailer, where the bedroom was. "I'll go get the little suitcase," he said. "The one with your toilet things."
"Should I come with you?"
"If you want to, honey."
They made their way through the darkness to the parking area. The trailer camp seemed lively at night. There was the sound of a dozen radios, and a woman's laughter somewhere, and the shuffling of a deck of cards.
He drew the suitcase out of the car and they went back to their trailer, and into the bedroom. She unsnapped the grip and began to take out the things she had set aside for immediate use-toothbrush, washcloth, towel, comb and brush, make-up. She carried them into the bathroom.
"I'll undress in here," she said.
"Uh-uh," Bud said from the bedroom. He came into the bathroom. "Let's have no hiding from each other. I'll undress you myself."
She felt a tremor of nervousness. She forced it away. "All right, darling."
He led her gently back into the bedroom. Rosalie had changed out of her wedding gown before leaving the reception, and now she was wearing a simple, white blouse with an open collar and quarter-length sleeves. Through the sheerness of the blouse, the outlines of the bra were visible, supporting high, full breasts. She was just above middle height, and abundantly endowed physically without seeming chunky or heavy in any way.
The V-neck of the blouse opened to show a few square inches of pale, creamy flesh, then dropped severely to her waist. A wide, leather belt held her checked skirt in place. Her finely tapered legs were clad in nylons that enhanced the supple loveliness of her calves and thighs.
Her heart was racing furiously. She could feel its jackhammer pounding against the cage of her ribs.
She sat down on the bed, pulling her legs up. Her skirt rose above her knee, exposing the white flesh of her thigh above her stockings. Automatically, she reached out to tug the skirt back into place. But Bud put his hand over hers, stopping her.
"Modest?" he asked, grinning. "I can't help it, Bud. You spend almost twenty years of your life thinking one way about your body, and then in one night you're expected to think an entirely different way-"
"I know," he said. "Would it be better-if we waited another night?"
She saw the answer on his face. She said quickly, "No, Bud. That wouldn't be fair. Tonight's our wedding night. Just-be gentle-"
"Of course, baby."
His hand was on her knee, now, running up the stockinged leg to the bare region at her thigh. She shivered a little at the touch of his hand.
"I'll try not to be afraid, Bud."
"There's nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all."
He leaned forward and put his mouth to hers, his tongue rimming her lips, then working its way into her mouth. She felt a quiver of hot excitement beginning in her loins and working its way up her entire body. It was starting now, she thought. The love-making was beginning. Her womanhood was about to begin.
She put her hands on his biceps, feeling the strength in them, then caressed the back of his head, digging her fingers into the thick, brown hair. His hands wandered under her skirt, finding the elastic waistband of her panties, slipping beneath it to touch the smooth skin of her belly.
She did not attempt to interfere as he drew the panties down, over her broad hips, over the long, graceful curves of her legs. With practiced skill he unsnapped her garters, stroking her legs, holding them up as he peeled the nylons off. She leaned back on the bed, pushing herself up with elbows and feet, as he drew off her half-slip, and then, opening the wide belt, the skirt as well. She was naked below the waist now except for the garter-belt, and a moment later that, too, had joined the heap of discarded clothing.
Her face flamed as he looked down, smiling, at her naked loins, and let his fingers rest lightly on the gentle curve of her belly, then drift lower, to the dark triangle of her pussy, then to the soft flesh of her inner thighs. He got his hands underneath her, cupping the firm ripeness of her buttocks, and she felt strange sensations rippling through her body.
"You're so lovely!" he whispered in a harsh, excited voice. "Beautiful!"
"Bud-I love you so much-"
His hands were at work on the buttons of her blouse, now, undoing them one by one, and when the blouse hung open she shrugged out of it. He reached for the hooks of her bra, but Rosalie grinned impishly and got to them ahead of him, unsnapping them quickly and dipping her shoulders so the cups fell away from her breasts. She knew she had good breasts, high and firm and round, standing out from her body without the need of any artificial supports. Bud was staring in delight and fascination at them. He held his hands above them for a moment, then hungrily wrapped the strong fingers around the firm globes of flesh.
She was nude, now. And loving it.
Her breasts began to rise and fall rapidly as he gripped them, squeezing gentry. Rosalie felt the nipples stiffening to his touch, beginning to throb, rising like tiny mounds of rock, standing out darkly against the creamy-white hue of her full breasts. He murmured throaty love-words as he bent his head to kiss, first one rigid little nipple, then the other, then the hollow of her navel. The fear was still in her, but it was fading rapidly as he caressed her, stroked her, worshipped her nakedness with his lips and with his fingertips.
She lay back, feeling the cool linen of the bed against her back and buttocks. Suddenly Bud was no longer holding her, but was standing, undressing rapidly, practically tearing his clothing off. He was naked almost at once, and Rosalie stared at his ruggedly masculine body with an interest that was almost detached, as though he were some naked statue in a museum and not a man of flesh and blood who in just a very few moments was going to-
He was joining her now, in the bed.
Naked and trying to be unafraid, she offered him her lips, her breasts, her loins, and he pressed his hard body against her dinging softness, his tongue thrusting deep into her mouth, then withdrawing, caressing an earlobe, tickling her cheek. She smiled, relaxing, and once again his hands were on her breasts, toying with them, exciting them, and she felt the warmth inside her, the eagerness.
"I want you, Bud. Now."
"Don't rush it, baby."
"I'm ready! I'm ready!"
His hands stroked her thighs.
"Don't hurt me, Bud."
"I won't," he promised.
Then his weight was heavy upon her, and she opened herself to him, pulling her thighs apart and clamping her eyes shut and steeling herself for what would happen, and then she felt it happening, slowly, gently, and there was the instant of searing pain, as of a white-hot sword being thrust into her body. But the agony passed almost before she could feel it, and after that there was no pain, only a kind of discomfort, and she moved against him, and he was holding her tight, with his face buried in the hollow of her throat and then with his teeth lightly gripping her shoulder, and she moved with him, waiting for the frenzied explosions of ecstasy, waiting for the savage liberation that she was expecting.
She was too frightened, too apprehensive, to experience anything like a real culmination. Instead there was a slowly spreading sensation of warmth, of relief, of satisfaction, as she moved her body in rhythm to his urgent assaults, and she smiled and cried out in pleasure, and suddenly his body was quivering and his breath was coming in hoarse, ragged, panting bursts, and she held him tight, her fingers on his back digging deep into the solid muscles along his spine, and he began to move so excitedly that it hurt her, but she did not complain, knowing that this was the wonderful moment for him, and he let out his breath in three sighing gasps and the tension of his stiff legs and gripping arms was replaced by a slackness, a relaxation, and she opened her eyes, -rimmed with tears of pleasure, and smiled up at him, and he smiled back, kissing away the tears, and then kissing each perfect nipple, and she pulled the covers up over him.
"I love you," she whispered. "Don't ever stop saying that." They settled down for the night, his face pillowed into the soft high mounds of her bosom.
Within a short time his calm, even breathing told her that he was asleep. She kept her arm around him, almost protectively. For all his strength, all his muscular power, he seemed almost child-like as he slept now against her breasts. Rosalie felt overwhelming happiness. The moment she had feared had come and gone, and though there had not been the fantastic ecstasy she had heard was possible, there had not been any real disappointment either. She was a woman now. She was a wife. She was happy.
She closed her eyes and let sleep roll down over her like a billowing wave.
Some time during the night, she awoke, and Bud was awake too, and they made love again, in a more relaxed, less intense way, and this time the pleasure she felt in it was greater. Then she slept again, and only the morning sunlight streaming in through the openings in the blind could pull her away from deep, satisfied sleep.
Rosalie opened her eyes. Bud was awake already, sitting up in bed with his hands clasped behind his head.
"Morning," he said.
"Good morning, darling. Been awake long?"
"Five minutes, maybe. Did anyone ever tell you how beautiful you are?"
"You did."
"Can I tell you again?"
"If you feel like it."
"I feel like it," he said. He took her in his arms, crushing the tender mounds of her breasts against the firm muscles of his chest, and gave her a bearhug.
"I love you, Mrs. Richards."
"The same to you, Mr. Richards."
"You sleep well, honey?"
"Never better in my life. Now I know what's been missing all these years. A man in my bed."
"Funny. I never felt that way about having a man in my bed," he said.
"I hope not." She pushed back the covers and stretched and yawned, agreeably conscious of the way the gesture made her breasts rise and fill out. "What's on the schedule for today, darling?"
"A couple of showers, first, I guess. Then breakfast. Then nothing but relaxation. There's a place near here where we can swim. We could go on a picnic. We could just hang around the camp and introduce you to people. We can do lots of things, Rosalie."
"Will I have an hour or two to unpack my stuff?" she asked.
"I think that can be managed," he said generously. "Suppose you go take your shower, now. I'll see about getting some breakfast organized."
"But cooking's my job now, Bud! You aren't a bachelor any more."
"Let me do the honors this morning," he said. "I know my way around this kitchen better than you do. You grab a shower."
She left the bed, relishing the uninhibited way she could walk around naked in front of him, and padded across the floor toward the bathroom. As she passed him, he tapped her buttocks playfully. The flesh jiggled. She went into the bathroom.
"You'd better come show me how to work the shower," she said.
"Just like any other kind of shower," he called to her. "You turn the handle."
"Where does the water come from?"
"I'm hooked in with the trailer camp's facilities. They supply water, electricity, gas, sewage, and all the rest. You don't think I pay forty-two dollars a month just to park here, do you?"
"Oh," she said. "I didn't think much about it."
She stepped into the shower and got the water running, scrubbing herself down thoroughly. Life in this trailer would be fine, she thought. It was just big enough for two. A cold shiver ran down her spine as she realized that many other girls must have shared the double bed, many other girls must have had showers there in the morning while Bud prepared breakfast. Jealousy assailed her.
Don't be a stupid little goose, she told herself crossly. You mustn't be jealous of Bud's past. He's twenty-seven, handsome, and virile. There would have to be something wrong with him if he'd stayed pure all that time. Just accept the fact that maybe you were a virgin last night, but he wasn't, and forget the whole thing.
Toweling herself dry, Rosalie left the shower and slipped on her robe. She went into the kitchen. Bud, wearing a plaid bathrobe, was busily cooking some bacon.
"You look like an expert," she said.
"I am. Sit down and wait to be fed."
"I insist on doing my domestic duties."
"You'll have plenty of time for being a housewife later," he told her. He poured two tall glasses of orange juice. "Let me have my last fling as a housekeeper this morning, okay?"
Breakfast was good. Afterward, while she cleaned up the dishes and began to find out where they went, Bud dressed and went out to the car to bring the rest of her luggage in. For the next couple of hours, they both worked busily. Bud showed her how the trailer's closets were set up-he had done an efficient job, and there was plenty of room for her things-and then he helped her get moved in. By eleven, she was completely settled down, and her empty suitcases were under the bed for storage.
"Let's stroll around camp for a while," he suggested. "You might as well get to know your way around."
They went outside. It was a Monday morning, and the camp was quiet. A few women were busily stringing laundry on lines that extended from one trailer to another. Children toddled around. Very few men were in sight.
"How many trailers are there?" Rosalie asked.
"The capacity here is one-twenty or so," Bud said. "The place is filled most of the time."
"People always moving in and out?"
He shook his head. "About half the people here are hard-core residents. That is, they've been living here two years or more, and have no immediate plans to move. Maybe two-thirds of the rest are medium-termers. They've been here a couple of months and may stay a couple of months more, or another six or eight. The others are just wanderers. They pull in for two or three days, or maybe a week or two, then move along to some other place."
"I never dreamed so many people lived in trailers."
Bud shrugged. "Has its advantages-especially if you're a guy like me who may be working in New Jersey one week and Cape Kennedy the next. Buying and selling houses on short notice can be a nuisance." They walked hand in hand up the lane. Paula Burkhart appeared on the porch of her trailer, carrying a boy of about three, and waved at them. Bud waved back. Rosalie's face reddened as she realized what Paula must be thinking about just then.
Bud went on, "A lot of retired people own trailers, too. They stay up north during the warm months, so they can live near their children and grandchildren, and then come winter they just drive down to Florida for a few months. And a lot of trailer-camp folks are just people who got tired of hunting around for apartments, and decided to find a way of living that would give them complete freedom. I like it."
"I think I'm going to, too," Rosalie said.
They strolled through the camp. The trailers were twelve to fifteen feet apart, and each one was connected to utility lines. At one end of the camp there was a recreation area-shuffleboard, a badminton court, a handball wall, even a small wading pool. A small frame building of the conventional kind, looking oddly out of place among all these dwellings without foundations, was the administration building of the trailer camp, where the mail was delivered every morning and where the new arrivals registered.
"And over there, behind those trees-that's the highway," Bud said. "You can be in Manhattan in ten minutes. It's a snap, living this way. Why-"
"Hey! Bud! Bud Richards!"
Bud and Rosalie turned. A tall young man, bigger even than Bud, was coming toward them, hand outstretched, a broad grin on his face.
Bud laughed. "Hey, fella, long time no see!"
"Not since Albuquerque, hey?"
"I guess not. A whole year and a half!"
Rosalie glanced puzzledly at the newcomer. Bud said hastily, "Rosalie, I want you to meet Ted Martin, who was a buddy of mine at another trailer camp. Following me around or something, Ted?"
"Well, I blew in eastward to see how things were doing," Martin said. "Saw your name in the register last night when I checked in, but it was so late T didn't want to bother you." Martin glanced meaningfully at the ring on Rosalie's finger. "That's a mighty pretty woman you lassoed for yourself, partner. Been married long?"
"Yesterday," Bud admitted.
"Yesterday!" Martin guffawed. "Hell, man, still time to congratulate you, then! Mind if I kiss the bride?"
"That's up to her," Bud said. "Rosalie?"
A bit confused and not knowing what was expected of her, Rosalie presented her cheek. Martin kissed it with delicacy. He shook Bud's hand and said, "I never thought they'd catch you. But I must say you did a good job of picking. How long you been settled here, anyway?"
"Couple of months," Bud said. "You come in alone?"
Martin nodded. "But I'm not exactly starving for company. Got a nice deal working already. I'd cut you in on it, too, except you seem to be taken care of."
"What kind of deal?"
"Trailer next to mine," Martin said. "Two wandering fillies from Illinois. They started in California last summer and have been working their way across the country. Tall redhead and medium-sized blonde. You know them?"
Bud shrugged. "Not particularly."
"Well, I guess I woke them up when I hitched my trailer up last night. They came out to inspect." Martin glanced uncomfortably at Rosalie, then said, "The redhead came aboard to get acquainted. Damn near raped me. It looks like a steady thing, only I feel guilty about the poor blonde getting left out of all the fun."
Bud said, "I'd be happy to oblige under other circumstances. But I'm sort of tied up."
"So I see."
"Well, stay loose, man. I'm over in Lane Four, if you want to drop around later," Bud said. "You remember the job. Turquoise with the aqua stripe."
They left him and walked on. When they had gone a few paces, Rosalie said, "I don't think I like him."
"Ted? Oh, he's okay. Kind of uninhibited, that's all. A natural-born bachelor type. But he enjoys life."
"I'll bet he does." Rosalie frowned. "Does that sort of thing happen in trailer camps often? People getting together like that right away?"
Bud looked uncomfortable. "Well, the hard-core residents are mostly married folk. Like us. But the floating population always includes some single types out for fun. A couple of traveling gals, maybe two or three guys bunking together. And everything's pretty informal in these places. I guess I'd have to say there's a lot of after-hours cutting up here. So long as they don't wake anybody up, I can't see how it's any of our business."
Rosalie nodded and let the subject drop. But she felt troubled. The free and easy life of the trailer camp people was alien to her. And she couldn't help but thinking that until the day before Bud had been a floating bachelor very much like Ted Martin. How many times, Rosalie wondered, had Bud pulled into a strange trailer camp and accepted hospitality from a free-wheeling bachelor girl? And-she wondered edgily-would she be able to keep him from missing his old, free life, once the honeymoon bliss started to wear off a little?
She didn't know.
But suddenly what had seemed like a cheery, friendly, informal place had taken on a new and sinister atmosphere. With people this close together, there could be little privacy. And in a floating population, morals wouldn't count for much. Not only among the drifting bachelors, either. Suppose the married people wound up in the wrong beds from time to time? That Paula Burkhart, for instance. She was older than Bud, but she was a sexy woman who didn't look overly troubled by moral qualms. With a handsome bachelor like Bud living next door to her for a couple of months, temptation must have been great for both of them.
What if they had given in?
And what if temptation struck again?
Rosalie firmed her lips and thrust her arm through her husband's. She told herself that she was inventing all kinds of improbable disasters. She loved Bud and Bud loved her, and there would be no snags in their marriage. Not if she could help it.
CHAPTER THREE
The honeymoon week moved pleasantly along.
That was all the time off Bud had been able to get-just one week then, and the promise of a second week some time late in the summer. The missile plant where he worked was on round-the-clock shifts now, and nobody could be spared for long, not even to take a honeymoon.
Rosalie didn't mind. As long as she had that one blessed week with Bud--
The weather held up magnificently for them. It was bright, sunny, summery every day. They rose early and got out of the camp after breakfast. One day they went picnicking at a state park not far from the camp. A second day, they drove into Manhatten for lunch and a show. A third day, Bud took her to the amusement park atop the Palisades, and they cut up like a pair of twelve-year-olds as they zoomed along in the roller coaster and were whirled through the fun house.
They would eat dinner at a restaurant near the trailer camp, except for the nights when Rosalie cooked for them. She was no great shakes in the kitchen, but she was learning fast, and Bud was tolerant. After dinner, there were usually parties in the camp, gathered around one of the bigger trailers. One or two nights they went to the drive-in movie theater four miles down the road.
The parties helped Rosalie get to know many of the other trailer camp people well. By the end of the week, she knew some two dozen of them. Some were interesting and likeable people. Others just weren't her type at all.
In the latter category fell her next door neighbors, Paula and Jim Burkhart. There was something about both of them that aroused Rosalie's suspicions. Paula wore too much makeup and she was too fond of dressing in a manner that would show off the voluptuous bigness of her breasts. Either she favored sweaters and polo shirts four sizes too small, or else she wore low-necked playsuits over whose scooping tops her heavy breasts seemed about to spill. She drank too much, also-there was always the smell of liquor on her breath-and her general attitude was a slovenly coarse one.
Jim Burkhart seemed cut from the same cloth. A tall, skinny, gloomy-looking man in his early forties, he was a drinker too, a teller of dirty jokes, a fondler of other people's wives. So far he had kept his hands off Rosalie, but she had seen him casually walk up behind one of the other women-Joy Rob-bins, from Lane Three-and put his hands over her breasts for a nice feel. Joy hadn't been in any hurry to push the hands away, either. But then, ten minutes later, Burkhart had tried the same stunt on prim Lois Hunter from Lane Five, and got a substantial jab in the ribs.
Another one that Rosalie didn't like much was Bud's friend from Albuquerque, Ted Martin. Martin had all but set up housekeeping with his Illinois redhead, but that didn't seem to prevent him from casting a speculative eye at just about every other woman in the camp-Rosalie included.
There were others in the camp who had the same free-and-easy attitude toward sex and morals that these people appeared to have. Rosalie tried not to seem stuffy or prudish. But she was uncomfortable among them.
On the plus side, there were some people she genuinely liked. Paul Morton, for one-a gentle, fortyish bachelor who wrote articles and books about nature. He lived by himself in a small trailer covered with potted plants, kept a cat and a pet duck, smiled at children, and always had a good word for everyone. He spread warmth wherever he went.
And there was a girl in Lane Two, Bonnie Campbell-a big-eyed, pretty girl in her twenties, who was traveling around the country with a girl friend and who seemed to take a deep, friendly interest in Rosalie. Rosalie got along well with her. Bonnie didn't seem to be the sort of bachelor girl who was forever looking for men to sleep with. She read a lot, and owned some good records of Beethoven and Brahms and other serious composers.
The week moved along. Rosalie began to associate names and faces, began to learn her way around the trailer camp. It was starting to seem like home to her. And, every night, there was the cozy double bed, there were Bud's strong arms around her, there were the rhythms and joys of love. She was beginning to enjoy lovemaking more fully. Bud was a skilled lover, and was bringing her along toward deeper fulfillment each time they made love.
It was Saturday night. She had been living in the trailer camp a full week. Sunday was their "anniversary"-the first weekly marriage anniversary.
A big party was scheduled for that evening. The Satterfields were giving it, and practically the whole trailer camp could be expected to show up at one time or another during the evening. Frank and Peggy Satterfield were a handsome, apparently well-to-do couple in their early forties. Although they had no children, their trailer was the biggest one in the camp, a monstrous sixty-footer. According to Bud, the Satterfields lived off their investments and spent all their time traveling around the United States, Canada, and Mexico, parking their trailer anyplace that caught their fancy. They had been in the River View camp for more than a month, and had quickly made their trailer the social center of the camp.
Saturday afternoon, Rosalie and Bud had been out swimming and picnicking. They returned to the trailer camp about six. Rosalie had worn her wet bathing suit on the return trip, and she peeled it off and hung it up in the bathroom to dry. Bud came up behind her, running his hands along her bare buttocks affectionately.
She lifted his hands to her breasts and squeezed her own over them.
"What time does the party start, darling?"
"Doors open at half-past eight. It's fashionable to get there around nine, though."
"Gives me some time to set my hair. I want to look my best tonight."
"You better watch out," Bud warned. "There are always plenty of prowling wolves at these parties."
"You'll protect me, won't you?" Rosalie asked.
"Sure, baby. I won't let them gobble you up." He nibbled the nape of her neck and gave her breasts a final squeeze. Rosalie smiled fondly at him over her shoulder. It was so wonderful, she thought, to be married. Especially to be married to someone like Bud. To live like this, without false modesty, two people in the most complete kind of intimacy-that was marvelous, Rosalie thought.
She put on her best dress, a rather sexy affair with a plunging neckline and tight hips. It drew a whistle from Bud when he saw it. They went out for dinner, to a fairly good steak house some ten miles away. Bud had a couple of drinks with his meal, and Rosalie was a little worried about the drive back, but he managed it without any difficulties.
It was quarter to nine by the time they pulled into the parking area. Already, the sound of laughter and music could be heard coming from the big green trailer in Lane Six. Hand in hand, Rosalie and Bud went toward it.
The party was well under way. A knot of trailer people, drinks in hand, were blocking the entrance to the Satterfield home, and Bud had to shoulder his way through with a little flurry of "Excuse me's." Inside, Rosalie found herself in a spacious and attractively furnished living room, almost twenty feet long. There were original oil paintings on the wall, and a stunningly beautiful teakwood bar opposite the door. The room was crowded, but the low hum of an air conditioner explained why there was no stuffiness.
The Satterfields detached themselves from a group of people and came forward. Bud said, "Have you people met my wife, Rosalie, yet?"
"We've seen her around," Peggy Satterfield said. "But we haven't been formally introduced."
"Now you have. Frank and Peggy Satterfield, my wife, Rosalie."
They smiled hello. Rosalie was impressed by them. Frank was an elegant, aristocratic man who looked as though he might just have come from some exclusive country club cocktail party a few minutes before. His face was lean and well chiseled, with a tapering nose, thin, smiling lips, and brightly sparkling eyes surrounded by a tiny network of fine wrinkles that gave him a touch of maturity without detracting from his handsomeness. He seemed wonderfully poised, wonderfully graceful.
His wife, Peggy, seemed to be about forty, but the sense of her age came more from her sophistication and wittiness than from her looks, which were those of a girl two-thirds her age. She was a tall blonde with the same sort of regular, elegantly handsome features her husband had. Her face was unlined. A chic white dress hugged her body, revealing the lush curves of hip and thigh. Pale, white breasts crowded over the top of her low-cut neckline.
"Welcome to our little party," Frank Satterfield said, his voice crisp and cultured. "You might think it well to refresh yourselves. Make yourselves at home." With a courteous little sweep of his hand, he indicated the bar, atop which a dazzling array of liquor bottles had been assembled. "There's a pitcher of martinis in the 'fridge," he went on. "Or else you can mix whatever you'd like. I want you both to help yourselves, and have a wonderful time."
Bud ambled toward the bar. "What'll you have, honey?"
"Bourbon on the rocks," Rosalie said.
He returned with a couple of drinks. Rosalie glanced around the room. She caught sight of Paula Burkhart talking to a man Rosalie did not know. And there was Jim Burkhart standing next to Joy Rabbins. Near the door, Rosalie caught sight of Ted Martin and his curvy redhead from Illinois. Lois and Ron Hunter were with Paul Morton. The group included practically everyone in the trailer camp that Rosalie knew at all well. She wandered over to join the Hunters and Paul Morton.
Ron and Lois Hunter were very young, Lois no more than Rosalie's age, Ron in his early twenties. He worked as an architect for a nearby firm, and they had a small baby. They were quiet, pleasant people. They were talking about a bird they had seen that morning. Ron had thought it was a heron, but Paul Morton, the naturalist, was of the opinion that it had been only a sandpiper. Rosalie listened for a while, sipping her drink.
People kept arriving. The party was on the crowded side, now, and had overflowed onto the porch and into one of the other rooms of the big trailer. And the Satterfields kept moving around, circulating, turning on the charm, making sure everybody was happy.
In the crush, Rosalie found herself separated from Bud. She caught sight of him at the far side of the room, talking with several people she did not know. It was a considerable operation to get across the room to his side. She started to try it and found herself confronted with Paula Burkhart.
Paula looked as though she had begun drinking a good deal earlier in the evening. Her face was puffy and reddened, and her eyes weren't focusing properly. She was wearing an off-the-shoulder peasant blouse that was hiked so far down on one side that one big breast was bared practically to the nipple. It didn't seem to bother her.
She weaved drunkenly and managed an odd giggle. "Nice party, huh?"
"Yes," Rosalie said.
She tried to excuse herself, but Paula took her firmly by the wrist. "My drink's empty. So's yours.
What say we get refills?"
Rosalie felt uncomfortable in Paula's company. But, after all, the woman was her next-door neighbor. There was no sense in starting a feud that would make life unpleasant for everybody. Better to be polite.
"Okay," Rosalie said.
Together, they threaded their way along the wall until they came to the bar. Paula reached out for the bottle of Canadian and poured until her glass was more than half full. She dunked a couple of ice cubes in.
"What's yours?" Paula asked.
"The bourbon. But you'd better let me pour-"
"Here, gimme." She took Rosalie's glass and held the bourbon bottle over it. Rosalie gasped.
"That's enough!"
"The stuff can't hurt you," Paula said, with a raspy laugh. "You want some rocks in it?"
"Please."
She took her drink from Paula. It was about twice as much as she had wanted. But, she told herself, she could simply make it last twice as long.
Paula was very close to her. Rosalie was disgusted by the older woman's alcoholic breath, by the beads of sweat that were rolling down Paula's face and into her bosom, by the shameless way that one of her breasts was all but completely exposed. Rocking a little and leaning against the wall to steady herself, Paula said, "So you been married almost a week, huh?"
"That's right," Rosalie said uncomfortably.
"You like being married?"
"I think it's wonderful."
"I guess you would, with a guy like Bud. Hey, you can settle an argument I had with my husband. Just between us girls, now. Were you cherry when you got married?"
"I'm afraid I don't understand."
Rosalie's puzzled look brought a coarse bark of laughter from Paula. Paula said, "You wouldn't, I guess. What I meant was, did you ever have it before last week? Did anybody ever lay you, that's what I'm asking."
Color flared in Rosalie's face. "Not that it's really anybody's business, but I was a virgin when I got married. And I'm proud of it."
Paula's smile was half a leer. "Yeah. I figured you for being cherry. That lucky bastard, Bud." Paula winked. "Well, you aren't cherry any more. Not if I know Bud Richards. And I do know Bud Richards. Why, let me tell you, girlie, I-"
"I think maybe you'd better go easy on the whiskey," Rosalie said stiffly. "You look kind of wobbly."
"You telling me I'm drunk?"
"Listen, Paula, I don't want to start an argument or anything like that, but it's simply that there are some things I don't want to talk about-"
"Like sex?"
"All right, like sex. Now, if you'll excuse me-"
"Don't mean to offend ya," Paula said, hanging onto Rosalie's arm as much for support as to keep her there. "Look, you got a great guy for a husband.
And for a girl who had her cherry when she got married, you picked a crackerjack. That guy's an ace in bed. Let me tell you straight from the horse's mouth, because he laid me a dozen times and I never had it better from anybody. In fact I kind of miss it, so any time you feel like letting me crawl into the sack with Bud, you just let me know. And you can get it from my old man and I won't squawk at all, because turnabout's fair play and-"
"Let go of me!" Rosalie said, so sharply that several people turned around to see. She pulled her arm loose from Paula's grasp and literally fled into another part of the room. The drunken woman's cackling laughter pursued her relentlessly.
Tears crowded into Rosalie's eyes. All right, so Bud had slept with Paula a couple of times, maybe even the dozen times Paula had boasted of. Well, that was the past. It deserved to be forgotten. Bud had been a bachelor, and he had been living next to a sluttish woman with an attractive body, and it was hard to condemn him for taking advantage of what had probably been an almost irresistible offer.
But that was the past.
Bud was a married man now.
Any episode between him and Paula deserved to be dead and buried. Not dug up and flaunted disgustingly in his own bride's face.
And, worse, was the offer-or was it a threat?-to continue with more of the same. And the counter-offer, so horrid and repugnant, that Rosalie could go to bed with Jim Burkhart to even things up.
Rosalie gulped her drink down to steady herself.
She looked around for Bud, wanting to go to his side, wanting him to reassure her that there were no other women in his life any more, that he was pledged and devoted to her and to her alone. Standing on tiptoes, Rosalie caught sight of him at the far end of the room. He was talking to a young, blonde girl of medium height. Rosalie felt an irrational surge of jealousy, and started to go to him.
Again her way was blocked, this time by Ted Martin and his red-haired girl friend. She was tall, practically a six-footer, and she had a glassy-eyed grin on her face that announced to the world that she had wrapped herself around a good deal too much liquor that evening. Her body was lush and full-blown, practically cow-like in its mammary magnificense, far too big to be attractive.
Ted Martin guffawed merrily and called out, "Hey, now? Here she is! If it isn't the blushing honeymooner! None other than Mrs. Bud Richards herself!" He grinned right into her face.
Rosalie tried uncomfortably to get past him. "Please-excuse me-"
He ignored her obvious irritation. With a big, broad, toothy grin he said, "Like to introduce you to a very good friend of mine. Real swell gal, close friend. Name of Miss Ellen Washburn. From Illyria, Illinois, and don't ask me to spell it. Don't ask me to spell anything."
"Excuse me-"
Martin swept right on. "Miss Washburn here's a librarian, she tells me."
"I used to be one," the girl put in.
"Yeah. A retired librarian. Pretty young to be a retired anything, eh? Can you beat that, though? A librarian with a figure like that? I bet all the little boys came from miles around to get checked out by her?"
Rosalie flashed a formal smile. "How do you do, Miss Washburn," she said frostily, impatiently.
Ellen said, "But now aren't you going to tell me what her name is, Ted? That's a hell of a way to introduce a person, you know!"
Martin looked sheepish. "Sorry, m'love. Was just getting around to that little detail. Name is-ah-Rosalie. Rosalie Richards. Brand new wife of an old pal, that's what she is. You met Bud Richards little while ago, remember? Big, he-man type. This is his wife. Married just a week. Pretty cute, huh?"
Martin slid his arm possessively around Ellen's shoulders, getting his hand under one arm and over the side of one bulging breast. Rosalie once again excused herself, this time managing successfully to make an escape, and dove through the crowd, almost panicky now, wishing frantically that Bud had not let her be sidetracked alone among these people this way.
She reached the place where he had been standing with the blonde.' No Bud. No blonde.
Fearfully, Rosalie looked around. A dozen warring thoughts sprang to life in her mind.
No, she told herself. You're imagining things". That horrible Paula put ideas in your mind. Bud wouldn't have gone off with that blonde or anybody else. Why, we're still on our honeymoon. Bud loves me, I know that as certainly as I know anything. I don't even have the right to suspect him of-
But still, there was no sign of Bud anywhere.
Or the blonde.
Rosalie craned her neck, looked up and down the room. It was packed almost to capacity by then, but Bud was a big man, conspicuous even in a crowd, and it should have been possible to spot him. She couldn't.
Maybe he went outside for some fresh air, she thought. The air conditioning system was fighting a losing battle. It was getting hot and smoky in there, and she already knew that Bud hated cigarette smoke. She forced her way through the crowd to the door, and burst out onto the porch. Half a dozen couples stood around out there, and a few more were sitting on the steps.
No Bud. No blonde.
Where is he? she asked herself in panic.
She re-entered the trailer and turned left, going from the living room to the bedroom into which the party had overflowed. Nine or ten people there, none of them Bud. She went on, into the second bedroom at the end of the trailer. It was empty. She sank down on the bed and sobbed for a few moments. The party had turned into a nightmare of grinning, drunken faces, and Bud had run off with a blonde before they had even been married a week, and she was trapped in this trailer camp with a lot of terrible people, and-
You're spoiling your makeup, she told herself.
And you're building a fantasy out of nothing. Maybe Bud went back to the trailer to change his shoes. Maybe-oh, maybe anything. I mustn't suspect him like this. I mustn't-
She rose, went to the mirror, dabbed at her eyes with a bit of tissue. Her mascara was tear-streaked, but at this point in the party nobody would be sober enough to notice. She opened the door, started out.
"Here you are," a man's voice said. Suddenly there was an arm around her, a hand clutching at one of her breasts. "Been looking for you. M'wife says you've got hot pants for me. Come on, give us a kiss. Give us a kiss."
Without even looking to see who it was that had grabbed her, Rosalie fought to free herself from his grasp. She got hold of the hand that gripped her breast, digging her nails into the skin as hard as she could. At the same time, she pushed back hard.
Her assailant let go of her.
"Jeez, kiddo, you don't have to get so goddamn violent!"
She glared up at him, her breasts rising and falling rapidly in anger and panic.
It was Jim Burkhart. , Rosalie stared at him, at the pale, weak, watery eyes, at the narrow nose, the little, wavering line of his thin, brown mustache. He was drunk, thoroughly and absolutely, but he was still able to stand.
"You had no right to touch me that way!"
"Damn sister, how was I to know you're so touchy? Paula said you were interested."
"Well, I'm not! Now get out of my way before I call my husband and have him break you in half!"
"Your husband?" Burkhart said, with a contemptuous laugh. "You'll call your husband?"
"You heard me. What's so funny?"
"Your husband picked up that blonde from Illinois, and right now they're out in the woods and she's flat on her back and he's giving it to her. That's what's so funny. He's just the guy to go telling me off!"
"You're a stinking liar!"
"Am I?"
"Bud isn't like the rest of you people! He wouldn't do anything of the sort!"
"Oh, no? Then where is he?"
"Why-he must have just stepped out for some fresh air-"
"Some fresh air and a quick piece of tail," Burkhart said cruelly. "I saw 'em leave together, and they wasn't goin' to go sightseein'. He had his hand in her boobs and they were laughing it up."
"You're lying!" Rosalie was half in tears.
"Get used to it, kiddo. Your hubby's a lady's man, and he ain't never been able to resist a nice pair of knobs. He made it plenty with my wife, too. Don't think I didn't know what was going on, just that I was getting mine somewhere else too, so I didn't care so much. Live and let live, that's my motto. But now you got a chance to get even with him. We can go right in here-"
He put his hands on her breasts and pushed her back into the bedroom, kicking the door shot with his knee as he entered. Rosalie clawed at him and pummeled him with her fists. "Let go of me! Let go!"
He held her tight-there was an amazing amount of strength in that thin frame of his-and worked one hand into the front of her dress, roughly grabbing her right breast and pulling it up out of the bra, squeezing it, getting the nipple between two of his fingers. He was trying to get a kiss, now, his slobbering lips only inches from her own.
Rosalie squirmed, struggled, fought to free herself.
He held on tight.
She pulled partly free and brought her knee up hard as she could, smashing it into Burkhart's balls. He let out a yelp and released her, tumbling into an agonized heap with both hands between his legs to clutch the injured parts. Rosalie felt a tingle of fear as she wondered whether she had kicked him too hard.
He writhed for a moment. Then he straightened up and looked at her bitterly. "You goddamn little bitch, you didn't need to do that."
"I asked you to let go of me."
"Guy just wants a little fun. Why the hell couldn't you? Wouldn't cost you nothing. Your husband goes chasing tail all over the camp, and you gotta be this way."
"You're lying about him," Rosalie said firmly. "And I don't want you ever to come near me again. Do you understand that? Never again. Or I'll kill you!"
CHAPTER FOUR
She turned and marched past him, out of the bedroom. As she paused in the corridor to adjust her clothing and restore herself to some measure of decency, she began to tremble, her anger giving way to a delayed fear reaction. Why, he had all but tried to rape her in there. If he had succeeded in throwing her down on the bed, as he had tried to do, he might easily have had his way. And she could have screamed and screamed, with nobody able to hear her above the frenzied din of the party.
She leaned against the wall for a shaky moment until she got control of herself. Then she continued back to the main part of the trailer. She had to find Bud. She had to see with her own eyes that he hadn't gone off with the blonde from Illinois, that he was still around. She had to have him protect her from Burkhart.
Entering the main room, she spotted the host and said, "Mr. Satterfield, have you seen my husband?"
Satterfield smiled in his urbane way and replied, "Why be so formal, my dear? Call me Dick. And no, I haven't seen Bud in a while. I remember he was standing right near the door, talking to some young lady, but that was a while back, and people do circulate around in here." He shrugged. "You don't seem to have a drink. Would you care to have me get one for you?"
"Thanks, no," Rosalie said. "I-I'm more interested in finding Bud. If you see him, will you tell him I'm looking for him?"
"I'll certainly do that," Satterfield promised.
Was there a hint of a mocking smile on his face, a knowing glint in his eyes? It's your imagination, Rosalie told herself feverishly. Nothing but imagination.
She turned and saw Ted Martin and Ellen Washburn right behind her, locked in a deep kiss. Martin's hand was wedged between their two bodies, clutching one of her massive breasts. They separated just as Rosalie glanced away in embarrassment, and looked at her as though sharing some secret joke.
Rosalie said, "Have you seen Bud?"
Ellen giggled. Martin said, "Not lately."
"No, we haven't seen him," Ellen chortled.
"If you do, tell him I'm looking for him," Rosalie said. She felt dizzy, why were they laughing and smirking this way? Was it because they knew Bud had gone off with Ellen's roommate? He couldn't have! He couldn't. He couldn't. He couldn't-
She shouldered past them. The room suddenly was stiflingly hot. She had to have some fresh air. They were playing dance music, now, people were moving around wildly, laughing gaily-
Someone came up to her. "Care to dance?"
It was Ron Hunter. She shook him off. She saw Paula Burkhart deep in a passionate embrace with a man whose name she did not know. Everywhere, couples were forming, kissing, feeling, groping-
The door beckoned. Rosalie pushed through it, out into the cool night air. Someone laughed just behind her-laughed at her, maybe.
Did they all know the truth?
Did they all know that Bud had gone off with another girl a week after his marriage?
They know him better than I do, she thought. And they all think it's very funny. I'm an outsider here, Bud's one of them. They think it's a big joke for him to pick up a girl and leave me in the lurch.
She felt terribly dizzy. The heat, the smoke, the drinks she had had, the nightmare panic of Burkhart's assault, the misery of getting separated from Bud-everything welled up in her mind at once. She began to topple. The grassy ground leaped toward her.
She was aware that she was lying on the grass, that people were speaking her name. She felt a hand touch her shoulder, shaking her a little.
"Rosalie?"
She opened her eyes, sat up. Kneeling in front of her was Bonnie Campbell, the friendly girl from Lane Two. Bonnie was smiling.
"Feeling dizzy?" she asked.
Rosalie shrugged. "Just-all of a sudden-my legs went out from under me-"
"Let me help you up."
Bonnie's hands, surprisingly strong, went under Rosalie's arms, lifting her to her feet, steadying her. Bonnie held her a moment, then tentatively let go. Rosalie swayed but remained erect.
"I didn't know you were at the party," Rosalie said.
"I just got here a little while ago. I looked around to say hello, but I didn't see you. Until just now, when you took that spill. Hurt yourself?"
"I don't think so."
"Just a little too much to drink, huh? Well, come on. Let's walk it off. Ten minutes in the fresh air and you'll be good as new. Give me your arm."
The physical nearness of the other girl was reassuring. Rosalie leaned on her a little as they started to walk away from the Satterfield trailer, up one lane and down the next. Rosalie half expected to come across Bud and the blonde girl behind some bush, the blonde girl lying naked with her legs spread wide and Bud on top of her-
Rosalie shuddered.
"What's the matter?" Bonnie said. "Still feeling sick?"
"That party. I hated it."
"Really?"
"Everybody so drunk," Rosalie said. "Kissing and squeezing-I went into the bedroom for a moment, and someone came after me and practically tried to rape me. And Bud-"
She hesitated.
"Yes?" Bonnie said.
"Bud. I don't know where he is. I saw him with some blonde, and then he was gone, and I can't find him anywhere. He must be gone an hour now. Bonnie, it isn't possible, is it? A week after our marriage? Everything's been so wonderful right up till now, he'd have no reason to pick up another girl-"
They passed a couple embracing behind a thick oak tree. Rosalie looked away, not even wanting to see who they were. When they had gone a few steps further along, she said, "Bonnie, that wasn't-"
"Bud? No. That was Harry Linard from Lane Five, with one of those girls from the end lane."
"He couldn't have gone off with that blonde!"
"I'm sure he didn't," Bonnie said soothingly. "It was probably just so crowded in there that you couldn't catch sight of him. I know how those parties are."
"You really think he may be in there?"
"There isn't a reason in the world why he'd want to cheat on you, Rosalie. A beautiful girl like you, with such a lovely face, such breasts, such a body-why would he want to risk losing you?"
Bonnie had a way of looking at her and of talk-mg about her body that made Rosalie uncomfortable. It really wasn't right for one girl to praise another goPs breasts that way, Rosalie thought. Especially a pretty girl like Bonnie. But it was reassuring to hear her talk that way.
They walked on, until Rosalie's head began to clear. Bonnie suggested finally that they return to the party and look for Bud. Hesitantly, Rosalie agreed.
The party was still going as strong as ever. Rosalie and Bonnie elbowed through the crowd at the door.
"See?" Bonnie said. "What did I tell you? There's Bud, over there by the bar. He's probably been there all the time!"
Rosalie's knees felt weak with relief. She wanted desperately to believe that what Bonnie said was reallly true.
But she heard the sound of laughter. She looked to her left and saw a little huddled group-Ted Martin, Ellen, and the blonde girl. They were whispering about something, and evidently it was terribly funny to them.
Rosalie's spine registered a cold chill. There were grass stains on the rear of the blonde girl's yellow skirt. As though she had been sitting on the grass behind one of the trailers.
Or as though she had been lying on it-with a man's weight pressing down on her.
For a long moment, Rosalie stared at this girl who might possibly be her rival. The blonde was about twenty-three or twenty-four, Rosalie guessed. And not really very pretty. She looked chunky, with legs too short for her body, and her bosom was big, not in a very sexy, but in a rather busty, way. Her hair was straw-colored, cut in bangs in front. Her face could even be called plain, though she had lively eyes and full lips. Her jutting jaw spoke of determination, headstrong willfulness. She looked like the sort of woman who could persuade a saint to go to bed with her.
She could have seduced Bud, Rosalie admitted bitterly.
Heart cold, Rosalie crossed the room toward the bar. Bud had just poured himself a drink. He looked down at her, smiling amiably.
"Hello, honey. Where've you been the last hour?"
"I might ask you the same question," Rosalie said, trying to keep any hint of a shrewish edge out of her voice. "I've been looking all over for you."
"I've been around," Bud said casually. "Can I mix a drink for you?"
"No thanks. I've had enough."
"You look all hot and bothered, sweet."
"Well, here I am with a bunch of virtual strangers, and you deserted me for an entire hour-!"
Bud said apologetically, "I looked over at you, and you seemed to be getting along perfectly well on your own. So I just stepped out to take a little stroll, and then I was standing outside talking to some people for a while, and when I came back in I couldn't find you anywhere. I half thought you had gone home and gone to bed."
He said it all with perfect sincerity, Rosalie thought. Be careful, she warned herself. Let's not make this the first quarrel of our marriage. He may be lying and he may not be, but don't accuse him of anything until you're sure.
She eyed him steadily, searching for some telltale sign, a smudge of lipstick, a tiny wound where the girl might have bitten him, perhaps. But there was nothing. Either he was innocent or he knew how to cover his tracks.
But Bud and the blonde were gone at the same time, the silent voice persisted naggingly.
And what about those grass stains-?
"Bud, I'm tired," she said suddenly. "Let's go home now, yes?"
"But it's only half-past eleven, baby."
"I don't care. I'm getting sleepy."
"Aren't you having a good time?"
"It's fun. But I really would like to leave." She nestled up against him, caressing his arms. "And you wouldn't want me to go home and go to bed alone, would you?" she murmured, as seductively as she could.
He shrugged. "Okay. Just let me finish my drink."
"Fair enough."
He took a deep sip. Rosalie looked around. The party-goers all had a sweaty, disheveled look about them now, all but the hosts. Frank and Peggy Satterfield still looked as impeccable as ever. They had split up, Frank holding animated conversation with a short, dark-complexioned girl, Peggy talking and standing rather close to a stocky, baldingly professorial man. Everywhere in the room couples were necking in an uninhibited way. Some people had already begun to drift off, Rosalie noticed-not necessarily with their own wives or husbands.
It was one big, happy family, here in the River View Mobile Home Court.
One big carnival of lust, it seemed.
Bud finished his drink. She took his arm, guided him toward the door. They said goodnight to anyone they passed-the Satterfields, Tom Martin, Bonnie Campbell, Paul Morton, the Hunters. The chunky blonde had her back to them, and Bud did not say good night to her or even look in her direction for more than a flickering, innocent instant.
The night air ywas bracing. They walked in silence up the lane to the aisle, and cut across to their own trailer. Bud said finally, "I'm sorry you weren't happy at the party tonight, baby."
"I am too. Maybe if you'd pay more attention to me-"
"But how are you going to meet people if you cling to your husband's arm?"
"Maybe I'm more interested in clinging to my husband's arm than in meeting people," she said, as calmly as she could. "A lot of those people don't seem too appetizing to me. Especially the Burkharts, both of them."
"You don't like them?"
"Not at all."
"They take some getting used to," Bud said. "But they're good people at heart. A little coarse, that's all. Especially when they've had a few drinks."
Rosalie nodded without replying. She didn't want to tell Bud about Paula's boast of having slept with him a dozen times-or about her offer to trade busbands for a night. She didn't want to tell him about Jim Burkhart's clumsy attempt to make love to her, either. Perhaps, she hoped, all those things could be overlooked. If they didn't happen again. If she could be sure about Bud. No sense stirring up trouble until she had a clearer idea of things.
They entered their bedroom and began to undress. Bud yawned and said, "I'm tired too. It's a good thing you talked me into leaving. I can use a good night's sleep."
Rosalie smiled seductively at him. "So can I."
She undressed quickly, brushing past him on her way to the bathroom and lightly grazing the tips of her breasts against his bare back. He didn't show any response. She washed up, and got into bed. He hung up his clothes and went into the bathroom, spending a long time there.
At last he came out. He switched off the light and climbed into bed next to her.
He kissed her gently on the lips. "Good night, darling."
"That all? Just a 'good night'?"
He laughed in the darkness. "I said I was tired."
She made no reply. She nestled up against him, taking one of his hands and clamping it between her thighs. She found the other hand, put it on her breasts. He did not move. Her fingers roamed Ms body, trying to arouse him.
"Bud, don't you want me tonight?"
"Listen, sweet, just because we've been doing it every night so far doesn't mean it can keep up forever. I've got limits, just like every other man. Anyway, I'm tired out. And I've been drinking. That always louses up my reflexes." He kissed the stiffening tip of one breast. "In the morning, maybe. Let's get some rest now, eh? Call it a night?"
"If that's the way it has to be," she said hollowly.
"Baby, I don't want to disappoint you. It's just that-well, you can see for yourself. I'm just not in the mood."
"All right, Bud. You're tired. Good night."
She pulled away from him, turning on her side. She felt his hand stroke her back and buttocks, as though trying to reassure her of his love, but the gesture made her shake him off in irritation.
Maybe he was tired, really.
Maybe it was the liquor.
But, she thought, maybe it was simply that he had already had his evening's quota of sex, an hour before, in the bushes with that busty blonde. It was easy to believe, now. He had failed her in the one place where he could prove that he hadn't gone with the blonde. Now she was almost convinced of his guilt. A hot tear rolled down her cheek and dampened the pillow. Why had he done it?
Why?
Why?
Then it was Monday morning. Rosalie's first day entirely on her own in the trailer camp. Bud had left for work at half-past eight. His brief leave of absence was over. Rosalie busied herself with the breakfast dishes. She was in a dark, introspective mood, a carryover from the day before.
Sunday had been almost endless for her. Bud didn't seem to realize how troubled and distressed she was by the outcome of the Satterfields' party on Saturday night. He went through the day quite relaxed, sleeping late, reading the Sunday papers, fixing an outdoor cookout lunch for them. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so far as he was concerned. Rosalie had hidden her bitter suspicions. She forced herself to pretend that everything was still all right in their marriage, that Bud was a faithful husband.
Sunday night, Bud had made love to her. It was exactly a week since her wedding night. Exactly a week since her timid, apprehensive inauguration into the world of sex. But this night she did not respond to his caresses. She felt an inner chill when he touched her. The lingering doubts created at the party prevented her from feeling any delight in his embrace. To avoid suspicion, she pretended to be responding. But she felt nothing-nothing at all.
And then it was Monday, and she was alone in the trailer. She dusted, cleaned, swept up. There was really not very much for her to do. Bud had kept the trailer orderly during his bachelor days, and in the week she had lived in it, Rosalie had brought everything under her control. By eleven in the morning, she had exhausted the backlog of housework.
She had the whole day to herself.
Rosalie wasn't used to this sort of idleness. She had gone straight from high school into a clerical job, and she had never had much practice at just doing nothing. But Bud had insisted that she stay home after her marriage. She had had to quit her job anyway, since it was in downtown Manhattan and would have involved a long trip every day by bus and subway. But Bud didn't want her looking for any other jobs in the vicinity of the trailer camp. He had a firm belief that a wife's place was in the home.
She tried to read for a while, but either the book she selected was a dull one or else she was not in the mood for concentrating. She put it down after a dozen pages.
It was too early to prepare lunch for herself. She wandered around the trailer for a while, at loose ends. Outside, the young mothers who made up a big percentage of the trailer camp's population were minding their children. Some of the retired people were sitting quietly in the armchairs in front of the administration building. The husbands were away at work. The single people, the "floaters," had mostly gone into New York City for a day's amusement, or else were still asleep.
Rosalie gnawed her knuckles in boredom.
Her mind kept going back to Saturday night. Again and again her mind's eye produced the image of the blonde girl with the telltale grass stains on the back of her skirt.
I'll go out of my mind if I don't find out the truth, Rosalie thought.
But who can I ask? Bud? That's absurd?
Who else? The people who like me would try to hide the truth from me. And people like the Burk-harts would go out of their way to lie to me.
She hovered in an agony of indecision for a long moment before making up her mind.
There was only one way to find out. The direct way.
She left the trailer and walked up to the administration building, flashing a falsely cheery smile at anyone she passed that she happened to know. Just inside the door of the administration building was a master directory of the tenants of the trailer camp, arranged by lanes, as well as alphabetically. What was the red-haired girl's name? Washburn, that was it. Ellen Washburn.
Rosalie glanced down the alphabetical list and discovered that Ellen Washburn lived in the fourth trailer in Lane Two. Checking the lane list, Rosalie ran her eyes down the column until she came to the entry she wanted.
Number Four Macklin, Rhona-Illinois Washburn, Ellen-Illinois
So that was the blonde's name. Rhona Macklin. Rosalie moistened her dry lips and left the building. She was taut and tense inside, and half a dozen times as she proceeded toward Lane Two she considered going away without doing anything. But that was the cowardly way out, she knew.
She came to the fourth trailer-a small green one, second-hand and rather battered-looking. Rosalie paused a long moment. Maybe she won't be home. Maybe they've both gone out for the day.
She pressed the buzzer and waited.
For a long moment, there was no response. Rosalie sighed in relief. They weren't home, after all. She turned, started to leave.
The door opened part way.
"Who's there?" a sleepy voice asked.
Rosalie looked in. It was Ellen, the tall redhead. She was wearing only a flimsy, gauzy nightgown that did absolutely nothing to hide her nakedness. Her breasts were great, swaying bowls of flesh that bulged oat astonishingly under the gown. Her hips were fleshy, the thighs thick. The redhead rubbed her eyes and said, "What do you want?"
"Is-is Miss Macklin in?"
"Rhona? Yeah, she's around. But I think she's still asleep. Look, why can't you come visiting at a decent hour? People entitled to get some sleep."
"It's half-past eleven," Rosalie said crisply. "I thought you'd all be up by this time. But if Miss Macklin's asleep, maybe I'd better come back some other time."
"Ellen, who's out there?" called an even sleepier voice from within.
"Looks like she's up," the Washburn girl said. "It's Bud Richards' wife," she called into the interior of the trailer. "Wants to talk to you!"
"What about?"
"How would I know? You up?"
"I suppose," Rhona replied.
"Come on in, then," Ellen Washburn said, with a negligent shrug to Rosalie. "Time we were getting up, anyway."
With a feeling of uneasy tension, Rosalie entered the little trailer. It was unbelievably untidy inside, with clothes strewn everywhere. She stood hesitantly in the little vestibule, wishing she had never come in.
"Morning," Rhona Macklin said, emerging from the bedroom at the left.
She was stark naked, not even bothering with the pretense of a gown. She emerged rubbing her eyes and yawning. Rosalie stared at her in cold-eyed scrutiny. The blonde girl seemed out of proportion. The stumpiness of her legs accented her broad hips, making her look shorter than she actually was. The chunky, heavy globes of her breasts contributed to her squat appearance.
She opened her eyes wide and stood facing Rosalie with her hands on her hips and her legs apart. She seemed utterly unconcerned with hiding her nakedness in front of another woman. Rather, she seemed to be flaunting it, as if to say, Look, these are the boobs your husband was squeezing on Saturday night, this is the ass he was grabbing, these are the legs he was lying between.
"Well?" Rhona asked. Her tone was truculent, almost defiant.
Rosalie kept her voice level. "Do you mind if I talk to you for a few minutes?"
"Go ahead."
Rosalie glanced at Ellen, who had stripped off her nightgown and was blithely doing setting-up exercises in the corner of the room. The redhead's massive buttocks quivered repellently with each toe-touch. "Could we talk privately?" Rosalie asked.
"I don't keep any secrets from Ellen," said Rhona.
The redhead looked up, a contemptuous grin on her face. "That's okay. I'm going to take a shower now anyway. Have all the privacy you like." She laughed shrilly, making the pendulous enormous rounds of her bosom quiver in an almost obscene way, and moved on toward the bathroom.
CHAPTER FIVE
"Okay," Rhona said, when they were alone.
"What's on your mind, Mrs. Richards?"
"Don't you want to get dressed before we talk?"
"Does the sight of my bare butt disturb you?" Rhona retorted.
"I guess I'm old-fashioned enough to think that a woman shouldn't receive strangers in the nude," Rosalie said acidly. "But suit yourself."
Negligently, the girl picked up Ellen's discarded gown and draped it over her thick, sluttish body. "This okay now?" she asked.
Rosalie scowled. They were just fencing, going through the preliminaries. She begged for the courage to say what she had come here to say.
There was a long, awkward moment of silence.
Then Rosalie said, "Do you know why I'm here?"
"Can't guess."
"Let me spell it out for you, then. I came here because I don't want you fooling around with my husband any more. Is that plain enough?"
Rhona sat down, crossing her legs in a way that bared half her body. "Who says I'm fooling around with your husband? Somebody been spreading lies about me?"
"I don't need anyone to tell me stories," Rosalie said. "I have eyes. I could see for myself."
"What did you see?"
"I saw you and my husband talking together at the party Saturday night. Then both of you were gone from the Satterfields' for over an hour. And when you came back, you had grass stains on the back of your skirt."
"You're a pretty good little detective, aren't you, Mrs. Richards?"
"I haven't been married very long," Rosalie said quietly. "I'm not as-sophisticated-as some of the married people around here. I have another old-fashioned belief you probably don't think much of. I happen to believe a husband and a wife should sleep only with each other."
"How quaint."
"Isn't it, though?" Rosalie said bitterly. She shook her head. "Listen to me, Rhona. I didn't come here to make trouble. Will you believe that? I'm not looking for a scene, for hair-pulling and shrieking. I love Bud, and I want to keep him."
"So?"
"I can't believe you're a basically evil person. I can't believe you'd deliberately set out to wreck my marriage. Am I right or am I wrong?"
Rhona was silent a long moment before replying Some of the hardness was gone from her face as she answered, "I'm no home-wrecker. Get that straight."
"Then why did you seduce Bud on Saturday night? Or do you deny that you did it?"
"No, I don't deny I had sex relations with your husband on Saturday night," Rhona said in a business-like voice. The flat words cut into Rosalie like scythes. "Your detective work was pretty good."
"But why? Why'd you do it? Aren't there enough other men to go around, single men? Did you have to go after him?"
"I didn't go after him," Rhona said calmly. "He went after me."
"He what?"
"You want to know what he said to me, Mrs. Richards? In just so many words? He said, How about you and me going out back and taking a quick tumble while my wife isn't looking?' That's just what he said."
"I don't believe it!"
"Tough," Rhona said, shrugging. "I actually said it didn't seem right for him to go tomcatting around a week after he got married. But he said no, you'd never find out, that he couldn't resist me, had to have me. And a lot of stuff like that. So finally I gave in. Who was I to wag a finger at him if he felt like being a cheater? I'm no saint. I've slept around plenty, and I'm always on the lookout for a good lay. I believe in having fun in life."
"But-with another woman's husband-?"
"I told you, he wanted it bad. I'm not your husband's keeper. Look at it from my viewpoint. I pulled into this camp a couple weeks ago. I'm a single girl, I look around for men to sleep with. It's like natural for me. I see this good-looking guy in Lane Four, and naturally I make a play for him. Only he can't be made. Won't even look at me. I find out it's because he's getting married in a week. Okay, so I cross him off my list and try to find somebody else, only the supply isn't so hot. And here's my girl friend getting herself this cat, Ted. I'm on the outside. I got to sleep with myself and nobody else. I'm getting kind of randy, you know? And then comes the party, and this dreamboat decides he's had enough of the fidelity bit, and he gives me a fall. What am I supposed to do, say no when I'm hard up and he's interested?"
Rosalie stared over the other girl's shoulder, at the imitation-oak paneling of the wall. She felt confused, wounded, stunned by Rhona's words.
"I-I can't believe all this," she muttered harshly. "That Bud would come chasing after you, and not the other way 'round-"
Rhona shrugged. "Sorry, kid. That's the way it happened to crumble. I feel sorry as hell for you. Maybe if I hadn't had some drinks Saturday I would have done different. But as it was-"
"All right," Rosalie said quietly. "You couldn't help yourself, then."
"Let me give you a word of free advice," Rhona said. "First, how old are you?"
"Almost twenty."
"Twenty. Okay. I've got five years on you. And a busy five years. I've been around plenty, and I can tell you haven't. You know what a satyr is?"
"A satyr? Isn't that something out of the Greek myths?"
"Yeah. And it also means a man who can't ever get enough sex. Like your husband, Bud. I asked a lot of questions about him when I got here. You know how many women here he slept with before he hooked up with you? I bet he's been in the sack with half the women here. The ones between fourteen and forty, anyhow. He's, like, insatiable. Here's the free advice, Mrs. Richards. Ditch this guy in a hurry. He's bad news. He'll break your heart in a hurry."
"He says he loves me."
"Maybe he does. But there are a lot of men like him. They can't stay with one woman for long. They got to have variety. You keep house for them, you sleep with them, you cook for them, but even so they keep on straying anyhow. And that's the kind of man you married."
"It isn't so," Rosalie said stubbornly.
"Okay, go on fooling yourself," said Rhona. "Listen, you're a sweet kid, I hate to see you get hurt. I won't go out of my way to get Bud into bed with me, and if he propositions me again I'll try to block it. For your sake. I don't need to tell you that I'd sleep with him like that, if not for you. But I can find myself other guys. You don't need to worry about me. It's all the other women in this place you got to worry about. I'm on your side, Mrs. Richards. I know what it's like to get a raw deal out of life."
Fighting back tears, Rosalie managed a smile and said, "I-want to thank you-at least for being honest with me."
"It was the least I could do."
"I still don't believe what you said about him-his need for many women--"
"Suit yourself."
"But at least I can trust you not to come between us again."
"Right."
"And you won't say a word to Bud about this talk, will you? You won't tell him I came here?"
"Of course not," Rhona promised warmly.
Rosalie thanked her and left. Her legs felt weak, her knees watery, as she made her way back to her trailer. Rhona's words had come as a bombshell to her. She had expected a quarrel, had expected hot denials, had expected almost anything but the bland admission that Bud had eagerly sought the blonde girl's favors.
Maybe it isn't so, Rosalie thought.
Maybe she was lying to me about Bud. Making up some kind of wild story to hide the fact that she wants to break up my marriage and take Bud for herself. Putting the blame for it all on Bud so I'd like her and see her point of view.
Rosalie shook her head. She was fooling nobody but herself, she told herself bitterly. Rhona's words had the ring of truth.
She clenched her fists impotently. Assuming it's true, she thought, what am I going to do now?
Marrying Bud had seemed such a permanent step. And, in a way, it was. She could never have her innocence back, her virginity. She had surrendered it once and for all to the ruggedly handsome man she called her husband. Now she could never again give herself, new and fresh, trembling and eager, to a man she loved. She could never again know the bliss of a first honeymoon.
She shook her head. It seemed unbelievable to be thinking about a divorce only eight days after the wedding. Bud had never been anything but unfailingly kind and gentle and loving to her since she had met him. The first six days of her marriage had been the happiest ones of her life. It was only at the party that things had begun to go sour. Yet even then there had been no quarrel between them, no interruption of the harmony that existed in their marriage-at least, no outward interruption.
Rosalie realized she could simply close her eyes to the truth and go along. Bud would continue to be tender and loving, an ideal husband. And if she could only forget that he hungered after other women, she could be an ideally happy wife.
No.
No, it would never work. She couldn't live a lie. She couldn't pretend ignorance of a fact that seemed to be openly known by everyone else in the trailer camp. She would see the pitying glances, hear the mocking, distant laughter, the muted whispers.
What am I going to do?
She thought of divorce, but the idea sickened her.
Despite everything, she still loved Bud. She couldn't bear to part from him. She had let him be the first man to take her, and that was a bond that would stand firm despite any infidelities he might commit.
But how can I face them all-when they know?
Why does Bud have to be that sort of man?
Can't I be enough for him?
She was passing the Satterfields' trailer. As she walked by, the front door opened and Frank Satterfield appeared, dressed nattily in a black polo shirt with white checks and a pair of white Bermuda shorts. Black, knee-length stockings added to his elegant appearance.
"Good morning, Rosalie."
"Morning, Mr. Satt-Frank."
He chuckled. "That's better. I hate formality. Bud is back at work, I presume?"
Rosalie nodded. "He went back today."
"Building missiles to save us from the tyrants of Peking. How public-spirited of him. Now, take me. I'm such a fumbler that I can't even wire a lamp properly. Peggy takes care of all the mechanical things around the house. And then, on the other hand, here's your husband Bud helping to put together whole, ruddy rockets!"
"He's very handy mechanically," Rosalie said. "It's a good knack to have."
"I wish I had it."
Satterfield descended from his porch and came toward her. He smelled of some elegant after-shave lotion. He looked so crisp, she thought, so well groomed, so aristocratic.
He said, "It must be so lonely for you today. This first day alone with a group of strangers after your husband's gone back to work."
"Oh, I'll survive it," she said with a little, offhand shrug.
Satterfield looked at her curiously. "Have you eaten lunch yet?" he asked, out of nowhere. "Why, no."
"Could I invite you to be my guest, then?" His smile became even more ingratiating. "I'm heading out toward a record store along Route seventeen-they're having a tremendous sale of operatic albums, I understand-and I was going to have lunch on the road. Do you think you would care to join me?"
"Well-"
Satterfield chuckled coaxingly. "Oh, come on. Peggy's gone into the city to shop, and I'm fearfully lonely today. And Bud won't mind at all if you go driving with a harmless old man of forty-three, I'm positive. Of course, if you have something important to do around the house-"
Rosalie hesitated.
She was slightly afraid of Satterfield, with all his elegance and poise and charm. But something defiantly rebellious sparked to life in her. Bud had slept with other girls, hadn't he? All right, then. At the very least, she could certainly go driving with another man!
"I'd love to go," she said. They walked over to the parking area together. "Here it is," Satterfield said. "Just hop right in, and we can be off."
Satterfield's car was a trim, sports model, low and sleek. She was practically sitting on the floor, once she had settled into the bucket seat. Rosalie smiled as she clambered in, to hide her tension.
"You don't mean to say you pull that entire monstrous trailer of yours with this little car!" she said.
"Oh, good lord, no." Satterfield chuckled urbanely as he started the engine. "We have a regular Detroit dinosaur that we use when we move from one place to another. It's got horsepower to spare. Peggy took it to drive to New York."
"Two cars? But what do you do with this one when you travel? Fold it up and store it aboard the trailer?"
"Now, there's a good idea," Satterfield said. "But the truth is we don't take the sports car with us. I don't own this, really. I lease it by the month. I can't bear driving around in one of those big cars. This one is so maneuverable, you see. But when we pull up stakes, I merely return the sports car to the leasing people, and rent a new one when we reach our destination." He spun the wheel, and the car drifted easily onto the highway. The speed rapidly mounted. Satterfield drove with negligent ease, twisting in and out among the bigger cars almost without giving warning. "Well, Rosalie how do you like the little devil?" he asked.
"Oh, it's wonderful!"
"Would you like to try driving it? I could pull off and change seats with you-"
"Oh, no. I don't drive," Rosalie said.
"Really? I thought everyone in the younger generation learned how to drive upon reaching puberty."
"Not this one," Rosalie said. "I was born in Manhattan. I'm the subway type. My parents never owned a car, so I never learned. But I'm planning to, now. In case Bud and I take any long trips. It wouldn't be fair to make him do all the driving." Her face darkened suddenly, and she felt a stab of sorrow at her heart as Bud entered the conversation. She remembered that everything was changed, now, that those long-distance vacation trips they had planned might have to be scrapped-along with the entire marriage.
"When you learn," Satterfield said, "go to a driving school. Don't let Bud teach you. I gave Peggy some lessons, years ago, and we were both quivering wrecks before a week was out."
"Did she learn how to drive?"
"Yes. But not from me. My nerves couldn't take more than three lessons. She went to a driving school." Satterfield cut agilely around a ponderous, slow-moving truck and darted back into the outside lane. "If it's all right with you, I'd like to go to the record store first. It's really too early for lunch-we could stop for a bite on our way back, unless you're absolutely starving."
"I can wait," Rosalie said. "Anyway, you're probably impatient to get to the store before all the bargains are gone. Let's go there first."
The record store was part of a shopping center set back from the highway. Satterfield made a sharp right turn off onto an arching cloverleaf that led into the parking area. On a Monday morning, the shopping center was quiet and relatively empty. Rosalie followed him across the paved plaza to the music shop.
There was something excitingly wicked, she thought, about going off for a drive with another woman's husband. It gave Rosalie a feeling of getting some slight degree of revenge on Bud for what he had pulled Saturday night. And the urbane and sophisticated Satterfield fascinated her.
They entered the record store. Satterfield made his way to the opera section as though he knew just where to go.
"What operas are you looking for?" Rosalie asked.
"There's a new recording of Turandot," Satterfield said. "It's my favorite Puccini but for Gianni Schicchi. And I want to pick up that imported pressing of the Beecham Magic Flute, and perhaps the Bernstein Falstaff, if it's around. Do you like opera, Rosalie?"
"Some. I mean, I don't really know too much about it. I once went to the Metropolitan."
"To see what?"
"Aida, I think. It was a long time ago. I wish I knew more about music, and good books, and things like that. But I've always been busy, going to school or working."
"Well, now you'll have plenty of time to learn. At least, until you begin raising a family."
Rosalie's cheek muscles tightened. Each reminder of the future upset her. She was assailed by doubts, not knowing where she would be the next day, let alone a year or two from then.
"I suppose," she said noncommittally.
"I could lend you some records," Satterfield said. "To help you get familiar with the great masterpieces."
Rosalie smiled. "Bonnie Campbell made the same offer. But I don't have a phonograph."
"Well, then, you could come over to our place and listen whenever you felt like it."
"Oh, I couldn't."
"Peggy wouldn't mind." Satterfield pulled several albums down from the shelves. "It wouldn't be any trouble at all," he said. He glanced at her. "Do you know Bonnie well?"
"Not really. We've spent a couple of hours together."
"You like her?"
"Very much. She's really sweet."
"A very interesting girl," Satterfield said oddly. "But a pity she's so-different."
"Different? How?"
"You mean you didn't notice anything unusual about Bonnie?"
"No," Rosalie said perplexedly. "What do you mean?"
"You are young," Satterfield said.
But he refused to elaborate on the subject of Bonnie Campbell. Instead, he turned back to the record shelves and went on picking records. When he had five or six different opera albums, he nodded in satisfaction and carried them over to the checkout desk.
Rosalie was awed to see that the bill came to better than forty dollars. That was a huge amount to spend just on phonograph records, she thought. But, then, Satterfield was obviously a wealthy man. He didn't even pay by cash or check, merely handing the girl a credit card.
They returned to the car and stored the albums in the trunk.
"A good day's shopping," Satterfield said. "These records should see me through weeks of boredom."
"Are you often bored?"
"At least an hour a day," he said, with a gay smile. "It's the curse of the non-working classes. I mean, one could drink a martini every time one felt a little out of sorts, but that's hardly wise. I lose myself in music instead. I buy records the way some men buy narcotics-or women."
"I suppose you wouldn't need women, having such a beautiful wife yourself."
"Yes, Peggy's a jewel. But she's frequently away from home during the day-always popping into New York City to see an art exhibition or a movie. I sometimes feel it's a great problem to fill up all the hours of the day. I often feel tempted to go to work."
"Have you ever worked?" Rosalie asked in awe, as he started the car.
"Oh, Lord, yes!" Satterfield grinned. "In Wall Street. My father bought me a seat on the Exchange when I was twenty-two. Just after the war, you know. I slaved away down there for better than ten years. Then my father died, in fifty-eight, and between what I had inherited and what I'd managed to put by for myself, I had enough so there wasn't any real reason to continue working. For some of them, it's a big game, you know. They've already got more millions than they can count, but they go on piling up more, partly to see how much they can grab and partly because they don't know what else to do with themselves. And, of course they wear out early. I didn't want to go that way."
"Of course not."
"So I sold my seat in the summer of fifty-eight, and shifted a lot of my holdings into income securities, and I've been a coupon-clipper ever since. If I can have an income of twenty or thirty thousand without working, why work? Peggy and I bought the trailer, and we've been on the move ever since. A year in Mexico-then off to the Canadian Rockies for a while-down to Florida-San Francisco-yes, we've been around quite a bit."
"It sounds wonderful," Rosalie said. "How can you possibly ever get bored?"
"You'd be surprised," Satterfield said grimly. He pulled off the road. "Here's lunch. This is one of the nicest places around here, by the way."
As she got out of the car, her breasts pushed tightly against her sweater, practically in Satterfield's face. For a weird moment, he stared at her, eyes thin with what seemed clearly to be lust. Then he recovered his poise.
They entered the restaurant.
CHAPTER SIX
It was a place she and Bud had seen during the week, and they had almost gone to eat there, except that it looked too expensive. As Rosalie opened the menu, she saw that their guess had been right. Even a lowly turkey sandwich was two dollars. Steak was seven dollars and fifty cents. Not that she wanted steak, anyhow. But the place was really beyond her means. It was a good thing Satterfield was going to take the check.
He insisted on drinks before they ate. Rosalie was reluctant, but he pressed a martini on her. She had never had one before, she admitted blushingly. "Like it?" he asked after her first, hesitant sip. "It's-kind of bitter, isn't it?" she said. "But good."
"They know how to make them here. Five to one, and ice-cold. You'll probably never get a better martini in any restaurant on route seventeen."
She continued to sip, and felt herself relaxing in Satterfield's presence. He seemed to have a constant flow of chatter, very little of it significant. He talked about politics, about the weather, about the pleasures of trailer-camp life, about his travels, about the disadvantages of retiring at the age of thirty-four. It gave Rosalie an agreeably sophisticated feeling simply to be sitting across the table from him in this elegant restaurant, even though she knew her share of the conversation was limited mostly to inarticulate little half-sentences that broke up the nearly monologic flow of Satterfield's words from time to time.
As the meal progressed, Rosalie became aware of two facts, both of them drawn more from inference than from anything Satterfield had actually said:
That he did not have a very happy marriage, whatever the surface appearance.
That he was very much attracted sexually to Rosalie Richards.
The latter fact seemed all too apparent from the way his glittering eyes studied her, the way he took cautious little glimpses at her face, her thrusting breasts, her throat. He seemed almost to be preening himself to impress her, like a male peacock putting on an act for a female he particularly desired. Rosalie was more flattered than annoyed by this attention.
The relationship between Satterfield and his wife seemed harder to pinpoint. But he seemed to be saying that though they lived together as man and wife, and presented an outward facade of perfect compatibility, actually there was a yawning gulf between them. His references to Peggy's trips into the city seemed to imply that she met lovers there just as frequently as she toured the art galleries. Oblique statement also led Rosalie to believe that he, too had had a long series of love affairs, with the full knowledge of his wife. Perhaps it was the sophisticated way of living, Rosalie thought. Perhaps it was the thing to do, among the very rich. Yet she got the distinct impression that this idle man with his hollow, childless marriage was fiercely unhappy, unfulfilled in life.
And she found herself overpoweringly drawn to him-physically. The realization troubled her. He was a handsome, dashingly debonair man, no doubt about that. But he was more than twice her age, for one thing. For another, he was married. For still another, so was she.
Still on my honeymoon, practically-and already thinking about having a love affair, Rosalie thought with a peculiarly icy clarity. And my husband already unfaithful to me. After just eight days. This isn't a marriage, it's a joke!
"You know what I'd like right now, Frank?" she asked suddenly.
"Name it and it's yours."
"Another martini."
"Your wish is my command," Satterfield smiled. He waved to a passing waiter. "George, another round of martinis, would you please?"
She sipped the second drink avidly. She liked the coldness of it, the clear, bitter taste, the transparency of the fluid. A martini was a hard, uncompromising, clear-cut kind of drink. Rosalie could see why they were so popular. Especially among troubled people.
By the time they came to dessert, she was not only full, but slightly tipsy. She was laughing too loudly at everything Satterfield was saying, and he seemed a little nonplussed at the way she appeared to transform commonplaces into gem-like epigraphs as they left his lips. Neither of them had coffee. Satterfield signaled unobtrusively for the check, and paid for it with the same credit; card he had used at the music shop.
It was mid-afternoon, nearly two o'clock. The fresh air felt bracing. Rosalie walked a little unsteadily toward the car, and dipped into her seat as though she had no bones.
Satterfield drove quickly, almost recklessly, back to the trailer camp. He pulled into a vacant parking space, braking so emphatically it snapped Rosalie sharply forward. They got out.
"That was fun," she said. "Thanks ever so much for taking me out. I was really so bored and unhappy when you saw me before."
"As was I. We've done each other a mutual favor."
"And I'd like to hear some of your records sometime," Rosalie added.
Satterfield flashed a thin smile. "How about right now?" he suggested. "You won't have to begin preparing dinner for your hubby for a couple of hours yet, will you? That's time to hear at least four or five sides of Mozart, I think."
She hesitated only a fraction of an instant before nodding her agreement.
They entered the Satterfield trailer. Now that the crowd of partygoers was not present, the trailer looked huge inside, with its long living room and imposing bedrooms. Satterfield indicated an armchair facing the stereo speakers.
"Relax," he said. "I'll get a couple of martinis out of the 'fridge, and then we can hear the music. The Magic Flute, I think."
He went into the kitchen, returning a few moments later with two glistening martinis. Rosalie accepted one gratefully and leaned back, kicking off her shoes. Satterfield set his glass down on a table and told her, "You go ahead and have your drink without waiting for me, love. It'll get all warm while I'm unpacking the records and finding the right one."
She sipped the drink. Satterfield opened the wrapping of the bulky package, and searched through the albums for the one he wanted. As he put the disc on the turntable he said, "Don't bother much about the story. It's a pretty silly one, anyhow. Just listen to the music. Try to get the feel of it. It's absolutely glorious, every single note of it."
The overture sounded out. Rosalie settled back to listen.
The transition from listening to music to making love was almost inperceptible. She had known it would happen from the moment she had entered the trailer-perhaps from the moment she had first stepped into Satterfield's car. The transition came when she finished her martini, and rose to put it down on the bar table, and came within a foot of where Satterfield stood absorbed in the music.
Then she turned and he turned, and they were in each other's arms, pressed tightly against one another, his thin lips encircling hers, his tongue seeking entry to her mouth.
Still locked in the deep kiss, they backed through the corridor and into the end bedroom, the one where Jim Burkhart had made his clumsy attempt at a rape. They stood by the bed, and Satterfield undressed her with deft skill, neither of them speaking a word.
Rosalie did not dare to think about what was happening to her. She simply let him remove her clothes. Her sweater dropped to the floor, and a moment later so did her slacks. All she wore now was a bra and a pair of filmy panties. His glittering eyes were riveted hungrily on her body, and there was a strange smile of triumph on his lips. He reached around in back, unsnapping the hook of her bra, and it fell away, and she felt a moment of shame, then banished it. Her breasts rose, proudly bare. He took them in his hands, cupping the warm ripely rounded fullness of them. She felt the nipples growing stiff.
His fingers slid down the silkiness of her body, to the waistband of her panties. He pulled them over her ample hips. He seized the firm flesh of her buttocks in his hand and squeezed hard. His fingers were not thick and strong, like Bud's. They were long and tapering and wiry, a pianist's fingers. Satterfield's touch was terribly delicate.
She smiled anxiously at him and started to unbutton his shirt.
His body was narrow-shouldered and lean, almost fleshless, a sharp contrast to Bud's muscular sturdiness. They embraced in the middle of the floor, and tumbled onto the bed, and then she was up against him, breathing hard, whispering, nibbling his ears, crawling all over him, making use of all the new sensual skills Bud had taught her in the last week.
He clung to her warmth.
And then he was on top of her.
And her loins were on fire with need, and her thighs were spread as far apart as they could go, and she thrust her body upward abruptly against the rigid cock of him, and they came together and he went deep into her, and everything was warm and moist and wonderful, and they rocked together and eddies of pleasure went through her, the guilty pleasure of doing something forbidden.
Somewhere within her mind, isolated by layers of alcohol, a puritan whisper warned her that she should not be doing this, but she ignored it. She arched her back high off the bed, and he clung to her, his hands tight on her breasts, and she dug her fingers into the muscles of his back and began to talk, a senseless gibberish of pleasure punctuated by little, indrawn sighs of breath.
They gasped together in the ecstasies of lust, body against sweating body, lips joined, hips rocking urgently the solid rod of his passions sliding back and forth in the well-lubricated cleft of her body, until the moment of release came like a thunderclap for her, and she bit down deep into his shoulder and gasped out her pleasure, and at the same moment felt the quiver and jolt of his body as he attained full delight, and it was over. Over.
She lay still for a moment, still locked in his embrace. Then she pushed Satterfield away and rolled over onto her side.
Adulteress! she thought.
She shook the thought away.
That evens the score, Bud Richards she told herself vehemently. You cheat me, I cheat you. God kelp us both!
Satterfield's tapering fingers encircled the swelling globe of one breast.
"Rosalie-"
She turned around to face him. He was smiling. His face was flushed with pleasure.
She was sober, now, completely and utterly sober. There had been pleasure, and there had been a sort of revenge, and now there was fear and guilt. She removed his hand from her breast. She averted her eyes from his nakedness.
"I think I'd better go right now, Frank," she said quietly.
Rosalie dressed in silence. Satterfield, nude, lay back on the bed, his arms behind his head. He regarded her with a sort of detached fascination, as though she were some particularly complex wind-up doll that he had bought in a Left Bank antique shop in Paris. He did not speak until she had donned her brassiere and her panties and was stepping into her slacks.
"I suppose you'll have all sorts of guilt feelings about this, Rosalie?"
"Let's not talk about it."
"I wouldn't want you to suffer the pangs of conscience on my account," Satterfield said. "I think it's only fair to let you know that what you've done today has been to balance the books, both for yourself and for me. You ought to know that Bud has stayed with my wife Peggy on a number of occasions."
Rosalie glanced obliquely at him. "Anything Bud did before I married him is none of my business."
"Commendable. But the most recent encounter between your husband and my wife took place after you married him, Rosalie."
"What?"
"It was on Wednesday," Satterfield said in a dry, precise voice. "Bud drove to the shopping center to get some grocery supplies for you, didn't he?"
"I suppose--yes. Yes, he did."
"Peggy was at the shopping center too. They left it together, stopped off at a motel she frequently uses when I'm at home, and made love. The whole interlude took less than half an hour. They were home from shopping by three in the afternoon, and a good time was had by all."
"How do you know all this?"
"Because Peggy told me."
"Told you?"
Satterfield smiled whimsically. "We've been married much too long to bother hiding our infidelities from each other, my child. Peggy assumed-and rightly-that I'd be amused to hear that a bridegroom of four days could be seduced. Or rather, could be interested in seducing her. I understand your Bud was quite eager."
"Stop it!" Rosalie cried.
"I just wanted to ease your conscience," Satterfield said blandly. "To let you know that the precedent of infidelity has already been set in your family."
"Are you going to tell Peggy about-about what we did today? I'm sure it'll amuse her!"
"I was planning to tell her, yes."
"And the next time she sleeps with Bud, she'll repeat to him what you told her, just as you've told me what Peggy told you. So Bud will find out about us."
Satterfield frowned. "Peggy can be trusted."
"Can you?"
"I thought you should know-"
Rosalie stared at him intently. "All right," she said. "Go tell Peggy everything we did this afternoon. And she'll treat it as a joke and tell Bud. And Bud will kill you!"
"Don't be absurd."
"I'm making perfect sense," Rosalie went on urgently. "Do you think every husband is willing to let his wife have affairs behind his back? You, maybe. But you aren't typical. Bud would blow up sky high if he ever found out about us. I know that."
"Three cheers for the good old double standard," Satterfield said mockingly.
"Call it anything you like. I tell you Bud will be furious. No matter how guilty his own record is. He could kill you. He might just do it."
Satterfield looked genuinely worried, now. "I hadn't realized he might be as old-fashioned as all that."
"Well, he is. So you just keep any gossip you have to peddle away from Peggy."
She zipped up her slacks, tucked in her sweater. Without looking at Satterfield again, Rosalie bade him a curt good-bye and left his trailer.
Her head pounded fiercely. The day's chaotic events had left her limp, emotionally exhausted.
Bud stood revealed doubly as an adulterer now. The evidence had come from two different sources-Rhona and Satterfield-and it was too great to laugh off. He had stayed with Peggy Satterfield on Wednesday afternoon and had made love to Rhona Macklin Saturday night, all in their first week of married life.
A casual sinner. And now I'm one of the gang, too, she thought bitterly.
It had been no accident, she knew. Satterfield had shrewdly sized her up as being ripe for seduction from the moment she had entered his sports car. And, she realized, she had been ripe. The conversation with Rhona Macklin had been the triggering factor. She had left Rhona's place ready to go to bed with the first man who asked her, and Satterfield had come along at the strategic time.
She entered her trailer, letting the screen door slam. The living room clock told her it was twenty minutes after three. Still lots of afternoon left.
Going into the bedroom, Rosalie stripped off her clothes and surveyed her naked body. There was no way of telling, from the external appearance, that she had been unfaithful. Satterfield's questing hands had left no damning imprints on the high, white mounds of her breasts. His lips had not scarred her. His eager, lustful gaze had not burned eye tracks into her soft skin.
You can't tell a thing by looking at me, she thought.
Her body still seemed as virginal as it had been ten days before, when she was still on the other side of the border between girlhood and womanhood. Yet in that short span of time, she had become not only a wife but a cheated wife, not only a cheated wife but an adulteress herself. The rapidity with which ft had all happened overwhelmed her. Less than two months before she had been a girl barely out of her teens, a kid. And now she was a woman, catapulted into a tangling network of conflicts and silent betrayals.
Rosalie got under the shower, scrubbing herself vehemently as though to rid herself of the last vestiges of Satterfield's touch. When she emerged, she put on fresh clothes, then sat down for a long while in the living room, staring at the pattern in the scatter-rugs. She wished she could make just a few small changes in the universe--to blot out the things she and Bud had done wrong in the last couple of days. They had been so happy together for the first few days of their marriage. Why had he gone to other women? Why had he ruined everything?
The minutes ticked away.
It was past four o'clock. Bud would be home a little after five. She had planned to fix a fancy dinner for him, something out of the French cookbook she had received as a wedding present. Something with plenty of fine sauces, with elegant trimmings. There was a bottle of red wine in the closet that they had bought on Tuesday, and Rosalie had planned to open it for this, the first meal she would be cooking for a husband returning from work.
But she had no appetite, no enthusiasm at all for the task. Her spirits were way down. Rosalie felt utterly depressed.
What am I going to do? she asked herself, over and over again.
Confront him directly? Present the evidence that she had gathered from Rhona and from Satterfield, and demand to know why he had found it necessary to step outside the marriage bed?
No.
He might deny it, or he might grow angry and hit her, or he might head over to Rhona's and try to force her to retract her statement. But none of that would really settle the problem.
Tell him that she was unfaithful now too?
No. That would shatter the marriage in an instant. She didn't want the kind of marriage the Satterfields had. She wanted a marriage founded on mutual love and trust and need, not one founded on cynical sophisticated adultery. Once she confessed what she had done, she would lose Bud's trust forever. There would be no hope for repairing what already was beginning to look irreparable. What then?
For a long while, Rosalie pondered the situation. And. slowly, an snwer presented itself.
Make yourself indispensable to him. Make yourself all the woman he can ever need. Become so important to him that he won't even daydream about other women, let alone make passes at them.
She wondered what she could do beyond what she was already doing. Certainly she had been nothing if not laving and responsive to him. She had never denied him her lips, her body, her entire self. They had made love every night but one of their marriage-and still he could not get enough, apparently, or he would not go elsewhere.
Well, no matter. The path to follow, she decided, was one of love and understanding and toleration. At least for the time being. Perhaps Bud would come to his senses, would come to some true understanding of the meaning of the marriage bond. If not-
If not, there were always the divorce courts. But Rosalie hoped matters wouldn't get that far.
I love him, she thought fiercely. Despite everything-I love him! I want us to be able to make a go of it!
After a short while, her mood began to brighten, and she returned to the kitchen and set to work with a will. The mere act of preparing the meal-of going through the mechanical gestures involved in whipping sauces and slicing meat-took her mind away from her troubles. She allowed the complicated and still unfamiliar routine of cookery to become a comforting cradle that rocked away all worry.
Shortly before five, everything was under control in the kitchen. Within five minutes she could have everything simmering and ready to serve. She felt pleased with the way she had coordinated everything.
Taking a bottle of gin and one of vermouth from their sparsely populated liquor cabinet, she set about mixing martinis. Bud would appreciate being greeted with a cold drink when he came home. Out of a million little touches like that, Rosalie thought, a lasting relationship could be cemented.
Let's see, now. Four parts gin to one part of vermouth. So for two martinis of three ounces apiece you need-umm-practically five ounces of gin and about an ounce and three eighths of vermouth. Okay.
She measured it out into the cocktail shaker, figuring the fractional ounce as best she could.
Add ice. There. Now shake.
She agitated the mixer vigorously for a couple of moments, until the clear liquid foamed. She put the martinis in the refrigerator. After a moment's thought she took two cocktail glasses from the shelf and popped them into the refrigerator to get chilled.
Five after five. She was trembling slightly in apprehension.
Remember, you don't know a thing about Bud's escapades, and you didn't sleep with Frank Satterfield today. You love Bud very much. Very much indeed.
She walked to the kitchen window and stared out at the parking area in back, waiting as the minutes passed. Quarter after five. He ought to be home any minute. The missile plant was just a short drive up the road from the trailer camp. Twenty after five.
A dilapidated green Buick was pulling into the parking area. Rosalie's loins trembled. Bud was home.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Moving quickly, Rosalie went to the refrigerator and poured the two martinis into the chilled glasses. A moment later, the front door opened.
"Anybody home?" Bud called.
"Only me," Rosalie replied. She emerged from the kitchen, looking cozily domestic with her apron over her tight slacks, and held out her arms. She flashed a warm smile. You don't know a thing about Rhona Macklin, she told herself sternly.
"Darling," she murmured. "I've been so lonesome."
"Eight horrible hours," Bud said. "I missed you, 'baby. I haven't been away from you this long since we got married. I thought the afternoon would last forever."
His arms were around her now, gripping her tightly. His lips sought hers hungrily. His big hands rubbed her back, pressing hard, then grasped her buttocks and jammed her against him. She trembled in his powerful embrace, and as he held her the whole long terrible day seemed to fade into insignificance, the revelations of Rhona and Satterfield, the adulterous interlude, everything becoming only an insubstantial dream.
"I love you," he whispered. "Baby, do you know how much I love you?"
"Tell me, Bud."
"I wish I could. But I don't have words for it. There aren't any words invented."
"Invent some."
"Not my line of work," he said. His hands were on her sweater now, rubbing up and down over the soft fabric that covered her breasts. He released her after a moment, and she saw the stark desire in his eyes, the need-the need for her, she wondered, or just for a woman, any woman at all?
"You have a hard time getting used to work again?" she asked.
"Horrible. And all the fellows razzing me. Wanting to see pictures of the bride."
"You show them any?"
"I told them I was taking home movies of you in the nude, and that I'd charge admission. Honey, we could make millions if we only had a movie camera! You should have seen their eyes light up!"
"Why take movies? You could sell them the real thing for an even better price," Rosalie suggested.
"You wouldn't go for that, would you?"
"You bet I won't. Now suppose you go sit down in the living room and take your shoes off. I've got a surprise for you, Bud."
"A home movie camera?"
"You should live so long. Go on. Sit!"
He ambled into the living room. She took the two martinis from the refrigerator.
"Close your eyes and open your mouth," she ordered.
"Okay. But I don't mind telling you I'm a little uneasy about all this."
"So am I," she said. She bent, put the cold glass to his lips, poured a little of the drink into his mouth. He frowned as the cold lqiuid touched his tongue, then swallowed and smiled.
"A martini?" he asked.
"Right the first time. You can open your eyes now. Like it?"
"Very good indeed." He opened his eyes and took the glass from her. After a second sip he nodded his approval and said, "A really professional job. Where'd you learn to make martinis?"
"I used to be a lady bartender. Another secret out of my checkered past."
"And how'd you know I wanted one right now?"
"I was a lady mind-reader too," she said.
She sampled the martini. Yes, it was good-perhaps not up to the smoothness of the one she had had at lunch-she had shaken it-but certainly a good imitation thereof. She felt a moment of pain at the thought that it was Frank Satterfield who had bought her her first martini, Frank Satterfield who had told her how they were made. Every time she drank or served a martini, she thought, the name of Frank Satterfield would come to her mind ... and the memory of her nude body, wide-open and hot for him.
Bud downed the drink quickly. "Got a refill?"
"No go, pardner. There's a good supper coming up, and I want you to be sober enough to taste it."
"Spaghetti and meatballs?"
"Don't be silly. I made beef bourguinonne. Or however you pronounce it."
"A regular chef as well as a bartender?"
"I've got lots of talents you never suspected."
"So I'm discovering. Come here."
"Aren't you hungry?"
"Sure I am. But dinner can wait. I'm hungry for something else."
"Everything will spoil."
His hands were on her breasts, now. He was breathing hard. He said, "You bring out the beast in me."
"Well, just let go of me, wolf man. I slaved all afternoon to make you a fabulous French dinner. We can go to bed any old time-"
"Like right now."
"Like right after dinner," she said, crisply disengaging his hand from her taut, firm flesh and heading for the kitchen. She hoped she hadn't made a mistake by refusing to give in to him just then. But it was a pity to spoil such a good supper. He wouldn't be terribly upset if he had to wait a couple of hours to make love.
Everything was on the table in short order. Rosalie called him in, told him to pour the wine. She was tensely apprehensive, wanting so badly to have everything go just right.
It did. Dinner turned out even better than Rosalie had dared to hope, and the wine was superb. Bud was all smiles as he helped her with the dishes afterward.
Strange, she thought. It's just as-as though we were still honeymooners. Yet I know he isn't satisfied with me, or he wouldn't have gone to those other women.
They had just about finished the dishes when the doorbell rang. Rosalie exchanged a puzzled glance with Bud. Company? When they had decided to settle down for a pleasant evening of making love?
"I'll get it," she said thinly.
She walked past him to the door and opened it to find Jim Burkhart staring at her. Rosalie shifted her feet uneasily under his frankly appraising, lustful gaze and said in a cool voice, "Yes?"
"Hope I didn't disturb you at dinner, Mrs. Richards?"
"We were finished already. What do you want?" Bud came strolling out. "Evening, Jim. What's up?"
Burkhart shrugged. "Having a sort of party tonight, Bud. Wondered if you and the missus would be interested in coming over for a while."
"Afraid we wouldn't," Rosalie said quickly. "We had other plans for the evening."
"Hold it, Rosalie," Bud said. "Let's see what's what." He looked at Burkhart. "Who's going to be at the party, anyhow?"
"Small bunch. Joy and Nick Robbins, Lew and Bets Longstreet, me and Paula, maybe the two of you. We figured we'd play a little cards." Burkhart leered. "You know."
"What time?" Bud asked.
"Bud-" Rosalie began.
"Around an hour from now," Burkhart said. "Give the kids a chance to get to sleep, you know. Say, maybe half-past eight, quarter to nine."
"Maybe we'll make it," Bud said. "We'll talk about it some before we decide."
"Sure hope you get there," Burkhart said. He tossed a provocative glance at Rosalie. "That card game could get mighty interesting tonight."
When he had gone, Rosalie said, "I thought we were going to spend the evening together, Bud. Just the two of us in the bedroom."
His eyes twinkled merrily. "I thought so too. But plans can always change. And this sounds interesting."
"You know I don't like the Burkharts. And I don't even know the other people."
"Good way to get to know them."
"And what's this about playing cards? That's a dull way to spend an evening."
"Not the way they play."
"What do you mean?"
"They play strip poker," Bud said. Rosalie blinked in astonishment. "You want us to go next door and play strip poker?"
"Why not?"
"Well-well-" She hesitated. "I suppose it turns into some kind of dirty orgy afterward. Everybody jumping for everyone else's wife."
Bud shook his head. "You think I'd let one of those guys put a finger on you, sweet?" He chuckled. "Listen, this isn't going to be any gory orgy. It's just a pleasantly spicy way to spend an evening. It goes on all the time around here, baby. It's the fad among the married folk this season. Hey, you aren't ashamed to peel a little, are you?"
"Not in front of you, Bud. But in front of all those others-"
"You sound awfully prudish tonight," Bud said. "I don't know. It's one thing not to want to have sex because dinner will burn, but-"
He wanted badly to go to the card party. Rosalie saw. She felt strangely troubled about it. The idea of having anything to do with the Burkharts disgusted her. And strip poker-
But, she told herself, she had to appear to be a regular girl, one of the gang. If she played the part of an old stick-in-the-mud, she'd lose Bud all the faster. And maybe going to a party of that sort would serve to release some of the sexual steam he wanted to let off-in a harmless way, right under her eye. It was better to play strip poker, she decided, than to have him go sneaking off to motels or bushes with the other women of the trailer camp.
Rosalie flashed an impish smile. "Okay," she said. "You can tell Jim that we'll come. It ought to be a novel experience for me, anyway. The last time I played strip poker I was fourteen years old, and we agreed in advance to stop at underwear."
About half-past eight, they went across to the Burkhart trailer. The other couples were there already, laughing and cracking jokes just a little too loudly. Everyone seemed a trifle tense and sheepish about the game that was going to be played.
Jim Burkhart took care of the introductions. The only people in the group that Rosalie did not know at all were the Longstreets. Lew Longstreet was a lean, blond-haired man in his late thirties, with a constant smile and shifty, uncertain eyes. His wife Bets was a short, almost petite woman with an air of fragility about her. Longstreet ran an electrician's shop in town, and said he lived in trailers for the sake of economy and mobility.
The Robbinses, Nick and Joy, were people Rosalie had met at a couple of parties earlier in the week, and neither of them had made an overwhelming impression on her. Joy Robbins was a big, busty girl of about twenty-eight, with a long, black pony-tail, a voluptuous figure, and an irritating, high-pitched giggle. She had been carrying on an affair with Jim Burkhart for a long while, and neither of them seemed to go to any pains to hide that fact.
Her husband was a sinister-looking sort with a bristly crew cut, a dark complexion, a beak of a nose, and a downturned, V-shaped mouth. He had to be called ugly, yet there was something almost repel-lently fascinating about him. He was a draftsman at the same missile base where Bud worked.
There was a moment of tension after the introductions. Then Jim Burkhart pointed to several bottles of liquor standing on a cupboard and said, "Anyone who wants, just help themselves. There's lots for all."
"Get me a drink," Rosalie said to Bud.
With a bit of bourbon in her, she felt more relaxed. Paula Burkhart brought out some folding chairs and put them around the card table. Jim Burkhart produced a deck of cards and began to riffle them nervously.
There was suddenly an air of expectation in the room, an almost crackling tension. Since, Rosalie assumed, these people had all played this game with each other before, the anticipation could only be due to the presence of a newcomer among them.
Herself.
Burkhart said, "We ready to start?"
"Might as well," Nick Robbins said. "Everyone's here, right?"
"Looks that way," Burkhart agreed.
The eight of them settled in around the card table. After a moment of hesitation, Burkhart said, "I guess I better explain the standard rules for the benefit of Rosalie here, huh?"
"You'd better," Rosalie said. She took another sip of the drink. All eyes seemed to be on her, as though both men and women were eager to see her undress.
Burkhart said, "First of all, since there's eight of us and only fifty-two cards, we got to limit ourselves to five-card poker. If we play stud, it's okay. If we play draw, then you can only draw a certain number of cards. What's the figure, Lew?"
"First four people to the left of the dealer can draw up to two cards apiece," Longstreet said. "The other four can only draw one card apiece unless some of the first people don't take both cards."
"That doesn't sound fair to the second four," Rosalie objected.
"It averages out," Burkhart said. "Now, about stakes. We usually put in five bucks a couple. That agreeable with everybody?"
No one objected. Rosalie said, "Who gets the pot?"
"Well, it's like this," Burkhart explained. "We play each hand, and the one who's got the lowest hand has to take off one item of clothing. It keeps on going around, you know."
"I understand that."
"Okay, then. Now, we can divide the kitty two ways. We can split it between the person who gets stark naked first and the one who keeps a piece of clothing longer than the others, or we can give the whole pot to the one who holds out the longest. Sometimes we do it one way, sometimes the other."
"It was high-low last time," Joy Robbins said. "Let's not split it this time."
"I agree," Longstreet said.
Burkhart looked around the room. "Okay," he said. "The twenty bucks goes to whoever can keep an article of clothing the longest. Now, there's just one more rule."
"The equal start," Bets Longstreet said.
"Yeah. We all have to start with the same number of articles. We allow eight items apiece. One pair of shoes, one pair of socks, one undershirt or bra, one pair of underpants, one pair of slacks, one shirt. Two, four, five, six, seven, eight. Things like wrist-watches, rings, earrings, slips, garter belts, stuff like that, don't count. Since all you girls have slacks on I figure we got no garter belts or slips to worry about. You all want to stop and check for a second now to make sure you got the right number of garments?"
Rosalie counted up mentally. Yes, eight.
Burkhart went on, "Okay, then, let's see those five-spots in the middle of the table. And then we cut for deal. It goes right around the table. Aces high, dealer decides on wild cards, and one suit's worth the same as any other. If two people both have the same low hand, they both take something off. Everybody got that?"
There was general agreement.
The deck was handed around to be cut for deal. Rosalie came up with an ace, and no one equalled it. She took the cards and began to shuffle them.
She had played some poker in the past, not much, but enough to give her the general drift of the game. But she felt tight and nervous. She nearly lost control of the cards as she shuffled them.
"Five-card stud," she announced. "Nothing wild."
She dealt the closed cards out, then began putting down the face-up cards. Since there was no betting, the deal moved rapidly. By the third round, Longstreet had a pair of sevens on the board. No one else had anything showing.
Rosalie handed out the final cards. "Pair of nines on the board," she said, as she put down Burk-hart's card. Longstreet still had his pair of sevens. "Okay," he said. "Let's turn up the hole cards and see what's what."
"Three nines," Burkhart declared.
"Pair of sevens," said Longstreet.
They went around. Jack had ace-high; Joy Robbins, a pair of fours; her husband, queen high; Paula, also queen high; Bets Longstreet, nothing but a jack.
Rosalie turned her hole card over and studied it. Five, deuce, eight, ten, king. "King high," she said.
"Looks like I start things off," Bets Longstreet grinned cheerfully. She removed one of her shoes and tossed it under her chair.
Then the deal passed to Bud. It was five-card draw, and Rosalie managed to put together a pair of jacks. Joy Robbins was low this round, and one of her shoes came off. The deal passed to her.
The early stages of the game were quiet. Hardly anyone spoke or moved, except to get a refill for his or her drink. The game would not begin to get exciting until all the shoes and stockings were out of the way.
But by the tenth round, a pattern was beginning to take shape. Joy Robbins had had low hand three times, and had both of her shoes off and one sock. No one else had lost more than once, and so all the others were tied. Joy seemed to giggle continually over her predicament-especially when, on the next round, she could muster nothing better than four-fifths of a flush in spades, ten high. She giggled again as she discarded her remaining sock.
Her original eight articles of clothing were cut in half, by then, and everyone else had lost but one shoe apiece. "I hope I start winning soon," Joy chuckled. "It's going to be awfully cold waiting for you people to catch up."
"You've got the law of averages running with you," Longstreet assured her.
But the law of averages seemed to have been repealed that evening. Bud was the victim on the next hand, and then Joy lost again. All eyes were on her. She hesitated only a moment, then unbuttoned her shirt. She was wearing a lacy, pink bra that seemed to be about to burst under the strain of keeping her big breasts in check.
Then the luck of the cards shifted, and began to run against Lew Longstreet. He dropped three out of the next dozen hands, while Joy began to turn up straights and threes-of-a-kind with uncanny adeptness. Rosalie, Robbins, Burkhart, and Bets were down to one sock apiece; the others had merely discarded their shoes. The game was getting toward that critical point where soon, two or three people would be vulnerable.
For a while the losses came almost in rotation. Longstreet lost his shirt, catching up with Joy. Bud had to give up both socks on successive hands. Rosalie lost her remaining sock, Paula one of hers, Bets her sock and her blouse as well. An air of tremendous suspense had taken full hold of the group. Who would be the first to show intimate flesh? Rosalie's initial distaste for the game had been replaced by a strange excitement. She handled her cards well, playing as though stakes of hundreds of dollars rode on each draw of the cards.
"What do you have?" Longstreet asked.
"Two jacks," Rosalie said.
"Kings," Bud declared.
"Nine high," said Joy in a small voice.
It went around the table. Joy's hand once again was the lowest. She stood up to peel off her slacks. Only a bra and a pair of shiny, black panties stood between her and nudity.
Rosalie dealt. Robbins turned up with the low hand, and discarded his second sock. The deal passed to Bud, and this time it was Paula who had to remove a sock. Joy dealt then, five-card stud again. There was a moment of taut silence after the fourth face-card had been put down. Rosalie had two nines showing, Bud an ace, Nick Robbins a pair of sevens, Paula two queens, Burkhart a jack, Bets a jack, Longstreet a king. The best thing in Joy's hand was a ten. She was beaten on the board, unless she could produce something out of the hole.
"Let's see hole cards," Burkhart said.
They were turned up. Bud added a second ace to his visible one. No one else could produce anything of importance. Everyone looked at Joy. She giggled.
"I guess I did a lousy job of dealing to myself," she said, and turned up a solitary four.
"Take it off, take it off!" Burkhart chortled.
"Which is it, top or bottom?" Longstreet demanded.
Joy looked flustered and red-faced. "The panties," she said. She reached under the table, and began to pull them off without getting up.
"Uh-uh," Bud called out. "You got to stand up and show us!"
"Who says? Since when's that in the rules?"
"Come on," Jim Burkhart urged. "No hiding under the table."
Joy shrugged and pushed back her chair, going to the middle of the floor to pull her panties down over her deep-set navel and the thick, black, curling triangle. Her body was plump through the hips, with fat, dimpled buttocks. Face flaming, she made her way back to her seat, clad only in her bra.
The deal passed to her husband, who seemed quite nonchalant about his wife's exposure. He called for five-card draw, and the loser was Longstreet. He unbuttoned his pants and sat down again wearing briefs and undershirt.
Round and round, the cards went. With one of the players on the verge of elimination from the game, tension mounted-but Joy maddeningly avoided losing another hand. Rosalie surrendered her last sock, and then her blouse. Burkhart gave up a sock, Paula her blouse, Robbins a sock and his shirt, Bets her slacks.
"Who's winning?" Joy asked. "I know who's losing, but who's winning?"
"Bud and Jim are tied," Paula said. "They've only lost their shoes and socks."
But on the next round, Burkhart had to surrender his shirt. Paula lost next, giving up her pants, and then Longstreet came out low man and removed his undershirt, putting him, like Joy, one hand away from elimination.
The cards went around again. Three kings for Burkhart, two tens for Bets, a flush for Longstreet, jack high for Rosalie-everyone had fairly good hands. All but Joy. The best she could produce was a broken straight. Burkhart whistled.
Joy arose, giggling over her predicament. Her hands went behind her back and her bra came away. Her bare breasts tumbled free--heavy swaying breasts with big nipples and interlacing blue veins. Stark naked, Joy moved away from the table, losing any embarrassment over her nudity. She kept giggling, sending shivers through her fat, heavy hips and buttocks.
"I'm going to get me a drink," she announced. Then I'll sit me down and watch the fun."
The cards were dealt, there was a draw, and one by one the hands were faced. Rosalie had a pair of fives. Bud had ten high. Around it went. The loser was Burkhart, and he removed his trousers.
Rosalie realized that she and Bud were doing better than the others, for some reason. Bud was still fully dressed except for his shoes and socks. She sat at the table in bra and slacks. Robbins, too, had three articles of clothing left. The others were down to only two, except for Longstreet, still wearing just his briefs, and Joy, who leaned against the wall, a thick-buttocked, nude nymph, looking, on with interest.
On the next hand, Bud joined Rosalie and Rob-bins in the shirtless category. Then Robbins gave up his trousers. There was little conversation, merely the occasional clink of an ice cube in a glass. A lot of drinking was going on; a couple of the bottles were nearly empty, and everyone, Rosalie included, had a flushed, heated expression.
Another hand was dealt. Rosalie produced a jumble of low cards, but Burkhart's were even lower, and he peeled off his undershirt. He and Longstreet were prime candidates for elimination. On the next hand, the loser was Bets Longstreet, and so she was faced with the choice of taking off brassiere or panties now. Face emotionless, she went for the bra. Her breasts were small and far apart, but nicely shaped and high. She returned to the table wearing only black panties with a red monogram.
Longstreet was the next loser.
He stood up, grinning. "That's it for me, ladies and gentlemen. Now you'll all see what you no doubt came here for."
He removed his briefs. Not surprisingly, his maleness was in an aroused state. Somewhat self-consciously, Longstreet went to the bar, poured a drink, and then joined the equally nude Joy Robbins in the kibitzers' row along the wall.
There were six players left. It was possible to draw three cards at a time, and that gave greater possibilities for assembling hands. On the next round, Rabbins drew a spade flush, Rosalie a straight, Bud a trio of nines. The loser was Paula, who removed her gauzy, practically transparent pink panties and sat down again clad just in her bra.
The game was then in its critical stage. Almost every hand produced a revelation of nakedness. Bud dealt. Rosalie found herself with two kings and three nothings. In the draw, Bud took two, Robbins three, Paula and Burkhart one apiece, Bets two. Rosalie asked for three and was gratified to discover that one of them was a king.
"Let's see them," Bud said.
Robbins faced up first. "Three eights."
"Sorry," Rosalie said. "Three kings here."
Bud chuckled. "I'm sorry, too. I've got a straight, jack high."
"Two threes," Paula said. "Not in this league at all."
"Best I've got's a ten," Burkhart declared.
Bets said nothing, merely putting down three sixes. She waited a moment, dramatically, and then casually added a pair of fives.
"Full house," she said.
"I'll be damned," Burkhart muttered. "A straight, a full house, and two triples. You'da been raising each other back and forth all night if we were playing for money."
"But we aren't," Robbins said. "And you lose."
"That's right, I do." Casually, Jim Burkhart divested himself of his briefs. He looked lean, almost skeletal. He sauntered over to wait with the other two losers for the final outcome.
Robbins was low on the next hand and removed his undershirt. On the next, Rosalie lost her slacks, and now wore only panties. Bud met the same fate on the next hand, giving up his trousers.
Bets lost next. She took off her final garment, her panties, revealing slim hips and narrow loins. Half of the players were nude. Rosalie saw the other three men-and a couple of the women-watching her with keen interest, almost impatience, as she stubbornly refused to lose.
Paula was the victim on the next round. She removed her bra. Her breasts were big but well built, high and full and taut, with round aureoles and stiff little nipples. She stalked across the room, flesh jiggling voluptuously, to watch.
Three players. Rosalie, Bud, and Robbins. The cards flew across the table. Rosalie picked them up, arranged them. Five of spades, eight of clubs, jack of spades, three spades, king of spades. In a cash game, she knew, she would probably have folded. Here, the smart thing was to go for the flush.
"How many?" Robbins asked.
"One," Rosalie said.
"I'll take three," said Bud.
Rosalie laughed in glee as she added the two of spades to her hand. There was no need to keep a poker face; bluffing didn't count for anything in this game. She put down the flush. Bud had a pair of nines, and Robbins-who had stood pat-an almost-straight. Shrugging, Robbins pulled off his briefs and left the table.
"Can you beat that?" Longstreet laughed.
"Richards versus Richards for the money."
"We could just call it quits here and split the kitty," Rosalie said. It was like a scene out of a dream, sitting there in her brassiere and panties with six stark-naked strangers watching her.
"None of that," Burkhart said sharply. "Play out the game!"
"You deal," Bud told her. "We're tied right now."
Bud lost the first round, and removed his undershirt. On the next round, Rosalie went with a pair of queens, hoping it would be enough, but Bud topped it with a triplet in sixes.
"Take it off!" Burkhart sang.
Rosalie's face blazed. She paused a moment, deciding between bra and panties, and after a second rolled the panties down over her hips to bare the triangle of womanhood, the firm cheeks of her buttocks. She felt all eyes on her. She felt the hot surge of a blush running as far down as her bare buttocks. Quickly, she returned to the table, heart pounding with shame. She crossed her legs as though that would fn some way hide her nakedness.
Bud handed her the cards. She shuffled them, staring at this husband of hers who seemed not to care at all that she was almost nude in front of others.
"Last hand," she said. "This one decides."
She dealt them out. When she picked them up, she found that she had two nines, an ace, and two low cards. She handed the low ones in, picked two, and got nothing better.
"Well?" she said.
"Tens," Bud announced.
"Nines," she said with a defeated smile. "The game's over."
"The winnah!" Burkhart roared. "Bud Richards, the winnah and champeen!"
"Take it off, Rosalie!" Longstreet called.
"I'll be a sport and peel first," Bud said. "Just to show you."
He stepped out of his briefs.
Now everyone in the room was naked except for Rosalie. She had never felt so embarrassed in her life. But she knew that once this next barrier was past, the worst would be over. Her hands went to the clasps of her brassiere. They shook a little, but she worked the hooks apart, and the bra dropped away. Cool air surrounded her bare, blush-reddened breasts.
She stood naked in this group of naked men and women.
CHAPTER EIGHT
They were all staring at her. Rosalie knew why, too. Her breasts were not as big as Joy's, her body not as voluptuous as Paula's nor as petitely charming as Bets'. But it was new. These other men had played this game many times, perhaps. They were all familiar with each other's wives' bodies. But now a newcomer, young and beautiful, had come among them, and the advantage of novelty gave her a tremendous appeal for them. Even the women were staring, as though sizing up the new competition.
She tried to be casual about it."
"Well, that wasn't a hard way to make fifteen dollars, was it?" Rosalie said to Bud. "I suppose we can all get dressed now."
She started to reach nervously for her underclothes. Jim Burkhart said, "What's the hurry, Rosa-he?"
"The party's just starting," Lew Longstreet said.
Rosalie looked uneasily around. Her eyes came to rest on Joy's overabundant nakedness, on Paula's shameless body, on Bets' small-breasted petiteness. And on the men, Bud big and muscular, Burkhart unhealthily lean, Robbins thick-bodied and hairy, Longstreet slim, youthful-looking.
"What happens now?" she asked.
"You have yourself another drink," Burkhart said. "I'll put on a little dance music."
"In the nude-dancing?" she asked.
"Why not?" Robbins guffawed.
Burkhart turned on the phonograph and put on a slow foxtrot. Breasts swaying, Rosalie walked over to Bud, who was sitting quietly at the card table as though nothing out of the ordinary was going on. She looked down at him.
"Bud, let's get out of here," she said, in a quiet, determined voice.
"That wouldn't be nice, baby."
"We came to play a card game. It's over with, and I want to go home."
"Be a sport, Rosalie."
"A sport? With nude dancing going on? And who knows what will happen next?"
"Relax," Bud told her. "Don't make a scene, sweet. Just stay loose and remember that nobody here is going to make you do anything you don't want to do. We're just going to live it up a little bit."
"You promised me this wouldn't turn into an orgy."
"Give it fifteen minutes," he begged. "Just see if you aren't having a good time."
"But-"
Someone tapped her shoulder. "Mind if I have this dance, Rosalie?"
It was Lew Longstreet. Rosalie looked at him doubtfully.
"Go ahead," Bud urged. "Think I'll go do some dancing myself."
He rose and crossed the room to the bar, where Paula Burkhart was fixing herself a drink. Rosalie watched as Bud asked her to dance, then folded her into his arms and swept her out into the middle of the floor. They were very close together. Rosalie saw how, in profile, Paula's huge breasts were pressed flat against Bud's chest.
Nick Robbins was dancing with little Bets Long-street. Jim Burkhart had his bony arms around the fleshy body of Joy Robbins. Lew Longstreet smiled hopefully at Rosalie.
She felt a surge of anger. Bud had tricked her into thinking this was nothing but a strip-poker game, while actually the card game had probably just been the prelude to a full-scale evening of wife-swapping. And there was Bud crawling all over that horrid Burkhart woman.
I'll show him, she thought angrily.
She held out her arms to Longstreet. He moved forward, meeting her, and they began to dance.
At first Rosalie danced awkwardly with him, like a girl at her first formal, making sure that moonlight would be visible between their bodies. But the stiff, arms-length stance was not only ridiculous-looking but downright uncomfortable as well, and after a moment or two she relaxed and let Longstreet come closer. And after another couple of moments they were dancing very close indeed, as were the others in the room.
The tips of Rosalie's bare breasts grazed Long-street's chest. Then he drew her tight, her breasts flattening out, her bare belly and hips rubbing up against his body in a sensual way as they moved through the slow, provocative rhythms of the dance.
His right hand, which had been on her back, now slipped lower ... to the small of her back ... then an inch or two lower, to the place where the first, flaring curve of her buttocks began. He left it there.
"Well, what do you think of trailer-camp life?" he asked, as they moved in a slow circle around a small area of the floor. "Different, isn't it?"
"It certainly is."
"We don't believe in formality, here. We scrap all the hampering restrictions of convention."
"So I'm noticing. Rapidly."
"You don't seem comfortably adjusted to this sort of life yet," Longstreet said.
"It takes time," Rosalie told him. "It's quite a change from the sort of life I'm used to."
"I'll bet. Think you're going to like it here?"
"I hope so.
"Bud's a hell of a great guy. You made a swell choice when you picked a husband."
Rosalie didn't answer that. She had come to doubt it too much.
Burkhart had dimmed the lights. The record on the phonograph was an LP that seemed to be made up entirely of slow, erotically-stirring dance music. She and Longstreet were moving slowly in rhythm.
He was getting bolder. His hand was on her nude buttocks, moving up and down over the satiny smooth globular ripeness. His other hand trailed at his side, holding hers, but then he bent the arm upward, tucking it between their bodies to get his hand on her bare breast. Rosalie did not resist the contact. She glanced across the room and there, in the dim darkness, she could see her husband and Paula Burkhart glued so tight they seemed all but joined. They were locked in a deep kiss, and Bud's hands were intimately caressing Paula's flesh. The other couples were similarly intertwined.
The strip-poker game, Rosalie saw clearly, had been just a means of getting everyone's clothes off in a spicy and yet somehow-innocent way. This was the real purpose of the party, though. A cozy little game of switching mates.
She clung to Longstreet, feeling the rigidness of his cock rubbing against her thighs.
"Does this sort of thing happen often here?" Rosalie asked.
"What sort of thing?"
"Strip-poker games. And what comes after."
"Oh, yes. It's all the rage. Didn't Bud tell you?"
"Just in passing."
"It's the big fad here this season. Particularly among the married people. The floaters are up to this sort of stuff all the time, so it's no novelty for them. But us old, settled folk enjoy something a little different now and then. Maybe you haven't been married long enough to see the need for some variety in your sex life."
"I guess not," Rosalie said acidly.
Longstreet didn't seem to notice the sarcastic inflection. "Frankly, we weren't sure you'd want to join the fun. But I'm glad you decided to. It's always good to have new faces in the party."
"New faces?"
"You know what I mean," Longstreet laughed.
"Did Bud come to these shindigs often, before he married me?" Rosalie wanted to know.
"Oh-he was around. I don't know if I ought to talk much about-"
"It's no secret to me that Bud had a sex life before he married me."
"Well, he used to come, all right. He'd bring along whatever girl he was seeing. But since all the rest of us were married, it wasn't really an even swap. A wife for a date, you see. Not quite the same thing. But now that Bud's a married man, why, everything's even-steven."
"How nice," Rosalie said.
The record came to its end. Burkhart strode over and changed it.
The next one began with a wild frug. It was a startling experience to do a frug in the nude. Four couples moving rapidly on the dance floor. Breasts bouncing crazily, bare buttocks jiggling, bodies colliding. Rosalie caught sight of Joy Robbins undulating hectically, snapping her fingers flamenco style, her big breasts bouncing and quivering like huge balls of loose jelly. The room took on a frenzied, feverish atmosphere. Rosalie felt her own inhibitions giving way completely in a pagan fervor of the dance. Rivulets of sweat rolled down her breasts and belly. Her body began to gleam in the dimness.
The hectic frenzy gave way to slower music again. Rosalie paused to catch her breath and down another drink. She became aware that there were only three couples in the room, that Robbins and Bets Long-street had slipped out. Probably into the Burkhart's bedroom for a quickie. She went on dancing with Longstreet.
This isn't so wicked, she thought. Just dancing in the nude. Wouldn't go over so well at a YWCA social, but as long as Longstreet doesn't make any serious passes, I won't object. And as long as Bud doesn't duck out of the room with that Burkhart bitch-
But she knew it was naive to expect everything to remain so innocent. In the moment between one fox-trot and the next, she saw Bud and Paula move-still embracing-through the door and into the trailer's kitchen.
The door closed behind them.
Bud and Paula in the kitchen, Nick and Bets in the bedroom-if this wasn't a downright orgy, she thought, then nothing was.
Her first, angry impulse was to head into the kitchen after her husband, who was probably down on the floor putting it into a hot, spread-legged Paula right then. But she didn't want to stir up a scene. After all, she had consented to go there tonight, and she had agreed to stay after the card game, also. It wasn't as though she had been drugged or hypnotized into this. She had gone into it all with her eyes open-and half excited by the idea of such a daring evening.
Let's face it, she told herself. You knew that all this was coming. Don't be a hypocrite now and act amazed that Bud's in the kitchen on top of Paula.
The right-hand door, the one that led to the bedroom, opened. Bets and Nick emerged, both looking like cats who had devoured the canary. It required only a glance at Nick's body to see that they had indeed made love most satisfactorily in there.
Rosalie nodded eagerly toward the bedroom door. "Come on," she said to Longstreet.
"In there?"
"Don't you want to?"
Longstreet grinned in amiable confusion. "I thought you were still struggling with your inhibitions."
"Well, I'm not. I want to go where we can have some privacy, Lew."
He didn't need any further coaxing. They danced right through the open door and into the narrow corridor, past the tightly shut door of the children's bedroom, and into the small, cramped, and untidy room where Jim and Paul Burkhart slept. Longstreet pushed the door closed behind them.
Eagerly, Rosalie dragged him down to the bed. She was not motivated by real sexual desire, but rather by a burning anger with Bud, a furious urge to match him, infidelity for infidelity, sin for sin, as though that could in some way restore a shred of purity to their weird marriage. She knew that it was insane to think she could accomplish anything this way, but she was driven steadily onward by an inner fury.
Longstreet seemed to be taken aback by the intensity of her willingness. He had appeared to expect resistance, coyness needing seduction. Instead he was being swept off his feet by her.
They embraced on the bed. His hands touched her thighs, making the soft flesh tingle. Then they moved up her body to her breasts, and he held the heavy mounds of firm flesh for a moment, until she started to pant.
"Now, Lew. I'm ready--right now-"
The preliminaries had made her impatient. She opened to him, and his body was against hers, entering her, and she shut her eyes tight as he went into her, feeling the pinwheeling excitement in her breasts and thighs and loins and buttocks, and he grasped her tightly and she let out a gasp as their joined bodies began to move, and she felt the thrills cascading through her body, delight upon delight. She dug her fingers into his back and he pressed down on her, flattening her deliciously, and his hands were squeezing her hard-tipped breasts, and she cried out in pleasure as he moved and moved again above her-
And the cold, clear thought cut through her brain:
What on earth am I doing?
I must be out of my mind! Here I am boffing a man I didn't even know this afternoon-
And this afternoon I balled Frank Satterfield-!
Suddenly she was a million miles away from the bed of lust on which she lay with Lew Longstreet. He continued to move above her, but Rosalie felt no further sensations of pleasure, no real awareness of shared ecstasy. It was as though she were standing outside her body, looking down on it.
When you decided to become a sinner, girlie you really did it up brown, she thought. And it's Bud's fault, is it, or is it really your own? Are you getting even with him-or is all this sexing just a convenient way to make up for all those wasted years of sleeping alone?
"Let go of me," she said abruptly.
"What's that?"
"Get off me. I've had enough."
Incredulously, Longstreet said, "Just another couple of seconds, Rosalie. I'm just about'-ready-"
"I don't want any more."
"Just another second--" he pleaded. He clung to her, going deep, and she heard him gasp and begin to move with eager thrusts, and his breath came in harsh little bursts and he plunged up and down and she felt him quiver and shudder as the culmination came upon him. She lay back, unmoving, letting him have his little moment of pleasure-it really wasn't fair to punish him for her weakness-but taking no part in the climax herself.
The moment it had ended for him, Rosalie rolled over, breaking the contact between their bodies.
"That wasn't nice," he said.
"This was all a mistake, a tremendous mistake. I should never have come in here with you. I should never have come to this party."
I should never have married Bud, she thought.
Longstreet sat up, tried to put his arms around her and embrace her. She shook him off.
"I'm sorry, Lew. Sorry I got that way-right in the middle of everything. But I'm disgusted. Disgusted with myself. It's no fault of yours, really. But just let me out of here."
"Don't go, Rosalie."
She ignored him. She rose from the bed, threw open the door, padded down the hallway to the party room. She was beginning to sob by the time she reached it.
There were four people still dancing-Bets and Nick, Bud and Paula. Rosalie burst in, a wild, nude figure, almost hysterical. The dancing stopped. Long-street entered behind her, called out to her.
She ran to the card table, gathered up the little bundle of her clothing.
Bud came over. "What's the matter, Rosalie? Did he hurt you?"
"No. Nothing he did."
"Then what-"
"Leave me alone!" she cried. "All of you! Just leave me alone!"
She tucked the bundle of clothes under her arm and dashed wildly out into the night.
The fact that she was still nude hardly registered on her, even though a bright moon illuminated the trailer camp, even though there were people sitting in front of the nearby trailers who stated in amazement and surprised delight as the naked girl made the fifteen-foot dash from the Burkhart trailer to her own. Rosalie pushed the unlocked door open and burst in.
Entering her bedroom, she hurled her clothing down on a chair and fell onto the bed. She buried her face in her pillow, biting it to keep back the tears. For long moments, she lay there, quivering soundlessly.
What's happening to me, she asked herself?
What am I turning into?
What kind of marriage is this going to be?
She shivered in fright and confusion. Soothing voices inside her skull told her not to carry on this way, to be modern and sophisticated and to accept the wild, trailer-camp life of casual sin and adultery. After all, it was the kind of life Bud wanted. And she loved Bud.
You do love him, don't you?"
Rosalie pondered the question for a moment. What was love, anyway? She liked to go to bed with Bud, she responded physically to his caresses, but that didn't mean anything. She had responded to Frank Satterfield's caresses, and she certainly didn't love Frank Satterfield. Why, she had even been responding to Lew Longstreet until that sudden freeze hit her.
Love had to be more than just sex compatibility, she decided. It was-well, she felt good when Bud was around. She wanted to be near him, to make him comfortable, to do little things for him. To be his wife.
It was only when she stopped to think, to look at things objectively, that Rosalie realized that Bud was a weak, pleasure-ridden man. He seemed so strong, so wonderful. But yet she knew the inner Bud, now, the Bud who found every woman irresistible. And despite that, she could not bring herself to leave him. She knew that. She would stay with him as long as there was even a tissue of hope that she might some day have exclusive possession of him.
The trailer door opened.
"Don't come in here!" she called.
"It's only me, Bud," came the calm, steady voice.
Rosalie huddled against the pillow, conscious of her nakedness now as she had not been at the party. Bud entered the room. She glanced up at him. He was fully dressed, and his face was grave. She put her head into the pillow again and began to shake with repressed sobs.
"Why did you run out like that?" Bud asked her quietly.
"I don't want to talk."
He sat down on the edge of the bed, putting one big hand on her shoulder. She curled up into a fetal ball, trying to hide her nakedness from him. He stroked her shoulder for a moment, then drew his hand down her side, over her naked hip, her bare flank. She pulled away from him.
"What's the matter, baby?" he murmured.
"You promised me-it wouldn't be an orgy-"
"What does it matter? You were having a good time. So was I. And we have to be adults about this sex thing. We don't need to hide our bodies from the world like a bunch of frightened old maids. We-"
"Don't talk this way," Rosalie muttered. "Husband and wife ought to make love with each other. Not with everyone else around the lot."
"I thought you were able to handle that kind of fun," Bud said. "Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I rushed you too soon. I keep forgetting you're new to all this."
"So you want me to make it with other men? You enjoy it when I boff with Lew Longstreet? Does it give you some kind of thrill to pass me around?"
"Baby, we'll have to have a long talk about this-this business of morality. Some other time. When you're in a calmer mood."
"Aren't you glad I was a virgin when you married me?" she asked.
"Yes, I was glad. But only because I was the first. I never expected to go on being the only one."
"Bud, I'm all mixed up. Marriage means Such different things to each of us."
His hand rested lightly on the firm plumpness of her bare buttocks. He patted her gently. "Let's go to sleep, Rosalie. We'll have a long talk about this later on."
CHAPTER NINE
So he had sidestepped the whole issue, Rosalie thought as she stretched out and tried to go to sleep. He had simply promised to talk about it some other time. She felt cold fear growing within her as she thought back over this long, hectic, eventful day and saw it as the forerunner of a wild career of sin that was light-years removed from anything she had thought of as marriage.
After a long while, she slept. The alarm crashed into her slumbers like a battering ram. Rosalie groggily awoke, feeling hung over and much more tired than she had been when she had gone to bed. She struggled out of bed and into the bathroom to wash away the sleepiness with cold water.
Bud was dressing when she emerged. He greeted her with a simile. She nodded in response and moved on into the kitchen to get his breakfast started. There was the patter of rain on the trailer's roof. Rosalie looked out the kitchen window. It was a dark, gray, muggy morning.
They said little to each other at breakfast. It was as though the events of the night before had lowered a veil between them, blocking off communication. An uncomfortable half-hour passed before Bud finally drank his coffee and left the trailer, dashing through the rain to the parking lot. Pensively, Rosalie peered out, watching him hop into the car and drive off to work.
She was in a gloomy, depressed mood as she cleaned up the breakfast dishes. Tonight they were supposed to go into the city, to visit her parents. It would be the first trip back home since the wedding. Her parents would be full of curiosity, full of questions about trailer-camp life, about the marriage, about Bud.
She could just picture the conversation, too.
"It's great living in a trailer camp," she could say. "We have wild parties every night. We play strip poker and a lot of other interesting games."
And she could tell them:
"Marriage is wonderful, folks! I really enjoy sex. I enjoy it so much that I've balled two men already aside from my husband. In only ten days too!"
And she could say:
"Bud's a great guy. So kind, so understanding. And so virile. Is he ever virile! Why, he laid the woman next door only three or four days after we got married. And then he made a blonde at a party on Saturday night, and then last night at the strip poker game he-"
It would be quite a revelation to them, Rosalie thought. Her parents-good, honest, middle-class people that they were, would both have apoplectic strokes on the spot. They believed that a girl should sleep with one man and only one man in her whole life. And here she had exceeded that number already by two, in the space of less than two weeks. The marriage was off to a good start. At this rate she'd be the most experienced girl in New Jersey before her first anniversary.
The housework served to keep her mind off the strange and immoral arrangement that her marriage had turned into. There was laundry to take over to the administration building, where a row of washing machines had been installed, and then there was wash to hang out afterward. At the washing machines, Rosalie ran into Bets Longstreet, but they merely smiled at each other in an abashed sort of way, as though the wild episode of the night before had been eclipsed by these housewifely responsibilities.
After the wash, there was shopping to do. A bed to make. Some mending. Just little things, but they kept her busy, kept her mind away from dark brooding. But by two in the afternoon, Rosalie had grown weary of the household chores. She had done everything that needed to be done. The other things, like vacuuming the drapes and scouring the sink, could wait till tomorrow. Or the day after.
What now?
She sank down in a chair. The rain had stopped in midmorning, but the depressing, gray overcast remained. She wondered how she would use up the three hours until Bud came home. She could always cook something elaborate again, she thought. Bake a cake.
But her heart wasn't in it. She was too confused, too overwhelmed by this complete breakdown in her moral standards. Again and again Rosalie relived the events of the day before, retracing the moments when she had given herself to Frank Satterfield, the hour of the poker game, the nasty little interlude in bed with Lew Longstreet. It had been a headlong rush into sin.
Why, she wondered? Why did I do it?
To get even with Bud? Yes, that was part of it. But that was a silly, childish reason.
I did it because I wanted to. Because I've been a good girl long enough.
That was more honest, Rosalie realized. Her wedding night had been the night of transition for her. It had ended her long years of repression and inhibition. You can only lose your virginity once. After that, it's just a series of repeated sexual experiences, some of them pleasurable, some not. So-once Bud had initiated her-she had begun to give vent to all the forbidden desires that had been throttled up so long. She wasn't merely casting aside her inhibitions, she was bludgeoning them to death. Bud had helped, by giving her the cue for infidelity. She knew she proably would not have succumbed to her desires if Bud hadn't set a bad example first-
But he had.
And she had cut loose.
Now what? she wondered. Where to next?
She wandered to the liquor cabinet and poured herself a drink, and stood by the window looking out at the muddy paths up and down the lanes of the trailer camp. Rosalie could see the Satterfield trailer from there. The lights were on inside. She knew she could wander over and visit for a while. And she knew, too, what that would automatically lead to, if Frank Satterfield happened to be home alone.
Rosalie shook her head. She wasn't going to go out of her way to see Satterfield. There was such a thing as carrying this to an extreme.
She sipped her drink.
The telephone rang.
Four rings had sounded before Rosalie picked up the receiver. "Hello?" she said dispiritedly.
The warm contralto of Bonnie Campbell greeted her. "Hi, Rosalie. Thought I'd call up and find out what you were doing on this lousy day."
"I'm moping, mostly. And doing housework. I'm in a blue mood."
"So am I. That's why I called. I can't get a bit of work done," Bonnie said. "I thought you might like to come over for a drink."
"I've been having a drink here."
"Alone? Shame on you!"
"I just had one," Rosalie said.
"Well, look, come on over anyway. You can listen to a couple of records, and we can cheer each other up. If I sit here alone another five minutes, T'll so clear off my rocker, Rosalie. And your husband won't be home for hours yet. How about it?"
Rosalie smiled faintly. "Okay. I was wondering what to do with myself all afternoon, anyway. I'll be right over, Bonnie."
"Good. What were you drinking?"
"Bourbon on the rocks."
"Right-o. I'll have a fresh one ready for you when you get here."
Rosalie put down the phone. She felt better already, now that she knew she would have someone to talk to, someone to spend the afternoon with. Bonnie was such a cheerful person. And she was interesting and intelligent, too. It was a perfect way to use up a few hours of this bleak day.
She slipped on a light jacket and crossed the camp, over to Lane Two. Bonnie's trailer was small but brightly colored on the outside, brightly lit within. She shared it with a girl named Helena who earned her living drawing illustrations for the children's books that Bonnie wrote.
Rosalie stepped inside. Bonnie came to the door wearing only a loosely belted housecoat. Bonnie was a tall girl in her late twenties, extremely pretty, with big eyes and gleaming, white teeth. She held a glass in her hand, and extended it toward Rosalie.
"You really meant it when you said you'd have one ready!" Rosalie exclaimed.
"I always say what I mean. Come on in and make yourself comfortable. Nasty day, isn't it?"
"Miserable. Where's Helena?"
"New York. Went to the Museum of Modern Art for the Picasso show. The girl can't get enough of Picasso." Bonnie stretched out in a comfortable longue chair, and with a sweeping gesture, indicated that Rosalie should take the one next to it. A record was playing in the background, something with harpsichords in it.
Rosalie kicked off her shoes and tucked her legs underneath her. "What's the music?"
Vivaldi. You like it?"
"It's certainly lively. Are those oboes?"
"And flutes," Bonnie said. She yawned and stretched. The front of her gown fell open, exposing small, very white, rounded breasts tipped with little, pink nipples. She closed it up again with a negligent gesture. "God, what a dull day this has been!You know how much I've written today? Take a guess!"
"Ten pages?"
"Hah! Three hundred words! And I started right after breakfast. Three hundred! Of course, that doesn't count what I threw away. I've thrown away two or three thousand today. Nothing will come out the way I want it to."
"It must be awfully hard, writing for young children," Rosalie said. "You have all those vocabulary problems to worry about."
"Oh, you get the swing of that quickly enough," Bonnie said. "But some days you sit at the typewriter and everything that comes out looks so damned stilted and awkward and false. So you throw it away. And other days it flows like magic. I once wrote a thirty-thousand word book in six days, do you know that?
And here I've been working on this one for almost a month, and I don't even have three chapters finished." Bonnie sloshed ice cubes morosely around in her drink. "I'm supposed to turn it in by the first of next month. I'll never make it."
"What's it about?"
Bonnie shrugged. "Moon people. Little, furry, moon people with pink noses. I thought it was a great idea when I began it. So did my editor. So did Helena. She did some wonderful sketches for it. But it's all going sour, now. I don't believe a word of what I'm writing. And if I don't believe it, how can I expect the kids to?" Lazily, Bonnie drew one knee up. The gown slipped off, revealing the fine contours of her bare leg and thigh, almost to her loins. She frowned at the leg for a moment, then crossed it over the other one. She said suddenly, "Did you have a good time at the poker party last night?"
"What-? How did you know?"
"I spent the morning on the phone when I saw I wasn't getting any work done. I talked to someone who talked to Bets Longstreet."
Color rose to Rosalie's cheeks. "News gets around pretty fast here, doesn't it?"
"It's kind of a tight little society. So you played strip poker?"
"Yes."
"Willingly?"
"Bud wanted me to play. He-insisted."
"I imagined it was something like that." Rosalie looked at the other girl. "Bonnie, I'm scared. Scared stiff."
"What of?"
"Myself. Bud. This whole place. Bonnie, listen to me. You remember at the party, Saturday night? When I was afraid Bud had gone off with that blonde girl? You told me no, he hadn't-but you were only trying to calm me down, weren't you? Because I happen to know that he did go off with her."
"You know that, eh?"
Rosalie nodded.
With a shrug, Bonnie said, "You poor kid. You're just finding out what a heel you married."
"He seemed so great."
"Bud? Yeah, he's a prince. But you should have found out his reputation first."
"He never touched me before we were married. He was a complete gentleman. How was I to know he was a woman-chaser? And last night, forcing me to go to that poker game, making me strip with all the rest-" Rosalie didn't want to tell Bonnie about the other details, her interlude with Frank Satterfield, her session with Lew Longstreet. A sudden idea struck her. "Bonnie?"
"Mmm?"
"I know Bud has been going after every girl in the whole camp. And you're one of the prettiest. Has he-has he ever made a pass at you?"
Bonnie laughed uproariously. "At me? No, he keeps his distance. I made that quite clear to him the first time we met."
"Why is it so funny?"
"Oh, I don't know. It just seems that way. Have another drink?"
"I'm-getting a little stewed already."
"Don't worry. I won't let you pass out." Bonnie smiled warmly. "I'll take care of you, Rosalie. Even if that stinker of a husband won't."
"It's so good to have someone like you in the camp. With all those other people-how could I ever go to Paula Burkhart to spend a lonely afternoon?"
Bonnie laughed as she filled Rosalie's glass again. Rosalie began to relax. The record came to its end, and Bonnie put on a new one, and they listened to the music, talking above it occasionally. Rosalie decided that Bonnie was one of the finest people she had ever met. So warm-so sympathetic-
"You've never been married, have you?" Rosalie asked.
"Me? Never. And I never will be."
"I'm surprised. Someone with as much warmth as you-to live a single life. And especially since you seem to like children so much-"
"I like children, yes," Bonnie said. "But I don't like the way children are made. And I don't like the male sex. Too many of them are like Bud-sweet guys until you get to know them. I'd rather be a bachelor girl."
"Isn't it a lonely life, though? Even when you have a roommate?"
"Oh, it has its compensations," Bonnie said. "I'm pretty happy."
"I'm not. I'm all tight and tense inside," said Rosalie. "Full of confusion. Not knowing which way to turn."
"That's what marriage does to you." Bonnie looked closely at Rosalie. "I've got just the thing for you, if you say you feel tight and tense. A massage. I'm an expert masseuse, you know. I can have you feeling completely relaxed in a jiffy."
"Oh, I wouldn't want you to go to any trouble-"
"No trouble at all," Bonnie insisted.
She led Rosalie into the bedroom. Rosalie removed her blouse and slacks, and, wearing bra and panties, lay down on the bed. The light overhead was warm. She closed her eyes.
"Just relax now," Bonnie said.
Her fingers rippled over Rosalie's back, kneading the flesh, soothing it. Then they moved lower, to the taut flesh of her buttocks. Rosalie breathed slowly, relaxedly. She did not object when Bonnie unhooked her brassiere and laid the strips to the sides so that she could get at all of her skin. And then, a few moments later, Bonnie was rolling Rosalie's panties down over her hips. The older girl's fingers moved skillfully all up and down Rosalie's back, buttocks, and thighs, each kind of massage bringing new comfort and pleasure, "Turn over," Bonnie said.
Obediently, Rosalie turned. Bonnie's hands swept caressingly from Rosalie's breasts to her waist and then to her thighs. Drowsiness and content stole over Rosalie as the manipulations became more and more intimate. She knew that this was wrong, that she should not let another woman handle her this way. But it was so good, so relaxing, so pleasing....
"You're beautiful," Bonnie murmured. "So very beautiful with those glorious breasts of yours, those soft thighs-"
"We shouldn't be doing this," Rosalie said vaguely.
"Why not? We can make each other happy. And none of the misery of being with men. None of their selfishness. Just the two of us, two friends giving pleasure to one another, dear-"
Then Rosalie knew why Bonnie had laughed at the thought of being approached by Bud. A lot of things fell into place, suddenly. Bonnie was a Lesbian, that was it! She had no use for men. She was perverted.
Should I let her do this?-Rosalie wondered. And the answer came: Why not? Her hands feel so good....
"Relax," Bonnie said.
She threw off her robe. She was naked underneath, her body lean and muscular, with small, high breasts and narrow hips. Her hand was cupping Rosalie's breasts. She lay on her side, facing Bonnie, and the other girl had her hand on both of Rosalie's breasts, playing with the nipples, squeezing the heavy globes with all five fingers. One of Bonnie's knees gently pushed its way between Rosalie's thighs. Rosalie found it was pleasant to have the leg between hers. She began to move rhythmically, deriving delight from each rubbing motion of her cunt over Bonnie's leg.
Then Bonnie released Rosalie's breasts and began to move her hands over every part of Rosalie's body. Drowsy, half drunk, Rosalie only smiled. At the moment, she saw nothing unnatural about two women making love to each other. She entered into the spirit of it, her lips gently caressing Bonnie's stiff nipples, and her hands wandered toward the other girl's flat, muscular buttocks. She wriggled closer to Bonnie, and the two girls embraced, and Rosalie could feet the jutting little bones of Bonnie's hips pressing into the softness of her own thighs.
Rosalie began to pant as Bonnie's hands touched the secret places of her body, stimulating them, heating them, exciting them. She reached out for Bonnie, wanting to do the same to her.
"Kiss me," Rosalie muttered harshly. "Kiss me there!"
Bonnie kissed her. "Now you kiss me," she whispered.
Rosalie did.
"Again," Bonnie said. "Oh, again, again!"
And then neither of them could control themselves any longer, and they came together in a tight embrace. Rosalie felt her heart pound as though it would rip out of her chest. Every muscle contracted, and she gasped harshly for breath and cried out, "Oh-oh-oh!" as their lovemaking became more intense, and she felt shaft after shaft of ecstasy shudder through her, even more powerful than when she had been doing it with Bud-for now there was no fear at all, no pain, just sheer delight.
Bonnie covered her body with a million, tiny kisses, and stroked the tender, inner flesh of Rosalie's thighs, parting her legs, kissing her in the hot place between them, and Bonnie toyed with the tenderness of her buttocks and they moved faster and faster, the embrace growing more and more intense until Rosalie thought she would explode with sheer delight. The explosion came.
Rosalie gasped for air and her body was drenched with sweat, and she lay quivering in Bonnie's arms while the thunder of her heart slowly subsided.
"There," Bonnie whispered. "I've been waiting for that moment ever since I set my eyes on you. Did you enjoy it?"
"I-yes. Yes, I enjoyed it."
"I'm so glad, darling. So glad I don't know how to tell you. I've never been so happy before."
Rosalie lay quietly with Bonnie's arms around her. She began to sober quickly. She thought back over the past fifteen minutes, reliving them.
Bonnie's hands affectionately stroked her breasts. She bent to kiss Rosalie's nipples, which still were stiff. Rosalie opened her eyes and stared at the wall. After a moment she began to cry softly.
Lesbian!
CHAPTER TEN
Bonnie tried to be comforting. It only made things worse. Rosalie shook her off, rising from the bed and looking around for her clothing.
"Darling, what's wrong?" Bonnie asked softly. Rosalie shook her head. "I-we shouldn't have done it-"
"We both enjoyed it."
"I know. But pleasure isn't all there is in life." Rosalie shrugged miserably. "Oh, Bonnie, I'm so mixed up! I'm such a dumb little kid! I don't know what I want."
"You want happiness, security, warmth," Bonnie said. "We all do. And Bud isn't giving it to you, because he's a selfish, one-track kind of man."
"He isn't. He means well, Bonnie. I don't think he can help what he does."
"You're just saying that to rationalize away the fact that he's repeatedly been unfaithful to you."
"No. He's a good man, Bonnie."
"That's a contradiction in terms. Men are out for themselves alone. When they marry a woman, it isn't out of love, it's out of a need for sex, for building up their egos, for founding a dynasty".
"I can't be that cynical," Rosalie said quietly. "I still have faith in Bud."
"After all he's done to you?"
"Yes." She snapped her bra into place and pulled on her panties.
"How can you have faith in a man like that?" Bonnie asked sardonically. "Listen to me, Rosalie. Leave him and come away with me." Her small breasts were heaving with renewed excitement. "We'll pull out of here and go traveling, all around the country. Just the two of us."
"There's Helena," Rosalie pointed out.
Bonnie shrugged. "She's been thinking of splitting up with me. We haven't been-lovers-for a long time now. Just good friends. She wouldn't stand in our way. We'd have this trailer all to ourselves-and the entire continent to visit."
"I couldn't, Bonnie."
"We'd have a grand time. No quarrels, no unfaithfulness, no frustration. And no chasing after men. We can give each other pleasure. We just proved that. What do you say?"
"No." Rosalie zipped up her slacks. "I'm just not the right type for it. I don't deny I enjoyed what we did. But I want children, a family, a-a husband. I'm not your sort of girl at all. I want to keep on being your friend, Bonnie. But not your lover."
Heedless of the disappointment in the older girl's eyes, Rosalie walked toward the door. Bonnie slipped a robe around her shoulders and followed her.
"Rosalie-"
"No," Rosalie said firmly. She managed a smile. "Let's just stay good friends, Bonnie. Thanks for inviting me over. I was in such a lousy mood."
She stepped out, into the fine drizzle that had started up, and walked back to her trailer.
Her frame of mind was a mixed one. There was the recollection of undeniable pleasure, and the memory of an act that society condemned as perverse and immoral. Was it? Well, certainly it was from the point of view of a culture that regarded the production of children as the highest goal of sexual relations. But yet, there had been a tenderness in Bonnie's Lesbian embrace that Rosalie had never known from Bud or any other man, a tenderness beyond the male capacity. Rosalie shook her head. She was too much the product of her society to be able to accept Bonnie's invitation and become a full-fledged Lesbian. But, on the other hand, she could not condemn the girl out of hand for seeking pleasure and companionship in the only way that satisfied her.
Rosalie busied herself with dinner. By the time Bud came home, a savory meal was being assembled. She greeted him warmly, and when he kissed her and told her how much he loved her, she heW him tight and tried to recapture the bliss of the days before their marriage had been transformed this way.
Tell him you love him, she thought. And show him. And then maybe he'll give up this wild kind of life he's dragged us into.
"What time are your folks expecting us?"
"Around half-past eight or so."
"They'll be glad to see us," he said. "And full of questions, I bet."
"We won't have very good answers for them."
"Just forget all the side events," Bud told her. "They don't count. What counts is you and me. And we love each other. Don't we?"
"I love you, Bud."
"And I love you. So it's mutual."
Still, they spent an uncomfortable couple of hours at the home of Rosalie's parents. Her parents were both conventional and inhibited people, so the conversation never came around to anything like an intimate topic, but Rosalie was sure that her mother and father could tell at a glance that she and Bud had already been unfaithful to each other on a number of occasions. The closest thing to any direct questioning came when Rosalie and her mother were alone in the bedroom, Rosalie trying on some old clothes she had left behind.
"So tell me," the older woman asked. "Is everything working out?"
"It's fine, Mom."
"I mean, in this crazy trailer camp. You like
"It's all right. It's unusual."
"I bet. But isn't it kind of--not private?"
"We've all got shades on our windows, Mom."
"And the neighbors? They are all right?"
"Some very interesting people," Rosalie said uneasily. She wondered what lay behind her mother's line of questioning. Was it mere curiosity-or did she smell something fishy? Since her mother would never come out and ask a direct question, there was no way of telling.
Her mother said, "I hear a lot of bad things about these trailer camps. I ask questions. There are beatniks in some of them. And women who are just like trash. Is this how it is in your place?"
Rosalie shrugged evasively. "I tell you the place is okay, Mom."
"You want to be careful. Young people can get mixed up in so many things these days. Bud is a good boy, but he's different from us, I know that. And he might get tempted into who knows what? Watch yourself, Rosalie."
On the way home that night, Rosalie told Bud about her mother's almost telepathic insight into the dangers of trailer-camp life. Bud chuckled.
"So my mother-in-law's got more sense than I gave her credit for!"
"Bud, does she just suspect, or does she know?"
"Know what?"
"That-that things like the strip-poker game go on."
"Oh, she's just poking in the dark. Maybe she read a magazine article about trailer camps at the beauty parlor. She can't possibly know what we in particular have been up to."
Rosalie realized that Bud was right. But, still, it would be awkward if she ever left Bud and had to tell her mother why. The clucking of tongues and uttering of I-told-you-sos would be unendurable.
"Bud-"
"What is it, sweet?"
"I was thinking-maybe we could calm down a little."
"In what way?"
"In the way we've been living at the camp. I'm frightened, Bud. Things like that strip-poker game-"
"You still haven't gotten over it, have you?"
"We've only been married a couple of weeks, Bud. That's too soon for us to be getting into seamy things like that, I think."
"You seemed to be having a good time."
She handed him half a dollar for the bridge toll. "I was. But that isn't the point. We start here, and where does it stop? Heroin parties? Perversions? Bud, I don't want to turn into somebody out of a case history. I want to be your wife, not a member of a sin club."
He chuckled in the darkness. "My beautiful little puritan."
"So what if I am?"
"It's unhealthy, that's what. You ought to glory in your body-not hide behind all kinds of inhibitions."
"And if I got pregnant during some of the camp hi-jinks? I expect to get pregnant before much longer anyhow, you know. Will you accept the child as your own?"
"Of course I will."
"Even though there's a chance the father may be Lew Longstreet or somebody else?"
"Honey, when I say I'm not old-fashioned I mean it. Any child you bear is our child."
Rosalie sighed. "I wish you had made a pass at me before our marriage. I wish I had some warning that I was marrying a man from the avant-garde of sex. Can't we slow the pace down a little, Bud?"
"All right," he said. "I'll call a moratorium on sinfulness. We'll live quiet, bourgeois lives for a while. Okay?"
He had appeared to mean what he was saying. A couple of days passed, and though they had an active social life there was nothing illicit about anything they did.
On Wednesday night, they went to a movie in a nearby town with Nick and Joy Robbins, and afterward stopped off on the road for some pizza and beer. It was a pleasant, foursome-style evening, and nobody once suggested a wife-swapping stunt or even referred to Monday's strip-poker game.
The next night they stayed home and watched television. Ron and Lois Hunter dropped over for drinks. Again, nothing out of the ordinary.
Friday night, the Longstreets had a small party. The Robbinses were there, and Ted Martin with Ellen Washburn, and some other people Rosalie did not know very well. Aside from a session of dirty jokes, the party had no off-color aspects whatever, and Bud hardly looked at any of the other women, let alone went off with them.
Rosalie began to hope that Bud had wrung most of the wildness out of his system. He was beginning to settle down a little, she thought. Their life was becoming more conventional, and thus more stable. When Saturday night came, and the Satterfields had a party, and Bud remained at her side almost the entire evening despite the temptation of a couple of breasty new camp residents, Rosalie began to feel that the millennium had come, indeed. There was a new girl in camp, a tall brunette with a stunning figure, who was traveling around the country by herself. She came to the party in a black dress whose scoop front revealed her big breasts practically down to the nipples, and she was quite naturally the object of a great deal of attention from every man present. But Bud merely smiled a polite hello at her, and otherwise was the model of a faithful husband in every respect.
Rosalie was proud of him. That night, after the party, she made love to him with all the ardor at her command. Her taut, nude body opened and engulfed him. Far into the night, they vented their passions on one another, and when Rosalie finally sank drowsily into sleep, she told herself that she had never been so happy.
It didn't last long.
Monday afternoon, when she took her laundry over to the washing machine room, she met Rhona Macklin, the busty, blonde girl who had been Bud's paramour at the first Satterfield party. The two women smiled at each other rather coolly.
Rhona said, "How's it going?"
"Wonderfully well, thanks."
"With you and Bud, I mean."
"Hardly a bit of trouble since that day I came to see you," Rosalie said.
"Glad to hear that." But something in Rhona's tone seemed to strike a false note.
Rosalie said, "Why'd you say it that way?"
"What way?"
"Sort of-half-heartedly."
Rhona frowned. "I didn't, did I? I mean, you said you and your husband were hitting it off well, and I said I was glad to hear it. Where's the harm?"
Rosalie reddened. "What are you keeping from me?"
"Nothing, Rosalie! I mean it!"
"Do you?"
Rhona sighed. "I hate to see you get hurt, Rosalie."
"What do you mean?"
"Listen," Rhona whispered, looking around to make sure no other women were in the room. "You really think Bud's been behaving himself, don't you?"
"Why-yes."
"Well, he has-during the evenings. But I happen to know he's got a little deal working for him during his lunch hour."
Rosalie moistened her lips, and felt behind her for the bench. She sat down, trembling. "What-what kind of little deal?" she asked hoarsely.
"With Peggy Satterfield. She drives down to the missile base every day around noon. There's a tool-shed where they can grab a quick one together. It's been going on for four or five days."
"No," Rosalie said. "It can't be true."
"You take my advice, kid, and dump that guy when you've got the chance. He's rotten through and through."
"But everything was so swell all week-"
"Sure," Rhona said brutally. "But he could afford to be lovey-dovey in the evenings. He was getting what he wanted on company time."
"How did you find this out?" Rosalie demanded.
"Through channels."
"I want to know!"
"Well," Rhona said, "you know that Nick Robbins works at the same place your husband does."
"I know that."
"Okay. It happens that Ted Martin-that's my roommate, Ellen's, fellow-is also interested in Joy Robbins, Nick's wife. You following this?"
"Yes."
"Ellen's got her period right now. So Ted went after Joy. He's been making it with her for a couple of days. Last night he asked her about his old buddy Bud, and whether Bud had ever made out with her. She said yes, and then the conversation came around to Peggy Satterfield, and Joy said that Nick had told her that Peggy Satterfield goes down to the missile base every day and goes to a tool-shed with Bud.
Complicated, huh? Well, Ted passed this along to Ellen last night, and Ellen told me, and I was wondering whether I ought to tell you. It's really none of my business. I already told you what I think you ought to do about that guy."
"So Nick told Joy and Joy told Ted and Ted told Ellen and Ellen told you," Rosalie repeated drearily. "And finally I get the news."
"Honey, I told it to you for your own good."
Rosalie nodded. "I know. Thanks. Thanks a lot. I appreciate that."
She gathered her laundry together, pulling it out of the machine, stuffing it into the laundry basket. Walking as though in a daze, she left the laundry room.
So it was all phony, then, she thought. That warm sense of security and comfort had been built on foundations of sand. No wonder Bud had been such a perfect gentleman in the evenings. He was getting what he wanted during the day, that was all. He was being less blatant about his sex needs, but he was taking what he wanted all the same.
Entering her trailer, Rosalie dropped the wash basket on the bathroom floor and wandered into the bedroom. She stared at the mirror. A stranger's face looked back at her, gaunt, haggard, bewildered.
Everything had seemed to be going along so smoothly, she thought dismally. And now, within five minutes, it was all fouled up again.
Bud.
Peggy Satterfield.
And after Peggy, Paula. After Paula, Joy. Then Ellen Washburn, maybe. Or Rhona again. An endless series of women to supplement the love he got in the marriage bed. And yet he remained so loving, so warm, so generous, so kind.
How could a man be so cynical, she wondered?
How could he carry on a double life this way?
Somehow this was the worst blow of all. After all his promises, after this quiet week they had spent, after all the kisses and smiles and caresses-to find out that he was still unfaithful to her-
She wondered what to do. Divorce him? Or just leave the trailer camp and hope that he would follow after, a reformed character?
Maybe a long talk with him-
No. This wasn't a matter for logic and reason. The man was sick, Rosalie told herself. He needed a doctor. He couldn't help what he did. Obviously. He must be a compulsive, sex-mad satyr. Else why bother getting married? Why, unless he hoped to free himself from the compulsion that drove him? And he was not succeeding.
She looked at her thin, pale wrists. A slash of a razor across those blue veins just beneath the translucent skin-that would end all this torment. How long would it take, she wondered, for her life to bubble out? And would it hurt? She didn't think it would, not after the initial pain of cutting the wrists. After that it would be just a slow, steady flow of blood, while she got weaker and weaker, until sleep came, and no awakening.
Rosalie began to tremble. She wandered indecisively up and down the length of the trailer. Its walls seemed to be closing in on her. And wherever she turned, she could see Bud, smiling at her, whispering words of love and endearment, assuring her that she was the only woman in his life.
She pushed the idea of suicide out of her mind. Things weren't that bad, yet.
But how to still the misery in her heart.
There was always the liquor cabinet. She opened it, poured herself a drink. It warmed her, made her feel momentarily better. But she knew it was only a temporary remedy. No matter how she drank, there would still be the moment of reckoning when the alcohol wore off.
She sat quietly for a long while, more than an hour, nursing her one drink and sipping it in minute mouthfuls to delay the moment when she would have to refill the glass. There was work to do, she reminded herself. Washed laundry to hang up to dry. But she had no desire to do the work, now. No strength of purpose.
She stared at the phone. All she had to do was pick it up, dial someone in the camp, someone no more than a couple of hundred yards away. Call up Frank Satterfield, say, and tell him that she was lonely and needed consoling. Or Bonnie Campbell. There were plenty of people nearby who would be glad to console her. But Rosalie kept away from the phone.
Bleakly, she thought over the possibilities of escape from her intolerable situation. Suicide. Drinking.
Adultery.
Lesbianism. Divorce.
A fine bunch of possibilities, she thought bitterly. The first four seemed worthless except as desperation moves. And divorce?
Giving up Bud?
She realized that she couldn't. Not even after all she knew about him. He was still important to her. He was still the first man she had really loved. When Rosalie closed her eyes, she could feel his big, strong hands on her breasts, could taste the taste of him against her lips, could imagine her body tight against his, his weight pressing down on her, his hands roaming her body, now at her breasts, now under her buttocks as he went into her and brought her to an unimaginable pitch of physical bliss-
She didn't want to divorce him. But she knew she was losing him anyway. The marriage couldn't go on this way. It was a farce, a hollow mockery.
With no way out.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
She let the minutes and the hours of the afternoon roll past. And then it was four o'clock, and she was aware that she had brooded away the whole day and accomplished nothing, was no closer to a solution than she had been hours ago. And the doorbell was ringing.
With a puzzled frown, she went to the door, opened it, looked out.
Jim Burkhart stood there. He looked bloodshot and bleary-eyed, and the blast of liquor on his breath nearly knocked Rosalie over. He peered at her for a long moment.
"Yes?" she said, coolly. What was Burkhart doing home this early, anyway? "Mind if I come in?"
"What do you want?"
"Lemme talk to you," he muttered hoarsely. "Lemme talk to you!"
He pushed the door open. Rosalie could not hold it shut. He forced his way in and leaned against the door as though about to topple over. He was white-faced and trembling and sweaty, and there was a dirty stubble of beard on his lean jaw.
"What's the matter?" Rosalie asked, alarmed.
"I got canned. Laid off indefinitely. Me with kids and seniority and all the rest!"
"I'm sorry," she said automatically.
"Yeah. Sorry. And where's Paula and the kids? At the amusement park, that's where! Spending money! I got to go on relief now, and I come home in the middle of the afternoon and nothing but a note from them."
Rosalie tried to hide her distaste. "I'm sure they'll be back soon," she said. "If you'll excuse me now, I've got a lot of work to do around the house. So if you don't mind-"
"I do mind."
He's drunk, Rosalie realized.
Burkhart was rocking uneasily back and forth on the balls of his feet. "I lost my job, you know what that means? A hundred eight bucks a week and all of a sudden I don't have a thing. I'm sick to my stomach. I gotta get it outa my system. I come home and I figure Paula'll be here and I'll take a good ride on her. Always makes me feel better, take a good little ride. Only she ain't around. Damn fat-ass bitch went to the amusement park! Why ain't she ever around when I need her? Just like a woman!"
"Look, will you go now, or-"
"First let's you and me go into the bedroom, baby."
"Are you out of your head?"
"Paula ain't here. I gotta have a woman. I'll crack up if I don't get it right now."
"You think I'm going to stand in for Paula?"
"Why the hell not? Am I so ugly?"
Rosalie was quivering with rage. "You got one hell of a nerve, Burkhart. You come home in a snit and Paula isn't around to comfort you, so you figure I'll do it? Well, you better figure it again I"
"You think you're too good for me?"
"I'm a married woman, friend. Even if I liked you, I wouldn't make it with you under these terms. And I don't like you. Now get out."
He shook his head stubbornly. "But what about Lew Longstreet? He ain't your husband either, but you put out for him. I saw you and him go into the bedroom, and the both of you bare-ass in your birthday suits. You wasn't playing tiddlywinks in there. And what about Satterfield? Don't you think I know you were with him once or twice? He banged you plenty, I bet. Only you turn up your nose at me. You get laid right and left, and then you come tell me you're a married woman!"
Rosalie scowled worriedly at the door. "I'll ask you once more to leave. Then I'll call for help."
"You whoring little bitch, don't go snotty on me!" Burkhart boomed. "What'll it hurt you, anyhow? Nobody misses a slice off a cut loaf. I'm going outa my head on account of getting laid off, and you can help me, and you stick your nose up."
"Plenty of women around here would be glad to help you out," Rosalie said. "I won't."
"But you're the one I want. You think I couldn't get it from Joy Robbins if I asked? She put it on the line for me plenty. But you. Ever since that party, I wanted you. And I saw you at that card game, those pretty boobs of yours, that sweet little butt, they damn near drove me nuts. And Longstreet grabs you. Well, now it's my turn."
"I'm warning you, you better get out-"
She picked up the phone.
Burkhart crossed the room in a couple of quick, ungainly bounds and knocked the receiver from her hands. The phone went skittering off its little table and dropped to the carpeted floor with a muffled thud. Burkhart caught hold of her and slapped her cheeks twice, hard.
"You little bitch, I'll leave when I got what I want out of you!"
"Let me alone!"
"You goddamn fancy-pants whore, you aren't gonna say no to me! I'm gonna get a piece of tail outa you before I leave here! Just like Longstreet did, and Satterfield, and God knows how many others!"
"Let go of me!" she said.
He had his arms around her, and she felt his lean, wiry body gripping her tightly, and there was the stink of sweat and cheap whiskey about him, making her gag. She brought her knees up hard, but he blocked the kick before it could arrive at its target.
He pinioned her arms with astonishing strength. He was grunting like a pig as he caught his breath in the wild struggle.
"Come on," he muttered. "Don't fight it, will you? It'll hurt a lot less if you just ease up and give in relaxed. You got to give it to me anyhow."
"I'll scream and get everyone over here."
"You scream and I'll bust your face in."
"You're out of your head! You could get twenty years for this, you know that?"
Burkhart only laughed. Then he clamped one powerful hand over her jaws and mouth. Rosalie writhed and wriggled. Panic pounded inside her. This ugly, smelly, dirty man was going to rape her, she realized. He figured that getting some sex out of her was only his due. She let others have it, didn't she?
He worked one hand into the collar of her blouse, ripping outward and downward. Buttons flew in all directions, and the blouse fell open. Somehow it seemed blasphemous to let her breasts be seen by this man, even though she had bared them willingly enough at that card game. Rosalie fought helplessly, futilely. He dug three fingers into one of the cups of her bra and yanked savagely. The straps went taut, then popped. Her bare breasts tumbled into the open. He got one hand clamped on them, gripping hard, brutalizing the delicate nipples.
She looked at his face. It was the face of a lust-crazed madman.
Then he was dragging her back, over to the couch, forcing her down. One hand got at the belt of her slacks, pulled it open. He found the button and yanked at it, and then there was a zipper, and then he was hauling her slacks down, getting them off.
She kicked and scratched, but she was all but helpless against the wild fury of his assault. All she was wearing now was a pair of pink silk panties, and she clutched them to her, but he dug his fingers under the waistband and pulled, and there was the sound of ripping material.
He pulled the shreds and tatters of the panties from her. She pressed her thighs together in an attempt to hold at least some of the material back, but he grabbed at it, and then she was completely naked, totally bare to his gaze and his touch. He was practically drooling. She felt his hands on her bare breasts, on her buttocks, on the soft flesh of her thighs.
"Damn you-hold still!" he muttered.
"You'll pay for this!"
"Why can't you just ease up?" he asked.
Then he was on top of her, pinning her arms down with his knees, holding her with his body, making it impossible for her either to move or to fight him off. She tried to wrap her legs together, to lock one ankle around the other, but his strength was unexpectedly great, and he wedged his leg between hers and pivoted, forcing her grip to break. The next instant he had his hands on her thighs, pulling her legs apart, gripping her tight.
Then, she felt the sudden, intolerable, blazing pain as the sword of his prick thrust through delicate, unready, unwilling tissues, and she sensed him moving his body back and forth inside her cunt, ploughing deep into the sanctuary of her body, moving with brutish eagerness, taking no heed of the agony she felt.
She fought to find her voice.
She opened her mouth, but all that came out was a piping, little whimper, barely audible.
She hesitated. She tried again, struggling to find her voice and cry out against the thing this man was doing to her.
This time she was able to shriek.
It was a high-pitched wail of despair, the cry of a woman who has been violated. It was a banshee's wild yell of hatred. It communicated the fierce pain, the loathing of this beast of a man who had stabbed hotly into her with such malevolent brutality. He hardly seemed to notice that she was screaming. He still bore down on her, wounding her, tormenting her, ripping her apart. His eyes were fixed, set in drunken, stupid, piggish lust.
Her fists pounded on his back. He laughed.
"Bud!" she cried. "Bud, help me!"
But Bud wouldn't be home for half an hour yet. How many times would Burkhart take her before then? How long would this agony endure?
Why didn't someone else come?
"What the hell is this?" a deep voice asked.
"Bud!" she cried, astonished.
She looked past Burkhart's shoulder. Bud stood there, staring down at the two-backed beast on the couch, his face white with shock.
"Get him off me!" she urged. "He's drunk! He came in here and raped me!"
Burkhart growled. Bud put his hand on the thin man's shoulder, trying to tip him loose. He clung to Rosalie, gripping her breasts, refusing to loose his hold on her body.
Bud wrenched an arm up and back. Burkhart howled and let go. Bud yanked him to his feet.
The two of them faced each other, the burly, powerful one and the thin, shifty-eyed one. Bud looked like some avenging demon. Burkhart shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and zipped up the fly of his dirty overalls with an oddly self-conscious gesture.
"What the hell's going on?" Bud demanded in a harsh, guttural voice.
"He raped me!" Rosalie said.
"Ain't so," Burkhart said. He even managed a grin. "It just ain't so, Bud."
"He's lying!"
"You are," Burkhart said.
"Hold it," Bud snapped. "Let's have one or the other of you talking!" He glowered at Burkhart. "You first, Jim. What's the story?"
Burkhart snuffled apologetically. "I got laid off at the factory today. I come home, I was feeling pretty low. And Paula not around, you know? She went to the amusement park with the kids. So I come next door. I just want someone to talk to, you understand? I tell your wife here what happened, and she says, 'Oh, you poor man, let me show you how sorry I am.' Next thing I know, she's ripping off her clothes and dragging me over to the couch here, and pulls me down on top of her and starts begging for it-"
"Bud, he's crazy! I never-"
"Sure you did!" Burkhart spat at her. "You laid me just like you laid for Lew Longstreet and Frank Satterfield and a lot of other guys! Sorry you had to find out about it, Bud. But at least don't go blow up about it. You had Paula plenty, I know. And I didn't object. So now your wife sets her cap for me, well, turnabout's fair play and all."
Huddling nude on the couch, Rosalie tried to hide her breasts and outraged loins with her hands. She fought back hysteria and said, "Take a look at my clothes, Bud. They're ripped to shreds. Does that look like I undressed myself? And why is he all scratched up? And where'd I get these bruises?" She bent forward, scooping up her tattered panties. "You look at these, Bud!"
Burkhart was trembling. His flimsy story was exposed for the fraud it was, utterly demolished.
Bud took the shreds of silk from Rosalie. He turned them over in his hands, and his expression grew terrible.
"I ought to break every bone in your skinny body, Burkhart," he said coldly. "I ought to kill you."
"Look here, Bud-"
"Shut your mouth!"
"Wait a second, Bud," Burkhart begged. "It ain't as if you never had my wife, or that other men never had yours. It ain't the same thing at all.
We-"
"You raped her," Bud said slowly. "You raped my wife, Burkhart. That isn't the way we do it around here. If you can get it honestly, you take it. Otherwise you leave it alone You don't go around raping. I ought to kill you for what you did."
"Now, look, Bud, how was I to know she'd put up all that fight?"
"Shut up!" Bud roared.
He took a step forward, toward the now thoroughly frightened Burkhart, and his fist snapped out, colliding solidly with a point a few inches below Burkhart's throat. The thin man gasped and backed up. Bud brought his left fist around in a short, choppy arc and cracked it into the long column of Burkhart's nose. Blood spurted. Bud stood waiting as Burkhart staggered and weaved.
"For God's sake don't hit me any more," Burkhart muttered thickly.
Bud didn't answer. He waded in again and hit Burkhart in the mouth. There was a cracking sound, and Burkhart, looking bewildered, coughed blood and teeth into the palm of his hand. He tried to swing at Bud, who sidestepped it without difficulty and rocketed four more punches into Burkhart, two into his chest and two into the pit of his stomach.
Burkhart's legs were rubbery. He sagged and rocked, out of control.
Rosalie watched the beating impassively as it progressed. It was totally one-sided, and the punishment Burkhart was taking was dreadful. But she found it hard to work up any sympathy for him.
Burkhart was leaning against the wall. There were cuts under his eyes, and blood was running down his cheeks, and his nose was twisted askew, and trickles of blood oozed out of his mouth. His lips were split and already beginning to puff up. One eye was closed. Bud would not relent. He kept on pounding blows into him as though the thin man were a punching bag. Burkhart made feeble, little, mewling sounds that no longer added up to words.
Finally the slaughter became frightening. Rosalie called out, "That's enough, Bud. You're murdering him. There won't be anything left of him."
"He deserves it."
"Enough is enough."
Bud shrugged. "Okay, baby. Anything you say."
No longer propped up by the stream of Bud's punches, Burkhart sagged to the floor like a straw man, and sat with his head dripping blood onto his trousers. Bud bent and pulled him to his feet, propelling him toward the door. Leaving the couch, Rosalie watched Bud haul Burkhart across to his trailer and dump him unceremoniously in front of the door. She hung back, out of sight. There were people outside, curious onlookers attracted by the screams and by the sounds of a battle.
Her thighs and loins ached. Her entire body felt weak. She passed a mirror, saw the livid marks of bruises on her breasts and thighs.
She dropped down into an armchair. The fabric was cold against her bare buttocks.
After a moment, Bud came back in.
"You all right, baby?"
She did not look at him. "I'll be okay."
"Burkhart won't. His face won't ever be the same again."
"Get me my robe, Bud. I'm cold."
"Sure, sweet. Sure."
He went into the bedroom and returned a moment later. She got to her feet and slipped into the robe, pulling it tight and belting it.
"Good thing you walked in when you did," she said. "Too bad you didn't get here half an hour earlier, though."
"I had some time off. We finished our project early. I was going to surprise you, take you out to-inner. And then I walk in and I see naked legs kicking out from under Burkhart. Your legs."
She stared at the floor, still shivering in the nervous backwash of the rape. "Get me a cigarette, will you, Bud? And a drink. I need a drink. A strong one."
He opened a drawer, took out a pack of cigarettes, selected one, put it in his mouth. He puffed on it a moment or two until it was lit, then handed it to her-
Rosalie put it between her lips and took short, nervous puffs, without inhaling. She could still feel the imprint of Burkhart's hands all over her body.
Bud went to the liquor cabinet. "You want bourbon?" he asked.
"Please."
"Can't find the bottle," he reported a moment later.
Her eyes flicked around the room, and color came to her face as she spied the half empty fifth standing on the coffee table. "Over there," she said.
He fetched it. "Took a nip this afternoon?"
"Just a little. I felt blue."
"And then the excitement started."
She nodded. "Lots of excitement."
He found her glass too, and poured a healthy shot of bourbon into it. Going on into the kitchen, he got a couple of ice cubes. They clinked into the glasff. and she took it from him and gulped.
Bud stood above her, his face set rigidly, grimly. "Better now?"
"A little. I'm still shaky."
He walked to the window. "Paula's home," h announced. "She just went in. Picked up Burkhart and dragged him in. And some busybody's rushing up to tell her what happened."
Rosalie shivered. "I don't care. I'm not interested in those people." After a moment she added, "He tried to rape me once before. He had better luck this time."
"You never told me that. When?"
"The first Satterfield party. He wrestled me in the bedroom. Didn't get anywhere."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I figured it would blow over. I figured wrong. He was still sweating for me."
"You didn't do anything to lead him on, did you?"
Rosalie laughed bitterly. "I as much as told him to his face that he disgusted me. So he raped me." She laughed again, and it rose to a hysterical pitch. Suddenly she threw her cigarette into her drink, listening to the little sputter as it went out, and then set the drink down on the table with a bang. She began to shake and sob. "Hold me, Bud!" she whimpered. "Hold me tight! I'm so scared. I feel so goddamn miserable."
CHAPTER TWELVE
She rose, going into his arms, and he embraced her and held her tightly. They walked across the room to the couch and sat down, Rosalie still folded into Bud's embrace. She closed her eyes. It was warm and comforting to have him hold her. His powerful arms radiated a feeling of complete security.
They remained that way a long while, hardly moving. The shock of the rape was ebbing away slowly. It seemed more like something she had witnessed, rather than anything she had actually taken part in. Something very far away, growing ever more remote in time and space and memory.
Yet she knew the impact of the assault would remain with her forever.
Rosalie shook herself free of Bud's cradling arms. She moved down to the end of the couch and drew her housecoat tight around her and stared straight at him.
She said, "I'm going to leave you, Bud."
He blinked in a baffled way. "Leave me?"
"That's right." She spoke in a soft but level voice, just above the threshold of audibility. "I've got to move out of here. I can't stay here any longer."
"But why, Rosalie? Because of Burkhart? He won't bother you any more. You know that. He wouldn't dare to show his face around-"
She shook her head. "You don't understand me, Bud. What Burkhart did this afternoon wasn't the cause of my wanting to leave. It's a symptom of what's wrong with our marriage, Bud."
"How so?"
"He came over here expecting that I would boff him. In his own mind, he thought that he had every right to expect it from me. He figured that as long as I was willing to make it with other men in the trailer camp, I'd do it with him, too, just for the asking. Especially since he was in a bad mood and wanted to be cheered up. Don't you see, Bud? What kind of marriage is it when strange men come knocking at the door asking to be made?"
"He had his goddamn nerve," Bud muttered.
"That isn't the point. He knew I was available some of the time. Two weeks married, and available."
"What you and Lew Longstreet did at the party was-"
"Was only the beginning. There would be other parties, other card games. Sooner or later, I'd have laid a dozen of the neighbors. Two dozen, in time. Burkhart saw what I was turning into. And he figured he'd get himself a little piece of it." She paused. "I laid Frank Satterfield, too."
Bud looked surprised. "I thought Burkhart was lying when he said that."
"He was telling the truth. I don't know how he found it out, but it's so."
A muscle throbbed in his cheek. "When, Rosalie? And-why?"
"The day I found out definitely that you had gone off with Rhona Macklin at the party. I wanted to get even with you somehow. And Frank happened to come along at the right, strategic moment."
Bud rose from the couch and paced around the room in obvious anguish. "Frank Satterfield, too!"
"Are you upset, Bud? Offended? How do you think I feel when you gallwant all over the trailer camp?"
"Are there-other men, too-?"
"No," she said. "No other men. Not yet." She couldn't bring herself to tell him about what she and Bonnie Campbell had done. "But two affairs is enough for two weeks, isn't it? Not to mention being raped." She laughed bitterly. "I've really learned a lot about sex since I came here to live with you. Give me another month and I can write my own Kinsey Report. Only I'm not going to take that month."
"You're really leaving me?"
"Yes, Bud."
"And going home to mother?"
She shook her head. "I couldn't do that. I'll get an apartment somewhere in Manhattan."
"Alone?"
"With one of my old friends, I guess. Girl friends. And I'll live a quiet life, think things out a bit. So maybe the next time I get married I'll know what I'm getting into."
He went to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a drink. His face looked tense and troubled.
"You want a divorce?"
"An annulment would be simpler," she said, in a crisp, efficient tone that she hardly recognized as her own voice. "No messy scandal. We simply say that you refused to let me have children, that you married me under the pretense that you loved children when actually you despise them. That'll dissolve the marriage the easy way. Otherwise there'll be all kinds of testimony about the goings on in this trailer camp, and a lot of people will get dragged in. I think an annulment's the best way, Bud."
It was easy to talk in this business-like way, Rosalie thought. But she had to fight hard to keep from trembling. And the dull pain of the rape still throbbed in her loins.
Bud seemed to be groping for words. After a long moment he said, "No, Rosalie. No."
"No what?"
"Let's not break up."
"I told you. It can't go on this way."
He was practically stammering. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead as he said, "Give me another chance, Rosalie. Give me another couple of weeks."
"You had that chance, Bud."
"When?"
"This week."
"I've been okay this week, haven't I? Have we gone to any orgies? Have you caught me picking up any girls around the camp?"
"Not around the camp, no."
"So?"
She looked at him defiantly. "How about that tool shed at the missile base, Bud? You and Peggy Satterfield, at lunch times? No wonder you were such a reformed character all week!"
His face went white. He sank down heavily into the armchair behind him, as though he were suddenly a man of ninety years.
"So you know about that, do you?"
"Yes. I know. Aren't you even going to try to deny it, Bud?"
His shoulders heaved in futility. "Why bother?" Then animation came into his face. "Who told you about it?" he demanded angrily. "Does it matter, Bud?"
"I want to know."
"I'm not going to get anyone else involved in this," she said. "All that's important is that you've been having an affair with Peggy behind my back. And pretending to be oh-so-virtuous in the evenings. Rhona Macklin, Paula, Peggy-where does it end, Bud?"
He looked at his hands. "I wish I knew."
"I know where it ends for me. It ends right here and now. I can't take it any more, Bud. It's bad enough to be open about it, to take Paula into another room right in the middle of the party. But to go skulking around tool sheds at the base, and then to pretend you've reformed-uh-uh, Bud. That ends it. This is a crazy marriage. It shouldn't have lasted even the two weeks it did. The best thing for both of us is just to split up."
"No. Don't say that."
"You'll only make it hard for both of us, Bud. Stop pretending there's a marriage here. It's just a legal arrangement for sleeping together. And no monopoly, either."
She rose and started into the bedroom. She was still on the edge of hysteria, but her mind was functioning with a kind of icy clarity she did not know it possessed.
Bud followed her as far as the bedroom door and stood there, hands on his hips.
"Are you going to leave right now?" he asked.
"That's correct. If you'll be good enough to drive me down to the bus stop for New York."
"You can't manage all those suitcases."
"I'll just pack the little one with a few essentials. After I get settled, I'll come back for the rest. I'll ask you to drive them to my new apartment. It'll be the last favor I'll ask from you."
"But where are you going to go now? You can't just wander around Manhattan with a suitcase in your hand, looking for a place to stay!"
"There are hotels. I'll find one."
"It's past five, Rosalie. It'll be getting dark soon. Can't you stay here tonight and go tomorrow?"
She turned to face him. "There's only one bed here, Bud. And I'd hate to have to ask you to sleep on the couch or on the floor."
He bit his lip, fuming inwardly, but saying nothing. Rosalie bent over and pulled her suitcase out from under the bed. She went to the chest of drawers and began removing enough clothing to see her through a couple of days. Bud watched, motionless, at the door.
When she was half packed, she decided to get dressed. In one effortless motion she shrugged out of her housecoat. She heard Bud catch his breath at the sight of her nude body thus revealed.
He took a step toward her.
"Rosalie-"
"Don't make it harder, Bud."
He was standing right behind her. Suddenly he put his big hands over her bare breasts and gripped them tightly. She felt his hands trembling. He had her nipples between his fingers, rubbing them. Despite herself, a twinge of desire rippled through her loins.
"Let go of me, Bud," she said quietly. "Don't go, Rosalie."
"I have to. It's the only way." His hands still had not left the ripe mounds of her breasts. "If I stay here, there'll be parties, and wife-swapping, and more rapes, and scandal, and God knows what else."
"Just one more chance?"
"It's useless," she said. "Bud, I know you don't mean to do half the things you do. You just fall into temptation and give in."
"I'm a weak man in many ways. I admit it."
"And I have to suffer for it."
He let go of her and stepped back. "Rosalie, do you think I want to have anything to do with Paula and Peggy and all the others? Do you think I enjoy cheating on you, hurting you?"
"Then why do you do it?"
"I don't know." Color flooded into his cheeks, and he shook his head bewilderedly. "Something comes over me. An irresistible compulsion. I see a woman and I want her. Even though I know it's wrong."
"You're a sick man, Bud. You ought to see a psychiatrist, you know that?"
He shrugged heavily. "Maybe. Maybe."
"But it isn't only you that makes me want to get out of here. It's the whole place. The entire atmosphere of sordid sex. All these people here, living only for pleasure, out for whatever sex they can get. With no idea of real decency, no notion of what it means to have dignity. That's why I want to clear out."
She turned away from him again, still naked. He reached for her, one quivering hand cupping the globe of a ripe, gently swaying breast, the other stealing down her body to stroke the sleek, satiny smoothness of her hip and buttock. Despite herself, she shivered a little at his touch. She wanted to brush him irritably away and get on with her packing, before something happened that she did not want to happen.
They stood that way a long moment, neither of them moving, hardly even breathing.
Then the telephone rang.
It shattered the strange spell. "I'll get it," Bud said, and left the room.
Rosalie stood stock still, wondering who was calling. She caught sight of herself in the mirror above the dresser, saw the bruises Burkhart had left. She also saw that her nipples were standing up stiffly. She felt them throbbing. Her whole body ached ... ached with desire....
Bud returned. "It's for you," he said. "Bonnie Campbell. What would she want?"
"To talk to me, I'd guess." She made her way past him, the tips of her breasts grazing his arm as she passed. She wished she had not taken off her robe. Bud's eyes were glued hungrily to her nakedness, feasting in imagination on the outjutting thrusts of her breasts, the pale ripeness of her lush buttocks. She felt a tinge of embarrassment. But, even so, she enjoyed being exposed this way in front of him. It was an oddly satisfying feeling.
She picked up the receiver.
"Hello?"
"Darling. I heard the whole gory story just now!"
"What story?"
"About what Jim Burkhart did to you. And what Bud did to Jim. It's all over the camp."
"Is it? Doesn't anything stay secret around here?" Rosalie realized she was blushing bright red down to her breasts.
"Some things do," Bonnie replied. "Like you and me, darling. I've been waiting for you to come back and visit me, you know."
"I told you I wouldn't."
"Yes, but that was before this happened. Listen, now you see men for what they really are. The rapist in them is always right below the surface. They're all like that."
"Look, Bonnie-"
"I want to tell you something else," Bonnie said. "Helena moved out this afternoon. She's gone to live with somebody in Greenwich Village that she's been seeing for a while. So I'm all alone here. Rosalie-"
"Yes?"
"Leave Bud. He's no good for you. Come stay with me. We'll pull out of the trailer camp and take that trip I was talking about. Just the two of us. No wild man to paw you, no filthy beasts of rapists. It'll be wonderful, Rosalie. I promise you, it'll be the best time of your life. We can leave-"
"No."
"You're going to stick with Bud after all that's happened?"
"I didn't say that. But what you suggest is out. Definitely out. I don't mean to hurt you, Bonnie. You've been nice to me, and that's something hardly anyone else around here has been. But I'm not your sort of girl. I'd never be happy in a setup like that."
"Try it for a while!" Bonnie begged.
"Sorry. No. Good-bye, Bonnie."
She put down the phone.
Bud was standing a few feet away, an odd expression on his face.
"What was that all about?" he asked. "Or aren't you speaking to me?"
"Bonnie heard about the rape, about you beating Burkhart up. She wanted to know if that had soured me on men completely. Seems her roommate Helena moved out on her today. She'd like me to come live with her and go traveling all around the country in her trailer."
"I'll be damned," Bud muttered. "Does she think you're queer?"
"She'd like to convert me. But I'm not interested. I told her she'd have to get along without me. And so will you. Oh, Bud, why can't my life be normal? I don't want to gallivant around America with a Lesbian! And I don't want to be married to a man who can't control his sex drives." She shrugged. "Let me though. I've got to finish packing and get dressed."
"Yeah," Bud said. "Maybe you ought to get dressed first and then pack. Or don't you care what you're doing to me? Showing me your breasts, your bare backside, just to remind me what I'm losing?"
"Sorry," she said. "I didn't realize I was disturbing you. I figured you'd already had your workout for the day."
"That was a low blow."
"Didn't you deserve it?"
"Not today."
"You took a day off from the tool shed, is that it?"
Bud shook his head slowly. "You wouldn't believe me even if I told you."
"Told me what?"
"Skip it."
"I want to know what you're hinting at, Bud."
"Let it drop!"
"Don't hide anything, Bud." He sighed. "I told Peggy this afternoon it was all over. That I didn't want her to come any more."
"Really?"
"I've been doing a lot of thinking, these past couple of days," Bud said. "About the lousy way I've been treating you. This week, for instance. You were so happy because I had 'reformed.' Only I hadn't reformed, not really. And I hated myself for lying to you. So I made up my mind this morning. None of this sneaky stuff any more. No more tool-shed fun. I'd really reform. And then I could live up to what a husband was supposed to be."
"Bud, do you mean what you're saying?"
He gestured hopelessly. "What good is promising and swearing? Yes, I mean it. But some busybody had to go tell you about the tool-shed deal. And now you'll never believe a word I say. You'll think I'm just telling you all this now to keep from losing you. It's only human nature to think so."
She looked at him silently for a long moment, moistening her dry lips. Her nipples still ached and throbbed, and she felt the pounding of the sex urge in her loins. She made no move to get dressed.
"Bud-"
"What is it, Rosalie?"
"Where'd we go off the tracks? Where did everything get fouled up?"
"Right at the beginning," be said tiredly. "With me. The sort of guy I am. And the sort of place this is."
I didn't want it to end this way. Two weeks and everything gone smash."
"I didn't want it either."
"We were really in love," she said. "At least, I loved you. I loved you more than anything in the world. That's the only reason I stayed as long as I did."
"And I loved you," he muttered. "No matter how I treated you, I loved you. I love you."
She turned away. "I've got to get out of here, Bud. We don't belong together. We can't ever make a go of it, and we'd better admit it right now."
"Don't go."
"I have to."
"We can make another try," Bud said. "Listen to me, Rosalie. I'll get a transfer to another missile base. Somewhere out in the west. Arizona, New Mexico, someplace like that. And we'll drive out there and start everything all over, where the air is clean, fresh, where there's none of this crap around. No Burkharts, no Satterfields, none of these people. And you'll have a couple of babies, and I'll live a life of blamess virtue, and-and-" His voice broke. "Wouldn't you want that, Rosalie?"
Hot tears were forcing their way into the corners of her eyes. She fought them back.
"Of-of course I'd want that."
"Will you stay, then?"
"It's crazy, Bud. It won't ever work. There'll be different people out there, but they'll be the same sort. I know it. It'll be the same old thing all over again."
"It won't. I promise you!"
"And you mean it, right now," she said. "But how will it be when temptation comes along? Suppose a couple of pretty girls are living in the next trailer?"
"I won't even look at them."
"I wish I could believe that."
"I can't give you an iron-bound oath," he said hoarsely. "All I can do is tell you that I love you, that I want to keep you, that I'm trying as hard as I can to fight this thing inside me, that I mean to go on fighting it."
She couldn't hold the tears back any longer. They came bursting out.
"Bud-"
"I love you, baby."
"Hold me. Hold me tight. Let me cry it all out."
He wrapped his big arms around her, pressing her head against his broad chest. A hundred conflicting thoughts ran through her mind. She was wavering. The original icy force of her decision to leave him had weakened, had melted.
Stay with him?
Give him another chance?
Salvage this marriage that shouldn't be salvaged?
It was foolish, she knew. How long would it be before all his bold promises tarnished, before all his staunch declarations of fidelity faded? He was that sort of man. He admitted it himself.
The unfaithful sort.
But she loved him.
Despite everything, she loved him.
"Tight," she whispered. "Tighter."
And then she was turning her face upward toward him, and his lips were kissing away the tears, tenderly, first one eye lightly touched, then the other, then her cheek being grazed by his lips, then lips touching lips, a cool kiss, and he withdrew to murmur, "I love you, Rosalie. I want you to stay with me."
"I love you, Bud."
Then she was kissing him with all the strength at her command. Her lips pressed tightly against his, until she could feel the hard wall of his teeth, and her tongue snaked out, parting his lips, diving deep within his mouth. Together, they moved back up the narrow corridor, toward the bedroom, his arms atill around her nude body, one big hand outspread on her back the other cupping the cheeks of her buttocks, stroking the soft, smooth, firm flesh. They reached the bed. "Love me, Bud," she whispered. His hard, muscular body, rigid with desire, was against hers. She closed her eyes tight, feeling the rising excitement in her breasts and thighs and loins and buttocks. The brutal rape had left her aroused and restless, and now as Bud's hands roamed her body she felt herself trembling with eagerness. Her breasts were in his hands. He was cupping the warm, ripely rounded fullness of them, and the nipples were growing stiffer, until she thought she could no longer stand the pain of their throbbing.
She buried her head in the side of his neck, taking little nips of the skin, while her breasts flattened out against his chest, the hot, hard points of her nipples against him.
"I want you, Bud! Now! Now!"
They tumbled down onto the bed. She was thrashing, demanding everything he could give her, and they rolled over and over on the bed like two wild things in rut and she came to rest beneath him, arching her body up and clutching at his arms and trying to merge their two straining bodies completely into one, and abruptly they came together and she imprisoned him within her body and she heard the harsh, irregular grunting sounds of pleasure coming from him.
Closing her eyes tight, spreading her legs wide she gave herself up to ecstasy, and shivers of wonder throbbed through her body again and again and again, until she thought no more delight could be had, and then still again. While all the torments, all the doubts, all the decisions were blurred and forgotten, put out of mind by the overpoweringly heavenly force of this single extended moment of bliss.
"Now!" she gasped. "Now, darling! Everything you have!"
He met her furious assault. Body pistoned against body, and pounding furies of pleasure raced through her limbs, and then he was breathing hard, sobbing intakes of breath that told of his delight, and she threw her head back, made little groaning sounds of ecstasy, and she felt his lips on her breasts and his hands on her back, and there was a sudden mutual quiver, an instantaneous and simultaneous release of tension coming over them, a flood of well-being....
A long time later, perhaps an hour, Rosalie gently disengaged herself from him. His head was pillowed in her breasts, and he was smiling.
"Where are you going?" he asked. "To put the things I packed back in the drawers."
"You're going to stay with me? "Of course I am, silly. Did you think that was just my way of saying good-bye?"
He laughed. "I love you, do you know that? I love you so absolutely goddamn much."
"I love you, Bud.
She left the bed and padded nude across the room to the open dresser drawers. Methodically, she began to put away the clothes she had packed. "Take out something fancy for tonight," he said. "Why?"
"It's too late for you to start fussing about dinner. We'll go out. Maybe drive into the city, get ourselves a real swell meal."
"All right, Bud."
"And then tomorrow, I'll put in for the transfer. They were looking for men, anyway, to go out to White Sands. I'll sign up. It'll probably mean a raise, and relocation money, too."
"And it'll mean getting away from here."
"Yes," he echoed. "Away from here." She closed the drawer and glanced over her shoulder at the big man on the bed. He was looking at her, admiring the steep rise of her breasts, the gentle slope of her buttocks out from the small of her back.
He loves me, she thought. And I love him. And we'll move to White Sands and live happily ever after.
It sounds nice.
She smiled cynically. By this time, she knew him well enough to understand his weaknesses as well as his strengths. The honeymoon wouldn't last forever-
There would be other women for him, sooner or later. And other men for her. She knew it. The pattern could not be broken simply by a hug and a kiss and a roll in the sack and mutual vows of love. There were deep, uncontrollable forces driving him on.
But I love him, she thought.
And I'm married to him-for better or for worse-
She turned to him. "I think I'll wear my strapless tonight, darling."
"Fine. Should I put on my tux?"
"If you want. And pick out a good place."
"I'll pick the best in town. And we can go dancing afterward. Come home at all hours. And then stay up till morning making love. How does that sound?"
"It sounds grand, darling."
"I think so, too. I think it's all going to be great from here on, Rosalie."
"Let's hope so," she said softly. She turned away, so he could not see the doubt reflected on her face. "It's all going to be wonderful, Bud. Just you and me, and no interlopers."
"And no talk about packing suitcases."
"No suitcases," she said.
"Love me?"
"Love you."
"Then start getting some clothes on, I'm starved."
She took a bra from the drawer, slipped it into place around her breasts.
For better or for worse, she thought. I'll give him another chance. And then another, and then another. Because I love him. Because I can't live without him.
She went on into the bathroom to make up her face. She wanted to look her best, tonight. It would be sort of a special night for them. The night they turned over the new leaf. She looked at her face in the bathroom mirror, and smiled, and closed her eyes for a moment to think back over everything. Then she opened her eyes and wiped away the tears with a bit of tissue, and got down to the business of putting on her make-up for the big evening that lay ahead.