There was the possibility that the woman riding in the back seat of the car would someday be her sister-in-law, so Lena held her tongue. But she couldn't resist closing her eyes, as if in torture, as the woman went on and on in that domineering voice of hers.
"Ahh, Hollywood! Thrills the hell out of me every time I just pass through it. Think of the history here! C. B. DeMille, and Clara Bow and the days of silent movies that could be ground out on a hand-wound camera for less than a thousand dollars. And the atmosphere's still here, don't you think? In those days this neighborhood was what Beverly Hills is today. Just as naughty too. Don't think they didn't have pool parties then every bit as raunchy as the ones the rock stars of today have. And wait until you see the house we've picked out! Your parents will love it. Nostalgia, and all that good stuff. You can just feel Clark and Carol and Lana and their whole crowd around the pool. Turn right here, Dana, darling. Up Wilcox, oh, I love it!"
She didn't like the woman, and maybe that was why Lena was seething.
Seething to say: "Who asked you to go hunting for a house for my parents to live in? I didn't. Dana and I aren't married yet. I'm not even altogether sure we're engaged. So how about you keeping your nose out of my personal affairs?"
But she couldn't say anything of the sort. She didn't want to hurt Dana, who seemed to imagine, just as his sister herself imagined, that she was specially equipped by nature to run the world and everybody in it. A natural-born busybody, Corinne.
"Well, let's go in and have a look around." Dana turned to ask Corinne if she had the key.
Of course she had the key, Corinne snapped, her tone implying that she was the kind of competent, efficient person who always had the keys, or anything else she was supposed to have.
Lena said: "Two hundred thousand dollars sounds like a lot of money to me."
"Not for this piece of property. And your father can certainly afford it."
Lena turned and looked thoughtfully at Corinne, a bulky, fortyish woman with blue-gray curls and size twenty curves which she insisted upon squeezing into size fourteen suits. But of course, her things did come from I. Magnin's. Corinne wouldn't have been caught dead in any other shop, not even Carlton's, where Dana was assistant manager, and which he claimed was every bit as good as Magnin's.
"How do you know what my father can afford?" Lena asked politely, but with an edge to her voice sharp enough to cut a hot cake neatly.
"He's come out here to retire on money he made in Texas oil, hasn't he? That's what you told us, Lena dear."
"I never told you that Dad was an oil millionaire, if that's what you're getting at." She had been so very, very careful not to give any wrong impression. Her dad owned two small properties where oil had been discovered. It was no big deal. It simply meant that he was assured a comfortable income, could afford to give up the ranch and take things easy.
"If you and Dana have any silly idea about my folks being filthy rich, you couldn't be more wrong. And if Dana is looking for a rich gal to marry, he doesn't want me." It was a cutting, hurtful thing to say and uncalled for. But Lena couldn't hold the words back.
She'd been under nervous tension for days. She resented the way Corinne had taken it upon herself to find this house for two elderly people she had never seen and who wanted no assistance from her. What was more, Lena couldn't forget that Dana had never discussed marriage, in so may words, until after he heard about the oil property.
"Well," Corinne snapped, "that's a fine way to talk, I must say."
"Oh, skip it, you two." Dana smiled his charming, lazy smile as he patted Lena's hand. "This beauteous gal knows it's her face I can't resist, not her fortune. Come on, honey. Let's go exploring."
They got out of the car. Corinne strutted ahead, every inch the drum major, with Lena bringing up the rear. As they went down the steep stone steps leading to the flagstone patio, Lena watched the sun glinting on Dana's shiny black hair with the faintest of waves in it. Her gaze touched his broad shoulders, and her eyes were warm and loving as he turned to smile at her and catch her hand.
She thought of that first day, nearly two years ago, when she had walked into his office at Carlton's to apply for a job. In a matter of seconds she had decided that here was the best-looking man she had ever encountered. The most charming, too, with such beautiful manners. There was no, "Hi, kid," vulgarity about Carlton's dignified young executive, at that time in charge of personnel.
Instead, he had apologized for staring at her. "But you are so lovely to look at, Miss Anderson. So forgive me if I do look, won't you?" Not that there was anything offensive or even irritating about the way he allowed his gaze to take in her pale, silvery hair, her lustrous eyes, the sweet curve of her wide, full lips. It was as if he were appreciatively studying the perfections of a master painting.
It had taken him no more than five minutes to make up his mind, to tell her: "I think you're exactly what we need at the cosmetics counter." Then he asked her how she would like to be the beauty consultant in charge of Rose Garden cosmetics, their most expensive line.
Lena had left his office walking on air. That this miracle should happen to her-a small-town girl with a Texas drawl, two years in a Texas cow college, no business experience whatever, and a dime-store lipstick in her bag.
She still had that dime-store lipstick. She had kept it for luck.
Corinne led the way into the house through ceiling-to-floor glass doors. They went into a living room where the sun streamed glaringly through vast stretches of glass. Lena had to squint her eyes against the glare as she moved obediently, silently, down the long expanse of tufted white carpet. White walls, white drapes, white everywhere you looked except for three chairs done in sharp green, and two matching divans in Chinese red. Her dad would lose his mind in this room. There was no place to put his feet, his cigar ashes, or his cat.
"My mother likes small windows," Lena heard herself saying, "where she can put up gingham curtains with ruffles."
Corinne paused in her conducted tour to stare at Lena with a glassy eye. "Do you mean to tell me you don't like this room, dear? Don't you know a perfect room when you see one? Come here, Lena. I want to show you something."
Meekly Lena crossed to one glass wall. Her gaze followed Corinne's pointing finger to an elaborate pink stucco house built on a hillside beyond a small canyon. Corinne breathed the name of a famous Hollywood star, a woman notorious for her figure rather than for her acting ability. "That's her house," said Corinne. "She and your parents would be practically neighbors. What would your mother think about that?"
"I don't think Mom could care less," Lena said flatly. She managed to hold herself in check until she'd looked at the two tiny bedrooms, the shell-pink tile of the bath. It was when they reached the kitchen "area," that tiny cubicle of space crammed with every electrical gadget dear to the hearts of the Madison Avenue advertising boys, that she announced coldly: "I'm sorry, but this place would never do for Mother and Dad. It's too ridiculous to consider. Dana, would you mind taking me home, please? I have a headache."
Dana had been roaming about the living room, examining this and that, smoking, saying very little. Now he came out to the dining area, where Corinne was breathing hard, obviously trying to check her anger by wiping nonexistent dust from two pottery lovebirds on the metal and glass table.
Dana was frowning, and he sounded very much as he did when he was calling down a troublesome salesgirl at the shop. "Frankly, Lena, I'm a little surprised at your attitude. My sister has gone to a lot of trouble to do you a great favor. This house, as she says, is a real find. It's a perfect house for two aged people who want to take life easy."
"My dad," Lena interrupted, "is fifty-two. Mom is forty-nine. I don't call that exactly aged. I repeat, would you mind taking me home?"
"Presently. But first I think we should talk this out." Dana drew a deep breath, looking troubled and worried and definitely out of patience with Lena's childish behavior. "For one thing, Lena, I'd like to talk this matter over with your father in person. Your parents are the ones who would be living here, and you may have a wrong slant as to what they would like. Or to put it another way," Dana gave a nervous cough, "when can I meet your father and discuss things with him?"
"That's a good question" Corinne proclaimed instantly. "When are we to meet your parents, Lena? It's been three weeks, I believe, since they arrived in Los Angeles. I've tried several times to arrange a little dinner party where we could meet. According to Dana, you always have some excuse. Why, Lena?"
Lena hunted in her bag for a cigarette. Dana disapproved of her smoking as he had, from time to time, disapproved of other "little flaws," such as her Texas drawl, her slouchy way of walking, her unfortunate way of making warm friends with utter strangers. Lena had spent a good part of her spare time in recent months working to correct these "little flaws." She had lost the drawl and gone to a charm school to learn to walk like a model. She had learned to restrain her natural friendliness with strangers until she learned for sure if they were "worth cultivating," as Dana put it. She had cut out cigarettes except for an occasional one when she was nervous and upset. Right now she was extremely upset and didn't care what Dana thought. She was furious at him for taking sides with Corinne, lecturing her in his lordly way. He might get away with that at the shop with kids who were afraid of losing their jobs, but not with her.
She lit the cigarette.
"Odd as it may seem to you," she said, "I think I know my own parents well enough to say what would appeal to them as a home. I've already told you in a general way what my mother and father are like. They are plain people, ranch people. They're used to a big, roomy, comfortable house. They don't like fancy trimmings, and I can assure you they wouldn't be impressed by looking out the window at a movie star's house. My dad," said Lena, "would much rather have a fine, freshly painted barn to look at."
"Obviously, Lena dear, you are in a highly nervous state," Corinne commented.
"You don't seem like yourself. Such childish talk, so lacking in the sophistication we expect from you. And you still haven't explained why you refuse to let us meet your parents."
"I haven't refused. I'm simply waiting for them to get a Utile settled and used to things out here. Then, too, Dad has had a virus infection, and it hasn't been convenient."
"And just when will it be convenient, may I ask?"
"I'll let you know," Lena said vaguely. "Next week, possibly, or the week after."
Lena was stalling for time, and she was a little ashamed of herself for doing it.
"There's something very peculiar about these excuses of yours, Lena. Dana and I have talked it over, so I know that he agrees with me. He thinks, as I do, that an explanation is called for. As you know, my dear, I'm a blunt-spoken woman, and I'm going to speak bluntly now. Is there something about your parents you're trying to hide from us? There's no disgrace in your family, is there?"
Dana spoke quickly from the window where he was standing, looking out over the hills burned brown and dry by the summer sun. "That's going a little too far, Corinne."
"It isn't going too far. You and Lena are practically engaged, as I understand it. Therefore we have the right to meet her people as soon as possible. If we are not permitted to meet them, there must be a reason."
"You want to look them over, to pick them to pieces! That's why you're in such a lather about meeting Mom and Dad," Lena said furiously. "And since you've asked, that's the reason I've been putting it off as long as I can."
She snatched up one of the pottery lovebirds, and pointed it at Corinne like a dagger. "You think you're so darned important, so superior to most people. Why? Because you write a column about Gracious Living and run all over southern California giving lectures to women with nothing better to do than to come and listen to your B.S. And Dana is a rising young executive! Both of you have inflated opinions of yourselves. You think you have the right to criticize anybody who doesn't dress and talk and do exactly as you think they should. Nobody really suits you unless they're rolling in money or get their names in the paper. You make me sick, both of you."
"Well, I never," said Corinne.
Dana came and put his arm around her. "You're saying things you don't mean, honey. You're upset. Come along now. I'll take you home."
Lena jerked away from him. "Of course I'm upset. But you two started this, and I'm going to finish it. In the future, I'll thank Corinne not to go house hunting for my parents until I ask her to. I have nothing to be ashamed of. I'm proud of my parents. They're superior to all the Hollywood phonies both of you think are such big shots, I can tell you that much."
She paused to take a good deep breath. The hand that held the lovebird was shaking, and so was her voice as she went on: "I'll arrange to have you meet them when I get around to it-if you still want to meet them. If you don't-" She stared hard at Dana. "If you want to call everything off, right here and now, that's okay too."
Very carefully she set the pottery lovebird back on the table, back to back with its mate. She turned to look at Dana. Suddenly her eyes welled with tears. "I've behaved badly. I'm sorry. If you don't want to drive me home, will you call a taxi?"
CHAPTER TWO
"Greetings, pal." The words floated from the bathroom as Lena walked into her apartment around five-thirty. She was conscious of flutterings in her stomach, of clammy hands, all the usual signs that she was nervous and worried. If only she could learn not to fly off the handle. Invariably she was sick with regret afterwards, ashamed of her quick tongue, of her lack of poise. Dana had insisted upon driving her home after first delivering Corinne at their Hollywood Boulevard apartment a few blocks away. He had seemed friendly enough, in a cool, remote kind of way. There had been no further bickering, no edged sarcasm. But not a word had he said about their customary Sunday evening dinner together. Nor had he kissed her, or even touched her hand before she left him. Come to think about it, Dana hadn't even gotten out to open the car door for her.
Now she didn't know where she stood.
In the bathroom, Joan Townsend, her roommate, was luxuriating in a steaming tub. She raised a pretty, slender foot in greeting as Lena appeared in the doorway. "My hypochondriac patient suddenly discovered she was down to her last million," Joan explained gleefully. "Therefore she could no longer afford the services of a nurse. Therefore I'm a free woman for the next month."
"You'll never last it out, darling." Lena smiled at her best friend, a small, exotic-looking girl with sleek black hair which she wore in a tiny chignon at the back. Joan wasn't exactly pretty, but her eyes, with that faint slant, were fascinating, and she looked little more than half her age. She was thirty-five and didn't care who knew it.
Joan got out of the tub, and Lena handed her a fluffy, oversized pink bath towel. "By the way," Joan asked suddenly, "what gives with the VIP this evening? No dinner date?"
As always, when she spoke of Dana Hall, there was the faintest tinge of ridicule in Joan's voice.
"No dinner date," Lena said briefly, and went into the bedroom to put on a housecoat. Crazily, she was still hoping against hope that Dana would call her when he got home. When the phone rang her spirits skyrocketed. Maybe this was he. She sat on the bed before she picked up the phone. A little ashamed of her eager excitement, she said a cool, "Hello."
Immediately her spirits did a nosedive when she heard her mother's voice. Molly just wanted to know if Lena was all right. Mother and daughter spoke for several minutes, with Lena gradually feeling a bit better.
When Lena hung up, Joan entered the room, still walking around with the pink towel draped around her. She sat on the bed next to her roommate.
"So, have any interesting conversations lately?"
"Don't get cute," Lena laughed. "That was my mother."
"Can't you have an interesting conversation with your mother?" the brunette teased. Then her expression became serious. "You look a bit tense, honey. Why don't you go take a warm bath?"
"Now you sound like my mother... but it's not a bad idea." Lena stood up and stretched. She did feel tense, and it would be a relief to get out of her clothes and be surrounded by soothing water. "Well, you've sold me."
"It's the best thing," Joan agreed. "Call me if you want me to wash your back."
"Keep your ears open then," Lena said, grinning. "You know my weakness."
After her roommate left the room, Lena went into the bathroom and gratefully removed her clothes. As the tub was filling up, she glanced at herself in the full-length mirror behind the door. "Why do I ever have man-trouble," she sighed. "I'm not so bad-looking."
That was quite an understatement. Her silky, silvery-blond hair hung down past her young, pretty face to thin, smooth shoulders. Bulging out from her freckled chest were two perfectly formed creamy breasts, each one featuring a wide red nipple. Gazing down her slim torso, Lena's eyes saw her shapely, slender legs and the thick triangle of blond pubic hair between slim, white thighs. Turning slightly, she could see the firm, creamy mounds of her ass. No, she certainly wasn't bad-looking... not bad-looking at all.
Sighing again, the beautiful young girl gingerly stepped into the warm water, then gradually eased the rest of her curvaceous body into its soothing, warm texture. She cooed with delight as she immediately felt much more relaxed and in better spirits.
"I wonder if Joan was kidding about washing my back," Lena mused. "I've always said that's what I really like, but I've never asked her before. Also, I'm not one to sit here naked in the presence of another woman." Yet the more she thought about it, the more she yearned for such a relaxing treatment. Oh, what the heck! If she doesn't want to, fine, but I'll ask her.
Thus resolved, the blonde called out to her roommate. A few moments later Joan entered the bathroom, still clad in the pink towel. Lena brought her knees up and bent over because she found she was a bit hesitant to brazenly expose her body.
"I've decided to take you up on your offer," Lena said.
"Smart girl," the brunette laughed. "I give the best back-scrubs in town."
"I didn't know you get around so much," the young girl teased.
Joan spread the bath mat and kneeled down on it, next to the tub. Lena turned her face away, ready for the relaxing touch of soapy hands on her back. Even if her roommate wasn't much of an expert, Lena knew she would enjoy it.
On her part, Joan hoped the blonde would want to enjoy more than a back-scrub. The sight of the nude girl partially submerged in the steaming water made Joan quiver with barely suppressed excitement.
"Just relax and let Joan take control," she crooned.
The older woman noticed how her hands trembled as she soaped them up. Ever since they'd lived together, Joan had admired the young, healthy beauty of the luscious blonde. Though she knew Lena was relatively innocent, she'd always hoped that one day...
"Well, I'm waiting!" Lena called good-naturedly.
"Sorry, honey. I just got lost in thought."
Joan reached out and placed her soapy hands on the girl's warm, slippery back. With slow circular motions she began to massage the smooth, glistening flesh from Lena's neck down to her shapely lower back. Just below the water's surface, Joan could discern the dark crack between the blonde's two firm ass cheeks.
"How's this, darling?" Joan murmured.
After Lena had sighed her satisfaction, the older woman increased her efforts and returned to her musing. Joan no longer had any anxiety about the experience of female love. She would never consider herself a lesbian-as often as possible, she thoroughly enjoyed having a man thrust something hard and throbbing between her legs. However, the few times she'd made love with another woman had been times filled with ecstatic pleasure. And when she'd gotten to know Lena, the older woman realized they could work quite well together in bed... or in a bathtub.
"Oh, Joan, this feels great," Lena sighed. Encouraged by the girl's remark, Joan increased the range of her roaming hands. Now she moved them down Lena's sides, occasionally pausing to linger at the edges of the blonde's large, creamy globes. She saw a flush spread over the girl's neck and up to her pretty face. Joan couldn't tell if it was caused by the warmth of the water... or if Lena was getting excited.
"I'm glad you're enjoying this, Lena," the brunette whispered.
The young blonde was enjoying it, but she began to worry about what way she was enjoying this soapy massage. She felt a stirring throughout her body that seemed to have its source in the tingling in her loins. The more Joan's hands slid over her wet skin, the warmer she felt.
What's happening to me? Lena wondered inwardly. If I didn't know better... I'd swear I was getting sexually aroused This shouldn't be happening... after all, I'm not a lesbian... am I?"
As though offering an answer, she felt her breasts swelling as Joan's hands rubbed their firm sides. They rose up out of the water, led by her large, stiffening nipples. Soon her rosy buds were fully erect and aching, a sure sign of female desire.
She had to lean back to relieve the pressure of her legs bunched up against her swollen mounds. Almost moaning with joy at the discovery, Joan saw how full and flushed the young girl's delightful boobs had become. Her own breathing became labored as she gazed at the lovely pair of stiff jugs.
"I keep splashing water on my towel," the older woman murmured. "Maybe I should take it off."
Lena nodded her agreement. Now they would both be naked! The idea both thrilled and worried the blonde. She saw the towel being tossed aside, and the tingling feeling mounted between her submerged thighs.
This might not be right, the girl said to herself. But I couldn't say no... because Joan would wonder what's wrong with me. It would be terribly embarrassing if she knew... I was getting hot!
Finding out Lena was aroused would be the most wonderful piece of knowledge the older woman could have. Joan's vaginal juices ebbed and flowed at an increasing rate as she kneeled naked next to the glistening girl. Her own full knockers swelled and ached agonizingly. She wanted to press them against Lena's back and kiss the girl's smooth neck-yet she had to proceed carefully. A sudden move might break the erotic spell she'd created.
"How do you feel... Lena?" Joan asked huskily.
"I... I feel good," the blonde retorted, her breath catching for some reason.
Encouraged by the girl's continued acceptance of her ministrations, Joan gradually moved her hands around the young blonde's sides until her soapy fingers were slowly stroking Lena's swollen melons. Lena couldn't stop a sigh of surprised pleasure from escaping her lips as her roommate's warm, slippery hands closed over her up-raised jugs. She leaned farther back, offering her aching boobs to the lewd massage.
"You seem to like this," Joan breathed. "Mind if I keep doing it?"
"No," the girl replied hoarsely. "I do like it, so please do more."
Joan nearly groaned with pleasure at the blonde's tone and ready acceptance. She knew now that the soapy massage was having its desired effect. In response, her loins tensed with obvious need and droplets of warm juice dribbled down her slender thighs.
"Lena, darling," the older woman crooned, "you're so beautiful. I love having my hands roaming all over your body." And with that, the brunette began to kiss and nibble the girl's thin shoulders.
"I... I l-like it, too," Lena stammered. "That's it, honey. Soap up my big titties!"
With this announcement giving the older woman free rein to promote her lesbian designs, Joan took each slippery boob in a soapy hand and sensuously massaged it, her fingers repeatedly flicking and tweaking Lena's large, stiff nipples. The flushed blonde mewled with delight as tiny jolts of pleasure shot through her nervous system. She leaned against her friend's ample chest, arching her back until her up-raised jugs pointed at the ceiling.
"Mmmmm... I love your boobs, Lena," Joan moaned. "I want to put them in my mouth and suck on them!"
"Ooooh... yes, darling!" Lena cried, her healthy body shuddering with mounting desire. "Wash off the soap... I'll turn around... then put my knockers in your mouth and lick them!"
Because of the frantic throbbing in her loins, Lena tossed all her inhibitions out the window. She didn't care if she was a lesbian or not-all she cared about was enjoying these wild new sensations before they drove her insane with passion.
Without hesitation, she shifted around in the tub, then to her delighted surprise her nude roommate descended into the water, facing her. Joan rinsed the soap off the blonde's out-thrust globes, then leaned forward and began to rim one aching nipple with her tongue in slow, agonizing circular motions.
"Oh God... Joan... that feels so good!" Lena exclaimed. "You can't believe how horny you're making me!"
"I can believe it, honey," the brunette replied.
Lena knew the truth of that as she saw Joan's flushed, contorted face hovering over her swollen jugs. She reached out and began to rub the older woman's breasts, the sharp buds digging into her palms. The strangely erotic sensation of touching another woman's tits sent the young blond skyward to a new level of arousal.
"Joan... honey... what can we do next?" Lena moaned in a shrill voice. "I'm so horny that I can't stand it! Tell me what to do... please!"
A mischievous grin spread across the voluptuous brunette's face. "First, darling, let's get closer." Right away, the girls slid together, their long, slender legs entwined. "Now you lick and suck my tits, Lena, while... I stick my finger inside your pussy!"
Lena nearly fainted at the suggestion. Another woman was going to put her finger in her twat! She'd never heard of anything so depraved before... and she had never wanted anything so badly before as to have Joan masturbating her. With a groan of pleasure, Lena nodded her head in agreement, her eyes glazed with naked desire.
The lusty blonde leaned forward and took one of her roommate's erect buds between her lips. She tasted the sweet tit-flesh as her tongue bathed it with saliva. She was carried away by the new experience and slurping sounds echoed off the bathroom walls and ceiling as her sucking grew more vigorous.
"That's the way, Lena!" the older woman wailed. "Eat up my boobs!"
Lena was about to splutter a reply when her mind reeled with a fresh wave of intense need. She felt Joan's finger slowly making inroads between her twat lips, then it easily slid upward into her burning sex canal. Lena writhed in ecstasy as more of the digit was fed into her grasping vagina.
"Ohhhhh, Joan... ohhhh, that feels wonderful," she moaned. "Stick it all the way in!"
Her delighted roommate quickly complied. Lena's moans became louder and more hoarse as her hot pussy was filled by the brunette's probing finger. Wanting to give Joan the same joy, Lena reached down and slid three fingers deep into the older woman's warm cunt.
"Eeeeeee! Oh Lena... Aaaaah!" the brunette whined. Her squirming body caused waves of water to splash over the side of the tub. "Yeah... finger mmmeeeee!"
Soon the two girls were involved in a steady rhythm of mutual masturbation. Their hips moved back and forth as they humped each other's fingers. Their mouths were very busy, licking and sucking on aching nipples. It wasn't long before they desperately wanted to advance to the ultimate feminine satisfaction.
"Lena... oh sweetheart... let's lick one another's pussy!" Joan breathed huskily.
"Yes, I want to... but I don't know how!" the frisky blonde cried. "Please... show me!"
"Hurry, honey!" the brunette begged. "Let's get out of the tub... and do sixty-nine!"
Lena didn't quite know what that was but the throbbing need of her beautiful body told her to find out right away. Both women stepped out of the bathtub on shuddering legs and Lena allowed her experienced roommate to show her what to do. Following Joan's instructions, the young girl stretched out on her back on the bath mat. Joan spread herself out on top of the blonde's voluptuous form so that their steaming slits were poised at each other's mouth.
"This is how we do it, honey," the older woman panted. "Now stick your tongue in me!"
"Yes, oh yes!" Lena screamed. "And eat me, too!"
Without further ado, the two frantic girls fell to their erotic feast. Lena screamed with lust-maddened passion as she felt her roommate's warm, moist tongue pushing between her twat lips and snaking up into her burning hole. She followed this example, shoving her tongue deep into the pink, musk-scented orifice that hovered above her contorted face. Only seconds later, the two girls were mashing their excited bodies together, their aching nipples digging into quivering thighs, as their drooling mouths were filled with the succulent flesh of aroused pussy.
"Joan! Oh baby!" Lena suddenly shrieked. "This is too wild... I'm going to... "
"Me, too, sweetmeat!" the brunette squealed. "Can't hold back... I... Aaaaiiieeeee!!!"
As her roommate's body exploded in climax, Lena felt her own orgasm roaring through her. Both women lost control of their bodies as wave after wave of red-misted orgasm shattered their senses. The only point of reference was the rapid thrusting of their tongues as they frantically thrashed together on the floor.
Some time went by before the convulsions subsided. After Joan rolled off her spent friend, Lena moaned and smiled with contentment.
"I feel much more relaxed now," she murmured, and Joan grinned in full agreement.
CHAPTER THREE
"Unfair trade practices. That's what I call it." The words came from the young man who had strolled up to the counter while Lena was rearranging some jars on a shelf at the back.
"There ought to be a law," the voice continued cheerfully. "I have a great notion to write my congressman, also my senators. And while I'm about it, I might as well deal the President in on this problem. Somewhere along the line a guy ought to get a little action."
Lena stood up. She found herself meeting the bluest eyes she had ever seen. A wide, infectious smile went with the eyes. The man had broad shoulders and carrot-red hair. "Would you mind telling me what you're yakking about?"
This was not Lena's customary manner with a customer, no matter how smart-alecky he might be, or how irrational, which seemed the more apt word in this case.
At the moment, however, she was in no mood to give the man a smooth smile or sugary words. She longed to wring Irene Spillman by her smooth white swanlike neck. Since Irene's pretty neck was not available, she turned her irritation on her customer.
"Are you trying to be funny?" she snapped, her scowl indicating that the joke was lost on her.
"Not at all." He was simply trying to tell her, said the young man, that the store was guilty of fraudulent misrepresentation.
"Why?"
"Because they have a girl like you selling cosmetics." Her peaches-and-cream complexion was smooth, satiny, absolutely perfect. Obviously, he pointed out, every customer who took a look at her lovely skin would imagine those phony creams at astronomical prices did the job.
"So they buy. You grab their dough. And I'll bet you never use a thing but soap and water. Am I right, beautiful?"
The look Lena gave him might have come straight out of the deep freeze. Would he mind telling her, she asked, what business it was of his what she used on her face? "Whatever are you griping about, anyway?" She couldn't resist a grin as she added: "I don't recall trying to high-pressure you into buying our super-rich tissue cream."
Not that it mightn't be a good idea if he'd use a little something in the way of lubrication. She studied his face, which was darkly tanned. "Too much sun," she informed him. In a few years his face would look like a piece of dried-up old leather, and that could lead to all sorts of complications. He'd probably end up paying fancy prices to a dermatologist who would advise him to stay out of the sun.
"Why don't you try carrying a little parasol?" Lena suggested sweetly. "By the way, was there something you wanted?"
"Yeah." Suddenly the man looked quite morose. "I wanted to ask you as a very special favor to stop lousing up my love life."
"Your love life!" She wondered if she were dealing with an advanced mental case. "I never saw you before in my life. I don't know your name, or what you do, or anything about you. Maybe what you need is a psychiatrist."
He handed her a card which gave his name as Dan O'Connor, real estate salesman.
Having studied it, Lena looked up. "How do you do, Mr. O'Connor," she said politely. "When I need a real estate salesman I'll remember not to get in touch with you. What's wrong with your love life, by the way?"
"Everything. Mostly you, Lena," he said, his eyes pulling her name from the identification tag she wore attached to her nylon blouse.
"That didn't make any sense the first time you said it, Mr. O'Connor. It still doesn't."
He leaned toward her, his elbows on the counter. "Do you know you're the most ravishing woman I've ever seen and I might fall madly in love with you."
"I guess you never heard of beating around the bush," Lena said dryly.
The pretty blonde moved away, yet she had to admit she wasn't disappointed when she noticed the handsome young man remained where he was.
As Lena busied herself with a few tasks around the counter, she mused about this Dan O'Connor. She certainly wasn't in the habit of starting up an acquaintance with any man who walked in and paid attention to her, yet she found herself attracted to his features and by his direct approach. And there was nothing wrong with spending a few minutes being flattered.
Maybe it wasn't a good idea to have him lounging around her counter, though. "Are you waiting for someone?" she called to him.
"You!" he laughed. "I'll wait forever."
"I'm afraid we close before then," she retorted.
The young man took her sarcasm in stride. Lena decided she should try to be discreet, so she grabbed a load of boxes to bring in the back storeroom. Maybe he would be gone when she returned.
The boxes were heavier than she thought and she had quite a struggle getting them through the storeroom door. She nearly toppled over from the awkward weight. Just as she entered the storeroom she felt the load lighten, then the boxes were taken from her hand. Lena was startled to see the red-haired man grinning at her as he lowered the boxes to the floor.
"Only employees are allowed back here," she said.
"I know," he admitted. "But I couldn't stand by and let such a lovely girl struggle by herself."
Lena relented. It was so rare these days to find a chivalrous man. "Thank you, Dan. But I don't think you should stay back here. I'll get in trouble if a manager comes by and spots you."
"Then we should close the door." And with that, Dan firmly shut the storeroom door.
Lena was perplexed by his actions. He was certainly being forward and she shouldn't allow it... but she discovered that she was very attracted to him. He seemed to sense this as he drew closer.
"Lena, I know you think I'm crazy," he said softly, "but believe me, I'm not the type of guy who throws himself at every girl he meets. The honest truth is, I'm suddenly infatuated by you."
"Nonsense!" Lena said, though inwardly she was pleased. "How can you feel that way about someone you met only a few minutes ago?"
"It's true," he said seriously. "Here, I'll prove it to you."
With that, his muscular arms reached out and circled the startled blonde. Their lips met for a kiss, which soon turned into a long, lingering embrace.
Lena felt a thrill of pleasure sweep through her body, and the intense sensation shocked her. She always considered herself a modest girl, and here she was fooling around with a man she'd just met! What kind of girl was she if she got involved with practically anybody who walked by.
Yet as their lips were pressed together, Lena had the impression this handsome redhead was not practically anybody. He was obviously crazy about her, and his embrace was a nice blend of passion and tenderness. But what about Dana? Oddly, the thought of Dana made Lena more certain that she wanted to enjoy this encounter. After all, she couldn't sit around waiting for him... all the time.
"Let's have a little more of that, Dan," she gasped.
The young man joyfully obliged. Their lips met, and soon their tongues were actively probing and searching one another's mouth. Lena moved her hands down his back, feeling the taut muscles.
"Oh, baby, I'm nuts about you," Dan whispered.
"And... I like you, too," Lena replied.
It was more than "like," though. Lena felt herself becoming aroused very quickly. A moment later she realized she wasn't alone. As she pressed herself against the young man, she felt a hard, throbbing bulge straining through his pants at his crotch. As it mashed against her, she discovered how wet her panties had suddenly become.
"Lena, I... I'd better go," Dan said huskily.
The girl should have agreed according to her modesty, yet she grabbed on and said, "No, Dan, stay here!"
"But, honey, something... will happen if I stay here... I told you that you drive me nuts!"
"You... you're making me hot, Dan," Lena moaned. "Don't leave me like this."
This response was apparently what the young man had been hoping for, because no sooner were the words out of her panting mouth than Dan smothered Lena with kisses and his hands roamed brazenly over her body. Lena couldn't believe how aroused she was. She wished the thin material of her dress would vanish so she could press him against her nude flesh.
"Dan... I don't know what's happening to me," Lena groaned, "but I want you... right now!"
"Sure, honey, anything you say," Dan replied gratefully. "Can we do it right here... in the storeroom?"
"We have to. I don't care!"
Lena felt herself turning into a wanton animal of desire and the knowledge didn't faze her a bit. Any inhibitions she might have had were tossed to the four winds in the face of the handsome young man's lusty onslaught. She reached down and took hold of his pulsing bulge.
"Oh Lena... you don't know how horny you've made me!" he cried.
"I want to know... show me!" she demanded.
With the assistance of her trembling fingers, Dan was able to open his straining pants. Lena gasped with delight when she glanced down and saw his red, erect pecker pressed against her dress. She wrapped her fingers around the long phallus and gently stroked it.
"Yes... Lena, I like the way you touch my dick," Dan breathed. "While you're doing that... let me lick your boobs!"
"Please do it, Dan," the hot-to-trot blonde begged. "I love to have my titties sucked!"
Her wish was soon granted. The young man's long fingers undid the top portion of her dress. His eyes widened with delight as he spread the material open and Lena's full, swelling melons popped out. Each was perfectly formed, the white tit-meat sloping out of her freckled chest and tipped by a wide, erect red nipple.
"Lovely!" Dan cried. "I've never seen such lovely tits, Lena. I can't wait until I put each one in my mouth and put my tongue to work on it."
"Do it right now, Dan!" Lena pleaded. "Lick them while I jerk you off!"
It was an offer no healthy young man could refuse. He cupped one succulent mound and leaned his face down. His tongue flicked out and with an agonizing circular motion, he rimmed the red, stiff bud.
"Oooooh... Dan, that's it!" the young girl mewled. "Ooooh, my titties... Ohhh!"
Her pretty face twisted with yearning passion as Lena felt one aching nipple being drawn into the handsome young man's warm, moist mouth. He held it between his teeth as his tongue rubbed back and forth against it. Electric jolts of pleasure set her nervous system on fire. She urged more of her swollen jug into his feasting face.
"Take it all, honey!" she begged. "Eat up all of my big knocker!"
He did as she requested, bathing her soft tit-flesh with glistening saliva, then sucking it up again. Though she was thoroughly distracted by his ministrations, she didn't forget his masculine need. Her hand was now wrapped around his purple-veined shaft, rubbing the length of it. With each stroke, she paused to massage his bulging cockhead with her soft palm.
"Go, Lena, go!" Dan shouted. "That's the way to pull my pud!"
After reaching around to grab his firm ass, the blonde pressed his rigid pecker against her and rubbed it across her belly. The sweet friction caused the man's breathing to become hoarse and labored. He turned his attention to her other out-thrust jug, pressing the swollen flesh into his mouth as slurping noises filled the room.
"Oh Dan, my... my pussy is so hot and wet," Lena moaned. "Take my panties off!"
Dan paused to give her flushed boob another lingering lick. Then, he dropped to his knees. After Lena had tugged the hem of her dress up past her hips, Dan took the drenched fabric of her black panties between his teeth.
"Lena, what beautiful thighs... legs... bush you have!" he marveled. He tugged her panties down an inch. "I want to bury my face in your blonde muff!"
"Do it, baby!" the young girl cried, thrilled with his lewd suggestion. "Touch my hot twat with your mouth!"
That was precisely his intention. With the assistance of his quaking fingers, he slipped the wet garment off her slim hips and down her slender legs. Lena arched her back up against the storeroom wall and got up on the toes of her shoes as she spread her thighs wider.
Dan's tongue rolled out and brushed her slit. "Want me to lick your pussy?" he teased. "Want me to dig in and eat you out?"
"Do it, Dan!" Lena howled, overwhelmed by intense feminine desire. "Lick mmmeeeee!"
With the impassioned young girl firmly braced against the wall, Dan reached up and gently pried open Lena's quivering, slippery cunt lips with his fingers. He gazed with admiration at her pink meat and the steady flow of gleaming love juice that emanated from it.
"Looks delicious," he breathed in awe.
"Find out for yourself!" Lena yelped, writhing against the wall: "Taste it!"
Without any further hesitation, Dan pressed his face into the glistening, pink flesh, his nostrils filling with the heady odor of musk. When his drooling mouth was inserted securely between Lena's grasping pussy lips, he rolled his tongue out and pushed it upward. It began a sensuous journey toward the blonde's raging love furnace.
"Eeeeeee! Oh my God... that feels so good!" the young girl howled. "More... push it in more!"
This he did, inwardly grinning with pleasure. His tongue snaked its way inside, forcing its length between the blonde's clenched cunt walls until it was embedded in her hot, flowing womb. With shrill moans escaping her lips, Lena twisted her loins around it.
"Ooooooh! Oh! Oh! Dan... oh my Lord... I'm getting so hot... can't stand it!"
And Dan gave her a lot more that she couldn't stand. Prying her slit open farther, he forced his mouth into her steaming hole and gratefully accepted the torrent of warm, syrupy juice that coursed out of her ravaged twat. He drank in the musky fluid as his tongue began to work its way around Lena's fiery inner depths.
"God in heaven!" she mewled. "What you're doing... is too wild! Can't hold back... Dan, you're going to make me... " She couldn't finish the sentence but it wasn't necessary. The young man knew exactly what the result of this treatment would be, and he wanted that result right away. He was truly infatuated with this voluptuous blonde, and here was the way to prove it.
He withdrew his voracious mouth temporarily. "Honey, just let it go," he instructed. "I'm going to eat all of your sweet meat and I want you to come like there'll never be a tomorrow!"
"Jeeeeesus!" Lena gasped in astonishment. "That's going to happen pretty soon... Ooooh, I'm so horny I'll go insane if you don't lick me now!"
Realizing the truth of the flushed girl's statement, Dan set right to work. He pressed his drooling mouth back in and shoved the length of his thick tongue into Lena's drenched, burning hole. She yelped in ecstasy and thrashed against the unyielding wall. He rubbed her slippery twat lips vigorously with his fingers as he began to piston his tongue in and out of her hole.
"Oh God oh shit oh my pussy!" Lena screamed. Hot waves of orgasmic pressure mounted in her loins. "Keep eating me... EAT ME!"
The intense, nearly hysterical quality to her shriek told Dan that the lust-crazed blonde was rapidly approaching the point of no return. He reached around and grabbed both of her soft ass cheeks, pressing her wet muff flush against his feasting face.
"Go... Go... GO!" Lena shrieked.
As his head bobbed and his tongue pistoned into the raging blonde's inflamed twat, Dan dragged her hips back and forth so her widespread slit could hump his mouth. His lips and teeth furiously nibbled on her juicy, succulent cunt-flesh. It wasn't long before the repeated thrusting of his long tongue had the ultimate effect.
"Ooowwweeeee! Dan... oh my God, I'm... " Lena screamed at the top of her lungs. "I'm... Aaaaiieeeee!!!"
The young man hung on for dear life as the girl's young, healthy body exploded into a thrashing climax. Lena felt her senses swirling into oblivion, to be replaced by a hot, red mist. Her shuddering fingers yanked at Dan's red hair as the only point of reference in the known universe. Wave after vibrant wave of brilliant, searing orgasm roared through her body until the raging climax was spent and she limply collapsed against the wall.
"Oh, Dan... honey, that was wonderful," she cooed contentedly. "I've never been eaten out like that before."
"There's more where that came from," he said, grinning, his face coated with glistening female juice. Then his handsome face assumed an expression of unconcealed need. "Please, Lena... now do something for me.
The beautiful blonde glanced down as Dan stood up. She gasped with delight at the quick twitching of his rigid member, and she instantly realized his throbbing phallus required her immediate attention.
"Why, Dan," she exclaimed, grinning mischievously, "I seem to have forgotten you. I'll make up for that right away."
The man's breath quickened as he understood her intent. Lena pushed herself off the wall and placed Dan against it. She smoothed her dress down, then dropped to her knees, her pretty face hovering near his out-thrust rod.
"Like to get a good blowjob, Dan?" Lena teased. The panting man could only nod in reply. "Shove your dick in my mouth like it's a pussy!"
"Oh God, honey!" Dan groaned, amazed and excited by her blatant lewdness. "You bet I'm going to fuck your face!"
"Yes, baby, that's exactly what I want."
As Lena cooed this statement, she brought her red, wet lips to gently brush against his purple cockhead. Her tongue flicked out and lapped up a steady dribble of pre-cum coursing out of the rock-hard tip. Then, without further pretext, she parted her lips and fed inch after thick inch of potent manmeat into her drooling, hungry orifice.
"Lena... oh shit!" Dan cried, thrilled beyond belief at the feeling of his tool buried in the blonde's mouth. "Suck it hard, honey!"
More of his phallus slid into the young girl's pretty face until her chin was pressed up against his hairy balls. The erotic act was clearly enough to bring the heaving man to the erupting point. He grabbed her head and began to thrust his meat in and out.
"Sweet Jesus!" he yelped. "Can't take much more... oh Lord I'm going to... " Lena grabbed his taut thighs to brace herself for the spermal onslaught. She knew this was no time to play around. She bobbed her head back and forth, meeting every frantic thrust of his rigid pecker and loving the way it banged against the back of her throat. With each powerful insertion, her tongue worked the length of it and her lips rimmed his bursting cockhead as he withdrew.
"This is it, baby!" Dan suddenly screamed. "Can't hold it in... I'm... Aaarrrggggg!!!"
Lena's head shuddered as the first stream of his raging jism lashed into her mouth. Instantly, wad upon hot wad spewed into her and she greedily swallowed the boiling, white liquid. His load proved to be more than she could take-it dribbled out past her lips and ran in rivulets down her chin to her smooth throat.
Finally, with a groan of spent passion, Dan fell against the wall and Lena allowed his tool to slide out of her mouth. He moaned his satisfaction as Lena stood up and cleaned the warm man-juice off her skin.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lena's parents, Molly and Jim, hadn't heard from their daughter recently. Throughout the morning, Molly tried to pressure her husband to see if Lena was all right. Finally, Jim agreed to do it.
He didn't like the idea of bothering Lena during working hours. Girls didn't like that sort of thing. It gave them the idea that their parents were interfering, still treating them like babies. There might be a store rule that girls weren't supposed to get personal calls. It might get Lena in bad. They might even dock her pay for it. It didn't seem like a good idea. But if it would satisfy Molly...
"Okay, Hon. I'll be right back," Jim said as he fastened his suspenders.
He had gone across the street to use their neighbor's phone.
When he was connected with the store, it took quite a while to get any sense out of anybody to whom he spoke. One voice asked what he wanted. Then he was connected with another voice that asked the same question. Finally some woman told him that Lena Anderson had met with an accident and had had to be taken home.
It was then that Jim got panicky. He dared not go back and tell Molly that Lena had been hurt without knowing more details. That would set Molly off for sure. The only thing he could think of to do was to ask to be connected with Dana Hall's office.
Molly was still pestering him with questions. She wouldn't give him time to get it all straightened out in his own mind, so he could tell her word for word what had been said.
"I don't understand why it was Miss Hall you talked to, Jim. She doesn't work at the store, does she? According to what Lena told us, she runs about giving lectures telling people how to fix up their houses." And that, Molly observed, was a thing she would never understand. In her opinion, a woman who didn't know how she wanted things had no business having a house.
"And where was Dana Hall himself?" During work hours, you'd think a store executive would be right there on the job. Or maybe he'd left to drive Lena to her apartment. Was that the way of it?
No, Jim said. As far as he could make out, some other girl had been taken ill and Mr. Hall had taken her home.
"Another girl, huh?" That sounded a little strange, Molly thought. She scowled at her knitting needles, wishing feverently that she could get down on her hands and knees and work in a vegetable patch. When things in life got so confused you didn't know what to make of them, it was a wonderful thing to be out in God's blessed sunshine digging in the good earth.
"If you'll just let me tell this in my own way, Molly."
Not that there was an awful lot to tell, when you came right down to it. Miss Corinne Hall had answered the phone when it rang in her brother's office. When she discovered she was speaking to Lena's father, she had gone out of her way to be friendly. "She has one of those uppity, schoolteacher voices that I never could stand in a woman," Jim interrupted himself to explain.
And she had certainly tried to keep the conversation going. First she'd explained that she'd just dropped into her brother's office to leave a message for him. Wasn't it a coincidence that Mr. Anderson should phone right at this time? She'd gone on to say how very, very anxious both she and her brother were to meet Lena's parents. Now that they were speaking to each other, why not arrange to get together as soon as possible? Why not this afternoon? She was very sure her brother could get away from the store for an hour or so. And it really was a lovely afternoon for a little drive.
"And by the way, Mr. Anderson, Lena tells me that you are looking for a house to buy. By the sheerest chance, I think I know the very place for you and Mrs. Anderson. If you like, Dana and I could show it to you today."
"Right then and there you should have set your foot down," Molly said. "And said what?" Jim asked with playful impatience, as if this were a game in which it was Molly's role to call him down, his to defend whatever he had done. "It wouldn't have been very polite to say no, would it?" After all, it was a beautiful afternoon for a drive. And if the woman wanted to show them a nice house, you couldn't say it wasn't thoughtful of her.
Molly pursed her lips. "You could have told her, nicely of course, that you'd prefer to wait until Lena could go along with us."
Well, Jim said, there were two ways of looking at that. Miss Hall had had quite a lot to say about this house she mentioned. The impression he got was that Lena had already seen it and was crazy about it. The trouble was, she was afraid it wouldn't suit her parents.
The woman might be talking through her hat. Jim admitted that much.
On the other hand, suppose the house turned out to be just what they wanted. "We are looking for a house, Molly. If we like this one and get everything settled right away, it would be a nice surprise for Lena."
Molly shook her head. Then she put down her knitting and looked at her husband. "I don't like it," she said. "No matter what you say, there's something fishy about all this sudden friendliness, and this wonderful house you must see this very day."
"Now, sweetheart," Jim laughed, as much as to say that he knew his wife too well to take her objections seriously, "you mustn't be suspicious of people. This Miss Hall is Lena's future sister-in-law. We've got to remember that."
"I don't like the way she takes things in her own hands," Molly said.
She folded her knitting and put it away in the bag hung at the side of her chair. She got up, still a graceful and quick-moving woman in spite of her weight.
"I suppose I'd better go dress," she said. "Since you've made the arrangements, we'll have to go. But I want you to remember what I'm saying, Jim. I don't like it. I don't like going behind Lena's back, and something tells me this interior-decorating woman is up to something."
Jim laughed again, as if determined not to let Molly's objections dampen his spirits. "Oh, come now, mama. It's just a little friendly drive in the California sun to look at a house. What could the harm be in that? What could she be up to?"
"I don't know," Molly said. "It's just something I feel in my bones. And you know as well as I do, Jim Anderson, that when I feel something in my bones I'm usually right."
CHAPTER FIVE
It was a shock to Lena when the afternoon passed, then the evening, without a word from Dana. She had fully expected him to drop in, even if only for a few minutes, to make sure her injury was nothing serious. Even if he was tied up for the evening with some business appointment, he could phone. Certainly he could spare five minutes to ask her if she had reached home safely, to say that he was thinking about her.
But he didn't.
"For heaven's sake-" Joan exploded around eleven o'clock that evening. She was rebandaging Lena's ankle, which she was sure would be back to normal in two or three days. Joan hadn't thought a doctor was necessary. There was no break, she was sure of that. "I do hope you aren't going to turn into a telephone watcher, kid."
In Joan's opinion, any girl who sat around fidgeting and squirming, on pins and needles, waiting for a call from a man I who didn't bother to call, should have her head examined.
"This you call love?" Joan asked disgustedly, bringing Lena's gown for her to slip on after helping her off with the blue taffeta housecoat she was wearing.
"For all Dana knew, you might have had a broken leg. You might have been in horrible pain and needed emergency care instantly. So what does he do? Sends words for you to take a taxi home. Romeo is too busy to take time out to drive you home, or even to come down from his plushy office and take a look at his mangled sweetheart. Love! Bah!"
Lena laughed as she hopped across the room to the bed, leaning on Joan for support. "I wasn't mangled, honey. I just had a little wrench. You said so."
"But the boy friend didn't know that, Lena. As far as I can make out, he didn't give a hoot. Someone had to look after you and get you home, that's for sure. So it was up to a redheaded guy you'd never seen before. Which reminds me, in case you're interested, I like this Dan O'Connor."
"So do I," Lena agreed.
She propped herself up against pillows while Joan went out to the kitchen. Presently she returned with a tray on which she had two glasses of milk, and a plate of cookies which she had made that morning. Joan adored fussing around the kitchen. After a long, tedious nursing case, she said it was the best kind of vacation to experiment with new recipes, especially recipes for cakes and cookies. Joan was crazy about pastries.
They talked at length about Dan O'Connor while they nibbled and drank the milk. Giggling, Lena described the girl, Gracie, who had run up a fifty-dollar cosmetics bill and left Dan to pay the check.
He had infuriated her at first, naturally, with all his smart-alecky talk about her lovely creams being worth no more than a few cents, as if a man ever knew what he was talking about when he got on the subject of beauty products.
Lena grinned. "They take a look at some glamorous doll, and they imagine nature made her that way. Little do they know."
Joan neither agreed nor disagreed. She was a soap-and-water gal herself. And she truly believed that any girl who paid fifteen or twenty dollars in actual cash for a little jar of cream was bordering on lunacy.
"But when I needed help," Lena continued in a low, thoughtful voice, "he sure was wonderful."
He had been extremely thoughtful, too, in every possible way. After he had brought Lena home and been introduced to Joan, he had wanted to know what else he could do to help out. He had insisted on going out to do their marketing because, as he said, Joan would have her hands full looking after Lena. When he returned he had brought an expensive rib roast of beef. When Joan scolded him for his extravagance, informing him that she and Lena were not in the rib roast upper brackets, Dan O'Connor had produced his most beguiling grin. The roast was his little love offering. "I'm a very subtle guy," he said, and the gift of the roast was his subtle way of angling to be asked to stay and help eat it. What was more, he was a good cook, believe it or not. With Joan's permission, he'd cook the roast, medium to rare if that met with her approval. In addition, they'd have au gratin potatoes, and fresh peas, and an avocado salad for which he knew a very special recipe.
Also, said Dan O'Connor, just to prove he was a man with a sexy nature, he felt that a nice dinner like that deserved to be served with candles and yellow roses. "What's more, yellow roses go beautifully with your hair," he had said, and made a low bow as he handed Lena a dozen pale yellow rosebuds wrapped in moist tissue.
Dan had cooked the dinner, which was all that he had boasted it would be. Afterward he had insisted on doing the dishes. He had even gotten down and wiped up the linoleum with a moist cloth, leaving the kitchen immaculate. "There's a lonely guy," had been Joan's first comment after he left.
"Lonely?" Lena said, wondering how anyone could describe such a laughing, vital, gregarious man as Dan O'Connor as a lonely man.
Joan said a little wistfully: "If I were ten years younger I'd make a play for him myself."
After the lights were out and they were settled for the night, Joan fell asleep quickly. Lena did not.
Her ankle bothered her. So did the noise from the traffic which, ordinarily, she never even heard. And her mind seemed to have turned into a squirrel cage in which her thoughts raced around in utter confusion.
She couldn't get Dana off her mind, which was only natural. For months and months every move she made, every dream she dreamed, every plan for the future had been tied up with Dana in one way or another. She loved him so much-if it was love.
She was thirsty, and she reached for the glass of water Joan had put on the little table between their beds. She was uncomfortably warm, but as soon as she threw back the blanket she felt cold. She stared into the darkness. One thing was certain, she considered grimly. Up to date, Dana had given her very little in the way of happiness and contentment.
For the most part, it had been a matter of waiting on his pleasure.
She waited until the last minute to find out if they had a dinner date, or a date to go dancing or to a show, because there was always the chance that Dana would be tied up with a business conference, or with Corinne.
At the store, in the afternoon, she waited to find out if he would be free to drive her home.
On Sundays she waited for him to phone and tell her if they could drive to San Diego, or perhaps into Mexico, and spend the entire day together.
And she was still waiting for him to put a ring on her finger, and to make some definite suggestions as to when they would be married so that she could plan.
Suddenly she felt a hot wetness in her eyes. Her lips trembled as she whispered into the darkness, "It hurts, and I'm sick of being hurt."
He hurt her in a thousand little ways, without ever meaning to. Oh, she was sure that Dana never dreamed that he was hurting her by his neglect, his thoughtlessness. Most of it probably stemmed from the fact that she had allowed him to take her too much for granted.
Or was it that she loved too much, he not enough?
He might at least have phoned tonight to ask how I was.
Turning on her side, she eased her ankle into a more comfortable position, closing her eyes, trying once again to sleep. Her mind began to quiet down. Drowsily she wondered what her dad had meant when he had said, over the phone, that he and Mama had a big surprise for her. "We're saving it to tell you until we see you," he had said.
Nestling her cheek deeper into the pillow, Lena smiled sleepily. Maybe Dad had another oil well coming up. It would be just like him. In a lot of ways, her dad had been very lucky. So had her mother. They had certainly been lucky when they had married each other. There was a real marriage: two people growing together, living for each other, loving each other down through the years. Not that they ever talked about their love. They didn't need to. It was just there; you couldn't help seeing it, feeling it. It was in the consideration and tenderness they showed each other; in the way one would worry if the other was sick; in the way they looked at each other, even yet, after all the years.
Lena thought, Dad still believes mother is beautiful. He thinks she's the most wonderful woman in the world.
She slept, and waked to a room drenched in sunshine. Joan was standing by the bed with a tray of orange juice, coffee and toast. Joan pushed pillows behind her and inquired about the ankle, which Lena said felt fine. "You just had a phone call," Joan said. Dan O'Connor had called. There was a house on his For Sale list that might interest Lena. How about his driving her out to see it that afternoon?
"I said you'd be ready at two o'clock," Joan announced. "And believe me, sister, you'll be ready. Whether you feel in the mood or not, you are going house-hunting with Mr. O'Connor. I mean," Joan continued grimly, "you cannot go to the shop and stand on that ankle. And I won't have you sitting around here staring at that phone like a lovesick schoolgirl. I hope the VIP phones you while you're out. It will give me a fine chance to give that stuffed shirt a good piece of my mind. And let me tell you this, he won't like it in the least."
At the door, Joan turned to issue a final bit of advice. "Have yourself some fun, honey. Stop worrying about whether you're losing Dana Hall to another gal or aren't losing him. Do yourself a favor and forget that guy for an afternoon. Try having fun with another guy. You might like it better than you think."
Lena laughed. "I thought he was going to show me a house. Strictly business, isn't that the idea?"
"Don't play dumb, baby," Joan said, and left it at that.
Lena tried hard to get Dana out of her mind. But she just couldn't admit to herself that she no longer cared for him. If she had known what he was up to at that moment, however, it wouldn't have been hard at all for Lena to dismiss him, if not throw him out of her life altogether.
Because Irene from the shop, and Dana were back at his apartment again, having I taken off work early together. And not only were they alone, sitting on the couch again j while drinking, but Dana was telling Irene j how amused he was by the fact that he had been fooling Lena for so long.
"I guess she thinks she loves me, or something like that," Dana told Irene, pouring her another drink.
"Well, as long as she's not getting any of this," Irene replied, grabbing hold of Dana's cock through his trousers, "I could careless."
They clinked glasses and made a short toast.
"To fucking," Dana announced.
"And sucking!" Irene answered.
Before Dana could put his drink down, Irene had slipped down between his legs. She fumbled with his zipper, but finally managed to yank it open. Reaching into his fly with two hands, she brought out his prick, marveling at the way it was growing before her very eyes.
"I've been waiting for this all day," she hissed, licking her lips.
"Well, be my guest," Dana sighed.
Finishing his drink, Dana then set the glass on the table. He thrust out his hips to give Irene all the room she needed to suck his cock, and then he sat back into the plush couch to enjoy the blowjob she was about to give him.
She clenched his cock in her fist, squeezing it tightly until the head turned a bright red. Then she stuck out her tongue and smoothed it all around the tip of his cock. A few bubbles of pre-cum dribbled out of his piss-slit, and she lapped them up eagerly, enjoying the salty, pungent taste.
Then she took the tip of his penis into her mouth, locking her lips just below the ridge of his dickhead. Securing her lips tightly around his shaft, making an airtight seal, she began to suck until her cheeks collapsed. Jacking her hand slowly up and down his shaft, the feeling Dana received was exquisite.
"Oh, that feels so good," he murmured, bucking his hips off of the couch in a languorous fucking motion. "Just do it a little faster... yeah, like that... ohhhhh, honey, just like that. There... now... try and grab my... my balls... ohhhhh... with your other... hand. Yeah, like that... yeah, like that. Too much, honey. I'm gonna shoot it... into... your... ahhhhh... mouth!"
Irene let go of his shaft so she could slide her mouth up and down. She kept her lips tight, and managed to duplicate the feeling of a hot, constricting pussy that was fucking his penis into ecstasy.
Dana was enjoying her blowjob immensely, but he was not beyond the point where he had forgotten about her pleasure. So as she feverishly sucked, he tried to move his hands down to caress her tits.
Her big breasts jiggled erotically as she moved her head up and down. And even though her body was in a flurry of movement, Dana still slipped his hands down into her blouse to grip and squeeze her nipples. As he worked on her tits, he looked down over her shoulders to watch her beautiful ass move from side to side as her entire body moved and swayed as she ate his cockmeat.
Even though he felt as though he would come at any moment, Dana still wanted to see her naked. So he pushed her up from his crotch and begged her to take her clothes off.
"I've just got to see you... and your cunt and your ass, baby. I've just got to."
Irene was thoroughly enjoying giving him the blowjob, and she hated to leave if only for a moment. But she understood that the sight of her luscious curves would only make his orgasm that much more intense, so she did as he asked.
Wiping off her mouth with the palm of her hand, she then peeled out of her dress and under things as quickly as she could. She smiled up at Dana lewdly as she undressed, admiring the pleased look on his face, and also admiring the sight of his spit-drenched cock still twitching between his legs. She could hardly wait to start sucking on it again.
From the way his penis was throbbing, she knew he would come soon. So she squirmed back between his legs and lowered her head to her task. Opening her mouth wide, she swallowed his cock and took it all in. By the time she got it all down, her nose was buried in his pubic hair and his balls were nudging into her chin.
He relished the feeling of her tits flopping all over his legs and thighs as she sucked. And he couldn't keep his eyes off her smooth, bobbing ass. Gripping the back of her head, he gave in to his climax and filled her mouth with cum.
Irene swallowed every drop, squeezing on his softening shaft to get more semen. Dana just sighed contentedly as she finished him off, closing his eyes and giving in to the wonderful afterglow that accompanied an overwhelming orgasm.
CHAPTER SIX
Lena fell in love with the yellow house on sight. "It looks like a real house," she said, adding that most California houses looked as if a good puff of wind would blow them away.
They sat for a few minutes studying the house before leaving the car. Although they were no more than eight or ten miles from Hollywood, they might have been in another world. Tucked back among the foothills, the house itself clung to a sloping hillside which faced the valley. Today the hills were misted with streamers of fog which lifted and then swooped low. It was a lovely picture.
Built on a fieldstone foundation, the upper part of the house and the wide front porch were painted a soft yellow. Lena wondered why. Then she said she was glad it was painted that color. "It has a friendly look," she said.
That, Dan informed her on the spot, was the wrong way to handle a man. Scowling, he told her: "Never say you can walk on your own ankles even if you can. Never announce that you dislike being babied, even if you detest it. Big, strong, ripsnorting males like myself dote on babying pretty helpless blondes. It makes us feel important. Didn't you know that?"
They smiled at each other, standing near a wide window in the perfectly enormous living room of the old house. Lena wore a yellow dress, rather sheer, with a full skirt and a wide belt. Her pale-gold hair was tied back with a yellow ribbon. She was as simply dressed as a schoolgirl, and the effect was sensational.
"Please let me baby you," Dan begged, as if this were one of the most solemn, critical moments of his life. "You're the prettiest thing I ever saw. Am I to blame if I yearn and hunger to pick you up in my arms and tote you all over southern California?"
"You're a perfect idiot," Lena retorted, laughing. "Now stop your ridiculous talk. We came all these miles and miles to look at this house, remember? So go ahead and show it to me."
They walked from room to room on the first floor. Lena was enchanted with everything: the size of the rooms, every single one flooded with sunshine; the views from the windows; the beautiful woodwork. At the back was a screened and glassed porch intended as a breakfast nook. From there she could look up to the top of one of the higher mountains in the distance. In the winter that mountain would be capped with snow. You would be able to see the snow clearly from where she stood. And after you had looked at the snow, you could move your eyes and see the oranges that were ripening in the grove beside the house.
"I just love this house," she said wistfully, wishing that she could say it was exactly what she was looking for.
But of course it wasn't. For Molly and Jim it would be out of the question. It would be ridiculous to consider having two elderly people in this huge place. "I don't think there's any use to look at the upstairs," she told Dan. It would just be a waste of time."
"What in the world do you mean, a waste of time! Wait until you see the views from the upstairs windows. Heaven on earth, nothing less. You can take my word for that. Never in all my eighty years has anyone accused Nell Morton of being a liar."
The voice, a little breathless, husky, curiously attractive, came from the small, spry woman who had materialized in the doorway. She had rosy cheeks, and she wore a small hat fashioned of violets on her softly waved white hair. She looked like a darling.
"Greetings, beautiful!" Dan put his arm around her, told her she looked prettier every time he saw her, then introduced her to Lena as the owner of the house.
"She spies on me," Dan explained. There were some little green men from outer space who ran and told her whenever he was showing her house to a prospective customer. Instantly Nell would take to her Cadillac to come have a look at the customer.
"I wouldn't be caught dead in a Cadillac," Nell announced firmly. But as for her wanting to look over any prospective buyer, that was certainly true.
She smiled at Lena. "I won't sell my house to just anybody," she explained. For this was not just any old house.
It had been a house where people had loved and mated and brought life into the world. Three generations had been born in this house. She had been born in it, all of her ten children, and three of her fifteen grandchildren. "It is a house that is used to love," she said.
She touched Lena's hand, studying her face with thoughtful, gentle eyes that were still a vivid blue, in spite of her age. "You understand what I mean, don't you, my dear."
Lena said gently: "Yes. I think I do understand."
The older woman nodded. "Yes, You would understand. I get vibrations which tell me you are an understanding person."
"Now, sweetie pie," Dan chided her, grinning, "let's keep your vibrations out of this."
Ignoring that remark, Nell looked from one to the other thoughtfully before she announced: "You two are sweethearts. Am I right? Of course I am. You will buy this house and live in it yourselves. Perfect! I can't tell you how pleased I am. If you will allow me the honor, I should like to be godmother to your first child, and stop looking at me, young man, as if you took me for a senile lunatic. I know what I'm talking about. I know two people who belong together when I see them."
Cheeks flushed with embarrassment, Lena hastened to explain that she was looking around for a home for her parents. "Mr. O'Connor and I are merely casual acquaintances. We met for the first time yesterday."
What earthly difference did that make? Nell Morton wanted to know. She had known Mr. Morton less than two weeks when they were married. To tell the truth, Morton had been all for marrying her within forty-eight hours after they met. She had been considered an extremely beautiful girl at the time, and he was very much afraid some other fellow would get her away from him if he didn't work fast.
"But I thought it best to wait two weeks." And she had. And after that they had lived happily together to the day he died, fifty years later. "And I'm in love with him to this day," she declared, brushing tears from her eyes.
Love lived on, she said gently. A man's body might die, his physical presence vanish. But her love for him lived on in a woman's heart. No one could take that away from her.
Her brisk perkiness returned. "If you two don't have sense enough to get married and live in this house, you're a pair of idiots. You were meant for each other. There are the most remarkable vibrations all around you, drawing you together. Don't you sense them?" she asked, seeming as puzzled as if they were unable to see the sunshine glimmering through the fog.
Her parting admonition was that they remember what she had said about being godmother. Then she was gone, and Lena turned her back to Dan, strangely embarrassed, not quite sure what to say to him. It was as if Nell Morton had released some indefinable but very compelling chemical in the atmosphere between them. The very air seemed charged with it.
The woman is an old darling, but a little cracked, Lena told .herself. Then she felt Dan's hands on her shoulders.
He turned her around and made her look at him. For once no easy, humorous grin was on his lips. He looked serious and thoughtful; he was staring deep into her eyes.
"Maybe the old gal had something," he said softly. "What do you think, Lena?"
She tried to laugh. "I think she's a little touched."
No, he said, she was wrong. Nell Morton was as intelligent a woman as she was ever likely to meet. She was one of the ones who stopped time in its tracks. She had a keen, alert mind. And the old gal really did get things.
"What do you mean, she gets things?"
Dan said flatly that he meant precisely what he said. Nell Morton saw and heard things that other people did not hear or see. He knew for a fact that she had foretold a certain accidental death a week before it happened.
"Well, so what?" Lena felt giddy. She wished that he wouldn't stare into her eyes the way he was doing, and that he'd let go of her shoulders.
"So maybe she 'got something' about us." His words were a mere breath against her cheek. Then he didn't bother with any more words. He took her in his arms, and his lips took her lips and held them for what might have been seconds, or might have been a little eternity, according to how you reckoned time. For the first time in all the long months she had loved him, Dana Hall might have been a million light years away from Lena's consciousness. Dana simply did not exist for her. Meanwhile, Dan O'Connor kissed her and held her close to his heart. It was not a thing she had wanted to happen. But oh, it gave her such a lovely feeling, almost as if she were dying a little, yet coming wildly, gloriously alive at the same time. No other man's arms and kisses had ever made her feel so much in a few tiny seconds of time.
Lena walked out of his arms, unwilling to admit the giddying sensations which had her in a daze. She walked slowly back to the front of the house, avoiding Dan's eyes, unheeding when he spoke to her. She had to frame words to get their relationship back on an even keel, a casual, strictly-business basis. I'm ashamed of myself, she thought, suddenly a little sick with self-disgust.
Pausing near the wide front door, she turned and took a look at Dan O'Connor; a good, hard, thoughtful look which told her he was a man who would be attractive to almost any woman. He was not handsome, as Dana Hall was handsome. But he didn't need to be. He had a masculine, vital quality which made a deeper, more urgent appeal than a well-formed profile or a nicely shaped mouth.
She thought, her own sense of shame deepening, No doubt he tries to make love to every pretty woman he takes out to look at a house.
"Take me home, please," she said.
"We haven't seen the upstairs," he reminded her.
"I don't want to see it." She was curt, withdrawn. A glance at her wristwatch reminded her that it was after four o'clock. It was getting late, she said. She'd have to hurry. This was Tuesday. She'd planned to attend a class in conversational French which met at seven on Tuesday evenings. "I've seen enough of the house. It wouldn't do for my parents. I'm sorry I've put you to so much bother."
"See here, Lena, are you sore at me?"
His big hands took her arms, pulled her toward him, and for a second she wondered if he was going to kiss her again. He did not. But his voice was not quite steady as he told her: "I kissed you because you're a very lovely gal, and I'm crazy about you. I kissed you because I wanted to, and I think you wanted it too. So I'm not going to apologize. But I don't want you to be sore at me."
"I'm not sore, Dan. I just want to go home right away. Please take me."
CHAPTER SEVEN
"Wouldn't you know!" Dan exclaimed, when they were halfway across the freeway. It was impossible to turn back, and they could see the traffic stalled for half a mile ahead. Someone said five cars had smashed into each other. An ambulance siren wailed in the distance. Dan wondered aloud why he had never learned to avoid the freeway.
He lit a cigarette and handed it to Lena, then one for himself. "You might as well relax," he told her. There was a good chance they'd be stuck there for an hour, maybe longer.
Lena said worriedly: "Oh, dear." This would mean she'd never be in time for her French class. She explained that she'd had two years of French in college. She'd had a fairly good grounding in French grammar, she could write simple sentences, even read French if it wasn't too complicated. None of this was of much practical use, however. Learning to speak French was the important thing, and that was what she was trying to do now.
"Stop talking so much about French things," Dan teased, "or you'll give me ideas."
Lena gasped and blushed, and Dan laughed at her evident modesty. She knew what he was talking about though she had never done it-french-fucking. One time a girlfriend had breathlessly described a weekend away with her boss and he had introduced her to it.
Lena continued to blush as she remembered the description. She admitted to herself that it had sounded like fun, though maybe a bit too brazen for her taste. She couldn't help picturing it in her mind: the girl cups her boobs and offers them to the man, who straddles her chest and begins to work his prick in and out between the fleshy globes. After a while, when he's really pumping his pecker back and forth, the girl leans her head forward and takes his phallus in her mouth and lets him fuck her face... "Hey, you're not getting a fever or something, are you?" Dan asked, peering at her crimson face.
"N-no," Lena stammered. She turned away to prevent further conversation.
She didn't have a fever, but the pictures in her mind were certainly making her hot. She tried to distract herself from the lewd thoughts but being surrounded by motionless cars, there was nothing of interest to observe. She felt a trickle of tell-tale moisture between her legs.
"What a time to get horny," she muttered to herself. "Hopefully this traffic will break up soon... and when I get home, I can take care of myself. Boy, I wish I could masturbate right now!"
She glanced aside at her companion, Dan was giving her a puzzled look, then he began to grin... and then his grin became a leer. With a shock Lena realized Dan must know what was happening to her.
How embarrassing! the young girl inwardly exclaimed. Here we are just sitting in a car and I'm getting hornier by the second... and Dan knows!
"Just relax, honey," he laughed. He put his hand on her thigh. "We'll get out of this soon."
Not soon enough, Lena told herself. The pressure in her loins was rapidly increasing, especially as Dan moved his hand across her thighs. Then, to her astonishment, he slipped his hand under her skirt and began to stroke her bare legs... right in the car stuck in traffic! Lena was about to protest this indiscretion, but her voice was choked off by a fresh wave of sexual desire that coursed through her body like a superheated liquid.
"Something tells me you're a bit uncomfortable," Dan insinuated. "I wish I could do something for you right now."
Lena fervently wished that, also. She felt her panties dampening from the uncontrollable trickles of warm juice coming out of her warming pussy. She gasped out loud as the back of Dan's fingers brushed the moist garment.
"Feels like you're getting pretty hot to trot, Lena," the young man said. "I always like to help a pretty girl in distress."
"Maybe you'd better stop what you're doing," the young blonde whispered, "before things get out of control."
"I know what you mean." And Lena knew what Dan meant when she glanced at his lap and saw a large bulge forming between his muscular thighs.
Lena's mind reeled with erotic thoughts. She was quite sure that knowing she was trapped in a car was making her hornier than she would normally be. The fact that there wasn't much she could do to achieve satisfaction made her want it all the more. Her breath quickened as Dan's fingers began to massage her thick, moist muff.
"Better stop, Dan," she said hoarsely. "You're making me too hot!"
"That's okay, darling," he said. "It's nothing I can't handle!"
She didn't get the gist of his meaning until the young man leaned over. He pushed her skirt up around her hips and began to kiss her quivering thighs.
"Dan... you don't know what you're doing!" Lena gasped, the blush spreading to her neck.
"Sure I do," he whispered. "I've just thought of a nice way to wait out the traffic jam."
"Oh!" the young girl exclaimed, shocked. "We can't do anything... right here!"
"Why not? No one can see."
Lena's attempts to formulate more protests came to naught as Dan's lips moved up her thighs. He began to kiss and nibble on her drenched panties. She felt his warm breath through the thin, damp fabric and tiny jolts of pleasure raced through her nervous system.
"Oh, Dan, what you're doing to me... so hot... I'm getting so hot right here in traffic!" Lena heaved.
"Seems like I'll have to do something about that," he leered.
The blonde's reservations were rapidly melting away in the face of her body's increasing heat. She felt her breasts swelling with need and her wide red nipples pressed against her blouse. She couldn't attend to them, though-someone in another car would surely notice if she opened her blouse and massaged her up-raised tits.
"I think I'm going to lick your pussy now, Lena," Dan said, his hands roaming brazenly across her creamy, slender thighs and drenched panties.
"You'd better not... this is perverse," Lena said, her breathing growing labored. Yet she couldn't resist. With a moan, she succumbed to temptation. "Yes, Dan, do it. I need it so bad... lick my pussy!"
Grinning with delight, the red-haired man began to slip Lena's panties off her hips. She lifted herself off the seat and he tugged the wet garment down her thighs and left it bunched around her high heels. Lena wrapped her skirt up around her waist.
"Let me know if traffic starts moving," Dan said as he lowered his mouth.
"If I can see straight, I will," the young girl breathed. "Just hurry and lick me. I get so hot... I must be a nymphomaniac!"
"You're tasty, that's what you are," Dan retorted, his tongue flicking out.
With the last vestiges of modesty, Lena had her legs pressed together, so Dan concentrated on kissing her damp, hairy mound and nibbling on her soft outer flesh. The young girl mewled with mounting desire, and gradually she spread her long legs to expose her pink, glistening slit to her companion's lusty ministrations.
"Mmmmmm... delicious!" he cried in admiration.
"Have all you want, honey!" Lena exclaimed in a sudden frenzy. "Eat me all out!"
The handsome young man set about doing precisely that. His fingers sensuously rubbed her slippery pussy lips as he pried them apart. Before bringing his tongue into play, he gently blew a stream of warm air into her dripping, steaming slit.
"Eeeeee! Oh Dan, that's the way!" she cried.
He continued this pleasurable action until Lena reached down and pressed his face against her gleaming vagina. When his warm lips came into contact with her shuddering pink flesh, it was like touching a live wire. She dug her heels into the edge of the seat and spread her long, smooth legs as wide as possible.
"Here I am!" she mewled. "Eat out my cunt!"
"Yeah, baby, that's what I want!" Dan exclaimed.
He pushed his hungry mouth into her wet canal and slowly rolled his tongue out. It began an agonizingly erotic journey into her burning inner recesses. Lena's pretty face twisted with passion as she felt her aching twat filling up with thick tongue.
"Oh my God... can't believe we're doing this... I want to come so badly!" the girl howled.
Through the red mist in her mind she vaguely realized that she would soon have her wish. A tidal wave of pressure was building in her hot loins and she felt syrupy cunt juice cascading out of her womb to coat the car seat.
"Dan... don't wait!" Lena squealed. "Put your tongue in and out... hurry!"
The obliging young man did as the flushed blonde requested. He stiffened his long, thick prod and began to force it in and out of her grasping slit, thrusting it between Lena's clenched cuntal walls. As his hands roamed across her bare thighs and hips, he felt the tension in her body and he knew beyond a doubt that she was rapidly approaching her sweet release.
"Eeeeaahhh! Oh Christ oh shit oh eat me!" Lena shrieked in a frenzy. "EAT ME!!!"
The young man's tongue, teeth, and lips worked furiously as he ravaged the girl's steaming hole. Her ass jerked up off the seat and she matched his pistoning face by heaving her hips back and forth. Her fingernails dug into his back and her eyes rolled wildly.
"Aaaah! Oh! Oh! This is it!" Lena suddenly wailed, her body thrashing against the car seat. "I'm going to... oh my... Ooooowwweeeee!!!!!"
Her senses were overwhelmed by a powerful, roaring orgasm. She whined and screamed in ecstasy as reality was shattered into a zillion fragments. Dan kept up the lewd activity of his tongue until the young blonde's frantic convulsions began to subside. Then he sat up and leaned against the steering wheel, grinning.
"God, Dan," Lena cooed contentedly, "That's the right way to wait out a traffic jam!" Then the good-natured girl saw that the young man also had needs that should be satisfied. "If there's no sign of the traffic moving, I'd like to take care of that."
His glance followed hers, though he knew what to expect. The intense pressure of his jism-filled nuts was evidenced by the rock-hard, pulsating bulge of his crotch.
Dan looked around. "Well, Lena, it looks like we're stuck for a little while longer."
"Good! Let me at it!" the eager girl exclaimed.
Dan yelped with delight and swung his legs up onto the car seat. The frisky blonde crawled between them and managed to undo his pants, immediately, his large, rigid member sprang to life.
"This looks like a mouthful," Lena whispered admiringly as she lowered her head.
Dan was about to reply, but his voice was cut short by the giddy thrill of having Lena's long tongue sensuously rimming his purple cockhead. Then she wet her full red lips and fed his thick pork into her hungry mouth.
"Lena, darling, that's what I want!" the thrilled young man exclaimed.
Spurred on by his evident glee, the young girl lowered her head farther, feeding all of his throbbing wang into her flushed face. With her nose buried between his hairy balls, Lena thought she could feel the pent-up cum screaming for release.
"Eat it, baby!" Dan yelled. "Suck on that big dick!"
The lusty blonde needed no cheering to accomplish this brazen task. With his pole securely embedded in her drooling orifice, she allowed her tongue to vigorously work the length of its purple-veined hardness, quickly bringing her handsome companion to the heights of ecstasy.
"Jesus, honey... you're doing it to me!" he howled, his face contorting with passion. "Eat it up... I'm going to fuck your mouth like crazy!"
So saying, Dan grabbed the blonde's head and began to shove his hips up and down off the car seat, repeatedly burying all of his huge tool into her face. He grunted with effort each time his dribbling tip banged up against the back of her throat. It wasn't long before, with her lips clamped around his thrusting rod, that he felt his load ready to burst outward.
"God... oh honey, can't hold it in!" he screamed. "Here it comes... here... Ooooaaahhhhh!!!"
Instantly, a stream of hot jism spewed out of his bulging cockhead into Lena's feasting mouth. Wad after boiling wad followed. His hips bucking out of control, he plowed all of his seed into Lena's sucking face, and with furious swallowing, she managed to take in every drop.
Just as Dan was moaning with satisfaction, horns began to sound around him. "We'll have to get stuck in traffic more often!" he exclaimed to his smiling companion as he shifted gears and moved the car forward.
CHAPTER EIGHT
"Let me fix it for you, Dana," said Corinne, marching into his room while Dana was struggling with his black tie.
It was Wednesday evening, and he was due at Irene Spillman's home in an hour. Oddly enough, he dreaded the evening. Yet he realized that it might be one of the most important evenings of his life. His cold was still bothering him. He would not be at his best, as he should be when he was invited to dine with a man as influential as Irene's grandfather. The strange thing was that he didn't seem to care. He was in a bad frame of mind. He was furious at Corinne for more reasons than one. He wished to heaven she'd stop babying him, fussing over him.
"I can fix my own tie," he snapped, a remark to which Corinne paid no attention.
After she'd finished the job, Corinne stood off, studying her brother admiringly. "You do look so distinguished in evening clothes, Dana dear. You'd cut a figure in any drawing room, anywhere in the world. You really would."
"Thanks," Dana said curtly, in the tone of a man who couldn't care less.
He longed to tell Corinne. to stop fussing over him like a baby contestant who was sure to win first prize. He wanted to tell her to stop mixing in his affairs, to stop trying to run his life. Women like Corinne were a menace. They were born manipulators. They seemed without shame or conscience, once they made up their minds to a course of action. They suited their actions to their purposes. Considerations of fair play were out the window. That was the way Dana felt about the way Corinne had acted with Lena's parents.
While Lena was laid up, she had seized the opportunity to persuade Lena's parents to buy a house that Lena was dead set against their buying. Even he had been helpless to do anything about it, because by the time he understood what Corinne was up to it was too late.
Corinne had seated herself on his bed and was smoking. In her severely tailored suit, she looked more than ever like a drum major. Corinne should have been a man. There was little of the feminine about her, much that was tough and ruthless.
"Dana," she said thoughtfully, "I do hope you realize how very fortunate you are to have this golden opportunity to get in with the Spillman family, one of the wealthiest families in southern California. Make the most of it, Dana dear. If Irene has fallen in love with you, as I suspect she has, I trust you'll have sense enough to make the most of that, too. The man who marries Irene Spillman won't need to build his future. He will have married his future."
"That's right," Dana said, and walked into the adjoining bathroom to take a last gargle before leaving. His throat still felt scratchy.
He took a look in the mirror, then returned to the bedroom where Corinne was waiting to help him on with his coat. She said again how handsome he looked. She gave his arm an affectionate pat, then said in as soft a wheedling a voice as she was capable of: "Please don't be angry at me for selling that house to Lena's father, Dana. He liked it, he was eager to buy. So what was wrong with my selling it to him?"
Her words served to unleash the anger which had been coiling inside Dana for the past two days.
"Everything that you did was wrong," he snapped. "You had no business arranging that meeting with the Andersons. Lena was ill. She knew nothing about it. You high-pressured her old man into buying the confounded house. You lied outright about it."
"I did not lie."
"You did. You gave the Andersons the impression that Lena was crazy about the house. She detests it and you know it. What's more, you made me a party to what I consider a sly, underhanded piece of business. I haven't phoned Lena in three days. I'm ashamed to phone. I don't know what to say, how to tell her that my own sister used her accident as a convenient device to make a few fast bucks. "I'm ashamed for both of us," Dana said, and lit a cigarette to calm his jumpy nerves. He stood with his back to a chest of drawers, the corners of his mouth drawn down in scowling irritation.
"I'm ashamed of myself, chiefly because I didn't have the plain everyday honesty to tell Jim Anderson what was what. If you want to know the truth, I feel as if we were a pair of crooks."
Corinne stared at him as if he'd suddenly taken leave of his senses. There were times, she said, when a woman had to fight for what she'd set her heart on; otherwise she'd never get it. She'd set her heart on Dana having a successful life. An important part of this was marrying the right girl. She'd had her suspicions all along that Lena was not right for him, that she was a trashy nobody from a common family. That was why she'd jumped at the chance to get a good look at Lena's parents the minute the opportunity presented itself.
"She didn't want us to meet them," Corinne snapped. And it was easy enough to understand why, now that she'd seen them.
They struck her as illiterate hillbillies.
Dana pointed out quietly that Jim Anderson had been able to write a check in five figures as a down payment on the house. "You didn't waste much time grabbing it, either."
"That's enough of that kind of talk, Dana," Corinne said furiously. She walked close up to her brother, her plumpish cheeks shaking like so much angered jelly.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, standing there defending those people, those awful vulgar people; and insulting me, your own sister, who has worked for you, sacrificed for you, given up a personal life of my own so that you could have a good life. Now you put that cheap, common, designing girl before me."
It was too much for human endurance, Corinne said. She looked fairly beside herself with frustration, with impatience, with exasperation at being confronted with one of the facts of life about which she could do nothing: a man's obsession for a beautiful young girl.
"You'll rue the day you marry her, if you do marry her."
"She may not want to marry me when she learns what took place behind her back."
"Ha! How silly and deluded can you be, Dana?"
"Lena happens to have her own standards as to what's right, and what is not playing on the level. I'm not sure how she'll feel when she learns that her parents were tricked, that you worked out your little scheme and I didn't stop you."
Corinne straightened up, recovering her calm and dignity. "I have nothing further to say about Lena Anderson or her parents. I've warned you, I've done my best to help you see that you're being led into a trap. I can do no more-except to remind you of one thing, Dana. Irene Spillman is the kind of girl you should marry. If you play your cards right, there's not a doubt in my mind that you can marry her."
Dana smiled coldly. "It so happens that I have no desire to marry Irene."
"Why not? What's wrong with her?"
"There's nothing wrong with her, as far as I know. She's a stunning beauty; no doubt she would appeal to a lot of men. She doesn't happen to appeal to me, that's all."
Corinne smiled a trifle. It was hard to take such a nonsensical remark seriously. "Dana, dear," she said sympathetically, "I think this flu virus has eaten deeper into your system than you realize. You simply are not a well man, and for that reason you've lost your perspective. A beautiful girl who will be worth millions in her own right one of these days doesn't happen to appeal! Dana, I do wish you'd see a doctor tomorrow."
CHAPTER NINE
At that same hour, in another bedroom in one of the older, more substantial Beverly Hills mansions, Rita Spillman and Irene were having a mother-and-daughter, heart-to-heart talk. "You have simply got to take my advice in this matter," Rita said, pacing the floor in nervous agitation, "everything depends on it, darling."
Once a screen star famous for her exotic beauty, Rita was still a beautiful woman. By methods best known to herself, she had managed to keep her figure as well as that certain-indefinable charm which distinguishes youth from age.
She had also kept a firm grip on her common sense. There had been a time when she had faced up bravely to the fact that her days as a glamorous screen star were numbered. Having faced it, she proceeded to marry a rich man before Jack Spillman had time to change his mind. She discarded the objection that he was a dull, tiresome bore as not worthy of consideration. Security was what she was after, and Jack could give it to her. Now she faced the same problem again. With Jack gone, she was at the mercy of his father, who had never liked her.
Interrupting herself in her discussion of economics, she gazed disapprovingly at Irene's silvery green outfit. "Wear black," she suggested after a moment's thoughtful concentration.
There was something about a redheaded girl in black that went straight to the head of the average man.
Irene laughed, kicking off her silver slippers, replacing them with red ones which were more striking with black. She remarked that she doubted if they should worry about appealing to Dana Hall's head. Her money and background would speak for her in that department. It was the man's heart they had better worry about, if she wanted to marry the man.
Irene repeated, for possibly the thousandth time, that she was not at all sure she could bring herself to marry Dana Hall. Oh, he was handsome enough, but a perfect stuffed shirt. And Rita knew how she loathed and detested stuffed shirts.
"You like playboys-" her mother snapped- "any worthless scamp who knows nothing about money except how to spend it! Every single time you take an interest in a man, that's what he turns out to be; not worth the powder and shot to blow him away with. Honestly, Irene, there are times when I don't know what to make of you. Heaven knows, you seem bright enough in other ways. You did well in school, you take an intelligent interest in current events, you even seem to be handling that silly store job very efficiently. But when it comes to men, you're simply hopeless. I suppose," she added belligerently, "you've still got your mind set on Brent Robey, who doesn't care a snap of his finger about you. He's made that clear enough."
"I'd marry Brent so fast it would make your head swim, if I could get him." Having zippered up the black dress, which was a sensation, Irene reseated herself before her dressing table mirror. Her hairdo did not suit her, and after she had changed it she decided that the black called for a slightly different shade of makeup.
"And don't be too sure I can't get him, Mother. I haven't given up."
Walking up behind her daughter, Rita gave Irene's lovely reflection the stern, determined look of a wise mother advising her child for her own good.
"Now you listen to me, Irene. I have nothing to say against Brent. If he wanted to marry you, I would make no objection. Marrying for love is no doubt very pleasant, for a time at least. But I won't countenance a man who does nothing but keep you dangling, disappearing for weeks at a time, even months. You can't count on such a man, darling. You simply must face that fact. It is quite possible that Brent might make up his mind to marry you one of these days. But we simply haven't the time to wait to find out! We need a husband for you, Irene, a husband your grandfather will approve. And we need him fast. As I've been telling you for the last hour-"
"Mother, please," Irene interrupted with a sigh and a groan, while she experimented with the effect of dangling crystal earrings. "I've heard it all a thousand times. I must take unto myself a suitable husband, and fast. If I don't my grandfather might decide to leave all his lousy money to charity. That would be most unfortunate. I agree to that, Mother. But I can't stand hearing it all over again."
"Well, just so you understand that we are actually in dire peril. I am not exaggerating when I say this, Irene. I know Joe Spillman, I know the spiteful meanness the old man is capable of. He never has liked me. He never forgave your father for marrying an actress. He's beginning to wonder if you're a bad one, too. He doesn't approve of your running around with one man after another. He thinks you should settle down with the right kind of man, start raising a family. If you don't he'd be capable of anything." Rita spoke with the grim intensity of a woman who sensed the sword of Damocles hanging over her head.
"Mother, please!"
Irene clapped her hands to her ears. She simply could not listen to any more. Her mother exaggerated, of course. Big Joe, as Irene had called her grandfather when she was a youngster, would never leave them penniless. Still, he might cut them off with a small trust fund, which would be almost as bad. The very thought of not being able to spend money like water terrified Irene. To walk into an exclusive shop and not have the wherewithal to buy whatever caught your eye; to be forced to live in a small apartment in a tacky neighborhood; to have to go without one thing in order to afford another, actually to have to watch your dollars-that, in Irene's opinion, was a fate worse than death.
That was the reason she was willing to consider marrying Dana Hall, whom she neither liked nor disliked. As far as she was concerned, Dana was a zero. But he was ambitious, he was already successful in a small way, he presented the appearance of a sober, serious-minded fellow whose eye was firmly fixed on the main chance. All this would appeal to Big Joe. It should make Dana Hall an easy fish for her to land, too.
To all outward appearances, of course, Big Joe looked as healthy as a trout. His color was good, his mind still alert, he was still up to a fourteen-hour workday. But as Rita was never able to forget for one minute, he had had a stroke two years ago.
It had been only a slight stroke and there had been no recurrence. But a stroke was a stroke. There were no two ways about that. Big Joe might live for years. On the other hand, he might go in a minute, without warning.
Even worse, to Rita's way of thinking, he might start worrying about dying and take it into his head to change his will without warning. He wouldn't be the first wealthy man to do it. There seemed to be something about having a stroke that put a rich man off balance, impelling him to cut off his loved ones. Rita thought it might be an old man's spiteful way of getting even with those who were lucky enough to live on when he had to die.
When Irene had finished with all the little tricks and artifices she could think of, she rose from the dressing table. Smiling faintly, she asked Rita: "Do I look like nice bait, Mother darling?"
"You look beautiful," Rita approved. Never had she seen Irene look lovelier. If there weren't such imperative need for haste, she said, it would be utter nonsense for Irene to waste herself, throw herself away, on the assistant manager of a woman's dress shop. "But," she reminded Irene worriedly, "your grandfather has put on at least twenty pounds in the last few months." According to the doctors, who certainly ought to know, every added pound was that much more strain on his old heart. It meant thousands upon thousands of extra blood vessels which had to be fed. Or maybe it was millions. At any rate, it was dangerous.
"And just remember this," Rita offered her final word of warning. "The old man has always promised to settle a million dollars on you, in cash, the day you marry to suit him." And he was a man of his word.
"I'll remember," Irene promised.
Smiling at each other with the look of two conspirators who understood each other perfectly, mother and daughter wound their arms around each other and went down the broad, winding stairway to the large foyer where Dana Hell was waiting. He had just arrived.
Irene said: "Hi, Dana," and introduced her mother.
Rita, beautiful and regal in red taffeta and pearls, gave him a ravishing smile and then, on a pretty impulse, gave him a kiss. "I never can resist kissing a really handsome man," she said, laughing. "It's a throwback to my screen days. And you are a beautiful creature, Dana Hall, just as Irene promised you would be." With a playful pat, Rita ordered him to feel like one of the family. Then she ushered him into the plush drawing room where old Joe Spillman was waiting.
Dana moved in a kind of daze across the magnificent oriental rug. He wondered how many thousands of dollars that rug had cost. He wondered if Rita Spillman's pearls were the genuine article and decided that they must be. He wondered exactly what hidden meaning lay behind her apparently casual remark: "You are to feel like one of the family, you sweet man." He found his hand being gripped by the hamlike hand of the powerfully built old man whose name was synonymous with big money. The big man was looking him over with shrewd, wise eyes, eyes that had long ago learned how to size up a man and his potentialities in one swift, probing glance.
"Have a cigar?" the old man invited. "Sit down, sit down. By the way, young man, do you know anything about stamp collecting?"
"A little," Dana said.
"Good. -Shows you have a little intelligence. Stamp collecting happens to be my hobby. Helps me forget the madhouse the world has turned into. It's reached the point where I'm half ashamed to admit I'm a member of the human race. And now, after he's messed up everything on earth as best he can, Man wants to rush off to some other planets and start lousing them up. Here." The old man took an envelope from his pocket and withdrew a handful of stamps from the envelope. "Take a look at these. I paid a hundred bucks for the bunch. You think I was sold a joker?"
Dana was deep in a discussion of stamps when Irene came drifting toward him, carrying a silver tray with cocktails. She was smiling at him, showing her beautiful teeth, her eyes luminous, glowing, as if there were powerful candles behind them. She was a sensationally beautiful girl, no question about that. And she had the poise, the know-how of a princess. By comparison, Lena seemed just a bit-well, outclassed.
Rita crossed the room to take a martini from the tray. Before she drank, she touched Dana's glass with her own, her still beautiful, lively eyes smiling straight into his. "If only I were twenty years younger," she said gaily, "I'd rope you in and marry you myself, you beautiful hunk of man. But since I'm not," she added sadly, "I suppose I'll have to bow out in favor of Irene."
Good Lord, Dana wondered, what gives? Is she telling me I can marry Irene if I want her? There was a puzzle here, and he could not make head or tail of it. He wondered why the first martini hit him so fast, the second set his head to whirling. He was not, to be sure, a heavy drinker. Two cocktails before dinner were about his limit. But as a rule he could manage that much with no trouble at all.
It did not occur to him that he was dizzy because of the astonishing thing that was happening to him. Dana Hall was being taken to the high mountain top and shown the splendors of the promised land that could be his for the taking. Never before in his life had he sat, a guest, in a home of real wealth. Never before had he been accepted as an equal by one of the powerful men of the state. Not until now, right this very minute as they sipped their drinks, had Dana truly believed that he could marry a girl like Irene. He had been convinced, insofar as he had thought about it, that Irene was after a few thrills with a new man.
But her mother was not on the hunt for thrills for her daughter, that was certain. Neither was old Joe Spillman. And for that matter, Irene didn't act or sound as if she were, either.
She certainly didn't sound like it later, long after dinner was over, when they stood together in the dimly lighted solarium. "I'm so sick and fed up with being a playgirl," Irene murmured low. "I'm so disgusted with the uselessness of my life, and with men who give me a whirl because I'm pretty and rich and fun at a party. Oh, how sick I am of the whole silly rat race. I long so for the real things in life-a home of my own where I can make my man happy, and a man who sees and loves the real me, the me that most people never see. I'm hungry to be truly loved by a really swell guy. I have so much love to give to the right man, Dana. I simply ache to give it to a man worth giving it to, who wants it. Do you understand what I mean?"
A nagging little voice inside him tried to warn Dana that this was an act, that Irene had overplayed it. But it was no time to be overly concerned with inner voices, because suddenly Irene was warm and soft and sobbing in his arms. It was inevitable that he should pull her closer, hold her tenderly, to comfort her. After that, one inevitability followed close upon another, so that it was little wonder that Dana left the Spillman house that night an engaged man.
Engaged to Irene, that is. What he was to do about Lena he simply did not know. He wasn't at all certain that he wanted to break off with Lena, or that he actually wanted to marry Irene. He wasn't certain how he had got himself into this mess. He had the peculiar feeling that he had been taken over by forces stronger than himself; that in a way he did not understand, he had been manipulated as a clever player moves a figure on a chess board.
But regardless of reasons, here he was engaged to two girls. One of them he loved strictly for herself. The other he loved strictly by virtue of what she could mean to him in terms of personal advantage. He didn't try to deceive himself on that point. Underneath that flashing superficial beauty, Irene Spillman was as brittle and hard as nails. There was something about her that reminded him of Corinne. Irene would drive and ride her man with a heavy hand, and heaven help the man if he didn't jump when Irene cracked the whip. It would be a very powerful whip, since it was spelled M-O-N-E-Y.
Dana understood all this dimly, just as he understood that all of the real love and tenderness that was in him belonged to Lena. Lena made him feel big and important and altogether wonderful. Lena's idea of happiness would always be just to love him and cater to him and make him happy. He doubted if Irene was capable of that kind of love, or even understood that there was such a thing. But Irene, with her grandfather behind her, could do a great deal to help him get ahead. "If you married Irene, you'd be marrying your future," Corinne had said. And she was right.
CHAPTER TEN
Lena could not get the yellow house out of her mind. On two successive nights she dreamed about it. Before she fell asleep, she moved from room to room in her thoughts, working out color schemes for drapes and carpets, visualizing easy chairs arranged for cozy intimacy, bowls filled with flowers giving warmth and color and the feeling that here was a real home where love and contentment abided.
There was one curious thing about both her waking and her sleeping dreams. Although Jim and Molly should have been part of the picture, they never were. Nor did she ever try to visualize Dana Hall moving about those large sunny rooms, even as a guest. You simply could not imagine Dana in such a house. No doubt he would ridicule it if he saw it. Dana would say that such an antique monstrosity was good for nothing but kindling wood; if he owned it he would have a wrecking contractor on hand first thing in the morning.
But even in a girl's dreams, a house demanded a man in it. Without one it could scarcely seem a home. Because she had already seen him in it, because he too had a feeling for the house, it was only natural that Lena should imagine Dan O'Connor's big broad-shouldered figure walking about, much at home in the yellow house; he seemed to belong there, as did the bright flowers, the old-fashioned wallpaper Lena had decided she liked for the dining room. You might almost say, Lena thought once, that that old house was made for just such a man.
Because the house was so much on her mind, so was Dan O'Connor. She seemed unable to think of one without the other, which bothered her. She had no interest in the man, so why keep him alive in her mind? For that matter, why keep dreaming about that old house? She had no use for it herself, and for her parents it was completely impractical.
On Thursday morning at breakfast she talked it over with Joan. With a rueful grin she said that the old rattletrap of a place had become an obsession with her. "What ails me, do you suppose?"
With a shrug, Joan suggested that her mind was using the house as an escape. When she thought about the house, she couldn't be worrying about Dana Hall and the way he'd been conspicuous by his absence for a whole week. Joan was furious at the way Dana was giving Lena the absent treatment.
"If you fall into his arms the minute he shows up," Joan snapped, "you ought to have your head examined. But you probably will," she added with a sigh. Her common sense, her will power, even her pride seemed gone with the wind where Dana was concerned.
"There must be some explanation as to why I haven't heard from him," Lena said, coming to Dana's defense.
Oh, sure, Joan agreed. Dana would come up with a good, glib, plausible explanation, and Lena would swallow it. Meanwhile, it was a heavenly day and Lena was on sick leave because of her ankle. If she was so in love with that old house, why not pick up Molly and Jim and take them out to see it? It didn't cost anything to look.
Lena remarked that she'd have to phone Dan O'Connor, ask him to drive them out. It meant asking him to spend his time and his gas, and what would he get out of it?
"The fun of making love to you with his eyes," Joan drawled, adding with a grin: "If you looked at that redheaded Irishman long enough and hard enough, you might wake up some beautiful morning and find yourself a changed woman."
Dan was delighted. And there was no need to apologize for wasting his time. It was to have his time wasted that a real estate salesman lived, breathed, and had his being. It wasn't every day, Dan added, that a lovely blonde called him up to suggest a get-together. He promised to be right over, and hung up.
When Lena reported this conversation to her roommate, Joan clapped her hands with delight and insisted on helping the blonde pick out a suitable outfit. Both girls were still in their skimpy nightgowns as they headed for Lena's bedroom.
"You'll have to be a bit more presentable," Lena remarked, glancing at her roommate's sheer, thigh-length garment.
"Don't worry," Joan laughed. "Let's take care of you first."
Taking charge of the situation, Joan went to the closet and selected several outfits. Then she went over to Lena and helped her out of the nightgown. She was about to urge the young blonde to try the clothes on when she was again struck by Lena's voluptuous beauty. The blonde stood before her now, wearing only thin panties. She brazenly admired Lena's large, creamy tits and joyfully noticed the wispy blonde pubic hair peeking out from between her legs.
"On second thought," she said softly, "too bad a man is coming over."
"Wh-what do you mean?" Lena stammered, though she caught her roommate's implication and blushed.
In the ensuing minute of silence, both girls felt their bodies heating with intense feminine desire. They avoided each other's eyes, unable to directly express the strong feelings that were making their loins ache. Joan soon took charge. She turned Lena to face her and gave her a long, lingering kiss, her tongue softly moving within the blonde's mouth. The older woman's hands roamed the length of Lena's body, massaging her panty-clad, moist mound and returning upward to tweak the wide red nipples of her bulging boobs.
"Sorry, honey, I can't help myself," the feisty brunette murmured.
"Maybe... maybe we have some time before Dan shows up, sweetheart," Lena whispered hoarsely.
By silent agreement, the two girls decided to satisfy the urges that had so suddenly overtaken their senses. Joan helped remove her lovely roommates damp panties, then Lena helped the older woman out of her sheer nightgown. When they were both naked, their eyes admiring each other's voluptuous form, Joan crossed to the bed and stretched out on the cool sheets.
"We shouldn't waste any time, honey," she said.
"Yes," Lena agreed. "You look pretty hot, darling, I'm going to lick your pussy for you."
"Oh, Lena, I'm horny as can be... do it!"
Lena crossed the room to the bed, Smiling with affection, she crawled onto the bed between the delightful pair of smooth legs, and began to slowly... thrillingly... tantalizingly... work her tongue along the insides of the soft, white, quivering thighs.
"Ooooooh... mmmmm... " came a whispered moan in response.
Her own body igniting with intense passion, Lena advanced upward, biting and chewing gently, until she felt her nose being tickled by fragrant strands of thick, moist, curly hairs.
Good thing I'm here, Lena said inwardly. Joan feels like she needs a lot of attention before she's satisfied. And I'm the one to do it!
Lena parted the warm, wet cunt lips, which made a delightful sucking sound as she did so, and began to tease the slippery interiors with tiny bites and licks.
"God, Lena... oh my God!" Joan howled.
Without hesitation, the sex-bent blonde shoved her tongue all the way up the steaming hole, then withdrew it to trace the outline of the lovely scalloped lips, which she then sucked into her mouth.
"Jesus, honey, you're driving me insane!" the flushed brunette wailed.
Lena's fingers found the throbbing jewel of her lovely roommate's clitoris... rhythmically, she pulled the tiny organ, then rolled it between her fingers, finally, lathering it with her tongue. Her own twat was beginning to drip with awakening love juices.
"Mmmmmore! Ahhh... more!" came Joan's pleading cry from the head of the bed. "Oh, lick my pussy! Suck my clit! Bite my cunt lips!"
Joan was in seventh heaven. It was like having a dream with everything going perfectly. She lifted her slender legs up into the air.
This is just what I needed! she inwardly hissed. I'm already close... to coming! Ohhh... it feels so good... I want to eat pussy, too.
Joan reached down and motioned for her skillful roommate to turn her body around for some luscious sixty-nine. The young blonde readily agreed, and as she felt the generous mound settling against her mouth, exuding those unmistakable fragrances of aroused femaleness, Joan was pleasantly surprised to see how wet it was.
"You need it as much as I do!" she howled hungrily. "I'm going to eat you all up!"
Joan grasped and parted the smooth ass cheeks and, raising her head, ran her tongue along the crack between the two creamy globes, probing the wrinkled, clasping portal between them. Then, aiming down, the brunette thrust her tongue forcefully and deep into the steaming, frantically squirming twat.
"Uuunnnhhh!" came a hoarse voice from between her thighs. "Yeah, that's the way, Joan!"
Lena began to grind her ass down onto the hot tongue, shocked at her own sudden animal-like lust. As her feverish excitement mounted, she was afraid she would come before totally satisfying her friend.
Forgetting the teasing bites, Lena ground her face hard into the clammy depths, then moved her face rapidly from side to side. This brought a scream of pleasure from the other girl.
"Eeeeee!" Joan squealed. "Oh my Lord!"
"I love it!" the blonde shrieked. "I love to eat your pussy!"
Beside herself with need, Joan shoveled her tongue in, deeper and deeper inside the juicy inner recesses. She greedily slurped flowing cunt nectar until she thought she would drown in the delicious, musky fluid.
"Uuummmm... " she spluttered as it coursed down her throat. "You're so tasty, honey!"
Further exclamations were prevented by the urgent pressure building up throughout her curvaceous body. Her entire being was now concentrated on her ravaged twat as she gratefully felt the full effect of her beautiful roommate's lewd ministrations. A hoarse, rasping cry of pleasure escaped her lips.
"Oh Lena, you sure know how to eat cunt! Keep doing it to me... to mmmeeeee!"
"To me, tooooo!" Lena howled, "Do it harder... eat me... EAT ME!"
With her aching box nearing a roaring climax, Lena spread apart the boiling pussy under her and sucked as much of it into her feasting mouth as she could. Her teeth, tongue and lips erotically ravaged the hot, slippery mass of female flesh.
Vaguely, the blonde heard shuddering gasps and moans of increasing intensity. The shrill moans reverberated in the small room.
Ohhhh... she's as close as I am to coming! Lena groaned inwardly. And I'm pretty close!
"I can't stop, honey!" she screamed. "God, I'm so turned on I... oh shit oh my pussy!"
"I am, too" her roommate squealed, echoing Lena's cry of pleasure. "I don't think I can ever stop... I... oh Lord, I'm almost there!"
The two lust-maddened girls attacked one another's honey pot with renewed frenzy. Each felt the hot waves of climax building to the breaking point within their burning, drenched vaginas. They began to bob their pretty heads, thrusting the lengths of their stiffened tongues into wet, steaming holes.
"Uuummmfffff!" Lena's scream of ecstasy was muffled by a forest of pubic fur.
"Me, too!" Joan yelped, plunging her tongue in and out with orgasmic fury.
They were only moments away from the ultimate release when they vaguely heard the sound of a door opening. Seconds later, they were shocked to discover a grinning Dan... standing in the bedroom!
"Well, this is a sight to behold!" he cried, ogling the entwined roommates. "Don't let me disturb you... go right ahead!"
"D-Dan," Lena stammered. "How... what... "
"No one answered the door and I heard sounds... so I came in," he explained. "Who gives a shit about him!" Joan suddenly screamed, "I can't stop now... eat me, Lena!"
"Sure, go ahead!" Dan cried with delight. "Get what you want... while I watch!"
Lena couldn't believe this wanton scene, but this was no time to be embarrassed. The hot, searing need for her body demanded full attention and she knew her impassioned roommate was far too horny to quit.
"I don't care... I don't give a shit!" the blonde screamed frantically. "I've got to come no matter who's watching... lick me, Joan!"
With Dan's eyes bulging at the erotic display before him, the two horny girls returned to their feast. Once again, tongues flashed as they were shoved repeatedly into grasping, clenched twats. Desire built to a feverish pitch, and very soon neither pussy-eating girl could control her body's convulsions.
"This is it, Lena!" Joan squealed. "I'm going to... I... Aaaaiieeeee!!!"
"And mmmeeeee!!!" the blonde squealed. "Can't hold back... Ooowwweeeee!!!!!"
Blast after blast of molten heat ricocheted through the clawing, grasping, panting bodies as they were swept to the peak of climax after climax. They pressed together, swollen breasts mashing against trembling thighs, nipples digging into flushed flesh, nails scraping, becoming one shuddering mass of climaxing flesh.
After what seemed like hours, their rocking gradually diminished. They collapsed in a pool of perspiration and cunt juice, sighing with satisfaction.
Soon, Lena remembered the presence of the handsome young man. When she glanced up, her pretty eyes widened with astonishment. Dan stood near the bed... completely naked! His long, thick cock twitched and lurched to full erection only inches from her face.
"Dan... my God, what are you doing?" the startled blonde exclaimed.
He grinned mischievously. "Well, it was a nice show you girls put on, but there was something missing." He glanced down at his lurching member. "This!"
"Jesus, what a tool!" Joan cried with glee. "Willing to put it to use, big fella?"
"You must have read my mind, beautiful!"
Lena's mind reeled from the implications of the scene. I can't believe this is happening! she exclaimed to herself. It's bad enough I've become... a lesbian... but now to have sex with two other people... it's much too perverse!
Yet before the confused blonde could utter a word of protest, Dan stretched himself out on the bed, his long prong pointing skyward like an unlaunched missile. It jerked with manly potency, and as Lena watched a steady dribble of pre-cum began to emanate from the red tip.
"What are you girls waiting for?" the young man demanded. "Here's what you need."
"I'll say!" Joan exclaimed. She got up on her knees and crawled between Dan's widespread, muscular legs. "Don't you want some of this tasty action, Lena?"
"But... isn't it wrong... two girls blowing one guy?" Lena said tentatively.
"Of course not," her smiling roommate replied. "I say the more the merrier! Now get over here before I hog this pecker all to myself!"
After several moments of hesitation, Lena realized she certainly didn't want Joan to have all the fun. And as she gazed at Dan's thick, pulsating penis, all her previous inhibitions melted away. Her mouth watered for the taste of throbbing prick.
"All right!" she cried. "Count me in... I want some pork in my mouth, too!"
"It's all yours, girls!" Dan shouted. "Come and get it... or should I say, get it and I'll come?"
No matter which way he put it, the girls immediately got the gist of the situation. As Lena crawled closer, sliding herself next to Joan between Dan's legs, the brunette reached out and began to stroke the purple-veined phallus. Dan groaned with pleasure as the girls' soft fingers passed over his bulging purpling cockhead again and again.
"That's it, honey," he said, his voice becoming hoarse. "Beat my meat!"
Tentatively, then with growing excitement, Lena touched the thick pole and joined in with Joan's pud-pulling rhythm. The roommates grinned at each other with delight as they felt the rigid rod growing longer and thicker under their ministrations until it had assumed club-like proportions that made them gasp in awe.
Her excitement making her take the initiative, Lena lowered her face. Her tongue flicked out and lapped up some of the tasty pre-cum.
"Good girl, Lena!" her roommate cheered.
"You bet!" Dan cried, his face contorting with pleasure. "Lick that big wang!"
This the young girl did with no further encouragement necessary. Her tongue rolled out and she worked it along the length of the handsome man's pulsing shaft. Meanwhile, Joan wedged her face in so she could kiss and nibble on Dan's hard, hairy balls.
"Oh man, this is heaven!" the impassioned real-estate agent moaned.
With her hands now stroking his glistening manmeat, Lena parted her full, red lips and took Dan's velvet-like cockhead into her drooling mouth. She bathed the pork with saliva, then sucked it up again.
"Oh baby... oh yeah... " the young man whined deliriously. "Suck it, honey!"
Lena lowered her face farther, feeding inch after throbbing inch of delicious dick into her flushed face. When she had taken in as much as she could, she clamped her mouth securely around it. Her breath wheezed and her smooth cheeks formed two inverted semicircles as she vigorously sucked the embedded tool.
"Save some for me, honey!" Joan cried. "Let me eat some of that, too!"
Considerately, Lena allowed the thick pole to slip out of her mouth and she moved aside so the brunette could have her pleasure. Without hesitation, Joan opened her mouth and swallowed up the twitching phallus.
"Jesus, girls... this is too much!" Dan whined. "You're driving me crazy!" Spurred on by such compliments, Joan began to bob her head up and down, repeatedly swallowing up the rigid pecker and letting it slide out of her hungry face.
"Go, honey, go!" Lena cried, fascinated by the lewd sight of her roommate blowing Dan. "Keep sucking off that big club!"
Not wanting to be left behind, Lena circled Dan's pulsating length with her wet fingers and trailed them after Joan's lowering and receding lips. Now the girls were blowing and jerking the heaving young man off at the same time... and Dan was loving every second of it!
"Christ, you girls are wild!" he howled, his eyes rolling uncontrollably. "Much more of this and I'm going to... I'll be... Ohhhhh!"
Before long, the good-looking man's hips began to rise up and down, erotically joining the rhythm. The girlfriends were generous with each other-after a few turns, Joan allowed Lena to take over the blowing while she jerked Dan off, then Lena did the same. The alternate but never slackening action soon had Dan yelling feverishly.
He knew it would be futile to try and restrain the powerful pressure building and straining inside his nuts. His pent-up jism swirled at hurricane force within his aching sac. He reached down and grabbed the girls' heads.
"Keep it up!" he screamed. "Don't stop blowing me because I'm going to... " The sentence remained unfinished as his hips began to buck out of control. The roommates frantically stroked and sucked the thick tool, their drolling mouths quickly alternating in a cock-eating frenzy. Suddenly, Dan heaved up off the bed.
"Here I... oh God... I... Aaaarrrghghgh!!!"
Both girls converged on his exploding prick, just in time to take the full brunt of his bursting, hot load. Like an unmanned firehose, Dan's lurching rod spewed wad after boiling wad in practically every direction. White-hot cum splashed against the girls' delighted faces, bathing their cheeks, mouths, and chins and coursing in fast-flowing rivulets down their necks and chests until it dripped like hot wax off the slopes of their jiggling tits. Dan groaned and screamed as his sweet release overwhelmed his senses.
When he finally subsided, Joan and Lena liberally got in their last licks, loving the taste of white spunk. Then all three decided to rest up for the next round.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
For as far back as she could remember, Lena had never spoken in anger to either her father or mother. They were not a quarreling family. They were three people who had lived together in love and harmony, feeling close to one another, and when they disagreed about some minor thing they simply talked it over until they came to an understanding. But that day Lena was angry, and as she sat at lunch with Molly and Jim she couldn't help showing it.
She said to her father: "I just can't understand why you let that woman unload a house on you without talking it over with me, Dad. After all, I am your daughter. Didn't it occur to you that I might like to express an opinion?"
Molly spoke up. "I warned you, Jim. I told you I didn't approve of going behind Lena's back." She was ladling another helping of soup into Lena's soup plate, ignoring Lena's insistence that she couldn't swallow another spoonful.
Molly made the most marvelous vegetable soup in the world, but today Lena simply could not eat. As always when she was upset emotionally, her appetite had vanished. "How do you expect to keep up your strength if you don't eat?" Molly said, looking worried.
Jim had been watching her, his eyes thoughtful. "You don't seem to have much use for this lady, Lena. Every time you mention her, I get the feeling you wouldn't trust Miss Hall as far as you could throw her. Don't seem to me that's quite the right kindly attitude to hold toward your future sister-in-law, honey."
"I'm not marrying Corinne Hall," Lena snapped.
"But you are marrying her brother." Molly remarked that she was in complete agreement with Lena. For her part, she never had been able to stand uppity females, and that Hall woman struck her as just about as uppity as they came. She said to Lena: "Buying that house was your father's idea, honey. I was dead set against it. Oh, it's pretty enough, but little more than a playpen. But your father was quite taken with all those gadgets, and he had this fool notion that I shouldn't move or turn a hand for the rest of my days. So nothing would do but that he must buy the ridiculous house right on the spot."
Molly added, after swallowing a spoonful of soup and spreading butter lavishly on a piece of French bread: "In fairness to your father, Lena, he did think it would please you if we took the house. He thought it would be a lovely surprise for you. He wasn't meaning to go behind your back, Lena."
"What gave you the idea the house would please me, Dad?"
"These friends of yours said so, baby. They gave me to understand you'd seen the place and thought it was just about perfect."
"Dana Hall told you that?"
Jim hesitated. The sister had done most of the talking, he explained. But the brother seemed to back up every single word she said. He didn't contradict her at all.
Then Jim said that if his womenfolks didn't mind, he'd like to eat the rest of this wonderful meal without any more arguing. There was nothing surprising about that remark. Jim always had been one for keeping to pleasant subjects during mealtimes. Better for the digestion, he claimed. Yet Lena had the peculiar feeling that Jim had some special reason for wanting to change the subject. Twice she noticed an anxious, troubled look cross his face when he was watching Molly.
When they'd finished eating, Jim made the excuse that he wanted to show Lena all the different varieties of fuchsias in the garden. He led the way around to the side of the cottage. When he was sure they were out of Molly's hearing, he told her about Molly's heart condition.
"I'm not one to break a promise to Molly," he said, "and she did make me promise I wouldn't tell you. But now I think it's best that you know. We mustn't argue or disagree or say anything that might get her upset. No matter how you or I may feel, honey, we'd best keep it to ourselves. It takes so little to start Molly worrying, and that's the worst thing in the world for her."
Jim went on to explain about the house. Nobody had to tell him, he said, that the fool place wasn't worth calling a house. It wasn't even well built. The lumber wasn't properly aged, and the cement foundation was a disgrace. The fact of the matter was, Jim said, he was beginning to wonder if these fellows out here in California had ever learned the first thing about building houses properly. But all that was neither here nor there.
What had sold him the house, he said, was that it would be so easy to take care of. The rooms were small and compact and with all those labor-saving devices in the kitchen, Molly would have a hard time finding any real work to do. The dishes washed themselves, the garbage took care of itself, and with that tiny stove and no space to turn around in, Molly couldn't wear herself out cooking more than she should, because there'd be no way or place to do it. Nothing that Hall woman said had a thing to do with my buying it, honey. I just looked around the fool place and decided it might add years to your mother's life. So I bought it."
He went on gently: "You mustn't hold anything against me, or against your friend's sister, either. I did it for Molly."
Lena was shocked by the news about her mother. She asked her father over and over if he was telling her the whole truth; if the doctor had really said there was nothing to be unduly alarmed about.
"As long as she takes it easy," Jim said, "and doesn't get upset, she'll be okay. We've just got to see to it that she doesn't have a single thing to get in a stew about. You'll help me watch out for her, won't you, honey?"
There were tears in Lena's eyes as she put one arm around Jim's shoulders. "I love her too," she reminded him.
When Dan O'Connor arrived, promptly at one-thirty, Lena invited him in. "The yellow house is a thing of the past," she told him regretfully. So how about his coming in to meet her folks? If he behaved nicely, she wouldn't be a bit surprised but that Molly might give him a piece of her wonderful coconut cake.
Molly took Dan to her heart on sight. It was ridiculous, Molly declared, to serve a big, husky male dessert without giving him something that would stick by him. So she insisted on heating up the vegetable soup. Dan ate two large bowls and wailed because there was no more to eat. Jim sat at the table and talked politics with him. Then they discussed the state of the world and what Jim referred to as all this cockeyed nonsense about flying up to the moon. In Jim's opinion, any man who couldn't content himself on this earth belonged in a mental institution, not on the moon or on a space shuttle.
Think of all the beauties of nature there were to see and enjoy, not to mention the work there was to be done, poor children to help to a decent life, starving people to feed, crooks to be weeded out of politics, all the rest of it. Oh, there was work aplenty begging to be done, according to Jim. Then, returning to the beauties of nature, Jim mentioned the glorious trip he and Molly had had driving from Texas in their trailer. After that, nothing would do but that Jim take Dan across the street to where he had the trailer parked.
By the time they returned it was plain that they were two men who liked and understood each other. "Come again," Jim urged. "Come any old time. You're a man after my own heart, O'Connor." Molly paid him the highest compliment in her power. "You remind me so much of Jim when he was a young man," Molly said.
"You even look a lot the way he looked in the days when he was courting me."
"Now, sweetheart," Jim interrupted with a chuckle, "O'Connor ain't interested in hearing about ancient history."
"Seems like it was only yesterday," Molly said wistfully.
That was around eight o'clock in the evening. "I didn't plan to make a day of it," Dan said when he and Lena were in his car driving into town. "When your mother invited me to stay for supper I didn't want to impose. But she seemed to mean it, and she made me feel so at home. Your folks are great people, Lena. It's no wonder you're such a grand girl, with Molly for a mother."
The words seemed to act as a trigger to release the emotional tension she'd been under all afternoon. With no warning, tears welled up; then Lena was crying softly and helplessly.
They were driving along a fairly isolated section of beach highway. Dan stopped the car. He turned and looked at her for a moment; then he put his arm around her and pulled her comfortingly close. "What on earth is the matter?" he asked gently, wondering if he had said anything to hurt her feelings.
There was a storm out at sea that night, and they could hear the breakers pounding against the beach. It was a sad, lonely sound. "It's my mother," Lena said. "I'm worried about her health. She has a heart condition. I didn't know until today."
Lena took the handkerchief Dan gave her to wipe away her tears. But she didn't try to move out of his arms. She felt less lonely, less troubled somehow, held close against him. She knew so little about him; he was a stranger really. Yet there was tenderness and understanding in him, and she craved these things more than she had realized.
"Maybe it wouldn't have hit me the way it did," she went on, "if I hadn't been so mixed up about so many things. I feel as if I were wandering and stumbling around a blind alley, not knowing where I'm going or even where I want to go." Suddenly she came out with the words she had never intended to say and would probably regret. "The truth is, I've been infatuated with this man I told you about. It's been going on for quite a while, and I can't seem to get over it. But," she explained bitterly, "all I seem to get out of it is worry and uncertainty. I don't know if he's right for me, or how he'd make out with my family, or they with him. To tell you the honest truth, I'm not any too sure he wants to marry me. And I'm so mixed up about the whole situation I wonder at times if I'm losing my mind."
She told him what little there was to tell about the sale of the house, and about her quarrel with Corinne on Sunday, and about Corinne's hold on Dana, and about Dana himself. She interrupted herself once to say: "You said it sounded like a strange kind of romance, and I guess you were right." Then she was shaken by sobs which came from the emotional storm that had been gathering in her for a long time.
"What should I do?" she cried softly. "If only someone would tell me what's right, what's best. I don't even know if Dana really wants to marry me, or if he's just stringing me along, waiting to see if somebody shows up who suits him better than I."
After a long, long silence Dan O'Connor began: "Well, if you want to know what I honestly think, Lena-" He didn't say it. Instead he told her: "If I were you, honey, I'd stop worrying about it. Let it ride for a while. It's a strange thing, but our worst problems have a way of solving themselves if you give them a chance."
He held her close, and they were silent, listening to the sad, lonely sound of the pounding breakers. When he spoke again it sounded as true, as deeply from the heart as if he were saying a prayer. "There's just one thing I know, Lena. Here's one guy who truly loves you. I want you to remember that I told you. Now I'm going to take you home. You need a good night's sleep. You need to forget your troubles. They aren't too serious, Lena. You're just seeing them through a magnifying glass that makes them seem bigger than they are."
Lena gave him a small smile that held a world of tenderness. "Thanks, Dan," she said softly. "You've helped me. I don't know quite how. But I feel better, a lot better."
"I'm so glad, Lena, dear," he said softly, looking into her eyes.
And then they both knew that they couldn't leave yet. No, they had to stay and make this moment last as long as they could, trying to communicate just how deeply their emotions ran.
It might not be love, they both knew that. But there were other reasons besides love that made it all right to give themselves to one another totally. It felt so right, so genuine, and all they had to do was let the feelings overtake them as they enjoyed the pleasures of their bodies.
Dan pushed Lena back on the car seat and started wallowing around against her breasts. She held him in place while he licked out at her big tits. In the midst of his frantic struggle to taste her flesh, he managed to reveal her breasts after tearing loose her clothing.
Lena couldn't believe how wild Dan had become at the sight of her exposed tits. But as he eagerly attacked her, he also couldn't believe how good it felt. His tongue slid all over her, dragging in and out of her cleavage, flicking across her erect nipples, covering her creamy mounds with a thin sheen of saliva that gleamed in the moonlight.
"So good," she murmured. "Oh, Dan, I can't believe I've waited this long tonight to let you do this to me. There were times when I wanted to, believe me. But now, well, it just seemed like the perfect time. Do you know what I mean, Dan? Do you feel it too?"
He had been biting into the hard brown flesh of her nipple, but he looked up at the sound of her voice. Wiping off his mouth with the back of his hand, he said, "Of course, darling. I don't know what it is, but tonight I want you so badly. Please, honey, reach down and play with my... well, you know... can you just touch it... for a little while? Please?"
Lena couldn't resist the pleading look on his face. He looked so desperate, so hungry, so needful. And when she stroked the long hard bulge in his pants, she was pleased to see his strained expression change to one of calmness. She couldn't imagine what he would look like once he was... he was... ohhhh, it was almost too much to think about-Dan driving his cock in and out of her wet pussy! But that's what she wanted. She wanted more than anything to have Dan take her... to... to... to fuck her!
Although there wasn't much room in the front seat of Dan's car, Lena still was able to get his pants off quickly. Driven by her desire, she bared his cock and balls as swiftly as she could.
"Oh, Dan, it's so beautiful," she announced, gently running her fingers up and down his vein-encircled shaft. "I never thought it could be this... this hard... and alive."
"Yeah, baby, that feels good," he grunted. "Just squeeze it a little harder... yeah, like that... and run your hand up and down... pump it... ohhhh, baby... pump it!"
While Lena worked on his penis, Dan wriggled his hand down between her legs and slipped it inside her panties. Easing his fingers down below the elastic band of her underwear, he ardently sought out her cunt. Running his fingers through her curly pubic bush, he then dipped in to the wet, seething delight that was her pussy.
Her cuntlips parted as he slid one finger into her hole. Slowly at first, he finger-fucked her sopping wet cunt. Then he jammed his finger into her, burying it into her up to the last knuckle.
Lena matched his rough strokes with frantic thrusts of her hips. Each time his hand bashed into her puffy pussy flaps, he sprayed juices out across her belly and onto the car seat.
"More!" she cried. "Give me more! Ohhhhh!"
Dan rammed two, then three, then four fingers up her tightly clenching hole. She took him in eagerly, spreading her legs as wide as she could.
With his thumb, Dan tried to massage her clitoris, smoothing juices across the oily little love-bud. And she was becoming so aroused that it wasn't long before a small puddle of pussy sauce pooled between her legs on the slick vinyl seat.
"I can't wait!" he groaned. "I've got to have you, Lena. Oh, I want you so bad... so very bad."
"Then stop talking and give it to me," she gasped. "Oh, Dan, put it in me deep! Now!"
Yanking out his hand, Dan raised up so he could get his cock into her. His first attempts were so frantic that all he could do was poke into her repeatedly. Lena had to reach down and grip his shaft, aiming the head of his penis toward its juicy target. Pressing down against his trembling buttocks, she guided him inside.
"Oh, oh, that feels so good!" he cried, sinking his cock farther and farther inside. He thrilled to the feeling of having his prick surrounded by hot, wet flesh. And then he began fucking into her mercilessly, driven by his highly aroused passions.
"That's it," Lena sighed, holding Dan in place with two hands. "Now just do it nice and steady, baby. That's it, nice and steady. Don't want... ohhhh, yeah... don't want you to slip out... not... when I'm this... this... close. Ohhhh, baby, I'm gonna come. Dan, honey, it feels so good. Ohhhh, its gonna come. I can feel it. I can feel it!"
Dan was amazed at the way she began trembling and quaking beneath him. It was all he could do to keep his cock in place as she rode out her climax. Up and down she bucked and writhed up off the car seat, totally possessed by her bliss. And Dan just hung on tight and tried to keep his thrusts steady, tried to glide his shaft against her clit on the outstroke to give her as much pleasure as possible, tried to hold back his own orgasm until he was sure she had received as much pleasure as possible.
"Now I want you to come!" she yelled. "Come inside me, Dan. Fill me up with your love!"
Digging his fingernails into her back and clenching his teeth tightly, Dan shot his load, filling her pussy with a tremendous amount of semen. The creamy white stuff oozed out between her splayed cuntlips as he kept spurting more and more of it inside her.
Lena delighted in the wonderful feeling of having her pussy filled to the brim with his hot cockmeat and his blazing jism. It was truly the most wonderful moment of her life.
And she only hoped that things were going to get better.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"When you come right down to it," Jim Anderson said, "how many experiences in life give as much downright happiness as what we folks are doing right now? Here we are, a family, sitting at table, enjoying good food and good conversation together." He shook his head, smiling at Molly, then at Dana and Corinne. "I say we should be very grateful to the Lord for giving us times like this to enjoy."
It was Saturday evening, and Lena, staring at her plate, felt in a ferment. The dinner, just as she had expected, was a lavish one: roast turkey with oyster stuffing, and all the trimmings. Lena had come early in the morning to help prepare the food and save Molly as many steps as possible. .The trouble was that Molly didn't want to be helped. It was easier to do things herself, she claimed, than to tell Lena how she wanted them done.
"Your turn to work in the kitchen will come when you have a husband and home of your own," Molly had said. "I want you to take it easy while you can."
Now Molly was dead tired. Her smile was strained, and while she urged the others to eat, Lena noticed that she was eating next to nothing. Her face was unnaturally flushed, and the frightening phrase-high blood pressure-crossed Lena's mind.
If only this horrible dinner were over! For it was horrible. Dana, seated beside Lena, didn't seem like himself. And Corinne, across the table, wore a purple satin evening gown and the air of a very superior person who was slumming. She wore that dress on purpose, Lena thought furiously. It was just her mean way of high-hatting Molly, who had on a freshly laundered cotton house dress.
"I don't quite understand what you mean, Mr. Anderson." Corinne, who had been eating like a horse, paused while taking a second helping of candied sweet potatoes. "A family." She smiled vaguely, settled for two heaping tablespoons of the potatoes, then pushed the dish toward Dana, who shook his head. In contrast to his sister, Dana seemed reluctant to eat anything. It was the first time Lena had ever seen him embarrassed or at a loss for words. Dana struck her as a man who wished he were anywhere on earth but where he was. Why? Had he given her a chance, Lena would have asked him bluntly.
But he gave her no chance. He and Corinne had arrived late, which was a rude thing in itself, to Lena's way of thinking. And they were scarcely inside the house when Corinne had announced that they would have to leave as soon as dinner was over. She was booked to give a lecture, one of those tiresome duties she'd forgotten all about when she had made the dinner appointment. But of course her public must come first! It was her way of life, a kind of dedicated life which a public figure like herself had to live.
Corinne swallowed a mouthful of sweet potatoes, followed by a mouthful of oyster dressing, followed by a bite of turkey breast drowning in Molly's heavenly giblet gravy.
She gave Molly what passed for a smile. "I suppose a woman would have to spend her entire life in the kitchen to be able to cook as you do, Mrs. Anderson." She added: "Of course, to a woman like myself it wouldn't seem worth it. But then, I'm more the mental type."
"I'm not," Molly said cheerfully. "I never got past the eighth grade, and to my way of thinking I didn't miss anything I needed for a full, happy life. I've had everything I wanted."
Corinne smiled, a thin, supercilious little smile, observing that happiness depended on the woman. If one were born with the mentality and temperament of a cook and housewife, no doubt it was pleasant enough to spend one's life drudging away at menial tasks. As for herself, she added with a laugh, she always took it as a personal insult when the census taker or some such person asked her if she should be listed as a housewife.
"I don't see anything insulting about that, Miss Hall," Molly said. "What finer thing can any woman be than a housewife? As I see it, that's a good enough life for any woman."
Jim put down his knife and fork, took a swallow of water, and cleared his throat. "Miss Hall," he said with the troubled look of a man who felt it his duty to speak his mind and let the chips fall where they may, "I don't like what you just said to my wife. If I understand you rightly, you were implying that women who make good cooks and housewives are inferior to females who gad about doing things outside the house. It just so happens that I don't agree. It just so happens that a finer woman than my wife never walked this earth. You like to spend your life telling a lot of strangers you don't care about how to fix up houses you'll never see. Molly likes to spend her life fixing a home for those she loves. That don't make you any smarter or wiser or more useful in the world than she is. It just means that you're a whole lot different. I had to make my feelings clear, Miss Hall."
In the dead silence that followed, Jim again cleared his throat, took another swallow of water. "My greatest hope for our daughter," he said into the silence, "is that her life may turn out to be as good and useful and filled with love as her mother's. Love, Miss Hall, is the most important thing in this life. For a woman to give love in over flowing measure to her husband, her family, her home-that's a recipe that can't be beat:" Outside of an occasional lazy, worthless cowhand back in Texas, it was the first and only time Lena had ever heard her Dad put anyone in his place.
She stole a glance at Dana's face, which was grim and set. His eyes seemed glued to his plate, where most of his food remained untasted. He seemed afraid to look at her. They had not spoken a dozen words to each other. In an effort to lighten the tension, Lena said gaily: "Maybe Dad and Corinne should go outside and fight it out. You and I could act as umpires, Dana. What do you say?"
"That might be an idea." Dana managed a painful smile.
Molly went to the kitchen on the pretext of refilling the gravy bowl. More gravy wasn't what was needed, Lena thought. What was needed was a sharp knife to cut this awful tension. This was the beginning of the end between herself and Dana. Their engagement, such as it was, could never survive this. At the moment she didn't seem to care. She felt nothing. Again she looked at Dana, and still she felt nothing. How could she? How could a girl feel love, warmth, tenderness, desire, for a man who sat there like a wooden stick? When he wasn't staring at his plate, he was glancing at his wristwatch. "It's ten after seven," he said to Corinne.
Molly returned with the gravy which no one wanted. "Now, Jim," she said firmly, "I think you owe Miss Hall an apology. Just because you've always seen me through rose-colored glasses, that doesn't mean other folks haven't the right to see me just as I am. Miss Hall is absolutely right. I'm just a plain old homebody who never was smart enough to do anything but cook and keep house. I'd be the last one to take offense at her saying that, because it's the truth. Now you go right ahead and apologize, Jim. You hear?"
"There's no need for an apology," Corinne said stiffly. "Dana, the time again, please?"
"No need to rush. If we get away by eight, that will give you plenty of time."
"Well, I don't want to be late."
Molly jumped up again. "Oh, you folks mustn't leave until you've had your dessert. I made a nice pumpkin pie, because Lena said that was your favorite, Dana. Will you have it with whipped cream?"
"Thanks just the same," Dana said stiffly, "but I'm afraid I couldn't eat another bite." Then he turned to Lena. "Could I have another glass of water, honey?"
"Sit down, Molly," Jim ordered, smiling. "You say I should apologize, and you're the boss. So you sit there and see if I do it right. Miss Hall, I didn't mean any offense by what I said. I'm just a well-meaning old fellow who isn't much at words. A man who's lived most of his life on a Texas ranch never gets what you might call polished up. When I have something to say, the only way I know to act is to go ahead and say it. If it comes out sounding wrong, I've got Molly sitting there to call me down for it."
"Really, Mr. Anderson, all this is quite unnecessary." Corinne had the look of a woman who had just eaten a very sour pickle.
Jim took another swallow of water and went right on. If there were any hard feelings because of something he'd said, it was necessary for him to get it straightened out. Perhaps, he conceded, he had spoken without thinking. If he had, it was because any slight to Molly always got his dander up.
"You see, Miss Hall, I'm a fellow who sets great store by his wife. Always have. She's my whole world, you might say. When anything is said or done that might hurt her feelings, I'm like an old firehorse who hears the bell. I just sort of lose my head, so to speak."
"Dana, dear, what time is it now, please?" Corinne was crumpling her paper napkin with a faint look of distaste. Lena wondered if that look was because of the absence of nice linen, so essential to a properly served dinner. Or was it because of the drawled inanities of this tiresome and slightly vulgar old fellow from the Texas plains?
"We have fifteen minutes," Dana said in the voice of a man who wanted to get away as badly as Corinne did, but who was still mindful of the social amenities.
"And there's my daughter to be considered, too," Jim said. "Next to Molly, Lena is the person I love best. From the very hour that little girl was born, she's been mighty dear to me. All the work I've ever done, all the money I've made, I've always had Lena in mind. Stands to reason she'll outlive Molly and me. When we're gone, everything we've managed to get together will go to Lena. Anything I can do to add to her happiness while I'm here on earth, I want to do. So it stands to reason I wouldn't knowingly say or do anything to create ill feeling with you folks. Once these two are married, we'll all be one family, you might say. I want us to feel close and friendly toward one another, as a family should. For that reason, Miss Hall, if you took anything I said amiss, I humbly apologize and ask you not to hold it against me."
Lena knew that her father was humiliating himself for no good purpose. Out of his sincerity and his love for her, he was trying to make amends as best he could, and there was no way she could stop him. She couldn't very well shout at him that he was wasting his breath, that it didn't in the least matter what he had said to Corinne, since the woman had had only contempt for them to start with. She felt ill, was plagued by a sense of guilt. She should never have allowed this dinner to take place. She should have phoned Dana not to come, made some excuse. If only Dana would say something, make some move to put things back on an even keel, instead of just sitting there like a man in a daze.
Corinne pushed back her plate. There was menace in the look she gave Jim. "Mr. Anderson, this is the second or third time you've mentioned our 'happy little family.' " Her tone turned the words into ridicule. "Doesn't it seem to you that you are taking quite a lot for granted?"
"What do you mean?" Jim looked honestly puzzled.
"What makes you so sure we're going to be one family, ever? My brother and your daughter are by no means man and wife. And if I have anything to say about it, they never will be,"
"What in tarnation are you getting at, Miss Hall?" Jim's glance went to Lena, then to Dana, who spoke quickly, with obvious' embarrassment. "Corinne, we'd better go. This really isn't your business, you know."
He turned to Lena. "Lord, what a mess," he groaned. "Listen, honey, I'd like to see you later this evening." He spoke in a whisper which was lost on her dad and Corinne, who were glaring at each other like a pair of prizefighters. "Can you be at your apartment, say around ten o'clock?"
"No," Lena said briefly.
"But I've got to talk with you. It's important."
Lena's only reply was a shrug. At the moment she had no desire to see Dana later, or ever, for that matter. Her one desire was to see the end of this nightmare of a dinner.
"I'm making it my business," Corinne snapped at her brother. She turned back to Jim Anderson. "It's true that my brother and your daughter have been seeing a lot of each other. I suppose you might call it an engagement. But," she laughed, "these days the average engagement is not to be taken too seriously. For my part, I've never, approved of this marriage, and I've told my brother as much on various occasions. To put it bluntly, Mr. Anderson, I don't feel that Lena is the right girl for him."
"Why not?" Jim's voice was dangerously calm.
"Since you ask, I don't think Lena has the qualities Dana should look for in a wife. My brother is headed for big things in the business world, Mr. Anderson. His wife should be the kind of person who can be a help, not a hindrance."
"You are saying that my daughter would be a hindrance? Exactly how, may I inquire?"
Dana rose, his face purple with angry embarrassment. Never had Lena seen him look so infuriated. But his fury was that of a little boy who could only gulp and squirm. But who did not have the courage, the plain ordinary backbone, to tell Corinne to shut up; to say: "Lena is the girl I am going to marry, and you keep out of it."
He leaned down to whisper to Lena that he felt ill, and left the room quickly.
"If you don't know what I mean, Mr. Anderson, if your common sense doesn't tell you what should be perfectly obvious, it's hard for me to explain. To put it as simply as possible, Lena lacks the sophistication which I feel Dana's wife should possess."
Lena exploded: "It seems to me that's for Dana to decide, not you. But in case you're interested, I have no desire to marry Dana, not if you come with the deal. You'd make life miserable for any girl he married. You're a bossy, opinionated-" Her father stopped her with a look. "Let me handle this, honey," he said quietly, and turned back to Corinne to ask: "Are you by any chance trying to say that Lena's folks don't suit you, Miss Hall? Are you afraid that because we're plain, everyday, down-to-earth folks with no fancy frills, Lena is cut from the same pattern? You think maybe she wouldn't fit in with your rich society friends?"
Corinne replied coldly and without hesitation: "That's part of it, yes. Oh, I'm not saying you aren't good people," she added patronizingly. "You are, of course. You're very wonderful people I'm sure, in your own way. But that isn't quite the point, is it?"
They sat motionless, staring at each other. For what must have been ten or twelve ticks of the clock, Lena sat as if she were paralyzed. She could hear Dana being sick in the bathroom. She was frighteningly aware that her mother's face was livid with agitation, her hand shaking as she pulled her coffee up to her mouth. The really worrisome thing was that Molly was not saying a word; Molly who by long habit took charge when trouble threatened. Then Lena saw her father rise slowly, his chin thrust forward.
"Miss Hall, you came to this house an invited guest. We welcomed you with friendliness and good feeling. You accepted our hospitality. You broke bread with us. And as soon as you'd stuffed your gullet, you set about insulting my wife. Then you insulted all of us. We aren't good enough for your royal highness. My daughter hasn't enough sophistication to fit into all your fancy, hifaluting plans for your brother."
Jim paused to catch a quick breath. He brushed his hand across his forehead, then used it to support himself against the table. "Well, Miss Hall, I don't know about my girl's sophistication, but I'll say this for her. She has good manners, which is more than you have. You, Miss Hall, haven't got the manners of one of my ranch hogs." There was a splintering crash at the other end of the table. Lena whirled. Molly had dropped her coffee cup as she fainted.
Without a word of concern or an offer to help, Corinne marched out of the room and out of the house. Lena held Molly's head in her lap while Jim, looking scared to death, announced he was getting a doctor. He was on his way out of the room when Molly opened her eyes to call him back. "Don't go getting any doctor," she said. "I'll be all right. Just had one of my crazy fainting spells, I guess."
Lena tested Molly's pulse, which seemed normal. A tiny smile tugged at her lips. It wouldn't be the first time her mother had staged a fainting spell when she couldn't think of any other way to put a stop to unpleasantness.
Lena left her mother to go to the door where Dana was waiting. His face looked pale and drawn as she had never seen it before. He was all apologies. He was worried sick, he said, over Corinne's behavior. He'd tell her plenty when they got home. He only hoped that Lena wouldn't blame him, would understand that he'd been so embarrassed he hadn't known what to say or do. If there was anything he could do to help her mother, he certainly wanted to do it. Corinne could drive herself to the lecture hall. Could he go for a doctor, get medicine, anything?
He kept talking and talking, while Lena kept staring at that handsome face which she suddenly saw for what it was, the face of a man who was essentially weak and who allowed himself to be dominated by his sister because hers was the stronger personality. All that he is, Lena thought, flows from Corinne into him. The fine plans for his future were Corinne's plans; his ultimate choice of a wife will be Corinne's choice. No wonder he had been unable to make up his mind about their marriage; he'd been waiting for Corinne to make it up for him.
She heard herself telling him: "All you can do to help is to go and not come back. You never loved me; I don't think you're capable of love. Just let me alone; that's all you can do for me, Dana Hall."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Molly went to bed under protest, insisting that a little fainting spell never did a body any harm, declaring that she felt fit as a fiddle. "Jim and I shouldn't ever have left Texas, that's the whole of it," she told Lena later.
Lena had washed up the dishes, tidied the kitchen, and was ready to leave. She sat on Molly's bed for a moment. "You aren't to worry about anything, Mom."
"We've spoiled things for you, honey. How can I help worrying about that?" She said: "When a daughter leaves the nest to make her own life, her folks should keep their fingers out of the pie. You'd found your man and you were happy. Then Jim and I showed up and spoiled things for you."
Where were the words to make Molly understand that what had happened this evening was culmination, not a cause? She could keep repeating until she was blue in the face that she and Dana would have come to the parting of the ways sooner or later. She could say that Dana was dominated by his sister, who would ultimately have found some way to break up their engagement. She could even say that she was glad things had been forced to a climax, because deep in her heart she had always known that Dana wasn't right for her. Molly wouldn't believe her. She would go right on blaming herself.
Smoothing back her mother's hair from her hot, damp forehead, Lena forced cheerfulness into her voice. "Look, Mom. I was just a small-town Texas gal who became madly infatuated with a handsome, sophisticated boss. Dana was different from the boys I knew back home, and it went to my head. I called it love. But it wasn't love, really. I know it now, and if you think my heart is broken you couldn't be more wrong."
Molly didn't believe her, and neither did Jim. Lena couldn't bear to leave them that night. They were two of the dearest, finest parents who ever lived. And nothing could keep them from believing they'd broken up her marriage and ruined everything for her. Nothing could stop them from worrying themselves sick about it.
The next day Dan O'Connor phoned. When he suggested a drive, perhaps dinner together later, Lena refused, then immediately changed her mind.
There was no use hanging around the apartment moping. Nor did she want to keep nagging Joan with the post-mortem of her blighted love life. Joan had her own urgent problems. She was busy writing letters. An urgent Special Delivery letter from her widower doctor insisted that Joan take a plane to New York and be married at once. The doctor wrote that he was tired of waiting for Joan to make up her mind. He wanted a wife, and he wanted her now.
"He's a grand guy, he loves you and you love him. So what are you waiting for?" Lena wanted to know. In a sense, she envied Joan for having had the good judgment to pick a real man, and the right one. She felt a little sick at the thought of her leaving, too. She would miss Joan terribly.
It was a heavenly afternoon for driving. When Dan asked where she'd like to go, Lena left it up to him. She smiled. The beach, the mountains, down to Brazil, where she understood there were still unexplored regions where primitive Indians ran wild-it was all one with her.
"Then we'll drive out and take another look at the yellow house," Dan said. "Okay?"
As they drove along in the warmth of the sun, Lena was silent for a long while. That was one of the good things about being with Dan. He seemed to know by instinct when to talk, when to let her alone until she came out of her inner absorption. He really was a wonderful pal.
She had never thought of Dana in terms of a pal, and the truth was he never had been one. Dana was more like an idol who demanded a form of worship. Everything had to revolve around him, his desires, his needs, his plans. Dana would have loved it, she imagined, had she burned incense before him.
Well, it was all over now. She could no longer patch things up with Dana, and she was not even certain that she wanted to. She was able to say to herself, Dana is over there in the city someplace, going about his affairs, maybe having a date with Irene Spillman, with never a thought for me, and I don't care. I can think about it being all over and it doesn't mean a thing.
Yet there would be a terrific emptiness in her life for a while. You couldn't build your life, your every plan for the future around a man, then have him vanish from your life, without feeling that something was gone.
Dan had brought along a picnic box with sandwiches, bottles of Coke, a box of cookies which he said his landlady had baked specially for him. For some reason this made Lena laugh, her first genuine, joyous laughter in days. "You're so exactly the type," she said. "I'll bet no matter where you go, nice motherly ladies start hunting up their cookie recipes. Right away you remind them of their own sons, of their grandsons, of the sons they wanted and never had. Am I right?"
"Don't you start getting motherly about me," Dan warned, his look ominous. A motherly feeling was definitely not what he wanted from her. But since what he did want he wasn't likely to get, he'd settle for being her good friend.
"It's something to be the guy you can talk things out with," he told her. "We all need someone we can go to, someone we can trust and confide in when things get too rough to take alone. I'd like you to feel that way about me, Lena. It isn't all I'd like you to feel for me; it isn't half of it. But it would be something. I want to be your friend, Lena."
Eating slowly, Lena couldn't bring herself to say the words she wanted to say. More than anything, she wanted to put her arms around him and hold him close, telling him that she loved him and that certainly they could be more than friends.
But something held her back. Perhaps it was because her breakup with Dana had occurred so recently. She didn't know. She only wished that it would pass, and that soon she would be able to tell Dan just how she felt. But she wanted to be certain-both of her intentions and his-before she committed herself.
The next few days were hectic for Lena, but they turned out for the best. After it was all over with, she felt as if she had been cleansed. First of all, she quit attending all the self-improvement classes she had signed up for, understanding at last that she had been doing that for Dana and not for herself.
And then her parents decided they wanted to move back to Texas. They sold the house they had purchased, and even made a small profit on the deal because real estate prices were rising so fast.
Lena was sad to see them go, but she knew it was for the best. They had seen that city life was not for them. And Molly even admitted that just being out in California was doing harm to her heart, because of the fast-paced lifestyle and the threat of earthquakes. But before leaving, Jim and Molly gave their daughter a large sum of money. They told her she should quit her job and relax for a while, since it had been so long since Lena had had a vacation. She accepted the money gratefully and then wished her parents a good trip.
Then Dan called her up and suggested they go for a drive. He said he wanted to show her the yellow house. Once there, they sat in the car talking. "I have a thousand things to tell you," Lena began.
He cut her short with a grin. "I have a little news item of my own. I've bought this house."
"What!" she cried.
"Nell Morton definitely advised me to buy. She said she got the most wonderful vibrations which told her I must simply buy. Just to back up her vibrations, she told me I could name my own terms."
She stared at him, and her eyes were wide. "But what will you do with it, Dan?"
"Live in it with you, I hope." And he smiled as he slipped his arm around her. It was perfectly obvious, he said, that Lena had fallen in love with the house. Reasoning logically, step by step, he had decided that she might well agree to marry him in order to get the house. It would not be the first time a girl had taken on a man as the price she must pay to get the house of her dreams.
At first she did not take him seriously. "You're either making this up, or you have something else in mind." With a whimsical smile she threw his own words back at him. He had said they could be no more than friends; not for a long time, at any rate.
Dan swore he didn't recall saying any such thing. If he had, it was simply his mercurial Irish nature. "I'm in love with you," he said gently. "That I did tell you, and meant it. I love you, Lena. Will you marry me and live in this house with me and grow old with me?"
Her eyes grew wonderfully soft. "You're right, Dan. I did fall in love with this house, and now I know why. It represented a way of life, the kind of life I really want: a solid kind of life, filled with love, filled with the real enduring things, such as building a family and a home and happiness." She looked up at him, her smile rueful. "I never wanted the life of a rising young executive's wife. Because I believed I was madly in love with Dana Hall, I worked like fury to make myself into the kind of woman he wanted. But," she sighed, "it was a little like trying to fit a size eighteen figure into a size ten dress. It was plain murder. When I discovered I wouldn't want Dana if he was the last man on this earth, I knew I never would have fitted into that kind of life. Oh, Dan, how foolish can a gal be?"
