The official visit to the city jail had left Gail in a sour mood. Not a new feeling these days, she now thought as she rearranged the City Council minutes report and stuffed it in the top drawer of her desk. Ever since Proposition Thirteen had passed, cutting property taxes to practically nothing, Gail's job had become more difficult and so had her temperament. Even Tony had noticed it, and told her so just that morning.
"So they cut the city budget, so what? There was too much fat in it anyway. Lots of people, right in your own office, Gail, milking the taxpayers for all they were worth. So you pull in your belts a little, that's all."
"You lawyers make everything sound so cut and dry, Tony. Come off it. Know what I have to do today? I have to fire a city. employee -- a warden at the jail -- just for refusing to cut the facility's fiscal budget. Think I like that little chore?"
"Maybe you do, Gail. Maybe you have caught some of the viciousness your boss is capable of. I've seen a change in you, honey."
... A change in her? She wondered what he had meant by that. And when did he notice it? When his body was warmly close to hers in their lovemaking? That was possible, she had to admit. Even in those passionate moments lately, she had found her mind wandering back to this office, the pressures of her job. There had even been times when sex had failed completely to satisfy her, and although her body was into it,. her mind wasn't.
And that poor lady warden in the women's section of the city jail. She had been on the job for years. Now she would have to go. An odd thought flitted through her mind: did the old battle-axe find that her sex life was dampened by her job, too? Probably. Gail remembered the despondent looks on the faces of the inmates -- prostitutes, shoplifters, addicts, child abusers. And Gail also wondered if she was much better than those prostitutes who did the bidding of their pimps. Wasn't that a little bit like what she was doing? Doing the bidding of the handsome city manager who was her boss?
She handed some papers to her secretary and said, "File these."
Her secretary said, "Yes, certainly," and left the office suite with brisk steps to be gone for an hour. Gail unlocked her attache case and took out all the material she'd hoped to use to persuade Warden Webb that a fifty-thousand-dollar cut in the prison budget would be possible and practical and even desirable. Gail turned on the fluorescent desk lamp and sat grimly at her desk to study the material once more before she actually made the budget cut she'd decided to make during the drive back to City Hall with Tony. She'd not really needed Tony to tell her that if she made the cut, she'd be sticking her neck out. Bob Stapes never had and never would give her safe decisions to make. From the moment she'd gone to work under Bob, he'd made it quite clear that he expected his assistants to make all the politically dangerous decisions and to sacrifice themselves, if need be, in order to preserve the new governmental system he was giving a trial. Hardly had she sat at this very desk that first morning before Bob had come into the office to say: "I don't need clerks to rubber-stamp my decisions for me. What I need here is a bright assistant I can throw to the wolves if I have to. That's why you're being paid over twenty thousand a year. Understood?"
"Understood, sir."
"Good. Now to give you the sweet along with the bitter: if you're as bright as your records says, you have a future here. If you can stay on the payroll for two years, you'll be earning thirty thousand a year."
He'd certainly kept his word, Gail thought, going through the prison budget. And there'd be other raises if she only stayed on the payroll. Three months from now, for example, she'd be boosted again. At the end of three years more -- A pleasant "Hello, there" out in the reception room broke the thought. Gail bustled to the reception room and found a tall, lovely redhead with green eyes admiring the daffodil arrangement on Ellen's utility table. "Nice, nice, nice," the redhead said warmly. "I never believe that spring's here until I've seen my first bunch of daffodils. Home grown?"
Gail had to smile. "No! I do have some daffs in my yard, but nothing to compare with these. My secretary's the gardener, and a good one."
"Oh, I've not introduced myself. I'm Ulricka Wellington."
Gail stopped smiling.
The woman was amused. "Oh, I'm really not the evil witch of legend," she said. "Some days I even smile at children."
Gail led her into her office and drew a chair closer to the desk. She seated herself with considerable aplomb. She gazed curiously about the office. "You do well here," she commented. "Most of the administration workers would envy you, I think."
"Technically, this suite is a part of the city manager's suite -- an extension of it, you might say. My work, for some reason, brings me into contact with important people. Mr. Stapes thinks I should have an office in which important people can feel at home."
Her visitor had used her beautiful green eyes, it turned out, for other purposes. She pointed at the papers on the desk. "Mrs. Webb telephoned me about your little visit and proposal," she said. "That's why I'm here."
"Nice of you to interest yourself in our budgetary problems. I thought, though, that tour employer or colleague or whatever he is -- "
"Employer."
"Well, I thought that he was interested only in business matters."
"He is, he is. These days, however, business and politics and pleasure for that matter are so interrelated it's difficult to pursue one interest without pursuing the other."
"I see."
Miss Wellington peeled off her white gloves and flipped them to the desk. Gail felt an involuntary twitch between her legs as Ulricka's soft, white flesh was revealed. She was quite surprised at her reaction. Of course, Miss Wellington was stunning, but she couldn't remember being aroused this way by a woman before!
"Is something wrong, Gail?" Ulricka asked, her gaze piercing the other woman with its directness. "I guess I just need a little air all of a sudden," Gail said weakly, going over to the window.
Ulricka followed her and felt Gail's forehead to see if she had a fever. If she only knew where that fever was Gail told herself wryly.
And Gail soon learned that Ulricka knew exactly where that fever was burning.
"Maybe if you opened up your blouse a little," Ulricka told her, as she slowly unfastened the first three buttons of Gail's blouse. She paused for a moment and Gail felt her eyes drawn to the eyes of her seducer. They had both reached the turning point and a deeper look or stronger gesture would determine the course of events for the next several minutes.
Gail's eyes were questioning. She was frightened of the potential situation that was developing and she hesitantly placed her hand on Ulricka's to remove it from her blouse and quivering chest. But when the two women touched, the electricity drew them together like a magnet.
"Let me make you more comfortable," Ulricka said softly, as she finished unbuttoning Gail's blouse. She helped Gail slip out of the lovely chiffon print, revealing Gail's delicious breasts spilling out of her lacy brassiere. Then Ulricka pressed her hot mouth to Gail's chest and licked and bit at the tits and nipples through her bra. Gail wanted to feel the hot wetness on her skin, so she hurriedly slipped out of her bra. Ulricka attacked Gail's breasts, easing her onto the floor so that she could work her hand up under her skirt while she sucked away at her tits.
"Oh my god!" Gail screamed. She pulled at Ulricka's designer clothing, urging her to undress.
"I want to make you feel so gooood!" Ulricka told her, stripping down to her panties as Gail did the same.
The two women faced each other a moment before pressing their bodies together. Gail's cunt began to moisten as she felt the heat and sexual energy being generated from Ulricka's crotch. She let her lips roam over Ulricka's face, inhaling the subtle but disturbing scent of her expensive French perfume.
When their lips met, they opened them slightly, allowing each other's tongue to suck hard and probe deeply. They pulled each other down to the floor and Ulricka tucked her fingers into Gail's panties.
"Noooo... " Gail moaned feeling her fear rise again as she grew more and more aroused.
"It's all right, lamb," Ulricka reassured.. her, dipping her middle finger between the lips of Gail's vagina. "You're nice and wet for me, baby." She chuckled softly. "Your body knows exactly what it wants, even when you are wavering a little."
Gail let her hands explore the softness of Ulricka's lovely form, fascinated by her curving hips and full breasts.
"Is it true what they say about redheads?" Gail teased.
"What do you mean, hon?"
"You know, about redheads having red pubic hair," Gail laughed.
"Maybe you should check for yourself," Ulricka said, stroking Gail's vulva.
Gail slipped Ulricka's panties off her hips, revealing her juicy cunt and a mound of blondish brown pubic hair.
"Well, it's close," Gail teased her. Gail's panties were down around her ankles and the two women positioned themselves so that they could comfortably eat each other out. Ulricka was a well-seasoned cunnilinger, so she fell to Gail's pussy and clit with experience and obvious relish.
Gail tentatively lapped at Ulricka's clitoris, then squeezed the oily love button between her lips. The fragrance emanating from Ulricka's vagina was intoxicating and it wasn't long before Gail surrendered herself to the flood of feelings that were swelling in her cunt and sending shocks throughout her entire body. She ate Ulricka's pussy hungrily until she became too distracted by the liquid .motions of Ulricka's tongue licking and probing inside her cunt. She came suddenly, in an overwhelming rush and Ulricka masturbated herself to orgasm, enjoying her new partner's pleasure.
They held each other quietly for a moment before getting up and hurriedly dressing. Gail chided herself for not remembering to lock the door. Thank God she'd sent Ellen off to the files! Neither woman spoke. It was as if both of them knew that this might never happen again and were not sure how to sort it all out. In any case, they were both aware that some sort of bond had been formed between them, a secret understanding that would always be there.
Miss Wellington smiled and put on her white gloves and left. A few minutes later, Ellen returned to the office with the records Gail had sent her to pull from the files. Ellen, her dark eyes twinkling, took the liberty of asking: "Are you in Miss Wellington's handbag now, Miss Burton? A lot of folks are. According to the gossip I hear, Mr. Monroe's becoming the big frog in the small puddle and Miss Wellington's his hatchet girl."
Gail opened her intercom switch and buzzed Bob's secretary. She was cheerily invited to come have coffee with the city manager.
Bob was pouring coffee for her when she stepped into his office. Tall, almost impossibly handsome in a light-gray tweed suit, he seated her gallantly and thrust cup and saucer into her hand.
"I gather you couldn't budge Webb," he guessed. "That happens. It doesn't fret you, I hope?"
"It didn't at the time, Bob. It does now. Apparently Mrs. Webb telephoned Miss Ulricka Wellington the moment I left the prison. I've just had a chat with Miss Wellington. All we must do, to eliminate our budget problem, is to authorize Mr. Monroe to establish a metal fabrication plant in the Hooker section on the north shore of the river."
"And you said what?"
"I'd look into the matter. What I wanted to do, candidly, was to throw her out. I may he old-fashioned, but I dislike people who come to threaten or to bribe city officials."
Bob went to the large city map on the wall. He found the Hooker section. He chuckled. "They don't want much, do they?" he asked. "That section's earmarked for development into a residential area."
"That's her price, Bob."
He nettled her by saying, "All things considered, though, it isn't an inordinate price to pay for keeping this type of government in the city. I could use four years more after this year."
"I'll cut Mrs. Webb, then."
"Why not cut the welfare department? With good weather coming on, there won't be a heavy drain until next winter. Next winter we can always claim that unexpected cold weather or poor business conditions or something came along to upset the apple cart. I can push for extra money at that time."
"Did you know," Gail had to ask, "that there's a woman in Maples who gets herself jailed every winter because she can't live on the measly monthly check that our financial assistance sends her. The food stamps don't help either."
"What's that?"
"I'd have to think a long, long, long time, Bob, before I cut a penny from any of the help-to-the-needy programs."
A sudden realization flashed into Gail's mind.
"Whoa!" she cried joyously. "What in the world are we worried about? You haven't appointed a single department director since you've been on the job. So the budget is really their budget, not yours. If the opposition starts screaming about the spendthrift administration, all you have to do is go on radio and television and remind the voters that you inherited these department heads. Then you mention that woman who can't live on the wretched allowance the welfare department gives her. See?"
He smiled, studying her elated face, her sparkling eyes. "A man could almost love you," he said. "Fancy that!"
CHAPTER TWO
After waiting for more than a week to hear from Gail Burton on the metal fabrication plant matter, Ulricka Wellington concluded that her visit to the woman's City Hall office had been a lamentable waste of time. To help her start the day, she drew a hot bath and scented the water with lilac. She felt a tingle through her whole body as she stepped into the steamy and fragrant tub. As she steeped in the delicious bath, her mind wandered lasciviously. She thought about that enormous bulge in Tyler Monroe's pants that she was dying to wrap her lips around. He certainly was a hunk! She wondered if he was attracted to her that way. She knew he admired her intelligence and charm...
Ulricka reached for her imported English lemon soap and began to sudse her body. She squeezed her soapy breasts and tickled her pink nipples with her fingertips. She traced the outline of her curvaceous hips, brushed her ass cheeks and moved the lemony bar up and down her well-shaped thighs.
"Oh Tyler, if you only knew how much my little pussy aches for your gigantic prick to fuck it and fuck it!" Ulricka exclaimed. Luckily, the maid was out of earshot.
She let the hard, lemony soap bar tease her vulva, swirling it slowly and gently against her cunt lips and clitoris. Her oozing love juices seeped into the bath water and the air was almost thick with the pungent mixture of cunt scent and lemon. Ulricka rubbed hard at her clit and the little knob became swollen and tender from the friction of the soap bar.
"Tyler, Tyler... " Ulricka moaned as she imagined the object of her desires easing her onto her Louis the Fourteenth genuine imitation bed and passionately kissing her neck. She would let her fingertips brush against his bulging cock and deftly unzip his pants to set the throbbing monster free. "Ulricka, I want to be inside you," he would tell her as their clothes fell away from their bodies. "I want to lick every inch of you and stroke every millimeter before I penetrate your pulsating pussy."
Ulricka sunk down a little deeper in the bath water and told herself that Tyler probably wouldn't express himself quite that way, but it was close enough for jazz. She replaced the well-worn soap bar in its nearby holder and decided to let her fingers do the walking. She teased her distended and rosy cunt lips and occasionally let a finger or two creep up to flick across her clitoris.
"Get me ready for you baby. Get me ready to fuck you. I want my snatch to be wet and juicy for your hard-driving love rod," she told the man of her dreams, who happened not to be in the vicinity at the time.
Ulricka took a tube of bath oil from the side of the tub and removed its cap. She squeezed a gob of it onto her stomach and rubbed the cum-like substance on her swollen clit.
"I want you to come inside me and I want you to shoot your hot wad all over my stomach," Ulricka told the absent Monroe.
She felt an orgasm start to build in her clitoris and blood-engorged vulva and she removed her hand from between her legs for a moment. She wanted to prolong her pleasure as long as possible and she splashed some bath water over herself, hoping to cool things down a little.
"Oh Tyler, kiss me deep in my cunt," she told her fantasy lover. He nipped playfully at her thighs, working his way up td her glistening vagina. He hovered above her for a moment, enjoying her openness and vulnerability. Then he plunged his tongue deep into her vagina.
"Oh baby, plunge it in deeper!" she urged him, opening her legs as wide as they would go.
"Are you ready for me baby?" Tyler asked her, anxious to enter her with his erect prick.
"Eat me out a little longer, oh baby, please!" Ulricka wailed.
Tyler happily complied with her wishes and pushed her closer and closer to orgasm. Ulricka held back though, not wanting to climax without Tyler's enormous penis inside of her.
"I want you so baaadddd!" Ulricka told him, pushing his face away from her vagina and stroking his big, love hardened dick. "Stick it into me," Ulricka urged him, opening her legs wider and guiding his rock hard penis into her aching cunt.
"Fuck me baby! Fuck me hard!" Ulricka screamed as Tyler's prick pushed into her and moved slowly back out. He built their rhythm steadily, until finally his balls were banging hard against the bottom of her vagina.
"Oooooo... weeee! Oh my God!" Ulricka screamed as she came and came and came.
Tyler groaned suddenly as he shot his creamy wad deep into her vagina. He held onto her tightly and kissed her gently as they settled into each other's arms to enjoy the afterglow.
The cool bath water brought Ulricka back to reality. She looked down and found her busy fingers pressed into her cunt hole. "God, if Tyler is half the lover I imagine him to be, I might not be able to stand it!" Ulricka said aloud.
She dressed quickly and walked without resting to the center of the financial district and turned into her favorite coffee and pastry shop. She found the usual assortment of male and female newspaper people enjoying the last break they'd have before their papers would go to press. Ulricka smiled and waved, and she finally sat at a round table occupied by salty Mr. Gravernay of the Maples Torrent. He grinned. "You must want something," he said. "Pretty girls sit with the opposition press only when they want something."
"Information," Ulricka said directly. "What do you know about Gail Bunton?"
"Nice girl. Born here, raised here, knows the town and its people better than most."
"Career girl?"
The little fat man looked at his empty plate. Ulricka took the hint. She summoned a waitress and ordered black coffee for herself and an extra-large slice of banana cream cake for Mr. Gravernay.
"I wouldn't describe her as a career girl," Mr. Gravernay then said. "Actually, she's quite a homebody. Right now, though, she has a problem. The hero of her dreams just hung out his shingle about three months ago. It takes a long time for a lawyer to establish himself in this town. Costs money, too. So I'd guess she's going to keep her job for at least a few years more."
"Who's the lawyer?"
"Tony Carlton. He was born and raised here, too. Lots of ambition and no money; so the going has been slower and heavier for him than for her."
"Suppose she were nominated for the job Stapes has?"
Mr. Gravernay's blue eyes seemed to change into blue ice. "If that happened," he said, "I'd guess that somehow you'd manage to buy her."
"Is she buyable?"
"I hope not."
Delighted, Ulricka paid his bill and hurried on. She arrived at her desk a few minutes before noon. She left her handbag there and went directly to Tyler Monroe's office. The big, hard-driving, ruggedly handsome Tyler Monroe greeted her with a nod, then lighted the cigar he'd just taken from the desk humidor. "Nice of you to get here at all." he said sarcastically. "Why don't I just move my headquarters to your house?"
"My best ideas occur to me while I'm steeping in a piping-hot, lilac-scented bath."
He shoved a letter across the desk. "I got this by messenger about an hour ago, Red. Who's Miss Gail Burton?"
"Assistant to Robert Stapes, and his fall guy if he needs a fall guy."
"Sort of the equivalent of you, in other words?"
"I like to think I'm more beautiful," Ulricka said. "Probably not, however. She's very, very beautiful if you like honey-gold hair and genial gray eyes."
"Oh, I do."
"Amused, Ulricka scanned the letter. She was less amused by the time she'd finished. "Apparently Miss Burton believes she's found a useful gimmick," she told Tyler Monroe. "This isn't the sort of letter a worried person writes."
"What's all this about?"
Ulricka briefed him, a woman who knew her job well and who therefore knew what had to be said and what could be left out. When she'd finished, the golden-brown eyes of Tyler Monroe were thoughtful and twinkling. "In other words," he said, "you think I'll have to battle to get the fabrication plant built where I want it built?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you think the political approach is best?"
"Yes, sir."
"You don't think we can do business with Stapes?"
"No one else ever has, sir."
"Why are you calling me sir'!"
"I'm always very formal with gentlemen who like honey-gold hair and genial gray eyes."
He put the cigar down. "Be sweet," he urged. "Give me a kiss."
Ulricka did, but she felt ashamed of the eagerness with which she did so. She wondered in a panic exactly when it was that he'd gotten the emotional edge over her. It was stupid to let any man get the emotional edge!
"You think too much sometimes," Tyler Monroe told her. "Take things as they come; even fellows like me."
"What happens in the end?" Ulricka asked tensely. "I do all your dirty work for you. Sooner or later, wherever we go, I'm called your hatchet girl. But what do I get out of it all?"
"How much is Gail Burton paid, do you think?"
"I don't think; I know. Thirty thousand a year."
"You're paid what?"
"Fifty thousand."
"Plus what?"
"A house I can sell for the capital gains and an annual bonus."
"Where's your squawk, then?"
"If ours is purely a business association, why do you tell me to kiss you?"
"Simple. I like to make beautiful women hop.
Infuriated, Ulricka stood up and went swiftly to the door. But before she could make her way out of the office, Tyler Monroe was upon her, his hands placed gently but firmly on her shoulders.
"Hey, Wellington, calm down a little," he told her, turning her around to face him. "I guess it's true what they say about red-heads!" he laughed.
"What do you mean?" Ulricka asked, wondering if he was referring to the color of her pubic hair.
"I mean that you've certainly got the temper of a redhead!" Tyler explained to her. "But of course, I hired you for your feistiness."
"I guess my fantasy life is a little too active," Ulricka said under her breath. Sure, Tyler Monroe found her attractive and amusing, but that was the extent of it.
"Ten bucks for the thoughts in that pretty head of yours," Tyler teased.
"I'm thinking about all the work I have to do today," Ulricka fibbed.
"Well, maybe you need a little break, my dear," Tyler told her, kissing her on the nose. "I guess I haven't indicated my feelings for you."
"You've lost me again, Tyler. What are you talking about?" Ulricka asked.
"I just want to show my appreciation for you, that's all." Tyler said, rubbing her shoulders. "And I think our chemistry would be good together."
Ulricka said dreamily, "We'd make such a lovely couple, Tyler. Youth, attractiveness, money, brains. What more could any couple want?"
"Great sex!" Tyler laughed. He put his arm around her and ushered her over to his plush office couch. Ulricka felt a little dizzy, since she still wasn't sure exactly what was happening and she was afraid to hope that Tyler wanted to jump on her bones.
"Why don't we take some time to really get to know each other," Tyler suggested sincerely, as he started to remove her chic, green-linen suit.
Ulricka felt a jolt of electricity shoot out from her clit. Oh God, she told herself, he really does want to make love to me!
"You've got absolutely the most beautiful breasts I've ever seen," Tyler said as he deftly unfastened her Lily of France brassiere. "So round and full and yummy!" he slurped as he applied his tongue to the upturned and rapidly hardening nipples.
Ulricka felt her vagina grow warm and she pulled Tyler to her and kissed him on the mouth, pushing her anxious tongue between his firm but pliant lips.
"Whoa gal!" Tyler caught his breath after her sudden display of heated affection. "You are getting me all riled up here!"
She reached out to stroke his bulging crotch and found that he was indeed getting all riled up.
"Oooo, you feel soooo big!" Ulricka squealed, her cunt juices oozing down to the top of her thighs in anticipation.
"Think that sweet little pussy of yours can handle it?" Tyler teased.
"I don't know. You'll have to get me pretty wet," Ulricka told him.
They both stripped down to their underwear and Tyler could wait no longer to sample some of her feminine charms. He licked and nibbled ferociously at her hips and then poked his hot, wet tongue at her snatch from outside her panties.
"Oh Tyler, eat me, eat me!" Ulricka wailed.
Tyler continued to probe her pussy from the outside, just to make her crazy with anticipation. He nipped at her labia and flicked his tongue across what he thought was her clitoris.
"Please... please... " Ulricka moaned softly.
Tyler finally complied with her wishes, slipping the soggy panties from around her sumptuous hips, sliding them down and around her shapely legs and ankles.
"Eat me, eat me!" Ulricka screamed.
"Mmmm, mmmm good!" Tyler slurped as he plunged his tongue into her juicy cunt. He continued to nibble at her labia and periodically, he would let his tongue roam up to her tingling clitoris. Ulricka grew flushed with pleasure and excitement and she clutched at him, digging her nails into his back. While Tyler continued to lick her pussy and eat her out, he inserted his middle finger into her vagina. He moved it in and out of her cunt, finger fucking her slowly, keeping his tongue busy with her labia and clitoris.
"Oh, Tyler!" Ulricka wailed. She opened her thighs as wide as she could, so that Tyler's tongue and fucking finger would have the maximum access to her dripping snatch.
"My God! I think I'm going to come! No... mmm, oooooo! Ohhhhhh... " Ulricka moaned and screamed as her climax ripped through her. Tyler sucked and finger fucked tier relentlessly, making her orgasm all the more intense.
Ulricka continued to moan softly as her body relaxed again. Tyler kissed her sweaty, flushed face and enjoyed the warmth of her afterglow.
"Oh Tyler, that was wonderful," Ulricka told him softly. She slipped her hand inside his silk undershorts and gently stroked his semi-hard penis. She felt an incredible amount of warmth towards him and ached to express it.
"Oh baby, play with that prick!" Tyler urged her, his mouth full of the salty taste of her cunt. "Make me real hard, make me hard enough to fuck you!"
Ulricka helped him out of his shorts, exposing his rapidly hardening dick. It grew erect very quickly, having been aroused by all of Ulricka's excitement. She hefted the long shaft between her trembling fingers, admiring the way the numerous veins wound around his meat. While she rubbed his prick firmly but gently with her hands, she studied the head, which looked so soft, smooth and purple. She watched a tiny drop of pre-cum juice ooze out from the tip and she lowered her mouth to his crotch to lick it off. Suddenly, she felt hungry for him and pushed his large shaft into her mouth with her tongue.
"Arrgh!" Tyler said at this unexpected sensation of wetness. "MMMM... "
Ulricka ran her tongue up and down his rod, smacking her lips and continuing to squeeze his penis firmly in her hands and rub his hairy, sperm-filled balls.
"Do you want to come in my mouth?" Ulricka pulled away for a moment to ask him.
Tyler pushed her mouth back to his rock hard dick. "I do, baby, but I think I'd rather fuck that sweet little pussy of yours," Tyler told her breathlessly.
"Anything you want darling," Ulricka said lovingly.
"In fact, you are making me feel so good that if you don't stop soon, I'm going to shoot this whole hot load of jizm right down your throat!" Tyler wailed as he pulled his erect penis away from Ulricka's busy hands and mouth.
"Come on and fuck me, Monroe," Ulricka urged him.
They lay down together in the thick shag carpeting, kissing and fondling each other before joining their penis and vagina in sexual union. Ulricka felt the heat of passion burning in her loins and she could wait no longer. She climbed on top of Monroe and desperately stabbed his cock into her lubricated vagina.
"Oooo, baby... that feels great!" Monroe groaned. He placed his hands on her hips and guided her up and down on his thick, meaty tool.
"Oh God, Tyler... " Ulricka wailed, feeling the first stirrings of orgasm flickering from her clit and cunt to her finger-tips.
"It feels sooo good!" Tyler moaned, feeling his penis about to explode.
"Now!" Ulricka shrieked as she started to come. "Come in me now!"
Directed by Ulricka and his cock, Tyler Monroe unleashed his hot load deep into Ulricka's cunt. They came together, screaming and wailing as the orgasm played itself out.
CHAPTER THREE
On May first, at approximately two o'clock in the afternoon, Gail was able to terminate her work on the city budget for another year. She sent her annotated review copy of the budget to the treasurer's office via Ellen's quick-moving legs, and the moment the girl had gone she dialed Tony Carlton at his office. It troubled her when Tony answered the first ring. "Very bad policy," she warned him. "Never answer a business telephone the first time it rings -- especially when you don't have a secretary."
"Love and kisses."
"Love and kisses. Care for dinner? I'm out from under the budget for another year."
"I'll bring the appetite if you'll cook the food. Generous of me?"
Gail said instantly, "My privilege, darling, and you know it. Stop thinking that way! You graduated with honors! You were in the top tenth when you took your bar exam. Sooner or later, you'll have more business than you'll care to handle."
He laughed dourly. "Right now," he said, "I'm toying with the notion of chasing ambulances. I did get a client today, however. Some old lady has a chance to lend five thousand dollars at the new high rates, twenty percent. She wants me to draw up an iron-clad agreement."
"There you are!"
"I told her my fee would be seventy-five dollars. She looked around the office and said she'd pay forty or nothing!"
Gail winced for him.
Then a change came into Tony's tone. "I could," he said, "become a hireling of the hatchet woman. She was here this morning. Sweet. She looked me over, and then she looked the office over. Guess what she said?"
"You're much too able and handsome to be low man on the economic totem pole."
"She left out the word 'able.' I was touched. I was profoundly touched, of course, when she treated me to a sumptuous lunch at the Albemarle."
"I knew I'd not like her," Gail said serenely. "Oddly enough, I knew right away."
"She has a persuasive manner," Tony informed her chucklingly. "She reaches into her cloth handbag and pulls out packets of money. She puts those packets on the table, and then she smiles merrily and asks outright if you're for sale."
It wasn't amusing to Gail. "I hope you told her you're not, Tony Carlton!"
After a long silence he reported: "I told her I'd think it over."
"Tony!"
"Why don't we argue it over dinner?" Tony asked.
Disturbed, Gail said she'd like very much to do that, and decided to treat herself to an afternoon off. She jumped into her Pontiac sedan and drove to her favorite wooded spot for some uninterrupted peace and contemplation. Gail spread out an old army blanket from the trunk of her car and stretched out under two familiar elm trees. She had always enjoyed the challenge and pressure of her job, but all the new wrinkles were more than a little upsetting to her. And then this business with Tony. She loved, Tony and was sure that they'd be able to straighten a lot of things out that night at dinner. She hoped they'd get to the kissing and making up pretty quickly, too!
Gail looked up suddenly when she heard the nearby crunch and rustle of leaves and underbrush as someone approached. Her rambling thoughts were stilled and she became more than just a little afraid. But her fears were quelled almost as suddenly as they'd come, as a strikingly handsome young man with a warm and friendly face appeared from behind some trees.
"Hi there," he said shyly. "Hope I didn't frighten you. I always come here to take a little time out."
"Don't worry about it. Guess I thought I was the only one who knew about this place," Gail told him. "Have you been coming here long?"
"No, not really. I'm a writer. I've been staying with my sister and her family for the past few months, trying to finish the "Great American Novel."
Gail laughed, sensing somehow that this man was a kindred spirit, willing to struggle and work hard for what he wanted. "I'm Gail Burton," she introduced herself with a smile.
"Adam Hitely," he smiled warmly back at her.
"Please have a seat," Gail said, motioning him to join her on the army blanket.
"You're very kind, but I wouldn't want to intrude on anyone's personal musings, especially someone as bright and pretty as you, Miss Burton. I'm sure that you must have an awful lot on your mind."
"Don't be silly. I would welcome the company and call me Gail for pete's sake!" Gail said.
Adam joined her on the small blanket and after several animated minutes spent sharing their backgrounds, the man and woman alone in the woods found themselves staring into each other's eyes.
"I would like to read your work some day," Gail said breaking the silence. "I'm sure you're a very sensitive writer."
Adam found that his lips were being pulled to hers by an almost cosmic force. Gail felt that pull also and moved closer to him. They kissed tentatively at first, their lips pressed together lightly. Adam rubbed his cheek against the softness of Gail's face and it wasn't long before they opened their mouths to each other, tongues probing and sucking as their hands roamed wildly across each other's body.
"Adam, we hardly know each other. In fact, we don't know each other," Gail said softly.
"I know Gail, but let's not try to figure anything out. It's just so beautiful and peaceful here and two kindred souls have found each other for a brief moment in time."
They kissed again, deep and long, a kiss between lovers, a kiss between kindred souls. Adam pressed his head to Gail's breast and stroked their warm fullness. He inhaled the subtle but titillating scent of her perfume. When she reflected on the experience later on, Gail could never remember either one of them undressing. Their clothing seemed to fall away from their bodies, leaving them to face each other and their sudden passion with vulnerable nakedness.
Adam sucked hard on Gail's bare breasts and nipples and then let his tongue loose on the rest of her body. She groped for his penis, which was quickly growing erect and dug her fingernails into his firm ass cheeks.
"I can't wait till you are inside me," Gail told him breathlessly as he introduced a finger into her oozing cunt.
"I know the feeling," Adam teased her before placing his mouth on her vulva.
"I want to go down on you at the same time you are going down on me," Gail told him, positioning her body on the scratchy blanket so that her mouth was conveniently located close to his wagging dick.
"Sounds like a terrific idea," Adam said. He rammed his hot tongue up her vagina and Gail squealed with delight. She inhaled his man scent and delicately placed her mouth on the tip of his humongous rod. She tickled it with her tongue before travelling down the length of the shaft.
Adam buried his face in her pubic hair, drinking in her feminine fragrance as he ravaged her clit with his tongue.
"Ooooo...!" Gail moaned and slurped. Adam put his fuck finger back in her wet snatch as he continued to tongue her and Gail found it harder and harder to concentrate on the dick at hand. Being a strong woman though, she was determined to continue her efforts to suck his cock. She ran her tongue up and down his erect tool, flicking it every other trip around his sweaty balls.
"Oh... Jesus... that feels so great!" Adam groaned, lost in the pink wetness of her vagina. "Can I put my cock deep into the warmth of your pussy, my love?" Adam queried.
"Yes, oh yes!" Gail told him joyously.
Adam rolled her over on her back and Gail opened her legs to him. He stroked her thighs gently before rising on top of her and easing his rock hard prick into her wet and waiting pussy hole.
"Oooooo... mmmmmmm... " Gail moaned.
"Ohhh... Ahhhh... " Adam breathed out.
They established a slow but powerful rhythm, fucking each other like lovers who have known each other for years. Adam reached down to stroke Gail's clitoris with his hand and she pushed her head up to kiss him full on the mouth. The stimulation was much too intense for her and she exploded in an orgasmic rush. Adam watched her as she came and it wasn't long before he too reached his climax, shooting his steamy load of semen way up into her vagina. They dressed quietly, still not quite sure about what had happened between the two of them.
"Will we see each other again?" Adam asked Gail cautiously.
"I'm very much in love with someone," Gail told him sadly. "And I really can't afford to complicate my life any further right now."
"I understand," Adam said solemnly. "And at least we will both have this perfect memory of warmth and passion to share for the rest of our lives."
Adam disappeared into the woods and Gail rushed home to cook dinner for Tony. He arrived just after she'd changed her clothes and performed her last-minute primping. His eyes informed her that she was now a glamour girl all right, but he barely pecked her cheek at the door, and he looked abstracted after he'd sat down in his favorite chair in the great, high-ceilinged living room. Before she could give him her news, he said, "I'll take the Monroe offer, I think. He's a big man who's becoming bigger every day. Who am I to reject a retainer of nine thousand dollars?"
Startled, Gail sat on an arm of the sofa. "That's a lot of money," she agreed, "an awful lot of money."
"They want me to represent them locally, of course. Mr. Monroe has business holdings all over the country, and of course he has a legal staff at his headquarters in Delaware. But there are many things a lawyer can do for them right here in Maples -- and what's an extra nine grand to him?"
"What would your first assignment be, I wonder?"
Tony met her eyes briefly. He sighed. "I think you know," he said softly. "They want to establish a plant on the north shore of the river, and they want me to look into the legal aspects of the city's present zoning policy."
"You'd be worth a hundred thousand a year to them if you could get around the zoning law there, Tony. No matter. Are you free to take other work?"
"Oh, sure. The trick is to find it."
Gail told him her news. Tony's eyes widened, and he went directly to the telephone. He was busy on the telephone for perhaps fifteen minutes, and then he came into the kitchen and said apologetically, "Ryan thinks we could settle the thing over dinner. I told him you had dinner just about ready, but he said there are some fellows I should meet and --"
"And away you trot," Gail ordered, grinning. "Idiot, since when is even one of my truly superb dinners worth eight thousand dollars? Don't walk; fly!"
This time he did kiss her as a girl in love ought to be kissed. Curiously, however, the kiss left Gail unmoved. Long after he'd gone, she stood staring at the crackling fire in the living room. How easily he'd been bought by the hatchet girl, she thought. Just like that -- and never once had he discussed it with her.
CHAPTER FOUR
It seemed important to Bob Stapes that Gail Burton watchdog for him the May tenth meeting of the Supervisory Council in their chambers on the top floor of City Hall. Gail went early to the chambers, reasoning that part of her job as Bob's assistant was to maintain good relations between his staff and the Council members. When she reached the anteroom, she learned that the press of Maples had decided the meeting was worthy of coverage. Each of the three news-papers had sent a representative, and one had also sent a photographer. Gail greeted them cordially and told them they could smoke their silly heads off, if they wished, provided they didn't pollute the air in the meeting room. Almost at once the men lit pipes and the sole woman lit a cigarette. Barbara Benson smiled as Gail joined her on the sofa. "You may as well know," she announced, "that my paper intends to attack the budget if it's as high as last year's."
"It's higher, I'm afraid."
Barbara frowned. "As a woman who campaigned for the city-manager system of government," she said, "I'm horrified. We campaigned on the issue of economy, remember?"
"Actually," Gail corrected, "we argued that if this system was established, the city could get more for its tax dollar."
"Still!"
"Barbara, we have at least five thousand more persons in the city now than we had a couple years ago. We have more children in the schools or approaching school age. Well, we've had to build more schools. That's the story right on down the line. More hospitals, more parks, more schools, more police and fire protection. All this at a time when salaries and other costs are rising. So, naturally, our budget goes up."
The six members of the Council arrived. Gail rose promptly, a mark of respect that wasn't missed by the chairman of the Council, Fred Teller. He gave Gail a smile and waved for her to join the Council in its chambers. "No reporters for a while," he announced. "You won't miss anything official, boys and girl, but we want to let our hair down first."
In the large paneled room, before a cheerful fire and with ample coffee available, the Council did indeed proceed to let its hair down some five minutes later. Mrs. Lela Swaisgood, representative of the Hooker district, began the plain talk by saying flatly and hotly, "In all my life I've never seen such a free-wheeling, free-spending budget. I couldn't approve this budget even if you cut it by a hundred thousand dollars."
Mr. Teller said soothingly, "The budget isn't being submitted for acceptance as it is, you know, Lela. These are the figures that Stapes has gotten from the different departments. Now it's up to us to decide where we go from here."
Mrs. Swaisgood shot an angry glance at Gail. "Young lady," she snapped, "didn't Mr. Stapes make an attempt to tell these idiots to be realistic?"
"I did, Mrs. Swaisgood. I personally visited or wrote each department head. In all cases, the answer was the same. Meaning no. Well, what are we to do? These department heads are specialists. For example, how can any of us tell the warden of Maples Prison for Women that she must get along on fifty thousand less than she's requested? I suggested she do so, but she rejected the idea."
"I'll tell you this, Miss Burton. Either the city will develop other sources of income, or I'm going to insist we chop at least five million dollars out of this budget. Borrowing money to build schools and hospitals is one thing. I don't object to going into debt for those. But I won't tolerate deficit spending while we're borrowing for the important things."
The discussion ran on and on and on for almost three solid hours. Mr. Teller and Mr. Healey argued that a five-million-dollar cut at this time was virtually impossible to make, but Mrs. Swaisgood had the support of the other three members of the Council. Finally, to forestall defeat by a vote on the matter, Mr. Teller recessed the meeting until after lunch. He invited Gail and Bob Stapes to lunch with him at the Golden Shell. He did little eating, but much talking.
"Son," he told Bob Stapes grimly, "you're in trouble, big trouble. Now I support you, you know that. I think you're doing a grand job for the city. But when money's under discussion, folks turn mean, even cruel-mean. I tell you, man to man, that you can't sell that budget to the Council."
Bob surprised them both by saying cheerfully, "I didn't really expect to, sir. I'm not entirely a fool, you see. But I don't expect, either, to be made the fall guy for any dire consequences that may result from drastic reduction of the budget. For instance, suppose you cut the money for the women's prison. Then suppose prisoners escape because of a shortage of guards. The Council will have to accept the blame, if blame there is."
"Now 'just a moment," Mr. Teller protested. "It's your responsibility to provide efficient and economical government. That's what you're paid forty-five thousand a year to do."
Bob surprised Gail a second time. "I think the budget's entirely reasonable, sir. That's why I submitted it to the Council.. We have almost sixty thousand persons in Maples now. That's the highest population in our history, so naturally the budget's the highest in our history. And if you'll relate people to dollars, you'll discover that our per capita cost of government this year will actually be lower than it's been in some years."
"What's that?"
Bob, his hazel eyes twinkling,' looked at Gail. "Next time around," he suggested, "examine the budget on the basis of its per capita expenditures. I had the treasurer do that for me."
Gail flushed, hating to be caught in such a major goof. "Sorry," she mumbled.
Mr. Teller said abruptly: "Still it's deficit spending, Bob, no matter how you explain it. That sticks in Mrs. Swaisgood's craw, because we're borrowing for other things and have to pay those debts."
"Let her cut away, sir. I won't protest."
"Just as long as you're not blamed for the dire consequences?"
Bob said quietly but firmly, "I never yet have tried to evade responsibility for any of my actions, Mr. Teller. But I won't be saddled with responsibility for the consequences of any poor decisions made by the Council. I say the budget is reasonable. If the deficit spending bothers the Council, then the Council should find some way to increase our income. Raise the business taxes, or bring more business to town. Raise the property taxes, if need be."
And back they went to the afternoon session, Bob in attendance this time.
Mrs. Lela Swaisgood had an interesting surprise waiting for them. Hardly had they sat down when a big man with rumpled brown hair and golden-brown eyes was called in by Mrs. Swaisgood as a friend of the Council. She added smilingly, "And we're lucky to have Mr. Tyler Monroe as a friend, ladies and gentlemen, because he's one of the most able young industrialists in the nation."
The man's face fascinated Gail. Never before in her life had she seen a face so ruggedly handsome yet so harsh. His voice didn't go with his face at all. His voice was a soft, musical baritone that could have soothed even a scared old lady while the hobgoblins were roaming on Halloween. Within three minutes after he'd begun to speak, Mr. Tyler Monroe had everyone chuckling and nodding and relaxing on their chairs.
"I agreed to come here," he said, "because I'm developing long-term plants in this upper New York State area. Maples is attractive to me because it isn't too large, because development land is available, because it has unlimited water power, and because the transportation situation's good. 'Over the next ten years I'll probably pump a hundred million into Maples -- not my money, you understand, but the development funds of the corporation I head."
He paused to let everyone dwell upon the impact a hundred million dollars of new capital would have upon the city.
"So let me say here and now," Mr. Monroe continued easily, "that you don't have any real problems here that can't be licked in a minute if this Council acts realistically. Give industry an opportunity to locate here, and you'll have a surplus, not a deficit, every year. But you do have to be realistic. It makes no sense whatsoever, financially speaking, to reserve almost a square mile along the river for ultimate development into a residential area. That money isn't big money -- residential money, I mean. And in an era of soaring costs and increased demand for hospitals and schools and the like, you have to get from your land all you can get, and then some more."
Gail asked, "Are you referring to industrialization of that entire area, Mr. Monroe?"
"Certainly."
"The problem there," Gail told the Council, "is that the Council itself zoned that area for residential development only. The Council hired an independent firm to survey the city, as it were, and recommend a development plan. The Council -- "
"The Council was foolish," Mrs. Swaisgood interrupted. "But what the Council has done, the Council can undo."
Gail shot a glance at Mr. Teller, wondering if he perceived the clever little trap Mr. Monroe and Mrs. Swaisgood had set for him. Mr. Teller grinned amusedly: "Lela," he said, "I have the feeling that someone around here is trying to force a sort of horse trade. You'll approve the budget as presented if the Council agrees to industrialization of the north side of your district. Right?"
Mrs. Swaisgood smiled back charmingly. "I never trade horses, Fred," she said. "However, I will certainly approve this budget as presented if I'm given assurance that the city will derive additional income through better use, of that land across the Tomlinson River. There'd be no deficit spending, you see."
Mr. Charles Dahme, a Swaisgood supporter before lunch, charged heatedly: "That's blackmail, Lela. I won't go along with that."
Gail said soothingly, "It's entirely possible, of course, that the land should be used industrially, Mr. Dahme. As a matter of fact, Mr. Stapes has asked me to look into that matter for him and the Council. But that's another matter, Mrs. Swaisgood. The fact is that unless the budget is approved before June thirtieth, we'll have no money available to pay anyone, the Council included."
"Then why don't we cross that bridge in June?" Mrs. Swaisgood asked. "We can always make a special appropriation in June, you know, in the event we've not agreed on a budget by then."
Mrs. Swaisgood then made a motion that the budget be held by the Council for further study. The motion was seconded, Mr. Teller put the question to the Council, there was no debate, and the motion was carried by a vote of four to two.
Big Tyler Monroe at once rose and headed for the door. Bob Stapes bustled out after him, leaving Gail to cope with the Council if further watchdogging were to be done. The Council, however, had no other business on its agenda. Mrs. Swaisgood moved that the meeting be adjourned, and it was. After the men had left the meeting room, Mrs. Swaisgood gave Gale a little wink. "Nothing personal," she said, "in my attack on the budget. I'm sure we'll end up voting the money requested. I'm an old-fashioned woman, however, who thinks that income should balance outgo if at all possible. Your family always shared that viewpoint, incidentally.
"Ma'am," Gail joshed, "you should have Bob Stape's job. If people are hungry, they must be fed. If children need education, they must be educated. All anyone can do is his best."
"You did try to get the fat eliminated from the budget?"
"And got nowhere at all," Gail reported disgustedly. "Apparently we have three factions in town. One faction wants a return to the old governmental system -- mayor, board of aldermen, ward leaders, and so on. The other faction wants rule through a city manager by a supervisory council. And the third faction doesn't care who rules or how we're ruled as long as it's granted what it wants."
"What faction is that?"
"Mr. Monroe's faction," Gail said steadily. "I'd guess you're a part of it, ma'am, whether you know it or not. That faction wants industrialization of the north shore of the river, just as Mr. Monroe implied. That faction will support any other faction that guarantees cancellation of the present zoning regulations."
"Interesting."
"Sad, in a sense, Mrs. Swaisgood, because the city will suffer if there's a long battle over the budget. I hope everyone's thought of that."
Mrs. Swaisgood nodded, obviously not eager to see Maples suffer, but obviously also eager to see development come to her district.
"Work a miracle," Mrs. Swaisgood urged. "It's your city, too, isn't it?"
Gail felt depressed by the time she returned to her office. It would be a rugged, mean fight, she suspected, particularly now that Mr. Monroe had bought an imaginative lawyer like Tony. Who wanted a fight? All she wanted, darn it, was a husband!
And that was why she became distressed when she later thought about Tony putting himself on Monroe's payroll. She thought it would be a good idea to talk to Tony about Monroe, so she called him up and invited him over for dinner at her place.
But when he arrived, she forgot all about food, much less Tyler Monroe. It had been too long since she and Tony had made love, and when he moved into her arms she decided to remedy that situation -- immediately!
"Hey, honey, slow down," he protested. "I just got here, for goodness' sakes."
"What's the matter, baby?" she asked petulantly. "Don't you like it when I do that to you? You always liked it before. But it's been so long, perhaps you don't like it anymore?"
Tony held her at arm's length and stared at her seriously.
"Are you inferring," he said, "that I've been neglecting my duties? You know, it's not like we're married or anything."
"I know, Tony," she said curtly. "But that doesn't have anything to do with it. It's not like marriage suddenly turns a woman on, as if she couldn't think a sexy thought before her wedding day. Tony, there's just some times when I want to... to... to go to bed with you."
"But we haven't even eaten yet!"
She looked at him crossly. "Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? Here you are, a red-blooded American man, or at least that's always what I thought."
Tony grabbed her and pulled her close, grinding his crotch into hers. After kissing her brutally on the mouth, he said, "Are you intimating that I might be less than a man?"
"Well, no, I... "
"There, does that feel like I'm a man, or doesn't it?" With those words, Tony hastily unzipped his fly and yanked out his hard cock. Gripping the shaft, he rubbed the head of his penis against her thighs.
"Please, Tony, I'm sorry," she cooed. "Ohhhh, baby, it's so beautiful. It's so big and hard, ohhhhh, I just love it. Darling, you don't know how long I've been waiting for this. It was murder, all day at the office I couldn't think of anything but, this... big... ohhhh, Tony!"
Gail dropped to her knees in front of him. Opening her mouth wide, she stuck out her tongue.
"That's the idea, honey," Tony grunted. "Just give it a little suck before we get down to the real thing. Yeah, take it in... deeper ... ohhhh, yeah... now suck on it harder... harder!"
Gail worked feverishly in his crotch. She reached around to grip his asscheeks tightly to keep herself locked to his crotch. And then she opened her mouth as wide as she could to take in the entire length of his cock. When he fucked into her throat to the hilt, her face was mashed into his pubic hairs while his ball sac slapped up against her jaw and chin.
Gripping the back of her head tightly, Tony cried out, "Yeah, baby... that feels so damn good. Ohhh, you really know how to suck. There... now squeeze my balls... baby... I'm gonna shoot it! Gonna shoot it so good!"
But Gail didn't want him to come yet. She had been waiting too long for a good fuck and she didn't want to wait another half-hour or so for him to get another hard-on if he happened to come in her mouth. Her pussy was too demanding, and she had to fuck right then and there.
"Hey!" he shouted. "What's the big idea?"
Tony looked foolish standing there with his spit-drenched crick wagging before him. But Gail didn't have time to laugh at him. She had more important things on her mind -- like getting him to thrust his cock inside her as soon as possible.
Grabbing his hand, Gail pulled Tony into her bedroom. She pushed him down on the bed and then ripped her clothes off as fast as she could.
Coming to his senses, Tony stared at her beautiful body. He realized what a fool he had been lately, spending too much time with his work when he had this wonderful woman to fuck any time he pleased. It was almost too much for the young man to bear. And he gave in without a fight when Gail joined him on the bed and helped him out of his clothes.
"There," she sighed when they were both naked. "Now doesn't that feel better? Hmmmm? Now we can do whatever we want. Okay?"
While Gail had been sucking his cock, Tony had almost come in her mouth. But she had stopped just before he reached his peak and had pulled him into the bedroom. When she spit out his cock, his excitement fizzled out. But now she was building it back up again, this time with more intensity and more love. And he felt intuitively that the orgasm he would have inside her pussy would be ten times as intense as the one he almost had inside her mouth.
"There, now we can fuck," she hissed, rolling onto her back and spreading her legs wide. "Don't you like to fuck my pussy?" she teased. "Isn't it good enough for you? See how nice and pink and wet it is, baby. Oh, that feels good when I play with it like that. But it's gonna feel a lot better when you put your cock in there, baby. It's gonna feel so... so... good!"
Tony couldn't hold himself back any longer. Groaning like a beast, he leaped on top of her body. Grabbing her shoulders to steady himself, Tony then guided his cock up between her legs. Within seconds they were fucking furiously.
"Oh, so good!" she cried, rocking her hips up and down as fast as she could, trying to match Tony's intense rhythm. They were sweating profusely, and every time he thrust into her pussy, their bellies slapped together loudly.
And then Tony came violently, shooting the full load of his jizm deep inside Gail's spasming cunt.
CHAPTER FIVE
Dutifully, however, Gail crossed the Tomlinson River early the following morning for a first-hand examination of the area in which Mr. Monroe wished to establish his metal fabrication plant. Her chauffeur and guide was a quiet-faced, lascivious-tongued fellow from the city planner's office: Mr. Rosenberg. Mel endeared himself to her right from the start by telling her that he had wanted to meet the brightest and sexiest woman in city government for a long time.
"I've heard a lot about you, too," Gail told him warmly. Actually, there was a rumor that Mr. Mel Rosenberg had the fastest tongue in town, this side of the Mississippi. And people were not talking about his conversational skills, which also happened to be considerable.
"We've got a lot of ground to cover, so why don't you make yourself real comfortable," Mel winked at her as he pushed a button that lowered her seat for sleeping or playing "parchesi." Gail felt an involuntary tingle deep in her loins as her head fell backward.
"You had my little heart beating there for a minute," Gail said frankly.
"Good. That's the way I like it," Mel winked again.
As they drove across the river, Gail began to wonder just what kind of "tour" the two of them were embarking on. Mel picked up her questioning scent and placed a warm and reassuring hand on her soft, pantyhosed thigh.
"Wait just a minute, Mel," Gail said. "I'm not quite sure what's happening here," she told herself in a barely audible voice.
"Just relax hon," Mel told her removing his hand from her thigh so he could pull the car off to their first stop.
They sat in the car and took in the stunning panorama of the river, the land and the early morning sun in the sky.
"I once swam in the raw in that water," Gail told him.
"I bet you're beautiful in the raw," Mel teased her, slipping his hand back under her dress and onto her thigh.
Gail looked directly into his eyes, not yet sure of how she was going to handle this situation. Mel was sympathetic to her cause and she did not want to alienate him by humiliating him in a sticky sexual situation. But she was also sick and tired of men and women for that matter who were always trying to mix business with pleasure. Gail admitted to herself that she enjoyed mixing business and pleasure as much as the next guy, but there was a time and place for these things.
"You want to see a little action this morning, don't you Mel?" Gail said frankly.
Mel was a little surprised and unnerved by her directness and his hardening cock suddenly went limp. He didn't know what to say.
"What's the matter, darling? Cat got that famous tongue of yours?" Gail teased.
"Wow! You're a hot one to handle!" Mel said, wiping the sweat from his brow.
"That's right, hot shot, so let's get our little sexual encounter over with fast, so we can get on to more important matters."
"Anything you say, Miss Burton, I mean Gail," Mel stuttered, swallowing hard as he watched Gail quickly and efficiently strip down to her black brassiere and panties. His fingers fumbled with his own buttons, so Gail gave him a hand. She wasted no time in baring his rather mediocre body.
"You call that a cock?" Gail taunted him, peeking into his checkered boxer shorts and holding his rather shy penis in her hand. "I guess I'll have to make him a little more sociable," Gail said, ripping off his shorts and practically inhaling Mel's frightened cock. She sucked the dusky tip as hard as she could, ignoring Mel's feeble cries. He relaxed finally and clutched at her provocative tits as she ran her tongue up and down his flaccid shaft. Gail enjoyed the soft, fleshy feeling of his meat in her mouth and she soon lost herself in her work.
"That's so goood!" Mel said breathlessly as Gail flicked her tongue around his lumpy balls. He wanted the experience to last as long as possible, but he could almost feel the hot, steamy sperm building up to the boiling point in his prick. Gail wet her hand and rubbed his hardened member in the moistness as she continued to work on him with bier tongue and lips.
"Oh God! I'm going to shoot it!" Mel screamed. Gail released her grip on his wild penis as the hot spermy liquid shot all over the windshield.
"That's quite a load, Mel," Gail commented as he tried to catch his breath.
"Would you like me to go down on you now?" Mel asked Gail solicitously.
"Save it," Gail told him as she put on her dress. "As far as I'm concerned, a tongue is a tongue." She tossed Mel's clothing over to him and he sheepishly dressed himself.
"Shall we drive on, Mel?" Gail asked when they were both dressed again.
Around mid-morning, they got back to the river, and to the place already bought by Tyler Monroe for his metal fabrication plant. The land was flat, obviously stabilized and lay less than a quarter-mile from his great chemical plant on the south shore. There wasn't a house or a suggestion of a house within a half-mile of the property. Gail knew that, because she'd checked the city maps and then she'd checked the area with her own eyes.
"Technically," she told Mel, "you haven't a leg to stand on in your office. No one would be inconvenienced in any way if a plant were built here."
"Let in one, let in all."
"I don't know. Each case could be considered individually."
"Ever hear of the Star Development Company, Miss Burton?"
"No."
"Very quietly and very efficiently, the Star Development Company has been buying up the land around here. They hold a square mile now. I'm speaking of area, not shape. They own the land this side of Mrs. Godden's land,. and they own some on the other side. And speaking of that, Mrs. Godden's been having trouble recently. She was offered fifty thousand for her holding, and she turned it down. A strange thing happened. Someone tried to set fire to the woods."
Gail asked incredulously: "Haven't you been watching too many television westerns, Mel?"
"Those methods were used in the old days, Miss Burton, because they were effective. If times change, people don't."
"What do the police say?"
"Attempted arson, all right. They found five-gallon containers of kerosene about a, hundred yards from where we're standing now."
Gail drew a deep breath. "What would the Star Development Company's motive be, Mel?"
"Simple. If they held all the land on this side of this narrow section of the river, they'd be in a fine spot to make millions if the city zoning laws were changed."
"And Mr. Monroe, I assume, is president of the Star Development Company?"
"He's president, and Miss Ulricka Wellington is treasurer. The third officer is a fellow named Paul Letti. He's vice-president."
"I see."
"Not to tell you your business," Mel said apologetically, "but if you rezone one corner of the Star Development Company's property here, you rezone all of it. It's one holding now."
Disturbed, Gail had him drive her back to City Hall. She sent Ellen for a copy of the zoning regulations; and while the girl was getting it, Gail invited herself to a chat with the chief of police in the police building across the road. Chief O'Hara gave her a broad smile and a friendly swat on the shoulder. "Hear you people are having trouble over there," he said. "Well, that's the way of it. Become involved in politics, and you'll have trouble every time."
"Sir, could you get me some information on an attempt to start a forest fire over near Mrs. Godden's place across the river?"
He seated her, then seated himself. "Girl," he said, "I've got all that information in my head. When I got the report, I didn't believe my eyes. So I questioned the men, and then I examined the scene of the attempted crime. What do you want to know?"
"Was it for real or a bluff?"
"Bluff. They set the fire on wet ground. A hundred feet up the little hill was a fine dry place to set a real fire."
"What are you doing now, sir?"
"Well, we're investigating, you can be sure of that. And maybe we're making a lot of show in the right places to make sure nobody'll try that again. If a real fire was started there, that old lady would be cooked. It would cut her off from the river, and she doesn't drive."
Her stomach jumping, Gail returned to her office. Ellen handed her the zoning regulations in the anteroom and said crossly, "Some people have nerve, Miss Burton. Mr. Monroe just barged right into your office and said he'd wait."
Somewhat cross herself, Gail hurried into her office. The big man grinned lazily over near the window. "No snooping done, Miss Burton," he said, "I assure you. It isn't my policy to sit around in anterooms, that's all."
"Nor to request an appointment, Mr. Monroe?"
"I never request, Miss Burton. I got out of the small-time class years ago. Stapes tells me you're to write a report on my petition for rezoning. Have you written it?"
"About to start, Mr. Monroe."
He stepped closer. In a queer way it seemed to Gail that he loomed over her. Yet he wasn't much taller than she, if twice as broad and much heavier. Gail got around her desk to the refuge of her chair. To say something, anything at all, she said contemptuously: "Someone tried to burn an old woman to death over near your north shore property, Mr. Monroe. Do you also pull wings off flies and bees?"
He blinked.
"Ha," Gail needled him, "I've forgotten myself. I've been rude to a titan of industry. Do sit down, Mr. Monroe. In what little way may the city of Maples enrich you?"
"Are you crazy?"
"Probably."
He leaned over the desk. "Blondie," he said, "stop being an emotional slob. This is the first time we've talked. I don't hate you, and you have no reason to hate me. All I've done is petition for a zoning change."
"And how much will you graciously pay me, Mr. Monroe, for a favorable recommendation?"
"Five thousand," he said promptly. "Also, I'll guarantee to keep Carlton on the payroll for a year."
Gail gulped.
"You mentioned the subject first," Tyler Monroe pointed out. "I didn't. So don't clown around with me, Blondie; all right?"
Gail regained a semblance of self-control. "Anything else, sir?" she asked. "I'm really quite busy."
"How come your eyes aren't genial? Wellington told me you have genial gray eyes."
"Perhaps I don't like people who corrupt others, Mr. Monroe. How long does Tony Carlton keep his ideals and principles?"
"As long as he wants to. I bought his legal knowledge, not the man."
"There's not a thing he can do for you, and you know it."
"Do I? Now stop talking and start listening, Miss Burton. I have no scrap with you. Your boss dumped a hot potato on your desk. I know that, because I've done the same thing to Wellington. But don't get carried away by any idea that you're important enough to me to put me to the trouble of hiring Carlton to please you. I'll get what I want regardless of your decision. But after I've gotten it, I'll need a local lawyer to handle a lot of local legal matters. Now, then, do you want the bribe or don't you?"
"No, thanks."
"Okay. Suit yourself. Now what about dinner on Saturday evening? I'll pick you up at seven; okay?"
"Or you'll fire Tony?"
"Yup."
Gail swallowed, started to say no, but ended up saying what she had to say. "Lovely," she said.
CHAPTER SIX
Dressing for the dinner with Gail Burton, a woman he thought plucky but naive, Tyler Monroe recalled a Saturday afternoon some fifteen memorable years before when he had showered and dressed self-consciously for a date with a girl who was so important to him, that he had waited several dates before he had even talked to her about going all the way. But that night had been the night they both decided to give to each other. Even now, it gave him a pang to think of Dorothy Poynter as the wife of another man, the mother of two children, the social queen of Maverick, Texas, a too thin, too tense, too talkative, tight-pussied woman who had apparently decided she could find an acceptable if illusory happiness in straight Bourbon.
When he had met Dorothy that afternoon, she had been at that gloriously ripe peak of adolescent beauty. The day they went all the way, Tyler remembered he'd had the most glorious sexual experience of his life. It was unfortunate that some five years later, Dorothy had weighed his dubious business prospects against the realities of fifty gushing oil wells and had decided that a woman could really be happy with any man who could provide for her luxuriously. But that date on that particular Saturday afternoon in Colorado had held all the happiness and excitement he had hoped it would hold.
They'd driven in her sports car as high up the Ruby Trust Mine road as a car could take them. Upward they'd then gone on foot, with all the wild mountain world to themselves, with no one to hear their promises of passion or see their tender gooses and caresses. At last they'd crested the summit of Hartnell Mountain. All the world seemed spread before them, an awesome world of mountain peaks, of slopes golden with the color of aspens, of deep valleys purple with mists, of brooks and creeks and rivers flashing and rumbling in their ancient ways toward the distant sea.
It was there that Dorothy had taken his hand and placed it on her heaving breasts. They were small, well-shaped and slightly upturned. He opened her silky blouse and sucked her pink, girlish nipples through her modest cotton brassiere.
"Let me set the little buggers free," Tyler smiled at her as he deftly removed their fabric prison. Hungrily, he pressed his mouth to the tender tits, sucking them hard for non-existent fluids.
"That feels so strange," Dorothy told him sweetly.
"What do you feel honey bunch?" Tyler asked her, stopping in mid-suck.
"It's sort of a fluttering between my legs," Dorothy told him. "Maybe you can feel it," she said as she placed his hand under her skirt.
Tyler let his hand. roam freely in the folds of fabric, until his rising prick urged him to seek out the folds of her moistening vulva.
"I think you're getting closer," Dorothy teased as she felt Tyler's trembling hand reach inside her damp panties for her tingling vagina. Tyler's hand felt cold and sweaty and Dorothy was unaccustomed to digital exploration beyond that of her own digits.
"You're getting kind of wet, sweetie," Tyler told her, flicking his tongue into her ear. Their lips moved quickly together and their tongues began to suck and pull at each other with erotic playfulness.
Dorothy watched his cock swell in the crotch of his Sunday pants and her vaginal muscles twitched in anticipation.
"You promised to go real slow," Dorothy reminded him, suddenly fearful of penetration by his huge, throbbing member.
"Don't you worry that tight, juicy, little pussy of yours," Tyler reassured her, plunging his fuck finger between her young labia.
"OOOOOO! Tyler!" Dorothy wailed.
"It's going to feel even better," Tyler promised her, slipping her panties down around her hips and off her ankles.
"You get undressed too honey," Dorothy said. "I want to keep my eye on that big hunk of meat you call a penis."
"Anything to aid a hot little cunt in distress," Tyler joked.
When they were both completely naked, Tyler laid Dorothy's delicious young body down and covered every inch of her with passionate, wet kisses. He then worked his way up her slim thighs, nibbling and sucking till he had arrived at her fragrant and glistening honeypot.
"I'm scared, Tyler," Dorothy quivered as Tyler prepared to penetrate her virgin snatch with his tongue.
"Relax, darling, and enjoy the sensations. We will stop whenever you want to," Tyler said.
He lowered his mouth to her waiting cunt and rammed his tongue into her vagina. He pulled on her labia with his teeth and kissed her oily clitoris. Spurred on by her delighted squeals, he inserted his middle finger into her young snatch and finger fucked her at the same time as he orally stimulated her clit.
"I love you, Tyler," Dorothy moaned as she teetered dangerously close to orgasm.
"I love you too, angel thighs," Tyler said before ravaging her clitoris with his tongue.
Dorothy pulled his head up from her vulva and the two lovers kissed violently. Dorothy sampled the inimitable salty flavor of her own cunt for the very first time and her vagina began to ache to have Tyler's virile penis inside of it. She groped for his rock hard prick and rubbed the drops of pre-cum juice up and down the long shaft.
"I'm ready for you, my darling," Dorothy moaned as Tyler guided her thighs open.
"Fuck me, fuck me, FUCK ME!" she wailed as Tyler teased the tip of his rod into her cervix. He entered her gently, concentrating hard on maintaining control of himself. Her hymen gave way easily and Dorothy experienced some pain. But, after that initial entry, she began to almost enjoy having Tyler's penis deep inside her snatch.
They moved together slowly, humping each other almost shyly. There was a tender awkwardness in their gropings and grindings and although Dorothy didn't reach a climax during intercourse, she enjoyed their new-found intimacy and a fresh avenue of emotional expression that they could share with each other.
Beautiful, fun-loving, honest and greedy little Dorothy, Tyler Monroe thought sadly. In that small town, the social cleavages had always run deep and Dorothy had learned well the lessons society had taught her. If only she'd waited, she could have had it all.
When Tyler arrived at the Burton house, it occurred to him that in Ms. Gail Burton, he had met the past history of Maples as well as its future history. It next occurred to him that if he could win her over to his side, he might very well win over all the other families whose ancestors had established this town on the shore of the Tomlinson some two hundred years ago. And if he could win those people over - Grinning, his mind racing, Tyler Monroe mounted the wooden stoop and pressed the doorbell. He had to wait no longer than a half-minute. Dressed in a tailored black suit and a perky little hat, Gail Burton opened the door and smiled pleasantly. If she despised him for having forced the dinner date upon her, she gave no sign. "I should warn you I'm very hungry," she said. "When I'm very hungry, I order steak."
"Possibly I can afford it, Miss Burton. Do you like Alexander's?"
"Have you ever tried Mrs. Smith?"
"Never heard of the place."
"My goodness! It's the finest restaurant in town! All the old families dine there. They'd not go anywhere else."
He drove toward the river, following her directions, and then swung into what seemed to be just an alley. At the end of the alley, however, stood another venerable white frame house with green shutters, gables, and a widow's walk on the roof. The beautiful blonde with the genial gray eyes led him up to the red entrance door. The door was opened by a cheerful gray-haired woman who hugged and kissed Gail Burton and then gave her a mock spank on the rump. "You stay away too long," the woman said. "If you can't afford my prices, just tell me and I'll cut them."
"Mrs. Smith," Gail said, "may I present Mr. Tyler Monroe? He didn't know of your place, can you imagine that?"
Mrs. Smith smiled and offered her hand. "I hope you'll enjoy your dinner, young man, and come again. Any friend of this little rascal is welcome in Smith House."
They passed through a foyer into a large dining area that contained perhaps fifteen large white-clothed tables. The carpeting was red, the hangings were red, and gold rococo leaped and plunged with gay insouciance along white-papered walls. The entire far end of the dining area was a transparent glass-brick wall through which could be seen a superb view of the Tomlinson River. Mrs. Smith led them to a table for six just a few feet from the wall. "Now don't ever say I don't love you," she told Gail. "You and your passion for that river!"
After he'd seated his guest, Tyler Monroe learned that when she said steak she meant king-size steak with all the trimmings. A cocktail? No. Wine? Well, perhaps a rose if she could have a Paul Masson. After the orders had been taken by a waitress who asked Gail if she were in mourning or something, several other diners came over to the table to greet Gail Burton and then compare gardening notes with her. In rapid order, Tyler was introduced to several distinguished Maples businessmen and financiers who'd ignored his written requests for a chance to talk business with them in their offices. When they were alone again, Tyler grinned. "You're deceptive," he said. "Your face is soft, your eyes are soft, your hands are soft. Looking at you, a guy is apt to think you're a soft little girl who knows little about business or politics. Then, sweetly, you bring me here so that I may understand you have an important in where I haven't."
"Whatever are you talking about, Mr. Monroe?"
But were those large gray eyes mocking him ever so gently?
"But what's an in?" Tyler asked, determined to find out more about her. "In the end, a vote's a vote, whether it's cast by a first family of Maples or by a bohunk. And people vote to benefit themselves. All this talk about issues, principles, deals -- it's baloney, Miss Burton. People vote for their self-interest."
"I thought you'd like this place, Mr. Monroe. It isn't a public restaurant, really. We pay Mrs. Smith twenty dollars a year for the privilege of dining here. It's a membership restaurant, you might say."
"Why pay for the privilege to pay for eating anywhere?"
"Well, it's a nice, quiet place to be with your friends."
"White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant membership, I suppose?"
"No. As a matter of fact, Mr. Monroe, have you seen any ghetto of any kind in Maples?"
He conceded that he had not. Their steaks came, and with them came the wine. The delicate pink of the wine in the glasses lent a festive appearance to the table. To please the girl with the honey-gold hair and genial gray eyes, Tyler toasted "the city without a ghetto." There was little conversation until the dessert: fruit and a fine tangy cheese. Then, never a man who could forget business for long, Tyler asked: "Have you written your report, Miss Burton? Naturally, I'm anxious to get my little project moving."
"I finished it yesterday afternoon," she told him composedly. "I recommended that the proposal be rejected. Nothing personal, I hope you understand. There are zoning laws on the books, and I had to be guided by them."
He was disappointed in her. All she had was beauty and amiability, he decided. Strictly a no-brain woman! "Laws can be changed," he said harshly. "You know that."
Gail Burton smiled faintly. "I do know that," she admitted. "But I also know, Mr. Monroe, that a city official must be guided by the laws still on the books."
Tyler wanted to slap the smile from her face.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Not unexpectantly, Tony came to the old house on Nathan Hale Street the afternoon following the dinner with Tyler Monroe at Smith House. Wearing a pair of tight white shorts and a very revealing halter top, Gail was giving her front lawn the first real mowing of the new season, when Tony drove up in his old Plymouth sedan. They kissed warmly and openly on the mouth and Tony playfully gave Gail's tits a tweak.
"If you finish mowing the lawn for me, I could make it very worth your while," Gail teased provocatively.
"I'll not prostitute my services," Tony pretended to be indignant.
"Then let's go inside and fuck our brains out," Gail laughed, taking Tony in tow and leading him inside her house.
They sat down in Gail's antique wicker chair together, and Tony who had come over to discuss Tyler Monroe's business interests found his cock overruling his brain.
"Tony, I know you have some business matters to discuss with me," Gail said, sensing Tony's primary reason for visiting her. "But, I'm not going, to let you go to waste."
"And just what do you mean by that?" Tony asked, giving her a peck on the nose.
"What I mean is there's plenty of time for everything. Let's fool around and then we can talk business over dinner. I've got a chicken in the fridge."
Tony smiled at her and reached his hand underneath her flimsy halter. He gently caressed her warm breasts and pretended to ponder her suggestion.
Gail felt her crotch growing moist. She hoped that their "political differences" would never split them apart.
"Let's go upstairs," Gail said jumping up suddenly.
"Hey girl, you almost lost one of your tits with that sudden move!" Tony said racing up the stairs after her.
Gail stripped off her clothes and turned on the water in her luxurious sunken bath tub. She dropped some fragrant oils and powders in under the stream of water and soon the tub was almost overflowing with deliciously scented bubbles.
"Last one in is a rotten pecker!" Gail exclaimed as she slipped gracefully into the steamy tub.
Tony looked at her with love and lust in his eyes. She certainly was always full of surprises. He undressed as quickly as he could and joined his lover in the delightful bath. "I never like to bathe alone," Gail said, rubbing some scented soap into Tony's arms and shoulders.
"Well, you know what they say," Tony smiled at her. "Conserve water. Shower with a friend."
Gail splashed some water in Tony's face and he grabbed hold of her. What had started as a playfully defensive gesture though, soon developed into a highly erotic kiss. They plunged their tongues into each other's mouth and sucked hard. Gail felt her heart beating faster and her cunt was going wild.
"I feel all tingly inside," Gail confessed to Tony.
"Good. Then someone somewhere is doing something right," he said.
He reached his hand underwater and moved his hand gently between her thighs. Searching out her clitoris, he tweaked the love button until Gail's face started to flush with arousal.
"You are getting me all hyped up," Gail breathed out. She had no trouble finding his rapidly swelling cock in the bubbly bath water, and once she found it, she did not let go of it. She pulled and stroked the responsive organ and pulled it up to the surface to get a good look at it.
"Nice rod you got there, sailor," Gail kidded him.
Tony grabbed hold of Gail's legs and opened them up wide. He firmly but gently caressed her lean thighs with the soft and soapy bath sponge. Her dusky pink vulva peeked out of the water and Tony felt his desire mounting between his legs. He started to scrub her snatch with the soapy sponge and Gail squealed with delight.
"Now that's what I call a rub down," she told him between moans.
She stretched out her leg so that it was in the general vicinity of his crotch and then she began to tickle his penis with her toes.
Tony was amused by the gesture, but he had to admit that it felt pretty damn good.
When they were both highly aroused, Tony knelt in the tub and guided his wet phallus into Gail's ready vagina. It was a simple enough maneuver to negotiate, since she was sitting back with her legs spread apart, but when he started to thrust in and out of her cunt, things got a little tricky.
"Ooooo... we're splashing water all over the floor," Gail breathed out between moans and sighs.
"Argh... this is terrific," Tony bellowed, thrusting into Gail's pussy harder and harder.
Soon their moans and the sound of the movement of the bath water combined in a rising symphony of super-charged sex. Gail stimulated her clitoris with the bath sponge, while Tony fucked her and her orgasm swept over her like a giant wave. Because she moved slightly, Tony slipped out of her snatch just as he started to come and shot his jizmy load all over the bathroom floor.
After they dressed and went back downstairs, the telephone rang. It was Cathy Dunstan all atwitter about the handsome guy she'd seen Gail dining with at Smith House. "Gail," Cathy burbled, "why don't you bring Mr. Monroe to supper this evening? I know that Dad simply loathes him, but I think he's a dream."
"Cathy, behave yourself!"
The girl chuckled. "The reason Dad simply loathes him should interest you. Mr. Monroe hasn't once approached one of our financial houses for a business loan. He did float a loan, but in New York City. And then, having done that, he had the nerve to try to approach our financiers to get their support for some of his business plans."
"Cathy, aren't you telling tales out of school?"
"Probably. But we were such good friends in high school I thought I should let you know what's going on. My goodness, I still giggle whenever I think of you swimming and swimming and swimming in the nude that night in the old Tomlinson."
"I still think you're the real girl who took pity on me and hooted like an owl."
"Supper at seven? Come as you are, I'd say, but the folks are so old-fashioned. If you must wear shorts this unseasonably hot day, wear ones that cover your ass."
"Just a moment, Cathy. I -- "
"It's important, you see," Cathy said abruptly. "I mislead you not."
Sighing, Gail returned to the porch. Knowing that Cathy wasn't a rattlebrain, she said unhappily to Tony, "You'll have to take a rain check on that dinner this evening. Do you happen to have Mr. Monroe's home telephone number?"
Tony, bless him, didn't ask why she wanted the number or why she had to give him a rain check for the chicken. dinner. After he gave her the number, he did spend a few minutes discussing the quality of her beauty and the general plans he had for harnessing that beauty to his own kitchen stove one of these days. There were kisses, right out there on the porch for all the neighbors to see. But he left, whistling, in ample time for Gail to do some serious thinking before she telephoned Tyler Monroe. She had everything straight in her mind when she did telephone him, and therefore she was quite gay when she asked: "What about supper this evening, Mr. Monroe, in high society? Someone thinks you're cute, and she's a good friend of mine."
The silence was long.
"You know," Tyler Monroe then said, "you're not especially uncute yourself, Miss Burton. But appearance means little in the big-time business world. You understand what I mean?"
"I think so," Gail said. "Tony was here. I'm sure you'll fight my report for all you're worth."
"If you lose your job, what then?"
"Why ever should I lose my job?"
"It's a distinct possibility, Miss Burton."
"Well, it's a possibility I've never considered, Mr. Monroe. I'll cross that bridge, I think, when and if I must."
"Well, you're warned. Do you still want to go to this supper with me?"
Carelessly, Gail answered: "You bet! Why, you're the first captain of industry I've ever crossed swords with, think of that!"
So the Cadillac gas guzzler came again to Nathan Hale Street and was stopped smoothly before the Burtons' white picket fence. Dressed in a gray cashmere skirt and a gray cashmere sweater, gloveless and hat-less this time, Gail was out of the house before he was out of the car. She joined him jauntily on the front seat and asked if he could put the canvas top down. He pressed a button, grinning. "You're a kid," he charged. "You'll get your hair mussed, and that's a fact."
"We're early, you know," Gail told him. "Could we drive around for a while? Let me show you some of the sights of the city."
"What sights have I missed?"
"Perhaps a new hospital, perhaps two new schools, perhaps a half-dozen new parks, perhaps several small but adequate new library branches."
He drove toward the river. They didn't cross the bridge, however. Instead, he swung along the south shore of the river to the Monroe Chemical Company buildings. He parked the car a block away so that she could see the layout in its entirety. "There's a sight," he said dryly, "that you may have missed, Miss Burton. Five hundred residents of Maples earn their living over there. Those people build homes, buy locally, pay taxes. They help to pay for a new hospital, perhaps two new schools, perhaps a half-dozen parks, and so on."
The obvious retort occurred to Gail, and she made it quickly. "Lots of room beyond the plant, Mr. Monroe, for development."
"My engineers tell me the land across the river is better for my purposes."
Gail looked down at her hands. "It would be unfortunate," she told him, "if people were corrupted and careers were destroyed simply so that you could build over there a plant you could build over here. Do you hate people that much, Mr. Monroe?"
"No. It's business, that's all. And don't tell me, Miss Burton, that a man's wrong to make all the money he can make. I know the other side of the story. If you have money, you can even marry the girl of your choice. She doesn't choose fifty gushing oil wells, in other words."
"Your girl did?"
"Yes."
"I see."
"And don't tell me, Miss Burton, that I'm lucky I didn't marry a girl to whom money is everything. It so happens that ours is a materialistic society. We sing songs about diamonds being a girl's best friend. I can enter many places they'd throw you out of simply because I'm richer than you. The stress is upon moneymaking. So Dorothy did what millions of girls are trained to do or dream of doing: she married well."
"And having lost the girl, you'll have the swag?"
Her smile, deliberately cruel, stung him. He turned almost purple red. His hands, big and powerful, whitened as they clenched on the steering wheel. When he could speak, he said huskily, "I think I'm glad you said that, Miss Burton."
"It had to be said," Gail said more gently. "First of all, Mr. Monroe, you're a human being. Women worry about human beings -- probably because we women are responsible for helpless human beings for so long. It's a silly thing to do with your life, if I may say so. Even if you earn .ten billion dollars, you'll never again be a boy in love with a girl who decided to take fifty gushing oil wells. I mean, it's done with."
He swung around to face her. Unwinking, the golden-brown eyes studied her for a long, long time. "You're very strange," he said presently. "You're very beautiful and very strange. It's an interesting combination."
Gail Burton could have avoided the kiss. Long before he made a move, she saw the decision to kiss her come into those unwinking brown eyes. She sat quietly, however; and when he'd finished bruising her lips, she said politely, "Thank you, Mr. Monroe."
He laughed. It was shouting laughter that attracted the attention of several passers-by. "You crazy blonde!"
"Well," Gail told him, "Mom always did train me to be polite."
"I didn't know she was in town."
"Gone, gone, gone," Gail said, flapping her hands a little, "like a delicate bird that can't endure our cold winters. My folks live in Florida, Mr. Monroe. My father's in the real-estate business there. He used to be in the real-estate business here. That's why, you see, I know that the land just beyond your plant can be used very nicely for industrial purposes."
"Oh, drop it," he ordered. "Look, do we have to go to that supper? I think I want to dine you and dance you in style."
"The Dunstans are nice people for you to know."
He whistled.
They went, of course, to the Dunstans'.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Despite the gay supper at the Dunstans' and a most pleasurable drive with Tyler Monroe afterward, Gail was able to approach the writing of her ticklish report the next morning as objectively as she'd learned to approach any of the jobs she was assigned. She spent the morning in consultation with Mel Rosenberg in the city planner's office. In the afternoon, she went with Mel to Mr. Hovey's office in the Hall of Records to check up on the various things Mel had told her about the purchases of north shore land by the Star Development Company. Mel, apparently, had given Mr. Hovey advance notice of what was wanted. Mr. Hovey, a thin, gray-haired, rather intense civil service worker, had all the papers awaiting their inspection. "It's crystal clear to me," he announced, "that a syndicate's been formed to grab up all the available land in the northern sector of the Hooker district. I've met Mr. Monroe and Miss Wellington, of course. Miss Wellington's first visit, in fact, is one I'll never forget."
Gail was intrigued. "Why not?" she asked. "Are you susceptible to red-haired charmers; sir?"
Mr. Hovey grimaced as if to say the question was in poor taste. He explained heavily: "My door opened, and there stood Miss Wellington with a chocolate cake balanced in one hand and a coffeepot in the other hand. She said she expected to run my people ragged and that she'd brought refreshments with her to prove she did so have a heart. She was very animated. My girls found her charm irresistible. My girls worked that day as they've not worked in years. A most instructive experience for me."
"What did they work on, sir?"
He gestured at the papers. "Those. Miss Wellington wanted the name and address of every property owner in that sector of the north shore district. When she realized there were four or five hundred owners, she made a telephone call, and presently two girls came from her office to help my girls. Of course, we didn't allow her girls access to the records, after all! But they examined the records and typed off what they wanted on portable typewriters they'd brought with them."
"Sounds like efficient operation, sir."
"It was. Well, Miss Burton, I was naturally curious to know what would be done with the information. I asked my girls to inform me on any ownership changes that occurred in that section." Mr. Hovey pointed to the smaller pile of papers on his desk. "These cover the ownership changes, Miss Burton. All purchased by the Star Development Corporation. The recorded officers of the corporation are Tyler Monroe, Ulricka Wellington, and Paul Letti."
Gail ransacked her memory, an excellent memory into which had been filed the names of just about everyone in Maples whom the administration might have to deal with. "Letti, Letti, Letti," she said. "I don't recall the name."
"No Letti in our telephone directory," Mel Rosenberg said promptly. "We've checked. He must represent outside money."
"What's his listed address?"
"The Haines Development Corporation."
Gail made a pencil note. She looked through some of the papers, but Mel spared her the work of relating the sales to the parcels shown on the Hooker district map. Mel went to the map. "They own all this right now," he said. "Notice they've got Mrs. Godden pretty much surrounded. The idea, apparently, is to develop a big industrial complex here. And get this, Miss Burton: as the land is bought, a surveyor goes out, and the new property is included in the original parcel. The old boundary lines are scrubbed out. Mr. Copwell, my boss, finds that significant. For instance, if the Council were to rezone parcel A, it would in effect be rezoning parcels B through O. Catch?"
"Are those changes legal, Mel?"
"Certainly. The system we use here simply requires that the area be surveyed and the new boundary lines indicated on a new map, which is filed with Mr. Hovey."
To Gail, that information settled the matter. Late in the afternoon, she returned to her office with all the notes she needed to support her argument that rezoning of the. north shore of the river wouldn't be in the best interests of the city. She began the report at the office, continued writing it that evening in her room, and went back to work polishing it the next day. When she'd gotten a first draft that seemed worth working up into final form, she took time out to check up on the budget question. The treasurer told her to come on over and discuss it. He greeted her in shirt sleeves, his beefy red face merry, his eyes perfectly disgusted with life.
"Between us," he said dourly, "we're getting into a jam, Miss Burton. To me, this business of waiting is for the birds. Right now I'm being badgered by people for permission to undertake purchases against the budget credits they'll have next month. I have to refuse permission. And that's bad, Miss Burton, real, real bad, because a lot of our institutions, like the hospitals and schools and the prisons, can save a bundle this time of year by buying canned foods and other supplies in bulk. This deal will cost the city about ten thousand dollars in cold cash. That's very bad, if you ask me, when we're piling up a deficit even while we're trying to economize."
Gail reached promptly for the telephone. She got Mrs. Swaisgood at her office and passed the news along to the supervisor. Mrs. Swaisgood sighed. "Young lady," she said, "Bob has already mentioned the matter to me. I must say I'm unhappy about it, but what can I do?"
"Ask Mr. Teller to call a special meeting," Gail suggested. "We don't have to go into the budget or the other matter. The Council could simply make a certain sum available for the purchase of needed supplies."
"How is the rezoning matter coming along?"
"I'll finish my report tomorrow, Mrs. Swaisgood."
"May I know what you've recommended?"
"Certainly, Mrs. Swaisgood -- you're a supervisor, after all. I'm recommending rejection of the petition for rezoning. Actually, no one in my job could make a different recommendation. The Council establishes the laws, and Bob's office is guided by them."
"Oh, dear. Many people will be unhappy.
"Well, as you said at the meeting, Mrs. Swaisgood, what the Council has done it can undo. I've simply examined the petition and weighed it against the established laws and r regulations."
"How do you feel personally?"
Gail evaded the trap with the skill of long practice. "To me," she said firmly, "the Council is the boss of Maples. I support, personally, whatever the Council supports."
"Suppose I call you back on the budget matter?"
"Fine."
She hung up. Smiling, Gail caught Mr. Sorenson shaking his head.
"Bad," Mr. Sorenson said, "real bad. I'm glad I'm just the city's treasurer, Miss Burton. That's a buzz saw, that zoning matter, and it'll hurt somebody real bad."
Gail hustled back to the executive suite and went back to her report. She finished it late that afternoon and took it home with her. She had a quiet dinner in a huge house that seemed much too big and lonely for her and on an impulse, ,she telephoned Tony and invited him over for dessert and coffee.
"I've missed you," Gail told him frankly when he arrived.
"I know what you mean, hon. Even though we see each other fairly often, I never feel like I have enough time to spend with you."
Tony looked down at the gorgeous oriental rug. A seafaring Burton had brought the rug to the old house back in the 1920's. That seafaring Burton had told a stay-at-home Burton rather knowledgeably that such rugs easily gave a century of service, even when abused. Tony felt like trying out that rug this evening, though he didn't know if Gail was in the mood for it.
"If you want to sell your thoughts," Gail offered chuckling, "I'll buy. Is a penny enough?"
"Frankly Gail," Tony said, taking her in his arms, "I want to make love to you tonight possibly more than I've ever wanted to before.
"And why is that?" Gail asked looking up at him.
Tony noticed that she was wearing no makeup and he thought that with her face as God had made it, she was one of the loveliest women he had ever seen.
"I guess I just feel very protective of you. I think that you are much too young and vulnerable to have your present job. Would you have it, do you suppose, if you weren't a Burton in a town that honors its pioneer families?"
Gail pulled away from him. "I like to think so, Tony. I did study hard at the university."
Tony drew her back to him and kissed her hard on the mouth. Gail responded in spite of the ambivalence she was feeling towards Tony at that particular moment. He jammed his tongue into her ear and then asked Gail a shocking question. "Why not pass the buck to Stapes, honey? Tell him the matter's too complicated for you."
Gail lovingly stroked his face as she considered the best way to answer him. "I'm paid to handle the delicate problems, Tony. Such problems are always given to one who is expendable."
"If that report is given to the Supervisory Council as you wrote it, Gail, you will be expended."
Gail was immensely pleased with the concern that she saw in Tony's dark blue eyes. She pressed her lips to his and kissed him, before forcing her tongue into his mouth and sucking hard.
"Why do we always end up fucking, whenever we're discussing something really important?" Tony asked her with a twinkle in his eyes.
"First of all, we end up fucking no matter what we're talking about and who said anything about our fucking tonight?" Gail teased.
"I guess I did," Tony laughed, pulling Gail to the floor.
"Hey, we shouldn't do anything on this rug," Gail warned.
"I'm sure this rug has had more abuse than a little friendly lovemaking," Tony said.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Gail looked at him a little disapprovingly. "Just don't come all over it!" she chided him.
Tony stretched his body out on top of Gail's and started to grind his crotch into hers. They tongued each other lovingly and Gail felt the heat starting to build in her crotch.
Gail reached down and rubbed Tony's penis through his grey flannel slacks. She started to unzip them, but encountered some difficulty. She fumbled and fumbled until Tony had to stop stroking her breasts and give her a hand with it.
"I'm sorry Tony," Gail said, looking away from him.
"Hey, it's not your fault, babe," Tony said, surprised at her reaction. "Are you okay, hon?" Tony asked with great concern in his voice. "I just have so much on my mind," Gail told him.
"Well, I've got something that might take your mind off everything," Tony told her, reaching into his pants pocket.
"What have you got there?" Gail asked, examining the curious green tube.
"It's called 'Emotion Lotion,' or something like that," Tony told her.
Gail removed the cap and took a deep breath of the strange, thick, green, liquidy substance in the tube. "Mmmmm... It smells like peppermint!" she told him delightedly.
"Good. I was hoping you'd like that flavor," Tony said. "I almost got the lemon or strawberry kind."
"What is this stuff for?" Gail asked inquisitively.
"Let me give you a little demonstration, my dear," Tony said. He squeezed a gob of it onto his fingers and then rubbed it into Gail's hand. Once it was on her, he blew on it, causing it to heat up.
"Oooo... this stuff has got great possibilities," Gail squealed, perking up.
The two lovers quickly slipped out of their clothes and Gail insisted that they go upstairs to the bedroom, since she didn't want cum and peppermint lotion all over her family rug.
Once in her large bed, naked as two lovers should be, Tony rubbed a dab of lotion onto Gail's tits. He blew on them hard and the resulting heat was so intense that Gail almost felt like she could come.
"Wait a minute, I've got a terrific idea," Gail said, grabbing the tube. She plastered a gob of the stuff onto Tony's prick and rubbed it in good. She moved her hands up and down the hardening shaft several times before blowing on it.
"Arghhhhh... oh... WOW!" Tony bellowed excitedly. As Gail repeated the. entire process, Tony helped himself to the gunk as well. He spread the jellylike substance all over Gail's snatch, paying particular attention to her anxious little clit.
"Okay, on your mark, get set, BLOW!" Gail exclaimed and they both let the air fly. The resultant moans and ecstatic groans were utterly delicious. The two lovers grew even more excited just listening to each other.
"Would you mind terribly if we didn't fuck tonight?" Gail asked Tony cautiously.
Tony smiled down at her and took her in his arms. "No problem, babe. I'm having lots of fun with this stuff!"
"So am I!" Gail exclaimed. She grabbed the tube and squeezed a rather large amount of it onto her middle finger. Then, she went wild with it. She rubbed the glop all over Tony's body, paying special attention to the head of his cock. She alternated the rubbing with the blowing and it wasn't long before Tony's cock was hard as the Rock of Gibraltar. Tony did the same for Gail and although they were both extremely aroused, they felt no real need to come. Their intimacy was complete, in and of itself.
CHAPTER NINE
As a general rule, Gail experienced no nervousness whatsoever when the time came for her to put a report on Bob Stapes's desk and in effect announce that she'd completed another assignment. During the years she had functioned as his assistant, she'd learned that Bob was basically an easygoing man who assumed that an employee knew his work and that an employee would do that work to the best of his ability. Only once had Bob ever expressed dissatisfaction with a job she'd done for him. That had been during the first month she'd occupied the office at the back end of the executive suite. "You can do better," he'd said, smiling. "Go do better for me, please." She had, no difficulty satisfying him since then.
But Gail did feel nervous, highly nervous, the rainy morning she put her Monroe report on Bob's desk. Although she tried to be casual about the completion of the assignment, she didn't bring the pretense off. Bob said coolly, "You expect fireworks, don't you, Burton? You've wrestled with your conscience, and you've lost."
Gail sat in the armchair near the window. She crossed her shapely legs and then made certain her skirt was down where it belonged. "I like to think," she said, "that I wrestled with my conscience and won. It would have been easy to vote for Tyler Monroe. All budgetary problems would have ended. Probably the decision would have assured continuance of the city-manager system for some years to come."
"The letter of the law, and all that?"
"The letter of the law, yes. And justice, too. Justice to the people who own there now and who want the area to remain a decent place in which to live."
"Progress always hurts a few. But I won't debate with you."
"In this case," Gail said, "a land grab is being attempted. I've checked thoroughly. The land is being bought for the going price for residential property. If the Council rezones, the buyers will realize from five to ten thousand dollars an acre profit; perhaps more."
"Personally, I can't find anything wrong in the profit system."
"The voters might, though, if they felt that the area was rezoned to benefit an outsider. Voters frown on that sort of thing."
Bob shrugged. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Now let me tell you about a few things that have been going on. I didn't tell you about them sooner because I didn't want you to feel under pressure while you were handling the case. I've gotten a letter from Tyler Monroe. He challenges your qualification, as a non-business person, to function with any authority in any office concerned with the industrial and business development of the city. He has a point. You have no business background. So for the time being, to eliminate a possible bone of contention, I think I'll assign you to less controversial work. Suppose you handle public relations, welfare, education, and health matters. Keep a general watch on all those and bring to my attention for decision anything you consider important."
Gail blinked.
"You're not being promoted upstairs to a position of no responsibility," Bob said, reading her mind. "It's a real job. You'll get a thousand more a year, beginning July first."
Gail pursed her lips, but made no reply.
Bob ran a hand through his blond hair. He looked fit and prosperous and remarkably happy for a city manager who had been given a hot potato to handle on a rainy morning. "I'm sure it'll all work out well," he said confidently. "The thing to remember, you know, is that we've given this city the first honest administration it's had in years. Big improvements in the health, education and recreation areas. In time there'll be other improvements in other areas. If this particular matter isn't decided as you want it decided, so what? As they say, you can't win them all."
Gail said intuitively, "Mr. Monroe has won."
"I think so," Bob Stapes said. "There are six on the Council, and if there is a tie, I'm given a vote to break it. I know for a fact that Mrs. Swaisgood has three supervisors ready and even eager to rezone that section of her district. I'd guess she can pressure one of the other three. If not, I'll probably vote to rezone."
"You?"
"Well, a great deal is involved, you know. People must have jobs, and the city must have income. Monroe and his people are prepared to offer jobs. The income will follow. And my political instincts tell me, Burton, that a big budget like the one we're submitting will create quite a racket unless we can show we're trying to improve our economic position. It's a queer thing about people. They want modern schools for their children, modern hospitals for their ill, modern recreational facilities for themselves, safe and clean streets to walk in, and all the rest. But they become very unhappy if you raise their taxes to pay for all these things they want. A new industrial complex would pay for the improvements, give us a surplus, and guarantee we'll be here for many years to come."
"And the injustice to the people already living on the north shore, or to those who've sold out for what in effect would be bargain-basement rates?"
But Bob's secretary came in to announce that Miss Wellington had arrived for her ten o'clock appointment. Feeling unhappy, feeling betrayed, Gail returned to her office and sat slumped in the chair behind the desk. Her secretary misunderstood the reason for her unhappy expression. "Miss Burton," Ellen suggested, "why don't you invent an excuse to go driving or something? You always feel let down after you've finished a tough assignment."
The telephone rang. It was Lela Swaisgood. "Young lady," she said pleasantly, "I've just persuaded Fred Teller to call a special meeting to consider both the budget and the rezoning question. It will be this afternoon. No need to inform the press, for there's no certainty anything newsworthy will be decided."
"I understand, Mrs. Swaisgood. I'll make the arrangements."
The quick ears of an old family friend didn't miss the coldness of Gail's tone. "Be a big girl," Mrs. Swaisgood said quite kindly. "It would be grand if all decisions could leave everyone happy. But that is impossible. In any event, you're not personally involved."
"I am now, Mrs. Swaisgood. Mr. Monroe questioned my competency to deal with industrial and business matters, so I've been promoted upstairs."
"Oh, I'm sure you've misunderstood the entire thing, Gail. If the area's rezoned, many complicated questions will arise, questions only a specialist can cope with. So, of course, a place is being made for a specialist if one is needed. But thirty-one thousand a year, at your age! Well, that's hardly shabby treatment."
"I understand your viewpoint, Mrs. Swaisgood. Shall I ask all the residents of the northern sector of your district to come to this meeting?"
"What?"
"It's customary, ma'am, to give advance notice to all concerned when a rezoning's contemplated."
"This is purely a Council matter," Mrs. Swaisgood said frostily. "The last thing in the world we want is a furor that will prevent us from making intelligent, objective decisions."
More depressed than ever, Gail got in touch with the right people to make certain that the meeting room would be warm and cheery this rainy day. She sent Ellen out to buy the flowers the Council members liked to see on the marble mantel of the great fireplace. While she was arranging for the usual refreshments, Miss Wellington stepped in with the bright and lively manner of a person who has achieved an important success. "No hard feelings, Miss Burton?" she asked. "Strictly business."
"I understand," Gail said carefully. "I'm afraid I'm rather busy just now, Miss Wellington. These matters require . a certain amount of advance work."
"The five thousand is still yours if you want it, Miss Burton. Mr. Monroe isn't niggardly."
"The next time you offer me a bribe," Gail said, "I'll slap your face and then call the police."
The anger compressed into the words gave Miss Ulricka Wellington pause. The green eyes finally twinkled. "All right," the woman said. "You must make allowances for me, though. In some cities, the officials are corrupt. We're after results. So if we must bribe, we bribe. I can't tell who's honest or who isn't until I've made an offer."
"All right," Gail said. "Now you know."
Miss Wellington asked, startlingly: "Are you dreaming dreams about Tyler Monroe?"
When she'd recovered, Gail had to laugh. "Right now, Miss Wellington, I think I'd call them nightmares."
"It's never well to dream dreams about Tyler, Miss Burton. So many have, from one end of the country to the other. But having made the kill he's after, he goes to hunt somewhere else."
"Never perceiving, I presume, the love light in your lovely eyes?"
The beautiful redhead flushed.
"Or is that glow the glow of jealousy?" Gail asked calmly. "I think so."
"Why, you insufferable egotist!"
Understanding the anger, the inner tension, Gail said gently, "Once upon a time in elementary school, Miss Wellington, I met a fellow who said he'd be a lawyer. I liked him very much at the time, and now I'm very devoted to him."
"Tyler kissed you! He bragged about it!"
"Probably to annoy you, just as he tried to annoy me with the kiss itself. He's a sad man, you know. Once upon a time, a practical girl shattered his illusions about women. Now he spends his time trying to prove to a ghost that she married the wrong man."
Miss Wellington went to the window and stared a moment or two at the rain. Without looking back at the desk, she said, "Get your lawyer out of his clutches, Miss Burton. You won't like what Tyler Monroe will do to your lawyer."
"It's too late," Gail said evenly. "Tony lakes having money in his pocket."
"You buy people with money; you break people with money. That's why Tyler chases after money."
"All a woman can do, you see," Gail said, "is what I've already done: propose to the man until you're blue in the face, and offer to support him until he's a success in his profession. Now you must excuse me. I really am busy, Miss Wellington."
The woman left. The next time Gail saw her was in the meeting room. Miss Wellington entered after the Council had been in session for approximately an hour. Miss Wellington nodded to Mr. Teller, to Bob Stapes, and then sat in a corner of the room, presumably to watchdog the proceedings for Tyler Monroe. Bob Stapes got the floor after Mrs. Swaisgood had talked on and on about the budget. "Look," Bob said, "why are we clowning around with this budget thing? If the Council rezones the northern sector of the Hooker district, we'll have more income to consider when we consider the budget."
So Mrs. Lela Swaisgood promptly made a motion that the district be rezoned. Mr. Dahme seconded the motion. After lengthy discussion, the matter was put to a vote. Three voted yes, three voted no. Bob Stapes gave an odd sort of laugh and asked Gail: "Wouldn't you know they'd put me on the spot?"
Then Bob said, "I vote to rezone the district. It's unjust for some, and I regret that deeply. But I have to think of the welfare of the vast majority. Let the clerk put those remarks into the written record."
The chairman, Fred Teller, turned swiftly to Gail. "We never did hear your report," he said. "What did you recommend?"
"That the district not be rezoned, sir."
Mr. Teller looked Bob Stapes dead in the eye. "Let the clerk," he said, "put Miss Burton's remark into the record, too."
Ten minutes later, the Council approved the highest budget in the history of Maples.
There being nothing else to watchdog, Gail left before the refreshments were served.
CHAPTER TEN
Tony Carlton was interested, but not surprised, when all the newspapers in Maples except the Torrent hailed the Council's rezoning decision as "a solid blow struck for the future good of our community." He was also interested, but very surprised, when there appeared in the Torrent several days later, a condemnatory letter to the editor written by "Private citizen Gail Burton."
He was just returning to his desk to file the letter for further consideration when a woman's footsteps sounded out in the anteroom. Tony went to the connecting door and found the very fuckable Ulricka Wellington waiting for him.
"Nice to see you again, Miss Wellington," Tony said as he gestured her into his office.
"The pleasure will be mine," Ulricka told him mysteriously. "Tony dear, please call me Ulricka."
"Don't mind if I do," Tony said, offering her the tufted blue leather armchair.
"I intend to make myself extremely comfortable," Ulricka promised him.
Tony felt his cock jump involuntarily, as Ulricka adjusted her legs in the chair. There was a toughness in her that was different than Gail's. It was precisely that hard edge in her that made his prick wag when she came into a room. He admitted to himself that he wanted to press his naked flesh into hers at that very moment, but he wasn't exactly sure that her mind was working along similar lines.
"So, did you just drop by to say hello?" Tony asked her.
Miss Wellington looked at the Torrent still on the desk. "I notice you've clipped that silly letter," she remarked. "I'd like to know what caused her to write such a letter. During my several uh, talks with her, I was most impressed by her intelligence and aplomb. But that letter was the writing of a stupid, badly rattled young woman."
"I'm trying to figure it out myself," Tony informed her. "I know Gail very well. There's a lot more behind that letter than we know."
"I think it's about time that we got to know each other better, don't you?" Ulricka asked him provocatively.
"I'm not sure what you mean," Tony said hoping deep in his loins that she was talking about knowing each other in a biblical sense.
Ulricka got up from her chair and strutted over to him. "Let me be frank, Tony. I think that you are an exceptionally attractive young man. Judging by that bulge in your pants, you feel similar inclinations towards me. Am I right?"
Tony felt her gorgeous eyes piercing right through him. "Listen Ulricka, you're right. I am attracted to you. But so what? I meet dozens of intelligent and beautiful women, but I don't try to make love to all of them."
"You will make love to me," Ulricka told him gently but firmly. She inched closer to him and Tony breathed in the delicious, intoxicating scent of her perfume.
"What makes you so sure of that?" he said weakly.
"Because... " Ulricka faded out as their lips came together in a long and penetrating soul kiss.
Tony felt his body pulled closer to Ulricka's and he surrendered to his biological urges. Her breasts felt warm and full against his chest and he longed to rub his face in the softness of her womanly flesh.
"I've got all kinds of time," Ulricka whispered as she tongued his ear. "You are my morning appointment."
"Why me?" Tony asked as he kissed her lightly on the nose.
"Because we have both wanted each other for a very long time," Ulricka said matter-of-factly.
"You've got a point there," Tony laughed as he playfully squeezed her luscious tits.
"And you've got somewhat of a point there!" Ulricka laughed as she put her hand tightly around Tony's rapidly hardening cock.
They kissed again, long and probing, their tongues sucking and pulling. Tony thought he could feel the heat rising from Ulricka's moistening crotch. As their tongues continued to lash at each other, Tony hiked up Ulricka's skirt and let his fingers do the walking up her creamy thigh.
Ulricka pulled away from him for a moment, a little alarmed at the rate her cunt was lubricating. "Just where do you think you're going?" she teased, pulling out his hand from between her legs and sucking on the fingers.
"The way to a woman's heart... " Tony trailed off and kissed her affectionately on the mouth. As his cock grew harder, all he could think of was Ulricka's juicy pink snatch.
"Press your meat into me," Ulricka told him urgently.
"You mean, fuck you right this minute?" Tony asked her a bit bewildered.
"No, silly. I mean let's dry hump a little. You remember, like in high school."
Tony smiled as he pulled Ulricka even more tightly to his body, grinding his stiff rod against her anxious clitoris.
"Oooooo Tony!" Ulricka wailed as she moved her hips in a complementary motion to his.
"That does feel good, doesn't it!" Tony breathed out, as he felt his penis growing impossibly hard. Since their bodies seemed locked in the grinding action, Tony lifted his hands from Ulricka's hips and caressed her sumptuous breasts. He unbuttoned her blouse with agonizing slowness and finally exposed her full breasts, overflowing her delicate brassiere. He massaged them gently through her bra and gently pinched the nipples.
"Suck on them!" Ulricka urged him.
Tony fumbled with the closure in the back, but was finally able to undo it. He tossed the bra over the blue chair and Ulricka's breasts spilled out.
"Jesus!" Tony exclaimed, growing even more aroused at the sight of them.
"Suck on them!" Ulricka repeated her request.
Tony was happy to comply with her wishes. He applied his mouth to the warm mounds of flesh and then, swirled his tongue around the circumference of each tit. Little by little, he zeroed in on the nipples, pink and slightly erect with excitement.
"That feels sooo goood!" Ulricka squealed. She busied her hands with his crotch, unzipping his fly and working her hands into his pants.
"What do you think you are doing?" Tony teased as he kissed her face and found his way back to her lips. Their open mouths met in an excruciatingly probing kiss and the two lovers let out their breath when it was over.
"Now, back to business!" Ulricka laughed as she replaced her hand in his pants. She groped around, located his throbbing penis and caressed it gently. She pulled it out of his pants and began to rub her hands up and down the length of the receptive shaft.
"Has anyone ever told you that you have terrific hands?" Tony said, his heart racing wildly.
"Yes, they have, as a matter of fact," Ulricka told him, establishing a steady rhythm as she jerked him off.
"Hey, you're almost as good at giving hand jobs as I am," Tony kidded her.
"I bet!" Ulricka laughed. She knelt down, so that her mouth was in close proximity to his excited tool.
"My blow jobs aren't too bad either," she said.
"All talk and no action," Tony joked.
Ulricka wrapped her lips around his happy dick and started to suck. Tony felt his entire body tense up. She secured his meaty rod with her hands and began to run her tongue up and down the length of his penis, pausing at various intervals to lap at the head, already glistening with the first drops of pre-ejaculate.
Tony dug his fingers into her soft, thick hair as Ulricka went down on him. She varied her strokes with a periodic flick of her tongue around his hairy balls. Then, running her tongue down his tool, she opened her mouth as wide as she could and practically swallowed his pleasantly surprised balls. She could feel his body start to quiver and as much as she wanted to give him the pleasure of coming in her mouth, she was also extremely interested in getting in some good old-fashioned fucking.
"Ooo babe, you better quit that!" Tony told her urgently, his mind moving along similar lines. He started to raise Ulricka off her knees, but she surprised him by pulling him down to her on the floor. He smiled down at her, impressed by her physical strength.
"I think I'd like to take in a few more of the sights!" Tony said, gently removing her clothing. Ulricka demanded that he be naked also and she helped him out of his shirt and pants, his prick wagging anxiously.
"I'm going to explore every inch of your body with my tongue!" Tony threatened. "Sounds good to me!" Ulricka said, stretching out her ravishing limbs.
They kissed sweetly and then Tony let his tongue roam wild, starting with the upper portion of her body. He rammed his tongue into her ear, kissed her face softly and then licked the nape of her neck.
"You really know how to make a woman feel good!" Ulricka said.
"I do what I can," Tony told her. Her skin was soft and felt nice under the pressure of his tongue. He worked his way down her neck, back and shoulders, till he arrived back at her enticing tits.
"You've got quite a pair," Tony said in his best imitation Bronx accent.
"Thanks!" Ulricka countered with her best imitation Bronx accent.
Tony sucked on them quite energetically this time, causing Ulricka to moan out loud. Tony moved on relentlessly, lapping at her belly and finally burying his face in her pubic mound and attacking her waiting clitoris.
"Mmmmmmm... sooooo goood!" Ulricka wailed.
While he ate her out, Tony brought his fuck finger into service. He inserted it gently into her vagina and moved it in and out, in and out. He inhaled the richness of her feminine scent and went down on her even harder.
"Arrgggh!" Ulricka screamed. "Oh Tony, I... I... I want your p-p-p-penis!!" she managed to scream out.
Tony's dick was rock hard by this time, and certainly ready for action.
"Stick it in, Tony! Fuck me real hard!" Ulricka urged him on. He raised his body above her and she helped guide his penis into her vagina. He let out his breath as he entered her, thrilled by the sensation of having his prick surrounded by her moist vaginal walls.
"Oh... It feels so good... " Tony whispered intensely.
They fucked hard and fast and Tony shot his spermy load a little sooner than Ulricka would have liked him to. But, she certainly enjoyed being with him.
Ulricka suddenly remembered that she had some important business to take care of with Gail Burton. They both dressed quickly and Ulricka left, barely saying goodbye. Tony pondered the incident for a moment, then decided that some things in life couldn't be explained very well. When Ulricka met with Gail, she found that the young woman had grown disillusioned with Bob Stapes and could not be tempted to join Tyler's Delaware staff.
She hurried back to the office and interrupted Tyler at dictation. "Gail Burton is looking for Paul Letti," she told him. He slammed a clenched fist on the desk.
Ulricka nodded. "All right," she said. I'll use my little hatchet on her neck. But I won't enjoy it, I'm afraid."
Meanwhile, Gail decided to go over to Tony's office. The pressures of the day were building up and she just wanted to be with Tony and talk for a while.
But when she was walking down the hallway to Tony's office, Gail realized that actually she was horny as hell and she had fucking on her mind. Tony sure knew how to make her body hot. She felt her anxious cunt start to ooze with love lubricant. She made her legs move a little faster, wanting to have sex with Tony as soon as she could.
"Well, what a nice surprise!" Tony said when Gail rushed into his office.
Gail locked the door and pulled Tony away from his desk.
"What are you doing, babe? I might have a client come by later. What's the matter with you? Why are you looking at me like that?" Tony asked her.
He did not receive a verbal answer to any of his question. Gail almost ripped off Tony's clothes and quickly slipped out of her own.
"I want you so bad," she said in a low, throaty voice that Tony was a little unfamiliar with.
"I want you, too, but hey, slow down a little, hon," Tony said. He felt a little tired from his previous sexual encounters that day, but he couldn't exactly explain that to Gail.
"Guess you better start taking vitamin E again, Mr. Stud," Gail teased.
"Don't worry babe, I can still get it up for you," Tony said.
"I can see that," Gail laughed as his cock jumped when she stroked it. She'd always liked his penis, the shape and meaty feel of it. She also liked what Tony did with it when he was inside her vagina.
They stroked each other's body freely, Tony moving his hands around her breasts and intensely massaging her nipples. When he tongued her tits, Gail let out a moan. She realized just how very excited she was and hoped she could last till Tony's wonderful cock was inside of her.
Suddenly, Gail remembered her new little "toy." It was something an old college roommate had sent her as a joke from New. York. She'd been carrying it around in her purse in its plain brown case for almost a week now and had meant to show it to Tony for a laugh.
"Calling Gail Burton. Can you read me?" Tony kidded her, sensing that her mind had wandered off somewhere.
"I've got a little surprise," Gail told him mysteriously, getting up and taking her purse from his desk.
"Uh oh," Tony said, pretending to be afraid.
"Don't worry," Gail pretended to reassure him. "It's just a joke, sweetheart."
When Gail joined him again on the floor, she had the strange little brown case in her hand.
"What the hell is that?" Tony asked her, growing extremely curious.
"Close your eyes," Gail prolonged the suspense. Tony finally closed his eyes, giving in to her little game. Gail opened the dull brown case, revealing a battery operated vibrator, formed with an amazing likeness to an erect penis -- veins and all.
"Okay hon, open them up," Gail said, watching him carefully to see how he would react.
"Wow!" Tony exclaimed, more than a bit surprised. Before he could say anything else, Gail was working the mechanical dick around his nipples and moving the meaty-looking monster titillatingly close to his frightened, but hardening cock.
"It feels really .. I don't know," Tony broke off, not capable of articulating the exact sensation that the vibrator drew out of him. "I would like to know how it feels on you, though," he told her, taking the tool from her and working it up and down her thighs.
"Mmmmmmm... " Gail sighed, enjoying the delicious sensations. Her moistened cunt twitched in anticipation of what it would encounter in the next few minutes.
"Can I put this powered penis in your snatch, babe?" Tony asked with concern, as he applied the mobile member to her oily and easily-excitable clit.
"Yeow! Yes, ohhhhh... YES!" Gail exclaimed.
"Are you quite sure, my love?" Tony teased, making her ache with anticipation.
"OOOOOO... oh, Tony, PLEASE!" Gail screamed.
Tony inserted the pulsating prick into her sopping wet snatch slowly and carefully.
"Ohhhhh MyyyyyyGODDDDD!" Gail shouted and wailed so loud, Tony was almost afraid that someone would hear. Her vocalizations made his proud pecker hop with delight and when Gail had had enough of the electrical excitement, Tony pressed his prick into her throbbing vagina posthaste.
They fucked each other hard and then Gail edged him over onto his back. She replaced his penis in her over-heated honeypot and the love-motion was resumed.
"I can't... I... I'm COMING!" Gail screamed, rising over the crest of her climax.
The strain was much too much for Tony's tool, so he willingly surrendered, shooting his sperm into her vagina in penetrating thrusts.
Their return to reality was mercifully slow. They collapsed into each other's arms and savored the warmth of the afterglow for several minutes.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Despite a plea from the publisher of the Maples Torrent for more words on the subject of the Hooker district rezoning, Gail remained publicly silent until the end of June. At the office she concentrated upon the formidable job of familiarizing herself with the basic requirements of the new work Bob Stapes had assigned her. She soon learned that anyone assigned to general supervision of public relations, welfare, education, and health matters had an enormous job to handle. She also learned that she was far from equal to the job. But this discovery didn't trouble her a bit. At home one evening, she said laughingly to her prospering lawyer: "It's a darned good thing for the city that each of those departments is run by a professional. If it weren't for those people, all would be chaos."
"Aren't you supposed to keep a political .eye on them?"
"Probably. Bob never did spell out the assignment other than to tell me to refer all important decisions to him. Which was a meaningless order, incidentally. Now that the different departments have their money for the next year, there aren't any important decisions to make."
"Couldn't the unemployed or unemployable use more money a month?"
"Bob's saving that for the next election, Tony. This year, Maples grows. With luck, there'll be a surplus next year. Then, after pointing with pride at his solid accomplishments, Bob will probably announce a determined drive to improve the general condition of our poor."
"Still, you oppose the one development that can give this city a surplus."
"Not development, Tony; just the idea of giving Tyler Monroe a multi-million-dollar control over the nature of the development. Shall we not debate, however?"
"As you wish, of course."
Nor was there a debate of any kind with Tony until the end of June. Rather, there were pleasant drives, pleasant walks, and even pleasant picnics on the shore of the Tomlinson. There were two exciting expeditions, as well. The first expedition sent them roaming through the middle-class streets of Maples in quest of a nice apartment for a lawyer who had advanced financially beyond the hall-bedroom phase of life. They found a fine apartment on the ground floor of a venerable house on Plum Street. That find precipitated the second expedition -- a weekend traipse all over Maples in search of furniture Tony could afford. In the course of that search, they also picked up some decent furniture for the anteroom of his office. Tony, the character, was so pleased with the finds for the office that he announced on the spot he intended to renovate the suite from stem to stern. "A lawyer's no small potato, you know," he rationalized. "Do people have confidence in a lawyer who's obviously starving?"
It was while Gail, wearing her oldest clothes, was helping him to clean the office prior to painting it that the thing she'd feared would happen did happen. Tony was telephoned. When he finished the brief conversation, Tony said, "Bad news for the city, Gail. I've just been asked by Tyler Monroe to petition the Council to build a heavy-duty road from the bridge to the site of his proposed plant."
"Oh?"
"And the Star Development Company is putting up a hundred acres for sale. Fifteen thousand an acre."
Carefully, Gail put her sponge into the wash-pail. "Nice haul. They bought a lot of the land for a thousand an acre. Say their average cost was two thousand, which would be high. If they sell the hundred acres, they'll clear over a million dollars."
Looking awed, Tony sat on a corner of his desk.
Gail dried her bare feet on a towel she'd brought along. She padded to a chair and put on her go-aheads and rolled down the legs of her wash-blue denim slacks. "What were their other costs, do you think?" she asked. "The way Miss Wellington was offering bribes, I'm sure she found takers. Let's say she spent ten thousand-on bribes; let's allow about five thousand for you -- counting the twenty-five-hundred-dollar windfall; and let's allow another five thousand for general expenses. Even with all that added to the land cost, they'll clear over a million."
"Business," Tony said huskily.
"And now we're to build a nice heavy-duty road for them. It'll cost at least a hundred thousand -- more likely double that. Then, when the road is built, other acreage will be opened up, probably for twenty thousand an acre. Mr. Monroe and company might clear five million dollars on the land sales and still end up with a fine site for their own use."
"The Council voted, you know."
"And Bob cast the decisive vote. That keeps bugging me. That vote was so at variance with everything Bob's ever said or done since he got the job. But how could they bribe him? I mean -- " But there, just like that, Gail had to stop speaking. Far back in the recesses of her mind, a possible answer had occurred to her, an answer so horrible she didn't want to harbor it for an instant.
"Oh, dear," she said croakingly, "oh, dear."
Steps sounded in the anteroom. A knock, the connecting door opened, and in strode Tyler Monroe. He studied the girl in the chair, the fellow on the desk, and grinned. "Brother," he said, "does this carry me back to my humble beginnings! Only I didn't even have, an office to decorate. My office was my hat."
Gail started to leave.
"Oh, stay, stay," the big man said. He turned to Tony. "What are we paying you, Carlton?"
"Five thousand retainer, plus extras for extra costs."
"We'll make it ten. I can't clown around handling all the details of land sales. Ulricka will give you a list of prices, a marked map, and you can handle the rest. I specifically want each sale to be conditional: that is, no metal fabrication company can be built in the area."
"Yes, sir."
The golden brown eyes swung to Gail. "I take it, Miss Burton," Tyler Monroe said, "that you're realistic?"
"I try to be," Gail assured him.
"All right. Developments don't just happen. A bright fellow comes along, sees a chance to make a bundle, and goes to work. Sure, I'll make a big bundle out of this operation. I'll clear around eight million over the next few years. But look what the city gets!
In five years this will be one of the most prosperous towns in upper New York State. Build all the schools and hospitals and parks and other things you want -- there'll still be money left over. So there you are. So who are you or the Torrent to say that all this is wrong?"
"What happens to Mrs. Godden, sir, and to all the others who thought theirs was a residential district?"
"Somebody's always hurt, Miss Burton. That's a law of life."
"And why shouldn't someone be hurt so that you can make a bundle, as you put it?"
"If the old lady wants to sell, I'll be reasonable."
"If she doesn't?"
"Tough. The city condemns her property, and the road goes through."
Tony stiffened. "Oh, that's not so simple," he told Tyler Monroe. "That's a homestead granted by the federal government. She has a document that says she's entitled to so many acres of land in such and such a place. You don't just push her off. If it can be shown to be absolutely essential to the city, you might get off, provided that you can replace the homestead with an equivalent homestead."
"What?"
"And where would you find an equivalent place in Maples?" Tony asked. "She has virgin woods, she has river frontage, and she's just a mile from the shopping areas."
The man's chin jutted. "No little old lady is going to stop me," Tyler Monroe declared. "Get to work on it, Carlton."
Tyler Monroe left in a large hurry. As soon as she could, Gail left, too. She drove straight across the Tomlinson River and through the lovely woods to Mrs. Godden's old house in a small clearing. Her first ring of the doorbell brought Mrs. Godden to the door. "My day for company,' she said brightly. "The girls get prettier all the time, too. I thought the redhead was beautiful, but you're more beautiful."
Gail blushed.
Mrs. Godden chuckled. "Didn't know young women could blush anymore," she confided. "Well, let's be done with it. How much are you offering for my homestead? The redhead offered a thousand an acre."
"Are you selling, Mrs. Godden?"
"When I didn't say a word to her, Mr. Letti patted me on the shoulder and told me I was a smart woman to reject an offer like that. He offered me two thousand an acre."
A sudden tension came into Gail's body. "I wonder if you could describe Mr. Letti to me, Mrs. Godden. By the way, I'm assistant to the city manager. I was here not so long ago with Mel Rosenberg."
"I remember you. Not your name, but your face. Mr. Letti!' Well, he's tall and blond and has pretty hazel eyes. A woman could like a young fellow like that."
Gail had to try three times before she could ask: "Did you notice, Mrs. Godden, if Mr. Letti was wearing a ring?"
"Yup. Couldn't miss a sight like that. Big emerald in a gold setting."
Gail closed her eyes a moment without realizing' it. She was so pale now that Mrs. Godden was alarmed. "Say," Mrs. Godden said, "don't you want to come in and sit down?"
"I'm all right, Mrs. Godden, quite all right. Do you know that you can't be forced off this land very easily?"
Mrs. Godden stopped smiling. "I'll tell you something about old women, young lady. They don't reach my age without learning a few things. I know all about my rights. There's nothing like owning a homestead to teach you something about home-stead laws."
"Fine, Mrs. Godden. It's up to you whether or not you leave this place. Just remember that."
Gail returned to her car, thinking that at least one city official had tried to be honest. She drove back to the city and put her car away in the garage. She gave thought to telephoning the man with the emerald ring, but her instincts told her that such a call would be premature at this time. Instead, she telephoned Mr. Hovey at his home and told him she had an urgent reason for consulting some city records that afternoon. Mr. Hovey hemmed and hawed, but intense civil service employee that he was, he agreed to meet her at City Hall within an hour. Gray, brisk, curt as always, he was waiting at the side entrance when she drove up. "Hope it's vital," he said. "I was thinking of playing checkers with my wife."
He unlocked the side door, and they trudged up the flights of stairs to the records department. He got keys from his desk and led her along a shadowy hall into the vault room. "We have miles of records here," he said. "We'll have to microfilm them pretty soon. Microfilm and automation -- the coming tools for top-quality record-keeping."
Cool, dark, the rows of metal file cabinets gleaming, the vault room struck Gail as being an eerie place. She was oddly relieved when Mr. Hovey switched on the lights.
"What do you want?" Mr. Hovey asked.
"Would there be a document containing the signatures of the officers of a company licensed to do business here?"
"Certainly."
"I'm interested in the signatures of the officers of the Star Development Company Incorporated, Mr. Hovey."
He consulted a card catalogue and went quickly to a cabinet at the far end of the room. He returned some ten minutes later, a document in his hand.
"Could you photostat this," Gail then asked, "and sign a slip stating it was photo-stated by you?"
"Certainly."
A half-hour later, in her office, Gail was comparing the photostatic copy of Paul Letti's signature with Bob Stapes's signature on a memo addressed to her.
And so it was, she thought sadly. The bribe had been high-enough.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Gail waited until July first for Bob to refer to her desk the petition of the Star Development Company, Inc. for an access road into the area it wanted to develop. Although she saw Bob almost every day, he never spoke of the petition. Welfare projects seemed to be much in his mind. One afternoon he asked for a detailed list of the services the Welfare Department provided the indigent, unemployed, or ill of the city. Another afternoon he asked if she'd ever made a thorough inspection of the city prisons. Still another afternoon he asked her to do a report on the recreational facilities available and the number of patrons each drew daily. "We can do better for our city," he said ringingly. "I don't want anyone in this administration to think that we've done all that we can do." Bob was quite impressive and convincing in that moment, his hazel eyes alight with a crusader's fervor, his chin thrust forward resolutely. "I hate some of the people around me," he snapped, "who seem to think there are no more improvements to make."
On July first, however, Gail decided that she'd waited long enough to be given the petition to deal with. Aware that what she was about to do was risky, she went over to Bob's office and sat quietly near the desk until he'd finished a telephone call. He gave her the customary smile as he hung up. "Busy, busy, busy," he said. "You?"
"Busy enough. But there's a little Welfare matter I should be looking into, it seems to me, before things go much farther on the north shore of the Tomlinson."
"Welfare? How does Welfare enter into the picture?"
"Technically, Bob, it's the concern of the Health and Welfare Departments to safeguard the city's air from various industrial pollutants. I understand that Mr. Monroe has submitted his building plans for an okay, but they've not reached my desk. And then there's the matter of access to the property. How many persons will he employ; what will the traffic flow be? It's Welfare's concern to make certain that life and limb won't be jeopardized by travel over an inadequate road."
Bob Stapes stopped smiling, "I want to keep you out of any matters related to that area," he said bluntly. "Monroe thinks you're personally opposed to him and his plans. I don't want him charging in the press that we base any of our decisions on emotion. I've referred the pollutant question to Dr. Corby of the Health Department. I've referred the road question to our Public Works Department."
"I see."
Her tone, very quiet, gave him pause. He lolled back in his chair and lit a cigarette. "That letter to the editor of the Torrent," he pointed out, "was a mistake. I've not discussed it with you before, and I'll not censure you because you wrote it. This is a free country, after all. But it has created problems for me."
"Shall I resign?" Gail asked. "I can't be of much use to you if it's necessary for you to bypass my desk whenever there's a possibility I may embarrass you."
"Now stop talking like that!" Bob ordered. "I enjoy having you in this office, and I want to keep you here. It's just that right now we have different opinions on what's best for the city. These things pass. If I'm wrong, I'll admit it. If you're wrong, you'll admit it. We're adults, after all." Bob almost carried it off, but not quite. In his voice was a .suggestion of self-defense, of defiance. He suddenly looked ill at ease in his chair and anxious to terminate the unpleasant discussion. Before he could make the usual excuse that he was very busy, Gail asked: "How come, Bob, we don't ask this development company to do the same thing we insist other developers do: that is, develop an acceptable access road before we permit sales of land in that area?"
His eyes narrowed. "You're developing a bad habit," he said, "of opposing everything Monroe wants just because Monroe is involved. This particular development is unique in city history. It's an industrial complex that's being developed. The ordinary road such as residential developers build wouldn't be satisfactory in an industrial area. To build a proper road will cost at least a million: Well, Monroe's justified in arguing that the payrolls and the taxes will benefit the city and that the city should therefore build the road."
"And Mr. Monroe keeps his six or seven million?"
"Now -- "
"Along with Mr. Paul Letti and Miss Ulricka Wellington, of course. I mustn't forget the other officers of the Star organization."
"Why do you constantly reduce it to individuals? This is a business matter."
"Bob, Mr. Monroe is a promoter. He's here to pocket millions of dollars; not to help the city develop properly. It's our job to insist that the development benefit the city."
"In my opinion, it will. And I'm paid to make these decisions."
"And if I disagree, I must either keep still or resign?"
"Not at all," Bob said testily. "I've never insisted you be a rubber stamp."
"You won't object, then, if I file an injunction to prevent all development and all land sales until the legality of the Council's action is reviewed by a proper authority?"
Bob Stapes went ashen.
"Same thing with the road," Gail said.
Bob said thickly, "I think you'd better get out of here before I lose my temper. You're going too far. It isn't your place to judge the Council's actions. You work for the city. Your job is to implement the Council's decisions."
Because of the things he'd really done for the city, Gail gave him one last chance. "If I resign," she said, "I'll make it my business to investigate every detail of this land grab, Bob. I'll certainly have all the officers of the Star organization on the witness stand, and Mr. Monroe and Mr. Letti and Miss Wellington had better come prepared to answer searching questions."
The silence was long. Bob sat rigidly, his gaze fixed on the view from one of the windows. Watching him, Gail breathed a little prayer that he could still back out of the deal, that the bribe hadn't been enough to justify the ruination of his career, his good name.
Grimly affable suddenly, Bob rose and went to the door of his secretary's office and called, "Let me have a resignation form, please. We're losing Gail Burton. Sorry, but there you are."
"I'll write my own resignation," Gail said, rising.
"And see to it, no doubt, that a copy is sent to the Torrent?"
"No doubt."
"What do you want?"
"Cancellation of the rezoning."
"Impossible. The Star people are already acting on the basis of the new regulations. They'd have a good lawsuit against the city if we rezoned again after they'd spent a lot of money."
"But the owners of the residential property there haven't equally good grounds for a lawsuit?"
Breathing deeply, Bob went to the door. "I didn't request your resignation," he said tautly. "You remember that, please."
Depressed, feeling both sorry for him and angry with him, Gail returned to her office. She gave Ellen the 'bad news, and then she drove home to work on her resignation letter in complete privacy. Hardly had she gotten into the house, though, when Mrs. Wright came over from next door to ask if she were ill or something. A bustling, busy woman in her early forties, Mrs. Wright invited herself to midmorning coffee and gossip out on the front porch. Presently it emerged that Mrs. Wright had had a house guest recently, a young man "in money or something in New York," who'd been quite smitten by the lovely blond woman next door.
"Dear," Mrs. Wright said briskly, "I think it's time that you made a hard decision about Tony Carlton. A fine young man, I'm sure, but obviously not the stuff of which economic titans are made."
"Thank goodness," Gail said sincerely. "Thank goodness!"
"But what's so wrong with money?" Mrs. Wright asked, smiling prettily. "It's so important. It's so expensive these days to raise children. Braces for their teeth, new shoes every time you look at them. And education! I've read somewhere that an education is simply a must these days! How in the world do all these people raise their children on incomes definitely less than fifty thousand a year?"
"It's difficult, I'm sure," Gail teased. "I suppose they just don't go to Paris each year to buy their clothes."
"What do I tell Albert?" Mrs. Wright asked. "I expect him this weekend, and I'm sure he'll want an answer. Men can be so impatient, I find, in their relationships with women. No subtlety, no finesse at all!"
"I've just quit my job, Mrs. Wright."
Down went the coffee cup. Mrs. Wright leaned forward and patted her knee. "A wise decision," she said. "You'll find, I'm sure, that a home and a husband and children and a yearly trip to Paris are best for you in the long run. Politics is so seamy! Someone is always either putting his hand into a moneybag or catching someone else doing it first. Frankly, I believe in no government. All those dreadful letters the income tax people write!"
"You were an excellent politician a couple of year ago, though, when we were all trying to change our system here in Maples."
"My, do you recall Mayor Shattuck's large stomach? It was so obvious that he was feeding at the public trough!"
Gail made a swift decision. "I could use your political aid now, Mrs. Wright. This thing going on over in the Hooker district is a disgrace."
"My, such fun!"
At once, Mrs. Wright went into the living room and sat near the telephone. "We'll want the old crowd," she said gaily. "There's a poetic justice in that -- the old families of Maples mounting the barricades once again to defend the city from the outlanders. Is my husband's newspaper for or against Mr. Stapes?"
Gail chuckled. "Don't you ever read his paper?" she asked.
"Not if I can avoid it. I'll not read any newspaper, dear, that refuses to run that delightful 'Peanuts' comic strip."
"He's very much for Bob Stapes and the north shore project, Mrs. Wright."
Mrs. Wright smiled sunnily. "He was, you mean. Fortunately, he has me to do his thinking for him. My, I was afraid the summer would be so dull."
Mrs. Wright dialed her husband's newspaper office. After a short wait, she said: "Phineas, I've decided not to fly to Italy for the summer. I'd simply not enjoy the quaint charm of Florence if I knew that Maples were going to pot, completely to pot, in my absence. Now, then, the crowd has decided to resist this industrialization project on the north shore. Tell that cute editorial writer with the button nose to write something about our opposition to the project. We're reactivating the Save Maples League to fight this battle to a conclusion."
Sputtering sounds came from the receiver. Mrs. Wright allowed the sounds to sputter on for ten seconds or so without interruption. Then she said: "My womanly intuition tell me I'm right, Phineas. Do be sweet and humor me in this little matter, won't you?"
Well, what could any man in love with his wife say under the circumstances?
She nodded. "That's that," she said. "Now, then, we'll have Cathy Dunstan over, if you don't mind. I'm sure you have excellent reasons for fighting Bob Stapes, but long explanations always confuse me. Cathy's so good at understanding these complicated matters."
"In a nutshell," Gail said, "Bob has his hands in a moneybag."
Mrs. Wright made a squeaking sound. Then softly, with much pity in her voice, she said: "Oh, the poor, silly man."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Within a week, young Cathy Dunstan had ten ladies of the Save Maples League doing picket duty on the sidewalk before City Hall. The Maples Blade, as well as the Maples Torrent, sent a reported and a photographer to the scene and duly reported the event in its Sunday issue. At the same time, Gail had a crew of other young women going from door to door in the northern sector of the Hooker district to invite dissident residents to sign a petition of protest against the Council's summary and illegal rezoning of the area. Through Cathy's father, Gail made contact with the law firm of Carmody, Peabody, and Fulston. The senior partner of the firm received her with paternal gallantry in a paneled office, and he listened and chuckled and nodded and sighed as she outlined the case against the Council's action. Presently he pressed a button. Enter Peabody. "Peabody," Mr. Carmody said, "we'll have a court order, if you don't mind, halting development and sales north of the river. I fancy Leo. Sorry he grew up. Always kept my shoes well shined. Hated to send him to law school. World's full of lawyers, but there are very few good bootblacks. Will you do this, Peabody?"
Mr. Peabody bowed with the stiffness of seventy to eighty, but left rather spryly.
"Promising attorney, Peabody," Mr. Carmody commented. "Very good at this sort of thing. A mite impulsive at times, but he'll settle down."
"Sir, is our position reasonable? I'm asking you as a man, not as a lawyer."
"Quite reasonable, young lady. Apparently the intelligence of our citizens was underrated by Mr. Monroe and company. Happens all the time. These large men of affairs always become careless once they've been able to pile success upon success. We'll handle the arguments if Monroe and company move to have the injunction set aside."
"You're very generous, sir."
"Well, hang it, you're a Burton. And all these other young women -- fine stock, all of them. But there's another reason I'll make this contribution. I'm glad to see, hang it, that young people interest themselves passionately these days in such things as government. Have to encourage the young. I don't think I'll live forever."
Gail thanked him elatedly and hurried back to the headquarters the Save Maples League had established in the rumpus room of the Dunstan home. She made her report to the dozen or so women sitting there, while Cathy labored at the electric stove behind the bar to produce satisfactory blueberry waffles for their lunch. Jane Swinton, who'd had law offices before her marriage and her triplets, was reminded of a story.
"The first case I ever tried," she related, "found me pitted against Mr. Carmody himself. I thought I had an excellent case. Clear infringement of my client's rights, and so forth. Well, Mr. Carmody stood up and excused himself to the jury and came over to me and leaned over and kissed my forehead. Then he turned to the jury and said in that paternal way of his that once upon a time he'd dandled me on his knee, and that he loved me very much and that he hoped a day would come, when I was fifty or so, when all the mysteries and intricacies and beauties of the law would be understood and appreciated by me."
Gail put her hands down and laughed.
"That little show and that little speech," Jane said dolefully, "won the case for Mr. Carmody hands down."
Cathy called: "Come one, come all, to the party! Will paper plates be all right? I abhor washing syrupy dishes."
While they were still eating and Cathy was still making waffles, the telephone rang. Cathy answered it, and passed the handset to Gail. It was Tony. "Hi," Tony said. "Is it good form for a dearly beloved to give her fellow headaches?"
"Have I?"
"I'm afraid so. Someone from the law firm of Carmody, Peabody, and Fulston obtained an order from Judge Genovese that in effect halts all development and all sales over the river."
Gail was astonished. "So quickly? I didn't know that was possible."
"Mr. Monroe would like to talk to you."
"About what, Tony? And may I have friends with me if I let him?"
"Suppose I let you know?"
Gail asked: "Suppose you withdraw from the case?"
"Whoa!" Tony said crisply. "A lawyer doesn't do that."
Gail hung up sadly. She made her new report to the girls. Cathy bragged that they owed this success to the quality of her pickets, and that reminded Cathy that the girls presently doing picket duty at City Hall ought to have been relieved an hour ago. Gail piled into Cathy's Ford excitedly with five other volunteers for picket duty. All keyed up, the girls sang the old fight song they'd used effectively more than two years before in their efforts to topple Mayor Shattuck from the seat of power. Cathy parked very legally in the City Hall district, not taking any chances, and Cathy explained very clearly, if pungently, what pickets could or could not do while they were picketing. After a final pep talk, Cathy drove off with the other crew, presumably to make more blueberry waffles in her rumpus room.
Gail picked up a placard mounted on a pole and went to her station in front of the City Hall steps. This being her first tour of picket duty, she was surprised by the amount of attention her LAND STEAL sign attracted. Several pedestrians stopped to watch her march to and fro, and one of them tried to draw her into a discussion. ,While he was doing that, however, Bob Stapes came down the City Hall steps. He stopped, smiled and shrugged. "Silly tactics," he commented. "They may delay progress, but they won't prevent it."
"It's the principle of the thing," Gail explained. "We didn't knock ourselves out to get you elected, Bob, to see the city sold down the river."
A couple of policemen came along. Bob gestured toward the pickets. "Disorderly conduct," he told the policemen. "If they don't disperse, arrest them."
"On what grounds?" Gail asked, shocked.
"You just made a political speech, Gail. You have a right to picket, but not to make political speeches in front of City Hall."
At once the pedestrian who'd tried to draw her into a discussion came over and said, "I heard you, sis, with my own ears. Boy, did I hear you!"
Somehow Gail kept her temper. She kept on marching to and fro until the policemen, looking abashed, informed all the pickets they were now under arrest. One of the girls compounded their crime by booing Bob Stapes as they were led off to a prowl car. In the car, however, she began to giggle. "To think," she said, "that a Bunker has actually been arrested in Maples!"
In the station house, Gail telephoned the law firm of Carmody, Peabody, and Fulston. Eventually she got through to Mr. Carmody's ear. "Oh, my," he said when she'd told him where she was, "I don't think that was nice of Bob Stapes; I really don't."
Gail returned the telephone to its cradle and smiled at the police sergeant behind the tall desk in the station house. The police sergeant looked his well-dressed, attractive prisoners over and sighed. "If you kids want to wait out in the yard," he said, "it's okay with us. Just don't run away, though, huh?"
The Bunker girl demanded: "Put me in my cell, please."
The sergeant scowled. "Listen," he said, "this isn't a game. If you think this is a game, you're wrong."
"I want to be able to tell my grandchildren that once upon a time I went to prison for -- " for -- " But that was when Tony Carlton stepped in with the manner of a man involved hi a nightmare. "All charges dropped," he told the desk sergeant. "Mr. Stapes made a mistake."
"Then I'll sue him for false arrest," Miss Bunker said crisply.
Tony took Gail by the arm and led her out to the sidewalk. "Time out," he said. "All this is getting out of hand. What's there to picket for? You have the injunction that preserves the status quo while your legal complaints are being investigated."
Gail said disgustedly, "Someone should spank Bob Stapes! Of all the juvenile, malicious trickery!"
Tony grinned, loving the flash of her eyes, the tension of her young body. "Remind me never to resort to trickery of any kind," he said, "during our long years of marriage. You look dangerous."
"That Bunker girl wasn't joking when she said she'd sue Bob for false arrest. We may all be dangerous."
Tony took her to his car and made her get onto the front seat. He drove her across town to one of the neighborhood parks the Stapes administration had created in what had once been a dreary slum area. He parked under a young maple and turned off the car motor. "Is it the road?" he asked. "You seemed able to live with the Council's decision until the road question was raised."
"Well, that was the straw that broke the camel's back," Gail admitted. "Here's a man about to make five or six million profit because somehow he bent the Council to his will. Then he has to nerve to try to compel the city to spend a million dollars to benefit him!"
Tony said quietly, but firmly, "I don't agree with you at all, Gail. If I did, I'd not be representing Monroe. Sure, right now it seems that he and he alone will benefit if the city builds that road. But what you seem to have overlooked is that that land, every inch of it, is of no value at all really unless use is made of it. And use can't be made of it by Mr. Monroe alone. Somebody has to build the buildings; somebody has to equip the buildings; somebody has to operate the machinery that will be installed in those buildings. In short, the development and use of that land will give jobs to perhaps four thousand or five thousand persons."
"Tony, I -- "
"Do you know how much a carpenter earns per hour these days, or a plumber or an electrician or a first-class machinist?"
"The point is -- "
"The point is that they benefit from the building of the road. And here's something else you may have overlooked. Many cities in this country are so anxious to attract industrial firms that they offer all sorts of inducements to firms to locate in them, to grow in them. Some offer tax exemptions for five years. Others offer free land. Almost all cheerfully build roads to the site, if roads are needed."
"But the cities don't abdicate their responsibilities to all who live in them. This isn't a development of the kind you're discussing. It's simply a money-making scheme designed to enrich Monroe and his associates."
"Your proof?"
"Have you ever seen one shred of evidence, Tony, that Mr. Monroe and his associates intend to build a metal fabrication plant in that area? I haven't. What does he intend to use for transportation? The railroad tracks are on this side of the river. Has he done tests of any kind to determine if the subsoil of that area is solid, solid enough to support buildings of great weight, solid enough to withstand the stresses imposed by the vibration and pounding of heavy machinery? My father always said that the land north of the river was good only for residential and farming purposes, because there are many underground springs."
"Why didn't you say all that to the Council?"
"It was in my report, Tony. You saw it. The Council never did see the report."
"Bob -- "
"For reasons best known to himself," Gail said sadly, "Bob buried the report and voted as he did. That's why I've resigned, and that's why I've asked the girls to help me."
Tony frowned. Then Tony Carlton said something that Gail knew she'd remember for as long as she lived. "If you think I should quit Monroe," Tony said. "I will. I won't ever fight you, Gail. Whatever you think is right, I'll do."
"I never did want you to work for him, you know."
Tony nodded. The nod was enough. Deeply stirred, Gail drew his face closer and grinned into his blue eyes and kissed his nose. "Two can starve to death as cheaply as one," she assured him. "Wait and see."
"Does that mean that, well, some day we'll be... "
"Just be patient, darling," she replied. "For the time being, let's just enjoy one another's company."
"Not to mention one another's body," he answered, a lewd smile on his lips and a mischievous gleam in his eyes.
"Oh, "Tony, sometimes I just don't know about you," she said. "Sometimes you act like a little boy."
"Oh, yeah?" he said. "Well, I'll show you a little boy."
Taking her hand, Tony placed it in his crotch. His cock was hard and she gasped at the touch.
"On second thought," she said, kneading his bulge, "I guess I was a little hasty. I don't think I'd find anything half this size on any boy."
"That's what I thought," he replied, a contented look on his face.
And the more Gail played with his prick, the more that look of contentment turned to a contorted grimace of lust. It wasn't long before he could control himself no longer.
"Please, baby," he whispered insistently. "I've just got to have you. You don't mind doing it out here in the woods, do you?"
Gail squeezed. his cock and held on tight. Smiling, she said, "Of course not. Why do you think I came out here in the first place, anyway?"
They both laughed knowingly, and then they started stripping off their clothes. Gail laid the garments in neat little piles when they had gotten completely undressed.
"In case someone comes by, I don't want them to think we're messy."
They both laughed, and then they moved into a tight embrace. Tony drove his tongue into her mouth and she responded by sucking on his tonguetip, drawing him all the way inside her mouth, symbolically promising him that he could do with her what he wished, that he could take himself as deep inside her as he desired when the time was right.
Then Tony broke off the kiss and dragged his tongue down along her neck, around her shoulders and finally into her cleavage. She grabbed the back of his head and ran her fingers through his hair while he sucked on her succulent titflesh.
"There, that's it," she murmured. "Keep doing that. Oh, Tony, I love you so much. I do. I do!"
Her nipples were standing up hard and Tony took his time caressing each one with his tongue and lips. He nibbled and chewed on her brown nipple-flesh while licking all over her smooth breasts. Before long, her chest was covered with a glistening sheen of his saliva.
Thinking for a moment about all the problems she had been having lately, while watching the town slowly change because of Tyler Monroe's influence, Gail thought how wonderful it was to have a man like Tony around to comfort her and love her and satisfy her physical needs. She thrilled to the feel of his tongue on her hot tits, and she knew that she could never let Tony go. No matter what he did, no matter how he was influenced by Monroe, she hoped Tony would somehow remain in her life. And she would try her damnedest to keep him in her life. She felt that was the least she could do for herself.
"Oh, Tony," she whispered, "please, just kiss my pussy a little bit. Just put your tongue inside until I get good and wet. Okay, baby? Please?"
Tony smiled eagerly and then ran his tongue down her belly toward her cunt. He lingered in her navel, enjoying the way she was beginning to squirm beneath him, wiggling her hips and bucking her ass up off the grass. Then he eased his tongue into her pubic bush, savoring the musky flavor while her curly cunt hairs tickled his nose.
But this time her clitoris was erect. The little nubbin had slipped out of its fleshy sheath and it was an easy target. When Tony licked her clit with the tip of his tongue, Gail thrashed around as if she had just been shocked.
"Yes, oh, yes!" she cried, trying to spread her legs as wide as possible to provide Tony with access to every bit of her juicy cunt.
He rooted around in her pussy for a few more minutes. But he was finding it harder and harder to restrain his desire to fuck. So Tony yanked his head out of her cunt and scooted up between her legs.
Wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders, Gail pulled him in close and kissed him deeply, eagerly sucking her juices from his lips and mouth to tell him just how much she enjoyed the way he had eaten her cunt. Then she moved her hips around, allowing him to slip the end of his cock just inside her cunt.
"Yes," she sighed. "Now put it in deep. Ohhh, Tony, that reels so good. Now fuck it in hard! Ohhhhhh!"
Alone in the woods, they thrashed wildly on the ground. The small forest was filled with the sounds of their moaning and slippery fucking. And then their sighs and whispers of completion hung heavy in the fresh air.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Tyler Monroe slumped his big, muscular body in the turquoise armchair on the left-hand side of Gail Burton's fireplace. It was out of character for him to relax in the presence of any woman, particularly when that woman was actively impeding the fruition of a successful business coup. She was a relaxing woman, though. Her face was gentle, her manner serene, her voice soft and musical and soothing. He supposed that she owed her confidence and poise to the fact that she belonged to this place, just as any tree or shrub did. When people put their roots down deep, when they were a part of a place, they were never footloose emotionally in a darkling world.
Tyler knocked ashes from the cigar she'd given him permission to smoke. He sipped the brandy-laced coffee she'd served him. Gazing about the shadowy room, looking at the antique furniture, the paintings, the bric-a-brac, he felt a pang of envy for the lawyer, Carlton. "I almost think," he said, "that I should woo you before it's too late. A man could do worse than marry an attractive woman to whom her home and her city means so much."
"Places don't mean much to you, Mr. Monroe, do they?"
"No. I thought differently once. I felt a nostalgia for my tiny home town in Colorado. After I'd made a bundle, I went there with the intention of building a fine home on Grand Avenue. But when I got there, I understood why I'd left, I discovered. I saw miserable little streets, wretched little homes and shops."
"It's too bad," Gail Burton said. "A person misses a lot, I think, when he can call no place home. And it's too bad for another reason, of course. Because places don't mean much to you, you can't understand why the girls and I are opposing your Tomlinson River development."
Tyler smiled and gestured with his cigar. "I never understand puerile sentiment," he conceded. "But that's neither here nor there. People don't have to understand one another's motivations to arrive at an acceptable compromise. What are you after, you and your group, Miss Burton?"
"A return to the situation that existed, Mr. Monroe, before you perceived a profitable opportunity."
"Of course. And I'd like complete freedom to do as I wish out there. Life being that way, neither of us has a chance to win a complete victory. So compromise is in order."
She surprised him by shaking her golden head slowly but firmly.
"I thought you were a politician," he said. "I think you know that compromise is considered honorable."
"Sir, you came here with a fib and some money to spend and one of the most amoral associates I've met in years. Using the fib, the money, and Miss Wellington very shrewdly, you almost brought the scheme off. But you didn't. Now you want to compromise. But any compromise would leave you victorious, would be profitable to you."
"Not to the city?"
"I'm talking about you, Mr. Letti, and Miss Wellington, sir. How can the city profit when industrial organizations won't ever build there?"
"What do you mean?"
don't think that the subsoil out there would permit development of an industrial complex there."
Tyler nodded appreciatively. His expression thoughtful, he smoked the cigar for a time. Presently he asked, "How would you like to be the new city manager, Miss Burton? I suspect that Bob Stapes will be stepping down for business reasons. You're young, but you have some things going for you. For example, you have practical experience at the decision level of city government. Your name is an asset. With the correct support, you could probably win appointment to the job."
"Tony Carlton and I have decided that two can starve as inexpensively as one, Mr. Monroe. When this thing's settled, we'll be married."
He said scornfully, "Stop making stupid remarks like that, Miss Burton. It isn't cute to talk so gaily of starving to death. Right here in Maples, your dearly beloved city, people go to bed hungry more often than not. It isn't a joking matter."
Stung, Gail said: "But along comes the noble industrialist to offer jobs and thereby prevent people from hungering. An altruistic gentleman, no less!"
Tyler Monroe shifted his big body and said sturdily, "You can't make me feel ashamed of being an industrialist or a profit-maker, Miss Burton. Whatever my faults may be, I don't ride on the shoulders of others. If I take, I give; if I use, I create; if I build for myself, others are built for, too. And you with your quick judgments and condemnations, you do what? All you've done so far in your life, Miss Burton, is accept a cost-free education and a political job that pays a good salary for nonproductive work. All you've ever done is ride on the shoulders of your family and the tax-payers."
Her lips tightened. She drew her feet together, as if getting ready to rise and tell him to leave.
Tyler Monroe said passionately, "You're so wrong about so many thing, Miss Burton, that it's pathetic. Good God, do you take me for a fool? You're wrong about the subsoil conditions over there. Twenty-five feet down you come to good, solid rock capable of supporting buildings ten or twenty stories tall. And you're wrong about my intentions. I intend to build two plants there, not just one. And you're wrong about the so-called profits I'll make. We'll probably realize six million from the land sales over a five-year period. In that same period I'll probably be investing twenty million in the area. Do you honestly believe I'd have come here to handle a real-estate deal? I head a national corporation, Miss Burton; not a two-bit promotion office."
"Then if everything is legitimate, sir, why the bribes or offers of bribes?"
"Simple. They save time, which is equivalent to saving money."
"And to you, the end justifies the means?"
"I'm discussing business, Miss Burton, not phony philosophy. In the business world, we judge on the basis of costs. We use a lot of technical terms, but it all comes down to costs. The use of a bribe at the proper time can work wonders in lowering costs. I'd rather spend a hundred thousand for certain purposes than spend a year trying to achieve those purposes in another way. I can make up the hundred thousand in a month or so, you see."
"And you don't care a fig about the effect of the bribes upon the people who take them?"
"No."
"You're a hard man, Mr. Monroe."
Tyler Monroe stood up. He stubbed the cigar and took a little stroll toward the fireplace and rested an arm along the mantel. "Do you stop," he asked, "or do I close out my operation here? I can close out with a tidy profit. Your injunction came too late to prevent that. But just remember that if I do close out, there'll be no industrial development in Maples for many years to come. I bought my land in good faith. I applied for rezoning in good faith. On the basis of the rezoning, I did other things in good faith. If everything is changed now, you'll wait a long, long time for an industrialist stupid enough to invest his money in a city that changes its mind overnight. And of course I'll keep that land indefinitely."
Her head came up. He could all but hear her mentally accusing him of using blackmail tactics. But he knew, too, the moment that intelligence gained the ascendancy over emotion. Tyler Monroe nodded and swung away from the fireplace. "Yes," he said. "You did forget, Miss Burton, that a man in my position has options. I do have the option of remaining or leaving, you see. But if I leave, what do your hungry, your unemployed and your upcoming young do for jobs?"
Without waiting for her answer, Tyler Monroe left the house and sauntered to his car at the curb. He joined Ulricka Wellington on the front seat and told her to drive him to the chemical plant. In the small office he kept there on the fourth floor, Tyler opened several windows and took off his jacket. He tossed the jacket to the red-head. "Make some coffee," he said grimly, "and then sit down and work the telephone."
"She wouldn't budge?"
"She's thinking."
While she was making the coffee, Tony Carlton knocked on the door and then stepped into the office. The lawyer removed his own jacket and hung it on the costumer. "We get such weather," he said dolefully. "The mountains seem to trap the air, and then the sun seems to go to work on it."
"I told you to meet me here," Tyler said, "because I hate to see a decent guy throw something good down the drain. So far, you've done a good job for me. I shudder to think what would've happened had Miss Burton and her girls actually been locked in prison cells. Okay. I'm not a crook. I'll make a bundle out of my operation here whether I stay or leave. And whether I stay or leave, I'll want a lawyer to look after my local interests. Now who are you, Carlton, to walk out on me?"
The tall fellow with the twinkling blue eyes gave a shrug. "She wants me to quit, you see."
"To please her, you quit?"
"Certainly."
Tyler Monroe was baffled. He tried to comprehend the meaning of it all, but he failed. "Women confuse me," he told the lawyer. "The women I've known seemed to think money fairly important."
Tony Carlton said firmly, "There are ethics here, of course. I won't quit until this particular matter has been settled. In connection with that, I think I have the road problem licked. I've done a lot of research. Maples has built other roads to serve other industrialists. There's ample precedent for the road you've requested."
Ulricka came in with the coffee. She gave the lawyer a warm smile. "I overheard you," she confessed. "Regardless of what Tyler says, you humor your girl. Marriage is a lot more for real than a temporary professional success."
Tyler waved her to a chair. He leaned forward earnestly and said to Tony Carlton: "I want you to write a letter to the Supervisory Council. Inform them that I've decided not to industrialize the area and that I intend to close the chemical plant within six months."
They both started.
Tyler said brusquely, "I'll want a copy of that letter sent to the press, Ulricka. If the press want elaboration, just tell the reporters that I came here in good faith, that I assumed the good faith of Maples, and that when Maples let me down, I decided to locate in an area more appreciative of the benefits that accrue from a large industrial complex."
The telephone rang.
Ulricka Wellington answered. After a moment she said: "What a strange message, Miss Burton. Just a second, please."
Ulricka Wellington said softly to Tyler Monroe: "She asked me to ask you what happens to Paul Letti."
"Nothing."
"I have the distinct impression, Tyler, that something could be worked out if Paul Letti were chopped off."
"Inform Miss Burton," Tyler Monroe said flatly, "that I won't do her hatchet work for her."
For some reason, it pleased Tyler to know that he couldn't be bribed, either.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The unexpected decision of Tyler Monroe to end his development efforts in Maples had a sobering effect upon the young ladies of the Save Maples League. Hitherto cocky, salty-tongued, belligerent, and self-conscious "fighters for the right," such as Cathy Dunstan, were brought up short, suddenly, by the dreadful suspicion that their apparent victory might be somewhat Pyrrhic in its overall effect upon the future of the city. Cathy, sitting in shorts on the lovely lawn before her father's Colonial mansion, expressed her suspicion by saying wistfully, "Wouldn't it have been nice if everyone could've won this ruckus? The older I get, the sorrier I feel for losers."
Gail sipped her lemonade.
"Tart?" Cathy asked.
"It could use more sugar, that's a fact."
"I like sour lemonade. It makes my mouth feel clean and puckery."
* * *
A delivery van rumbled along the broad, tree-lined street. The driver of the van was breaking the law, and Cathy cocked both eyebrows. And then Cathy said, "Ah, who cares if he's using the street instead of the alley? We have a lot of unimportant laws on the books."
"But some good ones," Gail said firmly. "I don't think that all laws should be broken just because a few are silly."
Later, while making a quiet dinner at home, Gail thought about just how many laws she had seen broken lately. All the bribes and the near-bribes. And it almost made her sick. She started wishing that Tyler Monroe had never come to Maples. It was all because of him and his shady dealings that she was out of work. And Tyler had a hand in the life of everyone that was close to her. He had almost won Tony over to his side! And that was the most distressing thought of all for Gail to consider. If she lost Tony, she didn't know what she would do.
The next day the papers all ran stories about Monroe deciding to quit his industrial project. And it wasn't long before the townspeople became irate. Believing the stories they had been told about Monroe's plant pumping the town full of money, they demanded that Monroe change his mind and go through with his plans to build the plant.
Monroe thoroughly enjoyed what he saw happening in the town. That is, until the Save Maples League entered the fray. Mobilizing themselves for maximum effectiveness, the League covered the town, trying to talk to as many people as possible and inform them of the truth about Monroe and the probable harm his plant would cause to Maples.
It wasn't long before the entire town was feverish with excitement. There were long arguments on every street corner. There were impassioned rallies and lectures and panels held nightly in libraries, recreation centers and other meeting places.
And slowly but surely, the League began winning over more and more people. Monroe began getting exceedingly nervous as he watched the ranks of his supporters grow smaller and smaller.
Then something happened that really.. damaged the credibility of Monroe and his forces. Bob Stapes left town. A short time later it was learned that he had fled to South America. Apparently, there were more people who were getting on to Stapes's connections with Monroe. These people had discovered many of the same things about Stapes that Gail had. And she had always been reluctant to reveal what she knew about Bob and his dealings with Monroe because she felt a bit of respect for him nonetheless. After all, he had been the one to give her her big break and help her get the job as his assistant. But now that he had left town suddenly, Gail thought over her feelings about Stapes and came to the conclusion that he was a crook just like Monroe and the rest of his cronies. Gail began to regret the fact that she didn't turn Bob in when she had the chance.
And then something even more startling occurred. Gail, working on her own, going through police files and doing a bit of investigating in the field, gathered enough evidence to convict Monroe of having a hand in the attempted arson. This was all that was needed to convince the townspeople once and for all that Monroe was a man not to be trusted.
Even though Monroe could afford the best lawyers, he lost the trial. Gail and Tony worked closely with the district attorney, putting together a tight case. The expensive lawyers that Monroe had hired made fools of themselves trying to get their client off, and Gail and Tony relished every minute of the courtroom drama.
After Monroe was sentenced, he drew a lengthy jail term and was also ordered to divest part of his business interests. Mrs. Godden won a large amount of cash, but the town of Maples was awarded an even higher sum. The money the town received was more than enough to balance the budget. In fact, even more money was awarded to various projects and institutions than was originally requested. And a large sum was left over, which would draw a hefty interest while sitting in the treasury.
While Monroe stewed in prison and the town of Maples settled down, the office of city manager was left unfilled. After a few strings were pulled -- all of them legal, of course -- Gail Burton ended up with the job. She had the full approval of the city council and the voting public.
When Gail took office, she was tremendously excited. "This is the happiest day of my life," she told Tony while they drove downtown to the city administration building.
"I'm glad for you, honey," he said. "And proud. You can't say that you didn't deserve the manager's job, either."
"Oh, Tony, I can't believe that everything turned out so perfectly. I'm almost afraid that because things worked out so well that something terrible's bound to happen."
Tony smiled at, her and patted her knee. "The only terrible thing already happened -- to Tyler Monroe. For us, things can only get better."
"But how?" Gail asked. "How could things get any better than they are already?"
When they stopped for a traffic light, Tony reached into his pocket and extracted a small box. Gail gasped at the sight of it. Only one thing could be inside, she knew.
"Now this is the happiest day of my life, too," Tony said, taking Gail's hand so he could place the engagement ring on her finger.
They kissed deeply, and as they did so the traffic light changed to green. But they continued kissing. At first the cars behind them honked loudly. But when they drove around the car and saw who was inside -- the two people who had almost single-handedly saved Maples from Tyler Monroe and his plans for industrialization -- the once irate drivers simply waved and smiled.
But Gail and Tony were too involved to notice. And as Gail responded to his demanding kiss, she knew that things could only get better and better -- because of their love.
