Helen MacGruder wanted to be loyal to her big, brawny Scotsman of a husband, but at the same time she just couldn't resist the advances of her suave boss. Doctor Gregory King. King and her husband were bitter enemies, each trying to ruin the reputation of the other. And in the middle of the animosity was Billy, her seventeen-year-old nephew. All might have gone well if Helen hadn't lost her panties on the porch rail that fateful night-or if Billy hadn't shown her how much he wanted her ... and in so many ways.
CHAPTER ONE
The Grantsville office of the Community Awareness Program was indistinguishable from field offices of any of the hundred older programs thrusting their tentacles into cities and towns throughout the land. Its construction had taken a quite satisfying bite out of the first year's program funding, and it was a nugget of opulence, inside and out. The site occupied an entire block on Walnut, where fire had razed the Wentworth Arms Apartments some five years previously, and there was parking space front and rear, with a luxuriant, many-fountained garden at the entrance.
The building housed a splendid gymnasium, several modest cubicles for individual counseling, and a number of chambers that resembled private living rooms, furnished for the sensitivity sessions that were the heart of the program. But the director's office set the overall tone.
On entering the building, one could pass the reception room and go directly to the second door on the right along the quietly lighted corridor. Massive gold letters on the door proclaimed "DIRECTOR", with no further explanation, and the visitor could swing the heavy door inward and step straight into the hub of Community Awareness. His first impression would inevitably be one in which details yielded to total aura; he would be conscious of physical luxury only as a proper setting for the jewel that was the director's private secretary. Only on a later visit or, perhaps, much later in the first one would he recognize the true richness of the deep carpeting and the marvelous luster of the woods that predominated. Sooner or later, he would notice an ample bar in one corner and paneled closets along one wall, bronzed hooks projecting from the doors as if coats might be hung there. And he would discover that the director and his secretary had walnut desks that were matched not only in design and finish but in the fact they were substantially over standard size. Seated in the soft-cushioned, broad-armed visitor's chair at the end of the director's desk, he would undoubtedly conclude the director liked his nap, because there was a backless, leather-covered couch in front of the great window that overlooked the street.
But he probably would see these office furnishings only after he had become accustomed to the secretary's presence; her appearance and gracious welcome had to be digested slowly. Helen MacGruder had three attributes that took the eye. Her hair was thick and dark-a mahogany-toned mass that framed an alert face and lay in heaps on proudly squared shoulders and even strayed forward to furnish an errant strand on the upper slope of one breast. Great brown eyes gazed out from a sensitive, fine-lipped face; they engulfed one with a half-wistful, half-provocative stare, and when Helen's lashes dipped over them one was certain to have visions of a bedroom. If the set of her shoulders was proud, that of her breasts was awe-inspiring. There were days when the material and cut of her blouse revealed the fact she felt particularly daring and had succumbed to the craze of bralessness. More often, lines of a good bra were faintly visible. Regardless, her breasts expressed her self-confidence and feminine aggressiveness clearly in their magnificent dimensions and saucy up-tilt. Well separated, they were near-spherical cones rather than globes, their upper surfaces hardly less convex than the lower. And on the braless days her nipples refused to be cowed by her blouse, establishing their own pockets, in a manner of speaking, in the garment and refusing to be masked.
The director, Doctor Gregory King, was a stocky, silver-haired man. He was handsome to the point of prettiness, uncommonly graceful for a man, and far younger-looking in his features than the color of his hair would indicate. He was as dynamic and forceful as his quick gestures and rapid speech suggested, and he made no secret of his progress through the professional ranks of the civil service. He was outspoken about the potential of Community Awareness and leaped at any opportunity to emphasize the vitality of the Grantsville operation. He let it be known-and was ready to produce figures if questioned-that his office spent unbelievable quantities of the plentiful funding the program provided. And he was a good enough psychologist to know how thoroughly his callers were conditioned toward equating expenditures with vitality.
King displayed an acute consciousness of his own importance and that of his office. He was willing to concede by his manner that he preferred to be surrounded by attractive women, rather than plain drudges, but it took little familiarity with the fast-paced activities around his office to convince the observer that beauty and sexiness had to be backed up by capability. King's women-and he employed no men on his staff, although his greatest love seemed to center on the program for boy s-were intelligent, independent and hard-working. Community Awareness was somehow charged with an unspoken, universal conviction that every woman in the program, whether on the paid staff or a committee appointee, would wind up sleeping with the director, but that certainty had no effect on the way a woman worked. And Helen MacGruder worked hardest of all.
Helen cowered at her desk, typewriter forgotten in the spectacle of a furious Doctor King pacing the office and slamming his fist repeatedly into his-palm. Her tight, knit sheath showed the violence of her breathing, fairly crawling over her while she squirmed.
"How terrible!" she exclaimed. "I ... I didn't know...."
He whirled and glared at her. "Oh, come now! I can hardly believe that."
"I didn't! Jock didn't say a word to me!"
The psychologist snorted. "Not one. Well, your husband came here ... he and Arthur Solick ... like indignant burghers ... self-righteous dolts! 'Save embarrassment if you just resigned, Doctor.' " He roughened his resonant voice in imitation of Jock's weathered tones. " 'No need to splash it all over town, Doctor.' Smug, like a couple of juvenile delinquents who think they've caught the teacher in the cookie jar."
"But what ... why...?"
He paused to study her. "You really don't know!"
"No."
"I ... it's hard to say it right out, but ... well, they accused me of making passes at one of the kids." He resumed his pacing, his agitation rising again. He tossed his silver mane and dry-washed his hands. "Imagine! Me! A man with my credentials, and they come here to accuse me of a thing like that! Why, they even had the gall to threaten me!" He was shouting. "Me! Director of a federal office! As if a couple of laymen like that...!" He sputtered into silence.
"Oh, no!" Helen whispered. Her husband hated the fact she'd taken this job, she knew. He'd distrusted King from the beginning-jealous of the doctor's charm and good looks, she'd been convinced-and now he and Art...."Who?" she asked. "Which kid? And when?"
"Walter Engel, during the children's weekend campout."
Walter. "Pretty" was the only word for describing the child's appearance. He was so pretty Helen had often thought of him as having been born in the wrong century-as an eight-year-old who had gotten born by mistake.
King continued, pounding a fist into his palm. "Damn hysterical kid! Imagination like a girl! No telling what kind of story he made up to cover himself!" He smiled bleakly. "Had to call his mother to come up and get him the second night at camp; too homesick to last it out. And I guess he needed an excuse."
"Oh, no! What a terrible thing! But how did Jock...?"
"I guess Mrs. Engel asked his advice. With Walter's father on that field assignment with Con-Air...." He shook his head. "And Jock and Arthur must have figured it was their chance." There was bitterness in his tone.
But Helen sensed the appeal behind the words. She read the pain in the doctor's eyes and the depth of his loneliness and his tight-reined virility. It was a dangerous moment; the urge to comfort him blended too easily with the other urge she knew she was someday going to yield to, and she had to grip the edge of her desk until her knuckles were white to prevent herself from springing to him. The impulse passed and she trembled at a residual tension that was raw sexual desire.
"I'm so sorry," she mumbled. "Oh, I can't tell you how sorry I am they'd try something like that! I think I'd better go; I've got to talk to Jock."
King made a quick motion of protest, then checked it. "Too late," he said, his voice so low she leaned forward to catch the words. "It's past talking." The anger in his eyes yielded to something Helen couldn't define-a chill, deadly remoteness that made her gasp.
She stumbled to her feet, her gaze fixed on his face, and edged out of the office. This side of Doctor King was new to her, as foreign to his sardonic, "Why don't you take a crack at this swapping thing, Helen? You and your husband ought to be close enough to the Solicks to give it a try," as it was to his courtly greeting each morning.
And on the way home her depression over his transformation deepened. Surely there had to be something more behind that cold ferocity than a hysterical child's accusation-something he feared or resented far more intensely than Jock and Art's concern over the Engel child. She made a determined effort to throw off her premonition. This unpleasantness was simply another piece in a deteriorating situation. King was hardly the central theme; things had merely gotten worse when he'd entered the scene. The single unifying thread seemed to be sex. She loved sex; she insisted to herself-and had always insisted-that her appetite was normal for her generation, a healthy, robust readiness that demanded fulfillment without turning her into a nymphomaniac. True, it had gotten out of proportion lately. After the good, early years of her marriage, something had happened. In the past year, Jock had cooled, and she'd found herself fluctuating between frustration and fierce lust. Between her too-infrequent sex bouts with Jock, she was forever catching herself groaning with desire that some chance posturing of his triggered. Except for the inner humiliation that caused, it was harmless; her increasing consciousness of other men was not.
Art Solick turned her on now. He was as different from Jock as he could be, for being the same height. Deliberate and reserved where Jock was impulsive and outgoing; so slender as to be almost thin, where Jock was built like a line-backer in professional football; craggy-faced, where Jock's squared, Scottish features were solidly regular ... Yet she was repeatedly finding herself flushing at the hard contractions in her belly she felt when Art cocked his head or ran his glance over her. And the irreverent way King had teased her about Art had served only to magnify those reactions.
As for Doctor King, he exerted an attraction for her that she'd already secretly conceded was going to result in her letting him make love to her sooner or later. She'd so thoroughly resigned herself to the fact that she no longer even debated it with herself.
The worst feature of her frustration-fed impulses was the way even Billy, her dead sister's son, made her shake with desire. His young-animal vitality and lithe carriage made her mouth dry and tightened her throat. And she hated her weakness.
As if Jock's apparent growing boredom with sex weren't bad enough, there was that detestable deviant trait of his. She'd reached the point where she was convinced nothing was as desirable as sex-good, wholesome, conventional screwing-and she responded like a rocket to Jock's caresses. But he seemed to be driven by a compulsion toward novelty-toward adding unconventional "goodies" at every step of their love-making-and her indignation at these "abnormal activities" invariably produced hurt feelings and bitterness during their sex play. She was becoming increasingly bitter at Jock's unreasonable habit of charging her with what he called "prudery", and she'd begun to suspect they'd found an issue that was going to wreck their marriage.
She sighed. There were other things, although they all seemed today to be tangled with the sex problem ... Jock's scoffing attitude toward the latest federal program ("Community Awareness," Washington labeled it) ... Doctor Gregory King's appointment to direct the program here in Grantsville ... the doctor's good looks and personal magnetism ... her own defiant insistence on serving as volunteer secretary to the doctor (after all, it was something that could remake society, she'd argued)....
She wheeled her car into the driveway, thankful to have gotten home before Jock, but he drove in before she reached the porch.
And she confronted him at once. "Why, Jock? Will you tell me that? Just why?"
"Why what, for God's sake!"
"You know what! You and Art accusing Doctor King the way you did!"
Jock opened the door without answering. He said nothing until they were inside and had hung their coats in the entry closet. Then he turned to stare down at her. "Time someone did," he said. "Too bad we waited until something like that had to happen."
"Like what? Just what kind of story did the Engel boy make up?"
"Hmph! You don't know? Of course not; King sure wouldn't tell you."
"Well, you didn't either!"
"No. And I'd rather not."
"Jock...."
"Oh, okay. The kid told his mother King played with him at camp ... took him to the dispensary and started playing with him .He...."
"My God, Jock! You believed that kind of thing?"
Jock continued as if she hadn't interrupted. "He said King ... well, exposed himself and tried to get Walter to play with him." He made a wry face. "Said they had two sets of rules, too. Real strict for the girls ... easy for the boys."
"That's insane! Doctor King had counselors up there! He wasn't all alone with the kids! How could you believe that kind of story?"
"Look, I know what kind of counselors he had! They were just love-struck kids. Hell, I watched them in that first sensitivity session! Crawling all over each other! Think they gave a damn what was going on up there? Ten to one, they were out in the woods humping each other every chance they got."
"Omigod, Jock! You must be sick! Really, you're just...."
"Well, I'm not the only one. If the Engel kid took me in, he took Art in, too. Art believed the story, too. Let me tell you, puss; if we hadn't done something about that mess, I think the Engel kid's mother was ready to try something desperate! I think she'd have tried to kill your precious Doctor King."
"So you both believed it!" She ignored his reference to Walter's mother. "You're jealous, both of you! You're still mad because I took that job, and Art's furious about the time Nell puts in on that committee of hers."
Jock's eyebrow rose. "We got something to be jealous about?"
She gasped and stepped back, flushing as she remembered her calm awareness that King would someday make love to her.
Jock grinned humorlessly. "Maybe I ought to be, baby. Eight hours a day in that office with him-evenings when he says they're needed. And Nell spending half her time in conference about a job she could do in an hour a week. Shit!"
She whirled away, raging. "He's a gentleman! A lot of men around here don't even know what a gentleman is! There still are a few, you know!"
"And fakes," he countered. "Ladies' men, we called them in school ... the kind who put on the big act for the broads. Only...." and his eyes narrowed, " ... they moved in faster than anyone else."
"Doctor King's not like that!" She said it stiffly, denying because there was no choice. She couldn't admit the way King undressed her with his eyes or the casual intimacy of his hand when he passed her desk, or the veiled hints she'd managed, so far, to misinterpret. And she certainly couldn't admit her inner reactions to those things or her awareness that there would come a day when all the factors worked together to make her accept King's advance. "And I work there because I believe in Community Awareness."
"I could tell that by the time we got halfway through that first sensitivity seminar!" His voice was heavy with sarcasm. "Not hard to see, when you wouldn't quit."
"Just because you couldn't open up was no reason for me to give up!"
"Open up! Prying and blabbering a lot of sickening stuff about how it was as a kid? Feeling each other up and...!"
"Jock! Please, Jock! I'd rather not discuss it!" She trembled. "Community Awareness is something worthwhile and beautiful. It means something to me now that I'm working in it."
"Oh, shit!" Jock snorted. "Noble cause! What about your nephew, Billy? There was some purpose there!"
Helen winced. There had been purpose in her relationship with Billy. There always would be, although she would never confess its depth to Jock and although full remembrance seldom came to her after all those years.
She, herself, was condemned to be childless through one of those irreversible quirks of nature. Eileen Wendt, her sister, had borne Billy seventeen years ago and hadn't gotten pregnant again, in spite of her frequent admissions that she wanted a large family. Helen's brother-in-law, Frank Wendt, had been an ineffectual bumbler even before his wife's death when Billy was ten, and Helen could still vividly recall his delight in recounting one medical doctor's fallibility.
"Can you imagine?" he'd chortled, telling the story to Eileen and Helen. "Stupid clod tried to tell me it was a condition I had from birth!"
Sterile! Frank sterile and the doctor trying to say it was a congenital condition! Except that Eileen had turned those innocent gray eyes on him and murmured with amusement.
"Everyone's entitled to one mistake, darling. The doctor, too. After all, we had Billy."
"Exactly!" And Frank had slapped his thigh and gone off chuckling to himself over the mysteries of medical ignorance.
When Eileen had discovered she was dying, she'd dragged the subject to the surface. "Don't do anything about it, Helen, and promise you'll never tell anyone...."
"All right. I promise."
"Anyone!"
"I promise!"
And Eileen had confessed Jock was Billy's father. "I'm not really sorry," she'd said in a musing tone. "It was before you married him. Not long before, but...." She'd paused, obviously letting her thoughts linger in that period. "Anyhow, we never made love again after you two did get married. And Jock does love you, not me."
Helen had agreed to mother the boy. She had already loved him as much as a mother could-more, she'd sometimes told herself. And she'd promised Eileen that she and Jock would adopt him if anything happened to Frank. So she'd mothered him and taken pride as he'd matured. And she'd understood why Jock leaned over backward in his reserve, making no advances to Billy and remaining the dignified, distant uncle-by-marriage. She'd grasped at the opportunity Doctor King's arrival had given for masculine guidance for the boy, in view of the way Frank had withdrawn from reality upon Eileen's death. And King had been the only person she'd ever confided in ... the only one who knew Billy's lineage.
"Billy needs a man more than he does me, now," she said to Jock.
"Hell, I know he does! But you've abandoned him, and look at the man who's got him! If King is kinky, Billy's in real trouble!"
"Doctor King's a psychologist. He'll do what's best."
"You know what the psychologist said! Hell, it's bad enough for a kid to have to go to a head-shrinker, but when the guy finds out what Wendt did about Billy...!"
"I still think the shrink was exaggerating. I don't think Billy has any homosexual tendencies."
"Why not? Frank never did pay any attention to him, even when Eileen was alive! Goddamn dreamer! The kid was raised by women-first Eileen, then you! Women were all he knew, and he doesn't even know whether he's a boy or a girl!"
"That's why professional guidance is so important! Doctor King...."
"That sonovabitch is ruining Billy! Turn a kid like that over to a guy who wants to play with little boys and...."
"Jock! Jock MacGruder! That's not true!"
"Damnit, woman, how do you know? It's for damn sure you don't know what's happening to Billy! Hell, he doesn't even date any more!"
"You don't know that!"
"The hell I don't! I've been interested enough to find out-even if you haven't!"
"I'll bet you have!" she blazed, the bitter truth about Jock's responsibility for Billy hovering on her lips. But she choked back the outburst, shaking. "I'll bet you have! Anything for another black mark against Doctor King!"
"Oh, shit. We're not getting anywhere. The fact is, there's something strange about King. He's not all sweetness and light the way you women think. And you're dead wrong if you think Billy's past needing mothering. Hell, you just want to have him out of the way!"
"He doesn't need me now! Not at seventeen!"
"The hell he doesn't! He needs balance! You know what the psychologist said ... that he was on a knife-edge ... that his first real sex experience was going to tilt him one way or the other. And he's got to have exposure to a woman's point of view-got to keep a mother-image alive-if he's ever going to be able to break the ice with a girl." Jock shook his head. "After what happened with the Engel kid it looks like King's just about the worst influence Billy could have right now."
"Jock ... don't, Jock...."
There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of their heavy breathing.
"Forget it," Jock said at last. "I'm hungry. How about eating out for a change?"
They ate at The Aquarium, and the subdued lighting and melodic music gradually drove out Helen's bitterness and brought back a nostalgic mood distilled of recollections of similar scenes from their more romantic nights. Jock appeared to mellow, as well, and when they were once again in their own living room, he put out his hand to stop her. She turned to him, quivering as his fingers played lightly over her hip, and eagerly waited for his kiss.
He pressed his mouth to hers and pulled her against him, his hands restless on her buttocks. There was a faint flavor of wine on his lips and the warm puffs of his breath on her cheek came quickly and unevenly. She felt a surge of delight; he was hungry for her tonight, as she was for him!
She mumbled past the kiss. "Let's go to bed, honey." And her mouth gulped wetly at his.
Jock drew his head back and grinned at her. "Go, baby! I'll lock up!"
She hurried to the bedroom, where she undressed quickly. She held her robe in front of herself when Jock came in, then swung it aside and stared at herself in the dressing mirror after he'd gone into the bathroom. There wasn't anything wrong with that body, she knew. It was a good body for sex and damn few men would have been able to look at it without their mouths watering and their cocks rising. Her breasts still showed no hint of sag, and they were accentuated by her tiny waist. Her hips had the right swell for screwing, and her belly was smooth and flat, disappearing into luxuriant hair that was a shade darker than the thick, brown veil that lay over her shoulders. No apology needed, she felt.
At a sound from the bathroom, she grabbed her nightgown and tugged it on, then slipped into bed tingling with anticipation. Jock came out naked and dropped beside her.
"Honey? The light?"
She subsided at Jock's growl. She had no intention of making an issue of the light tonight, even though she knew Jock had left it on so he could watch what she did later. The worst thing she could do would be to turn their play into a fight.
Jock's hand slid under the covers and cupped over her breast. She squeezed her eyelids tightly closed and drew a deep breath, tingling at the touch. For a moment, Jock was quiet, his fingers massaging the sensitive flesh while her skin prickled and surges of desire raced through her. Hunger that she'd dammed up too long exploded within her, wrenching a whispered moan of pleasure from her and making her twist her hips from side to side. Her husband chuckled at the sound and she felt the hot moisture of his lips on hers. With a greedy gulp she thrust her mouth onto his and clutched him to her, his breath on her cheek sending thrills along her spine. Her fingers buried themselves in his hair, ruffling the thick, red waves, and she pulled one knee up restlessly.
Jock passed his hand over her, its contact amplified by the nylon of her nightgown. His fingers touched naked flesh at the garment's hem and glided slowly up her thigh to her crotch. She writhed happily as he caressed her mound, his hand pressing through the mat of her pubic hair. The covers rolled with her motion until she kicked them off, and she flung herself against Jock's waiting body. She was vaguely aware of the sensation of night air on her thighs and then on her belly, and she squirmed closer to her husband.
CHAPTER TWO
The MacGruder master bedroom opened on the patio through double French doors, thick, flowered drapes ensuring privacy and blocking out the late afternoon sunlight. Tonight, the drapes billowed gently, parting from time to time to let a light summer breeze skip over the tight-clinging bodies on the high-posted bed. Jock's powerful frame dwarfed his wife's body, his flesh taut beneath pale, heavily freckled skin. Helen had turned toward him, one leg thrown over his body, her thigh resting in the hollow of his waist, her nightgown now bunched over the roundness of her hips. Her legs were deeply tanned, but her buttocks were a startling, creamy white where the sun hadn't reached, and her position exposed a strip of luxuriant, dark brown pubic hair that nestled in her crotch like a fur piece. Down the center of the pelt ran a darker slit, and there was a gleam of pink tissue recessed in it as growing excitement swelled her pussy lips. Jock's hand rested on the back of her thigh, his fingers stroking the hair-covered folds and dipping gradually into the cleft. Her brown hair splashed over the pillows and her eyes were still closed as she rolled her head under the pressure of Jock's savage kiss.
Her belly pressed against the bulge of her husband's cockhead, and her breasts flattened on his chest. He fingered her pussy, probing between the lips into the slippery gash while her body jerked and twisted. Her thigh sawed across his side and her buttocks writhed.
Helen muttered through their kiss. "I love you, Jock! God, how I love you!" And she swung her leg off him, rolling onto her back and thrusting her thighs apart.
Jock raised himself on his elbow and eased her nightgown higher, working it over her ribs to the swelling of her breasts. Ignoring her muffled protests, he pushed the rustling material past her nipples and bunched it at her armpits. Pinning her shoulders to the bed, he drew his mouth away from hers and began to touch her nipples with quick, light kisses. His fingers played over her side and onto her belly, and her hips surged as she dug her heels into the sheet.
Closing his lips on one nipple, he began to suck. Helen gasped and held his face between her hands, tilting her head back and opening her eyes to stare at the headboard. Jock's thigh pressed between hers and crushed her pussy lips, and she clamped her legs on it, her hips undulating. Her fingers groped at his temples.
"Oh, Jock, Jock! It's been too long, honey! I don't want to come too soon!"
He tried to work her nightgown over her arms, but she clutched at him, refusing.
"Not that, Jock ... please...."
He wolfed at her breasts, sucking great mouthfuls between his jaws and pulling his head back to stretch them and let them slip out. Her nipples hardened, punctuating the swollen cones and darkening aureolae, and they gleamed wetly with his saliva. Her belly caved inward from her lower ribs, sharply creased at her waist. Her navel danced to the erratic twitching of her abdominal muscles, and her free leg swung restlessly away from Jock's thigh and back to it. Perspiration coated both bodies.
Jock rolled onto her, settling between her tented knees and centering his cockhead among the folds of her pussy. She groaned happily, her hips jerking upward to press her belly against his. She drove herself onto his cock, her cuntmouth stretching over the blunt head and gulping it in, then sliding down his shaft with a rush.
"Yes, yes! Oh, God yes, honey!" she cried out with delight.
Jock nibbled at her neck while he rocked his hips and stroked his cock back and forth in her. She panted, snapping her body to match his rhythm and groping at his back with her hands.
"Tighter, darling! Closer!" She pulled him down to her.
Jock rested on her, his pumping stilled momentarily while his hands slid under her shoulders. Then he rolled abruptly with her, turning onto his back with her astride his hips. He drove his buttocks clear of the sheet, slamming his cock deeper into her and bouncing her on it.
"No! Damn it, Jock, no!" Helen struggled.
With a disgusted growl, Jock rolled back into the conventional position she demanded, his hips thrusting steadily in the saddle of her thighs. But the spark of enthusiasm appeared to have vanished from both bodies. Jock extended his legs, resting his weight on Helen's mound, and she started when the bristles of his pubic hair dug into her delicate tissues and the base of his cock crushed her clitoris. Her troubled expression cleared and she pursed her lips with eagerness.
"Better!" she whispered. "Oh, yes, honey! Mmmm!"
Jock shook his head impatiently. His elbows pressed sharply into the mattress and he held her upper arms with his broad hands. His knees parted and dug into the sheet, forcing her thighs apart, and he drove against her pussy with wet-sounding impacts. Slowly, he maneuvered her body, turning her on the bed until they lay across it.
She drew her knees up to keep her feet on the mattress, scowling through her excitement. Pulling her with him, Jock worked himself backward until his wife's hips rested at the edge of the bed and her legs were unsupported. Her feet dropped to the floor, her back arching and her belly straining upward beneath his.
"Not like this, Jock! Jock!" But her protest died and she thrashed against him as he lunged fiercely on her. , He crouched between her thighs, his knees braced against the side rail of the bed, and bucked at her. She gripped his forearms and clenched her teeth. Her dark pubic hair and his red thatch intermeshed as his thick shaft pumped in the glistening tissues of her pussy. Her breasts surged back and forth, her nipples bobbing with their motion. She tensed and cried out, her belly making rippling movements as her response intensified.
"Jock! ... Honey! ... Ohhh! ... Mmmm!"
Sweat rolled off his face to splash on her and he grunted. "Stay with it, baby! Stay with it!" His hands closed on her hips, fingertips digging into the smooth, firm flesh.
"Oh, God, hon! I'm going to come! I'm going to ... Ahhh! ... There it is! ... now! ... hard!"
He crashed against her as her vagina hardened in powerful contractions. His pelvic arch ground on her clitoris and his cock dug deep into her. With a flurry of hard winks of his buttocks, he stopped pumping and strained inward.
"Ohhh!" she exclaimed. "Hot! It's hot, honey!"
"Unh! ... Unnnh!" Jock bent forward and shoved his legs away from the bed.
Helen shook with a new wave of spasms, moaning deeply and lifting her feet from the floor. And as her orgasm spent itself, she sagged beneath Jock and closed her eyes. Jock groaned softly, his weight settling on Helen, and brushed her cheek with his lips.
"Get me back on the bed," she muttered. "On the bed." She pushed at the mattress with her hands and pulled her thighs as close together as Jock's legs would permit.
Jock seized her wrists and moved them, pinning them against her shoulders. She panted and glared at him.
"Damn it, Jock! Don't humiliate me!"
Perspiration dripped from his chin while he stared down at her. "Baby, if you could see yourself this way...." He paused. "Christ, you look sexy like this!"
She twisted in his grasp, puzzled at the fact his cock hadn't softened. "Jock! Didn't you come? I was sure you had!"
He grinned. "Yeah! But there's more!"
She gasped as a thrill of new excitement shook her. There had been a time, she recalled, when Jock had said something about that ... about some way a man could cut off his orgasm in order to reserve something for a quick repeat. It hadn't mattered much; it hadn't been much after that when they'd tapered off, and she could hardly have expected him to worry about perfecting his ability to hold out for double climaxes.
He swung one leg outside hers then the other, without losing his penetration. She clamped her knees together and felt the heat and thickness of his cock between the tops of her thighs. His weight pressed her buttocks into the edge of the bed and he released her wrists, as if confident she couldn't squirm away. Calmly, his hips undulating in a slow rhythm, he began to caress her with his hands. She grabbed at his forearm to stop him, but as his fingers trailed across her taut, distended belly a gust of exhilaration swept over her. For a moment, she was paralyzed; her fists doubled and pressed against his arms and her feet rose from the floor, her knees straightening. Her back arched more deeply and she tilted her head back. Then, reveling in her sensations, she extended her arms beyond her head and surrendered to her body's clamor. Her hips were immobilized, but she used them as a pivot, twisting her torso, thrusting her belly up and letting herself fall back, and jerking her shoulders from side to side.
Jock's fingers played lightly and rapidly over her. He rolled her nipples and twisted them gently. He kneaded her breasts with a deep massage that made them ache with pleasure. He stroked her belly in great, swift circles and seized her waist, his fingers digging deeply into the gap between her hip bones and the backs of her ribs while his thumbs depressed her abdominal muscles and manipulated her internal organs. She had the crazy illusion he was massaging his cockhead through her tissues. She cried out with delight, startled at the deep vibrancy of her own voice, and kicked her feet up and down.
She was conscious of the hungry way Jock continued to stare at her outstretched form, but her excitement had reached such a pitch she forgot convention and gloried in his attention. She started experimenting with ways of stimulating his interest, deliberately twitching her breasts so they surged violently over her chest and making her belly writhe wildly. Jock was staring wide-eyed, his gaze leaping from her breasts to her belly and down to the dark mat where his cock disappeared, then back to her eyes. He breathed rapidly, and his entire body trembled. His cock had regained its full length and stiffness and the slow undulations of his hips now changed to savage lunges, driving his great shaft back and forth in her and pounding her pussy. His thighs clamped 'tightly on hers and his weight still bore down on her. There was no sideward freedom of motion for her own hips, but she found there was enough give to the mattress to permit her a significant amount of vertical pumping, and by lashing with the small of her back she thrust herself to meet his strokes.
He acted as if her reactions had hypnotized him. One hand now rested on one of her breasts and the other thumbed at her clitoris. Impulses from the tiny organ stabbed into her to arouse uncontrollable spasms, and she again found herself grabbing at his arm. At the last moment, she realized what she was doing, and she jerked her hands away and thrust them into the space beneath the small of her back. Knotting her fists, she drove them against her flesh, grinding her knuckles into the jerking muscles.
A second orgasm rushed over her. In the headlong acceleration of her responses, the warning spasm in her belly seemed but another in a train of heightened sensations and the paralysis that accompanied the first convulsion of her vagina caught her by surprise. The muscles along her back jerked rigid, pulling her shoulders toward her buttocks and flinging her waist high into the air. Her legs extended, ankles grinding at each other and heels inches off the floor, and contractile waves swept inward along her vaginal walls to milk Jock's heavy shaft. She yelled, hearing herself but failing to recognize it as her voice. Only her head moved, swinging from side to side with the frenzy of her enjoyment.
Throughout her spasms, Jock continued to stroke his cock in her. His lunges were long and powerful, his cock dragging out until only the head remained buried, then plunging inward until the bones of his pelvis slammed against hers. And when her rigidity melted and she sagged back to the bed, he jammed his hands under her buttocks and jerked her hips up, straightening his knees and holding her in the air while his cock smashed into her. She flopped helplessly, her arms and legs limp and swinging without restraint, only her pussy fixed in space while his merciless shaft sawed in and out. Every stroke drove her breath from her lungs, the escaping air coming out in an involuntary grunt, and every withdrawal dragged fresh air into her. Sweat streamed from him, dripping on her in pools and running off her sides in rivulets.
At last he emitted an agonized groan and clutched her to him, bending so their pubic hair tangled and their bellies met. His lunges turned to hard, short jerks and she felt his balls bouncing on her thighs. His cock pulsed fiercely as a new knot of heat gathered at the inner end of her vaginal passage, and she heard his teeth grind together.
Helen stared at his face with terror. He looked like a madman, totally immersed in the fury of his orgasm and oblivious to his surroundings. She thrilled to the intensity of his absorption and realized she'd experienced nothing like this with him before. But as his cock stopped jerking and the brutal grip of his fingers eased on her buttocks, his eyes lost their glazed appearance and he looked down at her. She resented the gleam of pleasure in his expression and hated herself for having forgotten herself so thoroughly. She had loved every minute of their savage love-making; the physical sensations had burst upon her in a chaos that rivaled her wildest fantasies. But she had betrayed her sense of propriety, and she was as angry with Jock for having overcome her reserve as she was at herself for letting him.
As if he'd drained the last of his. strength, Jock collapsed on her. He panted, great, hot gusts of air blasting her neck while his body heaved against hers. Their sweat pooled between them and trickled out to the sides. His body hair pricked her skin, the tiny wounds inflamed by salt. And suddenly the smarting of her belly became her entire world.
"Get off me!" she blazed, thrusting at him with her hands.
"Huh? What the hell?"
"Get off! Goddamn it, get off!"
"Helen, honey!"
"Am I a tramp? Put me back on the bed and get off!"
With a snort, Jock wrenched his cock free and seized her hips. He swung her around, dumping her on the mattress.
"There, goddamn it! Feel more like a lady now?"
"Jock!"
"Well, shit! Always like this! Maybe you ought to write a goddamn book on screwing etiquette!"
"Good heavens, Jock!" She was rigid, fists pressed to her sides. "God!"
"Oh, shit, Helen! The way you act, it's a crime for a guy to do anything but rock in the saddle! What the hell!"
"Really! What's wrong with you, Jock? Maybe you ought to talk to a psychologist or something!"
He drew himself erect. "Something like that idiot King?"
There was a long silence. Helen's face contorted with rage, but she appeared to be struggling for self-control, and her features gradually smoothed. "I didn't mean Doctor King," she said at last, her voice trembling. "But maybe Doctor Wendt?"
Jock towered over the bed, panting with anger. "Head-shrinkers! Act like you've got a thing for them! Ever occur to you maybe you ought to see one instead of me?"
Helen hesitated again, obviously intent on avoiding another fight. When she spoke, it was to change the subject. "About Doctor King ... you and Art asked him to resign because of Walter Engel?"
"We went over that this afternoon!"
"I know. But was that all?"
"Why?" Jock looked wary.
"I don't know. Something about the way he acted, I got the feeling there might have been things said besides...."
"Crap!" He shrugged. "People get mad, no telling what they're going to say. One thing leads to another."
She stiffened. "Jock? Like what? What else did you say?"
"Oh, hell! How am I supposed to remember? Could have said a lot! Like wondering what else he might be capable of if he'd bother an eight-year-old, maybe."
"Just whatever came into your mind, you mean?" Helen stared at her husband. "And I suppose the first thing that would pop out would be how he was running the program."
Jock appeared to squirm. "Well, might have been like that. With Grantsville as loaded with federal offices as it is, an auditor's most likely to think along those lines."
"Any reason to believe Doctor King's not doing what he's supposed to?" she asked quietly, a note of concern in her voice.
"Naw. Haven't put any special effort on his reports when they came through, but they seem in order." He grinned. "It's a pretty safe bet, though. There's skullduggery in just about any program if you look hard for it."
"You wouldn't, Jock. Not because of a personality clash."
"Wouldn't look?"
"You know what I mean. On a new program, you could make any director look dishonest if you wanted to."
He laughed. "A frame? Okay. No, I'm not about to do that. I'm not going to look the other way, though."
"Jock, he could get you in a lot of trouble. Like reporting you were harassing him out of spite."
"Come on, sweetie! Why all the drama? Hell, I've been an auditor too long to get my tit in the wringer that way!"
"But he could, couldn't he."
"Well, sure. If he wanted to. But he's no amateur, either. That business about the Engel kid didn't even faze him."
Helen shook her head slowly. "Something fazed him. Just be careful, Jock."
"I don't know what you're talking about. Careful?" He slipped into the burr he affected when puzzled or trying to mask his thoughts. "There's nothing to worry about; no connection between that man and me except the formality of the audit."
Helen subsided and Jock went into the bathroom. Afterward, she fell asleep quickly, noting as her drowsiness overtook her that they'd made love with the French doors open ... and it was Jock's job to see they were closed for that.
The following day was Friday, and Helen had the office to herself; Friday was King's day for committee meetings and conferences with individual chairmen. She saw him only at lunch time, when he and Nell Solick, who'd somehow politicked her way into the chairmanship of the sensitivity seminars scheduling committee, came by the office so he could check his mail. Nell paused beside Helen's desk briefly and Helen observed that her friend looked more like she was ready for a romantic tryst than an executive conference. But the fact failed to surprise her. She knew Nell was attracted to the doctor the same way she was, and with Nell's earthy directness, she suspected Art's wife would find herself being laid by King far sooner than she, herself. And she attributed the speculative way Nell studied her to similar thoughts in the other's mind.
The afternoon seemed terribly long to Helen, but it finally ended, and she locked the doors and left the office without King's having reappeared.
She stopped at the shopping center for steaks on the way home and saw Billy as she was on her way back to the car.
"Billy! Billy Wendt! I was wondering if you and your dad were out of town!"
Billy stopped, turned slowly, then approached her. The springiness she'd admired so in his walk was missing, and he appeared hesitant. "Hi, Aunt Helen. Guess you've been too busy to notice me."
"That's an awful thing to say!"
The boy flushed and fidgeted. "I'm sorry. I just meant ... well...." He shrugged and straightened a trifle, the long, gleaming blond hair that rested on his shoulders stirring with his movement. "It's just hard growing up, I guess. I've wasted an awful lot of Doctor King's time while I tried."
"Wasted? He'd never call it that, Billy."
"I know. Not him. He's been trying to make me see a guy's got to break away from the apron strings. Says women have one kind of strength and men another; a guy spends a lot of time around a woman, it drains him."
"Uh ... I guess so...." Helen felt lost, as if Billy were trying to tell her something beyond what his words said. "I've missed you, anyway." And on impulse, "Do come to the house, son. It isn't right to cut yourself off from women altogether, and an aunt ought to have some kind of privileges."
Billy grinned doubtfully down at her and nodded. "Okay, Aunt Helen. Thanks."
"Trouble with kids," she remarked to herself as she eased her car out of the parking lot, "is they don't know how to say what they mean. Greg surely hasn't been telling Billy he's got to stay away from all women ... or all the time!" She scowled at a piggish-looking driver who cut her out in a Cadillac. "But Jock did say Billy wasn't dating any more." She mused at how wistful Billy had looked as he talked with her, then accused herself of imagining things. "You just tried to read that in," she told herself severely. "Truth is, you still can't look at him without getting hot-pants for him. Disgusting!" She shivered. "Young and healthy and big ... oooh!"
After dinner she found herself worrying about Billy again. She excused herself on grounds he'd so often helped her with the dishes before Doctor King had come. And she forced her mind off him. Outside, the world looked soft and happy in the twilight. Jock hand-watered the lawn and birds twittered sleepily. Helen heard the brisk click of high heels coming along the sidewalk.
Jock called out with a note of pleasure. "Nell! Give the old man the slip tonight?"
Helen heard Nell's throaty chuckle, and her friend stopped in front of the hedge.
"Just taking the air," Nell said lightly. "Art wanted to work on that model sailboat of his."
"Damn fool to let a sexpot like you run loose this time of day." Jock laughed intimately.
"Oh, Jock! Tease! How's Helen?"
"Compared to what?" Jock's voice had an edge. "Getting so the only time I get a piece is on a national holiday!"
"Oh, I can't believe that!"
"No? Nell, when Helen and I got married, you said she'd get over that prudishness. Said it was just a hangover from growing up in a fundamentalist home with evangelists boarding there every time one came through town. Well, I tell you it's gotten worse instead of better! It's like it was some kind of sacrament!"
Nell said something Helen couldn't hear, then her laughter tinkled. " ... too tied to convention," she said, her voice rising slightly. "Do her good to shack up with someone she isn't married to. Give her an idea it's a game, rather than some kind of by-the-numbers ritual."
Jock growled. "Like hell! If I didn't know her better I'd think King was trying that! Anyhow, I'm not that goddamn broadminded!"
"Even if it were a real close friend? Like if you and Art sort of traded off for a change?"
"Huh?" Jock's startled voice trailed off and there was a prolonged silence. Then, "You mean that, Nell? You and me?"
"While Art tried to show Helen sex was something fun," Nell said as a reminder.
"You do mean it! Sonofabitch! Nell, there's nothing I'd rather do!" His voice fell. "Shit, no use talking about it. Not when it's Helen. You know her."
"Maybe. Might be worth exploring."
Jock glanced toward the kitchen window and Helen ducked. She shook herself at the guilt she felt over eavesdropping. It was clearly too dark inside for Jock to see her, and she leaned against the edge of the sink, its wetness soaking unnoticed through her skirt while she listened.
"That might be worth exploring." Jock repeated Nell's remark thoughtfully. "Now, how would you be tacklin' her majesty with it?"
Nell tugged at her lower lip. With another uneasy glance at the house, Jock said something too low for Helen to hear and moved along the hedge, Nell following on the other side. They stopped at the end of the yard and talked in low, animated tones, but none of the words came through to Helen.
"You son of a bitch!" she said quietly, glaring at her husband's back. "You lecherous bastard! So it's worth anything to get a piece from Nell! And I felt guilty because Art turned me on!" She snatched a plate from the ledge and flung it across the room. "Just you wait! I'll fix you!" And she was cleaning up the shards when Jock came in.
"Hey, Art and Nell are coming by later tonight!" he said.
"Tonight! Good God! I've got to get into something presentable!" She rushed from the room, leaving Jock to stare after her, his mouth gaping. "Be out soon," she called over her shoulder.
She stripped and grinned into the mirror. So often she'd stood before it during the past two years. Alone in the house, frustration making her head swim, she'd gazed at the reflection of her naked body and cupped her hands under those beautiful breasts and pushed them up until her nipples had pointed at the ceiling. And she'd run her fingers through the dark pelt at her crotch, rubbing herself while her eyes had darkened and her lips had pouted and her knees had strained apart. She'd done all that, imagining herself being caressed by first one, then another of the men she and Jock knew.
That had been her private "thing"; tonight was going to be different. Let either Jock or Nell show any sign of trying to introduce the subject of swapping and she'd crawl all over Art. She'd convince Jock she'd been dying for the opportunity! In spite of her resurgent anger, the thought made her shake with excitement. She did turn on for Art; with his slow, gentle ways, he was the most exciting man she knew apart from Jock. If they did force her into taking revenge, there wasn't going to be that much sacrifice. And it wasn't going to be like putting out for someone who was a stranger; she'd known Art-and Nell, of course-as long as she had Jock.
She put on her best bra, lace-edged peek-a-boo, settling the cups lovingly onto her breasts, and semi-transparent panties and a full swing skirt. And she chose a blouse that crossed between her breasts but fastened only at the waist, then slipped her feet into sandals, deciding against hose.
CHAPTER THREE
Jock whistled when Helen came into the living room. "Damn, you're a sexy-looking lass!"
Even as he admired her, the doorbell rang. He crossed the room toward it.
"Why not?" she demanded, whirling on her toes so her skirt stood out in a circle to expose slender legs and sheer panties.
"Jesus! Cut that out!" He paused, his hand on the doorknob, opening the door only after her skirt had settled into place.
Helen greeted Nell and Art with malicious glee, aware of the worried glances Jock continued to cast at her. She stayed on her feet, making coffee and setting out plates of cookies and taking care to maintain a seductive sway in all her movements. But she finally joined the others, tuning the stereo to Visions in the Clouds and twisting to the sentimental strains as she crossed to the couch.
"Mind?" she asked Art, snuggling beside him.
"Hell, no!" He put his arm around her and squeezed, making a light-hearted display of his affection.
Nell chuckled. "Anyone looking in from outside would think this was one of those swap parties!" She got up and went to where Jock slouched in his easy chair, dropping onto his lap and running her hand through his hair before swooping for a quick kiss.
"They'd have to have X-ray eyes to see through the drapes," observed Helen. "Besides, Art's been neglecting me." She pulled free from him and got up to turn the lights to their lowest glow, then curled up beside him again.
He took her in his arms. "I wouldn't neglect you! What gave you that idea?"
She snuggled. "A woman knows. She just knows."
"Hey, this is better than the New Year's party!" Nell sighed happily. "All of a sudden I feel like I love everybody!" She kissed Jock lightly again, then abruptly crushed her mouth to his, straining at him with eager sounds in her throat.
Helen watched the two, painfully aware of Jock's hungry response. Her determination to punish him rushed over her with new force, and she squirmed against Art. "If they're going to do that...." She let the suggestion hang.
Art twisted, pushing her into the back cushion of the couch and placing his lips gently on hers. She let the musky scent of his shaving lotion fill her nostrils and thrilled to the restrained hunger in his kiss, her lips working slowly under his. A moment came when the tender kiss turned savage, her lips crushed against her teeth and his feeling hotly wet. She gulped, parting her lips to match the gap between his, shuddering with desire when his tongue played along her questing mouth and twisting as his fingers kneaded the flesh at her back. Her breasts rested against him, flattened and hot, and she whimpered when he turned her.
But after a brief struggle, she yielded, lying in his arms and staring up into his gentle face. Panting lightly, she let her arms fall into his lap, her breasts thrusting upward against her blouse and her shoulders drawn sharply back. Art's lips quivered into a faint smile as he eyed her jutting breasts, and the tip of his tongue appeared for a moment.
Giddy with the enormity of what she was doing, Helen whispered, "Look good, darling?"
"Huh?" His face reddened and he jerked his glance from her breasts to her eyes.
"Do they look good to you? Am I making them stand up enough?"
"My God, Helen!" His voice was low.
"You're shocked."
"I ... you...." His agitation began to fade and he grinned as if he'd recovered. "You talking about boobs, woman?"
"Yes."
He rolled her toward him, turning her back to the room, and cupped his hand over one breast. Squeezing gently, he continued to stare into her eyes. She bit her lip as hot excitement surged through her. Her arm jerked up, and she laid her hand over his, pressing his fingers tightly against the soft flesh.
"Remember when you were dating, Art?" she asked with a tremor in her voice.
Art nodded and smiled. "Yeah ... vaguely."
"Necking was like this. Remember?"
"Sometimes." He squeezed in a slow rhythm, bending to nip gently at her earlobe.
She jerked violently, his breath in her ear shooting a tingle down her spine. And her hand left his arm and slipped over his shoulder. Clinging to him, she pulled herself closer and pressed her cheek to his chest.
"Oh, Art!" she whispered.
His fingers moved and she felt them at the inner edge of her bra cup. They forced their way under the lace, depressing her breast to make room, and closed over naked flesh. Two fingers bracketed her nipple, and she felt the rubbery lump rolled between them, powerful jolts of pleasure wrenching low moans of delight from her throat.
"Oh dear! Oh, God, Art!"
His face touched hers, rolling her head back until their mouths met, and she let him force her backward while she stabbed at his kiss with her tongue. There was a continuing, rapid kneading at her breast, and she twisted her shoulders restlessly, tugging at the back of Art's head with her hands.
She knew abruptly that she loved him ... that she always had. Right now, she was doing what she wanted to; she was responding to a longing that had nothing to do with resentment toward Jock. It was enough to feel the heat of Art's hand against the moisture that coated her perspiring breast and to savor the pressure of his lips. The contrast between the delicate precision of his touch and the rough groping she would have felt if it had been Jock merely intensified her excitement by letting her mind play with the idea of her wickedness.
Art met her tongue with his. Warm and flat-tasting and thick, his tongue pressed slowly past her teeth and over her own retreating tongue to the back of her mouth. She swallowed quickly and sucked. It was like a cock, she decided. It was the oral equivalent of having his cock in her pussy, and she sucked furiously, waves of hard need rocking her while her tongue scrubbed at his.
Her foot pushed at the cushion and her knee rose and fell. There was a sensation of cool air high on her thigh, and she thought briefly of the possibility her skirt had risen with her twisting, but there was too much happening at her breast and in her mouth for her to care.
Art withdrew his hand from her bra cup and she protested with a wordless moan. She felt him touch her thigh, flesh against flesh, and his fingers slipped over tingling skin to the crotch of her panties. Her buttocks snapped together as she rolled toward him to hide his hand's intrusion. The silky material of her panties bunched ahead of his insistent fumbling and she felt tufts of pubic hair pulling sharply in the outer slopes of her pussy lips. His fingertips probed into her slit, moving quickly when they encountered her wetness and plunging directly to the rim of her cunt. A hard buzzing sensation stabbed at the small of her back, centering on each side of her spine, and her hips jerked. She flung her knee up as Art slid a finger into her vagina, but in a moment of self-awareness she realized the movement had exposed her entire thigh and her buttocks. Convulsively, she clamped down with her leg, grinding her pussy on Art's hand. She reached down to cover herself with her skirt, forgetting her purpose and grabbing Art's wrist to push his hand harder into her crotch.
At last she tore her mouth away from his kiss. "Oh God, darling! Oh, dear God!" Her head reeling, she made another effort and succeeded in pulling her skirt over her leg.
At a groan from Nell, Art pulled his hand away from Helen's crotch and let her roll away. Nell was pushing herself to her feet, her dress rumpled and her eyes wild. Poised on the balls of her feet, she stared at Jock as if undecided whether to throw herself back onto him or to run. She whirled to gaze at Helen.
"It's the damn lighting and the music," she mumbled. "That's what it is. But why not?" She jerked herself erect. "Ever feel just plain reckless, Helen?"
"I feel like I'm being reckless right now," Helen murmured.
"I mean, real reckless!" Nell fidgeted.
Helen suppressed a vindictive smile. "I think it's real reckless to neck with someone else's husband this way!"
"It ... it could be more...."
"That's why it's reckless!" Helen felt a thrill of triumph at being able to bait her friend.
"Just for kicks, why not try a little more once?" Nell's voice was low and even. She sounded more herself-earthy and composed and (as Jock had put it once) ready to spit in the Devil's eye.
Helen braced herself inwardly, ready to stab Jock with the first knife of her vengeance. I'll fix him! she thought once more. "Why not?" she asked. "That's what I've been waiting for. Only Art's such a gentleman!" She felt him stiffen under her and looked at his face.
He stared, lips parted. "What?" he demanded.
Touching his chin with her fingertip, she smiled sweetly. "Darling!" she crooned. "You were being so careful not to start anything! And I was trying so awfully hard!"
Behind her she heard Nell's gasp and Jock's startled, "What the hell!" And Art's arm tightened around her.
"You mean that?" asked Art, his voice barely audible.
She whispered, "Do I say things I don't mean?"
"Oh, shit!" he groaned. "I gotta have air! Come on!" At close range in the subdued light, the craggy planes and angles of his face gave him the appearance of a rough-hewn sculpture. His lips appeared to have been blocked in, and the chisel appeared to have been struck by accident at the side of his great nose, producing one more angle than it should have.
Helen fingered the bony lump at the side of Art's jaw-a relic of Viet Nam and a damn jeep with a broken axle, he'd muttered more than once-and touched his lips again with her own. "Okay," she murmured past his mouth without breaking the contact. "Okay, love. Let's get some air."
She sat up and swung herself around. Art stood and helped her to her feet and she avoided looking at Jock, suddenly doubting her ability to go through with her revenge.
"We're going out to the porch," Art announced. "It's close in here.""
His wife giggled. "I'll bet you get closer out there than you did in here!"
On the edge of her field of vision, Helen saw Jock get to his feet. She felt a surge of hope he was going to put a stop to the insane rush of events, but he merely took Nell's hand.
"Come on!" she whispered fiercely to Art. She caught his hand and tugged.
He went to the door with her and opened it. Outside the night was like a wall of darkness. When Art closed the door the night closed around them. Before Helen's eyes adjusted, there were only the summer sounds to cling to. Crickets shrilled somewhere to her right and a dog barked down the street. The noises of a TV gun battle drifted to her from someone's open window and from further along the block came the fretful cry of a baby.
Slowly, objects took shape in the gloom. She could see the porch rail and the columns and the shapeless bulk of the porch swing. And to her left the blackness took the form of great, screening lilac bushes that encircled that end of the porch.
Art urged her toward them, and she followed him with dragging steps into their dense shadow. He stopped and turned to take her in his arms, and she let her hands creep around his neck.
"Know how long I've wanted to hold you like this?" he asked.
She leaned back in his arms and tried to pierce the darkness to see his face. "How long?"
"Right from the first," he growled. "When we first met you and Jock, you reminded me of a girl I went with before Viet Nam. Funny, I never did get over that one ... met her husband once after I got back, but I always did feel sort of empty when I thought about her. And there was something about you made me think of her."
"That's not awfully flattering ... knowing you wanted to do this because I reminded you of someone else."
He laughed. "That was at first. I mean, you still remind me of her, but that's not why I want to hold you like this now."
"Why, then?" She was keenly aware of the way he held her so her belly pressed against his groin, and she felt a stirring and knew he was getting a hard-on.
"Just because you were you, after I knew you." He let one hand slip from the small of her back to her buttocks and squeezed.
Panic welled in her. "Kiss me!" she demanded quickly. "Kiss me, Art!" And she added to herself, Before I lose my nerve!
His face came down over hers and his mouth found the corner of her mouth. She twisted her head to meet his kiss squarely, her lips writhing with sudden heat and a finger of desire tracing a fiery path down the surface of her belly to her crotch. She surged against him, feeling an abrupt hardening of the cock trapped between them and letting her breasts flatten against him. He massaged her bottom, and she squirmed, rising to her toes and clinging to him.
He backed slowly to the rail at the end of the porch and eased himself onto it, his knees parting so he could hold her between his thighs, her knees touching the uprights of the railing and her body tightly pressed to his. He turned her gently, letting her bottom rest against one of his hard thighs, and bent her backward with the strength of his kiss. His arm supported her upper torso and his other hand rested lightly on her hip, his fingers playing slowly over the trembling curves and onto her thigh.
The lilac bushes formed a natural bower for the engrossed couple, pocketing behind Art but thrusting over the rail at both sides. The scent of the blossoms hung heavily around them on the motionless air, and dusty reality slipped away from Helen. For the moment, there were only masculine eagerness and her own pent-up hunger in her world and the vision of another grappling couple in her mind. She caught Art's tongue in her mouth and sucked, giddy with the taste. And in the dark she visualized how they must look.
Nearly as tall as Jock, Art's slender, angular frame anchored itself to the top of the railing. His legs were extended and his upper torso was curved to keep his face at the level of Helen's. She lay on his left arm, her buttocks thrust hard against the inside of his left thigh, her back arched and her arms about his shoulders. Her hair was as black as his in the faint light that filtered through the living room drapes, and it hung loosely around her shoulders, one thick strand straying onto her breast. Her right breast was crushed against his chest, her left, the hair tips pointing at its vertex, strained the thin material of her taut blouse. Her belly swelled slightly with her posture, and she bent one knee in the heat of the kiss, her thigh pumping aimlessly.
Art laid his hand on her abdomen and caressed her with slow, circular strokes. Her buttocks tightened, thrusting her hips forward and pushing her belly into the touch of his fingers. Her body writhed slowly. She crushed her mouth onto his, her head rocking with the violence of her reaction, and her fingers clutched at the back of his neck. He stroked upward with his hand, pressing her breast up and cupping his fingers around it.
"Mmm-Mmm!" she moaned into the kiss. She twisted, her bottom sawing against his thigh. "Mmm!"
With a single, smooth motion, Art slipped his hand inside the front of her blouse and under the edge of her bra cup. He clutched the soft, hot flesh in his fingers and kneaded it. Helen started convulsively, jerking against the sudden prison of his arm and twisting her hips. He clamped his right thigh against the fronts of hers, clamping her between his legs while his fingers trapped her nipple and rolled it between their dry hardness.
Helen wrenched her mouth away from his. "Art! ... Oh, Art, darling! ... Oooh!"
He withdrew his hand as she dropped her arms from his shoulders and caught at his forearm. Kissing the tip of her nose, he pushed her blouse and bra strap off her shoulder and down her upper arm, baring her breast. She gasped and whimpered with sudden impatience.
Art placed his forehead against hers and touched her face lightly with his lips. "Easy, baby," he said in a low, soothing tone, "easy." He bared her other shoulder and again slipped blouse and bra strap down until they folded away from her breast.
Her elbows were pinned to her sides by the bunched garments, and she squirmed while his hand caressed her naked breasts. The moisture on her skin evaporated, cooling her in spite of the night's warmth, and she felt her nipples pucker.
"Oh, God!" she whispered, tugging one arm free of her clothes and then the other. "Oh, God, Art! What are we doing?"
His answering chuckle was taut and explosive. "A little more-the way Nell said it." He shoved her bra off her ribs and let it settle around her waist with her blouse, then tilted her back and lowered his head to kiss her breast.
She inhaled noisily and rose to her tiptoes, arching to thrust her breast up to his mouth and catching his face between her hands. "Omigod, darling! Oh! ... Oh!...."
He lipped her nipple and ran his hand down her thigh to the hem of her skirt, then back up her bare flesh with the skirt gathering ahead of his wrist. He fondled her hip, his hand inside the fullness of her panties, and worked his fingers gradually around to the front. Helen moaned softly and writhed under his caresses. His fingertips dragged gently down the edge of her mound, skirting her pubic hair and slipping into the crease where her thigh joined her pussy flesh. She jerked and drove her bottom against his thigh, then slowly rotated her knee outward and parted her thighs. He brushed the hair-covered surfaces of her pussy lips, the crotch of her panties riding his hand, and her hips undulated.
At his touch, the swelling lips grew firmer and began to spread, opening her slit to his probing. His fingers slid on layers of wetness, tracing curved paths across the shrinking tissues and forcing the lips wider apart. For a moment, one fingertip lingered at the rim of her cunt while she held her breath and stretched upward on tiptoe. But then he drew the finger forward along the floor of her slit and she sagged back to her heels.
He sucked vigorously on the entrapped nipple, making it squeak over his teeth as it popped in and out of his mouth. His finger reached the base of her clitoris and rubbed it gently.
"Aghhh! ... Aghhh!...." Helen whispered fiercely, shaking and jerking her hips.
Art clamped his thigh over both of hers, holding her legs helpless while he bent her sharply backward. His fingers began to massage her clitoris, rubbing around it in hard circles and rolling it against the underlying bone. Her hips snapped and twisted, and she grabbed at his wrist. With a quick jab, he thrust his hand into her crotch and plunged a finger into her vagina. Her jerking stopped abruptly and she settled onto the buried finger.
"Ahhh! ... Ooh, darling!...." She clutched at his shoulders and let her head fall back. "Mmmm!
Mmmm!"
Art loosened the grip of his thighs and she whirled to face him, driving her belly into his crotch and scrubbing her breasts on his shirt. He slipped a second finger into her beside the first and she sank onto them, her crotch rotating in tight, small circles while she strained her knees apart.
"Quick! Oh, quick!" she exclaimed. "I want you in me! I need you, darling!"
There was a flurry of motion while Art pulled his hand free and unzipped his trousers. He pushed Helen back and she spread her thighs while he thrust his legs between hers. He lifted her until the head of his cock settled into the wet heat of her pussy, then lowered her slowly onto it. Helen grunted and lifted one leg, raising her foot to the rail and thrusting it over, then twisting to repeat the motion with the other. She straddled him, then, and he continued to lower her onto his cock, her cuntmouth stretching to engulf the rigid shaft.
"Oh, yes!" she panted. "Oh, God, yes!" Her hips lashed back and forth, stroking her on the base of his cock. Her skirt spread to cover his thighs and her panties bunched at the side of his shaft, cutting into her tender pussy lip.
She flung her arms around him and savaged his mouth with hers, her lips widely parted. Without stopping the kiss, the wetness between their lips letting hers move to form her words, she mumbled, "Honey! ... Oh, Art, darling! ... Oh, God, are they doing this inside? ... Oh, oh! ... Oh, honey, let me take my pants off!"
Art held her tightly for a moment, then lifted her off his cock and held her while she got her feet on their side of the railing. He set her down, and while she reached under her skirt to get hold of her panties, he unfastened the catch of her bra and laid the twin-cupped garment aside. He fumbled for the button that held her blouse at her waist, found it, and unbuttoned it. Helen panted while she slipped out of her panties, and she left them on the floor, straightening to face him.
"Honey...?"
"Yeah?" he replied.
"You'd like it if I took off my skirt, wouldn't you? You'd like me to be naked."
"Yes!" he whispered with an intense hiss.
"All right." She worked the elastic waistband over her hips, exposing smooth roundness, white in the darkness, and stepped out of it to stand naked before him.
CHAPTER FOUR
Art seized her waist and lifted her again. She maneuvered her feet over the railing, straddling his lean hips and thinking distractedly of how unfair her willingness to take such a position would have seemed to Jock, but excusing herself instantly by telling herself how much more unconventional the whole swap was.
Her cunt stretched and slid smoothly over the broad bulge of his cockhead, gulping it and plunging the length of his thick shaft. She felt for the uprights of the railing, hooking her feet through them for leverage and jerking herself up and down on the rigid cock. Her breasts bobbed and her pussy smacked wetly on the mound at the base of the buried shaft. Art clutched at her buttocks, steadying her rhythm and pounding her at the bottom of each stroke.
"Am I awful, Art?" she asked, her voice muffled in the hollow of his shoulder.
"Awful good, Helen."
"Unh! ... unh! ... that's not what I asked!"
"Baby, Nell and I have been talking for a month about how to persuade you and Jock to swap. And that's just how long we've been willing to admit to each other that we wanted to!"
She trembled violently and thrust herself against him. He squeezed, rubbing her front on his shirt, the movement grinding her nipples on the textured fabric. Her nails dug at the back of his neck and she sucked at the angle of his jaw. He continued to massage her buttocks, his fingers working feverishly at the writhing flesh until one of them slipped into the crack and touched her rectum. It lingered there briefly, then slid forward into the thick goo on her pussy. In a moment, it returned, pressing against her puckered sphincter and forcing the opening to stretch.
Helen bucked convulsively. "Omigod, darling! What's happening? Oh, that feels good! What is it?"
Without replying, Art captured her mouth with his. She kissed ferociously, driving her tongue into his mouth at the moment his finger wedged through her taut anus and plunged into her.
She jerked her head back. "Ahh! Oh! My God, Art, I'm going to come!"
She surged against him in a frenzy of excitement, her anus snapping like an iron ring on his finger and her vagina clamping his cock in a sudden, violent contraction. Her body stilled and went rigid while spasms tore at the walls of her vagina.
Art grunted and thrust upward with his hips, ramming the base of his cock into the softness of her pussy and winking his buttocks to drive his seething jism to the core of her belly. They clung together, groaning, while their orgasm racked them.
At last, Helen sagged limply on Art and sighed. "Oh, my goodness! Oh, Art, we did! I did! Right out in the open! Oh, Art!"
"Oh, shit! Baby, how did it feel?"
"Mmmm! Good! But wicked!" She giggled nervously.
"It felt good and nobody got hurt. That's what it's all about."
She wiggled, her anus tightening again. "Art ...?"
"Yeah?"
"Good God, Art! Your finger was in my rectum, wasn't it! It still is!"
"Did that hurt?"
"No, but...."
"Felt good, didn't it? Made you come harder."
"But...." And then, fiercely. "It did! It did, Art! Like two of you and two of me! Oh, God, I loved every second of everything we did! Am I awful, darling?"
"Not for my money, baby! Was it good enough to do it again?"
"Now?" There was a note of incredulity in the question.
Art laughed. "Not right now. But if we were together a couple of hours from now would you let me make love to you again?"
She hesitated. She'd done it once; she'd fixed Jock and thrown away something that could never be recaptured. All of that had to do with something petty she'd thought of as revenge. But there was something else, and she realized it was far greater.
She'd insisted to herself that "respectable" sex was, first and most importantly, limited to husband-wife relationships. She'd just finished violating that rule, placing herself outside the bounds of "respectability". Through all the years of her marriage to Jock, she'd also believed "respectable" sex meant the wife lay quietly on her back while the husband couched himself between her thighs and worked up to his orgasm. It was nice if the woman reached one, too, but that wasn't the natural objective. Having transgressed convention by letting another woman's husband make love to her, she felt no guilt about the exotic fashion they'd done it in, but she had to admit the position had enormously heightened her pleasure, just as Jock's brutal assault of the night before had.
Pleasure without guilt; she even derived pleasure out of conscious reiteration of the unconventional elements of the situation. Art-dear, gentle, patient Art-was Nell's husband. Until tonight, he'd never caught a glimpse of her breasts, let alone anything more. Now, he sagged with his buttocks resting on the porch railing and his feet braced against the painted floor, and held her. She relaxed in his grasp, naked, her nipples touching his shirt, his trousers rough against the inner slopes of her naked thighs, his cock deep in her vagina. The heat of his jism hadn't yet dissipated inside her, and she knew some of her pubic hairs were caught in his zipper and would come out by the roots when she moved. Around her were the still leaves of the lilac bushes, and without turning her head she could look through a break in the foliage and see a street light in the next block. The sounds of a normal neighborhood at night came clearly to her; undoubtedly there were houses within the range of her sight where families were sitting quietly on their porches, unaware of the lewd performance that had just been enacted within a stone's throw.
She shivered. Each element gave her an added tingle of joyous self-knowledge. Each brought the realization to her more sharply that "wickedness" belonged in sex and that she would never again be content with "respectable" intercourse.
Art stirred. "Well? Would you?"
She crushed herself to him and snapped her pussy on his softening cock. "Yes!" she whispered fiercely. "Any time!"
He tensed abruptly. "Shh!"
She heard it too. Quick firm footsteps rang out on the sidewalk, approaching from down the block. She recognized the cadence. "Good God! It's Doctor King!"
"On foot? What the hell!"
"He always walks at night! Miles! Oh, Art, he'll stop here-being in the neighborhood!"
Art surged erect and Helen clasped her legs around him desperately. He stepped over the rail and dropped to the ground with her, crouching under the lilacs.
"Guess we'd better get unplugged," Art whispered with a faint chuckle. "Can't get around very fast this way."
"My clothes!" exclaimed Helen.
Art lunged forward to snatch the clothes off the railing. "Come on! Let's get the hell out of here!"
"Art! We can't! He might be here to make trouble!"
"Yeah. Wouldn't put it past the bastard." Then, "Naw, that wouldn't be his way. But we'll wait here."
They heard Doctor King striding up the front walk and climbing the steps to the porch. Helen and Art squirmed backward under the lilacs as the doctor pushed the button for the doorbell. After a brief pause, he rang again. He muttered to himself when there was no response and paced the length of the porch. Helen and Art held their breath and flattened themselves to the earth when he hesitated at their end of the porch, but he resumed his pacing, then rang a third time.
The door opened.
"Doctor King!" Jock sounded surprised and not at all pleased.
"Yes. Hmm. Just happened this direction-good night for a stroll-thought I'd drop by to ask Mrs. MacGruder to come for a half day tomorrow."
"I'd better have her call you," replied Jock shortly. "She's out right now."
"Have her call before eleven tonight."
"If she's back by then." Jock paused. "You decide what you're going to do about the Engel boy?"
"Of course! The boy needs help!"
"That wasn't what I had in mind."
There was a note of amusement in King's reply. "Probably not. Look, MacGruder, you've been in civil service for a few years. Right?"
"Twelve."
"You know the policies, then. If anyone would, you ought to, being in the auditor's office."
"So?"
"So I'm going to ignore the fact you barged into my office with that ridiculous charge. I'll see the Engel kid gets extra counseling, and that's all. Push the matter and the worst that can happen is a transfer for me. Be better to let by-gones be by-gones."
Helen pressed against Art. "He doesn't mean that," she whispered. "How do you know?"
"His voice. I just know!"
Jock sounded as if he were ignoring the friendly tone. "I'm not sure that's all there is to it. Be interesting to find out."
"Watch it!" snapped King. His voice was suddenly cold and penetrating. "Just don't push your luck, man! You know what grade I'm in. A GS-fourteen doesn't have to wait like a sitting duck, you know."
"That a threat?"
"Take it any way you like. Just don't step on my toes."
Helen and Art had propped themselves up high enough to see the door. They saw Jock take an abrupt step forward, his posture threatening. King leaped back.
"MacGruder!" King hissed.
"Shit!" exclaimed Jock in disgust. "Just get the hell off my porch. I'm not going to lay myself open to a battery charge. But stay away from here; understand?"
The doctor studied Jock, a grin growing slowly on his lips. "You may already be in a bad position, friend," he said softly. "Maybe you ought to get as much satisfaction out of it as you can."
"What do you mean by that?"
King turned his back on Jock and went down the steps calmly. "Worry about it, MacGruder. Worry." And he strode rapidly out of the yard and down the street.
"What do you suppose the bastard meant by that?" asked Art slowly.
Helen shivered. "I don't know, but I'm scared."
"Nothing to be scared of. He was just blowing off steam."
"I don't think so."
Jock disappeared and the door closed. Helen wriggled backward through the shrubs to the side of the house, painfully conscious of her nakedness as twigs and angular pebbles gouged her flesh. She crouched in the shadow and sorted her clothes.
Art placed his hands under her armpits and straightened her. "The hurry's gone now," he said softly.
Her clothes slipped from her fingers and she raised her face to his. He kissed her, his lips touching hers tenderly, then withdrawing and covering her face and throat with caresses as light as those of a butterfly's wing. She sighed and shivered, lying back on his arm, and his free hand wandered intimately over her body. She squirmed happily when he brushed her nipples and thrust her knees apart when his fingers slipped along her slit.
"Art ... Oh, goodness, Art! ... I could! I could, right now!"
He laughed softly. "Wish I could! Best I can do is imagine!"
"Your hand isn't imagination," she said.
"No, but mental stimulation's the best I can get out of this." He laughed lightly. "Know what? That's exactly why I'm doing it. I've wanted you for so long I'm like a drunk. Now that I can have you, I'm intoxicated by the idea!"
"Then don't stop, darling. Stay drunk." She opened herself to reception, luxuriating in the tumult of stimuli that assailed her and reveling in her nakedness.
Art continued to caress and to pause from time to time to feel something he'd had to imagine before, but he made no evident effort to drive her past the pleasant stage of excitement she was in. It seemed clear to her he had no intention of forcing her into another orgasm. And at last he stopped.
Helen stooped to pick up her clothes, and for a moment she stared at them. "Art! Do you have my panties?"
He chuckled. "Souvenir, you mean? Sorry."
"I must have dropped them coming through the bushes. Would you check for me?"
"There's nothing under there. You probably left them on the floor when you took them off."
"On the...? Oh, sure! Okay, we can get them later." She asked for help with the fastener of her bra, then finished dressing.
"Let's go in the back way," Art suggested. "Wouldn't want anyone to see us coming out of the bushes."
"There's no one ... Oh! You mean he might sneak back? But why would he?"
"Well...." Art hesitated. "Our car's in the drive, and so are both of yours. Suppose he wondered about that?"
"Good God!" Helen whispered. "Let's go the back way!"
Jock and Nell were dressed and held drinks when Helen and Art got inside.
"Thought you'd be in," observed Jock. "Drinks are on the bar. Lucky that bastard didn't stumble over you two. Where were you, anyway?"
Art laughed. "Hiding under the lilacs."
"The lilacs! Then you heard the whole thing."
"We heard," Helen replied before Art could. "I don't think you should have brought that thing up again, Jock."
"Why not? I wanted an answer."
"It just stirred him up."
"Damn it, he ought to be stirred up! I can't imagine having his gall!" Jock scowled.
"He doesn't seem worried about Walter," Nell remarked. "He didn't really get mad until you hinted there might be something else."
Jock agreed. "As if I'd poked a stick into a hornet's nest. I wonder...."
"Something's wrong," Helen said. "I can feel it. I know Doctor King."
Jock stared at her thoughtfully. "Yeah, I guess you do. Look, I think you'd better quit that job. I'm not sure it's going to be safe for you any more."
"Oh, Jock, he wouldn't do anything to me! That's silly!"
Nell chuckled. "Nothing to hurt her, anyhow. Besides, what's better than having someone in the enemy camp?"
"I just don't like having her around him," Jock muttered.
"The women are probably right." Art brought drinks for Helen and himself from the bar. "Helen might see something now that she's suspicious."
"That's when it wouldn't be safe," protested Jock. "Damn it, I don't trust that sonofabitch!"
"Please, Jock!" Helen pleaded. "Let's not make a federal case of it. If we just act as if nothing's happened things might smooth out."
Jock shook his head doubtfully, but he didn't press the point. Helen turned to Art.
"Why don't we go get my panties?" she asked in a whisper. "I'd hate to have the paper, boy find them in the morning."
"Right." Art grinned. "We'll be right back in," he said to Jock and Nell.
Art laughed. "Can't say I wouldn't be willing for seconds, but that's not it. Won't be a minute."
But the panties were not on the porch.
"You didn't see them on the ground?" asked Helen.
"No, but it was pretty dark and we'd kicked up a lot of dirt and leaves. They're likely half buried. I'll get a flashlight."
"God, no! We're not going to have the neighbors see us hunting around under those bushes at this time of night! If they're that well hidden, no one's going to see them before I get out here tomorrow."
"If you say so." Art shrugged.
When they returned to the living room, they faced Jock's and Nell's questions. Art refused to say anything, but after a moment's hesitation Helen told them what she'd lost. She felt herself flush when she saw Jock wince.
"Damn wonder our friend didn't spot them," he remarked. "Where the hell were they?"
Helen squirmed, wiping her palms on her skirt. "I'm not sure. I thought I'd left them on the floor-over by the lilacs. I guess they got kicked over the edge."
"Kicked?" There was a twinkle in Jock's eyes.
Art laughed. "Let's say there was kind of a scramble when King showed up. Like getting caught with your fist in the cookie jar."
"What did you do?" asked Nell in a practical tone. "Go over the railing?"
"What else?" demanded Art. "We damn near forgot the clothes. Made a grab for them about the time King started up the steps!"
Nell raised her eyebrows. "Clothes? The pants weren't all?" She gazed at Helen respectfully. "All of them, hon?"
Helen nodded, her face and neck burning.
"Outside, for Christ's sake?". Jock sounded incredulous. His eyes widened and he touched his lips with the tip of his tongue. "Jesus! Naked out there!"
Helen realized suddenly that Jock was savoring the idea as if it were aged wine, letting it trickle through him and feeding his excitement on it. And she sensed the double-edged nature of his agitation, erotic stimulus and jealousy reinforcing each other in his mind. She snatched at the advantage.
"Really awkward," she said solemnly, elaborating. "I mean with Art sitting on the railing and my feet tangled in the uprights." Jock cringed. "Like that?"
She nodded. "He almost caught us. We just had to sort of fall over the railing. Like a couple of snails that can't get loose when you catch them."
Jock groaned. "Unnh! And where were the damn pants?"
Her sense of triumph evaporated. "I ... on the floor, I'm almost sure."
"Not with the rest of your things."
"Well ... well, no. I took them off at a different time, I think. The rest were hanging over the railing."
"Biggest wonder in the world that bastard didn't see them," Jock muttered. "Biggest wonder in the world!" He scowled. "You sure he didn't?"
"We were right there at the edge of the porch the whole time!"
Art grunted. "I'm not so damn sure. He got pretty impatient when no one came to the door. Remember?"
She remembered. "And started pacing. I really thought he'd see us then!"
"Yeah. We just about buried ourselves." Art looked unhappy. "We damn well weren't watching him!"
"Oh, shit!" Jock groaned. "Come on. We've got to find out."
Armed with flashlights, they searched the lilacs and the soft ground beneath them, but the panties were not to be found. They went inside, subdued. But it was clear that Jock's reaction contained none of the apprehension or embarrassment that Helen felt.
"Pattern, Art?" he suggested. "Making passes at kids and then carrying off a pair of panties? King must be some kind of guy."
"You think he took them," murmured Helen, knowing there was no other explanation possible.
Jock nodded. "Any other idea?"
"No." A surge of excitement wrenched at Helen. She was startled at the realization that it inflamed her to think Greg King might be carrying a pair of her panties in his pocket. Her sensation was as intense as those of her most erotic fantasies, embarrassment and violation of convention and even fear compounding each other to tense her belly and make her pussy tingle fiercely. Instead of feeling indignation, she was aware only of a sudden desire for the doctor. And she recognized how different that desire was from what she so often felt for Jock-or even for Art.
CHAPTER FIVE
Conversation veered sharply away from the subject of Doctor King and the missing garment. To Helen, the talk sounded unnatural and strained. It jumped erratically from one topic to another without transition or logical connection and was punctuated with awkward pauses. She sensed that they were avoiding anything that might lead them into sex-oriented discussion and suspected the others were as self-conscious as she about their escapade. At length, she excused herself and went to the kitchen to start fresh coffee. Nell followed her.
"They seem to want to find things to prove Doctor King's abnormal, don't they," Helen said thoughtfully.
"Art and Jock?"
Helen nodded.
"Hell, he is, isn't he?" Nell asked cheerfully. "But psychologists and head-shrinkers always are, the way I get it. You know the old joke: a guy's got to be nuts before they let him into that field."
"Seriously," Helen urged, "you're around Greg a lot-you think he's odd?"
Nell laughed. "If you mean queer, I hadn't noticed. Five minutes around him and I feel like I must have forgotten to get dressed!" She paused for a moment, then added, "And I wish it were true."
"He makes me feel that way, too. I don't know if he realizes it. Maybe it's just part of his way of being 'aware'."
"That sensitivity jazz? Maybe. I'll say this, though: he doesn't worry much about what's conventional."
Helen giggled and agreed. "Sometimes I think that's an act, as if he liked to shock people."
"He's pretty good at it. And I'm not sure it's an act ... not all the time, anyway. Like the other day. He mentioned you ... said he was worried about you."
"Me! Worried about what?"
Nell hesitated. "Well ... He's got the idea you're fighting yourself ... not letting yourself be natural. He said your inhibitions were choking you."
"Oh, for heaven's sake!"
Nell's laugh had an uncomfortable quality. "He got all serious about it. Leaned across the table and made a big deal about how Art and I were such close friends of yours and Jock's. Even made some crack about how 'earthy' I am. 'You wouldn't want to see her destroy herself, would you?' he asks. And how do you suppose he thought I ought to save you from yourself?"
"How?"
"Swapping. 'Best thing in the world for Mrs. MacGruder,' he said. 'Next to having a real affair, that is.' You know? I think he was for real!"
Helen struggled for composure. "Was that before ... before you mentioned swapping to Jock the other night?"
Nell started. "Helen! You heard that?"
"Part of it. I was here in the kitchen, and the window was open."
Nell groaned. "Me and my big mouth! Yeah, it was before that. Fact is, Art and I had been playing with the idea for quite a while."
"But Jock hadn't. He'd just been wishing." Helen couldn't keep the bitterness out of her voice.
"Oh, honey! Don't take it like that! You know men ... there isn't a one of them wouldn't like a chance to shack up with anyone with a decent figure." She grinned. "Even our lovely Doctor King."
"But Greg's a bachelor; it's natural for him."
"Natural for any of them. Getting married doesn't change a guy that much."
"But Jock...." Helen let her protest hang.
"Yeah, I know. Hurts to think about it when it's your own husband."
"I guess that's all it is." Helen sighed. "You don't suppose Greg really expected us to swap, do you?"
"I wouldn't be too sure. He wasn't kidding ... even gave me some advice on how to convince you. I was sure ready to try it." Nell grimaced. "Turned out I'd figured you wrong ... didn't have to get tricky."
"I ... I'm ashamed of myself for making it so easy. That was to get even with Jock."
"Not really," Helen replied. She was and she wasn't, she realized. She was conscious of a sense of loss; the exclusiveness of sexual possession she'd conceived to be a key element in marriage had washed away tonight. But she had something that could replace that. The new relationship with Art would be a precious thing ... if it turned out to be anything more than a one-time event.
As if similar thoughts had passed through her mind, Nell interrupted Helen's musing. "We're not going to pretend tonight didn't happen, are we?"
"Hm?"
"I mean, go on being prim and hanging out Keep Off signs. We could have something beautiful if we decided to let down the bars."
"Awareness," Helen murmured.
"Hard to get much more aware." Nell's tone was gently urgent.
"I don't suppose it would be sensible to try to pretend nothing had changed."
As if the matter were that simply settled, Nell turned brisk. "We're going to have to make it worthwhile for the guys."
"How do you mean?" Helen became wary.
"Oh, you know ... keep it from getting routine."
"How?"
"Well, take advantage of the things that make swapping different. Two couples involved, for one thing."
"I'm not following you." But Helen was afraid she was following Nell's line of thought only too well.
"Let's face it. When we're swapping we're saying two couples are going to be making it at the same time ... mostly, anyhow. One thing that would turn the guys on would be to have a chance to see what their wives were doing."
"Oh, God, Nell! Watch each other?!"
"Well ... yes. Make out in the same room once in a while, anyway."
"I couldn't! I'd just die!"
"Not really."
"Oh, Nell! It would just kill all the excitement for me!"
Nell laughed, a hint of hysteria in her voice. "Sacrifice! You could chalk it up to babying the men! You better believe it wouldn't turn them off! And if they keep their hard-ons, it doesn't matter how excited we're not!"
"Well, maybe I could learn. I might try."
Nell shook her head. "You're a funny woman, Helen. You like sex, don't you?"
"Sure." .
"How come Jock ... I mean...."
Helen bristled. "How come he calls me a prude?" She explained, resentful at herself for feeling defensive. It seemed hard to believe that her rejection of Jock's variations had to be discussed, and she was aghast at finding herself so close to apology.
But Nell laughed lightly. "I guess that's not unique. From what I read, a lot of women figure there's one right way. God, I'm glad I don't!"
"Nell!"
"Try it before you knock it, honey. At least try it."
"Well...."
"If you've got the guts, Art and I could help. We sort of take it for granted."
"What have I got to lose now?"
Nell grinned happily. "What have you ever had to lose?"
Jock called to them from the living room. "Hey! That coffee ever coming?"
"Almost ready!" Helen replied.
Nell persisted. "Before we go back in, hon. We into swapping for real?"
"I guess so."
"And you're willing to give variety a chance?"
"You really think I ought to, don't you?"
Nell nodded vigorously and Helen struggled to repress a giggle. But she failed to hide the quirk at the corner of her mouth.
"What's so damn funny?" Nell demanded with a note of suspicion in her voice.
In spite of herself, Helen laughed. "I'm sorry, hon. I really am!"
"For what?"
"For leading you on. You're right. Jock was right! I mean, I always figured a person's some kind of sex fiend if he's all the time got to be doing it different and all! Make a big game out of it and it gets to be a monster! I tried to keep it in perspective ... to be normal ... man-on-top, lights out, none of that stuff about extra goodies ... you know."
Nell stared silently.
Helen continued. "Okay, so I was making martyrs out of Jock and myself. I don't know if I'll ever get over feeling wicked when I let someone get fancy, but I do know I'm going to go along with it. God, it's exciting to do things differently!"
"You mean that, don't you!"
"Yes. From now on, I'll try anything once. Maybe I'm going to find out some things aren't worth what they cost, but I'll find that out by trying, not by guessing."
Nell gazed at her solemnly. "Trust us, honey. Just trust us."
"I think maybe that means more than I'm supposed to suspect right now." Helen grinned at her friend and shook her head dubiously. "Sometimes a little trust goes a long way."
Nell giggled. "What have you got to lose?"
With a contented sigh, Helen filled mugs with coffee and she and Nell took them into the living room.
"Took long enough," commented Jock, a twinkle in his eye.
"With guys, it would have been the problems of the world," added Art. "What was it with you ... recipes or styles?"
"Neither, smart-ass," Nell replied crisply. "Your welfare and happiness."
Art looked thoughtful. "Welfare and happiness seem pretty simple to me."
"Okay. If you could choose between that coffee and a shack-job, which would it be?"
"What coffee?" Nell laughed. "See?"
The dam broken, they settled comfortably into discussion of sex, alluding frequently to the subject of their newly consummated swap status. But they sipped their coffee while they talked. Helen sensed that Nell was steering the subject toward increasingly frank consideration of unconventional practices in love-making. As if she were commenting on tidbits gleaned from reading and gossip, she worked them deep into the topic of curious positions for intercourse and then introduced the idea of multi-couple games. Despite a residue of embarrassment, Helen discovered that their talk was stimulating her, although she could contribute little.
"I read once about a swap club where they started off every party with a cute warm-up," Nell remarked finally. "A sort of special way of getting the kinks out."
"Like what?" Art asked innocently.
"The women drew straws to see who was 'it' for that night. Then the victim would let them tie her up and everybody got into the act playing around with her. By the time they made her come the first time, things were pretty well under way."
Helen gasped, her mental image of the scene Nell described making a great knot of erotic tension form in her belly.
"God!" Jock stared into space, his eyes blazed.
"Man! Bet that broke the ice!" exclaimed Art. "Those broads had the right idea!"
Helen knew intuitively that Nell had introduced this weird game for a purpose. She had no doubt it was her friend's opening move in the effort to prove the delights of variety. She steeled herself.
"That would be an interesting experiment," she heard herself say.
As if it were Helen's idea, Nell opened her eyes widely. "You mean that?"
Helen swallowed. "Why not?"
"You willing to be 'it'?"
"I ... I guess so." And then she whispered, "Tonight?"
Art answered, his face alive with enthusiasm. "Let's!"
Helen stalled for time, reluctant to begin now that she'd committed herself, but soon they left the living room, agreeing the four-poster bed was ideal for their purpose. Nell volunteered her nylons and Helen got out one of her older pairs.
"Do I have to undress now?" Helen asked.
"Why not just your blouse?" Art suggested, his voice shaking with excitement.
She slowly removed her blouse, then stood quietly while Jock and Art tied a stocking to each of her wrists. Art led her to the foot of the bed.
"What are you doing?" she demanded, startled. "Why not on the bed?"
"Let's not start there," he replied. "Later, maybe."
Trembling, she let them secure her wrists to the bedposts, then shut her eyes while Art ran his fingers over her upper torso. She was intensely aware of the lewd picture she made, arms outstretched and angling upward from her shoulders, her breasts bulging against the restraint of the lace-edged cups of her bra, her belly drawn in and quivering, and the waist of her skirt sagging onto her hips, exposing inches of flesh below her navel. She gasped and twisted involuntarily at his touch.
Art felt her with the reverent air of a student admiring a masterpiece of sculpture. He ran his fingers along her arms, letting them linger lovingly in the hollows and tracing the delicately molded ridges of the taut muscles. Slowly and thoughtfully, he drew them into her armpits and explored the arched tendons that -rimmed the sensitive depressions. And he stroked his hands inward along her clavicles to the hollow of her throat. She quivered and dipped her head to rest her chin for a moment on his fingers.
He smiled gently. "Scared, puss?" His voice was so soft she wasn't sure he'd asked.
She whispered, "God, yes!" But she contradicted herself instantly. "No! Not with you, Art; you're so gentle!"
"I wouldn't hurt you, Helen."
"I know."
His hands stroked downward over her sides, fingertips gliding over the washboard of her ribs and hands spreading to lie flat and intimate on her waist. Shifting his angle, he passed one hand back up her midline onto her rib cage. She inhaled sharply as his thumb intruded between her breasts and held her breath while he felt first one breast and then the other.
Staring fixedly into her eyes, he kneaded one breast, squeezing tentatively and nodding at Nell and Jock. Helen shuddered at his touch. Jock knelt beside her and began to caress her thighs, his hands stroking upward under her skirt and fondling her buttocks and her mound. Her hips jerked in spite of her effort to hold them motionless.
She was vaguely aware of the fact Nell had gotten onto the bed, and she turned her head to see what her friend was doing. Nell grinned silently, unbuttoning her blouse. Helen watched while the stocky girl removed the blouse and then her bra. She was startled at the size of Nell's breasts; they were as large as medium grapefruit and as globular. The nipples were a golden brown, rather than being pink like Helen's, and they already looked as if they were erect.
Nell crawled to the foot of the bed and rose to her knees, leaning against Helen's back. "Everybody's got to get into the act," she whispered.
Helen tensed; she'd deliberately evaded thinking about Nell's role in the game. Nell fumbled at the catch at the back of Helen's bra, and the garment suddenly lost its tension. The shoulder straps fastened to the cups with intricate plastic devices, and Nell worked them free, then pulled the bra away. Helen's breasts, convex cones, filled and stood out proudly.
Art sighed with pleasure. He kissed her nipples and ran his fingers over the firm slopes of her boobs. She drew her breath in with a sharp hiss, twisting against the tug of her nylon bonds. Nell's hands joined Art's on Helen's breasts, the short, graceful fingers kneading pulpy flesh and stroking toward the sensitized nipples. Art chuckled when his wife's hands got in his way. He retreated.
"Why don't you play with her while I get my clothes off, doll?" he asked Nell.
Helen watched him, unable to avert her eyes. Their intimacy on the porch had spared her the problem of seeing, and she admitted to herself now that she was wickedly eager to find out what he looked like. After his shirt and T-shirt were off, he removed his trousers and shorts in a single, smooth movement, bending to get them over his feet, then straightening as he tossed them toward the drapes. Helen shivered. Art's cock jutted upward at a sharp angle from the dark mass of his pubic hair. The head, innocent of foreskin, was dark and soft-textured in appearance, except at the slit; there, it glistened with moisture. The underside of the thick shaft bulged and was criss-crossed by prominent veins, while his scrotum hung like a leather bag from the base of his cock. At the bottom of the sac were twin swellings, egg-sized and restless with his movement.
"Long!" she exclaimed under her breath. "And so big around!" She realized how few times she'd looked directly at a male erection. When Jock had made love to her, it had been easy to avoid seeing, and when he'd paraded himself naked before her, she'd usually looked away. But she couldn't tear her gaze away from the great cock now pointed at her, and she found herself thinking of it as having an identity of its own, conscious of itself and of her and capable of recalling its earlier excursion into her vagina. Her pussy burned with hunger and a great tremor raced over her. She let her knees sag apart and squirmed with pleasure as Jock's probing fingers slid between the lips of her vulva.
Nell had cupped her hands over Helen's breasts, and she massaged them slowly and powerfully. But as Helen reacted to the sight of the great cock, her friend stopped the massage and began to tease her nipples. She caught them between her fingertips, stretching and twisting them, and hot sparks of delight struck inward. Helen pressed back against Nell's boobs, acutely aware of their hot softness as she rubbed herself on them. She experienced a sense of revulsion at such contact with another woman, but it was accompanied by a reluctant admission that Nell's manipulation of the now-inflamed nipples was far more stimulating than any similar efforts of Jock's had ever been.
Art came back to her. He laid his hands on her waist and began to caress her torso, his palms gliding in slow, erratic paths over her sides and her belly and his fingertips toying with the depressions as her muscles shrank from his touch. Jock's hands had gradually become more insistent, rubbing her thighs vigorously, squeezing and kneading her buttocks, and frequently dipping into the heat of her pussy. Her body responded to each source of stimulus, even though sensations crowded upon her too fast to be recognized consciously. Spasms of reaction surged through her at intervals, snapping her into momentary rigidity and releasing their grip to leave her shaking violently. She panted, every exhalation a moan of pleasure. Again and again, she wrenched at the stockings that held her wrists, obsessed with the desire to grab someone's hand and realizing throughout that she was glad she was helpless-that freedom would have enabled her to do things that would lessen the intensity of the stimuli.
"God, Nell!" she whispered between gasps. "I thought having another couple around would turn me off!"
Nell laughed breathlessly. "It sort of works the other way, doesn't it?"
Art ran his fingers around Helen under the waistband of her skirt. "About time to get this thing off," he said.
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed Helen. "Oh, Art! I don't know!"
But Art unbuttoned the waist and began to unzip her skirt. Jock stood.
"Time I got rid of my clothes, too," he commented.
Nell abandoned Helen, clambering to her feet and quickly stripping off her skirt and panties. Helen realized belatedly that Art had stopped and was waiting before taking her skirt off. She sagged, her arms supporting most of her weight, and watched Jock and Nell.
As if the situation had somehow changed him, Jock looked like a new man to her. Beside Art's spare frame, Jock's had an overpowering aura of strength. His cock looked bigger and heavier than Art's and its skin was off-white, where Art's was olive-hued. Her husband's bulk seemed to her almost more suitable for Nell's generous curves than for her own slender ones, and she tensed in the grip of sudden excitement at the notion of seeing Nell clasping Jock's hips between her thighs. The girl's platinum-bleached hair would contrast beautifully with the copper-tinted curls on Jock's broad chest.
Art brought Helen back to awareness of her own situation. He pulled her skirt zipper down and began to work the still-snug garment over the bulge of her hips. She held her breath, and gazed down at herself. The smooth, deep tan on her belly extended a hand-width below her navel. Her habit of sunbathing in her bikini had left only a thin stripe of paleness across her hips, and there was the barest white streak above the luxuriant darkness of her pubic hair. As if hesitating to expose her, Art pulled the top of her skirt over the springy hair while individual strands snapped out of their restraint. She clamped her thighs together, whimpering with embarrassment when Jock moved closer and Nell crouched at Art's side, both watching the skirt's progress.
Free of her hips, the skirt fell from her with a swish. Art brushed her pubic hair with one hand, then stooped to lift her feet out of the skirt, one at a time. She kept her thighs tightly together, one knee lying over the other,, but the sensation of nakedness was excruciating. Nell handed Art the other pair of stockings and he knotted one to each of Helen's ankles. With a choked sob, she obeyed the pressure of his hands, spreading her feet until the strain in her hips made her stop. Art passed one stocking around a bedpost and snugged it, pulling her foot an inch further from under her. Tying the stocking, he repeated the process with her other leg. She groaned, mortified at her taut, spread-eagled position and acutely aware of the coolness of evaporation on the gaping tissues of her pussy.
Art rose to his feet and backed away to study her. She rejected the impulse to shut her eyes and watched his expression instead. His eyes glittered and his mouth was open. He breathed heavily, his gaze moving slowly over her, lingering at her breasts and again at her crotch. Then he returned to her, unhurried and deliberate. He ran his hands over her arms and shoulders, slid them around to caress her armpits, and squeezed gently at her breasts. Passing his hands downward, he stroked her belly and toyed with her pubic hair, then casually felt her thighs. She surged to the balls of her feet when he clutched at her pussy. Each of his hands closed over one pussy lip, and he kneaded them and pulled them apart. His fingers slid into her slit, pressing against its floor and probing at her cunt.
"Aghhh, aghhh!" she exclaimed.
Jock leaned forward, eyes bright, his breath coming in short, quick pants. And Nell shivered and ground her knees together. Helen's hips snapped forward, then back, her legs jammed against the mattress.
Nell got onto the bed again, seating herself at the foot, her legs over Helen's widespread thighs and her pussy snuggled against Helen's ass. She pressed her boobs flat on Helen's back and encircled the slender woman's waist with her arms, pulling Helen back and immobilizing her. Art knelt and buried his face in the fragrant pelt at Helen's crotch.
"Ahhh!" Helen cried out. Her hips jerked and her buttocks ground into the prickly mat of Nell's pubic hair.
Art thrust his tongue into the wetness of Helen's gash, teasing the turgid flesh and licking it gently. She moaned gutturally, twisting with pleasure. It came to her suddenly that neither Nell nor Art showed any sign of hesitancy and she knew their actions came from a deep well of experience. Her education would be no mutual exploration, but tutoring done by experts. Nell had released her grip on Helen's middle and was once more playing with her breasts, driving streaks of excitement through Helen that formed a vibrant background to the more powerful impulses shooting inward from her pussy.
Art's lips worked through her tangled hair and forced back the quivering hood of her clitoris. He closed his mouth over the tiny organ and began to suck. Helen stiffened and laid her head back.
"Art! Art! Omigod! ... Unnnh!...." Desire welled explosively in her and her breasts leaped in Nell's hands. "Good God, Art! You'll make me come!"
Art sucked steadily, his wife's legs clamped over Helen's and holding the distraught woman in position while his tongue caressed the hard, smooth-fleshed cone. Jock paced restlessly, his face a deep red and covered with huge drops of perspiration. He stared fixedly at his friend's black-haired head nestled before his wife's mahogany pubic thatch and grimaced at the muscle spasms in her thighs. With an anguished grunt, he threw himself on the bed behind Nell and rolled close to her, forcing his hand under her ass and curling his fingers up into her pussy. She gasped, then thrust her buttocks back and her pussy down onto the probing digits. Jock forced his fingers deep into her vagina, bending them back and forth while she squirmed and hissed her pleasure. She reached back to catch his cock in her fist, pounding her hand up and down the length of the shaft.
Helen turned her head at the sudden motion, her gaze fastening on the frantic motion of Nell's hand, and she groaned. Nell's legs eased their restraint on Helen's, and Helen's flogging hips snapped Art's head back and forth. Art drew back with a happy grin.
"Hey, baby! Things are getting hot!"
"Oh, Art! Oh, God, Art!" Helen panted. "I almost came!"
"That's what we're after, baby."
"But not like this, darling! I want you to...." She gulped and her voice dropped to a strained whisper. "I want you to fuck me!"
A hard tremor passed over Art at her use of the word and he moved close. His thighs pressed against her crotch and his cock depressed her belly, his cockhead lodged below her solar plexus. He bent, thrusting his mouth onto hers and forcing her head back. She drank at his kiss, her lips parted to let his tongue drive to the back of her mouth. She sucked, swallowing hard and grinding her belly on his cock.
At last, he drew back from the kiss. Dropping to his knees, he twitched the knots loose from her ankles and disengaged her legs from Nell's. He slid his hands around Helen's buttocks and pulled her hips forward, lifting her. She raised her knees and swung her legs around his hips, sagging back on her outstretched arms and lying horizontally while he centered his cockhead against her cunt. With a hard tug of her legs, she pulled herself onto the rigid cock, engulfing it and jamming her pussy lips onto its hard base.
Art swung her body back and forth, stroking her on his cockshaft while tongues of flaming excitement flicked over her. Her breasts jounced wildly and her hair leaped beneath her backward-tilted head. She opened her mouth in a silent scream of pleasure and her eyes bulged. With a convulsive jerk, her body went rigid, shaking violently, and an undulating yell burst from her throat. Art slammed against her pussy, his buttocks snapping bites out of the air.
"AHHHAHHH! ... It's so hot! ... EEENNNG!...." Her back snapped upward, flinging her violently about, and she shook uncontrollably. With a deep moan, she went limp. Art continued to strain her to the base of his cock while the last of his cum oozed into her, then let the shrinking shaft slip from her vagina as he lowered her feet toward the floor. She hung by her arms, her legs limp and useless and her chin resting on her chest.
Art loosened the knots at her wrists, catching her as she sagged forward, and he half-carried her around the bed to deposit her on the pillows so she lay across the head of the mattress.
There was a long moment when the room was out of focus for her. She let her gaze wander without conscious direction, seeing movement without definable form where Jock and Nell tumbled, sensing, rather than seeing, the reflection of their movement in the mirror, and finally resolving lines and shadows as she glanced toward the drapes. Her belly tightened instinctively as the drapes swayed to a random breeze; she made a mental note to complain about the sliding door being open. Suspecting she must have made considerable noise at the height of Art's activity, she shrank at the thought of what might have been heard from next door. But the thought passed and she watched her husband.
Jock lay on his back, Nell astride his hips. The compact body bounced vigorously, hips and buttocks flashing up, then plunging to meet Jock's hard pelvis with blows that shook the bed. To Helen's fascinated gaze the motion resolved itself to that of a firm, erotically molded doughnut being snapped up and down the length of a shining, wet pole. Nell's hair flew and her breasts leaped. She clutched at Jock's arms for balance and her breath exploded from her in loud grunts. Jock's hips surged to meet each of Nell's downward strokes and his knees rocked from side to side.
Abruptly, Nell's frenzied bouncing stopped and her body settled onto Jock's, seeming to spread as it molded itself to his angular contours. Her rounded bottom squirmed with a slow, powerful grinding motion and her flesh quivered in the grip of a hard tremor. Jock's hips jabbed with a brief flurry of erratic spasms before he fell back and became quiet. Nell trembled violently and collapsed, as if her spine had suddenly dissolved. She twisted to smile weakly at Helen.
And Helen returned the smile, sleepily reaching out to lay her hand on her friend's knee.
CHAPTER SIX
They took a shower afterward-as a foursome. It was an exotic and frighteningly sensual experience for Helen, the four naked bodies so closely confined as to make it impossible to escape contact and the disparate sizes producing shocking juxtapositions of organs. But she loved it and squirmed continuously, often finding her flesh sliding against that of all three of her companions simultaneously. And as she abandoned herself to the novelty, she used her hands as freely as the others used theirs. There was a sense of deep gratification in cradling two massive pairs of balls in her hands at the same time or clutching two great, slippery cocks in her fists while soapy hands fondled her breasts and probed between her buttocks and into her crotch. When she tumbled out of the steaming enclosure and began to towel herself, she realized her body was a quivering bundle of aroused flesh.
It was obvious the other three were in the same condition, and by mutual consent they returned naked to the living room, where they rolled about the floor in a senseless mass, gorging themselves on their newly acquired freedom from inhibition. When they finally broke apart, exhausted and laughing hysterically, she perceived dimly that they'd experienced something unique. She knew intuitively they'd never again surrender so completely to that kind of orgy, but she was convinced each would secretly slip into an occasional mental renewal.
Dressing was a leisurely, intimate affair. Art and Nell left after another mug of coffee and a snack of doughnuts and Helen found herself at last alone with her husband. They said little; in the warmth of the glances they exchanged there seemed no need for words. And when they were in bed their immediate lapse into fondling and exploratory caresses had a quality of naturalness about it that delighted Helen and washed away the last of her reservations.
In the moments of drifting before she finally went to sleep she remembered the drapes.
"Honey...."
"Hm?" Jock sounded drugged.
"We forgot to close the patio door tonight."
"Huh?"
"We forgot last night, too."
"The hell we did!" His tone suggested satisfaction rather than contrition.
"We made an awful lot of noise."
He chuckled sleepily. "No one complained."
"I know, but I think we ought to be more careful."
"I guess so."
She went to sleep knowing Jock was likely to make little effort toward remembering the importance of privacy. But in the morning when he opened the drapes to fill his lungs with fresh air, he yelped.
"What's wrong?" she demanded.
He stepped outside, ignoring the fact he was naked, and stooped to pick up something from the patio deck. "Look at this!"
She went to his side and peered into his open hand. "It's just dirt! What's so...?" Her voice trailed off and horror swept through her. "Jock! My God, Jock!"
"Hell, yes!" he exclaimed. "Didn't I hose off the patio before I watered the front lawn last night?"
"I think so; you always do."
"Damn right! Look at that! And look at that flower bed!"
"Someone ... Someone...." She choked on the word.
Jock nodded grimly. "Either someone came in here while we were in the other part of the house or we had a Peeping Tom!" He returned to the bedroom, dropping to hands and knees to study the carpeting. "Nothing here," he muttered. "Except right at the door." He twisted to stare into her face.
"Oh, honey!" she whispered. "Someone watched us!"
He nodded and rose, anger clear in the set of his shoulders. "I'd lay odds I know who. With King making off with your pants, I'll bet he sneaked back."
"Oh, Jock! No!"
"Maybe not. You think you'd want to bet?"
She shook her head slowly and started to dress. What scared her was that she had no doubt as to the accuracy of her husband's analysis but strangely felt no revulsion toward King. The fascination he held for her overpowered the reaction she felt she ought to be experiencing and made her belly knot with the knowledge that he'd probably watched while Art had manipulated her spread-eagled body. Her confusion grew while she prepared breakfast and she had to collapse in a chair when King telephoned at seven o'clock.
"I came past your place last night," he said. "I guess Jock decided not to give you my message."
"I ... he...."
"Never mind. I wanted you to come in this morning. If we get out that request for supplemental funding today it'll get into processing Monday. Can you make it?"
She listened intently for some hint in his voice as to whether he'd really done the things she believed, but his tone was even and steady. "I ... yes, I guess so," she replied.
He became solicitous. "Don't do it if you're too tired, now. It's not that urgent!"
"No, no! No problem. I'll go right in!"
"Well ... if you're sure. You'll have to start without me; I've got a couple of things to take care of first."
"That's all right, Doctor King. I don't mind."
"Good! I knew you wouldn't. You'll find my work sheets in the center drawer of my desk. Two pages of figures done in pencil. Use the standard format. Okay?"
"I won't have any problem."
Jock grumbled when she told him what King had wanted, but he protested less than she had expected him to. "I'm going to call on two or three people while you're gone," he said. "But I ought to be here a good part of the morning. Give me a call when you know when you'll be home."
There was no one at the Community Awareness building when she reached there; she knew the day's schedule was blank until two o'clock in the afternoon. She let herself into the corridor and went at once to the director's office. King's desk was locked, as she expected it to be, and she got the spare key out of the double-locked file and opened the drawer King had told her to. The two pages of figures were on top of everything else and she lifted them out. She hesitated for a moment, resisting the impulse to straighten the jumbled mess of papers. Smiling wryly to herself, she pulled the drawer to its stops and surveyed its chaotic interior. A thin stack of inked papers near the back caught her attention and she bent closer.
"Lord!" she exclaimed to herself. "A private draft of the General Accounting Report! Oh, no!" She lifted the close-columned computation sheets gingerly and studied them. "It is! He's keeping a copy for himself!"
But the entire set of figures had been done twice, one set having been neatly lined out and new, higher figures having been substituted. She decided King's first entries had been rough estimates; last-minute inputs had evidently forced him to change the early figures. She decided the revised totals were what King had finally given her, and she smiled indulgently at the doctor's quiet defiance of program accounting regulations. The department had some curious objection to leaving its running expense records in field offices. King was supposed to prepare a single rough draft, have it typed (that was her job), then forward the finished version, destroying all worksheets and the copy she had typed from.
She could readily understand how much easier it would be for him to manage finances with a historical record in the office; from all appearances, he'd been doing his own rough, then copying it for her. Worksheets and her copy got destroyed while he kept his original. She dropped the damning papers back into the drawer and closed and locked it. She was well into the special request by the time King arrived at nine-fifteen.
The doctor was dressed informally, taking advantage of its being Saturday. He closed the door and paused to survey his secretary before speaking. Helen's lips quivered with a repressed grin; it was the same every time he came into the office. Unconsciously, she straightened her shoulders, her breasts thrusting against the tight cotton of her blouse. She tingled at the way King's glance flicked back to her bold mounds; she still found him terribly attractive, and it gave her a perverse pleasure to know he was appraising her sexual attributes. This morning, there was the added thrill of the erotic knowledge they shared wordlessly.
"How's the report coming?" he asked, his gaze remaining on her bustline.
"Good. It'll be finished in an hour."
"Hmph. Faster than I expected." He crossed to his own desk, set his brief case on the floor, and eased himself into his chair. Opening one of the reference books he kept on the desk, he began to study it, taking notes from time to time. Helen turned back to her typing, faintly disappointed at his quick absorption in his work. But she gradually became aware that he was spending considerable time looking at her, even while he pretended to read.
He left the office once, shortly before ten, and she telephoned Jock to tell him she should be home by eleven at the latest. And by ten-fifteen, the report was ready for King's signature. He read it rapidly, grunting to himself once or twice, then signed it. Helen prepared it for mailing.
"That all?" she asked.
He nodded. "No more work. But sit down; let's chat awhile. Haven't had much chance lately." He indicated the visitors' armchair at the end of his desk.
She settled herself, tugging at the edge of her miniskirt, and crossed her knees. King looked hungrily at the tapered legs and she gave silent thanks that there were no runs in her hose.
"You might call your husband and tell him the report's running longer than I'd anticipated," he said at last. "I think I told you this morning you'd be out of here by eleven or eleven-thirty."
"But ...!"
"Tell him you'll be maybe an hour late getting home."
She hesitated, but something buried in King's voice compelled her to dial her number, and she apologized to Jock.
"Doctor King asked me to tell you I'd be about an hour late getting home," she said. "He guessed wrong about how long it would take to do the report." She forced herself to chuckle cozily. "Looks like I was right after all."
"Huh? What the hell are you talking about?" Jock sounded thoroughly confused.
"'Bye, darling." And she hung up.
"What was that about your being right after all?" asked King.
She laughed. "My private joke. I told him you were probably underestimating, before I left the house."
He sighed. "Hate to take the blame when I don't deserve it, but it looks like I've had it this time."
She smiled sweetly, wondering if Jock had caught the significance of her secret message. She had no doubt the doctor intended to make love to her today, and she was calmly willing. But they could do that with plenty of leisure to spare without running over the time she'd originally expected to get home. When King found her ready to cooperate, they'd more likely have finished before eleven, and she'd be able to get home as early as she'd suggested to Jock in her first call. But if the doctor was planning something that would take two hours, she wanted a reasonable hope that Jock would be coming to find out why.
"You're thoughtful," King observed. "Or is 'tired' a better word?"
"Daydreaming. I haven't worked hard this morning."
"But you were out late last night-past eleven, anyhow."
She laughed. "An evening out isn't all that tiring."
"I suppose not." He leaned down to open one of the lower drawers. When he straightened, her panties were in his hand, and he laid them on the desk. "On the other hand, it could wear a woman out if she left something like this behind as soon as she got out the front door."
She gasped. "It ... where...." She pretended to be confused. "That damn dog! Where did you find those?"
He smiled gently, disbelief clear in his eyes. "Your porch."
"Oh, how embarrassing!"
"Hm. Yes. I suppose I ought to ask you to identify them before...."
"Don't!" she whispered sharply. She couldn't bear to have him shatter his image with such a sophomoric ruse as asking her to try them on to prove they were hers.
"No." He shook his head slowly, his gaze boring into her eyes. "The Solicks were at your house last night, and Nell couldn't get into these. No one else would drop them on your porch."
"Wh ... Wh...."
He shifted his glance to her bust again and his tone was lightly conversational when he spoke. "Haven't been able to keep my eyes off those since the day you applied for this job. Helen, why don't you be a good girl and show me just how much of that's you and how much is bra?"
"Thank you." She was still whispering, she realized with a start. Relief at his outright approach made her shake, and intense devotion rushed over her. Whatever kind of bastard he was, he was all man, and she loved him for it. She knew she'd let him have her anywhere under any conditions, whenever he wanted her. She was being horribly disloyal to Jock, she told herself, but she couldn't help it, and it didn't make her love her husband any less.
Her fingers were steady as they unbuttoned her blouse. She shrugged out of it and quietly slid the shoulder straps of her bra off her shoulders. Pulling her arms through them, she hesitated for a moment, then turned the cups down and pushed the tight band off her ribs and down to her waist. King sucked his breath in abruptly, and she looked down to avoid his eyes. Turning her bra around, she unfastened it and dropped it beside her chair, finally raising her head to look at him. He stared at her breasts as if they were part of a rare masterpiece.
"Real!" he exclaimed softly. "Every damn ounce!" He leaned across the desk and touched the quivering flesh with his fingertip. As if the pulpy firmness fascinated him, he pushed, sinking the finger inward until it stopped at her rib.
She gripped the arms of the chair, biting her lip to keep from moaning in her pleasure. But King was looking into her eyes again and she knew he could see her reaction. He grinned and she smiled at him, her lips parted.
"You don't mind that," he noted.
"No." Her voice was low but steady.
"Let me hold your hands and look at you."
"All right."
She twisted in the chair, extending her hands toward him. He closed his own over them and tugged gently. With an amused chuckle, she leaned forward until her breasts rested on the desk. King laid her left hand on her right and held both with one of his. She realized her upper arms were pressing her breasts together, accentuating the cleavage, and she closed her eyes and sighed. His approach was leisurely, she reflected. But it was deliciously novel. There was a sharp click, and she opened her eyes to discover he'd opened his brief case. He took out a gleaming set of handcuffs, their jaws open, and snapped one onto her wrist before she could protest. She jerked to free her hands, but his grip held them as if they were in a vise.
"You ... you don't have to do that," she stammered.
"I know that," he replied. "You don't really mind, do you?"
She hesitated briefly. Then, "No. Not if that's what you want." She couldn't mask the tremor in her voice. What had seemed so wonderfully direct had suddenly turned hideous with threat. Last night's adventure had been her first experience with love-making in restraints and she knew only too well that bondage more often turned out to be incidental to torture and death. King's pleasant calm merely heightened the bizarre effect and intensified her panic. She was sure only of one thing ... that the worst thing she could do would be to plead. When she thought she could control her voice, she asked, "Why?"
"Imitation, I guess. I've never had a secretary I thought had the guts to keep her self-control before. I think you're special."
"You ... you're not going to torture me."
He paused before answering, locking her other wrist to the first. "No. I'm not going to cut you up or beat you or any of those painful things. Tell me, you were ready to screw, weren't you?"
"Yes."
He released her hands and she sat back in her chair, pressing her fists into her lap. "Yes." She kept her voice even.
"Of course you were. I like it this way, that's all."
"All right." She waited.
He rose and went around the desk to the door. Locking it, he returned to her and urged her to her feet. To her surprise, he held her to him, tilting her face up with the fingers of one hand and covering her lips with his. She gasped at the sensation; his kiss was soft and warm, with no trace of the muscle hardness of Jock's or Art's. And he worked his lips on hers with the same tender eagerness she used in returning Jock's caresses. The entire experience was novel to her, and she sank into it happily, no longer concerned about the cuffs. A man King's age had to have a few kinks to stay single, she decided, and she was more than willing to accommodate them in exchange for gentleness like this.
At last he broke the kiss. He gazed at her face for a long time. "You meant that, didn't you?" he murmured.
She nodded and rested her head against his shoulder, crooning softly. He chuckled and led her to the storage cupboard, with its coat hook high on the door. Turning her so her back rested against the door, he raised her arms, stretching her until he could hook the connecting links of the cuffs over it. She rose on her toes to reduce the strain, and King grinned.
"Won't keep you there long," he promised. "Wouldn't have to at all, I guess. But it stimulates me." He stepped away and began to undress.
Helen forgot her discomfort. Greg King had the physique of a gymnast, its beauty and magnificent development evident only after his clothes were off. There was no sign of hair on his body, except for a jet-black patch at his groin, and his skin was smooth and pale. His muscles rippled, each one sharply defined and bulging. His cock dwarfed Jock's, even though it appeared to be only semi-erect at the moment. She shivered at the size of his testicles, certain they were the size of her fists.
As she had the night before when Art had undressed before her, she found herself hypnotized by King's cock. There was a thick foreskin, but it failed to cover the forward portion of his cockhead, and the flushed bulb protruded to show a velvety-looking surface. The shaft half-frightened her with its thickness, and she guessed it would match her wrist.
He grinned and postured, flexing his muscles and striking poses as if he were contending for a title.
"My goodness!" exclaimed Helen. "Oooh, you're beautiful!"
"Thanks." He said it casually, as if it were expected. And he came back to her. Quite deliberately, he held his cock in his hand and rubbed the head against the bare flesh of her belly. Laughing at her expression, he reached up and unhooked her. He led her back to his desk and produced another set of handcuffs from his brief case.
She watched quietly while he changed the cuffs, fastening one member of the second set to one of her wrists and unlocking the original one. She was mildly puzzled at having a set of cuffs dangling from each wrist, but he snapped the free one to the vertical arm support of the chair she'd sat in and pushed her around behind the chair, the fronts of her thighs against it. Quickly, then, obviously sure of himself, he pulled her other hand down and fastened its free cuff to the other arm of the chair. She was bent to some extent, but by resting her hands on the chair arms she could support herself without discomfort.
He took up a position in front of her and reached between her arms to cup his hands under her breasts. His fingers kneaded them gently and skillfully, and excitement streamed through her. She watched, lowering her head to stare at the sharply coned boobs, their nipples stiffening and puckering and his fingertips brushing over them. But she was acutely aware of the enormous cock in front of her, and she continually raised her head for quick glances at it. He moved slowly closer, until the cockhead nearly touched her. There was a faint, musky aroma about the huge organ, and she finally lost interest in watching her breasts and concentrated on the cock.
On impulse, she thrust her face forward and kissed the blunt tip.
CHAPTER SEVEN
He cupped his hands at the sides of her head, his fingers buried in the hair behind her ears, his thumbs at her cheekbones and the heels of his palms on her jaw. His cock appeared to come to life, swelling and stiffening until it was fully erect. He leaned forward, thrusting the head against her lips. She kissed it again, and he twisted his hips so the smooth bulb slid back and forth over her face.
Once, she recalled, during the first month of her life with Jock, she had crouched between his knees-at his direction-and taken his cockhead in her mouth. She had sucked it until he'd stopped her, sealing her mind against the protests her notion of propriety had raised. But the next time he had attempted to lead her into unnatural acts, she had firmly and finally called a halt. It wasn't that she'd disliked that-even now, she remembered the warm sense of giving that had suffused her-but she'd committed herself to a course of conservatism.
She was no longer conservative, and she wanted desperately to do what she knew King wanted. She lipped the cockhead, nuzzling it and touching it with the tip of her tongue. Excitement puckered her cheeks as if she were licking a dill pickle, and she sucked tentatively at the open slit. With an effort, she opened her jaws wide enough to admit the knob to her mouth, her teeth stripping back the foreskin as the bulging thing entered. She closed her lips around the shaft and began to suck. A thin fluid seeped from the slit, tasting acrid and slippery, and she drew it into her throat and swallowed. His hips moved slowly and steadily, approaching and withdrawing, and she moved her body to maintain her grip on the cockhead. At intervals, King held her head still while he leaned on his cock, and at such times it slipped deeper, bringing up at the back of her throat. Her excitement continued to rise with her consciousness of the pleasure she was giving him and she scrubbed the slit with the back of her tongue.
King began to speak. "You could do a good job of this with practice. MacGruder doesn't know what he's missing. Really ought to develop the skill, Helen."
She varied the pressure of her tongue strokes and the rhythm of her sucking, trying to discover a combination that would please him more. She thrust her head forward, ramming the cockhead to the back of her mouth and blocking her throat with it. And she extended her lips as far along the shaft as she could, then drew them back, repeating the caress again and again. She saw a tic begin in one of King's belly muscles and interpreted it as a sign of his excitement. Her movements grew more agitated, helped by deft directions from his hands. At last, King pulled his cock free.
"Oh, dear!" she said softly. Her jaw ached, and she worked it to prevent a cramp.
King massaged her body, probing deep between her ribs and her hip bones, and she groaned with delight when he encircled her waist with his hands and squeezed to manipulate the inner organs. He moved around her and unfastened her skirt, working it over her bottom. He pulled it off her legs and took her panties off immediately. But he didn't bother with her garterbelt or hose.
He tied a soft rope around one of her knees, pushed her forward so her weight rested on the back of the chair, and pulled her leg out to the side. Lifting her knee and shoving it forward beside the arm of the chair, he passed the rope across, tugged her other knee into a similar position, and secured it with the free end of the rope. She lowered herself, resting on her forearms and trying not to visualize the way she must look.
"That's a graceful little ass, Helen," King said softly. He laid his hands on her buttocks and caressed them tenderly.
She squirmed, renewed hunger grabbing at her belly.
King continued, as if talking to himself. "Firm cheeks ... no fat ... good tone." He spread her cheeks until she felt her anus gape, and one of his fingertips touched the sensitive ring.
Helen jerked violently. King laughed and, without warning, thrust a finger deep into her pussy. She gasped and grunted happily. He wiggled the finger inside her, then withdrew it and deliberately forced it to the knuckle in her rectum.
Her feet flailed the air and she gritted her teeth, but the burning subsided quickly and pulses of pleasure surged through her. After a brief interval, King pulled his finger out of her. She sagged, relieved and regretful at the same time.
"Now," she said softly. "Now, Greg."
There was a long pause before King touched her again. When he did, it was to seize her hips and tilt her bottom back. His hands worked upward to her buttocks and he spread them widely. A hard, great bulb settled between them, pressing against the tightness of her anus.
"Oh, no!" she whispered with horror. "Oh, no, Greg!"
"Easy," he murmured. "No way to resist that perfect little ass, Helen. Virgin, isn't it."
Except for Art's finger last night and yours today, she thought. But she said nothing. Oh, God! He can't! Not with that monster cock of his!
The pressure built slowly, and she felt every stage of the stretching of her rectum. King's cockhead felt wet and terribly slippery and she knew he'd lubricated it with something good. But its very slipperiness made it impossible for her tight-clamped sphincter to prevent its inexorable entry. She continued to stretch, her buttocks forced intolerably far apart and the enormous cockhead sinking into her rectum by infinitesimal degrees.
Her legs had straightened, thrusting forward past the legs of the chair, her feet jerking convulsively.
She clawed at the chair arms and ground her teeth together. Her eyes bulged and she couldn't blink her eyelids. And she groaned deep in her throat. The pressure on the entering cock had increased beyond the level she thought she could stand and still the inward progress was almost imperceptible. But she knew she was opening and swallowing King's cockhead. Her anus felt as if the intruding organ were a white-hot axle and the agony tore at every fiber.
"Aghh ... aghh...!" She felt the protest in her throat without being able to swell it with her breath.
And there was a sudden,, unbelievable moment of relief when King's cockhead plunged through the distended ring of her anus. The huge bulb plowed inward, his shaft sliding rapidly and easily after it until his groin bore on her buttocks.
"Oh! ... Oh, God, Greg!...." She gasped for air. "Oh God, it's huge!" And then, "It feels good more than it hurts!"
"You made it hurt, yourself," he said quietly, leaning against her without movement. "If you'd been able to relax and let it happen, it wouldn't have hurt at all."
"I ... I don't believe that. But it does feel good. Greg. God, I'm full!"
King backed an inch away from her and thrust gently. She gasped and jerked her legs helplessly. His second stroke was longer, and Helen's ass bounced with her reaction. She braced herself firmly with her hands and began to buck, matching his rhythm and opposing his direction, converting each of his thrusts into a jarring impact.
"You got that quick," said King with a grunt. His hands closed on her waist, further increasing the force of their collisions as he swept her against himself. "See how much better it is this way? Nothing loose and sloppy ... just a tight little ass like a clamp on my cock."
"Tight ... Oh, God, so tight!" She panted wildly, squeezing with her sphincter until she heard King gasp.
No matter how he likes it! she thought. Any way he wants it! He's so sure! ... So damn sure he doesn't bother with what I think!
He grunted loudly, then groaned and mashed his belly onto her buttocks. She felt the heat of his jism erupt in the core of her belly and a wave of ecstatic satisfaction jolted her. Convulsive spasms seized her vagina and she cried out with the joy of orgasm. Rocking on the back of the chair, she endured the contractions and the heat and knew it was a new kind of climax. And afterward, when King stopped pumping his semen into her and her tension had dissolved, she felt as if she were hanging on his cock without other support.
"Greg! Darling Greg! Oooh, I'm glad you did that!"
He made no movement toward pulling his cock out of her rectum, but leaned against her while his breathing steadied.
"For a woman, you're pretty reasonable," he said cryptically. "As nice an ass as I've had, I think. I'll bet you could just about do the work yourself, next time."
"I'll try," she said.
He laughed, his tone suddenly contemptuous.
"Of course you will." There was a short silence; then he spoke again, his voice heavy and each word drawn out and distinct. "You feeble-minded slut! You're too stupid to do anything but fuck. I could piss in your face and you'd crawl to me and suck my cock. Wouldn't you, dummy!"
"Greg! ... Doctor King! ... Oh, my God, what are you saying?"
"Wouldn't you! ... no, I mean, won't you!"
She stifled a dry sob. She hated him as fiercely as she had loved him a moment before, but she knew he was telling the truth. Something about him was as irresistible to her as a flame was to moths, and she felt a desolate certainty she'd never be able to deny him.
"Won't you, goddamn it!"
She whispered, "Yes. Yes, I will."
"That's right. Don't forget it. To me, you're just a piece of Jock MacGruder ... a useless lump ... but you're as much a part of him as his cock, and going up your ass or into your mouth is the same as doing him! You hear me? That's all you are to me; a piece of that sonofabitch of a husband!"
"Oh, please," she moaned. "Don't talk like that, Doctor King." She felt her anus tighten involuntarily on his cock and hated herself for it.
He laughed again. "Can't help yourself, can you? You couldn't even if you were loose." He bent over her and jerked the knots out of the rope that bound her legs, then reached for the handcuff key on the desk. In a moment, he'd unlocked the cuffs.
Helen squirmed on his cock, her anus winking hard on his cock, but she couldn't force herself to slide sideways off the back of the chair.
"See?" His voice bounced with vindictive triumph. "Like to have a preview of what's going to happen? You're going to come in here every morning, just like always. Only you're going to get here a half hour earlier. And we're going to reschedule all my appointments for an hour later than they've been. You're going to come in here and get your clothes off. You're not going to stop to sort the mail or dust the desks or take the cover off your typewriter. You're just going to get undressed. And you're going to put every stitch of your clothing in the bottom drawer of that file cabinet and wait for me." He laughed, but it sounded more like a cackle to Helen.
"You'll wait. When I get here, we'll do whatever's come to my mind. And then you'll get your clothes out of the file and get to work."
"No. You don't mean that!" She felt suspended in unreality. He's playing a bad practical joke, she told herself. He's trying to see how I act under stress. But she found it difficult to stay convinced under the hissing lash of his words.
"You'll wait on my desk. You'll crawl onto it on your belly and hang onto one end with your hands with one foot out over the front edge and the other over the back. But you'll roll up that pillow from the couch first and you'll he with it under your hips so your ass sticks up in the air. Right? And you won't even move when I come in ... not until I tell you to." He swept her sideways, clear of the chair, and she grabbed the edge of the desk for support without trying to straighten. His cock felt as hard to her as it had at the moment of his orgasm. His voice went on, low and venomous. "That nephew of yours. Your husband's son. Amazing, that neat arrangement for passing the MacGruder bloodline along. Amazing. And with Frank ready to die, that promise of yours to adopt Billy. You know what your husband's going to get for all his trouble? Hm?" He prodded her.
"No," she whispered, tears pooling beneath her face on the desk.
He laughed, his voice coarse and grating instead of resonant. "The kid's a natural for Greek philosophy. Gets right into the guts of those old ideas. He's so damn dumb he doesn't even stop and ask where new generations of Greeks came from. Good student, though! About ready to graduate. There's a fellow coming here next week. Billy's going to take his final exam in Greek from him ... learn what real love is!"
"I hate you!" she groaned softly. "God, I hate you, Doctor King."
"Fine. I want it that way." He braced his hands on her buttocks and slowly pulled his cock from her rectum. She sighed and sagged against the desk, her back too cramped for her to straighten.
"Get on the desk and wait while I dress," he said curtly.
She shuddered.
"Get on the desk!"
She lay across his desk and wearily swung her legs up.
"The way I said!"
Pulling herself around, she placed her hands at the corners on one end and thrust her legs apart. The leather of King's blotter pad felt cool to her cheek.
King wiped himself and dressed. While he was buttoning his shirt, he began to whistle a sentimental melody. Afterward, he came to the desk and seated himself in the swivel chair. He caressed Helen's taut body, his hand finding centers of tension and working them until they loosened. And he kissed her face repeatedly, his lips moist and gentle. At last, when she had fully relaxed, he scooped her into his arms and cradled her on his lap. She placed her arms around his neck and snuggled, the horror of his threats and demands fading from her mind.
"You're a good lay," he remarked softly. "I knew you would be. I'm going, now. You get dressed and go home. It's late."
She dressed thoughtfully. She'd expected sex with King. It had been different from her imaginary lays with him, but it had come. It was difficult to know what really had happened, and she had no idea what the real King was like, now. She had a choice, she realized. Either he was an amazing practical joker, or he was crazy, or trying to convince her she was. But her strength had come back and she felt she could afford to shrug.
Whatever King was, she meant to reduce the risk as much as possible. And the first step would be to Xerox the illegal financial report he had in his desk. She worked briskly and had the copies in her purse and the original back in his desk within minutes. She'd have to decide during the coming thirty-six hours how to react to the wild demand he'd made regarding her new work schedule. But she was now determined she'd never comply.
She locked up with extra care and went to her car. In it, moving sedately through traffic, she allowed herself a shiver of unmixed delight. In retrospect, the past two hours had been the wildest, most exciting she'd ever had. And she'd thought the night before had provided that. Except for the few moments of agony before she'd learned how to cope with King's unexpected anal entry, there had been no pain and little mental distress. Even his irrational outburst had been too unreal to hurt. And she was physically more alert and aware than she could recall having been ... ever.
There were certain facts she had to add to her collection. King did hate Jock; that was evident even in his quieter moments. He did have strange notions about sex, although his unorthodox practices might be an outgrowth of his concept of psychology. He was apparently exerting influences on Billy that could be harmful; she'd have to verify that with her nephew. And whatever the truth about the Walter Engel incident, he was guilty of at least one violation of department policy.
One other fact lay on her mind, stark and immovable. She couldn't tell Jock about this morning's events. His permissive attitude toward swapping certainly had no element of toleration of one-way infidelity. And with his antagonism toward King, he'd lose every shred of reason if he knew about that. She'd face anything rather than risk his finding out.
He was waiting impatiently for her at the house. He came out onto the porch the moment she drove into the driveway.
"Good thing I waited for you instead of going off half-cocked," he growled. "For a while, I thought you'd tried to get something across to me without tipping off King. Damned if I remembered your saying anything this morning about his guessing wrong about the time."
She shook her head. "Sorry, honey. Didn't mean to get you worked up. But I did come across something funny." She told him about King's private copy of the monthly report.
His eyes narrowed. "Funny. I never heard of a policy like that."
"But Jock! That's one of the first things he told me when I started!"
"Let's get inside and take a look at that stuff."
They laid out the half-dozen sheets on the dining room table and Jock scanned the close-spaced columns. He whistled softly.
"That slick sonofabitch! I'll lay odds he's into the department for all the money that those corrections represent! What in hell would make him keep something like that around?"
"I don't know." A nagging fear settled in her mind. "Not when it was right with the report he asked me to get out of his desk."
Jock turned and stared into her eyes. "Say that again."
"The figures for that special request I had to type this morning. He told me over the telephone to get it out of his desk and...."
"Keep his desk locked?"
"Yes, but there's an extra key. He keeps that in one of the files."
"And this stuff was right under the other?"
"Yes."
"That's too easy."
"A trap?"
He nodded soberly. "It has to be."
"Is this fake?"
"Likely." He studied the papers again, then folded them together and struck them against his palm. "I think he's just given us a warning."
"Just a warning?"
"Not intentionally. He probably figured you'd do exactly what you did. And he probably figured I'd have him up on charges. Easy to wipe us both out if he could show he's baited us and claimed harassment."
"Jock! We'd better burn this!"
He chuckled. "Don't get uptight, baby. It can't hurt now. But I do want to study it a little more. Couple of things about it don't tie in."
"Like what?"
"For one thing, it isn't laid out just the way it ought to be." And he was quick to add, "I'm not sure of that. It's just a feeling."
"Oh! I know! There's an extra column."
"Huh?"
She showed him.
"Okay. I guess that's what bugged me. Anyhow, I can spend some time trying to guess what that is." He changed the subject. "Maybe I shouldn't bring it up, but about last night...."
She glanced up, waiting.
"I mean, okay to talk about it?"
CHAPTER EIGHT
Helen nodded. "I guess so. Have you had lunch?"
"No."
"Let's talk about last night while I fix something, then."
He followed her into the kitchen. "Don't know just how to put this, but ... well ... Honey, how come things broke as fast as they did?"
"Broke fast?" The anger she'd felt at his eagerness with Nell seemed trivial after this morning's session with King, but she could hardly pretend it hadn't existed.
"Yeah. Hell, we've never talked about swapping. Is that something out of Community Awareness?"
"You mean, am I brain-washed?"
He shrugged. "However you want it."
"No, I'm not! How did we get started last night?"
"Well, you started crawling all over Art, the way I remember it."
She set her jaw. "There wasn't anything between you and Nell?"
"Hell, no! Not until you snuggled up next to Art!"
"That wasn't the first time. How about last New Year's Eve?"
"New Year's Eve is different."
"Who was it asked if I'd ever thought of going further?"
"So? And what did you say?"
"Now, wait a damn minute! Know what I think? I know you and Nell were primed. I know that's why they came over! Isn't it?"
Jock stared at her, his eyes wide. "You serious?"
"Isn't it?"
"That's a hell of a thing to say! How come?"
"Jock, we're pretty honest with each other most of the time. Aren't we?"
"Yeah."
"Did you have fun last night?"
He grinned, then nodded. "Can't deny that."
"In the bedroom, too?"
"Yeah."
"Are we going to swap any more?"
"That depends. You want to?"
Helen turned away from the cabinet. "Seems to me swapping's a lot like making love. A woman's never a virgin after the first lay."
"So?"
"So, if we had a 'virgin' marriage, it isn't one now. It never will be again."
"Okay. There's no reason not to keep on swapping, then."
"There may be lots of reasons. But the biggest one isn't there any more."
Jock sighed. "It boils down to whether you like making it with Art and how much you mind my making it with Nell."
"Yes."
"Well?"
She turned to him, gazing into his face and glowing with satisfaction at the decision she'd reached the night before. Jock's puzzled expression pricked her conscience; she'd been mean to let that moment of spite creep into what he'd meant to be a quiet, reasonable discussion. "Jock, I did have fun last night. Art's good to shack with-maybe not as good as you, but good-and I can stand to watch you when you lay Nell."
"Unh!" he grunted. "Pungent language!" Then he grinned broadly. "So we keep the swap going." And he grabbed her and gave her a bear-hug. "If Community Awareness had anything to do with the way you're looking at things now, I owe an apology to Washington."
"Not to Doctor King?"
"That bastard!"
Helen laughed at his vehemence, then shivered, remembering how thoroughly King reciprocated Jock's dislike. Somehow, their animosity seemed too intense for Grantsville. She was ready to concede she'd stirred Jock's jealousy. Certainly King had good reason to resent the way Jock and Art had gone to him about the Engel boy. But it was hard to believe the situation could have intensified as fast as it had.
"Honey, he scares me sometimes," she said slowly.
"He's dangerous. I wish you'd quit playing games and turn in your resignation."
"I ... Jock, I can't do that. I meant, it scares me, the way he hates you!"
"Huh? That's a strong word, baby."
"It's true. I know it is! Why, honey?"
"Damned if I know. Maybe I stepped on his toes sometime without knowing it. The inspector's office is bound to make people unhappy once in a while. And I don't know what bureaus he's worked in."
"I think you ought to be terribly careful."
Jock studied her, appearing to sense how real her concern was. He drew her to him again and whispered to her, his fingers smoothing her hair and a bulge at his crotch proving to her that his thoughts weren't straying far from fundamentals. Finally, she giggled and freed herself.
"Good heavens, darling! Not now!" She set the table. "It's time for lunch."
After lunch, Jock excused himself, promising he'd be back to the house within an hour or two. And Billy came.
"Billy! It's been so long since you've come here!"
"I know. I thought I ought to."
"Come on in! How about a Coke and some cookies?"
The boy willingly raided the cookie jar and got a Coke out of the refrigerator. He settled himself at the table and Helen studied him. She felt guilty at having neglected him so badly. It seemed to her he'd practically turned into a man in the past few months. His shoulders had broadened and filled out and his upper arms were thicker than her thighs. His waist and hips were man-lean instead of boy-pudgy. His physical resemblance to Jock was unmistakable and she started at the sudden, hard excitement that tensed her crotch as an uninvited image popped into her mind of Jock's cock jutting from the boy's crotch. She pulled another chair out, angling it with a trembling hand, and dropped into it.
"How's your father, Billy?"
An expression of pain flickered in her nephew's features. "He doesn't talk any more than he ever has." His voice was low. "He's got more reason now, though."
"What do you mean?"
"He's going to die."
"Billy! ... BILLY!"
"Yeah. He doesn't think I know, but I guess Doctor Marcos found out the last time he did an exam."
"Oh, no!"
"He isn't going to suffer much. It's in his brain. It's just that he's losing coordination."
"How long, Billy?"
"Weeks, maybe." He inhaled shakily, then burst out. "Darn it, Aunt Helen! He's so alone!" And he added more quietly, "Like always, though. So am I."
"Oh, dear! It's my fault, Billy. I'm sorry."
"It's okay."
"No, it's not. I want you to understand that. It's not okay!" She stared hard at him. "Right, Billy?" He squirmed. "I guess so. Aunt Helen, would it make you mad if I ask you to call me Bill?"
"Well ... no. I'll try."
"Billy's kind of kid stuff."
"You're not a kid now, are you, Bill? You're a man, all of a sudden. Doctor King says you've learned a lot about philosophy lately. You like it?"
"I don't know. They had some pretty interesting ideas. The Greeks, I mean. Pretty simple, some of them, but when you think how little they knew...."
"They lived in a different world. They fitted ideas to it."
Billy nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah! That's it!"
The cookies had vanished and he tilted the bottle to drain it. The edge had worn off the diffidence he'd shown at first and Helen felt they were almost at their old level of communication. There was no question but that he'd matured during the past six months, however; he was having obvious difficulty in avoiding staring at her bosom and the ample expanse of thigh her miniskirt revealed. Doctor King might be planning to sour Bill on women, she reflected, but he hadn't succeeded yet.
She'd meant to distract him from thoughts about his father. Frank had been so remote from the boy since Eileen's death that Billy would miss him only as an abstract presence, and there was no need for the boy to dwell on the inevitable. But Billy's gaze was becoming so intense it was throwing her off balance; she felt she had to jolt him into another track before she forgot herself.
"Frank will be better off," she murmured. "He doesn't want to live."
"How come losing Mom did that to him, Aunt Helen?"
"She was pretty special, Billy." Except for that one thing with Jock, there wasn't a blemish in Helen's recollection of her sister.
Billy nodded slowly. "I know. Was there ever anyone else like her?" His voice broke and he swallowed. "Sometimes I think I just dreamed she was like she was. But I keep remembering."
Helen leaned forward impulsively and laid her hand on his. "That's the way she really was, Billy," she whispered. "She...." Her voice trailed off. Billy's hand had tensed and she felt as if an electric current were flowing between them where her hand touched his. Too late, she knew her blouse was hanging out from her chest. The wide neckline exposed the full bulges of her breasts, her skimpy bra revealing the pink upper surfaces of her nipples. Billy was being treated to an unobstructed view. She remained motionless for a moment before slowly leaning back.
Bill gulped and blinked. "In a way, Mom was hardly human. She was too good to fit."
"Not many men are lucky enough to marry a woman like her."
"I don't want to."
"Bill!" Billy had become suddenly inappropriate.
"You know what I mean, don't you? A guy wouldn't ever feel like he deserved to go near her!"
Helen smiled. Her sister had possessed a quality that had made her seem a distillation of everything good and beautiful. Bill's observation, staying with him as long as it had, was remarkably similar to the feeling Helen, herself, had secretly borne. Eileen had been as ethereal as Nell Solick was earthy. "Yes. I know."
He acted relieved. "If I wanted to get married-I don't, but if I did-I'd want someone like you. You're good, and a guy knows it right from the start, but there's something about you makes a guy want to touch you, too." His eyes widened as if he'd heard something different from what he'd meant to say. His face colored and he squirmed. "My gosh, Aunt Helen! I didn't mean that!" And his confusion deepened. "Yes, I did!" he blurted. "I did mean it! But I didn't mean to say it! Anyhow, the Greeks knew one thing; man-and-woman romance causes ninety-nine per cent of the trouble in the world."
Helen winced. She could hear Doctor King's voice in that assertion. But Bill slid away from the idea as quickly as he'd expressed it. His mother was in his mind, and Helen suspected it had been a long time since he'd let himself think about her.
There was a wistful expression in his eyes. "Funny what a guy misses about his mom. Like the way she used to cuddle me. It was sort of a little world inside the real one, as if she were shutting out all the mean things." He gazed into space.
Helen rose slowly and went to him. Standing beside him, she put her arms around his head and pressed it to her bosom. She could feel the tension in his neck and shoulders, but as she held him his stiffness seemed to drain slowly away. He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her close, letting his head lie quietly against her breast. He sighed and rubbed his cheek on the warm softness and she felt an erratic twitching in his arm.
"You smell good," he remarked softly. And then, with a short laugh, "Imagine a grown man getting cuddled."
"That's what man-woman romance is, Bill. Not us, of course, but real man-woman sex-love. It's cuddling that's matured."
"Huh? That's a funny way of looking at it!"
"Turn it over in your mind."
"Yeah." His hand had moved onto her bottom.
She felt her hips jerk in response to a surge of pleasure before she realized he was squeezing her buttock. With an effort, she suppressed a gasp. But the gentle kneading continued and the hunger that seeped through her was real. Bill's face was doing things to her breast, too, she noticed. She shivered and drew back.
"Bill, you've been working too hard with Doctor King. Jock says you're not even dating any more."
"I'm not."
"Well, you need a change of pace. There's a place your mother and dad used to go for picnics. It hasn't changed; let's have a picnic tomorrow."
"Just you and me? And maybe you tell me things about Mom when she was a girl?"
"All right. Is it a date?"
"Gee, won't Uncle Jock be mad?"
"Not if it's just once. He'll want to go next time."
"Gee! Great! What time, Aunt Helen?"
"I'll pick you up at ... well, how about ten o'clock?"
"Okay!"
Bill left, whistling, and Helen sank into one of the armchairs in the living room, trembling. The boy affected her as powerfully as he ever had; the fact meant something now, though. There was no possibility he'd get interested in a girl before King's imported seducer arrived. King had clearly primed Bill, and a skillful, attractive man might easily complete the conversion. With what Doctor Weinn had said, the risk couldn't be overestimated.
"He's not Doctor King's boy yet," she muttered aloud. "He's not above looking when he can-or doing a little feeling-up. And he said it, himself; he said there's something about me makes a guy want to touch me. He doesn't confuse me with his image of Eileen, so I'm not going to hurt that. And it won't be hard to let things drift into sex. If I make it good enough-and 'cuddly' enough-he'll know the truth about what it can be."
Jock opened the front door and came in. He glanced around and chuckled. "Who you talking to?"
She started. "God, Jock! I didn't hear you drive up!" And she laughed self-consciously. "I've started talking to myself these days. It's companionable."
He bent over her and kissed her forehead. "You couldn't find a better companion, doll."
"Good heavens! You have any idea how far flattery can get you?"
"Show me one of these days." He grinned. "Right now, I want to phone Art."
"Oh?"
"Did a little checking on King. Saturday's not a real good day for it, but it's not impossible, either."
"What kind of checking, hon?"
"Two kinds. Where's King spending money and where's the program doing its spending? And I cheated on the second part. Stopped at my office and dug out our file on Community Awareness."
"And you found out King was spending too much."
"Haven't seen that yet, but it does look like the program's spending quite a bit less than the books show."
To her own amazement, Helen felt a wrench of dismay. I don't want King to be stealing! she thought. And then, with growing horror at herself, It isn't even that! I just don't want him to get caught! It would be an intolerable situation if she found herself taking King's side, knowing he was in the wrong. She was afraid to analyze the sharp sense of concern she felt about him.
Jock telephoned. "Hi, Nell! Art there?" He chuckled at something she said. "Yeah? That a promise, doll? ... Why not? ... Sure! The sooner the better! ... Good!" He glanced at Helen and grinned. "Nell just propositioned me," he said, his hand over the mouthpiece.
"She did, huh."
"And I took her up on it."
"When's all this coming off?"
"Ooops, here's Art." He spoke into the instrument again. "Yeah, Art ... right ... well, Helen brought some work home from the office this morning." He quickly explained the situation, then the fact he'd been doing a preliminary investigation. "Fact is, there's already pretty strong evidence the program's spending less money than its accounts show. I think we need to get that nailed down as fast as we can. I'm afraid one of the outfits I checked with will be touching base with King about it first thing Monday morning." He listened for a moment. "Would you? ... Great! Come on over and I'll show you where I've gotten, so far ... Right! Thanks, Art." He hung up. "Art's going to give me a hand with this thing. I think we're going to have to set up a sampling audit on King's operation for Monday or Tuesday."
"It's that bad already?"
He nodded grimly. "Two of the places I checked looked real bad. It's been a matter of trying to find people who can remember about what the program's paid them; damn few bookkeepers are working Saturday afternoon. But those two were sure, and the figures they gave me made Community Awareness sound like Little League baseball compared to what King's last monthly report showed. Trouble is, we've got to move on this before King gets the wind up."
"Why?"
"Because he's into the till deep enough to make him dangerous. It isn't penny ante stuff we're looking at." He looked worried. "In fact, I've got a hunch-nothing more-that he may not be in this alone. And it's starting to look big enough to be professional."
"With Doctor King simply the 'in-house man?"
"Right. If that's true it could get sticky. We'd want to keep the heat off until we could get a line on the others. You aware of any outside contacts he's got?"
She shook her head, then recalled King's promise for Billy's future. "Wait! He said something this morning about someone coming this next week! Not like it was official, necessarily. Just someone he thought Billy was going to enjoy meeting."
"Billy! What's he...?" He broke off. "We can't have that if this is King's contact. Don't want Billy mixed up."
"Billy was here while you were gone, by the way. Only it's 'Bill' now, the way he's matured." She smiled. "You were right, hon. He still needs mothering."
"Confused?"
"Enough so I suggested he and I go on a quiet picnic tomorrow. Jock, I just can't imagine what made me so blind!"
"It's not too late to square things away, baby."
"No." She hoped not.
Jock's face darkened and he muttered. "Kid's got enough problems without getting mixed up with someone King knows."
"Honey
"Yeah?"
"That tumor's finally caught up with Frank. Bill says it's just a matter of weeks."
"We knew it was coming. That first operation told the whole story when they closed up his head without taking anything out. How's Billy taking it?"
"He's quiet. He keeps it separate from the rest of his life. No one would expect him to be terribly broken up; Frank never was close to him."
Jock stared quietly through the window. "No.
Not close. Have you ever told Billy his mother made us promise to adopt him if anything happened to Frank?"
"No. Time enough afterward."
He grinned. "I guess so. Look, do whatever it takes tomorrow to get his mind off Frank. A kid that age is likely to talk himself into a guilt complex over the fact he isn't all torn up over a situation. Don't let him dwell on it."
She smiled. "He won't," she promised. "Hell have all the diversion he needs out there."
"Good girl." Jock kissed her.
CHAPTER NINE
The next morning, Helen packed a lunch she thought a boy Bill's age would enjoy and let Jock put the basket in her car.
"You don't mind my not going?" Jock had asked her four times already.
She smiled. "No, hon. I think hell open up better this way. Let's plan on making it three next time."
"Well, okay. It's just that Art and I ought to spend most of the day laying out what we're going to do tomorrow."
"Of course. I understand."
Bill was ready when she reached his house. There was no sign of his father, and Bill shrugged when she asked about him.
"Cemetery," he said. "Every Sunday. Goes there first and then to church. And then back to the cemetery, I guess."
Helen crossed town and got onto the highway, which climbed quickly into the hills west of Grantsville. A few miles out, she slowed, watching closely for the turn-off. She recognized it without difficulty and they were winding into desolate-looking badlands within minutes.
Bill looked from side to side, growing more animated by the mile. "Hey! It does look familiar! I used to pretend it was the moon!"
The unpaved road continued to deteriorate, and the car was creeping along when they dipped through the last-and worst-of the ravines and emerged onto a park-like shoulder of the mountain. Helen stopped briefly at the edge of one wooded section.
"That's where you went mostly," she said. "Back in those trees."
Bill nodded silently.
"I thought I'd rather show you a place I liked better. It has a better view." She drove on. "We can come back here for a while if you like, after we eat."
"Okay."
They topped a gentle rise and Helen eased the car out of the tracks. She steered it cautiously up the ridge for nearly a mile and a half, then bore to the right into another finger of woodland. She stopped and turned off the engine.
"We walk from here," she told Bill. "If you carry the lunch, I'll bring the blanket and tarp."
They followed the contour of the hillside, tramping on a thick, undisturbed carpet of leaves and needles from the quaking aspen and pines. At one point, the ground swelled slightly and Helen guided Bill to the right. They came out of the trees onto a miniature knoll that afforded an uninterrupted view of the entire Grantsville plain.
Bill gasped. "I've never been here!"
She laughed. "It's pretty isolated. It's not even in line with any of the airline patterns. You wouldn't find it except by accident. That's how Jock and I found it."
"It's sure quiet. I like it." Bill breathed deeply and stretched. "It's great!"
They spread the tarp, then the blanket.
"Hungry?" asked Helen.
"Not yet. Just lazy."
"Then we won't unpack the lunch yet."
Bill explored briefly and returned to the blanket, where he stretched out and stared at the cloud puffs that drifted overhead. Helen sat with her legs curled under her and watched her nephew. He was big, and she realized she'd always been drawn to big men. His shoulders were thick and muscular and he had a great, full chest. His waist was startlingly slender and his belly was flat. His hips were lean, but his thighs bulged alarmingly in his tight Levi's. Except for his boyish, sensitive face, he looked like a hard, fit man in his twenties.
She fingered the neckline of her top, conscious of her appearance. She'd given considerable thought to that this morning and was satisfied she'd come prepared. She'd left her hair loose, brushing it until it gleamed darkly and floated around her shoulders; the effect was to eliminate any aura of formality or matronliness. Her top was a loose-fitting halter that tied at the back and behind her neck. It consisted of two panels that covered her breasts without meeting between them. Instead, the panels plunged down the inner slopes, leaving a three-inch strip of flesh exposed and were held at the lower edge by a narrow band that attached to their inner corners. They were full-cut; when she bent forward, the inner edges bellied deeply and contributed nothing toward concealing her. It was a garment she'd reserved exclusively for use when she was alone with Jock, and she hadn't worn it during the past two years. Today, she wore no bra under it.
Her skirt fitted at the hips and swung free below them. It buttoned down the front but had heavy facing edges and had been designed to be worn with the lowest two or three buttons unfastened. Only the waistband and the top three buttons were fastened today, keeping the front closed to a point two inches below her crotch, and she wore nothing under the skirt. She'd been determined to make it easy to undress and had decided her best course was to avoid letting undressing become a limiting factor in whatever might happen.
Bill's expression had softened and he appeared to be lost in a world of his own. But he spoke quietly. "A guy could forget what kind of world he lived in, here. He could pretend there wasn't anyone else on earth."
She went to him, lying on her belly, half across him, her breasts resting on his chest and her face over his. He grinned up at her and wrinkled his nose, blowing a strand of her hair off his mouth. She touched his temple with her fingertips.
"Your own world, Bill. For cuddling."
He squirmed a little, rubbing his head on his rolled-up jacket, and laid one hand on the small of her back, grinning at her. "Yeah. Warm and safe."
He looked away for a moment and Helen glanced quickly down at herself. Her halter did gape, but she wiggled as if to find a more comfortable position and the material slipped enough to make both breasts fully visible, their tips forced forward by pressure of their undersides on Bill's chest. And she squirmed closer to him with her legs, raising one hip and pressing her belly on his hip bone.
He sighed contentedly. "Funny," he commented, without looking at her. "It feels so good with you like this. It's not really like it was with Mom holding me. It's kind of like that, but more. Like everything being together." He laid one hand on her buttocks and rubbed slowly, as if he were unconscious of the motion. His gaze returned to her face.
Their glances locked for a time and she felt as if he were studying something behind her eyes. Very slowly, he let his gaze travel over her face.
"You're awful pretty, Aunt Helen. Even this close. There's no hard lines."
"Couldn't be, Bill. Not now. Being with you makes me feel all soft."
"Yeah. Me, too." The hand he'd had at the small of her back went to her cheek. He ran the tips of his fingers along her jaw line and onto her neck, his glance following. Abruptly, his eyes grew round and he held his breath. His fingers reached the hollow above her collarbone and lingered, twitching nervously.
Helen could feel his entire body tense, and hers tensed with it, a thrill of anticipation making her flesh tingle. He stared at her breasts, spellbound, his lips parted. She saw his tongue-tip touch them, and he swallowed. He flicked a glance at her eyes and she saw his awareness of her quiet understanding, but he stared at the twin cones again, as if nothing could save him from his fascination. Very slowly, he forced himself to look into her eyes once more.
"Your...." He gulped. "Your...."
"I know," she said softly. "Breasts are a special part of softness and cuddling, Bill." She kept her voice barely above a whisper. "Your mother nursed you. In that part of your life, her breast was your world ... it was the part you could hold and snuggle against and taste. And they're always the lever to the world." She smiled. "Like a doorknob, maybe."
He laughed in an explosive burst, discharging tension he couldn't hold. "Doorknob! Those soft ... and warm and...!" He stared again, openly.
Helen felt at the back of her neck for the end of the halter knot, found it and tugged. The bow came loose and she let the straps slip off her shoulders. Bill's eyes were still; he looked into hers without blinking or breathing, and she held her gaze equally steady.
"There's a bow at my back, Bill," she murmured.
He moved his hand as if he were hypnotized. There was a momentary pull and the halter loosened. Helen caught the end when it fell and eased the garment out from between Bill and her, laying it aside. Bill looked at her breasts now, his expression serious and disbelieving. She planted the heels of her hands on the blanket on either side of Bill's shoulders and straightened her arms, raising herself to let the bulging mounds hang free. And she pushed herself toward Bill's head, bringing her breasts closer to his face. He placed his hands at her sides, his palms moist and hot on her cool skin.
With an intense thrill of excitement, Helen sank over him to lay one breast against his cheek. He pressed his face against the warm flesh, then shifted her upper torso so her breasts bracketed his face. Laying his hands gently on the outer slopes, he pushed the quivering mounds inward. There was no movement for a time. Bill's breathing heated the cavity between Helen's boobs and she felt perspiration wetting their contact surfaces. Her arms began to tremble from fatigue. Apparently recognizing the problem, Bill slipped his hands to her armpits and braced his forearms, supporting her.
A moment later, he moved her sideward and let her nipple rest on his mouth. Hesitantly, he took it between his lips, testing its consistency and touching it with the tip of his tongue. She drew a deep, tremulous breath and sagged to the side. He turned his head, pulling her nipple fully into his mouth and sucking. Peering down, she could see a smile at the corners of his lips, and he glanced into her eyes with an expression of sheer pleasure.
She slid one hand cautiously along her body to her skirt and unbuttoned it, except for the waistband. Racked by increasingly insistent waves of pleasure at her nephew's now-vigorous sucking, she stirred.
"Let me get more comfortable," she said in a half-whisper. Without pulling her nipple out of his mouth, she slid herself onto him, lying on his belly and letting her knees rest on the blanket on either side of his thighs. She felt the bristles of her pubic hair catch on the roughness of his Levi's and belt, and her hips twitched unexpectedly to rotate her pussy against his firmness. Resting her weight on her forearms left her breast firmly on Bill's mouth, and she felt the force of his sucking increase. His tongue caressed her nipple continuously and she blew her breath through pursed lips.
Bill's hands now caressed her back, stroking lightly for a time, then stopping to squeeze. More and more frequently, they extended their caresses to her buttocks, and he kneaded the rounded flesh from time to time, causing her hips to jerk. She felt a stirring through his Levi's and a hard bulge formed under her pussy. Reflexively, she drew one knee up and raised her belly.
The waistband of her skirt overlapped and the button was near the front of her hip bone. Twice, Bill's fingers passed over the button during the long strokes he made, and then she felt his hand pause. There were a series of very slow, very careful movements and light tugs at the waistband, and she bit her lip to keep from giggling. Young rascal! she thought with delight. You may not be sure how far I'm going to let this go, but you're going to get all you can out of it, aren't you! As if unconscious of what she was doing, she squirmed and rolled partially on the other hip, bracing herself with her knee. She realized that by pulling her knee along Bill's side her thigh had come out from under her skirt, but that would be good, rather than bad.
She pretended not to notice her nephew's persistent struggle with the button, and suddenly the tension in the material relaxed. She smothered her giggle in a strangled cough. Bill sucked harder and she felt his fingers glide under her in search of the next button. His touch passed the heavy facing and settled on the bare flesh of her belly, and he stiffened abruptly. Touching her so lightly, his fingertips felt almost like insects to her. He worked them downward until they encountered the brush of her pubic hair. He hesitated, and she quietly placed her hands on the sides of his face and caressed him with her fingers.
"It's all right," she whispered. "It's all right, Bill."
He covered her pussy with his fingers, his palm resting on her mound, and rubbed slowly on the bristling hair.-His amateur caution inflamed her. She gasped and twisted, trapping his hand against his own belly and grinding her pussy on it in spite of herself. One of his fingers slipped into her gash-inadvertently, she was sure-and dug at the wet, slick tissues between her pussy lips.
"Ah!" she exclaimed breathlessly.
Bill grasped her skirt with his other hand and pulled at it experimentally. When it slid without resistance, he twitched it off her and laid his hand on her naked buttocks, fingering them gently. Abandoning her pussy for a moment, he shifted her upper torso, releasing the breast he'd been sucking on and nuzzling at the other nipple.
"Darling...." she whispered. "Bill, darling ... get undressed. Okay?"
"You won't move? I mean, we can start over just like this?"
She grinned provocatively at him. "What if I said no?"
This time, he was equal to her jab. He reached under her thigh and unzipped his fly. After a brief flurry of motion, she felt the bulge of his cockhead nestled against her pussy lips.
She laughed happily. "I won't say no, Bill."
"Okay."
She rolled off him and he scrambled to his feet. She stretched, lying on her back with her ankles crossed and her hands folded beneath the back of her head. It was obvious Bill could undress without watching what he was doing; he devoured her naked figure with his stare, his face flushed with impatience. He whipped off his T-shirt, unbuttoned his belt, and tore off his Levi's and shorts with a series of violent movements.
Dropping to his knees beside her, he felt her breasts with both hands. She sighed joyfully at the sturdy appearance of his cock. The shaft was nearly as pale as Jock's and the veins were less prominent, but Bill's cockhead, innocent of foreskin, was a dark pink, and its skin gleamed. Bill twisted, laying his hand on her pussy. She parted her thighs while his fingers probed at her pussy lips, but he didn't thrust them into the slit. Instead, he withdrew his hand and flopped on his back.
Helen chuckled. She rolled over, rose to her knees, and positioned herself above him, straddling his hips. He ran his hands over her, exploring her thoroughly, not missing a nerve ending in her sensitive zones. The very nature of his exploration, clearly his first experience with the feel of a naked female body, drove Helen into a frenzy of excitement. She could do nothing to control the reactions of her individual muscles. Her hips jerked, rotating her pussy down and forward, then thrusting it back and up. She surged from side to side, making pendulums of her breasts. Her hair fell like a thick curtain past her face, its tips dancing around her elbows. Looking back under her thatched crotch, she could see Bill's cock twitching erratically, and she wondered for a moment if he could restrain his internal pressure long enough to house the magnificent shaft in her.
He put his hands on her buttocks. "Like we were," he suggested.
Willingly, she thrust her feet back and dropped to her forearms, her body resting on his. He touched her right thigh and she pulled her knee up and raised herself, settling on her left hip.
"Back where we were," she murmured, smiling.
He grinned. "Only better. I can feel you all over, now. You're so much littler than me, Aunt Helen! I just didn't realize!"
She shivered, having phrased the same thought a little differently for herself. He was a young stud, fully grown and equipped, but totally untamed. A woman could hope for no greater pleasure than a day with such an animal.
He pulled her knee along his side, trapping it between his chest and upper arm and letting the sun's warmth touch the gaping tissues of her pussy. Running his hand along the taut back of her thigh, he felt of her pussy lips. This time, he thrust all four fingers into the gash and rubbed them over her fluid-coated inner slopes. Finding her cuntmouth, he cautiously poked one finger into its opening. As if gathering confidence, he rubbed his fingertip around the rubbery rim, then plunged his finger all the way in.
She made no effort to mask her response. Her hips surged vigorously and she rubbed her breasts on his silken-haired chest. Frantic with tenderness toward her nephew, she crushed her mouth to his, her tongue darting over his lips and her head rocking from side to side. Bill's breath began to come in great snorts, and she felt his torso writhe. His hips rose against her thigh and she felt his cockhead lodged at her cuntmouth.
She freed her right knee and pulled the left under her, at his side, crouching with her pussy against the rigid prodding of his cock.
"Now, honey?" she asked softly. "Now?"
"Yes! Oh, please, Aunt Helen!" And then, hastily, "It's all right, isn't it? You don't mind if it's in you, do you?"
"It's all right. I don't mind, Billy; I want to make love to you today."
"I don't know why; I don't know anything. But I'm glad."
She sank slowly onto the unyielding cock, his bulging cockhead a great knob for her pussy to swallow. She felt the rim of her cunt stretch and slide wetly over the smooth slopes, and suddenly she had engulfed the entire bulb. With a triumphant sigh, she thrust herself backward and down the long shaft. Her meaty pussy lips settled onto the bulge at the base of his cock and his tight-curled pubic hair pricked the exposed membranes. Flexing her thighs, she stroked the still-tight rim of her cunt up and down his cock. She felt his cockhead jostling her internal organs and quivered at the jumbled succession of sensations that poured through her.
Bill cried out and snatched at her buttocks, his fingers biting into the taut flesh as he jammed her against his groin.
She pressed hard, flattening her belly against his and grinding her breasts on his chest while her pussy revolved slowly and powerfully on the base of his cock. She felt spasmodic jerks in his cock and a spurt of heat in the core of her belly. She caught his head in her hands and kissed him with savage intensity, moving her lips rapidly around on his contorted face.
He moaned softly and continuously. "It's coming! ... Oh, it's coming! ... Unnnh! ... Ahhh!"
And Helen cuddled him. "That's good, honey! Oooh, it's so good! Darling, precious Billy!"
But when she felt his first sharp relaxation, she thrust her feet back, extended her legs, and clamped the shrinking cock inside her. She held him with her arms and felt his encircle her. They lay together, his cock resting limply in her vagina.
CHAPTER TEN
Helen alternately rose on her elbows to gaze fondly at the boyish face beneath her and dropped on him to cover his features with kisses. He appeared to be bemused by her affectionate caresses, and when she squeezed with the inner lips of her cunt he gasped and grinned. She detected a sharp stiffening of his body and wondered how quickly he could recover his desire. Tensing her belly, she attempted an exercise she'd once tried to perfect as a surprise for Jock, flexing the muscle bands in the walls of her vaginal channel. An expression of amazement lighted Bill's face.
"Aunt Helen! Is that on purpose?"
She nodded, giggling at his surprise.
"My gosh! A woman can cuddle a guy with everything in her body, can't she!"
She'd felt the stirring of his cock as soon as he, and she redoubled the massaging activity of her vagina walls. Her effort had regenerated her own passion and she was desperate for a chance to complete an orgasm with her nephew.
Bill's cock grew rapidly, hardening and lengthening as it regained its full girth. Bill chortled with delight and worked his hips, jabbing piston-like with his rejuvenated organ.
"Darling! ... Oh, Billy darling!" She pulled her knees under her again to give him freedom for his pumping hips.
He propped himself on his elbows and she straightened, sitting on his groin. He struggled to a sitting posture and held her to him. With a glad cry, she twisted until she could get her legs around his waist, locking her ankles and clutching at his upper arms with her hands. Bill tipped her back for a moment while he kissed her nipples, then pulled her close and slid his hands down to her buttocks. He swung her bottom in and out, stroking her on his cock, and her excitement raged.
"Wait! Wait, darling!" she exclaimed. While she still had a scrap of self-control, she hoped to give him one more bit of experience.
He paused reluctantly. "What's wrong, Aunt Helen?"
"I forgot something," she panted. "Can we take time for it?"
"Okay."
She unlocked her ankles, set her heels on the blanket and leaned back. Taking his hand in hers, she guided his fingers to her pussy, turning the hand over and setting the pads of his fingertips on her clitoris. She clenched her teeth while he groped at the stiff little organ, defining it by feel. "What's that?" he asked.
She told him the name and he nodded, appearing puzzled. "But what's it do?"
"Feel it a minute and see."
He rolled the hard flesh between his fingers and she gasped, her hips leaping. His eyes widened and he rubbed the tip of the organ. Already intensely excited, she reacted wildly to the stimulus. Her hips tossed and she planted her hands behind her and leaned back, moaning and happy.
A spirit of adventure evidently overcame Bill. He lifted Helen off his cock and turned her around, forcing his feet between her knees and spreading her thighs widely while he held her with her back pressed to his belly. With his free hand, he began to manipulate her clitoris. She bounced and twisted, excitement tearing at her, and finally she grabbed his hand and jerked it away from the tortured organ.
Bill laughed delightedly. He slid his forearm between her back and her elbows, pinning her arms, and lay back, his ankles still trapping her legs and holding them at a wide angle. Free from interference, his aunt helpless in his grasp, he returned to his assault on her clitoris. Her torso leaped frantically, lashing from side to side and arching violently. She cried out continuously, her excitement rocketing toward orgasm.
"Billy! Please, Billy! You're going to make me come this way! Oh, Billy, please wait a minute!"
But it was too late. Her excitement peaked, washing over her in huge, solid waves. Her heels dug into the blanket and she arched high above Bill's body, rigid and shaking in an agonized tremor.
"Aghhh! ... unnnh! ... Billy-Billy-Billy!" she screamed, feeling herself driven beyond the limit of her tolerance.
Bill removed his hand from her clitoris and she shuddered violently. The grip of her orgasm loosened and she collapsed on him, panting for air.
"My gosh, Aunt Helen! That thing's weird!"
"Oh! ... Oh, Bill!...." There was nothing else to say.
She was still pinned, and she felt his legs stir to pull hers even further apart. Awareness came back to her, and she realized his cock was hard and hot under her. He began to feel her pussy lips, and she found herself capable of accepting stimuli. Her hips jumped. Instantly, Bill's finger returned to her clitoris.
"Omigod, Bill!" she groaned. "Don't make me do that again! It's too hard on me!"
"Okay. I'll just get you ready for me." He massaged her clitoris gently.
Her excitement piled up and she threw herself about, unable to restrain her body. Bill lifted her to the ground and scrambled to his knees. Grasping her ankles, he doubled her legs and pressed her knees against the sides of her rib cage, raising her bottom and opening her pussy. Crouching over her, his thighs clamping her hips between them, he let go of one of her ankles and pushed his cock into alignment with his hand. She rested her heel on his shoulder while he positioned his cockhead in the pocket of her pussy. He glanced at her foot and released her other ankle, which she laid on his other shoulder. He leaned forward, his cock sliding readily into her gaping cuntmouth and plunging deep into her belly.
"Ahhh!" she whispered. "You're in so far! Oooh, Bill!"
He pumped at her, bending far over and bouncing his weight on her buttocks and the backs of her thighs. She was pre-sensitized and the first half-dozen strokes of his cock, with the awesome penetration the position permitted, rocketed her to the edge of her orgasm. Bill was as overwrought as she, and he was strongly affected by her position, as she could see in his expression. Within an additional dozen strokes, he reached his second climax, bearing down on her while his buttocks flexed and his jism spurted into her. She seized his forearms and clung to them. Her cunt contracted fiercely and the contraction surged inward along her vagina walls, followed by another and another. She groaned, her mouth wide open, and gazed into Bill's eyes.
They collapsed together, spent and happy. Bill shifted, lowering Helen's bottom to the blanket and stretching his legs behind him. He lay over her, his cock nestled quietly in her vagina, and kissed each of her nipples repeatedly. She wrapped her legs around him and clasped him in her arms; even the post-orgasmic exhaustion could be a time for cuddling, she reminded herself. And her nephew responded willingly, continuing to kiss her breasts and occasionally touching her lips with his.
"Bill...?"
"Hm?"
"I've never made love in that position."
"You haven't!"
"No." She remembered her furious protests when Jock had tried to maneuver her into such a situation. "You remember it. You went twice as deep as you did the other way! Or at least it felt like it. I felt like if I opened my mouth you'd stick right out of it!"
"Aunt Helen!" But he laughed proudly. "Have I got a big enough one, Aunt Helen?"
"Mmmm! A beautiful one, darling."
"If it had stuck out your mouth, would you have bitten it?"
"Silly! Of course not!"
"I love you, Aunt Helen."
After a long time, he disengaged himself and scrambled to his feet. "I'm hungry!"
Helen laughed. "Then let's eat. There's a little stream about a hundred yards over that way if you want to wash yourself off first."
"Okay. But do I have to get dressed?"
"No, darling. You don't have to."
They both visited the stream and washed themselves. Bill asked her to put the skirt and halter on when she got back to the blanket. "Just like you had them," he urged.
She chuckled and dressed, again buttoning only the top three buttons of her skirt. They ate, Bill making short work of the fried chicken and potato salad. And then he flopped on his back while Helen sat beside him thinking how like one of the ancient Greek youths he looked when he was naked. He seemed entranced by the way she was dressed.
"Mind, Aunt Helen?" he asked, reaching inside her halter to fondle her breast.
She shook her head cheerfully. "Feels nice."
And he made the same show of asking permission when he reached through the open front of her skirt to play with her pussy. But she leaned toward his hips when he did that and held them with her hands while she pressed her lips to his semi-erect cock. She heard him gasp and felt him stiffen, but she nibbled at the underside of the youthful organ until it was swollen and rigid.
Tentatively, then, she lipped the head and ran her tongue over its taut surface. Bill trembled and groped at her pussy, pushing her legs apart. She worked his cockhead into her mouth and squirmed into better position, half lying on his belly while she forced her lips down the shaft. The cockhead reached the back of her mouth and she tilted her head to extend her neck, cautiously working the rounded bulb into her throat. Bit by bit, the shaft of his cock disappeared into her mouth until her chin was buried in his pubic hair. She sucked and swallowed alternately, cupping one hand around her nephew's testicles and cradling them gently.
Suddenly Bill caught her at the waist and began to pull her away from his cock. She released the engorged shaft and felt the head slip from her mouth, glistening with her saliva.
She swallowed. "What's wrong, Bill?"
"Nothing! Nothing's wrong, Aunt Helen! I didn't make you mad, did I?"
"No, darling! No!"
"It felt weird! Brrr! But I was going to come, and I didn't want to." He grinned hesitantly. "I'd rather have it where ... in your...."
She laughed softly and rubbed her cheek on his chest. "More room?"
"That's not it. I ... this sounds stupid, Aunt Helen, but somehow it feels like more of an accomplishment to know you're letting me ... I mean ... can I say a four-letter word, Aunt Helen?"
"Yes. I don't mind."
"Well, I just feel more like a man knowing I'm fucking a grown woman."
"It puts us both in the same place, doesn't it?"
"Equal like, for a few minutes. Is it all right?"
"Darling, please! Of course it is!"
Following his directions, then, she straddled his hips, kneeling and still dressed. But she did unbutton the front of her skirt the rest of the way, leaving only the waistband fastened. Bill pulled his feet toward his torso, tenting his knees, and she plunged herself onto his cock. Again complying with his request, she hugged his thighs while she stroked herself up and down his shaft. He held her waist and made contented sounds in his throat for a time, then suggested another change.
"It's kind of fun trying things," he admitted.
She agreed quietly, reflecting that he was acting as if he'd gotten a new toy and simply had to experiment with it. They stood, and he kissed her, his tongue slipping into her mouth, while he played with her pussy. She felt her skirt swishing about her legs as she writhed, impaled on two of his fingers while he rubbed her clitoris with his palm. And at length he drew away from the kiss, bent her backward over his arm, pushed one panel of her halter aside and gobbled at her breast, his fingers still buried in her vagina.
She had risen once more to orgasmic pitch. She squirmed and twisted, standing on her tiptoes and groping at her nephew's shoulders. She was crying out in unintelligible syllables and tossing her head in a frenzy of desire. Bill pulled his hand away from the slippery, swollen lips of her pussy and held her at arm's length.
"Bend over, Aunt Helen. Okay?"
She cringed, dreading a repetition of King's assault, and Bill lifted the back of her skirt and laid it over her back, exposing her bottom. He crouched behind her and she felt his cockhead touch her pussy lips. She grunted her relief, bracing herself. He fingered the puffy lips, rustling her pubic hair and running his fingers onto the delicate inner surfaces. Parting them widely with his thumbs, he eased his cock into position at the rim of her cuntmouth.
She gripped her knees with her hands and wiggled her hips. His hands clasping her thighs, Bill thrust forward with his hips. He drove his cock into her with a single lunge, its bone-hard base slamming into her tissues. There seemed no way she could keep her balance, and she straightened her knees and dropped her upper torso until she could touch the ground with her hands. Standing on all fours, she felt stable enough to withstand her nephew's blows, and as he began to pump at her she undulated her hips.
Bill's cock had to piston downward along her channel, and its horn-hard upper surface, ridged and slippery, rode on the back section of her rim. His belly pounded her buttocks and he gripped her hips to steady her before his thrusts. Her back angled sharply downward from the hips. Her breasts hung inverted, elongated to her view, swaying in short, harsh arcs with her motion. The tips of her hair brushed the blanket and her exclamations of pleasure sounded muffled to her.
The angle of her nephew's cock provided a highly sensitive signal path in her and she clearly felt the first sudden jerk when his climax arrived. She clamped her cunt on the base of his shaft, and the effort triggered her own orgasm. She ground her pussy back against him while he strained at her, and their tremors reinforced each other until their spasms had subsided.
Afterward, Helen yielded to Bill's plea, stripping and lying across him, her breasts pushed up by the pressure. And they talked.
"Are we going to do this again?" he asked.
"I don't know. Be better for you if we didn't."
"How come?"
She kissed him lightly. "Make you too dependent on me."
"But you do it so good!"
She giggled. "Honey, for all you know every woman in the world might be better than I am!"
"Okay. You're the only one I know about. But I know how good you are!"
"You're sweet. Just the same, I've got a full-time job loving Jock. At your age, you ought to be looking over the girls who need someone like you."
"I don't want to get married yet!"
"Who said you had to? Look, hon. You ought to spend some time with girls for two reasons. One is that's the best way to get your sex when you need it. The other is, there's a lot of tenderness and cuddling besides what we've been doing. You're missing a lot."
He laughed happily. "I believe you today. I wouldn't have yesterday ... not about that. But I'd still feel awful if I knew I couldn't ever do this with you again!"
"What if we leave it open? ... If we just hang a question mark on it?"
"Like saying, 'That depends?' "
"Like that."
"Okay, I guess." He sighed.
"It's fairer to Jock that way."
"Yeah. I keep forgetting."
"Any idea how much he thinks of you?"
"Who? Uncle Jock?"
"Right."
"Aunt Helen, you mean that?"
"You're the closest thing he has to a son, Bill. He thinks about you an awful lot."
"I've always been scared of him. Would he mind if I wanted to ask him things ... talk with him?"
"Try it. He's as scared of you as you have been of him."
"Really?" He fondled her buttocks thoughtfully. "Aunt Helen, I am going to try it!"
"He's going to be the happiest man in Grantsville the day you do."
Bill laughed again, his voice alive with enthusiasm. He hugged her, the eager strength in his young arms crushing her to him, and laughed again. "It isn't hard to think of Uncle Jock as a sort of father," he said. "But you're not like a mother. You're too young for that."
"If I'd started early enough I could have been your mother."
"That would have been awful young."
"Yes."
After a period of quiet caresses, Bill asked her to dress again. "There's something about it, Aunt Helen. I mean, seeing you in clothes and knowing I can reach inside them."
She shivered, inflamed by his honest, raw lust. His cock was as engorged as if nothing had yet happened between them, and she wondered how many orgasms it would take to drain his reservoir. She adjusted her halter and buttoned the proper buttons of her skirt, then walked with her naked nephew. They stopped beneath a stunted quaking aspen when Bill's consciousness of their situation overcame him. She let herself be drawn against him, standing on tiptoe to return his fevered kiss, and she gulped willingly at his tongue when he drove it into her mouth.
When he broke from the kiss and let her stand while his hands played over her she caught at the low-hanging branch above and clung to it with both hands. Bill's eyes widened and he removed her halter, staring greedily at her tautly raised breasts.
"Omigosh!" he whispered. "Omigosh, Aunt Helen! That does something to me!"
She twisted provocatively, tightening her grip on the branch. With a sudden gleam in his eye, Bill retrieved her halter and pushed her toward the trunk of the tree, where the limb was lower. She gave no indication of the panic that welled in her as he lashed her wrists together above the branch or when he lifted her and pulled her away from the tree. When he let her down, the halter lashing hung on the limb and her weight dangled from her wrists. She could stand on the balls of her feet, but her heels would not touch the ground.
Bill fondled her breasts, nibbling at her and closing his teeth gently on her nipples with quick, playful bites. For the first time, he made no pretense of asking permission. She had been the adult initiating a novice into the delights of sex. Bill had asked her to do things and she had gladly satisfied his whims, but their relationship had never wandered from that of adult and juvenile. At this moment, Bill had wrested her authority from her. He was free to dominate the action without bothering with her desires and his rapid, skillful caresses assured her he was aware of the difference.
He moved behind her, reaching around to cover her belly and breasts with clumsy, groping strokes. She felt as if he were "feeling" her rather than making an effort to stimulate her. And she realized the feeling was far more stimulating to her than deliberate, thoughtful efforts to arouse her would have been.
He unbuttoned her skirt, leaving the waistband secured, and mauled the tissues of her pussy. His fingers pushed into her crotch, forcing her thighs apart, and parted her pussy lips. Blunt fingertips slid back and forth along the wet inner pulp of the lips and tugged at the edges of her cuntmouth. Her hips thrashed and her body twisted from side to side, but she was at the mercy of her nephew's grubbing hands.
He thrust his belly against her back and his cockhead was a wet, hot lump against her spine. Pulling one hand forward along the floor of her gash, he seized her clitoris and rolled it between his thumb and fingers. She cried out hoarsely, the power of that sensation driving every other from her consciousness. Her belly snapped forward and she splayed her knees. The pleasure at her crotch became intolerable and she drove her buttocks backward, only to slam them against his unyielding thighs. Her skirt flapped about her legs as she writhed and she felt her breasts leaping frantically.
"Omigod, Billy! Wait! ... Please wait!"
He eased the massage but maintained a slow, insistent circular rubbing that blocked any possible relaxation of her passion. His fingers still worrying her clitoris, he came around her and rested his cockhead on her belly. She clenched her teeth and scrubbed her flesh against the pulsing knob.
His breath hissing raggedly, Bill abandoned her clitoris and clutched at her thighs. He raised them, her legs straddling his, and she swung her knees up until she could lock her ankles behind him. She quivered while he slid his hands under her buttocks and lifted her so his cockhead could slip under her crotch, then inhaled loudly as he let her weight drive her onto the great horn.
She pumped, flexing her legs to jerk herself back and forth on his cock and feeling waves of intense longing race through her. Her excitement raged higher than at any previous time during the day and she babbled her joy incoherently.
Bill made no effort to support her weight; his hands stroked her rapidly, caressing her back and thighs and buttocks without pattern. His fingers paused at times in the crevice between her asscheeks, probing tentatively at the puckered rim of her anus and exciting a frenzy of motion from her. But she sensed no direction in his pawing and knew he was permitting her to bring on his orgasm.
Her own occurred seconds before his. She clamped her thighs against him, squeezing desperately as her contractions convulsed her. And Bill's hot eruption in the depths of her vagina came when her spasms were already subsiding. She ground her pussy against his rock-hard pelvic arch and dropped her head back while his heat pooled in her belly. Then, exhaustion overtaking her, she let her legs slip limply away from his waist to hang straight. His dripping cock levered out of her cunt with a sucking noise and he sagged back. She hung by her wrists, her toes dragging on the ground and her knees slack, until Bill gently raised her and unfastened the knots.
She collapsed in his grip. He picked her up, cradling her and kissing her closed eyes. She regained awareness when he reached the picnic site and lowered himself awkwardly to the ground, still holding her. For a long time, he massaged her arms and legs, working the numbness out, and she lay against him passively, willing to let him do whatever might occur to him.
She felt weak, her joints watery and her energy gone, but she was certain he could arouse her to orgasm again if he wanted to.
"Billy," she whispered.
"You okay, Aunt Helen? I was scared for a minute!"
"I'm okay. Billy, we really ought to go. It's getting late."
"Yeah. I know." He thrust his fingers into her vagina and cupped his other hand over one breast, his gestures fierce and impulsive, as if to engrave the sensations indelibly on his memory.
But at last he helped her up and began to get dressed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Bill talked freely during the homeward drive, but he seemed to feel his sex license was to remain valid until they had actually reached his father's house. He objected to her buttoning more than the top two buttons on her skirt, and she finally yielded to his pleas. The result was that the natural disarrangement of the skirt while she sat behind the steering wheel exposed her pussy hair and made her a nervous wreck every time a truck approached.
The most natural secondary result was that Bill persisted in reaching across to finger her tingling flesh, his fingers probing again and again into the wetness of her slit and more than once slipping into her vagina. She suspected he was wearing himself out with the effort to find a good excuse to get her to stop somewhere while they made love once more, but if she was right, he failed. She had to smile at his dejection when he got out of the car at his house.
"Billy, honey," she said softly. "Please do come over often. We both want to see more of you."
"I will, Aunt Helen. I really will!"
Jock confessed to have been badly worried over the length of the picnic when she got home. "There's no question about King," he explained. "Art and I called the chief after you left, this morning, and he put the pressure on people we hadn't gotten anywhere with. Even got people to open up offices and look at records!"
"It really looks bad?" she asked.
"Bad enough that's what I thought of when you were gone so long. I had visions of King or the others doing you and Billy in!"
"'Bill', honey!"
"Yeah, sure. Anyhow, I was wrong. Did he have a good time?"
Helen laughed. "Did he! It just couldn't have been a better day!"
"Why not, going on a picnic with a sexy broad like you?"
She winced. "Jock! My goodness!"
"Hell, he'd have to be made of ice not to feel that. I'll bet he's all knotted up right now."
"I wouldn't know about that. I do know he wants a chance to have some talks with you ... questions and ideas and ... well, whatever men talk to boys about, I suppose."
"I'll be damned! You mean that?"
"I sure do."
"Hey, that's great! Look, I've got to go down to the office for a few minutes. When I get back, Art and Nell want to come over. I get the idea they'd like to play games."
"Oooh! Okay. I'll take a bath while you're gone."
"Better be a fast one; I won't be gone that long."
Jock left and Helen rushed to draw bath water. She douched while she waited for the tub to fill. And she sank gratefully into the bubbles, afterward, letting the hot water draw off her weariness. Her thoughts turned from Billy's eagerness to Doctor King and whatever he was doing that was so bad.
She remembered a boy she'd met during the summer of her fifteenth year. There had been swimming and hiking and getting lost together in the woods and meeting each other late at night when the moon was full. Summer had ended and so had their "thing", but she'd never since experienced that breathless, painful need for a person's presence-that awesome infatuation psychosis-until Gregory King. She loved Jock and knew she did. What she felt for King was a wild thing she knew could bring her nothing but heartache and disaster. But the very intensity of the emotion promised a life lived to the hilt if she should lose her head and surrender to it.
This was the first time she'd faced the fact, and it frightened her to realize she could even admit the possibility of going to King. The reason she'd faced it, she knew; Jock and Greg were locked in a test that meant survival and she was the lever that could decide the test. She hated herself for even questioning her position. But the question was there.
Sadly, she left the tub and began to towel herself. Tonight's games might be the last she'd ever play with Jock. She dropped her towel into the hamper and stepped into the bedroom.
She screamed. "Doctor King!"
King lounged by the door that led to the hall. He surveyed her glowing body with approval, then his glance darted toward the French doors. Instinctively, her glance followed his. She gasped and made an abortive gesture to cover her breasts and crotch. A figure stood silhouetted by the late afternoon glare. She could make out no detail, but the outline was that of a man of about King's size and build, and she knew no one but King who fitted that description. Her initial paralysis wore off and she started to back into the bathroom.
"Never mind, Helen," King said quietly.
She stopped, held by the absolute authority of his tone.
"What ...?" she whispered.
He came to her, a light topcoat in his hands, and laid it over her shoulders. "Let's go," he said, nudging her toward the other figure.
Numbly, she obeyed, stepping onto the patio and letting King direct her around the house and across the front yard. And she made no protest when he opened the door of a strange car and pushed her inside. She sat in front between King, who drove, and the stranger.
"This is Harold Johnson, Helen." King smiled. "He's going to interest you."
Johnson was as ugly as King was beautiful. His face was lumpy and diseased-looking; his hair was a nondescript sandy tint, and his teeth were rotten.
He grinned at her and flicked the topcoat open at her waist, leaving her breasts covered but fully exposing her from the waist down. After studying her, he nodded.
"Could be useful, Greg. Could be."
"Is useful," King replied shortly. "What she'll be worth afterward, I don't know. We'll have to wait and see."
Helen was shaken by King's attitude. She didn't like to be treated like an inanimate trinket. "What am I doing here?" she asked in a low tone.
"Talking when you should be listening," King said. "We don't want to hear from you until we get to the office."
"But ...!"
He glanced at her and the cold threat in his eyes silenced her. As if he were satisfied she'd remain quiet, he smiled, but even the smile was cold. He took his right hand off the wheel and put it between her knees, working it under her left thigh. Raising her leg, he maneuvered it over his so her lower leg hung between his. With a faint chuckle, Johnson positioned her right leg the same way on his side. Both men plunged their hands into her crotch, mauling her pussy lips, pulling them apart, and thrusting their fingers rudely into her vagina. She bit her lip and slammed her hips from side to side, but they completed the brief ride to the Community Awareness office in that manner.
When the car was parked, they removed their hands from her pussy and got out. They took her into the office, where King took the coat from her and hung it by the door.
"On the desk," he snapped.
Frightened and raging, she went to his desk without a word. She flung herself onto it, face down, and spread-eagled herself. She knew there was no hope of resisting at the moment; she could easily get herself crippled. But something would happen sooner or later to give her a way out.
"I'll be damned," remarked Johnson. "Trained!"
King chuckled. "One lesson."
She felt hands on her buttocks and risked a glance over her shoulder to discover it was Johnson. She let her head drop and steeled herself to endure whatever came. Johnson tested the firmness of her buttocks as if she were a loaf of bread, then spread them widely.
"Mm-hmm!" he said. "Not too bad-for a broad."
"Adequate," King replied. "Helen, I'm disappointed in you."
"What?" She found it difficult to be attentive with Johnson's paws fumbling with her pussy.
He had several fingers deep in her vagina, and he used that hold to raise her hips while his other hand manipulated her clitoris. But she gritted her teeth and tried to listen to King.
"Disappointed," King said. "I left some confidential worksheets in my desk Friday night. Yesterday morning, you took them out. In fact, you made copies, and MacGruder has those."
"He...!"
"Don't lie. I left those papers to see what you'd do about them. Too bad, Helen. You knew I was using you and Billy to hurt Jock; but that didn't mean either of you was going to get hurt. The fact is, I was fond of you ... as fond as I could be of a woman." He paused long enough for his full meaning to penetrate. "You violated a trust. And I can't let that pass. Neither can the people I work with."
Johnson's massage of her clitoris had aroused her until she found herself scrambling all over the desk. She clung to the edge desperately with her hands and hooked her insteps over opposite sides, but her body surged frantically about, and she panted violently. The fingers withdrew from her vagina and Johnson deftly inserted one into her rectum. He maintained a continuous upward pressure, forcing her to keep her hips elevated, and his other hand continued to tease her clitoris.
"I misjudged in one respect," King said in a calm, classroom voice. "I didn't expect any weekend heroics out of your husband's office. Monday would have been too late; by Tuesday, no one would have listened to anything he said. Unfortunately, he got his answers first." He sighed. "No matter. The money is safe. I'm going to have to leave before they try to arrest me. But you'll go with us, you and your nephew."
"Oh, no!" she gasped, affected as much by his statement as by the height of her excitement. Her breasts were scrubbing King's blotter pad and her hips were leaping. Johnson had forced a second finger into her rectum beside the first, but her desire had overwhelmed her to such a point that the pressure added to the stimulus rather than producing pain. She felt herself on the verge of an orgasm, and it was impossible to still her moans of pleasure.
King ignored the wild state of her emotions and went on. "Anticipation is the heart of experience, Helen. I want you to know what's going to happen. Billy knows women are worthless burdens. He's going to leave here with Harold, and he'll live with him. He'll be useful to us. Incidentally, I telephoned the boy just before we picked you up; he's on his way here by now. You'll go with me. I owe a favor to the members of a motorcycle club on the west coast. They'll accept you as payment." He chuckled dryly. "Expendable women are hard to come by, even for them, and they don't often get one who's premium quality, like you."
"Omigod!" she moaned. Even now, she half suspected she'd go willingly with King if he told her to. But what he threatened plunged her into despair. "How did you get Billy to say he'd come?" she asked, forcing the words out between the grunts and gasps Johnson was extracting from her.
King laughed softly. "The truth. I know Billy; I've remade him. He knows what's going to happen to you and where he's going. And he's happy for the opportunity. The Greek culture means so much to him now."
Helen felt a surge of triumph through the frenzy of her approaching orgasm. The doctor had blown his plans about Jock because of the weekend, and now it was clear he'd lost Billy by the same miscalculation. She couldn't predict what her nephew would do, but she knew it wouldn't be what King expected. Her relief removed what minor obstacles remained to inhibit her orgasm. She surged to her knees, her hips heaving wildly.
The contractions that clamped her vagina were matched by sympathetic spasms of her rectum, and her savage motion gave way to the paralysis of her climax. Her breasts still pressed against the blotter pad and her arms were still outstretched, but she had drawn her knees under her until they touched her chest, and her ass was thrust into the air. Her flesh quivered with the violence of the tremors that gripped her and she held her breath.
At last her orgasm faded and the rigidity left her muscles. Johnson removed his hands from her and let her collapse on the desk. King came to her. He scooped her into his arms, crossed toward the window, and dumped her onto the couch, where she sprawled without moving. Rolling her onto her belly, he jerked her hands behind her, and she felt the chill of metal at her wrists and heard the click of closing handcuffs.
"Harold, I'd like to stay. Nothing I'd like better than to personally introduce you and Billy. But we can't risk it. I'm going to take Helen out the back way; the van's parked right at the door. And there's no need for me to come back in here. I'll just throw her into the back and pull out. See you in Chicago next month."
"Don't wear her out." Johnson laughed. "Those people won't buy it if she gives out too fast when they're working her over."
"Right. Give my regards to the boy." King jerked Helen to her feet and guided her toward the door.
"Not naked!" she protested. "Why not? You're going to ride in the back. Fact is, I've got it fixed so you'll be spread-eagled the whole time. I'll have you standing up on the way out of town. We'll stop after a half hour or so while I have some ass, and then you can take it lying down for a while." He pushed her into the hallway.
"Hi, Doctor King!" Billy called from the front door.
King stopped. "Billy! You almost missed me, boy!"
"Dad wouldn't bring me, and it's a long walk."
"Well, you're here. Johnson's in the office. Come and meet him."
Billy gave no indication as he approached that his aunt's condition concerned him in the least. He glanced up and down her naked form, but his expression was cool and devoid of sexual interest. As he brushed past her, she thought she heard him whisper, "Hang loose!"
King drew her into the office and introduced Billy and Johnson. To Helen's horror, Johnson took her nephew in his arms and kissed him on the mouth. Billy took the kiss passively, but Helen saw a nerve jump in the back of his neck.
"Pretty undemonstrative," Johnson grunted.
King laughed raucously. "What did you expect? ... A virgin at the first contact? I'd worry if he reacted!"
Johnson shrugged and nodded. "Sure. Well, what's keeping us now?"
"Not much." King hesitated. "Helen, I'm going to give you a choice. What happens to you is in your hands."
He tilted her face up, his fingertips under her chin, and gazed into her eyes. She imagined his eyes expanded into bottomless, clear pools and felt as if she were being drawn into them. She became inwardly aware of her nakedness and had the illusion that invisible hands were plucking at nerve endings over her entire body. An intense hunger for King swept over her.
"It's a simple choice," he said softly. "You have to decide whether you're with me or against me."
Blood pounded in her head and she swayed. Drowning in those steady pools, as she felt she was, she could visualize no choice; there was only King's world for her, even though it meant jouncing across the country spread-eagled and naked in the back of a dusty van. But the knowledge loosed waves of agony over losing Jock and Billy, and she prayed for unconsciousness.
King's voice had dropped to a whisper. "If you're with me, I'll just figure out some other way to square accounts with those hoodlums. You'll take what I want to give you, but you'll stay with me." He droned on, his monotone hypnotic. "All you have to do is write a short note to your husband. It's got to say you and Billy know all about what I've been doing, but that you'd rather run with me than stay with him."
"But...." She swallowed, her mouth feeling swollen and dry. "But I don't know!"
"You will. That doesn't matter, so long as Jock thinks you do. There's only one reason for the note; that's to twist the knife in that bastard."
"Doctor King! What makes you hate him so?"
"That's my business. It goes back a long way."
She saw a flicker of motion on the periphery of her vision and glanced aside, the power of King's eyes broken by the new agitation in his voice. Johnson was studying the director speculatively.
"Look, Greg," Johnson said. "If there's something between you and this broad's old man, maybe I ought to know."
King's lips compressed and he shook his head. "Doesn't concern anyone but MacGruder and me."
But it concerns me! Helen protested silently. Leaving Jock would be bad enough, even if he thought it was kidnapping! But a note like that would tear him apart! Oh, God, I couldn't ever hurt him like that! I love him! Where hot lust had crowded out reason, revulsion at her own stupendous madness now hammered her mind into merciless logic. King's note would buy time for him, whether he recognized the fact or not. Besides being unspeakably cruel to Jock, it could condemn Billy to a kind of life she couldn't even imagine. Her insane infatuation with King was over and she'd never feel it again.
"I won't write any note," she said in a whisper.
King glared at her, shock registering for an instant in his expression, then vanishing to be replaced by deadly calm. "All right. Nothing to stay here for. Let's go."
Helen fumbled aimlessly at the door jamb with her manacled hands; she knew she could do nothing to delay. Bill turned away from Johnson and moved toward the doorway, passing between King and her. As he started to brush past her he suddenly slipped his arm around her waist and jerked her to him. Diving through the doorway with her, he flung himself sideward and sat down, twisting so he hit the floor beneath her and rolling instantly so he crushed her under his broad bulk.
"Hold still!" he whispered shrilly.
There were shouts of rage in the office and Helen caught a glimpse past Bill's arm of two men crouching outside the doorway she and Billy had catapulted through.
"Jock! ... Art!...!" she exclaimed under her breath. She caught the glint of light off a gun in each man's hand and heard Jock's voice, whiplash-sharp.
"Hold it in there! Keep your hands in sight!"
King roared and plunged into the corridor, a revolver ahead of him. Jock's free hand pumped up, then down, and King crumpled, sliding halfway across the corridor in an inert heap. Art fired a shot into the floor of the office.
"You in there!" he yelled, and edged toward the opening.
"Hold it!" called Johnson. "Hold it, goddamn it! I don't have a gun!"
"Then get the hell out here with your hands in sight!"
Johnson appeared, walking as if he expected to feel a bullet at any second. "You shot him after he was down!" he said angrily.
Art snorted. "That shot went into the carpet in the office. Put your hands behind you."
Johnson did so, turning his back to Art. His eyes widened at the sight of Jock. "You!" he exclaimed, the word coming out as if Jock had hit him in the belly. "They didn't call you MacGruder! You sonofabitch! No wonder King...!"
"Enough!" Jock silenced Johnson. "Got cuffs on him?" he asked Art.
"Right."
Jock shoved his gun out of sight and knelt beside King. Pulling the unconscious man's hands behind him, he produced cuffs and immobilized him.
Billy rolled off Helen and clambered to his feet, lifting her with him. He pulled her into the office and draped the topcoat over her. "Did I hurt you, Aunt Helen?" he asked softly.
"No." She grinned, suddenly giddy with relief, and sagged against him. She whispered, "Seems like you're spending all your time on top of me."
He blushed. "Aw, come on!"
"How did you know Jock and Art would be outside?"
"When Doctor King phoned and told me he had you, I just about flipped. All I could do to keep from screaming at him. I called Uncle Jock and told him, and he and Mr. Solick picked me up and brought me over."
"Billy, Billy! You ought to get a medal!"
He whispered, glancing furtively toward the door. "Something else, maybe? Like doing the picnic over again?"
"Billy! Good heavens!"
He grinned at her and his hand stole inside the topcoat. "Maybe, huh?"
"Good God, Billy!" She squirmed. "All right; maybe!"
"Thanks, Aunt Helen! You're just great!" Jock came in. "She okay, Bill?"
"Yes, sir. She's fine."
Jock came to them and kissed Helen. "Thank God," he muttered. "This whole set-up was a lot worse than I thought. That guy, Johnson, is one of the most dangerous men loose! And King's not a step behind him, although that name's one he hasn't used before." He stepped back. "Be right back, Bill. Art and I are going to take those two outside. There's someone waiting for them by now, I expect."
"Yes, sir," Billy replied.
After Jock had disappeared, Helen tugged at the cuffs that still held her wrists. "Bill, there's a key to the handcuffs in Doctor King's brief case. Would you mind?"
"My gosh, Aunt Helen! I'm sorry!" He sprang to the brief case and rummaged until he found the key. Returning, he stopped before her and studied the topcoat, his mouth slowly widening in a smile. "You'll have to excuse it, I'm afraid."
He opened the coat and twitched it from her shoulders, dropping it while he fumbled with the cuffs. When her hands were free, Helen eluded Bill's hand and grabbed up the garment.
"You behave yourself!" she sputtered. "You'll feel pretty silly if Jock catches you pawing at me!"
He laughed happily. "I'll be good."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Helen nursed her drink, contemplating Jock and the Solicks and letting sensations of comfort percolate through her. It seemed to her a million years had elapsed in the past forty-eight hours. Doctor Gregory King had been a sort of idol to her until Friday; now he and that strange character, Johnson, were under armed guard on an airplane somewhere between Grantsville and Washington, D.C. She didn't know all the facts about them yet, what with the confusion of the last couple of hours, but she'd find out soon.
But King and Johnson were only a small part of that fantastic period, so far as she was concerned. They belonged to a "cloak-and-dagger" episode she'd fallen into only incidentally. The change in her own values and the steps that had brought about those changes were far more significant. Friday night after supper, she'd still been a one-man woman. She'd been seriously discontented with the bedroom routine she and Jock had ... she'd resigned herself to the idea of a quiet affair he wouldn't know about ... but she'd given no countenance to weird things like group sex or fancy gymnastics.
Since then, though! She didn't know if she'd ever be sure how many orgasms she'd had in the past two days. She did know every one of them had brought pleasure to her of one kind or another, even though she wouldn't want to repeat some of them. But each had exerted its influence on the change she now admitted to herself. They'd made a different woman of her, and she was glad.
A major benefit of the change was the comfortable, intimate silence she was enjoying with three of the four people she loved most. She'd bathed again when Jock had brought her home from the Community Affairs building. She'd slipped into her scarlet robe, knowing Art would take it off for her before the night was out, and now she was snuggled in the corner of the couch enjoying the evening's first drink.
Art pushed himself out of the easy chair he'd been sprawled in and went to the bar. "We've worked together a long time, Jock," he remarked. "Mind telling me where you met that Johnson character?"
"I mind, but you probably ought to know. He was one of the heavies in the first case they ever trusted me on. Had me working as a plant."
"A big-money deal like this one?"
"Big-money, I guess, but not like this one. Johnson-different name, then-was the key guy. Matter of selling information to foreign agents. We got into it ... well, it doesn't matter how. But one section in the State Department went all to pieces when we closed in. Johnson wasn't government, and he made it out of the country."
Art shook his head. "Come on, Jock. You haven't said a damn thing."
"I'm not going to say much more than that. We wiped Johnson out; spoiled what would have been worth several million bucks to him."
"King was involved, wasn't he?"
Jock nodded moodily. "By another name. Damn shame, too."
"How do you mean?"
Helen tensed, realizing she was going to learn why King had hated Jock so intensely.
"Well, he had the world by the tail. He was thirty-two, and he was the best man State had. Everyone knew he was going places. Married ... wife was out of one of the best families ... you know, rich before The Flood and probably financed the Ark. They had one kid, a seven-year-old boy. But the Johnson operation had one foot in King's section, and King had a thing for boys ... half homosexual, maybe. Funny ... he wasn't really important in the case, but the evidence of his homo activities was all there and when Johnson's game came out, so did King's. It got just enough publicity so State couldn't save him and his wife wouldn't have him. I'm surprised he didn't commit suicide."
"How come you didn't spot him as soon as he showed up here?"
Jock shrugged. "When he was at State, he was a name, not a face. I don't think I ever saw him. And then he just didn't exist any more."
Helen protested. "But he knew you!"
"It was my fault he lost his career and his family. A guy's likely to do what he can to find out who's done that to him."
She shuddered at the realization of the ammunition she'd put in King's hands. She'd given him weapons to get at Jock through Billy and through herself. Jock-and Billy, of course-had saved the situation; she hadn't. The only credit she could take-and she'd have to take it privately-was that she'd awakened Billy in time to turn him against the plotting director.
"Funny," she mused aloud. "Doctor King was too much of an artist."
"Huh?" Jock studied her quizzically. "That's one word that didn't occur to me."
"He wanted to get back at you by hurting you where he'd been hurt. Don't you see? He laid a trap with that copy of the General Report. With any kind of luck, he might have cost you your job. But he'd lost his wife and son because of you and...." She caught herself on the verge of revealing her knowledge about Billy's parentage and reworded what she was saying with a barely perceptible break. " ... and he worked it out to take me away from you-and give me to some cult for God knows what-and Billy, since you didn't have a son of your own. Only his own hang-up got in there and he even tried to stick you with the homosexual thing, second-hand."
Jock nodded quietly. "Came pretty close to making the whole plan work, too.. Art and I couldn't have stopped him ... wouldn't have known what was happening until it was too late if it hadn't been for you and that report." He grinned at her with a curious expression of awareness. "Fact is, even that didn't do the whole trick. I never will know what the whole picture was."
She smiled. "I don't suppose anyone ever is that lucky."
"I guess not."
The telephone rang and Jock answered it. He talked for a long time, and Helen gradually came to realize he was talking to Billy. He looked sober when he hung up.
"Frank's on the way out," he told her.
"Oh, hon! You mean, tonight?"
"Probably last until tomorrow, but he's in a coma and Billy says he's not going to come out of it."
"Are you going to Billy?"
"No." Jock sighed. "Doc Marcos must have something on the head nurse over at Memorial; they're letting Bill stay with Frank. Bill said he'd call us as soon as ... well, as soon as anything happened. We'll go for him then."
"And he thinks that'll be tomorrow."
Jock shrugged. "That's what Marcos told him. Who knows?"
It tore at Helen to think of the boy as he must be, sitting motionless in a dim room where the only father he'd known was slipping away from life without even being conscious of it ... hearing one breath follow another and knowing one of them was going to be the last.
"Honey ... Jock ... One of us just has to go to Bill!"
"No! He doesn't want anybody! Not now!" He smiled understanding at her. "Look, I know how you feel. You've been close to the boy. But he's going through a test of his own right now, and he's the one who's defined it. He's not torn up, particularly. Doesn't act like he feels guilty, either; something you said to him today must have done the trick there. Anyhow, he wants us after, not now."
"All right. If you say so."
"I say so."
She tried to recapture the sense of well-being she'd felt before they'd started talking, but it eluded her. She sighed. Art crossed to the couch, looming over her.
"Hey, puss." His voice was soft and caressing. "You need either another drink, or some fresh air."
She realized it was unfair to inflict her sudden depression on Art, particularly when he was so gentle and thoughtful. She smiled up at him. "Fresh air, I guess. I hadn't noticed how close it was in here."
Her robe swirled around her calves when she stood and whispered against her thighs as she went out with Art. She glanced back at Jock and Nell before she went through the door and wrinkled her nose at their knowing looks.
"Jock acts wound up. I'd like time to unwind him."
"Oh, you!" Helen stepped onto the porch and Art pulled the door shut.
They crossed to the front railing and leaned against it, staring into the darkness while their eyes adapted. Helen sensed his restlessness.
"You wound up, too?" she asked.
"Not the way Jock is, I guess. That business with King and Johnson this afternoon keeps bugging me. They came right into the house and kidnapped you?"
She winced. "They were waiting in the bedroom when I finished my bath."
"Nervy bastards! But King knew where things were."
"Oh?" She was sure she knew what Art was going to say.
"Yeah. He came back after he swiped your pants ... stood behind the drapes in the bedroom the whole time the four of us were in there. Made a big thing of it today, trying to get a deal out of us."
"Oh, no! How did you shut him up?"
Art laughed softly. "Stared him down. Made like he was inventing things to save himself. Damned if it didn't work! I think he saw what an impossible situation he was in ... zero credibility."
"God, Art! What if someone had believed him?"
"Could have been rough. Anyhow, they grabbed you right out of the bath!"
"Practically."
"I mean, before you'd put anything on!"
"Yes."
"Christ!"
She realized suddenly that Art was affected two ways by what had happened. He was angry, but reviewing what King had done had an element of stimulation, as well. She sighed and smiled into the darkness.
"It was terribly humiliating," she said. "They didn't even let me grab anything! Threw that topcoat over my shoulders and dragged me out to the car handcuffed! And they pawed me all the way to the office! But it was worse inside!"
Art muttered an oath.
Helen continued, careful to avoid telling him enough to spoil the effect of his vicarious experience. "They made me ... made me .lie on Doctor King's desk while they got things ready to go ... kept messing around and everything. I don't know what they'd have done if Billy hadn't gotten there when he did."
"Lousy bastards!" Art growled. "I'll tell you something, puss. That King was as kinky as they make them. We thought at first he might have done all that spying for blackmail, but he didn't; he just was getting his kicks. I guess he managed to get his kicks just about every way there was."
"You think so, Art?"
"I know so. We did a bunch of interviewing this weekend ... got to know a lot about our friend. Jesus, what a slob!" He turned to her and held her to him.
She murmured against his shirtfront. "I'm glad he's gone, honey. He messed things up terribly." And a surprising surge of contentment washed over her; she actually was glad!
"How do you feel after all that excitement?" Art asked without releasing her.
"Try me."
Her buttocks rested against the railing and Art's forearm supported the small of her back. He moved to one side and his other hand slid lightly over the front of her robe. She tingled when his palm cupped over her breast and gasped when, minutes later, he unzipped the robe to her waist.
"Art! ... honey! ... we're not in the lilacs!"
He chuckled. "You're not undressed yet, either."
But her robe had fallen open to expose her breasts, and she looked down to discover the faint light was strong enough to highlight their curves and show the soft gleam of her nipples. Art cupped his hand under each breast, alternately, lifting until the upper slope bulged and the nipple jutted. And he bent to kiss each nipple at irregular intervals.
Her depression evaporated and the persistent fabric of weariness gave way to a flush of hungry energy. Art's fingertips traced lines from the base of her breasts to the nipples, again and again, their caress silken in its gentleness. She braced the heels of her hands on the rail and leaned back, her breasts out-thrust for his touch, and her robe slipped from her shoulders to hang on her arms. She flinched, ready to shrug the garment back into place, then relaxed. It was too much fun daring anyone to see her.
But Art took the responsibility. He snugged the collar against her neck and rested his lips on hers. She strained to the kiss and his fingers worked the zipper of her robe past her crotch. She jerked her head back.
"Art, honey!"
He bent, unzipping the robe to the hem and letting it fall open.
"Omigod!" she whispered. "Not where everyone can see us, darling!"
"If they're out there, all they see is your back, and the robe's still there."
She giggled. "Honestly! I'm not going to stand here like this forever, honey! I'm going to climb all over you in a minute, and I do think we ought to have a little privacy!" She was confident that he was less nonchalant about their exposure than he seemed. On a daring impulse, she shrugged the robe from her shoulders and let it fall from her arms, standing away from the railing utterly naked.
Art inhaled sharply. "For Christ's sake, woman!"
"It was in the way, darling." Her belly writhed with her illusion that hundreds of eyes were fixed on her, but she posed like a model, raising her arms above her head and pirouetting slowly before him. "Feel me, darling. Make love to me."
He chuckled. "You're a mink, Helen. Come on, let's get into the shadows."
"The lilacs again?"
"Well, the swing's just as shadowed."
"Oooh! I'd like that!"
He picked up her robe and followed her to the porch swing. The chains creaked when they sat in it, but Helen suppressed her nervousness and squirmed against Art. His fondling aroused her quickly, and she sprawled back, her buttocks at the edge of the seat, her legs extended and her hands behind her head. Her hips jerked and she twisted erratically. Art's hand pushed through the bristling hair on her crotch and his fingers probed her gash.
"Mmmm! ... So good, honey!" She whirled on him, unzipping his fly and freeing his cock.
He grunted. His hard-on throbbed under her hand and she petted it.
"What the hell?" he asked mildly. "Damned if I can see why I have to stay dressed." He stood and stripped.
Helen leaned forward and played with his bobbing cock, her fingers closing around it. He dropped to the swing and took her nipple in his mouth, sucking savagely. Clinging to his cock, she began to stroke it, jerking her fist up the shaft to his cockhead, then slamming it down to his pelvis. Art writhed and released her nipple.
"Don't break that thing off, for God's sake!"
She was astounded at the ferocious spirit that had possessed her but couldn't control herself. "Oh, God, honey!" she exclaimed in a strangled tone. "I want you so bad! Oh, Art!"
He grabbed her by the waist and swung her around to face him, astride his lap. Squirming under her, he worked his buttocks to the edge of the seat while she guided his cockhead to the mouth of her vagina. She drove herself onto the upright cock, grunting as its head penetrated to the core of her belly.
"Yes, oh yes!" she gasped. "My God, Art, why do I feel this way?" Her hips smashed her back and forth on him. "Why?"
"Puss, I'm no head-shrinker. All I know is, I'm never going to stop being thankful we started swapping."
"But I feel so awfully wild! I want to ride you and this doesn't let me!"
"What?"
"The rail! We need the rail! It's wide; could you lie on it and let me ride you that way? ... Please, honey?"
He laughed and struggled to his feet, carrying her to the rail behind the swing. Carefully, he maneuvered himself onto it, letting her get one leg on the outer side, then subsiding on his back. She let her legs hang, knees straight, and thrilled to the way the weight of her legs levered her pelvic structure. They were literally prying her hips apart, she thought with a shiver. Only the connecting tissues were holding her together.
Art jerked his hips, thrusting his cock up and down in her while she rocked her body forward and backward. His cockhead plowed back and forth in the middle of her belly, shoving her organs out of the way and churning them.
She leaned on her arms, her palms on his chest and her fingers clawing at the stiff hair. Becoming conscious of that hair made her realize his hair was a factor at every point of contact. The bristles on his thighs tickled her buttocks. The wiry brush of his pubic hair stabbed the swollen membranes of her pussy lips. And if she should lie forward on him, her nipples would shrink at the prickly contact.
She knew she wouldn't lie forward. Her sensations intensified when she leaned back, and as that understanding came to her, she braced her hands on his knees instead of his chest. Her back was arched, thrusting her belly forward and stretching it taut. Her breasts thrust proudly upward. And Art began to thumb her clitoris.
"Ahhh! ... Oh, Art! ... Good God, don't make me fall off!"
"Want me to stop?"
"No! Don't stop! Just don't pay any attention to what I say!"
The door opened and light streamed onto the porch. Jock and Nell appeared.
"Shut the damn door!" Art growled.
Jock chuckled and pulled the door shut. "Last time you two shacked up out here, King showed up! Who you trying to attract this time?"
"Some big-mouthed smart-ass!" Art's chuckle robbed the retort of its sting. "What it is, Helen wanted a riding lesson."
"No challenge when the rider's pinned on," Nell remarked.
Jock and Nell came into the shadow and Jock put one arm behind Helen's back, stroking her breasts with his other hand. She had neared her orgasm and his attention added excitement.
"A guy would have to have a lot of guts to say you were acting like a prude right now," he said softly in her ear.
She shuddered with a spasm she thought for a moment was the beginning of her climax. "UNH! ... I'm not a prude any more. Darling...."
"Yeah?"
"There are so many things I want to try with you! Oh, dear, Jock; we'll never have time to do them all!"
"I'm damn well willing to try," he muttered. Helen stiffened, her vaginal spasms shaking her body as she came. "Unnnggg! ... mmmmm! ... ahhhh!...."
And Art's hips surged upward, thrusting her higher as he poured his heat into her belly.
Jock held her, letting her lean against him while she remained impaled on Art's cock. She rubbed her cheek in Jock's chest hair and watched Nell as the other woman bent over Art to crush his mouth with hers.
"I love you, honey," Helen murmured. "More than anything in the world."
"This swapping stuff doesn't bother you now?"
She sighed happily. "I wish I hadn't been such a stuffed shirt when we got married. We wasted a lot of years."
"Maybe. Most people look back at wasted years for one reason or another." He was silent for a moment, then went on with a somber note in his voice. "Bill told me Frank felt like that before he went into this coma."
"Frank!"
Jock turned her face and gazed into it. "He says his father got irrational just before the coma. Tried to tell him Bill wasn't his." His voice sank to a whisper. "You've got to hand it to Bill; he says he didn't get mad at Frank for saying a thing like that about Eileen ... just recognized how twisted things have gotten for his father."
Helen listened to the words and detected the message behind them. She kissed Jock tenderly, her hand slipping along his neck to hold his face to hers. Past the wetness of his lips, she whispered, "He'll be coming home soon, love."
After the kiss, Jock chuckled. "Funny. That's the way Bill put it. Said something about that picnic with you being the greatest thing that ever happened to him, too. I told him you'd take him out there for a rerun the first day he was here with us. He lapped that up."
"But you'll go with us this time, darling."
"No." Jock shook his head. "Later, after Bill and I know each other. The first time, we want it exactly like today. He needs mothering right now."
Helen sighed in surrender and leaned against her husband again. Billy might need a mother, she reflected, but that's not what you've promised him, Jock. A great wave of excitement surged through her and her vagina clamped in upon Art's limp cock. Jock had promised Billy-and her-another wild day of sex on that knoll overlooking Grantsville ... a day she wouldn't have to wrestle with her conscience about.
"I'll mother him," she said at last. "Mothering isn't anything but lots of cuddling. And even a grown boy needs that once in a while."
"Even a man." Jock agreed with something in his voice that said Billy and he were both men-both with the same needs. Something that said he and Helen no longer had any secrets from each other.
