Mary Silverman, hands shaded over her dark eyes to shield them from the warm spring sun, stood with the rest of the Sunday crowd and watched the skydiver's plane bank in preparation for its final pass of the day. The three persons aboard-two men and a girl-would jump as soon as the pilot permitted.
Mary shivered, and it wasn't from a lingering chill in the air. She felt a foreboding. Of what, she wasn't sure. She even wished she hadn't come. She was observing this afternoon more out of duty for her publication, Women Today, than pleasure.
Her escort, Bryce Gillian, a restless-looking young man with blond hair and mod clothes, glanced at her, keen eyes raking the long, pants-clad legs, trim waist, and gently swelling breasts. He smiled. "Like?"
She hesitated, then nodded, without taking her eyes off the blue, red and green Cessna twin about to start its pass over the field which adjoined Municipal Airport.
"Then why aren't you taking notes?" he scolded.
Mary laughed. In addition to being her escort, Bryce was also her department editor at Women Today. As for her notebook, she still clutched it tightly in one hand. Her pen was still in the handbag slung over her shoulder. She tapped her forehead. "I'm putting it all down up here," she said.
They watched as the plane floated lazily by overhead. The cabin door opened, and one of the men stepped out, free-falling for five hundred feet before pulling the rip cord on his chute. The chute opened perfectly, its red and yellow hues drawing admiring cries from the crowd. The first diver was followed within a few seconds by his partner. The girl, it appeared, would jump last or not at all, depending on whether or not her courage failed.
Mary drew close to Bryce and put her hand in his. "I'm afraid," she said, in a voice no one else could hear. "I'm afraid for her."
"Don't be ridiculous," Bryce scoffed. "This club's never had an accident of any kind, to planes or divers."
Mary saw a bystander with a radio tuned to the plane's frequency. "Ask him to tell her not to jump," she urged.
Bryce looked pityingly at her. "It's not a two-way radio, dearest. Besides, I'd look like a meddler when I'm supposed to be a guest. I might not get invited back again. You, either."
"I don't care. Please, Bryce, do it for me!" she whispered. "See? It is a two-way! Don't you see the microphone!"
He squeezed her hand. "No. Brace up and watch. Look, there she goes!"
Mary stared up and saw the girl step from the cabin door. Someone closed it behind her. The tiny figure plummeted toward the ground four thousand feet away. Ten seconds passed. Then twenty. The crowd gasped. If the girl's chute didn't open at above one thousand feet, she might suffer serious leg injuries.
"She's playing it for suspense value," Bryce suggested, although his face had paled and his voice had tautened.
"Oh, my God, she's going to die!" Mary sobbed, and buried her ashen face in Bryce's lapels. She didn't want to watch, and under no circumstances did she wish to view the remains. "What a barbaric sport!" she moaned against his chest. "You men are all alike-forever thinking up new ways to kill yourselves or one another!"
Gillian, for the moment, had no reply. His horrified gaze, along with the crowd's, was riveted on the unfortunate skydiver who had now fallen inside two thousand feet. Only a few seconds of safety remained, a few seconds in which the chute would either open of its own accord, or the girl would conquer her panic long enough to remember emergency procedure.
"She pulled her rip cord completely out!" said someone who was watching through high-powered binoculars. "I see it dangling from her hand. And that expression-jeez, she knows she's going to buy it!"
Mary shuddered and placed both hands over her ears. If she needed further proof of man's vicious nature, she had it.
"I'm sorry, baby," Bryce murmured, stroking her hair and finally recovering his voice. He turned away, too, when the seconds mounted into a full minute and the diver's velocity alone made a safe landing impossible. The crowd's roar turned into a piercing shriek when the end came-a sodden thump far out in the field. Everyone charged that way-everyone except Bryce and Mary. He tipped her face up to his. "Do you-"
"No!" She wondered how he could even imagine her wanting to see the battered, lifeless corpse. She wanted only to get to her typewriter and start an anti-skydiving story without another minute's delay.
"I'll get you away from here," he said, and half-carried, half-dragged her to his Stingray sports car parked on the outskirts of the crowd. He bundled her inside, brushing her cheek with his lips. "You'll be okay."
Mary began to cry, great, racking sobs that shook her slender body. "She didn't have to die!" she wailed. "The whole thing was a male circus played for male egos! It's not fair!"
"You're right," Bryce agreed, putting the car in motion. "About her not having to die, I mean. And, no, it wasn't fair. But life never is." He reached across to pat her shoulder. "Try not to take it so hard. We'll send some flowers, maybe even call on her folks." Gillian cocked his head, hearing a siren in the distance. He pulled over for an ambulance which had come too late. "Maybe it'll be in the evening papers. We'll know her name and exactly what happened. But for now we'll go to my place and have a drink. I think you need one."
Mary heard the reference to 'my place,' but it didn't register on her. She'd been in Bryce's apartment only once, and he hadn't tried anything then. "I'm beginning ... to think there's something to it," she gulped.
"To what?"
"This 'male chauvinist pig' business. It seems to be true. Women are downtrodden in every way. Even murdered by careless men."
Gillian laughed. "You're going to work yourself into a breakdown if you're not careful. Take it easy." He swung the car back out into traffic and sent them hurtling on their way. "But you know, I like that about you. Always have."
Mary wiped her eyes and reached into her handbag for a compact. "What?"
"You're sensitive and generous. You have empathy. Me, I've always been a selfish bastard, and I guess I'll die an s.o.b."
She sighed, and snapped the compact shut. "You malign yourself. And overrate me. I just hate to see suffering, that's the only difference between you and me."
Gillian glanced at her still-white features. "There's more to it than that. But you really need a drink, honey. Your hands are shaking." He drove faster toward his apartment.
Mary watched the deft way Bryce's hands added the vermouth to the pitcher. He could do it with his eyes shut, she decided. While his back was turned, she studied the apartment's furnishings and decor. Bryce had income from a family inheritance in addition to his salary as articles editor of Women Today, so he could afford to live well. Live well he did, from a Mediterranean-styled stereo which he said was rated at 300 watts to the marble-topped bar which could seat nine in a pinch. The liquor supply in the teakwood cabinets below was ample, too.
Still, he excited her less than some of the other men she knew, such as Hal Packard, Women Today's executive editor. She supposed it was Bryce's extraordinary courtliness, his politeness in even the most gauche situation. Some girls, she conceded, would count that a virtue. But virtue in men wasn't exactly in.
Mary smiled at where her thoughts had led her. Bryce turned around at that moment to bring her a drink, and caught her in the act. His brows raised.
"Feeling better?"
She nodded and accepted the drink. When he sat down with her, they drank together in silence, letting their eyes do the talking. Mary thought she saw a gleam of determination in his, and was troubled. She wasn't an easy girl, and he knew it. In fact, not one man on the masthead of Women Today had gotten beyond kissing with her. She wasn't especially proud of her invulnerability, but then neither was she ashamed. Sexual involvement to her meant a mutual commitment-if not a promise of marriage then at least a possibility. If that made her a relic or a freak, so be it.
Not that she was a prude. Far from it. In college, just two years previous, she'd experimented with varieties of petting that even Bryce, with his sophistication, wasn't familiar with. She'd petted, but she hadn't put out. Petting to orgasm satisfied most boys, even if it would never satisfy a man like Bryce.
He noticed that she'd drained her glass. "Fix you another one of those?"
Mary hiccupped. "Yes, please." She saw Bryce lick his lips, and realized that he intended trying to make her before she left his apartment. She wasn't surprised, nor was she dismayed. After the accident, this day could hold no surprises for her.
She drank a second martini, a third, and a fourth. Even so, she retained enough presence of mind to draw back when Bryce sat down beside her and looked longingly at her legs. He licked his lips again, and there was a suspicious bulge a few inches below his belt. Mary saw the erection, and put down her glass. She would have risen, only he restrained her with a hand on her shoulder. "Mary?" he said, and begged her with his eyes.
She shook her head. "No, Bryce. We said we'd be friends. No more. Remember?"
He dropped a hand to her breast. She removed the hand. He brought it back. "I'm going to have you," he said softly.
Mary trembled. "No, Bryce. Please take me home. I'm-I'm disappointed in you that you can think of that after seeing the way that poor girl-stop!"
Bryce had darted a hand between her pants-covered legs. The sensations, for a moment, were delicious. She quickly turned them off, however, and slapped his hand.
"Going to fuck you!" Gillian panted, and his face darkened with passion.
She gave him a scornful look. "That's it-make me feel marvelous! Use every dirty word you can think of. I still won't let you. You'll have to rape me." Mary crossed her legs to show she meant it.
Bryce surprised her. Rather that leap atop her for a swift and violent culmination to the afternoon, he smiled and turned aside. When he faced her again, his prick strained up at her startled gaze. "Touch it," he ordered. "Touch the peter that places you above all others. Do it!"
Because she liked him, or had once, she extended a hand and let it fall on the prick's head. There was no desire in her caress, but neither was there loathing. An expression of pleasure, of anticipation, came across Bryce's face, and she was afraid. Still, she continued her fondling, and felt the hard-on grow larger, to where his fly could barely hold it. Again a roving hand came to her breast, and this time she didn't push it away. Another hand fumbled with the zipper of her slacks, succeeding in lowering it, then peeling the fabric down her white thighs. The hand wormed its way inside her green panties to the tangle of jet-black pubic hair.
Mary closed her eyes and thought about something else-the story she'd start as soon as Bryce took her home. But the tremors of pleasure had begun. In wave after wave, they spread through her body, until they could no longer be ignored. She found herself at last manipulating Bryce in perfect time with his fingering of her clitoris and his skillful thrusts and jabs into her cunt lips. He paused at one point to open her blouse and take away her bra. Now the stimulation proceeded in both places, until she was dripping with secretions and so drunk with need any man would have done.
The tension between them became a physical thing.
"Fuck ... you ... now!" Bryce whispered. He reached to snatch something out of an end table drawer. "Make....you ... do it!"
She took the rubber, dropped it, picked it up again and finally succeeded in tugging it far enough up his prick to make conception, she hoped, an un-likely thing. Only once before, for a boy she adored, had she done this. Then the condom had ripped, and she'd burst into tears. The boy had promptly dressed and taken her home.
She wanted relief, and Bryce demanded it. When he pushed her back on the couch and tore away the rest of his clothing, she opened for him, for the swollen shaft searching blindly for a sheath to enfold it. While the stereo lulled them with a rhapsody, they struggled to master each other. In the end it was a draw-they both climaxed. But her woman's heart rebelled against it. Even as the spasms faded away, she knew she could never love Bryce Gillian.
Just who she could love was a matter yet to be settled.
CHAPTER TWO
Hal Packard, whose dark hair was beginning to gray somewhat at the temples, lending him a distinguished older man look when he was really only forty-four, rubbed the sleep from his eyes before sitting down at his desk. Monday mornings were rough everywhere, and the editorial offices of Women Today were no exception.
He had a full morning's schedule ahead of him: letters to dictate, appointments to make, future issues to be discussed with the publisher, Robert Midmark. Robert LaFollette Midmark, to be precise. And a major article on multiple orgasms to be assigned to one of Bryce Gillian's writers. Bryce had called in ill this morning. Packard understood. Gillian was seeing Mary Silverman, his youngest writer, and Mary was something a man could get too much of.
He could get too much of her face and hair. The former was pixyish in its beauty and its ability to interest a man, the latter coal-black and shoulder-length, so lustrous with life that a man itched to get his hands in it. He could get too much of her breasts, which were high and quite firm. At least Packard judged from his years of experience that they were firm. He could get too much of her thighs, slim yet fully fleshed pillars which ended in rounded hips that would set a poet to stammering. Yes, a man could get too much of Mary, but he, Hal Packard, had gotten too little-a situation only he could rectify.
Packard's brows merged in one bushy line. He'd just spotted, among the clutter on his desk, an article-actually an outline of one-with Mary's byline. Bryce hadn't come in this morning, so she or someone must have left it on his desk before clocking-in time. He picked up the outline and began to read.
Please, Hal, we must run this! The cruel and abominable "sport" of skydiving should be outlawed as quickly as a bill can be introduced in the legislature. If there is not now any statutory protection for skydiving, this fact should be brought to the public's attention by a directive from the Attorney General's office. If violators persist, they should be prosecuted. Consider the following: Packard stopped reading because his distress had gotten the better of him. Women Today prided itself on what Midmark called, "Our restrained, amiable style." After two years and two dozen articles, Mary should know it. He read on.
On Sunday, March 30, a young woman's life was snuffed out. The young woman wasn't the victim of disease or an auto accident; she was the victim of skydiving. She died because someone had buckled on her back a parachute harness with a defective rip cord. She died horribly. Packard frowned. He recalled hearing, on his way home from the lake with Joanna and the kids, a radio bulletin pertaining to some kind of skydiving accident. The girl's name was Beverly, and she'd been just nineteen. And she had died horribly, slamming into the turf at a hundred miles an hour. It was still too soon for a public outcry, of course, but there probably would be. Mary seemed to be anticipating one. The mishap had possibly gotten to her.
He decided to call her in and talk about it. This once, Women Today might crusade. Midmark wouldn't like it, but Midmark could be overruled by finesse and a delicate appeal to the financier in him. Packard pressed his intercom button. "Miss Silverman? This is Hal. If you can hear me, please come in." Occasionally she spent a morning in the photo lab, selecting prints with which to illustrate various features. The photo lab had no intercom.
"Yes, Mr. Packard," said a husky female voice. "I'm on my way."
Packard had opened three letters before she arrived from the floor below. He smiled his friendliest greeting. "Good morning, my dear. Please sit down." He saw Vicki, his blonde secretary, listening from the office adjoining his, so he deftly switched off the intercom. Now they had privacy.
She sat. She looked haggard, and even he could tell it. Her lower lip trembled, too, when she tried to say something. No sound came out.
He nodded. "I think I understand. You were there and saw the whole thing. It was tragic. I'm sorry for her and for you."
Mary looked puzzled. "For me? I don't understand, Hal. I wasn't harmed."
Packard smiled, marveling at the girl's fresh, unspoiled beauty. She looked near-virginal, although he was sure she wasn't. She looked the way he would have liked his own daughter to look-if he'd had a daughter. "If there's any harm, it's to your journalist's objectivity. But I didn't call you in to dress you down. We may run your piece the way it is, with all the fire and fury. Would you like that?"
Mary flushed. "I may not have been myself when I wrote it last night, Hal. I was angry with the world and the people in it-especially the men in it. Is there no limit to what civilized human beings will do for diversion?" She clenched a fist.
Packard chuckled and held up a mollifying hand. "I plead guilty to being a man. But my only diversion yesterday was taking my family out to the middle of the lake and back again. We caught seven, by the way."
Mary smiled in spite of herself. "I'm sorry. I wasn't about to take it out on you." She leaned forward. "Do you think I'll ever make a good writer, Hal? Is there something wrong with my viewpoint? Don't spare my feelings, just tell me."
He considered, admiring the way her breasts poked their outline through the fabric of her blouse. This was one of the rewards of his business-interviewing women young and old, having them ask his advice, hearing them pour out their hearts to him. And appraising their assets. "Yes. You'll make a good one. You're certainly involved, I mean. Perhaps too involved, to the detriment, at this point, of something called fairness. But I know you really mean to be fair."
"I do, Hal, I do!" Mary protested. "Only yesterday, Bryce was telling me-" She caught herself.
Packard let a smile show at the corner of his mouth. "Yes? What did Mr. Gillian tell you?"
"Almost what you just said," she finished lamely, coloring.
Packard gazed into her eyes and saw embarrassment and shame there. He began to wonder. Bryce had undoubtedly enjoyed her, but he'd failed to win her altogether. Something had been lacking. And with a girl like Mary, a relationship which was lacking meant a relationship soon to be terminated. "Mr. Gillian was rendering a professional opinion, I take it."
Mary reproached him with a glance. "What else? If you want me to rewrite the piece, I'll do it. I'll even try to be objective."
Packard brought himself back down to earth.
"This?" He picked up the article outline. Then an idea struck. "No. Well simply put it away for a week. If you still feel the same way next Monday, why, I'll tell Bob we have to run it. Something about social obligation or whatever. In the meantime-" He paused. "In the meantime?"
Packard cleared his throat. "Mary, my dear, how would you like a one-week leave of absence? Not a vacation, mind you, but an official leave of absence."
"Doing what?"
He hesitated. "Anything. Meeting people, traveling, muckraking. You name it."
Mary's chin lifted. She shook her head. "Sorry. I'm not interested." She was unable to conceal her exasperation. "Hal, in heaven's name, what are you trying to do to me? It's not like you to be devious. Have you and Bryce-"
Packard laughed. "No, we haven't put our heads together. There's no conspiracy. And I don't think you need a rest, if that's what you're thinking. I just want you to get away for a week and look for experiences you might not otherwise meet by punching in here at nine and out again at five. What's so Machiavellian about that?"
"Expenses paid?"
"Of course. Still not interested?" He watched her expression.
Surprising him, Mary slowly inclined her head. "I smell disaster, but I'll go. After yesterday, what can I see-or do-that won't affront my sensibilities? When should I start?"
Packard wondered about the "do", but he didn't ask. "As soon as I ask the accounting department to send up your expense vouchers." He scanned her face. "Or do you want to go back to your office and polish your story?"
Her answer was a clenched fist raised aloft. A threat, too. "If I ever learn that you set me up, Hal Packard, so help me...."
He was delighted at her spirit, and for an instant the possibility of seducing her then and there crowded out all reason. Reason prevailed. Vicki waiting in the next room. Anyway, Bryce had had her first. Where was the triumph? "Go, my dear, and pile encounter on top of encounter. We'll print them all."
She went out with the glow of animation on her lovely face. Packard picked up the phone and dialed the accounting department, instructing the men up there to prepare expense vouchers for Mary Silverman.
"Lots of them. Enough to last a week, regardless of where she might go."
He hung up, and on an impulse dialed Bryce Gillian's apartment. The latter was a long time answering, so Packard assumed he really was out of it this morning. But he heard Gillian's weary hello at last, and chuckled into the phone.
"Guess who I just sent away for a week, old boy? To get some experience for herself that she can't get while sitting behind a desk."
"Joanna?" Bryce guessed.
"Watch it," Packard warned. "No, closer to your home. Much closer."
"Mary?" Gillian's voice cracked. "You sent Mary away, Hal?"
Packard smiled at the wall. "Why, yes. Funny you should mention her. What went wrong at your place yesterday, Bryce, baby?"
"Wrong? Nothing. I scored, you can bet on that!"
Packard snorted. "Well, you must have used your little finger. She practically jumped at the chance to get away from you."
"You just fed her to the wolves, you conniving bastard!" Gillian snarled. He slammed the phone down at his end.
Packard permitted himself the luxury of a few moments' regret over the exchange before getting back to his mail. Vicki had waited long enough, so he went to open her door and lock his. She came in with a question in her eye. He shook his head. With Vicki, there was little need for words. They communicated very well with gestures and glances. He made one now-a finger of one hand boring into an orifice formed by the other, his expression deadpan.
Vicki laughed softly. "Do you want to fuck me, Mr. Packard?"
"I do, child," he assured her, although she was twenty-seven years old and had probably never been a child in her life.
"I want to fuck you, too," she said, and her sweet expression softened the impact. "If you don't believe me, just put your hand here." She indicated a place beneath her blue tartan miniskirt.
Eagerly, Packard reached between the smooth, tanned legs. His searching fingers found an unmistakable moistness inside the silk panties. She hadn't lied. While he was thus occupied, Vicki pressed a hand to his groin, discovering his hard-on and making it, with one gentle tweak, a little harder.
"We shan't lost a minute this morning," she said, fondling his prick through the thick cloth of his trousers.
"No," Packard groaned, and began tearing at her clothes and his. He'd almost forgotten how much he needed these Monday morning sessions with Vicki. A weekend without her was a weekend of deprivation. He and Joanna had long since stopped satisfying one another this way. When they had sex, it was always in antiseptic haste. The act would be followed by a hot shower and the late movie. The fun, the wantonness of a conquest, was missing. "Get on the desk."
Vicki looked hurt, or tried to. She knew he liked a vigorous coupling without the nuisance of preliminaries. "So soon? I don't rate a-"
"Just get on the desk!"
The time for teasing had passed, so she climbed on top of the desk, spreading her white thighs wide. Packard climbed up after her and, without disturbing a single letter, aimed his aching cock into the tawny nest of hair. She gasped when he entered to the fullest. She gasped again when he backed out and gave her a man-sized thrust. And then she sobbed low in her throat and began moving with him, her legs entwining themselves around his waist and her pelvis matching his every lunge.
He held off for a full five minutes, but the stimulation of two women within the hour was too much. He came, so hard he actually feared he'd hurt himself. But the pleasure-pain of orgasm soon faded away and left them both spent and weak.
He helped her dress again. "Two o'clock for the matinee?" he asked.
"If I can find my yogurt," she smiled, and kissed him with an office wife's devotion.
CHAPTER THREE
Mary tossed the expense vouchers into her handbag after a bottle of Alka-Seltzer, then locked her desk. She strode toward the elevator without looking back. If she knew anything about men-and she was beginning to know lots about them-Hal had called Bryce almost as soon as she left his office. So there was a need for haste. Bryce, misguided chauvinist that he was, might come running after her. She didn't want him this time out.
She found her MG-B in the company parking lot and pointed it toward her efficiency apartment twelve blocks away. There wasn't a great deal of packing to be done. She planned to take just three changes of underwear, a sweater, a knit suit, and another pair of slippers.
On an impulse, she stopped at the first florist's shop and ordered flowers for Beverly Braddock, the girl who had died. The American Beauty roses were the most expensive in the shop and cost more than she could afford, but she paid for them from her own pocket, rather than her expense account.
"Where to, Miss?" the florist inquired. Mary had to think. "Try the Wright-Lindbergh Skydivers' Club on South State. If not there, then the funeral home on Constitution."
"Yes, Miss."
At noon, she filled someone's canceled reservation on a westbound flight to Los Angeles via Denver. For a reason she couldn't explain, Mary got off at Denver. Shivering in the mid-afternoon chill, she donned her sweater and watched the 707 lumber down the runway and disappear over a mountain rim. She wasn't dressed for early spring in the mountains, but here she was.
"Taxi, Miss?" called a cabby from inside the terminal gate.
He was roughly dressed and sported a day's growth of beard, so she shook her head, and seized her overnighter and walked quickly toward a terminal entrance. But she realized how foolish she was. All the men with occupations like his were roughly dressed this time of the year. She had to quit imagining a threat, a sexual advance, in every male glance.
Inside, over a hot cup of coffee, she felt better. Bold, even. The airport coffee shop was crowded with men of every description, some of whom looked quite prosperous. Mary saw a businessman-he had to be a businessman; he carried the inevitable briefcase-who reminded her of Hal, who in turn seemed very far away right now.
The businessman, whose broad shoulders slumped inside the gray overcoat sat down at the next table. He ordered coffee, too, and drank it in quick swallows, as though he'd skipped lunch and possibly breakfast as well. He appeared unaware of anyone else's presence.
Shocking herself, Mary reached to pluck him by the sleeve. "Excuse me," she said.
The businessman looked around. The fatigue left his face. His shoulders straightened. "Yes?"
For Mary, the resemblance to Hal intensified. There was silver in the man's hair. She smiled, carefully keeping her manner casual. "I wonder if you could tell me the name of a good hotel here. Not the best, just a good one. If it isn't any bother," she added.
He smiled. "No bother. You're new in Denver?"
"I'm passing through," she said. "I expect to be leaving before noon tomorrow."
He nodded. "Why don't you try the Brown Palace? It's first-rate, and they aren't fanatics about reservations. If they were, they'd make an exception in your case, I'm sure."
Mary let her cheeks dimple in a warmer smile. "Thank you. You're very kind."
She would have turned back to her coffee, only his gaze held her own. She saw curiosity there. Wariness, too, and the latter interested her. He'd probably been victimized in the past by predatory girls who took when they pretended to be giving. He'd been burned.
"Are you, ah, here on business, too?" he asked.
She shook her head. "I'm a writer for Women Today. I'm on assignment, and yet I'm not on assignment. Funny, isn't it?"
The man chuckled, leaning closer so he wouldn't have to talk above the noise in the coffee shop. "Yes. And so are you."
Mary stared at him to see if she'd heard right. She had. He'd called her funny. She was used to a variety of compliments, some sincere, most insincere, but not funny. She wasn't even sure if it was a compliment. "I don't think that's funny," she blurted, and , suddenly wished she'd asked someone else.
He laughed. "I meant no offense, Miss-"
"Silverman. Mary Silverman." She saw no reason to give a false name. She'd already given away her company's name and the reason for her being there.
"Well, Miss Silverman, you are a most singular and direct person. I rather like that in a woman. I'm Thornton Caffy, by the way. My company's stockholders' meeting is tomorrow in the convention center. Why don't you stay over and attend?"
Mary, by an effort, avoided grimacing. All the stockholders' meetings she'd ever attended had been gala affairs where the delegates yawned in one another's faces. A knitting party was bedlam by comparison. "Thanks, but I don't feel I'd be-"
"Welcome? Of course you would! We love to have writers."
She forced a smile. "Appropriate is the word I have in mind. My assignment is something quite different. It has more to do with people as people, not people as shareholders. Kooky, I suppose, but true."
Caffy looked disappointed. "I see. In that case, I'm delighted to have been of service. May I go back to my coffee?"
"Please do," she advised, and let the ice show. He shrugged and turned away, although he cast one last, thoughtful stare her way. Mary finished her own coffee, asked for the tab, and left through the front. She imagined she could feel his eyes boring into her back as she walked out.
By nightfall, she'd forgotten about him. She'd registered at the Brown Palace, eaten in the hotel's posh dining room, and strolled out briefly to see Denver's night lights. The astonishing cold-astonishing until she remembered the city's altitude-soon drove her back in again. She went up to her room to write the first of the five reports she'd airmail to Hal. Reports which would chronicle her adventures or misadventures, whichever they might be.
But she felt more than a little ridiculous as she sat down at a table and reached for a sheaf of hotel stationery. So far nothing had happened. She hadn't been mugged, raped, or trod upon. She hadn't even been pinched on the thigh. Whatever could have come over her to imagine that the world was a darker place in which to live merely because Beverly had died for clamoring onlookers?
Mary wrote "Dear Hal," and then jumped. Something or someone had tapped lightly at her door. She listened and heard it again, louder this time. Her heart leaped to her throat, and her palms moistened with perspiration. She wasn't expecting anyone, and wondered who it could be.
She went to answer it. When she opened the door, she found Thornton Caffy outside, a guilty expression on his face and brown paper bag-covered object under his arm. He managed a smile which he doubtless hoped would be reassuring.
"Hello," he said, eyes wavering. "I-happen to be staying in the same hotel, and I-well, damn it, I want to come in and talk to you."
Mary's first emotion was fury, and she let him know it. "You-you set me up!" she blazed, more angry with herself than with him. "You directed me to your hotel and then asked the desk clerk for my room number! Dear God, how could I be so stupid?" She clapped a hand to her head and directed her question to the wall.
Thornton came inside and closed the door before she could stop him. "Nonsense," he chuckled, slipping out of his coat. "No one's been stupid. I enjoyed your company this afternoon and wanted to enjoy more of it, that's all. May I?"
Mary realized that getting him out would involve a scene, perhaps even the police, so she shrugged a grudging consent. She was glad she hadn't changed into her negligee. She saw him take a pint of Scotch from the paper bag, and suddenly realized what he had in mind. "I won't drink with you," she informed him. "I mean it."
"But you will call room service for some ice and a pair of tumblers," he coaxed, sitting down on the sofa and kicking off his shoes. He seemed to have come to stay.
Here again she had no choice, so she called. The service was prompt. In two minutes, a bellboy knocked on the door. When she opened it, he pushed in a cart with a set of glasses and a bucket of crushed ice, and left quickly.
"You may as well join me," Caffy suggested, busying himself with ice scoop and Scotch.
Mary decided she had nothing to lose, and nodded. The scotch was 100 Pipers, but she heard nothing save her own heartbeat. They sat and watched one another, Thornton loosening his collar and drawing off his tie, she sipping the drink in tiny swallows and feeling its biting warmth dispel some of her tension. "You're married, aren't you," she said, and knew he'd smile at her naivete.
He smiled. "How did you guess?"
She wanted to fling the Scotch in his face. "If you think I'm funny, why did you look me up?"
Caffy's face sobered. "I don't think you're funny. Honest. You do something to me. I can't describe it, just feel it."
She said nothing. They had another drink, then another. The last of her tension settled down somewhere between her toes. He came to sit beside her on the bed, and she didn't push him away. When his hand fell gently on her breast, she let it stay. His eyes issued a command, and she obeyed, dropping a shy hand to his crotch and leaving it there. She felt a swelling which quickly ballooned to giant-sized proportions.
Mary imagined herself bleeding to death in a strange hotel room with a man she'd never met before, and began to tremble. The chemistry had started, however, and she couldn't make herself stop. Under Thornton's insistent fondling, her nipples had engorged to tight points which cried out for release from the captive bra.
He seemed to understand. "I'm really not so big. I was the largest in my high school class, but it was a small high school." He smiled into her eyes.
Even when she realized that it was mainly the alcohol, she relaxed and smiled back, feeling at ease with him for the first time. He was probably an accomplished seducer who tomorrow would check off yet another score in his long list of successes, but right now she didn't care.
"Let's slip out of that," he said, and started on the buttons of her blouse. She left off caressing him long enough to permit it. When the garment lay on the bed behind them, he deftly unhooked her bra and tossed it on top of the blouse. Without asking her permission, Caffy bent his head and applied his mouth to one roseate tip, his tongue circling once, twice, three times, then striving to force the nipple back into the breast.
Mary gasped. Bryce had never thought or bothered to do this. The sensations nearly sent her through the ceiling. Her hand moved of its own volition back to Thornton's covered prick. This time she made her touch more definite, less hesitant. He grunted approval.
"Take me out," he whispered.
She hesitated for only a second before lowering his zipper and reaching inside. The cock was so large she could barely move it. Thornton wriggled to make the task easier and the prick popped free. There was no longer any point in holding back, so she grasped the rigid thing and squeezed. Caffy began breathing so hard she actually feared for his heart. She wondered if he was used to this much excitement. "Are you sure you're-that is, I hope you aren't-"
"I'm fine!" he rasped, removing his mouth from her other breast. "Never felt better. But I want you out of that thing." He pushed her back on the bed and groped for the waistband of her skirt.
She knew he'd tear it, so she pushed his hand away. "Let me." With shaking fingers, she completed disrobing for a man she'd known less than five hours. In a few seconds there was nothing between them but her panties, already fragrant with feminine secretions.
"God, but you're lovely!" Thornton breathed. "You're the loveliest woman I've ever seen, and that includes some of the most beautiful women in the West!" He fingered her clit.
Mary doubted that he meant it, but the words thrilled her nonetheless. She watched as he made his clothing fly in his eagerness to couple with her. She struggled out of her panties before he had a chance to rip them, and lay back, waiting. A vein was going wild in her throat, and her mouth felt desert dry. But her head was clear. Clear enough for awareness, clear enough for exultation. If this was liberation, then she was all for it.
Caffy saw that she was ready for him, and he came close. His prick, which was fully nine inches long, jutted out stiffly in front of him. He watched her face for its effect on her. He must have seen fear there, because he laughed softly. "Don't worry. You can take it. I bet the medicine cabinet in there has Vaseline."
Mary wasn't at all sure.
He inserted a finger into her cunt, and whistled. "Wow! You're smaller than any-" He caught himself. "Yeah, we'll need that Vaseline."
The delay was agony, but she forced herself to wait while he went after it. He stood before her to rub the lubrication onto his organ. "How are you fixed for contraception? Are you wearing a device?"
She shook her head. "I don't have a prescription, either."
He clucked. "A girl your age ... well, we'll have to rely on interruptus. He hasn't failed me yet, the shifty rogue." Caffy moved toward her, eyes agleam with purpose.
Mary lay further back on the bed so he could reach her without falling. She fervently hoped his shifty rogue didn't fail him. The idea of returning to work pregnant was enough to kill all the response she was capable of and then some. She closed her eyes and lifted her legs high in surrender.
"Ah, lass, but you sweeten a bed to a real man's taste!" Thornton crowed. He knelt over her and placed the tip of his gargantuan cock between the lips of her cunt. Mary flinched. "Easy. If we take it slow, neither of us will be hurt."
She opened her mouth and silently prayed that she wouldn't be maimed for life. But under his soothing guidance, she accepted more and more of him, until at last there was no more to accept. She'd taken it all.
"See? We were made for each other." Keeping up an easy line of talk, he began thrusting in short, rapid thrusts, enough to pleasure them both but not enough to send him over the brink. Minutes passed, then half an hour. Mary climaxed once, twice, three times, and still he continued to fuck her, until she thought she'd go out of her mind with ecstasy. Finally she felt him leave her, and she cried out at the loss.
Caffy laughed. "Interruptus has come for both of us, Mary, my love. When he speaks, we should both listen."
She put her hands over her ears so she wouldn't hear his pants as he experienced his climax alone. At last she could stand no more. "Get out!" she screamed. "Please get out!"
He grabbed his clothes and bolted for the hall. She slammed and locked the door after him. Proving something to herself if not to him, she also went into the bathroom and threw up her dinner.
CHAPTER FOUR
Just before he sent Vicki home for the day, Hal Packard found himself worrying about Mary. Had he tossed her to the wolves? What if she came back crippled from some gory accident, or reclining in a box? How much responsibility was his?
Very little, he decided. An employer wasn't responsible for his employees' personal safety except when they were on the premises. And even then, the employees themselves had to exercise due care. It said so in a Department of Labor handbook buried somewhere in the back of his desk. But Mary wasn't an average employee. And he had sent her, in a manner of speaking, on assignment.
"Do you need me for anything else, Mr. Packard?" Vicki called from the door. There were people in the hall, so she was being formal.
He smiled and shook his head. "No. Be off with you."
He watched her stride away out of sight, and marveled at her resilience, her vitality. One would never know to look at her what contortions he had put her through. In mid-afternoon, with a light lunch digested, he'd locked the suite's door and gone into her office. There was a padded armchair beside her desk which he sometimes used to dictate changes in letters she was typing. The chair arms popped off when pressure was applied in the right places.
He'd undressed and sat down in that chair. Vicki, his own sweet Vicki, had undressed, too, and lowered herself carefully over his middle while he braced himself to receive her weight. Then they'd thrashed and flopped one another to the most satisfying climax he'd experienced in weeks. They'd set the suite and its furniture to vibrating. He'd felt as drained as a man could be, and he was certain she felt the same way. He wasn't concerned with losing her to a younger man.
Yes, his Monday had gone well. Packard only wished he could feel better about Mary's leaving. It had seemed a good idea at the time, but now he wondered. He realized that he felt more for the girl than an employer's concern for a gifted, promising employee. He couldn't acknowledge it, though, even to himself. Certainly not to Vicki. The girl loved him, in her own, independent kind of way. He loved her, too, though not enough to consider divorce and remarriage. Joanna still filled that part of his life.
Packard yawned and glanced at his watch. When he sat in his office and daydreamed, it was time to go home himself. He rose to lock his desk.
* * *
The kids-Curtis, nineteen, and Larry, twenty-one-had driven back to college after breakfast, so Joanna was home alone when he swung his year-old Cadillac into the split-level's drive. She hadn't stayed late at her hairdresser's, either. Her green Porsche was exactly where she always left it.
Packard left his car behind it and went inside whistling. But he met Joanna between the living room and the den and stopped whistling. She looked at least as spunky as Vicki this afternoon, and only part of the blame could be traced to a skilled hair stylist. He admired the way her auburn tresses caught the light even as he shuffled toward her in his best tired-executive manner. Joanna had been a beauty once. Still was, for that matter. The animosity between them, if that's what it was, arose from other causes, some of them baffling, all of them psychological.
"Hello, darling," she smiled, and kissed him full on the lips.
Packard understood, and his heart sank. At periodic intervals, when the forces inside her became too much to handle, Joanna chose to ignore their differences and throw herself at him. This evening would be one of those occasions.
He kissed her back, but he put less in the kiss than he could have. Less than he should have, when he considered the twenty-two years she'd given him. For Joanna, a woman reared in a dying, genteel style, infidelity wasn't an option, it was an evil. For him and for their marriage, she'd continue to put up a front. "Hello, yourself," he mumbled, purposely staggering.
Her eyes showed alarm. "Hal, are you-"
"I'm fine. I just had a godawful day. One of our writers went out of town, and I'm not even sure she's coming back."
Joanna patted his cheek. "I'm sorry. Come into the den, and I'll fix you a drink."
"I need one." With fingers crossed, he followed her into the wood-paneled den where the bar was. The supply of liquor was scanty, thanks to Joanna's basic disapproval of alcohol, but at least it contained a variety of the better bourbons and Scotches.
She poured him a Scotch-on-the-rocks and handed it across before preparing one for herself. This was another ominous sign. Joanna drank only to stiffen herself for an otherwise distasteful task. Before he could raise the drink to his lips, she clinked his glass with hers. "To us-you and me."
Packard nodded. "Cheers." He drank the Scotch rapidly, to let her know how much he did need it. "Can I have another?"
She fixed him another, but her mouth tightened. She wasn't about to let him drink himself into a stupor-not until she'd had her pleasure with him. "But no more, Hal," she said, passing it to him. "I mean it. What were you saying about one of your writers?"
"One of our writers," he corrected, flushing. "It's not my magazine, let me beg to remind you. I said she left on assignment, and wouldn't it be wild if we never saw her again. I was kidding, of course.
I'm quick to smell smoke, you know." He sipped the drink this time, because he knew he wouldn't get another. Joanna was unyielding steel on some things.
She studied him from over her glass. She wore a black lounging outfit which displayed her still-marvelous body better than any showcase. On another day he would have noticed it before now. "What kind of assignment?"
He shrugged. "She has to do the wanderer's bit for a week. Open herself to anything that may cross her path-good, bad, or indifferent. And I'm responsible, in a way, for the consequences."
Joanna's mouth opened wide. "It sounds dangerous!"
"Not really." Packard, who didn't need to be reminded, wished she'd change the subject. He drained his glass.
She put down her own glass and came toward him. "Hal?"
"Yeah?" He let his shoulders droop and kept his eyes on the floor.
"Hal, darling, look at me." She wriggled inside the lounge suit. "Don't you like what you see? Don't you? Please say you like me."
He looked. Even after two strenuous screw sessions with a secretary named Vicki, he liked what he saw. The trouble was, he couldn't, if his life and soul depended on it, do anything about Joanna's problem tonight. Once, as recently as ten years ago, he'd had unlimited potency. He was still a man to be reckoned with-just not more than twice a day. "Of course I like you," he protested. "Love you, too. Have you ever doubted it?"
Joanna sighed. "Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, Hal, I wonder if we should have spent out lives together."
Packard winced. "I wish you wouldn't talk that way. We've built a lot together, you and I. I'm proud of our marriage. I'm proud of you."
"Are you?" She took him by the lapels and gazed into his eyes. "Then act like it. For once, act the loving husband."
He hesitated, then crushed her in his arms, pressing her breasts hard against his chest. The kiss he burned into her lips was more than she had a right to expect. What he lacked tonight in passion, he made up for with determination. Joanna gasped when he took his mouth away, but she made no move to leave his arms.
"My man!" she whispered, beaming into his face. "Make it like it was long ago! Make me feel the mountains crumbling!"
"Joanna, please," he muttered. "I've had a bastard of a day, I told you. I didn't tell you I also skipped lunch." He hadn't. "I'm almost dead on my feet."
She chuckled that infuriating chuckle which meant she wouldn't stop until she'd had her way. "All the world's great lovers were lean men. A real man makes love best on an empty stomach." She smiled archly. "Don't tell me you've forgotten how?"
Packard grinned wanly. "Maybe I have. Maybe I won't remember until after I've gotten a hot meal in my belly."
"Hal!"
There was no discouraging her, so he bent to the pouting lips again. This time his kiss lacked conviction, but she didn't seem to notice. She kissed him back with a zeal he hadn't dreamed was in her, even worming her tongue past his teeth and into his mouth, stroking the roof from side to side. He warmed a bit in spite of himself.
When she squirmed nearer and gripped his leg between her thighs, he even fancied he had the beginning of a hard-on. A minute passed, however, and his prick stayed dormant. Joanna continued to kiss him, gently nibbling at his lips and trying to cover his tongue with his own. He joined in the tongue play, and hoped it would bring him to life.
She finally realized he hadn't erected, and pulled away in confusion. "Hal, aren't you-can't you...."
"I'm trying," he insisted. "But all I can think of is a pan full of chops and a mountain of hot buttered potatoes. Don't forget the apple pie." He held his breath.
Joanna seemed to age right before his eyes. The wrinkles returned, and so did the bags under her eyes. But she strove to conceal her disappointment. "Then I'll feed you. We'll try again in a couple of hours."
Packard released the breath. "Let's do." At nine, she glanced at him from where she sat in her favorite chair. He smiled back, rose to switch off the television set, and went to pull her to her feet. The rest, he felt, had done him good. If she so much as touched him down there, he'd throw her on her back and give her the kind of sticking she hadn't known was in him.
But she didn't touch him. She stood acquiescent before him and let him kiss her eyes, nose, and mouth, trailing kisses across her face and throat. Proving how miffed she was with him, her responses were cooler than before.
A feeling close to desperation took hold of Packard. He'd had sexual misfires before, but never in his life had he been totally unable to get it up. Vicki had taken more than a weekend out of him-she'd taken his pride. In a few seconds, Joanna would know.
Feverishly, he groped for her breasts. He'd never really been a breast man, but holding the two firm globes in his palms and feeling the points engorge had always excited him before. Tonight he might just as well have been holding a pair of ripe melons.
Joanna drew him away at last and stared accusingly at him. "Hal, are you seeing someone else?"
He forced himself to meet the stare without flinching. "No, baby. I love you and I always will."
She lowered his zipper and reached inside to squeeze his prick. The limp thing stirred, but failed to rise the way it should. Joanna massaged vigorously, but nothing happened. The failure hit like a knife edge, because she burst into tears.
Alarmed, he tried to take her in his arms. She slapped and kicked him, so he let go.
"I'm going to make a doctor's appointment for you!" she sobbed, buttoning her blouse. "If you're lying to me, Hal, I want to know!"
"No!" Packard grated. "No doctor. I won't go." He had an idea. "Maybe if you sucked me a little...."
Joanna went to her knees at once, so he unbuckled his trousers and let them fall, sending the shorts after them. With her left hand, she seized the cock's base; with her right, she brought the shaft up to her lips and let it slide between them. Inexpertly, she began to nurse.
He watched in open fascination. Joanna had given head only twice in all their years of marriage, so this third time would be doubly memorable. Her beautiful head bobbed as the warm mouth and tongue slowly repaired the damage Vicki had done. In two minutes, she'd brought him to the most gorgeous hard-on he'd ever had. "That's enough!" Packard groaned, afraid she'd drain him of all he had and leave them right back where they'd started.
She made her clothing fly, tossing lounge suit, bra, and panties to the sofa and lying down for him on the rug. "Now fuck me, damn you!" she cried up at him.
He obliged, and gladly. For several minutes, the only sounds in the room were his and her grunts and pants, growing hastily in unison. She climaxed first, delighting him with her uninhibited squeals and gasps. Then he came, discharging the last of a weekend's supply of semen. His batteries might recharge by tomorrow morning, but for now he was spent.
He grinned down into her eyes when they focused on him again. "I think you owe me an apology."
"About what?"
"That jazz about another woman."
"Do I?"
He realized, when they'd both dressed and were watching television again, that nothing had been settled. He'd fought her to a draw again. Only this joust had been more difficult. Was he showing his age?
CHAPTER FIVE
Mary awoke at half-past seven the next morning and lay still for a minute, staring up at the strange ceiling while the events of the night before flashed across her mind. She had a flight to catch, so she rose and dressed and went down to eat, after which she took the first taxi available back out to the airport. She wouldn't let herself think about Thornton Caffy.
The day was sparkling, but quite cold. Just when the flight to Los Angeles crackled over the terminal's public address system, Mary began sneezing. She buttoned her sweater more tightly about her and hurried out to the plane steps. She was glad to be leaving Denver.
The 747 set her down in Los Angeles at a quarter past ten. The temperature was seventy-two and there were palm trees everywhere. Mary, who'd never been in California before, thought she'd reached paradise. She took the sweater off as soon as she left the plane, folding it small enough to stuff in . her handbag without crushing the cigarettes. Then she retrieved her overnighter from the baggage truck and went to the rest room. She wondered what could happen to her in Los Angeles.
She stood bewildered outside the terminal and watched what seemed to be ten thousand taxis disgorge or take on passengers, then roar away in the direction of shining freeways. The latter appeared to spring up right out of the ground and spread out toward every point on the compass. There was a downtown Los Angeles to go to, but there was also a Glendale, a Long Beach, a Pasadena, a Riverside, and more. The choice was numbing.
She knew nothing about Glendale or Long Beach, and very little about Pasadena, so she chose to go downtown. Even then she had to race to reach a cab which had just delivered a fare and was about to turn and depart. Mary climbed inside and plopped her case on the floor.
"Downtown, Miss?" the youthful driver asked, sizing up the cut of her clothes and the swell of her breasts. He grinned with the kind of unabashed forwardness that seemed to come naturally to California men.
"Yes," she puffed. "Anywhere downtown." She wasn't surprised that even a cabby thought she might somehow turn out to be a conquest. After last night, nothing would surprise her.
He put the car in motion and drove. And drove. For twenty minutes he drove, and still they hadn't neared a skyline that looked like a skyline. And then, in as great an example of driving skill as she'd ever seen, he took them, via numerous turns and crossovers, to the top of a triple-decker expressway. Now the city's business and financial district was visible in the distance, though still miles away.
Mary made a sound to show that she was impressed.
The cabby laughed. "You know, you don't look the type," he said over his shoulder, darting another covetous look at her.
"Type?"
"You've got to be from Waterloo or some place like that. You've done Little Theater and maybe some summer workshop, and you think you'll meet a producer and make his day."
She was amused. "And if I do?"
The cabby shook his head with all the emphasis of twenty-two cynical years. "Baby, you won't. Believe me, you won't. All the producers in this town have split for Spain or Greece. The ones still around couldn't make breakfast food spots. If they stick you in front of a camera, you'll have to take it off. You'll have to take it all off. Know what I mean?"
This time she wasn't amused. "I know what you mean."
The boy, who had blond hair which reached well below his ears, studied her through his rear-view mirror. "Have a job waiting?"
She shook her head. "No. Just an assignment."
"You're a writer?"
"I'm a staff writer for Women Today," Mary explained. "Read us sometime. We aren't exactly a Cosmopolitan, but we get around, too."
He chuckled. "I'm glad you're not another half-wit who wants to make it in the movies. Means you won't have to do some of the things they do."
Mary leaned forward on her seat. "What kind of things?"
"You know. They come to town hoping for a role. They feel they'll be a co-star in six months, a star in a year. They find they can't even get bit parts, because their teeth aren't perfect, or their hair doesn't film right, or some other crazy reason. They hang on for a few weeks on the money they brought with them. Then, unless they get bread coming from home, they get desperate. They hire out as car hops or elevator girls, even...."
"Yes?"
"Even start hustling-something they wouldn't dream of doing at home. Some of them end up as party girls for hire, and that's the wildest scene of all."
Mary supposed she should be grateful for the narrative, but she wasn't. Anyway, they were nearing the city's fabled glitter, and talk about hustling only reminded her of last night. She didn't need reminding. Her vagina still ached.
"Any particular place you wanna get out?" the cabby inquired.
"Ask me again in a few minutes," she returned, gazing from side to side at beautiful, multi-storied buildings which gradually grew taller and taller. The city's upper reaches were squatty in comparison with other major cities, but there was a tremendous amount of it. They inched ahead in heavy traffic.
At the corner of Hollywood and Ivar, she glimpsed a hotel ahead. "Let me out there, please. That's far enough."
He pulled to the curb opposite the hotel. Mary paid and crawled out, a little daunted at the prospect of crossing so many lanes of traffic unaided. Every car in sight-and there were thousands in sight-seemed to be driven by a maniac.
"Wait," the cabby said, before she could slam the door. He scrawled something on a piece of paper and thrust it at her. "This is my number. I'll be off at five if you want to call me." He grinned.
To keep from hurting his feelings, she accepted the scrap of paper. "I'll keep it in mind."
"Keep loose," he advised, and gunned the cab away.
She intended to. How else could she hang on to her sanity? She survived the endless stream of vehicles long enough to reach the other side. The hotel looked expensive, but she went inside anyway. Her lack of a reservation didn't keep her from being assigned a room on the fifth floor. She signed and carried her bag up without assistance, since she'd espoused liberation all the way.
At noon she braved the incredible throng of natives and sightseers packing the hotel's restaurant. Excitement prevented her from eating very much-she wanted to see more landmarks and celebrities than a whole year's accumulation of week-leaves would permit-but she managed to swallow two tuna sandwiches and a glass of orange juice.
Her afternoon experiences were varied. She stood at the corner of Hollywood and Vine, and thrilled like any tourist. She went through the Wax Museum, and wished she could spend a week there. A penniless hippie buttonholed her outside the door, however, and demanded money.
"I don't have any," Mary replied honestly, after looking both ways for a cop and seeing none.
"Don't gimme that crap!" he snarled at her. "How did you get here?"
She saw a live louse crawling through the man's long hair, and could barely keep from shuddering. His hands were so filthy they left marks on her blouse. "I'm traveling on credit," she said, weaving on her feet from the revulsion she felt. "I use a credit card for all my expenses and at the end of the day, I itemize everything on a voucher. Please let me go."
With a sneering reference to her 'bourgeois selfishness,' he released her. But she glanced back a minute later and found him trailing along at a distance. Mary began to shake from apprehension. Only by ducking through a department store was she able to lose him.
When she could take an interest in her surroundings again, she looked hard for her favorite movie actors and actresses. Except for a noted television star who seemed to be staging a sidewalk happening of his own, complete with miniskirted female hangers-on and a press agent, there were no celebrities in sight. She gave it up at half-past four, and returned to her hotel room.
As she prepared to go down for dinner her cunt and the outer lips of her labia began to itch and chafe. Annoyed rather than concerned, she took a hot shower and scrubbed herself with care. But the itching refused to go away. Alone at a table against the wall, she fidgeted through the evening meal. When the malady still hadn't corrected itself, even after another shower and a generous dusting of talcum powder, she looked up the name of a doctor and made an appointment for the next day. Then she flung herself across the bed in mingled rage and frustration.
"Damn you, Thornton Caffy!" she swore into the covers. "Damn you and your casual sex, your-your obsession with pricks and pussies! Why couldn't you just have liked me for myself alone?"
There was no one to answer, so she cried alone. Crying calmed her tangled emotions, but it wasn't enough to sooth her burning cunt. Had she had a man with her then, one man, he would have been inadequate. She would have driven him to exhaustion and beyond. Of all the physical torments she'd ever endured, this one was the worst.
She rubbed herself with the bed clothing. The itching intensified. She undressed and lay naked on her back, allowing free access to her clit and adjacent structures. For nearly an hour, she stroked herself to one frantic climax after another. Finally, after she'd nearly masturbated herself to numbness, the inflammation subsided somewhat. She smoothed on a cooling lotion and tried to go to sleep.
She awoke at a quarter-past nine and shivered in the unheated room. Rather than dress, she reached for the phone to call Bryce. She needed to talk to someone, and Hal's wife wouldn't understand if she called there. Still nude, she direct dialed Bryce's number from memory.
Something was wrong at his end, though, because the phone rang seven times before anyone picked it up. The answer sounded unnecessarily gruff, too.
"Bryce?" Mary said, smiling up at the ceiling. The voice, if gruff, at least was familiar. "Yeah? Who's calling?"
"Darling, it's me," she said. "Mary. Remember? We spent Sunday together." Had it been just two days ago? She felt a world removed already from Bryce Gillian and his seduction tactics.
"Christ, yes, I remember!" Gillian exclaimed. "Where are you? Is anything wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong. And I'm in L.A., where else? At the Figueroa Hotel. I'm sacked out and I'm not wearing a stitch." She listened for his reaction.
"Lord, but you know how to hurt a guy!" Bryce groaned. "First you leave without saying where you're going or when you're coming back-or even if you're coming back. Then you wake me at twelve-fifteen in the morning to-tan you hang on until I grab a plane?"
"Don't you dare!" she laughed. "I'm sorry about your sleep. I forgot." She had. She'd come down with California madness, for which there probably wasn't a cure.
"You still haven't told me what you're doing there," he reminded.
Mary sighed. "I can't tell you, because I really don't know myself. I suppose I'm in search of the real Mary Silverman."
Gillian snorted. "I thought we'd found her, you and me. Wasn't Sunday night the greatest?"
Mary was silent, biting her lip.
"Well, wasn't it?"
"Don't make me answer that, Bryce," she begged. "I don't want to hurt you."
"Bah! You're still a little girl, that's your problem. A spoiled, selfish little girl."
"A spoiled, selfish, fun-loving little girl," she teased.
"I should hang up on you, but I won't!" he flung back.
"Then I'll do it for us. I want you to get your sleep so you can keep editing your splendid department. 'Night, darling." She took the phone from her ear.
"Mary, wait!" Bryce said.
She put the receiver back to her ear. "Yes?"
"Are you sure nothing's wrong? You don't have the flu or anything?"
She'd stuck the knife in, so she figured she might as well give it a twist or two. "Actually I'm afflicted with-well, I don't quite know how to describe it long distance. It's an itch, and yet it isn't. It's concentrated in a lower extremity. Good night, dearest." While Bryce made choking sounds, she quietly hung up on him.
She hated herself for the cruelty, but she felt he knew where they stood now.
CHAPTER SIX
Hal Packard discovered an air mail letter with a Denver, Colorado, postmark at the bottom of his mail basket Wednesday morning, and opened it first. He had an idea who it was from. Vicki had gone to the supply room for more carbons, so he read without interruption. Dear Hal, I'm only halfway to California, and already one thing is clear: The men of this world are more rotten than even I suspected. What do you think of a man who innocently recommends his own hotel to a girl, connives with the desk clerk to locate her, then knocks to announce himself a guest "with privileges"?
Yes, I've been burned. It wasn't the first time, however, and it won't be the last. If this sounds as though I'm complaining, please forgive. I'm not. I just have an idea for a marvelous piece: "How to Protect Yourself against the Professional Seducer." I think it would be fine for next February's issue. Lots of love, Mary Packard read the letter again, and chuckled. Marvelous piece? Mary was that and more. So she'd spent the night, or a good portion of it, with a man she'd never met before. Bryce would be delighted to hear it. Delighted enough to punch his executive editor in the mouth. Even a swinging bachelor could be possessive about some things.
He heard Vicki returning with the carbons, and hastily put Mary's letter away. He wasn't ready to share it just yet. For now he wanted to savor the "Lots of love." Her closing had left open many options for the two of them, particularly himself.
Vicki dropped the carbons on her desk and came in to stand before him. " 'Morning, boss."
Packard smiled and nodded, although his mind was really eighteen hundred miles away in the Rockies. Besides, Joanna had taken too much out of him. He needed at least another four hours' recuperation. He saw the invitation in Vicki's eyes, and shook his head. "We have too much work. One of us will have to wade through those." He nodded at the stuffed-to-overflowing mail basket. "Think you can handle it?"
His secretary made a face at him, twitching inside her minisuit. "And what will you be doing?"
He grinned. "Remember the proofs of that last fashion show at the Ritz? It's my unpleasant duty to sift through them and find one or two we can run."
"Wasn't that the topless preview?" Packard winked. "You're with it this morning, honey. Keep it up."
He'd gotten halfway through the proofs-and was feeling better than he had in a week-when the intercom snapped on. "Hal, can you come up?" said a deep, male voice.
"I'm on my way, Bob," Packard replied, and sprang up to leave. A request from Midmark amounted to an order, even when it was phrased politely. "Take care of things down here, will you, love?" he called to Vicki.
Robert Midmark, publisher and president of Women Today, Inc., sat before his slab of a desk when Packard entered. The desk was scrupulously neat, and so was Midmark, who was fifty-three, a widower, and possessed of stamina-and, so the stories went, potency that would shame a younger man. Midmark was cautious, though, and no one knew for sure who he was getting it from or how often. He changed secretaries so frequently, even his own staff couldn't keep track of their names.
"You wanted to see me, Bob?" Packard inquired, eyeing the older man's dark tan and thick, white hair. The combination attracted attention, plenty of it, wherever Midmark went.
The publisher indicated a manuscript on his desk. "I've been looking through an article your people prepared for the August issue, Hal. It's risque for us. I'm not sure we can run it."
Packard sat down without being asked. There was no ceremony in this office or his own. He and Midmark were alike in that respect. Other respects, too. "Risque? Oh, I know the one. 'A Teen-ager's Guide to Contraception'. I checked it myself before we sent it up. I thought the research exceptional, the condensation excellent. So what's the problem?"
"The problem," Midmark said dryly, "is the 600,000 mothers who read Women Today. When we say, 'A hot douche can do wonders when you and your boy friend have gotten carried away on the living room sofa,' they may not dig that scene. Read me?"
Packard laughed. "They know about hot douches anyway, Bob. The girls, I mean. The article doesn't contain anything new, anything that isn't already available from another, perhaps less reliable source. All we did was gather it, catalog it, and title it."
"Then how about this section?" Midmark read from a page of the manuscript. "A condom, generally called a rubber, is available across the counter at any drug store. It's cheap and fairly reliable. A girl could do worse than have one in her purse at all times, unless, of course, better methods of contraception are available.' " The publisher looked up. "That's pretty strong, isn't it? When we're talking about thirteen to nineteen year-olds?"
Packard frowned. "I don't think so. I have two college-age kids myself, remember. They certainly knew about rubbers when they were thirteen. And I hope they used them. For their sakes, if not the girls'."
Midmark made an expressive gesture with his hands. "Then my Quaker upbringing has gotten the better of me again. You win. We'll run it. Just forget I ever objected. But why the August issue? Why not September?"
"August issue?" Packard was surprised at his superior's lack of sophistication. He managed to conceal it. "September may be too late. Don't you understand?"
Midmark laughed so hard he set his chair to squeaking. "Yes, of course. But tell me something, Hal, and then you can go back to your work. Why weren't 'Texas cocktails' mentioned in your article? They were a mainstay when I was young, I can tell you."
"Texas cocktails?" Packard had to think for a moment. "Probably because they aren't reliable. You may recall that from your student days."
"That I do, Hal, that I do," Midmark chuckled. "Care to join me for lunch?"
"Why not?"
After lunch, Packard found himself thinking less about cocktails than about cocks and their use. Vicki seemed to have forgotten about him, so he called her in to see the proofs-there were six in all-he'd selected for the October issue. "I picked 'em all for reader interest," he said solemnly, when she came to lean against his desk.
Vicki wrinkled her lovely nose. The six frocks in the pictures were similar in one respect: they all lacked fronts. "You must think all our readers are boob men," she scoffed.
"The correct term is breast men," he corrected, smiling. "And, yes, I would like to think there are a few out there." He eased a hand up her arm and brought it underneath, tweaking a nipple which thrust outward through a cashmere sweater. "Women dress for men, you know, and not for other women."
"And undress for them," Vicki retorted, slapping the hand away.
"Your word choice, not mine," he said, noting that the slap was little more than a flick. He pulled the girl down in his lap and locked his hands so she couldn't escape. "If you want to get up, you'll have to pay me a forfeit."
"What?"
"We'll start with the sweater," he suggested, and began on the top button. She didn't try to stop him, so he tugged the garment from inside her skirt and pushed it aside to get at the bra.
"Mr. Packard, you're going to take us both too far!" Vicki protested, but she wriggled in his lap and made his prick quiver in fast response.
Packard unhooked her bra and drew it off without disturbing the sweater. For a few seconds he luxuriated in the sight and smell of alabaster flesh which had never known the sun's burning rays. Then he pressed the two globes together and addressed the points with a stiff forefinger. She shivered in mounting desire. His hard-on became harder. With Vicki, getting it up was never a problem. Getting it back down again so he could go home without a tent below his waist was a problem.
"Head back against the desk, please," he ordered. When she obeyed, he lowered his mouth to first one tip and then the other, tenderly suckling. Vicki moaned low in her throat and moved a breast nearer his lips. He placed his hands behind her back and tongued the big mammaries until she made incoherent sounds of passion. The moisture from her cunt finally made itself felt in his trousers. He stopped and pushed her up on the desk, remembering to salvage the proofs first.
The bikini briefs she wore today slowed him for only a second. He yanked them off and stuffed them underneath her. While he struggled with his own clothing, the phone rang. Packard swore and reached to press the 'record' button. Whoever it was, he'd take it later.
Vicki sat up to watch as he stepped out of his pants and Jockey shorts. "Hal, maybe I should-"
"Maybe you should pull me a few times," he said, and stepped toward her. Not even Midmark himself would keep him from this fuck. He'd waited for it, and by God, he'd have it, even if the recorder wore itself out.
She took hold of his cock and squeezed, pulling just enough to bring his erection to a glorious head. "You have a nice peter, Mr. Packard," she said, in that cool, platinum blonde manner of hers.
He pushed her back up on the desk and spread her thighs apart. "In comparison with whose, child," he panted, continuing their little game.
"In comparison with a peter that doesn't fit my cunny," she said swiftly.
He'd felt, when he first saw her, that she could think on her feet, and she was always proving it. The peters that didn't fit, he hoped, included everyone's except his own. "Love you, child," he murmured, and pressed near to prove it. By bringing her to the desk edge, he was able to insert the head of his prick between the puckered lips of her cunt. Vicki sobbed encouragement. He pushed inside in one vigorous thrust, impaling her less deeply than if she'd sat in his lap. This way he had more control.
"Fuck me, Hal," she whispered. "Fuck me long and hard!"
He did both. For fifteen minutes, he poked the meat at the slit between her legs, sending her into fits of orgasm twice, until finally he disgorged himself and was left with a feeling of weak satisfaction. Not the best they'd ever had, but not the worst, either. He and Vicki were good together, but the mood and the timing had to be right.
He helped her back into her clothing before dressing again himself. While she straightened her hair, he turned on the recorder. "Just to satisfy our curiosity," he joked.
But all they heard was a "Hello? Hello?", followed by a resounding slam as a phone was returned to its cradle at the line's other end.
Vicki, who had once told him about receiving anonymous-and highly obscene phone calls, looked thoughtful. "Why don't you have it traced through the exchange downstairs?"
Packard shrugged. "Probably wasn't important. Why don't we dismiss ourselves?"
As he unlocked his car in the building's underground garage, someone tugged him by the sleeve. Packard, startled, glanced around.
"Since when have you taken to answering your phone with 'Hello, Mr. Packard isn't in right now. Your call will be recorded for playback when he returns. Please speak clearly and distinctly'?" Bryce Gillian demanded. He glared his displeasure at the man who, theoretically, could fire him out of hand.
Packard flushed. "It was a slip-up, Bryce. It won't happen again.
"Again?" Gillian bared his teeth in a laugh, but no laughter came out. "No, I suppose it won't. Next time you'll take her somewhere else."
Packard's eyes narrowed. "I'm not a patient man, Bryce. I know you have a five hundred thousand dollar inheritance, but you don't have any manners. If you want your job, get to hell out of my sight!"
"Want it? Shit, no! Take it and be damned!" Gillian ranted. "I called to tell you my resignation will be in tomorrow's mail! I quit!" He whirled to climb into his Stingray.
"Bryce, I'm sorry if-" Packard saved his breath.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mary sat tensely in the walnut-paneled waiting room, and wished the nurse would call her. She'd never in her life enjoyed a visit to a doctor's office, not even if the doctor was a young Beverly Hills gynecologist who would soon, or so someone beside her had whispered, be treating stars and the daughters of stars.
She glanced around at the dozen or so women present, most of whom were older. She was next, or was supposed to be. But she was beginning to feel ridiculous for coming. The itching around her labia had subsided, and much of the soreness in her vagina had disappeared. She really shouldn't be here, she decided, but a waiting room was no place to cancel an appointment.
If she had any regrets at this point over her journey's progress, it was the call to Bryce the night before. She should have remembered he wasn't stable enough to handle jealousy. Poor Bryce might do something drastic, something terrible.
"The doctor will see you now." The nurse, who was quite pretty, had come back out. She addressed her words to Mary.
The latter left her chair and followed the white-uniformed girl through a maze of doors and corridors. The nurse stopped at the last one and smiled. "Please go in. He's expecting you."
Mary went through the door and found herself in a very quiet, very antiseptic examining room. There were two tables on her right, a screen to undress behind on her left. A tall man appeared from a small room beyond the tables. An X-ray or laboratory room, she supposed. She took a closer look at the man, and forgot about the room. He was a screen test failure, she decided, whose mother had badgered him into medical school. Jet-black hair curling around small ears, and a thin, almost aristocratic face heightened the impression that this was a television segment about to be filmed, with her as co-star.
But it was no segment. This was reality. He came toward her, a hand extended. "Hello," he greeted. "I'm Dr. Willoughby. Rod Willoughby. You made an appointment last night, I believe, but told my answering service nothing. What seems to be the trouble?"
Mary gazed into level, kindly eyes, and knew that here, at last, was a friend. Haltingly,, she described the inflammation of the night before, the baths she'd taken and the powder she'd doused herself with, omitting, of course, any mention of Thornton Caffy and his nine-inch shaft. "But I'm fine now," she added. "Maybe there isn't any problem."
"That remains to be seen," Willoughby said, and instructed her to undress. "Behind that screen, if you prefer."
Trembling a bit-whether from fear or sexual excitement, she wasn't sure-Mary obeyed. When she came from behind the screen, she was stark naked. She felt shy under his cool, professional eye. Or was there a glint which hadn't been there before? She approached the table in some confusion, having been on just two in her life, the last some six years before when she underwent a complete examination prior to entering college.
"No, no!" he exclaimed. "The other end."
She climbed up from the right end and lay flat on the pad, heart pounding.
"Now put your feet in the stirrups."
She complied, and was surprised at how comfortable she felt. The table seemed to have been designed for maximum support and accessibility to a woman's outer and inner organs. She waited.
"Can you spread your legs a little more? Thank you." Willoughby moved a stool nearer the table and swung his long form atop it. From a tray, he took a lighted probe and gently parted her outer lips. Mary flinched when the cold steel entered. Willoughby sighed. "Tell me the symptoms again."
"Burning and itching," she said. "It seemed to come from inside, but after a few minutes...."
"You spread it, no doubt, by bathing more than you should have," he opined, and there was a tightness to his voice that she hadn't heard before.
"Is it a rash, doctor?" Mary asked, wondering why his warm manner had vanished.
"Perhaps. The other two possibilities are cystitis and inflammation of the urethra." Willoughby hesitated. "I'm ruling out a venereal disease, unless you can tell me you've been-"
"No!" She was positive that Thornton Caffy hadn't infected her. And a rash was un-likely, because she hadn't been exposed to anything but Vaseline and no one developed a reaction to Vaseline. "What-what could be involved in an inflammation of the-"
"A number of things." Willoughby's voice was brisk, with the proper amount of detachment. "One is having too much of a good thing-bicycle riding, for instance. Constant pressure on the urethral opening could-I say, could-produce an inflammation of this kind. Another possibility...." The young gynecologist trailed off.
Mary felt as though she were suffocating. "Yes?"
"Another possibility is that you've had, within the past forty-eight hours, sexual intercourse with a man whose penis is considerably larger than average-and that may be understating it."
A half-minute of silence followed. Mary wanted to die. She actually felt she would die. But she fought for her voice and found it. "If I told you-"
"You don't have to tell me anything. I'm not a father confessor. Just say yes or no."
In a tiny voice, she said, "Yes."
Willoughby withdrew the speculum. "Then the solution is simple. No medication is called for when the inflammation is of short duration. You did say the itching's better, didn't you? And the burning?"
She nodded, relieved beyond words. Chagrined, too, that her woman's body had betrayed her again.
"Is there anything you haven't told me?"
Mary wanted to slap him for his brusqueness. But she realized the bill would come to enough without that. "I masturbated last night-for the first time in years."
Rod Willoughby smiled, the tension in his face dissolving into a hundred tanned wrinkles. "Nothing unusual about masturbation, especially under the circumstances. Did you, ah, reach a climax?"
"Was I supposed to?" she inquired, just to see the expression on his face. "I mean, I'm terribly naive about such things." She lowered her lids the better to watch him.
Willoughby looked hard at her. "I can imagine."
"Right now, for instance. I'm still in a state of ... well, I'd guess you'd call it arousal. And through no fault of my own." She paused for effect. "Can't you ... help me?"
"Christ, no!" the gynecologist gasped. He spun to find her clothes. When he fetched them back, unfeigned wrath had replaced his physician's smile. "Is that why you came in? To set me up? Did my wife put you up to it? Dress and get out! I have other patients!"
Mary saw then that she'd gone too far, and hastened to apologize. "I wasn't trying to set you up, as you call it. And I didn't even know you had a wife. I don't see a ring." She stepped down from the examining table and began to dress, flustered hands pressing buttons into the wrong holes and having to start over again.
"I keep it in a jar of formaldehyde, along with the other dead things!" he snapped. "My wife hasn't spoken to me in a year. I moved out four months ago. She wants a divorce and a lien on the next thirty years of my life, too. Like all women, she wants too goddamn much! Get out!"
"I'm sorry," Mary murmured, and she was. She finished dressing and moved toward the door. But she stopped when she saw the woebegone look on his face. "If it's that bad, doctor, maybe I have a cure," she said recklessly. "I'm staying at the Figueroa. Room five ten." She ran out, leaving him staring after her.
She really never expected to see him again. She was so sure of it, in fact, that she was planning on leaving for San Francisco, where she'd tour Chinatown, and see the Golden Gate Bridge. Then she'd leave for home, with not much more excitement than she would have found back East.
A soft knock at her door took her mind off her plans. Mary, who was about to go down for dinner, glanced at her watch. Half-past six. She went to open the door. Rod Willoughby stood outside.
Rod Willoughby who looked different because he'd taken off the white jacket and impersonal manner, and now appeared interested in her as a woman. "Room service," he said, scanning her face for signs that he wasn't wanted.
Mary, who surprised even herself by the gladness she felt, leaned against the door and laughed. "If you say you're the hotel doctor," she threatened, "I'll go in the bathroom and take all my No-Doz at once."
His puzzlement turned to relief. "No-Doz? I suppose there's a story behind that." He boldly eyed her breasts. "But you didn't invite me up for stories. If you did, I'll triple your bill."
Mary was amazed that he could ogle her so lustfully now, when nine hours before, he'd thrown her out of his office. "Triple away!" she retorted. "I'm on an account. Everything's on Women Today, where I just happen to be a staff writer."
Willoughby pretended to stagger. "I knew it. My first conquest in fifteen years, and she's only writing a four hundred word essay. Subject: me. Where's the exit?"
"In here," she said, seizing his sleeve and yanking him inside before he could stalk away. She closed the door.
As if she'd pulled a switch, the humor between them dissipated. He crushed her so hard in his arms her spine cracked. Then he kissed her in the manner of a man who has one thing on his mind, and one thing only.
Mary wrenched free before he could slip a hand down her blouse. "Whoa," she said. "We're still civilized, aren't we?"
He licked his lips, glazed eyes moving up and down her slender form. "Civilized? Baby, if you don't fuck after the build-up you gave me this morning, you'll be sorry. You'll be worse than sorry-you'll be aching in the mouth!"
"Rod!" she cried, backing away. "What's come over you?" But she knew what had come over him: the same thing that came over every man. Only there was something else involved here. Rod seemed savage with need, with the compulsion to overwhelm her and sink his meat into that moist pit between her legs. His wife must have deprived him for a long time to make this change in him. No wonder he'd reacted so violently in his examining room this morning.
"Gotta have you fast or well both be sorry!" he panted, inching toward her.
Mary closed her eyes, but quickly opened them again. Was she doomed to forever misjudge her fellow man? Would Rod turn out to be another Bryce-inept and impatient? "Your nurse. Doesn't she-"
"A stinking Lez! Can't find anyone else right now!" Then Willoughby pounced.
Because she was beginning to care for him, and because he had reassured her with an expert diagnosis, she let herself be captured. Captured and carried to the bed, where he dropped her and started on her clothing and his at the same time. He must have had four hands, or maybe just a surgeon's sureness, because in less than a minute they were both nude.
He began kissing her then-hot, wet kisses, almost frightening in their intensity. Mary sobbed and reached blindly for his prick. She wanted to touch him, to know that he wasn't like Thornton Caffy-so long and thick he'd tear the life from her. Rod wasn't. He had an average-sized cock. She fingered it while he pressed and kneaded her breasts to engorgement.
When he touched her cunt, she thought she'd jump out of her skin. He seemed to know precisely which areas to fondle and which to pass over, something he probably had learned in medical school. By using one hand on her genitals, the other on her breasts, and his tongue on hers, he stimulated her to slow madness, to where she weaved and bobbed on the bed in perfect time with his caresses.
She took her mouth away finally and lashed him with a command. "Do it now! Please do it now!" She opened wide for him.
Rod forced her thighs still farther apart and knelt between them. He was trying to say something, but days or weeks of abstinence wouldn't let him. He faltered for a moment, then thrust inside, restraining himself just enough to avoid injury to himself and her. He was able to hold off for only a few seconds before moving. He slammed into her six times and ejaculated. But he wasn't finished. After resting for a minute, he continued to pump her, until she came off and he came once more himself.
Before she could twist to keep him inside her, Rod withdrew and fumbled in his pants pocket for something. He came back with it and dropped it in her outstretched hand.
Mary blinked, still in the after-throes of a satisfying orgasm. "What is it?" she asked, peering at the envelope.
"Never mind what it is. Just put it in a syringe with two parts water and douche yourself with it. Go on!" He tried to push her toward the bathroom.
She resisted, laughing wryly. "I don't own a syringe."
"You don't-" Willoughby's mouth fell open. He eyed her in a mixture of exasperation and disbelief. "You have a boy friend with a cock the size of Citation's, and you don't own a syringe? What boat, for Christ's sake, did you climb off?"
Mary blushed. "He wasn't a boy friend. He was a cad. And I didn't climb off a boat. It was a plane. And quit shouting at me. I'm not your wife."
"Not my-" Rod slapped his thigh and whooped. "You can bet your sweet life you aren't! No, siree!" He stooped to pinch her thigh. "You have some talking to do. Me, I have some listening."
"After a shower?"
"After a shower."
They showered together, after which he climbed into bed with her again. He pulled her against a bare chest covered with a tangle of black hair. "Now tell me all of it. All of it."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Joanna Packard answered her door Thursday morning with the expectation that a salesman waited outside. The ordinance against door-to-door salesmen had never really been enforced, at least not to her knowledge. In some irritation, she snatched open the door.
But it wasn't a salesman who stood outside. The caller was someone she recognized: Bryce Gillian, articles editor at Women Today. Hal had once brought him to dinner regularly. The last occasion had been almost a month ago, however. She suspected that something had happened between them. "Why, Mr. Gillian, this is a surprise!" she exclaimed, pleased in a vague kind of way that a handsome, younger man had come calling. "Won't you come in?"
He nodded. "Thank you. I will." He came inside, removing his hat.
"You took a back door from the office, I suppose," Joanna quipped, leading him toward the den.
"No," Gillian stated, and his tone, in the space of a few seconds, had hardened. "I quit at the office. Handed in my resignation this morning. I'm no longer articles editor at Women Today."
"No longer-" She spun to face him. "Then what are you?"
"I have something to tell you. Something you may not be happy to hear, but which you need to know anyway." He watched her face.
Joanna's hand went of its own accord to her throat. "Hal isn't-hasn't-"
"Oh, no. Nothing like that. He's seeing his secretary, that's all. A tart named Vicki Laurence. They go at it hot and heavy every day in his office."
Joanna gasped. Her face reddened almost to the hue of her hair. "I don't believe you!"
"It's true," Gillian insisted. "One of the girls in our exchange clued me first. Seems he left the phone off one afternoon, and the connection hadn't been broken. She heard them carrying on like a pair of wart hogs. She knew it was Hal's office because he'd just put a call through five minutes before."
"You're lying to me!" Joanna wailed, but her face contorted in fury. She knew she wasn't being lied to.
"Not only that," Gillian continued, "he has the hots for my best writer-Mary Silverman. He sent her on some bizarre assignment to nowhere, and she writes him every day. Not dispatches, but personal letters. I used a master key yesterday to open his office and read one. It closed, 'Love, Mary.' "
"Mary Silverman?" To Joanna, the name meant nothing. "I think I've seen the byline, but...."
"He never mentioned her? Doesn't that prove something? She's well-known in every department. Was, I should say. Until he sent her away to keep me from having her."
Joanna edged backward. Bryce Gillian was beginning to sound slightly paranoid. His voice was increasing a decibel or two with every word. The expression on his petulant face had turned vindictive. "Was she a friend of-did you care for her?"
"Hell, yes!" Gillian shouted at her. "I loved Mary. I even thought I might marry her someday. After we worked out one another's personalities, I mean."
Joanna supposed that meant, after they'd slept together a sufficient number of times to prove compatibility. For a professional bachelor like Bryce, that might mean five or ten years. But she remembered the revelation about Vicki Laurence, and forgot about Bryce's shortcomings. He'd verified a suspicion, and she should be grateful. Aside from that, the situation called for tact. And caution. In the mood he was in, Bryce seemed capable of anything. "May I fix you a drink, Mr. Gillian?"
His knuckles had whitened from the rage he felt. They relaxed now and he nodded. "Please." He followed on her heels.
Joanna, as she mixed a whiskey sour for him, a modest tonic for herself, began to tingle from apprehension. From excitement, too. If he chose to advance upon her, she wasn't at all certain how she'd cope. She handed him the drink and sat down in a chair away from his. "You're sure about all this?"
He gulped the drink in rapid swallows. "I'm positive."
"What do you intend doing about it?"
With a boldness that made her stifle a shudder, Bryce's gaze traveled up her legs, paused below her belly, then streaked on to her breasts, coming to rest finally on her face. "You mean, what do we intend doing about it, don't you, Mrs. Packard?" He smiled tautly.
She quivered. "I-don't understand."
He drained his glass, placed it on the floor, and came toward her. "Don't you? You're quite a lovely woman, Mrs. Packard. And you aren't the patsy your husband takes you for. Am I right?"
Joanna felt a vein go wild in her throat. She stared into Bryce's eyes and saw fiery passion there. Slowly, her head inclined. "Yes," she whispered.
"Then you're interested in what I have to offer?"
Again, she indicated yes. Words, for the moment, failed her.
"I'm going to fuck you!" Gillian rasped. "I'm going to fuck you until your tongue hangs out and you beg me to stop!"
"Don't say it that way!" Joanna entreated, breathless. "Don't make it a gutter thing, please!"
Bryce laughed, and the laugh, even to her ears, sounded a little hysterical. "I'm going to fuck your pussy raw. After that, I'll fuck you some more. Maybe then we'll both feel better." He grabbed the tonic from her hand-she hadn't touched it-and sent it gurgling down his throat. Then he seized her arms and brought her up out of the chair. "I want to see you. All of you."
She wore a knit playsuit which clung to every curve she owned, so he'd seen almost all of her already. But she knew what he meant. She raised her arms and began tugging the suit's top over her head.
"Hurry!" he ordered. "I want you now. Someone may come."
Joanna wasn't expecting anyone, but she didn't tell him. She trembled when rough hands worked the bra's clasp and snatched it away. Bryce tossed it on the rug somewhere behind him. His eyes glittered with a strange fire. "Nice. Damned nice. I think Hal's a fool."
Before she could reply, he covered her mouth with his. He kissed her more warmly than anyone ever had before. Joanna moaned and gave herself up to the kiss. She'd gone too long without kisses like these. Far too long.
Bryce forced her teeth apart and wormed his tongue between them. He dallied the tip of it on the tip of hers for an instant, then darted on to caress the roof of her mouth. The contact was electrifying, doubly so because he had now covered a breast with each of his palms and was busily massaging both to hardness.
Joanna groaned and made herself think about every injustice Hal had ever done her, every slight. The task wasn't difficult. In twenty-odd years of marriage, there were slights aplenty. If he'd walked in now, she honestly thought she'd close her eyes and ignore him. The sensations from Bryce's probing tongue and practiced hands were too sweet.
She felt a vigorous hard-on stabbing through the front of his trousers, and pressed herself more firmly against it. Even if Bryce was only using her for vengeance, she thrilled to his unmistakable response to her. Wherever the Silverman girl had gone, for whatever reason, it made no sense.
Gillian stopped and reached for the zipper on her pants. Joanna felt her cunt almost flower in its eagerness to feel his hands fondle her there. He peeled the pants down with care, which at least showed consideration on his part for what she might think of him. She was glad she'd worn her laciest panties this morning. He chuckled when he saw them.
"Let me," she said, pushing his hands away. She turned her back to shrug out of the panties. When she turned back, Bryce had unbuckled his trousers and let them drop to the floor. He deliberately posed in front of her before lowering his shorts. Joanna waited, interested in spite of herself.
"Eat me a little," he said.
If she hesitated, she didn't recall it later. A service she'd performed for Hal only with great reluctance, she now performed for Bryce Gillian with alacrity, falling to her knees in front of him and leaning forward so that he could slide the prick into her mouth. Joanna ran an experimental tongue around the crown, then lightly nibbled the tip. Bryce's hard-on grew harder. She applied suction for a second or two, but he gasped and pushed her face away. "Stand up," he ordered.
She stood up, and he inserted a rigid finger between the lips of her cunt, working it around as though it were a cock. He twisted and gouged, until Joanna thought he'd rip her in half. By stooping, he was able to kiss her breasts, moving from one to the other. Then he varied the caress by gobbling up the nipples and using his tongue to crush them against the roof of his mouth.
The twin sensations made her stand on tiptoe and grind her teeth in ecstasy. She felt the secretions from inside her trickle into the vestibule and collect around his finger. He couldn't fail to detect them. Just when she thought he'd bring her off this way first, he stopped and pushed her down on the sofa. There was no need for any precautions; she'd worn a diaphragm since-well, since she and Hal had made hurried, clumsy love on the back seat of his convertible two months before they were married. Even then, she'd been careful to the point of calculation.
"Give it to me!" Bryce panted, clambering on top of her. "I haven't had decent pussy in a month!"
Joanna, who had never really given it much thought, supposed that meant her pussy was decent, which to her, at another time, would have been a contradiction. This morning there was no contradiction. Bryce Gillian was all demanding man, and she was all yielding woman. She held her legs high and wide, hooked the left one over the sofa back, and waited.
In a single lunge, he sent himself inside her, squirming for a better hold and, she suspected, more control. His mouth was open and his breath came in hasty gulps. He glanced once at the door, and Joanna knew he feared Hal might barge in on them.
"He never comes home before five," she said, to reassure him.
Gillian flushed, as if he was ashamed for her to see his concern. "Damn him," he muttered, and slammed into her a few, experimental times, swirling his prick from side to side in a corkscrew motion. He seemed to have found control now, because the urgency had vanished from his actions. He smiled down into her eyes. "Like it?"
The room spun briefly fro Joanna. She climaxed before she could answer. "Love-it!" she wheezed when the spasms temporarily subsided.
"Then you'll like this much more," he returned, and began fucking her like a pile driver. For five minutes, he gave her as much meat as any man ever had before, completely filing her each time he drove forward, almost losing her on the downstroke. She climaxed again-this time with her whole body-and he came, too.
He wasn't finished. After lying still in her arms for a minute, he began to screw her with more finesse, with a subtle variety of thrusts and jabs that made Joanna's opinion of Hal sink even lower. She came once more, then once more still, until she lost count and just let him do what he wanted to with her. At last he gave one final lunge and ejaculated, collapsing on her before she could struggle free.
Joanna dressed and went to sit down while he languidly pulled on his clothes again. Bryce's lids drooped and he seemed curiously devoid of feeling now-for her or anyone. "You've resigned your position," she remarked. "What will you do for a living?"
"I have a meager inheritance," he replied, and forced a smile for her. "I'll live off that."
"If you need a recommendation, I'll have Hal write you one," she suggested, straight-faced.
Gillian stared at her. "You're a riot. You really are." He was dressed now, and the moment of parting was awkward for both of them. "No, I may fly out to California. There may be something cooking out there."
Joanna wondered at the way his eyes slid away from hers, his studied casualness. "Is that where your friend-"
"Yeah, that's where he sent her. I have to split now. Good-bye." With a brush on the cheek for her, he moved swiftly out the door.
She was sure she'd never seen him again. When she looked at her watch, shock registered. She'd spent more than two hours with him. Had he been Hal, the time would have dragged. He certainly wasn't Hal.
CHAPTER NINE
Rod Willoughby, whose lanky form was draped tonight in a white dinner jacket and black trousers, put the car into motion and steered them out into the early evening traffic. He glanced at Mary, his lean face betraying amusement. "Say it."
She looked at him. "Say what?"
"Why does a rising young Beverly Hills physician drive a Ford-and a two-year-old Ford at that?"
Mary laughed. "I never gave it a thought."
"Liar. You writers are all alike. You put everyone on, in print and out." He dropped a casual hand on her bare knee. "I'll tell you why. I'm paying separate maintenance of fourteen hundred dollars a month. I'm also amortizing a three hundred thousand dollar mortgage on a clinic that an architect friend of mine says shouldn't have cost more than two hundred thousand-with financing. I'm also, if you haven't guessed it by now, a chump."
She peeled the hand away. "I think you're being too hard on yourself. Are you taking me to dinner or a Walt Disney feature?"
Willoughby groaned. "I should have known I'd get no sympathy from you. Damned fem-lib broad!"
Mary, who was fast adjusting to this blustery side of him, pretended to kick his shin. "You haven't answered my question."
"First I'm taking you to dinner. A little place out Wilshire where they feed you without trying to sell you an interest in the joint. Then I'll drive us into Malibu Colony where we can shut out the rest of the world. Then I'll probably take you to bed." He grinned. "Not an ambitious itinerary. I never overextend myself."
Mary tingled at mention of Malibu. "You have a cottage there?"
"I have a cottage there."
Malibu Colony, she discovered, was more protected than the San Clemente White House. They entered through a gate, where an armed guard studied Rod's identification before waving them on. He drove them toward a cluster of cottages and stopped in front of the last.
"I love it here," he told her. "It's the only place my answering service can't reach me."
"Or your wife?"
He turned to stare at her. "Or my wife. The security patrol would bundle her back to Big Sur before she could get a leg over the fence. Come on." He helped her from the car and gave her the key to the front door. "Light something, will you? I'll bring the ice and the mixings.""
Mary, who hoped he planned to spend the evening in ways other than drinking, unlocked the door and went inside, turning on lights as she walked. The interior delighted her: compact, but plush. The cottages had been designed for comfort. She turned on a heater in the kitchen and was examining the refrigerator's contents when he struggled in with what appeared to be a portable bar. She wondered if he had a drinking problem. The possibility gave her pause.
Willoughby put the bar down and pulled her into his arms. "I know how you have it figured. I'm a lush and therefore bad news. Right?"
She nodded.
"Hogwash! I've only been drunk twice in the past two nights-I mean, weeks." He made a comic face for her. "The first occasion was not having you. The second occasion was having you. Kiss?"
Mary laughed and tried to put aside her misgivings. She slid her arms around his neck and kissed him briefly. "I think I love it here, too," she confided. "In fact, I think I love-"
"Uh-uh," he reproved, stopping the words with his hands. "Don't lay any crap on me. I've heard too much of it already. Let's just enjoy one another without a lot of bullshit. Okay?"
She nodded, although she had a hard time blinking back the tears. She realized his wife must have treated him horribly. "What was she like?"
"Anne?" Rod screwed up his face. "She wore boots and a leather jacket. Carried a whip with thorns in the tip. Never saw her when she wasn't frothing at the mouth. Anne's idea of making love was to climb on my shoulders and ride me through Devil's Canyon, reciting satanic chants and digging her spurs into my balls. I'm prejudiced, of course, but I honestly think I'm better off without her."
Mary shuddered. "Then I hope she doesn't find us. However could you think she'd sent me to entrap you?"
Willoughby shrugged. "A moment of insanity. They're becoming fewer and fewer, but I still have them. If you turn out to be a mirage, I'd understand."
She raised on tiptoe to kiss him again. "I'm no mirage. I'm very much for real."
He gripped her arms and made her drag out the kiss for five minutes, forcing her head back and her lips apart to admit his tongue. When the kiss ended, neither of them needed artificial heat. Rod licked his lips and let his gaze fall to the top of her blouse.
Instinctively, she pulled it closed. "On a full stomach?"
"Baby, I could eat you up any time!" he declared. "Remember last night?"
She remembered. Only a full slate of patients for the next morning had enabled her to get rid of him. They'd loved one another until she was sore all over again, until his prick would no longer do what he wanted it to. Only then had he left, after making her promise to see him tonight, and the next night, and the next.
He tilted her head back and kissed her with less tenderness than before, encircling her waist with his hands and drawing her closer. When their middles met, he made her feel the six inches of hard maleness crowding through his slacks.
"Is that all it is to you, Rod?" Mary protested, squirming to escape the contact. "Just a few nights' pleasure and then back to what you were doing before I came along?"
Willoughby glowered down at her, face a flush with impatience. "What does it mean to you? I thought you were on a fact-gathering expedition. Well, the fact is, I'm happy to contribute to the cause. You and I groove together, admit it. And what was I doing before you came along? Climbing every wall that was handy, that's what. I know this town has a reputation for easy stuff, but it isn't deserved. Much of it's contaminated. I can't touch it without a queasy feeling here." He pointed to his stomach. "You left me with a good feeling. So how about some more of it, huh?" He smiled down at her in a manner calculated to infuriate.
Mary wasn't infuriated, just peeved. He was beginning to grow on her, despite her better judgment. Hal had sent her West to find herself, not have a whirlwind affair with an ineligible, hard-drinking neurotic. "Then you'll put your liquor cabinet away?" she said.
Willoughby hesitated, loath to relinquish what he'd obviously intended to be the evening's high point. "Okay," he sighed. "For you, well stay sober. Just one gin and tonic for the two of us. Okay?"
She nodded consent, so he opened the bar, took out the gin, poured ice into a pair of tumblers, and fixed two moderate-sized tonics. Mary drank hers slowly and watched the play of expressions on his face. She wondered if he was thinking about Anne. She couldn't be as bad as Rod made out. "I'd like to go down to the water," she said, to take his mind off her.
He chuckled, shaking his head. "Nothing doing. You can see it tomorrow after the sun's come up. Right now you'd catch a cold, blanket or no blanket. Besides, what would we tell the patrol-that we locked ourselves out, complete with covers?"
Mary pictured herself under a blanket with a man who was six feet four, and smiled.
"What's so funny?" Rod demanded, finishing the drink in a single swallow. He put the glass down and moved toward her. "You look like a goddamn tease with your blouse buttoned up to here and that Mona Lisa smile on your face."
"Mona Lisa was pregnant," she reminded him, evading his big hands long enough to let the rest of the drink trickle down her throat.
"And so will you, if you keep running around the country letting guys like your Denver friend put their pricks up your pussy!" he retorted. "Did you have that prescription filled?"
She made a maybe-so-maybe-no gesture and dropped the glass behind her. Actually, she had had it filled. The bottle of birth control pills was somewhere in her purse, and she'd already taken one.
"I suppose the chart gave you a headache," Rod commented, advancing upon her once more. "Want me to explain it to you?"
Mary scowled at him. "Fuck you, Rod Willoughby," she said calmly, and was delighted with herself.
He stopped dead still and applauded. "Maybe there's hope for you after all. So strip for me."
She eyed him from where she stood behind a rocker-lounger. "Do you mean it?"
"Of course I mean it. And do it slow. This time I want a build-up. Be artistic. Use your imagination."
Mary came out from behind the chair, but stood about six feet in front of him. Slowly, her hands moved to the blouse's buttons. While he held her eyes with his own, she took it off in slow motion, draping it across the rocker back. Rod folded his arms and watched, narrow-eyed. She pretended to fumble with the bra's catch, and saw him move involuntarily toward her. He checked himself, but a swelling projection became more noticeable below his belt.
She drew the bra away in one sweep and turned to drop it atop the blouse. Then she lowered the skirt's zipper and pulled the front away to let him see the expanse of whiteness underneath. She was wearing a half-slip tonight, purchased for the occasion at a downtown department store. He noticed the addition, and raised a brow. When she stepped from the skirt, he made another move toward her. Again he caught himself. The half-slip's waistband was elastic, so she took it off without dallying. Now she was garbed only in a brief pair of green panties. Before taking these off, too, she paused for effect.
Rod's eyes glistened. "Finish it! Finish it, or I'll finish it for you!"
In a flash, she was out of the panties and stark naked for him. Rod, quivering, fastened his hungry gaze on the furry black triangle between her legs. He began to undress, too, but there was no grace to it. His fingers flew across the dinner jacket and the slacks. He threw the one across a chair, the other on the bar top. His shorts he simply, left where they dropped.
Mary ran toward the bed, but he caught her, laughing.
"Later, love," he said. "Let's try it, this once, on our feet."
Before she could protest or object, he stepped near her and molded her form to his. The kiss seemed to make them truly one. While his big prick bumped her belly, their tongues played, first in her mouth, then in his. She'd never dreamed she could need so little preparation. In less than a minute, her thighs were wet with secretions and she was literally frantic with need.
He stopped to gaze down into her eyes. "Are you ready, love? Ready to be fucked?"
Mary nodded vehemently.
"Then say it for me."
"I'm-ready to be fucked," she whispered, and loved the sound of it.
Rod gripped her buttocks and brought her up higher. By a combination of determination and strength, he held her there with one hand, and with the other, stuffed his cock into her well-lubed hole. When he seized her buttocks again, they were joined and he began to grind and weave.
For her, the pressure against her clitoris, unaccustomed as it was, screamed strange new messages to her brain. The woman who couldn't climax in this position, she decided, didn't exist. The trick was finding a man tall enough, and strong enough, to make it go. Rod could certainly make it go. His hands kneaded her buttocks in time with his jerks and thrusts. There was no need for her to move at all.
When she came, the intensity of the orgasm nearly made her black out. For half a minute, she sobbed and whimpered, clinging desperately to his shoulders. He seemed to know when she'd finished. As easily as though she were a child, he lifted her off his prick and laid her on the bed.
"Now," he said, smiling down at her, "we're ready to start."
Mary wasn't sure if she'd heard right. She just prayed that she had.
CHAPTER TEN
Hal Packard, not usually given to Friday moroseness, sat silently at his desk, seeing the pot roast feature in front of him and yet not seeing it. Bryce Gillian's unexpected resignation, and the man's open hatred of him for sending Mary away, still bothered Packard. Experienced article editors were hard to find. That's why he, Packard, was studying the pot roast feature. On another morning the thing would be on any desk but his.
Joanna bothered him, too. Last night she'd set some kind of record for ignoring him. First she'd found an excuse not to sit down to dinner with him. Then she'd complained of a headache when he offered to take her to a movie. And she'd been asleep, her face turned toward the wall, when he went to bed. Her shoulder had seemed to tremble when he lay down, however. He hadn't been sure, so he hadn't said anything. A screw session had been out, of course. Even he wasn't interested at that point.
And Vicki was late this morning. The clock over the door read half-past nine, and still her office sat empty. For his own sanity, his own peace of mind, he needed to see the best part of his day cross the threshold.
The intercom buzzed. Packard groaned under his breath and leaned close to it. "Yes?"
"This is Bob, Hal. Can you come up?"
"Right away." Packard, mumbling to himself about superhuman fifty-three-year-olds who came in on Fridays when they should be on the fairways, squeezed out of his chair and trotted toward the elevator. He met Vicki stepping out, and almost carried her back then and there. "See you in half an hour," he whispered, and gave her a look to show her what they'd be seeing one another about. No one else was in the hall, so he raised her chin and kissed her warmly on the mouth.
She smiled and nodded. The last he saw of her was a trim fanny disappearing through the door he'd just left.
Packard found Midmark waiting for him on the floor above, and the publisher dispensed with even casual pleasantries.
"You just cost us a good editor, Hal," he accused.
Packard sat down in the nearest chair. "I did?"
"Yes, and you know it. But let me hear your side of it first. Why did Bryce Gillian develop this sudden animosity toward you?"
Packard felt a slow redness begin at the base of his neck and creep around to his face. "Bob, am I expected to-"
"Just tell me man-to-man."
Packard realized now that Gillian had probably spilled everything in a letter to Midmark. He'd probably told everything he knew, and a great deal he didn't know. Gillian was a much smaller man that he'd thought. "Well, I suppose he feels I sent his girl friend-his best writer, that is-away on assignment without consulting him. I'm speaking of Mary Silverman."
A muscle twitched in Midmark's impassive face. "I know of whom you speak. And did you?"
Packard unconsciously balled his right hand into a fist. "Bob, I-"
"Did you?"
"I-yes. He wasn't in at the time and I saw no reason to call his home. We discussed it later in more or less amicable terms."
"Was the assignment without merit?"
"Without merit?" Packard stared at Midmark. "Listen, if you're going to quote wholesale passages of a hate letter, I'd like to know about it."
Midmark sighed. "There is a letter, Hal. It's full of accusations, a few obscenities, and-yes, hate. Frankly, the man went off the deep end. I believe he thought you sent Miss Silverman on a kind of Mission Impossible-"
"To find herself. She suffered a shock last Sunday. A skydiving fatality. The hysteria showed through a piece she sent me the next morning, so I suggested a kind of no-assignment assignment. At the magazine's expense, naturally."
"To keep her away from him."
"Rubbish!" Packard came halfway up out of the chair. "That would mean I had designs on her myself! I don't!"
"Are you quite sure?"
"I'm positive. I had both her interests and the magazine's at heart. I felt she'd benefit, and so would we, when she came back to write about her experiences."
"But you knew that she and Bryce were seeing one another?"
"Yes, I knew it. What of it?"
"Separating them was the farthest thing from your mind?"
"Christ, yes! Damn it, Bob, do you intend taking me downtown?"
Midmark chuckled and shook his head. "Nothing like that. We just lost a promising young editor-possibly a writer as well-and I wanted to know why. If it was necessary."
"If you like, I'll submit my resignation within the hour," Packard returned.
"You may submit, but I won't accept," Midmark said. "I'd tear it up the way I'm going to tear up Bryce's letter as soon as you leave this office."
"What else did he say?" Packard asked, relieved and curious, too.
"Oh, not a great deal." The publisher smiled. "Only that Miss Silverman was mailing progress reports directly to you-and signing them with her love. Is that true, Hal?"
Packard experienced an urge to get his hands around Gillian's neck and strangle him by degrees. Only a skunk ransacked another man's office. How else could he have known? The question was, how much more did Bryce know? Would he go to Joanna with it? "Yes, and that's a federal case, too, I suppose."
Midmark leaned back to take something from a desk drawer. He held it up for the younger man's inspection, then proceeded to rip it to shreds. "There's no case, Hal. Only a request. Try to be more diplomatic in the future. Good editorial people are hard to come by. Please don't bother to salute on your way out."
Packard laughed ruefully and got up to leave.
"And one other thing."
"What's that?" The executive editor stopped laughing.
"From now on, when you finish a call, please hang up properly. That's all."
Packard, smarting from the experience, returned to the floor below. The implication of Midmark's final rejoinder escaped him for the moment. He decided it wasn't important. To his knowledge, he always hung up properly. Bryce must have poor-mouthed him about this, too. The man was undoubtedly cracking up.
"What's wrong?" Vicki asked when he stormed in and slammed the door.
"I just had it done to me in the ass!" he snapped, taking some of it out on her.
"Mr. Packard!" she protested, eyes flashing.
"I'm sorry," he apologized. Then he was struck by dread. Taking her by the shoulders, he gazed into her eyes. "Has anyone tried to reach you, child? Have people been inquiring about me?"
Vicki shook her head. "Why don't you tell me what's wrong?" she begged, eyeing him in concern.
"Nothing's wrong." Packard grabbed the girl and forced her head back. While her lips were still parted, he kissed them, slipping his tongue inside to the warmness beyond. He stroked the roof of her mouth a few times, and the warmness turned to heat. Then she kissed him back, sliding her arms around his neck and pulling him nearer. He supported himself on dampening palms to keep from falling atop her IBM Executive. His prick, which had been drooping after the encounter with Midmark, began to rise.
Vicki reached out from where he had her trapped, and gently fondled the swelling in his slacks. The cock's engorgement became more pronounced. She squeezed his shoulder then, to let him know he should stop, before he smothered her. Packard stopped.
"Do you want to fuck me, Mr. Packard?"
"No, I want to put my pecker in a drawer and slam it!" he growled. "Off with that. Hurry!" He saw new respect in her eyes, and realized that she loved the peremptory side of him. If only he could be more assertive with Joanna and possibly save their marriage.
Vicki unbuttoned her blouse and took it off. When she leaned forward, he unhooked the bra and snatched it away. Her luscious boobs fell forward on the typewriter's space bar. They'd be too cramped if she stayed where she was, so Packard moved behind her and tipped the chair backward. By supporting the chair back on his knees and thighs, he could suckle her breasts while she brought him to full erection with her hands. For five minutes they busied themselves with the strange caress.
His legs tired, finally, and he turned the chair around so that she faced him. She watched as he unbuckled the slacks and let them drop, sending the shorts the same way.
Packard made a gesture at his prick, and Vicki, after a split-second's hesitation, nodded. When he came forward and bent his knees, she opened her mouth and sank lower. He inserted carefully between the red-painted lips, remembering to let her accept the cock as she wanted. Vicki gave great head if he was considerate. No woman liked to be truly fucked in the mouth.
With consummate skill, she rolled the prick's head between her lips, letting him feel just the tip of her tongue. Then she opened wider to admit more of him. Now the tongue came into full play. While he stood stiff-legged and enjoyed the treat, she nipped and sucked him to a bursting erection.
Packard wished that Midmark could see him now. Or Bryce. Or even Joanna. They'd all know why he needed the release to cope with the stress of his position and the frustrations of a bad marriage. Joanna might even be shamed into doing something about it.
Vicki's tongue had begun a rhythmic swirling around his cock's crown, which would end, unless he stopped her, in a gushing orgasm, a rush of semen against the back of her mouth. He'd intended to place her on the rug and screw her senseless, but he recalled the dressing-down Midmark had given him over a silly-assed articles editor named Bryce Gillian, and decided not to warn her.
She gasped when the first spurt rocketed home. She could have drawn away and spat out the semen on the rug, but she didn't. Vicki continued to suck him while he came thunderously into her oral orifice. Packard grunted out the most satisfying finish he'd experienced in weeks, doubly stimulating because a young, unflinching mouth had given it to him.
When he'd been drained completely and she'd begun dressing again, he watched her face for signs of disgust or loathing, and saw none. She smiled back at him in mere annoyance, disappointed only that she, too, hadn't shared his pleasure.
"I'll make it up to you on another day," he promised, and meant it. "For now, how about a fifteen dollar raise? No, I'll make it twenty."
She nodded agreement, so he picked up the phone and called the accounting department. Then, while she readied herself for dictation, he shuffled through the morning's mail, hoping to reach a certain air mail letter before she did. He found it, noted the Los Angeles postmark, and, while Vicki's back was turned, tiptoed back to his own office and read it. Dear Hal, Well, here I am in sunny California, and believe me, it's the greatest. I've had more passes in one day than I'd get in a year back home. There was a mass murder last night (four), but I wasn't involved. As a victim, I mean. I pinched myself this morning to make sure.
Seriously, the Denver business sent me to a doctor. I'm clean, however. (See if you can figure that one out!)
Hal, darling, would it bother you so much if I never came back to you? Love, Mary Packard became aware that Vicki had addressed him from the other room. "How's that again?"
"I said, does the letter you're holding request a reply?"
"Um, no. I don't believe so."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mary Silverman opened her hotel room door Friday noon to go to lunch. She wished she hadn't. Standing poised outside, knuckles raised to give the first knock, was Bryce Gillian. A Bryce Gillian whose jowls sagged in fatigue and whose eyes were baggy from a day and night of transcontinental travel, but who grinned at her in tight satisfaction.
"Hello, darling," he said.
"Bryce!" Mary gasped, paling. She thought about Rod's suggestion that she spend the day at Malibu, and regretted again her refusal.
"Yes, Bryce!" he retorted. "That startles you? It's only been five days! Christ, the trouble I've gone to flying out here!"
"But-but what are you doing here?" she stammered, dismayed at the way his unexpected appearance made her feel.
"I've come to take you back," he said, looking annoyed that she should have to ask. "And you might at least pretend to be glad to see me."
Mary stared at him. "Back? Back where? I'm not going anywhere with you, Bryce. I'm staying here until I'm ready to leave. Then I'll leave alone."
Gillian threw back his head and laughed with unnecessary harshness. "I get it. You've come down with California fever. Well, maybe I'll get it, too. Well have it together." He moved toward her, blocking both the path to freedom and her chance to slam the door in his face.
She backed away from him while he followed her inside. He kicked the door shut with an outstretched foot. "You don't understand, Bryce," she pleaded, trying to reason with him when she knew no one could sway him from a predetermined course of action. "We have no engagement, no understanding. I'm free, and this is the way I want it. Bryce!"
He sprang, brushing aside her futile attempts to fend him off. "You're free when I say you are!" he hissed at her, and yanked her up against him with far more force than she'd ever seen him use before. "Kiss me!"
"Go to hell!" she blazed, and slapped him across the mouth, breaking his hold on her.
Temporarily stunned, he stepped back a pace and blinked in pathetic, little-boy hurt. "Mary," 'he whispered, "what's come over you?"
"Nothing's come over me," she said, close to tears. "I just want my freedom. Is that asking too much? Is it?" She rubbed her arms where his strong fingers had gripped her.
An ugly, almost sinister expression came across Gillian's face. The expression matched the maniacal gleam in his eye. "I get it," he said slowly. "Yeah, I get it. And I should have suspected months ago. You both made a fool out of me. It's so obvious!" He started toward her again.
Mary edged away, although there was really no place to go, unless she ran to the window, broke it, and jumped five floors to the pavement. Her only other alternative was to scream. "Suspected what?" she quavered. "Bryce, tell me what this is all about!"
"You and that lily-livered Hal Packard have been playing footsie behind my back!" Bryce snarled. "Don't deny it! I saw the letter you wrote him! You spent the first two days slutting around with strangers in hotel rooms, goddamn you, when you hated giving me even a little on the side! And you talk of freedom?" His voice cracked.
"Bryce, I swear to God there isn't anything between Hal and me," Mary said. "If I signed, 'Love, Mary,' it's only because I think he's a wonderful person and trust him. I don't love him. I've never slept with him. And I've never slutted with strangers in hotel rooms. If you read the letter-and I can't imagine why Hal would let you-you'll know I was tricked into letting a man past my door. He was much larger than you and quite determined. I-I loathe the memory of what we did together. I don't think I'll ever entirely wash it off."
"Prove it!" Gillian grated, stopping in front of her. "Prove you weren't using me for a foil-or a doormat. Goddamn you, prove it!"
"How?" she whispered, trembling.
The gleam of anger in his eyes turned to one of lust-blinding, unthinking lust. He ogled her body's lushness without even a trace of the old Bryce Gillian, the courteous, urbane gentleman. "You can give me a good hot suck! And don't tell me you don't know how!"
"No!" Mary was surprised herself at the sharpness in her voice. She'd never in her life taken a man's sexual organ into her mouth. She knew she couldn't do it now under duress-not without throwing up on him and making him murderous with rage.
He grabbed her shoulders and forced her to her knees. "Then I'll make you! Make you like it, too! By God, we'll be good for one another yet!" Gillian's voice rose another octave. His excitement was getting the better of him.
Mary tried to get up and couldn't. She tried to scream. No sound came out. He held her down with one hand and used the other to open his fly. She closed her eyes so she wouldn't see the prick he'd take out and try to fill her mouth with.
Bryce rapped her smartly on the shoulder. "Look at it! Damn it, look at my peter! Isn't it beautiful? That's the peter you're going to suck!"
"No!" Mary sobbed, and then realized she'd made a mistake. He'd tricked her into opening her mouth. Before she could close it again, he lunged, inserting part of his cock between her lips. Amazing even herself, she bit him. The rubbery taste and feel of him surprised her.
Gillian yelled and smacked her cheek with an open palm. She saw a million stars, and her ear started ringing. It wasn't to stop until the next day.
"Kill-you for that!" he panted, face savage. He seemed to see the impossibility of getting head out of her-safe head, that is, leaving him a prick he could still do business with-so he'd apparently decided to have her the conventional way. He ripped away her blouse and broke the bra getting it off her shoulders.
Mary lay paralyzed for a few seconds, not sure this was happening to her, appalled to realize that it was and that the perpetrator was a man she'd once respected and cared for, at least to a limited extent. She knew now that she could never care for him again. Her one mistake was in meeting him.
Then she began to fight him. She scratched his face and clawed at his eyes. He ducked. Encouraged, she pounded ineffectual blows to his head. Bryce shrugged them off. Then he raised up, cocked his fist, and landed a punch on the point of her jaw that snapped her head back and left her semiconscious.
"Fuck you now!" he gloated. "Fuck you silly! Then we talk!"
She couldn't stop him, so she went limp instead, to make his task more difficult and his pleasure less. But she found that he proceeded just as fast with the rest of her garments, pushing her flat and almost tearing the skirt from her hips. The panties slowed him for only a second. When the waist refused to part under his rude grasp, he made her heart stop by whipping out a switchblade knife and cutting the thin elastic. The cold steel grazed her belly.
He heard her gasp, and laughed. "No, I'm not that stupid. We'll settle our differences when we get home. You'll feel differently about me then."
She could have told him she'd never feel anything for him, but she didn't. Not while he still held the knife in his hand and glared down at her with an expression which matched the evil in his heart. Mary gazed up in a mixture of dread and fascination. Bryce looked almost absurd with the switchblade hanging loosely from his hand, his prick jutting out through his fly, and most of his clothes still on. He'd kicked off only his shoes.
He put the knife away, and unbuckled his pants. If she'd hoped he'd be gentle, the way he sent his clothes flying dispelled it. This was to be a rape. The sole moment of humor came when he caught the tender skin of his phallus in the pants zipper. For an instant, he went ashen. But he recovered without loss of erection and came toward her, dropping his shirt behind him.
"Open!" he spat at her.
Reluctantly, she left off trying to cover her nakedness, and opened her thighs for him. Without fingering her clit, without even glancing at her breasts, he rammed inside her, taking, it seemed to her, special delight in being brutal for brutality's sake.
Her loathing suddenly turned to hatred. She hated a man who could even fancy he owned her, who could turn, in the space of five days, into a jealous degenerate. Had there been a gun beside her, she was sure she would have used it on him, then on herself.
Mary groaned. Despite the lack of preparation, despite his total lack of concern about her, Bryce was reaching home. The furious way he pounded his meat at her began to make her rise when he rose, to fall when he fell. She closed her eyes at last, and tried to concentrate on reaching an orgasm. The tremors began, mounted steadily, burst in an explosion of feeling which made the room reel for her.
But then he withdrew, laughing. "Uh-uh, that's enough for now. I don't want to spoil you for tonight. That's when I'll really get my rocks. Let's go to lunch. I'm starved." He turned to find his clothes.
The detached, almost casual way he'd used her made Mary's cheeks burn with mortification. "I hate your guts!" she wept.
Gillian spun to glower down at her. "Stow that kind of talk!"
"I mean it, you-you monster!"
He gave vent to the rage he felt, yanking her up and swinging blindly at her jaw. Mary went down in a crumpled heap. But she only pretended to be knocked out. She lay and watched him and saw a brief flicker of remorse, a glow of egotistical pride, and finally indifference. He really did, if she'd doubted it, prefer lunch to her.
While she held her breath and prayed, he dressed and left. As soon as the door closed, Mary dragged herself up and forced her numbed body into a fresh dress and new lingerie. The tattered ones she tossed into a trash basket. If Bryce felt any shame in what he'd done, he could pour them out and do penance with them when he returned.
Because there was real urgency, she tossed her belongings into the weekender and half-stumbled, half-ran to an elevator. But she knew he'd spot her if she tried to check out the usual way, so she looked about desperately for another exit. A janitor was mopping a spill halfway down the hall. She approached him and explained that an ex-husband was waiting in the lobby and she had to avoid him at any cost. She asked him to pay her bill for her and accept a ten dollar tip.
The janitor, after ogling her the way she'd come to expect in this town, agreed, even directing her to a service elevator which he said would deposit her safely on the ground floor. There would even be a taxi or two within a short dash.
Mary thanked him and used the service elevator. Just as he'd promised, she found a taxi near the door. She jumped inside and directed its driver to the airport, spending much of the trip peering through the rear window. There was no sign as yet of Bryce Gillian.
Lunch for her was a paper cupful of coffee, purchased at a vending machine, and a bag of salted peanuts. Both tasted better than anything she could have eaten with Bryce. She longed to call Rod, but involving him in her problems seemed unfair. At half-past twelve, ending the most unnerving twenty minutes of her life, she filled someone's canceled reservation on a Western Airlines flight to San Francisco.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Friday afternoon as she installed fresh drapes in the guest room, Joanna Packard began to fret. The release she'd experienced with Bryce Gillian had begun to wear off. Soon it would be gone altogether. She'd never been able to go for more than a day without some kind of relief, and lately the days were growing shorter. Maybe it was another of Mother Nature's cruel jokes. Just when Hal's powers were flagging, her own fires were burning more fiercely than ever.
She sighed and put down the curtain rod. There was always masturbation, juvenile and unsatisfying though it might be. In fact, she'd depended on masturbation for most of her adult life, before discovering that adultery, provided it was discreet, made her feel less guilty than she had imagined. She would always have Bryce to thank for the discovery. Unwittingly or not, he'd made her marriage endurable.
Joanna went to the kitchen for a glass of tomato juice-her only concession to mid-afternoon boredom. Maybe, she thought smilingly, it was the tomato juice that was responsible for her increased desires.
She happened to glance out through the window, and froze at what she saw. A young man-boy, really-was strolling across her lawn with a long-handled rake across his bare shoulder. He was dressed only in a pair of black swimming trunks. Transfixed, the tomato juice forgotten, Joanna tried to figure out who he was, and why he was here. Then she remembered. Yesterday had been quite warm, and Hal wanted the pool cleaned and the filter checked. He'd called the pool service before leaving this morning. They'd sent someone.
She watched for a few minutes, admiring the way his muscles rippled as he worked. He stood gracefully on the pool edge, legs spread to brace himself. Joanna judged, from the intent expression on his face, that he didn't even know she was around. A wicked idea crept into her mind. She tried to banish it. The idea refused to be banished.
First she needed an excuse to go out there. She waited thirty minutes, then made a pitcher of lemonade. Placing the beverage on a cart, along with two tumblers and a bucket of ice, she wheeled it out to him. She'd changed to a racy sunsuit which Hal had forbidden her to wear in public, so she knew she'd make an impression.
He glanced up, saw the lemonade, and smiled, dropping the rake.
"Hello," she said, enjoying the fevered way his gaze swept her exposed body. She was glad she'd kept herself in shape. She knew she was still a treat for a man's eyes. "I thought you'd be hot, so here I am. I'm Mrs. Packard, by the way, but you can call me Joanna. Like some cookies to go with it?"
He shook his head. "No, ma'am." But he sat down with her and waited while she filled the tumblers with ice and poured.
Joanna decided he wasn't handsome, but he was attractive just the same. His face and chin showed character. He looked to be about nineteen or twenty. His frame was a man's, however. "What's your name?"
He moistened lips which would probably be sunburned in another month or so, matching his unruly red hair. "Kerry. Kerry Duggan."
She smiled. "I'm glad to meet you, Kerry. I don't usually have callers during the day, so anyone who comes is welcome. You are from the pool service, aren't you?"
He started. "Oh, yes, ma'am. Yours was the last house on my list today." Kerry gestured over his shoulder at the pool. "I can't do much this time, though. Forgot the filter handbook. Yours is a model I've never seen before. I'm not sure about the backwashing."
Joanna tittered. "Does that mean you can stay and talk to me for a while?" She gazed into the boy's blue eyes with a wanton's boldness.
He paused in the middle of a sip and colored. "About what?"
She leaned forward so that the skimpy wisp of a halter revealed more of her breasts. "About anything. About us. You and me. You know, I get terribly depressed being alone so much. Sometimes I want someone to come and ... well, make me glad I'm me. I suppose you could say I fantasize a great deal. Do you fantasize, Kerry?"
His hand trembled once, but he quickly stilled it. "No."
"You can tell me," Joanna coaxed. "Do you fantasize about your steady girl? Imagine that you're kissing her ... or doing other things?"
"I don't have a steady girl," Kerry insisted, and drank thirstily on the lemonade. Perspiration which hadn't been there a few minutes before glistened on his forehead. He cast nervous glances at his equipment spread out on the ground beside the pool.
Joanna saw that she'd have to move fast, or she'd lose him. She groped under the table and found his foot with hers. "Kerry, honey, do you feel anything?" she inquired. "Anything at all?"
Alarm covered his face. He would have jumped up from the table had she not prevented it by seizing his foot between both of hers. "Lady, I-"
"Joanna," she corrected. "Call me Joanna."
"Joanna, I-I think I'd better be going. My boss, he's a mother about goof-offs. I mean, he fires guys for less."
"You're not goofing-off," she assured him. "You're making my day. Anyway, hell never know from me, so that means he'll never know at all, doesn't it?" She leaned close and let a lid drop in droll fashion, as though she'd just made them conspirators.
Kerry stared hard at her breasts. "I guess."
"Do you like me, honey?" she asked gently. The boy nodded, but he struggled to extricate his foot.
"Would you like to go inside with me?" He shook his head. The conviction he tried to put into the shake was missing. "Are you sure?"
Kerry's face tightened. "You're playing with me. I don't like to be played with."
Joanna released his foot. "No one's playing with anyone. I just thought you were someone I could care for. It seems I'm wrong."
Her reluctant Adonis quivered. The gamble had been a shrewd one. "I'll go inside with you."
"Wonderful!" She reached across the table to pinch his cheek. "I said to myself this morning: 'Something nice will happen to me today.' And I was right." Joanna stood up and posed for him, breasts thrust out proudly. She saw the longing in his eyes. "Well, aren't you coming?"
He jumped up, youthful face alight with eagerness. But there was a hardness, too. "Just one thing," he said, his excitement beginning to show through the trunks.
"What's that?"
Kerry paused. "Even if you're older, even if you're rich, I'm still in charge. That's the way it has to be. If you say no, you can take your pussy and be damned." He put emphasis on the last word.
Joanna blushed. "Yes. That's the way it'll be." He moved toward her then, a coiled spring bursting from his seat. She had time only to gasp before he took her roughly in his arms and kissed her with all the expertise the young seemed to have these days. Her mouth opened of its own accord, admitting a tongue which lashed and squirmed with awakening desire. She tore free in time to warn him. "Inside! Take me inside!" Someone, she could have told him, might be peering through the fence.
He had no trouble carrying her away from the pool, across the patio, and into the house. In fact, he seemed strong enough-and willing enough-to run with her, as far as either of them wished. "Where?" he asked, not even out of breath.
Joanna pointed toward the guest room where she'd just finished hanging fresh drapes. "In there."
When he dropped her on the bed, Kerry lifted away the halter in the same motion. Somehow he'd gotten to the catch while sprinting along with her at top speed. She heard his sharp intake of breath, and waited to see what he'd do to her naked breasts.
But he wasn't interested in boobs. He started on the sun suit's bottom without more than a glance at the swelling structures above.
"Do you think I'm beautiful?" she inquired.
"I-want to fuck you!" he choked, and seemed to feel this answered her question. He yanked, disrobing her entirely.
She understood. He'd apparently gone for days or weeks without it, and now he was going to have a woman he could only have dreamed about before. She opened her thighs and let him gaze at the vale of earthly delights. The lips, she knew, were already puckered from anticipation. "Want me to take those off you?" she teased.
Kerry shook his head, and wriggled out of his trunks. A prick any man would have been proud of popped free and stood out straight from its base of thick pubic hair.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Joanna murmured to flatter him.
He smiled and climbed on the bed with her. "Remember our agreement?" he reminded her.
"You get to do everything to me, and I can't do anything back," she pouted. "It's not fair."
Kerry hesitated, hands poised to touch her, itching to touch her, but for some reason holding back. "Why are you doing this?"
Joanna was impatient with him. She managed to conceal it. "The reason doesn't matter. I can't explain it." She chuckled. "I know this has been said before, honey, but it defies logic. I saw you out there and-yes! Yes, dear, do that for me." He'd slipped a sly hand between the lips of her cunt. She closed her eyes and lay back, savoring the voluptuousness of strong, male fingers on her most sensitive parts.
"You're wet already," he muttered, and appeared surprised.
Joanna dropped her hand on his cock and squeezed once at the base. His hard-on came to a throbbing head. But she wisely left off with this one caress. If she knew anything about young men-and she'd once known plenty about young men-he'd shoot off in her face if she stimulated him too much.
Kerry groaned and fingered more frantically on her clit. With the other hand, he fondled first one of her breasts, then the other, massaging the nipples between a thumb and a forefinger. There was a certain, barely learned finesse about his action.
"Kiss me!" she begged, disappointed only in this one omission.
He lowered enough to make his mouth meet hers. She locked her arms around his neck and gave herself up to ecstasy she'd never experienced with Bryce Gillian, certainly not with Hal. The one had been in too much of a hurry to love her this way; the other seemed to have forgotten she was a wife and a sex object. But Joanna supposed that part of her present excitement was psychological. Kerry was forbidden to her for both marital and social reasons. Therefore she responded, by some quirk of nature, more than his skill warranted.
Their tongues began a furious combat which neither would lose. First in her mouth they played, then in his. But he left off after a few minutes and pushed her flat on the covers. "Gotta-have-you-now!" he panted, and the urgency dripped off every word.
Joanna spread her thighs and arched her back to receive him. The sudden, almost violent way he possessed her made her wince, but she stifled an exclamation. He was young, and violence came naturally to the young.
Kerry had size, power and ardor. Everything but control. The two minutes he lasted were just long enough to permit her to climax once, no more. Then he spent himself inside her. Face twisted in agony over the intensity of the sensations, he stared at her in wonder as soon as the floodgates closed.
"Well?" she smiled.
"Well, my boss-he's a mother!" Kerry chuckled. "But this he won't know about. I swear."
Joanna, now that cold reality intruded, hoped so, too. When he left, she turned, for the first time in her life, to Hal's liquor cabinet.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When Mary climbed down the plane steps at San Francisco International Airport, her teeth were chattering. The bay chill was part of it; the fanatical, possessive gleam in Bryce Gillian's face the last time she'd seen him was the rest. She feared him now, and even felt she should tell someone or ask for help.
After a minute spent at the gate scanning the faces of the rest of the passengers from behind dark glasses-she wasn't sure but what he hadn't slipped aboard on her heels-Mary went to the car rental counter. With a credit card, she rented a late-model sedan which was the right shade of drab, inconspicuous green. The car was clean and gassed to go. She felt better just being behind the wheel.
By five o'clock, she'd toured Chinatown and eaten twice. She'd also seen enough of Haight-Ashbury to realize that the former hippie mecca was now full of addicts and con men. She left it after fifteen minutes.
The Golden Gate Bridge she decided to save for the next morning. Sunday she'd decide what to do next. She couldn't go home as planned, not with Bryce perspiring down her dress. But neither could she flee from town to town for the rest of the month. Her expense account wouldn't allow it.
She thought about Rod Willoughby, and a pang of regret hit her. She wished there were some way, other than long distance, that she could reach him and explain. She wanted to tell him, without being melodramatic, about the predicament she was in. But Rod had a practice to consider. She couldn't involve him in something not to his liking.
As she passed the Mark Hopkins, where she had half a mind to spend the night, Mary saw a cab pull up in front of the entrance. Intuition gripped her. She slowed to see who got out. That the latest arrival at the famous hotel was Bryce Gillian failed to surprise her. It just dismayed her. He didn't see her, so she drove on. The better hotels for her were out. He'd spend the evening and a good portion of the night prowling them. He wouldn't give up easily, not when his pride and vanity were at stake.
She checked into one of the city's two hundred-odd motels, ate dinner at a grill up the street, and went back to try and sleep. But every noise outside made her start up in bed, every squeak set her to trembling. In the state of mind he was in, Bryce was capable of almost anything.
She passed a restive night. At eight the next morning, an idea struck. She'd drive north to Portland, relinquish the car, and fly back into Los Angeles. Then she'd tell Rod everything, and ask his advice. If anyone could give advice on predators, Rod could. He'd been the victim, or near-victim, of one himself.
She ate breakfast at the same grill, gassed the car with another credit card, and headed north on Route 101. She crossed the Golden Gate Bridge during the morning rush, so she was unable to stop. At this point she had no desire to. Every face in her rear-view mirror seemed to be Bryce's, every horn an order to pull her own vehicle to the curb.
Near panic, she hardly saw the beautiful bridge, even when she was underneath the first of its huge arches. But near the middle, its spell got to her. She slowed and gazed up and about her, awed at the sheer expanse of steel, the height and majesty of the twin towers. She could see the city's skyscrapers if she cast quick glances over her shoulder without taking her eyes off the road ahead.
The honking behind her finally became so strident she couldn't ignore it. Mary drove on and soon left the bay and its landmark behind. She resolved to return someday and see it again, this time under far more pleasant circumstances.
She drove through San Rafael, and remembered the shootout. In Ukiah, she stopped at a roadside diner for lunch. As she ate the ham-on-rye and sipped her pea soup, a heavy hand descended on her shoulder. Mary looked up and almost fainted. It was Bryce. He'd doped out her maneuver perfectly and caught up with her after little more than a hundred miles. "What-what do you want?" she faltered, and realized that her voice sounded like a child's. A child who's been disobedient, and knows he's about to be punished.
Her nemesis smiled genially. "I want to eat lunch with you. After that, well see. Waiter," he called. "I'll have the same."
For Mary, the meal had been spoiled. The sandwich tasted wooden, the soup bitter. But she ate it in stoic silence. She wouldn't make a scene. They'd settle this between themselves, in private. She still had a car to drive. That was her best hope. Bryce had probably rented one, too. They couldn't very well leave together.
He ate his soup and cast sidelong glances at her. A smile played around his lips. He seemed determined to be pleasant to her this morning.
Mary felt her will slipping away from her. If he was kind to her, if he listened to her side and then explained why she was wrong, she might never escape him again. She might never want to. All her new-found independence would waft away with the breeze.
"Waiter, the bill," he said when they'd finished their coffee.
"Bryce, listen to me," she pleaded, and hated herself for it.
He turned his stool around to face her. He wore a red pullover underneath his black blazer, and the effect was pleasing. He'd never been more handsome, more the man to be prized. "I'm listening."
"I can't go back with you. Honest. I like it so well out here, I-I may stay. I'll resign at the magazine and look for a position with a publication here. There are plenty of-"
"Terrific!" he grinned. "I'll look with you. Maybe we'll be hired together."
"You'll do what?"
"If you resign at Today, that'll make two of us. I'm free, too."
Mary was stunned. This she hadn't counted on. "You resigned? You're never going back?"
"Baby, I'm finished at Women Today," Bryce declared. "They wouldn't take me back if I paid them. I'm through, thanks partly to you."
She wondered what he was talking about. For now, she was afraid to ask. "I'm still not going with you."
Gillian pocketed his change and left a tip for the waiter. Then he took her arm as if they'd come in together. "Why not?" He tugged her gently toward the door.
Mary, for an instant, almost yielded to hysteria. "I mean it!" But she let herself be led from the diner without seeking aid. Where would it have gotten her? Bryce was probably shifty enough to have a forged marriage license in his pocket.
Outside, he seemed to have made a decision. "We'll leave your car and take mine back to the rental agency. They can send someone to pick it up. Then we'll hop the next flight back to-"
"Bryce, I said no, and I meant no!" Mary's upper lip trembled, but she couldn't help it. "I want to be free. I need more time to think. Can't you understand that? Please let me go!"
Gillian's mouth hardened. "Get in!" He put a hint of malice on the words. "Go to hell!"
"Get in, damn it, or I'll put you in!" When she didn't move, he did just that, yanking open the door on the driver's side and literally stuffing her inside. Mary knew better than to fight him. She remembered the knife.
"At least put the key in the other one," she said, hoping to trick him into leaving her for a few seconds. She could see the ignition keys dangling from his dashboard.
Gillian chuckled. "Uh-uh. No. Nothing doing. Nice try, doll. Nice. Now what do you say we drive and quit jawing at one another. We used to communicate well without words, you know, before you came down with this what-ever-it-is." He slammed the sedan's door, turned the key, and made the tires scream in his haste to send them speeding back toward San Francisco.
"I think you're going to be sorry," Mary said, although she knew the threat would have no influence on him or what he did to her.
"Sorry?" He threw back his head and laughed. "I'm sorry I didn't fly out with you. Sorry I didn't ball you well enough to keep you home. Yeah, I'm sorry, doll-face." Bryce, keeping only one eye on the road, reached out with a hand and cupped her chin. "Why so sad? Don't newly weds in this part of the country all head for San Francisco? Or that hole in Arizona? The one nobody can fill, not even the big cat up there?" He pointed upward through the car roof.
She flung the hand away. "I wouldn't marry you if you could fill the hole all by yourself. Take it any way you want."
Bryce had no reply, but a slow crimson spread across his cheeks and along his jaw. After he'd driven them only a few miles, he suddenly swerved the car off onto a secondary road and drove recklessly until he found an isolated lane which seemed to end in a stand of trees.
Mary saw that she was about to pay for the impertinence. She steeled herself for a sordid experience which would probably include blows. The new Bryce was a bully. "See what I mean?" she taunted.
He parked them and killed the engine. "Who is he? You're going to tell me who's fucking you and why he's so much better than me! Goddamn you, tell me!" He seized her arm as though he meant to break it.
Mary compressed her lips to keep from crying out. She'd never really thought of herself as brave, but she would die before giving Bryce Rod's name.
"I'll screw it out of you, then!" Gillian fought to get free of his clothing, tossing the blazer and the pullover onto the back seat. Then he shoved her to the other side and ordered her to take his pants off. She refused. He raised up long enough to rip off her blouse and tear it to shreds. "Go naked for me, is that the idea? Groovy, doll, real groovy."
Rather than do that, she took his pants off.
Bryce grunted in satisfaction. "Now my shorts.
And do it slow. I don't want you to miss anything."
She slid his shorts along his hairy legs and off his feet. To spite him, she pretended not to see the straining hard that gaped up at her.
"See that piece of meat, doll-face? I want you to suck it."
The lunch Mary had eaten came up to lie somewhere between her throat and her stomach. She shook her head. "I can't," she murmured. "Honest to God, I can't! It's not you, Bryce. I swear! I just can't!"
"Can't?" He kicked at her. "You have a mouth, don't you? And a tongue? Put them to good use! Do it!"
She sat in paralyzed silence.
Gillian came up off the car seat. "Then you'll go jaybird naked, as sure as my name's-"
"I'll do it," she sobbed, just before he laid his hands on her skirt.
He lay back down. "That's better. Do it with a little style, and we may dig one another yet. Get with it." He tensed, waiting.
Mary swallowed twice to make her lunch go back down, then leaned over the turgid prick. She had to close her eyes before accepting it, but accept it she did, letting the smooth thing slide between her lips and into her mouth, until she nearly gagged from the feel of it on her palate.
"You're doing fine so far. Now move your mouth back and forth over the head, applying a little suction. Not too much, though. I don't want a quick pop."
Awkwardly, Mary obeyed. "Faster!"
She tried to comply, but the size of it was a little overwhelming.
"Christ, can't you use a little artistry? Is that asking too goddamned much?"
She sucked harder, until the prick's involuntary quivers signaled the beginning of an orgasm. Then she took her mouth away, just before the molten spurts came zinging out. With a mixture of revulsion and interest, she watched the come roll off his legs and disappear onto the car seat. Bryce gasped twice, then swung his legs away to get up.
"A lousy suck," he grumbled. "But you're learning, doll, you're learning. Yes, indeed." He dressed, handing the pullover to her in place of the tattered blouse. "Consider it an engagement gift," he smirked.
Mary hated him more than she'd ever thought she could hate another human being, but she put the pullover on. In icy silence, she let him drive her back to the highway, where they continued on to San Francisco. Outside Santa Rosa, he offered the ultimate insult.
"Remember the motel you stayed at last night? That's where we'll be tonight. Same room."
Silently, she began to cry.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Hal Packard knew something was wrong, dreadfully wrong, when he came home and found Joanna trying to back her car out of the drive. She couldn't seem to hold a straight line. First the Porsche veered to the left, grazing a fence which separated their property from the neighbor's. Joanna pulled up and then gunned the car backwards again. This time the car mowed down a row of shrubbery he'd carefully planted two summers before.
Angered and apprehensive, he pulled his Cadillac to the curb and watched. Undaunted by two failures, Joanna was going to try once more. She managed to reach the street safely and might even have driven away had she not backed straight into him. Their bumpers met with a resounding clang.
Packard didn't believe it. Joanna, who had driven all her life, was driving today like a nine-year-old or a drunk. Without even looking back to see what she'd hit, she ground the Porsche's gears.
He switched off his car's ignition and climbed out to see what was wrong. When he reached her side, his nose told him, not his eyes. He sniffed twice, to make sure. He was sure. Joanna was roaring drunk. She made a fascinating, if pathetic, sight.
"Like to tell me about it, hon?" he asked, leaning inside the window.
Her head jerked as she saw him, apparently, for the first time. "Darling!" she exclaimed, voice thick. "I was just thinking about you. Wanna fuck?"
It was the sort of thing a drunk would say, particularly a female drunk who was inhibited beyond reason when sober. So Packard, after glancing around to see if anyone else had heard, smiled tolerantly and shook his head. "Not at the moment, no. I want to get you inside and sober again. You're not yourself."
"Fuck me, darling!" she urged, giggling over the sound of it. "One more won't make any difference. Give me a whirl."
Packard tensed. "One more?"
"You know! One and one are two. I've had the one. You'll be two. But who's keeping score?" Joanna hiccupped and then shrieked with raucous laughter.
He stared at her, not liking the sound of this at all. He didn't think there could be anything substantial here, but even the words, coming from her lips, shocked and appalled him. "Let's go inside."
"Whassamatter? Don't you like to fuck?" Joanna's chin lifted in an uncustomary aggressive manner. She tried to kiss him on the lips.
Packard sighed and accepted the sloppy kiss. "Yes, but not now. Not here." He reached inside and plucked away the Porsche's keys. The sportster's roar died away. He opened the door and took her by the waist. "Here, let me help you out. You can lean on my shoulder and nobody will know you're soused. They'll think-"
She slapped him smartly across the mouth. "Don't need help! Damn you, leave me alone!"
The situation was fast taxing his patience, so he grabbed her hands and pinioned them to her side. When she saw he meant business, Joanna stopped resisting. She went limp and let herself be hauled from the car and carried bodily inside.
The front door was locked, so Packard bundled her through the gate and around to the rear. Since she'd probably throw up soon, he decided to deposit her on the bed in the guest room. But he stared at what he found in the guest room. The bed was a mess. One pillow was on the floor and the covers were tangled and stained.
Joanna opened bleary eyes to see what he was staring at, and laughed so hard he had to put her down. "That's where we did it," she chuckled. "That's the scene of the crime."
Packard's hands formed fists, but he didn't use them. Not yet. "Who?"
She looked up at him from the bed edge and smiled with alcoholic sweetness.
"Who?" he grated, advancing on her.
Some of the tipsiness left her face. Even a drunk woman knew danger when she saw it. "Kerry!" she stammered. "Kerry Duggan "
Packard wished he understood just one thing that had gone on around his house today. "Kerry Duggan? And just who in the hell is Kerry Duggan?"
"The pool man," Joanna said eagerly, the words tumbling out. "He came at one. He's nineteen. He was sweet. Hal, don't!"
He sprang to glower down at her. "You slept with a pool man? You?"
She nodded, but the tears came to her eyes. "I know I did wrong, darling. Please don't kill me."
Packard clapped a hand to his forehead and began to chuckle. He laughed until his sides ached, until the tears ran down his cheeks and dripped onto his shirt.
"The pool man? A nineteen-year-old? You?"
Joanna appeared stung by this unexpected reaction. "Well, he wasn't the first!"
He stopped laughing. "What? There's more?"
She whitened and put a hand to her mouth as though she'd undo the damage. "Hal, I-"
"Tell me!" he thundered. She was sober enough now to know exactly what she was saying-and to accept the consequences. "Who is he?"
Joanna took a deep breath. "Bryce. He came yesterday. He-he practically forced his way in. I didn't mean to cheat on you, Hal, I swear to God. It-just happened."
Packard wobbled on his feet, truly staggered. "I don't believe you," he declared, although he did.
Joanna never put anyone on.
"It's true," she insisted, anxiously watching his face. "Hal, please say you'll forgive me. I-I don't want to do it again. I want to be a good wife."
He wound up his two hundred pound frame and swung a haymaker. It missed and he was spared a murder conviction. Regaining his balance, he stamped from the house and crawled back into his car. Without a destination in mind, he drove aimlessly until dark. After eating at a burger stand-and trying without success to pick up one of the car-hops-he dropped in on every bar he'd ever heard about. When he got home at midnight, their situations were reversed.
Now he was the one who was stinking drunk.
They talked it over the next morning like adults. Between applications of an ice pack, he asked her to tell him what was wrong with their marriage. More specifically, what was wrong that a man like Bryce Gillian could correct. "That is, if you care to talk about it," he added.
Joanna shrugged. Her eyes were red and swollen, and she had an ice pack of her own. "You're asking me to justify myself. I can't justify myself."
"Bullshit! Everyone has a rationale for balling on the side. What's yours? Or maybe I should say, what's wrong with me?"
She eyed him doubtfully. "Do you really want to know?"
"Damn it, I asked, didn't I?"
"You're generous, Hal," Joanna faltered.
"You're kind and you're good company-when you want to be."
Packard snorted. Even this statement racked his head like someone had tried to split it with an anvil. "I didn't ask for an assessment of my good qualities, only my bad ones. Answer me!"
"You're brusque and frequently thoughtless. You take me for granted. You give your secretary what you should be giving me. Sometimes I think you never loved me at all, just married me for security's sake. I was safe and respectable, and you wanted those two qualities in a wife."
The dig about his secretary nearly made Packard drop his ice pack. "Who told you about Vicki?"
Joanna smiled, but the smile held no humor. "Bryce. Why else would I try to hurt you?"
The pain in his head was excruciating, but he took her in his arms anyway, and kissed her with at least some of the feeling he'd once had for her. "Maybe I should have been born with more meat," he joked. "Six inches doesn't get a guy very far any more. Have you heard of a good doc who does transplants of that sort?"
She shook her head. "But it doesn't matter. I don't love you for your prick, and I hope you don't love me for my pussy. Let's just love one another for ourselves."
He grimaced. "That's progress? If I thought I'd never get another piece of-"
Joanna placed a hand over his mouth. "Hush. We'll explore the topic again this afternoon. Or are you so dense you don't understand?"
Packard wasn't dense. He grinned. "The theory is, I'm worth salvaging. Right?"
"Our marriage is worth salvaging," she corrected.
They slept away their respective hangovers in separate bedrooms. At mid-afternoon, feeling much better, he crept into her room and woke her with a kiss. She'd changed into a filmy negligee, and looked somewhat better herself. Packard sat down on the bed beside her and caressed the gown where it swelled over her breasts. She didn't object, so he eased the gown's top down and covered the breasts with his hands. Underneath his determined fingers, the nipples came to life. He watched her face. "Anything special you want done to you?"
Joanna sighed. "If you have to ask...."
Her words were a challenge to him. Carefully, because there was still lingering animosity between them, he pulled her to the bed edge and raised the gown. Still, he might have been addressing himself to a lifeless corpse for all the response she gave him. Because she was probably resigned to the same dull, uninspired lovemaking, and because he wasn't, he spread her thighs apart and buried his face between them, parting the lips with his tongue and searching for her clit.
"Hal!"
After less than a minute of sustained tonguing, she quivered all over and gasped out a climax. A minor climax, to be sure, but still a climax. In all their years of marriage, she'd never reached climax more than once with him in a single session.
Encouraged, he worked harder with lips and tongue, until she convulsed and moaned out another climax. Then he brought her back to a plateau of desire where he could join her. When he climbed back into bed with her, Packard was astonished. He had a hard-on which was almost painful in its intensity. He positively ached with the need to get his cock inside her.
Joanna reached up to feel for herself when he clambered atop her. "Why, darling, where did you get the marvelous transplant?"
There wasn't time to tell her. While the taste of her cunt was still on his lips, he drove himself inside her and began to move. Five minutes later, he still hadn't lost the rhythm. As long as she dug her nails into his back and babbled encouragement in his ear, he seemed capable of continuing. Joanna came twice more before he discharged, panting, into her pussy. For a long while they lay entwined in a steamy embrace, not wanting, either of them, to break the contact. The rapport missing from their marriage just a few hours before had miraculously come back. The question was, would it stay long enough this time to mean a fresh start, or would it wear off in a couple of weekends?
She opened her eyes and gazed into his. "Vicki?"
Packard hesitated. "I'll transfer her back into the pool Monday," he promised. But he wondered if he could keep the promise.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Mary awoke Sunday morning with a headache. In a kind of stupor, she lay on the motel bed's tangled covers and stared up at the ceiling. There was a water stain in a corner where a storm had once opened a leak. The stain had an ugly symbolism all its own. She felt Bryce stir beside her, and remembered.
She remembered all the things she'd done for him-and all the things she'd had done to her. The recollections swelled to bring the tears to her eyes. She'd never felt so soiled, so used. To think that a man she'd once loved and trusted had done this to her. Not some stranger. Even Thornton Caffy had had some compassion.
She gazed at Bryce, thought of murder and rejected it. She wasn't capable of murder. The publicity alone would kill her ten times over. She thought about silently dressing and slipping away and rejected that, too. He had all her credit cards in the wallet under his pillow. Her cash, if she remembered correctly, came to about thirty-one dollars-not enough for a plane ticket east.
Bryce groaned then and rolled over, shattering her chances to extract the wallet. He opened his eyes and saw her. "Morning, doll-face," he smiled, but made no effort to conceal the hatred in his voice. "What's for breakfast?"
Mary decided her best reply was a stony silence, so she turned her face away, preferring to view instead the patch of sun which had crept through a part in the curtain.
Gillian laughed. "Cat got your tongue? Oh, I dig. You're practicing for your bashful bride act. The one you'll use after we have breakfast and find a justice of the peace to join us up." He poked her slyly in the ribs. "It's going to be quite a day, eh?"
She shuddered in spite of herself. "You're joking, of course. You got what you wanted-and as much of it as you wanted. Why don't you give me back my cards and let me go? I promise I won't bring charges."
"You won'-t bring-" Bryce emitted a squeal of laughter. "Wowee, but you're a sweet act this morning." He rolled near and rapped her on the thigh. "Maybe you need remindin', podner," he drawled Western style. "I ain't goin' nowheres. This here's where I'm stayin', and I got the gun-excuse me, the meat-to back it up. Wanna see?" His hands went inside his pajama fly.
"No," Mary said, and closed her eyes so she wouldn't see his prick. After the uses-both usual and unusual-that he'd put it to, the cock was probably red and swollen, incapable, for the moment, of further performance.
"There he is," Bryce crowed. "The fastest peter in the west." He assumed a long face. "Only he ain't very fast this morning. He's damn near lifeless." Gillian took her hand and placed it on the limp phallus. "Think you can bring him back to life, doll? He might obey you when he'd tell me to go to hell."
She yanked her hand away, evoking another barrage of laughter from Bryce. "Please," she moaned. "Have a little mercy." She doubted that he'd ever heard of the word.
He leaned close to pat her cheek. "But of course. We'll give him a rest. We want to be fresh for the ceremony, don't we, doll-face?" Bryce swung out of bed and looked for his shoes. But he remembered the wallet, and reached back to get it. "I'm going to take a shower," he announced, tucking the wallet inside his pajamas. Before disappearing inside the tiny bathroom, Gillian took yet another precaution. He dragged a chest of drawers to the door and barricaded it. Now she couldn't leave with or without the cards, not unless she squeezed through the window.
Mary thought she'd die from the constriction in her throat. She lay and suffered while he ran the water and bathed, whistling as loudly as he could.
And then she began to think. To scheme. Bryce, she knew, had come into an inheritance some five years before. Not a large fortune, but money a man could live comfortably on for the rest of his life, even if he weren't a financial genius. Bryce certainly wasn't. Half of it could be hers. Either he'd forgotten, or jealousy had eaten away that part of his brain that cared. What to him might be vengeance, would, sooner or later, work to her advantage.
He came out without a stitch, and grinned at her. "Your water's running. Don't drown yourself to spite me, huh?"
She didn't plan to. Holding the negligee-or rather, the remainder of it-about her, she dragged herself out of bed and squeezed past him while he leered at her breasts. "Do you-do you mean to go through with it?" she asked, assuming a kind of wretched hopelessness.
Triumph showed in his eyes. "Of course I'm going through with it!" he snapped. "And so are you. You belong to me, and you might as well get used to it."
Mary bowed her head, and went inside to shower. But she smiled as she soaped her back. She didn't dare whistle, only smile. Smiles couldn't penetrate four inches of plaster. The smile, to someone who studied it, held both hope and savagery.
The ceremony took place at eleven-thirty. The setting, just as Bryce had promised was the office of a justice of the peace. The two witnesses were students at San Francisco State College, approached just as they stepped off a cable car. Other than the promised ten dollars apiece, their manner indicated they were bored with the entire affair.
But they were there, Bryce was there, Mary was there, and the justice of the peace was there. Gillian even produced, at the last possible moment, a marriage license, valid but procured in only heaven knew what fashion. The official examined it and declared it legitimate.
Mary wore a brown knit suit purchased just an hour before. She looked, she hoped, demure and bride-like. Bryce wore a traditional groom's outfit, and he looked uncomfortable. Reluctant, too, now that the time had come to go through with his threat. Even vengeance, she supposed, took a back seat to ingrained male fear of matrimony.
She said, "I do," with only the suggestion of a quaver to her voice. Bryce had to be prompted. The man pronounced them man and wife, the witnesses shook their hands, and like that they were married. Mary, who didn't feel any differently, hoped she hadn't destroyed some vital part of herself with this mercenary day's work.
After a quick lunch in Chinatown, they started south on Route One in the same rented car Bryce had picked up to pursue her. Motoring south to Los Angeles rather than flying was his idea. It would take them along the scenic Pacific for much of the way. Mary, who was satisfied to have a hold of sorts on the man who'd bullied her for the past three days, agreed.
An hour out of town, the car began to overheat. Bryce swore and pulled over. "Everything else has gone wrong lately. Why not this, too?"
Mary hid a smile.
"What's so goddamned funny?" he snarled, detecting the smile.
She shrugged. "If you want to take me back for a refund, go ahead."
Gillian grimaced. "Some refund. They call it alimony. No, you'll be staying awhile. Get used to it." He eyed the sedan's temperature gauge. "Speaking of staying, we may be here until dark. It'll have to cool before I can find out what's wrong in there. What do you say we leave it and hitchhike back for. a fresh one? We're paying for a decent set of wheels, you know. We may as well have one."
Mary demurred, not wishing to spend her honeymoon if that's what it was, hitchhiking like a college student. She shaded her eyes and gazed up at the rocks-hillside, really-which separated them from the beach somewhere on the other side. The surf's muffled roar reached them even up there. "Can't we climb up there to wait?" she said. "I bet the view's superb."
With less than enthusiasm, Bryce surveyed the craggy slope. "I suppose so," he said grudgingly. "I mean, it's your wedding trip, too. But did I ever tell you I have a thing about high places?"
She couldn't recall.
The view was superb. They could see the Pacific stretched out for miles to the horizon. Below them was a white sand beach and foamy breakers which crashed into one another in their haste to reach the shore. The beach was quite narrow, however, and a hundred foot drop lay between. The climb down would have been perilous to any but the sure-footed.
Behind them, the traffic streaked by at dizzying speeds. Mary turned her back on it. For an hour, she and Bryce laid their differences aside. Something of their old compatibility, forced though it was, came back to smooth-and in a sense, confuse-her feelings toward him. She'd been sure that she hated him. Now she wasn't so sure.
She didn't resist when he pulled her into the hollow of his shoulder. Nor did she mind when he dropped a familiar hand on her knee. At this point, he had a right to. But she happened to glance down on the highway, and stiffened at what she saw. Another car had pulled to the shoulder behind theirs. The car wasn't a police cruiser, because no markings were visible. A man had stepped from the car and was looking about as though in search of them. The man was tall and very dark. Somehow he looked familiar.
Mary almost nudged Bryce before she recognized him. Then she chilled inside, and stared harder. It was Rod Willoughby. Bryce could take his marriage license and be damned! She'd stay with Rod, even if it meant living in sin.
She rolled out of Bryce's arms and tried to stand up. They'd been sitting on the precipice's very edge. "Up here!" she screamed. "Rod, I'm up here!"
Gillian jumped up, red-faced. "Who in blazes are you screeching at?" he demanded, and then saw the big man racing from rock to rock up the slope.
By some mysterious mental process, Bryce divined instantly who he was. "Christ! If you think I'm going to let him-come back here!" He grabbed her arm while she was still struggling to stand up.
Blindly, Mary struck out at him. She recalled later that she struck out with all the strength she had. Bryce staggered and went down near the edge of the cliff. When he came up, a foot slipped out from under him. Uttering a strangled cry, he plunged over the edge.
In a kind of horrified joy, Mary watched as he fell, landing on the rocks on the beach. The body fell between boulders the size of large trucks. Then she began to cry. By the time Rod reached her, the tears dripped off her chin faster than she could wipe them away.
"What happened, for God's sake?" Willoughby panted.
Between sobs, she pointed below. "I've-I've murdered him! Oh, my God, what will they do to me? I've murdered him!"
He pulled her back from the edge, and slapped her. "Tell me what happened!" he ordered. "Or I'll smack you again!"
Mary tried to catch her breath, failed, tried again. She told Rod everything that had happened to her from the time he'd last seen her, omitting nothing. She was crimson with shame when she finished, and couldn't look him in the eye.
"So he was your husband for only three hours?" the young gynecologist pursued, sharp eyes raking her face.
Mary checked her watch. "Three hours and twenty-five minutes."
"Then you didn't even have time to-" Willoughby checked himself. Stepping close, he tipped her chin up. "Mary, tell me the truth. Did you push him?"
She shuddered. "I told you. He slipped when he tried to get up. I struck him only because he wouldn't let go of me. You have no idea how strong he was. And how ruthless." She caught him by the lapels. "Will they consider that? Or will they charge me with...."
Rod was momentarily silent. He appeared dazed himself. "The trouble I went to finding you, and now this happens. I don't know. I just don't know!"
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Hal Packard, who had trouble believing anything on Mondays, especially this, hitched his chair nearer the desk and stared into Mary's weary eyes. "Amazing! That's the most fantastic story I ever heard! If only we could-" He caught himself, grinning sheepishly.
Mary smiled, but the smile was full of sadness. "Serialize it? If you mean as fact, Hal, I'll have to check with my lawyer. If you mean as fiction, you and I both know the readers wouldn't buy."
Packard sighed. "You're probably right. It is the wildest thing since heavy water. So your friend called the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Department. Then what happened?"
Mary moistened her lips. "They sent a car out to see what was going on. I thought they'd never stop questioning us. First they were skeptical-the body wasn't visible, you see. But then Rod-Dr. Willoughby-told them he was a doctor, that he had once treated me, and that neither of us would make up something like this."
"And?"
"And they called for another car to bring climbing gear-boots, ropes, spikes and hammers. A motor launch came in from the sea, but couldn't get near enough. A helicopter, too, but there wasn't room to land. When there were four deputies with enough equipment, they set up a kind of command station at the top of the rocks and sent two of them down. Rod and I couldn't have left, even if they'd ordered us to."
Packard suspected, from Mary's repeated use of Willoughby's first name, that he was about to lose a first-rate writer. "They recovered Gillian's body?"
Mary nodded, gulping a little. "About four p.m. He was all battered and broken. I think they said his neck and every bone that could be fractured, was."
Packard winced. "Poor Bryce. He was a good man, after a fashion. When you left, something burst inside him. I thought he'd take it graciously, but I was wrong."
"They took him away to a funeral home and told us we had to accompany them to the sheriff's office. There they questioned us again, separately, and made us sign sworn statements."
"You asserted that Bryce's death was an unavoidable accident?"
Again Mary inclined her head, gloomy this morning but still beautiful. "Yes. I explained exactly how it happened and why. Of course I had to tell them everything-the way he practically kidnapped me and all the rest. It wasn't a very pretty story."
"And they believed you? No one warned you of possible prosecution? "
Mary glanced once over her shoulder, as though she still couldn't believe it herself. "No one. It was over by six p.m. They told me I could go, to just leave my address and instructions to the funeral home on final arrangements."
Packard whistled softly. "You were married how long? Less than four hours? I suppose if you hadn't told them the works, things might have gotten awkward. The size of the estate alone...."
Mary flushed. "I would be less than honest, Hal, if I told you the money didn't matter. It did. After-after he'd abused me so, I decided to roll with the punch. I think he realized it at the end. If I live to be a million, I'll never forget the expression on his face. He seemed to accuse me. But I never planned for things to end that way. I thought we'd struggle through a few years together, then he'd give me my freedom." She leaned forward to seize Packard's arm. "You do believe me, don't you, Hal?"
Hal smiled and patted her hand, making no effort to remove it. "I believe you. If you told me the world was square and peopled with saintly types, I'd believe you-even if one mugged me on my way home tonight. But where does that leave you? I mean, will you be leaving us, now that...."
Mary hesitated. "The truth is, I don't know. I'm still in shock." She gestured at her eyes. "I traveled most of the night, in case you can't tell. Rod wanted to come with me, but I insisted this was something I had to do alone. I think he understood."
Packard cleared his throat. "Have you been to see the executor? Or has one been appointed?"
She reproached him with a glance. "Please, Hal, I feel badly enough."
He hastily apologized. "Your friend Willoughby. He seems to be more than just a doctor to you. Care to tell me about him?"
Mary's cheeks dimpled in a radiant smile. "I'd Jove to. Rod's wonderful. I don't know what I would have done without him. He helped me know myself better than I ever thought I would. And he gave me the courage to break away from Bryce."
Packard let his brows raise. "That much? Don't I get any credit?"
"Of course," Mary laughed. "In a way, I owe it all to you. You sent me out there. I'll always love you for it, believe me."
Despite the accord with Joanna, Packard was pleased and a little excited. "How is your Dr. Willoughby personally? Is he tall or short? Rich or struggling? Details, child, details!"
Mary considered. "He's tall and, to my eyes anyway, very handsome. But he isn't rich. He has a wife who won't let go of him and more debts than a doctor should have. Thanks to me, he's probably so rattled today his patients won't come back."
"You two sound made for each other," he said drily, and couldn't keep the envy from his voice.
Mary chuckled. There was sympathy in her eyes. Something else, too, although she seemed unwilling to divulge it yet. "I'm sorry, Hal. But you were young once. Can't you understand?"
"All I can understand is that you might have made a good articles editor," he declared. "Since you prefer a wedding on the Coast to honest labor, the offer is hereby withdrawn."
Mary's face showed sorrow rather than chagrin. She shook her head. "I could never take Bryce's job, Hal. Never. I've taken too much of his already. I have to leave. Maybe I'll marry and maybe I won't. It's too soon to say. This much I can say: I've enjoyed beyond expression my two years with you and everyone else at Women Today. Especially you. You've helped me in a hundred ways, some of which I may never be aware of." Mary paused, her gaze straying to the empty office adjoining Packard's. "Did you say Vicki didn't come in today?"
"I didn't say," he returned. "Why?"
"Then where is she?"
Packard grinned wryly. "If you must know, Joanna made me send her back to the secretarial pool. Hurt us both like hell, but now it's done." He watched Mary's hands go to the buttons on the top of her tan traveling suit. For an instant, understanding evaded him. Then it came. "Jesus!" he breathed. "Me?"
Mary nodded. Her eyes were misty with feeling and her hands trembled. "I've always admired you, Hal. Loved you, really. But I didn't want to show it. You were married, and I knew I'd get hurt. I didn't want to be just another office conquest to you. Now...."
Packard felt himself go tight as a coiled spring. His prick, in the space of a second, went from flaccid to rock-hard. "Now?"
Her shoulders lifted, fell. "It's my way of saying thank you. But if you don't want me...."
"Hell, I didn't say that!" He pushed back his chair and sprang up. First he ran to lock the door. Then he checked the phone and the intercom. They were both off. When he looked back at Mary, she'd finished unbuttoning the suit top and was waiting for him to do the rest. He needed no encouragement. The snowy white bra peeking back at him was like a red flag to a bull.
He lifted the suit top off, then swiftly unhooked her bra. He wasn't afraid that she'd change her mind, only that she'd turn out to be a mirage. Succulent, milky-white breasts swelled out before his delighted gaze.
Mary noticed his reaction and smiled. "Do you think I'm beautiful, Hal?"
"You're the most beautiful woman to work at Women Today in any capacity," he replied instantly, covering the globes with his palms and tilting his mouth toward hers. The lips he encountered were velvety soft and honey sweet. Packard marveled. Even after a three thousand mile flight, she was fresher than most women would be following a night's rest.
They kissed with their mouths closed while he thumbed her nipples to distended, rubbery points. When he forced her teeth apart, she welcomed his tongue with a nip and reached between them to squeeze his prick to the most painful state of erection he'd ever experienced. Mary groaned low in her chest upon discovering how ready he was for her. She placed a knee to either side of his and applied subtle, tantalizing pressure.
The caress, coming from Joanna, would have barely excited him. Coming from Mary, whom he'd worshiped from afar and fantasized over for more than a year, it raised his lust to feverish heights. He intensified his manipulations of her breasts and the force with which he drove his tongue into her mouth.
When he raised her skirt to get at her cunt, he was delighted further. She wore no panties. This offering of herself had been no girlish, impulsive thing. She'd known she would do it and she'd been almost certain he'd accept. And now the thing had gone beyond stopping, for both of them.
He eased a finger between the lips of her cunt, and found them slippery wet. She was as ready for him as he was for her. Gasping with need, he drew back long enough to divest himself of shirt, tie, pants and shorts. "I love you," he mumbled as he hoisted her high enough on the desk edge to effect an entrance. She wanted to hear the endearment, even if he didn't mean it.
Mary slipped her arms around his neck and locked them. "I love you, too, Hal," she whispered. "It's a transient kind of love, but it's still yours. Yours for as long as I'm free. Then I want to be a good wife."
There was no time to object, so he didn't, merely let her smooth thighs settle about his hairy ones so they were joined. Packard wriggled to make the contact closer, his possession of her more scintillating for both of them. Mary sobbed and opened more fully for him.
By keeping his thrusts short and his mind on the correspondence he was getting behind on, he was able to prolong the fuck for a full ten minutes. She climaxed twice, almost tearing free from his embrace, and the second time, she took him with her. They panted out a finish that would have sent Joanna scurrying to a lawyer if she could have seen.
"I have to go, Hal," Mary murmured. "Really I do. I have a funeral to attend. I have to be there. How would it look if I'm late?"
Packard sighed and lifted her off his shrinking cock. He eyed the wrinkled tan suit she'd put back on. "And a widow's outfit to buy, I take it. You won't need anything to give you red, swollen eyes. You already have them."
She laughed and kissed him tenderly on the lips. "When next you see me...."
"You'll be wearing a three carat sparkler? Better wait a few months. While you're waiting, come back every other day or so for old times' sake. Joanna can only put so many dents in my poor old skull."
"Old?" Mary scoffed. "You'll live to break in a half-dozen more secretaries, Hal Packard, and don't deny it. Do you think I don't know what goes on around here?"
"No. You were always observant about such things. You knew when to look the other way, though." He dressed and then helped her repair the damage to her hair and make-up. Their parting was painful for both. He made it brief, shaking her hand at the door and remarking, for the benefit of Robert Midmark, who had chosen this moment to stride by in the hall, "I hope you like your new position, Miss Silverman. It's been a pleasure having you. Good-bye for all of us."
He and Midmark watched her vanish inside an elevator. The publisher pursed his lips and turned to Packard. "By the way, did she leave anything for the next few issues? That's what you sent her away for, isn't it?"
Packard, keeping his expression grave, nodded. "She left a set of essays which convey, more lucidly than anything else we've ever run, her impressions of the survival chances of women's liberation."
"Oh? They're good, I hope. The essays, I mean, not the survival chances."
Packard smiled. "Let's just say they're readable."
