In his book. Sex in Society, Alex Comfort writes: "It is unfortunate that so much which is written about early sex experience and teenage behavior is written by men and by unmarried women -- for perhaps the key problem of sex education, physical, social, and moral, is to give boys, who in our culture are the more sexually aggressive, some rudimentary insight into the way in which girls' responses differ from their own. For a man, defloration is an achievement but no more -- if anything, he is doing his partner a favor making a woman of her. For the girl, every act... is an invasion of her body by forces outside herself." And handsome Harry Pearce understood female psychology too well. His depraved mother existed in his early memory, and he swore vengeance on all women. They became his playthings, to conquer and cast away -- until he found one who was different.
CHAPTER ONE
Edwina Porter was the owner of the store. She was a thirty-eight year old divorcee, tall, large-boned lush. She had black hair which she piled on top of her head, and she wore two-piece dresses cut in a plain, almost severe style.
But no trick of tailoring could hide the thrusting glory of her large well-shaped breasts or the womanly beauty of her backside which was, if anything, a little too generous and round. Her waist was small enough and her legs, though sturdy, were pleasant to view.
When Harry Pearce, the stock boy, got word that she wanted to see him, a tingle of excitement touched his lower region. This was it, he thought. The day. The time. He had been working to get her ever since she had hired him three weeks ago, and now he was going to succeed. The look in her eyes that morning and the tone of voice she had used when she greeted him had furnished the tip-off.
She was ready to be had.
Harry put down the shoe box he was holding, cast a glance at the cute retreating rump of the clerk, Reba Williams, who had brought him the message, and followed her out of the stock room. As she moved on to the center of the shop, he turned and headed up the stairs to the offices on the mezzanine floor.
He bestowed a boyish grin on the short-haired blonde whose desk was just outside the owner-manager's door.
"Go on in," she told him and smiled back.
Everybody liked Harry because he smiled a lot and had an obvious zest for life. He was ruggedly handsome with black wavy hair. His dark eyes could be rakish at times, and this added to his appeal if the evaluator happened to be a woman.
He had a way of making the susceptible ones feel warm inside their panties when he looked at them.
Edwina was susceptible. Harry had been sure of that the first moment he saw her, he had been playing on her susceptibility with looks, smiles and remarks that could be taken more than one way. Though only twenty-one years old, he was well experienced with girls and women and he had a great amount of confidence where they were concerned. He knew he had exactly what most of them wanted, whether they would admit it or not, and he gloried in giving it to them. In his own special ways.
He opened the door and entered Edwina's office.
"Did you want to see me, Mrs. Porter?" he asked.
"Yes, Harry. Sit down, won't you?"
He shoved the door closed behind him, walked slowly over to her desk and remained standing, looking at her.
"Well?" she said. "Sit."
"I'd just as soon stand if you don't mind."
She took off the glasses she had been wearing and gazed at him in surprise. He had never spoken this way to her before.
"I called you up here to talk with you about the shipment we received yesterday from Mar-Bro Styles. Your inventory doesn't seem to check with... " Her voice ran out and a change occurred around her eyes as she watched him studying her.
"W-why are you looking at me like that?" she asked.
"Because I caught you in a lie, Mrs. Porter," he said gently. "The Mar-Bro shipment isn't the reason you sent for me."
"Harry... "
He looked at her soulfully and continued, "You sent for me because you feel about me the same way I feel about you."
"No," she said, but it seemed to be directed more toward herself than toward him.
"I'm in love with you, Edwina."
A rosy blush crept into her cheeks. Her red lips parted and trembled.
"I... I don't know what to say," she told him.
"You don't have to say anything, darling. I know how you feel. A man can sense that with a woman. I've been sensing it with you."
He turned and walked to the door.
In an anxious tone she demanded, "Where are you going?"
"No place. I'm just going to lock the office so we won't be disturbed."
"Oh, no!" she exclaimed.
Her pretense of shock annoyed him, especially since she was such an obvious hot pants. She was hurting. Though she had considerable physical appeal, her stand-offish nature probably had made it difficult for her to get close to men. Consequently she was missing severely what she used to get from her ex-husband.
The world was full of women like her who were missing it and didn't seem to know what to do about their trouble. They couldn't approach a man as a man would approach a woman, and something about their personalities held men off.
Harry enjoyed coming to their rescue.
He locked the door quietly, so that a click would not be heard by the secretary seated outside, and he returned to Edwina's desk. She was standing now, looking tense and somehow helpless. The look gave him a charge.
He walked around the desk, took hold of her arm and turned her gently to face him.
"Oh, Harry!" she cried and came into his savage embrace.
He clamped his seeking mouth over hers.
As he held her tightly, letting her artillery-shell breasts bore into him, he plunged his tongue at the warm sweetness of her mouth.
She moaned, clutched him hard at the back, and returned his kiss with suddenly released fervor.
Want it, did she?
Man, she was wild for it!
A surge of exultation rose within him. He would give her a good going over, just as rough as she wanted, and afterward he would have her really hooked.
He was going to enjoy this in more ways than one. Her breasts burrowed at him and her plump belly agitated against his lower middle. As he kept kissing her hungrily, he ran a hand down her back and onto her bottom.
She was girdled, of course. As an expert student of feminine rear ends, he had known from the first time he saw her that she clothed herself in armor. There was no evidence of division to her large backside, with the cheeks squeezed together and the spandex or whatever it was around them.
He would find the division, though.
He would find it and part it and use her the way she ought to be used.
Their kiss terminated and she leaned back, gasping. His hands went to the buttons on the front of her jacket.
"No!" she exclaimed. "Not here! My God!"
"I need you now, Edwina," he pleaded. "I can't wait."
He grasped her hand in his and carried it to him. His passion had risen partway during the kiss and now, with her hand there, the ascent quickly proceeded. She clutched and her eyes grew wilder yet.
"Here!" he said hoarsely. "On the couch."
"All right," she breathed in complete surrender.
He smiled, thinking how easy it had been, and went to work on her buttons as she continued to hold him. She was something like a dog that had gotten hold of a particularly appetizing bone and wouldn't let go.
A bitch with a bone, he mentally amended.
She wore a white brassiere in which her oversize breasts were squeezed tightly together. He wondered how much they would fall when he popped the hooks.
No time to find out like the present, he decided, and put his hands there.
She was flushed. She had lost all her poise. She was no longer the woman he had known before or that her other employees knew. Now she was a female in heat, anxious to have him.
Her bra was a three-hooker and he opened it deftly, without looking. He pulled the cups forward and up, and its big fleshy burdens fell out with a bounce. They had ruddy tips with good-sized circles around them. The nipples already were half up.
He palmed both beauties, squeezed them, and wiggled them around, enjoying the spongy feel and the way her warm soft skin wanted to cling to his hands. She had her head tilted back and was breathing hard. She was really worked up. The cool exterior which she usually maintained was shot to hell.
Her nipples were full to bursting with excitement now. They poked into his palms. He let her breasts go and put a pincers hold on each tip with a thumb and forefinger. He pulled and rolled.
"Oh, God!" she moaned. "I'm going out of my mind."
"Come here."
He led her over beside the couch which stood against the wall. He gripped her skirt and slip at the top and stripped them down, kneeling to remove them from one leg then the other.
She was down to stockings and panty girdle now, and the white foundation garment was the long-leg style that came over the tops of her hose. It didn't have a zipper. Remaining on his haunches in front of her, he gripped it at the top and pulled it down, baring her belly and her loins and stripping it along her thighs, her stockings peeling with it.
He removed shoes, stockings and girdle at the same time, stood up, and tipped her onto the couch on her back.
"Ooo... cold!" she cried as her buttocks hit the smooth plastic.
He knelt beside the couch, took her in his arms, and kissed her passionately all about the face and neck and bosom. He drew her big nipples into his mouth, in turn, and loved them hungrily. She squirmed, her soft flesh rolling against him.
As he continued to kiss, his hand found the hot center of her body and her legs came apart as if they were being pulled from either side. His fingertips invaded the wealth of softness.
She moaned and whimpered and said, "Oh, that's wonderful! Keep doing it! Oh, Harry... darling... lover!"
He continued to caress her there, expertly, as his lips squeezed and rolled first one nipple, then the other. She became very ready to receive him and he was ready to take the plunge, except that he still had his clothes on.
Well... small problem.
He stood up, stripped off his jacket and tie, opened the top of his trousers, and let them down. He freed himself from his jockey briefs and clambered between her thighs.
She was rolling and tossing beneath him even before he made contact, her head turning from side to side. He could tell that she was just about there and he hadn't even taken possession.
He guided himself by hand, found the way, and pressed. The sensation, as he first claimed her, was marvelously good.
"Oh, Harry!" she cried. "I'm going. I'm... " And she went. Tumultuously. Noisily. Her buttocks slapped against the plastic. With all that racket, he hoped her office was soundproofed. For her sake. But he smiled at the thought that it was not and that perhaps her secretary had an ear cocked close to the panel.
He held himself still and let her spend her passion.
She lapsed back, blissfully bushed before he even had started.
"Was that good, sweetheart?" he murmured solicitously.
"Oh, yes," she breathed almost inaudibly. "It was heaven."
"You're going to have a lot more. We're going to have a lot more. We're going to ball it up good."
"I couldn't. I couldn't move a muscle."
"Then I'll move enough muscle for both of us," he growled.
And he began.
His motions were long and sure and steady, rocking her and making the couch creak beneath them. She didn't move at all for awhile. She had her head turned to the side, her eyes closed. Her black high hairdo already had come apart.
His firm middle slammed against the softness of her belly. His lunges came with the regularity of a piston stroke, but slowly. He was propped on his arms watching Edwina's face for evidence of renewed excitement.
He could go as long as he wanted. Harry was never victimized by his own passion. Pleasure, for him, demanded that he put the female securely under his power, and to do that he had to give her a great deal of satisfaction. Once he had her hooked, it became a different ball game.
He was in the process of hooking Edwina now. He was gaffing her, harpooning her.
The soft domes of her breasts vibrated like dishes of pudding with maraschino cherries on top. He swiped a hand across them, felt the drag of her hard nipples, and enjoyed the loose shaking of the white mounds beneath.
She moaned a little and turned her head to look up at him.
"Come on, baby," he coaxed. "Move with me, huh? Shake it up a little."
"Nnn... Harry. I've never been loved so much."
"Move, move," he chanted in time with his steady thrusting. "Show me... you like it."
She began moving tentatively. Her hair was falling around her forehead, her eyes were narrow and becoming intense, her lips were parted.
"That's it, baby... come on," he encouraged. "Give a... lotta hip... to Papa."
Calling himself her papa was a laugh because she literally was old enough to be his mother. He liked that. He always enjoyed balling the older ones.
He leaned fully against her and dug his hands underneath to grasp her by the bottom. Those buttocks were big doughy loaves, softer than he liked them because she had worn a girdle all her life. But there was plenty for a man to get hold of.
He squeezed, letting his fingers sink deeply into the softness. He wiggled the buttocks, spread them apart and pushed them together. He forced them as high as he could.
Now he went at her with a vengeance.
He would have bet she had never been balled like that in her life. She tilted and pressed at him, worked with him, rotated around his plunging strength. She moved faster. He let her set the pace. When the moment was exactly right, he shifted into overdrive and sped up the straightaway toward the finish line which beckoned on the shimmering horizon.
Again she climaxed before him. She let out a series of garbled cries and twisted her buttocks upward in his hands. Her breasts rolled against his shirt front. He plunged once, twice, three times more... jerked deeply... and exploded.
He growled as his shudders mingled with hers.
He got up from her slowly.
She was sweat-filmed and motionless except for the rapid rise and fall of her breasts. Her eyes were closed. Her hair was really a mess now.
His lips twisted a little as he looked at her.
By the time she had roused herself, he was fully dressed and was attending to his hair in front of the small mirror on her wall.
"That was so wonderful," she murmured. "Darling... I had no idea."
He went to her, knelt beside the couch, and kissed her long and deeply. Then he helped her sit up.
"Come on, sweetie," he said. "You've got to get dressed now."
"Yes. I know."
But she didn't move to do so immediately. She was looking at him as if she had never really seen him before.
"You were right," she said. "I did want you from the first time I saw you, but I had no reason to hope you would feel the same way. You're so young."
"Youth or age has nothing to do with love, precious. I see in you something rare and very beautiful. Do you understand what I mean?"
"I believe I do, Harry."
They kissed again.
* * *
She invited him to have dinner with her at home the following evening. He accepted. He knew she was looking forward to a feast of erotic sensation which was more important than food... unless, of course, a person was starving, and she certainly was not.
In a sense she had been starving for love.
It amused Harry to think that she could really entertain serious notions about a man seventeen years younger than she. That showed how silly she was underneath, in spite of the fact that she could run a business successfully. It showed that she was cheap, too. It showed that most of all.
She was no different from the rest of the females of the world. They all pretended to be decent and fine, but underneath they were hot animals, just waiting for a male to come along and ram them. It was the hypocrisy of the whole thing that he hated. He enjoyed exposing that hypocrisy for what it was.
Edwina lived in a large house in one of the best parts of town. A uniformed housekeeper admitted Harry when he called and showed him into the living room. Edwina appeared almost immediately.
She wore a pink satin dress that came down to her ankles, but it was a two-piece job like all her other outfits. He could tell, as she preceded him into the dining room, that she had left off her girdle. The dress moved with her liberated buttocks, and the sight was stirring. He had an urge to grab a big double handful then and there.
But he resisted, because dinner would be nice first.
They had stroganoff and good wine. The table was set with candles and the other lights in the room were extinguished. Edwina smiled lovingly at him. He had the impression that if he were to pop the question that evening, she would accept.
Some chance.
What the hell would he want to marry her for?
In the living room afterward, they had a bitter-sweet liqueur with coffee. Edwina slipped her hand in his.
All through the evening, he had made lavish use of love words and he had let his eyes say things that were even more romantic. His gaze spoke of lifelong happiness.
This was a matter of compulsion with him. His conscious attitude was that he was doing what he wanted to do, treating women as they deserved to be treated, serving justice as justice was served by the punishing of other kinds of wrongdoers in other ways. But the fact was that he could not have avoided this peculiar course of conduct if he had wanted to. He was not acting out a rational choice, but a deep-seated compulsive need.
If his conduct were not compulsive, he could not have convinced Edwina so readily that he really loved her and that he was worthy of her love in return.
When the hour grew late and the housekeeper had retired to her own quarters at the back of the house, Harry circled the large living room, turning off all lamps except the small one at the end of the sofa. He sat down beside Edwina and took her in his arms.
A sense of sweet anticipation rose within him and touched his brain with giddiness.
He was approaching the supreme thrill.
He had already decided how he was going to polish Edwina off. It was a way appropriate to her type, both mental and physical.
He began kissing her and caressing lightly on top of her clothes. His hand moved around and over both massive chest protrusions, stole down her side and petted her round warm hip. She felt better without that girdle. He twisted her more toward him as they continued to kiss, and he patted the buttock that was elevated off the sofa seat. He enjoyed the way it jiggled.
He caressed her along the thigh.
He could do anything he wanted with her now. She was his.
Of course, she thought of things the other way around. To her, she was the huntress and he the prey. Or so Harry believed. Women were constantly looking to trap a man. That was the reason for all the deception they practiced. They pretended not to need sex and to be above it, so that a poor sap would feel obligated to them once they had surrendered, but all the time they were burning for it as much, if not more, than he was. And once they had a man trapped, they couldn't be trusted not to play around with others.
Well, none of them would ever trap him.
He would always be the quick mouse who stole the cheese and snapped the trap on the pussycat's tail.
He pressed Edwina to a reclining position on the sofa and turned her on her side so that he could unfasten the buttons on the back of her pink satin dress-top.
"Darling," she protested when she could find her voice, "I'll get all rumpled this way. Come up to the bedroom with me and we'll each undress."
"No," he said firmly. "I can't wait. But I'll let you take off your dress if you want to."
"Harry... we can't do it here!"
"Why not? Your housekeeper won't disturb us. She'll never know."
Edwina's eyes were saying she was as anxious as he was to consummate their love for a second time. She looked around, then whispered, "All right, if you'll close the door."
As he crossed the room to do as she asked, she began to open the back of her dress. She was turned away from him and, while he watched her, he removed his tie, then his jacket, then his shirt.
The removal of her long skirt left her in a short lacy half-slip and bra, both pink.
She turned to look at him, blushing. "I'm embarrassed to have you watch me like this. Shouldn't we turn out the lamp?"
"Darling, you're so lovely. You have nothing in the world to be embarrassed about. But you can face the other way if you like."
"Yes. I think that would be better."
Nervous as a bride, she let her eyes take in his hairy-chested masculinity before she turned away. He smiled to himself.
Things were working out perfectly. The signal cord which rang a bell in the housekeeper's apartment was located next to the drapes, a short distance in front of Edwina, and there was a large overstuffed armchair beneath it. Yes, perfect.
Excitement thrummed in him.
This was going to be choice.
Edwina worked her slip down, exposing a bottom spanned by shining pink silk pants. Garters traveled from beneath them to grip the tops of her hose.
What big thighs she had -- big and white and soft.
And her bottom was a formidable target.
She straightened up and released her bra, drawing the shoulder ribbons down her arms and taking the cups away. She let it flutter from her fingers onto the ottoman at her side.
Harry's shoes and pants were off by this time.
"Darling, do me a favor, hm?" he said.
"Of course," she replied without turning around. She hesitated, awaiting his request.
"Leave your stockings and garter belt on."
"If you like." She gave a little nervous laugh.
He skinned out of his briefs and watched as she gathered her panties at each hip and slipped them down from her buttocks, along her thighs and past her knees. Aiming her large rump slightly away from him, she drew the panties the rest of the way and stepped free.
He let her straighten up, and then...
He charged like a football lineman going for the opposition quarterback, only he had the advantage of approaching from the rear. And the thick carpet muffled the sound of his bare feet.
He reached Edwina before she knew he was coming at her. She gasped as he straight-armed her between the shoulder blades. She could not keep from being pushed the several steps to the large overstuffed chair and down over the arm of it.
She screamed and tried frantically to resist him as he leaped onto the chair-seat between her twisting legs. It was no use. Positioned as she was, she couldn't get at him with her hands and she couldn't gain the necessary leverage to straighten up. She couldn't even kick effectively.
He moved at her big upthrust buttocks and, as he did so, reached for the servant's signal rope which was hanging next to the draperies.
When the housekeeper opened the door and entered the room a minute later, she stared in astonishment at the sight of her sedate mistress tipped over a chair arm, black hair loose and whipping against the rug and legs churning wildly, as the young man who had come that night to dinner stabbed viciously at her bottom, his nude buttocks clenching and unclenching. Mrs. Porter wailed. The young man grunted.
The housekeeper gasped and fell in a faint.
CHAPTER TWO
"Harry! Where are you? Things are in a terrible state with you not here. To make matters worse, Mrs. Porter didn't come in today, either."
"She probably won't show up for several days, Reba. She isn't feeling well. Say, honey... do me a favor, hm? There are some things there in my locker. Throw them into a paper sack and bring them over to Arturo's. You know, the restaurant on Eighth Street? I'll be there at quarter of twelve. Meet me in the lobby and we'll have lunch together."
"Arturo's? Gee, I've never had lunch at such an expensive place."
"Well, you won't have to worry about the cost today," he said with a chuckle. "It's on me."
"Gosh, Harry, I don't know if I can get away. Some shipments came in, and we girls have been taking turns between customers inventorying the stuff and putting it in stock."
"You can get away, honey. That is, if you want to. You would like to see me one last time before I leave town, wouldn't you?"
"Well, sure, but... why are you quitting?"
"We'll talk about it when we get together. And don't tell anyone, okay?"
"Okay, Harry, I'll do my best to be there."
Harry hung up the telephone with a smile.
He had packed his things and moved out of his downtown room. His luggage was checked at the bus station and he had a ticket in his pocket. The few odds and ends he had left at the store were not important, but Reba was. He didn't want to leave town without making her.
They had dated a couple of times and she had rejected his advances. He hadn't pressed too hard because Edwina was his main interest and he knew Reba would be handy as long as he remained at the store. Now the matter was urgent, unless he was willing to forget Reba altogether, and Harry never did that unless he had to. He had spent time on a few girls he couldn't make, but wry few. He wanted to keep the number to an absolute minimum. His ego required this, as did his rationalization for the kind of life he led. If a substantial number of females were to reject him and get away with it, he could hardly go on thinking of the entire sex as tramps.
But they were tramps. He knew it. And he was going to prove it again with Reba.
She was young, cute (but not beautiful) and a good mixer. In addition to dating him, she had at least two other men on the string. He had seen them pick her up at quitting time at the store.
If she wasn't getting any sex action, it was no through lack of opportunity. And Harry's youth did not impress her. So what was his pry?
On their last date, she had furnished him a clue: She was tired of the city. She didn't like the congestion and the noise and the scramble to and from work every day. Like every girl her age, she had marriage very much in mind.
Harry had told her he was leaving town. But he didn't have to leave alone. And he didn't have to leave single.
He knew Reba liked him pretty well. "How could she help it? He was likable." She hadn't given any evidence of being in love with him, but love was a funny thing, as a great many wise men had observed in one way or another down through the ages. Sometimes it occurred spontaneously, sometimes it could be coaxed into being over a period of time, and sometimes it could even be wished into existence.
Example: A girl meets a man who is pretty much like a number of other young men she has known, but this particular man has a great deal of money. He is no more handsome than the others, no more charming, and no more like the ideal she has locked away in her heart of hearts... but he is rich and all the other young men she ever met were relatively poor. If this man lets her know she has a chance to marry him, is it not likely that she might convince herself she is in love with him?
Harry thought so, and he laid his plans along this line.
His plans for laying Reba.
When they met at the restaurant, he was smiling more broadly than usual and his manner was very brisk.
What had happened to him, she wanted to know. Why hadn't he shown up for work that day? Why was he quitting so abruptly? Where was he off to?
Over the most expensive luncheon on Arturo's moderately expensive menu (which Harry had ordered for them both with hardly more than a glance at the card) he explained: Last night he had received a special delivery letter from a law firm in Los Angeles. It contained the startling information that an uncle, whom he had all but forgotten, had died, leaving him something like half a million dollars. (The lawyers had given him only an approximate round figure because there were expenses to be deducted, etc.) He had to fly to Los Angeles immediately to claim the estate.
He had called Mrs. Porter at home to inform her that he was quitting his job and that was when he had learned she was not feeling well.
He couldn't stand to leave town without seeing Reba and telling her how he felt about her. He had been hesitant about opening his heart to her before because... well, what did he have to offer a girl? But now things were different. He was going to be rich and he could support a wife. They could live in one of Southern California's most exclusive beach resorts, spend their days basking in the sun and their nights doing 'the town, with frequent weekends in Las Vegas, Mexico, and who knew where else. He wanted Reba to be his wife. Would she marry him?
She nearly choked on the crab salad.
"Well, darling?" he said and took her little hand in his.
"My goodness, Harry!" she stammered. "This happened so -- so suddenly. I -- I can't think."
He squeezed her hand more tightly. "You could learn to love me, couldn't you?"
"Well, gee, I... gosh!"
Her brown eyes were very wide and her chestnut-colored bangs quivered against her forehead.
He smiled. "I know it seems sudden to you, darling, but I've been thinking about it ever since our first date. I just didn't have the nerve to ask you."
"But, Harry... we don't know one another very well."
"I know you, sweetheart. That is... " He looked down. "I know you in all respects but one."
"What's that?"
(The girl wasn't very bright.) He said, "We've never been to bed together."
"Well, of course not. I don't just hop into bed, willy-nilly, with boys."
"It isn't willy-nilly if you and the boy are engaged."
"No, I suppose not, but... " He clutched her hand very tightly now. "I want you to go to bed with me before I leave. Give me that to remember and to keep me warm while we're apart. As soon as I get settled in California, I'll send you an airline ticket. What do you say?"
"But, Harry, can't we wait?"
He looked at her soulfully. "Do you want to wait? Don't I attract you at all?"
"Sure you do, darling."
Darling, he thought. Ah!
She went on: "It's just that this has all been so sudden."
He sighed and looked down. "I guess you don't care for me. I suppose you never could." He took his hands away.
Her hand came quickly across the table to grasp one of his. "That isn't it, Harry. But, golly... a girl has to have time to think."
He looked her in the eyes and asked, "Are you a virgin, Reba?"
Her lips moved, but no sound came out. He read the answer in her eyes.
"I hope you're not," he went on. "I'm a strong believer in premarital experience, because it seems to me that if a person has no experience with others before marriage, he or she will have a strong desire after marriage to play around."
"Oh, I wouldn't play around, Harry."
"Then you're not a virgin," he concluded.
She looked down and said softly, "No."
"Wonderful!" he whispered and held her hand tightly. "Let's go to a hotel as soon as we leave here. So what if you're a little late getting back to the store? You could even quit your job now. It will be less than a week until I send for you."
"But, Harry... "
"Please, Reba," he said with all the emotion he could pack into the words. "I need this to sustain me. Don't turn me down now. If you do, I'll know there's no hope for us."
The waiter came with their entree.
As soon as he had left, Reba said, "But I haven't accepted your proposal yet."
"That's right. You haven't." He looked very sad.
She fidgeted.
"Oh, golly!" she said so loudly that the people in the next booth heard her and glanced her way. "Why do things have to happen like this?"
"It's life, honey. You take it as it comes."
Now she looked intently at him. "You really love me, Harry? You really, really do?"
"Yes, angel. I love you with all my heart."
Slowly a warm smile came over her face. He watched her melt.
He took her hand again. "What's your answer, precious?"
"Yes," she murmured. "To the marriage?" She nodded. "And to the hotel?"
She nodded again, quickly, with a beautiful rosy blush lighting her face.
Geronimo! he thought. He was in like... what was the name of that old guy again?
* * *
The hotel where he took her was a cheap joint on skid row. He apologized for it as they entered, but he said they might have trouble registering at a better place.
As it was, the desk clerk gave him a fishy eye. And why not? He had no luggage and there was Reba, hovering guiltily in the background with an about-to-be-made look on her face.
Harry slipped a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet, placed it on the counter and said softly, "Just an hour, hm?"
The clerk slipped him a key.
Once Harry had Reba in the room, he went after her like a hound going for raw meat. There was no reason to hold back. She had committed herself. In fact, if he were to hesitate she might have second thoughts. As it was, she was looking around the shabby room uncertainly.
He pulled her into his arms and gave her a bruising kiss. Her young breasts dug at him. They were hard little apples, as different from Edwina's big soft ones as two sets of knockers possibly could be.
His mouth forced hers all the way open and his tongue took total possession of the warm sweet cave.
She said, "Nnn," then "Nnn?" and twisted against him. He held her all the tighter, letting the agitation of her breasts and belly arouse his lust, which had been about ready to rise out of dormancy the moment they had entered the room.
His hands found her tight squirming buttocks, clutched them, and pulled them toward him so she could feel the fullness of his manly vigor. Her hip action changed from a mindless squirming to a slow forward-and back motion, which showed that she knew what she wanted and how she wanted it.
Harry elected to give it to her without further delay. Anyway, he was in a hurry. He had a bus to catch.
He broke the kiss and turned her in his embrace. She was so star-struck by what he had told her during the last hour and so physically stimulated by being hurried to the hotel room, that she couldn't organize her thoughts or actions. She moaned as he kissed her around the neck and cupped her breasts from behind, squeezing them and rotating them on her chest as much as tight breasts in a tight brassiere could be rotated. His lower body swayed forward and back to transmit teasing touches of his readiness through their clothes.
He began to pull her white blouse up and out from under the waistband of her skirt.
She moaned and wiggled like a harem dancer as he got under it and palmed her smooth slender waist.
The blouse buttoned up the back, and he went to work on the row of little fasteners. When he had the garment split to the top, he pushed it forward and down her arms to flutter away.
"Oh, Harry," she murmured as he cupped the cups of her white brassiere. He didn't feel any nipples through the coarse fabric of the bra.
He opened the harness quickly and whipped it off, then turned her to face him.
She had nipples, all right. Cute little berries, they were. Brown tinged with pink. The white mounds that backed them up were perfectly erect, and they didn't yield much when he put his hands on them.
They were real tight little jobs. He liked to get hold of a pair like that every once in awhile.
Reba ground them against his grasp as he played.
"It makes me crazy when you twiddle them," she said.
He twiddled. He plucked. He let them drag against his brushing and rotating palms. Then he dropped his hands quickly to her waist, opened the fasteners at the side of her skirt, and tugged her skirt and half-slip down.
She wore white briefs which were opaque and fit her snugly. Garters traveled from beneath them. As soon as he had rid her of skirt and slip, he opened the garter clips quickly and shoved her stockings down. She raised her legs in turn to let him remove her shoes and nylons.
"This is wild, being undressed like this," she said, and her tone made clear that she meant it.
"Lie on the bed," he directed when he had her down to the two final articles.
She obeyed. He stood beside the bed and let her watch him take off his clothes.
"Gee, is this what it's like to be married?" she asked nervously as he was about to pull off his shorts. "I've never gone through it this way before. It's always been sort of grab in the dark. You know."
"Yeah. I know, baby."
He took his cotton briefs away, hopping as he pulled them off his feet. His manhood swayed back and forth.
"Harry!" she said. "Oh, Lord!"
"What's the matter?" he grinned as he went to her.
"You're so... "
"The better to love you, sweetie," he said and immediately gripped her panties at the top. He pulled them all the way down and off.
Her body was girlish in its slimness, but the portion which he had just unveiled proved the fact of her womanhood. As he opened her legs and approached her, he felt a little like a native with a machete, about to hack his way through some tropical growth. Only Harry didn't hack. He plunged.
Quickly.
There was no point in giving this one a lot of pleasure because it was a one-shot deal.
"Unh!" she cried and bicycled her legs at either side of him.
He had hurt her, but that was all right. He reared back and took another lunge.
"Baby!" she said. "Take it easy!"
"Your body will get used to it," he growled and, even though she was pressing her buttocks deeply into the mattress, he caught her three-fourths of the way on his third move.
He could tell that she hadn't been possessed many times, and probably not at all in several weeks. Or months.
He withdrew almost completely and slammed his hips brutally forward, causing her to cry again as he sank deeper. Each succeeding thrust carried him farther to her, and gradually she did accommodate herself to him.
She began to enjoy, circling her hips and reaching for the thrilling gift of his sex.
As he worked with passionate concentration, and as she lifted to bear against him, the garters which still hung at her sides whipped and clicked together. Her breasts trembled, but they didn't shake. He twisted his head to the side and did not interrupt the rhythm of his steady thrusting as he grabbed a small-nippled crest, shook it, and let it pop free. He twisted the other way and did the same with the other tip.
Now she was huffing and crying and bounding up at him with a vengeance. He stayed on straight arms, looked her in the eyes, and began to mouth vulgarities. Her eyes widened and her body moved even more fervently as the words had their effect upon her. He wanted to think she hadn't heard some of the words before, though he knew she probably had.
Her hips moved very fast and it became apparent that she was going to reach her destination even though he hadn't taken extra pains to insure her doing so. He speeded up, giving his lust its head.
He made the old bed creak and clatter. She gasped and cried. Her contractions, which occurred suddenly at the moment of climax, nearly strangled him. Her body whipped and thrashed. She squealed. He exploded in ecstatic spasms.
He fell fully against her.
"Oh... oh... oh... " she said, and he could feel her heart pumping madly. Her slim legs still clutched him.
"It was never like that before," she breathed a few moments later.
"Now we've both got something to remember," he said and got up.
She stared at him in warm fascination, then giggled. "You changed so fast."
"You liked me better the other way, hunh?"
"Oh, yes!"
Pig, he thought. Like all the rest of them.
As he was getting dressed he said, "Well, baby, I've got that plane to catch."
"Gee, I'd just like to lie here. I don't feel like moving a hair."
"You can stay as long as you want," he said, buttoning his shirt.
"No, I want to leave with you."
She made the supreme effort and sat up. "Oh, gosh," she said with a little laugh and touched her forehead. "I'm dizzy."
He paid no attention as he pulled on his pants.
"Harry...?"
"Yeah?"
"We didn't take any precautions."
He glanced at her. "Didn't you?"
"Of course not. I'm not in the habit of going to bed with boys. I told you."
"Well, you'd better get in the habit of protecting yourself."
She blinked. "Wh-what do you mean? Don't you want a family?"
"A family!" He laughed. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"But, Harry, that's why people get married, to have children and a home."
"Who's getting married?"
Her mouth fell open and she stared.
"All I wanted was a piece," he went on, "and I got that. If you find yourself with a problem at the end of the month, you'd better look up a good doctor."
"Harry!"
"Cut out the crap. You wanted a thrill, I wanted a thrill, we had it together. Now it's everyone for himself, dig?"
She started to cry, and he left the sleazy room a few moments later with the sound of her anguished bawling still in his ears.
He had played it wrong, he decided, as he strode up the linoleum-carpeted hallway. He should have kept her thinking he was in love with her. That way she might even have quit her job and she would have waited from day to day to hear from him, eating her silly heart out by degrees. That would have been good.
Well, the devil with her.
What difference did it make?
A pig was a pig, and all they were good for was sticking.
He gave a jaunty wave to the guy behind the desk as he passed through the hotel lobby and out to the street. He glanced at his watch as he turned toward the bus station. He still had forty-five minutes. It had been a fast, smooth make and it had given him a great deal of satisfaction.
Poor little Reba, he thought sarcastically. She had thought she had her hooks in something good and that she would be set for life. He sure as hell had fooled her.
There wasn't a woman born who could make a sucker out of Harry Pearce as his father had been suckered and as a lot of other guys were suckered who didn't know the score. He knew, and he made sure the score was in his favor all the time.
Find 'em, fool 'em and... yeah.
A wry smile twisted his lips as he strode through the early afternoon crowd.
CHAPTER THREE
Harry's father was a traveling salesman. His mother was an exceptionally beautiful woman. Among Harry's earliest recollections were the smiling faces and the patting hands of the men who came to the house to visit when his father was away.
Their home was located in a suburb that was not well built up, So there was no fear of spying neighbors. The men came, they patted Harry on the head, then later he heard them with his mother in her bedroom and there were funny noises -- the same kinds of noises he heard when his father was at home: rattlings, bumpings, creakings, and the whole range of sounds that a passionate woman made when she was in the throes of sexual pleasure.
When Harry was very young, he did not understand. But this much was clear to him from the first: He must not say anything to Daddy about the men who came to call.
As he grew older, he understood everything.
He would listen to the adoring words his father lavished upon his mother when the old man was at home, and he would feel sick.
His father loved his mother. His mother pretended to love his father and to be a virtuous wife, while actually she was practicing treachery and deceit. She had involved Harry in her deceit and he felt, for this reason, that he bore some of the guilt.
He was not strong enough to tell his father the truth when he became old enough to do so. Instead, he left home as soon as he could. He never returned.
He still carried the guilt, and the only way he had of trying to work it out was to pay back all womankind for what his mother had done. In so doing, he was allied in his mind with his father. At the same time he reaped the pleasure, without strings attached, which his mother's boy friends had reaped. He was all men, paying back all women for their treachery.
Harry hardly ever thought of either his mother or his father on the conscious plane. Their relationship, and his part of it, was so ugly that he had pushed it into the back of his mind. But he dreamed of them every once in awhile. Sometimes he dreamed only of his mother. On several occasions he had seen himself killing her.
* * *
The Greyhound streaked through the Kansas night and most of the passengers were sleeping. Not Harry. He was very much awake. Every part of him was awake, including the portion which usually roused itself only when he was about to make love to a girl.
The reason was the young blonde who was seated beside him, next to the window.
She had gotten on at the last stop, he had given her the preferred seat, and they had become acquainted. Her name was Sally Weston, and she was on her way to visit her grandparents in Colorado Springs.
Now she was asleep and, as she dreamed to the accompaniment of the bus's gentle joggling, her skirt had slipped a little way up her legs, exposing the frilly edges of the pink pettipants that came down over the tops of her stockings.
The moonlight through the bus window spotlighted the erotic view, and Harry had become aroused from holding his gaze there and visually caressing. He wanted to caress her with his fingertips. He wanted to make her.
On the bus.
There was much about Sally to arouse a male. In the first place, her hair was very light gold and silken. It was held by a ribbon over the crown of her head, but it spilled over the ribbon at the sides and in back to drop to her shoulders where there was a saucy upcurl.
At her forehead she had cute little bangs.
Her ripe breasts thrust roundly inside the top of her gray-blue denim dress and, though her skirt was wide and loose-fitting, there was evidence of a complimentary roundness to her hips.
She was a sweet little package all the way around, and desire for her roiled Harry's body, keeping him on edge. She was particularly appealing now that she was asleep and so vulnerable.
But what could he do about it on the crowded bus?
Tentatively he extended a hand in the moonlight, approaching her pretty knees. His hand hovered for a moment, then slowly settled on the knee nearest him. She was warm through her stocking, and the nylon was sleek. She didn't move.
Harry kept his hand there for a moment and the contact made him throb. He was almost as excited as he would have been if she were spread out nude on a bed in front of him.
After a little while, he slowly began to slide his hand upward toward the lacy cuff of her pink nylon pantyleg. Slowly. Carefully so as not to rouse her.
Oh!
She moved, pressing her legs tightly together and swinging them a little bit the other way. She turned to press her far cheek against the tilted back of the seat.
Harry's hand remained on her, unmoving, his fingers now trapped between her stockinged lower thighs.
Come on, baby, he coaxed mentally. Open 'em for Papa.
But baby didn't obey the unspoken directive. After a few moments, Harry exerted a little pressure on the leg he held. Very slowly the leg swung toward him.
More.
Yes.
Now the girl's legs were just about as far apart as they could get within the flaring denim skirt. The way was open for him.
His tingling fingertips moved along, lightly over the nylon, over the lacy pettipant cuff... up, up on the soft nylon tricot. He felt her warmth through the panty leg, and he was aware of her silken smoothness.
Young girls had very smooth inner thighs. Not too soft, just smooth and warm. Like living silk.
He caressed in little circles as his throbbing made his pants very tight and uncomfortable. Her pants were not tight, and they were soft and thin.
He moved farther.
Farther yet, and... Zap I He was touching her through her nylon pettipants. Touching the place where she was very soft and as warm as a little oven. He began to caress vertically.
"What are you doing?" she whispered with a huskiness in her throat.
Shocked, Harry pulled his hand away.
She turned her face toward him, pressing the near cheek against the seat's headrest, and said just as softly as before, "Well? What were you trying to do to me?"
"I was... " Harry cleared his throat. "... just touching."
"What made you think I could sleep through that?"
"I... I didn't know." Harry felt like a fool, but his passion was still up.
"Also, you ought to realize that you can't get anywhere with a girl when she has these long handles on."
"Yeah," he growled softly. "I suppose I should."
He was angry with her for waking up and angry with himself for being caught like a kid.
"You want me to slip them off?" she murmured.
He sat up suddenly. "Your pants?"
"Shh. Yes."
"God, and how!"
"Okay. Just a minute."
She gave him a quick look around to make sure no one was watching. They weren't. The only persons who could possibly have seen were the ones seated directly across the aisle. They were an elderly couple, and they had their heads back, mouths open, dead to the world.
Sally unfastened the red belt at her waist and wriggled as she hiked her dress and slip up around it. Harry stared. In the moonlight she was a delectable sight in those pink silken trousers.
But the sight got even better.
Sally ran her thumbs around her pettipants waistband, hooked it firmly, and bobbed her hips as she skinned the pettipants down. It happened so fast, Harry couldn't see anything but a glimpse of soft white belly before she bent forward with her legs close together and worked the pink long panties over her feet and off. She stuffed them onto the seat between her far hip and the wall of the bus.
When she sat up straight, he saw a golden fringe.
Harry extended his hand slowly, and her legs moved apart to reveal the entire triangle. Beauty of beauties, he thought.
Then his hand was there. Seeking. Finding. Caressing. Ruffling. Sally widened her legs even more, lay fully back against the headrest with a sigh, and placed her hand on his lap.
It was wild.
For once in his life, Harry was not concerned with getting the better of a girl and humiliating her. This was purely and simply a matter of sensual enjoyment, and it was heightened by the fact that Sally was at once so young and so wise. She had given no hint of this worldly wisdom when he had talked with her before. She had seemed to be all girlish sweetness.
She moved gently against his invading touch, and her loins were like satin. Her hand gripped him just right but -- damn it! -- his pants and jockey shorts were in the way.
With his left hand he released his zipper. She accepted the invitation and snaked her cool slender fingers through the fly of his briefs.
Big thrills boomed up to his brain as she swung him free. He put his head back and seemed to go stiff all over as she caressed him in the open. His fingers plunged and rubbed and circled at her warmth.
Suddenly her hips began to buck forward and back, her heated softness working against his touch, and he could not restrain himself, either. All he could do, at the final critical moment, was to spread has legs widely apart.
"Glory... " she breathed. "Yeah," he rasped.
The rest of the bus was silent. The driver sat stiff as a rod, staring through the huge windshield. The multiple tires hummed over the pavement. Harry felt the thudding of a pulse inside his ears.
Finally he took his hand away from the girl.
"That was kind of a waste," he whispered.
"Yes. The real part of you should have been where your hand was."
"Let's pull a quickie at the next stop," he said.
"I don't know. What if the bus leaves without us?"
"Then at the breakfast stop in the morning. Hell, we don't have to eat, do we?"
"All right,"
"In the meantime," he asked, "can I play with your boobs?"
"Okay. But you'd better zip up first."
"Oh. Yeah."
He adjusted his clothes.
She shook her pettipants in front of her and bent to work them over her feet and up her legs again.
"Why do you wear those damned things?" he whispered.
"My mother makes me, because my skirts are so short" She raised her bottom and wiggled it to get the trousers up. She snapped the waistband against her plump little belly. She pushed her skirt down and found the two ends of her belt.
"God, I don't know when a hand job has been so good," he told her, being frankly honest for once.
"But it's not like the real thing. I like to feel a fellow reach me."
"How many times have you done it, Sally?" he murmured.
"I have a boy friend back home. We do it at least three times a week, sometimes all day Saturday when my folks are away."
"Was he the only one before me?"
"No. He was second."
Harry chuckled. "You're a pretty good little swinger."
"I'll bet you really think I'm cheap."
Funny. He hadn't thought of her as a pig. He just realized that now. Maybe it was because she had been so honest about the whole thing, the way a guy was. There was none of that phony I'm-not-that-kind-of-girl jazz.
"Well?" she asked, her blue eyes searching his in the soft light. "You didn't answer me."
"Who am I to say what's right or wrong?" he murmured surprisingly.
"Maybe I'm sexier than most girls my age, I don't know," she said wistfully. "But I just feel as if I have to have it. Grown-ups have it, so why shouldn't teenagers? Our bodies are just as fully developed."
"Makes sense," Harry said.
She twisted to lie partially against him and opened the row of little buttons down her front. Her white bra cups bulged, and the overflow flesh was squeezed beautifully together between them.
She worked an adjustment on each shoulder ribbon, lessening the tension. Then she hooked her right bra cup with her thumb and drew it forward.
"Here," she whispered. "Lift my right one out."
Harry put his arm around her neck and let his hand serve as a scoop, dipping inside the slackened cup next to her warm flesh, cupping the adorable mound and lifting it free. It became propped on the stiffness of her bra.
"Now the other one," she said and they followed the same procedure with that.
Both gorgeous round breasts were exposed in the moonlight, tilted upward, their aureoles pale pink and crinkled, the rosy tips at their centers very stiff. He ran his hand over them and thrilled at the way the nipples pricked him and at the firm full shifting of the globes. Sally had one of the best sets he'd ever played with.
She lay back against his shoulder and sighed as he twiddled and petted to his heart's content.
Morning couldn't come soon enough to suit him.
CHAPTER FOUR
He didn't pet her boobies all night, of course. Both he and Sally needed sleep and, in spite of his intense excitement, he finally suggested that she put her treasures back into the cups of her bra and button her dress up. She did.
But she continued to lie in his arms and his right hand idly played over the bosom of her dress until he dropped off.
He woke up in the morning as excited as he had been when he'd closed his eyes.
The bus was coming into a town and the driver was announcing a half-hour stop for breakfast.
Sally yawned, twisted in her seat, and straightened up. Harry withdrew his arm from around her neck. He felt stiff in several places. Even the most comfortable chair was not the best place to sleep.
One particular locale of stiffness worried him as the bus pulled to a stop. The door opened and the passengers began to get up.
"Well?" Sally said anxiously. "We don't have much time."
"Just a minute," Harry told her. "I can't stand up now."
"Oh." She giggled.
Things looked a little different to him in the morning. Sally looked every bit as good as a sexual object, but the way he felt about her was different. The moonlight and the silence of the night had weaved a kind of magic, causing him to react more deeply and spontaneously than he usually reacted with a girl. Now he was his familiar self again.
Sally could detect no difference.
"All right now?" she asked after most of the other passengers had gotten off.
"Yeah. I guess I can make it."
He got up and helped her. She walked up the aisle in front of him and he admired the sway of her girlish buttocks.
The bus was parked in front of a roadside diner in some cruddy Kansas town. As soon as he stepped down onto the gravel, he looked around.
"Let's find a parked car," he whispered at her ear and began to guide her away from the restaurant.
"Harry, look," she said as she stopped and turned to face him. "We won't have time to enjoy ourselves here. You know that. And if we use somebody's car, they're liable to show up and catch us. You're riding as far as Colorado Springs, aren't you?"
"Yeah."
"Then let's wait until we get there."
"But your grandparents will probably meet you at the bus."
"So? You can layover for a couple of days. I'll get away as soon as I can and meet you. Maybe we can work in several parties before you have to leave."
"No good. I'd rather layover here."
"Harry, I can't! If I'm not on the right bus, my grandparents will call my folks and I'll catch holy hell."
"You call your grandparents now," he said. "Tell them you missed the bus. Tell then anything."
"No. There'll be a lot of questions."
"Then we'll find a parked car," he said and grasped her arm.
"No. I won't."
Forget her, something told him. She's not worth it, anyway. She's too easy. She proved herself a slut of her own accord. It won't be any fun to jump her and kiss her off.
But he couldn't forget her. He remembered how her silken loins had felt to his fingers the night before.
He had to feel those loins in a different way. From the inside, with his power pulsing.
"Damnit, Sally," he said.
"Shh."
Ah! So she did have pretenses when other people could hear. He took a little more interest.
Suddenly the solution to their problem occurred to him. He glanced back and confirmed that the bus was deserted. Even the driver had gone in to breakfast.
"Come on," he said harshly and pulled her toward the open door.
"But if we're not going to do it," she said, "we might as well get something to eat."
"We're going to do it, baby."
"Where?"
"On the bus."
"Harry... no!"
But he was pushing her ahead of him through the bus doorway and up the steps.
"I won't," she was saying as he shoved her along the aisle.
"Yes, you will. We're safe. We've got at least twenty minutes before anyone comes back."
"But, where?"
"On the floor. In the aisle. Hurry up -- skin your pants down and open the top of your dress."
"Harry, I feel like a tramp."
Good! he thought. That's just the way I want you to feel, sweets.
He pushed her down and fell with her so that they were out of sight. The aisle was barely wide enough for Sally to lie and get her legs a little way apart, but Harry had a remedy for the tight quarters as far as her legs were concerned.
She was still protesting as she wriggled and hauled up her skirt. He gripped her pettipants and dragged them down, exposing the luscious blondeness that he hadn't seen very clearly last night. Now he saw it in sharp vividness.
"This is awful," she was whimpering. "We won't get away with it."
"The devil we won't! Who's gonna stop us?"
On his knees in the small space available, he clawed at the front of his clothes to release his excitement. Sally had the top of her dress open and she wriggled the bra cups up and off her luscious mounds.
Talk about your milk-and-honey girls!
Her upper thighs, above her elasticized stocking tops, were smooth as glass, sleek as satin, and tinted a mouth-watering creamy hue. He bobbed his head quickly downward and kissed her.
Her belly was a lush inverted bowl above her blondeness, white and soft and inviting.
Her breasts were twin trembling monuments to lust. He moved up and placed his hands over them, shaking them as much as they would shake, which wasn't a great deal. Some girls had boobs that were large and loose, others had small and tight ones, but Sally's were large and tight, and a fellow didn't bump into many of that kind.
Harry bent and gobbled at her nipples as she squirmed and whimpered and said, "For gosh sake, hurry!"
He decided that was a good idea. He didn't want to be stopped in the middle of his fun.
He ran an arm around each of her thighs, just where her stockings started, and forced them all the way back to her breasts.
"No, Harry! You'll split me!"
"Just what I had in mind, honey," he growled and moved at her.
Now he had all the room he needed. The forward part of him kissed her softness, gained access, and slid into nearly complete union with her on the first lunge.
"Oh!" Sally cried.
"Shut up. You can take it."
He pulled back and slid to her again. This time he occupied her all the way. Young as she was, she was better conditioned for sex than that dumb chick Reba.
He went to work vigorously.
Her legs were high in the air, kicking against his arms and shoulders. That, he realized later, was the trouble. The driver, who apparently was seated at a point in the cafe where he could watch his vehicle, had glimpsed her kicking feet through the windows. Perhaps if he had known what Harry was doing to her, he wouldn't have interrupted. Perhaps. But it was possible that she was being mugged or strangled.
So the driver ran to the rescue.
Harry was going well, swinging his hips in hard looping thrusts, powering himself into the soft pleasure with everything he had, and Sally was taking the loving with equal zest, in spite of the hazardous circumstances and uncomfortable location. Unlike most girls, she kept her eyes open. Her parted pink lips trembled. All she said was, "Uh... uh... uh," rising in pitch as she approached her climax.
The hard floor of the bus hurt Harry's knees through his trousers, and he imagined that it felt worse against Sally's twisting, thrashing buttocks which were bare. But what she felt coming at her from the other way must have more than compensated, for she lifted her hot loins eagerly to encompass each thrust of his sturdy manhood.
She was the first to lose control, and her buttocks bounced against the floor like rubber balls. This forced him to speed up, and it was well that he surged to the finish when he did. Just as his pelvis strained forward and as the jolts of completed passion gripped his arching body, the bus driver lunged up the steps into the vehicle.
"Hey, you can't do that!" he cried foolishly when he saw what was going on.
Harry fell back and twisted in the tight quarters to see who had yelled. The driver could have grabbed him if he had moved quickly, but he was hypnotized by the shocking beauty which Sally's parted legs revealed. When he did move, Harry had already vaulted over a seat and lunged to the emergency door. He opened it and leaped to the ground. He ran up the highway with his trousers open.
He took satisfaction in the knowledge that Sally had been caught and doubtless turned over to the local juvenile authorities.
He lost his luggage, which contained all his worldly possessions except what was on his back. But he had over a hundred dollars in his wallet.
Worse from his standpoint was that he was stranded in the middle of nowhere. He didn't dare use his ticket on a later bus, for fear of a pick-up order out on him.
But he would make out. He always had and he always would.
Deciding it would be dangerous to remain in town, he found a road which branched off from the main highway and began to hike along it. His hope lay in picking up a ride quickly. The offense he had committed was not serious enough to warrant the setting up of roadblocks, so he figured that once he was in a car he would be safe.
The first car approached rapidly and passed his outstretched thumb without slowing down. He spoke to the hot Kansas air about the driver's ancestry.
He trudged along.
The country which spread at either side of the narrow ribbon of asphalt was flat and dry. He turned at the sound of another vehicle approaching. It was coming slowly. He gave it the thumb and a big boyish smile.
The driver put on the brakes.
A plump, middle-aged woman was driving the dusty blue Chevrolet. "Get in, young man," she called cheerfully. "It's too hot a day to be walking."
Harry agreed. He climbed into the front seat beside her and said, "Thanks a lot, ma'am. You sure saved my life."
"Oh, I don't think I did anything that fine," she replied as she put the car into gear. It churned forward. "Where you headed?"
"I'm not sure."
She glanced at him.
He smiled. "What I mean is, I'm looking for a job and I don't know where I'll be able to find one."
"You new around here?"
"Yes. I'm from back East. I was passing through and this looked like such nice country that I decided to stay for awhile. You don't know anyone who needs a willing worker, do you?"
"I just might, young man. What did you say your name was?"
"Harry Pearce."
"Well, Harry, I'm Bernice Poston and I run a little gas station at Cheever's Corners. That's about four miles ahead. I could use a fellow of your age to help me at the place. Of course, I couldn't pay much."
"I'll take the job, Mrs. Poston. When can I start?"
She looked at him in surprise. "That was awfully quick. Don't you care about the wages?"
"Nope, as long as they're enough to eat on and I've got a place to live."
"Well, I'll put you up. And you can eat with me and the girls."
"The girls?"
"My daughters. One's eighteen and the other's twenty-two. And there's something I want to tell you about them right off: There's to be no hanky-panky, understand?"
"Oh, I understand, Mrs. Poston. I don't believe in that sort of thing."
She smiled in satisfaction. "You seem like a very nice boy."
"Thank you, ma'am. I try to be."
"I suppose it wasn't necessary for me to warn you about the girls at all, but they're both pretty and... well, you take some young men -- they would start trying to shine up to them right away."
"I'm sure I'll like them, Mrs. Poston, and I hope they like me. But as for anything improper taking place, you don't have to worry about that."
She smiled and settled, self-satisfied, into her plumpness. Looking at her, he wondered how pretty her daughters could possibly be.
He found out as soon as the car reached Cheever's Comers. Both girls were there, one at the little frame gas station and the other on the porch of the two-story house in back.
Each was a potential beauty contest winner. That is, unless the judges happened to be prejudiced in favor of the fashion model type. These girls had meat on their bones and would probably look like their mother by the time they reached the middle forties and the meat had turned to fat. Now it was firm and delectable.
Mrs. Poston drove the car onto the bare dirt beside the station and cut the motor. The younger girl, in a gingham plaid dress and flat shoes, walked over from the small frame building. She had dark blonde hair which tickled her shoulders and she wore a big smile.
"Hi, Ma," she said and looked at Harry.
"Chrissy, I want you to meet the young man who's going to work for us -- Harry Pearce. Harry, this is my youngest -- Christine."
"Hello, Harry."
He gave her his best smile. "Hi, Christine." He got out of the car.
As he walked around and got a better view of her. Nice full breasts, warm hips and plump thighs. It would be a pleasure undressing her.
He glanced toward the porch of the dwelling house where the other daughter, taller and a little more mature but equally well built, was descending the steps. She wore a green shift that skidded pleasantly against her curves and she, unlike her younger sister, wore stockings. Her hair was dark brown.
Harry was introduced to the older daughter, whose name was Margaret.
Mrs. Poston told him, "If you'll come into the house I'll show you where you're to sleep. Oh! Where are your things?"
"At my room in town, I'll catch a ride back this afternoon and get them,"
"That won't be necessary," she said. "One of us will be glad to drive you."
Harry looked at the group of smiling females and decided that he had fallen into a very good spot. The food would be excellent and plentiful, judging by the plump appearance of them all. The shelter would be at least adequate. And the loving was apt to be choice.
He figured he would be safe from the law when he appeared permanently settled. Anyway, the only person who could identify him was the bus driver, and he was on his way by now.
"I take it there is no Mr. Poston," he said to the mother as he walked toward the house.
"No. He passed on several years ago."
"I'm sorry," Harry said.
But, of course, he wasn't.
CHAPTER FIVE
Chrissy was his first target.
He selected her for several reasons: First, he was going to be working closely with her at the station; second, she was the younger of the two girls and therefore probably the most susceptible; and, third, she made him hot just to look at her.
He got his first good look that day.
A wind blew up suddenly, which was not unusual in Kansas. As Chrissy bent over to pull the air hose out of its well beside the gas pumps, the wind caught her just right. It got under her wide gingham skirt and lilted it over her back, giving Harry an exciting peek at her rounded rear in pink rayon panties.
In spite of the fact that he'd had a girl just that morning, his manhood responded. He had to jam his hands into his pockets to hide the effect.
Chrissy straightened quickly and turned to look at him with a blush on her face. "I wish Ma would let me wear pants," she stated.
"You do wear pants. I saw them."
"Outer pants, I mean. She says it's a sin for a girl to wear anything but dresses."
"I agree with her," Harry grinned. "Especially on windy days."
"You're naughty," she said with a sly smile. "I shouldn't even talk to you."
He walked over to her and was just about to slip his arm around her waist when the man whose car she was servicing came back from the John. Harry turned back to his chore of greasing an elderly Ford.
Instead of a hydraulic lift, the station had a wooden grease rack next to the office. It hadn't been used since the Postons' last helper had quit, and Harry was a little leery about working under it, but he supposed it was safe enough. He worked as quickly as he could and got out.
Earlier that day he had talked Mrs. Poston out of driving him into town and had picked up a ride from a customer of the station. At a place which called itself a "dry goods" store, he had purchased a few articles of clothing and a canvas zipper bag. He went from there to a drug store and picked up a razor and toilet articles. This stuff would tide him over until his first pay day, he decided, or until something else broke for him. He had no desire to hang around Cheever's Corners very long.
The making of Chrissy and Margaret were on his agenda, in that order, and he didn't think either girl would offer much of a challenge. As for their mother, he would pass up the doubtful pleasure of diddling that dumpling. Though it would give him a kick to prove it could be done, physically it would be a negative experience. There were enough pretty pigs in the world, so that a man didn't have to waste his time sticking homely ones.
That night at the dinner table, Margaret brought up an interesting topic: "Something awful happened in town today. I was talking to Lucy Fraser a little while ago and she said she heard that some man raped a girl on a Greyhound bus in front of the Daisy Cafe."
"No!" Mrs. Poston exclaimed.
"Yes. And that wasn't the worst of it. The girl was young."
"Are they sure it was rape?" Harry inquired mildly.
All eyes turned to him.
"I mean," he went on, "the girl could have been willing."
"A teen-ager?" Mrs. Poston asked in surprise, as if girls of that age didn't know the meaning of sex or what to do about it.
Harry returned his attention to his soup.
"I don't even want to talk about it, Margaret," the older woman said. "You ought to be ashamed for bringing it up in front of your baby sister."
"Aw, Ma!" Chrissy said in disgust.
Harry smiled inwardly. He wondered if both daughters were cherry. He would have bet Chrissy was. And from the way she talked and looked at him, he guessed that she was pretty tired of the condition. As for the older girl, he considered it likely that she'd had some experience. She seemed a little wiser in the eyes. But it was hard to say. The last virgin he had nailed was thirty-one, so age alone was not much of an indicator.
Margaret gave piano lessons to the children of the community, which helped contribute to the family till, and the mother tended a large coop of chickens in back of the house. All in all, the family seemed to be doing pretty well.
Harry hoped he could get his hands on some of that loot before he shoved off. He wondered if they kept it in the house or if they had an account at the local bank. He would have bet in favor of a mattress or cookie jar. They seemed like the type.
The room which Mrs. Poston gave him was upstairs, at the rear. Chrissy and Margaret had separate rooms on the same floor, and the mother slept downstairs. This was an arrangement which Harry hoped to take advantage of.
His bed was an old fashioned iron one with flat springs, but the mattress had coils in it and was comfortable. The house offered the convenience of indoor plumbing, so he showered that night before going to bed in the raw.
As he lay on his back thinking about the two toothsome girls in their beds a short distance away, his body responded to the images which his mind conjured up. He was so used to frequent sex that his body required it He thought he might get away with tip-toeing down the hall and sneaking into Chrissy's room. There was a good chance that she would accept him in her bed without putting up a fuss, but he didn't want to press his luck. It would be better to allow a day or so to get acquainted before he made his play.
Tomorrow he would feel her up.
He wondered if her large breasts would be as good to squeeze as they were to look at. Her bottom had looked mighty squeezable in the brief glimpse he'd had of it. Her rayon panties had clung to the nice plump curves, and the shape of each cheek was perfectly delineated.
Thinking about Chrissy's bottom didn't help calm him. His hand sneaked down under the covers, took a grip. But he didn't stroke himself. That was kid stuff. With so many plush natural appliances in the world, his hand was a mighty poor substitute. A girl's hand could be fun, but only when he couldn't get at the other.
He turned onto his side and diverted his mind from the subject of sex. Gradually his body calmed down. He drifted into sleep.
Breakfast was at seven a.m. in the Poston household. Across the table from him, the girls looked chipper and ready for the day.
Harry was ready for them.
Any time, but the sooner the better. He had awakened that morning as hard as ever in his life.
As he followed Chrissy out to the station, he watched her ample backside wag in a cotton dress and wanted to press himself to her right there, with her dress hiked up and her panties down. Steady, boy, he cautioned mentally. You'll get your chance.
Cheever's Corners was, as its name suggested, a country crossroads which didn't qualify as a town. The Poston's gas station was on one corner, a general store was on another, a farmer's produce stand occupied a third, and the fourth was an open field. A man named Cheever had founded the store fifty years ago, and his descendants operated it today.
The day was clear and hot. Harry, in T-shirt and jeans, began to sweat right away. He wasn't sure if it was the heat outside or the heat within him which was principally responsible. He kept watching Chrissy and his passion constantly threatened to rise.
She was pleasant company, quick to smile at bun.
There wasn't much business that morning, rarely two cars at a time, so he took care of most of them while she stayed in the office. A grease job rolled in at ten-thirty and he went to work on that while she took over the pumping of gas.
Toward noon there was a lull, which permitted them to stay in the small office together. An electric fan was blowing, but it did little to relieve the heat.
"Have you got a boy friend, Chrissy?" he asked as he sat on a ledge at the side of the room and propped one foot on the arm of a chair.
"No regular one. Ma doesn't want me to get serious with anybody."
He grinned. "What's she saving you for, some rich old widower?"
"No. She just thinks I'm too young to think much about boys."
"Are you?"
Chrissy gave him a very direct look. "I think about the."
He let his eyes roam over her suggestively. "I'll bet they think about you, too, built the way you are."
"Now, you shouldn't talk like that," she said with a blush, but obviously she was pleased.
He slid down from his perch and pulled a chair over beside hers. He sat. "What would you do," he asked softly, "if I were to put my hand on your leg? Would you jump?"
"I don't know," she replied, her brown eyes a little nervous.
"I think I'll try it and see."
"Ma wouldn't like it," she said and drew her knees more tightly together. They peeped out from below her plain dress, round and smooth and bare.
"Your Ma don't need to know. Hell, Chrissy, you're eighteen. At your age,- city girls are having themselves a good time."
"I wish I could go to the city," she said wistfully.
"Maybe you can. That's where I'll be going when I leave here."
He leaned closer. Anticipation alone had begun to excite him.
He put out his hand and cupped it around the knee closest to him. Chrissy drew in her breath and her eyes took on the look of a shy forest creature. He nudged her dress upward, his possessive hand sliding.
Her leg was warm and smooth and firm. His excitement rose quickly.
"You shouldn't do that," she breathed but she didn't push his hand away. She watched and he watched as her skirt slid higher.
His hand was halfway to her lap now, and the flesh he had uncovered was tasty looking. He would have liked to tongue it.
"Come on, honey," he murmured. "Relax a little." And he tugged gently at her leg to try to separate it from the other one.
She laughed and slapped his hand away. She took a little longer than necessary to draw her skirt down.
"Chicken," he said, looking at her warmly.
"Come on. Here's a car."
She got up and edged past his knees. He remained where he was. At the moment, he had to.
The attempt to arouse her hadn't been casual enough, he decided. Next time he would catch her by surprise, and he wouldn't waste time fooling around at her lower thighs.
His opportunity came toward the end of the afternoon. There was no business at the moment and Chrissy was in the office, bending over to remove a fresh supply of paper towels from the bottom shelf of a cabinet. Harry came quickly up behind her, placed his hand between her slightly parted knees, and scooted it up. All the way.
The feel of her warm, soft femininity through her rayon panties was exhilarating.
She said, "Ooo!", straightened up and turned to face him, but he kept his hand where it was, wrapped warmly around her panty seat. Her skirt rode high on his arm.
"Harry... goodness!" she cried and started to struggle, pushing at his arm, but the struggling only served to rotate her softness against his impudent fingers, with just the silky panties in between.
He captured her parted lips with his. His tongue surged.
She made a couple of sounds deep in her throat, then clutched him and ground her balloon-like breasts against his front. His hand fondled her fanny freely, patting and petting, rubbing all over her crowded panties.
"Beep!"
The sounding of the auto horn caused them to break apart. Harry's body was at full excitement and he quickly dropped into a chair. Chrissy patted nervously at her hair and, with a rosy blush on her face, went to take care of the customer.
After the car had driven away, she returned.
"I think he saw us," she said. "That was old Jed Lamper and he had a wise, dirty grin on his face."
"He was wishing he was me," Harry replied. "Come on. Let's pick up where we left off."
He got up from his chair and reached for her, but she evaded him. "Not here," she said. "It's too dangerous. What if someone were to tell Ma?"
"Okay. Where, then?"
"This evening," she murmured. "I'll meet you beside the house, at the yard swing."
"What will your mother say?"
"She's driving into town right after dinner. Her club is having a meeting."
"That's great," Harry grinned. "But why don't we just use your room?"
"That would be wrong," she said.
He shrugged, not wanting to argue with her. He couldn't see any moral difference between a girl getting laid on a yard swing or on her bed.
He found out when he was on the swing with Chrissy, in the cool dusk, that she had no intention of letting herself be laid. She kept her knees pressed tightly together and, at first, she didn't part her lips when they kissed. His attempt to place a hand at her breasts drew a quick defensive slap on his wrist.
Girls' good intentions didn't amount to much when Harry was around. They simply meant that he had to work a little harder. He decided not to try to feel Chrissy for a while and to concentrate on kissing her. Some of a girl's most sensitive nerve ends were located on her lips and tongue, and if a man maneuvered his tongue just right he could fire her to fever pitch just from kissing.
Then getting into her bra would be no problem.
And after the bra, the pants.
In his mind's eye Harry saw her already spread, her knees up, her virginal little body waiting. He had the key .that would trip her tumbler.
When he approached her for the second kiss, he didn't try to force her lips apart with his. Instead he touched her lips with the tip of his tongue and ran it back and forth, not trying to enter, just sliding it against her sensitive labial flesh. She groaned a little and he kept sliding. His hand at her back, pressing against the bra clasp through her dress, drew her a little closer to him so that the forward portion of each bra cup touched his chest.
He could feel her lips softening, all tension going out of them. When the moment was right, he slipped his tongue tip between her lips and held it there for a few moments, quivering.
This sprang the catch. Her mouth opened, and his slippery tongue slid far inside. Now she clutched him and they embraced as heatedly as they had in the station that afternoon.
His tongue was a piston, moving in and out, exciting the nerves of her lips and those of her tongue as his tongue rubbed against it. Her mouth opened wider. Her tongue ventured forth to dally with his and finally to surge into his mouth as he held his back.
He guessed that she hadn't been kissed this way many times, if ever. The local boys were probably afraid to take liberties, since her mother was so strict.
Daughters of strict mothers were Harry's meat.
He sucked Chrissy's tongue gently and she squirmed in desire, causing her breasts to rub against him.
Now, he thought. Now.
His hand moved quickly between them and up to her bosom. His seeking fingers crawled around a luscious brassiered mound and clutched. He could feel her nipple stiffening through her bra and dress. He concentrated on the sensitive protrusion, squeezing it with thumb and finger through the fabrics.
He wanted to move his other hand to the zipper at her back and release it so that he could slide the dress off her shoulder, but he dared not move too fast. Like a nervous fawn, she would be frightened easily.
They continued to kiss, his tongue now circling hers and curling with it. He rubbed her breast more vigorously, as if he were polishing an apple. In size, it was comparable to a big juicy Delicious, but in shape and texture there was no comparison at all. She panted, her warm breath striking his cheek in quick, excited bursts. Her tongue stroked in and out of his mouth.
His fingers crept to the tab at the top of her zipper.
As he kept up the caressing at her front, he brought the zipper down. Then he thought, what the hell. As long as he was doing that, he might as well pop her bra, also.
His hand, inside the open back of her dress, caressed smoothly. He ran it back and forth along her bra strap as the other hand kept working on her breast. The nipple was very large and thrusting now, and the bra fabric must have been uncomfortable against it.
He quickly solved that problem for her by deftly squeezing her bra clasp, opening both hooks at once. The bra sprang forward. As she broke the kiss and leaned back in alarm, he pushed the side of her dress down and reached under her limp bra to grasp the warm breast that he had been petting through her clothes.
He could not contain it entirely in his hand. It was full and firm and it sat up beautifully, even without the bra to support it. With his other hand, he crossed in front of her and lifted the bra so that he could see what he was holding. He moved his fingers, and a large rosy nipple popped forward between his curving thumb and index finger.
"Oh, Harry... don't," she whimpered. "Please don't."
"Why not, angel?" he crooned and watched as his thumb and index finger stroked the nipple and rolled its tumescent firmness. There was a moon out, which furnished just enough light to enhance a girl's beauty.
"Margaret might come out," she moaned and watched his fingers working with her.
"Nonsense. She's with her boy friend in the living room. They're probably doing just what we're doing here."
"Not Frank," Chrissy breathed. "He wants to marry her."
"That doesn't mean he won't play with her breasts. Damn, Chrissy, you sure have lovely ones."
He slipped the other side of her dress down and draped her white cotton bra around her throat. He put his free hand on the breast he had just released and squeezed that as the nipple emerged into his palm.
"You've got me so excited," Chrissy cried softly and twisted her treasures against him. "I don't know what I'm going to do."
"I know. You're going to let me make love to you."
"No!" she exclaimed and swung her breasts away from him.
Watching those babies bounce free in the moonlight stimulated him all the more. The thick rosy nipples stuck out three-quarters of an inch and aimed at the low-hanging stars.
"Why not, Chrissy?" he pleaded. "I'm crazy about you. I really am. When I leave here, you could come with me. I'm on my way to California."
"Really?" she said as she cuddled her breasts.
"Yeah. Los Angeles." His gaze licked at what he could see of her boobs.
"Oh, Harry, I couldn't. This isn't right."
She tried to get up, but his arm across her front stopped her. He pried at her crossed forearms and lifted one of them away, exposing a nippled crest. He bent his head swiftly and lit on her crinkled aureole with his lips. Her nipple quivered on his tongue.
A mouth at the breast worked with most girls, and Chrissy was no exception. Her resistance crumbled like the walls of Jericho. Harry let his lips slide and his tongue circle, teasing the sensitive tip. She had uncovered her other breast and ran one hand into his hair while the other clutched him at the back. Harry caressed that breast with his hand while he kissed the other one.
She was at the gateway of heaven. No doubt about that. She squirmed and whimpered, her thighs opening and closing anxiously. Harry fastened more tightly on her throbbing nipple and began to suck as he ran his free hand quickly up between her legs.
Now she was his. Her thighs yawned, giving him free access. He petted her through her damp panties for awhile, then hooked a leg elastic and slipped his fingers between the rayon and her fevered flesh.
His fingertips explored, excited. He found his way. She was warm with desire. He searched a little further.
She was virgin, all right.
He moved his mouth to her other breast and went to work on its bud as his hand remained within her panties, the fingertips stroking. She pushed her hips forward and began to twist a little. A girl couldn't give the signal much more plainly than that.
He got up, twisted her and pressed her onto her back on the swing. Her legs came up.
"No, Harry, no," she whimpered as he reached way under the skirt to grip her panties and pull them down. He spread her legs apart and clawed at the front of his clothes.
He was onto her before she was able to see what he had and be frightened by the sight. Holding himself, he touched and rotated deftly, finding exactly the right place to press. He had it. He pressed with all his might.
Her cry of pain pierced the air and then he was moving, hunching, sliding in and out, up and down, giving her wild excitement.
The fun was over quickly, for deflowering a virgin always stimulated Harry so strongly that he couldn't last long. This virgin was one of the ripest he'd ever taken.
There was no need for him to last because Chrissy was already sobbing and quaking in blissful release, her legs kicking in the air. He gave her the coup de grace and shuddered in the grip of the great satisfaction that possessed him. His heat struck again and again.
He slipped out of her embrace and stood up.
"Oh, Harry, what have we done?" she cried in sudden anguish as she struggled to a sitting position.
"I made you a woman," he said, zipping his pants. "That's something you should have wanted."
"Ma will kill me!"
"She doesn't need to know. In fact, you'd better not tell her. You have your own life to lead."
Her eyes were big and bright in the moonlight and her legs gleamed white above the edge of her tan.
"Do you love me, Harry?"
"Sure I do. We're going to be married."
She sighed. "I guess that makes it all right, then."
"You liked it, didn't you?"
"Yes!"
"Then that makes it all right," he said, "regardless of anything else."
But he was thinking: Poor little piggy. Like all the rest.
He smiled to himself.
CHAPTER SIX
A he lay waiting for sleep to claim him. The thrill of taking a virgin never wore off right away. He felt he was doing a great service to the world when he deflowered one because that made her less able to squeeze a guy into marriage. She would be hungry for more of what he had given her, and now she had nothing to save.
The studs of the countryside were going to have a field day, he thought. At least, the smart ones would. But sooner or later she would catch herself a sucker, and he would pay for everybody else's fun.
Ha! Not him. Never him. He paid for what he got and that was all. He got fun, he gave fun in return, and no woman would ever get her hooks into him.
It was laughable, when you stopped to think about it, for a man to feel that he had to marry a girl in order to receive what he was happy to dish out for free. Getting men to accept that notion was the basis of the females' racket, and they had been working it successfully for years and years. Talk about your bunco games!
He knew Chrissy hadn't protected herself, but this didn't give him any sense of guilt over what he had done. Was it his fault that she didn't know the score? It was the fault of her mother for not wising her up. Nowadays even a virgin could protect herself. But the thing was, both Chrissy and her mother assumed she would be able to work her racket successfully and hold the guys off until she was able to fox one into marrying her.
Harry had burst that bubble, but good. Ha!
There had been times, like the other night with Sally, when a different feeling had possessed him. A kind of warmth. It usually was when things didn't go just as he expected, when a girl behaved differently. Like Sally -- wanting it and not blubbering or trying to make any deal.
But by morning he had recovered. When he looked at her in the broad light of day, he had realized that she was no different. None of them were any different, really. Some acted a little different, but they were the same hot-tail bitches down inside. Hot-tail and cool calculations.
Get married first. That was the way they all thought. Get a sucker hooked. Then have a ball playing bedroom bingo while the husband was out working for them.
If someone had pointed out to him that not all wives cheated, he would have said: "No. Some of them are frigid. They don't even give their husbands a good time. The poor slobs get nothing for their work."
If someone had said that there were wives who were responsive and went to bed only with their husbands, his reply would have been: "That's what you think, buddy. That's part of the racket, to make you believe that. But it just isn't so. There are the hot broads and the cold cookies. The hot ones will get hot for anybody; the cold ones pretend until they've got a man hooked, then spit in his eye."
This was Harry's philosophy of love and life and sex. He dedicated most of his time and effort to the proof of it, in the way that religious zealots dedicated themselves to the saving of souls. Every conversion served to strengthen the zealot's faith and to assuage the tormenting doubt which he would never admit existed but which was always there. So, with Harry, every conquest assuaged the doubt which he would not admit to himself---the doubt that tried to tell him sometimes that he didn't understand it all, that there was more to the man-woman relationship than he believed.
That morning Chrissy behaved like a different girl. She was quiet at the breakfast table, indrawn, watching him. He was afraid that her mother might notice, but she didn't seem to.
Afterward, when they were alone together at the station, Chrissy told him, "I've been thinking so much about last night. I've been feeling you here." She placed her hand against her dress at the loins.
He grinned. "Felt good, didn't it?"
"More than just good. I'm in love with you, Harry. I want to go away with you as soon as we can."
"Sure, honey. But this is something we have to think about. We have to make plans, and I've got to get some money together."
It didn't make any difference what he said to her -- anything to stall for time. She didn't interest him any longer, but her sister did. After he had made the sister, he would take off, perhaps with some of the family loot if he could get his hands on it.
"I have some money saved," Chrissy told him.
"Yeah?" His interest pricked up.
"Over five hundred dollars in my own bank account."
So they did do business with a bank, after all.
"I don't believe in taking money from a girl," he said. Stalling for time was still his main concern.
She came to him and pressed her ripe, young body close. Her full breasts mashed against him. "I want to give it to you," she whispered and her lips lolled and quivered, waiting for his lips to descend.
What she most wanted to give to him, right then and there, was what he had taken the night before. But he didn't want to take her now.
He grasped her by the arms and moved her back.
"Harry... what's the matter?"
"Nothing. We just have to be a little careful is all."
"You weren't worried yesterday about being careful," she said petulantly.
"Well, now it's different."
"Harry, do you love me?"
"Sure."
"Then say it."
"I love you."
Even though he hadn't put much feeling into the words, she glowed.
"I love you very much," she said. "I didn't know that having a boy could be so wonderful. It hardly hurt at all, and after the hurt there was such pleasure!"
A car drove into the station and he went to take care of it. His problem now was to keep Chrissy from clinging to him like a stamp on an envelope so that he could make some time with her big sister. That one was apt to prove more of a problem. In the first place, she had a steady boy friend and, secondly, she knew a lot more about life.
Harry didn't consider passing her up. The old compulsion was at work, telling him that he had to take her just because she was there.
He manufactured an excuse to saunter into the house before the morning grew very old. Margaret was with a young piano student in the living room. Mrs. Poston was in the kitchen. Harry went up to his room, killed some time there, and returned downstairs when he heard the piano student leaving.
"Oh, hi," Margaret said with an impersonal smile as she turned from the front door. She had folded and was pocketing in her dress some bills for the lesson.
"I've always wanted to learn piano," he said pleasantly. "Do you suppose you could teach me?"
"You're putting me on." Her eyelids drooped and she took on a look which was surprisingly sexy for a supposedly unsophisticated country girl.
Yeah, this chick knew what it was all about, all right.
Harry moved closer to her. "I'd really like to learn, especially from such a pretty teacher."
"Careful. Chrissy will be jealous."
"What do you mean?" he asked easily.
"Weren't you sitting in the moonlight with her last night?"
"Yeah. She's a sweet kid. I like her."
"I wouldn't doubt that she likes you pretty well, too. She doesn't get a chance to become acquainted with many boys. Ma's pretty strict with her."
"But not so strict with you, I've noticed."
They were talking softly so that Mrs. Poston could not hear. Anyway, dishes were clanking in the kitchen and the water was running.
"Well, I'm a little different case. You see, I've been married."
"Yeah? What happened, or is it any of my business?"
"It isn't. But I don't mind telling you. We got married just before he was drafted. He went away to camp. For awhile he wrote to me every day, then every other day, then once or twice a week. When he came home on leave, I could tell he had changed. It wasn't long before he was sent to Europe. I got two letters from there and that was all. The next I knew, he had signed up for another hitch. Finally he wrote me and said he wanted to marry a German girl, so I filed for a divorce."
"That's a hell of a way for a guy to treat his wife," Harry said with an apparent trace of sympathy, but actually he was smiling to himself.
Marry a German girl? Shoot, that cat was through with marriage. He had found out the score. It had cost him a little, no doubt, but at least he had wiggled free.
"I didn't shed any tears over him," Margaret said. "Actually, he wasn't much. I'm going to be very careful before I jump into matrimony again."
He didn't believe her. It was a female trick to try and convince a prospective sucker that she was choosy. That way he felt flattered when she showed an interest in him, and his ego helped lead him into her trap.
"The guy who came to see you last night," Harry said. "I understand he's asked you to marry him."
"Did Chrissy tell you that? She's a snippy blabbermouth."
"You don't intend to marry him, hm?"
"He's just a friend."
The front door opened and Chrissy appeared. A cloud crossed her cute face when she saw Harry talking with her sister. "There are two cars waiting for service," she said. "I can't take care of both of them."
"Okay," Harry grinned. "Be right there."
Chrissy turned and left. He gave Margaret a wink before he followed.
So she was a divorcee, hum? That meant she was going to be easier to make than he had figured.
He began to think in terms of a quick score with her, then off with Chrissy and her five hundred dollars. He could ditch her in the first good-sized town. That would be a slicker move than stealing some dough and getting himself branded as a thief.
* * *
Mrs. Poston was at home that evening, so he and Chrissy had to confine themselves to exchanging warm glances across the living room while they all watched television, Margaret included. She didn't have a date.
Harry was careful not to be overly friendly toward the older girl while Chrissy was around. And he couldn't be too friendly toward Chrissy, either, with her mother there. So it was pretty much of a standoff.
Chrissy was the first to go up to her room. Harry went up shortly thereafter. He walked to Chrissy's door, instead of his own, and rapped quietly. She was in a robe with pajamas underneath when she answered, and he pulled her into his arms.
"Harry, no!" she breathed sharply. "Someone might see."
He didn't try to kiss her. He merely held her snugly against him so that he could feel the soft surge of her unbrassiered breasts, and he whispered at her ear: "I'll be in your room later tonight."
"No! Someone will hear."
"We'll be quiet. You want me to come, don't you? Really?"
"Darling, I want you very much. But it's so dangerous."
"Nonsense. I'll wait until Margaret's had a chance to fall asleep. I'll walk quietly downstairs."
She looked at him fearfully, but with desire warming her brown eyes, also. Then he pressed a quick kiss to her parted lips and went to his own room.
He took pleasure in the thought that she would be simmering until he crept to her little den later. What he wanted would be very warm and ready by the time he got to it, he conjectured. She would come on stronger tonight because of the taste of honey he had given her the evening before.
The waiting was difficult for him, also. He didn't have a robe to put on, so he remained in his daytime clothes and paced the floor of his small room until he began to wonder if this would keep Mrs. Poston awake, at which time he flopped on top of his bed and entertained himself with erotic visions of Chrissy as she would look after he had arrived in her room and had begun to play with her.
She was one of the most succulent girls he had ever possessed, having just come into full ripeness. She was plump in a healthy, young way which suggested a diet of butter and cheese and other good things from the country, along with plenty of fresh air and sleep. In appearance and in personality, she was very different from the general run of city girls he had known. This made her worth several tumbles, whereas they were worth only one.
He waited until there were no sounds in the house, and then he got off the bed, removed his shoes, and crossed the room to the door, being careful not to make a board creak. He continued to be careful as he followed the thin runner in the hallway to Chrissy's door. He didn't knock. He merely opened the door and let himself into her room.
She emitted a little gasping sound, but otherwise said nothing until he reached the bed. The only light was provided by a big, white moon that hung low in the sky, and this amounted to just enough.
Chrissy whispered, "Please be quiet. If Ma or Margaret were to find out, I'd die."
He grinned at her in the semi-darkness. "No, you wouldn't. Love is nothing to be ashamed of."
"This way it is," she whispered back.
He said, "I'll see if I can change your mind," and he began to undress.
Chrissy had never before watched a boy remove his clothes and, as Harry dispensed with his shirt and jeans, the whites of her eye glittered. He whipped his shorts down, exposing his relaxed manhood, and Chrissy's eyelids lowered slightly, but she was still watching him.
He reached and lowered the covers on the bed.
This handed him a happy surprise, for she had removed her pajamas while she was waiting for him to come to her room. She was lying nude and ready for his love.
Harry carried the light covers all the way over the foot of the bed. He stood for a few moments and gazed down at her, his eyes gently stroking her nudity like a pair of paintbrushes -- swabbing the high, soft domes of her breasts which were studded by watchtowers at their summits, tinted as if touched by a sunset's glow. His gaze made circular sweeps over her plump belly with its dark little navel depression which seemed the perfect place for a man to insert the tip of his tongue. He visually caressed her shaded loins, then her full, smooth thighs.
Chrissy watched his desire strengthen and climb until, in just a few seconds, it had assumed massive proportions. Her accelerated breathing caused her breasts to rise and fall more quickly, and little tremors danced over the responsive flesh. Her hand rose from the bed at her side and reached tentatively toward him.
"That's so exciting," she said in a soft, husky voice. "I never saw it happen before."
"Feeling's better than seeing," he whispered and sidled along the bed until he was easily within her reach.
Still, she remained hesitant.
He reached and guided her hand. He placed it against his burning flesh and helped to curl her fingers around him.
Chrissy breathed an exclamation of delight and gripped harder. He throbbed in response. Bone-hard now, he gloried in the sense of power which pervaded him. He was the complete male, the complete stud, about to subjugate womankind.
Chrissy didn't know how to caress him. She merely gripped the evidence of his desire and sighed with pleasure at the contact and at what it meant. She knew it was a compliment to her sex appeal, and this evoked a warm response all through her.
Harry placed a hand on the inner curve of her near thigh. Her thighs quickly parted. By now his eyes were perfectly accustomed to the dim light and he could make out the entire beauty of her which he had had little opportunity to appreciate the evening before.
He eased away from her grasp and climbed onto the bed between her legs. He crouched at her knees and lowered his face, leaning a little to the side so that he did not cast a shadow upon the area he wished to inspect. He lifted her knees a little and moved them even farther apart.
She whimpered and twisted, but she seemed willing to let him take his time in this visual appreciation of her. His eyes caressed the plump rounded cushions of her buttocks and the crevice which separated them. He gazed at the widened playground immediately above, which marked her sex. Her light-brown curls furnished an attractive adornment which multiplied to became a thick clump at the base of her belly.
She twisted more, tilting her thighs this way and that, and Harry watched the interesting effect of this twisting. She moaned.
After he had studied her to his heart's content, he scrambled forward. She began to reach for him with her body, but he was tilted too high for access. His arms kept her arms pinned to the bed. She twisted from side to side, in extreme torment now, her high-mounded, firm breasts quivering.
He dropped his mouth and began to kiss them all over.
She made high-pitched, anxious sounds as his tongue-tip toyed with a nipple, pushing it and bending it and circling around. He licked along the inner breast-slope and along the base of the tender mound where it joined her ribcage. His moving lips grazed the warm satin flesh.
He took keen pleasure in the evidence of desire which she was showing, both in the soft sounds she was making and in her efforts to get at him with her hands so as to effect an immediate union. But he continued to hold her arms prisoner under his.
He kissed her other breast all over and finally settled warmly about the upstanding nipple. He drew it deeply into his mouth and let it quiver atop his tongue as he worked his teeth gently against the sensitive aureole, his lips sliding against the soft surrounding whiteness.
Chrissy was nearly out of her mind with desire. Her belly was bucking up at him, nudging his hardness but unable to gain possession of it. Harry liked to tease girls this way --to make them so hot that they were ready to scream for what they needed.
He pushed her breasts together with his hands and licked back and forth across the throbbing tips. Her nipples were as rigid as any he had ever kissed. They seemed about to burst with excitement. He moved back and forth, tugging at each of them in turn, using his teeth as well as his lips, and she sobbed.
"Like that?" he asked hoarsely as he raised his head.
"It's wonderful!" she exclaimed. "I need you down below. Please!"
He chuckled and pushed himself backward so that he could kiss her around the navel. She whimpered and wiggled her belly against his open mouth. His tongue darted at the little cup, then pressed in as his hands petted along her sides and on her legs.
She lifted her knees higher.
He held one thigh with a grip at the outer side, just above the knee, and ran his tongue-tip along the satiny flesh. She said, "Uh... uh," with rising intensity and bumped at him. He switched to the other thigh instead and licked downward toward her knee. His hands crawled underneath her and grasped her plump buttocks. She had enough of a backside so that it was not necessary for a man to hold her that way or to put a pillow under her in order to gain the most pleasurable contact with her loins, but Harry wanted to hold her like this for a little while. She twisted and danced in his grasp.
Smiling down at her, he asked, "Do you want it, sweets?"
"Oh, yes!" Both her hands went around him. She began pushing him.
He decided that he had teased her long enough. Anyway, his own need had become difficult to deny any longer.
He allowed her to position him, and then in one magnificent exertion he took total possession of her, lifting her buttocks at the same time.
"Aaahhhggg!" she said and clutched him with her hungry body.
Elemental forces took over. What happened was as far beyond human conscious control as the striking of a lightning bolt into the soft moist earth or the attraction of a magnet for a bar of iron.
Their bodies worked and stroked. Chrissy's gasping and whimpering made Harry growl with pleasure. Her belly swiveled, her female heat claiming more and more of him. Her breasts shook with her exertions, but not loosely. It was a taut surface tremble that caused her stiff nipples to nod. The effect was as pleasing to him visually as was the feel of her, circling and pumping up and down around his strength. Though he had initiated her to sex just the evening before, she knew instinctively what to do so as to provide the maximum pleasure for them both.
He hunched more vigorously, riding the surge of passion which was going to carry him quickly to culmination. He knew that he would not be too quick to please her if he let himself go. She was almost there.
Her belly bounced up and down against him, her buttocks hammering at the mattress. He had removed his hands from them so that he could support himself more firmly against the bed, and her vigorous motions were causing the old bedsprings to creak.
Harry didn't care. Chrissy, in her condition at the moment, didn't even hear them.
"Ah... ah... ah... AHHH!" she said and she was there.
As she contracted, he had his release.
They clung to one another for a long while, both breathing hard, neither speaking. Her breasts were crushed against his perspiring chest and he could feel her nipples growing soft. Her hot breath struck his neck and lower cheek. His nose and mouth were buried in her silken hair.
Finally she ran an arm around the back of his neck and crushed his head harder against her. She murmured at his ear: "I can hardly wait for us to get married so we can do this every night and not care who knows."
He didn't say anything.
Gradually she slackened her grip. She brought her hands to his cheeks and gently moved him back so that she could see his face.
"You do want to marry me, don't you, Harry?"
"You bet."
"When?"
"As soon as we can manage it."
She smiled warmly. "I wouldn't be surprised if we had to now."
He was a little surprised that she would come right out with such a remark. Maybe in her part of the country it worked that way, but Harry was not' a Kansas farm boy.
He pushed himself away from her and stood up.
"I'd better be getting back to my room," he said and began picking up his clothes.
She watched him silently for a few moments, then said in a slow, careful voice, "Do you mind if I tell Ma about us -- not that we've done it, I mean, but that we're in love with each other?"
"Not yet," he replied quickly. "We want to have all our plans made first."
"What plans do we need to worry about, honey? I've got enough money for us to go on until you get a job in California."
"Well... okay. But don't tell your mother until we're ready to take off."
"When will that be?"
"Pretty soon. Just a few days."
He pulled on his pants.
"I can hardly wait to be Mrs. Harry Pearce," she said in a voice as smooth and sweet as honey.
That will be the day, he thought to himself, but he just smiled at her.
The pressure she was putting on him made it all the more imperative that he make some quick progress with Margaret He decided to go after her tomorrow.
CHAPTER SEVEN
His chance came early the next morning. Chrissy wasn't up yet. He went downstairs to find Margaret standing in front of the hall mirror, patting at her dark brown hair.
He walked up behind her and reached quickly forward, past her right armpit. He wrapped his hand snugly around her thrusting right breast and gave it a squeeze.
An angry expression came over her face and she knocked his hand away. She turned to face him.
"Maybe Chrissy lets you paw her like that, but I won't stand for it," she said.
He kept his poise, and the grin which was pasted to his face didn't loosen. He asked, "What makes you think Chrissy does?"
"Oh, I know what's going on. Don't worry." She edged out from between him and the wall.
They could hear Mrs. Poston preparing breakfast in the kitchen so, at the moment, they could speak freely.
"So, tell me. What is going on?"
"It's my guess that you're humping her."
She gave him a wise look and turned toward the dining room, but he grasped her by the arm and made her face him again.
He was still smiling as he asked, "What makes you think that?"
"Oh, the way she looks at you, and a couple of things she said when we were alone yesterday. Then last night I thought I heard noises from her room."
"Like what?"
"Something was squeaking, and I don't think it was mice." She looked at him more closely. "Were you in there on top of her?"
"Only a crumb would admit it if he was."
"Well, it's my guess you were. I don't care because I knew the kid was bound to get wised up pretty soon. But Ma will be sore as hell when she finds out. She'll have a preacher over here before you can say, 'I was framed'."
"You're a pretty wise one, aren't you?"
"Wiser than most country stuff. As I told you, I've been through the mill."
"So why don't you want to get to know me better?"
"Because I don't need what you've got. Clear?"
"Oh, yeah. Good old Frank -- I forgot about him."
"How do you think Chrissy would like it if I told her you tried to feel me up?"
"You wouldn't do that."
"Oh, no? I just might, if you don't keep your hands to yourself."
He stood with the smile on his face sliding away as Margaret turned and hip-switched into the dining room. She had kicked him squarely in the ego, and that hurt. He was all the more determined to get next to her.
But how?
That evening Mrs. Poston took Chrissy into town with her to visit some friends. Harry went up to his room early. He probably would have remained there, listening to a ball game on the transistor radio which the Postons had loaned him, if it were not for the sound of a car pulling to a stop at the side of the house at a few minutes before nine.
From his window Harry watched a tall slender man emerge from it and approach the front door. It was Frank. Harry had glimpsed him the last time he had come to call.
He heard Margaret greet her caller and usher him into the house. They remained in the living room.
Harry began to imagine what they were doing, and his imaginings caused his interest to rise. He still wasn't entirely sure about Margaret, though. Did she put out or didn't she? If she wasn't putting out to Frank, she was probably frigid. That could have been the reason for the break-up of her marriage, too. If she was frigid, he could forget about her with no loss of face.
On the other hand, if she was giving herself to Frank, it would mean that Harry would have to hang around until he had gotten some for himself. Otherwise his whole theory about women and the appeal he held for them would be weakened.
The only way to settle the question would be to sneak downstairs and have himself a peek. But this presented a problem of its own. If anything was going on in the living room, the hall door surely would be closed and probably locked. The room had two side windows which were shielded from the road by thick bushes and, since it was a warm night, these windows probably had been left open and unshaded, but if he were to walk down the stairs and leave the house so as to get a peek from outside he probably would be heard and the couple in the living room would 'have plenty of time to cover up.
Harry walked to his side window again and looked out.
There was a slanting roof just below the window, which was above the service porch at the rear corner of the house. Next to the edge of the roof was a sturdy tree limb.
Harry studied the moonlit scene for a minute, weighing the question of whether he could make it down that way. Finally he decided that he could. And it wasn't likely that the people at the front of the house would hear him.
He eased his window open carefully. Before he climbed out, he glanced at the radio which was still blaring the baseball game. He decided to leave the radio on. Perhaps it could be heard downstairs and, if so, it would furnish evidence that he was still in his room.
He sat on the window ledge and swung one leg out. He followed with the other leg and kept a firm hold on the window as he stood up.
He made his way carefully to the edge of the roof.
The tree limb was a little farther away than it had seemed when he had studied it from inside the room, but he decided that he could make the jump. He always had been agile, though he hadn't exercised much in this particular way since he had grown up.
After taking a careful bead on his target, he leaped and landed in a crotch of the limb, his arms going around the branch higher up to steady himself. The limb swayed, but it was more than strong enough to support his weight.
Slowly he climbed down to the ground.
His heart was beating at an accelerated pace as he made his way along the house toward the living room windows. He wasn't sure if the excitement was due to the slight risk he had just taken, to his minor exertion, or to anticipation of the erotic scene which might soon be spread before him.
A dim light was cast from the windows onto the shrubbery, but he couldn't yet be sure if the dimness was due to the shades being drawn or if only one lamp was burning in the room.
He picked his way forward, edging between the bushes and the house.
Harry had never been much of a peeper. Once, when he was in high school, he had lingered outside a window of his home and had spied on his faithless mother while she was with a boy friend. He had watched the guy pick her clothes off and strip himself, but he had slunk away before his mother and the man had actually gotten together. In that instance, Harry had been motivated by curiosity about his mother's conduct rather than by erotic excitement, and the idea of the man taking her had been too unpleasant to face, once it became clear that this was what was going to happen.
There had been one other occasion on which he had peeped at a couple making love. This had been on a foggy night in the city, when a man couldn't see more than half a dozen feet in front of him. Harry had been walking home from a movie, and he had passed an apartment house built right next to the sidewalk. Beside the building there was an alley lined with the windows of the first-floor apartments.
He had noticed these lighted windows previously and the thought had occurred to him that there might be something going on in one or more of the apartments that would be worth watching, but the possibility of being noticed by a passer-by in the street or by a neighbor had kept him from lingering at the side of the house.
0" the particular evening in question, however, he happened to have seen a very sexy show. It was an Italian picture with Sophia Loren, and she had appeared in scene after scene wearing blouses cut nearly to her nipples. In one scene her blouse was wet, and the imprint of her luscious standing tips was lasciviously plain. Harry, then seventeen, had acquired a throbbing condition that had given him a great deal of discomfort. As he headed home, the fog furnished a blanket. From the street or from neighboring houses, no one could see him in the alley.
He prowled along the windows until he found one which depicted a thrilling bedroom scene: A young woman was lying on a bed just a few feet from him, her white body aglow in soft lamp light, and approaching her was a naked man, bristling with desire.
Harry bristled in the same way as he watched the man lie down beside her and take her in his arms. The girl was a natural redhead and she squirmed with delight as the man caressed her titian adornment, first on her head then elsewhere. Harry stared open-mouthed, his passion throbbing, as the man hungrily attacked the girl's breasts. He continued to watch as the man mounted her.
Harry watched the whole thing.
Sex wasn't an unknown experience to him, even then. He had gone steady with a girl in high school, whom he had possessed a number of times. Before her, there had been one other.
But doing was one thing and watching was another. Each had its own particular appeal.
The trouble with watching, however, was that the activity did not include its own means of attaining satisfaction. It left a guy painfully hung up, unless he became so vicariously involved that Nature furnished a release without friction... or unless he chose to supply the friction himself.
Harry did not have a hair trigger on his sexual apparatus, even at the age of seventeen, so Nature could not solve his problem by herself. After the action had been completed in the bedroom and the lovers had lapsed into a side-by-side embrace, blissfully at ease, Harry left the window and made his way painfully back to the street. His arousal clung to him all the way home. Once there and in the privacy of his room, he had to work a cure. He hadn't done this since he had begun to go with girls, and he found the effect less than completely satisfying, but at least it relieved the pressure.
He didn't go peeping after that. And he tended to avoid sexy movies.
Anyway, at about this time in his life he was beginning to regard sex subconsciously as something other than a means of merely attaining pleasure. The retribution drive was setting in, and this gradually assumed a status equal to physical considerations.
Now, as he crept along the side of the house at Cheever's Corners, he was in search of the answer to a question: "Did she or didn't she?
It had to do with Margaret and bore no relationship to the color of her hair.
He moved up to the nearest window.
It was unshaded, as he had hoped it would be. The only light in the room came from a lamp positioned at the far end of the sofa where Margaret and her boy friend sat.
They were embracing and, as they kissed, the boy was playing with her breasts.
Harry backed carefully into the bushes so that his outline would blend with the tangled foliage. He watched closely.
Frank had lowered the top of Margaret's dress and he had removed her brassiere. The white cotton garment lay on the coffee table in front of them. Frank had his back to the window and was kissing the girl as his left hand moved back and forth slowly from her neck to her breast, caressing the side of her throat and her shoulder and rubbing her balloon-like boob up and down. Each time he drew his hand downward across it, it gave a little bounce after his trailing fingers had passed. As he rubbed it upward, the rigid brown nipple stuck high for a moment, then bent under the pressure of his hand. He kept doing this over and over, rubbing down and rubbing up, as the kiss continued on.
Harry immediately became affected by the sight.
Finally the lovers broke for air and Harry got a good view of both large breasts, hanging naked at Margaret's chest. To say that they hung was not quite accurate. Mostly they stuck straight out. And the nippies, which were ringed by wide aureoles, were at rigid attention.
Frank toyed with these turgid tips as he whispered to her and she whispered back. It was love mush, Harry presumed.
Now Frank bent to her again, but this time aimed his mouth at her throat. From there his kissing gradually slid around and down until he was manipulating her breasts with his hands so that first one nipple and then the other slipped between his moist, passionate lips.
Harry had a clear view of Margaret's face for the first time and it was evident that she was very excited. Her mouth was open and her eyes were closed, her head tilted back and her chest fruit shoved forward.
Harry could have stopped watching right then and he would have had his answer. Margaret obviously was enjoying herself, since there was no need to feign a passionate expression when Frank was not looking at her face.
But Harry was caught up in the excitement He had to see more.
Frank bent further forward and kissed her below her breasts until his face was nuzzling against her rumpled dress which frustrated a further advance. Margaret said something which Harry could not make out and Frank straightened up. Wriggling, she skinned the dress out from under her rump, her white half-slip going with it, and she slid both garments down her legs and oft She wore no stockings.
She was nude except for white opaque pants.
Frank bent and kissed her along the panty elastic. Her long, slender fingers caressed the back of his head. Frank's hand was petting the front of her panties.
Margaret's legs inched open and her lover's hand went to the narrowest part of the single garment that she wore. He caressed up and down and his mouth leaped to capture a nipple again.
By this time Harry was in a painful state of excitement. His jeans and shorts were way too small for him, and his manly need throbbed. He wanted to place his hand at his lower front and rub a little, but he restrained the impulse. That wasn't his way to go.
Still...
Frank hooked a leg elastic of Margaret's panties aside and delved. She shuddered and twisted, raising her leg to trap his bedeviling hand between that one and its twin.
Vicariously Harry could feel what Frank was feeling-- the dewy softness, the delightful depth. Frank's elbow was jiggling, which betokened the activity of his hand that was hidden from view. Margaret's thighs rubbed against him. She tossed her head this way and that. Frank's mouth remained fastened to a luscious breast.
Harry felt like yelling to the guy: Hell, take her pants off!
But he didn't.
He merely kept watching, his mouth open and dry, a pulse beating wildly at his throat, his massive need straining against the constriction of his clothes.
Now Margaret's hand came into view, crawling up her lover's leg. She caressed him for a few moments through his clothes, then sought and found the zipper tab at the top of his fly. She drew the zipper down.
Part of her hand snaked out of sight momentarily, then reappeared clutching what it had gone after.
Hell, Harry thought, the guy was a pygmy compared to him.
But Frank was very excited, and it was his excitement that Margaret wanted. She caressed him expertly, alternately squeezing with her encircling thumb and forefinger, 'then stroking up and down with her whole hand.
To Harry it was almost as if Margaret's hand were at work on him instead of on her boy friend. He could almost feel the pressure and the sliding thrills. His hand sneaked to his front.
Frank developed a greater sense of urgency now that he had Margaret's hand upon him. He gripped her white panties at the top and began to slide them away. She raised her bottom from the sofa to help.
Her lower belly and her hips became bare as Frank slid the panties along her thighs, then past her knees, and down her lower legs. He bent and worked them off her feet.
She was nude.
Her legs sprawled and she lay back against the sofa. Her entire body was a playground on which her lover's hands and lips could roam and romp, frolic and cavort, dally, dance and diddle. She squirmed and lifted the tufted treasure of her loins, her legs tensing, her breasts quivering, her kiss-moistened nipples hard and dark and gloriously upthrusting.
The sight was too much for Harry. His clothes came open and his hand went vigorously to work.
By the time Margaret had stretched out full-length on the sofa and her boy friend had slid on top of her, Harry had nearly achieved his goal. Sighting up the brunette's wide-flung legs, he watched her eager body mesh with the virility of her lover. Her legs lifted high and clamped about Frank's back. They pulled against him, thereby elevating her soft pleasure zone as he plunged and nearly withdrew, plunged and nearly withdrew again.
The lush curves of her bottom twisted as she voraciously claimed her lover's masculine strength. The sight from Harry's point of vantage was erode in the extreme. He observed everything.
As he watched, his hand flew.
And then suddenly the scene didn't interest him any longer, even though Margaret and her boy friend were far from finished.
As he restored his clothing and sneaked back along the house to the tree which would make it possible for him to return to his room unobserved, he no longer had any doubt about Margaret's sexuality. She was a thoroughly responsive female.
His task now was to make her respond to him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
"When are we going to leave, Harry?"
"When are we going to get married?"
The incessant repetition of these questions from Chrissy marked the next few days of Harry's existence. The days were marked also by no luck with Margaret and by a nightly bedding of the younger girl.
Physically Harry was well taken care of, but psychologically he was distressed.
He had to take Margaret, as a climber had to take the Matterhorn or Everest. Just because she was there. The more she slid away from his attempts to caress her, the more her dark eyes glinted threateningly, the more caustic the remarks she made -- the more determined he became.
To give up would have been an admission that (a) a woman could be true to one man, in this case a stumbling Kansas farm boy named Frank, and that (b) Harry lacked the appeal of the said Kansas farm boy. He intended to make no such admission. If he failed in the end, as he had failed a few times before, it would be only after he had made his best effort. Then he could charge the thing up to a fluke.
Life was full of flukes, as any human knew.
But retire from the field while the possibility of victory and vindication still remained? Not after Harry had once committed himself.
And he was committed to the making of Margaret.
He considered and he contrived.
The one thing he knew about Margaret for sure was that she was hot. On the night he had spied on her, she had responded to Frank as any inflammable bit of fluff would respond to the application of a glowing match head. He had flamed brilliantly. All Harry needed in order to ignite her with his own match was a reasonable opportunity when she was in a relaxed and receptive mood.
The mood was the problem. Harry thought he had the solution. He waited until Mrs. Poston next drove into town for her evening club meeting. (The meetings were held in the evening instead of during the afternoon, she had mentioned, because most of the members were farm wives who had plenty to keep them busy around the homestead during daylight hours.) Just before she left this particular occasion, Mrs. Poston remarked, "It's so nice to have someone at home who can keep my girls company when I drive into town -- someone I can absolutely trust." And she had smiled in a saccharine way that had wrenched Harry's stomach. Silly old pig, he thought.
But he was pleased about everything, including the fact that Margaret had gone out with her boy friend the evening before and was therefore unlikely to date him tonight. He had observed that they never had dated two nights in succession.
Harry had gone into town the previous evening and had picked up a quart of hundred-proof bourbon.
There was nothing quite like booze to loosen up a chick. It had worked with recalcitrant cases before. For instance, there had been that 22-year-old virgin in Philadelphia -- three drinks and she had draped her legs around his neck.
But he was not relying on the liquor alone to ease his way into Margaret. Chrissy was going to be on hand and she would help him, after she had downed a few jolts herself.
The plan was daring but capable of success, Harry believed.
He was prepared to gamble everything on that belief tonight.
Chrissy and Margaret were in the living room together when he brought the bottle down from his room, right after Mrs. Poston had left.
"What's that?" Margaret asked foolishly when he placed it on the coffee table in front of the sofa. She could plainly see what it was.
Harry smiled disarmingly. "It will make the TV look better," he said. "Just one drink all around."
"Oh, I don't think I'd better," Chrissy told him.
"Nonsense. You're old enough. And since when did one drink hurt anybody? Marge, (be a good girl and get some glasses from the kitchen."
She remained seated in a chair near the sofa, her bare legs crossed, and looked at him steadily. For a few moments he feared that his scheme might founder before he had begun to put it into effect. If he couldn't get the liquor into Margaret, how was he going to succeed in getting himself there?
"Well?" He grinned stronger. "You're not a teetotaler, are you?"
She answered with a question of her own: "Do you have any idea what Ma would say if she knew there was liquor in the house?"
"You're members of different generations," he said.
Margaret looked at Chrissy and Chrissy looked at Margaret. Harry grinned at them both.
"Oh, come on now," he chided. "One little drink isn't going to send us all to hell."
"I-I've never tasted it," Chrissy said, eyeing the bottle.
"Then it's time you did. Marge... get the glasses, hm?"
"Well," the older girl replied. "Maybe one drink would be all right." She uncrossed her lithe legs and stood up.
Hooray! Harry said to himself.
He moved over to the sofa to sit beside Chrissy and to be close to the bottle.
"Now, no fooling around!" she whispered urgently. "If Margaret were to find out about us... "
"Don't worry, sweetheart. Nothing's going to happen. (In his mind, he substituted everything for nothing. The situation was definitely looking up.) Margaret returned with the glasses. He uncapped the bottle and poured.
A man had a big advantage when he was with a girl who knew little or nothing about liquor. He could pour her a double without her realizing the potency of it.
Margaret had played into his hands by bringing large water tumblers. A double in a glass like that didn't look like very much.
He handed Margaret her drink and she sat in a chair near the sofa. Chrissy remained warmly ensconced beside him, and she took a long look at the dark amber liquid before raising the glass to her lips.
Harry watched her carefully. This was crucial point number two. It was one thing to persuade a girl to agree to a drink and another to get her to gulp it down. The strong taste spooked some.
But Chrissy's presence helped. Chrissy wanted to show her older sister that she, too, was grown up. Though she made a face, she forced herself to take' a good swallow of the liquor. Her eyes watered as she put down the glass.
Harry smiled and said, "The next sip will be smoother."
He took a sip from his glass.
Margaret drank slowly and watched the others.
The television was all but forgotten.
Crucial point number three in his plan was the pouring of the second round of doubles and getting the girls to accept them. He waited until both their glasses were empty and placed on the table. Then, as casually as possible, he picked up the bottle and tilted it over first one glass, then the other.
"Hey!" Margaret said, but not until the second drink had been poured.
Harry smiled and handed the drinks across.
"You said one," Margaret reminded him, but she took the glass.
Chrissy looked at hers for a moment, then reached.
"That's the way," Harry said. "I knew there weren't any party poopers in the crowd."
He poured his own and went to work on it. He let his mind play with visions of the two girls with their clothes off. Erotic excitement began to gain a hold on him.
They chatted, each of them glancing at the television from time to time but none really paying attention to it. A variety show was on.
The third round was poured promptly, Harry replenishing the glasses while they were still in the girls' hands. This time there were giggles instead of wary looks or protests.
This drink made Chrissy nicely high. Harry took the glass away from her as soon as she had downed the final drop, and he drew her into a loose embrace.
"Harry... don't" she murmured, but her eyes were shining and there was a merry color to her cheeks.
Margaret scooted forward in her chair and bent her head slightly, watching over the glass that she held against her lips.
Harry laughed and kissed Chrissy, not attempting to use his tongue the first time. She squirmed and this inflamed him. Her breasts were round and ripe, and they rolled from side to side in her slack brassiere. She wore a simple brown-and-white housedress with a zipper at the back of her neck. She, like her older sister, wore no hose.
He let her fall away from him and she was breathing hard, those luscious, big breasts rising and falling. "Ooo," she said and touched a hand to her forehead. "You make me dizzy." Her voice was thick.
"Is it him or the whiskey?" Margaret asked.
"Let's find out," Harry was quick to suggest and he leaned over her, pressing her head against the back of the sofa with a torrid kiss which spread her lips apart and sent his tongue thrusting deeply into her mouth where it lashed.
She made a sound in her throat, as if to protest, then gripped him passionately at the back. Her far leg lifted slightly and Harry placed his hand there, just below the hem of her dress. As Margaret watched, he slid his hand slowly upward.
Margaret reached for the bottle and poured herself a fourth drink while Harry petted her baby sister's leg. His hand slid up and down freely and circled the luscious plump thigh. If Chrissy felt it, and she surely must have, the sensation blended so nicely with her alcoholic glow and with Harry's tongue-plunging kiss, that she couldn't bear to restrain his caressing hand.
Anyway, her inhibitions were down.
And when inhibitions fell, could panties be far behind?
Harry could have reached as high as her panties right now if he had elected to do so. He could have petted all over them, teasing her belly through the sleek rayon, teasing her rump, teasing the delectable ravine between her legs.
He could have had her dress up around her waist and he could have slid her briefs away.
But he didn't try to do that yet. He was aware that Margaret was continuing to drink, and he wanted to have her as high as possible before he really pounced at Chrissy. He wanted to make certain that she would stay and watch it without making a fuss.
As for the younger girl, she was ready to lie on her back and kick her feet in the air. In her present state, Margaret's presence offered excitement rather than suggesting peril.
The kiss became more leisurely, turning into a mutual licking of lips and tongues. Harry's tongue tip traced Chrissy's lips, darted inward, then his lips drew her tongue out. She moaned and petted the back of his head. Her breath was warm and fragrant with liquor fumes, as was his.
Margaret said nothing as she watched them, even when Harry moved Chrissy's legs apart and tickled upward along her satiny inner thigh. Her legs lolled, with Harry's hand busily exploring between them. He touched the warm rayon shield of her panties and she gave a little jump.
The older girl who sat a few feet away could see all this. She could see her sister's pink-pantied loins. She could watch Harry's fingers caressing there.
Even now he didn't try to pull her panties aside.
Abruptly he sat up and poured another stiff drink into Chrissy's glass.
He smiled at Margaret and made a motion with the bottle.
Her eyes were narrow and a little glassy. Her lips were loose and moist.
"Come on," he murmured. "You only live once."
"You are a very bad man," she said with careful precision and stuck her glass out.
Chrissy lifted hers.
Harry poured himself another.
News was on the television. The hands of the clock were crawling on their inexorable journey. No one paid attention to either instrument.
Now when Harry pulled Chrissy into his arms, she came at him hungrily, her loose lips smearing at his, her tongue surging into his mouth. He twisted her on her hip so that he could pet her bottom, and he lewdly flipped her dress and petticoat high. In full view of the smoldering Margaret, who twisted this way and that on her chair as she watched, Harry petted Chrissy's plump buttocks through her panties.
He rolled the buttocks around and patted them, making them quiver underneath the rayon. He rubbed them up and down. His fingertips danced along the panty-protected division between them. And then he slid his hand underneath a leg elastic and directly onto her buttocks. Margaret could watch his hand moving inside her sister's pants.
Chrissy kissed ravenously, moving her open wet lips, jiggling her teeth against Harry's lashing tongue.
Finally Harry broke the kiss and pulled her face-downward across his knees. She giggled and squirmed, her skirt and slip falling to her head.
Margaret laughed, which was the first sound to emanate from her in quite awhile. Harry watched her as he petted Chrissy's resilient bottom with the rayon panties still clinging to it.
He said, "I think little girls who drink too much ought to get their fannies spanked, don't you?"
"No...!" Chrissy squealed and giggled some more.
Margaret said thickly, "Boy, does she need it!"
He raised his hand and gave her a swat. The sound was sharp. Her panties shook with the more-than-ample hemispheres of flesh which they contained. He swatted her again and laughed.
Chrissy grasped his leg and was hanging on.
Margaret stared at her sister's upraised rump across Harry's knees. The small amount of liquor remaining in her glass was forgotten.
"There's one thing wrong with this kind of spanking," he said as he paused and studied the attractive backside which was displayed in front of him. As he spoke, Chrissy raised her rump slightly. She twisted it in an invitation to his hand.
"A spanking doesn't really count," he continued thickly, "unless it's on a bare butt."
"Oh, no... oh, no!" Chrissy squealed, but she took a harder hold on his leg and literally quivered in anticipation.
"Pull 'em down," Margaret directed drunkenly.
Grinning like a devil, Harry took a firm double grip on the elastic band at the top of Chrissy's briefs. He stretched it away from the small of her back and down across her buttocks, causing the pink rayon to pull away. Her divided white bottom came into view.
He slid the panties along her thighs, past her knees, and off.
He spanked her five or six times on her jiggling buttocks, not hard but crisply, and every collision of his hand against the tender flesh made a sharp fleshy sound. Margaret laughed and pivoted on her burning behind, swinging her legs this way and that, causing her skirt to skid way back.
Harry lifted the blushing, wildly excited Chrissy to her feet in front of him and said, "Okay, honey, let's get the rest of those clothes off."
"No... no," she said, laughing, and play-fought him.
He lunged to his feet, bumping the table and almost knocking the bottle over.
"Look out!" Margaret cried and made a grab for it. Once in her hand, she tilted it over her glass.
Harry wrestled Chrissy playfully as they stood in the center of the living room. She wasn't really trying to get away from him. His very evident excitement goaded her as she rubbed and bumped against him.
He succeeded in getting her zipper down and hauling her dress up. It went over her head. She reeled and he let her fall, cushioning her contact with the floor. He pulled her slip away.
"Oh, God, this is wild! " Margaret squealed. She was oiled to the ears by this time, ready for anything.
Harry and Chrissy were more than ready, too.
He rolled the curvaceous young girl onto her stomach and unhooked her bra. He brushed the ribbons down her arms, then caressed her up and down the back as he pulled at the front of his clothes to release the vigorous evidence of his manhood.
Margaret squealed again as he took a firm hold on Chrissy's rump and lifted it. Her bra cups fell away, leaving her breasts hanging naked between her braced elbows.
He moved up to her from behind, spread her buttocks, and let his body tease for a moment until he tilted himself downward. He lifted and pulled Chrissy to him.
Margaret leaned avidly forward, her hands clenched on her bare knees. She was sitting on the very edge of the chair and, from his point of vantage on the floor in front of her, Harry could see the little V of her white panties.
He watched there as he began to hunch at Chrissy. She moaned and twisted, pressing backward in an effort to get more of him. Her large buttocks were delightful as they rotated against his front. But even more delightful was the hot grasping of her, still good.
Margaret pushed her skirt and slip to her lap and placed a hand on the panty V he had been watching. She fingered the silken cloth aside.
Harry decided that he would have to hurry if he was going to accomplish his main objective, and the fastest way to finish a girl was not from the rear. He wanted to finish Chrissy quickly.
He pulled back, heard her disappointed "Oh!" and rolled her over, lush breasts bobbing.
He lunged forward between her upraised knees, made contact, and sank himself forward.
He hunched vigorously, swiftly, rapaciously, and Chrissy's bottom flopped and twisted against the floor. She screamed as her legs locked themselves in back of his. She hammered her soft loins up to and around his plunging hardness.
It was over in seconds... for her.
She tightened, lifted, and shook all over, moaning and biting her lip as she came.
He left her immediately, still massively aroused -- more massive than ever -- and lunged at the chair where Margaret sat with legs widely parted, her mouth gaping, her hand caressing herself.
She made an excited sound but offered no protest as he swung her out of the chair and onto the floor beside her sated sister. He pulled her panties off and tore at the top of her clothes. Buttons popped. Her brassiere snapped in two.
He brushed a hand across her stiff-nippled breasts, shaking them back and forth roughly.
"Come on!" she cried hoarsely and pulled him to her, her legs already locked around his rump.
He entered and went all the way. He had her I Now he shifted to low gear and began a series of long, slow, forceful lunges, glorying in the feel of her soft femininity sliding against his hardness. Every nerve-end was figuratively standing up and screaming. As he stroked and as Margaret panted and thrust her loins rhythmically at him, he looked at Chrissy's face.
Her eyes were glazed, almost as if she didn't comprehend what she was seeing. She was so blissfully sated and so drunk that his performance with Margaret might have been a vision without substance.
It gave Harry a special pleasure to take Margaret in front of her. This was part of the humiliation .which had to follow a conquest, part of the establishment of his superiority over all things female.
But his greatest pleasure at the moment cap-"-from the femininity of Margaret, moving up and down around him. He dug his hands underneath her and grasped her buttocks as he lunged harder.
"Feel that?" he growled as he gave her an especially long, strong thrust.
"Oh, yes! God!"
"Better than Frank?"
"Yes I"
"Better than anybody?"
"YES I" The liquor had given him a great deal of staying power and he was able to keep ramming longer than he normally could have done. Margaret finished wildly and he went on. She lay with her cheek against the carpet, not returning his lunges, but he didn't care. Having possessed her and driven her over the rim of erotic release, she meant nothing to him now except as a vessel in which to discharge the physical evidence of his lust. Let her wiggle, let her pump, or let her lie there like a cold fish -- he didn't care.
He kept pumping, gradually moving faster. He hardly noticed when her body reawakened and began to move with him as before.
A car pulled to a stop at the side of the house, but neither Harry nor the girls heard it. Margaret was moaning again and her buttocks were beating against the floor. Also, her body made a sound as it rhythmically merged with Harry's, something like the pump in a washing machine.
The front door of the house opened.
An agonized scream ripped the air.
Chrissy sat up, her full breasts jiggling. She stared at her mother, unable to say anything or even to cover herself.
Harry glanced but he didn't stop what he was doing.
Margaret didn't even look her mother's way. Perhaps the scream hadn't gotten through to her, Harry didn't know. All he knew for certain was that he was getting through deeply and solidly. She was flopping and whimpering, her breasts wildly ajiggle.
Mrs. Poston stood for a moment, gaping. Then she rushed to her younger daughter.
"Did he...?" she asked, shaking Chrissy's shoulders and making her breasts jump.
"Oh, yes, Ma!"
The older woman fell to her knees and began to sob.
Harry and Margaret moved with utter abandon. The girl drew breath and expelled it in a series of ragged little gasps and cries. Her hips pumped. Harry pistoned. And then, finally, completion caught both of them at the same time, lifting them like a toy rabbit in the jaws of a hound, shaking them violently and letting them drop.
They clutched and gasped and panted, then Harry slid away from her and stood up. Mrs. Poston stared at him as he restored himself to his clothes.
"You horrible, contemptible... " she began in a stricken tone.
"Oh, shut up," Harry said and pulled his zipper dosed.
He reached for Chrissy's hand and drew her to her feet. Margaret lay with her eyes closed, unmoving, her heels drawn back, her knees lolling.
"Your daughter and I are going away together, Mrs. Poston," he said in a mocking display of courtliness. "Tomorrow morning. We're both a little too drunk right now." He laughed.
"You monster!"
He patted Chrissy on the buttocks and said, "Come on, baby. Let's go upstairs."
"She will not go with you!" Mrs. Poston stated with finality.
"Well, let's just ask her. Chrissy... you heard your ma."
"Don't pay any attention," she said thickly and gazed at her mother with passion-dulled eyes. "What does a silly old woman know?"
"Yeah. That's what I say." Harry laughed again.
Chrissy turned and he helped guide her to the stairway and up to the second floor, her naked buttocks twisting. Mrs. Poston stood in the living room and stared after them until they were out of sight.
Harry felt very good. The old lady's arrival at just that moment had capped things exactly right.
CHAPTER NINE
"Wake up!" Harry said as he gave Chrissy's shoulder a shake.
Her nude, quivering breasts were quite an enticement, but at this moment Harry had something else in mind. He had slept longer than he should have. He could hear Mrs. Poston already moving about downstairs. It was necessary for Chrissy and him to get their things packed, get downstairs and into the car, and take off for town. The bank would be open by the time they arrived there.
"Hey!" he said and shook the sleeping girl again.
Again her bowl-like breasts quivered. The nipples had been teased into hardness by the morning air.
He placed a hand on each of them, squeezed, and rolled them around.
Damn, he thought. Why not?
He threw the covers all the way over the foot of the bed, opened Chrissy's legs, and mounted her.
Crouching on his knees, he remained back from her loins for a while as he kissed her breasts thoroughly. She woke up in the midst of this process, gave a start, then purred something and reached for the root of his desire.
In moments she was fitting him to her warm body, and mutual pressure achieved a deep union. They began lazily to rotate and thrust. The bed set up a rhythmic squeaking.
Her silken legs rubbed against his sides. Her soft belly patted his hard middle. Her breasts quivered and shook, the rosy nipples reaching toward him.
He hoped Mrs. Poston could hear the creaking of the bedsprings. Let her hear her baby girl getting it, he thought, because this meant she had failed in her scheme to barter Chrissy's virginity for a lifetime of security from some chump.
He stepped up the tempo, hammering away. Chrissy twisted and cried and climaxed, quivering as he finished with a final straining thrust. He twitched, and desire sped from him.
He rolled onto his back.
"Oh, Harry, when you do that to me, there's nothing else in the world that I want. Everything's per feet."
He chuckled, patted her on the soft stomach, and stood up.
She showered first and went to her own room to get dressed. She waited for him to get ready, and they went downstairs together.
Mrs. Poston looked at them as if they were conspirators and as if she was the one who had been damaged. She made no gesture toward Chrissy. The daughter's rejection of her the night before had stung.
Chrissy stayed close to Harry and looked at her mother with defiance.
Harry smiled to himself.
"You can fix your own breakfast," Mrs. Poston said to Chrissy. "I'm not going to do anything for you any more. I want you out of here as soon as possible."
She turned away.
Chrissy looked at Harry and her lip quivered. He put his arm around her and gave her a quick hug.
The two young people went to the kitchen. They had the room to themselves. There was coffee in a pot on the stove. They had that with cold cereal.
Chrissy said, "That really was bad the way we acted last night, in front of Margaret and all. And what was the idea of you taking her?"
This was Chrissy's first evidence of anger, and it was relatively mild.
Harry grinned. "We were all juiced, baby. Those things happen. It didn't mean anything."
"I feel bad about Ma, too," Chrissy said and looked down. The cereal didn't seem to appeal to her.
"Mothers have no business telling a daughter of eighteen how to live," he said. "You're right in declaring your independence."
"But I still feel bad about it."
"You'll get over that."
She looked at him. "I'm going to have to talk with her, Harry. I've got to try and make her understand how much we love one another and all."
"She'll try to get us to settle down here. She'd like to have me run the station and take care of both of you. But I won't do that."
Chrissy gazed at him and bit her lip.
"Talk to her if you want," he went on. "But we're taking off today."
She got up and left the kitchen. Harry continued with his breakfast.
All he was concerned about now was getting hold of Chrissy's five hundred dollars. The small amount he had earned since he had been with the Postons, plus the little he had left over from before, was not enough to get him very far. He wanted to shake the dust of Kansas off his shoes.
He wasn't worried. He felt certain that Chrissy would choose him in preference to remaining with her mother. All he had to do was remain firm about leaving today.
When he strolled into the living room, he found Chrissy standing at the front windows and dabbing a handkerchief at her eyes. She turned when she heard him.
"Ma's gone to her room. She'll never forgive me, I guess."
"Remember, baby -- you've got your own life to lead. Let's go upstairs and pack."
He got her moving with an arm around her back. At the stairs they met Margaret coming down. She said nothing to either of them and the look she directed at Harry was harsh with accusation. Hell with her, he thought, and grinned.
Chrissy and Harry got a ride into town from a customer who stopped for gas. Margaret had opened the station a few minutes before.
Harry had thought about taking Mrs. Poston's car and leaving it in town for some acquaintance to return, but he had decided at the last minute that it would be just as well not to upset her any more than she already was upset.
After visiting the bank and withdrawing Chrissy's money, they bought bus tickets for the county seat where the marriage license bureau was located. They took the first bus out Chrissy lay against his shoulder as the huge conveyance rolled over the road, and she kept yammering about plans for their future.
Harry tried to tune her out.
The county seat numbered about ten thousand people, which made it twice as large as the town near Cheever's Corners.
Harry took Chrissy into the cafe where the bus stopped, and they sat at the counter. He ordered coffee.
"Now that we're traveling together and we're going to get married," he said, "I think I ought to carry all the money. Don't you?"
"Sure, Harry," she agreed with a smile and opened her purse. She took out the slender stack of bills she had received from the bank.
Harry took them and jammed them into his pocket.
"Now everything I have is yours, darling," she said as she clutched his arm and gazed up at him warmly. "We belong to one another forever."
"You bet." He slipped his hand underneath the counter and patted a stockinged knee which emerged below the hem of the simple blue skirt she wore.
When they had finished their coffee, he suggested, "Why don't you run into the little girls' room and fix your face? Then we'll head over to the marriage license bureau."
She pulled his arm tighter against her warm, round breast and moved it there. "I think you're as anxious to tie the knot as I am," she murmured.
"You know it, sweetheart."
As soon as she had disappeared from sight, he'd dropped a couple of dimes on the counter and picked up the bag which had been on the floor beside his stool. Chrissy's remained beside the stool where she had been seated.
He walked out of the restaurant and headed quickly down the street.
A sweet sense of triumph coursed through him, lightening his feet and putting a glint in his eyes. The bit with the Postons had been the cutest deal he had ever pulled. He had made both girls and he had rooked one of them royally.
He visualized Chrissy's expression when she returned to the cafe counter and found him gone with his suitcase... and all her money.
He wondered if she had held back any money at all. Probably just change, he decided.
Well, she could call Mama collect, and Mama would come to pick her up. He would be long gone by the time Mama put the cops on his trail. That was assuming Chrissy told her mother about the money right away. Perhaps she wouldn't. She would look like enough of a fool without that.
He needed a ride, and he found it at the corner gas station where a produce trucker was getting his tank filled. It was hard to snag a ride with a big trucking outfit, but the independent guys who drove their own heaps usually were glad to have the company. This one was. He was going only about thirty miles, but that would get Harry across the state line and out of reach of the Kansas cops, so he was satisfied.
They took off.
The trucker was a talkative sort. Harry just listened most of the time. He was still savoring his success with the Poston girls. Neither of them would be the same after this, he felt sure.
Harry hadn't changed the girls in any respect. He merely had proved to them what their true natures were and had proved to himself, once again, that all women were essentially the same. They were secretly lustful while pretending to be virtuous; they were hypocritical about everything; they were intent upon dominating and sucking the very life blood from a man.
They deserved to be treated exactly as Harry treated them.
"You're pretty quiet," the trucker told him after he had finished a long story and had drawn only "mm" and "uh" from Harry in the way of comments.
"I like to hear other people talk."
"You're a rare person. Most people can't wait to start sounding off about themselves whether they've got anything interesting to say or not. I should know because I pick up a lot of guys on the road, and you ought to hear the... hey! Take a look at that!"
Harry sat up straight. What he saw sent an electric impulse speeding through him.
There was a red Barracuda parked at the side of the road, its left rear tire flat, and beside it stood possibly the most beautiful girl Harry had ever seen -- a fantastically curved brunette in a sleeveless white dress. She was looking up and down the road helplessly.
"Stop!" Harry directed as the truck passed her.
"Huh?"
"Stop, damn it!"
The trucker put on the brakes and said, "Okay, buddy, if you want to be a Samaritan. But I've got a schedule to keep."
"That's okay with me. Just stop this thing."
The truck came to a clattering halt about a hundred feet past the parked car. Harry grabbed his suitcase, muttered a thank you, and leaped out. The trucker shook his head, as if to say there was no accounting for people, and put the heap into gear. It rumbled off.
Harry headed back along the road.
The girl watched him as he approached. She was even more beautiful than his first glance had led him to believe. Her jet hair was glossy and long, falling about her shoulders. Her oval face was piquant yet delicate, the nose and chin possessing an aristocratic fineness. The vee of her skimpy dress revealed the beginnings of high-riding breasts which were just large enough. The dress stopped above fine-boned knees in sheer stockings.
Harry put on his usual likable grin. "Can I give you a hand with that tire?"
"You sure can. Thanks for giving up your ride to help me."
"It's no more than anybody would have done."
"Ha! You should have seen the dozen or so cars that passed me up. And how about the guy driving the truck?"
"He's got a schedule. Can I put this in your car?" he asked and, without waiting for an answer, swung the suitcase over the Barracuda's window ledge and onto the floor behind the front seat.
"By the way, my name's Harry Pearce."
"Pam Cochran. I suppose I should have tied into the blasted wheel myself, but I don't know beans about anything mechanical. Besides, I'm not exactly dressed for greasy jobs."
Harry let his gaze sweep over her frankly. Her dark blue eyes were twinkling when his inspection reached her face.
"Do you approve?" she asked.
"Very much. I can't understand how any guy on the road could pass you up."
"Most of them were with wives and kiddies. You'd be surprised the difference that makes in their reactions. Oh, let me get you the keys so you can open the trunk."
She turned and leaned into the car to snatch the keys from the ignition, and Harry had an opportunity to size up her buttocks which were packed snugly into the slim white skirt. Two perfect hemispheres of trembling flesh, they were. No girdle compressed them. As her dress pulled extra-taut, he noted the arching impression made by a panty elastic and farther down her thigh, the impression of a garter clip.
She handed the keys to him. "You're really a life-saver," she said. "I'm going to have to do something nice for you in exchange for this."
"You might give me a lift as far as you're going, and I hope it's all the way to California."
"Sorry. I live just across the state line, so that won't be much of a ride. Maybe we can figure out something else."
"Forget it," he said gallantly. "You won't owe me anything " He proceeded to change the tire, with Pam standing nearby. Every once in a while, as he worked, he would glance at her elegant legs. This gave his sexual battery a charge. He kept thinking about having those legs around him.
When he was through, his hands were dirty and he had worked up a slight sweat. He had, during the same time, worked up a large lust for Pam.
"Get in," she said as soon as he had snapped the trunk lid closed. "I'll stop at the first gas station so you can wash up."
He walked around the car and got in on the passenger's side as she slid behind the wheel. Her white skirt crept very high along her thighs. The lower portions of her stocking welts came into view.
As his eyes caressed there, he experienced the beginning stage of hardness. He jerked his gaze away.
She was watching him. Now she glanced back at the road, a little smile clinging to her lips. They were breezing down the highway at sixty-five miles an hour.
"So you're headed for California," she said. "What's the big attraction out there?"
"Oh, I don't know. I've always wanted to see the place."
"I've seen it, both north and south. Parts are nice, like San Francisco. You can have Los Angeles."
"I don't have any definite plans," Harry said.
"Meaning that you could be persuaded to alter your course?" She threw him a mischievous glance.
"Sure. I'm free as the breeze."
"Here's a gas station up ahead. As soon as you've had a chance to clean up, we'll talk about it."
Harry had this thought to tease him as he visited the men's room and scrubbed his hands. He washed his face while he was at it and combed his hair. He looked a lot more presentable when he emerged.
"Daddy runs a lumber business in the town where we live," Pam told him when they were on the road again. "It's the largest in this part of the state -- the lumber business, not the town. I think I could get him to put you on if you'd care to settle down for a while."
Harry took the suggestion as a signal that Pam was hot for him. Her eyes had seemed to denote this, also.
Without a word he reached across and placed his hand against the inner side of her right thigh just above the knee. Her tightly packed stocking was sleek and warm.
She didn't jump, utter a protest or seek to protect herself from a further advance of his hand. But she glanced at him quickly.
"Of course," she said smoothly, "if you don't care for a job, maybe you'd like a quick score."
He pulled his hand away. She had startled him.
She laughed.
"What's the matter?" she taunted pleasantly. "Big mans surprised little girl speak his language?"
"It isn't often that a girl comes out and offers it," he said.
T know. It isn't the socially accepted thing. But I don't give much of a damn for conventions. And I don't really see, in this age of The Pill and of emancipated womanhood, why a girl shouldn't be as outspoken about her desires as a man is."
Harry didn't like that even though he wanted her strongly. He said, "Does your father know you talk this way to guys?"
"He knows I'm not a virgin, and he didn't become apoplectic when he found that out. As to the way I behave with fellows, I figure that's my business and not his. He seems to agree."
"He must be broad-minded."
"Look, are we going to talk about my father or about us?" She reached over and picked up his hand. "And you can put this back where it was, if you'd like to."
His hand slid warmly around her stockinged inner thigh again. Her legs inched farther apart. Damn, he thought. He had a clear road!
His reaction was one of disquietude and vague displeasure. Physically he was thrilled by the contact with her kg, but his mental attitude did not agree. The girl was not behaving according to form.
Physical considerations exerted the stronger pull at the moment and he began to slide his hand upward, pushing her skirt and slip along. His possessive touch moved off her stocking and onto warm bare flesh where her thigh was gloriously full. He squeezed gently.
Now his passion was up, vigorously demanding.
Pam purred, "Maybe we'd better stop some place.
You're petting the leg that's on the gas .pedal. If I gave a sudden jerk, we might go up some truck's tailpipe."
"Yeah... okay," he said and pulled his hand back.
She left her skirt high, exposing both legs above her stocking tops. They were superb, both as to form and coloring. She was a tasty morsel any way you cut her, not cheap at all as far as appearances went. But, hell, the way she was offering herself was not how a nice girl ought to act. Harry truly was shocked.
She turned onto the first side road. They had crossed the state line and were in the Colorado foothills. The road wound around some grassy knolls and headed up a lightly timbered slope. She pulled off at a flat place and parked.
"Let's get out," she suggested and hopped from the car before Harry got into motion. He still showed evidence of erode excitement, but he was able to walk without embarrassing himself too much.
They strolled into the woods and stopped where a pile of boulders obscured the view from the road. Pam looked around.
"I don't dare sit down on the grass in this dress," she said. "It'll get all green. Do you mind if I strip?"
"Wait a minute," Harry told her.
She looked at him inquiringly.
"What's the deal?" he asked with a little chuckle. "You got the hots for me as soon as you saw me -- was that it?"
"I like you. Put it that way. I assume you like me or you wouldn't have started to feel me up. So I thought we might as well do something about it. I mean, I wouldn't want you hanging around my home town like a sick hound, just waiting for a piece, if you didn't have any other desire to stay there."
Harry squinted at her. "I never met a girl like you."
"Nobody's too much like anyone else, really. There are general similarities among females, just as there are among males, but you find out everyone's an individual when you get to know them. Like snowflakes. Well, do you want to strip or don't you?"
Harry had to say, "Yes." His body demanded that. But he was less than pleased with the way things were going.
She reached for the zipper at the back of her dress and loosened it, then reached up from below and let it all the way down. She faced away from him to slide the dress off her shoulders and down her arms. She worked it over her hips and stepped free.
Her bra strap was slender and white. Her plain slip, of matching color, was only about two hands wide. She let that down quickly.
She was a sight, there in the woods, in bra, panties, and hose. The scene was incongruous... but highly stimulating. As he unbuttoned his shirt, Harry was as stimulated as he was amazed.
Pam's white nylon briefs clung to as perfect a set of buttocks as he had ever seen. They were plump but firm, as were her upper thighs which were a delectable creamy-gold between the panties and her stocking tops. White garter straps gripped the dark stocking welts.
She turned to face him with a smile. "Well, am T going to have to help you?"
She moved up and took over the job of unbuttoning his shirt.
Harry had the giddy sensation that he would soon wake up and discover that this had been a dream. Girls just didn't behave this way, unless they were out after money. Even the commonest barroom tramp required a little romance from the guys she went to bed with.
Pam required no pretension on his part at all. This bothered him. Sally Weston had been pretty straightforward, but not until they had gotten acquainted and he had become the aggressor.
With Pam, she was the one who took the lead. Now she pulled his shirt out from underneath the waistband of his slacks and helped him shrug it off his shoulders and arms. Her hands dropped to the self-belt of his trousers.
He grasped her and pulled her tightly against him. She could feel his rising excitement. His mouth clamped onto hers and immediately their tongues were in liquid embrace. He placed a hand on the silken seat of her panties and enjoyed the responsive quiver of the girlish globes within.
The kiss didn't last very long. Pam pulled away and gazed down at him. "Let's get that out in the open. What do you say?"
She dropped to her pretty haunches and lowered his pants to his knees. She left them bunched there while she removed his shoes. He obediently lifted first one foot, then the other. His jockey shorts were out of shape in front of her face. Wild excitement was pulsing through him.
After she had removed his pants, she took a grip at the top of his briefs. She stretched the waistband forward and down, peeling the briefs away.
He swayed in front of her.
She looked at him as she worked his briefs the rest of the way off, then placed her cool hands around his burning hardness and gave him a quick kiss.
Swiftly he swung her onto her back and pulled her panties off. He dropped to the ground between her knees and struggled with the shoulder ribbons of her bra, getting them down and releasing her firm, up-pointing breasts. They had finely textured aureoles. The nipples were like hard-rubber dowels. He wrapped his hand around her left breast, squeezed, and fitted his mouth to the inviting summit.
The nipple was turgid with desire and he loved it with all the skill and passion he could express. His tongue moved over and around it again and again. His lips tugged gently upward, tightening more and more until the tip jumped free and jiggled atop the taut breast. He recaptured it and sucked.
Pam wriggled, boring the breast deeper into his oral embrace. He opened his mouth wider and took as much of it as he could hold. He felt it quiver in the moist warmth of his kiss.
He went to the other one and loved that in a similar way.
Pam was caressing him, her talented hand moving up and down slowly, paying particular attention to the ridge where his most sensitive nerve endings were bunched. She squeezed there a couple of times quickly, then resumed the gentle gliding motion.
Suddenly Harry raised his head.
"Come on," he rasped. "Now!"
She tilted him toward her, and he lunged. The sensation as he claimed her was intensely good. She was exactly right for him, as if Nature had had his measurements in mind when her body was engineered.
She positioned her calves behind his thighs so that she could dig her stockinged toes into the ground as she exerted a pulling pressure against his legs. With her pelvis tilted up at him, she rotated slightly and worked herself forward and back around his every thrust.
He had had the notion in the back of his mind that perhaps her forwardness was an over-compensation for a lack of ability to become genuinely aroused. He had half-hoped this was true.
The notion was completely wrong.
She turned savage with him close. Her hips pumped and twisted, her buttocks staying clear of the ground most of the time. She kept her lower lip clamped between her teeth and her eyes remained open, but the fire in them was unmistakable.
There was nothing that she enjoyed more than having a virile male stir her depths. She worked at it voraciously and, when she climaxed, her muscles contracted spasmodically, triggering his explosion. His groans mingled with her passionate moaning as their locked bodies convulsed.
When the tumult finally had ended, he lapsed forward against her. They clung to one another, neither of them speaking.
After a time, he twisted his head and captured a softening rosy nipple. He licked at it and drew it deeply into his mouth.
She murmured, "You were very good," and petted him along the back.
He didn't say anything. He didn't quite know what to say. His feelings toward her were confused. It had been a marvelous loving, one of almost textbook perfection, and yet he was strangely dissatisfied.
Finally she told him, "You know... you're getting heavy."
He got off her and helped her to her feet.
She brushed at her backside, then sighted over her shoulder and down the backs of her hose.
"Looks like I popped a couple of nylons," she said.
"Not only that. Your ass is a little green."
"That's okay. Nobody will see it before I get into the tub."
He watched her straighten her bra and fit it to her perky breasts. The dark garden of her loins was very pretty.
He began to get dressed.
CHAPTER TEN
Before putting her dress on, she sat down beside him on a flat ledge of rock. He asked, "Have you done this many times with boys?"
"What do you mean -- balling?"
"The way we did it, on the spur of the moment?"
"A few times, I guess. Why?"
"I don't know. With most girls, a guy has to put on a lot."
"Would you have liked it better if I had played coy and made you pursue me?"
"No," he said, not sure that he didn't mean yes.
She laughed a little. "Men are funny. I think it scares them when a girl is honest about sex."
"So you admit that most girls aren't."
"Sure. And I gave you the reason: They don't want to scare their boy friends off. The male ego is a fragile thing."
She stood up. "Well, I suppose we'd better be on our way. At home they'll be wondering what happened to me."
"So they care."
She looked at him peculiarly. "Of course."
She put on her dress and paused to comb her hair and repair her lipstick. Harry preceded her to the car. He was still uneasy.
"What were you doing in Kansas?" he asked after she had joined him.
"I spent the night with a girl friend."
She started the car, backed it around, and headed back to the road.
They didn't speak for a minute or so, then Harry said, "I think I'd like to meet your father."
"To see about a job?"
"Mm."
She laughed softly.
"What's the matter?" he asked.
"You don't have any... ideas about us, do you?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, you're not getting serious."
He looked at her.
"Well?" she asked with a smile.
"I don't know. Maybe I am; maybe I'm not. Does it matter to you?"
"Yes. I don't want to get serious with anyone. I'm going back to college in the fall."
"Oh."
It was silent for several minutes. Warm air rushed past the open windows of the car. The highway was lightly traveled. Pam could set her own pace, and the needle of the speedometer hung just under 70.
"Most girls are hot to get married," he remarked after a while.
"Goodness! Don't tell me you're proposing."
"Of course not. But most girls have marriage on their minds."
"If that's true, I must be an exception in that respect, also. I don't want to get married for a long time yet."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty. You?"
"Twenty-one."
There was another spell of silence.
Harry looked at her pretty knees which were poking out from under her snug skirt. He let his gaze move upward, along her full thighs. He remembered how those thighs had felt next to him.
"You're a very pretty girl," he said, "and you make love like a tigress."
"Thank you, kind sir," she said with a little smile.
Something gnawed harder at him inside. She didn't really care much what he thought of her. They had met and had physically collided, and now the collision was over and they were just acquaintances. She hadn't asked him to remain in her home town.
Then he thought he understood: This was her way of playing with him -- a strange way, but a way nonetheless. She figured that the hot loving she had given him would get him hooked; now she would cool off suddenly and pretend disinterest. Her statement that she didn't want to get married was supposed to throw him off the track. She expected him to give her the rush act, then finally she would submit, with an engagement ring to seal the bargain.
Hell!
"Maybe I'd better go on to California after all," he said.
"Whatever you like." There was more silence.
He would have been tempted to believe that he hadn't satisfied her back there in the woods if it were not for the fact that her deep orgasm had been obvious to him. No woman could fake a response like that. Anyway, why would she have tried to fake it?
"You're a funny girl," he said.
"I've never known another boy who has carried on like this," she replied. "You know... I think you're a little prudish underneath. When you put your hand on my thigh the first time, I'll bet you were just testing me out. You probably were hoping I wouldn't play."
"That's silly."
"Then why do you keep calling me an oddball? I'm not really that strange."
But she was. She was very strange. Nothing could shake Harry's conviction about this.
When they reached her home town, she brought the car to a stop on the main street. She said, "Maybe you can pick up another ride here. I hope so."
"You mean it, don't you? You'd really let me go."
She blinked her eyes at him. "Well, if you don't want to... "
"I don't want to. I want to meet your father."
She shrugged prettily and put the car into motion again.
Sure. She was playing him. Oh, she was a cute one! But not cute enough to get him hooked. The woman wasn't created who could do that.
Ralph Cochran was fifty, handsome in a middle-aged way, and genial. Pam took Harry to meet him at his office. She explained how Harry had come to her assistance and pointed to her popped nylons as evidence of what had happened when she had attempted to change the tire herself. She was casual and convincing about the whole thing.
Yeah, she was smooth, Harry told himself again. The smoother they were, the more dangerous they could be.
"Harry's looking for a job," she said finally. "Do you suppose you could do something for him, Daddy?"
"Don't see why not. Have you had any experience in a lumber yard, son?"
"I'm afraid I haven't," Harry said. "How about general office work?"
"No."
"Well... we'll work out something."
What it turned out to 'be was a flunky's job. Harry couldn't complain. That was all he was qualified for. Anyway, the work didn't matter. He intended to hang in only long enough to prove that his theory about Pam was correct.
It had never occurred to him to wonder whether other men went through their lives constantly trying to prove something about women.
* * *
The proof depended, he believed, on his ability to wait Pam out. If he stayed away from her long enough, she would get in touch with him. Then he would have the upper hand.
Remaining away from her was difficult because he kept remembering how good she had been underneath him on the grass. Besides this, he was a young man who required regular sex.
He eased the pressure by dating a girl who worked in the company's office. Her name was Noreen Leets. She was slender, well built, and red-haired. She had a light sprinkling of freckles across her nose and at other, more interesting locations on her person.
His attitude toward her, from the very beginning, had not been the usual one he took with girls. He had viewed her as simply a physical sex object. He had gone through the motions of saying the usual things, of course, because that was the way to get into a girl's panties. The I-love-you's and the references to marriage came easily.
On the third date, he coaxed Noreen into his room.
Coaxing her out of her clothes was a little more difficult, but it was no great problem because Noreen wanted to be naked with him.
All it took was some hot petting.
When he had her breasts bare and was jiggling them in his hands, the battle was won. She could hardly wait for him to go the rest of the way.
But Harry took his time. Her swollen orange-pink aureoles were worthy of a good deal of attention, as were the little rounded nubbins at their centers. He licked each breast cap all over, then spent some time nibbling at the tips. He kissed the undersides of the breasts and their inner slopes, as well.
After this, he lay Noreen back on the couch and kissed her around the navel.
He could not proceed very far beyond this little cup because her rumpled clothing was in the way, so he paused long enough to remove completely her dress and slip. She wore pink nylon briefs. He nuzzled her warm belly through the silken cover, then folded the top of the panties down and kissed where he had nuzzled.
She twisted, pushing her pantied loins up at him. He urged her onto her stomach, folded her nylon pants away from her bottom, and kissed the freckles that he found there.
She had a few freckles on her thighs, as well, and he took care of those after he had slid her panties off.
Now he undipped her garters and brushed her stockings down. He took the garter belt away.
"Want to undress me, honey?" he suggested as he stood up, revealing the state of his excitement to her.
She swung around and placed her feet on the floor. Sitting there with her thighs close together, she hid most of the reddish-gold at the base of her belly. She was a little clumsy with his snaps and zipper as he quickly removed has own shirt.
He surmised that she had never undressed a male before, but he doubted that she was virgin. Anyway, he would soon find out.
When his vigorous arousal confronted her in the nude, she stared at it. "Gee," she said and lifted her hands tentatively.
He took a step closer, straddling her knees. He moved his hips a little, which caused a side-to-side swaying motion that collided with her hands. She clutched him hard.
"Ouch!" he said. "That's a tender place. Maybe you'd better kiss it to make it well."
"Harry! What an awful thing to say."
"That's not so awful. Girls do it all the time."
"Have you ever had one do it for you?" she asked "Sure. Try it. See what it's like."
"But I wouldn't even know how." Her voice was a little huskier and she was leaning closer to him.
He arched his back to force himself further forward.
She said, "Nnnnn," and kept loving him with her tongue and lips.
"Now more," he said and pushed forward. "Yes."
"Then go to it, honey."
She did as he had suggested. He shut his eyes, kept his body arched like a bow, and clenched his fists.
He growled and pushed himself forward. He moved his hips forward and back.
That was enough. With his manhood throbbing blissfully, he pulled back and told her to stretch out on the sofa. She was more than ready.
He placed one of her feet at the top of the sofa-back and angled the other one to the floor.
He took her and began to hunch in long, hip-looping motions. She wiggled a little, but didn't give him any pumping action. He didn't care at the moment. She felt good just the way she was.
She made up for her lack of motion by the way she talked as her head thrashed from side to side, her eyes closed, her lips lolling: "Oh, yes yes... that's wonderful... keep doing it, honey... oh, great. I love it! I love it!"
"What do you love, sweetheart?" he asked as he kept powering to her.
"You... oh, that wonderful feeling."
"How many words do you know? Tell me."
She told him. Explosively. Passionately. She seemed to relish the opportunity to vocalize words which doubtless had teased her mentally many times.
She knew many. He supplied others. She repeated them back to him.
Now that he had her talking juicily, he mentioned additional words and she repeated them -- words that applied to her body and to what the two of them were doing. She enjoyed the verbalizing as much as he did.
Finally, when it became difficult to talk any longer, he said, "Now move a little. Push up to meet me. Keep the rhythm."
She responded well, and the conversation evolved into a series of mindless sounds -- grunts, groans, moans, whimpers and mewings.
He increased the pace of his stroking, concentrating on the hot point of her sex instead of trying to maintain great depth. This brought both of them to the edge of release, and when he felt her teetering, about to take the plunge, he struck deeply four or five times, really powering in. She climaxed ecstatically and he came right afterward. The heat of their impassioned bodies fused.
He took her a second time before the evening came to a close. This time he unfolded the sofa which provided a full-sized bed. He had her crouch above him, facing his feet, and, after she lowered her head, both of them watched while her delightfully springy buttocks beat a tattoo against his belly.
After he took her home, he thought for a long time about Pam. The interlude with Noreen had been only a physical thing; he had gained no other kind of satisfaction from it. He hadn't sought any. His interest was still centered in the strangely independent minded brunette who had picked him up on the highway, given him access to her body without his hardly having asked, made it possible for him to get a job, then seemingly disappeared from his life.
Now she was more strongly in his mind than ever, not because Noreen hadn't been a good lay but because that was all she had been and Harry required more.
He lay awake for quite a while, visualizing Pam as she had looked when they were in the woods together. He remembered how her femininity had felt to him -- the heat of her, the clinging contractions when she climaxed.
He wanted to call her the very next day. He had waited more than long enough. But perhaps if he waited a little while longer, she would come to him, and that was what he really wanted.
In the meantime there was Noreen.
Now that he had broken her in, she would be available whenever he required her.
Pam didn't talk about marriage. In fact, she had said she didn't want to get married.
Bosh! He didn't believe that.
He remained convinced that she was stringing him.
But he knew, at the same time, that there would have to be an end to his patience. He couldn't wait indefinitely for her to come around. Another week or maybe two, he estimated, then if he hadn't heard from her he would give her a call.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The time passed and no call came from the pretty girl who lived in the large, old mansion at the edge of town.
Harry had walked past the place.
He had written down her phone number and carried it in his wallet.
Finally the time arrived when he had to make use of the number. From the telephone in the hallway of the small hotel where he lived, he dialed Pam's number on a Saturday morning.
An older woman answered and he asked for Pam without identifying himself. He waited. A peculiar tension had taken hold of him, not the sort he was used to feeling where girls were concerned. It was not involved with lust for conquest but with a fear of failure.
His hand perspired as he maintained a tight grip on the telephone receiver.
"Hello," Pam said.
"Hi." His voice was not as steady or as confident as he wanted it to be. "This is Harry. How are you?"
"All right." The tone was not unfriendly, but it certainly gave no suggestion that she had been awaiting his call.
"I... uh, have been thinking about you quite a lot."
"Have you?"
"Yeah."
"I'm flattered."
"How about a date tonight, Pam? Dinner and a movie, maybe."
"I'm sorry, but I can't. I already have a date."
"Oh." He paused. "Well... how about tomorrow?"
There was silence for a few moments.
"I don't have anything definite," she said. "I thought maybe I'd take a little drive in the country."
"Would you consider taking a passenger who'll spring for a meal?" He chuckled.
"Sure, Harry. If you like."
He took heart. Though her tone remained rather cool, he found confirmation for his earlier belief that she was putting on an act. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. More.
"Where shall I meet you? You want me to come over to the house?"
"All right. Ten o'clock or so."
"I'll be there."
He was grinning as he hung up the phone.
* * *
Pam seemed even more beautiful than he remembered her. She wore a plaid, long-sleeved shirt with a button-down collar. It would have looked boyish except for the way her erect breasts shoved forward to make breath-taking hills in the colorful cotton cloth. Her pants were blue and bell-bottomed. She wore them slung low on her hips with a wide black belt for added interest. Red ribbons gathered her black hair into two bunches at the sides of her head. That was little-girlish. All in all, the effect on Harry was powerfully intriguing.
She handed him the keys to the Barracuda.
They took off, headed for the mountains.
He set a casual tone for the conversation and Pam went along with it. She laughed a great deal. It was a fine day, the air crisp and clear, the sun out, a little breeze blowing.
They stopped for lunch at a picturesque mountain inn and drove on. He suggested a short hike later, and they parked the car and took off, finding a lightly traveled trail that led to the top of a ridge. From there they spotted a stream and walked down to it.
They were utterly alone on a carpet of grass beside the rippling water. The large trees all around them furnished a canopy through which sunlight filtered. As the branches rustled, small spots of brightness appeared here and there on the grass.
It was a idyllic setting, exactly what Harry wanted for the romantic pitch he had planned.
As they sat side-by-side on the grass, he took Pam's hand in his. "Beautiful, isn't it?" he said, watching the dancing points of sunlight reflected on the water.
Pam murmured her agreement.
He turned his gaze to her. "It isn't half as beautiful as you are, though."
"Harry... that's sweet."
"I mean it. I'm really gone on you, honey. I've been thinking about you ever since that last time. I haven't been able to get you out of my mind."
Her dark blue eyes remained with his for a moment, and then she looked down.
"You've been thinking about me a little bit, haven't you?" he pressed. "What happened before wasn't something you could just forget like that." He gave a snap of his fingers.
"It was good," she admitted. "It was a pleasurable experience. But I told you I didn't want to become serious with anyone."
"I know that's what you said, but... " She looked quickly at him. "You didn't believe I meant it?"
"Well... " He grinned.
"I did mean it, Harry. I don't want to become involved. You have to accept that."
"Okay. So you don't want to become involved. Maybe I feel the same way for the moment. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep seeing one another and... well, who knows what might happen."
"I know what won't happen," she said firmly. "We won't have any more sex."
He was startled. "Why not?"
"Because you're entirely too serious. I don't want to hurt you, Harry. I don't want to hurt anyone. I just want to stay free."
He gave a nervous laugh. "You're talking like a guy instead of a girl."
"What is this with you? You seem to think every girl is out to get trapped into marriage or to get some guy trapped into it."
"Trapped. That's a funny word for a girl to use."
"There you go again." She pulled her hand away from him and stood up. "If you're going to start telling me how peculiar I am, the way you did before, I'm not going to stay here with you."
He grasped her around the hips and pulled her close to him. His large hands fanned over her plump buttocks, the fingers sinking into her resilient softness. His cheek pressed against the sleek pants-front.
"Harry... please." She pushed at his head.
Suddenly he went wild with desire for her, not only to possess her physically but to break through the cool reserve she had put up between them. One of his hands shot up her front to play over the taut brassiered mounds within her shirt while the other spanned both buttocks as he turned his head to kiss her through her clothes.
"No!" she cried and attempted to wriggle free.
This further inflamed him. He placed both hands on the big black buckle at her belly and tore it open. Underneath was hidden the zipper tab of her mannish fly. She fought him, pushing at his arms and head, but he was able to get the zipper open. His hand snaked inside, across silken bikini panties, and clutched the core of her female warmth.
"Damn it, stop!" she screamed.
He rose to his knees as she fought harder and he succeeded in toppling her onto the grass beside him. They wrestled in tense silence until his vastly superior strength subdued her. She was on her back. He straddled her at the thighs.
"This will be rape," she proclaimed angrily, breathing hard, her breasts rising and falling.
"No, it won't," he said. "Not the way I'm going to do it." And he unsnapped the top of her pants and began to pull them away.
He had to climb off her in order to remove her pants, and she took advantage of the opportunity to kick and thrash about. But she couldn't rise or roll over because he was holding her legs and pulling the pants along them. As soon as this garment was removed, he sprawled forward, holding her legs down as he went to work on her black bikini briefs. They came down in a wink, and she was exposed before him.
He spread her legs apart and fell forward But he did not cover the upper portion of her body. His face landed at her cute navel which was exposed between the tails of her shirt as they whipped this way and that.
He fastened his lips there and kissed warmly. The softness of her little belly against his face was stimulating. She had doused herself there with some provocative cologne.
He kissed and nuzzled around, gradually sliding lower. She beat at his head and shoulders, but the blows didn't hurt. She wasn't putting much steam behind them.
Taking a firm grip at the back of each of her thighs, he shoved them toward her middle. He tucked his shoulders under them. He lowered his head.
It was not Harry's usual practice to make love to a girl this way. Normally it didn't fit his concept of the sort of relationship he wished to have. But Pam was different and required different treatment. Winning her over had become more important than ever.
His parted lips pressed against her. He could hear Pam's cries from far away. Her legs twisted between his shoulders and his hands clamped at their tops. The cries and the struggling could have been interpreted as protests or as passionate involvement with his lovemaking. He chose to interpret them as the latter. His judgment was vindicated a moment later when her legs tensed and her loins lifted so that she was fitted more firmly against his possessive kiss.
He kissed with deep passion, showing not the slightest hesitancy or reserve. She cried with great excitement and pressed her satin inner thighs against his head. Her belly bumped slightly. The muscles in her legs were jumping.
It was no longer necessary for him to hold her, so he slithered his hands up underneath her shirt and worked both bra cups off her breasts. He fondled the breasts ardently, plucking at the nipples.
She was talking to him now, but he couldn't make out what she was saying. Her legs were clamped too firmly against his ears. She wasn't protesting, though. That was for certain.
He was lost in a world of female warmth and excitement. His brain was giddy. She twisted to him and quivered against the serpentine insinuations of his tongue.
Then suddenly she reached the zenith, tightening and crying out as she climaxed, her belly shuddering wildly against his face. He continued to stroke her until, at the last moment, he clamped his lips firmly. She shook harder and he could hear her squealing.
Her legs relaxed and her buttocks dropped against the ground.
He slowly raised has head.
"Oh... you devil... devil," she panted.
He crawled fully over her and fitted himself to her warmth. He began to thrust gently and slowly. As he worked with her, he unbuttoned her shirt all the way to the collar. He slid her bra higher around her throat and played over her breasts with talented fingers.
He carried her to a second release just before he had his own. His body shuddered mightily and erupted in hot spasmodic spurts.
He fell forward and kissed her neck and cheeks and hair.
With his lips against her ear he whispered several times, "I love you."
She didn't return a like declaration, but neither did she protest.
After a time, he let her get up and he helped her with her clothes.
As they walked back to the car, he hugged her against his side and asked, "Well, would you call that rape?"
"No. I'd call it wonderful."
They stopped and he drew her into his arms. He kissed her deeply and her belly rubbed and twisted against him.
* * *
Their next date was made when he took her home that afternoon. She agreed to meet him two days later for dinner and a movie.
After the show, she went with him to his room.
They undressed one another and rolled into bed.
They tried several ways, first with him on top, then with her on top and the third time on their sides. By then they both were exhausted and it was an effort to get up and dress. They managed it, however, and he accompanied her to her home.
As they sat in the car after he had brought it to a stop in her driveway, he said, "You still haven't told me that you love me."
"I've never told anyone that," she replied.
"But you feel that way about me, don't you?"
"I don't know, Harry. I really don't. All I know for certain is that marriage now would foul up my life."
"You still believe that?"
"Yes."
"And you would let us break up because of it?"
"Are you sure you want to get married?" she asked, looking at him intently. "If I said yes, maybe you would decide you had been too hasty."
"Never," he said with firmness. "I love you and I want you to be my wife."
"Harry... " She placed her hand on his lap and fondled him gently through his clothes. In spite of all the excitement they had shared in his room, he was still able to rise to the challenge which her hand presented.
"Will you marry me, Pam?" he persisted.
"No, I won't. That doesn't mean I don't like you and enjoy being with you. You know I enjoy that. You know what you do to me in bed. Right now, just from feeling you like this, I'm ready again."
"Let's drive back to my place," he said immediate- "Silly! I have to get in."
She vaulted from the car and, in spite of his aroused condition, he got out and walked with her to her front door. He pulled her into his arms and gave her a burning kiss, his tongue reaching deeply.
"Tomorrow night?" be whispered as she opened the door.
"I'll call you at the company tomorrow," was her answer, and she threw him a kiss as she entered the house.
He turned and walked the six or seven blocks to his hotel.
The next day he didn't hear from her.
That evening he telephoned her house. The Cochrans' housekeeper answered the phone.
"Pam?" she repeated. "Oh, she left today."
"Left!" Harry gripped the telephone more tightly. "Where did she go?"
"Back to University at Boulder."
"But it doesn't start for another three weeks, she told me."
"That's right. She decided to get there early and spend some time with friends. Is this Mr. Pearce?"
"Yes."
"She left a message for you. I jotted it down. She said to thank you for the good times and that she would remember you always."
"Is that all?"
"Yes."
He hung up the phone.
She hadn't even thought enough of him to call or write him direct. She had been content to have her goodbye delivered by a servant.
He returned to his room, stretched out on top of the bed, and tried to sort out his thoughts.
His attitude toward Pam had undergone a considerable change in the last few days, but he wasn't able to define it accurately. He knew he felt differently toward her than he had ever felt toward another girl. He still wanted to believe that his declarations of love and his proposal of marriage had been for effect, but he wasn't sure how he would have felt or reacted if she had accepted him.
Most important of all, she had convinced him by her words and by her actions that she was not out to take him down the line in the way most girls sought to do with men. She had responded to him sexually with as much warmth as he had ever received from a woman, and there had been no strings attached.
His theory about womankind had been undermined and shaken. On the conscious level he would not admit to any change in his beliefs. But most of his obsession was subconscious, anyway. It lurked beneath the surface of his actions like the major portion of an iceberg, which is never seen.
He thought about following Pam to Boulder, but gave that up. Assuming that he would be able to find her, he didn't know what he would say when he did so. She wasn't in love with him. That was clear. She was one of the very few girls he had not succeeded in making fall in love with him after a considerable effort on his part. He had made her physically, but that hadn't meant anything more to her than an ordinary conquest meant to a male. And she hadn't tried to capitalize on his evident desire for her in any way.
All in all, it had been a sobering experience.
That night he found himself thinking about his mother and wondering, for the first time, if perhaps he had been too harsh in his judgment of her. Perhaps, also, he had been harsh in his judgment of other women. Perhaps he had seen only what he wanted to see. whether it was the outstanding characteristic of their behavior or not.
That was as far as his conscious thought would go, but that was a considerable distance.
He had a fitful sleep.
The following morning, he walked into the lumber company office and cornered Noreen at the filing cabinets. He made a date with her for that night.
She smiled radiantly.
He had broken a date with her the other evening to take Pam out and, while she didn't know the reason she had been upset. Now everything was all right again.
He thought about her as he returned to work.
From the outset, he had not sought to prove anything with Noreen because he had Pam on his mind. Consequently he and Noreen had developed a more normal relationship, though only on the physical plane.
But something about her had insinuated itself more deeply into his consciousness. Her sweetness -- that was it. She was a very sweet girl indeed, but she was smart, too. And she looked up to him.
He was aware of an unusual sense of warmth as he looked forward to their date that night.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Three weeks later, he and Noreen were married.
He could hardly believe it was happening as the minister pronounced them man and wife... but he had proposed, she had accepted, and he had let her set the date. He had gone along the whole way.
If someone were to ask him to explain how it had come about, and if he were required to be completely honest in his answer, he wouldn't have been sure what to say.
But he thought he was in love.
After Pam, he no longer was interested in the kind of retribution which had obsessed him before. The experience hadn't changed his convictions completely, but it certainly had shaken them. And it had changed him.
Noreen had changed him, too. She had sneaked into his affections when his guard was down. After Pam left, Noreen had remained.
Now they were married.
In the back of his mind something said, if it doesn't work out you can always walk. But even as he thought this, there was a hope which was stronger -- the hope that he had found a reality he had ignored before, a reality that would bring peace and comfort to him.
Their wedding night was, in some ways, merely a repetition of the sex they had enjoyed before. But somehow it was also different.
When he removed the frilly nightgown from Noreen's fresh, young body, and as he drew her soft nudity against him, he felt that she was his in a way no girl had ever been before. And, of course, this was true. They had the marriage certificate and the matching gold bands to prove it.
He kissed her, using his tongue sparingly at first, just to tease her along the lips. At the same time, his hand toured the delights of her feminine form, toying with her taut breasts for a while until the nipples were rigidly erect and reaching for his love. Then he slipped his hand down the satin runway across her middle, palmed her navel depression, and went on to the secret delights which, from this day forward, only he would have the right to know.
She opened her legs for him and he petted her silken curls. His fingers reached as far as they could go, teasing the lower curve of each buttock and the point where the curves met on their upward sweep against the mattress.
He stroked her inner thighs and, by now, his tongue was plunging slowly in and out of her mouth. Her tongue rose to chase his on one of its withdrawals, and he clamped his lips and teeth against it gently.
His fingertips parted her feminine softness and probed. She was very ready for him. She had generated more excitement than usual. He stroked against the tingling sensitivity, causing her to squirm and push at him. Finally she began calling for him in the blunt, exciting words which he had taught her to use.
But he wasn't ready to enter into the final stage of the lovemaking yet. There were many things to be done first. Such as...
Kissing her breasts.
He leaped astride her, forcing her thighs closed, and bent to run his tongue tip over a puffed-up aureole. He licked at the rounded nipple at its center until the little passion nub was very firm. He could almost feel it throbbing against his warm, liquid caress.
Now he trapped the nipple between his teeth and bit gently.
Noreen arched her upper body, pressing her head deeply into the pillow, and she wiggled her breast at his mouth. "That's it," she moaned. "Bite it. Torture it. Set me on fire."
He nibbled that breast tip for a little while longer, then quickly switched to the other one and placed a hand where his mouth had been. He kneaded and pulled at the ripe, round passion fruit as his mouth brought sweet torment to its tingling twin.
He pushed himself backward and smeared his wet parted lips around her tummy. He jumped then to an inner thigh and licked upward. He didn't proceed all the way but leaped to her other leg instead and bit gently, making her squeal.
After climbing completely off her, he grasped her legs and twisted, making her roll onto her stomach. He kissed the backs of her thighs and her buttocks. He kissed the small of her back.
She was a sweet symphony of silken curves, a playground of passionate pleasure for his lips and tongue.
When he had placed her on her back again, he did not hesitate to kiss her where a woman most enjoys being kissed. He pressed his lips to her warmly and suctioned as his tongue gave her tantalizing messages of delight. From the spontaneous fervor of her response, he judged that she had never been kissed that way before.
He stopped after a few moments because he didn't want her to finish that way. Not tonight. He wanted to experience one more delight before their love play reached its final phase.
Rolling onto his back he said, "Now you kiss me, hm?"
"Oh, yes, darling... yes... yes." Immediately she was onto her knees and leaning over him, her hair hanging down and furnishing a silken caress which served as a perfect accompaniment to her nibbling lips and gliding tongue and fondling fingers.
She kissed his lips, his chin and his throat. She clasped one of his small stiffened nipples between her lips, then his other one. She let her open mouth trail down to his belly.
She poked at his navel with the tip of her tongue. She grasped him in her cool hands and, with her hair brushing against his hips and stomach, proved the depth and warmth of her desire for him.
Her soft lips slid against him. Her tongue teased. She clasped rhythmically, drawing his passion dangerously close, then switched back to the head-bobbing motion she had used before. But more slowly, with tenderness and intense love.
When he felt as if he couldn't stand another moment of the giddy thrills she was transmitting to him, he lifted her and swung her onto her back once more. He mounted.
His strength infused her swiftly. She rose to him, her belly beating against his, her buttocks bouncing on the bed. He stroked at furious speed and, as all resistance suddenly gave way and his male heat surged forth, she was twisting upward around him, convulsing, crying, clawing at his back.
It was a marvelous release for both of them. This completion was followed by two more before they finally fell asleep in each other's arms.
In the morning he awoke her with his knees planted between hers, his urgency probing. She came to full awareness quickly and joined in the happy game.
They showered, slipped into robes, and had breakfast sent up. As soon as the dishes had been cleared away and the serving cart removed, they denuded each other and made love again.
Time stood still that day.
Neither of them could have been happier.
* * *
But time has a way of diluting happiness with trouble, real or imagined. In Harry's case it was a re-emergence of the old obsession which never was entirely laid to rest.
Jealousy plagued him.
Whenever Noreen so much as glanced at another man, he imagined that she was thinking of taking the other fellow to bed.
He accused her of infidelity on the slimmest of circumstantial evidence, which amounted really to no evidence at all. Each time, she fervently assured him of her faithfulness, and the rousing sex session which always followed convinced him for the moment.
But he could not remain convinced.
His mother had been unfaithful; therefore all women were unfaithful. It was not a proposition which would stand up under logical examination, but it was one which he could not seem to shake.
He thought not only of his mother but of the many women he had seduced, including Noreen, before they were married.. The evidence of all those cases seemed to support what he had been led by his mother's example to believe: Women used men solely for their own purposes, to provide security when they needed it and to furnish pleasure when pleasure alone was what they wanted. They would say anything or do anything in order to accomplish these ends. Truth was a mockery. Fidelity was an illusion.
It seemed finally that there was only one way for him to set his mind at ease: He would have to put his wife to a test.
He contrived this in the coldly calculating way that he used to plan his seductions.
He and Noreen were living in San Francisco. They had been married for seven months. He had been faithful to her for that entire time and he had no positive evidence that she had not been completely faithful to him. But there was the terrible nagging doubt that he could not dispel.
To dispel it -- or to prove it -- he needed the help of another man.
He found him in a neighborhood bar. Harry was in the habit of dropping into the place on his way home from work. He had made up his mind about what he wanted to do and, on this particular night, the type of man who might help him execute the scheme was seated at the bar, sipping a beer.
Harry chose him because of his handsome appearance. The handsomeness was, like Harry's, of the rugged sort -- the kind Noreen would go for. He was the right age. He was by himself.
Harry took the vacant stool beside him and struck up a conversation. After a while, they moved from the bar to a booth when Harry said he had something important to talk over.
"So what's the big confidential deal?" the other fellow asked. His name was Jack Tuttle and he had a glimmer in his gray eyes that told Harry he wouldn't be above taking part in the kind of game Harry was going to propose.
Harry outlined it quickly. Jack listened to the whole thing and, when Harry had finished, leaned back and looked at him long and searchingly.
He said, "Man, that's about the wildest thing I ever heard, and I've heard some beauties."
"What's wild about it?" Harry countered. "I just want to find out if my wife is really in love with me or if another guy could take her away. There's no risk to you one way or the other. And if you score, look what you've got. She's dynamite in the sack. Really."
"You say there's no risk, but what if she goes for me? You're her husband. You're not gonna take that lying down if I'm any judge."
"I'll be mad as hell at her, sure, but I won't have any reason to blame you, since I'm putting you up to the play."
"You're sure that's the way you'll feel about it afterward?"
"Guaranteed. I'm a reasonable guy. Anyway, you're single. You're entitled to go after anything that walks if she appeals to you. My wife's married, so that makes her to blame if there's any hanky-panky."
"Man, I don't know."
"Look, I've got the whole thing framed up. I'll be at work, see? Or, at least, that's where Noreen will think I am. You'll come to the apartment to check out the TV set."
"What the hell do I know about TV? I'm a truck-driver."
"Relax. You don't need to know anything. I'll doctor the set -- take out a couple of tubes. Get the idea?" Harry grinned.
The other man wasn't grinning. Not yet. But he was interested enough to hang around and listen.
The prospect of strange tail will do that to a guy.
"I'll tell my wife I've called a repair man. We live in an apartment building and she can't see the street from the window, so she won't know whether you come in a TV repair truck or not. And most repair men don't wear uniforms."
"Yeah, but they have a tool kit."
"I'll get you one. It'll only cost a few bucks, and it's worth that to me to check this out."
"Man, you really have some hang-up! What makes you think your wife will cheat, anyway?"
"I just have a suspicion, that's all. I can't explain it."
"Okay. So you get the tool kit. That don't mean I'll know what to do with it when I get into the apartment."
"I told you, you don't have to know a thing. Just open the back of the TV set, look at where the tubes are missing, and put the same damned tubes back in. That's all there'll be to it."
"Yeah? Then what do I do with your wife -- topple her onto the couch and pull her dress up? She'll holler rape right away."
"You don't try to rape her, Jack. Smile, talk friendly -- hell, you know how to make up to a girl, don't you?"
"I've had some pretty good results. But never as a TV repairman in some other guy's apartment."
"That will make the pitch easier. She knows she's safe because I won't be home until evening. She can't help but like your looks. And there's a bed just a hop and a jump away. Shoot, it's a set-up."
"And you think your wife will play, hm?"
"I don't know," Harry said with a trace of impatience. "That's what I want to find out. Will you help me?"
"Well... man, I don't know."
"You said you've got your daytimes free this week."
"Yeah."
The guy still was not completely sold.
"Okay," Harry said finally. "If you score, you get my wife and that makes it worth your trouble. Right? If you don't score, I give you ten bucks. Now, your time for an hour can't be worth any more than that."
"All right, friend. You're so damned determined to find out what's what, I suppose I can't refuse you."
"That's the idea," Harry said and slapped the other man on the back. He ordered another pair of beers.
He arranged with Jack to show up first thing in the morning, two days later. What Harry didn't explain was that he intended to witness what happened.
That morning he called the company where he worked and reported sick. He did this from an outside phone, so that his wife wouldn't be wise, and returned to his apartment house. He climbed the service stairs at the rear of the building and stepped through a hallway window onto the fire escape. His bedroom window was the next one in line, and the fire escape landing passed in front of it.
He edged carefully to the window.
Noreen was in the bedroom, making the bed. He stayed out of sight and waited for her to finish, after which he hoped that she would return to the living room so he could enter the apartment.
He felt a little foolish, but the need to gain an answer, once and for all, to that question that had been plaguing him, made the whole thing worthwhile.
He had impressed upon Jack that he was to go all out in an effort to seduce Noreen. "Give it a good try if you want that ten bucks, buddy," he had said.
"How are you going to know what happens?" Jack had asked. "Are you just going to take my word for that?"
"You look like an honest guy," Harry had told him. "Anyway, I trust people."
"You do, hunh? Everybody but your wife, I suppose."
Jack had continued to look at him as if he thought Harry had three heads. But he would go along. Not only was there the ten bucks and a possible mattress romp with a pretty woman, but there was curiosity, too.
Harry eased himself into the bedroom at the first opportunity and hid in the closet until he heard the front door chimes sound. Then he came out and listened by the partially open bedroom door.
"Mrs. Pearce?" he heard. "Acme TV Service. Got some trouble with your set, I understand."
"Yes, that's right," Noreen said. "Come in."
So far, so good.
Harry tensed up.
For a few minutes there was no conversation. Suddenly the set blared into life.
"Well, that takes care of the problem," Jack announced, and shut the set off.
"Wonderful!" Noreen said. "What was it?"
"Just a couple of tubes."
"How much do I owe you?"
"I'll send you a bill," he said, as Harry had instructed him to do.
"Say... " Jack began, with a leer in his voice. "You're a mighty pretty girl. Do you know that?"
"Thank you," Noreen replied. "But I'm also a married one."
"That's okay. I'm broad-minded. Look, honey, how about a kiss? Just a quickie. Your husband will never know."
"Maybe he will. Maybe I'll tell him."
Harry tensed more as he listened. Noreen hadn't taken the guy up yet, but she hadn't exactly cut him dead, either.
"You wouldn't do anything like that," Jack was saying. "What husbands don't know don't hurt 'em, I've always believed. Smart wives figure the same way."
"You're awfully sure of yourself, aren't you?"
"I'm sure I can give you a happy morning. How about it?"
Harry strained to hear his wife's answer. But there was only a short spell of silence. What was she doing -- smiling at Jack in that sexy way she had?
Sweat popped on Harry's forehead.
Suddenly he heard sounds that suggested struggling. The guy was kissing her, and she was putting up a little fight. But did she mean it, or was she just leading him on?
Now Harry wondered if he hadn't better get back inside the closet. Any moment now, Jack might come charging through the bedroom door with Noreen in his arms.
In a few split seconds of time, Harry's jealousy-inflamed imagination depicted the scene that would take place on the bed: Jack's hands pushing up Noreen's skirt and slip. Harry could see her twisting, naked legs as the other man clawed for the elastic band at the top of her white briefs.
He saw Jack pulling Noreen's panties down.
Now her legs were spread and the man was coming at her, his lust aroused. He was onto the bed, gripping Noreen's buttocks, lifting them...
No!
He mustn't torture himself like that. Noreen's voice came from the living room, soft-pitched, husky and intense: "What made you do that?"
"I just felt like it, baby. Man, I really want you. Come on... let's go into the bedroom. I'll give you a good time. I promise."
Harry held his breath.
"You know, I feel sorry for you," Noreen said. "You must be sick, thinking you can work a pitch like that on every woman you meet."
"I don't try it on every woman," Jack protested.
"You probably don't, at that, or you wouldn't be able to keep your job. But you tried it on the wrong one today. Get out of here, buster."
Harry broke into a wide, happy grin.
"Aw, now look, honey," Jack said. "Maybe I was a little rough but, honest, I've really got the hots for you. And I'll give you a damned good loving."
He was trying, the son of a bitch! Harry had to give him credit for that.
He held his breath and waited for what Noreen would say next She didn't speak. She acted.
The sound which carried through the small apartment could have been made in only one way: By the collision of a naked hand with another area of naked flesh.
Noreen had given him a hard slap on the face.
"Ow!" Jack exclaimed. "That hurt, Goddamn it!"
"Well, I hope so," Noreen said. "Now get out of here. And I think I'll tell my husband what happened when he gets home."
"You hadn't better," Jack mumbled, but Harry could hear him closing his tool kit.
There was the sound of the front door opening, then closing.
With a big grin still on his face, Harry scrambled onto the fire escape and across to the hall window. He was a happy man.
He didn't remain away from the apartment until evening. He didn't have to, since he worked close by and could come home for lunch if he felt like it.
He never had done so before, so Noreen had no reason to expect him. But today he couldn't stay away.
When he walked into the apartment, she turned with a gasp.
"For heaven's sake!" she said. "What are you doing home, honey?"
"Thought I'd surprise you," he said, and grinned.
He moved up to claim a husbandly kiss, but she held him off for a moment "You did more than surprise me," she said. "You almost scared the panties off me. Wait until I tell you what happened this morning."
He dropped into a chair and asked, "What?"
"The guy from the TV repair company you called tried to get fresh. He said the nastiest things. He tried to get me to go into the bedroom with him."
"What?" Harry thundered as he rose to his feet in' righteous wrath.
But actually he was very pleased that she had told him. She hadn't had to do it, and the fact that she did was a very good sign. It meant that she was entertaining no lingering regret about not giving in to Jack's pitch, and no thought of giving in to the next guy who came along.
"He even kissed me, Harry. I -- I couldn't help it. He just grabbed me before I could do anything. But I gave him a swat across the face for his trouble. Actually I think he's a sick man."
"Baby, you're wonderful," Harry said, and pulled her into his arms.
They kissed.
Her mouth opened to accept the warm probing of his tongue. Her tongue slid against his. Her breasts burned at him through their clothes and, after a few moments, her belly commenced a subtle motion.
Harry's passion started to rise.
After the kiss broke, she murmured, "Well, what would you like to have for lunch?"
"You, sweetheart. Just you."
He swept her up in his arms.
What he had imagined before, when he feared Jack was going to take her into the bedroom, came true. But now Harry played the male lead in the little drama.
He placed her in the center of the neatly made bed and leaned forward to lift her dress and petticoat high.
"Harry, you're so passionate!" she exclaimed. "What in the world brought this on?"
"Are you objecting, sweetie?" he asked as he pulled down her panties.
"Oh, no, angel. You can pick me up and rape me any time."
But what happened was nothing like rape. She didn't offer resistance.
On the contrary, she cooperated every step of the way.
As he kissed her along the bare legs, she opened the top of her dress and squirmed out of her bra. When he lifted his head, her plump naked breasts were waiting for him, the nipples stiff and inviting.
He kicked off his shoes and stretched out on the bed beside her.
"Ooo, your shirt scratches," she said when he turned her bare-breasted loveliness against him.
"Well, maybe I'd better just kiss those little tippies and make them well, hm?" he suggested, and went for her nipples with his parted lips.
"That reminds me of when you told me to do that with you the first time. Remember?"
"Maybe I was a heel to say it," he suggested when he came up for air.
"No. It thrilled me. In fact, if you've got the time... " Her hand moved to the front of his pants and began to manipulate the fasteners.
Husband and wife became lost in passionate love-making.
It was better that day than ever, because Harry finally had placed all his doubts at rest.
He no longer pretended to know a great deal about womankind in general, but there was one woman he knew very well -- and that was his lovely wife. He was sure of her. This knowledge was worth more than anything else in the world.
As their heated loins merged, and as the bed beneath them sang its passionate song of desire and surrender, Harry felt something like a soldier come home from the field of battle.
