Vicky mashed her lips against Shirley's. She couldn't help herself. It had to be done. And, once it was done, she didn't think she could stop. Shirley seemed to drink her in, to take her very soul out of her mouth and then replenish it and place it back within her with her hot, nimble tongue.
"Maybe you are," Shirley said. "Maybe you are someone who commands. I know you turn me on." She pushed at the body over her, that strong, hard body in the darkness that could have been man or woman or devil...
CHAPTER ONE
The woman in the tweed suit shut the door behind her and set her briefcase on the carpet on her way across the room. She sat down on the chaise lounge and dialed a number on the telephone, breathing deeply as she waited for its ring to be answered. When it was, she said, "Pat? Val here. How are you, dear?"
There was a pause, then, "I'm fine, Miss Hobson. And how have you been?"
Valerie laughed a warm and throaty laugh. "Miss Hobson? Aren't we being a bit formal? I admit a week is a long time for us to have been apart, but... " The voice on the other end changed into a harsh whisper. "Val, my husband is here."
The woman in tweed sat bolt upright. "Your husband? You didn't tell me you were married."
"He's been overseas, but he's right here in the apartment now. In the kitchen. We'll have to talk fast."
"Married? All these weeks... you never told me?"
"What do you care if I'm married or not? There's a lot about you I don't know. Even your name. Listen, he'll be back on the base in a week or so. I'll call you then. I have to go now."
Valerie Huntington replaced the receiver with a quaking hand. She arose and went to the sideboard to prepare herself a pink gin and took a deep draft of it. Pat married all this time. That was a horrifying thought. It was true that their romance hadn't been a deep one at all, but hardly so entirely sexual that this information should come as such a surprise to her. Although, if Val had learned her new young sweetheart was married, she'd certainly have ended the affair. She sipped her drink and sighed, then returned to the chaise lounge. Pat was gone. Permanently. Another fresh new love was thwarted. And she needed companionship badly that night. No. It wasn't just companionship that Dr. Valerie Huntington needed. It was the sweet tranquilizer called sex that she needed. Pat would never again supply that for her and that was sad. The vision of the lithe brunette with her pixy's face lying in the arms of a faceless husband would ever be there to interfere with any future moments they might have together.
Pat or no, she needed the warmth of a woman then and she needed it badly. The need always became acute when she'd had a fresh, lovely woman thrust close to her during the humdrum course of the day. The thought of Vicky Winn made Valerie remove her horn rimmed glasses and thumb her phone pad to the Os. She dialed and then tried to sound as alluring as possible as she spoke.
"Olive? Val Hartford here. How are you, dear?" She laughed at the reply, then said, "Oh, dear. I hoped I'd made a more lasting impression than that. It was at the Tigress Room just a week ago now. We spoke at the bar. Valerie Hartford. Quite blond, quite English, quite tipsy that night. I was sitting alone tonight at my place very lonely, and wondering what you... " Val's face flushed as she stared at the dead rebuffed in far more humiliating ways than that, rebuffed in far more humiliating ways than that. The secret was to ignore it and quickly go on to the next one. But there weren't many more next ones, and none of them so bright and fresh as Vicky Winn was. There was, of course, always Shirley to call. And then in ten minutes, there was only Shirley to call. When Val had done it and the girl was on her way, she finished the drink and poured another as she went to prepare herself. She took off her green suit and quickly hung it in the closet. Bra, girdle, hose, panties, shoes rapidly were stripped away and she got into the shower. She used the plain, unscented soap to lather herself and was careful not to wet her severe, upswept coiffure while she scrubbed away all traces of the light makeup she used. No dusting powder when she was dried, then into the coarse white bra that flattened her full breasts painfully. Plain white panties and then to the mirror. She thickened and darkened her eyebrows and then brushed and pinned her hair still closer to her head. She didn't pause to absorb the effect she'd created. The matador pants would be a little feminine, but the high waist was appealing to Val and Shirley might overlook the tightness in the hips for the lack of tightness in the legs. The shirt was very frilled, but it was a man's shirt, and there could be no denying the masculinity of the low boots.
Val made a third drink, dimmed the lights in the living room, and sat on the chaise lounge to await her guest. She knew she should eat something, but the excitement that had been stirring within her all day prevented this. She wished it was Vicky Winn who would shortly enter that door. It would never happen, of course. Not ever. She would never permit her perverted desires to jeopardize her job and her career. She'd put in too many years of study earning her Ph.D. in chemistry to allow anything at all to ruin her professional status. The new technical secretary at McGraw Chemicals was beautiful to look at, but she could never be touched.
Val was on her feet and part way across the room before the buzzer stopped sounding. Shirley was prompt and she smiled up at Val as she brushed past her. The girl said, "Hi, sweetie. Long time."
Shirley was an attractive enough girl. A bit too plump, perhaps, but not bad looking by any means. Very long brown hair was her special pride and it hung halfway down her back in soft waves. Her lashes were artificially long over her pencil-slanted eyes, her nose was uptilted to al most a pug, her mouth made fuller by ample lipstick. She walked in a heady cloud of perfume that Val inhaled deeply as she closed the door.
"It has been a long time, darling. Far too long."
Shirley turned her back on Val to allow her coat to be removed. "New pictures on the wall since I was here. Her boobs are too big."
Val cast the coat on the chair by the door. She put her hands on Shirley's waist and slid them up to cup each of the heavy breasts as she said, "That's my preference, darling. Don't you remember? Like these."
As Shirley turned coyly to escape Val's touch, it was a simple matter to keep her arms about the girl and draw her closer. One hand went to the long brown hair at her neck to guide their lips together. Shirley made a little sound in her throat and met Val's tongue briefly with hers, drew her hands thrillingly up from Val's waist to cover her ribcage. Val wanted the kiss to last, but Shirley broke it and stepped back a few feet to stand with one hand on her hip. "My. Aren't you the eager one?"
Val smiled. "Who wouldn't be eager for a dainty little thing like you? Mmm. You do things for a mini-skirt." She did look good in it. It showed her mesh covered, slightly heavy legs well and hugged her hips tightly. The matching hot pink blouse was cut low, both back and front, to display the creamy upper mounds of her bountiful bosom.
Shirley said, "I thought you'd like it. I had you in mind when I bought it. From the way you're acting, though, I guess it makes me look too easy."
"You? You've never been easy," Val lied. "Would you like a drink? That might oil the way for me a little."
"Good. Make me a brandy alexander."
"For you, anything. Come help."
Shirley went to the sideboard with her, touching the crystal decanters as Val mixed the drink. "I really was thinking of you when I got this outfit, even though you haven't called for so long. There was a miniskirted dress there too that you positively would have gone ape over. It came almost up to where it shouldn't, if you know what I mean, and I'd be wearing it for you right now if I'd had another twenty dollars."
Val looked down at the high hem of the skirt Shirley wore and said, "Buy it, darling, by all means. I'll give you the money tonight. If I don't see you in it soon, I won't be able to sleep nights."
Shirley squealed and flung her arms about Val's neck and Val took quick advantage of it by holding the girl fast, smoothing her hands deeply into her softly padded body. Val kissed her aggressively then, using her lips and tongue forcefully and hugging the much shorter woman hard to her.
"Whew!" Shirley at last said into Val's throat. "Is my big strong lover going to rape me right here before I even get my drink?"
Val continued to hug her more roughly than she preferred. "Careful, Shirley. You're putting ideas in my head. Very pleasant ones, I might add."
Shirley backed off, still in Val's arms, to smile coyly and to toy with the ruffled front of Val's shirt. "And what sort of ideas could someone get about a girl like me if they wore a shirt like this?"
"It's from Spain, darling. A man's formal shirt."
Shirley poked one finger into Val's flattened breast. "You're sure It's a man's shirt? Spain must be a country full of pansies."
Val forced a laugh and released the girl to carry both their drinks to the chaise lounge with Shirley at her side. As they sat down, Shirley touched the ornate brocade upholstery and said, "You've had this recovered, too. Minidresses for me, imported clothes for you, this apartment- it must be nice to be loaded."
"Loaded? Wealthy? Oh, no. It's just a little inheritance I live on that will run out soon. Then I'll be a working gir... " She caught herself in time. Shirley hated even tiny flaws in her fantasy. "Then I'll go to work, like everyone else. What should I do when I go to work? Drive a van?
Would you still come and visit me then?" Val's laugh was high and brittle.
Shirley melted against her. "I wish that would happen. You know, I told you that the boy who made me discover about myself was a truck driver. I think it would be the very nicest thing in the world to wait for you to come home to me after a hard day's work."
The choice of truck driver in her nervous banter had been an unfortunate one. She'd forgotten how that occupation struck a nerve in Shirley's plump body. It had been a truck driver who had first tried to make love to Shirley and had led her to the discovery that her pelvic bone was so placed that she could never hope to have sexual intercourse with a male. Shirley had shed quite enough tears over this to Val in the past and Val was in no mood for a maudlin evening then. She held the sweet brandy drink to Shirley's lips with one hand and used the other to hug and stroke at the nylons and silks that covered her impromptu date. As Shirley drank deeply, Val said, "Going to work is a thought that appalls me. Best not to talk about it at all. Best to just relax and enjoy each other."
"Yes. You're right. You don't like me when I cry, do you? Why can't you put on some records for me?"
"Done," Val said, arising. "And drink this down so I can mix another pair while I'm up."
During the course of half a dozen LP records, Val got Shirley on her back on the chaise lounge and Shirley got the lights so low that either of them would have been unrecognizable to someone across the room. Val kissed and petted and loved and caressed the soft flesh of the girl and reveled in the dainty, completely feminine garments under her hands and lips. Any conversation then was limited to Val's whispered descriptions of Shirley's great, passionate beauty and Shirley's little titters and coaxings in her efforts to bring out more and more of Val's love talk.
Val had her hand under Shirley's bikinis several times. Now, her desires mounting, she whispered, "Let's just slip you out of these little things, darling."
Shirley shifted and pulled them up tight. "No."
"But it will be ever so much better that way, sweet."
Shirley spoke petulantly. "I said, no. We've been all through that and I'm just not going to let you do that awful thing to me. The other is bad enough. I suppose you just can't wait any longer to have me."
"You're right, darling," Val murmured. "You know me so very well."
"Honey?" Shirley cooed in a sugary voice.
"Yes, my love," Val answered into her ear as she shifted her body to cover the soft, perfumed warmth that was Shirley.
"Won't you put on something else? The Levi's and the flannel shift? You know what they do to me."
Valerie well knew she could stir Shirley into a more active participation by donning the coarse, ill fitting clothes. But the ludicrous garments, even in the dark, made her feel even more debased than she knew she was. And in the five minutes it would take to change, Shirley's naturally weak passions would have subsided to an almost lethargic level again. Val's own passions could not continue at this giddy height for yet another hour and permit her to maintain any semblance of control. She said, "I put them in the wash, love, and I couldn't bear leaving you now to rummage through the chests for something else. Oh, Shirley, you are so very lovely, so beautifully passionate, so completely desirable in every way."
Shirley smiled dreamily and said, "Turn out the light, lover."
Only then, in the complete darkness did she spread herself to allow Val to settle her hips into position over her. Val moved slowly at first, bringing forth little cooes from Shirley with her words and her hands and her body, all in practiced and synchronized time. Ever more strenuous efforts changed the coos to little cries of pleasure and at last brought Shirley to move in a semblance of unison with Val. Val went on without a break in her monologue as her first climax shuddered through her and Shirley didn't notice it at all. The second and the third had overcome Val before she felt that Shirley was ready. The girl pulled Val's hand very hard against her fleshy, silk covered breasts as she cried out in response to Val's increased thrustings, "Oh, Frankie. Faster. Real hard now, Frankie."
Val tried vainly to shut out the words that assailed her from the dark and to achieve a mutual climax for them, but then Shirley was gasping loudly and pushing her away. She rolled out from under Val to a sitting position, gasping and half sobbing as she spent the last of her passion alone, inches away from the panting Val in the dark.
When Shirley emerged after fifteen minutes in the bathroom, Valerie pressed a twenty dollar bill into her hand.
Shirley smiled and said, "You don't have to do this, you know. It's not really necessary." She tucked it into the top of her blouse.
Val patted her fat cheek. "Ah, but I do have to if I want to see you in that darling little dress."
Shirley went to finish up the dregs of her drink and then said, "Okay. I'll take it. But I don't want you to get the idea you're paying me for coming here."
Val laughed gaily and said, "Heaven forbid." She yawned heavily before she went on. "I don't pay for my love. But I do believe I'd pay to crawl into bed now."
Shirley said a little archly, "I suppose that's my cue to go on home."
"Oh, not at all, darling." Val came to take her hand and to kiss it and to hold it to her breast. "Nothing would please me more, darling, than having you climb into bed with me. It's certainly wide enough and I have positively scads of nighties for us, though I usually sleep in the buff."
Shirley held back from making a distasteful face as she edged toward the door. "No. Thanks. I'd better go now."
Val couldn't resist more of the prod that would propel Shirley out the door. She very gently held Shirley in her arms and said, "I wish you'd change your mind. I know you'd change you mind about many things if you slept in my bed with me. Once I got you started, I don't believe you'd ever want to stop." She leaned forward to kiss her.
Shirley bent away to get her coat. "I've got to go to work in the morning. I'm not as lucky as some people I know."
Val managed one flutteringly feminine kiss before Shirley got out the door. She laughed bitterly when she was alone again in her highly appointed apartment, and she went to the sideboard. As she fixed a drink, the vision of Vicky Winn was still before her. She should have known better than to think dumpy little Shirley could drive that away from her. All that Shirley had done was to occupy a small part of her body and an even smaller part of her emotions and her mind for a few hours.
She'd have been better off with liquor she was drinking. She set her drink by the chaise lounge, stripped out of the masculine clothing she'd worn and fetched the most frilled, sheerest, most highly beribboned, sweetest smelling of all her peignoirs and donned it before she lay back on the chaise lounge. Then, her drink in one hand, her other hand on her own body, Dr. Valerie Huntington closed her eyes and dreamed of Vicky Winn.
CHAPTER TWO
Dr. V. Huntington had been a very great disappointment to Vicky Winn. The job description she'd received from Harold Kelsey would have been a disappointment to any new secretary, but to her it was almost shattering.
Harold Kelsey, Office Manager for McGraw Chemicals, had said, "Most of your work will be for Dr. Huntington, one of the most highly respected steroid chemists in the country. And from the score you made on my little aptitude test, I'm sure you'll do a fine job for Dr. Huntington."
Vicky had beer, quite prepared to go to work on any sort of a Dr. Huntington except the one she was introduced to. A young, single Dr. Huntington would have been too much to hope for, but would have been ideal. Even an old grandfather Huntington would have been used somehow or other as a stepping stone toward the position Vicky yearned for. But there was little or nothing she could expect to gain from this cold, preoccupied, thirty-year-old woman. Valerie Huntington undoubtedly had a weakness, but Vicky would have to be a man to exploit it. As it was, she'd just have to direct her efforts toward members of McGraw's employ beyond Dr. V. Huntington.
As the female chemist came in past her desk that morning on the way to her laboratory, Vicky mouthed a bright, "good morning," and looked her over. A different tweedy suit this second morning, prim white blouse, sensible shoes, glasses, blonde hair in a bun, she was perfectly suited for any man with Vicky's scruples and ambitions. As Dr. Huntington perfunctorily returned her greeting, Vicky caught a glimpse of one chink in which she might drive some future wedge if necessary. The good doctor seemed to be suffering from a hangover. Vicky made a mental note to look for signs of consistency in this in the future.
It would be a complete waste of time to work as Dr. Huntington's assistant, and Erwin Lind had all the characteristics of a young man of little ability and no achievements. He'd almost certainly maintain that status throughout his bleak little life.
That left Harold Kelsey as her immediate objective. He was a roundish, moon faced man of about thirty-five, neither attractive nor unattractive to Vicky. At twenty-two years of age, she considered herself far too young to be thinking of a man in terms of physical endowments. That would come later. There would be ample time for any number of bronzed young men as lovers or husbands after she had reached the age of thirty. She'd be high enough on the ladder to success by then to use her sexuality for her pleasure rather than for her profit. Since she'd lost her virginity five years before, she hadn't used her body too unwisely. A little mink was in her closet, a half dozen diamond solitaires in her jewelry box, a two-year-old sports car in he carport of her small but modern apartment. But those five years had been an apprenticeship. This job at McGraw Chemicals would be the test of her learnings and, if the confidence she felt in herself was justified, it could be the means of getting very close to the top of the ladder in her allotted time. McGraw was too small to hold her forever, but it was a good stepping stone. It had only twenty employees, excluding the outside salesmen, and this constituted a small pond indeed. She had given herself one year at McGraw. During that year, her plans called for her to bank $10,000 in cash and to leave with the highest of recommendations for a truly responsible managerial position. Starting from one of the three secretarial positions in the company, she had a long way to go. But she had a lot going for her. Her measurements were 36-23-35, but these cold numbers, she had often been told, didn't do justice to a figure like hers. The numbers didn't tell how smoothly her bustline tapered to her waist and how perfectly her hips swelled from there. They didn't tell how those breasts jutted nor did they mention at all about her long legs with the nicely bunched calf muscles and the firm white thighs. Her face blended with her figure to perfection. She had very white, almost translucent skin, a small mouth with bee stung lips, a good straight and thin nose, high cheekbones, clear blue eyes, and a broad forehead. Her hair was very black and very soft. She'd been told since she was in high school that she could make it in modeling or possibly in acting, but she was too smart to pursue a career in these fields. A little competition was fine, but she would look merely attractive in a row of models or actresses. In an office she would always be stunning, and it helped to stand out.
She knew Harold Kelsey shared an office with George Walls, McGraw's accountant. Vicky waited until she saw Walls pass her cubicle on the way to the plant and she immediately went to the powder room mirror to ensure a good start on her initial conquest. She meticulously corrected her makeup and rearranged a curl or two in her hair. The white silk blouse she wore showed half an inch of decolletage and this was corrected by opening one more button. She leaned forward just a little and could see most of the lace-trimmed cups of her bra. She customarily wore an uplift bra and the overall effect was most satisfactory.
An inventory sheet in hand, she stood across Kelsey's desk from him and leaned over to ask the question, "When I fill this out at the end of the month, should I inventory Dr. Huntington's lab supplies, too?"
"No, Vicky. Erwin will handle those. Only your secretarial supplies go on that sheet. I know most companies don't inventory each secretary's supplies, but I find the practice imparts a sense of economy, a thriftiness in each of us. When one realizes that each sheet of engraved letterhead costs the firm a little over eight cents, you can see where an overstock can make a difference of several dollars at the end of each month."
"Yes, Mr. Kelsey," she smiled demurely, yet warmly. The fat little boob hadn't even glanced at the exposure of her bosoms. She was amazed and, in desperation, still smiling, came around the desk and bent over just beside him to say, "And are postage stamps to go here?"
"No, Vicky. Enter the stamps you check out right here, just where I showed you yesterday."
Vicky was as disgusted with herself as she was with him. No reaction to either her looks or her proximity. She straightened and took a sideways step and the calf of her leg struck his waste-basket. She extended that leg and looked down at it. "Oh, darn. Look at that."
He did. He leaned over sideways in his swivel chair and frankly gaped at her nylon covered leg. "Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk. That's a terrible ladder in your hose. Tsk!"
"Brand new hose, too. It was clumsy of me." She pulled the hem of her skirt higher to inspect it.
He leaned still closer and said, "Oh, no. I shouldn't have had the wastebasket there. It's my fault. Oh, that's terrible. They're just ruined."
Another few inches and the welt of her hose was there for him to gape at. She sighed and said, "Just look. It went all the way up."
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk," he said, and his elbow slipped off the arm of his chair. "They're excellent quality hose, too. And I still feel it's partly my fault. I should make amends. I'll, uh, go out at lunch and get you a pair to replace these." He looked down at her high-heeled pumps and said, "You wear what, size five shoe? Size nine hose?"
"That's right. How clever you are. But you don't have to replace these hose, though it is sweet of you to think of it. Most men wouldn't, but I could tell when I was being interviewed by you that you're an unusual man."
"Ah, yes. I suppose I am. And I won't feel right unless I buy you some hose."
She let her skirt fall and she said, "Thank you so much, Mr. Kelsey. I just couldn't bear to walk around like this all day. We can go in my car."
"Oh, I can get them by myself."
"I was hoping you'd show me a little of the shopping district around here. I don't know a single ladies' shop in the area and I have a terrible weakness for pretty things. That's where most of my paycheck will go. That's terribly frivolous of me, isn't it?"
"Not at all, not at all. There's nothing better than pretty things to bolster a girl's morale. And we can stop at the Buttercup Dairy cafeteria for lunch, too."
Vicky typed a dreadful dull and fiendishly technical report for Dr. Huntington that morning and took two walks down the hall to see what else she could be working at besides Harold Kelsey. On her second walk, she encountered Mr. McGraw.
Tall and well built and about fifty with prematurely white hair, very well dressed, she studied him as closely as she could in the time it took them to pass each other. She hadn't seen him before except for his photograph in the Annual Report. Now she gave him no sign of recognition, no smile as she walked to the water-cooler at the end of the hall. She was all business with him, or with anyone at work, until the time was ripe. And this one, this president of the company, would be her ultimate goal.
Erwin Lind was going through the files in her office when she returned and he suffered badly in comparison with Michael McGraw. Probably six feet tall if he stood straight, Erwin couldn't have weighed more than a hundred and forty pounds. Even the weight of his oversized, shabby clothes seemed to drag his posture down towards deformity. Vicky showed him just the right amount of warmth in her greeting that a lowly assistant chemist deserved.
Harold Kelsey directed Vicky to a self service department store during their lunchtime. He picked out a pair of the very best hose for her. They were darker than the ones she'd run, almost black, and heavily seamed in the back. She expressed wonder at his remarkably good taste and then she browsed along the lingerie counter, picking up this item or that, noting his reaction to each.
"My, these white panties with the little roses on them are sweet," she said.
He shrugged, "Sweet for a little girl, I suppose."
"Of course, these are much nicer. These hot pink bikinis."
"They're all right," he said casually.
"Just look at these black lace ones. Or is this all terribly boring to you?"
"Oh, not at all. Now those are really attractive. Say, I wonder if they have a little bra to match. Wouldn't that look nice?"
"Oh, yes, Harold. TL would. Here. Does this match?"
"Perfect. Oh, it's a perfect match. And, see here? This slip is of the same black satin and has the very same lace on the hem. Do you wear slips, Vicky?"
"Well, certainly. I know a lot of girls don't nowadays, but I just love smooth things next to my skin. I think I'll buy the set."
"Yes," he said, still fingering the slip with an odd look in his eyes. "It'd be a lovely set on you. And Vicky, would you think I'm too familiar if I asked if you wear a garter belt? I know you don't wear a girdle. I can tell."
"Yes, Harold, I do wear a garter belt."
"Then I'll just, if I may, include that black garter belt over there along with the hose. May I? Would I be acting too forward?"
She touched his hand with hers, brushing the black lace panties against it as she did. "Forward? It would be terribly sweet of you. It would match these other lovely things. Oh, I'd like to stay here and buy out this wonderful store you've showed me, Harold."
"I would, too," he said.
The Buttercup Dairy cafeteria served very nutritious meals and they sat at a little table over chicken salad sandwiches and skim milk, with their apple pie and ice cream waiting at their elbows.
Vicky said, "Do you suppose it would be all right if I wore textured hose to work? You know. Those ones that look like lace? That stretch fit so well? Would they be all right in a business office?"
"Well, they are for dress wear. But your wearing them would brighten up that place. Certainly. Wear them by all means."
"You know, Harold, I just love lace. I'm sort of a collector of it. But, perhaps you're a collector, too. A collector of wives and children and fishing equipment and bowling balls and such."
"Oh, no. As a matter of fact, I'm a bachelor. And I've never been interested in sports. That's a sweaty way to spend one's time, I've always said. I do collect, though. But it's an unusual collection."
"As I said before, you're an unusual man." She knew that with one question then she could learn what his unusual collection was. But it was better to let him bring it out. Effeminate or no, a man divulged his secrets better without any obvious prying. She said, "It's good to collect. It shows intelligence, so I'm told. I don't know if I'm intelligent, but I do have a great deal of black lace in my wardrobe and in my chests of drawers. It's just a shame I can't wear them where people can see them."
"But you see yourself in them, don't you? And that's all that really matters."
"In the mirrors? Yes. But some of the things I have are so pretty that they should be shown off to someone else to be appreciated. And all the men I know, not that I know so many, would rather tear my things off than look at them." She sighed, "That's the way men are."
"Well, not all. I, for one, and I have a few men friends who are the same way, have the ability to appreciate a woman from a certain distance. Oh, don't misunderstand me. I'm as normal as that apple pie there. It's just that I'm a very gentle, a very aesthetic man."
"Harold, you don't have to tell me that. I could see that and appreciate that in you from the first moment I saw you. And I can see you're a man who respects privacy. Someone who enjoys the privilege of keeping a secret."
He looked at her with pure worship in his eyes and he smiled at her timidly. "You're so very understanding. Not at all like the other girls in the office. If I ever told them about my collections, they'd just laugh me right out of my job. I could tell you."
She put her hand on his and said, "Yes. You could. And it would be safe with me, whatever it is. But you want to keep it to yourself, so do that."
He blurted out, his cheeks reddening as he did, "I collect dolls. I, oh, my. That sounds so awful."
She squeezed his hand and said, "It does? But, why? I think that's wonderful, Harold. And I'd love to see your collection sometime."
He looked at her with wonder. "You would?"
"Oh, yes. I'll show you my collection and you show me yours sometime soon. Perhaps I could even run up some of my laces into clothes for your dolls. You do dress them don't you?"
He spoke excitedly then, "Yes, but I'm a very poor seamstress. Or is it seamster?" He giggled. "You know, I never dreamed I'd hired such an understanding woman in you, Vicky. You didn't seem that way at all. Tsk. Just look at the time. We'd best get back to the office."
"Dear me, we should. Thank you again for the lovely hose and the adorable garter belt. I'll wear them both when we share our collections. I do hope that's soon, Harold."
CHAPTER THREE
Erwin Lind was again rummaging through her files when she returned to the office. "What is it you're after, Erv. Can I help you?"
"This report on competitive hormone creams. I got it okay." He hardly glanced up from the report as he moved to the door.
She said, "Fine. I can't make heads or tails of that file yet. I have plans for reorganizing it a little."
He nodded his head, still averting his eyes from her as he left her office. In the hall, he stopped at the water cooler. What a woman that one was. Any woman who could flog his desires into life, as weary as he was, had to be quite a woman. He mused on about her as he made his way to the laboratory. That secretary had it. She had the figure and the face to arouse any man and she accentuated these with very colorful, very sexy clothes. But then, even drab clothes would look colorful on her. With his boss, with Dr. Valerie Huntington, the most psychedelic colors would look drab. He sat on the stool in the lab and looked at her over the report. She moved silently about him, a shapeless thing in her long, starched, white lab coat. The coat blended with her overall lack of color. Pale and cold, she was, with only the heavy horn rimmed glasses to break the blandness of her. But her brain wasn't colorless. Her brain was quick and sure in the complex orientation of subgroups on the steroid molecules that comprised her specialty and, hopefully, would be Erwin's field as well. He was lucky to be able to work under her. If he listened and learned from her and if he made it through this last year of college and graduate school to follow, he might someday be as capable as Dr. Huntington was. It would help, though, if he could stay awake.
He'd labored over his physical chemistry homework that morning from five to seven-thirty. Then his morning classes had come from eight to twelve. Only five hours of work at McGraw that day, and then he'd be back at the university for his seven PM physics class. If he was lucky then, he could do his German grammar and his advanced calculus until midnight. If he weren't lucky, he'd be even sleepier tomorrow than he was today and, worse, he'd be unprepared for class tomorrow, unless he could manage to keep himself awake all night if the encounter he dreaded were to come.
After his evening class was over, he parked his old Chevy under a streetlight and read his German text. The light was dim there and reading was slow, but the break in his schedule might well be worth the discomfort. At ten forty-five he figured it was safe enough and he ground the motor into life to drive to his rooming house. Downstairs, the lights were on in Mrs. Kimbrough's kitchen and that was an extremely bad sign. He tiptoed up the porch stairs and eased the front door open. Just when he had made it to the staircase, the door on his left opened to flood the hall with light.
"Erwin, you're late tonight. Did that jalopy of yours break down again?" Mrs. Kimbrough was clad in a new, but nonetheless familiar flowered robe. Long sleeved and long hemmed, it was tied at the waist and covered all of her but her ample decolletage and her dumpling face.
He took another step up the stairs and said, "Class ran late tonight."
"It did? I thought they turned the lights out at nine-thirty there. You told me they did."
Another step closer to his room and his studies, he said, "The professor--ah--finished the lecture in the coffee shop."
She smiled and shook her head, the frizz of curls barely moving as she did. "And I'll just bet all of your schoolmates had hamburgers and pie with their coffee and you just sat and listened to him talk. My! It's hard for you to go to school with all those spoiled rich kids, Erwin, but it will be worth it. I made a pie today. Why don't you come in and sit down and have a big piece?"
He stopped his ascent and said, "I--ah--just had some pie. I had some change in my pocket."
She came to him to put her big hands on the balustrade and say, "I'm glad you "n afford to eat out, even though you are eleven weeks behind in your room rent."
"I'll pay you for three weeks this payday."
"My! And then you'll go even hungrier for the next two weeks." She grabbed his arm in both her hands with her strong, strong grip. "You come in and have some pie. We can talk about your back rent there where we won't disturb the other tenants. It's cherry, Erwin, and I've kept it hot for you."
He swallowed the saliva that rose to his mouth at the thought of hot cheery pie and he took a step down. "Well--it's pretty late."
She mounted the first step and put one arm about his waist. "So? How long does it take to eat a piece of pie? Come on now, Erwin. I know what's best for my scientist."
It would be a beautiful pie. His landlady was an artist when it came to rich pastry. It would be flaky of crust, thick of syrup, tangy in its spices, each magenta cherry firm and intact and sweet. He could smell it the moment he entered her rooms. Its aroma filled his lungs as he was led to the couch and seated behind the coffee table. That aroma rooted him there while she bustled off to the kitchen and even the rattling sounds of the plates and cups and silverware on the tray increased his appetite to a ravenous edge. Then it was there before him, golden brown with little red cuts in it that were more sources for the heady fragrance. She sat very close beside him and bent to slice out a wedge before his eyes and the aroma hit him with such force that his stomach contracted in spasms. He closed his eyes to concentrate on his olfactory sense, then opened them in time to see the great, wide quarter of the pie being placed on a plate before him.
When Emmalita leaned closer and allowed the robe to fall open to expose her bare bosoms to her scientist, she knew that the sight of her unconfined breasts had stricken him by the way he closed his eyes and took deep breaths. She stole a glance at herself as she cut out her piece of pie and made sure her posture was suck that his view would include the large, roseate nipples. When Erwin closed his eyes in all youthful modesty, she was certain that he had both seen and appreciated her loveliness. Her breasts were her special vanity. At forty-one years of age, her legs might be going to too much fleshiness, her hips spreading too fast, her waist keeping pace, the lines about her eyes branching, but her breasts were more gloriously full than ever, and almost as firm. These breasts of hers were enough to set the senses of any man reeling. Her Ed had called them his heavenly bubbles. No. No time to think about her dear Ed then. Here before her was Erwin, the scientist. Someday, he'd be Dr. Erwin Lind, Famous Scientist. But until then, he was hers to look after; his brilliant mind and his pale, undernourished body were hers to succor and to feed.
" 'S'good," he said, through a mouth crammed with buttery snowflakes and cherry goodness.
She rubbed a hand on the small of his back for a moment, then put both hands on his thigh. "I know banana cream is your favorite, but you need some more fruit in your diet." She could readily feel the bone in his thin, poor leg, and she felt it over and over.
He said, "This's good as y'r b'nana... " His words were ended by another huge forkful.
She dabbed at his chin with a paper napkin and then pinched him gently about the middle. "You need some meat on those bones, Erwin. You just come to dinner Sunday and I'll s; to it. We'll have an early dinner and then you can sit and watch TV and relax. You need to get away from those books now and then. Two o'clock?"
"I dunno. I got a calculus test Monday." He got the final half of the crust in his mouth in one bite.
She rubbed her warm, knowing hand against his pitifully flat stomach and used the other to count his vertebrae to well below his beltline. "I'm not going to take no for an answer. You'll pass the test. You always do."
He patted his stomach and, by so doing, was able to push her distracting hand away. "This is a tough test."
Her hand, bigger than his, brushed his aside. "Has that stomach stopped growling for a while now?" She deftly, very rapidly opened his belt buckle, saying as she did, "My Ed--bless his soul- used to sit right here and eat half a pie and then lay back just like you're doing and loosen his belt like this and smile like a chessycat." She patted him fondly, causing his zipper to go down a few inches. She rubbed him there then and said, "I'll fill that stomach clear full this Sunday."
"I really don't think I can make it." The hand was downright hot and he tried to get away from it and gingerly close his trousers.
She clucked her concern and pulled the trousers wide open. She pulled then at the boxer shorts and said, "Just look. My! These are so frayed they're not even good enough to make rags out of. I should have thrown them out last time I laundered them. You come a little early Sunday and I'll wash for you."
He tried to squirm away without hurting her feelings and said, "No, Emmalita, please. These are okay."
"They are? They are? Just look!" She used both hands to easily tear the threadbare material to pieces.
Trying to hold his trousers together, he jerked to his feet, admonishing, "Emma! That's my next to last pair!"
One arm went about his narrow little hips and she used it and her free hand on the remnants of his shorts to spin him about and seat him on her lap. "I know you can't afford any underpants with that awful tuition you pay. Land, you can't even afford to pay your back rent. Eleven weeks now. You come to dinner early Sunday, say about ten in the morning, and I'll sew up a few pairs of underpants on my machine. Fitted. Tailor made."
Her hands, her groping, feeling, touching hands were making him betray himself. "I really do have to go now, Emmalita," he said, and heaved against her hold to almost make it to his feet.
She pulled his trousers out of his grip and when he bent to grab �,l them, he was firmly reseated in her lap. She inspected the few tatters that now failed completely in concealing him and said, "These won't be hard to make. Double seams. I can use these same buttons. My! Just look at you. With your diet I don't see how you have the strength to be that way. But," she sighed, "you're a young man. That surely shows. This elastic's lost its life. I'll get new. When I buy the material. Stripes. Do you like stripes? You just slip what's left of them off now and I'll try to make a pattern. Then I'll only have to fit them to you Sunday. Come on, now. Let's take them off."
Her hands were all over him then, making his entire body feel hot and naked, the rags pulled away from him, nothing left of his modesty. And then she was pulling him back on her. But now he was fully nude from the waist down and now her robe was open so that his bones pressed into the soft, hot flesh of her lap. "I better go. I better go," he said. He felt as if he were sitting on a bed of warm, toasted marshmallows.
She held him in a bear hug with her huge bosoms spilling out into his lap as she pulled shorts and trousers down over his shoes, saying, "Honestly, Erwin, I don't know if you'd have survived at all if you'd moved to the YMCA like you talked about the other night. You'd die of pneumonia or starve to death there in a week. Well, only a few more years and you'll be a graduated scientist with a big salary. Until then, Emma is here to take care of you. I'll keep your body and soul together and I'll manage to get by without the back rent. Eleven weeks now." She flung his trousers far across the room and held his shorts up like a shot battle-flag before these, too were cast away.
His landlady was terribly, wonderfully warm to him. Warmer even than the bed that awaited him upstairs. "I gotta go. I gotta go. The test. I gotta go."
She grasped him so that he gasped and she said, "Go like this? What kind of a woman would I be to let you go like this?" Holding him firmly, she lay back on the couch. He had to follow her firmly guiding hand, and then it was her feet at his back that were guiding him. As she spoke, she drew her robe open at the top and unbuttoned his shirt. "I'll get a pot roast Sunday. New potatoes and some carrots. I'll... Oh!, that's nice. Isn't that nice, Erwin?"
He seemed surrounded, completely immersed at all sides by her warm, soft flesh. She intensified it by mashing his chest against her very soft breasts with both arms about his back. She said, "Cat got your tongue? You're shy. I know. My Ed was shy as could be at first. Nothing to be shy about, I always said to him. Just as natural as eating your dinner."
He strained to move against her but was too firmly held in his warm, warm prison to budge except when, once or twice each minute, she relaxed her scissors lock on his hips, then tightened it again. "Say, Erwin, why don't you just come a little earlier on Sunday? I have to get that rug out of the spare bedroom. Say about nine?"
Her legs relaxed and tightened and he said, "Nine."
"Better yet, come for breakfast. I'll make hot day breakfast. Say about eight?" She allowed him to move inches away from her before drawing him back.
"Eight," he moaned.
She giggled and said, "You come calling at that hour and the other tenants will think you've spent the night here. But, what business is that of theirs ? Listen, you just do that. You come over Sat'dy night and sleep in the spare bedroom and none of them busybodies will be any the wiser. There's a good show on TV at eight Sat'dy night we can watch."
He waited for the soft vise that gripped him to relax, but it didn't come. He'd never spent the night with his landlady before, but he knew he'd not be alone in the spare bedroom. It would be better than this. It would be dark there so he couldn't see the cross-hatched lines ill her face, the creases in her neck. All he would know would be dark softness and warmth. But it would lead to other nights spent there. Just as the banana cream pie had led to so many evenings spent like this. He strained back from her with all his force, entirely in vain, then muttered through clenched teeth, "Eight o'clock. Saturday."
She relaxed and pulled, relaxed and pulled, slowly and rhythmically as she said, "We'll have a nice, quiet evening, just you and me. You can bring your studies if you want, but I don't know if you'll study much. You know how you get when you come over here for even a little visit with me."
Eyes closed, he let her push and pull him easily along with her powerful rhythm. It was a rhythm that could have put him to "Jeep if it wasn't for the mounting fever in his loins. He was being carried away, swept away on a soft, warm tide of sensuality that started at his loins and flowed both down and up, blotting out all his financial and scholastic and industrial worries. If it could all be like this with Emmalita, if it could go on like this forever, he would quit all his ambitions and lay back and bask in this sensual life forever.
"You devil," she tittered. "If I know my scientist, and I should know by now, you'll b"
"Chasing me from pillow to post all night Sat'dy and all Sunday long, too. Oh! Oh, Erwin! Stay with me now! Stay with me. Stay with me and I'll make you the best fried chicken you ever had on Sat'dy night. Oh! OH!"
CHAPTER FOUR
Vicky Winn made at Saturday a productive one. She came into the office at eight and worked methodically at the technical files, to begin with. She broke the alphabetically arranged files into four sections, each one marked by a different color. When she had the red in order in an empty drawer, she separated the bulky A file into technical reports, administrative correspondence, memos, and outside correspondence. The technical reports went into the red file and started a blue one for the memos. When she ran across anything of interest dealing with new laboratory finds or large sales, she set that aside to be read at home. She got the green and the yellow files started and was up to M and was becoming a little disappointed because Mr. McGraw was not yet in. Her discreet inquiries told her that he habitually came in before noon on Saturday.
At Q, she heard footsteps in the hall and went to the door to peer wide-eyed around the sill.
Mr. McGraw drew back, a little startled, and she registered the same. She said, "Oh. Hello. You're Mr. McGraw, aren't you? You surprised me. This big building of yours is just a little scary when it's empty."
H: came to the door, frowning a bit as she retreated into the office. "You're Miss Winn, aren't you? What brings you in here today? Forget something in your desk?"
"No, these files were in ouch a state that I had to do something about them. I'm too busy with typing reports and taking inventories to do it during the week, so I dropped in today."
"That's very good of you, but I'm sure Harold would prefer it if you worked on company time. I know I would."
She looked quite crestfallen. "Oh. I thought I was helping. I suppose it looks as if I'm stealing secrets or something."
"Heavens, no. Put that idea out of your head. It's just that I don't like to see any employee have to give up some of the weekends."
"I see you're in hare," she smiled.
"Well, that's a little different."
"I don't mind coming in at all. And by organizing things just a little, I can get so much more done during the week." It was good, the way her boss tried and failed to keep his eyes from her body.
"I wish everyone had your attitude. Have you had lunch yet?"
"I wanted to finish this before I took a break. Another hour and it'll be done. I can't stand to stop in the middle of things."
"That's a trait I share with you. Would you join me for lunch? I should be through in an hour, too."
"Oh, don't feel there's any obligation... "
"If there's an obligation, it's only to welcome you as a new employee to our little firm, Miss Winn."
At lunch she delicately probed at the head of the company. She learned that Michael McGraw was divorced for eight years and had two children in college. The divorce he attributed to the pressures of building his company. He had no interests beyond industrial organic chemistry and the sales of his products. His determined ambition was to guide the company to C least medium size, five hundred employees in the next ten years. He was too realistic suppose that McGraw Chemicals could compete with the giants in his lifetime and too much of a loner to consider a merger. He explained that many of the company's products were made at little or no profit as a sales service to his customers. These products included some of the �ore obscure hormones and certain rare organic essences. He had three martinis and she observed he won a mental struggle against himself for a fourth.
In turn, Vicky told him something of her theories of personnel management, filing practices, accounting systems, and almost all she hid acquired from her experiences and her readings. She told it all as conversationally as she could while still presenting it as if business management was her stock in trade. Then she made a probe that would pay her some dividends soon. She said, "It's good of you to let me prattle on about office management, Mr. McGraw, but I shouldn't belabor it. I know how dull the running of an office is to a man like you."
"What do you mean, a man like me?"
"It's just that--well, I've noticed and I've, been taught, in a way, that the only men who're really interested in office management aren't really all men. You know, they're sort of unusual."
"Yes, I suppose that's true, dammit. And that's why I'm glad I have Harold Kelsey. You should have seen the guy I had before him. Looked as normal as he could be. More masculine than Harold does, as a matter of fact. Then one Monday morning, he called from County Jail. Been picked up for soliciting. Tried to pick up an officer. Can you imagine that? A goddamn fairy in my own office."
"Tsk. Terrible!"
"There's nothing in this world that I deplore more than a fairy. A homosexual is the lowest of the low in my book. Say! Waitress! Bring me a brandy here. Vicky? How about a creme de menthe for you?"
In her apartment, she cooked a solitary dinner of Tournedoes in Bearnaise sauce and asparagus with hollandaise dressing. This was done not only because she deserved excellent food, but also to further her cultural education. She dined from fine china on a linen tablecloth to the strains of Sibelius and drank half a bottle of St. Emilion, 1963. After dinner, she reflected back on a good day.
The files were the way she wanted them, she'd come through her first foray with Michael McGraw quite favorably, and she had the most probable tools for Harold Kelsey's early demise.
She did the dishes, showered, and changed into a satin nightgown that had been a present from the Chief Accountant at her last place of employment. She retired early to read the data gleaned from the files.
Erwin Lind didn't make it into work on Monday. It was Valerie Huntington who came into Vicky's office for data from the files. Vicky decided then that Dr. Huntington was really quite dumb. Despite her advanced degree in a difficult subject, she was dumb. The woman had, beneath her plain appearance, all the natural resources necessary to promote herself far beyond her laboratory. But she was nothing more than a typically cool, typically British woman, devoted entirely to her work. If she herself had Dr. Huntington's training, she'd be well on her way toward a Nobel Prize. Vicky waited, typing serenely, until her new filing system had baffled the woman in the lab coat.
"Can I help you, doctor? I streamlined everything in there on Saturday. What is it you're after?"
"I was looking for a patent on progtnotrone. I'll dig it out somehow."
Vicky came forward and the chemist seemed to shrink from her as she said, "Who wrote it? You see, the patents are filed by their originators now, in most cases. What was his name? Griswold? Yes. Here it is. Now, isn't that easy? You just check with me if you have any trouble at first with the filing system."
"Yes. Yes, that's it. I'll... thank you, Miss Winn."
Dr. Huntington was out of the office at once and Vicky marveled at her coldness, her devotion to science, that had kept her from even a few words of mundane conversation. But Valerie Huntington was one employee that wasn't worth her while. They had nothing in common and they never would have. She went to the powder room and fixed her face before she made a date with Harold Kelsey to exchange hobbies that night.
Vicky Winn was towing a small overnight bag when she rang Harold's buzzer. He admitted her promptly, a little apprehensively, flicking glances down at the bag and up at her simultaneously. She wore a black, lace-trimmed dress and a black lace mantilla about her shoulders. She'd bought the mantilla last Saturday for this occasion. Harold was very nervous as he brought a tray of tea things to the coffee table. He said, "I don't often have lady callers, Vicky. And never carrying an overnight bag. I certainly hope the apartment manager doesn't get the wrong idea, in case she saw you."
Vicky smiled and said, "It is your apartment."
"Yes, but I hate to have anyone getting the wrong idea. Would you like sugar or cream in your tea, Vicky?"
"This is fine." She arranged herself artfully on the couch beside him, half facing him, giving him a good view of the textured hose on her legs, of the hem of her slip, of the black lace that peeked from out her bodice. She let the view soak into him as they sipped their tea, then asked to see his collection.
Without hesitation, eagerly even, he led her to his bedroom. There on the dressers, the tables, on shelves was his doll collection. Vicky had expected typical baby dolls with eyes that closed and voices that squeaked. But Harold was obviously a serious collector and not entirely caught up by some effeminate whim. The dolls were genuine antiques, each with its own story and each, probably, worth a good deal of money. There were brightly painted lead soldiers from the Czarist days in Russia, several primitive carved wooden figures from Africa, Mayan clay figurines, a miniature Queen Victoria complete with a billowing dress and a tiny crown, a voodoo doll from Haiti, a minuetting couple over two hundred years old, and many more. Vicky was genuinely overwhelmed by the collection and interested in them despite herself.
When she had seen them all and complimented him sufficiently, she said, "But I thought you said you dressed them, too. Don't tell me you made the clothes for these."
"Oh, no. I have that done. This pair of dolls from France, for instance." He indicated two dolls with perfectly done china heads and articulated joints that lay on a shelf unclothed, "I'm having Louis XIV clothes made for them next week."
Vicky picked them up and continued to examine the pair as he escorted her back to the living room for more tea and a look at her collection. She set them aside on the coffee table as she opened her bag. Her collection looked sordid, indeed, after the expensive roomful of dolls she'd just seen, but Harold displayed a most reassuring interest in the lacy items she withdrew and draped about them on the couch. He exclaimed over each of them, commenting on the exquisite design of the lace in the panties, the final needlework of the lace in the bra, the fragility of the chemise, the remarkable stretch of the textured body stocking. By the time the bag was empty, the couch and the table and the floor about them was strewn with the lingerie and its sacheted fragrance filled the room.
He said, "My, you do have lovely, lovely things, Vicky."
She toyed with one of the dolls on the table and said, "I enjoy them. And one good thing about them is that I can enjoy wearing them as well as looking at them. You'll probably never know, Harold, but it's a delightful feeling to draw on a piece of fine lace and then feel it next to your skin all day."
"Oh, my," he almost giggled. "I'd imagine that is indeed a feeling. Of course, something I'll never know."
"Many men do, you know."
"Well, I've heard. Certain men, homosexuals, of course, wear things like that right out in the open. I think that's disgusting. As a matter of fact, I think homosexuals are pretty disgusting. Sad, but disgusting."
"Oh, I agree. But many men who aren't that way at all still enjoy the delicate feelings of soft fabrics in the privacy of their homes. A great many things can be done in privacy, Harold. Just think about your apartment manager. Right now she probably thinks you have me in bed. But she'll never know. No one will ever know what you do here except the one you choose to do it with."
He was looking down at her hands as die talked and watching her skillfully drape the little male doll with the edge of the mantilla so that it formed a little suit of black lace for him. He said, "I suppose you're right. Privacy is a wonderful thing. But the men you talk about who wear those things in privacy certainly can't be very manly, even if they aren't homosexuals."
She shrugged. "What is manliness? Manliness only depends on the point of view of whomever is with the man. I don't think that an appreciation for feminine things would detract at all from a man." She grinned at him almost wickedly. "I think it might add to a man's appeal. But then I've never met a man just like that. Someday I will."
He was chewing his lower lip and darting glances at the diaphanous laces that surrounded him. "Someday, someday I hope you do."
She arose then, leaving the lace-clad male doll before him, and walked about to put the coffee table between them. "I saved the best of my collection for last. If you promise to be good and sit right there, I'll model the things we bought last week."
He fervently promised and clenched his hands tightly in his lap as she removed her outer clothing in a business-like ? inner. His eyes were wide as she paraded about the room on her high black heels, her long legs flashing a sheen of black at every step, the slip rust)' g audibly and folding and unfolding in soft lines as she moved. His eyes widened still further when she dangerously slipped the straps of the slip down over her shoulders and began wriggling it down over her body. When it was off, she held it in one hand against her hip as she paced about the room, making his head turn to follow her progress. She caught him by surprise when she tossed the -slip at him and it struck his face. He dumbly pulled it down to his lap and sat with both hands clutching it as he watched her.
She said, "Everything matches perfectly, Harold. I like your taste very much. Do you like them on me?"
"Yes. Yes, I do. Very much, Vicky. Very much."
She came around the table then to stand so close that he had to look almost straight up at her face. But she didn't let him look at her face. She used her hands to accompany her words while she described to him each of the garments she wore. Then she reached down on the arm of the couch and picked up another pair of black lace panties and held them up to her. "I like these, too. Do you?" She dangled them before his face as he nodded yes. She let them sway there for several seconds before she said, "Harold?"
"Hmm? Yes?"
"Put these on yourself for me."
"What? No!" He looked quickly away and cast the slip in his hands aside.
She put one knee on the couch and placed the panties against his cheek, brushing his hand aside when he tried to restrain her. "Harold, put them on. You want to and I want to see you in them."
"No, Vicky, I just can't! I can't do anything that's queer. I'm not that way."
"I know you're not. But I want to see you in them. Please, Harold. It would be thrilling for both of us."
"No. No, I just won't. I just can't allow myself to do anything that's homosexual in the slightest."
She interrupted him angrily, grabbing him by the hair with one hand and holding the lacy garment before his eyes. Her eyes glared at him fiercely and her nostrils flared as her beautiful ruby lips twisted into a vicious snarl. "You're going to put these on, Harold."
His face was a twisted mask of both desire and fear and he managed the one word, "But... "
"Don't argue with me! I've been thinking about you all this week and you've got me in such a state that I'm not about to leave here without your making love to me."
"Make love to you?"
"Yes! Yes, is that so hard to understand?" She released his hair then and fell onto the couch beside him, shaking with sobs. "I guess it is. It's hard for me to understand. I've never been affected by anyone like I have with you. All I've thought about this week is the two of us together in these laces. You must think I'm an awful fool."
He touched her shoulder very gingerly and said, "And you're all I've been thinking about. But I never dreamed it could be like this. I love you, Vicky. I knew it the moment you spoke to me the way you did. So forceful and so dominant. I love you. And please, please don't cry. You've got to be strong with me."
When the heaving of her shoulders stopped and she slowly turned to face him, the lovely face was again transformed. "You want me to be strong with you. eh?"
"Yes. Yesss," he moaned, and reached to take her in his arms.
She pushed him away, thrusting the panties into his face again. "Here. Put these on." She sat and gloated as he went across the room very dutifully and she let him go almost to the door leading to the bedroom, the panties in his hand, before she stopped him. "No! You stay with me to change."
"Oh, Vicky, I... "
"Harold! Don't argue with me! Don't ever argue with me."
"Yes, Vicky," he said as he fumbled off his clothing. "Whatever you say."
"I say to hurry up." The feminine garment barely fit his plump body and he looked ludicrous in it. She pointed at him and laughed openly at him until his entire body blushed and, at the same time, trembled with the most terrible excitement he had ever known. She flogged that excitement without moving from the couch, by instructing him to don and remove other of her things, by making him walk with tiny mincing steps about the room, by having him speak in a falsetto voice until he was groveling on his knees before her, begging for more sneering instructions and begging for the merest touch from her.
She had him make a bed of the silks and nylons and laces and lie on his back in it while she took the male's position over him. The only movement she permitted him was the uncontrollable trembling throughout his body as she hovered over him with her lipstick in her hand and painted his quivering mouth.
She asked in a sneering voice, "Do you like this, Harold?"
She was unbelievably lovely and fantastically close to him. She was so very feminine and so very beautiful and the closeness of her seemed to transform him into what he had secretly yearned to be all his life. He wanted it to never end and held himself stock still, not even daring to touch her silken body until she instructed him to. As the sticky red stuff went onto his upper lip, he murmured, "I like it. I love you, Vicky. I adore you."
"Are you mine?"
"Yours. All yours. In every way you want me. Just tell me and I'm yours."
"My man? My woman? My everything? At any time? In all ways?"
"Yes! Yes, Vicky. I'll always be. Oh, I love you. Oh!"
She was moving on him then and grinning evilly down at him while he mauled her breast with his lipsticked mouth.
CHAPTER FIVE
Vicky Winn was Assistant Office Manager within three weeks. She earned the job. And, she told herself, the earning of it wasn't entirely from the sometimes strenuous, sometimes laughable nights she spent with Harold. If she hadn't the ability to handle the job of Assistant Office Manager, no amount of sex could keep her in it. She was Pleaded with herself. She was ahead of schedule. The fifty dollar a month raise was all right, it covered the expenses she'd incurred in getting the job, but it was the job itself that mattered. And even if she'd worked for a year or two for this newly created position, it wouldn't be half so valuable to her career as it was in the way she had gotten it. The post had been specifically created for her, after only a month on the job, due to Harold's glowing accounts of her abilities. Each time she deigned to come to his apartment, she brought him to a state of almost hysterical desire and then asked what he had done to further her career before she allowed him to continue. If he had failed to talk to Mr. McGraw or to Mr. Walls or even the other secretaries about her talents, then her sexual talents were withheld from him in spite of all his pleadings. Only when he'd related his accounts of her that day and told her of what further he might say she appeased him with a combination of harsh commands and soft flesh.
On the day of her appointment to the new job, she demurely thanked him in his office in the presence of the beaming president of the company. Later, in the hall, she caught him to thank him in the way he desired to be thanked.
"Mr. Kelsey, I Can't seem to find a ribbon for my typewriter in the stockroom. Could you help me?"
"Really, Miss Winn, I haven't time for that. But, come along. I'll find it for you."
When the door was closed, he smiled at her eagerly. "You see? I told you I could get you a raise. You didn't believe me, but I do have some power here. Are you happy about it, Vicky?"
"It's a damned good thing you did get me this job. And you took long enough about it."
"I did my best. Aren't you happy? Didn't I please you?" He was pitiful in his eagerness to see her smile.
She hmphed in reply and opened his belt and it made him writhe away from her, glancing at the door, trying to hold his trousers together. "Vicky, please! Not here."
"Shut up, you. If you're so worried about keeping me happy, show me that you do what I want. Show me and excite me, Harold."
He groaned and cast another look at the door, then dropped his trousers to display the black lace lady's panties he wore beneath his grey flannel suit. "There. Does that prove I love you? Does it? My goodness, Vicky, what else do I have to do to prove it to you ? I got you your raise and your new title, I wear these ridiculous things under my clothes, I do all you want me to, and yet you haven't even told me you love me, that you'll marry me."
She slapped him and he blinked. She slapped him again and he let go his trousers to try to cover his face. She pulled his hand away and slapped him again, still lightly, and smiled as the tears came to his eyes. She put her fists on her hips then and stood smiling at him, watching the familiar flush come to his face. Then, without another touch or a word of command, he dropped to his knees before her and hugged his face against her. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, mama. I'll be good. I promise I'll be good. Will you come over tonight so I can show you how sorry I am?"
"I might. I have a new girdle for you. But now, get up, you silly, fat, fool. Get up and go to work."
She got rid of him ten days later and it was none too soon. The weird tendencies she'd brought out in him were beginning to pall on her and, further, her schedule had to be adhered to.
She'd been able to spend more time in the plant and in the laboratory since her promotion and it was her time in the laboratory that she used to good advantage. She asked about the reactions that were performed and the chemicals used for them and Erwin Lind was glad to answer her questions. The pale blonde Dr. Huntington always retreated to her desk in the corner when Vicky was about. From Erwin, though, she learned about the differences between nitric and sulfuric and hydrochloric and acetic acids and the harmful effects of caustic soda and caustic potash. Then she bided her time until the situations were correct.
It came on a Wednesday afternoon. Valerie Huntington was working on an experiment that was of great interest to Michael McGraw so that he was in her laboratory, discussing the ramifications of the reaction. Vicky called Harold on the intercom and asked him to meet her in the laboratory to check on Erwin's inventory of a few days before. They were divided into two groups in the laboratory then. Dr. Huntington and Mr. McGraw hovering between her desk and the test tube rack on the bench, and Vicky, Erwin and Harold at the reagent shelves. When Harold and Erwin turned from her to make an entry, Vicky adroitly tipped over a bottle of concentrated nitric acid so that it shattered at Harold's heels. All in the laboratory started at the harsh sound and at the acrid mist that at once permeated the room and Harold looked wide eyed down at his smoking trouser cuffs.
Harold said, "What was that? Was it dangerous? What was it?"
"Con nitric," Erwin said, backing away. "If that's a wool suit, it could catch fire if you don't get water on it."
"Wah!" Harold said loudly and sloshed through the puddle of fuming acid toward the safety shower. As he reached up for the handle, Erwin took his arm to hold it.
Harold did a little jig as Erwin said, "Better get your pants off first thing. Burn your legs when the water hits it. Scars."
Harold shrieked then and ripped his smoldering trousers off, then pulled the handle to drench himself in the flood of cold water that poured out of the big shower head. He squealed and jumped as the diluting acid stung him and was still holding the handle down hard when the president of the company stormed up to him to shove him hard out of the torrent, clear across the laboratory.
Michael McGraw shouted, "You're fired! Get out of here, you goddamned fairy."
Harold cowered, sodden, against the door, trying to cover his lower limbs. "No. Oh, no. I'm not. You don't understand, sir. I'm,"
"You're fired! Look at you! Wearing a woman's goddamn girdle and silk stockings and the whole works under your suit. Out! Get out! Out of my place of business!"
Vicky stayed on in the office of the technical secretary while she interviewed girls to replace herself. There was no hurry to get into the office with the ancient and unimportant Mr. Walls. And it wouldn't look too well to rush into the desk of Office Manager while the disgraced swivel chair was still warm. That week Harold didn't dare to phone her at the plant, but he called many times at her apartment. She put him off successfully until he arrived in person one night.
"Harold, we simply can't see each other for a while. After all, you've lost your job in a good deal of disgrace. How would it do for me to be seen associating with you? I'd lose my job as well. Then where would we be?"
"I don't know. I can't even think. I'm so ashamed. All I know is that I still love you and want you and will do anything you say."
"Fine. That's the way it should be. And now I say for you to go home and get a good night's sleep. Don't even call me for a while. Not until this awful, awful thing has all been forgotten at McGraw. Go back to your men friends for a while."
"My men friends?"
She smiled and said, "That's right. You told me once you had lots of them. Amuse yourself with them for a while. Show them your wardrobe, dearie. And, if you can't find what you want with them, call me in a few months. But not until things are calmed down at McGraw. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Vicky," he said, quite glumly. "Whatever you say."
Vicky selected a mousy little thing for her replacement. Her name was Agnes Haskell and she was fresh out of a small secretarial school. Twenty years old, built on the slight side, her tastes in clothes ran to the nondescript and she perpetually looked as if she might break into tears at a harsh word. Her nose was red. All in all, she'd be an ideal technical secretary. She could be plopped down in the chair Vicky had just vacated and be expected to stay in that chair for the rest of her days at McGraw, causing no worry, no competition to Vicky in her climb to the top. Vicky didn't have time just then to worry about a new or an old secretary beyond keeping them in their place. There were literally hundreds of little details of the Office Manager's job that she had to learn. The learning had to appear effortless, as if that job were far below her true capabilities. At the same time, she had to weasel herself into the books that George Walls kept in order to know where the money flowed in McGraw, to provide any new clue to the direction of the next rung in the ladder. The job brought her into contact with Dick Sullivan, too, the Sales Manager, and he had to be cultivated. All in all, Vicky was going to be quite busy in the next month.
Erwin Lind was disappointed with the new girl. Even though Vicky Winn had been too lovely to be approachable, she had been the bright spot in his days. The school work and the lab work were both interesting and stimulating, but a man needed a little aesthetic inspiration now and then. Emmalita Kimbrough certainly didn't provide this. Although he was only seven weeks behind in his room rent then, her demands on him had not diminished, and if it hadn't been for his daily glances at Vicky Winn, he felt he would have become a confirmed woman hater. His landlady continued to pour energy into his body with her fine cuisine, then at once drained it off with her big, cow's body. He was unable to get away from her. He wound up spending every weekend in her flat, alternating mending and patching the old place, being stuffed with marvelous food, and being dragged into bed or to the floor or onto the couch or any place at all when the whim struck Mrs. Kimbrough. The hell of it was, she did have the ability to arouse him. Her very brazenness and lack of pretense about the acts of love they performed were at once repugnant and exciting to him. Frequently he could close his eyes and his ears to her and almost succeed in believing it was the beautiful Vicky Winn there beneath him. Now, with Vicky down the hall and her chair filled by the plain little Agnes Haskell, his would be a bleak life, indeed. He decided to redouble his efforts in catching up on his rent and getting out of that rooming house.
Val Huntington was very pleased with the new girl. The absence of Vicky was like a great weight lifted from her and she could again go into the office of the technical secretary without fear of betraying her inner needs with a look, a sigh, a strictly verboten touch. The first thing she did was to work with Agnes in rearranging the filing system to where it had been previously. This eased her work and reduced Agnes's time in rummaging through four separate, though color-coded, systems. Agnes was very timid, very shy with her as well as with everyone and this was fine with Valerie. It kept their words to a minimum and therefore minimized the possibility of an infatuation, no matter how slight that possibility might be. To Valerie, Agnes was merely a new, and a surprisingly efficient, piece of office furniture For these reasons, Valerie was highly upset one evening just before quitting time to find the technical secretary at the filing cabinet, in tears.
"Agnes, whatever's wrong?"
"Nothing. Nothing," Agnes said, turning her back on Valerie.
Valerie gently turned her about and used her own handkerchief to dab at her puffed eyes and her reddened nose. "Tell me what it is, Agnes. We can't have you so unhappy, can we?"
"I'll be all right," she sobbed. "Don't bother with me."
Her sobs grew louder and Valerie shut the door so that the people leaving the plant wouldn't embarrass the distraught girl. She took the thin little shoulders in her hands and again tried to soothe Agnes. "Now tell me. It can't be as bad as all that, can it?"
Agnes made a last effort to control herself, then slumped forward against Val, letting the tears flow freely. Val patted and consoled her as she might have a child and soon had her able to at least talk coherently. "It was Miss Winn. She looked in the filing cabinet and when she found the color code system gone, she bawled me out. Said she'd fire me if I went on messing things up. Dr. Huntington, I can't be fired. I have debts to pay. I still owe for some of my tuition at secretarial school and... "
"Hush, now, Agnes. Of course she can't fire you. I'll see to that. You just let the filing system alone now and I'll have a word with Mr. McGraw tomorrow."
"Oh, no! She said that if I went sniveling to anyone about it she'd fire me for sure. I just have to stay and get it all back like it was. Oh," she moaned, "and I don't even know how you had it."
Valerie dried her eyes again and said, "All right. All right. I'll stay with you and we'll have it looking as it did in no time. We shan't be able to find anything in it, of course, but we'll have the redoubtable Miss Winn appeased for a time. And then, say next week, I'll write a very polite memo requesting that the files be reorganized. Then we'll be able to do our work and everyone will be happy. No arguments now. Hop to it, my lass, and we'll have it done in no time at all."
The work went fast. The old folders were resurrected and each letter split into four haphazard groups. In the space of an hour, the files looked much like they had a week before and were totally incomprehensible. Agnes looked better, too. Their work had been done in a schoolgirl atmosphere and the laughter they joined in had brought a happy flush to the girl's cheeks and a brightness to her eyes. And it made Valerie feel very young again.
"You see?" Valerie said, "Nothing to it. And we're finished before the cocktail hour. Say, that's a thought. Let's stop for a martini and you car. finish telling me about yourself."
"I'd love to, Valerie. I really would, but I'm not twenty-one."
"Oh, you could pass for that."
"Oh, sure. With my luck, they'd pinch me and get you into trouble. I'd just love to, but I'm too much of a coward."
"Then come to my flat. I can assure you there'll be no prying police there." It would be safe. There could be no possible harm in a drink or two with this little girl.
Agnes was highly impressed by Valerie's apartment, though Valerie tried to deprecate it. While Val mixed a shaker of martinis, Agnes had to make a circuit of the room to inspect each of the furnishings and the objects of art and the cases of books. Valerie hoped the girl wouldn't think anything of the heavy preponderance of nude women in the paintings on her walls. Agnes finally came to rest on the chaise lounge and Val brought a little table over to place between them while she sat in a chair facing her. The martinis were very good, very smooth and Valerie relaxed and took her jacket off while she brought Agnes's story out of her.
It was a typically middle class, typically sad little story. A dull life outside a small agricultural town, a childhood spent with chickens and pigs and cows and corn for companionship, a dream of getting away someday to the big city, then finding herself lonelier than ever once she'd secured her first, small toehold in the city.
On her second martini, Agnes swept her arm about her, saying, "This is what I want, Val. A beautiful apartment like this with all the lovely things you have."
Val leaned back in her chair. She withdrew a few of the pins from her hair and shook it loose. The little thing was, after all, just like the rest of them. Val said, "I'm afraid the things I have don't come with a secretary's salary."
"Oh, I know that," Agnes said cheerily. "And I know I'll never have them for myself. I just want to live in a city where I know they're around me. I want to know that every house I pass on my way to and from work isn't decorated with linoleum and oilcloth." She started to make a gesture with the glass and its contents spilled over her dress and onto the brocaded chaise lounge. She was immediately on her knees to blot at the liquid on the furniture.
Val said, "Never mind that. It won't stain."
"It won't? My dress sure will. Could I go into the kitchen and try to clean it off?"
"Better yet, come with me." Val led her into her big, plush pink bedroom and threw the closet doors open to select a robe for her. "Here. Slip out of your dress and put this on, then we'll dry it." She left Agnes there and finished her drink, decided that the girl had had enough of the martinis, even though it would be a shame to end this pleasant evening too soon.
They worked together on the dress in the kitchen and did a good job of it. Agnes looked very sweet in the pink robe, so sweet that Valerie had to extend the evening just a little more by offering to make a little dinner of lobster tails and white wine while the dress dried. Agnes was excited at the prospect of the real lobster and she bustled about the kitchen, finally taking over completely with the salad while Valerie changed her mind about no more martinis. She made another shaker, then went to the bedroom to don a robe herself. In the bathroom were hung Agnes's drying panties and bra and hose and the sight of these sent hot chills through Val. The girl had obviously rinsed the spilled drink out of these and the pink robe was the only garment she now wore. The thought was sobering and Val steadied herself with a quick and solitary martini in the living room before she returned to the kitchen.
The scene in the kitchen that greeted her was an appealing one. Little Agnes had made herself quite at home there, finding the utensils and the plates and placing a bowl of salad on the table that was more of a work of art than a part of a meal. Val poured her a martini, then sat at the table to chat while she observed each of the girl's movements. Relaxed, she was quite graceful and she was more than a little attractive to Val. The flash of a white leg through the folds of the robe was lovely and the swells of her bosom were firm and pronounced through the soft material, even without the benefit of a bra. This was nice. It was the way things should be for Val. She needed a sweet young woman like Agnes about her all the time. Attractive, cheery, unspoiled. It was nice to think about, but it could never be.
Agnes loved the lobster, but had a terrible time in getting the meat out of the shells. Val had to come to her side to expertly scoop it out and, at the same time, treat herself to a long look down the front of Agnes's robe. The skin was as pale as she knew it would be and the nipples like firm pink rosebuds. She remained there to open the wine for them. They dawdled for an hour over the meal and they took the remnants of the second bottle of wine out to the living room to continue their chat while listening to some music. Moving away from the record player, Agnes stumbled on the hem of the long robe and Val was right there to catch her with an arm about her waist. Laughing, she continued to support the slim girl to the chaise lounge, marveling as she did at the suppleness of her guest's body, its warmth under her protective embrace. Val allowed herself to sit close beside Agnes on the lounge. It had to be so. This evening, this perfect evening, would end soon and she must have all of Agnes that propriety permitted until it was over and she returned to her loneliness.
Agnes sipped the wine that Val poured and said, "No one in the world would ever guess you were a doctor of chemistry now, Val."
"Oh? And what would they suppose I am?"
"Oh, a duchess, I'd say. The wealthy and beautiful Duchess of Winchester. Is there such a thing?"
Val squeezed Agnes's hand and said, "There is now. I feel like a duchess somehow tonight. And you, you look like a princess. You truly do, Agnes."
Agnes's laughter was a merry tinkle. "Oh, no. I'll never be mistaken for anything but a secretary. But you're different. So cultured and so lovely and so wise and such fun to be with, and yet you're a chemist. How did you ever decide to be a chemist, Val?"
Val drank and poured as she said, "I always meant to be in science. My father was a physicist. And my husband, I was married once, Agnes, though it's not something I usually talk about, he was a chemist. One of my professors."
"My, he must have taught you a lot."
There was no mistaking the bitterness in her voice as she said, "Yes. Taught me a lot, he did. He taught me loneliness."
It was Agnes's turn to comfort the older woman then, and she put her hand on Val's shoulder and said, "Oh, I'm sorry. It's not good to be lonely. I know that. I have no friends at all in the city. It's not good."
Val sipped her wine and said, "I have acquaintances. That's all I need."
Agnes's voice was tiny and unsure as she said, "I need more. I wish we could be friends, Val. I know it can't be because you're a professional woman and I'm just a secretary, but I wish we could be friends."
Val looked at the girl then. She was adorable. She was plain, but this added to her charm. Without the artifices of makeup, she was adorable. A year or less in the clutches of the city and she'd be brightly painted, brittily witty, unappealing, and in one manner or another, debased and despoiled. The girl was too weak to survive in the jungle of the city. She'd be led along a path far more sordid and crushing than that which Valerie had trod. Why shouldn't Val be the one to despoil this flower? And would her brand of love be so despoiling for Agnes? After all, with Val, Agnes could have so many more things than the preying males of the city could give her. In addition, she could have gentleness. And this was a girl who would blossom only with gentleness. It was tempting. It was so very tempting that Val decided that another step or two toward this end wouldn't hurt either of them. She smiled and said, "I expect a great deal from my friends. Of course, I offer a great deal in return."
"That's what friends are for, Val. To give and to take."
Val slipped an arm about Agnes's tiny waist and said, "And to be close to one another, very close." It was absolutely thrilling the way Agnes's body bent to come closer to her and she probed with her fingers at the point of the girl's hip. "I'd like to be close with you like this, dear."
"I do, too. Ever since I came to work there I've wanted to be friends with you. No. More than that. I guess I just wanted to be with you like this. I admire you so much, Val. And I'm so lucky to be with you now."
Val kneaded the little waist expertly with one hand while she covered both of Agnes's hands with her own. "I feel I'm the one who's fortunate. I've looked for a dear friend for a long, long time."
Agnes smiled, "A friend like me?"
Val smiled back and said, "It remains to be seen, but it could very well be you." She ached to press her lips against that soft, sweet face so close to her, but she held herself back while her hand went behind Agnes to stroke and caress at the sensitive area in the small of the girl's back. Stop now, she told herself, or you'll drown yourself in this sweet girl.
The closeness of Val was bringing a heady feeling to Agnes, a feeling that she'd never known before and that she had to explore more deeply. She felt warm and glowing and alive all over and she knew that it wasn't from the alcohol she'd had. She had a nervous feeling, too, and she took one of her hands from Val's tender clasp and picked up the wine glass. She sipped it, then remembered her hostess and held it to Val's full red lips for her to drink. Val turned the glass a quarter turn so that her lips sipped from the same spot which Agnes had. Val said, "The wine seems to be sweeter there." That little speech thrilled Agnes and she sampled the wine again, saying, "You're right, Val. I've never tasted wine so sweet. I think you could show me many things like that." Her hand was trembling and she had to set down the glass and still her errant fingers by clutching the soft, strong hand of this beautiful, worldly woman.
"Be my friend, Agnes. Be my very special my very lovely friend, and I'll show you more things than you've dreamed of." Val's hand went to the sash that held Agnes's robe together.
Agnes wet her lips in exact imitation of the pink tongue that wet Val's lovely mouth. She said, "Make me your friend, Val. Show me all there is to show." The hand was on her bare stomach then, making it flutter uncontrollably inside, making her legs so weak that she couldn't have run if she'd wanted to.
Val said, "I'm a lesbian, Agnes." When Agnes closed her eyes long enough to nod once, Val went on. "Do you think you might be inclined that way, as well, or is this just the heat of the moment, so to speak?" She cupped a firm, round breast in her hand and felt the nipple, already turgid with the passions in the girl's body.
Agnes had a little trouble in getting the words out. "I honestly don't know. I've never done anything like this before. I've read about it. I never even thought about it applied to Agnes Haskell. But I like it. I like you, Val. I don't want to stop. And it's not just the heat of the moment." That hand, that lovely hand on her breast seemed to hardly move, yet it brought feelings to her of indescribable joy.
"This is a difficult thing for me to say, Agnes. But I'll say it because I respect you so much and I think I'd fall totally in love with you if we continued like this. But, get up now and dress and go. Leave, my darling woman, or I'll love you so well that you'll never want to go." She tore her hands away from the hot little body there beside her.
A terrible, lonely coldness flashed through Agnes's body as the hands, the beautiful hands left her. When Valerie started to arise, Agnes was compelled to fling her arms about her and hold her there on the chaise lounge, saying, "No. No, I won't go, Val. I want you and I want you to want me." She tore at the sash that bound Val's robe and pulled the robe wide to put her hands on the jutting, heavy breasts.
Val held her close then and reveled in the response that swelled out of the girl-woman. The hands on her breasts, so clumsy, so eager, so delightful, could be hers forever if she was careful. She ran her hands over the little body, under the robe, as she murmured. "I'll give and give and give to you, and all I'll expect in return is that you take my love." She gently drew the girl into the breast of this dear, thrilling woman.
"Oh, no," Agnes said. "That's not the way we'll be at all." With Valerie at her side, she was able to burrow her nipple, then her whole breast of this dear, thrilling woman.
"Hush, darling. Relax now and let me love you."
"No! No, Val, I will leave if you think it's going to be like that. I told you I wanted you, just like you want me. In every way. Just show me, Val. That's all I ask."
Val kissed her sweet, sweet lips then, long and lingeringly while she roved her hands over the girl's body. This was her very own woman. She had at last found an end to her loneliness.
When the kiss ended, Agnes' eyes were glazed with her passion. She panted, "Was I all right? Did I kiss you right?"
Val smiled at her. "Couldn't be better. Unless of course, you prefer the French kiss."
Agnes's tongue met hers more than halfway. When that kiss ended, the little brunette smiled impishly and said, "I prefer it."
CHAPTER SIX
The moment Valerie awoke that next morning, the pangs of guilt began gnawing at her. She lay in bed for a long time, her head in her hands, hating herself for taking advantage of Agnes, for perverting her. Last night, after she'd dropped Agnes off at her shabby looking apartment house, the residual effects of the alcohol and the sweet lovemaking had been there to drowse away the torments of her conscience. This morning, though she felt perfectly refreshed physically, she could only lie there and castigate herself. She mightily wished that she could go on lying there forever, drowning in her bed, never having to face that girl and see the dread and the disgust in her eyes once she, too, had slept her brain clear of the alcohol and the passions. But the day had to be faced and Agnes had to be faced and somehow told that what they had done was a wild and foolish thing that meant nothing insofar as the girl's normalcy. Valerie refused to let herself dwell on those sweetest of all charms she had known the night before. It was her duty then to repair the damage she had done. The thought of Agnes possibly lying dead by suicide in her morning-after remorse almost made Val physically ill. She quickly arose and prepared for work.
Agnes was blessedly there, serenely typing at her desk when Val went by the office to her laboratory. She even called out a business-like good morning as Val went by and Val returned it, chilled at the coldness of the greeting. Val couldn't work that morning. She sat at her desk, a stack of unread reports and patents before her, desperately trying to devise a way to get Agnes alone one more time, not to love her as she wanted to, but to apologize if she could for taking advantage of her. They met in the coffee room at ten and Val was glad for the presence of Erwin and the others then. The conversation that went on seemed ordinary enough, but Val caught the undertones of bitterness and hate that were in Agnes's few words. She had little dark circles under her eyes, but this somehow made her look more beautiful than ever to Val. Her face glowed with a luminosity that seemed to form a halo about her lovely head.
Val could hardly bring herself to look at Agnes when she brought in the mail at eleven. But what she saw was unmistakable. Stiffness and coldness toward her, a valiant effort to keep from verbally vilifying Val right there in front of Erwin Lind. Val shuffled through the mail mechanically, then froze with the McGraw Chemicals letterheaded envelope in her hand. It was addressed in Agnes's firm, neat hand to, Dr. Valerie Huntington. She stared at it, dreading to open it, fearing to read the accusing words of scorn and hate. At last she slowly slit it open and read the letter:
---
Dearest, sweetest Val,
I am sitting here, slowly going out of my mind with wanting to run to you and kiss you and hold you and touch you. I guess I'm awfully adolescent about it, but after all, a girl only falls in love for the first time once. But once will be enough for this girl. I love you, Val. I love you, but I want to say it to you as well as write it to you. Please, please come to my place tonight so that I can say it. Please!
And please don't smile at me here at work or I'll run right into your arms.
Your friend who loves you,
Ag
---
Valerie held the letter to her breast and fought back the tears of joy that welled up in her. She read and reread the letter, then folded it and placed it between her breasts as she wrote an answer:
---
My darling Ag,
We didn't say it last night, did we? There simply wasn't time in the eight hours we spent in each other's arms to say that we loved one another. I do love you, and not only because you arc the most beautiful, most passionate woman in the world. There are so many other reasons that I'm sure I'll never be able to tell them all to you. I'll begin tonight. I may be clumsy at it, though, since this is the first time for me to be in love as well.
I won't smile at you here. Try not to even look at me. I fear we are both adolescents, but after the wonder of last evening, nothing surprises me any more, except you, my love.
I love you,
Val
---
She folded it and placed it into an envelope and walked on air to Agnes's office. She dropped the envelope on her desk with a curt, "See to that, will you? There's a good girl." She leafed through the file cabinets for a time, then cursed softly and said, "Miss Haskell, these files are in a terrible state."
"I'm terribly sorry, Dr. Huntington. I'd stay tonight and straighten them out, but I have a dinner date at eight, or at least I think I do. A very, very dear friend is coming over."
"Tsk. You Americans. Seven o'clock is a much more civilized hour for dinner."
"I have to shop, you see. I have to have everything perfect for my friend."
"It can't be a very, very dear friend at all then. She, or is it a he must be a thoughtless friend, indeed, to let you shop by yourself. I know that if that friend were I, that friend would be there at six to help you shop."
Agnes caught herself in time to hold back a smile. "I suppose we Americans haven't the most orthodox of taste in friends. But I know I'd love to have her there at six if I could get word to her."
"That, my child, is your problem. I haven't time for such adolescent matters as you and your dinner guests. I," Valerie said, "am interested only in science." At the door, Val blew her love a kiss.
* * *
While Dr. Huntington was out of the laboratory, Erwin Lind used the time to try to catch up with his back rent. He got a four ounce jar and began filling it with the experimental wrinkle cream he had worked on that morning. It didn't work, of course, but Mrs. Kimbrough thought it did and she allowed him ten dollars credit for almost any of the four ounce jars of skin toner or wrinkle cream or conditioner that he brought to her. When the cream was gone and the jar only three fourths full, he cast about the laboratory for something to fill it with. The progenitrone salve was handy and it was the same color and this went to top off the container. It was blended together and the jar put in the pocket of his coat before Dr. Huntington returned to the laboratory, humming a little tune, most unusual for the scientific woman.
Erwin had an afternoon laboratory class, then spent four hours in the science library before he headed for home. He'd learned there was no use in trying to sneak by Emmalita's door when her lights were on and this night he simply knocked at it. When it was opened, he held out the jar and said, "Hi, Emma. I brought you some wrinkle cream. It's really great stuff. Hasn't even hit the market yet."
She took it and his hand as well and pulled him into the room. "Well, wasn't that thoughtful as could be of you?" The jar went into a pocket of her housecoat. "Erv, your hands are like ice. Here warm them on my cheeks. I have just the thing for you. A fresh pot of coffee and a hot, deep-dish apple pie. Now, hush, you're not going up to that narrow bed of yours and try to sleep on an empty stomach. You just sit right down here and I'll wait on you."
As he ate, she tried and succeeded in warming his body with her hands, her arms, her big bosoms. Trying to keep the subject away from sex, he said, "That cream I brought is good stuff. Got over twenty bucks worth of hormones in it. If you bought it in a store it'd cost you fifty."
"And do I really need it," she cooed. "Am I really that wrinkled?"
"Well, no, but I saw you had some wrinkle cream in the medicine cabinet and I thought I'd save you some money. It's really good stuff."
"If you made it, I know it is. And I'll allow you ten dollars on your bill for it, even though I don't really need it."
"It's not just for wrinkles. It's good for keeping your skin nice and smooth, too." The pie was resting nicely in his stomach then and he was leaning back on the couch, resigned to letting himself enjoy her caresses on him. He had learned the hard way that if he went along with her desires, he would be upstairs in his room that much sooner.
She got the jar out and opened it, sniffed it and made a face. "No perfume? I guess without the perfume you got more room for the hormones. Here, Erwin. You made it, you put it on me."
"Sure," he said, then hesitated as she opened her housecoat to bare her large, large breasts to him. He said, "There?"
"Oh, yes. I have to keep the skin there soft and the muscles toned up. I always use hormone cream and massage, but I'm sure you could do it better. And it would teach you something about the applications of your wonderful products. Next time you make up a batch in your laboratory, you can be thinking of me." She lay back and jabbered inanely as he worked the cream into the soft flesh of her breasts. It was fascinating work, in a way, watching the white cream slowly disappear into the even whiter flesh. If it had been anyone else, even Agnes Haskell, it would have been a highly erotic task. That Agnes had looked pretty great that day. In her way, she was more appealing than Vicky Winn had been. Vicky was too beautiful to be approached, but Agnes' beauty was one that an ordinary man might be able to cope with. If only he had some money. But the only woman he could afford was Emmalita Kimbrough. He sighed and his sigh blended with the little coos of pleasure that his hands were bringing forth from his landlady.
She was lying back on the couch now in her familiar way, adjusting both of their clothing, not permitting him to stop in his administrations to her. "That's nice, Erwin. That's so nice. You just make me feel good all over and I suppose I'll have to make you feel good now, too. Just keep on like you are, my scientist, and I'll take good care of you. Oh, my, that's nice. Isn't that nice? Now, you know the only way for this cream of yours to do any good at all is to be real diligent in its application. You'll have to stop in every night until that jar is gone and continue this treatment or... Ooooo!... or you won't know for sure if your new cream has all the properties it's... Oh, Erwin!... it's supposed to have. I'll help you, my scientist. I'll be more than happy to be your guinea... Oh!... pig."
* * *
Vicky Winn released her lower lip from between her even, white teeth long enough to gasp loudly and moan, "Oh, you big bastard you. You big, beautiful bastard. Don't stop. Don't you ever, ever stop."
"You like it, eh?" he said with difficulty. "I thought you would. I knew you would. But I didn't think you'd like it this much."
"I do. I do! Oh, Mike, I can't help myself. You're just too, too good." Vicky delivered the message joyfully, seemingly ecstatic in her bliss.
"You can't get enough, can you? Am I hurting you? Am I?"
"No, Mike. I... I love it with you. I want all you have."
Michael McGraw drove on at her fiercely, savagely, in a frenzy to have it over with and to reduce this lovely woman to the quivering animal that he then was. He growled words at her, vile names, and he shut his eyes to summon up the vision of his ex-wife and this renewed his vigor in the onslaught. When he heard it, that first whimper of combined pain and pleasure, it touched the trigger to his internal feelings and the fire within him flooded, burst forth from him. He was panting hard then, sprawled out over Vicky Winn, and he slowly came to his senses. Foggily, he took his weight from her and fell back beside her, flat on his back. He muttered, "I'm sorry. Did I hurt you, Vicky?"
The burden from her, she strove for deep breaths. "No, Mike. It was good. So very good." Fully half of her body was still numb from his clenching, brutal hands, his great, unfeeling weight on her. "You were perfect. The perfect lover."
"I'm glad. You... you were good, too, Vicky." How had it happened? He remembered the drinks after work and the discussion of petty problems of the office. Then there had been even more drinks at another bar and the problems hadn't seemed so petty. There was a fuzzy time period then and they had been there at Vicky's place and she was helping him off with his coat and tie, then doing a very provocative strip tease for him. Promises then, words of love and understanding and talk of work all mixed up with it, and then he'd awakened more fully in the middle of the act of love. And then the wonder of the actual completion of that act was there. God, how long had it been since his manhood had functioned for him? Two, three years. And now this girl who worked for him had somehow managed to bring him release again, to prove that he was still a man. He put a hand on her shoulder that tried to be gentle and she turned at once to smile at him. He said falteringly, "Thank you, thank you."
She kissed him lightly and said, "Thank you, boss. You're quite a lot of man. you know." She hauled herself to a sitting position on her bed, kissed him again, and arose. "I'll be right back."
He closed his eyes and tried to fill in the blank spots of the evening, but to no avail. She startled him awake when she returned, still naked, but looking more brazen now than appealing. She held out a glass to him, saying, "I thought you might like something cool now. Scotch and soda?"
He gulped at it, the first taste of it revolted him, then drained it. "I needed that. Thanks again, Vicky."
Her smile was crooked as she cocked her head. "I should be thanking you for my promotion. I'm sure I will be showing you my thanks often now. I'll consider that to be one of my duties as Executive Secretary to the President."
"Executive Secretary," he mumbled, then sought for dregs in the bottom of the glass.
"I'll do well at it. You'll see. And the first thing I'll do will be to find a good replacement for myself. Someone who can step right in and do a good job for us, darling. After all, the smoother that the plant runs, the more times we'll have together. Right?"
"Yes. Right. But now... now I'd better go."
"Ohhh," Vicky pouted, "Must you go so soon? I could fix you some dinner or a few drinks, dear, or anything at all you'd like." She moved her shoulders back and forth, making her proud breasts sway before his eyes.
He'd had enough, more than enough, of everything. He felt ill, both mentally and physically. But he managed a leer at her lascivious proposal and shook his head. "I can't stay. I'll see you at the office tomorrow. We'll work out the details."
She said, "Oh, no. That's my job now. Handling all the details for you so that you can devote more time to the important things. Let me do this for you, Mike. Let me work out these details and send them to you in a memo that you can either approve or disapprove." She leaned closer to him, to kiss him and to brush her nude breasts against his hairy chest. She said, "Let me?"
He wanted to squirm away from her, but he managed to hold his movements to just an inch or two from the extremely brazen nudity. This woman, this executive secretary of his, had absolutely no modesty at all. She was as frank and matter of fact about her body and its uses as some prostitute might be. But, after all, she had reawakened his virility and this was no mean thing for any woman to do. He had to get away from her and to sober up and to think of what he should do. When she backed up a little, he used this opportunity to get out of the bed, to gather his clothes up from the floor, to murmur apologies, and to retire from the bedroom to dress.
She took a long, hot, jubilant shower when Michael McGraw was gone. She was very proud of herself. She'd used her brain and her body masterfully that night to get everything she wanted: a good raise, a respected position right next to the head of the company, power over all the other employees there. She'd worked for it, of course. The evening hadn't been at all easy on her body or on her ego. She'd drunk very little, of course, diverting the vast majority of her drinks into the brutish mouth of her boss. The flattery, the looks of growing adoration, the great attentiveness she'd shown him had been a chore, too. But the worst had been his brutal, humiliating use of her body. He'd been difficult to get started, undoubtedly because of the drinks, but once he'd begun, he had turned into an animal. It hadn't been at all her idea of how a woman should be loved. But it had been enough to stir the beginnings of a flame within her. She let her mind dwell on that flame and further thought about all she had accomplished that night, then decided she deserved a little treat for herself.
She left the shower and dried and powdered herself, then strode nude to the phone. She dialed a number, then spoke harshly into the phone when it was answered, "Harold? Vicky here. Oh, hush, I know you're glad to hear from me. I want you over here. Now. Tonight. And bring your pretty things with you, too." She hung up.
Ten o'clock. Give her chubby friend half an hour to get there and she'd still have time for an hour and a half of sport and be in bed and asleep by midnight. And in the half hour, she'd prepare herself. She combed her hair in long, raven waves that flowed down over her shoulders and she smeared lipstick heavy on her mouth. Her eyes were deepened with purple shadow then and slanted outward with black pencil. Her eyebrows followed this line and were made thicker in the middle. She used a heavy layer of very white powder then to accentuate the colors on her face and grinned at the effect of evil, dominating lust she'd created. She donned a black satin waist cincher with frilled garters and pulled on long, blue-black hose, stepped into very tight high-heeled pumps. She selected a black, see-through bra and her costume was complete. She mixed herself a weak drink and sat down to read a magazine until Harold's arrival.
When the buzzer sounded, she called to him to enter. She didn't move when he closed the door behind him nor when he stood there for a moment, catching in his breath at the sight of her. He rushed across the room then, saying her name and kneeling with one knee on the couch to kiss her before she even moved.
She put a hand in his face and pushed him away, saying, "Don't try to climb all over me. Haven't you got any control at all?"
"I'm... I'm sorry. I was just so happy to see you again, Vicky. And you look so, so beautiful."
"Look all you want, but don't touch until I say so. Is that clear?"
"Yes. Yes, Vicky."
"Good." She smiled cruelly up at him and said, "And did you bring your lovely lady's things?"
He nodded, cheeks crimson.
She flicked at his necktie. "Get these things off and show me. Move, you!"
When he stood before her, his outer clothes discarded, his shoulders slumped, obviously aroused, she said, "No. Black isn't your color any more. It's mine. Go into my bedroom and pick out some things in... pink. Very frilly, very pretty."
He shook his head, "Vicky, I can't take any more of this. Don't do this to me."
Her eyes flashed venom at him as she spit out, "Do you have a job yet? Do you want your old job back? Do you know who can get that job back for you? I'll do any damned thing I please with you, do you understand? Now get your flabby body out of my sight until you have it dressed as I've said."
The hope in his eyes at the mention of his job, the hangdog look as he protested, were both delicious things to Vicky. She was becoming more aroused and she was enjoying the feeling greatly. He was perfect when he returned, from the fluffy pink mules to the pink chiffon peignoir that revealed little of what was under it. She laughed aloud at him as he hung back, then she hooked both heels into the cushion of the sofa and directed him to kneel before her. She called him names then. "You fairy, you. You fat, silly looking, effeminate nance, you. This is all you deserve of me or of any woman. But I feel sorry for you. I shouldn't, I know, but I do. When you've finished, when you've been very good to me, I might be good to you."
She was as good to him as she knew how to be. She made him lie flat on his back and she hovered over him, grinning down at him as she made all of the effort, looking at him through eyes made into two dark, deep slits by the passions that had been aroused in her during the long evening. A large part of that passion stemmed from the job she'd earned, a small part of it from Michael McGraw's coarse lovemaking. More of it was due to the humiliation she'd brought to Harold Kelsey and this had been increased by his long and devoted administrations to her on the sofa. This, though, was the culmination of it all. This, this looking down at the man beneath her, completely subjugated, totally dominated by her, this was what she needed that night. She was totally in command of him and that was exactly how it should be with all men.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Michael McGraw approved Vicky's plans for taking over her new job. She presented them at just the right time. The memo was all ready at eight o'clock when the president of the company arrived and Vicky followed him out of her office and down the hall to his walnut paneled sanctuary. She brushed past his personal secretary and caught him before he was settled into his chair. As she had expected, he looked awful. He'd probably had several nightcaps after he'd left her place and those had been followed by copious quantities of aspirin that morning. He looked puffed and bleary and dull and she accentuated this in him by acting as chipper and bright and alluring as she possibly could.
He read the memo, blinking his eyes several times as he did to clear them, then nodded his approval. She then produced the second memo, typed over his signature, which made the brief and business-like announcement that Miss Vicky Winn had been promoted to the newly created post of Executive Secretary to the President. He received a kiss on the cheek and a promise of things to come and Vicky was gone to implement her plans. Two of the men in the plant were summoned to move Vicky's old desk in with Agnes Haskell, Miss Sturgeon, Michael McGraw's personal secretary, was then called into the conference room and told about the necessary changes in assignments and the need for her to move into the technical secretary's office for the time being.
Her protests were fruitless and by the time the little talk was over, she found that her effects had been moved from her old office to that which she now shared with the new secretary in the company. By noon, Vicky Winn was comfortably settled in Michael McGraw's outer office, handling his phone calls, sifting through his mail, answering some of the minor correspondence and sending the answers along to him with the letters or the memo that had required the answer. She stayed at her desk over lunch, checking through his appointment book and familiarizing herself with his current correspondence. He left the plant early, still suffering some from his hangover, but she stayed on until nine o'clock, leaving only when the muscles of her neck were so cramped that she could barely move her arms, but quite content with her progress in becoming Michael McGraw's personal manager.
She stayed at her desk so much that first week that she didn't hear any of the gossip about the quick change of jobs. She didn't want to hear it. She only wanted to perform the job to absolute perfection until there was an opportunity for another step on the ladder. Michael McGraw's trepidations about her in the job were visible and understandable and she could give him no excuse for easing her out of the position that she had worked so hard for. There had been no mention of a raise to go along with the job and that was as she wanted it. She well knew that, providing she did a superlative job, a larger raise would be hers if she didn't ask for anything. At the end of the pay period, two weeks after she'd moved into McGraw's outer office, her paycheck was almost a hundred dollars larger. She went into McGraw's office late in the day, after the others had gone, to thank him.
"Mike, you didn't have to do this. The job was enough. Working close to you was enough."
He shook his head. "You earned it. You've saved me much more than the two hundred a month raise I pave you. I had no idea how many details were cluttering up my time."
She strolled behind him to draw the drapes, saying, "I'm not going to turn it down, Mike." She unbuttoned her blouse quickly and cast it to the thick carnet. "I like money too much to turn it down." The bra followed the blouse and she advanced to rut her hands on his shoulders and feel them stiffen as she ran them over his back. "I appreciate small favors, Mike, and big ones, too. Now I'd like to do you a favor. Can I get you a drink?"
He still hadn't turned to face her. He faced forward and said, "Yeah. I always need one at the end of the day. Mix a pair. The makings are in tint cadenza over... " Hi" words were cut short as she walked, slowly swirling, around to the front of his desk. Bare from the waist up, she made an erotically lovely bartender. "Double?" she asked.
He nodded. This unexpected and flagrant display of her jutting breasts was a shockingly vulgar occurrence, but it had already begun to arouse him. He wanted to bodily throw her out of his office, but he well knew that that was not the sort of action expected of a red-blooded titan of industry. She fixed the drinks and brought his to him, then sat on the edge of his desk, her bosoms on obscene display to him, and leaned over to kiss him on the month. She was no better than a painted whore from skid row and he hated her for this. She was unrecognizable from the highly organized, highly efficient girl who sat primly behind her desk during the day. He drank deeply and tried to shock those puritan thoughts out of his head. He tried not to hate, to instead understand this ability she had to use and to enjoy her sex openly, without the cover of darkness, without the darkness of alcohol. If he'd had that ability, he might still be married, but it was something he'd never know. Since childhood, sex had been a dirty, dirty thing with him and it always would be. All he could do about sex at his age was make believe that it was a good thing. Vicky had changed that, though, the other night at her apartment. She had somehow gotten him aroused with her whore's attitudes. And now, there in his office, he felt it coming again. He finished the drink and handed her the empty glass and managed to smile at her.
"You're thirsty," she simpered at him. "Does looking at me like this make your mouth dry."
He nodded the nod that he imagined a lusting satyr might nod. When her back was turned over the credenza bar, he was able to say, "How about some dinner at the Coach and Four and then some drinks at your place?"
She swirled both drinks in her hands as she returned to him and this action made both her large, pale breasts bob obscenely. "Sorry, Mike. I can't wait that long. Am I terrible? All I can think about is having you here, now, the sooner the better. I would have time for a fast dinner afterward, but I've got some work planned on the Higgins Fertilizer account at home tonight. Would that be all right? Could we make love here? It's for a good cause, you know. So that I can work for you at home tonight."
He forced a laugh. "How can I refuse?" He swilled at his drink and got himself to pull her down into his lap. The breasts were out of sight there and he could look into her face, much less obscene even with its lewd smile. He thought to himself, have a drink and then another and get this over with fast. Then eat that dinner and go home and drink yourself into bed.
She pursed her lips and kissed his rugged face, wanting to get this over with as fast as she could. Then enjoy the expensive dinner- and she'd make sure it was expensive- and get home and call Childe Harolde and sate the urges in her body.
* * *
Michael McGraw came to work in a semi-stupor next morning while Vicky Winn entered like a brisk new broom. She'd planned to pounce on him with a major request that morning, but when he was late, she used the time to go through some interoffice correspondence on her desk. One of these was an irritant to her and she was in the mood to resolve it at once. She clacked down the hall to the laboratory and confronted Dr. Huntington with the penned note.
"And what is this? What seems to be wrong with the filing system I personally set up?"
The tall blonde chemist shrugged and said, "Not too much, really. Except that none of us can find anything in it and it causes more work for Agnes than it's worth. I'd like to go back to the old system, in the best interests of the company, of course."
"That system was put in for the best interests of the company, Dr. Huntington! It's not to be tampered with. Any competent girl can handle it."
"I consider myself competent--Ph.D and all-- and I certainly can't cope with it. I don't want to argue, Miss Winn. I haven't the time and I'm sure your new duties keep you too busy for petty matters such as this. Let's just end this discussion by changing the system back to what it was, shall we?"
Vicky stood taller, almost tall enough to look evenly into the scientist's eyes. "We shall not," she said, mocking the British accent. "We shall leave it exactly as it is."
Valerie felt her mouth tightening, then relaxed it into a smile. She even took the time to wonder to herself how she could have ever thought this cold, businesslike woman to be alluring. She said with a small smile, "We shall discuss it with Mr. McGraw when Mr. McGraw arrives. You may go now, Miss Winn. I have work to do."
That had irked Vicky. It had irked her terribly. And the things that irked her were things that she devoted special attention to. When Michael McGraw had arrived, Dr. V. Huntington was second on her list of matters to attend to.
She entered his office briskly, as if nothing whatsoever had happened between them the previous evening. She laid a sheaf of papers down before him and said, "Mr. McGraw, look at these. These are supposed to be an inventory for last month. It's a complete jumble. And here. This is the bill for the office supplies. It's almost three hundred dollars over what it should be. Besides that, I'm certain the secretaries are pilfering postage stamps. The point is, Mr. McGraw, the office management end of your company is going to hell since I took over this job. We need an Office Manager and we need one quick. I have the man for you. Now, don't raise your voice when I tell you. I want us to hire Harold Kelsey back."
"What? That fairy? I can't stand to look at fairies!"
"You won't have to look at him. You'll only have to look at the money he saves you each month. Mike, we need him, -whether he's a fairy or not. And I, for one, don't think he is. No matter what kind of crazy clothes he was wearing that day, I think he's a normal man in most ways. For one thing, he tried to make a pass at me. That's an indication of a normal man, isn't it?"
"He did? Yes, of course that's normal. Okay. Get him back. Take care of it. I've got to go through some technical reports."
"One other thing, Mike. Valerie Huntington. I don't feel she's part of the team here lately. I'd like you to give me some jurisdiction over her in an administrative way to see that she starts paying attention to office details. I know that these things aren't in her line, but... "
"No." He shook his head. "Scientists are hard to understand... hard to handle. Like artists. Leave her to me. Entirely. Anything else now?"
"No. No, that's all I had on my mind." The sight of Agnes Haskell reorganizing the technical file and Miss Sturgeon helping her was like a festering sliver under Vicky's skin. She longed to go into her old office, that starting place for her present success, and lash them with her tongue, but that would be useless. One way or another, she'd get her way with them. She'd show them that it was she who was the matriarch of McGraw Chemicals and not Dr. Valerie Huntington.
She stayed late each night and made careful inspection of Dr. Huntington's laboratory for anything she might use in this silent battle she was in with the brilliant, the highly respected chemist. There was nothing on her desk or in it that could serve her. Worse, the signs of incipient alcoholism she'd seen in Dr. Huntington had been absent now for some time. It was very frustrating and she unlocked Miss Sturgeon's, then Agnes' desks in her desperation. It was there in Agnes' desk, tucked under some company envelopes. The note was in Dr. Valerie Huntington's unmistakable handwriting.
---
Ag,
Each time I see you my heart flows out to you. Each time you walk by I long to touch you, kiss you, worship at your feet. Smile at me.
I love you,
Val
---
Vicky clutched it triumphantly to her breast and went home in complete victory. She had Valerie out of McGraw and she had sexy, stupid little Harold back in it.
She called Harold and said to him, "Well, you're starting work tomorrow. I suppose you ought to celebrate."
"Oh, no. I'd best get some rest tonight."
"Come over," she said. "Come over and celebrate. And bring your funny clothes."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Michael McGraw was clear-eyed when Dr. Huntington was brought into his office. His eyes were free of bloodshot lines, but they were full of contained fire. When Dr. Huntington's 'good morninged' him, he didn't answer the greeting. Instead, he slid the slip of paper toward her. When she'd read it, he noted her flushed cheeks with no little satisfaction and he said, "I suppose you have some explanation for this, doctor."
She faced him, her countenance quite calm, "I do. I'm a lesbian, you see. And I'm quite infatuated with young Agnes Haskell. I've been doing my best to get her to reciprocate, but," she shrugged, "no luck so far."
He rose to glare down at her. "Just like that, is it? Trying to seduce a poor young girl into homosexuality right here in a place of business. My place of business! You're vile! Vile! And so is she for not having come to me or to Miss Winn when you first started sending her these disgusting notes."
Valerie smiled sardonically, "I suppose she might have, but I told her it was customary for me to make passes at the new girls. I even told her that I'd succeeded with this one." She nodded her head toward Vicky. "But," she shrugged, "the little girl didn't see things my way. She took it all as a joke."
"I don't. And Miss Winn doesn't, either. You know, you could be sued for slander as well as for perversion!"
"So? Sue me. I'll sue you for defamation or whatever it's called here and we'll have a bloody good battle in the courts and in the newspapers."
"Valerie," McGraw said, "I'm trying not to fire you. I need you. Just tell me. Did that Agnes lead you on?"
Valerie gestured expressively with her hands. "Michael, I wish she had. If she had, though, I'd have long ago run off with her to some Mediterranean isle. She's a delectable little morsel. I could spend a lot of time with her. Until, of course, the next one came alone-. If you don't want to fire me, though, fire her. But, be a dear and let me interview the next in line, will you?"
Vicky held back a smirk as her boss pointed at the door and shouted, "Out! Get out of here. And don't ever expect to find another job in this state. Not in this country. I'll have you deported!"
Valerie composed herself in the ladies' room. This had been inevitable. Sooner or later, her perversion had to be discovered. It was a tragedy, though, that it had to be discovered now, just when she had found the true love of her life. Her face cleared, she went to meet that true love. She called her into her laboratory, thankful then for Erwin Lind's unexplained absence since Monday.
Agnes was more beautiful than ever and this made it doubly difficult for Valerie. She said, just as casually as she could, "I'm caught, little bird. Caught in the act. Fired for being a big, bad, lesbian."
"Oh, Val, no! They found us out? They know we're lovers? I guess it had to happen, but I don't care. We are what we are, isn't that so? And no matter what, we'll survive. Our love... " Valerie interrupted her, "It wasn't exactly our love, darling. Another friend of mine, a dear little bird, was indiscreet enough to send me a letter... a love letter, which Miss Winn opened. Mr. McGraw wasn't very understanding."
"There was... You've had another girl all this time?"
Valerie gestured helplessly, "Two, as a matter of fact. You don't know the appetites of us lesbians, but you will someday. Stay with the trade, my little bird, and you'll learn many things. For one thing, you'll learn how to convince a young girl that it's the very first, very purest time in love for you... no matter how many times you've said it before. And then you'll learn how to... "
"Get out! Get out of my sight, you molester! I hate you. I hate you!"
Valerie took very little with her. Books, slide rule, a paperweight Agnes had given her. The physical burden was light and the burden of her guilt was light. Agnes would be all right now. Her love would not only survive, she would soon revert to normalcy... that normalcy that Valerie could never know. She had three pink gins before she called Shirley. She said, "Pack a bag this time, love. I'd like to entertain you for a few days at least. Get some pointers from you on how to catch myself a job as a truck driver."
CHAPTER NINE
Two days later, Vicky Winn was visibly upset when she came into Mr. McGraw's office. "Mr. McGraw, there's a Mrs. Emmalita Kimbrough out in the lobby to see you. She says it's very urgent."
"I can't see her now. Christ sake, I've got my hands full trying to get some sort of a half-baked replacement for Dr. Huntington. Don't you realize that laboratory is completely shut down now since I fired her and since Lind hasn't shown up all week?"
"This Mrs. Kimbrough... she knows something about Erwin. She says she has to talk to you. She's wild."
"Bring her in then, dammit!"
He wasn't ready for what the woman did the moment they were alone in his office. He tried to get around his desk to prevent it, but before he could the matronly woman had resolutely opened her blouse and her bra and bared her big breasts to him. The sight of these stopped him in his tracks. The sight of any woman baring her breasts there in his office would have paralyzed him, but this sight was completely unthinkable. The breasts were huge, mountainous in dimension, but instead of glowing white like two pale twin moons, they showed a shaggy black, covered with short, coarse hair.
McGraw took an involuntary step backward from the grotesque sight as the woman advanced, shrieking stridently, "Where is he? Where is the man who did this to me? Where is Erwin Lind? Let me at him!"
"Gone," McGraw stammered. "Gone all week. He did... Erwin did that?"
"Yes! Erwin did it with the weird, awful chemicals you make here. Don't shrink away from me! Don't you dare. Just look. Look at what you've done to me. My breasts! My beautiful, beautiful breasts. Oh! Oh!"
He kept the desk between her and him, saying, "Please, madam, cover yourself... cover yourself and... Miss Winn!... let's talk this over. I assure that... Miss Winn!... your, uh, unfortunate condition can't possibly be blamed on either McGraw Chemicals or one of its employees. Vicky! VICKY! Come in here!"
Vicky Winn recoiled, too, from the manner in which Mrs. Kimbrough almost savagely displayed her odiously hirsute breasts. She shrinked, too, from the grating voice that said accusingly, "Well, what are you going to do? How are you going to cure me of this awful thing that Erwin did to me? Don't just stand there, get me the anecdote for that devil's salve of his. I can't stand this. I've been hiding in the house since Sunday when I woke up this way, waiting for that fiend Erwin to come home and cure me before I go out of my mind. Why did he do it? And why do you give your employees dangerous creams like this to hand out to anybody at all? Lord knows why he'd want to do this to me. I was ever so good to him. I even let him stay over at my place Saturday night and then he's gone without a fare-thee-well, leaving me like this. Like this!"
"Yes, Mrs. Kimbrough," McGraw said hastily, "we already saw. But I can assure you that whatever chemical did that, Erwin didn't get it from here."
"He did! Are you calling me a liar on top of making a freak out of me? I saw the jar. I still have it at home. It says your name right on it. My lawyer will have it tomorrow unless you give me the anecdote right now. Yahhh!" she said with loud disgust. "Get this hair off of me. I can't staaaand it!"
"Calm now," McGraw said sternly. "We'll see you through, Mrs., uh, ma'am."
"Kimbrough!" She shrieked. "Oh, you'll know that name. You'll never forget that name if you don't have this ugly hair off of my beautiful breasts in exactly ten seconds."
"Vicky," McGraw said briskly. "Please take Mrs. Kimbrough out of here and see that the unsightly hair is removed... at once."
Vicky was aghast. "How? But, how?"
"Shave her, you idiot, while I trace down what's happened to her."
When the two women were gone, Mr. McGraw headed directly for the bar in the credenza to pour himself a large drink with shaking hands. He gulped it and took a pull from the bottle before he poured another into a glass. It was fantastic. The ugliness of the hairy breasts was banished from his thoughts then. Instead, his fertile and creative brain raced over the tremendous possibilities this opened for his company. Whatever the salve was that Erwin had given the plump, loud woman, it had the property of converting McGraw Chemicals into an overnight mammoth in the field of hormones. He had no doubts that the salve that had sprouted the hair had indeed come from his company's laboratory. With the hormones they made at McGraw, almost anything was possible in the way of physiological changes. It was up to him to find that combination of hormones that Erwin had discovered that would make every bald headed man in the country dependent upon McGraw Chemicals. Carrying his drink to his desk, he phoned a private investigator's office and set them on the trail of his missing laboratory assistant, then sat back to dream of the riches that would soon be his.
Vicky Winn leaned away from the verbal onslaught of Mrs. Kimbrough as she led her toward the powder room. The lingering, residual vision of those hairy, repugnant breasts was a thing of great disgust to her and the thought of administering to them with a razor was even worse. People stared at her from the offices she passed and when she went by the office of the Office Manager, she halted and called out, "Mr. Kelsey. Come here. I have a job for you."
She explained to Mr. McGraw, "Really, sir, it's the best thing to do. A man's more experienced at such things as shaving. I sent Mr. Kelsey home with her and told him to stay there and make sure she remains at her home and that she stays calm and... and clean shaven, no matter what."
He nodded, smiling dreamily. "You did right, Vicky. Check on them once in a while and make sure she stays put. Tell Harold not to leave there until I say so. That's all we can do until we find Erwin and see what the hell he gave her. No. Wait a minute. There's one other thing we can do." He turned on Vicky and the grin was gone. "We can get Dr. Huntington back. You can."
"Me? Why do you want her back?"
"Whatever it was Erwin gave that Mrs. Kimbrough, chances are it was one of Valerie's formulations. Even if it wasn't, we'll need her experience to get the salve into a safe, marketable form. Patients and all. Get her back."
"Me?" she repeated. "How can I?"
He drank from his glass again and said, "Vicky, it was because of your discovery of Valerie's tendencies that I fired her. If it hadn't been for that discovery, she'd still be here where I need her. As for how you get her back, that should be fairly obvious. Do it, Vicky, and with no arguments. You're supposed to take care of my details, aren't you? Take care of this and you'll keep your job. But the job will be a much bigger one for you if you do this one thing right and help me get that formula back."
Emmalita Kimbrough was bawling as Harold Kelsey lathered her with shaking hands. She wailed, "How could he do this to me? Why did he hate me so to do this to me? Are all you mad scientists so cruel?"
"I'm no scientist, Mrs. Kimbrough. I'm only the Office Manager. And r)lease hold still, this is very difficult for me." He tried in vain to keep the quaver out of his voice.
"Difficult for you? For you? My God, you must be some sort of a scientist to be thinking only of yourself at a time like this. If my Ed were only alive, he'd kill you now, you monster."
"I'm not. I'm not," he pleaded, almost sobbing. "Please now, Mrs. Kimbrough. Hold still. Don't even breathe. If I... if I should happen to cut you there... I'd just have to go on and cut my throat." He steadied his hand as best he could and made a short stroke with the safety razor, laying bare a swath of smooth white skin. He bit his lip and carefully scraped more of the lather away and continued in his highly demanding task.
"Close," she said. "Shave close."
"I will, I'm trying, I will," he said. "Just hush. Please hush and let me do it." On his knees before her, he agonized over the meticulously careful work, saying, "What a perfectly awful thing to have happen to you. But don't worry, I'm sure this is only temporary. Bosoms like yours just couldn't be cursed with whiskers for long. That would be a sin against nature. Tsk, Oh! I almost cut you. Just be patient, Mrs. Kimbrough, and I'll have you good as new in no time. My, they're large. Not too large, you know, but... large."
"The razor tickles."
"I'm sorry. I can't help it. Just hold still now, it won't be long."
"Oh, take your time. You've got good hands. You should have been a barber, not some scientist."
"But I'm not a scientist. I'm just a sort of an accountant."
"An accountant? Not really? Say, do I need an accountant around here. I can't afford one, though. My Ed didn't leave me much beyond this old rooming house, and the government tries to take all that it brings me. Do you know about taxes there at that place?"
"Well, a little. I specialize more in cost savings. Be very still now, Mrs. Kimbrough. I'm almost through."
"Please take your time," she said. "Do a nice job, like that skinny Miss Winn said to do."
"There. All done. You stay right here now. No, sit down on the couch. I'll run and get a hot towel.
That'll keep your skin nice and soft and it won't get sore or anything."
She was more relaxed, lying back on the couch, when he returned. He sat beside her and gently, carefully smoothed the towel over her breasts, wiping away the stray islands of lather, very pleased with himself for the immaculate white skin he'd produced. He said, "I certainly don't knew why you used that stuff that that silly Erwin said was wrinkle cream here. My. There isn't even a hint of a wrinkle on your bosoms."
"Well, he said it was a sort of an experiment. I only did it to help him. He was so poor and all."
"I don't want to sound like a scold, Mrs. Kimbrough, but..."
"Emmalita. You ought to call me Emmalita."
"I don't want to sound like a scold, Emmalita, but you shouldn't have associated with someone beneath you like Erwin was. I know you had to rent to him, but it should have ended there."
"Oh, you're right. I see it now. I wish I could rent to men like you, Harold. You have good hands. You can tell a lot about a person from his hands. Just keep on like that for a while, would you? You got to take care of me, you know."
"Oh, I know. Wait now, though. I'll go heat this towel up."
"You never mind that towel now, Harold." She whipped it out of his hands and away. "That's too rough. Just use your hands now. Oh, that's much better. Is that better for you? Are my boobies so ugly now?"
"They're- they're beautiful. Just absolutely beautiful, Emmalita."
"Well, why don't you just slide around a little so's you can get at me better. Here. I'll get my leg around you. Comfy? Now your trousers are scraping my legs. Here. I'll just pull them down. Oh, no. I can do it. You just keep on with what you like so much. There. Isn't that more comfortable. Oh, you devil, you. Just look at you."
"I'm sorry," he agonized. "I couldn't help it."
"I'm sorry," he agonized. "I couldn't help it. I didn't even know."
She patted him and said, "I understand. A woman like me understands what a man needs." She sighed heavily and grasped him firmly, guiding him to her.
His eyes opened wide as he said, "Oh, Emmalita!" He found himself locked in the warm, soft embrace of her legs.
"There. Isn't that nice now?"
"Nice? It's... it's beautiful. You're beautiful."
"Now, Harold, don't try to josh me. I'm just a plump old broad."
"No. No," he said. "Don't say that. You're beautiful. You're beautiful in every way. Oh, how I wish you could see yourself as I see you. Oh, Emmalita. It's never, ever been like this. Oh, you wonderful woman."
He clutched her to him then, mouthing kisses on her face, pulling at her soft, soft back, reaching around her to touch those breasts, stirring her as she had never before been stirred. Her legs worked his body rapidly as he poured forth delight, both from the tactile sensations and from the adoring words he gave to her.
Afterwards, he sat at the kitchen table, quite naked, and watched her, equally naked, made him a batch of macarooms.
CHAPTER TEN
Vicky Winn went to her desk to mull over her new assignment. Michael McGraw had left no doubt about what he expected of her. Get Valerie Huntington back in the fold at whatever the cost may be, even if it meant prostituting herself to the lesbian for the evening. She bitterly thought, why not? What was one more expenditure of her body in her climb to success? And what difference did it make if this expenditure were made toward one of her own sex? She'd enjoy it no more, no less than those other times she'd used her body for gaining success. It was simply something to be done and then chalked up as another victory in her private climb toward success. The mere matter of the sex of the person to be seduced was immaterial, she told herself.
Quite composed, she went to Agnes Haskell. Since the discharge of Dr. Huntington almost a week before, the girl had been quite subdued. Her nose was red again and she forever looked as if she'd just finished having a cry. Probably, Vicky thought, from a crush on Valerie Huntington. Vicky said to her curtly, "Where is Valerie? At home?"
"I... I don't know. I haven't talked to her... she hasn't talked to me... since she was fired."
"Oh? You've tried to call her, eh?"
"I've... that's no business of yours."
"Everything about this place is my business," Vicky snapped. "Now tell me, is she interested only in girls, or does she go for men, too?"
"I don't know. I don't know! Just let me alone." Agnes crumbled into sobs and stayed that way, head on her desk, until long after the sound of Vicky's heels had clacked off down the hall. The mention of Valerie's name had been an excruciating thing for her. It was a name she'd vowed to forget since her degrading phone calls to Valerie during the week. The first few times she'd called, Val had sounded not at all like herself in telling her that everything was over between them, that it had all been a tragic mistake. Then the subsequent calls had found Val drunken and talking in a manner that made their past love seem to be a vulgar, perverse thing. At last, Val didn't even answer the calls. There was another woman there, a woman with a whining, jealous tone and a curiosity that told Agnes volumes about the present possession of Val's devotions. It was that last which had made her so completely ashamed of herself that she had vowed lifelong celibacy and the channeling of her energies into her work rather than into her personal happiness.
With this attitude, she was again working late that night. She planned to answer all of the routine correspondence to the laboratory that she could in the absence of both of the workers in the laboratory. But as she got into it, she quickly realized that the small amount of scientific jargon she'd picked up was completely inadequate in this correspondence. But she refused to go to her lonely little apartment before eight o'clock at least. She turned off the office light and went into the laboratory to dust the unused flasks, to wash the already clean beakers, to do anything to immerse herself in her work. She'd puttered about there for half an hour after everyone else had left the building when the door eased open. She turned, wide-eyed, to face it and to see the thin face of Erwin Lind peer back at her.
He held his finger to his lips and said, "Quiet, I'll just be here a second. Don't tell anyone you saw me."
"Why? Where have you been, Erwin?" He looked awful. He had his familiar loose fitting clothes on, but he looked more than ever like a scarecrow in them, as wrinkled and unkempt as they were.
"Hiding," he said. "I just came in to get my slide rule. I've been sleeping in the library at school. In the Arabian Literature section. Nobody goes there."
"But why? What's wrong?"
He glanced about him, back over his shoulder as he entered the laboratory. "You must have heard by now. I'm in trouble. I gave some stuff from the lab to my landlady and it caused hair to grow on her... on her. Now Mr. McGraw's got private eyes asking around at school for me. I've got to leave town before they get me and throw me in jail."
"You gave her that on purpose?"
"I thought it was wrinkle cream. Listen, could you loan me a couple of dollars? I'm going to hitchhike back home. To Indiana. And I gotta have something to eat."
"You're from Indiana? I am, too. Shelbyville."
"No kidding! I'm from Marion."
"Well, any boy from Marion can't be bad. You come on home with me and I'll cook you a meal and loan you all I have hidden in the coffee can. No matter what happened, I don't think you did wrong."
He ate ravenously of the steak and the corn on the cob and she joined him for a time. Then he showered while she pressed his suit and washed his shirt. He was well draped with towels as he thanked her for her generosity.
"You know," he said, "you're the first really decent person I've met since I came to this city."
She nodded. "I know what you mean. I've only been here a month or so, but everyone I meet seems to be just plain weird. They've... they've even made me sort of weird in a way."
"You sure don't act weird to me. The only thing at all that's weird about you is that you stay here and don't go back to Indiana."
She sighed. "I guess maybe I should. But things were so darned dull there. That's one thing you can say for the city, nothing's dull here. But I can't go back. Not yet. I told all my friends in secretarial school that I wouldn't go back until I'd proven I could be a good secretary and gotten myself... " she suddenly blushed, "... a good husband."
"And what's a good husband? Some guy like Mr. McGraw who goes around with a snootful of booze in him all the time? One of those loud, flashy salesman? Maybe Harold Kelsey. He's a good example of a big city boy."
She thought of Val then and of how foolish shed been to allow herself to be toyed with by that Englishwoman when there were nice young men like Erwin about. She said, "I honestly don't know what a good husband is. I know the ones you mentioned aren't my idea of good husbands. I don't know anyone who is, though. Say, how did we get on the subject of me? You're the one who's in trouble. What are you going to do back in Indiana?"
"Hide. I'm going to hide from McGraw and his detectives and I'm going to hide from the crazy women I've met in the city and I'm going to hide from school."
"You're quitting school? Oh, you shouldn't do that, Erwin. You're a brilliant chemist. Valerie... Dr. Huntington told me that."
"She's a great chemist, but I guess her opinion of me shows she's no judge of people. I'll miss her. She was about the only sane woman I met in the city. She was stable. She was great."
Agnes shook her head sadly. "She wasn't, Erwin. I hate to disillusion you, but I could tell you things about her, awful things, things about me that are just as bad, things that would change your mind."
"Nope. Nothing you could say would change my opinion about her. Or about you. But try. It looks like it bothers you, whatever it is. And I have things that bother me, too. I had this landlady, you see, that I ought to get off my chest. Can we talk, you and me? Just like we were back in Indiana now and sitting around in front of a fireplace? I'd like to talk to you, Agnes. You're good people."
She smiled just a little at him. "You're good people, too. Funny how you don't notice that when you're working with someone. I'd like to talk with you. And, after all, you can't leave until your shirt is dry."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Vicky prepared herself with care. She thought ahead to what sort of attire a seductress of a lesbian would be most welcome in and she selected a very black, very tight capri outfit. She swept her hair back into a bun and she minimized the femininity of her features when she applied her makeup. Pale pink on the lips, a dark powder on her cheeks, heavy on the eyebrow pencil and light on the lashes. She braced herself with a double scotch before she left her apartment.
Vicky maintained her aplomb when the door was opened to her by a short, cherubic girl with long, dark hair. She said, "Have I got the right apartment? Is Dr. Huntington here?"
"Valerie?" the girl said.
"Yes."
"She's a doctor?" The girl giggled and held her hand over her mouth. "Isn't that too much? Come on in. She needs a doctor now."
"Why? What is it? What's wrong with her?"
The girl closed the door behind the very shapely, very concerned woman and said, "She's just drunk. Passed out. She's been drunk for days now. Ever since she got fired or something. She's really passed out now. But she ought to wake up pretty soon. D'you want a drink?"
"Yes. Fine. Who are you? Do you... live with her?"
"Oh, no. She just calls me when she's lonely. And she's been lonely now for a week. She's all hung up on her job and some chick there. So... I stay and try to do my best. But now I'm getting hung up on it all. I've just about had it with her. I mean, why hang around with someone who's got no future?"
"Yes," Vicky accepted the drink. "One has to look for the future. Can I see her? See if I can wake her up?" Valerie didn't stir for her and she rejoined the girl who introduced herself as Shirley there in the lavishly appointed living room of the chemist's apartment. The girl was obviously already a little drunk and that condition was appealing to Vicky on this unpleasant assignment of hers. She pulled up her drink and sat down to talk to this girl, this member of Dr. Valerie Huntington's lesbian following. She was a little proud of her camouflage. The stark black outfit was unmistakably drawing the girl's attention to her. She leaned back on the couch and let the fabric of her outfit tighten about her curves and permitted Shirley to eat her heart out for want of her. "Like what you see?" she said. This was a fine time to practice her lesbian line for the time when Valerie awoke.
Shirley said, "Not particularly."
"Huh? I mean, what did you say?"
"I said, no. You'd probably turn Valerie on, but you're not my type."
This was amusing. It was really terribly funny.
Imagine. A little lesbian girl like this Shirley, attractive as she was, turning up her nose at the many and varied charms that Vicky was letting her look at. She said, "Oh? You don't dig all girls?"
"Sure. Just like any other girl digs other girls. But not for what you're after. Not for sex. For that, it takes a special kind of girl to turn me on. You're not it."
Vicky laughed and said, "Now tell me why. Tell me what I haven't got. Tell me why I'm different from... for instance, Valerie in there." She drank from her drink, completely scornful of the brown haired girl then.
"It's hard to say. But, Val has a certain power about her. I don't mean a sexual power. I mean she has this money to spend, this nice apartment... she has success. Just like a man's success."
"But she has nothing. She doesn't even have a job."
Shirley shrugged. "I don't know. She seems to have success. She turns me on. You don't."
"But that's ridiculous. You see, I knew the job Valerie had. And I know my job. And I can assure you that my job has much, much more power than hers ever did. So you see? You're wrong, Shirley."
"Heck I am. I can see through you. You're just like I am, really. Just a secretary who tries to be something else at night."
Vicky laughed, too loudly, "But I'm not. I'm in a very important job."
"Sorry. You don't impress me. You want another drink? I'm going to have one."
"Here. I'll get them." This was awful. If she couldn't impress this little toy of a girl with her charms, how could she possibly hope to seduce Valerie Huntington back to her job? Beyond that, it was irritating in a most personal way that the dark-haired lesbian hadn't made a pass at her yet. She returned to the couch with new resolution, sat closer to the full-lipped girl, and handed her her drink.
"Thanks, Vick."
"For you, little one, anything."
The leering smile was rewarding to Vicky, but it didn't last long enough. Shirley said, "Come now. A person like you has a better line than that."
"No. No line. I like the way you look, little one, and I'll do things for you... if you do things for me."
Vicky was infuriated as Shirley leaned her head back on the couch and closed her eyes. Shirley said, "Talk. It's all talk. You ought to go and try to talk to Val. I don't like women to give me lines. She does."
Angry then, Vicky grabbed her soft upper arm and shook her. "What are you? What is it you do want? What does she have that I don't? What does she do that I can't?"
"Well, for one thing, she's not a phony. She's not just another queer secretary. She's a doctor, or something, and it shows in her."
"A doctor? Hell, I'm an Executive Assistant to the President. I got her fired. What does that make me? What does that make her?"
"For another thing," Shirley said, "Val doesn't try to make out with me with the lights on."
Vicky hastily, jerkily moved to switch the lights off. In the sudden darkness, the warmth of Shirley seemed to draw her like a moth to a flame. She threw herself almost viciously on the girl and she flung her arms about her and she found her mouth against that of the soft, soft woman in the darkness.
Shirley said, "Well! You come to life in the dark. I like. Maybe you aren't just another secretary."
Vicky strained to see that lovely, smiling-mocking face in the darkness, but she failed. She had to survive on the remembrances of the sweet lips, the cherub plump cheeks, the dainty chin, the wildly erotic lips. Straining then to get closer, she moved her body on top of Shirley's and she thrilled to the soft, upward-swelling response of the lovely girl. Vicky said, "I'm not just a secretary. I have an important job. I command people."
Shirley pushed her hips uncontrollably up at her and said, "Maybe you are. Maybe you are important." She stilled herself. This was just another Lesbian assault on her. It was a game to be played, in substitute for the man she couldn't have.
"I am," Vicky insisted. Shirley wore perfume, a cheap perfume that filled her nostrils and her brain and could overwhelm her quite easily. This thing, this soft and yielding but still uncooperative body under her was a thing of remarkable wonder to her. She said, "I am important. I... I hold a job that a man should hold. I command."
"Do you? Do you really?" Shirley's voice gushed out of her like a sensual butterfly.
Vicky mashed her lips against Shirley's. She couldn't help herself. It had to be done. And, once it was done, she didn't think she could stop. Shirley seemed to drink her in, to take her very soul out of her mouth and then replenished it and place it back within her with her hot, nimble tongue.
"Maybe you are," Shirley said. "Maybe you are someone who commands. I know you turn me on." She pushed at the body over her, that strong, hard body in the darkness that could have been man or woman or devil.
Vicky had to see her. Without losing her position, she reached up and switched on the light in order to look at this wildly stimulating woman who was hers to command, hers to love.
Shirley shielded her face. "No. No, turn that off."
"I can't. I can't, Shirley. I have to see you. I have to see you to... to love you."
The arm came away from the dear face and Shirley looked at once terribly appealing and terribly sensuous. "Say it again, Vick. Please. I'll do anything. I'll be yours forever if you'll say it again."
"What? What? That I love you? That I've never looked before? That I'll always love you and make love to you like this and make you love me? Is that what you want?"
"Yes," Shirley said. And, oblivious to the lights, reached her arms out to her lover. And the simple gesture brought a response from Vicky that she didn't know she was capable of.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Vicky Winn was late in arriving for work and that disturbed Michael McGraw greatly. He felt some pangs of remorse for sending her to the clutches of the lesbian chemist, but that had to be done. And he knew Vicky well enough by then to be sure that opportunity for advancement of the company, and therefore herself, would override any qualms she might have about a passing fling with perversion. He told himself that her delay probably meant that she'd achieved such success with Dr. Huntington that the two of them were still lounging in bed. He tried not to think about that, but the vision of two nude females frolicking lewdly in a silken bed kept intruding on him, making it impossible for him to work. He called for Harold Kelsey on the intercom and was told by George Walls that Harold had called and told him that he was detained with Mrs. Kimbrough and that he'd be in shortly. As McGraw expected, Erwin Lind was still absent, but now he learned that Agnes Haskell was not in either. She might as well be gone, he decided. Her absence completed the loss of the entire technical department. He got out his phone book and was just dialing Dr. Huntington's number when he looked up to see the slender blonde chemist entering his office, preceding Vicky Winn. Dr. Huntington looked strikingly different than she normally did. Instead of the straight lines of one of her tweed suits, she wore a blue capri outfit that fit her exceedingly well. It revealed a figure on her that had hitherto been hidden from Michael McGraw, a figure now revolting to him since her sexual secret was out. Her features were much more feminine, too, even though she still wore no makeup. It was her hair that did it. She wore it down that day, loose and flowing about her shoulders in soft waves, rather than in the stiff, tight little bun that she habitually wore to work. Looking at her, it was hard to believe she was the disgusting pervert that he knew her to be.
But Vicky's appearance proved Dr. Huntington's perversion. She had dark circles under her eyes and her lips looked just a little swollen. Her hair had been hastily, haphazardly combed and her clothing was a little unkempt, as if she'd worn it while performing strenuous exercise. The strawberry red mark on her throat told Michael McGraw very surely what that exercise had been. He hid his disgust for the two of them well as he greeted them. Valerie, quite calm, sat in a chair before his desk and Vicky volunteering to bring coffee for their talk.
He said, "I need you back with me, Dr. Huntington."
"Yes, Vicky told me about it on the drive in. I'm afraid my returning to work for you as before would be out of the question."
"Now, now. Let's not be hasty. I admit I was wrong in judging your professional work by your private life. I can see that now. I need you in the laboratory, Valerie. Your work is most important."
"I'll finish my work. Professional ethics demands that. But as soon as I complete what I started on in the laboratory, I'll be leaving."
"But why? I've told you that whatever you do after hours is your own business... with McGraw Chemicals employees or without. I think that Vicky's presence at your place last night proves my sincerity in this. I sent her there, you know, as much to prove my attitudes toward your... personal tastes in... ah... your selection of friends as I did it to get you back here for this little talk."
Valerie's face darkened and as she started to reply, Vicky appeared with the coffee. She served both of them and then withdrew to her office.
McGraw smiled at her retreating figure and said, "She's a very lovely woman, isn't she, Valerie?"
The blonde set her cup on his desk and said, "And you sent her over to lure me back here. Well, that didn't work. I'm sure you'll be disappointed to hear that I didn't sweep her off to bed and then come here, panting at her heels like a bitch in heat. It's not that way. I came here to help you by finishing my work. That is all."
"But," he spluttered. "The way she looks... "
"I had nothing to do with how she looks. I didn't even see her until early this morning. How she looks and why she looks as she does is none of my concern."
"I understand," he said placatingly. "You're faithful to Agnes Haskell and I admire you for that."
Valerie leaned forward, visibly angry then, "You leave her out of this. Whatever there was between us is over. And none of it was her fault. If I hear one more word about her or about that silly note you found, I'll not even stay long enough to complete what I was doing."
"All right. All right," he said. "I'm sorry. Let's talk chemistry and nothing else. Agreed? Fine. Now, I didn't know what Erwin gave to this woman, but it certainly sprouted hair on her. She tells me there's just a little left in the jar, but it should be enough for you to analyze it and duplicate it. After that there'll be tests, maybe years of tests, before we can market it. I'll need you to oversee those tests, Valerie, and it will be a great challenge for you. If you'll... " He was interrupted by Vicky Winn, opening the door to say, "Mr. Kelsey is here now--with that Kimbrough woman. She has to see you, she says."
"Oh, no! I can't face another argument with her now. Tell her I'm all tied up in conference today. Tell her... " Vicky Winn was shouldered aside and the solid figure of Emmalita Kimbrough came into the room, towing Harold Kelsey behind her. She said, "I'm glad I caught you in, Mr. McGraw. I have to talk to you about this thing that's happened to me now that I've decided about seeing an attorney."
"Mrs. Kimbrough, I'm sure we can work something out. I was just discussing the matter with Dr. Huntington here, to get her opinion on how long the effects of the salve will last."
Mrs. Kimbrough turned on Valerie, exclaiming, "You're the one who told that Erwin how to make the cream? My, you must be some sort of a genius. And you're a doctor, too. Harold told me what a wonderful thing it will be once you get it on the market and I've got some ideas about that." She turned to McGraw again, "Now, here's what I'll do for you. Something like this has to be advertised a lot, doesn't it? I know about these things. And I'm going to advertise it for you. I'll go on television and tell how wonderfully it worked and I'll show all the people what it did for me. When the people see how safe and how good it works, they'll buy it by the barrel."
Appalled, Mr. McGraw said, "Uh, I couldn't ask you to do that, Mrs. Kimbrough. That would be... "
"That would be a great sacrifice, I know, but I'll do it. Harold convinced me that I really ought to do something for science instead of trying to ruin you. Didn't you, Harold?" She put her arm about his waist and squeezed him to her.
"Emmalita, I didn't suggest you... expose yourself. I just think you should cooperate with McGraw Chemicals."
Beaming, Mrs. Kimbrough said to him, "Well, I'll do whatever you say, Harold. After all, you're my business manager now."
Harold looked nervously at Mr. McGraw and explained, "Emmalita... Mrs. Kimbrough has a great many problems in handling her income property. I told her I'd be glad to offer any assistance I can to... " The big woman interrupted him to say, "He's moving in to the boarding house. Taking that pipsqueak's room."
"Fine," McGraw said. "That's wonderful. And if you'd like to move today, Harold, go on and take the rest of the day off. Mrs. Kimbrough, you'll find him a marvelous business manager. Don't let him out of your sight."
Harold said, "I'll do my best for you, Emmalita." She squeezed him again and he blushed happily.
As they turned to leave, Mrs. Kimbrough said, "And I want you nice people over for dinner soon. I'll make a nice pot roast. And a rhubarb pie. That's Harold's favorite."
When they were gone, McGraw and Valerie smiled at each other. He said, "I guess it takes all kinds, doesn't it?"
"Yes," she said. "One never knows when one will find the right partner. I will stay on, Michael. After seeing how willing Mrs. Kimbrough was to help with this, I've got to stay. But I'll need help. I'll need Erwin Lind with me."
"Erwin? Is he that valuable to you? Wouldn't anyone else do?"
"I'm sure we could find someone, but it would just delay the whole thing that much more. And what's wrong with him?"
"Nothing, besides his irresponsibility in giving away our experimental chemicals. But I don't know where he is. Neither he nor Agnes made it in today. Now I'm wondering if they're together."
She looked at him directly and said, "I hope they are. I truly do. They're both of them very good people. I think they might do well together. And if you want to find Erwin, I'd suggest you check with the school. Nothing, no amount of trouble connected with work, could keep him from missing his classes."
Michael McGraw summoned his executive secretary on the intercom and asked her to drive to the university and try to locate his missing laboratory assistant. She was only too eager to run the errand. The office had been like a prison for her that day. Freed, she hastened through with her duties and encountered Erwin Lind as he left his eleven o'clock class.
She said, "What do you mean, you're not going back to McGraw? You are. They need you there. And don't worry about getting into trouble about what you gave to your landlady. Just get back to work."
Even after he was convinced that his indiscretion would go unpunished, he wasn't going back. "I have other plans now, Miss Winn. I don't really have to work for the rest of this school year. I... I'm getting married. To Agnes. As soon as she finds another job, she's going to support me until I graduate and get a job."
Vicky said forcefully, "Now, you listen here. Neither one of you are leaving McGraw. Now's the time we need you most. And now's the time that there'll be the greatest opportunity for both of you. The only way we can make this thing succeed now is by lots of hard work by all our most talented people. Please come around, the two of you, and let Mr. McGraw talk with you. I'm sure he can convince you to stay. I'll see that you'll have to come around Erwin. I'll have Mr. Kelsey bring your things down and leave him in Mr. McGraw's office. Mr. Kelsey is moving into your old room at Mrs. Kimbrough's, you see."
Erwin's thin face lit up with pleased wonder. "He is?"
"That's right. And he'll be in charge of her part in promoting this... and in keeping her out of everyone's hair."
He grinned very broadly then and said, "Agnes and I will be in to work tomorrow morning. Thanks, Miss Winn, thanks for everything."
Vicky immediately went to a phone. She talked persuasively first, then forcefully, and an hour later waited anxiously in her apartment. When the buzzer sounded, she rushed to open the door. Her heart leapt at the sight of Shirley smiling saucily at her from the hall and it was all Vicky could do to keep her touches away from the brown haired girl until the door was closed. Then she was able to take Shirley in her arms and kiss her and caress her.
Shirley said, "My, aren't you the eager one?"
"I am. I can't help it, Shirley. You're all I've thought about since I met you last night. Look. I stopped and bought the clothes we talked about last night. Does that show a little of how I feel about you."
Shirley looked appreciatively at the blue jeans that fitted Vicky too largely and at the coarse khaki shirt that hung in folds about her. She said, "Gads, you look like a laborer. And what did you do to your hair?"
"I had it cut. Is it short enough for you?" Vicky was stroking that soft, suppliant body in her arms, touching at the weak little mouth with her own.
Shirley ducked away and said, "You look great, Vick, but you didn't have to cut your hair off for little me."
"Who else would I do it for?"
"But you hardly know me."
"I'll change that in a hurry once you move in here with me."
"What? Gads, I can't just d- that. Even though you do have a nice apartment. Is this your furniture?"
"The hell with the furniture! And you are moving in with me, young lady. I don't want any argument about that. You're moving in tomorrow and you're quitting your job at the end of two weeks."
"Are you crazy?" Shirley turned and walked to the mirror that hung over the telephone stand and primped at her hair in it. Over her shoulder she could see Vicky, looking fiercely angry, powerfully handsome. "A girl doesn't just up and run off with someone... even if that girl thinks that someone is sort of cute." Vick's strong, white hands were on her shoulders then from behind, dragging Shirley back against her own eager body.
Vicky spoke softly but urgently into the exotically fragrant tumble of silken hair that covered the girl's ear. She said, "Yes, you do. You run off to me. Tonight. I'm not letting you leave here tonight, Shirley."
Shirley wanted to lean back more firmly against that strength and warmth behind her and yield completely to the proposition that she enter into a lesbian alliance. She felt intoxicated with desire, but she held herself back. It would be an unworkable thing. There would be nothing lasting about it and she would only go on to other lesbian lovers and roommates, less and less desirable than this one. She said, "I'll stay with you for a while tonight, Vick. And we can... date afterwards. But it just wouldn't work to have me move in with you."
Vicky spun her around then and her lovely face was dark with anger. "It will work. I'll see that it does. When I want something badly enough, I get it. And I've never wanted anything so badly as I want you now. Don't you want me? You did last night."
"Yes, but... but, I don't know what I want. I wanted you, and I still do, as something you aren't. As... well... the man I can't have."
"I'm not a man," Vicky said. "And I never will be, no matter what kind of clothes I wear for you." Her face was quite somber then in its resolution as she began unbuttoning the khaki shirt, not permitting Shirley to duck away from her. "So let's not try to make any pretenses about what we are. I'm in love, Shirley, for the first time in my life. I'm going to make you love me."
"No." There was a note of panic in Shirley's voice. "I couldn't love a woman. I need a man." She looked up into Vicky's face, the big white breasts, bared now, trying to draw her gaze down.
Vicky spoke on as she removed the blue jeans. "You need me."
When Vicky, fully nude then, put her hands on Shirley to unbutton her blouse, the plumpish brunette made a little squeal and tried to dart aside. Vicky caught her at once from behind, tearing the flimsy material of her blouse aside and mashing her hot breasts shamefully against her back. Shirley tried to catch her bra, but it was too late. This, too, was gone and then she was turned to face the grinning woman. Vicky's lips found hers and the lips were too soft, too feminine, but not nearly so soft as those breasts that now pressed and roiled against her own. Pushing back at the embrace, Shirley's hands encountered only more and more soft, womanly nudity that at once appalled her and aroused her with a dreadful lust that she hadn't known before. She had to escape from it. She had to escape then or run the risk of being forever caught up in this perversity that she'd flirted with for so long now.
Blindly, Shirley tore away and made for the sanctuary of a door, any door, that might lead her away from the assault of this woman and put a barricade between herself and the softly summoning flesh. But Vicky was only a step behind her as she entered the pink bedroom with its ruffled and frilled bed. Shirley stopped at the sight of that bed and Vicky was there to propel her on until she was sprawled across it, her skirts up about her waist, Vicky's body hot against her, her lips cloying in their sweetness, her soft hands compelling as they fumbled at her panties. Shirley cried out, "No, Vicky. Please stop. Let me think about us. Don't do it this way."
"I can't stop, damn you, and neither can you." Savagely, Vicky tore at Shirley's clothes until the entire body of the shrinking brunette was laid bare to her gaze and to her touches. "I won't let you stop, and I won't let you think about it. This is going to be my way now, now and forever."
Sobbing, pleading, Shirley fought back at the strong, lithe woman that was forcing her back on the bed, turning her about and pinioning her hips with her soft but terribly strong arms. And, much as Shirley wanted her fighting to be effective, she seemed weak and flabby in the uneven struggle. And then Vicky's kisses were further weakening her. She moaned a protest and tried again to sit up, but her shoulders were forced bawled, "Stop it now, Vicky. Stop it. I want you to love me, but not like that. That's not the way I want it. That's not right. No. Oh, noooo... " The sensations Vicky was evoking in her were too intense, too frighteningly exquisite to be believed. Shirley felt that at any time she might lose all track of her senses and continue forever to only babble the torrent of love words that her voice was now directing at the woman who was doing this awful, sweet thing to her.
Trying unsuccessfully to flail away from the perfumed whiteness above her, Shirley returned again and again to the frightening compulsion to respond to Vicky's caress. It was unthinkable, but Shirley was by then completely unable to think. She could only act and, by acting, found that those heights of passion she had known up until then were only plateaus to be reached before this great pinnacle of emotion could be attained.
Much later they lay in each other's arms on the badly rumpled bed. Vicky said, "We really ought to get up and start moving your things over here. But somehow I don't feel like stirring."
Shirley lowered her eyes to her drink and looked at her lover through her lashes. "Gads," she said, "I never thought I'd do a thing like we did today."
Vicky laughed and kissed her, saying, "You didn't? It was the first time for me, too, you know."
"Yes. And I'm glad. There'll never be anyone else, will there, Vicky?"
Vicky shook her head. "Never. All my life I've been working, fighting, trying to get something. I've never known what it is before. Now I do. It's love. I guess that on the inside, I've been more of a man than a woman all along. It took you to show me that, Shirley. I'll always love you. And I'll never let you get away from me. We're right for each other."
Shirley touched one of Vicky's breasts with one finger and said, "You're sure a woman on the outside."
Vicky shrugged. "I can't change that."
"Oh, no. I don't want you to. We can't either of us change what we are. All we can do is be happy with each other. You've shown me that, Vicky. You've shown me that I should have recognized what I was a long time ago. But... I'm glad I didn't know until now." They kissed warmly and Shirley then said, "Vicky?"
"Yes, love?"
"How long will it take for your hair to grow out again?"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The hours became long at McGraw Chemicals. Between Erwin and Valerie, they managed to duplicate the mixture of hormones that had sprouted hair upon Mrs. Kimbrough and they then worked to improve on that. Michael McGraw worked with them much of the time, especially on the nights that Erwin's responsibilities as a new husband called him home. McGraw had convinced Erwin that withdrawal from college for the remainder of the school year would be in his best interests. Without the onus of his classes, he could devote more of his talents to the immediate problem of his work and his new bride, and once this first crisis was over, the company would pay his tuition until he got his degree. Erwin, completely absorbed in this very graphically practical application of steroid chemistry, agreed readily, only concerned at first about what Agnes would think of the delay.
She had said, "You do what's best for us, dear. But if you didn't have to fro to school this year, it would be like a sort of a honeymoon for us. Or maybe you think we see too much of each other at work as it is."
"Honey," he said to his smiling wife," I can't ever see enough of you."
Mrs. Harold Kelsey was there regularly, highly interested in the progress of this project so close to her heart. The grinning Harold was always in her tow, carrying the basket she brought to McGraw Chemicals each day when she came to pick up her new husband. "Lands, d - all you scientists work such hours? Don't you have any time for a good, wholesome home life? The trouble with you folks is that you don't spend any time at home with your families. Go on home, why don't you, and relax for a spell. There's some real good shows on the TV tonight, isn't there, Harold? Oh, no. I can see it. You got your work to do. Well, that's fine for you if you can't finish it in eight hours, like my Harold can with his accounting work. Listen, we've got to be home by seven thirty. I brought you some kidney pie. There's chocolate cake in the basket, too."
Michael McGraw smiled his thanks as he took the basket and said, "Tell me, Mrs. Kelsey, still no sign of the, uh, hirsuteness on your mammaries again?"
She looked at him quizzically until Harold whispered in her ear, then her face brightened and she said, "The whiskers on my boobs ? Harold only had to shave 'em three times and then I stopped sprouting. Clean as a baby's bottom now. I'll show you."
"Oh, no!" McGraw quickly said. "I believe you. I was just wondering. Goodnight, you two. Have a pleasant evening."
Valerie smiled at him when the two of them were alone in the laboratory again. "She panicked you, didn't she, when she was so willing to expose herself."
"Well, I'm not used to women... exposing themselves."
She shrugged. "Perhaps you should try to be more that way yourself. Face facts. It seems as if the people who work for you have done much better now that they've faced up to a few. You've got a happy little group now... even Vicky with her little bird Shirley."
He said, "She really turned... lesbian, didn't she?"
"And apparently thriving on it to boot."
"I understand that this... this Shirley was an acquaintance of yours."
"Yes. We were what you might call lovers. But nothing like they are now. I've visited them. They're quite happy. Quite adjusted."
"And you? Are you happy?" he asked.
"Matter of fact, I am. Work can be quite therapeutic, you know."
"I know. And it can be quite damaging, too. I've worked too hard these last years and I'm still working too hard. I need someone now to share the company's successes with... and I don't mean just at work. Valerie, could you and I get together? On a social, perhaps on a marital basis?"
She laughed, only a little bitterly. "Come now. I'm sure any change in you doesn't go so far as to accept a lesbian, albeit a temporarily reformed one, into your life as a companion, let alone a wife."
"I've talked to Vicky... to Agnes. I don't think you ever were a true lesbian. What makes you think you were? Did you ever try things normally?"
"I should say. I was married once, you know. It's on my application. Dr. Higgins Huntington, one of my professors. A man much like you, I'm afraid. Fifteen years older than I. Strong. Successful in his field. Quite swept me off my feet with his forcefulness, his drive. But," she grinned, "that drive of his was strictly academic. I was greedy. I needed something more than that. I fell into an affair of the most sordid proportions with an associate professor of philosophy. A woman. We were discovered, of course, small college town and all, and Higgins sent me packing. Fortunately, I already had my doctorate degree and could make a living here or anywhere I chose to go. Also, I had my appetite for women. I suppose I'll jump right back at them once this great push at work is over and done with."
He advanced at her, saying, "Then you've never really known a man."
"Oh, don't get that idea. Higgins did consummate the marriage. Two or three times as a matter of fact." She shrugged and went on. "But I didn't find that nearly as satisfying as any of the women I've known."
"Valerie, you haven't really known a man at all." He took her hand. "Don't go on like that. Know one at least before you pass judgement on all of them."
"And I suppose you're to be the one. You, the lesbian hater. Oh, I know you and your kind of virile, totally masculine men, only living for that ultimate compliment that any man can have, that of converting a lesbian into a normal woman with only the simple, God-given tools of their charm and their dynamic potency. Ah, no. If... and I say if... any man ever makes love to me, it'll be a very gentle, very compassionate man indeed." She looked down at his hand on her and said, "Now be good enough to let me go and continue with my work."
His grip tightened. "I won't. Valerie, I want you. Now. I don't care what you were before, I only know I want you now. And I can't guarantee that I'll want you afterward."
"How gallant. How very gallant and considerate of... " Her words were cut off by his kiss. It was sudden and it was brutal and it was overwhelming in its affront to her. She fought against it and she fought against him with her body and with her words. The words at last came through to him.
He stopped his struggles but still held her close, saying, "I'm sorry. I don't want to act juvenile about this. But I do want you. What can I do to make you want me in that way? Just a little."
"You know," she said, her broad forehead knitted into a frown, "I believe you just may have already done it. By showing me that you truly do need me, want me, then by stopping yourself short of compelling me to submit to you. I think I need that, Michael. I think I need, at least to begin with, a sort of a blend of the very strong, very masculine love that's your brand, and the very soft, very feminine love that's been all I've known really."
"I want to be soft with you, Valerie. I don't know if I can be all the time. I've never wanted to be with any other woman. The other women I've known were always too unapproachable. I guess it was because they were all too dishonest to me. I had to try to hurt them. You, you're as honest a woman as I've ever known. You've got a bad past and you admit it. You want me but you're afraid of me and you admit that, too. But, just as much, you're my equal. Maybe you're my better in many things. I could be gentle with you while I was being strong, Valerie, because I respect you.
"Michael, I respect you, too," she said, "now."
"Valerie, let's try to be lovers for a while. If that works out, then let's try to be more than that. Shall we try?"
